i Rpi'im the ieqcnd that MARSHAL NIY
N the seventh day of December,
1815, a firing squad from the
French army stood in the Lux
embourg Gardens, in Paris
O
shivered in the misty dawn, and pre
pared to do a grim little job of work
Facing them stood a tall man in knet
breeches and a dark coat. Waving aside
an officer who offered him a bandage
for his eyes, he faced the soldiers
proudly and struck his breast with his
hand. The muskets of the firing squaa
cracked out an uneven volley and the
tall man fell to the ground.
Michel Ney, marshal of France in the
armies of Napoleon, had been executed
in the manner prescribed by a military
court after the downfall and exile of
Bonaparte.
All very matter-of-fact, that, with no
loose ends for myths and legends tr
cluster on A condemned man executed
by a firing squad and borne away from
the place of execution in his coffin
nothing in that, surely, to give rise t<
fantastic tales.
But legends and fantastic tales dio
arise, none the less. For the old veteran
of the grand army of France, the men
who had followed this Marshal Ney on
long marches and through desperaU
battles, presently were whispering tr
one another that their marshal had not
been shot, after all; that he had escapes
alive from France and had found refuge
in America, through the connivance of
men in high places.
In the graveyard of the old Third
Creek Presbyterian Church, near Salis
bury, North Carolina, there is a flat,
old-fashioned tombstone to mark the
last resting place of a country school
master, who died away back in 1846
If that grave were to be opened, it
might contain proof that would sub
stantiate that legend—for there is evi
dence—disputed evidence, to be sure —
to show that the man buried in it was,
in plain fact, none other than Marshal
Ney.
'T’HIS evidence was rounded up re
cently by LeGette Blythe, North
Carolina newspaperman, in a book
called “Marshal Ney: A Dual Life.” In
this book, issued by Stackpole Sons
Mr. Blythe has presented that evidence
as one of the most romantic and amaz
ing of all footnotes to modern history.
According to this evidence—which, as
Mr. Blythe admits, is not yet conclu
sive. but which possibly may become
so in the near future—Marshal Ney
did escape the firing squad and did flee
to America. In America he became
Peter Stuart Ney, to wind up as a
schoolteacher in the Carolina Piedmont
counties. He lived for upwards of a
quarter of a century as an American,
and on his deathbed he raised himself
among his pillows and declared:
“I will not die with a lie on my lips
PIC
Marshal Ney as he looked when he
was one of Napoleon’s most trusted
aids.
I am Marshal Ney of France.”
It is only fair to add that there are
historians who have examined the Nev
legend and pronounced it false. They
say that Ney’s death in Paris was abun
dantly attested, that the American Peter
Stuart Ney made numerous absurd er
rors in his written comments on Na
poleon’s campaigns and that he was.
quite obviously, much younger than the
French marshal would have been.
Son of a sergeant. Michel Ney rose
quickly to top non-commissioned rank
in the French army. Then, during the
Revolution, he became a captain, and
when Napoleon took command of the
army against half of Europe. Ney soon
found himself, a marshal, second in
command to the great leader.
Napoleon’s Waterloo also was Ney’s
He was tried and condemned to be
shot.
According to history, he actually was
shot; according to legend, he was not.
The legend even says that the Duke
of Wellington knew of the plan to save
Ney’s life, and secretly approved of it
And here, says the legend, is how it was
done. .
Ney was given a little sack of red
fluid, to hide under his waistcoat, over
his heart. When he faced the firing
squad, he begged the soldiers not to
shoot at his face and disfigure him;
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jp
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The grave of
Peter Stuart
Ney in the
cemetery ol
the Third
Creek Presby
terian church
near Salisbury.
N. C.
let them shoot at his heart, instead,
w hen he gave the sign. So, throwing his
head back, he struck himself violently
on the chest.
The soldiers fired —but unknown to
themselves, fired blanks. Ney’s blow had
broken the little sack. He fell to the
ground, a great red stain appeared on
his left breast, and the soldiers —sup-
posing they had killed him —marched
away. The officer in charge bent over
Ney’s body, announced that he was
dead, and permitted Ney’s friends to
take him away.
'T’HAT is the legend. It goes on to
A say that Ney was smuggled out of
Paris by his friends. He got to Bor
deaux and took ship for America; 35
days later, his ship deposited him in
Charleston, S. C.
By 1819. a French emigrant named
Peter Stuart Ney has appeared in
Cheraw, S. C. He refuses to talk about
his past, saying only that he was a
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Refusing a bandage for his eyes, the
tall man fared the soldiers proudly
and struck his breast with his hand
as a signal for them to fire.
soldier in Napoleon’s army and that
he had to leave France for political
reasons. He is a studious man, and es
tablishes a school.
Time passes. The family of Col Ben
jamin Rogers, with whom he lives, no
tices that he receives and writes many
letters. He talks often of battles he has
soughs in Europe, and is plainly count
ing on Napoleon’s return to France.
When, at last, he reads in a newspaper
of Napoleon’s death, he falls in a faint:
the next morning the family finds him
unconscious in bed, covered with blood
He has tried to commit suicide.
This Peter Ney lives on for many
years. He travels a good deal, and
from place to place in the Carolinas
Occasionally he takes too much liquor,
and then he talks freely of his past.
“People call me Old Ney, but they
don’t know me. I am Marshal Ney of
France,” he said once: and again “1
am not Peter Stuart Ney. 1 am Mar
shal Ney of France, and when the em
peror’s son (the exiled youth known as
L’Aiglon) becomes emperor of France
I am going home.”
So Peter Stuart Ney, who was either
a great soldier in exile or a half-mad
country schoolteacher suffering from
delusions, lived out the long years. He
wrote copiously, in a strange shorthand
which is now being deciphered and
which may yet prove that his boasts
were true. Incidentally, Mr. Blythe sub
mitted samples of Peter Ney’s hand
writing and of Marshal Ney’s hand
writing to a handwriting expert in the
U. S. Treasury Department, and got
from him the verdict that they had been
written by the same man.
He died, at last, in 1846, and was
buried in a country churchyard. And
Mr. Blythe has shown that the romantic
legend about him has the backing of
enough evidence to make it worthy of
further investigation.