Note 341 — Chapter II

The relation between chivalry and duelling has been noticed by several writers; and in France, where the chivalric spirit was not completely destroyed until the Revolution, we find occasional traces of this connexion even in the reign of Louis XVI. See, for instance, in Mém. de Lafayette, vol. i. p. 86, a curious letter in regard to chivalry and duelling in 1778. In England there is, I believe, no evidence of even a single private duel being fought earlier than the sixteenth century, and there were not many till the latter half of Elizabeth's reign; but in France the custom arose early in the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth it became usual for the seconds to fight as well as the principals. Compare Montlosier, Monarc. Franç. vol. ii. p. 436, with Monteil, Hist. des divers Etats, vol. vi. p. 48. From that time the love of the French for duelling became quite a passion until the end of the eighteenth century, when the Revolution, or rather the circumstances which led to the Revolution, caused its comparative cessation. Some idea may be formed of the enormous extent of this practice formerly in France, by comparing the following passages, which I have the more pleasure in bringing together, as no one has written even a tolerable history of duelling, notwithstanding the great part it once played in European society. De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. ix. pp. 592, 593, vol. xv. p. 57; Daniel, Milice Française, vol. ii. p. 582; Sully, Œconomies, vol. i. p. 301, vol. iii. p. 406, vol. vi. p. 122, vol. viii. p. 41, vol. ix. p. 408; Carew's State of France under Henry IV., in Birch's Historical Negotiations, p. 467; Ben Jonson's Works, edit. Gifford, vol. vi. p. 69; Dulaure, Hist. de Paris (1825 3rd edit.), vol. iv. p. 567, vol. v. pp. 300, 301; Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Univ. vol. xx. p. 242; Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. p. 536; Capefigue, Hist. de la Réforme, vol. viii. p. 98; Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 63; Des Réaux, Historiettes, vol. x. p. 13; Mém. de Genlis, vol. ii. p. 191, vol. vii. p. 215, vol. ix. p. 351; Mem. of the Baroness d'Oberkirch, vol. i. p. 71, edit. Lond. 1852; Lettres inédites d'Aguesseau, vol. i. p. 211; Lettres de Dudeffand à Walpole, vol. iii. p. 249, vol. iv. pp. 27, 28, 152; Boullier, Maison Militaire des Rois de France, pp. 87, 88; Biog. Univ. vol. v. pp. 402, 403, vol. xxiii. p. 411, vol. xliv. pp. 127, 401, vol. xlviii. p. 522, vol. xlix. p. 130.