"Old French" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... usual, was unalterable in his resolution—he only changed when he had reasons of his own—and the course of the Ark was laid, accordingly, for the old French coast of the Landes, so low that it was now covered with nearly four thousand feet of water. The feelings of the passengers were deeply stirred when they learned that they were actually sailing over buried ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... Mountfield was a long, rather low room, hung with an old French paper of nondescript grey, upon which were some water-colours which were supposed to be valuable. The carpet was of faded green, with ferns and roses. The curtains were of thick crimson brocade under a gilt canopy. There was ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... and then personally associated himself with the fur trade, a trade which attracted the attention of almost the whole Canadian society. It was, in fact, at that time, the great trade of the country. The traders had inherited the skill and organization of the old French voyageurs, who, working from Quebec and Montreal as bases of their operations, were the doughty competitors of the Hudson's Bay Company, many of whose posts were only separated by distances of a hundred miles from those of the French. When Canada became the possession of our country, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... girls first arrived in Montiers the Salvation Army Staff-Captain was rather at a loss to know what to do with them until the hut was built. They were invited to chow with the soldiers, and to eat in an old French barn used as a kitchen, in front of which the men lined up at the open doorways for mess. It was a very dirty barn indeed, with heavy cobwebs hanging in weird festoons from the ceiling and straw and manure all over the floor; quite ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... parleys were opened. Hamilton insisted that he and his garrison were "not disposed to be awed into an action unworthy of British subjects," but they were plainly frightened, and Clark finally sent the commandant back to the fort from a conference in the old French church with the concession of one hour's time in which to decide what he would do. To help him make up his mind, the American leader caused half a dozen Indians who had just returned from the forests with white men's scalps dangling at ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... been away so long," said Garrow fussily, "that you have forgotten our prejudices. Orange himself, to begin with, has something mysterious in his origin. They say he is French—related to the old French aristocracy; but the less one says in England about foreign pedigrees the better. All that of itself is against him, and Mrs. Orange, it seems, is more or less French, or Austrian, too. We can't help regarding them as foreigners, and I always ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... Jersey, seen the register—July 20, 1859—and an old French-speaking clerk, who perfectly recollected the party coming from the yacht, and spoke of her as tres belle. I have also ascertained that there is no doubt of the validity of the marriage. Then, deeply mistrusting Master Gregorio, I went on to Dieppe, where I entirely failed ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what they were," answered Kit, cheerfully, "but I think they're awfully interesting. Don't you think that they look like the Breton fisher people in some of the old French paintings? That girl looked just exactly like the youngest one crossing the sands at low tide at St. Malo. We have the painting at home, and I love it. And there was another girl about thirteen that I saw staring ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... Charley, however, at length thought of this. It did not for a moment make him hesitate about carrying out his plans, but he thought that it would be wise to provide himself and Tom with arms. The captain had a brace of pistols and a fowling-piece, and Tom had an old French cutlass which he had taken from the enemy, and treasured as a trophy of his fighting days. Charley at once went up to the captain, who was writing to the officers of the coastguard, and to others who might possibly hear something of ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Armouchiquois of the old French writers, were in a state of chronic war with the tribes of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Champlain, on his voyage of 1603, heard strange accounts of them. The following is literally rendered from the first narrative of that ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... him in other campaigns of that old French and Indian War, always judicious, brave, and successful, and always evidently God-protected; and we have seen that devotion to his country rewarded by the love and admiration of his fellow-men, and the affections ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the colonel was angered to popping point and he smote the table with a thump that woke every bedbug and cockroach in the building and the poor French interpreter looked wildly from the angry British colonel to his tough old French sergeant who now leaped quickly to his side and barked Celtic rejoinder to the colonel's fist thumping language. No type could tell the story of the critical next moment. Suffice it to say that after the storm had ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... gave her a dreadful sofa once, after the success of his Du Barri memoir, with swollen cushions and soft, receptive lap, and it seemed to her a miserable thing that there, in her very home, should flaunt this re-incarnation of a dead old French sinner. ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... garden. It was laid out in the old French style, with straight walks, pyramids of box, and white painted stone figures: satyrs and goddesses peeped through the green foliage. You now caught sight of a high tower with a spire; and soon the whole of the old mansion presented itself ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... my crest," continued Mrs. Winnie. "Of course there are vulgar rich people who have them made to order, and make them ridiculous; but ours is a real one. It's my own—not my husband's; the Duvals are an old French family, but they're not noble. I was a Morris, you know, and our line runs back to the old French ducal house of Montmorenci. And last summer, when we were motoring, I hunted up one of their chateaux; and ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... know that this room belongs to the oldest part of the house. It was all built as far back as the old French and Indian war; but this room belonged to the part that dates back to the first settlement ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... in its park a martello tower, autographed all over by tourists, a dismantled old French fort on the hills beyond the town, and several antiquated cannon in its public squares. It has other historic spots also, which may be hunted out by the curious, and none is more quaint and delightful ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of