the stiletto became a substitute for the sword.
“It is to the reign of Charles VIII. that we must refer these Italian campaigns, so fatal to our arms and our manners. The ardour of our youth inspired this monarch with a desire of foreign expeditions. In 1494 he overran the kingdom of Naples, losing his conquests as rapidly as he had obtained them. Duelling was then in great vogue over Italy—a tradition of the Goths and Lombards, modified, or rather exaggerated, by the chivalric fancies of the Spaniards.
“A wish to enforce the rights of Valentine on the duchy of Milan induced Louis XII. to undertake fresh Italian expeditions, although he had strenuously opposed similar projects on the part of his predecessor during his latter days. It was during the reign of this monarch, from 1499 to 1515, that incessant duels thinned the ranks of his armies. They were sanctioned by the Duke de Nemours their leader, and the illustrious Bayard himself was obliged to yield to the torrent of fashion.
“The Italian wars continued to be waged under Francis I. He himself, as we have seen, sent a rodomontade challenge to the Emperor Charles; and although neither of the parties entertained a serious intention of putting their boasted threats into execution, yet he had shown an example which was greedily followed by the most distinguished personages of the court.”
It was during his reign that pistols were introduced, and became the fit auxiliaries of the dagger amongst the bandits that infested the realm; and thus does Abbé Villy describe the condition of the country—“Our intercourse with the Italians, amongst whom our armies had lived for more than fifty years, had altered our national character in many respects. Men became less delicate in their means of glutting revenge. Assassinations and premeditated murders became each day more frequent. Already it was not considered sufficient to await an enemy upon the road, or attack him in his dwelling. It was at the corner of a street or in an open square, and in the presence of their fellow-citizens, that public functionaries fell under an assassin’s blow. Relays of horses were ready to enable the criminal to escape, and the crime to remain unpunished.”
“Charles IX. was the last French monarch who allowed a duel, and was present when it took place. He was also the first to prohibit the practice; and his ordonnance of 1566 in this respect was admirable, wherein he commanded that all differences should be submitted to the decision of the constables and marshals of France, more especially in such cases where the lie had been given.
“Henry III. was the last who appeared in a tournament, with his brother Charles IX; and he also issued severe orders concerning murderers and assassins, who, however, from his want of energy, applied with more audacity and impunity than at any other period, converting the country into a cut-throat: and if this prince ended by discouraging duels, it was only when from his affections towards his unworthy favourites he felt their loss, and, without possessing sufficient energy to avenge them, their tragic end only gave rise to fresh scandal in the indecency of his grief. D’Audiguier, the duellist, called him the best prince in the world; and Brantôme says that he was so good, that he never could punish rigorously, he so loved his nobility.
“The fever of duelling was not mitigated during the long period of our religious wars. Civil wars differ widely from those that are carried on to defend national honour against a foreign enemy. When these break forth, personal feuds are appeased, and one interest predominates; our blood is reserved for our country, and duels will cease: but when in an impious conflict citizens are armed against each other, every evil passion is unbridled; no law, no check, can restrain them; everything becomes a weapon; men no longer fight, but kill; and what the sword may have spared is doomed to the scaffold. Thus did murders assume every possible form during the convulsions of the sixteenth century; every instrument of destruction was brought to bear; the dagger rivalled the sword; and, as we already were indebted to Italy for duelling, an Italian Queen, one of the Medici, brought in another gift—assassination.”
CHAPTER VII.
DUELS IN FRANCE DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
As we have seen in the preceding chapter, it was during the reign of Francis I. that duels became multiplied, both in the French dominions, and in their armies employed upon foreign service. The influence of the monarch upon his court, and of that court upon the nation, has ever been all-powerful in that country, until the people knew that they were something. We have seen the potato, after being considered by the whole country as only food fit for swine, introduced into fashionable, and thence into general consumption, after Louis XIV. had appeared in court with a nosegay of its flowers at his button-hole.
The gasconading challenge sent by Francis to Charles, although it must have been fully appreciated by reasoning people, acted with electric enthusiasm on the nation; and if a king thought it incumbent on his honour to seek satisfaction for having been accused of asserting a falsehood, how much more urgent did it become for subjects to draw their swords upon the slightest contradiction that could give umbrage to the phantom of chivalric honour? Moreover, it had been currently reported, and of course confirmed by the courtiers, that this monarch, having considered himself offended by the Count of Saxony, then on a visit at his court, had taken him aside in a hunting excursion, without any witness being present to compromise his future safety, and proposed a single combat, which the Count very wisely declined.
Francis, although he not only tolerated, but approved of duelling, was jealous of the right of giving it his sanction, and was much displeased if a challenge was sent without his knowledge. Thus De Cipsière was obliged to absent himself from the Louvre for a considerable time, for having presumed to send his compliments to D’Audoin by Vicomte Gourdon, and to inform him that he was going to hear mass at the church of St. Paul, where if M. D’Audoin would attend at the same time, they would afterwards take a walk into the country by the Porte St. Antoine. Several duels during this reign may almost be considered as judicial combats, since they took place in the presence of the sovereign, who thus constituted himself an arbiter.
The reign of Francis might have been one of gallantry and of pleasure; and there are not wanting even ladies who, in the present day, look upon its profligacies and their ferocious results as noble deeds,12 the effects of chivalric devotion. I must confess that, in looking over its annals, I can find nothing remarkable, except an outrageous breach of all morality and decorum, and a wanton waste of human blood.
The miserable successor of this prince, Henry II, whose reign was ushered in by the disgraceful duel between Jarnac and La Chasteneraye, which I have already related, encouraged duelling by his want of energy; the princes of the blood followed the general example: and we find the Prince Charles, brother to the Duke de Bourbon Montpensier, fighting with D’Andelot, brother of the Admiral Coligny, at a hunting party.
It was during this reign that a singular duel took place between a youth of the name of Châteauneuf, and his guardian Lachesnaye, an old man of eighty. The champions met at the Isle Louviers, the subject of the dispute being a lawsuit concerning the minor’s property. Châteauneuf asked the old gentleman, if there was any truth in the reports circulated, that he had made use of disrespectful language concerning him; which the other positively denied on the word of a gentleman. This assertion satisfied the youth; but the old man would not let the matter rest. “You may be satisfied,” he replied, “but that is more than I am: and, since you have given me the trouble of coming here, we must fight. What would all those folks say, who have done us the honour of collecting to see us on both sides of the river, if they found that we came here to talk instead of acting? Our honour is concerned; let us therefore begin.” Both were armed with swords and daggers; when Lachesnaye exclaimed, “Ah! paillard! tu es cuirassé!” which we might translate into modern phraseology, “You varmint! you have a cuirass on. “Ah! je t’aurai
