the same Regulations, which you are now desired to follow. And that it may appear, how highly reasonable this Request is; you are likewise desired to take the following Remonstrance into your Consideration: That the Valour and Steadiness of Men of Honour: are the grand Support of all States and Kingdoms, is a Truth not to be denied; and that not only the Peace and Tranquility, and all the Blessings we enjoy, but likewise the King's Crown and Safety would be precarious without them, is as unquestionable. For this Reason all wise Princes, Magistrates and Governours, will ever take all imaginable Care, on the one Hand, to cultivate and encourage the most noble Principle of Honour, and, on the other, to encrease the Numbers of the worthy Posessors of it, by favouring and on all Occasions shewing them the most tender Affection, as well as highest Esteem. It is easy then to be imagin'd, that a Monarch, who loves his People, and has the Interest of his Nation at Heart, must be sensibly afflicted to see it become a common Practice for such valuable Men to destroy one another, and behold that Bravery and Spirit, which should only be made Use of against the Enemies of the Country, hourly employ'd and lavish'd away in private Quarrels, that can have no other Tendency that the weakening of the Kingdom, and which, if suffer'd to go on, must compleat its Ruin. Hor. You make these Laws speak very notably. Cleo. I have said Nothing but what is certainly imply'd in them. Every Man in _France_ knew, that the chief Motive of all those Edicts against Duelling, was the Loss of the brave Men that was sustain'd by that Custom. The Sinfulness of it was the least Consideration. Hor. There, I believe, you wrong them, for I have seen some of these Edicts, where Duelling is call'd an Antichristian Practice, which God was highly offended at. Cleo. In wording of the Edicts, indeed, some such Thing was put in for Form's Sake; but the Regulations themselves, by which the Men of Honour were to walk, were openly Antichristian; and in some Cases, instead of Teaching Men to forgive those that had trespas'd against them, they obliged and forced the Offended to shew their Resentment, tho' they would rather not, and desired to be excused. Hor. Where the Affront was very heinous, I know what you say is true. But you set these Things in a strange Light. I can make the same Glosses upon our Laws, which oblige me to prosecute a Man that has robb'd me, if I can catch him, whether I will or not; and he shall be hang'd, tho' I forgive him the Injury, and even would beg his Life.