Chapter XVII: Book III: 594 (1)

Death of the Duc d'Enghien--The year 1804--General Hulin--The Duc de Rovigo--M. de Talleyrand--Part played by each--Bonaparte, his sophistry and remorse--Conclusions to be drawn from the whole story--Enmities engendered by the death of the Duc D'Enghien--An article in the _Mercure_--Change in the life of Bonaparte.

Like the migratory birds, I am seized in the month of October with a restlessness which would oblige me to change my clime, were I still strong on the wing and swift as the hours: the clouds flitting across the sky make me long to flee. In order to cheat this instinct, I made for Chantilly. I have wandered on the lawn, where old keepers crawl along the border of the woods. Some crows, flying in front of me over broom, coppice and glades, have led me to the Commelle Ponds. Death has breathed upon the friends who used to accompany me to the castle of Queen Blanche[595]: the sites of these solitudes were but a sad horizon, half-opened for a moment on the side of my past. In the days of René, I should have found mysteries of life in the little stream of the Thève: it steals hidden among horse-tails and mosses; reeds screen it from sight; it dies in the ponds which it feeds with its youth, ever expiring, ever renewed: those ripples used to charm me when I bore within myself the desert with the phantoms which smiled to me, for all their melancholy, and which I decked with flowers.

Walking back along the hedges, now scarcely traced, I was surprised by the rain; I took shelter beneath a beech: its last leaves were falling like my years; its top was stripping itself like my head; its trunk was marked with a red circle, to be cut down like myself. Now that I have returned to my inn, with a harvest of autumn plants and in a mood little suited for joy, I will tell you of the death of M. le Duc d'Enghien while within sight of the ruins of Chantilly.

*

[Sidenote: Protest of Louis XVIII.]

This death at first froze all hearts with terror; men dreaded a return of the reign of Robespierre. Paris thought it was seeing again one of those days which men do not see more than once, the day of the execution of Louis XVI. Bonaparte's servants, friends and family were struck with consternation. Abroad, though the language of diplomacy promptly stifled the popular feeling, the latter none the less stirred the hearts of the crowd. In the exiled family of the Bourbons, the blow struck through and through: Louis XVIII. returned to the King of Spain[596] the Order of the Golden Fleece, with which Bonaparte had just been decorated; it was accompanied by a letter which did honour to the royal mind:

"SIR AND DEAR COUSIN,

"There can be nothing in common between me and the great
criminal whom audacity and fortune have placed on a throne
which he has had the barbarity to stain with the blood of a
Bourbon, the Duc d'Enghien. Religion may prompt me to forgive
an assassin; but the tyrant of my people must always be my
enemy. Providence, for inexplicable reasons, can condemn me
to end my days in exile; but never shall my contemporaries
nor posterity be able to say that I showed myself in time of
adversity unworthy to occupy, till my last breath, the throne
of my ancestors."

We must not forget another name connected with that of the Duc d'Enghien: Gustavus Adolphus[597], since dethroned and exiled, was the only one of the kings then reigning who dared to raise a voice to save the young French Prince. He dispatched an aide-de-camp from Carlsruhe bearing a letter for Bonaparte; the letter arrived too late: the last of the Condés was no more. Gustavus Adolphus returned the ribbon of the Black Eagle to the King of Prussia[598], as Louis XVIII. had returned the Golden Fleece to the King of Spain. Gustavus declared to the heir of Frederic the Great that, "according to the laws of chivalry, he could not consent to be the brother-in-arms of the butcher of the Duc d'Enghien[599]." There is an inexpressibly bitter irony in these almost mad memories of chivalry, everywhere extinct, save in the heart of an unhappy king for a murdered friend; honour to the noble sympathies of misfortune, which stand aloof, not understood, in a world unknown to men!

Alas, we had undergone too many different tyrannies; our characters, broken by a succession of hardships and oppressions, lacked sufficient energy to allow our grief long to wear mourning for the death of young Condé: gradually the tears dried up; fear overflowed with congratulations on the dangers from which the First Consul had just escaped; it wept with gratitude at having been saved by a so sacred immolation. Nero[600], at Seneca's[601] dictation, wrote to the Senate a letter of apology for the murder of Agrippina[602]; the Senators, delighted, heaped blessings upon the magnanimous son who had not feared to pluck out his heart by so salutary an act of parricide! Society soon returned to its pleasures; it was afraid of its mourning: after the Terror, the victims who had been spared danced, forced themselves to appear happy and, fearing lest they should be suspected guilty of the crime of memory, displayed the same gaiety as when they went to the scaffold.

[Sidenote: The Duc D'Enghien's arrest.]

The Duc d'Enghien was not arrested point-blank and without precautions: Bonaparte had had a report drawn up of the number of Bourbons in Europe. In a council to which Messieurs de Talleyrand and Fouché were summoned, it was recognised that the Duc d'Angoulême was at Warsaw, with Louis XVIII.; the Comte d'Artois and the Duc de Berry in London, with the Princes de Condé and de Bourbon. The youngest of the Condés was at Ettenheim, in the Duchy of Baden. It was found that two English agents, Messrs. Taylor and Drake, had conducted intrigues in that quarter. On the 16th of June 1803 the Duc de Bourbon[603] warned his grandson against a possible arrest by means of a note addressed to him from London, which is still preserved. Bonaparte summoned the two Consuls, his colleagues, to his side. He first bitterly reproached M. Réal[604] for having left him in ignorance of what was being planned against him. He patiently listened to the objections. The one to express himself with the greatest vigour was Cambacérès[605]. Bonaparte thanked him and took no further notice. This is what I have seen in the Memoirs of Cambacérès, which one of his nephews, M. de Cambacérès, a peer of France, has permitted me to consult with an obligingness of which I retain a grateful recollection. The bomb once thrown does not return: it goes where the engineer flings it, and falls. To execute Bonaparte's orders, it was necessary to violate the territory of Germany, and the territory was violated forthwith. The Duc d'Enghien was arrested at Ettenheim. With him were found, instead of General Dumouriez, only the Marquis de Thumery and some other Emigrants of little note: this ought to have shown the mistake. The Duc d'Enghien was taken to Strasburg. The beginning of the catastrophe of Vincennes has been narrated by the Prince himself: he has left a little road-journal from Ettenheim to Strasburg; the hero of the tragedy steps before the curtain to recite this prologue:

"Thursday 15 March, at Ettenheim, my house surrounded," says
the Prince, "by a detachment of dragoons and some pickets of
gendarmes, total about two hundred men, two generals, the
colonel of the dragoons, Colonel Chariot of the Strasburg
Gendarmerie, at five o'clock[606]. At half-past five, doors
broken in, taken to the Mill, near the Tile-works. My papers
taken away, sealed up. Taken in a cart, between two lines of
fusiliers, to the Rhine. Put on board a boat for Rhisnau.
Landed and marched on foot as far as Pfortsheim. Breakfasted
at the inn. Got into a carriage with Colonel Chariot, the
quarter-master of the gendarmes, a gendarme on the box and
Grunstein. Arrived at Strasburg, at Colonel Chariot's,
about half-past five. Transferred half an hour after, in a
hackney-coach, to the citadel.

. . . . . . . .

"Sunday 18, they come to fetch me at half-past one in the
morning. They do not give me time to dress. I embrace my
unhappy companions, my servants. I leave alone with two
officers of gendarmes and two gendarmes. Colonel Chariot
told me that we were going to the general of division,
who has received orders from Paris. Instead of that, I
find a carriage with six post-horses in the Church Square.
Lieutenant Petermann gets in beside me, Blitersdorff the
quarter-master on the box, two gendarmes inside, the other
out."

Here the ship-wrecked man, on the point of being engulfed, interrupts his log.

The carriage arrived at about four o'clock in the evening at one of the barriers of the capital, where the Strasburg road ends, and instead of driving into Paris, followed the outer boulevard and stopped at Vincennes Castle. The Prince alighted from the carriage in the inner court-yard and was taken to a room of the fortress, where he was locked in and went to sleep. As the Prince was approaching Paris, Bonaparte affected an air of calmness which was not natural.

On the 18th of March, which was Palm Sunday, he went to the Malmaison. Madame Bonaparte[607], who, with all her family, was informed of the Prince's arrest, spoke to him of this arrest. Bonaparte replied:

"You don't understand politics."

Colonel Savary[608] had become one of Bonaparte's intimates. Why? Because he had seen the First Consul weep at Marengo. Exceptional men should distrust their tears, which place them beneath the yoke of vulgar men. Tears are one of those weaknesses which enable an eyewitness to make himself master of a great man's resolutions.

[Sidenote: He is taken to Vincennes.]

They say that the First Consul himself had all the orders for Vincennes drawn up. One of these orders provided that, if the expected sentence was a death sentence, it was to be executed on the spot.

I believe this version, although I cannot vouch for its truth, since those orders are missing. Madame de Rémusat[609], who was playing chess with the First Consul at the Malmaison on the evening of the 20th of March, heard him mutter some verses on the clemency of Augustus[610]; she thought that Bonaparte was coming to himself again and that the Prince was saved[611]. No, destiny had pronounced its oracle!

When Savary reappeared at Malmaison, Madame Bonaparte divined the whole misfortune. The First Consul had locked himself up alone for many hours. And then the wind blew, and all was ended.

*

An order of Bonaparte, dated 29 Ventôse, Year XII[612], had decreed that a military commission, consisting of seven members appointed by General the Governor of Paris[613] should meet at Vincennes to try "the _ci-devant_ Duc d'Enghien, accused of bearing arms against the Republic," etc.

In fulfilment of this decree, Joachim Murat on the same day, 29 Ventôse, appointed the seven officers who were to form the said commission, namely:

General Hulin[614], commanding the Foot Grenadiers of the Consular Guard, president;

Colonel Guitton, commanding the 1st Regiment of Cuirassiers;

Colonel Bazancourt, commanding the 4th Regiment of Light Infantry;

Colonel Ravier, commanding the 18th Regiment of Infantry of the Line;

Colonel Barrois, commanding the 96th Regiment of Infantry of the Line;

Colonel Rabbe, commanding the 2nd Regiment of the Municipal Guard of Paris;

Citizen Dautancourt, Major of the Gendarmerie d'Élite, with the functions of captain-judge-advocate.

Captain Dautancourt, Major Jacquin of the Légion d'Élite, two foot gendarmes of the same corps, Lerva and Tharsis, and Citizen Noirot, a lieutenant in the same corps, went to the Duc d'Enghien's and awoke him: he had but four hours to wait before returning to his sleep. The judge-advocate, assisted by Molin, a captain in the 18th Regiment, chosen as registrar by the aforesaid judge-advocate, examined the Prince.

[Sidenote: And examined.]

