CAMBACÉRÈS
And so shall Rheims be returned to its ancient splendor.
BONAPARTE
If I may ask, why that city before any other?
CAMBACÉRÈS
But general, tradition. . An emperor needs to be anointed. Your coronation could only take place at. .
BONAPARTE
My coronation will not take place in Rheims. One could easily choose the cathedral at Aix-laChappelle or Saint Peter’s in Rome to announce to the world that I am succeeding Charlemagne. Still, I have no need of going that far. As the founder of a new empire, I would prefer my coronation to take place in my own capital, and in the ancient and noble cathedral of Notre Dame.
CAMBACÉRÈS
What a godsend this will be for Monsigneur de Belloy!
BONAPARTE
Yet another mistake, Cambacérès. I will not need the services of the Cardinal of Paris.
CAMBACÉRÈS
No need of the cardinal! So to whom will fall the honor of. .
BONAPARTE
It would not be inappropriate for a pope to crown an emperor.
CAMBACÉRÈS
Ah, then you’ll go to Rome?
BONAPARTE
Rome will come to Paris.
CAMBACÉRÈS
Pious the Seventh in Paris? That’s impossible. Recall Cardinal Caprara’s cross.
BONAPARTE
Impossible, yes, and yet it will happen. The “impossible” is not French. The pope will come to Paris to crown me. He will come and he will come willingly, because he knows that I could reduce him to Bishop of Rome, and instead I will treat him as if he had two-hundred-thousand men. I will immerse him in so many tokens of respect and honor that he will not hesitate to proclaim me God’s Elected. Woe to him who behaves inappropriately before the supreme pontiff.
CAMBACÉRÈS
Will the pope want to come?
BONAPARTE
Who could doubt it? We could make the entire College of Cardinals with him leading the way walk to the end of the earth if it pleased us.
CAMBACÉRÈS
By instilling fear?
BONAPARTE
By appealing to their interests. By dangling before them the riches of the world, which they sometimes seem to prefer over those of heaven. There will be much we can do for religion and the clergy: tracts of land and possessions of every kind restored to them, seats in the Senate, a minister dedicated to their needs, convents re-opened, altars restored, and, beyond that, honors, wealth, credit, and power. Maybe even something greater: my conversion, yours, that of Fouché, the Jacobins, my generals, and my soldiers. The Holy See is a vast, empty reservoir of money and ambition. Filling it would be very hard indeed.
CAMBACÉRÈS
And in exchange for this coronation, what will the pope get?
BONAPARTE
Hope.
CAMBACÉRÈS
I will say it again: you are the most extraordinary of all men, the most extraordinary since the arrival of the Messiah on earth.
BONAPARTE
Let us dispense with comparisons to God. I have enough doubts about myself. I sleep more than is rumored. I am a man like others.
CAMBACÉRÈS
Like others?
BONAPARTE
With a greater spirit, a more reliable memory, a larger capacity to work hard. Imagination rules the world, and it is my most treasured possession. I cannot see the future any more clearly than you or than any common mortal. I rely upon unceasing thought and memories that are both numerous and specific, and I prepare for it with a great deal of care. I always give myself up entirely to what I undertake. I take my ideas and projects by the neck, the rear, the feet, the head, and I do not stop until I have examined every last inch. Hence when I have finished considering a project in my head I think of it as already in motion. I am less moved by the moment of the realization of my designs than by their conception.
CAMBACÉRÈS
You are already emperor because you have resolved to be so. You have already been crowned by the pope, acclaimed by the French, feared and admired throughout Europe.
BONAPARTE
I will be, Cambacérès. Have no doubt of that. Things will go as I have planned them, event after event. Our conversation must remain a secret. Act as if it had never taken place. But everything will happen, point by point, just as I have decided.
CAMBACÉRÈS
Does nothing unexpected ever happen to you?
BONAPARTE
Politics is our modern form of tragedy, replacing the theatre for enacting classical fatality. The future belongs to no man. Still, I am trying to bend it to my will. I have a guiding star, and so long as it does not abandon me I am called to change the face of the world.
CAMBACÉRÈS
You have already changed France, and you will change it yet more. You will change Europe.
BONAPARTE
I want peace, but if war is forced upon me I will meet it and win battle after battle. I have already taken Milan, Venice, and Cairo. Italy is mine. Spain, Portugal, and Holland will obey me. The pope will be my vassal and I will conquer Sicily and Dalmatia. I will make myself the master of the Mediterranean. I will take Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, and Moscow. I will invade England.
CAMBACÉRÈS
Your eagles will fly across Europe, on which you will leave your mark.
BONAPARTE
My dreams go further than the borders of Europe. I will return to the East, marching on Damascaus and Aleppo. I will liberate Syria. I will chase the English from the Levant, and threaten them in India. I will overturn the Turk Empire and take Constantinople and, before returning to France by Adrianople or Vienna, I will level the House of Austria in the Orient and found a great new empire that will secure my place in history.
CAMBACÉRÈS
You are a great magician, conquering not merely by military genius but by the power of your words. I listen to you and grow dizzy. You are the author of your own life, set above all other heroes in history.
BONAPARTE
I do love grandeur, and I leave nothing to chance. I always do what I say I will do, or die trying. I know how to talk to men.
CAMBACÉRÈS
I was ever a believer in a government by assembly. You have converted me to believe in a government of one. I was attached to the Republic and you have rallied me to the empire. This proves that by the power of your words France, which once seemed so great in scale to me, seems small in comparison to Europe, and Europe itself is insignificant in a world dominated by your genius. You are an alchemist who can turn the lower metal of our indecisiveness and uncertainties into pure gold.
BONAPARTE
It could not be better phrased, Cambacérès. You have grasped it all, and I congratulate you. The gold will flow in waves upon my dreams and upon on those who serve France in my name.