The last named officer having been grossly insulted by Marshal V--,
without giving him the slightest provocation, knocked him down: this
circumstance caused a great sensation in Paris, and brought about a
court of inquiry, which ended in the acquittal of Captain Thoroton.
My friend, B--, though he had only one leg, was a good swordsman, and
contrived to kill a man at Lyons who had jeered him about the loss of
his limb at Waterloo. My old and esteemed friend, Mike Fitzgerald,
son of Lord Edward and the celebrated Pamela, was always ready to measure
swords with the Frenchmen; and, after a brawl at Silves', the then fashionable
Bonapartist cafe at the corner of the Rue Lafitte and the Boulevard,
in which two of our Scotch countrymen showed the white feather, he and
another officer placed their own cards over the chimney-piece in the
principal room of the cafe, offering to fight any man, or number of
men, for the frequent public insult offered to Britons. This challenge,
however, was never answered.

A curious duel took place at Beauvais during the occupation of France
by our army. A Captain B--, of one of our cavalry regiments quartered
in that town, was insulted by a French officer, B-- demanded satisfaction,
which was accepted; but the Frenchman would not fight with pistols.
B-- would not fight with swords; so at last it was agreed that they
should fight on horseback, with lances. The duel took place in the
neighbourhood of Beauvais, and a crowd assembled to witness it. B--
received three wounds; but, by a lucky prod, eventually killed his man.
B-- was a fine-looking man and a good horseman. My late friend the
Baron de P--, so well known in Parisian circles, was second to the Frenchman
on this occasion.

A friend of mine - certainly not of a quarrelsome turn, but considered
by his friends, on the contrary, as rather a good-natured man - had