DUELLING IN FRANCE.
Different versions of the following anecdotes, respecting Mr. G—— (an English officer), may be abroad, but we give them as detailed to us:—
Mr. G——, a young English militaire of fashion and spirit, not a great while since, had the fortune to fight a couple of duels in Paris, under circumstances rather curious. He was acquainted with a French gentleman, whom nature had endowed with more tongue than with discretion and good principles;—in fact, it came to the ears of Mr. G——, that the loquacious Gaul was a revolutionist in politics, a professed atheist in religion, and (how could it happen otherwise?) a man devoid of the most ordinary principles of honour, probity, and social decencies. He was in the habit of slandering and vituperating, in the most violent manner; and, in the well-thronged cafés and salons of the French capital, not only his bon ami Mr. G——, but everything and everybody English, until our young officer, provoked by his insolence beyond all patience, taking the advice of a friend, challenged him. The Gaul, affecting to be highly irritated, at first protested that "he would never consent to degrade himself by fighting any of the d—d English;" and, with horrid imprecations, parodied Caligula's memorable malice, by wishing that "all the cursed members of that infernal nation were but one body, which he might destroy at a shot!" However, that no imputation might rest on his courage, he consented to meet his adversary—for whom, by the way, he expressed the most thorough contempt—next morning, at the Bois de Boulogne. They met; and this miserable man received the reward of his perfidy and malice, by a ball through his heart!
Some days after this affair, Mr. G—— being grossly insulted by another French gentleman—a notorious duellist, and, if we mistake not, an ally of the deceased—felt himself obliged to notice the affront in a similar manner. Monsieur —— treated the challenge with supreme contempt, begged to assure Mr. G—— that he was a dead man if they met, but professed himself much at his service if he was really bent on quitting this world, and thought the most appropriate spot for so doing would be the Champs d'Elysées. Thither next morning the parties repaired. Mr. G—— found his antagonist already on the ground, and amusing himself by firing at a mark: viz.—his glove, attached to the branch of a tree, which he shot at with such precision as to send his bullet, at every successive trial, through the aperture in the glove made by the first. Monsieur was, in truth, a splendid and formidable marksman. Mr. G——, in preparing for the duel, happening to cast his eyes on his adversary, perceived that he had slily placed his arm in such a position, as must ensure, on the honourable gentleman's fire, the fulfilment of his vaunt to make him "a dead man." No time was to be lost; the young Englishman's life depended upon dispatch; and, instantly firing, he proved himself as good a marksman as Monsieur ——, by sending his ball, with the utmost precision, through the wily manœuvrer's elbow, from whence it passed into his side; and he dropped down, disabled, if not dead. Thus did British spirit twice humble, in a remarkable manner, French insolence and presumption!