Historical Characters. Henry Bulwer
to: and spies were sent to watch his movements.
The reports of such agents are rarely correct in the really important particulars. But they were particularly unfortunate in this instance, for they mistook, owing to the German pronunciation, a Marquis de Thumery, staying with the Bourbon Prince, for Dumouriez: and the presence of that general on the Rhenan frontier, and with a Condé, strongly corroborated all other suspicions.
A council was summoned, composed of the three consuls, – Bonaparte, Cambacérès, Lebrun, – the minister of justice and police, Régnier, – and Talleyrand, minister of foreign affairs.43
At this council (10th March 1804) it was discussed whether it would not be advisable to seize the Duc d’Enghien, though out of France, and bring him to Paris; and the result was the immediate expedition of a small force, under Colonel Caulaincourt, which seized the prince on the Baden territory (15th March); M. de Talleyrand, in a letter to the Grand Duke, explaining and justifying the outrage. Having been kept two days at Strasburg, the royal victim was sent from that city, on the 18th, in a post chariot, arrived on the 20th at the gates of Paris at eleven in the morning; was kept there till four in the afternoon; was then conducted by the boulevards to Vincennes, which he reached at nine o’clock in the evening; and was shot at six o’clock on the following morning, having been condemned by a military commission – composed of a general of brigade (General Hullin), six colonels, and two captains – according to a decree of the governor of Paris (Murat) of that day (20th March), which decree (dictated by Napoleon) ordered the unfortunate captive to be tried on the charge of having borne arms against the Republic: of having been and being in the pay of England, and of having been engaged in plots, conducted by the English in and out of France, against the French government. The concluding order was, that, if found guilty, he should be at once executed.
The whole of this proceeding is atrocious. A prince of the dethroned family is arrested in a neutral state, without a shadow of legality;44 he is brought to Paris and tried for his life on accusations which, considering his birth and position, no generous enemy could have considered crimes; he is found guilty without a witness being called, without a proof of the charges against him being adduced, and without a person to defend him being allowed.45
This trial takes place at midnight, in a dungeon; and the prisoner is shot, before the break of day, in a ditch!
It is natural enough that all persons connected with such a transaction should have endeavoured to escape from its ignominy. General Hullin has charged Savary (afterwards Duc de Rovigo), who, as commander of the gendarmerie, was present at the execution, with having hurried the trial, and prevented an appeal to Napoleon, which the condemned prince demanded. The Duc de Rovigo denies with much plausibility these particulars, and indeed, all concern in the affair beyond his mere presence, and the strict fulfilment of the orders he had received; and accuses M. de Talleyrand – against whom it must be observed he had on other accounts a special grudge – of having led to the prince’s seizure by a report read at the Council on the 10th March; of having intercepted a letter written to the first consul by the illustrious captive at Strasburg, and of having hastened and provoked the execution, of which he offers no other proof than that he met Talleyrand, at five o’clock, coming out of Murat’s, who was then, as I have said, governor of Paris, and who had just given orders for the formation of the military commission. It must be observed also, that, for the report of what passed in the council, M. de Rovigo only quotes a conversation which he had some years afterwards with Cambacérès, who was anxious to prove that he himself had opposed the violation of the German territory.
As to the supposed letter written by the Duc d’Enghien, the persons about the Duc declared that he never wrote a letter at Strasburg; and in the prince’s diary, which speaks of a letter to the Princesse de Rohan, there is no mention of a letter to the first consul. With respect to another letter, written, the Duc de Rovigo seems to suppose, by M. Massias, French minister at Baden, there is no trace of it in the French archives; whilst the mere fact of M. de Talleyrand having been at Murat’s proves nothing (if it be true that he was there) beyond the visit. Indeed, as Murat himself blamed the execution, and did what he could to avert it (see Thiers’ Consulate and Empire, vol. v. p. 4), there is some probability that, if M. de Talleyrand sought Murat, it was with a view of seeing what could be done to save the prince, and not with the view of destroying him. On the other hand, Bourrienne, who had opportunities of knowing the truth, asserts that M. de Talleyrand, so far from favouring this murder, warned the Duc d’Enghien, through the Princesse de Rohan, of the danger in which he stood.
The Duc Dalberg, minister of Baden at Paris in 1804, also speaks of M. de Talleyrand as opposed to all that was done in this affair.46
Louis XVIII., to whom M. de Talleyrand wrote when the Duc de Rovigo’s statement appeared, ordered that personage to appear no more at his court. Fouché declared the act to be entirely that of the first consul; and lastly, Napoleon himself always maintained that the act was his own, and justified it.
For myself, after weighing all the evidence that has come before me (none of it, I must admit, quite conclusive), my persuasion is that the first consul had determined either to put the prince in his power to death, or to humiliate him by a pardon granted at his request; and it seems to me not improbable that he hesitated, though rather disposed, perhaps, to punish than to spare, till all was over.
For this supposition there is the declaration of his brother Joseph, who says that a pardon had been promised to Josephine; of Madame de Rémusat, who, playing at chess that evening with Napoleon, states that he was muttering all the night to himself lines from the great French poets in favour of clemency; and, lastly, there is an order given to M. Real, minister of police, who was charged to see the Duc d’Enghien, and to report to Bonaparte the result of the interview, which evidently implied that no execution was intended till the minister’s report had reached the terrible disposer of life or death, who might then finally take his resolve.
But the opportunity of coming to a decision, after receiving the report of the minister of police, never occurred. By one of those unforeseen accidents which sometimes frustrate intentions, M. Real, to whose house the written instructions I have been speaking of were carried by Savary himself, had gone to bed with the injunction not to be disturbed, and did not wake till the prince was no more: – so that Napoleon had not the chance of clemency, which he undoubtedly expected, presented to him. At all events, whatever may have been the intentions of this extraordinary man, whose policy was generally guided by calculations in which human life was considered of small importance, I believe, as far as regards the person I am principally occupied with: first, that M. de Talleyrand did read at the Council on the 10th of March a memoir containing the information that had reached his office, and which he was naturally obliged to report; secondly, that when M. de Cambacérès spoke against the original arrest, M. de Talleyrand remained silent, which may be accounted for either by a wish not to compromise himself, or, as persons well acquainted with Napoleon have assured me, by a knowledge that this was the best way to give efficacy to M. de Cambacérès’ arguments; thirdly, that when M. de Talleyrand wrote to the Grand Duke of Baden, excusing the intended violation of his territory, he did endeavour to convey such a warning to the Duc d’Enghien as would prevent his being captured; finally, that when the Duc was brought up to Vincennes he gave no advice (which he thought would be useless) to Bonaparte, but approved of the efforts made by Josephine and Joseph, who were the best mediators in the prince’s behalf, and that, being also aware of the instructions sent to M. Real, he did not think the execution probable.
As to taking an active part in this tragedy, such conduct would not be in harmony with his character; nor have the accusations, to which his position not unnaturally exposed him, been supported by any trustworthy testimony. To have lent himself, however, even in appearance, to so dark a deed, and to have remained an instrument in Napoleon’s hands after its committal, evinces a far stronger sense of the benefits attached to office, than of the obloquy attached to injustice.
This, it is said, he did not deny; and, when a friend advised him to resign, is reported to have replied: “If Bonaparte has been guilty, as you say, of a crime, that
Fouché, not then in office, was also consulted.
It is even remarked, that a few days previous, the Duc Dalberg had been informed that there was no jealousy of the
There were two “
“Bonaparte seul, mal informé par ce que la police avait de plus vil, et n’écoutant que sa fureur, se porta à cet excès sans consulter. Il fit enlever le prince avec l’intention de le tuer. Il est connu que sous votre ministère vous n’avez cessé de modérer les passions de Bonaparte.” —