Further, according to our gay neighbor’s reasoning, the man is lost in this world, in which opinion is everything, who will not seek to obtain a good opinion at the sword’s point.
Again, says M. Janin, the man is lost in this world of hypocrites and calumniators who will not demand reparation, sword in hand, for the calumnies and malicious reports to which he has been exposed. It would be insulting to the common sense of my readers to affect to point out to them the rottenness of reasons like these. They could only convince such men as Buckingham and Alfieri, and others in circumstances like theirs; Buckingham after killing Lord Shrewsbury at Barnes, and pressing the head of Lady Shrewsbury on his bloody shirt; and Alfieri, who, after a vile seduction, and very nearly a terrible murder in defence of it, went home and slept more peacefully than he had ever slept before: “dopo tanto e si stranie peripizie d’un sol giorno, non ho dormito mai d’un sonno piu tenace e piu dolce.” Alfieri would have agreed with M. Janin, that in duelling lay the safeguard of all that remains to us of civilization. But how comes it then that civilization is thus a wreck, since duelling has been so long exercising a protective influence over it?
However few, though dazzling, were the virtues possessed by the chivalrous heroes of ancient history, it must be conceded to them, that they possessed that of valor, or a disregard of life, in an eminent degree. The instances of cowardice are so rare that they prove the general rule of courage; yet these men, with no guides but a spurious divinity and a false philosophy, never dreamed of having recourse to the duel, as a means of avenging a private wrong. Marius, indeed, was once challenged, but it was by a semi-barbarous Teutonic chief, whom the haughty Roman recommended, if he were weary of his life to go and hang himself. Themistocles, too, whose wisdom and courage the most successful of our modern gladiators may admire and envy, when Eurybiades threatened to give him a blow, exclaimed, “Strike, but hear me!” Themistocles, it must be remembered, was a man of undaunted courage, while his jealous provoker was notorious for little else but his extreme cowardice.
But, in truth, there have been brave men in all countries, who have discouraged this barbarous practice. A Turkish pacha reminded a man who had challenged a fellow Spahi, that they had no right to slay one another while there were foes to subdue. The Dauphin of Viennois told the Count of Savoy, who had challenged him, that he would send the count one of his fiercest bulls, and that if the count were so minded, his lordship of Savoy might test his prowess against an antagonist difficult to overcome. The great Frederick would not tolerate the practice of duelling in his army; and he thoroughly despised the arguments used for its justification. A greater man than Frederick, Turenne, would never allow himself to be what was called “concerned in an affair of honor.” Once, when the hero of Sintzheim and the Rhine had half drawn his sword to punish a disgusting insult, to which he had been subjected by a rash young officer, he thrust it back into the sheath, with the words: “Young man, could I wipe your blood from my conscience with as much ease as I can this filthy proof of your folly from my face, I would take your life upon the spot.”
Even the chivalrous knights who thought duelling a worthy occupation for men of valor, reduced opportunities for its practice to a very small extent. Uniting with the church, they instituted the Savior’s Truce, by which duels were prohibited from Wednesday to the following Monday, because, it was said, those days had been consecrated by our Savior’s Passion. This, in fact, left only Tuesday as a clear day for settling quarrels by force of arms.
There probably never existed a mortal who was opposed by more powerful or more malignant adversaries than St. Augustin was. His great enemies the Donatists never, it is true, challenged him to any more dangerous affray than a war of literary controversy. But it was in answer to one of their missiles hurled against him, in the form of an assertion, that the majority of authors was on their side, he aptly told them that it was the sign of a cause destitute of truth when only the erring authority of many men could be relied on.
The Norman knights or chiefs introduced the single combat among us. It is said they were principally men who had disgraced themselves in the face of the enemy, and who sought to wipe out the disgrace in the blood of single individuals. It is worthy of remark too, that when king and sovereign princes had forbidden duelling, under the heaviest penalties, the popes absolved the monarchs from their vows when the observance of them would have put in peril the lives of offending nobles who had turned to Rome in their perplexity, and who had gained there a reputation for piety, as Hector did, who was esteemed so highly religious, for no other reason than that he had covered with rich gifts the altar of the father of Olympus.
Supported by the appearance that impunity was to be purchased at Rome, and encouraged by the example of fighting-cardinals themselves, duelling and assassination stalked hand in hand abroad. In France alone, in the brief space of eighteen years, four thousand gentlemen were killed in rencontres, upon quarrels of the most trivial nature. In the same space of time, not less than fourteen thousand pardons for duelling were granted. In one province alone, of France, in Limousin, one hundred and twenty gentlemen were slain in six months—a greater number than had honorably fallen in the same period, which was one of war, in defence of the sovereign, their country, and their homes. The term rencontre was used in France to elude the law. If gentlemen “met” by accident and fought, lawyers pleaded that this was not a duel, which required preliminaries between the two parties. How frequent the rencontres were, in spite of the penalty of death, is thus illustrated by Victor Hugo, in his Marion Delorme:—
“Toujours nombre de duels, le trois c’était d’Angennes
Contre d’Arquien, pour avoir porté du point de Gènes.