187. At the beginning of this treatise, I described the inferior plane. I explained many practicable operations on it, of which I have only mentioned in the previous parts, the deep step, and motions of the planes, as, being always attentive to simplify my teaching, I thought that I should not mix them all, for this would certainly result in a treatise of little intelligibility. But this cannot be executed, without applying the necessary rules to the fight. That is to say, the entire skill.
188. No combat of length that is imagined will be able to occur if not by uniting now two, now three shots in each of these particular assaults, or the parts that they make up. Therefore, the explanations of these is the practice of many rules and for minors which form this art. So, consulting with clarity and conciseness of these elements, I will start by giving some general rules, despite that they are already explained in the places which correspond to them, as fundamentals, its meeting makes them appear here under a different aspect. This investiture recommends them both as the absence of its application would argue of great ignorance should they be omitted. Its utility is of such moment that, forgotten, you could, without much danger, resist or give the least combat. Then they are not to be omitted from the very beginning, and I think I must treat them in advance of anything else, trusting that my readers will study with greatest efficacy, to apply them as appropriate in the places to which they correspond.
