It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder.

The remark is associated with the Napoleonic era and is most often linked to reactions within the French government to Napoleon’s 1804 seizure and execution of Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon, duc d’Enghien. The killing, carried out after the duke was abducted from Baden and summarily tried, caused international outrage and was widely viewed as politically disastrous for France. Although the line is frequently attributed to Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe, many historians note that it is also (and perhaps more reliably) connected to Joseph Fouché or to Talleyrand in later retellings, reflecting the way the phrase circulated as a pointed critique of Napoleon’s miscalculation.

The aphorism distinguishes moral wrongdoing from strategic folly. Calling an act “worse than a crime” implies that, beyond any ethical or legal guilt, the action is self-defeating: it damages the actor’s interests, legitimacy, or position. In political usage, the line is a coldly pragmatic condemnation—suggesting that power can sometimes survive “crimes” if they are effective or deniable, but not “blunders” that provoke backlash, unify opponents, or expose weakness. Its enduring bite comes from this cynical realism: it frames political judgment not in terms of justice, but in terms of consequences and competence.

1) “C’est pire qu’un crime, c’est une faute.”
2) “It is worse than a crime; it is an error.”
3) “Worse than a crime—it is a mistake.”