His majesty had no liking for the anniversaries of the Republic; some of which had always seemed to him odious and cruel, others ridiculous; and I have heard him express his indignation that they should have dared to make an annual festival of the anniversary of the 21st of January, and smile with pity at the recollection of what he called the masquerades of the theo-philanthropists, who, he said, “would have no Jesus Christ, and yet made saints of Fenelon and Las Casas—Catholic prelates.”
Bourrienne, in his Memoirs, says that it was not one of the least singular things in the policy of Napoleon, that during the first years of his reign he retained the festival of 14th July. I will observe, as to this, that if his Majesty used this annual solemnity to appear in pomp in public, on the other hand, he so changed the object of the festival that it would have been difficult to recognize in it the anniversary of the taking of the Bastile and of the First Federation. I do not think that there was one word in allusion to these two events in the whole ceremony; and to confuse still further the recollections of the Republicans, the Emperor ordered that the festival should be celebrated on the 15th, because that was Sunday, and thus there would result no loss of time to the inhabitants of the capital. Besides, there was no allusion made to honoring the, captors of the Bastile, this being made simply the occasion of a grand distribution of the cross of the Legion of Honor.
It was the first occasion on which their Majesties showed themselves to the people in all the paraphernalia of power.