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Soldier of fortune   /sˈoʊldʒər əv fˈɔrtʃən/   Listen
Soldier of fortune

noun
1.
A person hired to fight for another country than their own.  Synonym: mercenary.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Soldier of fortune" Quotes from Famous Books



... parade and enjoy his pomps, and had let them govern. His strenuous vigour exasperated them as much as his evident conviction of a right to rule. They never ceased to regard him on that account as a soldier of fortune, and an upstart. So poor a creature as Hatton had his party at Court. When he retired to the country in dudgeon at a display of royal grace to Ralegh, his friends, as Sir Thomas Heneage, were busy for him so late as April, 1585. Elizabeth was persuaded by them to let ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... There he remained 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... 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 upon laughter, her eyes shone, the colour that was usually wanting now perfected her ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... They attempted the impossible. How then have their deeds become the source of song and story? Why all the honor that we pay them? It is not because in danger, in sacrifice, and in failure, they were stout-hearted. Many a freebooter or soldier of fortune has been that. It is, as one said whose name I bear, "because they were stout-hearted for an ideal—their ideal, not ours, of civil and religious liberty. Wherever and whenever resolute men and women devote themselves, not to material, but ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... the close of Carson's college days had caused him to migrate to the West, where, like many others, he became a soldier of fortune, drifting whither the strongest tide wind blew. When Mary Greenwater recovered she sought him, and in her gratitude made him the overseer of her ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... himself, as if in prophetic cynicism, writes his own condemnation as to character thus: "In any service I have been in, I never inquired further in the laws than the orders of my superior officer." An appropriate motto for a "soldier of fortune," which might be abbreviated and paraphrased ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... 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 ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... barbarians had twice sacked Rome, and Ricimer's most cruel host of adventurers had reaped whatever the Vandal Genseric had left. If there was a degradation yet to be endured it would be that a Herule soldier of fortune should compel a Roman senate to send back the robes of empire to Constantinople, and be content to live under a Patricius, sprung from one of the innumerable Teuton hordes, and sanctioned by the emperor of the East; and Acacius would not forget that in the councils of ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... 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

... story of the days of the French Revolution, abounding in dramatic incident, with a young English soldier of fortune, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... in Dublin, at an immense expense, considering the scarcity of money in Ireland in those days, "to advocate their cause with the lords justices and council:" or, in plain English, to crave permission to be allowed to remain in quiet. The person chosen was one of their own sept, John Magranal, a soldier of fortune, who, having served in the English army in the subjugation of the King's and Queen's counties, had been rewarded with a grant of the forfeited lands of Claduff, in the former county, and was supposed to stand well with the lords justices. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various

... 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 to ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... enchanting; skilled in ancient monastic lore, he entertained them with anecdotes and histories from which he drew the most instructive morals. One cheerful afternoon, when seated on the rocks viewing a magnificent sunset, the aged monk told them his own history. He had been a soldier of fortune. In youth his ambition was as boundless as the horizon; he worshipped his sword and loved the terrors of battle. Fortune smiled on his hopes, and he moved on from grade to grade, until he became ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... 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, we saw, ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... 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 temperament, a mystical habit of mind, and physical ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... this 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 ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... 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 ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... rang out 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

... miles south of the city. The French generals who had sailed with him from Brest were in his train; and two of them, Rosen and Maumont, were placed over the head of Richard Hamilton, [193] Rosen was a native of Livonia, who had in early youth become a soldier of fortune, who had fought his way to distinction, and who, though utterly destitute of the graces and accomplishments characteristic of the Court of Versailles, was nevertheless high in favour there. His temper was savage: his manners were coarse: his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and 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 quarter. In this ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... down at the bundle, he could dimly discern what seemed to be a baby face among the encircling folds of silk which wrapped the child. It was sleeping soundly; the transition from its mother's arms to the arms of the soldier of fortune had not wakened it, and now, as Lagardere gently rocked it in his arms, ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... 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 ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of her by Mr. Booth, that her present demeanour may seem unnatural and inconsistent with her former character. But they will be pleased to consider the great alteration in her circumstances, from a state of dependency on a brother, who was himself no better than a soldier of fortune, to that of being wife to a man of a very large estate and considerable rank in life. And what was her present behaviour more than that of a fine lady who considered form and show as essential ingredients of human happiness, and imagined ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... across me that I was a misfit. Nature had cast me for the part of a soldier of fortune, and instead I was giving my services to help a big corporation escape the payment of damages for accidents caused by its cars. I had turned my back on the romance of life. Well, it was the penalty one must pay ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... of Oxford, Marquis of Winchester, Sir Godfrey 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 ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... 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 English settlements ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... north 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 some time at Antwerp with his lady, where they were frequently in much ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various

