United States or Sri Lanka ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Bastille stormed; the Swiss Guard slaughtered; the Reign of Terror, with its daily procession of tumbrels through the streets of Paris; the murder of that amiable and well-meaning gentleman who did his best to atone for the sins of his ancestors; the fearful months of waiting suffered by his Queen before she, too, went to her death.
"It was a victory it was a victory," said the people to one another.... But the wounded continued to come in, ambulance, cart, and wagon rolling like tumbrels over the stones. To many a mother was brought tidings of the death of her son, and many a wife must say, "I am widowed," and many children cried that night for their father. The heat was frightful.
The dramatist has only to bring on some ruffianly characters in Phrygian caps, who address each other as "Citizen" and "Citizeness," and at once the imagination of the audience will supply the roll of the tumbrels and the silhouette of the guillotine in the background.
The guides and a few light horse headed the column, followed by the vanguard, and the advance party under Gage. Then came St. Clair's working party, two fieldpieces, tumbrels, light horse, the general's guard, the convoy, and finally the rear guard.
The middle of the roadway was blocked by huge grey tumbrels, and from one end of the street to the other a sound of heavy breathing passed, betokening the presence of horses which the eye could not distinguish.
But, alas! he remembered nothing of a man who became so celebrated in his day except that he would eat after dinner any number of oranges, and was so fond of active exercise that he would take a pitchfork and fill his tumbrels with manure, or work just like a labourer on a farm.
In thus amusing themselves, however, they managed to break a couple of windows, and filled the drains with stones, so that Mother Chantemesse, who had lived in the house for three and forty years, narrowly escaped being turned out of it. Cadine and Marjolin then directed their attention to the vans and drays and tumbrels which were drawn up in the quiet street.
At intervals, also, one might imagine he heard a deep rumbling, as of heavy ordnance and its tumbrels over the pavements, accompanied by the measured tread of armed men and the clattering hoofs of cavalry horses. Then these sounds died away, and along the narrow streets of Paris again the night wind only swept, the bitter blast howled and the ominous whispering, as of spirits, rose and fell.
The unloading was still going on; heavy tumbrels, discharging their contents as though these were so many paving-stones, added more and more waves to the sea of greenery which was now beating against the opposite footways. And from the far end of the Rue du Pont Neuf fresh rows of carts were still and ever arriving. "What a fine sight it is!" exclaimed Claude in an ecstasy of enthusiasm.
But whenever I have a vision of prisoners bound on tumbrels that jolt slowly to the scaffold, of heads car- ried on pikes, of groups of heated citoyennes shaking their fists at closed coach-windows, I see in the back- ground the well-ordered features of the architecture of the period, the clear gray stone, the high pilasters, the arching lines of the entresol, the classic pediment, the slate-covered attic.
Word Of The Day