The execution of the Duc d'Enghien has left a stain on Napoleon's character; it was not only a crime, but what was worse, it was a blunder; for d'Enghien at the time of his arrest was living in strictest seclusion at Ettenheim in Baden with the Princesse Charlotte de Rohan, to whom he was deeply attached, and, it was said, had married. He was therefore absolutely innocent of the conspiracy against the Republic, of which he was accused; and it is affirmed that it was only because Bonaparte could not get hold of the legitimate Princes--Artois and Berry--whose claims to the throne of France he grudged and feared, that he took his revenge upon the Duc d'Enghien. He had tried in vain to entrap these Princes, and failing committed this act of personal revenge on the eve of proclaiming himself Emperor, in order to frighten the Royalists, who, as he declared, were continually conspiring against him. When this dastardly murder became known there was a cry of indignation all over Europe. The Russian Court went into mourning, and Napoleon found it necessary to lay the blame upon Talleyrand and Murat. The grief of the unhappy father at the loss of his only son and the last scion of his race was so great that he became a prey to chronic melancholy; but Louis Joseph, the grandfather, strove bravely to live down his anguish. More than twelve years had still to elapse before their exile was ended, and then, for a brief period, on the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire, the Bourbon Monarchy was restored in France. At last, in 1815, the two Condés returned to Chantilly from England and found the old place, with the exception of the Petit Château, which they henceforth made their chief abode, a pile of ruins, and themselves almost strangers. The Princess of Monaco had died in England; and the Duc d'Enghien, upon whom all hope had centred, had been ruthlessly slain. In spite of all these misfortunes Louis Joseph remained faithful to the old home and began to repurchase his former possessions acre by acre. Some portions of the property had passed into alien hands; as, for instance, the site of the great waterfall, which had been separated from the original grounds by a wall. One of the alterations made at this time was the filling in of the moat, which hitherto had divided the smaller from the larger Château; and later the present Entrance-Hall was built on that site, whilst two new rooms decorated in the style of the period were added where the covered bridges had formerly stood. These new buildings gave access to the rooms formerly occupied by the Grand Condé, which, by a strange piece of luck, the Revolutionists had not demolished. The old Prince held these apartments in high honour; and they were the first to be redecorated and exquisitely panelled. During the four remaining years of his life he was continually occupied in restoring his ancestral palace to that dignity which he remembered so well in the past. He also