relates to mortal combat upon a mere point of honor, dates from this period.

FRANCE.

Duels for private injuries became common after the cartel of defiance of Francis the First of France to his rival, the Emperor Charles the Fifth, in 1528. From that period every man of rank thought himself entitled to draw his sword for every affront which seemed to touch his honor. A look of disdain, a word of disrespect or slight, a haughty step, sufficed to provoke a challenge.

In 1547, Henry the Second gave permission to two noblemen, who had been intimate friends, and who became involved in a quarrel in a matter of gallantry, to adjust their difference in a duel, and in his presence. One of the nobles fell dangerously wounded, and the victor desired the king to accept the life of the vanquished at his hands. Henry complied, but the wounded and defeated noble, who was a great favorite of the monarch, died of shame and grief at his discomfiture soon afterwards. Henry was so deeply moved at the result of the affair, as to prohibit, with an oath, any further practice of the duel in his dominions, while he should occupy the throne.

Whatever the success of the edict for the moment, the sword was soon the universal arbiter. In the time of Henry the Fourth duelling was carried to an extent which appears actually incredible. No less than four thousand French gentlemen were slain in ten years, upon the very lowest computation; and some writers state the number of victims at two thousand more. Paris swarmed with professed duellists, who gloried in their exploits, and counted up their killed with the same exultation that a sportsman counts his game. In fine, war itself could hardly have swept off more of the privileged classes than fell in private and frivolous quarrels. Beside the number slain, it is said that fourteen thousand who survived the combats in which they were engaged received the royal pardon, during the reign of Henry and his immediate successor. The combats were generally on Sunday morning; and four, six, and ten young nobles would often engage on a side, and fight until most, seconds as well as principals, were mortally wounded or disabled; and simply because a mistress had been offended, some obeisance had been forgotten, or some glance had been construed into contempt.

“All France went mad upon the duel." Attempts to suppress it were ineffectual. The edicts of popes, bishops, and of civil functionaries, were alike unheeded. At last, says Lord Herbert, the English ambassador, "there was scarcely any Frenchman, deemed worth looking on, who had not slain his man."

In time, the fashion changed and the mania abated; but France has maintained a reputation for personal combat until the present moment. During the political revolutions of the closing part of the last century duels were frequent.

The re

mark is true of the political changes of 1830, and of those of subsequent dates. So, too, the sword and pistol, were freely used (1831) by those who assailed, and those who defended, the honor of the Duchesse de Berri.

Quarrels and hostile meetings between members of the legis lative assembly, since 1849, have been numerous; while the fashionable young men of Paris have continued to fight about their mistresses with great bravery, and to the delight of their respective companions of the café and hotel.

A brief record of the measures to suppress duelling remains. The edict of Henry the Second has been mentioned. Henry the Fourth ordained punishments to all persons who should in any way be concerned, whether as principals or seconds, or as carriers of challenges or of provoking and offensive messages, or as spectators without endeavoring to prevent the effusion of blood; meting out confiscation of estate, loss or suspension of official employments, fines, imprisonment, degradation of rank, and even death, according to the guilt of each one who should engage in, or become witness of, the duel. Sully, his great minister, did not approve of this “ excess of severity," and the measure failed, as he predicted it would; because of the "obstacles to its execution," and because of the many pardons which would be granted to persons of quality, "the example and hope of which affording sufficient encouragement to others to infringe the law."

Quite as unavailing were the edicts and efforts of Louis the Thirteenth, " though it was something to see a Montmorenci formally executed for fighting a duel." The ordinances of Louis the Fourteenth, in 1643, in 1651, and in 1670, were alike futile. But an edict of 1679, which created Courts of Honor with the marshals of France and the governors of provinces as supreme judges in differences between gentlemen; which prohibited private combats within and without the kingdom; and

which declared that "those who, doubting of their own courage, shall have called in the aid of seconds, thirds, or a greater number of persons, shall, besides the punishment of death and confiscation, be degraded from their nobility, and have their coat of arms publicly blackened and broken by the hangman," had a salutary effect, and, as is said, gave the first considerable and permanent check to the custom.

M. Dupin, the distinguished advocate, stated, considerately, a few years ago, that, in France, to kill another in single combat is murder; yet, says one who wrote in 1832, "duels are not severely punished by the present French code."

GREAT BRITAIN.

The Norman Conquest introduced the institution of chivalry. Under the feudal system, duelling became general. The barons and gentlemen of rank appealed to the sword to redress their real or imaginary wrongs, at pleasure, and almost with impunity. Nobles who could neither read nor write cared nothing for the tribunals of justice; and, fierce and ungovernable as they were ignorant, they indulged in animosities towards one another to an extent hardly now, in the progress of civilization, to be believed. In fine, the aristocracy, arrogant, turbulent, and powerful, not only assumed the right to avenge their own quarrels, but at times to determine the claims of rival aspirants to the throne by personal combat.

There seems to have been no change of moment until the reigns of Elizabeth and of her immediate successor. In truth, duels were more frequent at the succession of James the First, than at any former period. That monarch, however deficient in firmness of purpose, gave no countenance to the duello; and though he neglected to enforce the laws, his loquacity in his closet and his course with particular courtiers had some influence upon individual and the public sentiment. But the check was temporary. Towards the close of the reign of Anne (1711), "duelling," says Addison, “ had become honorable, and the refusul to engage in it ignominious."

66

The first political or party challenge was given by the great Duke of Marlborough to Lord Paulett, in the year 1712. The precedent was disastrous. Messages and combats for words. uttered in debate succeeded, and to a degree which spread alarm. After the meeting between Mr. Fullarton and Lord Shelburne,

in 1780, Sir James Lowther declared, in the House of Commons, that the “custom of fighting duels in consequence of parliamen tary business, or of expressions dropped in either house, seemed growing into such a custom, that it was necessary for them to interpose their authority, before it acquired the force of a settled habit, otherwise there must be an end of all freedom of debate, and consequently of all business in Parliament." But members of both houses continued to meet with sword and pistol as before.

In Ireland, the period of the union with England was prolific in political duels. The debates upon that measure were personal beyond all example, and beyond all decency. And so, at one time, during the last century, a mania for duelling seized the Irish lawyers. "A duel was an indispensable diploma, quite essential to success at the bar, and sometimes leading even to the bench."

Details may be found elsewhere in these pages. It will suffice to remark here, that during the reign of George the Third (nearly sixty years), about one hundred and seventy duels are known to have been fought in the British Isles, or by British subjects who were absent in, or repaired to, other countries. Barrington numbers two hundred and twenty-seven " during his grand climacteric." Our English brethren are very careful to remind us of our sins in this behalf, and are constantly commenting upon the quarrels of our statesmen in Congress and elsewhere; forgetting, in their anxiety to reproach us, that the Dukes of York, Norfolk, Richmond, and Wellington, Lords Shelburne, Talbot, Lauderdale, Townshend, Camelford, Malden, Paget, Londonderry, Castlereagh, Belgrave, and Thurlow, and Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, Canning, Wyndham, Tierney, Hastings, Francis, Grattan, Curran, Burditt, and many other orators and statesmen, are among their own duellists.

The measures of the British government claim a passing notice. Queen Elizabeth attacked duelling by restricting fencingschools. James, her successor, relied principally upon proclamations. Cromwell's Parliament, proceeding a step on parchment, enacted a law. Charles the Second proclaimed that the survivor of a duel should not receive the royal pardon. And Queen Anne mentioned the "impious practice of duelling" in a speech from the throne. In 1719, or the following year, Sir Joseph Jekyll made an effort to procure efficient legislation, but was opposed in the House of Lords, and failed.

To kill in a duel has been a capital offence for centuries; but, with two or three exceptions, the penalty has never been enforced.

In 1844, Mr. Turner moved a resolution in the House of Commons, in the hope of inducing the repeal of the existing enactments, which are practically obsolete, and substituting a provision that the survivor of a duel should be liable to pay the debts of a deceased antagonist. He was opposed by several members of influence, and the movement was unsuccessful. Sir Robert Peel, according to Wade, distrusted the efficacy of legislative changes, relied rather on the state of public opinion, and especially objected at that moment, in consequence of the recent formation of an association of distinguished naval and military officers to discountenance duelling; while Sir Henry Hardinge would not disturb the statute-book, because, a few days previously, the articles of war had been amended in a manner to provide a remedy in the military arms of the service.

UNITED STATES.

Edward Doty and Edward Lester, two servingmen among the Puritans, were the first duellists in New England, and possibly in the United States, as will be seen by reference to the notice under their names. We hear little of duels at the North for a long period afterwards. There is a tradition, however, that Castle Island (now Fort Independence), in Boston harbor, was once celebrated as duelling-ground for "the hot-headed sons of Old England."

The public documents, the private correspondence, and the newspapers of the Revolutionary era, contain but few cases of challenge or actual combat in the Whig service; while my personal inquiries of Loyalist officers in the service of the crown, who remembered almost every incident of the kind, lead me to the conclusion that duelling was not frequent during the war on either side. Nor do I find that the practice in the American army excited apprehension until the year 1799, when it was "carried to an extreme in every point of view reprehensible and injurious," and drew from the general second in rank an order or a letter, in which he said that, although it was not his intention to "contravene military prejudices," yet interposition to arrest the progress of the evil was not only proper, but a duty.

Early in the war with Tripoli, many of our officers became