Recollections of the Military Tournament of Stockholm in 1800—The Comte de Fersen—King Gustavus IV.—The Challenge of the Unknown Knight—The Games on the Bridge at Pisa.

During the next four days the whole of Vienna seemed engrossed with the accounts of the magnificence of the carrousel. Every particular was eagerly caught up, the names of the knights and their dames were on everybody’s lips. There were frequent allusions to the accident to Prince Lichtenstein, whose life had for some time been in danger. In short, the carrousel was the inevitable subject of every conversation.

At a reception at the Princesse Jean de Lichtenstein’s, the whole of the programme was minutely reviewed; some praised and others criticised the knights and their dames, the feats accomplished, the horses, the evolutions, etc. Nevertheless, the upshot of all the remarks was that, in respect of splendour, nothing like it had ever been seen in Europe, and that no fÊte of that kind had ever been attended by an equal number of spectators.72

‘It is perfectly natural that Germany, which is the birthplace of tournaments, should endeavour to revive their glory on such a solemn occasion,’ said Prince Philippe de Hesse-Hombourg. ‘I do not think that anything of the kind has ever been attempted since Louis XIV.‘s time,’ said the hostess. ‘If Colbert had seen our knights and their fair ones, he would probably have admitted being beaten.’

I reminded them that the first years of the nineteenth century had been marked by several of those tournaments; and that I myself had witnessed one in Stockholm given by Gustavus-Adolphus IV. At the commencement of his reign that prince endeavoured to preserve in Sweden the brilliant valour and the elegant and courtly manners of which the Court of Gustavus III. had afforded such perfect models. He was passionately fond of those warlike exercises, and they generally took place at his summer residence of Drotningholm. ‘Assuredly,’ I remarked, ‘the Vienna carrousel has been admirable throughout from a spectacular point of view. But that which I saw in 1800 could vie with it, not in respect of its pomp and splendour, or by reason of the eminent rank of its spectators, but through its faithful adherence to, and accurate reproduction of, ancient traditions. It was, moreover, marked by an incident which recalled the chivalric and often bloody encounters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.’ As a matter of course, I was pressed to give further particulars, and this, as far as my memory serves me, is what I told them.

The tournament was given in honour of the queen’s birthday, and for several months beforehand the northern Courts had been apprised of it. The young king was to figure among the champions, and the queen, one of the handsomest women of her time, was to crown the victor and present to him in the presence of the whole Court the reward of his skill, which consisted of a scarf wholly embroidered by her own hands. Nothing had been left undone to invest this fÊte with all the prestige that formerly marked those of Louis XIV., the accounts of which had fairly astonished the whole of Europe.

The Comte de Fersen,73 whose physical advantages and lucky star had placed him in such high favour at the Court of France, came to fetch us, ‘my father’ [the Marquis de Chambonas, who had adopted the author] and me, to escort us to Drotningholm. Before proceeding thither, he had to take on his way the Comte de Paar, his fellow-umpire at the tournament, who, in virtue of being a ‘Gentleman of the Chamber,’ had been present at the rehearsal of a ballet to be given on that very evening for the first time at the opera. No sooner had we reached the doors of the magnificent structure, due to Gustavus III.‘s love of art, than we were conducted to a room preceding the royal box, where a collation was awaiting us. It was there that Gustavus-Adolphus supped when he came to the theatre, and that, divesting himself of all his royal prerogatives, he became the equal of his friends. In tragic contrast with the rest of the magnificent and sumptuous furniture, with all those gold, silken, and alabaster decorations, one could not help noticing a crimson velvet couch with stains all over it. It was on this couch that Gustavus-Adolphus III. had been laid during the night of the 16th March 1792, after the exploit of Ankarstroem. The blood from his wound had practically soaked the material. Though it would have been extremely simple to remove the piece of furniture, thus effacing the trace of a crime committed in a place devoted to pleasure, the king, from motives it was not easy to guess, had insisted upon the couch remaining there, perhaps as an object lesson or merely as a remembrance.74 The Comte de Paar soon joined us, and shortly afterwards we were on our way to the Queen’s demesne, about four leagues from Stockholm. Numerous carriages were performing the same journey, and they rendered the picturesque Swedish country road more animated than usual.

