United States or Central African Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
From Paris came orders to drive the English fleet out of the harbor of Leghorn, where, in spite of the treaty between Tuscany and France, there still were hostile arsenals and ships. It was done. Naples did not wait to see her territories invaded, but sued for mercy and was humbled, being forced to withdraw her navy from that of the coalition, and her cavalry from the Austrian army.
It belongs to the completeness of the 'Cortigiano' that his wit, his polished manners, and his poetry, must be clothed in this perfect dress. When style and language had once become the property of a living society, all the efforts of purists and archaists failed to secure their end. Tuscany itself was rich in writers and the first order, who ignored and ridiculed these endeavors.
But if their names thus permanently absorbed the image that I had formed of these towns, it was only by transforming that image, by subordinating its reappearance in me to their own special laws; and in consequence of this they made it more beautiful, but at the same time more different from anything that the towns of Normandy or Tuscany could in reality be, and, by increasing the arbitrary delights of my imagination, aggravated the disenchantment that was in store for me when I set out upon my travels.
Sometimes they were connected with one another by wooden bridges, and all were furnished with wooden balconies used in defensive and offensive warfare with their neighbors. Cities full of towers were common all over southern France and central Italy, but Tuscany had more than any other state, and those of Pisa were the most famous of all.
But about these Lochinvar did not disturb his head greatly. Instead he discovered a cook "I paid the fellow twenty-four Pauls a day" whose manner of roasting a turkey was most extraordinary. He cultivated the English doctor of the city and through him procured invitations to the balls given by the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
From that time, as has been already said, the disturbance in his mind was great. He could get no satisfaction one way or another. But to-night his uneasiness had taken a new and unexpected form. Should it so happen that Bice's identity with a certain poor baby, born in Tuscany seventeen years before, might some day be proved, what new cares, what new charge might it not place upon his shoulders?
He retired to the fertile fields of Tuscany to make negotiations with Honorius; and it was only on condition that he were appointed master-general of the armies of the emperor, with an annual subsidy of corn and money, and the free possession of the provinces of Dalmatia, Noricum, and Venetia, for the seat of his kingdom, that he would grant peace to the emperor, who had entrenched himself at Ravenna.
He was physician to two of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany and an academician of the celebrated Accademia della Crusca. Those works which I have been able to consult on the subject say nothing about his religion, but there can scarcely be any doubt that he was a Catholic.
The diamond tiaras that sparkle on those lovely brows are less dazzling than the lovely and soul-ravishing eyes that look out from that mental diamond, the soul within; the jewelled stars upon those manly breasts well become the noble bearing of the wearers. Brilliant indeed was the soiree of the rich and liberal Grand Duke of Tuscany.
His seizure of Leghorn, by cutting off the supplies from England, greatly distressed the opposite party in the island, and an expedition of Corsican exiles, which he now despatched from Tuscany, was successful in finally reconquering the country. To Napoleon this acquisition was due; nor were the Directory insensible to its value. He, meanwhile, had heavier business on his hands.
Word Of The Day