Chapter XVII: Appendix (2)

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.

Non, telles gens ne boivent pas
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:

(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_.]