Note 326 — THE AGE OF BRONZE.

{566} [Constant (Henri Benjamin de Rebecque, 1767-1830) was the "stormy petrel" of debate in the French Chamber. For instance, in a discussion on secret service money for the police (July 27, 1822), he exclaimed, "Vous les répresentez-vous payant d'une main le salaire du vol, et tenant peut-être un crucifix de l'autre?" No wonder that there were "violens murmures, cris d'indignation à droite." The duel, however, did not arise out of a speech in the Chamber, but from a letter of June 5, 1822, in La Quotidienne, in which the Marquis de Forbin des Issarts replied to some letters of Constant, which had appeared in the Courrier and Constitutionnel. Constant was lame, and accordingly both combatants "out été places à dix petits pas sur des chaises." Both fired twice, but neither "was a penny the worse." (See La Grande Encyclopédie, art. "Constant;" and, for details, La Quotidienne, June 8, 1822. See, too, for "session de 1822," Opinions el Discours de M. Casimir Perrier, 1838, ii. 5-47.)]