K 
 
 Sol 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 093 7 
 
 4 263 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924093714263 
 
In compliance with current 
 copyright law, Cornell University 
 
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 replacement volume on paper 
 that meets the ANSI Standard 
 
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 2001 
 
THE CHAMPAGNE COimTKT. 
 
THE 
 
 CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 EOBEET TOMES. 
 
 NEW TOEK : 
 
 GEOEGE EOTJTLEDGE & SONS, 
 
 416, BEOOl^ STREET. 
 
 1867. 
 
;/ 
 
 
 
 K.\ 
 
 •-f/l. 
 
 \7 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 
 
 BOBEKX TOICES, 
 
 in tilie Clerk's Office of the District Court of tiie Southern District of 
 New York. 
 
 PKINTED AT HEW TOSK FOE THE fBOPAIETOBS. 
 
To 
 
 MY FEIEND, 
 
 EICHAED E. MOUNT, Je., Esa. 
 
PEEFAOE. 
 
 "DHEIMS, pronounced by its people as if it 
 were spelled Ram, is but a four hours' ride 
 from Paris, on tbe railway to Strasburg. Its 
 great Cathedral, its other antiquities, Roman and 
 mediseyal, and the more material objects of in- 
 terest which the town offers as the chief centre of 
 the manufacture of champagne wine and woollen 
 fabrics, can be seen, as travellers are wont to 
 see, in a half a day. Our countrymen, howcTcr, 
 though swarming over Europe, are so fond of 
 hiving within the luxurious delights of Paris, or, 
 when on the wing, of fluttering in the glare of 
 fashionable notice, that they care not to wander, 
 even for a moment, from the lustfulness of the 
 French capital, or the publicity of the European 
 highways. It is thus that Eheims, with no in- 
 citement to expense and no occasion for display, 
 is generally unheeded by the profuse and osten- 
 tatious American traveller. During my residence 
 
X FBEFACE. 
 
 of nearly two years in the town, there was not 
 more than a dozen of my countrymen who visited 
 it, notwithstanding that at the same time Amer- 
 icans in Paris were counted by tens of thousands, 
 and unnumbered flocks of them were thronging 
 the fashionable routes of IWiee and the Conti- 
 nent of Europe. I hope, however, to have shown 
 that Eheims, though unnoticed by the frivolous 
 traveller, is of sufficient interest to justify, in the 
 opinion of the sober-minded, this record of my 
 observations. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A French Town in Olden Time — Change — Airival at 
 Eheims — Prom Railway Station to Hotel 1 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 lion d'Or at Eheims — Cold Keception — ^The Shade of the 
 Cathedral — An Old Hotel — ^Ancient and Modem Com- 
 forts — A Luxurious Landlord — A French Marriage — 
 Cook and Waiter — ^Living — Guests — Commis Voyageurs — 
 English Travellers — Broad and Narrow Church — British 
 Eccentricity — American Visitors 10 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 The Great Cathedral — Eamiliarity does not beget Con- 
 tempt — ^A Perfect Work of Art — Emotions — Unity — 
 ■Magnitude — Grand Entrances — Profusion of Statues and 
 Ornaments — Religious Poem — Temple of Reason — Bells 
 — ^The Seau Bieu — The Resurrection — Humor in Stone 
 — Sodom and Gomorrah — Architects of Middle Ages — 
 Sturdiness of Faith — Influence of the Cathedral Good or 
 Bad? 26 
 
 CHAPTER rV. 
 The Great Cathedral the Scene of Great Events — Baptism 
 of Clovis by Saint Remi — A Great Priest of the Olden 
 Time — The Miracle of the Ampulla — Heretical Inter- 
 pretation — ^Worship of Bare Bones — ^The Sacred Oil a 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Power in the diureh — Joan of Axa at E^eims — Koyal 
 Anointing — The Eevolutionists and the Holy Oil ... 39 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 Chtiroh of Sainf Eemi — Specimen of Early Art — A Good 
 Study — ^Tomb of Saint Eemi — Holy Bones — Skeptical 
 Osteology — Fair of Saint Eemi — Jugglery inside of 
 Church — Jugglery outside 51 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 Champagne Wine — ^Export to the World — To the 'tJnited 
 States — The Manufacturers — Genuine Wine — Consular 
 Seal — History of Brands — CompaxatiTe Excellence of 
 Champagnes — The Widow Clicquot — Eussian InTasion 
 of her Cellars — A Shrewd Commis Voyagmr — Fictitious 
 Brands • 59 
 
 CHAPTEE Vn. 
 Champagne a Modem Wine — Hautvillers — Dom Perig- 
 non — A Jolly Mont — Fetits Soupers — A Pious Pil- 
 grimage — Bacchus Street- — The Champagne Trade — 
 How conducted— A Great Effort — Eailure — The Wine 
 Travellers — ^Effect of Champagne on Health 74 
 
 CHAPTEE YXn. 
 The Germans at Eheims — The Mayor of Eheims — The 
 Good Apprentice — An Imperial Favorite — A Baron in 
 the Wine Trade — ^French and Germans Compared — A 
 Nation of Shopkeepers — Aristocracy of Wine Makers 
 — Nobles in the Business — Eeflected Glory — An Old 
 Family 86 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 The Wine Country — The Famotis Vineyards — Sobriety 
 of Scene — Subdivision of Land — Villages and Inhab- 
 itants — Chateaux — Extent of Vineyards — A Travelled 
 Wine — A Delicate Native — The Grape — Different 
 Qualities 9S 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 FAGK 
 
 The 'Wonderful Season of 1865 — Hopes and Pears of 
 Wiue-Growers — The Vintage — A Trip to Verzenay — 
 Prom Eieims into the Country — A Still Scene — Mon- 
 sieur Jacquessou and his Projects — Sillery — A Comic 
 Opera Scene 109 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 At Verzenay — Among the Vineyards — A Cheerful Scene 
 of Labor — A Near View of the Vintagers — The Vint- 
 agers at Work — The Grapes at the "Wine-Presses — 
 The Wine-Pressing — The Grape Juice — Supervision of 
 Wine Manufacturers — The Mayor in WorMug-day Suit 
 — A Taste of the Grapes — A Luscious Feast — Kind 
 of Grapes — Comparison of Vintages — Gro-wing Excite- 
 ment — Departure from Verzenay 119 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 The Must in the Wine Manufactories — The Wine Estab- 
 lishments — Convents and Monasteries — The A-wakened 
 Spirits of JoUy Monks- — Old Vaults — The Arrange- 
 ment and Structure of Wine Manufactories — Tasting- 
 Koom — Cellars — A Subterranean Visit 131 
 
 CHAPTEE Xin. 
 Manufacture of Champagne Wine — Marriage of Wines — 
 The Cwoee — Test of Sugar — A Delicate Operation — 
 Careful Nursing — -Drawing Off — Ea-w Wine — Effer- 
 vescence — Breakage — Change of Temperature — Effect 
 of Age on Champagne 141 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 Sediment of Wine — How Deposited — Dosing — Dry and 
 Sweet Wine — Corking — A Miniature Guillotine — 
 Cording — Branded — Packed and Delivered 151 
 
XIT CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 How to cioose Champagne — Exoeesive Popularity no 
 Recommendation — Pop and Eroth — Strength of Bottles 
 
 — Tests of 'Quality of 'Wine — False and True — A Uni- 
 versal Distillery — "When to drink Champagne — Corked 
 
 — Ice or no Ice — How to drink Champagne — Inao- 
 cence of Good Champagne — Social Qualities — An Aris- 
 tocratic Wine-mixer 162 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Merinos and other Woollen Productions — Their Superiority — 
 The English Factory — Annual Production of WooUen 
 Goods — Wonderful Effect of Free Trade — Duty of 
 Consul at Rheims — No Necessity for One — Biscuits 
 de Mheims — Gingerhread — Gingerbread-maker to the 
 Emperor 175 
 
 CHAPTER XVtl. 
 Dullness of Rheims — How Accounted For — Antiquities — 
 Phsedrus — Palace — Jovinus — Zes Armies — An Old 
 House — Where the Family of Joan of Arc put up — 
 Origia of Rheims — Roman Arch — Kotel de Ville — li- 
 brary — Rare Books — Pictures — A Brazen lie . '. . .182 
 
 CHAPTER XVni. 
 A Cheerful Resort ^Cemetery at Rheims — Death and 
 Champagne — The Balls of the JSmiarcadere — Police 
 Morality — The Theatre — Respectability — An Official 
 on Exhibition — Carnival at Rheims — Masked Balls — 
 Fairs and Holidays — Easter Fair — Public Promenades 
 
 — Their Frequenters — An Inland Town -^ Canal — 
 Walks and Illusions — Forest of Ardennes — Shake- 
 speare and Sportsmen 192 
 
 CBLiPTER XIX. 
 An Old Proverb — Ingenious Interpretation — The Boeotia 
 of France — Intellectual Character of the People — One 
 Newspaper — One Public Leciure — Reading and Writ- 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 iug — Ignorance of Better Classes — Schools — Priestly 
 Pedagogues — Clipped--winged Youth — Parity of Books 
 
 — Conversation — The Cluh — Imperial Academy — 
 Deep Drinkers and Gross Feeders — Tripe and Slugs — 
 Inhumanity — Hat Politeness — Insult 205 
 
 CHAPTER 5X. 
 The Deleotahle City — Plenty of Churches — Tenacity of 
 Belief — Ahounding Priests — Their Chajraoter — The 
 Cardinal Archbishop — Skulking Priests — Exclusion 
 from Society — The Man of the World Cure — The 
 Priestly Cure — The Tidy Girls of Eheims — Mentrereuses 
 
 — Beauty and Corruption — Famous Beauties — Licen- 
 tiousness — Mariage de Convenance — Fast 'Married "Wo- 
 men — No Society 217 
 
 Appendix 229 
 
THE 
 
 CHAMPAGNE COTJNTEY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A Frencli To-wnin Olden Time — Change — Arrival at Rheima — 
 From Eailway Station to Hotel. 
 
 TT was somethiiig of an event, in olden times, 
 -*- the getting to a Freneli provincial town. The 
 stout Norman horses of your post-chaise, or of 
 the diligence, their blood heated toward the last 
 stage by the joint efforts of the heavy boots and 
 smarting lash of the postilion, galloped through 
 the great' iron gate, past whiskered sentinel, into 
 the very midst of the place. Your arrival was 
 announced by the loud crack of the whip of the 
 postilion, who had been busy for the last mile or 
 two in adjusting a new snapper for the occasion; 
 and your lumbering vehicle, swaying from side to 
 side until it almost touched the projecting houses 
 of the narrow street, clattered loudly over the 
 great stones, and awakened the sleepy old town to 
 a lively consciousness of your arrival. 
 
 Tou were a traveller in those days, and appre- 
 ciated, as a traveller likes to be. A flock of the 
 
 B 
 
2 'mE CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 "sons and daughters of poverty," as Sterne calls 
 them, followed you. The bended head of the aged 
 beggar bent lower, the pale face of suffering woman 
 forced up a beseeching smile of welcome, and tat- 
 tered boys' aii,4 gi!!l§s^row;fo-(>hi|c]5; their imstimctiYe 
 laughter, and assume a seeming respect. They all 
 saluted you, and each demanded of milor Anglais a 
 sou for " the love of God." Coppers rained down 
 upon them. Whether vanity or charity was the 
 source of the shower it mattered not, at least as.far 
 as they were concerned. , It brought some cruinbs 
 of comfort to their spare feasts. " Let no man say, 
 'Let them goto the devil,'- — 'tis a' cruel joiirni^ 
 to send a few miserables ; and they have had sitffef- 
 ings enow without it. I always ■ think it befen?/' 
 says Sterne, "to take a few sous Ciut, -in -my.: hand; 
 and I would counsel every gentle; traveller to djoisso 
 Kkewise ; he need not be so exact in setting/ down 
 his motives for giving them;; they wili be' registered 
 elsewhea:e." -'■-•<■ v;::;; lu-; 
 
 ' You drove -with great noise: into the couirt-y.aird 
 of the old hotel, and your travelling .importance 
 became still more manifest. ; A jnor« obseqmous 
 group welcomed you. They were. all. there;f-4i3ie 
 maitre. d' hotel with, his freshly combed ' Tvig and 
 blandest manner; '^Qinaitr esse. cr hotel hvihsximmi 
 expansive cap and with her sweetest -smile y- the 
 gar cons with their napkins^ the .:badgesi; of ■service, 
 hanging from their arms, keeping respeotfiilly> with- 
 in the shadow of their capacious master; ^ejikmlms 
 
dc 'c/jftrnfere' giggling in the resir ; and the c/jc/' taking 
 the occasion of ventHatiiig himself, at the' door of 
 Ms'Mtehen -as he lifted his white cotton c'ap in 
 honor of the new-comer; and scrutinizied his pr615- 
 ablfe 'capacity for j^fcfe and his other.' claims ' to oon- 
 sideiraition.'-' .•■■•■. ;■■:'■,' <..■ .■■ ■ . •■ , ; 
 
 ■ 'Every on« -said that he was charmed, to see you, 
 aiid- said it 'With such an emphasis of apparent 
 frankness- thatybii helieved it; ^ You were hoiwed 
 and sihiledhy all. out of the chaise, yoTi were hbwed 
 and smiled up the: stone steps j' you were bowed and 
 smiled into the hall, you were . howed : and shuled 
 up-stairs, and finally bowed and smiled into your 
 rbOm. Each one seenied almost ready to kiss you, 
 riot excepting the snuffy landlord and the greasy 
 cook; The- Welcome you received radiated so warm 
 a- glow that you hardly remarked the chilly discom- 
 fort of the stone^ halls; windy corridors, and naked 
 rooms of the. decrepit ■ old structure, ia which lyoii 
 had taken up your temporary home. Intensely be- 
 loved/ as you had reason to believe, by every ;one 
 in the hotel, from the exparisivie ■ Monsieur Jacques 
 in the white waistcoat to the trim little Mademoi- 
 selle Sophie in the red velvet bodice, who in the 
 warmest expressions have daily given you 'the 
 btrbngest pledges'^of'affection,: you did not doubt 
 that -each- man, woman,' and child, was ready' to 
 SaeadBee his'Orher-alifor'yoti, nrntil you had seeii 
 the^^bill.;-; Twelve 6oM^«esi three bottles of Ghafmu 
 Morfjaik'i-^-^^&e were 'oiily- two,-^fifteen francs 
 
 b2 
 
4 TEE CSAMPAGNi: COUNTRY. 
 
 a piece, and bad at that. " It's enormous ! it's a 
 swindle ! I won't pay it." 
 
 " Pardon, Monsieur ! Monsieur deceives himself. 
 The Lion (VOr never makes some errors. Ask of 
 milor Anglais who lives in London, Sir Smith or 
 Sir Brown, I know not what, I cannot call hack to 
 myself his name, and Monsieur the Prince of Es- 
 terhazy, who comes here aU the days when he 
 makes visits to France. All the great world comes 
 to the lAmi d'Or, and one never hears a complaint 
 before Monsieur. Monsieur deceives himself." 
 
 " You must change the bill. Monsieur Jacques, 
 or I will positively not pay it." 
 
 Yotor resolute attitude compels the extortionate 
 landlord, possibly to make a deduction of a third 
 part or so of the overcharge, and you may be 
 smiled and bowed out, as you were smiled and 
 bowed in; but you depart with a suspicion that 
 Monsieur Jacques was not so friendly, and Made- 
 moiselle Sophie so loving, as they pretended to be. 
 
 This is all changed now. The railway mth its 
 iron paths extending all over France as elsewhere, 
 and its quick communications, has pushed down the 
 old barriers, and let into every ancient town and 
 village a daily crowd of visitors. The whole 
 world, ever going and coming, has become mixed 
 into a flowing and uniform mass. The individual- 
 ity of the traveller is lost in that indefinite aggre- 
 gate of humanity termed the travelling public. 
 Sterne would be puzzled now-a-days to distinguish 
 
CHANGJE—ASmrAL AT JREEIMS. 5 
 
 one from another in the "whole army of peregrine 
 martjrrs." He would be forced to put the quick- 
 moving throng under the one class of " Travellers 
 of Necessity," for all are irresistibly impelled by 
 steam. No one seems to have any other motive 
 than to arrive and depart, and hardly an eye for 
 aught but the time-table. There are still dotibtless 
 idle, inquisitive, lying, proud, vain, splenetic, and 
 simple travellers; but they are aU so shaken up 
 together, and so rapidly swept forward in the 
 flowing mass, that they are neither sufficiently dis- 
 tinct nor at rest to be recognised. 
 
 I was much struck, on my first arrival at Eheims, 
 with the great change effected by the modem system 
 of travel. This old town, where the first Christian 
 king of France was consecrated ; where church and 
 cathedral, a thousand years old, still stand defiant of 
 time ! where the Black Prince had fought and Joan 
 of Arc triuniphed,^the Ville Sainte, as it has been 
 called, the Christian capital of the Grauls, — must 
 surely, I thought, have successfully resisted modem 
 innovation. When, therefore, after having been 
 shot out of the very heart of Paris at the rate of 
 thirty miles an hour, through the vine hills of 
 Champagne, and, in less than four hours' time, dis- 
 charged with a large load of miscellaneous people 
 at a station which I was told was Eheims, I could 
 hardly believe the fact. 
 
 The station, or r/are, as it is called, is like most of 
 those in France, a pretty enough structure of light- 
 
6 , , ■m&:es>iMf^GWx cojm:<Fi^.\ 
 
 coliMjacL s|;Q3ae,-/a®(i- »f (jyroji' eea§ glass^ j : .^he .railway. 
 sef:vraiits:,iaji(i::^e«s ^;'.«r#cs;:,^0, j)olite,Tbut arfeitrM'y.; 
 TM^ will insistriipon.fsubjectig.^, you. ,|<?i!fi sortiiof 
 BfjUitary (liseipliae, tir^eringyofi-. iato single fi],e,[:aiid, 
 halting yoM^ until they ha^e.; done .twisting .theis', 
 mustaches<Rand .e«;e ready tp.iaarqh-yo;!).-, put*) _Ali 
 &ad ': is yeigT. systeinati<j'l&,nd possibly iaecessMy ^ , ihiit , 
 it(is not flattering.io 6n&who;is old enough t9 ha,ye; 
 travelled in the ancient days of; pogtrphaise, and; dili- 
 gence. S^DurfailiFpad:! official I is .eyidently.O(>,re-j 
 sp.e'ctef of personsirr-in. fact, he; does ; iiot.j^egar^; tb,e 
 iadividual at aU. . F5?#^e^^ MM, , Jfo^s^ewg, , ".Ypui* 
 ticket^ Sir," ':aad., according .to. its ; eli9«s|||,c£itipn aaid 
 address,,. yOu, are: thrust .in.,he:re,;;Qr. pi^t ©iutr^here,. 
 jmst^like .any Other package whiQh, \0.il|iout :any reri 
 gard to the, nature or yalue, of its- .content? j is.^trans-* 
 ported fern plaefe to place ;.asmairked and diEec.ted.i;, 
 -I'Ai -Eheims,, as :n,bw-:iaifiao$t;r6teiywhers in the 
 provinces, your dignity is not even coria,plimented- 
 with the ; :.offer of , aj sepajcaie . carriage, .hu4. a • loUd, 
 shout of '^ Oninibus'L Imtt d'Orl":. "'MaismMppge /.'■ 
 'kMotelde.. Cmmneree /?'. -^f I/idbreld^Or /" ^ LIMqM, 
 dolhert /"addressed to nij-one iiij.particular, but tp 
 the etowd tin; general;,:, salutes. .yoiir,. ear, :-You iaj?e, 
 borne out by the: throng, and oatchiRg by.aquioki 
 ghmce the name iZi«bft d'Or you, twist yourself io.. 
 the idirection of its .omnibus, whose' ddor gapes wide, 
 open, in a line with some half-dozen others, and ygyl 
 are finally,- if aleiii,!-. swept into the right vehicle i on 
 a.wave of tossing :.crinQline and confused broa,dclQth., 
 
FR0M:\R41LWAY, SS^ATWJSr. TO- HOTEL. 7 
 
 "jCtoeg-iil the omnifciis With GPiished hat andinffled 
 tesJljier, you: strive ia- vaini to settle yowrself. • You 
 alpe-'re"sigfced : by heaps of uaaceommodatiiig hand- 
 boxes add -angular travelliilg uKJonvenienees of all 
 Mads; -. ' 'Tf oti g^t no ^raetical sympathy from the 
 wMsketed. monsieurs and crinolined madames, who 
 aiie-'thfe lUost poKtely uncivil people in the world-^ 
 crdwding.yoU out of youT: seat, puffing bad cigars 
 iato-yoUTiface, and doing other very disagreeable 
 tMaig's;rwith' the utmost profusion of apology and 
 s;J!?©etnfeSs of smile. \. You complain of a neighbor 
 who- is i stifling you with the smoke of a three-sou 
 c^aii' '" Mille parddnSj 'Monsieur. Monsieur, you 
 have reason, truly ; one does not fiiid more good 
 cigar^'j" -and he goes on puffing more vigorously 
 than' 'ever, ' Ydu: expresSj by a very translatable 
 phiase of- countenance, the uneasy sensation pro-- 
 duced' by the constant rubbing against your knees 
 of' -the' iron-bound sa!c-(^e-?JM«i5 of the female passeh- 
 gesr. opposite. She gives you an ineffable smile of 
 syihpathy in return, but her confounded box edn^ 
 tiHties'. to' -chafe you until- the end of the joirmey. 
 
 i^hete is little to be observed from a low-roofed, 
 (Stoivded omnibus, where all the senses and faculties 
 you may possess are fully occupied in taking carfe 
 of ycttir best Parisian- hat, and guarding your toes, 
 latees,, and ribs, against the dangerous encroach- 
 msintsJof; your feHow-passengers and their inexor- 
 able aecotopaiiimtots. 
 
 ';:i3aI;^ydu^!rapid■ transit from gcint to hotel you. 
 
8 TEE CHAMPAGITE 00T7NTST. 
 
 however, catcli a glance now and then, in spite of 
 your preoccupation with the care of yourself, of the 
 town, and its people. You discover at once that 
 Rheims has two existences, the old and new. 
 
 From the station, with its fresh structures of 
 Caen stone, where aU is flurry, movement, and 
 noise, there extends around the town a wide belt 
 of new streets and huildings. This part has all the 
 modem look of useful uniformity that helongs to 
 the era of the railway, and dates from its construc- 
 tion some eight or ten years ago. There are long 
 boulevards, with rows of pretentious private hotises, 
 great structures with taU chimneys, new churches, 
 and a wide suburb of small tenements filled with 
 working people, and smutty with the smoke of the 
 foundries and factories about which they cluster. 
 With that unfailing regard of modem France for 
 the pleasures of the people, there has been provided 
 a wide walk with gardens, which are already gay 
 with parterres of flowers, and adorned with an ex- 
 cellent statue in bronze of Colbert, the great minister 
 of finance. The trees of a few years' growth cast 
 as yet but a spare shade ; but the old men, nurses, 
 children, and loungers of liheims do not fail to seek 
 what they can get of it. 
 
 Leaving the new gare and the stretch of its 
 contemporary boulevard, with its cheerful prom- 
 enade and showy row of pretentious houses, the 
 omnibus passes through an older but still modem 
 portion of the town, which is enlivened by thriving 
 shops and gay cafes. 
 
HOTEL D XT LION If OS. 9 
 
 I did not become fairly conscious of the existence 
 of the old town until the omnibus drove up to the 
 Hotel du Lion d'Or, which shrinks humbly in the 
 shade of the great Cathedral. That stately monu- 
 ment has stood for more than six centuries ! With 
 such a venerable witness to testify to the age of 
 Eheims, I cotdd no longer doubt its antiquity. 
 
CHAPTEE li. ■ ■ 
 
 Lion d'Or at KheiiTis — Cold' Beception— Tlie Shade of the 
 Cathedral — An Old Hotel — Anoient and Modem Comfoi-ts — 
 A Luxurious Landlord — A French Maniage — Cook and Waiter 
 — Living — Guests — Commix I'oyagewrs — English Travellers — 
 Broad and Narrow Church — British Eccentricity — American 
 Visitors. 
 
 TF any one who, in this era of ranroads, is 
 -^ dropped out of the omnibus iato the sombre 
 com't-yard of the Hotel du Lion d'Or of Bheims, 
 expects to be received with the honors of ancient 
 days, he will be disappoiuted. The democracy of 
 modem travel does not recognize the tnilor of the 
 old regime. There is no bland Monsieur Jacques 
 or sweet-smiHiig Madame at the Hotel du Lion 
 d'Or, at any rate, to offer service with bended 
 knee and obsequious protestations of fidelity. 
 
 A little squat tallow-faced man, with a big head 
 of greasy hair, fat, limped, and pale from want of 
 light, air, and exercise, shows himself momentaiily 
 at the door, and bestows a sickly smile upon the 
 whole omnibus load. Each passenger thus comes 
 in but foj the faintest share of the weak welcome 
 of the faetotmn of the establishment. 
 
 Overhearing myself described as un des gens qui 
 
sp^if, fljTj'iWs.jjffr;. /'oTj^m^MS,// pne -of, those peogj^, 
 who came by the ommhus," I becain^ at . .011,0^^ 
 <x)p,s9ioifs,all my dimmished importance j and. sum- 
 ig^pgipig, all my powers :o£ self-reliance,. looked ou,t 
 :£c(^.;jp.y- ojm.ifljterest.; 
 
 ^;,:A., tired traveller, unsoothed by iiie, flattery cpf 
 poUte.wprdS: .and, officious attention, is easily riiffied 
 in,.temperi and sharpened by anger is quick to feel 
 *feR ;'<ij^<3<gnfQi;ts of an ill-provided hostelry, fwa^ 
 ng g^ioner, within the bleak walls of the i*'o« dlQr,, 
 thp,fl:;I;discoveEedi,its wants, of all the requisites of 3. 
 "w^ellrappointed. inn. Kept standing on the stone 
 flaoT .;of the bare hall, awaitiag my turn to be in- 
 sciq.bed on the ragged entrytbook, , until my pa- 
 tience was nearly exhausted, I v^nally received, , a 
 kjSjf, heavily weighted with brass chain and nuniber, 
 ^nd>was. left, with a few confused words of direction, 
 te.find.niy way to the appoiiited bed-chamber. 
 
 : iTh^-;room, uncarpeted, and its floor alternately 
 sticky and; slippery from irregular polishing, with 
 its.deerepit fiimiture and faded ha^gi^gs, gave no 
 p^^mise pf comfort. The sun was shining brightly 
 as,; I. alighted in the court-yard, but as I entered 
 my., chamber, although it "was still noon, I found 
 i,t;^s . dark almost; as a dungeon, I drew aside, 
 the purtains and looked out of the window. . \1V[y. 
 sight was, as it were, suddenly blocked by a da^k 
 mass, the limits of which, in any direction, I cpnld 
 nQt>dis.CQy®?-from my point of view. ...This, was 
 thp; great Cathedijal, which, Sieparated from, the hotel 
 
12 THE CBAMFAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 only ty a narrow street, darkens it with a per- 
 petual shadow. 
 
 As time habituated me to the somhre atmosphere 
 of my room, and my consciousness became fully 
 awakened to the presence of my imposing neigh- 
 bor opposite, I learned to appreciate the gloom in 
 which I was shrouded, and would not have ex- 
 changed it for the brightest sunlight that ever 
 shone. The obscurity was in tone, with the archi- 
 tectural massiveness of the great Cathedral, and in 
 the day-titne there was light enough to follow, 
 with my eye, the intricacies of the rich tracery, 
 and the ever-varying lines of the sculptured fig- 
 ures of that part of the colossal structure which 
 closed up my window. 
 
 There has been a Sotel du Lion (VOr on the 
 same site as the present one, ever since the first 
 stone of the Cathedral was laid, more than six 
 centuries since. The hotel, as it now stands, may 
 be a hundred years old. It is a plain structure 
 of stone, and although when it was built it may 
 have been deemed a marvel of convenience, it by 
 no means offers those comforts which the traveller 
 now demands. In the time of the post-chaise and 
 diligence, when those who travelled were rare, and 
 landlords appreciated them accordingly, the Hdtel 
 du Lion d'Or acquired the reputation of being one 
 of the best in France. 
 
 The American, accustomed to the manifold com- 
 forts of the hotels of the large cities and towns of 
 
A LUXURIOVS LANBLOSD. 13 
 
 his own country, is surprised at the comparative 
 wretchedness of provision of the S6tel du Lion 
 d'Or. He has been told that it is the best inn 
 in Eiheims, a town of great trading importance, 
 containing no less than sixty thousand inhabitants, 
 and naturally expects, if not the luxury, at least 
 some of the convenience of the modem hotel. He 
 finds neither. There is no reception or reading- 
 room. If one cares to read the solitary copy of 
 the Journal d^s Behats taken by the establish- 
 ment, and has patience to wait until every one 
 else has read it, and is then fortunate enough in 
 finding it, he will be obliged to peruse it probably 
 while standing in the hall. There is no bath to 
 be had. There is not a solitary female servant in 
 the hotel, and in many of the rooms not even a 
 beU to awaken the sleepy male ones. The locks, 
 keys, and fire implements having been made a 
 hundred years ago, when all France was not capa- 
 able of making either one of them, it is impossible 
 ever to close door or window perfectly, and to 
 make the attempt without skinning your knuckles, 
 or to lift a coal until after a dozen persevering 
 efforts. 
 
 At the Lion d'Or you may see the landlord 
 occasionally dining sumptuously in the best parlor, 
 and absorbing the attention of cook and waiter at 
 the expense of every guest. He is of course too 
 much occupied with his partridge and champagne 
 to be disturbed by any one. If you have occasion 
 
14 fSJS VI^AMTAGNE VbXTJS'TR r. 
 
 tb see ' Him at another 'tirne, you' will lie toH 
 probably that he has gone to the^ races; tiyiii^'a 
 new horsey or dining in town-/ Guests "dome arfd 
 go without ever knowing thai there is afiy 'Other 
 hotel proprietor than the Uttle flaccid' ■/ffl6&i!«i!»2!' in 
 the hall, who is every thing by 'tunis,^'^trieasm'er, 
 jjifl!?<re (?7i6^e?, and head waiter. ■ •'■■ ; ^j.oc: 
 
 : 5ftre present is the third of the three 'geiiera1a:6&s 
 of the same family by' which the hotel- 'has- be^h 
 kept. The first' proprietor had been ia cook, -who 
 -was enabled by Ifie drippings of the gr6iase-p6t'"tb 
 make inbney enough to' purchase th6 hotel' is6'ki 
 his master. The second, his son, inherited' it-in 
 the " due course of natiiie," and having refeed 
 with a fortune of half a million of francs' of %6, 
 lives, a pokily hoiirgeois, grandly at Rheims. ' Hdiv- 
 ing two childrein, he has given the hotel io^ the 
 elder, a scapegrace of ft' son, i-who donsidera 'that 
 the Lion cl'Or exists only to administer to his b'Wii 
 pleasure, and who accordingly gives no- Heed -'to 
 the comfort of his guests. Thejr6puta,tibn of the 
 Hotel, estftbhshed by the father 'iaiid gfaii'dfathei*, 
 has still a sufficient traditionary infliieiice'^o make 
 it the most frequented and best paying inn of 'the 
 town. Of course it will hot be long 'before some 
 stranger,' a Son of modern eiiterjpriseV will eoiQei'''to 
 Eheims,'and starting hear the railway -stalaon'-'' a 
 Grmtd'' Hotel, gather all the ' scattered tfavelli^iis, 
 who how are So ighonTiitiotisiy tresited by''thfe d&zM 
 little mean "taverns of the place."'' Thtejdck^'prb^ 
 
■■A FUJSMC'H WATiEIAGE. 16 
 
 prietor of ' the Lion d ' Or ■ fiading Ms inheritance 
 thus sensibly diminished, ■will be forced to coihe 
 down from his high horse, or any other animal in 
 Ms 'keepiiagi 
 
 : There was an episode in the Mstory of tMs young 
 prodigal which is so iliustrative of French Society 
 that I cannot forbear telling it. His father, findShg 
 that what with his bostly stud of fast ; horses and' -Sie 
 expenses of a faster mistress, he was not only neg- 
 leeting the business of the hotel, but spending niore 
 than its profits, determined to make the attempt 
 to reform Mm. The appointed means in France is, 
 as is well known, marriage. The father accord- 
 ingly looked out for a wife for Ms son. This was 
 easily found, as money, not character, is what is 
 demanded by the anxious parents of France, and of 
 the former, the family of the would-be husband had 
 a goodly share. 
 
 The Avife of the younger brother suggested her 
 bosoito friend, a girl just out of school, as a suit- 
 able victim. Proposals were immediately made and 
 accepted by her parents. In two weeks after, the 
 young proprietor of the hotel brought back a blobin- 
 ing bride of some eig'hteen summers. Before h^r 
 marriage j by which she, or rather her parents^ had 
 bargained away her life-long existence, from the 
 verge of childhood to the end of her days, for the 
 small consideration of the Uncertain profits of 'the 
 -Limi d'Or, she had seen her husbaiid b "^ a siiig'le 
 dky, and then only under the watchfitl eye of her 
 mother. 
 
16 THE CHAMFAGNE COUNTST. 
 
 The fast young proprietor of the hotel, by a 
 perseverance in his wild pranks, kept the eyes of 
 his tender young bride constantly bathed in tears 
 throughout the whole honeymoon. Parents, how- 
 ever, having interposed and bribed away a saucy 
 rival, I am happy to record that the pretty wife of 
 mine host of the Lion d'Or was begianiug to smile 
 again at the prospect of the commencement of her 
 husband's reformation. 
 
 Thanks to Henri, the head waiter, and Anselme, 
 the cook, who have descended from the time of the 
 father of the present proprietor of the hotel, a fair 
 dinner, tolerably well served, can be had at the 
 table cVlwte for four francs, wine included. Both, 
 however, presume occasionally upon their privi- 
 leges as old and indispensable servants of the house, 
 and have their troublesome humors even when 
 sober, and while drunk, — no rare occurrence, — 
 sauce, service, and temper are alike turned awry. 
 
 A wide-awake stranger, or an liahitui of the 
 hotel, can live tolerably cheap at the Lion d'Or. I 
 had two of the best rooms in the house, and all my 
 meals, for about three hundred francs a month. It 
 costs ordinarily from eight to ten francs for a day's 
 living, but a sharp eye must be kept on the charges 
 for bougies and other extras, or this amount may be 
 p-reatly exceeded. 
 
 Like most hotels, the Lion d'Or receives a very 
 miscellaiji' ins throng of visitors, but the commis voy- 
 agettrs — bagmen or commercial travellers — greatly 
 
HOTEL GUESTS. 17 
 
 preponderate. These accordingly give tone to the 
 house, which, as may be inferred, is not of the 
 most refined kind. 
 
 These commis voyageurs have none of the clean, 
 wholesome air of the BngHsh bagman, or of the 
 sprightly dandyism of the American commercial 
 traveller. They are generally heavily whiskered 
 fellows, who look as if they had slept out a week at 
 least without changing their linen, which is always 
 of dubious whiteness. Though one would gladly 
 avoid their society, it is quite impossible at the 
 Hotel du Lion cVOr, where you get so inextricably 
 mixed up with them, that, in spite of the greatest 
 efforts at exclusiveness, you find yourself cheek by 
 jowl with one or the other. You of course soon 
 learn all about the price of wool, the demand for 
 merinoes, and the state of the wine market. These 
 grave topics are generally enlivened by a descrip- 
 tion con amore of the last dancing nudity of the 
 French opera at Paris, the newest feminine meteor 
 circulating in the orbit of the Bois dc Bmtlogne, or 
 of the infernal debaucheries of the Bal Masqui, 
 Of politics you hear not a word. Louis Napoleon 
 has put his firm finger on every lip ; and these men, 
 every one of whom was formerly the reddest of Red 
 Republicans, now dare not whisper the words liberie, 
 fraternite, egaliU, or hum the faintest stave of the 
 Marseillaise. 
 
 Their ignorance of every other country but their 
 own is sublime, and you mixst not be surprised to 
 
 c 
 
18 THE CSAMFAGNE COVNTEY. 
 
 be asked by any of them, if you came from Amer- 
 ica by land or sea. The commion Frenchman is 
 not only ignorant of all other parts of the globe 
 except France, but wilfully so. He is so absorbed 
 in the admiration of la belle France, that he cannot 
 admit the possibility of a rival. He therefore reso- 
 lutely blots out of his map of the world every other 
 country but his own. 
 
 During the season of travel, there is always at 
 the Lion d'Or a goodly number of English tour- 
 ists. These are generally of the ordinary staple of 
 continental travellers. They are barristers, Oxford 
 and Cambridge fellows and students let loose by 
 vacation ; clergymen who can afford to keep curates 
 at home to do duty for them ; rich old maids, in 
 search of attention, and willing to pay for it ; un- 
 easy invalids and restless idlers striving to forget 
 themselves ; titled personages, who travel for no 
 other reason apparently but because they are titled 
 personages, and that an occasional continental tour 
 is a manifestation of their rank ; and thriving citi- 
 zens with their families, who leave home because 
 they can afford to, and those they think their bet- 
 ters do so. 
 
 The clerical portion of the English travellers was 
 easily classified. A single glance was sufficient to 
 distinguish the degrees of Church, whether high, 
 low, or broad. The evangelical parson was mid- 
 dle-aged, round, rosy, and only severe-looking when 
 an unfortunate Eomanist distorted his vision. The 
 
NATIONAL FECULIAEITIMS. 19 
 
 white cravat and the general sombreness of color of 
 his dress, were the sole external iadieations of his 
 profession. 
 
 The straight-cut waistcoat, the long black frock 
 made without lappels and eoUar, to look as much as 
 possible Hke the robe of a CathoKc priest, the faint- 
 est show of white cravat, the premature baldness 
 carefully exposed, so that it might be mistaken for 
 a tonsure, the clean-shaved face, and the rigid move- 
 ment of the whole person, indicated the Eitualist. 
 
 The broad churchman was hardly distinguish- 
 able by dress. He might be in shooting-jacket, 
 and have his face as much hid in hair as a " whis- 
 kered Pandour," with no external iadications of 
 the priestly office. Tou might converse with him 
 for hours without recognizing the profession to 
 which he belonged. If a theological question, how- 
 ever, should perchance arise, you would soon dis- 
 cover by his liberal treatment of it that he be- 
 longed to no other than the " Broad " party of the 
 Church. 
 
