Duc d'Enghien

“ What did the executioners care for sentiments of religion or love? They were there to kill, the Duc d'Enghien to die.
The Duc d'Enghien had been secretly married, through the offices of a priest, to the Princesse Charlotte de Rohan [630] : in those days of a roving mother-land, a man, by the very reason of his elevation, was impeded by a thousand political obstacles; to enjoy that which society accords to all, he was obliged to hide himself. This lawful marriage, to-day no more a secret, enhances the splendour of a tragic doom ”

“ The death of Richelieu has given fresh courage to the enemies of France, and I hear that de Malo, the governor of the Low Countries, has gathered a large army, and is about to invade France. Our army there is commanded by the young Duc d'Enghien, the Prince of Conde's son. He is but twenty-two, and of course owes his appointment to his father's influence. The king has, however, sent with him Marshal de l'Hopital, who will be his lieutenant and director. I know Enghien well, and esteem his talents highly. He is brave, impetuous, and fiery ”

“ Such arguments cannot fail to inspire horror. It is absolutely impossible any reasonable person can regard the Duc d'Enghien as an accomplice of Cadoudal; and Napoleon basely imposed on his contemporaries and posterity by inventing such falsehoods, and investing them with the authority of his name.
Had I been then in the First Consul's intimacy I may aver, with as much confidence as pride, that the blood of the Duc d'Enghien would not have imprinted an indelible stain on the glory of Bonaparte. ”

“ First the Duc d'Enghien, poor child, who knew not what he was signing, and whose first signature was to cost the life of a man; then the princess, then the dukes, then the ladies of the council, then the officers and sheriffs. Thus everybody had a share in the reprisals. Nobility and bourgeoisie, army and parliament, everybody must be punished for the act of vengeance. As everybody knows, when all the world in general must be punished, the result is that nobody at all is punished. ”

“ Lastly, is Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien, who is still playing with his jumping-jacks, in charge of [Pg 75] women, and who will don his first breeches, perhaps, to turn all France topsy-turvy—is he a very serious-minded leader of a party? And myself, if you will allow me to mention my own name after so many illustrious ones, am I a very serious personage,—I, the son of a miller of Angoulème, and once a retainer of Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld,—I, to whom my master one day, instead of a cloak to brush, gave a sword, which I gallantly buckled on at my side, an embryo warrior? ”

“ SIRE, MONSIEUR, AND DEAR COUSIN—It is with regret that I send back to you the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece which his Majesty, your father, of glorious memory conferred upon me. There can be nothing in common between me and the great criminal whom audacity and fortune have placed on my throne, since he has had the barbarity to stain himself with the blood of a Bourbon, the Duc d'Enghien. Religion might make me pardon an assassin, but the tyrant of my people must always be my enemy. ”

“ We are all that any one need be to cut a decent figure at this fête; we are as shiny as new crown-pieces. If Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien needs soldiers, where will he find smarter ones than we? If he needs conspirators, where will he find any more fashionably dressed? The least gorgeous of us has the bearing of a captain!"
"And you, Cauvignac," rejoined Barrabas "would pass at need for a duke and peer."
Ferguzon said nothing; he was reflecting.
"Unfortunately," continued Cauvignac, laughing, "Ferguzon is not inclined to hunt to-day." ”

“ If they have been wanting in loyalty, they do not think that they have broken their oath; if they have taken upon themselves parts which are repugnant to other characters, they believe that they have done great services. Their ingenuousness does not justify them, but it excuses them.
M. le Duc de Rovigo consulted me on the chapters in which he treats of the death of the Duc d'Enghien: he wished to know my mind, precisely because he knew how I had acted ”

“ Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien was to travel in the suit he had worn at the hunt, as there had been no time to order another one made. His equerry, Vialas, was to remain constantly at the carriage door, riding a white horse of the purest racing blood, so that he might take him upon the little saddle and gallop away with him, if need were. They were afraid at first that he would fall asleep, and sent for Pierrot to come and play with him; but it was an unnecessary precaution; the proud satisfaction of being dressed as a man was quite enough to keep him awake. ”

