surrounded in this room by Paris’ very finest. This was, without a doubt, the Parisian elite. Never had the Salle de Marbe glowed and shimmered so intensely. Shoulders touching, the patricians stood together along the walls of the room, without an inch to move. The ladies were clad in rubies, bronze, and emeralds, the men of course proudly displayed their gold regalia and multicolored crests, and everything simply sparkled and shone in the brilliant morning light. But even this most celebrated of castes had its swans. Along the eastern wall were the Count Charles-Emile-Auguste-Louis de Luxembourg and the Prince de Neuchâtel Louis-Alexandre Berthier. Just three places to the left of Berthier was the Duc de Parme Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, statesman during the Revolution and, more recently, the glorified author of the Napoleonic Code. Tucked away in the northwest corner, though anything but inconspicuous, was the Cardinal Joseph Fesch—French Ambassador to Rome, the Archbishop of Lyon, and perhaps most importantly, the uncle of the Emperor.
No one, however, drew more glimpses than the young Élisabeth de Vaudey. The nineteen-year old debutante stood by the far doors, dressed in a burgundy silk gown trimmed with silver lace. Élisabeth had now been Napoleon’s adored mistress for weeks. That she was also a lady-in-waiting to the wrathful Empress Joséphine did not halt her ascent to the peaks of courtly life. To an uninformed watcher, she was no different than the dozens of beautiful women sprinkled throughout the hall. But to those who knew the machinations of the Napoleonic court, she was the blooming white rose of the Salle de Marbe. For she had tempted the Emperor from Joséphine, and she was therefore a woman of power; no one could afford to presume which mistress might not be the next Madame de Maintenon. Indeed, all week, there had been whispers that, were it anyone but the Pope himself conducting the main ceremony at Notre-Dame, the young Élisabeth would have found herself in the cathedral alongside Joséphine for the crowning.
So while Paris watched, Napoleon and his cohort of trumpeters and soldiers strode down the Tuileries hall. And while the room had its notables still worthy of a leer, few could keep their gaze from returning again and again to their Emperor, for this was Napoleon, the most powerful man Europe had ever known, strutting before them in this very hall. He was moving at the perfect speed, slow enough that every detail of his dress and body could be witnessed, but quickly enough that each moment of observation felt precious. Some were fortunate to be close enough to the emperor, and at just the right angle, that they were able to view his face up close. Though he was the land’s highest patriarch, his face, though manly, still retained its boyishness. His skin was healthy, his brow smooth and never furrowed, and his cheeks and lips rosy and flushed, like a child’s. But these sanguine, scarlet cheeks, though boyish in their rosiness, were not cherubic, for it was clear that it was the bellicosity and fieriness which drummed within him which rendered them so red and blood-filled.
The moment Napoleon had processed exactly halfway through the hall, stepping directly underneath the room’s central chandelier, the trumpets came to silence, the band of men stopped in their places, and all was still. He surveyed the room and maintained his serious expression. He then showed a smile to his people.
“At last I can get my breath,” he said loudly. “I have not known perspiration like this since the Battle of the Nile.” The room erupted in laughter.
When the laughter finally died down, a man of about twenty-five, wearing a black hat with a tricolored cockade knitted on the side—this man may have been called Méneval—cried out, “Now, that aigrette atop your head is something handsome, Monsieur le drôle!” As he said this, the young man was standing underneath the great portrait of the seventeenth-century general Isaac Manasses de Pas, the Marquis de Feuquieres. Napoleon smiled and looked in his direction. “But we shall see the bills for it, Méneval!” he said with a wink. The hall again broke into great laughter.
The crowd once again grew quiet, all knowing Napoleon well enough to see that the great man had more to say.
“Frenchmen,” he began. “The eyes of the world are centered upon you, from those of the English, famed in arts and trade, to the wild and hideous Bedouin. Frenchmen, your destiny is a glorious one.”
As he said the word “glorious,” the band of trumpets began to play the triumphant “Marche des Grenadiers a Cheval.” Napoleon spoke louder to the crowd, as the trumpets sang joyously behind him.
“Frenchmen, your emperor is among you! On to the coronation!”
The crowd roared as Napoleon slowly turned and began to march out of the Salle de Marbe, his trumpeters and soldiers in tow. This great hall in the Palais de Tuileries was filled with music as Napoleon strode down the center aisle. The people of the Salle de Marbe kept their eyes on their emperor until the last inch of his magnificent crimson velvet coat, sparkling with rubies and diamonds, crossed through the southern portal and disappeared into the next hall. He was off, off to the coronation. It would be many hours before they would see him again. No, they would not see him again until the afternoon, when he would appear on the sunlit place du Parvis-Notre-Dame, with the Cathedral behind him, Josephine by his side, and a golden crown atop his head.