Word: ney
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...January 1816 there debarked at Charleston, S. C. a French fencing master who said his name was Peter Stuart Ney. From Georgetown he fled to Brownsville three years later when some French refugees insisted he was France's late, great Marshal. In the next few years he wandered from town to town in North Carolina and Virginia teaching school. Years later one of his pupils told how he had fainted on reading a newspaper report of Napoleon's death at St. Helena. Found next day with his throat ineffectively slashed, he explained: "With the death of Napoleon...
...Teacher Ney settled in Iredell County, N. C. In the library of nearby Davidson College, whose seal he designed, he read books on recent French history, drew sketches of Napoleon and Ney in the margins, scribbled comments on the authors' accuracy. On his deathbed in 1846 he declared: "I am Marshal Ney of France." He was buried in the cemetery of Third Creek Presbyterian Church near Statesville...
...stricken wanderer, killed himself in Enid, Okla. in 1903 (TIME, Dec. 28, 1931). Some other legendary survivors: Louis Charles, Dauphin of France; Earl Kitchener; Tsar Nicholas II; Belgian Banker Alfred Lowenstein. As the years passed there grew up in the North Carolina countryside a firm belief that Peter Stuart Ney had actually been the Marshal of France. Amateur historians delved into the matter, wrote earnest monographs and pamphlets. Their explanation: Marshal Ney's firing squad was composed of his old comrades-in-arms. They put blank cartridges in their guns, smuggled him aboard a U. S.-bound ship...
...curious North Carolinians dug up the grave of Peter Stuart Ney, found a skeleton about the size of Marshal Ney's, made a cast of the skull which has since disappeared. Last week in Charlotte, N. C. another group, including Charlotte's chief of detectives, announced that a battery of scientists was being assembled to make, probably next month, an exhaustive examination of Peter Ney's bones and dust. Present will be Dr. J. Edward Smoot, who as a boy saw Peter Ney exhumed in 1887, later gathered what he considered convincing proof of the Marshal...
Over Michel Ney's once unmarked grave in Pere-Lachaise Cemetery now rises a three-tiered monument, blazoned with plaques of rose-colored marble bearing the names of the hero's descendants also buried there and the dates of his victories. Last week news of the North Carolina venture made Pere-Lachaise keepers scoff anew at a chestnut which had been popping fitfully for years. At No. 20 Rue Quentin-Bauchart, the Duchess of Elchingen, relict of a Michel Ney who died in 1931, vigorously denied that her husband's great ancestor was buried...