A lot more Napoleonic panoply than "African authenticity "
It was an extravaganza that few of the 3,500 guests from 43 nations would ever forget—or forgive. The scene was Bangui, dusty upriver capital of the Central African Empire (formerly Republic), and the event was the coronation last week of the continent's only Emperor since the deposition and death of Ethiopia's Haile Selassie. Sweltering in the 100° heat and 90% humidity, the guests, in morning coats and Parisian gowns, struggled to attention as a voice boomed out over the loudspeaker: "Sa Majesté Impériale, I'Empereur Bokassa Premier."
Entering his coronation palace—actually, a sports arena disguised with flowers and rich draperies—Emperor Bokassa looked cool and calm. He wore a white robe set off with two striped sashes in the C.A.E.'s national colors (blue, white, green, yellow and red) and a wreath of golden laurel on his balding head. Ascending his throne—shaped in the form of a giant eagle, with a 13.6-ft. wingspan, 800 gilded feathers and a seat carved out of the bird's belly—Bokassa donned a flowing ermine and velvet cape with a 39-ft. train. The Emperor then took an oath to defend the constitution, which he suspended after seizing power in a 1966 coup. At the climactic moment, Bokassa, 56, crowned himself and placed a smaller coronet on the head of the youngest of his three wives, 28-year-old Empress Catherine. (Rumor has it that the Emperor also keeps a blonde Rumanian mistress on the side.) Two-year-old Crown Prince Jean-Bedel Bokassa, dressed in a white naval uniform, yawned occasionally during the ceremony and next day fell fast asleep at a postcoronation parade.
Bangui's tame press wrote lovingly about "the African authenticity" of the momentous day. Despite the presence of bare-breasted tribeswomen marching and dancing at the parade, the overall effect of the panoply was, well, Napoleonic. That too was deliberate. In setting the date last year, Bokassa decided that his own coronation should emulate that of his hero, which took place in Paris 173 years ago.
Bokassa, like Napoleon, rose to power through the French army. Son of a tribal chief in what was then the French colony of Ubangi-Shari,
Jean-Bedel Bokassa was educated at mission schools, joined the army at the start of World War II and by 1950 had risen to the rank of company sergeant. He survived the debacle at Dien Bien Phu and later retired as a captain. When the Central African Republic became independent in 1960, the country's first President (and Bokassa's cousin), David Dacko, named him commander of the army. As the fledgling state suffered through the inevitable independence pangs, the frustrated President at one point shouted to a group of bureaucrats: "What this country needs is a good revolution!" As head of the country's only organized institution, Bokassa swiftly obliged by deposing Dacko and taking power for himself.