"Mesdames" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... too, furthered the movement with his Musical Union and quartett parties at Willis's Rooms, where Sainton and Cooper led alternately, and the incomparable Piatti and Hill made up the four. Here Ernst, Sivori, Vieuxtemps, and Bottesini, and Mesdames Schumann, Dulcken, Arabella Goddard, and all the famous ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... such conversationists as Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Sir John Malcolm, and many others, who are now gone? And among those in existence, I have but to mention Croker, Theodore Hooke, Professor Wilson, Bulwer, Lockhart, the Smiths, and, in the other sex, Lady Blessington, Lady Morgan, Mesdames Somerville, Austin, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... see these girls develop and outdo their elders. There is another little woman that I want to come up here to the platform, Mrs. Chapman Catt. While she is blushing and getting ready, there is a delegation here from the Woman's National Press Association." Mesdames Lockwood, Gates, Cromwell and Emerson were introduced, and Miss Anthony remarked: "Our movement depends greatly on the press. The worst mistake any woman can make is to get crosswise ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... to leave, met Guitant, captain of the guard, who arrested him, and commanded the Duke to follow him in the names of the King and Queen. The Prince, without showing any surprise, after having looked fixedly at him, said, "Yes, I will; but this, I must own, is strange enough." Then turning towards Mesdames de Chevreuse and de Hautefort, who were talking together, he said to them, "Ladies, you see that the Queen has caused me to be arrested." The young nobleman then submitted to the royal mandate without ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... from the dark fells and misty lochs of the land of the Royal Stuarts to be the loveliest queen who ever sat on the throne of la belle France. De Ramezay was the father of thirteen children, by his wife, Mademoiselle Denys de la Ronde, a sister of Mesdames Thomas Tarieu de La Naudiere de La Perade, d'Ailleboust d'Argenteuil, Chartier de Lotbiniere and Aubert de la Chenage, the same family out of whom came the celebrated de Jumonville, so well known in connection ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... lay on the ground without consciousness. The King, in a frenzy, was for striking me with his feet; had not the Queen, my Sisters, and the rest, run between, and those who were present prevented him. They all ranked themselves round me, which gave Mesdames de Kamecke and Sonsfeld time to pick me up. They put me in a chair in the embrasure of a window; threw water on my face to bring me to life: which care I lamentably reproached them with, death being a thousand times better, in the pass things had come to. The Queen ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... a lengthy disagreement between King Louis XIV. and the Pope with regard to the nomination of abbesses, in consequence of which two ladies Mesdames de Grieu, having been disappointed of an expected establishment, retired to Saint-Sauveur, where they formed a great friendship with my mother, and became devoted to her two-year-old child. I was naturally very popular in the convent, and having a bright disposition I was educated ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the Illinois constitution by which the Legislature itself could grant a large measure of suffrage to women and had tried to obtain the law that had just been gained; by Mrs. Ella S. Stewart, another president, who had carried on this work; and by Mesdames Ruth Hanna McCormick, Grace Wilbur Trout, Antoinette Funk and Elizabeth K. Booth, the famous quartette of younger workers, who had finally succeeded with a progressive Legislature. As there was no representative from far-off Alaska, Dr. Shaw ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Marlborough. If ever a subject stood on the very pinnacle of greatness, it was she. All the foreign ambassadors flattered her and paid court to her. The greatest nobles solicited or bought of her the lucrative offices in the gift of the Crown. She was the dispenser of court favors, as Mesdames de Maintenon and Pompadour were in France. She was the admiration of gifted circles, in which she reigned as a queen of society. Poets sang her praises and extolled her beauty; statesmen craved her influence. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... of the Sophomore class visited the studios of the famous Mesdames Dodginsky and DeBartley, where they were told their secret ambitions; and by special permission we have been allowed to print them. It appears that Annah Margaret Thresher would like to swim the English Channel. Jean Crocker longs to ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... Massachusetts, Governor Rice, in his inaugural address, recommended to the legislature to secure to women the right to vote for presidential electors. An address to the legislature of New York by Mesdames Gage, Blake and Lozier upon this question, was favorably received and extensively quoted by the press. At an agricultural fair in Illinois the Hon. James R. Doolittle advocated household suffrage. In the Senate of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... in this same auberge that our landlady made this piteous supplication: "Caricature each other on the walls, messieurs et mesdames, si vous voulez; make portrait busts of the bread and figurines of the potatoes, and decorate the plates in whatever style of art you please; but don't, je vous en supplie, don't blacken the table-cloths before they are three ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.—Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Anstruther, "such a rose as the peerless Nadine Johnstone must have a duenna." He deftly caught an impassioned glance from the softly shining brown eyes, and hastily went on. "She was educated right here in this emporium of watches, musical boxes, correct principles, and scientific research. Mesdames Justine and Euphrosyne Delande, No. 122 Rue du Rhone, conduct an institute (justly renowned) where calisthenics, a view of the lake, a little music, a great deal of bad French, and the Conversations Lexicon, with some surface womanly graces, may all be had for some two hundred pounds ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... degrees of our connection. Alone, in a morning visit, I commonly found the artists and authors of Paris less vain, and more reasonable, than in the circles of their equals, with whom they mingle in the houses of the rich. Four days in a week, I had place, without invitation, at the hospitable tables of Mesdames Geoffrin and du Bocage, of the celebrated Helvetius, and of the Baron d'Olbach. In these symposia the pleasures of the table were improved by lively and liberal conversation; the company was select, ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... being sadly perplexed as to the installation of his little household, Guillaume had derived from his neighbors, Mesdames Chebe and Delobelle, advice and information which were an indispensable aid to that ingenuous, timid, somewhat heavy youth, embarrassed by his foreign accent and manner. After a brief period of neighborhood and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... amazingly—seeing, I say, that this conversation does not give us a fair chance, suppose we give up censoriousness altogether, and decline uttering our opinions about Brown, Jones, and Robinson (and Mesdames B., J., and R.) at all. We may be mistaken about every one of them, as, please goodness, those anecdote-mongers against whom I have uttered my meek protest have been mistaken about me. We need not go ...
— English Satires • Various
... year. "Letts be happy, while we can, and good luck to you, Ladies all, in 1892. Leap year!" quoth the Baron. "Over you go like the villagers in the German story, after the sheep, into the sea of matrimony, where may you all get on swimmingly." A propos, Mesdames BLYTHE and GAY say that the Christmas Number of Woman, produced by a number of women, is as full of attractive power ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... "tobah! Let the mem-log alone! Ai! he's snatched a coiffe! Drop it, Djebe! C'hast buhan! Don't be afraid, mesdames; the elephant is not ugly! Chomit oll ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... kindly to Mr. Gaskell and Marianna. As to Mesdames Flossy and Julia, those venerable ladies are requested beforehand to make due allowance for the awe with which they will be sure to impress a diffident admirer. I am sorry I shall not see Meta.—Believe me, my dear Mrs. Gaskell, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... two noble topers, who, though they talked freely enough, Heaven knows, in his presence (Good Lord, what a set of stories, of Alsatia and Spring Garden, of the taverns and gaming-houses, of the ladies of the Court, and mesdames of the theatres, he can recall out of their godly conversation!)—although I say they talked before Esmond freely, yet they seemed pleased when he went away, and then they had another bottle, and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... boards. Madame de Navarro (Miss Mary Anderson) has deliberately put on record her opinion of Miss Clara Morris as "the greatest emotional actress I ever saw." It is not likely that when Madame de Navarro pronounced that estimate she was forgetting either Miss Terry or Mrs. Campbell—or Mesdames Rejane and Bernhardt or Signora Duse. Madame de Navarro is no mean judge: and those who have read Miss Morris's wonderful book, Life on the Stage, will think the judgment in ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... and Madame de Bouille being dead, were naturally no parties to the suit, which was fought against the Saint-Geran family by la Pigoreau and Mesdames du Lude and de Ventadour. These ladies no doubt acted in good faith, at first at any rate, in refusing to believe the crime; for if they had originally known the truth it is incredible that they could have fought the case so long ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... discountenanced him, and down went his eyes on the ground. Then the cowards finding, like the hare who ran by the pond and the frogs scuttled into the water, that there was a creature they could frighten, giggled and enjoyed their prowess. Then a duenna said severely, "Mesdames!" and they were all abashed at once as though a modesty string had been pulled. This same duenna took Gerard, and marched before him in solemn silence. The young man's heart sank, and he had half a mind to turn and run out ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... "Messieurs, my love—mesdames et mademoiselles, my admiration," she cried, with a ripple of joy-mad laughter. "To the success of the Apaches, to the glory of four hundred thousand francs, and to the quick arrival of Serpice and Gaston." Then, her upward glance catching sight of the musicians sipping their absinthe in the little ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... reassure yourself,' replied Diane; 'it is merely that her Majesty, being on the way to Monceaux with Mesdames, turned out of her road to make a flying visit to your graces, and endeavour to persuade you to make ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... albums in the department. M. Alexandre de Brebian and M. de Bartas came together, each with his friend's wife on his arm, a cross-cornered arrangement which gossip declared to be carried out to the fullest extent. As for the two women, Mesdames Charlotte de Brebian and Josephine de Bartas, or Lolotte and Fifine, as they were called, both took an equal interest in a scarf, or the trimming of a dress, or the reconciliation of several irreconcilable ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... smitten with some other lady, and looking round her, to see where her young guest could have found a needle-case to his taste, she thought of the fair Limeuil, one of Queen Catherine's maids, of Mesdames de Nevers, d'Estree, and de Giac, all of whom were declared friends of Lavalliere, and of the lot he ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... the shady court below, where the eager refugees from Aratat were congregated. A deep, almost sepulchral tone came into his voice as he addressed himself to the veiled wives of Jacob von Blitz. "It is my painful duty to announce to the Mesdames von ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... wailings of anxious souls. And the women-physicians are also endeavouring in this matter, and endeavouring disgustingly enough. 'Oh, dear, regulation! Oh, dear, abolition! Oh, dear, live merchandise! A condition of slavery! The mesdames, these greedy haeterae! These heinous degenerates of humanity, sucking the blood of prostitutes!' ... But with clamour you will scare no one and will affect no one. You know, there's a little saying: much cry, little wool. More awful than all awful words—a ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... striking example of this method is the 'Pere Goriot.' The general situation may be described in two words, by saying that Goriot is the modern King Lear. Mesdames de Restaud and de Nucingen are the representatives of Regan and Goneril; but the Parisian Lear is not allowed the consolation of a Cordelia; the cup of misery is measured out to him drop by drop, and the bitterness of each dose is analysed with chemical accuracy. We watch ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Madame remembers Mesdames Recamier and De Stael, and told me several funny anecdotes of the former. Madame R., she said, was always coquetting with her own funeral; conversed with different artists on the arrangements of its details, and tempting now one, now another, with the ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... religious fiction, and above all, some charming poems; Florio (1786,) and the Blue Stocking, or Conversation. The Blue Stocking is a burlesque name given to a lady's coterie, in which several females attempted to start a sort of bureau d'esprit under the direction of Mesdames Robinson and Piozzi, a coterie innocent enough, but which excited the wrath of Mr. Gifford, the Editor of the Quarterly Review, who fulminated against it several satires in excessively bad taste, and written in a tone ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... be pleas'd and use no prejudice. Mesdames, stand up. Mislike not their attire; That shall be mended as ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... beautifully sung, and then the prayers and collects, not less beautiful, well intoned on one single note by the Minister. And when I looked up and about me, I thought that Abbey a wonderful structure for Monkeys to have raised. The last night, Mesdames Kemble and Edwards had each of them company, so I went into my old Opera House in the Haymarket, where I remembered the very place where Pasta stood as Medea on the Stage, and Rubini singing his ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... flickers on her hollowing cheek, from which the stage-blush has been washed, and think the game a losing one? The Senator lives near by, and that is Madame's room over the way. Did not Caesar have a candle that he bought of Brutus? And how many Mesdames have cursed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... of celebrated musicians, so of statesmen. But, as a compensation, we stop and talk for ten minutes in front of some arcade or other, with Messieurs Armand du Cantal, George Beaunoir, Felix Verdoret, of whom you have never heard. Mesdames Constantine Ramachard, Anais Crottat, and Lucienne Vouillon threaten me with their blue friendship. We dine editors totally unknown in our province. Finally I have had the painful happiness of seeing Adolphe decline an invitation to an evening party to ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... fellow. If he had a fault, it was only that perhaps he was a little near; but still, a good fault, is it not? When he was called to the Front his wife was desolated, simply desolated. And then, poor M. de Blanchet—not the figure for a soldier—of a rotundity, Mesdames!" And Madame Marcot lifted her eyes heavenwards, struck speechless for a moment at the thought of M. de Blanchet's outline. "However, like all good Frenchmen, he made no fuss, but went off to do his duty. He wrote to his wife every day, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... most enchanting little girl in all Provins. On Sunday, after church, all the ladies kissed her; Mesdames Tiphaine, Garceland, Galardon, Julliard, and the rest fell in love with the sweet little Breton girl. This enthusiasm was deeply flattering to old Sylvie's self-love; she regarded it as less due to Pierrette than to her own benevolence. She ended, however, in being affronted ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... the street were in the windows; the little maidservant flew to the wicket-gate; the Mesdames Clapp looked out from the casement of the ornamented kitchen; Emmy, in a great flutter, was in the passage among the hats and coats; and old Sedley in the parlour inside, shaking all over. Jos descended from the post-chaise and down the creaking swaying steps in awful state, supported by ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from a private supper room. Even the clattering arrival and departure of the Sacramento stage coach, which disturbed the depths below, did not affect these upper revelers. For Colonel Starbottle, Jack Hamlin, Judge Beeswinger, and Jo Wynyard, assisted by Mesdames Montague, Montmorency, Bellefield, and "Tinky" Clifford, of the "Western Star Combination Troupe," then performing "on tour," were holding "high jinks" in the supper room. The colonel had been of late moody, irritable, and easily ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... portraits of remarkable people that would tempt me. For instance, if you could by chance pick up at Paris, at a reasonable price, and undoubted originals (whether heads, half lengths, or whole lengths, no matter) of Cardinals Richelieu, Mazarin, and Retz, Monsieur de Turenne, le grand Prince de Condo; Mesdames de Montespan, de Fontanges, de Montbazon, de Sevigne, de Maintenon, de Chevreuse, de Longueville, d'Olonne, etc., I should be tempted to purchase them. I am sensible that they can only be met with, by great accident, at family sales and auctions, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Michael Petrovitch spent two or three agreeable hours. And finally, at six o'clock—more than an hour after despatching a short message to Piotr, in Konnaia Square—Gregoriev, with Lodoroff, three other men, and Mesdames Nathalie, Anna, and Celestine, whose last names were as changeable as their complexions, set off, in four public droschkies, for the ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... perhaps meet N. P. Willis in the reception- room, and in Mr. Nicolay's up-stairs sanctum was John Hay, whose Atlantic papers were written with such purity of style and feeling at his desk as under-secretary to the President. Then, among women writers, there were Mesdames Don Piatt, Squier, Olmstead, and Kirkland. The Vermont sculptor, Larkin Meade, had his "Green Mountain Boy" on exhibition at a popular bookstore ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... singing the florid roles of opera, has so gained in volume of voice and breadth of style as to warrant her devoting these acquisitions to characters requiring more dramatic force than was needed, or could be utilized, in coloratura roles. Mlle. Emma Calve, Mesdames Lilli Lehmann and Nordica, are notable examples of this. Each of these distinguished artists began her career by singing what are known as "Princess" roles, before successfully portraying Carmen or the Bruennhildes. As a rule, it is by singing many different ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... realize the ruin of your people? No? For you it is of no moment. And have you no feeling for your husbands at the front who may even now be killed? You are not women. . . . I honor woman, who feels more deeply and strongly than man; but you are not women! . . . Listen to me, Mesdames. Once more and I will hang you. . ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... was admirably executed by a choir of two hundred and fifty singers, and a band of one hundred musicians, including the whole orchestra of the Opera Comique, and the best performers from the Italian opera. The solos were sung by Mesdames Grimm and Couraud, and by Bassine and Chapuis, the latter being one of the best tenors in the city. Some of the quartettes, with accompaniments of harps and wind instruments, were ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... that many very obscure persons figure, whose names, but for their registry upon the list of original Academicians, would probably never have been known to posterity in any way. Nearly a third of the number are foreigners. There are two ladies, Mesdames Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser, the first and last female Academicians. Then there are coach, and even sign-painters, a medallist, and an engraver—Bartolozzi, whose nomination was in direct contravention of the Academy's constitution and an additional injustice to Sir ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... scale, notwithstanding the high sounding titles under which they are introduced to public notice: others presided over by sister spinsters, not unfrequently with Frenchified names; such, for instance, as 'Mesdames Puerdon's Seminary,' the lady's real name being Martha (or, if you please, Patty) Purton, and a deformed relative completing the Mesdames: the 'Misses de la Porte,' (whom nature had made simple Porter), and no great catch ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... their knees, when she dined with them, while the trumpets sounded and the cannons roared; Conde, when absent, left instructions to his officers, "Obey the commands of Mademoiselle, as my own"; and her father addressed a despatch from Paris to her ladies of honor, as Field-Marshals in her army: "A Mesdames les Comtesses Marechales de Camp dans l'Armee de ma ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... banker in Hamburg, who filled the office of Prussian Consul. M. Schwartz, with whom this money had been deposited for the sake of security, had also the care of some valuable jewels belonging to Mesdames Carry St. Cyr and Daubignoac; Tettenborn carried off these as well as the money. M. Schwartz remonstrated in his character of Prussian Consul, Prussia being the ally of Russia, but he was considered merely ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... speaks all languages from French to Patagonian. He has not come borne from perilous journeys to be thwarted by a corporal of horse. And so we soon see the soldier's mouth relax, and his shoulders imitate a relenting heart. 'En voiture, Messieurs, Mesdames,' sings the Doctor; and on we go again at a good round pace, for black care follows hard after us, and discretion prevails not a little over valour in some timorous spirits of the party. At any moment we may meet the sergeant, who will send us back. At any moment we may ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Austria. The charmed stream of the old courtier's reminiscences flowed on—he stopped for breath, and Sir Charles took the word and proceeded to unfold before their dazzled eyes a gorgeous phantasmagoria. The King, the Duke, Sedley and Buckingham, Mesdames Castlemaine, Stuart and Gwynne, Dryden and Waller and Lely, the King's house, the Queen's chapel, the Queen's duennas, the Tityre Tus, Paul's Walk, the Russian Ambassador, astrologers, orange girls, balls, masques, pageants, duels, the court of Louis le Grand, the King's hunting ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... palace of Agamemnon, and commences the prologue (an invocation to Apollo), in the midst of such confusion that we hear hardly a word. Little by little, however, the crowd quiets down, and I catch Louis Gallet’s fine lines, marvellously phrased by Mesdames Bartet, Dudlay, Moreno, and ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... "Ah, mesdames, pray excuse my father," said Christophe. "If he had not had such need of money you would not have had your furs at all. The country is in arms, and there are so many dangers to run in getting here that nothing but our great distress would have ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... "Mesdames, you can go to bed, and the servants also. Monsieur le maire, your services are no longer needed. The sternness of our orders does not permit us to act otherwise than as we have done; but as soon as the walls, which seem to me rather thick, ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... covered by a thick fog, everything dripping wet. After rowing a few miles in the early morning we came to a small sandy landing place. Here, under some canvas thrown over the shrubs, we found Mr. Morgan and three missionaries' wives—Mesdames Brown, Chapman, and Morgan—and with them two or three native girls (bearers of their luggage from Matamata). These poor ladies had all the appearance of fugitives, and such they really were. They ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... nobles and people a hideous despotism of the back stairs,—and you have some faint picture of the government of Rome under some of the twelve Caesars. What the barber Olivier le Diable was under Louis XI., what Mesdames du Barri and Pompadour were under Louis XV., what the infamous Earl of Somerset was under James I., what George Villiers became under Charles I., will furnish us with a faint analogy of the far more exaggerated and detestable position held by the freedman ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... set off and take the King with her. She had, besides myself, her usual small company of female attendants, together with Mesdames de Rais and de Sauves. She flew on the wings of maternal affection, and reached Tours in three days and a half. A journey from Paris, made with such precipitation, was not unattended with accidents and ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... the road to meet me, forsooth! Have ministers no brains? The Reverend Mr. Macdonald had wasted five good minutes with his observations, introductions, explanations, felicitations, and adorations, and meantime, regardez-moi, messieurs et mesdames, s'il vous plait! I have been a Noroway dog, a ship-builder, and a gallant sailorman; I have been a gurly sea and a towering gale; I have crawled from beneath broken anchors, topsails, and mizzenmasts to a strand where I have been a suffering ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the forms of salutation in common use are: "Dear Sir," "Gentlemen," "Dear Madam," and "Mesdames." In the still more formal "My dear Sir" and "My dear Madam" note that the second word is not capitalized. A woman, whether married or unmarried, is addressed "Dear Madam." If the writer of the letter is personally acquainted with the person addressed, or if they have had much correspondence, ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... did injustice—and this the artist also knew—to the delicate nature of the bond uniting the different members of the house of Probert, who were each for all and all for each. Family feeling among them was not a tyranny but a religion, and in regard to Mesdames de Brecourt, de Cliche and de Douves what Gaston most feared was that he might seem to them not to love them enough. None the less Charles Waterlow, who thought he had charming parts, held that the best way hadn't been taken to make a man of him, and the zeal with which the ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... obtain any other information. This bad success did not dishearten the Choiseuls. They sent this time to madame de Bearn, M. de Roquelaure, bishop of Senlis, and grand almoner to the king. This prelate was much liked at court, and in high favor with mesdames (the king's daughters). We were good friends together at last, but in this particular he was very near doing me great wrong. M. de Roquelaure having called on madame de Bearn, told her that he well knew the nature of her communications with me. "Do not flatter yourself," said he, "that ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... "Pardon me, Mesdames, for this intrusion," he said in a harsh metallic voice, "But I hear that the Abbe Vergniaud is in this house,—and that Cardinal Felix Bonpre has received him here SINCE" (and he emphasised the word "since") "the shameful scene of this morning. My business in Paris is ended for the ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... with measured steps straight towards the group in the left corner, continually saying, "Pardon, mesdames, pardon, pardon, mesdames"; and steering his course through the sea of lace, tulle, and ribbon, and not disarranging a feather, he turned his partner sharply round, so that her slim ankles, in light transparent ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... women are probably highly uninteresting females. I haven't a doubt of it. But the Government cannot, men will not, protect them. If I am the only one to see this public duty, it is to the public and the Right I should perform it - not to Mesdames Curtin. Fourth Objection: I am married. 'I have married a wife!' I seem to have heard it before. It smells ancient! what was the context? Fifth Objection: My wife has had a mean life (1), loves me (2), could not bear to lose me (3). (1) I admit: ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Now show mesdames and messieurs how you can dance," cried Chacot. "Strike up, Jean," he added to his son, who, getting down a riddle from the wall, commenced scraping away, and producing a merry tune. Up got the bear, and began shuffling and leaping about, in a ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... "Ah, Mesdames," said he, gravely, and with a low bow, "I am sorry for your disappointment. As long as you contented yourselves with robbery, it were a shame to have interfered with your innocent amusements; but cold ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... view I am supported by Garcia, who took sharp issue with Mackenzie. "My father," wrote Garcia, "went through the transition time without ceasing to sing, and without having done himself the least harm. But both my sisters, Mesdames Malibran and Viardot, were obliged to wait a year. I continued to sing, and my voice was ruined!" Continuing, Garcia says that the old rule which has preserved so many voices—that singing should cease altogether during mutation—should not be thrust ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... in close conference in the left-hand corner, behind Lord William Lenox and another dashing ensign in the guards, is composed," said Crony, "of Mrs. Nixon, the ci-devant Mrs. Baring, Nugent's old.flame, Mrs. Christopher Harrison, the two sisters, Mesdames Gardner and Peters, and the well-known Kitty Stock, all minor constellations, mostly on the decline, and hence full of envious jealousy at the attention paid by the beaux to the more attractive charms of the newly discovered planets, the younger sisterhood of the convent." ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... religion, formed a homogeneous body of science, literature, and the arts, and a compact phalanx of all writers under the common name of philosophers. Women had their share in the maintenance of this league; the salons of Mesdames du Deffand (1696-1780), Geoffrin (b. 1777), and De l'Espinasse (1732-1776) were its favorite resorts; but the great rendezvous was that of the Baron d'Holbach, whence its doctrines spread far and wide, blasting, like ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... got to their second bottle, Harry Esmond used commonly to leave these two noble topers, who, though they talked freely enough, heaven knows, in his presence (Good Lord, what a set of stories, of Alsatia and Spring Garden, of the taverns and gaming-houses, of the ladies of the court, and mesdames of the theatres, he can recall out of their godly conversation!)—although, I say, they talked before Esmond freely, yet they seemed pleased when he went away, and then they had another bottle, and then they fell to cards, and then my Lord Mohun came to her ladyship's drawing-room; leaving ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... manners of the French Court during the minority of the King, and had the courage to narrate the intrigue which Louis carried on with La Valliere. He spares few of the ladies of the Court, and lashes them all with his satire, amongst others Mesdames d'Olonne and de Chatillon. Unhappily for the Count, he showed the book, when it was yet in MS., to the Marchioness de Beaume, his intimate friend. But the best of friends sometimes quarrel, and unfortunately the Count and ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... again as Madame comes round, and you pay her her modest demand of three francs fifty for her excellently-cooked and well-served repast (vin compris), with the final announcement of, "Maintenant en voiture, Mesdames et Messieurs," that find you comfortably seated in your place again, with three minutes to spare before the departure of the train. But perhaps the best testimony to the excellence of the management may be found in the fact that the Dilapidated ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... forementioned negro advocate even more as "a man" than as "a brother," and who blinks her eyes and rolls out her sentences at such a rate that the one dazzle while the other appal the poor stenographer who may have to "follow" her:—reported Mesdames Susan B Anthony—please notice the "B"—and Cady Stanton, besides a host of other strenuous assertors of "woman's rights" and male wrongs—in respect of petticoat government, "free love," and various similar amiable, progressional ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... between Mesdames Bridget and Deborah; containing more amusement, but less instruction, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... seen—smacking his lips—thirsting, ravening, for BLOOD. A live rabbit will be offered him; he will roll his eyes, look at the human beings present, try the bars of his cage—he cannot reach them. En fin, a rabbit is better than nothing! Mesdames, je vous implore! Do not bring your babes within. A stern necessity—a care for the consequences would prevent me from admitting them. The sight of a human babe rouses in the vampire the sanguinary passion to a ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... with the Duke of Wellington yesterday; a very large party for Mesdames the Duchesse d'Escars and Madame du Cayla; the first is the widow of the Duc d'Escars, who was Premier Maitre d'Hotel of Louis XVIII., and who was said to have died of one of the King's good dinners, and the joke was, 'Hier sa Majeste a eu une indigestion, dont M. le Duc ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Messrs. Boosey, Firkin, and Croesus, say that they come to Paris to see the world. They get the words wrong, you know. They come that the world (that is, their world at home) may not see them. To accompany Mesdames de Papillon and Casta Diva to the opera, then to return to beautifully furnished apartments to sup, and to prolong the entertainment until morning, is what those charming youths mean when they say ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... One sees an everlasting finger on the lip. It's a little boring. One feels inclined to speak up and say, 'Mesdames, entendez—it isn't so bad as you think.' But then their fingers would ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... care meantime to do justice to the confitures, cakes, and coffee, with which they amply supplied me. They, too, ate, and that with no delicate appetite, and having demolished a large portion of the solids, they proposed a "petit verre." I declined. Not so Mesdames Pelet and Reuter; each mixed herself what I thought rather a stiff tumbler of punch, and placing it on a stand near the stove, they drew up their chairs to that convenience, and invited me to do the same. I obeyed; and being ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... great pomp by Monseigneur the bishop of the diocese and all the constituted authorities; statues, or rather a statue, which the whole population of the town has flocked to the Ursuline convent to behold, where Mesdames the nuns, not a little puffed up with this magnificent addition to their bijou of a chapel, have kept their house and their oratory open to all comers for this whole day. Is not that likely to ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... friendly admonitions habitually turn into torrents of abuse and vilification. There have been many unhappy unions in the world, but the compulsory mesalliances of such great nineteenth-century writers as Heine, Byron, Stendhal, Gobineau, and Nietzsche with Mesdames Britannia, Gallia, and Germania, those otherwise highly respectable ladies, easily surpass in grotesqueness anything that has come to us through divorce court proceedings in England and America. That, as every one will agree, is ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... Amber was not brought up according to the prescribed maxims of Mesdames Appleton and Hamilton; and as effects cannot be satisfactorily comprehended without the causes are made known, so it becomes necessary, not only that the chapter should be written, but, what is still more vexatious, absolutely necessary that it ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... "Charmantes Demoiselles, Mesdames et Messieurs: It has been a time honoured custom in our family for generations, that on the heir to the estate attaining his majority, on his throwing off the careless garb of garcon, and donning the somewhat grave habiliments," taking up the corner of his dress-coat ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... would sup every day at a table for sixteen with his family, and that the spare places should be occupied by ladies invited in the morning; that the Princesses of his family should each have a table for the ladies they brought with them; and that Mesdames Voysin and Desmarets should each have one for the ladies who did not choose to eat in their own rooms. He added bitterly, that by making retrenchments at Marly he should not spend more there than at Versailles, so that he could ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... earnest, hoarded deep within herself, the other frivolous and gay for all the world to criticize. But those venerable spinsters, the Fates, took the matter into their own hands, and soon got the better of those short-sighted matrons, Mesdames Grundy and Carroll; for, long before they knew it, Frank and Debby had begun to read together a book greater than Dickens ever wrote, and when they had come to the fairest part of the sweet story Adam first told Eve, they looked for the name upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... not well eat the young woman's provisions and not speak to her, so they conversed—stiffly at first, and then, seeing that she showed no signs of presuming, with less reserve. Mesdames de Breville and Carre-Lamadon, having a great deal of "savoir vivre," knew how to make themselves agreeable with tact and delicacy. The Countess, in particular, exhibited the amiable condescension of the extremely high-born lady ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... ladies of Creil, apply them all to the souls in purgatory without delay! Burns would take no hire for his last songs, preferring to serve his country out of unmixed love. Suppose you were to imitate the exciseman, mesdames, and even if the souls in purgatory were not greatly bettered, some souls in Creil upon the Oise would find themselves none the worse either here ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ill from Trianon; the disease turned out to be the small-pox; so violent that ten people of those who had to enter his chamber caught the infection and died. The whole court flies from him; only poor old fat Mesdames the King's daughters persist in remaining at his bedside, and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rival, the equally illustrious Fenelon. It was also marked by the gradual disappearance of the great lights in literature. La Fontaine died in 1695, Racine in 1699. Boileau was as good as dead; Mesdames de la Sabliere and de la Fayette, Pellisson and Bussy-Rabutin, La Bruyere and Madame Sevigne, all died about this time. The only great men at the close of the century in France who made their genius felt were Bossuet, who encouraged the narrow intolerance which aimed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... the rebuses that were not guessed, had to be redeemed by penances varying according to the nature of the guilty ones. Gautier, Dumas, and Musset were condemned to recite their last poem. Liszt or Chopin had to improvise on a given theme, Mesdames Viardot, Falcon, and Euggnie Garcia had also to discharge their melodic debts, and I myself remember having paid many ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... 'Bonjour Mesdames, bonjour Mademoiselle, bonjour, bonjour,' she bowed and smiled, washing her hands in the air; 'et comment allez-vous ce matin?' as the little band of hungry governesses rose with one accord and moved to take their places. Some smiled in answer; others merely bowed. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... Borghese)—Des sentinels furent places a la porte. Cependant des dames arrivees dans un galerie qui communiquait avec cette chambre, y trouverent un militaire en uniform d'officier Autrichien, qui leur dit, "Que desirez vous voir, Mesdames?" 'Nous voudrions voir Napoleon.' "Mais ce'st moi, Mesdames." Ces dames le regardant lui dirent en riant, 'Vous plaisantez, Monsieur; ce n'est pas vous qui etes Napoleon.' "Je vous assure, Mesdames, ce'st moi. Vous vous imaginez donc que Napoleon avait l'air plus mechant. N'est pas qu'on dit ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... text taken from the first book of Samuel, and adapted by William Bartholomew, was first performed at the Birmingham Festival, Aug. 29, 1855, under Costa's own direction, with Mesdames Viardot and Novello and Messrs. Sims Reeves and Carl Formes in the principal parts. The characters are Eli, Elkanah, Hannah, Samuel, the Man of God, Saph the Philistine warrior, Hophni and Phinehas the sons of Eli, and the Priests and Philistines as chorus. ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... to Madame de Montalivet, the candle to Madame Lannes, the towel to Madame de Serant, the ewer to Madame Savary, the basin to Madame de Talhouet. Then, they went to the gallery, which had been turned into a chapel. Mesdames Bernadotte, Bessieres, Davout, and Mortier held the corners of the Empress's cloak. The godmother was at the Emperor's left. After the baptism the child was carried back to his room ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... Mesdames de Choiseul and de Serent, often visited the community, whither they penetrated, no doubt, in virtue of the privilege Magnates mulieres, and caused great consternation in the boarding-school. When these two old ladies passed by, all the poor young girls trembled ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... take monsieur and mesdames over the chateau, he politely announced in French, and went on to beg that they would give themselves the trouble of being conducted to the door at the front, that they might go in by the great ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... said Mrs. Cartier, of Les Casquets Cottage, "there's never yet bin so many things for the Christmas Eve market! It's that we must have worked well! What do you say, mesdames?" ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... "Make yourself quite easy, mesdames," said the Prince de Loudon, when the Royal Huntsman had left the room; "that breakfast 'on the nail' will take place under ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... the head of an American girl, looked up ungraciously. As he perceived the outer circumference of Madame Depine projecting on either side of her turret, he emitted a glacial "Bon jour, mesdames." ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Mesdames," carelessly spoke Marguerite. "Women are the fools of men; you all know it. Every one of you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... sovereigns are represented in Shakespearian character appropriate to the circumstances; the "Standard" and "Morning Herald," two of Punch's pet aversions and journalistic butts, bringing up the rear as the Witches in "Macbeth," Mesdames Gamp and Harris. The illustrators of this exceptionally happy number were—besides Sir John Tenniel—Charles Keene, Mr. du Maurier, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... "MESDAMES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE BOARD,—I thank you for your courtesy in asking me to fill my husband's place as one of the trustees of Saint Margaret's. Until this afternoon I had every intention of so doing; but I cannot think now that my husband would wish me to continue his support ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... be musical? And how many company dinners a week? Not too many, for fear of fatiguing the upper kitchen-maid; but sufficient, so as to keep the upper kitchen-maid's hand in. [N.B.—I think I can see a rather bewildered expression on the countenances of Mesdames Doddles and Toddles as I am prattling on ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "my poor Zephyrine has fainted," and, rushing forward to her assistance, worse results followed. Mesdames Lili and Josephine, two middle-aged ladies somewhat the worse for wear, overcome by the distressing spectacle, or by the sleeve of Jeanne's dress as she leant across them, fell off their chairs too—one, like Zephyrine, on to the table, the other on to the floor, dragging down with her the ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... Allons, Messieurs, Mesdames, to the cloak room — to the foyer! To the escalier! or you, Madame la Comtesse, to your box, and smooth out your crumpled domino; as for "La Pataude," she is ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... "I do not understand you. There is equality in France. We are all messieurs and mesdames. There is monsieur the bailiff, and monsieur the duke; and there is madame the washer-woman, and madame the duchess. We are all gentlemen, all ladies. It is not the same ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... along that side of Laramie knew before Mesdames Gordon and Wells that Roswell Holmes, of Chicago, the "wealthy mine-owner and cattle-grower," had just arrived in his own conveyance from Cheyenne, and had been invited to put up at the doctor's quarters during his stay at ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... affect it as never before. The one invaded Irving's premieres at the Lyceum. The other sang paeans in praise of the Bancrofts. The French plays, too, were the feigned delight of all the modish world. Not to have seen Chaumont in Totot chez Tata was held a solecism. The homely mesdames and messieurs from the Parisian boards were 'lionised' (how strangely that phrase rings to modern ears!) in ducal drawing-rooms. In fact, all the old prejudice of rank was being swept away. Even more significant than the reception of players was a certain effort, made ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... ; for my father began relating various anecdotes of attacks made upon him for procuring to sundry strangers some acquaintance with his daughter,(334) particularly with the Duchesse de Biron, and the Mesdames de Boufflers(335) to whom he answered, he had no ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... lettres. On y dinait joyeusement. 'Chacun apportait son plat'.' ('Oeuvres de Scarron', 1877, i. viii.) Scarron's company must have been as brilliant as Goldsmith's. Villarceaux, Vivonne, the Marechal d'Albret, figured in his list of courtiers; while for ladies he had Mesdames Deshoulieres, de Scudery, de la Sabliere, and de Sevigne, to say nothing of Ninon de Lenclos and Marion Delorme. (Cf. also Guizot, 'Corneille et ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... that her marriage was not recognized by the Emperor, for the Russian ambassador began to smile when I spoke of her; he does not receive her either, and only bows very coolly if he meets her in the Bois. For all that, she is in Madame de Serizy's set, and visits Mesdames de Nucingen and de Restaud. There is no cloud over her here in France; the Duchesse de Carigliano, the most-strait-laced marechale in the whole Bonapartist coterie, often goes to spend the summer with her at her country house. ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... into a little room where three ladies sat. 'What have you to say?' asked the little black-haired one in the corner—she with the great eyes and the face pale as a chalk-cliff. I said, 'I am instructed, mesdames, to deliver this simple message: Sir Max is quite well.' 'That will do. Thank you.' said the big eyes and the pale face. Then she gave me two gold florins. The money almost took my breath, and when I looked up to thank her, blest if the white face wasn't rosy as a June dawn. ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... at Mademoiselle de Raymond's this evening, to hear the two Camus and Ytier who are going to sing. Mesdames de la Sabliere, de Salins, and de Monsoreau will also be there. Would you ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... respectfully to all his suggestions, promised no longer to bestow her smiles on the undeserving—a promise of no small importance when it is remembered that, at thirty-three, Mrs. Thackeray was for the first time a widow—and that night she might have been seen laughing heartily with Mesdames Ford and Quickly at the amorous pertinacity of the baffled ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... possible convenience. I desire, next, that you will invite them to your house on some occasion, presumably in the afternoon, when you can also ask my nephew, Derek Pruyn, and Lucilla van Tromp, my niece, to meet them. I desire, furthermore, that though you may use my name to the Mesdames Eveleth, as a passport to their presence, you will in no wise speak of me to my relatives in question, or give them to understand that I have inspired the invitation you will ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... flirt if she only degrade her womanhood to flattery. Men do not want to love so much as to be loved. Such is, moreover, their sublime vanity that they are ready to believe any one who tells them, however subtly—mesdames, you cannot be too subtle for a man's vanity to find your meaning—that they are ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... signs of pleasure at the prospect of seeing the Bishop of Beorminster as umpire in a street row. But the bishop had heard quite enough of the affray, and without mincing matters fled as quickly as his dignity would permit towards the friendly shelter of The Derby Winner, leaving Mesdames Pansey and Trumbly in the thick of a wordy war. The first-named lady held her own for some considerable time, until routed by her antagonist's superior knowledge of Billingsgate. Then it appeared very plainly that for once she had met with ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... "Mesdames," replied Jeanne, "you see there the portrait of Henry III., that is to say, of the brother of my grandfather, for I am truly of the race of Valois, as you have doubtless been told." And she waited for the next question, looking at her visitors with ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere |
