Etiquette and the Emperor's Household

Proclaimed emperor on 18 May 1804, Napoleon had to give his power the outward form of a monarchy. The Revolution had destroyed everything of the ceremonial of Versailles; it had to be rebuilt without appearing to copy it, and staffed from a society in which the old nobility had returned from emigration only two years earlier.

The decree of 24 Messidor Year XII, 13 July 1804, organised the Household of the Emperor. Six great officers held its charges: the grand almoner, the grand marshal of the palace, the grand chamberlain, the grand equerry, the grand huntsman and the grand master of ceremonies.

Duroc, grand marshal of the palace, administered a service of several hundred people: table, wardrobe, stables, chapel, hunts, and the long list of chamberlains, equerries and ladies of the palace. Precedence, costume and the order of entry were regulated in detail and published.

The model was Versailles, but pared down: the imperial court kept the hierarchy and the decorum and dropped the ritual slowness that had immobilised the days of Louis XIV. The service had to fit a sovereign who worked early and travelled constantly.

The court served first to win people over. Entering it meant serving, and the regime deliberately mixed Ancien Régime names returned from emigration with families risen from the Revolution or the army. The fusion of elites, begun with the amnesty of 1802, was played out on these presentation lists too.

It served next to represent. European courts judged a regime by its ceremonial; imperial etiquette, completed by the palace regulations published in 1806, was the language in which the Empire declared itself the equal of the old monarchies.