that is to say, for the support of national honour — as
they were to reward the growth of a new flower, destined to
bloom for one day, and to serve during that day to divert
the ladies, the learned, and the curious.
At the head of the notables and of the Horticultural
Committee shone Mynheer van Systens, dressed in his richest
habiliments.
The worthy man had done his best to imitate his favourite
flower in the sombre and stern elegance of his garments; and
we are bound to record, to his honour, that he had perfectly
succeeded in his object.
Dark crimson velvet, dark purple silk, and jet-black cloth,
with linen of dazzling whiteness, composed the festive dress
of the President, who marched at the head of his Committee
carrying an enormous nosegay, like that which a hundred and
twenty-one years later, Monsieur de Robespierre displayed at
the festival of “The Supreme Being.”
There was, however, a little difference between the two;
very different from the French tribune, whose heart was so
full of hatred and ambitious vindictiveness, was the honest
President, who carried in his bosom a heart as innocent as
the flowers which he held in his hand.
Behind the Committee, who were as gay as a meadow, and as
fragrant as a garden in spring, marched the learned
societies of the town, the magistrates, the military, the
nobles and the boors.
The people, even among the respected republicans of the
Seven Provinces, had no place assigned to them in the
procession; they merely lined the streets.
This is the place for the multitude, which with true
philosophic spirit, waits until the triumphal pageants have
passed, to know what to say of them, and sometimes also to
know what to do.
This time, however, there was no question either of the
triumph of Pompey or of Caesar; neither of the defeat of
Mithridates, nor of the conquest of Gaul. The procession was
as placid as the passing of a flock of lambs, and as
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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip
inoffensive as a flight of birds sweeping through the air.
Haarlem had no other triumphers, except its gardeners.
Worshipping flowers, Haarlem idolised the florist.
In the centre of this pacific and fragrant cortege the black
tulip was seen, carried on a litter, which was covered with
white velvet and fringed with gold.
The handles of the litter were supported by four men, who
were from time to time relieved by fresh relays, — even as
the bearers of Mother Cybele used to take turn and turn
about at Rome in the ancient days, when she was brought from
Etruria to the Eternal City, amid the blare of trumpets and
the worship of a whole nation.
This public exhibition of the tulip was an act of adoration
rendered by an entire nation, unlettered and unrefined, to
the refinement and culture of its illustrious and devout
leaders, whose blood had stained the foul pavement of the
Buytenhof, reserving the right at a future day to inscribe
the names of its victims upon the highest stone of the Dutch
Pantheon.
It was arranged that the Prince Stadtholder himself should
give the prize of a hundred thousand guilders, which
interested the people at large, and it was thought that
perhaps he would make a speech which interested more
particularly his friends and enemies.
For in the most insignificant words of men of political
importance their friends and their opponents always
endeavour to detect, and hence think they can interpret,
something of their true thoughts.
As if your true politician’s hat were not a bushel under
which he always hides his light!
At length the great and long-expected day — May 15, 1673 —
arrived; and all Haarlem, swelled by her neighbours, was
gathered in the beautiful tree-lined streets, determined on
this occasion not to waste its applause upon military
heroes, or those who had won notable victories in the field
of science, but to reserve their applause for those who had
overcome Nature, and had forced the inexhaustible mother to
be delivered of what had theretofore been regarded as
impossible, — a completely black tulip.
Nothing however, is more fickle than such a resolution of