reasonably entertained, as he could not have received such
papers from the hand of his godfather without being made
acquainted with their important character.
He replied that his godfather Cornelius loved him too well,
and, above all, that he was too considerate a man to have
communicated to him anything of the contents of the parcel,
well knowing that such a confidence would only have caused
anxiety to him who received it.
To this it was objected that, if De Witt had wished to act
in such a way, he would have added to the parcel, in case of
accidents, a certificate setting forth that his godson was
an entire stranger to the nature of this correspondence, or
at least he would during his trial have written a letter to
him, which might be produced as his justification.
Cornelius replied that undoubtedly his godfather could not
have thought that there was any risk for the safety of his
deposit, hidden as it was in a press which was looked upon
as sacred as the tabernacle by the whole household of Van
Baerle; and that consequently he had considered the
certificate as useless. As to a letter, he certainly had
some remembrance that some moments previous to his arrest,
whilst he was absorbed in the contemplation of one of the
rarest of his bulbs, John de Witt’s servant entered his
dry-room, and handed to him a paper, but the whole was to
him only like a vague dream; the servant had disappeared,
and as to the paper, perhaps it might be found if a proper
search were made.
As far as Craeke was concerned, it was impossible to find
him, as he had left Holland.
The paper also was not very likely to be found, and no one
gave himself the trouble to look for it.
Cornelius himself did not much press this point, since, even
supposing that the paper should turn up, it could not have
any direct connection with the correspondence which
constituted the crime.
The judges wished to make it appear as though they wanted to
urge Cornelius to make a better defence; they displayed that
benevolent patience which is generally a sign of the
magistrate’s being interested for the prisoner, or of a
man’s having so completely got the better of his adversary
that he needs no longer any oppressive means to ruin him.
Cornelius did not accept of this hypocritical protection,
and in a last answer, which he set forth with the noble
bearing of a martyr and the calm serenity of a righteous
man, he said, —
“You ask me things, gentlemen, to which I can answer only
the exact truth. Hear it. The parcel was put into my hands
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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip
in the way I have described; I vow before God that I was,
and am still, ignorant of its contents, and that it was not
until my arrest that I learned that this deposit was the
correspondence of the Grand Pensionary with the Marquis de
Louvois. And lastly, I vow and protest that I do not
understand how any one should have known that this parcel
was in my house; and, above all, how I can be deemed
criminal for having received what my illustrious and
unfortunate godfather brought to my house.”
This was Van Baerle’s whole defence; after which the judges
began to deliberate on the verdict.
They considered that every offshoot of civil discord is
mischievous, because it revives the contest which it is the
interest of all to put down.
One of them, who bore the character of a profound observer,
laid down as his opinion that this young man, so phlegmatic
in appearance, must in reality be very dangerous, as under
this icy exterior he was sure to conceal an ardent desire to
avenge his friends, the De Witts.
Another observed that the love of tulips agreed perfectly
well with that of politics, and that it was proved in
history that many very dangerous men were engaged in
gardening, just as if it had been their profession, whilst
really they occupied themselves with perfectly different
concerns; witness Tarquin the Elder, who grew poppies at