United States or Pakistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It seemed to me as if an oriflamme were burning on your head, and I believe if all nations and all men could behold you as I saw you just now, they would believe once more in the fables of pagan mythology, and feel satisfied that Jove the Thunderer had deigned to descend once more into our human world." Bonaparte smiled, and this smile lighted up his face, previously so stern and rigid.
The cases had not always been gained, but the fervour and poetry of the appeals to the rather muddled and startled agriculturists who formed the juries were remembered with admiration and as being worthy of Delisleville, and were commented upon in the Delisleville Oriflamme as the "fit echoings of an eloquence long known in our midst as the birthright of those bearing one of our proudest names, an eloquence spurred to its eagle flights by the warm, chivalric blood of a noble race."
A huge warrior in black, bearing a golden banner, appeared suddenly in a gap of the shredding ranks. He tossed his precious burden to a squire, who bore it away. Like a pack of hounds on the very haunch of a deer the English rushed yelling for the oriflamme. But the black warrior flung himself across their path. "Chargny! Chargny a la recousse!" he roared with a voice of thunder.
The gang applauded and Villon glowed with their applause. "His counsellors are rogues, Perdie! While men of honest mind are banned. To creak upon the Gallows Tree, Or squeal in prisons over-mann'd; We want a chief to bear the brand, And bid the damned Burgundians dance; God! Where the Oriflamme should stand If Villon were the King of France!" Mugs and cans clattered approval.
The temptation was too great for the English king, and in 1415 Henry V. met the French army, composed almost entirely of the Armagnacs, at Agincourt, and inflicted on it a defeat more disastrous than Crecy or Poitiers. The famous oriflamme of St. Denis passed from history in that fatal year of 1415. The Count of Armagnac hurried to Paris, seized the mad king and the dauphin, and held the capital.
At these words all present declared that "herein was the finger of God, and none dared to raise, in opposition to the king's saying, any objection." In June, 1248, Louis, after having received at St. Denis, together with the oriflamme, the scrip and staff of a pilgrim, took leave, at Corbeil or Cluny, of his mother, Queen Blanche, whom he left regent during his absence, with the fullest powers.
When she is one there, owned by your kindred, Monsieur le cousin may gnash his teeth as he will, he must make the best of it for the sake of the honour of his house, and you can safely come back and raise her people and yours to follow the Oriflamme when it takes the field against Spain. What! you are still discontented? Speak out! Plain speaking is a treat not often reserved for me.
The phantasmagoria overhead was shifting infinitely and rapidly; there were flashes that seemed to presage a thunderous roar of an explosion and were more bodeful because the hush aloft in the heavenly spaces remained unbroken; then the filaments and streamers of light made one mighty oriflamme across the skies, an expanse of woven hues, wavering and lashing as if a great wind were threshing across the main fabric and flinging its attendant bannerets.
That is what makes the French print so liked by our men. New York Life proves that, it seems to me. The American periodical is very popular in France, and the demand for it has now reached London. The chemise is not its oriflamme. It properly recognizes much else in life.
Ogier made no answer; but, leaving Charlemagne surrounded by a great many of the knights who had flown to his succor, he plunged into the thickest ranks of the enemy, and carried the Oriflamme, followed by a gallant train of youthful warriors, till the standard of Mahomet turned in retreat, and the Infidels sought safety in their intrenchments.
Word Of The Day