The day after the fateful event, Madame de Gelb went to La Favorite, and, throwing herself at her Sovereign’s feet, implored him to protect her son-in-law. She described the falsity of the charges brought against him, the distress of the mother and of the four children. The Grand Duke could not but be touched by this petition, although he was anxious not to displease M. Fouché.
“I am transported with delight,” Massias said to Councillor Gemmingen, “at having so successfully executed the commands of the Minister of Police, for they were not easy of accomplishment;” and he added, in order to appease the Grand Duke’s fears and regrets, “This affair seems to have taken a turn, which is very fortunate for the prisoner; and I have already advised his Excellency the Minister about it. You can assure his Royal Highness that I will do my very best to finish off the case in a way that shall be agreeable to both Governments.”
But such a result seemed very unlikely, for it would have required very strong compulsion to make Fouché renounce his plan, more especially now that the arrest was an accomplished fact. It seemed absolutely necessary to him to extradite d’Auerweck and to fetch him to Paris; and he had already, by August 5, warned the Prefect of the department of Mont Tonnerre and Moncey, the Inspector-General of Police, to be in readiness “to take charge of and to escort Lord d’Auerweck.”
It was just at this time that Commissary Popp, whose assistance had not been utilized as much as he hoped it would be, began to be worried by the silence which was observed as far as he was concerned, and he entreated his Minister not to allow the Baron to slip out of his hands.
“It was very distasteful to have to make this arrest,” he said, “and it was only effected because it was necessary; and you can guess how carefully, under these circumstances, we have examined his papers, which it was of supreme importance to lay our hands upon.”
However, these papers, which Popp so confidently reckoned would expose the Baron’s intrigues, were found to consist only of purely private correspondence, altogether wanting in political interest; besides the historical works undertaken by d’Auerweck, the search of his house had only brought to light some insignificant letters, amongst which were “a bundle of love letters which d’Auerweck had exchanged with a young émigrée now settled in London. It appears that this entanglement did not meet with the approval of the young lady’s uncle, the girl having lost her parents when she was fifteen years of age.”
The Grand Duke, having heard these particulars, was all the more unwilling to hand over his unfortunate subject to Fouché and his myrmidons. He was convinced “of his perfect innocence.” Therefore the Baron de Dalberg, his Ambassador in Paris, was charged “to urge His Excellency, Minister Fouché, most forcibly to cease from troubling these persons, who were very sincerely to be pitied.” But he only encountered the most obstinate resistance. Fouché had received the plea of exculpation, which d’Auerweck had drawn up two days after his arrest, but he decided it was insufficient, “because it only touched lightly on many of the principal details of his intrigues, and it did not refer at all to his doings before 1800,” and in the margin of the sheet he recorded his sentiments in a kind of cross-examination.
“With whom had he had dealings since his second journey to Paris? Where did he lodge? To whom in London had he written? Did he not hide himself in a house in the Rue Basse-du-Rempart?
“What commission had he been charged with at Rastadt? Had he not made this extraordinary remark to some one before he left Hamburg: ‘I am going to Rastadt; you will soon hear of a great event, in which I shall have had a hand’”?
And Fouché went on to allude to the Baron’s hurried flight at the time when the French troops were drawing near.