228 WILD FLOWERS. 



above all, with roses. The officiating peer then pro- 

 vided a magnificent breakfast for the presidents, 

 councillors, and officers of the court ; which break- 

 fast was required to take place in public. He then 

 proceeded into each of the different courts, ac- 

 companied by the sound of harps and .flageolets, 

 and bearing a large silver bowl containing bouquets 

 of roses, and garlands and chaplets of the same 

 flower. He was finally received in the great court ; 

 and having there attended at the celebration of 

 mass, with the whole of the members, the presi- 

 dents were conducted by the musicians to their 

 own houses, and the ceremony ended. 



At this period Paris and other large French cities 

 had each professional " chaplet-weavers/' who are 

 distinctively alluded to in many public documents. 

 And in consequence of the profuse employment of 

 the rose, both in these chaplets, and for the purpose 

 of strewing over the tables and floors at festivals, 

 large fields of roses were cultivated in the environs 

 of all the larger cities : reminding the traveller, by 

 their fragrance, of the "gardens of Gul in their 

 bloom : " the celebrated rose-gardens of Persia : 



" Oh, who has not heard of the vale of Cashmere, 

 With its roses, the brightest that earth ever gave ?" 



Sir R. Ker Porter gives a most glowing account 

 of the gardens of Negauristan, comparing their 

 flowery mazes to those described in the old fairy 

 tale of " Beauty and the Beast/' He was especially 

 astonished at the appearance of two rose-trees, 

 measuring full fourteen feet in height, and laden 

 with thousands of flowers in every degree of ex- 



