The year 1817 saw the publication of a bilingual edition of Alexandre Valvile's work Treatise on the Art of Handling the Epee with a print run of 200 copies. Alexandre Valvile traveled extensively, wielded all kinds of weapons, and was familiar with many fencing schools (English, Hungarian, Italian, French, and German). Master Valvile worked on his treatise for 22 years. "My book is a product of long-term work," the Frenchman himself thus wrote about his work. The book is written in the form of an address to Aleksandr I and illustrated with 24 engravings. It offers a detailed description of the fighting stance, movements, thrusts, and all kings of fencing techniques. Valvile writes that "the epee currently in use, which Friedrich the Great gave to his troops and which all Russian officers carry today, is the most horror-inspiring silent weapon after the bayonet because it combines the spike of the triangular cross-section epee and the blade of the saber."
In the last chapter of his book Valvile offers a detailed description of the layout of the fencing gym and offers tips on organizing the instructor's work. He insists on the need for daily fencing exercises and offers instructors to stage tournaments among the best students of the regiments in the presence of the Emperor at the end of each year. "In this way many good fencing masters would be educated and after several years all cavalry divisions of the army could be provided with fencing instructors". Many of Alexandre Valvile's ideas were subsequently brought to life.
Alexandre Valvile came to Russian in the late 18th century at the age of 30. He gave private lessons in St. Petersburg and staged battle scenes at the Alexander Theater, which pulled crowds. Thanks to his reputation he was appointed fencing master at the imperatorial lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo, where he taught two fencing classes a week from 1812 through 1824. According to the reminiscences of M. Korf, who studied at the lyceum together with Aleksandr Pushkin, Valvile was adored by his students, while Pushkin was one of his favorite students.
In March 1818, the Russian military ministry introduced the position of chief fencing instructor of the Guards. The instructor had a special uniform tailored for him, which looked magnificent event by the standards of those days: the collar of the uniform was trimmed with silver thread, the boots had spurs, and the silver epaulettes bore two epees below the eagle of the Guards. Valvile was appointed for this position complete with a high military rank and a handsome salary of 3,000 rubles per year.
In the early 1840s Valvile retired from service and returned to France. After graduating from the lyceum, Pushkin took fencing lessons from the famous French master Augustan Grizie. Young Grizie came to Russia in 1824 when he was 23. As befits a Frenchman, he was a brilliant fencer, conversable, and a great story-teller. Thanks to his freedom-loving ideas he quickly befriended the progressive youth of Russia, particularly the Decembrists. Grizie was personally acquainted with the Decembrist Ivan Annenkov and his wife Polina Gebl. Subsequently Alexandre Dumas, Jr., used Grizie's stories to write his novel known in Russia under the title "Fencing Instructor". Dumas mentions the names of Trubetsky and Muravyov, whereas the young protagonist Aleksey Vannikov is none else than Ivan Annenkov. This novel came out in 1840 in Paris and Brussels. However, it was banned in Russia under the imperatorial regime and was translated into Russia only in 1925.
Grizie taught fencing at the Higher Engineering School of St. Petersburg and gave private classes, mostly to aristocrats. He popularized fencing as a sport discipline, organizing demonstration fencing bouts in Petersburg. In Russia he started working on his book on the methods of teaching fencing, drawing on his teaching and life experience, but completed and published it only after his return to France.
