United States or Burundi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Vos erreurs sont-ils mechants? Non, vos tetes sont dures, Freres, j'avais aussi sur moi ce tas d'ordures, Des perles, des onyx, des saphirs, des rubis, Oui, j'avais sur moi, partout, sur mes habits, Sur mon ame; mais j'ai vide bien vite Chez les pauvres." The sacristan exhibited a tooth of St. Peter and skulls of the saints, but these are treasures we can look on without envy.

[Footnote A: Modern research has shown that forks were not so entirely unknown as was imagined when the above was written. In vol. xxvii. of the "Archaeologia," published by the Society of Antiquaries, is an engraving of a fork and spoon of the Anglo-Saxon era; they were found with fragments of ornaments in silver and brass, all of which had been deposited in a box, of which there were some decayed remains; together with about seventy pennies of sovereigns from Coenwolf, King of Mercia (A.D. 796), to Ethelstan (A.D. 878, 890). The inventories of royal and noble persons in the middle ages often name forks. They were made of precious materials, and sometimes adorned with jewels like those named in the inventory of the Duke of Normandy, in 1363, "une cuiller d'or et une fourchette, et aux deux fonts deux saphirs;" and in the inventory of Charles V. of France, in 1380, "une cuillier et une fourchette d'or, il y a ij balays et X perles." Their use seems to have been a luxurious appendage to the dessert, to lift fruit, or take sops from wine. Thus Piers Gaveston, the celebrated favourite of Edward III., is described to have had three silver forks to eat pears with; and the Duchess of Orleans, in 1390, had one fork of gold to take sops from wine (

J'ai des opales qui brulent toujours avec une flamme qui est tres froide, des opales qui attristent les esprits et ont peur des tenebres. J'ai des onyx semblables aux prunelles d'une morte. J'ai des selenites qui changent quand la lune change et deviennent pales quand elles voient le soleil. J'ai des saphirs grands comme des oeufs et bleus comme des fleurs bleues.

George was dressed in a rich Grecian habit of sky-coloured velvet embroidered with large silver stars: the top of his cap was encompassed with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, saphirs, amythists, and other precious stones of various colours, set in rows in the exact form of a rainbow: a light robe of crimson taffaty, fringed with silver, was fastened by a knot of jewels on his left shoulder, and crossed his back to the right side, where it was tucked into a belt of the finest oriental pearls, and thence hung down and trail'd a little on the ground: in fine, there was nothing that exceeded the magnificence and eloquence of his appearance, or was in any measure equal to it in the whole assembly, except that of the princess Louisa his sister.