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Refusing a bandage for his eyes, the Irl tall man faced the soldiers proudly and struck his breast with his blU as a signal for them to fire. N the ^w.^Jith day of December, 1815, a firing squad from the French army stood in the Lux­ soldier in Napoleon's army and that embourg Gardens, in Paris, he had to leave France for political shivered in the misty dawn, and pre­ reasons. He is a studious man, and es­ pared to do a grim little job of work. tablishes a school. ®g§ Facing them stood a tall man in knee Time passes. The family of Col. Ben­ breeches and a dark coat. Waving aside jamin Rogers, with whom he lives, no­ an officer who offered him a bandage tices that he receives and writes many for his eyes, he faced the soldiers letters. He talks often of battles he has proudly and struck his breast with hi? fought in Europe, and is plainly count­ hand. The muskets of the firing squad ing on Napoleon's return to France. cracked* out an uneven volley and the When, at last, he reads in a newspaper tall man fell to the ground. of Napoleon's death, he falls in a faint; Michel Ney, marshal of France in the the next morning the family finds "him armies of Napoleon, had been executed unconscious in bed, covered with blood. in the manner prescribed by a military He has tried to commit suicide. court after the downfall and exile ol This Peter Ney lives on for many Bonaparte. years. He travels a good deal, and moves from place to place in the Carolinas. i All very matter-of-fact, that, with no loose ends for myths and legends tc Occasionally he takes too much liquor, cluster on. A condemned man executed and then he talks freely of his past. by a firing squad and borne away from "People call me Old Ney, but they the place of execution in his coffin . . don't know me. I am Marshal Ney of nothing in that, surely, to give rise tr France," he said once; and again. "I fantastic tales. But legends and fantastic tales d>.i arise, none the less. For the old veteran- ®f the grand army of France, the men who had followed this Marshal Ney on long marches and through desperate •vi battles, presently were whispering tc M one another that their marshal had not f been shot, after all; that he had escaped alive from France and had found refuge Marshal Ney as he looked when he Xl»e grave of in America, through the connivance of was one of Napoleon's most trusted Peter Stuart men in high places. aids. Ney in the In the graveyard ot the old Third cemetery ot Creek Presbyterian Church, near Salis­ I am Marshal Ney of France." the Third bury, North Carolina, there is a flat, It is only fair to add that there are old-fashioned tombstone to mark the historians who have examined the Ney Creek Presby­ last resting place of a country school­ legend and pronounced it false. They terian church, master, who died away back in 1846 say that Ney's death in Paris was abun­ near Salisbury, If that grave were to be opened, it dantly attested, that the American Peter N. C. S§ i might contain proof that would sub­ Stuart Ney made numerous absurd er­ stantiate that legend—for there is evi­ rors in his written comments on Na­ BWWi jrfMMflft•! dence—disputed evidence, to be sure— poleon's campaigns and that he was, to show that the man buried in it was, quite obviously, much younger thaji the let them shoot at his heart, instead, am not Peter Stuart Ney. 1 am Mar­ in plain fact, none other than Marshal French marshal would have been. when he gave the sign. So, throwing his shal Ney of France, and when the em­ IE Ney. Son of a sergeant, Michel Ney rose head back, he struck himself violently peror's son (the exiled youth known as quickly to top non-commissioned rank on the chest. L'Aiglon) becomes emperor of France HPHIS evidence was rounded up re- in the French army. Then, during the The soldiers fired—but unknown to I am going home." • "31 cently by LeGette Blythe, North Revolution, he became a captain, and themselves, fired blanks. Ney's blow had So Peter Stuart Ney, who was either * ^ -$3 Carolina newspaperman, in a book when Napoleon took command of the broken the little sack. He fell to the a great soldier in exile or a half-mad called "Marshal Ney: A Dual Life." In army against half of Europe, Ney soon ground, a great red stain appeared on country schoolteacher suffering from this book, issued by Stackpole Sons. found himself, a marshal, second in his left breast, and the soldiers—sup­ delusions, lived out the long years. He Mr. Blythe has presented that evidence command to the great leader. posing they had killed him—marched wrote copiously, in a strange shorthand as one of the most romantic and amaz­ Napoleon's Waterloo also was Ney's. away. The officer in charge bent over which is now being deciphered and ing of ail footnotes to modern history. He was tried and condemned to be Ney's body, announced that he was which may yet prove that his boasts According to this evidence—which, as shot. dead, and permitted Ney's friends to were true. Incidentally, Mr. Blythe sub­ V Mr. Blythe admits, is not yet conclu­ According to history, he actually was take him away. mitted samples of Peter Ney's hand­ sive, but which possibly may become shot; according to legend, he was not. writing and of Marshal Ney's hand­ !• so in the near future—Marshal Ney The legend even says that the Duke 'T'HAT is the legend. It goes on to writing to a handwriting expert in the did escape the firing squad and did flee of Wellington knew of the plan to save say that Ney was smuggled out of U. S. Treasury Department, and got to America. In America he became Ney's life, and secretly approved of it. Paris by his friends. He got to Bor­ from him the verdict that they had been Peler Stuart Ney, to wind up as a And here, says the legend, is how it was deaux and took ship for America; 35 written by the same man. schoolteacher in the Carolina Piedmont done. days later, his ship deposited him in He died, at last, in 1846, and was counties. lie lived for upwards of a Ney was given a little sack of red Charleston, S. C. buried in a country churchyard. And quarter of a century as an American, fluid, to hide under his waistcoat, over By 1819, a French emigrant named Mr. Blythe has shown that the romantic »4 and on his deathbed he raised himself his heart When he faced the firing Peter Stuart Ney has appeared in legend about him has the backing of among his pillows and declared; squad, he begged the soldiers not to Cheraw, S. C. 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