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 152 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.” 153
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 154 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 155 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 156 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 157 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, 158 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 159 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 160 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 161 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. 162 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 Chatelet.”
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 163 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 164 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 165 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 166 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 167 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, meetin............