_Asked_: His surname, Christian names, age, and birthplace?

_Answered_: That his name was Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, Duc d'Enghien, born 2 August 1772 at Chantilly.

_Asked_: Where he had resided since he left France?

_Answered_: That, after accompanying his relations, Condé's Corps having been formed, he had served through the whole war, and that, before that, he had been through the campaign of 1792, in Brabant, with Bourbon's Corps.

_Asked_: If he had not gone to England, and if that Power did not still allow him a salary?

_Answered_: That he had never been there; that England still allowed him his pay, which was all he had to live upon.

_Asked_: What rank he filled in Condé's Army?

_Answered_: Commander of the Advance Guard in 1796; before that campaign, as a volunteer at his grandfather's headquarters; and, ever since 1796, Commander of the Advance Guard.

_Asked_: If he knew General Pichegru, and if he had had relations with him?

_Answered_: "I have never seen him, to my knowledge. I have had no relations with him. I know that he wished to see me. I am glad that I never knew him, because of the base methods which he is said to have wished to employ, if true."

_Asked_: If he knew ex-General Dumouriez, and if he had had relations with him?

_Answered_: "Not with him either."

*

"Whence," continues the report, "were drawn up these presents, which have been signed by the Duc d'Enghien, Major Jacquin, Lieutenant Noirot, the two gendarmes, and captain-judge-advocate.

"Before signing this present report the Duc d'Enghien said:

"'I earnestly make a request to be granted a private audience of the First Consul. My name, my rank, my way of thinking and the horror of my situation make me hope that he will not refuse my request.'"

At two o'clock on the morning of the 21st of March, the Duc d'Enghien was taken to the room in which the commission sat, and repeated what he had said in examination by the judge-advocate. He persisted in his declaration: he added that he was willing to make war, and that he wished for service in the new war of England against France.

"Asked whether he had anything to put forward in the plea of his defense; answered that he had nothing more to say.

"The president ordered the prisoner to withdraw; the council deliberated with closed doors; the president took the votes, commencing with the junior in rank; next, the president having given his opinion last, the Duc d'Enghien was unanimously declared guilty, and the Court applied Article ... of the law of the... thus worded.... and in consequence condemned him to the penalty of death. Ordered, on the demand of the captain-judge-advocate, that the present sentence, after being read to the condemned man, shall be executed directly, in presence of the different detachments of the corps of the garrison.

"Given, concluded, and tried at one sitting, at Vincennes, on the day, month and year as above, as witness our hands."

*

The grave having been "dug, filled up, and closed," ten years of forgetfulness, of general assent and of unexampled glory sat down upon it; the grass sprang up to the sound of the salvoes which proclaimed victories, by the light of the illuminations which shed their lustre over the pontifical coronation, the marriage of the daughter of the Cæsars[615], and the birth of the King of Rome[616]. Only some rare sympathizers rambled in the wood, hazarding a furtive glance at the bottom of the moat in the direction of the lamentable spot, while a few prisoners watched them from the top of the donjon in which they were confined. Then came the Restoration: the earth of the tomb was stirred, and with it men's consciences; each then thought it his duty to explain himself.

M. Dupin the Elder[617] published his Discussion; M. Hulin, the president of the military commission, spoke; M. le Duc de Rovigo entered into the controversy by accusing M. de Talleyrand; a third party replied on behalf of M. de Talleyrand; and Napoleon raised his mighty voice on the rock of St. Helena.

These documents must be reproduced and studied, in order to assign to each the part due to him and the place which he should occupy in this drama. It is night, and we are at Chantilly; it was night when the Duc d'Enghien was at Vincennes.

[Sidenote: M. Dupin's pamphlet.]

When M. Dupin published his pamphlet he sent it to me with the following letter:

"PARIS, 10 _November_ 1823.

"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

"Pray accept a copy of my publication relative to the murder
of the Duc d'Enghien.

"It would have appeared long ago, had I not desired above all
to respect the wish of Monseigneur le Duc de Bourbon, who,
having been informed of my work, had communicated to me his
desire that this deplorable affair might not be disinterred.

"But Providence having permitted others to take the
initiative, it has become necessary to make the truth known,
and after assuring myself that it was no longer insisted that
I should remain silent, I have spoken with frankness and
sincerity.

"I have the honour to be, with profound respect,

"monsieur le vicomte,

"Your Excellency's most humble and obedient servant,

"DUPIN."

M. Dupin, whom I congratulated and thanked, revealed in his covering letter an unknown and touching instance of the noble and merciful virtues of the victim's father. M. Dupin commences his pamphlet thus:

"The death of the unfortunate Duc d'Enghien is one of the
most afflicting events that ever befel the French nation: it
dishonoured the consular government.

"A young prince, in the flower of his age, surprised by
treachery on foreign soil, where he was sleeping in peace
under the protection of the Law of Nations; dragged violently
to France; indicted before pretended judges, who could in
no case be his; accused of imaginary crimes; denied the
assistance of counsel; examined and sentenced behind closed
doors; put to death at night in the moat of the castle which
was used as a State prison; so many virtues unheeded, such
fond hopes destroyed, will ever stamp this catastrophe as one
of the most revolting acts that an absolute government ever
ventured to commit.

"If no form was respected; if the judges were incompetent;
if they did not even take the trouble to mention in their
judgment the date and text of the laws upon which they
affected to ground their condemnation; if the unhappy Duc
d'Enghien was shot in pursuance of a sentence _signed in
blank._... and only made regular after execution! then we
have to do not only with the innocent victim of judicial
error; the thing assumes its true name: it is an odious
murder."

This eloquent exordium brings M. Dupin to the examination of the documents. He first proves the illegality of the arrest: the Duc d'Enghien was not arrested in France; he was in no way a prisoner of war, since he had not been taken with arms in his hands; he was not a prisoner in the civil sense, for no extradition had been demanded; it was a violent seizure of the person, comparable to the captures made by the pirates of Tunis and Algiers, an inroad of robbers, _incursio latronum._

The jurist proceeds to discuss the incompetency of the military commission: cognizance of alleged plots hatched against the State has never been conferred upon military commissions.

Next follows the analysis of the judgment.

*

"The examination," continues M. Dupin, "took place on the 29
Ventôse at midnight. On the 30 Ventôse, at two o'clock in the
morning, the Duc d'Enghien was brought before the military
commission.

"On the minutes of the judgment we read, 'This day, the 30
Ventôse, Year XII of the Republic, _at two o'clock in the
morning._' The words, 'at two o'clock in the morning,' which
were only inserted because it was in fact that time, are
obliterated on the minutes without being replaced by any
other indication.

"Not a single witness was heard or produced against the
prisoner.

"The accused 'was declared guilty!' Guilty of what? The
judgment does not say.

"Every judgment that pronounces a penalty is bound to contain
a reference to the law by virtue of which such penalty is
inflicted.

[Sidenote: A scathing indictment.]

"Well, in this case, none of these forms has been fulfilled:
nothing in the official report bears witness that the
commissioners had _a copy of the law_ before them; nothing
shows that the president _read the text_ of the law before
applying it. Far from it: the judgment in its material form
affords the proof that the commissioners convicted without
knowing either the date or the tenor of the law; for, in
the minutes of the judgment, they have _left in blank_ the
date of the law, the number of the article, and the place
in which the precise words should have been quoted. And yet
it was on the minutes of a sentence framed in this state of
imperfection that the noblest blood was shed by butchers!

"The deliberation must be secret, but the judgment must be
pronounced in public: again, it is the law that speaks. Now
the judgment of the 30 Ventôse certainly says, 'The council
deliberated _with closed doors_;' but it does not mention
that the doors were opened again, or intimate that the result
of the deliberation was pronounced in a public sitting. Even
had it said so, who would believe it? A public sitting at two
o'clock in the morning, in the donjon of Vincennes, while
all the issues of the castle were being guarded by gendarmes
d'élite! But the fact is that they did not even take the
precaution to resort to a lie: the judgment is silent on this
point.

"This judgment is signed by the president and the six other
commissioners, including the judge-advocate; but observe
that the minutes _are not signed by the registrar_, whose
concurrence, however, is necessary to give them authenticity.

"The sentence concludes with this terrible formula:
'_shall be executed_ FORTHWITH, _under the care of the
captain-judge-advocate._'

"FORTHWITH! Cruel word, the work of the judges! FORTHWITH!
And an express law, that of the 15 Brumaire, Year VI, granted
the right of appeal for a new trial against any military
judgment!"

Passing to the execution, M. Dupin continues as follows:

"Examined at night and tried at night, the Duc d'Enghien
was also killed at night. This horrible sacrifice was to be
consummated in the dark, in order that it might be said that
all laws had been infringed, all, even those which prescribed
that executions shall take place in public."

The jurist comes to the irregularities in the preliminaries:

"Article 19 of the law of the 13 Brumaire, Year V, declares
that, after closing the examination, the judge-advocate shall
tell the prisoner to 'choose a friend as his defender.' The
prisoner shall have 'the power to choose that defender' among
every class of citizen present on the spot; if he declares
that he is unable to make that choice, the judge-advocate
shall make it for him.

"Ah, no doubt the Prince had no _friends_[618] among those
who surrounded him; this fact was cruelly declared to him by
one of the abettors of that horrible scene!... Alas, why were
we not present! Why was the prince not allowed to make an
appeal to the bar of Paris! There he would have found friends
of his unhappiness, defenders of his misfortune. ... It was
apparently with a view to making the judgment presentable
in the eyes of the public that a new edition was drawn up
at leisure.... The tardy substitution of a second form of
judgment, in appearance more regular than the first (although
equally unjust), in no way detracts from the heinousness of
having put the Duc d'Enghien to death by virtue of a rough
draft of a judgment, hastily signed, and not even signed by
all the requisite parties."

*

Such is M. Dupin's luminous pamphlet. Nevertheless I do not know that, in an act of the nature of that which the author examines, the greater or lesser regularity holds an important place: whether the Duc d'Enghien was strangled in a post-chaise between Strasburg and Paris or killed in the wood of Vincennes makes no difference. But is it not providential to see men, after long years, some showing the irregularity of a murder in which they had taken no part, others hastening, unasked, to the bar of public accusal? What, then have they heard? What voice from on high has summoned them to appear?

*

After the great jurist, here comes a blind veteran: he has commanded the Grenadiers of the Old Guard; what that means brave men know. His last wound he received from Malet[619], whose powerless lead remained lost in a face which had never turned from the fire. "Afflicted with blindness, withdrawn from the world, consoled only by the care of his family," to use his own words, the judge of the Duc d'Enghien appears to issue from his tomb at the call of the sovereign judge; he pleads his cause[620] without self-delusion or excuses:

[Sidenote: General Hulin's pamphlet.]

"Let there be no mistake," he says, "as to my intentions. I
am not writing through fear, since my person is under the
protection of laws emanating from the Throne itself, and
since, under the government of a righteous king, I have
nothing to dread from violence or lawlessness.... I write to
tell the truth, even in what may be to my own detriment! So I
do not pretend to justify even the form or the substance of
the judgment; but I wish to show under what a powerful union
of circumstances it was delivered; I wish to remove from
myself and my colleagues the suspicion of having acted as
party men. If we are still to receive blame, I wish also that
men should say of us:

"'They were very unfortunate.'"

*

General Hulin asserts that he was appointed president of a military commission without knowing its object; that when he arrived at Vincennes he was no wiser; that the other members of the commission knew as little; that M. Harel[621], the governor of the castle, told him, on being asked, that he knew nothing himself, adding:

"What can I do? I am nobody here now. Everything is done without my orders or participation: another man is in command here."

It was ten o'clock at night when General Hulin was relieved from his uncertainty by the communication of the documents. The hearing was opened at midnight, when the examination of the prisoner by the judge-advocate had been finished.

"The reading of the documents," says the president of the
commission, "gave rise to an incident. We observed that, at
the end of his examination before the judge-advocate, the
Prince, before signing, _wrote with his own hand some lines
in which he expressed a wish to have an explanation with the
First Consul._ One of the members proposed that this request
should be forwarded to the Government. The commission agreed;
but at the same moment General --------, who had come and
placed himself behind my chair, pointed out to us that this
request was 'inopportune.' Moreover, we found no provision in
the law authorizing us to suspend judgment. The commission
therefore proceeded, reserving to itself the right to satisfy
the prisoner's wishes after the trial."

*

So far General Hulin. Now, in a pamphlet by the Duc de Rovigo we read the following passage:

"There were, indeed, so many people that, as I arrived among
the last, I found it difficult to make my way to the back of
the president's chair, where I ultimately placed myself."

And so it was the Duc de Rovigo who had "placed himself behind the chair" of the president? But had he, or any other not forming one of the commission, the right to interfere in the proceedings of the commission, and to point out that a request was "inopportune"?

Let us hear the commander of the Grenadiers of the Old Guard speak of the courage of the young son of the Condés; he was a judge of it:

[Sidenote: The Duc D'Enghien's courage.]

"I proceeded to examine the prisoner; I must say that
he stood up to us with a noble confidence, spurned the
accusation that he had been directly or indirectly implicated
in a plot to assassinate the First Consul; but also admitted
that he had borne arms against France, saying, with a courage
and a pride which did not for a moment permit us, in his
own interest, to shake him on this point, 'that he had
supported the rights of his family, and that a Condé could
never re-enter France without arms in his hands. My birth and
convictions,' he added, 'make me for ever the enemy of your
government.'

"His resolute confessions distressed his judges to the
utmost. Ten times did we give him the opportunity to revise
his statements, but throughout he persisted unshaken:

"'I perceive,' he said at intervals, 'the honourable
intentions of the members of the commission; but I cannot
avail myself of the terms they offer me.'

"And on being warned that military commissions judged without
appeal:

"'I know that,' he replied, 'and I am quite aware of the
danger which I am running; I only wish to have an interview
with the First Consul.'"

Does the whole of our history contain a more pathetic page? New France sitting in judgment upon Old France, doing homage to her, presenting arms to her, saluting her colours, even while condemning her; the tribunal set up in the fortress in which the great Condé, when a prisoner, cultivated flowers; the General of the Grenadiers of Bonaparte's Guard seated face to face with the last descendant of the victor of Rocroi, feeling himself moved with admiration before the prisoner left without a defender and abandoned by the world, questioning him while the sound of the gravedigger digging the grave mingled with the young soldier's firm replies! A few days after the execution, General Hulin exclaimed:

"Oh, the brave young man! What courage! I should like to die like that!"

General Hulin, after speaking of the "minutes" and of the "second edition" of the judgment, says:

"As to the second edition, the only true one, as it did not
convey the order _for immediate execution, but only for the
immediate reading of the judgment_ to the condemned man,
the immediate execution could not have been the act of the
commission, but only of those who took upon themselves the
responsibility of hastening the fatal execution.

"Alas, our thoughts were engaged elsewhere! The judgment was
scarcely signed when I began to write a letter in which, with
the unanimous consent of the commission, I wrote to inform
the First Consul of the desire which the Prince had expressed
to have an interview with him, and also to entreat him to
remit a penalty which the difficulty of our position did not
permit us to elude.

"At that moment a man, who had never left the council-hall,
and whom I would name at once did I not consider that, even
when defending myself, I ought not to become an accuser,
approached me and asked:

"'What are you doing there?'

"'I am writing to the First Consul,' I replied, 'to convey to
him the wishes of the council and of the condemned man.'

"'Your business is done,' said he, taking the pen; 'this is
now my affair.'

"I protest that I thought, as did several of my colleagues,
that he meant to say, 'This is my affair, to inform the First
Consul.' Taken in this sense, the reply left us the hope that
the information would be none the less conveyed. And how
could it have occurred to us that there was any one among us
_that had orders to neglect the formalities prescribed by
law?_"

The whole secret of this mournful catastrophe lies in this deposition. The veteran who, in daily expectation of dying on the battlefield, had learned from death the language of truth, concludes with these final words:

"I was talking of what had just happened, in the lobby
adjoining the hall in which we had deliberated. Separate
conversations were going forward; I was waiting for my
carriage, which had not been allowed to drive into the inner
court-yard, nor had those of the other members, thus delaying
my departure and theirs. We were closed in, none of us having
means to communicate with the outside, when an explosion was
heard: a terrible noise that resounded at the bottom of our
souls and froze them with terror and affright.

