United States or Kuwait ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
M. de Vendome had orders to leave Italy, and succeed to the command in Flanders, where the enemies had very promptly taken Ostend and Nieuport. Meanwhile, as I have promised to relate, in a continuous narrative, all our military operations of this year, let me say what passed in other directions. The siege of Barcelona made no progress.
"But Christopher Columbus," concluded the Catalan sadly, "discovered the Indies, thereby giving a death blow to the maritime riches of the Mediterranean. Besides, Aragon and Castile became united and their life and power were then concentrated in the center of the Peninsula, far from the sea." Had Barcelona been the capital of Spain, Catalunia would have preserved the Mediterranean domination.
Then, before leaving Spain, he was able to possess himself of the treasure of an old bigot at Barcelona, to whom he gave absolution, promising that he would make restitution of the money constituting her fortune, which his penitent had stolen by means of murder.
The people of Barcelona, at a very early period, form the only exception to this remark; they not only conducted their own trade, but partook largely in conducting the trade of other nations.
But they have been foiled in their hope of building a throne for him upon the ruin they had made, and placed an age where they flattered him he would find a diadem. The Prince de Conti told me at Barcelona that the Duchesse d'Orleans had assured him that, even had the Duc d'Orleans survived, he never could have attained, his object.
Take it all in all, it's better to be dead in Barcelona than alive in this accursed land of heretics!" "Come, come," replied the other, "life is life! 'A live dog is better than a dead king, says a proverb in my country." "And it is right, too," replied the Spaniard. "But ever since we came here our master's face looks as if imperial life didn't taste exactly like mulled wine, either."
For this curious relic of commercial history we are indebted to the fact that the mercantile company upon which the bill was drawn failed to pay it, whereupon the parties fell into a dispute about the matter of damages, and the magistrates of Bruges wrote to those of Barcelona, setting forth this bill with the facts of the case, and requesting information upon the usage respecting bills of exchange in their city.
Those whom he brought to Barcelona, were baptized in presence of the king and queen. After the Indians, were brought many curious objects which had come from the islands, such as stuffed birds and beasts and living paroquets, which perhaps spoke in the language of their own country, and rare plants, so different from those of Spain.
He knows that I cannot abide stars, having very good reason to hate them, as you shall hear: In 1807, being attached to the Bureau of Longitudes, I was part of the scientific expedition sent to Spain, under the direction of my friend and colleague, Jean-Baptiste Biot, to determine the arc of the terrestrial meridian from Barcelona to the Balearic isles.
Columbus was granted a very large gratuity on his arrival in Barcelona, and even taking the product of the islands at a tenth part of their value as estimated by him, he still had every right to suppose himself one of the richest men in Spain.
Word Of The Day