[ESCRIME] L'Art de faire des armes réduit à ses vrais principes. Contenant tous les principes nécessaires à cet art, qui y sont expliquées d'une manière claire et intelligible. Cet ouvrage est composé pour la jeune noblesse et pour les personnes qui se destinent au métier de la guerre, ainsi que pour tous ceux qui portent l'épée. On y a joint un traité de l'espadon, où l'on trouve les vrais principes de cet art, si utile et nécessaire aux militaires, qui y sont expliqués d'une façon aisée, et qui est rempli de découvertes vraiment nouvelles. Dédié à S.A.R. Monseigneur l'Archiduc Charles

Very rare first edition, apparently the only early edition recorded, of this important fencing treatise, published in Vienna by Janne Schrämble in 1804. The complete suite of illustrations comprises an engraved portrait frontispiece of the author and 72 plates, including two folding plates: 44 accompany L'Art de faire des armes and 28 the Traité de l'Espadon, making the 73 engraved illustrations called for by the collation.

A wide-margined copy, preserved in its original temporary blue paper wrappers, the spine reinforced. A few small spots of foxing; slight losses at the corners of the plain wrappers; a light dampstain to the lower left corner of the title-page; a small loss to the final page of the table of contents, not affecting the text.

No copy recorded in the CCF (French collective catalogue).

The title-page provides almost everything that can be established with certainty about the author. J. de Saint-Martin describes himself as "Maître d'Armes Impérial de l'Académie Thérésienne, et ancien Officier de Cavalerie" [Imperial Fencing Master at the Theresian Academy and former cavalry officer]. In his Discours préliminaire, he states that he had served the Austrian monarchy for seven years and had been appointed Imperial Professor of Fencing at the Theresian Academy. No sufficiently detailed independent documentation has yet emerged to reconstruct his earlier career. Whether he was a French émigré who left his country after the Revolution or simply a fencing master who chose to pursue his career in the Habsburg lands therefore remains an open question.

Saint-Martin is much more explicit about his training. Early in the treatise he states: « J'ai été moi-même élève de Danet, le premier maître de Paris » [I myself was a pupil of Danet, the foremost fencing master in Paris]. Guillaume Danet had served as syndic of the Paris company of fencing masters and published his important Art des armes in 1766-1767. The connection is therefore asserted by Saint-Martin himself; in the absence of independent documentation, it should be regarded as the author's own testimony, although it has subsequently been accepted in the historiography of fencing.

The first part of the work belongs to this French tradition of fencing. It methodically explains positions, guards, attacks, parries and ripostes, while the 44 plates translate the movements described in the text into visual form. Saint-Martin did not, however, intend his book solely for fencing masters and gentlemen practising in the salle. The title expressly declares it to have been composed "pour la jeune noblesse et pour les personnes qui se destinent au métier de la guerre, ainsi que pour tous ceux qui portent l'épée" [for the young nobility and for those intending to follow the profession of arms, as well as for all those who carry a sword]. The transmission of an aristocratic accomplishment thus merges with the practical training of the future officer.

This military purpose becomes still clearer in the second part, devoted to the espadon. Saint-Martin is careful to distinguish this teaching from that which he claims to have received from Danet: the method presented here, he states, derives from his own experience. In this context, espadon refers to a military cutting weapon generally identified by modern historians with the sabre; the 28 plates demonstrate its use both on foot and on horseback. Saint-Martin discusses cavalry combat, moulinets, feints and defence against an opponent armed with a bayonet.

The book thus brings together the two forms of experience claimed by its author: that of a fencing master trained in the Parisian tradition and that of a former cavalry officer now serving the Austrian monarchy. The first part transmits the principles of a school in which Danet remains his principal authority; the second seeks to adapt fencing to the practical demands of military combat and, in particular, to those of the cavalryman.

The dedication gives this ambition a particularly significant recipient: « Dédié à S.A.R. Monseigneur l'Archiduc Charles » [Dedicated to H.R.H. Archduke Charles]. The identification is therefore explicit rather than conjectural. Brother of Emperor Francis II, Archduke Charles was already one of the leading military figures of the Habsburg monarchy and had begun reforming aspects of its military system. In 1802 he abolished lifelong military service and undertook administrative reforms of the army; the more extensive reorganisation associated with his name would continue and intensify after the defeats of 1805.

In 1804, the dedication of a manual expressly intended for the young nobility and future military officers was therefore particularly apt. Saint-Martin was offering more than a fencing method: he sought to place the experience he had acquired as cavalryman and fencing master at the service of a new generation of Imperial officers. The Traité de l'Espadon, even more directly military in character than the first part, forms the culmination of that project.

A very rare copy of the first edition, complete with all 73 engraved illustrations and with ample margins, of a treatise combining Saint-Martin's claimed inheritance from Danet with his own method of military espadon for combat on foot and on horseback, expressly intended for the young nobility and future officers and dedicated to Archduke Charles of Austria.