enemy. So what were his motives and how do we assess his moral stature
as a result? Napoleon himself mostly tried to brazen the scandal out and
remained unrepentant even on St Helena. On 27 March 1804 he said to
Le Couteulx de Canteleu, one of the leading senators: 'The circumstances
we found ourselves in did not allow chivalry or mercy. If we acted like
this habitually in affairs of state, people would legitimately call us
puerile.' Seventeen years later, in his last testament on St Helena, he said
he regretted nothing, as the security, interests and honour of the French
people were at stake.
Yet there is evidence that Napoleon, possibly after listening to the
entreaties of Josephine, realized how the affair might be perceived by
posterity and accordingly prepared for himself a Machiavellian 'alibi'. On
the one hand, he sent an express to Murat via his aide Rene Savary
ordering him to make an end of everything that very night. On the other,
he composed a note for Real, asking him to hold d'Enghien over for
further questioning. This note was written at 5 p.m. on 20 March but not
sent until 10 p.m.; Real was asleep when the courier arrived and did not
open the letter of 'reprieve' until it was too late. It was the scenario
famously described in Richard III:
But he, poor man, by your first order died,
And that a winged Mercury did bear;
Some tardy cripple bore the countermand,
That came too lag to see him buried.Although Napoleon cannot evade the ultimate responsibility for an act
of piracy and murder, he was singularly ill-served on this occasion by all
his henchmen. He later claimed that even as he hesitated, Murat lost his
head and spent the day panicking over imminent Bourbon counter
revolution. And, despite his later denials, Talleyrand was deeply involved
in the assassination - for that is the only appropriate word. It was on his
advice that the snatch squad was dispatched. Most of all, the evil genius
of Fouche can be detected: Fouche's aim was to show the First Consul
that his police force was indispensable and needed to be granted new
powers and new funds; in a new Terror he would be the effective
Robespierre. Savary, too, colluded to rush through the execution and
overruled a twenty-four-hour delay in executing sentence asked for by
the President of the Military Tribunal, General Kulin.
Napoleon's critics accuse him of playing up the d'Enghien affair so as
to ascend the imperial throne more easily. Tolstoy even alleged in War
and Peace that there was a pathological element in Napoleon's treatment
of d'Enghien. Tolstoy's story was that the First Consul and d'Enghien at