"Soldier of fortune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a damn! Jewels for mine!" His voice rose gusty, raw, wild. "I've been a soldier of fortune all my life, and that's how I'm going to die. Poor, most of the time. Well, I'm going to ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... is a story of a garrison brawl in which a Bismarck slew his companion in drink, then fled to Russia, then on to Siberia; soldier of fortune, he fights under any flag that promises a gay life and plenty of loot. Three hundred years later—how the wheel turns round!—Otto von Bismarck, as Russian Ambassador to the King of Prussia, engaged in intrigues for the same old lust ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... and the smoke drifted up the great staircase, the subaltern's hands tossed high above his head, his body sank into itself and toppled backward, and, like a tired child falling to sleep, the defeated soldier of fortune dropped back into the ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... unconsciously, perhaps, a subtle impression that he was, in sympathy with us, on our side, so to say; in any difficulty, that would be, that might arise; with "the boys," in a manner of speaking. Veteran globe trotter and soldier of fortune on the earth's surface, Mr. Davis suffered a considerable shock to discover in tete-a-tete that we had never been in London. London? Such a human vegetable, ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... was at hand. The snow was falling. The soldier of fortune had at last found his destiny. On the nineteenth of October, he left Moscow, and the retreat of the Grand Army began toward the Niemen. Had the retreat been unimpeded, that army might have made its way back to France ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... my memory to prove it. But I was promptly undeceived as to their individual interest, and when I still clung to Lafayette as a proof of the former I was laughed to scorn and told that France as a nation had nothing to do with that; that Lafayette went to America as a soldier of fortune. He would just as soon have gone to Madagascar or Timbuctoo, but America was accommodating enough to have a war on just in time to serve his ambition. If that is true, I wish they had not told ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... five minutes Cabenza had gathered information as follows: Adam Holcomb was a soldier of fortune who had fought all over South America and Mexico. During the Spanish War he had been a Rough Rider in Cuba and later had been a volunteer officer in the Philippines. The army routine had no attraction for him. What he liked was actual fighting. So the outbreak ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... Sholto, returning from a visit to the door of the smithy, the upper part of which was open. "No longer will I be a hammerer of iron and a blower of fires for my father. I am going to be a soldier of fortune, and ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... violent burst of passionate indignation his deputies were thrown out of the windows of the chamber of the Council of Regency at Prague. This act of violence was the signal of a general revolt, not in Bohemia merely, but in Silesia, Moravia, Hungary, and Austria. The celebrated Count Mansfeld, a soldier of fortune, with only four thousand troops, dared to defy the whole imperial power; and for a while he was successful. The Bohemians renounced their allegiance to Ferdinand, and chose for their king Frederick V.,—Elector Palatine of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... back. The United States can't interfere in this. You know you were caught insurging against the government, and you're subject to the laws of this country. To tell the truth, I've had an intimation from the State Department—unofficially, of course—that whenever a soldier of fortune demands a fleet of gunboats in a case of revolutionary katzenjammer, I should cut the cable, give him all the tobacco he wants, and after he's shot take his clothes, if they fit me, for part payment ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Pandoz. irregular, guerilla, partisan, condottiere^; franctireur [Fr.], tirailleur^, bashi-bazouk; [guerilla organization names: list], vietminh, vietcong; shining path; contras; huk, hukbalahap. mercenary, soldier of fortune; hired gun, gunfighter, gunslinger; bushwhacker, free lance, companion; Hessian. hit man torpedo, soldier. levy, draught; Landwehr [G.], Landsturm [G.]; conscript, recruit, cadet, raw levies. infantry, infantryman, private, private soldier, foot soldier; Tommy Atkins^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... bow he swept her, this daring soldier of fortune, to whose delicate nostrils the taking of chances was the breath of life, and his smile was brilliant ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... and yet, such was this foolish world, the Honourable Mrs. Colin Keith would be a more esteemed lady patroness than Miss Rachel Curtis, though the Curtises had been lords of the soil for many generations, and Colonel Keith was a mere soldier of fortune. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... General Charles Lee, who might well have been called a soldier of fortune. He was born in England, but the British Isles were entirely too small to satisfy his wild ambitions and his roving disposition. There are few heroes of romance who have had such a wide and varied experience, and who have engaged in so many strange ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... for four years, learning something of the art of poetry from his patron; some of the poems he contributed later (1557) to Songes and Sonettes may well date from this early period. In 1541 he began his career as a soldier of fortune, being, he said, "pressed into the service." He fought his way through nearly every campaign in Scotland and the Low Countries for thirty years. He served under the emperor Charles V. in Flanders in 1542, returning to England after the peace of Crepy (1544). In the Scottish campaign of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... magnified in the following ballad, as indeed it has been in some histories, was, in itself, no very important affair. It began in Dumfries-shire where Sir James Turner, a soldier of fortune, was employed to levy the arbitrary fines imposed for not attending the episcopal churches. The people rose, seized his person, disarmed his soldiers, and having continued together, resolved to march towards Edinburgh, expecting to be joined by their friends in that ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... Smith. Though alluded to in so contemptuous a way, this Sir John Smith appears to be the noted soldier of fortune, diplomatist, and military writer, who lived from about 1534 to 1607. After serving for many years in continental armies, in 1574 he became an agent of the English government, and took part in various ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... The soldier of fortune was finally aroused from a brown study by the impassive steward presenting two great dishes. The clatter of some late convive seating himself also caused him to ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... forgive much to wit and gaiety. He learnt the knack of taking life easily, while he led that queer, shifting life in exile. He was a cosmopolitan and a soldier of fortune before he was a King de facto; and still wears the loose garments of those easy, beggarly days, when he had neither money nor care. Be sure he regrets that roving life—Madrid, Paris, the Hague—and will never love a son ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... half-fabulous Ragnar Lodbrok. A prince with only his sword for kingdom, Hardegon looked around for a piece of land to be won by fighting, and fixed upon Lejre, in the fruitful Danish island of Sjoelland, which was just then in a very inviting state for the soldier of fortune. Some time before it had fallen into the hands of a Swedish fortune-seeker named Olaf, who left it to his two sons. These in turn had just been driven out by Siegric, the rightful king, when Hardegon descended ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... retrieve this reverse, and to continue his original design. With this object a considerable number of troops were sent to Massowah, and the conduct of the affair was entrusted to Ratib Pasha and an American soldier of fortune, Colonel Loring Pasha. By this time—1876—Michael had quarrelled with King John, who had compelled him to give up the weapons he had captured from the Egyptians, and, anxious for revenge, he threw in his lot with his recent adversaries. The Egyptian leaders showed they had not profited ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... face, but a face to be afraid of. I remembered him, I thought, from my police experience, as a notorious crook who had not been seen in New York for years, a man who in the old days used to gamble with death in South American revolutions, a soldier of fortune. ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... Kneller, and the Earl of Sussex. The arcade, or Piazza, as it was called, was a fashionable lounging-place, and many foundling children were called Piazza in its honour. One of the scenes in Otway's "Soldier of Fortune" is laid here, and also one in Wycherley's "Country Wife." Sir Peter Lely had a house in the square, and this house was successively occupied by Sir Godfrey Kneller and Sir James Thornhill (Timbs). Coffee-houses and taverns ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... is," said Forster, with a little embarrassed laugh, "I doubt whether I'm what they call a 'game sport,' which means the same as a 'soldier of Fortune.' I'll have to make a confession. I've been dining at this hotel two or three times a week for more than a year. I always sign my checks." And then, with a note of appreciation in his voice: "It was first-rate of you to stay to see me through with ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... yet in the flower of her beauty and youth, an American adventurer, a soldier of fortune, appeared upon the scene. He had either come by design or strayed there by mistake, probably the former; but that, however, is immaterial. He happened to possess those first requisites of the successful soldier of fortune—a charming personality, a pretty wit, and a most ready ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... of Marseilles, and sent him assurance of an abundant supply of money, and of the assistance of the king of France. The brilliant nature of the enterprise attracted the attention of the daring and restless spirits of the times. The chivalrous nobleman, the soldier of fortune, the hardy corsair, the bold adventurer, or the military partisan, enlisted under the banners of the duke of Calabria. It is stated by historians, that Columbus served in the armament from Genoa, in a squadron commanded by one of the Colombos, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... sake, and resolved for his own to make himself worthy and lovable in Lillie's blue eyes by destroying and desolating all that she holds dear. It requires her marriage with Colonel Carter—a Virginia gentleman, a good-natured drunkard and roue and soldier of fortune on our side—to make her see Colburne's worth, as it requires some comparative study of New Orleans and New Boston, on her return to her own city, to make her love the North. Bereft of her husband by his own wicked weakness, and then widowed, she can at last wisely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... 528. Their passes from the war office described them as nurses of the German Red Cross. Only the Intelligence Department knew their real mission. With her also, as her chauffeur, was a young Italian soldier of fortune, Paul Anfossi. He had served in the Belgian Congo, in the French Foreign Legion in Algiers, and spoke all the European languages. In Rome, where as a wireless operator he was serving a commercial company, in selling Marie copies of messages he had memorized, Marie had found him useful, and ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... of the days of the French Revolution, abounding in dramatic incident, with a young English soldier of fortune, daring, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... caressing. A master student of the subtle trifles which unconsciously influence great events, he played upon men's minds as a skilled musician on his instrument, and they obeyed the touch. Nor was Philip de Commines, opportunist, political adventurer, philosopher, soldier of fortune, diplomatist, exempt from the influence of that skilful mastery. As he had gloomed so now he gladdened: he squared his shoulders to his fullest height, filling his lungs with a deeper inspiration, and the colour ran ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... anticipated the unhappy revolution which was wrought in the whole nature of Ferdinand von Harrelstein. He was the son of a German baron; a man of good family, but of small estate who had been pretty nearly a soldier of fortune in the Prussian service, and had, late in life, won sufficient favor with the king and other military superiors, to have an early prospect of obtaining a commission, under flattering auspices, for this only son—a son endeared to him as the companion of unprosperous years, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... verge of ruin. Like other rulers, he began well, quoting the maxims of the "Golden Mirror" and proclaiming Confucius King of Literature. But defeats at the hands of the Khitans and Tibetans imbittered his life and diminished his authority. A soldier of fortune named Ganlochan revolted and met with a rapid and unexpected success owing to "the people being unaccustomed, from the long peace, to the use of arms." He subdued all the northern provinces, established his capital at Loyang, and compelled Mingti to seek safety in Szchuen, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... group themselves into four categories. Illustrating them by reference to the Gordons alone, there was the venturer, usually a soldier of fortune, who died in the country of his adoption, such as the well-known General Patrick Gordon, of Auchleuchries, Aberdeenshire (1635-1690), who, having spent thirty-nine years of faithful service to Peter the Great, died and was buried at Moscow. Or ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... abode had no suspicion that the master of that respectable house was in the hands of the Jews, and that the hearthstone which whitened his door-step was paid for out of Israelitish coffers. The dentist's philosophy was all of this