Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
"Bossuet and Fénelon taught his children; Bourdaloue and Massillon adorned his chapel; La Chaise and Le Tellier directed his conscience; Boileau and Molière sharpened his wit; La Rochefoucauld cultivated his taste; La Fontaine wrote his epigrams; Racine chronicled his wars; De Turenne commanded his armies; Fouquet and Colbert arranged his finances; Molé and D'Aguesseau pronounced his judgments; Louvois laid out his campaigns; Vauban fortified his citadels; Riquet dug his canals; Mansard constructed his palaces; Poussin decorated his chambers; Le Brun painted his ceilings; Le Notre laid out his grounds; Girardon sculptured his fountains; Montespan arranged his fêtes; while La Vallière, La Fayette, and Sévigné all queens of beauty displayed their graces in the Salon de Venus."
"If it be so," said Riquet with the Tuft, "I am happy, since it is in your power to make me the most amiable of men." "How can that be?" said the Princess.
Having communicated his plan to Riquet, the latter submited it to Colbert, and, on its being approved by Lewis XIV, became contractor for all the works of that celebrated undertaking, which he did not live to see finished.
She had no sooner promised Riquet with the Tuft that she would marry him on that day twelvemonth than she found herself quite otherwise than she was before: she had an incredible faculty of speaking whatever she had in her mind in a polite, easy, and natural manner.
"I frankly confess," answered the Princess, "that I have not yet come to a decision in this matter, and I believe I never shall be able to arrive at such a one as you desire." "You astonish me, madam," said Riquet with the Tuft. "I can well believe it," said the Princess; "and surely if I had to do with a clown, or a man of no sense, I should find myself very much at a loss.
"Madam," said Riquet politely, though her speech was not exactly civil, "nothing shows intellect so much as the modesty of believing one does not possess it." "I don't know that; but I know I am a great fool, and it vexes me so, that I wish I was dead," cried the princess bitterly.
If those tolls were put under the management of commissioners, who had themselves no interest in them, they might be less attentive to the maintenance of the works which produced them. When that great work was finished, the most likely method, it was found, of keeping it in constant repair, was to make a present of the tolls to Riquet, the engineer who planned and conducted the work.
Satisfied on this point, Chupin, pushed his investigations farther. "And do you know this old gentleman who is with your mamma in the other room?" "Oh, yes! that's Mouchon." "And who's Mouchon?" "He's the gentleman who owns that beautiful garden at the corner of the Rue Riquet, where there are such splendid grapes. I'm going with him to get some." "Does he often come to see you?" "Every evening.
What a picture! Had Jasmin lived in the time of St. Vincent de Paul, the saint would have embraced him a thousand times, and rejoiced to see himself in one way surpassed; for in pleading for the poor, he also helped the rich by celebrating the great deeds of their ancestors, as he did at Beziers, Riquet, Albi, Lafeyrouse, and other places.
"For Prince Riquet with the Tuft," said the chief of them, "who is to be married to-morrow." The Princess, more surprised than ever, and recollecting all at once that it was now that day twelvemonth on which she had promised to marry the Prince Riquet with the Tuft, was ready to sink into the ground.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking