The Boulangist disclosures have produced a whole crop of duels.
On Saturday, M. Rochefort fought with M. Thiebaud under conditions which, in any country but France, would make duelling impossible for the future. To begin with, M. Rochefort and his antagonist, their seconds and doctors, wandered up and down the frontier between Belgium and Holland, endeavouring to find a quiet place to fight in, dogged all the time by a large posse of gendarmes and a mob of newspaper reporters. At last, however, they contrived to give the police the slip, and to select ground where they would not be disturbed. But an unforeseen difficulty arose at this point. An enterprising body of journalists had engaged the only available conveyance, and all that M. Rochefort could get offered him was a milk-cart drawn by six dogs. Ultimately, however, a more legitimate means of reaching the field of battle was secured, in the shape of a one-horse fly, and in this the editor of the Intransigeant proceeded to the rendezvous. The actual fight was of a piece with the preliminaries. M. Rochefort danced round his enemy, pricking him in various places, till the doctors inter- vened and declared that the play was becoming dangerous. The duel between M. Mermeix, the author of the celebrated articles, and M. de Labruyere, which was fought on Sunday in Paris, in the garden in front of M. Laguere's house, was equally harmless, though it was rendered somewhat unpleasant by M. Mermeix spitting his opponent's hand after " the director of the fight" had called " Stop ! "—an act which, however, was probably not meant treacherously. We wonder how long Frenchmen will permit their present absurd system of duelling to continue. If only a few of the challenged would have the courage to insist upon the use of pistols at a killing distance, we should hear far less about people being called out over petty political squabbles.
