CHAPTER VII.
DUELS IN FRANCE DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
As we have seen in the preceding chapter, it was during the reign of Francis I. that duels became multiplied, both in the French dominions, and in their armies employed upon foreign service. The influence of the monarch upon his court, and of that court upon the nation, has ever been all-powerful in that country, until the people knew that they were something. We have seen the potato, after being considered by the whole country as only food fit for swine, introduced into fashionable, and thence into general consumption, after Louis XIV. had appeared in court with a nosegay of its flowers at his button-hole.
The gasconading challenge sent by Francis to Charles, although it must have been fully appreciated by reasoning people, acted with electric enthusiasm on the nation; and if a king thought it incumbent on his honour to seek satisfaction for having been accused of asserting a falsehood, how much more urgent did it become for subjects to draw their swords upon the slightest contradiction that could give umbrage to the phantom of chivalric honour? Moreover, it had been currently reported, and of course confirmed by the courtiers, that this monarch, having considered himself offended by the Count of Saxony, then on a visit at his court, had taken him aside in a hunting excursion, without any witness being present to compromise his future safety, and proposed a single combat, which the Count very wisely declined.
Francis, although he not only tolerated, but approved of duelling, was jealous of the right of giving it his sanction, and was much displeased if a challenge was sent without his knowledge. Thus De Cipsière was obliged to absent himself from the Louvre for a considerable time, for having presumed to send his compliments to D’Audoin by Vicomte Gourdon, and to inform him that he was going to hear mass at the church of St. Paul, where if M. D’Audoin would attend at the same time, they would afterwards take a walk into the country by the Porte St. Antoine. Several duels during this reign may almost be considered as judicial combats, since they took place in the presence of the sovereign, who thus constituted himself an arbiter.
The reign of Francis might have been one of gallantry and of pleasure; and there are not wanting even ladies who, in the present day, look upon its profligacies and their ferocious results as noble deeds,[12] the effects of chivalric devotion. I must confess that, in looking over its annals, I can find nothing remarkable, except an outrageous breach of all morality and decorum, and a wanton waste of human blood.
The miserable successor of this prince, Henry II, whose reign was ushered in by the disgraceful duel between Jarnac and La Chasteneraye, which I have already related, encouraged duelling by his want of energy; the princes of the blood followed the general example: and we find the Prince Charles, brother to the Duke de Bourbon Montpensier, fighting with D’Andelot, brother of the Admiral Coligny, at a hunting party.
It was during this reign that a singular duel took place between a youth of the name of Châteauneuf, and his guardian Lachesnaye, an old man of eighty. The champions met at the Isle Louviers, the subject of the dispute being a lawsuit concerning the minor’s property. Châteauneuf asked the old gentleman, if there was any truth in the reports circulated, that he had made use of disrespectful language concerning him; which the other positively denied on the word of a gentleman. This assertion satisfied the youth; but the old man would not let the matter rest. “You may be satisfied,” he replied, “but that is more than I am: and, since you have given me the trouble of coming here, we must fight. What would all those folks say, who have done us the honour of collecting to see us on both sides of the river, if they found that we came here to talk instead of acting? Our honour is concerned; let us therefore begin.” Both were armed with swords and daggers; when Lachesnaye exclaimed, “Ah! paillard! tu es cuirassé!” which we might translate into modern phraseology, “You varmint! you have a cuirass on. “Ah! je t’aurai bien autrement!”—“You shall catch it in another manner!” and forthwith made his cut and thrust at the face and throat; an attack which by no means disconcerted the young combatant, who very quietly ran the old gentleman through the body.
The youth of those gallant times were not very punctilious when they were less successful than Châteauneuf, as appears in the following adventure:—