was more inclined to frighten than to harm him, and certainly his first intention was not to arrest the Prince, but, as I have said, to frighten the ‘emigres’, and to drive them to a distance.  I must, however, admit that when Bonaparte spoke to Rapp and Duroc of the emigrants on the other side of the Rhine he expressed himself with much irritability:  so much so, indeed, that M. de Talleyrand, dreading its effects for the Due d’Enghien, warned that Prince, through the medium of a lady to whom he was attached, of his danger, and advised him to proceed to a greater distance from the frontier.  On receiving this notice the Prince resolved to rejoin his grandfather, which he could not do but by passing through the Austrian territory.  Should any doubt exist as to these facts it may be added that Sir Charles Stuart wrote to M. de Cobentzel to solicit a passport for the Duc d’Enghien; and it was solely owing to the delay of the Austrian Cabinet that time was afforded for the First Consul to order the arrest of the unfortunate Prince as soon as he had formed the horrible resolution of shedding the blood of a Bourbon.  This resolution could have originated only with himself, for who would have dared to suggest it to him?  The fact is, Bonaparte knew not what he did.  His fever of ambition amounted to delirium; and he knew not how he was losing himself in public opinion because he did not know that opinion, to gain which he would have made every sacrifice.

When Cambaceres (who, with a slight reservation, had voted the death of Louis XVI.) warmly opposed in the Council the Duc d’Enghien’s arrest, the First Consul observed to him, “Methinks, Sir, you have grown very chary of Bourbon blood!”

Meanwhile the Due d’Enghien was at Ettenheim, indulging in hope rather than plotting conspiracies.  It is well known that an individual made an offer to the Prince de Conde to assassinate the First Consul, but the Prince indignantly rejected the proposition, and nobly refused to recover the rights of the Bourbons at the price of such a crime.  The individual above-mentioned was afterwards discovered to be an agent of the Paris police, who had been commissioned to draw the Princes into a plot which would have ruined them, for public feeling revolts at assassination under any circumstances.

It has been alleged that Louis XVIII.’s refusal to treat with Bonaparte led to the fatal catastrophe of the Due d’Enghien’s death.  The first correspondence between Louis XVIII. and the First Consul, which has been given in these Memoirs, clearly proves the contrary.  It is certainly probable that Louis XVIII.’s refusal to renounce his rights should have irritated Bonaparte.  But it was rather late to take his revenge two years after, and that too on a Prince totally ignorant of those overtures.  It is needless to comment on such absurdities.  It is equally unnecessary to speak of the mysterious being who often appeared at meetings in the Faubourg St. Germain, and who was afterwards discovered to be Pichegru.