Note 402 — Chapter XX · FALL OF THE EMPIRE.

Napoleon said on one occasion, 'Je n'ai pas succédé a Louis Quatorze, mais à Charlemagne.'—Bourrienne, Vie de Napoléon, iv. In 1804, shortly before he was crowned, he had the imperial insignia of Charles brought from the old Frankish capital, and exhibited them in a jeweller's shop in Paris, along with those which had just been made for his own coronation;—(Bourrienne, ut supra.) Somewhat in the same spirit in which he displayed the Bayeux tapestry, in order to incite his subjects to the conquest of England.