In 1977 the self-proclaimed Emperor of Central Africa, the dictator Bokassa I, presented the guests of honour at his coronation with gilded replicas of his own throne

Paris supported the ruler of the former French colony, who in the tenth year of his rule had decided to turn from president into monarch. France furnished his regime with financial and military backing and supplied up to a third of the state's budget. The souvenirs for the coronation were cast at a French foundry from a model by the French sculptor Olivier Brice, who had also created the throne itself.

The throne stood 3.5 metres high and 4.5 metres wide, and weighed some two tonnes. The seat of red velvet occupied a cavity in the "belly" of a gilded eagle. The throne cost approximately 2.5 million US dollars.

The coronation of the bloodstained dictator was an almost exact copy of the coronation of Napoleon; even the coronation robe was sewn at the same manufactory. In the coronation ode Bokassa was hailed as a new Bonaparte, and his city as eclipsing Rome, Athens and Sparta with its dazzling beauty. Bokassa himself let slip during the ceremony that the guests had eaten human flesh: perhaps this was an unsuccessful joke, and perhaps not.

Most of the high-ranking guests among the 2,500 invited declined to come or sent extras or wives in their stead; of the European ruling houses, only the Prince of Liechtenstein appeared.