the new Post-office, and in 1756 was removed to the vicinity of the present Five Points. In 1757 the new jail, more recently known as the Hall of Records, was erected. In the same year, the old French war being in progress, wooden barracks were erected along the Chambers street front ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Canada—was denied to the United States by the immeasurable inferiority of her navy. To cross the sea in force was impossible, even for short distances. For this reason, land operations were limited to the North American Continent. This fact, conjoined with the strong traditional desire, received from the old French wars and cherished in the War of Independence, to incorporate the Canadian colonies with the Union, determined an aggressive policy by the United States on the northern frontier. This was indeed the only distinctively offensive operation available to her upon the land; consequently ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... of a God" (Vol. 1, p. 117) was related to me by my old Indian nurse. I heard a rather different version of it from a venerable clergyman of the name of Thaxter. He had it from a Captain Richardson, who was killed at Cape Breton in the "Old French War." It is a very common tradition, though it has not, as far as I know, been before in print. This tradition also refers to the first meeting of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... the French flank; though by this operation, in violation of the territory of a neutral nation, it made enemy territory the scene of future action. One may discuss until he is blue in the face what would have happened if the Germans had thrown their legions directly against the old French frontier. Personally, in keeping with the idea that I expressed in "The Last Shot," I think that they would never have gone through the Trouee de ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... ventilation, was oppressive, for the smell of the bush lights, my wet clothes, and the natives who crowded into the hut to look at me, made anything but a pleasant combination. The people were evidently exceedingly poor; clothes they had very little of. The two head men had on old French military coats in rags; but they were quite satisfied with their appearance, and evidently felt through them in touch with European culture, for they lectured to the others on the habits and customs of ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... you a great deal about this good man, Melody. He came of old French stock, like ourselves,—like most of the people in our village; only his people had always been Catholics. His village, where he had a little wooden church, was ten or twelve miles from ours, but he was the only priest for ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... was a room that any man might look forward to after a hard day on Capitol Hill. Its easychairs were very soft and deep, its rugs were rosy and delicate, and the walls and windows and doors were hung with one of those old French silk stuffs with a design of royal conventionality and uniformly old rose in colour. All of Betty's own books were there, her piano, several handsome pieces of carved oak, and a unique collection of ivory. Betty had ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... all around us why we should be happy—the trees were greens and browns—no one like the other, blended in the harmonious colorings of an old French tapestry stolen from ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... the literature that the conquerors brought to England must be struck by the contrast between the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman-French spirit. For example, here is the death of a national hero as portrayed in The Song of Roland, an old French epic, which the Normans first ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... His family consisted only of his wife, Lady Sarah, and their daughter Julia, a girl remarkable alike for her beauty and her expectations. For a long time Sir Julian had retained in his establishment an old French maitre d'hotel and his wife, who both died in the baronet's service, leaving one child, Virginie, whom Lady Sarah, out of regard for the fidelity of her parents, engaged to educate and protect. In due time this orphan, brought up in the household of Sir Julian, became the chosen ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... when our little stage was able to serve the theatre libre. A Chicago troupe, finding it difficult to break into a trust theater, used it one winter twice a week for the presentation of Ibsen and old French comedy. A visit from the Irish poet Yeats inspired us to do our share towards freeing the stage from its slavery to expensive scene setting, and a forest of stiff conventional trees against a gilt sky still remains with ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... seems hope of bright weather, the first for me since the end of May, when I had two fine days at Aylesbury; the third, May 28th, being black again from morning to evening. There seems to be some reference to the blackness caused by the prevalence of this wind in the old French name of Bise, 'gray wind'; and, indeed, one of the darkest and bitterest days of it I ever saw was ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... rooms, which had been annexed one by one as the squire wanted them, and in which there was nothing at all—neither chair, nor table, nor carpet—but books only. All the doors leading from room to room had been taken off; the old worm-eaten boards had been roughly stained; a few old French engravings had been hung here and there where the encroaching books left an opening; but otherwise all was bare. There was a curious charm in the space and air of these empty rooms, with their latticed windows opening on to the hill; and letting in day by day ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the second tier of counties. A broad band of French and English Canadians overlaps the northern hem of United States territory from Maine to North Dakota.[366] In the New York and New England counties bordering on the old French province of Quebec, they constitute from 11 to 22 per cent. of the total population, except in two or three western counties of Maine which have evidently been mere passways for a tide of habitants moving on to more attractive conditions of life in the counties just to the south.[367] ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... to say what may have been meant by this last article. In old French writings Rouge comme Sendal means very high red, or scarlet; from which circumstance, this may have been a piece ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the grey and black of LORD HORSHAM'S drawing room, the faded brocade of its furniture, reveal him as a man of delicate taste and somewhat thin intellectuality. He stands now before a noiseless fire, contemplating with a troubled eye either the pattern of the Old French carpet, or the black double doors of the library opposite, or the moulding on the Adams ceiling, which the flicker of all the candles casts into deeper relief. His grey hair and black clothes would melt into the decoration of his room, were the figure not ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... writer's joy in it, for he will be able to introduce observations beginning "That little known but elegant author," etc., and if the subject is earlier than the Du Barri period he will present some quotations in the uneconomically spelt old French. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... day of the Conference with a delightful little dinner at St.-Quentin. The traditions of the old French cuisine are not yet extinct in the provinces, nor, for that matter, in the private life of the true Parisians of Paris. They all centre in the famous saying of Brillat-Savarin, that a man may learn how to cook, but must be born to roast—a saying worthy of the philosophic ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... grounds of an old French chateau not far from Beauvais on the river Andelle that Pen's battalion camped for their period of rest and recuperation. There were long, sunshiny days, nights of undisturbed and refreshing sleep, ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... the old French war, and, being a man of tried courage and presence of mind, he was usually selected for dangerous and trying situations. He was at length placed on a recruiting station, and in a short period he enlisted a great number of men. Among his recruits was Frank ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... just below the town, is Carlton Island, on which stand the ruins of an old French fortification, the walls and trenches and the solitary chimneys, from which the wooden barracks have rotted or been burned away, remain as melancholy testimonials of the bloody strifes between the red men of the forest, and the pioneers of civilization who were driving ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... their ill-gotten booty, and rumors were rife of bloody deeds and midnight orgies,—all of which sprang into more vigorous circulation, when, in laying the foundations of the boat-house piers, an iron pot containing a number of old French and Spanish coins was dug out ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... were sleeping in the forward trench, and after some explanation readily lent their long-skirted coats. The officer and Robinson donned one each, and 'Enery carefully arrayed himself in a torn and discarded pair of old French baggy red breeches and the damaged French cap, and discarded his own jacket. His gray shirt might have been of any nationality, so that on the whole he made quite a passable Frenchman. While they waited for darkness he paraded the ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... spent in the serious reading of books, generally old books. How many of us, not professed students, can show a record as good, or half as good? He read quickly, too, in various languages, his favorites being the English of the Elizabethans, Spanish, old French, and modern French. His excellent memory and wonderful assimilative power built up this reading into the mental endowments that all ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... full of Graham and the problem he presented. Then he thought of Natalie, and of the little things that made up her life and filled her days. He glanced about the room, beautiful, formal, exquisitely appointed. His father's portrait was gone from over the mantel, and an old French water-color hung there instead. That was too bad of Natalie. Or had it been Rodney? He would bring it back. And he gave a fleeting thought to Graham and his request to go abroad. He had not meant it. It was sheer reaction. But he ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... They were the first of our own motor-buses we had seen out in Flanders. They cheered us greatly, and after some drinks we sat in one and tried to learn from the map something of the new country in which we were to ride. We rejoiced that we had come once again upon a Belgian sheet, because the old French map we had used, however admirable it might have been for brigadiers and suchlike people, was extremely unsuited to ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... felt perfectly sure that it was parted down the back. His brown eyes were very wide open, and steady, his slightly grizzled moustache was neither twisted straight up at the ends in the imperial German manner, nor straight out like a cat's whiskers, nor waxed to fine points in the old French fashion. It grew naturally and was rather short, but it hid his mouth almost completely. The man was extremely well dressed in half- mourning, wore dark grey gloves and carried a plain black stick. He spoke quietly and ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... lines of fire against the gray horizon. Mr. Raleigh gazed after it as one watches the conflagration of a home. Marguerite left her quiet weeping to gaze with him. An hour silently passed, and as the fiery phantom faded into dawn and distance she sang sweetly the first few lines of an old French hymn. Another voice took up the measure, stronger and clearer; those who knew nothing of the words caught the spirit of the tune; and no choral service ever pealed up temple-vaults with more earnest accord than that in which this chant of grateful, exultant devotion now rose from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... conversed with what to me stood for American aristocracy, basked in the hourly attention of butlers and French maids, it occurred to me that I was peculiarly fitted for such a life as this. It became me. It didn't seem as if I could be the little girl who not so very long ago lived in the old French-roofed house with the cracked walls, stained ceilings and worn Brussels carpets, at 240 Main Street, Hilton, Mass. But the day Breck asked me to marry him I discovered I was that girl, with the same untainted ideal of marriage, too, hidden ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... in the old French romance of Amys and Amyloun which is taken into the tale of the Ravens in the Seven Wise Masters where Ludovic personates his friend Alexander in marrying the King of Egypt's daughter and sleeps every night with a bare blade between him and the bride. See also Aladdin and his lamp. An Englishman ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... where he remained for three days to refresh his unfortunate followers, he despatched at length full powers to Caulaincourt to conclude any treaty, which should secure the immediate evacuation of the old French territory, and a mutual restoration of prisoners. Maret, (Duke of Bassano,) however, wrote—by the same messenger—at much greater length; informing the plenipotentiary that the Emperor would refuse to ratify any treaty whatever—if, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... 