with hardly less formality than was observed at the death-scene of the
Prince of the Moskowa and Duke of Elchingen, and the truth then became
plain. The Bourbons could not, dared not, attempt to carry out the
sentence of the law with the forms of the law. The Government did not
venture to let the troops or the people face the Marshal. The forms of
the law could not be carried out, the demands of revenge could be. And
if this be thought any exaggeration, the proof of the ill effects of this
murder, for its form makes it difficult to call it anything else, is
ready to our hands. It was impossible to get the public to believe that
Ney had really been killed in this manner, and nearly to this day we have
had fresh stories recurring of the real Ney being discovered in America.
The deed, however, had really been done. The Marshals now knew that when
the Princes fled they themselves must remain to die for the Royal cause;
and Louis had at last succeeded in preventing his return to his kingdom
amongst the baggage waggons of the Allies from being considered as a mere
subject for jeers. One detail of the execution of Ney, however, we are
told nothing of: we do not know if his widow, like Madame Labedoyere, had
to pay three francs a head to the soldiers of the firing party which shot
her husband. Whatever were the faults of the Bourbons, they at least
carried out their executions economically.

The statesmen of France, distinguished as they were, certainly did not
rise to a level with the situation either in 1814 or in 1815. In 1814,
it is true, they were almost stunned by the crash of the Empire, and
little as they foresaw the restoration of the Bourbons, still less could
they have anticipated the extraordinary follies which were to be
perpetrated. In 1815 there was less excuse for their helplessness, and,
overawed as they were by the mass of foes which was pouring on them to
complete the disaster of Waterloo, still it is disappointing to find that
there was no one to seize the helm of power, and, confronting the Allies,