A dense crowd had gathered since early morning around the castle, blocking up every approach to it. They were on foot, on horseback, and in every kind of conveyance; nevertheless, most admirable order prevailed throughout. Two Uhlans of the Guards and an equerry were waiting for the Comte de Fersen, who, in virtue of his functions as an umpire, was to preside at the fÊte.

At a little distance from the castle, in a pretty valley overlooked by wooded heights, a circus had been erected, with galleries capable of holding about four thousand spectators. Its floor had disappeared beneath a thick layer of the finest sand, and high and strong palisades surrounded it on every side. The women, in their richest apparel, were almost without exception remarkable for the beauty peculiar to their sisters of northern climes. The men were in uniform or in Court dress. A cloak of black silk lined with crimson satin was considered tantamount to gala vesture. The grandees of the kingdom had all donned the dresses connected with their functions. Stands, draped with satin, and displaying the three crowns of Sweden, were set apart for the ambassadors. The ring was hung with Swedish standards. At one end of the building was the pavilion for the queen and her ladies of honour, particularly noticeable for the coquettish mingling of its decorations, consisting of flowers, weapons, and flags, intertwined with simple and genuine elegance. DuprÉ, the French architect, one of the most celebrated decorators of Europe, had superintended all the arrangements. At regular distances there were columns, from some of which were suspended the rings for the games, while others supported the Turks’ heads to be slashed at by the competitors. The banners of the knights selected to dispute the prize were first borne in procession around the arena, then fixed against the different barriers of the ring.

Before leaving us Comte de Fersen had introduced us to his friend, M. de Rozen, a young man who had taken part in the previous carrousel, and who was, therefore, in a position to give us full particulars of the present one. The various emblems and mottoes of the banners and scutcheons were as ingenious as they were instructive in the true spirit of chivalry. Among many I cite the following:—

A sword on a field azure.
Motto—‘Je pars, je brille, je frappe.’
(I go, I shine, I strike.)
A lion on a field starred.
‘La valeur soumet les astres.’
(Valour subjugates the stars.)
A fire burning on an altar.
‘Ce qui est pur est Éternel.’
(The pure lasts for ever.)
An ermine climbing a steep height.
‘TÂche sans tache.’
(Try but keep stainless.)

Finally, another shield, checkered red and yellow, was that of Tonin, the jester of the late king. His motto, though, would have given no clue to that effect.

It ran:

Tonin only jousted with witticisms, biting remarks and wholesome truths, brought home to his hearers with a laugh; on all these points he could make sure of the victory, for he varied them like his motto. Among all these banners, resplendent with colour and embroidery, there hung a black one without a squire to guard it. We asked M. de Rozen to whom this mournful standard belonged.

‘Do you not know?’ he replied. ‘Have you not read in the papers that a knight who wishes to remain unknown has challenged to single combat the champion sufficiently bold to dispute with him the prize of the tournament? The prize, as you are aware, is a scarf embroidered by the queen. At the time fixed for calling the roll of the knights they found his glove lying in the middle of the ring, and his black banner planted where it is now; attached to it was his buckler, with the following words on a star-spangled blue ground:

‘To add to the strangeness of the challenge is his choice of the battle-axe, which went out of use long ago. The most curious stories are going the round in connection with the challenge of that mysterious Amadis. Among the different versions the most implicitly believed in is the following:

‘A young noble, sprung from one of the most illustrious families of Great Britain, saw the Queen at Baden when she was only Princess DorothÉe-Wilhelmine. He fell deeply in love with her. Considering his rank and his immense fortune, he might possibly have aspired to her hand with success. But the two sisters of our queen having married respectively the Emperor of Russia and Maximilien de BaviÈre, reasons of state and the fitness of things carried her to the throne of Sweden. The young lord, unable to conquer a feeling which from that moment was shorn of all hope, was mad enough to gain admission surreptitiously to our Court, and always under a fresh disguise. He was recognised by the ladies-in-waiting of our queen, and narrowly escaped the punishment due to his foolhardiness. The rumour went that he had gone to America. Informed, no doubt, with the rest of Europe of the preparations for this tournament, he wished to make an attempt to conquer or to die under the very eyes of the woman he loves. It is even said that, knowing the chivalric spirit of Gustavus-Adolphus, he conceived the flattering hope of having a royal adversary to contend with, with the possible chance of succeeding him who, as he probably thought, robbed him at first.

