"Besieged" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... figure was presented by the old man of seventy who, at Christmas in 1547, set forth to ride across the Alps in the depths of winter to obey Charles V.'s call to Augsburg. The excitement of the public was great at his departure, and Aretino describes how his house was besieged for the sketches and designs he left behind him. For nearly forty years Titian was employed by the House of Hapsburg. He had been working for Charles since 1530, and when the Emperor abdicated, his employment by Philip ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... interfering on behalf of a distressed animal, such interference being "none of her business." Only once had she put the doctrine of non-interference into practice, when one of its most eloquent exponents had been besieged for nearly three hours in a small and extremely uncomfortable may-tree by an angry boar-pig, while Lady Carlotta, on the other side of the fence, had proceeded with the water-colour sketch she was engaged ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... full of wants, and likes those who can satisfy them. ‘Such a one is a good mathematician,’ it may be said. But then I must be doing mathematics; he would turn me into a proposition. Another is a good soldier; he would take me for a besieged place. Give me your true man of general talents, who can adapt himself ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... that our astonished eyes behold? The Genius of Liberty, standing on the threshold of her besieged temple, pale, fettered, betrayed in the house of her very friends, but resolute and dauntless as ever, her eye calm and steadfast, her hand firmly grasping the Magna Charta of our birthright, and the birthright ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... months were like nothing so much as like living in a besieged city. There was the same planning for the obtaining of food, and making it last as long as possible, the same pinched, wan faces, the same hunger illnesses, the same laying of little ones into baby graves. And again, besides the home problems, ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... one doubts this, let him call to mind what we had to accomplish. We had to penetrate an enemy's lines, to enter a besieged city, to tell home truths to the desperate, unscrupulous leaders of the foulest rebellion the world has ever known, and to draw from those leaders, deep, adroit, and wary as they are, their real plans and purposes. And all this we had to do without any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... be drawn into pursuit. He captured some small forts, and sent Colonel Hartley to relieve Kallan, which was being besieged by the Mahrattas. Hartley surprised their camp, pursued them for some miles, and killed a great number; while Lieutenant Welsh, who had been sent forward to relieve Surat—which was threatened by a large Mahratta force—defeated these, killed upwards of a hundred, ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... Senate and the so-called Downing bill was passed over the veto. Not so, in the House, for one newspaper, read by nearly all the working men, had so strongly pointed out the nature of the "grab" proposed by the bill, that the State House was besieged by its opponents, and the veto was sustained ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... upon her destiny. After the defeat and death of Roderic a considerable number of noble Goths sought shelter in the city of Merida, among them the widowed queen. Thither came Musa with a large army and besieged the city. It was strongly and bravely defended, and the gallant garrison only yielded when famine came to the aid of ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... sounds very bad, Captain Berriman, but we are not going to give in. The ammunition and provisions are on board the ship, and when a besieged garrison runs short, it makes sallies to obtain fresh supplies. But we have not arrived at that starvation point yet. Before then the ship may be under the rule of ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... Ambrieres had perhaps been lost; for William now sent Geoffrey a challenge to come on the fortieth day. He came on the fortieth day, and found Ambrieres strongly fortified and occupied by a Norman garrison. With Geoffrey came the Breton prince Ode, and William or Peter Duke of Aquitaine. They besieged the castle; but Norman accounts add that they all fled on William's approach ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... G.M. Corse by Gen. Sherman's order from Kenesaw Mountain to Altoona during the "March through Georgia," in October, 1863. The flag is still in the possession of A.D. Frankenberry, one of the Federal Signal-Corps whose message to the besieged General said, "Hold the fort! We are coming!" A visit to the scene of the incident inspired P.P. Bliss to write both the ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... that day than there was for them in the Guildhall at Bath, where there was no meeting to be held. The Mayor of Bristol and other Magistrates had sworn in 800 special constables upon the occasion; in fact, the appearance of the City was more like a besieged fortress than any thing else. But all this parade was intended only for the purpose of intimidating the minds of the weak and silly portion of the people and creating a panic throughout the country. I will venture to say, that the business ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... bringing in provisions or anything else, as will be confirmed by the testimony accompanying this letter; and declared that, if they could not capture us by any other means, they would do so by hunger. Thus he besieged us for nearly three months, and the harm which he could not inflict upon the Spaniards he inflicted upon the natives of the neighborhood who were our friends. He burned and destroyed seven or eight towns, and gave the natives to understand ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... my own part, I feel the force of mechanism and the fury of avaricious commerce to be at present so irresistible, that I have seceded from the study not only of architecture, but nearly of all art; and have given myself, as I would in a besieged city, to seek the best modes of getting bread and water for its multitudes, there remaining no question, it seems, to me, of other than such grave business for the time. But there is, at least, this ground for courage, if not for hope: As the evil spirits of avarice ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... we lay for many days. We learned afterward the reason. Kwan Yung-jin had sent a dispatch to Keijo, the capital, to find what royal disposition was to be made of us. In the meantime we were a menagerie. From dawn till dark our barred windows were besieged by the natives, for no member of our race had they ever seen before. Nor was our audience mere rabble. Ladies, borne in palanquins on the shoulders of coolies, came to see the strange devils cast up by the sea, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... man to bring the news from Ladysmith out of the beleaguered town. I was already started on the shortest route to the Tugela. I went on, and for about a mile no sign whatever of the enemy, and I thought of the theory more than once put forward that we were all the time being besieged by a ridiculously small but extremely mobile force. It was not until I was well in between Bulwana and Lombard's Kop that I caught sight between the trees of a laager of miscellaneous tents on the lower slope of the latter. Dismounting and going cautiously, ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... meaning of the subscription figures you gave me and I cannot make head or tail of them. You said '400 to 425 millions'; of course that means you have put in our dummy subscription, but what was the real subscription? It is absolutely essential that I know to-night, for in the morning I shall be besieged for information, and ignorance on my part may get ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... commissions. I had nearly omitted, in my own family anxieties, to mention the object for which I began my letter. I have failed in arranging the affair of your commission! This was not for want of zeal. But the prospect of a war has deranged and inflamed every thing. The young nobility have actually besieged the Horse-guards. All the weight of the aristocracy has pressed upon the minister, and minor influence has been driven from the field. The spirit is too gallant a one to be blamed;—and yet—are there not a hundred other pursuits, in which an intelligent and active mind, like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... "come to work what mischief he can," are accused by Knox of a design to seize Edinburgh, before the Parliament in May 1561. Nothing was done, but there was a very violent Robin Hood riot; the magistrates were besieged and bullied, Knox declined to ask for the pardon of the brawlers, and, after excursions and alarms, "the whole multitude was excommunicate" until they appeased the Kirk. They may have borne the ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... Boufflers actually eclipsing those of his conqueror, the Prince of Savoy) may be mentioned that daring action of Messieurs de Luxembourg and Tournefort, who, with a body of horse and dragoons, carried powder into the town, of which the besieged were in extreme want, each soldier bringing a bag with forty pounds of powder behind him; with which perilous provision they engaged our own horse, faced the fire of the foot brought out to meet them: and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Jewish war of more than three years' duration, which terminated in the destruction of Jerusalem, two cities on the lake of Gennesaret were besieged by Vespasian. One of these was Tiberias: the other Tarichæ. Both had been defended with desperation; and from their peculiar situation upon water, and amongst profound precipices, the Roman battering apparatus ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... Girls fully competent to teach others how to prepare every one of her famous corn recipes. And these fifteen, divided into "shifts" and with several large kitchens at their disposal, immediately found themselves besieged by applicants for instruction. Before winter set in, all Dorfield, as predicted by Irene, was eating corn, and liking it better than wheat, and in proof of their success, the Liberty Girls received a highly complimentary letter from Mr. Hoover, thanking them for their ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... description of the funeral-tent of Queen Isi em Kheb, contemporary of the wise Solomon, mother-in-law of the Shishak who besieged Jerusalem and "carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made." (II ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... given for half, nay, for a quarter of the meager ration which a few days back we deemed so inade- quate to supply our wants, and which now, eked out crumb by crumb, might, perhaps, serve for several days? In the streets of a besieged city, dire as the distress may be, some gutter, some rubbish-heap, some corner may yet be found that will furnish a dry bone or a scrap of refuse that may for a moment allay the pangs of hunger; but these bare planks, so many times washed ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... thought differently in the matter, and I, holding this judgment in so much higher esteem than my own, gave way, bent my neck under the yokes and took my place in the confessional. There I was besieged by penitents, who scarcely allowed me any time for rest ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... were directed especially against the quarter of Achradina[33] from the side of the sea; but, though he brought many powerful military engines against the walls, these were rendered wholly unavailing by the superior skill and science of Archimedes, which were employed on the side of the besieged. All the efforts of the assailants were baffled; and the Roman soldiers were inspired with so great a dread of Archimedes and his engines,[34] that Marcellus was compelled to give up all hopes of carrying the city by open force, and to turn the siege into a blockade. The siege was prolonged ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... to find her little house growing famous, besieged by anxious soldiers who besought her efforts, so that she used enormous numbers of stamps and a great deal of effort. But that was later on. And when that time came she turned to the work as a refuge from her thoughts. For days were coming ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... XII. Phraates III., who is spoken of in the Life of Lucullus. The two brothers quarrelled. Mithridates is mentioned by some authorities as the immediate successor of his father under the title of Arsakes XIII. Mithridates III. Mithridates was besieged in Babylon by Hyrodes; and Mithridates, after surrendering to his brother, was put to death. (Dion Cassius, 39. c. 56; Appian, On the Affairs of Syria, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... to the destruction of one family and the frequent hurt and injury of the other. How Livingstone and his household escaped from time to time but were finally brought to ruin, how Crichton wriggled back into favour after every overthrow, sometimes besieged in his castle for months together, sometimes entrusted with the highest and most honourable missions, it would be vain to tell in detail. James would seem to have yielded to the inspiration of his new prime minister for a period of years, until his mind had fully developed, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... fairs by land, from Syria, Damascus, Greece, Arabia, and other places, the exact site of which is not known.[1] Within the short period of fifteen or twenty years after this description was written, Tyre was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar; and after an obstinate and very protracted resistance, it was taken and destroyed. The inhabitants, however, were enabled to retire during the siege, with the greatest part of their property, to an island near the shore, where they built New Tyre, which ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... under his Lordship's Command were landed near Barcelona, the Siege of that Place was thought by several impracticable, not only for want of experienc'd Engineers, but that the Besieged were as numerous as the Besiegers; yet the Courage of that brave Earl surmounted those Difficulties, and the Siege was ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... under Don Frederick, faced the north walls, while the Walloons and other regiments closed it in on the east and west. But these arrangements occupied some days; and the mists which favoured their movements were not without advantage to the besieged. Under cover of the fog supplies of provisions and ammunition were brought by men and women and even children, on their heads or in sledges down the frozen lake, and in spite of the efforts of the besiegers ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise:— Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus[200] were ...
— English Satires • Various
... sleeps. Saint Gabriel is come from God, and speaks: "Summon the hosts, Charles, of thine Empire, Go thou by force into the land of Bire, King Vivien thou'lt succour there, at Imphe, In the city which pagans have besieged. The Christians there implore thee and beseech." Right loth to go, that Emperour was he: "God!" said the King: "My life is hard indeed!" Tears filled his eyes, he ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... as you know, had already made settlements in Canada, But just at this time that buccaneering sea captain, David Kirke, besieged Quebec, took it and carried its brave governor, Champlain, away prisoner. Now, as soon as they heard of this Gorges and Mason asked the King to give them a grant of part of the conquered land, for it was known ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... to dinner. If I considered myself entitled to complain of the calling nuisance, he must have had good reason to swear at it. Being the richest man in the place as well as the principal merchant, his place was simply besieged by visitors. Many were so drunk that they actually had to be carried in by coolies—a curious mode of going to call—while others had even to be provided with a bed on the premises until the effects of their libations had passed off. A well-known young Japanese merchant, I remember, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... self-seeking against him. Man after man in the party that had asked him to run for Senator came to him to beg him to desist from his fight on corporations that broke the laws and charged the people prohibitive prices for the necessities of life. Party worshippers like the Hon. Mr. Maxwell besieged the committee room pleading for harmony, meaning by "harmony," a slavish compromise with the greed and influence of money and power that might help the party if they were let alone. Letters flooded ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... the Superintendent, "I know something about the plan, I believe. There are three objective points, Prince Albert and Battleford, both of which are now closely besieged, and Edmonton, which is threatened with a great body of rebel Crees and Salteaux under leadership of Little Pine and Big Bear. The Police at these points can hardly be expected to hold out long against the overwhelming numbers that are besieging ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... the night, without any hostile demonstration by the convicts. Smoke curling up from the fort and from a building on the other side of them told the besieged that the enemy had taken up their positions during the night as Ritter had prophesied. Evidently they were willing to wait for their triumph rather than risk any lives by trying to take their ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Flushing in Zealand. The Earl of Leicester, chosen by the Queen's unhappy partiality to command the English force, named