Madame de Rosemond's initial reaction to the institution of duelling, calling it "barbaric", reflects the dichotomy in the opinions concerning duelling in the minds of the nobility. There was a hypocrisy which prevailed in the minds of the very peoples that sanctioned the phenomenon. The biggest influence on this split opinion was the church, God's edict "vengeance is mine", providence (in the fact that is was believed to be wrong to speed up providence which is exactly what the duel did if one believed that the just party prevailed), and a general disdain for anything medieval. Billacois states "Churchmen saw duelling as a manifestation of infernal libertinism" (87). and "To set oneself up as a judge in place of the law-giving King and God of Justice was a profoundly impious act" (101). These sentiments are clearly demonstrated in the literature of the eighteenth century. It is fitting that Valmont dies in a duel, for he is a relentless libertine. The same is true of Robert Lovelace in Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa. If this appears to be a paradox, that is because it is. There is an irrefutable gap between a general disapproval of duelling and the obligation to participate when it was one's own honour at stake or somebody close. This catch-22 in the eighteenth century mind can be found in almost every piece of literature that duelling is a part of, no matter how small a part that may be. In Clarissa, Lovelace's participation in a duel with Clarissa's brother (who is also a scoundrel) is strongly held against him. Yet, at the end of the novel, the doomed Clarissa, who is taking on saintly proportions by this point, implores her cousin, Colonel Morden, not to seek vengeance on Lovelace. Despite this, Morden is moved by principle and by Clarissa's honour and kills Lovelace in a duel. Morden is clearly justified in doing this and is not brought down or thought less of for the altercation.

s been remembered of the duel has been mostly of an anecdotal kind. It may be surmised that a good many of the countless stories connected with it lost nothing in the telling and retelling; some have a decidedly novelistic flavor" (7). The reality of the duel is that it was not a clear cut event, but rather an ambiguous one, with many rules and regulations, and open only to certain sections of society. The purpose for a duel was not as justifiable as it is for the duel's fictional counter part; historical duels have been fought for any number of reasons, some being entirely trivial. Most importantly, in the fictional duel, the just almost always prevail, which is definitely not true to life. Literature tends to embellish, simplify, and romanticize the duel and while it is possible to look to literature to glean some information, it is important to take that information and look beyond the myth for a more complete picture.

Although judicial combat was open to anybody, it was more likely that to be practiced by the knightly and noble classes, for they are the ones who would be trained in and accustomed to using weapons. With the tapering off of chivalry, judicial combat moved from the religious to the secular and evolved into the duel. In his book That Damn'd Thing Called Honour, James Kelly states ""though the ritualized, sanctioned combats of the middle ages declined, the sentiments that impelled them remained vibrant" (9). In the midst of civil war, religious strife, and reformation, the aristocracy took on the duel as an identifying marker of its class. Kiernan states "It was admist the chronic warfare of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the modern duel took shape" (6). With the reigns of the law in the hands of the monarchy, an increasingly more powerful middle class, and an increasingly less powerful noble class, the aristocracy created its own code of honour to define itself by. Kiernan also states "Dueling provided a warrant of aristocratic breeding....a certificate of legitimate de

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3687
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page double spaced)