CHAP. XXVI.

Of Time.

If we were to follow the exact Term of Time, every Thing that is done in Fencing might be called so; for you shou'd never thrust but when you have a favourable Opportunity of hitting, nor parry, but at the Time that favours you to oppose the Enemy's Sword, not make an Engagement, nor a Feint, but to take the Time upon the Motion that your Action occasions in the Adversary.

Time is the Duration of any Motion: It is called Time because it is the most favourable Opportunity of pushing, the Enemy being unable during one Action to do a contrary one.

It is divided into several Manners and Terms: The first is called the Time, the second, taking his Time, the third, Time to Time, the fourth, the same Time, and the fifth, false Time.

  1. Taking the Time, is making your Thrust by a judicious Discernment on the Motion of the Enemy, taking him by a contrary one: You are to know that every Motion, of whatever Part it be, is called Time; for which Reason, I shall say nothing of Feints, Engagements, and Disengagements, upon which it may be taken; and that in three Manners, viz. strait, lowering the Body, or volting it, which you must know how to apply. In a strait Thrust the Time shou'd be taken by lowering and volting the Body, because the Thrust coming strait, if you were to push the same Way, you would, by supporting the Wrist, make a Contrast; and by pushing crooked, you would make a Coup Fourrés, or an interchanged Thrust; but if the Thrust be in Two Times, or Motions, you may push on the first; If it be in three Motions, on the second. As to the volting and lowering the Body, they may be used on all Motions, provided they be abandoned, and that the Enemy does not keep back his Body to draw you on.
  2. Taking his Time, is the most subtle Thing in Fencing, depending principally on the Mind: The Manner of taking it proceeds from your Place or Situation,
  3. which gives you an opportunity of knowing the fort and the feeble of the enemy, so that feeling his blade with your's, you may by a judicious custom, push at a proper instant, according as you find the weakness of his sword; and though it may seem that the enemy, in the same guard, and at the same distance, can as easily parry; that does not happen because of his different design to push, disengage, or make a feint, by reason of the several operations of the mind which follow the will.
  4. The Time to Time, or the Counter to Time, is by several people, called Counter-time: this cannot in effect alter this necessary part of the art; it being but an impropriety in terms; when they say that making a motion to bring the Enemy on, and when he is going to make a Thrust, the making a Counter; this is by consequence a Counter Time, like a Counter-disengagement, without observing that a Counter-time is nothing but an ill timed Motion, which should upon all occasions be avoided: and if that argument were to take place, it might be said that there is no such thing in fencing as taking the Time, because it is to be done only by taking a
  5. Time contrary to that which is intended to be taken of you, which according to their Argument would be a Counter-time; whereas the Term Time to Time, or counter to Time, sufficiently shews, that it requires three Motions; since the taking the Time requires two, and the taking it at the Time that he takes it, must require a third. Of these three Motions you are to make two: The first, in order to get one from the Enemy, that you may have an Advantage by your second, which is the third Time; so that when he thinks to take the Time upon you, you take it upon him, which, far from being a Counter-time, is a Time to his, or Counter to his Time.
  6. The same Time, depends on three Things: First, that both having a Design to push, you both push by chance at once, without expecting it from each other: Secondly: That full of the Design to take the Time, and not knowing it, you push upon the Enemy's Thrust, without foreseeing how to avoid it; and thirdly, when an Inferior or desperate Man, unable to defend himself, had rather run on your Thrust in endeavouring to hit you, than strive in vain to avoid it. These are not only the Occasions of the same Time, but also of the Coups Fourrés.
  7. It is to be observed, that Time, and the same Time, differ only in their Figure, and not in their Occasion, as Monsieur De la Touche says, for to take the Time upon a Thrust, you must go off upon the Lunge, as if it were on the same Time, except that the Figure of the Body shuns the Thrust, which in that of the same Time it does not do.
  8. False Time, is a Motion made by the Enemy to draw you on, in order to take a Time upon your's; therefore he that would take the Time, shou'd distinguish whether the Motion made, is to disorder him, and take the Advantage of his Parade, or to make him thrust, and take the Advantage of his Lunge; In Case of the first, it would be a Fault not to push; and in Case of the other, it would be amiss to push. Some Masters call the false Time, Half Time, which is wrong, every Motion being a Time, and as it is impossible to make a Half Motion, so 'tis impossible to make a Half Time.

The Difference of Time between the dexterous and awkard is, that the dexterous present and take the Time, and the others, give and lose it.