Paris, December 2nd, 1804. Year 13 in the French Republican calendar. The streets of

the capital jammed packed. Up to half a million have turned out. The bedraggled masses

lashed by the icy rain. They wait for a glimpse of the gilded carriage and its team of

plume white chargers. It will be a story to tell their grandchildren. Inside Notre Dame

Cathedral, 5,000 dignitaries and VIPs have been crammed in. Those in the cheap seats crane

their necks desperate to catch the activity way up at the front. 400 musicians and singers

have been corralled into the drafty nave. As incense wafts or atorios echo around a great

vaulted ceiling. Everything inside has been decked out in the finest Romanesque regalia,

all designed by Napoleon himself. Its pomp and circumstance of the highest order. Afterwards

there will be fireworks. The fountains will flow with wine. Napoleon stands at the altar,

dressed in a red velvet robe, embroidered with gold thread. The collar and expanse of

ermine encrusted with jewels. His brothers act as page boys. Josephine, lips clamped safely

shot, is adorned in the purest white satin. Napoleon's sisters have kicked up an almighty

stink about having to carry her train. At age 35, the man who began life as Napoleon

had won a party, a humble Italian speaking corpsicum, is about to be crowned emperor of

France. The French Revolution was a period of such

murderous turmoil that the very state had threatened to collapse. But for France and its

new supremo, today represents an astonishing turn around in fortunes, the beginning of

the reign of Napoleon I. Within three years of his coronation, Napoleon's empire will

extend from Lisbon to Lithuania. France will be elevated to superpower status, making

him the ruler of over 70 million people. Never in the history of the continent, not Alexander

the Great, not Julius Caesar, not Charlemagne, as one man wielded such power. A special guest

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