'simple-minded, conscientious man, who for thirty-seven years continued faithfully to discharge the duties of his mission.' His communicants had increased from thirty-eight to eighty, and he was greatly beloved by his congregation. His remains were interred under the chancel of the old French church at New Rochelle, where so long he had watched over the little flock of his Master. M. Stouppe was succeeded ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... mother, one of those stringy, grey New York women, that always wear diamond dog-collars, worried to death and nervous as a witch; Mr. Elton—he was Commodore of the New York Yacht Club at that time—fat and healthy and reddish-purple in the face; young Mr. Ferrau (he was from an old French family and looked it, though a born New Yorker) and me in my white uniform and cap next to Miss Elton, all in white with a big rope of pearls and pearls on her fingers. She could wear a lower cut gown and ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... men, like C.S.M. Shields, Sgt. Tabbron, etc., who had been left behind as battle surplus, going down gassed. Fortunately, most of them rejoined the battalion later. During this day's fighting some L.F's. were staggered to find an old French woman in a cellar in Bucquoy, and they had the utmost difficulty in persuading her to leave her "home." That was her abode and she was prepared to live in it whatever ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... the confraternity of Neapolitan fishermen. Beyond Notre-Dame d'Afrique is the beautiful Valley of the Consuls, very little changed since the time of the deys. (The valley was in those days the favourite residence of the consuls.) At the Petit Seminaire, on the site of the old French consulate, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Wapshott. They sat at a long baize-covered table, with the Justices' Clerk to advise them. On the wall behind and above their heads hung a framed panel emblazoned with the royal escutcheon, the lion and unicorn for supporters, an inscription in old French to the effect that there is shame in ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Judge Orcutt's number. Adelle was shown to a small room in the front of the house and sat down, her heart strangely beating as if she were waiting an appointment with a lover. The house was so still! An old French clock ticked silently on the mantelpiece beneath a glass case. All the chairs and tables, even the rug, in the small room seemed like the house and the street, relics of an orderly, peaceful past. Adelle ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... acquainted with the people he has to deal with, living in a town where the towers of Francis I's castle still stand, rowing on a charming old river in the summer, and in these days hearing a charming old French gentleman, vice-consul, tell how he fought against the Prussians in '70. Cognac is a real place, it appears—an old town of twenty thousand people or so, and it is really where cognac comes from, all ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... and sprightly dance of exactly 8 measures (an old French Tambourin taken from Weckerlin's Echos du Temps Passe) we see clearly the influence of the metrical stanza of words and of the balanced phrases in the instrumental part, necessary to accompany ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... the same rules. Perhaps the only disyllable is 'study'; the shortening of a stressed u shows its immediate derivation from the old French estudie. Trisyllabic examples are 'colloquy', 'ministry', 'perjury'. Many words of this class have been further abbreviated in their passage through French. Such are 'benefice', 'divorce', 'office', 'presage', 'suffrage', 'vestige', ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... exclaimed Narcisse: "a book like that with pages recalling the delightful St. Francis of Assisi!" And thereupon he obligingly placed himself at Pierre's disposal. "But our ambassador will be very useful to you," he said. "He is the best man in the world, of charming affability, and full of the old French spirit. I will present you to him this afternoon or to-morrow morning at the latest; and since you desire an immediate audience with the Pope, he will endeavour to obtain one for you. His position naturally ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... their half a dozen generations, jostling and elbowing one another, to reach the picture. We behold aged men and grandames, a clergyman with the Puritanic stiffness still in his garb and mien, and a red-coated officer of the old French war; and there comes the shop-keeping Pyncheon of a century ago, with the ruffles turned back from his wrists; and there the periwigged and brocaded gentleman of the artist's legend, with the beautiful and pensive Alice, who brings ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of Mark Giberne, who, in partnership with Mr. George Stainforth, was court wine merchant in 1750. He came of an old French family, descended from the noble Jean de Giberne, Sieur de Gibertene, in the sixteenth century. The family owned two castles in the country of the Cevennes, which were destroyed by the Camisards. In the seventeenth century some of the family came over and settled in England, and ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... marches; their legs give out under the load of rifle and pack. But their hearts are in the war, and right there is one very practical reason why they will fight well—and they have fought better as they hardened with time and the old French spirit revived in their blood. "Allons, messieurs!" said the tall major, who wanted us to see battlefields. It required no escort to tell us where the battlefield was. We knew it when we came to it, as you know the point reached by high tide on the sands—this field where many ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... been reserved at nine guineas, was bought in at eight-and-a-half guineas. Frequenters of Christie's of the present day who have seen such furniture realize as many pounds as the shillings included in such sums, will appreciate the enormously increased value of really good old French furniture. ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... modern poet; he remains the most modern of poets. One requires a certain amount of old French, together with some acquaintance with the argot of the time, to understand the words in which he has written down his poems; many allusions to people and things have only just begun to be cleared up, but, apart from these things, no poet has ever brought himself ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... later day the part which Pontiac attempted at the end of the old French War. He tried to unite the Indians in a general uprising against the Americans as Pontiac had united them against the English. He used the same arts, and he showed himself shrewd and skillful in paltering with our leaders till he was ready ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... catastrophes. You all know what consideration Williams bestowed on the hammer, or the ship carpenter's mallet, which is the same thing. Gentlemen, I give you another great hammer—Charles the Hammer, the Marteau, or, in old French, the Martel—he hammered the Saracens till they were all as dead as ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... the Duchess replied. "She did not arrive in Paris until the end of spring, just at the time I was leaving town for the seashore. But I know that she says her real name is