Many instances of these singular rencontres and fatal caprices in deeds of arms will be recorded in the course of this history; all of which may be referred to the character of the times, and the existing government’s weakness or tyrannical influence. In relating the progress of duelling in France during the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, I cannot better characterize the state of the country than by quoting a late intelligent writer, M. de Campigneulles:-- “I find between the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries the same difference that is observable between the seventeenth and the eighteenth; neither of these periods being in my opinion in favour of any progress. Louis XI. will be found preferable to Charles IX; and Charles VIII. will be placed in a more distinguished rank than Henry II. Francis I. will not make us forget Louis XII; and the glorious exploits of the French under Charles VII. will console us for a long time for the miseries of the civil wars under Henry III. I do not think it necessary, to justify the second proposition, to draw a parallel between the reigns of Henry IV. and Louis XIV. on one side, with the regency and reign of Louis XV. on the other. What is not less remarkable is, that the first period of a century has frequently been more worthy of estimation than the second; showing that there is an action and a reaction in the progress of civilization, and that the torrent of ages seems to be subject to the same laws that regulate the waters of the deep. “Under Charles VII. the aristocracy was too deeply engaged in their national contest with England to occupy themselves with personal feuds; the aristocracy, in the enormous sacrifices which this struggle required, was drained both of men and money. The people gained nothing,--the royal authority alone reaped any advantage that might have resulted from this state of affairs; for from this reign we may date the establishment of standing armies and taxations,--the latter being imposed illegally, and without the sanction of the states-general. “The policy of Louis XI.’s government turned to a profitable account the state of poverty and depression to which the aristocracy had been reduced. The nobility of France was deteriorated by this cruel prince, who founded his despotic power upon executions; and the blood which had been spilled in the field of battle to defend the country, was now wantonly shed upon the scaffold. There was none left to irrigate a field of private battle. “These combined circumstances had struck a fatal blow to duelling; and the prejudices which had justified the practice, and which at the same time had advocated the cause of aristocracy, became every day more weak, attesting the homogeneity of their character.