This religion survived in England even so late as the first half of the present century, and it still survives in France. The old English sentiment,—I say the old sentiment because contemporary Englishmen have got so far past it, though it is very recent in mere date,—the old English sentiment was expressed by Thackeray in the challenge sent by Clive Newcome to his cousin Barnes, and in the gratification it afforded to Sir George Tufto and to the Colonel, both of them elderly men. Nevertheless, as Thackeray knew that the religion of duelling was already dead in England when he wrote, he took care to make the action of Clive acceptable by assigning to it filial affection as a motive. The French sentiment about honour was described with disapproval in the case of de Castillonnes and Lord Kew. “Castillonnes had no idea but that he was going to the field of honour; stood with an undaunted scowl before his enemy’s pistol; and discharged his own, and brought down his opponent, with a grim satisfaction and a comfortable conviction afterwards that he had acted en galant homme.” And so, no doubt, he had, not only according to modern French ideas, but according to old English ideas also.
The Newcomes.
General Tufto was of the old school when he said of Sir Barnes Newcome, after he had received Clive’s challenge, “At first I congratulated him, thinking your boy’s offer must please him, as it would have pleased any fellow in our time to have a shot.” And the Colonel himself, instead of reprimanding Clive for wishing to commit murder, “regarded his son with a look of beautiful, inexpressible affection. And he laid his hand on his son’s shoulder and smiled, and stroked Clive’s yellow moustache.
“‘And—and did Barnes send no answer to that letter you wrote him?’ he said slowly.
“Clive broke out into a laugh that was almost a sob. He took both his father’s hands. ‘My dear, dear old father, what an—old—trump you are!’ My eyes were so dim I could hardly see the two men as they embraced.”
Extinction of the old Sentiment.
All this is much more French (even down to the embracing and the tear-dimmed eyes of the spectator) than the opinions professed about duelling by the English newspapers of 1886. According to them, a man who sends a challenge is ridiculous, and no more. This marks the final extinction of the old sentiment.
Another indication of this change is the ridicule of duelling on the ground that it is not dangerous. French duelling is constantly represented in English newspapers as a very safe kind of ceremony, in which a slight scratch only is to be apprehended. As to this, perhaps I may be allowed to give an instance that was brought very near home.
A French Duel.
I had been away for several days, and on my return journey dined at a railway station. The waiter had known me for years, and, according to his custom, enlivened my solitary dinner with a little talk. He asked if I had “heard about M. de St. Victor.” I had heard nothing. “Because, sir,” the waiter continued, “he was killed this morning in a duel in the wood at Fragny.” Now, it so happened that my wife and daughter were to have lunched and spent that afternoon with Madame de St. Victor; but as her husband’s dead body had been brought back to the château of Montjeu, where he lived, with a sword wound through it, Madame de St. Victor did not receive her friends that day.[62]