_The peach in France._--Peach-culture in France probably began about as early as in Italy, for both Columella and Pliny, as we have seen, mention the peaches of Gaul with those of Rome. Introduced thus early, finding suitable soil and climate and easily propagated, so delicious a fruit as the peach must at once have become a prime favorite in the orchards of the monasteries, where, tended by monks who were the most skilled horticulturists of the times, the peach was disseminated throughout France with the spread of Christianity. France was the foster-mother of the peach in Europe--from her nurseries the Belgians, Dutch, Germans and English had their first peach-trees. The history of the peach in France, then, is an important chapter in the history of this fruit. André Leroy, author of the great French work, _Dictionnaire de Pomologie_, gives in considerable detail the history of the peach in France and from him we briefly summarize the material he has brought together in regard to this fruit up to 1600 after which our purposes are best met by quoting directly from the originals. According to Leroy[87] only peaches with a downy skin and soft flesh which adhered to the stone came from Asia--all others, in his belief, originated in southern France. That any peach came originally from France we do not agree, for reasons given on a foregoing page. Leaving the statements of origin in dispute, the first records of peaches in France are to be found in the quotations from Columella and Pliny which we have already discussed. Leroy mentions as the second record a reference to the peach by Bishop Fortunat of Portiers in 530; a third from the fourteenth Abbot of the monastery of Saint-Denis near Paris in the year 784; while the great Charlemagne, who in 800 mentions "peaches of different kinds," furnishes the fourth of Leroy's early records; the fifth account is taken from the letters of Lupus, Abbot of Ferrieres, near Amiens, who sent several varieties of peaches to a brother with instructions as to how to plant the pits, the approximate date being 860.