De cette sève délectable,
L'âme et l'honneur de nos repas,
Aussi bienfaisante qu'aimable.
De ce vin blanc délicieux,
Qui désarme la plus sévère;
Qui pétille dans vos beaux yeux
Mieux qu'il ne brille dans mon verre.
Buvons, buvons à qui mieux mieux,
Je vous livre une douce guerre;
Buvons, buvons de ce vin vieux,
De ce nectar délicieux,
Qui pétille dans vos beaux yeux
Mieux qu'il ne brille dans mon verre.'
The above was set to music by M. Dormel, organist of St. Geneviève.]
[Footnote 185: Marmontel's _Mémoires d'un Père pour l'instruction de
ses Enfants_. M. Louis Paris, in his _Histoire de l'Abbaye d'Avenay_,
identifies this spot as one known indifferently as Le Fay or Feuilly.
He furnishes some interesting details respecting Mademoiselle de
Navarre, who, after being the mistress of Marshal Saxe, married the
Chevalier de Mirabeau, brother to the _Ami des Hommes_ and uncle of
the celebrated orator, and then goes on to say: 'In the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries the wines of Avenay shared with those of
Hautvillers the glory of rivalling the best of Ay. "_Avenay, les
bons raisins_," was the popular saying inscribed on the banner of
its _chevaliers de l'Arquebuse_ (a corps of local sharpshooters).
La Bruyère, St. Evremond, Boileau himself, Coulanges, L'Atteignant,
and many others had celebrated the tender and delicate wines of our
vineyards; and that of Madame l'Abbesse especially had acquired such
a reputation, that several great families, strangers to the locality,
thought it the right thing to have a _vendangeoir_ at Avenay, and to
pass part of the autumn in the renowned Val d'Or.']
[Footnote 186:
'Vois ce nectar charmant
Sauter sous ces beaux doigts;
Et partir à l'instant;
Je crois bien que l'amour en ferait tout autant.
Et quoi sous ces beaux doigts
Bouchon a donc sauté pour la première fois?
Croyez-vous que l'amour
Leur fit un pareil tour?'
]
[Footnote 187:
'Le jus que verse Ganimède
A Jupiter dans ses repas
A ce vin de Champagne cède,
Et nous sommes mieux ici bas.'
From the edition of his _Poesies_ published in 1757.
]
[Footnote 188:
'Et quand je décoiffe un flacon
Le liège qui pette
Me fait entendre un plus beau son
Que tambour et trompette.'
Panard's _[OE]uvres_, Paris, 1763.
]
[Footnote 189:
'Diaphorus au marchand de vin
Vend bien cher un extrait de rivière;
Le marchand vend au médecin
Du Champagne arrivé de Nanterre,
Ce qui prouve encor ce refrain-ci
A trompeur, trompeur et demi.'
]
[Footnote 190:
'Pour jouir d'un destin plus tranquille et plus doux
De ce bruyant séjour, amis, éloignons nous,
Allons, dans mon cellier, du Champagne et du Beaune
Goûter les doux appas.
Les plaisirs n'y sont pas troublés par l'embarras,
Et le funeste ennui qui monte jusqu'au trône
Dans les caveaux ne descend pas.'
]
[Footnote 191:
'C'est alors qu'un joyeux convive,
Saississant un flacon scellé,
Qui de Reims ou d'Ai tient la liqueur captive,
Fait sauter jusqu'à la solive
Le liège deficellé;
Tout le cercle attentif porte un regard avide
Sur cet objet qui les ravit;
Ils présentent leur verre vide,
Le nectar pétillant aussitôt les remplit.
On boit, on goûte, on applaudit,
On redouble et par l'assemblée
La mousse Champenoise à plein verre est sablée.
De là naissent les ris, les transports éclatans,
La sève et tout son feu, jusqu'au cerveau montants,
Font naître des débats, des querelles polies
Qui réveillent l'esprit de tous les assistants.'
]
[Footnote 192: An allusion to the _vin gris_ of the Champagne.]
[Footnote 193:
'Grâce à la liqueur
Qui lave mon c[oe]ur,
Nul souci ne me consume.
De ce vin gris
Que je chéris
L'écume,
Lorsque j'en boi
Quel feu chez moi
S'allume!
Nectar enchanteur,
Tu fais mon bonheur;
Viens, mon cher ami! Que j't'hume!
Champagne divin,
Du plus noir chagrin
Tu dissipes l'amertume.
Tu sais mûrir,
Tu sais guérir
Le rhume.
Quel goût flatteur
Ta douce odeur
Parfume!
Pour tant de bienfaits
Et pour tant d'attraits;
Viens, mon cher ami! Que j't'hume!'
]
[Footnote 194: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 195: M. Sutaine observes that in 1780 a merchant of Epernay
bottled 6000 bottles, and that the importance of this _tirage_ was
noted as something remarkable; and this statement has been repeated
by every other writer on Champagne. Yet here is a _tirage_ of 6000
bottles taking place thirty-four years previously. The extent of the
bottled-wine trade is confirmed by Arthur Young, who in 1787 visited
Ay, where M. Lasnier had 60,000 bottles in his cellar, and M. Dorsé
from 30,000 to 40,000. Marmontel in 1716 mentions Henin de Navarre's
cellars at Avenay as containing 50,000 bottles of Champagne.]
[Footnote 196: E. J. Maumené's _Traité du Travail des Vins_, 1874.]
[Footnote 197: Ibid. The _casse_ of 1776 has never been forgotten at
Epernay; and M. Perrier, in a letter of August 1801, mentions a recent
one at Avize amounting to 85 per cent. That of 1842 flooded the cellars
throughout the Champagne. Even in 1850 M. Maumené mentions a _casse_
in a Reims cellar which had reached 98 per cent at his visit, and was
still continuing.]
[Footnote 198: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_. The Abbé
Bignon confirms this in a letter of December 20, 1736, to Bertin du
Rocheret, respecting wine received from him. 'The wine sealed with
a cipher in red wax,' he observes, 'seemed to me very delicate, but
having as yet some _liqueur_ which time may get rid of, though after
that I am afraid there will not remain much strength. Another, also
sealed with red wax, but with a coat-of-arms, seems to have more
quality and vinosity, though also very delicate and very light, both
_sablant_ perfectly, though they cannot be called _mousseux_. As to
that which is sealed with black, the people who esteem foam would
bestow the most magnificent eulogies upon it. It would be difficult
to find any that carries this beautiful perfection further. Three
spoonfuls at the bottom of the glass is surmounted with the strongest
foam to the very brim; on the other hand, I found in it a furious
_vert_, and not much vinosity.']
[Footnote 199: In 1734 he speaks of his _mousseux sablant_, and
forwards to the Marquis de Polignac both _mousseux_ and _petillant_. In
1736 he offers M. Véron de Bussy his choice of _demi-mousseux_, _bon
mousseux_, and _saute bouchon_; and the following year distinguishes
his Ay _mousseux_ from his _saute bouchon_.]
[Footnote 200: Respecting the price of sparkling Champagne during
the first half of the eighteenth century, a few instances from the
correspondence of Bertin du Rocheret may here he quoted. In 1716 he
offers Marshal d'Artagnan 1500 bottles at 35 sols, cash down, and taken
at Epernay. In 1725 he offers _flacons blancs mousseux liqueur_ at from
30 to 50 sols, and _ambrés non mousseux, sablant_, at 25 sols. Ten
years later _saute bouchon_ is quoted by him at 40 and 45 sols, and
in 1736 at 3 livres, _demi-mousseux_ ranging from 36 to 40 sols, and
_bon mousseux_ from 45 to 50 sols. The following year _saute bouchon_
fetched 3 livres 6 sols, and _mousseux_ 42 sols. In 1736 he insisted
upon his _flacons_ holding a _pinte_; and a royal decree of March
8, 1755, which regulated the weight and capacity of sparkling-wine
bottles, required these to weigh 25 ounces, and to hold a _pinte de
Paris_, or about 1.64 imperial pint. They were, moreover, to be tied
crosswise on the top of the cork, with a string of three strands well
twisted. Their cost was 15 livres per hundred in 1734 and 1738, and
from 17 to 19 livres in 1754.]
[Footnote 201: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 202: It would appear from Bidet that the wines of the
Mountain had not been transformed into _vin mousseux_ as late as 1752,
as, in his book on wine published during that year, he only includes in
the list of places producing sparkling wine Ay, Avenay, Mareuil, Dizy,
Hautvillers, Epernay, Pierry, Cramant, Avize, and Le Mesnil.]
[Footnote 203:
'Votre palais, usé, perclus
Par liqueur inflammable,
Préfère de mousseux verjus
Au nectar véritable.'
]
[Footnote 204: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_. In
the thesis in favour of Champagne, written by Dr. Xavier of Reims
in 1777, the acidulous character of the wine is confirmed by the
author, who naïvely remarks that it is as efficacious in preventing
putrefaction as are other acids. He also compares it to acidulated
waters.]
[Footnote 205: Legrand d'Aussy's _Vie privée des Français_, 1782.]
[Footnote 206: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_. The
pretended secret of Dom Perignon, quoted from the _Mémoire_ of 1718,
and mentioning the addition of sugar to the wine of Hautvillers, is
flatly contradicted by Dom Grossart's letter to M. Dherbès (see page 41
_ante_). But it is probable that the suggestion thus made public was
acted upon, though at first only timidly.]
[Footnote 207: Chaptal's _Art de faire du Vin_. As Minister of the
Interior, he forwarded the results of his experiments to the _préfets_,
with the recommendation to spread them throughout their departments.]
[Footnote 208: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 209: Letter of M. Nicolas Perrier to M. Cadet-Devaux, dated
August 1801.]
[Footnote 210: As _bourru_, _tocane_, and _en nouveau_.]
