The Coronation of Napoleon, by Jacques-Louis David, shows the emperor standing at the center, raising a crown over the empress Josephine, who kneels, with the pope seated just behind, his hand raised in blessing. What the canvas does not show is a gesture that the coronation ceremony of 2 December 1804 actually had: Napoleon placing the crown on his own head. The painting appears in the Nous class on The Red and the Black, by Stendhal, and this article explains what it shows, what it keeps silent, and why it serves as an image of Julien Sorel's desire.
What the painting shows
David painted the canvas between 1805 and 1807. Today it hangs in the Louvre, in Paris, and it is nearly ten meters wide. The scene takes place in the cathedral of Notre-Dame, and at its center stands a general born in Corsica, on his feet, with the crown in his hands, at the moment of setting it on the head of Josephine, who kneels before him.
Pope Pius VII is behind, seated, with his hand raised. It is the gesture of one who blesses, and that is all: the pope watches. Napoleon is the one who crowns.
What the ceremony had and the canvas does not paint
At the imperial coronation, on 2 December 1804, the order of the gestures was different. Napoleon placed the crown on his own head and then crowned Josephine. Pius VII attended and blessed the couple. The Nous class calls this a reversal of traditions: the gesture one would expect from the one presiding over a religious ceremony, he takes for himself, and the pope remains seated until the end.
The painting chooses the second gesture, not the first. There is a sketch by David himself in which Napoleon crowns himself, but the final composition gives the central place to the moment he crowns the woman. The self-coronation remains the fact of the ceremony, and it is precisely what the canvas does not paint.
A general born in Corsica
In the class, what is seen at the center of the canvas is a general born in Corsica crowning an empress. That is why the image weighs so much in The Red and the Black. A few years earlier, under Napoleon, the son of a peasant could become a general at thirty: courage and talent were enough. Napoleon is defeated in 1815, the kings return, and good positions come to depend on birth, money and protection. Julien Sorel, the son of a carpenter, grows up after that door has closed, and keeps hidden the Memorial of Saint Helena, the account of Napoleon's exile, and a portrait of him in his mattress.
The painting in Julien's head
Here a caution is needed. The novel does not say that Julien Sorel saw The Coronation of Napoleon, and the Nous class does not claim it either: it says I imagine. I imagine that, in Julien's head, this was an image he knew perfectly well, because it was what he desired. He desired that situation, desired to be in that place, desired that crown.
But the question, the class says, is another: what would he be with that crown? Julien wants the place, the uniform, the rank. What he never asks himself is who he would be underneath all of that, and it is at this point that the painting stops being history painting and becomes a question about him. The development of that question, with what Julien loses along the way, is in To be somebody in life: what Julien Sorel wanted and lost.
The second painting: Napoleon at Fontainebleau
The class does not stop at the first painting. To close the story, it brings a second one, by Paul Delaroche, painted in 1840 and today in the Musée de l'Armée in Paris: Napoleon at Fontainebleau, 31 March 1814. It is the same man, ten years after the ceremony.
Here he is seated in a chair, somewhat slovenly, his boots dirty like those of a man coming back from battle, his hat on the floor, lost in thought. Around him there is a great deal of luxury, but all that luxury for what? A few days after this scene, Napoleon would abdicate.
And it is as this second picture that the novel ends, the class says. Julien carried the first image his whole life, the one of the crowned man, but he ends in a cell, seated, without a uniform that is worth anything, with nothing left to conquer. Only there does he stop pretending and experience happiness. The scene, with spoilers, is in The ending of The Red and the Black: happiness in the cell. To know the young man who carries the first image, start with Who was Julien Sorel? The young man who lived on campaign.
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What does David's The Coronation of Napoleon show?
Napoleon standing at the center of the canvas, raising the crown over the empress Josephine, who kneels. Behind him, Pope Pius VII is seated, his hand raised in blessing. The scene is the coronation ceremony of 2 December 1804, at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Did Napoleon crown himself?
Yes. At the 1804 ceremony, Napoleon placed the crown on his own head and then crowned Josephine. Pope Pius VII attended and blessed them. David's painting does not depict the first gesture: it chooses the second, that of Napoleon crowning the empress.
Where is The Coronation of Napoleon, and how large is the canvas?
It is in the Louvre, in Paris. It measures about 6.2 meters high by 9.8 wide, almost ten meters. David painted it between 1805 and 1807, and it was exhibited at the Salon of 1808.
What does The Coronation of Napoleon have to do with The Red and the Black?
In the Nous class on Stendhal's novel, the painting works as the image of what Julien Sorel desired: to be in that place, with that crown. The class imagines this scene in Julien's mind, and the novel does not say he saw it. To close the story, the class brings a second painting, Napoleon at Fontainebleau, by Delaroche.
Continue: To be somebody in life: what Julien Sorel wanted and lost · Who was Julien Sorel? The young man who lived on campaign · The ending of The Red and the Black: happiness in the cell · Capitoline and Caravaggio Museums
Source class: O Vermelho e o Negro, de Stendhal