By the Whim of Fate
Book the First
in the Ney Chronicles
An Historical Novel
Prologue
Copyright © Ben Longstreet, 2001
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The man’s name was Ney.
St Bias, the commander of the squad of old non-commissioned officers drawn together and made useful as town guards looked decidedly uncomfortable. Ney briefly wished that he was able to make eye contact with the swarthy little Piedmontese major, but he knew it was pointless. He did not know the man personally, and Ney idly wondered whether he had ever led the man in battle. There had been so many battles and so many more men. Thousands upon thousands who had worn the splendid panoply of uniforms brought together by Napoleon and whom Ney had felt honoured to command.
The red-haired marshal sighed softly, and, had the men around him been able to hear the sound, they would perhaps have detected a forbidding sadness common in this a man. Yet they were all caught up themselves in the drama which was unfolding, and at that peculiar moment each seemed to be locked within his own thoughts.
Ney looked more closely at the place where he would die. The Park of the Luxembourg. He had passed through it more than once during the great days of the Empire,
crossing the triangular lawns between the Rue d’Assas and the Boulevard St. Michel. Then it had seemed a cheerful and warm place, the grass hemmed in by tidy rows of trees. Now on this cold December morning it seemed like a graveyard, which in a sense it was. The execution party had been called to a halt at the southern end of the avenue which led visitors to the Place de l’Observatoire. Muskets crunching uncomfortably against each other, the condemned man was respectfully led to the nine feet high stone wall which hemmed in one side of the avenue. Scrawled into the stone near the prisoner were the words ‘Vive l’Empereur’ and Ney smiled at the irony, wondering if it had been done for his benefit. Probably not.
A half-hearted attempt had been made to remove the words, and anyway this place of execution was a hurried change of venue. All the crowds were at the Plaine de Grenelle, the massive parade ground outside the south western barriers of Paris. That was where they had shot Labedoyère.
Labedoyère. Now he had a lot to answer for. Ney reined in his thoughts, ashamed at what he knew himself to be doing. No, it was not Labedoyère’s fault. It had been all of them, and no one man could shoulder the blame, comforting as that might be.
Instead, Ney chose to examine the small crowd who had been privileged to attend his execution, both in the grounds and beyond. Outside the iron railings of the park a crowd was now beginning to form, attracted by the unusual events, and knowing that anything unusual during the latter half of 1815 in Paris was worthy of consideration. However it was not the passing commoners who interested the marshal. Inside the gardens were a number of spectators, eager it seemed to see his own countrymen accomplish what a half dozen other armies had been unable to achieve. On foot, near the carriage which had brought the condemned man were a number of
extravagantly dressed civilians and their ladies, although from the distance involved Ney was unable to pick out any individuals. To their left he saw upwards of a dozen mounted officers sporting the uniforms of almost as many countries. Their presence did not surprise him. Many would be keen to see the Ogre’s Red Dog put down.
A laugh from the civilians attracted the marshal’s attention. It had sounded so familiar, and for a terrible moment he thought it was Aglaé. He swung his head around sharply trying to see which of the women had laughed. At first he was unable to pick her out and his mind tumbled in a panic. Seeing her would be too much. It was terrible enough that he would never see her serene smile again, without having to endure her presence and suffering now. He saw a flash of blonde hair, but no, it was not her.
Then he thought of another girl. One he had known for only one night, and yet who had stolen a corner of his heart which had never been anyone else’s to return.
He shuddered, but not from the cold. It brought a short and bitter smile to the narrow lips. This was hardly enough to put a coat on. He looked across at the firing squad. Some of them would have been in Russia, and he remembered The Coat, wondering what would become of it.
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Corporal Francois Laroque had indeed been in Russia, serving in Ney’s III Corps. He had been invalided home after the great battle of Borodino, and had thus been spared the terrors of the Retreat, yet he still felt more attached to the man that he would shortly shoot than to the new officers about him or the uncomfortable white cockade on his shako. Laroque looked closely at the prisoner. God but Ney had changed! He had not seen the marshal closely since 1812, having been in no condition to fight in Saxony in 1813 and having been in the Corps of Veterans ever since. But he still kept his Legion of Honour concealed in a little wooden box at his billet, and he had fond memories of the man who had pinned it on him in the name of the Emperor.
That man now looked so different. Certainly the bold cascade of auburn hair was still in evidence, receding but apparently untarnished by grey, yet the face had been wrecked. Not by wounds. It was more as if fate had etched itself across the marshal. As if the great man had been called upon to be great once too often. Clad now in a long black coat and a mismatched dark green bell-topped civilian hat it was hard to clearly pick out any details of his face. Ney had obviously not bothered to shave this morning, and his chin was turfed with a good crop of stubble, which practically joined his side whiskers. Even so Laroque was sure that he could see the glint of pride in the blue-grey eyes which still sparkled like the jacket of a Hussar of the Third. The marshal was suddenly wracked by a traumatic cough which threatened to shake off his top hat with its intensity.
Laroque was taken aback, never having heard the marshal suffer so in the cold. It was hardly surprising of course, considering what Ney had been through, yet the
man had such an awesome reputation for toughness that any sign of weakness was almost unthinkable. Stupid fool, thought Laroque of himself. In a few moments I will
help kill this poor man. How invincible will that make him?
The anticipation served only to sadden him more.
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Ney looked up briefly at the sky, an invisible tear torturing his left eye. It was quickly matched by another in his right and it took all his effort to suppress a flood from
breaking free. He wanted so much to let go of his feelings. To bear his soul just once, and the world be damned! But he knew that he could not. Because perhaps if he did then that would be how he would be remembered, and that could not be. And of course there were others to think of. Not just himself. He had not cried since another December day back in 1788, and the gentle woman on whom he had shed a few sparing tears was long dead.
Ney contorted his face and said nothing, but simply stared pointedly at one desolate shape for a mere few seconds which seemed like an eternity. “My son,” he said, so quietly that the words came out as a gust of breeze. He turned quickly to peruse the mounted officers, to dull the one persistent thought torturing his mind. One of the men was now becoming familiar, yet his uniform was red and not the accustomed blue. Ney squinted in the early morning light. He searched his mind for a name, cursing his ineptitude. Napoleon had this talent. To be able to retain the visages of innumerable people and put names to them as required. Forsythe! Yes, that was it. Major
Malcolm Forsythe. Spain. A lifetime ago. At least that would be one enemy who would not gloat at his death. No. Forsythe had too much honour for that. Studying the uniform by a force of habit that only death could break, examining the rich Highland bonnet that caught and displayed every nuance of the gentlest of morning breezes. The
smoke from the muskets would hang around for an age, and would certainly ruin the view. Ney pictured it in his mind, like an ethereal curtain coming down upon his life.
What a Greek tragedy it had become. Next to Forsythe he saw a middle aged man in the green and red of a Russian general officer. The Czar Alexander would be most
displeased. He had issued an order banning his officers from attending any such events, yet clearly the death of the Prince of the Moskowa was too great an occasion to miss.
Thought of the title brought a smile to Ney’s face, yet there was no happiness either at mouth or eyes. Prince, Duke, General, Marshal. I have been them all. Once they had seemed so unattainable, so important, and he had craved them as he had craved glory and victory. To his mind they had been his rightful spoils, yet now he would trade them all to change this scene.
My son!
Yes, he had been them all, yet on the tenth of January in the Year Of Our Lord 1769, nobody in the town of Saarlouis could possibly guess that the son born to Pierre Ney, the cooper, would be anything out of the ordinary at all, let alone the Bravest of the Brave.
By Whim of Fate Book the First in the Ney Chronicles: An Historical Novel
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The man who had been a marshal of France looked across the Park of the Luxembourg towards the twelve men who would shortly be ordered to kill him. He trembled slightly, though not from fear, for despite all the experiences of the last twenty years he remained as unmindful as ever about his own
personal safety. Rather it was thoughts of others which now troubled him, those few family and friends who were left to him, and whose safety he could no longer guarantee.