He was rich and grow better tulips than Boxtel did. Issac BOXTEL lived next door to Cornelius ,he was jealous of him because There was a new competition where a prize was offered to the person whoĬornelius looked to win the first prize. His father was a rich merchant in Hollland ,before he died he said to Cornelius :’son,I want you to be happy ,do something with your life that will bring you peace and happiness.’Ĭornelius quit his work and he enjoyed growing flowers ,especially tulips. Timeless political allegory draws on the violence and crimes of history,making a case against tyranny and creating a symbol of justice and tolerance.Ĭornelius Van Baerl was working as a doctor. But perseverance will be rewarded with a very entertaining story.Puplisher:Baudry paris 1850 Genre :historical, romanticĪ deceptively sinple story and the shortest of Dumas’s most famus novels the black tulip weaves historical events surrounding a brutal murder into a tale of romantic love. That makes certainly the first page discouraging, with one of the longest opening sentences I saw so far, and a series of historical facts. The story starts with an overview of the final hours of the De Witt brothers, and then slowy shifts from a historical novel to the fictional history of Van Baerle, and his awakening - or should I say budding - love for Rosa. But Van Baerle's enemy, Boxtel, who had hoped to gain the tulip-bulbs after his execution, hasn't given up hope yet to grab those bulbs. Not only has he regained the chance to grown that black tulip, but the love of Rosa, the beautiful daughter of his jailer, brightens up the days he spend between his four walls. Van Baerle's life is suddenly full of perspectives. He resigns himself in the fact he won't ever see his black tulip grow, but at the last moment Wilhelm of Orange pardons him and converts the sentence to life-long emprisonment. The police indeed finds the incriminating letters, and Van Baerle is condamned to death. His neighbour, the less successful tulip-gardener Isaac Boxtel, suspects Van Baerle will be winning the reward for being the first to grow a black tulip, and enviously reports in an anonymous letter that he saw Van Baerle receive a bundle of papers from the disfavoured De Witt. He's mostly concentrated on his tulips, on his attempts to breed new kinds, and mostly on the race towards being the first to grow a black tulip. But the distracted Van Baerle forgets both the note and the letters. Just before they are lynched Cornelis De Witt sends his servant to his godson Cornelius Van Baerle, a gentle scholar with a passion for tulips, to bring him a note urging him to burn a bundle of letters De Witt has left at Van Baerle's place some time ago, burn them without reading. Cornelis De Witt is the victim of changes in the political climate, and not that much later he and his brother Johan are the victims of a mob that satisfies its lust for blood on them.

The black tulip dumas