In all regiments, there is a man whom the soldiers respect at least as much as their colonel, and this man is the fencing-master. He has several lieutenants who, under the name of assistants, exercise a part of that moral authority which the great master delegates to them. On my arrival in the regiment, I requested M. Malta … to give me lessons in his art which I knew very imperfectly, and he taught me by rule how one should go about it to kill his man without ever being killed. For, as M. Jourdain’s master has so well put it: “The whole secret of fencing consists of two things: in giving and not receiving. Now, so as not to receive, turn the sword of your adversary from the line of your body, which only depends on a little motion of the wrist, either inward, or outward.”
M. Malta … who, I believe, had never read the “Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” made use of exactly the same language, which might prove, were it necessary, that Moliere was well acquainted with the human heart. He was a good eccentric; I am speaking of M. Malta … the things of which he boasted most, and which he regarded as claims to glory, were precisely those that a man of honor would have been ashamed to confess. He had sought a quarrel with all the most famous of his time, and he had killed them by the dozen.… I believe that he exaggerated the number of the dead somewhat; however, if one spoke in his presence of some celebrated fighter, I can affirm that his greatest desire was to measure himself with him. I was tractable at his lessons and he appeared very well pleased with my progress. “Lieutenant,” said he to me one day, “if you continue this way, in two months I shall teach you politeness.” By this he meant that he would teach me the salute and all the presences of courtesy that ordinarily precede a fencing match.
When we had reached the point where I could learn politeness, M. Malta … always urged me to make big eyes while saluting: “Lieutenant, open your eyes, … more … still more.… When you salute, you must open your eyes like the crystals of a watch; you must show that you’re present.” When we wished to arouse his anger, we praised before him the fencing-masters of the other regiments; then M. Malta … would shrug his shoulders as a sign of contempt, and always ended by saying: “Not one of those people would be worthy of sweeping my fencing-hall.”
Among his assistants, Dupre, a drummer, held a very distinguished place; he was his coadjutor, his successor, the heir-apparent of that great office. In the taverns, Dupre made the firstcomer buy him a drink, or else he invited the reluctant individual to follow him on the field to refresh themselves with sword blows; it was his favorite expression. Never did more insolent and blustering personage wear the shako on his ear.
“You see that cuirassier drinking alone,” said Dupre one day to his comrade l’Etoile, “wait a bit, I am going to demolish him.”
“Be careful! should he fall on you, you would be crushed.”
“My sword will compel him to fall on his back.”
And Dupre, approaching, seizes the glass of the man with the jacket of steel and drinks down its contents without stopping to breathe. It is but right to tell you that a fighting footsoldier always prefers to pick a quarrel with a horseman; the horseman is his natural enemy. Among the men on horseback, he will choose the cuirassier, especially if the latter is very tall and stout; if he kills him, the act deserves greater praise.
“Comrade, you are making a mistake.”
“Rather it is you who do not see clearly.”
“You take me for someone else.”
“Not at all, my dear, it is done on purpose.”
“Then you are trying to pick a quarrel with me?”
“Of course; look, he is beginning to notice it.”
“If I put you in my boot, it will serve you as a guard-room.”
“Yes, but you have to put me in it first, and you will be dead before that happens.”
“Mille tonnerres!”
“No noise, my friend, softly, let us not shout;
between Frenchmen there is a way of settling matters; come this way to show me your boot.”
“And my sword at the same time.”
Five minutes after, the cuirassier was dead.
However, one fine day Dupre found his master: the sword of a young recruit ran him through. The news was brought to us; everybody was delighted to hear it; everyone said that the blackguard had only what he deserved. Nevertheless the surgeon-major betook himself on the field of battle; he wanted to withdraw the steel from the wound to apply a dressing; the thing was at first considered impossible, because the weight of the body in falling, had bent the point of the sword. It was necessary to call the armorer who straightened it. The operation was a long one; the wretched fellow must have suffered horribly; nothing, however, appeared on his face; on the contrary, while jesting with those present, he urged the surgeon to do his duty well. The sword was withdrawn, the wound bandaged; Dupre remained two months in the hospital and then … he came out more of a blackguard than ever. One hundred thousand good people would have died of such a wound. Dupre did not. Besides, it is remarkable that all these fighters were ordinarily very bad soldiers; the man who, counting on his strength, seeks to pick a quarrel with the weak, is necessarily a coward. On the days of battles, these blusterers always had a new pretext for remaining behind; they were to be seen only the following day.
A recruit in their place would have received la savate, but the reason they offered and always at the point of the sword closed the mouth of the whole company.
The drummer is in general a duelist, a fencingmaster or at least an assistant master. The drummer is quarrelsome, hard to get along with, a banterer, always ready to draw his sword; he is the Paris gamin in uniform. Carrying no gun, having a sword as a sole weapon; he caresses it, polishes it, handles it as long as the day lasts, and when the occasion comes to draw, the blade does not stick in the scabbard. Not only is he clever in handling the broadsword, but he also knows how to handle the small sword. When he travels, look at the top of his knapsack: two capped foils, rolled up in his cape, present to the amateur their sharpened points adorned with two corks to prevent rusting.
As long as he is in the garrison, the drummer-assistant carries an orderly’s short saber, he has to; should he lose it, he would be compelled to buy another at the regiment store. But as soon as a campaign is begun, he throws far away from him that vulgar blade to put in its place an awl which he is very careful to mount en quarte. It is by this token that one recognizes all the fiends of a regiment; they all have the handle of the orderly’s sword, but a blade as long as an ell at every step strikes their right heel. Indeed, it is not comfortable in marching, but one must suffer some inconvenience if one wishes to affect a ferocious air. They make themselves feared, or at least they think so, and that’s a great pleasure for these gentlemen.
I have seen fencing-masters fight together seriously, without motive, without hatred, without a reason capable of causing a duel. They fought to try their strength; one of them was killed; the other strutted about adding one more triumph to his past exploits. I have seen two of these who in a match, quarreling over a denied pass, of common accord left their foils for their swords, and fought in the presence of fifty spectators who allowed them to do it. “You will not deny that one!” said the victor as he ran his adversary through. It would be truly difficult to deny a sword thrust which pierced your chest. A fencingmaster had placed over his door this singular sign: “Fighting here from ten to four.” It was very convenient for the amateurs: they were always sure to find a champion ready to face them.
One day I was crossing the bridge of Stettin; I was on my way to the faubourg Lastadie; there I met an assistant, he was a sapper, a drunken, quarrelsome fellow; he combined all these qualities in one person; to-day such a person is called a pluralist. Our man had been drinking as usual, he was speaking to himself, zigzagging, and, to use a soldiers’ expression, he was on bad terms with equilibrium and was making scallops.
“How!” he was saying while pulling out the hair of his long beard, “shall I not find out of the whole garrison a good fellow to face me? not one who will permit me to cut a button-hole in the middle of his stomach? Formerly I should have found a hundred ready to take sword in hand; to-day not one; you are all soldiers of the pope. If I were the Emperor, I would put you before a cannon and set it off to teach you manners.”
“Well! what’s the matter, friend? “asked one of his comrades whom he met fishing at the end of the bridge.
“What’s the matter? you ask me what’s the matter? Well, I’ll tell you what’s the matter. It is that for the past two hours I have been looking for some good fellow willing to be freshened up by a few sword thrusts, and I have found none; I provoke them all and not one gets angry.”
“If you wish it, I am ready to do you that service.”
“Good, that’s what I call speaking! I had always said that one could count on you. Let me embrace you. You are a Frenchman, you are a friend; that’s the kind of a comrade to have.”
“Wait, let me take in my line, and I’m with you.”
“Ah! the good fellow! he is a grenadier! We shall go yonder in that small wood, near the road to Dam; we shall be alone; no one will disturb us; it will be very comfortable, we shall fight as we please. Your sword is sharp, is it not?” “Don’t worry!”
“Good, mine cuts better than the razors of the company’s barber.”
“That’s the way it should be. Let’s be off.”
I thought it was a joke and that the fisherman, being in full possession of his senses, had only agreed with the drunkard so as to take him home. Nothing of the sort; in the evening I heard that the combat had taken place seriously, and that my jolly dogs, both wounded in the face, had returned to the barracks, arm in arm, each one proclaiming the other his best friend.
I know that the public will not believe me; if they had the occasion to study the ways of garrisons and of guardhouses, they would see things more startling than this. But let us go farther up in military hierarchy; I am going to tell you about a scene of which I was a witness in Paris. An officer of my company has a quarrel one evening on the boulevard with a captain who lived at Courbevoie. The discussion becomes heated and they make an appointment for the next day at the Bois de Boulogne. It was almost midnight, the captain was going to leave us, when we called his attention to a storm which was about to break. He replies that at this hour he would not be admitted in a rooming-house: “I am going to hire a cabriolet,” he adds; “besides, I am not afraid of the storm.” Then his adversary approaches and says to him:
“Stay here, you will sleep with me, I offer you a half of my bed. We shall leave together for the Bois de Boulogne, it will be much more convenient, neither one will have to wait for the other.”
“I accept. But we shall fight.”
“Would I otherwise have offered you half of my bed?”
Our two men went to bed together, talked of politics, maneuvers, love affairs, and the next morning, after having eaten some cold chicken and drunk a bottle of champagne, they merrily went to try and cut each other’s throats. One of them was gravely wounded, but did not die.
I have known many officers who were a prey to duellomania; they thought themselves obliged to have an affair of honor every month.
We also had generals who had the same tastes; to kill a man in a duel was a pastime with them. They did not digest the less well on that account, and they only slept the better; it was with them as it is with us when we kill a few partridges. A general whom I do not wish to name was fighting a pistol duel with a young lawyer. “You are the offended party, monsieur, fire first, it is your right, but try to aim straight, for if you miss me, you are a dead man.” The young man fired. “Imbecile! your bullet is in the trees, and mine is going to hit the third button of your coat, it will go through your heart, you will not suffer.” As the cat which prolongs the agony of a mouse held in its paws, the general took a long and careful aim. “Yes,” he said, “it is too bad to die at thirty, with fine prospects, fame at the bar, a mistress.… I understand your regrets … you should not have crossed my path. Come, say good-bye.” A shot was heard: the young man was dead.
At Ragusa, thirty officers were assembled at a general’s; while lunching, duels were discussed, pistol shooting; each cited some remarkable feat. One killed sparrows on the fly, another split bullets on the blade of a knife. The general sees a grenadier passing in the street and calls him in. On entering, the soldier puts in his pocket a short pipe which a moment before he held in his mouth. “Keep your pipe,” says the general; “continue to smoke, stand in the position of a soldier without weapons, still, head high, attention! Turn to the right! Don’t move!” At this moment the general takes a pistol, fires and breaks the pipe in the smoker’s mouth.
“Here is a louts with which to drink. Gentlemen, this is what I call shooting with a pistol.”
“Thank you, general,” said the astounded grenadier; “another time, I shall not smoke when coming to your house.”
M. Hemere, the man of the mill, he who consulted Laborie’s map with so much success, was a consummate fighter. Of a very small size, of a teasing disposition, he thought that people were always making game of him; the least gesture was misunderstood; always asking for an explanation, he obtained it sometimes; but, very often, these quarrels without motive, thanks to the intervention of the witnesses, ended on the field by an explanation and without recourse to the sword.
To finish with M. Hemere, I shall say that owing to his continual teasing and getting angry at trifles, he found someone who meant business. The poor devil died in a duel, on the eve of the battle of Wagram.
During the forty days which preceded that great day, the entire army was working at the fortifications of the island of Lobau. Our soldiers were paid at the rate of fifty centimes a day. A young officer of engineers, in charge of the inspection of the works, seeing that the grenadiers rested too long, reproached them for it. The latter immediately went to complain to their captain of the manner in which M. Problem had treated them. It is thus that they designate the officers of engineers of whom they think very little.
The captain, furious that someone else should dare to lecture his grenadiers, curls up his moustache and hastens to the officer to ask an explanation of his language. He was one of those brave fellows who speak only of killing and cutting in two, one of those men, in short, who, to use the expression of Moliere, are all sword thrusts and whom our soldiers call dealers in sudden deaths.
“Monsieur, you have dared to say that my grenadiers …”
“Do not work. Yes, monsieur, and that’s the truth.”
“I shall teach you, my little greenhorn, to hold your tongue.”
“Yes, greenhorn, recruit, and I shall prove it to you presently.”
“I say, captain! Do you imagine that you frighten me with your great moustachios? You no doubt think yourself very terrible because you haven’t shaved for two weeks? But learn, monsieur, that if I wished, I myself could go without shaving.”
“Ah! you pretend to make fun of me! We shall see if you will be in a humor to jest when I shall have run you through.”
“Softly, monsieur! If we should come to that, I hope to be there.”
“No explanation: on guard!”
“On guard, I am willing; but I wish to say something: I am cool, you are angry, the match would be unequal; let us wait until to-morrow.”
“To-morrow? to-morrow, you will have been dead twenty-four hours, I shall already have eaten your liver, I shall have digested your conscience. On guard! I want my grenadiers to bury you under your fortifications, then they’ll work with a will.”
“You wish it, monsieur, I am ready.”
The young pupil of the Polytechnic School and the moustachiod captain draw their swords and the fight begins in the midst of the laborers who are delighted to leave the shovel and pick for an instant and see the vexatious overseer punished.
At the captain’s first lunge, the officer of engineers warded the blow; his sword falling on the hand of his adversary, touched the little finger which was almost cut off.
“You are wounded, monsieur,” he said to him; “we shall stop right here, if it suits you.”
“Ah! scoundrel! do you not know that coups de manchette are not allowed?”
“Monsieur, I am Ignorant of everything, it is the first time I fight; I strike wherever I can, do the same.”
“Ah! Recruit, I am going to give you a lesson which you’ll remember!”
“Monsieur, you are wounded; I have too much advantage over you, let us postpone this affair.”
“On guard, scoundrel, on guard!”
“Here I am!”
After a few thrusts and parries, the captain received a wound which, beginning at the top of the thigh, stopped only at the knee. He was compelled to cease the combat, but nothing can be compared to the anger he felt at having been wounded twice by a young man without a moustache! a greenhorn! a recruit!
“I shall have my revenge,” he said to him; “I’ll fix you later; I’ll look for you; were you at the devil’s, and we shall see … recruit, if coups de manchette will still be in your favour.”
They carried away the captain, who was ill a long time: finally he recovered; but during the moments of fever which he suffered, he was continually heard repeating: “A recruit, a d greenhorn! a dirty coup de manchette!!”
At Dantzig a captain had just received from the quartermaster the arrears of his pay, in the neighborhood of 1,500 francs. He was on his way home, but recalling that he was on guard duty, and that it was time to report at the barracks, he gives the bag of ecus to his lieutenant: “Since you are going home,” said he to him, “and we are neighbors, be kind enough to give this money to my wife.”
The lieutenant immediately goes to the lady’s home, and on entering lays on the table the bag of money. He talks, makes himself agreeable, and from one thing to another, he makes a declaration of love. Spurned at first, he does not lose courage, he plays the lover well, the passionate man; he becomes excited, he throws himself at the feet of his captain’s wife. No sacrifice will be too great to make her listen to his plea. He would give his life for a quarter of an hour’s happiness. “I have just received a year’s pay, and if you wish these 1,500 francs, they are yours.”
Many women would have considered the proposition very impertinent: this one judged it differently; her husband gave her for the purchase of her dresses only what was absolutely necessary, and although very pretty, she always found herself thrown into the shade at all receptions. The demon of coquetry caused her to see in that 1,500 francs dresses, hats, lace collars and flounces, trifles which women love above all things. In turn she might now shine; with a few falsehoods and cunning her husband would suspect nothing. The lieutenant took advantage of this moment of hesitation, he became pressing and the lady surrendered.
The next day, the captain, on coming off guard, meets the young officer, they have a dispute over service matters, harsh words are spoken, and each returns home.
On reaching his house, the captain was in an angry mood.
“What’s the matter, my dear?”
“That rascal, he’ll hear from me!”
“Who?”
“My lieutenant; I have just put him under arrest for two weeks.” “What for?”
“You will know it later. Where are the 1,500 francs?”
“What?” says the wife, thunderstruck. “Didn’t he give you 1,500 francs?” He asked, shouting like a madman. “What do you mean?”
“Not another word! Did he give them to you, yes or no?”
“There they are!” said the wife falling at the knees of her husband. “Mercy, forgive me! he took advantage of a moment of weakness …”
“What’s that you say?”
“That he is a wretch to have told you.”
If the captain was angry on entering, imagine the fit which followed when he had discovered this strange secret in this equally strange manner. There was an explanation, the woman confessed everything so as to obtain her pardon, having already admitted too much to permit of her retracting. These 1,500 francs asked for by her husband had led her to believe that the lieutenant was a babbler.
“He will die by my hand only,” she said.
“Leave him to me, I am going to punish him, and after that we shall settle our score.”
The offended husband rushed to his rival’s quarters; they go on the field, swords are drawn; two minutes later the captain was dead.
—From Recollections of An Officer of Napoleon’s Army by Captain Elzèar Blaze. In a genre of literature dominated by Generals and higher ranking commanders, this military memoir was written by a man who spent most of his career in the trenches. Alternately criticized and celebrated for its sentimental nature, Blaze’s memoir remains an uncommon document.