 The story is well known of the Cockney who de- 
 clared the French to be the strangest people in the 
 world because they called a cabbage a shoe (chou). 
 This is a fair illustration of the judgment passed 
 by one people upon the national peculiarities of an- 
 other. A foreigner is often laughed at for habits 
 and dress which are as much the result of the 
 nature of his country as its language. There are 
 undoubtedly certain peculiarities which cannot be 
 
 c2 
 
20 THE UBAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 sustained by the logic of necessity, but -wbich are 
 nevertheless adhered to with the utmost tenacity ; 
 as, for example, the itch of the Scotchman, who, on 
 going up to London, woidd not be^cured of it, for 
 " it reminded him of Maggie and Bonnie Dundee." 
 The like prejudices are fair subjects for derision, 
 and as soon as Frenchman, Englishman, or Amer- 
 ican are laughed out of such as they have, the bet- 
 ter for them and those who may be exposed to their 
 contact. Let the Scotchman by all means submit 
 to a course of sulphur, the Frenchman employ a 
 washerwoman, the Englishman sweeten liis sour 
 face with a smile, and the American swallow 
 his saliva. It is their duty to purify, cleanse, 
 brighten themselves, and to mend their manners. 
 The world has a right to laugh them all into de- 
 cency. 
 
 There are, however, national peculiarities which 
 have their foundation iu reason, that should be 
 clung to tenaciously by their possessors, and re- 
 spected by others. The French, apparently uncon- 
 scious of their own ludicrous weaknesses and vices, 
 are the greatest scorners of aU those who differ 
 from them. The sons and daughters of perfide 
 Albion are especially made the objects of their ia- 
 discriminate ridicule. The Englishman's fidelity 
 to his wife, his observance of the Sunday, his iU- 
 fittiag suit of heavy broadcloth, his devotion to 
 roast-beef and pale ale, his awkward attempts at 
 French, his frosty manners, his moody temper, and 
 
BRITISH ECCENTRICITY. 21 
 
 his sneer at all that is not British, his virtues and 
 vices alike are ridiculed by his Grallic neighbor. 
 
 L' excentricite Britannique is a favourite topic with 
 the scornful Frenchman, and you hear of some 
 strange illustrations of it, — for an example : of one 
 Englishman who blew out his brains because he 
 wag tired to death of putting on and taking off his 
 clothes; or of another who plunged the carving- 
 knife into his own brisket because the sirloin before 
 him was overdone. These I accepted as humorous 
 exaggerations, and without the remotest relation to 
 truth, until at the Hotel du Lion d' Or I witnessed 
 some specimens of British eccentricity, which 
 seemed to bring the stories I had heard within a 
 nearer range of probability. 
 
 A stout John Bull, of capacious stomach and ftdl 
 purse, alighting one day at the Lion d'Or, asked if 
 Kheims was the place where champagne was made 
 and asked nothing else. On being answered iu the 
 afftrmative, he immediately pushed for the dining- 
 room, where he took up the wine-card and began 
 business. Pointing to the long list of the different 
 brands of champagne, he ordered the first. Hav- 
 ing received and drank this, he sent for the second, 
 then for the third, and so on until he was so drunk 
 he cotdd neither drink nor order more. The waiter 
 now, as he had been previously directed by the ec- 
 centric Englishman, made a mark on the wine-list 
 with a pencil to indicate the point to which the 
 force of swallow of the capacious guest had brought 
 
22 TSE CSAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 lum. On the next day, at an early hour, the Eng- 
 lishman resumed his day's work, heginning where 
 he had left off, and drank bottle after bottle, until 
 he could drink no more. The waiter again made 
 his mark; and once more, on the third day, the 
 Englishman having partly slept off during the night 
 the effects of the wine, came to his work with re- 
 newed vigor. He did as he had done before, and 
 this time finished the list, but was borne off insen- 
 sible to bed. Next morning he was prepared to 
 continue his labors, but finding by an inspection of 
 the wine-card that his work was done, he expressed 
 himself perfectly satisfied, paid his bUl, and took the 
 first train for Paris. He had drunk twelve bottles 
 of champagne in three days, during which time he 
 had not left the hotel, and hardly the dining-room, 
 and departed from Eheims without having put a 
 foot in its streets. 
 
 Another English oddity, a dowager Lady C r, 
 
 drove up to the hotel, producing a very lively ex- 
 citement within its sombre stone walls and supply- 
 ing me with a distraction in that dullest of dull 
 places. The dowager came in her own travelling 
 carriage, one of the old-fashioned sort, with rumble 
 behind and great square cases above and below. 
 Such a sight had not been seen in the court-yard 
 of the Lion d^Or for many a year, and the little 
 tallow-faced clerk was in a state of unusual agita- 
 tion. First from box descended courier and coach- 
 man, then from rumble two maids, and finally from 
 
AMEBIGAN VISITORS. 2a 
 
 carriage itself, dowager, a little withered old wo- 
 man, smothered in furs, followed hy first little dog, 
 second little dog, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, 
 eighth, and lastly hy meek man in white cravat 
 and black suit. One of the maids, who dined at 
 the table d'hote hy my side, became very communi- 
 cative over the vin-ordinaire, and recounted to me 
 the whole history of her mistress and her peregri- 
 nations. " My lady" was the distiaguished Countess 
 
 C , the mother of two grown-up sons, piUars of 
 
 the British state. She was always on the move, 
 and travelled in the state in which I had beheld 
 her. She was never without her suite of eight 
 puppies and the clergyman (for such was the meek 
 gentleman in white cravat whom I had seen bring- 
 ing up the rear of the long line of dogs). "My 
 lady " and her dogs always travelled inside, and the 
 clergyman sometimes, when countess and puppies 
 required priestly consolation. On other occasions 
 he took his seat in the rumble with the maids, or 
 with the flunkies on the box. 
 
 Not half a dozen Americans came to the hotel 
 dtiring the eighteen months I lived there. They 
 were the usual money-spending Americans who 
 had strayed by some accident from Paris, or the 
 highways of travel, and finding neither the show 
 nor the sensuous delights they desired, soon went 
 away again. There was one studious young coun- 
 tryman of ours, who, having read in Murray's 
 " Gxdde Book " that Pitt and Wilberforce had in 
 
24 TEB CHAMPAGNE COVNTRY. 
 
 their youth come to Eheims to learn French, was 
 emulous of their example, and had determined to 
 do likewise. He had resolutely decided in Paris 
 upon ahandoning its pleasures and the society of 
 his idle friends, and staying sis months at least at 
 Eheims. He remained just sis hours, finding the 
 place too dull, and went hack hy the first traia. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 The Groat Cathodiul — Familiarity does not bog-ct contempt — 
 A Perfect Work of Art — Emotions — "Unity — Mag-nitude 
 
 — Grand Entrances — Profusion of Statues and Ornaments 
 
 — Keligious Poem — Temple of Eeason — Bells — The Seau 
 Dim — The Kesurrection — Humor in Stone — Sodom and 
 Gomonah — Architects of Middle Ages — Sturdiness of Faith 
 — Influence of the Cathedral- Good or Bad ? 
 
 rpHE great Cathedral was proof against that 
 -•- severest test of sublimity, — familiarity. For 
 eighteen months I saw it almost every hour of the 
 day, and hardly less often in the night. Waked 
 at early dawn by the sonorous chimes of its bells, 
 my eyes, as I lay abed, first opened upon the mas- 
 sive structure. Though dimly visible in the gray 
 twilight, I was fully conscious of its majestic pre- 
 sence. It seemed to reveal itself to my conscious- 
 ness by some spiritual force, while still dart and 
 indistinct to my obscured vision. There was a 
 feeling akin to that of which every one is con- 
 scious on the approach of a storm, Avhen there is 
 not only the visible, thunder-cloud to herald its 
 coming, but a vague influence which mysteriously 
 indicates its nearness to all, even to the blind. 
 In or out of bed I could not tiuTi my eyes 
 
26 TEE CEAMPAGNE COVNTRT. 
 
 toward the window without seeing the great Cathe- 
 dral, for it covered the whole field of vision, 
 above, below, and on every side. If I descended 
 from my chamber, its gigantic presence still ab- 
 sorbed my view. I could neither go out or come 
 into the hotel without passing close by its sublime 
 front. Wherever I went, in the town or many 
 miles out in the neighbouring country, the Cathe- 
 dral, visible from any direction, was still omni- 
 present. 
 
 Though it thus was seen by me daily and almost 
 hourly, it never lost its impressiveness, and I could 
 never pass it in going or coming, whatever might 
 be the preoccupation of my mind, without turning 
 up my eyes to it in unaffected reverence and ad- 
 miration. 
 
 It was some time before I cared to analyze the 
 causes of the effect produced by the great structure. 
 I was contented to look upon it and feel its 
 influence as a work of art, perfect ia itself as 
 the statue or picture of the greatest sculptor or 
 painter. Few buildings have ever affected me in 
 this way, and I have looked upon many of great 
 architectural pretension. These have excited more 
 or less my wonder, by their magnitude, the con- 
 structive skiU they displayed, and the grace of 
 proportion or richness of adornment of their sepa- 
 rate parts, but have seldom filled my mind with 
 a contented consciousness of a complete oneness 
 of beauty. This impression is made, however, by 
 
MAGNITUDE OF THE CATBEBEAL. . 27 
 
 every perfect work of art, whether it be statuary, 
 painting, or architecture, and coming at the first 
 glance precedes every attempt at analysis. Such 
 an impression is produced by the Cathedral at 
 Rheims upon all who have the least sympathy with 
 art, and is quite independent of a knowledge of its 
 technicalities. I am sure that one who could not 
 distinguish by name the nave from the spire, would 
 be imable to resist the impressive influence of this 
 great work. 
 
 Those who have studied architectiu'e say that the 
 Cathedral at Eheims is remarkable above all other 
 structures for its unity. They declare that it must 
 have arisen out of the conception of some single 
 mind of genius. One in his enthusiasm calls it 
 " petrified music." This harmony of parts and pro- 
 portions in so large a structure is indeed marvelous, 
 and is imdoubtedly one of the essential causes of its 
 effect as a work of art. 
 
 The magnitude of the Cathedral is remarked by 
 the passing observer, not so much from the im- 
 pression it makes'from its own massiveness, as from 
 the littleness to which every object exposed to its 
 contrast is reduced. The whole length of the 
 building from the steps in front to the last exterior 
 buttress of the abside in the rear, is about six 
 hundred feet. It is three times as long as the 
 wide front of the Astor House ; and three Trinity 
 Churches, placed in a line one after another, would 
 not extend so far as the length of the Cathedral. 
 
28 THE GEAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 Three streets open opposite to each of its great 
 sides, and these thus face as many blocks of hnild- 
 ings. 
 
 Some critics have declared that the Cathedral is ' 
 disproportionately narrow, hut this, if a defect, is 
 only observable in the interior. Like most others 
 of continental Europe, it has never reached its due 
 altitude of spire ; but the two towers nearly three 
 hundred feet high which crown the front, though 
 not completed, are, with their colossal columns re- 
 duced by height and justness of proportion, models 
 of aerial grace. 
 
 The grand entrance of the church is universally 
 conceded to be the finest in the world. It is com- 
 posed of three lofty arched porches, each at least 
 a hundred feet high, and so deep and spacious that 
 many hundred people might easily find refuge 
 within them ivithout entering the Cathedral. 
 
 These porches are crowded so thick with figures 
 and decorations, as, in fact, is almost every other 
 part of the Cathedral, that the building seems built 
 of statues, flowers, and ornaments. I could only 
 compare this abounding sculpture to those curious 
 specimens of Chinese ivory carving, where the 
 figures are so crowded together that it is impossible 
 to discover the ground from which they have been 
 deftly cut. One cannot sufficiently admire the skiU 
 and taste by which these innumerable statues and 
 ornaments have been sculptured, and adjusted in 
 harmony with the lines and proportions of the great 
 
A UELIGIOTTS POEM. 29 
 
 Cathedral. When it is viewed in the twilight of 
 the morning or evening, or at a distance so that the 
 forms of the figures cannot be distinctly seen, their 
 lines and varying shades so harmonize with each 
 other and the immense structure, that the Cathedral 
 loses nothing of its graceful heauty. The whole 
 building assumes in the obscurity of uncertain light 
 or remoteness, a vague massiveness of fretted orna- 
 ment and intricate tracery. Some seven hundred 
 statues can be counted in the three porches alone, 
 five hundred of which are little less large than life, 
 and the rest colossal. All the niches are filled with 
 them : they are crouching under the capitals ; they 
 line the successive arches of the porch ; they are 
 climbing thick upon all the columns, and axe stand- 
 ing in close array along the base. There is besides 
 a profusion of flowers, leaves, and ornaments of all 
 kinds. "It is a religious poem carved out by 
 the sculptor," says Baron Taylor; "it is an 
 animated book which relates in action the legends 
 of saints ; episodes from the Old and New Testa- 
 ment, and subjects taken from the history of 
 Rheims." 
 
 There are statues of saints, bishops, angels, 
 prophets, kings, queens, and men and women of 
 all degrees and condition. The whole history of 
 Adam and Eve is recorded in thirty-eight bass- 
 reKefs. On the lintels of the doors, there is given 
 in stone a ftdl account of the conversion of Clovis, 
 the first king of France. He is there, just after the 
 
30 THE CSAMPAGNE COTTNTSY. 
 
 battle of Tolbiac, beseeching Saint Waast to 
 instruct him in the knowledge of the true God; 
 again, he is saying his catechism to Saiat Eenai ; 
 thirdly, he is on his knees before him, demanding 
 to be baptized ; and finally he is up to his waist in a 
 tub of holy water, receiving what he had asked for. 
 
 Among the colossal statues there are Moses, 
 Jonas, EKas, Habakkuk, Saint John, and Saint 
 Eemi. Under one arch there is a representation, 
 in all its details, of the Passion of our Saviour. 
 Under another there is a representation of paradise 
 and hell ; and imder a third all the virtues, illus- 
 trated by Solomon, David singing. Saint Louis, 
 Saint Cecilia, Noah planting vines, and Saint Ber- 
 nard preaching. Above all these, crowning the 
 porch, are groups of gigantic figures representing the 
 triumph of the Virgin, the Crucifixion of our Saviour, 
 and the Exaltation of the Cross. These groups are 
 considered marvels of art for the thirteenth century. 
 
 The flowers which crown the columns of the porch 
 are said to be as faithful and complete a rendering 
 of the whole flora of Eheims as Linnaeus himself 
 could have described. 
 
 Many of these statues and ornaments have been 
 roughly handled by time and the revolutionists of 
 1789, who, after having in vain attempted to de- 
 molish the Cathedral, finally inscribed upon its 
 sacred front : " Temple de liaison. Le peuple Fran- 
 gaii reconnait PEtre Supreme et I'immortalite de 
 fame." " Temple of Eeason. The French people 
 
ARCHITECTURAL ORNAMENTS. 31 
 
 acknowledge the Supreme Being and the immortal- 
 ity of the soiil." * 
 
 Ahove the porch, even to the summits of the 
 graceful towers, there is a continued succession of 
 statues, bass-reliefs, flowers, and architectural orna- 
 ments. There is the magnificent circular window, 
 called by the French la rosace, over the middle of 
 the three entrances. Its immense size, with a diam- 
 eter of at least fifty feet ; the intricate yet orderly 
 interweaving of its ogives flowing together in grace- 
 ful and unchecked continuity ; the rich fretting of 
 its frame, and its perfect harmony of proportion 
 and design, with the noble front in which it is set, 
 almost justify the audacious conception of the ar- 
 chitect who designed it as a symbol of eternity, 
 "the eye of invisible Divinity." On either side 
 of this great circular window rise two turrets. In 
 their niches, formed by isolated columns, are colos- 
 sal statues of the Virgin and of three of the Apos- 
 tles. 
 
 Above the rosace is a sculptured group represent- 
 ing the combat of David and Goliath, and aroimd 
 its border there is a host of biblical figures. Then 
 just above is a moulded cornice indicating the sum- 
 mit of the body of the structure. From this there 
 arises a gallery of double ogives, which from below 
 looks Kke a mere border of moulding, but which is 
 
 * The inscription at present is: "Deo Optimo Marimo siilj 
 invocatione TjeataB Marise Virginis Doiparse templum seculo 
 Xni. reediflcatum." 
 
32 THE CEAMFAGNJE COTINTUY. 
 
 in fact a strong stone balustrade inclosing a wide 
 paraj)et, to which on Palm Sunday the whole clerical 
 force of the Cathedral ascend and chant the Gloria, in 
 ewcekis and the Laus Deo. The gallery has in con- 
 sequence obtained the popular name of the Gloria. 
 
 Above the gallery, within seven compartments 
 formed by light open columns which terminate in 
 turrets, there are forty-niue great statues represent- 
 ing the conversion and baptism of Clovis. These 
 are again surmoimted by forty-two other colossal 
 statues, which for a long time were received as a 
 faithful representation of the monarchs of France, 
 but are now supposed to be the kings of Judah. In 
 fact, the archaeologists seem as little agreed about 
 the interpretation of much of the statuesque writing 
 of the Cathedral as of the hieroglyphics on the mon- 
 uments of Egypt. 
 
 Above the gallery, at either end, rise the towers 
 whose graceful columns are seen miles away, cut- 
 ting, but not interceptiug, the sky, for each one is 
 isolated, and the air and light pass freely through 
 the whole structure. "Within these towers are the 
 bells, of which no one enters Eheims without be- 
 coming immediately conscious. They ring out the 
 hours, and each of the quarters and halves. They 
 ring up the people to work at early dawn, and ring 
 them home at sunset. They ring at every mar- 
 riage, and ring at every death, when there is money 
 enough to pay for their purchasable joy or grief. 
 The great thunderer, Ze gros Bourdon, tells its 
 
CSARLOTTM. 33 
 
 own history in these words : "I am Charlotte, 
 weighing twenty-three thousand (Ihs.), named by 
 Monseigneur the most illustrious Charles Cardinal 
 of Lorraiae, Arehhishop and Duke of Eheims, first 
 peer of France, and the most illustrious Lady Ee- 
 nee of Lorraine, Abhess of Saint Peter of the said 
 Eiheims, his sister. Pierre Deschamps, native of 
 Eheims, made me." It was cast in 1570. It has 
 a diameter of about eight feet, and the thickness of 
 a foot. As for the power of its clapper, it fills not 
 only the whole of Eheims with its voice when it 
 speaks, but may be heard at a distance of a league 
 or more from the Cathedi'al. 
 
 When the revolutionists of 1790 decreed in then- 
 wisdom that one bell was enough for any church, 
 " Charlotte" was dei)iived of her companions. 
 These were melted down at the mint. They have, 
 however, since been replaced by others, and the bell 
 choir has now its full complement of loud-voiced 
 performers. 
 
 The side entrances are hardly less grandiose and 
 rich in sculpture than the porches in front. It is 
 impossible to enumerate, much less to describe, the 
 multifarious images and ornaments of all kinds, 
 which embarrass with their wealth every observer, 
 and fatigue even the patient scrutiny of the anti- 
 quary. 
 
 No good Catholic comes to Eheims without doing 
 reverence to what its people call their Beau Dieu, 
 a colossal statue of our Saviour, whose benign face 
 
34 TUB CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 smiles a sweet welcome to all who pass or enter the 
 northern porch of the transept. The curious and 
 irreverent Protestant will he more attracted, proh- 
 ahly, by the other scidpture of the same porch. 
 This is a representation of the last judgment. The 
 trumpet has soimded, and Christ, seated upon his 
 throne, is pronouncing the verdict of perpetual hap- 
 piness or misery upon the good and had, asthey are 
 brought up by his administeriag angels. Below 
 our Saviour sitting in judgment are two long rows, 
 each extending to the full width of the great en- 
 trance, of the dead rising from their tombs. The 
 artist, notwithstanding the gravity of his subject, has 
 not been able to resist its humorous suggestions, and 
 nothing can be more ludicrous, and natural too, than 
 the expressions of wonder on the faces of the various 
 figures, as they get out of their beds of stone. They 
 are represented in every variety of attitude : some 
 as if pushing oif the lids of their tombs, and peering 
 through the openiag thus made ; some with their 
 heads just popping above the edges ; some in a sit- 
 ting posture; some with one leg out; some springing 
 into the air, and others who have escaped entirely 
 are seen running for their lives. The figures, 
 though small, are very expressive. Surprise is the 
 predominant expression, but its degrees are marked 
 with wonderful distinctness. Some are rubbing their 
 eyes, as if only half-awake to the consciousness of 
 the great change ; some, bewildered by it, and as if 
 doubtful of the result, are hesitating to leave their 
 
SUMOE IN STONB. 35 
 
 atodes of stone to which they have been so long ac- 
 customed ; some are leaping out, in a state of frantic 
 excitement ; and others are hastening away, as if 
 fearful of being subjected to another imprisonment. 
 
 Below this comical representation of the Resur- 
 rection, there is a line of more serious sculpture. 
 An angel is separating the good from the bad. The 
 former, a cheerful band of popes, bishops, kings, 
 and others, axe following with readiness their saintly 
 guide, who is leading them up to our Saviour. The 
 latter, chained together, are being dragged by an 
 ugly demon, with a mouth extending from ear to 
 ear, to the devil, who is stirring up a caldron, 
 licked vigorously by flames and fiUed with bubbling 
 babies. These infants are the iinbaptized, of whose 
 skulls, according to Saint Augustine, heU is paved. 
 Among the sinners destined to the caldron, are 
 some in mitres and priestly robes. I thought it 
 a wonderful stretch of liberal opinion on the part of 
 the clergy, that they should have condemned some 
 of their own sacred body. A shrewd clerical 
 friend, however, suggested that it was probable 
 that the ecclesiastics who built the church were 
 thus taking sweet revenge upon some theological 
 faction opposed to their own. 
 
 In addition to these strange illustrations of re- 
 ligious comedy and tragedy, there is a representa- 
 tion on the same porch of the virtues and vices per- 
 sonified. Among the latter there is an exhibition 
 of monstrosities more monstrous than those of Sodom 
 
 d2 
 
36 TEE CHAMPAGNE COUNTET. 
 
 and Gromorrah. The Chapter of the Cathedral, 
 not many yeais ago, in concession to the modern 
 sense of decency, ordered these figures to be defaced, 
 but not suiHciently to mask the original design. 
 They remaia a curious illustration of the plain 
 speaking of a past age. 
 
 The interior of the Cathedral never made an im- 
 pression upon me commensurate with the grandem- 
 of the exterior ; but the general tone of vastness 
 has been well preserved by a due harmony between 
 fitness and space. The windows, by a skillful ar- 
 rangement, have been made to transmit the light in 
 such a way that it shines brightly within the sanct- 
 uary where it is wanted, but glimmers obscurely 
 everywhere else, producing that dim, religious at- 
 mosphere which accords so well with the sentiment 
 of the worshipper. 
 
 The decorations of the interior are far less pro- 
 fuse than those of the exterior, but the capitals of 
 the great pillars are adorned with rich and elabo- 
 rate sculptures of flowers and leaves of all kinds, and 
 animals in every possible posture. 
 
 The pictures are few and not remarkable, al- 
 though it is claimed that there is a Titian among 
 them, which I found it difficult to believe. Most 
 of the stained glass is modem, but that filling the 
 great circular window glows with a great variety of 
 brilliant colors harmoniously arranged. 
 
 The foundation of the present Cathedral was laid 
 in 1212, about six and a half centuries ago. Two 
 
STUSHINESH 01<' FAITH. 37 
 
 Christian clmrclies had already stood on the same 
 site. The first was constructed in the year 401, 
 of the stones o£ the ancient citadel, in whose place 
 it was substituted. The inhabitants remonstrated 
 with the Archbishop for demolishing their means of 
 defence. " Begone, cowards ! " answered the ec- 
 clesiastic of sturdy faith. " God will be our pro- 
 tector." Hence the motto of the city's arms : " Siih 
 Ctistodia Coeli." This first church was razed to 
 make way for a second, built in the year 822. This 
 having been burned to the ground, the present 
 edifice was commenced in the year 1212. 
 
 Alberic de Humbert was at that time Archbishop 
 of Rheims, and he resolved upon founding a monu- 
 ment worthy of the Church then in the fullness of 
 its might. He called to his aid an architect of re- 
 nown, Robert de Courcy. Having exposed to him 
 his views, the artist was so startled by their gran- 
 deur that he asked where the means could be 
 found for executing a work so great as was contem- 
 plated, and added that, if commenced, it could 
 never be finished for want of money and hands. 
 " Begin," replied the Archbishop. " God and man 
 will aid us." The architect, impelled by the force 
 of faith of the great priest, did begin. In thirty 
 years after the first stone was laid, the To Bevm 
 was chanted within the walls of the present Cathe- 
 dral, that great monument which could have been 
 raised only by ecclesiastical power, inspired by 
 faith. 
 
38 THE CHAMPAGlSrE COUNTRY. 
 
 The Cathedral has defied time, though rudely 
 shaken by the profane hands of revolutionary icon- 
 oclasts, and left to moulder by the neglect of an 
 irreverent age. The government of Louis Napo- 
 leon, however, by a liberal grant of money for the 
 restoration of aU. the great monuments of IVance, 
 is fast reinstating the great church in its early 
 glory. 
 
 A friend, ah intelligent and liberal clergyman of 
 the English Chui'ch, after a morning's inspection of 
 the Cathedral, asked me somewhat abruptly, as if 
 his mind had been disturbed by an imeasy doubt, 
 whether I thought "the influence of this great 
 ecclesiastical monmnent had been for good or 
 bad?" 
 
 "As 'a thing of beauty is a joy for ever,' I could 
 not doubt," I said, " its refining influence as a work 
 of art ; of its religious power I was equally confi- 
 dent, for it evidently was one of those great attract- 
 ive forces by which the faithful are drawn and 
 kept within the fold of the Church, and the coher- 
 ency of that great body is maintained ; as for its 
 good moral efiect, that might be doubted, if it 
 were true, as is generally stated, that Rheims is one 
 of the most coirupt cities in the world." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The G-rcat Cathedral the Scene of Groat Events — Baptism of 
 Clo-ris by Saint Remi — ^A Great Piiest of the Olden Time — 
 Tlio Miracle of the Ampulla — Heretical Intei-pretation — 
 Woi-ship of Bare Bones — The Sacred Oil a Power in the 
 Chmch — Joan of Ai'C at Ehcimsi — Royal Anointing- — The 
 Eevolutionists and the Holy Oil. 
 
 rpHE Cathedral at Rheims has been the scene of 
 J- some great events in the history of France. 
 It was here where Clovis, the first Christian king 
 was baptized by St. Remi, who had already, aided 
 by Queen Clotilde, his first disciple, converted him 
 to the new and true faith. 
 
 " The Avay from the hostehy of the king was 
 prepared," says Feodoard, a monldsh chronicler of 
 the Middle Ages. " The streets on both sides were 
 hung with tapestry, the church adorned, and the 
 baptistery perfumed with balms and other odors, 
 so that, with the grace of Grod, the people thought 
 that they were regaled with the sweet smells and 
 delights of a paradise. Then the holy bishop, pre- 
 ceded by his clergy, bearing the Book of the Evan- 
 gelists, the crosses and the litanies, proceeded to 
 the baptistery, holding the king by the hand, and 
 followed by the queen and the people. But it is 
 
40 TSS CSAMPAGNF COUNTRY. 
 
 said that by tlie way the king asked the bishop if 
 this ceremony was the Idngdom of Grod which he 
 had promised him. ' No,' said the bishop ; 'but it 
 is the beginning and the entrance of the way by 
 which we are to arrive there.' "When they had 
 reached the baptistery, the clerk, who earned the 
 holy oil, could not approach in consequence of the 
 great crowd which kept him back. If, after the 
 sanctification of the font, there was a want of oil, it 
 was by the will of God. 
 
 "But the holy bishop, raising Ms eyes toward 
 heaven, prayed secretly and in tears. And behold, 
 incontiuently, a dove, as white as snow, presented 
 itself, carrying in its bill an ampulla (phial) full of 
 of holy oil sent from heaven ; of which the odor 
 was so admirable, and the sweetness so ineffable, 
 that not one of those present had ever smelt the 
 like. The bishop took this ampulla, and after he 
 had sprinkled some of the holy oil upon the baptis- 
 mal water, the dove vanished. 
 
 " The king, moved by so great a miracle, and 
 full of joy, renounced iaeontinently the pomps and 
 works of the devil, and demanded baptism of the 
 bishop. When he had entered the font of eter- 
 nal life, the venerable bishop said to him roundly 
 and eloquently, Mitls depone colla, Sicnmber ; adora 
 quod inceudititi, iiiceude quod adorasti. 'Bend thy 
 head humbly, Sicamber; adore what thou hast 
 burned, bum what thou hast adored.' 
 
 " Alboflede and LendelMlde, sisters of the king, 
 
A GRJSAT TSIJEST OF TSE OLDEN TIME. 41 
 
 were also baptized, with three thousand men of the 
 host of the French, without counting the women 
 and little children. And we may well believe that 
 on this day the holy angels were greatly rejoiced 
 in heaven, as devout men received a great joy on 
 earth." 
 
 Saint Remi was a man of genixis. He was one 
 of those rare men gifted with the power of mastery 
 over his fellows. " He was grave of face, vener- 
 able in person," says an old chronicler, " redoubt- 
 able by his severity, amiable from his benignity. 
 It is true that the austerity of his face seemed 
 menacing, but the serenity of his heart was soothiag ; 
 so that to the pious and good he appeared in visage 
 a Saint Peter; while, on the other hand, to Ul- 
 Hvers he had the look of a Saint Paul. He neglected 
 repose, he rejected ease, he invited labor, he bore 
 contempt with patience, he cared not for honor, 
 he was poor in purse, rich in conscience ; himible 
 and modest with all his merits, severe and grave 
 toward vice. And the Lord was not willing that 
 such a light should be put under a bushel, but 
 placing it above the lamp, caused it to burn, with 
 the fire of divine charity, and to illumine the Church 
 with the pure flames of most excellent virtue." 
 
 Saint Eemi occupied the see of Rheims seventy- 
 four years, and to his wise administration may be 
 traced the foundation of the ecclesiastical power of 
 the " holy city," as to his personal influence is due 
 the consolidation of the French people into a na- 
 
42 TSM CBAMPAGNE COTTNTRT. 
 
 tion. Clearly discerning the political subtlety, and 
 appreciating the military skill of the barbarian 
 leader, Sicamber, he determined to bend him to his 
 views, and divert his undoubted capacity and 
 powerful influence from opposition to the Church to 
 its support. He succeeded by first converting the 
 queen, through whose gentle influence the barba- 
 rian monarch was persuaded to listen to the teaching 
 of the Christian Apostle. The rude Sicamber be- 
 came a docile disciple, but may be supposed to 
 have had still some liagering doubts of the new 
 religion until the day of his baptism, when the 
 great miracle of the dove descending with the holy 
 oil from heaven confirmed his belief, and fixed him 
 a devout convert to the true faith. 
 
 The Protestant, who is not botmd to believe in 
 any miracles since those of our Saviour, may see, in 
 this affair of the dove and the sacred oU, merely an 
 ingenious contrivance to impose upon the credulous 
 mind of a barbarian. Supposing a fraud, — call it 
 pious, or what you may, — ^it is not difiicult for an 
 heretical mind to conceive how it may have been 
 executed. It might have been easy to train a tame 
 pigeon to come down to the baptismal font. No 
 other means need to have been used than that so 
 ingeniously devised by the present Emperor of 
 France to make the imperial eagle, bought of a 
 showman in London, to alight upon him when he 
 made the abortive attempt to rule over France 
 without asldng leave of the French by a plebiscite. 
 
SAINT REMI. 43 
 
 Louis Napoleon, as is well known, had trained the 
 bird to feed from his shoulder, upon which there 
 was put its daily rations of raw beef and hard egg. 
 
 Such an explanation of the so-called miracle, 
 would seem to the Protestant mind more rational 
 than the supposition that aU the laws of nature had 
 been suddenly abolished for the sake of sending to 
 the impatient priest, direct from heaven, a phial of 
 Venetian glass, filled with hog's lard and scented 
 with bergamot. 
 
 It was, however, let Protestants sneer and doubt 
 as they may, a genuiae miracle according to the 
 testimony of all good Catholics. Such it was be- 
 lieved to be at the time, and such it has been 
 believed to be ever since. 
 
 Saint E.emi was undoubtedly a very great man. 
 He ruled the king, who yielded wiUingly to his 
 domination, and bestowed upon him every possible 
 favor. Clovis gave his own niece in marriage to 
 Saint Remi's near relative, Amould, whom he cre- 
 ated Count of Rheims. He was not only a royal 
 but a popular favorite, and the impression that he 
 made was great and abiding. The present Cathe- 
 dral, built eight himdxed years after his death, is, 
 as it were, a memorial of his Hfe and his eulogy in 
 stone. Every incident of his career is there inde- 
 libly inscribed, and he and his miraculous pigeon 
 are reproduced a himdred times in sculpture and 
 painting. At the present day, in this nineteenth 
 century, fifteen hundred years at least since he Hved, 
 
44 TSE CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 he is worshipped not only by the inhabitants of 
 Eheims, but by all the good Catholics of Prance in 
 his bare bones. These, of questionable authenticity, 
 are preserved with pious care, and are supposed to 
 be possessed of miraculous power, which is tested 
 year after year by thousands with a result appar 
 rently satisfactory to all. 
 
 Saint Eemi was certainly a very great man, and 
 merited the favor of the king, the love and honor 
 of his flock, and the veneration of all future ages. 
 If, as Protestants pretend, the miracle of the dove 
 and holy oil was no miracle at all, how humiliating 
 it woidd be to human nature to think that, if it had 
 not been for a vulgar juggler's trick, the great 
 Christian Apostle of France might have preached 
 in vaia and been long since forgotten. 
 
 Whatever may have been its real origin, the 
 supposed heaven-sent ampulla of oil has been a 
 power in the state, and has controlled some of the 
 great poKtical as well as religious events which 
 form the history of France. The miraculous un- 
 guent was supposed to be possessed of a force of 
 unction which endowed the kings of France, in 
 their consecration, with a right more divine than 
 the divine right of aU other kings. " Our king is 
 consecrated," says a chronicler of the reign of 
 Lous YII., " with on oil brought by a dove from 
 heaven to the baptism of King Clovis, and pre- 
 pared by the hands of angels by divine virtue, 
 while the other kings of Christendom are eonse- 
 
JOAN OF ASC. 45 
 
 crated only with a material and common oil. So 
 that ia fact the kings of France are more worthy 
 and noble than all the other kings of the world." 
 
 It was the oil of divine origin which quickened 
 the devout heroism of the Maid of Orleans, and 
 impelled her to clear, by her valiant arm, the road 
 to Eheims. After the brilliant siege of Orleans, 
 and when the English were stunned with the blow, 
 she declared for an immediate march to the " sacred 
 city," with Charles VII., that he might be anointed 
 king with the sacred oil. The English had made 
 a great mistake, when by their early victories they 
 might have crowned their young Henry VI. at 
 Rheims, in neglecting to perform an act of such 
 vital importance to their cause. Joan of Arc, by 
 her valor at Orleans, had now the opportunity of 
 anticipating the enemy, and this she determined 
 to do. 
 
 Her proposition was deemed rash by the leaders 
 of the French army. Not a voice was for her. 
 The politicians and the strong heads of the council 
 smiled; they were for going slowly and surely, 
 that is to say, that the English might have time to 
 resume their courage. These counsellors all gave 
 interested opinions. The Duke of Alencon was 
 for marching to Normandy, to reconquer Alencon, 
 and others this or that way, as their interests 
 prompted. 
 
 The advice of the ardent Maid was not heeded 
 until again victorious at Patay ; but even now ob- 
 
46 TSE CSAMFAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 jections were ijxged, and on arriving before Troyes 
 obstacles, which seemed insurmoTintable, presented 
 themselves, and gave a momentary triumph to the 
 party of temporizers. The king had no artillery or 
 provisions. 
 
 " We can tate the town in three days," declared 
 the resolute Joan of Arc. 
 
 "We would readily wait six," said the Chan- 
 cellor, " if we were sure of the truth of what you 
 say." 
 
 " Six ! you shaU be there to-morrow" rejoined the 
 Maid. 
 
 The town was taken, and Joan of Arc became 
 still more urgent for an immediate march to 
 Rheims. 
 
 The march began, Joan of Arc, " armed at all 
 points," leading the way and hastening on the king 
 with unceasing diligence. On arriving at Eheims, 
 the Maid, who entered the city vrith the king and 
 his people, was greatly regarded ; and the Dukes of 
 Bar and of Lorraine, and the Lord of Oommercy, 
 accompanied by a goodly array of warriors, came 
 and offered their services to her. 
 
 On the next day, which was Sunday, it was de- 
 termined that the consecration should take place. 
 During the night preparations were made vrith 
 such diligence that everything, marvelous to say, 
 was ready in the morning. As the Abbe of St. 
 Eemi, its guardian, is not accustomed to deliver 
 the sacred ampulla, except with a certain form and 
 
JiOYAL ANOINTING. 47 
 
 ceremony, the king sent the lord of Eais, mareschal 
 of France, the lord of Boussac, also mareschal of 
 France, the lord of Grreville, the master of the 
 Bowmen, and the lord of Oulant, the high admiral 
 of France, to get it. After having taken the usual 
 oath that they would conduct the holy ampulla in 
 safety to the church and back again to the ahhey, 
 the Abhe, clothed in all his ecclesiastical robes, 
 accompanied them, bearing it to the door of the 
 Cathedral. Here the Aj-chbishop, with his canons, 
 received the ampulla, and taking it within the great 
 church laid it upon the high altar. 
 
 Charles VII. now came clothed in the proper 
 robes for the service, and was anointed and con- 
 secrated king of France. The Maid of Orleans 
 was by his side, holding her standard in her hand. 
 " She was in fact," says the old chronicler, whose 
 authentic record is the basis of this description, 
 " the cause of this consecration, and of the great 
 assemblage. When the sacred ampulla had been 
 borne away to be taken back again to the abbey of 
 Saint Eemi, all who saw the Maid embrace the legs 
 of the kneeling king and kiss his foot, weeping hot 
 tears, were moved to pity. She incited many to 
 weep as she said : ' Gentle king, now the will of 
 God is done, who caused you to come to Eheitns to 
 receive your consecration, and thereby show that 
 you are the true king to whom the kingdom should 
 belong.' " 
 
 Thus was accomplished one of the most impor- 
 
48 TBE CHAMPAGNE COVNTRY. 
 
 tant events in the history of IVanee, and, as has 
 been seen, the little phial of scented oil was not 
 the least effective of its causes. Forty-eight royal 
 personages, kings with their queens, have been 
 consecrated at the Cathedral of Eheims. Among 
 them were Francis I., Charles IX., Louis XIV., 
 Louis XVI., and Charles X. It is recorded of 
 Louis XYI., that on the crown being placed on 
 his head, he remarked, Elle me gene ; " It feels un- 
 easy." The poor monarch was soon relieved of its 
 uncomfortable weight, by what the surgeons call a 
 capital operation. 
 
 The mode of applying the oil is as follows : The 
 archbishop opens "respectfully" the sacred am- 
 pulla, plunges into it a golden needle, and mixes 
 the oil that adheres on -withdrawing it with other 
 oil, wliich is placed in a chalice on the altar. With 
 his finger he mixes the two as intimately as possi- 
 ble, and when it is thus prepared he opens the vest- 
 ment of the king. He now kneels upon the same 
 cushion as the king while the Kyrie Eleismi is being 
 chanted. After the Litany, the Archbishop arises, 
 and, holding the cross with his left hand, says over 
 the king some Latin words, which may be thus 
 translated : " Deign to choose this thy servant (X. 
 or Y.) for king ; we beseech thee to hear us, 
 Lord. Deign to bless, elevate, and preserve him ; 
 we beseech thee to hear us, Lord. Deign to 
 lead him to the height of the kingdom ; we beseech 
 thee to hear us, Lord." 
 
