At other times the exile of St. Helena told a shorter and a plainer
tale. "I was assailed," said he, "on all hands by the enemies whom the
Bourbons had raised up against me: threatened with air-guns, infernal
machines, and stratagems of every kind. There was no tribunal to which I
could appeal for protection; therefore I had a right to protect myself.
By putting to death one of those whose followers threatened my life, I
was entitled to strike a salutary terror into all the rest."

The princes of the House of Bourbon, so far from stimulating assassins
to take off the usurper of their throne, never failed, when such schemes
were suggested, to denounce them as atrocities hateful in the sight of
God and man. As to this part of their conduct, the proofs are abundant,
clear, and irrefragable. But it is very possible that Buonaparte
entertained the foul suspicion on which he justifies his violence. And
indeed it is only by supposing him to have sincerely believed that the
Bourbons were plotting against his life, that we can at all account for
the shedding of D'Enghien's blood.--Unless Josephine spake untruly, or
her conversation has been wilfully misrepresented, she strenuously
exerted her influence to procure mercy for the royal victim; and so,
unquestionably, did his venerable mother. But it demanded neither
affection for Napoleon's person, nor regard for his interest, nor
compassion for the youth and innocence of the Duke d'Enghien, to
perceive the imprudence, as well as wickedness, of the proceeding. The
remark of the callous _Fouche_ had passed into a proverb, "It was worse
than a crime--it was a blunder."

A few days after the execution of the Duke d'Enghien (on the morning of
the 7th of April) General Pichegru was found dead in prison: a black
handkerchief was tied round his neck, and tightened by the twisting of a
short stick, like a tourniquet. It could not appear probable that he
should have terminated his own life by such means; and, accordingly, the
rumour spread that he had been taken off in the night by some of the
satellites of Savary; or, according to others, by some Mamelukes whom
Napoleon had brought with him from the East, and now retained near his
person, as an interior body-guard of the palace. This is a mystery which
has never been penetrated. The recent fate of D'Enghien had prepared men
to receive any story of this dark nature; and it was argued that
Buonaparte had feared to bring Pichegru, a bold and