"Intriguer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Conde blamed him for his duplicity. "If I catch him," said the Cardinal, "in the disguise you speak of—in his feathered hat, and cloak, and military boots—I will get a sight of him for your Highness;" and they roared at the idea of discovering the intriguer in so unfitting an apparel. But shortly afterwards in the wintry gloom of a January midnight (1650), disguised beyond the reach of detection, and guarded by a passport from the Cardinal himself, De Retz was admitted at midnight by a secret door into the Regent's room ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... his father would not have let him go), dressed him like a doll, gave him teachers of every kind, and placed him under the care of a French tutor—an ex-abbe, a pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau—a certain M. Courtin de Vaucelles an adroit and subtle intriguer—"the very fine fleur of the emigration," as she expressed herself; and she ended by marrying this fine fleur when she was almost seventy years old. She transferred all her property to his name, and soon afterwards, rouged, perfumed with amber a la Richelieu, surrounded by negro ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... to Godfrey and the Count of Toulouse, with the stipulation that, if the city were won, he, as the soul of the enterprise, should enjoy the dignity of Prince of Antioch. The other leaders hesitated: ambition and jealousy prompted them to refuse their aid in furthering the views of the intriguer. More mature consideration decided them to acquiesce, and seven hundred of the bravest knights were chosen for the expedition, the real object of which, for fear of spies, was kept a profound secret from the rest of ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... against my character and conduct, such as they may be; still, my sense of justice does revolt from this most cavalier and careless exhibition of me to a whole people, as a traveller under false pretences, and a disappointed intriguer. The better the acquaintance with America, the more defenceless and more inexcusable such conduct is. For, I solemnly declare (and appeal to any man but the writer of this paper, who has travelled in that country, for confirmation of my statement) that the source ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... well-artilleried", to revenge the honour of the English navy, and after a severe fight Bull and his vessels were captured by the Scots. There was thus considerable irritation on both sides, and while the veteran intriguer, the Duchess of Burgundy, attempted to obtain James's assistance for the pretender, Perkin Warbeck, the pseudo-Duke of York, Henry entered into a compact with Archibald, Earl of Angus, well-known to readers of Marmion. The treachery of Angus led, ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... she meets her lover frequently in public assemblies without ever arousing his suspicion of her double, or rather manifold identity. But at length she is unable to disguise the effects of her imprudence, her gallant ungallantly refuses to marry her, and the fair intriguer is packed off to a convent ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... during these troublous times was one Pierre du Calvet, an unscrupulous and able intriguer, whom he imprisoned on the strong suspicion of treasonable practices; but the evidence against Calvet at that time appears to have been inadequate, as he succeeded in obtaining damages against the governor-general ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... wondering. She had doubted before; she feared it might be the scheme of some base intriguer; but now her doubts vanished, and ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... Mexico. It was fortunately defeated, and the disappointed and ambitious politician narrowly escaped being convicted of high treason. He was saved only by the unaccountable intrigues of the Federalists at a time of intense party warfare. Jefferson would have punished this unscrupulous intriguer if he could; but Burr was defended by counsel of extraordinary ability,—chiefly Federalist lawyers, at the head of whom was Luther Martin of Maryland, probably the best lawyer in the country, notwithstanding his dissipated habits. Martin was one of those few drinking men whose ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... his breath rather sharply, almost in a hiss. "I am rather doubtful about that fellow. I'm afraid he's an intriguer." ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... of France without success, made violent love to Benjamin Constant, who was no friend of Napoleon's at the time. Her letters to him were passionate, and Napoleon told Gourgaud at St. Helena that she even threatened to kill her son if Benjamin would do what she wished him to. This fussy female intriguer suggested to Napoleon that if he would give her two million francs she would write anything he wished. She was immediately packed ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... it. He was, in fact, sinking more and more into an apathetic voluptuary; but he could rouse himself, and exhibit some proofs of ability, under the impulse of his brothers, the honest Duke of York and the arch-intriguer, the Duke ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... odium in which the character of Lord Lovat was universally held. His own deeds were, however, sufficient to ensure him universal hatred. The great source of surprise is, that this unscrupulous intriguer, this unprincipled member of society, seems, at times, during the course of his eventful life, to have met with friends, firm in their faith to him, and to have enjoyed, in that respect, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... the Italians, we know that Paesiello, who was a famous intriguer against his musical rivals, was a devoted husband whose wife was an invalid and who died soon after her death. Cherubini married Mademoiselle Cecile Turette, when he was thirty-five, and the marriage was not a success. He left a son and two daughters. Spontini, one of whose ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... places? My advices are bad. All the prelates are on their knees to him—with blessings on their lips and curses in their pockets. Archbishop of Paris is as bad as any. Berwick is at Biarritz—an inexhaustible intriguer; the only priest I fear. I hear from one who never misled me that the Polhes brigade has orders to be in readiness. The Mary-Anne societies are not strong enough for the situation—too local; he listens to ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... beforehand, and the real settling of the Jewish disposition of Jesus. Still the forms had to be gone through. So Jesus is sent with the decision of Annas in the thongs on His hands to Caiaphas, high priest that year by the grace of the old intriguer Annas, and by Roman appointment. The thing must be done up in proper shape. These folks are great sticklers for ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... parallel. Then as now he had been a comedian; and the part that he had played then was, when you came to think of it, akin to the part he was to play this evening. For what had he been at Rennes but a sort of Scaramouche—the little skirmisher, the astute intriguer, spattering the seed of trouble with a sly hand? The only difference lay in the fact that to-day he went forth under the name that properly described his type, whereas last week he had been disguised as a respectable ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... days, took it upon himself to place me under surveillance. People said M. Emanuel had been brought up amongst Jesuits. I should more readily have accredited this report had his manoeuvres been better masked. As it was, I doubted it. Never was a more undisguised schemer, a franker, looser intriguer. He would analyze his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and forthwith indulge in explanatory boasts of their skill. I know not whether I was more amused or provoked, by his stepping up to me one morning and whispering solemnly that ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... seriously. His intelligence charmed me, held me, and, later, as we travelled up to Quebec, I found my journey one long feast of interest. He was never dull, and his cynicism had an admirable grace and cordiality. A born intriguer, he still was above intrigue, justifying it on the basis that life was all sport. In logic a leveller, praising the moles, as he called them, the champion of the peasant, the apologist for the bourgeois—who always, he said, had civic virtues—he nevertheless held that what was was best, that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... played a part. The premier was one of the leading chiefs or "khans" of the Bakhtiyaris, and another chief was the self-styled Minister of War. These chieftains have always been a strange and changing mixture of mountain patriot and city intriguer—of loyal soldier and mercenary looter. The mercenary instincts, possibly aided by a sense of their own comparative helplessness against Russian Cossacks and artillery, led them to accept the stranger's gold and fair promises, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... "So there is to be one! Well, it's about time. The travellers of the other European firms have been going it lately in that quarter. Jacob, your mademoiselle also is a bit of an intriguer!" ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Royal Family of attempting to blow up their picturesque relative, under whose roof, by the way, Princess Helen of Serbia, his grand-daughter, happened to be staying. The bombs were carried in an ordinary portmanteau to Kotor, where they were discovered. Those who believed that Nikita, the arch-intriguer, was using this method for discrediting the Karageorgevi['c] dynasty, can point to the fact that he never wanted a public trial, and it seems probable that Nikita—who was aware that a group of his young, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... "So," muses the veteran intriguer Hardin, as he selects a regalia, "my lady is wary, cautious, and blameless. Danger signals these. I must watch this Villa Rocca. Is he a 'cavalier servente'? Can he mean mischief? She would not marry him, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... whom Friedrich Wilhelm so loves, is by no means a beautiful man; far the reverse. Bodily,—and the spirit corresponds,—a stiff-backed, petrified, stony, inscrutable-looking, and most unbeautiful old Intriguer. Portraits of him, which are frequent, tell all one story. The brow puckered together, in a wide web of wrinkles from each temple, as if it meant to hide the bad pair of eyes, which look suspicion; inquiry, apprehension, habit ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... influence of an inferior servant of his house, Peter de la Brosse, who had been surgeon and barber first of all to St. Louis and then to Philip III., who made him, before long, his chancellor and familiar counsellor. Being, though a skilful and active intriguer, entirely concerned with his own personal fortunes and those of his family, this barber-mushroom was soon a mark for the jealousy and the attacks of the great lords of the court. And he joined issue with them, and even with the young queen, Maria of Brabant, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... through a different branch. On public grounds, his claim stood, perhaps, on a footing equally good with that of Oubacha, whilst his personal qualities, even in those aspects which seemed to a philosophical observer most odious and repulsive, promised the most effectual aid to the dark purposes of an intriguer or a conspirator, and were generally fitted to win a popular support precisely in those points where Oubacha was most defective. He was much superior in external appearance to his rival on the throne, and so far better qualified to win the good opinion of a semi-barbarous people; ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... he's no intriguer against my lass, that I am bound to say. 