- Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Sunday, 26th February 2017
The president of the Bartitsu Club (that most interesting school of self-defence in all its forms, which is located in Shaftesbury Avenue) has taken up the cudgels in favour of Professor Vigny, who teaches the beautiful and useful mysteries of la canne, or walking-stick, defence and la savate at the club in question.
Professor Vigny has already challenged his Parisian rival, Professor Charlemont, several times but without result. Charlemont refuses to fight anywhere but in Paris, no doubt not wishing to add the horrors of a Channel crossing to the possibilities of defeat.
Mr. Barton-Wright, the president and founder of the Bartitsu Club, has now thrown down the glove for Vigny and challenges Charlemont in his name to an encounter of la boxe francaise (a combination of English boxing and savate for the title of world’s champion and the stakes he may choose to name, the match to take place either in England or in some neutral country.
It would be an extremely interesting event could it be brought off but it is thought probable that Charlemont will still prefer his role of “masterly inactivity.” One is irresistibly reminded of the lions in Bombastes Furioso: “And the last lion thought the first a Bore!”