during the reign of this monarch, or rather the sovereignty of his minister, private rencontres were carried on with as much ferocity as ever, and some of these meetings were attended with circumstances which rendered them as absurd as they were atrocious. in one instance we see two champions getting into a puncheon and fighting with knives; and in another two noblemen fought with daggers, holding each other by the left hand; while the 16th of january 1613 was rendered remarkable by the tragic end of baron de luz and his son, who were killed by the chevalier de guise.
the baron had met de guise in the rue st. honoré, and some words arose between them relative to the death of the late de guise, who had been assassinated at blois by order of henry iii. the baron was on foot, de guise on horseback; he immediately alighted, and requested the baron to draw: the old man could scarcely believe that the chevalier was in earnest, 134 yet drew his sword in self-defence. he was aged, and for years had been out of practice; whereas his antagonist was a young man, in the prime of life, and famed for his swordsmanship. his first thrust proved fatal, his sword passing through the body of his adversary, who staggered to a shoemaker’s shop hard by, and fell down dead. his antagonist quietly remounted his horse, and rode off in the most unconcerned manner.
the deceased had a son about the same age as the chevalier, who upon hearing of his father’s death, was determined to avenge him. from the high rank and station of de guise, he well knew that, if he fell, no part of europe could afford him an asylum from prosecution; yet was he determined in so just a cause to run every risk, and, as he did not dare approach the hotel of the proud nobleman, he sent him a challenge by his squire, couched in the following respectful language.
“no one, my lord, can bear witness to the just reason of my sorrow more forcibly than your lordship; i therefore entreat your lordship to forgive my resentment when expressing my desire that you will do me the honour of meeting me sword in hand, to give me satisfaction for my father’s death. the esteem which i entertain for your well-known courage induces me to hope that your lordship will not 135 plead your high rank to avoid a meeting in which your honour is so deeply compromised, the gentleman who bears this, will conduct you to the place where i am waiting for your lordship with a good horse and two swords, of which you will have the choice; or, should your lordship prefer it, i shall attend you at any place you may command.”
the meeting took place on horseback; and, after a desperate conflict, the murderer of the father gave the son the satisfaction of taking his life also: while they were fighting, their seconds wounded each other. d’audiguier, who gives the particulars of this duel, adds, that “this victory would have been more gratifying to god if he had fought for the same cause that led his ancestors into palestine!”
this de guise was grandson of henri de lorraine, duc de guise, surnamed the great, and who was killed at the siege of orleans; his father, surnamed the balafré, from a deep scar on the face, was assassinated at blois: they were both looked upon as doctors in the science of duelling, and their opinion and decision considered law.
this de guise was banished to italy by richelieu, where he died in 1640. his son, henri de lorraine, was equally celebrated for his amorous adventures and chivalric achievements, and was brought to trial by richelieu as an accomplice in the conspiracy of the count 136 de soissons, and sentenced to death, par contumace, as he had fled to italy; but he returned afterwards to france, and we find him one of the champions in the celebrated carousel of 1662, having previously killed in a duel the count de coligny, grandson of the admiral, who was assassinated in the massacre of st. barthelemi: with him ended the turbulent and bloodthirsty family of de guise, as society was rid of him in 1664.
the balafré had a third son, louis, who was a cardinal, and archbishop of rheims. this prelate was a worthy scion of the desperate stock. he was often seen doffing his canonical vestments to don the cuirass and helm; he fought in the ranks of his sovereign during his expedition in poitou, and died after the attack on saint jean d’angely. this worthy member of the church militant, having a lawsuit with the duke de nevers, wanted to decide the cause at the point of the sword.
d’audiguier, who has related many of the duels of his time, was a gentleman belonging to the court of louis xiii, and made a supplication to that monarch not only to cancel all edicts against duelling, but to allow the practice, in the following terms: “a great trial, sire, is carried on between the nobility and the law in your majesty’s dominions, in which you alone can decide: your nobility maintain 137 that a gentleman whose honour is impeached should either vindicate it with his sword, or forfeit his life; whereas law asserts that a gentleman who draws his sword shall lose his life: and surely your majesty, who is the chief of the most generous nobility in existence, cannot feel it your interest thus to blunt their valour; or, under the vain pretence of preserving their honour, behold them reduced to the necessity of losing sight of its dictates, or seek to maintain it with their pen, like the low-bred, disputing the right of arms before menial clerks.” our advocate of the rights of honour concludes by imploring the king to render duels less frequent by permitting them to take place on certain occasions when the king himself should be present; and when the public, he adds, “instead of being involved in differences and lawsuits, which consume both blood and fortune, would be delivered of the two monsters, and would feel proud of displaying their courage in your service, and their valour in your royal presence.”
despite these arguments, various prohibitory edicts were issued during this reign: one in particular, dated 1626, forbade all applications for pardon or solicitation in favour of the criminals; and, like his predecessor henri iv, louis even denounced as criminal all such applications from the queen, whom he called his 138 très chère et aymée compagne; he further protested and declared before heaven, that he would never grant any exemption from this ordonnance. notwithstanding the sanctity of these protestations, we find louis xiii. granting a free pardon to duellists, “on account of the earnest entreaties made by his much-loved and dear sister, the queen of great britain, upon the occasion of her marriage.”
duels must have been of frequent occurrence during this reign, since lord herbert of cherbury, then our ambassador at the french court, asserts that there was scarcely a frenchman deemed worth looking on who had not killed his man in a duel.
this chivalric nobleman, to show the prevalence of duelling in france, and the respect in which duellists were held, relates the case of a m. mennon, who being desirous to marry a niece of m. disancour, who it was thought would be his heiress, was thus answered by him; “friend, it is not time yet to marry: i will tell you what you must do if you will be a brave man. you must first kill in single combat two or three men; then marry, and engender two or three children; and the world will neither have gained nor lost by you.” of which strange counsel, disancour was no otherwise the author than inasmuch as he had been an example, at least of the former 139 part, it being his fortune to have fought three or four gallant duels in his time.
another anecdote of lord herbert shows in what consideration duellists were held by the fair sex. “all things being ready for the ball, and every one being in their place, and i myself next to the queen, expecting when the dancers would come in, one knocked at the door somewhat louder than became, i thought, a very civil person; when he came in, i remember there was a sudden whisper amongst the ladies, saying, ‘c’est monsieur balaguy!’ whereupon i also saw the ladies and gentlemen, one after another, invite him to sit near them; and, what is more, when one lady had his company a while, another would say, ‘you have enjoyed him long enough, i must have him now.’ at which bold civility of them, though i was astonished, yet it added to my wonder that his person could not be thought at most but ordinary handsome; his hair, which was cut very short, half grey; his doublet, but of sackcloth, cut to his skin; and his breeches only of plain grey cloth. informing myself by some standers-by who he was, i was told that he was one of the gallantest men in the world, as having killed eight or nine men in single fight, and that for this reason the ladies made so much of him; it being the manner of all french women to cherish gallant 140 men, as thinking they could not make so much of any else with the safety of their honour.”
it appears, however, that, notwithstanding this reckless spirit of duelling that prevailed in france, lord herbert had found some difficulty in bringing various noblemen to the field; and the following account gives a fair picture of the times.
“it happened one day that a daughter of the duchess de ventadour, of about ten or eleven years of age, going one evening from the castle to walk in the meadows, myself, with divers french gentlemen, attended her and some gentlewomen that were with her. this young lady wearing a knot of riband on her head, a french cavalier took it suddenly and fastened it to his hatband: the young lady, offended, herewith demands her riband; but he refusing to restore it, the young lady, addressing herself to me, said, ‘monsieur, i pray, get my riband from that gentleman.’ hereupon, going towards him, i courteously, with my hat in my hand, desired him to do me the honour that i might deliver the lady her riband or bouquet again; but he roughly answering me, ‘do you think i will give it to you, when i have refused it to her?’ i replied, ‘nay, then, sir, i will make you restore it by force!’ whereupon, also, putting on my hat, and reaching at his, he to save himself ran away; and after a long course in the meadow, 141 finding that i had almost overtook him, he turned short, and, running to the young lady, was about to put the riband in her hand, when i, seizing upon his arm, said to the young lady, ‘it was i that gave it.’ ‘pardon me,’ quoth she, ‘it is he that gives it me.’ i said then, ‘madam, i will not contradict you; but, if he dare say that i did not constrain him to give it, i will fight with him.’ the french gentleman answered nothing thereunto for the present, and we conducted the lady again to the castle. the next day i desired mr. aurelian townshend to tell the french cavalier that he must confess that i constrained him to restore the riband, or fight with me. but the gentleman, seeing him unwilling to accept of this challenge, went out from the place; whereupon, i following him, some of the gentlemen that belonged to the constable, taking notice hereof, acquainted him therewith, who, sending for the french cavalier, checked him well for his sauciness in taking the riband away from his grandchild, and afterwards bid him depart his house: and this was all i ever heard of the gentleman, with whom i proceeded in that manner, because i thought myself obliged thereunto by the oath taken when i was made knight of the bath.”
