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.”