Note 436 — SECTION XXXV: CHAPTER VI

During which occurred the dramatic duel in front of the line between Captain Waldron and a French Grenadier officer mentioned in Napier, v. p. 59. The picturesqueness of the story induced some critics to doubt it. But there is no getting over the fact that Waldron gave his opponent’s weapon, which was a sword of honour presented by the Emperor, to the Quartermaster-General (Donkin), who forwarded it to the Duke of York, and the Commander-in-Chief gazetted Waldron to a brevet-majority in consequence. (See Trimble’s Historical Record of the 27th, p. 64.) It is extremely odd (as Arteche remarks) that Suchet in his short and insincere account of Castalla tells a story of a French officer who killed an English officer in single combat (Mémoires, ii. p. 308).