Honours, that in Cases of Affronts they will take up and content
themselves with the same Equivalents, and on all Occasions submit to
the same Regulations, which you are now desired to follow. And that it
may appear, how highly reasonable this Request is; you are likewise
desired to take the following Remonstrance into your Consideration:
That the Valour and Steadiness of Men of Honour: are the grand Support
of all States and Kingdoms, is a Truth not to be denied; and that not
only the Peace and Tranquility, and all the Blessings we enjoy, but
likewise the King's Crown and Safety would be precarious without them,
is as unquestionable. For this Reason all wise Princes, Magistrates
and Governours, will ever take all imaginable Care, on the one Hand,
to cultivate and encourage the most noble Principle of Honour, and, on
the other, to encrease the Numbers of the worthy Posessors of it, by
favouring and on all Occasions shewing them the most tender Affection,
as well as highest Esteem. It is easy then to be imagin'd, that a
Monarch, who loves his People, and has the Interest of his Nation at
Heart, must be sensibly afflicted to see it become a common Practice
for such valuable Men to destroy one another, and behold that Bravery
and Spirit, which should only be made Use of against the Enemies of
the Country, hourly employ'd and lavish'd away in private Quarrels,
that can have no other Tendency that the weakening of the Kingdom, and
which, if suffer'd to go on, must compleat its Ruin.

Hor. You make these Laws speak very notably.

Cleo. I have said Nothing but what is certainly imply'd in them. Every
Man in _France_ knew, that the chief Motive of all those Edicts against
Duelling, was the Loss of the brave Men that was sustain'd by that
Custom. The Sinfulness of it was the least Consideration.