‘The Comte de Torstenson, son of the field-marshal, has offered to take up the challenge. He has practised for some time with the battle-axe, and acquired marvellous skill with it.’

At that moment the harmonious strains of a hundred instruments announced the arrival of the queen, and every eye was turned towards her.

Her perfect beauty and the stateliness of her person would have revealed the sovereign under the humblest dress. Surrounded by her Court ladies, she took her seat under the canopy prepared for her. Immediately the king at the head of his nobles entered the ring and rode round it, saluting with his lance all the ladies, who had risen at his coming.

Gustavus-Adolphus IV. was at that time in his twenty-second year. He was well built, had a martial bearing, and a noble and frank countenance. He was anxious to copy Charles XII., and, to enhance the likeness, he wore, as a rule, a blue coat, buttoned to the chin, and had his hair brushed up from the roots. But with the sword that performed such wonders at Bender, he lacked the strong arm that had so often made the sword victorious, and the genius that had directed it.

When he passed before the queen, in his magnificent costume, with head erect and proud mien, and holding his lance with a firm grip, his horse reared. Gustavus tried to quiet it, but an accidental touch of the spurs made matters worse, and he was within an ace of being thrown. It was the same animal he had ridden on the day of his coronation at Upsala, and which had nearly killed him—an accident that, as a matter of course, had furnished the superstitious among his subjects with a thousand conjectures regarding the future of his reign. The cause of the mishap was, however, sufficiently simple. The groom or equerry entrusted with the training of the animal for the ceremony stopped every day before the shop of a shoemaker, whose wife, a young Finnish woman, amused herself by giving it a piece of bread and salt. The handsome charger got thoroughly used to stopping at the hospitable door, and when Gustavus, the crown on his head and sceptre in hand, proceeded to the cathedral, it refused to pass the shop without its usual ration. The king, thinking it was a mere whim on the animal’s part, put the rowels into its flesh; the horse reared, crown and sceptre rolled into the dust, and without the prompt assistance of a page walking by the monarch’s side, who by clutching at his boot restored his equilibrium, Gustavus would have gone the way of the royal insignia. At the news of the accident, the fortune-teller, Arvidson, exclaimed, it was said, with tears coursing down her cheeks: ‘The race of Wasa has ceased to reign in Sweden.’75 At the slightest uncommon event of that reign, the prediction of the fortune-teller was ‘trotted out’; as a matter of course the spectators at the tournament at once added this omen to the rest.

Meanwhile, the barrier was thrown open to the knights in their magnificent dresses. Divided into quadrilles, they rode around the lists, and in passing before the queen they saluted by lowering their lances. All wore the colours of their dames in the form of a scarf, a veil, a knot of ribbons, or a buckle. After that, they put their horses through the boldest and most graceful evolutions. When that warlike procession was concluded, to the sound of blasts from the combined bands of the regiments of the Guards and the cheering of the crowd, they retired to await the signal for the jousts.

A herald-of-arms, taking his stand in the centre of the arena, announced the opening of the tournament, and added in a loud voice: ‘In the name of the king, and according to the laws of the kingdom, it is forbidden to any subject or alien to give or to accept a challenge to single combat under no matter what pretext. It would be senseless to imagine that an enclosure intended for the display of games of skill could with impunity serve for the shedding of blood in the very presence of the queen.’

The proclamation was received with signs of general approval. The black banner of the unknown champion was torn down, and contemptuously flung over the barrier. After which, Gustavus rode up to the Comte de Torstenson, who had taken up his position at the entrance to the lists, and who wore a brilliant suit of armour, with a magnificent breastplate, inlaid with gold, over a coat of double mail, and whose hand grasped a heavy battle-axe, which was lowered as his king drew near.

‘Comte de Torstenson,’ said Gustavus, holding out his hand, ‘we appreciate your courage, and we thank you for it, but we reserve it for a more noble opportunity.’ The lists were declared open. The king said in a loud voice, ‘Let every one do his duty.’ Comte Fersen in his capacity of judge replied: ‘Go.’ Then the different games commenced and were kept up for four hours. As at the Vienna carrousel, the knights vied with each other in showing their skill, their valour, and agility. The weather was magnificent; its beauty seemed to enhance the general enthusiasm. Scarfs fluttered in the air, joyous applause and murmurs of praise broke forth at every moment from lips as red as the rose, while flowers were flung by hands trembling with emotion and fell at the competitors’ feet.

