The Empress's costume was no less magnificent. She wore a dress, with a train, of silver brocade covered with gold bees; her shoulders were bare, but on her arms were tight sleeves embroidered with gold, the upper part adorned, with diamonds, and fastened to them was a lace ruff worked with gold which rose behind half up her head. The tight-fitting dress had no waist, after the fashion of the time, but she wore a gold ribbon as a girdle, set with thirty-nine pink gems. Her bracelets, ear-rings, and necklace were formed of precious stones and antique cameos. Her diadem consisted of four rows of pearls interlaced with clusters of diamonds. The Empress, whose hair was curled, after the fashion of the reign of Louis XIV., although forty-one years old, looked, according to Madame de Remusat, no more than twenty-five. The Emperor was much struck by Josephine's beauty in this sumptuous attire; all this luxury impressed him. He recalled the days of his childhood, and turning to his favorite brother, he said: "Joseph, if father could see us!" Nine o'clock sounded, the hour set for the departure of the Pope, who was to reach Notre Dame before the Emperor. The Sovereign Pontiff, clad in white, went down the staircase of the Pavilion of Flora and entered his carriage, which was drawn by eight horses; above it was a large tiara. At Rome it was the custom that when the Pope went forth to officiate at one of the great churches,--for instance, to Saint John Lateran,--for one of his chamberlains to start a moment before him, mounted on a mule, and carrying a great processional cross. Pius VII. asked that the same thing might be done at Paris; consequently the pontifical procession was headed by a chamberlain whose mule did not fail to amuse the vast crowd that lined the quays; yet when the Pope passed, all knelt down and received his blessing with due respect. With cavalry in front and behind, the Pope's carriage and the eight carriages in which were the cardinals, Italian prelates and officers who had come from Rome with him, drove slowly along the quays to the Archbishop's Palace. There were awaiting him all the French cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, and he was received by the Cardinal du Belloy, the Archbishop of Paris, as he entered to put on his pontifical robes. The pontifical procession entered Notre Dame in the following order; a priest, carrying the apostolic cross; seven acolytes, carrying the seven golden candlesticks; more than a hundred bishops, archbishops or cardinals, in cope and mitre, marching two by two; and last of all the Holy Father, his tiara on his head, under a canopy between two cardinals who held up the ends of his golden cope. The clergy intoned the hymn _Tu es Petrus_, which was very impressive, and the Sovereign Pontiff, after kneeling for a few moments before the high altar, took his seat in the middle of the choir on the pontifical throne, above which was a dome adorned with the coat-of-arms of the church.