Bokassa had ruled the Central African Republic as a military dictator since seizing power in 1966. On December 4, 1976 -- exactly one year before the coronation -- he renamed the country the Central African Empire and declared himself emperor, adopting a constitution that made the monarchy hereditary. His idol was Napoleon Bonaparte, and his coronation would be an almost exact copy of the French emperor's 1804 ceremony at Notre-Dame de Paris. His relationship with France was transactional. President Valery Giscard d'Estaing had suggested a modest, African-style ceremony to avoid embarrassing a country that could not afford extravagance, but Bokassa persisted. France agreed to fund the spectacle for cold strategic reasons: they needed access to Central African uranium and diamonds, wanted to maintain regional influence alongside Gabon and Zaire, and feared Bokassa would turn to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi if rebuffed. The French president who called himself Bokassa's friend and family member would later be exposed as having accepted elephant tusks, mounted lion heads, and diamonds from the dictator's private estates.

The preparations were astonishing in their extravagance and specificity. Sculptor Olivier Brice built a special workshop near his home in Gisors, Normandy, employing 300 workers to construct the Imperial Throne -- a gilded bronze eagle with outstretched wings, weighing two tons, its belly cavity lined with red velvet to form the seat. Eight white horses were procured from Belgium to pull a restored antique carriage from Nice, while several dozen Norman gray horses were acquired for the mounted escort, whose members spent the summer of 1977 taking riding lessons in Lisieux. The French firm Guiselin, which had once outfitted Napoleon himself, created the coronation attire in association with Pierre Cardin: a floor-length toga decorated with thousands of tiny pearls and a nine-meter crimson velvet mantle edged in ermine. Lanvin crafted Empress Catherine Denguiade's dress, adorned with 935,000 metallic glitters. The crown, made by jeweler Arthus Bertrand of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, was inlaid with diamonds -- the largest an 80-carat stone set in the figure of an eagle. More than 240 tons of food and wine were flown in from Europe, including bottles from Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Chateau Mouton Rothschild, 24,000 bottles of Moet & Chandon, and Bokassa's preferred Chivas Regal. Sixty new Mercedes-Benz cars were shipped to a Cameroonian port and airlifted to landlocked Bangui. The total cost equaled roughly one-third of the national budget.

Bokassa wanted Pope Paul VI to attend, imagining himself taking the crown from the pontiff's hands as Napoleon supposedly did with Pius VII. The Apostolic Pro-Nuncio gently explained that the 79-year-old Pope was too frail for the journey. Emperor Hirohito of Japan declined. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran declined. Every ruling monarch who received an invitation found a reason to stay home. Even Africa's fellow strongmen -- Omar Bongo of Gabon, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Idi Amin of Uganda -- refused to attend. Bokassa later explained their absence simply: "They were jealous of me because I had an empire and they didn't." Most devastating was Giscard d'Estaing's decision to skip the ceremony his government had funded, sending instead a minister and a Napoleonic-era sword as a gift. Prince Emanuel of Liechtenstein was the only royal who showed up. Of 2,500 invited guests, 600 came, including 100 journalists.

At 10:15, the ceremony began. Guardsmen in Napoleonic-era uniforms carried the national flag and imperial standard down the carpet. The Crown Prince -- Bokassa's son Jean-Bedel Jr., one of more than 40 children -- entered in a white military-parade uniform. Empress Catherine followed in her glittering Lanvin dress with a golden laurel wreath, trailed by ladies-in-waiting in pink and white. Then silence. A drumroll. The loudspeaker announced: "Sa Majeste, Bokassa Premier, l'empereur de Centrafrique." Bokassa walked the carpet in a white toga, wearing white antelope-skin gloves and a golden Roman-style wreath. He received the scepter and sword, had the velvet mantle placed on his shoulders, and placed the crown on his own head. When he then crowned Catherine, witnesses noted the scene's deliberate resemblance to Jacques-Louis David's famous painting of Napoleon crowning Josephine. A Mass followed at the Cathedral, though the Catholic Church had no coronation rite to offer -- only a standard Mass of Thanksgiving. Less than two years later, in September 1979, Bokassa was deposed in a French-backed coup while he was out of the country. The empire died. The republic returned. The gilded eagle throne sat empty.