/Beaune/ Nuits (White
Reuss, Lauteren, and Red).
& Co., Volnay (do.).
39 Crutched Saint-Péray
Friars, London (White).
Chambertin
(Red).
LIGER-BELAIR, [Illustration] Carte d'Or
COMTE, (White).
/Nuits & Carte
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Fenwick, Parrot, Carte Noire
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London Carte Blanche
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MOËT AND CHANDON'S
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[Illustration]
BRAND ON CORK.
[Illustration]
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AND
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DEUTZ & GELDERMANN'S
'GOLD LACK.'
================
MORNING POST.
'A Wine for Princes and Senators. The district of Ay has become
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---------------
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---------------
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[Illustration: PRO FIDE FIDES]
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================
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---------------
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FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Diodorus.]
[Footnote 2: Idem.]
[Footnote 3: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 4: This arch is said to have been called after the God of
War from the circumstance of a temple dedicated to Mars being in the
immediate neighbourhood. The sculptures still remaining under the
arcades have reference to the months of the year, to Romulus and Remus,
and to Jupiter and Leda. Reims formerly abounded with monuments of the
Roman domination. According to M. Brunette, an architect of the city,
who made its Roman remains his especial study, a vast and magnificent
palace formerly stood nigh the spot now known as the Trois Piliers;
while on the right of the road leading to the town were the arenas,
together with a temple, among the ruins of which various sculptures,
vases, and medals were found, and almost immediately opposite, on
the site of the present cemetery, an immense theatre, circus, and
xystos for athletic exercises. Then came a vast circular space, in
the centre of which arose a grand triumphal arch giving entrance into
the city. The road led straight to the Forum,--the Place des Marchés
of to-day,--and along it were a basilica, a market, and an exedra,
now replaced by the Hôtel de Ville. The Forum, bordered by monumental
buildings, was of gigantic proportions, extending on the one side
from half way down the Rue Colbert to the Place Royale, and on the
other from near the Marché à la Laine, parallel with the Rue de Vesle,
up to the middle of the Rue des Elus, where it terminated in a vast
amphitheatre used for public competitions.
Other buildings of less importance were situated here and there: the
thermæ along the Rue du Cloître; a palace or a temple on the site of
the archiepiscopal palace; another temple at the extremity of the Rue
Vauthier le Noir, in the ruins of which a bas-relief and some small
antique statues were discovered; a third temple in the Rue du Couchant,
in which a votive altar was found. Four triumphal arches were erected
at the four gates of the town: one dedicated to Mars; another to Ceres,
on the same site as the gate of to-day; a third to Bacchus, in the
present Rue de l'Université, in front of the Lycée; and the fourth to
Venus, in the Rue de Vesle. Outside the walls, following the Rue du
Barbâtre, the road was dotted with numerous graves according to the
Roman custom; while on the site of the church of St. Remi there arose a
temple and a palace, and on that of St. Nicaise a vast edifice which M.
Brunette supposed to be the palace of the Consul Jovinus.]
[Footnote 5: Henderson's _History of Ancient and Modern Wines_.]
[Footnote 6: Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.]
[Footnote 7: Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.]
[Footnote 8: According to this document, published in Marlot's
_Histoire de Reims_, he leaves to Bishop Lupus the vineyard cultivated
by the vine-dresser Enias; to his nephew Agricola, the vineyard planted
by Mellaricus at Laon, and also the one cultivated by Bebrimodus; to
his nephew Agathimerus, a vineyard he had himself planted at Vindonisæ,
and kept up by the labour of his own episcopal hands; to Hilaire the
deaconess, the vines adjoining her own vineyard, cultivated by Catusio,
and also those at Talpusciaco; and to the priests and deacons of Reims,
his vineyard in the suburbs of that city, and the vine-dresser Melanius
who cultivated it. The will is also noteworthy for its mention of a
locality destined to attain a high celebrity in connection with the
wine of Champagne, namely, the town of Sparnacus or Epernay, which a
lord named Eulogius, condemned to death for high treason in 499 and
saved at the bishop's intercession, had bestowed upon his benefactor,
and which the latter left in turn to the church of Reims. To this
church he also left estates in the Vosges and beyond the Rhine, on
condition of furnishing pitch every year to the religious houses
founded by himself or his predecessors to mend their wine-vessels, a
trace of the old Roman custom of pitching vessels used for storing
wine.]
[Footnote 9: Marlot's _Histoire de Reims_.]
[Footnote 10: Henderson's _History of Ancient and Modern Wines_.]
[Footnote 11: Victor Fievet's _Histoire d'Epernay_.]
[Footnote 12: Bertin du Rocheret's _Mélanges_.]
[Footnote 13: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 14: 'Bien met l'argent qui en bon vin l'emploie.' _Poems of
Colin Musset_, 1190 to 1220.]
[Footnote 15: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 16: Ibid.]
[Footnote 17: Ibid.]
[Footnote 18: J. Gondry du Jardinet's _Agréable Visite aux Grands Crûs
de France_.]
[Footnote 19: 'Chanter me fait bon vin et rejouir.']
[Footnote 20:
'Le vin en tonel, Froit et fort et finandel, Pour boivre à la grant
chaleur.']
[Footnote 21: Legrand d'Aussy's _Vie Privée des Français_.]
[Footnote 22:
'Espernai dist et Auviler,
Argenteuil, trop veus aviler
Très-tos les vins de ceste table.
Par Dieu, trop t'es fait conestable.
Nous passons Chaalons et Reims,
Nous ostons la goûte des reins,
Nous estaignons totes les rois.'
]
[Footnote 23:
'Espernai, trop es desloiaus;
Tu n'as droit de parler en cour.'
]
[Footnote 24: The 'vin d'Ausois,' or 'vin d'Aussai' (for it is spelt
both ways in the poem), is not, as might be supposed, the wine
of Auxois, an ancient district of Burgundy now comprised in the
arrondissements of Sémur (Côte d'Or) and Avallon (Yonne), and still
enjoying a reputation for its viticultural products. MM. J. B. B.
de Roquefort and Gigault de la Bedollière, in their notes on Henri
d'Andelys' poem, have clearly identified it with the wine of Alsace,
that province having been known under the names in question during the
Middle Ages. This explains its connection in the present instance with
the Moselle.]
[Footnote 25: An incidental proof that the English taste for strong
wine was an early one. As late as the close of the sixteenth century
the Bordeaux wines are described in the _Maison Rustique_ as 'thick,
black, and strong.']
[Footnote 26: Probably either Aquila in the Abruzzi, or Aquiliea near
Friuli.]
[Footnote 27: The 'rouage' was a duty of 2 sous on each cart and 4 sous
on each wagon laden with wine purchased by foreign merchants and taken
out of the town. It was only one of many dues.]
[Footnote 28: The old livre was about equal to the present franc; the
sol was the twentieth part of a livre; and the denier the twelfth part
of a sol, or about 1/24_d._ English.]
[Footnote 29: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 30: The Beaune cost 28 livres the tun of two queues; the St.
Pourçain, a wine of the Bourbonnais, very highly esteemed in the Middle
Ages, 12 livres the queue; and the wine of the district, white and red,
6 to 10 livres the queue of two poinçons. A poinçon, or demi-queue,
of Reims was about 48 old English, or 40 imperial, gallons; while the
demi-queue of Burgundy was over 45 imperial gallons.]
[Footnote 31: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 32: A few examples of the retail price of wine throughout the
century at Reims may here be noted. For instance, a judgment of 1303
provided that all tavern-keepers selling wine at a higher rate than
six deniers, or about a farthing per lot, the rate fixed by ancient
custom, were to pay a fine of twenty-two sous. The lot or pot, for
the two terms are indifferently used, was about the third of an old
English gallon, four pots making a septier, and thirty-six septiers a
poinçon or demi-queue, equal to about forty-eight gallons. The queue
was therefore about ninety-six gallons at Reims, but at Epernay not
more than eighty-five gallons. Not only had every district its separate
measures,--those of Paris, for instance, differing widely from those of
Reims,--but there were actually different measures used in the various
lay and ecclesiastical jurisdictions into which Reims was divided.
