19th-C Duel Between a Lawyer and a Poet: "the actions of the two duellists were strikingly different"

In its 125 Years Ago section, The New York Herald tells of the outcome of a duel in Belgium:

The Laguerre-Déroulède duel has been fought, and both principals are now languishing in [a Charleroi jail]. They have had such an extraordinary hard time of it, trying to find a place to fight, that all Europe has been watching their movements. First, the French police dogged them, then the Belgian police tracked them about, next the Dutch officers objected to any gore being shed in Holland, and so the weary duellists wandered about in search of a nice quiet place, until they reached hospitable Charleroi.

The ending of the combat was characteristic of the two men — one a poet and the other a cool-headed lawyer. It was all business on one side and all poetry on the other. According to the arrangements made in Paris, the duel took place here this morning at eleven o’clock. The conditions called for the use of duelling pistols, the firing to be at the word of command. The distance agreed upon was thirty paces, and the place finally selected was the Bois de Marchiennes-au-Pont.

The four balls agreed upon were fired without result. But the actions of the two duellists were strikingly different. M. Laguerre both times took deliberate aim at his opponent, and apparently did his best to kill or wound him. Not so M. Déroulède [pictured 23 years later, in 1913]. The ‘‘patriot poet’’ each time raised his pistol and fired in the air.

— The New York Herald, European Edition, November 14, 1890

Two years later, Paul Déroulède would fight a duel with Georges Clemenceau…