And the reports of M. Sh***, prefect of Strasbourg, and brother-in-law of the Duke de Fel....; leave no doubt of the existence of the intrigues at Offenbourg and Ettenheim, to which M. Sh*** ascribes in particular the agitation, and symptoms of discontent, that prevail at Weissembourg, and in several parts of Alsace.
On the other hand, the conspiracy of the 3d of Nivôse had just broken out. The discoveries made by the servant of Georges, and by other individuals, led to the belief, that the Duke d'Enghien had been sent by England to the borders of the Rhine, in order to place himself at the head of the insurrection, as soon as Napoleon was made away with.
The necessity of putting an end to these plots, and strike terror into their instigators by a grand act of reprisal, squared in an incredible degree with the political considerations, that led Napoleon to attempt a bold stroke, in order to give the revolution, and the revolutionists, those guaranties, which circumstances demanded:
Napoleon, named consul for life (I borrow here the language of the Manuscript from St. Helena), felt the weakness of his situation, the ridiculousness of his consulship. It was necessary to establish something solid, to serve as a support to the revolution. The republicans were alarmed at the height, on which circumstances had placed him: they were suspicious of the use he might make of his power: they dreaded his renewing an antiquated royalty by the help of his army. The royalists fomented this rumour, and took a delight in representing him as an ape of the ancient monarchs: other royalists, more adroit, whispered about, that he was enamoured of the part of Monk, and that he would take the pains to restore the power, only to make a present of it to the Bourbons, when it should be in a proper state to be offered them.
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,
Abbé 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.