Season 1, Episode Number 1 (Episode 1)
Released: 1970-09-13
Runtime: 180 minutes
Although it has its full share of the excitement and suspense that one tends to associate with Dumas, this is a story that touches the heart as much as it tingles the nerve. It is also unique in that the principal character is not a man or a woman, but a flower - the fateful Tulipa Negra.
The city of Haarlem, Netherlands, has set a prize of ƒ100,000 to the person who can grow a black tulip, sparking competition between the country's best gardeners to win the money, honour and fame. Only the city's oldest citizens remember the Tulip Mania thirty years prior, and the citizens throw themselves into the competition. The young and bourgeois Cornelius van Baerle has almost succeeded but is suddenly thrown into the Loevestein prison. There he meets the prison guard's beautiful daughter Rosa, who will be his comfort and help, and eventually become his rescuer.
