The Battle of CrécyTHE BATTLE OF CRÉCY(From aMS.of Froissart’s Chronicles).
THE BATTLE OF CRÉCY(From aMS.of Froissart’s Chronicles).
During the frightful anarchy prevailing after the battle of Poitiers, when the victorious English and the disbanded forces of France made common cause against the hapless peasants, the fields and vineyards of Reims remained uncultivated for three years,[33]and the people of the archbishopric would have perished of hunger had they not been able to get food and wine from Hainault. Despite the prohibitions of the regent, the nobles pillaged the country around Reims and ravaged the vineyards from June to August 1358, and the havoc they wrought exceeded even that accomplished during the Jacquerie. Nor were matters improved by the advent of the English king, Edward III., when, on the wet St. Andrew’s-day of 1359, he sat down before the town with his host, which starved and shivered throughout the bitter and tempestuous winter, despite the comfort derived from the ‘three thousand vessels of wine’ captured by Eustace Dabreticourt in ‘the town of Achery, on the river of Esne.’[34]But the Rémois stood firm behind the fortifications reared by Gaucher de Châtillon till the following spring, when the victor of Crécy drew off his baffled forces, consoling them with the promise of bringing them back during the ensuing vintage, and made a reluctant peace at Bretigny.[35]
Ancient Tower of ReimsANCIENT TOWER BELONGING TO THE FORTIFICATIONS OF REIMS.
ANCIENT TOWER BELONGING TO THE FORTIFICATIONS OF REIMS.
Yet, though plague and famine in turn almost depopulated the city, the importance of its vineyards augmented from this time forward. In 1361 the citizens, who had already been in the habit of granting ‘aides’ to the king out of the dues levied on the wine sold in the town, obtained leave to impose anoctroion wine, in order to maintain their fortifications. Henceforward the connection between the wines and the walls of Reims became permanent. Theoctroiwas from time to time renewed or modified in various ways by different monarchs; but their decrees always commenced with a preliminary flourish concerning the necessity of keeping the walls of so important a city in good order, and the admirable opportunity afforded of so doing by the ever-increasing prosperity of the trade in wine. Conspicuous amongst the few existing fragments of the circuit of walls and towers with which Reims was formerly begirt is the tower of which a view is here given.[36]
The Rémois, although willing enough to tax themselves for the defence of their city, submitted the reverse of cheerfully to the preliminary levies of provisions, wines, meats, and other thingsnecessary, made by the king’s ‘maistres d’hôtel’ for the coronation of Charles V., which took place on the 19th May 1364, at a cost to the town of 7712 livres 15 sols 5 deniers parisis.[37]The citizens had, however, something to gaze at for their money, if that were any consolation. The king and his queen (Jeanne de Bourbon) were accompanied by King Peter of Cyprus; Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia and Duke of Brabant; the Dukes of Burgundy and Anjou; the Counts of Eu, Dampmartin, Tancarville, and Vaudemont, and many other prelates and lords, who did full justice to the good cheer provided for the great feasts and solemnities taking place during the five days of the royal sojourn.[38]The crown, borne by Philip of Burgundy, the king’s youngest brother, having been placed upon Charles’s head by the Archbishop Jean de Craon, that prelate proceeded to smear the royal breast and brow with what the irreverent Republicans of the eighteenth century designated ‘sacred pomatum,’ from the Sainte Ampoule presented to him by the Bishop of Laon, amidst the enthusiastic applause of nobles and prelates.[39]
Coronation of Charles V.CORONATION OF CHARLES V. AT REIMS(From aMS.Histoire de Charles V.).
CORONATION OF CHARLES V. AT REIMS(From aMS.Histoire de Charles V.).
The great planting of vines in the Champagne district plainly dates from the last quarter of the fourteenth century, at which epoch large exports of wine to the provinces of Hainault and Flanders, and especially to the ports of Sluys, are noted. In a list of the revenues of the archbishopric of Reims, drawn up by Richard Pique towards 1375, are included patches of vineland and annual payments of wine from almost every village and hamlet within twenty miles of Reims; though it is only fair to mention that many of the places enumerated produce to-daywines of very ordinary character, which, although they have a local habitation, have certainly failed to secure themselves a name.[40]A general return of church property made to the Bailli of Vermandois, the king’s representative in 1384, at a time when Charles VI. was busily engaged in confiscating whatever he could lay hands on, shows that the religious establishments of Reims were equally well endowed with vineyards. These were mostly situate to the north-east and south-west of Reims, or in the immediate vicinity of the city; and according to their owners, whose object was of course to offer as few temptations as possible to the monarch, they frequently cost more to dress than they brought in.[41]In the return furnished by the archbishop in the following year, he complains that, owing to the great plantation of vines throughout the district, the right of licensing the brewing of ale and beer had failed to bring him in any revenue for the past three years. This prelate, by the way, seems to have loved his liquor like many of his predecessors, judging from the inventory made after his death, in 1389, of the contents of his cellars.[42]All this abundance of wine was not without its fruits; and we find the clerk of Troyes asserting that liars swarm in Picardy as drunkards do in Champagne, where a man not worth a rap will drink wine every day;[43]and a boast in the chanson of the Comte de Brie to the effect that the province abounded in wheat, wine, fodder, and litter.[44]
Church of St. RemiCHURCH OF ST. REMI, REIMS.
