The luckless young man turned round, furious with rage and pain, and, perceiving his “rival,” poured forth a torrent of abuse and threats. The actor, quite unmoved, begged him to explain himself and inquired, with a bland smile, if he were rehearsing a tirade from some play. The infuriated magistrate rejoined by calling Dugazon “an assassin,” and asserting that he had just dealt him several blows with a cane. The latter assumed an air of injured innocence, assured M. de Cazes that he must be labouring under some extraordinary delusion, and inquired how he could possibly imagine that a poor player like himself should have been guilty of so shocking an outrage. As there were no witnesses to the assault, and M. de Cazes had no mind to give the actor, who was an expert swordsman, the satisfaction of running him through the body, the affair went no further. Dugazon, however, did not fail to boast everywhere he went of the thrashing he had inflicted on madame’s lover; conduct which, the _Mémoires secrets_ tell us, “revolted honourable men.” If Dugazon had taken upon himself to detect and punish all his wife’s infidelities, it is to be feared that he would have had but little time to devote to his professional duties. “The singing-bird had taken flight and returned but seldom to the conjugal nest.” However, for a time, he did his best, and, in the course of the following year, had an affray at the house of Sallé, the director of the winter Vauxhall, with the Marquis de Langeac, who had succeeded M. de Cazes in the actress’s affections. Dugazon had written an angry letter to his wife, reminding the lady of her numerous escapades and bitterly reproaching her with having accepted the homage of M. de Langeac, to whom he alluded in terms of the most unmitigated contempt. This letter Madame Dugazon promptly handed to the marquis, who, talking the matter over with his friend Sallé, announced his intention of subjecting the actor to “a hundred blows with his cane,” on the very next occasion on which they should chance to meet. Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when the object of his resentment, who had been an unseen auditor of all that he had said, stood before him, and, with a profound bow, intimated that he was entirely at Monsieur le Marquis’s service. The marquis replied with a blow from his fist; the actor returned the compliment with interest, and an Homeric combat was in progress, when the bystanders interfered and separated the parties. This adventure had no more consequences than the other. Dugazon, who, to do him justice, was no coward, would have been only too ready to continue the battle in the manner prescribed by the etiquette of that day. But M. de Langeac, a notorious poltroon--he had, some time before, taken, without any attempt at retaliation, a severe thrashing from Guérin, the Prince de Conti’s surgeon--sheltered himself behind his rank and declined to cross swords with an actor.