Historical story

1700:Chronicle of a Duel ... in Happy End

A duel

In the number 69 of the Storica magazine (November 2014) there is an interesting service entirely dedicated to the duel, the same one from which I drew some of the indications I used to write this post https://www.pilloledistoria.it/9626/storia-contemporanea/evariste-galois-giovane-matematico-forse-mori-amore.

In the dossier, among the various information reported, there is also the chronicle of a duel that took place in the 18th century as told by one of its protagonists, the noble Paul de Gondi, later Cardinal de Retz, who at the age of twenty had fought on the tip of the sword with another aristocrat, the Count of Harcourt, the love of Madame du Chatelet, future companion of the great philosopher Voltaire.

Here is the testimony of de Gondi:

We fought in the meadows beyond the suburb of Saint Marcel. He brushed my chest with the blade and hit me. I fell to the ground and ran the risk of being unsuccessful, but the sword fell from his hand. I tried to grab mine short to hit him in the kidney. But he was bigger and much stronger:he pressed my arm to the ground and pinned me. We were standing there, unable to harm each other, when he said, “Let's get up, it's not okay to fight like that. You are a nice guy. I respect you and I have no problems, in these conditions, to say that I had no intention of provoking you ".

In short, a duel between gentlemen, fortunately ended well.