The contagion of the duel spread even to the gentler sex. Two ladies of the court fought at Paris with pistols. The King, when he heard of it, smiled and said that his prohibition had only been aimed at men. The troubles of the Fronde still further increased the number of sword-drawing swaggerers in Paris. One duel which occurred during the civil feuds that disturbed the earlier years of Louis XIV.’s reign, caused an extraordinary sensation. It had its origin in a letter supposed to have dropped from the pocket of the Count de Coligny, one of the tenants of Mme. de Longueville. The missive was compromising to the lady-writer, whoever she might be; and, in connection therewith, the Duchess de Montbazon spread certain scandalous rumours, for which Mme. de Longueville demanded, and obtained, an apology. But with this reparation the offended lady was not content. She urged Coligny to challenge one of the favourites of Montbazon, the Duke of Guise, to fight him. The duel took place on the Place Royale at three o’clock on the 12th of December, 1643. Guise, as he grasped the hilt of his sword, said to Coligny:—“We are going to decide the ancient quarrels of our two houses, and we shall soon see the difference there is between the blood of Guise and the blood of Coligny.” Thereupon the adversaries fell to their work. Coligny, in making a gigantic thrust, slipped and {350} fell on his knee. Guise hastened to put his foot on his shoulder, and said: “I do not wish to kill you—I simply treat you as you deserve for having dared to challenge a member of my house without cause.” Then he struck the count with the flat of his sword. Coligny threw himself backwards and disengaged his weapon, whereupon the fight recommenced. Guise, however, terminated it by means of a tremendous blow which he dealt his adversary on the arm. At the same moment fell both of the seconds—d’Estrades and Bridieux—who had run each other through. This was the last of the famous duels fought on the Place Royale. Mme. de Longueville had witnessed it, concealed behind a window of the Hôtel de Rohan.
Nine years later took place the celebrated and sanguinary duel between the Duke de Nemours and the Duke de Beaufort. They quarrelled at Orleans, where Nemours had cried out, in presence of Beaufort, “The prince is being deceived, and I know by whom!” “Name him,” said Beaufort. “You, yourself!” answered Nemours. Beaufort’s reply was a box on the ear, instantly returned by Nemours; and they would at once have crossed swords had not Mlle. de Montpensier been present. On the day fixed for the duel, in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the two brothers-in-law seemed to have become reconciled. But some question of precedence revived the bad feeling between them. “M. de Beaufort,” relates the Duchess de Montpensier, “did all he could to avoid the meeting. He set forth, among other reasons, that he had a number of gentlemen with him ready to take part in the duel, while his antagonist had only a few. Monsieur de Nemours returned to his house, where he found awaiting him just as many gentlemen as were required. He went back to M. de Beaufort, and they fought in the horse market, at the back of the Hôtel de Vendôme. M. de Nemours had with him Villiers, the Chevalier de La Chaise, Campan, and Luzerche. M. de Beaufort had the Count de Bury, de Ris, Brillet, and Héricourt. The Count de Bury was severely wounded. De Ris and Héricourt died in the course of the day. None of the others were wounded, except very slightly. M. de Nemours had brought with him swords and pistols. The latter had been loaded at his house. M. de Beaufort said to his adversary: ‘Brother, what a shame! Let us forget and be friends.’ M. de Nemours cried out to him: ‘No, scoundrel! you must kill me or I will kill you.’ He fired his pistol, which missed, and rushed upon M. de Beaufort, sword in hand, so that the latter was obliged to defend himself. He fired, and shot Nemours dead with three balls that were in the pistol.”
Under Louis XIV. no less than twelve edicts were issued against duelling. One of the last, published in 1704, promised lawful satisfaction for outraged honour. To give the lie, to strike with the hand or with a stick, were offences punishable with imprisonment. Anyone who had received a box on the ears was entitled to return it. But the royal commands remained without effect. Among the great duellists of Louis XIV.’s reign must be mentioned the Duke de Richelieu, who did as much to promote duelling as the famous cardinal of the same name had done in the previous reign to prevent it. He not only fought duels himself, but was the cause of duels on the part of others; and of ladies above all. In his various encounters he severely wounded the Duke de Bourbon, ran Prince de Lixen through the body, and killed Baron Pontereider. The two ladies who fought at his instigation were Mme. de Nesle and Mme. de Polignac. “Take the first shot,” said the last-named antagonist. Mme. de Nesle fired and missed. “Anger makes the hand tremble,” observed Mme. de Polignac, with a malicious smile. Taking aim in her turn, she cut off the tip of her adversary’s ear; whereupon poor Mme. de Nesle fell to the ground as if mortally wounded.