Sidney (his nephew) General of the horse. He marched thence to Zutphen in Guelderland, a town besieged by the Spaniards, in hopes of destroying a strong reinforcement which they were bringing in aid of the besiegers. The details of the rash and heroic charge which followed may be read in Motley's History of the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Wyatt carried everything before him. Mary was actually besieged in the Tower, which it was attempted to carry by force. Supported by Cuthbert, Lord Guildford led the assault, shouting, "Long live Queen Jane! Down with Renard and the See of Rome!" The attack had almost succeeded, when Dudley ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... Titus. Down there, dying as they were, a savage Simon and a degenerate John, as in Jerusalem of old, led their followers against each other, even across their dead that lay unburied in the mouldy death-pens and about their dark and narrow doors, and slew each other as did God's chosen people when besieged by the ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... a spy said so. But the place does not look knocked about at all, and the people seem very jolly. I should not be surprised if the whole thing were a farce, and Tokar had not been besieged or taken ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... vengeance against the officers of my agency were loudly uttered. A lawless outrage had been committed by us, and the righteous indignation of an injured community refused to be appeased. The hotel where my men were stopping was besieged by the angry citizens, and our actions were denounced in the most belligerent manner. Eugene Pearson, in their opinion, was above suspicion; he was their ideal of a moral young man, his father was respected everywhere, and the base ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... mighty-armed king, hearing that the son of Srutasravas (Sisupala) had been slain by me, Salwa, O best of the Bharata race, came to the city of Dwaravati! And, O son of Pandu, the wicked king, stationing his forces in array, besieged that city around and above. And stationing himself in the upper regions, the king began his fight with the city. And that encounter commenced with a thick shower of weapons from all sides. And, O bull of the Bharata race, the city at that time was ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... people I strengthened the watch; on sea and land his forts I took; his going out I stopped. Water and sea-water, to preserve their lives, their mouths drank. By a strong blockade, which removed not, I besieged them; their works I checked and opposed; to my yoke I made them submissive. The daughter proceeding from his body, and the daughters of his brothers, for concubines he brought to my presence. Yahi-milki, his son, the glory of the country, of unsurpassed renown, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... Our weather-besieged manor was the center of it. Vaguely I knew there was life on the other side of great seas, and that New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Orleans were cities in which men moved and had their being. My country, ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Kilbourn, in whose own language the story shall be given, "scouting through the country that lay about Fort Stephenson, when early one morning one of our number came in with the intelligence that the Fort was besieged by a combined force of British and Indians. We were very soon after in our saddles, bearing down with all speed in that direction for the express purpose of joining in the fight—but on arriving, we found that the enemy had been signally repulsed by the brave little garrison under the command ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... greatest attention the map of La Rochelle, which, as we have said, lay open on the desk, tracing with a pencil the line in which the famous dyke was to pass which, eighteen months later, shut up the port of the besieged city. As he was in the deepest of his strategic meditations, the door opened, ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and I, on my part, did everything in my power to obtain mercy for the unfortunate young man. All our endeavours were fruitless. The minister of war refused to listen to the applications by which he was besieged. In a military view, the crime was flagrant, subversive of discipline, and especially dangerous as a precedent in an army where promotion from the ranks continually placed between men, originally from the same class of society and long comrades and equals, the ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... good doors and good keys to them. Supposin' we get the three o' them shut up—the others, when they come, will have nobody to guide them. Of course some time or other the three will break out, but it may be ower late for them. At present we're besieged and they're roamin' the country. Would it no' be far better if they were the ones lockit up ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... Austrians and Russians now prepared to drive the French from northern Italy, and Macdonald, compelled to keep his army together, was unable to follow up these successes. Cardinal Ruffo's forces increased; he besieged and took several towns, and overran entire provinces, his ferocious followers committing, as they proceeded, the most terrible excesses and acts of cruelty. At last, in the month of May, Macdonald evacuated the Neapolitan territory, placing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... Tullius were consuls the next year: nothing worth mentioning happened. Titus Aebutius and Gaius Vetusius succeeded. In their consulship Fideae was besieged, Crustumeria taken, and Praeneste[23] revolted from the Latins to the Romans. Nor was the Latin war, which had now been fomenting for several years, any longer deferred. Aulus Postumius the dictator, and Titus Aebutius his master of the horse, setting out with a numerous ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... is nothing which adds so much sunshine and cheer to the rooms of