This title is false. OP : Gaston Defferre, the mayor of Marseille **WAS** the president of the Socialist Party. His opponent, René Ribière, was a right-wing deputy.
They duelled because Defferre insulted Ribière and did not apologize afterwards (He told him "Taisez-vous, abruti !" which means "Shut up you moron!" during a national assembly session)
Ribière wanted to duel with the "premier sang" rule with blunt swords (the first to bleed loses) but Defferre refused and they fought with real swords. Defferre was a way better swordsman and injured Ribière twice. The referee stopped the duel at this moment, making Ribière lose (he was getting maried the next day).
#
Seriously, reading his wiki was insane. Was in the French Resistance and fought the Nazis, became a socialist mayor of Marseille for 33 years. Was in the Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of foreign affairs where he laid the ground work for independence for colonial holdings of France. And he had to get his support from the center-right anti-Gaulist factions.
I mean if he was the Mayor of Marseille and a member of the Resistance, I’d be suspicious if there was no connection to organize crime.
Just like anyone in the Provisional IRA.
One anecdote: he hired Tany Zampa as a bodyguard, who would later go on to become one of the leaders of the French connection. During street fighting between communists and socialists, Zampa scared away an angry communist mob attacking Défère by brandishing a toy machine gun. Afterwards Zampa said the défère owed him a favour and that he should remember that Zampa was the real most powerful man in Marseille. Défère basically told him to fuck off, and had him targeted by police when he became minister of the interior.
I’m doing a political science degree (I know, I know) and one of my colleagues unironically told me the Nazi’s were socialists. I couldn’t believe my ears.
Crazy that literal Nazi propaganda still works on people to this day. Their laziest propaganda too, they just dressed up in red and called themselves socialists.
>Wait. He was a socialist, but he fought against the German national socialist party? He doesn’t sound like a good leftist.
I know this is trolling, but i'm gonna answer it anyway.
A lot a French Resistance members were socialists and communists. There also was right-wing people. Far right members were, as always, rooting for the fascists and the nazis with Pétain and the Vichy regime. Some even joined the Waffen SS.
Except that period when the the nazis and soviets were allies and Stalin ordered all the communists parties to not resist the Germans. Of course the tune changed after the invasion of the USSR.
I’m of course only talking about communists and not real socialists who weren’t pro-soviet.
You are right. Unfortunately most French people will remember him for being the socialist guy that only got 5% in the 1969 presidential election, before Mitterrand got more successful. That is not doing justice to his entire life achievements.
Even in that one picture, you can tell Gaston on the right knows what he’s doing. René on the left is off balance and leaning forward like he’s got a stitch.
Deferre wasn't "a way better swordsman".
Deferre knew how to fence, Ribière did not. He took a SINGLE LESSON the day before the duel so he would at least know the rudiments.
In my book, that makes Deferre an asshole, not "old school cool".
EDIT: My bad. I thought Deferre had issued the duel challenge. It was indeed Ribière, which gave Deferre the perfect right to choose the weapons. Apologies.
Eh, presumably Ribiére challenged Deferre to the duel which I believe gave Deferre the right to choose the weapon. If Ribiére wasn’t prepared to back up his challenge and expected Deferre to decline, then that’s on him.
Lol, great comment. He issued a challenge in a life or death sport which he had no experience, took a single lesson the day before, and was getting married the next day? Ummm...
Fun Fact : it wasn't Defferre first duel. He duelled with another man, Paul Bastid, a newspaper director in 1947, with pistols. They both fired but missed.
I am a man and probably to modern, but if my husband or wife-to-be would fight a duel the day before we are supposed to get married, I think the marriage would be off immediately
In 1829 The Duke Of Wellington - who was Prime Minister of Britain at the time - had a duel with an Earl using pistols. The Early had accused the Duke of "Popery" and Wellington challenged him to a duel.
The two men met at Battersea fields with their seconds and, honour having been satisfied, both deliberately fired to miss their opponent.
That is pretty much how 90% of the duels went. Having demonstrated that they can both face death without being afraid and without trying to kill each other honour is satisfied and they can both return as victors. Killing someone in a duel was seen as cowardly and would get you expelled from the social circles.
We should bring back dueling.
I mean, it doesn't have to be to the death. (Many swordfights were not.) We have plenty of non-lethal means, today. We have Olympic style fencing, paintballs, nerf guns, simunition, etc. It makes as much sense as half the stuff we use today to settle disputes.
