MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 800, 2 April 1853, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Weilington Swing Napoleon's Life. — The following passage from the memoir* of the late General V. Muffling, written hy b;ms»lf, will perhaps at this moment be read with iom« interest. Muttiug was the agent of til the com* munications between the head quarters of Blucber aod ihe Duke of Wellington during th«

march of the allies on Paris, after the return of Napoleon from Elba :— " During 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 French Commissioners who were sent to him to propose an armistice he demanded the delivery of Napoleon to him as the first condition of the negotiations. 1 was charged by Marshal Blucher to represent i to the Duke of Wellington that the Congress of * Vienna had declared Napoleon outlawed and tbit he was determined to have him shot the moment be fell into his hands. Yet he wished to know from the Duke what he thought of the matter ; for if he (the Duke) had the aame intentions, the marshal was willing to act with him in carrying j them into effect. The Duke looked at me rather astonUhed, and he began to dupute the correctness of tbe Marshal's interpretation of the proclamation of Vienna, which was not at all intended to authorise or incite to the murder of Napoleou ; 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 himself and the marshal towards Napoleon, since the victory bad been won, was too high to permit such an act to be committed. I had felt all the force of the Dokc's arguments before 1 delivered the message I had very unwillingly undertaken, and was therefore not inclined to oppose them. * I therefore, 1 continued the Duke, * wish my friend and colleague to see this matter in the light I do ; such an act would give our names to history stained by a ciime, and. posterity would say of us, they were not worthy to be his conquerors ; the more so, as such a deed is useless, and can have no object. Of these expressions, I only used enough to dissuade Blucher from bis intention." There are depatchei given by Muffling in the appendix to his memoirs, in which the execution of Napoleon is urged on Wellington by Blucher ; they are signed by Gneisenau, and leave no doubt of -the determination to revenge the blood shed in the war on the cause of it, bad he fallen into the hands of the Prussian commander. Bluchers fixed idea was that the Emperor should be executed on the very spot where the Due d'Enghien 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 out few Frenchmen are aware of the existence of tbia correspondence, or that it is an historical fact that Napoleon's life was saved by his rival, -whom it cost no small exertion to cave it.