“On the eve of fighting for the most absurd reasons, on the most frivolous of pretexts, and without its being possible for my friends, Arthur Bertrand and Charles de Boigne, to avoid an encounter, which was provoked in terms that forced me on my honour to accept, I set forth hereafter my last wishes....”

Then he wrote to his mother.

“My Good Mother,—If this letter reaches you, it will be because I am dead or dangerously wounded. I shall exchange shots to-morrow with pistols. It is a necessity of my position, and I accept it as a man of courage. If anything could have induced me to decline the challenge, it would have been the grief which the blow would cause you, were I struck. But the law of honour is imperative, and if you must weep, dear mother, I would rather it be for a son worthy of you than for a coward. Let this thought assuage your grief: my last thought will have been of you. I shall go to the encounter to-morrow calm and sure of myself. Right is on my side. I embrace you, dear mother, with all the warmth of my heart.

“Dujarier.”

There was nothing more to be done or to be said. Only a few hours of the night remained. The experienced duellist would have steadied his nerves by as long a sleep as possible. But Dujarier regarded himself as doomed. He mentally contrasted his miserable performances at the shooting gallery with the wonderful things De Beauvallon was reported to have done with the pistol in Cuba. The stories might be inventions. He tried to snatch a few hours’ sleep.[9]

XIV

THE DUEL