CHURCH OF ST. REMI, REIMS.
Under these circumstances it is not at all surprising that that renowned vinous soaker, King Wenceslaus (surnamed the Drunkard) of Bohemia, found ample opportunities for self-indulgence when he visited Reims to confer with Charles VI. on the subject of the schism of the popes of Avignon, then desolating the Church—certainly a very fit subject for a drunkard and a madman to put their heads together about. No sooner had the illustrious visitor alighted at the Abbey of St. Remi—to-day the Hôtel Dieu—where quarters had been assigned him, than he expressed a wish to taste the wine of the district, with the quality of which he had long been acquainted. The wine was brought, and tasted again and again in such conscientious style that when the Dukes of Bourbon and Berri came to escort him to dinner with the king they found him dead-drunk and utterly unfit to treat of affairs of State, still less those of the Church. The same kind of thing went on daily—the ‘same old drunk,’ as the nigger expressed it, lasting week after week; and the French monarch, who must have surely had a lucid interval, resolved to profit by his guest’s weakness. Accordingly he gave special orders to the cup-bearers, at a grand banquet at which matters were to be finally settled, to be particularly attentive in filling the Bohemian king’s goblet. This they did so frequently that the royal sot, overcome by wine, yielded during the discussion following the repast whatever was asked of him; whilst his host probably returned special thanks to St. Archideclin, the supposed bridegroom of the marriage of Cana, whom the piety of the Middle Ages had transformedinto a saint and created the especial patron of all appertaining to the cellar. This triumph of wine over diplomacy occurred in 1397.[45]
A charter of Charles VI., dated July 1412, which gave the municipal authorities of Reims the sole right of appointing sworn wine-brokers, expressly mentions that the trade of the town was chiefly based upon the wine grown in the environs.[46]The wine, the charter states, when stored in the cellars of the town, was customarily sold by brokers, who of their own authority were in the habit of levying a commission of twopence, and even more, per piece, selling it to the person who offered them most, and taking money from both buyer and seller. To remedy this state of things, from which it was asserted the trade had begun to suffer, it was decreed that every broker should take an oath, before the Captain of Reims and the eschevins, to act honestly and without favour, and not to receive more than one penny commission. In the case of his receiving more, both he and the seller of the wine were to forfeit two-pence-halfpenny to the town.
The sales of wine mainly took place at the Etape aux Vins, where most of the wine-merchants were established, the busiest time being during the three great annual fairs, when no duties were levied. The old Etape aux Vins is now the Rue de l’Etape, jocularly styled the Rue de Rivoli of Reims, on account of the arcades formed by the projecting upper floors of its fifteenth-and sixteenth-century houses, which rest upon wooden and stone pillars. To-day the casino and the principal restaurants of the city are installed here; still the locality retains much the same aspect as it presented in the days when Remi Cauchois and Huet Hurtaut stood here and chaffered with the peasants who had brought their casks of wine on creaking wains into the city; when S. de Laval glided in search of a customer among the long-gowned fur-capped merchants of the Low Countries; when bargains were closed by a God’s-penny and wetted with a stoup of Petit Jehannin’s best; and when files of wine-laden wagons rolled forth from the northern gates of the city to gladden the thirsty souls of Hainault and Flanders.
Rue de L’EtapeRUE DE L’ETAPE, REIMS.
RUE DE L’ETAPE, REIMS.
Some of the wine had, however, a nobler destination. An order of payment addressed by the town council to the receiver, and dated March 23, 1419, commands him to pay Jacques le Vigneronthe sum of 78 livres 12 sols for six queues of ‘vin blanc et clairet,’ presented to the fierce Duke of Burgundy, Jean sans Peur, at the high price of about 11s.each.[47]Nor did his son Philip, the self-styled ‘Prince of the best wines in Christendom,’ disdain to draw bridle in order to receive eleven poinçons of ‘vin claret’ when hastening,
‘Bloody with spurring, fiery red with speed,’
‘Bloody with spurring, fiery red with speed,’
‘Bloody with spurring, fiery red with speed,’
‘Bloody with spurring, fiery red with speed,’
Drinking Knight
through Reims to avenge his father’s murder at the Bridge of Montereau.[48]The devastating results of the terrible struggle for supremacy waged between the Armagnacs and Burgundians, and of the invasion of Henry V. of England, are evidenced in the facts that when, in fear and trembling, the Reims council resolved to allow Duke Philip to enter the town in 1425, at the head of four thousand horse, they could only offer him one queue of Beaune, one queue of red, and one queue of white wine; and to the duchess the following year one queue of Beaune and one of French wine; and that wine sent to l’Isle Adam, at the siege of Nesle, cost as much as 19 livres, or nearly 16s., the queue.
