But in truth whether Talleyrand, or Savary, or Caulaincourt, had the chief hand in the death of the Duke d'Enghien, is a controversy about which posterity will feel little interest.

It is obvious to all men, that not one of them durst have stirred a finger to bring about a catastrophe of such fearful importance, without the express orders of Napoleon.
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.