WELLINGTON SAVING THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 725, 26 March 1853, Page 3

WELLINGTON SAVING THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON.

The following passage from the memoirs of the lata Genenl V. Muffling, written by himself under the title of “Aus mbinem Leben,” will perhaps at this moment be read with some interest. Muffling was the agent of all communication between the head-quarters ot Blucher and the Duke of Wellington during the march of the allies on Paris, after the return of Napoleon from Elba:—

“ Duiing the march (after the battle of Waterloo,) Blucher had once a chance of taking Napoleon prisoner, which he was very anxious to do; from the Freriph Commissioners who were sent to him to propose an armistice, he demanded the delivery of Napoleon to him as the first condition of the negociations. 1 was charged by Marshal Blucher to represent to the Duke of Wellington that the Congress of Vienna had declared Napoleon outlawed, and that he was determined to have him shot the moment he fell into his hands. Yet ha wished to know from the Duke what he thought of the matter; for if he (the Duke) had the same intentions, the Marshal was willing to act with him in carrying them into effect.

•‘The Duke looked at me rather astonished, and began to dispute the correctness of the Marshal’s interpretation of the proclamation of Vienna, which was not at all intended to authorise or incite to the murder of Napoleon; he believed therefore, that no right to shoot him in case he should be made prisoner of war could be founded on this document, and he thought the position both of hi nself and the Marshal towards Napoleon, since the victory had been won, was too high to permit such an act to be committed. I had felt all the force of the Duke’s arguments before I delivered the message I had very unwillingly undertaken, and was therefore not inclined to oppose them. ‘I therefore’ continued the Duke, * wish my friend and colleague to see this matter in the light 1 do; such an :ct would give our names to history stained by a crime, and posterity would say of us, they were not worthy to be his conquerors; the more so as such a deed is use'ess, and can have no object.’ Of these expressions, I only used enough to pursuade Blucher from his intention.

There are three despatches given by Muffling in the appendix to his memoirs, in which the execution of Napoleon is urged on the Duke of Wellington by Blucber; they are signed by Gneisenau, and leave no doubt of the determination to revenge the bloodshed of the war on the cause of it, had he fallen into the hands of the Prussian Commander. Blucher’s fixed idea was that the Emperor should be executed on the very spot spot where the Due d’Engien was put to death. The last despatch yields an unwilling assent to the Duke of Wellington’s remonstrances, and calls his interference “dramatic magnanimity,’’ which the Prussian headquarters did not at all comprehend. Probably but few Frenchmen are aware of the existence of this correspondence, or that it is an historical fact that Napoleon’s life was saved by his rival whom it cost no small exertion to save it.