From the foregoing recital we may conclude that the grand poliphagic triumvirate of antiquity--Archestratus, Vitellius, and Apicius--never tasted this fruit, which Heaven reserved for the appreciation of modern times. Blessed shades! if, attracted sometimes by the exquisite vapours of our stoves, you should wander again round those succulent dishes which a more experienced chemistry enables us to elaborate: if fruitless gastronomic reminiscences should lead you into the delightful retreat of some one of your disciples, who by his enlightened skill is there preparing the treasures of the dessert: oh! turn away your eyes from those enticing fruits which display their golden rays, and rise in pyramids upon a porcelain pedestal. Here are oranges, the nectar and ambrosia of the Olympian ages, which you doubtless regret, and we have again discovered. These wonders of sweetness existed perhaps in China, but you knew it not, for China did not become a Roman province. But console yourselves, giants of cookery! we have not yet attained the high pinnacle of your art; your wild boar _à la Troyenne_, your peacocks’ brains, and your phenicopters’ tongues, secure for you a triumph which posterity will dispute in vain! The orange known under the name of “Portugal orange” comes from China. Not more than two centuries ago the Portuguese brought thence the first scion, which has multiplied so prodigiously that we now see entire forests of orange trees in Portugal.[XIII-39] It appears to have been the custom formerly, in England, to make new-year’s presents of oranges stuck full with cloves. We read in one of Ben Jonson’s pieces, the “Christmas Masque,” “He has an orange and rosemary, but not a clove to stick in it.”[XIII-40] At the present day we can dispense with this embellishment. The first orange tree cultivated in the centre of France was to be seen a few years ago at Fontainebleau. It was called _Le Connétable_ (the Constable), because it had belonged to the Connétable de Bourbon, and had been confiscated, together with all property belonging to that prince, after his revolt against his sovereign.[XIII-41] FIG TREE. Antiquity, sacred and profane, has not left us, on any other tree, facts so clear and certain as upon the fig tree; it is the only tree of Eden of which the sacred books have preserved to us any mention.[XIII-42] In the East there were immense plantations of it; Egypt had some also;[XIII-43] and the land of Canaan produced figs, which enabled Moses to judge of its fertility.[XIII-44] The Scriptures, in order to give us an idea of the happiness and tranquillity the Jews enjoyed under the reign of Solomon, tell us that, “in Judea and in Israel all dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree.”[XIII-45]