The anonymous _Mémoire_ of 1718 gives, with an amount of preliminary

flourish which would imply a doubt as to the accuracy of the statement

made, the secret mode said to have been employed by Dom Perignon to

improve his wine, and to have been confided by him a few days before

his death to 'a person worthy enough of belief,' by whom it was in turn

communicated to the writer. According to this, a pound of sugar-candy

was dissolved in a _chopine_ of wine, to which was then added five or

six stoned peaches, four sous' worth of powdered cinnamon, a grated

nutmeg, and a _demi septier_ of burnt brandy; and the whole, after

being well mixed, was strained through fine linen into a _pièce_ of

wine immediately after fermentation had ceased, with the result of

imparting to it a dainty and delicate flavour. Dom Grossart, however,

in his letter to M. Dherbès, distinctly declares that 'we never did put

sugar into our wine.'[110] This _collature_, in which peaches play a

part, was probably made use of by some wine-growers; and the peach-like

flavour extolled by St. Evremond in the wine of Ay may have been due

to it, or to the practice then and long afterwards followed of putting

peach-leaves in the hot water with which the barrels were washed out,

under the idea that this improved the flavour of the wine.[111]

Opinions were widely divided as to the cause of the effervescence

in the wines of Hautvillers, for the connection between sugar and

fermentation was then undreamt of, although Van Helmont had recognised

the existence of carbonic acid gas in fermenting wine as early as 1624.

Some thought it due to the addition of drugs, and sought to obtain it

by putting not only alum and spirits of wine, but positive nastinesses,

into their wine.[112] Others ascribed it to the greenness of the wine,

because most of that which effervesced was extremely raw; and others

again believed that it was influenced by the age of the moon at the

epoch of bottling. Experience undoubtedly showed that wine bottled

between the vintage and the month of May was certain to effervesce, and

that no time was more favourable for this operation than the end of

the second quarter of the moon of March. Nevertheless, as the wines,

especially those of the Mountain of Reims, were not usually matured at

this epoch, it was recommended, in order to secure a ripe and exquisite

sparkling wine, to defer the bottling until the ascent of the sap in

the vine between the tenth and fourteenth day of the moon of August;

whereas, to insure a _non mousseux_ wine, the bottling ought to take

place in October or November.[113]

The fame of the new wine, known indifferently as _vin de Perignon_,

_flacon pétillant_, _flacon mousseux_, _vin sautant_, _vin mousseux_,

_saute bouchon_, &c., and even anathematised as _vin du diable_--for

the present term, _vin de Champagne_, was confined as yet to the still

or quasi-still growths--quickly spread. Never, indeed, was a discovery

more opportune. At the moment of its introduction the glory of France

was on the wane; Colbert, Louvois, and Luxembourg were dead; the Treaty

of Ryswick had been signed; famine and deficit reared their threatening

heads, and lo, Providence offered this new consolation for all outward

and inward ills. With the King it could only find scant favour. The

once brilliant Louis was now a bigoted and almost isolated invalid. His

debilitated stomach, ruined by long indulgence, could scarcely even

support the old Burgundy--so old that it was almost tasteless--which

Fagon had prescribed as his sole beverage some years before;[114] and

the popping of sparkling Champagne corks would have scandalised the

quiet _tête-à-tête_ repasts which he was wont to partake of with the

pious Madame de Maintenon.[115]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

But the men who were to be the future _roués_ of the Regency were

in the flower of youthful manhood in 1698, and the recommendation

of Comus had with them more weight than the warnings of Æsculapius.

At the joyous suppers of Anet, where the Duc de Vendôme laid aside

the laurels of Mars to wreathe his brows with the ivy of Bacchus; at

the Temple, where his brother, the Grand Prior, nightly revived the

most scandalous features of the orgies of ancient Rome; at the Palais

Royal, where the future Regent was inaugurating that long series of

_petits soupers_ which were ultimately to cost the lives of himself and

his favourite daughter; and at Chantilly, where the Prince de Conti

sought successfully to reproduce a younger and brighter Versailles,

the pear-shaped flasks, 'ten inches high, including the four or five

of the neck,'[116] stamped with the arms of the noble hosts, and

secured with Spanish wax,[117] were an indispensable adjunct to the

festivities of the table. A story is told of the Marquis de Sillery,

who had turned his sword into a pruning-knife, and applied himself to

the cultivation of the paternal vineyards, having first introduced the

sparkling wine bearing his name at one of the Anet suppers, when, at a

given signal, a dozen of blooming young damsels, scantily draped in the

guise of Bacchanals, entered the room, bearing apparently baskets of

flowers in their hands, but which, on being placed before the guests,

proved to be flower-enwreathed bottles of the new sparkling wine.[118]

If ever a beverage was intended for the pleasures of society, it was

certainly this one, which it was said Nature had made especially for

the French,[119] who found in its discovery a compensation for the

victories of Marlborough.

Chaulieu, the poetic abbé, and the favourite of both the Vendômes,

hailed this new product of his native province in rapturous strophes.

In an invitation to supper addressed to his friend, the Marquis de la

Fare, in 1701, he describes how

'Of fivescore clear glasses the number and brightness

Make up for of dishes the absence and lightness,

And the foam, sparkling pure,

Of fresh delicate wine

For Fortune's frail lure

Blots out all regret in this memory of mine.'[120]

In a letter to St. Evremond, he mentions sundry wonderful things that

should happen 'if the Muses were as fond of the wine of Champagne

as the poet who writes this to you;' and, in one to the Marquis de

Dangeau, jestingly remarks that

'St. Maur's harsher muse

All flight will refuse,

Unless you sustain

Her wings with Champagne.'[121]

Replying to an invitation to Sonning's house at Neuilly on July 20,

1707, he says that when he comes it will be wonderful to see how the

Champagne will be drained from the tall glasses known as _flutes_.[122]

That the Champagne he extols was a sparkling wine is established in a

poetical epistle to Madame D., in answer to her complaint that the wine

he had sent her did not froth as when they supped together, and in this

he also speaks of its newness.

His brother-rhymster, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, who must not be

confounded with the philosophic Jean Jacques, invited Chaulieu to join

him at Neuilly, in mingling the water of Hippocrene with the wine of

Hautvillers,[123] and announced to the Champagne-loving Marquis d'Ussé,

_apropos_ of the latter's favourite source of inspiration, that even

'Ph[oe]bus will no more go climbing

For water up Helicon's mount,

But admit, as a source of good rhyming,

Champagne excels Hippocrene's fount.'[124]

Such general attention did the subject attract that Frederick William

II. of Prussia actually proposed to the Academy of Arts and Sciences

at Berlin the question, 'Why does Champagne foam?' for solution. The

Academicians, with unexpected sharpness, petitioned the King for a

supply of the beverage in question on which to experiment. But the

parsimonious monarch was equal to the occasion, and a solitary dozen

of the wine was all he would consent to furnish them with. His ally,

Augustus the Strong of Saxony, was the hero of a ludicrous adventure

connected with sparkling Champagne. At a banquet given to him at

Dresden, a page, who had surreptitiously appropriated a bottle of

this costly beverage, and hidden it in the breast of his coat, had to

approach the King. The heat and motion combined had imparted briskness

to the wine, out popped the cork, and the embroidered garments and

flowing periwig of Mr. Carlyle's 'Man of Sin' were drenched with the

foaming liquid. The page fell on his knees and roared for mercy, and

the King, as soon as he recovered from his bursts of laughter, freely

forgave him his offence.

The success of Dom Perignon's wine caused a revolution in the

wine-production of the province, and gave rise to numerous imitations,

despite the outcry raised against sparkling wine by many _gourmets_,

and even by the wine-merchants themselves, who complained that they

had to pander to what they regarded as a depraved taste. The elder

Bertin du Rocheret, father of the _lieutenant criminel_ and a notable

dealer in wine, was much opposed to it.[125] Marshal de Montesquiou

d'Artagnan, the gallant assailant of Denain, had ordered some wine of

him, and he writes in reply, on November 11, 1711: 'I have chosen three

poinçons of the best wine of Pierry at 400 francs the queue, not to be

drawn off as _mousseux_--that would be too great a pity. Also a poinçon

to be drawn off as _mousseux_ at 250 francs the queue; or, if you will

only go as far as 180 francs, it will froth just as well, or better.

Also a poinçon of _tocane_ of Ay to be drunk this winter--that is to

say, it should be drunk by Shrovetide--at 300 francs the queue: this

wine is very fine.'[126]

On the 27th December 1712 the Marshal writes: 'With regard to my wine

being made _mousseux_, many prefer that it should be so; and I should

not be vexed, provided it does not in any way depreciate its quality.'

On the 18th October of the following year the stern _laudator temporis

acti_ describes how the bottling has been carried out, 'in order that

your wines might be _mousseux_, without which I should not have done

it, and perhaps you would have found it better, but it would not have

had the merit of being _mousseux_, which in my opinion is the merit of

a poor wine, and only proper to beer, chocolate, and whipped cream.

Good Champagne should be clear and fine, should sparkle in the glass,

and should flatter the palate, as it never does when it is _mousseux_,

but has a smack of fermentation; hence it is only _mousseux_ because it

is working.'

The converted Marshal replies on October 25th: 'I was in the wrong

to ask you to bottle my wine so that it might be _mousseux_; it is a

fashion that prevails everywhere, especially amongst young people.

For my own part, I care very little about it; but I wish the wine to

be clear and fine, and to have a strong Champagne bouquet.' In the

following December Bertin, in answer to the Marshal's request for three

quartaux of wine, says: 'Will you kindly let me know at what date you

propose to drink this wine? If it is to be drunk as _mousseux_, I shall

not agree with you.'

