The Coronation of the Emperor

August 9, 2008 in Codex, Logh
Tags: Barack Obama, Coronation, François Gérard, Jacques-Louis David, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, LOGH, Napoleon, Propaganda, Reinhard von Lohengramm

Coronation of Emperor Reinhard von Lohengramm – Logh ~ ep54

As Animachronism noticed, Reinhard von Lohengramm “gets to put the crown on himself”. The 22 th June, Universal Century 799. First year of the New Imperial Calendar.

Coronation

“A coronation rite”, it has been well said, “is ideally the process of the creation of the monarch, even though in course of time, through a change in the theory of succession, it may come to be rather the ratification of an accomplished fact than the means of its accomplishment” (Brightman, Byzantine Coronations, 359). In the light of this very true remark it will be needful to trace the coronation ceremonies back to a time earlier than the introduction of any ecclesiastical ritual. Down to the reign of Constantine it may be said that coronation, properly speaking, there was none, for it was he who first brought the regal diadem into prominence. Yet certain features about the accession of the emperors in this early period deserve attention. In the first place, theoretically at least, the emperor was elected.

There is multiple examples of self coronation in History. (Charles XII of Sweden in 1697, Frederick I of Prussia in 1701, Barack Obama in 2008, etc…)

But thx to Jacques-Louis David, the most well-known is certainly the self-coronation of Emperor Napoleon I ( December 2, 1804 )

The Coronation of Napoleon – Jacques-Louis David – 1807

The Coronation of Napoleon

The Coronation of Napoleon is a painting completed in 1807 by Jacques-Louis David, the official painter of Napoleon. The painting has imposing dimensions, as it is almost ten metres by six.

200 years ago , Napoleon threw himself a spectacular coronation ceremony at Notre-Dame Cathedral. He then hired the artist Jacques-Louis David to commemorate it all on a canvas measuring over 500 sqaure feet. Both outsized acts suggest that Napoleon was an early 19th-century leader with an almost 20th-century understanding of the cult of political personality and the sophisticated craft of shaping public image.“Napoleon’s Coronation by David” at the Louvre (until January 17) is an opportunity to learn more about this period in history by revisiting one of the museum’s most popular paintings. David’s enormous ode to power is a sublime piece of political propaganda, as meticulously crafted as the ceremony it depicts.

David sketches of emperor Napoleon crowning itself.

A subtle error

The mention of David’s painting clinches the fact of the conflation and confusion. This and other similar oversights occur because there were in fact three, not two, crowns involved in the ceremony, not counting the pope’s tiara. These crowns are (1) Napoleon’s crown which he crowned himself with, which is not = (2) “Crown of Charlemagne”, and (3) Josephine’s crown/coronet as Empress.

Napoleon I In His Coronation Robes – Baron François-Pascal-Simon Gérard – 1805

Emperor Reinhard von Lohengramm In His Coronation Cape