e
was not as much bound to the principles of the Revolution as they were,
and as he ought to be; and for this reason, as well as for their own
safety, they subsequently, in 1804, buckled him irrevocably, as they
believed, to its cause by the affair of the Duc d'Enghien. The execution
of that prince is connected by a series of discoverable ramifications
with the plot which was laid on that June evening in the boudoir of the
ministry of foreign affairs, the night before the battle of Marengo.
Those who have the means of judging, and who have known persons who were
well-informed, are fully aware that Bonaparte was handled like a
child by Talleyrand and Fouche, who were determined to alienate him
irrevocably from the House of Bourbon, whose agents were even then, at
the last moment, endeavoring to negotiate with the First Consul."

"Talleyrand was playing whist in the salon of Madame de Luynes," said a
personage who had been listening attentively to de Marsay's narrative.
"It was about three o'clock in the morning, when he pulled out his
watch, looked at it, stopped the game, and asked his three companions
abruptly and without any preface whether the Prince de Conde had any
other children than the Duc d'Enghien. Such an absurd inquiry from the
lips of Talleyrand caused the utmost surprise. 'Why do you ask us what
you know perfectly well yourself?' they said to him. 'Only to let
you know that the House of Conde comes to an end at this moment.'
Now Monsieur de Talleyrand had been at the hotel de Luynes the entire
evening, and he must have known that Bonaparte was absolutely unable to
grant the pardon."

"But," said Eugene de Rastignac, "I don't see in all this any connection
with Madame de Cinq-Cygnes and her troubles."

"Ah, you were so young at that time, my dear fellow; I forgot to explain
the conclusion. You all know the affair of the abduction of the Comte de
Gondreville, then senator of the Empire, for which the Simeuse brothers
and the two d'Hauteserres were condemned to the galleys,--an affair
which did, in fact, lead to their death."

De Marsay, entreated by several persons present to whom the
circumstances were unknown, related the whole trial, stating that the
mysterious abductors were five sharks of the secret service of the
ministry of the police, who were ordered to obtain the proclamations of
the would-be Directory which Malin had surreptitiously taken from his
house in Paris, and which he had himself come