Description
Sacre de Napoléon
The Grand Coronation procession of Napoleone the 1st emperor of France
from the church of Notre-Dame of Paris december 2nd 1804
Eau-forte – caricature de James GILLRAY (Chelsea 1756 – Londres 1815)
Planche 294
1805
Feuille : 235 x 760 mm
Épreuve coupée au sujet
Description du British Museum (source) :
Napoleon and Joséphine are in the centre of an elaborate processional design. Individuals and groups are identified by eleven captions in the lower margin. The background is formed of close ranks of French soldiers, with a forest of caps, spears, pikes, and banners receding in perspective. The front row, facing the procession, are grenadiers at attention with bayoneted muskets, the letter ‘N’ in front of their bearskins. They are in shadow; those behind Napoleon are obscured by dense clouds of smoke from a censer; next them (l.) grenadiers blow trumpets and French horns. The procession is led, as by a drum-major, by the posturing and theatrical figure of ‘His Imperial Highness Prince Louis-Buonaparte Marbœuf – High Constable of the Empire’ [Marbeuf was his godfather] on the extreme right. He wears tight-fitting archaic dress, with a feathered coronet, a cloak trailing from one shoulder, buskins, and sabre. He carries a tall staff surmounted by a fleur-de-lis. Next come ‘The Three Imperial Graces, viz. Thier Imp. Highs Princess Borghese [Pauline], Princess. Louis (cher amie of ye Emperor) & Princess Joseph-Bonaparte’ [Hortense and Julie] – three slim young women, very scantily draped, scatter roses. All wear feathered coronets with long snaky curls on their shoulders; they resemble the sisters of Napoleon in BMSat 10072. The ground (l. to r.) is strewn with the flowers they have scattered. Next walks ‘Madame Talleyrand (ci devant Mrs Halhead the Prophetess conducting the Heir Apparent in ye Path of Glory’. A grossly fat woman leads by the hand the little Napoleon-Charles, son of Louis (b. 10 Oct. 1802). The child goose-steps arrogantly, holding out a sceptre in his left hand. He is dressed much like his father, but with the addition of a ribbon and star. Mme Talleyrand wears a feathered coronet and an enormous nosegay; she holds a fan on which is a goat. This, and her patched face, indicate her dissolute past. Slightly behind her, and on her right., hobbles ‘Talleyrand-Perigord. – Prime Minister & King at Arms bearing the Emperor’s Geneology.’ He is burlesqued, with a ‘cheese-cutter’ shin, and a r. foot supported by blocks under the shoe. On his left. shoulder he carries a framed genealogical tree, and hung to his person are crests and symbols in rectangular frames. Napoleon’s family tree issues from ‘Buone Butcher’ and, passing through ‘Buone Cuckold’, terminates in ‘Napoleone Emperor’, which is crowned. The collateral branches are illegible, but one is followed by ‘Hang’d’. The frames contain [1] Death on a white horse galloping across the globe. [2] The motto (from the ‘Marseillaise’) ‘Allons Enfans . . . Patrie’; the design is hidden. [3] A shield on which is a crocodile (see BMSat 11057), with a crown for crest, and a tricolour flag. [4] An arm holding a dagger from which blood drips. [5] An eagle (or vulture) on a fleur-de-lis. Behind him walks ‘His Holiness Pope Pius VII – conducted by his old Faithful Friend: – Cardinal Fesch, offering the Incense.’ The Pope, using his cross as a staff and holding his tiara in his right. hand, is led forward by a little acolyte sheltering under his rightobe, and holding a lighted candle. The child holds a tricolour ribbon on which two large keys hang from the Pope’s neck; a bland childish mask partly covers the grinning features of the Devil, who is also betrayed by cloven hoofs. The Pope is barefooted, and his eyes look furtively back towards the Emperor. Over his head Cardinal Fesch violently swings the censer, from which billow dense clouds of smoke; these curl over the imperial pair, and recede like a gloomy pall; they are inscribed: ‘Les Addresses des Municipalities de Paris’; ‘Les Adorations des Badauds’; ‘Les Eloges des Courtisans’; ‘Les Homage des Scelerets’; ‘Les Homages des Canailles’; ‘Les Admiration des Fous’; ‘Les Congratulations des Grenouilles’; ‘les Humilitè des Poltrons.’
