The ancient blood of the Palatines, with regard to which Dorsenne always jested, boiled in his veins.

If the Poles have furnished many heroes for dramas and modern romances, they have remained, through their faults, so dearly atoned for, the race the most chivalrously, the most madly brave in Europe.

When men of so intemperate and so complex an excitability are touched to a certain depth, they think of a duel as naturally as the descendants of a line of suicides think of killing themselves.
Joyous Ardea, with his Italian keenness, had seen at a glance the end to which Gorka's nature would lead him.

The betrayed lover required a duel to enable him to bear the treason.

He might wound, he might, perhaps, kill his rival, and his passion would be satisfied, or else he would risk being killed himself, and the courage he would display braving death would suffice to raise him in his own estimation.