The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1907-01-16
FATE OF MARSHAL NEY.
a subterranean Chapter in History.
the Closing Pages of Which Lead
to North Carolina.


Paris, stands Z. stately monument an
nouncing to the world that it is erect
ed upon the spot where Marshal Ney,
upon December z, 1915, was shot for
treason. And so history has handed
the story down to US. But history is
Jade. Wendell Philips said that
one-half OF history is false. and the
other half largely conjecture. We are
continually unlearning things which
have for centuries been on the shelves
of history as absolute verities. Mar
shah Ney was not shot. The monu-
nent does not cover his remains, nor
do they rest IN any soil of France a
great cry of horror went up from all
the country when the announcement
was made that the Idol OF the people
ha.l been selected as a victim by the
wretehed government, and tried, con-
de,nned, sentenced, shot, with un-
:seeuIy haste-all done with an ex-
petition that seemed to savor OF
fear that the great marshal might
stiII oyerturn the Bourbon throne
and place the Little Corporal at the
head Of the nation. Frenchmen would
almost as soon stand to be themselves
shot as to take part in the execution
of the yindictive sentence. The deep
sympathy Of officers and men was OF
the alert to save their hero, whose
only fault was that he had followed
the star OF destiny which had led
them all to glory fer the past twenty
years.
Ney, the hero of Hohenlinden, Jena
and Madgeburg, of Borodino and Mos
kowa and Friedland, OF Lutzen and
Wagran, and who led the lass grand,
ssfssaFge Of the Old Guard Of Waterloo,
w,iere he had six horses killed under
h;us--to. Be shot ike 9, dog! Perish the
thought. And so it was Brought about
shae when the squad marched cut and
presented their guns to the prisoners
breast. those guns contained only
blank cartridges. Ney fell and was
duly cofned, but there was no scratch
upon him.
The public could not in the very
nature of things be undeceived as to
the marshaPs death, and he was
quietly shipped to Charleston, South
Carolina. Europe could be no refuge
for him. His commanding military
figure was familiar to all the crown
ed heads and they trembled at the
thought of him. Between the far
reaching spies of France and the
condition of the relations between the
United States and the French, it was
not deemed prudent for him to make
himself known even in An-erica.
Napoleon himself has been little
Jealous of the superb rarshafs glory,
and he evidenced it in trifing things;
as. for instance, once in the library
when the emperor wished a book
from a shelf, a little above his head,
the marshal, standing by, said. LET
me reach it sire, I am higher than
YOU" smiling; whereupon Napoleon
answered, frowning very solemnly,
~sYou are taller, marshal"
Ney was but a young man at the
fall of the empire, born in the same
year as Bonaparte, 1859, ana his act
i've mind found occupation in the
Carolinas by teaching school and
drilling young minds. But what
dreams he must have had! He lived
TO be over 10, and was buried by the
name of "M. Dey;;" and there are
those yet among the inhabitants OF
the Palmetto State who were boys
in the early forties ard remember the
tail, grim military schoolmaster.-
Harper's Weekly.