"Yes, I swear, in the name of all my colleagues, that this
execution was not authorized by us: our judgment stated
that a copy of it should be sent to the Minister for War,
to the Chief Judge the Minister for Justice, and to the
General-in-Chief the Governor of Paris.

"The order of execution could be given regularly only by
the last-named; the copies had not yet been dispatched;
they could not be finished before a portion of the day had
elapsed. On my return to Paris I should have gone in search
of the Governor, the First Consul, anybody! And suddenly
a dreadful sound comes to reveal to us that the Prince no
longer lives!

"We did not know whether he who so cruelly hastened on
this fatal execution _had orders: if he had none, he alone
was responsible; if he had orders, the commission, knowing
nothing of those orders, the commission, forcibly and
illegally detained_, the commission, whose last wish was for
the Prince's safety, could neither foresee nor prevent their
effect. It cannot be accused of the result.

"The lapse of twenty years has not allayed the bitterness of
my regret!... Let me be accused of ignorance, of error, I
acquiesce; let me be reproached with an obedience from which
to-day, under similar circumstances, I should certainly know
how to escape; with my attachment to a man whom I thought
destined to promote the happiness of my country; with my
loyalty to a government which I then considered lawful, and
which had received my oath; but let some allowance be made to
me, and also to my colleagues, for the fatal circumstances
under which we were summoned to decide."

A weak defense, but you repent, general: peace be with you! If your sentence became the marching-orders of the last of the Condés, you will join the last conscript of our old mother-land in the advance-guard of the dead. The young soldier will gladly share his couch with the grenadier of the Old Guard: the France of Freiburg[622] and the France of Marengo will sleep together.

[Sidenote: Enter the Duc de Rovigo.]

M. le Duc de Rovigo, beating his breast, takes his place in the procession that comes to confess at the tomb. I had long been under the power of the Minister of Police; he fell under the influence which he supposed to be restored to me on the return of the Legitimacy: he communicated a portion of his Memoirs to me. Men in his position speak with wonderful candour of what they have done; they have no idea of what they are saying against themselves: accusing themselves without perceiving it, they do not suspect the existence of an opinion differing from theirs, both as regards the functions which they had undertaken and the line of conduct which they have observed. If they have been wanting in loyalty, they do not think that they have broken their oath; if they have taken upon themselves parts which are repugnant to other characters, they believe that they have done great services. Their ingenuousness does not justify them, but it excuses them.

M. le Duc de Rovigo consulted me on the chapters in which he treats of the death of the Duc d'Enghien: he wished to know my mind, precisely because he knew how I had acted; I valued this mark of his esteem and, repaying frankness with frankness, I advised him to publish nothing:

"Leave all this," said I, "to die out; in France, oblivion is not slow in coming. You imagine that you will clear Napoleon of a reproach, and throw back the fault upon M. de Talleyrand; but you do not sufficiently exonerate the former, nor do you sufficiently accuse the latter. You lay yourself open to attack from your enemies; they will not fail to reply to you. Why need you remind the public that you were in command of the Gendarmerie d'Élite at Vincennes? They were not aware of the direct part which you played in this fatal deed, and now you tell them of it. Throw the manuscript into the fire, general: I speak in your own interest."

Steeped in the maxims of the imperial government, the Duc de Rovigo thought that those maxims could be as well applied to the legitimate throne; he felt convinced that his pamphlet[623] would reopen the doors of the Tuileries to him.

It is partly by the light of this publication that posterity will trace the outlines of the phantoms of grief. I offered to hide the suspect who had come to ask shelter of me during the night; he did not accept the protection of my house.

M. de Rovigo tells the story of the departure of M. de Caulaincourt[624], whom he does not mention by name: he speaks of the kidnapping at Ettenheim, the prisoner's passing through Strasburg, and his arrival at Vincennes. After an expedition on the coast of Normandy, General Savary had returned to the Malmaison. He was summoned, at five o'clock in the evening of the 19th of March 1804, to the closet of the First Consul, who handed him a sealed letter to be carried to General Murat, the Governor of Paris. He flew to the general, crossing with the Minister of Foreign Relations on his way, and received the order to take the Gendarmerie d'Élite and go to Vincennes. He went there at eight o'clock in the evening, in time to see the members of the commission arrive. He soon made his way into the hall where the Prince was being tried, at one o'clock in the morning of the 21st, and took a seat behind the president. He gives the Duc d'Enghien's replies in about the same terms as they are given in the report of the one sitting. He told me that the Prince, after making his final explanations, with a quick movement took off his cap, laid it on the table and, with the air of a man resigning his life, said to the president:

[Sidenote: His pitiful defense.]

"I have nothing more to say, sir."

M. de Rovigo insists upon it that this sitting was in no way secret:

"The doors of the hall," he declares, "were open and free to any who cared to attend _at that hour._"

M. Dupin had already pointed out the confusion of this argument. In this connection M. Achille Roche[625], who appears to write for M. de Talleyrand, exclaims:

"The sitting was in no way secret! At midnight! Held in the inhabited portion of the castle, in the inhabited portion of a prison! Who, then, was present at this sitting? Gaolers, soldiers, executioners!"

