The pomegranate and orange trees of the Gardens of the Luxembourg are at present being transferred into new cases of larger size. The collection of orange trees belonging to the Luxembourg is one of the most remarkable of any of the public gardens in France, both the number and age of the trees. Orange trees, it is known, attain a vast age. In the famous orangery at Versailles, is one known under the three names of Grand Constable, Francois I., and Grand Bourbon, which is more than four hundred years old. It comes from some pippins of a tree of bitter oranges planted in a pot at the commencement of the fifteenth century, by Eleanora of Castile, wife of Charles the Third, King of Navarre. The trees which sprang from them were preserved in the same case up to 1499, at Pampeluna; they afterwards passed into different hands as rare and precious objects, and then became the property of the Constable of Bourbon, who placed them in his Chateau de Chantelle in the Bourbonnais. The property of the Constable having been confiscated in 1522, the orange trees were sent to decorate the palace of Fontainbleau, which Francis I. had caused to be restored and enlarged.

When Louis XIV. had completed Versailles, and built that magnificent orangery, he gave orders that all the orange trees existing in the royal residences should be conveyed to it. This was in 1684, and the orange trees of Pampeluna, which were among those removed, were then two centuries and a half old. The Grand Constable, notwithstanding its great age, is still perfectly vigorous. Bertier.