"The death of the unfortunate Duc d'Enghien is one of the most afflicting events that ever befel the French nation: it dishonoured the consular government.
"A young prince, in the flower of his age, surprised by treachery on foreign soil, where he was sleeping in peace under the protection of the Law of Nations; dragged violently to France; indicted before pretended judges, who could in no case be his; accused of imaginary crimes; denied the assistance of counsel; examined and sentenced behind closed doors; put to death at night in the moat of the castle which was used as a State prison; so many virtues unheeded, such fond hopes destroyed, will ever stamp this catastrophe as one of the most revolting acts that an absolute government ever ventured to commit.
"If no form was respected; if the judges were incompetent; if they did not even take the trouble to mention in their judgment the date and text of the laws upon which they affected to ground their condemnation; if the unhappy Duc d'Enghien was shot in pursuance of a sentence signed in blank.... and only made regular after execution! then we have to do not only with the innocent victim of judicial error; the thing assumes its true name: it is an odious murder."
This eloquent exordium brings M. Dupin to the examination of the documents. He first proves the illegality of the arrest: the Duc d'Enghien was not arrested in France; he was in no way a prisoner of war, since he had not been taken with arms in his hands; he was not a prisoner in the civil sense, for no extradition had been demanded; it was a violent seizure of the person, comparable to the captures made by the pirates of Tunis and Algiers, an inroad of robbers, incursio latronum.
The jurist proceeds to discuss the incompetency of the military commission: cognizance of alleged plots hatched against the State has never been conferred upon military commissions.
Next follows the analysis of the judgment.
*
"The examination," continues M. Dupin, "took place on the 29 Ventôse at midnight. On the 30 Ventôse, at two o'clock in the morning, the Duc d'Enghien was brought before the military commission.
"On the minutes of the judgment we read, 'This day, the 30 Ventôse, Year XII of the Republic, at two o'clock in the morning.' The words, 'at two o'clock in the morning,' which were only inserted because it was in fact that time, are obliterated on the minutes without being replaced by any other indication.
"Not a single witness was heard or produced against the prisoner.
"The accused 'was declared guilty!' Guilty of what? The judgment does not say.
"Every judgment that pronounces a penalty is bound to contain a reference to the law by virtue of which such penalty is inflicted.
A scathing indictment.
"Well, in this case, none of these forms has been fulfilled: nothing in the official report bears witness that the commissioners had a copy of the law before them; nothing shows that the president read the text of the law before applying it. Far from it: the judgment in its material form affords the proof that the commissioners convicted without knowing either the date or the tenor of the law; for, in the minutes of the judgment, they have left in blank the date of the law, the number of the article, and the place in which the precise words should have been quoted. And yet it was on the minutes of a sentence framed in this state of imperfection that the noblest blood was shed by butchers!
"The deliberation must be secret, but the judgment must be pronounced in public: again, it is the law that speaks. Now the judgment of the 30 Ventôse certainly says, 'The council deliberated with closed doors;' but it does not mention that the doors were opened again, or intimate that the result of the deliberation was pronounced in a public sitting. Even had it said so, who would believe it? A public sitting at two o'clock in the morning, in the donjon of Vincennes, while all the issues of the castle were being guarded by gendarmes d'élite! But the fact is that they did not even take the precaution to resort to a lie: the judgment is silent on this point.
"This judgment is signed by the president and the six other commissioners, including the judge-advocate; but observe that the minutes are not signed by the registrar, whose concurrence, however, is necessary to give them authenticity.
"The sentence concludes with this terrible formula: 'shall be executed Forthwith, under the care of the captain-judge-advocate.'
"Forthwith! Cruel word, the work of the judges! Forthwith! And an express law, that of the 15 Brumaire, Year VI, granted the right of appeal for a new trial against any military judgment!"
Passing to the execution, M. Dupin continues as follows:
"Examined at night and tried at night, the Duc d'Enghien was also killed at night. This horrible sacrifice was to be consummated in the dark, in order that it might be said that all laws had been infringed, all, even those which prescribed that executions shall take place in public."