United States or Cabo Verde ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Coming from Viscount Turenne I thought that I was bound to make a good figure among the crowd of young nobles round Enghien, but it made a large hole in my savings." "Do you mean to say that you had savings?" one of the other officers exclaimed. "Who ever heard of such a thing? I never have a pistole left in my pocket a week after I get my month's pay."
I began to be smoked like a gammon of bacon; and being quite wearied out, both with their tobacco and their questions, I asked my companion if he would play for a single pistole at backgammon, while our men were supping; it was not without great ceremony that he consented, at the same time asking my pardon for his great freedom. "I won the game; I gave him his revenge, and won again.
p. 10, l. 17. England had been nominally at war with Spain since the beginning of the reign of Charles I. Peace was actually made in 1630. p. 12, l. 3. A pistole was a gold coin used chiefly in France and Spain. Its value varied but it was generally worth about fifteen or sixteen shillings. p. 14, l. 5.
Rupert Gascoigne, as the Englishman was called, was interrogated, searched, deprived of money, watch, penknife, and pencil-case; his description was noted down, and then he was asked whether he would go into the common prison, or pay for the accommodation of the pistole or private "side." For sixteen sous daily they gave him a room to himself, with a little iron cot, a chair, and a table.
Beside the ninepences and fourpence-ha'-pennies, there were bits and half-bits, pistareens, picayunes, and fips. Of gold pieces there were the johannes, or joe, the doubloon, the moidore, and pistole, with English and French guineas, carolins, ducats, and chequins.
It never exceeded four hundred Louis a quarter in gold, or sixteen hundred Louis a year, whatever the Louis might be worth. He gave them to her with his own hand, without adding or subtracting a pistole, and, at the most, made her but one present a year, and that he looked at twice before giving. It was said that they were married, and certain circumstances seemed to justify this rumour.
The use of fees to raise money without the consent of the voters was a source of bitter controversy between the governors and the people for many decades to come, a controversy which culminated in the celebrated case of the pistole fee which got Governor Dinwiddie into so much trouble.
The minister, all astonished that the Queen should have heard of Madame Panache, wrote word that she was a little and very old creature, with lips and eyes so disfigured that they were painful to look upon; a species of beggar who had obtained a footing at Court from being half-witted, who was now at the supper of the King, now at the dinner of Monseigneur, or at other places, where everybody amused themselves by tormenting her: She in turn abused the company at these parties, in order to cause diversion, but sometimes rated them very seriously and with strong words, which delighted still more those princes and princesses, who emptied into her pockets meat and ragouts, the sauces of which ran all down her petticoats: at these parties some gave her a pistole or a crown, and others a filip or a smack in the face, which put her in a fury, because with her bleared eyes not being able to see the end of her nose, she could not tell who had struck her; she was, in a word, the pastime of the Court!
Among our Farmer's papers I have found a list of the money that he took with him to Philadelphia on one occasion 6 joes, 67 half joes, 2 one-eighteenth joes, 3 doubloons, 1 pistole, 2 moidores, 1 half moidore, 2 double louis d'or, 3 single louis d'or, 80 guineas, 7 half guineas, besides silver and bank-notes.
But it seems to me there are some two thousand of them who cry 'Vive le Roi' for half a pistole, but would cry 'Vivent nous autres' for nothing. If the French land here they will turn against you at once. If the Parliament prevail they will submit, willy nilly. And your majesty may feel no ailment, yet have to be attended by the surgeon who cured your father."
Word Of The Day