The allusion to the time of year at which the wine was to be drunk

throws a light upon a practice of the day, confirmed by other passages

in this correspondence. Much of the wine made was drunk as _vin

bourru_ fined, but not racked off, at the beginning of the year, or

as _tocane_, which was apt to go off if kept beyond Shrovetide. This

speedy consumption and the careful choice made of the grapes intended

for _vin mousseux_ militated against the formation in the bottles of

that deposit, which, up to the commencement of the present century,

when the system of _dégorgeage_ was introduced, could only be remedied

by _dépotage_,[127] though, as we have seen, the Abbey of Hautvillers

had a secret method, carefully guarded, of checking its formation.[128]

It is singular that the presence of a natural _liqueur_--the

consequence of a complete but not excessive ripeness of the grape, and

at present considered one of the highest qualities of the wine--was, at

the commencement of the eighteenth century, regarded as a disease. The

_Mémoire_ of 1718 states that when the wine has any liqueur, however

good it may otherwise be, it is not esteemed, and recommends the owner

to get rid of this 'bad quality' forthwith by putting a pint of new

milk warm from the cow into each _pièce_, stirring it well, letting

it rest three days, and then racking the wine off. At this epoch the

wine of the Champagne seems to have been preferred perfectly dry.[129]

In June 1716 the Marshal d'Artagnan reproached Bertin du Rocheret for

sending him Hautvillers wine of the preceding vintage which had turned

out _liquoreuse_. However, in August he felt forced to write that

it had become excellent, and similar experiences seem to have soon

removed all prejudices against this liqueur character. Bertin, in 1725,

speaks of it as one of the qualities of wine, and charges for it in

proportion; and six years later remarks that the English are as mad for

liqueur and colour in their wines as the French.[130]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

IV.

/The Battle of the Wines./

Temporary check to the popularity of Sparkling Champagne--Doctors

disagree--The champions of Champagne and Burgundy--Péna and his

patient--A young Burgundian student attacks the Wine of Reims--The

Faculty of Reims in arms--A local Old Parr cited as an example

in favour of the Wines of the Champagne--Salins of Beaune and

Le Pescheur of Reims engage warmly in the dispute--A pelting

with pamphlets--Burgundy sounds a war-note--The Sapphics of

Benigné Grenan--An asp beneath the flowers--The gauntlet picked

up--Carols from a Coffin--Champagne extolled as superior to all

other wines--It inspires the heart and stirs the brain--The

apotheosis of Champagne foam--Burgundy, an invalid, seeks a

prescription--Impartially appreciative drinkers of both wines--Bold

Burgundian and stout Rémois, each a jolly tippling fellow--Canon

Maucroix's parallel between Burgundy and Demosthenes and Champagne

and Cicero--Champagne a panacea for gout and stone--Final decision

in favour of Champagne by the medical faculty of Paris--Pluche's

opinion on the controversy--Champagne a lively wit and Burgundy a

solid understanding--Champagne commands double the price of the

best Burgundy--Zealots reconciled at table.

By a strange fatality the popularity of the sparkling wine of the

Champagne, which had helped to dissipate the gloom hanging over

court and capital during the last twenty years of the reign of Louis

Quatorze,[131] began to wane the year preceding that monarch's

death.[132] Dom Perignon too, as though stricken to the heart by this,

forthwith drooped and died. The inhabitants of the province once more

turned their attention to their red wines, which continued to enjoy

a high reputation during the first half of the century,[133] despite

the sweeping assertion that they were somewhat dry, rather flat, and

possessed a strong flinty flavour,[134] the _goût de terroir_ alluded

to by St. Evremond.

[Illustration]

These red wines were not only sent to Paris in large quantities by

way of the Marne,[135] but commanded an important export trade, those

of the Mountain, which were better able to bear the journey than the

growths of the River, gracing the best-appointed tables of London,

Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and the North,[136] and especially of Flanders,

where they were usually sold as Burgundy.[137] It must not be lost

sight of that the yield of white sparkling wine from the _crûs d'élite_

was for a long time comparatively small, especially when contrasted

with that of to-day.[138] At a later period the manufacture of _vin

mousseux_ increased, notably in the districts south of the Marne,[139]

and drove out almost entirely the still red wine; the place of the

latter being supplied, as regards Holland, Belgium, and Northern

France, by the growths of Bordeaux, which were found to keep better in

damp climates.[140]

[Illustration]

One cause of this falling off in the popularity of the sparkling wine

arose from the great battle which raged for many years respecting

the relative merits of Champagne and Burgundy. It was waged in the

schools, and not in the field; for the combatants were neither dashing

soldiers, brilliant courtiers, nor even gay young students, but potent,

grave, and reverend physicians--the wigged, capped, and gowned pedants

of the Diaphorus type whom Molière so piteously pilloried. The only

blood shed was that of the grape, excepting when some enthusiastic

Sangrado was impelled by a too conscientious practical examination into

the qualities of the vintage he championed to a more than ordinary

reckless use of the lancet. The contending armies couched pens instead

of lances, and marshalled arguments in array in place of squadrons.

They hurled pamphlets and theses at each others' heads in lieu of

bombshells, and kept up withal a running fire of versification, so that

the rumble of hexameters replaced that of artillery.

[Illustration]

National pride, and perhaps a smack of envy at the growing popularity

of the still red wines of the Champagne, had, as far back as 1652, led

a hot-headed young Burgundian, one Daniel Arbinet, to select as the

subject of a thesis, maintained by him before the schools of Paris,

the proposition that the wine of Beaune was more delicious and more

wholesome than any other wine,[141] the remaining vintages of the

universe being pretty roughly handled in the thesis in question. The

Champenois contented themselves for the time being with cultivating

their vineyards and improving their wines, till in 1677, when these

latter had acquired yet more renown, M. de Révélois of Reims boldly

rushed into print with the assertion that the wine of Reims was the

most wholesome of all.[142] Though the first to write in its favour,

he was not the first doctor of eminence who had expressed an opinion

favourable to the wine of Champagne. Péna, a leading Parisian physician

of the seventeenth century, was once consulted by a stranger. 'Where

do you come from?' he inquired. 'I am a native of Saumur.' 'A native

of Saumur. What bread do you eat?' 'Bread from the Belle Cave.' 'A

native of Saumur, and you eat bread from the Belle Cave. What meat

do you get?' 'Mutton fed at Chardonnet.' 'A native of Saumur, eating

bread from the Belle Cave and mutton fed at Chardonnet. What wine do

you drink?' 'Wine from the Côteaux.'[143] 'What! You are a native

of Saumur; you eat bread from the Belle Cave, and mutton fed at

Chardonnet, and drink the wine of the Côteaux, and you come here to

consult me! Go along; there can be nothing the matter with you!'[144]

Burgundy remained silent in turn for nearly twenty years, when, lo, in

1696--probably just about the time when the popping of Dom Perignon's

corks began to make some noise in the world--a yet more opinionated

young champion of the Côte d'Or, Mathieu Fournier, a medical student,

hard pressed for the subject of his inaugural thesis, and in the firm

faith that

'None but a clever dialectician

Can hope to become a good physician,

And that logic plays an important part

In the mystery of the healing art,'

propounded the theory that the wines of Reims irritated the nerves, and

caused a predisposition to catarrh, gout, and other disorders, owing

to which Fagon, the King's physician, had forbidden them to his royal

master.[145]

[Illustration: LOUIS XIV.

(From a portrait of the time).]

Shocked at these scandalous assertions, the entire Faculty of Medicine

at the Reims University rose in arms in defence of their native

vintage. Its periwigged professors put their learned heads together

to discuss the all-important question, 'Is the wine of Reims more

agreeable and more wholesome than the wine of Burgundy?' and in

1700 Giles Culotteau embodied their combined opinions in a pamphlet

published under that title.[146] After extolling the liquid purity, the

excellent brightness, the divine flavour, the paradisiacal perfume,

and the great durability of the wines of Ay, Pierry, Verzy, Sillery,

Hautvillers, &c., as superior to those of any growth of Burgundy,

he instanced the case of a local Old Parr named Pierre Pieton, a

_vigneron_ of Hautvillers, who had married at the age of 110, and

reached that of 118 without infirmity, as a convincing proof of the

material advantages reaped from their consumption.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: ANCIENT TOWER OF REIMS UNIVERSITY.]

Salins, the _doyen_ of the Faculty of Medicine of Beaune, was intrusted

with the task of replying, and in 1704 bitterly assailed Culotteau's

thesis in a 'Defence of the Wine of Burgundy against the Wine of

Champagne,' which ran to five editions in four years. M. le Pescheur,

a doctor of Reims, vigorously attacked each of these editions in

succession, maintaining amongst other things that the wine of Reims

owed its renown to the many virtues discovered in it by the great lords

who had accompanied Louis XIV. to his coronation; and that if the King,

on the advice of his doctors, had renounced its use, his courtiers had

certainly not. He also asserted that England, Germany, and the North of

Europe consumed far more Champagne than they did Burgundy, and that it

would be transported without risk to the end of the world, Tavernier

having taken it to Persia, and another traveller to Siam and Surinam.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The partisanship quickly spread throughout the country, and the

respective admirers of Burgundy and Champagne pitilessly pelted each

other in prose and verse; for the two camps had their troubadours, who,

like those of old, excited the courage and ardour of the combatants.

The first to sound the warlike trumpet was Benigné Grenan, professor

at the college of Harcourt, who, with the rich vintage of his native

province bubbling at fever-heat through his veins, sought in 1711 to

crush Champagne by means of Latin sapphics, a sample of which has been

thus translated:

'Lift to the skies thy foaming wine,

That cheers the heart, that charms the eye;

Exalt its fragrance, gift divine,

Champagne, from thee the wise must fly!

A poison lurks those charms below,

An asp beneath the flowers is hid;

In vain thy sparkling fountains flow

When wisdom has their lymph forbid.

'Tis, but when cloyed with purer fair

We can with such a traitress flirt;

So following Beaune with reverent air,

Let Reims appear but at dessert.'[147]

The gauntlet thus contemptuously thrown down was promptly and

indignantly picked up by the Rector of the University of Beauvais, the

learned Dr. Charles Coffin, a native of Buzancy, near Reims, who in

the quiet retirement of the Picardian _Alma Mater_ had evidently not

forgotten to keep up his acquaintance with the vintage of his native

province. The Latin poem he produced in reply, under the title of

_Campania vindicata_,[148] had nothing in common with his lugubriously

sepulchral name, as may be seen by the following somewhat freely

translated extracts from it. After invoking the aid of a bottle of the

enlivening liquor whose praises he is about to sing, he exclaims:

'As the vine, although lowly in aspect, outshines

The stateliest trees by the produce it bears,

So midst all earth's list of rich generous wines,

Our Reims the bright crown of preëminence wears.

