It would be hard to imagine all the homage paid at this time to the Imperial pair. Dithyrambs upon the birth of the King of Rome were composed in every language of Europe except the English. There was a real avalanche of poems, odes, epistles; in less than a week the Emperor received more than two thousand of these tributes. Probably he read very few of these extravagant compositions, which were crammed panegyrics and allegories of the Greek mythology. The sum of one hundred thousand francs was divided among the authors of these official poems. "Of all these memorials, the most curious that flattery ever elevated," Madame Durand writes, "is a collection of French and Latin verses, entitled, 'The Marriage and the Birth,' which was printed at the Imperial press, and appointed by the University to be given as a prize to the pupils of the four grammar schools of Paris, and of those in the provinces, thereby assuring a ready sale. In this heap of trash figures the names of all the authors who, when the giant had fallen, insulted his remains and burned their incense before the new deity who took his place. "As Béranger said about those poets:-- "They are, like the confectioners, Friends of every baptism." The _Moniteur_, in its number of June 9, 1811, the day of the King of Rome's baptism, spoke as follows: "The happy event which, at the moment of writing these lines, is throughout this vast Empire the object of the thanksgivings which a great people can offer to Heaven; which inspire songs of happiness in our temples, our public places, our peaceful cities, our fertile fields, and in the camps of our invincible warriors; which fulfils at once the wishes of the people for the happiness of their Sovereign, and those of the Sovereign for the firm establishment of the institutions he has consecrated to the prosperity of his people, ought more than any other to kindle the fervor of our poets and fill them with a lively and noble inspiration. Yet no one of them has been able to disguise the difficulty of his task; all have recognized that their greatest efforts would be required, not only to rise to the height of a subject of which its greatness is the first peril, but even to attune their lyre to the pitch of the enthusiasm that fires us, an enthusiasm of which the mighty voice, filling all France and heard in the remotest corner of Europe, is itself the grandest hymn of poetry and the most harmonious music. But no such obstacle has discouraged their muse; admiration, gratitude, love, furnish a happy inspiration, and our poets have felt it; they have faithfully transcribed the language of the populace in the language ascribed to the gods." In proof of this we quote some of the verses inserted in the official organ:--