Whether he said that Buonaparte
_deserved_ to be confined in an iron cage, or that he would _bring_ him
to Paris in one, is not very clear, nor indeed very material.--We
reluctantly approach the darker shades in the life of this great
officer.
On his arrival at Besancon, March 10th, he learned the disaffection of
all the troops hitherto sent against the invader, and perceived that
those by whom he was surrounded were not more to be trusted. He was
surrounded with loud and incessant cries of _Vive l'Empereur!_ Already,
at Lyons, two members of the royal family had found all opposition vain;
the march of Napoleon was equally peaceful and triumphant. During the
night of the 13th, Ney had a secret interview with a courier from his
old master; and on the following morning he announced to his troops that
the house of Bourbon had ceased to reign--that the emperor was the only
ruler France would acknowledge! He then hastened to meet Napoleon, by
whom he was received with open arms, and hailed by his indisputed title
of Bravest of the Brave.
Ney was soon doomed to suffer the necessary consequence of his
crime--bitter and unceasing remorse. His inward reproaches became
intolerable: he felt humbled, mortified, for he had lost that noble
self-confidence, that inward sense of dignity, that unspeakable and
exalted satisfaction, which integrity alone can bestow: the man who
would have defied the world in arms, trembled before the new enemy
within him; he saw that his virtue, his honour, his peace, and the
esteem of the wise and the good, were lost to him for ever.
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