THE THIRD EVENING
I
DURING the day I hud reflected upon the easiest and
neatest way of explaining my method of simplification
my conviction that simplicity alone makes the belle maniere. In my youth I had tried the same with cavalry drill, never being able to understand why in these days, when arms of pre- cision and rapid fire are universal, ranks should be doubled. From my own system of bayonet exercise I had extracted a few simple movements, which could be contained on a page of note- paper, and yet which would enable the soldier to defend him- self against most comers. It is evident that the same can be done with fencing.
II
At last the smoking party met, and I addressed it from my
cane-bottomed chair:
You have been told that fencing, stripped of its factitious
ornaments and freed from the lumber and rubbish of the salles
40 ...
(Varmes, with their complicated and innumerable details, is a
far easier matter to learn than men generally suppose. The
process of simplification is not new; many writers recognised
only four elementary passes and parries, namely, Seconde, Tierce, Carte, and Octave, to which some added a fifth, Septime. We may further reduce the elements to two, and, do what we will, we cannot extend them beyond four. Let us tabulate them thus:
1. Attacks:
(a) Simple attacks. (b) Compound attacks.
2. Parries:
(c) Simple parries. (d) Compound or counter parries (parades de centre).
And thus we have the following:
Simple Attacks:
STRAIGHT THRUST (especially in carte with a right-handed man).
DISENGAGEMENT, or passing the point under the opponent's blade.
The CUT OVER (tagliata, coupe), or passing the point over the blade
Compound Attacks: ONE, Two:
The BEAT, followed by straight thrust.
The BEAT, with disengagement.
The liement, or BINDING the opponent's sword from higher to lower line.
Simple Parries:
TIERCE (high line outside), when tolerably sure of the adversary.
CARTE (high line inside), when tolerably sure of the adversary.
SECONDE. Carte basse (low carte).
Compound Parries:
COUNTERS or demicircles (half circles in tierce and
carte).
FULL CIRCLES (especially useful to the imperfect
swordsman).
This certainly does not look like the many-headed hydra which is supposed to require a Hercules.
" But you've forgotten," interrupted Charles, " an immense
number of lunges and parries. Hardly possible to write such
stout folios as those upstairs on a simple expression like this."
Said Shuightie: "I see that our neologistic and progressive
friend has done what he proposed to do with the Sanskrit declensions reduced them from ten to two or three, thereby worse confusing their confoundedness."
" Yes," added Seaton, " his simplicity has become silly. Can't he see that a variety of movements is the best practice to attain excellence in a few? "
I have forgotten them with malice prepense, because I
believe them to be useful only to the teacher, not to
the learner. I look upon them as part of the profession, and
professions must live. Je n'cn vois pas la necessile is hardly a
fair rejoinder to il faut virre. The surgeon often advises you
to part with a leg or an arm did you, by the by, ever see a
one-legged or one-armed doctor?
III
But, supposing the teacher to teach all these complications
with bona fides, as doubtless he generally does, I then observe
that they are calculated only to embarrass the intelligence of his
pupil. The more you simplify the means of action in the use
of weapons the more readily they are learned and the more
easily they are executed. Surely this is self-evident, even to
you, O Seaton!
Remark, also, that I have given you a full perhaps an un-
necessarily full list of attacks, parries, and ripostes. Many
might reasonably be retrenched, because they are mere modifi-
cations of the same movement.
Thus, for instance, " One, two," is a couple of simple disengagements, the first executed in the line of tierce, we will say, and the second in carte.
One, two, three, par parenthkse, is becoming obsolete on
account of the risk which always accompanies a complicated
attack, giving room for a time thrust.