All this while the people of Paris were in a state of expectancy, wondering whether the child was to be a boy or a girl. If a boy, he would have a fine-sounding name. According to a decree calling the Eternal City the second city of the French Empire, which had become the capital of a simple department,--the department of the Tiber,--and in accordance with old usages of the Holy German Empire, by which the prince destined to succeed the Germanic Caesar, was called King of the Romans before bearing the title of Emperor, Napoleon's son was to be called the King of Rome. But would Napoleon have a son? Would Heaven crown his unexampled prosperity with this new favor? That was the subject of conversation everywhere, in the grandest mansions as in the humblest garrets. From daybreak of March 20th the Tuileries garden was crowded with people of all ages and conditions. The courtyards and quays were thronged. In the garden, along the terrace, in front of the palace, a rope was stretched from the grating by the Pont Royal to the Pavilion de l'Horloge. The crowd was so fearful of disturbing the Empress that this frail barrier, this simple rope, was more respected than would have been a lofty wall. The assemblage, which had been growing ever since six o'clock, remained at some distance from the rope, and only spoke in a low voice. They waited in extreme impatience, yet in perfect quiet, for the sound of the cannon of the Invalides. If it was a girl, only twenty-one guns would be fired; if a boy, there would be a hundred and one.... Every window was opened; in the squares and streets everything stood still,--foot-passengers, horses, carriages. The cannon of the Invalides was heard, and the anxious multitudes in deep emotion began to count, at first very low, but gradually louder--one, two, three, four, and so on up to twenty. Then the excitement was tremendous. Twenty-one. Is that all? No; there is the twenty-second, and the rest of the hundred and one are to follow; but there was no more need of counting: Napoleon had a son! At once the enthusiasm of the multitude broke forth like a volcano. Cheers, hats tossed in the air, loud cries of joy, universal, noisy delight, what a sight for the Emperor, as he stood at one of the Empress's windows, gazing in silence at the rapturous crowd! Tears flowed down his cheeks. "Never had his glory brought a tear to his eyes," Constant informs us; "but the happiness of fatherhood softened this soul which the most brilliant victories, the sincerest tributes of public adoration, had left untouched. Indeed, if Napoleon ever had reason to believe in his good fortune, it was on the day when the Archduchess of Austria made him the father of a king, him who had begun as the younger son of a Corsican family. In a few hours the event which France and Europe had been awaiting was a festival in every family."