It all began with certain words exchanged in a club at Castillon, dropped by the Sieur Froidefond de Queyssac to the elder brother of the Sieur Damade. Offence was taken; explanations were demanded; there followed, according to the Gazette, a few brisk skirmishes wherein Damade took a wound, whereupon the matter seemed at an end.
It was nothing of the sort. Froidefond was a military man, and Damade a merchant; that this tradesman should have dared draw his sword against him was an affront the officer could not brook. He petitioned that his rival be stripped of his weapon—first before the Lieutenant of the Marshals of France, then before the Maréchal de Mouchy himself. Damade defended himself by recalling the services of his forebears, retained his blade, and the marshal compelled both men to sign a solemn pledge to seek each other out neither near nor far.
Some time later, while paying a call upon certain ladies in Castillon, Damade chanced upon Froidefond. The latter, who had laid down his sabre, buckled it once more to his side, remarking: “Here is a sabre I have just had whetted; it will serve nicely to slice off someone’s ears.” Damade made no reply and took his leave.
That very day, upon the road to Lamothe-Montravel, he was intercepted by the Chevalier de Queyssac, the officer’s brother, who rode with a sabre and a brace of double-barrelled pistols at his saddle-bow. The chevalier first demanded a bow; then he proffered a pistol. Damade took it; the question was who should fire first; neither man was willing to begin; the chevalier took back his weapon.
Two days later, in Castillon, Damade was on his way to dine at a friend’s house when he was once more stopped and summoned to salute. The brawl grew heated; another Queyssac ran to fetch a sabre; Damade had only a hunting knife, which snapped in two. Already grievously wounded, he parried as best he could with a walking-stick as he fell back, then discharged a pistol at Froidefond, inflicting no more than a slight contusion. Froidefond fell upon him afresh with his sabre, cleaving both his arms to the bone.
Such, at least, were the facts set forth in Damade’s memorial; the Gazette is careful to note that the Queyssacs contested the greater part of them. Then began another battle, this one waged on paper: cross-complaints, bodily arrest warrants, a decree from the Parlement of Bordeaux following the submissions of Advocate General Dupaty, which acquitted Damade and remanded the Queyssacs to prison; an order of the King’s Council quashing Bordeaux’s decree and transferring the whole affair to Toulouse; and at last the decree from Toulouse, dated 18 April 1777, which annulled the proceedings, remanded the parties before the Seneschal of Libourne, and condemned the Queyssacs to pay seven-eighths of the costs.
Three years of litigation to end nearly where they had begun, and a man whose arms had been hewn to the bone for refusing to bow his head. The Gazette records no conclusion: the trial was to begin all over again at Libourne.
Gazette des tribunaux, 1777, Parlement of Toulouse, decree of 18 April 1777 (case of Reller-Damade v. the Sieurs de Queyssac).