No problem if you have French text to translate. Best is doing it here on the forum so that everybody can benefit from it.
Actually, I have to admit that my only reference "book" is the complete 30 booklets set of Pétard and Ariès, Les Armes Blanches Françaises. I stumbled upon it in a flea market, maybe 8 years ago, and it's the most precious book I have. It is extremely interesting and detailed, but not really monographic enough, in the sense that you will only have the information bits by bits, scattered with the various weapons it come as a comment on. But every time I free some cash, I find something else to buy. Books aren't as sexy as steel, though the knowledge they bring lasts forever.
Now as to where the term "attack hilt" comes from, I have no idea. I reminds me slightly of the French term "garde de bataille", but this term describes something completely different, a sort of half basket figuring a shell, found almost exclusively on heavy cavalry sabers as far as I know.
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