DUELS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
During this century the social body in France underwent a total
renovation and reform. A long despotism had brutalised the public mind,
and rendered it unfit to receive any generous impressions, or to be
capable of any noble reaction against tyranny. The nation was sick
of glory, and of a magnificence which had drained its wealth: still,
it murmured silently and moodily, until master-minds should appear,
to bring these elements of discord into action. Apathy had succeeded
energetic deeds, and indolence ushered in vice stripped of all its
gaudy attractive fascination, and in all its natural baseness and
turpitude. Philip d’Orleans, Regent of the kingdom during the minority
of the fifteenth Louis, plunged the court into every possible species
of debauch; and the polished gallantry of former days was succeeded by
the most degrading excesses. Libertinism, in all its hideous deformity,
no longer sought the concealment of a prudent mask; but profligacy
was considered fashionable, consequently the pride and boast of its
votaries. Vice had become the reigning _ton_; and, where a blush was
raised, it was upon the conviction of a virtuous action.
Abandoned to all the voluptuousness of a profligate court, the Regent
displayed neither authority nor energy in repressing evils, and only
considered the possession of power valuable as being the means of
commanding fresh pleasures. The former edicts on duelling were now
disregarded, since the laws were not enforced, and no punishment
awaited their transgressors. Six weeks after the death of the King, two
officers of the guards fought on the quay of the Tuileries in open day;
but, as these young men belonged to families of the long-robe, the Duke
d’Orleans, out of respect to the parliament, which he dreaded, merely
removed them from their corps, and sentenced them to a fortnight’s
imprisonment. This duel had been fought about an Angola cat; and the
duke, when reprimanding the parties, told them that in such a matter of
dispute, it should have been settled with claws instead of swords.
Courtly intrigues now became frequently mixed up with duelling, and the
jealousies and quarrels of fashionable women were the constant sources
of disputes between their lovers. The court of honour, consisting of
the marshals of France, an institution which we have seen established
in the reign of Louis XIV, would decline interfering when any of the
parties were not of high birth or distinguished rank. An instance of
this proud distinction occurred in the following case: “An abbé of the
name of D’Aydie had fought with a clerk in the provincial department,
at an opera-dancer’s house, and wounded him. The Duchess de Berry,
daughter of the Regent, immediately ordered that the Abbé d’Aydie
should be deprived of his preferment, and obliged to become a knight of
Malta. The scribe, on recovering from his wound, was constantly seeking
his antagonist, who was compelled to fight him four times, until the
duchess brought the parties before the court of honour, presided over
by Marshal de Chamilly; who, upon hearing of the condition of one of
the parties, exclaimed, ‘What the deuce does he come here for?--a
fellow who calls himself _Bouton_--do you presume to think that we
can be _your_ judges? do you take us for bishops or keepers of the
seals?--and the fellow too dares to call us _my lords_!’”
To understand these punctilious feelings, it must be remembered that
the marshals of France were only called _my lords_ by the nobility,
being considered the judges of the higher orders; and such an
appellation from a _roturier_ was deemed an affront.
This D’Aydie, it should also be known, was the lover of the Duchess de
Berry, who naturally feared that the low-bred clerk might deprive her
of her paramour by an untimely end. The tribunal recommended the Regent
to imprison the lover of his daughter, as a punishment for having
fought a low-born fellow, who, on account of his ignoble condition,
was discharged as beneath their notice. The duchess, however, did
not approve of this finding of the court; but, after procuring the
liberation of her favourite, pursued the unfortunate clerk with such
rancour that she at last got him hanged; thereby exciting, according
to Madame de Crequi, “the horror and the animadversion of all Paris.”
Strange to say, this despicable princess died a month after, on the
very same day that the clerk was hanged: the execution took place on
the 19th of June, and she breathed her last on the 19th of July!
A duel took place between Contades and Brissac, when both were
wounded, in the very conservatories of the palace. After a few days’
concealment, they appeared before the parliament as a mere matter of
form, and Contades was made a marshal of France. Another duel, fought
in open day on the quay of the Tuileries between two noblemen, Jonzac
and Villette, was also passed over with little or no animadversion;
and Duclos, in his Secret Memoirs, asserts that the Regent openly
insinuated that duelling had gone too much out of fashion.
