Catherine the Great's guarded flower
David K. Wall
tradition. I know I read it on the net sometime, so I figured it would
be easy to track it down. No luck. I googled, searched TAFKAC, snopes,
the dejagoogle archives, and couldn't even find the story anywhere, much
less a confirmation or debunking of it. Finally I remembered that I had
once kept a few old jokes on my personal web site; luckily I still had
it archived, so -- aha! -- I pulled up the version I have, which follows.
<quote>
When Bismarck was Prussian Ambassador at the Court of Alexander
II in the early 1860's, he looked out of a window in the Peterhof
Palace and saw a sentry on duty in the middle of the lawn. He
asked the Czar why the man was there. The Czar asked his
aide-de-camp. The aide-de-camp did not know. The commanding
general was summoned. "General, why is that soldier stationed in
that isolated place?" asked the Czar.
"I beg leave to inform your Majesty that it is in accordance with
ancient custom."
"What is the origin of the custom?" put in Bismark.
"I do not recollect at present," answered the general.
"Investigate and report the result," ordered Alexander.
The investigation took three days. They found that the sentry was
posted there by an order put on the books eighty years before!
Records showed that one morning in the spring of 1780, Catherine
the Great, who ruled Russia at the time, looked on that lawn and
saw the first flower thrusting above the frozen soil. She ordered
a sentry to be posted to prevent anyone from picking the flower.
And in 1860 there was still a sentry on the lawn -- a memorial to
habit, custom, or just everyone's saying, "But we've always done
it just that way."
</quote>
It's a good story, but is it true? I can't find it in any of my Brunvand
books, which doesn't necessarily mean anything. Any suggestions on where
to start looking in a library? Even better (I can hope), does anyone
here know of a cite for it?
Of course, now that I found my archived version, I can find other copies
out on the net.* Most of these are verbatim or near-verbatim copies,
implying a common origin. (One was even the start of a sermon)
* Google for "Bismarck ambassador Alexander flower". (or 'bismark')
Earlier I had tried "Catherine guard flower" which only turned up a
management site that wanted me to register just to look at one article.
--
David "none of the apes had even been sprayed" Wall - dar...@one.net
"Oook."
Donna Richoux
[snip telling of story]
> The investigation took three days. They found that the sentry was
> posted there by an order put on the books eighty years before!
> Records showed that one morning in the spring of 1780, Catherine
> the Great, who ruled Russia at the time, looked on that lawn and
> saw the first flower thrusting above the frozen soil. She ordered
> a sentry to be posted to prevent anyone from picking the flower.
> And in 1860 there was still a sentry on the lawn -- a memorial to
> habit, custom, or just everyone's saying, "But we've always done
> it just that way."
>
> </quote>
>
> It's a good story, but is it true? I can't find it in any of my Brunvand
> books, which doesn't necessarily mean anything. Any suggestions on where
> to start looking in a library? Even better (I can hope), does anyone
> here know of a cite for it?
I don't know. It's probably not. What I want to say is that it is
essentially the same story as the joke about the woman who always cuts
the end off of a ham before cooking it. In short: after investigation,
it transpires that her grandmother had to do that to make it fit the
only pan she had.
This kind of story is quite easy to invent in reverse. Think of an odd
thing, then make up a forgotten reason for it.
--
Donna "and tell with plausible detail" Richoux
Andrew McMichael
>
> When Bismarck was Prussian Ambassador at the Court of Alexander
> II in the early 1860's, he looked out of a window in the Peterhof
> Palace and saw a sentry on duty in the middle of the lawn.
Searching on flower sentry czar
Versions to be found here:
http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/a-z/t/tradition.htm
http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/mt05v21.html [far down]
http://life.1stbaptist.org/SERa121000.htm
http://www.daft.com/~rab/liberty/Miscellaneous/Customs
http://www.escape.ca/~fpc/sermonjan62002.htm
http://www.leadershipdynamics.org/2000/12-11-00.htm
http://www.archimedesfoundation.org/quotes.html [also far down]
and on and on. It seems to happen either in 1860 or 1903 in all the
versions. Interesting that it appears in so many Christian sermons in my
search.
--
Andrew McMichael, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Princeton University
http://www.princeton.edu/~amcmicha/cv.html
"Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg"-- A Dutch Proverb.
Andrew McMichael
> I don't know. It's probably not. What I want to say is that it is
> essentially the same story as the joke about the woman who always cuts
> the end off of a ham before cooking it. In short: after investigation,
> it transpires that her grandmother had to do that to make it fit the
> only pan she had.
And that *does* get covered in Brunvand _Too Good to be True_, I think. But
I don't have a page number. Sorry.
Andrew "this lame post of mine cost the net hundreds, if not thousands, of
dollars" McMichael
Bruce Tindall
> habit, custom, or just everyone's saying, "But we've always done
> it just that way."
Sounds similar to the soldier with a spyglass stationed on the
cliffs of Dover, supposedly as late as the 1930s, watching for
a surprise invasion by Napoleon (which I think came up in a
biography of Churchill; how's that for a lame cite?), and the
Berlin subway guard who was still closing the flood-prevention
bulkheads at midnight every night and opened them in the morning
even toward the end of WWII, and refused to open them for a
party of high-ranking officers trying to escape from the Russians
via the subway in the middle of the night because his rulebook
said the gates must be closed during certain hours (cited in
the book _The Bunker_ by, mumble, you could look it up).
when there were no subways running, and
--
Bruce Tindall :: tin...@panix.com
Paul Tomblin
> The investigation took three days. They found that the sentry was
> posted there by an order put on the books eighty years before!
> Records showed that one morning in the spring of 1780, Catherine
> the Great, who ruled Russia at the time, looked on that lawn and
> saw the first flower thrusting above the frozen soil. She ordered
In the best science fiction TV series ever, Babylon V, Ambassador Londo
Mollari told exactly the same story about a spot being guarded in the
palace grounds on Centari Prime for hundreds of years.
--
Paul Tomblin <ptom...@xcski.com>, not speaking for anybody
Company slogan: The Mandatory Beatings Will Continue Until Morale
Improves.
Andrew McMichael
>
> In a previous article, "David K. Wall" <dar...@one.net> said:
> > The investigation took three days. They found that the sentry was
> > posted there by an order put on the books eighty years before!
> > Records showed that one morning in the spring of 1780, Catherine
> > the Great, who ruled Russia at the time, looked on that lawn and
> > saw the first flower thrusting above the frozen soil. She ordered
>
> In the best science fiction TV series ever, Babylon V, Ambassador Londo
> Mollari told exactly the same story about a spot being guarded in the
> palace grounds on Centari Prime for hundreds of years.
Yes! *That's* where I heard it. I *knew* I'd seen it on TV before.
Pete Wilcox
soldier to guard the first flower of spring>
> It's a good story, but is it true?
> here know of a cite for it?
>
Michael Straczynski used it in an episode of "Babylon 5", as retold by
Ambassador Londo Molari...
Might prove a useful starting point.
Pete "All alone, in the night" Wilcox
Ed Kaulakis
"Andrew McMichael" <amcm...@princeton.edu> wrote in message
news:3CA30CBC...@princeton.edu...
> "David K. Wall" wrote:
> >
> > When Bismarck was Prussian Ambassador at the Court of Alexander
> > II in the early 1860's, he looked out of a window in the
Peterhof
> > Palace and saw a sentry on duty in the middle of the lawn.
With its "bureaucracy forever" payload this reminds me strangely of
Napoleon's bell.
Googled for napoleon dover bell
Fair-use quotation from:
http://hootenanny.org/disney_rant/FMPro5.html (and, close to verbatim,
many other sites - did this appear in a "how to write speeches"
cluebook?)
"In 1803, the British positioned a watchman with a spyglass on the
Cliffs of Dover, looking over the Channel toward France. His mission was
clear: If he saw Napoleon's ships invading England, he was to ring the
warning bell he had been provided.
Napoleon never came, the bell never rang, but the watchman's position
was not abolished until 1945."
Oddly, I couldn't find this on urbanlegends.com or at snopes.com. On the
web, it is much vectored by anti-bureaucratic bloviators. I found
nothing resembling either debunkage or vorification.
Ed "" Kaulakis
David Wall
> "David K. Wall" wrote:
>>
>> When Bismarck was Prussian Ambassador at the Court of
>> Alexander II in the early 1860's, he looked out of a window
>> in the Peterhof Palace and saw a sentry on duty in the middle
>> of the lawn.
>
> Searching on flower sentry czar
>
[snip list of web addresses]
>
> and on and on. It seems to happen either in 1860 or 1903 in all
> the versions. Interesting that it appears in so many Christian
> sermons in my search.
Yes, that is interesting, and gives me an idea where to start looking
for its origin: books of anecdotes for preachers to use as
illustrations. Maybe one of them will cite a source.
It's lunchtime here, so I'm off to a nearby bookstore that I know has
a large section on religion. (The closest branch library is quite
small, and seems to carry mostly "bestsellers" for, uh, someone. Who
buys these bestsellers? I, and most people I know that read much,
hardly ever buy a "bestselling" book.)
I'm really not consumed with interest by this, but hey, I've know
about this anecdote for, uh, x number of years, and have wondered
about it every time something reminds me of it.
--
David K. Wall - dar...@one.net
"Oook."
Daniel W. Johnson
> In the best science fiction TV series ever, Babylon V, Ambassador Londo
> Mollari told exactly the same story about a spot being guarded in the
> palace grounds on Centari Prime for hundreds of years.
Almost exactly. As I recall, the original order had been issued by the
Centauri Emperor's daughter.
--
Daniel W. Johnson
pano...@iquest.net
http://members.iquest.net/~panoptes/
039 53 36 N / 086 11 55 W
Ralph Jones
wrote:
I remember one from a popular magazine story in the 50s: Elizabeth II
is watching an artillery live-fire exercise and remarks that at each
gun there is one man who just stands there and never does anything. A
flurry of research discloses that his assignment is to hold the
horses.
rj
Alan Follett
amcm...@princeton.edu (Andrew McMichael) wrote:\
> "David K. Wall" wrote:
>> When Bismarck was Prussian Ambas-
>> sador at the Court of Alexander II in the
>> early 1860's, he looked out of a window
>> in the Peterhof Palace and saw a sentry
>> on duty in the middle of the lawn.
Is it a stretch to see as an early instance of this theme the
maintenance by the Roman state well into the Imperal era of the sacred
geese of the temple of Juno Moneta, in consequence of their warning of a
Gaulish invasion in 390 BC?
Alan "and, no, I don't owe this just to Lindsey Davis" Follett
Timothy A. McDaniel
Um, yes, I think it is too much of a stretch. I believe that the
Romans were very much into omens and declaring things to be auspicious
or inauspicious based on such observations. Omens could be based on
examining entrails, examining birds, &c ...
Ah. _Cartoon History of the Universe_, vol. 11 in collection #2, p,
161, dealing with early Rome ... now, now, stop gagging: it's got four
pages of annotated bibliography and Gonick (the author) is quite
reliable so far as I can tell ... has
In Ancient Rome, no serious decision was ever made without
consulting the fortune-tellers, or augurs, who read the future
from birds.
Any unusual bird action, from the odd goose honk to a stray eagle,
could bring all state business to a screeching (or honking) halt.
But this didn't stop Roman gourmets from developing a taste for
peacock and flamingo. [banquet scene]
--
Tim McDaniel is tm...@jump.net; if that fail,
tm...@us.ibm.com is my work account.
"To join the Clueless Club, send a followup to this message quoting everything
up to and including this sig!" -- Jukka....@hut.fi (Jukka Korpela)
Nick Spalding
> I remember one from a popular magazine story in the 50s: Elizabeth II
> is watching an artillery live-fire exercise and remarks that at each
> gun there is one man who just stands there and never does anything. A
> flurry of research discloses that his assignment is to hold the
> horses.
This story was indeed current in the British Army when I was in it in
the '50s but told as a joke. It does no harm to have a spare man at
each gun in case of casualties.
--
Nick Spalding
Alan Follett
> Alan Follett <AFol...@webtv.net> wrote:
>> Is it a stretch to see as an early instance
>> of this theme the maintenance by the
>> Roman state well into the Imperal era of
>> the sacred geese of the temple of Juno
>> Moneta, in consequence of their warning
>> of a Gaulish invasion in 390 BC?
> Um, yes, I think it is too much of a stretch.
> I believe that the Romans were very much
> into omens and declaring things to be
> auspicious or inauspicious based on such
> observations. Omens could be based on
> examining entrails, examining birds, &c ...
<snip>
True enough, but as I recall. in the events of 390 BC, the geese didn't
figure in anything as spooky and numinous as an omen; they simply raised
a ruckus, watchdog-style, as the nocturnal Gaulish raiding party
approached the Capitoline Hill (having already occupied the outlying
areas of what was then a one-equus town in the previous year).
Alan "Manlius woke up real grouchy" Follett
The Horny Goat
<kaulaki...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>"In 1803, the British positioned a watchman with a spyglass on the
>Cliffs of Dover, looking over the Channel toward France. His mission was
>clear: If he saw Napoleon's ships invading England, he was to ring the
>warning bell he had been provided.
>
>Napoleon never came, the bell never rang, but the watchman's position
>was not abolished until 1945."
>
>Oddly, I couldn't find this on urbanlegends.com or at snopes.com. On the
>web, it is much vectored by anti-bureaucratic bloviators. I found
>nothing resembling either debunkage or vorification.
Hmmm. The version of this story I heard was that the watchman was the
chief lighthouse keeper of Dover, that after 1823 it was considered an
honorary title, that the benefit was an extra GBP 5 per year and that
it was abolished in 1931. I distinctly recall Neville Chamberlain's
name in this story - was he Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1931?
Nick Spalding
According to both Grolier & Encarta he was.
--
Nick Spalding
Dr H
On Sun, 7 Apr 2002, The Horny Goat wrote:
}On Thu, 28 Mar 2002 17:00:55 GMT, "Ed Kaulakis"
}<kaulaki...@pacbell.net> wrote:
}
}>"In 1803, the British positioned a watchman with a spyglass on the
}>Cliffs of Dover, looking over the Channel toward France. His mission was
}>clear: If he saw Napoleon's ships invading England, he was to ring the
}>warning bell he had been provided.
}>
}>Napoleon never came, the bell never rang, but the watchman's position
}>was not abolished until 1945."
This is not the UL I usually see associated with Catherine...
Dr H