In the accounts of the Echevinage, wine, chiefly for presents to
persons of distinction, makes a continual appearance. In 1335 it is
noted that 'the presents of this year were made in wine at 16 deniers
and 20 deniers the pot,' or about 2-1/4_d._ English per gallon. In
1337-8 prices ranged from 3/4_d._ to 4-1/2_d._ English per gallon,
showing a variety in quality; and in 1345 large quantities were
purchased at the first-mentioned rate, five quarts of white wine
fetching 2_d._ English. In 1352 from a 1_d._ to 2-1/4_d._ was paid
per gallon, and five crowns for two queues. In 1363 the citizens,
a hot-headed turbulent lot, who were always squabbling with their
spiritual and temporal superior and assailing his officers, when
not assaulting each other or pulling their neighbours' houses down,
successfully resisted the pretensions of the archbishop to regulate
the price of wine when the cheapest was worth 12 deniers per pot,
or 1-1/2_d._ per gallon. The dispute continued, and in 1367 a royal
commission was issued to the bailli of Vermandois, the king's
representative, to inquire into the right of the burghers to sell wine
by retail at 16 deniers, as they desired. The report of the bailli was
that a queue of old French wine being worth about 20 livres, or 16_s._
8_d._, and wine of Beaune and other better and stronger wines being
sold in the town at higher rates, French wine might be sold as high as
3-1/2d. English per gallon, and Beaune at 4-1/2_d._ The great increase
in production, and consequent fall in price, is shown by the wine
found in Archbishop Richard Pique's cellar in 1389 being valued, on an
average, at only 1_s._ 6_d._ per queue.]
[Footnote 33: Froissart's _Chronicles_.]
[Footnote 34: Idem.]
[Footnote 35: Idem.]
[Footnote 36: What with one kind of assessment being adopted for wine
sold wholesale and another for that disposed of by retail, with one
class of dues being levied on wine for export and another on that for
home consumption, and with the fact of certain duties being in some
cases payable by the buyer and in others by the seller, any attempt
to summarise this section of the story of the wines of Reims would be
impossible. The difficulty is increased when it is remembered that in
the Middle Ages Reims was divided into districts, under the separate
jurisdictions of the eschevins, the archbishop, the chapter of the
cathedral, the Abbeys of St. Remi and St. Nicaise, and the Priory of
St. Maurice, in several of which widely varying measures were employed
down to the sixteenth century, and between which there were continual
squabbles as to the rights of vinage, rouage, tonnieu, &c.]
[Footnote 37: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 38: Froissart's _Chronicles_.]
[Footnote 39: Baron Taylor's _Reims; la Ville de Sacres_.]
[Footnote 40: Amongst the better known are Chamery, where the
archbishop had a house, vineyard, and garden, let for 3_s._ per annum,
about five _jours_ of vineyard and two _jours_ of very good vineland;
Mareuil, whence he drew ten hogsheads of wine annually; Rilly,
Verzenay, Sillery, Attigny, &c. The _jour_ cost from 5 to 8 livres per
annum for cultivation, and the stakes for the vines 4 sols, or 2_d._, a
hundred.]
[Footnote 41: The chapter of the Cathedral, the church of Notre Dame,
the abbeys of St. Remi and St. Nicaise, had vineyards or 'droits de
vin' at Hermonville, Rounay les Reims, Montigny, Serzy, Villers Aleran,
Maineux devant Reims, Mersy, Sapiecourt, Sacy en la Montagne, Flory
en la Montagne, Prouilly, Germigny, Saulx, Bremont, Merfaud, Trois
Pins, Joucheri sur Vesle, Villers aux Neux, &c.; the last named also
possessing a piece of 'vingne gonesse' at 'a place called Mont Valoys
in the territory of Reims.']
[Footnote 42: At his château at the Porte Mars were forty-four queues
of red and white wine, nineteen of new red and white wine, and four of
old wine, valued, on an average, at 36 sols or 1_s._ 6_d._ the queue;
at Courville there were fifty queues of new wine (valued at 30 sols
the queue), twenty of old wine (worth nothing), and four 'cuves' for
wine-making; and at Viellarcy, eighteen tuns of new wine, valued at
60 sols or 2_s._ 6_d._ per tun. To take charge of all these, Jehan le
Breton, the defunct prelate's assistant butler, was retained by the
executors for half a year, at the wages of 74 sols or 3_s._ 2_d._ At
the funeral feast there were consumed three queues of the best wine in
the cellars, valued at 2_s._ 7-1/2_d._ per queue, three others at 1_s._
3_d._, and five pots of Beaune at 1-2/3_d._ English per pot, showing it
to have been four times as valuable as native growths.]
[Footnote 43:
'En Picardie sont li bourdeur,
Et en Champagne li buveur....
Telz n'a vaillant un Angevin
Qui chascun jor viant boire vin.'
]
[Footnote 44:
'Champagne est la forme de tout bien
De blé, de vin, de foin, et de litière.'
]
[Footnote 45: Mss. de Rogier, Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de
Champagne_, &c.]
[Footnote 46: This wine, no doubt, came from a considerable distance
round, for we find P. de la Place, a mercer of Reims, seeking in 1409
to recover the value of five queues and two poinçons 'of wine from the
cru of the town of Espernay, on the river of Esparnay,' delivered at
Reims to J. Crohin of Hainault, the origin of the same being certified
by S. de Laval, a sworn wine-broker, 'who knows and understands the
wines of the country around Reims.']
[Footnote 47: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 48: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 49: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_. The Hôtel de
la Maison Rouge occupies to-day the site of the old hostelry at which
the parents of Jeanne Darc were housed.]
[Footnote 50: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 51: The cost of the wine thus presented seems to have
averaged from 2-1/4_d._ to 3_d._ per gallon. In 1477 a queue of old
wine was valued at no less than 30_s._]
[Footnote 52: The twelve peers of France first appear at the coronation
of Philip Augustus. There were six lay peers and six ecclesiastical
peers:
Duke of Burgundy.
" Normandy.
" Guienne or Aquitaine.
Count of Toulouse.
" Flanders.
" Champagne.
Archbishop Duke of Reims.
Bishop Duke of Laon.
" " Langres.
Bishop Count of Beauvais.
" " Chalons.
" " Noyon.
As the titles of the lay peers grew extinct, and their fiefs lapsed to
the crown, it became customary for them to be represented by some great
nobles at the coronations of the kings of France.]
[Footnote 53: The following is the full text of this singular sentence.
The injunction at the end, respecting the payment of tithes without
fraud, shows that even in a matter like this the Church did not lose
sight of its own interests.
'In the name of the Lord, amen. Having seen the prayer or petition on
behalf of the inhabitants of Villenauxe, of the diocese of Troyes,
made before us, official of Troyes, sitting in judgment upon the
_bruhecs_ or _éruches_, or other similar animals, which, according to
the evidence of persons worthy of belief and as confirmed by public
rumour, have ravaged for a certain number of years, and this year also,
the fruit of the vines of this locality, to the great loss of those
who inhabit it and of the persons of the neighbourhood,--petition
that we warn the above-named animals, and that, using the means at
the Church's disposition, we force them to retire from the territory
of the said place. Having seen and attentively examined the motives
of the prayer or petition above mentioned, and also the answers and
allegations furnished in favour of the said _éruches_ or other animals
by the councillors chosen by us for that purpose; having heard also on
the whole our promoter, and seeing the particular report, furnished
at our command by a notary of the said Court of Troyes, on the damage
caused by the said animals amongst the vines of the locality of
Villenauxe already named; though it would seem that to such damage one
can bring no remedy except through the aid of God; however, taking
into consideration the humble, frequent, and pressing complaint of the
above-mentioned inhabitants; having regard, especially, to the ardour
with which, to efface their past great faults, they lately gave, at
our invitation, the edifying spectacle of solemn prayers; considering
that, as the mercy of God does not drive away the sinners who return
to Him with humility, neither should His Church refuse, to those who
run to her, succour or consolation,--We, the official above named, no
matter how novel the case may be, yielding to the earnestness of these
prayers, following in the footsteps of our predecessors presiding at
our tribunal, having God before our eyes and full of belief in His
mercy and love, after having taken counsel in the proper quarter, we
deliver sentence in the following terms:
'In the name and in virtue of the omnipotence of God, of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost; of the blessed Mary, mother of our Lord
Jesus Christ; of the authority of the holy apostles Peter and Paul;
and of that with which we ourselves are invested in this affair, we
charge by this act the above-named animals--_bruches_, _éruches_,
or of any other name by which they may be called--to retire (under
penalty of malediction and anathema, within the six days which follow
this warning and in accordance with our sentence) from the vines and
from the said locality of Villenauxe, and never more to cause, in
time to come, any damage, either in this spot or in any other part of
the diocese of Troyes; that if, the six days passed, the said animals
have not fully obeyed our command, the seventh day, in virtue of the
power and authority above mentioned, we pronounce against them by this
writing anathema and malediction! Ordering, however, and formally
directing the said inhabitants of Villenauxe, no matter of what rank,
class, or condition they may be, so as to merit the better from God,
all-powerful dispensator of all good and deliverer from all evil, to
be released from such a great plague; ordering and directing them to
deliver themselves up in concert to good works and pious prayers; to
pay, moreover, the tithe without fraud and according to the custom
recognised in the locality; and to abstain with care from blaspheming
and all other sins, especially from public scandals.--Signed, /N.
Hupperoye/, Secretary.']
[Footnote 54: It has been asserted that the Champagne, and notably
the town of Troyes, enjoyed the dubious honour of furnishing fools to
the court of France. There is certainly a letter of Charles V. to the
notables of Troyes, asking them, 'according to custom,' for a fool to
replace one named Grand Jehan de Troyes, whom he had had buried in the
church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and who has been immortalised by
Rabelais. But Brusquet was a Provençal; Triboulet, his predecessor,
immortalised by Victor Hugo in the 'Roi s'amuse,' a native of Blois;
Chicot the Jester, the fool of Henry III., and the favourite hero of
Dumas, a Gascon; and Guillaume, his successor, a Norman.]
[Footnote 55: The wine of Reims provided at the coronation of Francis
II., in 1559, cost from 11_s._ 8_d._ to 15_s._ 10_d._ per queue of
ninety-six gallons, and the Burgundy 16_s._ 8_d._ per queue, which,
allowing for the cost of transport, would put them about on an
equality. At the coronation of Charles IX., in 1561, Reims wine cost
from 23_s._ 4_d._ to 28_s._ _4d._; and at that of Henry III., in 1575,
from 45_s._ to 62_s._ 6_d._ per queue,--a sufficient proof of the
rapidly-increasing estimation in which the wine was held.]
[Footnote 56: Paulmier's treatise _De Vino et Pomaceo_ (Paris, 1588).]
[Footnote 57: Jehan Pussot's _Mémorial du Temps_.]
[Footnote 58: Ibid. Many details respecting the yield of the vines
and vineyards of the Mountain and the River are preserved in this
_Mémorial_, which extends from 1569 to 1625, and the author of which
was a celebrated builder of Reims. During the last thirty years of the
century the vines seem to have suffered greatly from frost and wet.
Sometimes the wine was so bad that it was sold, as towards the end of
1579, at 5_s._ 6_d._ the queue; at others it was so scarce that it
rose, as at the vintage of 1587, to 126_s._ 8_d._ the queue. At the
vintage of 1579 the grapes froze on the vines, and were carried to the
press in sacks. At the commencement of the vintage the new wine fetched
from 12_s._ to 16_s._ the queue, but it turned out so bad that by
Christmas it was sold at 5_s._ 6_d._]
[Footnote 59: _Maison Rustique_ (1574).]
[Footnote 60: Jehan Pussot's _Mémorial du Temps_.]
[Footnote 61: During the first twenty-five years of the century Pussot
shows the new wine to have averaged from about 23_s._ to 46_s._ the
queue, according to quality. In 1600 and 1611 it was as low as 16_s._,
and in 1604 fetched from merely 12_s._ to 32_s._ On the other hand,
in 1607, it fetched from 57_s._ to 95_s._, and in 1609 from 79_s._ to
95_s._]
[Footnote 62: Feillet's _La Misère aux temps de la Fronde_.]
[Footnote 63: Dom Guillaume Marlot's _Histoire de Reims_.]
[Footnote 64: Pluche's _Spectacle de la Nature_.]
[Footnote 65: St. Simon's _Mémoires_.]
[Footnote 66: _Mémoire sur la manière de cultiver la vigne et de faire
le vin en Champagne._]
[Footnote 67: Lavardin, Bishop of Le Mans, and himself a great
_gourmet_, was one day at dinner with St. Evremond, and began to rally
the latter on the delicacy of himself and his friends the Marquis
de Bois Dauphin and the Comte d'Olonne. 'These gentlemen,' said the
prelate, 'in seeking refinement in everything carry it to extremes.
They can only eat Normandy veal; their partridges must come from
Auvergne, and their rabbits from La Roche Guyon, or from Versin; they
are not less particular as to fruit; and as to wine, they can only
drink that of the good _coteaux_ of Ay, Hautvillers, and Avenay.' St.
Evremond having repeated the story, he, the marquis, and the count were
nicknamed 'the three coteaux.' Hence Boileau, in one of his satires,
describes an epicurean guest as 'profès dans l'ordre des coteaux.']
[Footnote 68: St. Evremond's Works (London, 1714).]
[Footnote 69: _L'Art de bien traiter ... mis en lumière_, par L. S. R.
(Paris, 1674).]
[Footnote 70: Brossette's notes to Boileau's Works (1716). Bertin du
Rocheret, in correcting this error in the _Mercure_ of January 1728,
points out that neither the family of Colbert nor that of Le Tellier
ever owned a single vinestock of the River, and that their holdings on
the Mountain were very insignificant.]
[Footnote 71:
'Il n'est cité que je préfère à Reims,
C'est l'ornement et l'honneur de la France;
Car sans conter l'ampoule et les bons vins,
Charmants objets y sont en abondance.' _Les Rémois._
]
[Footnote 72:
'Sur quelle vigne à Reims nous avons hypothèque;
Vingt muids, rangés chez moi, font ma bibliothèque.'
_Le Lutrin_, chant iv. 1674.]
[Footnote 73: St. Simon's _Mémoires_.]
[Footnote 74: Ibid.]
[Footnote 75: Ibid.]
[Footnote 76: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_, 1845.]
[Footnote 77: Henderson's _History of Ancient and Modern Wines_.]
[Footnote 78: _Æneid_, i. 738.]
[Footnote 79: Henderson's _History of Ancient and Modern Wines_.]
[Footnote 80: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 81:
--------'Petars de Chaalons,
Qui le ventre enfle et les talons.'
]
[Footnote 82: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_, 1865.]
[Footnote 83: _De Naturali Vinorum Historiâ._ Rome, 1596.]
[Footnote 84: _L'Art de bien traiter_, &c.]
[Footnote 85: _Maison Rustique_, 1574.]
[Footnote 86: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 87: Pluche's _Spectacle de la Nature_.]
[Footnote 88: Idem and _Maison Rustique_, 1582. M. Louis Perrier, in
his _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_, says that the Ay wines yield but
little _mousse_.]