[Footnote 211: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 212: The letter in which he mentions this is extant, but the
secret which was enclosed in it is missing.]
[Footnote 213: Dom Grossart, who had retired to Montier-en-Der in 1790,
was unacquainted with this plan when he wrote to M. Dherbès in 1821,
although it had been practised for twenty years past.]
[Footnote 214: In a /MS./ quoted in Varin's _Archives Administratives
de Reims_.]
[Footnote 215: The gifts presented by the municipality on this occasion
included flowers, pears, and gingerbread, Reims being as famed for the
latter as for its wines. The guild of gingerbread-makers at Reims was
established in the sixteenth century, and from that time forward was
engaged in continual squabbles with the bakers and pastrycooks of the
city, who could not be brought to understand that they had not the
right to make gingerbread. Countless reams of paper were scribbled
over by the lawyers of the two contending interests; but though the
Bailli of Reims on several occasions pronounced a formal verdict, to
the effect that no one but a sworn and accepted gingerbread-maker
should have act or part in the making of the indigestible delicacy, the
contumacious bakers continued to treat his edicts as naught. Eventually
a royal edict of 1776, which suppressed the privileges of the majority
of the guilds in France, deprived the Reims gingerbread-makers for ever
of the right of figuring with swords by their sides and three-cornered
hats on their heads at all local ceremonies, civil or religious, and
threw their trade open to all.
It was at the close of Louis XIV.'s reign that the _pain d'épice_
of Reims reached the summit of its renown. At the coronation of his
successor, the _échevins_ of Reims presented the monarch with several
baskets of it; and when Maria Leczinska passed through Reims in
January 1725, the notables offered her twelve wicker baskets, covered
with damask and ornamented with ribbons, containing fresh and dried
pears, conserves, preserved lemons, almond-cakes, and a new kind of
gingerbread, which received the name of _nonnette à la Reine_.]
[Footnote 216: This escutcheon shows the arms of Reims, which at
first consisted of _rinçeaux_ or branches; subsequently a cross and a
crozier, placed saltire-wise, and a sainte Ampoule, were added. When
the government of the city passed from the archbishop, the entwined
olive-branches and chief strewn with fleurs de lis were adopted, the
old motto, 'Dieu en soit garde,' being retained. The iron gates of the
Porte de Paris were removed to their present position in 1843, to allow
of the passage of the canal.]
[Footnote 217: From the days of Charles VIII. to those of Louis XIV.,
it was customary on these occasions for the keys to be presented by a
young girl styled the Pucelle de Reims; and J. M. C. Leber, in his work
_Des Cérémonies du Sacre_, is of opinion that this custom arose in some
way from the visit of Joan of Arc. Louis XV. was the first who received
them from the lieutenant.]
[Footnote 218: Baron Taylor's _Reims, la Ville de Sacres_.]
[Footnote 219: N. Menin's _Traité du Sacre et Couronnement des Rois_.]
[Footnote 220: P. Tarbé's _Reims, ses Rues et ses Monuments_.]
[Footnote 221: H. Taine's _L'Ancien Régime_.]
[Footnote 222: Ibid.]
[Footnote 223: Arthur Young's _Travels in France in 1787-9_.]
[Footnote 224: Ibid. Another grievance alleged against the monasteries
was the presence of the innumerable fishponds belonging to them
scattered throughout the country. The _Cahier des Plaintes, Doléances,
et Remontrances du Tiers Etat du Baillage de Reims_, on the Assembly of
the States General under Louis XVI., ask that 'all fishponds situate
outside woods and, above all, those which lie close to vineyards, may
be suppressed, as hurtful to agriculture.']
[Footnote 225: H. Taine's _L'Ancien Régime_.]
[Footnote 226: Instructions of local _directeurs des aides_, quoted
from the _Archives Nationales_ by Taine.]
[Footnote 227: H. Taine's _L'Ancien Régime_.]
[Footnote 228: _Les Célébrités du Vin de Champagne_, Epernay, 1880.]
[Footnote 229: H. Taine's _L'Ancien Régime_. At Rethel a poinçon of the
_jauge de Reims_ paid 50 to 60 francs for the _droit de détail_ alone.]
[Footnote 230: Arthur Young's _Travels in France in 1787-9_.]
[Footnote 231: H. Taine's _L'Ancien Régime_.]
[Footnote 232: Crebillon the younger's _Les Bijoux Indiscrets_.]
[Footnote 233: A /MS./ account of the wine culture of Poligny in the
Jura states that in 1774 attempts were made to imitate the gray and
pink wines of the Champagne, then selling at 3 livres 10 sous the
bottle.]
[Footnote 234: Erckmann-Chatrian's _Histoire d'un Paysan_.]
[Footnote 235: 'Suppose Champagne flowing,' says Carlyle, when
describing this banquet in his _French Revolution_.]
[Footnote 236: Carlyle's _French Revolution_.]
[Footnote 237: The date 'An 1^{er} de la liberté' may possibly refer
to the 'Year One' of the Republican calendar (1792), in which Mirabeau
fell in a duel at Fribourg. But an earlier edition of the same
caricature seems to have been published, according to De Goncourt in
the _Journal de la Mode et du Goût_, in May 1790.]
[Footnote 238:
'Malgré les calembours, les brocards, les dictons,
Je veux à mes repas vuider mes deux flacons,'
are the lines assigned to him in _Le Vicomte de Barjoleau, ou le Souper
des Noirs_, a two-act comedy of the epoch.]
[Footnote 239:
[Illustration: LE GOURMAND: AN INCIDENT OF LOUIS XVI.'S FLIGHT FROM
PARIS
(From a caricature of the period).]
This caricature, which is neither signed nor dated, is simply entitled
'Le Gourmand;' though Jaime, in his _Histoire de la Caricature_, states
that it represents Louis XVI. at Varennes. According to Carlyle,
however, the king reached Varennes at eleven o'clock at night, was at
once arrested in his carriage, and taken to Procureur Sausse's house.
Here he 'demands refreshments, as is written; gets bread-and-cheese,
with a bottle of Burgundy, and remarks that it is the best Burgundy he
ever drunk.' At six o'clock the following morning he left Varennes,
escorted by ten thousand National Guards. Very likely there may have
been a story current at the time to the effect that the arrest was due
to the king's halting to gratify his appetite. Or the caricature may
represent some incident that occurred, during his return to Paris, as
he passed through the Champagne district, and halted at the Hôtel de
Rohan at Epernay.]
[Footnote 240: De Goncourt's _Société Française pendant la Révolution_.]
[Footnote 241: Ibid.]
[Footnote 242: St. Aubin's _Expédition de Don Quichotte_.]
[Footnote 243: _Aux voleurs! aux voleurs!_ quoted by De Goncourt.]
[Footnote 244: _Lettres du Père Duchêne_, quoted by De Goncourt.]
[Footnote 245: _Les Célébrités du Vin de Champagne_, Epernay, 1880.]
[Footnote 246: _Journal de ce qui s'est passé d'intéressant à Reims en
1814._]
[Footnote 247: Ibid.]
[Footnote 248: G. A. Sala's _Paris Herself Again_.]
[Footnote 249: Gronow's _Celebrities of London and Paris_, 1865.]
[Footnote 250: Gronow's _Reminiscences_, 1862.]
[Footnote 251:
'J'aime mieux les Turcs en campagne
Que de voir nos vins de Champagne
Profanés par des Allemands.'
Béranger's _Chansons_.
]
[Footnote 252:
'Rôtis sur la haute montagne
Tout flamme et miel, le Médéah,
Le Mascara, le Milianah
Feront pâlir le gai Champagne.'
_Poésies_ de J. Boese, de Blidah.
]
[Footnote 253:
'Il a conduit Pomponnette
Chez Vachette,
Dans le cabinet vingt-deux;
Et là, même avant la bisque,
Il se risque
A lui déclarer ses feux.
Elle demeure accoudée,
Obsédée,
Résolue à résister,
Inexorable et charmante
Dans sa mante,
Qu'elle ne veut pas quitter.
Un troisième personnage,
A la nage
Dans un seau d'argent orné,
Se soulève sur la hanche,
Tête blanche,
Cou de glace environné.
C'est le Champagne; il susurre:
"Chose sûre!
Quand mon bouchon partira,
Tout à l'heure, cette belle
Si rebelle
Mollement s'apaisera.
Bientôt tu verras, te dis-je,
Ce prodige
Cesse d'invoquer l'enfer;
Ton courroux est trop facile;
Imbécile,
Arrache mon fil de fer!
Car je suis maître Champagne,
Qu'accompagne
Le délire aux cent couplets;
Je dompte les plus sévères.
A moi, verres,
Coupes, flûtes et cornets!"
Aussi dit le vin superbe,
Moins acerbe,
La femme se sent capter.
C'est une cause que gagne
Le Champagne;
Son bouchon vient de sauter.'
_Le Parfait Vigneron_, Paris, 1870.]
[Footnote 254: Titi Livii Foro-Juliensis _Vita Henrici Quinti_. The
author was a _protégé_ of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester.]
[Footnote 255: Francisque Michel's _Histoire du Commerce et de la
Navigation à Bordeaux_. It was not till the marriage of Henry III.
with Eleanor of Aquitaine that we began to import Guienne wine from
Bordeaux.]
[Footnote 256: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 257: Ibid.]
[Footnote 258: Victor Fiévet's _Histoire d'Epernay_.]
[Footnote 259: Francisque Michel's _Histoire du Commerce et de la
Navigation à Bordeaux_.]
[Footnote 260: Published in 1615.]
[Footnote 261: That of 1574. Surflet's translation appeared in 1600.]
[Footnote 262: Venner's _Via recta ad longam Vitam_, 1628.]
