Réal, Fouché, and Talleyrand were all consulted. As yet their personal interests were bound up with their ruler's welfare, and alike they urged prompt and ruthless action to end the schemes and complots of the time. The two former needed no credentials of faithfulness. Talleyrand gave his in writing on March eighth; he had so dallied with royalists that his position must be definite now. Later efforts to discredit the note as a forgery have failed. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that all three intended by the seizure and execution of a Bourbon so to "marry," as the phrase ran, the First Consul to the terrorist side of the Revolution that he could never retreat from the position of radicalism to which they felt he had not been sufficiently committed, even yet. On March tenth the council heard and, as a body, approved Bonaparte's plan, although Lebrun was evasive and Cambacérès demurred. That night one column of a double expedition was despatched to the Rhine; it was commanded by Ordener and destined for Ettenheim. The other, under Caulaincourt, set out next day for Offenburg with a diplomatic note to the court of Baden. The latter commander was utterly ignorant of what his colleague had in hand, being instructed merely to disperse the reported company of emigrants and demand the extradition of a notorious intriguer, the Baronne de Reich. Ordener was to seize the Duc d'Enghien. The two columns proceeded by way of Strasburg without delay. Finding the baronne already a prisoner, and the police report unfounded, the generals then carried out the minute instructions of their chief as to the other part of their task. On the twelfth, Enghien had been warned of his danger; but he was not to be intimidated, and on the thirteenth he sent a messenger to observe how immediate the danger was. On the fourteenth a French spy was despatched from Strasburg; he was recognized as such at Ettenheim, and was pursued, but escaped to report everything favorable. Still the rash young duke refused to move. On the morning of the fifteenth he awoke to find the house surrounded by French troops. Every avenue of escape being closed, he surrendered, and all his papers were seized. With his household and friends he was hurried to the citadel of Strasburg, where he was detained for two days. Couriers were promptly despatched to Paris, and the court at Karlsruhe received a formal notification of what had been done, signed by Talleyrand. Bonaparte learned by the despatches received on the seventeenth from both his expeditions that Dumouriez was not on the Rhine, and on the nineteenth he himself examined the duke's papers, which had been inventoried in their owner's presence, and then forwarded to Malmaison.