challenge. Let us make the case as hard as possible. In a certain
army, every challenge sent to an officer is reported to a Court of
Honour. If the Court decide that it ought to be accepted, accept the
officer must, or lose his commission and all hope of military
distinction. In this army, say, there is an officer of high promise
who is believed to object to duels on conscientious grounds. An enemy
pretends to have been insulted, and challenges him, on purpose to see
him refuse and have to go down into the ranks, his career spoilt. The
Court of Honour rules that the duel must come off. Of this very case,
Reiffenstuel, a canonist of repute, about the year 1700, writes:

"The answer is, ... that they who in such cases are so necessitated
and constrained to offer, or accept, a duel, as that unless they
offered, or accepted it, they would be held cowardly, craven, mean,
and unfit to bear office in the army, and consequently would be
deprived of the office that they actually enjoy, and support
themselves and their family by, or would for ever forfeit all hope of
promotion, otherwise their due and desert,--these I say in such a case
are free from all fault and penalty, whether they offer or accept a
duel." (In lib. v. decret., tit. 14, nn. 30, 31.)

The author protests in his Preface that he wishes his opinions "all
and each to be subject to the judgment, censure, and correction of the
Holy Catholic Church." The opinion above quoted was condemned, word
for word as it was uttered, by Pope Benedict XIV. in 1752.

Now for Reiffenstuel's reason. "The reason," he says, "is, because in
such a case as is supposed the acceptance and offering of a duel is an
absolutely necessary, and thereby a just and lawful, defence of your
reputation, or goods of fortune, and, by equivalence, even of your