Mademoiselle de Vermont, and that she was born in Louisiana, of an old French family that emigrated to the North, and recently became rich in the fur trade-from which circumstance Madame de Nointel has wittily named her 'Zibeline.' I know also that she is an orphan, that she has an enormous fortune, and has successively ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... some of the narrower streets, which were like corridors in an unshapely Titan palace. At the doors of the smallest shops on each side sat the spinsters in the moonlight, gossiping and knitting; while over them bent old French tradesmen, in long yarn stockings and velvet knee-breeches. The street was barely wide enough for a carriage, and they talked across; and all was as gay and happy as Arcadia. Every day [in Florence], I was in the galleries, which are freely open to every one, and here saw the grandest works ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Napoleon for it. Your principles of local self-government, gentlemen, were hitherto professed on the continent of Europe chiefly by us Hungarians: now they will conquer the world,—a new victory for humanity. Had the old French republic stood, it would have perpetuated the curse of great standing armies, which are instruments of ambition and a wasting pestilence. Again; the blow struck by Louis Napoleon has forced his nation into the common destiny of Europe. It has forbidden France ever in future ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... was now getting late, so I retraced my steps and cantered homewards. In this war-scarred region I actually met an old French farmer driving his horse and trap along the road leading towards the trenches just as if there was no war raging; and near the one habitable house of the district small boys were playing merrily, while ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... my small library of erotic literature, five or six hundred pieces, worth a couple of thousand, I should say. Some wonderful old French stuff, and as many Rops as you like, and Persian and Chinese things—I can see you gloating over them! Don't thank me. And now ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... a gift of six nobles. After this, Sir Walter Mauny entered the city, and took possession of it; retaining Sir Jean de Vienne and the other knights and squires till they should ransom themselves, and sending out the old French inhabitants; for the king was resolved to people the city entirely with English, in order to gain a thoroughly strong hold of this first step ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... attention had been drawn to them, and before their actual natures and contents had been thoroughly examined, there was a theory that they were Provencal in origin. This, though it was chiefly due to the fact that Raynouard, Fauriel, and other early students of old French had a strong southern leaning, had some other excuses. It is a fact that Provencal was earlier in its development than French; and whether by irregular tradition of this fact, or owing to ignorance, or from anti-French prejudice (which, however, would not ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... Quebec. Tablets and monuments consecrate many of the old hero days. Though the British government rebuilt a line of walls in the early eighteen hundreds, you will find it hard to trace even a vestige of the old French walls. Mounds tell you where there were bastions. A magnificent boulevard tops the most of the old ramparts. An imposing hotel stands where Castle St. Louis once frowned over the St. Lawrence. Of the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... half-breeds from buying and selling furs with the Indians was being carried out by Judge Thom, the relentless ogre of the law. Four men of the Metis had been arrested; of these the leader was William Sayer. He was the half-breed son of an old French bourgeois of the Northwest Company. He had been liberated on bail, and was to come up for trial in May. The charge against him was of buying goods with which to go on a ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... in length, fastened to their places on their deep-sea floors by flowing silky byssi,—cables of many strands,—of which beautiful pieces of dress, such as gloves and hose, have been manufactured. An old French naturalist, the Abbe Le Pluche, tells us that "the Pinna with its fleshy tongue" (foot),—a rude inefficient looking implement for work so nice,—"spins such threads as are more valuable than silk itself, and with which the most beautiful stuffs that ever were seen have been made ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... or a Scandinavian worker in iron, or an old French worker in thread, could produce indeed beautiful design out of nothing but groups of knots and spirals: but you, when you are rightly educated, may render your knots and spirals infinitely more interesting by making them ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... in the town was something pandemoniacal. Only three drums were found, but tin kettles and pans were not wanting, and these, superintended by Hugh Barr, the town drummer, did great execution. Three key-bugles, an old French horn, and a tin trumpet of a mail-coach guard, were sounded at intervals in every quarter of the town, while the men were marshalled, and made to march hither and thither in detached bodies, as if all were busily engaged in making ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... of a narrow trench, surrounding a square plat of ground, now covered with the interlacing arms of hawthorn and wild honey-suckle, arrest the attention as we are proceeding along a strongly beaten track in the deep woods, and we are assured that this is the site of the "old French town" which has given its name to the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... thought to our old French school, to the composers from Lulli to Gluck, who produced so many excellent works. Reber showed Delsarte the way and the latter, naturally an antiquarian, threw himself into this unexplored field with surprising vigor. Only Lulli's name was known, while ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... been a sort of Siamese monks) had Umbrellas made of a palm-leaf cut and folded, so that the stem formed a handle. The same writer describes the audience-chamber of the King of Siam. In his quaint old French, he says:—"Pour tout meuble il n'y a que trois para-sol, un devant la fentre, a neuf ronds, & deux sept ronds aux deux ctz de la fentre. Le para-sol est en ce Pais-la, ce que le ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... with us, and there is a consolation in the deceit ("the homage," according to the old mot of Rochefoucauld) "which vice pays to virtue"; for the very falsehood shows that the virtue exists somewhere. We once heard a furious old French colonel inveighing against the chastity of English demoiselles: "Figurez-vous, sir," said he (he had been a prisoner in England), "that these women come down to dinner in low dresses, and walk out alone with the men!"