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Home  »  Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men  »  Baron de Bassompierre


Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.

Baron de Bassompierre

  • [François de Bassompierre, Marquis d’Harouel, born in Lorraine, 1579; distinguished himself at the court of Henry IV., who appointed him colonel-general of the Swiss Guards; made marshal of France by Louis XIII.; imprisoned in the Bastille by Richelieu, 1631; released on the cardinal’s death, 1642; died 1646.]

    • I am looking for a passage which I do not find.

  • During his long imprisonment in the Bastille, his secretary found him on one occasion reading the Bible, and asked him what he was looking for. “A passage I do not find,” he replied (Je cherche un passage que je ne saurais trouver), meaning a passage out of the Bastille.
  • When the Prince of Condé and his brother were sent to the same prison by Mazarin in 1650, they were asked what books they would like to have brought to them. The Prince de Conti requested the “Imitation of Jesus Christ,” by Thomas à Kempis. Condé said he should prefer the imitation of the Duc de Beaufort, who had recently escaped from the Bastille.


    • Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD