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.