Cormier’s departure did not for a single moment interrupt the fiery activity of Baron d’Auerweck, nor his co-operation in the most audacious enterprises of the agents of Princes and of the Princes themselves. He lost, it is true, a mentor whose advice was always worthy of attention, and who had guided him up to the present time with a certain amount of success; but the ingenious fellow was by no means at the end of his resources. The life which he had led for the past five years was one which exactly suited him. A practically never-ending list might be drawn up of acquaintances made in the course of his continual comings and goings, of encounters in this army of emissaries serving the counter-Revolution, and of particularly prosperous seasons. Besides the d’Antraigues, the Fauche-Borels, and the Dutheils, there was a regular army of subordinates, bustling about Europe as though it were a vast anthill.
Amongst them d’Auerweck could not fail to be prominent, and he was soon marked as a clever and resourceful agent. His sojourn in Hamburg also continued to arouse curiosity and observation on the part of the representatives of the Directoire. They recognized now that he was employed and paid by England. “He serves her with an activity worthy of the Republican Government,” Reinhard wrote to Talleyrand; and it was well known that Peltier’s former collaborator, always an energetic journalist, assisted in editing the Spectateur du Nord.
An unlooked-for opportunity to exploit his talent soon offered itself to d’Auerweck.
The Deputies of the ten states, which at that time formed the Empire, had been brought together by the congress which opened at Rastadt on December 9, 1797, and for eighteen months there was an extraordinary amount of visits to and departures from the little town in Baden. The presence of Bonaparte, who had arrived some days before the commencement of the conference in an eight-horse coach, with a magnificent escort, and welcomed throughout his journey as the victor of Arcole, increased the solemnity and scope of the negotiations. All the diplomatists, with their advisers, their secretaries, and their clerks, crowded anxiously round him. Agents from all the European Powers came to pick up greedily any scraps of information, and to try to worm out any secrets that might exist. Rastadt was full to overflowing of spies and plotters, and the name of this quiet, peaceful city, hitherto so undisturbed, was in every one’s mouth.
From Hamburg the “little Baron” followed attentively the first proceedings of the Congress through the medium of the newspapers, but the sedentary life which he was leading began to worry him. In vain he wrote out all day long never-ending political treatises, crammed with learned notes on the European situation, wove the most fantastic systems, and drew up “a plan for the partition of France, which he proposed to a certain M. du Nicolay;” all this was not sufficient for him. D’Auerweck was on friendly terms with the Secretary of the French Legation, Lemaître by name (who, by the way, had no scruples about spying on him some years later, and informed against him without a blush), and, giving full play “to his romantic imagination and to his taste for sensational enterprises,” he one day submitted to his confidant a scheme to “kidnap the Minister, Reinhard, and carry him off to London; his attendants were to be made intoxicated, his coachman to be bribed, ten English sailors to be hidden on the banks of the Elbe!” At the back of these schemes of mystery there figured a certain “Swiss and Genevan Agency,” which at the proper time would, he declared, generously reimburse them for all their expenditure. But, for all these foolish imaginings, d’Auerweck displayed a knowledge of the world and a sound judgment which struck all those who came in contact with him, and it was certain that with strong and firm guidance he was capable of doing much good and useful work. In the winter of 1798 we are told that “he left Hamburg secretly” for an unknown destination. Lemaître believed that he had buried himself “in the depths of Silesia,” but he had no real knowledge of his man. For, as a matter of course, d’Auerweck was bound to be attracted to such a centre of affairs as Rastadt then was, in order to make the most profitable use of his ingenuity, seeing that, according to report, the British Government, which was making use of his services, in fear of being kept in the dark as to what was going on, had begged him “to go and exercise his wits in another place.”
He made Baden his headquarters, for the proximity of Rastadt, and his intimacy with the de Gelb family, which has already been mentioned, led him to prefer Baden to the actual field of battle, at which place he must have come under suspicion as an old English agent. One of the Austrian envoys at the Congress was Count Lehrbach; and d’Auerweck managed to get into relations with him, and even to be allowed to do secretarial work for him, on the strength of the connection which he declared he had possessed with Minister Thugut during the early days of the Revolution and the confidence which had lately been reposed in him. He had reason to hope that with the help of his ability and his gift of languages he would soon be able to secure active employment. And, indeed, it was in this way that d’Auerweck succeeded in re-establishing himself at once, to his great satisfaction, as an active agent, with a footing in the highest places, ferreting out the secrets of the Ambassadors, and carrying on an underhand correspondence openly. His intention was, doubtless, to return to Austria as soon as the Congress was over, by the help of Count Lehrbach, and there to regain the goodwill of his former patron, the Minister Thugut.
