style. One should note that at this time the differences between boxing,
wrestling, and savate were less defined than today, and many fighters com-
peted in all three. Charles Lecour’s fight with the boxer Owen Swift of En-
gland ended in a draw, with Swift’s legs wrecked and Lecour’s face bat-
tered. Lecour then spent two years with Swift in England learning and
adapting the punches of English boxing to savate. From this, the sport of
Boxe Française, the first sporting form of kickboxing, began in 1832.
Charles Lecour also challenged a maitre of chausson, Joseph Vingtras, over
his comments that savate lacked malice. Chausson was still practiced as a
separate art at the time. The bout was well attended. Vingtras’s loss to
Lecour led to the absorption of chausson’s techniques into savate.
Due to the popularity of savate, the police in Paris requested and ob-
tained a new law that sentenced anyone caught fighting with hands or feet
in the street to immediate long-term enlistment in the army. The savateurs’
response led to the development of Lutte Parisienne (Parisian Wrestling), a
form of grappling that hides its techniques as much as possible. Hubert Le-
Broucher and Louis Vigneron were the savateurs most responsible for cod-
ifying these techniques. Vigneron techniques emphasized powerful projec-
tion throws and pinning techniques, while LeBroucher emphasized choking
and neck-breaking techniques. At the same time, the savateurs in the police
force began actively developing Panache(literally, plume; used to mean
swagger, flourish), the use of clothing and other everyday objects to gain a
quick advantage in a fight.
By the late 1870s, savate had become very popular in France. During
this time Joseph Charlemont, a former legionnaire exiled to Belgium for
some indiscretions, systematized the teaching of Boxe Française, la Canne et
Baton (cane and walking stick), and Lutte Parisienne into grades. He also
Savate 521Two champions of
savate (French box-
ing), J. Charlemont
and V. Castérès
(front row, third and
fourth from left).
(Courtesy of Joe
Svinth)