The Balafré had a third son, Louis, who was a cardinal, and archbishop of Rheims. This prelate was a worthy scion of the desperate stock. He was often seen doffing his canonical vestments to don the cuirass and helm; he fought in the ranks of his sovereign during his expedition in Poitou, and died after the attack on Saint Jean d’Angely. This worthy member of the church militant, having a lawsuit with the Duke de Nevers, wanted to decide the cause at the point of the sword.
D’Audiguier, who has related many of the duels of his time, was a gentleman belonging to the court of Louis XIII, and made a supplication to that monarch not only to cancel all edicts against duelling, but to allow the practice, in the following terms: “A great trial, Sire, is carried on between the nobility and the law in your Majesty’s dominions, in which you alone can decide: your nobility maintain that a gentleman whose honour is impeached should either vindicate it with his sword, or forfeit his life; whereas law asserts that a gentleman who draws his sword shall lose his life: and surely your Majesty, who is the chief of the most generous nobility in existence, cannot feel it your interest thus to blunt their valour; or, under the vain pretence of preserving their honour, behold them reduced to the necessity of losing sight of its dictates, or seek to maintain it with their pen, like the low-bred, disputing the right of arms before menial clerks.” Our advocate of the rights of honour concludes by imploring the King to render duels less frequent by permitting them to take place on certain occasions when the King himself should be present; and when the public, he adds, “instead of being involved in differences and lawsuits, which consume both blood and fortune, would be delivered of the two monsters, and would feel proud of displaying their courage in your service, and their valour in your royal presence.”
Despite these arguments, various prohibitory edicts were issued during this reign: one in particular, dated 1626, forbade all applications for pardon or solicitation in favour of the criminals; and, like his predecessor Henri IV, Louis even denounced as criminal all such applications from the Queen, whom he called his très chère et aymée compagne; he further protested and declared before Heaven, that he would never grant any exemption from this ordonnance. Notwithstanding the sanctity of these protestations, we find Louis XIII. granting a free pardon to duellists, “on account of the earnest entreaties made by his much-loved and dear sister, the Queen of Great Britain, upon the occasion of her marriage.”
Duels must have been of frequent occurrence during this reign, since Lord Herbert of Cherbury, then our ambassador at the French court, asserts that there was scarcely a Frenchman deemed worth looking on who had not killed his man in a duel.
This chivalric nobleman, to show the prevalence of duelling in France, and the respect in which duellists were held, relates the case of a M. Mennon, who being desirous to marry a niece of M. Disancour, who it was thought would be his heiress, was thus answered by him; “Friend, it is not time yet to marry: I will tell you what you must do if you will be a brave man. You must first kill in single combat two or three men; then marry, and engender two or three children; and the world will neither have gained nor lost by you.” Of which strange counsel, Disancour was no otherwise the author than inasmuch as he had been an example, at least of the former part, it being his fortune to have fought three or four gallant duels in his time.
Another anecdote of Lord Herbert shows in what consideration duellists were held by the fair sex. “All things being ready for the ball, and every one being in their place, and I myself next to the Queen, expecting when the dancers would come in, one knocked at the door somewhat louder than became, I thought, a very civil person; when he came in, I remember there was a sudden whisper amongst the ladies, saying, ‘C’est Monsieur Balaguy!’ Whereupon I also saw the ladies and gentlemen, one after another, invite him to sit near them; and, what is more, when one lady had his company a while, another would say, ‘You have enjoyed him long enough, I must have him now.’ At which bold civility of them, though I was astonished, yet it added to my wonder that his person could not be thought at most but ordinary handsome; his hair, which was cut very short, half grey; his doublet, but of sackcloth, cut to his skin; and his breeches only of plain grey cloth. Informing myself by some standers-by who he was, I was told that he was one of the gallantest men in the world, as having killed eight or nine men in single fight, and that for this reason the ladies made so much of him; it being the manner of all French women to cherish gallant men, as thinking they could not make so much of any else with the safety of their honour.”
It appears, however, that, notwithstanding this reckless spirit of duelling that prevailed in France, Lord Herbert had found some difficulty in bringing various noblemen to the field; and the following account gives a fair picture of the times.
“It happened one day that a daughter of the Duchess de Ventadour, of about ten or eleven years of age, going one evening from the castle to walk in the meadows, myself, with divers French gentlemen, attended her and some gentlewomen that were with her. This young lady wearing a knot of riband on her head, a French cavalier took it suddenly and fastened it to his hatband: the young lady, offended, herewith demands her riband; but he refusing to restore it, the young lady, addressing herself to me, said, ‘Monsieur, I pray, get my riband from that gentleman.’ Hereupon, going towards him, I courteously, with my hat in my hand, desired him to do me the honour that I might deliver the lady her riband or bouquet again; but he roughly answering me, ‘Do you think I will give it to you, when I have refused it to her?’ I replied, ‘Nay, then, sir, I will make you restore it by force!’ Whereupon, also, putting on my hat, and reaching at his, he to save himself ran away; and after a long course in the meadow, finding that I had almost overtook him, he turned short, and, running to the young lady, was about to put the riband in her hand, when I, seizing upon his arm, said to the young lady, ‘It was I that gave it.’ ‘Pardon me,’ quoth she, ‘it is he that gives it me.’ I said then, ‘Madam, I will not contradict you; but, if he dare say that I did not constrain him to give it, I will fight with him.’ The French gentleman answered nothing thereunto for the present, and we conducted the lady again to the castle. The next day I desired Mr. Aurelian Townshend to tell the French cavalier that he must confess that I constrained him to restore the riband, or fight with me. But the gentleman, seeing him unwilling to accept of this challenge, went out from the place; whereupon, I following him, some of the gentlemen that belonged to the Constable, taking notice hereof, acquainted him therewith, who, sending for the French cavalier, checked him well for his sauciness in taking the riband away from his grandchild, and afterwards bid him depart his house: and this was all I ever heard of the gentleman, with whom I proceeded in that manner, because I thought myself obliged thereunto by the oath taken when I was made Knight of the Bath.”
It seems that our hero was a very pugnacious defender of ladies’ top-knots and ribands, for he relates another quarrel of a similar nature, in the case of a Scotch gentleman, “who, taking a riband in the like manner from Mrs. Middleton, a maid of honour, in a back-room behind Queen Anne’s lodging in Greenwich, she likewise desired me to get her the said riband. I repaired, as formerly, to him in a courteous manner to demand it; but he refusing, as the French cavalier did, I caught him by the neck, and had almost thrown him down, when company came in and parted us. I offered, likewise, to fight with this gentleman, and came to the place appointed, by Hyde Park; but this also was interrupted, by order of the Lords of the Council, and I never heard more of it.”
His lordship, notwithstanding his constant quarrels, which he most decidedly sought for, by his own account, asserts “that, although I lived in the armies and courts of the greatest princes in Christendom, yet I never had a quarrel with man for mine own sake; so that, although in mine own nature I was ever choleric and hasty, yet I never, without occasion given, quarrelled with anybody: for my friends often have I hazarded myself, but never yet drew my sword for my own sake singly.”