"To begin then; my first object will be to make my meaning perfectly
plain. The thing to do will be to take fencing in its broad outlines.
It would be labour thrown away to enter the bewildering labyrinth of
those interminable details, which after all are nothing more than the
mathematical extension of elementary principles, which may be continued
to infinity.
"Fencing in its infancy had to feel its way; its methods were yet to
be found, its possibilities to be explored. Little by little, as one
period succeeded another and the art became in many respects perfected,
changes were introduced, and especially changes that tended to greater
simplicity. Old theories became old fashioned and were thrown aside to
make room for new doctrines.
"Fencing, in fact, was developed like most other things. But we must
not lose sight of the fact that the early methods of the old masters,
both in Italy and France, date from the sixteenth or seventeenth
century, and that the weapons employed in those days differed
materially from ours in shape, weight, and function. The change of
weapon has naturally led to a change of method.
"It would doubtless be interesting to the antiquary to trace the
successive changes that have taken place in sword-play, and to compare
it as it exists to-day with what it was in 1536, when Marozzo wrote his
treatise on the sword. (Pray excuse my erudition.) The sword of that
period was a wide straight blade with two cutting edges. I need not say
that Marozzo was Italian. The first French work on the subject was,
I believe, a treatise by Henri de Saint-Didier, which was published
in 1573, and dedicated to Charles IX. At that time France was a long
way behind Italy, where for twenty years already the edge had been
abandoned for the point.
"It is not my intention to retrace the abstruse history of the
development of swordsmanship; such an inquiry would, however, prove
that in all ages the new truths were invariably denied before they
established themselves as accomplished facts. There is no need then,
as you will doubtless be relieved to hear, to discuss the systems of
antiquity; we will pass over the intervening periods without further
preface, and come down at once to modern times.