“Why did you fly at the time of the commencement of hostilities? You are not a Frenchman? If you had not intrigued against France, or even if you had ceased to intrigue, why did you leave your wife because our troops were about to arrive, since you were a German and settled in Germany on the territory of a Prince, who is on good terms with this same France? But we have reason to believe that you were still carrying on your intrigues. We have reason to think that you came secretly to Paris five or six months ago. You were seen in the Rue de Richelieu. Further, we have reason to think that, stationed as you were on our frontier, you were perilously inclined by your long experience as a spy to continue to spy on us, and that you did not confine yourself to a correspondence with our enemies, but actually controlled men of the class of those whom you directed at Rastadt according to your own acknowledgment.”
Such were the complaints formulated by the Minister, and they were sufficient, it must be admitted, to convince him of the importance of his capture. Even if the Baron’s past life since 1800 could be voluntarily ignored—although this past life could not fail to arouse a host of just suspicions—there still remained his complicity in the drama of Rastadt, and also the coincidence—though not a very convincing one—of Bourcard’s arrest with the Baron’s presence on the banks of the Rhine. So Fouché, in his reply to Baron de Dalberg, who had begged him to comply with his requests, wished to show that he had made up his mind.
“You understand, monsieur, from what has passed,” he wrote on August 29, “that Baron d’Auerweck cannot be set free, and that it is necessary to convey him to Paris in order to give his explanation of the fresh and singular information which has been received about him. Your Excellency may rest assured that his examination will be conducted with perfect impartiality, such as he may desire, and that he will obtain the fullest justice, if he can clear himself.”
The unfortunate Baron had now been kicking his heels for more than a month in the jail at Offenburg, where he was kept under observation day and night by a sentinel. The heat was intense, and d’Auerweck, suffering as he was from an internal complaint, which made his detention all the harder to bear, cursed his bad luck. He reproached his Sovereign in picturesque language with having allowed him to be imprisoned without any proof of crime upon “knavish accusations,” him—
“a citizen, a man of valour, whose honour no man doubts; whose fair dealing every one confides in; who is not ashamed to show his love of religion, and whose life is by no means a useless one; who has sufficient brains to have principles, and sufficient heart to sacrifice himself for his principles when they demand it; whose head and heart are in harmony; who has taken no part in political events except according to his oath and his duty; who, in short, has for the past five years lived as a peasant in a little house, which he had built himself, there tending his garden and rearing his children.”
The Grand Duke, touched by the truth of these reproaches, did his best to avoid granting Fouché’s demand. He believed he had hit upon an expedient when he proposed to the Minister to send the prisoner only as far as Strasburg, where the French Justiciary could examine him comfortably. But Fouché showed himself unmanageable, so fifteen days later the Grand Duke, tired of the struggle, and with the excuse of “the ties of friendship and the peculiar harmony which existed with the French Court,” at last consented to the extradition of Baron D’Auerweck, although—
“His Highness considered that he had the right to expect to be spared the unpleasantness of having to hand over to a foreign jurisdiction one of his subjects, against whom there did not exist any properly established suspicions, and whose papers furnished no proof against him.”
Once again the wrathful spectre of Napoleon, ready to crush the man who opposed his will, had succeeded in triumphing over everything which could be hoped for from justice and good laws.
On September 22 Commissary Molitor took d’Auerweck out of the prison of Offenburg and brought him to Strasburg to hand him over to the French police. In order to preserve precedent and to save his face, the Grand Duke had ordered his councillor to announce that—
“although His Royal Highness, in his particular condescension, had allowed his subject Auerweck to be extradited so as to facilitate the information and accusations which were brought against him this was done in full confidence that he would be treated as considerately as possible, and that he would not be subjected to any unpleasant or harsh treatment in consideration of the peculiar circumstances of his case.”