[Footnote 263: Writing to Sir Walter Mildmay in 1569, the Earl of
Shrewsbury, who had charge of the royal prisoner, complains that his
regular allowance of wine duty free is not enough. 'The expenses I
have to bear this year on account of the Queen of the Scots are so
considerable as to compel me to beg you will kindly consider them. In
fact, two butts of wine a month hardly serve for our ordinary use; and
besides this, I have to supply what is required by the Princess for her
baths and similar uses.']
[Footnote 264: Clarendon's _Memoirs_.]
[Footnote 265: Letter of Guy Patin, 1660.]
[Footnote 266: Otway's _Soldier's Fortune_, act iv. sc. 1, 1681.]
[Footnote 267: Ibid.]
[Footnote 268: Redding's _History and Description of Modern Wines_.]
[Footnote 269: Otway's _Friendship in Fashion_, 1678.]
[Footnote 270:
'Nous parler toujours des vins
D'Ay, d'Avenet, et de Reims.'
_[OE]uvres de Saint-Evremond._
]
[Footnote 271:
'Perdre le goût de l'huitre et du vin de Champagne
Pour revoir la leur d'un débile soleil
Et l'humide beauté d'une verte campagne,
N'est pas à mon avis un bonheur sans pareil,
La faveur de la Marne, hélas, est terminée,
Et notre montagne de Reims,
Qui fournit tant d'excellens vins,
A peu favorisé nostre goût cette année.
O triste et pitoyable sort!
Faut-il avoir recours aux rives de la Loire,
Ou pour le mieux au fameux port,
Dont Chapelle nous fait l'histoire!
Faut-il se contenter de boire
Comme tous les peuples du Nord?
Non, non, quelle heureuse nouvelle!
Monsieur de Bonrepaus arrive, il est icy,
Le Champagne pour lui tousjours se renouvelle,
Fuyez, Loire, Bordeaux! fuyez, Cahors, aussy!'
_[OE]uvres de Saint-Evremond:
Sur la Verdure qu'on met aux cheminées en Angleterre._
In these verses we trace the custom, elsewhere spoken of, of drinking
the Marne wines when new. St. Evremond himself, in a passage of his
prose works, says that the wines of Ay should not be kept too long, or
those of Reims drunk too soon.]
[Footnote 272: Sparkling is not used here in the modern sense of
effervescing: see page 90.]
[Footnote 273: Sir George Etherege's _Man of the Mode, or Sir Fopling
Flutter_, act iv. sc. 1, 1676.]
[Footnote 274: Otway's _Friendship in Fashion_, act ii. sc. 1, 1678.]
[Footnote 275: Etherege's _She wou'd if she cou'd_, act iv. sc. 2,
1668.]
[Footnote 276: Sir Charles Sedley's _Mulberry Garden_, act ii. sc. 2,
1668.]
[Footnote 277: Otway's _Friendship in Fashion_, act i. sc. 1, 1678.]
[Footnote 278: Shadwell's _Virtuoso_, act ii. sc. 2, 1676.]
[Footnote 279: By Dr. Charleton, and published as late as 1692.]
[Footnote 280: Oldham's _Paraphrases from Horace_, book i. ode xxxi.,
1684.]
[Footnote 281: Oldham's _Works_, &c., 1684.]
[Footnote 282: Butler's _Hudibras_, part ii. canto i., 1664. Stum is
unfermented wine; and the term brisk applied to Champagne is here
employed not to denote effervescence, but to indicate the contrast
between the thick immature fluid and the clear carefully-made wines of
the Champagne.]
[Footnote 283: Butler's _Hudibras_, part iii. canto iii., 1678.]
[Footnote 284: Sedley's _The Doctor and his Patients_. No date, but
Sedley died in 1701.]
[Footnote 285: Thomson's Poems.]
[Footnote 286: Cyrus Redding's evidence before the Parliamentary
Committee on the Wine-Duties, 1851.]
[Footnote 287: Redding's _French Wines_.]
[Footnote 288: Varin's _Archives Administratives de Reims_.]
[Footnote 289: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 290: St. Simon's _Mémoires_.]
[Footnote 291: Redding's _French Wines_.]
[Footnote 292: Farquhar's _Love and a Bottle_, act ii. sc. 2, 1698.]
[Footnote 293: An evident allusion to its effervescence; whilst the
words 'straw doublet' most likely refer to the covering of the flask.]
[Footnote 294: Cibber's _Love makes a Man_, act i. sc. 1, 1700.]
[Footnote 295: Farquhar's _The Inconstant, or the Way to win Him_, act
i. scene 2, 1703.]
[Footnote 296: Epilogue to the _Constant Couple, or a Trip to the
Jubilee_ of Farquhar, spoken by Wilks in 1700. Locket's tavern, which
stood on the site now occupied by Drummond's bank at Charing Cross, was
especially famous for its Champagne. In the _Quack Vintners_, a satire
against Brooke and Hilliers, published in 1712, we read:
'May Locket still his ancient fame maintain
For Ortland dainties and for rich Champaign,
Where new-made lords their native clay refine,
And into noble blood turn noble wine.'
]
[Footnote 297: Farquhar's _Twin Rivals_, act v. sc. 1, 1705.]
[Footnote 298: Several other writers, who speak of 'bottles' of other
wines, use the word 'flask' when referring to Champagne.]
[Footnote 299: Farquhar's _Beaux' Stratagem_, act iii. sc. 3, 1706.]
[Footnote 300: _Memoir_, prefixed to Leigh Hunt's edition of Congreve's
works.]
[Footnote 301: Cunninghame's _History of Britain from the Revolution to
the Hanover Succession_.]
[Footnote 302: Farquhar's _The Constant Couple, or a Trip to the
Jubilee_, act v. sc. 1, 1700. M. Francisque Michel, in his _Histoire
du Commerce et de la Navigation à Bordeaux_, clearly establishes that
from the beginning to the middle of the eighteenth century all the best
growths of the Médoc were bought and shipped for England. It was not
until after 1755 that any went to Paris.]
[Footnote 303:
'Vos, ô Britanni (f[oe]dera nam sinunt
Inc[oe]pta pacis) dissociabilem
Tranate pontum. Quid cruento
Perdere opes juvat usque Marte.
Lætis Remensam quam satius fuit
Stipare Bacchum navibus; et domum
Anferre funestis trophæis
Exuvias pretiosiores!'
Coffin's _Campania vindicata_, 1712. The force of the reference to
England is better understood when it is mentioned that no other nation
is alluded to as purchasing the wines of the Champagne.]
[Footnote 304: A practice not lost sight of at a later date, to judge
from Borachio's observation, 'I turn Alicant into Burgundy and sour
cider into Champagne of the first growth of France.' Jephson's _Two
Strings to your Bow_, act i. sc. 2.]
[Footnote 305: _The Tatler_, No. 131, Feb. 9, 1709.]
[Footnote 306: Mrs. Centlivre's _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_, act v. sc.
1, 1718.]
[Footnote 307: Gay's poem _On Wine_, published in 1708.]
[Footnote 308: Gay's _Welcome from Greece_.]
[Footnote 309: Prior's _Alma, or the Progress of the Mind_.]
[Footnote 310: Prior's _Alma, or the Progress of the Mind_.]
[Footnote 311: Prior's _Bibo and Charon_.]
[Footnote 312: Shenstone's _Verses written at a Tavern at Henley_.]
[Footnote 313: Vanbrugh's _Journey to London_, act i. sc. 2. Left
unfinished at his death in 1726.]
[Footnote 314: Swift's _Journal to Stella_, March 12, 1712-13.]
[Footnote 315: Ibid. Feb. 20, 1712-13.]
[Footnote 316: Ibid. April 9, 1711.]
[Footnote 317: Ibid. March 18, 1710.]
[Footnote 318: Ibid. March 29, 1711-12.]
[Footnote 319: Ibid. Dec. 21, 1711.]
[Footnote 320: Ibid. April 7, 1711.]
[Footnote 321: Letter to Mr. Congreve, April 7, 1715.]
[Footnote 322: Mrs. Centlivre's _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_, act i. sc.
1, 1718.]
[Footnote 323: Fielding's _The Miser_, 1732.]
[Footnote 324: _The Rake's Progress, or the Humours of Drury Lane_:
a poem published in 1735, to accompany a set of prints pirated from
Hogarth's.]
[Footnote 325: Blunt's _Geneva_: a poem dedicated to Sir R. Walpole,
1729.]
[Footnote 326: Hoadley's _Suspicious Husband_, act iv. sc. 1, 1747.]
[Footnote 327: This wine, though sometimes sent by way of Dunkirk,
was usually forwarded _viâ_ Calais, by the intermediary of a Sieur
Labertauche, a commission-agent at that port, the cost of transport
from Epernay to Calais being from 70 to 75 livres per queue. A
_bobillon_ of wine was sent with each lot of casks for filling up.
Moreover, from 1731 Bertin annually despatches a certain quantity of
cream of tartar, destined to cure the ropiness to which all white wines
were especially subject before the discovery that tannin destroys the
principle engendering this disease.]
[Footnote 328: Chabane appears to have been fully cognisant of the
method of _collage_ and _soutirage_ (fining and racking) practised
in the Champagne; and Bertin, in one of his letters dated July 1752,
mentions the enclosure of a receipt for a kind of _collage_, by
following which all necessity to _dépoter_ the bottles is obviated.
This enclosure is unfortunately lost.]
[Footnote 329: Ms. correspondence of Bertin du Rocheret, quoted by M.
Louis Perrier in his _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_. M. Perrier
states that the prohibition was removed by an act of the 1st Nov.
1745; and a letter of Bertin to Chabane, the following year, bears
this out. It is therefore singular to find the following entry in
Bubb Doddington's _Diary_, under the date of Feb. 1, 1753: 'Went to
the House to vote for liberty to import Champaign in bottles. Lord
Hillsborough moved it; Mr. Fox seconded it. We lost the Motion. Ayes,
74; Noes, 141.']
[Footnote 330: Letter to Sir Horace Mann, June 18, 1751.]
[Footnote 331: Jesse's _Selwyn and his Contemporaries_. It is very
probable that the name printed as Prissieux is really Puissieux, a
title of the Sillery family.]
[Footnote 332: Lady Mary Wortley Montague's _Letter from Arthur Grey,
the Footman, to Mrs. Murray_. Written in the autumn of 1721.]
[Footnote 333: Lady M. W. Montague's _The Lover_. This is generally
designated 'a ballad to Mr. Congreve,' but is headed in Lady Mary's
note-book, 'To Molly,' and, as Mr. Moy Thomas has suggested, was
probably addressed to Lord Hervey, Pope's 'Lord Fanny.']
[Footnote 334: Note to his _Letter on Bowles_.]
[Footnote 335: _Westminster Magazine_, 1774.]
[Footnote 336: Grainger's _The Sugar Cane_, 1764.]
[Footnote 337: Coleman and Garrick's _Clandestine Marriage_, act i. sc.
2, 1766.]
[Footnote 338: Garrick's _Bon Ton, or High Life above Stairs_, act i.
sc. 2, 1775.]
[Footnote 339: Ibid.]
[Footnote 340: Ibid. act ii. sc. 1.]
[Footnote 341: Townley's _High Life below Stairs_, act ii. sc. 1, 1759.]
[Footnote 342: So in Mrs. Cowley's _Which is the Man?_ Burgundy
is extolled and 'vile Port' denounced; and in Cumberland's _The
Fashionable Lover_ (1772) a sneer is levelled at a 'paltry
Port-drinking club.' Burgundy, too, is in favour in Holcroft's _The
Road to Ruin_, 1792.]
[Footnote 343: Foote's _The Lame Lover_, act iii. sc. 1, 1770.]
[Footnote 344: Garrick's _The Country Girl_, act v. sc. 1.]
[Footnote 345: Foote's _The Fair Maid of Bath_, act i. sc. 1, 1771.]
[Footnote 346: Holcroft's _The Road to Ruin_, act iv. sc. 2, 1792.]
[Footnote 347: Sir Edward Barry's _Observations, Historical, Critical,
and Medical, on the Wines of the Ancients, and the analogy between them
and Modern Wines_, 1775.]
[Footnote 348: Tickell's _Poems_.]
[Footnote 349: Timbs' _Clubs and Club Life_.]
[Footnote 350: In the _Encyclopédie Méthodique_.]
[Footnote 351: Arthur Young's _Travels in France in the Years 1787-9_.]
[Footnote 352: Sheen's _Wine and other fermented Liquors_.]
[Footnote 353: Amongst other English customers of the firm in 1788,
1789, and 1790 were 'Milords' Farnham and Findlater, the latter of
whom was supplied with 120 bottles of the vintage of 1788; Manning,
of the St. Alban's Tavern, London, who ordered 130 bottles of vin de
Champagne, at 3 livres or 2_s._ the bottle, to be delivered in the
autumn by M. Caurette; Messrs. Felix Calvert & Sylvin, who took two
sample bottles at 5_s._; and Mr. Lockhart, banker, of 36 Pall Mall, who
in 1790 paid 3_s._ per bottle for 360 bottles of the vintage of 1788.
The high rate of exchange in our favour is shown by the 54_l._ covering
this transaction being taken as 1495 livres 7 sols 9 deniers, or about
28 livres per pound sterling.]
[Footnote 354: Walker's _The Original_.]
[Footnote 355: 'The Fair of Britain's Isle' (_Convivial Songster_,
1807).]
[Footnote 356: _Diary of Mrs. Colonel St. George, written during her
Sojourn amongst the German Courts in 1799 and 1800._]
[Footnote 357: Moore's _The Twopenny Post-bag_, 1813.]
[Footnote 358: Moore's _Parody of a Celebrated Letter_.]
[Footnote 359: The compound known as 'the Regent's Punch' was made
out of 3 bottles of Champagne, 2 of Madeira, 1 of hock, 1 of curaçoa,
1 quart of brandy, 1 pint of rum, and 2 bottles of seltzer-water,
flavoured with 4 lbs. bloom raisins, Seville oranges, lemons, white
sugar-candy, and diluted with iced green tea instead of water (Tovey's
_British and Foreign Spirits_).]
[Footnote 360: Captain Gronow's _Reminiscences_.]
[Footnote 361: Ibid.]
[Footnote 362: Prince Puckler Muskau's _Letters_.]
[Footnote 363: Miss Burney's _Memoirs_.]
[Footnote 364: Henderson's _History of Ancient and Modern Wines_, 1824.
Henderson, who appears to have visited the Champagne in 1822, remarks
of the remaining _crûs_ of the province: 'The wines of the neighbouring
territories of Mareuil and Dizy are of similar quality to those of Ay,
and are often sold as such. Those of Hautvillers, on the other hand,
which formerly equalled, if not surpassed, the growths just named, have
been declining in repute since the suppression of the monastery, to
which the principal vineyard belonged.']
[Footnote 365: Moore's _The Fudge Family Abroad_, 1818.]
[Footnote 366: Moore's _The Sceptic_.]
[Footnote 367: Moore's _Illustration of a Bore_.]
[Footnote 368: Moore's _The Summer Fête_, 1831.]
[Footnote 369: Ibid.]
[Footnote 370: Ibid.]
[Footnote 371: Moore's _Diary_, June 1819.]
[Footnote 372: Lockhart's _Life of Sir Walter Scott_.]
[Footnote 373: Scott's _Diary_, November 15, 1826.]
[Footnote 374: Byron's _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, 1808.]
[Footnote 375: Byron's _Don Juan_, canto xv. stanza lxv., 1821.]
[Footnote 376: Ibid. canto xvi. stanza ix.]
[Footnote 377: Ibid. canto xiii. stanzas xxxvii., xxxviii.]
[Footnote 378: According to recent statistics issued by the Chamber of
Commerce of Reims, the department of the Marne contains 16,500 hectares
of vineyards (40,755 acres), of which 2465 hectares are situated in the
district of Vitry-le-François; 555 hectares in that of Châlons; 700
in that of Sainte Menehould; 7624 in that of Reims; and 5587 in the
Epernay district, where the finest qualities of Champagne are grown.
The value of the wine produced annually in these districts exceeds
60,000,000 francs (nearly 2-1/2 millions sterling). During the last
thirty years, the value of these vineyards has increased fourfold. The
'population vigneronne' of the department is 16,093 inhabitants.]
[Footnote 379: In the year 1871.]
[Footnote 380: The blending of black and white grapes together,
although its advantages had been recognised in the _Maison Rustique_
of 1574, appears not to have been successfully carried out at Ay
till the days of Dom Perignon. 'Formerly,' remarks Pluche, 'it was
very difficult to preserve the wine of Ay longer than one year. When
the juice of the white grapes, whose quantity was very great in that
vineyard, began to assume a yellowish hue, it became predominant, and
created a change in all the wine; but ever since the white grapes have
been disused, the Marne wines may be easily kept for the space of four
or five years' (_Spectacle de la Nature_, 1732).]
[Footnote 381: From time immemorial the vineyards of Ay and Dizy paid
tithes to the Abbey of Hautvillers, the former a sixtieth and the
latter an eleventh of their produce. These dues were, by a decree of
1670, levied at the gate of Ay. In 1772, Tirant de Flavigny, a large
wine-grower, who farmed, amongst other vineyards, 'Les Quartiers' at
Hautvillers, insisted on leaving the tithe of grapes at the foot of the
vine for collection by the abbey tithe-collectors. The Abbot Alexandre
Ange de Talleyrand Périgord refused to accept them, and insisted in
turn that the whole of the grapes should either be brought to the gate
of Hautvillers or converted into wine in the vineyard, and the eleventh
part of this wine handed to his representative. From a _procès verbal_
drawn up by the Mayor of Ay, it seems that the inhabitants were willing
to pay a monetary commutation, as was the prevailing custom, or to
leave the abbot's share of grapes in the vineyards; but objected to the
tithe being taken, usually with considerable delay, on each basket,
whereby the remaining grapes were bruised, and the possibility of
bright white wine being made from them rendered exceedingly doubtful.
It was not till 1787 that it was finally settled that the tithes should
be paid in money at the rate of so much per arpent, and it is plain
that the abbot's chief object was to throw as much difficulty as he
could in the way of rival makers of fine wines.]
[Footnote 382: This curse is alluded to in the following verse from a
sixteenth-century ballad written against the men of Ay:
'Tu n'auras ni chien ni chat
Pour te chanter _Libera_,
Et tu mourras mau-chrétien,
Toi qu'a maudit Saint Trézain.'
The fountain of St. Tresain, which enjoys the reputation of curing
diseases, and in the water of which it is pretended stolen food cannot
be cooked, still exists at Mareuil.]
[Footnote 383: The yield from the Ay vineyards averages five pièces,
or 220 gallons per acre. Arthur Young, writing in 1787, estimated
that the arpent (rather more than the acre) produced from two to six
pièces of wine, or an average of four pièces, two of which sold for
200 livres, one for 150 livres, and one for 50 livres. He valued the
arpent of vines at from 3000 to 6000 livres. Henderson, in his _History
of Ancient and Modern Wines_, says that in 1822 there were a thousand
arpents on the hill immediately behind the village of Ay valued at
from 10,000 to 12,000 francs the arpent, and that one plot had shortly
before fetched 15,000 francs per arpent.]
[Footnote 384: In 1873, two years later, the price mounted as high
as 1000 francs; while in 1880, owing to the yield being far below an
average one and the quality promising to be exceedingly good, the wine
was bought up before the grapes were pressed at prices ranging from
1100 to 1400 francs the pièce.]
