In things great and small Napoleon carried his point.  Although Roederer pleaded long and earnestly that Joseph and Louis should come next to the Emperor in the succession, and inserted a clause in the report which he was intrusted to draw up, yet by some skilful artifice this clause was withdrawn from the constitutional act on which the nation was invited to express its opinion:  and France assented to a plebiscite for the establishment of the Empire in Napoleon’s family, which passed over Joseph and Louis, as well as Lucien and Jerome, and vested the succession in the natural or adopted son of Napoleon, and in the heirs male of Joseph or Louis.  Consequently these princes had no place in the succession, except by virtue of the senatus consultant of May 18th, which gave them a legal right, it is true, but without the added sanction of the popular vote.  More than three and a half million votes were cast for the new arrangement, a number which exceeded those given for the Consulate and the Consulate for Life.  As usual, France accepted accomplished facts.

Matters legal and ceremonial were now approaching completion for the coronation.  Negotiations had been proceeding between the Tuileries and the Vatican, Napoleon begging and indeed requiring the presence of the Pope on that occasion.  Pius VII. was troubled at the thought of crowning the murderer of the Duc d’Enghien; but he was scarcely his own master, and the dextrous hints of Napoleon that religion would benefit if he were present at Notre Dame seem to have overcome his first scruples, besides quickening the hope of recovering the north of his States.  He was to be disappointed in more ways than one.  Religion was to benefit only from the enhanced prestige given to her rites in the coming ceremony, not in the practical way that the Pope desired.  And yet it was of the first importance for Napoleon to receive the holy oil and the papal blessing, for only so could he hope to wean the affections of royalists from their uncrowned and exiled king.  Doubtless this was one of the chief reasons for the restoration of religion by the Concordat, as was shrewdly seen at the time by Lafayette, who laughingly exclaimed:  “Confess, general, that your chief wish is for the little phial."[314] The sally drew from the First Consul an obscene disclaimer worthy of a drunken ostler.  Nevertheless, the little phial was now on its way.

In order to divest the meeting of Pope and Emperor of any awkward ceremony, Napoleon arranged that it should take place on the road between Fontainebleau and Nemours, as a chance incident in the middle of a day’s hunting.  The benevolent old pontiff was reclining in his carriage, weary with the long journey through the cold of an early winter, when he was startled to see the retinue of his host.  The contrast in every way was striking.  The figure of the Emperor had now attained the fullness which betokens abounding health and strength:  his face