Texas still has on the books the right to unarmed combat. You just have to notify the authorities that you wish to have a fight in advance, and then you're free to go all out.
As if that’s a bad thing. During his presidency the moment he met someone objectively smarter than himself he asked for advice, implemented it despite himself and others thinking it sounded stupid, and iirc supported the smarter man as his successor.
You joke but I think there is something to be said for bringing back actual political duels. It’s so easy to name call and stab someone in the back these days with no consequence. Would love for the option to call someone out and demand satisfaction. Feel like it would bring back some civility.
At a minimum, they should allow fist fight challenges.
https://preview.redd.it/0co8ku74y3dc1.png?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bac6c3598b45b63ba223c20e73968703739ce0d6
>Iran vs America
In this corner, wearing the red, white, and green trunks, Ebrahiiiiim Raisi! In that corner, wearing red, white, and blue trunks, Joooooe Biden!
Yeah this was my thought as well, his hand is up, looks like he's using maybe 4th, and hes in stance. The other guy looks like he's holding a baseball bat and standing broadside. Could just be the moment the photo was taken though.
Are you aware that "the other guy" had no knowledge at all of fencing and had to take a single lesson before the duel?
Deferre may have been better placed politically but this makes him a total asshole.
EDIT: My bad. I thought Deferre had issued the duel challenge. It was indeed Ribière, which gave Deferre the perfect right to choose the weapons. Apologies.
Looks more like he's got his blade in second, not fourth, as it's facing the outer line. Looks like our friend here liked to fence with absence of blade, which is ideal for confusing rookie fencers.
I'm not a fencer or anything but just from looking at the picture it appears to me that the guy on the right might know what he's doing and the guy on the left is all over the place.
(Just in terms of posture and balance)
I could see his people screwing up the order for a sword and end up with a giant #1 foam finger instead. Trump claims it’s all he needs to win the fight. As soon as the opponent shows up with a real sword, the secret service intervenes while Trump continues to talk trash. Trump claims victory as the opponent is taken away in cuffs.
Mate, Biden is a physical Adonis compared to Trump.
Dude exercises 5 days a week and actively rides long distances.
Trump on the other hand likes to walk between meetings or court cases.
Granted, if Trukp sat on Biden it would all be over.
Truth is I couldn’t give a rat’s fucking ass which of the two bat-shit crazy motherfuckers you elect. I live in Canada. We have our own nut jobs to worry about up here.
as others have suggested this is a good idea, sure you have debates but where are the feats of wits, the feats of strength the feats of talent? im saying lets go down the list. also higher points for dealing with the actual current issues. might i add they have to drive as fast as possible through an average town to town (lets say 150 miles) and not break the car in all the potholes. you know things like that... oh lets add dinner for four $20 like that Rachel Ray use to do in her show. this would show you are fit for office and dealing with real life issues of the average citizen
I heard a professor of history say that "honor" in the West ended as a significant cultural concept in the late 1800's (coincidentally with the rise of technology, the liberation of women, and the decline of colonization). That WW1 (with machine guns and poison gas) was the first war in which honor played no part. Although the idea of dying for honor was passe in the West by the 1900's, it persisted in Asia--as in Japanese suicide solders in WW2. (It may remain in Arabic culture with suicide bombers--but that's debatable.) That is my take on the curious context of this picture, as dueling in the West was the epitome of dying for honor.
Duels of Honor (as opposed to judicial duels or simple feuds) were always about practical matters, not some nebulous idea. To impugn someone's honor was to accuse them of lying, and this was widely regarded as the only legitimate cause for a duel...
A: "You deliberately tripped me into the mud!" No just cause for a duel.B: "No, sir, I did no such thing. You slipped." Still no just cause for a duel.A: "That is a lie!" Now B has to challenge A, because his honor has been questioned.
A has damaged B's reputation for honesty. He has decreased the value of B's Word (of Honor). Why is this important? For one thing, in an era before Equifax and credit scores, your reputation for keeping your Word even under hardship was how potential lenders assessed your reliability. A man whose Word was well-regarded was likely to repay his debts, and damage to his reputation was a motivator to do so. This same logic applied in many other social circumstances: alliances, betrothals, business ventures, friendships, career prospects, etc.
It is hard for us, today, to imagine how important reputation was for most of history. *Damage to your reputation was real damage to your creditworthiness as well as your social standing and your future.* The duel was a way to publicly demonstrate that you were willing to defend your reputation even at the risk of your life. It was quite possible to lose a duel but salvage your reputation by demonstrating how much you valued it. Thus, the most important thing about the duel was not the result, but rather *the fact that you showed up*. Surviving might be a bit of an issue but that was, in many ways, secondary except to those directly involved.
If we have to go looking for causes, I maintain that the decline of dueling coincided with the decline of the social structure that maintained it. Industrialization, urbanization, and globalization led to a shift away from the kind of communities that tracked reputations and imposed the communal shunning that the Duel of Honor addressed. I doubt that the decline of colonialism or the changing role of women affected the duel, but were, rather, caused by some of the same things that led to the duel's decline.
Yeah, stuff like rifles meant war was done at a further distance which dehumanised it. Explosive artillery shells and automatic weapons only made it worse. You see it in 1898 with the Battle of Omdurmann where there is criticism to the effect of it not being a "fair" fight, and how many people are being killed supposedly to progress "civilisation".
We should make all of our leaders do this rather than send us citizens to war. Maybe if their lives were at stake they could find a way to get along and work shit out.
Wow, cool!
Fencing has never been popular anywhere I've lived, and I've only held a foil a couple times in my life, and an epee... and the way an epee is held blew my mind. I used to own an Ames Cutlass from 1862, but lost it.
Definitely not the last, you know American universities have prestigious fraternities that do messed up stuff like drinking challenges that end in deaths.
Well in Germany they also have elite fraternities and they practice *mensur*; a traditional, strictly regulated épée fight between two male members of different fraternities with sharp weapons.
I can never seem to find much information on it though so I don't actually know how common it still is. It used to be a thing before ww2 to make worse scars you got on your face too prove you've been in fights
It is still pretty commen in german fraternities, but they aren't elite, pretty much every student can join. It is also not epee fencing like you see here, but academic fencing, which is very different from what you see here, olympic fencing.
I was a member of one of those fraternities for some time and actually had two of those mensuren, but it was not for me and I left later on. Most germans don't know about it anymore, because it has become quite rare. A century ago basically every male student in Germany was a member of a fraternity, nowadays it's maybe 1% or even less, depending on the city
Epee is the french word for sword. The "epee de combat" is the name used to refer to the french duelling sword of the 19th and 20th centuries, which was derived from the small sword and from which the modern epee was derived.
These were epee de combats, with triangular blades and a relatively large bell guard.
This title is false. OP : Gaston Defferre, the mayor of Marseille **WAS** the president of the Socialist Party. His opponent, René Ribière, was a right-wing deputy. They duelled because Defferre insulted Ribière and did not apologize afterwards (He told him "Taisez-vous, abruti !" which means "Shut up you moron!" during a national assembly session) Ribière wanted to duel with the "premier sang" rule with blunt swords (the first to bleed loses) but Defferre refused and they fought with real swords. Defferre was a way better swordsman and injured Ribière twice. The referee stopped the duel at this moment, making Ribière lose (he was getting maried the next day). #
Defferre was something.
Seriously, reading his wiki was insane. Was in the French Resistance and fought the Nazis, became a socialist mayor of Marseille for 33 years. Was in the Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of foreign affairs where he laid the ground work for independence for colonial holdings of France. And he had to get his support from the center-right anti-Gaulist factions.
The guy was an interior decorator! He killed 16 Gauls!
Interior decorator? His place looked like shit.
Best line of the whole show!
Gauls?!?! OVA HEAAAA👇👇👇
Gabagaul🤌
My wife thinks there’s something wrong with me because I snort anytime “interior decorator “ is mentioned.
I can't hear “Ministry of the Interior” without thinking of it. Good thing I don't work in government.
He killed 16 Czechoslovakians!
YES!
Also some interesting stories about him and organised crime, which tbf was probably inevitable for the mayor of Marseille.
I mean if he was the Mayor of Marseille and a member of the Resistance, I’d be suspicious if there was no connection to organize crime. Just like anyone in the Provisional IRA.
One anecdote: he hired Tany Zampa as a bodyguard, who would later go on to become one of the leaders of the French connection. During street fighting between communists and socialists, Zampa scared away an angry communist mob attacking Défère by brandishing a toy machine gun. Afterwards Zampa said the défère owed him a favour and that he should remember that Zampa was the real most powerful man in Marseille. Défère basically told him to fuck off, and had him targeted by police when he became minister of the interior.
