It was through the Tribunate that Napoleon manipulated the offer of the title of Emperor which was made to him in 1804. It came as the crown of his ambition because it was the recognition of both his military skill and his political and administrative ability. He expressed his feeling when he refused the suggestion for an imperial seal of “a lion resting” and proposed instead “an eagle soaring.” Success is a heady draught. At the beginning of his career Bonaparte used to compliment his generals by saying, “_You_ have fought splendidly.” After a time he said, “_We_ have fought splendidly.” Still later his comment was, “You must allow that _I_ have won a splendid battle.” With the pope Napoleon had made an arrangement, the Concordat, by which he restored the Roman Catholic as the national church of France. The papal power was not accepted as in other countries, but the treaty gave him a hold over the pope so that when the new emperor, to conciliate the royalists who were all Romanists, summoned him to assist at his coronation, Pius VII felt himself constrained to obey. He was lodged in the Pavilion of Flora, the western tip of Henry IV’s south wing of the Louvre, overlooking the Seine. Napoleon and Josephine had been married only with the civil ceremony, as was the custom during the Revolution. On the day before the coronation Cardinal Fesch, Napoleon’s uncle, married them with the religious ceremony in the chapel of the Tuileries. The celebration of the Concordat had been conducted magnificently in Notre Dame, but the coronation on December 2, 1804, was the most splendid of the many splendid scenes upon which the Gothic dignity of the cathedral had looked down. In preparation, many small buildings round about were pulled down and many streets suppressed or widened. Decorated with superb tapestries, resounding with the solemn voices of the choir, the ancient church held a scene brilliant with the uniforms of generals and the rich costumes of officers of state and of representatives from all France, aflutter with plumes and glittering with the beauty and the jewels of the fairest women of the court. It was a scene unique in history, for never before had a man of the people commanded so superb a train every one of whom was alert with a personal interest in a ceremony which meant his own elevation as well as that of the aspirant to the power of that Charlemagne whose sword and insignia he had caused to be brought for the occasion. The pope and his attendants advanced in dignified procession, acclaimed by the solemn hail of the intoning clergy. Before the high altar the Holy Father performed the service of consecration, anointing for his office the man who had been chosen to it by the will of the people. Then, as he was about to replace the gold laurel wreath of the victor with a replica of Charlemagne’s crown, Napoleon characteristically seized it and placed it on his own head.