[Footnote 89: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 90: St. Evremond's letter to the Comte d'Olonne, already
noticed. In another epistle to Lord Galloway, dated 29th August 1701,
he observes: 'As to M. de Puisieux (Roger Brulart, Marquis de Puisieux
et de Sillery and Governor of Epernay), in my opinion he acts very
wisely in falling in with the bad taste now in fashion as regards
Champagne wine, in order the better to sell his own. I could never have
thought that the wines of Reims could have been changed into wines
of Anjou, from their colour and their harshness (_verdeur_). There
ought to be a harshness (_vert_) in the wine of Reims, but a harshness
with a colour, which turns into a sprightly tartness (_sêve_) when it
is ripe; ... and it is not to be drunk till the end of July.... The
wines of Sillery and Roncières used to be kept two years, and they
were admirable, but for the first four months they were nothing but
verjuice. Let M. de Puisieux make a little barrel (_cuve_) after the
fashion in which it was made forty years ago, before this depravity of
taste, and send it to you.' St. Evremond's Works, English edition of
1728.]
[Footnote 91: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 92: Dom Guillaume Harlot's _Histoire de Reims_.]
[Footnote 93: Ibid.]
[Footnote 94: Henderson's _History of Ancient and Modern Wines_.]
[Footnote 95: Letter of Dom Grossart to M. Dherbès of Ay. The
measurement of the arpent varied from an acre to an acre and a half.]
[Footnote 96: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 97: Pluche's _Spectacle de la Nature_.]
[Footnote 98: Letter of Dom Grossart to M. Dherbès of Ay.]
[Footnote 99: Ibid.]
[Footnote 100: Ibid.]
[Footnote 101: Bertall's _La Vigne_. Paris, 1878.]
[Footnote 102: _Mémoire sur la Manière de cultiver la Vigne et de
faire le Vin en Champagne._ This work is believed to have been written
by Jean Godinot, a canon of Reims, born in 1662. Godinot was at the
same time a conscientious Churchman, a skilled viticulturist, and a
clever merchant, who enriched himself by disposing of the wine from
his vineyards at Bouzy, Taissy, and Verzenay, and distributed his
gains amongst the poor. He died in 1747, after publishing an enlarged
edition of the _Mémoire_ in 1722, in which the phrase 'for the last
three years' becomes 'the last seven or eight years.' Godinot's friend
Pluche used the _Mémoire_ as the basis for the section 'Wine' in his
_Spectacle de la Nature_.]
[Footnote 103: Letter of Dom Grossart to M. Dherbès of Ay.]
[Footnote 104: Ibid.]
[Footnote 105: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 106: Letter of M. le Pescheur, 1706.]
[Footnote 107: Pluche's _Spectacle de la Nature_.]
[Footnote 108: In Brossette's notes to his edition of Boileau's Works
of 1716.]
[Footnote 109: The inscription above given is an exact transcript from
the black-marble slab, and any errors in orthography are due either to
the original author or to the mason who incised it.]
[Footnote 110: The following account of Dom Perignon and his
discoveries is contained in a letter dated 25th October 1821, and
addressed from Montier-en-Der, Haute Marne, to M. Dherbès of Ay, by Dom
Grossart, the last procureur of the Abbey of Hautvillers. Dom Grossart,
who had fled from France during the troublous times of the Revolution,
was at the date of the letter in his seventy-fourth year.
'You know, sir, that it was the famous Dom Perignon, who was procureur
of Hautvillers for forty-seven years, and who died in 1715, who
discovered the secret of making sparkling and non-sparkling white
wine, and the means of clearing it without being obliged to _dépoter_
the bottles, as is done by our great wine-merchants rather twice than
once, and by us never. Before his time one only knew how to make
straw-coloured or gray wine. In bottling wine, instead of corks of
cork-wood, only tow was made use of, and this species of stopper was
saturated with oil. It was in the marriage of our wines that their
goodness consisted; and this Dom Perignon towards the end of his days
became blind. He had instructed in his secret of fining the wines (_de
coller les vins_) a certain Brother Philip, who was for fifty years
at the head of the wines of Hautvillers, and who was held in such
consideration by M. Le Tellier, Archbishop of Reims, that when this
brother went to Reims he made him come and sit at table with him. When
the vintage drew near, he (Dom Perignon) said to this brother, "Go and
bring me some grapes from the Prières, the Côtes-à-bras, the Barillets,
the Quartiers, the Clos Sainte Hélène," &c. Without being told from
which vineyard these grapes came, he mentioned it, and added, "the wine
of such a vineyard must be married with that of such another," and
never made a mistake. To this Brother Philip succeeded a Brother André
Lemaire, who was for nearly forty years at the head of the cellars of
Hautvillers, that is to say, until the Revolution.... This brother
being very ill, and believing himself on the point of death, confided
to me the secret of clarifying the wines, for neither prior nor
procureur nor monk ever knew it. I declare to you, sir, that we never
did put sugar in our wines; you can attest this when you find yourself
in company where it is spoken of.
Monsieur Moët, who has become one of the _gros bonnets_ of Champagne
since 1794, when I used to sell him plenty of little baskets, will not
tell you that I put sugar in our wines. I make use of it at present
upon some white wines which are vintaged in certain _crûs_ of our wine
district. This may have led to the error.
'As it costs much to _dépoter_, I am greatly surprised that no
wine-merchant has as yet taken steps to learn the secret of clearing
the wine without having to _dépoter_ the bottles when once the wine has
been put into them.']
[Footnote 111: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 112: _Mémoire_ of 1718.]
[Footnote 113: Ibid. Pluche, in his _Spectacle de la Nature_, 1732,
also says: 'If the wine be drawn off towards the end of March, when
the sap begins to rise in the vine, it will froth to such a degree as
to whiten like milk, to the very bottom of the glass, the moment it is
poured out. Wine will sometimes acquire this quality if it be drawn off
during the ascent of the sap in August, which makes it evident that
the froth is occasioned by the operation of the air and sap, which
then act with vigour in the wood of the vine, and likewise in the
liquor it produced. This violent ebulition, which is so agreeable to
some persons, is thought by connoisseurs to be inconsistent with the
goodness of the wine, since the greenest may be made to whiten into a
froth, and the most perfect wines seldom discover this quality.' In
an article in the _Journal de Verdun_ of November 1726, the following
passage occurs: 'A wine merchant of Anjou having written some time back
to a celebrated magistrate in Champagne, Bertin du Rocheret, begging
him to forward the secret of making _vin mousseux_ during the vintage,
the magistrate answered, "That _vin mousseux_ was not made during the
vintage; that there was no special soil for it; that the Anjou wines
were suitable, since poor wine froths as well as the most excellent,
frothing being a property of thin poor wine. That to make wine froth,
it was necessary to draw it off as clear as could be done from the
lees, if it had not been already racked; to bottle it on a fine clear
day in January or February, or in March at the latest; three or four
months afterwards the wine will be found effervescent, especially if
it has some tartness and a little strength. When the wine works (like
the vine) your wine will effervesce more than usual; a taste of vintage
and of fermentation will be found in it." The excellent wines of Ay and
our good Champagne wines do not froth, or very slightly; they content
themselves with sparkling in the glass.']
[Footnote 114: St. Simon's _Mémoires_.]
[Footnote 115: Ibid.]
[Footnote 116: _Mémoire_ of 1718.]
[Footnote 117: Ibid.]
[Footnote 118: Antony Réal's _Ce qu'il y a dans une Bouteille de Vin_.]
[Footnote 119: Legrand d'Aussy's _Vie Privée des Français_.]
[Footnote 120:
'Là le nombre et l'éclat de cent verres bien nets
Répare par les yeux la disette des mets;
Et la mousse petillante
D'un vin délicat et frais
D'une fortune brillante
Cache à mon souvenir les fragiles attraits.'
]
[Footnote 121:
'Quant à la muse de St. Maur
Que moins de douceur accompagne.
Il lui faut du vin de Champagne
Pour lui faire prendre l'essor.'
]
[Footnote 122:
'Alors, grand' merveille, sera
De voir flûter vin de Champagne.'
]
[Footnote 123:
'Sur ce rivage emaillé,
Où Neuillé borde la Seine,
Reviens au vin d'Hautvillé
Mêler les eaux d'Hypocrène.'
]
[Footnote 124:
'Phébus adonc va se désabuser
De son amour pour la docte fontaine,
Et connoîtra que pour bon vers puiser
Vin champenois vaut mieux qu'eau d'Hippocrène.'
]
[Footnote 125: The father, Adam Bertin du Rocheret, was born in 1662,
and died in 1736; his son, Philippe Valentin, the _lieutenant criminel_
at Epernay, was born in 1693, and died in 1762. Both owned vineyards
at Epernay, Ay, and Pierry, and were engaged in the wine-trade, and
both left a voluminous mass of correspondence, &c., extracts from which
have been given by M. Louis Perrier in his _Mémoire sur le Vin de
Champagne_. The Marshal was an old customer. At the foot of a letter
of his of the 20th December 1705, asking for 'two quartaux of the most
excellent vin de Champagne, and a pièce of good for ordinary drinking,'
Bertin has written, 'I will send you, as soon as the river, which is
strongly flooded, becomes navigable, the wine you ask for, and you
will be pleased with it; but as the best new wine is not of a quality
to be drunk in all its goodness by the spring, I should think that
fifty flasks of old wine, the most exquisite in the kingdom that I can
furnish you with, together with fifty other good ones, will suit you
instead of one of the two caques.']
[Footnote 126: _Tocane_ was a light wine obtained, like the best Tokay,
from the juice allowed to drain from grapes slightly trodden, but not
pressed. It had a flavour of _verdeur_, which was regarded as one of
its chief merits, and would not keep more than six months. Though at
one time very popular, and largely produced in Champagne, it is now no
longer made. The wine of Ay enjoyed a high reputation as _tocane_.]
[Footnote 127: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 128: Letter of Dom Grossart.]
[Footnote 129: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 130: Ample details of the systems of viticulture and
wine-making pursued in the Champagne at the commencement of the
eighteenth century are to be found in the anonymous _Mémoire_ published
in 1718. These are reproduced to a great extent in the _Spectacle de
la Nature_ of Noel Antoine Pluche, a native of Reims, who composed
this work (published in 1732) for the benefit of the son of Lord
Stafford, to whom he was tutor. The Abbé Pluche, after being professor
of humanity and rhetoric at the University of Reims, was about to
enter into holy orders, but being denounced as an opponent of the Bull
Unigenitus, abandoned all ideas of preferment, and devoted himself to
private tuition and the composition of his great work, the _Spectacle
de la Nature_. This last is a perfect encyclopædia, in the form of a
series of dialogues, recalling those in Mrs. Barbauld's _Evenings at
Home_, the interlocutors being the Count, the Countess, the Chevalier,
and the Prior; and the style may be best judged from the following
extracts from the contemporary translation of Mr. Samuel Humphries.
In Dialogue XIII. on 'Vines,' the Count remarks that, after studying
the methods of viticulture followed in different provinces, he 'could
not discover any to be ranked in Competition with those Precautions
that have been taken by the Inhabitants of Champaign' in the production
of their wine. By 'a long Course of Experience' they had 'acquired the
proper Method of tinging it with the Complexion of a Cherry, or the Eye
of a Partridge. They could likewise brighten it into the whitest Hue,
or deepen it into a perfect Red.'
In the succeeding Dialogue on 'Wines,' the Count states that 'Vines
vary in their Qualities. Some are planted in a very light and strong
Soil, and they yield a bright and fragrant Wine; others are placed in
a more nourishing Tract of Land, and they produce a Wine of a greater
Body. The reasonable Combination of these different Fruits will produce
an exquisite Liquor, that will have all the Advantages of a sufficient
Body, a Delicacy of Flavour, a Fragrancy of Scent, and a Liveliness
of Colour, and which may be Kept for several Years without the least
Alteration. It was the Knowledge of those Effects that result from
intermixing the Grapes of three or four Vines of different Qualities,
which improved the celebrated Wines of Sillery, Ai, and Hautvillers to
the Perfection they have now acquired. Father Parignon, a Benedictine
of Hautvillers on the Marne, was the first who made any successful
Attempt to intermix the Grapes of the different Vines in this manner,
and the Wine of Perignon d'Hautvillers bore the greatest Estimation
amongst us till the Practise of this Method became more extensive.'
The Count notes that white wines from white grapes being deficient
in strength, and apt to grow yellow and degenerate before the next
return of summer, had gone out of repute, except for some medicinal
prescriptions, whilst 'the grey Wine, which has so bright an Eye and
resembles the Complexion of Crystal, is produced by the blackest
Grapes.' 'The Wine of a black Grape may be tinged with any Colour we
think proper; those who desire to have it perfectly White have recourse
to the following Method. The People employed in the Vintage begin their
Labours at an early Hour in the Morning; and when they have selected
the finest Grapes, they lay them gently in their Baskets, in order to
be carried out of the Vineyard; or they place them in large Panniers,
without pressing them in the least or wiping off the dewy Moisture
or the azure Dye that covers them. Dews and exhaling Mists greatly
contribute to the Whiteness of the Wine. 'Tis customary to cover the
Baskets with wet Cloths in a hot Sunshine, because the Liquor will be
apt to assume a red Tincture if the Grapes should happen to be heated.
These Baskets are then placed on the Backs of such Animals as are of
a gentle Nature, and carry their Burdens with an easy Motion to the
Cellar, where the Grapes continue covered in a cool Air. When the
Warmth of the Sun proves moderate, the Labours of the Vintage are not
discontinued till Eleven in the Morning; but a glowing Heat makes it
necessary for them to cease at Nine.'
Yet even these precautions were liable to fail, since 'the Heat of
the Sun and the Shocks of the Carriages are sometimes so violent, and
produce such strong Effects upon the exterior Coat of the Grapes,
that the Fluids contained in that Coat, and which are then in Motion,
mix themselves with the Juice of the Pulp at the first Pressing; in
consequence of which, the Extraction of a Wine perfectly white is
rendered impracticable, and its Colour will resemble the Eye of a
Partridge, or perhaps some deeper Hue. The Quality of the Wine is still
the same; but it must be either entirely White or Red, in order to
prove agreeable to the Taste and Mode which now prevail.'
The Count describes the two pressings and five cuttings, the latter
term derived from the squaring of the mass of grapes with the cutting
peel, and the system of 'glewing' this wine, 'the weight of an
_ecu d'or_' of 'Fish Glew, which the Dutch import amongst us from
Archangel,' being added to each _pièce_, with the addition sometimes
of a pint of spirits of wine or brandy. He then explains the method
practised of drawing off the wine without disturbing the barrels, by
the aid of a tube and a gigantic pair of bellows. The vessels were
connected by the former, and the wine then driven from one to the
other by the pressure of air pumped in by means of the latter. A
sulphur-match was burnt in the empty vessels, so that it might 'receive
a Steam of Spirits capable of promoting the natural Fire and bright
Complexion of the Liquor.'
Noting that the wines should be again 'glewed' eight days before they
are bottled, Pluche says: 'The Month of March is the usual Season
for glewing the most tender Wines, such as those of Ai, Epernai,
Hautvilliers, and Pieri, whose chief Consumption is in France; but
this Operation should not be performed on such strong Wines as those
of Sillery, Verzenai, and other Mountain Wines of Reims, till they
are twelve Months old, at which Time they are capable of supporting
themselves for several Years. When these Wines are bottled off before
they have exhaled their impetuous Particles, they burst a Number of
Bottles, and are less perfect in their Qualities. The proper Method
of bottling Wine consists in leaving the Space of a Finger's Breadth
between the Cork and the Liquor, and in binding the Cork down with
Packthread; it will also be proper to seal the Mouths of the Bottles
with Wax, to prevent Mistakes and Impositions. The Bottles should
likewise be reclined on one Side, because if they are placed in an
upright Position, the Corks will grow dry in a few Months for want of
Moisture, and shrink from their first Dimensions. In Consequence of
which a Passage will be opened to the external Air, which will then
impart an Acidity to the Wine, and form a white Flower on the Surface,
which will be an Evidence of its Corruption.'
The _Mémoire_ of 1718 also points out the necessity of leaving a space
between the cork and the wine, saying that without this, when the wine
began to work at the different seasons of the year, it would break a
large number of bottles; and that even despite this precaution large
numbers are broken, especially when the wine is a little green. The
ordinary bottles for Champagne, styled _flacons_, or flasks, held 'a
_pinte de Paris_, less half a glass,' and cost from 12 to 15 francs the
hundred; and as wood abounded in the province, several glass-works were
established there for their manufacture. As the bottling of the wine,
especially in the early years, was mostly to order, many customers had
their flasks stamped with their arms, at a cost of about 30 per cent
more. The corks--'solid, even, and not worm-eaten'--cost from 50 to 60
sols per hundred. Wire was as yet quite unknown. The cost of bottling a
poinçon of wine in 1712 was: for 200 bottles, 30 livres; 200 corks, 3
livres; 2 baskets and packing, 8 livres; bottling, string, and sealing,
3 livres; total, 44 livres, or say 36 shillings.
It would appear from the _Mémoire_ that the pernicious practice of
icing still Champagne, already noticed, continued in vogue as regards
sparkling wine. The wine was recommended to be taken out of the cellar
half an hour before it was intended it should be drunk, and put into
a bucket of water with two or three pounds of ice. The bottle had to
be previously uncorked, and the cork lightly replaced, otherwise it
was believed there was danger of the bottle breaking. A short half an
hour in the ice was said to bring out the goodness of the wine. Bertin
du Rocheret counselled the use of ice to develop the real merits of a
vinous wine of Ay.]
[Footnote 131: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 132: _Mémoires_ of 1718 and 1722.]
[Footnote 133: Ibid.]
[Footnote 134: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 135: _Mémoire_ of 1718. The perils to which it was exposed
during this transit are pointed at in a letter to the elder Bertin
from a customer in Paris in 1689: 'I thought it better to wait before
giving you any news of the wine you sent me until it was fit to drink.
I tapped it yesterday, and found it poor. I can hardly believe but that
the boatmen did not fall-to upon it whenever they had need, and took
great care to fill it up again, for it could not have been fuller than
they delivered it.']
[Footnote 136: Pluche's _Spectacle de la Nature_, 1732.]
[Footnote 137: _Mémoire_ of 1718.]
[Footnote 138: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_. In
the _Mémoire_ of 1718, Ay, Epernay, Hautvillers, and Cumières are alone
classed as _Vins de Rivière_; Pierry, Fleury, Damery, and Venteuil
being reckoned only as _Petite Rivière_; and there being no mention of
Avize and the neighbouring vineyards.]
[Footnote 139: As at Vertus, where the red wine, so highly esteemed by
William III. of England, was replaced by sparkling wine.]
[Footnote 140: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 141: _Ergo vinum Belnense potuum est suavissimus, ita et
saluberrimus._]
[Footnote 142: _An vinum Remense sit omnium saluberrimum._]
[Footnote 143: Of Ay, Avenay, and Hautvillers (note of Tallemant's
editor).]
[Footnote 144: Tallemant des Réaux's _Historiettes_.]
[Footnote 145: Champagne has been accused of producing not only gout,
but stone, gravel, and rheumatism. As to the first-named complaint,
Bertin du Rocheret disposes of it by noting, in a list compiled by him
of all the deaths of any moment at Epernay, from 1644 downwards, the
decease, at the age of seventy-five, on January 1, 1733, of Jeanne
Maillard, 'the only person in the district ever attacked by the gout.'
His brother-in-law, Dr. Jacques de Reims, in a letter to Helvetius
in 1730, asserts that this complaint is only known by name in the
Champagne; and that, as regards the stone, not more than ten people
were affected therewith within a radius of ten leagues. He maintained
that the _non-mousseux_ white wine of the Champagne, drunk at maturity
and tempered with water, was the best of all beverages for preserving
general health; and the eminent Dr. Camille Falconnet held the same
opinion. Arthur Young, moreover, furnishes spontaneous testimony with
regard to rheumatism. Extolling the sparkling wine of Reims in 1787,
he says, 'I suppose fixed air is good for the rheumatism; I had some
writhes of it before I entered Champagne, but the _vin mousseux_ has
absolutely banished it;' and on reaching Ove, he regrets that 'the _vin
de Champagne_, which is forty sous at Reims, is three livres here, and
execrably bad; so there is an end of my physic for the rheumatism'
(_Travels in France in 1787-9_).]
[Footnote 146: _An vinum Remense Burgundico suavius et salubrius._]
[Footnote 147: In his ode entitled _Vinum Burgundum_, the passage
aspersing the wines of Reims runs as follows:
'Nam suum Rhemi licet usque Bacchum
Jactitent: æstu petulans jocoso
Hic quidam fervet cyathis, et aura
Limpidus acri.
Vellicat nares avidas; venenum
At latet: multos facies fefellit,
Hic tamen spargat modico secundam
Munere mensam.'
The French version, by M. de Bellechaume, entitled an 'Ode au Vin
de Bourgogne,' and published in his _Recueil des Poésies latines et
françaises sur les Vins de Champagne et de Bourgogne_, Paris 1712, is
as follows:
'Vante, Champagne ambitieuse,
L'odeur et l'éclat de ton vin,
Dont la sève pernicieuse
Dans ce brillant cache un venin,
Tu dois toute ta gloire en France,
A cette agréable apparence,
Qui nous attire et nous séduit;
Qu'à Beaune ta liqueur soumise
Dans les repas ne soit admise,
Que sagement avec le fruit.'
M. de la Monnoye, himself a Burgundian, has rendered this passage
somewhat differently in an edition published the same year at Dijon:
'Jusqu'aux cieux le Champagne élève
De son vin pétillant la riante liqueur,
On sait qu'il brille aux yeux, qu'il chatouille le c[oe]ur,
Qu'il pique l'odorat d'une agréable sève.
Mais craignons un poison couvert,
L'aspic est sous les fleurs, que seulement par grâce;
Quand Beaune aura primé, Reims occupant la place,
Vienne légèrement amuser le dessert.'
]
[Footnote 148: _Campania vindicata; sive laus vini Remensis a poeta
Burgundo eleganter quidam, sed immerito culpati._ Offerebat civitati
Remensi Carolus Coffin. Anno Domini /MDCCXII/.]
[Footnote 149:
'Quantum superbas vitis, humi licet
Prorepat, anteit fructibus arbores
Tantum, orbe quæ toto premuntur
Vina super generosiora
Remense surgit. Cedite, Massica
Cantata Flacco Silleriis; neque
Chio remixtum certet audax
Collibus Aïacis Falernum.
Cernis micanti concolor ut vitro
Latex in auras, gemmeus aspici,
Scintellet exultim; utque dulces
Naribus illecebras propinet.
Succi latentis proditor halitus
Ut spuma motu lactea turbido
Crystallinum lætis referre
Mox oculis properet nitorem.'
La Monnoye renders this as follows:
'Autant que, sans porter sa tête dans les cieux,
La vigne par son fruit est au-dessus du chêne;
Autant, sans affecter une gloire trop vaine,
Reims surpasse les vins les plus délicieux.
Qu'Horace du Falerne entonne les louanges
Que de son vieux Massique il vante les attraits;
Tous ces vins fameux n'égaleront jamais
Du charmant Silleri les heureux vendanges.
Aussi pur que la verre ou la main l'a versé,
Les yeux les plus perçants l'en distinguent à peine;
Qu'il est doux de sentir l'ambre de son haleine
Et de prévoir le goût par l'odeur annoncé,
D'abord à petits bonds une mousse argentine
Etincelle, petille et bout de toutes parts,
Un éclat plus tranquille offre ensuite aux regards
D'un liquide miroir la glace cristalline.'
]
[Footnote 150:
'Non hæc malignus quidlibet obstrepat
Livor; nocentes dissimulant dolos
Leni veneno. Vina certant
Inguenuos retinere Gentis
Campana mores. Non stomacho movent
Ægro tumultum; non gravidum caput
Fulagine infestant opacâ.'
Bellechaume renders these lines in the Recueil as follows:
'Il n'a point, quoiqu'on insinue
De poison parmi ses douceurs,
Et de sa province ingénue
La Champagne a gardé les m[oe]urs.
Il n'excite point de tempête
Dans les estomacs languissants;
Son feu léger monte à la tête,
Eveille et réjouit les sens.'
La Monnoye gives them thus:
'Taisez-vous envieux dont la langue cruelle
Veut qu'ici sous les fleurs se cache le venin;
Connaissez la Champagne, et respectez un vin
Qui des m[oe]urs du climat est l'image fidèle.
Non, ce jus qu'à grand tort vous osez outrager
De images fâcheux ne trouble point la tête,
Jamais dans l'estomac n'excite de tempête;
Il est tendre, il est net, délicat et léger.'
]
[Footnote 151:
'Ergo ut secundis (parcere nam decet
Karo liquori) se comitem addidit
Mensis renidens Testa; frontem,
Arbitra lætitiæ, resolvit
Austeriorum. Tune cyathos juvat
Siccare molles: tunc hilaris jocos
Conviva fundit liberales;
Tunc procul alterius valere.'
Bellechaume has rendered this:
'Sitôt que sur de riches tables
De ce nectar avec le fruit
On sert les coupes délectables,
De joie il s'élève un doux bruit;
On voit, même sur le visage
Du plus sévère et du plus sage,
Un air joyeux et plus serein:
Le ris, l'entretien se reveille;
Il n'est plus de liqueur pareille
A cet élixir souverain.'
La Monnoye's version is as follows:
'Vers la fin du repas, à l'approche du fruit,
(Car on doit ménager une liqueur si fine),
Aussitôt que parait la bouteille divine,
Des Grâces à l'instant l'aimable ch[oe]ur la suit
Parmi les conviés, s'élève un doux murmure;
Le plus stoïque alors se deride le front.'
]
[Footnote 152: That of Utrecht, concluded the following year, 1713.]
[Footnote 153: _Ad clarissimum virum Guidonem-Crescentium Fagon regi
a secretoribus consiliis, archiatrorum comitem; ut suam Burgundo vino
prestantiam adversus Campanum vinum asserat._]
[Footnote 154: The original lines and the translation, published by
Bellechaume the same year in his _Recueil_, prove, as do the extracts
already quoted from Coffin, that a sparkling wine was meant. The former
run thus--
'Hinc inversa scyphis tumet, fremitque;
Spumasque agglomerat furore mixtas
Æstuans, levis, inquies proterva;'
Bellechaume's translation is as above--
'Enflés du même orgueil tous ses vins bondissants
N'élèvent que des flots écumeux frémissants
Leur liqueur furieuse, inconstante et légère
Etincelle, petille, et bout dans la fougère.'
]
[Footnote 155: These epigrams and their translation are given
anonymously, as follows, in Bellechaume's _Recueil_:
'Quid medicos testa implores Burgunda? Laboras
Nemo velit medicam poscere sanus opem.
Cur fugis ad doctum, Burgundica testa, Fagonem?
Arte valet multa, sed nimis ægra jaces.'
'A ce que je me persuade
Sur la qualité des bons vins,
Grenan, ta cause est bien malade,
Tu consultes les médecins.
Quand on s'adresse au médecin
C'est qu'on éprouve une souffrance;
Bourgogne, vous n'êtes pas sain
Puisqu'il vous faut une ordonnance.'
]
[Footnote 156: _Decretum medica apud insulam Coon facultatis super
poetica lite Campanum inter et Burgundum vinum ortâ post editum a
poeta Burgundo libellum supplicem._ By several writers this poem has
been ascribed to Grenan; but M. Philibert Milsaud, in his _Procés
poétique touchant les Vins de Bourgogne et de Champagne_ (Paris, 1866),
clearly shows that, although in favour of Burgundy, the judgment is an
ironical one, and that the signature C. C. R. stands for Carolus Coffin
Remensis.]
[Footnote 157: _Ode à Messieurs Coffin et Grenan, Professeurs de Belles
Lettres, sur leurs Combats poétiques au sujet des Vins de Bourgogne et
de Champagne_, in Bellechaume's _Recueil_.]
[Footnote 158:
'Pour connaître la différence
Du nectar de Beaune et de Reims,
Il faut mettre votre science
A bien goûter de ces deux vins.'
]
[Footnote 159: In an anonymous letter addressed to Grenan on February
1712, and published in the _Recueil_.]
[Footnote 160:
'Un franc Bourguignon se fait gloire
D'être avec un Remois à boire;
Ils sont tous deux bons connaisseurs,
Et ne sont pas moins bons buveurs.'
]
[Footnote 161: _Les Célébrités du Vin de Champagne._ Epernay, 1880.
Maucroix died in his ninetieth year in 1708.]
[Footnote 162: Henderson's _History of Ancient and Modern Wines_.]
[Footnote 163: In the _Journal des Savants_.]
[Footnote 164:
'Vieux Bourguignon, jeune Champagne
Font l'agrément de nos festins.'
From _La Critique_, an opera of Panard's, produced in 1742.
]
[Footnote 165: 'With what vivacity,' he exclaims, with a strange
blending of poetry and science, 'does this divine liquid burst forth
in sparkling foam-bells! And what an agreeable impression it produces
upon the olfactory organs! What a delicious sensation it creates upon
the delicate fibres of the palate! ... It is fixed air which, by its
impetuous motion, forms and raises up that foam, the whiteness of
which, rivalling that of milk, soon offers to our astonished eye the
lustre of the most transparent crystal. It is this same air that,
by its expansion and the effervescence it produces, develops the
action of the vinous spirit of which it is the vehicle, in order that
the _papillæ_ of the nerves may more promptly receive the delicious
impression.... Vainly calumny spreads the report on all sides that the
sparkle of our wines is injurious; vainly it asserts that they have
only a hurtful fire and a worthless flavour. Incapable of hiding under
an insidious appearance a perfidious venom, they will always present a
faithful image of the ingenuousness of their native province.']
[Footnote 166: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 167: Henderson's _History of Ancient and Modern Wines_.
Pluche, in his _Spectacle de la Nature_, notices the controversy
regarding the respective merits of the wines of the Marne and the Côte
d'Or in the following terms:
_'Count_: If we will be determined by the finest palates, the Champaign
wine is much preferable to Burgundy.
_Prior_: It is a sufficient honour for Champaign to be admitted to the
same degree of estimation with Burgundy; and it may very well dispense
with the priority. I always thought Burgundy had some similitude with
a solid understanding, which affects us with lasting impressions, and
that Champaign resembles a lively wit, which glitters more upon the
imagination, but which is not always serviceable to its possessor.
_Count_: If you had made the froth of some Champaign wines and the
sallies of a sprightly wit your parallel, I should have thought it
unexceptionable; and several pleasant remarks might be made on this
sprightliness without solidity. But such a Champaign wine as that of
Sillery unites all the vigour of Burgundy, with an agreeable flavour
peculiar to itself.
_Prior_: I prefer useful qualities to those that are merely agreeable.
Burgundy seems to be a more salutary wine than Champaign, and will
always be triumphant for that reason. Its colour alone declares it to
be a wine of a good body, and I must confess I am apt to be diffident
of all dazzling appearances.
_Count_: People believe that this deep colour, so esteemed in Burgundy
wines, is an indication of their wholesomeness; but it is observable
in the grossest wines, and results from an intermixture of the husky
parts of the grape. Wine, in proportion to the quantity of these
particles blended with it, will be less qualified for digestion.
The gout, therefore, and the stone, with which the inhabitants of
wine-countries are so frequently afflicted, are distempers hardly
known either at Reims or on the banks of the Marne, where the wines
are very moderately coloured.... Wines may be made almost as white in
Burgundy as they are in Champaign, though not so good; and, on the
other hand, the Champenois press a wine as red as the Burgundy growth,
and the merchants sell it either as the best species of Burgundy to
the wine-conners, who are the first people that are deceived in it, or
as red Champaign to the connoisseurs, who prefer it to any other wine.
If we may judge of the merit of wines by the price, we shall certainly
assign the preference to Champaign, since the finest species of this
wine is sold in the vaults of Sillery and Epernai for six, seven, or
eight hundred livres, when the same quality of the best Burgundy may be
purchased for three hundred.
_Countess_: Let me entreat you, gentlemen, to leave this controversy
undecided. The equal pretensions that are formed by these two great
provinces promote an emulation which is advantageous to us. The
partisans for Burgundy and Champaign form two factions in the State;
but their contests are very entertaining, and their encounters not
at all dangerous. It is very usual to see the zealots of one party
maintaining a correspondence with those of the other; they frequently
associate together without any reserve, and those who were advocates
for Burgundy at the beginning of the entertainment are generally
reconciled to Champaign before the appearance of the dessert.']
[Footnote 168: _Letters, &c._ Hamburg and Paris, 1788. The translator
adds, as a note, 'People do not any longer get drunk on Champagne.']
[Footnote 169: _Mémoires du Duc de St. Simon._]
[Footnote 170: _Journal de Barbier._]
[Footnote 171: A curious proof of the popularity of sparkling
Champagne, and of the singular system of provincial government into
which France was broken up during the reign of Louis XV., is found
in a decree of the Council of State, dated May 25, 1728. The decree
in question begins by setting forth that, by the _Ordonnance des
aides de Normandie_, wine was forbidden to be brought into Rouen or
its suburbs in bottles, jugs, or any less vessels than hogsheads and
barrels--with the exception of _vin de liqueur_ packed in boxes--under
pain of confiscation and one hundred livres' fine, and that carriers
were prohibited from conveying wine in bottles in the province without
leave from the _fermier des aides_. Nevertheless, petitions had been
presented by the _maire_ and _échevins_ of Reims, stating 'that the
trade in the gray wines of Champagne had considerably increased
for some years past, through the precautions taken at the place of
production to bottle them during the first moon of the month of March
following the vintage, in order to render them _mousseux_; that those
who make use of the gray wine of Champagne prefer that which is
_mousseux_ to that which is not; and that this gray wine cannot be
transported in casks into the interior of the kingdom or to foreign
countries without totally losing its qualities,'--a statement probably
intentionally overdrawn, since Bertin du Rocheret used to export it in
casks to England. Yet the _fermiers des aides de Normandie_ claimed
to prohibit the transport of wines in bottle; and if their pretension
held good, the trade in the gray wine of Champagne would be destroyed.
'Shifting the cause, as a lawyer knows how,' the decree recapitulates
the plea of the _fermiers_ that the transport of wine in bottles
offered facilities for defrauding the revenue, since a carrier with
a load could easily leave some of it _en route_ with innkeepers, and
these in turn could hide bottles holding a _pinte de Paris_ from the
officers in chests, cupboards, &c., and sell them subsequently, to the
detriment of the _droits de détail_.
The foregoing duly rehearsed, there follows the decree permitting 'to
be sent in bottles into the province of Normandy, for the consumption
of the said province, gray wine of Champagne in baskets, which must not
hold less than one hundred bottles,' but prohibiting the introduction
in bottles of any other growth or quality, under the penalty of
confiscation and one hundred livres' fine. Permission is also given
to pass gray and red wine of Champagne, or of any other _cru_ or
quality, in baskets of fifty or one hundred bottles for conveyance
into other provinces, or for shipment to foreign parts by the ports of
Rouen, Caen, Dieppe, and Havre. The wagoners, however, in all cases
are to have certificates signed and countersigned by all manner of
authorities, and are only to enter the province by certain specified
routes. All wine, too, is to pay the _droit de détail_, except in the
case of people not continuously residing in the province, who may
be going to their estates, or those bound for the eaux de Forges, a
celebrated watering-place, both of whom may take a certain quantity in
bottle with them for their own consumption free of duty.]
[Footnote 172: 'To be drunk as _nouveau_ or bottled,' says M. Louis
Perrier in his _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 173: D'Argenson's _Mémoires_.]
[Footnote 174: Bois-Jourdain's _Mélanges Historiques_. The editor of
the _Journal de Barbier_ observes in a note to a passage referring to
the King's suppers at La Muette with Madame de Mailly, under the date
of November 1737: 'These suppers were drinking bouts. It was there that
the King acquired a taste for Champagne.']
[Footnote 175: Clauteau's _Relation de ce qui s'est passé au Passage du
Roi_. Reims, 1744.]
[Footnote 176: Ibid.]
[Footnote 177: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 178: Louis Paris' _Histoire de l'Abbaye d'Avenay_.]
[Footnote 179: Amongst these may be cited the Abbé Bignon, who, in a
letter to Bertin du Rocheret dated January 1734, says: 'The less the
wine is _mousseux_ and glittering, and the more, on the contrary, it
shows at the outset of what you style _liqueur_, and I, in chemical
terms, should rather call balsamic parts, the better I shall think of
it.']
[Footnote 180: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 181:
'Chloris, Eglé me versent de leur main
D'un vin d'Ay dont la mousse pressée,
De la bouteille avec force élancée,
Comme un éclair fait voler son bouchon.
Il part, on rit; il frappe le plafond:
De ce vin frais l'écume pétillante
De nos Français est l'image brillante.'
]
[Footnote 182:
'De ce vin blanc délicieux
Qui mousse et brille dans le verre,
Dont les mortels ne boivent guères;
Et qu'on ne sert jamais qu'à la table des dieux
Ou des grands, pour en parler mieux,
Qui sont les seuls dieux de la terre.'
]
[Footnote 183: Desaulx, a canon of Reims Cathedral, rendered
Lebatteux's ode as follows:
'Ce n'est point sur les monts de Rhodope et de Thrace
Que j'irai t'invoquer; ces monts couverts de glace,
Sont-ils propres à tes faveurs?
Non, Reims te voit régner bien plus sur ses collines;
Là je t'offre mes v[oe]ux; de nos côtes voisines
Embrases moi de tes ardeurs.
Soit que d'un lait mousseux l'écume pétillante,
Soit qu'un rouge vermeil, par sa couleur brillante,
T'annonce à mes regards surpris,
Viens, anime mes vers; ma muse impatiente
Veut devoir en ce jour les accords qu'elle enfante
A la force de tes esprits.'
]
[Footnote 184:
'Non, telles gens ne boivent pas
De cette sève délectable,
L'âme et l'amour de nos repas,
Aussi bienfaisante qu'aimable.
Leur palais corrompu, gâté,
Ne veut que du vin frelaté,
De ce poison vert, apprêté,
Pour des cervelles frénétiques.
Si, tenons-nous pour hérétiques
Ceux qui rejettent la bonté
De ces _corpusculs balsamiques_
Que jadis Horace a chantés.