[Footnote 385: In one of these, dated 1243, mention is made of the
'vinea parva' belonging to the Abbey of Avenay, and of the 'vineam
Warneri in loco qui dicetur Monswarins,' perhaps the existing clos
Warigny. In another of Philip the Fair, dated 1300, and confirming
the abbey in the possession of property purchased from Jeanne de
Sapigneul, we read of 'unam vineam dictam la grant vigne domine
Aelidis sitam en Perrelles' and 'unam vineam dictam a la Perriere.' In
charters of the fourteenth century vineyards are mentioned at Avenay
and Mutigny, under the titles of Les Perches, Haut-Bonnet, Praëlles,
Les Foissets, Fond de Bonnet, Berard, Chassant, &c. One sold to the
abbey in 1334 by Guillaume de Valenciennes was at a spot then, as now,
styled Plantelles. In 1336 the justices at Château-Thierry confirmed
the Abbess, Madame Clémence, in the 'droit de ban vin'--that is, the
right of selling her wine before any one else in the territory of
Avenay. This was again confirmed in 1344 by the Bailly of Sézanne, who
held that she alone had the right of selling during the month after
Christmas, the month after Easter, and the month after Pentecost.
Amongst other records is one noting the condemnation of Perresson
Legris, clerk, of Avenay, who was sentenced in 1460 by the Bailly of
Epernay to a fine of 60 sols, for selling his wine during the month
after Christmas without permission of the Dames d'Avenay. The charters
of the fifteenth century also abound in references to vineyards, or
'droits de vinage,' appertaining to the abbey at Les Coutures, Champ
Bernard, Auches, Bois de Brousse, Thonnay, &c., in the territory of
Avenay, and Les Charmières, Torchamp, Saussaye, &c., at Mutigny.]
[Footnote 386: In 1668, an epoch at which the wines of Avenay had
acquired a high reputation, the abbey owned 43 arpents of vineland at
Avenay, Mutigny, and Mareuil, yielding the preceding year 200 poinçons
of wine, the sale of which produced 6000 livres. It also had 13
pressoirs banaux, which were farmed for 50 poinçons of wine, and tithes
of wine at Mareuil amounting to 14 poinçons and 460 livres in money,
and at Ambonnay amounting to 3 poinçons, the total of 67 poinçons
fetching 1206 livres. The valet who looked after the vines had 50
livres per annum, and the cooper who looked after the wines, 40 livres.
The total cost of stakes, manure, culture, pruning, wine-making, and
casks was 2700 livres per annum. Ten pièces of wine 'of the best of the
abbey, and worth 300 livres,' were annually given away in caques and
bottles to 'persons of quality and friends of the house, and travellers
of condition who pass;' whilst 120 poinçons, valued at 3000 livres,
were consumed at the abbey itself. The abbey was partially destroyed by
fire in 1754; and its destruction was completed during the Revolution,
at which epoch its vineyards yielded a net revenue of 2500 livres.]
[Footnote 387: In addition to Madame de la Marck, who was connected,
by the marriage of one of her brothers to a princess of the house of
Bourbon, with Henri Quatre, and to whose influence with that monarch
the execution of the 'Traité des Vendanges' was mainly due, the roll
of the Abbesses of Avenay comprises several illustrious personages,
amongst them St. Bertha; Bertha II., daughter of the Emperor Lothaire;
the ex-Empress Teutberga; Bénédicte de Gonzague, daughter of the Duke
de Nevers, and sister of the Princess Palatine, who took such an active
part during the troubles of the Fronde; and ladies of the illustrious
families of Saulx Tavannes, Craon, Levis, Beauvillers, Brulart de
Sillery, Boufflers, &c. M. Louis Paris, in his _Histoire de l'Abbaye
d'Avenay_, gives some curious instances of the exercise of the 'haut
et basse justice' possessed by these ladies. In 1587, under the rule
of Madame de la Marck, we find the Bailly of Avenay, acting as 'first
magistrate of Madame l'Abbesse,' sentencing one man and four women
'to be hung, strangled, and burnt, and the goods belonging to them
confiscated to the profit of the Lady Justiciary,' for the crime of
sorcery. In 1645 we find a 'sentence of the Bailly of Avenay against
Simeon Delacoste, accused and convicted of the crime of homicide
committed upon the person of Jean Bernier, and for this condemned to
be hung and strangled by the executioner on a gallows erected in the
public market-place, with confiscation of 300 livres, to be levied on
his goods, to the profit of the Lady Justiciary.' When the criminal
could not be caught, as was the case with Nicholas Thimot, vine-grower
at Avenay in 1555, the sentence ran that he should 'be hung in effigy,
and his goods confiscated to the profit of Madame.']
[Footnote 388: The following lines, quoted by M. Philibert Milsand in
his _Procès poétique touchant les Vins de Bourgogne et de Champagne_,
may be taken as referring either to the wine or the scenery:
'Si quis in hoc mundo vult vivere corde jocoso,
Vadat Cumerias sumere delicias.'
]
[Footnote 389: In Arthur Young's time (1787-9) an arpent of vineyard at
Hautvillers, valued at 4000 livres, yielded from two to four pièces, or
hogsheads, of wine, which sold from 700 to 900 livres the queue (two
pièces). This is more than the wine would ordinarily realise to-day,
although in years of scarcity it has fetched 700 francs the pièce, and
in 1880 as much as 1000 francs.]
[Footnote 390: Cazotte, ex-Commissary-General of the Navy and author of
the _Diable Amoureux_, who was guillotined as a Royalist in 1792, had
a magnificently fitted mansion at Pierry. He distinguished himself by
his opposition to the pretensions of the Abbey of Hautvillers, which
in 1775 claimed the right of taking tithes at Pierry not only in the
vineyards, but on the wine in the cellars. Cazotte argued that unless
the monks chose to take their due proportion of grapes left for them
at the foot of each vine, all they were entitled to was a monetary
commutation of the tithe; for the wine being usually made of grapes
from a dozen different sources, many of them beyond their domain, it
would be impossible to ascertain the proportion that was their due.
The Parliament of Paris decided, however, that the abbey might take
the fortieth of the wine a month after it was barrelled, unless the
vine-growers preferred to give them the fortieth part of all the grapes
brought to the press. The fact was that the monks really wished to
check the practice of mixing grapes from different districts at the
press, for fear wine equal to their own should result from this plan,
first satisfactorily put in practice by Dom Perignon. Arthur Young
mentions that an arpent of vines at Pierry was valued at 2000 livres,
half the price the same extent commanded at Hautvillers.]
[Footnote 391: M. Armand Bourgeois, in his work on _Le Sourdon et sa
Vallée_, mentions a local tradition to the effect that Saint Remi, who
from his will is shown to have owned vinelands of some extent in a part
of this district still known as the Evêché, installed a hermit in this
said grotto of the Pierre de Saint Mamert to supervise his vineyards.]
[Footnote 392: Bertin du Rocheret writes thus in 1744, and adds that
the aspect of Avize had at that epoch become entirely changed by the
numerous fine 'maisons de vendange' erected there.]
[Footnote 393: In 1205 Gilbert Belon conferred an annual gift on the
Abbey of St. Martin of seven hogsheads of _vinage_ derived from the
vineyards of Oger.]
[Footnote 394:
'Je fus jadis de terre vertueuse
Nez de Virtuz, pais renommé,
Où il avait ville très gracieuse,
Dont li bon vin sont en maints lieux nommés.'
Eustache Deschamps' poem on the Burning of Vertus.
]
[Footnote 395:
'Quant vient de si noble racine
Come du droit plan de Beaune,
Qui ne porte pas couleur jaune
Mais vermeille, franche, plaisant,
Qui fait tout autre odeur taisant,
Quand elle est aportée en place.'
Deschamps' _La Charte des Bons Enfans de Vertus_.
]
[Footnote 396:
'Si vous alez au benefice
Mieulx vous vauldra que ung clistère.'--Ibid.
]
[Footnote 397: In 1880 the Vertus wine realised the remarkably high
price of from 1200 to 1400 francs the pièce.]
[Footnote 398: St. Evremond's _Letters_ (London, 1728).]
[Footnote 399: St. Simon's _Mémoires_.]
[Footnote 400: Bertin du Rocheret's /MS./ extracts from the _Registre
des Assemblées du peuple de la ville d'Epernay_.]
[Footnote 401: Henderson's _History of Ancient and Modern Wines_.]
[Footnote 402: Arthur Young's _Travels in France in 1787-8-9_.]
[Footnote 403: Anonymous _Journal de ce qui s'est passé d'intéressant à
Reims en 1814_.]
[Footnote 404: Dom Chatelain, in his /MS./ notes on the _History of
Reims_, relates that Henri Quatre, being one day at Sully's, asked
the Minister for some breakfast, and after drinking a glass or two of
wine, exclaimed, 'Ventre Saint Gris, this is a grand wine; it beats
mine of Ay and all others. I should like to know where it comes from.'
''Tis my friend Taissy,' answered Sully, 'who sends it to me.' 'Then
I must be introduced to him,' said the King; which was accordingly
done. The wines of Taissy had a high reputation as late as the
eighteenth century. They were classed by St. Evremond and Brossette,
the commentator of Boileau, amongst the best vintages of the Champagne,
and their reputation was maintained by the care bestowed by the Abbé
Godinot on the vineyards which he owned here.]
[Footnote 405:
'Qu'Horace du Falerne entonne les louanges,
Que de son vieux Massique il vante les attraits;
Tous ces vins si fameux n'égaleront jamais
Du charmant Sillery les heureuses vendanges!'
Translation by Le Monnoye in the _Recueil des Poésies Latines et
Françaises_, &c., Paris, 1712.]
[Footnote 406: The wine of Verzenay, like that of Bouzy, owes much of
its reputation to the example set in the eighteenth century by the
Abbé Godinot, author of the _Mémoire_ on the cultivation of the grape
and the manufacture of wine in the Champagne, published in 1711. He
owned extensive vineyards at Verzenay and Bouzy, and his prolonged
investigations as to the species of vines and composts best suited to
the district led to a complete revolution in the system of culture and
mode of pressing the fruit. Bertin du Rocheret praises 'the excellent
wine of Verzenay' served at the banquets celebrating the conclusion of
the assembly of the Etats de Vitry, held at Châlons in 1744.]
[Footnote 407: The value in 1880 of a hectare of vines, equivalent to
nearly two and a half acres, was as follows:
At Verzy, Verzenay, and Sillery, 35 to 38,000 francs.
" Bouzy and Ambonnay, 38 " 40,000 "
" Ay and Dizy, 40 " 45,000 "
" Hautvillers, 20 " 22,000 "
" Pierry, 18,000 "
" Cramant and Avize, 38 " 40,000 "
" Le Mesnil, 22 " 25,000 "
]
[Footnote 408: This was far from being the first appearance of the pest
in this district. From 1779 to 1785 similar ravages drove the vignerons
to despair; but the weather during the last-named year suddenly turning
wet and cold, just at the epoch of the butterflies emerging from their
chrysalids, the evil disappeared as though by enchantment, an event
duly acknowledged by parochial rejoicings and religious processions. In
1816 similar ravages took place; and from 1820 to 1830 the pyrale also
caused great devastation.
In the year 1613, Jehan Pussot, the local chronicler of Reims, notes
that a large proportion of the vines were destroyed by 'a great
concourse of worms,' which attacked those plants which the frost had
spared. This would establish that either the pyrale or the cochylis
was known to the Champenois viticulturists at the commencement of the
seventeenth century.]
[Footnote 409: In 1873, in all the higher-class vineyards, as much as
two francs and a quarter per kilogramme (11_d._ per lb.) were paid,
being more than treble the average price. And yet the vintage was a
most unsatisfactory one, owing to the deficiency of sun and abundance
of wet throughout the summer. The market, however, was in great need
of wine, and the fruit while still ungathered was bought up at most
exorbitant prices by the _spéculateurs_ who supply the _vin brut_ to
the Champagne manufacturers.
In 1874 the grapes of the Mountain sold from at 55 to 160 francs the
caque, according to the crus; and those of the Côte d'Avize at from 1
f. 25 c. to 2 f. per kilogramme. In 1875, on the other hand, grapes
could be obtained at Verzenay, Verzy, Ambonnay, and Bouzy at from 45 to
55 francs the caque; and at Vertus, Le Mesnil, Oger, Grauves, Cramant,
and Avize, at from 40 to 70 centimes the kilogramme. By far the highest
price secured by the growers for their grapes was in 1880, when the
produce of the grand crus of the Mountain fetched as much as 220 f. the
caque, equal to nearly 3 f. 60 c. the kilogramme, or about 1_s._ 5_d._
per lb. It was, as usual, scarcity rather than quality that caused this
unprecedented rise in price.]
[Footnote 410: M. Mauméné relates in his _Traité du Travail des Vins_
that on one occasion, when, as an experiment, 3000 first-class bottles,
which had already been used, were employed anew, only fifteen or
sixteen of the whole number resisted the pressure. Moreover, if much
broken glass is remelted down and used in the manufacture, the bottles
do not turn out well, the second fusion of silicates never having the
same cohesion as the first. The glass-works of Sèvres and Bercy, which
melt down most of the broken glass collected in Paris, have never been
able to supply bottles strong enough for sparkling wines.]
[Footnote 411: Loivre is about seven miles from Reims on the road to
Laon.]
[Footnote 412: It is calculated that wine, the grape sugar in which
yields ten per cent of alcohol, according to the average in Champagne,
would, if bottled immediately after pressing, produce enough carbonic
acid gas to develop a pressure of thirty-two atmospheres. But such
a pressure is never developed, as the wine is not bottled directly
it leaves the press; besides which no bottle could stand it. From
four to six atmospheres insure a lively explosion and a brisk creamy
foam. It is necessary, therefore, that fermentation should have been
carried on till at least three-fourths of the sugar have been converted
into alcohol and carbonic acid gas before the wine is drawn off for
bottling, for even the very best bottles burst under a pressure of
eight atmospheres.
A few words on the origin and development of the effervescent
properties of Champagne will not be out of place here. These are due,
as already explained, to the presence of a large quantity of carbonic
acid gas, the evolution of which has been prevented by the bottling of
the wine prior to the end of the alcoholic fermentation. The source of
carbonic acid gas exists in all wines, and they may be all rendered
sparkling by the same method of treatment. Still, no effervescent wine
can compare with the finest growths of the Champagne, for these possess
the especial property of retaining a large portion of their sugar
during, and even after, fermentation; besides which, the soil imparts a
native bouquet that no other wine can match.
Carbonic acid gas is one of the two products of the fermentation of
grape sugar, the other being alcohol. In wine fermented in casks it
rises to the surface, and escapes through the bunghole left open for
the purpose. The case is different with wine fermenting in bottles
tightly secured by corks. Part of the gas developed rises into the
chamber or vacant space left in the bottle, where, mingling with the
atmospheric air, it exercises a constantly increasing pressure on the
surface of the wine. This pressure at length becomes so strong as to
keep all the gas subsequently formed dissolved in the wine itself,
which it saturates, as it were, and thereby converts into sparkling
wine. Upon the bottle being opened, the gas accumulated in the chamber
rushes into the air, producing a slight explosion, or pop, and freeing
from pressure the gas which had remained dissolved in the wine, and
which in turn escapes in the shape of numberless tiny bubbles, forming
the foam so pleasing to the eye on rising to the surface.
Sometimes on opening a bottle of Champagne the pop is loud, but the
effervescence feeble and transitory; and, on the other hand, there
is merely a slight explosion, and yet the wine froths and sparkles
vigorously and continuously. The two bottles may contain the same
quantity of gas, but in the one there is more in the chamber and
less dissolved in the wine, and hence the loud pop and slight
sparkle; while in the other the pressure is low, and the explosion
consequently slighter, but there is more gas in the wine itself, and
the effervescence is proportionately greater and more lasting. In the
former case the wine has received the addition of, or has contained
from the outset, some matter calculated to diminish its power of
dissolving carbonic acid gas, and is unsuitable for making good
sparkling wine. The nature of the effervescence is one of the best
tests of the quality of the wine. Gas naturally dissolved does not all
escape at once on the removal of the pressure, but, on the contrary,
about two-thirds of it are retained by the viscidity of the wine. The
better and more natural the wine, the more intimately the carbonic acid
gas remains dissolved in it, and the finer its bubbles.
The form of the glass out of which Champagne is drunk has an influence
on its effervescence. The wine sparkles far better in a glass
terminating in a point, like the old-fashioned _flûte_, or the modern
goblet or patera, with a hollow stem, than in one with a rounded
bottom. The reason is that any point formed around the liquid, as
instanced in the pointed bottoms of these glasses, or in the liquid,
as may be proved by putting the end of a pointed glass rod into
the wine, favours the disengagement of the gas. Powder of any kind
presents a number of tiny points, and hence the dropping of a little
powdered sugar into Champagne excites effervescence. Porous bodies
like bread-crumbs produce the same effect. Even dust has a similar
action; and the wine will froth better in a badly-wiped glass than in
one perfectly clean, though it would hardly do to put forward such an
excuse as this for using dirty goblets.
The lively pop of the cork is less esteemed in England than in certain
circles in France, where many hosts would be sadly disappointed if the
wine they put before their guests did not go off with a loud bang,
causing the ladies to scream and the gentlemen to laugh. A brisk foam,
too, is absolutely necessary for the prestige of the wine, and 'grand
mousseux' is a quality much sought after by the general public on the
other side of the Channel. It is not rare to meet with wines of a high
class in which the removal of the cork produces a loud explosion; but
unfortunately the brisk report and sharp but transitory rush of foam
are features easily imparted by artificial means. The ordinary white
wines of Lorraine and other provinces receive a certain addition of
spirit and liqueur, and are then artificially charged with carbonic
acid gas obtained from carbonate of lime, chalk, and similar materials,
after the fashion in which soda-water is made. These wines, sold as
Champagne, eject their corks with a loud pop, but three-fourths of the
carbonic acid gas escape at the same time, and the wine soon becomes
flat and dead; whereas a naturally sparkling wine of good quality
left open for three hours and then recorked will be found fresh and
drinkable the next day.
Both the explosion and the subsequent effervescence are aided by a high
temperature, which assists the development of the gas. Cold has the
opposite effect, and iced wine neither pops nor sparkles. It, however,
retains, if genuine, the whole of the carbonic acid gas held dissolved,
which is not the case with the imitations spoken of.
Were it not that the question has been seriously started on more than
one occasion, and only solved to the satisfaction of the questioner
by a chemico-anatomical explanation, it would hardly be worth while
touching upon the supposed hurtfulness of the carbonic acid gas
contained in sparkling wines. The fact of accidents frequently
occurring in breweries, distilleries, wine-presses, &c., from the
accumulation of this gas, to breathe which for a few seconds is mortal,
has led some people to wonder how Champagne, whilst containing so
large a proportion of it, can be swallowed with impunity. The gas,
however, which produces fatal results when inhaled into the lungs,
by depriving the blood of the oxygen which it should find there, has
in the stomach a beneficial effect, serving to promote digestion. In
drinking Champagne it is conveyed direct to this latter region, so that
no danger whatever exists, any more than in the mineral waters.--Mainly
condensed from E. J. Mauméné's _Traité du Travail des Vins_.]
