e behaved like Macdonald; and it is
certain that he would have had no better success. The Bonapartists
themselves dreaded what they called the wrong-headedness of Ney. It was,
however, thought better to keep the Due de Berry in safety.

Ney found himself put forward singly, as it were, to oppose the man whom
all France was joining; he found, as did every officer sent on a similar
mission, that the soldiers were simply waiting to meet Napoleon; and
while the Princes sought security, while the soldiers plotted against
their leaders, came the calls of the Emperor in the old trumpet tone.
The eagle was to fly--nay, it was flying from tower to tower, and victory
was advancing with a rush. Was Ney to be the one man to shoot down his
old leader? could he, as he asked, stop the sea with his hands? On his
trial his subordinate, Bourmont, who had by that time shown his devotion
to the Bourbons by sacrificing his military honour, and deserting to the
Allies, was asked whether Ney could have got the soldiers to act against
the Emperor. He could only suggest that if Ney had taken a musket and
himself charged, the men would have followed his example. "Still," said
Bourmont, "I would not dare to affirm that he (the Marshal) would have
won." And who was Ney to charge? We know how Napoleon approached the
forces sent to oppose him: he showed himself alone in the front of his
own troops. 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? The
whole idea is absurd: as Ney himself said at his trial, they would have
"pulverized" him. Undoubtedly the honourable course for Ney would have
been to have left his corps when he lost control over them; but to urge,
as was done afterwards, that he had acted on a preconceived scheme, and
that his example had such weight, was only malicious falsehood. The
Emperor himself knew well how little he owed to the free will of his
Marshal, and he soon had to send him from Paris, as Ney, sore at heart,
and discontented with himself and with both sides, uttered his mind with
his usual freedom. Ney was first ordered to inspect the frontier from
Dunkirk to Bale, and was then allowed to go to his home. He kept so
aloof from Napoleon that