Nov. 20. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



481 



guished by Napoleon after the battle of Moscowa, 

 an 1812, when the title of Prince, with that name, 

 ■was conferred on him. A zealous convert to the 

 Bourbons, on the first abdication of the Emperor 

 in 1814, he carried his apparent attachment so far 

 as to pledge his faith that he would bring back his 

 late sovereign in an iron cage, as Tamerlane is said 

 to have exhibited his captive Bajazet in triumphant 

 display after his victory of Angora, in 1402. But 

 scarcely had the Marshal, at the head of the troops 

 committed to his charge, come in contact with 

 Napoleon, then on his ibold march to the metro- 

 polis, when he violated his engaged word, and 

 transferred his allegiance to the invader. Here 

 the treason and treachery were flagrant ; but as, 

 subsequently to the defeat of Waterloo, Ney was 

 among those in Paris whose personal safety was 

 guaranteed (or at least not amenable in any respect 

 for their political conduct, " qu'ils ne seraient ni 

 inquietes, ni recherclies pour leur conduite po- 

 litique") by the Allied Powers, of whom Wel- 

 lington represented one of the most influential, it 

 was expected and urged that, however justly for- 

 feited to his native sovereign, his life should not 

 be sacrificed. Sent, notwithstanding, before a 

 court-martial, qualified, from its professional cha- 

 racter and special composition, one would suppose, 

 to adjudicate what was presented as a military 

 question, and therefore not included in the sti- 

 pulated indemnity of the Parisian capitulation, the 

 tribunal was declared of incompetent jurisdiction, 

 to the great relief of its members, who felt the de- 

 licacy of their position, and the cause was trans- 

 ferred to the Chamber of Peers, as Ney was one 

 of that body, thus divesting it of all military, 

 and imposing on it an exclusive political com- 

 plexion, and thus, consequently, repelling the le- 

 gitimate interposition of the Allied authorities. 

 No opposition, however, was offered; and Ney, 

 pronounced guilty by one hundred and nineteen 

 peers out of one hundred and sixty constituting 

 the court, was executed the 6th of December, 

 1815. The former locality of the Abbey of Port 

 Koyal, consecrated, in sanctity of residence and 

 venerated recollection, by the ladies associated in 

 religious devotion under Angelica Arnauld, be- 

 tween the Observatory and the Luxembourg 

 Gardens, was the spot chosen for this sanguinary 

 deed, on which it was observed, even by those who 

 •denied not its strict justice, that it would have 

 redounded more to the illustrious Duke's fame to 

 have prevented than suffered it. As the subject 

 in relation to him has filled more than one section 

 of M. De Lamartine's recent volumes, The History 

 of the Restoration of Monarchy in France, ^c, and 

 as his narrative suggests a little anecdote of the 

 future hero's youth, to which, trifling though it be, 

 his name imparts, like the alchymist's transmuting 

 powder to an intrinsically worthless substance, 

 «ome value, I beg leave to transcribe the French 



historian's words (vol. iv. p. 320. &c. of the English 

 edition *) : 



" The English nation was not an accomplice on this 

 occasion, either in apathy, or in the tacit approbation 

 of a military execution. . . . Madame Hutchinson, the 

 wife of a member of parliament, and a relation of the 

 Duke of Wellington, who was then in Paris, and whose 

 house was the hospitable rendezvous of the most liberal- 

 minded officers of the English army, interceded in the 

 most earnest manner with his Grace to obtain from hinx 

 a decisive intervention for the salvation of Marshal 

 Ney. She conjured him, by his own glory and the 

 glory of his country, to avert by such a step the re- 

 proof which would rest on bis memory if this odious 

 sacrifice were accomplished under his eye, and appa- 

 rently with his approbation. It is even said that in 

 her ardent and eloquent appeal to the magnanimity of 

 the English general, Madame Hutchinson threw herself 

 at the feet of the Duke, to draw from him by her 

 prayers what she could not obtain by higher considera- 

 tions. The Duke replied that his hands were tied by 

 imperative considerations, and tliat, whatever might be 

 his personal sentiments of interest and commiseration 

 for an unfortunate adversary, his duty was to be silent, 

 to despise the false judgment of the times on his cha- 

 racter, and to leave all to the more enlightened and 

 impartial verdict of posterity. Madame Hutchinson 

 retired in tears without being able to move either the 

 statesman or the soldier." 



The lady, with whose acquaintance from our 

 mutual childhood I was favoured, was the daughter 

 of the Honorable and Reverend Maurice Crosbie, 

 Dean of Limerick, and brother of the Earl of 

 Glandore, by a daughter of the Right Honorable 

 Sir Henry Cavendish. Married in early youth to 

 a Mr. Woodcock of Manchester, whose sole re- 

 commendation to her hand was his fortune, she, in 

 a very few years, was made to feel the necessity of 

 a separation, when she returned to Ireland, where 

 her surpassing beauty of person, enhanced by all 

 the advantages of education, commanded general 

 admiration. A frequent and ever welcome guest, 

 during the government of Lord Westmoreland 

 (1791 — 1795), at the Castle, or vice-regal resi- 

 dence, then under the superintendence of the Ho- 

 norable Mrs. Stratford, afterwards Countess of 

 Aldborough, the homage due to her charms was 

 paid by the most distinguished of the land, but 

 more especially, as might be expected, by the 

 youthful aides-de-camp of'his Excellency. Amongst 

 the most assiduous in his attentions, bordering on, 

 if not actually reaching impassioned love, was a 

 young officer, little prescient of the fame destined 

 to attend his advancing course, and class him 



* This English edition, presented as original, and 

 not merely a version, is, however, believed to be the 

 achievement of the poetical historian's wife, who is an 

 English lady ; but it teems with Gallicisms, which her 

 habitual use of a foreign tongue will naturally account 

 for. 



