Published by Americana Exchange / October 2014
Duels ! Thus our ancestors defended their honour at the slightest provocation. But how come such a barbaric custom became so generally established? Looking for an answer, I opened the memoirs of Brantôme about duels (1722). It plunged me into a world of honour, absurdity, and brutal deaths.
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Combatere a la mazza
Brantôme
& the Art of Duels
Wan’ my picture?
I had an idiotic argument in the street the other day,
with a guy who considered I had stared at him. Wan’ my picture? he said.
Push never came to shove, and we wisely went our separate ways. I couldn’t help
thinking that such a nonsense behaviour would have led us, some two hundred
years ago, to a deadly fight—a duel! Thus our brutal ancestors defended their
honour at the slightest provocation. But how come such a barbaric custom became
so generally established among them? When I look for an answer, I have a
conditioned reflex: I open a book. The one I picked up on this occasion is a
volume of the memoirs of Brantôme (circa 1540-1614); the one Contenans les
anecdotes (...) touchant les duels—about the anecdotes linked to
duels (A Leyde, chez Jean Sambix—1722). It plunged me into a world of honour,
absurdity, and brutal deaths—and it also reminded me of an old ripped coat.
 |
| Brantôme |
When the Roman Empire fell down, the Barbarians left the
North of Europe to invade the rest of the continent, taking their customs with
them—including duels. Among these new migrants were the Lombards—from the
current Germany—, who took over Italy in the late 6th century. “These people
were fierce to the extreme,” reads L’Esprit de l’Encyclopédie
(Paris, 1798). “They knew no laws, no discipline and had no social rules.
All their virtue was at the point of their swords, and they knew no right but
might. They settled their problems with swords: the belligerents fought one
another, and the winner was always right.” This practice known as the
art of duel spread like a disease; mainly in France, Spain and Italy, “where,”
stated Mr de Saintfoix in his Essais historiques sur Paris (Londres,
1759), “people were a little bit too proud to be men.” Christianity soon
justified duels. The idea was simple: God would rather make a miracle than to
let injustice prevails. When a quarrel occurred, and when it was impossible to
decide who was right from wrong, the belligerents resorted to fight before God.
Of course, the winner was sometimes convinced of felony later on. But as our
author Brantôme put it: “God moves in a mysterious way, and His gifts of
justice, equity and mercy are not to be discussed.” Others claimed that the
innocent victims paid for earlier crimes, while their wicked executioners would
soon pay for theirs—including this one.
Thus governed by holy and social rules, duels gave birth
to fighters as well as theorists. Brantôme wasn’t a specialist, so to speak;
and he wisely bowed to the Italian masters, who published numerous books on the
matter—he respectfully called them the Duellists. But he was a warlike
young man, who almost joined the Knights of Malta at one point, and who knew what
he was talking about as well as who he was talking about. While at
Court, he collected many stories and anecdotes from the great Captains of his
time. His posthumous memoirs weren’t printed before 1655-56, in Leyde, chez
Jean Sambix (1), and didn’t enjoy success until reprinted in 1722. They are
still sought-after today, and the different titles—including the lives of the
great French Captains of his time, of the great foreign Captains, and anecdotes
about duels—are often sold independently. The one about duels never came out
before 1722. “We don’t know who was the true publisher of Discours sur les
Duels,” stated the Notice sur Brantôme (Paris, 1824). “So many
reprints appeared in its wake that it would be hard, but also useless, to name
them all. Several bear the false indication Chez Jean Sambix (2),
including the first one of 1722, which is well-printed.”
Brantôme “wrote just like he spoke,” once said a
writer; as a matter of fact, his style is suffocating. The volume about duels
features no chapters, no titles. From top to bottom, it is laid on paper like
one long breath. But it’s stuffed with incredible details and thrilling
anecdotes. “No matter the disorder of his writings,” confessed Anquetil
in the 18th century, “Brantôme’s book pleases, because it’s
entertaining.” As a matter of fact, this book is a breath-taking reading
featuring fierce people cutting each other’s throat over matters of honour that
sometimes seem so ridiculous that we hardly believe one could die over them.
And yet.
