never put his hand into the press but to ascertain whether
his bulbs were dry, and that he never looked into it but to

see if they were beginning to sprout.
To this again it was objected, that his pretended

indifference respecting this deposit was not to be
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 certificatesetting 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

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
Gabii, and the Great Conde, who watered his carnations at

the dungeon of Vincennes at the very moment when the former
meditated his return to Rome, and the latter his escape from

prison.
The judge summed up with the following dilemma: --

"Either Cornelius van Baerle is a great lover of tulips, or
a great lover of politics; in either case, he has told us a

falsehood; first, because his having occupied himself with
politics is proved by the letters which were found at his

house; and secondly, because his having occupied himself
with tulips is proved by the bulbs which leave no doubt of

the fact. And herein lies the enormity of the case. As
Cornelius van Baerle was concerned in the growing of tulips

and in the pursuit of politics at one and the same time, the
prisoner is of hybridcharacter, of an amphibious

organisation, working with equal ardour at politics and at
tulips, which proves him to belong to the class of men most

dangerous to public tranquillity, and shows a certain, or
rather a complete, analogy between his character and that of

those master minds of which Tarquin the Elder and the Great
Conde have been felicitously quoted as examples."

The upshot of all these reasonings was, that his Highness
the Prince Stadtholder of Holland would feel infinitely

obliged to the magistracy of the Hague if they simplified
for him the government of the Seven Provinces by destroying

even the least germ of conspiracy against his authority.
This argument capped all the others, and, in order so much

the more effectually to destroy the germ of conspiracy,
sentence of death was unanimouslypronounced against

Cornelius van Baerle, as being arraigned, and convicted, for
having, under the innocent appearance of a tulip-fancier,

participated in the detestable intrigues and abominable
plots of the brothers De Witt against Dutch nationality and

in their secret relations with their French enemy.
A supplementary clause was tacked to the sentence, to the

effect that "the aforesaid Cornelius van Baerle should be
led from the prison of the Buytenhof to the scaffold in the

yard of the same name, where the public executioner would
cut off his head."

As this deliberation was a most serious affair, it lasted a
full half-hour, during which the prisoner was remanded to

his cell.
There the Recorder of the States came to read the sentence

to him.
Master Gryphus was detained in bed by the fever caused by

the fracture of his arm. His keys passed into the hands of
one of his assistants. Behind this turnkey, who introduced

the Recorder, Rosa, the fair Frisian maid, had slipped into
the recess of the door, with a handkerchief to her mouth to

stifle her sobs.
Cornelius listened to the sentence with an expression rather

of surprise than sadness.
After the sentence was read, the Recorder asked him whether

he had anything to answer.
"Indeed, I have not," he replied. "Only I confess that,