“At a gambling-table a misunderstanding arises; a by-stander has smiled ironically; he has whispered to his sister, who has whispered something to her cousin: get yourself killed by all means, for you may have been suspected of cheating at play; and nothing can set such a question in a proper light but the thrust of a sword! “Your wife is an acknowledged coquette; get yourself run through the body by her lover, and her honour will be restored. You yourself may have seduced the wife of an honest man, who dares to suspect you, and receives you with ill-humour: kill him; for, having deprived him of happiness and peace, you need not be punctilious in ridding him of life!” This opinion of the character of the French and their notions of honour has been since amply illustrated by Chateaubriand in the following terms: “The first-born of antiquity, the French, Romans in genius, are Greeks in their character. Restless and volatile in prosperity, constant and invincible in adversity. Created for the cultivation of every art; civilised to excess during the calm days of the state, coarse and savage in political troubles. Tossed to and fro by their passions, like a vessel without ballast on the waves, now ascending to the skies, and then sinking in an abyss. Equally enthusiastic in good and in evil; kind without expecting gratitude, cruel without experiencing remorse, and quickly forgetting both their vices and their virtues. Attached to life in days of peace with pusillanimity, they are prodigal of their blood in the hour of battle. Vain, sarcastic, ambitious, they are at the same time mechanical followers of routine and innovators; despising everything but themselves. Individually the most agreeable of men, collectively the most unpleasant. Delightful in their own country, insupportable abroad. At times, more mild and innocent than the lamb they slaughter; at others, more pitiless and ferocious than the devouring tiger. Such were the Athenians of old, and such are now the French.” Duels now sometimes assumed a humorous character; and men fought for songs, puns, and conundrums. The poet Champeneti got wounded for verses that he had not written; and Cagliostro, being called out by a physician whom he had styled a quack, on the plea that a medical question should be settled medicinally, proposed that the parties should swallow two pills, the one poisonous and the other innocuous. An anecdote is related of a young man from the country, who was ridiculed for his awkward mode of dancing, and who replied, “If I dance badly, I know how to fight.” To which it was coolly rejoined, “Then, for the future, you had better fight, and never dance!”