The fugitives, who were quietly quitting the kingdom, were recognised by the emissaries of the sister of the deceased Bussy: Boutteville was arrested, after having eaten a hearty supper, and retired to rest; he was carried to the Bastille. On the 21st, being condemned to death, he was executed the following day on the Place de Grève with great military pomp, attended by the Bishop of Nantes: he was as anxious to preserve his mustachoes as Sir Thomas More was to put his beard out of the way of the executioner’s axe; when the worthy prelate observed, “Oh! my son, you must no longer dwell on worldly matters! Do you still think of life?” “I only think of my mustachoes!—the very finest in France,” replied the penitent.
I cannot better commence the present chapter than by quoting the following view of this epoch, entertained by a late writer on the subject:—13
“The despotism of Richelieu gave birth to the autocracy of Louis XIV; it became the energetic prologue of events naturally progressive. Ministerial absolutism served as a transition to regal absolute power. The ancient feudal liberty had been levelled by the monarchical scythe, while democratic equality was not as yet sufficiently matured to supply its place. The interregnum between these two influences left a wide and fertile field for the uncontrolled and unlimited authority of the Grand Monarque, whose name was of sufficient weight in the scale of renown to fill up this lapse with the most brilliant prestiges. It was during this invasion of one man on the ancient domains of our rights and liberties that individualism arose: this principle was more fully developed during the voluptuous lethargy of Louis XV, and prepared the way for the final triumph of democracy under the feeble sceptre of his successor.
“Richelieu dead, the aristocracy, which had ceased to be a rival power of the throne, became its ornament, and only preserved so much of its former glories as might have been shed around the captive sovereigns who surrounded the triumphal cars of Roman conquerors. Yet did it appear satisfied with this humiliation when reflecting on the miserable crowd of slaves that followed it; the proud contempt of the victor not foreseeing that these captives would, in their turn, burst forth from their shackles to trample under foot the ruins both of aristocracy and monarchy.
“Louis XIV, in the intervals of his warlike policy, fully understood the advantages that he could reap from these elements of aristocracy, dispersed so widely by his predecessors; and he lost no time in collecting their bleeding remains. The nobility, in his hands, was remodelled into an institution purely military, and he claimed from them to restore France to her natural limits, the same means that Charles VII. had pursued to liberate the kingdom. Thus was re-established a patrician militarism, in imitation of that German militarism which dated from the conquest of the Gauls, and which ultimately led to the plebeian militarism of modern times.”
The minority of this monarch had been marked by troubled times, during which the spirit of duelling, that Richelieu had to a certain extent repressed, broke forth afresh with renewed energies; and the disturbances of the Fronde naturally increased these bloody feuds, by giving a certain object and character to the hostile meetings that daily took place. The monarch, anxious to preserve the blood of his subjects for more noble enterprises, sought every means to check the evil; and during his reign no less than ten edicts were promulgated to restrain these excesses: the formulary of these enactments recommended peace and concord, and fulminated destruction on the offenders. Such was the prolixity of their legal verbiage, that one of the most celebrated of these acts contained no less than forty clauses and provisions. The spirit of these ordonnances can be easily judged of by the terms of the following preamble, that preceded the edict of 1643:
“Having nothing dearer to our hearts than the preservation of our nobility, whose valour, so justly celebrated and dreaded all over the world, has only been tarnished by the irregularities of a monstrous frenzy; after having put up our supplications to God, which we daily continue to do with all our heart, that he may vouchsafe to open their eyes, and dispel those hateful illusions which inspire them with a thirst for a spurious honour; we resolve,” &c.
In this act it is clear that the monarch was most anxious to preserve the lives and services of his most influential and distinguished followers, and did not contemplate the shedding of their blood by plebeian hands; but, as this did not appear to have always succeeded, we find in the edict of 1661 the following clause:—
“Whereas it does appear that there are persons of ignoble birth, and who have never borne arms, yet are insolent enough to call out gentlemen who refuse to give them satisfaction, justly grounding their refusal on the inequality of their conditions; in consequence of which these persons excite and oppose to them other gentlemen of like degree, whence arise not unfrequently murders, the more detestable since they originate from abject sources; we do hereby will and ordain, that in all such cases of challenge and combat, more especially if followed by serious wounds or death, such ignoble and low-born citizens, duly convicted of having caused or promoted such disorders, shall be forthwith, and without any remission, hanged and strangled; all their goods and chattels, &c. confiscated; and we, moreover, do allow our judges to dispose of such part of this confiscated property as they may deem meet, as a reward to all informers who may give due knowledge of such offences; that, in the commission of a crime so deserving of condign punishment, every one may be induced to make proper revelation.”
