"The first time," says the honest chamberlain, "that I heard Napoleon pronounce the name of the Duc d'Enghien, I turned red with embarrassment. Fortunately I was walking behind him in a narrow path; otherwise, he would certainly have observed my confusion. Nevertheless, when the Emperor for the first time developed the whole of this incident, with all its details and accessories; when he set forth his various motives with his close, luminous, persuasive reasoning, I must confess that the matter seemed to me gradually to assume a new aspect.... The Emperor often resumed this subject, which gave me an opportunity of observing in him certain very pronounced shades of character. I was able on this occasion, and repeatedly, most distinctly to see in him the private individual struggling with the public man, and the natural sentiments of his heart contending against those of his pride and of the dignity of his position. In the confidence of intimacy, he did not show himself indifferent to the unfortunate Prince's fate; but so soon as it became a question of the public, it was quite a different thing. One day, after talking with me of the untimely end and of the youth of this ill-fated man, he concluded by saying: "'And I have since learnt, my dear fellow, that he was rather in my favour; I have been told that he spoke of me with some admiration; such is retributive justice here below!' "And the last words were spoken with so much feeling, all the features of his face displayed such harmony with the words that, if he whom Napoleon was pitying had at that moment been in his power, I am quite sure that, whatever his intentions or his acts, he would have been eagerly pardoned.... The Emperor used to consider this matter from two very different points of view: that of common law, or the established rules of justice, and that of the law of nature, or acts of violence...." [Sidenote: By the Comte de Las Cases.] "To us, in the intimacy of private conversation, the Emperor would say that the blame in France might be ascribed to an excess of zeal in those around him, or to private objects or mysterious intrigues. He said that he had been precipitately urged in this affair; that they had as it were taken his mind unawares, hastened his measures, anticipated their result.... "'Without doubt,' he said, 'if I had been informed in time of certain particulars concerning the Prince's opinions and disposition; more still, if I had seen the letter which he wrote to me and which, God knows for what reason, was not handed to me until after he was no more, I should most certainly have pardoned him.'