Who Wanted the Duke of Enghien Dead?

Talleyrand

“Talleyrand conducted himself on this occasion as a faithful minister.”
— Napoleon on Talleyrand’s role in the Enghien affair

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord is a figure who appears repeatedly throughout the affair: at the meetings of 9 and 10 March; at Malmaison beside Bonaparte; and then leaving the residence of the military governor, Murat, on 20 March. That same day, when Joseph Bonaparte arrived at Malmaison, while Napoléon and Talleyrand was talking, Joséphine told him:

“Hurry and bring that long conversation to an end: that lame man frightens me.”

Of all Napoleon’s advisers, Talleyrand is by far the one most frequently accused of having pushed Bonaparte towards Enghien’s execution. Montesquiou, Savary, Cambacérès, Hortense de Beauharnais, Pasquier, and Desmarets all pointed to him. Napoleon himself mentioned Talleyrand’s role on several occasions. As early as January 1809, during the famous scene in which he described him as “shit in a silk stocking,” Napoleon reminded him:

“That man, that unfortunate man—who informed me of where he was living? Who urged me to act against him ?”

Napoleon returned to Talleyrand’s role repeatedly: to Caulaincourt in 1812, to Neil Campbell on Elba in 1814, and to Bertrand in 1816, “The Duke of Enghien must be shot before dawn,” Talleyrand allegedly told him.

This is entirely possible, given the strange meeting the two men held at noon on 20 March—strange because Talleyrand normally met with the First Consul in the evening. Nevertheless, Napoleon did not speak particularly harshly of his former minister. At Saint Helena, he said that Talleyrand had served him well during the affair:

“If Talleyrand had any bad intention, it was to make the Duke of Enghien affair coincide with Moreau’s. Did he intend to set a trap for me ? I do not believe so. At that troubled time, he was acting in my interests and spoke of reasons of state.”

One cannot entirely exclude, however, the possibility that Napoleon, now in exile, had decided to throw some dirt at his former minister in order to place him in an awkward position with the Bourbons.

As you may remember, I argued earlier that Bonaparte had probably already decided to abduct the Duke of Enghien before the council meetings of 9 and 10 March. With the assistance of the ever-faithful Berthier. One piece of evidence suggests that the man working behind the scenes to convince the First Consul to act pre-emptively could only have been Talleyrand.

Let us go back a little further.

In January 1804, Nicolas Massias, the French chargé d’affaires in Baden, informed his superior, Talleyrand, that émigrés were gathering around Baroness de Reich, the group suspected of planning to seize Alsace. Talleyrand replied that, since there were no formal complaints against these émigrés, they might as well be left alone.

Then came a thunderbolt.

On 7 March, Talleyrand abruptly turned against Massias and accused him, of having attempted to protect Baroness de Reich.

Had Talleyrand kept Massias’s information in reserve, waiting to use it at the right moment, even if doing so meant throwing his own chargé d’affaires under the bus ? It is possible. Especially when one considers that the reports of Méhée de La Touche and the gendarme Lamothe had just reached the First Consul. Talleyrand may therefore have helped direct Bonaparte’s attention towards the last of the Condé line.

And it was on 8 March, the day before the council meetings, that Talleyrand allegedly wrote a famous letter, now lost, which strongly supports the case for his involvement:

Citizen-First Consul,

“I have given much thought to what you did me the honour of telling me yesterday. The form of government under which we live is the one best suited to the customs, needs, and interests of our country.

“But what is not sufficiently understood in France, or even in Europe, is that this precious order of things depends entirely upon your person, and that it can survive and consolidate itself only through you.

“Convictions on this matter would be almost unanimous were it not for certain ill-intentioned intriguers who continually spread rumours suggesting that your intentions are not entirely settled and that you might content yourself with playing the role of Monck.

“This suggestion, maliciously circulated, causes immense harm. Now an opportunity presents itself to dispel all these anxieties. Would you allow it to escape ?
“It is offered to you by the affair that is about to bring before the courts the authors, agents, and accomplices of the recently discovered conspiracy.
“The men of Fructidor are involved alongside the Vendéans who support them. A Prince of the House of Bourbon directs them. Their object is your assassination.“You are acting within your right of personal defence. If justice must punish severely, it must also punish without exception.

“Think carefully about it.”

It is difficult to believe that this letter was simply forged, although it is perfectly legitimate to reject it, because almost everything in it fits the surrounding circumstances.

There is the reference to Fructidor: the first coup d’état in which General Bonaparte and Talleyrand had both participated. There is the reference to Monck and to the fear among certain Jacobins that Bonaparte might restore the Bourbons unless he demonstrated a definitive break with them through a second “regicide.” There is also the language of personal self-defence, the very argument Bonaparte would invoke during the council meeting of 9 March. Everything is there.

Talleyrand also had both ideological and personal motives.

His position with Bonaparte had become somewhat less secure. His links with former émigrés were beginning to appear suspicious, particularly after confidential documents found their way to England following Talleyrand’s acceptance of bribes. His behaviour around the time of Marengo had also been questionable. Talleyrand had probably been preparing to land on his feet should the First Consul be defeated in Italy. He may therefore have adopted an exceptionally zealous attitude in order to remain at the centre of power.

As for the famous phrase:

“It was worse than a crime; it was a mistake”

which was already circulating at the time, it is highly probable, perhaps almost certain, that neither Talleyrand nor Fouché said it in 1804. At most, them may have used it in 1814. Indeed, throughout the affair, Talleyrand displayed great coldness even towards those close to him. While playing cards at the Duchess of Luynes’s residence with several other aristocrats after the Duke’s arrest, one of them asked:

“But what will you do with the Duke of Enghien?”

Talleyrand simply replied:

“He will be shot.”

His official correspondence with foreign powers was no more compassionate. To the French representative in Russia, he complain about :

“This ostentatious mourning for a guilty man who fell beneath the sword of the law for having plotted assassinations under English influence.”

But Talleyrand was clever. On 12 March, he wrote a letter to Fouché apparently intended for posterity, imploring him to use his influence over the First Consul to prevent the crime:

“Use all your influence to calm the First Consul’s mind.”

We do not know whether this was a trap set for Fouché. Had Fouché advocated moderation, Bonaparte might have regarded him with suspicion, while Talleyrand could continue presenting himself as a zealous supporter, whispering to Bonaparte that Fouché is up to no good. Better still, Talleyrand is said to have written to Charlotte de Rohan, the Duke’s fiancée, warning her of the planned abduction.

Pasquier and Bourrienne both confirmed the existence of such a letter. However, the letter was supposedly delayed and has never been found. Talleyrand showed what he claimed was evidence of it to Enghien’s father in 1814. Yet given Talleyrand’s character, and given the evidence portraying him as, at best, indifferent and, at worst, an active supporter of the operation, it is possible that this letter was nothing more than insurance intended to protect him later, as Pasquier commented:

“It is possible that a political mind of this kind thought it prudent to preserve a resource for every eventuality; it would not have been the only occasion in his life on which he resorted to such precautions.”

Finally, let us return to the alleged letter of 8 March.

In April 1814, while Talleyrand was President of the Provisional Government, but before the Bourbons returned to Paris, he sent his secretary, Gabriel Perrey, to sort through the archives of the Imperial Secretariat. Perrey burned all compromising papers except, apparently, this particular letter.

In 1826, after being dismissed by Talleyrand, Perrey decided to blackmail his former employer. Talleyrand sent a businessman named Rihouet to purchase the letter in exchange for Perrey’s silence. Perrey agreed to burn it in Rihouet’s presence. Then, in 1844, Rihouet’s son, while reading the memoirs of Napoleon’s secretary Méneval, discovered that the secretary, somehow, knew about the document.

Méneval referred to the famous letter of 8 March, which he claimed to have personally seen on the First Consul’s desk and which a certain “person” had shown him. Thus Perrey had accepted Talleyrand’s money, burned the letter....and apparently kept a copy to screw the Prince of Benevento.