It does not appear, however, that these interdictions produced the results that might have been expected from their severity; for in 1679 came out the celebrated Edit des Duels, which denounces the penalty of death on all principals, seconds, and thirds, with greater or less confiscation of property as royal droits: gentlemen being deprived of their letters of nobility, and their coats of arms defaced, blackened, and broken by the public executioner; those who fell in duel being tried by Contumacy, and their bodies drawn on a hurdle, and cast into the common receptacle of nuisances, being thus deprived of Christian burial. A simple challenge was punished by banishment, and confiscation of one half of the offender’s property. In regard to all bearers of messages, or servants who had attended upon their masters on such occasions, and who formerly were to be hanged, this edict mercifully condemned them to be only whipped, and branded with fleur de lis. Historians relate that the law was in general strictly put into execution in the latter case.
Other penalties were inflicted by a court of satisfaction and reprisal. A lawyer who insulted another was subjected to very severe penalties; giving the lie, striking with hand or stick, were acts that subjected the offender to imprisonment, with the obligation of making ample apology to the offended when released from confinement; and not unfrequently the injured party was allowed to inflict a castigation similar to the one he had received.
It was with this view that courts of honour were instituted, in which the marshals of France sat as supreme judges, and, after due investigation, ordered that such satisfaction should be given as the case might require, in addition to the penalty of incarceration, fine, or banishment, according to the nature of the provocation; and in various instances guards were sent to the houses of the offenders guilty of a contempt of court, who were obliged to maintain them for a considerable length of time. Although the institution of courts of honour, composed of the marshals of France, is attributed to Louis XIV, a similar enactment took place in 1566, in the reign of Charles IX.
In theory, nothing could be more plausible than these enactments. They were received by the nation with that enthusiasm which usually attends upon any innovation; even the Academy granted a prize-medal to the author of a successful poem on the abolition of duelling. In practice, however, the law was far from attaining its desirable end. The prejudices and false views of honour had too long prevailed to be easily eradicated, and human passions sought every possible expedient to elude these wise and humane provisions; it might also have been easily foreseen, that, the novelty of the proceedings of the court of honour once having ceased to be popular, the judges themselves, being soldiers, punctilious on such points, which from early youth they had considered as demanding the satisfaction of an appeal to arms, gradually relaxed. It must also be considered that the sovereign himself was a warlike prince, who had imbibed similar ideas from his early days; and moreover, as has been very justly observed, that, while he thus fulminated his royal anathema against duelling, he issued patents to fencing-masters to allow them to exercise their craft. The courtier well knew, that, if he screened himself from resenting an injury under the sanction of the law of the land, the laws of society would brand him as a coward, and the sovereign himself would withdraw his countenance in court and camp. Nor can we be surprised at the difficulty of checking these excesses, which were incessantly fomented by civil and religious discord; such was the hostility that prevailed amongst churchmen and their followers, that processions of religious bodies not only frequently attacked each other in the streets with the most virulent language, but actually came to blows, and fought with crucifixes, banners, and censers in Notre Dame and the holy chapel, pelting each other with prayer-books and missals,—a combat that Boileau has ludicrously described in his “Lutrin;” it was observed that the most serious ecclesiastical fray of this nature took place in the church of Notre Dame, on the very day when Louis XIII. placed the kingdom under the special protection of the Virgin Mary.
Private outrages, and breaches of common courtesy and decency, frequently arose amongst the first persons in the realm. The great Condé gave a slap in the face to the Comte des Rieux in the presence of the Duke of Orleans, when the Count returned the blow with interest; for which retaliation he was sent for a few days to the Bastille. This Comte des Rieux was the son of the Duke d’Elbeuf; and it had been jocosely observed, “that the cheeks of that nobleman’s family had been selected as the field of battle in the wars of the Fronde.” On this occasion it is related, that the Duke de Beaufort, the son of a bastard of Henry IV, and who from his vulgarity and brutal excesses was nicknamed the Roi des Halles, or what we might translate the King of Billingsgate, asked the President de Belliévre, if he did not think that a slap on the cheeks of the Duke d’Elbeuf might change the face of affairs. The president replied, that he apprehended the only change it might produce would be in the face of the duke.
Shortly after, in 1652, this same Duke of Beaufort, having a quarrel with his brother-in-law, the Duke de Nemours, on a point of precedence, killed him in a pistol duel, at which four seconds were present, who, according to the laudable practice of the times, kept company with their principals; the Marquis de Villars shooting his adversary D’Héricourt, whom he had then the honour to meet for the first time.
Madame de Motteville, in her Memoirs, states that this said nobleman, his Grace of Beaufort, accompanied by six of his worthy companions, went to insult in the most brutal manner the Duc de Candalle, upsetting the table at which he was seated at dinner with several noble guests; and when the Duke thus outrageously insulted demanded satisfaction, declined meeting him, on the plea of consanguinity, as he was his cousin-german. Despite his unruly conduct, this worthy was soon after selected by his sovereign as chief of the admiralty.
De Beaufort was one of the principal leaders of “la Fronde,” and the most active partisan of Cardinal de Retz, who, although a dignitary of the church, knew the use of his sword as well, if not better, than his breviary; he fought two duels, alleging as a precedent his predecessor the Cardinal de Guise, who was ever ready to wield either a sword or a crucifix.
It was during this reign that arose the celebrated quarrel between the beautiful Duchess de Longueville, sister of the great Condé, and the Duchess de Montbazon, the mother-in-law of Madame de Chevreuse; these three ladies being concerned in all the intrigues of the busy court of Anne of Austria, then Regent of the kingdom.
The subject of this dispute arose from a love-letter, in a woman’s hand-writing, having been found, which was supposed to have been dropped by the Comte de Coligny as he was leaving the apartments of Madame de Longueville, and which contained various reports unfavourable to the reputation of Madame de Montbazon. This letter was attributed to Madame de Longueville, who insisted that Coligny, her acknowledged lover, should call out De Guise, the favourite of Madame de Montbazon. The parties met in open day in the Place Royale, where Coligny received a mortal wound; while the two seconds, D’Estrade and De Bridieu, were fighting, and the latter was severely wounded. This duel is worthy of record, from the singular fatality which attended it. Admiral de Coligny, the illustrious victim of the massacre of St. Barthelemi, was murdered by the orders of the Duke de Guise; and, seventy years after, the grandson of the admiral was killed by the grandson of the duke!
Notwithstanding the severity of his different edicts, Louis XIV. took no notice of this fatal rencontre: a circumstance which led to the observation, in a journal of the times, “that the King, although jealous of his authority, was not sorry at heart when he saw his nobles punctilious on matters of honour; therefore many of them willingly exposed themselves to the severity of the law, to obtain the secret approbation of their sovereign.” Mazarin, excepting in cases where his authority was questioned, and his influence concerned, seldom exerted himself to prevent these evils. The Comte de Rochefort, who had entered his service after the decease of Richelieu, has given in his Memoirs strange illustrations of the depravity and brutality of the times; and we find the following account in his diary. “Chance would have it that this day I found myself in company with the Comte d’Harcourt, and, having drunk to great excess, it was determined that we should all set out and rob on the Pont Neuf; an amusement brought into fashionable vogue by the Duc d’Orleans. The Chevalier de Rieux, one of the party, felt, like me, much repugnance to this exploit; and by his advice, instead of joining the party, we climbed up on the neck of the bronze horse of Henry IV, where we might safely view this adventure. Our companions were waylaying the passengers, and had already robbed them of several cloaks, when a party of archers appeared, and they took to their heels. We endeavoured to follow their example; but, in coming down from the equestrian statue, the bronze reins of the horse, on which De Rieux was supported, were broken under his weight, and he fell to the ground, when we were apprehended without any resistance on our part; De Rieux complaining most loudly of the pain he experienced from his fall, while we were both led to the Châtelet.”
The parties were kept some time in prison, De Rieux endeavouring to exculpate himself by throwing all the blame upon Rochefort, the narrator of this anecdote, who forthwith called him out; but, having declined the meeting, Rochefort struck him with the flat of his sword. He then demanded satisfaction from the Comte d’Harcourt, the leader of the unruly party; but the count declined the honour on the plea of his rank. Rochefort then, disappointed in his anxiety to fight, assisted by a neighbour of Harcourt who owed him a grudge, cut down the finest trees on that nobleman’s estate, and destroyed his preserves; till, at last, a friend and partisan of the count, a desperado of the name of Bréauté, sought him, and called him out on the behalf of Harcourt. Rochefort was severely wounded; and Bréauté, who had also received a wound in the thigh, bore off his sword as a trophy of his victory, carrying it to the count, who celebrated his exploit in revelry. Rochefort had been severely wounded in the lungs; but his patron, the Cardinal Mazarin, publicly espoused his cause, and sent him his own surgeon, with a purse of five hundred crowns. On his recovery he again set out to despoil the property of his enemy, accompanied by a fellow of the name of Des Planches; but these worthies fell out upon the road while at supper, and, after throwing plates and dishes at each other, commenced fighting with their fists. Rochefort having amused himself in poaching on the count’s grounds, Des Planches with his followers placed himself in ambuscade, and fired upon him and his party from behind a hedge; apologising after this outrage, on the plea of his having mistaken him for Harcourt and his gamekeepers. Still Mazarin contrived to protect these desperate ruffians: and, although this Des Planches had been dismissed the service in consequence of a dispute with his commanding officer, he returned to Paris under the cardinal’s patronage, to marry a wealthy person; but, his wife being unable to check his desperate mode of living, he died after a drunken party a few years subsequent to his marriage.
This Rochefort, in his Memoirs, gives a curious account of a challenge sent by a person of the name of Madaillan to the Marquis de Rivard, who had lost a leg at the siege of Puy Cerda. As fighting upon an equal footing was considered a point of honour, the marquis sent to his opponent a surgeon with a case of instruments, proposing that he should submit to a similar amputation. The joke was successful, and Madaillan’s wrath was appeased.
At various periods of the French monarchy, and despite the severity of the edicts to prevent hostile meetings, the patronage of distinguished personages was considered sufficient to shield the transgressors from punishment. An anecdote is related of a person who, having been introduced into society by a noble patron, was turned out of doors for cheating at cards, with a threat of being thrown out of the window. He complained of this insult to his protector, who very quietly replied, “What would you have me do? All that I can advise you at present is, never to play at cards except on the ground-floor.”
About this period a duel took place at Brussels between Beauvais, an esquire of the Prince de Condé, and a gentleman who had presumed to walk up stairs before him, in which the offended esquire was mortally wounded. This Beauvais’ ideas of honour were most fastidious, for, although he perilled his life because another gentleman had taken precedence of him, he resisted the earnest entreaties of the prince his master, who on his death-bed requested him to marry a young person whom he had seduced, and so to legitimatize the children she had borne him; one of whom, Uranie, was afterwards married to the Prince of Savoy.
In 1663, a duel took place between La Frette and De Chalais. They were coming out from a ball at the palace, when La Frette, who had had some difference with De Chalais on account of certain ladies, pushed against him, and a meeting of three against three was arranged for the following morning. The King, being apprised of the circumstance, sent his orders to La Frette, adding, that if he did not keep the peace, he would have his throat cut. The bearer of the royal message was Monsieur de Saint Aignan, to whom La Frette replied, that, as he was his cousin, he was certain that he would not break up a pleasant party and one so well arranged; adding, moreover, that, if he felt disposed to join it, he was convinced that he could easily find him an opponent. To this proposal, although the bearer of a royal mandate, Saint Aignan acceded; and, instead of a combat between threes, it was fought by fours, one of the party being the Marquis d’Antin. The King was justly incensed at this act of disobedience, and especially at the conduct of Saint Aignan, who had joined the combatants, instead of fulfilling his pacific mission: all the parties were obliged to quit the kingdom; the La Frettes, however, were soon after pardoned at the intercession of Pope Clement X, who offered on this occasion to absolve the King from his vow against duelling.
The only instance in which the severe laws against duelling were carried into execution was at Toulouse, in the case of the Marquis de la Donze, who had treacherously killed his brother-in-law. Whatever effect this severity might have produced upon the public mind, it did not appear to affect the offender, for, when upon the scaffold his confessor exhorted him to pray for forgiveness for his crime, he replied with the usual Gascon ejaculation, “Sandis! do you call one of the cleverest thrusts in Gascony a crime?”
Another duel which created a great sensation was the one fought between the Counts de Brionne and d’Hautefort; the latter having called the former out for refusing to marry his sister, whom he had courted. Both combatants were wounded, and were proceeded against by the Grand Provost; but, after a short imprisonment, the affair was hushed up.
It is certain that, as Voltaire has justly observed, many disputes, which at other periods must have led to hostile meetings, were settled during this reign without bloodshed. Such, for instance, was the quarrel of the Dukes de Luxembourg and Richelieu about precedence; when, after a long and angry correspondence, Richelieu, meeting Luxembourg in the palace, where he was captain of the guard, went up to him, and told him that he dared him on foot and on horseback, he or his followers, either at court or in city, and even in the army, should he proceed to it, or, in short, in any part of the world. Notwithstanding this provocation, an apology was deemed sufficient. An apology was also considered satisfactory in the dispute which arose between the Prince de Conti and the Grand Prior of Vendôme, at the Dauphin’s, where the prince accused the latter of cheating at play, and moreover called him a coward and a liar: the prior threw the cards in his face, and insisted upon immediate satisfaction. The prince claimed the privilege of his birth; but at the same time condescended to add, that, although he could not infringe the laws by acceding to his challenge, it was an easy matter to meet him. These meetings, which were resorted to, to keep within the pale of the laws, were called rencontres instead of duels: hence originated the term. Howbeit, the Dauphin, hearing of the quarrel, jumped out of bed, and in his shirt, proceeded to terminate the difference. Subsequently making his report to the King, the next morning the Grand Prior was sent to the Bastille, whence he was only liberated on the condition that he should make an humble apology to the Prince de Conti for having been called by him a cheat, a liar, and a poltroon.
Previous to this fracas, a rencontre had taken place between the son of the Count de Latour d’Auvergne and a celebrated swordsman, the Chevalier de Caylus; a quarrel having arisen in a brothel about cards and prostitutes. Caylus was obliged to quit the kingdom, and his effigy was hanged on the Place de Grève.
A gambling duel, on a point of honour, is recorded of a M. de Boisseuil, one of the King’s equerries; who, having detected his antagonist cheating at cards, exposed his conduct. The insulted gentleman demanded satisfaction, when Boisseuil replied that he did not fight with a person who was a rogue! “That may be,” said the other; “but I do not like to be called one!” They met on the ground, where Boisseuil received two desperate wounds.
It was during this reign that a curious meeting took place between La Fontaine the fabulist, whose meekness and apathy had acquired him the name of “the Good,” and an officer. Although generally blind to the irregularities of his wife, he once took it into his head to become jealous of a captain of dragoons, of the name of Poignant. La Fontaine had not himself observed the intimacy with his wife; but some kind friends had drawn his attention to its impropriety, telling him that it was incumbent on him to demand satisfaction. La Fontaine reluctantly persuaded, contrary to his usual habits, got up early one morning, took his sword, and went out to meet his antagonist. When the parties were in presence, the worthy poet said, “My dear sir, I must fight you, since I am assured that it is absolutely necessary.” He then proceeded to acquaint him with the reasons that induced him to call him out, and drew his pacific sword. The dragoon, thus obliged to defend himself, whipped the weapon out of the inexperienced hand of the fabulist, and, having disarmed him, proceeded quietly to point out to him the absurdity of the reports circulated in regard to his wife, and the folly of his having thus exposed his valuable life; adding, that since his visits had been the occasion of scandal, he would from that hour cease to call at his house. Le Bon La Fontaine was so affected by this sincere explanation, that he not only insisted that the captain should pay more frequent visits than ever, but swore that he would fight him over again if he discontinued them.
The inefficacy of the various edicts to restrain duels was at last acknowledged, and various means were adopted to enforce 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 honour in opposition to itself. With this view he projected an association of gentlemen of tried valour, 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 Fénélon, a nobleman respected for the frankness of his disposition and the austerity of his principle, 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 cabinet. It was to this nobleman that the justly celebrated Archbishop of Cambray owed his education and his rise in the church.
The Marquis de Fénélon 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 Mr 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 valour, not to be alarmed at seeing him the first to break the ice on such an occasion.
However, it appears that neither the King’s determination to forward the views of this praiseworthy association, nor the exertions of its respectable members, could totally eradicate the prejudice that maintained the evil; and Madame de Crequi, in her Reminiscences, sadly errs when she affirms that during seventeen years not a duel had been fought. Voltaire was also incorrect when he attributed to this prince, surnamed the Great, the abolition of these bloody proceedings. Voltaire was such an enthusiastic admirer of Louis XIV, that in this case, as in many others, where his partiality, his prejudices, or his scepticism prevailed, he lost sight of facts, or, at any rate, passed them over in silence to suit his purposes. The following extract from a recent work gives a much fairer view of this prince’s reign than is given by the generality of his historians:
“His reign, like that of most conquerors, was equally divided between repeated successes and failures. His arms were triumphant so long as he fought to obtain the natural limits of France, which to this day enjoys the fruits of his conquests; but Fortune forsook his banners as soon as he drew his sword to level the Pyrenees. His reign commenced in glory, and terminated in humiliation; the prestige of authority took wing with that of victory. When the Grand Monarque died, the monarchy may be said to have descended into its sepulchre, and the people, who had once trembled in his presence, insulted his ashes; while the parliament, into whose halls he was wont to enter booted and spurred, avenged themselves by trampling on his will. It was, in truth, the protection he afforded to literature, and the patronage with which he honoured distinguished men and letters, that acquired for him the surname of Great. The Mæcenas of his age, he was entitled to the distinction; and it has been truly said of him that France owed to him her knowledge of literature, as Asia owed her acquaintance with Grecian superiority to Alexander.”
The efforts of Louis to civilize the country, and encourage science and the fine arts, were indefatigable; and what is still more estimable in this monarch was, his attending to the improvement of the nation during the turmoil of war. He established the most extensive manufactures; formed the East India Company; built an observatory, and a printing-office in his palace for the publication of the best translations of ancient writers; sent out navigators on voyages of discovery; and, while he received at his court Cassini, Huygens, and the most distinguished foreigners who could adorn it, he encouraged native genius with liberality. He personally defended Boileau, Racine, and Molière against their enemies, provided for the family of Corneille, directed the studio of Le Brun and his contemporary artists, while he attached Lulli to his court, and gave Quinault the subjects of his operas; pensions too were granted to all those who had contributed by their courage or their talents to the grandeur of the empire. He felt and knew that no sovereign can become popular unless national genius and talent meet with encouragement at court; and that, thus fostered, national taste will improve more rapidly than by the degrading importation of foreign perfections. The greatest error of this prince was his neglect of the future, while engrossed by the glorious schemes of the present; and his never thinking on the means that his successor might require to replenish the exhausted exchequer. His ambition had been to revive the Augustan age: his position, in reality, was not unlike that of the Roman Emperor; Cæsar had become the master of the empire, and Henry IV. had consolidated his kingdom. Both princes ascended the throne surrounded by a warlike people that required civilization, and Colbert was to Louis what Mæcenas had been to his imperial master; what is more singular is, the circumstance of their both being born in the same month, and dying nearly at the same age. It is to be lamented that, while the great mind of Louis encouraged the fine arts and literature, it should have been warped by superstition and bigotry; and the persecution of Protestantism, with the odious Dragonades, will ever be a blot upon his memory. We can only account for these atrocities by considering them as the terms upon which he obtained priestly absolution for his many vices.
It must certainly be acknowledged that duelling was discountenanced during the reign of this prince, and was much less frequent than under his predecessors; but I apprehend that this circumstance was more to be attributed to the rapid progress of civilization and polished manners, to which I have alluded, than to the severity of legal enactments. The refinement of manners that accompanied the quick advance of intellectual attainments materially tended to humanize society, and to make those who could reflect on the horrors of the past, blush at the fashionable countenance bestowed upon a practice which should have sunk into the grave with Gothic ignorance and barbarism. War was the sole occupation in savage times; and amongst barbarians, strangers to all the blessings of civilized life and social enjoyments, personal and brute courage was the only claim to distinction and pre-eminence. Mandeville has fully illustrated such a condition of society in his fable of the Bees: “If we well mind what effects man’s bravery, without any other qualifications to sweeten him, would have out of an army, we shall find that it would be very pernicious to civil society; for, if a man could conquer all his fears, you would hear of little else but rapine and violence of all sorts, and valiant men would be like giants in romance. Politics, therefore, discovered in men a mixed principle, which was a compound of justice, honesty, and all the moral virtues, joined to courage; and all that were possessed of it turned knights-errant, of course. They did abundance of good throughout the world, by taming monsters, delivering the distressed, and killing oppressors. But the wings of all the dragons being clipped, the giants destroyed, and the damsels everywhere set at liberty, (except some few in Spain and Italy, who remain still captivated by religious monsters,) the order of chivalry, to whom the standard of ancient honour belonged, has been laid aside for some time. It was like their armour, very massy and heavy; the many virtues about it served to make it very troublesome; and, as ages grew wiser and wiser, the principle of honour at the beginning of the last century (1600) was melted over and over again, and brought into a new standard. They put in the same weight of courage half the quantity of honesty, and a very little justice, but not a scruple of any other virtue; which has made it very easy and portable to what it was.”
Louis XIV, although the despotic chief of a monarchical government, was well aware that the point of honour should be held sacred amongst his armed followers, yet was he convinced of the necessity of tempering its brutality; while, as we have seen, he himself individually esteemed the illegal exhibition of personal courage, which his edicts condemned. When a courtier complained to one of the marshals that he had received a slap in the face, the general replied, “Then, sir, go and wash it off.” The slap in the face was the subject of an amusing passage in Molière’s play of the “Sicilian,” where a character says, “My lord, I have received a slap in the face,—you know what a slap in the face is, when it is bestowed with open hand on the middle of the cheek; I have this slap on my heart, sir, and I am meditating which is the most advisable method to wipe off the affront, either to fight the fellow, or to get him assassinated.” Montesquieu has observed, that in monarchical governments, “there is nothing that honour more strongly recommends than to serve the prince in a military capacity; in fact, this is the favourite profession of honour, because its dangers, its success, and even its miscarriages, are the road to greatness: the honour of monarchies is favoured by the passions, and favours them in return; but virtue is a self-renunciation, which is always arduous and painful. This is the reason why we never meet with so strict a purity of morals in monarchies as in republican governments: in monarchies, the actions of men are not approved of as being good, but shining; not as being just, but great; not as being reasonable, but extraordinary; and honour allows of gallantry when united with the idea of sensual affection, or with that of conquest.” This enlightened writer further adds: “We have only to cast our eye on a nation (England) that may be justly called a republic disguised under the form of a monarchy, and we shall see how jealous they are of making a separate order of the profession of arms, and how the military state is continually allied to that of the citizen, and even of the magistrate, to the end that the latter may be a pledge to their country, which should never be forgotten. Military men in England are regarded as belonging to a profession which may be useful, but is often dangerous; civil qualities are therefore more highly esteemed than military.”
These sentiments are also those of one of the warmest advocates of duelling, Coustard de Massi, who thus expresses himself: “I own that in republican governments the practice of duelling may be prevented, because the courage of the people is sufficiently fostered by an enthusiastic love of their country; which powerful incentive alone can elevate their troops to superior boldness, and make them perform such astonishing acts of valour as are to be found in the Greek and Roman histories:” but in monarchical governments our author maintains that duelling is indispensable. What a flattering encomium bestowed on despotism, where the passions of a profligate monarch are to be considered more commanding than the love of country and independence! What a lesson does not this quotation give to British duellists!
