use, if it is true." Being asked if he knew the ex-general Dumouriez, and
if he had had relations with him, he said, "On the contrary, I have never
seen him." Being asked if, since the peace, he had not kept up
correspondence with the interior of the republic, he said, "I have written
to a few friends who are still attached to me, who have been my companions
in war, about their affairs and my own; these correspondences are not, I
think, those to which it is intended to refer."

Upon the minute of the examination, beneath his signature, the Duc
d'Enghien wrote, "I earnestly entreat to have a private audience with the
First Consul. My name, my rank, my way of thinking, and the horror of my
situation, make me hope that he will not refuse me my request." The
request was foreseen, and the answer, according to instructions given,
that under no pretext would the First Consul be willing to receive the Duc
d'Enghien. At two o'clock in the morning the military commission was
assembled, presided over by General Hullin, formerly life-guard of Louis
XVI., and one of the insurgent leaders before the Bastille. The same
questions were addressed to the prince, more briefly--less explicitly, as
if the time was short, and the enemy threatening. Sometimes the president
interfered with an appearance of rude benevolence. General Savary did not
speak. When the examination was finished he rose up. "Now this is my
concern," said he. The judges deliberated a moment. The sentence, signed
in blank, was already in their hands. The Governor of Vincennes, Harel,
appeared at the gate carrying a light. He had formerly delivered to
Bonaparte the conspirators of the plot of Arena and Topino-Lebrun; to-day
he preceded in the sombre corridors the prisoner, escorted by a piquet of
troops. The prince did not pale; he reiterated his request for an
audience, which was harshly denied. Already the grave was dug in the ditch
of the chateau; a detachment of gendarmes waited for the condemned.