PARIS. 169 



guished patron of fruit-gardening in France, and to him 

 the French owe this establishment. The religious brother- 

 hood in this place, like the monks in our own country, had 

 fine gardens, and paid much attention to the selection of 

 their fruits. By investing them with immunities and privi- 

 leges, the King encouraged them to extend their views, and 

 to spend a considerable part of the revenues of their convent 

 in collecting plants or grafts of all the best kinds of fruit- 

 trees from every part of Europe to which their correspond- 

 ence reached ; and the intercourse of the principal religious 

 houses was in those days of the most extensive description. 

 The Chartreux gardens are reported to have then included 

 about eighty French acres, and in a few years a great part 

 of these were converted into nursery-grounds. The fa- 

 thers conducted matters prosperously, and for a long time 

 continued to draw large profits from their nursery, while 

 they greatly promoted the horticultural interests of France. 

 It is understood that, besides importing all the known and 

 approved varieties of fruit-trees, they likewise raised some 

 good kinds from the seed. Among these is the Poire Sa- 

 rassin, which is still familiarly known by the name of 

 Blessed Pear, from the circumstance of its having been ori- 

 ginally raised by these Carthusian monks. 



At the time of the general suppression of convents in 

 France in the year 1791, the Chartreux gardens were on 

 the verge of destruction ; and the vast assemblage of all the 

 kinds of fruit-trees, the labour of more than a century, 

 would have been dispersed and lost, but for the zeal of old 

 Hervy, the father of the present director. He contrived 

 to preserve the kinds, and to retard the final demolition of 

 the place. Fortunately, the enlightened Chaptal soon af- 

 terwards came into power, and, on the application of Her- 

 vy, secured the preservation of the remnant of the former 

 collection, by procuring the designation of the ground as a 



