United States or Azerbaijan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Sending off detached columns, who moved round, and unseen by the Dutch, who acted with as great carelessness as if their foes had been 500 miles away he took possession of the roads on the dykes leading not only to Fort Lille on the Scheldt, but to Bergen op Zoom, and fell suddenly upon the Dutch army on all sides.
There was a crisis in the affairs of the Directory and, as a sort of shelter from the stormy menace of popular disapproval, Delacroix consented to receive Malmesbury again and renew negotiations at Lille. As expected, the arrangement was a second theatrical fencing-bout from the beginning.
And near by are great foundries roaring like apocalyptic lions; high chimneys belch forth their clouds of smoke and flame, and we can hear the noise of metal striking against metal. "Where are we?" The voice of some joker or of a crazy person answers: "In a balloon!" "Where are we?" "At Lille!" We were not mistaken.
We were all in good humor, but there was not much ceremony. Our orders were that we were to move up nearer to the trenches and take up quarters at the City of Armentieres. Armentieres is about ten miles west of Lille, the famous fortress built by Vauban and besieged and taken at one time by the famous Duke of Marlborough. Previous to the war it was a great manufacturing centre.
Rupert wrote a few words of earnest thanks, and imitating the example set him, gave it unaddressed and unsigned to the lackey, with a handsome present to himself. On the way to Lille, the marquis told Rupert his plans for the withdrawal of Adele from court, and her concealment, should Louis insist on the marriage being pressed on.
He was cashiered by Pichegru, and dishonoured by Moreau, for his ferocity and plunder in Holland and Germany; but Bonaparte restored him to rank and confidence; and by a douceur of twelve hundred thousand livres properly applied and divided between some of the members of the Bonaparte family, he procured the place of a governor at Lille, and a commander-in-chief of the ci-devant Flanders.
The great army therefore again retired, and taking up its post between Brussels and Lille, completely interrupted the arrival of further convoys or stores to the British camp. The siege meantime had been pressed hotly.
"I wrote myself to Marshal Villeroi to ask tidings of you, and to know why you were not among the officers exchanged; and I was told that you had escaped from Lille, and had never been heard of since." "He never heard of me, sir, but his Majesty of France could have given you further news. But the story is too long for telling you now." "You must be anxious about your friends, Rupert.
They stated that they should be ready within a month to bring an army of 3,000 horse and 13,000 foot into the field for the relief of Ghent, besides their military operations against Zutphen; and that the enemy had recently been ignominiously defeated in his attack upon Fort Lille, and had lost 2,000 of his best soldiers.
As the sick men were being very slowly carried out, a party arrived, commanded by a drunken officer, and carrying buckets of coal-oil and other combustibles, which they scattered about the rooms. By this time the fires of the Versaillais gleamed through the trees in the Champs Élysées. The Rue Royale, near at hand, was in flames. Across the Seine, the Rue de Lille was burning.
Word Of The Day