Mme. Bonaparte learned with intense sorrow of the (p.~308) determination taken by her husband. In the main his measures and his convictions had been kept a secret, but she confided both to Mme. de Rémusat, and the First Consul himself had told them to Joseph. On the twentieth the decree for the duke's trial and the questions to be put were dictated by the First Consul from the Tuileries, and in the early afternoon he returned to Malmaison, where at three o'clock Joseph found him strolling in the park, conversing with Talleyrand, who limped along at his side. "I'm afraid of that cripple," was Josephine's greeting to her brother-in-law. "Interrupt this long talk if you can." The mediation of the elder brother was kindly and skilful, and for a time the First Consul seemed softened by the memories of their boyhood, among which came and went the figure of the Prince of Condé. But other feelings prevailed: the brothers had differed about Lucien's marriage, and also about the question of descent if the consular power should become hereditary; the old coolness finally settled down and chilled the last hopes in the tenderhearted advocates for clemency. To Josephine's tearful entreaties her husband replied: "Go away; you're a child; you don't understand public duties." By five it was known that the duke had arrived at Vincennes, and at once Savary was despatched to the city for orders from Murat, the military commandant. On his arrival at Murat's office, from which Talleyrand was in the very act of departing, he was informed that the court-martial was already convened, and that it would be his duty to guard the prisoner and execute whatever sentence was passed.
The scenes of that fateful and doleful night defy description. The castle of Vincennes was beset with guards when finally, at about an hour before midnight, the various members of the court assembled. Their looks were dark and troubled as they wondered who the mysterious culprit might be. None knew but Hulin, the president; the judge-advocate; and Savary, the destined executioner. In a neighboring room was the duke, pale and exhausted by his long journey, munching a slender meal, which he shared with his dog, and explaining to his jailer his dreary forebodings at the prospect of a long imprisonment. He thought it would be ameliorated if only he could gratify his passion for hunting, and surely they two, as prisoner and keeper, might range the forest in company. But at last he fell asleep from sheer fatigue. The jailer could not well encourage the expectations of his new prisoner, for he had that very morning supervised the digging of a grave in the castle moat. At midnight the duke was awakened and confronted with the judge-advocate. Réal was unaccountably absent, and the interrogatory so carefully prepared by Bonaparte was not at hand. To the rude questions formulated by Hulin, with the aid of a memorandum from Murat, the prisoner, in spite of repeated hints from the members of the court-martial as to the consequences, would only reply that he had a pension from England, and had applied to her ministers for military service; that he hoped to fight for his cause with troops raised in Germany from among the disaffected and the emigrants; that he had already fought against France. But he stoutly denied any relations with Dumouriez or Pichegru and all knowledge of the plot to assassinate the First Consul. He was then called to the bar in the dimly lighted sitting-room where the commission sat. To the papers containing questions and answers he was ironically permitted to affix a demand for an audience with the First Consul. "My name, my station, my mode of thought, and the horror of my situation," he said, "inspire me with hope that he will not refuse my request." The tribunal followed its instincts: its members, knowing well the familiar statutes under which such bodies had acted since the days of the Convention, but not having at hand the words or forms of a verdict as prescribed by the pitiless laws concerning those who had borne arms against France, left in the record a blank to be filled out later, and pronounced their judgment that the "regular sentence" be executed at once. They were actually engaged in composing a petition for clemency to the First Consul when Savary burst into the room, demanding what had been done, and what they were then doing. Snatching the pen from Hulin's hand, he exclaimed, "The rest is my affair," and left the room.