United States or Mauritania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The column of the Place Vendôme is daily bombarded by indignant patriots, who demand that it should be razed to the ground, and the metal of which it is composed be melted down into cannon. The statue of Napoleon I., in the cocked hat and great-coat, which used to be on its summit, was removed a few years ago to a pedestal at the end of the Avenue de la Grande Armée.
The installation of the new establishment was a nine days' wonder in the quartier. It is a busy thoroughfare at its western end, is the avenue de la Grande Armée, crowded with bicyclists and with a multitude of creatures fearfully and wonderfully clad, who do incomprehensible things in connection with motor-carriages.
"Three cheers for the lirrel Tremendous! Ooray! ray! ray! We're alf our ship's company short. There's only old Ding-dong left on the quar'er-deck. I'm drunk as David's sow. And we're off to cur out the Grand Armee. Ooray! ray! ray!" and he fell hiccoughing away into foolish laughter. "Hadn't you better go below?" said a pure treble at his side. "You're beastly drunk."
It was from here that 2nd Corps took a different direction to that of the Grande Armée, which we did not see again until the following winter, at the crossing of the Beresina. It would require several volumes to describe the manoeuvres and the battles of that part of the army which followed the Emperor to Moscow. I shall therefore limit myself to describing the salient events as they occur.
All apparent attachment to royalism is now cautiously avoided, but the royalists do not diminish by persecution, and the industry with which they propagate their opinions is nearly a match for all the force armee of the republicans.
They went along the Avenue de la Grande Armée, crossed the bridge of Neuilly over the Seine, and bivouacked for the night in what is called the "Peninsula of Genevilliers." This peninsula is formed by a loop in the Seine. Maps of the environs of Paris must be plentiful in London, and a glance at one will make the topography of to-day's proceedings far clearer than any description.
He had undoubtedly been sent by the uncle across the seas to find Carlos and bring him out of Europe; there was-something romantic in that mission. He was now a dependent of the Riego family, but there were unfathomable depths in that tubby little man's past. That he had gone to Russia at the tail of the Grande Armée, one could not help believing.
"Ohne Armee kein Deutschland." She can permit no silly, no stupid, no excited majority to imperil her safety as a nation.
The Emperor left Witepsk on the 13th August, and moving further and further away from 2nd and 6th Corps, which he left at Polotsk under the command of Saint-Cyr, he went to Krasnoe, where a part of the Grande Armée faced the enemy. It was hoped that there would be a battle, but all that took place was a minor action against the Russian rear-guard, which was defeated and promptly withdrew.
On the worm-eaten table the Bulletins de la Grande Armee, reprinted by Plancher, lay open, and seemed to be the Colonel's reading; his countenance was calm and serene in the midst of this squalor. His visit to Derville seemed to have altered his features; the lawyer perceived in them traces of a happy feeling, a particular gleam set there by hope.
Word Of The Day