Troubled Times and Changing Rulers
Namur had a strong military history. After the Spanish period, the strategically important city was repeatedly besieged. In 1692, the troops of Louis XIV of France took the city after a lengthy and furious siege. Louis and his legendary military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban personally oversaw the siege. Three years later, in 1695, William III of Orange retook Namur. The Dutch occupation too would not last long. At the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, the Southern Netherlands came under the rule of the Austrian house of Habsburg. Though the Austrians ruled over the city, the strategically important citadel remained in the hands of the Dutch. The Austrian rule returned peace and calm to the Netherlands.
Read more about this topic: County Of Namur
Famous quotes containing the words troubled times, troubled, times, changing and/or rulers:
“Troubled times produce heroes.”
—Chinese proverb.
“The public easily confuses him who fishes in troubled waters with him who draws up water from the depths.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I ... toyed with the idea of going to find another war where I could at least feel alive. I was so numb that it took terror to make me feel anything.”
—Bess Jones, U.S. nurse. As quoted in the New York Times Magazine, p. 72 (November 7, 1993)
“Loves riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stayes at home, and thou with losing savest it:
But wee will have a way more liberall,
Then changing hearts, to joyne them, so wee shall
Be one, and one anothers All.”
—John Donne (1572–1631)
“Of the best rulers The people only know that they exist; The next best they love and praise The next they fear; And the next they revile. When they do not command the people’s faith, Some will lose faith in them, And then they resort to oaths! But of the best when their task is accomplished, their work done, The people all remark, “We have done it ourselves.””
—Lao-Tzu (6th century B.C.)