1912 Duel: Leon Blum vs Pierre Weber

1912. Silent. French. On October 14, 1912, Léon Blum (later to become prime minister of France) fought a duel with theater critic Pierre Weber. According to L’Aurore: “M. Pierre Weber received a penetrating thrust to his right side, ending the fight. The wound was less serious than it seemed at first. The tip of the epee had been halted by [Weber’s] rib, but had it been a centimeter higher, it might have been fatal, because it would have touched the liver. The adversaries did not reconcile.” Similarly, for L’Intransigeant, a newspaper that was hostile to the values (political views and stance) that Blum represented: “the combat was intense…. This was a serious duel that at several points came close to ending tragically…. M. Blum, a tall man with a fiery gaze behind his glasses…. wore a black shirt, a black hat, and gray tennis shoes.” The description in Le Temps was even more detailed: Owing to the manner of M. Blum’s attack, a certain anxiety gripped the spectators