Proust, Duels, and the Issue of Guns
It has become increasingly popular in America to protect us foolish children from ourselves. Each year we have more laws that save us from death, enabling us to live much longer, but with no freedom to take chances. Some of us, who relish the grand risk, might call this some kind of encroaching living death.
Of all the risky items slated for extinction, one of the most imperiled is that distinctly dangerous item, the gun. Our right to own guns has been guaranteed by the Constitution, and our obligation to bear them demanded by the government whenever the national interest necessitates that we use them to kill people on its behalf. In spite of these deeply-rooted American dictums, the right to own a gun for the purpose of sport becomes increasingly politically incorrect.
Firearms terrify many because they occasionally fall into the hands of the crazed and alienated. People die random and horrible deaths in drive-by shootings and other acts of senseless violence, and it cannot be argued that there is anything positive to be said for such affairs. In the ghettos of America, these weapons settle disputes, often forever. Again, there is virtually nothing good to say about such matters, nor about the handgun accidents that take other lives.
One friend, with a rather cut-and-dried view of the human condition, made a t-shirt once that bore the inscription: "Handgun accidents are a vehicle of natural selection." He, like so many other members of the MPSG, has tremendous respect for firearms, enjoys them for sport, and maintains rigorous control of them. A loaded weapon is never left lying around; the ammunition and the firearms are stored separately, and are kept locked away. If every person who owned a gun took such intelligent precautions, guns would never injure children or dolts.
"My seconds in duels can tell you whether I behave with the weakness of an effeminate man."
Letter to Paul Souday
November 6-8, 1920
The US Constitution was penned in a time when owning a gun was the gentleman's perrogative and in most places a necessity. In those times, it was considered useful for getting dinner, or as an acceptable tool for settling a disagreement; the duel was an affair of honor. In these encounters, death was frequent, but not a necessary result. What mattered was that the two valiant souls had the courage to risk death in pursuit of honor. Often the matter was settled with a mere bang-bang in the general vicintity of the other party, or perhaps a grazing bullet that would draw blood but not much else. The show made, the gentlemen could retire once again to their drawing rooms with their seconds and friends for a self-congratulatory cocktail.
This is not to say that gentlemen were not killed in duels, because plenty of them were, but for centuries the notion of a man defending his honor without the employment of messy litigation was not offensive. A death on the field of honor was not murder; the victor walked away vindicated and free. This, of course, is an antiquated notion that no longer justifies things like gang warfare, but in such cases the amenities are not observed, so it's not quite the same.
The notion of defending honor has faded in importance in these times. Slander cases appear infrequently in the news, and most cases of sexual harrassment have more to do with the unacceptability of the amourous swain than proving the unassailed virginity of the victim. Surely honor still motivates law suits here and there, but far more frequently there is financial gain involved, at least enough to pay the lawyer.
Honor and money have become unavoidably intertwined since the days when disputes were settled on the field. Any dispute in America costs every American money, as does every issue that is called a crime. It is from our taxes that the monolithic legal system feeds. Every crime must be tried, and everything that is illegal costs us more money to prosecute; every criminal is supported by our taxes.
To make gun ownership illegal would provide one new expense, while depriving sport enthusiasts of their enjoyment. And would it put an end to murders and other crimes in a society that chokes on the the bile of gross financial inequity?
What if the duel were to be reinstated? What if the desire to settle feuds in such a manner was again acceptable? There is the possibility that everyone would be happier because less of our money would go to finance litigation, and could be spent on more attractive alternatives; as a consequence, people might be less moved to crime. And a shooting would be criminal only if it did not meet the qualifications of an honorable battle. For that matter, might people be less inclined to shoot each other after having to think about it before doing it, and before witnesses, as the steps are taken back to back?
One member of the MPSG told me tonight over cards that historically many lives were saved in the days of dueling by the more level-headed seconds in the conflict. The job of seconds was to load the guns, and they would simply agree to load with blanks, or to decide when enough shots had been fired. In such cases, the conflict was resolved in a draw, no one's friends got dead, and celebratory cocktails were had by all.
"Speaking of a duel I had fought, she said of my seconds: 'What very choice seconds'..."
The concept of restoring the duel as an alternative to litigation is as ludicrously complex as possible, and hardly to be sucessfully argued in a brief essay spurred by minimal research. Anti-gun militants will bristle at the very thought, think me mad, and perhaps cancel their subscriptions to this magazine if they ever got around to ordering one. To even suggest such a thing might cost me a few dollars, but what about this labor of love has not been costly? And how could I go another issue without bringing it up?
It was Proust, of course, who got me musing about the value of the duel, because he himself fought them. The Marcel of Remebrance also did the same. In his typical fashion, the author Marcel tosses off the narrator Marcel's duels with a single sentence, while lavishing one hundred and forty pages on a single dinner party, and draws little attention to it, no doubt out of embarrassment.
It was Proust who demanded that his honor be avenged when the colomnist Jean Lorrain, a foppish, utterly decadent and malicious writer published a particularly scathing review of his first book, Les Plaisirs et les jours. It was not simply his own honor, but the taste of the society hostess Madeleine Lemaire, who did the illustrations, Reynaldo Hahn, who composed music for it, and Anatole France, who wrote the foreward, that were in question, as it was deemed an overly-precious bit of work and greatly overpriced.
Proust was consumed with anxiety before the duel, primarily because he feared that it would be scheduled for dawn, when he was usually going to sleep. Once the time of the match was arranged by the seconds for the reasonable hour of 3 in the afternoon, Proust's calm amazed everyone.
It was a rainy day at the Tour de Villbon, February 3, 1897, when the antagonists met, bearing pistols, as neither of them were in good enough physical condition to fight with swords. After they had both fired twice and missed, the seconds called the match settled. Ecstatic (no doubt to have avoided harm), Proust wished to dash over to his adversary and shake hands, but was discretely removed from the field by his friends before he could do so.
While staying at a hotel in Cabourg, he adamantly challenged Camille Plantevignes to a duel over a conversation between his son, Marcel, and a mutual female acquaintance. Proust was visiting the 19-year-old Marcel's room every night and reading to him from his manuscript. The mutual female acquaintance, who liked to rib Proust about his indifference to women, was about to go into a commentary about his homosexuality when the younger Marcel said "I know, I know..." He meant to imply that he knew what she was going to say, but the woman, relating their interchange, said that he meant "Of course it's true."
The father tried with two visits to explain the misunderstanding to the infuriated Proust, but was sent away to go find his seconds. On the third attempt, with son along, they did clear up the problem, but only after swearing that neither one of them had the slightest reason to believe such a thing. Proust asked the young Marcel how he knew what the woman was going to tell him; "Because" the young man said, "That's what they all say on the promenade." "How charming," Proust lamented sarcastically, "to arrive somewhere preceeded by one's reputation."
If anyone should resort to taking shots at a modern day critic for a nasty pan, or someone who has possible theories about one's sexuality, that person would be taken under custody for psychiatric observation in a locked ward. Such action was not taken in France of the Belle Epoque, even though dueling was ostensibly illegal. The question remains: if people in our times were to think that their nastiness might bring them under literal fire, might that not encourage everyone to act with greater civility? Honor and civility are two greatly underrated phenomena these days, and whatever it takes, they should be restored to prominence in our lives. If you disagree, shall I meet you with my seconds? Some time in the late afternoon, please.
Before leaving the subject of Proust and guns, there is one odd story that must be mentioned. When his friends the Duc de Guiche and Elaine Greffulhe were married in 1904, Proust sent his mother off to buy them a present, very specifically, a revolver. The case was decorated by their friend Coco de Madrazo and inscribed with a poem written by the bride as a child. 
The revolver was displayed among the presents from everyone well-placed in French society, as well as from the Queen of Portugal and King of Sweden. To make certain that this gift would be recognized as his, he realized that he should have new calling cards bearing his name in large type; one wonders how many of the other guests knew that it was the Duc de Guiche himself who suggested such a gift, and what they thought of it.
The pistol was purchased by Mme Proust at the best gunsmith in Paris. Several of the members of the MPSG looked long and hard at the only photograph I have of it to determine what it was exactly. The photo of the gun was scanned, blown up, emailed around and scrutinized carefully, but the general opinion was that it was a Smith and Wesson, an off-the-shelf deluxe model, probably a .32 or .38 caliber, which was enjoying some popularity in France at the time. Proust would have been horrified to know that such a gun was readily available through the Sears and Roebuck catalog in the States for a mere eight dollars. No doubt he paid more.
