Louis XIV.LOUIS XIV.(From a portrait of the time).
LOUIS XIV.(From a portrait of the time).
One cause of this falling off in the popularity of the sparkling wine arose from the great battle which raged for many years respecting the relative merits of Champagne and Burgundy. It was waged in the schools, and not in the field; for the combatants were neither dashing soldiers, brilliant courtiers, nor even gay young students, but potent, grave, and reverend physicians—the wigged, capped, and gowned pedants of the Diaphorus type whom Molière so piteously pilloried. The only blood shed was that of the grape, excepting when some enthusiastic Sangrado was impelled by a too conscientious practical examination into the qualities of the vintage he championed to a more than ordinary reckless use of the lancet. The contending armies couched pens instead oflances, and marshalled arguments in array in place of squadrons. They hurled pamphlets and theses at each others’ heads in lieu of bombshells, and kept up withal a running fire of versification, so that the rumble of hexameters replaced that of artillery.
Professors at Reims University
National pride, and perhaps a smack of envy at the growing popularity of the still red wines of the Champagne, had, as far back as 1652, led a hot-headed young Burgundian, one Daniel Arbinet, to select as the subject of a thesis, maintained by him before the schools of Paris, the proposition that the wine of Beaune was more delicious and more wholesome than any other wine,[141]the remaining vintages of the universe being pretty roughly handled in the thesis in question. The Champenois contented themselves for the time being with cultivating their vineyards and improving their wines, till in 1677, when these latter had acquired yet more renown, M. de Révélois of Reims boldly rushed into print with the assertion that the wine of Reims was the most wholesome of all.[142]Though the first to write in its favour, he was not the first doctor of eminence who had expressed an opinion favourable to the wine of Champagne. Péna, a leading Parisian physician of the seventeenth century, was once consulted by a stranger. ‘Where do you come from?’ he inquired. ‘I am a native of Saumur.’ ‘A native of Saumur. What bread do you eat?’ ‘Bread from the Belle Cave.’ ‘A native of Saumur, and you eat bread from the Belle Cave. What meat do you get?’ ‘Mutton fed at Chardonnet.’ ‘A native of Saumur, eating bread from the Belle Cave and mutton fed at Chardonnet. What wine do you drink?’ ‘Wine from the Côteaux.’[143]‘What! You are a native of Saumur; you eat bread from the Belle Cave, and mutton fed at Chardonnet, and drink the wine of the Côteaux, and you come here to consult me! Go along; there can be nothing the matter with you!’[144]
Burgundy remained silent in turn for nearly twenty years, when, lo, in 1696—probably just about the time when the popping of Dom Perignon’s corks began to make some noise in the world—a yet more opinionated young champion of the Côte d’Or, Mathieu Fournier, a medical student, hard pressed for the subject of his inaugural thesis, and in the firm faith that
‘None but a clever dialecticianCan hope to become a good physician,And that logic plays an important partIn the mystery of the healing art,’
‘None but a clever dialecticianCan hope to become a good physician,And that logic plays an important partIn the mystery of the healing art,’
‘None but a clever dialecticianCan hope to become a good physician,And that logic plays an important partIn the mystery of the healing art,’
‘None but a clever dialectician
Can hope to become a good physician,
And that logic plays an important part
In the mystery of the healing art,’
propounded the theory that the wines of Reims irritated the nerves, and caused a predisposition to catarrh, gout, and other disorders, owing to which Fagon, the King’s physician, had forbidden them to his royal master.[145]
Ancient Tower.ANCIENT TOWER OFREIMS UNIVERSITY.
ANCIENT TOWER OFREIMS UNIVERSITY.
Shocked at these scandalous assertions, the entire Faculty of Medicine at the Reims University rose in arms in defence of their native vintage. Its periwigged professors put their learned heads together to discuss the all-important question, ‘Is the wine of Reims more agreeable and more wholesome than the wine of Burgundy?’ and in 1700 Giles Culotteau embodied their combined opinions in a pamphlet published under that title.[146]After extolling the liquid purity, the excellent brightness, the divine flavour, the paradisiacal perfume, and the great durability of the wines of Ay, Pierry, Verzy, Sillery, Hautvillers, &c., as superior to those of any growth of Burgundy, he instanced the case of a local Old Parr named Pierre Pieton, avigneronof Hautvillers, who had married at the age of 110, and reached that of 118 without infirmity, as a convincing proof of the material advantages reaped from their consumption.
Salins, thedoyenof the Faculty of Medicine of Beaune, was intrusted with the task of replying, and in 1704 bitterly assailed Culotteau’s thesis in a ‘Defence of the Wine of Burgundy against the Wine of Champagne,’ which ran to five editions in four years. M. le Pescheur, a doctor of Reims, vigorously attacked each of these editions in succession, maintaining amongst other things that the wine of Reims owed its renown to the many virtues discovered in it by the great lords who had accompanied Louis XIV. to his coronation; and that if the King, on the advice of his doctors, had renounced its use, his courtiers had certainly not. He also asserted that England,Germany, and the North of Europe consumed far more Champagne than they did Burgundy, and that it would be transported without risk to the end of the world, Tavernier having taken it to Persia, and another traveller to Siam and Surinam.
The partisanship quickly spread throughout the country, and the respective admirers of Burgundy and Champagne pitilessly pelted each other in prose and verse; for the two camps had their troubadours, who, like those of old, excited the courage and ardour of the combatants. The first to sound the warlike trumpet was Benigné Grenan, professor at the college of Harcourt, who, with the rich vintage of his native province bubbling at fever-heat through his veins, sought in 1711 to crush Champagne by means of Latin sapphics, a sample of which has been thus translated:
‘Lift to the skies thy foaming wine,That cheers the heart, that charms the eye;Exalt its fragrance, gift divine,Champagne, from thee the wise must fly!A poison lurks those charms below,An asp beneath the flowers is hid;In vain thy sparkling fountains flowWhen wisdom has their lymph forbid.’Tis, but when cloyed with purer fairWe can with such a traitress flirt;So following Beaune with reverent air,Let Reims appear but at dessert.’[147]
‘Lift to the skies thy foaming wine,That cheers the heart, that charms the eye;Exalt its fragrance, gift divine,Champagne, from thee the wise must fly!A poison lurks those charms below,An asp beneath the flowers is hid;In vain thy sparkling fountains flowWhen wisdom has their lymph forbid.’Tis, but when cloyed with purer fairWe can with such a traitress flirt;So following Beaune with reverent air,Let Reims appear but at dessert.’[147]
‘Lift to the skies thy foaming wine,That cheers the heart, that charms the eye;Exalt its fragrance, gift divine,Champagne, from thee the wise must fly!
‘Lift to the skies thy foaming wine,
That cheers the heart, that charms the eye;
Exalt its fragrance, gift divine,
Champagne, from thee the wise must fly!
A poison lurks those charms below,An asp beneath the flowers is hid;In vain thy sparkling fountains flowWhen wisdom has their lymph forbid.
A poison lurks those charms below,
An asp beneath the flowers is hid;
In vain thy sparkling fountains flow
When wisdom has their lymph forbid.
’Tis, but when cloyed with purer fairWe can with such a traitress flirt;So following Beaune with reverent air,Let Reims appear but at dessert.’[147]
’Tis, but when cloyed with purer fair
We can with such a traitress flirt;
So following Beaune with reverent air,
Let Reims appear but at dessert.’[147]
Charles Coffin
The gauntlet thus contemptuously thrown down was promptly and indignantly picked up by the Rector of the University of Beauvais,the learned Dr. Charles Coffin, a native of Buzancy, near Reims, who in the quiet retirement of the PicardianAlma Materhad evidently not forgotten to keep up his acquaintance with the vintage of his native province. The Latin poem he produced in reply, under the title ofCampania vindicata,[148]had nothing in common with his lugubriously sepulchral name, as may be seen by the following somewhat freely translated extracts from it. After invoking the aid of a bottle of the enlivening liquor whose praises he is about to sing, he exclaims:
‘As the vine, although lowly in aspect, outshinesThe stateliest trees by the produce it bears,So midst all earth’s list of rich generous wines,Our Reims the bright crown of preëminence wears.The Massica, erst sang by Horace of old,To Sillery now must abandon the field;Falernian, nor Chian, could ne’er be so boldTo rival the nectar Ay’s sunny slopes yield.As bright as the goblet it sparklingly fillsWith diamonds in fusion, it foaming exhalesAn odour ambrosial, the nostril that thrills,Foretelling the flavour delicious it veils.At first with false fury the foam-bells arise,And creamily bubbling spread over the brim,Till equally swiftly their petulance diesIn a purity that makes e’en crystal seem dim.’[149]
‘As the vine, although lowly in aspect, outshinesThe stateliest trees by the produce it bears,So midst all earth’s list of rich generous wines,Our Reims the bright crown of preëminence wears.The Massica, erst sang by Horace of old,To Sillery now must abandon the field;Falernian, nor Chian, could ne’er be so boldTo rival the nectar Ay’s sunny slopes yield.As bright as the goblet it sparklingly fillsWith diamonds in fusion, it foaming exhalesAn odour ambrosial, the nostril that thrills,Foretelling the flavour delicious it veils.At first with false fury the foam-bells arise,And creamily bubbling spread over the brim,Till equally swiftly their petulance diesIn a purity that makes e’en crystal seem dim.’[149]
‘As the vine, although lowly in aspect, outshinesThe stateliest trees by the produce it bears,So midst all earth’s list of rich generous wines,Our Reims the bright crown of preëminence wears.
‘As the vine, although lowly in aspect, outshines
The stateliest trees by the produce it bears,
So midst all earth’s list of rich generous wines,
Our Reims the bright crown of preëminence wears.
The Massica, erst sang by Horace of old,To Sillery now must abandon the field;Falernian, nor Chian, could ne’er be so boldTo rival the nectar Ay’s sunny slopes yield.
The Massica, erst sang by Horace of old,
To Sillery now must abandon the field;
Falernian, nor Chian, could ne’er be so bold
To rival the nectar Ay’s sunny slopes yield.
As bright as the goblet it sparklingly fillsWith diamonds in fusion, it foaming exhalesAn odour ambrosial, the nostril that thrills,Foretelling the flavour delicious it veils.
