'Twas the aristocratic mode of helping forward the
revolution, and there were almost as many victims by it as by the more
republican one of la lanterne and the pike.
Though it was the first affair of honor that Calvert had ever been
engaged in, the compelling necessity he was under and that unusual
steadiness and calmness of character he possessed rendered him less
nervous and more master of himself than was the older man, who had had
numberless affairs of the kind.
"Will you choose swords or will you fight in the English mode with
pistols?" said Calvert, with another low bow to St. Aulaire.
"Both, by God!" shouted St. Aulaire. "We will follow the lead of
Bazencourt and St. Luce!" But here Bertrand and another of his
companions interfered (the third and villainous-looking fellow said
nothing and seemed indifferent on the subject), and declared they could
not be party to murder, and that terrible affair had been no less. It
had been known and talked of all over Paris, the shameful conditions
being--that the combatants should fight first with swords, and the one
who fell, and fell wounded only, was to have his brains blown out by the
other.
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