The Massica, erst sang by Horace of old,

To Sillery now must abandon the field;

Falernian, nor Chian, could ne'er be so bold

To rival the nectar Ay's sunny slopes yield.

As bright as the goblet it sparklingly fills

With diamonds in fusion, it foaming exhales

An odour ambrosial, the nostril that thrills,

Foretelling the flavour delicious it veils.

At first with false fury the foam-bells arise,

And creamily bubbling spread over the brim,

Till equally swiftly their petulance dies

In a purity that makes e'en crystal seem dim.'[149]

[Illustration]

Praising the flavour of this nectar, which he declares is in every way

worthy of its appearance, he stoutly defends the wine from the charge

of unwholesomeness adduced against it by Grenan:

'Despite the tongue of malice,

No poison in thy chalice

Was ever found, Champagne!

Simplicity most loyal

Was e'er thy boast right royal,

And this thy wines retain.

No harm lurks in the fire

That helps thee to inspire

The heart and spur the brain.'[150]

[Illustration]

So far from causing inconvenience, he claims for Champagne the property

of keeping off both gout and gravel, neither of which, he says, is

known in Reims and its neighbourhood, and continues:

'When on the fruit-piled board,

Thy cups, with nectar stored,

Commence their genial reign,

The wisest, sternest faces

Of mirth display the traces,

And to rejoice are fain.

As laughter's silv'ry ripple

Greets every glass we tipple.

Away fly grief and pain.'[151]

The jovial old rector with the sepulchral appellation then proceeds,

according to the most approved method of warfare, to carry the campaign

into the enemy's territory. He admits the nutritive and strengthening

properties of Burgundy, but demands what it possesses beyond these,

which are shared in common with it by many other vintages. He then

prophesies, with the return of peace,[152] the advent of the English to

buy the wine of Reims; and concludes by wishing that all who dispute

the merits of Champagne may find nothing to drink but the sour cider

of Normandy or the acrid vintage of Ivri. The citizens of Reims,

thoroughly alive to the importance of the controversy, were enchanted

with this production; they did not, however, crown the poet with

laurel, but more wisely and appropriately despatched to him four dozen

of their best red and gray wines, by the aid of which he continued to

tipple and to sing.

Grenan, resuming the offensive in turn, at once addressed an epistle

in Latin verse, in favour of Burgundy against Champagne, to Fagon, the

King's physician.[153] Complaining that the latter wine lays claim

unjustly to the first rank, he allows it certain qualities--brilliancy,

purity, limpidity, a subtle savour that touches the most blunted

palate, and an aroma so delicious that it is impossible to resist its

attractions. But he objects to its pretensions.

'Its vinous flood, with swelling pride

In foaming wavelets welling up,

Pours forth its bright and sparkling tide,

Bubbling and glittering in the cup.'[154]

He goes on to accuse the Champenois poet of being unduly inspired by

this wine, the effects of which he finds apparent in his inflated style

and his attempts to place Champagne in the first rank, and make all

other vintages its subjects; and he reiterates his allegations that,

unlike Burgundy, it affects both the head and the stomach, and is bound

to produce gout and gravel in its systematic imbibers. He concludes by

begging Fagon to pronounce in his favour, as having proved the virtues

of Burgundy on the King himself, whose strength had been sustained by

it. The retort was sharp and to the point, taking the form of a twofold

epigram from an anonymous hand:

'To the doctor to go

On behalf of your wine

Is, as far as I know,

Of its sickness a sign.

Your cause and your wine

Must be equally weak,

Since to check their decline

A prescription you seek.'[155]

Nor was the poet of the funereal cognomen backward in stepping into the

field; for he published a metrical decree, supposed to be issued by the

faculty of the island of Cos in the fourth year of the ninety-first

Olympiad,[156] in which, though a verdict is nominally given in favour

of Burgundy, Grenan's pleas on behalf of this wine are treated with

withering sarcasm.

But whilst these enthusiastic partisans thus belaboured one another,

there were not wanting impartial spirits who could recognise that there

were merits on both sides. Bellechaume, in an ode jointly addressed to

the two combatants,[157] adjures them to live at peace on Parnassus,

and, remembering that Horace praised both Falernian and Massica, to

jointly animate their muse with Champagne and Burgundy:

'To learn the difference between

The wine of Reims and that of Beaune,

The fairest plan would be, I ween,

To drink them both, not one alone.'[158]

Another equally judicious versifier called also on the Burgundian

champion[159] to cease the futile contest, since

'Bold Burgundian ever glories

With stout Remois to get mellow;

Each well filled with vinous lore is

Each a jolly tippling fellow.'[160]

And the learned Canon Maucroix of Reims exhibited a similar

conciliatory spirit in the ingenious parallel which he drew between

the two greatest orators of antiquity and the wines of the Marne

and the Côte d'Or. 'In the wine of Burgundy,' he observes, 'there

is more strength and vigour; it does not play with its man so much,

it overthrows him more suddenly,--that is Demosthenes. The wine of

Champagne is subtler and more delicate; it amuses more and for a

longer time, but in the end it does not produce less effect,--that is

Cicero.'[161]

[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE GATE OF BACCHUS, NEAR REIMS UNIVERSITY.]

The national disasters which marked the close of the reign of Louis

XIV. diverted public attention in some degree from the nugatory

contest;[162] and though Fontenelle sought to prove that a glass of

Champagne was better than a bottle of Burgundy,[163] the impartially

appreciative agreed with Panard that

'Old Burgundy and young Champagne

At table boast an equal reign.'[164]

But the doctors continued to disagree, and new generations of them

still went on wrangling over the vexed questions of supremacy and

salubrity. In 1739 Jean François carried the war into the enemy's camp

by maintaining at Paris that Burgundy caused gout; and a little later

Robert Linguet declared the wine of Reims to be as healthy as it was

agreeable. In 1777 Xavier, Regent of the Faculty of Medicine at the

Reims University, affirmed that not only did the once vilified _vin

mousseux_ share with the other wines of the Champagne the absence of

the tartarous particles which in many red wines are productive of

gout and gravel, but that the gas it contained caused it to act as a

dissolvent upon stone in the human body, and was also invaluable, from

its antiseptic qualities, in treating putrid fevers.[165] Further,

the appropriately named Champagne Dufresnay established, to his own

satisfaction and that of his colleagues, that the wine was superior to

any other growth, native or foreign.[166] At length, in 1778, when the

bones of the original disputants were dust, and their lancets rust, on

the occasion of a thesis being defended before the Faculty of Medicine

of Paris, a verdict was formally pronounced by this body in favour of

the wine of the Champagne.[167]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

V.

/Progress and Popularity of Sparkling Champagne./

Sparkling Champagne intoxicates the Regent d'Orléans and the

_roués_ of the Palais Royal--It is drunk by Peter the Great at

Reims--A horse trained on Champagne and biscuits--Decree of Louis

XV. regarding the transport of Champagne--Wine for the _petits

cabinets du Roi_--The _petits soupers_ and Champagne orgies of

the royal household--A bibulous royal mistress--The Well-Beloved

at Reims--Frederick the Great, George II., Stanislas Leczinski,

and Marshal Saxe all drink Champagne--Voltaire sings the praises

of the effervescing wine of Ay--The Commander Descartes and

Lebatteux extol the charms of sparkling Champagne--Bertin

du Rocheret and his balsamic molecules--The Bacchanalian

poet Panard chants the inspiring effects of the vintages of

the Marne--Marmontel is jointly inspired by Mademoiselle de

Navarre and the wine of Avenay--The Abbé de l'Attaignant and

his fair hostesses--Breakages of bottles in the manufacturers'

cellars--Attempts to obviate them--The early sparkling wines

merely _crémant_--_Saute bouchon_ and _demi-mousseux_--Prices

of Champagne in the eighteenth century--Preference given to

light acid wines for sparkling Champagne--Lingering relics

of prejudice against _vin mousseux_--The secret addition of

sugar--Originally the wine not cleared in bottle--Its transfer

to other bottles necessary--Adoption of the present method

of ridding the wine of its deposit--The vine-cultivators the

last to profit by the popularity of sparkling Champagne--Marie

Antoinette welcomed to Reims--Reception and coronation of Louis

XVI. at Reims--'The crown, it hurts me!'--Oppressive dues and

tithes of the _ancien régime_--The Fermiers Généraux and their

hôtel at Reims--Champagne under the Revolution--Napoleon at

Epernay--Champagne included in the equipment of his satraps--The

Allies in the Champagne--Drunkenness and pillaging--Appreciation

of Champagne by the invading troops--The beneficial results which

followed--Universal popularity of Champagne--The wine a favourite

with kings and potentates--Its traces to be met with everywhere.

[Illustration]

Whilst doctors went on shaking their periwigged heads, and debating

whether sparkling Champagne did or did not injure the nerves and

produce gout, the timid might hearken to their counsels, but there were

plenty of spirits bold enough to let the corks pop gaily, regardless of

all consequences. The wine continued in high favour with the _viveurs_

of the capital, and especially with the brilliant band of titled

scoundrels who formed the Court of Philippe le Débonnaire. 'When my son

gets drunk,' wrote, on the 13th August 1716, the Princess Charlotte

Elizabeth of Bavaria, the Regent's mother, 'it is not with strong

drinks or spirituous liquors, but pure wine of Champagne;'[168] and

as the pupil of the Abbé Dubois very seldom went to bed sober,[169]

he must have consumed a fair amount of the fluid in question in the

course of his career. Even his boon companion, the Duke de Richelieu,

is forced to admit that there was a great deal more drunkenness about

him than was becoming in a Regent of France; and that, as he could not

support wine so well as his guests, he often rose from the table drunk,

or with his wits wool-gathering. 'Two bottles of Champagne,' remarks

the duke in his _Chronique_, 'had this effect upon him.'

Desirous, seemingly, that such enjoyments should not be confined to

himself alone, he abolished in 1719 sundry dues on wine in general,

whilst his famous, or rather infamous, suppers conduced to the vogue

of that sparkling Champagne which was an indispensable accompaniment

of those _décolleté_ repasts. It unloosed the tongues and waistcoats

of the _roués_ of the Palais Royal, the Nocés, Broglios, Birons,

Brancas, and Canillacs; it lent an additional sparkle to the bright

eyes of Mesdames de Parabère and de Sabran, and inspired the scathing

remark from the lips of one of those fair frail ones, that 'God, after

having made man, took up a little mud, and used it to form the souls of

princes and lackeys.' It played its part, too, at the memorable repast

at which the Regent and his favourite daughter so scandalised their

hostess, the Duchess of Burgundy, and at the fatal orgie shared by the

same pair on the terrace of Meudon.

[Illustration: THE REGENT D'ORLÉANS (From the picture by Santerre).]

The example set in such high quarters could not fail to be followed.

Champagne fired the sallies of the wits and versifiers whom the Duchess

of Maine gathered around her at Sceaux, and stimulated the madness

which seized upon the whole of Paris at the bidding of the financier

Law. It frothed, too, in the goblets which Bertin du Rocheret had

the honour of filling with his own hand for Peter the Great, on the

passage of the Northern Colossus through Reims in June 1717; and

its consumption was increased by a decree of 1728, which especially

provided that people proceeding to their country seats might take with

them for their own use a certain quantity of this wine free of duty.

A curious purpose to which the wine was applied appeared from a wager

laid by the Count de Saillans--one of the most famous horsemen of his

day, and already distinguished by similar feats--to the effect that he

would ride a single horse from the gate of Versailles to the Hôtel des

Invalides within an hour. His wife, fearing the dangerous descent from

Sèvres towards Paris, prevailed on the King to prohibit him from riding

in person; but a valet, whose neck was of course of no moment, was

allowed to act as his deputy in essaying the feat. The horse selected

was carefully fed for some days beforehand on biscuits and Champagne.

Crowds assembled to witness the attempt, which was made on May 9, 1725,

and resulted in the valet's coming in two and a half minutes behind

time. Whether this was due to the badness of the roads, as was alleged,

or to the singular _régime_ adopted for the animal selected, remains a

moot question.[170]

Champagne won equal favour in the eyes of Louis XV., as in those

of the curious compound of embodied vices who had watched over the

welfare of the kingdom during his minority, though it is true that at a

comparatively early age--in the year 1731--he had, on representations

that over-production of wine was lowering its value, prohibited the

planting of fresh vineyards without his permission under a penalty of

3000 francs, and had renewed this prohibition the year following.[171]

[Illustration: LOUIS XV. WHEN YOUNG

(From a picture of the epoch).]

[Illustration: A FRENCH COUNTRY INN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

(From the 'Routes de France').]

The royal repasts at La Muette, Marly, and Choissy were, however,

enlivened with wine from the Champagne; for we find Bertin du Rocheret

in 1738 despatching thirty pieces of the still wine to M. de Castagnet

for the _petits cabinets du Roi_,[172] and the eldest of the fair

sisters La Nesle, Madame de Mailly, the 'Queen of Choissy' and

_maîtresse en titre_, in 1740 reforming the cellar management, and

suppressing the _petits soupers_ and Champagne orgies of the royal

household.[173] Her conduct in this respect seems, however, not to

have been dictated by motives of virtue, but rather by the conviction

that the wine was too precious to be consumed by inferiors. We are

assured that the countess loved wine, and above all that of Champagne,

and that she could hold her own against the stoutest toper. 'She has

been reproached with having imparted this taste to the King, but it is

probable that his Majesty was naturally inclined that way.'[174]

[Illustration: UN PETIT SOUPER OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

(From the collection of the 'Chansons de Laborde').]

When, in 1741, the 'Well-Beloved' passed through Reims, Dom Chatelain,

after rejoicing over the year's vintage having been a very fine one,

adds that it was drunk to a considerable extent and with the greatest

joy in the world during the ten days that the King remained in the

city. 'It was no longer a question,' he exclaims exultingly, 'of

sending for Burgundy or Laon wine.' Three years later, when traversing

the Champagne, on his way to Metz, he again halted at Reims; and after

hearing mass, 'retired to the Archevêché, where the Corps de la Ville

presented his Majesty with the wines of the town, which he ordered

to be taken to his apartments.'[175] Wine was also presented to the

Prince de Soubise, Governor of the Champagne; the Duke de Villeroy, M.

d'Argenson, and the Count de Joyeuse; whilst, for the benefit of the

populace, four fountains of the same fluid flowed at the corners of the

Place de l'Hôtel de Ville.[176] In like manner, at the inauguration of

that 'brazen lie,' the statue of this same Louis XV., in 1767, wine

flowed in rivers from the different fountains of the city.[177]

The satyr-like sovereign of France was by no means the only monarch

of his time who appreciated sparkling Champagne. Frederick the Great

has praised its consoling powers in the doggerel which Voltaire was

engaged to turn into poetry; and George II. of England at St. James's,

and Stanislas Leczinski of Poland at Nancy, both quaffed of the

same vintage of Ay despatched in 1754 from the cellars of Bertin du

Rocheret. Marshal Saxe, during his sojourn in 1745 at Brussels, where

he held a quasi-royal court, of which Mademoiselle de Navarre was the

bright particular star, drew an ample supply of Champagne from the

cellars of that lady's father, Claude Hevin de Navarre of Avenay, who

had established himself as a wine merchant in the Belgian capital.[178]

Despite, too, the continued outcry of some connoisseurs,[179] the

_vin mousseux_ became the universal source of inspiration for the

cabaret-haunting poets of that graceless witty epoch.[180] Voltaire,

all unmoved by the excellent still Champagne with which he and the Duke

de Richelieu had been regaled at Epernay by Bertin du Rocheret in May

1735, persisted in singing the praises of the effervescing wine of Ay,

in the sparkling foam of which he professed to find the type of the

French nation:[181]

'Chloris and Eglé, with their snowy hands,

Pour out a wine of Ay, whose prisoned foam,

Tightly compressed within its crystal home,

Drives out the cork; 'midst laughter's joyous sound

It flies, against the ceiling to rebound.

The sparkling foam of this refreshing wine

The brilliant image of us French does shine.'

The Commander Descartes seems not to have been afraid to extol the

charms of the sparkling wine to the younger Bertin du Rocheret, as

stern a decrier of its merits as his father had previously been. In a

letter dated December 1735, asking for 'one or two dozen bottles of

sparkling white wine, neither _vert_ nor _liquoreux_, "I should like,"

he says, "some

Of that delectable white wine

Which foams and sparkles in the glass,

And seldom mortal lips does pass;

But cheers, at festivals divine,

The gods to whom it owes its birth,

Or else the great, our gods on earth."'[182]

Amongst other versifiers of this epoch enamoured with the merits of the

wine may be cited Charles Lebatteux, professor of rhetoric at Reims

University, who in 1739 composed an ode, 'In Civitatem Remensam,'

containing the following invocation to Bacchus:

''Tis not on the icy-topped mountains of Thrace,

Or those of Rhodope, thy favours I trace--

Not there to invoke thee I'd roam.

No! Reims sees thee reign sovereign lord o'er her hills;

There I offer my vows, and the nectar that thrills

To my soul I will seek close at home.

Whether Venus-like rising midst foam sparkling white,

Or wrapped in a mantle of rose rich and bright,

Thou seekest my senses to fire,

Come aid me to sing, for my Muse is full fain

To owe on this day each melodious strain

To the fervour 'tis thine to inspire.'[183]

Bertin du Rocheret, who by no means shared his friend Voltaire's

admiration for the sparkling vintage of Ay, sang the praises of the

still wine of the Champagne after the following fashion in 1741:

'No, such blockheads do not sip

Of that most delicious wine;

Soul of love and fellowship,

Sweet as truly 'tis benign.

No, their palate, spoilt and worn,

Craves adult'rate juice to drain;

Poison raw which we should scorn,

Beverage fit for frantic brain.

Let us, therefore, hold as fools

Such as now feign to despise

Those _balsamic molecules_

Horace used to sing and prize.

No, such blockheads do not sip

Of that most delicious wine;

Soul of joy and fellowship,

Sweet as truly 'tis benign.

Of that wine, so purely white,

Which the sternest mood makes pass,

And which sparkles yet more bright

In your eyes than in my glass.

Drink, then, drink; I pledge you, dear,

In the nectar old we prize;

Sparkling in our glasses clear,

But more brightly in your eyes.'[184]

[Illustration]

Marmontel, the author of _Bélisaire_ and editor of the _Mercure de

France_, found inspiration in his youthful days in the sparkling wine

of Champagne. He describes, in somewhat fatuous style, the results of

an invitation he received from Mademoiselle de Navarre to pass some

months with her in 1746 at Avenay, where her father owned several

vineyards, and where, she added, 'It will be very unfortunate if with

me and some excellent vin de Champagne you do not produce good verses.'

He tells how, in stormy weather, she insisted, on account of her fear

of lightning, on dining in the cellars, where, 'in the midst of fifty

thousand bottles of Champagne, it was difficult not to lose one's

head;' and how he was accustomed to read to her the verses thus jointly

inspired when seated together on a wooded hillock, rising amidst the

vineyards of Avenay.[185]

The foregoing in some degree recalls the circumstances under which

Gluck, whose fame began to be established about this epoch, was

accustomed to seek his musical inspirations. The celebrated composer of

_Orpheus_ and _Iphegenia in Aulis_ was wont, when desirous of a visit

from the 'divine afflatus,' to seat himself in the midst of a flowery

meadow with a couple of bottles of Champagne by his side. By the time

these were emptied, the air he was in search of was discovered and

written down.

The lively and good-humoured Abbé de l'Attaignant, whose occupations

as a canon of Reims Cathedral seem to have allowed him an infinite

quantity of spare time to devote to versifying, addressed some rather

indifferent rhymes to Madame de Blagny on the cork of a bottle of

Champagne exploding in her hand;[186] and in some lines to Madame de

Boulogne, on her pouring out Champagne for him at table, he maintains

that the nectar poured out by Ganymede to Jupiter at his repasts must

yield to this vintage.[187]

That boon convivialist Panard--who flourished at the same epoch, and

was one of the chief songsters of the original Caveau, and a man of

whom it was said that, 'when set running, the tide of song flowed on

till the cask was empty'--has not neglected sparkling Champagne in

his Bacchanalian compositions. The 'La Fontaine of Vaudeville,' as

Marmontel dubbed him, does not hesitate to admit that he preferred

the popping of Champagne corks to the martial strains of drum and

trumpet.[188] The wine, moreover, furnishes him with frequent

illustrations for his code of careless philosophy.

