In 1834 the German papers gave an account of a duel of a most romantic nature:--“A Baron Trautmansdorf was paying courtship to the widow of a Polish general, the young Countess Lodoiska R----; he only awaited an appointment to an embassy to marry her. In the mean time a Baron de Ropp courted the lady, and in a sonnet turned his more successful rival into ridicule. The baron immediately sent him a message, which Ropp accepted; but on the ground proposed a champion, who espoused his cause, when Trautmansdorf fell. His second, indignant at this act of treachery, insisted that Ropp should give him satisfaction. The second was also mortally wounded, when it was found out that Lodoiska herself had accompanied her betrothed in male attire. Ropp, having recognised her when she fell, felt so deeply the turpitude of his conduct, that he threw himself on his own sword, and expired near the bodies of Lodoiska and her lover.” Duels are so very rare in Germany, that a hostile meeting that took place at Frankfort in 1834 between two officers, and which proved fatal to one of them, was considered a remarkable event; and all Vienna was astonished when a noble German sent a challenge to Baron Rothschild for having refused to lend him money. Madame de Staël’s observations on duelling in Germany are worthy of remark:--“Germany, if we except some courts anxious to imitate the manners of the French, was never assailed by that infatuation, immorality, and incredulity, which, since the regency, had changed the natural character of the French. Feudality still maintained in Germany some of its chivalric maxims: duels occasionally took place, but they were not so frequent as in France; for the Germans do not possess the same vivacity and petulance as the French nation, nor do they partake of the same notions of courage, public opinion being much more severe on the want of probity and fair dealing. If a man had transgressed the laws of morality, ten duels a day would not have enabled him to recover the esteem he had forfeited. In France we constantly see persons of distinguished rank, who, when accused of an improper action, will say, “It may have been wrong, but no one will dare assert it to my face!” Such an expression is an evident proof of confirmed depravity; for what would be the condition of society, if it was only requisite to kill one another, to commit with impunity every evil action,--to break one’s word and assert a falsehood, provided no one dared tell you that you had lied? “The spirit of chivalry still reigns amongst the Germans,--but passively. They are incapable of deceit, and in every transaction act with loyalty; but that energy which exposed man to so many sacrifices, which exacted from woman so many virtues,--the chivalric spirit of olden times,--has only left feeble traces in Germany, where noble actions will only be the result of that liberal impulse which in Europe has succeeded chivalry.”