Many instances of these singular rencontres and fatal caprices in deeds of arms will be recorded in the course of this history; all of which may be referred to the character of the times, and the existing government’s weakness or tyrannical influence.
In relating the progress of duelling in France during the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, I cannot better characterize the state of the country than by quoting a late intelligent writer, M. de Campigneulles:—
“I find between the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries the same difference that is observable between the seventeenth and the eighteenth; neither of these periods being in my opinion in favour of any progress. Louis XI. will be found preferable to Charles IX; and Charles VIII. will be placed in a more distinguished rank than Henry II. Francis I. will not make us forget Louis XII; and the glorious exploits of the French under Charles VII. will console us for a long time for the miseries of the civil wars under Henry III. I do not think it necessary, to justify the second proposition, to draw a parallel between the reigns of Henry IV. and Louis XIV. on one side, with the regency and reign of Louis XV. on the other. What is not less remarkable is, that the first period of a century has frequently been more worthy of estimation than the second; showing that there is an action and a reaction in the progress of civilization, and that the torrent of ages seems to be subject to the same laws that regulate the waters of the deep.
“Under Charles VII. the aristocracy was too deeply engaged in their national contest with England to occupy themselves with personal feuds; the aristocracy, in the enormous sacrifices which this struggle required, was drained both of men and money. The people gained nothing—the royal authority alone reaped any advantage that might have resulted from this state of affairs; for from this reign we may date the establishment of standing armies and taxations—the latter being imposed illegally, and without the sanction of the states-general.
“The policy of Louis XI.’s government turned to a profitable account the state of poverty and depression to which the aristocracy had been reduced. The nobility of France was deteriorated by this cruel prince, who founded his despotic power upon executions; and the blood which had been spilled in the field of battle to defend the country, was now wantonly shed upon the scaffold. There was none left to irrigate a field of private battle.
“These combined circumstances had struck a fatal blow to duelling; and the prejudices which had justified the practice, and which at the same time had advocated the cause of aristocracy, became every day more weak, attesting the homogeneity of their character.
“France has always been considered as giving the ton to Europe; but between us and other countries the exchange has not always been to our advantage, and, for what we may have given to our neighbours of any value, we have received in return sad equivalents. It is to Germany that we were first indebted for judicial combats. It was in Italy that we sought the practice of duelling, which succeeded them; and while this moral contagion was widely spread during the expeditions of Charles VII, Louis XII, and Francis I, a sad physical contamination was transmitted to us through Spain. The practice of duelling had scarcely crossed the Alps, when it gradually disappeared amongst the Italians; and 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