The Coronation, Napoleon first proposed, should take place in the Chapel of the Invalides, on the historic day of the 18th Brumaire (November 9). Directly after it he would proceed in Imperial State, wearing his crown and robes, to the Field of Mars--the Champ de Mars, in front of the Military School, a stone’s-throw away--there to administer the Military Oath of Allegiance to the Army and distribute the Eagles at a grand review to be attended by representative deputations from every regiment of the Army from all over the Empire, assembled in Paris for the occasion. It was found preferable, however, that the Coronation service should take place in the Cathedral of Notre Dame instead of at the Invalides; and at a later date. Still, however, Napoleon held to his first idea of proceeding direct from the Coronation ceremony to the Field of Mars. He insisted that the presentation of the Eagles should follow as a joint ceremony immediately after his own consecration service. But there was Josephine to be considered. She was to accompany Napoleon throughout. The Empress, for her part, on hearing what was intended, declared herself physically incapable of bearing the strain of the double ceremony, and, in the result, Napoleon changed his original purpose at the eleventh hour. He consented to put off the presentation of the Eagles until the following morning. That plan, in turn, had to be altered. On the very afternoon of the Coronation, on his return to the Tuileries from Notre Dame, Napoleon found himself compelled, in consequence of the Empress’s state of nervous prostration after the fatiguing Cathedral service, again to defer the ceremony of the presentation of the Eagles. The Emperor now fixed the following Wednesday, December 5, for the “_Fête des Aigles_,” as the Army spoke of it--three days from then. There was no further putting off after that. The plans for the muster were drawn up on a grandiose and elaborate scale. They provided for an immense attendance under arms of, according to one account, eighty thousand men; to comprise the Imperial Guard, and the garrison of Paris, together with special detachments sent to Paris as representative deputations by every regiment and corps of the Army, from all over the Empire. Over a thousand Eagles altogether were to be presented: two hundred and eighty to cavalry regiments; six hundred odd to infantry, artillery, and special corps; between forty and fifty to the Navy (one for the crew of every ship of the Line in commission); besides a hundred and eight to the departmental legions of the National Guard, the constitutional militia of Revolutionary France, which Napoleon, for reasons of policy, could not pass over. Every infantry battalion and cavalry squadron, and brigade (or battery) of artillery was to have its Eagle.