M. de Bausset says that a week before the coronation the Emperor commanded of the artist Isabey seven drawings representing the seven principal ceremonies to take place at Notre Dame, which, however, could not be rehearsed in the Cathedral on account of the number of workmen busy day and night in decorating it. To ask at once for seven drawings each containing more than a hundred persons in action, was asking for the impossible. Isabey skilfully eluded the difficulty. He bought at the toy shops all the little dolls he could find, dressed them up as Pope, Emperor, Empress, Princes, high dignitaries, Chamberlains, Equerries, Ladies of Honor, Ladies of the Palace, These dolls thus arrayed he arranged on a plan in relief of the Interior of Notre Dame, and carrying it to the Emperor, said: "Sire, I bring Your Majesty something better than the drawings." Napoleon thought the idea ingenious, and used the dolls and the plan to make every official understand his place and his duty. The _Moniteur_ of the 9th Brumaire, Year XIII, (November 30, 1804), published in advance all the details of the ceremony, which the Emperor had fixed with as much care as if it had been the plan of a battle. A difficulty arose on this occasion. The Pope had wished Napoleon to receive the holy communion in public on the day of the coronation, and Napoleon had given the matter thought. The Grand Master of Ceremonies, M. de Segur, brought up against the proposition the necessity of a preliminary confession and the possibility that absolution might be denied him. "That's not the difficulty," said the Emperor, "the Holy Father knows how to distinguish between the sins of Caesar and those of the man," Then he added: "I know that I ought to give an example of respect for religion and its ministers; so you see that I treat the priests well, go regularly to mass, and listen to it with all due seriousness and solemnity. But every one knows me, and how would it be for me, and for others, if I should go too far? Would not that be setting an example of hypocrisy, and committing a sacrilege?" The Pope did not insist upon it. This dread of committing sacrilege Napoleon referred to again at Saint Helena, in 1816: "Everything was done," he said then, "to persuade me to go in great pomp to communion at Notre Dame, after the fashion of our kings; I absolutely refused; I did not believe enough, I said, to get any good from it, and yet I believed too much to consent to be guilty of sacrilege."