Reims had passed under the sway of England by the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, the Earl of Salisbury becoming governor of the Champagne. The scarcity of wine, and the liking of the new possessors for their national beverage, is shown by a prohibition issued by the town council in 1427 against using wheat for making beer; and a statement of Gobin Persin, that he had sold more treacle—a famous medicinal remedy in the Middle Ages—during the past half year than in the four years previous, owing to people complaining that they were swollen up from drinking malt liquor.The English, however, at their abrupt departure from the city on the arrival of Charles and the Maid of Orleans, proved their partiality for the wine of Reims by carrying off as many wagonloads of it as they could manage to lay their hands on.
The gallant knights and patriot nobles who followed the Maid of Orleans to Reims, and witnessed the coronation of Charles VII. in 1429, despised, of course, the drink of their island foes, and moistened throats grown hoarse with shouting ‘Vive le roi’ with the choice vintage of the neighbouring slopes, freely drawn forth from the most secret recesses of the cellars of the town in honour of the glorious day. And no doubt Dame Alice, widow of Raulin Marieu, and hostess of the Asne royé (the Striped Ass), put a pot of the very best before the father of ‘Jehane la Pucelle,’ and did not forget, either, to score it down in the little bill of twenty-four livres which she was paid out of thedeniers communsfor the old fellow’s entertainment.[49]For the next ten years, however, the note of war resounded through the country, the hill-sides bristled with lances in lieu of vine-stakes, and instead of money spent for wine for presentation to guests of a pacific disposition, the archives of the town display a long list of sums expended in the purchase of arms, artillery, and ammunition, for the especial accommodation of less pleasant visitors, in repairing fortifications, and in payments to men charged with watching day and night for the coming of the foe.
Jeanne d’Arc and Charles VII.JEANNE DARC’S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES VII.(From a tapestry of the fifteenth century).
JEANNE DARC’S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES VII.(From a tapestry of the fifteenth century).
The excesses of the licentious followers of Potton de Xaintrailles and Lahire were worse than those of the English and Burgundians, spite of the four hundred and five livres which had been paid to men-at-arms and archers from the neighbouring garrisons, ‘engaged by the city of Reims to guard the surrounding country, in order that the wine might be vintaged and brought into the saidcity and the vineyards dressed,’[50]and bitter were the complaints addressed in 1433 to the king on the falling off of the wine trade which had resulted therefrom. The ravages of the terrible ‘Escorcheurs’ led, in 1436, to fresh complaints and to an additional duty on each queue of ‘wine of Beaune, of the Marne, and of other foreign districts’ sold wholesale at Reims, the receipts to be spent in warlike preparations and on the fortifications. Some of this went to Lahire as a recompense for defending the district from ‘the great routs and companies’ that sought to invade it, he having, presumably on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief, been made Bailli of Vermandois. In troublous times like these it was necessary to secure the good will of men in power and authority, and hence the town records comprise numerous offerings of money, fine linen cloths, and wine given to various nobles ‘out of grace and courtesy’ for their good will and ‘good and agreeable services, pleasures, and love.’ Madame Katherine de France (the widow of Henry V.), the Chancellor of France, the Constable Richemont, Lahire (Bailli of Vermandois), the bastard Dunois, the Archbishop of Narbonne, the Count de Vendôme, and many other nobles and dignitaries, were in turn recipients of such gifts; and the visit of King Charles the Victorious, in 1440, was celebrated by their profuse distribution.[51]
Cultivation of the VineCULTIVATION OF THE VINE AND VINTAGING IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY(From aMS.of the Propriétaire des Choses).
CULTIVATION OF THE VINE AND VINTAGING IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY(From aMS.of the Propriétaire des Choses).
Despite the complete expulsion of the English from France, a depression in trade still continued; and in 1451 the lieutenant of the town was sent to court to complain that, owing to the exactions of the farmers of the revenue, merchants would no longer come to Reims to buy wine. Louis XI., who was crowned at Reims on 15th August 1461, entered the city in great pomp, accompanied by Philip, Duke of Burgundy, and his son the Count of Charolais, afterwards Charles the Bold; the Duke of Bourbon, the Duke of Cleves, and his brother the Lord of Ravenstein, all three nephews of Duke Philip; the Counts of St. Pol, Angoulême, Eu, Vendôme, Nassau, and Grandpré; Messire Philip of Savoy, and many others,—‘all so richly dressed that it was a noble sight to see,’ remarks Enguerrand de Monstrelet. Prior to being crowned, the king handed his sword to Duke Philip,and requested the latter to bestow upon him the honour of knighthood, which the duke did, and afterwards gave the accolade to several other persons of distinction. The coronation, with its accompaniment of ‘many beautiful mysteries and ceremonies,’ was performed by Archbishop Jean Juvénal des Ursins, assisted by the Cardinal of Constance, the Patriarch of Antioch, a papal legate, four archbishops, seventeen bishops, and six abbots. At its close the twelve peers of France[52]dined at the king’s table; and after the table was cleared the Duke of Burgundy knelt and did homage for Burgundy, Flanders, and Artois, other lords following his example.
