_From the Earl of Montrose to Captain Dugald Dalgetty_.
Whoever has read the “Memoirs of Monsieur d’Artagnan”—a Marshal in the
French King’s service—as they are published by Monsieur Alexandre Dumas
in “Les Trois Mousquetaires,” will not have forgotten that duel behind
the Luxembourg, in which, as is declared, an Englishman ran away from the
Chevalier d’Herblay, called Aramis in his regiment. Englishmen have
never held that Monsieur Dumas was well informed about this affair. The
following letters of the Great Marquis and Captain Dalgetty from the
“Kirkhope Papers” prove that Englishmen were in the right.
—, 164-.
SIR,—Touching that I did, to your apprehension, turn away from you with
some show of coldness on your late coming, it may be that you but little
misread me. But, for that no man is condemned without a hearing, I would
fain know under your own hand the truth concerning that whereof a
shameful report is bruited abroad, even in the “Gallo Belgicus” and the
“Fliegender Mercoeur” of Leipsic—namely, that in a certain duel lately
fought in Paris behind the Palace of the Luxembourg, four Englishmen
encountering as many Musketeers of the French King’s, one out of this
realm, to our disgrace, shamefully fled; and he (by report) Rittmaster
Dugald Dalgetty. Till which, bruit be either abolished, and the stain—as
an ill blot on a clean scutcheon—wiped away, or as shamefully
acknowledged as it is itself shameful, I abide, as I shall hear from
yourself,