C.2. Foil Actions from the 1877 Manuel d'Escrime

The authoritative definition of technique in the French School at the start of the classical period is the Manuel d'Escime, published in 1877 by Ministere de la Guerre (the French Ministry of War).  Chris Slee's translation, published by Long Edge Press, is the source for this discussion.  

The text is divided into two sections, one for the epee and one for the sabre, and Slee states that the foil is excluded.  I believe this is an error resulting from a misunderstanding of the near universal practice of the time of using the foil for training in place of the actual epee de terrain (sword of the dueling ground) or the military epee (the sword carried by officers and non-commissioned officers of the Army).  Arguing in favor of the use of the foil for training Pointe fencing (fencing conducted with thrust weapons) are the following factors:

(1)  the depictions of the technique in the Manuel are essentially of foil technique as described and pictured in works by a number of French trained Masters (Cordelois, Provost, Rondelle, and Senac as examples). 

(2)  the illustrations, although inexact in their depiction of the sabre, clearly show a Pointe weapon that lacks the enlarged, dome shaped guard characteristic of the epee de combat or the epee de terrain.  The pictures look like a side view of a lunette guard, or one of the square, lens shaped, or rectangular flat guards in use in the period.  This is confirmed by the text which describes the guard as a lunette guard.  It is dangerous to say that something in this period never happened, but the lunette guard was a foil guard and does not appear as part of an epee in any commonly available source. 

(3)  prior to the epee de salle revolution of the 1880s, the epee is not commonly addressed in general fencing texts.  Even in Rondelle's 1892 Foil and Sabre the two weapons described are foil and the sabre.  It is worth noting that prior to his emigration to the United States in 1881 Maitre Rondelle was a graduate of the military fencing academy of Joinville-le-Pont and a working Maitre d'Armes in the 8th Regiment of Chasseurs a Cheval at the time the 1877 Manuel was in force. 

Therefore, it seems reasonable to consider the description of Pointe technique in the Manuel to be applicable to the foil.  As a document that is at the start of the classical period time line, it is worth examining the range of technique it describes:

(1)  the manner of holding the sword

(2)  the guard

(3)  preparatory movements

(4)  taking the guard in seven steps

(5)  gathering, forward and backwards

(6)  stepping, forward and backwards

(7)  appels

(8)  deployment of the arm

(9)  lunge

(10)  salute in arms

(11)  engagement

(12)  change of engagement

(13)  double engagement

(14)  fingering

(15)  the attack, simple and compound strikes

(16)  straight strike (simple attack)

(17)  disengagement (simple attack) (lateral action)

(18)  feint (simple attack)

(19)  cut-over

(20)  glide

(21)  beat

(22)  pressing

(23)  expulsion

(24)  disengagement (from high to low line)

(25)  bind

(26)  remise

(27)  reprise

(28)  redoubling

(29)  timed strike

(30)  stop strike

(31)  parry

(32)  counter

(33)  the actual parry

(34)  varieties of parries

(35)  execution of prime

(36)  execution of seconde

(37)  execution of tierce
(38)  execution of quarte

(39)  execution of quinte

(40)  execution of sixte
(41)  execution of half-circle
(42)  execution of octave
(43)  riposte
(44)  counterriposte

This is predominantly a list of simple or one tempo actions.  The Manuel describes the simple actions and then uses them as building blocks to aggregate multiple tempo actions in the script for a series of lessons that progresses to as many as four part actions.  These are not defined or specifically described in the way that later fencing manuals do.  Rather the doctrinal approach appears to be that the key element is the simple action and that any simple action can be combined with others to create multiple tempo actions in reaction to the opponent's response.  The lessons include actions that require significant skill such as:

• beat, double, disengage
• feint a straight strike, feint below, one, two above 
• feint of cutover, one, two 
• glide, double

Although this is a relatively short text, it clearly demonstrates the variety of actions available to the fencer of the French School, sets the stage for the growth of the volume of technique, and provides a doctrinal approach of some flexibility in the assembly of complicated bladework.

Copyright 2019 by Walter G. Green III

Foil ACtions from the 1877 Manuel d'Escrime by Walter G. Green III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

T.3. The Early French Lines

The 1877 French Ministry of War Fencing Manuel d'Escrime (Slee translation) provides a discussion of lines that is consistent with the understanding that appears in the 1908 edition of the manual (the Amateur Fencers League of America translation).  However, this discussion differs significantly from later interpretations in the classical period and with modern practice.

The 1877 model envisions four lines, as do following models of the line to this day:

• The Right Line - also known as the Outside line - defined as being the envelope of space to the right of the blade.  The manual does not address how a left handed fencer would view this, but for a left handed fencer this would be to the outside. 
• The Left Line - also known as the Inside Line - the envelope of space to the inside of the blade.
• The High Line - the envelope of space above the fencer's wrist.
• The Low Line - the envelope of space below the fencer's wrist.

So far, that would be familiar to any fencer in the later portion of the classical period and even today.  The difference comes when the lines are numbered:

• Outside (right) Line - Tierce 
• Inside (left) Line - Quarte
• High Line - Prime
• Low Line - Seconde

The Manuel adds a set of tactical rules to this model:

(1) The Inside (Left) and Outside (Right) are the only lines in which engagements are taken.  This suggests that one engages in tierce or quarte.

(2) The High and Low lines are the lines into which attacks are directed.  This suggests that one attacks in prime and seconde.

(3) The High Line defeats the Low Line.  This appears to be a reference to the practice of attacks in the high line taking priority over attacks in the low that maintained popularity for some time (and that was actually rejuvenated in an international fencing tournament in the 2000s for an hour in the morning before a mass mutiny of the competitors forced an immediate rethink by the Federation Internationale d'Escrime).

(4) Fencers should only attack in the low line (derobement) when the high line is closed by a feint, a beat, or opposition or press in a way that prevents a timed strike.

Because today we often use the name of the guard or parry used to defend an envelope of space to describe a line, this identification of lines seems confusing.  In addition, the naming of lines as left-right vertical and up-down horizontal does not make it obvious that the target is viewed in quadrants.  This formulation of the Ministry of War's approach to fencing continues as late as the 1908 edition of their manual.  

However, Rondelle (1892) significantly clarifies the theory of the lines by identifying that there are in fact four quadrants and that there are a set of guards (and thus parries and invitations) associated with each quadrant.   He presents a diagram that shows the theoretical target divided into four quadrants:

• High Sixte - high outside quadrant - defended by the parries of Sixte or Tierce
• Low Sixte - low outside quadrant - defended by the parries of Seconde or Octave
• High Quarte - high inside quadrant - defended by the parries of Prime or Quarte
• Low Quarte - low inside quadrant - defended by the parries of Quinte or Septime

There is not complete agreement on names for quadrants.  Provost (1890) in Fencing (with Pollock and Grove, although it appears that the technical section of the part of this combined volume in the Badminton Library was written by Provost) identifies a quadrant structure with four lines:

• high inside - termed the Inside Line
• high outside - termed the Outside line
• low inside - termed the Lower Line
• low outside - termed the Exterior Line

A footnote suggests that these are Provost's anglicizations of "dessous" and "dehors" and that exact translations are not possible.  Provost also notes that to determine the line the blade must be either raised or lowered, but that there is no requirement for engagement.  His wording suggests that unspecified individuals were of the opinion that the existence of a line depended on engagement.

Additionally, in 1898 Cany and Gosset's Manuel d'Escrime: Methode Rationnelle names the four quadrants as High Line (high outside), Inside Line (high inside), Low Line (low inside), and Outside Line (low outside).  The four quadrants have distinct names, although they appear to form a pattern of diagonal opposites with the High Line and Low Line quadrants being outside and inside and the Inside Line and Outside line quadrants being high and low.

The variability these sources provide suggests that it is important in earlier texts to understand the meaning of the lines as the author intends them, and to understand that French terminology was not as stable in the early days as one might expect.

Copyright 2019 by Walter G. Green III

The Early French Lines by Walter G. Green III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.