a house besieged by winter and all his dreary encampment of snow and ice, as the greenery, color and fragrance of blossoming plants. There is no pastime quite so full of pleasure and constant interest as this sort of horticulture; the rooting of small slips, the repotting and watering and watching, as new growth ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... the German tribes who had been actively aggressive against the Romans. During the following year he defeated other tribes, and after his return across the Rhine he was persuaded by Segestes to aid him against his son-in-law Arminius (the Latin name for Herman), by whom Segestes was besieged and who, according to Tacitus, became in the end the deliverer of Germany from the power of the Romans. But before he was able to render this service to the German peoples he had many hardships to endure, and at the hands of Germanicus he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... were fired into the house, not at the windows, but beneath the window ledges. When men are besieged in a house they must fire from the windows, kneeling by them. Several of the cattlemen's bullets tearing through the wooden wall of the house had caught these kneeling figures, and the fire from the place, never accurate, ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... of slipping forth at night and coming back no more to Naseby House. He suffered from the sight of his father, nay, even from the neighbourhood of this familiar valley, where every corner had its legend, and he was besieged with memories of childhood. If he fled into a new land, and among none but strangers, he might escape his destiny, who knew? and begin again light-heartedly. From that chief peak of the hills, that now and then, like an uplifted finger, shone in an arrow ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... asked for is granted. When the Paraguayan gives this response to the invocation of the traveler, the latter may consider himself at home; and so is it on this occasion with M. Forgues. His host proves to have been one of that body of the Paraguayan army, eight or ten thousand strong, which, besieged by the Brazilians in the town of Uruguayana in 1865, at the very beginning of the war, became prisoners when the town was surrendered. They fared far better than their unfortunate fellow-soldiers, for, sent to Brazil, they remained ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... what he termed your Holiness's absurd position, and affirmed that the world had seldom beheld, or would soon behold again, so ridiculous a spectacle as a Pope besieged by rats. 'I can help your master,' he continued, 'and am willing; but my honour, like his, is aspersed in the eyes of the multitude, and he must come to my aid, if I am to ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... museum was the scene of an even greater tumult. The enormous "Strike!" placard had been posted and had produced an immediate effect. Vast crowds of people, wild to see Grandmother Cruncher, besieged the ticket-office and packed the exhibition-room, where, upon the platform, elsewise deserted, stood that noble old lady in all her pathetic beauty. Mr. Scollop, in a condition of rapture scarcely possible of portrayal, stood all the afternoon in his private office opening wine ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... signed a paper not to leave without the permission of the fort. If we have war I am ready to stay to the end. I have the greatest sympathy for Servia and would like to work in the Red Cross there if not here. I shall try to write you again before being shut up for good, if the town is besieged. We are only a few hours from ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... the eastern part of France, and we had to put an end to our little campaign. Two of us, who belonged to the neighborhood, returned home. So there remained only four of us, all told: the captain, his wife, and two men. We belonged to Besanon, which was still being besieged in spite ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... Esclavonie, qui est une des plus forz citez du monde." Then we are told how Dandolo and his host take the cross; how Alexius Comnenus, the younger son of Isaac, arrives and begs aid; how the fleet set out ("Ha! Dex, tant bon destrier i ot mis!"); how Zara is besieged and taken; of the pact made with Alexius to divert the host to Constantinople; of the voyage thither after the Pope's absolution for the slightly piratical and not in the least crusading prise de Jadres has been obtained; of the dissensions and desertions at Corfu, and the arrival ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... that England resembled then Jerusalem besieged by Titus: "Quid multa? In diebus eis multiplicata sunt mala in terra, ut si quis ea summatim recenseat, historiam Josephi possint excedere." John of Salisbury, "Policraticus," book vi ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... scene the darkness is pierced by a gleam they could not see, a gleam which for us will not go out. Or think of Edwardes besieging the Sikhs in Multan with his puny force, half of whom, when he began, were in sympathy with the besieged. We know that the terrier's courage kept the tiger in; and, conscious of that, we cannot really place ourselves beside the young Engineer of 29, as with only one or two volunteers of his own race round him he kept the field during those ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... Vesuvius to Mont Blanc.) from Cotopaxi; and yet, in the great explosions of this volcano, in 1744, a subterranean noise was heard at Honda, and supposed to be discharges of heavy artillery. The monks of San Francisco spread a report that the town of Carthagena was besieged and bombarded by the English; and the intelligence was believed throughout the country. Now the volcano of Cotopaxi is a cone, more than one thousand eight hundred toises above the basin of Honda, and it ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... carry out his mad project to the letter. He did not altogether sever himself from golf. He was still to be seen occasionally on the links. But now—and I know of nothing more tragic that can befall a man—he found himself gradually shunned, he who in the days of his sanity had been besieged with more offers of games than he could manage to accept. Men simply would not stand his incessant flow of talk. One by one they dropped off, until the only person he could find to go round with him was old Major ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... fight continued and, from the roof of the church belfry and windows, a hot fire answered the incessant fusillade of the Spaniards. The French and English officers were obliged, constantly, to impress upon the men that they must husband their ammunition; as there was no saying how long they might be besieged before a detachment, strong enough to turn ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... to have become an expert in catching the last train. It was only a branch line which struggles in an erratic way through the west of France, and the going was long and painful, because at every wayside station the carriages were besieged by people trying to escape. They were very patient and very brave. Even when they found that it was impossible to get one more human being on or one more package into the already crowded train they turned away in quiet grief, and when women wept over their babies it was silently and ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... lady at New York, who informed me that she had seen a letter from Miss M, written to a friend of hers, after her return to England, in which Miss M declared that her door was so besieged with the carriages of the nobility, that it was quite uncomfortable, and that she hardly knew ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the Antiquary: "why, then, a cup of thanks to you, my fair enemy, and soon may you be besieged as ladies love best to be, and sign terms of capitulation in the chapel ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... suspended, in such a pressing emergence, and give place to the stronger motives of necessity and self-preservation. Is it any crime, after a shipwreck, to seize whatever means or instrument of safety one can lay hold of, without regard to former limitations of property? Or if a city besieged were perishing with hunger; can we imagine, that men will see any means of preservation before them, and lose their lives, from a scrupulous regard to what, in other situations, would be the rules of equity and justice? The use ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... English, and their transports were speeding from every side. The whole country was up, and the garrison was out-numbered by one hundred to one. These Dublin barracks which had not been taken were now besieged and on the point ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... was Governor of Tennessee, he issued a great many pardons to men and women confined in penitentiaries or jails in that State. His reputation as a "pardoning Governor" resulted in his being besieged by everybody who had a relative incarcerated. One morning an old negro woman made her way into the executive offices and asked Taylor to pardon her husband, who was in jail. "What's he in for?" asked the Governor. "Fo' nothin' but stealin' a ham," explained the wife. "You don't ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... though its editor was of a half-forgotten day and generation, she would now have good work to show when asked what she had done. She was not enamored of beetles. Even the classifying of them was monotonous, and she had striven bravely to push her way through the throng of would-be writers that besieged the doors of every popular periodical in London. It was a heartbreaking struggle. The same post that gave her this epoch marking letter had brought back two stories with the stereotyped expression ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... Tunbridge, he compelled capteine Gilbert to yeeld vp the fortresse into his hands. Then went he to Horne castell, where he heard saie Odo was (but the report was vntrue, for he had betaken himselfe to the castell of Pemsey) which when he had ouerthrowne, he hasted forth vnto Pemsey, and besieged the castell there a long season, which ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (2 of 12) - William Rufus • Raphael Holinshed
... age of thirty-six until his decease, he does not seem to have quitted Athens, except temporarily. When Demetrius besieged Athens, the Epicureans were driven into great difficulties for want of food; and it is said that Epicurus and his friends subsisted on a small quantity of beans which he possessed, and which ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... enclosure, every man was in his place, silent and watchful. The order had been given that no one was to fire except to check an advance, for though ammunition was abundant, Captain Smithers felt that it was impossible to tell how long they might be besieged, so he determined to economise as much as possible. Consequently, firing from the fort was only at intervals, and as the Malays relied principally upon their spears, the ball was not kept up with anything like vigour; but, all the same, certain movements on the part of the enemy ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... inhabitants rose against him and drove him out of the district. Wyntoun mentions an Earl "Gillandrys," a name which we believe is derived from the common ancestor of the Mackenzies and Rosses, "Gilleoin-Ard-Rois," as one of the six Celtic earls who besieged King Malcolm at Perth in 1160. Skene is also of opinion that this Gillandres represented the old Celtic earls of Ross, as the clan bearing the name of Ross are called in Gaelic Clann Ghilleanrias, or descendants of Gillandres, and may, he thinks, have led the revolt which drove Malcolm Mac Heth ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... and the country flooded purposely. It was when Leyden was holding out against the Spaniards, led by Valdez. For four months the people had been besieged, and at last provisions had failed. But when Valdez summoned them to surrender, Vanderdoes, the burgomaster, replied "that when provisions utterly failed, then they would devour their left hands, reserving their right hands to defend their liberty." One day, when the people were reduced almost ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... amounted to more than eight hundred thousand, was at first monarchical, afterward democratic; but neither the forms of its institutions, nor its riches and grandeur, could save it from misfortune: it was besieged several times by the Carthaginians, and at length, after a siege of three years, was taken and sacked by Hannibal, the son of Giscon. In alluding to these misfortunes, the historian says: 'Yet of all the Sicilian cities, the fate of Agrigentum seemed the most worthy ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... triumphant Necho, after the defeat and dispersion of Josiah's army, pursued his way toward Damascus, which he at once overpowered. From thence he invaded Assyria, and stripped Nineveh of its most fertile provinces. The capital itself was besieged by Nabopolassar and Cyaxares the Mede, and Necho was left for a time in possession of his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... one or two of our best men. This angered old Guttorm, who is not a quarrelsome man, as ye know. He would have gone away peaceably enough if he had been let alone to help himself to a few beasts; but his blood was set up by that time, so he ordered all the men on shore, and we pitched our tents and besieged the castle. Being made of stone, there was no chance of setting it on fire, and as the walls were uncommonly high, it was not possible to take it by assault. Well, we sat down before it, and for two days tried everything we could think of to take it, ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... take chiefly such as are least subject to diseases, and multiply fastest; as swine, goats, cocks, hens, turkeys, geese, house-doves, and the like. The victual in plantations, ought to be expended almost as in a besieged town; that is, with certain allowance. And let the main part of the ground, employed to gardens or corn, be to a common stock; and to be laid in, and stored up, and then delivered out in proportion; besides some spots of ground, that any ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... of about fifty, rather good-looking, stout and hard-working, but inclining to corpulency, very unusual in The Desert. He is not very dark, and is of Arab extraction, and boasts that his family came from Mecca or Medina. He pretends that his ancestors were amongst the warriors who besieged Constantinople, previous to its capture by the Turks. He is a native of Touat, but has been settled here twenty years, where he has built himself a palace and planted large gardens. He is a shrewd and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... for taking a town by means of the "pretended death" of the besieging general, a device ascribed to Hastings and many more commanders (see Steenstrup Normannerne); the plan of "firing" a besieged town by fire-bearing birds, ascribed here to Fridlev, in the case of Dublin to Hadding against Duna (where it was foiled by all tame birds being ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... faith, took the child, but already Duke Morgan's men besieged the Castle of Kanoel all round about. There is a wise saying: "Fool-hardy was never hardy," and he was compelled to yield to Duke Morgan at his mercy: but for fear that Morgan might slay Rivalen's heir the Marshal hid him among his ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... The only weapon of an Indian is a very long bamboo or chuzo, ornamented with ostrich feathers, and pointed by a sharp spear-head. My informer seemed to remember with the greatest horror the quivering of these chuzos as they approached near. When close, the cacique Pincheira hailed the besieged to give up their arms, or he would cut all their throats. As this would probably have been the result of their entrance under any circumstances, the answer was given by a volley of musketry. The Indians, with great steadiness, came to the very fence of the corral: but to their ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Russell, afterwards first Earl of Bedford], who was sent there with his troops, finding his own forces fewer than the rebels, stayed at Honiton, while the rebels besieged Exeter: and right valiantly the men of Exeter kept their town. [King Edward, from whose Diary these details are taken, spells these names Honington and Outrie.] The rebels burnt the gates, but those within "kept them off by hot fire, till ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... Russians till the autumn, when he completely defeated them at Arcadiopolis (the modern Lule-Burgas). The Russians retired north of the Balkan range, but the Greeks followed them. John Tzimisces besieged them in the capital Preslav, which he stormed, massacring many of the garrison, in April 972. Svyatoslav and his remaining troops escaped to Silistria (the Durostorum of Trajan) on the Danube, where ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... they had been turned to stone by looking at the Gorgonic scenery. The part of Devonshire through which our journey lay is nothing very pretty, though it must be allowed to be beautiful after Somersetshire. We arrived here almost in the dark, and were besieged by the crowd of disinterested tradespeople, who would attend us through the town to our house, to help to unload the carriages. This was not a particularly agreeable reception in spite of its cordiality; and the circumstance of there being not a human being in our house, and not ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... of years it had been the seat of Government under Rulers of various nationalities and religions; few cities have the remains of so much pomp and glory, and very few bear the traces of having been besieged so often, or could tell of so much blood spilt in their defence, or of such quantities of treasure looted from them. When Tamerlane captured Delhi in 1398 the city was given over to massacre for five days, 'some streets being ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... the Templar. "Let them assemble their people and come to the rescue of three knights, besieged by a jester and swineherd in the baronial castle of ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... to his needs" was the one which went straight to the heart of the masses, and if they acclaimed the Republic and universal suffrage, it was because they hoped to attain to Communism through them. In 1871, also, when the people besieged in Paris desired to make a supreme effort to resist the invader, what was their demand?—That free rations should be served out to everyone. Let all articles be put into one common stock and let them be distributed according to the requirements of each. ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... times of danger. It was strongly fortified by sea, as well as by land; and only a vigorous blockade could exclude provisions and military stores from the people. But England was mistress of the ocean, and supplies from her would always relieve the besieged. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... came from the stores and gathered in knots that formed quickly and dissolved again as the parts passed from one group to another, questioning, arguing, and guessing. The attorney looked out of his window. Across the street he could see the office of the TIMES, and T. J. already besieged by questioners, to whom he was evidently giving a kind but decided refusal of further information. The editor was waving them away with his hands. Some of the editor's visitors handed T. J. money, and carried away copies of the TIMES, but all went, gently urged ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... besieged Miss Craydocke; and then the three met Ada Geoffrey, just as she had come in and spoken to Diana and Mrs. Ripwinkley; and Ada had caught the refrain, and responded instantly; and four of them knew the ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... of besiegers and besieged thundered unceasingly from the fortress of Goletta, and as the night darkened the scene with massy clouds, the flames of burning fragments became more visible, and the fiery course of the red bullets was perceptible as they crossed each other in their path, while their effects in fire and devastation ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... and pestilence, the city stood over against us, above the naked plain, all her outer gardens stripped away, bare light striking the red Alhambra and the Citadel. When the wind swept over her and on to Santa Fe it seemed to bring a sound of wailing and the faint and terrible odor of a long besieged place. ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... joined by Count Ulrich of Cilli, while the Hungarians and the powerful party of the great house of Rosenberg in Bohemia attached themselves to the league. Frederick, who had hurried back from Italy, was besieged in August in the Vienna Neustadt, and was forced to deliver Ladislaus to Count Ulrich, whose influence had meanwhile eclipsed that of Eiczing. Ladislaus now ruled nominally himself, under the tutelage of Count Ulrich. The country was, however, distracted by quarrels ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... return from his trying hour with the lawyers, he had been besieged with questions, but he was cleverly evasive. Peggy alone was insistent; she had curbed her curiosity until they were on the way home, and then she implored him to tell her what had happened. The misery he had endured was as nothing to his reckoning ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... of Etruria, on the north side of the Tiber, with the famous Lacus Trasimenus to the east. It was besieged by Augustus, and reduced by famine. Lucan has, Perusina fames. It is now called Perugia, in the ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... when we lay before Mantua, I remember that two of the brave fellows were buried in the marshes of that low country; for the fever helped the enemy as much as the sword, in the life-wasting campaign of the year we besieged the place." ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... shields, as men who might well defend themselves. Then when men beheld Sir Gawain's badge, and Sir Lancelot's pennon beside it, tidings of the combat ran far and wide through the land. The king's folk who lay there were sore vexed thereat. So soon as they who had besieged the queen heard what had chanced they drew off their forces; and all they who served the king, and who came with him into the lands, were greatly shamed, and desired of Sir Gawain in what wise ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... had happened in his childhood began to come back to William; but he wondered greatly how he seemed to know this land, where he had never been before. The king his father had been long dead, but the queen (his mother) and his sister were besieged in the city of Palermo by the king of Spain, who was full of wrath because the princess had refused to marry his son. The queen was in great straits, when one night she dreamed that a wolf and two harts had come to help her, and one bore the face of her son, while both ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... at Pirna was in the meantime closely invested; but the besieged were not without hopes of succor. A great Austrian army under Marshal Brown was about to pour through the passes which separate Bohemia from Saxony. Frederic left at Pirna a force sufficient to deal with the Saxons, hastened into Bohemia, encountered ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... yesterday—Rynch Brodie had been locked in here. And "here" was one of the storage compartments of a spacer belonging to a man named Wass. It had been Wass' pilot in the flitter which snaked them from the river islet where the monsters had besieged them. ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton |
