Flowers Loved by Great Men 



HI. THE EMPEROR WILLIAM AND THE CORN- 

 FLOWER 



BY LOR A S. LA MANCE 



WHO does not remember the good 

 old baclielor-buttons of our 

 mother's flower gardens, with 

 their simple yet pretty flowers of pink, 

 white and blue? In Europe this same 

 flower, save that it is rmiformly of a clear 

 bright blue, springs np as a weed of the 

 corn-field. It is called by the conmion 

 names of bine-bottle and corn-flower. In 

 Germany it is also known as kaiser-blnme 

 (king's flower) because good Emperor 

 William loved this common flower above 

 all others, and made it the royal flower by 

 special favor. And the story of his liking 

 for the corn-flower is to his honor both as 

 a son and as a monarch. 



The mother of Emperor William was 

 but twenty-one years older than himself, 

 and became queen in the year he was born. 

 This Queen Louise was considered the 

 most beautiful woman in Europe. And 

 she was as gentle and good as she was 

 lovely. The little William adored his 

 beautiful mother. He was a boy of nine 

 when he saw his country torn and op- 

 pressed by Xapoleon. The unhappy queen 

 sought the conqueror, and b}" every art 

 sought to gain concessions for her dis- 

 tracted land. All was in vain. ^N'apoleon 

 afterward sent some of his generals to her 

 at Konigsberg, as though to fete her, and 

 honor Prussians queen. The indignant 

 queen appeared before them in a white 

 dress, made severely plain, and her only 

 decorations were a bunch of blue corn- 

 flowers in her hair, and a small cluster of 

 the same flowers at her corsage. "See," 

 said she, with pathetic dignity, "since 

 your horses have trodden down our corn- 

 fields, gentlemen, these pretty wild flowers 

 may well be counted among the rare treas- 

 ures of my unhappy country !" The boy 



never forgot the speech, or the picture of 

 his white-robed mother wearing the weeds 

 of the corn-field as the only flowers left 

 her. 



I^ot long after the queen fled for safety • 

 from Konigsmark, taking her two sons 

 with her. In their flight a wheel rolled 

 from their carriage, and they had to take 

 refuge by the roadside. The little princes 

 cried with fatigue and hunger. But their 

 brave mother picked blue corn-flowers for 

 them, and then wove them into wreaths. 

 By and by little William saw her hot tears 

 falling on the unconscious flowers, and 

 then he became comforter in his stead, 

 throwing his arms about her neck and 

 kissing her tears away. And the queen 

 smiled sadly, and placed the wreath she 

 had just woven on his head. It is said 

 that the scene never fled from his mem- 

 ory. William was but a lad of thirteen 

 when this good and gentle queen died. 

 And ever after her death he loved the 

 flowers that reminded him of her. The 

 choicest hothouse bouquet was as nothing 

 to him compared with a nosegay of Queen 

 Louise's corn-flowers. 



And so the corn-flower became the royal 

 kaiser-blume, and was gro^m in all loyal 

 Germans' gardens, and carried on all na- 

 tional or fete days. Fittingly so, for the 

 hue of Centaurea C3'anus is the, shade of 

 German porcelain, the color of a German 

 maiden's eye, the tint of a German sum- 

 mer's sky. And its blossoms, of a many- 

 making-one type, each fringed ray perfect 

 in itself, yet but one of a circle around a . 

 common center, typifies the union of many 

 individual German states into the one 

 mighty German empire. Germany may 

 well treasure the favorite flower of her first 

 emperor. 



