Cosette

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Little, Brown, 1887 - 413 páginas
 

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Página 289 - Dieu est mon père , la bonne Vierge est ma mère , les trois apôtres sont mes frères, les trois vierges sont mes sœurs. La chemise où Dieu fut né, mon corps en est enveloppé; la croix Sainte-Marguerite à ma poitrine est écrite; madame la Vierge s'en va sur les champs, Dieu pleurant, rencontrit M.
Página 45 - ... throwing their riders. There was no means of escaping ; the entire column was one huge projectile. The force acquired to crush the English, crushed the French, and the inexorable ravine 'would not yield till it was filled up. Men and horses rolled into it pell-mell, crushing each other, and making one large charnel-house of the gulf, and when this grave was full of living men, the rest passed over them. Nearly one-third of the Dubois brigade rolled into this abyss. This commenced the loss of...
Página 44 - Emperor !" appeared above the crest. The whole of this cavalry debouched on the plateau, and it was like the commencement of an earthquake. All at once, terrible to relate, the head of the column of cuirassiers, facing the English left, reared with a fearful clamor. On reaching the culminating point of the crest, furious and eager to make their exterminating dash on the English squares and guns, the cuirassiers noticed between them and the English a trench, a grave. It was the hollow road of Ohain....
Página 76 - ... from the tomb, the vague clamor of the phantom battle. These shadows are grenadiers; these flashes are cuirassiers; this skeleton is Napoleon; this skeleton is Wellington; all this is non-existent, and yet still combats, and the ravines are stained purple, and the trees rustle, and there is fury even in the clouds and in the darkness, while all the stern heights, Mont St. Jean, Hougomont, Frischemont, Papelotte, and Plancenoit, seem confusedly crowned by hosts of specters exterminating one another.
Página 76 - French, fifty-six per cent; allies, thirtyone per cent — total for Waterloo, fortyone per cent, or out of one hundred and forty-four thousand fighting men, sixty thousand killed. The field of Waterloo has at the present day that calmness which belongs to the earth, and resembles all plains; but at night, a sort of visionary mist rises from it, and if any...
Página 9 - Willem brought them drink, and it was from this well he drew the water. . Many drank there for the last time, and this well, from which so many dead men drank, was destined to die too. After the action, the corpses were hastily interred ; death has a way of its own of harassing victory, and it causes pestilence to follow glory. Typhus is an annexe of triumph.
Página 15 - Driving in squares, pulverizing regiments, breaking lines, destroying and dispersing masses, all this must be done by striking, striking, striking, incessantly, and he confided the task to Artillery. It was a formidable method, and allied to genius, rendered this gloomy pugilist of war invincible for fifteen years. On June 18, 1815, he counted the more on his artillery, because he held the numerical superiority. "Wellington had only one hundred and fifty-nine guns, while Napoleon had two hundred...
Página 43 - Murat was missing, but Ney was there. It seemed as if this mass had become a monster, and had but one soul ; each squadron undulated, and swelled like the rings of a polype.
Página 57 - History has nothing more striking than this death-rattle breaking out into acclamations. The sky had been covered the whole day, but at this very moment, eight o'clock in the evening, the clouds parted in the horizon, and the sinister red glow of the setting sun was visible through the elms on the Nivelles road. It had been seen to rise at Austerlitz. Each battalion of the guard, for this denouement, was commanded by a general : Friaiit, Michel, Roguet, Harlot, Mallet, and Poret de Morvan were there.
Página 74 - Ryland's battalions, the fresh recruits who could hardly manage a musket, and yet held their ground against the old bands of Essling and Rivoli — all this is grand. Wellington was tenacious; that was his merit, and we do not deny it to him, but the lowest of his privates and his troopers was quite as solid as he, and the iron soldier is as good as the iron duke. For our part, all our glorification is offered to the English soldier, the English army, the English nation; and if there must be a trophy,...

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