The contest was a long one; the champions vying with each other in skill. Finally, Comte Piper was adjudged the victor. The judge and the heralds proclaimed his name and conducted him to the feet of the queen, who, while complimenting him, vested him with the scarf, the reward of his skill, and held out the hand that embroidered the ornament for him to kiss. The trumpets sounded a joyous blast, while cheers broke forth greeting the victorious young champion, who was moreover pelted with flowers. His banner was hung upon a car drawn by two milk-white reindeer richly caparisoned: Comte Fersen had sent for them to his estate in Lapland to offer them to the king. The car was escorted by the whole of the Court across the park to the banqueting hall at the castle. Several tables had been spread; the king presided over that occupied by his family and the victorious knight; the chancellor and the grand officers of the crown presided over the others. Refreshments were served to the people in the garden, and when night set in, the gaiety that prevailed on the immense lawn and in the bosky dells glittering with lights invested the fÊte with the air of a family gathering.

After the banquet we went to the beautiful opera-house to hear the lyrical drama of Gustave Wasa, the music of which was by Piccini, and the libretto by the late king. Finally, a general illumination of the gardens, a torchlight procession, and enormous fireworks fitly wound up the day, which doubtless was among the small number of happy ones reserved by fate for Gustavus-Adolphus IV.

The guests of the Princesse Jean de Lichtenstein had listened attentively to the particulars of a fÊte which apparently did not belong to our own times. The listeners, and especially the fair sex, had probably expected a sequel to the challenge of the knight of the black banner, which sequel, of course, was to take the form of a ‘combat to the death.’ The pacific termination of the tournament seemed to cause more or less of a disappointment. I ventured to remark that neither the tournament at Stockholm nor the carrousel in Vienna could compare with the games enacted on the bridge of Pisa, which, from the standpoint of danger and tenacity of purpose, presented the most perfect image of the old wars in Italy of the Middle Ages. No one present but myself had ever witnessed these games, and I was asked to convey an idea of them.

The last of those games, at which I happened to be present, took place during the short-lived existence of the kingdom of Etruria.76 They had been abolished long ago on account of the accidents to which they gave rise. The queen’s consent to their revival was obtained with great difficulty. The origin of this struggle cannot be fixed with any degree of certainty, for though it was called ‘a game’ it was in reality a battle. It is more than probable that they dated from the long distant past; according to some, they were Greek and almost as old as the Olympic Games. The Pisans maintain that in the ancient chronicles of their town there is a mention of the names of some champions of Sainte-Marie who formed part of the contingent despatched by their republic to the Crusades. In our days Alfieri has given us a poetical picture of those chivalric contests, with all their perils and the passions they aroused.

Pisa is traversed by the Arno; and a handsome marble bridge connects the two quarters of the town. One quarter has its patroness in the Virgin Mary, the other is placed under the protection of St. Anthony. When they celebrated those games in days of old, each side chose three hundred champions to proclaim and maintain the pre-eminence of their patron’s banner against all comers. Those improvised defenders were always selected from among the strongest, the bravest, and most agile young fellows of their quarter.

They were clad in armour similar to that worn by their ancestors in the palmy days of the republic. Trained and drilled long beforehand by experienced leaders, they stoutly prepared themselves both for attack and defence. A massive breastplate, a helmet, armlets, and cuish of steel constituted their means of defence; their weapon of offence consisted of a kind of club of hard wood, three feet long; one blow dealt with force and precision was sufficient to disable an adversary.

A lowered barrier in the centre of the bridge separated the combatants. At the stroke of three from the cathedral towers, a cannon shot gave the signal, and immediately the barrier was raised. Amidst a furious blast of trumpets, the struggle began, and the blows from the heavy clubs rang on the steel of the breastplates and helmets. That game, almost as barbarous as the times that gave it birth, lasted for three-quarters of an hour. At the discharge of a second shot, the barrier was lowered, and the party which had driven back the other from its position, if but the length of a foot, was proclaimed the victor. Cries of joy rang on the bank that had gained the victory, while a mournful silence attested the defeat and the disgrace of the opposite bank.

In 1805 I happened to be in Pisa, and thanks to some friends and the kindness of M. Aubusson de la Feuillade, the French ambassador, I was enabled to witness that extraordinary fÊte. It had been announced throughout the length and breadth of Italy some weeks before its celebration. At the news of the forthcoming contest offered to strength and dexterity, there was a rush from all parts of combatants who had acquired a reputation for bravery or herculean strength. There was, according to report, one from Calabria, others from Ancona and Geneva; Rome had sent a couple of Transteverinos, and, wonderful to relate, the learned University of Padua added to the contingent with a professor reputed to be the strongest man of Italy. Personages belonging to the highest classes of Italian society had inscribed themselves under the name of some of their retainers: assured of preserving their incognito, thanks to the visors of their helmets, they intended taking part in the struggle, the pugilistic fever having become general. Constant practice had familiarised the athletes with the use of their clubs to such a degree as to enable them to handle these as their forefathers handled the double-edged sword in the Middle Ages. The professor from Padua talked of challenging four men armed with sabres and swords, and of vanquishing them with the sole aid of his club. The enthusiasm had turned all heads. No doubt it is a very extraordinary thing that, in an enlightened age like ours, such an amusement, with all its inevitable and perhaps fatal consequences, should have been allowed. It is, moreover, most probable that the danger involved in the whole affair added to people’s curiosity. Certain is it, however, that Pisa was invaded by more than a hundred thousand strangers—an enormous number for a town the population of which did not exceed twelve thousand inhabitants.

The week preceding the struggle was spent in warlike exercises, and the eve of the day itself in pious practices and meditation. All the combatants scrupulously kept their vigil in prayers like the knights of old, went to confession, and took the Sacrament. The bishop publicly blessed the standards, richly embroidered by the ladies of the foremost families of the land. In short, everything calculated to sustain the combatants’ courage was resorted to in honour of either the patron or patroness whose banner they defended. Those who had laid wagers on the event—and their number and the amount of their bets were considerable—spared neither promises nor encouragement. During that week, each combatant was fed like a podesta; but the use of strong liquors was strictly forbidden: like Richelieu at the siege of Mahon, the chiefs intimated in the ‘orders for the day’ that any champion guilty of inebriety should not have the honour of competing.

From six in the morning, all the windows overlooking the Arno at that point were occupied by elegantly dressed women; these windows had been let at enormous prices. There were, moreover, stands on both banks of the river intended for spectators. The quays were absolutely black with people from the rural districts. The excursion, in their minds, was invested with the solemnity of a pilgrimage. Their varied and picturesque dresses offered a unique sight. A large stand, richly draped, had been erected for the queen, the court, the corps diplomatique, and foreigners of distinction who had come from all the Italian Courts.

Craft of all dimensions, displaying bunting from prow to stern, and provided with elegant tents, crowded the river. They had bands on board, and a glance showed the preparations for cold collations everywhere. This flotilla alone was a delightful sight. On both sides of the bridge there were other craft: they, as it were, constituted the riparian police, and were charged with keeping both boats and spectators at a distance. Their second mission consisted in affording aid to the combatants who from some cause or other might tumble into the stream. Such accidents, to judge from a picture at the town hall, painted more than two centuries before, were by no means improbable. The canvas represented, among other phases of the struggle, two knights clinging tightly to each other, and continuing the contest, while dropping into the river.

The living picture that day was scarcely less curious, with the noise, bustle, and stir of the spectators, the constant movement on both banks of the stream, the diversity of Italian dialects, and the innumerable incidents of that outdoor life which in this sunny clime seems the most natural.

At twelve o’clock the combatants donned their armour; their trainers and chiefs crowd around them and renew their counsels and instructions. To watch the excitement of their wives and their womankind one might have taken them for so many Spartan matrons handing their bucklers to their sons and saying: ‘With it or on it.’

Thus armed, the combatants repair to their respective encampments; refreshments are served out to them under tents, and this time the solids are washed down with wine from the best cellars of the town. At the bugle-call they emerge from their encampments and form in line of battle; then, preceded by their military bands and with banners unfurled, they slowly gain the side of the bridge they have sworn to defend. The banners were attached outside the parapets. On each side plans of attack and defence had been prepared, and so carefully elaborated as to elicit the admiration of a most competent judge in military matters, namely, the General of Division Duchesne. He had made the campaigns of Italy, Holland, and Egypt, and considered them (the plans) samples of strategical skill, from the manner in which the forces were disposed for an engagement in which everything depended on physical strength.

Meanwhile the two parties had been pressing against the barrier for some minutes. Three struck from the cathedral clock; at the same time the air rings with the firing of the cannon, the signal so impatiently waited for. The obstacle dividing the two contingents is lifted, and the attack commences with a tenacity of which none but an eyewitness can conceive an approximate idea. All kinds of cries fall upon the ear. To the majority of the spectators the interest of the whole is heightened by the promptings of greed, of pride, and even of love. Each sign of success is greeted with deafening applause. The bravery of the combatants rises into frenzy, and the hand-to-hand struggle becomes a real battle with its fury and its alternating incidents.

While the two troops assail each other with equal fury, each side flings long ropes with iron crooks attached to them into their adversaries’ ranks. The crook catches a leg, a man is down, and he is dragged away captive. It is simply a modification of the lasso practised by the Tartars on the Yedissen steppes: the running knot is thrown around the necks of the wild horses and they are checked in their stampede.

The half-hour after three had struck, and the two contingents, pressed tightly against each other, seemed so many athletes who, unable to make their opponents budge, spend their strength in protracted efforts. Not an inch of ground had been gained; another ten minutes, and Victory herself, in her indecisive mood, would have claimed, as in days of old, her share of the glory.

The two masses were so tightly wedged against each other as to make fighting impossible. They were simply like the waves of two meeting streams. In order to give further weight to the men, each leader ordered his band of musicians to advance, which movement again only equalised the power of resistance. On the two banks a mournful silence followed the joyous acclamations of the previous half-hour; the general deadlock left little or no hope of a decisive result. At last two champions of the hindmost ranks of Sainte-Marie hit upon a most audacious movement. In spite of the weight of their armour, they climb on to the shoulders of their comrades, and for a few moments remain erect on the flooring of brass and steel; in other words, the large helmets so closely serried as to leave little or no space between them. Advancing carefully from helmet to helmet, they reach the first rows of their own contingent. From the height of that living fortress, as from the height of a war-chariot, they shower tremendous blows with their clubs on the heads of their adversaries. The latter, though protected by the metal covering their skulls, finally reel and fall down. The breach is made, a thousand cries of victory from the side of Sainte-Marie are heard, and its mass advances. In a short time it has over-stepped its own line of demarcation, and the banner of St. Anthony is carried away by the two aerial champions.

The leader of the opposite forces in vain attempts a defence similar to the attack. Some St. Anthony champions also climb on to their fellows’ shoulders. There is positively a second combat on the heads of the combatants, without, however, detracting in the slightest from the fury of the onslaught of those who are on terra firma. It was indeed something marvellous to see those two stages of warriors dealing each other blows and using all the combined resources of strength. The struggle was both violent and intense; at one moment it seemed that the banner of St. Anthony was going to be recovered. One of the champions of Sainte-Marie, the nearest to the parapet, took his club in both hands, and with a swing brought it down on the head of the adversary facing him. The latter reels, loses his balance, and drops into the Arno. Frenzied clamour from both sides rends the air. The army of the Holy Virgin redoubles its efforts and stands like a rock on the ground it has gained. Joshua was not there to stop the sun in its course. The third quarter of the hour has struck, the cannon gives the signal and the barrier is lowered. The army of the Holy Virgin remains the victor; the honour of the day belongs incontestably to it.

Immediately the victorious quarter rang with joy and inspiriting blasts of trumpets, while a mournful silence and a feeling of disgrace fell upon that of the vanquished. It is a true saying that men derive the energy of their feelings from the sky under which they were born. Hence, while the champions of the Holy Virgin were loaded with caresses, praise, and gifts, carried in triumph and enthusiastically welcomed by their families, those of St. Anthony silently regained their domiciles, where sarcasm and reproaches awaited them, and where they perhaps deemed themselves fortunate if, for balm to their wounds, they did not get additional blows from their own flesh and blood.

At night the victorious quarter was agog with balls, concerts, music, the tooting of horns, the whole of it only ceasing with morn. On the bank opposite everything remained pitch dark. The quarter conveyed the impression of being inhabited by ghosts. Nothing, I fancy, can be compared to that scene. For more than a century, Europe had not witnessed a similar spectacle, where everything, arms as well as wounds, was altogether serious. And he who had not seen a real battle might have well believed that he was witnessing one by going back in his imagination to an epoch when cannon was not as yet the last argument of kings.

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