While I was with Bonaparte he often talked to me about the life in the Chateaux, which he considered as the happiest for men with sufficient income and exempt from ambition.  He knew and could appreciate this sort of life, for he often told me the period of his life which he remembered. with the greatest pleasure was that which he had passed in a Chateau of the family of Boulat du Colombier near Valence.  Bonaparte set great value on the opinion of the Chateaux, because while living in the country he had observed the moral influence which their inhabitants exercise over their neighbourhood.  He had succeeded to a great degree in conciliating them, but the news of the death of the Due d’Enghien alienated from him minds which were still wavering, and even those which had already declared in his favour.  That act of tyranny dissolved the charm which had created hope from his government and awakened affections which had as yet only slumbered.  Those to whom this event was almost indifferent also joined in condemning it; for there are certain aristocratic ideas which are always fashionable in a certain class of society.  Thus for different causes this atrocity gave a retrograde direction to public opinion, which had previously been favourably disposed to Bonaparte throughout the whole of France.

The consequences were not less important, and might have been disastrous with respect to foreign Courts.  I learned, through a channel which does not permit me to entertain any doubt of the correctness of my information, that as soon as the Emperor Alexander received the news it became clear that England might conceive a well-founded hope of forming a new coalition against France.  Alexander openly expressed his indignation.  I also learned with equal certainty that when Mr. Pitt was informed of the death of the French Prince he said, “Bonaparte has now done himself more mischief than we have done him since the last declaration of war.”

   —­[The remark made on this murder by the astute cold-blooded Fouche
   is well known.  He said, “It was worse than a crime—­it was a
   blunder!”—­Editor of 1836 Edition.]—­

Pitt was not the man to feel much concern for the death of any one; but he understood and seized all the advantages afforded to him by this great error of policy committed by the most formidable enemy of England.  In all the Treasury journals published in London Bonaparte was never spoken of under any other name than that of the “assassin of the Duc d’Enghien.”  The inert policy of the Cabinet of Vienna prevented the manifestation of its displeasure by remonstrances, or by any outward act.  At Berlin, in consequence of the neighbourhood of the French troops in Hanover, the commiseration for the death of the Due d’Enghien was also confined to the King’s cabinet, and more particularly to the salons of the Queen of Prussia; but it is certain that that transaction almost everywhere changed the disposition of sovereigns towards the First Consul,