Chapter X

"Our chat to-night," I remarked after a moment's silence, "if it has not been very long, has at least been very serious. I only complain that you have not sufficiently interrupted me."

"We have been listening to you," said the Comte de R., "very attentively, because you warned us of the importance of your subject."

"Very well, my dear R.," I replied. "Now just imagine you are in court, and let us hear how you would sum up the case for the benefit of the jury."

"I fancy I can do that rather well," answered R. "Let me try:--The lesson, you say, is the school-room, the assault is the fencer's career, a free field for enterprise, where he must stand or fall by dint of his own unaided genius. The only counsels, which are worth anything, are those which have governed attack and defence from time immemorial. For attack, the union of desperate energy with cool and calculating caution; for defence, firmness, wariness, self-reliance.

"Then, passing from the general question to points of detail, or execution, I should add:--It is a great mistake, a piece of inconceivable folly, to have boycotted, to use your own expression, hits in the very low lines, because the fencer is prevented thereby from acquiring the habit of strictly guarding those parts of the body, where in a serious encounter any wound would probably prove fatal.

"As a general rule step back as you form the parry, to make assurance doubly sure, and to give greater freedom to your riposte. Stand your ground only when you think you have judged the stroke to a nicety, and when you hold your adversary in a tight place, from which he cannot escape."

"I am infinitely obliged to you, my dear R.," I remarked. "You have summarised most excellently the points that I have worked out in detail, and you have exactly caught my meaning."

"Very good of you to say so," answered R., "but let me finish:--In order to keep your wits about you, and to avoid trying to think of too many things at once, adopt as a rule a universal parry, which will cut all the lines, and must meet and drive away your opponent's blade. Always riposte direct, and be careful on your riposte to avoid making feints which expose you to a _remise_ or to a renewal of the attack. Does that satisfy you?"

"You have taken us over the ground most admirably, my dear Professor. To-morrow, I propose to discuss the attack, and in this connection we shall have to consider what is usually called '_le sentiment du fer_,' the fencer's sense of touch.

"To this sovereign principle we are asked to swear allegiance, as though it occupied the throne by divine right. I shall ask you to consider the pretensions of another claimant of very noble lineage to a share of the royal honours."

The Fifth Evening

I.

Although our conversation was quite informal and simply an after-dinner amusement, I found that it involved diligent preparation, especially when I was approaching one of the questions where I was in open conflict with current theories, which are often taken for granted on no better ground than their respectable antiquity.

One of these theories, which is described in fencing language as the importance of judging the blade by touch, I was now prepared to challenge, and I was ready to maintain the superiority of another principle, against which the professors raise their voices, almost with one accord, in a chorus of unmerited abuse. Accordingly when we assembled in the smoking-room, I took my usual seat and began without preface.

II.

"Perhaps I had better explain what is meant by refusing to join blades. It means that, as soon as you have come on guard, you break away from the engagement, and avoid crossing swords with your adversary, instead of allowing the blades to remain in contact.

"This, I consider, was one of the most successful innovations of what it is the fashion to call 'The New School'; and I am therefore very far from sharing the opinions of the professors, who discover in the practice the corruption of the best traditions of sword-play, and declare that the refusal to join blades is equivalent to fencing blindfold, and without judgment; it leads, they say, to mutual hits, and deprives the fencer of one of the finest accomplishments he can acquire, the power of judging the sword by touch.