A Friend Of Mine, (A Nissard) Who Was In
The Service Of France, Told Me, That Some Years Ago, One Of Their
Captains, In The Heat Of Passion, Struck His Lieutenant.
They
fought immediately:
The lieutenant was wounded and disarmed. As
it was an affront that could not be made up, he no sooner
recovered of his wounds, than he called out the captain a second
time. In a word, they fought five times before the combat proved
decisive at last, the lieutenant was left dead on the spot. This
was an event which sufficiently proved the absurdity of the
punctilio that gave rise to it. The poor gentleman who was
insulted, and outraged by the brutality of the aggressor, found
himself under the necessity of giving him a further occasion to
take away his life. Another adventure of the same kind happened a
few years ago in this place. A French officer having threatened
to strike another, a formal challenge ensued; and it being agreed
that they should fight until one of them dropped, each provided
himself with a couple of pioneers to dig his grave on the spot.
They engaged just without one of the gates of Nice, in presence
of a great number of spectators, and fought with surprising fury,
until the ground was drenched with their blood. At length one of
them stumbled, and fell; upon which the other, who found himself
mortally wounded, advancing, and dropping his point, said, "Je te
donne ce que tu m'as ote." "I'll give thee that which thou hast
taken from me." So saying, he dropped dead upon the field. The
other, who had been the person insulted, was so dangerously
wounded that he could not rise. Some of the spectators carried
him forthwith to the beach, and putting him into a boat, conveyed
him by sea to Antibes. The body of his antagonist was denied
Christian burial, as he died without absolution, and every body
allowed that his soul went to hell: but the gentlemen of the army
declared, that he died like a man of honour. Should a man be
never so well inclined to make atonement in a peaceable manner,
for an insult given in the heat of passion, or in the fury of
intoxication, it cannot be received. Even an involuntary trespass
from ignorance, or absence of mind, must be cleansed with blood.
A certain noble lord, of our country, when he was yet a commoner,
on his travels, involved himself in a dilemma of this sort, at
the court of Lorrain. He had been riding out, and strolling along
a public walk, in a brown study, with his horse-whip in his hand,
perceived a caterpillar crawling on the back of a marquis, who
chanced to be before him. He never thought of the petit maitre;
but lifting up his whip, in order to kill the insect, laid it
across his shoulders with a crack, that alarmed all the company
in the walk. The marquis's sword was produced in a moment, and
the aggressor in great hazard of his life, as he had no weapon of
defence.
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