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Poitiers

noun
1.
The battle in 1356 in which the English under the Black Prince defeated the French.  Synonym: battle of Poitiers.



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"Poitiers" Quotes from Famous Books



... resistance to the incoming of the Arabs. All Spain, except in the far north in the mountains of the Asturias, was quickly reduced to the sway of the Arabs. They crossed the Pyrenees, and the broad territory of Gaul opened before them, awaiting their conquest. But on the plains between Tours and Poitiers they met Charles Martel with a strong army, who turned the tide of invasion back upon itself and set the limits of Mohammedan dominion ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... monastery in Gaul now supposed to have been double was that of S. Rhadagund at Poitiers about 566.[9] S. Rhadagund was married to King Clothair against her will, and their life together was a series of quarrels. She was so devoted to charitable work, we are told, that she often annoyed the King by keeping him waiting at meals, left him whenever possible and ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney

... town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Vienne, 19 m. N.N.E. of Poitiers on the Orleans railway between that town and Tours. Pop. (1906) 15,214. Chatellerault is situated on the right and eastern bank of the Vienne; it is connected with the suburb of Chateauneuf on the opposite side of the river by a stone bridge of the 16th and 17th centuries, guarded ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... THE BATTLE OF POITIERS (1356).-The terrible scourge of the "Black Death," [Footnotes: The Black Death was so called on account of the black spots which covered the body of the person attacked. It was a contagious fever, which, like the pestilence in the reign of Justinian, entered Europe from the East, and made ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... was said with such courtesy that nothing remained save to thank the speaker from whose serious mouth it issued, though he was a descendant of the conquerors of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt. It was the younger of the two travellers who acknowledged this politeness in that heedless and rather caustic manner which seemed ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... leadership; inspired by ideas, but always the same ideas; owning no master, but in servitude to her own custom of leading, she had a mind, formidable as the two-edged swords wielded by her ancestors the Fitz-Harolds, at Agincourt or Poitiers—a mind which had ever instinctively rejected that inner knowledge of herself or of the selves of others; produced by those foolish practices of introspection, contemplation, and understanding, so deleterious to authority. If Lord Valleys was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Poitiers and Cressy tell, When most their pride did swell, Under our swords they fell; No less our skill is Than when our grandsire great, Claiming the regal seat, By many a warlike feat Lopped ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... oftentimes spake to the king for his deliverance during the siege at Bretuel, but they could do nothing in that behalf. Then the cardinal of Perigord went to Tours, and there he heard how the French king hasted sore to find the Englishmen: then he rode to Poitiers, for he heard how both ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... called up; all the Princes returned to their posts and the Prince de Montpensier decided that his wife should come with him to Paris so as to be further from the area where it was expected that fighting would take place. The Huguenots besieged Poitiers. The Duc de Guise went there to organise the defence and, while there, enhanced his reputation by his conduct. The Duc d'Anjou suffered from some illness, and left the army either on account of the severity of this or because he wanted to return to the comfort and ...
— The Princess of Montpensier • Madame de La Fayette

... wealth and luxury of the citizen world of the Low Countries caused the proud and jealous nobility to treat them with the greater distance of manner. And, as Grisell afterwards learnt, this was Isabel de Souza, Countess of Poitiers, a Portuguese lady who had come over with her Infanta; and whose daughter produced Les Honneurs de la Cour, the most wonderful of all descriptions of the formalities of ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... obliged against his will to adhere to the rule of the Church and pronounce it so. They were cousins in the seventh degree, he said, because the King was descended from Eleanor's great-great-great-great-grandfather, William Towhead, Duke of Guienne, whose daughter, Adelaide of Poitiers, married Hugh Capet, King of France; and the seventh degree of consanguinity was still prohibited, and no dispensation had been given, nor ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... between the Seine and Garonne, corresponding with the provinces of Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, Poitiers, the Isle of France, and the Orleannois, was Keltic, has never been doubted. The evidence of Caesar is express; and there is neither objection nor cavil to set against it. There it is, where, at the present moment, the Keltic ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham

... it, is the monument of Louis de Breze, grand-son of the latter, who died in july 1531. The celebrated Diana of Poitiers caused this mausoleum to be raised to his memory. The body of the monument is supported by four columns of black marble, with capitals and bases of white alabaster. Between these columns is a coffin, on which the white marble statue ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet

... When I got to Poitiers, I wanted to push on to Vivonne; it was seven o'clock in the evening, and two girls endeavoured to dissuade ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... 1914, motoring north from Poitiers, we had lunched somewhere by the roadside under apple-trees on the edge of a field. Other fields stretched away on our right and left to a border of woodland and a village steeple. All around was noonday quiet, and the sober disciplined landscape which the traveller's ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... ministers equally and the patriots of England were corrupted by his bribes; when the dreaded fleets of Britain were to be seen in union with those of France, to break down the squadrons of an inconsiderable republic; when the descendants of the conquerors of Cressy, Poitiers, and Azincour stood side by side with the successors of the vanquished in those disastrous fields, to achieve the conquest of Flanders and Holland. Without doubt, so far as human foresight could go, Louvois ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... carried out. The party journeyed together to Poitiers, and there having seen his parents comfortably settled in a small house near the town, and remained with them a few days, Ronald with Malcolm returned to Paris, bearing with him his mother's ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... Poitiers, Gabrielle d'Estrees, and Madame de Maintenon, she died in April. The cure of the Madeleine was present during her last moments. As the old man was preparing to retire, after giving her the benediction, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... ayant passe a Poitiers, voulut y faire connoitre les memoires de son oncle, ainsi que les evenemens dans lesquels lui-meme avoit ete, ou acteur, ou temoin. Il intitula ce travail Histoire d'Orient, et en confia la publication a un autre ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt

... steel-clad chivalry of England swept grandly forth to the final shock. With loose rein and busy spur the two lines of horsemen galloped at the top of their speed straight and hard for each other. An instant later they met with a thunder-crash which was heard by the burghers on the wall of Poitiers, seven good ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... forwards, and succeeded, apparently without opposition, in crossing the broad river Loire. Alaric had taken up a strong position at the Campus Vogladensis (Vouille: dep. Vienne), about ten miles from Poitiers. Here he wished to remain on the defensive till the expected succours from Theodoric could arrive, but his soldiers, confident in their power to beat the Franks unassisted, began to revile their king's ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... Sundays and holidays I was hard at work studying, for I had only myself to look to." (Tall Cointet nodded approvingly.) "When we met again, David and I, he asked me what I had done with myself. I told him that after I had finished my time at Poitiers, I had risen to be Maitre Olivet's head-clerk, and that some time or other I hoped to make a bid for his berth. I know a good deal more of Lucien Chardon (de Rubempre he calls himself now), he was Mme. de Bargeton's lover, our great poet, David Sechard's brother-in-law, ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... as has been said, the secretary of Madame Dupin and her stepson Francueil. He occasionally went with them to Chenonceaux in Touraine, one of Henry the Second's castles built for Diana of Poitiers, and here he fared sumptuously every day. In Paris his means, as we know, were too strait. For the first two years he had a salary of nine hundred francs; then his employers raised it to as much as fifty louis. ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... of the First Book of the Iliad is a small quarto, adorned with daisies, fleurs de-lis, and the crowned M. It is in the Duc d'Aumale's collection at Chantilly. The books of Diane de Poitiers are more numerous and more famous. When first a widow she stamped her volumes with a laurel springing from a tomb, and the motto, "Sola vivit in illo." But when she consoled herself with Henri II. she suppressed the tomb, and made ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... and the army set out on the march in the direction of Poitiers, where Alaric happened at that time to be. "As a portion of the troops was crossing the territory of Tours," says Gregory, who was shortly afterward its bishop, "Clovis forbade, out of respect for St. Martin, anything to be ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... and dauphiness, because they both diverted and fatigued themselves according to the rules in such cases made and provided. He was always preaching to me and quoted against me the precedents of Diane de Poitiers, or Gabrielle d'Estrees. One day he told me that all the misfortunes of Mademoiselle de la Valliere occurred in consequence of her neglect of etiquette. He would have had all matters pass at court during ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... been talking of a chimneypiece which Maria Consuelo wished to have placed in the hall. The style of what she wanted suggested the sixteenth century, Henry Second of France, Diana of Poitiers and the durability of the affections. The transition from fireplaces to true love had been accomplished with comparative ease, the result of daily practice and experience. It is worth noting, for the benefit ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... modern Lire, his birthplace, on the left bank of the Loire, just opposite Ancenis. As you go along the Poitiers road to the bridge it stands up on your ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc

... MacGregor knew, and he sat down to bring up before him for the thousandth time a vision of the two faces that had played their part in his life—the face of the girl at home, as beautiful as a Diane de Poitiers, as soulless as a sphinx, who had offered herself to him in return for his name and millions, and of that other which he had met away up in the frozen barrens of Lac Bain. Beauty-proof! He laughed and loaded his pipe. MacGregor had made ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... third-class medal, 1892; silver medals at Antwerp and Barcelona, and gold medal in London. Born at Paris, 1860. Pupil of James Bertrand, Jules Lefebvre, and Bouguereau. Has exhibited regularly since 1875. Her picture of "Cinderella" is in the Museum of Poitiers; "At Church in Poitou" is in the Luxembourg. She has ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... man, who had settled more disputes than all the magistrates of Poitiers, though he was no judge. His plan was to wait till the litigants were thoroughly sick of their contention, and longed to end their disputes; then he would interpose, and his judgment could ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... but ancient Celtic bards had long before this used a bow instrument—the chrotta or crwth, derived from the lyre, which was introduced by the Romans in their colonizing expeditions. As early as 560 A. D., Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, wrote to the ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore

... out of Paris, and at Sainte Chapelle which is within the city itself. Fortunately the glass at St. Denis escaped the fury of the French revolutionists, as it might not have done had it not been at a little distance from Paris. There is also glass of much the same sort at Poitiers, Bourges, and Rheims. Amiens, too, has wonderful glass windows. I hope before we leave for home we shall have a peep at some ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett

... next scenes, in which the battle of Poitiers is so inadequately "staged to the show," I can only say that if any reader believes them to be the possible work of the same hand which set before all men's eyes for all time the field of Agincourt, he will ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... holy nun had been professed at the Carmel of Poitiers, and was sent from there to make the foundation at Lisieux in 1838. Her memory is held in benediction in both these convents; in the sight of God she constantly practised the most heroic virtue, and on December ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... to Saumur! That is an enterprise worth undertaking. It may be considered as the headquarters of the Blues in these parts. There is a considerable body of troops there. If we capture it, we shall give a rare fright to Poitiers, Tours, and the other towns, and cause a ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... to the Welsh on account of their vegetarian proclivities. We cannot, of course, be sure that the leek was worn as a badge in Cadwallader's time, but we have at any rate Shakespeare's authority for concluding that it was worn by the Welsh soldiers at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... French philosopher, was born at La Haye, in Touraine, midway between Tours and Poitiers, on the 31st of March 1596, and died at Stockholm on the 11th of February 1650. The house where he was born is still shown, and a mtairie about 3 m. off retains the name of Les Cartes. His family on both ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... inhabitants, the houses clustering close and high along the river banks; and on the beautiful April nights the nightingales are singing round the suburban villages of Strand, Holborn, and Charing. It is rich withal; for after the battle of Poitiers, Harry Picard, wine-merchant and Lord Mayor, entertained in the city four kings,—to wit, Edward, king of England, John, king of France, David, king of Scotland, and the king of Cyprus; and the last-named potentate, slightly heated with Harry's wine, engaged him ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... conflict between Gallic realism and broad humour and the love of refined language due to the study of the ancient classics. There are many anonymous pieces of this time, but three important Noelistes stand out by name: Lucas le Moigne, Cure of Saint Georges, Puy-la-Garde, near Poitiers; Jean Daniel, called "Maitre Mitou," a priest-organist at Nantes; and Nicholas Denisot of Le Mans, whose Noels appeared posthumously under the pseudonym ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... Philebert's, on the coast of Aquitain. The saint's brother Wala (one of the greatest men of that age, as appears from his curious life, published by Mabillon) he obliged to become a monk at Lerins. His sister Gondrada he confined in the monastery of the Holy Cross, at Poitiers; and left only his other sister Theodrada, who was a nun, at liberty in her convent at Soissons. This exile St. Adalard regarded as his gain, and in it his tranquillity and gladness of soul met with no interruptions. The emperor at length was made sensible of his innocence, and, after ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... religious monuments of France, whence, from the nature of the case, they cannot be removed, its most important illustrations are to be found at the Opera, at the Palace of Justice and of the Legion of Honor, at the museums of Marseilles and of Amiens, the Hotel de Ville of Poitiers, and in the numerous churches of Paris and throughout the country. The immense work which Baudry has executed for the foyer of the Opera is absent from the Exhibition, and this great painter, whom ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... was in favour of marching north and besieging Saumur, which would give them a free passage across the lower Loire to the north of France, as the possession of La Charite kept open for them a road to the west; but the majority of the leaders were in favour of besieging Poitiers, one of the richest and most important cities in France. Unfortunately their opinion prevailed, and they marched against Poitiers, of which the Count de Lude was the governor. Before they arrived there Henry, Duke of Guise, with his brother ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... and is an accomplice of Gilles himself. That eminent patriot performs,[363] for Tristan's benefit or ruin, one of his black masses, with a murdered child's blood for wine. Further diablerie opens a great tomb near Poitiers, where, seven hundred years earlier, in Charles Martel's victory, an ancestor of the Karnaks has been buried alive, with the Saracen Emir he had just slain, by the latter's followers; and where the two have beguiled the time by continuous ghostly fighting. The Saracen, when the tomb ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... devised to conquer Anjou, Auvergne, Gascony, and Poitou; yea, to overrun Lorraine and Burgundy, if the task did not prove beyond his power. Hoel did his lord's commandment, even as Arthur purposed. He conquered Berri, and afterwards Touraine, Auvergne, Poitou, and Gascony. Guitard, the King of Poitiers, was a valiant captain, having good knights in his service. To uphold his realm and his rights Guitard fought many a hard battle. The luck went this way and that. Sometimes he was the hunter, sometimes ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... dispelling from our proud foe the charm of naval invincibility. The American frigate Constitution captured the British Guerriere. The Wasp took the Frolic, being soon, however, forced to surrender with her prize to the Poitiers, a much larger vessel. The United States vanquished the Macedonian, and the Constitution the Java. One of the best fought actions of the war was that of McDonough on Lake Champlain, with his craft mostly gunboats or galleys. His victory restored to us the possession ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... three points because in three consecutive centuries, Gallo-Roman writers have left us a picture of their life and times. In the fourth century we have Ausonius, in the fifth Sidonius Apollinarius, in the sixth Gregory of Tours and Fortunatus, a stranger from Italy, who made his home in Poitiers. They show us Auvergne and the Bordelais in the evening light. The fourth, the fifth, and the sixth centuries—going, ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... of the law of March 1884, the scope of these Christian Corporations, not only at Val-des-Bois and at Reims, but all over France, has been considerably extended. Many of them have now the character of true guilds, as at Poitiers, for example, where there is a Corporation of the Builders under the invocation of St-Radegonda, another—Our Lady of the Keys—founded upon a syndicate of clothiers, and a third, of St.-Honore, founded upon a syndicate of provision-dealers. At Lille I found ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... the Restoration, a former emigre, and of Madame Alexandra-Anna de Montiers. This request was received by her father, who transmitted it to her, but she rejected the suitor and married June 18, 1833, Francois-Felix-Claude-Marie-Marguerite Labroue, Baron de Vareilles-Sommieres, of the diocese of Poitiers. ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... Bible The law of unity Working of these laws seen in the great rabbinical schools The law of allegorical interpretation Philo Judaeus Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria Occult significance of numbers Origen Hilary of Poitiers and Jerome Augustine Gregory the Great Vain attempts to check the flood of allegorical interpretations Bede.—Savonarola Methods of modern criticism for the first time employed by Lorenzo Valla Erasmus Influence of the Reformation on the belief in the infallibility ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... though this generation of the French might know it not, had bled at Calais and at Agincourt, had followed the court of France in clumsy coaches to Blois and Amboise, or lived in hovels under the castle walls. Others had charged after the Black Prince at Poitiers, and fought as serf or noble. in the war of the Roses; had been hatters or tailors in Cromwell's armies, or else had sacrificed lands and fortunes for Charles Stuart. These English had toiled, slow but resistless, over the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... glittering spectacle is the historian JEAN FROISSART. Born in 1338, at Valenciennes, of bourgeois parents, Froissart, at the age of twenty-two, a disappointed lover, a tonsured clerk, and already a poet, journeyed to London, with his manuscript on the battle of Poitiers as an offering to his countrywoman, Queen Philippa of Hainault. For nearly five years he was the ditteur of the Queen, a sharer in the life of the court, but attracted before all else to those "ancient knights and squires who had taken ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... station and on the greatest occasion; and, in truth, his conduct was marked by a chivalrous generosity and urbanity, such as had not embellished the annals of Europe since the Black Prince had stood behind the chair of King John at the supper on the field Poitiers. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Champagne, the vines of Burgundy, the lemons and oranges of Provence, etc. He shows us Catherine de' Medici, the elegant, cunning Florentine; her beautiful daughters, Elizabeth of Spain and Marguerite de Valois; Diana of Poitiers, the woman of eternal youth and beauty; Jeanne d'Albret, the mother of Henry IV.; Louise de Vaudemont; the Duchesse d'Etampes; Marie Touchet; and all their satellites,—as they ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... plate-clad horsemen. The sports of the lists had done much in days gone by to impress the minds of the people, but the plumed and unwieldy champion was no longer an object either of fear or of reverence to men whose fathers and brothers had shot into the press at Crecy or Poitiers, and seen the proudest chivalry in the world unable to make head against the weapons of disciplined peasants. Power had changed hands. The protector had become the protected, and the whole fabric of the feudal system was tottering to a fall. Hence the fierce mutterings of the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... warring with that, or all were leagued together against one Edward or another advancing with his archers from beyond the Tweed. The English armies fighting at Falkirk and Bannockburn and Halidon were straightway—they or their successors—in France fighting at Crecy and Poitiers and Agincourt. The wars between England and France were interminable; and so were the wars between France and other nations. There were civil wars and religious wars and wars of succession; seven-years wars and thirty-years wars and hundred-years wars. War was the regular ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... Conventionist of '92, a famous old fellow, who, among other terrible things laid at his door, is said to have pawned an old man's life, old Labodere, for his daughter's honor; somewhat, you remember, as Francis I. spared St. Valliar's life for the favor of the lovely Diana of Poitiers, his only child. His aged mother is yet living, a woman of strong mind, though seventy, and he does nothing without her advice. His brother Godefroi's name was notorious as that of a powerful Republican ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... many bitter regrets, our ancestors gave up the contest. Since that age no British government has ever seriously and steadily pursued the design of making great conquests on the Continent. The people, indeed, continued to cherish with pride the recollection of Cressy, of Poitiers, and of Agincourt. Even after the lapse of many years it was easy to fire their blood and to draw forth their subsidies by promising them an expedition for the conquest of France. But happily the energies of our country have ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... position, flanked on either side by woods, but with a front so narrow that the dense masses were drawn up thirty men deep, though strong for purposes of defence was ill suited for attack; and the French leaders, warned by the experience of Crecy and Poitiers, resolved to await the English advance. Henry on the other hand had no choice between attack and unconditional surrender. His troops were starving, and the way to Calais lay across the French army. But the king's courage rose with the peril. A knight in his train wished ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... of the reign of the third Edward of England is illuminated with such a blaze of glory, that the dazzled eye can with difficulty distinguish the dark background of its domestic life. Cressy and Poitiers carried the military fame of England throughout the world, and struck terror into her enemies; but at home dwelt turbulence, corruption, rapine, and misery. The barons quarrelled and fought among themselves. The clergy wallowed in a sty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... This common, national danger must be averted at all hazards. So thought Eudes when he sent to Charles. So thought Charles when he quickly summoned an army, and marched toward the plains between Poitiers and Tours, where the Arabs were quartered. The importance of the struggle that ensued cannot well be over-estimated. Christianity and Mohammedanism were at issue for the possession of Europe. The ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... of Poitiers, in which the king and his youngest son, Philippe le Hardi, were taken prisoners, the Dauphin Charles, Duc de Normandie, returned to Paris, took the title of lieutenant of the King of France, and convoked the estates, which assembled in October. The bourgeoisie, irritated at the ineptitude of ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... Paris they form one great continuous mass, the Straits of Dover being a trifling interruption, a mere valley with chalk cliffs on both sides. We then observe that the main body of the chalk which surrounds Paris stretches from Tours to near Poitiers (see Figure 273, in which the ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... of France, defeated at the battle of Poitiers by Edward the Black Prince, was brought captive to Windsor; and on the festival of Saint George in the following year; 1358, Edward outshone all his former splendid doings by a tournament which he gave in honour ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... and Diane de Poitiers almost floated in pearls, their dresses being literally covered with them. The wedding-robe of Anne of Cleves was a rich cloth-of-gold, thickly embroidered with great flowers of large Orient pearls. Poor Mary, Queen of Scots, had a wonderful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... Hocquincourt's army informed us that affairs were equally bad in Paris. Rendered desperate by hunger, the citizens were up in arms, and no one's life was safe for a day. By a stroke of good fortune the Queen-Mother had escaped from the city, and was now with the young King at Poitiers. Of Raoul I could learn nothing, but the Duke of Orleans was still see-sawing; now helping Conde, and again endeavouring to make terms with the King. In these circumstances I half expected to find my old comrade at Poitiers, where it was almost ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... sullied), and his troops advanced to the onset to the cry of "Malo." Both chiefs wore the ermines emblazoned on their armour and their standards; and relatives and friends were ranged in battle array against each other. Following the tactics which had been successful at Cressy and Poitiers, Chandos quietly awaited the impetuous attack of the Franco-Breton army, which was unable to shake their antagonists, who returned the charge. The melee was fearful, but the battle was in favour of the English. Charles performed prodigies of valour. In vain Rohan and Laval rallied round him with ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... tell you in a moment that he, as he lies up there aloft, with his head resting on his helmet, and his spurs on his feet, is but the first of a long line of English heroes—that the brave men who fought at Sobraon and Feroozeshah are the true descendants of those who fought at Cressy and Poitiers. ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... of the famous battles of Crecy and Poitiers, which were so much alike in all that made them remarkable that they are generally coupled together,—one always reminding us of the other. Yet there is one point they had in common which has not been especially remarked, but which ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... and its disappointments. Born at Vouziers, in Ardennes, on April 21, 1838, he passed with great distinction through the College de Bourbon and the Ecole Normale. Until he was twenty-five he filled minor positions at Toulon, Nevers, and Poitiers; and then, hopeless of further promotion, he abandoned educational work, returned to Paris, and devoted himself to letters. During 1863-64 he produced his "History of English Literature," a work which, on account ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... abbey churches of Cluny (demolished) and Vzelay, 1089-1100; circular church of Rieux-Mrinville, church of St. Savin in Auvergne, the churches of St. Paul at Issoire and Notre-Dame-du-Port at Clermont, St. Hilaire and Notre-Dame-la-Grande at Poitiers; also St. Sernin (Saturnin) at Toulouse, all at close of 11th and beginning of 12th century.—12th century: Domical churches of Aquitania and vicinity; Solignac and Fontvrault, 1120; St. Etienne (Prigueux), St. Avit-Snieur; Angoulme, Souillac, Broussac, etc., early 12th century; St. ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin

... truth of her mission to the most rigorous trial. He called together an assembly of theologians and doctors, who rigorously examined Joan, and pronounced in her favour. He referred the question to the parliament of Poitiers; and they, who met persuaded that she was an impostor, became convinced of her inspiration. She was mounted on a high-bred steed, furnished with a consecrated banner, and marched, escorted by a body of five thousand men, to the relief of ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... for nothing more; and, what is more, by an inconsequence which is by no means incomprehensible, he avoided everything that might have resulted in a more profitable position elsewhere, and evaded all proposals of further promotion. Twice, at Poitiers and Marseilles, he refused a post as assistant professor, not regarding the advantages sufficient to balance the expenses of ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... is running away, all that is left to run; for half of it is picked up by three or four hundred at a time. In short, we must step out of the high pantoufles that were made by those cunning shoemakers at Poitiers and Ramilies, and go clumping about perhaps in wooden ones. My Lady Hervey, who you know dotes upon every thing French, is charmed with the hopes of these new shoes, and has already bespoke herself a pair of pigeon wood. How did ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... peasants suffered, that he could not find one who, for love, or money, or the fear of death, would tell him what the French King was doing, or where he was. Thus it happened that he came upon the French King's forces, all of a sudden, near the town of Poitiers, and found that the whole neighbouring country was occupied by a vast French army. 'God help us!' said the Black Prince, 'we must ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... bevy of shepherdesses in their picturesque costumes, brightly colored and so varied. These shepherdesses, forming afterward into separate groups, each group the graceful rival of the next, wore the costumes of the different provinces and danced to music the respective dances there in usage: those of Poitiers to the music of the bagpipe, those of Provence to the kettle-drums, the Champenoises to the small hautboys, the violins and the tambourines, and ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... the reactionaries, that he at all times preferred "their abuse to their praise." This appeared to be violent and was clever; Cavaignac lost the Rue Taitbout, which represented the Socialists, and won the Rue de Poitiers, which ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... made an attempt to defend themselves against the Roman domination in concert with their neighbours on the Loire. Insurgent bands from the Andian, Carnutic, and other surrounding cantons assembled on the lower Loire and besieged in Lemonum (Poitiers) the prince of the Pictones who was friendly to the Romans. But here too a considerable Roman force soon appeared against them; the insurgents abandoned the siege, and retreated with the view of placing ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... genuinely loved the liberty of letters more than vulgar power), raised him to the abbacy of St. Stephen of Caen. From that time, his ascendancy over his haughty lord was absolute. The contemporary historian (William of Poitiers), says that "William respected him as a father, venerated him as a preceptor, and cherished him as a brother or son." He confided to him his own designs; and committed to him the entire superintendence of the ecclesiastical ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... VI. of France died, and his son John became king, while still the war went on. The Black Prince and John had a terrible battle at a place called Poitiers, and the English gained another victory. King John and one of his sons were made prisoners, but when they were brought to the tent where the Black Prince was to sup, he made them sit down at the ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Patzinakia, Hungaria, Bulgaria, Rakuvia (Ragusa?), Croatia, Slavonia, Russia, Alamannia (Germany), Saxony, Danemark, Kurland? Ireland? Norway (Norge?), Frisia, Scotia, Angleterre, Wales, Flanders, Hainault? Normandy, France, Poitiers, Anjou, Burgundy, Maurienne, Provence, Genoa, Pisa, Gascony, Aragon, and Navarra[198], and towards the west under the sway of the Mohammedans, Andalusia, Algarve, Africa and the land of the Arabs: and on the other side India, Zawilah, Abyssinia, Lybia, El-Yemen, Shinar, Esh-Sham ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela

... carried on at Niort and other places, and gloves are made at Niort. Wool and cotton spinning, hat and shoe making, distilling, brewing, flour-milling and oil-refining are also main industries. The department exports cattle and sheep to Paris and Poitiers; also cereals, oils, wines, vegetables ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various

... which brought out the brilliancy of her black hair and eyes. Her slender and well-defined outlines reminded an artist of the Venus of the Middle Ages rendered by Jean Goujon, the illustrious sculptor of Diane de Poitiers. ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... urgently complained to the government of the increasing number of Huguenot meetings. The Bishop of Poitiers complained that in certain parishes of his diocese there was not now a single Catholic. Low Poitou contained thirty Protestant churches, divided into twelve arrondissements, and each arrondissement contained about seven thousand members. The Procureur-General ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... left, after twenty campaigns, the army into which he had been enrolled against his will, a conscript of fifteen years old, to become a hermit, monk, and missionary. In the desert isle of Gallinaria, near Genoa, he lived on roots, to train himself for the monastic life; and then went north-west, to Poitiers, to found Liguge (said to be the most ancient monastery in France), to become Bishop of Tours, and to overthrow throughout his diocese, often at the risk of his life, the sacred oaks and Druid stones of the Gauls, and the temples and idols ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... gallery was nothing but a long terrace of brambles climbing up to the undestroyed arcades and falling down in disordered waving festoons to the level of the courtyard. From this second floor could be seen the roofs of the neighbouring houses, the whitewashed walls of the barracks in the Rue de Poitiers, and the tall plane trees of the Padovani mansion, with the rooks' nests, abandoned till the winter, swinging in their top branches. Below was the deserted court in full sunlight, with the little garden and tiny house of ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... an English captain, born in Essex; embracing the profession of arms, served with distinction at Crecy and Poitiers, and was in consequence knighted by Edward III.; afterwards fought as free-lance with his White Company in the wars of Italy, and finally in the service of Florence, where he spent his last days and died in 1393. For an account of his character, military ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... at least for fighting, in the fourteenth is down in the mire. Look at the truthful picture drawn by Clemangis. The nobles, so proudly arrayed in their new armour, fall all the more heavily at Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt. All who survive end by being prisoners in England. What a theme for ridicule! The citizens, the very peasants make merry and shrug their shoulders. This general absence of the lords gave, I fancy, no small encouragement to the Sabbath gatherings which had ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... this Tetefoulques, whither the defunct was so urgent I should carry his sword. I made inquiries, therefore, concerning it among the French chevaliers. They informed me that it was an old castle, situated about four leagues from Poitiers, in the midst of a forest. It had been built in old times, several centuries since, by Foulques Taillefer, (or Fulke Hackiron,) a redoubtable, hard-fighting Count of Angouleme, who gave it to an illegitimate son, afterward created Grand Seneschal of Poitou, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... its spirit and with its interest as well. "Religion," says Lactantius (Inst. Div. v. 19), "is to be defended by exhorting, not by slaying, not by severity, but by patience; not by crime, but by faith: ... nihil enim est tam voluntarium quam religio."[308] "Deus," says St. Hilary of Poitiers ("ad Constantium," Opp. i. p. 1221 C), "obsequio non eget necessario, non requirit coactam confessionem."[309] St. Athanasius and St. John Chrysostom protest in like manner against the intemperate ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Maine-et-Loire, 41 m. S.E. of Nantes on the Ouest-Etat railway between that town and Poitiers. Pop. (1906) 16,554. Cholet stands on an eminence on the right bank of the Moine, which is crossed by a bridge of the 15th century. A public garden occupies the site of the old castle; the public buildings and churches, the finest of which is Notre-Dame, are modern. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... tower, as charming as anything in Norman art, is known to have served as a fortress in 1105, which gives a valuable date. The pretty old Romanesque front of the little church at Ouistreham, with its portal that seems to come fresh from Poitiers and Moissac, can be taken in, while driving past; but we must on no account fail to make a serious pilgrimage to Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, where the church-tower and fleche are not only classed among the best in Normandy, but have ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... Henry fell in love with a woman of thirty-six, Diana de Poitiers, to whom his devotion never wavered until his death, when she was sixty. Notwithstanding her absolute ascendancy over her lover she meddled ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... Galswintha, to {75} the Frankish kings, Sigebert and Chilperich. His successor Leovigild established a sway over all the Wisigothic possessions and ruled from Nimes to Seville. The wedding of Brunichild, though sung by Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, was but the beginning of crime and of sorrows; yet it led indirectly to the conversion of Spain. Brunichild's daughter Ingunthis married Leovigild's son Hermenigild. She was bitterly persecuted as a Catholic when she came to Spain, ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton

... the Knight's Tale; but instead of using his imagination, as other romancers had always done, he drew a vivid picture of one of those gorgeous pageants of decaying chivalry with which London diverted the French king, who had been brought prisoner to the city after the victory of the Black Prince at Poitiers. So with his Tabard Inn, which is a real English inn, and with his Pilgrims, who are real pilgrims; and so with every other scene or character he described. His specialty was human nature, his strong point observation, his method essentially ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... well as certain individualities, exercise extraordinary fascination. The old capital of Rouergne, and later of the Comte of Rodez, is one. Many and many a French city I have visited of far greater architectural and historic importance; Poitiers among these—Troyes is another; yet I should never go out of my way to revisit Poitiers or Troyes, whilst certain other towns in France I visit regularly once a year. They are like old friends, and every visit makes them more precious. I determined to revisit Rodez during the following summer. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... of the French had their origin in the romantic and commanding deeds of Charlemagne and the battles against Saracens in 792. The fate of civilization trembled in the balance at Ville Daigne and at Poitiers. It is the lot of Christianity, it is the lot of the world, which is at stake. The innumerable murders, the torrents of blood, these thousands of deaths have had their sure effect upon history. The world has been Christian in place of being Arab. It appertains ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... after, leaving a child that was legally recognized by Genestas, who entrusted him, then a young man, to the care of Dr. Benassis. In December, 1829, Genestas was promoted to be a lieutenant-colonel in a regiment quartered at Poitiers. [The ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... me that he could forget her for an old woman? Stop, I know you are going to say that the Holda is as fascinating as Diana of Poitiers and has a trick of making boys, young enough to be her grandsons, fall madly in love with her. I know all that is said in her favor. No one knows who she is, where she came from, or her age. She's fifty if she's a day, and she makes up in the morning." Mrs. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... 'tis only the man is the fool or—the fooled!" she returned pointedly, and Caillette, despite his self-possession, flushed painfully. Since Diane de Poitiers had wedded her ancient lord, the poet had ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... pleasure, though the purpose of the orations leaves them little value as a record of facts or a candid expression of opinions. Under the influence of these nurseries of rhetoric a new Gallic school of Christian writers rose and flourished during the fourth century. Hilarius of Poitiers, the most eminent of the Gallic bishops of this period, wrote controversial and expository works in the florid involved style of the neo-Ciceronian orators, which had in their day a high reputation. As the first ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... (for he was almost naked when he landed from the Loire) he thought he could make the journey on foot. On the first day he felt only a slight pain, on the second it increased, and on the third, the fever seized him. He was then three leagues from Poitiers, near a very little village: exhausted with fatigue, and weakened by the fever, he resolved to go to the mayor, and ask him for a billet; this functionary was from home, but his wife said, that at all events, it would ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard

... impressive facts. The Hundred Years' War began in 1337. It raged on and on, year after year and year after year; and at last England stretched France prone with that fearful blow at Crecy. But she rose and struggled on, year after year, and at last again she went down under another devastating blow—Poitiers. She gathered her crippled strength once more, and the war raged on, and on, and still on, year after year, decade after decade. Children were born, grew up, married, died—the war raged on; their children in turn grew up, married, died—the war raged on; their children, growing, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... till, in 732, the torrent of invasion, headed by the Wali Abdurrahman, burst into the heart of the country; and the battle, decisive of the destinies of France, and perhaps of Europe, was fought between Tours and Poitiers, in October of that year, (Ramadhan, A.H. 114.) Few details are given by the Arab writers of the seven days' conflict, in which the ranks of the Moslems were shattered by the iron arm of Charles ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various



Words linked to "Poitiers" :   France, French Republic, pitched battle, Diane de Poitiers



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