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I will now state all I know relative to the death of the Due 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.
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.
To this declaration the Comte d'Artois, his son, the Duc de Berri, Louis Philippe of Orleans, his two sons, and the two Condés gave their ardent assent; and the same loyal response came from the young Condé, the Duc d'Enghien, dated Ettenheim, March 22nd, 1803.
But now, at the moment of victory, when France was swelling with rage against royalist assassins, English gold, and Moreau's treachery, the First Consul was hurried into an enterprise which gained him an imperial crown and flecked the purple with innocent blood. There was living at Ettenheim, in Baden, not far from the Rhine, a young prince of the House of Condé, the Duc d'Enghien.
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."
In reality the general was in London, and the spy had substituted the name of a harmless old gentleman called Thumery. When Napoleon saw the name of Dumouriez with that of the young duke his rage knew no bounds. "Am I a dog to be beaten to death in the street? Why was I not warned that they were assembling at Ettenheim? Are my murderers sacred beings? They attack my very person.
He was a dupe of Cagliostro, and of Mme. de Lamotte-Valois, the adventuress who, in 1782, drew him into the intrigue of the diamond necklace, for which he was sent to the Bastille, and which gave him the name of le cardinal Collier; he was acquitted in 1786, and in 1789 elected to the States-General; in 1791 he refused to take the oath to the Constitution, and went to Ettenheim in the German part of his province, where he died on the 17th of February, 1803.
Ermenonville, the burial-place of Rousseau. Escape from prison by the Countess de la Mothe; the royal family preparing to; arrested at Varennes and brought back. Esterhazy, Count. Etiquette, strictness of court; relaxation of. Ettenheim, Cardinal de Rohan dies at. Execution of M. de Favras. Expenses, court, retrenchment in. Expostulation of the Emperor Maximilian with his sister.
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.
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 Due d'Enghien, had sought refuge.
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