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. In the
bitterness of his heart, he demanded and obtained permission to retire
for a short time into the country. But there he could not regain his
self-respect. Of his distress, and we hope of his repentance, no better
proof need be required than the reply, which, on his return to Paris, he
made to the emperor, who feigned to have believed that he had emigrated:
"I _ought_ to have done so long ago (said Ney); it is now too late."

The prospect of approaching hostilities soon roused once more the
enthusiasm of this gallant soldier, and made him for awhile less
sensible to the gloomy agitation within. From the day of his being
ordered to join the army on the frontiers of Flanders, June 11, his
temper was observed to be less unequal, and his eye to have regained its
fiery glance.

The story of Waterloo need not be repeated here. We shall only observe,
that on no occasion did the Bravest of the Brave exhibit more impetuous