

12 THE ROSE. 
When Maria Antoinette passed through Nancy, 
on her way to be married to Lewis XVI, the 
ladies of Lorraine prepared her a bed strewed 
with roses. In the middle ages roses were held 
sO precious in France that a royal license was 
necessary to grow them; Charlemagne, recom- 
mended the cultivation of the Rose in his 
“Capitulation.’”?’ The Persians of Shiraz stop 
their wine bottles with roses to give the wine 
a pleasing perfume; and during the festival of 
Abrizan, which takes place during the equinox, 
Persian ladies throw roses at each other when 
they visit. ‘‘On entering the gardens of the royal 
palace of Persia,’ says Sir Robert Porter, ‘you 
are struck with the appearance of rose-trees full 
fourteen feet high, laden with thousands of roses, 
blooming and diffusing a delicacy of perfume, 
that imbued the whole atmosphere; but in these 
delicious gardens of Negaristan, the eye and the 
olfactories are not the only senses regaled by 
the presence of the Rose; the ear is enchanted 
by the wild and beautiful notes of multitudes 
of nightingales, whose warbling seems to increase 
in melody and softness with the unfolding of 
their favorite flowers. Here, indeed, is the 


