"Sunday 18, they come to fetch me at half-past one in the morning. They do not give me time to dress. I embrace my unhappy companions, my servants. I leave alone with two officers of gendarmes and two gendarmes. Colonel Chariot told me that we were going to the general of division, who has received orders from Paris. Instead of that, I find a carriage with six post-horses in the Church Square. Lieutenant Petermann gets in beside me, Blitersdorff the quarter-master on the box, two gendarmes inside, the other out." Here the ship-wrecked man, on the point of being engulfed, interrupts his log. The carriage arrived at about four o'clock in the evening at one of the barriers of the capital, where the Strasburg road ends, and instead of driving into Paris, followed the outer boulevard and stopped at Vincennes Castle. The Prince alighted from the carriage in the inner court-yard and was taken to a room of the fortress, where he was locked in and went to sleep. As the Prince was approaching Paris, Bonaparte affected an air of calmness which was not natural. On the 18th of March, which was Palm Sunday, he went to the Malmaison. Madame Bonaparte[607], who, with all her family, was informed of the Prince's arrest, spoke to him of this arrest. Bonaparte replied: "You don't understand politics." Colonel Savary[608] had become one of Bonaparte's intimates. Why? Because he had seen the First Consul weep at Marengo. Exceptional men should distrust their tears, which place them beneath the yoke of vulgar men. Tears are one of those weaknesses which enable an eyewitness to make himself master of a great man's resolutions. [Sidenote: He is taken to Vincennes.] They say that the First Consul himself had all the orders for Vincennes drawn up. One of these orders provided that, if the expected sentence was a death sentence, it was to be executed on the spot. I believe this version, although I cannot vouch for its truth, since those orders are missing. Madame de Rémusat[609], who was playing chess with the First Consul at the Malmaison on the evening of the 20th of March, heard him mutter some verses on the clemency of Augustus[610]; she thought that Bonaparte was coming to himself again and that the Prince was saved[611]. No, destiny had pronounced its oracle! When Savary reappeared at Malmaison, Madame Bonaparte divined the whole misfortune. The First Consul had locked himself up alone for many hours. And then the wind blew, and all was ended. * An order of Bonaparte, dated 29 Ventôse, Year XII[612], had decreed that a military commission, consisting of seven members appointed by General the Governor of Paris[613] should meet at Vincennes to try "the _ci-devant_ Duc d'Enghien, accused of bearing arms against the Republic," etc. In fulfilment of this decree, Joachim Murat on the same day, 29 Ventôse, appointed the seven officers who were to form the said commission, namely: