“You will see that their officers were not present at their bivac ... and that the damage done by them amounts to 30,000 francs, a sum ten times greater perhaps than the general will have to pay, as his part of the contribution to the allies, in five years. It is clearly of great importance that the allies prevent these irregularities.
“Wellington.”
(Gurwood, vol. XII, page 686.)
Many have been pleased to say that the duke of Wellington both could and ought to have interposed to save marshal Ney from being ignominiously executed. Without entering into the question, whether Ney was a perjured traitor to Louis XVIII, and if so, what was the meetest punishment for his treason, it may be confidently averred that Napoleon would have spared no man under similar circumstances. The following documents are worthy of attention:
MEMORANDUM
RESPECTING MARSHAL NEY.
“Paris, November 19th, 1815.
“It is extraordinary that Madame la maréchale Ney should have thought proper to publish in print parts of a conversation which she is supposed to have had with the duke of Wellington; and that she has omitted to publish that which is a much better record of the Duke’s opinion on the subject to which the conversation related; viz. the Duke’s letter to the maréchal prince de la Moskowa, in answer to the maréchal’s note to his Grace. That letter was as follows:
“November, 14th, 1815.
“I have had the honour of receiving the note which you addressed to me on the 13th November, relating to the operation of the capitulation of Paris on your case. The capitulation of Paris of the 3d July was made between the commanders in chief of the allied British and Prussian armies on the one part, and the prince d’Eckmühl, commander in chief of the French army, on the other; and related exclusively to the military occupation of Paris.
“The object of the 12th article was to prevent the adoption of any measures of severity, under the military authority of those who made it, towards any persons in Paris on account of the offices which they had filled, or their conduct, or their political opinions. But it was never intended, and could not be intended, to prevent either the existing French government, under whose authority the French commander in chief must have acted, or any French government which should succeed to it, from acting in this respect as it might deem fit.”