"Cuirass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... basin. It was also called a kettle hat, or pot. Another obsolete name given to a steel cap was a privy pallet, from Fr. palette, a barber's bowl, a "helmet of Mambrino." To a brilliant living monarch we owe the phrase "mailed fist," a translation of Ger. gepanzerte Faust. Panzer, a cuirass, is etymologically a pauncher, or defence for the paunch. We may compare an article of female apparel, which took its name from a more polite name for this part of the anatomy, and which Shakespeare uses even ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... who practise a religious life should always think about 'the body'; if thought upon one's self be absent, then all virtue dies. For as the champion warrior relies for victory upon his armor's strength, so 'right thought' is like a strong cuirass, able to withstand the six sense-robbers. Right faith enwraps the enlightened heart, so that a man perceives the world throughout is liable to birth and death; therefore the religious man should ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... with the Numidian bands, And line the shore.—Perdiccas, be it thine To march thy cohorts to the mountain's foot, Where the wood skirts the valley; there make halt Till brave Amyntor stretch along the vale. Ourself with the embodied cavalry Clad in their mail'd cuirass, will circle round To where their camp extends its furthest line; Unnumber'd torches there shall blaze at once, The signal of the charge; then, oh, my friends! On every side let the wild uproar loose, Bid massacre and carnage stalk around, Unsparing, unrelenting; drench your swords In hostile ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... prayer, the king mounted his horse, placed himself at the head of the right wing—the left being commanded by Bernard of Weimar—and cried, 'Now, onward! May our God direct us!—Lord, Lord! help me this day to fight for the glory of thy name!' and, throwing away his cuirass with the words, 'God is my shield!' he led his troops to the front of the Imperialists, who were well entrenched on the paved road which leads from Luetzen to Leipsic, and stationed in the deep trenches on either ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... adorned by bronze or gold, and surmounted by a crest which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to give an imposing look The crest not only served for ornament but to distinguish the different centurions. The breastplate or cuirass was generally made of metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail was also used. The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of leather or felt, and reached above the knees. The shield, worn by the heavy-armed infantry, was not round, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... defect by wearing embroidered shoes; but, alas! he cannot stand in them! He ludicrously compares him to Thersites wearing the armour of Achilles, tottering at every step; leering with his little eyes under his enormous helmet, and his hunchback raising the cuirass above his shoulders. Why do you buy so many books? You have no hair, and you purchase a comb; you are blind, and you will have a grand mirror; you are deaf, and you will have fine musical instruments! Your costly bindings ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... seems to have been exposed, without the protection of even a scale, and there survives in the better specimens only the internal skeleton of the fish and the ray-bones of the fins. It was armed, like a French dragoon, with a strong helmet and a short cuirass; and so we find its remains in the state in which those of some of the soldiers of Napoleon's old guard, that had been committed unstripped to the earth, may be dug up in the future on the fatal field of Borodino, or along the banks of the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... lance and a sword. His armor and his weapons were all, I am almost sure, of quite different periods. The shield was thirteenth century, while the sword was of the pattern used in the Peninsular War. The cuirass was of the time of Charles I., and the helmet dated from the Second Crusade. The arms on the shield were very grand—three red running lions on a blue ground. The tents were of the latest brand approved of by our modern War Office, and the whole appearance ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... Unfortunately we know but little of Matilda's personal appearance. Her health was not strong; and it is said to have been weakened, especially in her last illness, by ascetic observances. Yet she headed her own troops, armed with sword and cuirass, avoiding neither peril nor fatigue in the quarrels of her master Gregory. Up to the year 1622 two strong suits of mail were preserved at Quattro Castelli, which were said to have been worn by her in battle, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... The fire leaped into his eyes at sight of a sabre slash that scarred his cheek. He ran a withered hand down the young fellow's leg and caressed the swelling thew. He smote the broad chest with his knuckles, and pressed and prodded the thick muscle-pads that covered the shoulders like a cuirass. The group had been added to by curious passers-by—husky miners, mountaineers, and frontiersmen, sons of the long-legged and broad-shouldered generations. Imber glanced from one to another, then he spoke aloud in ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... bore, as yet, only three or four chalk lines. The light thus concentrated did not reach the dark angles of the vast atelier; but a few wandering reflections gleamed through the russet shadows on the silvered breastplate of a horseman's cuirass of the fourteenth century as it hung from the wall, or sent sharp lines of light upon the carved and polished cornice of a dresser which held specimens of rare pottery and porcelains, or touched with sparkling points the rough-grained texture of ancient gold-brocaded curtains, flung ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... government of his Holiness is too prudent to go in search of adventures. We are no longer in the days of Julius II., who donned the cuirass, and buckled on the sword of the flesh, and sprang himself into the breach. But why should not the Head of the Church do as Pius V., who sent his sailors with the Spaniards and Venetians to the battle of Lepanto? Why should you not detach a regiment or two to Algeria? France ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... back to his comrade. "This is amusing madness," I thought to myself, "and not quite so devoid of common sense as it appears. This young man, though only playing has sharply touched the defect in the cuirass." ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... employed exactly in proportion to their success, the Spaniard slowly returned home. With the licence accorded to him, he entered the Cardinal's chamber somewhat abruptly, and perceived him in earnest conversation with a Cavalier, whose long moustache, curled upward, and the bright cuirass worn underneath his mantle, seemed to betoken him of martial profession. Pleased with the respite, Alvarez hastily withdrew: and, in fact, the Cardinal's thoughts at that moment, and for that night, were bent upon other subjects than those ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... brought forward some delicately wrought mats, and laid upon them the various articles they had brought. A shield, helmet, and a cuirass, all with embossed plates and ornaments of gold; a collar and bracelets of the same metal; sandals and fans; crests of variegated feathers, intermingled with gold and silk thread, sprinkled with pearls and precious stones; imitations of birds and animals ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... summit, I said to the monk who accompanied me: "Father, how happy you must be here!" And he replied: "It is very windy, Monsieur"; and so we began to talk while watching the rising tide, which ran over the sand and covered it with a steel cuirass. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... large beard but he was not yet old, and he was almost gigantic but thin, with broad shoulders; he wore his hair in a net ornamented with beads; he was dressed in a leather jacket, which was marked by the cuirass, and he wore a belt composed of brass buckles; in the belt he had a knife in a horn scabbard, and at his side ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... principles,—the principle of Cromwell's "fluted pot,"—the principle of a rampart lined with plank, and filled with sand bags in the centre,—and the principle of the double-woven fabrics of the "moleskin" manufacturer.[22] The contrivances exemplified in the cuirass of the Pterichthys were scarce less remarkable. It was formed of bony plates, strongly arched above, but comparatively flat beneath; and along both its anterior and posterior rims a sudden thickening of the plates formed a massive band, which served ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... sword and cuirass and led out the royal army to the support of the Duke of Mantua, a French nobleman who had inherited an Italian duchy and found his rights disputed by both Spain and Savoy. Louis XIII accompanied Richelieu and showed ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... he showed me pieces of armour, that is, a vizored headpiece or armet, with cuirass, backplates, pauldrons and vambraces, all very richly gilded, the which it seemed he ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... reflected, and presently from Baiae to Puzzoli, over the waters of the bay, he galloped on horseback, the cuirass of Alexander glittering on his breast. The intervening miles had been spanned by a bridge of ships and on them a road had been built, one of those roads for which the Romans were famous, a road like the ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... large, whirling flakes. Down in the valley it melted off our clothes, but higher up on the open, windy heights it froze to a cake of ice, and before long our clothes on the windward side were converted into a thick cuirass which prevented every movement. At last we were practically frozen fast in the saddle. Our hands were benumbed, the reins fell on the horses' necks, our eyes were sore from the snowstorm which dashed straight into our faces. I was so stiff that I lost all feeling ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... surprise. The back of the warrior was toward him, and, collecting all his force, the Moor hurled his lance to transfix him on the spot. The lance was not thrown with the usual accuracy of Ali Atar: it tore away a part of the cuirass of Don Alonso, but failed to inflict a wound. The Moor rushed upon Don Alonso with his scimetar, but the latter was on the alert and parried his blow. They fought desperately upon the borders of the river, alternately pressing each other ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... regiment of lesser idols, began to grow an eyesore in the scanty studio of my friend. Dijon and I have sat by the hour, and gazed upon that company of images. The severe, the frisky, the classical, the Louis Quinze, were there—from Joan of Arc in her soldierly cuirass, to Leda with the swan; nay!—and God forgive me for a man that knew better!—the humorous was represented also. We sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither and thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked quite like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the place—Rappahannock farmers, a lean, watchful breed, each man with his musket. One of them, I mind, wore a rusty cuirass of chain armour, which must have been one of those sent out by the King in the first days of the dominion. They gave me a drink of rum and water, and in a little I had got over my worst weariness ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... about to begin; the horses fall into line. Tall plumes fixed between their ears sway in the wind like trees; and in their leaps they shake the chariots in the form of shells, driven by coachmen wearing a kind of many-coloured cuirass with sleeves narrow at the wrists and wide in the arms, with legs uncovered, full beard, and hair shaven above the forehead after the fashion of ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... clothed in flame, and lead on the giants to the storming of Asgard. Heimdall sounds his trumpet, which echoes through all worlds; the gods fly to arms; Odin appears in his golden casque, his resplendent cuirass, with his vast scimitar in his hand, and marshals his heroes in battle array. The great ash tree is shaken to its roots, heaven and earth are full of horror and affright, and gods, giants, and heroes are at length buried in one ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... with some other country, immediately after the Restoration, something like this same distinction would have been seen. Sir Gervase Langford would have charged upon the foe, his feathers flying and his lady's colors woven into a love-knot above his cuirass, singing a roundelay of decidedly loose tendencies, precisely as he had once charged beside Prince Rupert on the bloody day of Long Marston; and Master John Grimston would have snuffled a psalm through his nose and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... he feared the mortal; and when Hercules then asked whether he might lead away the dog of Hades he did not longer oppose him. But he imposed the condition that Hercules should become master of Cerberus without using any weapons. So the hero set out, protected only with cuirass ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... can understand that we live a little carelessly; for, without further parley and asking pardon for the great liberty, I will remove my vest, if you please; it is embroidered in cloth and as heavy as a cuirass." ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... ought to wear the cuirass; this is the only relic of ancient defence which we are advocates for keeping up, and we do so upon the score of utility. It is rather heavy for the men, but only so because they are not accustomed to wear it in a judicious manner; it is of real service to the arm in question, and is the greatest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... relics, besides a great number of different objects from China, Japan, and the Dutch colonies. Amongst other things there is the sword of that Ruyter who began life as a rope-maker at Vlissingen, and became the greatest admiral of Holland; Admiral Tromp's cuirass perforated by bullets; a chair from the prison of the venerated Barneveldt; a box containing a lock of hair from the head of that Van Speyk who in 1831, on the Schelde, blew up his vessel to preserve the honor of the ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... background. The smiling boy Cupid, with his gracious raillery and his smarting griefs, seemed to make no impression on that pale, grave, and taciturn artillery lieutenant, and not to dare shoot an arrow toward that bosom which had mailed itself in an impenetrable cuirass of ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... all of these, my blood thrilling strangely at the sight, the figures blended and formed into a splendid procession of a martial day gone by. I saw them—a long stream of mounted men, who rode in helmet and cuirass, and bore each aloft a long-beamed spear. In front rode one whose mien was high and stern, and who might well have been commander. High aloft he tossed his great sword as he rode, and sang the time a song of war; ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... pyramids could take care of themselves. They had seen the plains at their feet covered again and again with hordes of barbarians, and yet had lost not an inch of their height or a stone of their polished cuirass. Even in the temples the setting up of a few fallen columns, the reworking of a few bas-reliefs, the restoration of a painting here and there, was all that was necessary to bring back ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... take a part Bellona 's found, Of cuirasses I see but few around; When Venus closes with the god of Thrace, Her armour then appears with ev'ry grace. The FAIR will understand: enough is said; When beauty's goddess is to combat led, Her body-cuirass shows superior charms; The Cyclops rarely forge such pleasing arms. Had Vulcan graven on Achilles' shield The picture we've described, more ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... hammer by boys just out of school and by obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the social state," said the Comte de Vandenesse. "In these days every rogue who can hold his head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom with half an ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow where apocryphal genius gleams under curling locks, and strut in a pair of patent-leather pumps graced by silk socks which cost six francs, screws his eye-glass into one of his eye-sockets by puckering up his cheek, and whether he be ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... the endurance of the Roman, everything depended on a sudden and desperate effort, he threw himself fiercely on Eumolpus; the Roman warily retreated—Lydon thrust again—Eumolpus drew himself aside—the sword grazed his cuirass—Lydon's breast was exposed—the Roman plunged his sword through the joints of the armor, not meaning however to inflict a deep wound; Lydon, weak and exhausted, fell forward, fell right on the point; it passed through and through, even to the back. Eumolpus drew forth his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... very picturesque as we raced over the glistening surface, which flashed like a burnished cuirass beneath the rays of the rising sun. Now we approach a spot where seemingly the waters from some violent blast or other had been in a state of foam and commotion, when a stern frost transformed them into a solid mass. Pillars and blocks of the shining and hardened element ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... Kourakine, the Russian Ambassador, was seriously injured; he had made a misstep on the staircase leading to the garden, and had fallen senseless into the flames, which, fortunately, had been unable to get through his coat of cloth of gold and the decorations which covered him like a cuirass; nevertheless, it was many months before he recovered. "Prince Joseph de Schwarzenberg," says the Moniteur of July 3, 1810, "spent the night in looking for his wife, whom he could not find at the Embassy or at Madame Metternich's. He was still ignorant ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... affection toward the citizens, was parsimonious of the moneys of the Commune, prodigal of his own; while a foe to vice, he was not too severe on those who erred. Though he began his military life at twenty-three, he always bore the cuirass of a man at arms upon his shoulders day and night on active service. He slept very little, was sober in his diet, temperate in love. The Florentines did not love him, because it is not possible for men used to freedom to love a ruler; but he, for his part, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... their position in the most inaccessible part of the country. As they proceeded through the hilly grounds, skirting the Tipperary collieries, a crowd began to gather around them, and they saw what they hoped would form the nucleus of an army. Braver hearts never beat beneath a cuirass, but they were not armed, disciplined or even taught. On that day they took the road to the village of Mullinahone, situate about seventeen miles south-east of Cashel. As they entered Mullinahone, the chapel bell was rung, and a ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... l. 39. Cuirassiers were heavy cavalry wearing helmet and cuirass (two plates fastened together for the protection of ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... ploughshares, a few with cross-bows, and Jobst and his sons with the long blackened poles used for stirring their charcoal fires. In advance were Master Moritz and the two barons, the former in a stout plain steel helmet, cuirass, and gauntlets, a sword, and those new-fashioned weapons, pistols; the latter in full knightly armour, exactly alike, from the gilt-spurred heel to the eagle- crested helm, and often moving restlessly forward to watch for the enemy, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that individual admitted. A handsome face always went through John's cuirass. It was all nonsense, for his wife could not have adored him more openly had he been the twin to Adonis. But, there you are; a man always wants something he can not have. John wasn't satisfied to be one of the most brilliant ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... gauntlet quits the rein, Down drops the casque of steel, The cuirass leaves his shrinking side, The ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... length, very black, very shining, doubtless a Hercules who was defending himself against a whole army. His enemies fastened themselves on to each of his legs, but he still fought; a brown ant jumped upon his back and tried to break his brilliant cuirass; another, with his body bent double, covered him with poison. The Hercules still fought. At last, three of the fiercest of the ants worked with their sharp teeth upon the middle of his body, and at last cut him in two. The terrible head of the Hercules still held in ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... of the bugle. All that is past; to-day no bugle sounds the charge, and even the company commander's whistle has given way to certain soft words for which the German mocking-bird will seek in vain in our Infantry Manual. As for cuirass and helmet, the range of modern guns and rifles has made them a little too ingenuous. And, sure enough, as we drove into Compiegne we found a squadron of dragoons as sombre as our own, in their mouse-coloured couvre-casques ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... perhaps I have always been the same as I am now, but didn't know it merely. And something has fallen away, that used to cover me up in the past.... Yes, that's it: for now I can feel all those desires that used to pass me by as if deflected by a cuirass of insensibility.... Now I can feel how they touch my body and my soul, filling me with qualms and passions. The earth seems full of adventure. The sky seems radiant with flames. And it is as if I could see myself ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... armor on but a light morion and a cuirass, so he was not too much encumbered to prevent his springing to his legs instantly, and setting to work, cutting and foining right and left at every sound, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... violet eyes with a remarkable poise to them."—Here I continued the description for him: "Slight of figure; a full, honest waist, without a suggestion of that execrable death-trap, Dame Fashion's hideous cuirass; a little above middle height; deliberate, and therefore graceful, in all her movements; carries herself in a way to impress one with the idea that she is innocent, without that time-honoured concomitant, ignorance; half girl, half woman; shy, yet strong; and in a word, very beautiful—that's ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... work of Donatello by its realism. Verocchio's "David," a lad of some seventeen years, has the lean, veined arms of a stone-hewer or gold-beater. As a faithful portrait of the first Florentine prentice who came to hand, this statue might have merit but for the awkward cuirass and kilt that ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... dresses and disguises, including large masks; and their war-dress, formed of a thick doubled leathern mantle of elk or buffalo skin, frequently with a cloak over it, on which the hoofs of horses were strung, makes an almost impervious cuirass. Their love for music, general lively dispositions, except from provocation, but determination in avenging insult or wrong, is ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... go." "Well, go," replied the professor; "but be wise, Signor Bucciolo—be wise and think more than once what you are about." "Trust me for that," said the scholar, a little piqued: "I shall go well provided, and not walk into the mouth of danger unarmed." And away he went, furnished with a good cuirass, a rapier, and a stiletto in his belt. He was no sooner on his way than the professor slipped out quietly after him, dogging his steps closely, until, trembling with rage, he saw him stop at his own house-door, which, on a smart tap being ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... followers' trumpets down in the open square of the barbarous city, where the soldiers of many an Old-World fight, "with mustached lip and bearded chin, with arquebuse and glittering halberd, helmet, and cuirass," moved among the plumed and painted savages; then he lifted Jacques Cartier's eyes, and looked out upon the magnificent landscape. "East, wept, and north, the mantling forest was over all, and the broad blue ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the down. Slowly and wearily they came, the horse drooping its head and stumbling in its pace, as though worn out with fatigue, but he saw that it was a war-horse, and the saddle and other equipments were such as he well remembered in the royal army long ago. The rider wore buff coat, cuirass, gauntlets guarded with steel, sword, and pistols, and Walter's first impulse was to avoid him; but on giving a second glance, he changed his mind, for though there was neither scarf, plume, nor any badge of party, the long locks, the set of the hat, ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... helped the duke into his cuirass, and stood by his person, while the king's bodyguard of Scottish archers "proved themselves good fellows, who never budged from their master's feet and shot arrow upon arrow out into the darkness, wounding more ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... be chief of the twain, having entered Mueller's replies in a greasy pocket-book of stupendous dimensions, which he seemed to wear like a cuirass under the breast of his uniform, proceeded to ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... "The cuirass donn'd of cloud-compelling force And stood accoutred for the bloody fray. Her tasselled aegis round her shoulders next She threw, with terror circled all around, And on its face were figured deeds of arms And Strife ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... pulled out the body, and a few moments later he was dragging the lifeless, or at least the unconscious, man, through the shadows of hollow road. He was a cuirassier, an officer, and even an officer of considerable rank; a large gold epaulette peeped from beneath the cuirass; this officer no longer possessed a helmet. A furious sword-cut had scarred his face, where nothing was ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Velasquez, and a dozen servants. These jumped out of the windows, with the exception of Martin Pizarro, two other gentlemen, and two tall pages, who were killed while defending the door of the governor's apartment. He himself had not had time to put on his cuirass, but he seized his sword and buckler and defended himself valiantly, killing four of his adversaries and wounding several others. One of his assailants, in a spirit of self-devotion, attracted to himself the blows of Pizarro. Meanwhile the other conspirators made their way in and attacked him with ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... nations on to the conquest of the unknown and the divine? Was it Alexander III, who defended the Holy See against the Empire, and at last conquered and set his foot on the neck of Frederick Barbarossa? Was it, long after the sorrows of Avignon, Julius II, who wore the cuirass and once more strengthened the political power of the papacy? Was it Leo X, the pompous, glorious patron of the Renascence, of a whole great century of art, whose mind, however, was possessed of so little penetration and foresight that ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... and by the approaching night, he deployed his men, and closed in overwhelming numbers on the centre and right flank of the insurgent army. In the increasing twilight the burning matches of the firelocks, shimmering on barrel, halbert, and cuirass, lent to the approaching army a picturesque effect, like a huge, many-armed giant breathing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of that fascination. I wondered what the rest of her was like, and instantly she moved gracefully back until her full figure was visible. I must be a prude at heart, for she wasn't wearing the usual cuirass-and-shorts of that year, but an iridescent four-paneled costume that all but concealed her dainty knees. But her form was slim and erect as a column of cigarette smoke in still air, and I knew that she could ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... various other spoils of war found on the spot, were offered for sale by some boys and eagerly bought up as relics. My brother-in-law made a purchase of a helmet, sword and cuirass, intending to hang it up in his hall. For my part I have seen, and can see no reason whatever to rejoice at this event. I fear it is ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... blood, hissing as it seemed, and full of scorching sparks. Their pain was like an electric discharge. The loud, heavy step of a man-at-arms sounded on the stairs with the iron clank of his sword, his cuirass, and spurs; a soldier presently stood ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... presenting her, one with his helm adorned with martial plumes, the other with his buckler of gold, with the Orleans-Montpensier arms. The laurel crown, with which Triumphs were ornamenting her head, and the scaled cuirass of Pallas completed her decoration. M. le Duc du Maine praised, without affectation, the intelligence of the artist; and as for the figure and the likeness, he said to the Princess: "You are good, but you are better." The calm and the naivety of this compliment ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... to their meeting in the chapel of Engaddi sent a thousand recollections through Sir Kenneth's brain, and convinced him that the message delivered by the dwarf was genuine. The rosebuds, withered as they were, were still treasured under his cuirass, and nearest to his heart. He paused, and could not resolve to forego an opportunity, the only one which might ever offer, to gain grace in her eyes whom he had installed as sovereign of his affections. The dwarf, in the meantime, augmented his confusion by insisting either ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... he heard my name he began speaking to me in a tone of the most delicate flattery. I saw the makings of a great adventurer in him, but I thought his luxury would prove the weak point in his cuirass. I thought him something like what I had been fifteen years ago, but as it seemed unlikely that he had my resources I could ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... wood was flesh and blood to him. Cutting a piece from it would have been like cutting off a limb. He was armed, and he kept constant guard, without minding the cold, the snow, or the ice, which stiffened his clothing as if it covered it with a granite cuirass. Duke understood him, and ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... itself, with tendrils trailed about branches and trunk, on the propping tree from which the child Ampelos took his name. Like the head with its elaborately dressed curls, the beautiful body had an ampleness and tenderness that gave an impression almost womanly till you noticed the cuirass-like sit of the chest on the loins, and the compressed strength of the long light thighs. The creature, as you looked at him, seemed to reveal more and more, beneath the roundness and fairness of surface, the elasticity and strength of an athlete in training. But when the eye was ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... the hearth, half covered with glasses and bottles, sat two men playing hazard. The dice rang sharply as I entered, and he who had just thrown kept the box over them while he turned, scowling, to see who came in. He was a fair-haired, blonde man, large-framed and florid. He had put off his cuirass and boots, and his doublet showed frayed and stained where the armour had pressed on it. Otherwise he was in the extreme of last year's fashion. His deep cravat, folded over so that the laced ends drooped ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... were Don Quixote de la U.V.M., Knight of the patent-leather gaiters, terrible in his bright rectangular cuirass of tin (once a tea-chest), and his glittering harpoon; his doughty squire, Sancho Panza; and a dashing young lady, whose tasteful riding-dress of black cambric, wealth of embroidered skirts and undersleeves, and bold riding, took not a ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... dreary sense of solitude, if we felt that unseen, but most real, Presence wrapping us round! It is only when our faith in it has fallen asleep that any earthly good allures, or any earthly evil frightens us. To be sure, in our thrilling consciousness, that we dwell with Jesus is an impenetrable cuirass that blunts the points of all arrows and keeps the breast that wears it unwounded in the fray. The world has no voices which can make themselves heard above that low sovereign whisper: 'I am with you always, even to the end of the world'—and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Hesse-Darmstadt. She was a most thorough German, hated France, and especially the French Revolution. She was a fearless horsewoman, and had been seen facing great dangers at the battle of Jena. When she rode before her troops in her helmet of polished steel, shaded by a plume, in her glittering golden cuirass, her tunic of silver stuff, her red boots with gold spurs, she resembled Tasso's heroines. The soldiers burst into cries of enthusiasm, as they saw their warlike Queen; before her were bowed the flags she had embroidered with her own hands, and the old, torn, and battle-stained ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... which brought to the front all the qualities of her soul and mind, tenderness, courage, delicacy, pride, modesty, gave her face at the same time an expression so varied, so winning in all its moods, that the grave, sombre assembly of judges let fall the brazen cuirass of impassive integrity and the leaden cope of hypocritical virtue. If Edmee had not triumphantly defended me by her confession, she had at least roused the greatest interest in my favour. A man who is loved by a beautiful woman carries with him a talisman ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... dying out of that under Jesuit influence. You recollect the quarrel between the Tablet and the Jesuits, over Faber's unlucky honesty about St. Rose of Lima? . . . But, really, as long as you honour asceticism as a means of appeasing the angry deities, I shall prefer to St. Dominic's cuirass or St. Hedwiga's chilblains, John Mytton's two hours' crawl on the ice in his shirt, after a flock of wild ducks. They both endured like heroes; but the former for a selfish, if not a blasphemous end; the latter, as a man should, to test and ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... they gave him. These brass men come from the sea, and those sprung from the earth were soldiers who assisted Psammeticus and Cadmus in carrying out their objects. Bochart's conjecture is strengthened by the fact, that Cadmus was either the inventor of the cuirass and javelin, or the first that brought them into Greece. Without inquiring further into the subject, we may conclude, that the men sprung from the earth, or the dragon's teeth which were sown, were the people of the country, whom Cadmus ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... with twenty men armed to the teeth, knocked fiercely at the commandant's door. Forcing an entrance, they wounded a gentleman who opposed them, and crowded around the sick man's bed. Fourneaux, armed with steel cap and cuirass, held his arquebuse to Laudonniere's throat, and demanded leave to go on a cruise among the Spanish islands. The latter kept his presence of mind, and remonstrated with some firmness; on which, with oaths and menaces, they dragged him from his bed, put him in fetters, carried ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... a soldier. The double-barred doors of iron, the lofty, protected windows, the military pictures on the walls of his home—all spoke to the Chaviniac child of warfare and conflict. There was the portrait of his father in cuirass and helmet. There were far-away ancestors in glistening armor and laced jackets. There was also the military portrait of that Gilbert Motier de Lafayette who was marshal in the time of Charles VII, and whose motto "Cur non" (Why not?) was chosen by Lafayette for his ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... thought of tragic idyl, and of flight and hot pursuit, And the jingle of the bridle, and cuirass, and spur on boot, As our horses's hooves struck showers from the flinty bowlders set In freshet ways with writhing reed and ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... some curious things—stags' horns, and weapons of bygone times, and among them a buff coat, an iron helmet, a cuirass, and two long straight swords, which evidently belonged to one of the gentlemen with flowing love-locks and broad collars turned down over their mail, whose portraits are hung on each side. But below these is a more modern helmet, such a helmet as was worn by Light Dragoons about ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... fort, barracoon^, pah^, sconce, martello tower^, peelhouse^, blockhouse, rath^; wooden walls. [body armor] bulletproof vest, armored vest, buffer, corner stone, fender, apron, mask, gauntlet, thimble, carapace, armor, shield, buckler, aegis, breastplate, backplate^, cowcatcher, face guard, scutum^, cuirass, habergeon^, mail, coat of mail, brigandine^, hauberk, lorication^, helmet, helm, bassinet, salade^, heaume^, morion^, murrion^, armet^, cabaset^, vizor^, casquetel^, siege cap, headpiece, casque, pickelhaube, vambrace^, shako &c (dress) 225. bearskin; panoply; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dressed in black crape, had just seated themselves opposite each other, for breakfast, in the large dining-room at Roncieres. The portraits of many ancestors, crudely painted, one in a cuirass, another in a tight-fitting coat, this a powdered officer of the French Guards, that a colonel of the Restoration, hung in line on the walls, a collection of deceased Guilleroys, in old frames from which the gilding ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... wore a plain cuirass and gorget so severely simple that it might have been mistaken for the guise of one of Cromwell's ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... appears to have served as an excellent sign-post to the inns in Germany, was the true church militant: and his figure was exhibited according to the popular fancy. His head was half mitre and half helmet; a crosier in one hand and a sabre in the other; half a rochet and half a cuirass: he was made performing mass as a dragoon on horseback, and giving out the charge when he ought the Ite, missa est! He was called the converter! and the "Bishop of Munster" became popular as a sign-post in German towns; for the people like fighting ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... purpose but tugging on the oar. The arquebusier, the musketeer, and the bombardier looked carefully to the state of their weapons, ammunition, and equipments; the sailor sharpened his pike and cutlass; the officer put on his strongest casque and his best-wrought cuirass; the stewards placed supplies of bread and wine in convenient places, ready to the hands of the combatants; and the surgeons prepared their instruments and bandages, and spread tables in dark and shaded nooks, for the use ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... the enemy assailing them. The soldiers swarmed up from the river to resume their clothes; and here you could behold depicted by the master's godlike hands one hurrying to clasp his limbs in steel and give assistance to his comrades, another buckling on the cuirass, and many seizing this or that weapon, with cavalry in squadrons giving the attack. Among the multitude of figures, there was an old man, who wore upon his head an ivy wreath for shade. Seated on ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... the captain, two negroes assisted our heroes to put on their apparel, and clothed them in thick waterproof made of India rubber, which formed trousers and vest, the trousers terminating in a pair of shoes with lead soles; a cuirass of leather protected the chest from the pressure of the water, and ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... their staggering flanks, The English horsemen's foaming ranks Forced their resistless way. Then to the musket-knell succeeds The clash of swords—the neigh of steeds - As plies the smith his clanging trade, Against the cuirass rang the blade; And while amid their close array The well-served cannon rent their way, And while amid their scattered band Raged the fierce rider's bloody brand, Recoiled in common rout and fear, Lancer and guard and cuirassier, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... and other handles, some worked with gold, &c. The fragments in the third division include a knotted rope; a piked club; wooden fan handles; wooden paddles carved with heads of jackals; a mast for the model of a boat; and in the fourth division are a curious cuirass and helmet, from the tombs of Manfaloot, fashioned from a crocodile skin. At this point is another intermediate case containing a mummy, coffin, and boards. The coffin is shaped like a mummy, with a green face, and Netpe, between Isis and Nephthys on the breast, with the deceased ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... placed round the throat, completely protecting the jugular vein and the carotid artery. The right arm, which in this peculiar fencing is used to parry the cut in tierce, is also protected by bandages, and the body is covered by a leathern cuirass, heavily padded, from the middle of the breast to the knees. It will be seen that the whole head, excepting the eyes, is exposed, as well as the chest and shoulders. Thrusting is forbidden as well as the cut in second, below guard, but the latter is permitted when ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... as swords, the haughty outline of her curved lips, her massive shoulders and deep chest, her domineering expression, and listened to her imperious voice, doubts assailed me. I could believe that she had led an army of amazons in cuirass and buckler, but my imagination refused to picture her in a silken train smiling at gallants from behind her fan; and surely, I thought, no one in the whole world ever went tripping to a ball in such strange and monstrous headgear as she wore. Yet she had been a notable beauty in her day, and even ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... small eminence against three successive attacks of the Gothic cavalry. At the distance only of two bow-shots, the armies spent the morning in dreadful suspense, and the Romans tasted some necessary food, without unloosing the cuirass from their breast, or the bridle from their horses. Narses awaited the charge; and it was delayed by Totila till he had received his last succors of two thousand Goths. While he consumed the hours in fruitless treaty, the king exhibited in a narrow space the strength and agility of a warrior. His ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... compartments. Showy curtains, not finding a vacant frame in the salons, adorned the doors leading into the kitchen. The wall mouldings gradually disappeared under an overlay of pictures, placed close together like the scales of a cuirass. Who now could accuse Desnoyers of avarice? . . . He was investing far more than a fashionable contractor would have dreamed ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sometimes accompanied by another personage, named Chin Chia, 'Mr Golden Cuirass.' Like K'uei Hsing and Chu I he has charge of the interests of scholars, but differs from them in that he holds a flag, which he has only to wave in front of a house for the family inhabiting it to be assured that among their descendants will be some who will win literary honours and be promoted ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... not understand!" said Lady Demolines, drawing herself back, and looking, in her short open cloak, like a knight who has donned his cuirass, but has forgotten to put on his leg-gear. And she shook the bright ribbons of her cap, as a knight in his wrath shakes the crest of his helmet. "You do not understand, Mr Eames! What is it, sir, that you do ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... its microscopic outline. Nor do these little creatures lack a beauty of their own. Their minute shields of pure translucent silex are elaborately wrought in microscopic symbols of mimic heraldry. They are the chivalry of the deep, the tiny knights with lance and cuirass, and oval bossy shield carved in quaint conceits and ornamental fashion. Nor must we despise them when we reflect upon their power of accretion. The Gallionellae, invisible to the naked eye, can, of their heraldic shields and flinty ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... with his own hand slew Alaric in the fray; at the moment of striking his blow, two Goths fell suddenly upon Clovis, and attacked him with their pikes on either side, but he escaped death, thanks to his cuirass and the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... reigns nothing special is noted save attention to civil affairs, occasional conquests, and "a great plague." The twentieth sovereign, called Huascar-Titupac, "gave all the provinces new governors of royal blood, and introduced in the army a cuirass made of cotton and copper." The twenty-first, Manco-Capac-Amauta, "being addicted to astronomy, convened a scientific council, which agreed that the sun was at a greater distance from the earth than the moon, and that they followed different ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... the same plan. In certain places, better protected or less attacked, it has preserved all its ancient externals. At Cahors, the bishop-count of the town had the right, on solemnly officiating, "to place his helmet, cuirass, gauntlets and sword on the altar."[1220] At Besancon, the archbishop-prince has six high officers, who owe him homage for their fiefs, and who attend at his coronation and at his obsequies. At Mende,[1221] the bishop, seignior-suzerain ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... said he. "You see that double twinkle? That means they have helmet as well as cuirass. It's the Royals, or the Enniskillens, or the Household. You can hear their cymbals and kettles. The French heavies are too good for us. They have ten to our one, and good men too. You've got to shoot at their faces or else at their horses. Mind you ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... held at this period, in imitation of the antique meetings of chivalry, in which the chevaliers tilted at each other, or at the ring; and on this occasion I was habited in a splendid Roman dress (viz., a silver helmet, a flowing periwig, a cuirass of gilt leather richly embroidered, a light blue velvet mantle, and crimson morocco half-boots): and in this habit I rode my bay horse Brian, carried off three rings, and won the prize over all the Duke's gentry, and the nobility of surrounding countries who ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with the swart of spear and the blanch of blade. And behold a cavalier rode single handed into the plain, mounted on a steed of purest strain, and for foray and fray full ready and fain. And that Knight had limbs of might and he was clad in an iron cuirass made for stress of fight. On his breast he wore a jewelled mirror and in his hand he bore a keen scymitar and his lance of Khalanj wood,[FN446] the curious work of the Frank, weighing a quintal. Then the rider uncovered his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... &c., seem to be indicative of their personal appearance: on their heads they wore yellow turbans, like coronets; their demeanor was grave and firm; their hair, like that of women, was suffered to grow uncut; they were defended by the cuirass or breast-plate; and in rushing to battle, their onset was like that of chariots ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... capacious size were prepared, and in each was placed instead of its quota of wine a stalwart warrior, fully armed with sword, shield, helmet, and cuirass. Each cask was then covered with a linen cloth, and ropes were fastened to its sides for the convenience of the carriers. This done, sixty other men were chosen as carriers, and dressed as peasants, though really they were trained soldiers, and each had a sword concealed ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... asunder / that the sparks began To fly in ruddy showers. / Hawart's gallant man Was by sword of Hagen / wounded all so sore Through shield and shining cuirass, / that whole he found ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La Rochelle of it. Many citizens, seeing the women flying toward the High Street, leaving their children crying at the open doors, hastened to don the cuirass, and supporting their somewhat uncertain courage with a musket or a partisan, directed their steps toward the hostelry of the Jolly Miller, before which was gathered, increasing every minute, a compact group, vociferous and ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... bore the brunt of the engagement, losing nearly half her crew. Her tonnage is only four thousand two hundred and eighty; and her immediate antagonists were two Chinese ironclads of seven thousand four hundred tons each. Outside, her cuirass shows no deep scars, for the shattered plates have been replaced;—but my guide points proudly to the numerous patchings of the decks, the steel masting supporting the fighting-tops, the smoke-stack,—and to certain terrible dents, with small cracks ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... him, and the iron alone remained in the wounds. Each time that he appeared the firing recommenced, and fresh lances were plunged into his enormous body. Perceiving, however, how ineffectual firearms were to pierce his cuirass of invulnerable scales, I excited him by my shouts and gestures, and when he came to the edge of the water, opening his enormous jaws all ready to devour me, I approached the muzzle of my gun to within a few inches, and fired both barrels, in the hope that the bullets would ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... inutility of retaining the ringed hauberk. The thighs and legs were no longer covered with double-chain mail, and the arms only partially. A back-plate was added, which, with the breast-plate, formed a cuirass. During the use of mixed armour, the arms, thighs, knees, and legs were covered with plates of metal; and for the hands were invented gloves of plate, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... the challenge with the greatest confidence. He never doubted but that, armed as he was, with a helmet, a cuirass, and brassarts, he would obtain an easy victory over a champion in a cap and nightgown. Zadig drew his sword, saluting the queen, who looked at him with a mixture of fear and joy. Itobad drew his without saluting anyone. He rushed upon Zadig, like ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... and made halt This side the coppice at a certain gate? For by that chance which ever serves ill ends, Within the slanted shadow of The Towers The maid Griselda dwelt. Her gray scarred sire Had for cloth doublet changed the steel cuirass, The sword for gardener's fork, and so henceforth In the mild autumn and sundown of life, Moving erect among his curves and squares Of lily, rose, and purple flower-de-luce, Set none but harmless squadrons in the field— Save now and then at tavern, where he posed, Tankard in hand ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the soldier came up, desired to be conducted to his commanding-officer. I was immediately brought where a circle of officers, sitting upon the grass, seemed in attendance upon one of superior rank. He wore a cuirass of polished steel, over which were drawn the insignia of the ancient Order of the Thistle. My friend Garschattachin, and many other gentlemen, some in uniform, others in their ordinary dress, but all ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... In thought so deeply, Father? Sad, perhaps? For whose sake, hers or mine or his who wraps —Still plain I seem to see!—about his head The idle cloak,—about his heart (instead Of cuirass) some fond hope he may elude My vengeance in the cloister's solitude? Hardly, I think! As little helped his brow The cloak then, Father—as your grate ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... oaths acquired here and there and yonder in the wars and treasured as if they were decorations. He had been used to the camp all his life, and to his notion war was God's best gift to man. He had his steel cuirass on, and wore boots that came above his knees, and was equipped with a huge sword; and when I looked at this martial figure, and heard the marvelous oaths, and guessed how little of poetry and sentiment might be looked for in this quarter, I hoped the little peasant-girl ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mail, some coats of plate put on, Some donned a cuirass, some a corslet bright, And halbert some, and some a habergeon, So every one in arms was quickly dight, His wonted guide each soldier tends upon, Loose in the wind waved their banners light, Their standard royal toward Heaven ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... pluck it, but without breaking ranks, without dropping out of the squadron of which the leader must always keep his eyes on the flaming sonorous star. But if he put the little flower in the strap above his cuirass, not to look at it himself, but for others to look at, away with him! Let him go with his flower in his buttonhole and ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... out. His huge elephants, looking like hills, and adorned with Yantras,[100] lances, quivers and standards, looked exceedingly beautiful. And the ruler of the Kalingas, with his tall standard effulgent as fire, with his white umbrella, and golden cuirass, and Chamaras (wherewith he was fanned), shone brilliantly. And Ketumat also, riding on an elephant with a highly excellent and beautiful hook, was stationed in battle, O King, like the Sun in the midst ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... lay winged bulls, and the king's body-guard-their dress consisting of a gold cuirass under a purple overcoat, and the high Persian cap, their swords in golden scabbards glittering with jewels, and their lances ornamented with gold and silver apples, were stationed in the court of the palace. Among them the band of the "Immortals" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... great loss, and they began to give way. And my Cid, seeing King Fariz, made towards him, smiting down all who were in his way; and he came up to him, and made three blows at him; two of them failed, but the third was a good one, and went through his cuirass, so that the blood ran down his legs. And with that blow was the army of the Moors vanquished, for King Fariz, feeling himself so sorely wounded, turned his reins and fled out of the field, even to Teruel. And Martin Antolinez, the good Burgalese, came up to King Galve, and gave him a stroke on ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... visitation" through the country demanding money. The Dean of St. Paul's, Henry of Cornhill, shut the door in his face, Bishop Fulk approving. The old Prior of the Monastery of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, protested, and the Archbishop, who travelled with a cuirass under his pontifical robe, knocked him down with his fist.[2] Two canons, whom he forced into St. Paul's chapter, were killed by the indignant populace. The same year (1259) brave Bishop Fulk died of the plague. For years the unholy exactions went on, and again and again one has records of meetings ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... undoubtedly that which she has given it. To endeavor to render it more elegant by artificial means is to change it; to make it much smaller below and much larger above is to destroy its beauty; to keep it cased up in a kind of domestic cuirass is not only to deform it, but to expose the internal parts to serious injury. Under such compression as is commonly practiced by ladies, the {105} development of the bones, which are still tender, does not take place conformably to the intention of nature, because nutrition is necessarily ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... it was that, by the King's command, the master armourer made Jeanne a suit of mail.[814] The suit he furnished was of wrought iron; and, according to the custom of that time, consisted of a helmet, a cuirass in four parts, with epaulets, armlets, elbow-pieces, fore-armlets, gauntlets, cuisses, knee-pieces, greaves and shoes.[815] The maker had doubtless no thought of accentuating the feminine figure. But the armour of that period, full in the bust, slight in the waist, with broad skirts beneath the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... classes according to the armour with which they were able to furnish themselves for war. The first class were they that had one hundred thousand pounds of brass or more; and these had for armour a helmet, a long shield, a cuirass, and greaves upon their legs, of brass all of them, and for warfare a spear and a sword. In this class there were eighty companies of a hundred, forty of the elders that should defend the city, and of the younger that should go and fight abroad forty also. The next class to these had a short ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... word always preserved its relation to mail, and in process of time came to be applied to so lowly an object as a flagon-chain: see Cotgrave's Fr. Dict. ed. 1673. Roquefort, indeed, says a "jaserans" was a cuirass, but to my apprehension the passage which he ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... tattered cloak and with a pair of brogues on his feet, looked like a Highland scarecrow) were soon perceived by the sentries and conducted to the presence of the commanding officer, evidently a man of rank, in a steel cuirass, crossed by the ribband of the Thistle, to whom the others seemed to pay great deference. This proved to be no other than his Grace the Duke of Montrose, who in person had come to conduct the operations against his enemy, ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... coat of mail, like the Egyptian, had commonly a short sleeve, extending about half way down to the elbow. [PLATE CI.. Fig. 1.] This was either composed of scales set similarly to those of the rest of the cuirass, or of two, three, or more rows placed at right angles to the others. The greater part of the arm was ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... does not, of itself, gain battles, but it is a great element of success. Every one can recall how nearly fatal to the French at Bylau and Marengo was their great inferiority in artillery. We may also refer to the great gain of the heavy French cavalry in the resumption of the cuirass, which they had for so long thrown aside. Every one knows the great advantage of the lance. Doubtless, as skirmishers lancers would not be more effectual than hussars, but when charging in line it is a very different affair. How many brave cavalry soldiers have been the victims ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... out joyous and splendid; the rising sun pours upon its breast a long streamlet of gold; the breeze covers it with scales; its eddies stretch themselves, and tremble like an awaking serpent, and, when the billow heaves them, you seem to see the striped flanks, the tawny cuirass ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... very constantly on guard just at present. Her ladyship is of opinion that he earns his pay more thoroughly than any day-labourer his wages. I do not myself consider that helmet, cuirass, and leather breeches form the appropriate appliances of a hero, when terminating in a pair of red morocco slippers. Nevertheless, in all representations purporting to be life-like, effect must be subservient to correctness of detail; and such was the costume in which his lordship, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... termed that. The spider simply was upon the wasp without seeming to go there; but the wasp was not there, or, rather, her vital spot wasn't. She had kicked herself round on her side, like a cart-wheel, lying flat, with her feet, and the spider's jaws struck only hard cuirass. Before the spider, leaping back, wolf-like, could lunge in her lightning second stroke, the wasp was on her feet, a ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... become very dense. Suddenly a trumpet blared. At the gate was Pontius Pilate. On his head was a high and dazzling helmet. His tunic was short, open at the neck. His legs were bare. He was shod with shoes that left the toes exposed. From his cuirass a gorgon's head had, in deference to local prejudice, been effaced; in its stead were scrolls and thunderbolts. From the belt rows of straps, embroidered and fringed, fell nearly to the knee. He held his head in the air. His features were excellent, and his beard hung in ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... of cross-lines, almost as rough and apart as the lattice-work of a garden summerhouse, represents the texture of a human face; but the face cannot be painted so. A smear upon the paper may be understood, by virtue of the context gained from what surrounds it, to stand for a limb, or a body, or a cuirass, or a hat and feathers, or a flag, or a boot, or an angel. But when the time arrives for rendering these things in colours on a wall, they must be grappled with, and cannot be slurred over in this wise. ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... dressed like her companions, in a coarse linen skirt, whose uncouth folds disguise her hips, and a calico smock imprisoned in a black laced bodice, a sort of shapeless, barbarous cuirass. A broad-brimmed straw hat, adorned with a faded ribbon, casts its shadow on her shoulders; but, when she bends her head, I see the glint of her hair, whose tightly bound and twisted masses shine like ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc |
