CHAPTER XXXVII
Return to Lord Kew
We do not propose to describe at length or with precision the
circumstances of the duel which ended so unfortunately for young Lord
Kew. The meeting was inevitable: after the public acts and insult of the
morning, the maddened Frenchman went to it convinced that his antagonist
had wilfully outraged him, eager to show his bravery upon the body of an
Englishman, and as proud as if he had been going into actual war. That
commandment, the sixth in our decalogue, which forbids the doing of
murder, and the injunction which directly follows on the same table, have
been repealed by a very great number of Frenchmen for many years past;
and to take the neighbour's wife, and his life subsequently, has not been
an uncommon practice with the politest people in the world. Castillonnes
had no idea but that he was going to the field of honour; stood with an
undaunted scowl before his enemy's pistol; and discharged his own and
brought down his opponent with a grim satisfaction, and a comfortable
conviction afterwards that he had acted en galant homme.
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