Timid at heart, especially with women, he was delicate, passionate, and chaste.

He had loved but little, and never had been loved at all.

He declared that he had retired from all friendship with women, because of a wrong that he had suffered.
At forty years of age he had married the daughter of a poor colonel who had been killed by the enemy.

Not long after, his wife had deceived him with one of his aides-de-camp.
The treachery was revealed to him by a rival, who played on this occasion the infamous role of Iago.

Campvallon laid aside his starred epaulettes, and in two successive duels, still remembered in Africa, killed on two successive days the guilty one and his betrayer.