Part 38

Ordinary minds, unacquainted with his powers, credited these reports; they sanctioned the tales of the royalist party, and decried him to the people, and to the army; for they began to suspect him, and his attachment to their cause. He could not allow such an opinion to pass current, because it tended to unhinge every thing. It was necessary, at all events, to undeceive France, the royalists, and Europe at large, in order that they might know, what they had to reckon upon in him. A persecution of reports in detail never produces any thing but a bad effect, for it does not attack the root of the evil.

The death of the Duke d'Enghien would decide the question, that agitated France; it would decide the character of Napoleon beyond return; in fine, it might intimidate and punish the authors of the plots incessantly contriving against his life, and against the state: accordingly he determined on it.

He sent for Marshal Berthier, and this minister directed General Ord**, by an order which the Emperor dictated, and which I have seen, to set off post for Strasbourg; to cause General Lev** to place under his orders fifteen boatmen, three hundred dragoons from the garrison of Schelstadt, and thirty gendarmes; to pass the Rhine at Rheinan, to proceed to Ettenheim, to surround the town, and to carry off the Duke d'Enghien, Dumourier, an English colonel, and all the persons in their suite.

The Duke d'Enghien, General Thumery, Colonel de Grunstein, Lieutenant Schmidt, Abbe Weinburn, and five other inferior persons, were arrested by a chef d'escadron of the gendarmerie, named Ch**, who was charged with this part of the expedition.

Then, and then only, it became certain, that Dumourier was not at Ettenheim. General Thumery had been mistaken for him. This mistake, occasioned by the similarity of their rank, and some likeness of sound between their names, which the Germans pronounced nearly alike, had heightened the importance and criminality of the pretended plots at Ettenheim in the mind of Napoleon, and had the most fatal influence on his determination.

The Duke d'Enghien was brought from Strasbourg to Paris, and carried before a military commission.

The Empress Josephine, the Princess Hortense, fell at Napoleon's feet in tears, and conjured him to spare the life of the Duke d'Enghien. Prince Cambaceres and the Prince of Neufchatel strongly remonstrated to him on the horrible inutility of the blow he was about to strike. He appeared to hesitate, when the information was brought him, that the prince was no more.

Napoleon had not expected so speedy a catastrophe. He had even given orders to M. Real, to repair to Vincennes, to interrogate the Duke d'Enghien: but his trial and execution had been hastened by Murat; who, urged by some regicides, at the head of whom was M. Fou***, thought he should render a service to Napoleon, to his family, and to France, by insuring the death of a Bourbon.

The Prince de T***, whom the Emperor often publicly reproached with having advised the seizure and death of the Duke d'Enghien, was directed to pacify the court of Baden, and to justify the violation of its territory in the eyes of Europe. M. de Caulincourt being at Strasbourg, the Emperor thought him more proper than any other person, to follow up a negotiation, if the turn of affairs should require it; and he was directed to send to the minister of Baden the despatch of the Prince de T***. But there was no need of having recourse to negotiations: the court, far from complaining of the violation of its territory, expressed itself well contented, that the step taken had saved it the disgrace of consenting, or the embarrassment of a refusal.

This is an exact and true recital of the circumstances, that preceded, followed, and accompanied, the carrying off and death of the last of the house of Conde.

The seizure of the Duke d'Enghien was long imputed to M. de Caulincourt, and is still imputed to him by persons uninformed of the truth.

Some assert, that he arrested him with his own hands:

Others, that he gave orders for the seizure of his person: both these imputations are equally false.

He did not arrest the Duke d'Enghien, for his seizure was executed and consummated by chef d'escadron Ch***.

Neither directly, nor indirectly, did he give orders for seizing the prince: for the particular mission, to carry him off, was confided to General Ord**, and this general had no orders to receive from M. de Caulincourt his equal, perhaps even his inferior.

What made it be supposed, at a time when it was not possible to explain the facts, that M. de Caulincourt had been employed to seize the Duke d'Enghien, or cause him to be seized, was, that M. de Caulincourt received, at the same moment as General Ord**, orders to repair to Strasbourg, to cause the emigrants and English agents, who had fixed the seat of their intrigues at Offenbourg, to be carried off. But this mission, for which it would be requisite to take measures in concert with General Ord**, and perhaps even to assist him in case of need; for a simultaneous proceeding was necessary, that one expedition might not cause the failure of the other; this mission, I say, though analogous to that of General Ord**, had no real connexion with it.

Their objects were different:

That of one was to carry off the Duke d'Enghien from Ettenheim;

That of the other, to seize the conspirators at Offenbourg, which was eight or ten leagues distant.

Perhaps it will be objected, that M. de Caulincourt was not ignorant of General Ord**'s being directed, to seize the Duke d'Enghien. Be it so: I cannot perceive the consequence, attempted to be drawn from this. But what I have seen in the cabinet, and what I attest, is, that the order given to M. de Caulincourt said nothing of Ettenheim, and that the name of the Duke d'Enghien was not even mentioned in it: it related solely, in the first place, to the construction of a flotilla, that was preparing on the Rhine; and, secondly, to the expedition of Offenbourg; an expedition that terminated, as no doubt is still remembered, in the laughable flight of the minister Drake and his agents.

I have thought it my duty as a Frenchman and an historian, to enter into these details, and destroy for ever an error, which malevolence and the spirit of party have laid hold of, in order to tarnish the political life of one of the men, who do the greatest honour to the imperial government and to France.

M. de Caulincourt would not have been less irreproachable, had he committed the fatal seizure ascribed to him: he would have done his duty, as General Ord** did his. A soldier is not the judge of the orders he is to execute. The great Conde, covered with the laurels of Rocroy, Fribourg, Norlinguen, and Lenz, was arrested, in spite of the faith pledged to him, in the apartments of the King; yet neither his contemporaries, nor posterity, have charged Marshal d'Albret with this arrest as a crime.]

Will it be said, that Pichegru was strangled by his orders? The designs of Pichegru were so clearly substantiated, and the laws so clear, that he could not escape the scaffold: why, then, should he cause him to be murdered? The greatest criminals themselves do not commit useless crimes. Were apprehensions entertained of the disclosures he might make?... What could he disclose to the French people? That Napoleon aspired to the throne? Of this no one was ignorant.

A man, that Napoleon had reason to dread, was Moreau: was his life attempted? Yet it was less dangerous, to assassinate him, than to send to a tribunal, where guilt presided, a warrior at that time so dear to France and to the army.

No, Napoleon was not cruel, he was not sanguinary. If he were sometimes inexorable, it was because there are circumstances, in which the monarch must shut his heart to compassion, and leave the law free to act: but, if he knew how to punish, he was also capable of pardoning; and, at the moment when he gave up Georges to the sword of justice, he spared the lives of Messrs. de Polignac and the Marquis de Riviere, whose courage and zeal he respected.

The Emperor did not stop at the rigorous trial, to which he had delivered over the person of M. de Lascours: by a decree, dated the 18th of March, and published the 9th of April, he ordered the condemnation, and the sequestration of the property of

The Prince of Benevento, The Duke of Ragusa, The Duke of Alberg, The Abbe de Montesquiou, The Count de Jaucourt, The Count de Bournonville, and The Sieurs Lynch, Vitrolles, Alexis de Noailles, Bourienne, Bellard, La Roche-Jaquelin, and Sostene de la Rochefoucault;

All of whom, as members of the provisional government, or agents of the royal party, had concurred in the subversion of the imperial government, previous to the abdication of Napoleon.