- WILD ROSE -
THE ROSE OF POETS
The flower of poets, the wild rose, with its frail, graceful petals and wild yet vulnerable personality, is the muse of many works. The Floral Games were created in Roman times to honor the goddess Flora. During this
festival, young women improvised poems and received wild flower crowns as prizes.
Hoisted to the status of royal academy by Louis XIV in 1694, the Academy of Floral Games is a literary society still in existence today. Every year it rewards the finest poets with five golden or silver flowers: violet, wild rose , marigold, amaranth and lily. Many great French authors have won floral prizes, including Pierre de Ronsard, Voltaire, the young Victor Hugo, who received one of his first prizes at the age of 17, Chateaubriand and François Fabre d´Églantine.