“There is an Authority due to Distress; and as none of human Race is above the Reach of Sorrow, none should be above the Hearing the Voice of it: I am sure Pharamond is not. Know then, that I have this Morning unfortunately killed in a Duel, the Man whom of all Men living I most loved. I command my self too much in your royal Presence, to say, Pharamond, give me my Friend! Pharamond has taken him from me! I will not say, shall the merciful Pharamond destroy his own Subjects? Will the Father of his Country murder his People? But, the merciful Pharamond does destroy his Subjects, the Father of his Country does murder his People. Fortune is so much the Pursuit of Mankind, that all Glory and Honour is in the Power of a Prince, because he has the Distribution of their Fortunes. It is therefore the Inadvertency, Negligence, or Guilt of Princes, to let anything grow into Custom which is against their Laws. A Court can make Fashion and Duty walk together; it can never, without the Guilt of a Court, happen, that it shall not be unfashionable to do what is unlawful. But alas! in the Dominions of Pharamond, by the Force of a Tyrant Custom, which is mis-named a Point of Honour, the Duellist kills his Friend whom he loves; and the Judge condemns the Duellist, while he approves his Behaviour. Shame is the greatest of all Evils; what avail Laws, when Death only attends the Breach of them, and Shame Obedience to them? As for me, oh Pharamond, were it possible to describe the nameless Kinds of Compunctions and Tendernesses I feel, when I reflect upon the little Accidents in our former Familiarity, my Mind swells into Sorrow which cannot be resisted enough to be silent in the Presence of Pharamond.” With that he fell into a Flood of Tears, and wept aloud. “Why should not Pharamond hear the Anguish he only can relieve others from in Time to come? Let him hear from me, what they feel who have given Death by the false Mercy of his Administration, and form to himself the Vengeance call’d for by those who have perished by his Negligence.’
—Issue No. 84, which constituted the Wednesday, June 11th of 1711 issue of The Spectator by Richard Steele (1672–1729). Founded by Steele and Joseph Addison, The Spectator was formed under the ideal “to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality … to bring philosophy out of the closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffeehouses.” Each issue contained a single essay and ran around 550 copies, which were then collected in seven-volumes.
The selection above came from Gregory A. Smith’s late 19th century edition. As mentioned in the above footnote, Richard Steele was a staunch critic of dueling and dueling culture. Both he and Addison set about satirizing and disparaging the free lifestyle of well-to-do young men of their day. Ironically, Steele himself was known to have enjoyed carousing, womanizing and even dueling during his youth.
The character named Pharamond is synonymous with the Faramond of early Frankish legend. According to these legends, Pharamond was of Trojan decent, thus tying France to the Homeric legends and the peerage of Hector, who was an important figure for chivalric codes.
7 See No. 76. Steele uses the suggestion of the Romance of Pharamond whose ‘whole Person,’ says the romancer, ‘was of so excellent a composition, and his words so Great and so Noble that it was very difficult to deny him reverence,’ to connect with a remote king his ideas of the duty of a Court. Pharamond’s friend Eucrate, whose name means Power well used, is an invention of the Essayist, as well as the incident and dialogue here given, for an immediate good purpose of his own, which he pleasantly contrives in imitation of the style of the romance. In the original, Pharamond is said to be ‘truly and wholly charming, as well for the vivacity and delicateness of his spirit, accompanied with a perfect knowledge of all Sciences, as for a sweetness which is wholly particular to him, and a complacence which &c.… All his inclinations are in such manner fixed upon virtue, that no consideration nor passion can disturb him; and in those extremities into which his ill fortune hath cast him, he hath never let pass any occasion to do good.’
That is why Steele chose Pharamond for his king in this and a preceding paper.
8 Translates roughly as “Power.”
9 Spinamont is Mr. Thornhill, who, on the 9th of May, 1711, killed in a duel Sir Cholmomleley Dering, Baronet, of Kent. Mr. Thornhill was tried and acquitted; but two months afterwards, assassinated by two men, who, as they stabbed him, bade him remember Sir Cholmondeley Dering. Steele wrote often and well against duelling, condemning it in the Tatler several times, in the Spectator several times, in the Guardian several times, and even in one of his plays, The Conscious Lovers (1723).
Illustration: Sohrab mourns Rustum. Illustration taken from an ancient Persian manuscript of the Shahnameh, or “Book of Kings.” The tale of Sohrab and Rustum has been celebrated for centuries in the Middle East and is considered a prototype of many western tales concerning knight-errantry. Most famously rendered into English by the poet Matthew Arnold, Sohrab and Rustum tells the tale of a king who slays his estranged son and only heir, in a duel fought to determine a battle’s outcome. The notions of honor (both men are fighting so that their respective armies will not have to) and vainglorious folly, echo throughout the history of the duel. From Alexander Hamilton to Alexander Pushkin, cultures around the world have romanticized and mourned the loss of cultural icons in duels, often expressed in the remorse felt by the victor.
Honor, Vengeance and Murder: History Defines the Act
The Headman’s Axe!
While calmly perusing the annals of duelling, we cannot but be amazed when we behold, in the present day of pretended intellectual perfection, this practice adopted in a society which prides itself upon its boasted high state of civilization.
The details of ancient duels and single combats, which in fact were little better than qualified murders, may be revolting from their barbarous excesses; yet no study will tend more effectually to rub off from the pictorial romance of history its deceptive varnish, than that of duelling, its progress and its occasional comparative disappearance when it ceased to be fashionable, or resorted to by the upper classes of society.