in the Strasbourg area; and being one of the ringleaders in a plot against
the life of the First Consul.
D'Enghien did not deny his hostility to the current regime in France:
like all exiled nobles, he had joined an anti-revolutionary 'crusade' and
could scarcely have respected himself if he had not done so. But he did
deny taking part in a plot and said that he had never even met Pichegru;
he ended by requesting a personal interview with Napoleon, which was
denied. After a very brief hearing the military tribunal condemned him to
death. Again it is worth stressing that the tribunal had no juridical
credentials. It was an ad hoc body which was not bound by any rules; the
accused was not told the exact nature of the charges beyond the
generalities in the counts of the indictment; no witnesses were called, no
defence was allowed, and there was no possibility of appeal or judicial
review, as guaranteed by a 1798 law. At 3 a.m. on the morning of 21
March, d'Enghien was taken out into the courtyard of the Chateau de
Vincennes and executed by firing squad.
Two months later the other conspirators were disposed of. Their trial
began on 25 May but almost immediately Pichegru was found to have
'hanged himself in his cell. On 25 June twelve Chouans were executed as
ringleaders in the plot. All aristocratic conspirators were pardoned and
Moreau exiled. It hardly needs to be added that Bernadotte had been in
on the whole project and was once again pardoned for Desiree's sake. The
plot, which definitely existed, had been a shambles from the very
beginning. The plotters were poor at planning and had not taken public
opinion into account; in fact at this juncture there was no significant
discontent against the regime, as both unemployment and the price of
bread were low. Moreau ineptly played into Napoleon's hands. His
banishment left the Army nowhere to go but into Napoleon's pocket.
The execution of the due d'Enghien caused hardly a murmur in
France at the time but, as the Bonaparte women saw clearly, it was an
irremovable stain on Napoleon's escutcheon and has come back to sully
his name ever since. Josephine pleaded with Napoleon for mercy for the
young Bourbon, but he contemptuously dismissed this as a woman's
weakness. Letizia told him bluntly that the execution of d'Enghien would
be ascribed to his Corsican barbarism and blood-lust and that his
reputation would suffer accordingly. The truth of the affair seems to be
that Cadoudal and Pichegru took the prince's name in vain, that,
although a deadly enemy of the regime, he had never been involved in a
plot to assassinate Napoleon.
In the opinion of his enemies and of later critics Napoleon joined the
regicides by this brutal and unnecessary murder of an unimportant
marcin
(Marcin)
#1