'Doctor for vintner vials fills

Most carefully, with lymph of wells.

Champagne, that grew on Nanterre's hills,

Vintner in turn to doctor sells.

So still we find, as on we jog

Throughout the world, 'tis dog bite dog.'[189]

Elsewhere Panard gives expression to the Bacchanalian sentiment, which

he seems to have made his rule of life, in the following terms:

'Let's quit this vain world, with its pleasures that cloy,

A destiny tranquil and sweet to enjoy:

Descend to my cellar, and there taste the charms

Of Champagne and Beaune;

Our pleasure will there be without the alarms

Of any joy queller;

For the _ennui_ that often mounts up to the throne

Will never descend to the cellar.'[190]

The poet appears to have rivalled one of the characters in his piece,

_Les Festes Sincères_ (represented on the 5th October 1744 on the

occasion of the King's convalescence), who, after describing how wine

was freely proffered to all comers, said that he had contented himself

with thirty glasses, 'half Burgundy and half Champagne.'

In a piece of verse entitled 'La Charme du Vaudeville à Table,' Panard

sketches in glowing colours the inspiriting effect of sparkling

Champagne upon such a joyous company of periwigged beaux and patched

and powdered beauties as we may imagine to be assembled at the

hospitable board of some rich financier of the epoch.

''Tis then some joyous guest

A flask, filled with the best

Of Reims or Ay, securely sealed, holds up;

He deftly cuts the string,

Aloft the cork takes wing;

The rest with eager eyes

Thrust glasses t'wards the prize,

And watch the nectar foaming o'er the cup.

They sip, they drink, they laugh,

And then anew they quaff

Their bumpers, crowned above the brim with foam

That gives to laughter birth,

And makes fresh bursts of mirth.

Its spirit and its fire

Unto the brain aspire,

And rouse the wit of which this is the home.'[191]

[Illustration]

To its praise he also devotes a poetic _tour de force_, the concluding

verses of which may thus be rendered:

'Thanks to the bowl

That cheers my soul,

No care can make me shrink.

The foam divine

Of this gray wine,[192]

I think,

When it I drain,

Gives to each vein

A link.

Source of pure joy,

Without alloy,

Come, dear one, fain I'd drink!

Divine Champagne,

All grief and pain

In thee I gladly sink.

All ills agree

Away from thee

To slink.

Sweet to the nose

As new-blown rose

Or pink.

With gifts that ease

And charms that please,

Come, dear one, fain I'd drink!'[193]

Despite the success achieved by the _vin mousseux_, merchants, owing to

the excessive breakage of the bottles--of the cause of which and of the

means of stopping it they were equally ignorant--often saw their hopes

of fortune fly away with the splintered fragments of the shattered

glass.[194] The following passages from the /MS./ notes of the founder

of one of the first houses of Reims, written in 1770, would imply

some knowledge of the fact that a _liquoreux_ wine was likely to lead

to a destructive _casse_, and also that the importance of the trade

in sparkling Champagne was far greater during the first half of the

eighteenth century than is usually supposed.[195] The /MS./ in question

says: 'In 1746 I bottled 6000 bottles of a very _liquoreux_ wine; I

had only 120 bottles of it left. In 1747 there was less _liqueur_; the

breakage amounted to one-third of the whole. In 1748 it was more vinous

and less _liquoreux_; the breakage was only a sixth. In 1759 it was

more _rond_, and the breakage was only a tenth. In 1766 the wine of

Jacquelet was very _rond_; the breakage was only a twentieth.'[196]

The writer then proceeds to recommend, as a means of preventing

breakage, that the wine should not be bottled till the _liqueur_

had almost disappeared, and that, if necessary, fermentation should

be checked by well beating the wine. But as at that epoch there was

really no means of effectually testing this disappearance, and as the

beating theory was an utterly fallacious one, the followers of his

precepts remained with the sad alternative of producing in too many

instances either _mousses folles_ and their inevitable accompaniment of

disastrous breakage, or wine so mature as to be incapable of continuing

its fermentation in bottle, and producing _mousse_ at all.[197]

It is therefore evident that much of the sparkling wine drunk at the

commencement of the last century was what we should call _crémant_, or,

as it was then styled, _sablant_,[198] as otherwise the breakage would

have been something frightful. Bertin du Rocheret plainly indicates

after 1730 a difference between the fiercely frothing kinds, to which

the term _saute bouchon_ or pop-cork was applied, and wine that was

merely _mousseux_.[199] The price of the former is the highest, ranging

up to 3 livres 6 sols, whilst that of the _bon mousseux_ does not

exceed 50 sols, the difference in the two being no doubt based to a

certain extent on the loss by breakage.[200]

Hence, too, a partiality for weak sour growths for making _vin

mousseux_, as, although science could give no reason, experience

showed that with these the breakage would be less than with those of a

saccharine nature.[201] Thus Bertin writes in 1744 that the vineyards

of Avize, planted for the most part in 1715, and almost entirely with

white grapes, only produced a thin wine, with a tartness that caused

it to be one of the least esteemed in the district; but that 'since

the mania for the _saute bouchon_, that abominable beverage, which has

become yet more loathsome from an insupportable acidity,' the Avize

wines had increased in value eightfold.[202] To this acidity the Abbé

Bignon refers in a poem of 1741, in which, protesting against the

partiality for violently effervescing wines, he says:

'Your palate is a cripple

Worn out by fiery tipple,

Or else it would prefer juice

Of grapes to fizzing verjuice.'[203]

This serves to explain the preference so long accorded by _gourmets_ to

the finer _non mousseux_ wines, full of aroma and flavour, and often

sugary and _liquoreux_, but looked upon by the general public up to the

close of the eighteenth century as inferior to those which were sharp,

strong, and even sourish, but which effervesced well.[204] Lingering

relics of prejudice against sparkling wine existed as late as 1782,

when that conscientious observer, Legrand d'Aussy, remarked that since

it had been known that sparkling wines were green wines bottled in

spring, when the universal revolution of Nature causes them to enter

into fermentation, they had not been so much esteemed, the _gourmets_

of that day preferring those which did not sparkle.[205]

It was not till the close of the eighteenth century that any attempt

was openly made to improve sparkling Champagne by the addition of

sugar.[206] Science then came forward to prove that such an addition

was not contrary to the nature of wine, and that fermentation converted

the saccharine particles of the must into alcohol, and increased the

vinosity.[207] Several growers began to profit by this discovery of

Chaptal, though, as a rule, those who followed his recommendations in

secret were loudest in asserting that Providence alone had rendered

their wine better than that of their neighbours.[208] M. Nicolas

Perrier of Epernay, an ex-monk of Prémontré, pointed out, at the

beginning of the present century, that up to that period sugar was

only regarded as a means of rendering the wine more pleasant to drink,

and had always been added after fermentation, and as late as possible.

This practice was favoured by the tyrannical routine reigning among

the peasants of not tasting the wine till December or January, when in

1800 a decisive experience confirmed the value of the new discoveries.

Numerous demands for wine during the vintage led to anticipations of

a brisk and speedy sale, and sugar was thereupon added at the time of

the first fermentation, merely with the view, however, of bringing the

wine more forward for the buyer to taste. The result went beyond the

expectations entertained; and at Ay wines of the second class, commonly

called _vins de vignerons_, rose to a price previously unheard of.[209]

The present system of clearing the wine in bottles was not practised

formerly. People were then not so particular about its perfect

limpidity; besides which the wine consumed at the beginning of the

year[210] had not time to deposit, and that bottled as _mousseux_,

owing to its being originally made from carefully-selected grapes,

formed very little sediment in the flask.[211] The method of _collage_

employed at the Abbey of Hautvillers is said to have preserved the

wines from this evil. Whether this method transpired, or other people

discovered it, is unknown; but certainly Bertin du Rocheret transmitted

it, or something very similar, in July 1752 to his correspondent in

London, who bottled Champagne wines regularly every year.[212]

The necessity of ridding the wine of the deposit which deprived it of

its limpidity was, however, recognised later on. At first no other

method suggested itself, excepting to _dépoter_ it--that is, to decant

it into another bottle; a plan fraught, in the case of sparkling wines,

with several disadvantages. At the commencement of the present century,

however, the system of _dégorgeage_ was substituted.[213] As at first

practised, each bottle was held neck downwards, and either shaken

or tapped at the bottom to detach the sediment, the operation being

constantly repeated until the deposit had settled in the neck, when it

was driven out by the force of the explosion which followed upon the

removal of the cork. Somewhat later the plan now followed of placing

the bottles in sloping racks and turning them every day was adopted, to

the great saving of time and labour. Its discovery has been popularly

attributed to Madame Clicquot; but the fact is the suggestion emanated

from a person in her employ named Müller. The idea is said to have

simultaneously occurred to a workman in Marizet's house of the name of

Thommassin.

Although the advent of such a delectable beverage as sparkling

Champagne proved of much benefit to the world in general, and the

wine-merchants of Reims and Epernay in particular, those most

immediately concerned in its production had little or no reason to

rejoice over its renown. The hapless peasants, from whose patches of

vineyard it was to a great extent derived, were the last to profit by

its popularity. Bidet, writing in 1759, foreshadows the misery which

marked the last thirty years of the _ancien régime_.[214] Speaking

of the important trade in wine carried on by the city of Reims, he

urges that this would in reality be benefited by the old decrees,

prohibiting the planting of new vineyards in the Champagne, being

enforced to the letter. Extensive plantations of vines in land suitable

for the growth of corn had doubled and even tripled the value of arable

land, and caused a rise in the price of wheat. Manure, so necessary

to bring these new plantations into bearing, and wood, owing to the

demand for vine-stakes, barrel-staves, &c., had risen to thrice their

former value. Recent epidemics had cost the lives of a large number

of vine-dressers, and public _corvées_ occupied the survivors a great

part of the year, and hence a considerable increase in the cost of

cultivation, landowners having to pay high wages to labourers from

a distance. 'Putting together all these excessive charges, with the

crushing dues levied in addition upon vine-land as well as upon the

sale and transport of wine, the result will infallibly be that the more

profitable the wine-trade formerly was to Reims and to the vineyards

of the environs, the more it will languish in the end, till it becomes

a burden to all the vineyard owners.' Happily these gloomy forebodings

have since been completely falsified.

