After the second restoration of the Bourbons Ney retired into the country, meaning to escape to the United States, and was provided by Fouché with a passport for this purpose. He delayed, for some reason, to use it; and on August 3d he was arrested at the house of a relative. A council of war was appointed to try him, composed of Marshals Masséna, Augereau, Mortier, and three lieutenants. It would have been better for Ney had he submitted himself to their verdict; but he unwisely denied their competence, and demanded, as a peer of the realm, to be tried by his peers, and it was a tribunal which showed him no mercy. It does not appear that the king desired his death; but Talleyrand declared that it would be a grand example, and the royalists generally thirsted for his blood. He was condemned, by a majority of 139 to 17, to be shot for high treason.
On December 7th his wife and four children were admitted to his prison in the early morning, to take leave of him. But neither in this painful ordeal nor at any time afterward, did the condemned marshal show any sign of weakness. At eight o'clock he was taken in a carriage to the place of execution, outside the garden gates of the Luxembourg. The officer who commanded the firing party wished to bandage his eyes, but Ney said, quietly—"Are you ignorant that for twenty-five years I have been accustomed to face both balls and bullets?" Then, raising his voice, he cried, "I protest against my condemnation. I wish that I had died for my country in battle. But here is still the field of honor. Vive la France!"
The officer in command, to his credit be it said, was dumb. He seemed incapable of giving the word to fire; and Ney himself, taking off his hat, and striking his breast, cried, in a loud voice—"Soldiers, do your duty—fire!"
Thus died, in his forty-seventh year, "The Bravest of the Brave."[Back to Contents]
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
By Colonel Clayton, R.A.
(1769-1821)
Napoleon Bonaparte, the second son of Charles Bonaparte and his wife, Letizia de Ramolino, was born at Ajaccio, in Corsica, on August 15, 1769. In 1779 he entered the Royal Military School of Brienne le Château; there he remained till the autumn of 1784, when he was transferred to the Military School of Paris, according to the usual routine. An official report on him by the Inspector of Military Schools in this year speaks highly of his conduct, and notifies his great proficiency in mathematics and fair knowledge of history and geography, but says he is not well up in ornamental studies or in Latin, and, curiously enough, adds that he will make an excellent sailor. Napoleon lost his father in 1785, and the same year he was commissioned as second-lieutenant of artillery, in which capacity he served at Valence and other garrisons. He spent his periods of leave in Corsica, and appears to have wished to play the leading part in the history of his native island, showing the first signs of his ambitious and energetic character. During the critical times following the first French Revolution, he at first joined the moderate party of Paoli; but, trying for military power, though by untiring activity and reckless audacity he succeeded in being elected lieutenant-colonel of the National Volunteers of Ajaccio, he failed in an attempt to seize that town and was obliged to return to France. The French Government soon made an endeavor to crush Paoli and do away with Corsican privileges, and the islanders rallied round the patriot. Napoleon now turned against him and attempted to seize the citadel of Ajaccio for the French; but failing again, with all his relatives he fled a second time to France.