Les vainqueurs firent main basse sur les biens des habitants = The victors pillaged the town.
Rester chapeau bas = To stand hat in hand.
Il m’a traité de haut en bas = He treated me contemptuously.
Bât
Vous ne savez pas où le bât le blesse = You do not know where the shoe pinches him.
[“Je sçay mieux où le bas me blesse.” Maistre Pierre Pathelin, l. 1357. Bât = pack-saddle. Compare the German: Jeder weiss am besten wo ihn der Schuh drückt.
The phrase first appears in Plutarch’s Life of Æmilius Paullus. A certain Roman having forsaken his wife, her friends fell out with him and asked what fault he found in her; was she not faithful and fair, and had she not borne him many beautiful children? He replied by putting forth his foot and saying: “Is not this a goodly shoe? Is it not finely made, and is it not new? And yet I dare say there is not one of you can tell where it pinches me.”]
Bataillon
Inconnu au bataillon (fam.) = I don’t know him; No one knows him.
Bataille