The coronation of Bokassa I and Catherine as the Emperor and Empress of Central Africa took place on 4 December 1977 at a sports stadium in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Empire. It was the only coronation in the history of the Empire—a short-lived one-party state and self-proclaimed monarchy—which was established in 1976 by Jean-Bédel Bokassa, military dictator and president for life of the Central African Republic, and lasted until 1979 when he was deposed in a French-backed coup d’état.
The coronation—which was almost an exact copy of the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French in 1804—and related events were marked by luxury and pomp. Despite substantial material support from France, expenses amounted to over US$20 million ($110 million today) and caused serious damage to the state, leading to a huge outcry in Africa and around the world. After the coronation, Bokassa stayed in power for less than two years. In September 1979, in his absence he was deposed through Operation Caban. As a result, the monarchy was abolished and the country became a republic again.
Background
In the spring of 1976, during a visit by the French president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Bokassa told him about his plans to proclaim the Central African Republic an empire and celebrate the occasion.
According to Bokassa, the creation of a monarchy would help Central Africa improve its standing vis-à-vis the rest of the continent and increase its authority in the international arena. The French leader proposed to hold a modest coronation ceremony in the traditional African style, avoiding high costs because the Central African Republic was one of the poorest countries in Africa, and an opulent ceremony could have negative economic and social consequences.
Bokassa persistently asked Giscard d'Estaing for France's assistance in organizing the event. The French President agreed for several reasons: first, the refusal could jeopardize the continuation of the profitable French role in the country's mining industry—mostly of uranium and diamonds—and secondly, France was interested in maintaining its influence in the country, which, along with Gabon and Zaire, was part of the triangle on which French policy in the region rested. Anxiety on the part of France was heightened after Bokassa attempted to draw closer to Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, who had strained relations with France and pro–French Chad (because of a territorial dispute). This forced Giscard d'Estaing to promise material assistance to the Central African President in exchange for cutting ties with Gaddafi.
On 4 December 1976, at the extraordinary congress of the ruling MESAN party, Bokassa announced the renaming of the Central African Republic to the Central African Empire and proclaimed himself Emperor. At the congress, a pre-prepared constitution of the empire was adopted, according to which the Emperor was the head of the executive power, and the monarchy was declared to be hereditary, transferred down a male line in the event that the Emperor himself did not appoint a future successor. His full title was "Emperor of Central Africa by the will of the Central African people, united within the national political party, the MESAN." Shortly after the proclamation of the empire, Bokassa, who had converted to Islam and changed his name to Salah Eddine Ahmed Bokassa during a September 1976 visit by Gaddafi, converted back to Catholicism.
The first world leader to congratulate Bokassa on the imperial title was Giscard d'Estaing, who for several years maintained friendly relations with Bokassa. In 1975, the French head of state called himself a friend and family member of the Central African President. In addition, Giscard d'Estaing visited the Central African Republic several times to hunt on the private estates of Bokassa, from where he and his brothers brought elephant tusks, mounted heads of lions and diamonds presented to them by Bokassa himself, which became clear somewhat later. The future dictator of the Central African Republic was well acquainted with the first President of the French Fifth Republic, Charles de Gaulle, who considered him to be his ally in arms. After the death of de Gaulle, Bokassa himself said: "I lost my biological father as a child, and now I turned towards my true father, General de Gaulle..."
Preparations
Bokassa planned to conduct his coronation on 4 December 1977, exactly one year after the proclamation of the Central African Empire, following the example of Napoleon who was crowned on 2 December 1804, in Notre-Dame de Paris. He considered the Emperor of the French as his idol. Beside Bokassa himself, his "spouse number one" Catherine Denguiadé was to be crowned during the ceremony. Their son, Jean-Bédel Bokassa Jr., one of more than 40 children of Bokassa, was proclaimed the Crown Prince and heir apparent to the imperial throne. Consequently, he continues to be the head of the House of Bokassa and the formal pretender to the imperial throne to the present day. Other close relatives of the Emperor received titles of princes and princesses.
In preparation for the coronation, several special committees were formed, each of them responsible for a specific area of preparation. Thus, the committee responsible for the accommodation was charged with finding suitable premises for 2,500 foreign guests. To this end, having received permission from Bokassa, the committee members began to requisition apartments, houses, and hotels from the inhabitants of Bangui for the period of the celebrations, and repaired the rooms intended for guests. The task of another committee was to completely change the appearance of the capital, and especially those areas that were to be used during the coronation. Under its leadership, street cleaning, painting of buildings, as well as removal of urban beggars and vagrants outside the central areas of Bangui took place.
Textile enterprises of the Central African Empire were engaged in sewing hundreds of ceremonial costumes for local residents, who were to become guests at the ceremony. The authorities regulated a certain dress code: children were instructed to wear white clothing, mid-level officials dark blue, and high-ranking officials and ministers black.
While preparations were being made in the capital for the event, Bokassa sought contacts with foreign artists and invited them to Bangui to perpetuate his name in their works. West German artist Hans Linus Murnau painted two large portraits of the Emperor. In one, Bokassa was depicted bareheaded, and in the other, wearing a crown. The last portrait was subsequently used in a commemorative postage stamp dedicated to the coronation. In addition, the Imperial March and the Imperial Waltz were written in France, as well as the coronation ode, which consisted of 20 quatrains.
Many of the objects used in the coronation were made by French masters. As early as November 1976, the representative of the Central African Embassy in France confidentially informed the sculptor Olivier Brice that President Bokassa would like to involve him in the work on the decoration of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame in Bangui. In addition, Brice was instructed to develop projects of the Imperial Throne and carriage.
Bokassa ordered a large diamond ring from American entrepreneur and political operative Albert Jolis who took the order but did not have the funds to purchase a fairly large stone. Jolis arranged to process a low-grade, finely crystalline, black diamond, resembling the outlines of Africa on the map, and inserted it into a large ring. The place on the black diamond which roughly corresponded to the position of the Central African Empire in Africa, was decorated with a colorless diamond. The item, whose value did not exceed US$500, was presented to Bokassa as a unique diamond worth more than US$500,000. After his overthrow, Bokassa took "a unique diamond" with him into exile, and Jolis cynically did not recommend selling it.
The Imperial Throne, made of gilded bronze, was designed as a sitting eagle with outstretched wings. The height of the throne was three and a half by four and a half meters (11 by 15 ft), and weighed about two tons. For the manufacture of the throne, Brice built a special workshop near his home in Gisors in Normandy, where about 300 workers were employed. The throne seat of red velvet, which occupied the cavity in the belly of the gilded eagle, was made by local draper Michel Cousin. In total, the cost of the throne was approximately US$2,500,000. For the carriage, in which Bokassa was to pass through the streets of Bangui on the day of the coronation, the sculptor Brice bought an old carriage in Nice, restored it, covered it with velvet on the inside, and partially decorated it with gold and added emblems to the outside. Eight white horses, which were planned to be harnessed to the Emperor's carriage, were procured from Belgium. In addition, several dozen Norman gray horses were acquired for the Emperor's escort, whose members spent the entire summer of 1977 in Lisieux, where they were engaged in special riding courses.
Most of the costumes were also made in France. The French company, Guiselin, which once performed similar work under Napoleon, took up the creation of a coronation suit for the Emperor, in association with Pierre Cardin. The imperial attire consisted of a long toga reaching to the floor, which was decorated with thousands of tiny pearls, shoes, also decorated with pearls, and a nine-meter (30 ft) mantle of crimson velvet, decorated with golden emblems in the form of eagles and edged with ermine fur. All this together cost the Central African treasury US$145,000. Another US$72,400 was the cost of a dress made by Lanvin for Empress Catherine and adorned with 935,000 metallic glitters. In addition to the dress, a mantle was made for the Empress, similar to the Emperor's mantle, but in a more modest size.
The imperial crown was made by Arthus Bertrand, a jeweler from Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The design of the crown was traditional: it had a heavy frame resting on an ermine headband with a crimson canopy. A golden crown was placed over the headband, in the middle of which was placed the figure of an eagle, and eight arcs branched from the crown, supporting a blue sphere—the symbol of the Earth—on which the outlines of Africa were highlighted in golden color, and surmounted by ECA lettering. In addition, the entire crown was inlaid with diamonds, the largest of which—80 carats—was in the center of the figure of an eagle, in the most prominent place. The cost of the crown is estimated at no less than US$2,500,000. A separate crown, in the form of a wreath, adorned with a 25-carat diamond, was also intended for the Empress. In addition, the imperial sceptre, sword, and several items of jewelry were made for the coronation. All this, including both crowns, was estimated at about US$5,000,000.
More than 240 tons of food and beverages that were supposed to be served at the banquet after the coronation were also delivered to the country by airplanes from Europe. One winery in Bangui delivered up to 40,000 bottles, including the production of farms Château Lafite Rothschild and Château Mouton Rothschild, harvest 1971. Each bottle at that time was estimated at about US$25. In addition to wine, Bokassa ordered 24,000 bottles of Moët & Chandon champagne and his favorite Scotch whisky, Chivas Regal, as well as 10,000 items of silverware.
Finally, for foreign guests to be adequately received in Bangui, Bokassa ordered the purchase of 60 new Mercedes-Benz cars. Since the country was landlocked, the vehicles were initially transported to a port in Cameroon and then flown to Bangui at a cost of US$300,000.
When everything designed for the coronation ceremony was successfully purchased and delivered to Bangui, the total amount, including both foreign acquisitions and domestic costs, was about US$22,000,000. For the economy of a backward, practically impoverished African state such as the Central African Empire, this amount was extremely high, and equal to a quarter of the country's annual budget. Most of the expenses were paid by France, in exchange for the promised break with Libya. Bokassa himself stated that "Everything here was financed by the French government. We ask the French for money, get it and waste it." Still, the Central African Empire had to pay a significant amount.
Invitations
As conceived by Bokassa, his coronation was to take place with the obligatory presence of Pope Paul VI. Apparently he intended, as supposedly Napoleon had done with Pope Pius VII at his coronation, to take the crown from the hands of the Pope and place it on his head himself. With a request to invite the head of the Catholic Church to the coronation, Bokassa turned to the Archbishop of Bangui, Monsignor Joachim N'Dayen, and Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to the Central African Empire, Oriano Quilici.