"Louis XVI" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... carried back in triumph to his capital with Mayor Petion in his coach. When we think of the pass to which things had come in Paris by this time, and of the unappeasable ferment that boiled round the court, there is a certain touch of the ludicrous in the notion of poor Richard Burke writing to Louis XVI. a letter of wise advice how ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... prelude to exile or the axe; and the deliberation of this especial night must settle the question, whether the Monarchy or the Jacobin club was to ascend the scaffold. It was the debate on the execution of the unhappy Louis XVI. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... to Romanism. Out of her singular fate has grown another romance, the marvel of later times. For from her descended Reverend Eleazer Williams, missionary to the Indians at Green Bay, Wisconsin, who was in 1851 visited by the Duc de Joinville, and told that he was that Dauphin (son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette), who, according to history, died in prison June 9, 1795. In spite of the fact that the evidence of this little prince's death was as strong as any which can be found in history in relation to the death of Louis, his father, or of Marie Antoinette, his mother, ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... know that it was Prony who built the Pont Louis XVI.? Perronet was then eighty-four, and Prony worked under him. One night, when he had supped at Madame de Vinde's, he went to look at his bridge, when he saw—but I have not time to tell you ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... same kind will occur to every thoughtful reader of history. If, as might easily have happened, Hannibal after the battle of Cannae had taken and burned Rome, and transferred the supremacy of the world to a maritime commercial State upon the Mediterranean; if, instead of the Regency, Louis XV. and Louis XVI., France had passed during the eighteenth century under sovereigns of the stamp of the elder branch of the House of Orange or of Henry IV., or of the Great Elector, or of Frederick the Great; if, at the French Revolution, the supreme military genius had been connected ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... just coming into view, having been detained round the corner by his curiosity concerning a set of Louis XVI. furniture which some house-movers were unpacking upon the sidewalk. A curl of excelsior, in fact, had attached itself to his nether lip, and he was pausing to remove it—when his roving eye fell upon Flopit. Clematis immediately decided to ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... perception of the real culture and brilliance found in the higher social circles of colonial Philadelphia and New York. One of the most beautiful women of the day, Mrs. Bingham, added to a good education, the advantage of much travel abroad, and a lengthy visit at the Court of Louis XVI. Her beauty and elegance were the talk of Paris, The Hague, and London, and Mrs. Adams' comment from London voiced the general foreign sentiment about her: "She is coming quite into fashion here, and is very much admired. The hair-dresser who dresses us on court days inquired ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... the Rue Royale are among the chief streets; beautiful squares are numerous, the most noted being the Place de la Concorde, between the Champs Elysees and the Gardens of the Tuileries, in the centre of which the Obelisk of Luxor stands on the site of the guillotine at which Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, Philippe Egalite, Danton, and Robespierre died. Boulevards lined with trees run to the outskirts of the city. The many roads, railways, canals, and rivers which converge on ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... two pairs of candlesticks, carved in choice woods by her own father, who had the "turning" mania. From 1770 to 1780 it was the fashion among rich people to learn a trade, and Monsieur Lousteau, the father, was a turner, just as Louis XVI. was a locksmith. These candlesticks were ornamented with circlets made of the roots of rose, peach, and apricot trees. Madame Hochon actually risked the use of her precious relics! These preparations and this sacrifice increased old Hochon's anxiety; up to this time he had not believed in the arrival ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... lay at the root of the French Revolution. Louis XVI. paid the penalty of his folly with his life. If he had been a wise ruler he would still be on the throne, and France would have escaped the fury of the Revolutionists. France is sick; in any other country this ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... magnificent; the plans provided for a thousand private operating rooms, each beautifully furnished in Louis XVI style, a restaurant, a tea room, a marriage licence bureau, and an emergency chapel where first aid clergymen were to ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... The audience took place at Versailles, on the morning of the 20th of March. Each of the American envoys rode in his own carriage, attended by the usual retinue of servants. On the way they were cheered with the utmost enthusiasm by the crowd. The king, Louis XVI., received them with extreme courtesy, and the queen, Marie Antoinette, was marked in her attentions to Franklin. The British ambassador, Lord Stormont, was so enraged, that, regardless of all the claims of courtesy, he immediately returned to England, without even taking leave ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Louis XVI. American Revolution Turgot Necker States-General Summoned National Assembly Destruction of Bastille Revolution Lafayette Varennes The Temple Triumphant Jacobins Execution of the King Charlotte Corday Execution of Queen ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... Germany will be judged more gently than the Allies can judge her to-day. We do not now look on the French Revolution as our forefathers looked on it. We see, because recent historians have impressed it on us, that it was a violent uprising against, not Louis XVI., but a Louis XIV. What France really made her great Revolution to bring about was the establishment of a Constitution. Horrible deeds were perpetrated in the name of Liberty, but it was not due to any horrible national spirit that they were perpetrated. France was responsible ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... 25, 1770, Mirabeau was transferred to the Castle of Joux, near Pontarlier, where, on June 11, 1775, festivities were held, as at other places, to honour the coronation of Louis XVI. Here Mirabeau enjoyed a sort of half freedom, being allowed to visit in Pontarlier, and the event ensued which, it must sorrowfully be owned, tarnished his name. In a word, we see Mirabeau "ruin himself," by a fatal ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... more good than harm, and of about all the achievement there is in the world. There are cases where this optimism has been disastrous, as with the people who lived in Pompeii during its last quivering days; or with the aristocrats of the time of Louis XVI, who confidently expected the Deluge to overwhelm their children, or their children's children, but never themselves. But there is small likelihood that the case of perverse optimism here to be considered will end in ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... In the course of time these came to be classed as a new and distinct form of musical entertainment. They were given the name of "Val-de-Vire" from the valley in which Bassel was born. This name became corrupted, into "vaux-de-vire" in the time of Louis XVI, and was applied to all the popular or topical songs sung on the streets of Paris. Then the aristocrats took up these songs and gave entertainments at their country seats. To these entertainments they gave the name of "vaux-de-ville," the last syllable being changed ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... is quite a prosperous province to-day compared with what it was in the time of Louis XVI. During the First Empire there was what we would call a Minister of Woods and Forests named Bremontier. He looked over the Landes and found it to be nothing more than a waste of shifting sand. Rescued from the sea by a mere freak of nature, it might, for all practical ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... "Disenchanted" because they found that freedom, peace, and virtue were not to be secured by mere proclamation; and that all Europe was not ready at the call of the revolutionists to abolish prescriptive rights and establish republican forms of society. In January 1793 Louis XVI was beheaded. The act was followed pretty promptly by a coalition of England, Holland, Spain, Naples, and the German states against ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... officers endangered their lives for her by stopping the horse. The prayers and tears of her whom they had just snatched from death were necessary to obtain pardon for their crime. Every one knows the anecdote related by Madame Campan of Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. One day, being at her toilet, when the chemise was about to be presented to her by one of the assistants, a lady of very ancient family entered and claimed the honor, as she had the right by etiquette; but, at the moment she was about ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... being trammeled by impediments; it will prove so much the less baneful in proportion as it is restrained, guarded, threatened, and denounced.—A position of this kind is manifestly intolerable; and only a man as passive as Louis XVI. could have put up with it. Do what he will, however, he cannot make it a tenable one. In vain does he scrupulously adhere to the Constitution, and fulfill it to the letter. Because he is powerless the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of treating savage people, "Sir," said he, "I have sometimes been compelled to commit hostilities upon them, but never without suffering the most poignant regret; for, independent of my own feelings on the occasion, his Majesty's (Louis XVI) last words to me, de sa propre bouche, when I took leave of him at Versailles, were: 'It is my express injunction, that you always treat the Indian nations with kindness and humanity. Gratify their wishes, and ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... shown into a large and beautiful room in the style of Louis XVI., which had evidently been designed and executed by a French artist. It was free from the brutal touch which the Germans show in their attempt at the refinement of the French Renaissance of ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... political revolution has come like an avalanche, and the citizens have determined to celebrate it, and have a public address, for which Major Whiting has been designated. Thirty-seven years ago the French cut off the head of the reigning Bourbon, Louis XVI., and now they have called another branch of the same house, of whom Bonaparte said: "They never learn anything, and they never forget anything." As the French please, however. We are all joy and rejoicing at the event. It seems the consummation of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... of kings and princes, I do not know that there was anything more interesting than a little brass cannon, two or three inches long, which had been a toy of the unfortunate Dauphin, son of Louis XVI. There was a map,—a hemisphere of the world,—which his father had drawn for this poor boy; very neatly done, too. The sword of Louis XVI., a magnificent rapier, with a beautifully damasked blade, and a jewelled scabbard, but without a hilt, is likewise preserved, as is the hilt of ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... this theory of return to Nature pleased the ruling classes. The young King and Queen were well-meaning and kindly to the people. Louis XVI went among the poor and did something to alleviate the misery that he saw. Marie Antoinette gave up {166} the extravagant career of fashion and spent happy hours in the rustic village of Trianon. Nobles and maids of ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... (August 1687, article 'Mantoue') that the Duke of Mantua being desirous to sell his capital, Casale, to the King of France, had been dissuaded therefrom by his secretary, and induced to join the other princes of Italy in their endeavours to thwart the ambitious schemes of Louis XVI. The Marquis d'Arcy, French ambassador to the court of Savoy, having been informed of the secretary's influence, distinguished him by all kinds of civilities, asked him frequently to table, and at last invited him to join a large hunting party two or three leagues outside Turin. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... doubt, Turgot is one of the most remarkable intelligences which France has produced. He was by nature a philosopher and a reformer, but he was also a statesman, who for a time held a seat in the cabinet of Louis XVI., first as Minister of the Marine, and then as Comptroller of the Finances. Perhaps no minister ever studied more completely the good of the people. His administration was one constant benefaction. But he was too good for the age in which he lived,—or rather, the age was not good enough ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... that Baskerville used, addressed a letter to M. Johannot of Annonay, a skilled papermaker, asking him to endeavour to duplicate the smooth and even surface of this new paper. Johannot was successful in his experiments, and for his work in this field he was in 1781 awarded a gold medal by Louis XVI." ...
— Why Bewick Succeeded - A Note in the History of Wood Engraving • Jacob Kainen
... told us. I saw it at the first glance—certainly it is a most remarkable freak of nature. The rough back of the mountain forms the exact profile of the human countenance, as if regularly hewn out of the rock. What is still more singular, it is said to be a correct portrait of the unfortunate Louis XVI. The landlord said it was immediately recognized by all Frenchmen. The road followed the course of the Traun, whose green waters roared at the bottom of the glen below us; we walked for several miles through a fine ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... and the Louises, just preceding the Great Revolution: the years of their consecutive reigns number 233, so that there are 11 years to the good of Sir George Cornewall Lewis's theory; but if two of those French kings, Henry III. and Henry IV., had not been assassinated, and the last of them, Louis XVI., deprived of his life by an infuriated people, the number of years of those seven monarchs' reigns might have been 270 or 280, possibly even 300. That theory of Sir George Cornewall Lewis cannot then be accepted; there being nothing,—for the leading reason given by him,—that should induce ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Ah, here's a pretty thing! See, Esther, here's an elegant crown, really beautiful, with the fleurs de lys of France, and the name of the luckless Louis XVI. "Roi de France and de Navarre" but no date. On the other side, "Isles de France and de Bourbon." These coins seem ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... not the day of display or snobbery. The king of snobs, Louis XVI., had died to some purpose, for a wave of manliness had swept across human thought at the beginning of the century. The world has rarely been the poorer for the demise of ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... over the imagination, so unlike the unceremonious spirit of the Middle Ages, that, on learning the execution of Charles I., men died of the shock; and the same thing occurred at the death of Louis XVI. and of the Duke of Enghien. The classic land of absolute monarchy was France. Richelieu held that it would be impossible to keep the people down if they were suffered to be well off. The Chancellor affirmed that ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... highway through the ancient Forest of Fontainebleau, the coach of the Chevalier de Bailleul, carven and gilt in elegant forms of the reign of Louis XVI., and driven with the spirit that belonged to the service of a grand ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... in Paris, August 2, 1751, and in the latter part of the reign of Louis XVI. was appointed engraver of medals to the king. During the French Revolution he was intrusted with the execution of various works of art for different branches of the public service. The process followed in the printing of assignats, of bills of exchange, and ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... April, 1793, a British packet brought the news to New York that Louis XVI had been guillotined and that France was at war with England and Spain. The ominous tidings brought President Washington post-haste from Mount Vernon to Philadelphia. Summoning his advisers, he put before them the perplexing questions which had arisen in his mind. Neutrality was obviously ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... gorgeous, and are so rich in sculpture that only a sculptor could properly speak of them. We saw the room where Robespierre held his council and attempted suicide, and also the window where our Lafayette embraced Louis Philippe, and presented him to the mob in 1830. It is the same window where poor Louis XVI. addressed the savages, when he wore the cap of liberty. By the way, I hate the sight of that cap, which always reminds me of the lamp-post executions of the French capital in 1792-3. Its prevalence in our happy country is owing to ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... Napoleon dispensed with the ceremonies used in the reception of Marie Antoinette, whose marriage with Louis XVI., though never named or alluded to, was in other respects the model of the present solemnity. Near Soissons, a single horseman, no way distinguished by dress, rode past the carriage in which the young empress was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... of these transactions, see Levasseur, as above, vol. i, chap. 6, pp. 181, et seq. Original specimens of these notes, bearing the portrait of Louis XVI will be found in the Cornell University Library (White Collection) and for the whole series perfectly photographed in the same collection, Dewarmin, "Cent ans de numismatique ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... shall win!" he said without even the physical demonstration of a gesture and in a hard, even voice which was like that of the machinery of modern war itself, a voice which the aristocratic sniff, the Louis XVI. curls, or any of the old gallery-display heroes would have thought utterly lacking in histrionics suitable to the occasion. He remained rigid after he had spoken, ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... wounded soldiers on board and captured vessels in tow. Plymouth itself was full of French prisoners, who made little models of guillotines out of their meat-bones, and sold them to the children for the then fashionable amusement of 'cutting off Louis XVI.'s head.' ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... the old monarchy had, during the latter part of the reign of Louis XV. sunk into gradual decay, both in numerical force, and in efficiency of equipment and spirit. The laurels gained by the auxiliary regiments which Louis XVI. sent to the American war, did but little to restore the general tone of the army. The insubordination and licence, which the revolt of the French guards, and the participation of other troops in many of the ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... at Vienna. While dauphiness, she often expressed a wish for a country-house of her own where she could find freedom at times from the pomp and intrigues of the court, and very soon after his accession Louis XVI. offered her Little Trianon, which she ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... renounced for himself and his descendants all benefit whatever. He had interested in this noble enterprise the priests of the Mission of the Holy Ghost, who themselves possessed lands in French Guiana. A letter from Marshal de Castries, dated 6th June, 1785, proves that the unfortunate Louis XVI, extending his beneficent intentions to the blacks and free men of colour, had ordered similar experiments to be made at the expense of Government. M. de Richeprey, who was appointed by M. de Lafayette to superintend ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... employment as the female reader to the Czarina Elizabeth, under which disguise he carried on political and semi-political negotiations with wonderful success. In the year 1762, he appeared in England as Secretary of the Embassy to the Duke of Nivernois, and when Louis XVI. granted him a pension and he went over to Versailles to return thanks for the favour, Marie Antoinette is said to have insisted on his assuming women's attire. Accordingly, to gratify this foolish whim, D'Eon is reported to have one day swept into the royal presence ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns (Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette), I shall neither approve ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... Government sent Grouvelle as a representative to Copenhagen, a man who owed his education and information to the Conde branch of the Bourbons, and who afterwards audaciously and sacrilegiously read the sentence of death on the chief of that family, on his good and legitimate King, Louis XVI. It can neither be called dignity nor prudence in the Cabinet of Denmark to suffer this regicide to serve as a point of rally to sedition and innovation; to be the official propagator of revolutionary ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... with men and courteous to ladies. He used to kiss the hand of my mother, whom the customs of the Republic and the Empire had not habituated to such gallantry. In him, I touched the age of Louis XVI. Monsieur de Lessay was a geographer; and nobody, I believe, ever showed more pride then he in occupying himself with the face of the earth. Under the Old Regime he had attempted philosophical agriculture, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... the National Guard on horseback, a score or so of King's officers, a King on foot, walking with uncertain step, a Queen leaning on his arm, both habited in black, moved out of the western gate. The King and the Queen paused a moment on the very spot where Louis XVI. was beheaded, and then got into a carriage drawn by one horse and were driven rapidly along the quays in the direction of St. Cloud. And again Revolution, on the heels of the fugitives, poured into the old palace and filled it with ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... tough and simple stock will not, as I have just been saying, prove variable in religion; nor will they get nearer to apostasy than a mere external conformity like that of Naaman in the house of Rimmon. When Louis XVI., in the words of the edict, "convinced by the uselessness of a century of persecutions, and rather from necessity than sympathy," granted at last a royal grace of toleration, Cassagnas was still Protestant; and to a man, it is so to this day. There is, indeed, one family that is not Protestant, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the same monarch rebuked the grand chamberlain for not assigning to Martin du Belley, then king of Yvetot, a position suitable to his regal dignity. The Belley dynasty reigned in Yvetot for 332 years. The last king of that petty kingdom was D'Albon St Marcel, who, when at the court of Louis XVI., modestly assumed no higher rank than that of a prince. The Revolution, as we have already intimated, swept away the ancient crown, and the King of Yvetot is now nothing more than the title of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... France adopted a constitution. Provoked at this, the friends of absolute monarchy withdrew from France, and incited the other powers of Europe to interpose in effort to restore to Louis XVI. his lost power. The result was that Louis lost his head as well as his power, and that France became a republic. War with all Europe followed, which elevated that matchless military genius, Napoleon ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... mention it, but it was worse for me than for them. The Hotel Majestic Palace looked rich; very, very rich. It had heaps of splendid mirrors and curtains, and imitation Louis XVI. sofas, and everything that a hotel needs to make it happy and successful, while I had nothing in the world except what I stood up in, one fitted bag, one small box, and thirty-two francs. I didn't quite see, at first sight, what I was to do; but neither did the assistant manager ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... into politics. A peer in 1845, he sat between Marshal Soult and Pontecoulant, the regicide-judge of Louis XVI. His maiden speech bore upon artistic copyright; but he rapidly became a power ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... Frederick; also a daughter who was more fortunate, for she was guillotined. It was natural, no doubt, that her brother and relatives should disapprove of the incident; but it occurred long after the whole Germanic power had been hurled against the new Republic. Louis XVI. himself was still alive and nominally ruling when the first pressure came from Prussia and Austria, demanding that the trend of the French emancipation should be reversed. It is impossible to deny, therefore, ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... Louis XVI to Rouen, in 1786, the bell called George d'Amboise was cracked. In 1793, it was converted into cannons. Some pieces bearing the following inscription were made into medals and are now ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet
... extravagant monarch, was succeeded by Louis XVI., a man of refined habits, pious and benevolent in disposition, but unpossessed of the moral power requisite for the extermination of the evils deeply rooted in the government. His queen, Marie Antoinette, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Rochejaquelein for me, and I became a Royalist of the Royalists, and held hotly the thesis that if George Washington had returned the compliment of going over to France in '89, he would have done Lafayette a great service by restoring the good Louis XVI. and ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... Valentinian. What do you see in this fact? You see how religious ideas had permeated the minds even of soldiers. They were not strong enough or brave enough to fight the ideas of their age. Why did not the troops of Louis XVI. defend the Bastille? They were strong enough; its cannon could have demolished the whole Faubourg St. Antoine. Alas! the soldiers who defended that fortress had caught the ideas of the people. They fraternized with them, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... ou Gouvernement fond sur la Morale, Amsterdam, Rey, 1776, is interesting mainly for its unfortunate dedication and peroration, inscribed to Louis XVI, who was hailed therein as a ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... possesses all the obstinacy of persons of confined understanding: he has but slender judgment, and will see with no eye but his own." Louis XV augured ill of his successor's reign, and imagined that the cabinet of Vienna would direct that of Versailles at pleasure. His late majesty was mistaken; Louis XVI is endowed with many rare virtues, but they are unfortunately clouded over by his timidity and want of self-confidence. The open and undisguised censure passed by the whole court upon the conduct of Louis XV was not the only ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... part on the nature of the actions which have been habitually performed under this particular state of the mind. A man, for instance, may know that his life is in the extremest peril, and may strongly desire to save if; yet, as Louis XVI. said, when surrounded by a fierce mob, "Am I afraid? feel my pulse." So a man may intensely hate another, but until his bodily frame is affected, he cannot be said ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... humanity, call these glorious things extravagance. They grovel before cotton prints and the tasteless designs of modern industry, as if we were greater and happier in these days than in those of Henri IV., Louis XIV., and Louis XVI., monarchs who have all left the stamp of their reigns upon Les Aigues. What palace, what royal castle, what mansions, what noble works of art, what gold brocaded stuffs are sacred now? The petticoats of our grandmothers go to cover the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... Rochefoucauld,—a charming American, the daughter of Mr. Mitchell, former senator from Oregon. The duke seemed to be a quiet, manly young officer, devoted to his duties in the army; but it was hard to realize in him the successor of the great duke, the friend of Washington and of Louis XVI, who showed himself so broad-minded during our War of Independence and the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... to have been quite a favorite in the Austrian court. Maria Antoinette introduced it to Versailles. The tourist is still shown the dairy where that unhappy queen made butter and cheese, the mill where Louis XVI. ground his grist, and the mimic village tavern where the King and Queen of France, as landlord ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... paused in Paris to renew the depleted wardrobe which, only two months earlier, had filled so many trunks to bursting. Other ladies, flocking there from all points of the globe for the same purpose, disputed with her the Louis XVI suites of the Nouveau Luxe, the pink-candled tables in the restaurant, the hours for trying-on at the dressmakers'; and just because they were so many, and all feverishly fighting to get the same things at the same time, they ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... the court of Louis XVI, was considerably enriched, at the close of the reign of terror, by plate, jewels, furniture, paintings, coaches, and so on, left in his charge by members of the French nobility, that they might not be confiscated in the sack ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... an act of power and defiance on Alva's part sometimes compared to the execution of Louis XVI by the French Republicans. Hitherto the sufferers from his reign of blood had not in any case been men of the highest rank. The first execution of nobles took place at Brussels on June 1, that ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... me solid, strong, and prudent. Indeed, I never saw him appear to so much advantage. We walked from his "den" to the dining- room, where the guests were waiting for breakfast, through his bedroom. A fine Louis XVI. bed from the garde-meuble was in the alcove. I pointed, and asked: "Le lit de Talleyrand?" "Le lit de Dagobert!" At our meeting on the 20th we discussed fully the Danube question, and also that of Newfoundland, in which I always took a deep interest, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... conceived the idea of utilizing the lifting power of hot air and invited the Assembly of Vivarais to watch an exhibition of his invention, when a balloon, 10 feet in circumference, rose to a height of 6,000 feet in under ten minutes. This was followed by a demonstration before Louis XVI at Versailles, when a balloon carrying a sheep, a cock, and a duck, rose 1,500 feet and descended safely. And on November 21st of the same year Pilatre de Rozier, accompanied by the Marquis d'Arlande, made the first human ascent, ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... himself on the nobility; or some notary become mayor of his parish: all people crushed with business, who, if they attain their end, are literally killed in its attainment. In France the usage is to glorify wigs. Napoleon, Louis XVI., the great rulers, alone have always wished for young men to fulfil ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... another year, and that her sister Lucy should go too. That was in the autumn of 1792, when the French Revolution was just beginning. On January 21, 1793, the terrible news came of the murder of the unhappy King, Louis XVI. All Europe, and England especially, were horrified at the cruel deed; and at the Abbey, where there was a strong French Royalist element, feeling ran particularly high. "Monsieur and Madame went into deep mourning, as did also many of ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... that means he'll be here! He's so horribly fastidious, he's sure to make remarks about my putting an Italian loggia on a Louis XVI drawing-room. It does seem that with all the time and money we've spent on ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... bearing letters from Marie Therese to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the Cardinal found himself coldly received by the dull King, and discouraged from remaining at Court, whilst the Queen refused to grant him so much as the audience necessary for ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... replaced the customary coldness and stiffness by a sort of quarrelsome vivacity. It had also introduced certain serious forms into the frivolous manners of the regency, and lent them an appearance of depth. The pure but colourless life of Louis XVI counted for nothing, and influenced nobody. Never had there been such serious chatter, so many flimsy maxims, such an affectation of wisdom, so much inconsistency between words and deeds as might have been found at this period among the so-called ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... King Louis, who at the first glance had sounded the abyss on which the monarchy hung suspended,—"to fall, and learn of that fall by telegraph! Oh, I would rather mount the scaffold of my brother, Louis XVI., than thus descend the staircase at the Tuileries driven away by ridicule. Ridicule, sir—why, you know not its power in France, and yet you ought to ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is directly in front of the great palace where so many kings have made their homes, the prince of whom was Louis XIV. The palace is now unoccupied. No ruler has dared to take up his residence here since Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were driven from it by the mob from Paris on the 8th of October, 1789. The town looks like the wreck of what it once was. At the commencement of the first revolution, it contained one hundred thousand inhabitants; ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... of the next year; in June they declared themselves a national assembly, and commenced work upon a constitution under the direction of Siyes, who well merited the epithet, "indefatigable constitution-grinder," applied to Paine by Cobbett. Not long after, the attempted coup d'tat of Louis XVI. failed, the Bastille was demolished, and the political Saturnalia of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... a relative of the author of "Democracy in America," has just published a historical work on the Reign of Louis XVI. The writer, an old man almost sinking into the grave, enjoys the advantage of having himself witnessed and even shared in a part of the events he describes. He was intimate with Malasherbes, and personally devoted to the unfortunate Louis. Of his ability as a writer, a former ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... voluntarily forward, and offered to plead for him also; but as the King declined recognising the competency of his judges, the offer was of course rejected. We all know how Malesherbes fared for acting a similar part in France. The counsel of Louis XVI. closed his honourable career on the scaffold not long after his unfortunate master: his generous advocacy of the devoted monarch cost him his life. But Cromwell, that 'least flagitious of all usurpers,' ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... Clovis consisted of a shield, which was picked up after having fallen from the skies; the anointing oil, conveyed from heaven by a white dove in a phial, which, till the reign of Louis XVI. consecrated the kings of France; and the oriflamme, or standard with golden flames, long suspended over the tomb of St. Denis, which the French kings only raised over the tomb when their crown was in imminent peril. No future king of France can be anointed with the sainte ampoule, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... we succeeded, under the powerful will of Admiral Lalande, in reconstituting such a fighting fleet as we had never possessed since the Revolution swept away at one fell swoop the whole of the navy of Louis XVI., with its body of first-class officers, and all that collection of traditions both as to discipline and knowledge which ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... the libraries of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette at Versailles. The walls are lined with a double row of presses, each closed by glass doors. The lower row is about four feet high, the upper row about ten feet high. The wood-work is painted white, and ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... destroy all that interfered with their plans of general equality. The guillotine, a recently invented machine for beheading, was set in all the chief market-places, and hundreds were put to death on the charge of "conspiring against the nation." Louis XVI. was executed early in 1793; and it was enough to have any sort of birthright to be thought ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and writings were slowly diffused; a French translation of the first volume had disappointed the booksellers of Paris; and a passage in the third was construed as a personal reflection on the reigning monarch. [Note: It may not be generally known that Louis XVI. is a great reader, and a reader of English books. On perusing a passage of my History which seems to compare him to Arcadius or Honorius, he expressed his resentment to the Prince of B———, from whom the intelligence was conveyed to me. I shall neither disclaim the allusion, nor ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... love, seeks to rebuild the ruins of the past, and learns what are the fruits of ambition. This he learns in the purgatory of conquerors, where he sees the figures of the Stuarts, of William the Deliverer, and of George the Third, "with eyebrows white and slanting brow," intentionally confused with Louis XVI. to avoid a charge of treason. But the strength of Landor's sympathy with the French Revolution and of his contempt for George III. was more evident in the first form of the poem. Parallel with the ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... breathes on reaching the epoch when one enjoys the benefits of that which is due to the unity of the laws, administration and territory." The constant feebleness of the government under Louis XIV, even, under Louis XV. and Louis XVI., "should inspire the need of sustaining the newly accomplished work and its acquired preponderance." On the 18th of Brumaire (19-11-1799), France came into port; the Revolution must be spoken of only as a final, fatal and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the Parliament of Paris directed that the graves in the cemeteries should not be marked with stones, and that all epitaphs and inscriptions should be placed on the walls, a regulation which appears to have been greatly honoured in the breach. In 1776 Louis XVI., recognizing the benefit which Paris had derived from the city decree, prohibited graveyards in all the cities and towns of France, and rendered unlawful interments in churches and chapels; and in 1790 the National Assembly passed an Act commanding that ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... walked back to his hotel deeply moved. Who can wonder? He was a man full of living and vehement convictions. One of his early recollections had been the arrival in England of the news of the beheading of Louis XVI, and the doings of the Reign of Terror. He had been bred in the times when it was held impossible for a gentleman or a Christian to hold such views as his son had been maintaining, and, like many of the noblest Englishmen of his time, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... in Europe, has narrow and crooked streets, but the modern portion is open, airy, and well arranged for business and domestic comfort. The Grand Theatre is a remarkable piece of effective architecture, with its noble Ionic columns, and was built a little more than a century since by Louis XVI. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... marble steps leading to the altar beneath which the seventh Emperor was to be laid were just finished when Louis XVIII. came to fill the tomb, which was just prepared, with the bones of Louis XVI., to depose the Emperor, to complete the marble pavement, and to extend the fleurs de lys over ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... she was married, for the third time, to a Frenchman, the son of an migr in the Austrian service. He was a M. de Bombelles, whose mother had been a Miss Mackan, an intimate friend of Madame Elisabeth, and had married the Count of Bombelles, ambassador of Louis XVI. in Portugal, and later in Venice, who took orders after his wife's death and became Bishop of Amiens under the Restoration. Marie Louise, who died December 17, 1847, aged fifty-six, lived in surroundings directly ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... in it," said Napoleon, quickly, "and I believe I shall sleep in the royal Prussian palace, and in the bed of the Russian emperor, as comfortably as I did in the Tuileries and in the bed of Louis XVI." ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... sight of one of Napoleon's marshals, Soult, Wellington's great adversary, rearing his white head in a coach the framework of which had belonged to the State carriage of the Prince de Conde, and figured in the beaux jours of Louis XVI. The consciousness that this worthy foe had come to do honour to the young Queen awoke a generous response from the crowd. Soult was cheered lustily along the whole route, and in the Abbey itself, so that he returned to France not only full of personal gratification ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... now in single file, and into a bedroom—evidently Knight's—full of canvases, sketching garb, fishing-rods and reels lining the walls; and then into another—evidently the guest's room—all lace covers, cretonne, carved chests, Louis XVI furniture, rare old portraits, and easy-chairs, the Sculptor opening each closet in turn, grumbling, "Just like him to try and fool us," but no ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... manufacturers and merchants should therefore be untaxed and unhampered. Laissez- faire—"Let them do as they will." Let the farmers pay the taxes. The foremost disciple of laisser-faire in France was Turgot (1727-1781). As minister of finance under Louis XVI he attempted to abolish duties and restrictions on commerce, but his efforts were ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Judges of the Supreme Court, to Blount, to General Wayne, to the friendly Chickasaw Indians, to Sevier, to the ladies of the Southwestern Territory, to the American arms, and, finally, "to the true liberties of France and a speedy and just punishment of the murderers of Louis XVI." The word "Jacobin" was used as a term of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... together at Buisson-Souef. But as their boy grew up they became anxious to leave the country and return to Paris, where M. de Lamotte hoped to be able to obtain for his son some position about the Court of Louis XVI. And so it was that in May, 1775, M. de Lamotte gave a power of attorney to his wife in order that she might go to Paris and negotiate for the sale of Buisson-Souef. The legal side of the transaction was placed in the hands of one Jolly, a proctor ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... to spare the public treasure. Hence Sultan Mu'ayyad of Cairo was a calligrapher who sold his handwriting, and his example was followed by the Turkish Sultans Mahmud, Abd al-Majid and Abd al-Aziz. German royalties prefer carpentering and Louis XVI, watch-making. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... wrought silver, filled with roses, in its centre. A great silken rug lay under the table, on a polished floor, and the walls were hung with tapestry. I sat beside the count, and opposite me was the daughter of the Sieur Louis Francois de Saint-Michel, king's forester under Louis XVI. Therese, the handsome daughter of the count, sat facing him at the farther end of the table, and beside her was the young Marquis de Gonvello. M. Pidgeon, the celebrated French astronomer, Moss Kent, brother of the since famous chancellor, the Sieur ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... with the collection and arrangement of a cabinet of medals and antique gems for Madame de Pompadour, and subsequently appointed him attach to the French embassy at St Petersburg. On the accession of Louis XVI. Denon was transferred to Sweden; but he returned, after a brief interval, to Paris with the ambassador M. de Vergennes, who had been appointed foreign minister. In 1775 Denon was sent on a special mission to Switzerland, and took the opportunity of visiting Voltaire ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... "Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and a criminal," came into Pierre's head, "and from their point of view they were right, as were those too who canonized him and died a martyr's death for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being a despot. Who is right and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... sinless voluptuousness; and, with one prolonged, ear-splitting yell, wrung from him by the still-increasing torment of his fell disease, the unhappy bird expands his Paradise-Lost pinions, and, with the speed of a comet passing its perihelion, sweeps away to that rock; for, like Louis XVI., he knows geography. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... great number of instances become predominant. The issue of a battle may be decided by a sunbeam or a cloud of dust. Had an heir been born to Charles II. of Spain—had the youthful son of Monsieur De Bouille not fallen asleep when Louis XVI. entered Varennes—had Napoleon, on his return from Egypt, been stopped by an English cruizer—how different would have been the face of Europe. The poco di piu and poco di meno has, in such contingencies, an unbounded influence. The trade-winds are steady ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... days when it was known as the Place Louis Quinze, and when hundreds of people were crushed to death there whilst witnessing a display of fireworks in connection with the espousals of the future Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, not even when it had become the Place de la Revolution and was thronged by all who wished to witness the successive executions of the last King and Queen of the old French monarchy. From the end of the Rue Royale to ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... hears the complaint, "I could not possibly set out alone to furnish a room! I don't know anything about periods. Why, a Louis XVI chair and an Empire chair are quite the same to me. Then the question of antiques and reproductions—why any ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... the style of the First Napoleon's Empire was not a very fortunate style,—too stiff, too absurdly pseudo-classic, unworthy of France, a poor enough successor of the dainty and playful art of Louis XV, or the somewhat more refined and restrained art of Louis XVI: but he would say that it was art still, and the period a not wholly inartistic period; and even of the dull times of the Napoleon of Peace, from 1830 to 1848, while he would confess to a great deal of languor and lack of public spirit of all sorts, except in the struggle which ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... that on hearing of the horrible execution of Louis XVI, Mlle. Mongalvi had all the boarders on their knees, to recite prayers for the repose of the soul of the unfortunate king. The indiscretion of any one of us could have brought down disaster on her head, but all the pupils were of an age to understand, and I felt ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... seeking shelter in various places, but being pursued by the mob and killed. Thus perished a man who, with Curt von Stedingk, had received the order of Cincinnatus from the hands of George Washington, and who once was so near saving Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette from their cruel fate. Fersen's brother was saved only by mere chance, and his sister by a ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... that Mathieu willingly lent himself to this innocent display of vanity. First came the parlor, the corner room, the walls of which were covered with pearl-gray paper with a design of golden flowers, while the furniture consisted of some of those white lacquered Louis XVI. pieces which makers turn out by the gross. The rosewood piano showed like a big black blot amidst all the rest. Then, overlooking the Boulevard de Grenelle, came Reine's bedroom, pale blue, with furniture of polished pine. Her parents' ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... of the greatest curiosities in Lucerne is the monument to those brave Swiss guards who were slain for their unshaken fidelity to the unhappy Louis XVI. In a sequestered spot the rocky hill side is cut away, and in the living strata is sculptured the colossal figure of a dying lion. A spear is broken off in his side, but in his last struggle he still defends a shield, marked with the fleur de ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was in the greatest disorder. Numerous objects were strewn on the floor from the drawers which remained open. A writing table had been broken open. A Louis XVI. commode and a bureau a cylindre of the same period had ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... differences in testimony, while maintaining the credibility of the fact itself. "An instructive example is furnished in a recent issue of the Bibliotheca Sacra. A class in history was studying the French Revolution, and the pupils were asked to look the matter up, and report next day by what vote Louis XVI was condemned. Nearly half the class reported that the vote was unanimous. A considerable number protested that he was condemned by a majority of one. A few gave the majority as 145 in a vote of 721. How utterly irreconcilable ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... formal talk with the two Messrs. Beagle, perhaps touching on such matters as duties, hours, salary, and so on. To his surprise he was ushered by the secretary into a charming Louis XVI salon farther down the private corridor. There were several ladies: one was pouring tea. Mr. Beagle junior came forward. The vice-president (such was Mr. Beagle junior's rank, Gissing had learned by the sign on his door) ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... financial minister to Louis XVI., and his daughter, Madame de Stael, were natives ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... Parliaments through all that century. I have before me a warm defence of torture,[114] written in 1780, by a learned member of Parliament, who also became a member of the Great Council; it was dedicated to the King, Louis XVI., and crowned with the flattering approval ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... ambitious woman who wished to rule her husband? Or, more undoubtedly, some pretty little Pompadour overcome by that Parisian infirmity so pleasantly described by M. de Maurepas in that quatrain which cost him his protracted disgrace and certainly contributed to the disasters of Louis XVI's reign: ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... of Ireland. Three times, during the century, Spain was represented at London by men of Irish birth, or Irish origin. The British merchant who found Alexander O'Reilly Governor of Cadiz, or the diplomatist who met him as Spanish ambassador, at the Court of Louis XVI., could hardly look with uninstructed eyes, upon the lot of his humblest namesake in Cavan. This family, indeed, produced a succession of eminent men, both in Spain and Austria. "It is strange," observed Napoleon to those around him, on his second ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... labyrinth is attached to Le Petit Trianon at Versailles. The palace and its gardens were formed under the reign of Louis XV., who was there when he was attacked by the contagious disease of which he died. Louis XVI. gave it to his queen, who took great delight in the spot, and had the gardens laid out in the English style. The chateau, or palace, is situated at one of the extremities of the park of the Grand Trianon, and forms ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... like a familiar face. She took a childlike pleasure in looking after them, in gently wiping off the dust which settled on their sides, and in carefully replacing them in their usual corners. She would hold silent conversations with them. She would smile at the fine Louis XVI. round-topped bureau, which was the only piece of old furniture she had. Every day she would feel the same joy in seeing it. She was always absorbed in going over her linen, and she would spend hours standing on a chair, with ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... in Languedoc in 1746, and we are told by his son that he had been Secretary, and by Madame Surville, advocate, of the Council under Louis XVI. Both these statements however appear to be incorrect, and may be considered to have been harmless fictions on the part of the old gentleman, as no record of his name can be found in the Royal Calendar, which was very carefully kept. Almanacs are awkward things, and his name is mentioned ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... In the mean time the war with the emperor commenced, and matters gradually got worse and worse. Alfieri witnessed the events of the terrible 10th of August, when the Tuileries was taken by the mob after a bloody conflict, and Louis XVI. virtually ceased to reign. Seeing the great danger to which they would be exposed if they remained longer in Paris, they determined on a hasty flight; and after procuring the necessary passports, started on the 18th of the same month. They had a narrow escape on passing the barriers. A mob ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... this, we find Louis XV. giving the Marquis de Marigny, her brother, an order for two hundred and thirty thousand francs, to assist him in paying the debts of the marchioness. (Journal of Louis XV., published at the trial of Louis XVI.) ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... of the American republic. The French people sympathized deeply with the English colonists in their struggle for independence. Many of the nobility, like Lafayette, offered to the patriots the service of their swords; and the popular feeling at length compelled Louis XVI to extend to them openly the aid of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... pursued France into the succeeding reign of Louis XVI., for in April, 1782, Rodney's great victory over Count de Grasse off Dominica transferred the Lesser Antilles ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... cause of slight convulsions, not daring to leave her little boy. The baron made a pretext of business and went out, thus avoiding the home breakfast. He escaped as prisoners escape, happy in being afoot, and free to go by the Pont Louis XVI. and the Champs Elysees to a cafe on the boulevard where he had liked to breakfast when he ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... many shrines, to our glory! But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been. Why did the Dutch in DeWitt's time have admirals of their whaling fleets? Why did Louis XVI. of France, at his own personal expense, fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why did Britain between the years and pay ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... imitation of painting was struck when the Gobelins set the task of becoming a portrait maker. (Plate facing page 133.) The work was done, it was bound to be, as royalty backed the demand. Portraits were woven of Louis XV (to be seen now at Versailles), and his queen, of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and others less well known. A better scheme for limiting the talent of the weaver could not have been suggested by his most ingenious enemy. He was a man of talent or his art had not reached so high, and as such ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... Lucerne, mortally pierced by the shaft, the wounded lion of Paris, striking under his forepaw the arrow meant for his destruction are symbols memorializing the Swiss guard of Louis XVI, and the unequal struggle of France ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... increase or diminish their importance at his will. Then, however great his discernment and however strong his desire to reach the truth, it is doubtful if he ever will. In history, as elsewhere, absolute truth escapes mankind. Louis XIV, Louis XV, Madame de Maintenon, Madame de Pompadour, Louis XVI, even Napoleon and Josephine, so near our own times, are already quasi-mythical characters. The Louis XIII of Marion de Lorme seemed until very lately to be accurate, but recent discoveries show us that he ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... then both at the outset of a new political era, sharply divided from that preceding. The amiable and decorous Louis XVI., with his lovely consort, had just ousted from Versailles the Du Barrys and the Maupeons. George III., a sovereign similar in youth and respectability of character, had a few years before in like manner improved the tone of the English court, and, after the first ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... government was formed on April 1; on the 3rd the French senate proclaimed the deposition of Napoleon, and on the 6th it published a constitution, and recalled the Bourbons in the person of Louis XVIII., the younger brother of Louis XVI. On the same day Napoleon signed an unconditional abdication at Fontainebleau. On the 11th a treaty was signed between Napoleon and the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, by which he renounced all claim to the crowns of France and Italy, and was assigned the Isle of Elba as an independent ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... to Tatua before his departure," said Louis XVI., looking rather awkward. "Approach, Tatua." And the gigantic Indian strode up, and stood undaunted before the first magistrate of the French nation: again the feeble monarch quailed before the terrible simplicity of the glance of the denizen of the ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Execution of three generations Familiarity with death in 1793 Sanson Public executioners The 'Chambre noire' Violation of correspondence Toleration of Ennui Prisoners of State M. and Madame de La Fayette Mirabeau and La Fayette Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette Evils of Democratic despotism Ignorance and indolence of 'La jeune France' Algeria a God-send Family life in France Moral effect of Primogeniture Descent of Title Shipwreck off Gatteville Ampere reads 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme' The modern Nouveau Riche ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the quivering nostrils of her almost thoroughbred chestnuts with her white-gloved hand, could easily imagine her in her pretty drawing-room standing beside a cabinet filled with Worcester and old Battersea china, for he knew Owen's taste and was certain the Louis XVI. marble clock would be well chosen, and he would have bet five-and-twenty-pounds that there were some Watteau and Gainsborough drawings on ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... of this century the University of Pennsylvania, which had played so great a part in the Revolution, and to which Louis XVI had, in 1786, made so generous a donation, was removed to its new home in the spacious buildings erected for the executive mansion. The Philadelphia Library, which had been Franklin's first scheme for public improvement, and which had been enriched by the generous ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... have no patience with me if I speak of the cost of the war; but I am obliged to ask its attention to this point. I recollect reading in the life of Necker, that an aristocratic lady came to him when he was Finance Minister of Louis XVI, and asked him to give her 1,000 crowns from the public treasury—not an unusual demand in those days. Necker refused to give the money. The lady started with astonishment—she had an eye to the ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... in the romantic atmosphere of the late Eighteenth century; the costumes should be Louis XVI. The stage-directions are sufficiently ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand
... wealth, culture, and breeding. They represented a pinchbeck imitation of that regime in France which was happily swept out of existence by the Revolution, and the destruction of which more than compensated for every drop of blood shed in those terrible days. Like the provincial 'grandes seigneurs' of Louis XVI's reign, they were gay, dissipated and turbulent; "accomplished" in the superficial acquirements that made the "gentleman" one hundred years ago, but are grotesquely out of place in this sensible, solid age, which demands that a man shall be of use, and not merely for ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Small room elegantly furnished in Louis XVI. style. In the background, a broad open door, with draperies, which leads into an antechamber. To the right, a piano, in front of which stands a large, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... wholly Louis XVI and First Empire. If I had begun my ramble there, I should have found much to admire. But I had been spoiled by the Louis XIII quarter nearer the sea. Travel impressions are largely dependent upon itinerary. I am often able to surprise a compatriot whose knowledge of Europe is limited to one ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... sacrifices them to his own safety without being in real need. To this class belong the crossing of bridges by retreating troops in which the cavalry stupidly ride down their own comrades in order to get through. Again, there are the well-known accidents, e. g., at the betrothal of Louis XVI., in which 1200 people were killed in the crush, the fires at the betrothal of Napoleon, in the Viennese Ringtheater in 1881, and the fire on the picnic-boat "General Slocum,'' in 1904. In each of these cases horrible scenes occurred, because of the senseless conduct ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... besides this are those of Augustus; Hadrian (now called the castle of St. Angelo) at Rome; Henri II., erected by Catherine de Medicis; St. Peter the martyr, in the church of St. Eustatius, by G. Balduccio; that to the memory of Louis XVI.; and the tomb of Napoleon in Les Invalides, Paris. The one erected by Queen Victoria to Prince ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... and Fox, and above all by Edmund Burke, who for some time had him as a guest at Beaconsfield, and drove him about in various parts of the country. He had not the slightest revolutionary purpose, either as regarded England or France. Towards Louis XVI. he felt only gratitude for the services he had rendered America, and towards George III. he felt no animosity whatever. His four months' sojourn in Paris had convinced him that there was approaching a reform of that country after the American model, except that the Crown ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... on their hill out of the bosom of the waves Mademoiselle Verbena and Mr. Greyne were—shall we say like sister and brother? She had told him all about her childhood in dear Paris, the death of her father the count, murmuring the name of Louis XVI., the poverty of her mother the countess, her own resolve to put aside all aristocratic prejudices and earn her own living. He, in return, had related his Eton days, his momentary bias towards the militia, his marriage—as an innocent youth—with Miss Eugenia Hannibal-Barker. ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... reaction set in toward a severer classicism, leading to the styles of Louis XVI. and of the Empire, to be treated of in ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... left bank of the Seine, he had always lived in the province—his own province of Dauphine. He had grown up in the old house at Saint-Laurent, where every nook and corner kept for him its own sweet memory of his childhood and youth. The great white drawing-room with its wainscotings of the time of Louis XVI., which opened out upon a flight of steps leading down into a terraced garden; the portraits of obscure ancestors: lawyers in powdered wigs and wearing the robes of the members of the Third estate, fat and rosy with double chins resting upon their broad cravats, amiable old ladies ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... on the intrinsic value of the manuscripts flowing down in a stream to the collectors.' The surviving brother bequeathed these State Papers to the Abbe de Thou (the fourth possessor of the 'Bibliotheca Thuana') who sold them to Charron de Menars; they were eventually purchased by Louis XVI., and were deposited in the Royal Library, where the printed books and certain other MSS. had been already received under a legacy from Jacques ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... said, "La force ne fonde rien, parce qu'elle ne resout rien." And when I was hoping to comprehend why "La force" did not "fonder" anything I would hear Mr. Hoffman whisper, "When you think that Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette passed the last evening they ever spent in Versailles in this theater!" "Really," I replied vaguely. My other neighbor remarked, "You know the 'Reds' are concentrating for a sortie to Versailles." "You don't say so!" I answered, dreadfully confused. There would ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... spread among the servants of the "Red Ox," that these people did not hesitate to say that they had conquered us, and that they were our masters; that King Louis XVIII. had always reigned since Louis XVII., son of Louis XVI.; that we were rebels, and that they had come ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... curiosity. As you will see by the card, it is a large figure of a lion carved out of the solid rock in the hillside. Thorwaldsen furnished the model. It was made to commemorate the bravery of the Swiss guards who fought in the service of Louis XVI at the outbreak of ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... than in Rue de la Ferronerie, all blocked with drays and carriages? to burn Jeanne d'Arc elsewhere than in the Vieux-Marche? to despatch the Duc de Guise elsewhere than in that chateau of Blois where his ambition roused a popular assemblage to frenzy? to behead Charles I and Louis XVI elsewhere than in those ill-omened localities whence Whitehall or the Tuileries may be seen, as if their scaffolds were appurtenances ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... mean-spirited and selfish to feel the beauty of this brave action; but when, fourteen years later, Louis XVI came to the throne, he decreed that a pension should be given to the family as long as a male representative remained to bear the name of D'Assas. Poor Louis XVI had not long the control of the treasure of France; but a century of changes, wars, and revolutions ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the days in which Wordsworth, then an under-graduate at Cambridge, spent a college vacation in tramping through France, landing at Calais on the eve of the very day (July 14, 1790) on which Louis XVI. signalized the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile by taking the oath of fidelity to the new Constitution. In the following year Wordsworth revisited France, where he spent thirteen months, forming an intimacy with the republican ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... LOUIS XVI, 1754-1793. A Louis who continued the traditions of his ancestors, but—. Married Marie Antoinette. Introduced the turkey trot and the salome dance at Versailles. While his subjects were starving he ate pate de foies gras. They objected ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous |
