[No apology is requisite for our introduction of the following passage
from the life of Marshal Ney, in a volume of the _Family Library_,
entitled "_The Court and Camp of Buonaparte_."]
In the campaign of 1813, Ney faithfully adhered to the falling emperor.
At Bautzen, Lutzen, Dresden, he contributed powerfully to the success;
but he and Oudinot received a severe check at Dennewitz from the Crown
Prince of Sweden. From that hour defeat succeeded defeat; the allies
invaded France; and, in spite of the most desperate resistance,
triumphantly entered Paris in March, 1814. Ney was one of the three
marshals chosen by Napoleon to negotiate with Alexander in behalf of the
King of Rome, but the attempt was unsuccessful, and all he could do was
to remain a passive spectator of the fall and exile of his chief.
On the restoration of the Bourbons, Ney was more fortunate than many of
his brethren: he was entrusted with a high military command, and created
a knight of St. Louis, and a peer of France.
But France was now at peace with all the world; and no one of these
great military chiefs could be more unprepared for the change than the
Prince of Moskwa. He was too old to acquire new habits. For domestic
comforts he was little adapted: during the many years of his marriage,
he had been unable to pass more than a very few months with his family.
Too illiterate to find any resource in books, too rude to be a favourite
in society, and too proud to desire that sort of distinction, he was
condemned to a solitary and an inactive life. The habit of braving
death, and of commanding vast bodies of men, had impressed his character
with a species of moral grandeur, which raised him far above the puerile
observances of the fashionable world. Plain in his manners, and still
plainer in his words, he neither knew, nor wished to know, the art of
pleasing courtiers. Of good nature he had indeed a considerable fund,
but he showed it, not so much by the endless little attentions of a
gentleman, as by scattered acts of princely beneficence. For dissipation
he had no taste; his professional cares and duties, which, during
twenty-five years, had left him no respite, had engrossed his attention
too much to allow room for the passions, vices, or follies of society to
obtain any empire over him. The sobriety of his manners was extreme,
even to austerity.
His wife had been reared in the court of Louis XVI., and had adorned
that of the emperor. Cultivated in her mind, accomplished in her
manners, and elegant in all she said or did, her society was courted on
all sides. Her habits were expensive; luxury reigned throughout her
apartments, and presided at her board; and to all this display of
elegance and pomp of show, the military simplicity, not to say the
coarseness, of the marshal, furnished a striking contrast. His good
nature offered no other obstacle to the gratification of her wishes than
the occasional expression of a fear that his circumstances might be
deranged by them. But if he would not oppose, neither could he join in
her extravagance. While she was presiding at a numerous and brilliant
party of guests, he preferred to remain alone in a distant apartment,
where the festive sounds could not reach him. On such occasions he
almost always dined alone.
Ney seldom appeared at court. He could neither bow nor flatter, nor
could he stoop to kiss even his sovereign's hand without something like
self-humiliation. To his princess, on the other hand, the royal smile
was as necessary as the light of the sun; and unfortunately for her, she
was sometimes disappointed in her efforts to attract it. Her wounded
vanity often beheld an insult in what was probably no more than an
inadvertence. In a word she ere long fervently regretted the court in
which the great captains had occupied the first rank, and their families
shared the almost exclusive favour of the sovereign. She complained to
her husband; and he, with a calm smile, advised her never again to
expose herself to such mortifications if she really sustained them. But
though he could thus rebuke a woman's vanity, the haughty soldier felt
his own wounded through hers. To escape from these complaints, and from
the monotony of his Parisian existence, he retired to his country-seat,
in January, 1815, the very season when people of consideration are most
engrossed by the busy scenes of the metropolis. There he led an
unfettered life; he gave his mornings to field sports; and the guests he
entertained in the evening were such as, from their humble condition,
rendered formality useless, and placed him completely at his ease.
It was here that on the 6th of March he was surprised by the arrival of
an aide-de-camp from the minister at war, who ordered him, with all
possible despatch, to join the sixth division, of which he was the
commander, and which was stationed at Besançon. In his anxiety to learn
the extent of his instructions, Ney immediately rode to Paris; and
there, for the first time, learned the disembarkation of Buonaparte from
Elba.
Ney eagerly undertook the commission assigned him of hastening to oppose
the invader. In his last interview with Louis his protestations of
devotedness to the Bourbons, and his denunciations against Napoleon,
were ardent--perhaps they were sincere. Whether he said that Buonaparte
_deserved_ to be confined in an iron cage, or that he would _bring_ him
to Paris in one, is not very clear, nor indeed very material.--We
reluctantly approach the darker shades in the life of this great
officer.
On his arrival at Besançon, March 10th, he learned the disaffection of
all the troops hitherto sent against the invader, and perceived that
those by whom he was surrounded were not more to be trusted. He was
surrounded with loud and incessant cries of _Vive l'Empereur!_ Already,
at Lyons, two members of the royal family had found all opposition vain;
the march of Napoleon was equally peaceful and triumphant. During the
night of the 13th, Ney had a secret interview with a courier from his
old master; and on the following morning he announced to his troops that
the house of Bourbon had ceased to reign--that the emperor was the only
ruler France would acknowledge! He then hastened to meet Napoleon, by
whom he was received with open arms, and hailed by his indisputed title
of Bravest of the Brave.
Ney was soon doomed to suffer the necessary consequence of his
crime--bitter and unceasing remorse. His inward reproaches became
intolerable: he felt humbled, mortified, for he had lost that noble
self-confidence, that inward sense of dignity, that unspeakable and
exalted satisfaction, which integrity alone can bestow: the man who
would have defied the world in arms, trembled before the new enemy
within him; he saw that his virtue, his honour, his peace, and the
esteem of the wise and the good, were lost to him for ever. In the
bitterness of his heart, he demanded and obtained permission to retire
for a short time into the country. But there he could not regain his
self-respect. Of his distress, and we hope of his repentance, no better
proof need be required than the reply, which, on his return to Paris, he
made to the emperor, who feigned to have believed that he had emigrated:
"I _ought_ to have done so long ago (said Ney); it is now too late."
The prospect of approaching hostilities soon roused once more the
enthusiasm of this gallant soldier, and made him for awhile less
sensible to the gloomy agitation within. From the day of his being
ordered to join the army on the frontiers of Flanders, June 11, his
temper was observed to be less unequal, and his eye to have regained its
fiery glance.
The story of Waterloo need not be repeated here. We shall only observe,
that on no occasion did the Bravest of the Brave exhibit more impetuous
though hopeless valour. Five horses were shot under him; his garments
were pierced with balls; his whole person was disfigured with blood and
mud, yet he would have continued the contest on foot while life
remained, had he not been forced from the field, by the dense and
resistless columns of the fugitives. He returned to the capital, and
there witnessed the second imperial abdication, and the capitulation of
Paris, before he thought of consulting his safety by flight. Perhaps he
hoped that by virtue of the twelfth article of that convention, he
should not be disquieted; if so, however, the royal ordinance of July
24th, terribly undeceived him. He secreted himself with one of his
relatives at the château of Bessaris, department of Lot, in the
expectation that he should soon have an opportunity of escaping to the
United States. But he was discovered, and in a very singular manner.
In former days Ney had received a rich Egyptian sabre from the hands of
the First Consul. There was but another like it known to exist, and that
was possessed by Murat. The marshal was carefully secluded both from
visiters and domestics, but unluckily this splendid weapon was left on a
sofa in the drawing-room. It was perceived, and not a little admired by
a visiter, who afterwards described it to a party of friends at
Aurillac. One present immediately observed, that, from the description,
it must belong to either Ney or Murat. This came to the ears of the
prefect, who instantly despatched fourteen gensdarmes, and some police
agents, to arrest the owner. They surrounded the château; and Ney at
once surrendered himself. Perhaps he did not foresee the fatal issue of
his trial; some of his friends say that he even wished it to take place
immediately, that he might have an opportunity to contradict a report
that Louis had presented him with half a million of francs, on his
departure for Besançon.
A council of war, composed of French marshals, was appointed to try him;
but they had little inclination to pass sentence on an old companion in
arms; and declared their incompetency to try one, who, when he
consummated his treason, was a peer of France. Accordingly, by a royal
ordinance of November 12th, the Chamber of Peers were directed to take
cognizance of the affair. His defence was made to rest by his
advocates--first, on the twelfth article of the capitulation, and when
this was overruled, on the ground of his no longer being amenable to
French laws, since Sarre-Louis, his native town, had recently been
dissevered from France. This the prisoner himself overruled; "I _am_ a
Frenchman, (cried Ney), and I will die a Frenchman!" The result was that
he was found guilty and condemned to death by an immense majority, one
hundred and sixty-nine to seventeen. On hearing the sentence read
according to usage, he interrupted the enumeration of his titles, by
saying: "Why cannot you simply call me Michael Ney--now a French
soldier, and soon a heap of dust?" His last interview with his lady, who
was sincerely attached to him, and with his children, whom he
passionately loved, was far more bitter than the punishment he was about
to undergo. This heavy trial being over, he was perfectly calm, and
spoke of his approaching fate with the utmost unconcern. "Marshal," said
one of his sentinels, a poor grenadier, "you should now think of God. I
never faced danger without such preparation." "Do you suppose (answered
Ney) that any one need teach me to die?" But he immediately gave way to
better thoughts, and added, "Comrade, you are right. I will die as
becomes a man of honour and a Christian. Send for the curate of St.
Sulpice."
A little after eight o'clock on the morning of December 7th, the
marshal, with a firm step and an air of perfect indifference, descended
the steps leading to the court of the Luxembourg, and entered a carriage
which conveyed him to the place of execution, outside the garden gates.
He alighted, and advanced towards the file of soldiers drawn up to
despatch him. To an officer, who proposed to blindfold him, he
replied--"Are you ignorant that, for twenty-five years, I have been
accustomed to face both ball and bullet?" He took off his hat, raised it
above his head, and cried aloud--"I declare before God and man that I
have never betrayed my country: may my death render her happy! _Vive la
France!_" He then turned to the men, and, striking his other hand on his
heart, gave the word, "Soldiers--fire!"
Thus, in his forty-seventh year, did the "Bravest of the Brave" expiate
one great error, alien from his natural character, and unworthy of the
general course of his life. If he was sometimes a stern, he was never an
implacable, enemy. Ney was sincere, honest, blunt even: so far from
flattering, he often contradicted him on whose nod his fortunes
depended. He was, with rare exceptions, merciful to the vanquished; and
while so many of his brother marshals dishonoured themselves by the most
barefaced rapine and extortion, he lived and died poor.
Ney left four sons, two of whom are in the service of his old friend,
Bernadotte.
* * * * *