MARSHAL NEY

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 23, 28 January 1938, Page 17

MARSHAL NEY

WAS HE EXECUTED.?

STRANGE STORY OF ESCAPE

FLIGHT TO AMERICA

The story that.Marshal Ney, whom Napoleon described as-"The Bravest of the Brave," was not executed in Paris on December 7, 1815, for treason, that the execution was a fake, and that Ney was sent secretly to the United States, where he lived for thirty years, has been revived in a book published in New York, entitled "Marshal Ney. A Dual Life," by Le Gette Blythe, says a writer in the Melbourne "Age." This book follows closely the lines of a volume published in America fortytwo years ago, entitled "Historic Doubts as to the Execution of Marshal Ney,"" by James A. Weston, rector of the Church of Ascension, in Hickory, North Carolina. Marshal Ney was the son of a cooper in the little French town of Saar-Louis. After filling a clerical post, he joined the ranks of the army of the French Kepublic in 1788 at the age of 19, and he rose rapidly in military rank. When he was 27 years of age he was made a brigadier-general, and he held im-< portant commands on the Rhine before Napoleon returned from Egypt and swept away the Directory. He played a prominent part in all Napoleonls subsequent campaigns, and according to' Sir. William Napier, the British military historian, he fought in 500 battles. He served under Napoleon in Germany, Spain, and Russia, and to him is due the chief credit of saving the remnants of the French army in the retreat from Moscow. FOLLOWED BOURBONS. When Napoleon' was defeated and exiled to Elba, Ney attached himself to" the Bourbons. When Napoleon returned he was sent to oppose his old chief, but deserted to him .with the troops under his command. He was given an important command in the Waterloo campaign, and after \he defeat of Napoleon he was arrested and brought to Paris to be tried for treason. He elected to be .tried by his peers in the Chamber of Peers, instead of by court-martial. Only one man, the youthful Due de ■.'roglie, favoured his acquittal. Five peers abstained from voting, seventeen favoured deportation, and 137 voted for the death penalty. The execution was carried out a few hours later by a firing squad in a corner of the Luxembourg Gardens, It was recorded that Ney was struck by eleven bullets, six of which entered the chest and three the head. After the body had lain exposed for fifteen minutes, as required by law, it was taken to the Hospice de la Maternite, where it lay in. state until the following morning, when it was secretly buried. The story that the execution was faked puts a big strain on ordinary common sense. Mr, Weston states in his "Historic Doubts" that the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Ney were Masons, and that the Duke waited on King Louis XVIII and begged that the life of the Marshal should be spared, but the King snubbed the Duke by turning his back on him. Ney was a popular soldier who had done much for the military glory of France, and there was a strong feeling in favour of sparing his^life. ** ATTITUDE OF PEERS. Mr. Weston cited authority to show that no sooner had the death penalty been voted by the Chamber of Peers than the Due de Richelieu was surrounded by a large number of his fellow?voters, who told him that they had given their votes in accofdance with the wish of the Court, but they had understood that the death sentence would be commuted. They urged, the Prime Minister to ask King Louis to exile the Marshal to America, When this appeal failed, Marshal Ney's influential friends, with the cooperation of the Duke of Wellington, planned his escape. The Marshal was provided with a bladder containing red fluid and he burst the bladder when the soldiers fired blank charges, and covered his"~chcst and face with what appeared to be blood as he fell to the ground. The two officers in charge of the arrangements' for the execution were Masons, and were in the plot. Under cover of darkness, they enabled the Marshal to escape from the Hosr pice de la Maternite. He was con : veyed rapidly to the coast and boarded a vessel on which a passage had been arranged for him. i According to the story which was current in America, Ney landed at Charleston, and became a schoolmaster in a small'settlement in South Carolina. For thirty years he lived at dffierent places in- North and South Carolina and Virginia under the name of Peter Stuart Ney, earning his living by teaching. It is said that when intoxicated he admitted that he was Marshal Ney, and that on his deathbed he solemnly asserted that claim. A STRONG RESEMBLANCE. According to the evidence collected by Rev. James Weston some' years after the death of Peter Stuart Ney from men who had known him, there was a remarkable physical resemblance between Peter Stuart Ney and Marshal Ney, and the former displayed scars of wounds he was • said to have received in Napoleon's campaigns.. Both men were expert fencers and horsemen, and both played the flute. Their hand writing was said by experts to be identical. Moreover, Peter Stuart Ney displayed an intimate knowledge of Napoleon,' of his inner circle, and of details of his campaigns and his private life. He annotated books on Napoleon, such' as : O'Meara's; "Na^ poleon in Exile," with many intimate details concerning the Emperor and his court. ; But no evidence has ever been obtained in France to support the American story that Marshal Ney escaped execution and was sent to America, The records of the French police not only confirm the execution, but refer to the fact ■ that hundreds of people; including men of high station viewed the Marshal's body at the Hospice do ia Maternite after the execution. Peter Stuart Ney left at _ his death a tin trunk containing many papers and documents, some of which are written in shorthand. For some time past Mr. Richard F. Little, a school teacher in North Carolina, has been engaged deciphering the , shorthand documents. It is said that when Peter Stuart Ney entrusted the trunk of papers and documents to a friend before his death he declared that their contents would some day startle the world. : A RUSSIAN MYSTERY. 'There are other cases of the supposed reappearance of men-who met their death. John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln by shooting him in the Ford Theatre, Washington, on the night of April 14, 1865, was shot twelve days later by. soldiers while he was. hiding in a barn or Garrett's. farm, but for years after there were persistent rumours in America that the man killed in the barn was not Booth; that Booth escaped frim his pursuers, and lived for many years a haunted existence under different names, and finally poisoned himself. Numerous books were written in America to prove that he escaped, and in some* cases the story,

of his survival was supported by sworn documentary testimony on the part oi persons who claimed to possess material evidence. Still more remarkable is the story of the survival of the Russian Tsar Alexander 1 as a monk. Towards the end of 1825 Alexander went to Southern Russia, and it was reported from the little town of Taganrog that he .had contracted a fever. A few days later —on November 30—the death of the Tsai\ was announced. On account of the infectious nature of the disease tho body was immediately placed in a coffin, which was sealed down, and 'conveyed to St. Petersburg, then the capital of Russia, to be placed in the magnificent cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, which for generations had been the burial place of the sovereigns ol all the Russias. But it began to be whispered that the Tsar had not died; that he had staged a mock funeral, and disappeared in order to get rid of the cares of his Imperial office and devote himself to-religion. THE LEGEND REVIVED. In the course of time these rumours were strengthed by the adoption, of a story that the Tsar had reappeared in the province of Tobolsk, in Siberia, as a monk, who had taken the .name of Fedor Kusmitch. This addition to the legend of the missing Tsar became strengthened m its turn by statements that members of the Imperial, family went to Tobolsk from time to time to visit the hermit monk Fedor Kusmitch, and sought his advice on affairs of State. It was said that the monk was greatly loved by the peasants of the neighbourhood, and that they regarded him as a wonder worker because of the skilful treatment he gave them. He died in 1886 at a ripe old age. ■ . The , legend that Fedor Kusmitch was the Tsar, Alexander I did not, die with tti6 death of the monk. ~lt con- ;

tinued for many years, and it was revived In a startling manner in 1822 when the Soviet Government of Russia, carrying out its policy of confiscating the property of the churches, appointed a committee to inspect all the Imperial tombs. It was thought that some of tho Russian Emperors and Empresses might have been buried with their regalia and other valuable gems. Every Imperial tomb in the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul was opened, but most of them contained nothing of value. But when the tomb of Alexander I was opened it was discovered that the coffin was empty.

Conflicting reports have been published regarding the state of the coffin when opened. Princess E. M. Almedingon, in an article published in "Discovery" in 1923, stated that the seals placed on the coffin at Taganrog were intact when it was opened [by the Soviet committee, and that the [coffin had never contained a body, I but only lumps of lead. But a correspondent of "The Times" stated in 1929 that the coffin was opened in Die; presence of many witnesses, including foreign newspaper correspondents, and although it was found to be empty there was evidence that it had at one time contained a body. According to the story which was then current, the body was not that of the Tsar, but of a soldier who had died at Taganrog. The explanation of its removal was that members of the Imperial family were aware that Alexander I had not died at Taganrog, but had disappeared in order to live a life of piety as a monk, and that about 1882 Alexander 111 had the coffin in the tomb of Alexander I opened, so that the embalmed body of the soldier could be taken out arid buried in a cemetery. Tho reigning Tsar would not allow the body of a common soldier to rest with the remains of bis Imperial ancestors. ■ ; .

ZOO STOCKTAKING

VALUING THE ANIMALS

The London Zou has been preparing for its annual census and stocktaking. By the end of last year all the 4000 inmates of the menagerie were to be counted, and valued, said the-"Daily Telegraph" on December 21.

Within the next few days census papers for every house, enclosure, and aviary will be handed to the keepers. When these papers have been filled i» they are taken to the zoo authorities aad each animal recorded is valued.

Assessing the value of certain creatures is difficult. The okapi and the bongo are the rarest animals at the zoo and therefore the most valuable nominally, but as they are never in tht market- they have no standard commercial value, ' • .

The most expensive animal to replace would be the Indian rhinoceros, valued at £2000. Mok and Moina, the gorillas,- also jome high on the list, as together they are worth £2000. Elephants cost about £600 each.

Supply and demand also affect prices. At one time ljons cost up to £ 100 each, but now.they are priced at about £20 at the most, while a pigmy hippopotamus, formerly worth £500, can now ■be obtained for £150.

The most valuable birds are king penguins, which fetch £75. Length counts with many reptiles, and although.small crocodiles and alligators cost only £5, George, the, centenarian alligator, is valued at about £100. Pythons are cheap up to a length of 10ft, but from 10ft to 20ft they are worth an additional £1 per foot and over 20ft their value rises, to £5 a foot. ■