"Valet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... really his love, and at the end his wife) and Angelique, daughter of La Caverne, who is provided with a lover and husband of 12,000 (livres) a year in the person of Leandre, one of the stock theatrical names, professedly "valet" to Le Destin, but really a country gentleman's son. Thus everybody is somebody else, again in the old way. Another, and to some tastes a more serious, blot may be found in the everlasting practical jokes of the knock-about kind, inflicted on the unfortunate Ragotin, a sort of amateur member ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... advice in money matters and solving the problems of lovers. I suspect that at times Mr. Jameson has thought that I was demented, but I had to resort to many and various expedients to collect the specimens of hair which I wanted. From the police, who used Mr. Lawton's valet, I received some hair from his head. Here is another specimen from each of the advertisers, Hata, the Swami, the Pandit, and the Guru. There is just one of these specimens which corresponds in every particular of colour, thickness, and ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... Cardinals to so do, saying he did not think it right for prisoners. Buonaparte saw him in January, I think the man said, for the last time. So much for Fontainebleau. Few have followed their master to Elba. Roustan the Mameluke and Constant his Valet were certainly very ungrateful; one of them—I forget which—to whom Buonaparte had given 25,000 fr. (about L1,200) the day before he left Fontainebleau, applied to the Duc de Berri for admission into his service; in reply the Duc told ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... the fireplace, under the ancestral portraits, a valet moves noiselessly about, arranging the glistening silver service on the long table and putting in order the fruits, sweets, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... everything that he needed had been laid out in readiness for him, and he dressed mechanically with a feverish haste that struggled ineffectually with a refractory collar stud, and caused him to execrate heartily the absent valet and his enigmatical errand. Another ten minutes was lost while he hunted for his watch and cigarette case which he suddenly remembered were in the coat that he had left at the little house. Or had he searched ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... on, when the Marquis of Ely went to the Hall to spend some time there. His valet was put to sleep in the tapestry chamber. In the middle of the night the whole family was aroused by his dreadful roars and screams, and he was found lying in another room in mortal terror. After some time he told them that, soon after he ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... sons went to the army and Phil was sent to care for him while he was there; an aristocratic man never went to the war without his valet. His [HW: Phil's] duty was to cook for him, keep his clothes clean, and to bring the body home if he was killed. Poor soldiers were either buried [HW: where they fell] or left lying on the field for vultures to consume. Food was ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... great for a man. His clear-cut and cold features seemed to be a wax copy of the head of Meleager or Antinoues; his brilliant complexion seemed to be the result of rouge and powder, and his somewhat reddish hair curled naturally as accurately as an expert hairdresser or clever valet could have made it curl. On the other hand, the firm glance of his steel-blue eyes and the slightly sneering expression of his lower lip corrected whatever there might be of effeminate in ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... remember Gaffer John! He was well over ninety when I left Beechfield, and he had been valet years ago to ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... very well, Japhet; but I had rather trust to our own prudence. Now hear what I have to say. You will be as much assisted by a trusty valet as by any other means. I shall, as a gentleman, be only an expense and an incumbrance; but as a valet I shall be able to play into your hands, at the same time more than one half the expense will be avoided. With your leave, therefore, I will take my proper situation, put on ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... which Manuel could have sworn was not there when he looked into the chamber a short half-hour before, sat Guy Cecil, complacently puffing at a briar pipe. His tweeds were as immaculate as though he had just stepped from the hands of his valet, and his tan shoes showed mark neither of mud nor rough trails. Manuel's quick glance caught these details and they set ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... other side of the apartment was a toilet-room, with all conveniences required for washing and other purposes, including a water-cooler. In this compartment the traveller takes his servant, and often a cook, for the valet cannot meddle with culinary matters; and they sleep on the floor wherever they can find a place. A reasonable additional price is charged for accommodations in ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... any retinue, having quitted Florence with only a single valet, who died of sudden illness on the road. Thus did I enter Naples alone, with my package of necessaries fastened to the saddle of the steed that bore me. I put up at a small, but respectable hostel; and the first few days of my residence ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... had already taken all the previous measures for their departure, when an accident happened, which our hero did not fail to convert to his own advantage. This was no other than the desertion of Renaldo's valet, who, in consequence of a gentle chastisement, which he had richly merited, thought proper to disappear, after having plundered his master's portmanteau, which he had forced open for the purpose. Ferdinand, who was the first person that discovered the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... rather than submit to the "yoke" of the Northern manufacturers; in North Carolina the legislature declared the tariff law unconstitutional. At the commencement of the University of Georgia the orator of the occasion appeared in a suit of white cotton cloth, while his valet wore the cast-off suit of shining broadcloth. The "Tariff of Abominations," passed in 1828, was producing revolutionary results in all the region where tobacco, cotton, and rice were grown, and this was the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... devoted Merat was annoyed; as well she might be, for Thornton Grange was a pleasant house for valets and lady's maids. "Some new valet," Evelyn thought, and she was sorry to drag Merat away from him, for Merat's sins were her own—no one was answerable for another; there was always that in her mind; and what applied to her did not apply to ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... at half-past nine, and remained until he had put up the shutters. It seemed as if he was accomplishing a duty in placing himself at the service of the two women. If he happened occasionally to neglect the tiresome job, he apologised with the humility of a valet the following day. On Thursdays he assisted Madame Raquin to light the fire, to do the honours of the house, and displayed all kinds of gentle attentions that charmed ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... care except his valet. Dallam cared and read and made notes. He was horrified at the thought of Dyckman's marrying a movie actress. He would have preferred any intrigue to that disgrace. It would mean the loss of a good position, too, for while Dyckman was an ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... us of wonderful performances by the horse on which the king was mounted. The name of the horse was Savoy, and it was the most beautiful horse he had ever seen. During the battle the king was personally attacked, when he had nobody near him but a valet de chambre, a little fellow, and not well armed. "The king," says Commines, "had the best horse under him in the world, and therefore he stood his ground bravely, till a number of his men, not a great way from him, arrived ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... F. Taylor owes everything he has or is to the Irish National Party; nor is he slow to confess it where the acknowledgment will serve his personal interests. His sneers are all anonymous, and, like Mr. Fagg, the grateful and deferential valet in The Rivals, "it hurts his conscience to be found out." There is no honesty or sincerity in the man. His covert gibes are the spiteful emanation of personal disappointment; his lofty morality is a cloak for unscrupulous self-seeking. He has always shown himself ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... Provost, in his "Lettres a Francois," "the clothes worn by men of quality were more costly than those worn by women. To-day all men dress with such uniformity that a Huron, transported to Paris or to London, could not distinguish master from valet. This will assuredly be the fate of feminine toilets in a future more or less near. The time must come when the varying costumes now seen at balls, at the races, at the theatre, will all be swept away; and in their place women will wear, ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful face and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London's best tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... had been borne part way up the stairs—a man who was so entirely helpless that he had to be carried to and from the table. He was a large, heavy man, and his valet had with the greatest difficulty managed to bear him on his back halfway up the stairs, where he had paused to take breath. In the meantime, the pressure from behind had become so tremendous that it had forced him to his knees; and he and his master were taking up the whole width of ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... the Belgian gentleman who owned the house and his cook brought me some food. She was the only member of his household who had not deserted him, and together they were serving the staff-officers, he acting as butler, waiter, and valet. The cock was an old peasant woman with a ruffled white cap, and when she left, in spite of the sentry, she patted me encouragingly on the shoulder. The owner of the house was more discreet, and contented himself with winking at me and whispering: "Ca va ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... thought Casanova, "since last I stood thus measuring sword with sword?" But none of his serious duels now recurred to his mind. He could think only of practice with the foils, such as ten years earlier he used to have every morning with his valet Costa, the rascal who afterwards bolted with a hundred and fifty thousand lire. "All the same, he was a fine fencer; nor has my hand forgotten its cunning! My arm is as true, my vision as keen, as ever..... Youth and age are fables. Am I not a god? Are we not both gods? If anyone ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... taken advantage of this accident to slip away from his travelling companions and drive alone to his lodgings in Jermyn Street. He was still greatly excited; and when his valet, an old retainer with whom he was on familiar terms, brought him a letter that had arrived during his absence, he asked him four times whether any one had called, and four times interrupted him by scraps of information about the splendid day he ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... as faithless a valet as any servant who ever watered wine, lost a gimcrack, or hooked a weed. Studs, neckcloths, bootjacks, silk socks, pins, underwear—all magically and eventually faded from my wardrobe, wafted to those silent bournes of swag that valets wot of. What in hell do you want ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... dangers. Then the special train for the passengers from South America had brought him to Paris, leaving him at four in the morning on a platform of the Gare du Nord in the embrace of Pepe Argensola, the young Spaniard whom he sometimes called "my secretary" or "my valet" because it was difficult to define exactly the relationship between them. In reality, he was a mixture of friend and parasite, the poor comrade, complacent and capable in his companionship with a rich youth on bad terms with his ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... he was seized with an attack of smallpox, which laid him prostrate on the low flock bed of the miserable little inn to which he had been conveyed on landing from the boat. Here he lay for some time incognito, his identity unknown to any save the faithful valet who attended him, until he had perfectly recovered from the disease, which, however, was found to have left the most frightful traces of its passage in scar and seam and furrow from forehead to chin. The handsome young cavalier ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... words on her lips he came, silent, noiseless, to her side. With his hands on her shoulders he forced her to her feet. His eyes were fierce, his stern mouth parted in a cruel smile, his deep, slow voice half angry, half impatiently amused. "Must I be valet, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... way, in reference to that painful and alarming rheumatic affection. One year, staying incautiously beyond the Alps as late as the middle of September, he had been laid up for three months in that lonely country house with no one but his valet and the caretaking couple to attend to him. Because, as he expressed it, he "kept no establishment there." He had only gone for a couple of days to confer with his land agent. He promised himself never to be so imprudent in the future. The first weeks of September ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... on to relate how he had been sent to Pau, to the college, to be brought up to the church, with an old servant to act both as his valet and his guardian. How his head was too full of gaming to learn Latin. How they gave him his rank at college, as the youth of quality, when he did not deserve it; how he travelled up to Paris to his brother to be polished, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Excellency," replied the valet de chambre, "the Master of the Hounds came this morning to inform him that he had marked down a stag. At first the king answered that he would not go; but he could not resist his love of sport, and set out ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... minutes, seen the curiosities of the place (I did not care to see the King's palace, for chairs and tables have no great charm for me), I had ordered horses, and wanted to get on I cared not whither, when Fate threw Dorothea in my way. I was yawning back to the hotel through the palace-garden, a valet-de-place at my side, when I saw a young lady seated under a tree reading a novel, her mamma on the same bench (a fat woman in light blue) knitting a stocking, and two officers, choked in their stays, with various orders on their spinach-colored coats, standing by in first attitudes: ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fullness of time I was graduated, and went with two of my servants—my chamberlain and my valet—to travel in foreign countries. During four years I flitted upon careless wing amid the beauteous gardens of the distant strand, if you will permit this form of speech in one whose tongue was ever ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... alone. However, as soon as I became accustomed to him, I got over all that, and now I would not lose him for anything; he seems to know instinctively what I want. He is excellent as a waiter and valet; I should feel almost lost without him now; and the clumping about of an English man servant would annoy me as much as his noiseless way of going about did at first. He has come to speak English very fairly. Of course, my brother always talked to him in his ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... Askinforit has been in my service for eight years. I should not be parting with her but for the fact that I am compelled by reasons of health to leave England. Askinforit is clean, sober, honest, an early riser, an excellent plate-cleaner and valet, has perfect manners and high intelligence, takes a great pride in her work, and is most willing, obliging and industrious. She was with me as parlour-maid (first of two), and now seeks temporary employment in that capacity; but there is no branch of domestic service with which she is not ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... whereby they are moved." A similar transparency of motive and purpose, of individual traits and spontaneous action, belongs to the Bible. From the hand of Shakspeare, "the lord and the tinker, the hero and the valet, come forth equally distinct and clear." In the Bible the various sorts of men are never confounded, but have the advantage of being exhibited by Nature herself, and are not a contrivance of the imagination. "Shylock," observes a recent critic, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... leeches for the hospitals, which circumstance made us conclude that the simple name of "Herr Simon" by which he called himself probably concealed some deep mystery. Nothing, alas! remains to me of his German, nor of that of a valet of the same race, who had been put about me, so ill adapted has my mental constitution always proved to any ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... trip there with Twichell thirty-three years earlier, and at "Bay House," the residence of Vice-Consul Allen, where he was always a welcome guest, he could have the attentions and care and comforts of a home. Taking Claude, the butler, as his valet, he sailed January 5th, and presently sent back a letter in which he said, "Again I am leading the ideal ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fortune. "He had been called 'Your Majesty;' now he can hardly find any one to call him 'Sir.' He had coined money; now he has not a penny of his own. He had had two Secretaries of State; now he has but one valet. He had sat on a throne; but since that time he had laid on straw in a London prison." In fact, his state was so doleful, that the other ex-kings subscribed twenty sequins apiece to buy him some coats and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... laying claim to no slight degree of present consequence, modestly ignored it, and spoke with pride of the grand way in which life was carried on by their ancestors, the Deephaven families of old times. I think Kate and I were assured at least a hundred times that Governor Chantrey kept a valet, and his wife, Lady Chantrey, kept a maid, and that the governor had an uncle in England who was a baronet; and I believe this must have been why our friends felt so deep an interest in the affairs of the English nobility: ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... truth of his system. Godwin had argued that private affections resulted in partiality, and therefore injustice.[83] If a house were on fire, reason would urge a man to save Fenelon in preference to his valet; but if the rescuer chanced to be the brother or father of the valet, private feeling would intervene, unreasonably urging him to save his relative and abandon Fenelon. Lest he should be regarded as a wrecker of homes, Godwin wished to show that domestic ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... disguise," continued Chi Foxy. "Me and Shermlock, when we had on tramp disguises we were tramps. Why, I used to go home and my valet would throw me downstairs. I was so thoroughly disguised, and I kept actin' so trampish while I had the disguise on, that he used to come at me with a golluf stick and whack me on the head. And when I got into my own room I kept right on being a tramp. Took off my clothes—still a tramp. Took off ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... neighbouring house, from which post he could not be dislodged, till the doctor, having lost patience, had sent home for another wig, and never after could be prevailed on to accept of this, which had been so much disgraced. That, enfin, his valet, to whom the monkey belonged, had, ever since that adventure, obliged the culprit by way of punishment to sit quietly, for an hour every morning, with the periwig on his head.—Et pendant ces moments de tranquillite je suis honore de la societe du ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... sure, began his first canto with conscious Spenserian. He called his poem a "romaunt," and his valet, poor Fletcher, a "stanch yeoman," and peppered his stanzas thinly with sooths and wights and whiloms, but he gave over this affectation in the later cantos and made no further excursions into the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... after his first visit he came in a taxicab, greatly excited, for them and their luggage, and drove them to Waterloo Station. On the platform they found Emily Gibbs, in charge of Lawrence, the duke's valet, awaiting them. She found favour in the exigent eyes of Pollyooly, who let her take charge of the Lump without a single anxious qualm. Emily Gibbs fell in love ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... pass my time here [he says] with extreme regularity and quietness, not knowing, even to speak to, a single individual in Rome; and the direction to my valet when I start on my perambulations, 'al Campidoglio,' 'al Foro,' forms the largest part of my daily utterances.... In a fit of desperation I took to writing a kind of political philosophy, in default of my poetical aim, which ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... he laughed, when the social secretary met him shortly after his arrival, "I'm the poor boy at this frolic, and I'm just as much at my ease as a Hottentot at college. When I found that I was the only man here without a valet, I ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... have faith in ghosts," retorted the landlady obstinately. "Haven't you heard of the haunted house in a West End square, where a man and a dog were found dead in the morning, with a valet as ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... 231: On the 23rd of September, Henry executed a deed by which of especial grace he gave "for the term of life to William Malbon, our valet de chambre, the office of Raglore [Qu: Regulator?] of the commotes of Glenerglyn and Hannynyok in our county of Cardigan. Given under our seal in our castle of Caermarthen, in the ninth year of the reign of ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... parts as their masters in the humors of the time. Rich people were always surrounded by a throng of servants. First came the valet de chambre, who was expected to know a little of everything, from shaving and wig-making to skill in country sports, and had as much experience in all town matters as a servant out of Terence or Moliere. Last came the negro slave, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... "Not only valet. He will be groom, cook, guide, interpreter and, whether you wish it or not, your chum. Moreover, he will do it all with the face of a clown and the manner of a tricksy monkey. As a panacea for the blues, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... sweetened with kisses; and, as the plot now thickens, change the scene to the dressing-room of Rainscourt, who had now just risen, at his usual hour, viz., between two and three in the afternoon. His French valet is in attendance shaving him, and dressing his hair, and communicating what little intelligence he has been enabled to ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... snuff.] Begar, sair, I am von man of fashion aussi, I am valet de sham to capitain Pendragoon; ve are in ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah
... deal struck and affected by this revelation, and astonished at the slighting tone Betty took in speaking of so remarkable a man. The saying that "No man is a hero to his valet" was not yet current, or perhaps she would have been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... one of the maids, and Champreau the courier and valet who had been engaged by Abner Power. They had been sitting behind the other pair throughout the service, and indeed knew rather more of the relations between Paula and De ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... stern answer. "One hundred dollars when I get back here. And," he added, "if it should occur to you at the hotel that you might pawn these studs, or the flask, or the clothing for more than a hundred, let me remind you that my chauffeur will be watching one entrance, my valet ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... treasonable to strike a herald, or to counterfeit the character of one. Yet Louis "did not hesitate to practise such an imposition when he wished to enter into communication with Edward IV of England.... He selected, as an agentfit for his purpose, a simple valet. This man... he disguised as a herald, with all the insignia of his office, and sent him in that capacity to open a communication with the English army. The stratagem, though of so fraudulent a nature, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... holding the envelope between the folds of her skirt without glancing at it, and trying to hide the trembling of her arm. She sat down, forcing her hand around and her gaze to meet it. The envelope was blank; she tore its flap and read: "Valet Service. Suits Cleaned and ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... packages for the journey, but who proved in other respects very poor travellers. He also secured the services of that now well-known hero, Bombay, captain of Speke's faithfuls, and five of his other followers, Uledi, Grant's valet, and the bull-headed Mabruki, who had in the mean time lost one of his hands, but, notwithstanding, was likely to prove useful. They were the only remains of the band to be found, the rest having died or gone elsewhere. These six still retained their medals for assisting ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... I don't remember whether Lord Bacon has left us anything in that line,—unless, indeed, he wrote Romeo and Juliet' and the 'Sonnets;' but if he has, I don't believe they differ so very much from those of his valet or his groom to their respective lady-loves. It is always, My darling! my darling! The words of endearment are the only ones the lover wants to employ, and he finds the vocabulary too limited for his vast desires. So his letters are apt to be rather tedious except to the ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... valet brought him with his morning beverage a piece of flat rock. On it was carved a simple human thigh-bone. He uttered a loud cry. She had rejected him. The parcel-post, an hour later, brought him his own ideograph, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... two Incas, who appeared to be our personal attendants—for we were actually able to recognize them after half a dozen visits—arrived to perform the offices of chambermaid and valet. The floor of the apartment was scrubbed, the urns refilled with oil, and the skin cover of the granite couch was changed. It seemed that another belief—in cleanliness—had refused to be dislodged from the ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... went on; "the way people would be looking at me in trains and omnibuses; the things people would say of me, the things I should imagine they were saying; what my valet would be thinking of me. Oh, I'm ashamed enough of myself. It's the artistic temperament, I suppose. We must always be admired, praised. We're not the stuff that martyrs are made of. We must for ever be kow-towing to the cackling geese around us. We're so terrified lest ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... her window going up Highgate Hill, on his last journey to the seat of his ancestors. Mary had been much interested in the account Trelawny had sent her of Byron's latest moments. She had been to see the poet's remains at the house where they lay in London. She saw his valet, Fletcher, and "from a few words he imprudently let fall, it would seem that his Lordship spoke of C——- in his last moments, and of his wish to do something for her, at a time when his mind, vacillating between consciousness and delirium, would not permit ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... abuses our brains. Suppose now that our bookman has decided to 'read up' the French Revolution, a subject to which we all turn at some period of our lives. He has been led thereto, perhaps, by having lighted upon a translation of someone's memoirs, the recollections of some insignificant valet-de-chambre or dissolute cure (for such memoirs abound), more interesting by reason of its piquancy than its historical accuracy. He reads of persons and events that he recollects vaguely to have heard of before, and so he goes on ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... rode over a short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... bundle out of here posthaste. They sail tomorrow morning. Your duties as valet have been light and short-lived; but I can give you an excellent recommendation should you desire to take service ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... enough to postpone telling me more about such little matters, may I ask you, Colonel, who will show me to my rooms? I shall need quite a few, for, outside of two chauffeurs—I have five auto cars you know—I have also four household servants and a valet." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... house, as she had fondly hoped would be the case. She was permitted to spend an occasional week, sometimes stretched to ten days or a fortnight, in Cavendish Square; but the cook-housekeeper and the clever German servant, half valet half butler, still reigned supreme in that well-ordered establishment; and Urania felt that she had no more authority than a visitor. She dared not find fault with servants who had lived ten years ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Hanover, fifth son of George III., was gazetted as Field-Marshal November 27, 1813. His "wounds," which, according to the Duke's sworn testimony, were seventeen in number, were inflicted during an encounter with his valet, Joseph Sellis (? Slis), a Piedmontese, who had attempted to assassinate the Prince (June 1, 1810), and, shortly afterwards, was found with his throat cut. A jury of Westminster tradesmen brought in a verdict of felo ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... learned to distinguish between Mohammedans and other dark-complexioned people and held himself aloof from the former, thereby escaping any humiliating races with the heavy boots of the gunbearers and other followers of Allah. He made friends with little Ali, the monkey's valet, a small Swahili boy who looked like a chocolate drop in color, and like a tooth-powder ad in disposition. It was Ali's duty to carry the ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... by a young man, who was pacing restlessly up and down the room, of which he was, with the exception of his valet de chambre, an Italian named Michel, the person who had opened ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... The gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of the prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house through the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages—twenty times repeated—of a sonata ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... his lordship found it necessary to keep a secretary, to aid him in his politics not only to write but to think; and I afterward learned, from his valet, that he had allowed a hundred a year to one who had left his service that very day. His lordship was doubtless therefore well satisfied with the meeting of this morning, in which he not only recovered his diamond repeater but rewarded the youth who brought it, by suffering him ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and parcel of the man. His appearance would doubtless have violated the proprieties of the Albany, for in my rural retreat he was called upon to perform other and more important services than those of a valet. His neatly shaved chin, stolid red countenance and perfectly brushed hair were unexceptionable of course, but because his duties would presently take him into the garden he wore, not the regulation black, but an ancient shooting-jacket, khaki breeches and brown gaiters, ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... was put up by a great nobleman, of whose subterranean palace and strange seclusion I had before heard. Common report attributed his unwillingness to be seen to a disfiguring malady with which he was said to be afflicted. The story was that he was visible only to his valet. But a lady of quality, whom I met in this country, told me she had seen him, and observed nothing to justify it. These old countries are full of romances and legends and diableries of all sorts, in which truth and lies are so mixed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Redmain," said her husband when Mary entered. "Get out, Mewks," he added; and both lady and valet disappeared. ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... which began to characterize the Swedish nobility in the eighteenth century, and which continued to assert themselves almost to the end of the nineteenth. But in English that form would not have the same significance, and nothing in the play makes its use imperative. The valet, on the other hand, would most appropriately be named Jean both in England and here, and for that reason I have retained this form of ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... lad, had now been at the pains to warn him; Gotthold looked for something at his hands. Well, none should be disappointed; the Prince, too long beshadowed by the uxorious lover, should now return and shine. He summoned his valet, repaired the disorder of his appearance with elaborate care; and then, curled and scented and adorned, Prince Charming in every line, but with a twitching nostril, he set forth unattended ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... life before now, she had remembered her father doing what she considered a strangely hard thing. A valet in whom he had always reposed full confidence had robbed him of one hundred pounds. He had broken open his master's desk at night and taken from thence notes to that amount. The deed had been clumsily done, and detection was very ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... money at my camp. If that is not enough to pay your blackmail, my valet has gone back to the railway with my guide for a remittance of a thousand dollars, which must have come on a ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... came back with the message that the bank no longer cashed foreign cheques; whereupon he disappeared, and was never heard of again. The Princess was beside herself with rage, and cried that she would have him knouted. She summoned her German valet, but he was busy buckling on his Feldwebel uniform. She ordered her French chauffeur to be ready to start instantly; I went down to the garage with the message myself so as to get away from her, and discovered that the fellow was a reservist from Saint-Mihiel, ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... their servant—their valet," said Aaron to himself, and a curious half-amused, half-contemptuous look flickered on his face. It annoyed him. The falsity occasioned by the difference in the price of the tickets was really humiliating. Aaron had lived long enough ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... for three years (our two boys intimately), and he always shuddered at hurting anything, and was peculiarly gentle and kind towards children and animals, and if anything rather timid; so that all who knew him said he never could have had a chance in his own country. His valet, who is a very respectable Englishman, and has been with him ever since his twelfth year, says that he never knew a kinder or more amiable disposition. The Queen fears that people who do not know him well have been led away by their present ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... later than 1366; the probability is, that it closely followed his return from the wars. In 1367, Edward III. settled upon Chaucer a life- pension of twenty marks, "for the good service which our beloved Valet — 'dilectus Valettus noster' — Geoffrey Chaucer has rendered, and will render in time to come." Camden explains 'Valettus hospitii' to signify a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber; Selden says that the designation was bestowed "upon young heirs ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... visitors to the Emperor's palace, which he gave them to understand was open for that day only, and as a special privilege due to Tanaka's influence. While expatiating on the wonders to be seen, he brushed Geoffrey's clothes and arranged them with the care of a trained valet. In the evening, when they returned to the hotel and Asako complained of pains in her shoulder, Tanaka showed himself to be an ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... at once," he went on hurriedly, looking hard at the bracelets. "I shouldn't like to be unkind to her, mother, but do you think Clara would give me up? I don't need a nurse now. It's rather silly. May one of the men-servants valet me? I should like Winter best, because he's been here always, and I shouldn't feel shy with him. Would it bore you awfully to speak about that now, so ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... a large box full of delicious bonbons of every variety. She commanded a valet to raise the box and place it upon one of the mules which ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... from the snares and temptations of this wicked world. While I am tormented with ennui, blue-devils and dyspepsia, you sit still and grow in stature and knowledge. By Jove! you are too big to wear my cast-off suits now. My valet will bless the increase of your outward man, and I don't think you have at all profited by the circumstance. Where the deuce did you get that eccentric turn-out? It certainly does not remind one ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... presence of the above-named military aspirant one day, about two months after the date of his commission. He was introduced to his brother officers, examined by them from head to foot, shown into a bare uncomfortable garret—of which he was installed proprietor, allotted a tough old grenadier as his valet-de-chambre, and then left to his own ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... evidence of wickedness, wrongdoing, and petty personal motives, of low ambitions, of bargains and sales, of timidity, of treachery. The reverse of the most costly tapestry looks mean and cheap. It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. The reason is not that the hero is mean or base, but that the valet cannot see anything that is great and noble, but only what is mean and base. The history of no people is heroical to its Mugwumps. But, thank God, what is petty and personal ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... passengers. This was his fifth trip in the Carnatic. He took no truck in passengers beyond showing them the patient politeness enjoined by the Company's rules. He knew nothing of Mr Markham, who dispensed with the services of a valet and dressed with a shabbiness only pardonable in the extremely rich. Mr Markham, 'the Insurance King,' had arrayed himself this morning in gray flannel, with a reach-me-down overcoat, cloth cap, and carpet slippers that betrayed his flat, Jewish instep. ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... that evening he was so absent-minded that his valet held forth for an hour in the servants' hall, with assurances that some mighty coup was toward. Not since the days of B.L. & W. or the rate war on the S. & O. had his master shown ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... valets to attend them, their rooms, and their clothes. Think of that! Don't do anything like that, even if you are a hundred times a millionaire. Of course you won't—you who read this—because not one out of ten thousand young Americans can afford to have a valet ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... Greyne repeated after a short interval. "Am I to go alone?" "Of course you must take Darrell." Darrell was Mr. Greyne's valet. ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... have criticized Frenchmen more severely than ever had he known that even Sully gave way in private to a passion for dancing. At least Tallemant des Reaux says that "every evening a valet de chambre of the King played on the lute the dances of the day, and M. de Sully danced all alone, in some sort of extraordinary hat—such as he always wore in his cabinet—while his cronies applauded him, although he was the most awkward man in ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... elegance of taste in everything that he liked, in his luxurious habits, in his ways, and in his whole life, to which she bowed down in astonishment and delight, as though she herself were not the mainspring of it all and his cashier. Her son's valet did not seem to her like an ordinary domestic; his horse was not merely a horse, it was her son's horse. When her son went out she gave orders that she should be told so that she might have the satisfaction of seeing him get into the ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... stories seldom exceed ten pages in length, while some do not exceed four. They constitute a series of sketches, of miniatures of rare value, among which can be found some real gems. One cannot say as much for his longer works, where certain parts are exaggerated, as in "The Valet de Chambre," "Ward No. 6," ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... of Champagne named Jean Voute, published a collection of Latin verses in which were three epigrams upon her. It is to be supposed that the poet was sure of protection in high places, for the pamphlet has a preface in praise of itself, signed by Salmon Macrin, first valet-de-chambre to the king. Only one passage is quotable from these epigrams, which are ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... illa conclusione differt? 'Si mentiris, mentiris: mentiris autem: mentiris igitur.' Hoc negas te posse nec approbare nec improbare. 97. Qui igitur magis illud? Si ars, si ratio, si via, si vis denique conclusionis valet, eadem est in utroque. Sed hoc extremum eorum est: postulant ut excipiantur haec inexplicabilia. Tribunum aliquem censeo adeant: a me istam exceptionem numquam impetrabunt. Etenim cum ab Epicuro, qui totam dialecticam et contemnit et irridet, non impetrent ut verum esse concedat quod ita ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... substitute the indirect phrases, vuestra Merced (in Spanish) and vossa Merce (in Portuguese), both much contracted in speaking and familiar writing, and both signifying "your Grace." The joke of invariably applying this epithet to one's valet would seem sufficiently grotesque in either language, and here the Spanish stops; but Portuguese propriety has gone so far that even this phrase has become too hackneyed to be civil. In talking with your equals, it would be held ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... interrupted by the entrance of a valet, who came to offer his services. Voules, supposing from his appearance that he was one of the other guests who had mistaken his room, made him a polite bow, and said something to that effect. The valet, uncertain whether the young gentleman was a lord or a commoner, thought it wise ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... dress was designed by Sir John Gilbert. It was never replaced, and only once cleaned by Henry's dresser and valet, Walter Collinson. Walter, I think, replaced "Doody," Henry's first dresser at the Lyceum, during the run of "The Merchant of Venice." Walter was a wig-maker by trade—assistant to Clarkson the elder. It was Doody who, on being asked ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Baron, "also my valet, my cook, my chambermaid, my man to do all, what you call factotum, is it not? But he speaks not English, so ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... irritating actions. He took from them the delicious morsels which they cooked. Four men, for another had joined them, greatly enraged, sullenly abandoned their work, and retiring a short distance agreed to avenge themselves by killing Moranget, and also by killing Nika and another man who was the valet of La Salle. Both of these men were ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... dead, or body-washer, who were in his pay; and for the moment they were loyal to him. For his purpose, too, they were the most useful of mercenaries: for the duties of a barber are those of a valet-de-chambre, a doctor, registrar and sanitary officer combined; and his coadjutor in information and gossip was the moghassil, who sits and waits for some one to die, as a raven on a housetop waits for carrion. Dicky was patient, but as the days ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was an operation which occupied some time if carefully performed. It is stated in the "Life of Mrs Elizabeth Thomas," published in 1731, of Mr Richard Shute, her grandfather, a Turkey merchant, that he was very nice in the mode of that age, his valet being some hours every morning in starching his beard, and curling his whiskers, during which time a gentleman, whom he maintained as a companion, always read to him upon some useful subject. In closing, we have to state ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... face with him. It would be an interesting encounter. Hunted him for weeks, and to-day laid eyes on him for the first time. Had my clumsy paws on him this very afternoon. He seemed so willing to be locked up that I grew careless. Biff! and he and his accomplice, an erstwhile valet, had me trussed like a chicken and bundled into the clothes-press. Took my star, credentials, playing-card, and invitation. It was near eleven o'clock when I roused the housekeeper. I telegraphed ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... the head hanging back, the wide glazed eyes looking up to the summer sky whence the sweltering heat would soon pour down upon it. We looked shuddering at the face. It was that of a servant, a valet who had been with Louis at Caylus. We recognised him at once for we had known and liked him. He had carried our guns on the hills a dozen times, and told us stories of the war. The blood crawled slowly ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Gummersbach the Valet comes to Rochow's bolster: "Hst, Herr Oberst-Lieutenant, please awaken! Prince Royal is up, has on his top-coat, and is gone out of doors!" Rochow starts to his habiliments, or perhaps has them ready on; in a minute or two, Rochow also is forth into the gray of the morning;—finds ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... was the reply; "Likewhich the Delphy Inums. An' I've put enough sweet peas in to supply Covint Garden market, bearin' in mind as 'ow you sed you couldn't have enough on 'em. Sir Morton Pippitt's Lunnon valet came along while I was a- doin' of it, an' 'e peers over the 'edge an' 'e sez, sez 'e: 'Weedin' corn, are yer?' 'No, ye gowk,' sez I! 'Ever seen corn at all 'cept in a bin? Mixed wi' thistles, mebbe?' An' then he ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... valet who had long been on duty in the royal family, and had served a term in the Bastille for his fidelity, desired to read to the king, when he went to bed, something besides fairy tales; if his juvenile majesty went to sleep the reading would be lost; if not, something ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... civilians. You must appear before them as a soldier, and they will shout you King till their throats are hoarse and the water stands in their eyes. They are a dramatic people, lovers of effect. They must be taken by storm. I cannot offer your Highness a valet, but perhaps ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... He put forth all his eloquence, and flashed wit, like rays from a beacon, all through the lesson. Like a man roused from lethargy, he revealed to me a new world of thoughts. He told me the story of some poor devil of a valet who gave up his life for a single glance ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... curiosity, went sometimes to their levees, where I saw the Commissioners, the Duke of Queensbury, the Chancellor, the Secretary, Lord Mar, and other great men of Scotland, hang on near an hour; and when admitted, treated with no more civility than one gentleman pays another's valet-de-chambre; and for which the Scots have none to blame but themselves, for had they valued themselves as they ought to have done, and not so meanly and sneakingly prostituted their honour and country to the will and pleasure ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... entirely inhibited. French ladies under the old Regime (as A. Franklin points out in his Vie Privee d'Autrefois) sometimes showed no modesty towards their valets, not admitting the possibility of any sexual advance, and a lady would, for example, stand up in her bath while a valet added hot water by pouring it between her ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... to a commission and the Cross of St. Louis; but the piping times of peace turned all such brave grapes sour. I was glad enough, when the alternative was given me, of accompanying my Captain, Monsieur de la Ribaldiere, to Paris, as his Valet de Chambre, or of mouldering away, without hope of Promotion, in some country barrack, to choose the former, and led, for a year or two, a gay, easy life enough in the French Capital. But, alas! that which I had hidden from a whole army in the field, I could not keep a secret from one rubbishing, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... luscum regnare posse. Apud rudes valet saepe fucata disputatio, quam schola Philosophorum exsibilat. Multa peccat adversarius in hoc genere; sed quatuor fallacies plerumque consuitur, quas in Academia malim, ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... Beau Brummell, a fastidious aristocrat with luxurious tastes and a depleted fortune; Isidore, his valet; Mr. Fotherby, his ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... made to be looked up to. I'm not going to be a hero to my valet de chambre, or to anybody else, my dear, if that's what ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... indignation with so majestic an air that the landlord was soon apologising for having disturbed a gentleman in the proper exercise of belabouring his valet. ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... arrayed in velvet collars, which so preyed upon my uncle's spirits that he took to his bed, and never showed his face in public again. His money, which had ruined what might have been a great life, was divided amongst many bequests, an annuity to his valet, Ambrose, being amongst them; but enough has come to his sister, my dear mother, to help to make her old age as sunny and as pleasant as even I ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Was there not Private Valentine in that very house, acting as sole housemaid, valet, cook, steward, and nurse, in the family of his captain, Monsieur le Capitaine de la Cour,—cleaning the floors, making the beds, doing the marketing, dressing the captain, dressing the dinners, dressing the salads, ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... wear the military uniform? Why do they all hold military reviews, why do they organize maneuvers, distribute rewards to the military, and raise monuments to generals and successful commanders? Why do rich men of independent position consider it an honor to perform a valet's duties in attendance on crowned personages, flattering them and cringing to them and pretending to believe in their peculiar superiority? Why do men who have ceased to believe in the superstitions ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... Seeing his valet and confidant, Giustiniano da Sesena, he said: "We are going to Signore Lorenzino's, but what shall I put on?" Giustiniano handed him a crimson silk dressing-gown, and asked him whether he would wear his sword and ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... announced one morning that the lady had absolutely and for ever taken the veil, and that the world would see her no more. When, at the very tail of this rumour, there came the assurance that the celebrated operating surgeon, the man of steel nerves, had been found in the morning by his valet, seated on one side of his bed, smiling pleasantly upon the universe, with both legs jammed into one side of his breeches and his great brain about as valuable as a cap full of porridge, the matter was strong enough to give quite a little ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the country, the people and the ways she has left. The Parisian shopkeepers had made everything for her from measures and models sent from Vienna. Napoleon had had these models shown him, and taking one of the shoes, which were remarkably small, he had sportively stroked his valet's cheek with it, and said, "See there, Constant; here's a shoe that will bring good luck with it. Did you ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand |
