"Noblesse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these novi homini treated with the distance and disdain they would formerly have experienced from the haughty aristocracy of France. The pride of the old noblesse had been stifled by the stronger instinct of avarice. They rather sought the intimacy and confidence of these lucky upstarts; and it has been observed that a nobleman would gladly take his seat at the table of the fortunate lackey of yesterday, in ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... dignity, though panting from his exertions, and looking so hot that I feared an apoplexy for the old man. I did not know how tough such an old heathen is, nor that his efforts were by no means at an end. Noblesse oblige and such high caste as Palo's is not ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... said his brother amicably, from the head of the table, "we must care for a man when he's wounded at our door, friend or foe, Federalist or damned Republican. Noblesse oblige. I was glad enough the night my mare Nelly threw me, coming home from Maria Erskine's wedding, to hear Bob Carter's voice behind me! And if Gideon Rand was a surly old heathen, he broke colts ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... "I couldn't do that, even for my mother's sake; but I don't misunderstand, now we are such friends. I know how kindly you mean, and though neither mother nor I can accept presents of money, even from dear friends (after all we are of the noblesse!) I'm not going to hurt you by giving the money back, if you will do what ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... charms of face and form the eyes of the fat old clerk are stealthily directed. To Hogarth these are the incidents, not the inspiration, of his art. Lavater, that keen observer, aimed near to the mark when he wrote: "Il ne faut pas attendre beaucoup de noblesse de Hogarth. Le vrai beau n'etoit guere a la portee de ce peintre." It is, indeed, one of the unconscious ironies of art history that the artist, whose work shows least of its influence or attraction, should have devoted the one offspring of his pen ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... formal recognition. The old admiral had left a fair dot for his daughter, and on the other hand the De Foix, though impoverished, belonged to the ducal house of Nemours and ranked among the highest of the noblesse; so the match was not unsuitable, and all friends were probably satisfied. But there was no contract or ceremony of betrothal, as the lovers were still very young when Henri went away to the wars, he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... finer manners than Fido. He was maturer, with a deeper sense of noblesse oblige. He never forgot that even if he had been born a Dalmatian, privilege ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... had not been carried out without difficulty. She had still frequented the opera at Milan; she had still been seen occasionally in the salons of the noblesse; she had caused herself to be carried in and out from her carriage, and that in such a manner as in no wise to disturb her charms, disarrange her dress, or expose her deformities. Her sister always accompanied ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... reached Napoleon during his retreat from Moscow, and quickened his final abandonment of the army. The occurrence in question was the daring conspiracy headed by General Mallet. This officer, one of the ancient noblesse, had been placed in confinement in 1808, in consequence of his connection with a society called the Philadelphes, which seems to have sprung up within the French army, at the time when Napoleon seized the supreme power, and which had for its immediate object his deposition—while some of the members ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... Arthur Young, 'was partial, venal, infamous. The conduct of the parliament was profligate and atrocious. The bigotry, ignorance, false principles, and tyranny of these bodies were generally conspicuous.'[7] We know what the court was, we know what the noblesse was, and this is what the third great leading order in the realm was. We repeat, then, that the historic doctrine could get no fulcrum or leverage, and that only the revolutionary doctrine, which the eighteenth century had got ready ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 8: France in the Eighteenth Century • John Morley
... know them, of course," Olivia went on. "It's one of the things I never can understand—how people can generalize about a whole nation because they happen to dislike one or two individuals. As a matter of fact, Aunt Vic has become so absorbed in her little circle of old French royalist noblesse that she can't see anything to admire outside the rue de l'Universite and chateau life in Normandy. She does admit that there's an element of homespun virtue in the old families of Boston and Waverton; but that's only because she ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... possible entertainments—a resistless source of superiority in France—had a purse for many, and a smile for more; by her liveliness kept up the spirits of the old king, who was now vibrating between vice and superstition; fed, feted, and flattered the noblesse, by whom she was libelled, and worshipped; and with all the remaining decencies of France exclaiming against her, but with all its factions, its private licentiousness, and its political corruption, rejoicing in her reign; she flourished before the eyes of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... it filled him with warm gratitude to remember that none of his fellows had grudged him any of his good things. What a decent lot they were! It humbled him to think of their pride in him. He would not disappoint them. Noblesse oblige. ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... Cleves: the Count of Charolois, eldest son of the Duke of Burgundy; the Counts of Angoulesme, St Paul, Dunois, and others; with, as a chronicle of the time relates, "autres comtes, barons, chevaliers, capitaines, et force noblesse, en tres bel ordre et posture." All of these were mounted on horses of price, richly caparisoned, and covered with the finest housings; some were of cloth of gold furred with sable, others were of velvet or damask furred with ermine; all were enriched with precious stones, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... the ambition to revive the comedy of character, and by its means to read moral lessons on the stage; unfortunately what he lacked was comic power. In his most celebrated piece, Le Glorieux, he returns to the theme treated by Dancourt of the struggle between the ruined noblesse and the aspiring middle class. Pathos and something of romance are added ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... you, and I ask your pardon,"—he bowed gravely. "Miss Lingard," he went on, "is an absolutely trustful heart. She has not learned the hard lessons of life. As for you and me, noblesse oblige,"—he watched me narrowly. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... be decent to Grannie and the Aunties, and to Uncle Morrie and Uncle Bartie. That was the only burden she had laid on her children. It was a case of noblesse oblige; their youth constrained them. They had received so much, and they had been let off so much; not one of them had inherited the taint that made Maurice and Emmeline Fleming and Bartie Harrison creatures ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... Russian Prince and a German Grand Duke, and above and all around was a crowd of travelers of all nations. He brought no letters. He desired no acquaintances. Florence, under the new regime, was too much agitated by recent changes for its noblesse to pay any attention to a stranger, however distinguished, unless he was forced upon them; and so Lord Chetwynde had the most complete isolation. If Hilda had ever had any ideas of going with Lord Chetwynde into Florentine ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... less, really thought what Rosamond said in mere play. Those extorted thanks seemed to her a victory of her sex in a field she had never thought of; and though she had no desire to emulate the lady, and felt that a daughter of Dunstone must remember noblesse oblige, the focus of her enthusiasm was in an odd ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that period there was still in Paris much that was high, noble, and delightful. The haute noblesse had generally left the country; but the haute noblesse did not comprise the better educated, or most social families in Paris. Never had there been more talent, more wit, or more beauty in Paris than at the commencement of 1792; ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... poems Aeclogues, from a Greek word meaning Goatherds' Tales, "Though indeed few goatherds have to do herein." He dedicated them to Sir Philip Sidney as "the president of noblesse and of chivalrie." ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... where a book lay open. "Do you see that red book? It's the Annuaire de la Noblesse Francaise. You'll find his name there—marked ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... communiquer verbalement avec elle, l'avons advertie desdicts difficultes.... Que si la noblesse ses adherens, ou le peuple la desiroit et maintenoit pour royne, il le pourroit demonstrer par l'effect; que la question estoit grande mesme entre barbares et gens de telle condition que les Angloys ... luy touchant ces difficultez pour le respect de sa personne et pour ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... upon them. It's a sort of offshoot from that very tyrannical law of noblesse oblige. I don't think you ought to go away from Allington, unless the circumstances are ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... degenerated classicists were "barren of imagination and invention," offered in their insipid artificialities nothing but "rhetoric, bombast, fleurs de college, and Latin-verse poetry," clothed "borrowed ideas in trumpery imagery," and presented themselves with a "conventional elegance and noblesse than which there was nothing more common." On the other hand, the works of the master-minds of England, Germany, Spain, and Italy, which were more and more translated and read, opened new, undreamt-of vistas. The Bible, Homer, and Shakespeare began now to be considered of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... 1340 A.D., edited from the autograph MS.," by R. Morris, E.E.T.S. The "Ayenbite" is the work of Dan Michel, of Northgate, Kent, who belonged to "the bochouse of Saynt Austines of Canterberi." The work deals with the Ten Commandments, the seven deadly sins, informs us that "the sothe noblesse comth of the gentyl herte ... ase to the bodye: alle we byeth children of one moder, thet is of erthe" (p. 87). Some of the chapters of Lorens's "Somme" were adapted by ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... greatest wretchedness to prevail, and to be very thin of inhabitants. A great part of the Faubourg St. Germain, near the Boulevards, is in a great measure deserted; but this quarter was formerly inhabited principally by the noblesse. There is scarcely a street in Paris where there are not several houses written upon, Propriete nationale a vendre, and sometimes in addition, ou a louer; and in many places a great part of the street is in the same manner advertised ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... culture as in ambition. 'Il est donne,' says Sainte-Beuve, 'de nos jours, a un bien petit nombre, meme parmi les plus delicats et ceux qui les apprecient le mieux, de recueillir, d'ordonner sa vie selon ses admirations et selon ses gouts, avec suite, avec noblesse.' That is true enough; but Arnold was one of the few, and might 'se vanter d'etre reste fidele a soi-meme, a son premier et a son plus beau passe.' He was always a man of culture in the good sense of the word; he had many interests in life and art, and his interests were sound and liberal; ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... passions working at the height of their energy. His characters are stern, rugged, determined men and women, governed by powerful prejudices and iron conventions, types of a military people, in whom the sense of duty has been cultivated until it dominates all other motives, and in whom the principle of 'noblesse oblige' is, so far as the aristocratic class is concerned, the fundamental rule of conduct. What such people may be capable of is startlingly ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... understand you," I said, with marked frigidity. "The lady I speak of lived and died under the old regime of noblesse oblige. I am not so well versed in modern social forms of ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... family pride? Why, you yourselves have Gruagach of the Red Hand in the hall, and he, I can tell you, is a very different sort of spectre from me. Pre-Christian, you know—one of the oldest ghosts in Ross-shire. But as to 'hard on a family,' why, noblesse oblige." ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... himself (see Alexias, l. x. p. 301.) What a title of noblesse of the eleventh century, if any one could now prove his inheritance! Anna relates, with visible pleasure, that the swelling Barbarian, was killed, or wounded, after fighting in the front in the battle of Dorylaeum, (l. xi. p. 317.) This circumstance may justify ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... 'blamed the conduct of France, and approved that of other nations, especially the Dutch.' M. Funck-Brentano himself publishes these facts (1898), in part published earlier (1890) by M. Lair.* Not much noblesse here! Next, if Rosarges, a gentleman, served the Mask, Saint-Mars alone (1669) carried his food to the valet, Dauger. So the service of Rosarges does not ennoble the Mask and differentiate him from Dauger, who was even ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... yle that I have spoken of, there is another yle, that is clept Sumobor, that is a gret yle: and the kyng thereof is righte myghty. The folk of that yle maken hem alweys to ben marked in the visage with an hote yren, bothe men and wommen, for gret noblesse, for to ben knowen from other folk. For thei holden hem self most noble and most worthi of alle the world. And thei han werre alle weys with the folk that gon alle naked. And faste besyde is another yle, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... took care of herself; bore a tremendous bombardment for days without flinching, and finally, in the early days of October, saw the Saxon Duke and his army march away, Valmy having opened the eyes of Brunswick to the utter futility and fanfaronnade of the French emigrant noblesse and princes, who had drawn up for him and persuaded him against his own better judgment to sign the too famous and fatal proclamation with which he heralded the Austro-Prussian advance into France. Mayor Andre having thus saved the grand North-eastern bulwark of France, his services ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... two quarrels can be more distinct. Riches—so far from being necessary to noblesse—are adverse to it. So utterly adverse, that the first character of all the Nobilities which have founded great dynasties in the world is to be poor;—often poor by oath—always poor by generosity. And of every true knight in the chivalric ages, the first thing history ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... whole it stood the strain. The seigneurs had rallied to the Government which had restored their rights, and the clergy had called on the people to stand fast by the King. So far all went as Carleton had hoped: "The Noblesse, Clergy, and greater part of the Bourgeoisie," he wrote, "have given Government every Assistance in their Power." But the habitants refused to follow their appointed leaders with the old docility, and some even mobbed the seigneurs who tried ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... said, in a speech last winter in Parliament, "that when the National Assembly first met in three Orders (the Tiers Etat, the Clergy, and the Noblesse), France had then a good constitution." This shows, among numerous other instances, that Mr. Burke does not understand what a constitution is. The persons so met were not a constitution, but a ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... of the Carnaval. The Wardle family have a very pleasant acquaintance here, chiefly among the liberaux, or moderate royalists, but there are some most inveterate Ultras in this city, who keep aloof from any person of liberal principles, as they would of a person infected with the plague. The noblesse of Auvergne have the reputation of being in general ignorant and despotic. There is but little agrement or instruction to be derived from their society, for they have not the ideas of the age. ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... we find an unanswerable proof of the esteem in which he was held by the most exalted personages, in a letter which was addressed to him by Charles at the time he was admitted to the Order of St. Michael, which was, as he informs us himself, the highest honour of the French noblesse. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... while taking a survey of some fortifications, excited alarm, and was carried to the Bastile: where, to deepen the interest of the story, he sketched a variety of comedies, which he must have communicated to the governor, who, whispering it doubtless as an affair of state to several of the noblesse, these admirers of "sketches of comedies"—English ones no doubt—procured the release of this English Moliere. This tale is further confirmed by a very odd circumstance. Sir John built at Greenwich, on a spot still called "Van Brugh's Fields," two whimsical houses; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the deceased was followed by many other carriages filled with the noblesse of France, each drawn by six horses. The state equipages of the Prince of Wales and of the Dukes of Sussex and York, with postilions in state livery, closed the procession. With such mournful pageants were the mortal remains of the exile consigned ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... truth, she determined to give concerts, though she had neither ear nor taste for music; conversazioni, though she had no talents for conversation; and to outvie, if possible, in the gaieties of her parties and the magnificence of her liveries, all the noblesse of Venice. This blissful reverie was somewhat obscured, when she recollected the Signor, her husband, who, though he was not averse to the profit which sometimes results from such parties, had always shewn a contempt of the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... becomes a case of NOBLESSE OBLIGE," he declared. "If it is worth doing at all it is worth doing well. To-day the Sultan will command that the 'Rise and Fall' be translated into Arabic, and that it be placed in the national library. Moreover, the University of Constantinople, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... at the beginning, and very often ever after, are ignoble creatures. Yet I should confer the patents of nobility, if it were my prerogative; for some would succeed in living up to them. Vanity would accomplish that much. Vanity is the secret of noblesse oblige; not radical virtue—since we are beginning to be ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... delayed the crises that arose. Her policy was but infatuation; her system but the perpetual abandonment of herself to every partisan who promised her the king's safety. The Comte D'Artois, a youthful prince, chivalrous in etiquette, had much influence with her. He relied greatly on the noblesse; made frequent references to his sword. He laughed at the crises: he disdained this war of words, caballed against ministers, and treated passing events with levity. The queen, intoxicated with the adulation of those around her, urged ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... devoted fugitives who sang the psalms of Marot among rocks and caverns. Joined to these were numbers on whom the faith sat lightly, whose hope was in commotion and change. Of these, in great part, was the Huguenot noblesse, from Conde, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... our hands,—what could a corrupted Christianity do with it when material pleasures were more prized than they are with us, and when philanthropic institutions were unborn? If the whole power of the Gallican Church was exerted to prop up the feudal privileges of the French noblesse, and there was needed a dreadful and bloody revolution to destroy them, much more was a revolution needed at Rome to destroy the inherited powers of a still prouder and more powerful aristocracy. If the rights of women are so slowly recognized among ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... Faubourg St. Germain, and all who frequented it "les oies de Frere Philippe" or "les canards d'Orleans." The Count de Cambis appeared at that moment at the Tuileries in search of office. His name stood high in the annals of the French noblesse: society had, however, ceased to confound the gentilhomme with the roue. The conditions necessary to fulfill the character were changed, and it was now the bourgeois gentilhomme and not the gentilhomme roue whose claim to the vacant place was more likely to be accepted. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... which they lodged was in the lordly quartier of the Faubourg St. Germain; the neighbouring streets were venerable with the ancient edifices of a fallen noblesse; but their tenement was in a narrow, dingy lane, and the building itself seemed beggarly and ruinous. The apartment was in an attic on the sixth story, and the window, placed at the back of the lane, looked upon another row of houses of a better description, that communicated with ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... been saved for France, as the British could not for any length of time have maintained their position on the Plains of Abraham. Returning to France, where he was related to several families of the Noblesse, who held that "war was the only worthy calling, and prized honour more than life," he received so cool a reception at Court that his proud spirit, being unable to brook the humiliation, he applied ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... supposed him of thy kindred; he bears every sign of noblesse and does not disgrace it," said the prior, himself of the kindred of the ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... corner; it has a vast, mysterious, feudal air, I fancy. You will hold a little court in it, and sometimes let a poor American artist from Pond City in to hang on the edge of the crowd and stare at the haute noblesse." ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... American—he was even more loquacious. For what then, he would ask, was this incompetence, this imbecility, of France? He would tell. It was the vile corruption of Paris, the grasping of capital and companies, the fatal influence of the still clinging noblesse, and the insidious Jesuitical power of the priests. As for example, Monsieur "the Booflo-bil" had doubtless noticed the great gates of the park before the cafe? It was the preserve,—the hunting-park of one of the old grand seigneurs, still kept up by his descendants, the Comtes de Fontonelles—hundreds ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... say, upwards of three centuries ago—the CITY OF AUGSBOURG was probably the most populous and consequential in the kingdom of Bavaria. It was the principal residence of the noblesse, and the great mart of commerce. Dukes, barons, nobles of every rank and degree, became domiciled here. A thousand blue and white flags streamed from the tops of castellated mansions, and fluttered along the then almost impregnable ramparts. It was also not less remarkable for the number and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... commanded the auxiliaries in the English pay, published a declaration in the name of king William, inviting the people to join his standard, assuring them that his master had no other design in ordering his troops to invade France, but that of restoring the noblesse to their ancient splendour, their parliaments to their former authority, and the people to their just privileges. He even offered his protection to the clergy, and promised to use his endeavours for reviving the edict of Nantes, which had been guaranteed by the kings of England. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... recalled. States-General will meet, if not in January, at least in May. But how to form it? On the model of the last States-General in 1614, says the Parlement, which means that the Tiers Etat will be of no account, if the noblesse and the clergy agree. Wherewith terminates the popularity of the Parlement. As for the "thinkers," it is a sheer snowing of pamphlets. And Abbe Sieyes has come to Paris to ask three questions, and answer them: What is the Third Estate? ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... misjudged you, and I ask your pardon'—he bowed gravely. 'Miss Lingard,' he went on, 'is an absolutely trustful heart. She has not learned the hard lessons of life. As for you and me, noblesse oblige'—he watched ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... have been too exclusively of the 'West End.' You have lived among the English; enter now into my society." Mde. Fee smiled, and Mde. de Rheims taking a look at me continued: "The stock is incomparable out of France. Remember, my child, that your ancestors were grande noblesse," haughtily raising her head. A novel feeling of distinction was added to my swelling ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... of her countrymen. In 1780 she finally retired from the stage and began to live a regular and orderly life, though still extravagant and lavish in her indulgence both of freaks of luxury and generosity. During her residence at Rome the noblesse of that city held her in high esteem, and her concerts gathered the most distinguished and wealthy people. Her prodigality had considerably reduced her income, and when she retired from her profession it amounted to little more than twenty thousand francs. The state in which Gabrielli ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... seventh day Is famous for a grand display Of modes, of finery, and dress, Of cit, west-ender, and noblesse, Who in Hyde Park crowd like a fair To stare, and lounge, and take the air, Or ride or drive, or walk, and chat On fashions, scandal, and all that.— Here, reader, with your leave, will we Commence our London history. 'Twas Sunday, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... request. Noblesse oblige! "Don Miguel, is there any reason for leaving us besides your new rancho?" said Alvarado. The Captain's cheek reddened a little. "Senor Gobernador, I have served the State long," said he. "Juanita Castro waits for me at ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... women, and his very shyness awakened in this married woman, the unprincipled wife of the marechal de noblesse of a district where Nekhludoff was present at an election, the desire of vanquishing him. This woman drew him into an intimacy which entangled him more and more, while it daily became more distasteful to him. Having succumbed to the temptation, Nekhludoff felt guilty, and had not the courage ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... history is, that all the fine arts hitherto—having been supported by the selfish power of the noblesse, and never having extended their range to the comfort or the relief of the mass of the people—the arts, I say, thus practised, and thus matured, have only accelerated the ruin of the States they adorned; and at the moment when, in any kingdom, you point to the triumphs of its greatest artists, ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... the happiness of the French in their subordination, by the reciprocal benevolence and attachment between the great and those in lower rank. Mr Boyd gave us an instance of their gentlemanly spirit. An old Chevalier de Malthe, of ancient noblesse, but in low circumstances, was in a coffee-house at Paris, where was Julien, the great manufacturer at the Gobelins, of the fine tapestry, so much distinguished both for the figures and the colours. The chevalier's carriage was very old. Says Julien, with a plebeian ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... de Juluapa, lately dead, is said to have been also a woman of great talent and extraordinary conversational powers; she is another of the ancient noblesse who has dropped off. The physician who attended her in her last illness, a Frenchman of the name of Plan, in great repute here, has sent in a bill to her executors of ten thousand dollars, which, although it does not excite any great astonishment, the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... thought of nothing else. If it were allowable to compare such great things with social follies, Castanier's position was not unlike that of a banker who, finding that his all-powerful millions cannot obtain for him an entrance into the society of the noblesse, must set his heart upon entering that circle, and all the social privileges that he has already acquired are as nothing in his eyes from the moment when he discovers that ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... of all she had done, he believed in that part of her which men have agreed to call character. She could not love him as he wished, but she had an immeasurable respect for him. And she knew that above all the other virtues he placed courage, moral and physical. Noblesse oblige. He would never fail. He considered it an obligation on those who were born in what he still thought of as the ruling class to hold their heads high in fearlessness. And in her blood, too, ran something of ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... myself and Amelia. The Doctor talked most of the time to Lady Vandrift: his discourse was of picture-galleries, which Amelia detests, but in which she thinks it incumbent upon her, as Sir Charles's wife, to affect now and then a cultivated interest. Noblesse oblige; and the walls of Castle Seldon, our place in Ross-shire, are almost covered now with Leaders and with Orchardsons. This result was first arrived at by a singular accident. Sir Charles wanted a leader—for his coach, you understand—and ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... straightened himself, and with a mighty effort strove in vain for a composure that should match the other's cold self-command,—a command which taunted and stung now at this point, now at that. "I am a Frenchman!" he cried, in a voice that broke with passion. "I am of the noblesse of the land of France, which is a country that is much grander than Virginia! Old Pierre at Monacan-Town told me these things. My father changed his name when he came across the sea, so I bear not the de which is ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... etiquette, left behind with their regiments the coarse language of the camp. Many of these young generals and heroes had married the beautiful but impoverished daughters of the aristocrats of old monarchical France. These young women, who were the representatives of the ancient noblesse, brought to the Tuileries the traditions of their mothers, and distinguished themselves by the ease of their courtly deportment and their graceful manners; and they thus unconsciously became the teachers of the other young women, who, like their husbands, owed their aristocratic ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... were pulled down, and the market gardens beyond the line of the boulevards began to fill with houses, then the d'Uzes family left their fine mansion, and in our time it was occupied by a banker. Later still, the noblesse began to find themselves out of their element among shopkeepers, left the Place Royale and the centre of Paris for good, and crossed the river to breathe freely in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where palaces were reared already about ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... manners; nevertheless, all the Blue Band agreed that he was a finished type of gentleman-hood. Even Raoul's sisters had to confess, with a certain disgust, that, whatever people may say, in our own day the aristocracy of wealth has to lower its flag before the authentic quarterings of the old noblesse. They secretly envied Giselle because she was going to be a grande dame, while all the while they asserted that old-fashioned distinctions had no longer any meaning. Nevertheless, they looked forward to the day when they, too, might take their places in the Faubourg St. Germain. One may ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... bethink myself that to this day I cannot tell how I came to know that theirs was an ancient family. No reference to it from their own lips can I recall; certainly no boast, except the tranquil boast of proud serenity and noble bearing, and the noblesse ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... old noblesse had recovered as to manners and customs something of the prestige it had irrevocably lost in politics. Moreover, the sentiment which governs parents and grandparents in all that relates to matrimonial conventions is an imperishable sentiment, closely allied ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... hatred was the whole literary class,—like Victor Hugo, Lamartine, and Cousin,—who hurled curses and defiance from their retreats, or from the fashionable salons and clubs which they frequented. The old noblesse stood aloof. St. Germain was like a foreign city rather than a part of Paris. All the traders among the Legitimists and Orleanists continued in a state of secret hostility, and threw all the impediments they could against ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... in his "French Revolution" paints a wonderfully vivid picture of the idle, voluptuous noblesse of the eighteenth century: compare ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... Charles Albert. She showed her usual energy and truly princely heart, sustaining, at her own expense, a company of soldiers and a journal up to the last sad betrayal of Milan, August 6th. These days undeceived all the people, but few of the noblesse; she was one of the few with mind strong enough to understand the lesson, and is now warmly interested in the republican movement. From Milan she went to France, but, finding it impossible to effect anything ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the Prince Bishop of Laon and Nouvion, villages and territories a few miles south of that city. See History of New York during the Revolutionary War, by Thomas Jones, edited by Edward Floyd De Lancey, vol i., p. 651, and Dictionnaire de la Noblesse de France, vol. ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... which it was made up were still more remarkable. Ministers and Opposition; ambassadors, travellers, journalists; the men of fashion and the men of reform; here a French republican official, and beyond him, perhaps, a man whose ancestors were already of the most ancient noblesse in Saint-Simon's day; artists, great and small, men of letters good and indifferent; all these had been among the guests of Madame d'Estrees, brought to the house, each of them, for some quality's sake, some power of keeping up ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... confined to the higher classes—or noblesse—that is to say, such as kept their own cows and drove their own wagons. The company commonly assembled at three o'clock and went away about six, unless it was in winter time, when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... aristocrats of the Long Island sets—a dozen sets for one small island—the Berkshire set, the Back Bay set, the Rhode Island reds, the Plymouth Rock fowl, the old Connecticut connections, the Bar Harbor oligarchy, the Tuxedonians, the Morristown and Germantown noblesse, the pride of Philadelphia, the Baltimorioles, the diplomatic cliques of Washington, the Virginia patricians, the Piedmont Hunt set, the North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and all the other State sets, the Cleveland coteries, the Chicagocracy, the St. Louis ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... morrow, all the noblesse of the provinces, of the environs, and wherever messengers had carried the news, were seen to arrive. D'Artagnan had shut himself up, without being willing to speak to anybody. Two such heavy deaths falling upon the captain, so closely after the death of Porthos, for a long time oppressed ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the preliminary studies. The law is my vocation—in an especial, and, I may say, in an hereditary way, my vocation; for although I have not the honour to belong to any of the great families who form in Scotland, as in France, the noblesse of the robe, and with us, at least, carry their heads as high, or rather higher, than the noblesse of the sword,—for the former consist more frequently of the 'first-born of Egypt,'—yet my grandfather, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... It could not attract me even with you. It is really vulgar—that arrangement. Noblesse oblige, mon ami. There is a depravity in marrying you that makes all ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... their Mfumos; but that "Branco" should suffer for his attempt; no "Mukanda" or book (that is, letter) should go down stream; all his goods belonged of right to his guide, and thus he would learn to sit upon the heads of the noblesse, with much ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... and it follows custom and common law. Such a government is neither hectic in its vicissitudes nor inquisitorial in its enactments. It is cautious in its expenditures, efficient in its administration, proud in maintaining its standards of honour, justice and "noblesse oblige." Good government is august and handsome; it surrounds itself with dignity and ceremony, even at times with splendour and pageantry, for these things are signs of self-respect and the outward showing of high ideals—or may be made so; that is what good manners and ceremony and beauty are for. ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... with the leste of hir stature, But alle hir limes so wel answeringe Weren to womanhode, that creature Was neuer lasse mannish in seminge. And eek the pure wyse of here meninge 285 Shewede wel, that men might in hir gesse Honour, estat, and wommanly noblesse. ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... the majorities would have been transformed into minorities, if in the early days of the Revolution these unworthy men had only stood firm at their posts. Selfish oligarchies have scarcely ever been wanting in courage. The emigrant noblesse of France are almost the only instance of a great privileged and territorial caste that had as little bravery as they had patriotism. The explanation is that they had been an oligarchy, not of power or duty, but of self-indulgence. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... are the master of the ship. But, yes, she shall of her kindness and of her grace sing it to you. You do not know how it runs? Well, it is like this—listen and tell me if it does not speak of things that belong to the old regime, the ancient noblesse—listen, m'sieu' le captaanne, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... answering to the Achaean aristocracy, the Frankish noblesse of warriors dwelling in princely courts and strong castles, dominating an older population, owing a practically doubtful fealty to an Over-Lord, the King, passing their days in the chace, in private war, or in revolt against the Over-Lord, and, for all literary entertainment, depending ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... fine children that the mother has!' said an old duck, who belonged to the noblesse, and wore a red rag round its leg. 'All handsome, except one; it has not turned out well. I wish she could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... have spoken of, there is another isle that is clept Sumobor. That is a great isle, and the king thereof is right mighty. The folk of that isle make them always to be marked in the visage with an hot iron, both men and women, for great noblesse, for to be known from other folk; for they hold themselves most noble and most worthy of all the world. And they have war always with the folk ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... hard to define Champlain's social status in a single word. Parkman, besides styling him 'a Catholic gentleman,' speaks of him elsewhere as being 'within the pale of the noblesse.' On the other hand, the Biographie Saintongeoise says that he came from a family of fishermen. The most important facts would seem to be these. In Champlain's own marriage contract his father is styled 'Antoine de Champlain, Capitaine de la Marine.' The same document styles ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... had long been out of France, and serving in the colonies. His character, doubtless, had been indifferent at home; and he knew that, according to the system pursued in France, where almost all promotion is given to the noblesse, he never would advance in rank. And he had made free with my guineas, I suppose, as he had with my watch, for I saw it one day on his chest when I was sitting with ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... girl, was a free agent, and of an age to know her own mind. Moreover, the secret of the door was one which she couldn't help finding out in any case. She, Miss Walbrook, could dismiss these scruples; and yet there was that uncomfortable sing-song humming through her brain: "Noblesse oblige! Noblesse oblige!" ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... "Nevertheless, noblesse does oblige," went on the Dresden china prophetess of conventionality. "When alliances are arranged for women of our position, we must content ourselves with the hope that love may come after marriage. Or if not, we must go on doing our duty in that state of life to which Heaven has graciously ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... lion, I the humble necessary jackal. As our friend so aptly quoted, noblesse oblige. Of course, there can be no doubt about it. You, Baron, must play the part ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... them from above, the vegetation of the hill-tops was that of Lancashire or Scotland. It follows, of course, that the pursuits and habits of the population were correspondingly various, and there was ample opportunity for studying the different classes of society, from the noblesse to the peasants. The results of this study are presented, not in the form of labored analyses, but in easy and flowing sketches, sometimes in the form of narrative, always full of illustrative details, and winning without much discussion or argument ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... the brilliancy of the rhetoric, the heat of the invective, the violence of the partisanship, the reluctance to admit the existence of any grievances in France to justify the popular onslaught on the monarchy, the noblesse, and the Church. His one explanation of the crisis and its attendant horrors was the instigation of the spirit of evil. The effect on contemporary opinion was very great, and did much to stimulate the conservative reaction in England which carried on the Napoleonic wars and lasted down ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... cross of tree, with outen peynte peynture, and with outen gold or silver or precious stones; in remembrance, that Jesus suffred dethe upon a cros of tree. And he hathe born before him also a plater of gold fulle of erthe, in tokene that his noblesse and his myghte and his flessche schalle turnen to erthe. And he hathe born before him also a vesselle of silver, fulle of noble jewelles of gold fulle riche, and of precious stones, in tokene of his lordschipe and of his noblesse ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... embroidery, he bestowed on the dying savage the name of Joseph, in honor of the spouse of the Virgin and the patron of New France. [ Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 5 (Cramoisy). "Monsieur le Gouverneur se transporte aux Cabanes de ces pauures barbares, suivy d'une leste Noblesse. Je vous laisse penser quel estonnement ces Peuples de voir tant d'carlate, tant de personnes bien faites sous leurs toits d'corce!" ] Three days after, he was told that a dead proselyte was to be buried; ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... "Noblesse oblige," says Mr. Esmond, making her a low bow. "There are those alive to whom, in return for their love to me, I often fondly said I would give my life away. Shall I be their enemy now, and quarrel about a title? What matters who has it? 'Tis with ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... liveliness, their manner. Her husband was stupid certainly—all English are stupid—and, besides, a dull husband at Paris is always a point in a lady's favour. He was the heir of the rich and spirituelle Miss Crawley, whose house had been open to so many of the French noblesse during the emigration. They received the colonel's wife in their own hotels—"Why," wrote a great lady to Miss Crawley, who had bought her lace and trinkets at the Duchess's own price, and given her many a dinner during the pinching ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Honourable Billy, and kissed all the babies in the borough. The mothers were so grateful. Now, Edith, do tell Jack instead of playing tennis and canoeing all day he ought to help. It's the duty of all young men to help. Noblesse oblige, you know. I can't understand Victoria. She really has influence with these country people, but she says it's all nonsense. Sometimes I think Victoria has a common streak in her—and no wonder. The other day she actually drove to the Hammonds' in a buggy ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Caledonian Hunt, and entered in their books, that they are to take each a copy of the second edition [of the poems], for which they are to pay one guinea. I have been introduced to a good many of the Noblesse, but my avowed patrons and patronesses are the Duchess of Gordon, the Countess of Glencairn, with my Lord and Lady Betty—the Dean of Faculty [Honorable Henry Erskine]—Sir John Whitefoord. I have likewise warm friends among the literati; ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... nourishes expectations of a barony or viscounty at an early date. Most of his life has been spent in streets and squares, with occasional migrations to the esplanades of fashionable watering-places or the gravelled walks of country house gardens. Now that noblesse is about to impose its obligations on him, quite a new catalogue of wants has sprung into his mind. There are things that a plain esquire may leave undone without causing scandalised remark, but a fiercer light beats on a baron. Trigger-pulling ...
— When William Came • Saki
... mean, that of St. Francois de Sales. It comprises some of the most ancient of that old noblesse to which the ouvriers in the great ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... confidence in the feudal levies that gathered when the royal standard was raised. The Hamiltons merely looked to their own advancement; Lord James Stewart was bound to the Congregation; Huntly was a double dealer and was remote; the minor noblesse and the armed burghers, with Glencairn representing the south-west, Lollard from of old, were attached to Knox's doctrines, while the mob would flock in ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... members of society and art and letters at her own house, giving concerts where Gretry, whose portrait she painted, and other celebrated musicians played portions of their operas before they were seen or heard upon the stage; whilst the grandees of the old noblesse and the famous wits frequented ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... house some thirty years before, when it stood three quarters of a mile from the city. It was then a villa, and had been built by a French refugee, who, in those days of courtly customs, was famed for his elegant hospitality. One of the old noblesse, and but little acquainted with the practical management of business affairs, he became embarrassed, and was finally compelled to dispose of his elegant house and furniture, and retire to a life of obscurity and poverty. But the city was growing around it rapidly; in a few more ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... pains and zeal, men were mustered for the work. In name, at least, they were all Huguenots; yet again, as before, the staple of the projected colony was unsound: soldiers, paid out of the royal treasury, hired artisans and tradesmen, joined with a swarm of volunteers from the young Huguenot noblesse, whose restless swords had rusted in their scabbards since the peace. The foundation-stone was left out. There were no tillers of the soil. Such, indeed, were rare among the Huguenots; for the dull peasants who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... thirty-five engineer and artillery technical schools, with about two thousand pupils; twenty-five military schools for the noblesse, containing eight thousand seven hundred pupils; corps d'armee schools, with several thousand pupils; regimental schools, with eleven thousand pupils; and brigade-schools, with upwards of one hundred and fifty-six thousand scholars;—making in all about two hundred ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... learned in the PEERAGE of words; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern canaille; remembers all their ancestry, their intermarriages, distant relationships, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held, among the national noblesse of words at any time, and in any country. But an uneducated person may know, by memory, many languages, and talk them all, and yet truly know not a word of any,—not a word even of his own. An ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... they have done in life. This was no question of capacity or achievement. By the accident of birth alone they had been put in a position different from other men. How shall each in his wisdom or his folly interpret that well-worn motto which still has virtue both to quicken and control, "Noblesse oblige"? ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... probability they would not have done had they not been assisted by the numerous army and fleet of France, who, irritated at the loss of the Canadas, wished to humiliate England by the loss of her own American possessions. But little did the French king and his noblesse imagine, that in upholding the principles of the Americans, and allowing the French armies and navies (I may say the people of France en masse) to be imbued with the same principles of equality, that they were sowing the seeds of a revolution in their own country which was to bring ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... at the zenith of his power; he was the arbiter of Europe and the paramount head of a confederation of princes, among whom the members of his own family occupied several thrones. To reward his partisans he at this time created a new noblesse, and lavished upon them the public money. He sent an army under Junot to Portugal, and another to Spain, which, under Murat, took Madrid. Napoleon then procured the abdication of the King of Spain and placed his brother Joseph on the vacant throne. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... circumstances, wishing if possible to ascertain the truth, and to clear the character of this great Doge from the accusation, if it proved groundless, I wrote to the Count Carlo Morosini, his descendant, and one of the few remaining representatives of the ancient noblesse of Venice; one, also, by whom his great ancestral name is revered, and in whom it is exalted. His answer appears to me altogether conclusive as to the utter fallacy of the reports of Daru and the English history. I have placed his letter in the close of this volume (Appendix 6), in order that ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... part in society, for which his wife was admirably suited, both by temperament and education. Washington Irving wrote of her in November, 1812, that she was 'the most stylish woman in the drawing-room that session, and that she dressed with more splendor than any other of the noblesse;' and again the same year compared her with the wife of the President, whose courtly manners and consummate tact and grace are a tradition of the republican court. "Tell your good lady," mother Irving wrote to James Renwick, "that Mrs. Madison has been much indisposed, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... gentility; blue blood of Castile; ancien regime[Fr]. high life, haute monde[Fr]; upper classes, upper ten thousand; the four hundred [U. S.]; elite, aristocracy, great folks; fashionable world &c. (fashion) 852. peer, peerage; house of lords, house of peers; lords, lords temporal and spiritual; noblesse; noble, nobleman; lord, lordling[obs3]; grandee, magnifico[Lat], hidalgo; daimio[obs3], daimyo, samurai, shizoku [all Japanese]; don, donship[obs3]; aristocrat, swell, three-tailed bashaw[obs3]; gentleman, squire, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... thee? No; get thee far away From me, foul Marian, fair though thou be nam'd; For thy bewitching eyes have raised storms, That have my name and noblesse ever sham'd; Prince John, my dear friend once, is now for thee ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... champ de bataille. Ils etaient pour la plupart de la gendarmerie, qu'une valeur malheureuse et une armure pesante arretaient dans un lieu ou l'un et l'autre leur etaient inutiles. Longtemps apres l'on s'apercevait dans toutes les provinces voisines que l'elite de la noblesse avait peri dans cette fatale journee. L'infanterie beaucoup moins engagee dans le defile, vit en tremblant la defaite des chevaliers qui passaient pour invincibles, et dont les escadrons effrayes se renversaient sur elle. Elle s'arreta, voulut se retirer, et dans l'instant ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... afterwards Laird of Raeburn, was commonly thus designated from a minor possession, during his father's lifetime. Whatever, in things of this sort, used to be practised among the French noblesse, might be traced, till very lately, in the customs of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... clergy, noblesse, and the 'tiers etat' met at Notre Dame on the 4th May 1789. On the following day, at Versailles, the 'tiers etat' assumed the title of the 'National Assembly'—constituting themselves the sovereign power—and invited others to join them. The club of the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the state of France, on hearing the clergy and the noblesse were privileged in point of taxation, may be led to imagine, that, previous to the Revolution, these bodies had contributed nothing to the state. This is a great mistake. They certainly did not contribute equally with each other, nor either of them equally with the commons. They ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... large bouquet, which she had carried over the river in the night and got it blessed, and gave it to the lady to cure her tooth-ache. But we have Protestant nunneries in Germany. I belonged to one which was under the Imperial protection ; there is one for royal families-one for the noblesse,- the candidates' coats of arms are put up several weeks to be examined, and if any flaw is found, they are not elected. These nunneries are intended for young ladies of little fortunes and bigh birth. There is great licence in them. They have balls, not at home, but next door; and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... We have lost "noblesse oblige": we may even be glad it is gone, if we can substitute for it something larger and better. It is not the obligation of nobility, but the obligation of humanity that is the need: to realize ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... proudest heroic, and purest legislative, days of Greece, the symbol had borne for all men skilled in her traditions: to the schools of craftsmen the sign meant further their craft's noblesse, and pure descent from the divinely-terrestrial skill of Daedalus, the labyrinth-builder, and the first sculptor of imagery pathetic[48] with ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... had, like other favorites of fortune in the latter days of the monarchy, purchased his patent of noblesse. Every body knew that he was a parvenu; and rumor, as she is wont in such cases, had adorned his early history with so many myths and portents, that Niebuhr himself could hardly have distinguished between the fable and the truth. It was said and believed that he was ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... from England was to a considerable amount. But when Louis Philippe came to the throne, he with his usual policy observed, that paper of French manufacture was good enough for his purposes, it was therefore adopted at the Court, and the noblesse and gentry, following in the same line, that encouragement was afforded to their countrymen, that engendered the idea of rendering their own paper so tasteful and elegant that now the affair is quite reversed, and England takes from France an immense quantity of this ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... on the 2d of October, but weather and other matters had caused delays, and the Indian summer had begun with warm sun and exquisite tints. 'What would not the maple and the liquid amber have been by this time,' thought the sisters, 'if they had been spared.' Some of the PETITE NOBLESSE, however, repented of their condescension when they saw how little it was appreciated. Mrs. Arthuret, indeed, was making herself the best hostess that a lady who had served no apprenticeship could be to ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... son—a youth in aspect fitting perfectly to Samuel's vision; a very prince of the blood, yet genial and free-hearted— noblesse oblige! To him had descended these virtues and excellences— and all the estates and powers as the sign and symbol thereof. And now had come a poor ignorant country boy, and it had fallen to his fortune to save the life of this extraordinary being. And he was to have a chance to be near ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... duke was obliged to give up completely the theological view of the antiquity of man. The whole biblical chronology as held by the universal Church, "always, everywhere, and by all," he sacrificed, and gave all his powers in this field to support the theory of "the Fall." Noblesse oblige: the duke and his ancestors had been for centuries the chief pillars of the Church of Scotland, and it was too much to expect that he could break away from a tenet which forms really ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... that anything like social life, as we understand the phrase, became known, the power of the Crown was so well established that no necessity for resorting to a policy such as Richelieu's for diminishing the influence of the noblesse existed. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... marriage, the girl Vera, then a child of fourteen, had written to Vance for help. She was ill, without money, and asked for work. To him she was known as the last of a long line of people who had always been professional mediums and spiritualists, and, out of charity and from a sense of noblesse oblige to one of the elect of the profession, Vance had made her his assistant. He had never regretted having done so. The bread cast upon the waters was returned a thousandfold. From the first, the girl brought in money. And his wife, the older ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... the proud and honored citizens of a raw, potential metropolis. They talked loudly, vehemently, to one another as they marched like school boys seeing strange sights, pointing eagerly at all that aroused their interest. The officers marched more stiffly as though conscious of official noblesse oblige. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... "You look as if you knew what isn't snobbery as well as what is; and when I say that ours is a good old family, you'll understand it is a necessary part of the story; indeed, my chief danger is in my brother's high-and-dry notions, noblesse oblige and all that. Well, my name is Christabel Carstairs; and my father was that Colonel Carstairs you've probably heard of, who made the famous Carstairs Collection of Roman coins. I could never describe my father to you; the nearest I can say is that he was very like a Roman coin ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marsillac, the author of the maxims, was one of the most illustrious members of the most illustrious families among the French noblesse. Descended from the ancient Dukes of Guienne, the founder of the Family Fulk or Foucauld, a younger branch of the House of Lusignan, was at the commencement of the eleventh century the Seigneur of a small town, La Roche, in the Angounois. Our chief knowledge of this feudal lord is drawn from ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... bourgeoisie finally obtained by the Revolution of 1830. In his heart he hated the aristocrats, and in religion he was indifferent; he was as much or as little of a bigot as Bonaparte was a member of the Mountain; yet his vertebral column bent with a flexibility wonderful to behold before the noblesse and the official hierarchy; for the powers that be, he humbled himself, he was meek and obsequious. One final characteristic will describe him for those who are accustomed to dealings with all kinds of men, and can appreciate its value—Cointet concealed ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... excellente illustre et magnificque Fleur de noblesse exquise et redolente Dame dhonneur princesse pacifique Salut a ta maieste precellente Tes seruiteurs par voye raisonnable Tant iusticiers que le peuple amyable. De amyens cite dicte de amenite Recomandant sont par humilite Leur bien publicque en ta grace et puissance Toy confessant estre en realite ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... a friend who married for love," she said slowly. "She belonged to the old noblesse, and her family wished her to make a great marriage. But she loved an artist and married him in spite of all opposition. For six months she was the happiest girl in France—then she found out that her husband was unfaithful. Does it shock you that I speak of it—we all knew ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Hystoire du tresnoble, victori, et excellentissime roy Perceforest, Roy de la Grand Bretaigne, fundateur du Francpalais et du temple du souverain Dieu. En laquelle lecture pourra veoir la source et decoration de toute Chevalerie, culture de vraye Noblesse, Prouesses, &c. Avecques plusieurs propheties, Comptes Damans, et leur divers fortunes. Lettres Gothiques, 6 tom. en 3 fol., Paris, chez Galliot du ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... thought, and of speech; on the freedom of the press by the censure; and of the person by lettres de cachet; the cruelty of the criminal code generally; the atrocities of the rack; the venality of Judges, and their partialities to the rich; the monopoly of military honors by the noblesse; the enormous expenses of the Queen, the Princes, and the Court; the prodigalities of pensions; and the riches, luxury, indolence, and immorality of the Clergy. Surely under such a mass of misrule and oppression, a people might justly press for thorough reformation, and might even dismount ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... pony in political tradition, and encouraged by every gamekeeper to follow the footsteps of his ancestors, Lord Runnymede had inevitably taken "Noblesse oblige" as his private motto. But of what service was nobility if its obligations were abolished? He sometimes pictured with a shudder the fate of the surviving French nobility—retaining their titles by courtesy, and compelled to fritter ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... s'etoit si bien conduit dans son gouvernement de la ville de Valence, que le roi, le jugeant propre a remplir une plus grande place, l'avoit nomme a la viceroyaute d'Aragon. D'ailleurs, ajouta-t-il, cette dignite n'est point au-dessus de votre naissance, et la noblesse Aragonoise ne sauroit murmurer contre ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... more striking kind marked the extinction of the feudal character of the noblesse. Gloomy walls and serried battlements disappeared from the dwellings of the gentry. The strength of the mediaeval fortress gave way to the pomp and grace of the Elizabethan Hall. Knole, Longleat, Burleigh and Hatfield, Hardwick and Audley End, are familiar instances ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... have often appeared in history—noble, brilliant, heroic women; but woman collectively, impersonally, never until now. To-day, for the first time, she asks recognition in the commonwealth—not in virtue of hereditary noblesse—not for any excellence or achievement of individuals, but on the simple ground of her presence in the race, with the same rights, interests, responsibilities as man. There was nothing in this gathering at the Capitol to touch the imagination with illusion, no ball-room splendor of light ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... least the danger of them; there is in every state (as we know) two portions of subjects; the noblesse and the commonalty. When one of these is discontent, the danger is not great; for common people are of slow motion, if they be not excited by the greater sort; and the greater sort are of small strength, except the multitude ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... of the Theatre de la Nation are aristocrats, and the citoyen Francois' piece tends to make men regret the privileges of the noblesse." ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... son of Madame de Rapin. He was born at Castres in 1661. He received his first lessons at home. He learnt the Latin rudiments, but his progress was not such as to please his father. He was then sent to the academy at Puylaurens, where the Protestant noblesse of the south of France were still permitted to send their sons. The celebrated Bayle was educated there. But in 1685 the academy of Puylaurens was suppressed, as that of Montauban had been a few years before; and then young ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... business. Da Fonseca, in his historical and archaeological description of the City of Goa, states that the Viceroy rarely stirred out of his palace, except to make a royal progress through the city. 'A day previous to his appearance in public, drums were beaten and trumpets sounded, as a signal to the noblesse and gentry to accompany him on the following day. Accordingly, early in the morning about three or four hundred hidalgos and courtiers appeared in the Terriero do Paco, clad in rich attire, mounted on noble ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... of her father's wealth Podstadsky felt that he had laughed too soon. The thought of the banker's millions made him feel rather grave. They were worth any thing short of such a lese noblesse as apostasy. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... es, je autiel fu, tu seras tiel come je su, De la mort ne pensay je mie, tant come j'avoy la vie. En terre avoy grand richesse, dont je y fys grand noblesse, Terre, mesons, et grand tresor, draps, chivalx, argent et or. Mesore su je povres et cheitifs, perfond en la terre gys, Ma grand beaute est tout alee, ma char est tout gastee Moult est estroite ma meson, en moy ne si verite non, Et si ore me veissez, je ne quide pas que vous ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... worth while to quote on this subject a passage from Condorcet as historically instructive as it is morally dangerous. 'La necessite de mentir pour desavouer un ouvrage est une extremite qui repugne egalement a la conscience et a la noblesse du caractere; mais le crime est pour les hommes injustes qui rendent ce desaveu necessaire a la surete de celui qu'ils y forcent. Si vous avez erige en crime ce qui n'en est pas un, si vous avez porte atteinte, par des ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley |
