CHAPTER SIX
“I don’t understand it, sir,” said Midshipman Irwin Lovette. A short, burly youth of seventeen whose broadening shoulders had clearly outgrown his best coat, he stood with Phillip Stanhope in Favian’s cabin, ill at ease under Favian’s baleful gaze. “I went to a restaurant yesterday for supper with Mr. Stanhope, here. The bill of fare was in French, and I didn’t understand it all, so I pointed to the next table and told the waiter, ‘I’ll have what that man is eating.’ The next thing I knew the man from the next table was standing up shouting challenges. Saying I’d insulted him. So now Mr. Stanhope has an appointment to meet the man’s second this afternoon at five o’clock at the Place d’Armes at Chartres Street to arrange for the duel
Favian’s eyes turned to Stanhope. “That’s all?” he asked. “Mr. Lovette ordered the same meal, and this man challenged him?”
“Aye, sir,” Stanhope said. “I have never heard of ordering a similar meal as being a cause for calling anyone out, and so I thought—” He hesitated for a moment, choosing his words carefully, then spoke. “I thought, sir, that as you had, ah, more experience in these matters than we, that we should apply to you for guidance.”
“Sir, I am perfectly willing to be called out if the situation requires it,” Lovette said. He reddened, searching for words, and Favian understood: Lovette would not want to be thought afraid to fight. “I consider my honor as precious as any man’s,” he blurted. “But for such a cause as this—! The man must be mad!”
Favian took a long draft of coffee to clear his head. This sounded like a French farce from the time of Louis Treize. “What did you say the man’s name was?” he asked.
“Levesque, sir,” Stanhope said, producing a card from his pocket. “Theseus Armand Levesque, lieutenant in the Mississippi Dragoons. His second is M. le Chevalier Jean Noel Gabriel de la Tour d’Aurillac.”
La-di-da, Favian almost said, but restrained himself. He had heard neither of Levesque nor de la Tour d’Aurillac during his trips to town; but Gideon, in connection with the late Mr. Desplein, had mentioned the Mississippi Dragoons and their reputation for dueling. “Mr. Stanhope, I trust you will try to make up this quarrel when you meet M. de la Tour d’Aurillac— blast it, does the man actually use all those names? Just call him M. le Chevalier.” Favian hated to grant knightly rank to a presumed American citizen, but it seemed to make the mouthful of a name easier to swallow.
“I will do my best to compose the quarrel,” Stanhope said. “But if they insist on regarding Mr. Lovette’s action as a mortal insult, I do not understand how I can avoid the encounter.”
“I will not,” Lovette said, turning red, “give an apology. There is nothing to apologize for.”
Do you have a favorite biblical verse you wish read at your funeral? Favian almost asked. Any dragoon confident enough to call people out for such trivial reasons would be deadly, that stood to reason. Lovette’s refusal to apologize would probably end any hope of reconciliation, Favian knew; if proper apology were not received for an insult, a duel would usually go forward.
“My hope, Captain Markham, is that Lieutenant Levesque might be known in town as a, er, madman,” Stanhope said. “One cannot fight the insane.”
“I doubt the Mississippi Dragoons would carry a lunatic on the rolls, Mr. Stanhope,” Favian said. “But he might, I suppose, claim a rank that is not his. I will inquire in the town.”
“Thank you, sir.”
For a moment Favian considered forbidding the duel entirely; that would give Lovette a reason for refusing the engagement. During the Experiment’s cruise the year before, Midshipman Tolbert had wished to fight Midshipman Dudley, and Favian had forbidden it on the grounds that the brig was in enemy waters and could not afford to have two of its officers disabled.
But he had known that once the brig reached the United States, there was nothing he could do to prevent two midshipmen from going out if they were determined to do it; he had merely assured Midshipman Tolbert— the principal instigator— of his own personal opposition to the duel, and the fact that if the encounter went forward he could consider Favian an enemy. That approach would probably not work here. The earlier duel had been a fight between two Navy men, both of them subordinate to Favian, and Levesque was not under Favian’s orders. Besides, Favian thought Lovette objected not so much to fighting a duel as to fighting one for such a ridiculous reason; he seemed in a belligerent mood otherwise. Lovette might well conclude that a duel with a man ashore was none of Favian’s business, and fight it anyway.
On the other hand, if it weren’t any of Favian’s business, why had they come to Favian’s cabin for advice?
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I will give the matter some thought. I shall go into town and inquire as to local custom. Report to me this afternoon before meeting M. le Chevalier. Dismissed.”
