[180] There were, though not many, actual instances of capital punishment for disregard of the edicts against duelling, and imprisonment was common. But the deterrent effect was very small. Montmorency-Bouteville was the best-known victim.
[181] It is amusing, as one reads this, to remember Hume's essay in which he lays stress on the contrast between Greek and French ideas in this very matter of the duel.
[182] A curious and rather doubtful position; well worth the consideration of anybody who wishes to write the much-wanted History and Philosophy of Duelling.
[183] The author uses "Prince," as indeed one might expect, rather in the Continental than in the English way, and the persons who bear it are not always sons of kings or members of reigning families. The two most agreeable quiproquos arising from this difference are probably the fictitious unwillingness of the excellent Miss Higgs to descend from "Princesse de Montcontour" to "Duchesse d'Ivry," and the, it is said, historical contempt of a comparatively recent Papal dignitary for an English Roman Catholic document which had no Princes among the signatories.
[184] Nobody, unless I forget, has the wisdom to put the counter-question, "Can you ever cease loving if you have once really loved?" which is to be carefully distinguished from a third, "Can you love more than once?" But there are more approaches to these arcana in the Astrée than in Mlle. de Scudéry.
[185] A very nice phrase.
[186] He had refused to cross swords with her, and had lowered his own in salute.
[187] Compare the not quite so ingenious adjustment of the intended burning of Croesus.
[188] Clélie is about as bad in this respect, v. inf.: the others less so.
[189] I have said that you can do this with the Astrée, and that this makes for superiority in it: but there also I think absolutely continuous reading of the whole would become "collar-work."