'T was only this morning, the moment he had news of Hennion's death, he came to me like a man, to ask permission to ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Throne, into the iconoclastic propagator of the worship of a single God, and the destroyer of the mass of idolatry stored in the hearts and venerated in the temples of the Chinese people for countless ages. Whether Hung was merely an intriguer or a fanatic, he could not help feeling some gratitude to those who so conveniently echoed his pretensions to the Throne at the same time that they pleaded extenuating circumstances for acts of cruelty and brigandage ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Steerforth, the inimitable Micawber, Betsy Trotwood; Agnes, the lovely and lovable; Mr. Dick, with such noble method in his madness; Dora, the child-wife; the simple Traddles, and Uriah Heep, the 'umble intriguer ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... to know that such a development might possibly come to pass, she had not sufficient insight into actual conditions to know that the possibility was as remote as that of armed resistance. And the role which she saw herself playing was that of a deft and courtly political intriguer, rallying the British element and making herself agreeable to the German element, a political inspiration to the one and a social distraction to the other. At the back of her mind there lurked an honest confession that she ...
— When William Came • Saki
... quite willing to do so, and in fact intended to marry his cousin. Nothing could be more inopportune, nothing more contrary to the welfare of the distracted country! From the time that the notorious "Spanish marriages" had become facts, the Duke of Montpensier had been an intriguer. The birth of heirs to the throne of Spain (it is useless to go back to those long-past scandals) had completely upset the machinations of Louis Philippe and his Ministers. So long as Don Francisco ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... disgraceful affair. The queen was greatly cast down by the result. "Condole with me," she said, in a broken voice, to Madame Campan; "the intriguer who wanted to ruin me, or procure money by using my name and forging my signature, has just been fully acquitted." But it was due, she declared, to bribery on the part of some and to political passion on that of others, with an audacity ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... President's policy. His resignation thus became more necessary than ever, and Mr. Lansing, hitherto head of the State Department of Justice, replaced him. American opinion, however, laid the chief blame for what had occurred on Dr. Dumba, who was henceforward regarded as a dangerous intriguer. ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... or the Begam Sahib, was the elder daughter of Shahjahan, a very able intriguer, the partisan of Dara Shikoh and the opponent of Aurangzeb during the struggle for the throne. She was closely confined in Agra till her father's death in 1666. After that event she was removed to Delhi, where she died in 1682. (Tavernier, Travels, transl. Ball, vol. i, p. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the pope, to whom they were devoted, still led to the most detestable and resistless spiritual despotism ever exercised by man. The Jesuit, especially when obscure and humble, was a tool, rather than an intriguer. He was bound hand and foot by the orders of his superiors, and they alone ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... receiver click. He held the wire, reasoning out the method of the intriguer. Soon there was a buzz in his ear, and Warren's voice came to him. It was droll, this reversal of the original method, which had been ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... intrigue is certainly well calculated to effect the all-desired short duration of an important action. For the intriguer is ever expeditious, and loses no time in attaining to his object. But the mighty course of human destinies proceeds, like the change of seasons, with measured pace: great designs ripen slowly; stealthily and hesitatingly the dark suggestions of deadly malice quit the abysses ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... "Regnier," continues the Report, "is a sharp, audacious fellow; his manners are vulgar—vain to excess he considers himself a profound politician. Was he induced to throw himself into the midst of events by one of the monomanias which are engendered by periods of storm and revolution? Was he simply an intriguer, plying his trade? It is difficult to tell. But however that may be, the established fact is that we find him in England in September 1870 besieging with his projects the entourage ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... 14, 1885, she succeeded in giving him slow poison, which led him to his death amidst long-drawn agonies eight days later. This ought to have been the death of Mahdism as well, but superstitions die hard in that land of fanatics. The Mahdi's factotum, an able intriguer named Abdullah Taashi, had previously gained from his master a written declaration that he was to be Khalifa after him; he now produced this document, and fortified its influence by describing in great detail a vision in which the ghost of the Mahdi ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... execution he has been entirely successful. We cannot but surmise that he has met sometime and somewhere a living man with some of the characteristic traits of Father Terence. Father Ignatius, the conventional type of the dark, wily, and dangerous ecclesiastical intriguer, is an easier subject, but not so well done. He is a little too melodramatic; and we apply with peculiar force to him a criticism to which all the characters are more or less obnoxious, that he is too constantly and uniformly manifesting the peculiar ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... should not elapse without the arrest of this "ruler of Klosterheim by night." He had a scheme for the purpose, a plot baited for snaring him; and he pledged his reputation as a minister and an intriguer upon ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... few exceptions, the army leaders, from the commander in chief down to the regimental commanders, stood arrayed on the side of the Duma. So clever an intriguer as Protopopoff ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... might have been there; but I muflled me so, He could scarcely have seen my figure.— But why to your sister thus dark do you grow? What words to yourselves do you mutter thus low, Of "blood" and "an intriguer"? Oh! ye cannot of murder bring down the red guilt On your souls, my brothers, surely! Though I fear—from the hands that are chafing the hilt, And ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... overpowering that he showed none of the lesser symptoms of agitation or embarrassment. In this revelation of a secret, that he now instinctively felt was bound up with his own future happiness, he exhibited none of the signs of a discovered intriguer or unmasked Lothario. He said quietly and coldly: "I am afraid I have not the pleasure of knowing the young lady, and certainly have never before addressed her." Yet he scarcely heard his companion's voice, and answered mechanically, seeing only before him ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... sustained vigour in action. The party as a whole were probably as corrupt as their rivals, and less astute—"an evil and foolish company," as Dante afterwards called them by the mouth of Cacciaguida. Corso Donati, on the other hand, was a bold and reckless intriguer. He followed up the conspiracy of the Santa Trinita by hastening to the Papal Court, and inducing Boniface to send at once for Charles of Valois, brother of the French king, Philip the Fair. Charles obeyed the summons ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... to Chloe of the proposed trip to Snare Lake, and bitterly he regretted the enforced delay incident to outfitting the trappers. And always, with the skill and finesse of the born intriguer, by a smile, a suggestion, or an adroitly worded question, he managed to foster and to intensify ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... remove that childish travesty with which you are trying to impose on justice. We know all about you. Your name is Devereux Bayne. You are a German agent and intriguer; you have smuggled papers; you have murdered a man and concealed his body. Unless you can give a satisfactory explanation of all your actions since leaving New York, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... brains out. The humour lies in Estifania's having ordered the Old Woman to tell these tales of her; for though an intriguer, she is not represented as other than chaste; and as to the metre, it ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... the Kutb from Humayun's tomb (page 207) the Dargah of the great Chisti saint and political intriguer, Nizam ud din Aulia, is passed on the left. He died in 1324 A.D. Just at the point where the cross road meets the Gurgaon road is the tomb of Safdar Jang, the second of the Nawab Wazirs of Oudh. He died after the middle of the eighteenth ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... artillery command had been commuted to a corresponding rank in the infantry—a step that deeply incensed him. He attributed it to malevolent intriguers; but all his efforts to obtain redress were in vain. Lacking money and patronage, known only as an able officer and facile intriguer of the bankrupt Jacobinical party, he might well have despaired. He was now almost alone. Marmont had gone off to the Army of the Rhine; but Junot was still with him, allured perhaps by Madame Permon's daughter, whom he subsequently ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Rolph been capable of managing a rebellious movement. The Lieutenant-Governor allowed all the troops to go to Lower Canada, and the capital was entirely at the mercy of the rebels, had they acted with any spirit or energy. Dr. Rolph, a clever intriguer—who was to be the president of the new republic—was playing a fast and loose game, and temporised until the loyal forces from Hamilton were able to advance to the assistance of Head. Had the rebels, who were concentrating at Montgomery's tavern on Yonge Street, marched immediately on ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... what you have yourself occasionally told me, that your father had money on the baron's estate. But when I was abroad, I heard that a great danger threatened the baron, and I was even authorized to warn him against an intriguer." Bernhard watched Anton's lips in agony. Anton shook his head. "And yet," said he, "it was one who is no stranger in your house. It was ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... entered Gowrie House early, and scantly attended, he might have been conveyed across Fife, disguised, in the train of Gowrie as he went to Dirleton. Thence he might be conveyed by sea to Fastcastle, the impregnable eyrie of Gowrie's and Bothwell's old ally, the reckless intriguer, Logan of Restalrig. The famous letters which Scott, Tytler, and Hill Burton regarded as proof of that plot, I have shown, by comparison of handwritings, to be all forged; but one of them, claimed by the forger as his model for the rest, is, I ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... that ugly entanglement before the Renaissance, from which, alas, most memories of the Middle Ages are derived. Louis XI was a very patient and practical man of the world; but (like many good business men) he was mad. The morbidity of the intriguer and the torturer clung about everything he did, even when it was right. And just as the great Empire of Antoninus and Aurelius never wiped out Nero, so even the silver splendour of the latter saints, such as Vincent de Paul, ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... between you and me, by representing me as still engaged in the bustle of politics & in turbulence & intrigue against the government. I never believed for a moment that this could make any impression on you, or that your knowledge of me would not overweigh the slander of an intriguer dirtily employed in sifting the conversations of my ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... the young captain of the Cadets a Cheval. Among the Wirtemberg courtiers were seated various members of the Prussian suite: Grumbkow, the powerful favourite; General Doenhoff; and the Austrian Ambassador at Berlin, Count Seckendorff, who always followed Friedrich Wilhelm I., a spy and intriguer ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... The third intriguer was General Charles Lee, who, like Gates, was an Englishman, and had served under General Braddock, being in the disaster of Fort Duquesne. When the Revolution broke out, he took sides with the Americans, and being a ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... "is an intriguer of the old school. I know that in Vienna he has more than once made use of more violent means than he would dare to do here. And there is an underneath machinery very seldom used, I believe, and of which none of us who are ordinary members know anything ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... first been abandoned by the French under Lauzan, as utterly indefensible. That gay intriguer desired nothing so much as to follow the King to Prance, while Tyrconnell, broken down with physical suffering and mental anxiety, feebly concurred in his opinion. They accordingly departed for Galway, leaving the city to its fate, and, happily for the national ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... felt thankful that the message had not fallen into the hands of the zemindar, else had the intriguer's identity been quickly determined and his fate ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... See vol. v. 93: 152. He was of pure Abbaside blood on the father's side and his mother Zubaydah's. But he was unhappy in his Wazir Al-Fazl bin Rabi, the intriguer against the Barmecides, who estranged him from his brothers Al-Kasim and Al-Maamun. At last he was slain by a party of Persians, "who struck him with their swords and cut him through the nape of his neck and went with his head to Tahir bin al-Husayn, general to Al-Maamun, who set it upon a garden-wall ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... this passion one million francs, with imprisonment, shame, and ridicule. For this passion for the queen had blinded the cardinal, and made him believe in the possibility of a return. In his blindness he had placed confidence in the whisperings and false promises of the insidious intriguer Madame de la Motte-Valois, who, in the queen's name, asked from him a loan of a million for the purchase of a jewelled ornament which highly pleased the queen, and which she, notwithstanding her exhausted coffers, was ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... in her attack on the ordinary marriage system of France she struck directly at the fashionable immorality which is its direct result, and which she saw, both in life and in literature, pass free of censure. It is the selfish intriguer who meets with least mercy in her pages, and who is there held up, not only to dislike, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... internal resources of the nation, improve facilities for transportation and travel, protect and encourage the industry of the country, and in every department promote the permanent prosperity and welfare of the people—it was allowed to be nothing more than the arts of an intriguer, seeking a re-election to the Presidency. Yea, it was declared in advance, that, "if his administration should be as pure as the angels in heaven," it should be overthrown. Did he exhibit the plain simplicity of a true republican in his dress and manners, and economy ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... Clarendon. Their anger and disappointment were revealed in the letters from English Jesuits which were afterwards to play so fatal a part in begetting a belief in the plot, and in the correspondence of Coleman. Coleman was secretary of the Duchess of York and a busy intriguer, who had gained sufficient knowledge of the real plans of the king and of his brother to warrant him in begging money from Lewis for the work of saving Catholic interests from Danby's hostility by intrigues ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... to be accused; I read the letter from F. Blair to his brother. It is the letter of a patriot, but not of an intriguer. Fremont establishes an absurd rule concerning the breach of military discipline, and shows by it his ignorance and narrow-mindedness. So Fremont, and other bungling martinets, assert that nobody has the right to criticise the ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... individual, are separated one from the other by differences more or less minute, and wherever two human beings are placed together one must inevitably begin to assert mastery over the other. The method of self-assertion may be that of the athlete, or that of the intriguer, or that of the clear-sighted over the purblind, or that of the subtle over the simple; it matters not, the effort for mastery may be made either roughly or gently, or subtly, or even clownishly, but made it ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... compassion. Lucy is a simpleton so utter and complete that it is difficult even to be sorry for her, especially as Ravenswood would have made a detestable husband. The mother is meant to be and is a repulsive virago, and the father a time-serving and almost vulgar intriguer. Moreover—and all this is not in the least surprising, since he was in agonies during most of the composition, and nearly died before its close[20]—the author has, contrary to his wont, provided very few subsidiary ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... and pasteboard or in an inflexible visage—whether in a woman who wants to disguise her features, or in a man who wants to hide his heart—whether in a masquerader or an assassin. For example, when I hear a hypocrite talk of his honesty, an intriguer of his conscience, a renegade of his candour, and a pensioner of his patriotism, I do not require to look at him—I say at once, that man wears a vizard." He paused a moment. "This," said he, "is the vizard in public life. In private, it is the impartiality ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... Melbourne said Creevey had been very shrewd, but exceedingly bitter and malignant; and I was rather surprised to hear him talk of Lord Dover as having been very bitter also, an underhand dealer and restless intriguer. I knew very well that he had ambition and vanity, which were constantly urging him to play a part more than commensurate with his capacity, and that he delighted in that sort of political commerage which gave him importance (and this was the great cause of his friendship with Brougham, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... when he could no longer play the master of kingdoms, he was content to quarrel about valets; and having lost the world, to make a little occupation for himself in complaining of the want of etiquette in his dungeon. But the spirit of the intriguer survived every other spirit within him, and it is by no means certain that the return of O'Meara and Gourgaud to Europe was not a part of that intrigue in which Napoleon played the Italian to the last hour of his life. It is true that the general ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... German people, both north and south, is unanimous in its intense hatred against Napoleon. The nations do not allow him to deceive them; they see through the Caesarean mask, and perceive the face of the tyrant, despot, and intriguer, lurking behind it. They do not believe a word of his pacific protestations and promises of freedom and liberal reforms; for they see that he always means war when he prates about peace, that he means tyranny when he promises liberty, and that he gives Draconic laws instead of establishing liberal ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... Protectorate as follows: 'At Kumasi I was ordered to eat the skull of the late King of Gyaman, which was kept there as a trophy from the conquest of Gyaman; but I did not do it.' He also asserted that, in 1879, a white man, Nielson, and his interpreter, Huydecooper, had been sent by an intriguer to Gyaman, bearing a pretended message from the British Government and the Fanti chiefs, enjoining the King to conclude peace with the Ashantis, and to restore their 3,700 captives. Neither of these men saw the ruler of Gyaman, and it is believed that Nielson, ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... so ferocious and so merciless then, that despite himself, the selfish adventurer, the careless self-seeking intriguer, shuddered with a quick wave of unreasoning terror. He turned away from Heron's piercing gaze, the gaze of a hyena whose prey is being snatched from beneath its nails. For a moment he stared thoughtfully into ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... wherewith he shore "the stalwart Englisher," strive with him in that strong yearning to whirl it aloft, sink with him in the instant, nerveless reaction, and sorrow that "a child could slay Richelieu now!" He is not the intriguer of dark tradition, wily and cruel for low ambitious ends, but entirely great, in his protection of innocence and longing for affection, and most of all in that supreme love of France to which his other motives are subservient. Booth seizes upon this as the key-note ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... murdered, an attack was made on Saturninus, who hastily sent for aid to his rural supporters and seized the Capitol. He found then that in reckoning on Marius he had made a fatal blunder. That selfish intriguer had been alarmed by the popular favour shown to an impostor named Equitius, who gave out that he was the son of Tiberius Gracchus, and who, being imprisoned by Marius, was released by the people and elected tribune. He may have been jealous too of the popularity of Saturninus ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... shrewd and self-willed intriguer he is!" exclaimed Scharnhorst. "He avails himself of the boundless adoration I feel for you to assist him in wandering into his favorite sphere of politics. Madame, the barbarian believes it to be altogether impossible that I come merely from motives ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... strange compound of incongruous qualities—at once enthusiast and philosopher, statesman and intriguer, a model of chivalrous courage, and a profound dissembler. We cannot compass his character by adopting the wayward estimate given of him by Anthony a Wood, who tells us that his common nickname was Sir Humorous Vanity, and who dismisses him as "a hotchpotch ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik |
