Madame de La Tour du Pin is the author of a famous autobiography that encompasses the time of the Terror in France through much of Napoleon and the Restoration. Her son, Humbert, was a solid young man of honor and duty. He was offended by a man and approached his father with the theoretical question of what a man in the situation might do. His father fell into the horrible trap of abstractness, giving a theoretical answer that would have been completely different had he known the circumstances. His advice--and his refusal to see life in context--should haunt every father forever.
This is excerpted from a postscript in Madame de La Tour du Pin's book.
There is another, much more dramatic, I can not find to reproduce.
Humbert de La Tour du Pin was born at Paris the
nineteenth of May, 1790. During the last years of
the Empire he was Sous-Prefet at Florence and
later at Sens. At the time of the First Restora-
tion he was appointed officer in the corps of the
Mousquetaires Noirs and became later aide de
camp of Marechal Victor, Due de Bellune. He died
under circumstances which were very sad and very
dramatic.
At the time of his appointment to the Military
Household of the Due de Bellune, among the aides
de camp of the Marechal was the Commandant
Malandin, an officer who had risen from the ranks.
He was rough and uneducated, but audacious and
courageous, with an open and loyal heart, but very
susceptible upon the point of honor. He had won
every one of his grades upon the different fields of
battle of the Empire.
The very day that Humbert took up for the first
time his service with the Marechal, on entering the
quarters of the aides de camp, he encountered the
Commandant Malandin. The latter addressed him in
a vein of pleasantry, regarding some unimportant
detail of his uniform, but in terms which were coarse
and unbecoming.
Before Humbert could make any reply, the
Marechal entered, upon a tour of inspection, and,
while there, gave the Commandant a mission to the
Minister of War.
As soon as Humbert was able to leave, he went im-
mediately to the hotel occupied by his family and
entered the cabinet of his father. Here he recounted
the incident, without omitting any of the details,
except that he stated that the person involved was
not himself, but one of his friends. He then asked
his father what "his friend" ought to do. His father
replied :
"Challenge the aggressor."
"And if apologies are offered?"
"Refuse them."
That evening Humbert sent a challenge to Ma-
land in. The meeting was arranged for the following
morning in the Bois de Boulogne. The weapons selected
were pistols and the distance was twenty-five paces.
The duel took place the following morning in a
clearing in the Bois de Boulogne.
When the distance had been measured off and the
adversaries had been placed in position, before the
signal had been given, the Commandant Malandin
gave a sign that he wished to speak, and in a loud
tone he pronounced these words :
"Monsieur de La Tour du Pin, in the presence of
these gentlemen, I think that I ought once more to
declare to you that I regret my wretched pleasantry.
Two good fellows ought not to kill each other for
that."
Humbert hesitated a moment and then walked
slowly towards the Commandant. All the assistants
had a feeling of secret relief at seeing the favorable
turn which the affair had taken. But when the young
man arrived close to his adversary, instead of offer-
ing him his hand, he raised his arm and with the
butt of his pistol struck Malandin on the forehead.
"Monsieur," he said, "I think that now you will
not refuse to fight!" and he returned to his place.
After such a scene, only one denouement was
possible. The signal was given; Monsieur de La Tour
du Pin fired first and missed. His adversary, the
Commandant, then fired in turn and shot Humbert
through the heart.
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