Not only were duels avoided in these fearful times, but any person who insulted one of the representatives of the people, or who acted with violence towards him, was denounced as a conspirator and an assassin. This was instanced in the case of Grangeneuve, who had quarrelled with Jonneau, whom he called a F---- _Viédasse_,[18] to which the other replied, “You have insulted me! are you a man of honour?” “I am,” replied Grangeneuve. “Then meet me to-morrow at the Bois de Boulogne, with pistols.” “I will meet you to-morrow in the National Assembly,” replied his antagonist. “The world, then, will pronounce you a coward.”--“And you a _Jean F----_;” on which Jonneau slapped his face; Grangeneuve retorted with a stone, which he picked up, and a caning, with kicks and cuffs, ensued. Notwithstanding the unwarrantable conduct of Grangeneuve, Guadet, a deputy from the Gironde, insisted upon an impeachment against Jonneau as an assassin; and another orator, Larivière, who seconded the motion, expressed himself in a bombastic style, illustrating the dementation of the epoch: “Jonneau,” he said, “had been guilty of a cowardly action, by provoking a man physically weak for a trifling insult, and was still more cowardly in striking him: he ought to have imitated Turenne, who being provoked to fight a duel, replied, “To-morrow there will be a battle, all our blood belongs to our country, and we shall see which of us shall the best defend her.” He therefore moved that Jonneau should be committed, although, after he had been separated from his antagonist, he had been unmercifully beaten by a ruffian of the name of Saint Huruge, and Barbaroux, another deputy from the Gironde. All the eloquence of these desperate madmen, however, could not prevent occasional meetings, and the National Assembly at last abrogated all former laws prohibiting single combat, and passed an amnesty in favour of those transgressors who had been prosecuted agreeably to their enactments. Camille Desmoulins was another orator of this fearful epoch, who launched forth against duelling in the following memorable language: “One may brave death in the cause of liberty for one’s country, and I feel that I could stretch my neck out of my litter, and hold forth my throat to the sword of Antony; I feel that I could possess sufficient fortitude to ascend the scaffold with a mingled sentiment of pleasure. Such is the courage which I have received, not from nature, which shudders at the aspect of death, but from philosophy; to be assassinated by the bravo who provokes me, is to be stung by a tarantula, and I should have to spend my days in the Bois de Boulogne, were I to give satisfaction to all those whom my frankness offends. I may be accused of cowardice, but I apprehend that the times are not far distant when we shall have ample opportunities of dying in a more glorious and useful manner.”