finish off the case in a way that shall be agreeable to both

Governments.”
But such a result seemed very unlikely, for it would have required
very strong compulsion to make Fouché renounce his plan, more
especially now that the arrest was an accomplished fact. It seemed
absolutely necessary to him to extradite d’Auerweck and to fetch him
to Paris; and he had already, by August 5, warned the Prefect of the
department of Mont Tonnerre and Moncey, the Inspector-General of
Police, to be in readiness “to take charge of and to escort Lord
d’Auerweck.”
It was just at this time that Commissary Popp, whose assistance
had not been utilized as much as he hoped it would be, began to be
worried by the silence which was observed as far as he was
concerned, and he entreated his Minister not to allow the Baron to
slip out of his hands.
“It was very distasteful to have to make this arrest,” he said,
“and it was only effected because it was necessary; and you
can guess how carefully, under these circumstances, we have
examined his papers, which it was of supreme importance to
lay our hands upon.”
However, these papers, which Popp so confidently reckoned
would expose the Baron’s intrigues, were found to consist only of
purely private correspondence, altogether wanting in political
interest; besides the historical works undertaken by d’Auerweck, the
search of his house had only brought to light some insignificant
letters, amongst which were “a bundle of love letters which
d’Auerweck had exchanged with a young émigrée now settled in
London. It appears that this entanglement did not meet with the
approval of the young lady’s uncle, the girl having lost her parents
when she was fifteen years of age.”
The Grand Duke, having heard these particulars, was all the more
unwilling to hand over his unfortunate subject to Fouché and his
myrmidons. He was convinced “of his perfect innocence.” Therefore
the Baron de Dalberg, his Ambassador in Paris, was charged “to
urge His Excellency, Minister Fouché, most forcibly to cease from
troubling these persons, who were very sincerely to be pitied.” But
he only encountered the most obstinate resistance. Fouché had
received the plea of exculpation, which d’Auerweck had drawn up
two days after his arrest, but he decided it was insufficient, “because
it only touched lightly on many of the principal details of his intrigues,
and it did not refer at all to his doings before 1800,” and in the
margin of the sheet he recorded his sentiments in a kind of cross-
examination.
“With whom had he had dealings since his second journey
to Paris? Where did he lodge? To whom in London had he
written? Did he not hide himself in a house in the Rue Basse-
du-Rempart?
“What commission had he been charged with at Rastadt?
Had he not made this extraordinary remark to some one
before he left Hamburg: ‘I am going to Rastadt; you will soon
hear of a great event, in which I shall have had a hand’”?
And Fouché went on to allude to the Baron’s hurried flight at the
time when the French troops were drawing near.
“Why did you fly at the time of the commencement of
hostilities? You are not a Frenchman? If you had not intrigued
against France, or even if you had ceased to intrigue, why did
you leave your wife because our troops were about to arrive,
since you were a German and settled in Germany on the
territory of a Prince, who is on good terms with this same
France? But we have reason to believe that you were still
carrying on your intrigues. We have reason to think that you
came secretly to Paris five or six months ago. You were seen
in the Rue de Richelieu. Further, we have reason to think that,
stationed as you were on our frontier, you were perilously
inclined by your long experience as a spy to continue to spy
on us, and that you did not confine yourself to a
correspondence with our enemies, but actually controlled men
of the class of those whom you directed at Rastadt according
to your own acknowledgment.”
 Such were the complaints formulated by the Minister, and they
were sufficient, it must be admitted, to convince him of the
importance of his capture. Even if the Baron’s past life since 1800
could be voluntarily ignored—although this past life could not fail to
arouse a host of just suspicions—there still remained his complicity
in the drama of Rastadt, and also the coincidence—though not a
very convincing one—of Bourcard’s arrest with the Baron’s presence
on the banks of the Rhine. So Fouché, in his reply to Baron de
Dalberg, who had begged him to comply with his requests, wished to
show that he had made up his mind.
“You understand, monsieur, from what has passed,” he
wrote on August 29, “that Baron d’Auerweck cannot be set
free, and that it is necessary to convey him to Paris in order to
give his explanation of the fresh and singular information
which has been received about him. Your Excellency may rest
assured that his examination will be conducted with perfect
impartiality, such as he may desire, and that he will obtain the
fullest justice, if he can clear himself.”
The unfortunate Baron had now been kicking his heels for more
than a month in the jail at Offenburg, where he was kept under
observation day and night by a sentinel. The heat was intense, and
d’Auerweck, suffering as he was from an internal complaint, which
made his detention all the harder to bear, cursed his bad luck. He
reproached his Sovereign in picturesque language with having
allowed him to be imprisoned without any proof of crime upon
“knavish accusations,” him—
“a citizen, a man of valour, whose honour no man doubts;
whose fair dealing every one confides in; who is not ashamed
to show his love of religion, and whose life is by no means a
useless one; who has sufficient brains to have principles, and
sufficient heart to sacrifice himself for his principles when they
demand it; whose head and heart are in harmony; who has
taken no part in political events except according to his oath
and his duty; who, in short, has for the past five years lived as
a peasant in a little house, which he had built himself, there
tending his garden and rearing his children.”
 The Grand Duke, touched by the truth of these reproaches, did his
best to avoid granting Fouché’s demand. He believed he had hit
upon an expedient when he proposed to the Minister to send the
prisoner only as far as Strasburg, where the French Justiciary could
examine him comfortably. But Fouché showed himself
unmanageable, so fifteen days later the Grand Duke, tired of the
struggle, and with the excuse of “the ties of friendship and the
peculiar harmony which existed with the French Court,” at last
consented to the extradition of Baron D’Auerweck, although—
“His Highness considered that he had the right to expect to
be spared the unpleasantness of having to hand over to a
foreign jurisdiction one of his subjects, against whom there
did not exist any properly established suspicions, and whose
papers furnished no proof against him.”
Once again the wrathful spectre of Napoleon, ready to crush the
man who opposed his will, had succeeded in triumphing over
everything which could be hoped for from justice and good laws.
On September 22 Commissary Molitor took d’Auerweck out of the
prison of Offenburg and brought him to Strasburg to hand him over
to the French police. In order to preserve precedent and to save his
face, the Grand Duke had ordered his councillor to announce that—
“although His Royal Highness, in his particular
condescension, had allowed his subject Auerweck to be
extradited so as to facilitate the information and accusations
which were brought against him this was done in full
confidence that he would be treated as considerately as
possible, and that he would not be subjected to any
unpleasant or harsh treatment in consideration of the peculiar
circumstances of his case.”
But what M. Fouché’s instructions were was well known, and no
one had any misconception on the subject, least of all the Grand
Duke. The pitiful letter which Madame d’Auerweck sent to him next
day, and in which she appealed to his kind heart and his pity, must
certainly have aroused some feeling of remorse.