"Before signing this present report the Duc d'Enghien said:
"'I earnestly make a request to be granted a private audience of the First Consul. My name, my rank, my way of thinking and the horror of my situation make me hope that he will not refuse my request.'"
*
At two o'clock on the morning of the 21st of March, the Duc d'Enghien was taken to the room in which the commission sat, and repeated what he had said in examination by the judge-advocate. He persisted in his declaration: he added that he was willing to make war, and that he wished for service in the new war of England against France.
"Asked whether he had anything to put forward in the plea of his defense; answered that he had nothing more to say.
"The president ordered the prisoner to withdraw; the council deliberated with closed doors; the president took the votes, commencing with the junior in rank; next, the president having given his opinion last, the Duc d'Enghien was unanimously declared guilty, and the Court applied Article ... of the law of the... thus worded.... and in consequence condemned him to the penalty of death. Ordered, on the demand of the captain-judge-advocate, that the present sentence, after being read to the condemned man, shall be executed directly, in presence of the different detachments of the corps of the garrison.
"Given, concluded, and tried at one sitting, at Vincennes, on the day, month and year as above, as witness our hands."
*
The grave having been "dug, filled up, and closed," ten years of forgetfulness, of general assent and of unexampled glory sat down upon it; the grass sprang up to the sound of the salvoes which proclaimed victories, by the light of the illuminations which shed their lustre over the pontifical coronation, the marriage of the daughter of the Cæsars[615], and the birth of the King of Rome[616]. Only some rare sympathizers rambled in the wood, hazarding a furtive glance at the bottom of the moat in the direction of the lamentable spot, while a few prisoners watched them from the top of the donjon in which they were confined. Then came the Restoration: the earth of the tomb was stirred, and with it men's consciences; each then thought it his duty to explain himself.