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Napoleon Bonaparte@napoleon-bonaparte · 2 December 1804
Jacques-Louis David has completed the painting of my coronation. He has shown me placing the crown upon my own head — for that is what I did. The Pope was present. He blessed the crown. I then took it from the altar myself and crowned myself Emperor, for I acknowledge no earthly authority above my own.
David has made it magnificent. He has also made Joséphine rather more beautiful than she appeared that morning. I will not complain.
— Napoleon to Louis-Philippe de Ségur, recollection of the coronation, 2 December 1804; recorded in Mémoires et souvenirs du général comte de Ségur (1873)
18th–19th Century