The Peers of France at ReimsTHE PEERS OF FRANCE PRESENT AT THE CORONATION OF LOUIS XI. AT REIMS(From painted-glass windows in Evreux Cathedral).
THE PEERS OF FRANCE PRESENT AT THE CORONATION OF LOUIS XI. AT REIMS(From painted-glass windows in Evreux Cathedral).
Louis XI., on his accession, found himself in presence of an exhausted treasury, and cast about for an expedient to fill it. The wine he drunk at his coronation at Reims may have suggested the dues which, only a month afterwards, he decreed should be levied on this commodity, in conjunction with an impost on salt. The inhabitants of the archiepiscopal city found it impossible to believe in such a return for their wonted hospitality, and the vine-growers assailed the collectors furiously. The affair resulted in a general outbreak, known as the Mique-Maque, and in the final hanging, branding, mutilating, and banishing of a number of individuals, half of whom, it may fairly be presumed, were innocent. The wars between France and Burgundy were also severelyfelt by the Rémois, whose territory was ravaged by the followers of Charles the Bold after Montlhery, and who suffered almost as much at the hands of their friends as at those of their foes. The garrison put into the town shared amongst themselves the country for a circuit of eight leagues, the meanest archer having a couple of villages, whence he exacted, at pleasure, corn, wood, provisions, and wine, the latter in such profusion that the surplus was sold in the streets, the smallest allowance for each lance being a queue, valued at ten livres, monthly. In 1470 and the following years large subsidies of wine were, moreover, despatched from time to time to the king’s army in the field; a cartload being judiciously sent to General Gaillard, ‘as he is well disposed towards us, and it is necessary to cultivate such people.’ Complaints made in 1489 set forth that in consequence of theoctroiof the river Aisne, which had been established six years previously, the merchants of Liège, Mezières, and Rethel, instead of coming to Reims to buy wine, were obtaining their supplies from Orleans. The landing of Henry VII. of England, in 1495, spread new alarms throughout the Champagne, and orders were given for all the vine-stakes within a radius of two leagues of Reims to be pulled up, so that the enemy might be prevented from cooking provisions or filling up the moats of the fortifications with them.
Culture of the Vine
Treading Grapes
Pillaging foes and extortionate defenders were bad enough, but the vine-growers had yet other enemies, to wit, certain noxious little insects, which were in the habit of feeding on the young buds, though there is no record that they were ever so troublesome at Reims as they were in other parts of the Champagne, notably at Troyes, where on the Friday after Pentecost 1516 they were formally and solemnly enjoined by Maître Jean Milon to depart within six days from the vineyards of Villenauxe, under pain of anathema and malediction.[53]A century and a half later these insects renewed their ravages, and were exorcised anew by the rural dean of Sézanne, on the order of the Bishop of Troyes.
ButlerBUTLER OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY(Facsimile of a woodcut in the Cosmographie Universelle, 1549).
BUTLER OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY(Facsimile of a woodcut in the Cosmographie Universelle, 1549).
The close of the fifteenth century witnessed another coronation, that of the so-styled ‘Father of his People,’ Louis XII., celebrated with all due splendour in May 1498. The six ecclesiastical peers—principal among whom was the Cardinal Archbishop of Reims, Guillaume Briconnet, in rochet and stole, mitre and crozier; and the six representatives of the secular peerages, Burgundy, Normandy, Aquitaine, Flanders, Toulouse, and Champagne—solemnly invested their sovereign with sword, spurs, ring, orb, sceptre, crown, and all the other outward symbols of royalty; whilst the vaulted roof rang with the acclamations of the people assembled in the nave, and thetriumphant peals from the heralds’ silver trumpets, on the banneroles of which was emblazoned the monarch’s favourite badge, the hedgehog. Trumpet-blowing and shouting being both provocative of thirst, peers and people did ample justice to the wine freely provided for all comers on this occasion.
Louis XII.CORONATION OF LOUIS XII. AT REIMS(From a painting on wood of the fifteenth century).
CORONATION OF LOUIS XII. AT REIMS(From a painting on wood of the fifteenth century).
Francis I. was crowned at Reims in January 1515; and on the occasion of his visiting the city sixteen years afterwards, twenty poinçons of wine were offered to him and sixty to his suite, so that this bibulous monarch had a good opportunity of comparing various growths of the Mountain and the River with the wine from his own vineyards at Ay; and possibly the Emperor Charles V. did his best to institute similar comparisons on his self-invited incursion into the district in 1544. For not only did these two great rivals, but also our own Bluff King Harry and the magnificent Leo X., have each their special commissioner stationed at Ay to secure for them the finest vintages of that favoured spot, the renown of which thenceforward has never paled. The wine despatched for their consumption was most likely sent direct from the vineyards in carefully-sealed casks; but the bulk of the river growths came to Reims for sale, and helped to swell the importance of the town as an emporium of the wine-trade. When Mary Queen of Scots came to Reims, a mere child, in 1550, four poinçons of good wine, with a dozen peacocks and as many turkeys, were presented to her. There are no records, however, of any further offerings to her when, as the widowed queen of Francis II., she visited Reims at Eastertide in 1561, and again during the summer of the same year, shortly before her final departure from France. On these occasions she was the guest, by turns, of her aunt Renée de Lorraine, at the convent of St. Pierre les Dames,—to-day a woollen factory,—and of her uncle, the ‘opulent and libertine’ Charles de Lorraine, Cardinal and Archbishop of Reims, at the handsome archiepiscopal palace, where this powerful prelate resided in unwonted state. As the rhyme goes—
‘Bishop and abbot and prior were there,Many a monk and many a friar,Many a knight and many a squire,With a great many more of lesser degreeWho served the Lord Primate on bended knee.Never, I ween,Was a prouder seen,Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Reims.’
‘Bishop and abbot and prior were there,Many a monk and many a friar,Many a knight and many a squire,With a great many more of lesser degreeWho served the Lord Primate on bended knee.Never, I ween,Was a prouder seen,Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Reims.’
‘Bishop and abbot and prior were there,Many a monk and many a friar,Many a knight and many a squire,With a great many more of lesser degreeWho served the Lord Primate on bended knee.Never, I ween,Was a prouder seen,Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Reims.’
‘Bishop and abbot and prior were there,
Many a monk and many a friar,
Many a knight and many a squire,
With a great many more of lesser degree
Who served the Lord Primate on bended knee.
Never, I ween,
Was a prouder seen,
Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,
Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Reims.’
DoorwayDOORWAY IN THE ARCHIEPISCOPAL PALACE AT REIMS.
DOORWAY IN THE ARCHIEPISCOPAL PALACE AT REIMS.
Brusquet, the court fool of Henry II., Francis II., and Charles IX., was a great favourite with this princely prelate, and accompanied him several times on his embassies to foreign states.Brusquet’s wit was much appreciated by the cardinal, and has been highly extolled by Brantome; but most of the specimens handed down to us will not bear repetition, much less translation, from their coarseness. When the cardinal was at Brussels in 1559, negotiating the peace of Cateau Cambresis with Philip II., Brusquet one day at dessert jumped on to the table, and rolled along the whole length, wrapping himself up like a mummy in the cloth, with all the knives, forks, and spoons, as he went, and rolling over at the further end. The emperor, Charles V., who was the host, was so delighted that he told him to keep the plate himself. Brusquet had great dread of being drowned, and objected one day to go in a boat with the cardinal. ‘Do you think any harm can happen to you with me, the pope’s best friend?’ said the latter. ‘I know that the pope has power over earth, heaven, and purgatory,’ said Brusquet; ‘but I never heard that his dominion extended over water.’ It is not unlikely that the effigy forming one of the corbels beneath the chapter court gateway, and representing a fool in the puffed and slashed shoes and bombasted hose of the Renaissance, with his bauble in his hand, may be intended for Brusquet; for in the Middle Ages the ecclesiastical councils had forbidden dignitaries of the Church to have fools of their own.[54]
ChimneypieceCHIMNEYPIECE IN THE BANQUETING HALL OF THE ARCHIEPISCOPAL PALACE AT REIMS.
CHIMNEYPIECE IN THE BANQUETING HALL OF THE ARCHIEPISCOPAL PALACE AT REIMS.
It was in the grand hall of the archiepiscopal palace of Reims—an apartment which is very little changed from the days when Charles Cardinal de Lorraine entertained Henry II., Francis II., and Charles IX. in succession—that the coronation banquets at this epoch used to take place. Of the richness and beauty of the internal decorations of this interesting edifice some idea may be gained from the accompanying illustrations.
CorbelsCORBELS, FROM THE CHAPTERCOURT GATEWAY, REIMS.
CORBELS, FROM THE CHAPTERCOURT GATEWAY, REIMS.
The stock of wine at Reims at the period of Mary’s first visit must have been very low, owing to the continued requisitions of it for armies in the field, for ‘German reiters at Attigny,’ and ‘Italian lansquenets at Voulzy;’ and no doubt its production subsequently decreased to some extent from the orders issued to the surrounding villagers to destroy all their ladders and vats lest they should fall into the hands of the enemy, at the epoch of the threatened approach of the German Emperor in 1552.
At the coronation of Francis II. in 1559, and at that of Charles IX. (the future instigator of the massacre of St. Bartholomew) two years later, the citizens of Reims presented the newly-crowned monarchs with the customary gifts of Burgundy and Champagne wines.[55]In the latter instance, however, the gift met with an unexpected return, inasmuch as the king, after the fashion of Domitian, issued an edict in 1566, ordering that vines should only occupy one-third of the area of a canton, and that the remaining two-thirds should be arable and pasture land. When the forehead of Henry III., the last of the treacherous race of Valois, was touched with the holy oil by the Cardinal de Guise, the wine of Reims for the first time was alone used to furnish forth the attendant banquet, and the appreciative king modified his brother’s edict to a simple recommendation to the governors of provinces to see that the planting of vines did not lead to a neglect of other labours. During this reign the wine of Ay reached the acme of renown, and came to be described as ‘the ordinary drink of kings and princes.’[56]
VigneronVIGNERON OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY(Facsimile of a woodcut of the period).