[Illustration: THE ARMS OF REIMS ON THE PORTE DE PARIS.]

Reims accorded an enthusiastic welcome to the youthful and ill-fated

Marie Antoinette, on her passage through the city on May 12, 1770,

shortly after her arrival in France;[215] and five years subsequently

the Rémois were regaled with the splendours of a coronation, when

the young King, Louis XVI., and his radiant Queen passed beneath

the elaborately wrought escutcheon surmounting the Porte de

Paris, expressly forged by a blacksmith of Reims in honour of the

occasion,[216] and received from the hands of the Lieutenant des

Habitans the three silver keys of the city.[217] The King was crowned

on the 11th June by the Cardinal Archbishop of Reims, Charles Antoine

de la Roche Aymon, a prelate who had previously baptised, confirmed,

and married him, when the six lay peers were represented by Monsieur

(the Count of Provence), the Count d'Artois, the Dukes of Orleans,

Chartres, and Bourbon, and the Prince de Condé. The royal train was

borne by the Prince de Lambesq; the Marshal de Clermont Tonnerre

officiated as Constable; and the sceptre, crown, and hand of justice

were carried respectively by the Marshals de Contades, de Broglie,

and de Nicolai.[218] How the ill-fated King exclaimed, as the crown

of Charlemagne was placed upon his brow, 'It hurts me,' even as

Henri III. had cried, under the same circumstances, 'It pricks me,'

and how his natural benevolence led him to slur over that portion

of the coronation oath in which he ought to have bound himself to

exterminate all heretics, are matters of history. An innovation to

be noted is, that at the banquet at the archiepiscopal palace, after

the ceremony, the youthful sovereign did _not_ sit alone in solitary

state beneath a canopy of purple velvet, ornamented with golden fleurs

de lis, with his table encumbered by the great gold _nef_, the crown

and the sceptres, the Constable, sword in hand, close by him, and the

Grand Echanson and Ecuyer Tranchant tasting his wine and cutting his

food,[219] circumstances under which 'the roast must be without savour

and the Ai without bouquet.'[220] The King on this occasion admitted

his brothers to his board; and the ecclesiastical peers, the lay peers,

the ambassadors, and the great officers of the crown formed, as usual,

four groups at the remaining tables, whilst the Queen and her ladies

witnessed the gustatory exploits from a gallery.

[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. TAKING THE CORONATION OATH AT REIMS

(From a painting by Moreau).]

The frightful oppression of _tailles_, _aides_, _corvées_,

_gabelles_, and other dues that crushed the hapless peasant in the

pre-Revolutionary era, weighed with especial severity upon the

_vigneron_. In virtue of the _droit de gros_, the officers could at any

hour make an inventory of his wine, decree how much he might consume

himself, and tax him for the remainder.[221] The _fermiers généraux_,

who farmed the taxes of the province, became his sleeping partners,

and had their share in his crop.[222] In a vineyard at Epernay, upon

four pieces of wine, the average produce of an arpent, and valued at

600 francs, the _ferme_ levied first 30 francs, and then when the

pieces were sold 75 francs more.[223] The ecclesiastical tithe was also

a heavy burden, at Hautvillers the eleventh of the wine being taken

as _dismes_, at Dizy the twelfth, and at Pierry the twentieth.[224]

The result was one continuous struggle of trickery on the part of the

grower, and cunning on that of the officers.[225] The visits of the

latter were paid almost daily, and their registers recorded every drop

of wine in the cellars of the inhabitants.[226]

[Illustration]

But the wine had by no means acquitted all its dues. The merchant

buying it had to pay another 75 francs to the _ferme_ before

despatching it to the consumer. When he did despatch it, the _ferme_

strictly prescribed the route it was to take, any deviation from this

being punished by confiscation; and it had to pay at almost every step.

Transport by water was excessively onerous from constantly recurring

tolls, and by land whole days were lost in undergoing examinations and

verifications and making payments.[227] The commissionnaire charged

with the conveyance of Bertin du Rocheret's wine to Calais from Epernay

had from 70 to 75 francs per poinçon. Despite all these drawbacks, the

export trade must have been considerable, for we are told that prior to

the Revolution the profits on supplying two or three abbeys of Flanders

were sufficient to enable a wine-merchant of Reims to live in good

style.[228]

On arriving at the town where it was to be drunk, the wine was subject

to a fresh series of charges--_octroi_, _droit de détail_, _le billot_,

_le cinquième en sus l'impôt_, _jaugeage_, _courtage_, _gourmettage_,

&c.--frequently ranging up to 60 or 70 francs.[229] All this really

affected the grower; for if the retail consumer, inhibited by high

prices, could not buy, the former was unable to sell. At this epoch

vine-grower and pauper were synonymous terms.[230] In certain districts

of the Champagne the inhabitants actually threw their wine into the

river to avoid paying the duties, and the Provincial Assembly declared

that 'in the greater part of the province the slightest increase in

duty would cause all the husbandmen to abandon the soil.'[231] It

is scarcely to be wondered at that under such a system of excessive

taxation the _fermiers généraux_, who all made good bargains with the

State, should have amassed immense fortunes, whilst denying themselves

no kind of luxury and enjoyment. They built themselves princely hotels,

rivalled the nobility and even the Court in the splendour of their

entertainments, grasped at money for the sensual gratification it would

purchase, and loved pleasure for its own sake, and women for their

beauty and _complaisance_. The _fermiers généraux_ of the province of

Champagne had their bureaux, known as the Hôtel des Fermes, at Reims,

and, after the town-hall, this was the handsomest civil edifice in the

city. Erected in 1756 from designs by Legendre, it occupies to-day the

principal side of the Place Royale. On the pediment of the façade is a

bas-relief of Mercury, the god of commerce, in company with Penelope

and the youthful Pan, surrounding whom are children engaged with the

vintage and with bales of wool, typical of the staple trades of the

capital of the Champagne.

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF ON THE ANCIENT HÔTEL DES FERMES AT REIMS.]

[Illustration: L'ACCORD FRATERNEL

(From a print published at the commencement of the Revolution).]

The revolutionary epoch presents a wide gap in the written history

of sparkling Champagne which no one seems to have taken the trouble

of filling, though this hiatus can be to some extent bridged over by

a glance at the caricatures of the period. It is evident from these

that Champagne continued to be the fashionable wine _par excellence_.

We can comprehend it was _de rigueur_ to 'fouetter le Champagne'[232]

at the epicurean repasts held at the _petits maisons_ of the rich

_fermiers généraux_, and that the _talons rouges_ of the Court of

Louis Seize were not averse to the payment of 3 livres 10 sols for

a bottle of this delightful beverage[233] when regaling some fair

_émule_ of Sophie Arnould or Mademoiselle Guimard in the _coulisses_.

One evening Mademoiselle Laguerre appeared on the stage as Iphigenia

unmistakably intoxicated. 'Ah,' interjected the lively Sophie, 'this

is not Iphigenia in Tauris, but Iphigenia in Champagne.' A proof of

the aristocratic status of the wine is furnished by a print entitled

_L'Accord Fraternel_, published at the very outset of the revolutionary

movement, when it was fondly hoped that the Three Orders of the States

General would unite in bringing about a harmonious solution to the

evils by which France was sorely beset. In this the burly well-fed

representative of the clergy holds out a bumper of Burgundy; the

peasant--not one of the lean scraggy labourers, with neither shirt

nor sabots,[234] prowling about half naked and hunger-stricken in

quest of roots and nettle-tops, but a regular stage peasant in white

stockings and pumps--grips a tumbler well filled with _vin du pays_;

while the nobleman, elaborately arrayed in full military costume, with

sword, cockade, and tie-wig all complete, delicately poises between

his finger and thumb a tall _flute_ charged with sparkling Champagne.

Moreover, we can plainly trace the exhilarating influence of the wine

upon the 'feather-headed young ensigns' at the memorable banquet given

to the officers of the Régiment de Flandre by the Gardes du Corps at

Versailles, on the 2d Oct. 1789.[235]

[Illustration: MIRABEAU TONNEAU

(From a sketch by Camille Desmoulins).]

Conspicuous amongst the titled topers of this period was the Viscount

de Mirabeau--the younger brother of the celebrated orator and a fervent

Royalist--nicknamed Mirabeau Tonneau, or Barrel Mirabeau, 'on account

of his rotundity, and the quantity of strong liquor he contains.'[236]

In a caricature dated 'An 1^{er} de la liberté,' and ascribed to

Camille Desmoulins,[237] with whom the viscount long waged a paper

war, his physical and bibacious attributes are very happily hit off.

His body is a barrel; his arms, pitchers; his thighs, rundlets; and

his legs inverted Champagne flasks; whilst in his left hand he holds a

foam-crowned _flute_, and in his right another of those flasks, two of

which he was credited with emptying at each repast.[238]

[Illustration: LE NOUVEAU PRESSOIR DU CLERGÉ, 1789

(From a caricature of the epoch).]

We have seen that the origin of many of the most famous _crûs_ of

France was due to monkish labours, and that at Reims, as elsewhere,

a large proportion of the ecclesiastical revenue was derived, either

directly or indirectly, from the vineyards of the district. This

was happily hit off in _Le Nouveau Pressoir du Clergé_, or _New

Wine-Press for the Clergy_, published in 1789. A man of the people

and a representative of the Third Estate, the latter in the famous

slouched hat and short cloak, are working the levers of a press, under

the influence of which a full-faced abbé is rapidly disgorging a shower

of gold. A yet more portly ecclesiastic, worthy to be the Archbishop

of Reims himself, is being led forward, in fear and trembling, to

undergo a like operation; whilst in the background a couple of his

compeers, reduced to the leanness of church-rats, are making off with

gesticulations of despair.

[Illustration: HENRI QUATRE AND LOUIS SEIZE.

'Ventre St. Gris! Is this my grandson Louis?'

(Facsimile of a woodcut of the time.)]