Duelling was not only resorted to by men of the sword, but by men of
finance; and the celebrated Law of Lauriston, who was placed at the
head of this department, had commenced his famed career by several
hostile meetings. Howbeit, he so managed matters as not to compromise
the security of his gambling-house, in the Rue Quincampoix, by
quarrels, although an assassination ultimately exposed this _hell_
to a serious investigation. One of the murderers was a Count Horn, a
Belgian nobleman of distinguished family; but who, notwithstanding the
powerful interest made in his behalf, was sentenced to be broken on
the wheel. The Regent in this case was inflexible, nor would he even
commute the punishment into a less degrading execution. This firmness
was attributed to his partiality for his creature Law, whose bank was
of great assistance to his constant debaucheries. Madame de Crequi, who
was a relative of the criminal, and who exerted her best endeavours
to save him, attributes this murder of what she calls “the Jew who
had robbed him,” to other motives; and asserts that his Highness’s
implacable hostility arose from having once found him with one of
his favourites, the Countess de Parabère; when the duke disdainfully
said to him, “_Sortez, Monsieur!_” to which the other replied, “your
ancestors, sir, would have said _Sortons_!”
Voltaire attributes a similar reply to Chalot, when placed in the same
situation with the Prince de Conti. Madame de Crequi exonerates herself
from the suspicion of having misapplied the repartee, by observing,
“there once lived an old Jew called Solomon, who maintained that there
was nothing new under the sun.”
Madame de Crequi and other writers of the times affirm that duels had
become so frequent that nothing else was heard of, and desolation and
dismay were spread in numerous families. Amongst the victims of this
practice was another lover of Madame de Parabère, and rival of the
Regent, the handsome De Breteuil. It appears that the countess was
unfortunate in her attachments, as many others of her favourites met
with a similar fate.
It has been truly said by historians, that Louis XV. received from the
hands of the Regent a sceptre stained by corruption, and a crown dimmed
by depravity. He found a court composed of libertines, and females of
the most abandoned character. His guides and counsellors were steeped
in vice; and it would have required, perhaps, more than mortal power
to have resisted the pestilential influence of such an atmosphere of
prostitution. The commencement of his reign, however, was marked by
a display of good qualities that obtained for him the flattering
distinction of the Beloved, “the _Bien-aimé_,” an appellation far
more desirable than that of Great, which had been applied to his
predecessor. Little was it then thought that ere long he would show
himself the Sardanapalus of his age.
In the first year of his reign he applied himself to check the practice
of duelling, and issued an edict in which it was provided that any
gentleman who struck another should be degraded from his rank and
forfeit his arms; and he solemnly declared that he would keep most
religiously the coronation oath, by which he had bound himself to
enforce these laws in all their rigour. But, alas for coronation oaths!
they appear to have been in the annals of every nation but too often
mere formal professions.
We find, however, that in pursuance of this resolution, the parliament
of Grenoble condemned to the wheel one of the counsellors for having
killed a captain in the army; but, as the offender had made his escape,
he was only executed in effigy, and the arm of justice fell upon his
unfortunate servant, who was branded and sent to the galleys.
The prince of duellists in these despicable times was the celebrated
Duke de Richelieu, who was certainly ever prompt to give satisfaction
for the injuries he inflicted on the peace of families. During the
regency, and when only twenty years of age, he fought the Count de
Gacé in the street under a lamp; in this night affray both parties
were wounded. Parliament interfered; but the Regent, to screen his
favourite, sent him for a few days to the Bastille.
This worthy, at one time being anxious to fight the Count de Bavière,
set out from Paris with his followers to waylay him on the road from
Chantilly; and, for the furtherance of his project, obstructed and
barricaded the road with his equipages. The parties met, and high words
arose between the coachmen and the servants of both parties, when the
masters stepped out of their carriages and drew their swords. However,
they were separated by the Chevalier d’Auvray, who was lieutenant of
the marshals of France, and whose duties were to prevent all duelling,
and bring offenders before their tribunal.
Such was the case in this instance. All the noble youth of France was
assembled, with their heads uncovered and without their swords, in the
hall of meeting of the Point of Honour; and Richelieu was ordered to
make an ample apology to the Count de Bavière.
This ceremony did not appear to affect the duke very sensibly, as
appeared by his adventure with the Count Albani, nephew of Pope Clement
XI, who was on a visit at the French court, and was most anxious to
become acquainted with the Marquise de Crequi-Blanchefort, a lady not
easy of access. Foiled in various attempts, he consulted Richelieu,
who advised him to disguise himself as a servant, and to wait upon
the marquise in that capacity, with strong letters of recommendation,
which he gave him. So far the scheme succeeded, that Albani was taken
into her service; but soon after he undeceived his supposed mistress
by an avowal of his passion, for which he was forthwith dismissed with
ignominy. Richelieu pretended to be ignorant of the transaction; but,
the share he had had in the disgraceful business being proved, he was
again sent to the Bastille. On his quitting the fortress, the young
Marquis d’Aumont, a relation of the marquise, called him out, and so
severely wounded him in the hip, that at one period his recovery was
despaired of, and it was thought that he would remain a cripple.
In 1734 he fought and killed the Prince de Lixen, although one of
his own relations, while they were both serving at the siege of
Philipsbourg. The cause of this duel is too curious to be omitted, as
the prince had himself killed the Marquis de Ligneville, uncle of his
wife.
The party were at supper at the Prince de Conti’s. Richelieu, who had
been exceedingly fatigued during the day, was very much heated, and
some drops of perspiration were observed on his forehead. The Prince
de Lixen, offended by several of the duke’s witticisms, observed, “that
it was surprising that he did not appear in a more suitable state,
after having been purified by an admission into his family:” Richelieu
having allied himself with the house of Lorraine by marrying the
Princess Elizabeth Sophie, daughter of the Duke de Guise; whereas his
(Richelieu’s) original name was simply Vignerod. Such an insult could
not be tolerated. At midnight they met in the trenches, when De Lixen
fell.
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 necessity 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 honour, 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 Comte de Meulan 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 enamoured 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 reason.
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.
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 cloisters, 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.
St. Evremont was another celebrated duellist of this period: he had
_discovered_ a particular thrust, which was honoured with his name,
and called _la botte[14] de St. Evremont_. This _brave_ was witty
and capricious, and would accept or refuse a challenge according to
the fancy of the moment. St. Foix was his rival in this pursuit of
an _honourable name_. Some of his duels were remarkable. One day,
at the Café Procope, at dinner-time, he saw a gentleman seated at a
_bavaroise_,[15] and he exclaimed, “That is a confounded bad dinner for
a gentleman!” The stranger, thus insulted, insisted upon satisfaction;
which was granted, when St. Foix was wounded. Notwithstanding this
injury, he coolly said to his antagonist, “If you had killed me, sir,
I still should have persisted in maintaining that a _bavaroise_ is a
confounded bad dinner.”
Another time he asked a gentleman, whose aroma was not of the most
pleasant nature, “why the devil he smelt so confoundedly?” The offended
party sent him a challenge, which St. Foix refused in the following
terms: “Were you to kill me, you would not smell the less; and were
I to kill you, you would smell a great deal more!” One day, meeting
a lawyer whose countenance did not please him, he walked up to him,
and whispered in his ear, “Sir, I have some business with you.” The
attorney, not understanding the drift of his speech, quietly named an
hour when he would find him in his office. The meeting was of course
most amusing; the expression of St Foix being, “that he wanted to have
an _affaire_ with him,” a term which is equally applicable to a duel
and a legal transaction.
About this period a curious quarrel arose between two gentlemen of the
names of Bricqueville and La Maugerie, about the sale of a house: the
affair commenced with kicks and cuffs, and was terminated with sword
and pistol. The finding of the Constabular court was remarkable:
declaring Bricqueville guilty of having _excédé_ La Maugerie with
various sword-wounds, fining him in the sum of one hundred francs, and
fixing the costs at thirty-six thousand; condemning him, moreover, to
live at a distance of not less than thirty leagues from the town of St.
Lo for a period of twenty years. This law-suit lasted four years!
Such was the state of duelling during this disgusting reign and
its preceding regency: one might fancy that the putrid malady that
terminated the inglorious existence of the monarch was typical of the
corruption of his government and his degraded minions; his putrescent
remains, which repelled the courtier from the regal bier, were
emblematic of his court. It was this reign that in a great measure
paved the fearful high-road to the French revolution. It has been truly
observed by a late writer, that, in France, glory alone can reconcile
the nation to tyranny. This has been fully proved during the reigns
of the fourteenth Louis and Napoleon: the yoke of the great French
monarch had been oppressive and galling, but it had been padded with
laurel leaves; the yoke of his successor was comparatively light, yet
it seemed of iron, and the people winced under its fretting sway. The
nation forgave their warlike sovereign when he said, “I am the state;”
nay, the insulting expression flattered their crouching vanity: but
when a despicable tutor told his grandson, “Sire, this people is your
property!” the Bastille was undermined, and the Louvre doomed to be
overthrown. A voluptuous prince, who sleeps confidingly on his downy
couch, may be convinced that the people are awake on their bed of
straw; the luxurious comfort of the eider-down should never make him
forget that thousands are sleepless on a miserable pallet: sooner or
later the crown must be abdicated when a court becomes the type of
corruption, and the diadem will be picked up by the iron hand of a
soldier, after having been borne for a short while in triumph by the
mob.
Such were the destinies of France, destinies which still influence
the world. If corruption destroys, it will also create; and it is
in general during the effervescence of a nation that individuals of
gigantic powers arise upon the surface from the fermenting mass. I
cannot better describe the rise of some of the most extraordinary
characters of the period alluded to, than in the words of a late writer.
“The first figure that appears, and dominates over the century, was
Voltaire. He was the literary monarch of his times, and held at Ferney
an European court: he corresponded with various sovereigns, and
exchanged with them the incense of flattery in return for more solid
gifts; for there is no doubt that Voltaire received from crowned heads
a more substantial reward of his services than their fulsome praise.
“The weapons of Rousseau, his rival, were more logical; his were
sarcastic,--an arm less dignified, but the most powerful in France.
Rousseau was admired, Voltaire produced enthusiasm: the one addressed
the understanding, the other spoke to the passions. The one fenced
dexterously with a sword, the other stabbed the social body with his
dagger. The Genevese Heraclitus, although far more eloquent, was much
less popular than the Democritus of Ferney. Vain, frivolous, vicious,
and immoral; cynical in his countenance, essentially a mocker and a
scoffer, faithless in controversy, violent in polemical discussion,
vindictive and implacable, yet the flatterer of power, abject and
crouching at the footstool of kings, their favourites, and their
mistresses, and ever courting aristocratic distinction and drawing-room
favours: Voltaire was, in short, the personification of his time.
“Rousseau, more austere, was gathered up in the dignity of the man and
the philosopher. His logic was inflexible, and he carried it to its
utmost limits. Rigorous and absolute in principle, he not unfrequently
wandered in the exaggeration of results, and boldly laid down theories
without duly considering how far they might prove practicable. In
politics be appeared rarely to have contemplated the present; but his
eagle-eye sought to pierce into futurity, and gaze upon the splendour
of a republican democracy.
“Rousseau prepared a political reform. Voltaire operated a revolution
in religion, attacking its influence with insult and mockery.
Philosophy, handled by him, became sophistical and narrow; but
nevertheless, as Chateaubriand observes, it disengaged Christianity
from its trammels, to restore it ultimately to all its purity.”
While thus endeavouring to accelerate a reform in the social order,
Rousseau was most energetic in denouncing the practice of duelling; and
the following are his memorable remarks on the subject:
“Beware how you confound the sacred name of honour with that ferocious
prejudice which places virtue on the sword’s point, and which is only
calculated to make brave ruffians.
“And what constitutes this prejudice?--the most extravagant and
barbarous idea that ever entered the human mind; fancying that all
social duties will find a substitute in valour; that a man ceases to
be a rogue, a cheat, a slanderer, and becomes civilized, humane, and
polite, when he knows how to fight! that falsehood becomes truth,
theft legitimate, treachery and perfidiousness praiseworthy, so soon
as he can maintain these qualities sword in hand! that an insult is
wiped away by the wound of a sword, and that you can never be in the
wrong when you have killed your adversary! There does exist, I admit, a
sort of affair in which politeness is combined with cruelty, and where
people only kill each other by chance; and this is when men fight for
the _first blood_. The first blood! good God! And what dost thou want
with this blood, ferocious beast? dost thou want to drink it?
“The bravest men of antiquity never thought of avenging injuries by
single combat. Did Cæsar send a challenge to Cato, or Pompey to Cæsar,
after the repeated affronts that they both had received? Was the
greatest captain of Greece dishonoured when struck with a staff?
