Ney, arrested on the 5th of August, was first brought before a Military Court on the 9th of November composed of Marshal Jourdan (President), Marshals Massena, Augereau, and Mortier, Lieutenants-General Gazan, Claparede, and Vilatte (members).  Moncey had refused to sit, and Massena urged to the Court his own quarrels with Ney in Spain to get rid of the task, but was forced to remain.  Defended by both the Berryers, Ney unfortunately denied the jurisdiction of the court-martial over him as a peer.  In all probability the Military Court would have acquitted him.  Too glad at the moment to be free from the trial of their old comrade, not understanding the danger of the proceeding, the Court, by a majority of five against two, declared themselves non-competent, and on the 21st of November Ney was sent before the Chamber of Peers, which condemned him on the 6th of December.

To beg the life of his brave adversary would have been such an obvious act of generosity on the part of the Duke of Wellington that we maybe pardoned for examining his reasons for not interfering.  First, the Duke seems to have laid weight on the fact that if Ney had believed the capitulation had covered him he would not have hidden.  Now, even before Ney knew of his exception from the amnesty, to appear in Paris would have been a foolish piece of bravado.  Further, the Royalist reaction was in full vigour, and when the Royalist mobs, with the connivance of the authorities, were murdering Marshal Brune and attacking any prominent adherents of Napoleon, it was hardly the time for Ney to travel in full pomp.  It cannot be said that, apart from the capitulation, the Duke had no responsibility.  Generally a Government executing a prisoner, may, with some force, if rather brutally, urge that the fact of their being able to try and execute him in itself shows their authority to do so.  The Bourbons could not even use this argument.  If the Allies had evacuated France Louis le Desiree would have ordered his carriage and have been at the frontier before they had reached it.  If Frenchmen actually fired the shots which killed Ney, the Allies at least shared the responsibility with the French Government.  Lastly, it would seem that the Duke would have asked for the life of Ney if the King, clever at such small artifices, had not purposely affected a temporary coldness to him.  Few men would have been so deterred from asking for the life of a dog.  The fact is, the Duke of Wellington was a great general, he was a single-hearted and patriotic statesman, he had a thousand virtues, but he was never generous.  It cannot be said that he simply shared the feelings of his army, for there was preparation among some of his officers to enable Ney to escape, and Ney had to be guarded by men of good position disguised in the uniform of privates.  Ney had written to his wife when he joined Napoleon, thinking of the little vexations the Royalists loved to inflict on the men who had conquered the Continent.  “You will no longer weep when you leave the Tuileries.”  The unfortunate lady wept now as she vainly sought some mercy for her husband.  Arrested on the 5th of August, sentenced on the 6th of December, Ney was shot on the 7th of December, and the very manner of his execution shows that, in taking his life there was much more of revenge than of justice.