When, on the 28th of March, 1804, the Senate had determined on offering Bonaparte the Imperial dignity, he immediately gave his wife full powers, with order to form her household of persons who, from birth and from their principles, might be worthy, and could be trusted to encompass the Imperial couple.  She consulted Madame Remusat, who, in her turn, consulted her friend De Segur, who also consulted his bonne amie, Madame de Montbrune.  This lady determined that if Bonaparte and his wife were desirous to be served, or waited on, by persons above them by ancestry and honour, they should pay liberally for such sacrifices.  She was not therefore idle, but wishing to profit herself by the pride of upstart vanity, she had at first merely reconnoitred the ground, or made distant overtures to those families of the ancient French nobility who had been ruined by the Revolution, and whose minds she expected to have found on a level with their circumstances.  These, however, either suspecting her intent and her views, or preferring honest poverty to degrading and disgraceful splendour, had started objections which she was not prepared to encounter.  Thus the time passed away; and when, on the 18th of the following May, the Senate proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of the French, not a Chamberlain was ready to attend him, nor a Maid of Honour to wait on his wife.

On the morning of the 20th May, the day fixed for the constitutional republican authorities to present their homage as subjects, Napoleon asked his Josephine who were the persons, of both sexes, she had engaged, according to his carte blanche given her, as necessary and as unavoidable decorations of the drawing-room of an Emperor and Empress, as thrones and as canopies of State.  She referred him to Madame Remusat, who, though but half-dressed, was instantly ordered to appear before him.  This lady avowed that his grand master of the ceremonies, De Segur, had been entrusted by her with the whole arrangement, but that she feared that he had not yet been able to complete the full establishment of the Imperial Court.  The aide-de-camp Rapp was then despatched after De Segur, who, as usual, presented himself smiling and cringing.

“Give me the list,” said Napoleon, “of the ladies and gentlemen you have no doubt engaged for our household.”

“May it please Your Majesty,” answered De Segur, trembling with fear, “I humbly supposed that they were not requisite before the day of Your Majesty’s coronation.”

“You supposed!” retorted Napoleon.  “How dare you suppose differently from our commands?  Is the Emperor of the Great Nation not to be encompassed with a more numerous retinue, or with more lustre, than a First Consul?  Do you not see the immense difference between the Sovereign Monarch of an Empire, and the citizen chief magistrate of a commonwealth?  Are there not starving nobles in my empire enough to furnish all the Courts in Europe with attendants, courtiers, and valets?  Do you not believe that with a nod, with a single nod, I might have them all prostrated before my throne?  What can, then, have occasioned this impertinent delay?”