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for ESL, EFL, ELP, TOEFL®, TOEIC®, and AP® Test Preparation
Kate Chopin
TOEFL, TOEIC, AP and Advanced Placement are trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which has neither reviewed nor endorsed this book. All rights reserved.
The Awakening & Other Short Stories
Webster's Spanish Thesaurus Edition for ESL, EFL, ELP, TOEFL®, TOEIC®, and AP® Test Preparation
Kate Chopin
ICON CLASSICS
Published by ICON Group International, Inc. 7404 Trade Street
San Diego, CA 92121 USA
www.icongrouponline.com
The Awakening & Other Short Stories: Webster's Spanish Thesaurus Edition for ESL, EFL, ELP, TOEFL®, TOEIC®, and AP® Test Preparation
This edition published by ICON Classics in 2005 Printed in the United States of America.
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TOEFL®, TOEIC®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which has neither reviewed nor endorsed this book. All rights reserved.
ISBN 0-497-25953-2
PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR
Webster’s paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently assigned readings in English courses. By using a running English-to-Spanish thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this edition of The Awakening & Other Short Stories by Kate Chopin was edited for three audiences. The first includes Spanish-speaking students enrolled in an English Language Program (ELP), an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) program, an English as a Second Language Program (ESL), or in a TOEFL® or TOEIC® preparation program. The second audience includes English-speaking students enrolled in bilingual education programs or Spanish speakers enrolled in English speaking schools. The third audience consists of students who are actively building their vocabularies in Spanish in order to take foreign service, translation certification, Advanced Placement® (AP®)1 or similar examinations. By using the Webster's Spanish Thesaurus Edition when assigned for an English course, the reader can enrich their vocabulary in anticipation of an examination in Spanish or English.
Webster’s edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of difficult and potentially ambiguous English words. Rare or idiosyncratic words and expressions are given lower priority compared to “difficult, yet commonly used” words. Rather than supply a single translation, many words are translated for a variety of meanings in Spanish, allowing readers to better grasp the ambiguity of English, and avoid them using the notes as a pure translation crutch. Having the reader decipher a word’s meaning within context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is not translated on a page, chances are that it has been translated on a previous page. A more complete glossary of translations is supplied at the end of the book; translations are extracted from Webster’s Online Dictionary.
Definitions of remaining terms as well as translations can be found at www.websters-onlinedictionary.org. Please send suggestions to websters@icongroupbooks.com
1 TOEFL®, TOEIC®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which has neither reviewed nor endorsed this book. All rights reserved.
THE AWAKENING
IA%green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over:
"Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That's all right!"
He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mocking-bird that hung on the other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the breeze with maddening persistence
Mr. Pontellier, unable to read his newspaper with any degree of comfort, arose with an expression and an exclamation of disgust
He walked down the gallery and across the narrow "bridges" which connected the Lebrun cottages one with the other. He had been seated before the door of the main house. The parrot and the mockingbird were the property of Madame Lebrun, and they had the right to make all the noise they wished. Mr. Pontellier had the privilege of quitting their society when they ceased to be entertaining.
He stopped before the door of his own cottage, which was the fourth one from the main building and next to the last. Seating himself in a wicker rocker which was there, he once more applied himself to the task of reading the newspaper. The day was Sunday; the paper was a day old. The Sunday papers
Spanish
applied: aplicado, empleado. arose: pret de arise, Surgió. breeze: brisa, la brisa. cage: jaula, la jaula. ceased: ceso, Cesado. comfort: comodidad, consolar, anchas, consuelo, confort. connected: conectado, conexo. cottage: cabaña, casa de campo. disgust: aversión, repugnancia, asquear. entertaining: divertido, entreteniendo,
entretenido, cómico. exclamation: exclamación. fluty: parecido al sonido de flauta. gallery: galería. hung: colgó, pret y pp de hang, colgado, continuado. maddening: enloquecedor, enloqueciendo, exasperante. mockingbird: sinsonte. narrow: estrecho, angosto. newspaper: periódico, diario, gaceta. noise: ruido, alboroto, el ruido.
had not yet reached Grand Isle. He was already acquainted with the market reports, and he glanced restlessly over the editorials and bits of news which he had not had time to read before quitting New Orleans the day before.%
Mr. Pontellier wore eye-glasses. He was a man of forty, of medium height and rather slender build; he stooped a little. His hair was brown and straight, parted on one side. His beard was neatly and closely trimmed
Once in a while he withdrew his glance from the newspaper and looked about him. There was more noise than ever over at the house. The main building was called "the house," to distinguish it from the cottages. The chattering and whistling birds were still at it. Two young girls, the Farival twins, were playing a duet from "Zampa" upon the piano. Madame Lebrun was bustling in and out, giving orders in a high key to a yard-boy whenever she got inside the house, and directions in an equally high voice to a dining-room servant whenever she got outside. She was a fresh, pretty woman, clad always in white with elbow sleeves. Her starched skirts crinkled as she came and went. Farther down, before one of the cottages, a lady in black was walking demurely up and down, telling her beads. A good many persons of the pension had gone over to the Cheniere Caminada in Beaudelet's lugger to hear mass. Some young people were out under the wateroaks playing croquet. Mr. Pontellier's two children were there sturdy little fellows of four and five. A quadroon nurse followed them about with a faraway, meditative air.
