A SWASHBUCKLING SCHEME
(Circa 1714 to 1720)
Louis XIV received his Dutch treat around 1714a coffee tree for Pariss (map) Royal Botanical Garden, the Jardin des Plantes. Several years later a young naval officer, Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, was in Paris on leave from Martinique, a French colony in the Caribbean. Imagining Martinique as a French Java, he requested clippings from his kings tree. Permission denied.
Resolute, de Clieu led a moonlight raid of the Jardin des Plantesover the wall, into the hothouse, out with a sprout.
Mission accomplished, de Clieu sailed for Martinique. He might have thought the hard part was over. He would have been wrong...