‘His Imperial Majesty Napoleone ye Ist & the Empress Josephine’ are both crowned, the crowns decorated with laurel leaves. Each holds a sceptre, one terminating in a fleur-de-lis, the other in two doves. He has a fixed apprehensive stare, she smiles complacently. Napoleon is dressed like a stage monarch, hung with chains and orders, and wearing a ruff, ermine-bordered tunic, fringed breeches and buskins, and an enormous sabre. His long mantle is (inconspicuously) patterned with skulls, serpents, a lion, and Death with a raised javelin. Joséphine is grossly fat, has a patched face and coarse features, and wears a dress covered with jewels. Her long train is supported by three proletarian women, ragged and bedizened, with feathered coronets: ‘Ladies of Honor, (ci-devant Poissardes) – Train Bearers to ye Empress’. One has no nose, another has a black eye. Three men representing Spain, Prussia, and Holland obsequiously hold up Napoleon’s mantle: ‘Puissant Continental-Powers, Train-Bearers to the Emperor’. A Spanish don holds a feathered hat, a Death’s Head hussar holds his busby, a clumsy disgruntled Dutchman has a pipe in his pocket, and holds a hat in which is a tricolour cockade, denoting the ‘patriots’ who had welcomed the French invaders (see BMSat 8846, &c). His coat is patched, his breeches torn.
Behind them march two ranks of generals in uniform, all wearing a bonnet-rouge emblem on the coat and holding a hat with tricolour cockade. The hands of the front rank are inconspicuously tied behind their backs, those of the second rank are shackled. All are caricatured, and register resentment. They are: ‘Bertheir, Bernadotte, Augerou, – & all the brave Train of Republican-Generals, marching in the Procession.’ Next walks a fat, pompous monstrosity, r. hand on hip holding a blood-stained dagger, in his left hand he holds erect a large cross-hiked sword, also blood-stained, the hilt resting on his stomach. He wears theatrical dress and cloak, with a feathered hat in which is a tricolour cockade. He is ‘Senator Fouché, Intendant General of ye Police, bearing the Sword of Justice.’ His minions follow as ‘ »Garde d’Honneur » finishing the Procession’. A ruffianly soldier, wearing bonnet rouge, epaulets, star, and slippers, marches holding large keys labelled ‘Temple’, and dragging heavy chains. Beside him is a furtive fellow wearing a cocked hat with tricolour cockade, and holding a paper headed Espionage de Paris. A subhuman executioner is on the extreme left. He holds a noose of rope and a banner surmounted by an imperial eagle, on which is a guillotine. From behind two men raise their arms to display, one a bottle labelled ‘Arsenic’ [cf. BMSat 9352], the other one of ‘Opium’ [probably indicating the plague-stricken of Jaffa, see BMSat 10063].
Above the imperial pair is a fringed canopy inscribed ‘redeunt Satania regna, \ Jam. nova progenies cœlo demittitur alto!’ [parodying Virgil, ‘Eclogues’, iv]. On the banners (r. to left.), all headed by the imperial eagle, are [1] a comet, the head inscribed ‘N’, flying through stars above a globe in flames; [2] a crown above the letters ‘SPQN’; [3] ‘Un Dieu Un Napoleon’; [4] a Turkish crescent; [5] the letter ‘N’, crowned and enclosed in a circle formed of a serpent (emblem of eternity); [6] an irradiated sun, ‘Napoleone Ist’, inscribed ‘Le Soliel [sic] dela Constitution’; [7] ‘S A N G’; [8] chains; [9] a crowned eagle clutching a terrestrial globe with a fleur-de-lis at the pole; [9] a harrow (instrument of torture); [10] a guillotine; [11] Death, a crowned skeleton with a javelin in each hand. The last three are above Fouché and his minions.
