United States or Vietnam ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Crying aloud, "Gentlemen, old Bach is here!" he rushed out to meet the king in a loftier domain than his own, and ushered him into the lordly company of powdered wigs and doublets, of fair dames shining with jewels, satins, and velvets, of courtiers glittering in all the colors of the rainbow. "Old Bach" presented a shabby figure amid all this splendor, but the king cared nothing for that.
I saw Bellincion Berti walking the streets in a leathern girdle fastened with bone; and his wife come from her looking-glass without a painted face. I saw the Nerlis and the Vecchios contented with the simplest doublets, and their good dames hard at work at their spindles. O happy they!
Austrian soldiers and Hungarian recruits, the former clad in brown jackets and blue hose, the latter in buff doublets and red trousers, and wearing feathers in their caps, marched and countermarched, apparently going nowhere in particular, but merely keeping up discipline by means of exercise.
All were equally well armed, each after his own fashion, the archers and musqueteers with their quilted tunics, and the shieldmen with their swords and poignards in their girdles; the shields are so large that there is no need for armour to protect the body, which is completely covered; the horses in full clothing, and the men with doublets, and weapons in their hands, and on their heads headpieces after the manner of their doublets, quilted with cotton.
Every one needed doublets and shoes, money and good lodgings. But in what way could these be most easily procured? By parleying and submitting on acceptable conditions, said some; by remaining free and capturing a city, roared others; first wealthy Mechlin, which could be speedily reached. There they could get what they wanted without money.
Nay, his coat looked so much richer than the doublets of all the rest, that the Emperor Charles, in whose honor the procession was given, remarked the painter, and so his deceit was found out.
Women and children mounted to roof and window, whence they hurled, not only tiles and chimney pots, but tables, ponderous chairs, and other bulky articles, upon the heads of the assailants, while such citizens as had used all their bullets, loaded their pieces with the silver buttons from their doublets, or twisted gold and silver coins with their teeth into ammunition.
Their gowns were every whit as costly as those of the ladies. Their girdles were of silks, of the colour of their doublets. Every one had a gallant sword by his side, the hilt and handle whereof were gilt, and the scabbard of velvet, of the colour of his breeches, with a chape of gold, and pure goldsmith's work. The dagger was of the same.
In this he represents pilgrims with their staves, Spanish soldiers in doublets, monks and nuns; there is even a statue of the Blessed Virgin suspended on a tree, and that at a time when there was no Christianity, no Saint James of Compostella, neither convents nor Spaniards." "That is indeed singular," said Deodati, smiling.
Agreeably to his death-bed directions, his old fellow-soldiers, in their leathern doublets and battered steel caps, bore him to his grave, firing over him the same rusty muskets which had swept down rank after rank of the men of Amalek at the Derry siege. Erelong the celebrated Derry fair was established, in imitation of those with which they had been familiar in Ireland.
Word Of The Day