THE SWORD.*
CAPTAIN HUTTON.a book is less a treatise on the sword than a history of those who have used it ; it may beet be described as an anthology of the duel. Perforce dis- connected, and not too well put together, it contains a mass of interesting material, and it gives in one shape or another a pretty full account of a curious institution.
The duel, which we associate especially with France or Italy, was probably derived from the barbarous North. Nor did it at the outset touch the point of honour. It was rather an appeal from the judgment of man to the judgment of an all-wise Providence. The ordeal by duel, in fact, was a rough-and-ready kind of justice with a divine sanction. If a man had been wronged by his neighbour he challenged him to mortal combat, he accepted the result without ques- tion, and if death did not accompany defeat the gallows awaited the miscreant who was worsted in the fray. And as became an affair of justice, the duel was solemnly arranged and solemnly attended. The King, who permitted it, commonly witnessed it with all his Court, so that it was often a stately pageant. Such a duel is that, described by Captain Hutton, which took place in 1549 between the Baron d'Aguerre and the Lord of Fendilles. Henri II. of France forbade it, but the Due de Bouillon granted the lists in his own country, and the battle took place at Sedan. The cause of quarrel is immaterial, and the duel is chiefly remarkable for the truculence which inspired the Lord of Fendilles to prepare a gibbet and a fire for his adversary when he should have van- quished him. But pride had its fall; the Baron d'Aguerre was victorious, the gibbet was never used, and we are left with a strange comment upon the manners of the fifteenth century. More remarkable still, because it lies outside the rules of chivalry, is the fight between two tailors, also described by Captain Hutton. These persons, two common journeymen, were not permitted any other weapons than wooden clubs and triangular shields, and were compelled by strict ordinance to fight to the death. As they entered the lists they cut an odd figure. They were shaved and bare-footed. Their nails were pared, and their leathern clothes were tightly sewn upon them. Before they began to fight they demanded grease, wood-ashes, and sugar,—grease for the besmearing of their garments, wood-ashes that their hands might be the better able to hold their clubs, and sugar to allay thirst. The fight, of course, was a piece of crude brutality ; the victor tore out the eyes of his victim, and Ming him over the stockade for the hangman to finish on his gibbet.
Eut as the knights became more skilled in the manage- ment of their weapons, the duel took on a finer Mout- linees. And presently, the ordeal being forgotten, it was
• 'The Sword avul tke Cogurics. By /Mal Eutton, P.S.L cnadon Gnat Iccbackls. T13b1
practised for its own sake or for the point of honour. Knights travelled Europe up and down for pure love of the combat, ready with a cynical nonchalance to engage any adversary on any pretext. As often as not the weapons were harmless, and the duel a mere contest of skill ; but in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries life was so cheaply held that any excuse was good enough for a mortal combat. , And not only did the principals engage ; the seconds and any friends who might be in the neighbourhood were glad enough to take a hand. So in France and Italy the duel became a pest. As Napoleon said, the best duellists are the worst soldiers, and France and Italy were at one moment in danger of losing their best fighting men. The supreme type, of course, is Cyrano de Bergerac, who found an insult in every man's demeanour. To look at him was an impertinence, not to look at him was neglect; and when Cyrano, who must not be con- fused with the hero of a popular play, had no quarrel of
• his own, he espoused the quarrels of his friends. The fashion became so deadly in France that from 1598 to 1608 more than eight thousand gentlemen perished in single combat. :No wonder Kings and statesmen grappled with the evil. Richelieu with his gallows, and Louis XIV. with his court of honour, checked this march of organised assassination, and the action of
Louis XIV. was in later times imitated by Napoleon. Mean- time, many heroic battles were fought. The Due de Guise, for instance, defended the honour of Henri IV. in the court- yard of the Louvre against Bassompierre, and we are surprised that Captain Hutton has overlooked the splendid duel which resulted. Still nobler was the encounter in which the Admirable Crichton overcame his adversary at the Court of Mantua with three blows so. accurately disposed that they formed the angles of an isosceles triangle, and history does not contain a better fought or a better told battle than this. But the lust of fighting is eternal, and it is still impossible to read Captain Hutton's anthology without a thrill and without a regret.
With the Restoration the duel, now fought with the rapier, came to England, and ran into even worse excesses than France herself had witnessed. The point of honour was so easily touched that friends flew willingly to arms. Pepys tells us the story of the duel between Sir H. Bellares and Tom Porter. They were the best of friends, and it is "worth remembering," says Pepys, "the silliness of the quarrel, which is a kind of emblem Of the general complexion of the whole kingdom at present." Said Sir H. Bellares : "I would have you know I never quarrel, but I strike." Tom Porter answered: " Strike ! I would I could see the man in England that durst give me a blow." And so they went straightway upon the field, and Porter saw his best friend mortally wounded. Well might Pepys say that it was "a kind of emblem of the kingdom." And the duel died in England of its own folly. No institution can • thrive if ' it be an opportunity for brutality, though it lingered awhile after it was discredited by Lord Mohun. The pistol killed it, yet despite its deadliness the duel's vitality was so strong that the Duke of Wellington hesitated to suppress it. Strangely enough, it has found its last home in democratic France, where Napoleon forbade the appeal to arms, and where we might expect nothing but the stern logic of revolutionary politics. But the duel as practised in modern France is a mere symbol. • It is fought, not a mart, but au premier sang, and none save the inexperienced is likely to be much the worse for it. As it is practised to-day, it is a safeguard against scur- rility and an incentive to good manners. It is tire- some to rise early in the morning, to drive to a remote suburb, and to come home with a scratch on the avant-bras. The penalty is not heavy, but it is incon- • venient, and it is possible that this symbol of a duel saves much ill-temper and some recrimination. And yet all public recrimination is not saved, if we may judge by the - news- - papeis,:mhose writers, however; are for the most part outside the.coae. -.M. de Cassag,nac, whose- courage is incontestable, has declared.that ire will no longer meet his man, and he has
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every right to decline the combat. And what man of honour would 'face M. Rochefort on the terrain? Surely none, even Rochiforts;rere himself willing to confront arradversary.- .. However, the ceremonial of the duerin France has something to =commend it. In the first place, no sooner have the- seconds espoused the quarrel than the mouths of the prin- cipals are closed, and thus much argument is saved. And then, though the danger be nothing, the comportment of the prin- cipals upon the field is a test of courage and good feeling. So that, while it is easy to laugh at a bloodless contest, it is also easy to acknowledge that it needs some bravery to face an adversary armed with a naked sword in the early morning. But publicity is killing the duel in France, as it is killing many another ancient institution. Honour cannot be satisfied in the presence of a kodal, and presently the duel will be merely a question of archeology. Such it is already in the eyes of Captain Hutton, who out of interesting materials has put together a book• in which antiquaries may find both pleasure and profit.
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