But the sanguinary drama which brought the Conference to such an abrupt conclusion completely spoiled his plans and undid his most brilliant combinations. We can realize the universal feeling of consternation throughout the whole of Europe which was caused by the news that on the evening of April 28, 1799, the French Ministers, Bonnier, Roberjot, and Debry, who had just made up their minds to betake themselves to Strasburg, along with their families, their servants, and their records—a party filling eight carriages—had been openly attacked as they were leaving Rastadt by Barbaczy’s Hussars; that the two first-mentioned gentlemen had been dragged from their carriages and treacherously murdered, and that the third, Debry, had alone escaped by a miracle. Even if the outrage of Rastadt was “neither the cause nor the pretext of the war of 1799,” its consequences were, nevertheless, very serious.
One of these consequences, and not the least important, was that Bonaparte’s police, magnificently reorganized by Fouché, redoubled its shepherding of émigrés and agents of the Princes, who swarmed in the country-side between Basle, the general headquarters of the spies, and Mayence. Once an arrest took place, the accused was certain to be suspected of having had a hand in the assassination of the plenipotentiaries, and if by any bad luck he was unable to deny having been present in the district, he found it a very difficult task to escape from the serious results of this accusation.
A few months after this stirring event, Baron d’Auerweck, tired of such a stormy existence, and seeing, perhaps, a shadow of the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, determined himself to break away from this life of agitation, and to settle down with a wife. During the last days of the year 1799 he was married at Baden to Mademoiselle Fanny de Gelb, a native of Strasburg, whose father had lately served under Condé; she also had a brother who was an officer in the army of the Princes. But, in spite of a pension which the mother, Madame de Gelb, was paid by England on account of her dead husband’s services, the available resources of the future establishment were very meagre indeed, for the “little Baron” had not learned to practise economy while rushing about Europe; so, as soon as the marriage had been celebrated, the turn of the wheel of fortune forced the young wife to leave the Grand Duchy of Baden and to wander from town to town in Germany and Austria.
They travelled first to Munich and then to Nuremburg, but d’Auerweck’s plans were to establish himself in Austria close to all his belongings. He had the fond hope of obtaining employment from Minister Thugut, to whom he reintroduced himself. But he experienced a bitter disappointment, for on his first attempt to submit to his Excellency the greater part of his last work (in which he had embodied, as the result of desperate toil, his views on the present political situation, the outcome of his conversations with the representatives of the different European states, his reflections and his forecast of events) d’Auerweck found himself unceremoniously dismissed. Thugut flatly refused, if the story is to be believed, to have anything further to do with a man who was still suspected of being an English emissary. Consequently he was obliged to abandon his idea of establishing himself in Austria, and to hunt for other means of existence, more particularly as Madame d’Auerweck had just presented him with his first child at Nuremburg. He turned his steps once again in the direction of the Grand Duchy, and after successive visits to Friburg, Basle, and Baden, he decided to make his home in Schutterwald, a village on the outskirts of the town of Offenburg. There he determined to lead the life of a simple, honest citizen, and renting a very humble peasant’s cottage, he installed his wife and his mother-in-law therein. He himself set to work on the cultivation of his garden, devoting his spare moments to writing, so as not to lose the knack, the sequel to his Philosophical and Historical Reflections.
He soon got to know his neighbours and all the inhabitants of the country very well. He was considered to be a quiet, unenterprising man, “with a positive dislike for politics, although loquacious and vain.” It was impossible to find out anything about his past life, for the prudent Baron considered it inadvisable to talk of this subject, but he was always looked upon “as an argumentative man, who wanted to know all that was going on, whether in reference to agriculture, to thrift, or to politics.” In spite of the apparent tranquillity in which he was allowed to remain, d’Auerweck followed with a certain amount of anxiety all the events which were happening not far from him, on the frontier of the Rhine. Troops were continually passing to and fro in this district; the French were close at hand, and their arrival at Offenburg inspired a feeling of vague unrest in him, although he never recognized, to tell the truth, the danger which threatened him. He had taken the precaution to destroy, before coming to Switzerland, his vast collection of papers: all that mass of correspondence which had been accumulating for the last few years, those reports and instructions, all of which constituted a very compromising record. At last, after a residence of some months, to make matters safe, he contrived, thanks to his marriage, to be enrolled as a freeman of the Grand Duchy; for it seemed to him that as a subject of Baden he would be relieved of all further cause of alarm.
