THE CONTINENTAL SENSE OF DIGNITY.
IT is, we believe, just thirty years since two Prussian officers of the highest character were compelled to quit the Army because they refused to fight a duel. They were Roman Catholics of the type which believes, and as nobody in their regiment questioned that they were influenced solely by religious motives, they ventured to appeal to the military law which absolutely prohibits duelling, an offence which Frederick the Great, no bad judge of military necessities, punished with death. A Court of Honour, however, gave sentence against them, the King confirmed the verdict, and the unfortunate officers, both of unusual merit, quitted the service and society for ever. The same question has again, it appears, been raised in Bavaria, where the dislike of the Church to the "ordeal by battle" is strongly felt, and where, also, there is a lingering resentment at the Prussian mar- tinetism on all such subjects. The Bavarian Minister for War has this week been interpellated in Parliament, some officers having been refused commands in the Reserve on account of their objection to the practice. The reply of General von Ascii, the Minister for War, bears curious evidence to a social peculiarity which exists throughout the Continent. He does not venture to assert that duel- ling among soldiers is right, which would involve the absurdity that the nation in uniform should obey one morality, and the nation out of uniform another, and be expressly admits that the military law which condemns the custom is precise and severe, but he maintains that the practice must go on, for two reasons, one being that it is the practice of the educated classes in civil life, and the other that, without it, officers must, in certain cases, resort to fisti- cuffs. The latter argument is nonsense, if only because in the German Army the Courts of Honour are really effective and secret tribunals, and could as easily insist on retirement for breaches of honourable conduct, as they can now insist on it for breaches of the "blood code ; " but the General relies almost entirely on the former, and there is no doubt his statement is true. Catholic or Protestant, the educated classes of the Continent do insist with a savage persistence which has defeated alike the Kings, the Churches, and the laws, that a man, and more especially a soldier, who is affronted must fight with lethal weapons; and do enforce this decree by subjecting any one who refuses regimental or social excom- munication. He is condemned as a coward and avoided as a leper. The practice is in the highest degree inconvenient, so inconvenient that great Generals have tried to prohibit it, it is condemned by every Church, more especially by the Roman Catholic ; it is utterly at variance with the whole spirit of a time which regards private war as open treason ; and it is in a peculiar degree a rule of caste, and therefore one which we should expect to be offensive to the dominant democracy. Yet it prevails in Germany, France, Austria, and Italy ; and one is tempted to ask in what it finds its basis. It is not in military discipline clearly, for in no Army of the Continent may an officer, without the most special permission, challenge his superior ; and as the Bavarian Minister for War truly observes, educated civilians fight duels as much as officers of the Army. It is not in any idea of keeping up courage in the regiments, for—not to mention that, in that case, it would not be forbidden by all military laws, and that the most sue- cessful of all fighting peoples, the Roman, never dreamed of the institution—courage is as much wanted in privates as in officers, and duelling, though not unknown among privates, is not held necessary, is not encouraged, and is in no way compelled. The old reason was, no doubt, that it was a mark -of caste, being a survival of the nobles' right of private war ; but that has long since passed, the novi homines fighting duels as often as the patricians, and we cannot but fancy that it keeps its hold mainly because the educated class of the Continent is infested with a foible, which, so far from disap- pearing with progressive civilisation, seems perpetually to grow stronger. As the better classes grow in culture, they grow, de- cade by decade, more savagely sensitive about their per- sonal dignity. They call it "personal honour ; " but it is in reality a fierce, almost ferocious, variety of egoism, based at root upon vanity and self-consciousness. We never take up a Continental history, or a memoir, or a novel of manners, without lighting upon incidents which reveal the existence of this feeling, raised, as the mathematicians say, to the lunacy power. Nobody, good or bad, ever displays or tries to foster the calm self-control or tameness elevated into a source of strength, which we last week described Ate the source of Mr. W. H. Smith's extraordinary influence. The cultivated seem, the moment egotism is stirred—we do not mean selfishness, but the sense of personality—to be positively incapable of doing right. Rather than be affronted, or superseded, or in any way belittled, Generals will neglect the clearest orders, statesmen will evade the clearest duties, representatives will break the clearest pledges. There is a story published this week in one of the papers which could hardly have been invented, and which, if true, is curiously illustrative of what we are saying. M. Carnot, it is said, in his recent efforts at forming a Ministry, has quite alienated an ,old ally, M. Challemel-Lacour, President of the Senate. That gentleman, a man of the highest character and ability, did not in the least want to be a Minister, would probably have recoiled from office, and would himself, if he had the nomination, have appointed M. Casimir Prier to the Premiership. But when President Carnot, as his wont is, commenced his work by con- ferences with the Presidents of the Chambers, he sent for M. Casimir Perier first, and M. Challemel-Lacour, as President of the Senate, has, by a long-standing etiquette, the pas. That sounds to Englishmen almost comic ; but there are few gentlemen on the Continent who would not allow that M. Challemel-Lacour had reason, and rather sympathise with him in any moderate effort to exact reparation from the Head of the State. Prince Bismarck, a giant in all ways, when at -the head of the European world used to punish mere jests on his personality, and repeatedly avowed that he could not and would not pass over any personal affront. Read the two big volumes in, which M. Maxime du Camp has recently related his ,experiences of the literary and artistic Frenchmen of his time.