Saint-Simon, born 1720; died 1799 at Utrecht. This Marquis de Saint-Simon was uncle to Claude Henri, Comte de Saint-Simon, founder of the sect called Saint-Simoniennes. I think the Marquis was nephew of the Duc de Saint-Simon, author of the Mémoires of Louis XIV.
II
THE TULIP TRADE
From De Koning’s History of Haarlem (1635)
Many, no doubt, have heard of the extraordinary mania for tulips in Holland in the seventeenth century. Dutchmen of all classes, highest to lowest, forsook their ordinary occupations and business, in order to engage in the tulip trade.
It is said the mania began first in France in the year 1635, and thence spread to the Netherlands. Enormous prices were paid, and even houses and land given in exchange for one bulb.
In Haarlem there stands a house, at one time in possession of the Widow de Lange and Van Ek—it is numbered W. 3, No. 575. It used to be two separate buildings, and one of them was known as the Tulip House, because it was sold for one single tulip. When the last alterations were made to this house in 1858 there was still to be seen a stone set in the gable, upon which was carved a tulip, and below the following inscription:—
1637.
This stone was kept as a remembrance of the famous tulip trade of the year 1637, “when one fool hatched from another, the people were rich without substance, and wise without knowledge.”
Since that famous year, according to tradition, the road that led to the country beyond the Groot Poort and to the surrounding neighbourhood, where most of the best Haarlemers grew tulips, was called, in remembrance of all the money lost, “The moneyless path.” The rage for tulips became intense, and every one was caught by the craze, and positively some were driven mad by it. Though a few made a great deal of money, the majority of the new bulb growers and buyers lost everything they possessed! There is a saying in Dutch, “It is not good to come to black seed, for then comes poverty.” (Canaries are fond of eating their white seed first, and then have nothing left but the black.)