Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1911 — DUEL TURNED INTO JOKE [ARTICLE]

DUEL TURNED INTO JOKE

Ridiculous Affair That Made Dueling < Much Less Honorable Than ft J3rte* Was, . In the swashbuckling days of the early part of the nineteenth century th6| dueling hero in France was Marquis Merle de Sainte-Marie, whose affairs of honor were almost incessant. One of these is skid to have been so ridiculous that it helped to set in motion the current of feeling that has since made dueling so much less honorable than it once was. It appears that one day there called upon the marquis one Pierrot d’lsaac, hirngelf a famous duelist. Now, in French,' pierrot means sparrow and merle means blackbird. O’lsaac struck himself on the chest with emphatic dignity. “Marquis,” said he, “I am a Bonapartist and you are a royalist. Moreover, I am the Sparrow and yon are the Blackbird. It seems to me that there is one bird of us too many." "I quite agree with you, monsieur,** politely replied the marquis, “and my choice is pistols, and, as is appropriate for birds of our species, let us fight in the trees!" Pierrot d’lsaac was agreeable to this suggestion, and, as, if it were not a sufficiently ridiculous thing that one man should challenge another because his name was Sparrow and the other Blackbird, the due. was actually fought from trees. The seconds stood on the ground below. V . At a given signal the pistols were fired and there was a rustling among the leaves of one of the chestnut trees. Pierrot d’lsaac came tumbling to the ground “like a ripe chestnut,” as one of Sainte-Marie, in a facetious mood, began to chirp triumphantly, in imitation of the song of the blackbird. D’lsaac waited till he had recovered from his wound and then challenged Sainte-Marie for the chirp. ,■ This time there was nothing amusing abont the encounter. It was fought with swords, and Sainte-Marie was badly wounded. The sparrow had avenged himself on the blackbird.