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History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850: 1854-1860 (1907)
History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 18541860 - 1907 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: duke an opportunity to demand of Nelville Soule that he should disavow those statements. This Soule declined to do, maintaining that the printed accounts were co... more »rrect. The duke then sent a challenge. Both were experienced swordsmen. They fought for thirty minutes, and although neither was wounded, the seconds declared that honor did not require more; the duel ended with a shaking of hands. But the hot blood of Pierre Soule boiled at this implied insult. He was of humble origin, and had been forced to leave France on account of advanced political opinions. Turgot, of an ancient noble family, could scarcely endure to meet on equal diplomatic footing a Frenchman of low extraction, as he considered the American minister, and, not content with secretly urging the rejection of Soule by the court, he manifested his contempt by shrugs of the shoulders and by petty slights. Soule now insisted on fighting Turgot, on the ground that the insult had taken place at his house, and no explanation availed to placate the fiery citizen of New Orleans. A duel was actually forced upon Turgot. Pistols were the weapons chosen. The American minister wanted the distance ten paces or under; Lord Howden, the British ambassador and second of Turgot, said that would be brutal murder, and determined that the distance should be forty paces. To this decision Soule was obliged to submit, although he maintained that in America such a duel would be ridiculed as a farce. The first fire was without result; at the second, the ball of Soule's pistol lodged in the thigh of his antagonist, four inches above the knee. The marquis was confined to his bed for a long time, and was lamed for life. A reconciliation between the two gentlemen never took place.1 1 My authorities for this account are a letter of M. Gaillardet, ...« less