Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1901 — An Affair of Honor. [ARTICLE]

An Affair of Honor.

Count Boni de Castellane has met M. de Rodays on the field of honor and inflicted upon him a wound which will give him some inconvenience and lay him up for a week. This settles matters very clearly; M. de Castellane is Innocent of the charges which de Rodays brought against him. The presence of his bullet in his adversary’s body affords its own convincing proof. The wound is sufficiently serious to show this, and yet not grave enough to give ground for the belief that M. de Rodays in his misrepresentations was guilty of wilful falsehood. If he had intentionally the truth undoubtedly would have been shown on the dueling field and M. de Rodays would have been lucky to get

off with his life. As it is, the result affords proof of both Boni’s innocence and of the unintentional character of De Roday’s wrongdoing. The shallowness of the latter’s claims 1b exposed in the fact that he did not even hit his adversary. Had he done so the verdict against Castellane would have been overwhelming. If each had shot the other it would have been known also that while Boni was guilty as charged his opponent was actuated by malign motives in making the charges. Fortunately it is unnecessary to speculate upon this proposition. M. de Rodays who was first punched into fighting and then shot for doing so, may not be ready to view the matter

in a proper and unprejudiced spirit, but Boni’s Innocence has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of such persons as still believe that the duel is not merely a foolish and wicked survival of an age of barbarism.