THE FIGARO DUEL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 615, 29 September 1858, Page 3

THE FIGARO DUEL.

(From ' Punch.')

When M. Alexandre Dumas describes four dukes as going to the Louvre in the night to try to murder a gentleman whom they snppose to be the lover of La Heine -Margot, we are amused. The ruffianism is comic, and, moreover, belongs to the happy period which Dumas depicts half regretfully. "But when one reads in the * Times,' of last week, that a group of French officers of 1858 come down to the Bois de Vesinet m the day, to try to murder a gentleman because he has displeased them by some paragraphs intended to refoim their vulgar habits and manners, one is not amused but disgusted. It is no longer the crime of the theatre, it is the crime of the shambles.

M. Henri de Pone, a Parisian literary man, writes in -Figaro'some smart observations on the manners of the inferior officers of the French army. He hints to them that if in a bail room they did not mangle the ladies' dresses with their spurs, did not smell of cheap tabac, did not talk coarsely, and did not rush upon the refreshments like hungry clowns, and if they generally cultivated a "higher moral tone, they might be less unwelcome guests in bouses than he was inclined to think them. This Chesterfieldian counsel enrages to the last degree the individuals to whom it is addressed, showers of foul epistolary menaces assail 'Figaro,' and finally a gang of officers conspire to kill M. de Pene. They, to the number, it is stated (and as we would rather disbeiive), of 27, cast lots for 'lie order in which they shall attack him, and he receive! a challenge. Now, in England, we have put an end to this kind of thing. Without reference to the brutal folly and wickedness of the duel, we have put an end to it simply as rational beings, who can do a sum in subtraction. We have—after a good many years, we confess, of Montague House and Wormwood Scrubs—arrived at the conclusion, tiiat duelling is unfair because men are unequal in value. We now agree that'an educated, intellectual, working citizen, the mainstay of a loved family, the adviser of trusting friends, a useful, recognised man. with life assurances that would be vitiated if lie t'e'.l inwilful fray, is no match for any empty-headed, younger son, with just brains enough for drill, pale ale, and Skye terriers, who has been put into the army to be got rid off, and who may chance to find room enough in his narrow skull for an idea that he has been insulted. Arithmetic has settler! the question, and Cocker forbids pistol-cocking. We have got rid of the duel, l>ecause we can deduct Ensign Featherhead from Mr. Goldswortliy, and note the difference. So, if the Ensign, j n an accession of martial fire, were to challenge Goldsworthv, be he author, lawyer, docto-, merchant, or anybody else who used to come whom the decrees of consanguinity (that is, might be asked to shed blood with somebody else), Goldswortliy wonfd select Policeman A. 155, as his second, "and the Lord Mayor as his umpire. Be it said, however, in justice to our own officers, that, brainless and careless as a good many of the young ones are, they are mostly good-humoured gen" tlemen, who take other gentlemen's hnnronr in? good part. As to their clubbing to injure a writer who has ridiculed them, we shoold like to see the kicking which the proposer of such a plot would receive in an English messroom.

But the French, though admirable mathematicians, have not yet learned this vulgar arithmetic. They still expect Monsit ur Tete dOr to set his head against that of Lieut. Vaiuien.They cling to the superstition that blood „ a detergent for insult, and that you can prove that you did not cheat at ecartcUy provhjg; that you can lunge in carle. So they permit their valuable citizens to be kilted iv duels fay anyone who can get a small sword and a second.

We have no right to condemn their extravagance; all we say is, that we really cnn't afford to spend with them. One of these days they will borrow our Cocker, to which they shall be very welcome. Meantime Vaurieix kills Tete d'Or.

So, M. de Pine, the accomplished wit of «Figaro,'bemg challenged by the snbaltern who ■drew No. 1 In the alleged murder-lottery, accepts |he challenge, and they meet, with seconds, and jvith a mob of officers behind the challenger. /{Swords cross, and M. de Pene appears to be to the use of tho steel pen with winch" French military men may alone be criticised. After a sharp encounter he wounds his antagonist. The personal honotir of the latter being thus satisfied, the victor is now at liberty

to express his regret that his remarks have been held offensive to the army, and, having shown that he is sans peur, apologizes. But this does not suit the murder-club, and up rushes No. 2, a captain of 45 years of age, appropriately named Hyene, who has been a military fencing master, lie calls on M. de Pene, exhausted after his mortal combat, to fight him, Hyene, and, despite •the remonstrances of seconds (who appear to -have been singularly -unfit for their duty), slaps M. de Pene in the face, and forces him to engage anew. Of course, in a moment or two, the fresh man- and skilled fencer passes his sword through thewearied man's body, and, it is said, stabs him a second timeafter the first thrust had done its work, While we write we know not whether the' murder is complete, but at the last advices M. de Pene was in a miserable anberge, whence his physicians feared to move him, but where another military ruffian, from Mehm,went down to ascertain whether the victim could possibly be brought out for another fight. This fellow some honest workmen attacked and "nearly" threw into the Seine. One dislikes to hear of •work being performed by halves. iMr. Punch has done nearly all that devolves upon him in narrating the above story, such narration being equivalent to a protest, in the name of common sense and common humanitj-, against the savageness and folly of the whole proceeding. Other considerations must be left to French civilians, who may think it worth while to ask, inter alia, how far the supremacy of the army is to be carried. There was a time when a mousquetaire did as he pleased with a civilian, who was run through if he dared to intimate a belief that his honour, purse, or wife was liis own, in opposition to the view of the man with the i sword. The Emperor is reviving many old traditions; is this system to be among them ? But the arithmetical question is the one to which we specially invite the attention of the French, who like precision and method. Is it rational to say that a gentleman of intellect, position, and character, shall go out and be slaughtered by any hot-headed youngster from the class of which our gallant guest, Marshal the Duke de Malakhoff, would, without a moment's hesitation, send a hundred to be killed like sheep, if the killing would enable him, in battle, to hold ten yards of a muddy ditch ten minutes longer than if he left them alive? We, nous autres Anglais, cannot afford to give Tete dOr for Vaurien, and ■would respectfully invite France Civil to do a sum in subtraction.