WHEN VIOLETS WERE TREASON

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 675, 29 May 1929, Page 16

WHEN VIOLETS WERE TREASON

Jupiter first caused the violet to spring up in lona as food for a favourite white heifer, far too beautiful to be reared on grass. The flower became the emblem of Athens, and, later on. among the gay troubadours of old Provence, formed a coveted prize for music. In our own land, long before the time of chemists’ shops, ointments and medicines were prepared from its leaves and flowers, which were also eaten in salads! Today, in Italian carnivals on the Riviera, cartloads of the fragrant blossoms are flung everywhere amidst scenes of revelry. So fond of them was Xapoleon that his friends nicknamed him Corporal Violet, and, during his exile, wore the flower as a secret badge, by which to recognise one another. They celebrated their leader’s return to France bj’ a carnival of violets. When the Bourbons were afterwards restored to power, this was remembered, and it became treason to wear them.