Political Dispute with Comrade
During a halt, the narrator’s comrade stays behind to offer “consolation,” advising that he will soon be seasoned to military life and praising the honor of serving Louis the Great. The narrator flies into outrage at this reasoning, condemning the absurdity of willingly enduring poverty, oppression, and death merely to satisfy a prince’s ambition. The soldier takes offense at this criticism of the king, accusing the narrator of imbibing rebellious English principles.
Comrade Duel Challenge Over Politics
The political argument intensifies as the narrator argues that English resistance to tyranny was glorious rather than rebellious—protecting the natural right to liberty. When the French soldier provokes him beyond endurance, the narrator clenches his fist to strike him, but the Frenchman parries and declares that a Frenchman never forgives a blow, challenging him to a duel.
Wounded and Disarmed in Duel
They proceed to a nearby field. The narrator despises his opponent’s pitiful appearance—a small, decrepit, one-eyed man. However, at the second exchange, the narrator is wounded in his sword hand and immediately disarmed with such force he believes his joint is dislocated. The victor then demands the narrator beg his pardon for insulting his king, which the narrator refuses, threatening to continue the duel with muskets instead.
第四十四章
The narrator, still nursing his wounded honour from an earlier humiliation by a Gascon soldier, accepts swordsmanship lessons from an Irish drummer whose real motive is jealousy of the Gascon, and soon after joins Marshal Duc de Noailles’ forces at the Battle of Dettingen, where the French suffer a calamitous defeat, losing around five thousand men as they flee in panic across the river. Inflamed by the Gascon’s bragging after the rout, the narrator taunts him into a second duel, this time disarming the older man and humiliating him before their comrades. After the campaign ends, the regiment is sent into winter quarters at Rheims in Champagne, where the narrator is reduced to poverty and ragged linen on his meagre pay of five sols a day. While on sentry duty he recognises his old companion Strap, now living as the prosperous Monsieur d’Estrapes after inheriting the estate of a deceased English gentleman he had faithfully served. Overjoyed at the reunion, Strap feeds and clothes him, pledges three hundred pounds to his use, and resolves to use his connections to procure the narrator’s discharge from the French service.
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