United States or France ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
After the battle he was given the command of the army by his brother, and was told to cover the retreat to Laon, which he reached on the 21st of June, with 18,000 infantry, 3000 cavalry and two batteries which he had rallied. Napoleon had intended to leave Jerome with the command of the army, but he eventually took him to Paris.
"It is the same with the Cathedral of Laon bare, ice-bound, dead past hope; while some are in an intermediate state, dying, but not yet cold: Reims, Rouen, Dijon, Tours, and Le Mans for instance; even in these there is some refreshment; and Bourges, with its five porches opening on a long perspective of aisles, and its vast deserted spaces; or Beauvais, a melancholy fragment, having no more than a head and arms flung out in despair like an appeal for ever ignored by Heaven, have still preserved some of the aroma of olden days.
The handsome eyes of Captain Thierry were raised to the violet eyes of Marie. They appraised her boldly and as boldly expressed their approval. In burlesque the young man exclaimed indignantly: "Paul deceived me!" he cried. "He told me he had married the most beautiful woman in Laon. He has married the most beautiful woman in France!" To Marie this was not impertinence, but gallantry.
In the day's fighting the British captured over 900 prisoners. During the night General Haig's troops made considerable progress northwest of St. Quentin and northeast of Hargicourt, where the Malakoff Farm was captured. By May 5, 1917, the French army was in sight of Laon, and had begun to shell the German positions on the steep hill on which the city stands.
Any instant the torturing may begin again, when the Boches have bombs to spare for what they call "target practice"; for think, how near is Laon! and we'd been warned that, even at the portals of the town, we might be turned back. We had still another new French officer to take us to Rheims.
The bishop and his chapter applied to the pope, Boniface VIII., who applied to the king, Philip the Handsome, to put an end to these scandalous disturbances. Philip the Handsome, in his turn, applied to the Parliament of Paris, which, after inquiry, "deprived the town of Laon of every right of commune and college, under whatsoever name."
Blücher and Bülow held the strong natural citadel of Laon; and all Napoleon's efforts on March the 9th and 10th failed to storm the southern approaches. Marmont fared no better on the east; and when, at nightfall, the weary French fell back, the Prussians resolved to try a night attack on Marmont's corps, which was far away from the main body.
The Gothic was seldom full blown, and at Laon shows but the merest trace of pointedness to the arches of the western façade, either in the portals or in the higher openings.
Swann used often to go and spend a few days at Laon, and, for all that it was many miles away, the distance was obviated by the absence of any intervening obstacle; when, on hot afternoons, I would see a breath of wind emerge from the farthest horizon, bowing the heads of the corn in distant fields, pouring like a flood over all that vast expanse, and finally settling down, warm and rustling, among the clover and sainfoin at my feet, that plain which was common to us both seemed then to draw us together, to unite us; I would imagine that the same breath had passed by her also, that there was some message from her in what it was whispering to me, without my being able to understand it, and I would catch and kiss it as it passed.
This is probably an adaptation of Viollet-le-Duc's estimate, which he expresses thus: "This west façade is the most splendid conception of the thirteenth century, Paris, like Laon, being really a transition example, Amiens representative of different epochs, Chartres a mere reunion of fragments, and Bourges and Rouen a mélange of three centuries."
Word Of The Day