Worlds Best Histories France Vol 7 by M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

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The young Duc d'Enghien, son of the Duc de Bourbon, and grandson of the
Prince of Conde, resided in fact at Ettenheim, in the grand duchy of
Baden. Drawn at times to Strasburg, by his taste for the theatre, he was
held fast in this little city by a passionate attachment for the Princess
Charlotte of Rohan, who lived there. He was young and brave, and was
waiting for the call from England to take part in the war. He was not
implicated in the plot hatched round the Comte d'Artois, and was
absolutely ignorant of it. A few emigrants--very few in numbers, and
without political importance--resided near him; one of them was the
Marquis de Thumery, whose name, mispronounced with a German accent, gave
rise to the error which supposed the presence of Dumouriez at Ettenheim.
This supposition might for a moment deceive the First Consul as to the
complicity of the Duc d'Enghien; it was cleared up when, after having
violated the territory of the Grand Duke of Baden (for which Talleyrand
was careful to apologize), he learnt the arrival of the unfortunate prince
at Strasburg; all the papers seized at Ettenheim were in his hands.

The first movement of the Duc d'Enghien had been to defend himself. "Are
you compromised?" asked a German officer who was at his house. "No!"
replied the young man with astonishment. Resistance was useless; he
surrendered. There was one single ground of accusation against him: like
all the princes of his house, and thousands of emigrants, he had borne
arms against France. Nearly all the nobility had been permitted again to
tread the soil of their country: he alone was about to expiate the fault
of all. The minister of France at Baden, Massias, felt compelled to bear
witness that "the conduct of the Prince had always been innocent and
guarded." A few days later the _Moniteur_ had to announce the assembling
of emigrants, with a staff of officers and bureaux of officials round a
prince of the House of Bourbon. Massias had beforehand given the lie to
this rumor. The Duc d'Enghien was brought to Paris; detained for a few
hours at the barriers, he was then conducted to the chateau of Vincennes.
On the same morning the First Consul had sent this order to his brother-
in-law, General Murat, whom he had just named governor of Paris: "General,
in accordance with the orders of the First Consul, the Duc d'Enghien is to
be conducted to the castle of Vincennes, where arrangements are made to
receive him. He will probably arrive at his destination to-night. I pray
you to make such arrangements as shall provide for the safety of this
prisoner at Vincennes, as well as on the road from Meaux by which he
comes. The First Consul has ordered that the name of this prisoner, and
everything relative to him, shall be kept a profound secret. In
consequence, the officer entrusted with his guard ought not to be made
acquainted with the name and rank of his prisoner; he travels under the
name of Plessis."

Bonaparte was at Malmaison, gloomy and agitated; since the day when the
order had been given to arrest the Duc d'Enghien, the intimate companions
of the First Consul had no doubt as to his fatal resolution. Cambaceres
had warmly insisted upon the deplorable consequences of such an act;
Madame Bonaparte had cast herself at his feet, but he raised her up ill-
temperedly. "You have grown very saving over the blood of the Bourbons,"
said he bitterly to Cambaceres. "I shall not allow myself to be killed
without being able to defend myself." The fatal moment approached. Madame
de Remusat, playing at chess with Napoleon, heard him repeating in a low
voice the noble words of Augustus pardoning Cinna, and she believed the
prince saved: he had just entered the castle of Vincennes, and already the
judges were awaiting him.

