At last, on October 16, Savary presented to Napoleon the anxiously-looked-for report, which advised the prisoner’s discharge. To every one’s astonishment, the Emperor only made the following observation: Better keep him until universal peace is declared. There was nothing to be done but to submit to this merciless imprisonment, and to accept the explanation which was given, viz. that d’Auerweck was “a bold intriguer, who was to be found everywhere: sometimes in the interests of Austria, sometimes in England’s.”
Afterwards, as though to find an excuse for this prolonged detention, the Baron was brought in contact with one of those persons who are known as Moutons; his line of action was to get on friendly terms with the prisoner, and to try to get him to talk, the result of these conversations being handed on to the police. A man called Rivoire was chosen for this purpose. He was formerly a naval officer, but had been arrested and imprisoned for conspiracy; he escaped, but was caught and put in prison for the fourth or fifth time. The “Chevalier de Rivoire” was at the end of his resources, and hoped to obtain a remission of his sentence by spying on his companions in misfortune. It was impressed on him that he must specially pump Baron d’Auerweck on the subject of the Rastadt assassination. The two reports, which he sent to Desmarets during the year 1811, give a rather amusing account of the success of his enterprise: a success, of course, skilfully exaggerated.
“D’Auerweck is very suspicious when one begins to put questions to him, so I adopted the ruse of contradicting him and of only grudgingly giving in to him. Then, after having started him in the right direction, if I resign myself to listening patiently, he obligingly begins to overwhelm me with confidences, both false and true, and with all the rubbish which his conceit and his insatiate garrulity inspire in him.... He boasted of having rendered the most important services to the English, both on the Continent and in their own country, where he had exposed and baffled many plots, and had been the cause of the arrest and punishment of many French agents.... When we began to talk about the Rastadt affair, he at first repeated the story which had been manufactured in order to divert suspicion from the real culprits.
“Rivoire: ‘Only children will believe such a fairy tale.’
“D’Auerweck (laughing): ‘That’s true; but we must always tell it, and by dint of many repetitions they will begin to believe it. The matter concerns other people’s interests. I only left Austria when I saw that its Government was fatally weak; so much so that it has to be treated like a spoilt child that does not want to take its medicine. Besides myself, there are not more than two people who are acquainted with the correct details of this affair.’
“Seeing that he had said too much, he then, like a fool, began to retract, saying, ‘Besides, I was attached to a certain Prince’s Minister, who was not there with reason, and I was perfectly neutral in all that happened.’”
Rivoire concluded by saying, “D’Auerweck was the leader, or one of the leaders, in this crime, which was committed at the instigation of the English Government; and he forthwith went off to give his report; and he was at this time in London, travelling viâ France.”
These fresh accusations, however flimsy their foundation, were not neglected, and succeeded in so increasing the gravity of the Baron’s case that his durance was prolonged indefinitely. At the same time they served to maintain the harshness of his imprisonment. Using the Ambassador of Baden in Paris as the go-between, d’Auerweck, who declared himself to be seriously ill, had begged that he might for the time being be sent to a private hospital, where he could be attended to. But they questioned whether his illness was only a pretext, and that he was plotting some plan of escape. Accordingly the Minister of Police refused his request.
“The reasons for the detention of this prisoner,” the Duke of Rovigo declared to his colleague of Foreign Affairs, “do not admit of his being transferred to a private hospital. But I have just given the adequate order that the doctor, whose business it is to attend the invalids in the prison of Vincennes, should visit this prisoner as often as his state of health may require it.”
On May 31, 1812, d’Auerweck was told that no instructions as to his fate had been given, so, bearing his troubles patiently, he sent a fresh request, couched in the following humorous style, to Desmarets:—