As bright as the goblet it sparklingly fills
With diamonds in fusion, it foaming exhales
An odour ambrosial, the nostril that thrills,
Foretelling the flavour delicious it veils.
At first with false fury the foam-bells arise,And creamily bubbling spread over the brim,Till equally swiftly their petulance diesIn a purity that makes e’en crystal seem dim.’[149]
At first with false fury the foam-bells arise,
And creamily bubbling spread over the brim,
Till equally swiftly their petulance dies
In a purity that makes e’en crystal seem dim.’[149]
Benigné Grenan
Praising the flavour of this nectar, which he declares is in every way worthy of its appearance, he stoutly defends the wine from the charge of unwholesomeness adduced against it by Grenan:
‘Despite the tongue of malice,No poison in thy chaliceWas ever found, Champagne!Simplicity most loyalWas e’er thy boast right royal,And this thy wines retain.No harm lurks in the fireThat helps thee to inspireThe heart and spur the brain.’[150]
‘Despite the tongue of malice,No poison in thy chaliceWas ever found, Champagne!Simplicity most loyalWas e’er thy boast right royal,And this thy wines retain.No harm lurks in the fireThat helps thee to inspireThe heart and spur the brain.’[150]
‘Despite the tongue of malice,No poison in thy chaliceWas ever found, Champagne!Simplicity most loyalWas e’er thy boast right royal,And this thy wines retain.No harm lurks in the fireThat helps thee to inspireThe heart and spur the brain.’[150]
‘Despite the tongue of malice,
No poison in thy chalice
Was ever found, Champagne!
Simplicity most loyal
Was e’er thy boast right royal,
And this thy wines retain.
No harm lurks in the fire
That helps thee to inspire
The heart and spur the brain.’[150]
Intoxicated Hunt
So far from causing inconvenience, he claims for Champagne the property of keeping off both gout and gravel, neither of which, he says, is known in Reims and its neighbourhood, and continues:
‘When on the fruit-piled board,Thy cups, with nectar stored,Commence their genial reign,The wisest, sternest facesOf mirth display the traces,And to rejoice are fain.As laughter’s silv’ry rippleGreets every glass we tipple.Away fly grief and pain.’[151]
‘When on the fruit-piled board,Thy cups, with nectar stored,Commence their genial reign,The wisest, sternest facesOf mirth display the traces,And to rejoice are fain.As laughter’s silv’ry rippleGreets every glass we tipple.Away fly grief and pain.’[151]
‘When on the fruit-piled board,Thy cups, with nectar stored,Commence their genial reign,The wisest, sternest facesOf mirth display the traces,And to rejoice are fain.As laughter’s silv’ry rippleGreets every glass we tipple.Away fly grief and pain.’[151]
‘When on the fruit-piled board,
Thy cups, with nectar stored,
Commence their genial reign,
The wisest, sternest faces
Of mirth display the traces,
And to rejoice are fain.
As laughter’s silv’ry ripple
Greets every glass we tipple.
Away fly grief and pain.’[151]
Grace Drinking Champagne
The jovial old rector with the sepulchral appellation then proceeds, according to the most approved method of warfare, to carry the campaign into the enemy’s territory. He admits the nutritive and strengthening properties of Burgundy, but demands what it possesses beyond these, which are shared in common with it by many other vintages. He then prophesies, with the return of peace,[152]the advent of the English to buy the wine of Reims; and concludes by wishing that allwho dispute the merits of Champagne may find nothing to drink but the sour cider of Normandy or the acrid vintage of Ivri. The citizens of Reims, thoroughly alive to the importance of the controversy, were enchanted with this production; they did not, however, crown the poet with laurel, but more wisely and appropriately despatched to him four dozen of their best red and gray wines, by the aid of which he continued to tipple and to sing.
Grenan, resuming the offensive in turn, at once addressed an epistle in Latin verse, in favour of Burgundy against Champagne, to Fagon, the King’s physician.[153]Complaining that the latter wine lays claim unjustly to the first rank, he allows it certain qualities—brilliancy, purity, limpidity, a subtle savour that touches the most blunted palate, and an aroma so delicious that it is impossible to resist its attractions. But he objects to its pretensions.
‘Its vinous flood, with swelling prideIn foaming wavelets welling up,Pours forth its bright and sparkling tide,Bubbling and glittering in the cup.’[154]
‘Its vinous flood, with swelling prideIn foaming wavelets welling up,Pours forth its bright and sparkling tide,Bubbling and glittering in the cup.’[154]
‘Its vinous flood, with swelling prideIn foaming wavelets welling up,Pours forth its bright and sparkling tide,Bubbling and glittering in the cup.’[154]
‘Its vinous flood, with swelling pride
In foaming wavelets welling up,
Pours forth its bright and sparkling tide,
Bubbling and glittering in the cup.’[154]
He goes on to accuse the Champenois poet of being unduly inspired by this wine, the effects of which he finds apparent in his inflated style and his attempts to place Champagne in the first rank, and make all other vintages its subjects; and he reiterates his allegations that, unlike Burgundy, it affects both the head and the stomach, and is bound to produce gout and gravel in its systematic imbibers. He concludes by begging Fagon to pronounce in his favour, as having proved the virtues of Burgundy on the King himself, whose strength had been sustained by it. The retort was sharp and to the point, taking the form of a twofold epigram from an anonymous hand:
‘To the doctor to goOn behalf of your wineIs, as far as I know,Of its sickness a sign.Your cause and your wineMust be equally weak,Since to check their declineA prescription you seek.’[155]
‘To the doctor to goOn behalf of your wineIs, as far as I know,Of its sickness a sign.Your cause and your wineMust be equally weak,Since to check their declineA prescription you seek.’[155]
‘To the doctor to goOn behalf of your wineIs, as far as I know,Of its sickness a sign.
