journies that it was found to be a deplorable mistake: but it . was TOO LATE the Duke was no more.'

Now unfortunately alike for Savary's character for veracity and his master's for humanity, this pretence (weak and inefficient even if it were true) can be proved to be utterly false. Savary says, that the person mistaken for the Duke d'Enghien turned out eventually to be Pichegru; but M. Maquart shows (p. 12.) from the voluminous documents of the trial of Georges, &c. that the spies who reported the visits of the pretended unknown had, on the 12th February, (a month before the seizure of the Duke,) deposed that the visitor was Pichegru. Again; the same fact is proved on the 21st February, twenty-three days before the seizure, and again, on the 12th March, nine days before the Prince was murdered. It was therefore not too late to save the Prince; for the mistake, if it ever for a moment existed, (which we doubt, because no two men could be more unlike than the Duke and Pichegru,) the mistake, we say, if it ever existed, was cleared away at least a month before the seizure. That violence, therefore, has not even the paltry and insufficient excuse which M. Savary has falsely alleged for it.

But though. Savary: thus rests the whole case on the mistake, Buonaparte himself took the more plausible, but quite different ground of the duke's having endeavoured to procure his assassination; which, if it were true, would, it must be owned, be the best apology for his conduct; but we can show, beyond all doubt, that this pretence is as false as the other.

Buonaparte's repeated attempts at a justification are to be found in the publications of Warden, O'Meara and Las Cases. They all, like Savary, endeavour, by the introduction of M. de Talleyrand's name, to implicate him in the affair, as if implicating him would clear Buonaparte; but they do not, as we have already seen, agree as to the mode in which Talleyrand was supposed to have conduced to the object; and, what is more important to our present point, they differ essentially in their statements of Buonaparte's excuses. Warden (who wrote under the dictation of Las Cases) states that Buonaparte told him,

' that it was Talleyrand's principle, and one from which he never deviated, that the new dynasty could not be secure while the Bourbons remained. This was a fixed unchangeable article of his political creed; but I (Buonaparte) did not become a ready or willing convert. Į examined the opinion with care and caution, and the result was a perfect conviction of its necessity.'-Warden's Letters, p. 149.

Now here is no mention of journeys to Paris-no assassination plot no interviews with Georges-no mistake-no ambiguity;

but

but a clear statement that, on the most careful examination, he— Buonaparte himself—had arrived at the conviction that in order to establish his dynasty he must exterminate the Bourbons. We do not deny that such may have been Buonaparte's own conviction; but we must doubt that M. de Talleyrand could have ventured to suggest this argument, because it would have been tantamount to declaring that the new dynasty never could be esta→ blished; for there was no more chance of exterminating the Bourbons than there was of exterminating any other royal house of Europe and besides, beginning the work by the Duke d'Enghien did not much advance the security of the usurper, for this prince was the most remote from the crown of all the House of Bourbon. But moreover, if the necessity of exterminating the Bourbons were a fixed unchangeable article of his political creed, how are we to account for M. de Talleyrand's conduct in the affair of Spain, when he was dismissed and disgraced because he remonstrated against Buonaparte's treachery and violence to the Spanish princes of the House of Bourbon, every one of whom was nearer to the crown of France than the Duke d'Enghien?

Warden's defence of Buonaparte was so completely refuted in this Review, that his prompter, Las Cases, had recourse to the expedient of what he ingenuously called an Answer to Warden," in which he endeavoured to patch up the inconsistencies and to colour over the falsehoods which we had detected in Warden. this Answer a broader ground of defence is taken.

66

66

In

"The affair (the AFFAIR!) of the Duc d'Enghien," says Napoleon, ought to be judged by the law of nature and policy." By the law of nature," he maintains "that he was not only authorised to cause him to be tried, but even to procure his being put to death. What," said he, can be alleged in favour of the princes of a house, who were PUBLICLY CONVICTED of being the contrivers of the infernal machine,and who had actually disgorged sixty brigands upon Paris, for the purpose of causing me to be assassinated? Was not I, by the laws of nature, authorised to cause the Count d'Artois to be assassinated, in London? By the law of policy, the whole republic tottered upon the brink of a precipice, and the Duc d'Enghien was one of the chiefs who conspired its fall; and besides, it was necessary to check the audacity of the Bourbons, who had sent to Paris sixty of their adherents, amongst whom were the Rivières, the Polignacs, Bouvets and others; people of no ordinary stamp, and not brigands or murderers accustomed to assassinations and robberies like the Chouans. The republican government could not, consistent with its dignity, do less, when the assassination of its chief was publicly plotted than cause its thunder to strike the family which dared to engage in such attempt." ―pp. 144, 145.

Here

Here then we have Buonaparte in 1816-not alleging any journies to Paris-not deploring any mistake-not even pretending that he had been deceived-not humanely ejaculating against the wretched Talleyrand-not even alleging that the Duke was personally engaged in the assassination plot; but-like a gay boldfaced villain'-justifying not only the individual murder, but taking merit for not having assassinated the whole family.

If the Count d'Artois had been publicly convicted of what Buonaparte charges, it would have been no excuse for murdering the Duke d'Enghien, against whom no personal share in the assassination plot is even alleged; but what will our readers say when they are reminded that at the trial of Georges and his associates, which was the only event to which Buonaparte could refer as a public conviction, no such fact was proved against any of the French princes! and that, moreover, this public conviction did not take place till two months after the murder of the Duke d'Enghien!

In Las Cases' late publication, however, (after a good deal of shuffling,) Buonaparte is made to rest his defence upon the Prince's actual and personal participation in the pretended plot for assassinating him.

"If I had not had in my favour the laws of the country to punish the culprit," he would say to them, “ I should still have had the right of the law of nature, of legitimate self-defence. The Duke and his party had constantly but one object in view, that of taking away my life: I was assailed on all sides, and at every instant; air guns, infernal machines, plots, ambuscades of every kind, were resorted to for that purpose. At last I grew weary, and took an opportunity of striking them with terror in their turn in London: I succeeded, and from that moment there was an end to all conspiracies. Who can blame me for having acted so? What! blows threatening my existence are aimed at me day after day, from a distance of one hundred and fifty leagues ; no power on earth, no tribunal can afford me redress; and I shall not be allowed to use the right of nature, and return war for war! What man, unbiassed by party feeling, possessing the smallest share of judgment and justice, can take upon himself to condemn me? on what side will he not throw blame, odium, and criminal accusations? Blood for blood's such is the natural, inevitable, and infallible law of retaliation : woe to him who provokes it!"'

We must here pause a moment to observe on the repeated references which Buonaparte makes to the law of nature. Such a mode of defence is sufficiently surprising, but it is not quite original; the massacres of September, 1792, had been already defended on the same ground. We find in a laboured apology for these atrocities, (published by Robert Lendet, a jacobin deputy,) the fol

lowing phrase: "This terrible movement of the people seemed necessary for the safety of the country, and the result (the massacre of the prisoners) was only the impartial application of the principles of the law of nature!'-Exposé des Motifs, &c.

Buonaparte, however, having adopted this doctrine from the Septembrizers, is himself startled at its enormity; and he endeavours to palliate his conduct by a recurrence to the old falsc hood about the suppressed letter.

Undoubtedly if I had been informed in time of certain circumstances respecting the opinions of this prince, and his disposition; and if, above all, I had seen the letter which he wrote to me, and which, GoD KNOWS for what reason, was only delivered to me after his death; I should certainly have forgiven him.'-part vii. pp. 269, 270. 274.

O'Meara gives substantially the same false charge of assassination, the same false exposition of the law of nature, the same false circumstance of a supplicatory letter, and the same false and hypocritical pretence to clemency.

It was discovered,' continued Napoleon, by the confession of some of the conspirators, that the Duke d'Enghien was an accomplice, and that he was only waiting on the frontiers of France for the news of my assassination, upon receiving which he was to have entered France as the king's lieutenant. Was I to suffer that the Count d'Artois should send a parcel of miscreants to murder me, and that a prince of his house should hover on the borders of the country that I governed, to profit by my assassination? According to the laws of nature, I was authorized to cause him to be assassinated in retaliation for the numerous attempts of the kind that he had before, caused to be made against me. I gave orders to have him seized. He was tried and condemned by a law made long before I had any power in France. He was tried by a military commission formed of all the colonels of the regiments then in garrison at Paris.'-vol. i. pp.4 .453, 454.

The Duke d'Enghien, who was engaged upon the frontiers of my territories in a plot to assassinate me, I caused to be seized and given up to JUSTICE, which condemned him. HE HAD A FAIR TRIAL.'-(We shall see that presently!)—p. 468.

I (O'Meara) asked Napoleon again, as I was anxious to put matter beyond doubt, whether, if Talleyrand had delivered the Duke d'Enghien's letter in time, he would have pardoned him? He replied, it is probable I might; for in it he made an offer of his services; besides, he was the best of the family. It is true that I, as well as the nation, was very desirous of making an example of one of that family; that was against him; but still I think I should have pardoned him.'-vol. ii. p. 58.

Our readers will not fail to observe that the probable pardon of O'Meara has become, under the more veracious pen of M. Las

Cases,

Cases, an absolute certainty; but that both the probability and the certainty were conditional on a supposed event which never existed.

All this tissue of absurd falsehood, however, is at once destroyed by a paragraph of General Hulin's pamphlet.

I am bound to say that the prisoner presented himself before us (Hulin was president of this mock court) with a noble assurance; he repelled with great force the charge of having conspired directly or indirectly in any plot for assassinating the first consul-but he owned that he had borne arms against France, insisting, with a degree of courage and pride, (which even for his own sake we could not repress,) that he had maintained the rights of his family; that a Condé never could enter France, but with his arms in his hand. My birth, my feelings, my opinions,” he added, "render me the eternal enemy of your government?

Will any of Buonaparte's bribed apologists dare after this to accuse the Duke d'Enghien of having asked to serve under the usurper?

We now proceed to examine the mockery, which (to avoid circumlocution) we will call the trial.

M. Dupin, a very eminent French lawyer, known to this country as the defender of Sir Robert Wilson, and in France as a man of liberal and constitutional principles, whose opinion therefore will not be liable to the imputation, as it is by some persons considered, of ultra-loyalty, M. Dupin, we say, proves by legal authorities, what was already clear to common sense, that even if the charge was as true as it was false, a court-martial was not the tribunal to try it—that a packed court-martial was not a fit tribunal to try any thing-that a trial in the middle of the night was as illegal as it was atrocious; that the immediate execution was contrary not only to the general law, but even to the military code under which the court sat; and that, in one word, the whole proceeding was a foul conspiracy, and the result a black assassination. This M. Dupin shows, even if the charge had been proved; but he shows, not from reasoning, but from the production of the actual documents, that there was not only not a tittle of evidence to support the charges, but that what was produced as evidence actually contradicted them.

The indignation which the following details, extracted from the proceedings of the court, must excite, will prevent their appearing tedious.

. The first document is the order for the trial-the bill, as it were, of indictment-and a most curious and important paper it

is.

'Paris,