It is evident that, in spite of the teachings of science, the bursting

of Champagne bottles has not yet been reduced to a minimum, for whereas

in some cellars it averages 7 and 8 per cent, and rises to 15 when the

pressure is unusually strong, in others it rarely exceeds 2-1/2 or 3.

The period between May and September is that in which the greatest

destruction takes place. In the month of October, the first and

severest breakage being over, the newly-bottled wine is definitively

stacked in the cellars in piles from two to half a dozen bottles deep,

from six to seven feet high, and frequently a hundred feet or upwards

in length. Usually the bottles remain in their horizontal position,

in which they gradually develop two essential qualities, that of

effervescing well and that of travelling satisfactorily, for about

eighteen or twenty months, though some firms, who pride themselves

upon shipping perfectly matured wines, leave them thus for double this

space of time. During this period the temperature to which the wine is

exposed is, as far as practicable, carefully regulated; for the risk of

breakage, though greatly diminished, is never entirely at an end.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

By this time the fermentation is over; but in the interval, commencing

from a few days after the bottling of the wine, a loose dark-brown

sediment has been forming, which has now settled on the lower side of

the bottle, and to get rid of which is a delicate and tedious task. As

the time approaches for preparing the wine for shipment, the bottles

are placed _sur pointe_, as it is termed--that is to say, slantingly

in racks with their necks downwards, the inclination being increased

from time to time to one more abrupt.[414] The object of this change in

their position is to cause the sediment to leave the side of the bottle

where it has gathered. Afterwards it becomes necessary to twist and

turn it and coagulate it, as it were, until it forms a kind of muddy

ball, and eventually to get it well down into the neck of the bottle,

so that it may be finally expelled with a bang when the temporary cork

is removed and the proper one adjusted. To accomplish this the bottles

are sharply turned in one direction every day for at least a month or

six weeks, the time being indefinitely extended until the sediment

shows a disposition to settle near the cork. The younger the wine the

longer the period necessary for the bottles to be shaken, new wine

often requiring as much as three months. Only a thoroughly practised

hand can give the right amount of revolution and the requisite degree

of slope; and in some of the cellars men were pointed out to us who had

acquired such dexterity as to be able at a pinch to shake with their

two hands as many as 50,000 bottles in a single day, whilst 30,000 to

40,000 is by no means an uncommon performance.

[Illustration]

Some of these men have spent thirty or forty years of their lives

engaged in this perpetual task. Fancy being entombed all alone day

after day in vaults which are invariably dark and gloomy, and often

cold and dank, and being obliged to twist sixty to seventy of these

bottles every minute throughout the day of ten hours! Why, the

treadmill and the crank, with their periodical respites, must be

pastime compared to this maddeningly monotonous occupation, which

combines hard labour, with the wrist, at any rate, with next to

solitary confinement. One can understand these men becoming gloomy and

taciturn, and affirming that they sometimes see devils hovering over

the bottle-racks and frantically shaking the bottles beside them, or

else grinning at them as they pursue their humdrum task. Still it may

be taken for granted that the men who reach this stage are accustomed

to drink freely of raw spirits, as an antidote to the damp to which

they are exposed, and merely pay the penalty of their over-indulgence.

[Illustration]

In former times the bottles used to be placed with their heads

downwards on tables pierced with holes, from which they had to be

removed and agitated. At a still earlier date the process was more

or less successfully accomplished by holding the bottles upside down

by the neck, tapping them at the bottom to detach the sediment, and

then, after shaking them well up, laying them on their sides until the

operation was repeated. In 1818, however, a man named Müller, in the

employment of Madame Clicquot, suggested that the bottles should remain

in the tables whilst being shaken, and further that the holes should

be cut obliquely, so that they might recline at varying angles. His

suggestions were privately adopted by Madame Clicquot; but eventually

the improved plan got wind, and the system which he initiated now

prevails throughout the Champagne.[415]

[Illustration]

When the bottles have gone through their regular course of shaking,

they are examined before a lighted candle to ascertain whether the

deposit has all fallen on to the cork, and the wine has become

perfectly clear. Sometimes it happens that, twist these men never so

wisely, the deposit, instead of becoming flaky or granular, refuses to

stir, and takes the shape of a bunch of threads technically called a

'claw,' or an adherent membrane styled a 'mask.' When this is the case

an attempt is made to start it by tapping the part to which it adheres

with a piece of iron, the result being frequently the sudden explosion

of the bottle in the workman's hands. By way of precaution, therefore,

the operator protects his face with a wire mask, or by gigantic wire

spectacles, which give to him a ghoul-like aspect. Frequently it is

found impossible to detach the 'mask' from the side of the bottle, and

in this case the only thing that remains is to pour the wine back again

into the cask, with the view of mixing it in some future _cuvée_.[416]

[Illustration]

The cellars of the Champagne manufacturers are very varied in

character. The wine that has been grown on the chalky hills is left to

develop itself in vaults burrowed out of the calcareous strata which

underlie the entire district. In excavating these cellars the sides and

roofs are frequently worked smooth and regular as finished masonry. The

larger ones are composed of a number of spacious and lofty galleries,

sometimes parallel with each other, but often ramifying in various

directions, and evidently constructed on no definite plan. They are

of one, two, and, in rare instances, of three stories, and now and

then consist of a series of parallel galleries communicating with each

other, lined with masonry, and with their stone walls and vaulted roofs

resembling the crypt of some conventual building. Others of ancient

date are less regular in their form, being merely so many narrow,

low, winding corridors, varied, perhaps, by recesses hewn roughly out

of the chalk, and resembling the brigands' cave of melodrama; while

a certain number of the larger cellars at Reims are simply abandoned

quarries, the broad and lofty arches of which are suggestive of

the nave and aisles of some Gothic church. In these varied vaults,

lighted by solitary lamps in front of metal reflectors, or by the

flickering tallow candles which we carry in our hands, we pass rows

of casks filled with last year's vintage or reserved wine of former

years, and piles after piles of bottles of _vin brut_ in seemingly

endless sequence--squares, so to speak, of raw recruits for the

historically famous 'Regiment de Champagne'[417]--awaiting their turn

to be thoroughly drilled and disciplined. These are varied by bottles

reposing neck downwards in racks at different degrees of inclination,

according to the progress their education has attained. Reports caused

by exploding bottles now and then assail the ear, and as the echo dies

away it becomes mingled with the rush of the escaping wine, cascading

down the pile, and finding its way across the sloping sides of the

floor to the narrow gutter in the centre. The dampness of the floor and

the shattered fragments of glass strewn about show the frequency of

this kind of accident.

[Illustration: DETACHING THE 'MASK' FROM THE SIDES OF THE BOTTLES.]

In these subterranean galleries we frequently come upon parties

of workmen engaged in transforming the perfected _vin brut_ into

Champagne. Viewed at a distance while occupied in their monotonous

task, they present in the semi-obscurity a series of picturesque

Rembrandt-like studies. One of the end figures in each group is engaged

in the important process of _dégorgement_, which is performed when the

deposit, of which we have already spoken, has satisfactorily settled

in the neck of the bottle. Baskets full of bottles with their necks

downwards are placed beside the operator, who stands before a cask set

on end, and having a large oval opening in front. This nimble-fingered

manipulator seizes a bottle, raises it for a moment before the light to

test the clearness of the wine and the subsidence of the deposit; holds

it horizontally in his left hand, with the neck directed towards the

opening already mentioned; and with a jerk of the steel hook which he

holds in his right hand loosens the agrafe securing the cork. Bang goes

the latter, and with it flies out the sediment and a small glassful or

so of wine, further flow being checked by the workman's finger, which

also serves to remove any sediment yet remaining in the bottle's neck.

Like many other clever tricks, this looks very easy when adroitly

performed, though a novice would probably allow the bottle to empty

itself by the time he discovered that the cork was out. Yet such is the

dexterity acquired by practice that the average amount of wine, foam,

and deposit ejected by this operation does not exceed one-fourteenth

of the contents of the bottle. Occasionally a bottle bursts in the

_dégorgeur's_ hand, and his face is sometimes scarred from such

explosions. The sediment removed, the _dégorgeur_ slips a temporary

cork into the bottle, or places the latter in a machine provided with

fixed gutta-percha corks and springs for securing the bottles firmly

in their places. The wine is now ready for the important operation of

the _dosage_, upon the nature and amount of which the character of

perfected Champagne, whether it be dry or sweet, light or strong, very

much depends.[418]

[Illustration]

Different manufacturers have different recipes for the composition of

this syrup, all more or less complex in character, and varying with

the quality of the wine and the country for which it is intended;

but the genuine liqueur consists of nothing but old wine of the best

quality, to which a certain amount of sugar-candy and perhaps a dash of

the finest cognac spirit has been added.[419] The saccharine addition

varies according to the market for which the wine is destined: thus

the high-class English buyer demands a dry Champagne, the Russian a

wine sweet and strong as 'ladies' grog,' and the Frenchman and German a

sweet light wine. To the extra-dry Champagnes a modicum dose is added,

while the so-called '_brut_' wines receive no more than from one to

three per cent of liqueur.[420]

[Illustration]

In establishments wedded to old-fashioned usages the dose is

administered with a tin can or ladle; but more generally an ingenious

machine which regulates the percentage of liqueur to a nicety is

employed. The bottle being usually nearly full when passed to

the _doseur_, he, when a heavy percentage of liqueur has to be

administered, is constrained, under the old system, to pour out some

of the wine to make room for it, and this surplus in many cases is

afterwards transformed into the well-known _tisane de Champagne_.

As soon as the _dosage_ is accomplished, the bottle is passed to

another workman known as the _égaliseur_, who fills it up with pure

wine, frequently with a part of that which has been poured out by

the _doseur_, to the requisite level for corking. In the event of

a pink Champagne being required, the wine thus added will be red,

although manufacturers of questionable reputation sometimes employ

the solution of elderberries, known as _teinte de Fismes_, to impart

that once-favourite roseate hue which has been compared to the glow of

fading sunlight on a crystal stream.

[Illustration: THE DOSEUR.]

[Illustration: THE CORKER.]

[Illustration: THE METTEUR DE FIL.]

[Illustration: DOSING MACHINE.]

[Illustration: CORKING MACHINE.]

The _égaliseur_ in his turn hands the bottle to the corker, who places

it under a machine furnished with a pair of claws (so as to compress

the cork to a size sufficiently small to allow it to enter the neck of

the bottle) and a suspended weight, which in falling drives it home.

These corks, principally obtained from Catalonia and Andalucia, are

bound to possess a close and regular fibre and perfect elasticity.

They form no unimportant item in the Champagne manufacturer's budget,

costing upwards of twopence each, and are delivered in huge sacks

resembling hop-pockets. Previous to being used they are either boiled

in wine or soaked in a solution of tartar, or else they have been

steamed by the cork merchants, in order to prevent their imparting a

bad flavour to the wine, and to hinder any leakage. They are commonly

handed warm to the corker, who dips them into a small vessel of wine

before making use of them. Some firms, however, prepare their corks by

subjecting them to cold-water _douches_ a day or two beforehand. The

_ficeleur_ receives the bottle from the corker, and with a twist of the

fingers secures the cork with string, at the same time rounding its

hitherto flat top, at a rate which allows from a thousand to twelve

hundred bottles to pass through his hands in course of the day. The

_metteur de fil_ next affixes the wire with like celerity;[421] and

then the final operation is performed by a workman seizing a couple of

bottles by the neck and whirling them round his head, as though engaged

in the Indian-club exercise, in order to secure a perfect amalgamation

of the wine and the liqueur.

[Illustration]

The final manipulation accomplished, the agitated course of existence

through which the wine has been passing at last comes to an end, and

the bottles are conveyed to another part of the establishment, where

they repose for several days, or even weeks, in order that the mutual

action of the wine and the liqueur upon each other may be complete.

