A Capital Duel Story.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue XXII, 1 June 1901, Page 1016

A Capital Duel Story.

The Paris correspondent of tha “Daily News" relates a capital story, auent the duel the other day between the Comte de Castellan and the editor of the "Figaro," in which M. Paul de Cassagnac tells how his own duel with M. Rochefort was near ending fatally for the latter. M. Rochefort fired and missed. He was in his turn fired at and fell. "I thought," said M. de Cassagnac, "he was a dead man. because the bullet had hit him where I aimed, in the side, just above the hip. The doctor was amazed to find that Rochefort had only received a bad bruise, whereas the bullet, having been fired at short range, ought to have gone through and through. The doctor examined the wounded man’s clothes in presence of the seconds, and found n medal indented by the bullet, a medal of the Virgin Mary, which some pious lady relative had sewn inside the rim of M Rochefort's trousers. Without this medal." remarks M. dr Cassagna • who is. of course, a believer. “M. Rochefort would have l>--en killed outright.” Inscrutable, indeed, says the “Daily News" correspondent, an- the design* of the Virgin Mary, who takes tinder hgr protection the editor of the "Tntranelgeant.’*