force them. In the year 1651, a clergyman of the name of Olier, founder of the congregation of St. Sulpice, conceived a plan of supplying the inefficiency of the law, by putting honor in opposition to itself. With this view he projected an association of gentlemen of tried valor, who, by subscribing an engagement, to which the solemnity of an oath was to be added, obliged themselves never to send or accept a challenge, and never to serve as seconds in a duel. In this project he engaged the Marquis de Fenelon, a nobleman respected for the frankness of his disposition and the austerity of his principles, as well as for his well-known courage, when that quality had been called upon in the service of his country; since it was of him that the great Condé had said, that he was equally qualified for conversation, for the field, or for the cabiIt was to this nobleman that the justly-celebrated Archbishop of Cambray owed his education and his rise in the

net.

church.

"The Marquis de Fenelon having placed himself at the head of this association,-into which no one was admitted unless he had distinguished himself in the service,―on the Sunday of the Pentecost, the members assembled in the church of St. Sulpice, and placed in the hands of M. Olier a solemn instrument, expressing their firm and unalterable resolution, never to be principals or seconds in a duel, and moreover to discourage the baneful practice to the utmost of their power. The great Condé was so struck with the proceeding, that he said to the marquis, that a person must have the opinion which he himself entertained of his valor, not to be alarmed at seeing him the first to break the ice on such an occasion."

Under the Regency and the dissolute reign of Louis XV., the frequency of duels again increased. The life of licentious intrigue, which was the chief occupation of all the world of fashion and nobility, could not but generate constant occasions calling for this mode of adjustment. One, for instance, is told in which the rank of the Regent alone protected him from that necessity. When the Count de Horn, a Belgian nobleman of distinguished family, was found by his highness with one of his favorites, the Countess de Parabère, "Sortez, Monsieur!" was the duke's disdainful

command to him; to which the other retorted, "Your ancestors, sir, would have said, Sortons!" This is alleged by Madame de Crequi (a relation of Horn) as the reason of the implacable obduracy demned to death for a most atrocious of the Regent, when Horn was conmurder, and when the most powerful efforts were exhausted in vain to obtain from him the slightest relaxation of either the severity or the ignominy of the punishment.* The great Law of Lauriston, the canonized patron-saint of modern credit-system financiering, commenced his meteor career by several duels. But the prince of duellists in these despicable times was the celebrated profligate the Duke de Richelieu, who was as willing and ready to murder a husband as to seduce a wife,

for whom, by the way, a pistol-meeting took place between the Marquise de Nesle and the Countess Polignac. St. Evremont and St. Foix are also the names of two noted duellists who flourished amid the noxious rankness of this period. Another is chronicled by our author in the following manner :

"Amongst the other fashionable roués of the day was Du Vighan, from Xaintonges, whose handsome appearance was so fascinating, that hackney-coachmen are said to have driven him without a fare, for the mere pleasure of serving such a joli garçon. Another anecdote is related, of a tailor's wife, who called upon him for the payment of four hundred francs, due to her husband; but his attractions were such, that she left behind her a bill for three hundred. Although of middling birth, he sought to attract the notice of the King, who granted him letters of nobility on his appearance. This fortunate youth was constantly involved in law-suits, wherein he always contrived to win his cause. So successful was he in all his undertakings that the Archbishop of Paris called him the serpent of the terrestrial Paradise.' The name he was usually known by was Le Charmant; and Madame de Crequi was obliged to acknowledge that she only mentions him qu'à son corps défendant.

"It was of course of the utmost neces

sity that such a charming gentleman should be constantly engaged in some duel; and his fascinations seemed to operate as powerfully on the marshals of France, constituting the court of honor,

as on the hearts of the ladies of the court, for he was invariably acquitted.

"His sword, however, was not always as successful as his features and manners, for he received from the Count de Meu

lan a severe wound, that endangered his precious life. On his recovery he had the presumption to pay his addresses to Mademoiselle de Soissons, a young princess of great beauty, who became so enamored of her admirer that her aunt was obliged to shut her up in a convent at Montmartre, under the surveillance of one of the provost's officers. But bars and locks could not keep out such a Lothario; and a letter and a rope-ladder having been discovered, the lady's family applied to the Baron d'Ugeon, one of their relatives and an expert swordsman, to bring the youth to The challenge was sent and accepted; but the meeting did not take place, in consequence of the fatal malady of the King, upon whom Du Vighan attended to the last.

reason.

"The monarch dead, Du Vighan lost no time in seeking his adversary, who inflicted two dangerous wounds in his right side. Notwithstanding the severity of the injury, he contrived to scale the walls of the abbey of Montmartre to see his beloved princess; but he was obliged to spend the night under the arches of the eloisters, the young lady having been shut up. During this painful vigil, his wounds broke out afresh; and the hemorrhage was so profuse, that he was found there a corpse the following morning. The body was carried home, and a report spread abroad that he had died of the small-pox, caught from the King, during his attendance on the royal sufferer. Although the princess grieved pretty nearly unto death, yet she at length consoled herself by marrying the Prince de Cobourg."

Under the succeeding reign, of Louis XVI., a duel took place between the Comte d'Artois (afterwards Charles X.) and the Duke de Bourbon, growing out of some highly ungentlemanly rudeness on the part of the former, at a masked ball, toward the Duchesse de Bourbon. It was terminated, after a short encounter, without bloodshed, on the interposition of the seconds.

The father of this Duke de Bourbon, the Prince de Condé, though a prince of the blood, had also fought a duel with a young Captain of the Guards, the Vicomte d'Agout, who challenged him for a gross injury and insult, growing out of a licentious intrigue of the Prince. After the Prince had re

ceived a slight wound the combatants were separated; and shortly afterward D'Agout, who had resigned his commission, which was held under Condé, of the Guards, with promotion to a was restored by the latter to the corps majority. In this reign flourished the noted Chevalier d'Eon, the most expert fencer and duellist of the time, of whom it was reserved only for a postmortem official declaration, to settle the doubts existing as to his sex-a considerable part of his life having been passed in female attire; while a tumor in the breast, growing out of a wound received in fencing, contributed to the mystification which, for reasons never fully explained, he saw fit to practise on this singular subject. His only rival in skill, and equally in fashionable popularity, was the Chevalier St. George, who was a mulatto, and, in spite of swart features and woolly head, a great favorite among the ladies. He was appointed Equerry to Madame de Montesson, whom the Duke of Orleans had privately married, and then Captain in the Guards of his son, the Duke of Chartres, the present King of the French. He is thus described:

It is not worth while to dwell upon the period of convulsion that succeeded this reign, in connexion with the history of the Duel. With the earlier orators and leaders of the Republic it was rather the fashion to detest and despise it as one of the discarded things of the old régime. In the parlance of the day the duel was "the argument of an assassin." Occasional duels were, however, fought. A few months after delivering a very eloquent speech against the practice, Barnave fought with Cazalès. The National Assembly, after having, at first, adopted a severe law against it, at last abrogated all former laws prohibiting single combat, and passed an amnesty in favor of those transgressors who had been prosecuted agreeably to their enactments. Under the Directory and the Consulate the practice revived; and amidst the prevailing military ardor, the recklessness of life, the general social agitation, and the unsettled confusion of classes, it became fashionable and frequent. In the army it was constantly resorted to, both by officers and soldiers; scarcely a day passed without a meeting in the Bois de Boulogne, while garrison towns were continually disturbed by desperate duellists. Pistols were now adopted by civilians, after the English fashion, and the sabre, rarely the small-sword, became the arm of the military. Napoleon was very stern in discountenancing it. Although he knew, from the character of his officers and soldiers, that it was impossible to prevent it, yet he visited with his displeasure all the superior officers who transcended the regulations on this subject. He was frequently heard to say, that he never could place any dependence upon a duellist in battle, and that Latour Maubourg, the bravest of the brave, had never drawn his sword in a private quarrel. His own reply to the mad challenge of Gustavus IV., of Sweden, is well known,-"that he would order a fencing-master to attend him as a

plenipotentiary;" and that to Sir Sidney Smith's equal absurdity does not need an allusion.

After the Restoration of the Bourbons, the level of comparative social tranquillity which had been maintained by the superincumbent weight of the imperial throne, and him that sat thereon, was all broken up again. The political agitations which prevailed, and the bad blood between the partisans of the old and of the new order of things, again sought frequent vent at the point of the sword or the muzzle of the pistol. Within this period the Press arose in freedom and great power, and out of its unaccustomed licentiousness grew a vast number of duels involving its conductors and others. Literary duels became frequent, especially on account of political and historical works. Critics occasionally found a weapon sharper and more merciless even than the pen of their vocation, with which to assail an unfortunate author's mistakes of fact or reasoning. Two enthusiastic novel writers fought in defence of the classical and romantic schools of literature. A Neapolitan colonel of the name of Pépé, challenged the author of a work in which Italy was reproached for its pusillanimity, and refuted the slander by wounding the author. While the Count de Ségur, author of the " Campaign of Russia," had to meet General Gourgaud, one of Napoleon's aides-de-camp, by whom he was also visited critically with a corrective wound.

