Word: portalet
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain complained that the mountain air at the fortress of Portalet in the Pyrenees was too cold for an old lifer like him. He was moved to the prison colony on the He d'Yeu, in the Bay of Biscay...
...woke up, looked around unsteadily, picked up his gold-braided cap, shuffled off. Seven hours later, shorn of his Marshal's uniform, he deplaned at bleak Portalet Fortress in the Pyrenees...
...days after the old man's condemnation, the Ministry of Justice announced: "General de Gaulle . . . has commuted the death sentence ... to perpetual imprisonment." From Portalet Petain would be transferred to Sainte Marguerite Island off the Riviera. There he would have sun and warmth. His wife, freed of all charges, would join him. But he could not have his seven stars back, nor his honor...
Author Thurber sought refuge in France just before the downfall. (He made his first mistake by giving "a book on government by M. Léon Blum [former Socialist Premier now imprisoned at Portalet Fortress in the Pyrenees] ... to a French steward on the Ile de France, who turned out to be a Royalist.") He also made the mistake of getting a phrase book to use in France. "Each page has a list of English expressions [with] French translations . . . alongside." Author Thurber learned to say: "I have left my glasses (my watch) (a ring) in the lavatory." In moments...
...Portalet Fortress, gouged into a narrow chasm-side of the deep Pyrenees, they would read, ponder documents, peer out of windows through which-the sun never shines. Twice each day, in solitude, they would be permitted to pace the terrace above the gloomy, turreted fort...