But all d’Auerweck’s fears were reawakened by the much-talked-of news of the Duc d’Enghien’s arrest on March 15, 1804, and by the details of how the Prince had been captured openly in the jurisdiction of Baden, at Ettenheim, that is to say, only a short distance from Offenburg. He absented himself for some days from Schutterwald, so the story goes, and took himself to the mountains.
Just at the same time there arrived at the offices of the Ministry of Police in Paris a succession of memoranda, mostly anonymous, referring to Baron d’Auerweck, and to his presence in the neighbourhood of the Rhine.
Some of them came from Lemaître, Reinhard’s former secretary at Hamburg. Many of them, inexact and inaccurate as they were with regard to the details of the alleged facts, agreed on this point, viz. that the individual “was one of those men, who are so powerful for good or bad, that the security of every Government requires complete information as to their resting-places and their doings.” Then followed a medley of gossiping insinuations, the precise import of which it was difficult to discover.
“I shall never forget,” said one, “that, when d’Auerweck left Hamburg two months before the assassination of the French Ministers in order to take up his quarters only three leagues away from Rastadt, he said: ‘I am about to undertake an operation which will make a great sensation, and which will render great service to the cause of the Coalition.’”
“Now supervenes a whole year, during which his doings and his whereabouts are most carefully concealed,” wrote another; “however, I am certain that he is acting and working pertinaciously against the interests of France. I have heard him make this remark: ‘We shall take some time doing it, but at last we shall conquer you.’” A third added: “His tranquillity and his silence are but masks for his activity, and I, for one, could never be persuaded that he has all of a sudden ceased to correspond with Lord Grenville in London, with the Count de Romanzof, with a certain Nicolai in St. Petersburg, with Prince Belmonte, with the Chevalier de Saint-Andre, with Roger de Damas in Italy, with Dumoustier, who is, I believe, a Hohenlohe Prince in Berlin, and directly with the Count de Lille.” Finally, d’Auerweck, according to the same report, “complaisantly displayed a spot in the shape of the fleur-de-lys, inside his fist, declaring that ‘this is a sign of descent; it is a mark of predestination; I of all men am bound to devote myself and assist in the return of the Bourbons!’”
It would be a fatal mistake to believe that these fairy tales, all vague and absurd as they often were, remained lost and forgotten in the despatch-boxes of the Ministry of Police. The region, near as it was to Rastadt, where d’Auerweck was reported to have made his appearance, was a valuable and important indication, which of itself was sufficient to make the man an object for watchful suspicion. The ominous nature of the times must, of course, be remembered. Fouché, who had just been restored to favour, and had been placed for the second time at the head of the Ministry of Police, was anxious to prove his zeal afresh, to please the Emperor and to deserve his confidence, while his mind was still troubled by the execution of the Duc d’Enghien, by the exploits of Georges Cadoudal, and by the discovery of the English Agency at Bordeaux, which were all fitting reasons for attracting the Minister’s attention and for exciting his curiosity. So, when on October 11, 1804, his Excellency decided to make further searching investigations into d’Auerweck’s case, and gave precise orders to the prefects of the frontier departments of the Grand Duchy, it is doubtful whether he was careful to note in his charge the principal reasons for attaching suspicion upon the Baron, viz. those which had to do with the assassination of the plenipotentiaries at Rastadt.
It was some time before the required information could be obtained, and though the first inquiries about d’Auerweck made by Desportes, the prefect of the Upper Rhine, added little in the way of news, they agreed, nevertheless, in certifying that the Baron lived very quietly in the outskirts of Offenburg—
“that he there devoted himself entirely to his agricultural occupations, and that the kind of life he led did not foster any suspicion that he kept up his old campaigns of intrigue.”
Six months later, Desportes, in returning to the subject, showed himself more positive than ever, for he affirmed—
“that no active correspondence can be traced to d’Auerweck, and that he saw scarcely any one. He is a man of a caustic and critical turn of mind, who often lets himself go in conversation without reflection in his anxiety to talk brilliantly. A point which is particularly reassuring about him is that he is without credit, without fortune, and of no personal account, and that if he wanted to mix himself up afresh in intrigues he would choose some other place than Offenburg, where there are now only three émigrés, the youngest of whom is seventy-seven years of age.”
But, in spite of these very positive statements, the Minister preserved his attitude of mistrust, which was strengthened by the arrival of fresh notes, in which the same denunciations of the “little Baron” were repeated. He was described as being “restless by inclination, violently fanatical in all his opinions, and longing to make himself notorious by some startling act.” But his position was made worse by the information which was received, that in the autumn of 1805 d’Auerweck had absented himself from home for several days, frightened, no doubt, by the proximity of the French armies, which were dotted about on the banks of the Rhine. How could this sudden flight be accounted for? And his alarm at the sight of the Emperor’s soldiers at close quarters? Such conduct struck Fouché as being very suspicious. He ordered a supplementary inquiry, and this time he did not content himself with the information afforded by the prefect of the Upper Rhine, but let loose one of his best bloodhounds on his scent. At the time, two years ago, when preparations were being made for the kidnapping of the Duc d’Enghien and for watching his residence at Ettenheim, recourse was had to the services of the Commissary of Police, Popp by name, who was stationed at Strasburg. In this frontier town near Basle an active and intelligent man was needed, who could maintain a constant watch on the underhand practices of the Royalist agents. Commissary Popp seemed to be made for the job. His handling of the Duc d’Enghien’s affairs earned the approval of Napoleon; and Fouché, since his reinstatement in the Ministry, recognized in him a clever and expert functionary, on whom he could always count.
This was the man who was charged with the task of spying on d’Auerweck, and throughout the whole of 1806 Popp was hard at work on this mission. His original authentications differed very little from what Desportes had written, and there was nothing to prove that the Baron had in any way departed from his passive attitude.
“I have not discovered,” wrote Popp on April 22, 1806, “that he is in correspondence with the English agitation, or that he shows any inclination to excite and embitter people’s tempers. I believe that he, like many others, is more to be pitied than to be feared.”
Some weeks later Popp managed to loosen the tongue of an ecclesiastic, a dweller in those parts, and from him he got information about the business and movements of the Baron. “He is quite absorbed in rural economy, which is his chief thought to all appearances,” he reported to Fouché; but then, stung to the quick by the repeated orders of his chief (who never ceased from impressing upon him the necessity for the closest watch on d’Auerweck’s traffickings), Popp, impatient for an opportunity to prove his zeal, began to magnify his words by introducing subtle insinuations.
By this time d’Auerweck had come to the conclusion that his stay at Schutterwald was too uncomfortable, and having heard of a bit of land at a reasonable price in Elgersweier, which was not far from Offenburg, indeed about the same distance from the town, he made up his mind to take shelter there and to build a little house, which would be his own property. The question was asked how could he, whom every one looked upon as a penniless man, obtain the funds required to complete this bargain? Without doubt he borrowed from his mother-in-law, Madame de Gelb, who had always lived with him, and whose modest income was so pleasantly augmented by the pension which she received from the English Government. And so, in the middle of the summer of 1806, the “little Baron” transported his penates to Elgersweier, where he settled his belongings very comfortably. By this time two other sons, Armand and Louis, had been added to the one born at Munich, and shortly after arriving at the new home Madame d’Auerweck gave birth to a daughter, who was named Adelaide.
Commissary Popp knew all about these happenings, and his supervision never slackened for an instant. Encouraged by his success in arranging the preliminaries for the affair at Ettenheim, he was perfectly prepared to repeat the operation. With this in view, he began to show the Minister, in ambiguous language at first, his very good and sufficient reasons for desiring d’Auerweck’s presence in France. If necessary, he urged, we could easily get permission from the Grand Duke of Baden to arrest him in his own home. This suggestion was expressed very cautiously at first, but was soon made more explicit, although there was not the slightest shadow of an excuse for such violence, for all his statements “agreed in demonstrating the perfectly peaceful nature of the “little Baron’s” existence.
“It would be advisable to make certain of his person,” wrote Popp, “and my opinion will always be the same if certain difficulties with the House of Austria happen to be renewed; for d’Auerweck, posted as a sentinel on the opposite bank, and doubtless possessing friends on our side, would be one of the very first bearers of information about our military position and political topography.”
About the same time, Bourrienne, one of Minister Reinhard’s successors at Hamburg, arrested an émigré who had lately landed from London, and who was supposed to be in possession of important secrets. This was the Viscount de Butler, Cormier’s half-brother, who, after having “worked,” as we have seen, for the Royalist Committee in London, now found himself stranded in Hamburg in the greatest misery. It was decided to send him to Paris, as he offered to give up certain documents. He was imprisoned in the Temple, and there questioned by Desmarets, who extracted from him all kinds of information with regard to his missions. Naturally, Butler related all he knew about d’Auerweck, how he had made his acquaintance, and what sort of terms he was on with Dutheil and with Lord Grenville. As his answers proved satisfactory he was sent back to Hamburg, where Bourrienne continued to make use of him for many years.
Finally, to complete the bad luck, the police were warned of a certain Sieur de Gelb, a former officer in the army of the Princes, whose behaviour had been discovered to be very mysterious, and who paid frequent visits to the frontier. Now, this émigré was no other than Baron d’Auerweck’s brother-in-law.
All these stories, cleverly made the most of and carefully improved upon, served to greatly excite the curiosity of the Minister of Police, all the more as the Royalists were showing much increased activity in many places. To add to the effect, Normandy became the theatre of several audacious surprises, such as coaches being robbed, convoys plundered, and attacks on the high road, many of which were the handiwork of the inhabitants of the castle of Tournebut, led by the Viscount d’Aché and the famous Chevalier. Besides, the Emperor was waging war in Prussia at the head of his armies, a thousand leagues from Paris, and in his absence the conspirators’ audacity redoubled; but he did not lose sight of them, and from his distant camps he kept so closely in touch with all that was happening in France that he compelled Fouché’s incessant vigilance. An event which took place next year, when war with Germany broke out afresh, clearly demonstrated once more the danger of attracting for too long the attention of his Excellency the Minister of Police.
One evening, in the month of June, 1807, a policeman on his rounds noticed in one of the squares in the town of Cassel a young man behaving very strangely, and speechifying in the middle of a crowd. He drew near, and ascertained that the individual, who was very excited, was pouring forth a stream of insults and threats against Napoleon, whom he went so far as to call “a good-for-nothing scamp.” This was quite enough to decide the representative of public order upon arresting the silly fellow. He was taken off to the police station and questioned. He stated that his name was Jean-Rodolphe Bourcard, “formerly a ribbon manufacturer,” aged twenty-three years, and that he was a native of Basle, in Switzerland. In the course of his examination it was discovered that he had arrived the same day from Hamburg, and that he was full of some very suspicious projects. His story caused him to be suspected, and a report was promptly drawn up for transmission to Paris. Cassel was destined before very long to become the capital of the new kingdom of Westphalia, created for Jerome Bonaparte, and the police supervision of émigrés was exercised as strictly there as in every other part of France. While waiting for orders a search was made in the lodging-house whence the prisoner had come. Nothing much was found in his scanty luggage; some papers, one of which was “a plan and a description of the battle of Austerlitz,” and besides this two or three apparently mysterious notes. One of them contained the words: “Must see Louis—without Louis nothing can be done.” Everything was minutely collected together, and some days later Bourcard was sent off for a compulsory visit to Paris.
He was put in the Temple, and, although it was easy to see from his talk and his strange behaviour that he was a madman, subject to fits of violence, Fouché could not make up his mind to let him go. The examination of his record and the papers which were found in his possession had suddenly given the Minister an ingenious idea. Who could this Louis be who was obviously connected with Bourcard? Certainly a Royalist spy, since the man of Basle had just come from Hamburg, the headquarters of these people. And the Record Office of the Ministry contained many notes referring to a “well-known agent of England and of Austria,” Baron Louis d’Auerweck of Steilengels, who was known to be living on the banks of the Rhine. There was no room for doubt: this person “had assumed the name of Louis in the various missions which he had undertaken.” Was not this the man who was denoted by Bourcard’s note?
Fouché was fascinated by this solution, and, anxious to have it verified, he seized upon the unhoped-for opportunity which had presented itself. And that was why an order was sent from Paris on July 17, 1807, to immediately effect the arrest of the “little Baron.” It would, however, have been impolitic and almost impossible to make use of the same violent measures which had been employed in the Duc d’ Enghien’s case. Besides, Massias, the French Chargé d’Affaires at the Grand Duke of Baden’s court at Carlsruhe, when he received Fouché’s letter, considered it necessary, in order to carry out his chiefs commands, to obtain the Grand Duke’s permission and assistance before moving in the matter.
“But,” he wrote to Fouché, “my seven years’ experience had firmly convinced me that, if I ask for this person’s arrest by the ordinary process of an official letter, he will be warned and will manage to make his escape, so I think I should set off the same day for Baden, where the Baron de Gemmingen, the Cabinet Minister, is now staying with his Royal Highness, for I have on several occasions received proofs of his kindly disposition towards me.”
Massias was not mistaken; his application to the Sovereign of Baden met with immediate and complete success. For the latter, who knew none of the details of the case—not even that d’Auerweck was his own subject—and did not want to offend the Emperor, listened to his representatives petition, and the same day issued orders, from his palace of La Favorite in the outskirts of Baden, to M. Molitor, the Grand Ducal Commissary, to act in concert with Massias, and with the help of the police of Baden to arrest Baron d’Auerweck. For Massias had pointed out that if the order were sent in the first place to the bailiff of Offenburg, “where d’Auerweck must have formed many friendships,” there were a thousand reasons for fearing that the latter would receive warning, “for he is a vigilant man and is on his guard.” At Elgersweier no one had the slightest inkling of the impending danger. The “little Baron” had just returned from one of those expeditions which the police were watching so carefully, and had gone in to see his wife, who had lately given birth to her fourth child. For d’Auerweck had settled down a short time before in his new home, and was perfectly content to enjoy the peaceful existence, which allowed him to move about and finish his Historical Notes on Hugues Capet, and his Dissertation upon the Secularization of Germany under French Methods.
So it can be imagined what a crushing blow was dealt him when Commissary Molitor and his assistants appeared at Elgersweier unexpectedly on the evening of July 23, 1807. We can picture the “little Baron’s” agitation, his distorted face, as he went himself to admit the police officers; his wife’s despair; the house rummaged from cellar to garret; the cries of the children woken up by the hubbub; Madame de Gelb’s indignation; and then the setting forth, in the midst of the police, of the unhappy head of the family, in spite of his useless protestations, and the broken-hearted family, overwhelmed by stupefaction, in their ravished home.
The prisoner soon recovered his presence of mind, and at Offenburg, where he was taken, he set to work to prepare his defence to the best of his ability, and he soon drew up a justificatory document, which was designed to confound his accusers. At the same time—luckily for d’Auerweck—the Grand Duke found out that it was one of his subjects who was concerned, and he withdrew the authority for arrest which he had given, and issued orders to keep the Baron and his papers for his disposal. The preliminary examination of these documents plainly demonstrated the flimsy nature of the charge, and that there was no justification for the outrage which had been committed.
The day after the fateful event, Madame de Gelb went to La Favorite, and, throwing herself at her Sovereign’s feet, implored him to protect her son-in-law. She described the falsity of the charges brought against him, the distress of the mother and of the four children. The Grand Duke could not but be touched by this petition, although he was anxious not to displease M. Fouché.
“I am transported with delight,” Massias said to Councillor Gemmingen, “at having so successfully executed the commands of the Minister of Police, for they were not easy of accomplishment;” and he added, in order to appease the Grand Duke’s fears and regrets, “This affair seems to have taken a turn, which is very fortunate for the prisoner; and I have already advised his Excellency the Minister about it. You can assure his Royal Highness that I will do my very best to finish off the case in a way that shall be agreeable to both Governments.”
But such a result seemed very unlikely, for it would have required very strong compulsion to make Fouché renounce his plan, more especially now that the arrest was an accomplished fact. It seemed absolutely necessary to him to extradite d’Auerweck and to fetch him to Paris; and he had already, by August 5, warned the Prefect of the department of Mont Tonnerre and Moncey, the Inspector-General of Police, to be in readiness “to take charge of and to escort Lord d’Auerweck.”
It was just at this time that Commissary Popp, whose assistance had not been utilized as much as he hoped it would be, began to be worried by the silence which was observed as far as he was concerned, and he entreated his Minister not to allow the Baron to slip out of his hands.
“It was very distasteful to have to make this arrest,” he said, “and it was only effected because it was necessary; and you can guess how carefully, under these circumstances, we have examined his papers, which it was of supreme importance to lay our hands upon.”
However, these papers, which Popp so confidently reckoned would expose the Baron’s intrigues, were found to consist only of purely private correspondence, altogether wanting in political interest; besides the historical works undertaken by d’Auerweck, the search of his house had only brought to light some insignificant letters, amongst which were “a bundle of love letters which d’Auerweck had exchanged with a young émigrée now settled in London. It appears that this entanglement did not meet with the approval of the young lady’s uncle, the girl having lost her parents when she was fifteen years of age.”
The Grand Duke, having heard these particulars, was all the more unwilling to hand over his unfortunate subject to Fouché and his myrmidons. He was convinced “of his perfect innocence.” Therefore the Baron de Dalberg, his Ambassador in Paris, was charged “to urge His Excellency, Minister Fouché, most forcibly to cease from troubling these persons, who were very sincerely to be pitied.” But he only encountered the most obstinate resistance. Fouché had received the plea of exculpation, which d’Auerweck had drawn up two days after his arrest, but he decided it was insufficient, “because it only touched lightly on many of the principal details of his intrigues, and it did not refer at all to his doings before 1800,” and in the margin of the sheet he recorded his sentiments in a kind of cross-examination.
“With whom had he had dealings since his second journey to Paris? Where did he lodge? To whom in London had he written? Did he not hide himself in a house in the Rue Basse-du-Rempart?
“What commission had he been charged with at Rastadt? Had he not made this extraordinary remark to some one before he left Hamburg: ‘I am going to Rastadt; you will soon hear of a great event, in which I shall have had a hand’”?
And Fouché went on to allude to the Baron’s hurried flight at the time when the French troops were drawing near.
“Why did you fly at the time of the commencement of hostilities? You are not a Frenchman? If you had not intrigued against France, or even if you had ceased to intrigue, why did you leave your wife because our troops were about to arrive, since you were a German and settled in Germany on the territory of a Prince, who is on good terms with this same France? But we have reason to believe that you were still carrying on your intrigues. We have reason to think that you came secretly to Paris five or six months ago. You were seen in the Rue de Richelieu. Further, we have reason to think that, stationed as you were on our frontier, you were perilously inclined by your long experience as a spy to continue to spy on us, and that you did not confine yourself to a correspondence with our enemies, but actually controlled men of the class of those whom you directed at Rastadt according to your own acknowledgment.”
Such were the complaints formulated by the Minister, and they were sufficient, it must be admitted, to convince him of the importance of his capture. Even if the Baron’s past life since 1800 could be voluntarily ignored—although this past life could not fail to arouse a host of just suspicions—there still remained his complicity in the drama of Rastadt, and also the coincidence—though not a very convincing one—of Bourcard’s arrest with the Baron’s presence on the banks of the Rhine. So Fouché, in his reply to Baron de Dalberg, who had begged him to comply with his requests, wished to show that he had made up his mind.
“You understand, monsieur, from what has passed,” he wrote on August 29, “that Baron d’Auerweck cannot be set free, and that it is necessary to convey him to Paris in order to give his explanation of the fresh and singular information which has been received about him. Your Excellency may rest assured that his examination will be conducted with perfect impartiality, such as he may desire, and that he will obtain the fullest justice, if he can clear himself.”
The unfortunate Baron had now been kicking his heels for more than a month in the jail at Offenburg, where he was kept under observation day and night by a sentinel. The heat was intense, and d’Auerweck, suffering as he was from an internal complaint, which made his detention all the harder to bear, cursed his bad luck. He reproached his Sovereign in picturesque language with having allowed him to be imprisoned without any proof of crime upon “knavish accusations,” him—
“a citizen, a man of valour, whose honour no man doubts; whose fair dealing every one confides in; who is not ashamed to show his love of religion, and whose life is by no means a useless one; who has sufficient brains to have principles, and sufficient heart to sacrifice himself for his principles when they demand it; whose head and heart are in harmony; who has taken no part in political events except according to his oath and his duty; who, in short, has for the past five years lived as a peasant in a little house, which he had built himself, there tending his garden and rearing his children.”
The Grand Duke, touched by the truth of these reproaches, did his best to avoid granting Fouché’s demand. He believed he had hit upon an expedient when he proposed to the Minister to send the prisoner only as far as Strasburg, where the French Justiciary could examine him comfortably. But Fouché showed himself unmanageable, so fifteen days later the Grand Duke, tired of the struggle, and with the excuse of “the ties of friendship and the peculiar harmony which existed with the French Court,” at last consented to the extradition of Baron D’Auerweck, although—
“His Highness considered that he had the right to expect to be spared the unpleasantness of having to hand over to a foreign jurisdiction one of his subjects, against whom there did not exist any properly established suspicions, and whose papers furnished no proof against him.”
Once again the wrathful spectre of Napoleon, ready to crush the man who opposed his will, had succeeded in triumphing over everything which could be hoped for from justice and good laws.
On September 22 Commissary Molitor took d’Auerweck out of the prison of Offenburg and brought him to Strasburg to hand him over to the French police. In order to preserve precedent and to save his face, the Grand Duke had ordered his councillor to announce that—
“although His Royal Highness, in his particular condescension, had allowed his subject Auerweck to be extradited so as to facilitate the information and accusations which were brought against him this was done in full confidence that he would be treated as considerately as possible, and that he would not be subjected to any unpleasant or harsh treatment in consideration of the peculiar circumstances of his case.”
But what M. Fouché’s instructions were was well known, and no one had any misconception on the subject, least of all the Grand Duke. The pitiful letter which Madame d’Auerweck sent to him next day, and in which she appealed to his kind heart and his pity, must certainly have aroused some feeling of remorse.
After a stay of forty-eight hours in Strasburg, d’Auerweck started on his journey on September 25. In the post-chaise which carried him were a junior officer and a policeman, charged with his care. After crossing the Vosges, they travelled by way of Nancy and Chalons, and reached Epernay on the 28th; in a few hours they would arrive in Paris. Taking advantage of a short halt in the inn, the Baron hurriedly scribbled the following note, which was intended to reassure his family:—
“I have arrived here, my good and tender friend, as well in health as I could hope to be, and much less tired than I feared. I write these few words to you to calm your mind, and to beg you again to take care of yourself. To-morrow, by eight o’clock in the morning, we shall be in Paris, whence, as I hope, I shall be able to write to you. I embrace you, and beg you to kiss Charles, Louis, Armand, and your mother for me.
“May God guard you.
“Epernai, 28th September.”
The post-chaise entered Paris in the morning of the 29th, and passed along the quays till it stopped in front of the general office of the Minister of Police, where the prisoner had to be delivered. Where would they take him? For certain to the Temple tower, where at this time political prisoners were kept. And there it was that d’Auerweck was conducted and locked up. The order in the gaol-book directed that he should be placed in solitary confinement until further notice. It was now the Baron’s turn to enter the gloomy dungeon, which he had so often, twelve years before, gazed at curiously from afar. It was his fate, like his “big friend” Cormier, to closely inspect this building, the name of which evoked such reminiscences of mystery.
Six days were allowed him in which to prepare, without disturbance, his reply to the questions which were to be put to him. On October 5, 1807, a commissary, sent by the Minister of Police, came to see him and to hear what he had to say. A curious thing was that the same proceeding which was employed with Cormier at the time of his imprisonment was renewed for d’Auerweck’s benefit; no reference whatever was made to the whole period antecedent to 1800. Whatever might have been d’Auerweck’s conduct during the Revolution and under the Directoire, what his actions were, in what direction he went and came, who were his friends, all these points were held of no importance by his Excellency M. Fouché, and by Desmarets, who was on special duty in connection with the case. What they were most concerned with was to find out the object of d’Auerweck’s frequent absences during the last few years, and to extort a confession from him of his participation in the murder of the plenipotentiaries of Rastadt. They came to the point without any concealment, but d’Auerweck was on his guard. He flatly denied that he had paid a visit to Paris in the months of April and May, as was alleged.
“I did not travel at all in France, and I have not been in Paris since the year when the Directoire was installed. I can furnish the clearest proofs of this fact. I was warned two years ago that the French police were watching me, and that they accused me of a number of intrigues, the greater part of which I had nothing whatever to do with, for I declare most solemnly that since the July or September of 1799 I have taken no part in any matter against France. I challenge the world to allege a single proceeding of mine, or a single line, against the interests of the French Government. The person who warned me that the French were watching me was the late Abbe Desmares, who lived in Offenburg; the warning was conveyed in an anonymous letter, to which he never owned up, but which I am convinced came from him.”
As regards his sudden flight from Baden at the time of the approach of the French armies, the Baron explained that it was due to his desire to appease the fears of his mother-in-law, Madame de Gelb. Besides, they had only to question the authorities of Rothenburg, of Ulm, and of Nuremberg, and to obtain from them the counterfoils of his passports, in order to find an absolute confirmation of his statements. Then there was the question of his connection with Bourcard. What could the accused reply to that? Was it not at Ulm itself that he had met “Monsieur Bourcard, the father, who was an official from the Canton of Basle?” D’Auerweck’s answer was ready:—
“I have not spent more than twenty-four hours in Ulm. I had my dinner and supper there. The Austrian army had not at that time been forced back upon the town, which was being fortified. I only saw three officers at the table d’hôte, two of them Croatians and one German captain. I had no kind of business with any one. The man called Bourcard, a Swiss official, is quite unknown to me.”
All his denials were very precise—and they were easily to be verified by the means he had suggested—so that there was now very little left of the terrible evidence which weighed so heavily upon the “little Baron,” or of “the crime of conspiracy against the security of the State,” with which he was charged. The slight clue, indicated by Bourcard’s arrest, but damaged by the papers seized at Elgersweier, was completely destroyed when the latter was declared to be mentally afflicted. In short, the tragic adventure which had overtaken d’Auerweck seemed to have been the result of the most vexatious misunderstanding; at least, that is what his cross-examiner expressed to him when he left him.