Page 11 - Fencing Booklet

The French school of sword fighting was
an academic form, with much emphasis
on strategy and form. Conventions and rules were adopted to teach this form of swordplay. Additionally, the foil, or practice sword, was used to create a safe training environment. To further enhance safety, a mask was designed in the 18th century by the fencing master La Boëssière and the celebrated duelist Joseph Bologne, chevalier de Saint-Georges.
While fencing with the foil was becoming increasingly stylized, dueling with swords still continued. The complexities of foil fencing
as practiced under the ideal conditions of
the schools, or salles, with reverence for the set rules and conventions, produced a game that became an art of absorbing interest. But this orthodox, controlled swordplay was of little account on a cold gray morning on a greensward or gravel path when one faced a determined opponent with a sharp and heavier weapon who disregarded all conventions.
Ironically, however, by the mid-18th century, when fencing had reached its peak in technique and theory, dueling with the sword had virtually disappeared because of the growing accuracy of firearms. From this time on, fencing took on the nature of a sport, and in form the swordplay of this time differed little from the modern sport of fencing.
For those few who continued to follow the sword as a method of resolving conflict, the épée de combat was created in the second half of the 19th century. The practice version of this weapon was a regulation, though blunted, dueling
sword, and it was used without limitation of target or other conventions. Except for the use of protective clothing, épée fencing closely approximated the conditions of a duel.
The last of the modern fencing weapons appeared in the late 18th century, when the Hungarians introduced a curved sabre (adapted from the Eastern scimitar) for the use of their cavalry. The sabre was soon adopted by other European armies. The heavy military sabre (and its counterpart, the naval cutlass) was used in fencing schools until the end of the 19th century, when
the Italians introduced a light sabre that was soon accepted universally as a sport weapon.
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