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FRENCH BOXING (la boxe francaise)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 352 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FRENCH See also:BOXING (la boxe francaise) See also:dates from about 183o. It is more like the See also:ancient See also:Greek pankration (see See also:PUGILISM) than is See also:British boxing, as not only striking with the fists, but also kicking with the feet, butting with the See also:head and See also:wrestling are allowed. It is a development of the old See also:sport of savate, in which the feet, and not the hands, were used in attack. Lessons in savate, which was practised especially by roughs, were usually given in some See also:low resort, and there were no respectable teachers. While See also:Paris was restricted to savate, another sport, called chausson or jeu marseillais, was practised in the See also:south of See also:France, especially among the soldiers, in which blows of the fist as well as kicks were exchanged, and the kicks were given higher than in savate, in the See also:stomach or even the See also:face. It was an excellent exercise, but could hardly be reckoned a serious means of See also:defence, for the high kicks usually See also:fell See also:short, and the upward blows of the fist could not be compared with the terrible sledge-See also:hammer blows of the See also:English boxers. See also:Alexandre See also:Dumas pere says that See also:Charles Lecour first conceived the See also:idea of combining English boxing with savate. For this purpose he went to See also:England, and took lessons of See also:Adams and See also:Smith, the See also:London boxers. He then returned to Paris, about 1852, and opened a school to See also:teach the sport since called la boxe francaise. Around him, and two provincial instructors who came to Paris about this See also:time with similar ideas, there See also:grew up a large number of sportsmen, who between 1845 and 1855 brought French boxing to its highest development. Among others who gave public exhibitions was Lecour's See also:brother See also:Hubert, who although rather undersized, was See also:quick as See also:lightning, and had an English See also:blow and a French kick that were truly terrible. Charles Ducros was another whose See also:style of boxing, more in the English See also:fashion, but with low kicks about his opponent's shins, made a name for himself.

Later came Vigneron, a " strong See also:

man," whose style, though slow, was severe in its See also:punishment. About 1856 the See also:police interfered in these fights, and Lecour and Vigneron had to cease giving public exhibitions and devote themselves to teaching. Towards 1862 a new boxer, J. See also:Charlemont, was not only very See also:clever with his fists and feet, but an excellent teacher, and the author of a See also:treatise on the See also:art. Lecour, Vigneron and Charlemont may be said to have created la boxe frangaise, which, for defence at equal weights, the French claim to be better than the English. See L'Art de la boxe francaise et de la canne, by J. Charlemont (Paris, 1899) ; The French Method of the See also:Noble Art of Self Defence, by Georges d'Amoric (London, 1898).

End of Article: FRENCH BOXING (la boxe francaise)

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