UNCOVERING A REAL HUMAN BEING

It's been a month since my last posting, and I can hardly compete with my colleague's very fine post about Grand Portage. That is truly one of the best places to be in the whole state, if not the nation.

I recently finished reading Marshal Ney: The Romance and the Real by Raymond Horricks (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1982). I've long been a reader of historical works on the Empire (Early Republic here in the U.S.) There are a lot of books written on this fascinating time period, and therefore there are always books I have never seen surfacing on the shelves of my favorite Half Price Books store. I am sure glad this one did as it exemplifies the worth of local history inspired by a monument. Someone put the statue there as a reminder intentionally.

The author started his interest when he chanced on the 1853 statue of Michel Ney in Paris. Horricks notes that no less a sculptor than Auguste Rodin called this bronze statue by Rude "the most beautiful in Paris." Horricks considered that Ney "is an argued-about figure even today: much discussed as a general officer, and with blame frequently attached to some of the things he did. But hardly ever, anywhere, does one find him carefully discussed as a man. Why?"

Horricks comes to the conclusion that the most beautiful statue in Paris offers little clues to who Ney was personally. Writing the book showed him that Ney was not the simple, straightforward hero of legend. Horricks notes that Ney was disgusted with corruption, humiliated at Camp of Boulogne, had love-hate feelings for Napoleon, hard-hearted in compelling Napoleon to abdicate in 1814, drawn back into Napoleon's sphere in 1815, and hesitant as he was bold. He was a husband, a father, and a son.

The statue was placed right near where he was unjustly executed, and in a place where Sunday picnickers might pass by and remember him. But how should people remember Michel Ney?

The author sums up Ney as one whose "majority of youthful ideals had either been chipped away or abruptly shattered in two decades of warfare. So that the man who came back alive from Russia's snows was practical, no longer trapped into any grand gestures or dreams--but also chastened."

Horricks accomplished what he saw as lacking: showing Ney as a man full of complexity and contradictions. Human.

This is a fine lesson for prospective local historians and a good reminder for longtime professionals. History is about people. People need to be shown for their human qualities, warts and all. The triumphs people have come despite their humanity.