his services in the army of
Conde, but utterly denied all knowledge of Pichegru and his designs. To
this the whole of his evidence (and there was no evidence but his own)
amounted; and having given it; he earnestly demanded an audience of the
Consul. "My name," said he, "my rank, my sentiments, and the peculiar
distress of my situation, lead me to hope that this request will not be
refused."

At midnight the duke was again called from his bed, to attend the court
which had been constituted for his trial. It consisted of eight military
officers, appointed by Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, then governor
of Paris. General Hullin, president of the military commission,
commanded him to listen to the charges on which he was to be tried: of
having fought against France; of being in the pay of England; and of
plotting with England against the internal and external safety of the
Republic. The Duke was again examined, and the second interrogatory was
a mere repetition of the first, with this addition, that the prisoner
avowed his readiness to take part again in the hostilities against
France, if the opportunity should present itself. No other evidence
whatever was adduced, except the written report of a spy of the police,
who testified that the duke received many emigrants at his table at
Ettenheim, and occasionally left the castle for several days together,
without the spy's being able to trace where he was: a circumstance
sufficiently explained by the duke's custom of hunting in the Black
Forest.

General Hullin, in his account of the proceedings,[48] says, "He
uniformly maintained that 'he had only sustained the rights of his
family, and that a Conde could never enter France but with arms in his
hands. My birth,' said he, 'and my opinions must ever render me
inflexible on this point.'"--"The firmness of his answers," continues
Hullin, "reduced the judges to despair. Ten times we gave him an opening
to retract his declarations, but he persisted in them immovably. 'I
see,' he said, 'the honourable intentions of the commissioners, but I
cannot resort to the means of safety which they indicate.' Being
informed that the military commission judged without appeal, 'I know
it,' answered he, 'nor do I disguise to myself the danger which I incur.
My only desire is to have an interview with the First Consul.'"

The irregularities of all this procedure were monstrous. In the first
place, the duke owed no allegiance to the existing