Charles Besnard

There is a copy of this book in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. It was printed in Rennes, Brittany in 1653 and no translation of the entire text into English is yet available.

: Translation and study guide/workbook coming soon.

Besnard says that learning the postures, parries and thrusts, while necessary and required, is not sufficient to become a skilled fencer. Not is mere “heart” or courage enough. Judgement is needed and surely lacking in the Salle's of his day, he complains. He encapsulates the idea of judgement in an extended metaphor of a warship captain. The captain is judgement, who attempts to steer a safe course before rocks and other dangers. Sight is the sentinel who provides the captain with the relevant knowledge of the situation required to measure an informed decision. The captain can then give orders to the soldiers, the limbs of the body, to prepare them to avoid the impending obstacle or repel armed boarders. If judgement is lacking or weak, the soldiers do not listen to the captain's orders, do not obey them or do something entirely different, and the battle is lost.

I maintain, therefore, that heart neither guides nor conducts skill in any manner and that it is the eye and the judgement. The eye is the sentinel which uncovers the enemy and the rocks, and gives advice to the pilot (which is the judgement) who, like a good captain, as soon as he is warned gives the order and arranges all his soldiers (which are the members [of the body]), each to his post in order to be fully ready to obey and execute his commands. Yet this judgement is not shared equally in men, neither in quantity nor in quality, some having more of it, others less; some stronger, some weaker; and it is this which causes men to not learn like each other. But he who possesses a good and strong judgement does wonders in the conduct of all that he undertakes. (p. 21)

Besnard now makes two remarkable statements. The first is that judgement is not possessed in the same quality or quantity by all people. Some possess more or less judgement. Some have strong or weak judgement. While he does not quite say that some people cannot be taught judgement, since judgement comes from experience in his view, there is a suggestion that this being of wisdom may require more effort than some people are willing to provide.

The second is the introduction of humoural medicine to describe why skilled fencers often lose duels to the brash and unskilled. The cold and moist humours freeze the blood and judgement. The hot and dry humours create so much heat and smoke than the judgement is suffocated. Both conditions render a person incapable of thinking clearly and wisely.

The skill of the first is lost through fear and fright, which proceeds from too great an abundance of the moist and cold humours which, being moved, freeze the heart and the blood in the veins and cause the loss of judgement and render a man without movement and incapable of defending himself. Thus, they [who] lose their skill through anger and fury, which comes from an abundance of blood and bloodiness which produces so great a heat at the least emotion that all the body is filled with fire and flame which sends so much smoke, vanity and presumption into the brain that judgement and all reason is suffocated by it so that a man, only guided by this boiling heat that produces in him fumes of arrogance and contempt, is made clumsy so that he wants to fight for some weak cause of some sort, running precipitously to this fight without order, without fear or apprehension, without thinking of his preservation or considering, like the blind man he is, that the sword of the clumsy pierces as well as his own, and who, seeing himself attacked and in inevitable danger, resorts to playing double or nothing. (p. 23)

I should ask a question here which will serve greatly in understanding this treatise, which is: how can a man who has a sword in his hand defend himself, being in a training hall in which there are four doors, one before, one behind, one to the right and another to the left, being very certain that his enemy will come through one [door] to attack him in order to kill him but without knowing through which [door he will come]? I ask what this man must do to prevent his enemy from entering, preserve his life, and to get rid of him.

Someone could say that he would only have to close these four doors and lock them well against him, and leave his enemy outside who can by this means do him no harm. But this man will remain locked up, prisoner and captive, and cannot not, because of this, extricate himself and defeat his enemy. A better means must be found.

Now, here is a very sure method by means of which this man can prevent his enemy from causing him any inconvenience. It is necessary that this man close and lock well three of the four doors, and afterwards that he guards with his sword that one which he has left open. And when his enemy comes to enter it, it will be easy for him to prevent him and defeat him. (p. 30)

The room with four doors carries the heart of Besnard's philosophy of fencing and his strategy for overcoming an opponent. The four doors represent, obviously, the four quarters or target lines on the body: upper inside, lower inside, upper outside, lower outside. Closing them all only serves to trap you and trap you in a prison of your own making. However, closing three and leaving one open as an invitation into a prepared ambush is, in Besnard's mind, the secret to defeating an opponent.

Besnard's stance has the body withdrawn onto the rear foot with little if any weight on the front foot to allow it freedom of movement. The text is too long to quote but is terribly specific:

• The weight is on the rear foot such that a perpendicular line using a plumb bob (ie: “the lead at the end of a string which architects use”) attached to the rear shoulder “in such shape that the point of the shoulder covers in a descending straight line the point of the knee and the point of the knee [covers] the point of the foot.”
• The rear hand is held close to the face with the back of the hand turned towards the opponent.
• The front foot is pointed directly at the opponent and in such manner that the heel of the front foot is in line with the ankle of the rear foot. The front leg is straight and not bent.
• The forward hand is held in the middle over the front foot, not to one side or the other, with the arm relatively straight.

Note: The features of the stance match exactly those outlined by Paternoster (and Cavalcabo) and de Heredia. This is obviously a common theme, even to the point of using the carpenter's plumb-bob to check the perpendiculars and angles.

In this stance, all four guards are made. These are called by the usual names of première, seconde, tierce and quarte.

• Première: The wrist is held “higher than the head” and the point of the sword is also held high.
• Seconde: As a stance and guard, this position is not defined. The thrust of seconde (see below) is defined by the crooked arm and the “thumbnail is turned towards the ground.”
• Tierce: The wrist is held around waist or flank level on your outside in order to create an opening or invitation on your inside line.
• Quarte: The wrist is held around waist or flank level on your inside in order to create an opening or invitation on your outside line.

Besnard uses the word “tempo” in two contexts. The first is in the standard manner of Aristotelian/pre-Newtonian physics as the “number of motion.” That is, as the period of stillness between two actions or the period of action between two stillnesses. The second use is more evident in his terminology where it is used as a way of describing which and whether action(s) occur in response to other action(s). It describes the flow of the action in terms of “bait and hook” or “trigger / response”.

• Tempo: Any single atomic fencing action.
• Same Tempo: Strikes (and other actions) initiated at the same instant rather than one action representing a response to another action.
• Counter Tempo: (Near simultaneous) strike where one strike is initiated in response to the other.
• Counter of the Counter: The “counter of the counter” is to counter tempo as counter tempo is to tempo. It is the (near simultaneous) action made in response to the opponent's counter tempo strike.

Being at measure or in measure is to be at the distance at which you can cross the “half-strong” of your sword (ie: the middle third of the blade) against the weak of the opponent's sword. This is the critical distance which marks the distance at which both fencers can notionally strike each other in a single action.

Movement is linear to either narrow the measure (ie: to close the distance between you and the opponent) or to break measure (ie: to widen the distance between you and your opponent).

Besnard advocates the full, Italian-style lunge as described below. However, this is almost always prefaced by the half-thrust in order to learn the opponent's intentions. So, rather than making the half-thrust in the manner of, say, Cavalcabo, he is more like Dancie with his pas extraordinaire.

“You will push and extend your strike, unbending the left part, extending your arm and bearing the right foot forward […]. And in doing so, you will throw the left arm behind over the hip. And to properly extend and lengthen this strike, the body must have extended forward thus while pushing so that it is in this posture, namely, that the right knee and hips are bent so that the point of the shoulder is advanced in a line from the point of the knee and the knee in a line with the point of the right foot. […] Let the pommel of the sword be at the height of the chin, that the points of the foot, the knee and the right shoulder follow directly the point of the sword and covered by its strong and true edge. Let the left side be fully extended and unbent that the heel is held with the whole foot firmly on the ground but lying down and turned on its inside.”

In short, the process includes:

1. Deploy the arm,
2. Extend the front foot forward.

When thrusting in quarte, the rear arm is thrown back over the rear hip, presumably to reduce one's target profile. This is not required when making a thrust in tierce.

Besnard uses his carpenter's plumb-bob to determine exactly how far forward one should push and bend forward. He uses blade opposition and angulation to ensure that you are safe when lunging.

It is interesting that he advocates turning the rear foot on it's side. I wonder how tall men's heels were at the time. This would sensibly account for this action.

“The skilful rarely use this strike since this posture is too perilous.”

That about sums up the attention both the stance of première and the strike from première receive in the text. It is a strike with the point from high to low and is an object lesson on why you should only draw your sword out of measure.

The strike in seconde comes in two flavours, the tierce-in-seconde and the quarte-in-seconde. While these are distinct fencing situations which are in no way related, they end in the same position, a species of extreme passata sotto. It seems to be that because they end in the same position they are classed as the same thing.

“Contrary to the two previous ones [ie: the thrusts in tierce and quarte], which are thrown from the position of the wrist in a straight line, this seconde [is] in an oblique and angled line (which some call a caver) because in throwing it, one carries the wrist as far out as possible to the outside, turning the wrist in this manner so that the thumbnail is turned towards the ground and in this manner making the false edge of your sword turn towards and meet the sword of your opponent. And you should lower the body as low as possible so that the inside point of the right shoulder comes to join (as much as it can) the knee, carrying at the same time the left hand to the ground in order to more easily support it.”

The key points called out in the text are these.

• The usual straight line from the shoulder through the wrist to the point of the sword is broken. An angle is formed at the wrist with the arm, from the shoulder to the wrist, forming one leg of the angle and the other formed by the sword, from the wrist to the point. This is pure Agrippa (Cf. Action K).
• The body is lowered as far as possible to the inside line. The off hand is placed on the ground to assist with balance and recovering either forwards of backwards into a guard stance.
• The false edge of the blade is turned to make contact with the opponent's weapon.
• The sword leg, not the off leg, is forwarded in making the thrust in seconde.

Tierce-in-Seconde

There are two criteria to be met before making this action: the opponent is in a “high guard”, presumably holding the hilt high although this is not explicitly stated, and you are in measure. The action appears to consist of the following:

1. Engage the opponent's point, lowering it towards your outside to “engage underneath the weak of his sword with the half-strong true edge of yours, having the wrist turned in tierce.
2. Disengage beneath the opponent's point and thrust, “stretching your body forward, keeping the above proportions”.

Quarte-in-Seconde

From an engagement in quarte in which your blade has been subjected, turn your hand such that the weak of your sword is in contact with the opponent's weapon and lunge low to your inside line.

“You'll do it in the same tempo as your opponent engages your sword on the inside in quarte. At the same instant that he crosses the weak of your sword with the half-strong true edge of his, you will turn the wrist and stretch in seconde.”

Besnard posits two basic fencing situations: either you and your opponent have engaged blades or the engagement is refused.

At engagement, when you dominate the opponent's blade, the opponent has four possible responses. Besnard refers to these are the four decisions. They are covered in detail in the table of actions below.

• The opponent disengages in order to attack by making a thrust at you.
• The opponent disengages in order to re-take the line and dominate your blade
• The opponent “contests” the engagement, ie: pushes back with strength to dominate your blade.
• The opponent does nothing and remains engaged.

Besnard proposes nine basic patterns of action to counter the opponent's action. These are what he conceives as the “counters to the counter” spoke of in the section on tempo. The list below assumes the opponent has disengaged to attack the tierce or outside line.

1. Parry with the true edge in tierce then riposte (in seconde, tierce or quarte)
2. Parry with the false edge (in quarte) then riposte
3. Make a ceding (hanging?) parry to your inside line and make a cut into quarte, either to the head, the arm, the blade or to prepare for a thrust in riposte
4. Make a ceding (hanging?) parry to your inside line and make a revers cut to the head or arm
5. (Assuming right-handed fencers) Step off-line to the left with the left foot making a half-turn of the body. Disengage the sword into a low quarte. Continue stepping to the left with the right foot completing another half-turn of the body. This needs exploration. The directions are confused and the associate image is, frankly, bizarre.
6. A circular parry to counter-thrust in quarte
7. A pass below with opposition, ie: lifting the opponent's sword with your own.
8. A pass below without opposition (when the opponent's thrust is aimed high)
9. Parry to your outside line. Step forward with the rear foot and grab the opponent's hilt with the rear hand. Withdraw your sword and present the point to the opponent's stomach.

The column labelled Intermediate Actions outlines the steps in the phrase between the initial engagement or invitation, and the half-thrust to elicit a response-trigger from the opponent.

Note: This table doesn't seem to be working. Gotta consider how best to display this info.

Invitation or Engagement	Intermediate Action(s)	No. of Actions	Opponent's Action or Parry	Counter Action	Source(s)	Concordance
Engagement in quarte		2	Opponent disengages to thrust	Counter #1
Engagement in quarte		2	Opponent disengages to thrust	Counter #2
Engagement in quarte		2-3	Opponent disengages to thrust	Counter #3
Engagement in quarte		2-3	Opponent disengages to thrust	Counter #4
Engagement in quarte		2-4?	Opponent disengages to thrust	Counter #5
Engagement in quarte		2	Opponent disengages to thrust	Counter #6
Engagement in quarte		2	Opponent disengages to thrust to the body	Counter #7
Engagement in quarte		1	Opponent disengages to thrust to the head	Counter #8
Engagement in quarte		2	Opponent forces to subject your blade	Cede to the force and use Counter #9
Subjection in quarte	Opponent disengages to retake the line. You make a half-thrust in tierce	2-3	Opponent disengages to thrust	Counter #9
Subjection in quarte	Opponent disengages to retake the line. You make a half-thrust in tierce	2	Does nothing	Continue the thrust to the body
Subjection in quarte	Opponent disengages to retake the line. You make a half-thrust in tierce	3	Counter-strikes	Parry and riposte. Counter #1 and/or counter #2?
Subjection in quarte	Opponent disengages to retake the line. You make a half-thrust in tierce	2	Retakes the lines	Thrust in tierce
Subjection in quarte	Opponent does nothing. You continue the subjection into a half-thrust in quarte	2	Opponent does nothing	Continue the thrust
Subjection in quarte	Opponent does nothing. You continue the subjection into a half-thrust in quarte	2	Opponent makes a static parry	Counter #9
Subjection in quarte	Opponent does nothing. You continue the subjection into a half-thrust in quarte	2	Opponent parries by raising the wrist	Disengage to thrust in quarte below the opponent's sword arm (“the cut below”)
Subjection in quarte	Opponent does nothing. You continue the subjection into a half-thrust in quarte	2	Opponent parries with too much force	Continue the thrust in tierce
Subjection in quarte	Opponent does nothing. You continue the subjection into a half-thrust in quarte	2	Opponent retreats	Continue your thrust in quarte stepping with the rear foot