Gleaming with gilded Imperial eagles and painted floral sprays, the massive state coach that carried Napoléon to his coronation at Notre-Dame on December 2, 1804 fills the frame of this striking early French postcard — a vehicle so loaded with history that even its wheels seem weighted with destiny. Photographed in the Musée des Voitures at Versailles (now the Carriage Museum), the coach's embossed heraldic panels are visible in remarkable detail in the accompanying close-up view, showing the crowned Imperial eagle flanked by laurel branches, a symbol of the new French Empire forged that winter morning when Napoléon famously seized the crown from Pope Pius VII and placed it on his own head. Card number 148 in an unnumbered Versailles series, the divided-back format and "Certains pays étrangers…" wording place it c. 1904–1910. Unused and clean, this is a prime piece of Napoleonic transport history for any serious collector of French imperial ephemera.