“The upright man, whose life has been spotless, and who never betrayed
any symptoms of cowardice, will ever refuse to soil his hand by
homicide, and will not be the less honoured. Ever prompt to serve his
country, and to afford protection to the weak; to fulfill the most
perilous duties, and to defend at the price of his blood everything
that is just, honest, and dear to him; he will display in every act of
his life that unshaken fortitude which is ever the attribute of true
courage. Secure in the consciousness of his integrity, he will step out
with head erect, and neither seek nor shun an enemy: he fears death
much less than a foul deed, and dreads a crime more than danger. If
vile prejudices assail him for a time, every day of his honourable life
is a witness to defend him, when all his actions are judged by each
other.
“Those captious persons who are so ready to provoke others are in
general dishonest men, who, under the apprehension that they will meet
with the contempt they deserve, endeavour to shield by an affair of
honour the infamy of their entire life.
“Such a man will make a single effort, and face the world _once_,
that he may remain concealed for the _remainder of his days_. True
courage possesses more constancy and less anxiety. It is ever what it
should be, and requires neither excitement nor restraint. The upright
man never moves without it,--in battle with the enemy, in society,
in advocating the cause of the absent and of truth; on his couch, in
bearing with fortitude the attacks of pain and of death. The strength
of mind that inspires this quality belongs to every age; and, ever
placing virtue above worldly wants, it seeks not the combat, but it
dreads no danger.”
In this moral revolution the strangest event was, to behold those
whom it was most likely to affect becoming powerful auxiliaries to the
contemplated reforms, reforms in which they were doomed to perish.
Still they rushed like men stricken with blindness into a new order of
things,--a new state of society; tired of the old one, and, from having
been sceptical in their sensuality, became sceptical in ideas and in
doctrines, until the ruinous ancient social fabric crumbled over their
devoted heads.
The emancipation from slavery and oppression should be gradual. A
sudden freedom maddens, as a sudden restoration of sight will dazzle
and blind again. Liberty thus conferred has been justly compared to
weapons that recoil upon those who wield them. In the mouth of some of
these innovators, sophistry extenuated crimes; and Helvetius maintained
“that every act was legitimate to ensure public safety.” To which
Rousseau replied, “that public safety was not worth considering, when
individual security could not be obtained.”
While such opinions were promulgated by philosophers, what were the
ideas of honour that prevailed at Versailles and the Tuileries? In
abject submission to an abject master, they were comformable to those
entertained by the royal cook Vatel, who destroyed himself because the
fish had not arrived in time for his sovereign’s dinner; a catastrophe
which was admirably described by Berchoux in the following lines:
Tout le soin des festins fût remis à Vatel,
Du vainqueur de Rocroy fameux maitre d’hôtel.
Il mit à ses travaux une ardeur infinie,
Mais, avec des talents, il manquait de génie.
Accablé d’embarras, Vatel est averti
Que deux tables en vain réclamaient leur rôti;
Il prend pour en trouver une peine inutile.
“Ah!” dit-il, s’adressant à son ami Gourville,
De larmes, de sanglots, de douleur suffoqué,
“_Je suis perdu d’honneur_, deux rôtis ont manqués!
Un seul jour détruira toute ma renommée.
Mes lauriers sont flétris; et la cour, alarmée,
Ne peut plus désormais se reposer sur moi:
J’ai trahi mon devoir, avili mon emploi!”
* * * * *
O vous, qui par état présidez aux repas,
Donnez lui des regrets, mais ne l’imitez pas.
Can we indeed be surprised at the indignation which must have fired
every liberal bosom when beholding, not only the insolence of the
aristocracy, but the vices of sovereigns and the crimes of ministers,
becoming subjects of general admiration, and even eulogised in the
pulpit?--when a prelate like Fléchier declared in his funeral oration
on Cardinal Richelieu, that God had bestowed upon his soul those
excellent gifts that fitted him to rule the world, and bring into
action those secret springs which he ordained to elevate or overthrow,
in his eternal decrees, the power of kings and kingdoms! The same
eloquent declaimer, in quoting the virtues of Mazarin, tells his
congregation that he had taught the art of governing, and the secrets
of royalty, to the first monarch in the world! Can we wonder then,
that, living under such a celestial sway, a cook should commit suicide
when unable “to set a dainty dish” before his King?