THE BROKEN AMFXTZLA. 49 
 
 When certain otlier litanies and prayers have 
 been said, the aroKbisliop proceeds to the anointing. 
 He first anoints the head of the Mng, secondly his 
 breast, thirdly between his shoulders, fourthly on 
 the shoulders, and fifthly at the bend of the elbows. 
 At each application the archbishop says : " I anoint 
 thee king, with holy oil, in the name of the Father, 
 Son, and Holy Grhost." The clergy at the same 
 time chant over and oyer again the Terse of the 
 psalm beginning with, " Unxerunt Salomonem." 
 After the ceremony is over the king's shirt, deemed 
 too holy for use, is burnt. 
 
 The sacredness of the ampulla did not save it 
 from the profane hands of the revolutionary fana- 
 tics of 1790, one of whom wrested it from the grasp 
 of the priesthood and dashed it into pieces at the 
 base of Louis XV. 's statue ia the Place Eoyale. 
 There was, however, a pious and loyal observer, 
 who was fortunately at hand, and as soon as the 
 day closed he issued out from his hiding-place and 
 carefully collected the scattered fragments of the 
 phial, and scraped up every remnant of the holy 
 ointment. These he preserved with devout care 
 until the fury of the Revolution had passed, when 
 he delivered them up to the church. By a second 
 miracle, hardly less potent than the first, the quan- 
 tity of the oil had not been sensibly diminished by 
 its scattering on the pavement, and it is now re- 
 verently guarded, though in a new bottle, for future 
 use. 
 
50 TBE CSAMFAGNB COUNTRY. 
 
 Charles X. was the first and last of the Ererich 
 sovereigns to te consecrated with tlie oil that had 
 been profaned by the rude hands of the revolu- 
 tionists, and it may be reasonably inferred, con- 
 sidering his unfortunate reign and forced exit from 
 France, that the oil had lost its ancient virtues by 
 its contact with irreverent republicanism. 
 
 " The wretch," we are gravely told, " who was 
 guilty of the profanation of destroying the sacred 
 ampulla, died on the next day ia frightful agonies." 
 
OHAPTEE V. 
 
 Chiiroh of Saint Eemi — Specimen of Early Art — A Good 
 Study — Tomb of Saint Eemi — Holy Bones — Skeptical Os- 
 teology — Fair of Saint Eemi — Jugglery inside of Church 
 — Jugglery outside. 
 
 rriHEEE is another great chiirch at Eheims — 
 -*- Saint Remi. Many students of architecture 
 affect to admire it more than the Cathedral. For 
 them it has an historical interest, apart from the 
 impression it may mate, as a work of art, upon the 
 unlearned observer. The Church of Saint Eemi, 
 as it exists at present, was huilt in 1041, in the 
 early part of the eleventh century, ahout two hun- 
 dred years before the Cathedral. 
 
 As a specimen of earlier Christian art. Saint Eemi 
 has certainly an interest which cannot be claimed 
 for its great rival. Though its original purity has 
 been affected by subsequent changes and additions, 
 it still presents many features, ia aU their native 
 boldness, of the transition period, when the simple 
 massiveness of Eoman construction was yet com- 
 paratively unbroken by the rich embroidery of 
 Oriental art. Upon this sturdy stock of original 
 growth there have been, however, successively 
 
 E 2 
 
52 TEE CSAMFAGNE COVNTRT. 
 
 engrafted various shoots of the Eomano-Byzantine, 
 the flamboyant, and Greek styles, with their re- 
 spective beauties of efflorescence. The church thus, 
 in its single edifice, presents a complete school of 
 ecclesiastical architecture, worthy of the resort of 
 every curious student. 
 
 Various chapels and churches had been already 
 built upon the same site, before the construction of 
 the present church. The first was founded at the 
 time of the conversion of Gaul to Christianity. 
 The body of the great French Apostle, Saint Eemi, 
 was buried withia its walls in the year 545, and it 
 became in consequence the resort of pious pilgrims 
 from wherever the Cross was raised. Queen Clo- 
 tilde, grateful to her saintly master who had con- 
 verted her and Tier royal husband Clovis to Chris- 
 tianity, endowed the church with liberal gifts. In 
 the year 633 this first chapel was reconstructed 
 with more vast proportions; but although at the 
 time it was deemed a marvel of architecture, it had 
 hardly existed two centuries when its walls on aU 
 sides began to open, and threaten to fall. Toward 
 the close of the eighth century, it was accordingly 
 demolished, and a new structure, still more vast, 
 erected upon its ruins. This proved even less vigo- 
 rous than its predecessor, and stood but a hundred 
 and fifty years. The foundations of the present 
 building were then laid, and so deep and broad 
 that " no one," records a contemporary chronicler, 
 " dare promise himself a life long enough to see the 
 completion of the church." 
 
csjmcs oy saint memi. 53 
 
 This was a period of sturdy religious faith whose 
 earnest and vigorous expression still forcibly im- 
 press us in the massive simplicity and the deep 
 solemnity, grave even to sadness, of the sacred 
 structure. 
 
 The two towers flanking the fagade, with their 
 massive squareness and broad arches, are fine speci- 
 mens of Roman architecture, as are the mighty but- 
 tresses which support the body of the building on 
 either side. The porch, of the sharp ogival style, 
 is of a date at least a century later than the towers. 
 The side doors are still less old, and above the prin- 
 cipal one will be observed one of those lofty ogival 
 windows, composed of three sections, the central of 
 which rises above the two others. This was a fa- 
 vorite disposition in the thirteenth century,, and is 
 supposed to symbolize the Trinity. 
 
 The facade of the right transept is entirely of 
 the flamboyant style, and was executed in the 
 fifteenth century. Its colossal sculpture of the As- 
 sumption of the Virgin is in every respect analogous 
 in treatment to that of the same subject on the 
 Cathedral, and is probably by the same artist. 
 
 The interior of Saint Eemi, more vast than that 
 of the Cathedral, is wonderfully impressive. Its 
 grandeur and harmony, subduing all other emotions, 
 elevate the mind at once to a sublime and tranquil 
 contemplation. The ordinary observer will not re- 
 mark any difference in the parts ; he wiU hardly 
 regret his want of power to analyze the work. He 
 
54 TSE CSAMFAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 is content with the sense of solemn beauty produced 
 by space artfiilly subjected to grace and proportion. 
 - The student of arcliitectare mil discover the 
 various styles of different eras, but is forced to 
 acknowledge tbe wonderful skill of the successive 
 axtists living centuries apart, who, wbile giving defi- 
 nite expression each to the artistic sentiment of his 
 day, have succeeded in harmonizing their work. 
 
 The triple row of arches, rising one above the 
 other, and the galleries, which surround the inte- 
 rior, and seem to form as it were a church within 
 a church, strike the spectator as the perfection of 
 architectural art. The marble columns, which are 
 grouped around the central part of the nave, are 
 Eoman, and belonged to the praetorian palace which 
 stood formerly near the site of the church. Their 
 perfectness of proportion and beauty of workman- 
 ship prove them to be examples of ancient art of 
 the purest era. The deep Gf^othic arches they sup- 
 port intersect each other with a graceful mystery of 
 involution which surprises and delights the eye. 
 
 The chief iaterest of the Church of Saint Eemi, 
 to the iahabitants of Eheims, consists in its posses- 
 sion of the supposed bones of their patron saint. 
 These precious relics are contained within a richly 
 chased case of silver-gilt, which is kept ordinarily 
 shut up in the tomb of Saint Eemi. This tomb is 
 an elaborate structure placed behind the high altar 
 of the church. Its body is in the form of a sar- 
 cophagus, around which are statues, of almost the 
 
SOLY BONm. 55 
 
 size of life, of the famous counts of Champagne, 
 represented in their douhle capacity of warriors and 
 bishops, armed and mitred. At the door of the 
 tomb is a statue of Saint Eemi himself, in his archi- 
 episcopal robes, with eyes upturned in pious ecstacy 
 towards the dove descending with the ampulla of 
 miraculous origin. In a niche by his side, within 
 a casket of gold, there is kept the genuine oil as re- 
 ceived from heaven, though now in a glass phial of 
 terrestrial manufacture, but of celestial pattern. 
 
 The tomb is of white marble, and though some- 
 what too crowded with figures, and oppressed with 
 ornament, is a creditable work of modem art. It 
 was raised, within the last few years, by the city 
 of Eheims, in concession to the public veneration for 
 the remains of the great Saint Hemi. 
 
 The revolutionary destructives, in the muck they 
 ran against all that was venerable, knocked the an- 
 cient tomb of the revered saint to pieces, and scat- 
 tered his bones. Here, however, as in the case of 
 the broken ampulla, there was a pious guardian 
 conveniently at hand, who gathered -up the remains 
 and buried them, by night, ia the public cemetery. 
 When the people forsook their " temple of reason," 
 and returned once more to their ancient idols, the 
 bones of Saiut Eemi were brought back and restored 
 to their sacred resting-place. 
 
 The sceptics, however, persist in declaring — and 
 I have the highest surgical authority for the fact — 
 that by some means or other the bones of the great 
 
56 TSi: CBAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 Saint Eemi got so mixed up in the common tuiial- 
 place with those of others, that his skeleton came 
 back -with the right thigh-hone of one of his im- 
 known and possibly imshrived neighbours. If Saint 
 Eemi had had the good luck to leave liis right 
 instead of his left leg, aU would have been well, and 
 there might have been no scandal raised by the 
 unbelieviag Cuviers of the day, upon discovering 
 that the skeleton was possessed of two right thigh 
 bones. This scientific fact, however, has been gene- 
 rally rejected as impertinent, and has had no 
 sensible effect in diminishing the miraculous power 
 of the bones, or the public faith in it. The sacred 
 tomb still attracts daily crowds of worshippers, and 
 there is not a poor mother in Eheims, whose baby 
 is ia the agony of its first tooth, who does not 
 invoke the interposition in favour of Saint Eemi, by 
 spending a sou for a sputtering bit of grease to be 
 burnt before his tomb, which is kept in constant 
 illumination by votive candles of all kinds, from 
 the pauper's miserable dip to the rich man's brilliant 
 wax. 
 
 During the Fair of Saint Eemi, which begins on 
 the day of that saint and continues for several 
 weeks, a constant service is kept going day and 
 evening in the church. The silver-gilt case con- 
 taining the bones is taken out of the marble tomb, 
 and brought before the altar, where it is placed 
 under a gay canopy of plumes and banners within 
 sight of the people, and the reach of the oiBciating 
 priests. 
 
FAIR OF SAINT SEML 57 
 
 Thousands of devout worshippers throng the 
 church every day. Mass after mass is said, and the 
 long line of quiteurs, "beggars," headed by the 
 Suisse (beadle) in glorious apparel of cooked-hat and 
 red plush breeches, and robed priest, and terminated 
 by chorister boys, keep busy poking their velvet 
 ' pouches xmder every one's nose, and conjuring the 
 stray sous out of each pocket. la the mean time 
 the devout portion of the people, generally poor 
 women in their best and brightest caps, shabby and 
 decrepit men, and little smiling children, keep 
 passing in continuous procession in front of the 
 sUver-gilt box. As each one reaches the priest, 
 who is the operator of the day, the devotee hands 
 him something. This — either a ring, a locket, a 
 cross, a little delf-figure of the Virgin or of our 
 Saviour, a pocket handkerchief or a baby's clout — 
 is taken by the priest, who quickly applies it to the 
 sUver-gilt case and then returns it to its owner, 
 muttering all the while some Latin prayer or other. 
 The poor people are evidently in earnest, and it 
 is truly affecting to witness the ardor with which 
 they press forward to obtain the holy touch, and the 
 warmth of affection with which they handle, hug, 
 and kiss the vyretched trinkets and bits of rag when 
 once consecrated by it. The operating priest, if, as 
 may be suspected, he has not his heart in his busi- 
 ness, is stni more to be pitied than his honest but 
 credulous flock. It is not edifying to behold a 
 
58 TSE CSAMFAGNM COJmTMT. 
 
 venerable man, half a century old, deeply versed in 
 the humanities, thus sweating hour after hour at 
 this work of vulgar quackery. 
 
 I hurried from the church to seek relief ia the 
 more honest exhibition on the outside, where the 
 fair was in fult swing. Here the boy was gettiag a 
 sohd piece of gingerbread for his sou, and the poor 
 men and women also something substantial for their 
 hard-earned money. There were charlatans and 
 jugglers here, too, but their pretensions were not so 
 great as .those within the church, and I observed 
 that the circulatiag hat evoked but a scanty supply 
 of coppers. 
 
OHAPTEE YI. 
 
 Champagne Wine — Export to tlie World — To tlie United 
 States — Tlie Manufacturers — Genuine Wine — Consular 
 Seal — History of Brands — Comparative Excellence of Cham- 
 pagnes — The Widow Clicquot — Eussian Invasion of her 
 Cellars — A Shrewd Commis Voyagetcr — Eictitious Brands. 
 
 IVTAINT have douMess noticed the word Eheims 
 -'-'^ printed conspicuously on the labels of a bottle 
 of Clicquot or Consular Seal, or upon any other of 
 the numerous but less noted brands of champagne 
 wiae. It is found upon most, if not all, bottles of 
 champagne, whether real or false, for each pro- 
 ducer of the former is eager to aflBrm the fact, as 
 every artificer of the latter to circulate the false- 
 hood, that his wine emanates from Eheims, the chief 
 source of the genuine product. Eheims is thus 
 fcuown by name, at least to aU wine drinkers, and 
 is more or less familiar to the eye of every Ameri- 
 can, for the champagne bottle, though by no means 
 always filled with genuine wine, circulates more 
 freely in this than any other country. 
 
 Of the thirteen millions of bottles sent annually 
 to market from Eheims and neighbouring places, the 
 United States takes at least two millions. England, 
 
60 rjsre OSAMFAGNE COTmiBT. 
 
 EuBsia, and the East Indies, receive each about the 
 same quantity, and form with the United States the 
 four chief consumers. France may rank next ; then 
 G-ermany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spaiu, Portu- 
 gal, and AMca. . 
 
 All the chief manufacturers of champagne con- 
 tribute to the supply of the United States. H. 
 Piper and Co., whose wine is so well known in our 
 country under the brand of Heidsieek (Piper), are 
 by far the largest exporters. They send to the 
 United States about forty thousand dozen annually. 
 Gr. M. Munim & Co. and Charles Heidsieek & Co., 
 export each twelve thousand ; Krug & Co., eleven 
 thousand ; Heidsieek & Co., ten thousand ; De St. 
 Marceaux & Co., eight thousand; L. Eoederer, 
 Moet & Chandon, and Jules Mumm & Co., each 
 about seven thousand ; and Yeuve Clicquot Pon- 
 sardin, some five thousand dozen. Other houses of 
 less note contribute, in proportion to their impor- 
 tance, to make up the large quantity consumed in 
 the United States. 
 
 The wine thus exported may be presumed to be, 
 for the most part, genuine. The manufacturer of 
 repute would hardly venture to sell any other. Not 
 a few producers, however, of less note, are acoiised 
 of making their so-called champagne wine of a 
 grape that never ripened on the hills of Rheims or 
 of its neighbourhood. 
 
 Though it may be conceded that most of the 
 champagne directly imported iato this country from 
 
CSAMFAGNE WINE. 61 
 
 Eieims and the other towns of the same depart- 
 ment (Mame) is genuine, it can he hj no means 
 allowed that it is of the highest quality of wine. I 
 have in fact the testimony of all the chief exporters 
 of champagne, to prove that the wine they send to 
 the United States, though " good and wholesome," 
 is of inferior quality to that generally sent else- 
 where, and always to that kept at home. I had 
 not been long in Eheims before I became entirely 
 convinced of the fact. Brought by my official 
 duties into direct and constant association with the 
 wine manufacturers, and partaking of their hospi- 
 tality, I had frequent occasion to test, at their con- 
 vivial tables, the quality of their champagne. I 
 had hardly turned off the first glass, when I re- 
 marked a flavor of which my palate, though not 
 unused to the best of Heidsieck, Mumm, and Meet 
 and Chandon, in Amierica, had been hitherto uncon- 
 scious. It was the first time in my life that I had 
 enjoyed a glass of champagne, as wine. Before, I 
 had drunk it as a not unpleasant beverage, being 
 palatable from its sweetness and effervescence, and 
 exhilarating in its effect. I could not distinguish 
 the wine of one brand from that of another ; and 
 all, Heidsieck, Mumm, Moet & Chandon, Clicquot, 
 and Eoederer, seemed to me to have been brewed 
 in the same vat, of the same proportions of syrup, 
 brandy, and soda-water. 
 
 I now found, instead of tossing off my glass and 
 swallowing its contents with a gulp, as I had been 
 
62 THE GKAMFAGNE COXfNTRY. 
 
 wont to do in order to secure the evanescent sparkle 
 and hasten the expected exhilaration, that the wine 
 trickled slowly, drop hy drop, over the gratified 
 palate. My taste had recognized, for the first time 
 in a glass of champagne, the flavor of a fine wine, 
 and was lingering in the enjoyment of its meUow 
 richness. My host caught the expression of my 
 satisfaction, and said: "You don't get such wine 
 in America ;" adding, with a roguish twinkle of his 
 eye, " we keep that for ourselves and friends." 
 
 It is true that I had never tasted such wine in 
 America, but I was determined that my Mends and 
 I should he ahle thenceforth to do so. I accord- 
 ingly selected at once, from the private stocks of the 
 chief manufacturers of Eheims, various samples of 
 their best wines, and sent them to some of my 
 friends of the New Tork Union Club. They, it 
 must i'be said in justice to their connoisseurship, 
 chose the wine of the great vintage of 1858, which 
 was most esteemed at Eheims. This is the cham- 
 pagne known as the " Consular Seal," and is such 
 wine as the manufacturers generally "keep for 
 themselves and friends." 
 
 Though Eheims is the chief seat of the champagne 
 wine-trade, Epemay, Chalons sux Ay, and] Mareuil 
 sur Ay, all within the same department, are more 
 or less engaged in it. The most extensive manufac- 
 turers and merchants are Meet and Chandon, who 
 are said to dispose each year of nearly two millions 
 of bottles. They carry on their business at Bper- 
 
MANUFACTURERS. 63 
 
 nay, where they have a palatial estabHshment above 
 ground, and below great cellars hewn out of the 
 solid chalk which underlies the thin soil of aU that 
 portion of the country that produces the champagne 
 grape. These are divided into seven vast compart- 
 ments, which contaia five subterranean passages, ten 
 large and a hundred and seventeen small cellars, in 
 which are arranged in order two millions and a half 
 of bottles of champagne. There are besides scores 
 of great hogsheads almost as large as the tun of 
 Heidelberg, and many hundreds of barrels filled 
 with wine. The establishment covers an area of 
 twelve acres and a half. The total length of the 
 vaults is nearly two miles. 
 
 The wine of Moet and Chandon being manufac- 
 tured for the masses, and generally low priced, is 
 but little esteemed by European connoisseurs. 
 
 At Eheims, however, are to be found most of the 
 wiue manufacturers whose names are familiar to 
 the world. Here are the Eoederers, CliccLuots, the 
 Heidsiecks, the Mumms, and De St. Marceaux. 
 Though these have generally their entire establish- 
 ments at Eiheims, some as H. Piper & Co., known 
 as Heidsieck in the United States, have only their 
 counting-houses in that town, and their wine-vaults 
 at Epemay. 
 
 The Heidsiecks, Piper-Heidsieck, Hiedsieck & 
 Co., and Charles Heidsieck & Co. are all of the 
 same clan. It was, however, the predecessor of H. 
 Piper & Co., a Heidsieck, who first gave currency 
 
64 TSE CSAMFAGNE COXTNTRT. 
 
 to the wine so well known in the United States by 
 that name. This enterprising house, being the 
 first of the wine manufacturers to venture in what 
 was then deemed the hazardous trade with America, 
 succeeded, while free from competition, in obtaining 
 such an exclusive and wide circulation for their 
 merchandise, that the word Heidsieck became syno- 
 nymous in the United States with champagne. 
 The latter was deemed superfluous ; ^ and some 
 twenty years ago, no one ever thought of saying 
 more, when he called for champagne, than " Give 
 me a bottle of Heidsieck." Gfreat riches have re- 
 warded the enterprise of H. Piper & Co., who are 
 now among the largest and wealthiest manufac- 
 fcurers, and have, apart from the private fortunes 
 of the various partners and members of the family, 
 a manufacturing and commercial establishment 
 wielding a capital of three minions of dollars. 
 The agents of the house iu New York have 
 shared in the prosperity of their principals; 
 and Eenauld & Francois, whose names are 
 almost as familiar as Heidsieck, are now enjoying, 
 ia veritable chateaux of Prance, the results of their 
 success. 
 
 With the real or afi'ected connoisseurship that 
 has come with the increased wealth and luxury of 
 our people, a bottle of Heidsieck no longer pleases 
 the taste of the fastidious. It is, however, one of 
 the best ordinary wines that are sent to our country, 
 though too sweet for a discriminating palate. It 
 
MOmiETIIt CLICQWT. 65 
 
 may always be relied upon as a wholesome and 
 pure wine, but not of tbe highest quality. Though 
 now rejected by the judicious taster, its traditionary 
 renown stiU secures for it the largest consumption 
 by the gulpiag crowd. The other Heidsiecfcs, 
 though far from hayiag the success of their better 
 known predecessor, have discovered that there is 
 something in a name, and profited accordingly. 
 
 Though Piper & Co. (Heidsieck) have earned 
 their reputation and fortune by their superior com- 
 mercial judgment ia anticipating the importance of 
 the American trade, most of the other well-known 
 manufacturers of champagne have succeeded through 
 more irregular means, or been iudebted to hazard 
 for their success. 
 
 The famous champagne of Veuve Clicquot Pon- 
 sardin, which is so much esteemed ia Eussia, and 
 where it has been so profusely drank for forty or 
 fifty years past, that its manufacturers — ^the noted 
 Widow, "Werle, the Mayor of Eheims, and the 
 " Baron de Sachs," as he styles himself, her part- 
 ners — ^have made such fortunes as to rank them 
 among the millionaires of Europe, owes its success 
 to chance. The Widow Clicquot had been the 
 wife of one Francois-Marie Clicquot, " an officer," 
 vaguely says his biographer, " who had retired from 
 active service in consequence of his wounds." Cor- 
 poral or Sergeant Clicquot — or whatever may have 
 been his rank — was naturally of a convivial turn, 
 and instinctively took to the wine business. 
 
66 TME CSAMFAGNE COUNTSY. 
 
 "At this period" (1798), we are told by his 
 eulogistic biographer, " the trade in white wines at 
 Eheims was in the hands of mere routinists, who 
 were incapable of giviag the least developemept to it. 
 
 " M. CHequot, endowed with a lively conception 
 and an activity ahnost ardent, visited the neighbor- 
 ing vineyards, went down into aU the cellars, com- 
 pared, weighed, meditated, and then finally laid 
 the foundation of an entirely different commercial 
 system. 
 
 "Until then, the effervescing wines of Cham- 
 pagne came only from the cellars of the Abbey of 
 Hautvillers. 
 
 "M. CKcquot undertook that they should also 
 issue from the cellars of Eheims ; with this differ- 
 ence, however, that while the monks — excellent 
 drinkers — ^imbibed the most and best of their vint- 
 age. Monsieur Clicquot, less thirsty or less selfish, 
 resolved to offer his wines to all the crowned heads 
 of Europe, of whom he knew they were perfectly 
 worthy. 
 
 " While big with this magnificent project, death 
 came and cut short the career of the son-in-law of 
 M. Ponsardin," that is to say, M. Clicquot, the 
 former husband of the Widow CKcquot Ponsardia. 
 Common rumor at Eheims tells a different story of 
 the exit of this notable personage, saying that he 
 cut his throat m despair of the success of the "en- 
 tirely different commercial system " with which his 
 biographer credits him. 
 
TSB WIDOW CZICQTrOT. 67 
 
 Madame Clicquot tlms became Widow Clicquot, 
 and was left to cany out the magnificent project 
 which had originated in the " lively conception and 
 the activity almost ardent" of her late husband. 
 Though only twenty-seven years of age, and " with 
 a daughter in the cradle who became afterwards 
 the. Countess of Chevign^," this heroic dame "ac- 
 cepted with courage the position which destiny had 
 given her." She struggled on spiritedly, but with 
 little success, until the invasion of France by the 
 Allies in 1815, when the Eussians came thronging 
 into Rheims and filled the cellars of the widow. 
 
 " All the Eussian officers commanded by Saint 
 Priest had lifted the ^ champagne glass to their 
 lips. It was said even that many of them pre- 
 ferred the popping of the bottle of Eheims to that 
 of the cannon of the Emperor, and that on the 
 retaking of Eheims, about a dozen prisoners were 
 made, who had been laid under the table by the 
 first and pacific artillery. At the moment of the 
 attack of the French troops, there remained some 
 drinkers but no soldiers. These, dead drunk, had 
 not heard the sound, ' To horse ! ' " 
 
 When these officers returned to Saint Peters- 
 burg and Moscow, they talked so much of, and 
 praised so highly, the deKghts of their debauch in 
 the cellars of the Widow Clicquot, that they made 
 her name famous throughout Russia, and gave her 
 wine a currency which has made her and her part- 
 ners enormously rich. 
 
 r2 
 
68 TEE CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 I knew Madame Clicquot, a dwarfish, withered 
 old woman of eighty-nine years, whose whole soul 
 was in business, scanning over each day to her last 
 the ledger of the commercial house to which she 
 had given her name. She died ia 1866. 
 
 The Clicquot wine is made to suit the Eussian 
 taste, which likes a sweet and strong champagne. 
 It is accordingly highly brandied and sugared, and 
 although doubtless generally made of good wine, 
 its qualities, whatever they may be, are entirely 
 smothered in the sweetness. Unlike other houses, 
 that of the Widow Clicquot never varies its wine 
 to suit varying tastes. A bottle of Clicquot in 
 America is the same as a bottle of Clicquot ia 
 Eussia or elsewhere. The Clicquot wine is fast 
 losiag prestige, and will before long become obso- 
 lete, if not adapted to the more discriminatiag taste 
 of modem drinkers. 
 
 Louis Eoederer & Co., who, during the last ten 
 years or so, have come into repute as the manu- 
 facturers of a popular wine, are mdebted for their 
 success to the usual means employed by charlatans 
 to create a demand for their nostrums. Emulous 
 of the fame of the Widow Clicquot in Eussia, they 
 sent there a shrewd German, who had become fa- 
 miliar with the language and trade of that country 
 while travelling over it as a commis-voyageur or 
 bagman for some trading-house or other of his na- 
 tive land. Not easily abashed, and of an iatrusive 
 disposition, he determined to make himself known. 
 
A SEMETTD COMUIS-VOYAGMTTB,. 69 
 
 With a meagre valise of his own, and an abundant 
 supply of his masters' wiae, which he distrihuted 
 profosely, he was not an imwelcome guest in a 
 country" where strangers are comparatiTely so rare 
 that their claims to regard axe hardly investigated, 
 and the thirst for wine and strong drink so eager 
 that any one who has them to offer is readily re- 
 ceived. He thus for many years travelled over and 
 over Russia, pouring out gratuitously into the vast 
 and willing throat of the whole empire such quanti- 
 ties of champagne, that the Roederers were nearly 
 made bankrupts by the expense. 
 
 Alarmed by this profusion, which, having already 
 cost some hundreds of thousands, was fast beggar- 
 ing them, the Eoederers recalled their costly trav- 
 eller, who earnestly begged for a little respite. 
 This being granted, he finaUy returned to Eheims. 
 Hjs object was accomplished. He had succeeded 
 in so habituating the taste of the Russians to the 
 Eoederer wine, and familiarizdng them with its 
 name, that order after order was sent for it to Rheims ; 
 and the manufacturers from menacing poverty were 
 lifted suddenly to assured wealth, in which the 
 prodigal traveller, being made a partner of the 
 house in reward for his services, was permitted to 
 participate. The house of L. Roederer & Co., 
 though for many years moving slowly under the 
 care of its founder, Schroeder, a plodding Grerman, 
 now ranks among the largest and wealthiest of all 
 Champagne. They sell, it is said, 76,000 dozen 
 
70 TSjE cmamfagnb covntet. 
 
 tottles annually. Tlie chief consumption of tiie 
 Eoederer wine in the United States is at Boston. 
 It is one of the test and most costly of the wines 
 manufactured in large quantities, but, like all those 
 adapted to general consumption, is loaded with 
 sugar, that it may he toothsome to the masses. The 
 wine is sold under the two names of Eoederer, the 
 present proprietor of the house, and Schroeder, the 
 original founder. 
 
 A brand of champagne once extensively made 
 known, whether by legitimate enterprise, hazard, 
 or charlatanism, becomes a sure source of wealth. 
 The wine is bought and drank on the mere strength 
 of its name, without regard to its quality, and even 
 in spite of its badness, just as the much advertised 
 and hurtful panaceas of the nostrum-venders axe 
 purchased and swallowed by the credidous and suf- 
 fering minions. 
 
 The Clicquots, Eoederers, and others have been 
 beset by claimants to their kinship, who, though 
 conscious of the value of a name, have given no 
 better proof of relationship than in their opposition 
 and rivalry. The Widow Clicquot found a repre- 
 sentative of her own name in an ambitious mason, 
 who, dropping his trowel, took to the bottle, and 
 now rivals his notable namesake as a manufacturer 
 of champagne. 
 
 My bootmaker at Rheims, who rejoices in the 
 name of CLiequot, and claims to be a cousin-ger- 
 man of the famous widow, told me that ia tfce" 
 
mCTITIOVS SMAIfM. 71 
 
 heyday of youth he had been tempted hy the offer 
 of a wealthy capitahst to take him, or rather his 
 najne, into partnership, and establish a wine manu- 
 factory. He accepted ; but his youthM aspirations 
 were suddenly checked by the threat of the then 
 formidable widow to bring a suit against him. He 
 therefore shrunk back agaia into his little shop, 
 where I found him a blinking, nervous old man of 
 seYenty, bent persistently over his last. His pos- 
 sible success as a wine manufacturer wiU always be 
 left to conjecture ; but it is sure that if the world 
 had gained another producer of Clicquot cham- 
 pagne, that Eheims would have lost a most trusty 
 shoemaker. Clicquot is no uncommon name in 
 Eheims, and it may be seen displayed over sausage 
 shops, cabarets, cafes, and cobblers' stalls. It is 
 surprising, therefore, that the adventurous mason 
 has been the only one to utilize the popular patro- 
 nymic. 
 
 The name of Eoederer is, on the contrary, rare 
 at Eheims; and the veritable possessors of it re- 
 posed for a long time in fancied security against any 
 chance of a competitor. There was, however, an 
 enterprising wine dealer, who, unable to give the 
 rapid circulation he desired to his champagne, had 
 long sought the indorsement of some more popular 
 name than his own. His researches, which had ex- 
 tended all over France, during his travels for many 
 years, on the highways and in the by-ways where 
 his eagerness for trade had led him, were finally 
 
72 TSE CSAKPAGNB COUNTRY. 
 
 successful. At a cafi in Strasburg he chanced 
 to be served -with his after-dinner demi-tasse and 
 petit-verre by a gargon who was the fortunate pos- 
 sessor of the cabalistic name of Roederer. Here 
 was the prize he had so long sought in vain, and he 
 secured it at once. Proposals were made and ac- 
 cepted by the not unambitious servitor, who, doffing 
 his apron, and assuming with true French facility 
 the habiliments and manners of the respectable 
 bourgeois, passed with quick transition from serving 
 drink at Strasburg to making it at Eheims. 
 
 Bringing with him no capital but his name — 
 which, however, was worth more than hundreds of 
 thousands of francs — and that judgment of wine 
 which had been matured by his long indulgence iu 
 the leakage of the ca/6 or the forgotten heel-taps of 
 its customers, he was installed as the partner of his 
 fortunate discoverer, whose house was thenceforward 
 known as that of Theophile Roederer & Co. 
 
 The original Roederers resisted to their utmost 
 what they deemed a usurpation of their rights, and 
 appealed to the courts of law. It was decided that 
 a man had a legal right to use his own name, 
 whether for the purpose of selling or serving wine, 
 or for any other proper business ; but it was enjoined 
 upon the new Roederer that he should affix to all 
 his bnis, invoices, and labels the date of the estab- 
 bKshment of his house, in order to distinguish it from 
 that of the original one. In spite of this, the pubHo 
 constantly confounds the two, and I myself have 
 
FICTITIOUS BBANDS. 73 
 
 time and again seen at the tatle of the Sotel dii 
 Lion d' Or, at Eheims, woxild-be connoisseurs who. 
 had been imposed upon by an artful and interested 
 gargon, smacking their lips over an indifferent bot- 
 tle of the false, and loudly declaring that they rec- 
 ognized the flavor of the better Tvine of the genuine 
 Roederer. 
 
 Moet & Chandon, the Mumms, and De St. Mar- 
 ceaux have not as yet, it is beKeved, been interfered 
 with by any importunate namesakes. The Mumms 
 at Eheims are branches of two great Grerman houses, 
 and may be always relied on for a fair average wine. 
 De St. Marceaux, though of growing fame, has not 
 yet, in the United States, the reputation he merits. 
 In Eheims he is esteemed the most expert and 
 conscientious of manufacturers. His judgment is 
 deemed beyond appeal; and when a connoisseur 
 wants the best the country is capable of producing, 
 and is willing to pay for it, he can surely get it of 
 De St. Marceaux. 
 
OHAPTEE Vn. 
 
 Champagne a Modem Wine — Hautvillers — Dom Peiignon — 
 A Jolly Monk — Potits Smpers — A Pious Pilgrimage — Bac- 
 chiis Street — The Champagne Trade — How conducted — 
 A Great Effort— Failure — The Wine TraveUers — Effect of 
 Champagne on HeaJth. 
 
 TT is only -witluii the last fifty years tliat the trade 
 -^ IB champagne wine has hecome important. In 
 fact, although the wine of the country has been fa- 
 mous from time immemorial, and long shared with 
 the clarets and Burgundies of France the esteem 
 of the world, the mii mousseux, as the French call 
 it, the effervescing wine, and what we know as 
 champagne, is comparatively a modem discovery. 
 Its origin hardly dates beyond the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, and it was stni, even in the middle of that 
 century, so rare that only a few rich and privileged 
 amateurs tasted it. Meet & Ohandon in 1780, who 
 were then as now the chief manufacturers, thought 
 it a bold venture to have made six thousand bottles 
 in the year. Their present annual sale is over a 
 hundred and fifty thousand dozen. 
 
 On the left of the railway from Paris to Stras- 
 burg, within an hour's ride of Eheims, is the an- 
 cient gray-stoned hamlet of Hautvillers. It stands 
 
DOM p:eeignon: 76 
 
 at the top of the Yine-clad hills which rise from the 
 hanks of the river Mame ; and when I first saw it, 
 on a bright autumnal day, tte spire of its old church 
 and its antiquated gahles were flushed with a red 
 hue hy the noonday sun, which was fast ripening 
 its surrounding grapes for the coming vintage. It 
 looked as if warmed and exhilarated in its old age 
 by its own generous wine, and destined still to sur- 
 vive many more sober but less vigorous modem 
 villages. 
 
 In Hautvillers there was the famous royal mon- 
 astery of Saint Peter, which, say its historians, gave 
 nine archbishops to the see of Eheims, and twenty- 
 two abbes to various celebrated monasteries. Among 
 others, they add, there was the venerable Peter, the 
 Abbe of Cluny. It gave also to the world, for 
 which aU wine drinkers should be grateful, a joUy 
 monk who was the inventor of champagne. This 
 was Dom Perignon, who died in 1715 at the ripe 
 age of nearly four score years. He was chosen the 
 proeureur of the great Abbey for the purity of his 
 taste, the soundness of his head, and his unremit- 
 ting devotion to Bacchus. His chief duty was to 
 take charge of its vineyards, of which the estab- 
 lishment possessed the broadest and sunniest of the 
 whole country ; to receive from the patient toilers 
 of the land the eleventh barrel of all the wine they 
 made, which their spiritual lords and temporal mas- 
 ters of the abbey extorted from them ; to press the 
 grapes to make the wine of the estabKshment, and 
 
76 THE CHAMPAGNE COVNTSY. 
 
 to store it away in its cellars, together with that it 
 had squeezed out of its oppressed vassals. 
 
 Dom Perignon, horn a taster, and strengthened 
 by constant practice, became so expert that when, 
 in the decline of life, he was blind, not one of his 
 holy brethren, even with the aid of his eyes, could 
 conapete with him as a judge of wine. " Dom Pe- 
 rignon," says an old chronicler, "being blind to- 
 ward the end of his hfe, ordered the grapes of 
 different vineyards to be brought to him, recognized 
 each Mnd by the taste, and said, ' Tou must marry 
 (mix) the wine of this grape with that of the 
 other.' " 
 
 In the course of his multifarious wine-mixiags 
 and experiments, Dom Perignon, who had already 
 by his skill raised the reputation of the wine of the 
 holy fathers of the monastery to the greatest height, 
 by hazard (or rather, it should be said, by the in- 
 spiration of genius, for such accidents only happen 
 to genius) discovered the effervescing wine, now 
 known as champagne. The artful Dom kept the 
 secret to himself, and the wine for the symposia of 
 the holy and jovial brotherhood of the Abbey of 
 Saint Peter. These spiritual fathers, however, 
 rewarded the piety of their royal sons and crowned 
 defenders of the faith with an occasional bottle. 
 Thus, thanks to the holy monks, the magnificent 
 Louis Xiy. was enabled to relieve his formal Ute-d 
 iites with the saintly Maintenon by a glass of 
 champagne ; the lively regent to give fresh impulse 
 
A FIOTJS FIIGSIMAGE. 11 
 
 to the sallies of his petits-sotipers ; and the debauched 
 Louis XV. to revive ia the orgies of the Fetit Tri- 
 anon the prostrated energies of an exhausted sensu- 
 ality. 
 
 Dom Perignon is said to have died in the full 
 odor of sanctity, gratefully rememhered by his con- 
 vivial and holy brethren, and his name should be 
 embalmed in the memory of every one within the 
 sound of a pop of the champagne bottle. Among 
 his other virtues, heavenly and teirestrial, there is 
 not only the discovery of champagne, but that of the 
 cork, which he was the first to put into a bottle, for 
 before his time the only stopper used was a bunch 
 of flax soaked in oil. 
 
