It is very improbable that the Count of Artois, who had sent word to the Count of Provence at Warsaw asking his adhesion to the conspiracy, should have given his cousin, d’Enghien, a “part to act” in it without informing him of the nature of the drama itself. The police reports made to Napoleon led him to believe that the young duke was privy to the plot, and was waiting at Ettenheim ready to take part in it. Here was a Bourbon he could reach. Through this one, he would strike terror into the others. “Neither is my blood ditchwater! I will teach these Bourbons a lesson they will not soon forget. Am I a dog to be shot down in the street?” After deliberating with his councillors, Talleyrand and all the rest, the First Consul issued his orders. A French squadron rode rapidly to the Rhine, crossed over to Ettenheim, seized the Duke, who had been warned in vain, and hurried him to Paris. Stopped at the barrier, he was sent to Vincennes, tried by court-martial that night, condemned upon his own confession, sentenced to death, shot at daybreak, and buried in the moat of the castle. This harsh act of retaliation had met the approval of Talleyrand--an approval given in a written paper which he was quick to seize and destroy upon Napoleon’s fall in 1814. During the day upon which the Duke was being taken to Vincennes, Talleyrand was asked, “What is to be done with the Duke d’Enghien?” and had replied to the questioner, “He is to be shot.” The Consul Cambacérès, who had voted for death at the trial of Louis XVI., opposed the arrest, giving his reasons at length. Napoleon replied: “I know your motive for speaking--your devotion to me. I thank you for it; but I will not allow myself put to death without defending myself. I will make these people tremble, and teach them to keep quiet for all time to come.” Poor Josephine, who could never meet a member of the old noblesse without a collapse of spirit, a gush of adulation, and a yielding sensation at the knees, made a feeble effort to turn her husband from his purpose; but when Napoleon reminded her that she was a mere child in politics, and had better attend to her own small affairs, she dried her tears, and went into the garden to amuse herself with her flower-beds. Napoleon himself made a thorough study of the papers, taken with the Duke at Ettenheim, and drew up a series of questions which were to be put to the prisoner by Réal, state councillor. The messenger sent by the First Consul did not see Réal, and the paper was not handed him till five o’clock next morning. Worn out by continuous toil, the councillor had gone to bed the evening before, leaving instructions with his household that he was not to be disturbed. Next morning when he was posting along the highway to Vincennes, he met Savary on his way back to Paris. Savary had already carried out the death-sentence, and the victim was in his grave.