Régis Sénac
French fencer
Régis Sénac, famous French fencer and instructor, was the father of Louis Senac.
Sénac was an instructor of fencing for many years in the French army (Maître d'Armes in the Grande Impériale of France) before emigrating to the United States in 1872. He established a fencing school in 1874 in Broadway near Forty-third St., the "Salle d'Armes", in which his son Louis later succeeded him as director. On April 10, 1876 he won the fencing championship of America in a contest held at Tammany Hall, New York, along with 500 dollars.
In addition to his wide experience as an instructor, in France he participated in three duels and in each encounter was victorious, escaping without a single scratch, while each of his opponents was seriously disabled.
In his 1879 travel journal, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, Robert Louis Stevenson mentions eating at an inn in Goudet, France where there is a portrait of Sénac, the host's nephew, billed as “Professor of Fencing and Champion of the Two Americas”.
See also
List of USFA Hall of Fame members
References
"The Other Wild West: Fencing in New York in the 1880s and After", by Ken Mondschein
Senac, Regis and Louis (1930), The Art of Fencing, New York: American Sports Publishing Company (Spalding's Athletic Library).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Régis Sénac” as french fencer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as french fencer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 10, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q7386109. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1872, 1874, 1876 and 1879.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Régis Sénac”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Régis Sénac primary sources, Régis Sénac archive and Régis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Régis Sénac”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Régis Sénac” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.