Coronations give rise to many important questions. Is the feather mightier than the sword? Twitter loved the feather that sat atop Princess Anne’s bicorn hat and obscured Prince Harry’s already limited view. Then there was Penny Mordaunt, leader of the House of Commons, who held aloft the sword of state and became a Twitter legend. If neither of these grabbed your fancy, there were plenty of other images you could take away from the coronation of King Charles III. These popular talking points rest well within the tradition of coronations, where moments of comedy occur alongside moments of solemnity, often with a healthy touch of the absurd thrown in.
For many of us, the 2023 coronation of Charles III felt truly glorious—from the King’s procession, through the anointing and the crowning acclamation, then back outside for the coronation procession, and on to the three cheers delivered by the arrayed armed forces in the garden of Buckingham Palace. There were naysayers, of course: the usual suspects on the Left, but also many on the Right. Whilst some of the former denounced the theatre of it all, wondering what it could possibly mean to anyone in today’s world, many of the latter found attempts to modernise the service all a bit too much. It is true that I would have loved to have seen that moment after the monarch is crowned when the assembled Lords simultaneously replace their coronets, but I must take the losses with the wins.
Much of the criticism missed an essential point about coronations: that they are both ‘of the moment’ and transcendent. Changes in the order of service reflected the ‘moment.’ As is the modern urge for all things not produced as television serials, the ceremony was shorter and there were attempts to be more inclusive. But it still dusted off the tapestry of British history, with all its fine needlework and dodgy patch-up jobs, and displayed it to the world. It was still transcendent.
The coronation was a symbol of continuity—one which showed that, despite all the efforts made to break the threads of tradition over the preceding decades, some still stubbornly hold. The combination of continuity and change has always been central to the genius of coronations, reassuring us that the past is being honoured, yet reaffirming the new order of things. Sometimes this new order would be imposed by violence, sometimes by consent, but one coronation stands out as a hinge in the history of coronations, representing a last hurrah for the old ways of ruling.
In 1804, after the French revolutionary terror, and amidst the chaos that followed it, a dynasty would be created from the ashes of the Bourbon monarchy, and Napoleon Bonaparte would be the founding father of a new royal house for a new era. The familiarity of hereditary rule would unite all Frenchmen with the new France, bringing stability and strengthening the ideals of the Revolution in the person of the monarch. How, though, could an upstart Corsican make a legitimate claim to the throne of France? Semantics would play their part. Napoleon would be ‘Emperor of the French,’ not ‘King of France.’ History, too, would be mined for the material that would buttress the new order. The more recent past, in the form of the Bourbon royal house of Louis XVI, was too fraught to be an inspiration; and the Bourbons were still on the scene, with the self-proclaimed Louis XVIII knocking around, determined to retake the throne of France.
Napoleon initially thought that Charlemagne seemed like a good bet. But, as the coronation approached, he toned down the use of Carolingian symbolism. One problem was that the Capetians, whose line the Bourbons continued, had used the imagery of Charlemagne to legitimise their own reign, bedecking themselves in crown jewels of allegedly Carolingian ancestry. Eventually, Napoleon abandoned plans to use the peripheral artefacts of the old crown jewels, deciding instead to make new ones from scratch. Nevertheless, the power of Charlemagne was too strong to eschew completely: the new crown still bore his name, just as the coronation crown of all the prior kings of France had done.
For all the desire that Napoleon should embody the Revolution, the consequent rebranding of monarchy meant that the realpolitik around the coronation would have been just as familiar in mediaeval Europe and the world of the ancien régime. Whether in the dynastic struggles of England during the War of the Roses or in the religious turmoil of Reformation France, power and its exercise had remained largely the same. The symbols and messaging were new, but the content was as old as the idea of monarchy itself. A hereditary ruler was taking power. The Senate and other institutions set up since the Revolution did offer the appearance of constitutional monarchy, but, in the short years that followed, the new regime’s paint job rapidly peeled away from the façade.
The repackaging of royalty began with that most venerable of French symbols, the fleur de lys, henceforth replaced with bees. The new symbol had a purportedly ancient provenance, for during the excavation of the tomb of the fifth-century Merovingian king Childeric I, small gold objects bearing some resemblance to bees had been discovered. So it was that Napoleon’s reign found itself borne aloft on little wings. The bees appeared on the army’s colours, on Napoleon’s ensign, and on the coats of arms of important towns and new aristocrats. They even ended up on the domestic furnishings of the Imperial household. The memory of ancient Frankish monarchs were invoked by these creatures of the hive, and what is a hive but nature’s own form of industrious feudalism?
There were other new symbols alongside the bees, the eagle being the most prominent. The emperor’s soldiers, marching in serried ranks and obedient unto death, would carry a standard topped by a metal eagle. The troops of the French Imperial army would be the legions of a new Roman Empire. This new empire, like the empires of the past, would be a hierarchy, and every hierarchy needs an aristocracy.