[Footnote 413: For a long time the most erroneous ideas as to the cause
of such breakage and the means of preventing it prevailed. Tasting,
which was most relied on for ascertaining how far fermentation had
gone, could not be depended upon with accuracy, though the rule of
thumb laid down by some makers was that the time to bottle with the
least risk of breakage was when the sweet taste had disappeared, and
vinous flavour developed itself. The aerometers subsequently introduced
failed to answer the purpose, because the saccharine matter was not
the only thing capable of influencing them. The result usually was
either the bottling of a must so full of effervescence as to break
the bottles, or of wine already completely fermented and incapable of
effervescing at all.]
[Footnote 414: In some establishments tables made after the same
fashion replace the racks, whilst another plan of coaxing the sediment
down towards the cork is to stack the bottles at the outset in double
rows, with their necks inclining downwards, laths placed between each
layer maintaining them in their position. This method effects a great
economy of time and space, the bottles requiring on an average only
a few days on the racks prior to shipment to thoroughly complete the
operation.]
[Footnote 415: As the real origin of this system is a matter which has
excited no small amount of controversy, and as several claimants to the
honour of its discovery have had their names put forward by different
writers, the following extracts from a letter from M. Alfred Werlé, of
the house founded by Madame Clicquot, may serve to render honour where
it is really due: 'Already, in 1806 (I am unable to speak of an earlier
period with absolute certainty), the bottles were placed on tables,
like to-day, with their heads downwards; each bottle being taken out
of its hole, raised in the air, and shaken with the hand, so as to
cause the cream of tartar and the deposit it contained to fall upon the
cork, the holes being round, and the bottles placed straight downwards.
This lasted till 1818, when a man named Müller, an employé of Madame
Clicquot, suggested to her that the bottles should be left in the table
whilst being shaken, and that the holes should be cut obliquely, so
that the bottles might remain inclined. He maintained that one would
thus obtain a wine of far greater limpidity. The trial was made, and
every day, with a view of keeping this new process a secret, Müller and
Madame Clicquot shut themselves up alone in the cellars, and shook the
bottles unperceived. In 1821 Müller was assisted by a workman named
Mathieu Binder; and in 1823 or 1824, Madame Clicquot having purchased
from M. Morizet a _cuvée_ of wine which was shaken and prepared in
this merchant's cellars, one of his employés named Thomassin became
acquainted with the new method, and resolved to practise it; since
when it gradually spread, and eventually was generally adopted. M.
Werlé senior recollects perfectly well that when he arrived at Madame
Clicquot's in 1821 it was only at her establishment that the bottles
were shaken in this manner. The practice of shaking the bottles was a
very old one, and no more invented by Müller than by Thomassin; but the
former certainly effected great improvements by employing the system
of oblique holes, and shaking the bottles in the table and not in the
air.']
[Footnote 416: M. Mauméné has pointed out that if a solution of
tannin or alum has been added to the _cuvée_ at the time of fining,
the deposit is certain to be granular and non-adherent. But he justly
remarks that these solutions, especially the latter, though doing good
to the wine, have a precisely opposite effect upon the human stomach
that consumes it.]
[Footnote 417: The Regiment de Champagne was one of the most famous of
the _vieux corps_, and claimed to be the second oldest regiment in the
French army.]
[Footnote 418: The system of dosing the wine does not appear to have
been practised prior to the present century.]
[Footnote 419: The high favour in which sugar-candy is held for
mixing with this Champagne liqueur dates from the latter part of the
last century, when there was a perfect mania for everything in a
crystallised form, as being the height of condensation and purity. The
competition between the first houses of Reims and Epernay to secure
the largest and finest crystals was very keen, and it was considered
disgraceful for any firm of standing to make use of sugar-candy of a
yellow tinge or in small crystals. Latterly it has been demonstrated
that these expensive crystals contain more water and less saccharine
matter than an equal weight of loaf-sugar, and that they sometimes
contain a glutinous element capable of imparting an insipid flavour to
the wine.--Mauméné's _Traité du Travail des Vins_.]
[Footnote 420: Instances have been known of additions of 25 and even 30
per cent of liqueur, though the average may be taken to be for Germany
and France, 15 to 18 per cent; America, 10 to 15 per cent; England, 2
to 6 per cent.]
[Footnote 421: The corrosive action of rust upon the wire has led to
several attempts to replace it, and some Champagne houses have adopted
more or less ingenious appliances of metal, &c. Tinned iron wire has
been found to resist rust, but is too expensive; whilst an experiment
with galvanised wire resulted in serious illness amongst the workmen
handling it, owing to the poisonous fumes evolved by the zinc when
acted upon by the acids of the wine.]
[Footnote 422: M. Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire raisonné de
l'Architecture du Vme au XVIme Siècle_.]
[Footnote 423: An engraving of this tower, removed while the present
work was passing through the press, will be found on p. 50.]
[Footnote 424: See the engraving on p. 16.]
[Footnote 425: Read before the Academy of Reims in February 1845,
printed by them in their Transactions, and subsequently republished in
volume form.]
[Footnote 426: It is generally supposed that the gate took its name
from a hospital standing a short distance without the walls, and
destined for the reception either of lepers or of pilgrims arriving
after nightfall. The prevalent opinion is that it bore the inscription
_Dei merito_, translated as Dieu le mérite, which became corrupted into
Dieu-Lumière. Under Louis XI. it certainly figures as Di Merito.]
[Footnote 427: A curious old engraving copied from an ancient tapestry
represents the entry of the royal procession into Reims through the
Porte Dieu-Lumière. Joan of Arc, beside the king and in company with
the Dukes of Bourbon and Alençon, bears the banner of France; whilst
her father and mother are seen arriving with the king's baggage by
another road.]
[Footnote 428: /A.D./ 499.]
[Footnote 429: Victor Fievet's _Histoire d'Epernay_.]
[Footnote 430: M. A. Nicaise's _Epernay et l'Abbaye de St. Martin_.]
[Footnote 431: Ibid.]
[Footnote 432: Victor Fievet's _Histoire d'Epernay_. In December 1540,
when the eschevins fixed the 'vinage,' the queue of wine was valued at
eight to nine livres.]
[Footnote 433: The partiality of Charles V. for the wine of Ay has been
elsewhere spoken of. The vendangeoir mentioned was in existence in
1726.]
[Footnote 434: Victor Fievet's _Histoire d'Epernay_.]
[Footnote 435: M. A. Nicaise's _Epernay et l'Abbaye de St. Martin_.]
[Footnote 436: Ibid.]
[Footnote 437: The thoroughfare at Epernay known as the Rempart de la
Tour Biron commemorates the above event.]
[Footnote 438: Victor Fievet's _Histoire d'Epernay_.]
[Footnote 439:
'Ce diable à quatre
A le triple talent
De boire et de battre,
Et d'être vert-galant.'
]
[Footnote 440:
'On lui verse le vin de la côte voisine,
Pétillant, savoureux qui soudain l'illumine
D'étincelants rayons de joie et de gaîté;
Redevenant poëte, il chante la beauté
Qui l'aide à conquérir doucement la Champagne.'
M. Camille Blondiot's _Henri IV. au Siège d'Epernay_.
]
[Footnote 441:
'Viens aurore,
Je t'implore,
Je suis gai quand je te voi;
La bergère
Qui m'est chère
Est vermeille comme toi.
Elle est blonde,
Sans seconde,
Elle a la taille à la main;
Sa prunelle
Etincelle
Comme l'astre du matin.
De rosée,
Arrosée,
La rose a moins de fraîcheur;
Une hermine
Est moins fine,
Le lis a moins de blancheur.
D'ambroisie,
Bien choisie,
Dupuis se nourrit à part;
Et sa bouche
Quand j'y touche
Me parfume de nectar.'
]
[Footnote 442: From the _Extrait du Registre et Papiers des Assemblés
du Peuple de la Ville d'Epernay_, preserved in the /MSS./ of Bertin du
Rocheret.]
[Footnote 443: Bertin du Rocheret's /MSS./]
[Footnote 444: Ibid.]
[Footnote 445: _Mémoire concernant la Ville d'Epernay_, by Maître
François Stapart, notaire au bailliage, published in 1749.]
[Footnote 446: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 447: Arthur Young's _Travels in France in the Years
1787-8-9_.]
[Footnote 448: Victor Fievet's _Histoire d'Epernay_. In the list of
expenses incurred on the passage of Louis XVI. and his family, four
hundred livres are set down to 'the Sieur Memmie Cousin, innkeeper and
merchant at Epernay, for the dinner of the king, the queen, and the
royal family, as well as for an indemnity for the furniture broken at
the said Cousin's.'
As regards the price of the wines of the River during the Revolutionary
epoch, an old account-book of Messrs. Moët & Chandon shows that in 1797
the firm paid for the white wine of Epernay and Avize 200 francs, for
that of Chouilly 180 francs, and for that of Pierry and Cramant 150
francs per pièce; whilst that of Ay cost from 565 to 600 francs the
queue. Bottles in 1790 only cost 16 livres 10 sols the hundred.]
[Footnote 449: The Clos St. Pierre is now the property of M. Charles
Porquet, and the ancient seignorial residence of the monks of St.
Pierre, at Pierry, is occupied by M. Papelart. Both these gentlemen are
wine-merchants.]
[Footnote 450: Cazotte, writing in October 1791, speaks of the village
as peopled with 'gros propriétaires;' and in November, that it had
'thirty-two households of well-to-do people.' Amongst its inhabitants
were the Marquis Tirant de Flavigny, Dubois de Livry, Quatresols de la
Motte, De Lastre d'Aubigny, De Lantage, &c., most of whose residences
are still extant. In October 1792 several accusations were made against
soldiers for picking and eating grapes in the vineyards of Pierry and
Moussy, belonging to Cazotte, De la Motte, De Lantage, D'Aubigny, &c.]
[Footnote 451: Part of it now serves as the 'maison communale' and
school-house of the village.]
[Footnote 452: Arrested at Pierry in August 1792, in consequence of the
discovery, on the sacking of the Tuileries, of a new plan of escape
for the royal family, sent by him to his friend Ponteau, secretary of
the Civil List, Cazotte was brought to Paris and immured, in company
with his daughter Elizabeth, in the prison of the Abbaye. Arraigned
before the self-constituted tribunal presided over by the butcher
Maillard, on the night of the 3d September, the fatal words 'To La
Force,' equivalent to a sentence of death, were pronounced; and Cazotte
was about to fall beneath the sabres already raised against him, when
Elizabeth covered his body with her own, and by her heroic appeals
induced the assassins to forego their prey. She even had the courage to
drink with them to the Republic, and with her father was escorted home
in triumph. A few days later, however, he was rearrested, condemned to
death by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and on the 25th September ascended
the scaffold, from whence he cried with a firm voice to the multitude,
'I die as I have lived, faithful to God and my king.'
Under date of the 10 Prairial An II. (1793), the citizen Bourbon was
appointed by the municipality of Pierry to cultivate the vineyards 'du
gillotiné (_sic_) Cazotte.']
[Footnote 453: In 1775 the Abbot of Hautvillers, as _décimateur_ of
Pierry, claimed to take tithe of a fortieth of all wines in the cellars
of the village. This claim being rejected by the baillage of Epernay
in 1777, he appealed to the Parliament of Paris. Cazotte undertook
the case of his fellow-proprietors, pleading that the abbey, which,
according to strict law, was bound to take the tithe in the shape of
grapes left at the foot of each vine, had long since replaced this
by a monetary commutation; and that the inhabitants of Pierry, like
the other wine-growers of the Champagne, being 'obliged, in order to
obtain perfection in their wines, to mix the grapes of several crus and
different tithings, it would be impossible to tithe the wine itself.'
He also argued that the question had been settled by a decision on the
same point in favour of the inhabitants of Ay and Dizy. However, the
monks obtained a decree from parliament authorising them to take the
fortieth of the vintage a month after the wines had been barrelled,
unless the wine-growers preferred 'to pay the tithe at the wine-press,
in form of the fortieth load of grapes free from all mixture.' The
inhabitants appealed in 1780, pleading the impossibility of this
plan of tithing at the press, on account of the expense and of the
difficulty of sorting out the grapes from those brought from Moussy,
Vinay, Monthelon, Cuis, Epernay, and other districts in which they had
also vineyards. The Revolution cut the Gordian knot of this affair,
which really arose from the wish of the monks to hinder as much as
possible that plan of mixing grapes from different sources, to which
the perfection of their own wine was due.]
[Footnote 454: In January 1790 the inhabitants of Pierry unanimously
elected Cazotte their first mayor under the new _régime_. A decree
signed by him in this capacity, and dated April 11, 1790, fixes the
price for a day's work in the vineyards at 12 sols. In 1793 the
municipality of the adjoining district of Moussy fixed the day's
hire of the vintager at 25 sous, of horses employed in the vintage
at 7 livres 10 sous, and of asses at 5 livres. As regards the price
of the local cru, amongst the items of the accounts of the syndic of
Moussy for the years 1787-8 is the following: 'For thirteen bottles
of stringed wine (vin fisselé) sent to Paris to the procureur of the
community (Failly lawsuit), 13 livres.' The community were then engaged
in a lawsuit with the Count de Failly respecting a wood. During the
Revolutionary epoch it was decreed by the municipality of Pierry that a
vineyard known as les Rennes should, on account of the resemblance to
les Reines, be in future styled les Sans-culottes. It has since resumed
its old name.]
[Footnote 455: The story of Cazotte prophesying not only his own
fate, but that of the king and queen, Condorcet, Bailly, Malesherbes,
Nicolai, the Duchess de Grammont, and others who perished during the
Terror, at a dinner given at an Academician's in 1788, has been proved
to be a mere invention on the part of La Harpe. Nevertheless there
seems but little doubt that he distinctly foresaw many coming evils;
and a native of Pierry, M. Armand Bourgeois, asserts that his maternal
grandfather was one day at Cazotte's house in the village, when the
entire company were completely upset by their host's prophecies of a
coming revolution.]
[Footnote 456: P. Jannet's _Recueil des Poésies françaises des 15me et
16me Siècles_.]
[Footnote 457: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 458: St. Evremond's _Letters_, &c. (London, 1714).]
[Footnote 459: Max Sutaine's _Essai sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 460: Bertin du Rocheret's /MSS./ _Histoire d'Epernay_.]
[Footnote 461:
'Ay produit les meilleurs vins--
J'en prends à témoin tout le monde;
Mais vous préférez ceux de Reims,
Ay produit les meilleurs vins.
Ce sont les premiers, les plus fins,
Et Saint Evremont me seconde.
Ay produit les meilleurs vins--
J'en prends à témoin tout le monde.
Charles Quint s'y connoissoit bien
Il en faisoit la différence;
Et mieux que son maître Adrien,
Charles Quint s'y connoissoit bien,
Pour en boire, il ne tint a rien
Qu'il ne vînt demeurer en France.
Charles Quint s'y connoissoit bien
Il en faisoit la différence.
Pour qu'on ne pût le mélanger,
Et que sa table fût complète,
Lui même faisoit vendanger,
Pour qu'on ne pût le mélanger.
Léon craignant même danger,
D'un pressoir d'Ay fit emplète,
Pour qu'on ne pût le mélanger,
Et que sa table fût complète.'
The Adrien mentioned in the second verse was Pope Adrian VI., who had
been the Emperor's preceptor, and who by his influence obtained the
tiara on the death of Leo X. Unlike his predecessor, he was very simple
in his habits.]
[Footnote 462: _Maison Rustique_, edition of 1574.]
[Footnote 463: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 464: An allusion to the curse pronounced by St. Tresain
against the men of Ay.]
[Footnote 465: _Maison Rustique_ (1582), translated by Richard Surflet
(London, 1600).]
[Footnote 466: Ibid.]
[Footnote 467: Ibid.]
[Footnote 468: Paulmier's treatise, _De Vino et Pomaceo_ (1588).]
[Footnote 469: _Maison Rustique_ (1582).]
[Footnote 470: Legrand d'Aussy's _Vie privée des Français_.]
[Footnote 471: Louis Perrier's _Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne_.]
[Footnote 472: _Recueil des Poésies latines et françaises sur le Vin
de Champagne_ (Paris, 1712). Gonesse, a village of the department
of Seine-et-Oise, about ten miles to the north of Paris, had a high
reputation for its bread for several centuries.]
[Footnote 473:
'Notre bon roi, le grand Henry,
En régaloit sa belle hôtesse,
Quand il couchoit à Damery,
Notre bon roi, le grand Henry,
C'étoit-là son jus favori;
Et son pain, celui de Gonesse,
Notre bon roi, le grand Henry,
En régaloit sa belle hôtesse.'
Published in the _Mercure_ of January 1728. Henry was accustomed to
speak of the Présidente as his 'belle hôtesse.']
[Footnote 474: Circa 1590.]
[Footnote 475: _Théâtre de l'Agriculture et Mesnage des Champs_ (1600).]
[Footnote 476: Published at Orleans, 1605. As regards the price of the
newly-made wine of Ay at this epoch, Jehan Pussot says that, in 1604,
it fetched from 25 to 45 livres; in 1605, from 60 livres upwards; and
in 1609, from 100 to 120 livres, at the epoch of the vintage.]
[Footnote 477: Chaulieu says that St. Evremond
'Ne chante dans ses vers heureux
Que l'inconstance et la Tocane'--
Tocane being usually made of the wine of Ay.]
[Footnote 478: St. Evremond's _Works_ (London, 1714).]
[Footnote 479: Chaulieu extols the Tocane of Ay, and some verses of
Voltaire have been quoted on p. 61.]
[Footnote 480: Arthur Young's _Travels in France in the Years
1787-8-9_.]
[Footnote 481: CHAMPAGNE.
Less for thy grace and glory, land of ours,
Than for thy dolour, dear,
Let the grief go; and here--
Here's to thy skies, thy women, and thy flowers!
France, take the toast, thy women and thy roses;
France, to thy wine, more wealth unto thy store!
And let the lips a grievous memory closes
Smile their proud smile once more!
Swarthy Falernian, Massica the Red,
Were ye the nectars poured
At the great gods' broad board?
No, poor old wines, all but in name long dead,
Nectar's Champagne--the sparkling soul of mirth,
That, bubbling o'er with laughing gas,
Flashes gay sunbeams in the glass,
And like our flag goes proudly round the earth.
'I am the blood Burgundian sunshine makes;
A fine old feudal knight,
Of bluff and boisterous might,
Whose casque feels--ah, so heavy when one wakes!'
'And I, the dainty Bordeaux, violets'
Perfume, and whose rare rubies gourmets prize;
My subtile savour gets
In partridge wings its daintiest allies.'
Ah, potent chiefs, Bordeaux and Burgundy,
If we must answer make,
This sober counsel take:
Messeigneurs, sing your worth less haughtily,
For 'tis Champagne, the sparkling soul of mirth,
That, bubbling o'er with laughing gas,
Flashes gay sunbeams in the glass,
And like our flag goes proudly round the earth.
Ay, 'tis the true, the typic wine of France;
Ay, 'tis our heart that sparkles in our eyes,
And higher beats for every dire mischance.
It was the wit that made our fathers wise,
That made their valour gallant, gay,
When plumes were stirred by winds of waving swords,
And chivalry's defiance spoke the words:
'A vous, Messieurs les Anglais, les premiers!'
Let the dull beer-apostle till he's hoarse
Vent his small spleen and spite--
Fate fill his sleepless night
With nightmares of invincible remorse!
We sing Champagne, the sparkling soul of mirth,
That, bubbling o'er with laughing gas,
Flashes gay sunbeams in the glass,
And like our flag goes proudly round the earth.
]
End of Project Gutenberg's A History of Champagne, by Henry Vizetelly