“Bonaparte very seldom writes with his own hand. He dictates everything, while walking up and down his study; dictates to a young man of twenty named Méneval, the only one who has the entry to this study and the three other rooms of the private suite. No use approaching Méneval; nothing to hope in that quarter; indeed, no one would dare to try. But the First Consul himself jots down the memoranda that relate to his most important plans. This ... very special map, he locks up with his own hand, and always carries the key about with him. If he leaves his study, Méneval has to put the map away in a cupboard screwed to the floor. Of course the map might be stolen, but it would instantly be missed. Suspicion would at once fall upon Méneval and the underling, who cleans the study and lights the fire, so the underling would have to make a bolt for it.... All the secret memoranda concerning his military operations must be in it, and since the only way of overthrowing his power would be to destroy his plans, the theft of this map would bring everything to naught.”

Who writes the foregoing? A Bourbon spy? Or is it a traitor among the Consul’s intimates?

Neither the one nor the other. The young man of twenty named Méneval writes it; and it is dictated to him by his chief, the First Consul, who is walking up and down the study. Acting on Bonaparte’s orders, the Minister for Justice is sending a provocative agent to Munich, where the man is to get in touch with English agents of the Bourbons. The letter is to be part of the outfit. Many other details are given. We are told more about the royalist menial who cleans the study and lights the fire; what this fellow will get if he brings off the coup successfully; where he will spend the night during his escape. The commander is drafting the plan of a little campaign directed against himself.

He has good reason to be on his guard. Uneasy winter weeks are these, during which he collates the data sent in by a hundred spies in London, Vendée, and Paris itself. “Has the time come to strike?” his agents are continually asking. “Wait,” he replies, and quietly goes on gathering information. At length he has all the proofs in his hands. His deadly enemies of the extreme right and the extreme left, the royalists and the Jacobins, have joined forces for the destruction of their great enemy. Pichegru, the friend of the Bourbons, and Moreau, the champion of the republicans who are opposed to the dictatorship, are working together. Both the generals are his rivals. Now is the time to strike.

When the plot became public property, alarm spread across Europe. The legitimate rulers were amazed at Napoleon’s perspicacity, but put their trust in his enemies, whose number must be greater than the “Moniteur” was willing to admit. The English ambassador compromised! The great Moreau in jail!—Bonaparte hesitates a long time before arresting Moreau, having high esteem for the man who had shared his laurels. On the day of the arrest, the Consul sends repeatedly for news. Is his memory at work? Less than four years ago, he himself had a scare that night in Talleyrand’s house when he believed his own arrest to be imminent! The trial is distressing; Moreau’s complicity is clearly proved; but Napoleon thinks it better to pardon the victor of Hohenlinden on condition of withdrawal to the United States. Pichegru is found strangled in prison. Thirteen of the conspirators are executed. A man named Querelle, personally involved in the conspiracy, reveals that one of the Bourbon princes has been privy to the plot.

The Consul lends an eager ear. A Bourbon prince! Talleyrand draws attention to the fact that for a long time the duke of Enghien has been living close to the Rhine frontier—presumably in order to watch through a telescope what is going on in France. Would a man spend his time thus inertly in Baden, simply in order to make love to a cardinal’s niece? The duke of Enghien is a scion of the house of Condé; he is a Bourbon, and is in English pay. Most likely he is the Bourbon prince incriminated in the affair. At any rate, he is in touch with the agents who swarm in South Germany. An example must be made of this suspect of the blood royal. That will put an end to the reiterated attempts on the part of the exiled Bourbons to disturb the peace of France and to trouble the sleep of its master!

In a lengthy despatch, the Consul orders an attack on the little Badenese town of Ettenheim, just across the Rhine. The number of boats and the soldiers’ rations are prescribed with as much care as if the expedition were the siege of Mantua. Three hundred dragoons make a raid into Baden and carry off the duke. Four days later, he is brought in secret to the fortress of Vincennes.

Two of Napoleon’s confidants warn the dictator that no compromising documents have been found among the duke of Enghien’s belongings. But Talleyrand, who has ever an eye to his own future, advises court martial and the severest measures, knowing that the moral reprobation thus aroused will, in the end, prove disastrous to Napoleon. Brother Joseph is alarmed at the same thought. He reminds Napoleon of the veneration they had shared for the great Condé during their cadet days; of the verses they had recited about the hero of the seventeenth century. Was the only remaining descendant of that famous man to be slaughtered?

“I have made up my mind to pardon him,” answers the Consul. “But that is not sufficient. I feel that I am strong enough to have him fighting on my side.”

Joseph returns home, able to reassure Madame de Staël and his other quests.

The duke, who was two years younger than Napoleon, and who would probably have won renown but for the peculiar political circumstances which had brought Napoleon fame and power, was tried by court martial the same evening. With a brave and knightly bearing, he faced the twelve staff officers who formed the court, while a member of the Council of State, acting as prosecutor, asked the questions that had been drafted by Napoleon.

“Did you never have any dealings with English agents?”—“No.”—“Was it not your intention, if Pichegru’s conspiracy had been successful, to cross the Rhine and invade Alsace?”—“No.”—“Have you been in receipt of an English pension?”—“Yes.”—“Did you wish to enter the English service?”—“Yes, in order to free my country.”—“This means that you placed yourself at England’s disposal in order to take up arms against France?”—“How can a Condé return to his homeland except under arms?”

A death sentence follows, and next day at dawn the duke of Enghien is shot.

In one respect the treatment of the duke of Enghien was definitely illegal. The French had no right to kidnap him in foreign territory and to bring him across the frontier. Once he was on French soil, there was legal warrant for condemning him to death as a person who (according to his own admission) desired by force of arms to overthrow the extant form of State. With the primary reservation regarding the French raid into Baden, of course absolutely indefensible, the condemnation was technically just.

Nevertheless, as Talleyrand subsequently said of the affair, it was worse than a crime—it was a blunder. In time of revolution, hundreds are put to death who are more innocent than was this prince. Even though he may not have been privy to the plot, he would have hailed with delight the assassination of the usurper, and would, sword in hand (to quote his own words), have joined in the march on Paris to take vengeance on any of the regicides who remained alive. There would have been very little said about the court martialling and shooting of this young officer, had he not been a Bourbon, had he not been a symbol of that prince-ridden Europe whose system had been ended on French soil by the revolution. The shooting of the duke of Enghien was a challenge to a dozen thrones, and to the many millions of Europeans who believed in rule by divine right. It gave the signal for a rallying of forces against the dictator who had had neither part nor lot in the reign of terror, and who during his seven years as military commander and as statesman had never committed an outrage.

The day after the execution, a few tongue-tied and crestfallen guests were seated at his board. Josephine was doing her best to hide her fears, and Napoleon had been taciturn despite his tumultuous thoughts. Then, suddenly, he broke out: “At any rate, they will know now what we can do. Henceforward, I hope, they will leave us in peace.” After dinner, he walked up and down the room, explaining to the silent listeners his reasons and what he thought of it all. Continuing to pace the room, he went on to speak movingly of genius, of statesmanship, and above all of Frederick the Great, for whom he had so profound an admiration:

“Ought a statesman to indulge in feelings? Is he not an isolated individual, always alone though always in company? Policy is his telescope, which must neither reduce things in size nor magnify them. Even while he is attentively watching the course of events, he must be pulling the strings which move them. Often enough, ill-matched horses are harnessed to his chariot. Do you think he can allow himself to heed some of those feelings which may in other respects be of great importance to the welfare of society?... How often he will have to do things which seem quite out of keeping with the whole!... Try to get outside the limitations of your own epoch, enlarge your imagination instead of being content merely to blame, and you will see that those great personalities you had regarded as violent and cruel, are nothing but statesmen! They know themselves better than others know them; they are the best judges of their own conduct; if they have true ability, they will even know how to control their passions, for they will be competent to calculate the precise effect of these.”

Suddenly breaking off this monologue, which discloses some of the deepest recesses of his soul, he sends for the documents bearing on the conspiracy and has them read over to him.

“You see,” he says, “we have incontrovertible proof that the conspirators wanted to spread disorder in France, and hoped, through killing me, to slay the revolution! It was my business to defend the revolution, to avenge it! The duke was a conspirator just like another, and had to be treated in the same way as the others.... The madmen seek to kill me, though they would gain nothing by it, for a gang of fanatical Jacobins would take my place.... These Bourbons! If they ever do regain power, I will wager that their first concern will be with etiquette. If they were prepared to share in the rough and tumble of the battle-field, with its blood and its grime!... But how can they expect to win back a kingdom with a letter dated from London and signed Louis? All the same, letters like that will incriminate incautious recipients.... I have shed blood; I had to. Perhaps I shall shed more in the future. But always without passion, quite simply, because blood-letting is indicated. I am a statesman: I am the French revolution, and shall know how to protect it!” Abruptly he dismisses his guests.

Such is his mood; such are his motives, his views, the undercurrents of his feelings. But his notable inferences are not yet disclosed.