world, and he knew that the soldier of fortune, who would fain be a conqueror in the great battle, must needs keep his plumage undrabbled and the golden facings of his uniform untarnished, let his wounds ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... cries the ardent soldier of fortune, as the blaze of the Wandrell mansion flashes through the plate-glass windows, of his carriage. It is the largest private residence in the city. "Splendid!" he repeats, and leaps out on the curb. A messenger ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... replied he, who brings his credentials with him, and has no need of my intercession to engage his welcome. While the count Was making this reply, the king, who had an uncommon quickness in his eyes, measured Horatio from head to foot; and our young soldier of fortune, without being daunted, put one knee to the ground, and delivered his packet with these words:—The princes, by whom I have the honour to be sent, commanded me to assure your majesty, that they participate in all your dangers, rejoice in all your glories, and pray, that as you ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... desert birth. And, while princes strove for her hand, he remembered, he felt, that he was an orphan of foreign and of obscure parentage—a scholar by accident, (but to be a scholar was no recommendation in those days, and it is but seldom that it is one even now.) and a soldier of fortune, to whose name royal honours were not attached, while his purse was light, and who, because his feet covered more ground than he could call his own, his heels were denied the insignia of knighthood. Yet, while he ventured not to breathe his thoughts or wishes before ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... soldier of fortune took her good turn in an easy way. She felt a little out of place, but the great room soothed her and the view of the well-dressed throng outside seemed a splendid thing. Ah, what was it not to have money! What a ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... great princes ingloriously abandoned Frederic to his fate, a single soldier of fortune, whose only treasure was his sword, Ernest Count Mansfield, dared, in the Bohemian town of Pilsen, to defy the whole power of Austria. Undismayed by the reverses of the elector palatine, he succeeded in enlisting an army of twenty thousand men. With such an army, the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... His force consisted of the most atrocious ruffians of the time,—Lutheran Germans, superstitious Spaniards, revolutionary Italians, and such other nondescripts as would join his standard,—all fellows who had in reality neither country nor conscience, and were ready to serve any soldier of fortune who promised them plunder and license. The predominating element was Spanish, but there was not much to choose among them all so far as their instincts were concerned. Charles was penniless, as usual; he ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... groups of facts distributed through centuries, or even suspecting the need for such analysis and comparison, to assign the date 476 A.D. as the moment at which the Roman Empire came to an end. It was in that year that the soldier of fortune, Odovakar, commander of the Herulian mercenaries in Italy, sent the handsome boy Romulus, son of Orestes, better known as "little Augustus," from his imperial throne to the splendid villa of Lucullus near Naples, and gave him a yearly pension of $35,000 [6,000 solidi] to console him for the loss ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... health and fortune, he spent his remaining years in London, dying there in 1631. There is a portrait of him, showing him as a handsome, bearded man, with nose and mouth bespeaking will and spirit—just such a man as one would imagine this gallant soldier of fortune ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... that, dear lady. Truly, I did at first fly out at him and all concerned for what has made me a poor pensioner in my father's house—or rather in the house that was my father's. But that was while the hurt was new. I have been a soldier of fortune too long to think overmuch of the loss of Appleby Hundred. 'Twas my father's, certainly; but 'twas ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... that prosperous state which at his death passed into the hands of his son Guidobaldo, the husband of Elizabetta. Federigo's immense wealth was not gained by burdening his subjects with heavy taxes, but rather from the money which he was able to earn as a military leader, for he was a noble soldier of fortune. Vespasiano tells us, with regard to his military science, that he was excelled by no general of his time, and his good faith was never questioned. He was also a man of singularly religious nature, and no morning ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Frenchman, a soldier of fortune, commanding part of the German army) hath had against the Turke; killing 4,000 men, and taking most extraordinary spoil. Thence taking up Harman and his wife, carried them to Anthony Joyce's, where we had my venison in a pasty well done; but, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of Gloucester was one Massey, a soldier of fortune, who, before he engaged with the parliament, had offered his service to the king; and as he was free from the fumes of enthusiasm, by which most of the officers on that side were intoxicated, he would lend an ear, it was presumed, to proposals for accommodation. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... Duke of Lorraine was waging war with a terrible man, one Etienne de Vignolles, a Gascon soldier of fortune already famous under the dreaded name of La Hire,[240] which he was to leave after his death to the knave of hearts in those packs of cards marked by the greasy fingers of many a mercenary. La Hire was nominally on the side of the Dauphin Charles, but in reality he only made war on his ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... country; and from that time forward his camp was to him in the place of a country, and professional honour was his patriotism. He ennobled his wretched calling. There was a stern, cold, Brutus-like virtue in the manner in which he discharged the duties of a soldier of fortune. His military fidelity was tried by the strongest temptations, and was found invincible. At one time he fought against his uncle; at another time he fought against the cause of his brother; yet he was never suspected of treachery ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was the Cardinal's man, had been staying for a day or two in my father's company. He was a real soldier of fortune, strong as a bull, a fine swordsman, and afraid of no man living. He told us many startling tales ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... on his native town, as his elephants showered water, and that it was in gratitude to him that Chambery had raised the monument; but I was disappointed to learn that the elephants had no prototypes in real life. It would have satisfied my imagination to hear that the soldier of fortune had returned from the Orient to his birthplace, with the four original elephants following him like dogs, having refused to be left behind. But nothing is quite perfect in history, and one usually ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... could have fallen; when he saw what she had become he could not believe that she had ever been innocent. A baser man than Giovanni would have suffered more in his personal vanity, seeing that his idol had been degraded for a mere soldier of fortune—or for a clever artist—whichever Gouache called himself, and such a husband would have forgiven her more easily had she forsaken him for one of his own standing and rank. But Giovanni was far above and beyond ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... of Trent, with very full powers. He levied a considerable army at his own expense, with which he for some time maintained the king's cause in the north. He, however, possessed little of the skill of a general, though he was a splendid soldier of fortune. He gained a signal victory over Lord Fairfax, near Bradford, and some others of less importance; but he was utterly defeated at Marston Moor, after which he left the country in despair of the royal cause. He resided for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... torrents, or precipices, by the deepest rivers, or by the most lofty mountains. They spread themselves at once over the face of the country; and their rapid impetuosity surprised, astonished, and disconcerted the grave and elaborate tactics of a Chinese army. The emperor Kaoti, a soldier of fortune, whose personal merit had raised him to the throne, marched against the Huns with those veteran troops which had been trained in the civil wars of China. But he was soon surrounded by the Barbarians; and, after a siege of seven days, the monarch, hopeless of relief, was reduced to purchase ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... of the system of religion which came to be known as Labadism, Jean de Labadie, was born in France, at Bourg near Bordeaux, on February 13, 1610. His father was a French noble and a soldier of fortune, who rose to be governor of Guienne. His parents entered him at the Jesuit College, where he completed his novitiate and took the first vows, and in 1635 he was ordained as a priest. Early manifestations of an erratic ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... Turks. He was sent to Tartary as a slave, not a prisoner of war, and compelled to perform the most ignoble tasks, until, escaping by killing his brutal master, he made his way by his wits to his native country in 1604. He was now twenty-five years of age, and emphatically a soldier of fortune. The tale of his prowess and adventures had preceded him, and he was eagerly welcomed in London by kindred spirits who were preparing to emigrate to America to form the colony of Virginia under the grant and direct patronage of James ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... and it made me sick at heart to think of these men throwing away their lives in so futile a cause. That little black patch had been perhaps a student filled with fervor for Pan-Hellenism, a college boy out for an adventurous holiday, or perhaps a soldier of fortune who held his life cheaply and was ready to give it for the brief joy of a battle. Now I stood by one of those little black patches, by the first still outpost which marked ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... I am an American soldier of fortune. My name, if that means anything to you, is Francis Strong, and I have assumed this character of a mountebank solely for the purpose of going about the country without being molested. What I hope to do, is of no interest ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... gods to draw her happiness from sources so much nobler than any which ambition can supply, should turn from them, and seek for it in the same shallow pool with Alexander, and Aurelian, and the hireling soldier of fortune!' ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... Bourbons of Paris, intended to throw all his strength into a diplomatic attack upon Murat before the end of the Congress; but for the present Murat's chances seemed to be superior to those of his rival. Southern Italy thus continued in the hands of a soldier of fortune, who, unlike Bernadotte, was secretly the friend of Napoleon, and ready to support him in any ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Sports of the West," will not be easily surpassed in the peculiar qualities of that gay and off-hand style of which he was the originator. Among his other more successful works are "Stories of Waterloo," "Hector O'Halloran," and "Rambling Recollections of a Soldier of Fortune." Besides his novels, he wrote "Notes and Reflections during a Ramble in Germany," "Victories of the British Armies," and a "Life of Field Marshal the Duke ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... talking of Aleria, a place identified with a curious and somewhat romantic episode in Corsican history. Corsica cradled and sent forth a soldier of fortune, to become in his aspirations, and almost in effect, the Cæsar of the western empire. Corsica received into her bosom a German adventurer, who, for a brief space, played on this narrow stage the part of her crowned king. That there is but a short interval ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... ever crossed that Bridge of Sighs, which is the centre of the Byronic ideal of Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever saw that Rialto under which the traveler now pauses with breathless interest; the statue which Byron makes Faliero address at one of his great ancestors, was erected to a soldier of fortune a hundred and fifty years ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... "I will marry you," she retorted. "You shall follow out your purpose. Though, after all, you cannot succeed. Who are you? A dreamer, a soldier of fortune, a man without place or following. You think slowly, and your heart rules your head. How can you hope to wrest an empire from—from us? You cannot do it. You cannot. But you shall have your chance. You gave me mine and you shall have yours. We go west. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... and a drunkard. They refused to pay the taxes he would have laid upon them, and resisted the measures he proposed. Clement the Sixth, who had approved his wisdom, punished his folly, and the so-called tribune was deposed, condemned for heresy, and excommunicated. A Neapolitan soldier of fortune, an adventurer and a criminal, took possession of Rome with only one hundred and fifty men, in the name of the Pope, without striking a blow, and the people would not raise a hand to help their late idol as ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... something of a soldier of fortune since the Civil War and drifted pretty much around the whole world, so that he was a walking encyclopedia of ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... after, we hired a carriage in Apia, Fanny, Belle, Lloyd and I, and drove in great style, with a native outrider, to the prison; a huge gift of ava and tobacco under the seats. The prison is now under the PULE of an Austrian, Captain Wurmbrand, a soldier of fortune in Servia and Turkey, a charming, clever, kindly creature, who is adored by 'HIS chiefs' (as he calls them) meaning OUR political prisoners. And we came into the yard, walled about with tinned iron, and drank ava with the prisoners ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to our dates at Aix-la-Chapelle, he made acquaintance with Madame Marigny, a natural daughter of high-placed parents, by whom, of course, she had never been acknowledged, but who had contrived that she should receive a good education at a convent; and on leaving it also contrived that an old soldier of fortune—which means an officer without fortune—who had served in Algiers with some distinction, should offer her his hand, and add the modest dot they assigned her to his yet more modest income. They contrived also that she should understand ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for work." So he went and took possession of his lieutenancy and his black robber tower, and there passed the rest of the winter, fighting or hunting all day, and chatting and reading all the evening, with Senor Don Guzman, who, like a good soldier of fortune, made himself thoroughly at home, and a ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... France. Unfortunately she was the only daughter of the Marquis de Recambours, one of the wealthiest and most powerful of French nobles, and there was no more chance of his giving his consent to her throwing herself away upon a Scottish soldier of fortune than to her going into a nunnery; less, in fact. However, she was as much in love with Leslie as he was with her, and so they got secretly married. Two years ago this child was born, but she managed somehow to keep it from her father, ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... of New Orleans, about the middle of the last century, were Major Joe Howell, a brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, and Major Henry, a dare-devil soldier of fortune who had filibustered in Nicaragua and fought in the Mexican War. One day while drinking together they quarreled, and as a result a duel was arranged to take place the same afternoon. Henry kept on drinking, but Howell went to sleep and slept until it was time to go to the dueling ground, when ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever saw that Rialto under which the traveller now passes with breathless interest: the statue which Byron makes Faliero address as of one of his great ancestors was erected to a soldier of fortune a hundred and fifty years after Faliero's death; and the most conspicuous parts of the city have been so entirely altered in the course of the last three centuries that if Henry Dandolo or Francis Foscari could be summoned from his tomb, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... and make what he could of the tangled skein for the next five years. Haldimand had not been popular with either of the two chief parties into which the leading French Canadians were divided. The seigneurs had nothing like the same regard for a Swiss soldier of fortune that they had for aristocratic British commanders like Murray and Carleton. The clergy also preferred these Anglicans to such a strong Swiss Protestant. The habitants and agitators, who were far less favourable to the new regime, had passionately resented Haldimand's firmness ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... motley personality, which is sufficiently evident in his portraits. There was in him the Puritan, the man of the world, and the vagabond. There was something too of the obsolete soldier of fortune, with the cocked and feathered hat, worn audaciously on one side. There was also a touch of the elfin, the uncanny—the mysterious charm that belongs to the borderland between the real and the unreal world—the element so conspicuous and so indefinable in the ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to surrender. Had it not been for the persistent fear that her proud old father might suffer from her wilfulness, she would have thrown down the barrier and risked everything in the choice. Her heart was crying out hungrily for the love of this tall, mysterious soldier of fortune. ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Naturally enough, there were many in the Huguenot ranks who, remembering past injuries received at the hands of the troops of the Pope, were not unwilling to turn their arms in this direction. But their leader was no Huguenot. M. de Glandage, a gentleman of Dauphiny, was a soldier of fortune, and would doubtless have fought with as little reluctance against the Protestants as for them, had it been to his advantage to enlist under the papal standard. As it was otherwise, he made himself master of the city ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... these was John Hancock, who coveted military distinction and was vain enough to think himself fit for almost any position. The other was Charles Lee, a British officer who had served in America in the French War and afterward wandered about Europe as a soldier of fortune. He had returned to America in 1773 in the hope of playing a leading part here. He set himself up as an authority on military questions, and pretended to be a zealous lover of liberty. He was really an unprincipled charlatan for whom, the kindest ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... gallant, impulsive, reckless, lovable soldier of fortune was dead, and it seemed as if all the power he had built up by his indomitable energy must inevitably vanish with its founder. The Marquis de Comares and the Spanish army held the fate of Algiers in their hands; ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... hour of five o'clock approaches; the guests of the day have already arrived. Steuben, the iron drill-master and German soldier of fortune, converses with Mrs. Washington. He had reduced the simple marksmen of Bunker Hill to the discipline of the armies of Europe and tested their efficiency in the din of battle. He has leisure now, and scarcely knows how to ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... father sided with either party of the Council, but having no inclination at that time to go to the Court, and because his brother, Lord Fanshawe, was desperately sick at Caen, he intended to stay some time with him. About the beginning of July, the Prince, accompanied with the Earl of Bradford, a soldier of fortune, and Lord Colepeper, and the Earl of Berkshire, and most of his servants, went to Cotanville, and from thence to Paris, where he remained some little time by his mother the Queen's council, and afterwards went into Holland. Your father and I remained fifteen days in Jersey, ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... regret his orders to proceed with the 49th to Canada. Europe was still in the clutches of war. Great opportunities awaited the soldier of fortune in the struggle waging in the Peninsula. The prospect for military advancement in Canada was not encouraging. America was at peace. Canada was but slowly developing. While her exports of lumber and fish attracted ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... the sacrifice might have been completed, as doubtless has happened in many similar instances, had it not been for the courage of an elder sister, who revealed to the wealthy suitor that Lady Emily's affections were fixed upon a young soldier of fortune, a near relation of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... his arms full of tankards, bumped into the landlord; but not even this aroused him. His gaze wandered from the right-hand bench to the left-hand bench, and back again, from the nut-brown military countenance of Captain Zachary du Puys, soldier of fortune, to the sea-withered countenance of Joseph Bouchard, master of the good ship Saint Laurent, which lay ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... a soldier of fortune, and practiced war as an art, and delighted in it like Alexander or Charles XII. He readily responded to the overture of the Tarentine Ambassador, and sent over a general with three thousand men to secure a footing, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... was shocked at her Ascetic Practices To Brother Bartolomeo Dominici To Brother Matteo di Francesco Tolomei To a Mantellata of Saint Dominic, called Catarina di Scetto To Neri di Landoccio dei Pagliaresi To Monna Giovanna and her other daughters in Siena To Messer John, the Soldier of Fortune To Monna Colomba in Lucca To Brother Raimondo of Capua, of the Order of the Preachers To Gregory XI To Gregory XI To Gregory XI To Brother Raimondo of Capua, at Avignon To Catarina of the Hospital, and Giovanna di Capo To Sister Daniella of Orvieto To Brother Raimondo ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... selfish, adherence to the Restoration schemes. Amongst them were the Earl of Glencairn, who had kept strictly aloof from the late rgime, and had withdrawn to the Highland fastnesses from the reach of Cromwell's troops; the Earl of Middleton, a rough soldier of fortune, who had none of the dexterity nor of the learning of Lauderdale; and Sir Archibald Primrose, who supplied to his party some of the eloquence and political experience which his ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... town-proletarian; the beggar by the wayside; the small master, crushed by usury or tyrannized over by his wealthier colleague in the guild, or by the town-patriciate; even the impoverished knight, or the soldier of fortune defrauded of his pay; in short, all with whom times were bad, found consolation for their wants and troubles, and at the same time an incentive to action, in the notion of a Divine Justice which should restore all things, and ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... bloody. Two more priests and a whole family at Ladeveze, from the father to the servants, fell by his hand or by his orders; and yet he was but a day or two at large, and restrained all the time by the presence of the soldiery. Taken at length by a famous soldier of fortune, Captain Poul, he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... still reside in its picturesque adobe homes that it will come back with renewed vigour. Here at Ahrenburg I met a character who added greatly to the interest of my stay. He was a gigantic, raw-boned Frenchman, at that time engaged in the construction of a motor boat; but a miner, a sailor, and a soldier of fortune in many ways, one who had pried into many of the hidden corners of the country and had a graphic way of describing what he had seen. I was his guest until late that night, and was entertained royally on what humble ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... A Rolling Stone The Soldier of Fortune The Gramaphone at Fond-Du-Lac The Land of Beyond Sunshine The Idealist Athabaska Dick Cheer The Return The Junior God The Nostomaniac Ambition To Sunnydale The Blind and the Dead The Atavist The Sceptic The Rover Barb-Wire Bill "?" Just Think! The Lunger The Mountain and the Lake ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... some of Dr. Foster's letters, to give this account of his earlier life, to show that he was no soldier of fortune or eleventh-hour laborer, but that his sympathies were enlisted and his aid given among the earliest of the friends of a then doubtful cause,—and that he ventured influence, wealth, and professional fame, and abandoned home ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... them standing confusedly together, some mounted, some on foot, all men speaking loud, and all in a state of disorder. Ralph Genvil, a veteran whose face had been seamed with many a scar, and who had long followed the trade of a soldier of fortune, stood apart from the rest, holding his horse's bridle in one hand, and in the other the banner-spear, around which the banner of ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... you have said, count," Malcolm replied gravely. "As I have seen your daughter growing up from a child I have thought how sweet a wife she would make, but I have put the thought from me, seeing that she is heiress to broad lands and I a Scottish soldier of fortune, whose lands, though wide enough for me to live in comfort at home, are yet but a mere farm in comparison with your broad estates. I have even told myself that as she grew up I must no longer make long stays in your castle, for it ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... together, it was easy to determine how and when O'Dowd decided to cast his fortunes with those of the leader in this mysterious enterprise. Their intimacy undoubtedly grew out of association at the time of the Balkan Wars. O'Dowd was a soldier of fortune. He saw vast opportunities in the scheme proposed by Loeb, and fell in with it, whether through a mistaken idea as to its real character or an active desire to profit nefariously time only would tell. Green Fancy afforded an excellent base for operations. O'Dowd induced his ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... cathedral at Pisa. As they failed to appear they were condemned for contumacy and deposed. A new pope was then elected, and on his death a year later, he was succeeded by the notorious John XXIII, who had been a soldier of fortune in his earlier days. John was selected on account of his supposed military prowess. This was considered essential in order to guard the papal territory against the king of Naples, who had announced his intention of getting possession of Rome. Neither of the deposed popes yielded, ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... him fame as the model of chivalry. The favour of Henry, the "young king," gave him political importance, and his marriage with Strongbow's daughter made him a mighty man in England, Ireland, Wales, and Normandy. Strenuous and upright, simple and dignified, the young soldier of fortune bore easily the weight of office and honour which accrued to him before the death of his first patron. Limited as was his outlook, he gave himself entirely to his master-principle of loyally to the feudal lord whom he had sworn to obey. ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... A soldier of fortune is Lettow. His name is stained with the hideous massacres of the Hereros in South-West Africa. His was the order, transmitted through the German Governor's mouth, that thrust the Herero women and children into the deserts ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... "poisoned the wells" out Lobuc way,—so people said. And I must not forget "Jac-cook," whose grandfather, according to his own report, had been a cannibal, a king of cannibals, and eaten a roast baby every morning for his breakfast. Jack was a soldier of fortune if there ever was one. He could give you a recipe for making poi from ripe bananas and the milk of cocoanuts, or for distilling whisky from fermented oranges,—both of which formulas I have unfortunately lost. He recommended an exclusive diet of raw fish, and ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... who emigrated from England to the New World. It had been a familiar note in the poetry of that Elizabethan period which had followed with such breathless interest the exploration of America. It was a conception which could be shared alike by a saint like John Cotton or a soldier of fortune like John Smith. Men are tent-dwellers. Today they settle here, and tomorrow they have struck camp and are gone. We are strangers and sojourners, as all our ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... this movement Benedict Arnold—"the bravest of the brave," as he was called, like Marshal Ney—was selected, assisted by General Schuyler, a high-minded gentleman and patriot, but as a soldier more respectable than able, and Horatio Gates, a soldier of fortune, who was jealous of Washington, and who, like Lee, made great pretensions,—both Englishmen by birth. The spring and summer resulted in many reverses in the North, where Schuyler was unable to cope with Burgoyne; and had Howe promptly co-operated, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... Mind Cure and New Thought grew up side by side with Christian Science. As organizations they were not nearly so effective, and their ranks, like Mrs. Eddy's, were often darkened by the adventuress and the battered soldier of fortune. But the Mental healers and the New Thought healers treated the sick on exactly the same principle which Mrs. Eddy's successful ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... used to serve in the army. Many a battle he has been through, not only in Colombia, but in other countries as well. He was once something of a soldier of fortune. But where are you going, Frank?" as his ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... Brown to redeem Kansas, but he had developed an alternative plan. Early in the year 1857, he met in New York Colonel Hugh Forbes, a soldier of fortune who had seen service with Garibaldi in Italy. They discussed general plans for an aggressive attack upon the South for the liberation of the slaves, and with these plans the needs of Kansas had little or no connection. "Kansas was to be a prologue to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... one only too well, mademoiselle, 'I answered. 'Are you not young and gay and beautiful, while I am old, or almost old, and dull and grave? You are rich and well-thought-of at Court, and I a soldier of fortune, not too successful. What did you think of me when you first saw me at St. Jean? What when I came to Rosny? That, mademoiselle,' I continued with fervour, 'is the stream which flows between us and separates us; and I know of but one ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... this philosophical soldier of fortune is a romance from beginning to end, a poignant human drama shot through with passion, adventure, pathos and tragedy. In a sense it is an epitome of the earlier Middle Ages and through it shines the bright light ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... countrymen, he claimed a cousinship; and so profoundly did he impose upon Paris with his immense stature, his elegant attire, his courtly manners (for he was courtesy itself, when it pleased him), that he was taken for an eminent scholar, or at least a soldier of fortune. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... himself a thump on the breast with his doubled fist. He was the son of a master mason who had come from Limousin to Paris, where the son, not taking kindly to the paternal handicraft, had enlisted at the age of eighteen. He had been a soldier of fortune and had carried the knapsack, was corporal in Africa, sergeant in the Crimea, and after Solferino had been made lieutenant, having devoted fifteen years of laborious toil and heroic bravery to obtaining that rank, and ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... pageants, partitioned empires. I gloried in details. My rugged war-lords were very real to me, and my adventures sounded many periods of history. I was a solitary caveman with an axe of stone; I was a Roman soldier of fortune; I was a Highland outlaw of the Rebellion. Always I fought for a lost cause, and always my sympathies were with the rebel. I feasted with Robin Hood on the King's venison; I fared forth with Dick Turpin on the gibbet-haunted heath; ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Rosen left the Prince, she hurried straight to Colonel Gordon; and not content with directing the arrangements, she had herself accompanied the soldier of fortune to the Flying Mercury. The Colonel gave her his arm, and the talk between this pair of conspirators ran high and lively. The Countess, indeed, was in a whirl of pleasure and excitement; her tongue stumbled ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The malice of religious zeal, whilst it arraigns the savage fierceness of his colleague Maximian, has affected to cast suspicions on the personal courage of the emperor Diocletian. [3] It would not be easy to persuade us of the cowardice of a soldier of fortune, who acquired and preserved the esteem of the legions as well as the favor of so many warlike princes. Yet even calumny is sagacious enough to discover and to attack the most vulnerable part. The valor of Diocletian ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... to O'Connor. 'The idea is a literary one. The ten-cent magazine stole it from "Ridpath's History of the World from the Sand-stone Period to the Equator." You'll find it in every one of 'em. It's a continued story of a soldier of fortune, generally named O'Keefe, who gets to be dictator while the Spanish-American populace cries "Cospetto!" and other Italian maledictions. I misdoubt if it's ever been done. You're not thinking of trying that, are you, Barney?' ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... the regular troops of the Fourth United States Regiment of infantry, under Colonel John Parke Boyd, arrived in keel boats at the Falls of the Ohio. The Governor was there to meet them. Boyd was a soldier of fortune and one of the most striking military adventurers of that day. A short sketch of him as given by Benson J. Lossing is as follows: "John Parke Boyd was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, December 21, 1764. His father was from Scotland, ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... when Christianity was a great spiritual power, that Constantine arose. He was born at Naissus, in Dacia, A.D. 274, his father being a soldier of fortune, and his mother the daughter of an innkeeper. He was eighteen when his father, Constantius, was promoted by the Emperor Diocletian to the dignity of Caesar,—a sort of lieutenant-emperor,—and early distinguished himself in the Egyptian and Persian wars. He was thirty-one when ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... power, Wallenstein the mysterious, the ambitious, the victorious; soldier of fortune and arbiter of empires; reader of the stars and ally of the powers of darkness; poor by birth and rich by marriage and imperial favor; an extraordinary man, surrounded by mystery and silence, victorious through ability and audacity, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... home there was a celebration in honor of the bet Wake Holman had won at my expense. Wake was the most attractive and lovable of men, by nature a hero, by profession a "filibuster" and soldier of fortune. At two and twenty he was a private in Col. Humphrey Marshall's Regiment of Kentucky Riflemen, which reached the scene of hostilities upon the Rio Grande in the midsummer of 1846. He had enlisted ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... good fortune, I found among the overseers on my aunt's estate a man who had been a soldier of fortune in the Old World until some escapade had driven him to seek safety in the colonies, and with my aunt's permission, I secured him to teach me what he knew of the practice of arms, a tutelage which he entered upon with fine enthusiasm. He was called Captain Paul on the plantation,—a little, wiry man, ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... mercenaries into Flanders, but was able to achieve little success against the Flemings, who found in Philip of Cleef an able commander. Despairing of success, he now determined to retire into Germany, leaving Duke Albert of Saxe-Meissen, a capable and tried soldier of fortune, as general-in-chief of his forces and Stadholder of the Netherlands. With the coming of Duke Albert order was at length to be restored, though not without ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... had a very agreeable dinner with General Bee; Colonels Luckett and Buchel dined also. The latter is a regular soldier of fortune. He served in the French and Turkish armies, as also in the Carlist and the Mexican wars, and I was told he had been a principal in many affairs of honour; but he is a quiet and unassuming little man, and although a sincere Southerner, ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... halted, and sent one of his lieutenants named de Sainte-Chatte to make a reconnaissance, which he did, advancing beyond the men in ambush, who gave no sign of their existence, while the officer quietly examined the ground. But Sainte-Chatte was an old soldier of fortune and not easily taken in, so on his return, while explaining the plan of the ground chosen by Cavalier for the disposition of his troops to M. de La Jonquiere, he added that he should be very much astonished if the young Camisard had not employed the little ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... English court refused to be deceived, and Touret was imprisoned. Owing to the plague and the war, two years passed without the vague promises of the English court taking shape. Montague, the English ambassador to France, heard of the explorers' feats, and wrote to Prince Rupert. Prince Rupert was a soldier of fortune, who could enter into the spirit of the explorers. He had fought on the losing side against Cromwell, and then taken to the high seas to replenish broken fortunes by piracy. The wealth of the beaver trade appealed ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... been laid up in a merchant's house at Pavia for several months. He evidently looked back to the time with gratitude, as having wakened his better associations, which had been well-nigh stifled during the previous years of the wild life of a soldier of fortune. His host's young daughter had eyes like Aldonza, and the almost forgotten possibility of returning to his love a brave and distinguished man awoke once more. His burgher thrift began to assert itself again, and he deposited ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... acquainted with her character to be convinced that his prospect of obtaining her hand was any thing but improved by her father's death and that to her the wealthy possessor of her family's estates would be as unwelcome a wooer as the needy soldier of fortune. He did not doubt that, after the first violence of her grief should subside, she would return to France, where some of her mother's relatives were resident; and that, when next he heard of her, it would be as the bride of his fortunate rival. The picture ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Vasco Nunez had, in fact, risen with his circumstances, and now assumed a nobleness and grandeur from the discovery he had made, and the important charge it had devolved upon him. He no longer felt himself a mere soldier of fortune, at the head of a band of adventurers, but a great commander conducting an immortal enterprise. 'Behold,' says old Peter Martyr, 'Vasco Nunez de Balboa, at once transformed from a rash royster to a politic and discreet captain:' and thus it is that men are often made by their fortunes; that ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... lost, and soothe, by his successes, the disappointed pride of Spain. Several officers now came into notice, remarkable for deeds of great gallantry and skill. None among those was so distinguished as Martin Schenck, a soldier of fortune, a man of ferocious activity, who began his career in the service of tyranny, and ended it by chance in that of independence. He changed sides several times, but, no matter who he fought for, he did his duty well, from that unconquerable principle of ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... leads the eye to the bay below. The General entered frankly into conversation, and during breakfast, and while the shower lasted, spoke almost incessantly of his imperial master. Early in life the Count had entered the army, a soldier of fortune, under Frederick of Prussia. On his return to his native country, Holland, he was employed by the States, successively, as governor of the eastern part of Java, and as envoy to one of the German courts. During his residence in Java, he had visited many of the ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... of the new cabinet were: M. A. I. Gutchkov, chairman of the War Industries Committee, Minister of War and Marine. In earlier life he had been a soldier of fortune, having fought under many flags, for many causes, including that of the Boers in South Africa. In politics he was conservative. Andrei Shingarev, a Constitutional Democrat, was made Minister of Agriculture, an important post, for under his charge came the complicated problem of food supply, to be ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... myself when she out with that," he confessed. "Oh, she's a deep one, Jean! But your manner and tongue betrayed the returned soldier of fortune; of such officers in the ranks of Argile there are not so many that it was risking too much to believe all of them knew the story of the Provost's daughter, and your conduct, once she got ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... maintain their influence in Italy, sent among us multitudes of soldiers of many countries, as English, Dutch, and Bretons. As these, upon the conclusion of a war, were thrown out of pay, though still in the country, they, under the standard of some soldier of fortune, plundered such people as were least prepared to defend themselves. In the year 1353 one of these companies came into Tuscany under the command of Monsignor Reale, of Provence, and his approach terrified all ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Othman, the founder of the line, as a soldier of fortune in the Seljukian service; and, in spite of the civilizing influences of the country, the people, and the religion, to which he had attached himself, he had not as yet laid aside the habits of his ancestors, but was half shepherd, half freebooter. Nor is ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman |
