d'appui

For want of such a point d'appui, the older societies, and all but a few modern ones, either fell into dissolution or became stationary (which means slow deterioration) through the exclusive predominance of a part only of the conditions of social and mental well-being.

Representative Government 2002

The great difficulty of democratic government has hitherto seemed to be, how to provide, in a democratic society, what circumstances have provided hitherto in all the societies which have maintained themselves ahead of others — a social support, a point d'appui, for individual resistance to the tendencies of the ruling power; a protection, a rallying point, for opinions and interests which the ascendant public opinion views with disfavour.

Representative Government 2002

The fact remains, whatever may be the cause, that architecture has never been advanced much beyond the mere domestic in very mountainous regions, with the exception of the mediaeval strongholds, which formed the nucleus of every town or village, where a _point d'appui_ was required against invasion, for the protection of the community.

A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil T. R. Swinburne

Circassian monarchs, determined on bringing that country under the direct control of the Porte, as a _point d'appui_ for the operations to be undertaken in the Indian Ocean.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 330, April 1843 Various

This situation was bad enough as _point d'appui_ for an advance; to resist a counter-attack or raid it was deplorable.

The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Geoffrey Keith Rose

She had thought of it as a social _point d'appui_ -- she found it in her own words

Border Ghost Stories Howard Pease

But in our vast country, under a centralized system, however democratic, it would have been far more difficult to initiate the work of emancipation, on account of the magnitude and unity of the power to be moved, and for want of those _points d'appui_ afforded by the local organization and independent authority of the states in a confederacy.

The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 Devoted To Literature And National Policy Various

Fourier's fables are founded on fact; we are nothing without our opposites, our fellows, our lights and shadows, colors, relations, combinations, our _point d'appui_, and our angle of sight.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 16, February, 1859 Various

His first care was to secure his base, the railway station, and this _point d'appui_ was strongly garrisoned by the 48th Regiment.

Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. Bernard H. Becker

The rough and ready clue which it offers to the confusions of life is not drawn from any individualistic "point d'appui" of pseudo-psychological personal vision, as are these modern clues to the mystery.

Suspended Judgments Essays on Books and Sensations John Cowper Powys 1917