As Napoleon said, his “Bravest of the Brave” was no longer the same man. First of all, in this campaign he was not handled right. The Emperor should have employed him sooner, or not at all: should have trusted him further, or not at all. The manner in which he was caught up at the last moment and cast into the activities of the campaign was most unwise. In spite of the bad behavior of Ney in 1814, the troops were glad to see him in their midst. Their nickname for him was “Red-head,” and they called him this to each other as they saw him join the Emperor at Beaumont. “All will go well now--Red-head is with us!” But Ney was not at himself. There is no other phrase that will do,--all of us know what it means. When the orator whom we _know_ to be a heaven-born orator fails to move us, we say, “He is not at himself.” When the brilliant writer is dull; when the expert mechanic is awkward; when the painter’s brush misses the conception, when the sculptor’s chisel cannot follow his thoughts, when the master musician makes discord, we have nothing better to say than “He is not at himself.” So it was with Marshal Ney. Advancing upon Quatre Bras, he stopped, afraid of going too far. When had Ney been timid before? Realizing at length what was expected of him, he fought furiously to take the position which would have been his without a fight had he simply not stopped in sudden fear the evening before. Then, having been the Ney of old on the 16th, he became timid again on the morning of the 17th, and let Wellington draw off without any attempt to molest the retreat. Why no reports to the Emperor all that day of the 16th? Why none on the night of the 16th? Very near to the treason for which officers are shot, was this sullen silence. He was not at himself. Then at Waterloo, the Ney of old comes out again. He is not only bold, but rash. He is possessed of a devil of fight. He is no longer a general: he is just a reckless brigadier. Headlong charges, blind rushes, frantic management which is calamitous mismanagement; premature sacrifice of cavalry, false formation of columns of attack, then wild rage and despair, and prayers for death! The soldier never lived that fought harder and longer than Ney at Waterloo. As darkness closed down, and the torrents of retreat ran past him, this heroic and ill-starred soldier, his face black with powder smoke, his uniform in tatters, the blood oozing from bruises, a broken sword in his hand, cried out, “Come and see how a Marshal of France dies!” But alas, the flood of disaster bore him away, and this leonine Frenchman was left to make a target for French muskets. All of Ney’s horses had been killed under him, and he owed his life--a bad debt, as it turned out--to a faithful subaltern. * * * * *