The two midshipmen saluted and left Favian’s cabin. He poured himself more coffee and ordered breakfast. He would need as much fortification as the food would provide, he knew, to withstand the pressures of the day.
That afternoon, taking Gideon’s advice to heart, he stopped by a little shop in the Rue de Camp to purchase a sword cane. The shop sold cutlery of all sorts: cleavers and kitchen knives fanned in the windows alongside racks of elegant smallswords and sturdy cutlasses. The master was not present, hut the apprentice, a boy of about fourteen, showed what he had.
Sword canes, perhaps more than any other weapon, needed to be made well. The blades were necessarily slender; any with less than first-rate steel would snap at the first parry, or break off between the target’s ribs. Favian had decided on an extremely well-made model, keen-edged as well as pointed, with a groove down the blade that would give it spring— it made an attractive cane even without its martial qualities, with its curiously patterned head, a succession of lathe-fashioned roundnesses, presumably to improve the grip, surrounding the central length of the tang and its surrounding hilt. No guard or quillons, of course, Favian thought as he lifted the blade; in use it would be difficult to avoid getting one’s fingers cut.
And then the proprietor entered, a large graying Frenchman with a sapper’s long square-cut beard. He looked at Favian in surprise and horror, then addressed his apprentice in a hushed, angry voice, speaking in Gascon French. “Do you not listen? Do you never listen? That cane is not for an American, but for the members of the Guard!” He slapped the boy hastily, striking him on a shoulder raised to ward the blow, then turned to Favian and assumed a smile meant to be servile, but in the event appearing grotesque.
“I am sorry, sir,” he said in painful English. “This cane has already been purchased by another gentleman. I will be happy to sell you another, please.”
“I prefer this one.”
“I have tried to explain, sir. Another gentleman has purchased this one. You may have any other.”
“Un gentilhomme” said Favian, “de la Garde?”
The man’s eyes widened at the revelation of a Kaintuck speaking French with an accent more Parisian than his own, and then his brows came together in a scowl. “Pardon, m’sieur. As I said, this cane has already been purchased. Please take another— with my compliments. No payment necessary.”
Bemused by this haste and mystery, Favian made his second choice, an ivory-handled straight cane with tarnished silver fittings and a fine, blackened old blade. There was little to choose between them as swords; Favian had chosen the other because it was a more attractive walking stick.
His new, deadly acquisition clicking on the narrow flagged sidewalk, Favian made his way to the levee. A newly arrived militia company, covered in mud from boot to shako, marched jauntily past, the crowd applauding, women throwing kisses. It had been a busy, discouraging morning. He had found a room in a hotel and moved his chest into it, sending his boat’s crew back to the Louisiana— they would not have to spend any more evenings shivering on the levee. Afterwards he had paid a call on Claiborne, urging martial law without success, but at least getting the governor to issue orders to establish outposts on the various approaches to New Orleans as well as sending men to garrison Fort St. John on Lake Pontchartrain. At luncheon with the governor and his spectacularly beautiful Creole wife, Sophronie, Favian asked him if he knew of Lieutenant Levesque or one Mr. de la Tour d’Aurillac.
Indeed the governor had. It appeared that Levesque was infamous.
Claiborne, without appearing to try his memory, came up with at least a dozen affairs in which Levesque had participated. He had won them all, killing at least seven men and wounding the rest. He was expert with both pistol and sword, having killed with both. A professional bully from the time of Richelieu, Favian thought, transplanted to the enlightened nineteenth century and the mouth of the Mississippi. As for de la Tour d’Aurillac, he was a recent arrival: the heir of an emigré aristocratic family returned under the amnesties of the Empire, he had been a colonel of Napoleon’s hussars and had been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for bravery. Apparently he was a duelist as well, though he had fought all of his encounters abroad.
“There is nothing I can do to stop it,” Claiborne had said. Favian was growing tired of the number of things Claiborne could not do. “The practice is accepted here. I have fought a duel myself— not something I’m particularly proud of, but it was made necessary by the, ah, the mores of this place. Besides, I remember that you yourself, Captain Markham, had a little trouble once— in New Jersey, was it? Captain, ah, Brewer or something?”
“Brewster,” Favian said, aware of the curiosity in Sophronie Claiborne’s sparkling eyes. There was still a warrant out in that New Jersey county; it had come too soon after the Burr business. A drunken bully of a merchant captain run through both lungs, the consequence of some intemperate speech in a New York tavern, speech made with the intention of provoking a fight from that new-made lieutenant, swaggering perhaps in his new uniform, cadging drinks off his Philadelphia medal..
“You have a good memory, sir,” Favian said.
“There was a speech made in Congress about it, something about the Tripolitan war making Turks out of our Navy men.”
“I have never,” said Favian sternly, “provoked a fight. I have never sought one out.” A direct lie, of course; there had been that duel in Norway the year before. There had been a deliberate, nasty joy in the way he’d incited Count Gram, much though the man deserved it.
“Of course not,” Claiborne said. His eyes did not seem convinced. “I remember it because I met your father at about the same time— I think it was your father. Shorter than you, dressed very well, spoke with a kind of English zézaiement? Come to buy ponies in Virginia, I think.”
That sounded like Jehu Markham all right: a well-dressed, cultured Revolutionary privateer, a friend of Franklin and Lafayette, buying horses for his legendary stables, the breeding program that had lost half his fortune for him. “He made several buying trips south. He’s always enjoyed travel.”
“I hope he is well . . . ?”
“Oh. Yes. Very well.”
“Did you hear,” asked Madame Claiborne, clearly tired of news of people she hadn’t ever met, “the latest news about that Captain Fontenoy? You know, the privateer from Mauritius? It seems he was off in the Faubourg Marigny last night, knocking on the side door of the Listeau mansion, whispering ‘Marie, it is your loving slave. How happy you have made me!’” Madame gave a delighted laugh and clapped her hands. “Listeau, of course, answered the door himself. Carrying a horsewhip. It is common knowledge that Fontenoy is one of Madame Listeau’s admirers. Fontenoy had to pretend he was drunk. Of course the servants heard everything— by now the entire town knows.”
Favian remembered the little note Campaspe had asked him to carry to Fontenoy and decided to keep silent about it. He wondered if the little wench played these sort of tricks often?.
“The poor man,” Favian said.
“Which one?” she asked gaily. “Fontenoy, or M. Listeau? Madame Listeau is the one you should pity, rather; the town gossips will devour her.”
The interview ended with a number of gossipy anecdotes, more or less in the same style as the first. Midshipman Lovette, it appeared, was going to have his hands full. Favian concluded he would have to intervene directly in the business by offering himself as another of Lovette’s seconds: He would attempt to get Lovette off the hook, and if he failed would try to get Claiborne to order the Dragoons’ colonel to send Levesque off to command an outpost on the Bayou Terre aux Boeufs or someplace equally dismal.
On the levee he hired a boatman to take him to Louisiana, then sent for Lovette and Stanhope. “It appears the man you have offended is something of a professional duelist,” Lovette was told; Favian watched him try to conceal his dismay with a deliberately careless shrug. “If you will accept me as another second, I will attempt to pry you out of this difficulty.”
A touch of hope crossed Lovette’s face. “I’d be very grateful, sir,” he said.
“Very well. I realize this fight is none of your making, and I will do my best on your behalf, but I hope you understand that it may not be possible to convince M. le Chevalier that no offense has taken place. In that event, as challenged party you have your choice of pistols or swords. Which will you prefer?”
Lovette swallowed hard. “Either, No. Pistols, I suppose,” he said without hope. It was the choice Favian would have urged, unless Lovette suddenly proclaimed himself an expert with the sword. With pistols there was the chance Levesque would miss, or that the wound would be minor; in the case of swords an expert like Levesque would probably run Lovette through at the first exchange.
“I’ll try to do my best for you,” Favian said. “I’ve acquired a few tricks over the years. Mr. Stanhope, I shall expect you to present yourself at my hotel at four thirty this afternoon. Wear your number one uniform and your dirk; we’ll want to look our best. Gentlemen, you are dismissed.”
There was, Favian thought, a way to handle it if all else failed; in these matters, as in so much else, his lengthy apprenticeship to Stephen Decatur helped. In the year ’02, the Tripolitan war sputtering on inconclusively in the Mediterranean, the American fleet under Morris had been based at Malta. A man named Cochran, secretary to Governor Sir Alexander Ball and something of a professional duelist, had jostled Midshipman Joseph Bainbridge, U.S.N., four times in the opera lobby, on the last occasion making a sneering remark about Americans never standing the smell of powder. Bainbridge had knocked the man down, of course, and duly received his challenge. Decatur had acted as second and insisted on pistols at four paces. The British second had been aghast, but Decatur had insisted; Bainbridge was inexperienced, and the range had to be short in order to make the combat fair..
