The Duc D'Enghien's arrest.
The Duc d'Enghien was not arrested point-blank and without precautions: Bonaparte had had a report drawn up of the number of Bourbons in Europe. In a council to which Messieurs de Talleyrand and Fouché were summoned, it was recognised that the Duc d'Angoulême was at Warsaw, with Louis XVIII.; the Comte d'Artois and the Duc de Berry in London, with the Princes de Condé and de Bourbon. The youngest of the Condés was at Ettenheim, in the Duchy of Baden. It was found that two English agents, Messrs. Taylor and Drake, had conducted intrigues in that quarter. On the 16th of June 1803 the Duc de Bourbon[603] warned his grandson against a possible arrest by means of a note addressed to him from London, which is still preserved. Bonaparte summoned the two Consuls, his colleagues, to his side. He first bitterly reproached M. Réal[604] for having left him in ignorance of what was being planned against him. He patiently listened to the objections. The one to express himself with the greatest vigour was Cambacérès[605]. Bonaparte thanked him and took no further notice. This is what I have seen in the Memoirs of Cambacérès, which one of his nephews, M. de Cambacérès, a peer of France, has permitted me to consult with an obligingness of which I retain a grateful recollection. The bomb once thrown does not return: it goes where the engineer flings it, and falls. To execute Bonaparte's orders, it was necessary to violate the territory of Germany, and the territory was violated forthwith. The Duc d'Enghien was arrested at Ettenheim. With him were found, instead of General Dumouriez, only the Marquis de Thumery and some other Emigrants of little note: this ought to have shown the mistake. The Duc d'Enghien was taken to Strasburg. The beginning of the catastrophe of Vincennes has been narrated by the Prince himself: he has left a little road-journal from Ettenheim to Strasburg; the hero of the tragedy steps before the curtain to recite this prologue:
"Thursday 15 March, at Ettenheim, my house surrounded," says the Prince, "by a detachment of dragoons and some pickets of gendarmes, total about two hundred men, two generals, the colonel of the dragoons, Colonel Chariot of the Strasburg Gendarmerie, at five o'clock[606]. At half-past five, doors broken in, taken to the Mill, near the Tile-works. My papers taken away, sealed up. Taken in a cart, between two lines of fusiliers, to the Rhine. Put on board a boat for Rhisnau. Landed and marched on foot as far as Pfortsheim. Breakfasted at the inn. Got into a carriage with Colonel Chariot, the quarter-master of the gendarmes, a gendarme on the box and Grunstein. Arrived at Strasburg, at Colonel Chariot's, about half-past five. Transferred half an hour after, in a hackney-coach, to the citadel.
. . . . . . . .
"Sunday 18, they come to fetch me at half-past one in the morning. They do not give me time to dress. I embrace my unhappy companions, my servants. I leave alone with two officers of gendarmes and two gendarmes. Colonel Chariot told me that we were going to the general of division, who has received orders from Paris. Instead of that, I find a carriage with six post-horses in the Church Square. Lieutenant Petermann gets in beside me, Blitersdorff the quarter-master on the box, two gendarmes inside, the other out."
Here the ship-wrecked man, on the point of being engulfed, interrupts his log.
The carriage arrived at about four o'clock in the evening at one of the barriers of the capital, where the Strasburg road ends, and instead of driving into Paris, followed the outer boulevard and stopped at Vincennes Castle. The Prince alighted from the carriage in the inner court-yard and was taken to a room of the fortress, where he was locked in and went to sleep. As the Prince was approaching Paris, Bonaparte affected an air of calmness which was not natural.
On the 18th of March, which was Palm Sunday, he went to the Malmaison. Madame Bonaparte[607], who, with all her family, was informed of the Prince's arrest, spoke to him of this arrest. Bonaparte replied:
"You don't understand politics."
Colonel Savary[608] had become one of Bonaparte's intimates. Why? Because he had seen the First Consul weep at Marengo. Exceptional men should distrust their tears, which place them beneath the yoke of vulgar men. Tears are one of those weaknesses which enable an eyewitness to make himself master of a great man's resolutions.
He is taken to Vincennes.