it seems that our hero was a very pugnacious defender of ladies’ top-knots and ribands, for he relates another quarrel of a similar nature, 142 in the case of a scotch gentleman, “who, taking a riband in the like manner from mrs. middleton, a maid of honour, in a back-room behind queen anne’s lodging in greenwich, she likewise desired me to get her the said riband. i repaired, as formerly, to him in a courteous manner to demand it; but he refusing, as the french cavalier did, i caught him by the neck, and had almost thrown him down, when company came in and parted us. i offered, likewise, to fight with this gentleman, and came to the place appointed, by hyde park; but this also was interrupted, by order of the lords of the council, and i never heard more of it.”
his lordship, notwithstanding his constant quarrels, which he most decidedly sought for, by his own account, asserts “that, although i lived in the armies and courts of the greatest princes in christendom, yet i never had a quarrel with man for mine own sake; so that, although in mine own nature i was ever choleric and hasty, yet i never, without occasion given, quarrelled with anybody: for my friends often have i hazarded myself, but never yet drew my sword for my own sake singly.”
it is difficult to reconcile this assertion with a quarrel he picked with the same balaguy, so much renowned amongst the ladies, of whom he had already spoken. “i remembered myself,” he says, “of the bravado of m. balaguy, and, 143 coming to him, told him that i knew how brave a man he was, and that, as he had put me to one trial of daring when i was last with him in the trenches, i would put him to another; and saying that i had heard he had a fair mistress, and that the scarf he wore was her gift, i would maintain i had a worthier mistress than he, and that i would do as much for her sake as he, or any one else, durst do for his.”
balaguy very wisely declined the meeting, with a joke of somewhat an indelicate nature: to which lord herbert replied, “that he spoke more like a paillard than a cavalier!” and here, strange to say, the matter ended. to doubt the courage of balaguy, is out of the question; and it is but reasonable to infer that lord herbert was looked upon in the court of france as a crackbrained knight-errant. in the case of the young lady’s top-knot, there is little doubt but that the french cavalier was her favourite, whom in a pettish moment she sought to embroil with our hero; and the frenchman very wisely considered the whole business a childish joke.
the quixotic character of lord herbert was fully illustrated after the siege of rees, when a trumpeter came from the spanish army with a challenge from a spanish cavalier, purporting, that if any cavalier would fight a single combat for the sake of his mistress, the said spaniard 144 would meet him upon the assurance of a field. his lordship was the only madman found to accept the defiance; and on this occasion received from the prince of orange a very salutary piece of advice. “his excellency thereupon,” he says, “looking earnestly upon me, told me he was an old soldier, and that he had observed two sorts of men who used to send challenges of this kind: one of them, who, having lost perchance some part of their honour in the field before the enemy, would recover it again by a single fight; the other was of those who sent it only to discover whether our army had in it men affected to give trial of themselves in this kind. howbeit, if this man was a person without exception to be taken against him, he said, there was none he knew upon whom he would sooner venture the honour of his army than myself. hereupon, by his excellency’s permission, i sent a trumpet to the spanish army, when another trumpet came to me from spinola, saying, the challenge was made without his consent, and that therefore he would not permit it.” this did not satisfy our knight; but he forthwith repaired to the spanish camp to seek out the challenger. there he was received with great cordiality by spinola; and, instead of a battle, the visit ended in a festive dinner, during which a conversation took place between his lordship and the spanish general, descriptive of 145 the times. “di che moriva signor francesco vere?” to which lord herbert replied, “per aver niente a fare.” when spinola observed, “e basta per un generale.” lord herbert adds, “indeed, that brave commander, sir francis vere, died, not in time of war, but in peace.” he then parted from his noble host, with a particular request to be allowed to fight the infidels if ever he undertook a crusade, when he would be the first man who died in the quarrel.
it appears, however, that on one occasion a frenchman, the favourite luynes, showed less of spirit than our countryman. through some misrepresentations lord herbert was recalled, and luynes procured his brother the duke of chaun, with a train of officers, “each of whom had killed his man,” to go to england as ambassador extraordinary to complain of the conduct of lord herbert. the inquiry terminated in his favour, when he fell upon his knees before king james, in presence of the duke of buckingham, to request that a trumpeter, if not a herald, might be sent to luynes to tell him that he had made a false relation of the whole affair, and that he demanded satisfaction sword in hand. the king answered, “that he would take it into consideration.” but luynes soon after died, and herbert was again sent to france.
it may be easily imagined that richelieu would not allow these edicts, apparently humane, 146 to put an end to a practice which was both directly and indirectly of material service to his lofty ambition; and when he could not bring to the scaffold illustrious victims, such as the cinque-mars, de thous, and montmorency, he sought for guilt, real or supposed, amongst those nobles who had infringed these useless laws. thus we find, in 1626, the young prince de chalais, of the house of talleyrand, killing in a duel the count of pont gibaut, grandson of schomberg. he was immediately apprehended; but being a favourite of gaston d’orleans the king’s brother, and moreover the lover of the famous duchess de chevreuse, the cardinal was for the time deprived of his victim, until the year 1626, when he was accused of a conspiracy against his sovereign, sentenced to death, and executed the same day. this judicial murder was attended with circumstances of a most cruel nature. no executioner could be found to carry the sentence into effect, when two malefactors were pardoned on condition that they would perform the hateful duty; which they executed in so fearful a manner, that the unfortunate young nobleman received thirty blows of the axe ere his head was severed from the body.
the following year, history records another merciless act of the cardinal. fran?ois de montmorency, better known under the name 147 of boutteville, was one of the most renowned duellists of the day. this nobleman, whenever he heard that a person bore the reputation of a courageous man, was in the practice of walking up to him, and quietly saying, “i understand, sir, that you are courageous; i wish to enable you to prove it,—what are your weapons?” every morning the hall of his hotel was crowded with what was called the “golden youth of france,” where fencing and trials of skill at all arms were practised, and a sumptuous collation laid out for the company. the excesses of these desperadoes were so reckless, that a special edict appeared to keep them within limits. such was the audacity of boutteville, that he actually compelled the count of pont gibaut on an easter sunday to quit his devotions and fight him: he was also denounced for having killed the marquis de portes and the count de thorigny. shortly after, fighting the baron de la frette, in which duel his second was killed, he was obliged to absent himself from paris: he fixed upon brussels to meet another adversary, the marquis de beuvron, a relation of thorigny, whose death he was anxious to avenge. the king, upon hearing of this determination, wrote immediately to the archduchess, who then governed the low countries, to prevent this meeting; and directed the marquis de spinola to settle their differences. for 148 this purpose, this nobleman invited them both to a splendid repast, and made them embrace each other, with vows of everlasting friendship, and a total forgiveness of all past injuries, in the presence of a numerous company. notwithstanding these solemn protestations, de beuvron, on quitting the house, whispered to boutteville, “that he never would rest satisfied until he had met him sword in hand.” boutteville however refused to meet him, on the plea of the solemn promise he had made the archduchess to abstain from any hostile act while on her territory; but he entreated that princess to write to louis xiii, to obtain the king’s permission to return to france: to which application the monarch replied, “that all that he could do, for the love he bore her, was to allow him to remain in france without further prosecution, but he could not permit him to make his appearance at court.”
beuvron returned to paris, wrote no less than eight letters to boutteville to request him to meet him there, and on his arrival proposed a duel without seconds: to which boutteville replied, “that he would have had no objection to this arrangement, had not two of his friends expressed a wish to join the party; and that he should have to give them satisfaction if they were, disappointed.” the following day, the 12th of may, was fixed for the meeting, at three in 149 the afternoon, on the place royale, one of the most public places in the capital; boutteville declaring that “he would fight under sunshine,” and following, in this remark, the example of the celebrated duellist de bussy, who, being challenged to fight by night, replied, “that he would not condescend to display his valour to the stars, or even to the moon, since they were not able to contemplate him properly, or appreciate his skill; the obscurity of night being only fit to screen deeds of darkness:” he further advised the parties to bring two pioneers with them to dig their graves. it appears that strange notions prevailed on such occasions; and brant?me relates the case of a gentleman who invited another to fight him on a winter’s night in their shirts; to which he sent answer, “that he would not expose himself to catch a cold, or a purging, which he dreaded more than his antagonist’s valour.”
howbeit, our champions met, with their four seconds; one of whom left his sick bed for the purpose. the combat began with sword and dagger, when, casting the former weapon away, the principals collared each other, and fought with their daggers; which both holding at each other’s throat, they mutually asked for quarter. in the mean time, one of the seconds, the celebrated bussy d’amboise, had been run through the throat by a mortal thrust; and another second, 150 la berthe, was also put hors de combat. the principals very quietly went to lunch at a barber’s shop; and, after seeing la berthe’s wounds dressed, rode out of paris. bussy had just time to cross himself, and die in the arms of a worthy friar.
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.
