Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete

by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

I will now state all I know relative to the death of the Duc d'Enghien. That unfortunate Prince, who was at Ettenheim, in consequence of a love affair, had no communication whatever with those who were concocting a plot in the interior. Machiavelli says that when the author of a crime cannot be discovered we should seek for those to whose advantage it turns. In the present case Machiavelli's advice will find an easy application, since the Duke's death could be advantageous only to Bonaparte, who considered it indispensable to his accession to the crown of France. The motives may be explained, but can they be justified? How could it ever be said that the Duc d'Enghien perished as a presumed accomplice in the conspiracy of Georges?

Moreau was arrested on the 15th of February 1804, at which time the existence of the conspiracy was known. Pichegru and Georges were also arrested in February, and the Duc d'Enghien not till the 15th of March. Now if the Prince had really been concerned in the plot, if even he had a knowledge of it, would he have remained at Ettenheim for nearly a month after the arrest of his presumed accomplices, intelligence of which he might have obtained in the space of three days? Certainly not. So ignorant was he of that conspiracy that when informed at Ettenheim of the affair he doubted it, declaring that if it were true his father and grandfather would have made him acquainted with it. Would so long an interval have been suffered to elapse before he was arrested? Alas! cruel experience has shown that that step would have been taken in a few hours.

The sentence of death against Georges and his accomplices was not pronounced till the 10th of June 1804, and the Duc d'Enghien was shot on the 21st of March, before the trials were even commenced. How is this precipitation to be explained? If, as Napoleon has declared, the young Bourbon was an accomplice in the crime, why was he not arrested at the time the others were? Why was he not tried along with them, on the ground of his being an actual accomplice; or of being compromised, by communications with them; or, in short, because his answers might have thrown light on that mysterious affair? How was it that the name of the illustrious accused was not once mentioned in the course of that awful trial?

It can scarcely be conceived that Napoleon could say at St. Helena, "Either they contrived to implicate the unfortunate Prince in their project, and so pronounced his doom, or, by omitting to inform him of what was going on, allowed him imprudently to slumber on the brink of a precipice; for he was only a stone's cast from the frontier when they were about to strike the great blow in the name and for the interest of his family."

This reasoning is not merely absurd, it is atrocious. If the Duke was implicated by the confession of his accomplices, he should have been arrested and tried along with them. Justice required this. If he was not so implicated, where is the proof of his guilt? Because some individuals, without his knowledge, plotted to commit a crime in the name of his family he was to be shot! Because he was 130 leagues from the scene of the plot, and had no connection with it, he was to die! Such arguments cannot fail to inspire horror. It is absolutely impossible any reasonable person can regard the Duc d'Enghien as an accomplice of Cadoudal; and Napoleon basely imposed on his contemporaries and posterity by inventing such falsehoods, and investing them with the authority of his name.

Had I been then in the First Consul's intimacy I may aver, with as much confidence as pride, that the blood of the Duc d'Enghien would not have imprinted an indelible stain on the glory of Bonaparte. In this terrible matter I could have done what no one but me could even attempt, and this on account of my position, which no one else has since held with Bonaparte. I quite admit that he would have preferred others to me, and that he would have had more friendship for them than for me, supposing friendship to be compatible with the character of Bonaparte, but I knew him better than any one else. Besides, among those who surrounded him I alone could have permitted myself some return to our former familiarity on account of our intimacy of childhood. Certainly, in a matter which permanently touched the glory of Bonaparte, I should not have been restrained by the fear of some transitory fit of anger, and the reader has seen that I did not dread disgrace. Why should I have dreaded it? I had neither portfolio, nor office, nor salary, for, as I have said, I was only with Bonaparte as a friend, and we had, as it were, a common purse. I feel a conviction that it would have been very possible for me to have dissuaded Bonaparte from his fatal design, inasmuch as I positively know that his object, after the termination of the peace, was merely to frighten the emigrants, in order to drive them from Ettenheim, where great numbers, like the Duc d'Enghien, had sought refuge. His anger was particularly directed against a Baroness de Reith and a Baroness d'Ettengein, who had loudly vituperated him, and distributed numerous libels on the left bank of the Rhine. At that period Bonaparte had as little design against the Duc d'Enghien's life as against that of any other emigrant. He was more inclined to frighten than to harm him, and certainly his first intention was not to arrest the Prince, but, as I have said, to frighten the 'emigres', and to drive them to a distance. I must, however, admit that when Bonaparte spoke to Rapp and Duroc of the emigrants on the other side of the Rhine he expressed himself with much irritability: so much so, indeed, that M. de Talleyrand, dreading its effects for the Duc d'Enghien, warned that Prince, through the medium of a lady to whom he was attached, of his danger, and advised him to proceed to a greater distance from the frontier. On receiving this notice the Prince resolved to rejoin his grandfather, which he could not do but by passing through the Austrian territory. Should any doubt exist as to these facts it may be added that Sir Charles Stuart wrote to M. de Cobentzel to solicit a passport for the Duc d'Enghien; and it was solely owing to the delay of the Austrian Cabinet that time was afforded for the First Consul to order the arrest of the unfortunate Prince as soon as he had formed the horrible resolution of shedding the blood of a Bourbon. This resolution could have originated only with himself, for who would have dared to suggest it to him? The fact is, Bonaparte knew not what he did. His fever of ambition amounted to delirium; and he knew not how he was losing himself in public opinion because he did not know that opinion, to gain which he would have made every sacrifice.

When Cambacérès (who, with a slight reservation, had voted the death of Louis XVI.) warmly opposed in the Council the Duc d'Enghien's arrest, the First Consul observed to him, "Methinks, Sir, you have grown very chary of Bourbon blood!"

Meanwhile the Duc d'Enghien was at Ettenheim, indulging in hope rather than plotting conspiracies. It is well known that an individual made an offer to the Prince de Condé to assassinate the First Consul, but the Prince indignantly rejected the proposition, and nobly refused to recover the rights of the Bourbons at the price of such a crime. The individual above-mentioned was afterwards discovered to be an agent of the Paris police, who had been commissioned to draw the Princes into a plot which would have ruined them, for public feeling revolts at assassination under any circumstances.

It has been alleged that Louis XVIII.'s refusal to treat with Bonaparte led to the fatal catastrophe of the Duc d'Enghien's death. The first correspondence between Louis XVIII. and the First Consul, which has been given in these Memoirs, clearly proves the contrary. It is certainly probable that Louis XVIII.'s refusal to renounce his rights should have irritated Bonaparte. But it was rather late to take his revenge two years after, and that too on a Prince totally ignorant of those overtures. It is needless to comment on such absurdities. It is equally unnecessary to speak of the mysterious being who often appeared at meetings in the Faubourg St. Germain, and who was afterwards discovered to be Pichegru.

A further light is thrown on this melancholy catastrophe by a conversation Napoleon had, a few days after his elevation to the imperial throne, with M. Masaias, the French Minister at the Court of the Grand Duke of Baden. This conversation took place at Aix-la-Chapelle. After some remarks on the intrigues of the emigrants Bonaparte observed, "You ought at least to have prevented the plots which the Duc d'Enghien was hatching at Ettenheim."—"Sire, I am too old to learn to tell a falsehood. Believe me, on this subject your Majesty's ear has been abused."—"Do you not think, then, that had the conspiracy of Georges and Pichegru proved successful, the Prince would have passed the Rhine, and have come post to Paris?"