Murat had loudly declared his repugnance for the functions imposed on him
by his brother-in-law. "He wants to stain my uniform with blood," said he
with anger. He was not called to Vincennes. General Savary, devoted
without reserve to the First Consul, had set out with a corps of
gendarmes. Already the Duc d'Enghien, weighed down by fatigue, was asleep;
he was roused up at midnight. A captain, as judge advocate, was entrusted
with a first examination. He being asked his names, Christian names, age,
and place of birth, in reply said "he was named Louis-Antoine-Henri de
Bourbon, Duc d'Enghien, born at Chantilly, the 2nd of August, 1772." Being
asked at what time he quitted France, in reply he said, "I cannot say
precisely, but I think it was on the 16th July, 1789, that I set out with
the Prince de Conde my grandfather, my father the Comte d'Artois, and the
children of the Comte d'Artois." Being asked where he had resided since
leaving France, in reply he said, "On leaving France I passed with my
parents, whom I always accompanied, by Mons and Brussels; thence we
returned to Turin, to the palace of the king, where we remained nearly
sixteen months. Thence, always with my parents, I went to Worms and the
neighborhood, upon the banks of the Rhine. Lastly the Conde corps was
formed, and I was with it throughout the war. I had before that made the
campaign of 1792, in Brabant, with the Bourbon corps, in the army of Duke
Albert. We terminated the last campaign in the environs of Graetz, and I
asked permission of the Cardinal de Rohan to go into his country, to
Ettenheim, in Brisgau, the former bishopric of Strasburg. For two years
and a half I remained in this country, with the permission of the Elector
of Baden." Being asked if he had ever passed into England, and if that
power had always accorded him a grant of money, in reply he said he had
never been there; that England always accorded him a grant of money, and
that he had only that to live upon. Being asked if he kept up
correspondence with the French princes in London, and if he had seen them
for some time, he said that naturally he kept up a correspondence with his
grandfather, and that equally naturally he corresponded with his father,
whom he had not seen, so far as he could recollect, since 1794 or 1795.
Being asked if he knew General Pichegru, and if he had any relations with
him, he said, "I believe I have never seen him; I have had no relations
with him. I know that he has desired to see me. I am thankful not to have
known him, after the vile means of which it is said he has desired to make
use, if it is true." Being asked if he knew the ex-general Dumouriez, and
if he had had relations with him, he said, "On the contrary, I have never
seen him." Being asked if, since the peace, he had not kept up
correspondence with the interior of the republic, he said, "I have written
to a few friends who are still attached to me, who have been my companions
in war, about their affairs and my own; these correspondences are not, I
think, those to which it is intended to refer."

Upon the minute of the examination, beneath his signature, the Duc
d'Enghien wrote, "I earnestly entreat to have a private audience with 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 me my request." The
request was foreseen, and the answer, according to instructions given,
that under no pretext would the First Consul be willing to receive the Duc
d'Enghien. At two o'clock in the morning the military commission was
assembled, presided over by General Hullin, formerly life-guard of Louis
XVI., and one of the insurgent leaders before the Bastille. The same
questions were addressed to the prince, more briefly--less explicitly, as
if the time was short, and the enemy threatening. Sometimes the president
interfered with an appearance of rude benevolence. General Savary did not
speak. When the examination was finished he rose up. "Now this is my
concern," said he. The judges deliberated a moment. The sentence, signed
in blank, was already in their hands. The Governor of Vincennes, Harel,
appeared at the gate carrying a light. He had formerly delivered to
Bonaparte the conspirators of the plot of Arena and Topino-Lebrun; to-day
he preceded in the sombre corridors the prisoner, escorted by a piquet of
troops. The prince did not pale; he reiterated his request for an
audience, which was harshly denied. Already the grave was dug in the ditch
of the chateau; a detachment of gendarmes waited for the condemned.

The Duke stopped. "Comrades," said he loudly, "there is without doubt
among you a man of honor who will charge himself with receiving and
transmitting my last thoughts." And as a young officer stepped out of the
ranks, "Has any one here a pair of scissors?" asked the Prince. He cut a
lock of his hair, and joining it in the form of a ring, he pronounced in
low tones the name of the person for whom he intended this souvenir; then
pushing back with his hands the bandage with which they wished to cover
his eyes, he made one step towards the soldiers: they fired, and he was
dead. General Savary went to tell his master that he was obeyed.

Shakespeare has depicted remorse with that terrible truthfulness which
carries home to our minds the horror of crime. Lady Macbeth passes before
us haunted by a vision, and ceaselessly washing her blood-stained hands.
During all his life, even in his exile, Napoleon vainly sought to wash off
the innocent and illustrious blood which he caused to flow in the fosse of
Vincennes on the 20th of March, 1804. The men whom he had employed as the
instruments of his heinous crime struggled like himself under this
terrible responsibility. In vain has Bonaparte reproached Talleyrand with
having perfidiously urged him on in the fatal path; in vain has Real
affirmed that an order reached his house during the night assuring to the
prisoner a new examination, unfortunately forestalled by his death. All
explanations, and all accusations have failed before the severe justice of
history and the infallible instinct of the public conscience. The odious
burden of a cowardly assassination was constantly weighing upon him who
had ordered it. The blood of his victim created round him an abyss that
all the efforts of supreme power could never succeed in filling up.

When the news spread in Paris, on March 21st, it was received with stupor;
people wept, even at Malmaison. Caulaincourt, previously entrusted with
the explanatory letter for the Elector of Baden, complained bitterly of
the stain upon his honor. Fourcroy was sent to dissolve the Corps
Legislatif; Fontanes, who presided over the assembly, replied to the
counsellor of state without making allusion to the catastrophe, the
intelligence of which the latter had mixed up with matters of business.
His speech was modified in the _Moniteur_. Fontanes had the courage to
protest against the approbation which had been attributed to him. The same
journal contained the judgment of the military commission which had
condemned the Duc d'Enghien; like the speech of Fontanes, the wording had
been altered.

Alone amongst the public functionaries of every rank or origin, young
Chateaubriand, minister of France to the republic of Valais, felt himself
constrained to give in his resignation. Louis XVIII. sent back the collar
of the Golden Fleece to the King of Spain, who remained the ally of
Napoleon. The courts of Russia and Sweden put on mourning for the Duc
d'Enghien.

Thus was preparing in Europe, under the impulse of public opinion, the
third coalition, which was to unite all the sovereigns against France.
Alone till then, England had hatched against us the plots in which its
diplomatic agents were found compromised; but the denunciations of the
First Consul against Spencer and Drake vanish, and lose all importance in
presence of the crime committed at Vincennes. Prussia, long and
obstinately faithful to its policy of neutrality, and recently disposed to
draw nearer to us, began to incline towards Russia, with whom she soon
concluded an alliance. Austria evinced neither regret nor anger, but the
action of the German powers was silently influencing her. The First Consul
broke out against the Emperor Alexander, violently hurling a gross insult
at him. "When England meditated the assassination of Paul I., if it had
been known that the authors of the plot could be found at a place on the
frontiers, would not you have been inclined to have them seized?" General
Hedouville, ambassador of France at St. Petersburg, received the order to
set out in forty-eight hours. "Know for your direction," said he to the
charge d'affaires, "that the First Consul does not wish for war, but he
does not fear it with anybody."

In presence of this general perturbation of Europe, of the loud
indignation of some and the dull uneasiness of others--in order to respond
to the denunciations of the royalists, who understood the fatal
consequences of the blow that Bonaparte had dealt to his own glory, the
First Consul resolved to take at length the last step which separated him
from supreme greatness. A year before he had been appointed Consul for
life of the French Republic: the murderer of a prince of the house of
Bourbon, he raised again on his own account the overturned throne. Still
without children, he founded in his person an hereditary monarchy, assured
of finding in the nation the assent of admiration as of lassitude and
fear. Eight days had scarcely passed since the execution of the Duc
d'Enghien; the brothers of the First Consul were absent and discontented.
Cambaceres was opposed to the projects which he had divined in the mind of
Napoleon Bonaparte. In his place, Fouche, always eager to serve the man
whose favor he courted, cleverly prepared the minds of the Senate. No
equivocation was possible as to the desires of Napoleon. On March 27th the
first assembly of the state addressed to the supreme chief this humble
request: "You found a new era," said the Senate, "but you ought to make it
eternal. Splendor is nothing without duration. You are harassed by
circumstances, by conspirators, by the ambitious. You are also in another
sense harassed by the uneasiness which agitates all Frenchmen. You can
conquer the times, master circumstances, put a curb on conspirators,
disarm the ambitious, tranquillize all France, by giving it institutions
which shall cement your edifice, and prolong for the children what you
have done for the fathers. In town and country if you could interrogate
all Frenchmen one after another, no one would speak otherwise than we.
Great Man, complete your work by rendering it as immortal as your glory;
you have drawn us forth from the chaos of the past, you make us blessed in
the benefits of the present--make us sure of the future."

The clever manoeuvre of Fouche gave Napoleon the opportunity of declaring
himself; he wished to be invited to speak. His answer was not, and could
not, be ready; he asked of the Senate time to reflect. Meanwhile he set
himself to sound the courts of Europe. On the morrow of the insult he had
offered to all the sovereigns by the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, their
good-will was doubtful: the earnest adhesion of Prussia and Austria
astonished and satisfied him; he was at war with England, embroiled with
Russia; the rest of Europe seemed to be at his feet. Clever at managing
those of whom he had need, he wished to assure himself of the disposition
of the army still agitated by the arrest of Moreau. He wrote to General
Soult, who commanded the camp of Saint Omer: "Citizen General Soult, I
have received your letter. The Councils-General of the departments, the
Electoral Colleges, and all the great bodies of the State, ask that an end
should be at last put to the hopes of the Bourbons, by placing the
republic in safety from the shocks of elections and the uncertainty of the
life of a single man. But up to this moment I have decided upon nothing;
meanwhile I desire that you should instruct me in great detail as to the
opinion of the army on a measure of this nature. You perceive that I would
not be drawn into it except with the sole object of the nation's interest,
for the French people have made me so great and so powerful that I can
desire nothing more."

The malcontents in the army were silent; the ambitious, the courtiers, the
faithful and devoted servants of the great general, brought him the
protestation of their devotion; the addresses from the departments
succeeded each other in great numbers. On April 25 the First Consul sent a
message to the Senate: "Your address of the 6th Germinal has not ceased to
be present to my thoughts," said he. "You have judged the hereditary
succession of the chief magistrate to be necessary to shelter the French
people from the plots of our enemies, and the agitation born of rival
ambitions. Many of our institutions have at the same time appeared to you
to require to be improved in order to assure without reversal the triumph
of equality and public liberty, and to offer to the government and the
nation the double guarantee of which they have need. In proportion as I
have fixed my attention on these great objects, I have perceived more and
more that, under circumstances as novel as they are important, the
counsels of your wisdom and of your experience are necessary to me in
order to fix all my ideas. I invite you then to let me become completely
acquainted with all your thoughts. I desire that on the 14th July this
year we shall be able to say to the French people: Fifteen years ago, by a
spontaneous movement, you rushed to arms; you required liberty, equality,
and glory. To-day, this best of all national wealth, assured to you
without fear of reversal, is protected from all tempests. Institutions
conceived and commenced in the midst of the storms of internal and
external war, developed with constancy, have been brought to their climax
amidst the noise of the efforts and plots of our mortal enemies, by the
adoption of all that the experience of ages and of peoples has
demonstrated as fit to guarantee the laws which the nation has judged
necessary for its dignity, its liberty, and its honor."

On the day following the 14th of July, 1789, the Duc de Rochefoucauld
said, with prophetic sadness, "It is very difficult to enter into true
liberty by such a gate." General Bonaparte was destined to confirm this
solemn truth, so often and so sorrowfully misunderstood by our country.
France, exhausted and disgusted by the enthusiasms of demagogy and the
bloody tyranny of the Terror, had been tossed by shock after shock into
the arms of the conqueror who promised her order and energy in government;
she had forgotten for a time those great and salutary conquests of the
liberty which she unreservedly yielded up at his feet.

By a tardy return towards the convictions of the past, Carnot alone raised
his voice in the Tribunate to recall the Republic, abandoned by all, in
the name of that liberty which he wrongly attributed to it. "Was liberty
then always to be shown to man without his being able to enjoy it? Was it
ceaselessly offered for his desires, like a fruit to which he could not
stretch forth his hand without being in danger of death? No! I cannot
consent to regard this gift, so universally preferable to all others,
without which the others are nothing, as a simple illusion. My heart tells
me that liberty is possible, that its rule is easy and more stable than
any arbitrary or oligarchic government. You say that Bonaparte has
effected the salvation of his country, that he has restored public
liberty; is it then a recompense to offer up to him this same liberty as a
sacrifice?"

On the 3rd of May, on the proposal of Curee and the report of Jard-
Panvillier, the Tribunate sent to the Senate a proposal to the effect:
"Firstly, that Napoleon Bonaparte, at present Consul for life, be
appointed Emperor, and in this capacity entrusted with the government of
the French Republic. Secondly, that the title of Emperor and the imperial
power be hereditary in his family, from male to male, in order of
primogeniture. Thirdly and lastly, that in deciding as regards the
organization of the constituted authorities upon the modifications
required by the establishment of hereditary power--equality, liberty, and
the rights of the people, be preserved in their integrity."

The Senate was resolved not to lose the fruits of its initiative; the
project of the senatus-consultum was ready, and was immediately carried to
the First Consul, accompanied by the views of all the great bodies of the
State. When it returned to the Senate, amended and modified by the will of
the supreme chief, the authority which the senators had sought to arrogate
to themselves had been taken away. "The senators, if they were allowed to
do it, would go on to absorb the Corps Legislatif, and, who knows? perhaps
even to restore the Bourbons," said the First Consul to the Council of
State. "They wish at once to legislate, to judge, and to govern. Such a
union of powers would be monstrous; I shall not suffer it!" The Tribunate
ceased to exist as an assembly, and could no longer discuss except in
sections; the Corps Legislatif were permitted to debate in secret
committees only. A High Court was to be constituted, to judge the crimes
of personages too important for the jurisdictions of ordinary tribunals.
In order to satisfy the vanity of Joseph and Louis Bonaparte, alone
entitled to the succession of the empire, two officers were borrowed from
the constitution devised by Sieyes, and from mediaeval history; the one
became Grand Elector, and the other Constable. Sagacious and docile
counsellor of the First Consul in their apparent equality, Cambaceres was
appointed arch-chancellor of the empire, and Lebrun became arch-treasurer.
Four honorary marshals [Footnote: Kellermann, Perignon, Lefevre,
Serurier.] and fourteen active marshals [Footnote: Murat, Berthier,
Massena, Lannes, Soult, Brune, Ney, Augereau, Moncey, Mortier, Davout,
Jourdan, Bernadotte, Bessieres.] were grouped around the restored throne.
Alone and beforehand the Senate decided upon the destinies of France,
arrogantly called upon to ratify decisions over which it exercised no
authority; on May 19th, 1804, at the close of the sitting, all the
senators went together to St. Cloud, and by the voice of Cambaceres prayed
his _Imperial Majesty_ that the organic arrangements might come into force
immediately. "For the glory, as for the happiness of the country, we
proclaim at this very moment Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of the French."

Those present cried, "Long live the Emperor!" Only the sanction of the law
of hereditary succession was submitted to the popular vote. By the force
of his genius as much as by the splendor of his military glory, Napoleon
had conquered France more completely than Italy or Egypt.

CHAPTER VIII.

GLORY AND SUCCESS (1804-1805).

On the eve of the declaration of the Senate in favor of the empire,
Cambaceres had said to Lebrun, "All is over! the monarchy is re-
established! But I have a presentiment that what they are now constructing
will not be durable. We made war upon Europe to give it republics, which
should be daughters of the French Republic; now we shall make it to give
Europe monarchs, sons or brothers of ours; and France, exhausted, will
finally succumb to such fatal attempts."

A year before that, when the consulship for life was proclaimed, the wise
and virtuous Tronchet, when a sorrowful witness of the revolutionary
crimes against which he had defended King Louis XVI., had shown the same
inquietude and fatal presentiment. "This young man begins like Caesar," he
said of General Bonaparte; "I am afraid he may end as he did."

The daggers of the Roman conspirators had arrested Caesar in his course.
Napoleon had found neither a Brutus nor a Cassius: he reigned without
contest, by a triumphal acclamation of 3,572,329 suffrages against 2569
"Noes." The country was eager to salute its new master, with a curiosity
mixed with confidence in the unexpected resources of his genius. The
courtiers alone around him who had found no place in the prodigal
distribution of honors, muttered their murmurs. They served him
nevertheless; and Talleyrand remained minister of foreign affairs, even
when all the important posts of the empire had escaped his desires.

With more calmness and pride than the courtiers, Moreau and the royalist
conspirators waited in prison for their verdict. Napoleon was as eager as
they were, being in haste to rid himself of an embarrassment which could
become a danger. In proportion as the trial proceeded, Moreau's case was
more and more kept distinct from that of the other prisoners. The mode of
defence adopted by the royalists tended entirely to prove his innocence.
"We entered France," they said, "deceived by false reports, and with the
hope of securing our restoration: General Moreau refused us his
assistance, and our project failed." The general did not appear disturbed
by the irregular jurisdiction to which his case was to be referred.
"Strive," he wrote to his wife, "to make sure that those who are to judge
me are just men, incapable of betraying their conscience. If I am judged
by persons of honor, I cannot complain, although they have apparently
suppressed the jury."