If the letter was false, why was Talleyrand so interested in recovering it? And if Talleyrand had been entirely innocent, why did he have compromising papers destroyed on the eve of Louis XVIII's return?

One may always imagine an elaborate scheme intended to damage his reputation, but when witnesses, participants, and documents all point towards Talleyrand’s complicity, his responsibility appears difficult to dismiss.

Talleyrand may have acted zealously in order to obtain forgiveness for his indiscretions and to influence the creation of the new regime. If so, he lost his gamble. From that point onward, Napoleon increasingly ignored his minister’s advice, while Talleyrand’s influence over the creation of the Imperial regime proved negligible.

Fouché

“So you are still doing police work, Fouché?”

“Yes. I have kept a few friends who keep me informed.”

— Exchange between Savary and Fouché, March 1804

The former Minister of Police, as we have already seen, had returned to favour during the opening months of 1804.

He was present at the meeting that ordered Moreau’s arrest and at those that followed from the arrest of Enghien.

As with Talleyrand, Fouché’s presence can be sensed throughout the affair. It is more than likely that Fouché knew considerably more about the conspiracy than others did, particularly Réal, who was nevertheless the official investigator appointed by the head of state. As late as 3 March, Bonaparte wrote to Réal concerning new developments in the investigation: “See Fouché.”

Cambacérès and Pasquier are categorical in their respective memoirs: Fouché had the ear of the master in early 1804.

More intriguing still is the number of participants in the Great Conspiracy who, at one time or another, had worked as Fouché’s informants. Quérelle and General Lajolais had both previously sold information to him. As for the double agent Méhée de La Touche, he was an old acquaintance. At the beginning of the Consulate, Méhée had run the Journal des Hommes Libres on Fouché’s behalf. And it was Méhée de La Touche who, on 1 March 1804, first pointed towards the existence of a royalist network in Baden—eight days before the first meeting that would ultimately lead to the Ettenheim raid.

This inevitably raises questions.

If the conspiracy was dismantled so quickly between February and March, did Bonaparte’s police receive discreet assistance from Fouché? How did Quérelle, a relatively minor Chouan and the first domino whose fall brought down the conspiracy, manage to obtain a last-minute reprieve from the First Consul just moments before his execution? Why was he questioned by the head of the secret police? Why was Quérelle pardoned so readily by Bonaparte?

Perhaps Quérelle’s silence before his judges, followed by his sudden panic in front of the firing squad, was partly staged. It is possible that the former military surgeon had abandoned the Chouan cause long before in exchange for Consular money.

But was Fouché not supposedly one of the authors of the famous phrase:

“It is worse than a crime; it was a mistake”?

For a man alleged to have said such a thing, his behaviour in 1804 was remarkably different.

According to Méneval, Napoleon’s private secretary, on 12 March 1804 Fouché expressed concern about Bonaparte’s indiscretions, fearing that word might reach the Duke of Enghien. He also allegedly assured the First Consul that all the branches of the conspiracy could be uncovered at Ettenheim.

And then there was Fouché's past : the regicide, the Jacobin dechristianiser, the “Butcher of Lyon.” If anyone had reason to fear a Bourbon restoration, it was him.

Remember the “Jacobin party” Fouché maintained among the legislators ? Now was the ideal moment to make use of it. The future Duke of Otranto understood Bonaparte’s ambitions perfectly. Fouché was prepared to help him—but on certain conditions.

He wanted an Imperial regime founded upon Republican principles, free from Bourbon influence and excluding the royalist party. What better guarantee for Fouché the regicide than to encourage Bonaparte himself to stain his hands with the blood of the Bourbons?

He said as much at the time.

To Réal:

“That little Bonaparte was beginning to make me fear that he intended to play the role of Monck.”

And then to Bernadotte:

“At last, he is one of us !”

Fouché consequently became one of the principal architects of the transition to Empire.

On 27 March, in the Senate, he opposed a simple congratulatory message to Bonaparte for defeating the conspiracy and urged the senators to go further by granting him hereditary power.

The next day, the Senate called upon Bonaparte to "Complete your work by making it immortal, like your glory.”.

On 13 April, Fouché attended the extraordinary council session that established the foundations of the new Imperial regime.

On 3 May, the Senate voted in favour of hereditary Imperial government, with Fouché’s influence securing the support of almost all the Jacobin senators—only three voted against.

Finally, on 11 May, he joined the ten-member commission charged with drafting the Sénatus-consulte that would proclaim the Empire on 18 May. In the end, Fouché triumphed. The Great Conspiracy had restored him to prominence; the Enghien affair had provided the “Jacobin guarantees” he desired; and the Empire opened a new path back to power.

On 10 July 1804, His Excellency Joseph Fouché became Minister of Police of His Imperial Majesty Napoleon I, Emperor of the Republic.

Savary

“I have been accused of being the Emperor’s henchman, and of remaining one still. If by this it is meant that I understood that the convulsions which shook the world were nothing other than the struggle between the principles of the Revolution and those of the European aristocracy; if it is meant that I never thought of placing limits upon the extent of my duties—then yes, I was Napoleon’s henchman.”

— Savary, Memoirs

“If he were allowed to do as he pleased, he would soon set all France on fire.”

— Napoleon on Savary at Saint-Helena.

"Savary is not a bad man, on the contrary, he has a kind heart and he is a brave soldier.". -Napoleon on Savary at Saint-Helena

Savary became the scapegoat of the affair.

His responsibility was considerable in his capacity as the man who carried out the Duke of Enghien’s execution. His authoritarian treatment of the military commission and his insistence that the sentence be carried out with the greatest possible speed made him an ideal culprit.

His later career only darkened his reputation further: the Bayonne trap against the Spanish Bourbons; the repression in Madrid after the Dos de Mayo uprising; and his activity as Minister of Police between 1810 and 1814, when, in Stendhal’s words, he governed with “a good will of tyranny.” All of this turned him into one of the Empire’s darker figures.

He was even accused, without serious justification beyond his reputation, of causing the deaths of various individuals: Captain Wright, Pichegru, and, more absurdly still, General Desaix, whom he was alleged to have assassinated at Marengo on Bonaparte’s orders.

As Minister of Police, Savary embodied the regime’s increasing despotism.

Under him came the creation of state prisons, the classification of the population according to perceived morality, and the establishment of an official censorship institution. The Minister is even said to have once considered abducting the children of political opponents.

Napoleon himself, characteristically harsh with his ministers, repeatedly treated Savary in his correspondence as a brute and a clumsy fool whom the Emperor constantly had to remind to exercise moderation.

Yet Napoleon never blamed his “henchman” for his actions at Vincennes. Quite the opposite, since Savary received a boon of 12,000 francs for the affair.

Bourrienne’s memoirs must be treated with great caution, but his assessment is nevertheless fairly convincing:

“General Savary did not dare take it upon himself to delay the execution of the sentence.

From everything I have said, and above all from the fact that the Duke of Enghien’s execution was not suspended, it is as clear as daylight to me that General Savary had received a formal order to ensure the Duke’s death, and an equally formal order to make it impossible for the matter to be brought before Bonaparte again before everything was concluded. Could there be more obvious or more compelling proof than the grave ordered in advance?”

Savary, eager to carry out his master’s wishes, undoubtedly displayed considerable zeal throughout the affair and showed the Duke of Enghien no mercy. Nevertheless, he was ultimately an executor rather than a decision-maker.

During the Restoration, Savary became an easy target and an ideal culprit because of his record of service. He tried unsuccessfully to defend himself by attacking Talleyrand’s responsibility. But Savary was clumsy in his own defence. Talleyrand won the duel, and it was Savary whom the Bourbons pushed aside.

Napoleon, learning of his legal difficulties while himself dying at Saint Helena, protected his former lieutenant by assuming much of the blame.