*

No one was in a position to give more exact details concerning the moment and place of the thunder-clap than M. le Duc de Rovigo; let us hear what he says:

"After sentence had been pronounced, I withdrew with the officers of my corps, who like myself had been present during the proceedings, and joined the troops stationed on the esplanade of the castle. The officer who commanded the infantry of my legion came and told me, with deep emotion, that a piquet of men was required of him to execute the sentence of the military commission:

"'Give it,' I replied.

"'But where am I to post it?'

"'Where you may be sure to hurt nobody.'

"For already the roads were full of inhabitants of the populous environs of Paris on their way to attend the different markets.

"After carefully examining the ground, the officer chose the moat as the place where there was least danger of any one being hurt. M. le Duc d'Enghien was taken there by the stairs of the entrance-tower, on the park side, and there heard the sentence pronounced, which was put into effect."

*

Below this paragraph, the author of the memorial appends the following footnote:

"Between the passing of the sentence and its execution, a grave was dug, which gave rise to the report that it had been prepared prior to the judgment."

Unfortunately, we meet here with deplorable inaccuracies:

"M. de Rovigo contends," says M. Achille Roche, M. de
Talleyrand's apologist, "that he obeyed orders! Who conveyed
to him the order for the execution? It appears that it was
a certain M. Delga, killed at Wagram. But whether it be M.
Delga or not, if M. Savary is mistaken in mentioning M. Delga
to us, no one, doubtless, to-day, will lay claim to the fame
conferred upon that officer. M. de Rovigo is accused of
having hastened the execution; it was not he, he replies: a
man who is now dead told him that orders had been given to
hasten it."

The Duc de Rovigo is not well inspired on the subject of the execution, which he describes as taking place in daylight; that would, besides, have altered nothing in the fact, and would simply mean the absence of a torch at the punishment.

"At the hour of sunrise, in the open air," asks the general, "what need was there for a lantern to see a man _at six paces!_ Not that the sun," he adds, "was altogether bright and clear; a fine rain had fallen all night, and a damp mist still retarded, in some degree, its appearance. The execution took place at six o'clock in the morning: this fact is witnessed by irrefutable documents."

*

[Sidenote: The execution.]

But the general neither produces these documents nor tells us where to find them. The course of the trial shows that the Duc d'Enghien was tried at two o'clock in the morning and shot forthwith. Those words, "two o'clock in morning," which originally appeared on the first minutes of the sentence, were subsequently erased from the minutes. The official report of the exhumation proves, by the depositions of three witnesses, Madame Bon, the Sieur Godard and the Sieur Bounelet (the latter had helped to dig the grave), that the death penalty was effected at night. M. Dupin the Elder records the circumstance of a lantern fastened over the Duc d'Enghien's heart to serve as a mark, or held, with the same object, in the Prince's firm hand. Stories were told of a heavy stone taken from the grave with which the victim's head was crushed in. Lastly, the Duc de Rovigo is supposed to have boasted of possessing some of the spoils of the sacrifice; I myself have believed in these rumours; but the legal documents prove that they were unfounded.

From the official report, dated Wednesday the 20th of March 1816, of the physicians and surgeons entrusted with the exhumation of the corpse, it has been certified that the skull was broken, that "the upper jaw, separated entirely from the facial bones, contained twelve teeth; that the lower jaw, fractured in the middle, was divided in two, and showed only three teeth."

The body was lying flat upon its abdomen, the head being lower than the feet; there was a gold chain around the vertebrae of the neck.

The second official report of the exhumation (of the same date, 20 March 1816), "the general report," states that with the remains of the skeleton were found a purse in morocco-leather containing eleven pieces of gold, seventy pieces of gold enclosed in sealed rolls, some hair, shreds of clothing, remnants of his cap bearing marks of the bullets by which it had been pierced.

M. de Rovigo therefore took none of the spoils; the earth which had held them has restored them, and has borne witness to the general's honesty; no lantern was fastened over the Prince's heart, its fragments would have been found, as were those of the perforated cap; no heavy stone was taken from the grave; the fire of the piquet _at six paces_ was enough to blow the head to pieces, to "separate the upper jaw from the facial bones," and so on.

To complete this mockery of human vanities were needed only the similar immolation of Murat, the Governor of Paris, the death of Bonaparte in captivity, and the inscription engraved upon the Duc d'Enghien's coffin:

"Here lies the _body_ of the most high and mighty Prince of the Blood, Peer of France, _died_ at Vincennes, 21 March 1804; aged 31 years, 7 months and 19 days."

The "body" was mere bare and shattered bones; the "high and mighty Prince," the broken fragments of a soldier's carcase; not a word to recall the catastrophe, not a word of blame or grief in this epitaph carved by a sorrowing family; a prodigious result of the respect which the century shows to the works and susceptibilities of the Revolution! In the same way, no time was lost in removing all traces of the mortuary chapel of the Duc de Berry.

What a sum total of annihilation! Bourbons, who returned to so little purpose to your palaces, you have busied yourselves with naught save exhumations and funerals: your time of life was passed. God has willed it so! The ancient glory of France perished beneath the eyes of the shade of the Great Condé, in a moat at Vincennes: perhaps at the very place where Louis IX., "to whom men resorted as to a saint.... seated himself at the foot of an oak, and where all who had any business with him came without ceremony and without hindrance from any usher or others; and whenever he heard anything that could be amended in the speeches of those who pleaded for others he most graciously corrected it himself, and all the people who had a cause to bring before him stood round him[626]."

