Preserving the World's Rarest BooksRoses are Red, Violets are Blue, this Book about Tulips is Too Good for You

Few flowers can claim to have more of an influence on human history than the Tulip.

They are best remembered as the object of inflated expectation during the Dutch ‘Tulipmania’ in the early 17th century. This famous financial bubble, which was largely driven by wealthy investors, saw the price of tulip bulbs climb to extraordinary heights in the 1630s. Even after prices tanked in 1637, the tulip remained an elite commodity. As interest in cultivating exotic and distinguished gardens increased throughout the seventeenth century, the tulip took on new meanings as a symbol of personal distinction and connoisseurship.

Gardening manuals are as old as print itself but by the seventeenth century, an elite interest in gardening had created the need for a new kind of book, one that could guide the choices of the connoisseur, distinguishing the floristes from the jardiners. First published in Caen in 1654, Le Floriste François is one of the earliest treatises on tulips to be published after the bubble burst in 1637. It was written by a gentlemen gardener, the Sieur de la Chesnée Monstereul who dedicated it to a noblewoman, Mademoiselle de Beuvron. Like many French gardening books, Le Floriste François was printed in a small octavo format, designed to be easily carried around by a noble woman to supervise the work of her gardener. The text contains a history of the tulip, how one might cultivate the flower, and a catalogue of tulip names with their distinctive colours. The text also contains several poems written by prominent members of the Norman elite including Madame de Scudéry and the founder of the Caen Académie, Jacques Moisant De Brieux.

La Chesnée Monstereul and his commentators placed the tulip above all other flowers and its cultivation, they argued, was the focal point of ‘gentle society’ (douce societé). At the time, flower markets could not yet supply the public with rare and exquisite flowers, including tulips. These remained the preserve of elite collectors who corresponded with each other, shared bulbs, and discussed their cultivation. Marvelling at the speculation in the Netherlands, La Chesnée Monstereul expressed concern at the prospect of the tulip becoming a public commodity: ‘if tulips were rendered common, it would only take away the most praiseworthy commerce between men, and deprive them of the gentlest society that existed among men of honour.’ Those, like the Dutch, who attempted to market tulips like diamonds and pearls had ‘nothing for their aim except an infamous utility’ and should be ‘banished from human commerce.’ The distinguished tulip was an object of cultural sophistication, moral reflection, and elite sociability. It was far too good for the market. 

This exclusivity of tulip cultivation was somewhat contradicted by the publication of a printed treatise. La Chesnée Monstereul claims to know the secret to ‘breaking’ tulips, the process of creating multi-coloured streaks in tulip petals. He insists, however, that this knowledge was only suitable for manuscript circulation so not to allow such ‘secrets of Divinity’ to be ‘profaned by the vulgar’. Instead, he cryptically encodes this process into a bizarre poem so as only to be understood by ‘Sages Curieux (curious sages)’. He justifies his secrecy by citing Francis Bacon’s treatise on Art and Nature: ‘it is not reasonable that such a curious person has obtained some knowledge by his industry, to publish it to all; especially since it is madness to give lettuce to an Ass, seeing that the thistles suffice for him.’

La Chesnée Monstereul’s efforts to keep tulips solely in elite hands failed. As the flower trade became more sophisticated and the tulip more accessible, the public interest in gardening and flowers presented a new opportunity for publishers. A Paris printer, Charles de Sercy seized on the opportunity to publish modestly priced gardening handbooks and reprints of floriculturist classics. Le Floriste François had undoubtedly earned its place as a classic of the seventeenth century and reappeared in Sercy’s re-editions in 1697 under the title Traité des tulipes. As the exotic tulip and its secrets were ‘rendered common’, the age of the ‘Sages Curieux’ declined. Flowers remained a decorative favourite, but tulips were no longer a focal point in noble connoisseurship. La Chesnée Monstereul’s worst fears had come true.

Le Floriste François is available in a number of collections including one of our partner libraries in Aix-en-Provence BM. It is a unique text in its own right but also in its origins in the town of Caen. As we continue to incorporate data from the second half of the seventeenth century, the richness of the seventeenth century French provincial book world will become clearer for book and horticultural historians alike.