The chronicles of the Bois de Boulogne (taking
that arena in its widest sense as symbolical of
such battle-grounds all over France) show many
encounters between Frenchmen and foreigners.
But the Bois de Boulogne has been invaded by the
beautifiers of the Empire, and its pleasant privacy
for such meetings disturbed. It used to enjoy the
distinction of being the traditional locus in quo
of all tournaments, just as Chalk Farm was the
trysting-place for London, and The Fifteen
Acres, " be they more or less" — as the attorney
writing his challenge observed with professional
accuracy — for Dublin.

Going down to Marseilles about the month of
March, seventeen hundred and sixty-five, we
discover Lord Kilmaurs, the eldest son of the Scotch
Earl of Glencarne, sitting in the theatre of that
wonderful Mediterranean city. He happened to
be very deaf, and, with the perversity of those
afflicted in that way, talked with an earnest
loudness. A French officer in the next box,
with devout attention to the performance, which
we have not yet reached to, and that intemperate
manner of reproving interruption, in which
we are yet happily far behind them, stood up
and called out roughly, " Paix! paix!" This
admonition was unintelligible to the deaf lord,
who maintained his conversation at the same
level of pitch. The injunction was repeated
several times with the same result. Thereupon
the polite Frenchman rose, and, stooping over,
said, with great violence, " Taisez-vous!" To
him the viscount, at last restored to hearing,
gave some short answer, and talked a good
deal louder to show his disregard. It chanced
then that the officer changed his box, and later
on the English lord, who was wandering round
the house, happened to come into this very box,
of all boxes in the world, and, in utter
unconsciousness, stood at the door, his eyes roaming
over the features of the officer. The latter, then
boiling with rage at this apparent determination
to insult him, started up and flew at the
Englishman, asking him what he meant by staring at
him. The other, no doubt bethinking him of the
well-known proverb, said he had a right to look
at any one even of royal rank. On which the
officer flew at him, dragged him down into the
street, and struck him on the shoulder with his
naked sword. Upon which the deaf lord drew
his sword gallantly; but, before he could make
more than a pass or two, was run through the
body, the officer's sword coming out at his
shoulder-blade. Those familiar with this gay and
Eastern port can fancy that scene in the open
Place hard by to the Canebière, with the lighted
cafés — not yet were the days of the gorgeous
and fantastic Café Turc — and the coloured
awnings from the windows fluttering in the air,
and the great Mediterranean rolling up to the
shore a few yards away. Shrieks for the watch,
a crowd, pouring fresh from the parterre, gathering
round, and the Marquis de Pecquigny, at
the head of his guard, hurrying up to the spot
where the poor Englishman was lying. He was
gasping for breath, choking for want of air, while
the crowd, with the stupidity of all crowds,
pressed in still closer on him. But the French
guard made a ring round him, and saved his life
for once. He was still, however, gasping and
struggling there, when a surgeon, who had been
at the play, came up, slit open the collar of his
shirt, had him lifted up, and some water given to
him. He was all but dead, and could not speak ;
but, wonderful to relate, in three days was
perfectly well. Some little international difficulty
was apprehended at first, but the English
ambassador at Paris soon set all straight.

Two years before the great French Revolution,
a French officer unguardedly delivered
himself of the aphorism that " the English army
had more phlegm than spirit" — a sentiment
which really had a substratum of truth, but was
awkwardly worded. He should have said that
phlegm was one shape of the spirit of the British
army. The name of this incautious Frenchman
was artfully veiled under that of the Chevalier
la B., and that of the English officer, who
promptly challenged him, was thinly disguised
under that of Captain S., of the Eleventh
Regiment. The offence would appear to have
been so deadly that the parties were placed at
the alarmingly short distance of only five paces!
Captain S. fired first, and his ball " took place,"
to use the words of the authorised report of the
transaction, on the chevalier's breast, but, by a
marvel of good luck, was stopped by a metal
button. The chevalier, touched by so happy a
deliverance, magnanimously fires in the air, and
acknowledges that the English have both spirit
and phlegm. In illustration of this fortunate
escape, it may be mentioned that, some forty
years ago, a person connected with the family
of the writer of these notes, was riding out
one morning in Ireland, accompanied by
sympathising friends, to arrange a little
"difficulty" of the same description. When at the
gate his eye fell upon a horse-shoe. "With
obstreperous cries of rejoicing he was called on to
dismount and pick it up. All felicitated him on
so lucky an omen. He put it into his pocket, and
his adversary's ball actually struck it over the
region of the heart and glanced off at an angle.

Shortly after the battle of Waterloo, an
unlucky pamphlet found its way into Frescati —
the conversation-rooms at the watering-place of
Bagnères. This pamphlet took pretty much
the same odd view of the battle of Toulouse as
M. Thiers has recently done of Waterloo. An
Englishman chanced to take it up, and wrote on
the margin that "everything in it was false;
that Lord Wellington had gained a complete
victory, and the French army were indebted to
his generosity for not having been put to the
sword." A hot young Frenchman of the place,
named Pinac, at once called out the indiscreet
Englishman. Everything was done to
accommodate matters; and we are told that even the
authorities delicately and considerately interfered,
so far as moral suasion might be effectual.
But all these good offices proved ineffectual, and
the representatives of the two nations met on the
ground. Poor Pinac gave one more illustration of
the insufficiency of this mode of adjusting a