“Take this instance. In an old and dusty folio, entitled ‘Académie de l’Espée[2],’ which I discovered yesterday banished to the darkest corner of the library, I found several pages entirely devoted to the art ‘of delivering a stroke with the point at the right eye.’ The point is specified because in those days cuts and thrusts were held in equal favour.
“What do you say to a thrust in the eye? And yet if you will consult my folio you will find a collection of plates illustrating all the passes by which this brilliant stroke may be brought off.
“You know what is thought now-a-days of a hit in the face, that is to say on the mask; we are taught,—again quite wrongly,—not to take the smallest notice of it. And this leads me to hope that some day we may yet see a revolution, by which the vulgar belly will claim its rights and in its turn drive out the lordly bosom. It will be rated too highly then, as it is too much degraded now. But when did revolutions ever know where to stop?
“For the assault the one thing needful is self-reliance. Trust to your own resources, and do not imagine that you have to repeat word for word the lesson that you have got by heart from your book, but rather look for inspiration to the resources of your native wit.
V.
“If any one came to me for advice, the course I should recommend, not as a hard and fast rule, but in a general way, would be something of this sort:—Act as much as possible on the defensive, keep out of distance, in order to prevent your opponent from attacking you without shifting his position, and in order to compel him to advance on your point, the most dangerous thing he can do, and without a doubt the most difficult art to acquire. If you make up your mind to stand your ground whatever happens, and to attack always in exact measure, instead of retiring and advancing with quick and irregular movements, and instead of trying to surprise and overwhelm your adversary with combinations for which he is unprepared, you are to my mind simply acting without the least judgment, or rather you are making a perverse blunder.
“Then I should go on to say, always supposing that I was asked for my opinion:—Make a practice of stepping back as you form the parry, if only half a pace. There is everything to be gained by it, and there is no objection to it that I can see, unless it be the strong objection that your opponent will feel to being considerably embarrassed on every possible occasion.
“The advantages, on the other hand, are manifold. By stepping back you increase the effectiveness of the parry, because by withdrawing the body you, in a sense, double the rapidity of the hand. If the attack has been delivered with sufficient rapidity to beat the parry, by retiring you parry twice, the first time with your blade, with which you try to find your adversary’s weapon, the second time by removing the body to a greater distance, with the result that the point, which would have hit you if you had stood your ground, does not reach your chest.
“By employing this manœuvre against simple attacks you counteract rapidity of execution, and by employing it against composite attacks or against feints you encounter the last movement forcibly. It is also of service in screening one from attacks made by drawing back the arm, for it often happens if you stand your ground, that your hand starts too soon, and your sword encounters nothing but empty air. It has the further advantage of increasing the fencer’s confidence in himself.