 I made a pious pilgrimage to HautviUers, and, 
 passing along the principal street of the village, the 
 Bue Bacchus, which I thought most surely to be the 
 road to the abbey of jovial fame, met a dwarfish sol- 
 dier, in a blue capote. I asked him to poiat out to 
 me the way to the abbey. He touched his red cap 
 politely, and answered that he had never heard of it. 
 As French soldiers proverbially know nothing but 
 how to fight and to boast of it, I next asked a staid- 
 looking citizen in a black cJiapeau as taU as a chim- 
 ney, who ioformed me that the abbey no longer ex- 
 isted, but had been destroyed by the iconoclasts of 
 the first French Eevolution. Et ils avaient raison ; 
 "And they were right," muttered the practical 
 Frenchman. 
 
 The trade in champagne with the TJnited States 
 
78 TEE CSAMFAQNE COUNTRY. 
 
 is generally conducted through the medium of sta- 
 tionary agents at New York. These receive the 
 ■wine on consignment, and dispose of it to the best 
 advantage of their principals. They are paid a 
 commission, ordinarily varying from ten to twenty 
 per cent., hut which reaches sometimes twenty-five 
 and even thirty. When the brand of wine is well 
 known and esteemed, and the demand proportion- 
 ately large and regular, the commission paid to the 
 agent is less ; and when unknown and of uncertain 
 sale, greater. 
 
 So much depends upon the mere name of a 
 champagne, that the most strenuous efforts are 
 made to give it circulation. Advertising, the brib- 
 ing of grocers, wine dealers, hotel keepers, and 
 steamboat proprietors with low prices, that they 
 may make a proportionately large profit in retail- 
 ing the champagne to their customers ; the giving 
 of gratuities to bar-keepers and waiters to secure 
 their favor and insinuating commendations; the 
 printing of showy labels and attractive cards, and 
 the pouring out profusely of the contents of sample 
 bottles to friends and chance visitors, are among 
 the ordinary means resorted to. These, of course, 
 are expensive, and if paid for by the agents, they 
 miist be compensated by liberal commissions. 
 
 Such efforts, however great, are often imrewarded 
 with success, and many attempts to give currency 
 to a brand of wine have proved abortive. The 
 patience or the means, of both agent and principal. 
 
AN EXJPIEmirE BIFORT. 79 
 
 become exhausted, and after a more or less vigorous 
 feu de j'oie of the vinous artillery of some new 
 house, not a solitary pop of its cork is heard. I 
 can recollect some fifteen or sixteen years ago that 
 the -wine of Max Sutaine burst all at once upon 
 us Kke a bouquet of French rockets. It was fizzing 
 here and fizzing there, dazzling our eyes with its 
 resplendent mottoes, and stunning our ears with its 
 detonations, but it suddenly went out in silence and 
 obscurity. 
 
 Though the manufacturers of the wine were 
 among the richest of Rheims, they foimd that the 
 feu d^ artifice, with which their agent had been in- 
 dulging the Amercian public, was so costly and the 
 remuneration so uncertain, that they grudged the 
 expense and ordered the exhibition to be closed at 
 once. There agent had spent some fifty thousand 
 dollars in the course of his display. He had, it is 
 true, succeeded in making known the name of his 
 principal, for he had printed it again and again in 
 every newspaper, pasted it on every wall, intruded 
 it by dozens of bottles into every editorial sanctum, 
 thrust it down the throat of every son of Bacchus, 
 and even displayed it in a great haU of the metrop- 
 olis, crowning a fountain flowing with veritable 
 champagne wine, which he dispensed gratuitously 
 to the thirsty public. 
 
 Owing either to the want of persistence of the 
 manufacturer, or possibly to the satiety of the 
 American people, with a name which had been so 
 
80 TSE OBAMPAGNE COXJNTSY. 
 
 thrust upon them, there were none found willing to 
 purchase a bottle of Max Sutaine. The name was 
 accordingly changed, and the champagne, of a fair 
 average quality, was subsequently drank in the 
 United States under the brand of Farre & Co., 
 of which house the widow of Max Sutaine was the 
 chief partner. She now, having got rid of the 
 Farres, continues the business under the brand of 
 Max Sutaine, which has lately been reintroduced to 
 American wine drinkers under the more favourable 
 auspices of an energetic and not immodest agent. 
 
 Such are the difficulties and the expense of giv- 
 ing currency to a brand of champagne, that many 
 years generally pass before the manufacturer is 
 enabled to obtain a remunerative profit for his wine. 
 The high commissions to his agents, or other costs 
 incurred in the course of making his name known, 
 not only absorb his profits, but frequently encroach 
 upon his capital. 
 
 The motives alleged by the manufacturers for 
 disposing of their wines exclusively through agents, 
 are, that the public can be sure of obtaining through 
 these authorized representatives their genuine pro- 
 ducts, and that they axe forced to select such agents 
 and secure to them a monopoly of their sales, as an 
 inducement to make the effort necessary to give 
 currency to a brand of champagne. There are two 
 weU-known houses, however, — Eoederer and Veuve 
 Clicquot, — which do not sell their wines in this 
 country through the medium of agents. The former 
 
WIN:E TRAVIELIEBS. 81 
 
 has always sold its •wine directly, but the latter has 
 only lately adopted the same system, with the hope 
 of avoiding farther trouble with our custom-house 
 officers, by whom it has hitherto been greatly tor- 
 mented. They each sell, however, only to a siagle 
 purchaser. 
 
 la JEVance and Europe the trade iu champagne 
 wiae is not carried on, as in the United States, by 
 means of stationary agents, but generally by travel- 
 lers, or such persons as are called commis wyageurs 
 in !EVenoh, and bagmen m English. These solicit 
 orders, and when they obtain them, send them to 
 the manufacturers at Eheims and elsewhere to be 
 executed. The producer of champagne thus be- 
 comes for the most part the direct source of supply 
 to consumers ; and he furnishes his wine ia almost 
 every degree of quantity, but generally in small 
 proportions, varying from two to five or six dozen 
 bottles. 
 
 The trade in Europe, it wiU be seen, is for the 
 most part a retail one, and the nominal prices of the 
 wine, thus sold directly to European consumers, 
 are much higher than those at which it is invoiced 
 when consigned to the agents of champagne ia the 
 United States. Seventy-five centimes (fifteen cents), 
 or even a franc (twenty cents) a bottle, is the esti- 
 mated amount of the expenses of a traveller. Apart 
 from the salaries and cost of travel, there is a large 
 gratuitous pouring out of wine. Taste being the 
 only argument possible wherewith to convince a 
 
 G 
 
82 THE CSAMFAGNE C0X7NTSY. 
 
 customer, whetlier lie be gourmet, hotel keeper, or 
 restaiirateur, recourse is frequently made to it. 
 This serves greatly to iacrease a traveller's ex- 
 penses, which not uncommonly amount to seventy- 
 five francs a day. Thus it is that a bottle of cham- 
 pagne, which ordinarily costs the producer two 
 francs, and two francs and a half per bottle, is sold 
 by him ia Europe at three and a half or four francs, 
 in which prices his profit of ten sous or so per 
 bottle, and the expenses of the costly mode of sale, 
 are included. 
 
 As a general rule, champagne of a weU-fcnown 
 brand cannot be directly bought of its manufacturer 
 at Eheims. The agents iu the United States, and 
 the travellers in other parts of the world, enjoy by 
 contract a monopoly of all sales. This privilege is 
 supposed to be necessary as an encouragement to 
 the exercise of tiiat personal efibrt essential to 
 making known and selling the wine. It is impos- 
 sible to obtain at Eheims, for love or money, a 
 bottle of genuine Clicquot or Eoederer, that is to 
 say, a bottle with their names on, though wiae of 
 the same vintage, or that of equally good or better 
 quality, can be obtained in any quantity the pur- 
 chaser may desire. 
 
 There is no place, even in France, — ^if the con- 
 sumer cannot trust to his own taste, but must have 
 the indorsement of Veuve Clicquot, — ^where he can 
 obtain that security except at the Grand Hotel and 
 the Hotel du Louvre, at Paris. It is only lately. 
 
COSTLY ZXrXURT. 83 
 
 moreover, that the noted widow deigned to send 
 her hottles to these great caravansaries, in defer- 
 ence, it is believed, to their Eussian frequenters. 
 The wine of Eoederer, though not sold to the con- 
 sumer at Eiheims, is found in every hotel and res- 
 taurant elsewhere. 
 
 Most of the manufacturers win unhesitatingly sell 
 the same wiaes as those which bear their name, 
 but under a different appellation. It is only the 
 monopoly of the brand which is granted, and not 
 that of the wine. An American purchaser, for ex- 
 ample, can buy at E,heims, if he is willing to pay 
 for it, the best champagne ever made, provided he 
 will take it without the brand of Clicquot, De St. 
 Marceaux, or other, and substitute John Smith, 
 the American Eagle, or whatever may be his name 
 or fancy. 
 
 Though Eheims is the great centre of the manu- 
 facture of and trade in champagne wines, it is a 
 costly luxury to the consumer. At the hotels he is 
 charged seven francs a bottle, notwithstanding that 
 so many millions of bottles are annually made ia 
 the place, at an average cost to the manufacturer of 
 from two francs to two francs and a half each. 
 
 The functions of a traveller for a wine-house are 
 by no means light, and but few are able long to 
 perform them. The quantiiy of vinous fluid he is 
 obliged to drink in the course of the performance 
 of his duties is a test of stomach, brain, and nerve, 
 that it would be supposed that nothing but a frame 
 
 g2 
 
84 TEE CSAMPAGNM COUNTRT. 
 
 of caoutchouc could withstand. One confessed to 
 me to have drunk two bottles of champagne a day 
 for ten years. He had thus, during that time, 
 poured down his throat 7300 quarts or 1825 gal- 
 lons of wine. Beyond the scores on a rubicund 
 face, and perhaps a somewhat premature fullness 
 of the waistcoat, I did not discover any visible re- 
 cord of this enormous consumption. Many of the 
 people, however, engaged in the wine business of 
 Eiheims, have not been so fortunate as my travel- 
 ling friend. Grout, rheumatism, and affections of 
 the nerves, stomach, and Mdneys, are the not un- 
 frequent results of the excessive quantities of wine 
 absorbed by those whose business it is to make and 
 sell it. The tremulous hand and shaking head, I 
 fancied, were more common at Eheims than I had 
 noticed elsewhere. The wise head of the great 
 personage of the place has a pendulum-like move- 
 ment, which I for a long time attributed to the 
 overweight of thought, but was told that it was one 
 of the effects of champagne drinking. The prudent 
 taster generally ejects the wine, after having moved 
 and held it long enough in his mouth for his tongue 
 and palate to catch its taste and distinguish its 
 flavor. The wine manufacturers of Eheims, mostly 
 of a rotundity of form and a ruddiness of com- 
 plexion which befit their jovial trade, are not, it 
 must be acknowledged, substantial arguments in 
 proof of the wholesomeness of their product, of 
 which they are not reluctant consumers. 
 
GSAMFAGNE NOT WINK 85 
 
 The traveller of a ■wine-house must not only have 
 a strong head but a bold face, a voluble tongue, and 
 an indisoriminate and inexhaustible sociability. 
 He must never confess to a headache, he must be at 
 home iu every company, must always have a story 
 to teU, never let the talk flag for a moment, and 
 clink glasses miscellaneously with all the world. 
 He is foimd everywhere, even ia Turkey, where, in 
 spite of the Koran which forbids the use of wine by 
 the faithful, there is a large consumption of cham- 
 pagne. The conscience of the Mohammedan, how- 
 ever, acquits itself of the sin of disobedience, on the 
 plea that it is not wine but'champagne with which 
 he is intoxicating himself. 
 
CHAPTBE Vni. 
 
 The Crermans at Kheims — The Mayor of Eheims — The Good 
 Apprentice — An Imperial Favorite — A Baron in the Wine 
 Trade — French and Germans Compared — A Nation of 
 Shopkeepers — Aristocracy of Wine Makers — Nobles In the 
 Business — Reflected Glory— An Old Family. 
 
 rFHB intrusive Grermans who have thrust them* 
 -»- selves in large numbers into Eheims, Epemay, 
 Chalons, Ay, and other toAvns and villages of the 
 neighboring countiy, have the chief control of the 
 ■wine-trade of Champagne. The Heidsieoks are 
 all of German origin, and the three houses known 
 in this country by that name are represented and 
 conducted either by Germans or their immediate 
 descendants. 
 
 Piper, the chief capitalist, and for many years, 
 until prostrated by disease, the most energetic part- 
 ner of the house formerly known as Heidsieck, but 
 now as H. Piper & Co., was bom ia Germany. His. 
 associate and successor in the management of the 
 great establishment, Kunkelmann, came also [from 
 the same country. 
 
 Heidsieck and the three other partners of the 
 firm of Heidsick & Co., are all Teutons, and 
 Charles Heidsieck, of the house of Charles Held- 
 
GUBMANS. 87 
 
 sieck & Co., as his name indicates, conies of the 
 same stock. 
 
 Werler, the chief of the noted house of Veuve 
 Clicquot Ponsardin, came a poor boy to Eheims 
 from the duchy of Nassau. Taken into the employ 
 of the Widow CKcquot as a lad of aU work, with the 
 mere pittance of two dollars or so a week for wages, 
 his intelligent activity won for him rapid advance- 
 ment. The gossips of Eheims assert that the blue 
 eyes, ruddy face, and broad shoulders of the youth, 
 finding favor with the hitherto disconsolate widow, 
 caused a livelier appreciation of his moral and in- 
 tellectual qualities in the counting-house, and gave 
 an irresistible impulse to his progress. 
 
 The young German was soon made a partner, and 
 acquiring large wealth with the spread of the brand 
 of Widow Clicquot and the consequent extension of 
 her business, became a notable personage. Chang- 
 ing his name from Werler into Werl6, and thus 
 softening its Teutonic rudeness to please the GraHio 
 tongue and ear ; marrying a IVeneh wife, and 
 assuming, with the facility of self-expatriation of 
 his coimtrymen, who can hardly be considered as 
 having a country of their own, citizenship in France, 
 he pursued a career of shrewd compliance which 
 has met with its earthly reward. He is the richest 
 man in Eheims, and one of the richest in France, 
 having, it is said, accumulated a fortune of four or 
 five millions of doUars. Like most thriving French 
 citizen traders, the bourgeois of practical France, he 
 
88 TSE CHAMPAGNJE COTINTST. 
 
 is an ardent imperialist. Louis Napoleon has 
 accordingly taken Monsieur WerM into especial 
 favor, of whicli lie has given him various unmis- 
 takable marks. He has been decorated over and 
 over again with red ribbons; been made by the 
 Emperor Mayor of Eheims ; and universal sufBrage, 
 with polite deference to imperial will, has chosen 
 Tn'm one of the deputies to the Corps Legislate from 
 the department of the Mame. 
 
 Imperial regard has condescended even to care 
 for the domestic interests of the imperial favorite. 
 The Emperor has married the son and daughter of 
 the wine merchant to the children of two of his 
 court favorites. M. Werle's son is now the hus- 
 band of the daughter of the Due de MontebeUo ; 
 and M. "Werle's daughter the wife of M. Magne, 
 whose father is a minister of state. Imperial 
 majesty — with redoubled force of condescension, for 
 the Empress on this occasion was by the side of the 
 Emperor — ^honored the baptism of the infant of the 
 Magnes and grandchild of Werl^, The Emperor, 
 it is said, wiU do any thing for his favorite wine- 
 merchant but drink his champagne, as his taste 
 having been formed during his convivial days in 
 England, he prefers a drier wine. Werle is des- 
 tined to a senatorship at least, and possibly to a 
 renewal in his person of the ancient title of Count 
 of Champagne. 
 
 Another partner of the house of Veuve Clicquot 
 Ponsardin, is Baron de Sachs, as he styles himself. 
 
A WINE BARON. 89 
 
 He also is a German, and a nephew, it is believed, 
 of Werler. Although boasting a Grerman title, he 
 was not better provided for in his youth than his 
 poor and adventurous uncle, to whom he is iadebted 
 for all he has in the world, except the barony, for 
 which neither that relative nor any of his ancestors 
 are. in fact responsible. It seems no uncommon 
 thing for foreigners in France, particularly Grer- 
 mans, when sufficiently obscure or remote from 
 their native places to baffle inquiry, to assume the 
 rank of Baron or Count, to which they are no more 
 entitled than to the empire of the Caesars. 
 
 This Baron de Sachs seemed always to be troubled 
 with an uneasy consciousness that his title, somehow 
 or other, either through his own forgetfulness or the 
 ignorance of every one else of his claim to it, would 
 give him the slip. He accordingly took care, whether 
 he had a bill of wine to receipt or an invoice to 
 swear to, to secure a record of the barony, by 
 writing his title in full. In his brand new chateau 
 a monogram indicating the baronial claims of its 
 proprietor stares you from every cornice and win- 
 dow without, and from every carpet and curtain 
 within. Valet and chamber-maid are enjoined 
 never to forget the baron and baroness in their 
 addresses to their master and mistress, on pain of 
 instant dismissal. "When the baron first presented 
 himself to ine, he brought with him a footman to 
 cany the invoice which it was my official duty to 
 legalize. I so far, under the levelling suggestion of 
 
90 TSE GHAMPAGITE COXTNTRT. 
 
 the Stars and Stripes wHcIi hung above my head, 
 forgot the distance between the height of the baron 
 and the lowliness of the servitor that I insisted 
 upon the latter taking a seat, which he resisted 
 for a long time, awed by the imposing presence of 
 his master. I finally, however, succeeded, but it 
 was the last time the baron visited me in such state. 
 He always came afterwards in solitary grandeur. 
 
 The house of Roederer owes its origin to one 
 Schroeder, a Grerman, and his nephews, the present 
 chiefs, though bom in TVance, have all the sub- 
 stantial physical characteristics and plodding mental 
 qualities of the Teutonic race ; while their partner, 
 Eraffc, whose trading artifices as a traveller in Eus- 
 sia were so successful, was bom and bred in Ger- 
 many. 
 
 The representatives at Rheims of the two houses 
 of the Mumms, are, like their principals, both 
 Grermans. 
 
 There is, in fact, not a single wine establishment 
 in all Champagne which is not under the control, 
 more or less, of a native of G-ermany. If the nom- 
 inal head should chance to be a Frenchman, he is 
 sure to have a partner or a chief clerk of that 
 country. There was, however, a champagne house 
 which happened to be controlled exclusively by na- 
 tives of France. It became bankrupt while I was 
 ■at Eheims, and it was a common remark that it 
 perished for want of a German. 
 
 When I asked how it had happened that, to eon- 
 
TSE TSVE SSOPKMEPER. 91 
 
 duct so national a trade as that of champagne wine, 
 France had called Germany to its aid, I was told 
 that it -was owing to the fact that there were so few 
 Frenchmen, and so many Germans, who had a 
 knowledge of foreign languages. This can hardly 
 be the full explanation, for it would seem easy to 
 employ good linguists to serve as travellers or 
 foreign correspondents, without giving up, as the 
 French have done, the whole control of an impor- 
 tant national trade to a foreign people. 
 
 I fancy that the French have a natural inapti- 
 tude for commerce. With an imquestioned supe- 
 riority of taste, a precise attention to details, much 
 tkriftiness, an easy compliance, and a polite address, 
 they make good workmen and excellent smaU deal- 
 ers. Napoleon called the English a nation of shop- 
 keepers. The saying in its literal sense is more justly 
 applicable to the French. They are emphatically 
 the shopkeepers of the world. Wberever the tra- 
 veller goes, he finds the Parisian monsieur or madame 
 installed behind the counters of the confectionary, 
 perfumery, millinery, and curiosity shops. It is so 
 at Eio Janeiro, lima, Valparaiso, and over the 
 whole continent of America ; but the Frenchman 
 is rarely found in the counting-houses of those 
 places. While he is the shopkeeper, the German, 
 the Englishman, and the American are the mer- 
 chants. 
 
 It is the same to a certain extent even in France. 
 The Frenchman contents himself for the most part 
 
92 TSE CSAMPAGNE COVNTST. 
 
 with adJTistiag a color, devising a pattern, inventing 
 a toy, or peddling small wares ; while he leaves the 
 management of the great financial, manufacturing, 
 and commercial establishments of his country to its 
 adopted citizens from Germany or elsewhere. 
 
 The sound, practical education of the German is 
 douhtless the secret of his success in France and in 
 other countries, where he rivals in prosperity more 
 enterprising and commercial people than the French. 
 It is comparatively the poor man in Germany — the 
 one that has to seek his fortune — ^who is so well dis- 
 ciplined by the excellent schools of his country for 
 the struggle with life. He is thoroughly drilled in 
 all that is essential to a commercial education, and 
 is generally taught all the modem languages, — 
 and so well taught that he can speak them fluently 
 without having left his native land. Being poor, 
 and generally unable to meet with the success in 
 his own overcrowded country to which his intelli- 
 gent ambition aspires, he is ever ready to journey 
 into other lands, where he knows that his superi- 
 ority to those of his class will be sure to secure for 
 him the object of his desires. 
 
 He seldom finds a successful competitor in France, 
 for the poor Frenchman wants his educated capac- 
 ity, and the educated Frenchman his impelling 
 necessities. The needy but well-instructed Ger- 
 man, combiaing in his own person the means of 
 the one and the motives of the other, spurred by 
 poverty and trained by education, soon takes the 
 
TSE WINE ABISTOCSATS. 93 
 
 lead in the race and wins the prize of life. Exer- 
 cised, too, in the forced self-denial of ea^ly poverty, 
 and the obseqtiions deference imposed by his hum- 
 ble origin, he is a cheap and "willing servitor. He 
 has thus all the elements of success ia trade, — capa- 
 city, thrift, and devotion ; and it is not surprising 
 that with such qualities the Grerman should succeed 
 in Eiheims and elsewhere. 
 
 It would have been difficult for me to dis^ 
 cover, from any intrinsic qualities they possessed, 
 that the wiue-merehants constituted the aristocracy 
 of Eheims. That, however, beiag generally ac- 
 cepted as a fact in the place, I am bound to record 
 it. They are certainly the plutocracy, for the 
 largest fortunes are possessed by them, and the 
 greatest capital is employed in their trade, though 
 the wool-combers and manufacturers are fast gain- 
 ing upon them. 
 
 So convinced is the wine manufacturer of his 
 superiority in rank; that he generally avoids all in- 
 timate association with others than those engaged 
 in the same trade. Thus the wool and the wine 
 people form two different and distinct societies at 
 Eheims. The man who puts a flannel shirt on a 
 back is almost scorned by him who pours a bottle of 
 champagne into the corresponding belly. To satisfy 
 an artificial thirst is deemed a more dignified func- 
 tion than clothing the naked. 
 
 There are, however, it is true, some more or less 
 genuine nobles engaged in the manufacture of 
 
94 TSE CSJMFAGNJE C0UNTR7. 
 
 champagne, or connected by alliance ■with, those 
 who are. Without counting the Baron de Sachs, 
 to whom justice has abeady been done, there are 
 the Duke of Montehello and the Viscount de Bri- 
 mont, both of whom are makers of and dealers in 
 champagne. The Duke of Montebello is the son 
 of Napoleon's marshal, Lannes. Becoming pos- 
 sessed, by purchase for a small sum, of an ancient 
 chateau on the banks of the Mame, and amid the 
 celebrated vineyards of Ay, he not unnaturally 
 took to the trade of wine-making. Though high 
 in the favor of Louis Napoleon, who sent him as 
 ambassador to Eussia, and conferred upon him and 
 his son other offices and dignities, and withal the 
 son of a diike, he thought it not derogatory to his 
 rank or descent to engage in the profitable business 
 of selling champagne. The brand of wine known 
 as Montebello comes directly from the Duke's cha- 
 teau, within the ancient walls of which he has 
 installed his manufactory, and beneath the ancestral 
 domain hollowed out his cellars. The Duke, as he 
 is poor, has made, in becomiag a tradesman, a sen- 
 sible concession to the practical demands of the age. 
 Apart, too, from his necessities, he may have 
 thought that the obligations of rank, which in his 
 case dated back but one generation, — ^for his father, 
 the great marshal, had commenced life as a dyer, — 
 were too feeble to be regarded. 
 
 The Viscount de Brimont is known to cham- 
 pagne drinkers by his family name of Euinart. He 
 
JREFLEOTJED GLORY. 95 
 
 is a descendant — a collateral one, it is supposed — 
 of one Dom Euinart, who was of tlie convivial and 
 lioly brotherhood of the monastery of HautviUers. 
 How he hecame possessed of his rank I have never 
 heard; but the wine manufactory of which he is 
 proprietor is one of the most ancient in Champagne, 
 whatever may be the antiqmty of his title. His 
 wine was in former times in considerable vogue, 
 and his botitles may now occasionally be seen with 
 the brand oi Muinart, pere etfik. 
 
 The vyine-trade of Champagne has received a 
 reflected glory from the aristocratic aUiances con- 
 tracted by Madame Clicquot. As the best blood of 
 France can always be purchased by the heaviest 
 purses, she obtained by her wealth the hand of the 
 Comte de Chevigne for her only daughter. " This 
 gentilhomme Breton, d'antique race, was descended 
 from parents who had the signal honor," we trans- 
 late from his biographer, " of assisting at the balls 
 of Marie Antoinette, of being iavited to the theatre 
 at Versailles, of riding in the carriages of Louis 
 XVI., and of accompanyiag his majesty to the 
 hunt." His countess is dead ; but she left a daugh- 
 ter, who iu her turn, so far from derogating from 
 the aristocratic predilections of her mother for no- 
 bility, rather improved upon them by marrying the 
 Coimt Louis-Samuel- Victorien Eochechouart de 
 Mortemart. The antiquity of his descent is proved 
 by his arms, which bear upon them some waves 
 rampant, with the motto, — 
 
96 TME CSAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 Avant que la merfta au monde 
 
 Eochechouart portait des ondes. 
 Before God made the sea to roll, 
 Roolieoliotiart bore waves on his scroll. 
 
 The Widow Clicquot, to do honor to her titled 
 children, bought the old feudal manor of Bour- 
 sault, which formerly belonged to the D'Orsays. 
 Not content, however, with the old-fashioned house 
 at the bottom, she raised an imposing structure at 
 the top of the hiE. This, which can be seen from 
 the railway as you pass Epemay, 'is as much like 
 a veritable chateau, with pepper-box ttirrets, as 
 the imagination of the aspiring architect, aided by 
 all the wealth of the Gicquots, could mate it. 
 Its grandiose spaciousness and luxurious appurte- 
 nances make it the wonder of every Parisian badaud 
 and rustic visitor. Among its other attractions 
 is a dining-room, adorned with elaborate armorial 
 carvings in wood, with which are intertwined the 
 initials 0. and M., of the noble names Chevigne and 
 Mortemart. 
 
 On one occasion a party of the neighboring 
 farmers paid a visit to the chateau to inspect its 
 wonders. They were conducted by a zealous servi- 
 tor through all the show apartments. On reaching 
 the dining-room, he pointed, with conscious pride 
 at serving such distinguished masters, to the carved 
 armorial shields surmounted with a double crown, 
 and bearing in letters of gold the initials 0. and M. 
 
 " Tou see," said the cicerone to his gaping listen- 
 ers, "those letters mean Chengne-Mortemart." 
 
CONTBS MBMOIS. 97 
 
 "Bah!" repKed one of the knowing country- 
 men. " Get out ■with your Chevigni-Mortemarts." 
 
 " But I assure you " — 
 
 " Bah ! " repeated the confident spokesman. 
 " You are quite off the track : they mean, I tell 
 you, Champagne Mousseux. Was n't that the mak- 
 ing- of their fortune ? " 
 
 Comte de Chevigne has employed his aristocratic 
 leisure in writing and publishing a little book, en- 
 titled Les Contes Rimois. It is a neatly printed 
 volume, and contains some graceful sketches by 
 Meissonier and Foidquier. The tales themselves 
 are imitations of Boccaccio and Lafontaine, and have 
 none of the wit and grace, but all the grossness," of 
 those authors. 
 
 The Comte de Mortemart gave his spare moments 
 to art, and once painted a picture, " which was ad- 
 mitted by the committee on painting into the Paris 
 Exhibition." 
 
 H 
 
OHAPTEE IX. 
 
 The Wine Country — The ramous Vineyards — Sobriety of 
 Scene — Subdivision of Land— Villages and Inhabitants — 
 (Jhateaux — Extent of Vineyards — A Travelled Wine — A 
 Delicate Native — The Grape — Different Qualities. 
 
 "DHEIMS, though the chief seat of the manufae- 
 J-*' ture of champagne wiae and of its trade, is 
 somewhat remote from the famous vineyards. The 
 town lies in a basin which commences to rise, ahont 
 five or six miles away, into an amphitheatre of hills 
 which roll on beyond for ten leagues or so, in suc- 
 cessive waves of low heights, until again subsiding 
 into the vast plain which forms the department of 
 the Mame. 
 
 On the acclivities of these hills grow the grapes 
 from which is made the famous champagne wine. 
 This generous product flourishes in a soil so in- 
 hospitable to all other that it has been long known 
 as Champagne pouilleuse, — ^lousy or beggarly Cham- 
 pagne, — to distinguish it from the richer parts of the 
 ancient province of that name. The department 
 of the Mame is chiefly formed of a vast plain of 
 dry and undulatiag chalk, and the hills upon which 
 the champagne grape grows are composed of that 
 
TSE FAMOUS TINETAMBS. 99 
 
 substance, with a thin alluTial soil spread over 
 them. 
 
 The vine is cultivated in the five arrondissements 
 of the department: Chalons siir Marne, Epernay, 
 Rheims, Sainte-Menehould, and Vitry-le-M-angais. 
 It is only, however, in those of Eheims and Epernay 
 where the grape is produced of which the genuine 
 champagne wine is made. 
 
 In the shallow valleys formed by the lulls of little 
 height, and upon the banks of the river Marne, 
 which flows through them and washes their chalky 
 bases, are various towns and hamlets, known by 
 name to all drinkers of champagne. Going south 
 and east from Rheims two leagues distant, leaving 
 on our right Yille-Dommange and EiUy, — ^where 
 excellent red wines are made, but only drank at 
 home, — we reach SiUery, which has a reputation, 
 which belongs by right to its neighbor Verzenay, of 
 producing a grape which is an essential ingredient 
 of all good champagne. The vineyards of Yerze- 
 nay commence their rise just at the outskirts of the 
 little hamlet of Silleiy. They then extend some 
 five or six miles south untQ they reach those of 
 Bouzy. Descending the hills of this suggestively 
 named place, we reach the banks of the Marne. 
 We have now left the vineyards which produce the 
 wine called the wine of the mountain, le vin de la 
 montagne, and, turning westward along the bank of 
 the river, we arrive at Mareuil sur Ay and Ay, 
 where we are among the vineyards from which is 
 
 h2 
 
100 THE CSAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 obtained the vin de la riviere, the wine of the river. 
 Contimiing the same course, we enter Dizy, another 
 name suggestive of its potent product, and, still 
 among the vineyards of the river, extend our sur- 
 vey of Hautvillers, of jovial fame. On crossing the 
 Mame, we pass through the town of Epemay, and, 
 going south through Pierry, Cramant, and Avize, 
 we reach Vertus, the limit of the champagne dis- 
 trict, ten leagues away from Eheims. 
 
 The hasiu iu which the town of Eheims Hes, 
 though laboriously cultivated and forced iuto the 
 production of fair harvests of oats, barley, and other 
 grain, has a desert-Kke look. Its shallow spacious- 
 ness, the scarcity of trees, the few farm-houses and 
 scattered windmills bare of all shade and shrubbery, 
 the want of fences or hedges, — ^for the divisions of 
 the land are marked only by solitary and almost in- 
 visible stones, — give it an appearance to the hasty 
 view of a vndely extended and arid plain. The 
 only reKef to the eye are the distant hills which in- 
 close it, the tall and scraggy poplars that stand stiffly 
 on either side of the canal, the scrubby growth 
 which hides the lazy current of the filthy Vesle, the 
 pepper-box turrets of some ambitious citizen's cha- 
 teau rising out of the trim and scanty foliage which 
 surrounds it, and the courses of the railways, 
 marked by their carefully tended embankments of 
 grass and hedges of hawthorn. 
 
 The wine district, though by no means highly pict- 
 uresque, affords a refreshing change to the eye from 
 
CSAIUCTEIt. OF 8GBNE. 101 
 
 the duller aspect of the iininediate neighborhood 
 of Kheims. The imdulatioiis of the groimd give 
 greater variety, of course, to the sceneiy. There 
 are little hills and shallow vales, though not moun- 
 tains and valleys, as the inhabitants insist upon call- 
 ing them ; and these, with their varying forms and 
 position, afford some diversity. The eye meets with 
 an occasional surprise on shifting its point of vision. 
 A step or two higher may bring hitherto imseen 
 hills into view, or a turn to the right or left reveal 
 an unexpected nook in which are nestKng thatched 
 farm-house, dusty flour-miU, and old rustic church. 
 There is a great uniformity, however, even in the 
 wine country, though its careftd culture, the thrifty 
 look of its villages, the cleanliness and excellence of 
 its roads, and the suggestions everywhere met of its 
 exhilarating product, gave it a cheerful aspect. It 
 is, however, wondrously sober and quiet-looMng, for 
 the source of so much noise and excitement else- 
 where ; but turbident streams often rise from placid 
 springs. 
 
 The conformation of the hills is very similar. 
 Their natural features hardly vary. Their height 
 is nearly the same, and whatever irregularities there 
 may have been on their surfaces have been long 
 since smoothed over by constant and carefial culture. 
 The exclusive growth of the vine, the even height 
 to which it is cut, the regularity with which it is 
 planted, the uniform length and color of the poles to 
 which it is attached, the absence of all landmarks 
 
102 TSE CSJMPAGNE COUNTST. 
 
 except the almost invisible boundary stones, and tbe 
 entire want of trees or shrubs of any kind, make 
 these Tine-clad hills of Champagne so alike that 
 none but a proprietor, stimulated by the interest of 
 ownership, can distinguish one £pom the other. 
 
 The land is here, as in other parts of France, 
 minutely subdivided, and many a proprietor has a 
 vineyard no bigger than he could cover with the 
 broad linen sheets of his best bed. There are 
 about 16,412 hectares (41,030 acres) of land shared 
 among 16,095 owners. These small proprietors, 
 who are the principal inhabitants, live in the vari- 
 ous hamlets and towns about which are clustered 
 the vine hiUs. They form a very thriving popida- 
 tion, unconscious of pauperism and undisturbed by 
 fears of it. The villages in which [they Hve are all 
 built of stone, and each house is a plain but solid 
 structure. 
 
 All these towns and hamlets appear very sombre 
 to the passing visitor, for the narrow streets are 
 flanked with great walls of stone behind which the 
 inhabitants hide their houses and gardens, and thus 
 seclude their homes from view. These people are 
 neither shy nor unsociable, for you wiU find them 
 each day in the public place about the old church, 
 engaged in a lively chat with their neighbors, or in 
 the CafS de V TTnimrs, playing billiards or dominoes 
 with any chance comer, or sharing a bottle of wine 
 with some vagrant soldier, under the bush which 
 hangs over the door of the village cabaret. All 
 
CSATEAUX. 103 
 
 Frenclimeii, thougli so fond of society, shut up their 
 houses close, for some reason or other ; it may be, 
 as it has been said, that they do so to prevent their 
 susceptible countrymen from becoming too familiar 
 with their -wives and daughters. Whatever may be 
 the cause, this walling themselves in gives great 
 dullness to all the proviacial towns and villages of 
 the French. 
 
 At Epemay, Chalons, and Ay, which are towns 
 of some magnitude, there are, in addition to the 
 houses of the wine growers, large manufactories, 
 whole streets of shops, and the humble dwellings of 
 a numerous class of daily laborers. In almost every 
 hamlet there are wine presses, and at Yerzenay 
 Moet & Ohandon, Veuve Oliccjuot, and others, have 
 their principal establishments of this kind. 
 
 Near Epemay, as I have related, is the new 
 chateau of Boursault, built by Madame Clicquot, 
 in order that she and her children might be lodged 
 in a dignified accordance with their purchased alli- 
 ance with nobility. At SHlery is an old chateau 
 formerly belonging to, and inhabited by, Madame de 
 Grenlis, but now possessed by Jacquesson, a wealthy 
 wine lord, who has added two or three new turrets 
 to it, dug out a moat, thrown over it a drawbridge, 
 and renovated the whole structure with a coat of 
 paint or whitewash. At Mareuil sur Ay is the 
 chateau of the Duke of MontebeUo, who bought it 
 for a mere song from the descendant of an effete 
 noble family, who refused to sell it at any price to 
 
04 TEIE CSAMPAGNE COVNTMY. 
 
 any one who was not at least a marquis of the old 
 rigime, or a duke of the new, to either of whom 
 he was willing to yield it for a comparatively small 
 sum. 
 
 There are various other chateaux and country 
 residences scattered over the wine country, hut sin- 
 gularly few and unattractive, when it is considered 
 that it contains so many thriving towns, among 
 whose inhabitants there are not a few wealthy men ; 
 but the French people in fact, unlike the English' 
 and Americans, are not fond of living away from a 
 crowded population. They cannot endure the iso- 
 lation of a life in the country, where, remote from 
 the cafe and the theatre, they are condemned to the 
 exclusive society of their own wives. 
 
 The vineyards of the whole department cover 
 about 18,000 hectares of land (45,000 acres), which 
 produce 636,200 hectoKtres (13,996,400 gallons) 
 of wine, of which the inhabitants consume 250,000 
 (5,500,000 gallons). This, however, it must be 
 well imderstood, is not all vin mousseux, or what we 
 know as champagne wine. Large quantities of 
 ordinary red wine are produced in the country for 
 the common consumption, and some little choice 
 red wine for the drinkiug of the exclusive few. Of 
 the latter the Eilli/ and Bouzy are highly esteemed, 
 and can only be obtained in perfection at the tables 
 of the wealthy wine-merchants, or by paying the 
 high price of seven or eight francs a bottle in the 
 best hotels and restaurants of Eheims and its neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
A TBAVSLLED WINE. 105 
 
 The history of the famous Billy — a rare hottle 
 of which the hospitable Mayor of Eheims dispenses 
 occasionally to an appreciative guest, yields in grate- 
 ful vassalage to his imperial patron, and hestows 
 upon his aristocratic friends and relatives — ^is thus 
 told by a contemporary French chronicler : — 
 
 IConsieur Werl^ received one day from New 
 Tork an order to send there a hundred cases of 
 champagne. Profiting by the occasion of the long 
 voyage to be made by this wine, he sent with it for 
 company a. dozen of red wine of the vintage of 
 1802, with a request to his correspondent to keep 
 them in his cellars at New York for three months, 
 and then send them back. 
 
 "When the case returned the sides of each bottle 
 were covered with a kind of sediment and the wine 
 clouded. Mayor "Werle let it repose for six weeks, 
 and then poured it into fresh bottles. It was now 
 perfectly clear and of a delicious quality. The wine 
 in becoming exquisite had changed color. " It had 
 been sent red to America, and it came back with a 
 beautiful shade of onion peel." " This," adds the 
 chronicler, " is how the house of Clicquot was ena- 
 bled thenceforward to add to their other excellent 
 supplies the wine of Rilly la Montague, which is 
 disputed for at the table of priaces." 
 