Moore has made, on this subject, the following judicious observations: “Some have asserted that we should become a pusillanimous nation if a less stress were laid than is at present on that species of personal courage which is exhibited in the duel. But the annals of all ages afford us a sufficient proof and consolation, that in all cases of emergency the free-born subjects of a free nation, through that natural enthusiasm which a love of their country inspires, will strain every nerve of courage in defence of their liberty or warlike glory, without having been previously disciplined in the school of duelling and modern honour.”
The frequency of duels in the United States may be adduced in opposition to the foregoing opinions; but this objection by no means holds good. America is still a young country; and society, although it is making rapid strides towards a higher state of civilization, is still under the influence of rude and unpolished manners and prejudices, which a superior education and more enlightened times alone can remove: and I feel confident, from the daily progression of improvement in those regions, that in half a century duels will be there of as rare occurrence, if not rarer than in Great Britain; and this progress will be in the ratio of that of literature and the fine arts, for bloodshed and murder, however qualified, are incompatible with the pursuits and the gentler occupations of peace. The sun of science will gradually dispel the mists of ignorance and prejudice, open the mind to the conviction of reason and of truth, and show that a stem republican may display a courtly polish without derogating from the independence of a free man, since courtesy of behaviour may be considered the natural result of superior education.
I have deemed this digression from the plan of this work excusable, as the reign of Louis XIV. may be said to have constituted an epoch in civilization: we shall see how far his successors sought to cultivate the advantages which it held forth.
We may say that with this reign terminated the practice of duelling, as founded upon ancient usages; and, as I have quoted Montesquieu, a further passage from this illustrious writer may be considered as a recapitulation of the grounds upon which the erroneous views of the Point of Honour were based.
“We find many strange enigmas in the legal codes of barbarians. By the law of the Frisons, half a sol was granted as a compensation for a man who had been beaten with a stick. By the Salic law, an ingénu, who gave three blows of a stick, paid a fine of as many sols; and, if blood was drawn, he was punished as though the injury had been inflicted with an iron weapon, and had to pay fifteen sols. The law of the Lombards established various compositions for one, two, or three or four blows; but now-a-days one blow is worth a hundred thousand.
“The constitution of Charlemagne, inserted in the laws of the Lombards, enacts that those who are allowed a duel should fight with sticks: this regulation was partially in favour of the clergy; and it is also likely that it was intended to render duels less sanguinary. In the Capitularies of Louis le Débonnaire, the combatants had the choice of staves or arms; subsequently it was only serfs who fought with cudgels.
“Already I see arising the particular articles of our Point of Honour. The accuser commenced by declaring to a judge that a person had committed a certain action; the accused replied that he asserted a falsehood, and the judge ordered the battle. Thus was introduced the maxim, that the lie demanded a combat.
“When a man had once declared that he would fight, he could not avoid the necessity; and, if he withdrew from the obligation, he was subject to a penalty. Hence arose the rule, that, when a man had once pledged his word, he could not retract it without dishonour.
“Gentlemen fought with each other on horseback, and with their arms; while villains fought on foot, and with staves. Hence a stick was considered a weapon of degradation, since a man who had been struck with it had been treated like a villain.
“Moreover, it was only villains who fought with their faces uncovered, therefore they alone could receive a blow in the face: thus a slap in the face became an injury that could only be obliterated with blood, for the man whose face had been slapped had been treated like a low-born person.
“The German races were not less alive to this view of the Point of Honour; they were, if possible, still more punctilious: the most distant relations took part in disputes, and all their codes were founded on this principle. Accordingly, the laws of the Lombards ordained, that if a man, accompanied by his followers, went to assault another who was not upon his guard, to bring shame and ridicule upon him, he should pay one-half of the composition which he would have had to give in the event of his having killed him. Thus do we see our ancestors keenly alive to an affront; but they had no particular view of any affront of a specific nature as regards the weapon made use of, or the part of the body that was struck.”
It is to chivalry that this eloquent writer attributes the rise of gallantry, when sentiments of love were associated with a sense of strength, valour, and protection; and this spirit was inherent in the practice of tournaments, which, uniting tender passions with noble deeds, gave to gallantry a greater importance than it would otherwise have obtained, had they merely been trials of skill and courage in a passage of arms; and to this day the term gallant is applied to a man brave, high-spirited in his bearing, splendid and magnificent in his appearance, and devoted to the service of the fair.
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 botte14 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?