The Duel

A Military Tale

I

Napoleon I., whose career had the quality of a duel against the whole
of Europe, disliked duelling between the officers of his army. The great
military emperor was not a swashbuckler, and had little respect for
tradition.

Nevertheless, a story of duelling, which became a legend in the army,
runs through the epic of imperial wars. To the surprise and admiration
of their fellows, two officers, like insane artists trying to gild
refined gold or paint the lily, pursued a private contest through the
years of universal carnage. They were officers of cavalry, and their
connection with the high-spirited but fanciful animal which carries men
into battle seems particularly appropriate. It would be difficult to
imagine for heroes of this legend two officers of infantry of the line,
for example, whose fantasy is tamed by much walking exercise, and whose
valour necessarily must be of a more plodding kind. As to gunners or
engineers, whose heads are kept cool on a diet of mathematics, it is
simply unthinkable.

The names of the two officers were Feraud and D'Hubert, and they were
both lieutenants in a regiment of hussars, but not in the same regiment.

Feraud was doing regimental work, but Lieut. D'Hubert had the good
fortune to be attached to the person of the general commanding the
division, as officier d'ordonnance. It was in Strasbourg, and in this
agreeable and important garrison they were enjoying greatly a short
interval of peace. They were enjoying it, though both intensely warlike,
because it was a sword-sharpening, firelock-cleaning peace, dear to a
military heart and undamaging to military prestige, inasmuch that no one
believed in its sincerity or duration.

Under those historical circumstances, so favourable to the proper
appreciation of military leisure, Lieut. D'Hubert, one fine afternoon,
made his way along a quiet street of a cheerful suburb towards Lieut.
Feraud's quarters, which were in a private house with a garden at the
back, belonging to an old maiden lady.

His knock at the door was answered instantly by a young maid in Alsatian
costume. Her fresh complexion and her long eyelashes, lowered demurely
at the sight of the tall officer, caused Lieut. D'Hubert, who was
accessible to esthetic impressions, to relax the cold, severe gravity of
his face. At the same time he observed that the girl had over her arm a
pair of hussar's breeches, blue with a red stripe.

"Lieut. Feraud in?" he inquired, benevolently.

"Oh, no, sir! He went out at six this morning."

The pretty maid tried to close the door. Lieut. D'Hubert, opposing this
move with gentle firmness, stepped into the ante-room, jingling his
spurs.