The Prince De La Moskowa

• Posted by mgr on July 7th, 2009 filed in Berühmte Dandys, HISTORISCHES
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July 25. At Paris, Napoleon Ney, Prince de la Moskowa. He was bom in 1803, and in 1828 married the daughter of M. Jaques Lafitte. Tho prominent political position which Ney’s son enjoyed under successive regimes, was due much more to his name than his tastes or peculiar talents. He was a dilettante in arts, literature, and music, and contributed more than perhaps any other man to the introduction into the French language of the word sport from England.

He once composed an opera called Régine, which is not now very well known. He was an old contributor to the Revue des Deux Mondes, in which he wrote articles on the Cowes Regattas, and several narratives of voyages and travels. In the Constititutionnel he wrote several papers on racing, and the amelioration of the chevaline race. At a later period he wrote articles slightly tinged with socialism, to the République.

He was the owner of several racehorses whose names were once well known on the French turf. Matilda, Anglesea, and Counterpart gained prizes in 1834. The Prince and his brother, M. Edgar Ney, were often their own jockeys. On one occasion, when riding a steeplechase upon Counterpart, the Prince, then a Captain in the 5th Hussars, was thrown, and narrowly escaped with his life. He was one of the fourteen original members of the Paris Jockey Club, and was for a long time a member of the racing committee.

His political career commenced under Louis Philippe, who, on the 19th November, 1831, created him a peer of France. To a reproach addressed to him for sitting among the peers who condemned his father, he replied that he only accepted the peerage in order to be in a better position to demand justice to his father’s memory. He did not take his seat till 1837, and then he joined the Opposition. In 1847 Count d’Alton Shee having incidentally spoken in sharp terms of the condemnation of Marshal Ney, was called to order by the President, Duke Pasquier. The next day, the Prince of Moskowa made a remarkable speech on the subject. Although he was rather a fluent speaker, this speech was so superior to anything ever before heard to proceed from his lips, that a report that it was written by M. Guizot obtained very general credence. In 1848 the Prince de la Moskowa went the whole hog for democracy, he belonged to a club that met at the Café Mulhouse, called the Société Democratique Allemande, of which M. Herwegh was president. This club sent out a body of no less than 1,800 men, who, under the command of citizens Hecker, Weizen, and Soucherel, took a leading part in the insurrection in the Grand Duchy of Baden. On May 30, 1848, this corps, called the Democratic Foreign Legion, was harangued by the Prince de la Moskowa before its departure. The Prince was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly for the departments of the Moselle and the Eure-et-Loire in 1849. He attached himself from the first to the pretensions of the Prince President, and of course saluted the second empire with enthusiasm. He was included in the first creation of senators. After having been Colonel of the 8th Lancers, and a Colonel of Dragoons, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-general in 1853. At the time of his death he was not on active service. The Princess de la Moskowa, from whom he had long been separated, has gone to St. Germain to pay the last duties to her husband. M. de Persigny, the French Ambassador in London, married the Prince’s daughter a few years ago.

Quoted from: The Gentleman’s Magazine. Ausg. 203, 1857.

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