But what M. Fouché’s instructions were was well known, and no one had any misconception on the subject, least of all the Grand Duke. The pitiful letter which Madame d’Auerweck sent to him next day, and in which she appealed to his kind heart and his pity, must certainly have aroused some feeling of remorse.
After a stay of forty-eight hours in Strasburg, d’Auerweck started on his journey on September 25. In the post-chaise which carried him were a junior officer and a policeman, charged with his care. After crossing the Vosges, they travelled by way of Nancy and Chalons, and reached Epernay on the 28th; in a few hours they would arrive in Paris. Taking advantage of a short halt in the inn, the Baron hurriedly scribbled the following note, which was intended to reassure his family:—
“I have arrived here, my good and tender friend, as well in health as I could hope to be, and much less tired than I feared. I write these few words to you to calm your mind, and to beg you again to take care of yourself. To-morrow, by eight o’clock in the morning, we shall be in Paris, whence, as I hope, I shall be able to write to you. I embrace you, and beg you to kiss Charles, Louis, Armand, and your mother for me.
“May God guard you.
“Epernai, 28th September.”
The post-chaise entered Paris in the morning of the 29th, and passed along the quays till it stopped in front of the general office of the Minister of Police, where the prisoner had to be delivered. Where would they take him? For certain to the Temple tower, where at this time political prisoners were kept. And there it was that d’Auerweck was conducted and locked up. The order in the gaol-book directed that he should be placed in solitary confinement until further notice. It was now the Baron’s turn to enter the gloomy dungeon, which he had so often, twelve years before, gazed at curiously from afar. It was his fate, like his “big friend” Cormier, to closely inspect this building, the name of which evoked such reminiscences of mystery.
Six days were allowed him in which to prepare, without disturbance, his reply to the questions which were to be put to him. On October 5, 1807, a commissary, sent by the Minister of Police, came to see him and to hear what he had to say. A curious thing was that the same proceeding which was employed with Cormier at the time of his imprisonment was renewed for d’Auerweck’s benefit; no reference whatever was made to the whole period antecedent to 1800. Whatever might have been d’Auerweck’s conduct during the Revolution and under the Directoire, what his actions were, in what direction he went and came, who were his friends, all these points were held of no importance by his Excellency M. Fouché, and by Desmarets, who was on special duty in connection with the case. What they were most concerned with was to find out the object of d’Auerweck’s frequent absences during the last few years, and to extort a confession from him of his participation in the murder of the plenipotentiaries of Rastadt. They came to the point without any concealment, but d’Auerweck was on his guard. He flatly denied that he had paid a visit to Paris in the months of April and May, as was alleged.
“I did not travel at all in France, and I have not been in Paris since the year when the Directoire was installed. I can furnish the clearest proofs of this fact. I was warned two years ago that the French police were watching me, and that they accused me of a number of intrigues, the greater part of which I had nothing whatever to do with, for I declare most solemnly that since the July or September of 1799 I have taken no part in any matter against France. I challenge the world to allege a single proceeding of mine, or a single line, against the interests of the French Government. The person who warned me that the French were watching me was the late Abbe Desmares, who lived in Offenburg; the warning was conveyed in an anonymous letter, to which he never owned up, but which I am convinced came from him.”
As regards his sudden flight from Baden at the time of the approach of the French armies, the Baron explained that it was due to his desire to appease the fears of his mother-in-law, Madame de Gelb. Besides, they had only to question the authorities of Rothenburg, of Ulm, and of Nuremberg, and to obtain from them the counterfoils of his passports, in order to find an absolute confirmation of his statements. Then there was the question of his connection with Bourcard. What could the accused reply to that? Was it not at Ulm itself that he had met “Monsieur Bourcard, the father, who was an official from the Canton of Basle?” D’Auerweck’s answer was ready:—
“I have not spent more than twenty-four hours in Ulm. I had my dinner and supper there. The Austrian army had not at that time been forced back upon the town, which was being fortified. I only saw three officers at the table d’hôte, two of them Croatians and one German captain. I had no kind of business with any one. The man called Bourcard, a Swiss official, is quite unknown to me.”