insignia of Charlemagne, which Bonaparte had ordered to be brought from Aix-la-Chapelle.  But while Bonaparte was thus priding himself in his crown and his imagined resemblance to Charlemagne, Mr. Pitt, lately recalled to the Ministry, was concluding at Stockholm a treaty with Sweden, and agreeing to pay a subsidy to that power to enable it to maintain hostilities against France.  This treaty was concluded on the 3d of December, the day after the Coronation.

—­[The details of the preparation for the Coronation caused many stormy scenes between Napoleon and his family.  The Princesses, his sisters and sisters-in-law, were especially shocked at having to carry the train of the Imperial mantle of Josephine, and even when Josephine was actually moving from the altar to the throne the Princesses evinced their reluctance so plainly that Josephine could not advance and an altercation took place which had to be stopped by Napoleon himself.  Joseph was quite willing himself give up appearing in a mantle with a train, but he wished to prevent his wife bearing the mantle of the Empress; and he opposed his brother on so many points that Napoleon ended by calling on him to either give up his position and retire from all politics, or else to fully accept the imperial regime.  How the economical Camberceres used up the ermine he could not wear will be seen in Junot tome iii. p. 196.  Josephine herself was in the greatest anxiety as to whether the wish of the Bonaparte family that she should be divorced would carry the day with her husband.  When she had gained her cause for the time and after the Pope had engaged to crown her, she seems to have most cleverly managed to get the Pope informed that she was only united to Napoleon by a civil marriage.  The Pope insisted on a religious marriage.  Napoleon was angry, but could not recede, and the religions rite was performed by Cardinal Fesch the day, or two days, before the Coronation.  The certificate of the marriage was carefully guarded from Napoleon by Josephine, and even placed beyond his reach at the time of the divorce.  Such at least seems to be the most probable account of this mysterious and doubtful matter.

The fact that Cardinal Fesch maintained that the religious rite had been duly performed, thirteen of the Cardinals (not, however including Fesch) were so convinced of the legality of the marriage that they refused to appear at the ceremony of marriage with Marie Louise, thus drawing down the wrath of the Emperor, and becoming the “Cardinals Noirs,” from being forbidden; to wear their own robes, seems to leave no doubt that the religious rite had been performed.  The marriage was only pronounced to be invalid in 1809 by the local canonical bodies, not by the authority of the pope.]—­

It cannot be expected that I should enter into a detail of the ceremony which took place on the 2d of December.  The glitter of gold, the waving plumes, and richly-caparisoned horses of the Imperial procession; the mule which preceded the Pope’s cortege, and occasioned so much merriment. to the Parisians, have already been described over and over again.  I may, however, relate an anecdote connected with the Coronation, told me by Josephine, and which is exceedingly characteristic of Napoleon.