Montesquieu

“ FROM the general passion which the French have for glory, there has been developed in the minds of individuals a certain something which they call “the point of honour;” it is properly the characteristic of every profession, but most marked in military men—theirs, indeed, is the point of honour par excellence. ”

“ However little one man might know another, he had to enter into the quarrel, and pay with his person as if he himself had been enraged. He always felt himself honoured by such a choice, and a distinction so flattering; and one who would have been unwilling to give four pistols to a man to save him and all his family from the gallows, would make no difficulty in risking his life for him a thousand times. ”

“ On this account violence prevails amongst the French; for these laws of honour require a gentleman to avenge himself when he has been insulted; but, on the other hand, justice punishes him unmercifully when he does so. If one follows the laws of honour, one dies upon the scaffold; if one follows those of justice, one is banished for ever from the society of men: this, then, is the barbarous alternative, either to die, or to be unworthy to live. ”