"
There was something atrocious in the grandeur of these words; they
seemed to show such consciousness of superiority that the onlookers
took them for a shrewd calculation. In fact, when Max replaced himself
in position, he had lost his coolness, and was once more confronted
with his adversary's raised guard which defended the colonel's whole
person while it menaced his. He resolved to redeem his shameful defeat
by a bold stroke. He no longer guarded himself, but took his sabre in
both hands and rushed furiously on his antagonist, resolved to kill
him, if he had to lose his own life. Philippe received a sabre-cut
which slashed open his forehead and a part of his face, but he cleft
Max's head obliquely by the terrible sweep of a "moulinet," made to
break the force of the annihilating stroke Max aimed at him. These two
savage blows ended the combat, at the ninth minute. Fario came down to
gloat over the sight of his enemy in the convulsions of death; for the
muscles of a man of Maxence Gilet's vigor quiver horribly. Philippe
was carried back to his uncle's house.
Thus perished a man destined to do great deeds had he lived his life
amid environments which were suited to him; a man treated by Nature as
a favorite child, for she gave him courage, self-possession, and the
political sagacity of a Cesar Borgia. But education had not bestowed
upon him that nobility of conduct and ideas without which nothing
great is possible in any walk of life. He was not regretted, because
of the perfidy with which his adversary, who was a worse man than he,
had contrived to bring him into disrepute.
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