The prisoner.
The flower in the prison.
There is a beautiful story in French of a prisoner who became exceedingly attached to a flower. He was put in prison by Napoleon because he was supposed to be an enemy of the government. One day as Charney (for that was his name) was walking in the yard adjoining his cell, he saw a plant pushing up from between the stones. How it came there he could not tell. Perhaps some one carelessly dropped the seed. Or perhaps the seed was blown over the wall by the wind. He knew not what plant it was, but he felt a great interest in it. Shut in within those walls away from all his friends, not permitted to interest himself with either reading or writing, he was glad to have this little living thing to watch over and love. Every day when he walked in the court he spent much time in looking at it. He soon saw some buds. He watched them as they grew larger and larger, and longed to see them open. And when the flowers at length came out he was filled with joy. They were very beautiful. They had three colors in them—white, purple, and rose color; and there was a delicate silvery fringe all round the edge. Their fragrance, too, was delicious. Charney examined them more than any he had ever seen before; and never did flowers look so beautiful to him as these.
How Charney watched and guarded it.
Charney guarded his plant with great care from all harm. He made a frame-work out of such things as he could get, so that it should not be broken down by some careless foot or by the wind. One day there was a hail-storm; and to keep his tender plant from the pelting of the hail, he stood bending over it as long as the storm lasted.
The plant was something more than a pleasure and a comfort to the prisoner. It taught him some things that he had never learned before, though he was a very wise man. When he went into the prison he was an atheist. He did not believe there was a God; and among his scribblings on the prison wall he had written, “All things come by chance.” But as he watched his loved flower, its opening beauties told him that there is a God. He felt that none but God could make that flower. And he said that the flower had taught him more than he had ever learned from the wise men of the earth.
How the prisoner was set free.
The cherished and guarded plant proved of great service to the prisoner. It was the means of his being set free. I will tell you how this was. There was another prisoner, an Italian, whose daughter came to visit him. She was much interested by the tender care which Charney took of his plant. At one time it seemed as if it were going to die, and Charney felt very sad. He wished that he could take up the stones around it, but he could not without permission. The Italian girl managed to see the Empress Josephine, and to tell her about it; and permission was given to Charney to do with his plant as he desired. The stones were taken up, and the earth was loosened, and the flower was soon as bright as ever again.
The Empress Josephine’s love of flowers.
Charney takes his plant home.