 I have tasted both Rilly and Bouzy under the 
 favorable auspices of a seat at the best tables of 
 Eheims, and I can vouch for the justice of the 
 great reputation of these exquisite wines. They 
 
106 TSE CSAMPAGNE COVNTSY. 
 
 have the external appearance of the red Bordeauxs 
 and Burgundies, but intrinsic qualities which are all 
 their own. With an. aroma and bouquet peculiar 
 to themselves, they have the animation of Chs- 
 Vougeot without its headiness, and the smoothness of 
 Chateau-Lafitte with more unctuousness. When 
 perfected and ready for drinking, their organization 
 is said to he so delicate that they are incapable of 
 bearing a journey further than j&rom the cellar to 
 the table. A voyage from Eheims to Paris is sure 
 to sicken them, and give such a shock to their deli- 
 cate constitution that they never recover. 
 
 The ordinary red wines of the country compare 
 favorably with those of Burgundy and Bordeaux, 
 and can be had so cheap that none, even the poor- 
 est, need deprive themselves of their freest use. At 
 the hotel they were supplied gratuitously at the dis- 
 cretion of the guest, and a bottle of the best can 
 be purchased at Eheims for a few sous. 
 
 The grape from which the vin mousseux, or what 
 we know as champagne, is made, is grown chiefly 
 in the vineyards of Verzenay, Bouzy, Mareuil sux 
 Ay, Dizy, Hautvillers, Bpemay, Pierry, Cramant, 
 Avize, Mesnil, and Vertus. The grape, contrary 
 to what is generally supposed, is chiefly a red or 
 black one, though the champagne wine, as we aE 
 know, which it produces is of a light amber color. 
 The white grape is also cultivated, chiefly at Cra- 
 mant, but much less abundantly than the red or 
 black. 
 
TSU DIFFERENT QUALITIES OF GMAFE. 107 
 
 Each place produces a wine with qualities pecu- 
 liar to itself. The wines of the mountain are said 
 to have more body than those of the liver. There 
 are still nicer distinctions which only a sHUed taster 
 can appreciate ; hut that they exist can hardly he 
 doubted, for no champagne wiae, unless it combines 
 by -mixture the separate qualities of each viaeyard, 
 is deemed complete. The best bottle of champagne 
 may be called the ideal of the art of wine-making. 
 The manufacturer is like the artist, who selects his 
 elements of beauty from individual examples, taking 
 here a brilliant eye, and there a graceftd curve, a 
 feature or an expression, and unites them in his 
 perfected statue or picture. 
 
 In making his wine, the manufacturer chooses 
 with a discriminating taste the separate products of 
 the various vineyards, and combining their different 
 qualities, thus presents us with his perfected whole 
 in the shape of. that modem triimiph of the ceno- 
 logical art, the bottle of champagne. 
 
 The white grape is cultivated becauses it gives a 
 light wine, which readily effervesces. It is there- 
 fore an element in aU champagnes, but enters 
 more largely into the cheaper ones, intended for 
 popular consumption. The vulgar taste is always 
 pleased with and influenced by froth. The ju- 
 dicious few insist upon more substantial quahties. 
 The choicer elements of the best champagnes are 
 derived from the black grape, which gives all the 
 solid vinous qualities. 
 
108 TSE CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 The skilled taste of the wine manufacturer dis- 
 tinguishes even the Hghtest shades of difference 
 between the various products of the black grape, 
 and is never content with a mixture which does not 
 combine the peculiar qualities of all. The char- 
 acter of the grape depends less upon the origin of 
 the vine than upon the soil in which it is grown, 
 and it would seem that the flavor of the product 
 is affected by the slightest change. The wine of 
 Pierry (from pierreux, stony), for example, has a 
 very perceptible taste of gun flints (I state it on 
 the best vinous authority), which abounds in the 
 chalky soil of its vineyards. This gout de pierre a 
 fusil is so emphatic as to distinguish the wine of 
 Pierry prominentiy from that of its nearest neigh- 
 bors. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 The Wonderful Season of 1865 — Hopes and Fears of Wine- 
 Giowers — Tlie Vintage — A Trip to Verzenay — From Eheima 
 into the Covmtry — A Still Scene — Monsieur Jacquesson and 
 his Projects — SiUery — A Comic Opera Scene. 
 
 rpHE summer and autumn of the year 1865 were 
 -•- tlie most remarkaUe seasons ever known to 
 the " oldest inhabitant" of temperate Europe. 
 Days of bright suns and clear skies followed each 
 other in almost constant succession ; weeks passed, 
 and sometimes months, without the one beiug hardly 
 obscured by a passing cloud, or the other tempered 
 by a falling shower. 
 
 The soil had drunk deep of a plentiful moisture 
 from the bounteous raius of spring, and filled the 
 vegetation with a rich nutriment. A plentiful sap 
 circulated throughout every growing plant, and its 
 delicate vessels and tender skiu were ready to burst 
 with distension. The swollen buds, succeeded by a 
 vigorous growth of wood and foliage, and a gross 
 but a yet immature fruit, were contemplated by 
 every cultivator with mingled hope and fear. His 
 hope was in the chance of a hot and dry summer 
 and a benign autunm ; these he knew would secure 
 
no THE CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 for Tn'm an imexampled wealth of harvest. His 
 fear was in the chance of a cold wet summer and a 
 stormy autumn. These he knew would give Tn'm a 
 continued growth of the forward spring, and though 
 an abundant, an unripe and rotting crop. 
 
 The summer and autumn were favorable beyond 
 his hopes. They were, in fact, such seasons of 
 ripening power as could alone have matured a 
 superabundance of vitality, which threatened imdue 
 precocity and consequent decay. The summer and 
 autumn of 1865 were even superfluously generous 
 of their favoring influences. " Ceres and Pomona 
 were so vivified," said a local French poet, "by 
 the constant embraces of the fervid Phoebus, that 
 they even transcended the laws of their nature, and 
 gave birth to an immediate succession of issue." 
 In plain English, plants, vines, and fruit-trees gave 
 double and even treble crops. It was no imcom- 
 mon thing to find a vine bearing at the same time 
 grapes ready to be plucked, those of a subsequent 
 growth not yet ripe, blossoms in full flower, and 
 shooting buds. 
 
 Wine-growers, like most of those engaged in the 
 cidtivation of the land, whose success depends upon 
 the ever fluctuating changes of the seasons, are an 
 anxious race. Not knowing what a day may bring 
 forth, they can never repose in the enjoyment of 
 the sun of the present, for they are disquieted by 
 the fear of the storm of to-morrow. 
 
 When the sun, however, continued to shine day 
 
SOFES AND FEJJtS OF WINE GROWERS. Ill 
 
 after day dmiag the famous summer and autumn 
 of 1865, the anxious -wine-grower of Champagne 
 even became confident, although I met, here and 
 there, some such confirmed doubters that they were 
 unwiUing to put their faith in fine weather, how- 
 ever constant, and would darken its cheerful bright- 
 ness with a foreboding of a haU-storm. 
 
 The wine-growers, however, in spite of their 
 habitual querulousness, yielded gradually to the 
 constant and irresistible influences of the sunny 
 season. 
 
 The hot and clear weather continuing without 
 abatement throughout the summer, the grapes were 
 ready to be plucked at the end of August and the 
 beginning of September. The vintage had begun 
 some three weeks earlier than usual. Every one 
 was in a joyous humour, and talked of the abun- 
 dance and excellence of the crop. It is difficult for 
 those who have not lived in an agricultural or wine- 
 growing country to conceive the animated happi- 
 ness produced by a prosperous harvest. The ex- 
 hilaration is universal, and heightened by the usual 
 imcertainties and frequent disappointments atten- 
 dant upon the cultivation of the soil. It is as if 
 every man had drawn a prize in a lottery which 
 often gives nothing but blanks. 
 
 Inspired by the general cheerfulness, with an 
 interest in the vintage, and curious as a stranger to 
 learn its conduct, I readily accepted the invitation 
 of a young wine-merchant of Eheims to aecom- 
 
112 TEE CHAMPAGNE C6XfNTS.Y. 
 
 pany T^im to Verzenay, then, ia the fnllness of its 
 harvest. 
 
 It was on the morning of the 8th of September, 
 1865, — said to he the hottest day ever known in 
 the country, — ^that my Mend came rattling over the 
 cobble stones of the solitary court-yard of the Sbtel 
 du Lion d'Or in search of me. He had a hamper 
 of his best vin mousseicx, he said, in the vehicle, and 
 1 contributed a package of cigars and some ice, 
 warmly wrapped in a bit of old carpet, from the 
 stores of the hotel, to the provisions for that day, the 
 heat of which required every possible alleviation. 
 
 Though tempered in hotter climates, I had no 
 sooner driven out of the sombre hotel and the deep 
 shade of the great Cathedral, by which it has been 
 darkened for ages, than I was conscious that the 
 temperature of Rheims even could occasionally rise 
 to a height to test the endurance of the most sun- 
 baked. 
 
 My companion had provided himself at the livery- 
 stable with a shabby and shaky turn-out, a one- 
 horse affair, in fact. It was certainly an unpretend- 
 ing establishment, with its joints enfeebled by time 
 and use, and its springs bent and relaxed by the 
 weight of age. It made, however, too great a 
 noise in the world for its modest pretensions as it 
 rumbled over the big paving stones of the town. 
 We startled the pretty maidens in bright ribboned 
 caps and vari-colored zouave jackets, thronging the 
 narrow streets with great rolls of woollen cloth 
 
INTO TSE C0J7NTST. 113 
 
 under eacli arm, on their way to and from the 
 woollen factories; we broughi to the doors of the 
 cafes their idle frequenters, followed by the gargons 
 in white aprons and with flowing napkins; we 
 called to each shop-door and house-window neat 
 dames and untidy females, in every Tariety of cos- 
 tume and deshabille; and arrested at every comer 
 the attention of gaping soldiers and inquisitive gem 
 d'armes. The streets of Eheims, though Rheims 
 is a large and thriving town of some sixty thousand 
 inhabitants, are generally so quiet, and passing equi- 
 pages of all kinds so rare, that one has only to drive 
 through its streets to secure the universal observa- 
 tion of their secluded but curious inhabitants. 
 
 Our horse was in character with the shabby and 
 decrepit vehicle he trailed slowly after him. He 
 was, said my companion, doicx and sage, and he 
 proved both gentle and discreet, always prudently 
 walking up the bills, and not viciously running 
 away down them. "We could thus let the reins fall 
 upon his haunches, and leave him. to jog along at 
 his discretion, while we drank our champagne, 
 smoked our cigars, and surveyed the country. My 
 companion modestly apologized for the shabbiness 
 of horse and carriage, saying that every bit of 
 horse-flesh that had life enough in it to move was 
 on the go, and each thing made to carry was in 
 requisition in consequence of the vendange and the 
 chasse, for the shooting had opened with the vint- 
 age. He deemed himself, he said, fortunate on 
 
 I 
 
114 TSE CSAMPAGNU COUNTRT. 
 
 that busy day in getting what he had got, unstylish 
 as he acknowledged hoth beast and wagon to be. 
 
 Making our noisy way through the quiet streets 
 of the old town, and obtaining more notice than we 
 solicited or desired, we passed through the hand- 
 some iron gate of the city, saluted poKtely by its 
 liyeried guardians in great cocked hats, into a broad 
 avenue planted on either side with poplars. 
 
 We were now out into the coimtry with great 
 stretches of cultivated fields on aU sides, which, 
 however, looked bare and uninteresting, as there 
 was neither a fence, a hedge, or a tree to vary the 
 dull uniformity. There was so little life moving 
 that the view of a single sportsman, who, with the 
 aid of a dog, was working a stubble, seemed as 
 unreal to me as a picture. 
 
 After toiling in the hot sun up a hill, and 
 reaching the top, we could see on looking back the 
 great Cathedral, which, with its massive grandeur, 
 dominates the whole town, the buildings of which 
 seem so diminutive and insignificant in comparison, 
 that the eye hardly heeds them. This noble struct- 
 ure rises so high and extends so wide, that the 
 graceful columns of its unfinished spires, its auda- 
 cious flying buttresses, its lofty eaves, and the soKd 
 mass of the great body of the edifice, can be seen 
 miles away. 
 
 Before us, as we jog along on our route, the land 
 becomes more imdulating, and rises gradually in 
 the distance into hills. There are the vineyards, 
 
A QXriST 8CBNE. 115 
 
 and among other towns and villages, Verzenay, 
 the object of our journey, eight miles distant from 
 Eheims. 
 
 On reaching the rising ground our view pro- 
 portionately extended, and the country naturally 
 appeared more varied. The carefully planted pop- 
 lars .marked the course of the sluggish canal, upon 
 which great hoats were being dragged with toilsome 
 effort. The languid Vesle was glistening here and 
 there in the light of the sun, where not shaded by 
 the scant and scrubby shrubbery of its banks. But 
 the stretch of desert-like and unfenced fields was 
 still the predominating feature of the landscape, 
 though its uniformity was now more often relieved 
 by an occasional windmill and some scattered farm- 
 houses. A solitary shepherd could be seen now and 
 then leading (for in France sheep are led and not 
 driven) his flock to a fresh pasture, or watching it 
 as it browsed upon some iminclosed field. 
 
 The road, in the jockey's sense, was perfect; 
 nothing could be smoother and better adapted for 
 wheel and hoof. Like all the French highways, it 
 was wide, direct, and most carefully tended. The 
 white chalk, however, of which it was mainly 
 formed, threw the reflection of the hot sun fuU 
 into our faces, and almost blinded our eyes. 
 
 The quietude of the country was surprising. 
 There was hardly a sound but the shrill whistle, 
 heard but for a moment, of the rushing railway 
 engine. This told the story probably of the ex- 
 
 i2 
 
116 TME CEAMPAGNE COTTNTSY. 
 
 cessive stiUness of the old highway. The railway 
 had ahsorhed aU the trade of traffic and pleasure. 
 
 No buildings were to be seen by the roadside, 
 except at rare intervals an inhospitable-looHng 
 tavern of gray stone, with no more grace of outline 
 than the hovise a child draws upon his slate. These 
 stood bare, without a tree to shade them, or a vine 
 or a shrub to mitigate their staring aspect. Veri- 
 table bushes hung over the door of each of them ; 
 and in spite of the old proverb that " Grood wine 
 needs no bush," I thought that such imgenial 
 structures required every possible indication of any 
 good cheer they might have to offer. 
 
 But few vehicles were met on the road, and only 
 as we approached the vineyards, when an occa- 
 sional long, narrow cart came lumbering along. 
 
 Bach of these carried a lengthened row of barrels 
 filled with juice just pressed from freshly-plucked 
 grapes. This was being carried to the depots of 
 the manufacturers of Eheims, in whose purgatorial 
 cellars it was destined to lie until it should spirit- 
 ualize itself by its own inward force, and finally be 
 converted into wine. Conscious of the delicacy of 
 their charge, the cartmen had taken care to cover 
 the barrels with tarpaulins, or thick layers of green 
 leaves, to shield them from the hot sun. 
 
 On approaching SiUery, we passed through the 
 extenisive but abortive vineyards of the great landed 
 proprietor and wine manufacturer, Jacquesson. A 
 resolute projector, he is ever experimenting, but 
 
MOmiBUB jacqttesson: 117 
 
 hitherto -with no gain to the public and a great loss 
 to himself. With a theory peculiar to his own busy- 
 conception, he plants his vines in deep trenches, 
 which gives his vineyards the appearance of great 
 celery beds. 
 
 As hail-storms are frequent in that neighbor- 
 hood, and often terribly destructive, M. Jaquesson 
 has devised a contrivance for the security of his 
 property which we should deem less certaia than 
 an insurance in some of the many companies of 
 France, which include among the risks they take 
 that of damage by hail-storms. He has erected 
 low posts along the edges of his viue-fields, and has 
 placed wide boards at hand, with the view of plac- 
 ing them on these posts, and thus roofing over his 
 threatened crops ia case of a shower of haU. As 
 such showers come suddenly, and fall so partially 
 as often to crush the grapes of one field to stones, 
 while they do not touch a leaf of another by its 
 side, it is difficult to conceive how Monsieur 
 Jacquesson, with all his foresight and his numerous 
 gang of laborers, can give effect to his elaborate 
 and expensive device. I was not therefore aston- 
 ished to hear that the proprietor had already ab- 
 sorbed, in his vaiu struggle with the elements and 
 his numerous other experiments, a large portion of 
 the goodly fortune he had inherited from his father. 
 
 The land, moreover, of SiUery and its immediate 
 neighborhood lies too low, and is too wet for the 
 cultivation of the grape. The product is accord- 
 
118 TME CSAMPAGNE CO XmTS,T. 
 
 ingly valueless, notwitlistandiiig the labor and ex- 
 pense bestowed upon it by its enterprising and 
 prodigal proprietor. 
 
 The reputation which has been attached so long 
 to Sillery belongs entirely to its neighbor, Verzenay, 
 the ■wine-hills of which conrmence just at the ter- 
 miaation of the plain on which the former lies. 
 
 We now pass through Sillery, with its half-dozen 
 or so of houses huddled together in the shade of the 
 chateau of Monsieur Jacquesson. This brightly- 
 painted structure, with its toy-Kke turrets, its pretty 
 castellated artifices, and its trim surroundings of 
 vines, flowers, shrubs, and stunted trees, has quite 
 the look of a scene in a comic opera. The shaded 
 stream, which trickles through the shallow basin in 
 which the little hamlet lies, and over which a pret- 
 tily sculptured stone bridge has been thrown, and 
 even the gray stone houses, though by no means 
 comely, — ^being partly hid by a group of willows, 
 — ^together with the diminutiveness of the whole 
 place, and everything in it, add to the effect. 
 
 Leaving Sillery, we ascend the hill, and are 
 among the vineyards of Yerzenay. 
 
OHAPTEE XI. 
 
 At Verzenay — Among tte Vineyards — A Cheerful Scene of 
 Labor — A Near View of tlie Vintagers — The Vintagers at 
 Work — The Grapes at the Wine-Presses — The Wine- 
 Pressing — The Grape Juice — Supervision of Wine Manu- 
 facturers — The Mayor in WorKng-day Suit — A Taste of 
 the Grapes — A Luscious Feast — Kind of Grapes — Com- 
 parison of Vintages — Growing Excitement — Departure from 
 Verzenay. 
 
 A S we drove up the MU into Verzenay, we were 
 ^-^ surrounded on all sides by the vineyards. 
 These rolled, in regular succession of green wave, 
 to the right and left, as far as the eye could reach. 
 The color of the foliage of the vines, was, however, 
 toned by that of their supports of oak. The light- 
 purple hue of these, brightened by the sun, threw 
 over the undulating but uniform surface of green a 
 warm blush, and gave to the wide stretch of vine- 
 yard the appearance of a Scotch moor in the full 
 bloom of its heather. 
 
 Every hill was alive with busy vintagers, who, 
 crouched among the low vines, were moving quick 
 in their work. The road was thronged with carts, 
 donkeys, and laborers, passiagwith empty and loaded, 
 baskets to and from the vineyards. Groups of men, 
 
120 TSB CSAMPAGNE COJJNTRT. 
 
 women, and children were gathered along the edges 
 of the field, and were intent upon their various oc- 
 cupations. Some were sorting the fruit, some filling 
 and emptying, and others lifting great baskets to 
 the patient backs of man and beast. 
 
 It was a cheerful scene of labor, but there was 
 nothing in it to remind me of tiie many vintages I 
 had beheld in the gas-light of the Conaic Opera. I 
 neither recognized the plumed cap, velvet doublet, 
 pink hose, and silver buckles of my stage acquaint- 
 ance ; nor the elaborate coifiPure, diamond cross- 
 laeed petticoat, the well-filled and extensively dis- 
 played silk stockings, and high, red-heeled little 
 shoes of his sweetheart. There was no love-making 
 as far as I could see, and I certainly heard no one 
 singing songs composed by Verdi or Donizetti. 
 
 I saw nothing but a great number of course la- 
 borers hard at work. There was nothing in their 
 dress to distinguish them from the same class in any 
 other part of the world. They were aU in their 
 working-day suits, — ^the men ia shirt sleeves and 
 straw or felt hats, and the women in tow-cloth pet- 
 ticoats and ugly coal-scuttle bonnets. There was 
 great quietude and deep devotion to work. I could 
 see that the laborers were in earnest ; and it was 
 not surprising, for most of them, being proprietors, 
 were working for themselves. The only pictur- 
 esque objects were the donkeys munching their 
 food, with their noses in a bag, — ^for there was no 
 thistle or any weed, or even a blade of grass, at 
 
TSB VINTAGE. 121 
 
 the roadside. The -wine-grower takes care that 
 not a particle of soil shall be lost, and he is the 
 cleanest as well as the most industrious and eco- 
 nomical of cultivators. 
 
 After making our way with some difficulty through 
 the narrow streets of the Tillage of Verzenay, un- 
 usually thronged with a crowd of carriages and 
 carts and people, brought thither by the vintage, 
 we found by good luck a spare place under a de- 
 cayed shed for our tired horse. 
 
 Verzenay is situate toward the summit of a hill, 
 from which you look down upon declivity after de- 
 clivity of vineyard. It contains about five himdred 
 houses and twelve hundred inhabitants, each one of 
 whom is an owner of land, and all are thriving. 
 There is not a poor man ia the place, and as the 
 notice I saw everywhere displayed, " La mendicite 
 est defendue dans Yerzenay," indicated, beggiug is 
 not even permitted. 
 
 Strolling down the hill I had a nearer view of 
 the vintagers whom I had passed ia driving up to 
 Verzenay, and could learn something of the details 
 of their work. Men, women, and boys were pass- 
 ing regularly along the rows of vines, plucking the 
 grapes. Each one carried an ordinary market-basket 
 of osier, which hung by its handle on his arm, while 
 with a hooked knife (called a serpette) held in his 
 right hand he cut off the bunches of grapes and 
 placed them carefully in it. The basket when full, 
 was emptied into a larger one at the roadside, and 
 the laborer returned to his work of plucking. 
 
122 THE C3AMFA9NE COVNTRY. 
 
 The grapes thus gathered were now sorted by a 
 group of women and girls seated around a tray of 
 open wicker work, like the cover of a gigantic bas- 
 ket. These pull off the decayed, unripe, crushed, 
 or otherwise spoiled grapes which are allowed to 
 fall through the interstices of the tray into a recep- 
 tacle below, while the bunches thus purified axe 
 carefully put into panniers, which when filled are 
 lifted upon the patient donkeys and borne into Ver- 
 zenay. 
 
 No grapes are used in making what is termed 
 first-class wine that have not been thoroughly ex- 
 amined and sifted of all spoiled and inferior fruit. 
 The latter, however, especially if of a famous vint- 
 age. Like that of 1865, is not lost, but used to make 
 ordiiiary wine, or to distill into common brandies. 
 
 The grapes, on reaching Verzenay, are iminedi- 
 ately taken to the wine-presses and pressed. The 
 whole product of the vintage has already been sold 
 some weeks before its commencement to the chief 
 wine manufacturers of the country, who are all 
 obliged to buy their grapes. Some of them, it is 
 true, have vineyards of their own, but not of suf- 
 ficient extent or in such positions to supply them 
 with the quantities and qualities of grape they re- 
 quire. 
 
 The product being thus the property of the man- 
 ufacturers, is carried at once to their wine-presses 
 at Verzenay. When the baskets arrive, they are 
 emptied into a great wooden measure, callad a 
 
GEAPM8 AT TBE WINB-JPRESS. 123 
 
 oaque, wliich is roughly estimated to hold one hun- 
 dred and twenty pounds weight. Each proprietor 
 brings iu his supply himself, and eagerly watches 
 the measurement of his load. As each measure is 
 filled, a tally is kept by half a dozen at the same 
 time, in the rudest way, by chalk-marks on the 
 door-posts or on a convenient cask lying near. 
 
 There is an old saying in Champagne, that when 
 they cry " thief," every one at Verzenay takes to 
 his heels. Lors qxCon crie " an voleur," tout le 
 monde de Verzenay se sauve. I was not surprised,! 
 therefore, to find that an old woman — trough, 1 
 blowzy, and dirty, it is true, but, as I was told, a 
 landed proprietor iu her own right, and with a pro- 
 duct of her vineyard of forty panniers at least, or 
 two hundred dollars worth of grapes, that year — 
 had marked seven, when every one else had marked 
 only six baskets as the number she had delivered. 
 
 The wine-presses are very much like those used 
 in our country for making cider, although they are 
 never worked, like the latter, by horses. As difier- 
 ent classes of wine are obtained according to the 
 degree of pressure, this can only be properly regu- 
 lated by the discreet force of men's hands. 
 
 As soon as the caque or measure is filled, its 
 weight estimated, and its number marked, it is 
 emptied on the floor of the wine-press. These 
 wine-presses can hold from five to ten thousand 
 poTinds of grapes at a time. When their floors are 
 well covered, the finit is first trampled down with 
 
124 TSE CSAMPAGNE COXTNTRT. 
 
 the feet and smoothed into a uniform layer about 
 two feet and a half thick. This is covered with 
 planks, and the machine heing adjusted, its pressure 
 is carefully applied. The grapes are throvm in in 
 bunches with their stalks. The tcmnin which the 
 latter contain is deemed an essential element of the 
 wine, as it gives solidity to it and renders it 
 durable. 
 
 The juice flows into a gutter at the base of the 
 press, and thence through a spout, guarded, to pre- 
 vent the escape of the skins and pulps, by a large 
 wicker basket, through which it passes into the tub 
 or vat below. jBVom this it is dipped out with 
 buckets and poured into ordinary wine barrels, if it 
 is to be moved to a distance, or if to remain station- 
 ary, into large hogsheads. 
 
 The juice of the first and second pressures is 
 alone used for the manufacture of the finest cham- 
 pagne ; that of the third for the inferior grades ; and 
 the fourth and fifth for ordinary red wines, or for 
 distUlation into a common brandy. The juice, as 
 it comes from the press, has a very Hght-pink color, 
 which it loses entirely in the course of its fermen- 
 tation. Thus the red or black grape, without the 
 use of any artificial means of bleaching, produces the 
 clear amber-colored champagne wine we aU. admire. 
 Great care must be taken, however, to keep the 
 juice of the red grape free from the skins and pulp. 
 
 The refuse of the grapes is left by the pressure 
 in the form of a soHd cake about a half a foot in 
 
TSE MAYOR IK WOSSINQ-DAT SUIT. 125 
 
 thickness. TMs is either cut -with a spade iato small 
 square hlocks, and dried for fuel, or broken up and 
 mixed -with stable manure, to fertilize the Tiue- 
 fields. 
 
 The vintage, which generally lasts at least a fort- 
 night, is carefiilly watched and superintended by 
 the wine manufacturer. He is present during the 
 whole time, and keeps his eye upon every detail of 
 the operation, — ^the plucking and assorting of the 
 grapes, the weighing and recording of the measure- 
 ment, the pressing in all its degrees, and the filling 
 of the barrels. He is not willing to iutermit his 
 daily carefulness until the delicate fluid is safely 
 cellared in his establishment at Rheims, Bpemay, 
 or elsewhere. Wlien it is said that if a few crumbs 
 of bread should fall among the grapes, they would, 
 by the fermentation of the gluten they contain, pro- 
 duce ammonia, and spoil the flavor of the wine, the 
 necessity of watchfulness can be appreciated. The 
 laborers accordingly are expected to refrain from 
 taking their meals near the grapes destined for the 
 wine-press. 
 
 Some of the large manufacturers have small 
 villas by the side of their wine-presses at Verze- 
 nay, where they remove with their families, and 
 remain during the vintage. I saw the great man 
 of Rheims, its mayor and depute, and the chief 
 partner of the house of Veuve CKcquot, busily 
 superintending the work in his wine-press. He 
 was so disguised in shabby working-day suit and 
 
126 TSJS OSAMPAGNE COUNTST. 
 
 apron that I hardly recognized him. I could see 
 at the same time, as I accosted ^I'm among his vats 
 and barrels, his -wife and maid plucking flowers from 
 the bright parterres of the pretty. cottage near by, 
 and in the stable-yard a grand emblazoned carriage 
 and well-fed coachman and liveried varlets lounging 
 about. 
 
 I was invited everywhere to partake of the 
 grapes, of which baskets brimmiag full surrounded 
 me on aU sides, and I did so freely. As I saw the 
 luscious fruit had attracted the honey-sucking bees 
 in swarming multitudes, I at first hesitated to share 
 their tempting feasts ; but after several timid at- 
 tempts, finding that I was] unharmed, I became 
 more bold, and thrust my hand into the abounding 
 heaps with confidence. The bees seemed so sated 
 with sweetness that they had become too kindly to 
 wound, or so intoxicated with the vinous ferment 
 of the fruit that they wanted the power, if they had 
 the inclination, to sting. 
 
 The grape is of the Pinot* variety, a small round 
 one, of a deep purple color. Its taste was ahnost 
 too sweet and luscious, and I felt after gorging 
 
 * The varieties of tlaok or red grape generally cultivated are 
 the ' MorilUm and Pinot : those of the white are the " golden 
 plants of Ay" and the Epinetes, From these alone is manu- 
 factured the best champagne wine. lu addition to these there 
 are the Gouem, called in the country Marmot, which produce a 
 white grape, and the Meimiers and the Promentis, whose fruit is 
 red. These latter 'give only an inferior wine, consumed in the 
 ooimtry. 
 
C0MFARI80N OF YINTAGMS. 127 
 
 myself mtli it tliat I was almost sated to sick- 
 ness. I was especially recommended to try the 
 small strivelled grapes, which had already been 
 dried into raisins by the excessive heat of the 
 season. These were even more sweet than the 
 others. 
 
 I- recollect that on tasting the grapes of the same 
 vineyards, but of the subsequent vintage, that they 
 were so acrid and astringent that I could not swal- 
 low them. Such was the difference between the 
 effect of the sunny season of 1865 and that of the 
 cold rainy one of 1866. The crop of the latter 
 year was, though abundant, so poor in quahty that 
 not a manufacturer who cared for the reputation of 
 his wine would buy a solitary [grape of it. Not a 
 bottle of good champagne wine can ever be made 
 of the meagre, acrid juice of that vintage. It will, 
 however, be probably mixed with better liquor, or 
 so smothered with syrup or puffed up with gas by 
 a plentiful ferment as to disguise its origiaal defects, 
 and be sold by makers of inferior character as the 
 best of champagne. There will be drinkers, too, 
 who, satisfied with pop and sweetness, will be con- 
 tent with the noise, gas, and sugar they will get for 
 their money. All good judges, however, with their 
 suspicions excited by the excessive sweetness and 
 effervescence, will probably be contented with a 
 single sip, or if disposed to make further experi- 
 ment, will soon discover, on trial, the thinness and 
 crudity of the fluid, and its total want of all vinous 
 
128 " TEM CSAMFAGNJE COUNTET. 
 
 quality. It mil have the strength of brandy, for 
 this will be plentifully added, but it will not have 
 the body and flavor of wine. 
 
 Every one was talking of the excellence of the 
 vintage ; and there was not a man, woman, or child 
 in Verzenay who was not rejoiciag in the success- 
 ful result. Grapes had never brought so high an 
 amount, having been sold at about twelve dollars 
 and twenty cents the caque of one hundred and 
 twenty pounds, or ten cents per pound, nearly dou- 
 ble the average price. The people of Verzenay, 
 some twelve hundred in all, had divided among 
 them about two millions of francs, or four himdred 
 thousand dollars, which they received for the su- 
 perb crop of 1865. Thus each adult, male and 
 female, of the place, had pocketed on an average 
 three himdred and thirty-three dollars, and every 
 one was swelling with the consciousness of wealth. 
 The whole product of the vineyards of Verzenay, 
 if those which belong to the great manufacturers 
 are included, was estimated at the value of six or 
 seven hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 Though the vintage was equally good in all parts 
 of La Champagne, the grapes grown in Verzenay, 
 producing the wine which is the main constituent 
 of that combination known as vin mousseux (cham- 
 pagne wine), are always in the greatest demand, and 
 accordingly bring the highest prices. The caqy^ 
 of one hundred and twenty pounds, which sold at 
 Verzenay for six francs, was bought elsewhere 
 
GROWmO EXCITEMENT. 129 
 
 for forty and forty-fiYe. It takes forty eaques to 
 make six ordinary barrels of juice ; so eaoh, of Ver- 
 zenay grape, cost four hundred francs or eiglity 
 dollars ! 
 
 The kno-wing ones said that the wine of 1865 
 would compare with that of 1822 for precocity, 
 with 'that of 1849 for quantity, and with that of 
 1846 for quality. There had never been, since 
 1811, a grape so ripe, so sugary, and one harvested 
 uuder such favorable circumstances of weather. It 
 was agreed, however, that the juice of 1865, ex- 
 cellent as it was, would never be such as was ob- 
 tained in the exceptional comet year of 1857, and 
 which is the basis of the celebrated wine of 1858, 
 the best ever made. The grape of 1865 was said 
 to have been too rapidly matured by the hot sun, 
 and consequently too replete with sugar to have the 
 delicate qualities of the more slowly developed fruit 
 of 1857. 
 
 Still beset with memories of the opera house, 
 I asked if the day was not to close with the feast 
 and dance, but I was answered that all were so 
 wearied with their work that they would seek at 
 early sundown repose in unromantic slumber. 
 
 Toward evening, however, whether it was the 
 effect of the vapor of the new wine which filled the 
 atmosphere, or the drinking of the old which flowed 
 freely everywhere, or merely the natural exhilara- 
 tion which comes with the satisfaction of having 
 completed a hard day's labor, I observed a growing 
 
 K 
 
130 TSE GSAMPA&NE COUNTRY. 
 
 exoitement. Men and women were arguing loudly 
 and energetically, and tlie rude swains were philan- 
 dering with and kissing the "sunburnt daughters 
 of labor." 
 
 I found myself, too, becoming the object of a 
 warmth of affection I would have preferred to dis- 
 pense with. Brawny arms, stained red with wine 
 to the shoulder, were wound about my neck, and 
 stuffy hands sticky with grape juice thrust into my 
 grasp. 
 
 As the sun began to set we took our departure 
 from Yerzenay, inspired by the cheering influences 
 of the prosperous vintage of 1865, which will be 
 freshly remembered for years to come in the flow- 
 ing cups of every jovial and grateful son of Bac- 
 chus. 
 
CHAPTEE Xn. 
 
 The -Must ia the Wine Manufactories — The Wrae Establish- 
 ments — Convents and Monasteries — The Awakened Spirits of 
 Jolly Monks — Old Vaults — The Arrangement and Struotuie 
 of Wine Manufactories — Tasting Koom — Cellars — A Sub- 
 terranean Visit. 
 
 TX7E follow to the establislunent of the wine 
 ' ' manufacturer the bairels of freshly obtained 
 juice — ^the must, as it is called in English, and 
 mout in French — ^which we have seen flowing from 
 the wine-presses of Verzenay, Ay, Epemay, or else- 
 where, and which has been expressed from the 
 grape as soon as it was plucked. 
 
 The must is nauseously sweet to the taste, and 
 although it has no vinous flavor and is still unfer- 
 mented, has an intoxicating eflect if freely drank. 
 Its color, if obtained by a first or second quick 
 pressure from the black or purple grape, has a 
 slight pink hue, but if from the white, a light straw- 
 color. 
 
 The wine manufacturer having collected the 
 fresh juice obtained from the grapes, which he has 
 purchased some weeks before the vintage from 
 a multitude of the small proprietors of vineyards 
 throughout all that part of Champagne where the 
 
 K 2 
 
132 TBE CSAMJPAGNE COUNTRT. 
 
 fruit is grown, stores it ia his manufactory, and 
 leaves it to repose there until it is ready for the 
 manifold operations it has to undergo, before it is 
 converted into that sparkling and exhilarating bev- 
 erage, which we all welcome in its lively flow from 
 a genuine bottle of Clicquot or Consular Seal. 
 
 The establishments of the wine manufacturers 
 are to be found at Erheims, Epemay, Chalons, Ay, 
 Mareuil sur Ay, and in other towns of that por- 
 tion of the province of La Champagne where the 
 choicest grapes are grown. They abound most, 
 however, at Eheims. 
 
 The wine manufactories are generally large 
 structures extending over a wide space above, and 
 through a great stretch of vault and passage-way 
 below ground. The establishments at Eheims, 
 though among the most important, have not the 
 architectural pretensions of those at Epemay, 
 where some of the great wine-merchants, as Moet 
 & Chandon and Piper & Co., possess enormous 
 stone structures, which, with their wide portals, 
 crowned with armorial bearings, and their pillars 
 and cornices adorned with sculptured ornaments, 
 have the stateliuess of palaces. Those at Eheims 
 are mostly antique buildings, many of which had 
 served as monasteries and convents when the an- 
 cient town was held close in the embrace of old 
 Mother Chru-ch, whose arms extended wide in this 
 seat of ecclesiastical power, and grasped the best ia 
 the country. 
 
AWAKENED SPIRITS OF JOLLY MONKS. 133 
 
 With the succession of political change and revo- 
 lutions, and consequent contempt of clergy, abbes, 
 monks, and nuns were ousted mthout pity, and 
 their luxurious domains confiscated. In the prog- 
 ress of the development of the champagne wine- 
 trade during the last fifty years, its thriving con- 
 ductors have become possessed of many of these, 
 and turned them into places of busiaess. Finding 
 below ground the convenient bed of chalk which 
 underlies all the toTvn and the neighboring coimtry, 
 they have bored it in every direction into vaults to 
 store their choice product. 
 
 In the course of these excavations the wine manu- 
 facturers have, not seldom, found that their holy 
 predecessors had anticipated them, and discovered 
 cellars already made ages before, some possibly for 
 the deposit of wines, of which aU good monks had 
 a stock of the best the country then afforded, and 
 some for crypts for sacred retirement and prayer, 
 and others for dungeons for the punishment and 
 repentance of a recreant brother, or for tombs for 
 the dead. These cavernous chambers now echo 
 with the modem pop of the champagne bottle ; and 
 it is to be supposed, as it proclaims the flow of gen- 
 erous wine, that the novel sound, if it awake the 
 spirit of dead abbe or monk, whether he died with 
 a prayer or a curse upon his lips, will not be un- 
 welcome to him, for, saint or sinner, he was of a 
 jovial brotherhood. 
 
 In the neighborhood of that famous and ancient 
 
134 TEE CEAMPAQNE COUNTET. 
 
 cKuToli, Saint Eemi, on tiie outskirts of the city, 
 there are some caves said to be two thousand years 
 old. They accordingly were never bored by mole- 
 eyed monk. They were discovered some years ago 
 by a wine manufacturer while examining the ground 
 preparatory to maMag excavations for his ceUarr.' 
 He found the work already done, and to an extent 
 far beyond any possible want. They are a hundred 
 and ten in number, all cut out of the solid chalk, 
 and capable of holding ten millions of bottles of 
 champagne. Though there is a great diversity of 
 opinion, most antiquaries suppose that they were 
 the quarries from which the origiaal builders of 
 Eheims obtaiued the material for the construction 
 of the town. 
 
 There are still in the sculptured ornaments of 
 the exterior of these ancient structures, and ia the 
 carved wainseotings and religious paintings of the 
 interiors, evidences of their former sacred uses. 
 They are now, however, for the most part sadly 
 stained with wiae, and otherwise injured by bac- 
 chanalian desecrations. 
 
 The manufacturers have generally their dwelling- 
 places, their counting-houses, and their manufac- 
 tories, if not iu the same building, within the same 
 inclosure, and their cellars below, but extending 
 far beyond imder the streets and the neighboring 
 houses. 
 
 Though many of these structures are very old,, 
 and have a more or less decrepit look, the wealthy 
 
TASTING-jROOM. 135 
 
 manufacturers have STicoeeded by dint of expense in 
 securing for themselves tolerably comfortable resi- 
 dences, where they live luxuriously, and entertain, 
 espedaUy their best customers, generously. 
 
 The wine manufactories are divided generally 
 into four stories, two above and two below ground. 
 There are the garret, the ground-floor, and two 
 subterranean compartments, one beneath the other. 
 The counting-house and the tasting-room are either 
 on the ground-floor, or in a contiguous buildiag. 
 Each compartment has its especial use. The bureau 
 or counting-room is generally well filled with a 
 goodly number, mostly polyglot Germans, who are 
 ready to address you in any language, whether your 
 mother-tongue be English, Russian, Spanish, or 
 Italian. There are ordinarily two partners or chief 
 managers, one of whom superintends the commerce, 
 and the other the manufacture, of the wine. There 
 is a desk for each in the counting-house, but that 
 of one is generally vacant, for he to whom it 
 belongs is the superintendent of the manufactory, 
 and is away among the vineyards buying, or in the 
 tasting-room experimenting, or in the cellier super- 
 intending the mixing, dosing, and corking; or in 
 the c(we selecting; or in the packing-room over- 
 looking the adorning and packing of the botties 
 which are being prepared for market. 
 
 The tasting-room is generally composed of two 
 compartments, an outer and an inner one. In the 
 former alone customers are received. The latter is 
 
136 TME CBAMPAGNE COTTNTST. 
 
 the sanctym of the -wiiie mamafacfcurer, kept myste- 
 riously closed from comm.on Yiew, though a quick 
 eye may perchance ohtain a stolen glance and catch 
 a sight of a range of suspicious looking utensils 
 and laheled vials, very suggestive of the apothe- 
 cary shop, and the least sensitive nose will he sure 
 to snuff up a very strong indication of the hrandy 
 distillery. In this secret chamher are concocted 
 the mystic liquors used for dosing. Into the more 
 pubKe compartment of the tasting-room the cus- 
 tomer is always brought to taste the wines. These 
 axe poured out from bottles containing the different 
 kinds into a range of the long old-fashioned cham- 
 pagne glasses, called flutes, and are tasted one after 
 the other in often repeated succession, both by 
 customer and manufacturer. The latter, after he 
 has sipped the wine and turned it about awhile in 
 his mouth to bring it into contact with the whole 
 tongue, but especially with its root and the palate, 
 where the sense of taste is the most discriminating, 
 prudently ejects it. The customer, with a moutii 
 not so often tempted by such seductive draughts, 
 and being either incapable, or not under the neces- 
 sity of exercising the same self-denial, vriU probably 
 swallow down incontinently the full contents of 
 each successive glass. 
 
 The cellier, though our word cellar comes from it, 
 is in the French sense a mere place of deposit, and 
 not necessarily subterranean. In the wine manu- 
 factories it is on the ground-floor, and forms what 
 
CELZAMS. 137 
 
 is called in Frenclitlie rez-de-ehaussie. It is well- 
 ventQated with ntuneroiis -wiadows, and has no floor 
 or coTering to the ground. As it communicates 
 freely with the outer air, its temperature varies hut 
 little from that of the surroimding atmosphere. It 
 is eonsequeiitly colder in winter and hotter in sum- 
 mer than the cellars helow, whose temperature is 
 nearly constant. In the cellier are seen the great 
 Yats in which the mixture of the different wines is 
 made. In it are conducted most of the operations 
 necessary in the manufacture of champagne, and 
 its preparation for market. To it are brought, from 
 time to time, out of the depths helow, any of the 
 delicate ofifepring of the grape which may require 
 change of air and temperature. Thus a wine 
 chilled to torpor may be warmed into a fermenting 
 fervor, or one heated to a dangerous excess of effer-' 
 vescence cooled down to a safe quietude. It is very 
 important in the manufacture of a wine, of which 
 gas is an essential element, whose development is 
 so much influenced by heat and cold, that there 
 should be means of regulating its temperature. 
 The manufacturers have accordingly, iu the ar- 
 rangement of their estabKshments, made provision 
 for such. iVom the garret to the lowest cellar 
 there is every variation required. 
 
 In the grenier, or loft, to which we ascend for a 
 passing glance of its contents, we find big bags of 
 corks, and all the stores necessary for the provision 
 of the establishment. The cork branders are there, 
 
138 TEE CSAMFAGNJE COXfNTSr. 
 
 chiefly women, who axe busy over their alcoholic 
 lamps. Empty bottles, too, aie sometimes stored 
 in the grenier, but more often under sheds in the 
 court-yard, where they lie in great heaps ready for 
 the rinsers when the drawing off of the wine takes 
 place. 
 
 Below the cellier are two ranges of subterra- 
 nean cellars, or cams, as they are oaUed by the 
 French. The upper one is about twenty feet, and 
 the lower forty, or even sixty feet sometimes, below 
 the surface of the ground. lighting gigantic tal- 
 low candles standing in great tin candlesticks, with 
 wide basins or bottom to catch the sputtering grease, 
 we cautiously descend the long stone steps which 
 lead to the regions below. If it be summer we 
 should take the advice of our polite guide, and 
 carefully button our coats and wrap our handker- 
 chiefs about our necks, for we shaU soon become 
 tremblingly conscious of the change to a cooler 
 temperature. If it should be winter we shall be 
 no less conscious of the comparative warmth below, 
 and probably unbutton or take off our heavy over- 
 coats. 
 
 All, in these cavernous compartments, is dank 
 with the moisture dripping from the humid walls 
 of chalk, which feel slimy to the touch. The feet 
 slip over the floors, not only wet with the natural 
 humidity of the place, but by the wine which has 
 flowed from the broken bottles. There is a min- 
 gled odor of earthiuess and wiae, combining the 
 
A SV£TERRANEAN VISIT. 139 
 
 fustiness of the one and the aroma of the other. 
 There is universal darkness, except where our sput- 
 tering flambeaus extend their contracted circles of 
 glumneriag light. By this alone we make our way 
 along the lengthened passages, and see rising above 
 our heads from the floor the thick layers of bottles 
 which are heaped up on each side, and seem to 
 stretch before and behind us for miles. 
 
 Bottles are lying by thousands in every varieiy 
 of attitude, some horizontally, some diagonally, and 
 others vertically. Some are in racks, and others 
 merely heaped up together without any but their 
 own support. AE are, however, arranged in order 
 and numbered, and the age and quality of each 
 carefully recorded on wooden labels. Many bottles 
 have upon their sides a great daub of whitewash, 
 and we may see perhaps some workmen giving 
 them one after tbe other, a knowing shake, and 
 chaaiging their position. Our guide takes a bottle 
 here and there, and holding it to the light of his 
 candle, points out to us a muddy sediment, clouding 
 thick one of the sides if it has been lying horizon- 
 tally, or if it has been in a diagonal or vertical 
 position, filling the neck and resting upon the cork. 
 There are here and there on the floor, or clinging to 
 the racks, fragments of bottles broken by tbe force 
 of the gas. Tbey give out generally at the bottom, 
 which falls off as smoothly as if cut with some 
 sharp instrument. 
 
 The lower cave or cellar is deeper, darker, cooler. 
 
140 TSE CBAMFAGNE COTTNTST. 
 
 and more damp, but in its ajrangements there is 
 nothing to distinguish it from the upper. 
 
 All the various compartments communicate with 
 each other, not only by the doorways and steps, 
 but by trap-doors, through which the wine is passed 
 up and down, and by ventilators for ttie regulation 
 of the air and temperature. 
 
 The large manufactories generally open upon a 
 court-yard, which is closed by a great gate called a 
 parte eocMre, and there are sometimes within the 
 inclosure pretty, but formal gardens of the IVench 
 type, with kiosques, where I have often been invited 
 in the summer season to share a bottle of cham- 
 pagne of famous vintage. 
 
CHAPTER Xni. 
 
 Manufacture of Champagne Wine — Marriage of Wines — The 
 Ctmie — Test ^of Sugar — A Delicate Operation — Careful 
 Nursing — Drawing Off — Ea-w Wine — Effervescence — Break- 
 age — Change of Temperature — Effect of Age on Cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 TXTE left the fresMy expressed juice of the 
 ' ' grape, the must, in the cellier of the manu- 
 factory where it had been carried in the barrels 
 into which it was poured from the reservoir of the 
 wiae-press. Five or sis, perhaps seven, different 
 vine-growing districts have each contributed a sup- 
 ply of their best product. There are probably bar- 
 rels of the juice of the red grapes of Verzenay, 
 Bouzy, Ay, and Epemay, and certainly some of the 
 white of Cramant or ats neighborhood ; for the last, 
 having a particularly strong disposition to effervesce, 
 is deemed an essential ingredient in the composition 
 of what is known by us as champagne wine, the 
 vin mousseux of the French. 
 
 We shall now accompany the must of the vari- 
 ous vintages, which we have tasted and found of a 
 sickish taste, throughout its various natural trans- 
 formations, and the manifold artificial processes to 
 which it is subjected, until it is finally converted 
 
142 TSE CSJMFAQNE COVrNTRT. 
 
 into tte pleasing and cheering beverage whicli 
 flows so sparklingly and promptly from the cham- 
 pagne bottle. 
 
 After a repose of some weeks, the juices of the 
 various vintages are mixed together in a great vat. 
 The fluid has already purged itself il s'est dilourle 
 (it has cleansed itself of mud), as the manufacturer 
 says, and flows out limpid and almost colorless. 
 That, however, coming from the red grape may 
 stiU have a slight pink hue, Kke the dying reflection 
 of the setting sun in a pure stream ; while the juice 
 of the white grape retains but the slightest limar 
 tinge of its yellow color. 
 
 This mixing, or marriage of the different wines, 
 as it is called, but which is technically known as a 
 cv/vee, is the most important of all the various ope- 
 rations. It was the great discovery of the jovial 
 Benedictine monk, Dom Perignon, to whom, as has 
 already been recorded, we are indebted for the ex- 
 istence of champagne wine. There is no manufac- 
 turer who ever dispenses with making a cuvie, or 
 who even thinks it possible that veritable cham- 
 pagne can be made without it. 
 
 The juice of the white grape has not only qual- 
 ities distinct from that of the red, but each variety 
 of the latter has its own peculiar properties. The 
 • former gives a wine which effervesces more strongly, 
 and the red grape generally one that has more 
 body, greater fineness, an iatenser spirit, and a 
 more vigorous constitution. These quahties, more- 
 
ma:rriagis of wines. 143 
 
 over, vary in degree in the separate products of 
 each vineyard and of different vintages. 
 
 Though the manufacturer, with his little instru- 
 ment called a glucometer (from the Ghreek r^XvKvs, 
 sweet, and fierpov, measure), which he is always 
 using, has a means, together with the ordinary- 
 methods of analysis of tiie chemist, of testing the 
 quantity of sugar and of other tangible constituents, 
 he has to rely solely upon his sense of taste and 
 smell for the detection of the not less important hut 
 more immaterial properties of his wine. "What he 
 terms bouquei, or perfume and fineness, is only to 
 be discerned by the nose, tongue, and palate. And 
 how acute must such organs be in the expert taster, 
 who, with a sip and a scent, will distinguish the 
 gun-flint flavor of the wine of Pierry, in which I, 
 with the best will in the world, and with no slight 
 experience, could detect nothing but the usual indi- 
 cations of Bacchus, without the faintest suspicion 
 of the presence of Mars. 
 
 The manufacturer, having thoroughly made his 
 tests by sense and instrument, knows, or thinks he 
 knows, the distinctive qualities of each kind of juice, 
 and makes his mixture or cwvee accordingly. He 
 thus gets, or tries to get, the proper equilibrium of 
 fineness, effervescence, body, and spirit which he 
 believes to be essential to the desired result — ^good 
 champagne. 
 
 The composition of the cuv^es varies each year, 
 according to the character of the vintages of the 
 
144 TEE CSAMFAGNE COUNTST. 
 
 different places. If that of Cramant fails, for ex- 
 ample, and that of Vizy shovdd succeed, the latter 
 is substituted for the former, or vice versa. 
 
 The products of the different vineyards having 
 been poured into the great vat, are thoroughly 
 mixed with a long pole armed with cross-pieces of 
 wood. This operation completed, the fluid is drawn 
 off into hogsheads containing each about forty-four 
 gallons, called tonneaux de tirage. These are left 
 in the cellier for a fortnight or so, until the com- 
 bined juices they contain have fermented under the 
 influence of the ordinary temperature of the air, 
 which is generally warm, — ^the usual period of the 
 operation beiag toward the close of October. 
 
 When at the end of about fifteen days, the fer- 
 mentation is supposed to have changed nearly one 
 half of the sugar which the liquid naturally con- 
 tains into alcohol and carbonic acid, the fonneaiix 
 de tirage are sent into the caves or cellars under 
 ground. The cooler temperature below arrests the 
 activity of the fermentation. The liquid — or the 
 wine we may eaU it, for it has now much of its 
 vitality and spirit — ^is then left undisturbed until 
 January. 
 
 In this month the wine is tested with the glu- 
 cometer, and the quantity of natural sugar it con- 
 tains carefully ascertained. If it has too much, 
 which seldom or never occurs, a less saccharine 
 vnne must be mixed with it. If it has not enough, 
 which is generally the case, a proper quantity of 
 
CAREFUL NVRSma. 145 
 
 the candied sugar of the cane, and never any other 
 is put into it. AJl other kiuds, even the purest 
 white, whether made from cane-juice or beet-root, 
 axe said to poison the wine, giving it an easily de- 
 tected, nauseous flavour. The sugar beiug the sole 
 source of the carbonic acid gas, as well as of the 
 alcohol of champagne wine, if there should be too 
 little there will be no effervescence ; if there should 
 be too much, the strongest bottles would not be 
 strong enough to withstand the enormous pressure 
 of the excess of gas it would generate. 
 
 A champagne wine properly constituted should 
 contain at least twenty grammes (310 grs.) of sugar 
 in each litre (about two piats), and twelve per cent, 
 of alcohol. It is rare, however, that wine comes 
 into the world so favorably proportioned. Cham- 
 pagne is one of the most dehcate offsprings of Bac- 
 chus, and requires careful nursiug, the most giugerly 
 handling, frequent change of air, skiUful doctoring, 
 and not a' little dosing. 
 
 The quantity of natural sugar having been ascer- 
 tained {peser is the technical term applied to the 
 process), and if deficient, as is usually the ease, the 
 want supplied by due proportions of the suere candi 
 of the cane, the wine still contained in the hogs- 
 heads, or tonneaux de tirage, is left in the cave 
 or first cellar under ground. Here it is kept while 
 fermenting gently until the period of bottling 
 {tirage en houteilles). 
 
 This operation commences in April, and con- 
 
 L 
 
146 TEB GEAMPAGNE COUNTRT. 
 
 tinues until June. The bottles now used are the 
 same from which the wine is drunk, when finally 
 prepared for drinking. The liquid, as it flows from 
 the hogsheads, is of an uniform amher color, and 
 has somewhat the taste as well as look of an unripe 
 hock wine. If of superior quality, though still 
 green from youth, it wiU not he unpalatable; if, 
 however, of an inferior grade, it will be found 
 rough, bitter, and astringent, and the taster wiU be 
 satisfied with the slightest sip from the little shallow 
 basin of silver, holding about a thimbleful, in which 
 it is submitted to his judgment. 
 
 The bottles axe filled to within an inch or so of 
 their mouths, and then corked. The corks are fas- 
 tened down with a narrow piece of iron, bent at 
 either end into a hook, which catches under the rim 
 which borders the mouth of each bottle. This fas- 
 tening, or agrafe, has the advantage over iron wire 
 in being more rapidly applied and removed, and in 
 its capability of serving its purpose time and again. 
 The corks used axe employed for this purpose only, 
 and are, though sound, of an inferior quality to 
 those contained ia the champagne bottles of com- 
 merce ; for, as we shall see, notwithstanding that 
 the bottles into which the wine has been originally 
 poured are never changed, the corks are. 
 
 The bottles thus filled and corked are laid care- 
 fully on their sides, and arranged in order in suc- 
 cessive Hnes and layers, supported by thin and 
 narrow pieces of oaken wood placed horizontally. 
 
ZOSS FROM BREAKAGE. 147 
 
 They thus form, according to the number, more or 
 less long, broad, and high heaps of the utmost reg- 
 lilarity and squareness of angle. In the great man- 
 ufactories their length may extend many himdred 
 feet. Their width is ordinarily from ten to twelve 
 feet, and their height always within reach of a 
 man's arm. 
 
 When the wine has been properly made and bot- 
 tled, its fermentation goes on vigorously, and gener- 
 ally reaches its height in about three weeks. This 
 is a period of great anxiety to the manufacturer, 
 and he watches the development of the effervescence 
 with the utmost solicitude. The power of the gas 
 is sometimes so great that it has been known to 
 break bottles capable of resisting from twenty-eight 
 to thirty-eight atmospheres, thus overcoming an 
 immense force equal to the pressure of five himdred 
 and seventy poimds on each square inch. 
 
 The loss from breakage in consequence of the 
 inordinate development of gas is sometimes enor- 
 mous. In the years 1857 and 1858 it amounted to 
 twenty-five per cent, of the whole wine drawn oif. 
 Ten per cent, is the average ; and if the manufac- 
 turer finds that it falls much below this, he becomes 
 fearful that his wine may be deficient in efieives- 
 cence, and prove "stale and unprofitable." The 
 general consumer, who is not discriminating in his 
 taste, demands from his bottle of champagne a great 
 deal of noise and froth, and as he is the chief and 
 most remunerative customer, the manufacturer takes 
 
 l2 
 
148 TEE CHAMPAGNE COVNTRT. 
 
 care that he shall have all the explosive force pos- 
 sible. The problem, then, with the caterer to the 
 popular taste, is to produce the greatest possible 
 quantity of gas with the smallest proportion of loss 
 to himself by breakage. The gas is easUy produced 
 by an abundant supply of sugar and the application 
 of heat ; but the breakage is avoided only by the 
 most vigilant nursing. 
 
 When, in the warmer seasons, the manufacturer 
 begins to find, in the course of his constant visits, 
 the- floors of his cellars strewn with unusually nu- 
 merous fragments of glass and wet with wine, he 
 carefully inspects his bottles, and, finding many of 
 them broken and all seething with excessive fer- 
 ment, he removes them at once to a cooler atmos- 
 phere. This he finds ia his lower and deeper cel- 
 lar, where his wine is promptly placed, and its fer- 
 mentation moderated by the cold. The tempera- 
 ture of the lower or second cave, in which the bot- 
 tles now lie, varies from 40° to 45° ; while that of 
 the higher or first cave, from which they have been 
 removed, generally ranges between 50° and 55°. 
 
 During the cold seasons, on the other hand, the 
 wine may be chilled, and become too torpid to 
 generate the quantity of gas required. The bottles, 
 then, are brought up from the lower to the higher 
 cave, and frequently to the celKer on the ground- 
 floor, or even raised to the grenier or highest story 
 of the establishment. In a frosty autumn and in 
 the winter, the relative temperature of the higher 
 
CONSTANT MOVEMENT. 149 
 
 and lower compartments is reversed from what it is 
 in a warm spring and in the summer. In the for- 
 mer seasons it is higher above than below; while 
 in the latter it is lower. 
 
 The wine is thiis carefully nursed for two, three, 
 four years, and even more, and during the whole 
 time is more or less in perpetual motion. Now it 
 is shifted from cave to cave, again to celUer and 
 grenier, and thence back again from the highest com- 
 partment of the manufactory to its lowest depths, 
 only to renew its periodical journeying. Thus it 
 passes its restless existence of movement ujitil ready 
 for the final transformation which is necessary to fit 
 it for its destiay. 
 
 This ofifepring of Bacchus is like some feeble 
 child of humanity who from his birth requires the 
 most tender care. He is closely watched by nurse 
 and doctor. The influence of the vicissitudes of 
 the seasons upon his tender constitution, more 
 sensible than the thermometer, is minutely ob- 
 served, and each blush of heat or ripple of cold is 
 no sooner noticed than the cause is removed. Thus 
 fostered, he may attaia his full growth ; but is still 
 so weakly and sensible to the changes of tempera- 
 ture, that he is forced to travel from one place to 
 another, — here seeking heat to warm his torpid 
 blood into motion, and there cold to check its fe- 
 vered agitation. He is thus kept in constant move- 
 ment season after season, and finds no rest xmtil 
 the present is changed for another existence. 
 
150 TSE CBAMFAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 The -wine which is Tised to make the ordinary 
 champagne of commerce is seldom kept more than 
 two years after being bottled. The more choice 
 wines of the great vintages, only appreciated by 
 connoisseurs, are kept for a much longer time. 
 The \rine of 1858, now ten years old, which is 
 considered the finest ever made, has but just reached 
 perfection. Its age, which involves a great loss of 
 interest upon the original cost, which was exceed- 
 ingly high, renders it necessarily very expensive, 
 and it therefore can only be obtained by those 
 willing to pay largely. 
 
 Let us suppose that the wine, whose course of 
 change, both natural and artificial, we have follow- 
 ed to its bottling, is of the average quality of that 
 out of which is made most of the champagne sent 
 to our market. Two years have now elapsed, 
 and the manufacturer, knowing that his wine, 
 being of ordinary quality, will not improve by 
 age, and unwilling to incur any further loss by 
 interest, prepares it for consumption. The wine, 
 before it has xmdergone the various processes of 
 preparation, is called brut, or raw. It is highly 
 eiferveseing, but has a bitter, astringent taste, and 
 is not drinkable. 
 
 Let us now follow it in its various stages of prep- 
 aration, until it becomes what the manufacturer 
 calls mil prepari, prepared wine, or what we know 
 as the champagne of commerce. 
 
CHAPTEE XrV. 
 
 Sediment of Wine — How Deposited — Dosing — Dry and Sweet 
 Wine — Corking — ^A Miniature Guillotine — Cording — Branded 
 — Packed and Delivered. 
 
 TF the bottles of hnd, or raw wine, whose migra- 
 -*- tions from place to place we hare chronicled, 
 are closely observed in the course of any of their fre- 
 quent journeys, we shall find them much disturbed. 
 The fluid they contain has become thick and turbid. 
 The motion to which it has been subjected has- 
 stirred up from its depths a muddy sediment, which, 
 clouding the whole wine, has rendered it duU and 
 opaque. The first step in the preparation of cham- 
 pagne, the conversion of the vin brut (raw wine) 
 into vin prepare (prepared wine), is the fixing of 
 this sediment in such a position in the bottle that it 
 may be readily removed. 
 
 For this purpose the bottles of raw (brut) wine 
 are caxeftdly placed on their sides in one of the 
 cellars; and left in perfect repose. In a very short 
 time the muddiness of the liquid disappears, and 
 it may be seen floating pure and limpid above a 
 thick sediment which has fallen upon the side of 
 the bottle upon which it lies. The bottles are 
 
152 TEE CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 now changed from a horizontal to a diagonal posi- 
 tion, with their necks iaclining downwards. They 
 are, to use the technical phrase, placed sur pointe. 
 Eacks, made of two boards, nnited in an acute an- 
 gle ahove, in form Hke a half-opened portfolio, and 
 with their sides pierced with holes, are provided 
 for this purpose. The necks of the hottles, thrust 
 through these holes, incline downwards within the 
 two boards, and the raised bottoms project outward 
 toward the passage ways of the cellar, so that they 
 may be within conYenient reach of the workmen. 
 
 After the bottles are thus arranged sur pointe, a 
 workman daily, for six weeks or so, takes hold of 
 each by the bottom, gives it, with a succession of 
 slight turns with his wrist, a half rotatory motion, 
 and changes sKghtly its position. There is always 
 a daub of whitewash put on each bottle to indicate 
 the original place of the sediment, so that the work- 
 man may guage the extent of each day's move- 
 ment. 
 
 The sediment is thus finally shaken down into 
 the neck by means of this daily maneuver, aided 
 by the incliaation of the bottle placed diagonally in 
 the rack. 
 
 Madame Clicquot first devised this simple con- 
 trivance. So says, at any rate, her biographer. 
 Saving received an extensive order from Eussia, 
 which was to be immediately executed, but which, 
 however, had been already greatly delayed, she 
 went down into her cellars ia order to stimTilate 
 
SEDIMENT OF WINE. 153 
 
 the activity of her ■workmen. She found them at 
 work in the old-fashioned way, holding the hottles 
 by the neck, turned downwards, and knocking 
 upon their hottoms to detach the sediment, and 
 then, after finally shaking them up, laying them 
 on their sides until they were ready to renew the 
 operation. This mode of proceeding generally 
 lasted many months, and, besides requiring a va- 
 riety of drugs and clarifiers, which poisoned the 
 wine, was never very effective. 
 
 " It is impossible, my men," said Madame Clic- 
 quot, " for this to continue so. You have at most 
 fifty thousand bottles ready, and the order is for 
 double that amount." 
 
 " But, Madame, you can't send the wine filled 
 with sediment." 
 
 " No. I will have it perfectly clear, and every 
 bottle ordered shall be sent." 
 
 " You will never succeed : there is no other 
 way than ours." 
 
 "I will find another." 
 
 "No; it's impossible." 
 
 " You will see," replied Madame Clicquot, half- 
 angry with the obstiaacy of her workmen, whom 
 she now ordered to abstain henceforward from their 
 interminable work. She then, with a happy con- 
 ception, contrived the rack as now used, and had 
 all her bottles placed in it. 
 
 The workmen shrugged her shoulders. One 
 exclaimed, " A great improvement, indeed ! As if 
 
154 TEE CSAMPAGNE COVNTBT. 
 
 the wine was going to settle any quicker for that 
 machine ! " Another added, " We shall see : the 
 wine win only become the thicker for it; for the 
 sediment will have to faU to the bottom again, and 
 then we shall have a mess." 
 
 Madame Clicquot let them talk; and, slipping 
 quietly into the cellar day after day, while aR the 
 workmen were at dinner, she moved herself some 
 hnndreds of bottles in the rack, and in due time 
 triumphed in the perfect success of her contrivance. 
 
 Sometimes the sediment cHngs so firmly that it 
 is necessary ia order to detach it to strike the bot- 
 tle with considerable violence, and place it in a ver- 
 tical position, with its cork poiating directly to the 
 ground. 
 
 TVlien the sediment has all passed iato the neck, 
 and rests upon the cork, the bottle is ready for the 
 next stage of the process of preparation. This is 
 called the degorgement, — the disgorging of the 
 sediment. 
 
 The workman whose special function it is to per- 
 form this operation — ^the digorgeur, as he is called 
 — ^places himself, with his apparatus, at the side of 
 the rack containing the patients ready to be oper- 
 ated upon. He must be so near that he can 
 grasp at once each bottle, without any intermedi- 
 ate change of position, which would be sure to 
 disturb the sediment, and render a postponement 
 of the work necessary. 
 
 The disgorging apparatus is quite simple, con- 
 
THE DISGORGING. 155 
 
 sisting of a basin, openiag into a reservoir below, 
 supported by a wooden frame, and partly covered 
 with a bood. Its appearance is not unlike tbat of 
 an ordinary wasb-stand. Tbe workman wears a 
 leatbem apron, and has no otber implement than a 
 piece of booked and sbarp-pointed steel called a 
 croehet. Placing bimself before the basin, he seizes 
 the bottle, holding it diagonally with its neck down- 
 ward, removes its iron fastening (agrafe) with a 
 • single touch of his hook, and the cork, driven out 
 by the gas, pops out with great force, followed by 
 the sediment which was cHnging to it, and a spirt- 
 ing flow of frothy wine. The issue of the latter is 
 checked somewhat by the iinger of the operator, 
 who at the same time gives the bottle several quick 
 half-rotatory turns, that the wine which is allowed 
 to escape may rinse out from the neck every par- 
 ticle of deposit. The whole operation is completed 
 in an. instant of time, and with a loss ordinarily of 
 not more than a couple of tablespoonfuls of wine. 
 
 The basin, with its hood and reservoir, has served 
 the obvious purposes of catching the flying cork, 
 wine, and sediment, which have issued from the 
 bottles during the process, and protecting surround- 
 ing objects from injury and defilement. The corks 
 with their iron bands are kept for fature use. The 
 wine mixed with sediment can serve no possible 
 purpose, and is thrown away. 
 
 The bottles, as soon as disgorged, are ready for 
 the subsequent, stages of preparation. To prevent 
 
156 TBJE CEAMFAGNE COUNTRT. 
 
 the farther escape of gas and wine, the degorgeur 
 puts into each bottle a cork which, having been 
 already used and well compressed, is easily applied. 
 
 The wine is now hoisted from the cave to the 
 cellier above. Here it is to be dosed, corked, and 
 fastened down with string and iron-wire. The 
 workmen, whose duty it is to perform these several 
 operations, are seated in a row together, with the 
 necessary tools and mechanical contrivances at 
 hand. 
 
 The bottle passes first through the hands of the 
 doser. This he takes, and, uncorking it and trust- 
 ing solely to his eye, allows what he deems a suffi- 
 cient quantity of wine to escape, and then fills, to 
 within a short distance of the mouth, the emptied 
 space with a fluid which he pours out of a tin 
 measure, very like that carried in olden time by 
 the street lamp-lighters. The liquid, moreover, as 
 it flows smoothly of a glistening amber color from 
 the narrow nozzle, has the appearance of the purest 
 spermaceti oil. 
 
 This liquid is what is called by the manufacturer 
 the liqueur. It is generally composed of sugar- 
 candy, white wine of the best envies, and the spirit 
 of Cognac {esprit de Cognac*), and is a constituent 
 
 * The following is the composition of the ordinary liiiiieur 
 used : — 
 
 Sucre Candi Wauc .... 150 kilo. 
 
 Tin 123 litres. 
 
 Esprit de Cognac . . . . 10 litres. 
 
DRY AND SWEET WINES. 157 
 
 of all the wine known in commerce as champagne. 
 The quantity used depends upon the origiaal cha- 
 racter of the wine, and upon the degree of sweet- 
 ness it is proposed to give to it. 
 
 The wines of the finest Tintages, containing natu- 
 rally more sugar and alcohol, require less of the 
 liqueur to bring them to the same degree of sweet- 
 ness and strength than those of inferior years, 
 which are constitutionally weak and acrid. 
 
 The proportion of liqueur varies also according 
 to the supposed taste of the consumer for whom 
 the wine is destined. The French and the conti- 
 nental drinkers demand a light and sweet wine, the 
 Russian a sweet and strong one, and the English a 
 very dry but withal an exceedingly vigorous cham- 
 pagne. The Americans are supposed to have a 
 taste between the French and BngHsh, and to pre- 
 fer a wine less sweet and Hght than that of the 
 former, but not so strong and dry as that of the 
 latter. 
 
 It is for the interest of the wine manufactxirer 
 that a taste for a very sweet wine should predo- 
 minate in the world. A dry champagne, to be 
 palatable, must be made of the finest raw wine. A 
 sweet champagne can be made of almost any ma- 
 terial. The excessive quantity of sugar in the 
 latter masks completely its original character. In 
 the former every natural feature is distinctly ex- 
 pressed, and its virtues or vices, if it have them, are 
 at once discerned. As fine wines are the excep- 
 
158 THE CBAMFAGME COXINTRT. 
 
 tion, there being hardly one positively good to srx 
 ordinary or tad vintages, it is clear that the wine 
 manufacturers could not supply aU the inunense 
 number of their customers with the product of the 
 choice years alone. If, however, every champagne 
 drinker was sufficiently of a connoisseur to appre- 
 ciate a dry champagne, none but the choicest juice 
 of the grape could be used in its manufacture. The 
 very best wines only are sent to England, for there 
 it is impossible to sell the bad disguised with sugar, 
 for the taste rejects excessive sweetness. 
 . As long as the consimiption of champagne re- 
 mains so large, and the vicissitudes of the season 
 continue, most of the wine produced and drunk 
 will not be the best. It is well, perhaps, that the 
 popular taste is so little discriminating that it de- 
 lights in froth and sweetness. If the common 
 palate was more judicious, it would probably be 
 seldom gratified with cham.pagne, for nothing but 
 the dry and best would then be in demand, and it 
 would become too costly and rare for general use. 
 
 The liqueur, though generally containing nothing 
 but white sugar-candy, wine, and spirit of Cognac, 
 is not always so simply composed. When the 
 English consumer had a fancy for a hue of his 
 national color of red, the wine manufacturer grati- 
 fied it by mixing a certain quantity of port wine 
 with all the champagne destined for England. The 
 caprice, however, has had its day, and John Bull, 
 even with all his roseate predilections, has finally 
 
A MINJATUSE GVILLOTINE. 159 
 
 given in his adherence to the natural yellow. Ma- 
 deira wine, Kirsoh, tinctures of various kind, straw- 
 berry syrups, and vari-coloured brandies, have also 
 been added at times. 
 
 A bottle of ordinary champagne contains from 
 thirty to forty per cent, of liqueur. The dry fine 
 wines seldom contaru more than from ten to fifteen 
 per cent. 
 
 As soon as the liqueur has been poured in, the 
 bottle is passed to the corker (boucheur). He is 
 seated before a machine which looks very much 
 Uke a miniature guillotine, from which tragic in- 
 strument indeed the idea was derived. To attach 
 so painful an association to all the joyous expecta- 
 tions awakened by the sight of a champagne bottle, 
 may seem a treason to joviality ; but history de- 
 manded the truth, and that truth seemed less bitter 
 when sweetened by the reflection that each execu- 
 tion of the little guillotine is destined to be reversed 
 with a burst of joy. The guillotine is for putting 
 in the cork ; it is the cheerful work of every jovial 
 fellow to get it out. 
 
 The duty of the machine is twofold, — ^the com- 
 pressing of the cork, and the driving it into the 
 neck of the bottle. The corker {boucheur) places 
 the bottle at the lower part of the instrument, on 
 a projection which fits exactly within the deeply 
 hollowed bottom found in all champagne bottles, 
 and doubtless made expressly for the purpose. The 
 cork — already branded on the lower end, generally 
 
160 TSE CHAMPAGNE GOXTNTRT. 
 
 ■with the image of a comet,* and on the side with 
 the name of the mamifacturer, hj an iron die 
 heated over an alcohol lamp, — is at least one third 
 too large. 
 
 The workman takes it thus and gives it to a pair 
 of claws with which the machine is provided, and 
 which open just above the mouth of the hottle. 
 These grasp, compress, and hold it, and then the 
 corker lets go a string which suspends on a puUey 
 an iron mass weighing some twenty pounds. This 
 falls directly upon the cork, and drives it home. 
 In the old machines there is no weight and puUy, 
 and the force is applied with a heavy mallet driven 
 down by the hand. 
 
 p.The bottles -thus corked are passed to the man 
 whose business it is to apply the string. This he 
 does with great rapidity aiid force. The cord is 
 very strong, and, as the man applies it with aU 
 his strength, it brings down the edges of the 
 cork, which are originally sharp like those of any 
 other, Until they are entirely effaced, and the top 
 becomes round as we see it in the champagne bot- 
 tle, of our tables. The workman now, after giving 
 the bottle two or three rapid turns, passes it to 
 the man or boy at his side, who attaches the wire. 
 He also gives the bottle two or three quick shakes 
 before he places it down. Every one about the 
 establishment who has occasion to touch the bottles 
 
 * This in honor of the " comet year," which produced so fine a 
 vintage. 
 
PACKMD AND BBLIVBRED. 161 
 
 frequently repeats these shakes, the purpose of 
 which is to mix the liqueur^ and wiae well to- 
 gether. 
 
 The prudent manufacturer retains in his estab- 
 lishment for about a fortnight the wine thus pre- 
 pared and corked, in order that by careftd inspec- 
 tion he may ascertain if the various processes of 
 preparation have perfectly succeeded. If the corks 
 prove sound and well applied, the liquor remains 
 clear and transpaient, and the effervescence appears 
 brisk, the bottles are removed into another com- 
 partment of the cellier caEed the packing-room. 
 Here the corks and necks are covered with tin 
 or gold foil or wax, and the sides of the bottles 
 adorned with the etiquette or label of the house. 
 They axe now carefully packed in small wooden 
 cases, or osier baskets, containing a dozen each, if 
 intended for the American or English market, or in 
 laiger ones, holding thirty or even more bottles, if 
 to be sent to a iPrench or continental customer. 
 Each package being marked with the especial sym- 
 bol of the manufacturer, and the address of the 
 distant agent or customer, is now ready for ship- 
 ment. 
 
 M 
 
OHAPTEE XV. 
 
 How to choose Champagne — Excessive Popularity no Keoom- 
 mendation — Pop and Froth — Strength of Bottles — Tests 
 of Quality of Wine — False and True — A TTniversal Dis- 
 HUery — "When to drink Champagne — Corked — Ice or no 
 Ice — How to drink Champagne — Innooence of Grood Cham- 
 pagne — Social Qualities — An Aristocratic Wine-mixer. 
 
 TT miglit seem siiperflTioiis, after the minute de- 
 -■- seription I have given of the gro^dih, manu- 
 facture, and trade of champagne, to say more, but 
 there is an art of knovdng what Hnd to drink, and 
 how to drink it, which is well worth the study of 
 all those who seek to refine even their animal de- 
 sires. These guided by knowledge and chastened 
 by a refined taste, lose all their grossness, and thus 
 their gratification is not disfigured by the coarseness 
 of debauch or the deformity of disease. The con- 
 noisseur of wiae, with his discriminating taste, is 
 the companionable gentleman who lives long to 
 cheer the social table. He is a satisfaction to him- 
 self and a pleasure to all around him. He who 
 drinks only to drink, and gulps down every flowing 
 glass with indiscriminate thirst, is the frequenter of 
 the crowded but imsocial bar-room, or the solitary 
 bibber of the hidden bottle. He soon becomes a 
 horror to himself and a terror to others. 
 
POF AND FROTH. 163 
 
 The connoisseur, in choosing his champagne, is 
 rather repelled than attracted hy the excessive pop- 
 ularity of a brand. Knowing the common predi- 
 lection for sweetness, pop, and froth, he is sure that 
 the wine in general circulation will have been en- 
 dowed with those superficial qualities at the ex- 
 pense of more substantial attributes. 
 
 The champagne which explodes the loudest and 
 flows out the frothiest, is like a great many other 
 things in this world of sound and show, by no 
 means the best. It is, in fact, a proof of its inferi- 
 ority. Good wine absorbs largely the carbonic acid 
 gas generated in the course of its manufacture. In 
 bad wine the gas, instead of being absorbed, accu- 
 mulates in the vacant space above the liquid, and 
 thus, when the bottle is opened, the cork explodes 
 with great violence, followed by a cataract of froth. 
 When this escapes the wine remains comparatively 
 flat. In good wine, on the other hand, the cork 
 may require a great effort to draw, and when 
 drawn there may be little or no froth, but the liquid 
 will be seen to sparkle with those minute gems of 
 brightness tossed up and down by the juggling 
 spirit of the ethereal element. The explosive force 
 and effervescence of poor champagne, great as they 
 may be, soon vanish like those of soda-water, but 
 the sparkle of good wine will continue, even if un- 
 corked, for twenty-four hours. At the first opening 
 hardly one third of the whole gas escapes. 
 
 The demand on the part of the public for a noisy 
 
 m2 
 
164 TSM GJECAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 and frothy champagne is so urgent, that the manu- 
 facturers do their utmost to satisfy it. The strength 
 of the bottles is the only check to their efforts. 
 These are seldom able to bedr a pressure amount- 
 ing to more than five or six atmospheres. That of 
 seven and eight will be almost sure to break them. 
 New bottles are much stronger than those once 
 used, for the old ones have been weakened by a 
 distension of the particles of glass, by the previous 
 expansive force to which they have been subjected. 
 In the champagne district the manufacturer uses 
 none other but the new. In this country old bot- 
 tles are employed for holding the native eiferves- . 
 cing wines, and the many imitations of the foreign. 
 Breakage is consequently a frequent occurrence, 
 even after the wine has come into possession of the 
 consumer. I knew a youth in whose hand a bottle 
 of American champagne burst, and so wounded the 
 intricate net-work of vessels, that the blood could 
 only be stopped by the surgeon, who was forced to 
 tie the main artery of the arm for the purpose. I 
 have never heard of a similar accident from a gen- 
 uine bottle of champagne. 
 
 The maniofacturers, however, meet sometimes 
 with great losses from the breakage even of the 
 new and strongest bottles. One dolefully records : 
 "In the year 1746 I bottled 6000 bottles; 120 
 bottles were all that remained of the lot. In 1747 
 the wine did not contain quite so much liqueur 
 (sugar and win6) as in the preceding season, but 
 
TMTS OF QVALITT. 165 
 
 still one third of the bottles biirst, and in 1748 
 (using probably still less sugar) only one-sixth." 
 
 A strong effervescence is always accompanied by 
 excessive sweetness, which comes from the large 
 addition of sugar to produce the popular pop and 
 froth, both of which are indications certainly of too 
 much liqueur, and generally of an inferior cham- 
 pagne. The acridity and meagreness of this can 
 be so completely disguised by the " dosing," that 
 no manufacturer cares to waste his best wine, 
 whose fineness of bouquet and flavor coidd not 
 possibly be recognized, smothered as they woidd be 
 by the lusciousness of the syrup or liqueur. 
 
 In judging of champagne the connoisseur reHes 
 mainly upon his senses of taste and smell. His 
 sight, too, is brought into requisition, and if he sees 
 that it flows out smoothly, but yet sparHes bristly 
 ia the glass, is transparent, glistening, and of a pale 
 amber color, he at once is disposed to believe that 
 he has a good and old wine before him. If it 
 comes forth flzziag and foaming, and is of a dullish 
 white hue, he is almost ready to condemn it, on 
 first appearance, as a meagre youngling, which, 
 however skillfully treated, and whatever may be its 
 pretensions, vnll never be fit to be introduced 
 into the best company. 
 
 The wine to be tasted should have the tempera- 
 ture of from 50° to 54° of Fahrenheit. A great 
 degree of cold wiU mask the vices of the bad as 
 well as the virtues of the good. The season of the 
 
166 TEH CHAMPAGNjE COUNTRT. 
 
 jeax and the state of the atmosphere, too, are not 
 without their effect. In Maioh and April all wines 
 are said to be in motion or undergoing a certain de- 
 gree of decomposition, and the taste of the best 
 will be consequently injuriously affected. Thunder- 
 storms and strong gales, either by their electrical 
 influences or the concussions of air they produce, 
 likewise disturb the nicely balanced qualities of a 
 fiae champagne and spoil its flavor. 
 
 Before tasting the wine, the coimoisseur often 
 pours a drop or two in the palm of his hand, and, 
 rubbing it, tests it by the sense of smeU. If good, 
 it will have an aromatic odor; If bad, a mixed 
 sugary and spirituous smell. 
 
 The skiEful degustateur, as the French manufac- 
 turer calls biTTi (the taster), only sips the wine sub- 
 mitted to his judgment, and, turning it slowly, 
 brings it again and again backward and forward 
 in his mouth. He has learned by practice what 
 the physiologist has long taught in theory, that the 
 nerves of taste are placed at the point, and the stUl 
 more delicate ones of flavor at the root of the 
 tongue. The former can only distinguish, for ex- 
 ample, the obvious difference between the sweet 
 and sour ; while the latter, particularly if prac- 
 ticed, can discriminate the nicer degrees of each. 
 The bouquet of wine, which appeals at the same 
 time to the taste and smell, is only to be detected 
 by the palate, or rear part of the tongue. Here, 
 say the anatomists, are closely interwoven the 
 nerves which serve both these senses. 
 
FAISE AND TRTTE. 167 
 
 Good champagne should never he heavier than 
 water; but, to settle this question, recourse must 
 be had to the science of the chemist. An instru- 
 ment, however, has been contrived for this purpose 
 which is sometimes used by the manufacturer, and 
 is called an areometer. This has a graduated scale, 
 and- the poiat to which it sinks in pure water is 
 marked with a zero. When placed in any other 
 fluid, if it sinks to the same depth it is an indication 
 that it is of the same weight as water; if not so 
 deep, that it is lighter ; and if deeper, that it is 
 heavier. 
 
 Although there is a great deal of so-caUed cham- 
 pagne, the grape of which it was made — ^if mad& 
 of grape at all — ^never grew on the bins of Eheims 
 or its neighborhood ; there is not, it is presumed, 
 much that is adulterated with absolutely poisonous 
 ingredients. In Germany, Switzerland, even in 
 iPrance and in the United States, there is a large 
 quantiiy doubtless of Hquid manufactured which 
 has the sensible properties — ^the sweetness and effer- 
 vescence — of champagne, but none other of its 
 attributes. This may be made of grapes, of spoiled 
 and inferior wines of different kinds, of cider, or 
 the juices of the common fruits of temperate coun- 
 tries. Outwardly it displays every appearance of 
 genuine champagne, whose bottles, labels, and vari- 
 ous familiar adornments it assumes. There are 
 always in the United States purchasers ready to 
 buy the old baskets and cases — ^which have once 
 
168 TSE CSAMPAGNE COTTNTSY. 
 
 contaiaed genuine ■wine, and are marked with the 
 symbols of well-known manufacturers — of the 
 restaurateurs and grocers, to whom they willingly 
 pay a price much beyond their original cost. The 
 obvious motive of the purchase is that they may be 
 used to pack spurious wine, and thus pass it off as 
 genuine. The only security for the consumer who 
 desires to purchase a genuine brand, is to buy of 
 the authorized agent or of him whose integrity is 
 undoubted. 
 
 All wine that comes even from Champagne is by 
 no means genuine. There are manufacturers there 
 who fabricate wines from grapes never grown in 
 the district which alone produces the real fruit. 
 These will sell their concoctions at three or four 
 dollars a dozen, give them as jaunty a look ra bot- 
 tle as the choicest Clicquot or Consular Seal, and 
 call them by any name the purchaser may fancy 
 within the limit of the law. These same artificers, 
 of exhaustless ingenuity, will make to order not 
 only champagne, but wine and spirits of any kind 
 and country. When consular agent at Eheims, I 
 legalized many an invoice of "Madeira," "Sherry," 
 " Port," " fine old Cognac," and the " best Holland 
 Gin," and of all sorts of liqueurs, "Chartreuse," 
 "Curacoa," and " Kirsch," exported to the United 
 States from Epemay, by an expert manufacturer of 
 that place. I had reason to believe that within his 
 extensive premises he had brought together the 
 vinous powers of production of the whole world. 
 
A VNIVMMSAL mSTILLEHT. 169 
 
 and could, -without travelling beyond his own ■walls, 
 summon at his call the rich cordial of the Alps, the 
 fieiy spirit of the Low Countries, the wine of the 
 Cape, the liqueur of the Antilles, or the products 
 of any other quarter of the glohe. In fact it is 
 no secret in Champagne that this ingenious and 
 wealthy manufacturer, whose success has been com- 
 mensurate with his wondrous enterprise, has virtu- 
 ally abolished all the geographical divisions of the 
 earth, and, recognizing their diversity only in name 
 and idea, produces within his own iaclosure any 
 wine, spirit, or liqueur a customer may demand. I 
 know by name his agent ia the United States, and 
 I would no more think of drinking of his vari-col- 
 ored bottles than I would of those of an apothecary 
 shop. 
 
 Champagne, as it is known to the consumer, the 
 tin prcjpari (prepared wine) of the manufacturers, 
 does not improve by age. The wine, the vin britt 
 (raw), of which it is made, provided it be good, 
 does, however, benefit by increase of years. As 
 soon as champagne leaves the manufacturer, and has 
 reposed about a fortnight from the agitation of its 
 voyage, it is in the best condition for drinking. 
 
 A quick passage across the stormy Atlantic by 
 steamer, such as most of "the genuine champagne 
 consumed in the United States has to undergo, im- 
 proves it, by thoroughly mixing the liqueur with 
 the wine. 
 
 As soon as the consumer has purchased his stock, 
 
170 TSE GSAMPAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 he should remove the hottles from their baskets or 
 cases and lay them in a cellar of about 45° on their 
 sides, with an inclination of the necks downwards, 
 so that the wine may remain in contact with the 
 corks. These thus kept constantly bathed with the 
 vinous fluid are prevented from drying and shrink- 
 ing and from being covered with mould, which will 
 spoil the flavour of the best champagne. If the 
 cork shrinks from dryness and heat, the gas will 
 escape, and the wine, losing its sparkle, become 
 flat. 
 
 There is often heard a complaint of the wine 
 being "corked." The French call this gout de 
 bouchon, taste of the cork. With all the care of 
 the most cautious manufacturers, this wiU occasion- 
 ally occur from some radical defect of the cork, 
 which may escape the closest scrutiny. 
 
 The first-class manufacturers are very nice about 
 the corks they use. The material is imported^from 
 Spain, but is cut at Eheims, where a whole colony 
 of Spanish cork-cutters has settled for the purpose. 
 Each champagne cork of the finest kind costs the 
 manufacturer about three cents. Before it is ap- 
 plied it has the ordinary form, but is much larger 
 than the common wine-cork, being of a diameter 
 before compressed at least one-third too great. Its 
 flat top is pulled into the rounded head it has in the 
 champagne bottle by the drawing down and fasten- 
 ing of the cord. 
 
 The taste of the cork exists much less often than 
 
sow TO BRINK CSAMPAGNM. 171 
 
 it is complained of. The waiter of the hotel or 
 restaurant, who is quick at the detection of a pre- 
 tended connoisseur, is always suspicious of such a 
 complaint. He, however, demurely takes away the 
 bottle, with probably a compliment to the nice dis- 
 crimination of his customer, and quickly disappears. 
 If' the wine admits of it, he has no sooner reached 
 the pantry than he recorks the bottle and brings it 
 back, without having given himseK the trouble even 
 of a look into the cellar. Presenting the same 
 bottle with a new cork, he says, with the utmost 
 suavity, " Try that, sir ; I am sure you'll find it to 
 your taste." The would-be-connoisseur pours out 
 the wine, sips it, smacks his lips with the satis- 
 faction of a finished vmie-bibber, and smiling grate- 
 fully to the waiter, declares pompously, "It's all 
 right now." With champagne this cannot be done : 
 and the waiter accordingly transfers the bottle com- 
 plained of to some other customer who has ordered 
 his wine iced, and to whom necessarily it is to be 
 presented uncorked, while he gets another bottie 
 for the querulous and pretentious judge. 
 
 Champagne should always be drank cold; but 
 when it is good and dry it is a palatable beverage 
 even though its temperature has not been much re- 
 duced. The ordinary wine of commerce is gener- 
 ally so sweet that it is hardly drinkable until almost 
 frozen. Such champagne may be congealed or 
 even mixed with pieces of ice, for excessive cold 
 disguises its nauseous sweetness ; and if diluted it 
 
172 TSE CSAMPAGNE COXTNTRY. 
 
 loses advantageously tlie alcoholic strength with 
 which it is so frequently endowed. Fine, dry 
 wine, however, should seldom he kept more than 
 ten minutes in the freezer, and never be mixed 
 with ice or poured into a decanter of frozen water. 
 Its natural lightness requires no dilution ; and ex- 
 cessive cold, whether produced by freezing or by 
 dropping pieces of ice into it, deprives it of its aroma 
 and vinous taste. 
 
 The effervescence of champagne depends much 
 upon the form and condition of the glass out of 
 which it is drank. It sparkles much more vigor- 
 ously when poured into a glass poiated than in one 
 that is round or flat at the bottom. The presence 
 of a little dust left by a careless waiter will increase 
 greatly the development of the gas ; and the glass 
 that, after being rinsed with water, is wiped with a 
 towel however fine, will cause the champagne 
 poured into it to sparkle ; while the same wine will 
 be comparatively still in a glass which has been 
 merely rinsed and untouched afterwards. The cause 
 of this is owing to the fact that in the former case 
 there is always some of the lint of the cloth left 
 cKnging to the vessel, while in the latter there is 
 none. A crack or a scratch will also greatly aug- 
 ment the sparkle. The old-fashioned tapering glass, 
 called a flute, is the one generally preferred in 
 Champagne. There are some of these flutes which 
 wUl hold a half-bottle of wrue. On great occasions, 
 when the Eheims folk indulge iu high jinks, it is 
 
SOCIAL QUAZITIJES. 173 
 
 the custom to fill these enormous glasses mth cham- 
 pagne and call upon each guest to drLok one off at 
 a draught,, under pain, if he fails, of paying for a 
 full bottle of wine to he drunk by the company. 
 
 On ne dfmmt^ ,^!^,J^XS9M--SS^.j£~.JJ^'(i^WW''^^ 
 " One does not become a drunkard from drinking 
 champagne," is accepted as a proverb in the country 
 where it is produced. This of course applies only 
 to good wine. The ugly but clever Princess Char- 
 lotte Elizabeth of Bavaria, the Duchess of Orleans, 
 however, wrote in a letter, Aug. 13, 1716, " When 
 my son [subsequently the Regent] gets dnmt, it is 
 not in drinking strong drink or spirituous liquors, 
 but a little champagne." Her French translator 
 adds in a note, "People do not any longer get 
 drunk with champagne." 
 
 Champagne wine is eminently a social beverage. 
 It breaks the monotony and the wearisomeness of a 
 lengthy dinner, " for ennui wiU pursue and catch us 
 even at table," says a French disciple of Brillat Sav- 
 arin, who adds : " Champagne wine, with its amber 
 hue, its iclat, its sparkle, and its perfume, arouses 
 the senses and produces a cheerfulness which flashes 
 through the company like a spark of electricity. 
 At the magic word, Champagne ! the guests, dull 
 and torpid with good feeling, awake at once. This 
 lively, ethereal, and charming beverage sets in mo- 
 tion the spirits of aU ; the phlegmatic, the grave, 
 and the philosophic are surprised to find themselves 
 amiable ; in the wink of an eye (or the pop of a 
 
174 TBS CHAMPAGNE COVNTRY. 
 
 cork) the wliole banquet has changed its physiog- 
 nomy." 
 
 BriUat Savarin aphoristically says, "Tell me 
 what you diink and I will tell you what you are." 
 His French disciple, answering for the drinkers of 
 champagne, says : " The table on which champagne 
 figures — let it be said, however, in passing, that I 
 speak of good champagne, for all so-called is by no 
 means worthy of the name — is always a splendid 
 one, and indicate not only a certain ease of for- 
 tune, but a grace in the habits of hfe." 
 
 I was told by a pompous wine-mixer of Eheims 
 that he only served the aristocracy. I found, how- 
 ever, that he was no less eager to dispose of his 
 bottles for the dollars of the American citizen than 
 for the kopecks of the Eussian prince. Boston, by 
 its natural affinity, perhaps, with European rank, 
 is about the sole consumer in the United States of 
 the exalted beverage of this gentleman's gentleman 
 of Eheims, who so willingly assumes the livery of 
 the aristocracy, though not above, it would seem, 
 pocketing the dollars thrown to him from this ple- 
 beian but profuse EepubHc. 
 
CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 Merinos and other Woollen Productions — Their Superiority — 
 The English Factory — Annual Production of Woollen Goods 
 — Wonderful Effect of Free Trade — Duty of Consul at Eheims 
 — No Necessity for One — JBismits de Sheims — Gingertread 
 — Gingerbread-maker to the Emperor. 
 
 T)HEIMS has been long famous for its merinos, 
 -'-^ and of late years it lias taken precedence in 
 the manufacture of flannels and other woollen goods. 
 In the general market of Europe, even inclusive 
 of that of England, its fabrics bear the pabn of 
 superiority. The flannel of Wales, noted for its 
 excellence from time immemorial, cannot now com- 
 pete in quality and price with that of Eheims. 
 
 The remarkable fineness and softness of the me- 
 rinos may have been at one time due to the wool 
 produced in the neighboring country of Eheims, 
 but when, as at present, the chief supply comes 
 from Australia, and is sold in the London market 
 common to all the world, this cannot be the cause 
 of the superiority which is still maintained. There 
 seems no natural reason, dependent upon soil, cli- 
 mate, or peculiarity of breed, to account for the 
 excellence of the woollen manufactures of Eheims. 
 It is to be attributed solely to superior skill and 
 
176 TSB CSAMPAGNB COUNTRY. 
 
 care in workmanship. For their machinery the 
 manufacturers are still largely indebted to England, 
 and they have no processes of fahiieation that are 
 not familiar to the whole world. 
 
 The wool is hoth combed and woven iato tissues 
 at Eiheims. The principal establishment for the 
 former operation belongs to an Englishman, a Mr. 
 Holden, of Bradford, in Yorkshire, which town he 
 represents in Parliament. His nephew superintends 
 the factory at Rheims, where he has an extensive 
 range of buildings and a whole colony of English 
 workmen, who, with their Methodist Chapel sup- 
 ported by Mr. Holden, and their Anglican habits 
 of which they are so tenacious, form a group of 
 people as distinct from the surrounding Frenchmen 
 as if the channel still flowed between iiiem. The 
 machinery of this establishment, the invention, I 
 believe, of the elder Holden of Bradford, is the 
 most ingenious I ever beheld. It seemed endowed 
 not only with the flexible hands but the intelligence 
 of humanity. One machine takes up the dirfy 
 wool, and when sufficiently cleansed passes it to 
 another, which, after combing it, transfera in its. 
 turn to a third, which twists it into yam and then 
 gives it to a fourth, which completes the process by 
 rolling it into a baU. All this is done without the 
 interference apparently of a single human beiag, 
 although here and there is a girl or boy to provide 
 against accident. 
 
 Holden's superior machinery gives him almost 
 
VALUE OF ANNUAL FROSUCTIONS. Ill 
 
 tiie monopoly of wool-combing, for lie can do it 
 better and cheaper tban any of his competitors. 
 He has sold his patent again and again, but his 
 French rival had no sooner started his establish- 
 ment, than Holden had invented some improvement 
 to his machinery by which he still secured his pre- 
 eminence. 
 
 The manufacture of tissues is almost entirely in 
 the hands of the French, and in it they show 
 their characteristic taste, care, and economy. 
 
 The value of the annual production of the two 
 chief manufactures of Eheims, wine and woollen, 
 is about one hundred and twenty millions of francs 
 (twenty-four millions of dollars). Of this amount 
 the wine gives forty minions of francs (eight mil- 
 lions of dollars), and the wooUen manufacture, in- 
 cluding both the combing and weaving into tissues, 
 eighty millions of francs (sixteen millions of dollars). 
 This implies an extent of commercial transaction 
 which, if account is taken of all intermediary acts 
 of buying and selling on the spot, reaches the large 
 sum of five hundred millions of francs, or a hundred 
 miUions of dollars annually. 
 
 The commercial treaty between France and Eng- 
 land, which was negotiated by Cobden, has been of 
 great benefit to the woollen trade. In 1859 the 
 quantity of raw wool bought in France and in 
 foreign countries by the manufacturers and com- 
 mission merchants of Eheims, amoimted in value 
 to srsty-five millions of francs (thirteen millions 
 
 N 
 
178 THE CSAMFAGNE COJIKTST. 
 
 of dollars); in 1865 it had reached nearly eighty 
 millions of francs (sixteen millions of dollars). 
 The total production of wooUen tissues manufac- 
 tured in 1859 was valued at sixty milKons of fiuncs 
 (twelve millions of dollars) ; and in 1865 at eighty 
 millions of francs (sixteen millions of dollars). 
 This suhstantial result has converted all those 
 engaged in the woollen trade in E,heims, from 
 furious opponents into ardent advocates of free 
 trade. Those whom the sound principles of Say 
 and pointed illustrations of Bastiat — ^though pre- 
 sented for years with all the clearness of statement, 
 directness of application and accuracy of reason- 
 ing that logic, language, and exact information 
 could command — ^failed to impress, have been sud- 
 denly and thoroughly convinced by the practical 
 benefits of the Cobden treaty. 
 
 Surrounded as I was by these fresh converts to 
 free trade, who, being new proselytes, were all the 
 more warm in their advocacy, I was constantly beset 
 while at Kheims with demands for the reasons why 
 a country so enlightened as my own should perse- 
 vere in its so-called protective but in reality de- 
 structive policy. I freely confessed, in accordance 
 with the convictions I had always held, that being 
 a free-trader myself, I had no reasons to offer, but 
 would leave it to my superiors in authority to 
 present them. I became, however, soon heartily 
 ashamed of my consular vocation, which seemed to 
 serve no other purpose than to place obstructions 
 
CONSULAR extortion: 179 
 
 in the way of commerce, and put fees in my pock- 
 ets, or rather into those of the United States Oonsid 
 at Paris, who took the lion's share of them. 
 
 My chief duty was to receive thirteen francs and 
 fifty centimes (two dollars and a haK) for signing 
 my name, and stamping a portentous seal of office 
 upon each invoice of wine exported from Eheims 
 to the United States. This function, in the espe- 
 cial case of champagne, — ^the only article of direct 
 export, — being entirely unnecessary, was of no 
 service to the government, and a very serious ob- 
 struction and heavy expense to trade. The duty on 
 champagne is nominally ad valomm, but in reality 
 specific, for the market-price of the wine at Eheims 
 never rises high enough to bring the duty beyond 
 the -mi-m'TrmTYi of sis dollars a dozen, specified in our 
 tariff. Let the wine-merchants of Eheims invoice 
 their merchandize at the highest or lowest price, 
 they cannot by any possibility pay more or less 
 than six dollars. The government should at once 
 do away with the semblance of an ad valorem duty 
 on champagne, and frankly estabHsh, what in reality 
 now exists, a specific one. There would then be 
 no excuse, as there is now no necessity, for sending 
 to Eheims a consular extortioner to wring, in the 
 name of the United States, but for the benefit of its 
 superfluous official, the paltry sum of a few hun- 
 dred franks annually from a friendly commercial 
 people. 
 
 The woollen products of Eheims are largely con- 
 
 n2 
 
180 THE CHAMPAGNE COVNTRT. 
 
 sumed in the United States, but they are not di- 
 rectly exported there from their place of manufac- 
 ture. The business is conducted entirely through 
 the agency of London and Paris, so the invoices 
 are never legalized at the Consulate at Eheims. 
 Consequently there need be none for the especial 
 purpose of receiving the woollen tribute. 
 
 No account of the manufactures and trade of 
 Rheims would be complete, without an illusion at 
 least to its famous biscuits and gingerbread. These 
 articles may not count for much, in the annual 
 reports of chambers of commerce and statements 
 of dignified officials, but they have done more to 
 make the name of Eiheims familiar, in France at 
 least, than all its wine and merinos. Les biscuits 
 de Rheims are found upon every French table. It 
 is no exaggeration to say that there is not a single 
 Frenchman, woman, or child in the whole empire, 
 who finishes his dinner without eating one of these 
 biscuits, which bear the name of, if they do not 
 come from, Eheims. They are little square cakes, 
 of great lightness, composed of flour, sugar, and 
 eggs, and baked so dry that they never seem to 
 lose their freshness. When properly packed in tin 
 they will bear exportation to the most distant coun- 
 tries, and I am surprised that they are not more 
 generally consumed ia the United States. Nothiiig 
 can be more wholesome and palatable, for though 
 dry, a little soaking in tea, coffee, or wine, which 
 is the way that they are generally eaten, gives them 
 
BISCUITS AND GINGESBRMAD. 181 
 
 the freshness of jiist-baked sponge cake. Every 
 street in Eheims has its bakery of biscuits, and no 
 visitor comes to the place without taking away with 
 hiTTi a box of them. 
 
 The gingerbread I have never tasted, but accord- 
 ing to common report, it is no less delectable than 
 the biscuits; and there is a Fain-d'epider a V 
 JEmpereur — a gingerbread-maker to the Emperor 
 — at Eiheims, it is reasonable to suppose that his 
 Imperial Majesty Louis Napoleon and her Impe- 
 rial Majesty Eugenie, occasionally indulge in it, or 
 keep a supply for his Royal Highness the Prince 
 Imperial. No French fair is deemed complete with- 
 out it, and any child under its teens who did not 
 get its fairing of Kheims gingerbread, would deem 
 itself unfairly treated. 
 
CHAPTEE XVn. 
 
 Dullness of Rheims — How Accounted For — Antiquities — 
 Phaedrus — Palace — Jovinus — les Arcades — An Old House 
 — Where the Family of Joan of Arc put up — Origin of Eheims 
 — Roman Arch — Hotel de Ville — library — Bare Books — 
 Pictures — A Brazen lie. 
 
 T^VEEiT stranger almost -who comes to Eheims 
 -'-' finds fault with it for its dullness, and the 
 inhabitants themselves seldom refuse their assent 
 to the unflattering complaint. There is certainly 
 an air of solemn gravity about the place, which is 
 not favorable to the stir of the more lively emo- 
 tions. The Cathedral throwing its great shadow 
 far and wide, and dominating the whole town and 
 neighborhood, seems to envelop them in a per- 
 petual gloom. 
 
 The arrangement of most of the houses adds 
 to the sombreness of effect. Many of these hav- 
 ing originally been monasteries, convents, or other 
 places of religious use, are heavy structures in- 
 closed within thick and high walls. The modem 
 houses, even in accordance with the general Erench 
 practice, are closely hidden; so that in passing 
 through some of the streets of Eheims nothing is 
 
DULLNESS OF SSEIMS. 183 
 
 to be seen on either side but barriers of dark ma- 
 sonry risiag many feet above one's head. 
 
 The large wine establishments and woollen fac- 
 tories, some of which were also originally monas- 
 teries and convents, enveloped in coal smoke, and 
 with their surfaces stained by time and filthy usage, 
 are moreover not of an enlivening aspect. 
 
 The population is large for a provincial town, 
 there being sixty thousand inhabitants, and the trade 
 extensive, yet the streets are rarely thronged with 
 people, and seldom noisy with the stir of business. 
 I was much puzzled to know how the many mil- 
 lions of bottles of champagne, and the multitude 
 of cases of merinos and other woollen goods, which 
 I knew must find their exit from the town, could 
 be borne away so quiet and unnoticed. The fact 
 that the manufactories and warehouses are scattered 
 over an extended surface, and mostly situated in 
 the suburbs, may partly account for the quietude, 
 but stiU it seems strange that they should not 
 impart some of their briskness of activity to the 
 streets. 
 
 The isolated life of the more prosperous inha- 
 bitants tends also to deprive the town of that anima- 
 tion which comes from the presence of gayly dressed 
 persons and the movement of showy eqiiipages. 
 The wealthy people and their families rarely show 
 themselves in the street, and during most of the 
 year are entirely absent from Eheims. 
 
 To enjoy and appreciate Eheims, one must visit 
 
184 TSE CSAMPAGNE COTmTRY. 
 
 it -with an object, and come prepared, if not with a 
 knowledge of ancient art, with some taste for it. 
 
 There are not only the Cathedral and the great 
 Church of Saint Eemi, hut other monuments, which 
 are worthy of the study of the artist and the notice 
 of the curious. A large number of English -viatois, 
 and of the most intelligent kind, inspired by the 
 prevailing taste, come annually to Eheims for no 
 other purpose than to see the churches and the other 
 remarkable specimens of mediaeval art. During the 
 season of travel not a day passes without bringing 
 the Anglican pilgrim, generally of ritualistic ten- 
 dency, to bow in adoration before these genuine 
 offsprings of old Mother Church. 
 
 By the side of the Church of Saint Eemi for- 
 merly stood the ancient monastery, or rather archi- 
 monastery of that name, for it was elevated by the 
 Pope to this high distinction, in consequence of its 
 original possession of the remains of the great 
 saint. The ancient building was burnt, and the 
 present one, which is used for a hospital, is of 
 modem date. "With the monastery was consumed 
 the great library, among whose treasures was the 
 original copy of the " Fables of .ffisop," translated 
 into Iambic verse by Phaedrus. The work was 
 discovered, copied, and given to the public by the 
 learned monks of Saint Eemi, and to their enlight- 
 ened care and erudition the world is not only in- 
 debted for one of the choicest remains of classical 
 literature, but possibly for the charming fables of 
 
ANCIENT ASCSITECTUHE. 185 
 
 Lafontaine, who evidently admired his Greek pro- 
 totype, as he has rivaled him ia sententiousness of 
 expression, purity of style, and simplicity of con- 
 ception. 
 
 The archiepiscopal palace by the side of the 
 great Cathedral, and ■within the same inclosnre, 
 although its exterior has been deformed by re- 
 peated changes and the addition of a long range of 
 ill-looking buildings, has within a little chapel of 
 graceful architecture and undoubted antiquity. It 
 now possesses the monument of Jovinus, at one 
 time in the Cathedral, but originally in the Church 
 of Saiat Nicaise. When Santerre, the Eevolu- 
 tionist of brutal memory, demolished the fair edifice, 
 he had the umusual grace to save this ancient work 
 of art, which failed, it is said, to provoke his de- 
 structive rage, because it was so exclusively heathen 
 and free from any odious iadication of Christianity. 
 It is a fine specimen, in white marble, of Eoman 
 bas-relief representing a hunt. Jovinus, though a 
 Boman, was a convert to Christianity, and unlike 
 his master, Julian the Apostate, was constant to the 
 new faith. His memory is therefore greatly revered 
 by the ecclesiastical town. 
 
 It is impossible to walk in any part of the old 
 town of Eheims without remarking some specimen 
 of ancient architecture. There are whole streets 
 of houses with peaked gables faciag the road, and 
 upper stories, with arches below for the passage of 
 the people, projecting over the sidewalks. These 
 
186 TSE CSAMFAGNE COUKmT. 
 
 fonn the most clieerful portion of the town, and as 
 they contain the gayest shops and cqfis, are well 
 frequented. Les Arcades, as they are termed, 
 are seldom mthout some lounging soldiers, and 
 saucy girls displaying their cheap finery ; and dur- 
 iag the idle hours of noon and evening there is 
 quite a crowd, for Rheiois, of miscellaneous people, 
 clerks from counting-houses, commis voyageurs, em- 
 ployes of the puhKo departments, officers of the 
 garrison, and a few stray strangers. 
 
 La Maison des Chanteurs, the house of the singers, 
 is, though greatly changed from its original aspect, 
 much admired by archaeologists as a remarkable 
 specimen of the architecture of the beginning of the 
 fourteenth century. "What remains of its graceful 
 fagade, especially the portion adorned with five 
 figures of musicians with their various instruments, 
 is considered a valuable relic of early art. 
 
 Among the many Gothic houses inclosing the 
 market-place, there is one of excessively antique 
 aspect, supposed to have been erected in the time 
 of Charles VI. of iPrance. Its ranges of stories 
 project one above the other, each being supported 
 by carved figures, wMle the whole surface, from its 
 wide base to its peaked gable, is covered thick with 
 sculptured flowers and ornaments. 
 
 Eiound the comer from my dwelling-place, the 
 Lion d'Or, there is another hotel, the Maison 
 Eouge, upon whose front are inscribed these words : 
 "L'an 1429, au sacre de Charles VII., dans cette 
 
ROMAN ARCS. 187 
 
 hdtelkrie, nommie alors I'Ane Rayi, le phre et h 
 nihre de Jeanne d'Arc ont Hi logks, et defrayes par 
 le conseil de mile;" " In the year 1429, at the con- 
 secration of Charles Vii., in this hostelry, named 
 then the Striped Ass, the father and mother of 
 Joan of Arc were lodged, and their expenses paid 
 by the city council." 
 
 Eiheims is of so ancient a date that its origin has 
 been forgotten. A pious canon, however, has 
 traced it back to Noah, and a learned monk to the 
 fabulous Eemus. It was unquestionably a flourish- 
 ing capital when Graul was first invaded by the 
 Romans. Osesar, in his "Commentaries," speaks 
 of it as Durocortorum Remorum. In the course of 
 time it was briefly called, as was the usage in re- 
 gard to the capitals, by the name of the people, 
 Rend, and hence the modem name Rheims. When 
 once conquered by the Roman legions, it remained 
 faithful to the eagles of Csesar^ and became one of 
 his most powerful aUies. 
 
 Traces are still left of the Roman domination; in 
 a beautiful triumphal arch and other remains of 
 ancient art. The arch was raised, according to 
 most authorities, in honor of Julius Csesar. Some, 
 however, contend that it was erected in the year 
 277, by the inhabitants of Rheims, in gratitude to 
 the Emperor Probus for his permission to replant 
 the vine after the defeat of the Grerman invaders ; 
 and others insist that it was built as a monument of 
 the victories of Julian. 
 
188 TBE CHAMFAGNS COUNTSY. 
 
 In grandeur of proportion and richness of sculp- 
 ture, tlie arch at Eheims is hardly surpassed by any 
 surviving work of Eoman art. It is composed of 
 three large arched openings, supported by Corin- 
 thian columns. The vaulted roofs and sides are 
 richly adorned "with sculptured ornaments, medal- 
 Kons, and bas-reliefs. The Seasons, the traditional 
 Eomulus and Eemus, and their nursing wolf, and 
 the mythological love of Jupiter and Leda, are 
 among the chief subjects. One of the arches has 
 been lately restored, and with apparent fidelity to 
 the original .design, which is much defaced by 
 time. 
 
 A fine mosaic of Eoman origin was discovered 
 while digging the foundation of the new railway 
 station, as also an altar, with sculptures repre- 
 senting an ancient sacrifice. The discovery of 
 miajiy other specimens of classic art would un- 
 doubtedly reward the perseverance of the anti- 
 quary; but little can be expected in this behalf 
 from the modem Eheims, which is so devoted to 
 present interests as to care but little for the past 
 or fature. 
 
 The Sdtel de Ville, the city haU of Eheims, built 
 in the early part of the seventeenth century, is a 
 fair specimen of the florid Italian architecture in 
 vogue at that period. Its front is richly decorated 
 with scidptures of the emblems of war and victory, 
 and is supported by sixiy-eight columns of the 
 three orders of Greek architecture, — ^the Doric, 
 
LIBBAST—RAJtE BOOKS. 189 
 
 Ionic, and Corinthian. Atove the central pavilion 
 there is a bas-relief representing Louis XIH. on 
 horseback. In his honor is this flattering inscrip- 
 tion in Latin : — " To Louis, the just, the pious, the 
 victorious, the clement, the beloved of the i^ench, 
 the terror of his enemies, the delight of the world, 
 the_ senate and people of Eheims have raised this 
 imperishable trophy."* The original bas-relief, 
 which was in wood, was destroyed by the Revolu- 
 tionists of 1790, in their rage against royalty and 
 its e&gy of whatever kind. It was replaced ia 
 1818 by the present work in stone. 
 
 In one wing of the Sotel de Ville there is a 
 public library, containing 30,000 volumes and 1000 
 rare manuscripts. When the abbeys and religious 
 commimities of the town were abolished in 1791, 
 those books of their precious collections which 
 escaped the destructive hands of the revolutionary 
 iconoclasts were gathered together and taken 
 charge of by the city authorities. In the library 
 there are some choice specimens of early printing 
 and illumination. Among the books there is a 
 Homer of 1488, a Dionysius of Halicamassus of 
 1548, an " Anneus Florm" of 1470, and other rari- 
 ties. Among the manuscripts there is a copy of the 
 Evangelists in the Sclavonic language, the Deri- 
 vations and Etymologies written by Saint Isidor ; the 
 
 * Ludovied Justo, Pio, Victori, dementi, Qui Gtaleorum 
 Amor, Hostivim Terror, Orbis Delioiae, .ffitemum Trophseum, 
 S. P. Q. E. PP. 
 
190 TBE CSAMFA&NS COVNTRT. 
 
 "Pontifical d'Hincmar;" " Les Heures" oi Queen 
 Emma, the wife of Louis d'Outremer; and the 
 " Graduel de VAhhaye de Saint Nicaise" said to be 
 of incalculable value. 
 
 The librarian — a dusty little man, who seemed 
 to me a prodigy of learning, as he may well be, for 
 he has the reading of the thirty thousand boots and 
 one thousand manuscripts all to himself — spoke 
 with the utmost contempt of his fellow citizens of 
 Eheims. " They never put a foot in the place," 
 he said, " and I am hardly asked for a book once 
 in a twelvemonth. Ah ! ces hites-ld ne pensent qii' 
 au mn mousseux et merinos;" "Ah, those stupid 
 fellows think only of champagne and merino." 
 
 By the side of the Hbraiy there is a small gallery 
 of paintings, among which there is a genuine landr 
 scape of Berghem; a chaxacteiistio picture, The 
 Father's Ourse, by Greuze ; and the Blind Restored 
 to Sight, by Poussin. There is also a showy can- 
 vas, of immense size, upon which a modem French 
 artist has emblazoned his conception of the Baptism 
 of Clovis. It is covered with nude figures, male 
 and female, the originals of which it is easy to see 
 were the abandoned debauchees of the Parisian 
 green-rooms and masked balls. The painting was 
 ordered by the clergy for one of the churches, but 
 being found too indecent for so sacred a place, was 
 transferred to the museum of the S6tel de Ville, 
 where it does not fail to find a host of unscrupulous 
 admirers. 
 