—and, pray heaven, so may they walk, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... we'll admit, after that, that the game has improved. The most rabid critic of to-day wouldn't go so far as this old Briton. The game as played to-day offers very little danger to life and not much more to limb. Of course, accidents happen now and then, but that's true of every game. The old French proverb says that 'he who risks nothing, has nothing.' The element of risk in football is more than counterbalanced by the character it develops. The whole secret of success in life is to 'never say die.' And I don't know of any ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... the cream with a whisk till it becomes a froth. This is much more easily done in cold weather than in hot, and, if the weather be very warm, it is best to put the tin or pan containing the cream into ice an hour or two before it is used. Old French cookery-books recommend the addition of a little powdered gum, not bigger than a pea, and the gum recommended is that known as tragacanth. Others again beat up the white of an egg to a stiff froth, and add this to the cream. It is a good plan when the cream fails to ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... into its own in matters of education and administration, and, before the war, the only large question still under discussion was the creation of a Flemish University. The principle of such an institution had been admitted, but the relationship between this new University and the old French University of Ghent had not ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... is essentially a conservative city. First, it was an old French town; then a Southern town; then a German tradesman's town. With such strata superimposed one above the other, it could hardly be other than conservative. In addition, St. Louis was crippled in the war between the states. She lost her market. ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... of an appropriate gift was open to criticism, but not so her pie. That was rich perfection. Its fruity, spicy interior was evenly warmed with an evident old French brandy,—no savagely burning cooking brandy, mind,—and when the flaky marvel had stood upon the heater for a time, even before its cutting up with a paper-knife, the odour of goose grease was lost in the "Araby the Blest" scent of ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... the parcel in the living room. It contained everything they had asked for, and many other things beside, which they had often wished for but had never dreamt of ordering: a calendar with stories, a pound of cooking chocolate, and a bottle of old French wine. "It's just like the Lord," said Ditte in whose mind there were still the remains of the parson's teaching—"when it looks blackest He ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... in Bermuda have pieces of old Chippendale and French furniture in them, as well as fine specimens of old French and Spanish silver. I entirely discredit the malicious rumours I have heard about the origin of these treasures. All male Bermudians were seafaring folk in the eighteenth century, and ill-natured people hint that these intrepid mariners, not content with their legitimate trading profits, were ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... for granted, too easily. My apology must be that there seemed to be certain results available for criticism, apart from the more strict and scientific procedure which is required to solve the more difficult problems of Beowulf, or of the old Northern or the old French poetry. It is hoped that something may be gained by a less minute and exacting consideration of the whole field, and by an attempt to bring the more distant and dissociated parts of the subject into relation with one another, ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... not find the consul, and I shared the table d'hote with three tearful old French ladies, each of whom had husband or son at the front. That would seem to have been enough without being shelled at home. It is a commonplace, but it is nevertheless true that in war it is the women who suffer. The proprietress walked around ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... which last night Shon McGann had placed there. She submitted passively. Then, with an upward wave of his fingers, he spoke in a mocking lightness, but without any of the malice which had first appeared in his tones, words from an old French song: ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he proved to be the case when he followed Alice to Cheltenham, and again to London, and now again to Lucerne; but I doubt whether a glimmer from her bedroom-window, had it been unmistakably her own glimmer, and not that of some ugly old French woman who might chance to sleep next to her, would have done him much good. He had come to Lucerne with a purpose, which purpose, if it might be possible, he meant to carry out; but I think he was already in bed, being ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... The old French "Vie de Bertrand du Guesclin" has likewise been drawn upon for materials, and would have supplied much more of great interest, such as Enrique of Trastamare's arrival in the disguise of a palmer, to consult with him during his captivity at Bordeaux, and many most curious anecdotes ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little dressing gown wrapped about her as if it had been a Roman toga, Sally told the history of the past weeks, her unexpected discovery of the wounded soldier amid the ruins of the old French chateau, her belief that he was a runaway prisoner and notwithstanding this, her effort, with Jean's assistance, to ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... been seen to dance with his generals; it is even said that at Munich, in the palace of the king and queen of Bavaria, to whom no doubt this gaiety appeared very odd, he assumed one evening the Spanish costume of the Emperor Charles VII. and began dancing an old French country ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... such, his adventurous ramble had enriched him; the stern dignity of Indian chiefs; the dusky loveliness of Indian girls; the domestic life of wigwams; the stealthy march; the battle beneath gloomy pine-trees; the frontier fortress with its garrison; the anomaly of the old French partisan, bred in courts, but grown gray in shaggy deserts;—such were the scenes and portraits that he had sketched. The glow of perilous moments; flashes of wild feeling; struggles of fierce power; love, hate, grief, ...
— The Prophetic Pictures (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... t'aidera" is an old French maxim, but the Spaniards chose to attribute their deliverance from their Chinese rivals to the friendly intervention of Saint Andrew. This Saint was declared thenceforth to be the Patron Saint of Manila, and in his honour High Mass was celebrated in the Cathedral at 8 a.m. on the 30th of each November. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Old French ladies in villages twenty miles back from the line lay all that night hideous in respirators. Anxious Staffs rang up other anxious Staffs. Gunners questioned the infantry. The infantry desired information from the gunners. All along the line the private soldier was jolted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... was distinguished by one of those tributes of delicate feeling, of good taste, and sincere respect which from time to time remind us of the virtues and dignity of the old French nobility. Following the Marshal's bier came the old Marquis de Montauran, the brother of him who, in the great rising of the Chouans in 1799, had been the foe, the luckless foe, of Hulot. That Marquis, killed by the balls of the "Blues," had confided the interests of his young ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... business, found it delightful to wait on handsome young Englishmen, to teach them French, to take walks with them, and to arrange musical evenings with other girl friends who brought their young officers and sang little old French songs with them or English songs in the prettiest French accent. These young officers of ours found the home life very charming. It broke the monotony of exile and made them forget the evil side of war. They paid little gallantries to the ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the night at the village of Kalamazoo; but the party of females, with old Peter, proceeded on to Prairie Round, as that particular part of the country is called in the dialect of Michigan, it being a corruption of the old French name of la prairie ronde. The Round Meadow does not sound as well as Prairie Round, and the last being quite as clear a term as the other, though a mixture of the two languages, we prefer to use it. Indeed, the word "prairie" may now be ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... individuals may, however, still be found on the banks of the lower Rhone, in Camargue, and on a few other European rivers. Several centuries ago they existed in the neighbourhood of Paris in considerable numbers. The Bievre gained its name from the old French word for Beaver, and its resemblance to the English name, as well as to the German (Biber), is striking. In the sixteenth century, according to Bishop Magnus of Upsala, the Beaver was still common on the banks of the ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... the stagnant circles of historical France, and it is a wonder if he gets so much as a glimpse of the living progressive Paris. There is nothing on earth, unless it be a three-thousand-year-old mummy, that is so grim and stiff and shrivelled, as the pure old French nobility. France is at present the possessor of three separate and opposing nobilities. First, there is the nobility of the Empire, the Napoleonic nobility, which is based on military and civil genius; second, there is the Orleans nobility, the family of the late Louis-Philippe, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... peculiar esteem. George Saintsbury remarks that those chronicles "are by universal consent among the most attractive works of the Middle Ages." They comprize one of the oldest extant examples of French prose. The passage here given was translated for this collection from the old French by Eric Arthur Bell. A translation by T. Smith ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... the Black Hills, steep mounds dotted with dark pines and cedars, it enters the broad belt of mountainous country which terminates in the rim of the Basin. Following thence the North Fork of the Platte, and its tributary, the Sweetwater,—so named by an old French trapper, who had the misfortune to upset a load of sugar into the stream,—it emerges from the Black Hills into scenery of a different character. On the northern bank of the Sweetwater are the Rattlesnake Mountains, huge excrescences of rock, blistering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... the peculiar fortune of becoming the best known of the old French poets to students of mediaeval literature, and of remaining practically unknown to any one else. The acquaintance of students with the work of Chretien has been made possible in academic circles by the admirable critical editions of his ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... When that was finished we marched a mile down the road and halted for breakfast. We had ours in an estaminet—coffee, omelette, &c. After breakfast I went to the river and had a topping bathe; no weeds or anything to trouble you, only two garrulous old French soldiers, who stood on the bank and watched and gave me encouragement. At about 11-0 we set off. A blazing hot, dusty day, pushing handcarts about 12 miles, without any lunch, and arrived at St. Gratien at about 5-0. Arrived there we found Wren, the Brigade ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... come to France, and a strange chapter was being written in the history of the world, contrasting amazingly with former chronicles. English battalions bivouacked by old French houses which had looked down upon scenes of revolution in 1789, and in the shadow of its churches which rang for French victories or tolled for French defeats when Napoleon's generals were fighting English regiments exactly one hundred years ago. In seaport villages and towns which smell of ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... old French town, and gazed at the brick buildings, the antique roofs, the high dormer windows, and the faded houses of by-gone priest and nun. The tavern was covered with flags, French and American, as were the grand house of William Morrison and the beautiful Edgar mansion. ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... de terre to be peeled, washed and sliced to the exact size of centuries old French fry. Monsieur was permitted to assist her in this, and wielded the keen bladed knife with precision. Then there was the salad and the seasoning of it to just that degree of the "delicieux" the palate ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... was deeply interested by what he heard. He, too, declared that it seemed preposterous to think that Owen could demean himself so much as to deliberately steal what belonged to the queer old French madame. At the same time Thad admitted he considered the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... humming a tune, was wandering round her drawing-room, arranging it. She always hummed a little tune when she was alone, if possible some quaint old French air. Not that she was really alone now; only her invisible mother was with her. To do her justice, Flora took as much trouble to impress this almost imperceptible audience as if she represented a ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... conjured up a library in the wilderness of Nova Scotia's inland settlement; but the culinary and confectionary branches were there invaluable, and in them I was wofully deficient. Had I not coaxed the old French soldier who officiated as mess-cook to give me a few lessons, we must have lived on raw meal and salt rations during weeks when the roads were completely snowed up, and no provisions could he brought in. However, I proved an apt scholar to poor Sebastian, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... friends that you have seen Heinrich Heine." I replied, "And who is Heinrich Heine?" He laughed heartily and took no offence at my ignorance; and we used to lounge on the end of the pier together, where he told me stories in which fish, mermaids, water-sprites and a very funny old French fiddler with a poodle were mixed up in the most fanciful manner, sometimes humorous, and very often pathetic, especially when the water-sprites brought him greetings from the "Nord See." He was . . . so kind to me and so sarcastic ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... an idiosyncrasy in their otherwise generous character. Of course there are mean boys, hard-hearted boys, cowardly boys; but Boyhood is more generous, open, tender-hearted, daring, than Manhood, yet its cruelty stands out a distinguishing trait. An old French teacher, loving children, wanting in dignity, broken in English, irritable in disposition; a sensitive young stranger, fresh from home, charming in innocence, sad with thoughts of a dear mother; a poor, frightened kitten, are all objects ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... rearranged an old French vaudeville, and within the week the libretto was written, the music composed, the parts learned, the opera performed, and the theatre saved. There could be no greater proof of his generosity of heart and his versatility of talent. In these days of bitter quarreling over the rights of authors ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... and rocks, a fair sky and white clouds. I have walked there in the footsteps of good Saint Francis, and I transcribed his canticle to the sun in old French rhymes, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the words from a book of old French poems she had found in the library. Then she asked gently, "Why should you worry about the future, dear Mrs. Greyson, when it is such a waste of time? Don't you believe our Father ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... In the French, humblement. In old French humblement means courteously. In Froissart there is a passage quoted by La Curne: "Li contes de Hainaut rechut ces seigneurs d'Engleterre, l'un ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... arrived," he said, "and through letters from friends in St. Louis, members of one of the old French families there, I've been lucky enough to secure a room at ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fine views of all the glorious scenery which surrounds Lucerne. The rooms were large and lofty, with parquet floors, and in some of them were really good pictures that their owner had inherited, also collections of beautiful old French furniture. In short, it was a stately and refined abode, such as is sometimes to be found abroad in the possession of Americans or English people of wealth, who for their health's sake or other reasons, make their homes ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... quantity of woad growing on the Chilterns above the Thame, enough to stain blue a whole tribe of ancient Britons, and also that on a wall by the roadside between Reading and Pangbourne he discovered several plants of the deadly nightshade, or "dwale." This word is said to be derived from Old French deuil, mourning; but its present form looks very English. The only cases of plant poisoning now common among grown-up people are those caused by mistaking fungi for mushrooms, or by making rash experiments in cooking the former, of which Gerard quaintly says: "Beware ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... Whitehead[333] taught to creep Silent and soft, lay Fontenelle asleep; Let them with Browne,[334] contrive, no vulgar trick, To cure the dead, and make the living sick; 110 Let them, in charity, to Murphy give Some old French piece, that he may steal and live; Let them with antic Foote, subscriptions get, And advertise a summer-house of wit. Thus, or in any better way they please, With these great men, or with great men like these, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... picture it, eh? What a sight! Come, quick, it's your turn to kick the bucket. Would you like a length of rope? Ha, ha, ha! It's enough to make one die with laughing. Didn't I say that you'd meet at the gates of hell? Quick, your sweetheart's waiting for you. Do you hesitate? Where's your old French politeness? You can't keep a lady waiting, you know. Hurry up, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... said Grandfather, "and was general of the militia. The veteran regiments of the English army, which were now sent across the Atlantic, would have scorned to fight under the orders of an old American merchant. And now began what aged people call the Old French War. It would be going too far astray from the history of our chair, to tell you one half of the battles that were fought. I cannot even allow myself to describe the bloody defeat of General Braddock, near the sources of the Ohio River, in 1755. But, I must not omit to mention, that when ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... have and to hold, | from this day forward, | for better for worse, | for richer for poorer, | in sickness and in health, | to love and to cherish, | till death do us part, etc. Here it becomes mere blank verse which is, of course, a defect in prose style. In that delightful old French the Saj'a frequently appeared when attention was solicited for the titles of books: e.g. Lea Romant de la Rose, ou tout ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... declare war against us, which gave us two hundred thousand more men to take care of. I have learned since that we then stood three hundred thousand men against five hundred and twenty thousand, and that among our enemies were two old French generals, Moreau and Bernadotte. Every one can read that in books, but we did not yet know it, and we were sure of victory, for we had never lost a battle. The ill-feeling of the people did not trouble us: in time of war peasants and citizens are in a manner reckoned as nothing; they are only ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... began to sing softly beneath his breath the burden of an old French lullaby which he remembered from his childhood days, with its burden of "Do, do, l'enfant do, l'enfant dormira tantot," and as he sang the horn again sounded the same dreary, prolonged note as before, but now more clearly, and therefore ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... walk had sharpened his appetite, and he was breakfasting quite unconcernedly after all that had passed. Lucien saw the dignified face of M. de Negrepelisse, the old provincial noble, a relic of the old French noblesse, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... folding doors suggests that it should be) to the external entrance. The classic term cunnus for the external genitals was chiefly used by the poets; it has been the etymological source of various European names for this region, such as the old French con, which has now, however, disappeared from literature while even in popular usage it has given place to lapin and similar terms. But there is always a tendency, marked in most parts of the world, for the names of the external female parts to become indecorous. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis |
