Secrets of the Sword
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“No doubt fencers of this kind, – they call themselves fencers, – may score an occasional hit, for, as I have had occasion to remark already, there is always a certain amount of luck in fencing; but this sort of thing is not fencing; it is much more like mere brutal fisticuffs. Such eccentric methods are of no importance, they are not based on any sort of principle, but are the mere outcome of ignorance; they belong to no school and have no permanent value. But it does not do to despise an unbeaten enemy. Therefore confront these methods and defeat them first; you can afford to despise them afterwards.”
“Quite so,” exclaimed Monsieur de C., “that is exactly my opinion.”
“One moment,” I said, “I have not quite done. I was going to say, that I have very little faith in the stories one hears of the regimental fencing master being run through by the recruit. Such an event may happen, just as a chimney-pot may fall on your head when you are walking in the street, but I fancy that if you were to apply the rule of three to all the cases the result would not exactly support the paradox.
“There is a class of fencers who are thoroughly – in fact too thoroughly – convinced that they are very dangerous fellows, and that they are never hit. You repeatedly come across this sort of thing in the fencing room: – Your opponent delivers an attack which you parry; he stays on the lunge doubled up, with his body dropped forward; your riposte lands perhaps in his mask, perhaps in his back, or arm. Thereupon he recovers and remarks with a negligent air: ‘hit in the mask,’ ‘hit in the back,’ ‘arm only,’ as the case may be.
“Oh, only in the mask! But, Sir, the point would have run you through the head and traversed your brain. In fact it would have been quite as effective as a hit in the chest, which penetrated your lungs. The other would have gone six inches into your back; while the third would have pierced your arm and run you through the chest afterwards. You offer your head, back, or arm instead of your chest, I hit the part exposed and am quite satisfied. You cannot evade or parry a thrust by substituting for the part that would otherwise be hit some other part, which you do not attempt to cover; all that you do is to offer an exchange.
VI
“Do you suppose that these fencers would pursue the same tactics, if they had to face a naked point instead of the button of a foil, and that they would fancy themselves out of danger, if they laid themselves open to be run through the head or back or neck? Such wounds are not trivial and cannot be ignored. A sharp point is a peremptory fact, which makes short work of illusions.
“Or again, do you imagine that anyone would be very anxious in a real fight to run the risk of double hits, by which he might succeed in inflicting a serious wound, but only at the expense of being run through the body himself? No one would resort to such desperate measures as these, unless there was absolutely nothing else left to be done.
“This is so thoroughly true, that if you set two men to fight in a fencing-room with blunt swords, you notice at once that the assault is something very different from what it would have been with mere foils. You might almost fancy that the swords, though they can no longer wound, are still possessed by the spirit of mortal combat, and retain some reminiscence of the real thing, of naked chest opposed to naked steel.
“There is none of that brilliant dash, none of those brilliant strokes that are usually more conspicuous for temerity than judgment. The fight is a sham fight still, but the players cannot help taking it seriously. Each is saying to himself: – ‘Now let me see what would happen, if we were in earnest.’ The different shape of the hilt, the harsh grating of the steel affect the imagination. ‘Watch that fellow, see what he is up to, make him keep his distance, give him something to think about.’ That is the sort of caution that the swords are whispering.
“You may easily satisfy yourselves of the truth of my remarks the next time you have an opportunity of watching a bout of this sort. And if there is so great a difference between simple foils and blunt swords, you will have no difficulty in believing that the difference between blunt swords and sharp is far greater. Wild play subsides, and those who were willing to charge blindly, when they risked nothing more than a dent in a leather jacket, prefer to study ways and means a little more closely. It is a very natural prompting of the instinct. The rule is almost universal, but there are occasional exceptions, which you may be called upon to face, and if you do not want to be taken by surprise, you had better make yourself acquainted with them beforehand for what they are worth.”
“Then you approve,” said M. de C., “of occasional practice with muffled swords?”
“Not only of occasional but of constant practice, and that not in the assault only, but in the lesson too. The greater weight of the sword and the wider blade, which is straight and less whippy than the foil, steady the hand, keep it in position, and give a truer aim.”
VII
“I notice,” observed one of my friends, “that you have said nothing about left-handed fencers.”
“No,” I answered. “The fact is, there is hardly anything to say, and even the text-books, which do not usually err on the side of brevity, devote very little space to them. For there is really no particular rule, which applies to them exclusively.”
“But surely they are very difficult?”
“Yes in a way no doubt they are, though one of my friends, a left-hander of course, used to say that the supposed difficulty is only a convenient excuse invented by right-handed fencers. His suggestion is more witty than true, and I am willing to allow, without hesitation, that left-handers really are puzzling to those who are not accustomed to fence with them. Their only real advantage is that they have more opportunities of fencing against right-handers, than right-handers have of fencing against them. When once you are used to them the difficulty vanishes. The left-hander on the contrary, when it comes to fighting, is never rid of the far graver risk which he takes by exposing his left side.