Two years before the outbreak of the Revolution a sub-lieutenant of the Fourth Hussars was chosen by his comrades to avenge an insult offered to the regiment by a fencing-master. The adversaries had just crossed swords when the officer found himself pulled violently back by someone who had got hold of his pigtail. It was the colonel of his regiment, who had come to stop the duel and to place his subaltern under arrest. This young officer was Michel Ney, afterwards Napoleon’s famous marshal. On being liberated from prison, Ney sought out the fencing-master, challenged him, and gave him a wound which injured him for life. Hearing, some years later, that the poor man had fallen into the greatest distress, Ney, at that time a general, settled a pension upon him. After the Republic duels were fought as much as ever; but the pistol had now replaced the sword. Talma, the celebrated actor, fought a pistol duel with an actor named Naudet, in which neither was injured; and about the same{351} time shots were exchanged between two members of the National Assembly, Barnave and Cazalès. Barnave missed Cazalès, and Cazales having twice missed Barnave, apologised for his want of skill and for keeping his adversary waiting so long. "I am only here for your satisfaction," said Barnave. "I should be very sorry to kill you," answered Cazales while the pistols were being reloaded, "but you caused us a great deal of trouble. All I desire is to keep you away from the Assembly for a little time." "I am more generous," replied Barnave. "I desire scarcely to touch you, for you are the only orator on your side, whilst on mine my loss would in no way be felt." Barnave's second shot struck Cazalès on the forehead, but the ball had expended its force on the point of his cocked hat.
Charles Lameth, Mirabeau, and Camille Desmoulins likewise fought duels. Camille Desmoulins had the courage, however, to refuse to settle by arms quarrels of a political kind. "I should have," he said on one occasion, "to pass my life in the Bois de Boulogne if I were obliged to give satisfaction to all who took offence at the frankness of my speech. Let them call me a coward if they like. I fancy the time is not far off when opportunities for dying more gloriously and more usefully will present themselves."
Napoleon did his utmost to stop duelling, but with scarcely more success than his predecessors on the throne. Under the Restoration duels were constantly being fought between the officers of the King's army and Napoleonic officers on half-pay. Benjamin Constant, the famous writer and politician, fought a duel in which, as he was too weak to stand, both antagonists were accommodated with armchairs. This comfortable arrangement was not attended by fatal results. M. Thiers fought a remarkable duel with the father of the young lady to whom he was engaged to be married. Being without means, he wished to postpone the marriage from year to year, till at last the indignant parent insisted on satisfaction. M. Thiers, with the historian Mignet as one of his seconds, received the old gentleman's bullet between his legs without returning the shot. Writers at this period seem to have frequently found themselves compelled to throw down the pen and snatch up the sword or the pistol. General Gourgaud challenged the author of "The History of the Russian Campaign," and slightly wounded him in the duel which ensued. A young cavalry officer, Beaupoil de Sainte-Aulaire by name, having published a political pamphlet under the title of "Funeral Oration of the Duke de Feltre," was immediately called out by the duke's son. Hardly scratched in the encounter, he was challenged a second time by a cousin of the deceased, who killed him with a sword-thrust in the breast.
The Chamber of Deputies in 1819, and the Chamber of Peers in the year following, debated the question of definitive legislation on the subject of duelling; but their deliberations came to nothing. Shortly afterwards literature contributed another victim to the insatiable Moloch of "honour," in the person of a highly talented poet named Dovalle. He had attacked, in some journal, a theatrical director; and the offensive article cost him his life. At the time when the Duchess de Berry was under arrest the editor of the Legitimist journal, the Revenant, called at the office of the Tribune to demand satisfaction for an article directed against the duchess. The immediate result was a second article in the Tribune defying the advocates of the fair prisoner; and so strong a spirit of partisanship was now excited on either side that students from the schools rushed in crowds to enroll their names at the offices of the antagonistic journals. Two small armies having thus been raised, a letter, signed by Godefroi Cavaignac, Armand, Marrast, and Garderin, was addressed to the Revenant in these terms: "We send you a first list of twelve persons. We demand, not twelve simultaneous duels, but twelve successive duels—time and place as may be conveniently arranged. No excuses, no pretexts, no cowardly evasion; this would avail you nothing, and of this you would have to bear the consequences. Henceforth, between your party and ours, there is a drawn sword. There will be no truce, except when one yields to the other." The Legitimist party did not choose to accept the challenge in so generalised a form. It entrusted its cause to the hands of M. Roux-Laborie, who fought a duel with Armand Carrel, the appointed champion of the opposite side. Carrel received an almost fatal wound in the stomach; nor was this the last combat which the arrest of the Duchess de Berry occasioned. Tragedy and comedy were often intermingled in the duelling of the period. There was one well-known swaggerer, an ex-body-guard named Choquart, who was so enormously vain of the reputation he had gained for drawing his sword that, when once a pedestrian had, accidentally, with his elbow pulled it partly out of the sheath as the {352} two men were passing each other in the street, Choquart pulled it out altogether and exclaimed:—“The wine is drawn, and now you must drink it!” “Many thanks,” was the cool reply; “but I never take anything between meals.”
A list of the duels of this epoch would be too formidable; though mention can scarcely be omitted of the one fought between Armand Carrel and Émile de Girardin, in which the fatal wound received by Carrel was a serious blow to the Democratic cause of which he was so great a champion. It is certain that no one afterwards regretted his death so keenly as the man whose bullet had pierced him; and when, on the second of May, 1848, a concourse of workmen, national guards, and students from the Polytechnic School reassembled at Carrel’s grave in the cemetery of Saint-Mandé to pay homage to his memory, it was Girardin himself who made the most pathetic speech over the sleeping democrat. In this speech he expressed a hope that the provisional government would crown the splendid work which Carrel had done by abolishing the duel—that appeal to arms to which he so keenly regretted ever having had recourse. Since then there have been repeated agitations in favour of this abolition, but without result. Duels in France, though seldom serious nowadays, are still fought frequently and with comparative impunity.
