noun
definition
A small, carnivorous South American mammal, of the genus Galictis, somewhat resembling a weasel.
Examples of grisons in a Sentence
It rises at an elevation of 7800 ft., in a small lake under the Piz Longhino, in the Swiss canton of the Grisons.
The Rhine rises in the mountains of the Swiss canton of the Grisons, and flows for 233 m.
The bishopric still exists, with jurisdiction over the Cantons of the Grisons, Glarus, Zurich, and the three Forest Cantons, as well as the Austrian principality of Liechtenstein.
From the Grisons, who favoured France and Venice, Spain seized the Valtelline in 1620, incidentally uprooting heresy there by the massacre of six hundred Protestants.
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1815 of the Swiss Confederation, at least so far as regards the mountain Cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively.
The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.
On the other hand, the Grisons won in 1512 the Valtellina, with Bormio and Chiavenna, but in 1797 these regions were finally lost to it as well as to the Swiss Confederation, though the Grisons retained the valleys of Mesocco, Bregaglia and Poschiavo, while in 1762 it had bought the upper bit of the valley of Munster that lies on the southern slope of the Alps.
In Switzerland there are Italian-speaking regions, as well as some spots (in the Grisons) where the old Romance dialect of Romansch or Ladin survives; while in Austria, besides German, Italian and Ladin, we havea Slavonic-speaking population in the South-Eastern Alps.
On the other hand, since the socalled peat-sheep of the prehistoric Swiss lake-dwellers appears to be represented by the existing Graubunden (Grisons) breed, which is woolly and coloured something like a Southdown, it may be argued that the former was probably also woolly, and hence that the survival of a hairy breed in a neighbouring part of Europe would be unlikely.
By his alliance with the Grisons (1603) he guaranteed the integrity of the Valtellina, the natural approach to Lombardy for the imperial forces; and by his intimate union with Geneva he controlled the routes by which the Spaniards could reach their hereditary possessions in Franche-Comt and the Low Countries from Italy.
Goaded by the vigorous revival of militant Catholicism which marked the opening of the 17th century, de Luynes tried to put a finishing touch to the triumph of Catholicism in France, which he had assisted, by abandoning in the treaty of Ulm the defence of the small German states against the ambition of the ruling house of Austria, and by sacrificing the Protestant Grisons to Spain.
Under pressure of this new danger and urged on by the Catholic dvts, supported by the influence of Pope Urban VIII., Richelieu concluded with Spain the treaty of Monzon (March 5, 1626), by which the interests of his allies Venice, Savoy and the Grisons were sacrificed without their being consulted.
The Catholic Valtellina, freed from the claims of the Protestant Grisons, became an independent state under the joint protection of France and Spain; the question of the right of passage was left open, to trouble France during the campaigns that followed; but the immediate gain, so far as Richelieu was concerned, was that his hands were freed to deal with the Huguenots.
The cult of St Maurice and the Theban legion is found in Switzerland (where two places bear the name in Valais, besides St Moritz in Grisons), along the Rhine, and in north Italy.
The natural phenomena of Switzerland, and the political complications in the Valtellina, where the Catholic inhabitants had thrown off the yoke of the Grisons and called in the Papal and Spanish troops to their assistance, delayed him some time; but he reached Venice in time to see the ceremony of the doge's wedlock with the Adriatic. After paying his vows at Loretto, he came to Rome, which was then on the eve of a year of jubilee - an occasion which Descartes seized to observe the variety of men and manners which the city then embraced within its walls.