Michel Casseux
The Paris baker who opened savate's first school
- Born
- 1794, La Courtille, Paris, France
- Died
- 1869
- Nationality
France- Style
- Savate systematizer
- Active
- 1820s–1860s
The story
he first man to open a school for savate was a baker from La Courtille, the tavern quarter on the edge of Paris. Known in his day as Michel dit Pisseux, and in English as Michel Casseux, the name a novelist gave him in 1868, he was born around 1794 and held his own in the district's cabarets and dance halls, earning the name 'the terror of La Courtille', although Joseph Charlemont described a gentle man who avoided quarrels. In the 1820s he opened the first savate salle, and later moved to rue Buffault. His pupils included the Duke of Orléans, the artist Paul Gavarni, Théophile Gautier and Charles Lecour, and a pupil's 1843 manual set down his method. He taught until the early 1860s and died poor and forgotten in 1869.
- Opened the first savate salle, La Courtille, Paris (1820s)
- Master of savate, cane and fencing in Paris until the early 1860s
Defining fights
- 1820Opened the first savate salle at La Courtille, Paris, 1820s (about 1825 per Joseph Charlemont; per the French federation)
- 1842Le Maître de chausson, Théophile Gautier's savate booklet, reportedly written at his dictation
- 1843Théorie pratique sur l'art de la savate, the first savate manual, written by a pupil under his inspiration
Pisseux taught savate as fencing with the feet. Work at long range: touch the shin with a coup de pied bas (low kick), then step straight back out like a fencer recovering, so the counter lands on air.
2002–2021