[Footnote 11: "'You have written _Struensee_!' he says to me. Does M. Dumas think to prove by that that I have done nothing in _La Tour de Nesle_? He forgets, then, that he, too, has written also _La Chasse et l'Amour, La Noce et l'Enterrement_? (who has heard these plays mentioned?) Then the wretched _Napoléon,_ which has had two Waterloos, dragging with it in its second the downfall of the Odéon and of M. Harel! then, immediately after _La Tour de Nesle, Le Fils de l'Émigré,_ which had three performances with M. Anicet; _Angèle,_ which had thirty with M. Anicet; _La Vénitienne,_ which had twenty with M. Anicet; _Catherine Howard,_ which has had fifteen without M. Anicet? Are we really to suppose that M. Dumas is not therefore the author of the beauties of _Antony,_ of _Henri III.,_ and of _Christine_? It has surely been said so here and there, and even partly proved! Perhaps it is to this that I owe M. Dumas's attack? But he need not be anxious: I shall never write a _Gaule et France_ and certainly not a _Madame et la Vendée._] CHAPTER V Sword and pistol--Whence arose my aversion to the latter weapon--Philippe's puppet--The statue of Corneille--An autograph _in extremis_--Le bois de Vincennes--A duelling toilet--Scientific question put by Bixio--The conditions of the duel--Official report of the seconds--How Bixio's problem found its solution I had wished the duel to be one with swords; M. Gaillardet insisted it should be with pistols. I have a strong repugnance to that weapon; it seems to me brutal and more that of a highway robber, who attacks a traveller from the shelter of a wood, than that of the honourable combatant defending his life. The thing I dread most in pistol-duelling (but I have only fought twice with this weapon) is unskilfulness, much more than dexterity. Indeed, two or three years before the period in which the events I am relating took place--namely, before 1834--I had had a pistol-duel; I have not spoken of it, not being able to give the name of the man against whom I fought, nor to tell the reasons why I was fighting. In that duel, which took place at seven in the morning in the bois de Boulogne, in the neighbourhood of Madrid, my adversary and I were placed at twenty paces distance from one another. Lots were drawn as to who should fire first and the advantage fell to my adversary. I planted myself, with pistol loaded, at a distance of twenty paces and I waited for the firing with the muzzle of the barrel of my weapon in the air.