Daily Wabash Express, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 14 April 1889 — Page 4

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OLD TIME DDELS IN FRANCE.

The Touchy Members of the Chamber of Deputies and Fighting French Journalists.

SOMETHING OP THE FIRE-EAT-ERS OF THE ANCIENT REGIME.

Stories of Strange Meetings and Bloodless Patties—Revival of the Duello.

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Henry Haynie writes 88 follows to the New York Press, from Paris: a very peculiar kind of parliamentary music is in the air, and things got so lively last week over at the Palais de Bourbon that any number of seconds were appointed to arrange for avenging outraged honor. Why, even M. Fallieree minister of fine arts and public instruc tion, was anxious to cross swords with the writer of a bitter newspaper article, and at a recent afternoon session of the lower house several paires de temoins were told off, for all the world as if they -were so many corporal's guards going out for fatigue duty. Happily, though, the outcome of all these meetings and preliminary conferences was nobody .killed and none even scratched, a Rows iu the French chamber often lead to duels, but the Ferry-Boulanger meeting of a few years back was not a duel, since^it did not grow out of such a quarrel still its motive was so purely political that it has a right to .be classed among those that originated in words exchanged during heated debate. The first of this sort of encounters in the chronicles of French legislative bodies had its origin in the meeting of the national assembly of

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August 11,17'JO. The body was debating the responsibilities of the events of October 5 and of tbe previous year and Oudard made a speech repelling certain insinuations indulged in by Chatelet, which raised a veritable storm of angry cries. The blacks (it was the name then given to the royal ists, who to-day are called "whites behaved in such a manner that Camille Desmoulins was led to exclaim they "seemed like so many devils on whose bare heads a bucket of holy water had been suddenly dashed." Cazalis retorted that all the members of the left were brigands, and he looked so fixedly at Barnave that the latter shouted: "Are you speaking collectively? If you are you are talking like a fool, and I shall not notice it, but if you wish to in suit me personally I will not suffer it." "What I have just said," answered Cazalis, "was intended for you person-

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Barnave replied with an insulting epithet, and the next morning they went to the Bois de Boulogne with their seconds. Barnave shot first and irifesed, while Cazalis' pistol hung fire. "Upon my word I owe you every sort of apology," said the latter, as his Becond, St. Simon, was reloading the weapon. "Say nothing about it. That's what I am here for," replied Barnave, and they began conversing amicably. "I will be ..sorry if I kill you," said Cazalis, "but really you are very much in our way.

What I would like to do would be to give you a wound which would keep you '•away from the assembly for a few weeks." i: "I am more generous," replied Barnave "all I want is to graze you, for you are the only orator on your side, while my absence would hardly be noticed."

His bullet struck Cazalis on the forehead, but as it encountered the stiff brim of the hat he was wearing, it only produced a bruise, and ever after they were good friends.

Some few weeks later the duke de Chartres found occasion to say, during the debate on the abolishment of privileges, that he was quite ready to fight all the chiefs of the popular party, whereupon Charles Lameth took up the challenge. The two members left the hall, proceeded to a courtyard belonging to the building where the assembly was sitting, drew their swords, and fell to with great ferocity. Laraeth was badly wounded in the right forearm and on the breast, and that evening a mob of his admirers sacked the mansion of his ducal antagonist. Not all the duels of the members of the national assembly, however, were fought with political enemies. Occasionally two men of the same party would have ago at each other, and thus Bouille killed De la Tour d'Auvergne in a duel with pistols. In December, 1790, the Count de Latour Maubourg wounded Count Mirabeau so severely that he was confined to his bed for some time. ,While BO laid up, his brother, the great

Mirabeau, called. "I am much obliged to you for your visit," said the count, "and it is all the more agreeable to me for the reason that you will never give me an opportunity to return it."

During the reign of terror there was no dueling, those in power finding it much easier to send their insulters to the guillotine. Under the empire deputies voted laws, but did not discuss them. Quarreling was out of the question, but with the restoration dueling began to flourish again. The first one of any consequence was between General Foy and De Corday. During a speech the general, who was a staunch republican, said: "It is to foreigners that we owe the terror of 1815. If foreign armies had not then occupied France insurrections would have broken out in a hundred places. Do you Buppose that without the foreign bayonets we would have endured the insults, the outrages, the atrocities of a handful of wretches whom we had seen in the dust for thirty years?"