When the time arrives for despatching them, they are confided to

feminine hands to have their dainty toilettes made, and are tastefully

labelled, and are either capsuled, or else have their corks and necks

imbedded in sealing-wax or swathed in gold or silver foil, whereby

they are rendered presentable at the best-appointed tables. All that

now remains is to wrap them up in coloured tissue-paper, to slip them

into straw envelopes, or encircle them with wisps of straw, and pack

them either in cases or baskets for despatch to all quarters of the

civilised globe.

[Illustration]

It is thus that Champagne sets out on its beneficial pilgrimage to

promote the spread of mirth and light-heartedness, to drive away dull

care and foment good-fellowship, to comfort the sick and cheer the

sound. Wherever civilisation penetrates, Champagne sooner or later

is sure to follow; and if Queen Victoria's morning drum beats round

the world, its beat is certain to be echoed before the day is over

by the popping of Champagne corks. Nowadays the exhilarating wine

graces not merely princely but middle-class dinner-tables, and is the

needful adjunct at every _petit souper_, as well as the stimulant to

the wildest revels in all the gayer capitals of the world. It gives a

flush to beauty at garden-parties and picnics, sustains the energies

of the votaries of Terpsichore until the hour of dawn, and imparts to

many a young gallant the necessary courage to declare his passion. It

enlivens the dullest of _réunions_, brings smiles to the lips of the

sternest cynics, softens the most irascible tempers, and loosens the

most taciturn tongues.

The grim Berliner and the gay Viennese both acknowledge the

exhilarating influence of the wine. Champagne sparkles in crystal

goblets in the great capital of the North, and the Moslem wipes its

creamy foam from his beard beneath the very shadow of the mosque of

St. Sophia; for the Prophet has only forbidden the use of wine, and

of a surety--Allah be praised!--this strangely-sparkling delicious

liquor, which gives to the true believer a foretaste of the joys of

Paradise, cannot be wine. At the diamond-fields of South Africa and

the diggings of Australia the brawny miner who has hit upon a big bit

of crystallised carbon, or a nugget of virgin ore, strolls to the

'saloon' and shouts for Champagne. The mild Hindoo imbibes it quietly,

but approvingly, as he watches the evolutions of the Nautch girls, and

his partiality for the wine has already enriched the Anglo-Bengalee

vocabulary and London slang with the word 'simkin.' It is transported

on camel-backs across the deserts of Central Asia, and in frail

canoes up the mighty Amazon. The two-sworded Daimio calls for it in

the tea-gardens of Yokohama, and the New Yorker, when not rinsing his

stomach by libations of iced water, imbibes it freely at Delmonico's.

Wherever the Romans died they left traces behind them in their quaint

funeral urns; wherever the civilised man of the nineteenth century has

set his foot--at the base of the Pyramids and at the summit of the

Cordilleras, in the mangrove swamps of Ashantee and the gulches of the

Great Lone Land, in the wilds of the Amoor and on the desert isles

of the Pacific--he has left traces of his presence in the shape of

the empty bottles that were once full of the sparkling vintage of the

Marne. They are strewn broadcast over the face of the globe, literally

from Indus to the Pole. The crews of the Alert and the Discovery

left them on the ice-bound verge of the paleocrystic sea; the French

expeditionary columns have scattered them within the limits of the

Great Sahara. In the lodges of the red man they are found playing the

part of a great medicine, and in the huts of the negro they assume all

the importance due to a big fetish. Stanley, arriving fainting and

exhausted at the mouth of the Congo, hailed with joy the foil-tipped

flask that the hospitable merchants who answered his appeal for succour

had despatched; and as he quaffed its contents, recalled how he and

Livingstone, when thousands of miles from any other European, had

emptied a bottle of sparkling Champagne together on the night of their

memorable meeting at Ujiji. And when, after the battle of Ulundi, the

victorious British troops occupied Cetewayo's kraal, they found within

the sable potentate's private chamber several empty Champagne bottles,

the contents of which, it is to be presumed, he had quaffed the night

before to the success of his followers. In the Transvaal too, during

the negotiations for an armistice, Sir Evelyn Wood regaled the Boer

delegates with Champagne. On a subsequent occasion, the latter were

unable to return the compliment, excusing themselves by suggestively

remarking, 'We don't take such things with us when we go to fight.'

[Illustration]

[Illustration: RENAISSANCE HOUSE AT REIMS, IN WHICH MADAME CLICQUOT

RESIDED.]

VI.

/Reims and its Champagne Establishments./

The city of Reims--Its historical associations--The Cathedral--Its

western front one of the most splendid conceptions of the

thirteenth century--The sovereigns crowned within its

walls--Present aspect of the ancient archiepiscopal city--The

woollen manufactures and other industries of Reims--The city

undermined with the cellars of the great Champagne firms--Reims

hotels--Gothic house in the Rue du Bourg St. Denis--Renaissance

house in the Rue de Vesle--Church of St. Jacques: its gateway

and quaint weathercock--The Rue des Tapissiers and the Chapter

Court--The long tapers used at religious processions--The Place

des Marchés and its ancient houses--The Hôtel de Ville--Statue

of Louis XIII.--The Rues de la Prison and du Temple--Messrs.

Werlé & Co., successors to the Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin--Their

offices and cellars on the site of a former Commanderie of the

Templars--Origin of the celebrity of Madame Clicquot's wines--M.

Werlé and his son--Remains of the Commanderie--The forty-five

cellars of the Clicquot-Werlé establishment--Our tour of inspection

through them--Ingenious dosing machine--An explosion and its

consequences--M. Werlé's gallery of paintings--Madame Clicquot's

Renaissance house and its picturesque bas-reliefs--The Werlé

vineyards and vendangeoirs.

[Illustration: HEAD OF BACCHUS IN THE COURTYARD OF THE HÔTEL DU LION

D'OR.]

The ancient city of Reims is pleasantly situate in a spacious natural

basin, surrounded by calcareous hills, for the most part planted with

vines. It is fertile in historical associations, rich in archæological

treasures, and at the same time able to claim the respect more

readily accorded in the nineteenth century to a busy and prosperous

commercial centre. Indeed, its historical, archæological, and

commercial importance is in advance of its actual political situation,

for administratively it only ranks as a simple subprefecture in the

department of the Marne. The student of history can hardly afford to

neglect a city so intimately associated with the story of monarchy in

France, and one which has witnessed the coronations of a long series of

sovereigns, beginning with Clovis and ending with Charles X. From the

day when the 'proud Sicamber' bent his neck at the adjuration of St.

Remi, and vowed to adore that which he had burnt and to burn that which

he had adored, down to the time when the future exile of Holyrood had

his forehead touched by Jean Baptiste Antoine de Latil with the remnant

of the 'sacred pomatum' so miraculously saved from revolutionary

hands, few of the titular rulers of the country have failed to honour

it with their presence. As the Durocortorum of Cæsar, the residence

of Charlemagne, the seat of the great Ecclesiastical Councils of

the twelfth century, the stronghold of the League, and the scene of

one of the first Napoleon's most brilliant feats of arms during the

campaign of 1813-14, it has also earned for itself a conspicuous place

in history. To Englishmen it is, perhaps, most noteworthy as having

successfully checked the victorious advance of the third Edward after

Cressy, and witnessed the apogee of that meteoric career, which began

in the inn-yard at Domremi and ended in the market-place at Rouen,

the career of Jeanne la Pucelle. Nor must it be forgotten that Reims

sheltered the childhood of Mary Stuart, and saw the heralds of England

hurl solemn defiance at Henri II. in the Abbey of St. Remi, at the

command of Mary Tudor.

[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF REIMS, 1880.]

To the archæologist as to the ordinary sightseer, the chief attractions

presented by Reims consist in its numerous ecclesiastical edifices,

some still serving the purpose for which they were originally erected,

others long since converted to secular usages. Most conspicuous among

them is the cathedral church of Notre Dame, the stately basilica

in which the sovereigns of France were wont to be crowned. This

superb monument of Gothic architecture was commenced in 1210, upon

the plans of Robert de Coucy, by Archbishop Alberic de Humbert. It

was completed at the commencement of the fourteenth century, and

though the original design was somewhat modified--owing, it is said,

to the contributions of the faithful not coming in with sufficient

rapidity--it remains a marvel of strength, admirably combined with

grace. The exterior is extremely fine; and the western face, with its

elaborately ornate portal, has been described as 'one of the most

splendid conceptions of the thirteenth century.'[422] Amidst the almost

bewildering multiplicity of ornament, the triple porch, surmounted

by a group representing the Coronation of the Virgin, the great rose

window, flanked by colossal effigies of David and Goliath, and the

range of statues known as the Gallery of the Kings, running across the

façade near its summit, are conspicuous. The interior, although fine,

and containing many objects of interest, is less impressive, while

the plundered treasury can still boast of many quaint and curious

relics of bygone times. But the chief interest centres in the fact

of the surrounding walls having witnessed so many scenes of stately

pomp and pageantry. St. Louis, Philip the Fair, Philip of Valois,

the unfortunate John the Good, Charles the Simple, and Charles the

Victorious, with Joan of Arc, standard in hand, by his side; the wily

Louis XI., Louis the Father of his People, the magnificent Francis I.,

and his scarcely less magnificent son, the young husband of Mary Queen

of Scots; the savage Charles IX., Henri III., with his protest that

the crown hurt him, Louis the Just, the Roi Soleil himself, Louis the

Well-Beloved, the hapless Louis Seize, and Charles X., have all knelt

here in turns whilst the crown was placed on their heads, the sword

girded to their sides, and the oriflamme waved above them.

Many of the most famous cities of the Middle Ages are mere fossilised

representatives of former grandeur, but with Reims the case is

otherwise. If somewhat fallen from its former high estate, politically

speaking--though it should be remembered that Troyes was the titular

capital of the Champagne when the province was ruled by independent

Counts--its material prosperity has augmented. Round the nucleus of

narrow and often tortuous streets, representing the old archiepiscopal

city--the 'Little Rome' of the twelfth century--a network of spacious

thoroughfares and broad boulevards has spread itself, and the life

and movement of a busy manufacturing population are not lacking. In

addition to the wine trade, which of course employs, both directly and

indirectly, a large number of hands, Reims is one of the most important

seats of the woollen manufacture in France, and the industrial element

forms a very important factor amongst its inhabitants. In addition

to the flannels, merinoes, blankets, trouserings, shawls, &c., that

are annually produced, to the value of from thirty to forty million

of francs, there is also a considerable production of gingerbread,

biscuits, and dried pears, enjoying a wide-spread reputation.

The cellars of the great Champagne manufacturers of Reims are scattered

in all directions over the historical old city. They undermine its

narrowest and most insignificant streets, its broad and handsome

boulevards, and on the eastern side extend beyond its more distant

outskirts. In whichever direction we may elect to proceed when

visiting the principal Champagne establishments, our starting-point

will necessarily be the vicinity of the Cathedral, for it is here

that all the hotels are situated. Facing the great western doorway of

the ancient Gothic edifice is the Hôtel Lion d'Or, formerly the Hôtel

Petit Moulinet, where the allied sovereigns sojourned on their way to

Paris in 1814, and Napoleon rested on his flight after the battle of

Waterloo. Close by is the Hôtel Maison Rouge, with the commemorative

tablet on its renovated façade setting forth that in the year 1429,

at the coronation of Charles VII. in this hostelry, then named the

Striped Ass, the father and mother of Jeanne Darc were lodged at the

expense of the city council. Almost facing is the newly-erected Grand

Hôtel, and on the north-western side of the Cathedral is the Hôtel de

Commerce, the resort, as its name implies, of most of the commercial

travellers frequenting the capital of the Champagne. The visitor to

Reims, be his object business or pleasure, is bound to put up at one

or other of these four hostelries, and hence the starting-point of his

peregrinations is necessarily the same.

[Illustration: GOTHIC DOORWAY IN THE RUE DU BOURG ST. DENIS, REIMS.]

Proceeding along the Rue Tronçon Ducoudray, we reached the Rue de

Vesle, where the Palais de Justice and the new theatre are situated. In

the adjacent Rue du Bourg St. Denis is an old house--the ground-floor

of which is a wine-shop styled Buvette du Théâtre--notable for its

antique Gothic doorway, containing, within the upper portion of

the arch, the bas-relief of a man fighting with a bear. There is a

tradition that on this spot formerly stood a hospital dedicated to St.

Hubert, and intended for the reception of persons wounded when hunting,

or who might have chanced to be bitten by mad dogs. In the Rue de Vesle

is another old house with an ornamental frieze surmounting its façade,

which looks on to one of the entrances of the Church of St. Jacques.

This edifice, originally erected at the close of the twelfth century,

is hemmed in on all sides by venerable-looking buildings, while above

them rises its tapering steeple, surmounted by a mediæval weathercock

in the form of an angel. The interior of the church presents a curious

jumble of architectural styles from early Gothic to late Renaissance.

One noteworthy object of art which it contains is a life-size

crucifix carved by Pierre Jacques, a Remois sculptor of the days of

the Good King Henri, and from an anatomical point of view a perfect

_chef-d'[oe]uvre_.

[Illustration: FRIEZE OF OLD HOUSE IN THE RUE DE VESLE, REIMS.]

[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES, REIMS.]

[Illustration: WEATHERCOCK OF THE CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES.]

The Rue de Vesle merges into the Rue des Tapissiers, where in former

times the carpet manufacturers of Reims had their warehouses. In

the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the carpets of Reims were as

famous in France as those of Aubusson are to-day, but subsequently

they began to decline. Half-way up this street--where, by the way, in

1694 the first numbers of the _Gazette de France_, the oldest existing

French newspaper, were printed, the news being duly forwarded from

Paris--we pass the ancient gateway leading to the chapter-court of

the Cathedral. Within the court a weekly market of small wares is

now held; but in the days when the archbishops, dukes, and peers of

Reims wielded sovereign sway in the capital of the Champagne, this

open space was a _champ clos_, where trials by battle took place. The

surrounding buildings comprised residences for various ecclesiastics

connected with the Cathedral, together with a small farm whence these

epicurean priests derived their supply of fresh milk and fatted capons.

According to ancient custom, the inhabitants of the houses facing the

chapter-gateway were required to keep their doors and windows open on

days of religious processions, the tapers carried by the clergy on

these occasions being of such immoderate length that it was necessary

to incline them, and run them into the doors and windows of the houses

opposite when the bearers passed under the archway.

[Illustration: GOTHIC HOUSE IN THE MARKET-PLACE, REIMS.]

At the end of the Rue des Tapissiers is the handsome Place Royale,

connected with the Place des Marchés by a broad rectangular street

lined with lofty edifices in the modern Parisian style of architecture.

A break ensues in this range of massive-looking buildings as we enter

the ancient Place des Marchés, the forum of Roman Reims, and to-day

bordered more or less by houses of a mediæval character, remarkably

well preserved. Principal among these is a Gothic timber-house of

the fifteenth century, with its projecting upper stories supported

by elaborately-carved corbels, and its entire façade enriched with

mouldings and finials, and with columns and capitals overlaid with

sculptured ornaments.

[Illustration: STATUE OF LOUIS XIII. ON THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, REIMS.]

Some little distance beyond the Place des Marchés is the Place

de l'Hôtel de Ville, which derives all its interest from the

handsome-looking edifice in the florid Italian style of the early

part of the seventeenth century which gives it its name. The façade

of this building is profusely decorated with Ionic, Doric, and

Corinthian columns, and on the pediment above the principal entrance

is a bas-relief equestrian statue of Louis XIII., whom the Latin

inscription beneath fulsomely characterises as 'the just, the pious,

the victorious, the clement, the beloved of his people, the terror of

his enemies, and the delight of the world,' and to whom 'the senate

and inhabitants of Reims have raised this imperishable trophy.' Some

century and a half later, however, the imperishable trophy got hurled

down and shattered into fragments by the populace, and its vacant place

was only filled by the present statue in the year 1818.

To the right of the Place is the Chambre des Notaires of Reims, raised

on the site of the ancient _présidial_, or court of justice, where

the city magistrates used to be elected during the Middle Ages, and

to which a chapel and a prison were attached. The latter building

evidently gave its name to the adjoining Rue de la Prison, the

gloomy-looking houses of which--of a more massive character than the

gabled structures of the market-place and the Rue de l'Etape--with

their formidably-barred windows, possible relics of the religious

wars, seem to frown, as it were, upon the passer-by. In a narrow

tortuous street leading from this thoroughfare Messrs. Werlé & Co., the

successors of the famous Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, have their offices

and cellars, on the site of a former Commanderie of the Templars; and

strangers passing by this quiet spot would scarcely imagine that under

their feet hundreds of busy hands are incessantly at work, disgorging,

dosing, shaking, corking, storing, wiring, labelling, capsuling,

waxing, tinfoiling, and packing hundreds of thousands of bottles of

Champagne destined for all parts of the civilised world.

The house of Clicquot, established in the year 1798 by the husband

of La Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, who died in 1866, in her 89th year,

was indebted for much of the celebrity of its wine to the lucky

accident of the Russians occupying Reims in 1814 and 1815, and freely

requisitioning the sweet Champagne stored in the widow's capacious

cellars. Madame Clicquot's wines were slightly known in Russia prior

to this date; but the officers of the invading army, on their return

home, proclaimed their merits throughout the length and breadth of

the Muscovite Empire, and the fortune of the house was made. Madame

Clicquot, as every one knows, amassed enormous wealth, and succeeded in

marrying both her daughter and granddaughter to counts of the _ancien

régime_.

The present head of the firm is M. Werlé, who comes of an old Lorraine

family although born in the ancient free imperial town of Wetzlar on

the Lahn, where Goethe lays the scene of his 'Sorrows of Werther,' the

leading incidents of which really occurred there. M. Werlé entered

the establishment which he has done so much to raise to its existing

position so far back as the year 1821. His care and skill, exercised

for nearly two-thirds of a century, have largely contributed to obtain

for the Clicquot brand that high repute which it enjoys to-day all over

the world. M. Werlé, who has long been naturalised in France, was for

many years Mayor of Reims and President of its Chamber of Commerce, as

well as one of the deputies of the Marne to the Corps Législatif. He

enjoys the reputation of being the richest man in Reims, and, like his

late partner, Madame Clicquot, he has also secured brilliant alliances

for his children, his son, M. Alfred Werlé, having married the daughter

of the Duc de Montebello, while his daughter espoused the son of M.

Magne, Minister of Finance under the Second Empire.

[Illustration: HEADS OF PH[OE]BUS AND BACCHUS.]

Half-way down the narrow Rue du Temple is an ancient gateway, on

which may be traced the half-effaced sculptured heads of Ph[oe]bus

and Bacchus. Immediately in front is a green _porte-cochère_ forming

the entrance to the Clicquot-Werlé establishment, and conducting to

a spacious trim-kept courtyard, set off with a few trees, with some

extensive stabling and cart-sheds on the left, and on the right hand

the entrance to the cellars. Facing us is an unpretending-looking

edifice, where the firm has its counting-houses, with a little corner

tower surmounted by a characteristic weathercock consisting of a figure

of Bacchus seated astride a cask beneath a vine-branch, and holding

up a bottle in one hand and a goblet in the other. The old Remois

Commanderie of the Knights Templars existed until the epoch of the

Great Revolution, and today a few fragments of the ancient buildings

remain adjacent to the 'celliers' of the establishment, which are

reached through a pair of folding-doors and down a flight of stone

steps. The date of the foundation of this Commanderie is uncertain,

but it is known that a Templar's church occupied a portion of the

site in 1170. In 1311 both the church and the Commanderie passed into

possession of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which held them until

the epoch of the Revolution. Formerly the _échevins_ of Reims used to

be elected in the ancient hall of the Commanderie, which at one period

was a sanctuary for debtors, and also for criminals. Early in the

present century the buildings were sold and demolished.

[Illustration: THE CLICQUOT-WERLÉ ESTABLISHMENT AT REIMS.]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Arms of the Dauphins of France.

Arms of the Knight of Malta.

DEVICES FROM THE COMMANDERIE AT REIMS.]

After being furnished with lighted candles, we set out on our tour of

inspection of the Clicquot-Werlé establishment, entering first of all

the vast cellar of St. Paul, where the thousands of bottles requiring

to be daily shaken are reposing necks downward on the large perforated

tables which crowd the apartment. It is a peculiarity that each of the

Clicquot-Werlé cellars--forty-five in number, and the smallest among

them a vast apartment--has its special name. In the adjoining cellar of

St. Matthew other bottles are similarly arranged, and here wine in cask

is likewise stored. We pass rows of huge tuns, each holding its twelve

or thirteen hundred gallons of fine reserved wine designed for blending

with more youthful growths; next, are threading our way between

seemingly endless piles of hogsheads filled with later vintages, and

anon are passing smaller casks containing the syrup with which the

_vin préparé_ is dosed. At intervals we come upon some square opening

in the floor through which bottles of wine are being hauled up from

the cellars beneath in readiness to receive their requisite adornment

before being packed in baskets or cases, according to the country

to which they are destined to be despatched. To Russia the Clicquot

Champagne is sent in cases containing sixty bottles, while the cases

for China contain as many as double that number.

[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE COMMANDERIE AT REIMS.]

The ample cellarage which the house possesses has enabled M. Werlé to

make many experiments which firms with less space at their command

would find it difficult to carry out on the same satisfactory scale.

Such, for instance, is the system of racks in which the bottles repose

while the wine undergoes its diurnal shaking. Instead of these racks

being, as is commonly the case, at almost upright angles, they are

perfectly horizontal, which, in M. Werlé's opinion, offers a material

advantage, inasmuch as the bottles are all in readiness for disgorging

at the same time, instead of the lower ones being ready before those

above, as is the case when the ancient system is followed, owing to the

uppermost bottles getting less shaken than the others.

After performing the round of the celliers we descend into the _caves_,

a complete labyrinth of gloomy underground corridors excavated in the

bed of chalk which underlies the city, and roofed and walled with solid

masonry, more or less blackened by age. In one of these cellars we

catch sight of rows of workpeople engaged in the operation of dosing,

corking, securing, and shaking the bottles of wine which have just

left the hands of the _dégorgeur_ by the dim light of half-a-dozen

tallow-candles. The latest invention for liqueuring the wine is being

employed. Formerly, to prevent the carbonic acid gas escaping from the

bottles while the process of liqueuring was going on, it was necessary

to press a gutta-percha ball connected with the machine, in order to

force the escaping gas back. The new machine, however, renders this

unnecessary, the gas, by its own power and composition, forcing itself

back into the wine.

In the adjoining cellar of St. Charles are stacks of bottles awaiting

the manipulation of the _dégorgeur_; while in that of St. Ferdinand

men are engaged in examining other bottles before lighted candles, to

make certain that the sediment is thoroughly dislodged, and the wine

perfectly clear before the disgorgement is effected. Here, too, the

corking, wiring, and stringing of the newly-disgorged wine are going

on. Another flight of steps leads to the second tier of cellars, where

the moisture trickles down the dank dingy walls, and save the dim

light thrown out by the candles we carried, and by some other far-off

flickering taper, stuck in a cleft stick, to direct the workmen, who

with dexterous turns of their wrists, give a twist to the bottles, all

is darkness. On every side bottles are reposing in various attitudes,

the majority in huge square piles on their sides, others in racks

slightly tilted; others, again, almost standing on their heads, while

some, which through overinflation have come to grief, litter the floor

and crunch beneath our feet. Tablets are hung against each stack

of wine indicating its age, and from time to time a bottle is held

up before the light to show us how the sediment commences to form,

or to explain how it eventually works its way down the neck of the

bottle, and finally settles on the cork. Suddenly we are startled by

a loud report, resembling a pistol-shot, which reverberates through

the vaulted chamber, as a bottle close at hand explodes, dashing out

its heavy bottom as neatly as though it had been cut by a diamond,

and dislocating the necks and pounding-in the sides of its immediate

neighbours. The wine trickles down, and eventually finds its way along

the sloping sides of the slippery floor to the narrow gutter in the

centre.

[Illustration: MADAME VEUVE CLICQUOT AT EIGHTY YEARS OF AGE

(From the painting by Léon Coignet).]

Ventilating shafts pass from one tier of cellars to the other, enabling

the temperature in a certain measure to be regulated, and thereby

obviate an excess of breakage. M. Werlé estimates that the loss in

this respect during the first eighteen months of a cuvée amounts to 7

per cent, but subsequently is considerably less. In 1862 one Champagne

manufacturer lost as much as 45 per cent of his wine by breakages. The

Clicquot cuvée is made in the cave of St. William, where 120 hogsheads

of wine are hauled up by means of a crane, and discharged into the vat

daily as long as the operation lasts. The tirage, or bottling of the

wine, ordinarily commences in the middle of May, and occupies fully a

month.

M. Werlé's private residence is close to the establishment in the Rue

du Temple, and here he has collected a small gallery of high-class

modern paintings by French and other artists, including Meissonier's

'Card-players,' Delaroche's 'Beatrice Cenci on her way to Execution,'

Fleury's 'Charles V. picking up the brush of Titian,' various works by

the brothers Scheffer, Knaus's highly-characteristic _genre_ picture,

'His Highness on a Journey,' and several fine portraits, among which is

one of Madame Clicquot, painted by Léon Coignet, when she was eighty

years of age, and another of M. Werlé by the same artist, regarded as

a _chef-d'[oe]uvre_. Before her father's death Madame Clicquot used

to reside in the Rue de Marc, some short distance from the cellars in

which her whole existence centred, in a handsome Renaissance house,

said to have had some connection with the row of palaces that at one

time lined the neighbouring and then fashionable Rue du Tambour.

This, however, is extremely doubtful. A number of interesting and

well-preserved bas-reliefs decorate one of the façades of the house

looking on to the court. The figures are of the period of François

Premier and his son Henri II., who inaugurated his reign with a

comforting edict for the Protestants, ordaining that blasphemers were

to have their tongues pierced with red-hot irons, and heretics to be

burnt alive, and who had the ill-luck to lose his eye and life through

a lance-thrust of the Comte de Montgomerie, captain of his Scotch

guards, whilst jousting with him at a tournament held in honour of the

marriage of his daughter Isabelle with the gloomy widower of Queen Mary

of England, of sanguinary fame.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The first of these bas-reliefs represents two soldiers of the Swiss

guard, the next a Turk and Slav tilting at each other, and then

comes a scroll entwined round a thistle, and inscribed with this

enigmatical motto: 'Giane le sur ou rien.' In the third bas-relief a

couple of passionate Italians are winding up a gambling dispute with a

hand-to-hand combat, in the course of which table and cards have got

canted over; the fourth presents us with two French knights, armed

_cap-à-pie_, engaged in a tourney; while in the fifth and last a couple

of German lansquenets essay their gladiatorial skill with their long

and dangerous weapons. Several years back a tablet was discovered in

one of the cellars of the house, inscribed 'Ci-gist vénérable religieux

maistre Pierre Derclé, docteur en théologie, jadis prieur de céans.

Priez Dieu pour luy. 1486,' which would almost indicate that the house

had originally a religious character, although the warlike spirit of

the bas-reliefs decorating it renders any such supposition with regard

to the existing building untenable. We should mention that the spaces

above the _porte cochère_, and the window by its side, are occupied

by four medallions, which present that curious mingling of classic

and contemporary styles for which the epoch of the Renaissance was

remarkable.

[Illustration: MEDALLIONS FROM MADAME CLICQUOT'S HOUSE.]

The Messrs. Werlé own numerous acres of vineyards, comprising the very

finest situations in the well-known districts of Verzenay, Bouzy, Le

Mesnil, and Oger, at all of which places they have vendangeoirs or

pressing-houses of their own. Their establishment at Verzenay contains

seven presses, that at Bouzy eight, at Le Mesnil six, and at Oger two,

in addition to which grapes are pressed under their own supervision at

Ay, Avize, and Cramant, in vendangeoirs belonging to their friends.

Since the death of Madame Clicquot the legal style of the firm has

been 'Werlé & Co., successors to Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin,' the

mark, of which M. Werlé and his son are the sole proprietors, still

remaining 'Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin,' while the corks of the bottles

are branded with the words 'V. Clicquot-P. Werlé,' encircling the

figure of a comet. The style of the wine--light, delicate, elegant, and

fragrant--is familiar to all connoisseurs of Champagne. What, however,

is not equally well known is that within the last few years the firm,

in obedience to the prevailing taste, have introduced a perfectly dry

wine of corresponding quality to the richer wine which made the fortune

of the house, and gave enduring fame to the Clicquot brand.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: THE PLACE ROYALE AT REIMS.]

VII.

/Reims and its Champagne Establishments/ _(continued)_.

The house of Louis Roederer founded by a plodding German

named Schreider--The central and other establishments of the

firm--Ancient house in the Rue des Elus--The gloomy-looking Rue

des Deux Anges and prison-like aspect of its houses--Inside

their courts the scene changes--Handsome Renaissance house and

garden, a former abode of the canons of the Cathedral--The

Place Royale--The Hôtel des Fermes and the statue of the 'wise,

virtuous, and magnanimous Louis XV.'--Birthplace of Colbert in

the Rue de Cérès--Quaint Adam and Eve gateway in the Rue de

l'Arbalète--Heidsieck & Co.'s central establishment in the Rue de

Sedan--Their famous 'Monopole' brand--The firm founded in the last

century--Their extensive cellars inside and outside Reims--The

matured wines shipped by them--The Boulevard du Temple--M. Ernest

Irroy's cellars, vineyards, and vendangeoirs--Recognition by the

Reims Agricultural Association of his plantations of vines--His

wines and their popularity at the best London clubs--Various

Champagne firms located in this quarter of Reims--The Rue du

Tambour and the famous House of the Musicians--The Counts de la

Marck assumed former occupants of the latter--The Brotherhood of

Minstrels of Reims--Périnet & Fils' establishment in the Rue St.

Hilaire--Their cellars of three stories in solid masonry--Their

soft, light, and delicate wines--A rare still Verzenay--The firm's

high-class Extra Sec.

[Illustration]

The house of Louis Roederer, originally founded by a plodding German

named Schreider, was content to pursue the sleepy tenor of its way for

some years--until indeed it suddenly felt prompted to lay siege to

the Muscovite connection of La Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, and secure a

market for its wine at Moscow and St. Petersburg. It next opened up

the United States, and finally introduced its brand into England. The

house possesses cellars in various parts of Reims, and has its offices

in one of the oldest quarters of the city--namely, the Rue des Elus, or

ancient Rue des Juifs, where the old synagogue formerly stood, and the

records of which date as far back as 1103.

At the corner of this street, and abutting on the Place des Marchés,

is a curious old house, the overhanging upper stories of which are

supported by huge massive carved brackets, decorated with figures

more or less quaint in design. M. Louis Roederer's offices in the

Rue des Elus are at the farther end of a courtyard, beyond which is

found a second court, where carts laden with cases of Champagne seem

to indicate that some portion of the shipping business of the house

is here carried on. Several requests made by us for permission to

visit M. Louis Roederer's establishments having been refused, it is

only of their external appearance that we are competent to speak. One

of them, in the Boulevard du Temple, is distinguished by a rather

imposing façade, and has a carved head of Bacchus surmounting its

_porte-cochère_; while the principal establishment, a picturesque range

of buildings of considerable extent, is situated in the neighbouring

Rue de la Justice.

[Illustration: OLD HOUSE AT THE CORNER OF THE RUE DES ÉLUS AND THE

PLACE DES MARCHÉS, REIMS.]

Leading from the Rue des Elus into the Rue de Vesle is a gloomy-looking

ancient street known as the Rue des Deux Anges, all the houses of which

have their windows secured by iron gratings, and their massive doors

thickly studded with huge nails. These prison-like façades, which in

all probability refer to the epoch of the religious wars, succeed each

other in lugubrious monotony along either side of the way; but gain

admittance to their inner courts, and quite a different scene presents

itself. In one notable instance, looking on to a pleasant little

flower-garden, we found a small but charming Renaissance house, with

its windows ornamented with elaborate mouldings, and surmounted by

graceful sculptured heads, while at one corner there rose up a tower

with a sun-dial displayed on its front. In this and in an adjoining

house the canons of the cathedral were accustomed to reside in the days

when something like four-fifths of the city were the property of the

Church.

[Illustration: RENAISSANCE HOUSE IN THE RUE DES DEUX ANGES, REIMS.]

Proceeding along the Rue de Vesle and the neighbouring Rue des

Tapissiers, we find ourselves once more in the Place Royale, the

principal side of which is occupied by the once notable Hôtel des

Fermes, where, in the days of the _ancien régime_, the farmers-general

of the Champagne were accustomed to receive the revenues of the

province. A bronze statue rises in the centre of the Place, which

from its Roman costume and martial bearing might be taken for some

hero of antiquity, did not the inscription on the pedestal apprise us

that it is intended for the 'wise, virtuous, and magnanimous Louis

XV.,' a misuse of terms which has caused a Transatlantic Republican

to characterise the monument as a brazen lie. Leading out of the

Place Royale is the Rue de Cérès, in which there is a modernised

sixteenth-century house claiming to be the birthplace, on the 29th

August 1619, of Jean Baptiste Colbert, son of a Reims wool-merchant,

and the famous minister who did so much to consolidate the finances of

the State which the royal voluptuary, masquerading at Reims in Roman

garb, afterwards made such dreadful havoc of.

[Illustration: HEADS SURMOUNTING THE PRINCIPAL WINDOWS OF THE

RENAISSANCE HOUSE IN THE RUE DES DEUX ANGES.]

[Illustration: JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT

(From a portrait of the time).]

We again cross the Place des Marchés, at the farther end of which, on

the left-hand side, is the Rue de l'Arbalète, notable for a curious

Renaissance gateway, with its pediment supported by two life-size

figures, which the Rémois, for no very sufficient reason, have

popularly christened Adam and Eve. Beyond the Place des Marchés and

the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, and at no great distance from the

Clicquot-Werlé establishment, is the narrow winding Rue de Sedan,

where the old-established firm of Heidsieck & Co., which has secured a

high-class reputation in both eastern and western hemispheres for its

famous Monopole and Dry Monopole brands, has its central offices. The

original firm dates back to 1785, when France was struggling with those

financial difficulties that a few years later culminated in that great

social upheaving which kept Europe in a state of turmoil for more than

a quarter of a century. Among the archives of the firm is a patent,

bearing the signature of the Minister of the Prussian Royal Household,

appointing Heidsieck & Co. purveyors of Champagne to Frederick William

III. The Champagne-drinking Hohenzollern _par excellence_, however,

was the son and successor of the preceding, who, from habitual

over-indulgence in the exhilarating sparkling beverage during the last

few years of his reign, acquired the _sobriquet_ of King Clicquot.

[Illustration: ADAM AND EVE GATEWAY, RUE DE L'ARBALÈTE, REIMS.]

On passing through the large _porte-cochère_ giving entrance to

Messrs. Heidsieck's principal establishment, one finds oneself in a

small courtyard, with the surrounding buildings overgrown with ivy

and venerable vines. On the left is a dwelling-house enriched with

elaborate mouldings and cornices, and at the farther end of the court

is the entrance to the cellars, surmounted by a sun-dial bearing

the date 1829. The latter, however, is no criterion of the age of

the buildings themselves, as these were occupied by the firm at its

foundation, towards the close of the last century. We are first

conducted into an antiquated-looking low cellier, the roof of which

is sustained with rude timber supports, and here bottles of wine are

being labelled and packed, although this is but a mere adjunct to the

adjacent spacious packing-room, provided with its loading platform

and communicating directly with the public road. At the time of our

visit this hall was gaily decorated with flags and inscriptions, the

day before having been the fête of St. Jean, when the firm entertain

the people in their employ with a banquet and a ball, at which the

choicest wine of the house liberally flows. From the packing-room we

descend into the cellars, which, like all the more ancient vaults in

Reims, have been constructed on no regular plan. Here we thread our

way between piles after piles of bottles, many of which, having passed

through the hands of the disgorger, are awaiting their customary

adornment. The lower tier of cellars is mostly stored with _vin sur

pointe_, and bottles with their necks downward are encountered in

endless monotony along a score or more of long galleries. The only

variation in our lengthened promenade is when we come upon some

solitary workman engaged in his monotonous task of shaking his 30,000

or 40,000 bottles per diem.

The disgorging at Messrs. Heidsieck's takes place, in accordance with

the good old rule, in the cellars underground, where we noticed large

stocks of wine three and five years old, the former in the first stage

of _sur pointe_, and the latter awaiting shipment. It is a specialty of

the house to ship only matured wine, which is necessarily of a higher

character than the ordinary youthful growths, for a few years have a

wonderful influence in developing the finer qualities of Champagne. At

the time of our visit, in the spring of 1877, when the English market

was being glutted with the crude full-bodied wine of 1874, Messrs.

Heidsieck were continuing to ship wines of 1870 and 1872, beautifully

rounded by keeping, and of fine flavour and great delicacy of perfume.

Of these thoroughly matured wines the firm had fully a year's

consumption on hand.

Messrs. Heidsieck & Co. have a handsome modern establishment in the Rue

Coquebert--a comparatively new quarter of the city, where Champagne

establishments are the rule--the courtyard of which, alive with workmen

at the time of our visit, is broad and spacious, while the surrounding

buildings are light and airy, and the cellars lofty, regular, and well

ventilated. In a large cellier here, where the tuns are ranged side

by side between the rows of iron columns supporting the roof, the

firm make their cuvée. Here, too, the bottling of their wine takes

place, and considerable stocks of high-class reserve wines and more

youthful growths are stored ready for removal when required by the

central establishment. The bulk of Messrs. Heidsieck's reserve wines,

however, repose in the outskirts of Reims, near the Porte Dieu-Lumière,

in one of the numerous abandoned chalk quarries, which of late years

the Champagne manufacturers have discovered are capable of being

transformed into admirable cellars.

In addition to shipping a rich and a dry variety of the Monopole

brand, of which they are sole proprietors, Messrs. Heidsieck export

to this country a rich and a dry Grand Vin Royal. It is, however, to

their famous Monopole wine, and especially to the dry variety, which

must necessarily comprise the finest growths, that the firm owe their

principal celebrity.

Few large manufacturing towns like Reims--which is one of the most

important of those engaged in the woollen manufacture in France--can

boast of such fine promenades and such handsome boulevards as the

capital of the Champagne. As the ancient fortifications of the city

were from time to time razed, their site was levelled and generally

planted with trees, so that the older quarters of Reims are almost

encircled by broad and handsome thoroughfares, separating the city, as

it were, from its outlying suburbs. In or close to the broad Boulevard

du Temple, which takes its name from its proximity to the site of the

ancient Commanderie of the Templars, various Champagne manufacturers,

including M. Louis Roederer, M. Ernest Irroy, and M. Charles

Heidsieck, have their establishments; while but a few paces off, in

the neighbouring Rue Coquebert, are the large and handsome premises of

Messrs. Krug & Co.

[Illustration: M. ERNEST IRROY'S ESTABLISHMENT AT REIMS.]

The offices of M. Ernest Irroy, who is known in Reims not merely as

a large Champagne grower and shipper, but also as a distinguished

amateur of the fine arts, taking a leading part in originating local

exhibitions and the like, are attached to his private residence,

a handsome mansion flanked by a large and charming garden in the

Boulevard du Temple. The laying out of this sylvan oasis is due to

M. Varé, the head gardener of the city of Paris, who contributed so

largely to the picturesque embellishment of the Bois de Boulogne.

M. Irroy's establishment, which comprises a considerable range of

buildings grouped around two courtyards, is immediately adjacent,

although its principal entrance is in the Rue de la Justice. The vast

celliers, covering an area of upwards of 3000 square yards, and either

stocked with wine in cask or used for packing and similar purposes,

afford the requisite space for carrying on a most extensive business.

The cellars beneath comprise three stories, two of which are solidly

roofed and lined with masonry, while the lowermost one is excavated in

the chalk. They are admirably constructed on a symmetrical plan, and

their total surface is very little short of 7000 square yards. Spite of

the great depth to which these cellars descend, they are perfectly dry,

the ventilation is good, and their temperature moreover is remarkably

cool, one result of which is that M. Irroy's loss from breakage never

exceeds four per cent per annum. M. Irroy holds a high position as a

vineyard proprietor in the Champagne, his vines covering an area of

nearly ninety acres. At Mareuil and Avenay he owns some twenty-five

acres, at Verzenay and Verzy about fifteen, and at Ambonnay and Bouzy

close upon fifty acres. His father and his uncle, whose properties he

inherited or purchased, commenced some thirty years ago to plant vines

on certain slopes of Bouzy possessing a southern aspect, and he has

followed their example with such success both at Bouzy and Ambonnay,

that the Reims Agricultural Association in 1873 conferred upon him a

silver-gilt medal for his plantations of vines, and in 1880 presented

him with a _coupe d'honneur_. M. Irroy owns vendangeoirs at Verzenay,

Avenay, and Ambonnay; and at Bouzy, where his largest vineyards are,

he has built some excellent cottages for his labourers. He has also

constructed a substantial bridge over the ravine which, formed by

winter torrents from the hills, intersects the principal vineyard

slopes of Bouzy.

M. Ernest Irroy's wines, prepared with scrupulous care and rare

intelligence, have been known in England for some years past, and are

steadily increasing in popularity. They are emphatically connoisseurs'

wines. The best West-end clubs, such as White's, Arthur's, the old

Carlton, and the like, lay down the cuvées of this house in good years

as they lay down their vintage ports and finer clarets, and drink them,

not in a crude state, but when they are in perfection--that is, in five

to ten years' time. M. Irroy exports to the British colonies and to the

United States the same fine wines which he ships to England.

Several well-known Champagne firms have their establishments in this

quarter of Reims. In addition to those already mentioned, we may

instance G. H. Mumm & Co., who are located in the Rue Andrieux, only

a short distance from the grand triumphal arch known as the Gate of

Mars, by far the most important Roman remain of which the Champagne

can boast. Within a stone's throw of this arch there formerly stood

the ancient château of the Archbishops of Reims, demolished close

upon three centuries ago. In the Rue de Mars, a winding ill-paved

thoroughfare leading from the Gate of Mars to the Place de l'Hôtel

de Ville, Jules Mumm & Co., an offshoot from the once famous firm

of P. A. Mumm & Co., are installed; while in a massive and somewhat

pretentious-looking house, dating back to the time of Louis Quatorze,

in a corner of the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, Ruinart Père et Fils,

who claim to rank as the oldest existing Champagne establishment, have

their offices. The late Vicomte de Brimont, the recent head of the

firm, was a collateral descendant of the Dom Ruinart, whose remains

repose nigh to those of the illustrious Dom Perignon in the abbey

church of Hautvillers. From the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville we proceed

through the narrow Rue du Tambour, originally a Roman thoroughfare,

and during the Middle Ages the locality where the nobility of Reims

principally had their abodes. Half-way up this street stands the famous

House of the Musicians, one of the most interesting architectural

relics of which the capital of the Champagne can boast. It evidently

dates from the early part of the fourteenth century, but by whom it was

erected is unknown. Some ascribe it to the Knights Templars, others

to the Counts of Champagne, while others suppose it to have been the

residence of the famous Counts de la Marck, who in later times diverged

into three separate branches, the first furnishing Dukes of Cleves and

Jülich to Germany, and Dukes of Nevers and Counts of Eu to France;

while the second became Dukes of Bouillon and Princes of Sedan, titles

which passed to the Turennes when Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte

de Turenne, married the surviving heiress of the house. The third

branch comprised the Barons of Lumain, allied to the Hohenzollerns.

Their most famous member slew Louis de Bourbon, Archbishop of Liège,

and flung his body into the Meuse; and subsequently became celebrated

as the Wild Boar of the Ardennes, of whom all readers of _Quentin

Durward_ will retain a lively recollection.

[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIANS IN THE RUE DU TAMBOUR, REIMS.]

To return, however, to the House of the Musicians. A probable

conjecture ascribes the origin of the quaint mediæval structure to

the Brotherhood of Minstrels of Reims, who in the thirteenth century

enjoyed a considerable reputation, not merely in the Champagne, but

throughout the North of France. The house takes its present name from

five seated statues of musicians, larger than life-size, occupying

the Gothic niches between the first-floor windows, and resting upon

brackets ornamented with grotesque heads. It is thought that the

partially-damaged figure on the left-hand side was originally playing

a drum and a species of clarionet. The next one evidently has the

remnants of a harp in his raised hands. The third or central figure

is supposed merely to have held a hawk upon his wrist; whilst the

fourth seeks to extract harmony from a dilapidated bagpipe; and the

fifth, with crossed legs, strums complacently away upon the fiddle. The

ground-floor of the quaint old tenement is to-day an oil and colour

shop, the front of which is covered with chequers in all the tints of

the rainbow.

Leading from the Rue du Tambour is the Rue de la Belle Image, thus

named from a handsome statuette of the Virgin, which formerly decorated

a corner niche; and beyond is the Rue St. Hilaire, where Messrs.

Barnett et Fils, trading under the designation of Périnet et Fils, and

the only English house engaged in the manufacture of Champagne, have

an establishment which is certainly as perfect as any to be found in

Reims. Above-ground are several large store-rooms, where vintage-casks

and the various utensils common to a Champagne establishment are kept;

and a capacious cellier, upwards of one hundred and fifty feet in

length, with its roof resting on massive timber supports. Here new wine

is stored preparatory to being blended and bottled; and in the huge

tun, holding nearly three thousand gallons, standing at the further

end, the firm make their cuvée; while adjacent is a room where stocks

of corks and labels, metal foil, and the like are kept.

[Illustration: MESSRS. PÉRINET ET FILS' ESTABLISHMENT IN THE RUE ST.

HILAIRE, REIMS.]

Underneath this building there are three stories of cellars--an

exceedingly rare thing anywhere in the Champagne--all constructed

in solid masonry on a uniform plan, each story comprising two wide

galleries, running parallel with each other and connected by means of

transverse passages. Spite of the great depth to which these cellars

descend, they are perfectly dry; the ventilation, too, is excellent;

and their different temperatures render them especially suitable for

the storage of Champagne, the temperature of the lowest cellar being 6°

Centigrade (43° Fahrenheit), or one degree Centigrade below the cellar

immediately above, which in its turn is two degrees below the uppermost

of all. The advantage of this is that, when the wine develops an excess

of effervescence, any undue proportion of breakages can be checked by

removing the bottles to a lower cellar, and consequently into a lower

temperature.

