Three, and more.

Reviews the book 'By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbuckers, and Olympic Champions,' by Richard Cohen. Panache, the quality so dear to Edmund Rostand's swashbuckling hero, Cyrano, is displayed with almost equal flamboyance by Richard Cohen, a former Olympic fencer, as he springs from branch to branch of his prodigious subject. Mr Cohen focuses on the small university town of Leuven, not far from Brussels, as the home of the greatest collection of fencing books. Most were written in the 16th century, at a time when even Martin Luther was happy to endorse the art of swordplay as an exercise beneficial to both mind and body. Weaving history and anecdote into a seamless tapestry, Mr Cohen is at his best in his account of the inglorious period of French history when duelling was treated as an extension of courtly entertainments, with no room for those who did not have a properly illustrious background. Small wonder, as Mr Cohen observes, that Voltaire, driven into exile for daring to challenge one of these exalted creatures, thought that Louis XIV's greatest achievement was the banning of duels.