Fruits.--Western Europe was originally very poor in fruits, and it only improved by foreign importations, mostly from Asia by the Romans. The apricot came from Armenia, the pistachio-nuts and plums from Syria, the peach and nut from Persia, the cherry from Cerasus, the lemon from Media, the filbert from the Hellespont, and chestnuts from Castana, a town of Magnesia. We are also indebted to Asia for almonds; the pomegranate, according to some, came from Africa, to others from Cyprus; the quince from Cydon in Crete; the olive, fig, pear, and apple, from Greece. The statutes of Charlemagne show us that almost all these fruits were reared in his gardens, and that some of them were of several kinds or varieties. A considerable period, however, elapsed before the finest and more luscious productions of the garden became as it were almost forced on nature by artificial means. Thus in the sixteenth century we find Rabelais, Charles Estienne, and La Framboisière, physician to Henry IV., praising the Corbeil peach, which was only an inferior and almost wild sort, and describing it as having "_dry_ and _solid_ flesh, not adhering to the stone." The culture of this fruit, which was not larger than a damask plum, had then, according to Champier, only just been introduced into France. It must be remarked here that Jacques Coythier, physician to Louis XI., in order to curry favour with his master, who was very fond of new fruits, took as his crest an apricot-tree, from which he was jokingly called Abri-Coythier. [Illustration: Fig. 80.--Cultivation of Fruit, from a Miniature of the "Propriétaire de Choses" (Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Library of the Arsenal of Paris).] It must be owned that great progress has been made in the culture of the plum, the pear, and the apple. Champier says that the best plums are the _royale_, the _perdrigon_, and the _damas_ of Tours; Olivier de Serres mentions eighteen kinds--amongst which, however, we do not find the celebrated Reine Claude (greengage), which owes its name to the daughter of Louis XII., first wife of Francis I. Of pears, the most esteemed in the thirteenth century were the _hastiveau_, which was an early sort, and no doubt the golden pear now called St. Jean, the _caillou_ or _chaillou_, a hard pear, which came from Cailloux in Burgundy and _l'angoisse_ (agony), so called on account of its bitterness--which, however, totally disappeared in cooking. In the sixteenth century the palm is given to the _cuisse dame_, or _madame_; the _bon chrétien_, brought, it is said, by St. François de Paule to Louis XI.; the _bergamote_, which came from Bergamo, in Lombardy; the _tant-bonne_, so named from its aroma; and the _caillou rosat_, our rosewater pear. Amongst apples, the _blandureau_ (hard white) of Auvergne, the _rouveau_, and the _paradis_ of Provence, are of oldest repute. This reminds us of the couplet by the author of the "Street Cries of Paris," thirteenth century:--