‘To the doctor to go
On behalf of your wine
Is, as far as I know,
Of its sickness a sign.
Your cause and your wineMust be equally weak,Since to check their declineA prescription you seek.’[155]
Your cause and your wine
Must be equally weak,
Since to check their decline
A prescription you seek.’[155]
Nor was the poet of the funereal cognomen backward in stepping into the field; for he published a metrical decree, supposed to be issued by the faculty of the island of Cos in the fourth year of the ninety-first Olympiad,[156]in which, though a verdict is nominally given in favour of Burgundy, Grenan’s pleas on behalf of this wine are treated with withering sarcasm.
But whilst these enthusiastic partisans thus belaboured one another, there were not wanting impartial spirits who could recognise that there were merits on both sides. Bellechaume, in an odejointly addressed to the two combatants,[157]adjures them to live at peace on Parnassus, and, remembering that Horace praised both Falernian and Massica, to jointly animate their muse with Champagne and Burgundy:
‘To learn the difference betweenThe wine of Reims and that of Beaune,The fairest plan would be, I ween,To drink them both, not one alone.’[158]
‘To learn the difference betweenThe wine of Reims and that of Beaune,The fairest plan would be, I ween,To drink them both, not one alone.’[158]
‘To learn the difference betweenThe wine of Reims and that of Beaune,The fairest plan would be, I ween,To drink them both, not one alone.’[158]
‘To learn the difference between
The wine of Reims and that of Beaune,
The fairest plan would be, I ween,
To drink them both, not one alone.’[158]
Another equally judicious versifier called also on the Burgundian champion[159]to cease the futile contest, since
‘Bold Burgundian ever gloriesWith stout Remois to get mellow;Each well filled with vinous lore isEach a jolly tippling fellow.’[160]
‘Bold Burgundian ever gloriesWith stout Remois to get mellow;Each well filled with vinous lore isEach a jolly tippling fellow.’[160]
‘Bold Burgundian ever gloriesWith stout Remois to get mellow;Each well filled with vinous lore isEach a jolly tippling fellow.’[160]
‘Bold Burgundian ever glories
With stout Remois to get mellow;
Each well filled with vinous lore is
Each a jolly tippling fellow.’[160]
And the learned Canon Maucroix of Reims exhibited a similar conciliatory spirit in the ingenious parallel which he drew between the two greatest orators of antiquity and the wines of the Marne and the Côte d’Or. ‘In the wine of Burgundy,’ he observes, ‘there is more strength and vigour; it does not play with its man so much, it overthrows him more suddenly,—that is Demosthenes. The wine of Champagne is subtler and more delicate; it amuses more and for a longer time, but in the end it does not produce less effect,—that is Cicero.’[161]
Gate of BacchusREMAINS OF THE GATE OF BACCHUS, NEAR REIMS UNIVERSITY.
REMAINS OF THE GATE OF BACCHUS, NEAR REIMS UNIVERSITY.
The national disasters which marked the close of the reign of Louis XIV. diverted public attention in some degree from the nugatory contest;[162]and though Fontenelle sought to prove that a glass of Champagne was better than a bottle of Burgundy,[163]the impartially appreciative agreed with Panard that
‘Old Burgundy and young ChampagneAt table boast an equal reign.’[164]
‘Old Burgundy and young ChampagneAt table boast an equal reign.’[164]
‘Old Burgundy and young ChampagneAt table boast an equal reign.’[164]
‘Old Burgundy and young Champagne
At table boast an equal reign.’[164]
But the doctors continued to disagree, and new generations of them still went on wrangling over the vexed questions of supremacy and salubrity. In 1739 Jean François carried the war into the enemy’s camp by maintaining at Paris that Burgundy caused gout; and a little later Robert Linguet declared the wine of Reims to be as healthy as it was agreeable. In 1777 Xavier, Regent of the Faculty of Medicine at the Reims University, affirmed that not only did the once vilifiedvin mousseuxshare with the other wines of the Champagne the absence of the tartarous particles which in many red wines are productive of gout and gravel, but that the gas it contained caused it to act as a dissolvent upon stone in the human body, and wasalso invaluable, from its antiseptic qualities, in treating putrid fevers.[165]Further, the appropriately named Champagne Dufresnay established, to his own satisfaction and that of his colleagues, that the wine was superior to any other growth, native or foreign.[166]At length, in 1778, when the bones of the original disputants were dust, and their lancets rust, on the occasion of a thesis being defended before the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, a verdict was formally pronounced by this body in favour of the wine of the Champagne.[167]
End of Chapter IV
Start of Chapter V
Sparkling Champagne intoxicates the Regent d’Orléans and therouésof the Palais Royal—It is drunk by Peter the Great at Reims—A horse trained on Champagne and biscuits—Decree of Louis XV. regarding the transport of Champagne—Wine for thepetits cabinets du Roi—Thepetits soupersand Champagne orgies of the royal household—A bibulous royal mistress—The Well-Beloved at Reims—Frederick the Great, George II., Stanislas Leczinski, and Marshal Saxe all drink Champagne—Voltaire sings the praises of the effervescing wine of Ay—The Commander Descartes and Lebatteux extol the charms of sparkling Champagne—Bertin du Rocheret and his balsamic molecules—The Bacchanalian poet Panard chants the inspiring effects of the vintages of the Marne—Marmontel is jointly inspired by Mademoiselle de Navarre and the wine of Avenay—The Abbé de l’Attaignant and his fair hostesses—Breakages of bottles in the manufacturers’ cellars—Attempts to obviate them—The early sparkling wines merelycrémant—Saute bouchonanddemi-mousseux—Prices of Champagne in the eighteenth century—Preference given to light acid wines for sparkling Champagne—Lingering relics of prejudice againstvin mousseux—The secret addition of sugar—Originally the wine not cleared in bottle—Its transfer to other bottles necessary—Adoption of the present method of ridding the wine of its deposit—The vine-cultivators the last to profit by the popularity of sparkling Champagne—Marie Antoinette welcomed to Reims—Reception and coronation of Louis XVI. at Reims—‘The crown, it hurts me!’—Oppressive dues and tithes of theancien régime—The Fermiers Généraux and their hôtel at Reims—Champagne under the Revolution—Napoleon at Epernay—Champagne included in the equipment of his satraps—The Allies in the Champagne—Drunkenness and pillaging—Appreciation of Champagne by the invading troops—The beneficial results which followed—Universal popularity of Champagne—The wine a favourite with kings and potentates—Its traces to be met with everywhere.
A Basket Full of Grapes
WHILSTdoctors went on shaking their periwigged heads, and debating whether sparkling Champagne did or did not injure the nerves and produce gout, the timid might hearken to their counsels, but there were plenty of spirits bold enough to let the corks pop gaily, regardless of all consequences. The wine continued in high favour with theviveursof the capital, and especially with the brilliant band of titled scoundrels who formed the Court of Philippe le Débonnaire. ‘When my son gets drunk,’ wrote, on the 13th August 1716, the Princess Charlotte Elizabeth of Bavaria, the Regent’s mother, ‘it is not with strong drinks or spirituousliquors, but pure wine of Champagne;’[168]and as the pupil of the Abbé Dubois very seldom went to bed sober,[169]he must have consumed a fair amount of the fluid in question in the course of his career. Even his boon companion, the Duke de Richelieu, is forced to admit that there was a great deal more drunkenness about him than was becoming in a Regent of France; and that, as he could not support wine so well as his guests, he often rose from the table drunk, or with his wits wool-gathering. ‘Two bottles of Champagne,’ remarks the duke in hisChronique, ‘had this effect upon him.’
Regent d’OrléansTHE REGENT D’ORLÉANS(From the picture by Santerre).
THE REGENT D’ORLÉANS(From the picture by Santerre).
Desirous, seemingly, that such enjoyments should not be confined to himself alone, he abolished in 1719 sundry dues on wine in general, whilst his famous, or rather infamous, suppers conduced to the vogue of that sparkling Champagne which was an indispensable accompaniment of thosedécolletérepasts. It unloosed the tongues and waistcoats of therouésof the Palais Royal, the Nocés, Broglios, Birons, Brancas, and Canillacs; it lent an additional sparkle to the bright eyes of Mesdames de Parabère and de Sabran, and inspired the scathing remark from the lips of one of those fair frail ones, that ‘God, after having made man, took up a little mud, and used it to form the souls of princes and lackeys.’ It played its part, too, at the memorable repast at which the Regent and his favourite daughter so scandalised their hostess, the Duchess of Burgundy, and at the fatal orgie shared by the same pair on the terrace of Meudon.
Young Louis XV.LOUIS XV. WHEN YOUNG(From a picture of the epoch).
LOUIS XV. WHEN YOUNG(From a picture of the epoch).
The example set in such high quarters could not fail to be followed. Champagne fired the sallies of the wits and versifiers whom the Duchess of Maine gathered around her at Sceaux, and stimulated the madness which seized upon the whole of Paris at the bidding of the financier Law. It frothed, too, in the goblets which Bertin du Rocheret had the honour of filling with his own hand for Peter the Great, on the passage of the Northern Colossus through Reims in June 1717; and its consumption was increased by a decree of 1728, which especially provided that people proceeding to their country seats might take with them for their own use a certain quantity of this wine free of duty.
A curious purpose to which the wine was applied appeared from a wager laid by the Count de Saillans—one of the most famous horsemen of his day, and already distinguished by similar feats—to the effect that he would ride a single horse from the gate of Versailles to the Hôtel des Invalides within an hour. His wife, fearing the dangerous descent from Sèvres towards Paris, prevailed on the King to prohibit him from riding in person; but a valet, whose neck was of course of no moment, was allowed to act as his deputy in essaying the feat. The horse selected was carefully fed for some days beforehand on biscuits and Champagne. Crowds assembled to witness the attempt, which was made on May 9, 1725, and resulted in the valet’s coming in two and a half minutes behind time. Whether this was due to the badness of the roads, as was alleged, or to the singularrégimeadopted for the animal selected, remains a moot question.[170]
Champagne won equal favour in the eyes of Louis XV., as in those of the curious compound of embodied vices who had watched over the welfare of the kingdom during his minority, though it is true that at a comparatively early age—in the year 1731—he had, on representations thatover-production of wine was lowering its value, prohibited the planting of fresh vineyards without his permission under a penalty of 3000 francs, and had renewed this prohibition the year following.[171]
French Country InnA FRENCH COUNTRY INN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY(From the ‘Routes de France’).
A FRENCH COUNTRY INN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY(From the ‘Routes de France’).
The royal repasts at La Muette, Marly, and Choissy were, however, enlivened with wine from the Champagne; for we find Bertin du Rocheret in 1738 despatching thirty pieces of the still wine to M. de Castagnet for thepetits cabinets du Roi,[172]and the eldest of the fair sisters La Nesle, Madame de Mailly, the‘Queen of Choissy’ andmaîtresse en titre, in 1740 reforming the cellar management, and suppressing thepetits soupersand Champagne orgies of the royal household.[173]Her conduct in this respect seems, however, not to have been dictated by motives of virtue, but rather by the conviction that the wine was too precious to be consumed by inferiors. We are assured that the countess loved wine, and above all that of Champagne, and that she could hold her own against the stoutest toper. ‘She has been reproached with having imparted this taste to the King, but it is probable that his Majesty was naturally inclined that way.’[174]
Petit SouperUN PETIT SOUPER OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY(From the collection of the ‘Chansons de Laborde’).
UN PETIT SOUPER OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY(From the collection of the ‘Chansons de Laborde’).
When, in 1741, the ‘Well-Beloved’ passed through Reims, Dom Chatelain, after rejoicing over the year’s vintage having been a very fine one, adds that it was drunk to a considerable extent and with the greatest joy in the world during the ten days that the King remained in the city. ‘It was no longer a question,’ he exclaims exultingly, ‘of sending for Burgundy or Laon wine.’ Three years later, when traversing the Champagne, on his way to Metz, he again halted at Reims; and after hearing mass, ‘retired to the Archevêché, where the Corps de la Ville presented his Majesty with the wines of the town, which he ordered to be taken to his apartments.’[175]Wine was also presented to the Prince de Soubise, Governor of the Champagne; the Duke de Villeroy, M. d’Argenson, and the Count de Joyeuse; whilst, for the benefit of the populace, four fountains of the same fluid flowed at the corners of the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville.[176]In like manner, at the inauguration of that ‘brazen lie,’ the statue of this same Louis XV., in 1767, wine flowed in rivers from the different fountains of the city.[177]
The satyr-like sovereign of France was by no means the only monarch of his time who appreciated sparkling Champagne. Frederick the Great has praised its consoling powers in the doggerel which Voltaire was engaged to turn into poetry; and George II. of England at St. James’s, and Stanislas Leczinski of Poland at Nancy, both quaffed of the same vintage of Ay despatched in 1754 from the cellars of Bertin du Rocheret. Marshal Saxe, during his sojourn in 1745 at Brussels, where he held a quasi-royal court, of which Mademoiselle de Navarre was the bright particular star, drew an ample supply of Champagne from the cellars of that lady’s father, Claude Hevin de Navarre of Avenay, who had established himself as a wine merchant in the Belgian capital.[178]Despite, too, the continued outcry of some connoisseurs,[179]thevin mousseuxbecame the universal source of inspiration for thecabaret-haunting poets of that graceless witty epoch.[180]Voltaire, all unmoved by the excellent still Champagne with which he and the Duke de Richelieu had been regaled at Epernay by Bertin du Rocheret in May 1735, persisted in singing the praises of the effervescing wine of Ay, in the sparkling foam of which he professed to find the type of the French nation:[181]
‘Chloris and Eglé, with their snowy hands,Pour out a wine of Ay, whose prisoned foam,Tightly compressed within its crystal home,Drives out the cork; ’midst laughter’s joyous soundIt flies, against the ceiling to rebound.The sparkling foam of this refreshing wineThe brilliant image of us French does shine.’
‘Chloris and Eglé, with their snowy hands,Pour out a wine of Ay, whose prisoned foam,Tightly compressed within its crystal home,Drives out the cork; ’midst laughter’s joyous soundIt flies, against the ceiling to rebound.The sparkling foam of this refreshing wineThe brilliant image of us French does shine.’
‘Chloris and Eglé, with their snowy hands,Pour out a wine of Ay, whose prisoned foam,Tightly compressed within its crystal home,Drives out the cork; ’midst laughter’s joyous soundIt flies, against the ceiling to rebound.The sparkling foam of this refreshing wineThe brilliant image of us French does shine.’
