This fete was to take place at the Invalides, or, as they said in those days, the Temple of Mars.

A bust of Washington was to be crowned, and the flags of Aboukir were to be received from the hands of General Lannes.
It was one of those combinations which Bonaparte thoroughly understood--a flash of lightning drawn from the contact of contrasting facts.

He presented the great man of the New World, and a great victory of the old; young America coupled with the palms of Thebes and Memphis.
On the day fixed for the ceremony, six thousand cavalry were in line from the Luxembourg to the Invalides.

At eight o'clock, Bonaparte mounted his horse in the main courtyard of the Consular palace; issuing by the Rue de Tournon he took the line of the quays, accompanied by a staff of generals, none of whom were over thirty-five years of age.
Lannes headed the procession; behind him were sixty Guides bearing the sixty captured flags; then came Bonaparte about two horse's-lengths ahead of his staff.
The minister of war, Berthier, awaited the procession under the dome of the temple.

He leaned against a statue of Mars at rest, and the ministers and councillors of state were grouped around him.