Business of the Duke of Enghien

The business of the Duc of Enghien indicates the execution the March 21st 1804, in the ditches of the Château of Vincennes, of the last kid of the Maison of Cop, Louis Antoine of Bourbon-Cop.

Grandson of the prince de Condé, Louis Antoine of Bourbon-Cop, duke of Enghien had emigrated in 1803 in Ettenheim, in the Grand-duché of Bade.

Facts

This operation, suggested by Talleyrand aimed to demoralize the royalist opposite with the Consulat of Napoleon Bonaparte.

It takes form at the time of the police investigation on the project of assassination of the first consul in October 1803 says “conspiracy of Year XII”. This attack organized by Cadoudal and the general Pichegru, implies also the Moreau general. Following the interrogations of Cadoudal which reveals that the plotters awaited the arrival of a prince of royal blood Savary, chief of the secret police, decides on order of Bonaparte to make remove the duke of Enghien.

March 15th, 1804, a detachment of dragons French crosses the the Rhine and removes it. It is locked up with Strasbourg then transferred to Vincennes on March 20th. Judged the evening even by a military commission chaired by the general Hulin, without witness nor defender, the duke of Enghien is condemned to died for “plot against the state security”. He is shot on the field in the ditches of the Château of Vincennes.

For lack of evidence of the participation of the Duke in the attack, the two men considered obviously, according to the historian Jacques Bainville, to make an example: the prince announced by the royalist conspirators not appearing, Napoleon did not want to give up the plan that it had formed. It made remove from force young prince de Condé, duke of Enghien, which was in Ettenheim, in territory badois, and which had passed by the weapons after a show of judgment.

The deputy of the Meurthe Antoine Boulay pronounced on this subject this judgment: “ It is worse than a crime. It is a fault ”. The name of Boulay being little known general public, this sentence, attested by testimonys of the time, will be often found allotted to Fouché, and sometimes even in Talleyrand! .

Pichegru committed suicide shortly after in its prison and Cadoudal was guillotine with eleven accomplices on June 25th, 1804. Before its execution, this last declared: We wanted to make a king, we made an emperor .

Iconography

the execution of the Duke of Enghein gave place to many tables:

the duke of Enghien in the ditches of Vincennes and the Death of the duke of Enghien of Jean-Paul Laurens
the duke of Enghien vis-a-vis the , firing squad Job

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