Plain BS.<p>I learnt &quot;canne d&#x27;arme and baton d&#x27;arme&quot; the &quot;fencing of the i-gnobles&quot;.<p>From feudality to absolute monarchy the raise of monarchy has been made at the costs of &quot;Jaqueries&quot;. Peasant revolts of the &quot;non nobles&quot; &quot;ignobles&quot; in latin derived french.<p>The central control brought by the carolingien and then the bourbon as resulted in strong traditions: 
knights and nobility are also a force to squalsh revolts.<p>This and the dissolution of Lances towards &quot;regular armies&quot; after azincourt defeat (longbow involved) has been used to cut the fraternity at arms between feuds members. (Lances were like organic units of versatile men at arms doing their best to bring everyone alive the local feud included).<p>The strength of the knight were enforced like in feodal japan, by preventing the crowd to gain power.<p>For this, metal was considered the weapons of only knights.<p>Which means that when using the old franc laws for something as rude as sullying a women in a church out of the accepted &quot;traditions&quot;, the divine judgement could be called ... a duel.<p>Needless to say peasants were not authorized to have metal ... officially.<p>So with all the jaqueries going on, you don&#x27;t really want the peasants to have weired ideas about efficient wooden weapons.<p>And still monarchy was a vast joke at this time and era, cousins of the royal families were lending each others money, and were often tight by blood.<p>England had no interest to destroy the french society.<p>French kings had no real interest in defeating england. They were mainly aiming for weakening the local suzerain. The feuds.<p>Of course it backfired. Louis XIV almost get killed during the &quot;fronde&quot;.