FEMALE DUELLISTS IN FRANCE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1222, 31 July 1885, Page 3

FEMALE DUELLISTS IN FRANCE.

Women in France have always been battlesome, whether among each other or against their natural oppressors. Mile. Beaufuro, one of the first actresses that appeared on the French stage, sent a challenge to a fellow actress, Catherine des Urlisses, and they fought it out on the stage. Mile. Beaufure took two swords from the property room; Catherine des Urhases, who thought she was in fun, accepred one, but her antagonist wounded her in tho neck, and would have killed her hut for the timely interference ot some of the actors.

In the eighteenth centuryMrae. Theodore, a dancer, and Mile. Beaumanil, the celebrated singer, arranged a meeting at the Porto Maillot. It was for thediaputed possession of a gentleman’s heart. They went to the trysting place in th ir carriages dressed in riding habits. The seconds were respectively Miles. Fc.l, Charmoy, Gealin. and Gurnard. They were just measuring tho

ground when Roy, the great baas of the of the opera, appeared on the eoene and en deavoared to calm the bellicose spirit of the two ladies. His efforts were in vain. But Roy, while talking to them, ha I taken care to deposit the pistols on the damp grass ; they missed fire, and the affair was at an end.

Tke famour Mademoiselle de Monpin, the heroine of O’hesphile Gautier’s best known novel, challenged three courtiers who had insulted her, and fought them. Peeling herself aggrieved by a remark of Dumemil, the actor, she sent him her seconds, and on his refusal to cross swords with her horsewhipped him. Hereditary mummership is as capable of being proved as hereditary genius, and the French possess the former to a degree undreamt of by those who do not see them in their ordinary everyday life. They only want the opportunity for display. Madame Clovis Hugnes caught it when when within her reach. Haroigne de Moricourt and her band, the Vesnnennes of 1843 and franctiveuses of the Siege of Paris, who became the Petroleuses of the Commune, were all filled with the same desire for attitudinising. When the latter on memorable May morning in 1891 were set against the walls of the Bourse and mercilessly shot, the world uttered a cry of horror.