United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The good Regent paid the bet, and handed over to her squire the manor of Azay-le-Brule, of which the castle had long before been demolished by the first bombardiers who came from Touraine, as everyone knows. For this powdery miracle, but for the intervention of the king, the said engineers would have been condemned as heretics and abettors of Satan, by the ecclesiastical tribune of the chapter.
Ludovic appeared to take no notice, and continued to accompany the king as far as Piacenza, the last town in the state of Milan. Into it Charles entered with seventy-eight hundred horse, many Swiss foot, and many artillerymen and bombardiers. The Italian population regarded this army with an admiration tinged with timidity and anxiety.
Six battalions of land troops, with a detachment of matrosses and bombardiers, were embarked in thirty transports, under the conduct of lieutenant-general Sinclair; and the whole fleet set sail from Plymouth on the fourteenth day of September. On the twentieth the troops were landed in Quimperlay-bay, at the distance of ten miles from Port L'Orient.
I put it in my hold-all when, as was my duty, I went for my training with the artillery volunteers. I read in camp the essay on war, when bombardiers no longer claimed my attention, and the knightly words of sergeant instructors were taking a needed rest.
There he took into his service goldsmiths and gold-beaters, architects and bombardiers. He then returned to Holland, and, his ship being attacked by a violent tempest, he reassured those who trembled for his safety by the remark, "Did you ever hear of a czar of Russia who was drowned in the North Sea?"
It said also that "the same embassy being from thence to proceed to the court of Vienna, the Czar requested the king to help them on their journey." And finally it expressed the thanks of the Czar, for the "engineers and bombardiers" which the king had sent him during the past year, and who had been so useful to him in the siege of Azof.
Wentworth, desire one of your bombardiers to hoist the large French flag on the staff." The order was promptly obeyed. The Indians made a simultaneous movement expressive of their satisfaction; and in the course of a minute, the tall warrior, accompanied by nearly a dozen inferior chiefs, was seen slowly advancing across the common, towards the group of officers.
A little farther on we encountered four beautiful nine pounder fieldpieces, each lumbering along, drawn by half a dozen mules, and accompanied by three or four negroes, but with no escort whatsoever. "I say, quashie, where are the bombardiers, the artillerymen?" "Oh, massa, dem all gone to drink pruce." "What, more spruce! spruce nothing but spruce!" quoth I.
Next morning the squadron discovered the island of Martinique, which was the place of its destination. The chief fortification of Martinique was the citadel of Port-Royal, a regular fort, garrisoned by four companies, that did not exceed the number of one hundred and fifty men, thirty-six bombardiers, eighty Swiss, and fourteen officers.
On another day I shot at and wounded the Prince of Orange. Leaving the Campo Santo I made for the Castle of St. Angelo, just as the castellan was letting down the portcullis. When I found myself on the castle walls, the artillery was deserted by the bombardiers, and I took direction of the fire of the artillery and falcons, and killed a considerable number of the enemy.