Shortly after the reviews the 36th Regiment arrived in Paris, and on the same day Sir William O’Callaghan’s aide-de-camp, his nephew, Captain Colthurst, made his appearance. The general being thus provided, I joined my regiment. We were quartered at Montmartre, the theatre of Marmont’s fidelity. Subsequently we encamped in the Bois de Boulogne; thence we moved into cantonments not far distant from Versailles. A part of the regiment were quartered in the Chateau of the Postmaster-General of France. His history so far as it relates to his attachment to Napoleon, his imprisonment and the mode of his escape aided by a British general officer lately reinstated in rank, is already well known.
Towards the close of December 1815 the regiment was ordered home. We passed through Paris on the day that Marshal Ney was shot; whether our presence there during that melancholy occasion was accidental or designed I cannot say, but it was probably designed. His death was worthy of his former undaunted character, which gained him the title of “Le brave des braves.” Disdaining to have his eyes bandaged he commanded the soldiers appointed for his execution to fire; and shedding bitter tears they obeyed his order, by which France was deprived of the bravest and brightest genius who ever led her armies to victory. On the second restoration of Louis XVIII. a general pardon was granted by proclamation in his name to all French subjects then residing in Paris; but by a strange construction of words it was argued that Ney was not included, although at the time he did reside in Paris, if a soldier be considered as ever residing anywhere.
EXECUTION OF MARSHAL NEY.
Soult, although he fought in the ranks of Napoleon at Waterloo, yet made so noble a defence that the Duc de Richelieu durst not push the prosecution; yet His Grace declared that it would be an abuse of mercy to pardon Ney. He was found guilty of high treason, upon which verdict he was executed. But against whom or what was the treason? Not against France, in whose defence or for whose aggrandisement he fought five hundred battles, and never drew his sword against her. His treason then consisted in his unfortunate choice of allegiance between two individuals: one, the Emperor selected by the French nation and under whose standard all the armies of France were ranged; the other a king indeed but a nominal one, a king who fled his country on the approach of a foreign invader, as Napoleon actually was on coming from the Island of Elba. This king too was opposed by the nation upon whom he was foisted, as he himself gratefully but imprudently proclaimed by declaring that next to God he owed his crown to the Prince Regent of England. This insult to his countrymen was deeply felt all through France, and cannot be more forcibly expressed than by the manner in which the French at the time proclaimed him as “Louis XVIII., King of France and Navarre, by the grace of three hundred thousand foreign bayonets.” As traitor against this king, Ney was executed; but, had he been spared, the monarch’s crown would have been the brighter, and the bravest of the brave have been spared to his country.
In our route to Calais the detachment of the regiment to which I belonged passed through the village of Creçy, where we halted for a day. Natural curiosity, not unmixed with national pride, induced some of us to visit the plains glorious to Edward III. and the Black Prince. Our guide pointed out the little tower in which the victorious Edward is stated to have taken post during the battle; it had all the appearance of having been a windmill. The glorious days of the Edwards and Henrys flashed on our imaginations: days when the warlike monarchs led their gallant troops in person and by their heroic example fired them to deeds of glory; days when personal merit was promptly and impartially rewarded. Rewards for gallant deeds of arms did not then depend upon a county election. The chief who witnessed and who consequently could best judge possessed the power to reward without reference to the jarring interests of voters at home.
On surveying the extensive plain, our guide pointed out a mound, distant from the windmill about two miles. Here it was, he said, that the French army made their last desperate effort. A small chapel is built on the site, called “La Chapelle des Trois Cents Corps Nobles,” to commemorate the fact that where the chapel stands three hundred nobles of the contending armies fighting fell. On returning to our billets I signified to the man of the house my wish to visit the hallowed spot next morning, as it was then too late in the day. Upon this our good host entertained us with many legendary tales of the chapel, and said amongst other things that the door could never be kept shut. My evident incredulity rather displeasing him, he protested most solemnly that bolts and locks had been repeatedly put on the door to endeavour to keep it shut, but to no purpose: it was always found wide open in the morning; and as to watching it, none could be found sufficiently daring to make the attempt. Notwithstanding the solemn assertions of our good host, I told him that I was determined to proceed to the chapel next morning and shut myself within its mysterious walls. When he had used many arguments to dissuade me from my purpose but found me still determined, he remarked that there was one difficulty in my shutting myself up there, since, in consequence of the fact that the chapel could never be kept closed, it had been without a door for more than a century. Much disappointed, but still perceiving by the solemn manner of my host that his account of the chapel was not intended as a jest, I told him that I should certainly go there next morning and nail a blanket against the doorway, to witness the consequence of closing the chapel; and this foolish act I was determined to carry into execution, but as we received orders that night to continue our march at daybreak next morning, my quixotic enterprise was frustrated. The impossibility of closing the chapel was religiously believed by every inhabitant of the place, not excluding the parish priest.
We embarked at Calais and descended at Ramsgate and Dover, and thence proceeded overland to Portsmouth, which we garrisoned until the year 1817, when we embarked for the Island of Malta.
CHAPTER XXX.
AT BRUSSELS WITH DUKE D’ARENBERG.
In 1819 I procured leave of absence to proceed to England; and in this year I repeated my visit to Brussels. I found Prince Prosper at home and received the most marked attention from the old duke, his father. Here it may not be irrelevant to mention that Napoleon, as contributing to fortify his unwieldy empire, insisted on the Prince Prosper marrying a Miss Tacher, a niece of Josephine, and transferred to him his father’s title, Duke d’Arenberg, at the same time by a similar arbitrary act compelling the old unduked duke to assume the title of a baron of the French empire. This was one of Napoleon’s master strokes of policy. Prince Prosper was now married to his second wife having been previously divorced from his first duchess, Miss Tacher that was, to whom the mustachios had been sent from Lisbon.