Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1896 — NEY’S EXECUTION. [ARTICLE]

NEY’S EXECUTION.

Absftrd Attempts to Drove that Mar«hat Ney'Escaped to America. “A family Record eff Ney's Execution,” written by Mme. >Qampan, is contributed io the Century hy a relative of this lady, George Clinton Genet of Greenbush, N. Y. Mr. Genet, in a preparatory note, says: An absurd attempt Iras been made recently to prove in a ptMlshed volume >that Ney was not shot, in 1815, biit eseaped to America, and became a schoolmaster in North Carolina, where be lately died. An alleged facsimile of his writing is given in the book, as well as one of the writings of the old French cavalryman who, it is alleged, when drunk on a certain occasion, declared himself to be the Duke of JSlehingCn. The writing which it claimed is the genuine writing of the marshal seems doubtful when Compared with that known to be his, and the assumed similarity between that and the writipg of the old French soldier of North Carolina is inconceivable. It is absurd to suppose that Ney should have proclaimed himself to be the Duke of'Elehingen. since at the time of his execution he was Prince of Moskowa, and no longer Duke of Elchingen. It is impossible that, as is asserted in the book referred to, Ney should have consented to the subterfuge of being shot at by muskets charged with powder alone, and after falling and pretending to be dead, should have suffered himself to be carried into exile in a strange land. At.the battle of Waterloo Ney vainly sought death wherever the battle was fiercest. With an army of sixty thousand men still left, he capitulated under the walls of Paris, upon condition of general amnesty of offenses both civil and military. These terms were basely violated, and to satisfy the clamor of the returned aristocrats of the old regime, Ney was executed. Wellington could have prevented this crime after the condemnation by the chamber of peers, but did not, for reasons best known to himself. Ney was offered an opportunity to escape, but refused. He asked the soldiers to fire at his heart, and they did. Moreover, at the time when it is claimed that Ney was concealing himself- in North Carolina, Joseph Bonaparte was living at Bordentown, and his house and his fortune would have been at Ney’s disposal. Moreover, after the fall of the Bourbons there would have been no reason why Ney should not have returned to France. In 1832 Eugene Ney, his third son, visited the United States, and went to the house of his kinsman Genet, who resided on the Hudson, near Albany, but never heard of this alleged Duke of Elchingefl. It ig useless to follow these absurdities further. Ney is buried in Pere la Chaise at Paris, with two of his sons and his brother-in-law Gamot. A plain slab marks the place. On the spot where he was executed -stands a monument ejected by the French Government.