Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

On the eve of the day when the flower was expected to open,

the tulip was taken away by this young woman. She carried it

to her room, from which I had the good luck to recover it at

the very moment when she had the impudence to despatch a

messenger to announce to the members of the Horticultural

Society that she had produced the grand black tulip. But she

did not stop there. There is no doubt that, during the few

hours which she kept the flower in her room, she showed it

to some persons whom she may now call as witnesses. But,

fortunately, your Highness has now been warned against this

impostor and her witnesses.”

“Oh, my God, my God! what infamous falsehoods!” said Rosa,

bursting into tears, and throwing herself at the feet of the

Stadtholder, who, although thinking her guilty, felt pity

for her dreadful agony.

“You have done very wrong, my child,” he said, “and your

lover shall be punished for having thus badly advised you.

For you are so young, and have such an honest look, that I

am inclined to believe the mischief to have been his doing,

and not yours.”

“Monseigneur! Monseigneur!” cried Rosa, “Cornelius is not

guilty.”

William started.

“Not guilty of having advised you? that’s what you want to

say, is it not?”

“What I wish to say, your Highness, is that Cornelius is as

little guilty of the second crime imputed to him as he was

of the first.”

“Of the first? And do you know what was his first crime? Do

you know of what he was accused and convicted? Of having, as

an accomplice of Cornelius de Witt, concealed the

correspondence of the Grand Pensionary and the Marquis de

Louvois.”

“Well, sir, he was ignorant of this correspondence being

deposited with him; completely ignorant. I am as certain as

of my life, that, if it were not so, he would have told me;

for how could that pure mind have harboured a secret without

revealing it to me? No, no, your Highness, I repeat it, and

even at the risk of incurring your displeasure, Cornelius is

no more guilty of the first crime than of the second; and of

the second no more than of the first. Oh, would to Heaven

that you knew my Cornelius; Monseigneur!”

“He is a De Witt!” cried Boxtel. “His Highness knows only

too much of him, having once granted him his life.”

Page 152

Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

“Silence!” said the Prince; “all these affairs of state, as

I have already said, are completely out of the province of

the Horticultural Society of Haarlem.”

Then, knitting his brow, he added, —

“As to the tulip, make yourself easy, Master Boxtel, you

shall have justice done to you.”

Boxtel bowed with a heart full of joy, and received the

congratulations of the President.

“You, my child,” William of Orange continued, “you were

going to commit a crime. I will not punish you; but the real

evil-doer shall pay the penalty for both. A man of his name

may be a conspirator, and even a traitor, but he ought not

to be a thief.”

“A thief!” cried Rosa. “Cornelius a thief? Pray, your

Highness, do not say such a word, it would kill him, if he

knew it. If theft there has been, I swear to you, Sir, no

one else but this man has committed it.”

“Prove it,” Boxtel coolly remarked.

“I shall prove it. With God’s help I shall.”

Then, turning towards Boxtel, she asked, —

“The tulip is yours?”

“It is.”

“How many bulbs were there of it?”

Boxtel hesitated for a moment, but after a short

consideration he came to the conclusion that she would not

ask this question if there were none besides the two bulbs

of which he had known already. He therefore answered, —

“Three.”

“What has become of these bulbs?”

“Oh! what has become of them? Well, one has failed; the

second has produced the black tulip.”

“And the third?

“The third!”

“The third, — where is it?”

“I have it at home,” said Boxtel, quite confused.

“At home? Where? At Loewestein, or at Dort?”