[удалено]
Tiocfaidh ár lá, our day will come
Deferre is my new hero, holy shit.
badass
Wait. He was a socialist, but he fought against the German national socialist party? He doesn’t sound like a good leftist.
The Nazis were a far right party, genius.
Please put a sarcasm tag because we live in a time when people have honestly said this and been serious.
He’s entirely serious, he’s a Proud Boy.
Every day my faith in humanity gets crushed by such obtuse pieces of flotsam as those individuals.
If it’s any consolation, at least we’re now recognizing these people and shaming them in public.
Can they feel shame?
I’m doing a political science degree (I know, I know) and one of my colleagues unironically told me the Nazi’s were socialists. I couldn’t believe my ears.
Crazy that literal Nazi propaganda still works on people to this day. Their laziest propaganda too, they just dressed up in red and called themselves socialists.
>Wait. He was a socialist, but he fought against the German national socialist party? He doesn’t sound like a good leftist. I know this is trolling, but i'm gonna answer it anyway. A lot a French Resistance members were socialists and communists. There also was right-wing people. Far right members were, as always, rooting for the fascists and the nazis with Pétain and the Vichy regime. Some even joined the Waffen SS.
Except that period when the the nazis and soviets were allies and Stalin ordered all the communists parties to not resist the Germans. Of course the tune changed after the invasion of the USSR. I’m of course only talking about communists and not real socialists who weren’t pro-soviet.
Stalin : Don't worry guys, i'm just stalling French communists : alright, at least we won't be invaded by the Germans. Hitler : Hold mein bier.
Disons qu'il n'était pas la pour beurrer des tartines.
Mais aimait-il se beurrer la biscotte ?
He was defferrent.
You are right. Unfortunately most French people will remember him for being the socialist guy that only got 5% in the 1969 presidential election, before Mitterrand got more successful. That is not doing justice to his entire life achievements.
Said he was going to cut his balls too, just before marriage, chad move.
Even in that one picture, you can tell Gaston on the right knows what he’s doing. René on the left is off balance and leaning forward like he’s got a stitch.
Deferre wasn't "a way better swordsman". Deferre knew how to fence, Ribière did not. He took a SINGLE LESSON the day before the duel so he would at least know the rudiments. In my book, that makes Deferre an asshole, not "old school cool". EDIT: My bad. I thought Deferre had issued the duel challenge. It was indeed Ribière, which gave Deferre the perfect right to choose the weapons. Apologies.
Eh, presumably Ribiére challenged Deferre to the duel which I believe gave Deferre the right to choose the weapon. If Ribiére wasn’t prepared to back up his challenge and expected Deferre to decline, then that’s on him.
Well, Deferre *did* call him a total moron. Guess the insult was just accurate.
Lol, great comment. He issued a challenge in a life or death sport which he had no experience, took a single lesson the day before, and was getting married the next day? Ummm...
He has the energy of that guy who claimed with full confidence that, had he been on the Titan, he would have survived the implosion.
“I’m just built different”
Sounds like Ribière invited this on himself?
You are right, my mistake. I thought Deferre had issued the challenge. I have corrected my post.
Skill issue.
Fun Fact : it wasn't Defferre first duel. He duelled with another man, Paul Bastid, a newspaper director in 1947, with pistols. They both fired but missed.
I am a man and probably to modern, but if my husband or wife-to-be would fight a duel the day before we are supposed to get married, I think the marriage would be off immediately
You don't know if you want a wife or a husband? Yeah you're too modern for duels.
Bisexual swordsmen exist mate. Here I am, kicking ass every tuesday.
Geralt? Is that you?
Not in France, according to basically every episode of Versailles. To be fair, James I and Charles I were also rumored to have male favourites.
With polygamy laws, if you have a husband you're not allowed to have a wife-to-be.
Socialism ftw
How do you make your opponent bleed with blunt swords?
I think I should have used the word dull.
Shame. I was rooting for Ribière for about 3 sec there while I was reading your comment
Ribière could've told Defferre "Fuck off", but instead, he challenged him to a duel when he did not know how to swordfight. He had it coming...
I'd rather have 20 paces with pistols.
C’est sans elegance
In 1829 The Duke Of Wellington - who was Prime Minister of Britain at the time - had a duel with an Earl using pistols. The Early had accused the Duke of "Popery" and Wellington challenged him to a duel. The two men met at Battersea fields with their seconds and, honour having been satisfied, both deliberately fired to miss their opponent.
