The Emperor took his coronation oath, as usual on such occasions, with his hands upon the Scripture, and in the form in which it was repeated to him by the Pope. But in the act of coronation itself, there was a marked deviation from the universal custom, characteristic of the man, the age, and the conjuncture. In all other similar solemnities, the crown had been placed on the sovereign's head by the presiding spiritual person, as representing the Deity, by whom princes rule. But not even from the Head of the Catholic Church would Buonaparte consent to receive as a boon the golden symbol of sovereignty, which he was sensible he owed solely to his own unparalleled train of military and civil successes. The crown having been blessed by the Pope, Napoleon took it from the altar with his own hands, and placed it on his brows. He then put the diadem on the head of his Empress, as if determined to show that his authority was the child of his own actions. _Te Deum_ was sung; the heralds (for they also had again come into fashion) proclaimed, "that the thrice glorious and thrice august Napoleon, Emperor of the French, was crowned and installed." Thus concluded this remarkable ceremony. Those who remember having beheld it, must now doubt whether they were waking, or whether fancy had framed a vision so dazzling in its appearance, so extraordinary in its origin and progress, and so ephemeral in its endurance.[88] The very day before the ceremony of coronation, (that is, on the 1st of December,) the Senate had waited upon the Emperor with the result of the votes collected in the departments, which, till that time, had been taken for granted. Upwards of three millions five hundred thousand citizens had given their votes on this occasion; of whom only about three thousand five hundred had declared against the proposition. The vice-president, Neufchateau, declared, "this report was the unbiassed expression of the people's choice. No government could plead a title more authentic."[89] This was the established language of the day; but when the orator went farther, and mentioned the measure now adopted as enabling Buonaparte to guide into port the vessel of the _Republic_, one would have thought there was more irony than compliment in the expression. Napoleon replied, by promises to employ the power which the unanimous consent of the Senate, the people, and the army, had conferred upon him, for the advantage of that nation which he himself, writing from fields of battle, had first saluted with the title of the Great. He promised, too, in name of his Dynasty, that his children should long preserve the throne, and be at once the first soldiers in the army of France, and the first magistrates among her citizens.[90]