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I had purposely brought with me from Auch a couple of bottles of choice Armagnac; and these had been carried into the house with my saddle bags. I took one out now and opened it and carelessly offered a dram of the spirit to the landlord. He took it.
Antoine de Roquelaure, Seigneur de Roquelaure in Armagnac, de Guadoux, etc., marshal of France, grand-master of the King's wardrobe, knight of the Orders of St. Michael and the Holy Ghost, perpetual mayor of Bordeaux, etc., was the younger son of Geraud Roquelaure, and the representative of an illustrious house.
When news came of the capture of Verdun, of the indecent joy of the courtiers, and that the road to Paris was open to the avenging army of Prussians, the horrors of the Armagnac massacres were renewed during four September days at the prisons of Paris, while the revolutionary ministry and the Assembly averted their gaze and, to their everlasting shame, abdicated their powers.
At Montvalon- Tauriac, in the same department, under the castle are refuges and granaries. At Murat in Cantal is the castle of Anterroche, and the rocks about it are traversed with galleries leading to chambers containing silos. At Salles-la-Source in Aveyron, in a cleft of the plateau, is the castle of the Count of Armagnac, and here also there is the same provision.
M. Brun had a dark wedge of beard apparently affixed under his lower lip. M. Armagnac, by way of a change, had two beards; one sticking out from each corner of his emphatic chin. They were both young. They were both atheists, with a depressing fixity of outlook but great mobility of exposition. They were both pupils of the great Dr Hirsch, scientist, publicist and moralist.
With the peers of France, to take precedence of foreign princes, of Spanish grandees, of Venetian patricians; to see seated on the lower benches the Marshals of France, the Constable and the Admiral of France, were he even Comte de Toulouse and son of Louis XIV.; to draw a distinction between duchies in the male and female line; to maintain the proper distance between a simple comté, like Armagnac or Albret, and a comté pairie, like Evreux; to wear by right, at five-and-twenty, the blue ribbon of the Golden Fleece; to counterbalance the Duke de la Tremoille, the most ancient peer of the court, with the Duke Uzès, the most ancient peer of the Parliament; to claim as many pages and horses to their carriages as an elector; to be called monseigneur by the first President; to discuss whether the Duke de Maine dates his peerage as the Comte d'Eu, from 1458; to cross the grand chamber diagonally, or by the side such things were grave matters.
The news from Naples was disquieting; serious differences had already occurred between the Count of Armagnac and Gonzalva di Cordova, and Louis might any day need Florence, whom he had always found loyal and faithful.
The sulky magnates of the south-west, such as John of Armagnac and Gaston Phoebus of Foix, found their bitterness tempered by the prince's courtesy, while the boastful knights of Gascony looked forward to a career of honourable service under the descendant of their ancient dukes.
To put it shortly, in Joan's childhood France was under a mad king, Charles VI., and was torn to pieces by two factions, the party of Burgundy and the party of Armagnac. The English took advantage of these disputes, and overran the land.
The seneschalships of the several provinces were mainly in English hands. With English notions of the rights of the supreme power, the prince paid little attention to the franchises of either lord or prelate. He mortally offended John of Armagnac by requiring a direct oath of fealty from the Bishop of Rodez, who held all his lands of Armagnac as Count of Rouergue.
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