Hello everyone,
I am currently researching the GR 21 YC 24 3e Regiment d'Infanterie de ligne, and I have found some men killed in separate duels. One named Caporal Theodore Stimler, an old veteran of the regiment arriving in 1793 and taking part in the campaigns of 1793. an 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9. He was killed in a duel on 16 vendamiarie an 13. I now understand why Napoleon was not a fan of duels as the regiment lost an experienced veteran that could have helped teach young recruits.
Our second NCO Sergent Louis-Pierre Mouton, might have had a known issue with a comrade as to before being mortally wounded, he was supposed to be transferred from the 3e Ligne to the 105e Ligne in another division. He might have been transferred on paper dated 16 June 1808, but his record shows he died in Prenzlau hospital ? (the regiment was garrisoned in Stettin in April 1808 and the two cities are less than 40 miles apart) on 8 June 1808 from a saber wound. Interestingly, he took part in the campaigns of an 7,8, &9 but missed out on taking part in the regiment's glorious actions at the Battle of Austerlitz in an 14. It does not seem he was a brother of the former Colonel Georges Mouton, as Colonel Mouton was born in Phalsbourg, in the department of Moselle.
'Officers did have a tendency to fight duels, which Napoleon regarded as a waste of useful manpower. He especially disliked the professional duelist whom he compared to a cannibal. There were enough of that touchy sort in the Grande Armee, but the outstanding speciman was Reseda Fournier from the Saar, a onetime choir boy, then a wild Jacobin, and probably psychopathic. An excellent light cavalryman, he took a sadistic pleasure in forcing duels on civilians (sometimes by insulting their wives) and then killing them leisurely, but always within the forms of the dueling code. Known as the 'Demon of the Grande Armee,' he became part of its legends through a series of duels he fought with another officer known only as 'Dupont' from 1794-1813, In 1813 Fournier's nerve broke and he became openly insubordinate. Napoleon stripped him of his commission.'-John Elting, Swords Around a Throne, 174.
Fournier was employed by the Bourbons after 1814, then going by the name Fournier-Sarlovese. The Bourbons began the tasteless habit of employing Napoleon's 'rejects.'