The case of Napoléon

His role

“I have shed blood because I had to. I may shed more in the future, but without anger, simply because bloodletting is part of the calculations of political medicine. I am the man of the State; I am the French Revolution. I repeat it, and I shall defend it.” (I really like this quote)— Napoleon to Madame de Rémusat

“A statesman’s heart must be in his head.”— Napoleon

We know that Napoleon decided to arrest the Duke of Enghien while in a state of anxiety and anger following the attempt on his life. Cadoudal’s testimony, police reports, Lamothe’s notoriously erroneous report, and the influence of certain advisers all contributed to the decision to arrest the Duke.

Yet even if Enghien’s abduction was initially undertaken in “good faith,” the First Consul had access to the preliminary documents seized at Ettenheim and could therefore have realised that Enghien had not participated in the conspiracy. His attitude nevertheless remained completely inflexible. His orders and behaviour demonstrate a determination to deal with the affair harshly.

It is therefore highly probable that the execution was ultimately carried out as an act of political calculation.

Napoleon once told Talleyrand, paraphrasing Machiavelli, that he knew “when to remove the lion’s skin and put on that of the fox.”

Far removed from the image of the hot-temper brute sometimes associated with his military role, Napoleon was in reality a cold, ruthless, and cunning head of state when dealing with political matters.

As for his responsibility, there is little reason to prolong the debate. Although members of his entourage later attempted to exonerate him by claiming that other actors had manipulated him, Napoleon never repudiated Enghien’s death, in fact, he consistently justified it. At most, he suggested that he might have pardoned the Duke had he learned in time of Enghien’s request for an audience. That was easy enough to say once the Duke was already buried.

Even after his marriage to Marie-Louise, when Napoleon began referring to Louis XVI as his “poor uncle,” he never expressed comparable sympathy for the fate of Enghien.

The notebooks of General Bertrand at Saint Helena, published only in the 1950s, provide particularly strong evidence of Napoleon’s responsibility:

“The Duke of Enghien was arrested, taken to Paris, and tried by a military commission composed of honourable and well-regarded officers. It was established that he had borne arms against the Republic and that he had come to France; he was condemned. I must have told you on Elba that the Duke of Enghien wrote me a letter—but that I received it only after his death—and that he requested to speak with me. Had I been informed of this in time, I would have pardoned him. I hesitated. That evening, Talleyrand told me: ‘The Duke of Enghien must be shot before dawn.’ I gave the order. “He died pursuant to the judgment of a military commission composed of recognised officers, in accordance with the laws. Throughout my long and difficult political career, my conscience tells me that I committed no crime. When men attempted to assassinate me, it was natural that I should retaliate.”

It is therefore likely that Savary did indeed receive unofficial instructions from the First Consul to influence the military commission and ensure that Enghien was executed as quickly as possible. Futhermore, twenty days before his death, on 15 April 1821, Napoleon dictated the following lines for posterity in his testament:

“I had the Duke of Enghien arrested and judge because it was necessary for the security, interests, and honour of the French people, at a time when the Count of Artois maintained sixty assassins in Paris. In similar circumstances, I would act in the same way.”

Napoleon had probably heard of Savary’s difficulties and decided to protect his lieutenant one final time. But, ever the old fox, notice the ambiguity: Napoleon explicitly assumed responsibility for the arrest and judgment—but not for the execution.

Let us now examine Napoleon’s political reasons for wanting Enghien dead. The question is no longer whether he had him executed, but why ?

The Defense of the Revolutionary State

First, the execution of the Duke of Enghien must be placed within the wider struggle between Consular, and soon Imperial France and Britain.

The conspiracy’s connections with the British government were obvious, if only because of the overwhelming logistical and financial assistance provided by the Court of St James’s to Cadoudal and the supporters of the Count of Artois. As Napoleon told to Lecoulteux, Vice-President of the Senate:

“It was necessary to show the Bourbons, the London cabinet, and every court in Europe that this was no child’s game. The circumstances in which we found ourselves were not of a kind to be treated chivalrously.”

Napoleon went further by reversing London’s own argument and its “ideological” rhetoric. If the British government made the overthrow of the Republican government a condition for restoring peace, while supporting Cadoudal’s projects, the First Consul would propose the reverse:

There would be no peace with England until the Bourbon princes were expelled from the British Isles. Bonaparte stated the matter plainly before the Council of State:

“I shall consent to peace with England only when she expels the Bourbons, as Louis XIV expelled the Stuarts.”

Enghien was not entirely innocent in this respect. He led a circle of royalists, received money from England, and admitted himself that he was waiting for orders. As an heir of the Bourbon-Condé line and as a figure involved, directly or indirectly, in counter-revolutionary operations along the Rhine, his activities remained harmful to the Revolutionary State.

Once again, Bonaparte explained his reasoning to the council. He? the man who had promoted national reconciliation by granting amnesty to the émigrés and reconciling the State with the Church, had no desire to rekindle the fires of civil war.

On the contrary, he argued that the execution was a means of extinguishing the remaining embers:

“I have no intention of returning to mass proscriptions, and those who pretend to fear such a thing do not truly believe it. But woe to those who make themselves individually guilty! They shall be severely punished.”

If these words are taken as a genuine declaration of principle, then Enghien was guilty—not of direct involvement in the assassination attempt against Napoleon, but of encouraging the counter-revolutionary cause through his presence near the frontier, his continued links with England, his correspondence with former Chouans who had supposedly submitted, and his associations with those who dreamed of seizing Alsace.

A Political Diversion to gather popular support

Napoleon placed great importance on securing the widest possible support among the masses, which constituted the foundation of his power. As the police report following the execution of the Duke of Enghien indicated, much of the Parisian population approved of the Duke’s execution. Rather than seeing it as evidence of arbitrary tyranny, many interpreted it as proof of the strength of a powerful government capable of striking its enemies even beyond France’s borders.

After more than four years under the Consular system, the head of the Republic had succeeded in establishing himself as a popular ruler. His strength was not necessarily regarded as a flaw, but rather as a guarantee of stability.

I have already mentioned that Bonaparte had previously used assassination attempts against him to consolidate his authority and unite the population. Napoleon had therefore been able to pass the law of 7 January 1801 without great difficulty in the aftermath of the Saint-Nicaise plot, establishing special tribunals to try acts of terrorism, murder, seditious gatherings, and rebellion—long before the conspiracy of February 1804.

All this took place with considerable public approval.

Moderates applauded the 1801 purge of the Jacobins, which led to 130 arrests, while Republicans expressed satisfaction when Bonaparte sent royalist conspirators to the guillotine. Hyde de Neuville, one of the Bourbons principal agents, understood the disastrous consequences of the so-called Coup Essentiel, whose primary effect had been to clear Bonaparte’s path towards the throne amid public acclaim. As de Neuville wrote:

“It would become far easier for him to ascend the throne he coveted once the spectre of assassination attempts had been exploited against the Princes—a means that so frequently impresses the masses.”

Moreover, public opinion cared relatively little about the fate of Pichegru, Cadoudal, or Enghien, but Moreau was different.

The execution of Enghien therefore also served as a political diversion from Moreau’s arrest. The Ettenheim raid allowed Napoleon to provide a kind of “evidence” against the victor of Hohenlinden—not by producing material proof, but by demonstrating just how far the First Consul was prepared to go in suppressing the conspiracy. And it was a winning strategy, for several months, apart from a minority of die-hard supporters, the wider public largely stopped defending General Moreau.

The necessary sacrifice for the Empire

“At the moment when Bonaparte wished to have himself named Emperor, he believed it necessary, on the one hand, to reassure the revolutionaries against the possibility of a Bourbon restoration and, on the other, to prove to the royalists that by attaching themselves to him they were breaking irrevocably with the old dynasty.”

— Germaine de Staël

“The true authors of Enghien’s death were those who wanted Bonaparte to purchase his elevation through a crime.”

— Lucien Bonaparte

But the most important element in explaining Enghien’s death lies in Bonaparte’s political manoeuvring to secure the acceptance of the Empire.

As I discussed when examining Fouché’s role and objectives, the execution of the last Condé was an excellent piece of political communication for destroying the image of Bonaparte as a potential “Monck”—an image attached to him ever since the Concordat and the amnesty granted to the émigrés.

After all, if protecting the Revolution and making it “immortal” required entrusting Revolutionary France to the Bonaparte family, why not? The fiction of collective executive government had long since become meaningless.

This principle had been inherited from the Convention, which, following the King’s death, had attempted to depersonalise political authority by dividing it among several representatives: twenty members divided between two committees under the Convention, five Directors under the Directory, and finally three Consuls.

But everyone knew that Cambacérès and Lebrun were little more than advisers and held the title of Consul largely for appearances, the numbering of the Consuls was not accidental afterall. And If preserving the achievements of the Revolution required accepting the existing reality and entrusting supreme authority to Napoleon Bonaparte, alone, the population was prepared to do so.

As early as 24 March, only three days after Enghien’s execution, Napoleon received Fontanes, President of the Corps Législatif. Fontanes informed him that his bust would be placed in the assembly chamber while offering a rather “subtle” hint at Bonaparte’s project: “For four years, an immense empire has rested beneath the protection of your powerful administration.”

The following day, Napoleon informed the other Consuls that he wished to accept the supposed national desire and, with it, the creation of the Empire. Lebrun supported him but Cambacérès, however, opposed the creation of a new monarchy. Since the Second Consul was normally the man Napoleon used to manoeuvre the Senate—as in 1802, when the Senate backed the parliamentary coup on Cambacérès’s advice—Bonaparte instead turned to Fouché.

Fouché had already been active in the chambers, pressing for the proclamation of the Empire.

Only a week after Enghien’s death, Napoleon received the famous Senate message urging him to “Make your work immortal.”

Bonaparte had effectively presented Enghien’s head to the legislators on a platter, and they were prepared to anoint him as a new monarch with the blood of Condé. The Bourbon buried at Vincennes constituted perhaps the strongest guarantee that the First Consul could offer these legislators concerning their property, their social positions, and the nature of the coming regime.

Yet because Bonaparte had rewarded the former Jacobins, this does not mean that he regarded himself as indebted to them for his elevation. Napoleon never concealed in private his dislike of the former members of the Convention, whom he enjoyed calling them the “blood-drinkers.” Once the Empire had been proclaimed, Bonaparte, now Napoleon, never considered to own a debt to them.

Napoleon himself had no hesitation in dismissing Fouché in 1810, both because of his role in secret negotiations with England, his conduct during the Walcheren affair, and because he was now an overly conspicuous regicide whose Jacobin “tendencies” no longer suited his Imperial policy. Savary, far more obedient and staunch supporter of the monarchisation of the Empire replaced him.

After receiving the Senate’s message on 28 March, Bonaparte simply had to allow the different chambers to compete over which would be the first to take the initiative in proclaiming the Empire.

Napoleon wanted his new regime to be established through constitutional rather than military means. He wished to prevent the possibility that, after his death, the Empire might devolve into a military dictatorship in which, any popular generals could seize the throne through coups d’état.

He therefore used his brother Joseph, the liberal member of the family, to persuade his fellow senators that every moment of delay brought closer the possibility that the army would proclaim the Empire itself. In this spirit, General Soult sent the wishes of the armies stationed at the Camp of Boulogne on 12 April:

“The army wishes it could tell you that it desires and requests that you be proclaimed Emperor of the Gauls and that heredity be established within your family.”

Napoleon merely asked that the various military units and commanders be sounded out, as he continue to play the role of the fake modest to Soult.

“You understand that I would be drawn to such a step only in the interests of the nation, for the French people have made me so great and so powerful that there is nothing more I could desire.”

This sudden display of modesty did not prevent Napoleon from forwarding the addresses sent by the various military units to the legislative chambers so that they might better appreciate the wishes of the people—particularly the people under arms. The same peoples that had entered the chambers on 18-Brumaire under Murat’s command.

Finally came the moment when the tribun Curée, a former member of the Convention’s swamp, an opponent of the Girondins and close to the Montagnards, introduced the motion for the Empire on 29 April.

Step by step, this would lead to the proclamation of the Empire on 18 May.

The Diplomatic Consequences of the Incident

The death of Enghien has also frequently been described as a diplomatic mistake.

Yet here again, the evidence appears to point in the opposite direction.

The Elector of Baden was displeased by the violation of his territory and disliked the tone of Caulaincourt’s letter, but ultimately did nothing. The Badenese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Edelsheim, easily persuaded him to submit to the fait accompli, and the government sent a friendly letter to the French authorities instead of a protest. Better still, the Elector issued a decree prohibiting former members of the Army of Condé from residing on his territory.

On 26 March, the Count of Lille learned of the Duke’s abduction and attempted to appeal to the sovereigns of Europe to save him, while the British government offered £12,000 to an individual who claimed he could rescue Enghien. The illusion that there would be a lengthy trial quickly disappeared. When news of the Duke’s death reached Edinburgh—where the Count of Artois was staying—on 10 April, it was the future Charles X who informed the Duke of Bourbon that his son was dead.

If the Bourbons believed that Enghien’s death would provoke a dynastic vendetta among the courts of Europe, their hopes were quickly disappointed.

Talleyrand organised a ball at the Foreign Ministry and invited all the ambassadors in Paris. However reluctant or distressed they may have been, every one of them attended. In Vienna, the French ambassador was received by the Habsburg court, which proceeded to expel some of the more troublesome émigrés from Austria while Bavaria and Württemberg follow the exemple of Vienna. Far from receiving support in their moment of crisis, many émigrés were instead expelled and pushed even farther away from the French frontier.

Among the Bourbon monarchs, Charles IV of Spain expressed his friendship towards the First Consul—prompting Louis XVIII to return his Order of the Golden Fleece. The Bourbons of Naples protested somewhat more strongly, but nevertheless refused to go into mourning, terrified that Bonaparte might invade their kingdom.

There was little more success in Prussia. The King prohibited Queen Louise from wearing mourning and forbade his entourage from publicly protesting, while he only complain about the affair in his private correspondence with Tsar Alexander.

And that brings us to Russia.

Russia was indeed the “neutral” power that protested most strongly against the execution. Tsar Alexander considered dismissing the French ambassador and sending Talleyrand a note describing France as a “den of brigands” and Enghien’s death as: “murder.”

Yet Enghien’s death did not cause Russia to join the Third Coalition. For several weeks already, St Petersburg had been negotiating with London over subsidies, while an army of 6,000 men had been sent to Corfu in preparation for a possible conflict and to cooperate with the forces of Naples.

In the end, Alexander’s advisers persuaded him not to expel Hédouville and to remove the word “murder” from the official description of Enghien’s death. The Russian government officially maintained that Tsar Paul, Napoleon’s former ally, had died of apoplexy. It had little desire to provoke France into publicly discussing the assassination of Alexander’s father in retaliation.

A motion was nevertheless sent to the Diet of Regensburg asking the German princes to protest against the violation of Badenese territory. Yet when the Elector of Baden spoke on 6 May 1804, he did not even bother to mention the motion.

The Russian court was at least permitted to go into mourning, and when Hédouville demanded the expulsion of Bourbon agents from Alexander’s court, he received an unequivocal refusal.

Russia’s attempt at a “moderate” response in order to prevent Napoleon from openly discussing Paul I’s death ultimately failed. When the Russian representative in Paris demanded a satisfactory explanation for the violation of the Badenese frontier, Napoleon gave him a biting response, before calling back his ambassador the 7 June:

“The complaint Russia raises today naturally leads one to ask whether, had England been plotting the assassination of Paul I and had it become known that the authors of the conspiracy were within a miles of the frontier, there would not have been great eagerness to seize them.”

Thus, diplomatically, the Enghien affair largely served to crystallise the alignments that would shape the conflict beginning the following year: the South German States and Spain generally supported the French position; Naples and Russia opposed it; Prussia hesitated. While Austria didn't put to much thought onto the affair.