1827-31-] DUEL AT HEIDELBERG. 23 



German students, a choice was made of one of their 

 best swordsmen to meet him. Agassiz, however, would 

 not accept such conditions, but said proudly, " It is not 

 with one of you that I want to fight, but with all, one 

 after another." They marched to the chosen ground, 

 and in a few minutes four German students had received 

 sword cuts on their faces ; then the others who were 

 to follow began to think that the affair had gone far 

 enough, and although invited by Agassiz to take position, 

 they offered honourable peace, and made an apology. 

 After that, Agassiz was always chosen as arbitrator and 

 judge at all the fencing clubs of the universities of 

 Heidelberg and Munich. He was so carried away by 

 his pleasure in fencing, that one day, without remem- 

 bering to put on masks, he and his future brother-in-law, 

 Alexander Braun, fell in with rapiers in hand, and after 

 a few exchanges of thrusts, Agassiz made a cut in the 

 face of his dear friend. Years after, when a professor 

 at Neuchatel, he appeared at a public fencing exhibi- 

 tion given by a tall and powerful negro fencing master, 

 with success and credit. 



Schimper, who was the oldest of the three, and whose 

 imagination was the keenest and most original, exerted 

 a great influence over Agassiz and Braun. His discov- 

 eries in regard to the morphology of plants gave him 

 great advantage over the two others, who had not yet 

 done any original work. But Agassiz was not the man 

 to be long overshadowed by any one. He wanted to 

 occupy the first place everywhere. Happily he escaped 

 the danger to which Schimper succumbed, and, with 

 the help of Braun, whose mind was the best balanced 



