In the opening years of the nineteenth century this institution very nearly came to an end. It was costly to keep up, produced little or no revenue, and Napoleon, who was then First Consul and included Ghent in his rapidly widening dominions, decided that it should be suppressed. A friend of the garden skilfully took advantage of a visit of Josephine to Ghent to enlist her aid in persuading her husband to spare it. Inviting the future empress to visit the establishment, he contrived that the plants and flowers should plead their own cause. Between two palms at the entrance he had a huge placard suspended bearing the words: "_Ave, Cæsar, morituri te salutamus_." Then, along the different walks, each flower and plant bore a card proportionate to its size and containing a verse alluding to its approaching destruction. Naturally surprised at this outburst of poetry on the part of the "nymphs" of the garden, as the flowers styled themselves in their effusions, Josephine inquired the reason for it. This gave her conductor his opportunity, and he pleaded for the preservation of the garden with such ardour and eloquence that he won her assurance that if her wishes had any weight his beautiful garden should be preserved and its "nymphs" should not perish in exile. The event proved that he had secured a powerful ally, for the edict of the First Consul was rescinded and the garden was saved. To-day Ghent boasts of her title of "the City of Flowers." The Botanical Garden is protected by a Royal Society, there are many private collections that are worth going far to see, and more than five hundred establishments, large and small, are engaged in horticulture as an industry, the annual exports amounting to millions of dollars. Bishop Triest can therefore be thanked for giving Flanders one of its great industries. Speaking of Napoleon, it is not generally remembered that Ghent was, for the brief space of one hundred days, the capital of France. When Napoleon returned from Elba, and was received with open arms by the very troops sent to attack him, Louis XVIII fled incontinently to Ghent where he set up a feeble court at his residence on the rue des Champs. Here Guizot, Chateaubriand, and his other ministers met formally every morning to discuss with His Majesty the chances of his ever getting back to Paris again--Paris where, by the way, the mob was singing mockingly: "Rendez nous notre père de Gand Rendez nous notre père!"