The Duc d'Enghien asked leave to speak to Bonaparte: "he had a cause to bring before him;" he was not heard! Who, standing at the edge of the ravelin, looked down into the moat upon those muskets, those soldiers dimly lighted by a lantern in the mist and gloom, as in night everlasting? Where was the light placed? Did the Duc d'Enghien stand over his open grave? Was he obliged to step across it to place himself at the distance of "six paces" specified by the Duc de Rovigo.

There exists a letter written by M. le Duc d'Enghien, at the age of nine, to his father the Duc de Bourbon; he says:

"All the Enguiens[627] are _lucky_; the one[628] of the Battle of Cerizoles, the one who won the Battle of Rocroi[629]: I hope to be so too."

Is it true that the victim was refused a priest? Is it true that he only with difficulty found a hand willing to convey to a woman a last pledge of affection? What did the executioners care for sentiments of religion or love? They were there to kill, the Duc d'Enghien to die.

The Duc d'Enghien had been secretly married, through the offices of a priest, to the Princesse Charlotte de Rohan[630]: in those days of a roving mother-land, a man, by the very reason of his elevation, was impeded by a thousand political obstacles; to enjoy that which society accords to all, he was obliged to hide himself. This lawful marriage, to-day no more a secret, enhances the splendour of a tragic doom; it substitutes the glory for the clemency of Heaven: religion perpetuates the pomp of misfortune when, after the catastrophe has been accomplished, the cross rises on the deserted spot.

*

[Sidenote: The Duc de Talleyrand.]

M. de Talleyrand, according to M. de Rovigo's pamphlet, had presented a vindicatory memorial to Louis XVIII.; this memorial, which I have not seen, should have thrown light upon everything, and threw light upon nothing. In 1820, when I was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Berlin, I discovered in the archives of the embassy a letter from "the Citizen Laforest[631]," addressed to "the Citizen Talleyrand," on the subject of the Duc d'Enghien. This strongly-worded letter does its author the more credit in that he did not fear to compromise his career, without earning the reward of public opinion, since the step he had taken was to remain unknown: a noble act of self-denial on the part of a man who, through his very obscurity, had relegated to obscurity the good which he had done.

M. de Talleyrand took his lesson, and kept silence; at least, I found nothing from him in the same archives concerning the death of the Prince. The Minister of Foreign Relations had nevertheless, on the 2 Ventôse, informed the Minister of the Elector of Baden "that the First Consul had thought it necessary to order some detachments to proceed to Offenburg and Ettenheim, there to seize the instigators of the scandalous conspiracies which, by their character, place without the pale of the Law of Nations all those who have manifestly taken part in them."

A passage from Generals Gourgaud[632], Montholon[633], and D. Ward, brings Bonaparte upon the scene:

"My Minister," says the latter, "strongly represented to
me the need for seizing the Duc d'Enghien, although he was
upon neutral territory. But I continued to hesitate, and the
Prince de Bénévent twice brought me the order for his arrest
for signature. Nevertheless I consented to sign it only after
convincing myself of the urgency of this act."

According to the _Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène_[634], the following words must have dropped from Bonaparte:

"The Duc d'Enghien bore himself before the tribunal with
great gallantry. On his arrival at Strasburg, he wrote me a
letter; this letter was handed to Talleyrand, who kept it
until the execution."

*

I have no great belief in this letter: Napoleon probably turned into a letter the request made by the Duc d'Enghien to speak to the conqueror of Italy, or rather the few lines expressing this request which, before signing the examination undergone before the judge-advocate, the Prince had written with his own hand. Nevertheless, the fact that this letter was not to be found should not lead us too vigorously to conclude that it was never written:

"I know," says the Duc de Rovigo, "that in the early days
of the Restoration, in 1814, one of M. de Talleyrand's
secretaries was incessantly making researches in the archives
under the gallery of the Museum. I have this fact from the
man who received the order to pass him in. The same thing was
done at the repository of the War Office for the documents of
the trial of M. le Duc d'Enghien, of which only the sentence
remained."

[Sidenote: Talleyrand's complicity.]

The fact is true; all the diplomatic papers, and notably the correspondence of M. de Talleyrand with the "Emperor" and the "First Consul," were transferred from the archives of the Museum to the house in the Rue Saint-Florentin[635]; part of them were destroyed; the remainder were put into a stove, to which they forgot to set light; this was all that the Minister's prudence could do against the Prince's indifference. The documents that were not burned were recovered; some one thought it was right to preserve them: I have held in my hands and read with my eyes a letter from M. de Talleyrand, dated 8 March 1804, and treating of the arrest, not yet carried out, of M. le Duc d'Enghien. The Minister invites the First Consul to deal vigorously with his enemies. I was not permitted to keep the letter, and I have retained only these two passages in my memory:

"If justice obliges us to punish vigorously, policy exacts
that we should punish without exception.................... I
will suggest to the First Consul M. de Caulaincourt, to whom
he might give his orders, and who would execute them with as
much discretion as fidelity."

Will this report of the Prince de Talleyrand one day be published in full? I do not know; but what I do know is that it was in existence no more than two years ago.

There was a meeting of the Council for the arrest of the Duc d'Enghien. Cambacérès, in his unpublished Memoirs, declares, and I believe him, that he opposed the arrest; but, while recording what he said, he does not say what the others replied.