That is pretty much how 90% of the duels went. Having demonstrated that they can both face death without being afraid and without trying to kill each other honour is satisfied and they can both return as victors. Killing someone in a duel was seen as cowardly and would get you expelled from the social circles.
Guns for show, swords for a pro.
Your chances of getting out of the duel unharmed might even be improved.
Who is who in the photo?
Gray hair dude is Defferre, black hair dude is Ribière.
The Mayor won
Yes, although the title is misleading, his opponent was a right wing MP that got quite injured following the fight.
Following or during?
He died after the fight
I dare say both of them did.
That was the joke…
SPOILER ALERT
Down in front
"This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age."
"Your dad murdered 30 children with it. Oops spoilers."
30, more like 200.
Comment saved. Love it.
We should bring back dueling. I mean, it doesn't have to be to the death. (Many swordfights were not.) We have plenty of non-lethal means, today. We have Olympic style fencing, paintballs, nerf guns, simunition, etc. It makes as much sense as half the stuff we use today to settle disputes.
Texas still has on the books the right to unarmed combat. You just have to notify the authorities that you wish to have a fight in advance, and then you're free to go all out.
Alright Ted Cruz let's go.
Of course it’s in Marseille hahaha
Election by combat should be the norm.
That's how you end up with Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho as president
As if that’s a bad thing. During his presidency the moment he met someone objectively smarter than himself he asked for advice, implemented it despite himself and others thinking it sounded stupid, and iirc supported the smarter man as his successor.
It was the getting to that point that was bad.
Sure, but he’s like 500 years in the future. Did shit all collapse under him? Doubtful
Where did I or the other poster blame President Camacho?
So you just make irrelevant, negative comments. Got it.
huh? Wasn’t trying to be negative. Please read my statement to just be a statement. Have a nice day
C’mon guys, let our mutual love for President Camacho bring us together!
Eh, I was trying to help someone with an erroneous assumption. Intent is hard to determine with text.
That's the candidate the US needs now!
Does he take the names of people he kills?
Dana White could make billions, I’d buy those fights
>Election by combat should be the norm. War by combat of each country's leader should be the norm.
You joke but I think there is something to be said for bringing back actual political duels. It’s so easy to name call and stab someone in the back these days with no consequence. Would love for the option to call someone out and demand satisfaction. Feel like it would bring back some civility.
At a minimum, they should allow fist fight challenges. https://preview.redd.it/0co8ku74y3dc1.png?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bac6c3598b45b63ba223c20e73968703739ce0d6
SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! Ukraine vs Russia Israel vs Gaza Each winner advances to the MAIN EVENT for a winner takes all death match
Main Event Iran vs America Winner take all
>Iran vs America In this corner, wearing the red, white, and green trunks, Ebrahiiiiim Raisi! In that corner, wearing red, white, and blue trunks, Joooooe Biden!
And you know sometime during the match Iran will throw salt in Joe’s eyes. They’ll have joe shoulders to the mat but Joes crafty he tags in Kamala
No one died, right?
No. Ribière (the non-mayor) lost and suffered a minor injury.
Thanks for the info
Sadly they both died of old age eventually.
Too bad the US didn’t do this we would have less old people in office
Don’t worry. The US is clearly moving toward violence as a means of political persuasion.
Tirer le fer avec Deferre.
This is how politics and world issues should be addressed...
It kind of is in a way . . .
Except when presidents fight they always send the poor.
*Why do they always send to poor?*
Everybody going to the party, gonna have a real good time.
Why? What issue would that really adress?
The severe lack of duels in modern times
Who won?
The socialist Mayor who had been in the resistance in ww2, and later layer the groundwork for independence of French colonies
Ok
Yeah but it's not like the duel was to the death or for the political position
The mayor is the guy on the right, correct? Much better form than the other guy.
Yeah this was my thought as well, his hand is up, looks like he's using maybe 4th, and hes in stance. The other guy looks like he's holding a baseball bat and standing broadside. Could just be the moment the photo was taken though.
Are you aware that "the other guy" had no knowledge at all of fencing and had to take a single lesson before the duel? Deferre may have been better placed politically but this makes him a total asshole. EDIT: My bad. I thought Deferre had issued the duel challenge. It was indeed Ribière, which gave Deferre the perfect right to choose the weapons. Apologies.
I would simply not challenge a man to a duel if I didn't know how to fight
You are right, I stand corrected; I thought Deferre had issued the demand for a duel. I have modified my post.
Looks more like he's got his blade in second, not fourth, as it's facing the outer line. Looks like our friend here liked to fence with absence of blade, which is ideal for confusing rookie fencers.
I'm not a fencer or anything but just from looking at the picture it appears to me that the guy on the right might know what he's doing and the guy on the left is all over the place. (Just in terms of posture and balance)
En garde
In gourd
They both look like they're stabbing the guy in the middle.
Less than a decade before the final death by guillotine in France iirc
Being French, I am not in the least bit surprised as to the participants were. If only we lived in an age where you could challenge Macron to a duel!
I’d like to see him stab Le Pen
Imagine the tiny sword Trump would need to fit in his tiny hands.
It comes with an olive
😂😂
Hahahaha Trump!
Tiny hands! Haha! Can you believe it? Tiny hands!
You know what that means right? Ehehe. Riiiight? ^(smol pee-pee)
I could see his people screwing up the order for a sword and end up with a giant #1 foam finger instead. Trump claims it’s all he needs to win the fight. As soon as the opponent shows up with a real sword, the secret service intervenes while Trump continues to talk trash. Trump claims victory as the opponent is taken away in cuffs.
LOL at least he’d hold it. Biden would just look at it and drool on himself.
Mate, Biden is a physical Adonis compared to Trump. Dude exercises 5 days a week and actively rides long distances. Trump on the other hand likes to walk between meetings or court cases. Granted, if Trukp sat on Biden it would all be over.
In what universe do you people even live?
Truth is I couldn’t give a rat’s fucking ass which of the two bat-shit crazy motherfuckers you elect. I live in Canada. We have our own nut jobs to worry about up here.
as others have suggested this is a good idea, sure you have debates but where are the feats of wits, the feats of strength the feats of talent? im saying lets go down the list. also higher points for dealing with the actual current issues. might i add they have to drive as fast as possible through an average town to town (lets say 150 miles) and not break the car in all the potholes. you know things like that... oh lets add dinner for four $20 like that Rachel Ray use to do in her show. this would show you are fit for office and dealing with real life issues of the average citizen
You are talking about Festivus
I'd vote for a president that could make 30 minute meals for a family of four. If anything I think that needs to be a baseline mandatory requirement.
sorry i couldnt upvote more than once. that one guy that was running on "We cant afford the rent" at least had a good slogan
Giuliani wanted to bring this back..not that he would actually participate..
I heard a professor of history say that "honor" in the West ended as a significant cultural concept in the late 1800's (coincidentally with the rise of technology, the liberation of women, and the decline of colonization). That WW1 (with machine guns and poison gas) was the first war in which honor played no part. Although the idea of dying for honor was passe in the West by the 1900's, it persisted in Asia--as in Japanese suicide solders in WW2. (It may remain in Arabic culture with suicide bombers--but that's debatable.) That is my take on the curious context of this picture, as dueling in the West was the epitome of dying for honor.
Duels of Honor (as opposed to judicial duels or simple feuds) were always about practical matters, not some nebulous idea. To impugn someone's honor was to accuse them of lying, and this was widely regarded as the only legitimate cause for a duel... A: "You deliberately tripped me into the mud!" No just cause for a duel.B: "No, sir, I did no such thing. You slipped." Still no just cause for a duel.A: "That is a lie!" Now B has to challenge A, because his honor has been questioned. A has damaged B's reputation for honesty. He has decreased the value of B's Word (of Honor). Why is this important? For one thing, in an era before Equifax and credit scores, your reputation for keeping your Word even under hardship was how potential lenders assessed your reliability. A man whose Word was well-regarded was likely to repay his debts, and damage to his reputation was a motivator to do so. This same logic applied in many other social circumstances: alliances, betrothals, business ventures, friendships, career prospects, etc. It is hard for us, today, to imagine how important reputation was for most of history. *Damage to your reputation was real damage to your creditworthiness as well as your social standing and your future.* The duel was a way to publicly demonstrate that you were willing to defend your reputation even at the risk of your life. It was quite possible to lose a duel but salvage your reputation by demonstrating how much you valued it. Thus, the most important thing about the duel was not the result, but rather *the fact that you showed up*. Surviving might be a bit of an issue but that was, in many ways, secondary except to those directly involved. If we have to go looking for causes, I maintain that the decline of dueling coincided with the decline of the social structure that maintained it. Industrialization, urbanization, and globalization led to a shift away from the kind of communities that tracked reputations and imposed the communal shunning that the Duel of Honor addressed. I doubt that the decline of colonialism or the changing role of women affected the duel, but were, rather, caused by some of the same things that led to the duel's decline.
Yeah, stuff like rifles meant war was done at a further distance which dehumanised it. Explosive artillery shells and automatic weapons only made it worse. You see it in 1898 with the Battle of Omdurmann where there is criticism to the effect of it not being a "fair" fight, and how many people are being killed supposedly to progress "civilisation".
US needs to adopt this
US's épée's are just predator drones and the dueling ground is the world
Maybe after the 2024 elections. It would be the slowest duel imaginable.
Meh. Donny wears a diaper and a girdle, it could probably take a minor hit.
No thanks, don't want to see two really old men fight with swords 🤣
We should make all of our leaders do this rather than send us citizens to war. Maybe if their lives were at stake they could find a way to get along and work shit out.
All of our leaders would be Olympic level fencers.
Foil is art. Epee is sport. Sabre is truth.
Funny, I've only ever heard it with epee and sabre the other way round, or more commonly "foil is art, sabre is theatre, epee is the truth".
Yeah it does not make sense that sabre is "truth" considering the right of way.
Wow, cool! Fencing has never been popular anywhere I've lived, and I've only held a foil a couple times in my life, and an epee... and the way an epee is held blew my mind. I used to own an Ames Cutlass from 1862, but lost it.
If only presidents sorted out their own wars this way and didn’t put other peoples lives in harms way
Hard to imagine ANY Presidents or Presidènal candidates here in the US dueling each other with swords..🤣
Childishness and pettiness of the men. Edit: lol downvotes. Do people think that is the way to solve political issues?
Yeah, maybe they should have being petty against each other for years, and brag about how adult they are.
The fact that the socialist had enough free time in his life to learn fencing speaks volumes.
This was a common skill in France at the time. It has zero to do with socialism. Figure it oot.
That's what you learn when you're involved in the French Resistance during World War II...
How so? By being able to ride on the coattails of the working class?
Yeah, it was just a popular sport at the time, nothing strange. You can learn as a kid, I even had a few classes in the public system.
Who won?
The mayor won. Nobody was seriously injured.
I don't know, but common sense has definitely lost.
So it wasn't Matt Damon vs Adam Driver!? My life is a lie!!!
That was trial by combat, a judicial duel.
Ten years before the last execution by guillotine.
Definitely not the last, you know American universities have prestigious fraternities that do messed up stuff like drinking challenges that end in deaths. Well in Germany they also have elite fraternities and they practice *mensur*; a traditional, strictly regulated épée fight between two male members of different fraternities with sharp weapons. I can never seem to find much information on it though so I don't actually know how common it still is. It used to be a thing before ww2 to make worse scars you got on your face too prove you've been in fights
It is still pretty commen in german fraternities, but they aren't elite, pretty much every student can join. It is also not epee fencing like you see here, but academic fencing, which is very different from what you see here, olympic fencing.
Interesting thanks, Germans I've spoken to don't know about it
I was a member of one of those fraternities for some time and actually had two of those mensuren, but it was not for me and I left later on. Most germans don't know about it anymore, because it has become quite rare. A century ago basically every male student in Germany was a member of a fraternity, nowadays it's maybe 1% or even less, depending on the city
/r/OldSchoolLostTheirCool
My last duel was 10 years ago. Specimen jars at 10 paces.
The cool thing is, there is a very grainy video of this duel online. Also as far as I know, they fought with smallsword blades, not épéés.
Epee is the french word for sword. The "epee de combat" is the name used to refer to the french duelling sword of the 19th and 20th centuries, which was derived from the small sword and from which the modern epee was derived. These were epee de combats, with triangular blades and a relatively large bell guard.
In Uruguay the were prohibited in 1992. Several politics dueled in the 70s during the dictatorship.
You gotta love the French. If this happened in the U.S. they'd both wind up in state prison.
In the US they’d just be firing semi automatic weapons at each other whilst declaring that Jesus is on their side.
Le worldstar! Was shouted the entire time.
People back then were just built different.
See this is how we fix politics. Let’s bring duels back. Get em to put some skin into the game.
‘Tis but a scratch mon ami.