[10] "Here is M. Barba's statement—
"I think I remember (it is more than two years ago) that half the purchase money of La Tour de Nesle was given, in cash, to M. Dumas on his saying that that was agreed upon with M. Gaillardet, which the latter denied. He was then obliged by the terms of our agreement to accept my note for his share.
BARBA '29 August 1834'
[11] "'You have written Struensee!' he says to me. Does M. Dumas think to prove by that that I have done nothing in La Tour de Nesle? He forgets, then, that he, too, has written also La Chasse et l'Amour, La Noce et l'Enterrement? (who has heard these plays mentioned?) Then the wretched Napoléon, which has had two Waterloos, dragging with it in its second the downfall of the Odéon and of M. Harel! then, immediately after La Tour de Nesle, Le Fils de l'Émigré, which had three performances with M. Anicet; Angèle, which had thirty with M. Anicet; La Vénitienne, which had twenty with M. Anicet; Catherine Howard, which has had fifteen without M. Anicet? Are we really to suppose that M. Dumas is not therefore the author of the beauties of Antony, of Henri III., and of Christine? It has surely been said so here and there, and even partly proved! Perhaps it is to this that I owe M. Dumas's attack? But he need not be anxious: I shall never write a Gaule et France and certainly not a Madame et la Vendée.
[CHAPTER V]
Sword and pistol—Whence arose my aversion to the latter weapon—Philippe's puppet—The statue of Corneille—An autograph in extremis—Le bois de Vincennes—A duelling toilet—Scientific question put by Bixio—The conditions of the duel—Official report of the seconds—How Bixio's problem found its solution
I had wished the duel to be one with swords; M. Gaillardet insisted it should be with pistols. I have a strong repugnance to that weapon; it seems to me brutal and more that of a highway robber, who attacks a traveller from the shelter of a wood, than that of the honourable combatant defending his life. The thing I dread most in pistol-duelling (but I have only fought twice with this weapon) is unskilfulness, much more than dexterity. Indeed, two or three years before the period in which the events I am relating took place—namely, before 1834—I had had a pistol-duel; I have not spoken of it, not being able to give the name of the man against whom I fought, nor to tell the reasons why I was fighting. In that duel, which took place at seven in the morning in the bois de Boulogne, in the neighbourhood of Madrid, my adversary and I were placed at twenty paces distance from one another. Lots were drawn as to who should fire first and the advantage fell to my adversary. I planted myself, with pistol loaded, at a distance of twenty paces and I waited for the firing with the muzzle of the barrel of my weapon in the air.