bois-sombres

Updated: June 8, 2025

'You have reason, Madame, I cried; 'there are indeed many ways in which Agnès does the work of the good God. The Bois-Sombres are poor, they have not a roof to shelter them save that of the old hotel in Semur, from whence they were sent forth like the rest of us. And she and her children owed all to Agnès.

Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant - A Beleaguered City : Being a Narrative of Certain Recent Events in the City of Semur, in the Department of the Haute Bourgogne. A Story of the Seen and the Unseen

I trust I can obey the logic of circumstances as well as another; but to yield is not easy, and to leave my hotel at Semur now the chief residence, alas! of the Bois-Sombres probably to the licence of a mob for one can never tell at what moment Republican institutions may break down and sink back into the chaos from which they arose was impossible.

Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant - A Beleaguered City : Being a Narrative of Certain Recent Events in the City of Semur, in the Department of the Haute Bourgogne. A Story of the Seen and the Unseen

I have no patience with the idle, with those who impose upon thee. It is possible that Bonne Maman was right but what then? 'Preserve the children and the sick, was the mission that had been given to me. My own room was made the hospital. Nor did this please Bonne Maman. She bid me if I did not stay in it myself to give it to the Bois-Sombres, to some who deserved it.

Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant - A Beleaguered City : Being a Narrative of Certain Recent Events in the City of Semur, in the Department of the Haute Bourgogne. A Story of the Seen and the Unseen