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Having thus looked over the ground, he resolved to amuse himself at the expense of such companions. "Let me see," he thought to himself, as the coucou went down the hill from La Chapelle to the plain of Saint-Denis, "shall I pass myself off for Etienne or Beranger? No, these idiots don't know who they are. Carbonaro? the deuce! I might get myself arrested. Suppose I say I'm the son of Marshal Ney?
"No!" replied Napoleon, "I shall take good care of that; I have no wish to see it destroyed; I shall gain the battle without it." Ney, then, with his three divisions, reduced to 10,000 men, hastened into the plain to the assistance of Davoust. The enemy divided his fire. Ney rushed forward.
"It is true," Marie Louise had sadly replied. "I well know that I should act differently, but it is too late. The state council has decided, and I can do nothing!" In sadness and dejection Hortense had then returned to her dwelling, where Lavalette, Madame Ney, and the ladies of her court, awaited her. "All is lost," said she, sadly. "Yes, all is lost. The empress has determined to leave Paris.
"Why don't you call him Ney?" asked Josey; "that is his real name." "I was uncertain which to call him for some time," said Jonas; "but finally I concluded to let him keep both names, and so now he is Franco Ney." "Well," said Josey, "I think that is a good plan." A short time after this, Jonas turned up off from the pond, and soon reached home.
Was Ney to deliberately kill his old commander? was any general ever expected to undergo such a test? and can it be believed that the soldiers who carried off the reluctant Oudinot and chased the flying Macdonald, had such a reverence for the "Rougeot," as they called him, that they would have stood by while he committed this murder?
What means has your majesty to shield her from the most terrible misfortunes?" "I have but one to attack the allies to-morrow, expelling those who have caused all the misfortunes of France." "Sire, our country is tired of war," cried Ney; "she wants peace." "Is that your opinion, marshals?" asked the emperor, hastily. "Yes, sire, it is."
Augereau, with his powerful corps d'armée of twenty thousand, pressed on from Frankfort and Mayence; Bernadotte moved up on his flank from Nuremberg and Bamberg; Davoust hastened by forced marches from the Danube; while Soult and Ney with a strong force remained in the south, and in observation on the Austrian frontier.
To oppose this movement Benedict Arnold "the bravest of the brave," as he was called, like Marshal Ney was selected, assisted by General Schuyler, a high-minded gentleman and patriot, but as a soldier more respectable than able, and Horatio Gates, a soldier of fortune, who was jealous of Washington, and who, like Lee, made great pretensions, both Englishmen by birth.
Where, for instance, would the Empire of Napoleon have been, if Ney and Lannes had never sported such a thing as a coat-of-arms, and had only written their simple names on their shields, after the fashion of Desaix's scutcheon yonder? the bold Republican who led the crowning charge at Marengo, and sent the best blood of the Holy Roman Empire to the right-about, before the wretched misbegotten imperial heraldry was born, that was to prove so disastrous to the father of it.
It is thus that chivalrous opponents make war. I had brought back with me from my ride a clear plan of the English lines, and this I laid before Massena that very evening. I had hoped that it would lead him to attack, but all the marshals were at each other's throats, snapping and growling like so many hungry hounds. Ney hated Massena, and Massena hated Junot, and Soult hated them all.
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