Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

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