You're an okay guy
Novella Nurney so I'm not picking on you personally about this, but GK Chesterton doesn't know squat about duelling.
Neither does that clown who's assumed his name and wafts through GTV from time to time, endlessly requoting the author whether the statements apply or not.
Historically, one had to be of an
equal class (i.e. social/ political standing) with one's intended opponent in order to tender a valid challenge. The aristocracy guarded such prerogatives quite jealously. Propriety was involved. It was considered vulgar and demeaning to treat one's inferiors as peers. Likewise it was a dangerous presumption to assume rights above one's station when addressing one's betters..
If "the most powerless and broken man" somehow managed to get within speaking distance of "the most powerful person in Europe" and offered such a challenge, the most he could expect was a dismissive wave of the hand as his only direct reply.
Then he'd get beaten within an inch of his life by "the most powerful person in Europe's" footmen for the insult of addressing such a figure with anything except the most abject humility. Most likely followed by a horse-whipping for his insolence by the "most powerful person in Europe's" coachman.
It's interesting you'd bring this subject up since Virginia has a long history of duelling, though by the time G.K. Chesteron was born, the entire practice had already been outlawed in the state for 64 years.
;-)