Since the Revolution of July, duels of the press and of politics have been most absurdly frequent. A pistol-case has been at times an almost indispensable article of furniture to the editor's cabinet. The legitimist editors of Le Revenant challenged those of their editorial confrères who had not implicit faith in the virtue of the Duchesse de Berry, and both Laborie, of that paper, and Carrel of the National were wounded. The eventual fate of the latter in a similar encounter with Emile de Girardin is well known. Similar occurrences took place in all the principal cities. The mania spread through all classes. Paragraphs can be quoted from French papers of this period, relating three or four duels in a morning, growing chiefly out of political differences. In the present more tran

duels, although formerly not unfrequent, are now rare-throwing out of view the ridiculous student duels of the Universities. By an ancient law of Sweden, writes Dr. Millingen,

"If a man told another that he was inferior to any other man, or had not the heart of a man, and the other replied, 'I am as good a man as yourself,' a meeting was to follow. If the aggressor came to the ground, but did not find the offended, the latter was to be considered dishonored, and held unfit to give testimony in any cause, and deprived moreover of the power to make a will. But if, on the other hand, the insulted party came forward, and the offending party did not make his appearance, the former was to call him aloud by name three times, and, if he did not appear, make a mark upon the ground, when the offender would be held as infamous and false. When both parties met, and the offended was killed, his antagonist had to pay a half compensation for his death; but, if the aggressor succumbed, his fate was to be attributed to temerity and an unguarded expression, therefore his death called for no compensation. In Norway, any gentleman who refused satisfaction to another was said to have lost his law, and could not be admitted as evidence upon oath. According to the Danish laws, it was held that force is a better arbiter in contestations than words; and in the judicial combats, which frequently arose on the slightest provocation, no champion was allowed to fight in the cause of another, however feeble or unskilled in arms he might be: women were not even allowed a proxy to defend them, but were obliged to defend their honor personally. In such cases, to afford the woman a better chance, the man who had offended her was obliged to

get into a pit up to his waist, by which means his Amazonian opponent could wheel round him and strike him on the head with a sling or leather thong to which was suspended a heavy stone; the male combatant was armed with a club, and if he missed her three times, or struck the ground instead of her, he was declared to be vanquished."

The story of Gustavus Adolphus is generally known, who, after striking one of his officers, Colonel Seaton, accepted his resignation of his commission, and then, following him across the frontier, offered him satisfaction for his wounded honor on equal terms-which of course resulted in reconciliation, and the return of the officer to favor and

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Now, gentlemen, you may proceed." In the Austrian and Prussian states, and in most of the countries of Germany, duelling is rigidly punished with various terms of imprisonment. The offence is of rare occurrence, though not entirely unknown. In 1834, the German papers gave an account of a duel of a most romantic nature:

"A Baron Trautmansdorf was paying courtship to the widow of a Polish general, the young Countess Lodoiska R—; he only awaited an appointment to an embassy to marry her. In the mean time a Baron de Ropp courted the lady, and in a sonnet turned his more successful rival into ridicule. The baron immediately sent him a message, which Ropp accepted; but on the ground proposed a champion, who espoused his cause, when Trautmansdorf fell. His second, indignant at this act of treachery, insisted that Ropp should give him satisfaction. The second was also mortally wounded, when it was found out that Lodoiska herself had accompanied her betrothed in male attire. Ropp, having recognized her when she fell, felt so deeply the turpitude of his conduct, that he threw himself on his own sword, and expired near the bodies of Lodoiska and her lover."

Duels are rare in Russia, but less so sian duels are mentioned. A dispute among the Poles. Two singular Rusand challenge having taken place between Prince Dolgoroucki and an old general officer, Zass, and at that moment the Swedish artillery being heard, and intelligence being brought that the enemy were attacking a redoubt, the two engaged in their duel at once by standing together in an embrasure of the redoubt till the one or the other should be struck. The Prince was cut in two by a cannon ball, when the general withdrew— this desperate resolve having been witnessed by the whole army. The other was between a noted duellist, the Count de Tolstoy, and a naval captain. The latter, refusing other weapons, insisted upon what he called a naval manner of fighting, which was,