VIGNERON OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY(Facsimile of a woodcut of the period).
In the troubles which followed the death of Henry III., when the east of France was laid desolate in turn by Huguenots and Leaguers, Germans and Spaniards; when Reims became a chief stronghold of the Catholics, who formed a kind of Republic there, and the remaining towns and villages of the district changed masters almost daily, the foragers of the party of Henry of Navarre and that of the League caused great tribulation amongst the vine-dressers and husbandmen of the Montagne and of the Marne. In 1589 very little wine could be vintaged around Reims ‘through the affluence of enemies,’ dolefully remarks a local analist.[57]After the battle of Ivry, Reims submitted to the king, but many of the surrounding districts, Epernay among the number, still sided with his opponents. Epernay fell, however, in 1592, after a cruel siege; and in the autumn of the same year the leaders of the respective parties met at the church of St. Tresain, at Avenay, and agreed to a truce during the ensuing harvest, in order that the crops of corn and wine might be gathered in—a truce known as the Trève des Moissons. The yield turned out to be of very good quality, the new wine fetching from 40 to 70 livres the queue.[58]
The system of cultivation prevailing in the French vineyards at this epoch must have beenpeculiar, since the staple agricultural authority of the day states that, to have an abundant crop and good wine, all that was necessary was for the vine-dresser to wear a garland of ivy, and for crushed acorns and ground vetches to be put in the hole at the time of planting the vine-shoots; that, moreover, grapes without stones could be obtained by taking out the pith of the young plant, and wrapping the end in wet paper, or sticking it in an onion when planting; that to get grapes in spring a vine-shoot should be grafted on a cherry-tree; and that wine could be made purgative by watering the roots of the vine with a laxative, or inserting some in a cleft branch.[59]
City of ReimsTHE CITY OF REIMS IN 1635(From an engraving of the period).
THE CITY OF REIMS IN 1635(From an engraving of the period).
In the seventeenth century the still wine of the province of Champagne was destined, like the setting sun, to gleam with well-nigh unparalleled radiance up to the moment of its almost total eclipse. Continual care and untiring industry had resulted in the production of a wine which seems to have been renowned beyond all others for a delicate yet well-developed flavour peculiarly its own, but of which the wonderful revolution effected by the invention of sparkling wine has left but few traces. In 1604 the yield was so abundant that the vintagers were at their wits’ end for vessels to contain their wine; but three years later so poor a vintage took place as had not been known within the memory of man. During the winter the cold was so intense that wine froze not only in the cellars, but at table close to the fire, and by the ensuing spring it had grown so scarce that the veriest rubbish fetched 80 livres the queue at Reims.[60]In 1610, at the banquet following the coronation of Louis XIII., the only wine served was that of Reims, at 175 livres, or about 7l., the queue; and the futureraffinésof the Place Royale who assisted at that ceremony were by no means the men to forget or neglect an approved vintage after once tasting it. Champagne, it has been said, was crowned at the same time with the king, and of the two made a better monarch. Five years later a complaint, addressed to the king on the subject of thefermiers des aidestrying to levy duties on goods sold at the fairs, asserted it was notorious that the chief commerce of Reims consisted of wines. According to the police ordinances of 1627, the price of these was fixed three times a year, namely, at Martinmas, Mid-Lent,and Midsummer; and tavern-keepers were bound to have a tablet inscribed with the regulation price fixed outside their houses, and were not allowed to sell at a higher rate, under a penalty of 12 livres for the first, and 24 livres for the second offence. Moreover, to encourage the production of the locality, they were strictly forbidden to sell in their taverns any other wine than that of the ‘cru du pays et de huit lieues es environs,’ under pain of confiscation and a fine, the amount of which was arbitrary. The vine-dressers too, in the same ordinances, were enjoined to kill and burn all vine-slugs and other vermin, which during 1621 and the two succeeding years had caused much damage.[61]
Serving Wine to a Nobleman
Tavern at Reims
This rule must have been perforce relaxed during the troubles of the Fronde, when for two years the troops of the Marshal du Plessis Praslin lived as in a conquered country, indulging in drinking carousals in the wine-shops of the towns, or marching in detachments from village to village throughout the district, in order to prevent all those who neglected to pay the contributions imposed from working in their vineyards; when their leader, on the refusal of the Rémois to supply him with money, ravaged the vineyards of the plains of les Moineaux and Sacy; and when Erlach’s foreigners at Verzy sacked the whole of the Montagne from March until July 1650. As a consequence,people in the following year were existing on herbs, roots, snails, blood, bread made of bran, cats, dogs, &c., or dying by hundreds through eating bread made of unripe wheat harvested in June; the ruin of the citizens being completed, according to an eyewitness, at the epoch of dressing the vines, owing to the lack of men to do the work.[62]A contemporary writer, however, asserts that the vineyards still continued ‘to cover the mountains and to encircle the town of Reims like a crown of verdure;’ and that their produce not only supplied all local wants, but, transported beyond the frontier, caused the gold of the Indies to flow in return into the town, and spread its reputation afar.[63]
Betrothal BanquetA BETROTHAL BANQUET IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
A BETROTHAL BANQUET IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Such was the repute of the Champagne wines when Louis XIV. was crowned at Reims in 1654, that all the great lords present on the occasion were exceedingly anxious to partake of them, and no doubt regarded with envious eyes the huge basket containing a hundred bottles of the best which the deputies from Epernay had brought with them as a present to the gallant Turenne. He at least was no stranger to the merits of the wine, for the records of Epernay show that many a caque had found its way to his tent during the two preceding years, when he was defending the Champagne against Condé and his Spanish allies. In the same year (1654), the Procureur de l’Echevinage speaks of the chief trade of Reims as consisting in the sale of wine, of which the inhabitants collect large quantities, both from the Montagne de Reims and the Rivière de Marne, through the merchants who make this their special trade—a trade sorely interrupted by the incursions of Montal and his Spaniards in 1657 and 1658. Guy Patin too, writing in 1666, mentions the fact of Louis XIV. making a present to Charles II. of England of two hundred pièces of excellent wine—Champagne, Burgundy, and Hermitage; and three years later is fain himself to exclaim, ‘Vive le pain de Gonesse, vive le bon vin de Paris, de Bourgogne, de Champagne!’ whilst Tavernier the traveller did his best to spread the fame of the Champagne wine by presenting specimens to all the sovereigns whom he had the honour of saluting during his journeyings abroad.[64]
It was about the eighth decade of this century, when the renown of the Grand Monarque was yet at its apogee, and when for many years the soil of the province had not been profaned by the foot of an invader, that the still wine of the Champagne attained its final point of perfection. The Roi Soleil himself, we are assured by St. Simon, never drank any other wine in his life till about 1692, when his physician, the austere Fagon, condemned his debilitated stomach to well-watered Burgundy, so old that it was almost tasteless, and the king consoled himself with laughing at the wry faces pulled by foreign nobles who sought and obtained the honour of tasting his especial tipple.[65]An anonymous Mémoire[66]written early in the ensuing century (1718) states that, although their red wine had long before been made with greater care and cleanliness than any other wine in the kingdom, the Champenois had only studied to produce agray, and indeed almost white, wine, within the preceding fifty years. This would place about 1670 the first introduction of the new colourless wine, obtained by gathering grapes of the black variety with the utmost care at early dawn, and ceasing the vintage at nine or ten in the morning, unless the day were cloudy. Despite these precautions a rosy tinge—compared to that lent by a dying sunset to the waters of a clear stream—was often communicated to the wine, and led to the term ‘partridge’s eye’ being applied to it. St. Evremond, the epicurean Frenchman—who emigrated to the gay court of Charles II. at Whitehall to escape the gloomy cell designed for him in the Bastille—and the mentor of the Count de Grammont, writing from London about 1674, to his brother ‘profès dans l’ordre des coteaux,’[67]the Count d’Olonne, then undergoing on his part a species of exile at Orleans for having suffered his tongue to wag a little too freely at court, says: ‘Do not spare any expense to get Champagne wines, even if you are at two hundred leagues from Paris. Those of Burgundy have lost their credit amongst men of taste, and barely retain a remnant of their former reputation amongst dealers. There is no province which furnishes excellent wines for all seasons but Champagne. It supplies us with the wines of Ay, Avenay, and Hautvillers, up to the spring; Taissy, Sillery, Verzenai, for the rest of the year.’[68]‘The wines of the Champagne,’ elsewhere remarks this renownedgourmet, ‘are the best. Do not keep those of Ay too long; do not begin those of Reims too soon. Cold weather preserves the spirit of the River wines, hot removes thegoût de terroirfrom those of the Mountain.’ Writing also in 1701, he alludes to the care with which the Sillery wines were made forty years before.
Such a distinction of seasons would imply that wine, instead of being kept, was drunk within a few months of its manufacture; though this, except in the case of wine made as ‘tocane,’ which could not be kept, would appear to be a matter rather of taste than necessity. This custom of drinking it before fermentation was achieved, and also the natural tendency of the wine of this particular region to effervesce—a tendency since taken such signal advantage of by the manufacturers of sparkling Champagne—are treated of in a work of the period,[69]the author of which, after noting the excellence of certain growths of Burgundy, goes on to say that, ‘If the vintage in the Champagne is a successful one, it is thither that the shrewd and dainty hasten. There is not,’ continues he, ‘in the world a drink more noble and more delicious; and it is now become so highly fashionable that, with the exception of those growths drawn from that fertile and agreeable district which we call in general parlance that of Reims, and particularly from St. Thierry, Verzenay, Ay, and different spots of the Mountain, all others are looked upon by the dainty as little better than poor stuff and trash, which they will not even hear spoken of.’ He extols the admirablesèveof the Reims wine, its delicious flavour, and its perfume, which with ludicrous hyperbole he pronounces capable of bringing the dead to life. Burgundy and Champagne, he says, are both good, but the first rank belongs to the latter, ‘when it has not that tartness which some debauchees esteem so highly, when it clears itself promptly, and only works as much as the natural strength of the wine allows; for it does not do to trust so much to that kind of wine which is always in a fury, and boils without intermission in its vessel.’