The chief personal traits of Louis Seize, as depicted in numerous

contemporary memoirs, seem to have been a passion for making locks and

a gross and inordinate appetite. High feeding usually implies deep

drinking, and one may suppose that a wine so highly esteemed at Court

as Champagne was not neglected by the royal gourmand. Still there seems

to have been nothing in the unfortunate monarch's career to justify

the cruel caricature wherein he is shown with the ears and hoofs of a

swine wallowing in a wine-vat, with bottles, flasks, pitchers, cups,

goblets, glasses, and _flûtes_ of every variety scattered around him;

whilst Henri Quatre, who has just crossed the Styx on a visit to earth,

exclaims in amazement, 'Ventre St. Gris! is this my grandson Louis?' In

another caricature, entitled 'Le Gourmand,' and said to represent an

incident in the flight of the royal family from Paris, Louis XVI. is

shown seated at table--surrounded by stringed flasks of Champagne, with

the customary tall glasses--engaged in devouring a plump capon. His

Majesty is evidently annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of his

repast, but it is difficult to divine who the intruder is intended for.

He can scarcely be one of the commissioners despatched by the National

Assembly to secure the king's return to Paris, as the German hussars

drawn up in the doorway are inconsistent with this supposition. The

female figure before the looking-glass is of course intended for Marie

Antoinette, whilst the ungainly young cub in the background is meant

for the Dauphin in an evident tantrum with his nurse.[239]

As to the pamphleteers, who advocated the Rights of Man and aspersed

Marie Antoinette; the poets, who addressed their countless airy trifles

to Phyllis and Chloe; the penniless disciples of Boucher and Greuze;

and the incipient demagogues, briefless advocates, unbeneficed abbés,

discontented bourgeois, whose eloquence was to shatter the throne of

the Bourbons, they were fain for the time being to content themselves

with the _petit bleu_ of Argenteuil or Suresnes, consumed in company

with Manon or Margot, in one of the dingy smoky _cabarets_ which the

_café_ was so soon in a great measure to replace. When, however, their

day did come, we may be sure they denied themselves no luxury, and

sparkling Champagne would certainly have graced Danton's luxurious

repasts, and may possibly have played its part at the last repast of

the condemned Girondins. In '93, we find Champagne of 1779--the still

wine, of course--announced for sale at Lemoine's shop in the Palais

Royal; while a delectable compound, styled _crême de fleur d'orange

grillée au vin de Champagne_, was obtainable at Théron's in the Rue St.

Martin.[240] The sparkling wine can scarcely have failed to figure on

the _carte_ of the sumptuous repasts furnished by the _restaurateurs_,

Méot and Beauvillers, to the _de facto_ rulers of France,[241]

although in 1795 the price of wine generally in Paris had increased

tenfold.[242] Ex-_procureurs_ of the defunct Parliament carefully

hoarded all that remained of the Champagne formerly lavished upon them

by their ex-clients;[243] whilst the latter had to content themselves

with tea at London and beer at Coblenz.[244]

[Illustration]

Although details respecting the progress of the Champagne wine-trade

at home and abroad at the outset of the present century are somewhat

scanty, we readily gather that the great popularity of the sparkling

wine throughout Europe dates from an event which, at the time of

its occurrence, the short-sighted Champenois looked upon as most

disastrous. This was the Allied invasion of 1814-15. Consumption,

so far as the foreign market was concerned, had been grievously

interrupted by the great upset in all commercial matters consequent

upon the wars of the Revolution and the Empire. It appears that the

white wines of Champagne were sent to Paris, Normandy, Italy, and,

'when circumstances permitted of it,' to England, Holland, Sweden,

Denmark, Russia, Spain, Portugal, and 'beyond the seas.' But the trade

had suffered greatly during the wars with Austria and Russia in 1806

and 1807; and in the following years the consumption of white wine had

fallen considerably, and a large number of wine-merchants had found

themselves unable to meet their engagements.[245]

The wine which Napoleon I. preferred is said to have been Chambertin;

still, his intimacy with the Moëts of Epernay could scarcely fail to

have led to a supply of the best sparkling Champagne from the cellars

he had deigned to visit in person. His satraps, who travelled with the

retinue of sovereign princes, included the wine in their equipment

wherever they went, and the popping of its mimic artillery echoed in

their tents the thunder of their victorious cannon. But comparatively

few foreign guests met at their tables; and as their foes had on their

side few victories to celebrate in a similar style, the knowledge of

sparkling Champagne outside France was confined to the comparatively

small number of persons of wealth and position able to pay an

extravagant price for it.

At length the fatal year, 1814, arrived, and the Allies swarmed across

the frontier after the 'nations' fight' at Leipzig. The Champagne

lying directly on the way to Paris saw some hard fighting and pitiless

plundering. The Prussians of Baron von Tromberg got most consumedly

drunk at Epernay. The Cossacks ravaged Rilly, Taissy, and the other

villages of the Mountain; and not being able to carry off all the wine

they found at Sillery, 'added to their atrocities,' in the words of an

anonymous local chronicler,[246] by staving in the barrels and flooding

the cellars. The Russians, under the renegade St. Priest, seized on

Reims, whetted their thirst with salt herrings till the retail price

of these dainties rose from 5 liards a pair to 3 sous apiece, and then

set to work to quench it with Champagne to such an extent that when

Napoleon suddenly swooped down upon the city like his own emblematic

eagle, a large number of them, especially among the officers, were

neither in a condition to fight nor fly.[247]

The immense body of foreign troops who remained quartered in the

east of France after the downfall of the Empire continued to pay

unabated devotion to the _dive bouteille_. Tradition has especially

distinguished the Russians, and relates how the Cossacks used to pour

Champagne into buckets, and share it with their horses. But the walking

sand-beds of North Germany, the swag-bellied warriors of Baden and

Bavaria, and the stanch topers of Saxony and Swabia must of a surety

have distinguished themselves. The votaries of Gambrinus, the beer

king, strove whether they could empty as many bottles of Champagne at

a sitting as they could flagons filled with the amber-hued beverage of

their native province; while the inhabitants of those districts where

the grape ripens sought to institute exhaustive comparisons between the

vintages they gathered at home and the growths of the favoured region

in which they now found themselves.

[Illustration: LES RUSSES À PARIS

(From a coloured print of the time).]

The Berliner was fain to acknowledge the superiority of the foam

engendered by Champagne over that crowning his favourite _weissbier_,

his own beloved _kuhle blonde_, and the beer-topers of Munich and

Dresden to give the preference to the exhilaration produced by quaffing

the wine of Reims and Epernay over that due to the consumption of

_bockbier_. The Nassauer and the Rhinelander had to admit certain

intrinsic merits in the vintages produced on the slopes of the Marne,

and found to be lacking in those grown on the banks of the Rhine, the

Ahr, the Main, and the Moselle. The Austrian recognised the superiority

of the wines of the Mountain over those of Voslau or the Luttenberg;

and the Magyar had to allow that the _crûs_ of the River possessed a

special charm which Nature had denied to his imperial Tokay. Even the

red-coated officers who followed 'Milord Vilainton' to the great review

at Mont Aimé, near Epernay, proved faithless to that palladium of the

British mess-table, their beloved 'black strop.' Claret might in their

eyes be only fit for boys and Frenchmen, and Port the sole drink for

men; but they were forced to hail Champagne as being, as old Baudius

had already phrased it, 'a wine for gods.'

[Illustration: LE DÎNER DE MILORD GOGO, 1816

(After a coloured print of the time).]

The officers of the Allied armies quartered in Paris after the

Hundred Days supplemented the charms of the Palais Royal--then in the

very apogee of its vogue as the true centre of Parisian life, with

its cafés, restaurants, theatres, gambling-houses, and Galeries de

Bois--with an abundance of sparkling Champagne. Royalty itself set the

example by indicating a marked preference for the wine, Louis Dixhuit,

according to a statement made by Wellington to Rogers, drinking nothing

else at dinner. To celebrate the victories of Leipsic and Waterloo or

a successful assault on the bank at Frascati's, to console for the

loss of a _grosse mise_ at No. 113 or of a comrade transfixed beneath

a lamp in the Rue Montpensier by a Bonapartist sword-blade, to win the

smiles of some fickle Aspasia of the Palais Royal Camp des Tartares or

to blot out the recollection of her infidelity, to wash down one of the

Homeric repasts in which the English prototypes of the 'Fudge Family

Abroad' indulged, the wine was indispensable; until, as a modern writer

has put it, 'Waterloo was avenged at last by the _gros bataillons_ of

the bankers at _roulette_ and _trente et quarante_, and by the sale

to the invaders of many thousand bottles of rubbishing Champagne at

twelve francs the flask.'[248] The rancorous enmity prevailing between

the officers of Bonapartist proclivities placed on half-pay and the

returned _émigrés_ who had accepted commissions from Louis XVIII.,

resulted, as is well known, in numerous hostile meetings. Captain

Gronow has dwelt upon the bellicose exploits of a gigantic Irish

officer in the _gardes du corps_, named Warren, who, when 'excited by

Champagne and brandy,'[249] was prepared to defy an army; and he tells

us that at Tortoni's there was a room set apart for such quarrelsome

gentlemen, where, after these meetings, they indulged in riotous

Champagne breakfasts.[250] At home, the British Government were being

twitted on their parsimony in limiting the supply of Champagne for

the table of the exiled Emperor at St. Helena to a single bottle per

diem, a circumstance which led Sir Walter Scott to protest against the

conduct of Lord Bathurst and Sir Hudson Lowe in denying the captive

'even the solace of intoxication.'

As is not unfrequently the case, out of evil came good. The assembled

nations had drunk of a charmed fountain, and it had excited a thirst

which could not be quenched. The Russians had become acquainted with

Champagne, which Talleyrand had styled '_le vin civilisateur par

excellence_,' and to love this wine was with them a very decided step

towards a liberal education. Millions of bottles, specially fortified

to the pitch of strength and sweetness suited for a hyperborean

climate, were annually despatched to the great northern empire from the

house of Clicquot; and later on the travellers of rival firms, eager

to secure a portion of this patronage, traversed the dominions of the

autocrat throughout their length and breadth, and poured their wines

in wanton profusion down the throats of one and all of those from whom

there appeared a prospect of securing custom.

