United States or Botswana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The drums rolled, we marked step, and the roofs, the houses, the windows, the lanes, and the people seemed to glide past us. We crossed over the first bridge and the drawbridge. The drums ceased to beat and we went on toward Thionville. The other troops followed the same route, cavalry and infantry.
When the pioneers, drawn up, caught sight of Guise, "Come on, sir," they cried, "come and let us die before Thionville; we have been expecting you this long while." The siege lasted three weeks longer. Guise had with him two comrades of distinction, the Italian Peter Strozzi, and the Gascon Blaise do Montluc.
The division of which it was a part was sent beyond Montigny and it camped there as follows: The 9th Chasseurs and 4th Regiment of the Line, ahead of the Thionville railroad, the right on the Moselle, the left on the Pont-a-Mousson highway; the 10th Regiment of the Line, the right supported at the branch of the Thionville and Nancy lines, the left in the direction of Saint-Privat, in front of the Montigny repair shops of the Eastern Railroad lines.
The prince von Hohenlohe on his left, was to advance in the direction of Metz and Thionville, with the Hessians and a body of emigrants; while general Clairfayt, with the Austrians and another body of emigrants, was to overthrow Lafayette, stationed before Sedan and Mezieres, cross the Meuse, and march upon Paris by Rheims and Soissons.
He at last took the field; and, in the next summer, by keeping the Bavarian army employed in Suabia, prevented it from relieving Thionville, which was besieged by Conde. But the superiority of the enemy soon drove him back to Alsace, where he awaited a reinforcement.
Especially he despatched messengers well charged with promises, to confer with the authorities of the "Italian Republic" at Diest and Thionville.
Enemy troops were engaged successfully with machine guns, and bombs were dropped on a number of places behind the enemy lines," while the French report says: "During the evening of March 17 and the following night a French air squadron bombarded the factories and blast furnaces at Thionville and in the Briey Valley, as well as certain convoys of enemy troops which were marching in the region of Guiscard."
At Thionville he was, however, officially waited upon by Berlaymont and Noircarmes, on the part of the Regent. He at this point, moreover, began to receive deputations from various cities, bidding him a hollow and trembling welcome, and deprecating his displeasure for any thing in the past which might seem offensive.
After this deed of vengeance the king retired to Thionville to pass the winter there." But the vengeance did not put an end to the war. "Blood calls for blood," were words spoken in the English parliament, in 1643, by Sir Benjamin Rudyard, one of the best citizens of his country in her hour of revolution.
Thionville,* to whose gallant defence in 1792 France owed the retreat of the Prussians and the safety of Paris, was afterwards continually reproached with aristocracy; and when the inhabitants sent a deputation to solicit an indemnity for the damage the town had sustained during the bombardment a member of the Convention threatened them from the tribune with "indemnities a coup de baton!" that is, in our vernacular tongue, with a good thrashing.
Word Of The Day