Such wine, he maintains, is quite done for by the time Easter is over, and only retains of its former fire a crude tartness very unpleasant and very indigestible, which is apt to affect the chest of those who drink it. He recommends that Champagne should be drunk at least six months after the end of the year, and that the grayest wines should always be chosen as going down more smoothly and clogging the stomach less, since, however good the red wine may be as regards body, from its longercuvaison, it is never so delicate, nor does it digest so promptly, as the others. He concludes, therefore, that it is better to drink old wine, or at any rate what then passed as old wine, as long as one can, in order not to have to turn too soon to the new ones, ‘which are veritable head-splitters, and from their potency capable of deranging the strongest constitutions.’ Above all, he urges abstinence from such ‘artificial mummeries’ as the use of ice, ‘the most pernicious of all inventions’ and the enemy of wine, though at that time, he admits, very fashionable, especially amongst certain ‘obstreperous voluptuaries,’ ‘who maintain that the wine of Reims is never more delicious than when it is drunk with ice, and that this admirable beverage derives especial charms from this fatal novelty.’ Ice, he holds, not only dispels the spirit and diminishes the flavour,sève, and colour of the wine, but is most pernicious and deadly to the drinker, causing ‘colics, shiverings, horrible convulsions, and sudden weakness, so that frequently death has crowned the most magnificent debauches, and turned a place of joy and mirth into a sepulchre.’ Wherefore let all drinkers of Champagnefrappébeware.
Here we have ample proof of the popularity of the wines of the Champagne, a popularity erroneously said to be due in some measure to the fact that both the Chancellor le Tellier, father of Louvois, and Colbert, the energetic comptroller-general of the state finances, and son of a wool-merchant of Reims, possessed large vineyards in the province.[70]Lafontaine, who was born in the neighbourhood, declared his preference for Reims above all cities, on account of the Sainte Ampoule, its good wine, and the abundance of other charming objects;[71]and Boileau, writing in 1674, depicts an ignorant churchman, whose library consisted of a score of well-filled hogsheads, as being fully aware of the particular vineyard at Reims over which the community he belonged to held a mortgage.[72]James II. of England was particularly partial to the wine of the Champagne. When the quinquennial assembly of the clergy was held in 1700, at the Château of St. Germain-en-Laye, where he was residing, Charles Maurice le Tellier, brother to Louvois and Archbishop of Reims, who presided, ‘kept a grand table, and had some Champagne wine that was highly praised. The King of England, who rarely drank any other, heard of it, and sent to ask some of the archbishop, who sent him six bottles. Some time afterwards the king, who found the wine very good, sent to beg him to send some more. The archbishop, more avaricious of his wine than of his money, answered curtly that his wine was not mad, and therefore did not run about the streets, and did not send him any.’[73]Du Chesne, who, when Fagon became medical attendant to Louis XIV., succeeded him as physician to the ‘fils de France,’ and who died at Versailles in 1707, aged ninety-one, in perfect health, ascribed his longevity to his habit of eating a salad every night at supper, and drinking only Champagne, arégimewhich he recommended to all.[74]
The wine was nevertheless the indirect cause of the death of the poet Santeuil, who, although a canon of St. Victor, was very much fonder of Champagne and of sundry other good things than he ought to have been. A wit and abon vivant, he was a great favourite of the Duc de Bourbon, son of the Prince de Condé, whom he accompanied in the summer of 1697 to Dijon. ‘One evening at supper the duke amused himself with plying Santeuil with Champagne, and going on from joke to joke, he thought it funny to empty his snuff-box into a goblet of wine, and make Santeuil drink it, in order to see what would happen. He was pretty soon enlightened. Vomiting and fever ensued, and within forty-eight hours the unhappy wretch died in the torments of the damned, but filled with the sentiments of great penitence, with which he received the sacraments and edified the company, who, though little given to be edified, disapproved ofsuch a cruel experiment.’[75]Of course nothing was done, or even said, to the duke.
‘Sire,’ said the president of a deputation bringing specimens of the various productions of Reims to the Grand Monarque when he visited the city in 1666, ‘we offer you our wine, our pears, our gingerbread, our biscuits, and our hearts;’ and Louis, who was a noted lover of the good things of this life, answered, turning to his suite, ‘There, gentlemen, that is just the kind of speech I like.’ To this day Reims manufactures by the myriad the crisp finger-shaped sponge-cakes called ‘biscuits de Reims,’ which the French delight to dip in their wine; juvenile France still eagerly devours itspain d’épice, and the city sends forth far and wide the baked pears which have obtained so enviable a reputation. But the production of such wine as that offered to the king has long since almost ceased, while its fame has been eclipsed tenfold by wine of a far more delicious kind, the origin and rise of which has now to be recounted. This is the sparkling wine of Champagne, which has been fitly compared to one of those younger sons of good family, who, after a brilliant and rapid career, achieve a position far eclipsing that of their elder brethren, whose fame becomes merged in theirs.[76]