 His biography was a mystery until the musicologist Jeffrey Cooper discovered an 1877 obituary of the successful Parisian violist Louis-Casimir Escoffier, who had died aged 75.Escoffier most likely took the Ney part of his pseudonym from Napoleon's marshal Michel Ney.An obituary from 11 February 1877 edition of "Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris", "Nouvelles diverses," page 47, reveals the identity of Casimir Ney.