At the word "wretches" all the deputies of the right began to yell, and De Corday managed to raise his voice loud above the others: "Vou are an insolent fellow he exclaimed, addressing the general, and the next morning they met in the Bois de Boulogne. They drew lots for the first shot Chance favored the general, and he fired in the air, whereupon his adversary followed his example.

Another general named Lafond, having spoken of the old army with contempt, was challenged by Adam de la Pommeraye. They fought with pistols, but neither was touched, as was the result, also of an encounter between Frobin des Isnards and Benjamin Constant, who fought seated in arm chairs, placed ten paces apart, Constant being too weak at the time to stand up. In 1822, while Largbit was protesting against an order of the minister of war forbidding the artillery officers garrisoned at Strasbourg for making any complaints, even when they had legal grounds for doing so, Bugeaud called out, "The first duty of a soldier is to obey." "Must he obey even to the point of making a jailer of himself?" asked, with a sneer, deputy named Dulong, allud-

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Marshal Soult, while minister, was violently criticised by De Briqueville, for which the latter was challenged by the marshal's son. They fought with swords, but got so close together that they were unable to use their weapons, whereupon the seconds put an end to the struggle. In April, ]837, Mathieu de la Radorte seriously wounded Vienot, editor of LB Corsaire, in a duel growing out of an article on the allowances of the Duke de Nemours. The following year there was an encounter between a deputy named Siory and M. Lorois, prefect of Morbiham, in which both were badly wounded. In 1842 a deputy named Lacrosse challenged Gamier de Cassagnac for an article which had appeared in the Globe, and received a pistol ball in his thigh for his trouble. Then things grew peaceful again until after the revolution of 1848, when Leo de Laborde re-opened the dueling era by running a colleague named Gent through the arm. Bourbosson inflicted a similar wound on Raynaud Lagardette, who, he believed, was responsible for some jokes at his expense, that had appeared in Charivari. Resultless duels with pistols took place between Gondchaux and General Baraguay d'Hilliers also between Felix Pyot and Proudhon, the philosopher, who said that he went out only because the world was still too Btupid to understand him if he refused. General Clement Thomas fought with his colleague, de Coetlogon, of the chamber, because of an article by the latter in Le Corsaire on the petition of the member of the right for a legislative in place of a constituents assembly. They fought with swords and both were wounded.

Lsdru Rollin and Deujoy, in the course of a debate on socialism, became so abusive of eaeh other that challenges were exchanged, but tbe duel, fought with pistols, was without result. This was also the case with the meeting between M. Thiers and Bixio, although the excuse by the friends of the latter for his failure to hit the famous statesman was that he aimed for a man and not for a dwarf. For having eulogized the Municipal guard in the legislative assembly in 1849, Segor d'Auguesseau had to fight Bertholon, and the same speech was also the cause of a duel between Berard and Brives. A duel with cavalry sabers, between Corslin and Testelin, in which the former was wounded in the head, grew out of a debate on the law of transportation. Deputies Veeu and Bouvet exchanged shots harmlessly in May, 1851, and in July Valentin was badly wounded in the leg by Calry. In August A. Dupont, brother of Paul Dupont, the deputy, was killed because of a letter he wrote, which gave offense to Chevoix.

During the reign of Napoleon III. there were no legislative duels, but they recommenced once more with the Third Republic, which has already seen ten or a dozen of them, the more notable onee being those between Paul de Cassagnac and Perrin, Laiseant and De la Rochette, De Fourton and Gambetta, and General

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mandant of the citadel of Blaye, where the Duchess de Berri was imprisoned. Bugeaud went up to Dulong and demanded an explanation. This was given, and the general expressed himself satisfied, but a distorted account of the incident having been published, he insisted on a duel, which resulted fatally to the civilian. "His white cravat showed above his coat collar, and it was at that I aimed," explained the victor to some one who asked how he managed to hit Dulong over the left eye.

Now, why should a deputy fight for such a trifle, or a journalist stand up to be killed by a confrere for what was probably a slip of the pen? One of the most promising young novelists in France was thus murdered by an insignificant person, because the latter fancied himself insulted in two lines, which all of us have long since forgotten. As for what is called the "dignity" of the affair, it is scarcely well supported by persons who have not the faintest notion how to hold a sword or load and fire a pistol.

Still, for all I can say, French journalists will go on being just as ready to fight duels as are their law-making friends, the deputies. Love of encounter seems to be a born feeling in these people. It was Montaigne, you know, who said: "Put three Frenchmen in the Libyan desert, and they would not be there a month without fighting.'' "Then why is it there are so many duels which are dangerlees?

Well, I don't know unless it is because at sword play one man is more skillful than the other. An expert fencer can easily disarm his adversary, or inflict a wound that is enough to put an end to tbe conflict, while two men who are equal can parry and thrust with each other for half an hour and avoid all serious peril. With the pistol it is much more awkward, sometimes. There may be a bad hit, and homicide has happened, but as a rule the conditions of a duel forbid delay, taking aim being always prohibited, and when the signal is given the shot must be fired. Fine marksmen miss each other, and the reason, therefore, is perhaps not difficult to find. "I have hit the target this morning at twenty paces six times running," said an acquaintance the other day. We were in Gaston Renette's shooting gallery, in the Avenue d'Antin, and the gentleman who spoke was a new-comer from America. "But the target had not another pistol pointed at you," remarked, very quietly. Chevalier Ira Paine, who was present giving a lesson to your correspondent.

Another Meanest Man.

A Boston drummer says: "One of the meanest men it ever was my misfortune to have any dealings with was a retail grocer, who at the time was selling a poor woman three pounds of common crackers for 25 cents, for which he paid at the rate of six cents per pound, but to make his scales exactly balance he found it necessary to break a cracker in two. As this man finally met death by falliwr down Btairs and breaking his neck, I thought he received only his just dues."

FELIX MENDELSSOHN, Op. 19, No. &

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Boulanger's three with De Lareinty, Jules Ferry and Floquet, in one of which he got decidedly the worst of the encounter.

Now, nearly all of these deputy duels were for puerile and ridiculous causes. A member, speaking in the chamber, worrying through interruptions that asBail him from all sides, has a word shot at him like an arrow. He replies with heat, gives tit for tat, and on descending from the tribune receives a couple of seconds, who demand to know his meaning. In the French parliament an expression that in any other assembly would be considered satirical, becomes an injury, only to be wiped out by blood that is, if the words are used in the tribune. The person addressed gets red with rage, witnesses are called, and 500 members are taken into the "secret" that there is going to be an "affaire d'honneur."

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-.v-~ St I saw a flash of sunlight Fall on a down nest, When the great red ran was quivering,

Sinking into the west I stopped o'er abed of blossoms And plucked a violet blue Enfolded close In Its petals

There glistened a droo of dew.

I heard a tender love song Ab

it floated on the breeze

It was only the soft wind sighing A melody through the trees. There sounded a gentle footsteeo,

There rustled a fluttering wiBg I turned, and lo! In the pathwar Stood the beautifulgoddess. Spring. —[Godey's Ladies' Book.

GIRLS AND LATCH KEYS.

Intricate Way in Which tbe Dear Creatures Let Themselves In. If you have never had the pleasure of watching a woman open her front door by means of a latch key it is worth dawldling away the fifteen minutes she requires for the operation to be amused at the thorough femininity of her actions, says the New Orleans Picayune. The other evening, shortly before dusk, a bright faced, uick stepping girl, buttoned^ up in an English walking jacket, swinging along parasol and carrying half a dozen small parcels, passed quickly by on Camp steet to run up a flight of stone steps and open siege upon the front entrance with tbe skeleton instrument concealed somewhere about her person.

First she shifted -the responsibility of purse, packages, umbrella, and handkerchief on one hand, while she used the other to feel in both coat pockets for the key. They failed to produce it, and by that means one bundle and the tiresome parasol lay half way down the stoop. With slightly flushed cheeks the girl picked up the awkward parachute, leaned it up in one corner, took a firmer hold on the slippery parcels, and examined the palms of her snugly fitting gloves. The process gave her handkerchief to the breeze, and, mistaking the trifle for a miniature sail, the zephyr playfully caught it up and helped it flutter a dozen paces down the street. By this time a tense expression had grown about the young lwly's lips she paid no heed to the results of an evening's industrious shopping now lying scattered at her feet, but plunged boldly into the intricacies of her smooth draperies and instituted instant search for a secret pocket. With nervous fingers she pulled at one fold after another until finally a section gave way, and with a lurch her hand disappeared in the depthB of come hidden reoees.

The triumphant expression beginning to dawn over the girl's features gave way first to one of dismay and then growing mortification aa memory seemed to point to the exact spot on her dressing table from which ehe had not taken her key that afternoon. Indignant and disgusted, this independent young woman gave a vicious tug to the bell, bowed humbly as a sympathetic man gathered up and restored her disordered belongings, and with meek head passed out of sight through the door held open by the smiling maid.

What Ailed the Kitchen.

Mistress—Mercy on me, what a kitchen! Every pot, pan and dish is dirty, the table looks like a junk shop, and—why it will take you a week to get things cleaned upt What have you been doing?

Servant—Sure, mum, the young led-

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So it came that one day, with a small box and a portmanteau, the fugitives arrived at Monte Carlo and put up in a little hotel where for 8 francs a day you c&n have bed and board. They had only a few hundred franca with them. In the letter which they had left behind they explained that from the first their arrangements were complete. They foresaw the possibilities of the situation. They would play until they had won enough to go to America, or they would lose all, and if they lost all they would die together and give their friends no further trouble about them.

They

were a few days only in Monte

Carlo. They risked their louis only a few at a time, and they spent the remainder of the days and evenings in strolling about the romantic glades and quiet pathways of the beautiful gardens whispering together of love and looking into each other's eyee.

The end came quickly. One evening they went up in the soft moonlight to the fairyland of Monte Carlo. They entered the Casino. They had come to their last few golden coins. One by one the crouper's remorseless rake swept them away, and then the lovers went out from the hot crowded rooms, out from the glare of the chandeliers and the swinging lamps, into the tender moonlight again. Down. "the staircase of fortune" arm in arm they went, along the glorious marble terraces that look upon the sea, on to where at the foot of the great rock on which Monaco stands there lies the Condamine. It was their last walk together. The lovers were going home to die.

That night, in some way which I was unable to ascertain, the guilty and ruined man and woman obtained some charcoal and got it into their bedroom. Then they closed the windows and doors and prepared for death. They wrote a letter—a letter which an official assured me was so touching that ss he read it in the room where they lay dead the tears ran down hiB cheeks. Then the girl— ahe was but a girl—dressed herself in snowy white and placed in her breast a sweet bouquet of violets. Then the charcoal was lighted and the lovers laid themselves otat for death, side by side, and passed dreamily into sleep, from sleep to death, and from death to judgment.

It is not a moral atory it is not anew story. I told it simply as it happened.

The bright atar Canopus emits more than one thousand five hundred times the light of our sun. Sirius is at such a distance that its light occupies nearly nine years in reaching us, and its real brightness is that of Bixty-three suns.

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dies has judt been down here showing me how they roast a potato at the cooking school—[New York Weekly.

LOVE, CARDS AND DEATH.

Oiie of the Many Touching: Romances to be Found at Monte Carlo. A young married man of Lyons fell in love with a young married woman, says the London Raferee. They met secretly, adored each other, and 8greed to flee together—to put the seas between themselves and their families. But there was a slight difficulty in the way. They had little money for a long journey, and they wanted to be far, far away in America for choice. Then the idea came to the man that they would take their small capital of a few hundred francs and go to Monte Carlo and make it into a fortune—a fortune which would enable them to live in peace and plenty on afar off shore.

jA TRAVELING MOUNTAIN.

That it is in motion is the last thought which would be likely to suggest itself to the mind of any one passing it yet it is a well established fact that this entire mountain is moving slowly, but steadily toward the river,_ as if it had a deliberate purpose some time in the future to dam the Columbia and form a great lake from the Cascades to the Dalles. The Indian traditions indicate immense movements of the mountains hereabouts, long before white men came to Oregon, and the early settlers, immigrants many of them from New England, gave the above described mountainous ridge the name of "traveling mountain," or "sliding mountain."

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One That Might Have Saved Mahomet tbe Trouble of a Jearney. Such a mountain is found at the Cascades of the Columbia, Ore. It is a huge triple-peaked mass of dark brown basalt, six or eight miles in length, where it fronts the river and rises to a height of almost two thousand feet above the water.

In its forward and downward movement, the forests along the base of the ridge had become submerged in the river. Large tree stubs can be seen standing deep in the water on this shore. The railway engineers and the track men find that the line of the railroad, which skirts the foot of the mountain, is being continually forced out of place. At certain points the roadbed and rails have been pushed eight or ten feet out of line in the course of a few years.

The mountain iB manifestly moving upon the river, and geologists attribute this strange phenomenon to the fact thai the basalt which constitutes the bulk of the mountain, rests on a substratum of conglomerate, or of soft sandstone, which the deep, swift current of the mighty river is constantly wearing away or that this softer subrock is of itself yielding, at great depths, to the enormous weight of the harder material above it.

A ship canal and a series of very expensive locks for facilitating navigation on the Columbia have been determined at the Cascades abreast of this ridge, and large appropriations of money from the national treasury have been made for the work by congress. It remains to be seen how "traveling mountain" will affect the heavy masonry offtbese structures.

A Pretty Clrl's Unfortunate Mishap. Miss Grace Evans, a beautiful young lady of pleasing address, came here recently from Rockford, 111., to visit friends on Cass avenue.

Last Thursday afternoon a party of ladiee visited the Princess rink to see the buffaloes and Dr. Carver. Miss Evans was among them.

The young lady particularly admired tbe seal cow, and taking off her glove she fed it carrots until she grew tired of the pastime.

She then resumed her glove, but not before Or. Carver had noticed a handsome diamond ring on her fingec Ahe seal cow, which is quite tame, wanted more carrots, and the young lady reached it another piece in her gloved

She laughed heartily when the buffalo oow wrapped her long tongue around the glove and swallowsd it with the carrot. But the next moment her laughter was changed to tears, as she missed a 1300 diamond ring from her finger.

The seal cow had swallowed it with the glove, and the girl from the anarchy

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state wept as if her heart would break. Dr. Carver offered her the diamond ring he wore himself, or another as good. as the cow had swallowed, but she insisted that no other ring could be as valuable or take the place of the one lost, and the supposition is that it was a guge diamond.—[Detroit Sun.

GOSSIP ABOUT WOMEN.

Natick, Mass., has elected three women on its school board. Mrs. Morton's exquisite taste is proverbial among fashionable circles.

Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher is soon to begin housekeeping in Brooklyn. Olive Logan thinks that the domestic economy of the French consists in doing without things.

Mrs. Wanamaker, in Paris, is said to receive flowers from her Philadelphia home each week.

Mary Kyle Dallas, who has been writing serials for a quarter of a century, has just published her first book.

Fiery-tongued gossip says there is jealousy between Mrs. Joseph Chamberlain and Lady Randolph Churchill.

The entertainments given jointly by Mrs. Lippincott (Grace Greenwood) and Miss Story are most successful. ,Thir!y-five thousand dollars has been collected for the widow and daughter of Matthew Arnold by Lord Coleridge.

Mrs. Mary A. Lathrop, of Michigan, has been dubbed by her admirers "the Daniel Webster of the feminine world."

In the Santa Clara, Cal., goldmines there are women who work by the side of the men hunting for the glittering nuggets.

Empress Victoria of Germany and the queen of Italy are said to be the two cleverest and most highly educated women in Europe.

The display of women's work at the coming international exposition in Paris will include exhibits from over thirty countries.

Baroness Vetsera and Mile. Loesinger are the latest in the long line of women who have infatuated the rulers and magnates of the world.

In her new book Mme. Blavatsky contends that Americans are destined to form anew race, which will succeed the present race of Europeans.

Two Texan women are the largest individual stock owners in the world. The Widow Callahan owns 50,000 sheep. Mrs. Rogers is worth about one million dollars.

Proof of Durability.

Carpet Dealer—Yes, madam, that is a fine stair carpet, and very durable. Woman—Will it last well?

Carpet Dealer—Madam, fourteen years ago Isold a piece of that carpet to a woman, and she used it ten years steady.

Woman—Then did she throw it away? Carpet Dealer—No, madam I should say not. For the last four years her boy has worn it for every-day pants.—[Boston Budget.

DUeaie-Spre»dio( Fralt,

The ways of spreading disease are innumerable. A member of the Boston poor board, on visiting an Italian family, found some half a dozen bunches of bananas suspended from the, ceiling of a room in which a child had a short time before died of diphtheria.

Weil, Wbatilezt?

London is to have an exhibition of "antique and historical shoes." ..

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