Romuald Brunet

Brunet's Fencing Manual: Point and Counterpoint (1884) covers the conventional weapons of the French style of fencing of the period: foil and sabre. Épée is not included because it had not yet earned its place in the fencing mainstream and there was a destinct prejudice against the weapon at the time. The system of fencing for foil and sabre follows the Joinville style and pedagogy typified by the 1877 army fencing manual. A noted and decorated cavalry officer, Brunet trained under this system and reproduced it, with some slight innovations of his own, as a civilian fencing master.

Much of the content will be familiar to the modern fencer, particularly in the section devoted to the foil. The sabre section will be largely unfamiliar. While part of the mainstream, the system of sabre fencing presented here is relatively new and is in the process of pedagogical development. This helps explain the differences between, say, the sabre system in the army fencing manual and that presented here and between Brunet's system of sabre fencing and other contempoary fencing masters. Comparisons between the various sabre fencing texts produced at the time is an untapped well yet to be fully documented and researched.

Included in this volume is Brunet's outline of a fencing cometition with basic rules of behaviour, social order and scoring criteria. This alone provides an invaluable insight in to the practice of fencing in the late nineteenth century.