INTRODUCTION. THE age of duelling, like that of chivalry, may be said to be past for ever in England; but there is a lingering romance about the subject, which will always invest it with interest. The topic rings of the time when notions of honour may, indeed, have been false; but they served a purpose in the absence of better laws, better police, better taste, and better manners. The history of duelling necessarily includes that of the manners and morals of epochs; and not only that, it is notoriously connected with the politics and dynastic struggles of nations, especially in France and England. Moreover, the subject recommends itself for consideration as an institution, if not as venerable as others that still exist among us, at any rate one that was deemed sufficiently well-founded to number among its followers the most distinguished men of England and France-even the Duke of Wellington, who seems not only not to have disapproved of duelling,* but even honoured it with his example. In no country, France excepted, has duelling been more in vogue than in England and Ireland; and in its palmy days, Sir Jonah Barrington declared that "as many as two hundred and twenty-seven official and memorable duels were fought during his grand climacteric.” Nor is it evident that the spirit of duelling is quite dead among us, if we have succeeded in "putting down" the practice. Doubtless it will startle the reader to learn that in the month of February, 1868, a challenge to a hostile meeting was sent by an Englishman in England to a fellow-countryman !+ This gallant Volunteer officer appears not to have been aware that he rendered himself liable to be " cashiered, or otherwise punished," according to the standing orders of our present Code of Honour.‡ But if the sword and the pistol have ceased to vindicate the honour of Englishmen in personal combat, if duelling has been decidedly "put down,” abolished by Act of Parliament, rigorously applied by the Judges, and strengthened by the verdicts *See Vol. II., p. 270. + Mr. William Turpie, manager of the Derby and Derbyshire Bank, and captain in the Derby Volunteers, was summoned for sending a challenge to fight Mr. T. R. Hutton, recently acting as cashier at the same bank; and Mr. Turpie was bound over to keep the peace. See Vol. II., p. 366, of the present work. of juries,-in fine, if sarcasm, ridicule, Christian and · philosophical argument have "settled the question" here with us, it is not so abroad. The duello is still very active and stirring among our gallant neighbours, the French. Quite recently, in October, 1867, there was a hostile meeting, under the eyes of the Imperial Eagle, between two of the highest in the land-the Prince Achille Murat (of glorious pedigree) and the Marquis de Rougé, in which the latter was wounded. Finally, in the month of March of the present year, we read of a duel at Nice, between Baron de Lareintz and Captain de Lapelin, of the French Navy, commander of the division on that part of the coast. The duel was with swords. In the first attack both combatants were slightly wounded-the Baron in the hip, the other in the breast; in a second onset the Baron was touched in the collar-bone, and the affair ended. In France, nobles, officers and soldiers, gentlemen, editors of newspapers, (a fighting crew with pen or sword and pistol), butchers, bakers, grocers, all are ready to "go out" for the point d'honneur, and none of the gallant brotherhood of braves are ashamed of each other, or deem any association or companionship "ridiculous" in such a cause. There is hardly a regiment in the garrison of Paris which has not its professed duellist, officer or private; hardly a member of the Jockey Club who has not made homicidal excursions to Vincennes or St. Germain; hardly a journalist who has not been compelled, at some time or another, to defend his principles at the point of the sword. M. Jérôme's remarkable picture of the 'Duel after the Ball' showing one of the parties run through the body, in his masquerade garb of clown-is no artistic dream in France; and throat-cutting is still considered an appropriate wind-up to the festivities of the Carnival, just as cock-fighting used to be in England on Shrove-Tuesday. The most revolting feature about French duels, is the apparently trifling causes which lead men, professing to be gentlemen and Christians, to hack and hew at one another as though they were wild Indians. A misapprehended joke, an adverse criticism, a collision in a waltz, a flask of champagne, or a balletdancer's shoe, are all deemed sufficient, in Parisian society, for the commission of "wilful murder," as our law declares it to be, although, in strict morals, there must be a prodigious difference between "murder," strictly so called, and the death of a man deliberately fighting a duel. The famous case of Mr. Dillon (killed in a duel only five years ago) is still fresh in the memory of men, and it should be well considered by all Englishmen who sojourn in the Queen of Cities. It is a "lesson," and will be found treated as such in this work.* Such being the case, we can still talk of duelling as a thing of the present day; and as our countrymen are getting more and more fond of travelling in la * See Vol. II., p. 374. |