‘Chloris and Eglé, with their snowy hands,
Pour out a wine of Ay, whose prisoned foam,
Tightly compressed within its crystal home,
Drives out the cork; ’midst laughter’s joyous sound
It flies, against the ceiling to rebound.
The sparkling foam of this refreshing wine
The brilliant image of us French does shine.’
The Commander Descartes seems not to have been afraid to extol the charms of the sparkling wine to the younger Bertin du Rocheret, as stern a decrier of its merits as his father had previously been. In a letter dated December 1735, asking for ‘one or two dozen bottles of sparkling white wine, neithervertnorliquoreux, “I should like,” he says, “some
Of that delectable white wineWhich foams and sparkles in the glass,And seldom mortal lips does pass;But cheers, at festivals divine,The gods to whom it owes its birth,Or else the great, our gods on earth.”’[182]
Of that delectable white wineWhich foams and sparkles in the glass,And seldom mortal lips does pass;But cheers, at festivals divine,The gods to whom it owes its birth,Or else the great, our gods on earth.”’[182]
Of that delectable white wineWhich foams and sparkles in the glass,And seldom mortal lips does pass;But cheers, at festivals divine,The gods to whom it owes its birth,Or else the great, our gods on earth.”’[182]
Of that delectable white wine
Which foams and sparkles in the glass,
And seldom mortal lips does pass;
But cheers, at festivals divine,
The gods to whom it owes its birth,
Or else the great, our gods on earth.”’[182]
To Walk a Tiger
Amongst other versifiers of this epoch enamoured with the merits of the wine may be cited Charles Lebatteux, professor of rhetoric at Reims University, who in 1739 composed an ode, ‘In Civitatem Remensam,’ containing the following invocation to Bacchus:
‘’Tis not on the icy-topped mountains of Thrace,Or those of Rhodope, thy favours I trace—Not there to invoke thee I’d roam.No! Reims sees thee reign sovereign lord o’er her hills;There I offer my vows, and the nectar that thrillsTo my soul I will seek close at home.Whether Venus-like rising midst foam sparkling white,Or wrapped in a mantle of rose rich and bright,Thou seekest my senses to fire,Come aid me to sing, for my Muse is full fainTo owe on this day each melodious strainTo the fervour ’tis thine to inspire.’[183]
‘’Tis not on the icy-topped mountains of Thrace,Or those of Rhodope, thy favours I trace—Not there to invoke thee I’d roam.No! Reims sees thee reign sovereign lord o’er her hills;There I offer my vows, and the nectar that thrillsTo my soul I will seek close at home.Whether Venus-like rising midst foam sparkling white,Or wrapped in a mantle of rose rich and bright,Thou seekest my senses to fire,Come aid me to sing, for my Muse is full fainTo owe on this day each melodious strainTo the fervour ’tis thine to inspire.’[183]
‘’Tis not on the icy-topped mountains of Thrace,Or those of Rhodope, thy favours I trace—Not there to invoke thee I’d roam.No! Reims sees thee reign sovereign lord o’er her hills;There I offer my vows, and the nectar that thrillsTo my soul I will seek close at home.
‘’Tis not on the icy-topped mountains of Thrace,
Or those of Rhodope, thy favours I trace—
Not there to invoke thee I’d roam.
No! Reims sees thee reign sovereign lord o’er her hills;
There I offer my vows, and the nectar that thrills
To my soul I will seek close at home.
Whether Venus-like rising midst foam sparkling white,Or wrapped in a mantle of rose rich and bright,Thou seekest my senses to fire,Come aid me to sing, for my Muse is full fainTo owe on this day each melodious strainTo the fervour ’tis thine to inspire.’[183]
Whether Venus-like rising midst foam sparkling white,
Or wrapped in a mantle of rose rich and bright,
Thou seekest my senses to fire,
Come aid me to sing, for my Muse is full fain
To owe on this day each melodious strain
To the fervour ’tis thine to inspire.’[183]
Bertin du Rocheret, who by no means shared his friend Voltaire’s admiration for the sparkling vintage of Ay, sang the praises of the still wine of the Champagne after the following fashion in 1741:
‘No, such blockheads do not sipOf that most delicious wine;Soul of love and fellowship,Sweet as truly ’tis benign.No, their palate, spoilt and worn,Craves adult’rate juice to drain;Poison raw which we should scorn,Beverage fit for frantic brain.Let us, therefore, hold as foolsSuch as now feign to despiseThosebalsamic moleculesHorace used to sing and prize.No, such blockheads do not sipOf that most delicious wine;Soul of joy and fellowship,Sweet as truly ’tis benign.Of that wine, so purely white,Which the sternest mood makes pass,And which sparkles yet more brightIn your eyes than in my glass.Drink, then, drink; I pledge you, dear,In the nectar old we prize;Sparkling in our glasses clear,But more brightly in your eyes.’[184]
‘No, such blockheads do not sipOf that most delicious wine;Soul of love and fellowship,Sweet as truly ’tis benign.No, their palate, spoilt and worn,Craves adult’rate juice to drain;Poison raw which we should scorn,Beverage fit for frantic brain.Let us, therefore, hold as foolsSuch as now feign to despiseThosebalsamic moleculesHorace used to sing and prize.No, such blockheads do not sipOf that most delicious wine;Soul of joy and fellowship,Sweet as truly ’tis benign.Of that wine, so purely white,Which the sternest mood makes pass,And which sparkles yet more brightIn your eyes than in my glass.Drink, then, drink; I pledge you, dear,In the nectar old we prize;Sparkling in our glasses clear,But more brightly in your eyes.’[184]
‘No, such blockheads do not sipOf that most delicious wine;Soul of love and fellowship,Sweet as truly ’tis benign.No, their palate, spoilt and worn,Craves adult’rate juice to drain;Poison raw which we should scorn,Beverage fit for frantic brain.Let us, therefore, hold as foolsSuch as now feign to despiseThosebalsamic moleculesHorace used to sing and prize.
