The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-17
FRENCH CODE OF HONOR.
Even the Courts Regard the Duel as a
Fact in Public Life.
From the St. Louis Giobe-Democrat.

In France the duel is still recognized
fact in public life The church condemns
it, The public shows some little indigna-
ton when a duel has fatal issue, as in
the case of young Capt Mayer last year.
But no man could live down the refusal
to fight under ordinary circumstances.
This prejudice is so great that it controls
even the courts of justice. A few weeks
since a newspaper editor in Tarbes fought
a duel with a city councillor to his own
discontinue He took advantage of the
columns of his paper to accuse his adver-
sary of having used his left hand in the
encOunter-a thing forbidden by the code
in fighting with swords. This statement
brought him suit for libel and he was
condemned to six months Imprisonment
with 1900 francs damages to pay plus the
insertion of the decision of the court in
six newspapers at the choice of the man
whose honor he had impugned. Alphonse
Daudet maintains that the duel will al
ways hold good among the Latin nati6ns
that it belongs to their idea of honor
which no civilization can do away with
In the old times the duel was an affair
Of honor among a professional tribe of gen
tlemen who had little else to do than to
attend to their public honors and private
pleasures. In the army il has always
vigorously observed in Germany as in
France. But in France the duel has
now come to be engineered for the most
part by newspaper men. Often the
ground of offense is something that has
appeared in print, and, at least the quar-
rel is sure to be first ventilated in the pub
lie press. The duel is announced before
hand as an item of news. Often enough
the engagements, the disputes about
~,fI 81.
theatrical side of the combat, are handed
over to the journalists. Then, when the
duel is over, the witnesses" (they are no
longer the seconds y show,their literary
skill in a proces-verbal which is put -ished
gloriously.
THE PRACTICE IS or GERMAN ORIGIN.
It often happens that the duel results
in nothing more than this harmless ex-
hibition Of vanity But too often the
French duel ends in death or serious per-
sonal injuries And, what is worse, il
keeps alive among the higher classes that
same recklessness Of life and cruel appe-
tite for blood which, among the common
people, produced the reign of terror in
the great revolution, the massacres Of the
commune in 1871, and still renders life in
Paris by night insecure in comparison
with London or Berlin.
Whatever Daudet and other French
writers may say in defense of their coun-
trymens practice dueling came to them
not from the Latin races but from the
Germans This primitive people imagined
that God was bound to stand by the right.
When a warrior or high parsonage was
accused of a crime with no one but his
accuser to bear witness to his guilt the ac-
cussr and the accused-or some one to
represent them-were set to fighting the
matter out together. 1t was victory or
death that decided who had told the
truth. This was trial by combat, and
took place by public authority like any
other judicial trial.
This kind Of trial by single combat was
kept up in France as late as 1863, when
Charles TX. finally abolished it. Mean
while private ducls, with nothing judicial
about them, had grown into the customs
of the French people The church re
peatedlY ordered that Christian burial
should be denied to those dying in a duel
This may have restrained individuals,
but il has had little effect on the race.
The essential elements of a duel are
that it should be q private combat be-
tween two persons, decided on By mutual
agreement; its cause should be the
defense Of the honor Of one Of the parties
and the giving satisfaction for wounded
honor by the other. and the combat