Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
deserting to the Allies, was asked whether Ney could have got the
soldiers to act against the Emperor. He could only suggest that if Ney
had taken a musket and himself charged, the men would have followed his
example. "Still," said Bourmont, "I would not dare to affirm that he
(the Marshal) would have won." And who was Ney to charge? We know how
Napoleon approached the forces sent to oppose him: he showed himself
alone in the front of his own troops. Was Ney to deliberately kill his
old commander? was any general ever expected to undergo such a test?
and can it be believed that the soldiers who carried off the reluctant
Oudinot and chased the flying Macdonald, had such a reverence for the
"Rougeot," as they called him, that they would have stood by while he
committed this murder? The whole idea is absurd: as Ney himself said at
his trial, they would have "pulverized" him. Undoubtedly the honourable
course for Ney would have been to have left his corps when he lost
control over them; but to urge, as was done afterwards, that he had
acted on a preconceived scheme, and that his example had such weight,
was only malicious falsehood. The Emperor himself knew well how little
he owed to the free will of his Marshal, and he soon had to send him
from Paris, as Ney, sore at heart, and discontented with himself and
with both sides, uttered his mind with his usual freedom. Ney was first
ordered to inspect the frontier from Dunkirk to Bale, and was then
allowed to go to his home. He kept so aloof from Napoleon that when he
appeared on the Champ de Mai the Emperor affected surprise, saying that
he thought Ney had emigrated. At the last moment Marshal Mortier fell
ill. Ney had already been sent for. He hurried up, buying Mortier's
horses (presumably the ill-fated animals who died under him at
Waterloo), and reached the army just in time to be given the command of
the left wing.
It has been well remarked that the very qualities which made Ney
invaluable for defence or for the service of a rear-guard weighed
against him in such a combat as Quatre Bras. Splendid as a corps leader,
he had not the commander's eye to embrace the field and surmise the
strength of the enemy at a glance. At Bautzen in 1818 his staff had been
unable to prevent him from leaving the route which would have brought
him on the very rear of the enemy, because seeing the foe, and unable
to resist the desire of returning their fire, he turned off to engage
immediately. At Quatre Bras, not seeing the force he was engaged with,
believing he had the whole English army on his hands from the first, he
let himself at the beginning of the day be imposed upon by a mere screen
of troops.
We cannot here go into Ney's behaviour at Waterloo except to point out
that too little importance is generally given to the fact of the English
cavalry having, in a happy moment, fallen on and destroyed the artillery
which was being brought up to sweep the English squares at close
quarters. At Waterloo, as in so many other combats, the account of
Ney's behaviour more resembles that of a Homeric hero than of a modern
general. To the ideal commander of to-day, watching the fight at a
distance, calmly weighing its course, undisturbed except by distant
random shots, it is strange to compare Ney staggering through the gate
of Konigsberg all covered with blood; smoke and snow, musket in hand,
announcing himself as the rear-guard of France, or appearing, a second
Achilles, on the ramparts of Smolensko to encourage the yielding troops
on the glacis, or amidst the flying troops at Waterloo, with uncovered
head and broken sword, black with powder, on foot, his fifth horse
killed under him, knowing that life, honour, and country were lost,
still hoping against hope and attempting one more last desperate rally.
If he had died--ah! if he had died there--what a glorious tomb might
have risen, glorious for France as well as for him, with the simple
inscription, "The Bravest of the Brave."
Early on the 19th June a small band of officers retreating from the
field found Ney asleep at Marchiennes, "the first repose he had had for
four days," and they did not disturb him for orders. "And indeed what
order could Marshal Ney have given?" The disaster of the day, the
overwhelming horror of the flight of the beaten army, simply crushed Ney
morally as well as physically. Rising in the Chambers he denounced all
attempt at further resistance. He did not know, he would not believe,
that Grouchy was safe, and that the army was fast rallying. Fresh from
the field, with all its traces on him, the authority of Ney was too
great for the Government. Frightened friends, plotting Royalists, echoed
the wild words of Ney brave only against physical dangers. Instead of
dying on the battle-field, he had lived to ensure the return of the
Bourbons, the fall of Bonaparte, his own death, and the ruin of France.
Before his exception from the amnesty was known Ney left Paris on
the 6th of July, and went into the country with but little attempt at
concealment, and with formal passports from Fouché. The capitulation of
Paris seemed to cover him, and he was so little aware of the thirst of
the Royalists for his blood that he let his presence be known by leaving
about a splendid sabre presented to him by the Emperor on his marriage,
and recognised by mere report by an old soldier as belonging to Ney or
Murat; and Ney himself let into the house the party sent to arrest
him on the 5th of August, and actually refused the offer of Excelmans,
through whose troops he passed, to set him free. No one at the time,
except the wretched refugees of Ghent, could have suspected, after the
capitulation, that there was any special danger for Ney, and it is very
difficult to see on what principle the Bourbons chose their victims or
intended victims. Drouot, for example, had never served Louis XVIII., he
had never worn the white cockade, he had left France with Napoleon for
Elba, and had served the Emperor there. In 1815 he had fought under his
own sovereign. After Waterloo he had exerted all his great influence,
the greater from his position, to induce the Guard to retire behind the
Loire, and to submit to the Bourbons. It was because Davoust so needed
him that Drouot remained with the army. Stilt Drouot was selected for
death, but the evidence of his position was too strong to enable the
Court to condemn him. Cambronne, another selection, had also gone with
Napoleon to Elba. Savory, another selection, had, as was eventually
acknowledged, only joined Napoleon when he was in full possession of the
reins of Government. Bertrand, who was condemned while at St. Helena,
was in the same position as Drouot. In fact, if any one were to draw up
a list of probable proscriptions and compare it with those of the 24th
of July 1815, there would probably be few names common to both except
Labedoyere, Mouton Duvernet, etc. The truth is that the Bourbons, and,
to do them justice, still more the rancorous band of mediocrities who
surrounded them, thirsted for blood. Even they could feel the full
ignominy of the flight to Ghent.
While they had been chanting the glories of the Restoration, the
devotion of the people, the valour of the Princes, Napoleon had landed,
the Restoration had vanished like a bad dream, and the Princes were the
first to lead the way to the frontier. To protest that there had been a
conspiracy, and that the conspirators must suffer, was the only possible
cloak for the shame of the Royalists, who could not see that the only
conspiracy was the universal one of the nation against the miserable men
who knew not how to govern a high-spirited people.
Ney, arrested on the 5th of August, was first brought before a Military
Court on the 9th of November composed of Marshal Jourdan (President),
Marshals Massena, Augereau, and Mortier, Lieutenants-General Gazan,
Claparede, and Vilatte (members). Moncey had refused to sit, and Massena
urged to the Court his own quarrels with Ney in Spain to get rid of
the task, but was forced to remain. Defended by both the Berryers, Ney
unfortunately denied the jurisdiction of the court-martial over him as
a peer. In all probability the Military Court would have acquitted him.
Too glad at the moment to be free from the trial of their old comrade,
not understanding the danger of the proceeding, the Court, by a majority
of five against two, declared themselves non-competent, and on the 21st
of November Ney was sent before the Chamber of Peers, which condemned
him on the 6th of December.
To beg the life of his brave adversary would have been such an obvious
act of generosity on the part of the Duke of Wellington that we maybe
pardoned for examining his reasons for not interfering. First, the
Duke seems to have laid weight on the fact that if Ney had believed the
capitulation had covered him he would not have hidden. Now, even before
Ney knew of his exception from the amnesty, to appear in Paris would
have been a foolish piece of bravado. Further, the Royalist reaction was
in full vigour, and when the Royalist mobs, with the connivance of the
authorities, were murdering Marshal Brune and attacking any prominent
adherents of Napoleon, it was hardly the time for Ney to travel in full
pomp. It cannot be said that, apart from the capitulation, the Duke had
no responsibility. Generally a Government executing a prisoner, may,
with some force, if rather brutally, urge that the fact of their being
able to try and execute him in itself shows their authority to do
so. The Bourbons could not even use this argument. If the Allies had
evacuated France Louis le Desiree would have ordered his carriage and
have been at the frontier before they had reached it. If Frenchmen
actually fired the shots which killed Ney, the Allies at least shared
the responsibility with the French Government. Lastly, it would seem
that the Duke would have asked for the life of Ney if the King, clever
at such small artifices, had not purposely affected a temporary coldness
to him. Few men would have been so deterred from asking for the life of
a dog. The fact is, the Duke of Wellington was a great general, he was
a single-hearted and patriotic statesman, he had a thousand virtues,
but he was never generous. It cannot be said that he simply shared
the feelings of his army, for there was preparation among some of his
officers to enable Ney to escape, and Ney had to be guarded by men of
good position disguised in the uniform of privates. Ney had written to
his wife when he joined Napoleon, thinking of the little vexations the
Royalists loved to inflict on the men who had conquered the Continent.
"You will no longer weep when you leave the Tuileries." The unfortunate
lady wept now as she vainly sought some mercy for her husband. Arrested
on the 5th of August, sentenced on the 6th of December, Ney was shot on
the 7th of December, and the very manner of his execution shows that, in
taking his life there was much more of revenge than of justice.
If Ney were to be shot, it is obvious that it should have been as a high
act of justice. If neither the rank nor the services of the criminal
were to save him, his death could not be too formal, too solemn, too
public. Even an ordinary military execution is always carried out with
grave and striking forms: there is a grand parade of the troops, that
all may see with their own eyes the last act of the law. After the
execution the troops defile past the body, that all may see the criminal
actually dead: There was nothing of all this in the execution of Ney.
A few chance passers, in the early morning of the 7th of December 1815,
saw a small body of troops waiting by the wall of the garden of the
Luxemburg. A fiacre drove up, out of which got Marshal Ney in plain