Pistols at dawn- The English Lord and the French Count

In June 1838, an Anglo-French duel was fought on the common land of Wormwood Scrubs, just outside London.
I’m getting my information from the Spectator, the issue of June the 23rd, 1838. They report the event as taking place “last Saturday”.

The English participant was Lord Castlereagh. This is not the Castlereagh who was Foreign Secretary in the Napoleonic wars, fought a duel with Canning, and got himself into Shelley’s poetry;
“I met Murder on the way;
He had a mask like Castlereagh.”
THAT Castlereagh was long dead in 1838. THIS Castlereagh was his nephew, thirty-three years old.

Castlereagh had taken to stalking a prominent opera singer, Madame Grisi. He made himself conspicuous in his applause at the theatre, he was in the habit of paying her “marked attention” in company, and he frequently “exhibited himself on horseback” in front of her residence in Regent Street. I think that last one just means that people could see him. Finally he sent her a letter containing a “declaration of attachment”.

Unfortunately the lady had a husband, M De Melcy, whose suspicions had already been awakened. He intercepted the letter, called on Lord Castlereagh twice (finding him away at Ascot), and left a letter demanding satisfaction. The ground for the challenge, specifically, was that Castlereagh had ”insulted” his wife- i.e. by assuming that she would be open to adulterous advances. On his return from Ascot, Castlereagh hastened to visit the Count “to assure him that his wife had not in any way encouraged him, and that he was ready to make the most handsome apology”. But M. De Melcy did not want an apology. He wanted his duel.

Arrangements were accordingly made by the two seconds, Mr. Bentinck acting for Lord Castlereagh, and M. Cottreau for M. De Melcy. “There was some difficulty in settling the mode of fighting”. The problem was that the English and French codes of duelling were as far apart as the English and American codes of football are today. Both sides were contending for the fight to be governed by their own customs.

In France, the challenger, as the injured party, had the right to name time, place and weapons. English custom gave that privilege to the person challenged (offering some defence against the aggressive bully with a specialised expertise).
So the French side wanted to insist on fighting with swords. M. Cottreau was assured by Bentinck that Lord Castlereagh was not accustomed to swords., so he finally waived the point and agreed to pistols. Nevertheless, he wanted to fight with pistols in the French style rather than the English style.

“Our readers are aware that the French practice is to place the antagonists at forty paces distance, and to give them the privilege of walking up to fixed points eight paces from each other, and of firing either before or after arriving at those points. This M. Cottreau insisted on, in consideration of his abandonment of the sword; but Mr. Bentinck very properly told him that he could not answer for public opinion if a duel so fought was attended with any fatal result, and he prayed M. Cottreau, to agree to the old-fashioned English mode of equal chance, at twelve paces distant. M. Cottreau struggled hard for his right, but he agreed at length to submit himself to the customs of this country, and he undertook on behalf of M. De Melcy to fight with pistols, at the word of command, at twelve paces.”

It seems to me that the French custom was a little more aggressive than the English custom. The French duellist wanted a sporting chance of killing his opponent. The English duellist came to the ground with an attitude of “My honour is vindicated when I have shown that I am not afraid to face fire.”
Neither country, we may observe, was following the film cliché practice of “participants stand back to back and pace away from each other”.

The two parties arrived on the scene at half past four in the morning, with a surgeon in attendance. Then they decided that they did not want to fight with the pistols they had brought, and a pair of pistols was bought from a
gunsmith. Because of this delay, it was ten o’clock before everybody was ready. Lord Castlereagh put into M. Cottreau’s hands a declaration re-affirming the entire innocence of Madame Grisi. Then the two combatants took their ground.

“M De Melcy carried his pistol in a manner by which a surer aim is taken, but by which the person is wholly exposed, while Lord Castlereagh bore his in the form which gives some protection to the chest, but which is less effective in attack.”
My interpretation of this description is that the Count was facing his opponent directly, perhaps using both hands to steady his pistol; Castlereagh must have been standing sideways-on, holding out the pistol in one hand alone. Perhaps this was another national difference.

“The word " fire " was pronounced, and a handkerchief dropped—the appointed signals.
They fired at the same instant. Lord Castlereagh's ball did not take effect, while M. De Melcy's passed through his antagonist's right arm near the wrist, across the waistcoat, grazing the skin of the chest, and leaving a track of blood.
The noble lord was staggered by the blow, but in a second he shook off the faintness and received the attentions of his friends with composure.”

Mr. Bentinck declared that since Lord Castlereagh was wounded, the affair could not be carried on. “Not for the present”, added M. De Melcy. But Bentinck persisted in suggesting that the matter should be altogether at an end, since the Count had been given satisfaction and his wife had been vindicated. So the Frenchman relented and said he did not desire to carry his resentment any further.
“The seconds then having stated in the usual form that both principals had conducted themselves fairly and honourably, Lord Castlereagh was carried to the house of a peasant, and there was attended by the surgeon who witnessed the proceedings."

I have been skimming through the Spectators of this period, and there seem to be reports of a duel almost every other week.
As long as nobody dies, the law takes no notice.
But if one of the participants died, the survivor would be facing a murder charge. In one case, both seconds joined the survivor in the dock, though they were hoping to get away with the implausible plea that they had been taken to the location without knowing the purpose of the journey.

Fortunately Lord Castlereagh had received a flesh wound which did not put him in any serious danger.
He survived to become the fourth Marquess of Londonderry.
And the lover of Madame Grisi.

www.youtube.com...

The above clip, though it shows a duel between an Englishman and Frenchman, is believed NOT to portray the event described in the OP

a reply to: DISRAELI

Duelling seems insane these days.
Hard to believe that sort of thing was considered gentlemanly although it is just one on one with equal chances.
Better than a barroom brawl I suppose.

I love the story of the two who decided to ascend in hot air balloons with a blunderbuss apiece and shoot at each other until one came down.
I think that might've been somewhere in France.
I also think it might not be a true story but its a good one.

You just want to say....what was the point in all that!!
Interesting stuff tho! And crazy to think how different society was just 200 years ago!

a reply to: indigothoughts
Peer pressure. If you don't do it when challenged or provoked, everybody looks down on you.

originally posted by: Tulpa
Hard to believe that sort of thing was considered gentlemanly although it is just one on one with equal chances.
Better than a barroom brawl I suppose.

A century or so previously, when they were fighting with swords, the function of the seconds was to fight alongside the main participants. I thought of mentioning that in the OP, but ran out of space.There might be three or more swordsmen on either side. That comes even closer to a barroom brawl.

The balloon story is plausible, and I may have seen it somewhere, but I can't vouch for it.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Bit of a downer for the seconds if your man does a runner and leaves you on the spot!
Pride and honour was easily damaged back then.
I do wonder, though, is this a better way to conduct an end to a festering grudge?

The balloon story gets used a lot in "strange but true" type books etc. Some of those "true" stories turn out to be anything but.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if it did really happen, in fact I'm fairly certain it was discussed on the TV show QI with Stephen Fry.
Can't recall what their conclusion was.

a reply to: Tulpa
I think the participants were paired off against each other.
So Lord A would fight Lord X, who had challenged him. Alongside them, his friend Sir B would fight Sir Y, and Sir C would fight Sir Z. So even if your principal got killed, your only concern was your immediate opponent.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Today's alternative would be to exchange insults via twitter and the loser is the first one to bottle it and hit the block button.

There is a certain amount of appeal to a duel to settle a difference.

Rules of the duel...

Apparently, dueling was an affair governed by very strict societal rules, supposedly... A social inferior could not insult one of higher standing and be called out. It was handled, by this account, via the horsewhip or common law... Could be very painful...

I read someplace that gunsmiths who specialized in making dueling pistols could make a rather substantial amount of money... They, the pistols, not the gunsmiths, were passed down through generations of gentlemen.

I'd venture to guess, if a womans husband was a noted duelist, or perhaps soldier--many were both--his wife was strictly off limits, even to the most jaded socialite, for fear of being called upon.

I've sometimes wondered if there might not be a place in society for duels of satisfaction... Probably not.

a reply to: Tulpa

I venture to guess there'd be a bit less twitter'sults, if there was a chance you'd get called out to the dueling field.

a reply to: seagull
Thank you for that link.
I see the book's diagram implies that Americans were following the English "stand on a fixed mark" custom rather than the French "walk towards a fixed mark" custom.
I think I've seen something like the French custom in Russian novels of the century.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The main reason for pistols replacing rapiers as duelling weapons was the increased chance of both parties surviving.
Generally a "hit" with a sword was a killing stroke, while a duelling pistol was smooth bored and not very accurate.

a reply to: DISRAELI



I find the concept of the duel fascinating for some reason.

a reply to: SprocketUK
Yet German students were famously proud of their duelling scars, so evidently they preferred swords.
I take it they avoided fatalities by making the duel depend on the "first hit". This is also the way Hamlet's duel is fought (but Hamlet himself is a German student).
But English sword-fighting was certainly very deadly. There were some real sword-fighting bullies around in the aristocracy of the later Stuarts.
In the Spectator report, the Count is obviously determined to kill his adversary if he gets the chance, so that explains his own preference for swords.

a reply to: seagull
Perhaps it's the ritual of the thing. There's a lot of fascination in ritual.
Even Hollywood gunfights have ritual, though I assume the original fighters did not bother.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Probably.

My grand-father, my Dad's dad knew Wyatt Earp, just casually. Met him and a number of the early cowboy film stars while living in Los Angeles (hollywood), and running a gas station in what is now Watts... It still stands, or did thirty years ago, when my Dad and I were down in LA... Before he moved the family north into Washington state and became a county sheriff.

The gunfights of Hollywood fame did, very occasionally happen, according to my Grand-dad. Though usually any shooting was done from cover, or from behind (dry gultching is what it was called...), but once in a while, you'd get two men standing in the middle of the street...

a reply to: seagull

Just wanted to add, there's a really good reason that the West of Hollywood movies didn't ever really exist...

Many of the men wandering and settling the West were Civil War vets, truly men who'd seen the elephant and smelled the smoke, and weren't for suffering fools gladly. They were bad men, in the best sense of the term, that most today would faint from terror should they run afoul of them...

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: SprocketUK
Yet German students were famously proud of their duelling scars, so evidently they preferred swords.
I take it they avoided fatalities by making the duel depend on the "first hit". This is also the way Hamlet's duel is fought (but Hamlet himself is a German student).
But English sword-fighting was certainly very deadly. There were some real sword-fighting bullies around in the aristocracy of the later Stuarts.
In the Spectator report, the Count is obviously determined to kill his adversary if he gets the chance, so that explains his own preference for swords.

There is a massive difference in the Mensur, practiced by German fencing clubs and a duel as fought by two men with a real problem.

The Mensur is fought with just the face as a target, the seconds maintain the proper distance between the fighters and they have to wear thick silk around the neck and special goggles to protect the eyes. It is not a duel in the traditional sense.