on the 6th of December.

To beg the life of his brave adversary would have been such an obvious
act of generosity on the part of the Duke of Wellington that we maybe
pardoned for examining his reasons for not interfering. First, the Duke
seems to have laid weight on the fact that if Ney had believed the
capitulation had covered him he would not have hidden. Now, even before
Ney knew of his exception from the amnesty, to appear in Paris would have
been a foolish piece of bravado. Further, the Royalist reaction was in
full vigour, and when the Royalist mobs, with the connivance of the
authorities, were murdering Marshal Brune and attacking any prominent
adherents of Napoleon, it was hardly the time for Ney to travel in full
pomp. It cannot be said that, apart from the capitulation, the Duke had
no responsibility. Generally a Government executing a prisoner, may,
with some force, if rather brutally, urge that the fact of their being
able to try and execute him in itself shows their authority to do so.
The Bourbons could not even use this argument. If the Allies had
evacuated France Louis le Desiree would have ordered his carriage and
have been at the frontier before they had reached it. If Frenchmen
actually fired the shots which killed Ney, the Allies at least shared the
responsibility with the French Government. Lastly, it would seem that
the Duke would have asked for the life of Ney if the King, clever at such
small artifices, had not purposely affected a temporary coldness to him.
Few men would have been so deterred from asking for the life of a dog.
The fact is, the Duke of Wellington was a great general, he was a single-
hearted and patriotic statesman, he had a thousand virtues, but he was
never generous. It cannot be said that he simply shared the feelings of
his army, for there was preparation among some of his officers to enable
Ney to escape, and Ney had to be guarded by men of good position
disguised in the uniform of privates. Ney had written to his wife when