Kentucky Gazette

New-York, January 29.

IMPORTANT LETTER

We are indebted to a correspondent for the very interesting translation below. Marshal Moncey's letter to Louis the Eighteenth, was written on the occasion of his refusing to preside in a court-martial at the trial of marshal Ney. The reader will recollect that this refusal of Moncey was treated as contumacy, and he was ordered to be imprisoned for three months. This document is worthy of preservation with Carnot's Memoire—Indeed, Carnot and Moncey seem to be the Abdiels of France. While Soult, who immortalized his name by his sword, has sullied it by his pen; paying court to Louis, by branding Napoleon as an usurper, an illegitimate monarch; and many others barter principle for safety, these worthies stand firm, amidst proscription, apostasy and desolation, anxious only to save their character from the common ruin—Marshal Moncey's letter was circulated in manuscript like M. Fouche's second memoire, and this translation is made from a manuscript copy received in New York.—It truly consists of "thoughts that breathe and words that burn," and well becomes a marshal of France. It is apparent from this letter,—connected with the furious speeches of the duke of Richelieu, ci-devant governor of the Crimea, that the gallant Ney was the marked victim of Alexander the deliverer! Whether England or Russia have the precedency in treading on France, is difficult to determine: Russia has most men—England most money. If Alexander's agent stood forward in the French chamber to demand the blood of the brave, Wellington held not back. The comparison brings to recollection the seat of power in the family of Themistocles, where the son ruled the father by governing the mother. So England, who pays all, probably sways all: having a right to command her mercenary Russians, Austrians, Dutch and Prussians. But, we crave pardon for indulging in pleasantry, when the fall of heroes, the prostration of nations, and the total discomfiture of the rights of man in Europe are enough to fix the most volatile spirits in solemnity, or sink them in grief. Columbian.

LETTER FROM MARSHAL MONCEY,

To Louis XVIII on his refusal to sit on the Court-Martial for the trial of Marshal Ney.

Sire—Will your majesty permit me to raise my feeble voice to you? Will it be permitted to one who has never deviated from the path of honor, to call the attention of his sovereign to the dangers that menace his person and his kingdom? Yes, Sire, nothing less than the imminent dangers of the state, would allow me to express myself to you with the frankness which you ought to expect from all your faithful subjects, and especially from your marshals—from those who dared to uplift their voice, on the most difficult occasions, when the absolute will and blind ambition of a master were every thing, and the counsels of wisdom and prudence were nothing.

I believe, that after my letter of yesterday to the minister of war, he would have judged sufficient the reasons which I gave for refusing to sit in a court-martial where I could not preside. I find myself mistaken, as he has transmitted me a positive order from your majesty on this subject,

Placed in the cruel dilemma of offending your majesty or of disobeying the dictates of my conscience, it becomes my duty to explain myself to your majesty.

I enter not into the enquiry whether marshal Ney is guilty or innocent-Your justice and the equity of his judges will answer it to posterity, which weighs in the same balance kings and their subjects. But the subject on which I cannot be silent, and on which I must speak distinctly to your majesty, is the critical position into which you are rushing. Alas! has not enough of French blood been shed? Are not our misfortunes sufficiently great? The humiliation of France, is it not pushed to the last extreme? And when it is necessary to rectify, to soften, to calm, it is then, you, are required to sign new proscriptions! Oh, sire! if those who direct your councils had only in view your good, they would tell you that never did the scaffold make friends-Do they then believe that death is terrible for those who have so often braved it? Is it the allies who require it of France? But, sire, is there no danger for your person and your august dynasty from them! They entered the country as your allies, and what title do they merit from the people of Alsace, of Lorraine, and of the capital? They have demanded the price of their friendship: they have required securities from those they came to deliver; they have required the inhabitants of the countries they occupy to deliver up their arms; and in two-thirds of the kingdom there remains not a single man at his colours ; not a single piece of cannon is harnessed. They have demanded the delivery of our fortresses, and if some of them still hold out it is because their commanders cannot believe your majesty has ordered their surrender So much condescension ought surely to have softened their passions.—But, no! they wish to render your majesty odious to your subjects ? they wish to guard against every possible danger by striking off the heads of those soldiers and statesmen whose names they cannot bear with out being reminded of their own humiliation Let then a French general be allowed to say in the face of Europe, that if our arms have overrun the neighbouring countries, they purchased their conquest with their valor and blood. Let your majesty consider-will he allies ever forgive their conquerors? It is their shame and humiliation which they wish to efface, and not to strengthen your throne, which is more shaken by their urgings than established by their vengeance! But when you have, if the fate of Poland is to be ours what means have you left of resistance? Your armies? You have none. Your fortresses? They are in the power of the allies! Your marshals, your generals, your statesmen? Their heads will have fallen! Will you then resort to the people? -to that people so much humiliated, so much despised? Is it to those who formed your councils? The recollection of the month of March, 1815, must shew your majesty what you have to expect from their zeal and attachment There remains then no other resource than a reliance upon the generosity of your allies and our enemies. Have you then forgotten that in order to gratify the man who occupied your throne, they refused you one after another an asylum in their dominions? So completely had they recognised his legitimacy that in their treaties with him they never thought of stipulating even an indemnity for you. Did not England herself negotiate with him? Would she not again have treated with him at Prague, had his pretensions been less extravagant? Did not the people of London drag the carriage of his minister, when you were not permitted to appear at court? Was your restoration thought of when they negotiated at Chatillon? Had it not been for the hostile occupation of Bordeaux, and the loyalty manifested by the people of that city, a treaty would have been signed with Napoleon. Still more recently, at the Congress of Vienna, was your majesty's minister able to obtain a guarantee for the integrity of our territory? Oh sire, the man of Elba may have had correspondences and intelligence in France; But who were they that went to seek for him? pass? Was the admiral who was entrusted who told the English fleet to suffer him to prosecuted? Had not the king of Prussia with the superintendence of the island been 8000 men near our frontiers who might have marched upon Paris and reached it before Napoleon? Are not the Prussian cannon daily placed in battery before your palace and pointed against your residence? And yet you can rely on the generosity of your allies! And yet under such circumstances you require me to take my seat in a tribunal where I shall perhaps figure in my turn not as a judge, but as a prisoner at the bar! Did I not lead the French army in 1794 to the borders of the Ebro? Even and ***, and so many others, glitter before my eyes, and shall I in my own person sanction a judicial murder? Ah no! while there remains to my unhappy country only a shadow of existence. shall I associate my name with that of her oppressors? No, sire! you yourself cannot but approve my resolution: What! a single day! Shall my locks bleached under the helmet be only proofs of my shame? No, sire! it shall not be said that the elder of the marshals of France contributed to the misfortunes of his country.-My life, my fortune, all that I possess or enjoy, is at the service of my king and country : but my honor is exclusively my own, and no human power can ravish it from me If my name is to be the only heritage left to my children, at least let it not be disgraced! Permit me to ask your majesty where were the accusers of marshal Ney, when he was on the field of battle? Did they follow his steps and accuse him during 25 years of perils and labors? And if Russia and the allies cannot pardon the conqueror of the Moskwa, can France forget the valiant hero of the Beresina? -Sire, in the unfortunate retreat across that river, Ney saved the remnant of the army; in that army I had relations, and soldiers (who are the children of their chiefs) who had served under me: and shall I doom him to death who saved the lives of so many of their husbands? No sire! if I cannot save my country and my own life, I will at least save my honor; and if I feel any regret, it is that I have lived too long, since I have survived the glory of country. Reflect sire! this is perhaps the last time that truth will reach your throne: it is both dangerous and unwise to push the brave to despair. Where is there, or who is not compelled to regret not having sought death on the fatal field of Waterloo? there what he had so often done before, he and perhaps if the unfortunate Ney had done would not have been this day dragged before a court martial, and those who demand his death would have been seeking his protection. Excuse, sire, the frankness of an old marshal. who has always kept clear of intrigues, has known only his country and his profession ; he believes that the same voice which was raised against the invasion of Spain and the war with Russia, might also speak the language of truth to the best of kings, the father of his subjects. If frankness is a virtue, it is not, I am conscious, the most profitable of the virtues, since although I am the eldest of the marshals, I am also the poorest. I will not disguise the dangers in which the step I have taken may involve me, nor the disgrace it may draw down upon me from the vengeance of courtiers; but if I have been fortunate enough to enlighten your majesty as to your true interests, I shall consider myself as but too happy, whatever may be the consequence, and it in descending to the tomb I may say with one of your ancestors,-All is lost, except honor,-I shall die contented.