Secrets of the Sword

Secrets of the Sword
Translated from the original French of Baron de Bazancourt by C. F. Clay, with illustrations by F. H. Townsend
La pointe d’une épée est une réalité qui fait disparaître bien des fantômes.
Bazancourt.
London: George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden; and New York. Mdcccc.

Cambridge: Printed by J. and C. F. Clay at the University Press.

If French is, as we have been told, the natural language of the art of fencing, it seems a particularly rash venture to translate a French book on the subject into English. This is especially the case when the original is such a work as Les Secrets de l’Épée , which so far from being a dry technical manual, that might be sufficiently rendered by a baldly literal version, is one of those fascinating, chatty books, written in a happy vein, in which the manner of writing is the matter of principal importance. But the delightful ease and artful simplicity of style that captivate the reader are the translator’s despair. I have made the attempt for my own amusement, and I am publishing my translation because the original work, which was first published in 1862 and reprinted in 1875, has been for some years inaccessible, and because I think it is a book that will interest English fencers.

An interesting and appreciative account of the book is given in the introduction to the volume devoted to fencing in the Badminton Library, together with some criticism of the author. The would-be fencer is cautioned that the Baron de Bazancourt is ‘a very expert literary dodger’ whose specious arguments must be studied with the greatest caution. The warning note is no doubt wise in a book intended for the English fencer, for English fencing certainly shows no tendency to be excessively correct, but is rather inclined to err in the other direction. But no fencer who reads the work attentively can fail to derive from it a real profit, and, I hope, a real pleasure. The keynote of the book is that a fencer must fence with his ‘head.’ Bazancourt generally calls it ‘instinct,’ or ‘inspiration.’ But call it what you will, there can be no doubt that the continual tax that fencing makes on the resourcefulness of the player gives it its subtle and enduring charm. The unforeseen emergencies that have to be faced, and the varieties of play that are encountered in meeting different opponents, make fencing of all sports the least mechanical and the least monotonous.