June 30 Napoleon and Josephine arrived at Genoa, where they were to stay till July 7, amid unprecedented festivities celebrating the incorporation of the old Republic with the French Empire. It was a singular sight, this enthusiastic reception of a Corsican by the Genoese. While at Milan, the Emperor had received M. Durazzo, the last Doge of Genoa, who had come to beg him to permit the illustrious Republic, famous for its historical splendor, to exchange its independence for the honor of becoming a plain French department. The offer was accepted. The home of Andrea Doria, the city of marble palaces, that municipality once called "the superb" had begged as a favor to be stricken from the list of independent states. It contented itself with being the principal town in the twenty-seventh military division, and its doge, dispossessed by his own desire, went to swell the number of the Senators of the Empire. Napoleon took formal possession of his peaceful conquest, and slept in the palace, and in the bed of Charles V. The night festivity, given in the harbor, July 2, was, in the way of picturesqueness, one of the most original and most beautiful ever seen. The sky was clear, the sea calm, the crowd of spectators enormous. Napoleon and Josephine, going down from the terrace in the garden of the Palazzo Doria, entered a large round temple, magnificently decorated, which was at once set in motion as if by magic, and transported by many oars to the middle of the harbor. Four rafts, covered with shrubbery, resembling floating islands, then drew up to the temple. The sovereigns were thus, in open sea, enclosed in a vast garden with trees, flowers, statues, and fountains. About this garden of Armida, thus radiant upon the waves, were a multitude of boats, under sail or propelled by oars, moving about, and their lights resembled the swarms of fireflies that in summer flutter above the fields of Lombardy. The mild temperature favored this joyous festival. The whole city, all the buildings, every vessel, were ablaze with a thousand lights, and the glassy sea reflected numberless flames. The darkness of night gave the signal for the illuminations. Magnificent fireworks were set off from the mole, the jetty, and the ships lining the entrance of the harbor. Music mingled with the joyous cries of the multitude. The temple in which were Napoleon and Josephine was rowed back to the terrace of the Palazzo Doria amid the applause of the crowd lining the shore.