Two bulls in a pen
Until 1546, duels took place in a camp clos, or
closed pen—usually located in a churchyard. In the 9th century, Pope Nicolas I
considered duels as legitimate and lawful, and many religious got involved—when
necessary, they hired the arms of fighters to represent their church. In the
early 14th century, the French king Philippe le Bel ordered the pens to be
40 feet wide and 80 feet long. As stated by Brantôme about the duel that cost
the life of Don Alonzo, in Italy—defeated by the famous Bayard—, the pens were
often “simply bounded by some piles of big stones.” He who stepped
outside the limits had lost. The ceremonial was quite complex and the fighters
were expected to ride from their places, with “any reasonable offensive and
defensive weapon” carried before them by their kinsmen. Upon reaching the
pen, they swore on the crucifix and on the holiness of baptism that they
considered to be in their own right. Then the fight started, usually in front
of a consequent audience. Duels were barbaric in the way that the winner could
dispose at will of the loser—be he dead or alive! Not only did you lose your
quarrel when defeated, but you also lost all your goods, your life and your
spiritual salvation, as the law adapted from the Lombards’ made it clear that a
loser couldn’t be given a Christian burial; “just like an Arab or a Sarasin,”
deplored Brantôme. “How cruel!” But you were lucky if you died on
the battlefield; because if you survived your wounds, you became less than a
beast in the hands of the winner. “He had the right to drag you all through
the pen (a jolly idea deriving for the sane reading of Homer’s Iliad,
editor’s note), to hang you, burn you, to hold you prisoner,” enumerated
Brantôme. “In a word, he could treat you worse than a slave.” But in
1547, a tricky fight put an official end to duels.
 |
| The cunning trick of Jarnac |
The trick of Jarnac
The last duel officially authorized by the King of France
took place on July 10, 1547; and it opposed two friends, namely Gui Chabot de
Jarnac and François Vivonne de la Châtaigneraie. It all started the day the
former boasted of having sex with his mother-in-law to the latter, who repeated
it to François I; the King later teased Jarnac, who firmly denied, and demanded
justice—but François I opposed the duel. A few months after the King’s death,
Henri II gave them the permission, as La Châtaigneraie was his favourite.
Several thousands of people gathered the said day on the terrace of the castle
of Saint-Germain, near Paris. Five hundred men supported La Châtaigneraie, all
wearing his colours—white and rosy pink; Jarnac had 100 men with him, all
dressed in black and white. Nobody expected Jarnac to win this fight; indeed, although
smaller and younger than his friend, La Châtaigneraie was “one of the
strongest and the most skilful gentlemen of France with any weapon; and there
was no better wrestler in the kingdom,” wrote his nephew Brantôme. But
Jarnac teamed up with a clever master of arms, Captain Caize, who imposed many
constraints to La Châtaigneraie. First, he insisted that both fighters should
carry a specific shield that restrained the mobility of the left arm; “this
was of great disadvantage to my uncle,” wrote Brantome, “who was still
recovering from a shot of harquebuse received in his right arm during
the assault of the city of Cony, in Piémont.” The Judges of the pen didn’t
oppose this constraint; neither did the relatives of La Chataigneraie, who were
probably overconfident “in the bold courage of my uncle.” (Brantôme)
Then, as he had the choice of arms, Jarnac asked his opponent to equip himself
with “more than thirty different weapons; he imposed various horses, such as
steeds, Turkish, Barb horses, (...) all harnessed in various fashions
(...). He did it to take his enemy by surprise, but also to force him to
spend a lot of money.” As a matter of fact, the King had to support La
Châtegneraie so he could attend the fight with all the required equipment. And
the duellist publicly complained that Jarnac was trying to fight him both “spiritually
and financially.” Nonetheless, the duel took place, and despite being
feverish, Jarnac was ready. Most duellists aimed at the head or chest of their
opponent, but Jarnac acted in a different way. Thanks to a skilful bout he had
practiced with Captain Caize, he wounded La Châtaigneraie a little above the
left knee. He did it twice in a row, eventually forcing the King to throw his
baton; this gesture instantly put an end to the fight—should any fighter hit
after that, he would immediately be put to death. “The Jarnac’s trick has
now became an adage,” underlines the Dictionary of Feller (Liège,
1790). “It is used to describe a trick, or an unexpected response from an
opponent.” The King intervened, yes; “but too late,” deplored
Brantôme. Indeed, his cousin was badly hurt—but mostly in his pride. He refused
to have his wound correctly bandaged, and died from it a few days later. Though
all parties agreed to declare that it had been a fair duel, “Henry II was so
mortified that he solemnly swore he would never permit any more duel,”
stated L’Esprit de l’Encyclopédie. But men of honour were stubborn, and
a few days later, two soldier friends had a fight in Piémont simply because the
first one couldn’t believe what the second one was telling him about the
circumstances La Châtaigneraie’s death—“both of them ended up seriously
wounded,” underlined Brantôme. This was a foretelling fight. Indeed, the
ban on duels curiously made them more frequent.
 |
| The first edition of 1722 |
The successors of Henri II all reinforced the laws
against duels, and the Council of Trent made it clear that the Church no longer
supported this custom: “If an Emperor, King or any other Prince or Lord,
enables some Christians to fight a duel on his lands, he shall be
excommunicated and deprived of his lordship,” read L’Histoire du Concile
de Trente (Pierre Chouët, 1635). The same treatment was to be applied to “those
who advise the duellists”, and to “the mere spectators”.
Notwithstanding this dreadful warning, duels grew more numerous, especially in
France where the King never ratified the Council of Trent. Mr de Saintfoix had
an explanation: “Before that, upon fighting surreptitiously, a man lost his
honour, and was considered a petty murderer. Furthermore, when
officially asking for a duel, he informed of his quarrel; and people around him
always tried to end it in a peaceful way. The man who was wrong was also
necessarily impressed at the oath he had to take before the fight; and you had
no choice but to win or die without honour.” Less regulated, duels
flourished as duellists started to call each other at la mazza—in
the open field. According to Brantôme, this new form of duel originated in
Naples, Italy, where “people started to call each other outside the cities,
in the fields, in the forests or among hedges and bushes—hence the expression combatere
a la mazza.” The beginning of the end for the learnt theorists, who unanimously
condemned this new savage way—mainly, stated Brantôme, because it meant
fighting without protection, “like gross beasts”. Things even got
worse as the witnesses started to wonder: What are we doing while our
friends are fighting? Let’s fight as well! Thus, duels became pitched
battles! And all these people killed each other “for the pleasure rather
than out of animosity” (Brantôme). The winner ran a penalty risk, but was
usually granted a complacent royal pardon—Henry IV issued more seven thousands
in less than 18 years. That’s probably why Mr Feller wrote, in 1791: “These
duels between individuals (at la mazza, editor’s note) have shed
more blood in the last two hundred years, than the duels in closed pens since
their origins.” It looks like people were wholeheartedly cutting each
other’s throat at the slightest remark, fearing no danger, and standing as true
heralds of honour in a world long disappeared. Yet, through out Brantôme’s
book, it seems than man has been man ever since David slew Goliath in a duel;
and that when it comes to defend one’s life, all is fair.
Gentle Merciful Men
Duels might have taken place in the Bush, they still
obeyed complex and unwritten rules. For instance, suppose you decided to spare
your enemy’s life once he was at your mercy. What were the proper words to
utter on such an occasion? Brantôme seriously reasoned about the matter. “To
say “Ask for mercy and I’ll spare you!” or “Beg for your life, and I won’t kill
you!” is a terrible thing to do, as no man of heart will ever accept to utter
them, and would rather suffer a hundred deaths.” Really and truly, it was
nicer “to gently and gracefully spare your opponent’s life.” Some went
as far as pretending to be wounded, to belittle the shame of their victim. It
happened, reported Brantôme, with two Captains in Piémont. The first one
wounded the second one and decided to let him live, as both men were friends.
But the defeated soldier asked another favour, probably as important as life to
him: “Please, be merciful all the way, and wear a bandage for a few days, so
it won’t be said that I was wounded without wounding.”But “too good, too
dumb”, goes the French saying; and a hold hand at duels such as Matas
should have known better than to leave his opponent unarmed after he had
disarmed him in the Bois de Vincennes in the late 16th century. “You
can go, young man,” he said. “And learn to hold your sword firmly, and not
to attack a man like me; go away, I forgive you.” But as he was mounting
his horse, the young man took up his arm, ran to him, “and pierced him to
death on the spot.” (Brantôme) Matas was mourned, and blamed for his lack
of foresight. Other duellists, especially the Italians—the most cruel, said
Brantôme—, left a mark on the face of their victims, or left them lying on the
ground, half-dead and, ideally, definitely maimed; thus they could neither
retaliate nor deny their defeat—as most of these duels took place without
witnesses, the two versions of the same fight often varied. After all, honour
and precaution can go together, cant’ they? Well, let’s put it straight: when
it comes to fight for your life, honour comes second—even when you fight over
it.
Diogenes
Diogenese the antique stoic philosopher lived in a tub in
total destitution, but that didn’t impress Socrates who once told him: “I
see vanity through the holes of your coat.” And I could see the same
with the sense of pride of some duellists, who did all they could to stack the
deck. God was supposed to be on the side of the righteous—but we know He is
sometimes unpredictable in His wisdom; thus, down-to-earth duellists tried to
maximise their chances, using every trick in the book. When given the choice of
weapons, a duellist could almost impose every foolish idea on his opponent. In
Italy, one duellist went as far as asking his one-eyed enemy to wear a special
helmet that blinded his valid eye! “But this was rejected (by the
officials, editor’s note), as too careless a requirement,”
underlined Brantôme. Really?
In Piémont, on the contrary, one Sergeant agreed to wear
a peculiar steel necklace with “ pointy hedges as cutting as a razor blade;
so that the duellists had to hold their heads well high not to cut their own
throat.” Unfortunately, the Sergeant was very tall, and his opponent very
small—the latter easily raised his head to fight, while the former couldn’t
look down without hurting himself. He was killed very quickly. “I consider
this necklace to be an abusive trick,” confessed Brantôme. Really?
In Milan, a duellist asked a blacksmith to forge some
specific swords with brittle blades. He imposed them on his opponent who broke
his own in pieces at the first strike—and was killed right away. “Using such
deceitful arms,” wrote Brantôme, “is a hundred times worse than
committing petty murders in the woods or in the streets.” In fact, many of
these so-called gentlemen duellists were apparently nothing but
bloodthirsty murderers, ready to do anything to get rid of their foes. In the
time of Brantôme, Baron de Vitaux was called at la mazza by one Millaud,
near Paris. Before the fight started, the respective assistants of the
duellists made sure that each party would respect the agreed rules as it had
been decided to fight in simple shirts—without protection. When the assistant
of the Baron approached, Millaud opened his shirt and exhibited his chest from
a short distance. The assistant was satisfied with what he saw from a distance,
and turned back. “But the said Millaud was covered up with a thin cuirass
painted in the exact colour and aspect of human flesh!” wrote Brantôme. The
Baron hit him twice, forcing him to step backwards—but hitting his cuirass, he
didn’t harm him; then he was wounded himself, and mercilessly finished off—a
questionable way to defend one’s honour. But at the same time, the said Baron
was an inveterate villain himself. He quarrelled with Baron de Soupez one day,
publicly throwing a candlestick at him. The people around prevented both men
from drawing their swords, but Baron de Vitaux pretended to leave the place
only to wait for his enemy outside. He jumped on him as soon as he stepped out
and killed him on the spot. “He then bravely ran away dressed as a Damsel,”
wrote Brantôme—and I still can’t figure out whether this is a sarcastic
statement or not. He also killed one Gounellieu in the plains of Saint-Denis,
who had killed his own brother. “He killed him at once, without any ceremony,”
reported Brantôme. Called at la mazza by the dreadful Mr du Gua, our
courageous—but prudent—Baron disappeared from Paris for six months, returning
only to surprise his enemy in his bed! “He entered his home, leaving two of
his men at the gate, and climbed the stairs leading to his room; upon seeing
him, the other jumped through the window into the nearby alley, grabbing a
wooden stake to defend himself. The Baron, armed with a short sword (much more
efficient), stabbed him two or three times, leaving him dying on the ground.”
What a bunch of ruthless murderers! The Baron, described as “a terrible and
bold executioner” by his close friend Brantôme, was also decried by his
enemies for his “ways of murdering”, and was soon “more feared than
loved at Court.” Called at la mazza one day, he was ambushed by
several avengers, who put an end to his life—and his many crimes. You could
expect every low blow from these men of honour.
From mazza to worse
According to our author, the duels at la mazza—though
condemned by the Church and the State—were politically correct; people, even in
small groups, settled their feuds “with glory; or died in good reputation,
as men courageous and bold enough to enter a fight.” On the contrary,
antagonisms grew to incredible proportions when not rapidly settled. A
gentleman who had an argument soon gathered several fighters in his party, to
declare a restless war on the party of his enemy. When they met “in the
street, or even at Court—though to a lesser extent, as they feared His Majesty
and His provost—, or in an open field, killed and maimed each other like flies
and beasts.” From Paris to Milan, hordes of warriors roamed the streets.
Brantôme spent several months in Milan: “I swear that not one day passed by
without my seeing some groups of men—up to eighty of them—walking the streets,
and fighting upon meeting with their enemies; and such a way that corpses were
lying in the streets everywhere.” Welcome to the Shakespearian Verona,
where civil blood made civil hands unclean; and where dangerous
men like Benvolio, “as hot as a Jack in (his) mood as any in Italy,”
did “quarrel with a man that hath a hair more, or a hair less, in his beard
(...); for cracking nuts (...); for coughing in the street, because he hath
awakened (his) dog that hath lain asleep in the sun.” In this world
of blood and madness, many fighters hired their skills for a living—or rather
for a killing. “How many of those have I seen in Paris, Milan and other cities
of France, Spain and Italy!” lamented Brantôme. The situation went on
until the end of the 17th century when duels started to decline, mainly
thanks to the laws passed by Louis XIV in France. “Henri III and his
successors passed several strict edicts against duels. France thought this
bloody custom abolished forever after the terrible orders given by Louis XIV,”
reads L’Esprit de l’Encyclopédie. During the first twenty years of his
reign, the Sun King issued more than 1,000 pardons to various duellists. But in
1679, he passed an edict that became a landmark in the slow and progressive
abolition of duels. All duellists, whether calling or called, should be put to
death and deprived of all their goods—even the dead should be judged, and then
buried in a secular ground. Then, the Nobles would be ripped off their nobility
and their arms darkened and broken in the public place. The servants, upon
being convicted of passing notes for the arrangement of a duel, were to be
whipped and branded with a fleur-de-lys! And these laws also applied to those
who went to fight outside the kingdom—a cunning way to escape the wrath of the
King. “The crime of duel shall be pardoned neither by death, nor any
prescription (...),” read L’Esprit de l’Encyclopédie. “A person
can be prosecuted, as well as his memory. (...) Duels are not an
institution of honour, as the soldiers pretend, but an ugly and barbaric custom.”
The edicts of Louis XIV were a first step on the long road to abolition, but it
helped to change the habits of people. The poets, the preachers and even some
Nobles started to publicly condemn duels; mainly because they were now seen as
a waste of a valuable blood. “For too long you’ve blood stained the
Seine river / Express on other lands a more noble anger / The arm you’re
losing, French man, is not yours (...) / Flee from the obscure fate of a
petty duel / And fall, while holding our flag on a rampart (...) / Do
not stain your steel with an unworthy fight / Live and let live for the sake of
the State.” (La Monnoie). Thus, the Duke of Navailles was able to refuse to
fight against the Count of Soisson without losing his honour. When crowned in
1722, Louis XV swore he would grant no more pardon to duellists. “The
analysis of the latest edicts about duels,” read the same Esprit de
l’Encyclopédie, “tends to prove that we are currently doing all that is
necessary to avoid and prevent duels; as much as we used to promote and
facilitate them in the past.” Of course, duels remained very fashionable
all through the 18th century, and involved many famous people such
as Lamartine or Victor Hugo; it was even codified in many books, including Essay
on Duels, by the Count of Chateauvillard (1836).
Brantôme wrote things as they were, and didn’t care about
passing any moral judgement on duels. He considered these fights to be a part
of the everyday life of any man of honour of his time, and only condemned—and
not always that firmly—the unfair methods of some duellists. Anecdotes sur
les Duels is not the work of a learnt man like Montaigne, trying to
understand mankind through its deeds and weaknesses. No, Brantôme obviously
wrote about duels with jubilation, and concluded his book just like he started
it: in a very casual way. And that’s what makes it a terrific reading, it
plunges you in the middle of a discussion between honourable men from the 16th century—where
honour was only one fierce and bloody passion among others.
© Thibault Ehrengardt
(1): In 9
in-12° volumes with Elzevirian fonts. 3 volumes dedicated to the Dames
illustres and Dames Gallantes; 4 volumes to the French Captains; and the last 2
volumes to the Foreign Captains
(2): “The
date and the name Jean Sambix were apparently uncertain,” stated the Notice sur Brantôme (Paris, 1824). “The bookseller that published the same
memoirs in 1740 claimed that this first edition was actually printed at La
Haye, by the Steuckers brothers. We shall trust him on a matter that he was
more inclined to check out.”
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