5. The Drawing or Reverse Cut, which will be explained in the following pages; it is the reverse of the “Thrust Cut.” [12] This fact is well known to the _Manuel_, which says, “_Des deux engagements celui de droite par la position de la main a le plus d’application_.” It therefore makes all the Cuts and Parries begin from Tierce. This elementary rule is not recognized by the ‘Infantry Sword Exercise’ (p. 32); “your defence is always more effective in the left (Carte) than in the right (Tierce).” Such I assert is the case with the foil and rapier, certainly not with the sabre or broadsword. On horseback the left is of course the weak side. [13] Used in this sense the “small-sword” is the triangular weapon, the rapier is the flat, or rather the bi-convex blade. [14] In p. 29 of the ‘Infantry Sword Exercise’ we read of “a circular motion of the blade, termed the Parry;” but the latter word must not be limited to this sense. [15] The only allusion to it is the “shifting of the leg,” in p. 30. [16] See the ‘Infantry Sword Exercise,’ p. 31. [17] In France the false edge is hardly known; such blades are called _à deux tranchants_; it is the Italian schiena or chine, mezzo-filo, or falso opposed to vero taglio, and the German, rückschneide or kurzeschneide, thus distinguished from the lange-schneide. [18] See his Appendix, entitled “Modificazione all’ impugnatura e guardia delle Sciabola di cavalleria per facilitarne l’equilibrio ed avantaggiare la fermezza della mano sull’ impugnatura.” [19] A notable instance of this is the old Highland Clay-more. Transcriber’s Notes Simple typographical errors were corrected. Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry, by Richard Francis Burton