Every era has its elites. When one age transitions to another, the old elite might rebrand itself, or it might shed some of the dead wood and take in new members. A coronation is a time for the elite both to show its status and to cement it. During the French Revolution, the guillotine had winnowed away at members of the old elite, whilst many more had fled abroad. There were, however, relics from the past who had adapted to the new age. The most famous was Talleyrand, a bishop turned diplomat who had a knack for making himself useful to whomever held power. As the old aristocracy fell away, the new elite arose and filled the gap. As the new nobility established themselves, they were aware of the fragility of their positions, and looked with horror upon the chaos unleashed since the Revolution. Ever aware that they could be consumed by the same forces that tore down those who preceded them, they looked for a means of restoring stability. For this reason, the aristocracy became the engine for creating a new monarchy which, in turn, would validate the new aristocracy. There would be titles and honours and all the paraphernalia of the old ways, whilst Napoleon would sit at the centre of a web of patronage.
Over the next few years, Napoleon imposed his model of revolutionary monarchy on the realms he conquered, always able to find a relative that he could place upon the various thrones that fell into his hands. Napoleon’s brothers, Joseph and Louis, became princes of the blood, following the ancien régime’s tradition of the king’s closest advisors acting as his representatives. There were numerous titles distributed to supporters—some borrowed from France’s history, and others taken from the idealised Carolingian past and the Holy Roman Empire. There would be an archchancellor and an archtreasurer, and there would be marshals of France—those successful and loyal soldiers. The new aristocracy did not take long to adopt attitudes that were associated with those who had so recently lost their heads. As Paris filled with the activity of the craftsmen needed to prepare for the coronation, the workmen found themselves scorned, with one member of Napoleon’s inner circle even declaring, “These work-people have a great idea of their own importance just at present, and are very little disposed to … keep their places.” The revolution had truly turned.
Many of the worker bees were busy preparing Notre Dame for the coronation, and extensive demolition works were carried out to prepare the building. The old chapter house went, prised off the side of the cathedral brick by brick, along with all the houses that were leaning against or getting too close to the outer walls. The choir boys’ house went as well. The old square in front of the cathedral, formerly hemmed in by buildings, was opened up to the sunlight. There was not only physical obliteration, but also aesthetic redecoration. Inside the great cathedral, every inch of the walls, pillars, and floor were the subject of attention. It was bright; it was shiny; it was ‘bling.’ Notre Dame was not traditionally used for the coronation of French monarchs—an honour normally held by Reims—but what better venue than the mother church of Paris for the new, modern coronation, in the new, modern France? The revolution had begun in France, and it was there that it would be consummated.
In the coronation of 1804, as in the coronation of 2023, the liturgy had changed. It was remarkable that the 1804 coronation included a Catholic ceremony at all, but Napoleon had worked hard at mending the relationship between the revolution and the Catholic Church. Motivated by realism as much as by spirituality, Napoleon had agreed to a concordat to allow the practice of the Catholic faith and to end the years of persecution. Pope Pius VII’s presence at the coronation was the sign that both sides saw accommodation as a better situation than one of total war. It would also, Napoleon hoped, legitimise his dynasty in the eyes of the European royal houses. Yet it was an historical oddity for the pope to crown the emperor:, it had happened before, but in Rome, not north of the Alps.
The liturgy itself, in a manner all too familiar to Christians of the modern era, became a battleground for competing ideologies. Words and symbols matter, never more so than in the most sacred rites. The most famous image of the coronation is probably that of Napoleon taking the crown from the pope and placing it on his own head. The act shocked some and amused others, but it was not a surprise to the pope, who had been warned and had agreed beforehand. Alongside many other innovations, such as a secular oath to uphold the constitution (including freedom of religion), the coronation remixed the old Papal and French ceremonials and added a dash of revolution.
But what about the memes of 1804? The fact that Napoleon had crowned himself seemed absurd to many contemporaries, particularly in England. What is largely forgotten is that the chattering class of the era had plenty with which to entertain themselves. Petty vendettas and comic episodes have always been part of the tradition of coronations, and 1804 was no different. For some, the most ridiculous innovation was the coronation of Josephine. Napoleon crowned Josephine himself, and via this crowning he endowed her with a privilege few French queens had enjoyed. The last queen to be crowned had been Marie de Médicis in 1610. The one before her had been Jeanne de Bourbon in 1364. The comedy was flavoured by the reputation Josephine enjoyed in Paris as something of a ‘scarlet lady.’ There were other memes too, such as the mule ridden through the streets of Paris by the pope’s cross bearer, eliciting the amusement of the crowd as it made its way at the head of the procession to Notre Dame. There was also drama. At one point, as Josephine mounted some steps, she staggered. One of her sisters, carrying her mantle, had stepped on it. Had it been on purpose or by accident? Either way, it was fortunate that she had managed to hold herself up and avoid a fall backwards at one of the few moments she was visible to the mass of the congregation.
Coronations have always included humour that balances the solemn and punctures the self-important. People remember what went wrong; or, if nothing went wrong, people recall the bizarre, the amusing, and the grotesque. For all its attempts to bridge the divide of history, Napoleon’s coronation was a gloriously ostentatious last hurrah for the tradition of monarchy in France. After his defeat, the traditional monarchy was restored. A handful of kings followed, but only one more would be crowned, and he did not last long. Perhaps the most telling non-coronation was that of Napoleon III who, when he seized power, ruled without a coronation. It was no longer a suitable ceremony, even for a Bonaparte. The tradition of monarchs without coronations continues to this day throughout many of the European countries which are fortunate enough to retain a monarchy—It is a concession to post-Napoleonic France which, in my view, makes us all the poorer.
