Rumors of every sort became rife. It was known that the old intriguer General Willot was again in the South. Men declared that Berry was coming to Brittany, that Charles of Artois was perhaps already in Paris, that Enghien and Dumouriez were on the eastern frontier. It was a perfect investment of plots. When Georges was captured he asserted that he was the associate of princes, and then relapsed into a profound silence which he did not again break. His servant deposed that he had seen his master in communication with a distinguished-looking youth in the suburb of Chaillot. The police remembered that in January the Duc d'Enghien had solicited from the French ambassador at Vienna a passport to cross France, and, recalling the festivities at Ettenheim, believed they were but a pretext to cover the host's absence in Paris at a time which would coincide with the mysterious interview asserted to have taken place between Georges and the unknown stranger. This was the chain of evidence which convinced Bonaparte of Enghien's participation in the plot for his assassination. True, he had not been in actual danger, for the police had been alert; but did that alter the enormity of the Bourbon intrigues against his life? It was only too natural that the terror, hate, and fury accumulated in the mind of the First Consul should concentrate on an object within his reach.
Réal, Fouché, and Talleyrand were all consulted. As yet their personal interests were bound up with their ruler's welfare, and alike they urged prompt and ruthless action to end the schemes and complots of the time. The two former needed no credentials of faithfulness. Talleyrand gave his in writing on March eighth; he had so dallied with royalists that his position must be definite now. Later efforts to discredit the note as a forgery have failed. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that all three intended by the seizure and execution of a Bourbon so to "marry," as the phrase ran, the First Consul to the terrorist side of the Revolution that he could never retreat from the position of radicalism to which they felt he had not been sufficiently committed, even yet. On March tenth the council heard and, as a body, approved Bonaparte's plan, although Lebrun was evasive and Cambacérès demurred. That night one column of a double expedition was despatched to the Rhine; it was commanded by Ordener and destined for Ettenheim. The other, under Caulaincourt, set out next day for Offenburg with a diplomatic note to the court of Baden. The latter commander was utterly ignorant of what his colleague had in hand, being instructed merely to disperse the reported company of emigrants and demand the extradition of a notorious intriguer, the Baronne de Reich. Ordener was to seize the Duc d'Enghien. The two columns proceeded by way of Strasburg without delay. Finding the baronne already a prisoner, and the police report unfounded, the generals then carried out the minute instructions of their chief as to the other part of their task.