Letter: From the Earl of Montrose to Captain Dugald Dalgetty

Whoever has read the "Memoirs of Monsieur d’Artagnan"—a Marshal in the French King’s service—as they are published by Monsieur Alexandre Dumas in "Les Trois Mousquetaires," will not have forgotten that duel behind the Luxembourg, in which, as is declared, an Englishman ran away from the Chevalier d’Herblay, called Aramis in his regiment. Englishmen have never held that Monsieur Dumas was well informed about this affair. The following letters of the Great Marquis and Captain Dalgetty from the "Kirkhope Papers" prove that Englishmen were in the right.

-, 164-.

Sir,—Touching that I did, to your apprehension, turn away from you with some show of coldness on your late coming, it may be that you but little misread me. But, for that no man is condemned without a hearing, I would fain know under your own hand the truth concerning that whereof a shameful report is bruited abroad, even in the "Gallo Belgicus" and the "Fliegender Mercoeur" of Leipsic—namely, that in a certain duel lately fought in Paris behind the Palace of the Luxembourg, four Englishmen encountering as many Musketeers of the French King’s, one out of this realm, to our disgrace, shamefully fled; and he (by report) Rittmaster Dugald Dalgetty. Till which, bruit be either abolished, and the stain—as an ill blot on a clean scutcheon—wiped away, or as shamefully acknowledged as it is itself shameful, I abide, as I shall hear from yourself,

MONTROSE.