In viewing the nature of the governments in the various states of Italy, it may not be uninteresting to discover in which of them the practice of duelling was most general. In the Roman states they were rare; at Naples much more frequent. In Piedmont and Savoy personal meetings were seldom heard of, more especially since the French occupation; previously to which, the professors and students at the universities were in the habit of wearing swords. Yet hostile meetings occasionally take place amongst the military, engendered by disputes at balls and by love matters. The same may be said of Sardinia, where duelling is confined to the troops, and an officer is placed in a situation somewhat similar to that of our own army. If he is insulted, and does not demand satisfaction, he is expelled by his corps; and, if he fights, he is sentenced to an imprisonment of three or six months in a fort called the Fenestrellas. In Corsica a bloody spirit of vengeance is generally prevalent, and gave rise to that system of murder called the vendetta, which is frequently resorted to amongst its savage mountaineers. In these desperate excesses whole families and clans indulged, and regular challenges were interchanged. These hostile declarations were followed by every kind of atrocious acts; and constant ambuscades, combats, burning of houses, destruction of property, and slaughter even of infants, were incessantly disturbing the public peace. These intestine broils were only terminated by treaties of peace between the parties, regularly drawn out, and registered in the archives of Ajaccio.
These excesses, at the present time, are less frequently committed; but private feuds are still decided by assassination, when the murderer generally escapes by taking to the woods and mountains, and there proscribed, he is called a bandetto. When taken and condemned, national prejudice absolves him from punishment as an honorato. In such a ferocious state of society duelling is a practice unknown; and the man who would assassinate his enemy without remorse, would scorn to commit a theft. It is in vain that courts of justice have endeavoured to check these barbarous deeds; in a late case of vendetta, the murderer having been acquitted, the son of the deceased, who was a magistrate, exclaimed, “The jury have acquitted thee, but I condemn thee to death.” It is needless to add, that the sentence was soon carried into execution.
Italian customs prevailed in the island of Malta, and duels were frequent amongst the knights of that order, although prohibited by most of the grand masters. The Strada Stretta was the spot in which these meetings usually took place, and the friends of the combatants, stationed at each end of the narrow lane, prevented them from being disturbed. Assassinations at one time were so frequent in this quarter, that an edict was issued, denouncing the penalty of death on every person who was found in it armed with pistols or daggers. But, by a singular regulation of the order, every person was obliged to return his sword into the scabbard when ordered to do so by a woman, a priest, or a knight. A cross was usually painted on the wall, opposite the spot where a knight had been killed, to commemorate his fall, and claim the prayers of those who passed by, to relieve his soul from purgatory.
Although the statutes of the order of St. John of Jerusalem prohibited duels, yet a knight was considered disgraced if he refused to accept a challenge. A case is recorded of two knights, who having had a dispute at a billiard-table, one of them, after much abusive language, struck a blow; but, to the surprise of all Malta, after so gross a provocation, refused to fight his antagonist. The challenge was repeated, but still he refused to enter the lists. He was therefore condemned by the chapter to make an amende honorable in the church of St. John for forty-five successive days, then to be confined in a dungeon without light for five years; after which he was to remain a prisoner in the castle for life.
A very curious duel took place at Valetta between a Spanish commander, of the name of Vasconcellos, and a French commander, M. de Foulquerre, the latter having had the insolence to present some holy water to a young lady entering a church, whom the Castilian was following. Foulquerre was one of the most noted disturbers of the Strada Stretta; and, although he had been engaged in many duels, on this occasion he repaired to the rendezvous with some reluctance, as though he anticipated the result of the meeting. As soon as his adversary appeared, he said, “What, sir, do you draw your sword upon a Good Friday! Hear me:—it is now six years since I have confessed my manifold sins, and my conscience reproaches me so keenly, that in three days hence——.” But the Spaniard would not attend to his request, and pressed upon him; when his opponent, mortally wounded, exclaimed, “What! on a Good Friday! May Heaven forgive you! Bear my sword to Tête Foulques, and let a hundred masses be said for the repose of my soul, in the chapel of the castle.”
The Spaniard paid no attention to the dying man’s request, and reported the circumstance to the chapter of the order, according to the prescribed rules; nevertheless he was promoted to the priory of Majorca. On the night of the following Friday, he dreamt that he was in the Strada Stretta, where he again heard his enemy enjoin him to “bear his sword to Tête Foulques;” and a similar vision disturbed his slumbers every succeeding Friday night.
Vasconcellos did not know where this Tête Foulques was situated, until he learned from some French knights, that it was an old castle four leagues from Poitiers, in the centre of a forest remarkable for strange events; the castle containing in its halls many curious collections, amongst which was the armour of the famed knight Foulques Taillefer, with the arms of all the enemies he had slain in single combat; and from time immemorial, it appeared that all his successors deposited in this armoury the weapons which they used either in war or in private contests.
Our worthy prior having received this information, determined to obey the injunction of the deceased, and set out for Poitiers with the sword of his antagonist. He repaired to the castle, where he found no one but the porter and the chaplain, and communicated to the latter the purport of his visit. He was introduced into the armoury, and on each side of the chimney he beheld full-length, portraits of Foulques Taillefer, and his wife, Isabella de Lusignan. The seneschal was armed cap-a-pié, and over him were suspended the arms of his vanquished foes. The Spaniard, having laid down the sword, proceeded to tell his beads with great devotion until nightfall, when he fancied that he saw the eyes and mouths of the seneschal and his wife in motion; and he distinctly heard the former addressing his wife, saying, “What dost thou think, my dear, of the daring of this Castilian, who comes to dwell and eat in my castle, after having killed the commander without allowing him time to confess his sins?”—to which the lady replied in a very shrill voice, “I think, Messir, that the Castilian acted with disloyalty on that occasion, and should not be allowed to depart without the challenge of your glove.” The terrified Spaniard sought the door of the hall, but found it locked, when the seneschal threw his heavy iron gauntlet at his face, and brandished his sword. The Spaniard, thus compelled to defend himself, snatched up the sword that he had deposited, and falling on his fantastic antagonist, fancied that he had run him through the body, when he felt a stab from a burning weapon under the heart, and fainted away. When he recovered from his swoon, he found himself in the porter’s lodge, to which he had been carried, but free from any injury. He returned to Spain; but ever after, on every Friday night, he received a similar burning wound from the visionary Taillefer; nor could any act of devotion, or payment of money to friars or priests, relieve him from this horrible phantom.