France
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘France’
Nothing seemed likely to stop Napoleon Bonaparte from conquering Europe, but one little fellow slowed him up a bit.
The Battle of Castiglione in northern Italy, on August 5th, 1796, was a resounding victory for Napoleon Bonaparte over the Austrian Empire. The general, who at that time was still serving the French Republic, read Helen Maria Williams’s account of his Italian campaign and told her later ‘that he would answer for the truth of all that she had reported’ — including, presumably, this poignant little scene.
Guy de Maupassant reflects on the way that a statesman’s place in history has so often been defined not by deeds or character but by his one-liners.
Guy de Maupassant is looking back over the sayings of some of France’s most famous rulers. Some sayings were witty, some heroic, some fatuous; many, he admitted, probably spurious. But all fixed the speaker in the mind, even making up for a humiliating defeat or an oppressive reign. It shows that what every statesman chasing a place in history really needs is a glib one-liner.
From the grateful solitude of his library in the Dordogne, Michel de Montaigne reflects on the companionship of his cat.
In 1571, aged 38, busy lawyer and courtier Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) retired to the library of his residence in the Dordogne and began writing essays on a wide range of subjects. His solitude was dear to him and his wife Françoise and daughter Léonore let him have it; but he did not spend it entirely alone.
When Lord Cochrane went to a fancy dress ball in Valetta, his costume nearly got him killed.
In February 1801, Thomas Cochrane took HMS Speedy to Malta in search of supplies. Also on the island was a regiment of French Royalists, allies in the French Revolutionary Wars against the Government that had assassinated King Louis XVI; but allies or not, they found Lord Cochrane’s sense of humour a little too sans-culotte.
French economist Jean-Baptiste Say recalls a time when an ounce of prevention might have saved many pounds of cure.
Jean-Baptiste Say was a French businessman and economist, an authority on Adam Smith and champion of free markets who in 1804 resigned in protest from Napoleon’s dirigiste government. He told the following story to show that ‘economy is inconsistent with disorder’.
In April 1203, a royal prince and heir vanished from Rouen at just the right moment for King John.
Prince Arthur, Duke of Brittany, was a nephew of King Richard I who from an early age seemed destined to inherit the throne of England. When Richard died in 1199, however, Arthur was only twelve, and support from the French King, Philip II, served only to increase tensions with his uncle John.