"Piquet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rear-guard, left that city, which was immediately after inundated by the Cossacks of Platof, who massacred all the poor wretches whom the Jews threw in their way. In the midst of this butchery, there suddenly appeared a piquet of thirty French, coming from the bridge of the Vilia, where they had been left and forgotten. At sight of this fresh prey, thousands of Russian horsemen came hurrying up, besetting them with loud cries, and assailing them on ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... struck into a bridle-path, being bound for Major Robert Beverly's plantation, he being supposed to know naught of it, and indeed after his issuing of orders he had ridden to Jamestown, to see Sir Henry Chichely, and keep him quiet with a game at piquet, ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... of these two men, it was mechanically and at random that M. de Tregars and Maxence threw their cards on the table, and uttered the common terms of the game of piquet, ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... gave rise to a rather amusing incident in the Hutt Valley during the time of the fighting. . . . A strong piquet was turned out regularly about an hour before daybreak. On one occasion the men had been standing silently under arms for some time, and shivering in the cold morning air, when they were startled by a solemn request for 'more pork.' The officer in ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... existence of this old bachelor, spent on whist, boston, backgammon, reversi, and piquet, all well played, on dinners well digested, snuff gracefully inhaled, and tranquil walks about the town. Nearly all Alencon believed this life to be exempt from ambitions and serious interests; but no man has a life as simple as envious neighbors attribute to him. You will find in the ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... to me, but I'm fair to him. When you have a father in business, it's a good thing when you go out not to be exposed to meet eyes which seem to say to you, 'My dear fellow, your father has swindled me.' Papa has but one passion: from five to seven every day he plays piquet at his club, at ten sous a point, and as he is an excellent player, he wins seven times out of ten. He keeps an account of his games with the same scrupulous exactitude he has in all things, and he was telling the day before ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... and queen played piquet or backgammon; not because they could enjoy at present any amusement of the kind, but because they found means, while bending their heads together over the board, to say a few words unheard by the guard. At four o'clock, the ladies and children left the king, as it was ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... influence there was so complete, that they might fairly be said to give one seat to any one they chose. With such double barrels George Selwyn was, of course, a great gun in the House, but his interest lay far more in piquet and pleasantry than in politics and patriotism, and he was never fired off with any but the blank cartridges of his two votes. His parliamentary career, begun in 1747, lasted more than forty years, yet was entirely ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... to hear a word or two and, thinking it was some game of which they spoke, said: "Piquet or a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ha! he's disorder'd. Now I am easy. My Lord Foppington, have you a mind to your revenge at piquet? ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... not be so if Annie were there. We should go out, and miss the horrid aldermanic kind of dinners; and at home, when we had played the two old dears to sleep, as I have to do every night, while they nod over their piquet or backgammon, we could have some fun together! Now, Annie, you would like it. You do care for good society, now ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cure, sitting at piquet with Madame de Sevenie, after dinner, would cough distressingly and, reminded that he had a bed to reach somehow through all this welter, anathematise the elements, help himself to a pinch of snuff, and proceed ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... Malcolm Stratton, I shall not let you call them in for more reasons than one. Ah! you begin to believe me. Let me see now, can I give you a little corroborative evidence? You don't want it, but I will. Did the admiral ever tell you what an excellent player I was at piquet?" ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... expostulations from the two at the piquet-table, but in nine cases out of ten the game had been designed with an eye upon the clock, and hardly any delay followed. Mrs. Baxter kissed her son, and passed her arm through Maggie's. Laurie followed; gave them candles, and ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... proposed me the "Regle des Jeux de la Societe"— piquet, bezique, ecarte, whist, dice, draughts, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... an end," said the elder man, declaring a point of six, "that's not the tragedy; it's the little bits coming to an end meanwhile, before the whole comes to an end: that's the tragedy...." But he added with another of his jolly laughs: "We must play. Piquet takes ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... this lowest gravel that M. H.T. Gosse, of Geneva, found, in April 1860, in the suburbs of Paris, at La Motte Piquet, on the left bank of the Seine, one or two well-formed flint implements of the Amiens type, accompanied by a great number of ruder tools or attempts at tools. I visited the spot in 1861 with M. Hebert, and saw the stratum from which the ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... which drives us, in certain excited conditions of the mind, to take refuge in movement and change. The remedy had failed; my mind was as strangely disturbed as ever. My wisest course would be to go home, and keep my good mother company over her favorite game of piquet. ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... piquet of mounted gendarmerie and infantry took their station upon the place before the prison, where a great concourse of people had already assembled. An open car was at the door. Before he went out Peytel asked ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... carelessness!" swore Howe. "He deals pardons as he would cards at piquet, by twos, without so much as a look at their faces. A glance at either would have shown both to be rapscallion Whigs. However, 't is done, and not to be undone. Release them, but keep eye on each, and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... madam." How could I respond otherwise to that pair of dancing blue eyes, to that pair of derisive lips? "As for gaming—if you mean cards, why, I have played at piquet and romp, in a social way, for small stakes; and my father brought Old Sledge back from the ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... and she paced her garden, thinking of Ian who had done so great wrong, and Alexander who cried, "My enemy!" She stayed in the garden an hour, and then she turned and went to play piquet with the lonely, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... hence I do not forget myself. Heaven knows the excitement of nursing an innocent deceit and of seeing it grow and flower under my care will be most welcome, for the monotony of this abominable confinement—But I must inquire, do you play piquet?" ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... humouredly, 'the children sing, we all work, Francois and I play at draughts or piquet; the worst of it is, we are sometimes interrupted; a knock comes, we must go down, get a stone ready, undress the new comer and register him: that spoils the game; we forget to mark ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... Malmaison, meaning, it must be supposed, "as clear as mud." Dr. Rollinson chuckled to himself, and they continued their game of piquet. ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... second visit to Mentone gave him no regular lessons, but "merely talked to him in French, teaching him piquet and card tricks, introducing him to various French people and taking him to concerts and other places; so, his mother remarks, like Louis' other teachers at home I think they found it pleasanter to talk to him ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... commiseration, almost of repentance, had once or twice passed; "you will alarm that fellow down stairs with your noise. We must, you know, wait till he is gone, and he appears to be in no hurry. In the meantime let us have a game of piquet for the first shot at ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... was there, he who, nine years later, went to the guillotine on that cold September morning, his hair dressed in the latest fashion, the finest Mechlin lace around his wrists, playing a final game of piquet with his younger brother, as the tumbril bore them along through the hooting, yelling crowd of the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... hadn't got piquet, but they're the plain shape you like. You may thank us they didn't send you things with little ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... convince you in a jiffy." Away he flew into the bushes, and in about five minutes returned, with his hat swarming with them, which produced a pale, bright light equal to several candles. The adventure produced much laughter at the expense of the piquet who had given the alarm, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... the command of D'Estaing, who had with him on the Languedoc, his flagship, a regularly appointed envoy, Girard de Rayneville, who had full power to recognize the independence of the States, Silas Deane, one of the American commissioners, and such well-known officers as the comte de la Motte-Piquet, the Bailli de Suffren, De Guichen, D'Orvilliers, De Grasse and others. The history of this first expedition is a short and disastrous one. The voyage was long, owing to the ships being unequally matched ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... "All I can say," Celoron de Bienville announced when he returned from the Ohio in 1750, "is that all the nations of these countries are very ill-disposed toward the French, and devoted to the English." And in the next year Pere Piquet complained that Oswego "not only spoils our trade, but puts the English into communication with a vast number of our Indians far and near. It is true that they like French brandy better than English rum; but they prefer English goods to ours, ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... vigilance was kept up by the settlers throughout the night; but the out-piquet having imprudently ventured, in violation of their orders, to leave their station at the dawn of day, were immediately followed by the native force; who, suddenly presenting a front of ten yards in width, fired a volley, and then rushing ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... his room, the door being open all the time, and anybody who pleased coming in, as if he had been the most insignificant of men; and when his body was taken to be interred, I suppose, to his duchy of Luynes, instead of priests to pray for him, I saw some of his valets playing piquet on his bier whilst they ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... white-haired priest, who, in a low but earnest voice, was uttering his last exhortation to them; in another, some young and fashionably-dressed men were exhibiting to a party of ladies the very airs and graces by which they would have adorned a saloon; here, was a party at piquet; there, a little group arranging, for the last time, their household cares, and settling, with a few small coins, the account of mutual expenditure. Of the ladies, several were engaged at needlework, some ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... the storm continued, and it was impossible to venture out. My friend and I passed the time playing piquet, and listening to our natives, who talked earnestly together, going over many of their strange and thrilling hunting experiences. We understood but little Russian and Aleut, yet their expressive gestures ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... even take a nap here without being embarrassed. He called for the newspaper, spread it out open before him, and looked through it, frowning the while. Coupeau and My-Boots had commenced a game of piquet. Two bottles of wine and five glasses were ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... probably a reference to the card game now called piquet, usually played for a hundred points. It is one of the oldest of its kind. See Rabelais' ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... as much wine as Belmont could prevail on me to drink, and he was very urgent, he asked if I played Piquet? ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... above and below Prague, at Branig and Podbaba. The greatest alarm began about two o'clock, when the enemy hoped to have come silently and unexpectedly upon the miners, but they had left work about a quarter of an hour before. At the report of the first piece which they fired, the piquet of the third battalion of Prussian guards, to the number of an hundred men, who marched out of the camp to sustain the body which covered the works, was thrown into some confusion, from the darkness of the night, which prevented their distinguishing the Austrian troops from their own. Lieutenant ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... atmosphere of the play-houses, and had all the good things of the high wits by rote, long before they made their way into the jest-books. The intervals between conversation were employed in teaching my daughters piquet, or sometimes in setting my two little ones to box, to make them sharp, as he called it; but the hopes of having him for a son-in-law, in some measure blinded us to all his imperfections. It must be owned, that my wife laid a thousand ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... fields, up hills, through quagmires, delighting in nature. As they went, they talked of history, or politics, or chemistry, of literature, or physics, or morality. At sundown they returned, to find lights and cards on the tables, and they made parties of piquet, interrupted by supper. At half-past ten the game ends, they chat until eleven, and in half an hour more they are all fast asleep.[202] Each day was like the next; industry, gaiety, bodily comfort, mental activity, diversifying the hours. Grimm was often there, "the most French of all the Germans," ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... the present day we have undeniable proof—many as clever, no doubt, as that famous philosopheress Madame du Chatelet, who managed at one and the same moment the thread of an intrigue, her cards at piquet, and a calculation in algebra, but who may still lack the qualifications indispensably necessary to make clever politicians. Perhaps, therefore, we might be allowed to suggest that it would be well for ladies who are ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Nantes, sailed to Quiberon Bay, east of Quiberon, on the Bay of Biscay, a small town and peninsula about twenty-two miles south-east of Lorient, convoying some American vessels, and placing them under the protection of the French fleet commanded by Admiral La Motte Piquet. The story represented in this picture he tells in his own language in a letter to the Naval Committee, dated February 22, 1778: "I am happy to have it in my power to congratulate on my having seen the American flag for the first time recognized ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... watched Dolokhov's hands and thought, "Now then, make haste and let me have this card and I'll take my cap and drive home to supper with Denisov, Natasha, and Sonya, and will certainly never touch a card again." At that moment his home life, jokes with Petya, talks with Sonya, duets with Natasha, piquet with his father, and even his comfortable bed in the house on the Povarskaya rose before him with such vividness, clearness, and charm that it seemed as if it were all a lost and unappreciated bliss, long past. He could not conceive that a stupid chance, letting ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... days, then a monstrous dirt and snow, and now it freezes, like a pot-lid, upon our snow. I dined with Lady Betty Germaine, the first time since I came for England; and there did I sit, like a booby, till eight, looking over her and another lady at piquet, when I had other business enough to do. It was the coldest day I ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift |
