Alice of Old Vincennes





CHAPTER I

UNDER THE CHERRY TREE


Up to the days of Indiana's early statehood, probably as late as
1825, there stood, in what is now the beautiful little city of
Vincennes on the Wabash, the decaying remnant of an old and
curiously gnarled cherry tree, known as the Roussillon tree, le
cerisier de Monsieur Roussillon, as the French inhabitants called
it, which as long as it lived bore fruit remarkable for richness
of flavor and peculiar dark ruby depth of color. The exact spot
where this noble old seedling from la belle France flourished,
declined, and died cannot be certainly pointed out; for in the
rapid and happy growth of Vincennes many land-marks once notable,
among them le cerisier de Monsieur Roussillon, have been destroyed
and the spots where they stood, once familiar to every eye in old
Vincennes, are now lost in the pleasant confusion of the new town.