Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc d'Enghien
Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, Duke of Enghien (born August 2, 1772 in Chantilly ; † March 21, 1804 in Vincennes Castle ) was a French duke from the Condé family , kidnapped by Napoléon Bonaparte and after a sham trial as an "emigrant who is paid from abroad to facilitate an invasion of France ”, was shot. The kidnapping and subsequent execution caused great outrage in the rest of Europe and was at the same time a deterrent signal to Napoléon's royalist opponents.
prehistory
During the French Revolution , the Duke, who had lived abroad since 1789, fought with his father, Duke Louis Henri Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Condé , in the emigre army of his grandfather Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, as an officer of the cavalry since 1792 . After the dissolution of the army in 1802, the noblewoman who was married to Princess Charlotte de Rohan, "Mademoiselle de Rochefort" (1767–1841), niece of Louis René Édouard de Rohan-Guéméné , lived in Ettenheim in Baden and went on occasional excursions Strasbourg , where the Bourbons ran a network of agents .
Napoléon makes an example
After an uncovered conspiracy in August 1803 to the generals Georges Cadoudal , Jean-Charles Pichegru , and Jean-Victor Moreau that an assassination attempt on Napoleon in Malmaison planned sought Bonaparte using his police minister Joseph Fouché after a Bourbon, where you one example statuieren could. The politically insignificant duke was the easiest goal to achieve.
Through a commando company, consisting of a gendarmerie detachment and 300 dragoons under the command of Général de brigade Michel Ordener , Bonaparte let him on 14/15. March from Ettenheim ( Electorate of Baden ), where he had fled, to France, in order to put him on a political show trial for high treason . (After the Duke's capture, Ordener attached great importance throughout his life to the fact that he was neither directly nor indirectly involved in the conviction and execution of the same.) The Duke did not resist the arrest. During the drive to Vincennes, he declared that he had sworn an irreconcilable hatred for Napoléon and would use every opportunity to fight him. The confiscated papers proved that the Bourbons were recruiting conspirators against Napoleon. The First Consul reacted violently:
“Why don't they wield weapons against me? […] Instead, they send out muggers, blow up Paris, kill innocent people. For that they should cry bloody tears for me. "
Enghien was brought before a tribunal of seven colonels on March 20, presided over by General Hulin . He proudly described himself as an enemy of Bonaparte and revolutionary France, but denied any accusation of participating in a conspiracy against the life of the First Consul and demanded an interview with him, but this was refused because Napoleon ordered the immediate execution of the death sentence and moreover had moved away from Paris. On March 21, 1804 at four in the morning the death sentence was pronounced and half an hour later in the moat of Vincennes Castle by a firing squad composed of 16 gendarmes of the Gendarmerie d'élite de la Garde impériale .
Reactions and consequences
This approach harmed Napoléon in terms of foreign policy, especially in Germany and Prussia , as one saw their own sovereign rights threatened. Napoléon had previously rejected a petition for clemency brought by Joséphine de Beauharnais . Domestically, however, Bonaparte had stifled all further royalist conspiracies with this "terrorist execution" (Louis Bergeron) and the approval of the population at large. Significantly, Napoléon himself said only briefly in response to the indignation abroad: “I am the French Revolution”.
Joseph Fouché later judged Napoléon's decision with the (often attributed to Foreign Minister Talleyrand ) aphorism "That was worse than a crime, that was a mistake". Napoléon later tried to shift the blame on the then police minister Savary and on Talleyrand and claimed in the Mémoires de Ste-Hélène that a letter from the duke had only been handed over to him by Talleyrand two days after his death; Enghien hadn't written a letter at all. Savary's justification Sur la catastrophe de M. le duc d'Enghien (Paris 1823) prompted more than 20 different writings, which make up one of the volumes of the Collection de mémoires sur la révolution française , but only state Napoléon's guilt; Talleyrand also knew himself to be with Louis XVIII. to justify. Dupin made the files known and uncovered what was illegal in the proceedings against the Duke.
After the restoration , Enghien's body was exhumed and Louis XVIII. and the chambers in the church at Vincennes.
literature
- Johann Baptist: Descendants of Prince Enghien in Baden? , in: New miscells from home and landscape, Volume 2 (1954–1959), pp. 39–41
- Duke of Rovigo : About the execution of the Duke of Enghien , Leipzig 1824 ( online in Google Book Search )
- André Dupin: Pièces judiciaires et historiques relatives au procès du duc d'Enghien, avec le journal de ce prince depuis l'instant de son arrestation. Précédées de la Discussion des actes de la commission militaire instituée en l'an XII, par le gouvernement consulaire, pour juger le duc d'Enghien . Baudouin frères, Paris 1823
- Pierre-Augustin, comte de Hulin: Explications offertes aux hommes impartiaux: au sujet de la commission militaire instituée en l'an XII pour juger le duc d'Enghien . Baudouin frères, Paris 1823
- Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe: Les Dernières Années du duc d'Enghien 1801–1804 . Hachette, Paris 1886
- Melchior-Bonnet Bernardine: Le duc d'Enghien, vie et mort du dernier des Condé . Amiot-Dumont, Paris 1954
- Marcel Dupont: Le tragique destin du Duc d'Enghien . Hachette, Paris 1938
- Paul Lombard: Par le sang d'un prince . Grasset, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-246-31101-2
- Jean-Paul Bertaud: Le Duc d'Enghien . Fayard, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-213-60987-X (Hugo Capet Prize 2001)
- Florence de Baudus: Le Sang du Prince: Vie et mort du duc d'Enghien . Rocher, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-268-04143-3
- Marie-Louise Jacotey: Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon Conde - Duc d'Enghien (1772–1804), Duc “Va de Bon Coeur” . Dominique Guéniot, Langres 2005, ISBN 2-87825-317-5
- Marita Spang: The Duke's Rose . Knaur 2018, ISBN 978-3426520222
Web links
- The d'Enghien Affair: Crime or Blunder? (engl., with ill.)
- Willibald Alexis : The new Pitaval. The Duc d'Enghien in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Historical tour of Ettenheim with references to Enghien
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bourbon-Condé, Louis Antoine Henri de, duc d'Enghien |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Duke of Enghien |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French duke |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 2, 1772 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chantilly |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 21, 1804 |
| Place of death | Vincennes Castle |