“I may add that the left-hander’s advantage, which consists entirely in his incognito, would exist no longer, if the professors, – who I hope may take the hint, – would make a practice of giving lessons occasionally with the left hand. Some of them do so already, and I congratulate them on their good sense. If you come to think of it, there is not a single left-handed thrust or parry, which cannot be equally well executed by a right-handed player. Only, from want of practice, the latter finds it more difficult to direct his point because the lines are reversed. Quarte becomes sixte, and vice versa. The left-hander prefers to take the inside engagement, that is to say quarte. This line suits him better, and accordingly it is good policy not to let him take it without a struggle. It is usually more difficult to hit him in the outside line.
“So much for general principles, for of course left-handed play varies as much as right-handed, although the contrary is sometimes maintained. But if all left-handers were providentially made alike, one would think that it could not be very difficult to get to know the pattern by heart.
VIII
“Well, you must admit that in the course of my remarks I try not to pass over anything that is likely to interest those who have, or those who should, could, or would have a fancy for sword-play.
“My object is to bring out the essential features in clear relief, and I intentionally omit the thousand and one minute details, which would overcrowd my canvas, and prevent you from properly appreciating the leading features. These refinements, which come with experience and habit, cannot be forced, they must be slowly acquired by the friction of the blades, by meeting all sorts and conditions of fencers, by facing the unforeseen and sudden perils, which confront you just when they are least expected.
“You know how awkward a young fellow is when he makes his first appearance in society. When he finds himself in a drawing-room, he is shy and uncomfortable, he does not know how to sit down or how to stand up or how to talk, but presently without consulting any professor, simply, so to speak, by the daily friction of his common intercourse with other people, older and more experienced than himself, he acquires confidence, ease, address, manners, and so forth.
“It is just the same with fencers. Craft, finesse, tact, and judgment come by degrees, as wings grow out of feathers; but do not forget that the lesson and the master’s pad are your first instructors and must not be neglected. To neglect them would be ungrateful, and ingratitude is always base. Besides you cannot afford it.
“I am sure I don’t know what else I can find to say; I shall be in a difficulty to-morrow, unless you promise to help me out.”
The Seventh Evening
I
“Well, what is your text to-night?” asked my host as he joined the group which had met as usual in the smoking-room.
“Oh,” I replied, “I have nothing left to preach about.”
“And I,” said the Marquis de G., who was looking through the evening paper, “don’t mean to let you off so easily. Here is a piece of news, which is very interesting in connection with our nightly symposia.”
“Read it! Read it!” exclaimed a chorus of voices.
The Marquis read out the following paragraph: —
‘An unfortunate encounter recently took place in the Papal States between the young Marquis de Monte C. and the Chevalier d’A. The duel arose out of a very singular incident. The Chevalier d’A., a Neapolitan, has the reputation of a jettatore, that is to say he is supposed to have the evil eye. The Marquis de Monte C., happening to meet him in a drawing-room, took up without thinking a little coral hand, a charm that he was wearing on his watch-chain, and pointed it at the Chevalier d’A. as he was passing close by him. The Chevalier who knew what people thought of him, noticed the movement and called the young Marquis out. They met the following morning, and the unfortunate Marquis received a sword thrust in the chest and was killed outright. The Chevalier, besides being a very expert swordsman, is said to have acquired a knowledge of several secret thrusts.’
II
The reading of this paragraph was followed by a momentary silence. Then someone remarked: – “I have often heard ‘secret thrusts’ spoken of, but how is it that they are not taught by the Professors?”
“Well,” I said smiling, “for one sufficient reason, that if they were taught they would no longer be secret. But, joking apart, I may as well say at once that my belief in secret thrusts is about equal to my belief in ghosts.”
“Come, this must be looked into.”
“I believe in out of the way and unlooked for strokes, but further than that I cannot go.”
“Yet, surely they must have existed some time or other,” objected my critic, “or how did they come by their name?”
“Oh, they existed more or less at one time, or perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say that they were supposed to exist. They are a shadowy survival, a sort of family ghost that we have inherited from the Italian school. For French fencing, though it has developed characteristic features of its own, traces its descent, as you know, in a direct line from Italian ancestry.
“Secret thrusts died and were buried when Science was in its infancy; and Science has since grown up in other conditions, and grown strong by working on other lines. They could not be revived, unless the attendant ritual of an effete tradition, the system of a bygone age long since forgotten, were revived along with them.
“At the present day, with our modern weapons and our modern methods, to use a secret thrust would amount almost to a crime. And if it were not exactly that, if a charge of murder or manslaughter would not lie, it certainly would be considered iniquitous by all honourable men. No one with a conscience could conceivably buy success in an affair of honour at such a price.
III
“Before we leave this question I should like to make my meaning perfectly clear. In the world as we find it there are some things for which no definite penalty is prescribed, things that do not bring a man within the law, but that are none the less offences in the court of conscience and very properly censured. An action, such as we are now discussing, is to my mind a case in point, always supposing it to be a possible action; but is it possible? – that is the question.
“Put yourself in the place of a man who is compelled by force of circumstances to fight a duel. Your success, if you do succeed, may be due to the blessing of Providence, to skill, or to accident, but it must satisfy one condition, – it must be unequivocal. You are meeting an honourable enemy in an honourable fight, and obviously the means you employ must be beyond all question ‘straight,’ and not devices so crooked as almost to deserve the epithet ‘felonious.’”
I found myself speaking with some warmth, and was pleased to see that my remarks were received with great interest.
“Of course,” I continued, “in speaking or writing on a subject of this sort, one can only express a strictly personal opinion. Now, what do you say? We have been let in for this duel by an evening paper. Shall we drop it, or shall we see it through?”
I was answered by a general cry: – “Go on!”
“I am afraid it may take us rather far afield, for it involves important considerations.”
“So much the better,” observed my host, “we have plenty of cigars, and the night is young.”
We provided ourselves with fresh cigars to follow those already alight, and settled down in our arm-chairs, and the most profound silence reigned in the smoking-room.
IV
“Well,” I began, “hitherto we have had in view sword-play in the literal sense of the word, that is to say theoretical fencing, fencing regarded as a sport, as a bout with the foils in a fencing room. We shall now have to consider it from the strictly utilitarian standpoint.
“In the one case we have an assault, consisting of a succession of fancy strokes played by connoisseurs, who in point of skill may of course be equally or unequally matched, but who nevertheless play the game on the whole in accordance with principles that are tolerably well ascertained. In the other case we have a serious encounter with swords sharply pointed, flashing in the sun, and dangerous to life. The first hit, correct or incorrect, is decisive, no matter how it is delivered, no matter where.
“Do not forget that you have to reckon not only with skill but with the possibility of surprise, not only with subtlety but with brute force, not only with science but with blind and headlong ignorance. Your opponent does not greatly care whether he lets your blood in orthodox style, or whether he operates on your face for instance, or on those parts of the body that are too much neglected in the fencing room. You do not choose your opponent, he is chosen for you by accident; he may be tall or short, strong or weak. You are no longer engaged in a sport in which your object is to play correctly, in a contest of skill in which you may perhaps allow yourself to be hit occasionally in order to lead your opponent on and afterwards defeat him more easily. The man who confronts you with that threatening point may be an artistic and accomplished swordsman, but he may equally well never have touched a sword in his life, and be trusting to luck, or to his general smartness, or to a cool head. You may find that you have to do with an enemy whose every movement is studied; who keeps his distance cleverly; who never advances or retires without a reason. Or on the contrary, it may turn out that your opponent, trusting to one supreme effort of audacity, in defiance of all calculation, and throwing to the wind every shred of theory, will make such brutal use of his sword as the primitive and untutored instinct of self-preservation dictates.
V
“We realise at once how far we have got from the harmless diversion of the assault, the sham fight conducted under the master’s eye on strictly correct principles and with inoffensive weapons. The assault and the duel are even further apart than the assault and the formal lesson. In short this newspaper paragraph has brought us face to face with the real duel, and what we have to do is to discuss it in all its bearings, – so we had better begin at the beginning.
“Unfortunately, one always finds that it is impossible to discuss the art of fence without coming to the duel; for say what you will, cases must sometimes occur when an affront for which the law offers no redress compels you to go out. ‘The duel,’ as someone puts it, ‘cannot be suppressed. It is like a bad neighbour with whom we have to live on the best terms we can.’
“Some years ago I happened to read a great deal of fencing literature. The various authors, though not one of them could find a good word to say for duelling, contrived between them to fill in a sketch of its rise and progress from the earliest times down to the present day.
“This is evidently one of the points where the civilised man and the savage meet on common ground, and is an instance of the law that civilisation modifies, refines, perhaps transforms our instincts, dresses or disguises them in the latest fashion, but never gets rid of them.
“At one time the duel was called Trial by Battle or simply The Judicial Combat. Then it was pronounced illegal, and those who fought in a private quarrel were sentenced either to death or to long and cruel periods of imprisonment.
“At a later period, growing insolent with impunity, the duel like a strayed reveller swaggered in the streets and public places; we find it haunting the taverns, we see the flicker of the blades under a street lamp, – drawn for a word, for a ribbon, for a bet, for anything, or for nothing. Even the seconds who parted good friends over-night did their best to spit each other next morning.
“Well, what better evidence could we require to prove that this last resort of wounded honour is somehow deeply rooted in human nature, than the fact that the ancient and honourable practice of duelling has remained the final court of appeal, in spite of changed surroundings, in spite of hostile opinion, and in spite of the extravagant follies that have sometimes disgraced it?
VI
“But this is a digression for which I apologise. I was led astray by my subject and drifted quite unconsciously into an unpremeditated preface.”
“Don’t apologise,” said M. de C., “your digression is charming.”
“And besides,” I continued, “you know I have a sort of moral claim on your indulgence, for I might have displayed my erudition, and have quoted names and dates and facts unearthed from dusty folios, and yet I have mercifully spared you.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” came from several arm-chairs.
“When one talks of duelling, there is a point that strikes one at the outset, and though it is not directly connected with sword-play, it is too nearly allied to the duel to be dismissed without notice. I mean the duties of seconds.
“I shall not now enter upon the question of what those duties may be before the combatants meet. These consist in pressing for moderate counsels, in acting or even over-acting the part of peacemaker. You all know as well as I do that no chance of arriving at an honourable settlement should be neglected before allowing your men to go out.
“What should we think of the man who could forget that his friend’s honour and his friend’s life are equally committed to his keeping, and that he ought not, out of a quixotic regard for the one, to jeopardise the other needlessly?
“When a man fights, his conviction that right is on his side is everything. And therefore the correct attitude of a second is that of a man, who acting calmly but firmly in his friend’s interest seeks to avoid a quarrel. Any other attitude is not only incorrect but even renders him liable to be called to account for neglecting his bounden duty.
“Personally, if after exhausting every effort to obtain a friendly settlement I found that a meeting was unavoidable, although I was thoroughly satisfied in my own mind that it was a case not of injured honour but only of injured vanity, or of wounded pride, I should not hesitate to withdraw. Duels played to the gallery are either odious or absurd; they are out of date, and should be numbered with the obsolete fashions of the past.
VII
“They arose in the manners and customs of a flamboyant era, when everyone carried a sword and it was considered the right thing to air it on every opportunity, in order to fill up the time which might otherwise have passed somewhat heavily. Every age has its fashions and its vices, its childish toys and favourite follies. Those gallant blades that cut such a tremendous figure in the old days would meet with a very poor reception now, if they could revisit the scenes of their dashing exploits.
“But if it is the duty of a second to play the part of mediator before the action, it is equally his duty to be cool and collected on the ground. His personal responsibility is increased, but otherwise his rôle remains unchanged.
“It then becomes imperative on him to anticipate and allow for every contingency, he must let nothing escape him, and must give the closest attention to the minutest detail, in order that his principal may be relieved of all anxiety, and may preserve that cool presence of mind which is so absolutely indispensable.
VIII
“In short the fact that has to be grasped is simply this, – that not one of the thousand and one preliminary details is unimportant; and that things seemingly the most trivial may suddenly assume the most unexpected gravity. The stake is too high to justify any man in gambling it away with a light heart.
“In the first place the selection of the ground must be carefully considered. The surface should be smooth and even, without dips or inequalities that can be in the slightest degree dangerous. Be particular to avoid a spot where there is any grass. Grass is slippery and may imperil your friend’s life.
“Here is another point worth remembering. Run your eye quickly but carefully over the ground where your friend will stand; he is very likely to neglect this precaution himself, and may fail to see a root for instance, almost unnoticeable to a careless glance, which might very easily trip him up or throw him off his guard at a critical moment, when it was too late to stay the impetus of his opponent’s point. All this no doubt seems extremely trivial; but how do you know that the tuft of wet slippery grass, the half hidden root, or treacherous stone will not turn the scale a moment later?
“The contending parties, it has been said, are entitled to a fair division of light and ground. If that is so, you will be well advised not to stand out for your share of light, and you should never consent to let your principal face the sun. The glitter of the blades confuses the eye and causes hesitation. Remember that in fighting the eye is an implement at least as important as the sword. Seeing in this case is thinking. The eye warns you of danger, and instinctively picks out the enemy’s weak spot. And more than that, a steady eye, an eye that looks one in the face unflinchingly, overawes and fascinates. While the sword threatens, the spying questioning eye is the intelligent scout.
“Again, never allow the combatants to strip. The impression of the cold air on the bare skin and the unaccustomed exposure may affect one more than the other, if he is naturally more sensitive, even though he may be quite unconscious of the fact.”
“But,” objected the Comte de R., “what if the other side insist?”
“You must refuse to give way. No one has a right to insist upon it. It is a barrack-room practice, usual among soldiers, and does not hold good outside the guard-room.”
IX
“While we are on this point,” remarked one of my friends, “there are two questions I should like to ask you.”
“I will do my best to answer them,” I replied, “for – as my lawyer would put it – I may say, that I am thoroughly acquainted with all the leading cases.”