* M. du (Damp is a charming story-teller, and his " Recollections " are more entertaining than any novel ; but the people he describes, evidently in most cases without malice, seem possessed with a very devil of egoism. Gustave Flau- bert, while still quite sane, used to describe his own jests as "immense," and read his works to his friends with the pre- face that "if they did not receive them with howls of delight," they were incapable of feeling anything ; while, later on, he actually believed that the war of 1870 and the coup d'etat of 1877 were arranged in order to prevent the success of new books of his own. Flaubert, it may be said, was mad, but Enfantin was certainly sane, and a self-controlled man besides ; but "one evening the conversation turned, among others, upon the two great French Ministers, famous espe- cially in finance—Sully and Turgot. 'There are no great men,' said he, 'except those who have founded religions- Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Luther.' He paused, as if another name he did not venture to utter hung upon his lips. We were all silent, but each one had understood and completed the sentence for himself." Or take this story
" G6ricault was living in Rome at the same time as Pradier, • who was trained at the Villa Medicis. Pradier saw a pen-and-ink sketch of Gericault's done from memory of a scene he had wit- nessed, and also inspired by a bas-relief by Mythras. It repre- sented a naked herdsman felling a bull. The movements of both the man and the animal were rendered with such force and accuracy that Pradier could not repress a cry of admiration, and exclaimed, 'You are a great artist, and will be one of the
* Maxima du Camp's Literary Reoollectiona, London: Remington. masters !' G6ricault was gratified, but when he was alone he discovered, or thought that he had discovered, some defects, and he imagined that Prather, a /aureat de l'Institut and holder of the Grand Prix de Sculpture, had been laughing at him. Now, although he liked to ridicule others, he could not endure ridicule himself.
He sent seconds to Praclier, and demanded either an apology or satisfaction by duel."
Pradier's compliment had been sincere, and Gerhardt was at last pacified; but could there be a more perfect illustration of our thesis than that? The challenge proceeded directly from pure egoism. Often the egoism displays itself in a less bloodthirsty way, as when a writer furiously accused M. du Clamp of temper because, having come into his presence with his hair dyed green just to attract attention, M. du Camp observed that sky-blue was just then the only remarkable colour ; but there is in all the egoism an undernote of fury, a resolve, as it were, to extort special respect even by violence and arms. We believe that an angry yet doubtful sense of personal dignity spreads through the whole Continent, and is the ultimate cause of the vitality of a practice of duelling. We believe it the more because the same practice has survived in the most sensitive branch of our own race, the Americans, and would revive to-morrow among the most sensitive division of our own people, the Irish, if they were independent. They all alike, if affronted, become, so to speak, choked with the sense of their own ego, and feel as if, failing vengeance, life would be unendurable.
The impulse to challenge an enemy is, in fact, a survival of the savage impulse to take revenge, and nothing else, modified, and in one sense improved, by a kind of justice which induces the offended man to allow his enemy arms and an opportunity of defending himself. Civilisation has been strong enough to secure that half of its ideal, but not strong enough to secure the whole, which is perfect obedience to the law, whether of morals or of the State. As regards the other half, savagery still exists, and probably will be subdued only after many years. There is, it is true, some sign of improvement, the tendency—decidedly in France, and less decidedly in Germany and Austria—being to limit vengeance to wounds, and to forbid the actual taking of life. Except in the most extreme cases, conditions which make the death of one or both combatants certain—battle, for instance, with pistols across a handker- chief—are now considered " barbarous ; " and seconds who allow them are held even in the Armies to have failed in their highest duties. (In the one case which seems an exception, the occasional occurrence in Austria of the "American duel," in which one of the two concerned pledges himself in a certain con- tingency, or in the event of losing a throw with the dice, to com- mit suicide, there are usually, we imagine, no regular seconds.) This is a symptom of improvement ; but on the other hand, the sensitiveness which leads to duels seems only to increase, as self-consciousness grows more vigorous, and human intercourse more easy. Jealousies, we fear, are more bitter than ever, as the sense of equality spreads; there is more to be lost from hostile criticism; the desire of visibleness covers wider classes ; and we cannot but fancy, though it would be difficult to supply demonstration, that there is a distinct increase among a class of personal vanity. The new hunger for notice is not all due to love of notoriety. The man thirsts for the enjoyment of praise for himself, and if he meets with ridicule instead, resents it not only as an affront, but as a positive injustice. We seem to see this feeling in- creasing even in England, and on the Continent it is reaching far beyond the old confines of "society." However that may be, the tendencies which make for duelling, as they also make for suicide, show increase rather than diminution, and must be set against the decline perceptible in the original thirst for blood. We hope, and on the whole believe, that the latter process is the one which will prevail; but if a period of war intervenes, there is DO certainty, and fifty years hence Englishmen may be inquiring why on the Continent men should be so unreasonable and so murderous. The false answer then, as now, will be that the duel develops courage and sharpens the sense of honour; and the true one, that it gratifies the fierce egoism of classes whom civilisation has affected, but not quite tamed.
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