“ Spring smiles over Paris, over the spires of Notre Dame and the crowded alleys of the Tuileries, over thousands and thousands eager, joyous, aspiring, reckless,—the New Race of France, bound to one man's destiny, children of glory and of carnage, whose blood the wolf and the vulture scent, hungry, from afar!
The conspiracy against the life of the First Consul has been detected and defeated. Pichegru is in prison, George Cadoudal awaits his trial, the Duc d'Enghien sleeps in his bloody grave ”

“ In France his life could scarcely have been spared, and Blücher talked of executing him on the spot where the Duc d'Enghien had fallen. He therefore could do nothing but what he did. His reference to Themistocles shows that he was conscious of being the worst enemy that England had ever had. {1366} Perhaps he remembered that at the rupture of the treaty of Amiens he had studied to envenom the contest by detaining the English residents in France. ”

“ But all d’Auerweck’s fears were reawakened by the much-talked-of news of the Duc d’Enghien’s arrest on March 15, 1804, and by the details of how the Prince [Pg 174] had been captured openly in the jurisdiction of Baden, at Ettenheim, that is to say, only a short distance from Offenburg. He absented himself for some days from Schutterwald, so the story goes, and took himself to the mountains. ”

“ I had gone as a volunteer to the siege of Perpignan, or rather, as one of the Arrière-ban of Languedoc, which was led by the young and gallant Duc d’Enghien, to whom, after a long resistance, that city delivered its keys. As soon as the place had surrendered, I asked permission to absent myself for a few days. His Highness granted it immediately, and I set out.—For what think you, Pauline? ”

“ On the 10th of March, 1804, he wrote to General Berthier: "You will do well, citizen minister, to give orders to General Ordener, whom I place at your disposal, to repair at night, by post, to Strasburg. He will travel under another name than his own, and see the general of division. The aim of his mission is to throw himself upon Ettenheim, invest the city, and carry away from it the Duc d'Enghien, Dumouriez, an English colonel, and any other individual who may be in their suite. ”

“ The Duke of Orleans (the future Louis Philippe) , deserting the Republican army along with Dumouriez, after teaching in a school in Switzerland, and after a visit to America, where he spent a night in an Indian wigwam, also repaired to England. There he was doomed [3] to long years of inactivity, though he would fain have joined the English forces in Spain, in which case, as having fought against France, he could scarcely have grasped the French crown. The Duc de Bourbon likewise settled in England, and it would have been well had his unfortunate son, the Duc d’Enghien, followed his example. ”

“ Both Barras and Harmand de la Meuse are said to have given leave for the brother and sister to see each other, but the meeting was never permitted. The argument from the sudden disappearance of persons in a position to know something of the truth is of a less convincing character. It may be noted that the more famous of the persons alleged by partisans of subsequent pretenders to have been hustled out of the world for their connexion with the secret are the empress Joséphine, the duc d’Enghien and the duc de Berri. ”

“ Whatever additional arguments he may have advanced, it is impossible to decide; suffice it that the Duke yielded, the quarrel was terminated, and Concini established in the coveted apartments; at which his gratification was so unmeasured that he pledged himself to M. de Soissons to induce the ministers to consent to the union of the Comte d'Enghien with the heiress of Montpensier, as well as to exert himself in preventing the marriage of the Duc de Guise and the Duchess her mother. ”

“ Of the daughters, four entered religion; one died unmarried, and the last became the wife of François de Clèves, Duc de Nevers. Of the sons, five lived to attain their majority, though only one survived middle-age and died a natural death, and he was in holy orders. They were:
1. Antoine, Duc de Vendôme, born 22 April, 1518; became, through his marriage with Jeanne d’Albret, King of Navarre; died 17 November, 1562, from the effects of a wound received at the siege of Rouen.
2. François, Comte d’Enghien, born 23 September, 1519 ”

“ And the luckless Enghien found that he had escaped from the paternal control only to fall under the tyranny of Richelieu, who reorganized his Household, which he filled with persons devoted to his own interests, fixed the number of days which he was to spend in any one place, and regulated everything which concerned him down to the smallest details. No wonder that the young duke was glad when the time arrived for him to rejoin the army of Picardy, with which he took part in the sieges of Aire, La Bassée, and Bapaume! ”

“ Among those who were drawn to the Hôtel Rambouillet by this pleasing entertainment was the Duke d'Enghien, afterward known as the "Great Condé," a prince of the highest renown as a victorious warrior. He was a great acquisition, and the Garland Play was repeated every night in the expectation that his pleasure would continue, and the constant attraction prove adequate to hold him. Once or twice, however, was sufficient for the Duke, its constant repetition becoming flat and tiresome. He did not scruple to express his dissatisfaction with a society that could not originate something new. ”

“ He was doubly tender to me that winter and spring because the accounts from England were so sad. My dear brother Berenger had been killed at the battle of Alresford, and affairs looked very ill for the royal cause. I wept for my brother; but, ah! those tears were as nothing compared with what I was soon to shed.
The Duke of Enghien arrived. He was not to take the command of the army of the Low Countries, but of that of Germany. He came on the very day we had heard of the loss of Freiburg in Brisgau, and all was at once activity. ”

“ Very young men are more often attracted by ripe than by immature charms, and it was therefore scarcely to be expected that Enghien should have shown any inclination for the society of his betrothed—even if his affections had not been already engaged elsewhere.
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Little time, however, was given the young people for becoming better acquainted with one another, as other matters than courtship and marriage were demanding Enghien’s attention. Since 1635 war had been declared against Spain, and France had come openly into that field in which her secret influence had long been exercised. ”

“ A quarter of an hour later, I had in my hands the Moniteur of the 21st of March (30 Pluviôse) , which contained a sentence of death passed by the military commission, sitting at Vincennes, upon 'the man called Louis d'Enghien!' It was thus that Frenchmen described the descendant of heroes who were the glory of their country! Even if one were to abjure all the prejudices in favour of illustrious birth which the return of monarchical forms would necessarily recall, was it possible thus to blaspheme the memories of the Battle of Lens [642] and of Rocroi? ”

“ But I had no power of make compliments—nay, my English heart recoiled in anger at their making such an outcry, whether of blame or praise, at what seemed to me the simplest thing in the world. The courtesy and consideration were perfect; as soon as these people saw that I was really abashed and distressed, they turned their attention from me. My husband was in the meantime called to be presented to the Duke of Enghien, and I remained for a little while unmolested, so that I could recover myself a little. ”

“ It is impossible to understand Henry himself without knowing something of the race from which he sprang; of those wonderful Angevin counts who, beginning as rulers of a tiny under-fief of the duchy of France, grew into a sovereign house extending its sway from one end of Christendom to the other. It is impossible to understand his work without knowing something of what England was, and how she came to be what she was, when the young count of Anjou was called to wear her crown. ”

“ Enghien himself conceived and directed the decisive attack, and at the age of twenty-two won his place amongst the great captains of modern times. After a campaign of uninterrupted success, Enghien returned to Paris in triumph, and in gallantry and intrigues strove to forget his enforced and hateful marriage. In 1644 he was sent with reinforcements into Germany to the assistance of Turenne, who was hard pressed, and took command of the whole army. ”

“ The restless barons of Aquitaine, still smarting under their defeat of 1169, were but too eager, at the instigation of their duchess and their newly-crowned duke, to renew their struggle against the king. Foremost among them were, as before, the count of Angoulême, [660] the nobles of Saintonge, and Geoffrey of Lusignan, beside whom there stood this time his young brother Guy, now to begin in this ignoble strife a career destined to strange vicissitudes in far-off Palestine. [661] The heart of the old Angevin lands, Anjou itself, was in the main loyal ”