[Illustration]

From this influx of sparkling wine into the frozen empire of the Czar

the acceptance of civilisation--of rather a superficial character,

it is true--may be said to date. Had Peter the Great only preferred

Champagne to corn-brandy, the country would have been Europeanised long

ago. As it is, the wine has to-day become a recognised necessity in

higher class Russian society, and scandal even asserts that whenever it

is given at a dinner-party, the host is careful to throw the windows

open, in order that the popping of the corks may announce the fact

to his neighbours. Abroad the Russians are more reserved in their

manners; and though ranking amongst the best customers of the Parisian

_restaurateurs_ for high-class wines, it is only now and then that some

excited Calmuck is to be seen flooding the glasses of his companions

with Champagne in a public dining-room. The Russians, it should be

noted, have sought, and not unsuccessfully, to produce sparkling wines

of their own, more especially in the country of the Don Cossacks and

near the Axis.

[Illustration]

Béranger might exclaim, with a poet's license, that he preferred a

Turkish invasion to seeing the wines of the Champagne profaned by

the descendants of the Alemanni;[251] but the merchants of Reims and

Epernay were of a different opinion. _Les militaires_ have always

affected Champagne; and a military aristocracy like that of the

Fatherland, in the cruel days when peace forbade any more free quarters

and requisitions, became as large purchasers of the wine as their

somewhat scanty revenues allowed of. Their example was followed to a

considerable extent by the self-made members of that plutocratic class

which modern speculation has caused to spring into life in Germany.

Advantage was speedily taken of this taste by their own countrymen,

who aimed at supplanting Champagne by sparkling wines grown on native

slopes. Nay more, the Germans, as a military nation, felt bound to

carry the war into the enemy's territory, and hence it is that many

important houses at Reims and Epernay are of German origin. Across the

Rhine patriotism has had to yield to popularity, and the stanchest

native topers have been forced to acknowledge, after due comparison in

smoky _wein stuben_ and gloomy _keller_, that, though the sparkling

wines of the Rhine and the Moselle are in their own way most excellent,

there is but one _Champagner-wein_, with Reims for its Mecca and

Epernay for its Medina.

[Illustration]

Of England we shall elsewhere speak at length; but the speculative

trade of her colonies, with its sharp bargains, dead smashes, and large

profits could hardly be carried on without the wheels of the car of

Commerce and the tongues of her votaries being oiled with Champagne.

The Swiss have only proved the truth of the proverb that imitation

is the sincerest form of flattery by producing tolerable replicas of

Champagne at Neufchâtel, Vevay, and Sion. Northern, or, to speak by the

map, Scandinavian, Europe takes its fair share of the genuine article;

and although the economic Belgian is apt to accept sparkling Saumur and

Vouvray as a substitute, both he and his neighbour, the Dutchman, can

to the full appreciate the superiority of the produce of the Marne over

that of the Loire.

The Italian and the Spaniard may affect to outwardly despise a liquor

which they profess not to be able to recognise as wine at all; but the

former has to allow, _per Bacco_, that it excels in its particular

way his extolled Lacryma Christi, while the latter does not carry his

proverbial sobriety so far as to exclude the wine from repasts in

the upper circles of Peninsular society. Moreover, of recent years

they have both commenced making sparkling wines of their own. The

Austrian also produces sparkling wines from native vintages, notably

at Voslau, Graz, and Marburg; still this has not in any way lessened

his admiration for, or his consumption of, Champagne. The Greek is

ready enough to 'dash down yon cup of Samian wine,' provided there be a

goblet of Champagne close at hand to replace it with; and boyards and

magnates of the debateable ground of Eastern Europe not only imbibe

the sparkling wines of the Marne ostentatiously and approvingly, but

several of them have essayed the manufacture of _vin mousseux_ on their

own estates.

The East, the early home of the vine, and the first region to impart

civilisation, is perhaps the last to receive its reflux in the shape of

sparkling wine. But, the prohibition of the Prophet notwithstanding,

Champagne is to be purchased on the banks of the Golden Horn, and has

been imported extensively into Egypt in company with _opéra-bouffe_,

French _figurantes_, stock-jobbing, and sundry other matters of

foreign extraction under the _régime_ of the late Khedive. The land

of Iran has beheld with wonderment its sovereign freely quaffing the

fizzing beverage of the Franks in place of the wine of Shiraz. The

East Indies consume Champagne in abundance; for it figures not only

on the proverbially hospitable tables of the merchants and officials

of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, but at the symposia of most of the

rajahs, princes, nawabs, and other native rulers. The almond-eyed

inhabitant of 'far Cathay,' reluctant to abandon that strange

civilisation so diametrically opposed in all its details to our own,

continues to drink his native vintages, warm and out of porcelain

cups, and to regard the sparkling drink of the Fanquis as a veritable

'devils' elixir.' But his utterly differing neighbour, the Japanese, so

eager to welcome everything European, has gladly greeted the advent of

Champagne, and freely yielded to its fascination.

Turning to the undiscovered continent, we find sable sovereigns ruling

at the mouths of the unexplored rivers of Equatorial Africa fully

acquainted with Champagne, though disposed, from the native coarseness

of their taste, to rank it as inferior to rum; whilst the Arab, filled

with wonderment at the marvels of European civilisation which meet his

eye at Algiers, bears back with him to the _douar_, wrapped up in the

folds of his burnous, a couple of bottles of the wondrous effervescing

drink of the Feringhees as a testimony, even as Othere brought the

walrus-tooth to Alfred. One enthusiastic Algerian colonist has gone

so far as to prophesy the advent of the day when the products of the

native vineyards shall eclipse Champagne.[252] Let us hope, however,

in the interest of Algerian digestions, that this day is as yet far

distant.

[Illustration]

With respect to the consumption of Champagne in the Western world,

the United States' exceeds that of any European country, England and

France alone excepted, despite the competition of sparkling Catawba and

of a certain diabolical imitation, the raw material of which, it is

asserted, is furnished not by the grapes of the Carolinas, the peaches

of New Jersey, or the apples of Vermont, but by the oil-wells of

Pennsylvania--in fact, petroleum Champagne. The _cabinet particulier_

seems to be an institution as firmly established in the leading

cities of the States as in Paris; and rumour says that drinking from

a Champagne-glass touched by a fair one's lips has replaced the New

England pastime of eating the same piece of maple-candy till mouths

meet. As regards the South American Republics, the popping of musketry

at each fresh _pronunciamento_ is certain to be succeeded by that of

Champagne-corks in honour of the success of one or the other of the

contending parties.

In Europe Champagne has continued to be, from the days of Paulmier and

Venner downwards, the drink of kings, princes, and great lords as they

described it. Take a list of the potentates of the present century,

and the majority of them will be found to have evinced at some time or

other a partiality for the wine. Louis XVIII. drank nothing else at

table. The late ruler of Prussia, Frederick William IV., had such a

penchant for Champagne of a particular manufacture, that he obtained

the cognomen of King Clicquot. The predecessor of Pio Nono, Gregory

XVI., rivalled him in this appreciation, and, terrible to relate, so

did the Commander of the Faithful, Abdul Medjid. The latter might,

however, have pleaded the excuse put forward by Abd-el-Kader, that

although the Prophet had forbidden wine, yet Champagne came into the

category of aerated waters, concerning which he had said nothing, a

remark justifying the title given to this wit-inspiring beverage of

being 'the father of _bons mots_.' Prince Bismarck, in the stormy

period of his youth, was in the barbarous habit of imbibing Champagne

mixed with porter; but at present he judiciously alternates it with old

Port. Marshal MacMahon and the King of the Belgians are said to drink

the pink variety of the _vin mousseux_ by preference.

[Illustration: 'SOUS LA TONNELLE'

(From a print of the time of the Restoration).]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: 'AU BEAU SEXE!']

Naturally, in France as elsewhere, the sparkling vintage of the Marne

maintains its claims to be reckoned the wine of beauty and fashion,

and more especially in beauty's gayer hours. A glass of Champagne

and a _biscuit de Reims_ has been a refection which, though often

verbally declined, was in the end pretty sure to be accepted from the

days of the _merveilleuses_ and _incroyables_, through those of the

_lionnes_, down to the present epoch of the _cocodettes de la haute

gomme_. Neither at ceremonial banquets nor at ordinary dinner-parties

among our neighbours does Champagne hold, however, so prominent a

place as amongst ourselves, owing to the great variety of other

wines--all capable of appreciation by trained palates--entering into

the composition of these festive repasts. In fact, a _repas de noces_

is the only occasion on which Champagne flows in France with anything

like the freedom to which we are accustomed; and then it is that its

exhilarating effect is marked, as some portly old boy rises with

twinkling eye to propose the health of the bride, or of that _beau

sexe_ to which he feels bound to profess himself deeply devoted. At

such open-air gatherings as the races at Longchamps and Chantilly, the

_buffet_ will be besieged by a succession of frail fair ones in the

most elaborate _toilettes de courses_, seeking to nerve themselves to

witness a coming struggle, or to console themselves for the defeat

of the horse backed by their favoured admirer. And, when writing of

this wine, it is altogether impossible to omit a reference to those

_tête-à-tête_ repasts _en cabinet particulier_, of which it is the

indispensable adjunct. Its mollifying influence on the feminine heart

on occasions such as these has been happily hit off by Charles Monselet

in his _Polichinelle au Restaurant_:

[Illustration]

'/Polichinelle au Restaurant./

I.

In a cabinet of Vachette,

Pomponnette

Listens to the pressing lover;

Who, before they've done their soup,

Cock-a-hoop,

Dares his passion to discover.

II.

Elbows resting on the cloth,

Partly wrath--

So much do his words astound--

Resolute she to resist

Being kissed,

Draws her mantle closer round.

III.

Whilst in vain his cause he pressed,

A third guest,

Who in ice-pail by them slumbered,

Rears above his wat'ry bed

Silver head

And long neck with ice encumbered.

IV.

'Tis Champagne, who murmurs low,

"Don't you know

That when once you set me flowing,

This fair rebel to Love's dart

In her heart

Soon will find soft passion glowing?

V.

This, if you will list to me,

You shall see;

Cease to swear by flames and fire,

Cast aside each angry thought,

As you ought,

And at once cut through my wire,

VI.