This duel was fought in Silesia.  If not fought to a finish, it was, at any rate, fought to a standstill.  The weapon was the cavalry sabre, and the skill, the science, the vigour, and the determination displayed by the adversaries compelled the admiration of the beholders.  It became the subject of talk on both shores of the Danube, and as far as the garrisons of Gratz and Laybach.  They crossed blades seven times.  Both had many cuts which bled profusely.  Both refused to have the combat stopped, time after time, with what appeared the most deadly animosity.  This appearance was caused on the part of Captain D’Hubert by a rational desire to be done once for all with this worry; on the part of Captain Feraud by a tremendous exaltation of his pugnacious instincts and the incitement of wounded vanity.  At last, dishevelled, their shirts in rags, covered with gore and hardly able to stand, they were led away forcibly by their marvelling and horrified seconds.  Later on, besieged by comrades avid of details, these gentlemen declared that they could not have allowed that sort of hacking to go on indefinitely.  Asked whether the quarrel was settled this time, they gave it out as their conviction that it was a difference which could only be settled by one of the parties remaining lifeless on the ground.  The sensation spread from army corps to army corps, and penetrated at last to the smallest detachments of the troops cantoned between the Rhine and the Save.  In the cafes in Vienna it was generally estimated, from details to hand, that the adversaries would be able to meet again in three weeks’ time on the outside.  Something really transcendent in the way of duelling was expected.

These expectations were brought to naught by the necessities of the service which separated the two officers.  No official notice had been taken of their quarrel.  It was now the property of the army, and not to be meddled with lightly.  But the story of the duel, or rather their duelling propensities, must have stood somewhat in the way of their advancement, because they were still captains when they came together again during the war with Prussia.  Detached north after Jena, with the army commanded by Marshal Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo, they entered Lubeck together.

It was only after the occupation of that town that Captain Feraud found leisure to consider his future conduct in view of the fact that Captain D’Hubert had been given the position of third aide-de-camp to the marshal.  He considered it a great part of a night, and in the morning summoned two sympathetic friends.

“I’ve been thinking it over calmly,” he said, gazing at them with blood-shot, tired eyes.  “I see that I must get rid of that intriguing personage.  Here he’s managed to sneak on to the personal staff of the marshal.  It’s a direct provocation to me.  I can’t tolerate a situation in which I am exposed any day to receive an order through him.  And God knows what order, too!  That sort of thing has happened once before—­and that’s once too often.  He understands this perfectly, never fear.  I can’t tell you any more.  Now you know what it is you have to do.”