The first cellars we enter are closely stacked with wine in bottle,

which is gradually clearing itself by the formation of a deposit; while

in an adjoining cellar on the same level the operations of disgorging,

liqueuring, and corking are going on. At the end of this gallery is a

spacious compartment, where a large stock of _pure Champagne_ cognac

of grand vintages is stored for cask and liqueur use. In the cellars

immediately beneath, bottles of wine repose in solid stacks ready for

the _dégorgeur_; while others rest in racks, in order that they may

undergo their daily shaking. In the lowest cellars reserved wine in

cask is stored, as it best retains its natural freshness and purity

in a very cool place. All air is carefully excluded from the casks;

any ullage is immediately replaced; and, as evaporation is continually

going on, the casks are examined every fortnight, when any deficiency

is at once replenished. At Messrs. Périnet et Fils', as at all the

first-class establishments, the _vin brut_ is a _mélange_ comprising

the produce of some of the best vineyards, and has every possible

attention paid to it during its progressive stages of development.

From the second tier of cellars at Messrs. Périnet et Fils' a gallery

extends, under the Rue St. Hilaire, to some extensive vaults excavated

beneath an adjacent building, in which the Reims Military Club is

installed. These vaults, arranged in two separate stories, are eight

in number, and in them we found a quarter of a million bottles of

_vin brut_, reposing either in solid stacks or _sur pointe_, the

latter going through their daily shaking in order to fit them for the

operation of _dégorgement_. On the whole the cellars of Périnet et

Fils, including the six long galleries already described, suffice for

the storage of a million bottles of Champagne.

[Illustration: THE CELLIER AND CELLARS OF MESSRS. PÉRINET ET FILS.]

Before leaving the establishment Champagnes of different years were

shown to us, all of them soft, light, and delicate, and with that fine

flavour and full perfume which the best growths of the Marne alone

exhibit. Among several curiosities submitted to us was a still Verzenay

of the year 1857, one of the most delicate wines it was ever our

fortune to taste. Light in body, rich in colour, of a singularly novel

and refined flavour, and with a magnificent yet indefinable bouquet,

the wine was in every respect perfect. Not only was the year of the

vintage a grand one, but the wine must have been made with the greatest

possible care, and from the most perfect grapes, for so delicate a

growth to have retained its flavour in such perfection, and preserved

its brilliant ruby colour for such a length of time.

From the samples shown to us of Périnet et Fils' Champagne, we

were prepared to find that at some recent tastings in London, the

particulars of which have been made public, their Extra Sec took the

first place at each of the three severe competitions to which it was

subjected.

[Illustration: GROTTO BENEATH THE OLD FORTIFICATIONS OF REIMS.]

VIII.

/Reims and its Champagne Establishments/ _(continued)_.

La Prison de Bonne Semaine--Mary Queen of Scots at Reims--Messrs.

Pommery & Greno's offices--A fine collection of faïence--The Rue

des Anglais a former refuge of English Catholics--Remains of the

old University of Reims--Ancient tower and grotto--The handsome

castellated Pommery establishment--The spacious cellier and

huge carved cuvée tuns--The descent to the cellars--Their great

extent--These lofty subterranean chambers originally quarries,

and subsequently places of refuge of the early Christians and

the Protestants--Madame Pommery's splendid cuvées of 1868 and

1874--Messrs. de St. Marceaux & Co.'s new establishment in the

Avenue de Sillery--Its garden-court and circular shaft--Animated

scene in the large packing hall--Lowering bottled wine to the

cellars--Great depth and extent of these cellars--Messrs. de

St. Marceaux & Co.'s various wines--The establishment of Veuve

Morelle & Co., successors to Max Sutaine--The latter's 'Essai sur

le Vin de Champagne'--The Sutaine family formerly of some note at

Reims--Morelle & Co.'s cellars well adapted to the development

of sparkling wines--The various brands of the house--The Porte

Dieu-Lumière.

[Illustration: HEAD OVERSEER AT POMMERY AND GRENO'S.]

Nigh the cathedral of Reims, and in the rear of the archiepiscopal

palace, there runs a short narrow street known as the Rue Vauthier le

Noir, and frequently mentioned in old works relating to the present

capital of the Champagne. The discovery of various pillars and

statues, together with a handsome Gallo-Roman altar, whilst digging

some foundations in 1837, points to the fact that a Pagan temple

formerly occupied the site. The street is supposed to have taken its

name, however, from some celebrated gaoler, for in mediæval times

here stood 'la prison de bonne semaine.' On the site of this prison

a château was subsequently built, which tradition has erroneously

fixed upon as the residence of the beautiful and luckless Mary Queen

of Scots, in the days when her uncle, Cardinal Charles de Lorraine,

was Lord Archbishop of Reims. Temple, prison, and palace have alike

disappeared, and where they stood there now rises midway between

court and garden a handsome mansion, the residence of Madame Pommery,

head of the well-known firm of Pommery & Greno. To the left of the

courtyard, which is entered through a monumental gateway, are some

old buildings, let into the walls of which are a couple of sculptured

escutcheons, the one comprising the arms of France, and the other those

of the Cardinal de Lorraine. On the right-hand side of the courtyard

are the Pommery offices, together with the manager's sanctum, replete

with artistic curiosities, the walls being completely covered with

remarkable specimens of faïence, including Rouen, Gien, Palissy, Delft,

and majolica, collected in the majority of instances by Madame Pommery

in the villages around Reims. Here we were received by M. Vasnier, who

at once volunteered to accompany us to the cellars of the firm outside

the city. Messrs. Pommery & Greno originally carried on business in

the Rue Vauthier le Noir, where there are extensive cellars, but their

rapidly-increasing connection long since compelled them to emigrate

beyond the walls of Reims.

[Illustration: OLD COATS OF ARMS IN THE COURTYARD OF MADAME POMMERY'S

RESIDENCE.]

In close proximity to the Rue Vauthier le Noir is the Rue des Anglais,

so named from the English Catholic refugees, who, flying from the

persecutions of our so-called Good Queen Bess, here took up their

abode and established a college and a seminary. They rapidly acquired

great influence in Reims, and one of their number, William Gifford,

was even elected archbishop. At the end of this street, nigh to Madame

Pommery's, there stands an old house erected late in the fifteenth

century, with a corner tower and rather handsome Renaissance window,

which formerly belonged to some of the clergy of the cathedral, and

subsequently became the 'Bureau Général de la Loterie de France,' an

institution abolished by the National Convention in 1793.

[Illustration: OLD HOUSE IN THE RUE DES ANGLAIS, REIMS.]

The Rue des Anglais conducts into the Rue de l'Université, where a few

remnants of the old University, founded by Cardinal Charles de Lorraine

(1538-74), formerly attracted attention, notably a conical-capped

corner tower, the sculptured ornaments at the base of which had

crumbled into dust beneath the corroding tooth of Time.[423] From the

Rue de l'Université our way lies along the Boulevard du Temple to the

Porte Gerbert, about a mile beyond which there rises up the curious

castellated structure in which the Pommery establishment is installed,

with its tall towers commanding a view of the whole of Reims and its

environs. As we drive up the Avenue Gerbert we espy on the right an

isolated crumbling tower, a remnant of the ancient fortifications of

Reims,[424] while close at hand, and under the old city-walls, is a

grotto, to which an ancient origin is likewise ascribed. In another

minute we reach the open iron gates of Messrs. Pommery's establishment,

flanked by a picturesque porter's lodge; and proceeding up a broad

drive, we alight under a Gothic portico at the entrance to the spacious

and lofty cellier. Iron girders support the roof of this vast hall,

180 feet in length and 90 feet in width, without the aid of a single

column. At one end is the office and tasting-room, provided with a

telegraphic apparatus and telephone, by means of which communication

is carried on with the Reims bureaux. Stacked up on every side of

the cellier, and often in eight tiers when empty, are rows upon

rows of casks, 6000 of which contain wine of the costly vintage of

1880 sufficient for a million and a half bottles of Champagne. The

temperature of this hall is carefully regulated; the windows are high

up near the roof, and the sun's rays are rigidly excluded, so that a

pleasant coolness pervades the building. On the left-hand side stand

two huge tuns, with the monogram P. and G., surmounting the arms of

Reims, carved on their heads. These are capable of containing 5500

gallons of wine, and in them the firm make their cuvée. A platform,

access to which is gained by a staircase in a side aisle, runs round

one of these _foudres_; and when the wine, which has been hoisted

up in casks and poured through a metal trough into the _foudre_, is

being blended, boys stand on this platform and, by means of a handle

protruding above the cask, work the paddle-wheels placed inside,

thereby securing the complete amalgamation of the wine. Adjoining

are the chains and lifts worked by steam, by means of which wine is

raised and lowered from and to the cellars beneath, one lift raising or

lowering eight casks, whether full or empty, in the space of a minute.

[Illustration: THE POMMERY AND GRENO ESTABLISHMENT IN THE OUTSKIRTS OF

REIMS.]

At the farther end of the hall a Gothic door, decorated with ornamental

ironwork, leads to the long broad flight of steps, 116 in number,

and nearly twelve feet in width, conducting to the suite of lofty

subterranean chambers, where bottles of _vin brut_ repose in their

hundreds of thousands in slanting racks or solid piles, passing

leisurely through those stages of development necessary to fit them

for the _dégorgeur_. Altogether there are 130 large shafts, 90 feet in

depth and 60 feet square at their base, which were originally quarries,

and are now connected by spacious galleries. This side of Reims abounds

with similar chalk quarries, commonly believed to have served as places

of refuge for the Protestants at the time of the League and after the

revocation of the Edict of Nantes; and it is even conjectured that the

early Christians--the followers of St. Sixtus and St. Sinicus--here hid

themselves from their persecutors. Since the cellars within the city

have no longer sufficed for the storage of the immense stocks required

through the development of the Champagne trade, these vast subterranean

galleries have been successfully utilised by various firms. Messrs.

Pommery, after filling up the chambers above the water level, proceeded

to excavate the connecting tunnels, shore up the cracking arches,

and repair the flaws in the chalk with masonry, finally converting

these abandoned quarries into magnificent cellars for the storage

of Champagne. No less than 60,000_l._ was spent upon them and the

castellated structure aboveground. Several millions of bottles of

Champagne can be stored in these capacious vaults, the area of which is

nearly 450,000 square feet.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF MESSRS. POMMERY AND GRENO'S CELLIER.]

Madame Pommery made a great mark with her splendid cuvées of 1868 and

1874, the result being that her brand has become widely popular, and

that it invariably realises exceptionally high prices.

On leaving Messrs. Pommery's we retrace our steps down the Avenue

Gerbert, bordered on either side with rows of plane-trees, until we

reach the treeless Avenue de Sillery, where Messrs. de St. Marceaux &

Co.'s new and capacious establishment is installed. Simple and without

pretension, the establishment, which covers an area of upwards of

18,000 feet, is distinguished for its perfect appropriateness to the

industry for which it was designed. The principal block of building

is flanked by two advanced wings enclosing a garden-court, set off

with flowers and shrubs, and from the centre of which rises a circular

shaft, covered in with glass, and admitting light and air to the

cellars below. In the building to the left the wine is received on

its arrival from the vineyard, and here are ranged large quantities

of casks replete with the choice crus of Verzenay, Ay, Cramant, and

Bouzy, while thousands of bottles ready for labelling are stacked in

massive piles at the end of the packing-hall in the corresponding wing

of the establishment. Here, too, a tribe of workpeople are arraying

the bottles with gold and silver headdresses, and robing them in pink

paper, while others are filling, securing, marking, and addressing

the cases or baskets destined to Hong-Kong, San Francisco, Yokohama,

Bombay, London, New York, St. Petersburg, Berlin, or Paris.

[Illustration: THE PACKING-HALL OF MESSRS. DE ST. MARCEAUX AT REIMS.]

The wine in cask, stored in the left-hand wing, after having been

duly blended in an enormous vat, is drawn off into bottles, which

are then lowered down a shaft to the second tier of cellars by means

of an endless chain, on to which the baskets of bottles are swiftly

hooked. The workman engaged in this duty, in order to guard against

his falling down the shaft, has a leather belt strapped round his

waist, by means of which he is secured to an adjoining iron column.

We descended into the lower cellars down a flight of ninety-three

broad steps--a depth equal to the height of an ordinary six-storied

house--and found no less than four-and-twenty galleries excavated in

the chalk, devoid of masonry supports, and containing upwards of a

million bottles of Champagne. These galleries vary in length, but are

of uniform breadth, and allow either for a couple of racks with wine

_sur pointe_, or stacks of bottles, in four row's on either side, with

ample passage-room down the centre.

The upper range of cellars comprises two large arched galleries of

considerable breadth, one of which contains wine in wood and wine

_sur pointe_, while the other is stocked with bottles of wine heads

downward, ready to be delivered into the hands of the _dégorgeur_.

MM. de St. Marceaux & Co. have the honour of supplying the King of the

Belgians, the President of the French Republic, and several German

potentates with an exceedingly delicate Champagne known as the Royal

St. Marceaux. The same wine is popular in Russia and other parts of

Europe, just as the Dry Royal of the firm is much esteemed in the

United States. The brand of the house most appreciated in this country

is its Carte d'Or, a very dry wine, the extra superior quality of the

firm, which secured the first place at a recent Champagne competition

in England.

Some little distance beyond the remnants of the ancient fortifications

of Reims, skirting the Butte de St. Nicaise, is the establishment

of Veuve Morelle & Co., successors to Veuve Max Sutaine & Co. This

house was founded in 1823 by the late M. Maxime Sutaine, who, like

several other notabilities in the Reims wine trade, was as familiar

with art and science as with the special industry to which he had

devoted himself. An amateur painter of no mean skill, he showed himself

thoroughly at home in the biographical and critical notices on artists

and art in his native province which he produced. His name, however,

is chiefly identified in literature with his _Essai sur le Vin de

Champagne_.[425] This work may be regarded as the first attempt to

collect the scattered materials relating to the history of Champagne

wine, and to deal with them in a critical spirit. Though necessarily

imperfect, its value is undoubtedly great, and it has been frequently

quoted from in the present volume. The family of Sutaine long held

an honourable position at Reims, the name of one of M. Max Sutaine's

immediate ancestors, who filled the position of lieutenant of the city

in 1765, appearing on the bronze slab at the base of the statue of

Louis XV. in the Place Royale, erected during that year.

[Illustration: THE CELLARS OF MAX SUTAINE AND CO. IN THE CHEMIN DE LA

PROCESSION, REIMS.]

The cellars of the firm of Veuve Morelle & Co., successors to Max

Sutaine & Co., are very extensive; and while more than usually

picturesque in appearance, are in every respect admirably adapted for

the rearing and development of the delicate wines of the Champagne.

These cellars, hewn out of the chalk, are of great depth. The firm

has been careful to adhere to the good traditions of its predecessors

in the composition of its cuvées, and at the same time to avoid those

errors which experience and the resources of modern science have made

manifest. Its rule is only to send out wines of a good cru, and never

before they are thoroughly matured, thereby avoiding the shipment of

young wines. The chief kinds bearing the brand of Max Sutaine & Co. are

Vin Brut (of great years), Extra Dry, Creaming Sillery, and Bouzy for

England, Sillery Sec for Russia, and Verzenay and Cabinet for Germany

and Belgium.

It should be mentioned that of late years the abandoned quarries,

so numerous on this side of the city, have been largely utilised

by the Reims Champagne manufacturers as cellars for the storage of

their wines. Beyond the firms that have been already alluded to as

possessing cellars in this direction, there remain to be enumerated

Messrs. Kunkelmann & Co., Ruinart Père et Fils, the Goulets, Jules

Champion, Théophile Roederer, &c. The cellars of several of the last

named are immediately outside the Porte Dieu-Lumière, near which

is a seventeenth-century house having let into its face a curious

bas-relief, of evidently much earlier date, the subject of which has

been a source of considerable perplexity to local antiquaries.

A like cloud enshrouds the origin of the name of Dieu-Lumière, bestowed

upon the fortified gate formerly standing here, and originally erected

during the fourteenth century, when, the circle of the ramparts having

been carried round the Bourg de St. Remi so as to unite it to the old

city, the Porte St. Nicaise was walled up.[426] Like the other portals

of Reims, it has no lack of historical associations. Its vaulted roof

resounded with the trampling of barbed war-steeds when, on the 16th

July 1429, Charles the Victorious swept beneath it into the city,

with Joan of Arc by his side and the steel-clad chivalry of France at

his back.[427] The year 1583 saw its keys handed to the Duc de Guise,

and the green flag of the League, with its device 'Auspice Christo,'

hoisted above it; and twenty-three years later, as Henri Quatre rode

through it amidst shouts of welcome, the jesting remark, 'I had no idea

I was so well beloved at Reims,' was the only attempt at revenge made

by the easy-going Béarnais on the population who had so long flouted

his authority. Rebuilt in 1620, it witnessed the triumphant return of

Grandpré's cavalry and the Rémois militia, after their victory over

Montal and his Spaniards at La Pompelle in 1657, and the successful

assault of the renegade Saint Priest, whose Cossacks entered the walls

at this point in 1814, and gave way to the most brutal excesses.

Nor must it be forgotten that Marie Louise passed through this gate

_en route_ for Paris, on which occasion its summit was crowned with

elaborate allegorical devices supported by cupids weaving garlands of

flowers; or that for several centuries the relics of St. Timotheus and

his companions were annually carried through it on Whit-Monday by the

clergy of Reims, escorted by a procession of pilgrims, to the scene of

the martyrdom of these early Christians at La Pompelle.

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF NEAR THE PORTE DIEU-LUMIÈRE.]

[Illustration]

IX.

/Epernay./

The connection of Epernay with the production of wine of

remote date--The town repeatedly burnt and plundered--Hugh the

Great carries off all the wine of the neighbourhood--Vineyards

belonging to the Abbey of St. Martin in the eleventh, twelfth,

and thirteenth centuries--Abbot Gilles orders the demolition of

a wine-press which infringes the abbey's feudal rights--Bequests

of vineyards in the fifteenth century--Francis I. bestows Epernay

on Claude Duke of Guise in 1544--The Eschevins send a present

of wine to their new seigneur--Wine levied for the king's camp

at Rethel and the strongholds of the province by the Duc de

Longueville--Epernay sacked and fired on the approach of Charles

V.--The Charles-Fontaine vendangeoir at Avenay--Destruction of

the immense pressoirs of the Abbey of St. Martin--The handsome

Renaissance entrance to the church of Epernay--Plantation of the

'terre de siége' with vines in 1550--Money and wine levied on

Epernay by Condé and the Duke of Guise--Henri Quatre lays siege

to Epernay--Death of Maréchal Biron--Desperate battle amongst the

vineyards--Triple talent of the 'bon Roy Henri' for drinking,

fighting, and love-making--Verses addressed by him to his 'belle

hôtesse' Anne du Puy--The Epernay Town Council make gifts of wine

to various functionaries to secure their good-will--Presents of

wine to Turenne at the coronation of Louis XIV.--Petition to

Louvois to withdraw the Epernay garrison that the vintage may be

gathered in--The Duke and Duchess of Orleans at Epernay--Louis

XIV. partakes of the local vintage at the maison abbatiale on his

way to the army of the Rhine--Increased reputation of the wine of

Epernay at the end of the seventeenth century--Numerous offerings

of it to the Marquis de Puisieux, Governor of the town--The Old

Pretender presented at Epernay with twenty-four bottles of the

best--Sparkling wine sent to the Marquis de Puisieux at Sillery,

and also to his nephew--Further gifts to the Prince de Turenne--The

vintage destroyed by frost in 1740--The Epernay slopes at this

epoch said to produce the most delicious wine in Europe--Vines

planted where houses had formerly stood--The development of the

trade in sparkling wine--A 'tirage' of fifty thousand bottles

in 1787--Arthur Young drinks Champagne at Epernay at forty sous

the bottle--It is surmised that Louis XVI., on his return from

Varennes, is inspired by Champagne at Epernay--Napoleon and his

family enjoy the hospitality of Jean Remi Moët--King Jerome

of Westphalia's true prophecy with regard to the Russians and

Champagne--Disgraceful conduct of the Prussians and Russians

at Epernay in 1814--The Mayor offers them the free run of his

cellars--Charles X., Louis Philippe, and Napoleon III. accept the

'vin d'honneur' at Epernay--The town occupied by German troops

during the war of 1870-1.

[Illustration]

If Reims be the titular capital of the Champagne wine-trade, Epernay

can boast of containing the establishments of some of the most eminent

firms engaged therein. Its connection with the production of the wines

of Champagne is of the remotest. The vineyards stretching for miles

around the ancient Sparnacum claim indeed an antiquity far exceeding

that of any existing portion of the town itself, which, despite the

remote date of its foundation, and the fact that it was a place of

considerable importance as early as 445, presents a thoroughly modern

aspect. Unlike Reims--so rich in the remains of antiquity--it possesses

no mementoes of the days when its lord Eulogius gave it to St.

Remi,[428] and he in turn bequeathed it to the Church.

[Illustration]

The reason is simple, for the history of Epernay may be briefly summed

up in the words--fire, pestilence, and pillage. From the days when

misfortune first overtook it, after the division of the Frankish

monarchy on the death of Clovis, it has been burnt down on half a dozen

occasions, repeatedly depopulated by the plague, and captured and

sacked times out of number. The contending sovereigns of Austrasia and

Neustria alternately obtained forcible possession of it, and the rival

counts of Paris and Vermandois snatched it repeatedly from each other's

hold, like hungry dogs contending for a bone; whilst the Normans, the

Hungarians, the vassals of Charles of Lorraine, and the followers of

Otho of Germany added their quota to the work of destruction during

the long period of anarchy preceding the establishment of the Capetian

race upon the throne of France. The founder of the said race, Hugh the

Great, distinguished himself in 947 by plundering the town of Epernay,

ravaging the surrounding country, and profiting by the fact that it was

vintage-time to carry off all the wine of the neighbourhood.[429]

Even during the epoch of comparative tranquillity which prevailed up

to the English invasion, Epernay became from time to time the prey of

robber knights like Thomas de Marlé and rebellious nobles like Count

John of Soissons; and at the commencement of the thirteenth century

Count Thibault of Champagne was fain to burn it, in order to prevent it

from serving as a rallying-place for the lords who had risen against

Queen Blanche and her infant son Louis IX. After the battle of Poitiers

it was pillaged by the partisans of Charles the Bad of Navarre; Edward

the Black Prince entered it twice as a conqueror; and John of Gaunt

exacted a heavy tribute from it. In the struggles which followed the

death of Henry V. of England it was again taken and re-taken, partially

burnt and utterly ruined, remaining for three years absolutely

depopulated after the unwelcome visit paid it by the Duke of Burgundy

in 1432.

Yet during all these ravages the vineyards clothing the slopes

around the town were gradually developed, chiefly by the fostering

care of the good fathers of the Abbey of St. Martin. The charter of

foundation of this abbey, which was endowed in 1032, makes mention of

vineyards amongst its possessions, and they are also spoken of in the

confirmation of donations and privileges granted by Pope Eugenius III.

in 1145. Count Henry of Champagne in 1179 gave the canons of the abbey

the hospital of Epernay, with the fields and vineyards belonging to

it; and twenty years later, Abbot Guy purchased from Abbot Noah, of

the monastery of the Chapelle aux Planches, near Troyes, the fields,

vineyards, house, barn, and garden adjoining the 'ruisseau du Cotheau'

at Epernay for 110 livres. In 1203, Parchasius, a canon of Laon, left

by will to the abbey the 'vigne du Clozet,' which is still celebrated

for the excellence of its products, at Epernay; and in 1217, Abbot

Theodoric gave the 'terres de la Croix Boson' at Mardeuil to sundry of

the inhabitants of that village, on the condition of planting them with

vines and paying a yearly rent of fourteen hogsheads of wine obtained

therefrom as vinage. Tithes of wine at Oger, Cuis, Cramant, Monthelon,

&c., and the vineyards of Genselin, Beaumont, and Montfelix also figure

amongst the possessions of the abbey in the thirteenth century.[430]

A certain proportion of the tithes of the 'fields, meadows, and

vineyards' owned by the abbey at Epernay was assigned to the dependent

priory in the faubourg of Igny-le-Jard by Abbot Richard de Cuys in

1365. The cultivation of the grape seems to have been carried on

in even the most distant of the numerous possessions of the abbey,

which drew 'rentes de vin' from Chatillon and Dormans; and in 1373 we

find Abbot Gilles de Baronne compelling an unfortunate inhabitant of

Romains, near Fismes, to demolish forthwith a wine-press he had dared

to erect to the prejudice of the 'droits seigneuriaux et bannaux' which

the abbey had over that village. The military orders had their share,

too; for the Commandery of the Temple at Reims owned at Epernay at the

commencement of the fourteenth century a house and some vineyards,

still bearing the name of 'Les Tempières.' In 1419, Philippe le

Maître and his wife left to the curé of Epernay a little vineyard

at Montebon to pay for a yearly mass; and at a somewhat later date,

Isabelle la Linotte bequeathed to the abbey the vineyard De la Ronce at

Mardeuil.[431]

[Illustration: FRANCIS I.

(From a portrait of the time).]

Indeed, the history of Epernay is most intimately connected with

that of its wine, which figures throughout its records as a constant

attraction to friends and foes. After the final expulsion of the

English, the town gradually recovered its prosperity, and became an

appanage of the Dukes of Orleans. At the commencement of the sixteenth

century we find Francis I.--to whom it had reverted on the death of

Louise of Savoy--presenting it to Claude, Duke of Guise, and the

eschevins resolving in 1544 that their new seigneur should be offered

'twenty poinçons of the best wine that can be found in the cellars

of the district, and that after the vintage twenty more of the new

crop shall be sent to him.'[432] A levy of one hundred poinçons had

already been demanded of them for the camp formed by the King at

Rethel two years before; and the various strongholds of the province

had been freely supplied with wine exacted from Epernay by the Duke de

Longueville, lieutenant-governor of the Champagne.

[Illustration: THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.

(From a portrait of the time).]

[Illustration]

On the advance of Charles V. in 1544, the Dauphin, afterwards Henri

II., following the example successfully set by Anne de Montmorency

in Provence, pitilessly sacked the entire district of the Marne, in

order that the enemy might find nothing to live on, and stored the

product, which included an enormous quantity of wine, in Epernay. The

Emperor advanced, meeting with but little opposition, and having taken

up his quarters in the Abbey of Avenay, amused himself with building

the vendangeoir known as Charles-Fontaine on the adjacent slope, as a

testimony of his intention to make, if possible, a permanent sojourn in

a province, the vinous products of which he so highly esteemed.[433]

But whilst the illustrious patron of Titian and his 'swarthy grave

commanders' were snugly tippling the choicest vintages contained in the

abbey cellars, and his followers camped outside Epernay were waiting

for the hour when they should revel at pleasure on the wine stored

in the town, their hopes vanished literally in smoke. For Francis,

fearing the town would be unable to hold out, had sent word to Captain

Sery to burn it, and destroy the accumulated store of provisions,

in order to prevent them falling into the hands of the enemy. This

was accordingly done on the 3d September, and amongst the property

consumed were the immense pressoirs of the Abbey of St. Martin. In

this conflagration the church of Epernay was no doubt also destroyed,

as the handsome Renaissance doorway--the sole ancient portion of the

existing edifice--was evidently erected in the latter half of the

sixteenth century. The misfortunes of the town did not cease with this

calamity, for a great pestilence seems to have marked the return of the

inhabitants to their ruined dwellings at the epoch of the following

vintage.[434] Five years later, six arpents of the 'terre de siege'

where the Spaniards had encamped were planted with vines by the Count

de Nanteuil-le-Haudouin, and received the name of the Vineyard de la

Plante.[435]

[Illustration: MARIE STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS.]

[Illustration: RENAISSANCE DOORWAY TO THE CHURCH OF EPERNAY.]

[Illustration: ATTACK ON THE HUGUENOTS AT EPERNAY.]

As a matter of course, the hapless fate of the town pursued it during

the religious wars of the sixteenth century. In 1567 the Huguenots,

under Condé, seized on Epernay--then a portion of the appanage of the

unfortunate Marie Stuart of Scotland--and exacted a ransom of 10,500

livres, towards which the Abbey of St. Martin contributed 3451 livres,

partly in money and partly in wine, calculated at no more than eleven

livres the queue. A higher price appears to have ruled on the recapture

of the town by the Duke of Guise the same year, when the levy made

consisted of 500 pièces of wine, estimated at twenty-four livres the

queue.[436] Guise was driven out by the inhabitants in 1588; but after

one fruitless assault, the Leaguers under Rosné succeeded in obtaining

forcible possession of Epernay four years later.

On Henri Quatre laying siege in turn to Epernay in 1592, the vineyards

around the town were again literally watered with blood. One notable

episode of this siege was the death of Maréchal Biron, the most

devoted of Henri's adherents. On the 27th July the King and Biron were

returning on horseback from Damery to the camp. As they advanced up the

road leading from Mardeuil to the faubourg of Igny, the wind blew off

Henri's hat, adorned with the famous white plume, and Biron, picking

it up, jestingly placed it upon his own head. At this moment the white

plume unluckily caught the eye of Petit, the master gunner of Epernay,

and he at once pointed a cannon at it from the Tour Saint Antoine. 'For

the Béarnais!' he exclaimed, as he fired; and the ball carried away

the head of the Maréchal, to whom Henri was speaking, and upon whose

shoulder the King's hand was actually resting. 'Ah, mordieu, the dog

has bitten the Béarnais!' cried the exulting gunner, believing it was

the King who had fallen, and alluding to the name of the cannon, which

was known as the 'Dog of Orleans,' from its having been captured from

the English at the siege of that city, and bearing on its breech the

figure of a dog.[437]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: HENRI QUATRE BEFORE EPERNAY.]

The death of Maréchal Biron, and the fact that Henri was devoting quite

as much attention to his 'belle hôtesse' at Damery, the fair Présidente

Anne du Puy, as he was to the siege, encouraged St. Paul, who commanded

at Reims for the League, to despatch a strong body of Walloon pikemen

and musketeers to the relief of the beleaguered town. They approached

by the hollow road leading from the Faubourg des Ponts Neufs to the

slope of the Vignes des Capinets, and passing between the vineyards

Dure Epine and Gouttes d'Or. Attacked by the Royalists, they drew up

in good order in the latter spot, and prepared to defend themselves

with all the stubborn valour of their race, their dense array of pikes

bristling amongst the bright green leaves--for it was the close of

summer, and the vines were in all the glory of their luxuriant foliage.

Vainly for a long time the Royalists assailed them. Attack after attack

was repulsed, till the 'golden drops' were turned to drops of gore; and

it was not until the white plume of King Henri came dashing on in the

forefront of his choicest cavalry that the Walloons were finally broken

and routed, after inflicting upon their assailants a far greater loss

than they themselves sustained. The vineyard thus baptised in blood was

thenceforward known as the Vigne des Sièges.[438]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Though data may be lacking to connect the 'bon Roi Henri' directly with

the wine of Epernay, there can be no doubt that the sovereign whose

triple talent for drinking, fighting, and love-making has been handed

down to us in song[439] found a fair opportunity of exercising all

three of these attributes during the siege. Of fighting, as we have

seen, he had plenty, and, Anacreon-like, he seems to have blended love

and wine together.[440] He who, when a new-born babe, had his lips

wetted in the old castle of Pau by stout Antoine de Bourbon with a cup

of the generous wine of the South, and who gloried in the title of the

Sieur d'Ay, was not likely to neglect the nectar vintaged on the slopes

around Epernay. And probably the recollection of the raven-haired,

black-eyed, bronze-skinned Bernais peasant-girls, whom tradition vows

he used to woo when in the first flush of youthful manhood beneath the

trellised vines of Jurançon and Gan, served by contrast to heighten the

fairer charms of the blonde Anne du Puy, in whose honour he is reported

to have sung:

'Morning bright,

Thy pure light

I rejoice when I see;

The fair dove

Whom I love

So, is rosy like thee.

She is fair,

None so rare,

With a waist matched by none;

By my hand

It is spanned,

And eyes bright as the sun.

Wet with new

Fallen dew,

The rose sparkles less bright;

Freer from spot

Ermine's not,

Nor is lily more white.

Fair Dupuis,

All agree,

On ambrosia is fed;

From her lip

When I sip

Nectar's perfume is shed.'[441]

At the outset of the seventeenth century Epernay had its full share in

the troubles that marked the early part of the reign of Louis XIII.,

being taken in turn by Condé, by the Count de Soissons, acting for

the malcontent nobles leagued against Richelieu in 1634, and by the

King's forces the year following. The peaceful records are, however,

plentiful and interesting. In 1631 we find the town council deciding

to present 'six caques of white wine, the best that can be found,' to

M. de Vignolles, and the same to M. d'Elbenne; and two years later

protesting to the 'treasurers of France' their inability to pay 70,000

livres, demanded towards the maintenance of the army, owing to the all

but total failure of the wine crop. The council were fully aware of

the merits of their vintage, and of the advantages of appealing to the

heart by way of the stomach. Six 'feuillettes' of the best wine were

ordered to be sent in September 1636 to M. de Vaubecourt, and one to

his secretary, 'to retain their good-will towards the town,' and induce

the former to use his influence with a committee appointed by the King

for repaying loans and advances, and also towards getting rid of the

garrison. A little later the Marquis de Senneterre received a queue of

wine to withdraw his troops from the town. The Maréchal de Chatillon,

M. de Vaubecourt, M. de Belfonds, and the Count d'Estaing were in

frequent receipt of such gifts; and it is noteworthy that amongst them

figure 'two caques of wine in bottles,' sent to each of the two first

at Sainte Ménéhoulde in 1639.[442]

[Illustration]

The successful efforts of Turenne against his great rival Condé during

the wars of the Fronde were encouraged by frequent presents of the wine

of Epernay. As the brother of the Duc de Bouillon, to whom the town

of Epernay had been given in 1643 in exchange for Sedan, and as the

protector of the district against the Spaniards, he received numerous

tokens of the citizens' good-will. In September 1652 twelve caques of

wine were sent to him, with the result that he at once ordered his

soldiers to repair the broken bridge across the Marne. In the following

January a chevreuil and two caques, and in June wine, fowls, and game,

were presented to him. In June 1654 it was resolved that a deputation

should be sent to the coronation of Louis XIV. at Reims, 'to render the

homage due to the King,' and to present 'a caque of wine in bottles' to

M. de Turenne, which helped no doubt to spread the fame of the Epernay

wine amongst the nobility present on that occasion.

The same social lever was applied in 1660 to the 'traitant général'

of the so-called 'don gratuit' exacted on the occasion of the King's

marriage, two feuillettes being proffered in order to get him to

reduce the assessment. Representations made to an eschevin of Paris,

despatched to Epernay in 1662 to see if there was any store of grain

in the town that could be sold to benefit the starving poor of the

capital, to the effect that the district was a wine-growing and not

a corn country; and the despatch of a deputation in August 1666 to

Louvois, to request that the garrison might be withdrawn to allow of

the vintage being gathered in--the inhabitants of the surrounding

country having fled to avoid sheltering soldiers,--serve to show the

importance of the Epernay wine-trade. In 1671, on the passage of the

Duke and Duchess of Orleans from Châlons, fruit and sweetmeats were

presented to them, and wine to the lords of their suite, at a cost of

211 livres 7 sols; and two years later, Louis XIV. partook of the local

vintage during his sojourn at the 'maison abbatiale,' when on his way

to the army of the Rhine.