After the second restoration of the Bourbons Ney retired into the country, meaning to escape to the United States, and was provided by Fouche with a passport for this purpose. He delayed, for some reason, to use it; and on August 3d he was arrested at the house of a relative. A council of war was appointed to try him, composed of Marshals Massena, Augereau, Mortier, and three lieutenants. It would have been better for Ney had he submitted himself to their verdict; but he unwisely denied their competence, and demanded, as a peer of the realm, to be tried by his peers, and it was a tribunal which showed him no mercy. It does not appear that the king desired his death; but Talleyrand declared that it would be a grand example, and the royalists generally thirsted for his blood. He was condemned, by a majority of 139 to 17, to be shot for high treason. On December 7th his wife and four children were admitted to his prison in the early morning, to take leave of him. But neither in this painful ordeal nor at any time afterward, did the condemned marshal show any sign of weakness. At eight o'clock he was taken in a carriage to the place of execution, outside the garden gates of the Luxembourg. The officer who commanded the firing party wished to bandage his eyes, but Ney said, quietly--"Are you ignorant that for twenty-five years I have been accustomed to face both balls and bullets?" Then, raising his voice, he cried, "I protest against my condemnation. I wish that I had died for my country in battle. But here is still the field of honor. _Vive la France!_" The officer in command, to his credit be it said, was dumb. He seemed incapable of giving the word to fire; and Ney himself, taking off his hat, and striking his breast, cried, in a loud voice--"Soldiers, do your duty--fire!" Thus died, in his forty-seventh year, "The Bravest of the Brave." [Signature of the author.] NAPOLEON BONAPARTE By COLONEL CLAYTON, R.A. (1769-1821) [Illustration: "The coronation of Josephine". [TN]]