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Updated: June 24, 2025
Thus to the very first proposals which Boxtel made to Gryphus to filch the bulbs which Cornelius van Baerle must be supposed to conceal, if not in his breast, at least in some corner of his cell, the surly jailer had only answered by kicking Mynheer Isaac out, and setting the dog at him. The piece which the mastiff had torn from his hose did not discourage Boxtel.
And least of all, imitate the example of your godfather, Cornelius de Witt, who has plunged into politics, the most ungrateful of all careers, and who will certainly come to an untimely end." Having given utterance to this paternal advice, the worthy Mynheer van Baerle died, to the intense grief of his son Cornelius, who cared very little for the guilders, and very much for his father.
"I," said Van Baerle to himself, "I am worth much less than Grotius. They will hardly give me twelve stivers, and I shall live miserably; but never mind, at all events I shall live." Then suddenly a terrible thought struck him. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "how damp and misty that part of the country is, and the soil so bad for the tulips! And then Rosa will not be at Loewestein!"
To Boxtel's bitter mortification the cats, though they made havoc of many precious plants before they broke the string, left the four finest tulips untouched. Shortly afterwards the Haarlem Tulip Society offered a prize of 100,000 guilders to whomsoever should produce a large black tulip, without spot or blemish. Van Baerle at once thought out the idea of the black tulip.
Soon people from Dort to Mons began to talk of Mynheer van Baerle's tulips; and his beds, pits, drying-rooms, and drawers of bulbs were visited, as the galleries and libraries of Alexandria were by illustrious Roman travellers. Van Baerle began by expending his yearly revenue in laying the groundwork of his collection, after which he broke in upon his new guilders to bring it to perfection.
He went only rarely to the room where he kept his bulbs, unless it were to allow some occasional rays of the sun to enter, by opening one of the movable sashes of the glass front. On the evening of which we are speaking, after the two Corneliuses had visited together all the apartments of the house, whilst a train of domestics followed their steps, De Witt said in a low voice to Van Baerle,
It was indeed in itself a great honour for Cornelius van Baerle to be confined in the same prison which had once received the learned master Grotius. But on arriving at the prison he met with an honour even greater.
Besides, Isaac had made the discovery that too much sun was injurious to tulips, and that this flower grew quicker, and had a better colouring, with the temperate warmth of morning, than with the powerful heat of the midday sun. He therefore felt almost grateful to Cornelius van Baerle for having given him a screen gratis.
What would the world say when it heard that the black tulip was found, that it existed and that it was the prisoner Van Baerle who had found it? How Cornelius would have spurned the offer of his liberty in exchange for his tulip! Day came, without any news; the tulip was not yet in flower. The day passed as the night. Night came, and with it Rosa, joyous and cheerful as a bird.
"Here I am, sir," answered Cornelius, growing rather pale, notwithstanding all his courage. "You are Dr. Cornelius van Baerle?" asked he, this time addressing the prisoner himself. "Yes, sir." "Then follow me." "Oh! oh!" said Cornelius, whose heart felt oppressed by the first dread of death. "What quick work they make here in the fortress of Loewestein.
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