Cleveland, Davie, Hillsborough, Iredell, Rowan, Salisbury, Statesville, and Paris, France:
Should Masons believe the unbelievable?
By Thomas W. Gregory, Past Grand Master of North Carolina Masons
It is a cold December day and a mist hangs in the air. Soon the morning peace of the Luxembourg Palace Gardens will be broken by the guns of a military firing squad.

Two columns of soldiers enter through the garden gate to take their assigned positions. Their commander, General Victor Rochechouart, looks on. His aide, Colonel Auguste LaRochejacquelein, stands by his side.

They watch in silence as the soldiers march to a high wall, turn, and mark off twelve paces. The men are ordered to stand at ease, waiting to complete their assignment: to bring to a finale the illustrious, some would say infamous, career of Field Marshal Michel Ney, convicted of high treason against the French state and its Bourbon king, Louis XVIII.

The light rain and an abrupt change in the location of the execution keep visitors to the garden to a minimum, although a number of soldiers watch the proceedings from the iron railing separating the garden from the street. The few civilians out at about 9:00AM on this cold morning no doubt have their curiosity aroused by the soldiers’ presence. The civilians cluster in small groups eager to find out what is going on. A priest is spotted kneeling by an empty stretcher.

Then a soldier with a sergeant’s voice commands silence. A man in a dark suit enters the garden from a doorway and strides down a sidewalk lined with soldiers. The command is given, “Present arms.” The man returns the salute, walks over to the officer in charge and speaks briefly with him. Major de Saint Bias nods his head Yes. The dark suited man moves to the wall, turns, and faces the two rows of executioners. He takes three paces forward and raises his hand.

In a low voice Major de Saint Bias gives the orders, “Ready. Aim…” Just then the man in the dark suit commands, “Fire!” bringing his hand down sharply on his chest.

Muskets crack loudly. A large cloud of smoke fills the garden. The man falls forward and lays face down, blood spilling onto the cobblestone courtyard of the garden.

“They’ve killed Marshal Ney!” a spectator cries out. “Yes, that was Ney,” says another.

Field Marshal Ney, who once boasted he would personally deliver Napoleon in an iron cage, lay face down, the ground around him stained blood red. The soldiers march off quickly without the usual coup de grace, the customary ending to all French military executions.

An old soldier in the crowd watches intently. Something is wrong here, he thinks to himself. From such close range, why did Marshal Ney fall forward? Surely the force of twelve muskets fired from no more than thirty feet away should have propelled him backward, up against the high wall.

Ney’s body is placed on the stretcher and covered, then hurried to a carriage waiting nearby. By now the crowd begins to disperse. Others beside the old soldier begin to ask questions and rumors begin to circulate.

Yet the official report indicates that all twelve rounds found their mark. King Louis accepts the official report of Ney’s execution. But a growing number of others do not.

Ney’s body lay in a hospital all day until about six o’clock the next morning, when with much secrecy it was conveyed to the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Ney’s wife, thirteen years his junior and a most beautiful and accomplished woman, loved him with a deathless affection. Yet she was not present when the body of her husband was taken there.

The mystery which began December 7, 1815, has puzzled and intrigued professional and amateur historians for almost two centuries. Was Ney executed that morning or was his life saved as the result of Masonic and Rosicrucian brothers who staged a fake execution and helped him escape to the United States of America aboard the ship Lagonier?

Napoleon Bonaparte depended on red-headed Ney as a remarkable field marshal. He asked Ney, whom he described as the bravest of the brave, to join him in his advance on Paris. The king fled to Belgium as the army advanced and remained until news of Waterloo and the retreat of the French army.

Ney was placed at the top of the list of 84 traitors, including Napoleon’s generals and marshals. A public purge of all Napoleonic influences was needed to keep at bay various German Confederation states—Austria-Hungary, Britain, Spain, Italy and Naples. During his trial, Ney refused an opportunity to go free as his birthplace had come under Prussian rule and he could have claimed the protection of international law. Instead he rose to his feet and declared, “Yes, I am French and I will die French!” Word spread quickly throughout Paris that Marshal Ney was to be shot. Indeed, the Chamber of Peers found Ney guilty of treason and sentenced him to be executed by firing squad December 7, 1815.

There is evidence that Madame Ney reached out to the Duke of Wellington for help prior to the court-martial, trial and execution. It comes in a report by Corlyer Farrington, dated September, 1920, from a Masonic Lodge in San Francisco. Did Wellington respond to this appeal? In his book Marshal Ney: a Dual Life, North Carolina author Legette Blythe stated that Wellington had intervened since he was a Freemason, a member of a lodge in County Meath, Ireland.

Dr. Edward J. Smoot, author of Marshal Ney, Before and After Execution, said, “I believe that Wellington saved Ney’s life, and in all probability, did not wish to intervene publicly. A mock execution would serve his purposes, everything considered, and Ney at the same time would be sufficiently punished.”

King Louis decided to send the man he trusted most, Charles Talleyrand-Perigord, to Vienna for a peace conference, while at home the arrests and trials began. Talleyrand served as an ambassador and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He helped form the provisional government, but was forced to resign due to the hostility of the Bourbon nobility.

Talleyrand was a Mason, a member of Nine Sisters Lodge in Paris—the same lodge as Benjamin Frankin, as many of Napoleon’s generals, and as Marshal Ney. Talleyrand and Welllington had met on many occasions and were cordial friends. Growing concern for Napoleon’s officers and their families prompted a secret mission while he visited England to secure warm relations between these two former enemies. Tallyrand did all he could to get cooperation in escape and safe passage for French officers to Quebec, Britain’s French-speaking province in North America. He was not successful. George IV refused any official participation in such a plan. Another way would have to be found to save Marshal Ney and the others.

Within a few days after his return to France, Talleyrand boarded a ship for America. In Philadelphia he visited the grave of brother Benjamin Franklin to pay his respects. The time had finally come for repayment of a debt of honor involving Franklin’s fellow Masons of St. John’s Lodge in Philadelphia. During Franklin’s nine-year stay in France as the first US ambassador, he was very popular with the French people. He was active in Nine Sisters Lodge where arrangements had been worked out in private for French military help in the War of Independence. The Masonic kindness experienced by Franklin many years before would now be reciprocated in Philadelphia.

And so, with assistance of St. John’s Lodge members, numerous French military officers would enter the US via Baltimore and Philadelphia. They would then disappear into the countryside, likely in the French-speaking areas of South Carolina and Louisiana.

In January, 1816, a man who gave his name as Peter Stuart Ney landed at Charleston, SC. Some French refugees reported they saw him at Georgetown in 1819 and recognized him as Marshal Ney. As soon as Ney heard this, he left Georgetown. He taught school in Brownsville, SC, in 1821. He then went to Mocksville, NC, and taught there and in other North Carolina towns including Hillsborough, Salisbury and Third Creek until 1828.

Peter Stuart Ney’s decision to settle in rural North Carolina suggests he may have been looking for a low profile existence in America. He eventually made his way into Virginia where he taught at Abbeyville, in Mecklenburg County. While in the Third Creek area he was a frequent visitor to the large park-like yard of the church where he would watch the local militiamen drill. On occasion he would show young officers how to use a sword and would drill and run through maneuvers with them in a way far superior to their own officers.

On a particular day at the green, Ney took an officer’s sword and made mention that a good sword should bend double. Upon attempting this with the sword, he broke it, which so enraged the officer he wanted to fight. Ney picked up a large stick and declared, “You find another sword and I’ll use this stick to teach you a lesson in manners.” The officer declined Ney’s invitation.

There are a number of stories that can be recounted concerning Ney as he taught in the Iredell, Rowan and Davie County areas. Some spurred the legend of Peter Stuart Ney as Marshall Ney, and I will proceed to recount a few.

A man named William Sidney Stevenson of Statesville, NC, knew Peter Stuart Ney and in 1840 attended a political meeting in Rowe’s Township, about nine miles from Statesville. Stevenson was in the company of Frederick Barr, a German who had served for years under Ney in France. Peter Stuart Ney and Colonel Thomas Allison walked past them on the opposite side of the road. Barr exclaimed, “Why, there is Marshal Ney! They told me he was shot, but he was not. Yonder he is! I know him, for I fought for him off and on for six years in Napoleon’s wars.” A short time later, Barr moved to Indiana.

A fencing master came to the Third Creek area. Ney’s students asked their teacher to parry and thrust with the fencing master. Though several years his senior, Ney disarmed the expert, who left telling the students they already had a master.

His body was said to be covered with scars which were of such magnitude they had a ghastly effect on those who saw them. They appeared to be old wounds from gunshots and shrapnel. Ney had a habit of drinking too much when he would declare he was indeed Marshal Ney. He made claims he could cut off a man’s head with a single blow of his sword and that his steed was trained to run to the cannon’s mouth. Reverend R. A. Wood of Statesville said in 1840, “Ney had but one vice, occasionally drinking to excess, but his general conduct was so pure, sober or drunk, and was always absolutely consistent.”

When Ney taught school, his habit was to arrive early at the schoolhouse so he could spend some time alone reading the newspaper. One morning in 1821 his placid existence suffered an abrupt interruption. After noticing a shocking front page story, Ney passed out. He was discovered by arriving students. After they woke him up, he remained in shock and cancelled classes for the day. John Rogers, one of his students and a member of the family with whom Ney was living in Florence, SC, gave him a ride home. Ney told him the news: Emperor Napoleon had died May 5 on the island of St. Helena.

Ney attempted suicide that night by slitting his throat.

John Rogers’ family members discovered him in time for a physician’s care and recovery. When his strength returned, Ney talked with Rogers. He’d hoped to return one day to France, but those hopes were shattered now that Napoleon was gone.

The St. Louis Republic of 1891 reported that during the reign of King Louis Philippe, Mr. George Melody of St. Louis spent several weeks in Paris. Years earlier the king had been entertained by Melody in St. Louis. Melody asked the king whether Ney had truly been executed. The king replied, “Mr. Melody, I know the fact that you are one of the highest Masons in America. I am known as one of the most exalted Masons in Europe. Marshal Ney held a position among Masons equal to either of us.

“The prisons were full of men condemned to be shot. These men were daily being marched out to meet their fate. Some other man may have filled the grave intended for Marshal Ney.” Mr. Melody replied very quietly, “May it please your majesty, Ney was not shot.”

The Reverend Dr. Basil G. Jones of South Carolina was quoted as saying that concerted arrangement directed Ney’s “execution” and that the Ancient Fraternity aided in his escape from the first. A bladder of red dye had been smuggled into his cell as he awaited execution. It was broken against his chest as he brought down his right hand with the order, “Fire!” All muskets had been loaded with blanks and Ney fell forward as they fired.

Hon. John S. Henderson of Salisbury, NC, stated, “I have heard my father say that Peter S. Ney was a Mason and that Wellington was also a Mason.”

C. W. Allison, author of Ney, the Great French Soldier, reported Ney was an active Rosicrucian. He used his own funds and those of friends to build a Rosicrucian Temple and Lodge room in Paris. Peter Stuart Ney made a number of visits to Rosicrucian headquarters in Fairmont Park and Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

Ney lived and taught in several communities where Masonic lodges were situated. But to date no record has surfaced of Peter Stuart Ney attending any. On his deathbed, the 77-year-old Ney was asked by his doctor if he was indeed Napoleon’s general. He raised himself on one elbow and declared, “I will not die with a lie on my lips. By all that is holy, I am Marshal Ney of France.”

For almost two centuries people have made their way to the Ney grave at Third Creek Presbyterian Church near Cleveland, NC. Soldiers. Masons. Scholars. Historians. Bankers. Historians. Believers from all over the world traveling to a rural graveyard off a winding country road in Rowan County, North Carolina.

They beheld a small French flag flying at the head of the grave.





Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com