Mr. Pontellier finally lit a cigar and began to smoke, letting the paper drag idly from his hand. He fixed his gaze upon a white sunshade that was advancing at snail's pace from the beach. He could see it plainly between the gaunt trunks of the water-oaks and across the stretch of yellow camomile. The gulf looked far away, melting hazily into the blue of the horizon. The sunshade continued to approach slowly. Beneath its pink-lined shelter were his wife, Mrs. Pontellier, and young Robert Lebrun. When they reached the cottage, the two seated themselves with some appearance of fatigue upon the upper step of the porch, facing each other, each leaning against a supporting post.
Spanish
acquainted: informado, enterado. bustling: bulla, activo, polisón, meneándose, bullicio, rebosante, bullicioso, bullir. camomile: manzanilla, camomila. chattering: parlotear, castañetear los dientes, charlar, parloteo, vibrar, charla, vibración. clad: vestido, pret y pp de clothe. crinkled: arrugado. croquet: juego de croquet. demurely: gravemente, formalmente,
meditative: meditativo. quadroon: cuarterón. restlessly: inquietamente. starched: acartonado, almidonado, almidonar, duro, plastificado, rígido, tieso, tirante. stooped: rebajado. sunshade: quitasol, sombrilla. trimmed: recortado. trunks: traje de baño, bañador, mampara encerradora de la escotilla, pantaloneta, pantalón de baño.
"What folly! to bathe at such an hour in such heat!" exclaimed Mr. Pontellier. He himself had taken a plunge at daylight. That was why the morning seemed long to him.%
"You are burnt beyond recognition," he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage. She held up her hands, strong, shapely hands, and surveyed them critically, drawing up her fawn sleeves above the wrists. Looking at them reminded her of her rings, which she had given to her husband before leaving for the beach. She silently reached out to him, and he, understanding, took the rings from his vest pocket and dropped them into her open palm. She slipped them upon her fingers; then clasping her knees, she looked across at Robert and began to laugh. The rings sparkled upon her fingers. He sent back an answering smile.
"What is it?" asked Pontellier, looking lazily and amused from one to the other. It was some utter nonsense; some adventure out there in the water, and they both tried to relate it at once. It did not seem half so amusing when told. They realized this, and so did Mr. Pontellier. He yawned and stretched himself. Then he got up, saying he had half a mind to go over to Klein's hotel and play a game of billiards.
"Come go along, Lebrun," he proposed to Robert. But Robert admitted quite frankly that he preferred to stay where he was and talk to Mrs. Pontellier.
"Well, send him about his business when he bores you, Edna," instructed her husband as he prepared to leave.
"Here, take the umbrella," she exclaimed, holding it out to him. He accepted the sunshade, and lifting it over his head descended the steps and walked away.
"Coming back to dinner?" his wife called after him. He halted a moment and shrugged his shoulders. He felt in his vest pocket; there was a ten-dollar bill there. He did not know; perhaps he would return for the early dinner and perhaps he would not. It all depended upon the company which he found over at Klein's and the size of "the game." He did not say this, but she understood it, and laughed, nodding good-by to him.
answering: contestar, respuesta. bathe: bañar, bañarse, báñados, báñate, báñense, me baño, nos bañamos, os bañáis, se baña, se bañan, te bañas. billiards: billar. bores: taladra. burnt: quemado.
Mrs. Pontellier's eyes were quick and bright; they were a yellowish brown, about the color of her hair. She had a way of turning them swiftly upon an object and holding them there as if lost in some inward maze of contemplation or thought.%
Her eyebrows were a shade darker than her hair. They were thick and almost horizontal, emphasizing the depth of her eyes. She was rather handsome than beautiful. Her face was captivating by reason of a certain frankness of expression and a contradictory subtle play of features. Her manner was engaging.
Robert rolled a cigarette. He smoked cigarettes because he could not afford cigars, he said. He had a cigar in his pocket which Mr. Pontellier had presented him with, and he was saving it for his after-dinner smoke.
This seemed quite proper and natural on his part. In coloring he was not unlike his companion. A clean-shaved face made the resemblance more pronounced than it would otherwise have been. There rested no shadow of care upon his open countenance. His eyes gathered in and reflected the light and languor of the summer day.
Mrs. Pontellier reached over for a palm-leaf fan that lay on the porch and began to fan herself, while Robert sent between his lips light puffs from his
Spanish
after-dinner: de sobremesa. captivating: cautivador, cautivando. cigar: cigarro, puro, el puro, el cigarro, cigarro puro. cigarettes: los cigarros. cigars: los puros. color: el color, pintar, colorear, color. coloring: matiz, colorar, colorante, coloración, color, apariencia, colorido, colorear, pintar, enrojecer, tinte.
cigarette. They chatted incessantly: about the things around them; their amusing adventure out in the water-it had again assumed its entertaining aspect; about the wind, the trees, the people who had gone to the Cheniere; about the children playing croquet under the oaks, and the Farival twins, who were now performing the overture to "The Poet and the Peasant."
Robert talked a good deal about himself. He was very young, and did not know any better. Mrs. Pontellier talked a little about herself for the same reason. Each was interested in what the other said. Robert spoke of his intention to go to Mexico in the autumn, where fortune awaited him. He was always intending to go to Mexico, but some way never got there. Meanwhile he held on to his modest position in a mercantile house in New Orleans, where an equal familiarity with English, French and Spanish gave him no small value as a clerk and correspondent.%
He was spending his summer vacation, as he always did, with his mother at Grand Isle. In former times, before Robert could remember, "the house" had been a summer luxury of the Lebruns. Now, flanked by its dozen or more cottages, which were always filled with exclusive visitors from the "Quartier Francais," it enabled Madame Lebrun to maintain the easy and comfortable existence which appeared to be her birthright
Mrs. Pontellier talked about her father's Mississippi plantation and her girlhood home in the old Kentucky bluegrass country. She was an American woman, with a small infusion of French which seemed to have been lost in dilution. She read a letter from her sister, who was away in the East, and who had engaged herself to be married. Robert was interested, and wanted to know what manner of girls the sisters were, what the father was like, and how long the mother had been dead.
When Mrs. Pontellier folded the letter it was time for her to dress for the early dinner.
"I see Leonce isn't coming back," she said, with a glance in the direction whence her husband had disappeared. Robert supposed he was not, as there were a good many New Orleans club men over at Klein's.
When %Mrs. Pontellier left him to enter her room, the young man descended the steps and strolled over toward the croquet players, where, during the halfhour before dinner, he amused himself with the little Pontellier children, who were very fond of him.
amused: se divertido, entretenido. croquet: juego de croquet. descended: descendido, bajado. dinner: cena, comida, banquete. enter: entrar, entro, entra, entrad, entráis, entramos, entran, entras, entren, entre, inscribir. fond: aficionado. half-hour: media hora. steps: pasos. strolled: paseó. toward: hacia, a.
Spanish
III
It%was eleven o'clock that night when Mr. Pontellier returned from Klein's hotel. He was in an excellent humor, in high spirits, and very talkative. His entrance awoke his wife, who was in bed and fast asleep when he came in. He talked to her while he undressed, telling her anecdotes and bits of news and gossip that he had gathered during the day. From his trousers pockets he took a fistful of crumpled bank notes and a good deal of silver coin, which he piled on the bureau indiscriminately with keys, knife, handkerchief, and whatever else happened to be in his pockets. She was overcome with sleep, and answered him with little half utterances.
He thought it very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his existence, evinced so little interest in things which concerned him, and valued so little his conversation.
Mr. Pontellier had forgotten the bonbons and peanuts for the boys. Notwithstanding he loved them very much, and went into the adjoining room where they slept to take a look at them and make sure that they were resting comfortably. The result of his investigation was far from satisfactory. He turned and shifted the youngsters about in bed. One of them began to kick and talk about a basket full of crabs
Spanish
adjoining: contiguo, vecino, adyacente. awoke: pret y pp de awake. basket: cesto, cesta, la cesta, canasta, barquilla, canasto. bureau: oficina, mesa, escritorio, agencia. coin: moneda. comfortably: cómodamente. crabs: cangrejos. crumpled: arrugado, estropeado, chafado, estrujado.
Mr. Pontellier returned to his wife with the information that Raoul had a high fever and needed looking after. Then he lit a cigar and went and sat near the open door to smoke it.%
Mrs. Pontellier was quite sure Raoul had no fever. He had gone to bed perfectly well, she said, and nothing had ailed him all day. Mr. Pontellier was too well acquainted with fever symptoms to be mistaken. He assured her the child was consuming at that moment in the next room.
He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it? He himself had his hands full with his brokerage business. He could not be in two places at once; making a living for his family on the street, and staying at home to see that no harm befell them. He talked in a monotonous, insistent way.
Mrs. Pontellier sprang out of bed and went into the next room. She soon came back and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning her head down on the pillow. She said nothing, and refused to answer her husband when he questioned her. When his cigar was smoked out he went to bed, and in half a minute he was fast asleep.
Mrs. Pontellier was by that time thoroughly awake. She began to cry a little, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her peignoir. Blowing out the candle, which her husband had left burning, she slipped her bare feet into a pair of satin mules at the foot of the bed and went out on the porch, where she sat down in the wicker chair and began to rock gently to and fro.
It was then past midnight. The cottages were all dark. A single faint light gleamed out from the hallway of the house. There was no sound abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and the everlasting voice of the sea, that was not uplifted at that soft hour. It broke like a mournful lullaby upon the night.
The tears came so fast to Mrs. Pontellier's eyes that the damp sleeve of her peignoir no longer served to dry them. She was holding the back of her chair
Spanish
ailed: afligido, Adolecido. befell: Aconteció, pret de befall. blowing: soplado, sopladura, soplar, silbido, soplo. brokerage: corretaje. candle: vela, la vela, bujía, candela, cirio. consuming: consumiendo. everlasting: eterno. fever: fiebre, calentura, la fiebre. fro: atrás, allá. gleamed: brillado.
habitual: acostumbrado, habitual. hallway: vestíbulo, el pasillo. hooting: Silbar. inattention: falta de atención, desatención. insistent: insistente. leaning: inclinación. lullaby: arrullo, canción de cuna. mistaken: malo, equivocado. monotonous: monótono. mournful: fúnebre. neglect: descuidar, desatender.
owl: búho, lechuza. peignoir: salto de cama, pienador, bata. pillow: almohada, la almohada. questioned: preguntado. reproached: Reprochado. satin: raso, satén. sleeve: manga, manguito, la manga, camisa. sprang: pret de spring, saltó. uplifted: inspiró. wiped: limpiado, Enjugado.
with one hand; her loose sleeve had slipped almost to the shoulder of her uplifted arm. Turning, she thrust her face, steaming and wet, into the bend of her arm, and she went on crying there, not caring any longer to dry her face, her eyes, her arms. She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much against the abundance of her husband's kindness and a uniform devotion which had come to be tacit and self-understood.%
An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day. It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood. She did not sit there inwardly upbraiding her husband, lamenting at Fate, which had directed her footsteps to the path which they had taken. She was just having a good cry all to herself. The mosquitoes made merry over her, biting her firm, round arms and nipping at her bare insteps.
The little stinging, buzzing imps succeeded in dispelling a mood which might have held her there in the darkness half a night longer.
The following morning Mr. Pontellier was up in good time to take the rockaway which was to convey him to the steamer at the wharf. He was returning to the city to his business, and they would not see him again at the Island till the coming Saturday. He had regained his composure, which seemed to have been somewhat impaired the night before. He was eager to be gone, as he looked forward to a lively week in Carondelet Street.
Mr. Pontellier gave his wife half of the money which he had brought away from Klein's hotel the evening before. She liked money as well as most women, and, accepted it with no little satisfaction.
"It will buy a handsome wedding present for Sister Janet!" she exclaimed, smoothing out the bills as she counted them one by one.
"Oh! we'll treat Sister Janet better than that, my dear," he laughed, as he prepared to kiss her good-by.
The boys were tumbling about, clinging to his legs, imploring that numerous things be brought back to them. Mr. Pontellier was a great favorite, and ladies, men, children, even nurses, were always on hand to say goodby to him. His wife stood smiling and waving, the boys shouting, as he disappeared in the old rockaway down the sandy road.%
A few days later a box arrived for Mrs. Pontellier from New Orleans. It was from her husband. It was filled with friandises, with luscious and toothsome bits--the finest of fruits, pates, a rare bottle or two, delicious syrups, and bonbons in abundance.
Mrs. Pontellier was always very generous with the contents of such a box; she was quite used to receiving them when away from home. The pates and fruit were brought to the dining-room; the bonbons were passed around. And the ladies, selecting with dainty and discriminating fingers and a little greedily, all declared that Mr. Pontellier was the best husband in the world. Mrs. Pontellier was forced to admit that she knew of none better.
selecting: seleccionando, invitación a recibir. shouting: griterío. smiling: sonriente. toothsome: sabroso, dentudo. tumbling: pérdida de estabilidad, pérdida de referencia, volteador, volteo, acrobacia, movimiento de rotación, derribar. waving: ondear, señalar, cimbreante, señal, ondular, ondeante, onda, oleada, indicar, ola.
IV
It would have been a difficult matter for Mr. Pontellier to define to his own satisfaction or any one else's wherein his wife failed in her duty toward their children. It was something which he felt rather than perceived, and he never voiced the feeling without subsequent regret and ample atonement.%
If one of the little Pontellier boys took a tumble whilst at play, he was not apt to rush crying to his mother's arms for comfort; he would more likely pick himself up, wipe the water out of his eves and the sand out of his mouth, and go on playing. Tots as they were, they pulled together and stood their ground in childish battles with doubled fists and uplifted voices, which usually prevailed against the other mother-tots. The quadroon nurse was looked upon as a huge encumbrance, only good to button up waists and panties and to brush and part hair; since it seemed to be a law of society that hair must be parted and brushed.
In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The motherwomen seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.
Many of them were delicious in the role; one of them was the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm. If her husband did not adore her, he was a
brute, deserving of death by slow torture. Her name was Adele Ratignolle. There are no words to describe her save the old ones that have served so often to picture the bygone heroine of romance and the fair lady of our dreams. There was nothing subtle or hidden about her charms; her beauty was all there, flaming and apparent: the spun-gold hair that comb nor confining pin could restrain; the blue eyes that were like nothing but sapphires; two lips that pouted, that were so red one could only think of cherries or some other delicious crimson fruit in looking at them. She was growing a little stout, but it did not seem to detract an iota from the grace of every step, pose, gesture. One would not have wanted her white neck a mite less full or her beautiful arms more slender. Never were hands more exquisite than hers, and it was a joy to look at them when she threaded her needle or adjusted her gold thimble to her taper middle finger as she sewed away on the little night-drawers or fashioned a bodice or a bib.%
Madame Ratignolle was very fond of Mrs. Pontellier, and often she took her sewing and went over to sit with her in the afternoons. She was sitting there the afternoon of the day the box arrived from New Orleans. She had possession of the rocker, and she was busily engaged in sewing upon a diminutive pair of night-drawers.
She had brought the pattern of the drawers for Mrs. Pontellier to cut out--a marvel of construction, fashioned to enclose a baby's body so effectually that only two small eyes might look out from the garment, like an Eskimo's. They were designed for winter wear, when treacherous drafts came down chimneys and insidious currents of deadly cold found their way through key-holes.
Mrs. Pontellier's mind was quite at rest concerning the present material needs of her children, and she could not see the use of anticipating and making winter night garments the subject of her summer meditations. But she did not want to appear unamiable and uninterested, so she had brought forth newspapers, which she spread upon the floor of the gallery, and under Madame Ratignolle's directions she had cut a pattern of the impervious garment.
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ON THE INSTITUTION OF LIGHT CAVALRY IN THE BRITISH ARMY.
The records of the military events of the remote ages speak of heavy-armed horsemen being accompanied by others mounted and equipped for light services. The Barons and Knights, who rode the powerful horses celebrated by historians, and took the field completely cased in steel, had a few light-armed attendants; the feudal horsemen were variously armed; and the practice of employing Light, as well as Heavy Cavalry, was adopted, to a limited extent, by several commanders of antiquity. Armour, proof against arrow, lance, and sword, and men and horses of colossal appearance, in whom the greatest amount of weight and physical power, consistent with a moderate share of activity, could be combined, were however held in the highest estimation; but eventually the great advantage of having a portion of Cavalry in which lightness, activity, and celerity of movement, might form the principal characteristics, was discovered. The introduction of firearms occasioned armour to be gradually laid aside, or limited to a few heavy horsemen; superiority of weight was no longer thought so necessary; and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the use of Light Cavalry became more general than formerly.
During the seventy years' war between Spain and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, Prince Maurice of Nassau (afterwards Prince of Orange) selected a few English and Dutch heavy-armed Lancers, and constituted them Carabineers, for skirmishing, and
other services of a similar character. The Emperor of Germany formed regiments of Hungarian Hussars, who were light men on small horses. The Carabineers were of an intermediate class, being much heavier than the Hussars, and lighter than the English Lancers and Cuirassiers, who rode powerful horses, and wore armour on the head, body, and limbs. The French monarchs adopted the practice of having a few Carabineers in each troop of Horse; and, in 1690, Louis XIV. added a troop of Carabineers to each Regiment of Cavalry. During the campaign of 1691, these troops formed a Carabineer brigade; but their motley appearance, and the defects of the plan, occasioned them to be constituted a regiment of Carabineers, and clothed in blue. In 1693 the French King added a regiment of Hussars to the Cavalry of his army.[7]
In England the same principle was partially carried out; the heavy horse laid aside their armour, excepting cuirasses; they were mounted on horses of less weight than formerly, and they were supplied with carbines by King Charles II. In 1685, King James II. raised several independent troops of Light Horse, and one of them (Sir Thomas Burton's) was retained in his service until the Revolution in 1688, when it was disbanded. In 1691-2 King William III. constituted the Seventh Regiment of Horse, now Sixth Dragoon Guards, a corps of Carabineers, as an honorary distinction, and for the performance of services for which the other regiments of Horse, being Cuirassiers, were not well adapted. The object was to combine with strength and power a greater degree of activity and speed than was to be found in the Cavalry at that period; and His Majesty appears to have contemplated having several corps of this description in his service, as he designated this theFirstRegimentof Carabineers; but no second regiment was formed.[8] In 1694 a troop of foreign Hussars formed part of the Army commanded by King William in Flanders.[9]
During the wars of Queen Anne the Regiment of Carabineers was again supplied with cuirasses, and was mounted on the same description of horses as the other regiments; retaining, however, the
title of Carabineers. The activity, size, weight, and strength of the horses ridden by the British Cuirassiers and Heavy Dragoons, with the bravery and muscular powers of the men, established their superiority in continental warfare over the Cavalry of other nations; they acquired great celebrity in the valley of the Danube and on the plains of the Netherlands, in the early part of the eighteenth century, under the renowned John Duke of Marlborough; and after the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, the reputation of the British Horse and Dragoons was so high that no alteration was thought necessary, and many years elapsed without any attempt being made to revive the practice of having either Carabineers, or Light Horse, in the British Army.
The great utility of the Light Cavalry of the continental armies had, in the mean time, become apparent. Improvements in military tactics, and in the arming and equipment of corps, were taking place in various countries; and a spirit of emulation extending itself to Great Britain, on the breaking out of the rebellion in 1745, his Grace the Duke of Montague evinced his loyalty and public spirit by raising a Regiment of Carabineersfor the service of King George II.; at the same time, his Grace the Duke of Kingston, with equal zeal and generosity, raised, at his own expense, a Regiment of Light Horse. The latter regiment approximated, in the lightness of the men, horses, and equipment, to the Hussars of the continental armies; the Duke of Montague's Carabineers were of a heavier description of Cavalry.
At this period the old Cavalry Regiments rode black horses (excepting the Scots Greys) with docked tails; but the Duke of Kingston's Regiment was mounted on light horses of various colours, with swish or nag tails. The accoutrements were as light as possible: the men carried short carbines slung to their sides by a moveable swivel, pistols, and light swords inclined to a curve.
The usefulness of the Duke of Kingston's Regiment of Light Horse was proved in Scotland, where it served under His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, and was found qualified for every description of service; the light horses traversing hilly grounds with
facility. It distinguished itself on several occasions, particularly at the battle of Culloden, on the 16th of April, 1746, when it charged the clans with signal gallantry, and evinced great spirit and activity in the pursuit of the rebel army upwards of three miles from the field of battle. The Duke of Cumberland was highly pleased with its behaviour during the period it was under his command; and the conduct of the Light Horse throughout the contest reflected credit on the noble peer who had raised them.
The rebellion being suppressed, the regiment was, in consequence of the conditions on which the men had enlisted, directed to be disbanded; but the Duke of Cumberland so highly approved of its conduct that he obtained permission to embody as many of the men as would re-enlist, as his own Regiment of Light Dragoons.
His Majesty's thanks and particular satisfaction were communicated to His Grace the Duke of Kingston, for his zeal and affection for His Majesty's person and Government; and His Grace was desired to convey to the officers and soldiers His Majesty's high sense of their loyalty, activity, and gallant behaviour, at a period of national danger. The regiment was afterwards disbanded at Nottingham, and nearly every man engaged in the Regiment of Light Dragoons, of which, as a signal mark of honour and distinction, His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland was appointed Colonel.
The Duke of Cumberland's Light Dragoons were mounted on active nag-tailed horses, from fourteen and a half to fifteen hands high. The men were from five feet eight to five feet nine inches in height; and their equipment was upon a new and light plan, but retaining the cocked hat of the Heavy Dragoon pattern. This regiment served in the Netherlands, with the Army commanded by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland: its general usefulness was fully established, and it distinguished itself at the battle of Val, in 1747. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle having put an end to the war, it returned to England, and was disbanded in 1749.
From this period the value of light horsemen was more appreciated in England than formerly; the general utility of this arm, on home
and foreign service, had been fully proved; and at the commencement of hostilities with France, in 1755, King George II. resolved to possess the advantage of a body of Light Cavalry in the approaching contest. His Majesty accordingly commanded a troop of Light Dragoons to be added to the First, Second, and Third Regiments of Dragoon Guards, and First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Tenth, and Eleventh Regiments of Dragoons. The First, Second, Third, and Fourth Irish Horse (now Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Dragoon Guards), and the Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Dragoons, being on the Irish establishment, did not receive the same addition.
These troops of Light Dragoons were mounted, armed, equipped, and trained, according to specific instructions, calculated to render them available for the services for which they were designed. Several of them were reviewed in Hyde Park by His Majesty; and their neat appearance, celerity of movement, and the spirited and exact manner in which they performed their evolutions, were much admired.
Nine of these troops were formed into a brigade in 1758, under the command of one of the King's aides-de-camp, Colonel George Augustus Eliott, of the Horse Grenadier Guards; and they were employed in the expeditions to the coast of France under Charles Duke of Marlborough and Lieut.-General Bligh. They landed in France twice; skirmished with the French Cavalry; and throughout these enterprises they evinced activity, spirit, and general usefulness. After their return to England, they were augmented to 125 men per troop.
At this period, the war on the Continent had involved most of the European states; and the extended and active operations which were taking place in Germany rendered it necessary for a British force to join the Allied Army under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. This gave rise to a further augmentation of the Army; and the increased estimation in which Light Cavalry was held induced the King to give directions for the raising of entire Regiments of Light Dragoons, in addition to the five Regiments of Horse, three of
Dragoon Guards, and fourteen of Dragoons, already on the British and Irish establishments. The following corps were accordingly embodied:—
LIGHT DRAGOONS.
Incorporatedin1759.
FIFTEENTH, in England, by Colonel George A. Eliott;—now the Fifteenth, or the King's Hussars.
SIXTEENTH, in England, by Lieut.-Colonel John Burgoyne;—now the Sixteenth, or the Queen's Lancers.
SEVENTEENTH, in Scotland, by Captain Lord Aberdour;—disbanded in 1763.
EIGHTEENTH, in England, by Lieut.-Colonel John Hale;—now the Seventeenth Lancers.
NINETEENTH, in Ireland, by Lieut.-Colonel Lord Drogheda;—numbered the Eighteenth in 1763; constituted Hussars in 1807; and after performing much valuable service at home and abroad, it was disbanded at Newbridge, in Ireland, in 1821.
Incorporatedin1760.
TWENTIETH, in Ireland, by Captain Sir James Caldwell;—disbanded in 1763.
TWENTY-FIRST, or Royal Foresters, in England by Lieut.-General the Marquis of Granby, and Colonel Lord Robert Sutton;—disbanded in 1763.
After the peace of Fontainebleau, three of these corps were disbanded, and the other four continued in the service. The light troops attached to the heavy regiments were also disbanded, but a few men of each troop were afterwards equipped as Light Dragoons.
A more perfect knowledge of the efficiency and capabilities of Light Cavalry, acquired during the campaigns in Germany and Portugal, had advanced the estimation in which that arm was held; and, in 1768, the TWELFTH Dragoons (one of the heavy regiments raised by King George I. in 1715), underwent a change of equipment and clothing, and was constituted a corps of LightDragoons, by General Carpenter, in Ireland.
This alteration served as a precedent for subsequent changes; and further experience, during the American war, from 1775 to 1783, confirming the value of Light Cavalry, the SEVENTH, EIGHTH, NINTH, TENTH, ELEVENTH, THIRTEENTH, and FOURTEENTH Regiments of Dragoons were changed from heavy to light. The Light Dragoons attached to the heavy regiments were incorporated into newly-raised corps, and the following regiments of
LIGHT DRAGOONS
Wereembodiedin1779.
NINETEENTH,—by Major-General Russell Manners;—disbanded in 1783.
TWENTIETH,—by Major-General Richard Burton Phillipson;—disbanded in 1783.
TWENTY-FIRST,—by Major-General John Douglas; —disbanded in 1783.
TWENTY-SECOND,—by Lieut.-Colonel John Lord Sheffield;—disbanded in 1783.
Embodiedin1781.
TWENTY-THIRD,—by Lieut.-General Sir John Burgoyne, Baronet, for service in India, and was numbered the NINETEENTH after the peace in 1783. This regiment signalized itself on numerous occasions in India, and was rewarded with the honour of bearing on its guidons and appointments the Elephant, with the words Assaye and
Seringapatam. The word Niagara was also added in commemoration of the gallantry of two troops, in the year 1813, in North America. In 1817 it was constituted a corps of LANCERS. It was disbanded in Ireland in 1821.
Thus a few years had produced a great change in the British Army. Twenty-five years previously to the termination of the American war there was not a single Light Dragoon Regiment in the Service, and in 1783 there were seventeen; four of them were disbanded at that period, and thirteen retained in the Service.
Soon after the termination of the American war, the French monarch having, by aiding the rebellious British provincials, taught his own subjects a lesson of insubordination, was deprived of the reins of government; and the violent conduct of the French revolutionists in the West Indies occasioned the TWENTIETH or JAMAICA REGIMENT OF LIGHT DRAGOONS to be raised in 1791 by Colonel Henry F. Gardner, for service in that island. Besides its services in Jamaica, detachments of this regiment served at Malta; Sicily; at the taking of the Cape of Good Hope, in 1806; at the capture of Alexandria, in 1807; at the attack on Monte Video; in Portugal; at Genoa; and on the eastern coast of Spain; and acquired the honour of bearing the word Peninsula on its guidons and appointments. It was disbanded in Ireland in 1818.
War with France commenced in 1793, and was followed by augmentations to the Army. It was not found necessary to add a single Heavy Cavalry Regiment; but the following Regiments of
LIGHT DRAGOONS
Wereincorporatedin1794.
TWENTY-FIRST,—by Lieut.-Colonel Thomas R. Beaumont. This regiment served at the Cape of Good Hope and in India thirteen years; a detachment was sent to do duty at St. Helena, when Napoleon
Buonaparte was removed thither. This regiment was disbanded at Chatham in 1820.
TWENTY-SECOND,—by Major-General William Viscount Fielding;—served in Great Britain and Ireland;—disbanded in 1802.
TWENTY-THIRD,—by Colonel William Fullerton;—served in Great Britain and Ireland;—disbanded in 1802.
TWENTY-FOURTH,—by Colonel William Loftus;—served in Great Britain and Ireland;—disbanded in 1802.
TWENTY-FIFTH,—by Major-General Francis Edward Gwyn. This regiment was numbered the TWENTY-SECOND after the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. It served with reputation in India; was employed at the reduction of Java; signalized itself on several occasions; and was rewarded with the royal authority to bear the word Seringapatam on its guidons and appointments. It was disbanded in England in 1820.
Raisedin1795.
TWENTY-SIXTH,—by Lieut.-General R. Manners;—numbered the TWENTYTHIRD in 1803. This regiment served in Egypt, Portugal, Spain, Flanders, and France; and its distinguished conduct was rewarded with the honour of bearing on its guidons and appointments, the Sphinx, with the words Egypt, Peninsula, and Waterloo. In 1816 it was constituted a corps of LANCERS. It was disbanded in England in 1817.
TWENTY-SEVENTH,—by Major-General Wynter Blathwayte;—numbered the TWENTY-FOURTH in 1804. This regiment served in India, distinguished itself at the battles of Ghur and Delhi, and was permitted to bear the Elephant, with the word Hindoostan, on its guidons and appointments. It was disbanded in England, on its arrival from Bengal, in 1819.
TWENTY-EIGHTH,—by Major-General Robert Lawrie;—served in Great Britain, Ireland, and at the Cape of Good Hope;—disbanded in Ireland in 1802.
TWENTY-NINTH,—by Major-General Francis Augustus Lord Heathfield;— numbered the TWENTY-FIFTH in 1804. This regiment served in India, and was at the reduction of the Isle of France. It was disbanded at Chatham, on its arrival from India, in 1819.
Raisedin1794.
THIRTIETH,—by Lieut.-Colonel J. C. Carden;—disbanded in 1796.
THIRTY-FIRST,—by Lieut.-Colonel William St. Ledger;—disbanded in 1796.
THIRTY-SECOND,—by Lieut.-Colonel H. J. Blake;—disbanded in 1796.
THIRTY-THIRD,—by Lieut.-Colonel J. Blackwood;—disbanded in 1796.
Soon after the re-commencement of hostilities with France in 1803, the SEVENTH, TENTH, FIFTEENTH, and EIGHTEENTH Light Dragoons were equipped as HUSSARS. Since the termination of the war in 1815, the THIRD and FOURTH Dragoons have been changed from heavy to light; the NINTH, TWELFTH, SIXTEENTH, and SEVENTEENTH Light Dragoons have been constituted LANCERS; and the EIGHTH and ELEVENTH Light Dragoons have also been equipped as HUSSARS.
At this period (1847), the Cavalry of the British Army consists of twenty-six regiments—thirteen Heavy and thirteen Light; and is composed of three regiments of Cuirassiers, ten of Heavy Dragoons, four of Light Dragoons, five of Hussars, and four of Lancers.
THE THIRD, OR
THE KING'S OWN REGIMENT OF LIGHT
DRAGOONS,
BEARS ON ITS APPOINTMENTS
THE
WHITE HORSE, ON A RED FIELD WITHIN THE GARTER, WITH THE MOTTO "NECASPERATERRENT:" ALSO THE WORDS, "SALAMANCA"—"VITTORIA"—"TOULOUSE"—"PENINSULA,"
To commemorate its Gallant Conduct in Spain and France from 1811 to 1814; AND THE WORD "CABOOL, 1842,"
For its distinguished Services in Affghanistan in 1842.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Histoire de la Milice Françoise, par le PÈRE DANIEL.
[8] National Records.
[9] The equipment of Hussars at this period is described by D'AUVERGNE, in his History ofthe Campaign of1694, pp. 22, 23.