... a measure a soldier of fortune, was the younger son of an impoverished baronet, but he had married the daughter of the powerful Earl of Derby and was well known in London society as a man of fashion and also as a man of letters, whose plays ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... Narbonne, his own natural cousin, to the ministry of war. The King was not alone in his opposition to the war,—Robespierre and Marat, nearly in accord, both stood for peace. Robespierre, from the first, had foreseen the course of the Revolution, had {133} prophetically feared the success of some soldier of fortune,—he was at this moment that unknown lieutenant of artillery, Napoleone Buonaparte,—who should with a stroke of the sword convert the Revolution to his purposes. Marat, in his more hectic, malevolent, ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... protector, Captain Fagan, I am forced to confess that I fell into the very worst of courses and company. Being a rough soldier of fortune himself, he had never been a favourite with the officers of his regiment; who had a contempt for Irishmen, as Englishmen sometimes will have, and used to mock his brogue, and his blunt uncouth manners. I ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... was descending from the fort to the shore, and completed the murder by a poniard's thrust. They then seized the government without any opposition from the inhabitants.[115] Meanwhile there had arrived at St. Kitts the Chevalier de Fontenay, a soldier of fortune who had distinguished himself against the Turks and was attracted by the gleam of Spanish gold. He it was whom de Poincy chose as the man to succeed Levasseur. The opportunity for action was eagerly accepted by ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... under obligation to him. In the present case, a favour, which could be asked with honour and granted with readiness, might be the means of reconciling them to each other. From this his feelings naturally turned towards Julia; and, without very nicely measuring the distance between a soldier of fortune, who expected that her father's attestation would deliver him from confinement, and the heiress of that father's wealth and expectations, he was building the gayest castle in the clouds, and varnishing it with all the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... distance, 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 ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... priest, toiling painfully up the hill, heard the martial sound, and soon encountered the soldier, who saluted him gravely. The priest paused to return the greeting, and entering into conversation with the horseman, he learned that he was a soldier of fortune, whereupon he invited him with simple cordiality to become his guest. The proffer of hospitality was gratefully accepted, and the kindly old man led the stranger to ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... 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 offer must be accepted. Thus Mademoiselle ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... 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

... 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 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 ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... in the United States; an application from a publisher for a series of articles entitled "How I Governed Gloria," on your own terms; a letter from a certain Oisin Stewart Sarrasin, who calls himself Captain, and signs himself a soldier of fortune.' ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... 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 me. I would like to come home with a few ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... days when the most saleable and the highest priced article in the markets of Europe was a strong arm and a cool head, then each Ingerfield (as "Inge," long rooted in Yorkshire soil, had grown or been corrupted to) was a soldier of fortune, and offered his strong arm and his cool head to the highest bidder. They fought for their price, and they took good care that they obtained their price; but, the price settled, they fought well, ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... military reputation. He was the descendant of a noble family, in the Palatinate, and his mother was an Englishwoman, daughter of Lord Dudley. Being obliged to leave his country on account of the troubles by which it was agitated, he commenced a soldier of fortune, and served successively in the armies of Holland, England, France, Portugal, and Brandenburg; he attained to the dignity of mareschal in France, grandee in Portugal, generalissimo in Prussia, and duke in England. He professed the Protestant ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... 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 ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... esquire. Dick Bowyer, whose life and death are mendaciously announced on the catch-penny title-page, and who (like Tiny Tim in "A Christmas Carol") "does not die," is a rather rough, thin, and faint sketch of the bluff British soldier of fortune who appears and reappears to better advantage in other plays of Heywood and his fellows. That this must be classed among the earlier if not the earliest of his works we may infer from the primitive ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... dead body, and thrust his hand into a pocket of the Quartermaster, out of which he drew a purse. Emptying the contents on the ground, several double-louis rolled towards the soldiers, who were not slow in picking them up. Casting the purse from him in contempt, the soldier of fortune turned towards the soup he had been preparing with so much care, and, finding it to his liking, he began to break his fast with an air of indifference that the most stoical Indian warrior ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... 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, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... 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, who was all this time urging ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... both his own family and the Chinese empire to the 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 ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... Otto" is not, to my mind, a ruler in his proper soil. The provinces of George Sand and of Mr. George Meredith have been taken captive. "Prince Otto" is fantastic indeed, but neither the fantasy nor the style is quite Mr. Stevenson's. There are excellent passages, and the Scotch soldier of fortune is welcome, and the ladies abound in subtlety and wit. But the book, at least to myself, seems an extremely elaborate and skilful pastiche. I cannot believe in the persons. I vaguely smell a moral allegory (as in "Will of the Mill"). I do not clearly understand ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... 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

... was sufficiently 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... or her fair Daughter. In a Word, continued he, I am a Soldier, and to be plain is my Character: You see me, Madam, young, sound, and impudent; take me your self, Widow, or give me to her, I will be wholly at your Disposal. I am a Soldier of Fortune, ha!' ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... sympathy, 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 after Faliero's ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... him, one of those men in whom we excuse the greatest excesses, as the most natural things in the world. He had run through all his money at gambling and with pretty girls, and so became, as it were, a soldier of fortune, who amused himself whenever and however he could, and was at that time quartered ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... sat Colonel Nye, as different a type as could be imagined. Nye had been a soldier of fortune in Mexico and Central America, and had found prosperity as a captain of one of those condottieri bands which were organized by the big corporations of America before the war, for the purpose of crushing strikes. He had ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... she had been, it seemed impossible that she 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 the thought of comparing his ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... was, perhaps, the only one which excited commiseration, even from the point of view of the Medici. A soldier of fortune, his weapon was at your command, did you but fill his pouch with ducats of Rome or florins of Florence. To him it mattered not whether the adventure partook of romance and espionage, or of intrigue and murder. Unlike many of his profession, he was a religious man, and just. He drew back from his ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... asking your worship anything about it, and so to give the town up to be stormed and pillaged. Now I, in my humble way, should have thought your worship's voice ought to count for something in this matter. Your worship knows what is for the good of the town a great deal better than a soldier of fortune that has only ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... dissatisfied. One of 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 thing ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... sight. Ten years had passed since Graham jested at the camp-fire with his comrades of the English Volunteers, on the night before the battle of Sineffe, but war, with many anxieties, had left only slight traces upon his face. He was no longer a soldier of fortune, but the commander of "His Majesty's Own Regiment of Horse," and a colonel in the king's army. By this time also he was a member of the Privy Council, and a favorite person at Court; he had held various offices and taken part in ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... was Alexander Kalouga, a Polish soldier of fortune, some time in the service of Cecilius Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, first Lord Proprietary of Maryland. This man had, previous to his final emigration to the New World, passed through a life of the most wonderful vicissitudes—wonderful even for those days of romance and adventure. It was ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... Shakespeare; of Philip II and William the Silent; of Leicester and Don John of Austria; of The Great Armada and the Spanish Inquisition; of Lope de Vega and Cervantes—for he was, in the Hispanian peninsula, his own greatest contemporary—and to this hour this battle-scarred soldier of fortune stands the tallest figure of Spanish literature. His was a lettered rearing, and a young manhood spent as a common soldier. At Lepanto he lost hand and arm. In five long, weary, and bitter years of slavery among Algerine pirates, he held up his ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... 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 ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... 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 ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... grace and beauty on the stage, delighted immense audiences at the Park Theater. She came to this country under the auspices of Chevalier Henry Wikoff, a roving but accomplished soldier of fortune, who pitched his camp in both continents. Upon her arrival in New York the "divine Fanny," as she was invariably called, was borne to her destination in a carriage from which the horses had been detached by her enthusiastic adorateurs, led by ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... a mere soldier of fortune, whose world was his camp, whose opinions and feelings had been formed in quite another school from those of his fellow-general; whose code of honor and of morals was an entirely different one, and whose conscience was not only perfectly at rest respecting the business he was bound on, but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... and respectable, even distinguished-looking female. In the secret service her number was 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 ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis

... 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 ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... 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 back ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... who 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

... tables of dates, without analyzing and comparing vast 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 ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... 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 ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... 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 or ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... would come to his assistance. But he waited in vain and his courage began to give way, when one day something happened which proved to him that he had still one friend left, his faithful Michelotto, a soldier of fortune who had followed him to Spain, and was now hidden in the neighbourhood of the prison. It was breakfast time, and Caesar was in the act of cutting his bread when he suddenly touched a hard substance, and found a file, and a small ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... 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 De ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... from the depths of disgrace and fear of death to the pinnacle of my day-dreams realized (for it had ever been my fondest dream to be a soldier of fortune, and to serve under the great Bonaparte—one that I had hardly dared to confess to myself) was almost more than brain could stand. More than that, to hear such words of commendation from the great soldier, when I had expected severest censure, set heart throbbing ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... capital of India under Chandragupta Maurya, who, soldier of fortune and usurper that he was, transformed the small kingdom of Magadha into a mighty empire. Known to Greek historians as Sandrokottos, young Chandragupta had been in Alexander's camp on the Indus, and had even, it is said, offered his services to the Macedonian king. ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... my boy. But do you stick to your idea of earning your living by your sword; it is a gentleman's profession, and I would rather see you eating dry bread as a soldier of fortune than prospering ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... sun-tinted, forest-shadowed hue of the skin, which betray the slightest admixture of gypsy blood. In fact, Zelma Burleigh was the fruit of a strange mesalliance between the younger brother of the Squire, a reckless, dissipated soldier of fortune, and a beautiful Spanish Zineala, whom he met in a foreign campaign, and whom he could not bind to himself by any tie less honorable than marriage. She was said to be of Rommany blood-royal, and was actually disowned by her tribe for her mesalliance. She followed the camp for a few years, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... Almagro, was a soldier of fortune somewhat older, it seems probable, than Pizarro; though little is known of his birth, and even the place of it is disputed. It is supposed to have been the town of Almagro in New Castile, whence his own name, for want of a better source was derived; for, like Pizarro, he was a foundling.8 ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... near 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

... afternoon, on Fifth Avenue, or at night in the table d'hote restaurants of University Place, you may meet the soldier of fortune who of all his brothers in arms now living is the most remarkable. You may have noticed him; a stiffly erect, distinguished-looking man, with gray hair, an imperial of the fashion of Louis Napoleon, fierce blue eyes, and across ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... been 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 ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... 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

... Floren-tines, led by Giovanni Paolo (commonly called Giampaolo) Orsini; and a little farther, on the main stream, Citta di Castello recalls the story of a long siege which it valiantly sustained against Braccio da Montone, surnamed Fortebraccio (Strongarm), another renowned soldier of fortune of the fifteenth century. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... himself in prayer is more acceptable than the devotee who is puffed up with pride:—The courteous and kind-hearted soldier of fortune is better than the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... 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 attempt ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... d'Arblay is at present circumstanced, an alliance with anything but a fortune sufficient for the support of himself and partner would be very imprudent. He is a mere soldier of fortune, under great disadvantages. Your income, if it was as certain as a freehold estate, is insufficient for the purpose ; and if the queen should be displeased and withdraw her ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... war conscientiously for his country's 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 love ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... 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. But Massey was resolute ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... the papers closely, seeking there the seeds of adventure. In one of them, a pathetic story appeared, telling of a once famous soldier of fortune starving in a tenement on Rivington Street, a man who in his day—so the papers said—had made rulers and unmade them, had helped to alter the map of more than one continent. Green investigated personally. The tale turned out to be nine-tenths reporter's ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... 10th of November, 1509, Ojeda set sail, leaving Encisco to bring after him another ship with needed supplies. With Ojeda was Francisco Pizarro, a middle-aged soldier of fortune, who had not hitherto distinguished himself in any way. Hernando Cortez was to have gone along also, but fortunately for him, an inflammation of the knee kept him at home. Ojeda was in such a hurry to get to El Dorado—for it was in the ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... before Mantua, is known as the battle of La Favorita, from the stand made by Serurier on the road to that residence. Its results were six thousand prisoners, among them the Vienna volunteers with the Empress's banner, and many guns. In his fifty-fifth year this French soldier of fortune had finally reached the climax of his career. Having fought in the Seven Years' War, in Portugal and in Corsica, the Revolution gave him his opening. He assisted Scherer in the capture of the Maritime Alps, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... later a young man pushed open the door—a tall, clean-cut young fellow, whose face bore the tan of a sun much stronger than any about New York. As I took his appraisal, I found him unmistakably of the type of American soldier of fortune who has been carried by the wander-spirit down among the romantic republics to ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... at him like a sullen and dangerous bull and moved away, saying no more. But Solange felt cheered. There were some who regarded her ahead of this soldier of fortune whom she had hired to ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... methods, and no amount of "recognition" could make a stuffed shirt of him. No matter how much he was advertised as a great medicine-man in the councils of the nation, he knew that he was a born gambler and a soldier of fortune. He left his dignified office to take care of itself for a good many months of the year while he played about on the outskirts of social order. He liked being a great man from the East in ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... below in the Andes river bottoms; it isn't leading ragged armies of half-baked South American natives against a mud stockade; it isn't shooting African animals and dining on quinine and hippopotamus liver. No, there's none of the soldier of fortune business about it. But vital! My heavens! what ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... fallen and perilous state. Nay, Patrick even derided his penitence. Patrick was an honourable knight, a religious man, as times went, but he had been brought up in a much rougher and more unscrupulous school than Malcolm, and had been hardened by years of service as a soldier of fortune. The Armagnac camp was not like that of England. Warriors of such piety and strictness as Henry and Bedford had never come within his ken; and that any man, professing to be a soldier, should hesitate at the license of war, was incomprehensible to him. The discipline of Henry's ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Veraegui was a soldier of fortune, of rude unpolished speech, and with manners not very different from those which he had practised while wearing ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... plain with you, Master Manners," said Lady Maude, with considerable asperity. "It can never, no, never be as you desire. We have other designs for Dorothy than that she should marry a soldier of fortune. Her portion," she continued, curling her lips in scorn, "is a half of the whole estate of Haddon, which, you must admit, is no small dowry; and what have you to set against that? Your lands would not maintain yourself alone," and, having delivered ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... 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

... he went about the execution of the measures he had suggested, the bully following him now with the faithful wonder of a dog for its master, realising that here, indeed, was a soldier of fortune by comparison with whom the likes of himself were no better than camp-followers. Confidence, too, did Ercole gather from that magnetism of Francesco's unfaltering confidence; for he seemed to treat the matter as a great jest, a comedy played for the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... all 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, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... 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 and the captain. It may amuse you to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... posterity. Pyrrhus made a great stir in the world whilst he lived. "He thought it," Plutarch says—we quote from Dryden's translation—"a nauseous course of life not to be doing mischief to others or receiving some from them." But he was in reality an unlettered soldier of fortune, probably very much of the same type as some of Napoleon's rougher marshals, such as Augereau or Massena. His manners were those of the camp, and his statesmanship that of the barrack-room. He blundered in everything he undertook except in the actual management of troops on the field ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... puzzled any one not familiar with certain matters known only to a few in England, Catesby, Wright and Digsby cast searching glances at the new comer, as though seeking to read in the impassive features of the soldier of fortune some riddle which heretofore had puzzled them. As to Fawkes, not deigning to notice the evident curiosity with which the three gentlemen greeted him, he allowed his cloak to fall upon the floor, walked to the fireplace, ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... prejudice; but I had rather carve it with a shield at one end, and a sword at the other. And this, observe, with no reference whatever to any story of duty done, or cause defended. Assume the knight merely to have ridden out occasionally to fight his neighbour for exercise; assume him even a soldier of fortune, and to have gained his bread, and filled his purse, at the sword's point. Still, I feel as if it were, somehow, grander and worthier in him to have made his bread by sword play than any other play; had rather he had made it by thrusting than by batting;—much more, than by betting. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... Hal['e]vy" who is the protagonist of the amazing dialogue. / Marco Landi, the protagonist and narrator of a story which is skilfully contrived and excellently told, is a fairly familiar type of soldier of fortune. ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt

... and that the sovereigns had in consequence revoked that mandate wherever it might be deemed prejudicial to the stipulated privileges of the Admiral.... Having thus obtained permission to make the voyage, the next consideration with Ojeda was to find the means. He was a young adventurer, a mere soldier of fortune, and destitute of wealth; but he had a high reputation for courage and enterprise, and hence had no difficulty in finding moneyed associates among the rich merchants of Seville, who, in that age of discovery, were ever ready to stake their property upon the schemes ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... Duke's presence. He was dressed in black, and, like Ferguson, was almost smothered in a great periwig, which he may have adopted for purposes of disguise rather than adornment. Certainly he had none of that air of the soldier of fortune which distinguished his brother of the robe. He advanced, hat in hand, towards the table, greeting the company about it, and Wilding observed that he wore silk stockings and shoes, upon which there rested not a speck of dust. Mr. Battiscomb ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... 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 fare he had to offer. We both intended to renew our acquaintance in the ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... last soldier of fortune to essay passage to China through the ice-bound North Sea. Captain Fox of Hull and Captain James of Bristol came out in 1631 on separate expeditions, 'itching,' as Fox expressed it, to find the North-West Passage. Private individuals had fitted out both expeditions. Fox ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut

... might have something to say on this subject. The authors fail to tell that Baron von Steuben, a soldier of fortune, who sold his services to the highest bidder, was hired to join the American army by a Frenchman, Beaumarchais, who sympathised ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... whom we can recall. He is remembered as a traitor by the average Mexican (just as Bazaine is regarded by the French), although he was five times President and four times military Dictator of Mexico. It will be remembered that this eccentric and notorious soldier of fortune was banished to the West Indies, whence he wrote a congratulatory letter to the intruder Maximilian, and sought to take command under him. His proffered aid was coolly declined, whereupon he offered ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... of Bristol, Norwich, and Rochester. Sir Edward Nicholas was Secretary of State; and we read of Colonel Sydenham, Sir Robert Murray, and 'Mr. Cairless', who sat on the tree with Charles Stewart after Worcester fight. Another of the exiles at Bruges was Sir James Turner, the soldier of fortune, who served under Gustavus Adolphus, persecuted the Covenanters in Scotland, and is usually supposed to have been the original of Dugald Dalgetty in Sir Walter Scott's Legend of Montrose. A list of the royal household is still preserved at ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... 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 of land, the same ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... at this period, 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 ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... her lip, and seemed to struggle vainly for a reply, but the look in her eyes would have withered any man less accustomed to strife than this iron-jawed young soldier of fortune from Wall Street. In my turn, anger seized me ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... woman the next. You never know which may be uppermost. Yet he performed his full share of toil like a man, and, when not curling his long moustachios, or swearing in provincial French, was mostly what he should be, a careless soldier of fortune, to whom life appealed more as a play than a stern duty. He was of that spirit most severely tried by such drudgery, and, looking back upon it, I can only wonder he bore the burden as cheerfully as he did. Beneath his reckless, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... returned 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 from Owen county—"Sweet Owen," as it used to be called—and came ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... 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; one steady march, and surely the Corsairs must be swept out of Africa. But, with ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... patches were left in the road as they fell back, 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 the ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... had left Michele da Corella as his governor. This Corella was a captain of foot, a soldier of fortune, who from the earliest days of Cesare's military career had followed the duke's fortunes—the very man who is alleged to have strangled Alfonso of Aragon by Cesare's orders. He is generally assumed ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... disturbed him. A potboy, rushing past with 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

... have done with it, mine will be. At present I cannot boast that this is so, who, unless it should please my uncle Caius to decease and leave me the great fortune he squeezes out of the Spaniards—neither of which things he shows any present intention of doing—am but a soldier of fortune: an officer under the command of the excellent and most noble procurator Albinus," he added sarcastically. "For the rest," he went on, "I have spent a year in this interesting and turbulent but somewhat ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... those bars would keep me out long if I had a mind to climb them," he said to himself, complacently. But he was content to wait, walking up and down on the wet grass and running over in his mind the playhouse verses most suited to a soldier of fortune at the gate of a great lady. He had not to wait long. Before the jumble-cupboard of his memory had furnished him with the most felicitous quotation his ears heard a heavy tread through the trees, and the man with the musket hailed him, tramping ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... DE MONLUC (1502-77) are said to have been named by Henri IV. "the soldier's Bible"; the Bible is one which does not always inculcate mercy or peace. Monluc, a Gascon of honourable birth and a soldier of fortune, had the instinct of battle in his blood; from a soldier he rose through every rank to be the King's lieutenant of Guyenne and a Marshal of France; during fifty years he fought, as a daring captain rather ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... soldier of fortune in Sturatzberg is a scurvy sort of rascal. He's not over fond of his trade when there's any danger in it. But I'll sound one or two I know of, and you can see what you think of them. And mark this, Captain, don't pay them too much until they've earned it. A ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... a French soldier of fortune, born at Chambery; served under France, Russia, East India Company, and the prince of the Mahrattas, to whom he rendered signal service; amassed wealth, which he dealt out generously and for the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... which Rome could not forget, prompted by fear as well as hatred. When the Samnite war closed, the Tarentines, fearing the vengeance of the most powerful State in Italy, sent to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, a soldier of fortune, for aid. They offered the supreme command of their forces, with the right to keep a garrison in their city, till the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... 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 ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... the neck of this far-reaching and disastrous rebellion, and had restored to the Emperor of China the principal cities and towns in peace, the London Times wrote of him:—"Never did a soldier of fortune deport himself with a nicer sense of military honour, with more gallantry against the resisting, with more mercy towards the vanquished, with more disinterested neglect of opportunities of personal advantage, or with more entire devotion to the objects ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle

... the help of the New Mexican the situation was one which called for a thorough personal investigation. Gordon was a hard-headed American business man, though he held within him the generous and hare-brained potentialities of a soldier of fortune. He meant to find out just what the Moreno grant was worth. After he had investigated his legal standing he would look over the valley of the Chama himself. He took no stock in Don Manuel's assurance that the land was worthless, ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... years later to Plymouth Rock, when the Englishmen began the erection of a fort on the peninsula or island in the river, where they proposed to establish the capital of their colony. They chose for their president Edward Maria Wingfield, ignoring Captain John Smith, a gallant and resourceful soldier of fortune who would have been invaluable as a leader against any foe. The fort had not been completed when the Indians gathered in large numbers and made a desperate attack on the colony. Twelve of the colonists were killed and wounded before the savages ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... his love before she gave him that very broad 'hint to speak.' I may add that those who find fault with her forget that it was necessary for her to take the first open step. She was the daughter of a Venetian grandee, and Othello was a black soldier of fortune. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... to the full my unenviable position, and with the realisation of it there overcame me the recklessness of him who has played his last stake at the tables and lost. That recklessness it was that caused me to shrug my shoulders with a laugh. I was a soldier of fortune—or should I say a soldier of misfortune?—as rich in vice as I was poor in virtue; a man who lived by the steel and parried the blows that came as best he might, or parried them not at ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... hesitated to sacrifice the princess, together with the chief instrument of the intrigue. Was the liberation of a kingdom, the deliverance of a nation from servitude, the happiness of a whole people, to weigh in the balance against the fates of a natural daughter of Don John of Austria and a soldier of fortune turned pastry-cook? Frey Miguel thought not, and his plot might well have succeeded but for the base strain in Espinosa and the man's overweening vanity, which had urged him to dazzle the Gonzales at Valladolid. That vanity ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... in the Philippines through a soldier of fortune who had helped out the Chinese government in suppressing the rebellion in the neighborhood of Shanghai. "General" F. T. Ward, from Massachusetts, organized an army of deserters from European ships, but ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... "as you know, I am called Captain la Jonquiere; my father was, like myself, a soldier of fortune; this is a trade at which one gains in general a good deal of glory and very little money; my glorious father died, leaving me, for sole inheritance, his rapier and his uniform; I girded on the rapier, which was rather too long, and I wore the uniform, ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... he is no longer a soldier of fortune, "seeking the bubble reputation," but the champion of the weak against the strong, the lively image of a Christian Hero warring steadfastly against the ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... is one of the pleasantest parts of his strangely chequered career. He was the fourth son of Francesco Sforza, the famous soldier of fortune who had married Madonna Bianca, daughter of the last Visconti, and reigned in right of his wife as Duke of Milan during twenty years. On the 19th of August, 1451, a year and a half after the great captain had boldly entered Milan and been proclaimed ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... 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 of ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... betook himself to Europe, and the great Sargent was removed from public exhibition to a storage warehouse. In some future generation, on the disintegration of the Carson family, the portrait may come back to the world again, labelled "A Soldier of Fortune." ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick



Words linked to "Soldier of fortune" :   ninja, adventurer, venturer, mercenary



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