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 Due 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?"
M. Massias, from whom I had these particulars, added, "At this last question of the Emperor I hung down my head and was silent, for I saw he did not wish to hear the truth."
Now let us consider, with that attention which the importance of the subject demands, what has been said by the historians of St. Helena.
Napoleon said to his companions in exile that "the Due d'Enghien's death must be attributed either to an excess of zeal for him (Napoleon), to private views, or to mysterious intrigues. He had been blindly urged on; he was, if he might say so, taken by surprise. The measure was precipitated, and the result predetermined."
This he might have said; but if he did so express himself, how are we to reconcile such a declaration with the statement of O'Meara? How give credit to assertions so very opposite?
Napoleon said to M. de Las Casas:
"One day when alone, I recollect it well, I was taking my coffee, half seated on the table at which I had just dined, when suddenly information was brought to me that a new conspiracy had been discovered. I was warmly urged to put an end to these enormities; they represented to me that it was time at last to give a lesson to those who had been day after day conspiring against my life; that this end could only be attained by shedding the blood of one of them; and that the Due d'Enghien, who might now be convicted of forming part of this new conspiracy, and taken in the very act, should be that one. It was added that he had been seen at Strasburg; that it was even believed that he had been in Paris; and that the plan was that he should enter France by the east at the moment of the explosion, whilst the Due de Berri was disembarking in the west. I should tell you," observed the Emperor, "that I did not even know precisely who the Due d'Enghien was (the Revolution having taken place when I was yet a very young man, and I having never been at Court), and that I was quite in the dark as to where he was at that moment. Having been informed on those points I exclaimed that if such were the case the Duke ought to be arrested, and that orders should be given to that effect. Everything had been foreseen and prepared; the different orders were already drawn up, nothing remained to be done but to sign them, and the fate of the young Prince was thus decided."
Napoleon next asserts that in the Duke's arrest and condemnation all the usual forms were strictly observed. But he has also declared that the death of that unfortunate Prince will be an eternal reproach to those who, carried away by a criminal zeal, waited not for their Sovereign's orders to execute the sentence of the court-martial. He would, perhaps, have allowed the Prince to live; but yet he said, "It is true I wished to make an example which should deter."
It has been said that the Due d'Enghien addressed a letter to Napoleon, which was not delivered till after the execution. This is false and absurd! How could that Prince write to Bonaparte to offer him his services and to solicit the command of an army? His interrogatory makes no mention of this letter, and is in direct opposition to the sentiments which that letter would attribute to him. The truth is, no such letter ever existed. The individual who was with the Prince declared he never wrote it. It will never be believed that any one would have presumed to withhold from Bonaparte a letter on which depended the fate of so august a victim.