‘No, such blockheads do not sip
Of that most delicious wine;
Soul of love and fellowship,
Sweet as truly ’tis benign.
No, their palate, spoilt and worn,
Craves adult’rate juice to drain;
Poison raw which we should scorn,
Beverage fit for frantic brain.
Let us, therefore, hold as fools
Such as now feign to despise
Thosebalsamic molecules
Horace used to sing and prize.
No, such blockheads do not sipOf that most delicious wine;Soul of joy and fellowship,Sweet as truly ’tis benign.Of that wine, so purely white,Which the sternest mood makes pass,And which sparkles yet more brightIn your eyes than in my glass.Drink, then, drink; I pledge you, dear,In the nectar old we prize;Sparkling in our glasses clear,But more brightly in your eyes.’[184]
No, such blockheads do not sip
Of that most delicious wine;
Soul of joy and fellowship,
Sweet as truly ’tis benign.
Of that wine, so purely white,
Which the sternest mood makes pass,
And which sparkles yet more bright
In your eyes than in my glass.
Drink, then, drink; I pledge you, dear,
In the nectar old we prize;
Sparkling in our glasses clear,
But more brightly in your eyes.’[184]
Romantic tête-à-tête
Marmontel, the author ofBélisaireand editor of theMercure de France, found inspiration in his youthful days in the sparkling wine of Champagne. He describes, in somewhat fatuous style, the results of an invitation he received from Mademoiselle de Navarre to pass some months with her in 1746 at Avenay, where her father owned several vineyards, and where, she added, ‘It will be very unfortunate if with me and some excellent vin de Champagne you do not produce good verses.’ He tells how, in stormy weather, she insisted, on account of her fear of lightning, on dining in the cellars, where, ‘in the midst of fifty thousand bottles of Champagne, it was difficult not to lose one’s head;’ and how he was accustomed to read to her the verses thus jointly inspired when seated together on a wooded hillock, rising amidst the vineyards of Avenay.[185]
The foregoing in some degree recalls the circumstances under which Gluck, whose fame began to be established about this epoch, was accustomed to seek his musical inspirations. The celebrated composer ofOrpheusandIphegenia in Auliswas wont, when desirous of a visit from the ‘divine afflatus,’ to seat himself in the midst of a flowery meadow with a couple of bottles of Champagne by his side. By the time these were emptied, the air he was in search of was discovered and written down.
The lively and good-humoured Abbé de l’Attaignant, whose occupations as a canon of Reims Cathedral seem to have allowed him an infinite quantity of spare time to devote to versifying, addressed some rather indifferent rhymes to Madame de Blagny on the cork of a bottle of Champagne exploding in her hand;[186]and in some lines to Madame de Boulogne, on her pouring out Champagne for him at table, he maintains that the nectar poured out by Ganymede to Jupiter at his repasts must yield to this vintage.[187]
That boon convivialist Panard—who flourished at the same epoch, and was one of the chief songsters of the original Caveau, and a man of whom it was said that, ‘when set running, the tide of song flowed on till the cask was empty’—has not neglected sparkling Champagne in his Bacchanalian compositions. The ‘La Fontaine of Vaudeville,’ as Marmontel dubbed him, does not hesitate to admit that he preferred the popping of Champagne corks to the martial strains of drum and trumpet.[188]The wine, moreover, furnishes him with frequent illustrations for his code of careless philosophy.
‘Doctor for vintner vials fillsMost carefully, with lymph of wells.Champagne, that grew on Nanterre’s hills,Vintner in turn to doctor sells.So still we find, as on we jogThroughout the world, ’tis dog bite dog.’[189]
‘Doctor for vintner vials fillsMost carefully, with lymph of wells.Champagne, that grew on Nanterre’s hills,Vintner in turn to doctor sells.So still we find, as on we jogThroughout the world, ’tis dog bite dog.’[189]
‘Doctor for vintner vials fillsMost carefully, with lymph of wells.Champagne, that grew on Nanterre’s hills,Vintner in turn to doctor sells.So still we find, as on we jogThroughout the world, ’tis dog bite dog.’[189]
‘Doctor for vintner vials fills
Most carefully, with lymph of wells.
Champagne, that grew on Nanterre’s hills,
Vintner in turn to doctor sells.
So still we find, as on we jog
Throughout the world, ’tis dog bite dog.’[189]
Elsewhere Panard gives expression to the Bacchanalian sentiment, which he seems to have made his rule of life, in the following terms: