No officer or soldier shall pretend to send a challenge to any other officer or soldier, to fight a duel; if a commissioned officer, on pain of being cashiered; if a non-commissioned officer or soldier, of suffering corporal punishment, at the discretion of a court martial. [Articles of war.]
Pharamond king of the Gauls, in the year 420, issued the following edict against duelling.
“Whereas it has come to our royal notice and observation, that in contempt of all laws, divine and human, it has of late become a custom among the nobility and gentry of this our kingdom, upon slight and trivial, as well as great and urgent provocations, to invite each other into the field, there, by their own hands, and of their own authority, to decide their controversies by combat: we have thought fit to take the said custom into our royal consideration, and find, upon inquiry into the usual causes whereon such fatal decisions have arisen, that by this wicked custom, maugre all the precepts of our holy religion, and the rules of right reason, the greatest act of the human mind, forgiveness of injuries, is become vile and shameful; that the rules of good society and virtuous conversation are hereby inverted; that the loose, the vain, and the impudent, insult the careful, the discreet, and the modest; that all virtue is suppressed, and all vice supported, in the one act of being capable to dare to death. We have also further, with great sorrow of mind, observed that this dreadful action, by long impunity, (our royal attention being employed upon matters of more general concern) is become honorable, and the refusal to engage in it ignominious. In these our royal cares and inquiries, we are yet farther made to understand, that the persons of most eminent worth, of most hopeful abilities, accompanied with the strongest passion for true glory, are such as are most liable to be involved in the dangers arising from this licence. Now, taking the said premises into our serious consideration, and well weighing, that all such emergencies (wherein the mind is incapable of commanding itself, and where the injury is too sudden, or too exquisite to be borne) are particularly provided for by laws heretofore enacted; and that the qualities of less injuries, like those of ingratitude, are too nice and delicate to come under general rules; we do resolve to blot this fashion, or wantonness of anger, out of the minds of our subjects, by our royal resolutions declared in this edict, as follows:—No person who either sends or accepts a challenge, or the posterity of either, though no death ensues thereupon, shall be, after the publication of this our edict, capable of bearing office in these our dominions:—The person who shall prove the sending or receiving a challenge, shall receive to his own use and property, the whole personal estate of both parties; and their real estate shall be immediately vested in the next heir of the offenders, in as ample a manner as if the said offenders were actually deceased:—In cases where the laws (which we have already granted to our subjects) admit of an appeal for blood: when the criminal is condemned by the said appeal, he shall not only suffer death, but his whole estate, real, mixed, and personal, shall, from the hour of his death, be vested in the next heir of the person whose blood he spilt:—That it shall not hereafter be in our royal power, or that of our successors, to pardon the said offences, or restore the offenders to their estates, honor, or blood, for ever. Given at our court, at Blois, the eighth of February, 420, in the second year of our reign.”
Duelling was authorised before the Normans came into England, but the practice was not so frequent as after the conquest.
DULEDGE, a peg of wood which joins the ends of the felloes, forming the circle of the wheel of a gun carriage; and the joint is strengthened on the outside of the wheel by a strong plate of iron, called the duledge plate.
DUMB-BELLS, weights which were used in drilling the soldier, who held one in each hand, which he swung backwards and forwards, to open his chest, increase muscular strength, throw back his shoulders, and accustom him to that freedom of action in the arms, and to that erect position of body which are so essentially necessary to a soldier.
The following method of exercising recruits with the dumb-bells, is extracted from a work entitled Military Instruction.
The dumb-bells being placed one on each side of the recruit, and himself in an erect, steady posture—on the word,
Raise bells—he will take one in each hand, and by a gentle motion, raise them as high as his arm will suffer him above his head; then gradually sinking them with stretched arm, as much behind him as possible, he will form a circle with them, making the circle complete, by causing the backs of his hands to meet behind his body; this will be repeated according to his strength, 5 or 6 times.
Extend bells.—The bells being raised to the shoulder, they will be forced forwards, keeping the same height, then brought back in the same manner; this will throw the chest forward, and force back the neck and shoulders, this must be frequently repeated.