Both men were so nervous that the first fire amazingly missed, but Cochran was so angry he insisted on a second round; Decatur told his man to hold low; and Bainbridge shot the man dead. Governor Ball made a fuss and the American fleet moved its base to Palermo; Joseph Bainbridge was promoted lieutenant by a Congress grateful for his defense of the American uniform. If Favian could not work out a way for Lovette to slide out of the duel with honor, he was perfectly prepared to insist on pistols at four paces: let Levesque stand that, if he could.
That afternoon another muddy militia company was marching to its bivouac, detouring through the Place d’Armes to receive its share of adulation. The crowds still applauded, but there was sign that the novelty was wearing off. The full-dress naval uniforms of Favian and Stanhope attracted little attention; New Orleans was reserving its adulation for the native battalions.
M. le Chevalier Jean Noel Gabriel de la Tour d’Aurillac was not difficult to distinguish; he was a short man, dressed well, carrying a walking stick, with waxed hussar mustachios and a bandy-legged cavalryman gait. The cross of the Legion of Honor was pinned to his coat. Seeing the two naval officers, he bowed and introduced himself, the names rolling off his tongue. “At your service,” he said in English. “I am acting for Lieutenant Levesque.”
“This is Mr. Midshipman Stanhope,” Favian said, returning the bow. “I am Captain Markham. We are acting for Mr. Midshipman Lovette.” There was a formal rhythm to these proceedings, to the artificial deadly ritual that would match one blade against another. Formal speech, dress coats, silk stockings, all leading to foul and ridiculous death. Favian could play the game, moving through the motions: in this the Navy had taught him well. He felt a seething hate for the whole business.
“Does your principal choose swords or pistols?” asked My Lord the Knight Jean Noel Gabriel of the Tower of Aurillac— the name seemed so much more elegant in French.
“We would not,” said Favian, “be doing our duty as seconds if we did not first explore the possibility of a reconciliation.”
De la Tour d’Aurillac shrugged. He touched his mustache with a finger, making certain it was in place, his cane dangling from his raised fingers. “My principal,” he said, “is willing to forget the insult if Mr. Lovette will offer a public apology in the same restaurant in which it was given.” In front of a crowd of jeering Creole duelists, no doubt.
“I am by no means satisfied that there was an insult given,” Favian said. “As I understand it, Mr. Lovette’s offense, if such it may be termed, consisted of entering the restaurant and ordering the same meal as Lieutenant Levesque. I fail to understand how this can be considered an insult.”
“The meal was ordered in a loud voice, with much bad French and by offensive gestures. No gentleman enjoys being pointed at in such a graceless fashion.”
“Mr. Lovette and Lieutenant Levesque are both serving their country,” Favian said, trying another tack. “They are fighting the same enemy. Mr. Lovette has participated in several battles at sea, and Lieutenant Levesque has no doubt distinguished himself in the Mississippi Dragoons. It would be a great shame, would it not, if New Orleans lost two promising officers on the occasion of such an emergency? Surely a duel at such a time, for such a reason, will not reflect well on the combattants. There is a higher duty involved; we are comrades in arms who must fight the common enemy.”
De la Tour d’Aurillac’s cane was tapping impatiently on the pavement. Favian had seen the cane somewhere before; he wondered where. “Sir,” the Frenchman said, “I do not understand your reasoning. A man who will not fight for his own honor cannot fight for his country’s.”
“Perhaps in any case the combat can be postponed until after the British are dealt with,” Favian said. And Levesque done in by some British rifleman, he hoped.
The Frenchman frowned. “All the more reason to do it quickly, sir,” he said. “We do not wish the British to interrupt our affaires d’honneur. There must be an apology or a fight, sir, one or the other. Does your man want swords or pistols?”
Favian felt his temper rising, but fought it down. Another few minutes of this bullying, insistent stupidity and he would end up crossing swords with this swaggering Frenchman himself. He was about to bark out, “Pistols! Four paces! If we’re to do murder let us do it right!” when he heard Stanhope speak at his elbow.
“Neither, sir. We choose topmauls at the main yardarm.”
Favian looked at Stanhope in amazement. The midshipman was glaring at de la Tour d’Aurillac, his mouth pressed into a grim line, and suddenly Favian saw Stanhope’s inspiration.
“Captain!” the Frenchman was saying. “I protest! We must obey the forms!”
“The forms will be obeyed,” Favian said, trying to keep his amusement hidden. “Topmauls at the main yardarm: it is a way we have in the Navy of settling our differences.” Topmauls were light sledges used to drive a fid home when topmasts were swayed aloft atop the lower mast of a ship. Lovette with his burly figure and broad shoulders would wield a topmaul quite effectively, Favian thought— more effectively than a sword, certainly— and of course he would be at home on a yardarm. If any landsman even got out on the yardarm, hanging a hundred feet or so above the water with his feet on the swaying footrope, he would be doing very well; anyone who could swing a twelve-pound sledge in such circumstances would have to be a perfect acrobat.
“I have never heard of this kind of fight!” de la Tour d’Aurillac snapped. He ground his cane into the pavement, and Favian realized where he’d seen it before— that rounded, lathed head was the same he’d seen in the shop that morning. “This is irregular, and very unfair!”
“I have told you it is not,” Favian said, pressing his advantage. “We have the choice of weapons. Lieutenant Levesque is a master of sword and pistol, and our man is not; it would be no more unfair if we chose pistols. Of course, if your principal would agree to withdraw his challenge, no meeting need take place. We do not insist it be done publicly; a written note will suffice.”
The Frenchman glared at Favian, red-faced. Favian felt an urge to step back out of range of that swordstick but refrained; instead he shifted his grip on his own cane in case he needed to block a sudden thrust. “There will be no withdrawal,” de la Tour d’Aurillac snapped finally. “If Lieutenant Levesque withdraws, I will fight him myself for putting me in this absurd situation.”
“As you wish, sir,” said Favian, grimly triumphant.
“Where can this encounter take place?”
“I think the main yardarm of the Louisiana is of sufficient height,” Favian said. He was the senior officer in New Orleans, he reflected; he could use the schooner for purposes of a duel if he wanted. “Would noon tomorrow suffice?”
“It shall have to,” said the Frenchman. His mouth twitched as if he were swallowing something distasteful. “I will bring Lieutenant Levesque to the Louisiana at the appointed time. Your servant, sir.”
“Servant,” Favian said and bowed. The Knight Jean strutted furiously down Chartres Street; it was only after he had disappeared in the crowd that Favian dared turn to Stanhope and burst out in laughter.
“Whatever inspired you to step in like that?” Favian asked. “Topmauls at the main yardarm! Perfect, Mr. Stanhope— it couldn’t have been arranged better!”
Stanhope, a serious young man, allowed himself a brief smile. “I don’t know, sir. M. le Chevalier was being such a stubborn pig about it, demanding swords or pistols, and I had a recollection of Mr. Lovette last summer, when the Macedonian’s masts were being swayed up, using the topmaul to bang the fid in, and I thought it was a shame that Lovette’s shoulders couldn’t be put to better use. The next thing I knew I was blurting out that we chose topmauls. I hope you did not resent my interruption, sir.”
“Of course not,” Favian said. “If you have any more such inspirations, blurt them as you will. For the present, I think we should return to the Louisiana and relieve Mr. Lovette’s anxiety. Perhaps he’ll want to practice with his topmaul.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sure he will.”.
Favian glanced at Stanhope as they walked: Stanhope’s first cruise had been with Favian on Experiment, the journey to the North Sea and back now famous as Markham’s Raid. Favian had thought Stanhope an exceptionally promising officer, and this was more evidence in his favor. Most midshipmen were so eager for action they would cheerfully have gone dueling with battle-axes and morning stars; here Stanhope had acted not only to prevent Lovette from being butchered by a professional duelist, but in such a way that the entire system of the code duello was being mocked. How could anyone witnessing Lovette and Levesque hanging on the foot-ropes swinging at each other with sledgehammers possibly take a duel seriously afterward?.
The encounter would prove another nail in the coffin of the formal duel; and good riddance, Favian thought. He’d had two duels forced on him in his life and knew that every moment he wore the uniform of the United States he might be forced into another one— private individuals could ignore insults if they chose, but an American uniform could not.
As they walked across the Place d’Armes, Favian saw another cane similar to M. le Chevalier’s— a Guard cane, as he was beginning to think of it. It was in the hands of a very tall man, a man very nearly topping Favian’s six feet four inches. The man was graying, broad-shouldered, with a grizzled mustache; his bearing was so erect that Favian could not help but think of him as a soldier even though he was dressed in a plain broadcloth coat. A shorter, younger man watched as the veteran held the cane out like a baton, holding it by the middle as if inviting the other man to admire it in the sun. A strange tableau, Favian thought; they were like freemasons with their secret handshakes and passwords. He wondered what the cane signified: a veterans’ organization, perhaps. He would ask Claiborne when time permitted.
For the present, of course, he’d have to work out the details of the duel, preferably in such a way that no one got hurt. Though, he admitted, he had conceived enough of a dislike against the unknown Lieutenant Levesque that if anyone was to go tumbling off the yardarm to the waters below, he would try to make certain it was the Creole.