And the favourite chamberlain, with true Irish impudence, undertook to obtain exact information from the Duke himself.
There was a ball that night, at which the whole of the society were present, and, strange as It may seem, I do not think there was a man there who did not know that the duel was to be fought on the morrow, except the Duke himself.

Many of the women even knew it perfectly well.

The chamberlain getting the Duke into conversation on the subject of the frontier, learned from him that a certain highly romantic gorge, opening out from the valley of the Serchio, and called Turrite Cava, which he pretended to take an interest in as a place fitted for a picnic, was within the Modenese frontier.
All was arranged, therefore, for the meeting with pistols on the following morning; and the combatants proceeded to the spot fixed on, some five or six miles, I think, from the Baths.

Plowden, who, as a sedate business man was less intimate with the generality of the young men at the Baths, was accompanied only by his second; his adversary was attended by a whole cohort of acquaintances--really far more after the fashion of a party going to a picnic, or some other party of pleasure, than in the usual guise of men bent on such an errand.
Plowden had never fired a pistol in his life, and knew about as much of the management of one as an archbishop.

The other was an old duellist, and a practised performer with the weapon.