Chevaliers de lʹindustrie; men who live by their wits. Referring to those men in mediæval times who let themselves for hire into any army.
“His father was a soldier of fortune, as I am a sailor.”—Sir W. Scott: The Antiquary, chap. xx.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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