honour was offered to him, readily enough, in the name of
the city.
After having thanked his fellow citizens, Cornelius
proceeded to his old paternal house, and gave directions for
some repairs, which he wished to have executed before the
arrival of his wife and children; and thence he wended his
way to the house of his godson, who perhaps was the only
person in Dort as yet unacquainted with the presence of
Cornelius in the town.
In the same degree as Cornelius de Witt had excited the
hatred of the people by sowing those evil seeds which are
called political passions, Van Baerle had gained the
affections of his fellow citizens by completely shunning the
pursuit of politics, absorbed as he was in the peaceful
pursuit of cultivating tulips.
Van Baerle was truly beloved by his servants and labourers;
nor had he any conception that there was in this world a man
who wished ill to another.
And yet it must be said, to the disgrace of mankind, that
Page 37
Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip
Cornelius van Baerle, without being aware of the fact, had a
much more ferocious, fierce, and implacable enemy than the
Grand Pensionary and his brother had among the Orange party,
who were most hostile to the devoted brothers, who had never
been sundered by the least misunderstanding during their
lives, and by their mutual devotion in the face of death
made sure the existence of their brotherly affection beyond
the grave.
At the time when Cornelius van Baerle began to devote
himself to tulip-growing, expending on this hobby his yearly
revenue and the guilders of his father, there was at Dort,
living next door to him, a citizen of the name of Isaac
Boxtel who from the age when he was able to think for
himself had indulged the same fancy, and who was in
ecstasies at the mere mention of the word “tulban,” which
(as we are assured by the “Floriste Francaise,” the most
highly considered authority in matters relating to this
flower) is the first word in the Cingalese tongue which was
ever used to designate that masterpiece of floriculture
which is now called the tulip.
Boxtel had not the good fortune of being rich, like Van
Baerle. He had therefore, with great care and patience, and
by dint of strenuous exertions, laid out near his house at
Dort a garden fit for the culture of his cherished flower;
he had mixed the soil according to the most approved
prescriptions, and given to his hotbeds just as much heat
and fresh air as the strictest rules of horticulture exact.
Isaac knew the temperature of his frames to the twentieth
part of a degree. He knew the strength of the current of
air, and tempered it so as to adapt it to the wave of the
stems of his flowers. His productions also began to meet
with the favour of the public. They were beautiful, nay,
distinguished. Several fanciers had come to see Boxtel’s
tulips. At last he had even started amongst all the
Linnaeuses and Tourneforts a tulip which bore his name, and
which, after having travelled all through France, had found
its way into Spain, and penetrated as far as Portugal; and
the King, Don Alfonso VI. — who, being expelled from
Lisbon, had retired to the island of Terceira, where he
amused himself, not, like the great Conde, with watering his
carnations, but with growing tulips — had, on seeing the
Boxtel tulip, exclaimed, “Not so bad, by any means!”
All at once, Cornelius van Baerle, who, after all his
learned pursuits, had been seized with the tulipomania, made
some changes in his house at Dort, which, as we have stated,
was next door to that of Boxtel. He raised a certain
building in his court-yard by a story, which shutting out
the sun, took half a degree of warmth from Boxtel’s garden,
and, on the other hand, added half a degree of cold in
winter; not to mention that it cut the wind, and disturbed
all the horticultural calculations and arrangements of his
neighbour.
After all, this mishap appeared to Boxtel of no great
consequence. Van Baerle was but a painter, a sort of fool