“Bon Chretien d’Hiver is of a yellow color,” wrote La Quintinie, ” and with a pink blush on the side which gets the sun, rejoicing the eyes of those who come to look at it as they might a jewel or a treasure. As for taste, it is incomparable, with brittle slightly scented flesh and sugary juice.”

The trees bloomed in the spring of 1790, and again in the summer of 1791. No one pruned them or dressed them with manure. The white flowers opened, five-petaled and in clusters of six or seven. The petals fell off and the pistils began to swell. Some of the trees were attacked by midges, others by borers. Wasps buzzed hungrily around their feet.

from the chapter “Pear Tree” in Kathryn Davis’s Versailles.