"You asked me yesterday, if it is allowable to use the unarmed hand to
parry and put aside the sword.
"My answer is very emphatic:--No."
"But what if the parties agree to allow it beforehand?" asked the
Marquis de R....
"That is an agreement which in my opinion ought not to be made. The
practice is wholly foreign to our ways and to the traditions that have
come down to us.
"I am fully aware of the fact that there is the authority of a very
profound writer, the Comte de Chatauvillard, who has many strong
supporters, for the statement that 'the parry with the hand may be
a matter of agreement.' And other writers, among whom is more than
one eminent master, may be quoted for the view that it is a proper
matter for arrangement between the contending parties. That does not
affect my opinion in the least; and I say very emphatically and very
distinctly:--As you clearly have the right to say yes or no, say no
invariably.
"Such a concession or such an agreement, even if it is freely entered
upon by both sides, is only too likely to lead to disastrous and fatal
mistakes, while it does not offer any counterbalancing advantage. I
will try to explain why.
"The parry made with the hand that does not hold the sword goes back to
the ancient traditions of the Italian school, to the methods in vogue
when men fought with sword and dagger. They parried and attacked with
either weapon indifferently, bringing one or other into play by voltes
and passes, which have been dismissed from the theory and practice
of modern fencing. The art, which was adapted in those days to the
double means of offence and defence, employed a system very different
from that which prevails now. This parry, or to speak more accurately
this method of diverting an opponent's blade, which was done with
either hand indifferently, was reasonable then; nowadays it would be a
fantastic and dangerous anomaly.
"I remember trying by way of experiment, some years ago at Naples,
several assaults of this sort with an Italian professor, named
Parisi.--The poor fellow died I believe in prison, after taking part
in one of the many revolutionary attempts that were made to wreck the
kingdom of Naples. Parisi used to come regularly to my house where I
had furnished a room for fencing. I wished to make a serious study of
Italian play, and of the surviving traditions of this school, which
is rapidly disappearing and is only connected with its past by a few
almost invisible threads.
"Well, Parisi used to fence with a long Italian sword in one hand, and
in the other a sort of stiletto, which he employed to parry my attacks
in certain lines; and while he thus stopped my attack with his dagger,
he made not exactly a riposte but rather a simultaneous counter-attack
on me with his sword. This kind of play, which continually produced new
and difficult situations, was very interesting.
"If Parisi dropped his dagger, what happened? His left hand, instead
of following my blade, sprang at once to a fixed position. And to what
position? Why, you could see at a glance, by the way he carried his
forearm, thrown rather high across his chest and only a few inches away
from it, that he was ready for the parry with the hand, in fact doubly
ready for it, both by the position of his body and by the forward
position of his left arm.
"Now we who follow the rules of French fencing do just the reverse. We
carry our left arm to the rear, and so leave a smaller surface exposed
to our opponent's point; we therefore cannot bring our left hand into
play without abandoning the French position, or at all events without
sacrificing some of its fundamental principles.