A BRAZEN LIE. 191 
 
 In the Flace Royale — a broad square flaaked by- 
 handsome structures, among which is conspicuous 
 a great shop upon whose front is inscribed in tall 
 letters of gold : Pain-d'ipicier d rEmpereur, " Gin- 
 gerbread-maker to the Emperor " — there is a 
 bronze monument to Louis XV. It is the work 
 of the sculptor Pigalle, and was erected at the ex- 
 pense of the city in 1765. The main figure was 
 intended to represent Louis XV. ; but ia the heroic 
 lineaments of the face worthy of a Brutus, I saw 
 no indication of resemblance to the royal debauchee. 
 Two chaste feminine statues, representing Agricult- 
 ure and Commerce, recline on either side of the 
 king, but I never heard before of his ever having 
 been seen in such respectable female company. In 
 the inscription a servile municipality has termed the 
 worthless sovereign wise, virtuous, and magnani- 
 mous. 
 
 Though Axt should be sacred to all, I am dis- 
 posed to pardon the Eepublicans of France for the 
 rude hands they laid upon this brazen Ke, and to 
 regret that while they were at their work of de- 
 struction they had not been more thorough and 
 crushed it for ever to the earth. The statue of the 
 king was indeed so mauled that nothing was left of 
 it but an indistinct mass of metal, which required 
 all the art of another sculptor, and the inexhaustible 
 servility of the city, to restore to shape, and thus 
 reiterate the untruth and record anew their own 
 shame. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A Cheerful Eesort — Cemetery at Eheims — Death and Cham- 
 pagne — The Balls of the Enibareadere — PoUoe Morality — 
 The Theatre — Eespectability — An Official on Exhihition — 
 Carnival at Eheims — Masked BaUs — Tairs and Holidays — 
 Easter Fair — PuhUo Promenades — Their Frequenters — An 
 Inland Town — Canal — Walks and Dlusions — Forest of 
 Ardennes — Shakespeare and Sportsmen. 
 
 A FEENOH traveller says that the gayest place 
 -^ in. New York to -which, his Mends could take 
 him was a cemetery. I found the cemetery at 
 Eheims by no means the least cheerful resort of that 
 didl town. The groimds are prettily disposed with 
 winding walks and shrubbery, and each burial spot, 
 from the stately tomb of the rich to the humblest 
 grave of the poor, has its bed of bright flowers. 
 
 The cold reserve of the Puritan heart may feel 
 no sympathy with the free exhibition to public gaze 
 by the French in their cemeteries of their most ten- 
 der sentiments. The words of endearment so boldly 
 and so profusely recorded ; the tears sculptured in 
 stone, and kept freshly-gilded; the memorials of 
 the dead ; the trinkets of vanity ; the decorations 
 of beauty and the playthings of childhood exposed 
 to the view of every visitor, seem to us a profanity 
 
FSENCS SENTIJitENT IN GSIEF. 193 
 
 of grief. "We keep such memorials to weep over in 
 secret. The American mother, hiding within her 
 bosom, from which her child has been torn by cruel 
 death, its lock of hair, and guarding in her inmost 
 drawer each memorial of her lost one, — ^the stook- 
 iag that covered the little dimpled and once rosy 
 foot, and the whistle and beUs that used to brighten 
 the tender eyes now closed for ever, — ^watches every 
 opportunity to catch a secret glance at them, and 
 to indulge alone in her luxury of woe. 
 
 The French, who are among the most devoted 
 of lovers and tenderest of parents, know little of 
 that wearing sorrow for the untimely loss of a be- 
 loved one, that blights so often and even destroys 
 with us the Hfe of the bereaved. In Erance they do 
 not beheve ia the possibility of a broken heart. 
 
 The communicativeness of French sentiment in 
 grief, at any rate, is wiser, and, it may be said, more 
 in consonahee with the design of our creation, — 
 for we were certainly made to Hve for the living 
 and not die for the dead, — ^than the studied seeresy 
 of our deepest emotions so universal with us. By 
 sharing their sorrows with the world, the French 
 are led to regard death, in its general sense, as the 
 common destiny of humanity, and thus it is con- 
 sidered more rationally and lamented less griev- 
 ously. We, on the other hand, viewing the dread 
 affliction more individually, are apt to forget that 
 it is a general law, and, mourning as if we are 
 especially stricken, wiU not be comforted. 
 
194 TBJE CHAMPAGNE COTTNTRT. 
 
 On entering the cemetery at Eheims for the first 
 time, I was struck TOth surprise, ahnost shocked 
 even, to behold those cheerful names, Heidsieek, 
 Clicquot, Eoederer, and Mumm, staring at me from 
 the tomhs of stone. Here was indeed a skeleton 
 for every man's feast. That those joUy and fa- 
 miliar words, associated with the gay festivals of 
 the whole world, — christenings and weddings, 
 feasts and merry-makings, — should now appear to 
 me crowned with death's-heads and bloody-bones, 
 and, pointing a memento mori, seemed like a mock- 
 ery of all good fellowship. I shall never hereafter 
 lift a foaming glass of champagne to my lips without 
 thinking of the burial place at Eheims, and of the 
 Pallida mors mquo puhat pede, &c., of Horace. 
 
 It was certainly quite in conformity with the 
 laws of nature that the bones of a Mumm or a Clic- 
 quot should be laid in the course of time in the 
 handsome tombs their wealth has provided for them, 
 but I had never regarded these joUy names as 
 associated with any more serious fataliiy than an 
 empty bottle. 
 
 On All Saints' day, Toussaint, the festival of the 
 dead, the f6te des morts, the whole town, and espe- 
 cially the cemetery of Eheims, was a scene of lively, 
 and I may say cheerful, excitement. Along the 
 street leading to the latter were arranged on both 
 sides stalls and tables, gayly festooned with crowns, 
 crosses, and memento moris, and attended by female 
 hucksters. These were giggling, and bantering each 
 
CEMETEST AT ZEEIMS. 195 
 
 other in the interrals of the brisk business they 
 were carrying on with the throng of mourners, — 
 men, women, and children, — all in suits of black, 
 who were pressing forward to the cemetery, to be- 
 stow upon the dead their annual tribute of flowers 
 and funereal gewgaws. 
 
 Early in the morning the cure of the Cathedral, 
 my jovial friend, in fuJl canonicals, leading a long 
 procession of singing boys and the whole church 
 choir of musicians, blowing a full blast with sack- 
 but, harp, and trumpet as they marched through 
 the streets, had gone to bless the cemetery, as is 
 done each year. 
 
 This ceremony oYer, the cemetery filled with a 
 throng of mourners bearing each their tributes to 
 the dead, — a flower, an earthenware cherub, a 
 plaster cast of the infant Samuel, a wreath of im- 
 mortelles, a cross, an urn, or a beaded star. Pious 
 women could be seen kneeling down on the bare 
 ground and uttering their prayers, unmindful of 
 the crowd ; men and women, boys and girls, were 
 busy grubbing up the weeds and grass which had 
 grown upon the graves, planting them with flowers 
 and shrubs, and putting them in order ; and one 
 nervous-looking, epileptic girl, in deep black, was 
 lying by the side of a newly-made gravelly mound, 
 and giving way to horrible agonies and hysterical 
 shrieks. 
 
 In the cemetery the Protestants and Jews are 
 carefully excluded from the groimd which has been 
 
 2 
 
196 TSE OSAMFAGNE COTTNTEY. 
 
 consecrated by the Church. There is an imper- 
 ceptible line which divides the sacred from the 
 heretical portions. That old Mother Church has con- 
 descended to admit outside barbarians even withiQ 
 the same walls that enclose her sacred dust is an 
 advance in liberality, since, a few years . ago only, 
 she refused a resting-place to the bones of any Pro- 
 testant, Jew, or other infidel anywhere near those 
 of her own chosen people. Protestants, Jews, and 
 other infidels have reason to be grateful, as prob- 
 ably incapable of appreciating the benefit of clergy 
 (Eoman Catholic) they are contented. 
 
 Several of the families — as, for example, those 
 of Roederer and Mumm — ^being composed both of 
 Protestant and Catholic members, have built their 
 tombs in such a way that one half is upon holy 
 and the other on heretical groimd. Their several 
 remains are separated by so slight a space, that they 
 may serve as food for the same worms, which, it is 
 natural to suppose, are no respectors of creeds and 
 persons. 
 
 I was grieved to see that the tombs of the Jews 
 had been much defaced by Christian hands. All 
 over them were scrawled these words : Jksiis Christ 
 k vmi fik de Bieu ; " Jesus Christ the true Son of 
 God."' 
 
 There are other resorts which it pleaseth the 
 people of Eheims to call places of amusement. 
 There are the Sunday and Thursday balls at the 
 Emharcadere, a pretty little garden on the edge of 
 
POLICE MORALITY. 197 
 
 the railway track. Here the provincials, male and 
 female, of Eheims are allowed, imder the control of 
 a squad of soldiers from the garrison and a posse 
 of gens d'm-mes, to indulge in the delights of the 
 cancan, and, inspired by the mixed influences of 
 cheep beer, love, and music, to whirl in the inti- 
 macies of the waltz and polka, adapted by variations 
 to the free-and-easy character of the place. The 
 frequenters are mostly the young clerks of the 
 various trading establishments and the girls of the 
 factories and shops, between whom there is an 
 unmistakeablc closeness of relation, though not 
 sanctioned by the bonds of matrimony. There is 
 a perpetual and most unreasonable disposition on 
 the part of the immoderate youth of both sexes to 
 transcend even the large license of indecency 
 allowed. C'est defendu. Mademoiselle; Vous allez 
 trop loin. Monsieur ; " It is not permitted. Miss ;" 
 " Tou are going too far. Sir;" are being constantly 
 bawled out by those rigid guardians of French 
 virtue with cocked hat and sword, the gens 
 d'armes ; and not a night passes but some young 
 fellow or damsel has his or her collar rumpled by 
 the rude official grasp. The code of morals of the 
 French police must be a curious study in casuistry. 
 Where so much is permitted, it would be inte- 
 resting to know upon what principle of ethics any 
 thing is forbidden. 
 
 The theatre of Eheims is a miserable Kttle struc- 
 ture, where the audience is so uncomfortably seated 
 
198 TSM CSAMPAGNE COUNTSY. 
 
 and stifled by bad air, that it requires all the pas- 
 sion of a Frenchman for the spectack to sit through 
 the shortest and liveliest vaudeville. The munici- 
 pality of the town are now building a new 
 theatre and a circus, both of whiph promise to be 
 creditable specimens of architecture. During the 
 winter there is a constant succession of farces and 
 comic operas, and an occasional attempt at the re- 
 production of the comedy in vogue at Paris. I 
 sat through a very fair rendering of Sardou's La 
 famille Benoiton, ia spite of the discomforts of the 
 wretched little playhouse, and I have seen frequently 
 the announcement of pieces which had received the 
 applause of the fastidious audience of the classic 
 TMatre Frangais. 
 
 The decent people of Eheims turn up their noses 
 at the little theatre, but this is more on account of 
 those who frequent it, than because the acting is 
 not deemed worthy of their patronage. Respecta- 
 bility would inevitably lose its prestige if it showed 
 itself openly in the playhouse of Rheims. This, 
 however, does not prevent the staid citizen from 
 going, but he hides himself in a curtained loge, and 
 is not always in the best female company. I caught 
 a glance, one night, of the procurettr imperial, a 
 count or marquis in his own right, of great magis- 
 terial importance by the authority of the Emperor 
 Louis Napoleon, and bearing socially the dignity of 
 a husband and the father of a large family, in a 
 close tite-d-Ute with a nbtorious kept mistress. 
 
CMtNirAZ AT ESEIMS. 199 
 
 At the little theatre of Eheims a first-class ticket 
 gives the entrie not only to the boxes or orchestra, 
 butj to the green-room, where, between the acts, 
 there is always a throng of old and young men, 
 staring at the well-stuffed stockings of the figti- 
 rantes. or exchanging equivoques with them as they 
 are undergoing a course of paint, or being draped 
 with gauze. 
 
 During the carnival the theatrical performances 
 cease, and the stage of the little building being 
 boarded over, there are masked balls given almost 
 every night. These are imitations in miniature of 
 those in Paris. The vice, however, is as gross, 
 though those who indulge in it are fewer. They 
 make up for sparsity of numbers by an unbounding 
 license. I have never beheld a coarser scene of 
 debauch than was openly exhibited at Eheims, night 
 after night, during the carnival, at the theatre, in 
 the cafis and in the streets, where both sexes, 
 whether disguised or not, put no check upon their 
 tongues, gestures, or conduct. A rabid thirst for 
 champagne, hot punch, and other strong drinks pre- 
 vailed, and eveiy one seemed eager to reach intoxi-r 
 cation as the summum bonum. Success crowned 
 their efforts, and universal drunkenness was the 
 result. 
 
 Eheims has its frequent fairs and holidays. The 
 
 fite oi the Emperor Saiat Napoleon is celebrated 
 
 with an unwonted profusion of triumphal arches 
 
 and fireworks. There are, I don't know how many 
 
200 TSE CSAMFAGNE COUNTRY. 
 
 other saint days, tut they seemed to me to divide 
 the year TOth the ■weekly Simdays. La Foire de 
 Faques, the Easter Fair, lasts three weeks. Travel 
 in several of the largest streets is intermitted during 
 the whole time. Wooden arcades, with broad ave- 
 nues ibr pedestrians and booths for shop-keepers 
 of all sorts, extend through their whole length. 
 Circuses and shows of every kind are built up. 
 Crowds of people throng into the town from all the 
 neighboring country, and day and nigbt, during the 
 wbole time, Eheims is lively with buying and sell- 
 ing, eating gingerbread and Med potatoes, laughing 
 at the clown of the circus, pulling at the whiskers 
 of the bearded woman, popping down clay pipes 
 and plaster figures, crowding about Monsieur Le 
 Fort to see biTin balance on the tip of his rubicund 
 nose an iron crowbar, pushing for a chance for 
 a big roll of barley-sugar like a marshal's baton 
 at the whirling wheel of fortune, and shrieking un- 
 der the forceps of the great Baron Munchausen, 
 E. 0. Gr. U. E., first dentist to the Emperor and 
 Empress of aU the Russias, &c., &c., &c. 
 
 The public promenades are tastefully laid out. 
 That along the new boulevard, however, has yet 
 but a scant growth of shade, and the walks are 
 still new and uncomfortably gravelly. That called 
 the Fromenade de Cours has some tall and vyide- 
 spreadiug oaks and ehns, and as it leads to the 
 canal, along which was my favorite walk, I became 
 familiar with its broad avenues and long vistas of 
 
AN INLAND TOITN. 201 
 
 OTer-arching foliage. It was but little frequented 
 except in summer evenings and on tolidays, but it 
 was seldom without a cbeerful group of hearty 
 nurses with greedy babies tugging at them, and 
 the same half-dozen cbattering old men. I never 
 missed two well-brusbed veterans, retired sbop- 
 keepers or upper servants on a pension, wbo, astride 
 the stone benob, were perpetually playing at a 
 game of draughts. Their cbeeker-board was made 
 by marks on tbe seat, and their men were pebbles 
 picked up from the walk. Frenchmen never fail 
 to find means of indulging their passion for games. 
 
 The canal, however, was my favorite resort. It 
 is hardly conceivable how much one who has passed 
 most of his life in a sea-port feels the change on 
 removing to an inland town. Instead of the ever- 
 shifting scenes of the former, he has the unvaried 
 monotony of the latter. Out off from relations 
 with the outer world, he is boimd down to the re- 
 stricted interests of the isolated locality. These 
 soon become wearisome from uniformity, and con- 
 temptible from familiarity, especially to a stranger 
 who has not the stimulus of selfish interest to sus- 
 tain his powers of endurance. With his mind 
 forced to turn its contemplations upon the little 
 spot, he becomes morbidly conscious of its mate- 
 riality. He sees it in all its earthiness. The town 
 appears contracted to its first dimensions of an 
 infinitesimal bit of the wide universe ; its loftiest 
 structures are dwarfed to their proportionate little- 
 
202 TSB CBAMFA6NE COXTNTST. 
 
 ness ; and its inhabitants, with their paltry aims in 
 life clearly discernible, reduced to pygmies. 
 
 It is astonishing how much more expansive are 
 the sympathies and views of the people of a sea- 
 port than those of an inland town. Breadth and 
 universality are the characteristics of the former; 
 narrowness and selfishness, the prominent qualities 
 of the latter. 
 
 The canal at Eheims is that which joins the 
 Marne to the Aisne, and, uniting Paris with Bel- 
 gium, extends through a wide space of land. It 
 always seemed to me to open a means of escape for 
 my imagination, when I could break through the 
 close walls of the little town, and I have passed 
 many an hour within the shade of the poplars which 
 border the canal, imder the illusion that I was 
 breathing the freer air of the outside world. 
 
 In the wide basin there was always a fleet of 
 large canal boats, of immense size, measuring five or 
 six hundred tons. These I regarded with infinite 
 respect, as in other times I have looked upon great 
 ships coming into port from the far-off Indies. 
 Arriving as many of them did from distant places, 
 they seemed to me, from my limited point of view, 
 as messengers from the remote ends of the world. 
 I have watched their loading and unloading time 
 and again. There was always, moreover, a stir of 
 activity and a wholesome smell of tar about the 
 basin, which, as a faint reminder of the busier scenes 
 and more odorous atmosphere of my own native 
 city, was especially welcome. 
 
TSE CANAL. 203 
 
 The sailors, though hut fresh-water ones, seemed 
 to he possessed of that rude frantaess and rohust 
 heartiness which invite and invigorate sympathy. 
 Their families always accompany them, and live 
 perpetually on board the vessels. The children are 
 often bom in the hold, and know little of the land 
 but what they learn in passing between the banks 
 of the canal. There was a candor and a freedom 
 of communication about them all, men, women, 
 and children, which contrasted favorably with the 
 shyness and doggedness of the common people of 
 Eheims, who, like all the provincials of France, fly 
 a stranger, especially of the Anglo-Saxon race, as 
 they would a churchyard ghoul. 
 
 The walk along the canal, leading out into the 
 country, often brought me to cheerful scenes of 
 field labor, and to little hamlets of stone, nestling 
 in groves of trees. I was never at a loss to find a 
 cabaret, where, if there was nothing else to tempt 
 me, I was sure to find a bit of wholesome bread and 
 a bottle of generous wine, at the cost of a few sous 
 only. 
 
 ThoTigh there were not many people to be seen, I 
 seldom passed without meeting an idle soldier, — ^for 
 soldiers are scattered all over France, — or overtak- 
 ing some patient fisherman anghng for minnows in 
 the sluggish water of the canal. Canal-boats, with 
 their great hulks dragged slowly along by straining 
 horses, passed up and down ; and sometimes a gay 
 wherry, with a crew of the Rigattes, the boat-club 
 
204 TEE GSAMPACfNE COXmiRT. 
 
 of Eheims, and a load of imbluslujig beauties, their 
 mistresses, glided smfbly by. 
 
 In tbe neighboring country of Rheims, during 
 the shooting season, there is an abundance of game, 
 — ^partridges, quail, and hares, — ^and a plentiful 
 supply of sportsmen, many of whom talk more of 
 their prowess with powder and shot than give evi- 
 dence ■ of it. There are still veritable wild boars 
 and wolves in that same forest of Arden, where the 
 Duke in " As Tou lake It " consoled himself for 
 exile in finding 
 
 " tongues in trees, tooks in the runnmg brooks, ' 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 
 
 The forest is but a short distance from Eheims, 
 some of whose rich men keep packs of boar-hounds, 
 and, mounted on horses, seoux that ancient wood, 
 sacred to the druids and celebrated by poesy and 
 romance, in pursuit of its "native burghers." I 
 met an acquaintance in the streets of Rheims, who 
 said that on the day before he had bagged two wild 
 boars and a wolf, and spontaneously offered to me 
 the skin of the latter ; but it never, as the merchants 
 say, came to hand. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 An Old Proverb — Ingemons Interpretation — The Boeotia of 
 France — Intellectual Chaiacter of the People — One News- 
 paper — One PubHc Lecture — Eeading and Writing — Igno- 
 rance of the Better Classes — Schools ^-Priestly Pedagogues 
 
 — Clipped- winged Youth — Earity of Books — Conversation 
 
 — The Quh — Imperial Academy — Deep Drinkers and Gross 
 Feeders — Tripe and Slugs — Inhumanity — Hat Politeness — 
 Insult. 
 
 QUATRE-VINGT-DIX neuf moutom et un 
 Champejiois font cent bites, is an old and gene- 
 rally accepted saying in IVance. Tlie word bite 
 having the double signification of "beast" and 
 " fool," makes it difficult in translating the French 
 phrase to retain its fall point. " Ninety-nine sheep 
 and one inhabitant of Champagne make a hundred 
 brutes," is the nearest approach in English ; but 
 the word " brute " should be taken only in its early 
 and less gross signification of a creature without 
 reason. 
 
 Napoleon, when in 1813 he stood at bay in 
 Champagne against the invading forces of all 
 Europe, asked an inhabitant of the country whence 
 oiiginated this by no means complimentary proverb. 
 " Sire," answered the man, who proved to be far 
 
206 TME CSAMFAGNE COUNTST. 
 
 from Mte,—^a. creature without reason, — "in an- 
 cient times a tax was laid upon every flock of a 
 hundred sheep which entered the town, and accord- 
 ingly the peasants never brought in more than 
 ninety-nine at a time. The powerful feudal lord of 
 the manor, who was the author of the tribute, vexed 
 that it failed to bring bi-nn in the amount he had 
 expected, took his post at the gate, and determined 
 to coUect the revenue himself. Here he awaited 
 the passage of the shepherds with their flocks. As 
 each one came up with his nineiy-nine animals, his 
 lordship pointed bim out to his men-at-arms, say- 
 ing : ' Make bi-m pay ! quatre-vingt-dix tieuf mou- 
 tons et un Champenois font cent Mtes.' " 
 
 As the saying had been circulating for centuries, 
 and its interpretation was only evoked at the late 
 date of 1813, it is not unreasonable to infer that 
 the latter sprung solely from the ready wit of an 
 exceptional Champenois, and that the former should 
 retain its obvious sense, as applied to the people of 
 Champagne generally. 
 
 French history and romance both give their sanc- 
 tion to the truth of the old proverb. The Queen 
 of Navarre in her " Contes," and Louis XI. in his 
 " Nouvelks," speak of the Champenois as sots et hur- 
 dlers, — fools and heavy fellows. In the archives 
 of Troyes, a town of Champagne, there is a letter 
 from Charles V;, in which he informs the mayor 
 of the death of his fool, and orders bini to send 
 another to take his place, suivant la coutume, — ac- 
 
INTELLECTUAL CSARAGTEE. 207 
 
 cording to custom. The philosophic Diderot, too, 
 in the famous Encyclopaedia, the most enlightened 
 expression of opinion of the time, calls the province 
 of Champagne the Bceotia of France. 
 
 The inhabitants of Champagne, and especially 
 those of Hheims, its chief city, are certainly not an 
 intellectual people. "With a population of nearly a 
 hundred and fifty thousand, there is in the whole 
 arrondissement but one newspaper, published at 
 Eheims, and that a wretched affair, which any 
 American printer's devil would be ashamed of edit- 
 ing. I hardly ever saw in it a line of original 
 matter, expressive either of the sentiments of its 
 conductor or of the opinion of the public, for whose 
 interests it is supposed to have been established. 
 Its first page always contained an undigested simi- 
 mary of the political news of the Parisian journals, 
 two days after those journals had been received at 
 every cafi in the town ; its second page was filled 
 with the tardy official reports of public sales, of 
 bankruptcies, and of the criminal records of the 
 courts, the interest of which had been already ex- 
 hausted by a full week's conversation ; its third and 
 fourth pages were covered with advertisements, 
 which, no doubt, were interesting to servants out 
 of place and to masters in search of them, but by 
 no means amusing or instructive to the general 
 reader. 
 
 I was nearly two years at Eheims, and during 
 that time there was but one public lecture. " Pub- 
 
208 THE CHAMPAGNE COTTNTRY. 
 
 lie," however, is a misnomer, for the Mayor of the 
 city, the great Monsieiir Werle, having the whole 
 a£fair in his own hands, kept it exclusively for him- 
 self and his Mends. A literary person of high 
 culture, no doubt, for he came direct from the great 
 centre of civilization, was invited from Paris to 
 deliver his lecture at the expense of the municipa- 
 Hfy. He came and proclaimed views on the safe 
 subject of Madame de Sevigni, and was listened to 
 by all the ilite of the town, who, having been 
 thought worthy of sitting together within the same 
 walls, were honored with tickets. 
 
 A great many of the common people can neither 
 read nor write, and those who cein, do both very 
 imperfectly. I hardly ever received a biQ, even 
 from the better class of tradesmen, which was not 
 full of errors of orthography, and an almost illegible 
 scrawl. There is not a street in Eheims where 
 there are not staring signs, with words so familiar 
 that their sense can be easily understood, though 
 so misspelt that the French Academy would never 
 acknowledge them as its own. 
 
 Those who have just pretensions to education are 
 withal strangely ignorant of some branches of learn- 
 ing, — ^for example, of geography. On one occa- 
 sion a wine-merchant, knowing well that I was an 
 officer of the United States, handed me an invoice 
 for Canada to legalize, and when I returned it he 
 was greatly surprised at learning that Canada was 
 a British province. On another occasion, a no less 
 
FMIESTL7 PEDAGOGUES. 209 
 
 imposiag personage asked me to perform a constilar 
 act relative to Brazil. The whole world, with the 
 exception of France, seemed a terra incognita to 
 these people, and there was hardly one in a hun- 
 dred of them who could tell whetiier I came from 
 America by land or water. 
 
 Here is an imperial lyceum, formerly the uni- 
 versity, and a considerable number of public and 
 private schools, but these are mostly under the con- 
 trol of the Church, which takes care to keep the 
 rising intelligence so hooded and shackled that it 
 may not see or move beyond its sacred precincts. 
 Lesfreres Chretiens, an order of black fiiars, whose 
 sole duty in life it is to mould flexible youth in the 
 traditionary forms of ecclesiastical discipline, have 
 the management of most of the institutions for the 
 education of the rich as well as the poor. There 
 never was a more devoted set of pedagogues. A 
 child once in their grasp becomes as incapable of 
 liberty of action as a fly in molasses. Nothing can 
 be better calculated than the system of education 
 they pursue, — to destroy all individuality of cha- 
 racter and freedom of thought. The discipline is as 
 rigid, and the formalities are as unvarying, as those 
 of a monastery. The pupil has constantly the eye 
 of his sombre master upon him. At his studies, at 
 his meals, during his play-hours, in going and re- 
 turning from home, the black friar is ever at his 
 side, watching, listening, and directing. The minds 
 of tiie pupils are contracted, not only by a narrow 
 
210 TEE CSAMPA0NE COTTNTMY. 
 
 intellectual education fit only for a monk, but their 
 natural tastes and caprices are crushed out, and 
 even the motions of their bodies subdued by an 
 unvarying uniformity of dress and movement. 
 
 I have often pitied these poor boys, on seeing 
 them on their daily walks and at their daily pas- 
 times; they were always marched out in regular 
 order, and seemed to me, with their uniform dresses 
 of dark blue, and the long black robes of their 
 monkish teachers who flanked them, a funereal pro- 
 cession of mourners and mutes goiug to the burial 
 of youth, " dead ere its prime." 
 
 The games, even of the elder boys, were always 
 of the most child-like character. They never played 
 at base or cricket, or anything requiring force and 
 perseverance. Their most vigorous exercise was 
 tossing from hand to hand a light ball of caouti 
 ohouc, such as is used by children in our drawing- 
 rooms. The black friar was always there too, as 
 close to the lads as their shadows. Boys wiU be 
 boys everywhere, even occasionally in France, and 
 I was not surprised to find them often disputing 
 and quarreling ; but instead of settling their diffi- 
 culties among themselves by hearty invective or a 
 stout appeal to fisticuffe, they referred all questions 
 at once to their priestly guardian, who, to do biTn 
 justice, appeared never to fail in adjusting matters. 
 With a few insinuating words he soothed the angry 
 disputants, and the difficulty generally ended with 
 the appeased parties blubbering in each other's 
 
SASITT OF BOOKS. 211 
 
 arms. Tale-bearing, which with iis is considered 
 so odious, seemed to he encouraged hy the black 
 friars, whom I have seen pat again and again the 
 youngsters on the head with evident approval, as 
 they delivered themselves of their burdens of com- 
 plaint against their fellows. This system may make 
 what mothers delight to call "nice boys," but it 
 can never lay the foundation of a vigorous man- 
 hood. 
 
 I never was in a place calling itself civilized, 
 where books of all kinds appeared so scarce as at 
 Eheims. With the exception of an occasional 
 ragged and well-thumbed copy of the yoimger Du- 
 mas's licentious " Bame aux Camelias," or tiiat cal- 
 endar of the Erench galleys, the " Risurrection de 
 Rocambole" I seldom saw any evidence of an inter- 
 est in the current literature of the day. Among 
 the wealthiest people, surrounded by all the modem 
 luxuries inciting to sensual gratification, there was 
 rarely any indication of intellectual enjoyment. In 
 the best appelated houses there were apparently no 
 libraries, and I never by chance caught a person 
 turning over the leaves of the last new book, or 
 found it lying within reach on centre-table or eta- 
 glre. The town gossip, the bankruptcy of this 
 merchant, or the infidelity of that woman, formed 
 the staple of conversation, and literature or books 
 never. Domestic politics were carefully eschewed, 
 and there was no disposition, as far as I could see, 
 to question the wisdom of Louis Napoleon, and his 
 
 p 2 
 
212 TSE CSAMPA6NE C0X7NTBT. 
 
 riglit to do as he pleased. During Ms reign tlie 
 material prosperity of Eheinis has so increased, that 
 there did not seem to be a man who was inclined, 
 even if he dared, to doubt the benefits of imperial 
 absolutism. Of foreign poHtios the public talked 
 more freely, but their sentiments were seldom of a 
 liberal character. The North, during our struggle, 
 had but one sympathizer that I could discover, and 
 in the German wax the feeling was almost entirely 
 with Austria and against Prussia. There is little 
 interest, however, felt in political questions of any 
 kind, for the people generally do not read or think 
 enough to talk of them. Eheims, though stolidly 
 content with imperial rule, is prepared, no doubt, 
 like all provincial IVance, blindly to follow the 
 wake of Paris, whether it should lead to the en- 
 thronement of a Bourbon, an Orleans, or the estab- 
 lishment of a republic. 
 
 The hbraiian of the pubHo library mourned over 
 his solitude, and denounced a town so absorbed in 
 its material interests and sensual enjoyments as 
 never to take a book from his shelves. I found at 
 the club, called a 8alon de Lectwre, a reading-room, 
 upon the lucus a non lucendo principle no doubt, 
 always a large gathering of men, with leisure 
 enough, for they spent most of the best hours of 
 the day there, but never doing any thing but smok- 
 ing, drinking beer, shuffling cards, and playing at 
 billiards. There were all the reviews and maga- 
 zines of Paris, but I was always sure of finding 
 
IMFESIAL ACABBHT. 213 
 
 them disengaged, and as fresli and uncut as when 
 they first came from the press. There was tut a 
 single hookstore of any account in the place, and 
 in it there was no stock of the new publications of 
 the day, although a patient purchaser, by waiting 
 several weeks might possibly obtain what he wanted, 
 from the capital. 
 
 No doubt there were books enough and reading- 
 men among the clerical portion of the inhabitants, 
 but, like the monks of the Middle Ages, they kept 
 all the learning and literature to themselTes. There 
 isj it is true, an Imperial Academy at Rheims, where 
 I foTmd, on being present at one of its meetings, in 
 addition to the presiding officers, an audience com- 
 posed of two priests, an old woman, and myseK. 
 Its principal business seemed to be the reading of 
 the rejected poems sent in competition for the 
 annual prize, given by the Academy for the best 
 copy of verses on some local subject, — ^the visit of the 
 Emperor Napoleon, the Influence of Champagne, 
 &c. The Academy publishes an annual report of 
 its proceedings, and on looking over a long range 
 of volumes, I found them made up of treatises on 
 the best modes of corking wine, with an occasional 
 archaeological paper by some patient ecclesiastic, on 
 the headless statue of Saint Nicaise, or the muti- 
 lated remains of the great Saint Eemi of the 
 Cathedral. 
 
 The common people, brutalized by ignorance, are 
 rude in manners, and given to sensual indulgence. 
 
214 TSE CSAMPAGNE COVNTMY. 
 
 They are deep drmters and gross feeders. Eheims 
 is filled with low cabarets or wine-shops, and though 
 drunkenness is generally supposed to be uncommon 
 in France, it is by no means rare in Champagne. 
 In every street, almost, Asperges d toutes heures may 
 be seen posted up on the doors of the low cafis and 
 restaurants. The word asperge has the local sig- 
 nification of tripe, which is a favorite article of 
 food with the voracious inhabitants of Eheims ; 
 "Patinas coenabat omasi vilis." 
 
 The common slug or snail, the slimy wanderer 
 of our gardens, is another choice article of the 
 dainty diet of the people. The ugly monster is 
 sealed down within its shell by a thick paste com- 
 posed of butter, hot spices, and flour, and being 
 thus prevented from wriggling out, is thrown into 
 a pot of boiling water. In a few moments it is 
 withdrawn, served up, and eaten with great gusto 
 by its devourer, who, provided with a little two- 
 pronged fork made for the purpose, draws out the 
 snail deKberately from the convolutions of its shell, 
 and holding it up, stretched out in all its ugly pro - 
 portions, throws back his head and drops it into his 
 gaping mouth. 
 
 Infirmity, whether of nature or disease, finds but 
 little pity or sympathy from these coarse people. I 
 have seen a poor hunchback or cripple jeered at 
 time and again by the laborers on the streets, and 
 forced to beat a quick retreat from the presence 
 of his cruel persecutors. There are brutal fellows 
 
HAT POLITENESS. 215 
 
 enough -with us, but I do not believe tbat there are 
 any grown up men who would venture thus to out- 
 rage the public sense of humanity. 
 
 A great deal is said of the politeness of the 
 French, and it is true that there are no people in 
 the world who take off their hats so often, and 
 aboimd so much ia complimentary phrases. These 
 formalities are much more frequent in the proviuces 
 than in the capital. An American, who passed 
 some months at Eheims, said that it puzzled him to 
 conceive how the people, as all their time seemed 
 occupied with taking off and putting on their hats, 
 contrived to do anything else. To me the excessive 
 uncovering, the bowing and scraping, and the per- 
 petual offers of service, became very oppressive ; for 
 I soon discovered that they were generally cheap 
 substitutes for real civility, and that they were to 
 be taken as a receipt in full of the thing they pre- 
 tended to signify. Deduct the hat and the wordy 
 compliments, and the Frenchman of Eheims, at 
 any rate, is by no means a model of politeness. 
 The surliest John Bull is more of a Chesterfield 
 at heart, and less capable of offence against good 
 breeding. 
 
 I had not been a week at Eheims when I was 
 grossly insulted, at the highest official table of the 
 place, by a person to whom I had been especially 
 introduced as the first wine-merchant of the whole 
 country. On speaking of an act of our govern- 
 ment he styled it an " infamy," and seemed to have 
 
216 TSJE CHAMFABNB COXmTRT. 
 
 introduced the subject for the purpose of so desig- 
 nating it, for I had studiously avoided all allusion 
 to political questions. What seemed to me to give 
 a more gross aspect to the conduct of this person 
 was the fact that I was present as the especial guest 
 of the dinner, given in my honor. 
 
CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 The DdectaUe City— Plenty of Chuiches— Tenacity of Belief 
 — Atotmding Priests — Their Character — The Caidinal-Arch- 
 bishop — SkolMng Priests — Exdusion from Society — The 
 Man of the "World Cure— The Priestly 0«>-^— The Tidy Girls 
 of Kheims — Bentreremes — Beauty and Corruption — Famous 
 Beauties — Licentiousness — Manage de Convenanee — Past 
 Married Women — No Society. 
 
 ON fiist entering Elieims, I thonglit that I had 
 at last reached the delectable city of piety and 
 ■virtue. The tall spires rising on every side, the 
 constant ringing of church bells, and the black- 
 robed priest seen at each turn, with bended heads 
 conning their missals, as they crept humbly on in 
 the shades of the narrow streets, were an indication 
 that the place was amply provided, at least with aU 
 the paraphernalia of reUgion. The general quiet 
 and order of the town, formal and tranquil even to 
 dullness ; the well-fed and neatly dressed citizens ; 
 the laborers in their decent blouses, the shop- women 
 smiling contentedly over their polished counters, 
 and the tidy factory girls, with a great roll of cloth 
 under each arm, toiling along like industrious ants 
 with loads bigger than themselves, seemed unmis- 
 takable evidences of virtuous industry and its re- 
 wards. 
 
218 TSE GSAMPAGNB COVNTST. 
 
 I had not been long, however, in Eheims, before 
 I discovered that its virtue was but a semblance, 
 and that it merited its reputation of being the most 
 corrupt city in France. It does not want, it is 
 true, for rehgion, and is in the full enjoyment of 
 the benefit of clergy. Though but twenty only 
 are left of the forty-eight ecclesiastical establish- 
 ments Eheims possessed before the Revolution of 
 1790 laid its rude hand upon the Church, there are 
 still enough, including the Cathedral, to hold the 
 whole population of sixty thousand, and they are 
 well frequented, particularly by women and chil- 
 dren. I had no reason to doubt the sincerity of faith 
 of the people of Eheims. On the contrary, I had 
 every proof of their tenacity of belief, and never 
 met a man, woman, or child, who did not devoutly 
 toss pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, kneel each year 
 at the holy shrine of Saint Eemi, take the benefit 
 of the sacred touch, and swear to the truth of the 
 miracle of the white pigeon with its phial of oil of 
 celestial manufacture. 
 
 There is a very numerous body of ecclesiastics at 
 Eheims, embracing every grade from the Cardinal 
 Archbishop to the chorister boy. Each order of the 
 Church is represented. There are Jesuits, Black 
 Friars and Gray, Carmelites and Saint Franciscans, 
 Sisters of Charily, Sisters of the Sacred Heart, Sis- 
 ters of the Holy Child Jesus, and a great seminary 
 fiUed with three or four hundred acolytes or stu- 
 dents, imdergoing the theological process of prep- 
 aration for the tonsure and cassock. 
 
TEE CARBINAL-AJRCSBISSOP. 219 
 
 The general moral character of the clergy of 
 Rheims I never heard questioned. The Cardinal- 
 Archbishop Q-ousset, whose red cap,* alas ! now 
 hangs by the side of that of his predecessor f from 
 the rafters of the Cathedral, was a man of the most 
 disinterested benevolence. He gave much the 
 larger portion of his handsome revenue to the poor, 
 by whom he was greatly beloved. He deprived 
 himself, in consequence, of aU the luxuries which 
 are generally conceded to a personage of his rank, 
 and of many of the comforts of life which are 
 essential to the support of the infirmities of age. 
 He sold the carriage and horses of the archiepisco- 
 pal establishment, and though with the command 
 of a whole palace, he lived among bis books in a 
 little comer of it, and barely nurtured himself with 
 a meagre lenten fare throughout the whole year. 
 
 I have seen the aged Cardinal often at the Cathe- 
 dral, and have admired the venerable aspect of the 
 tall, thin old man, tottering imder the heavy scarlet 
 robes of office. As he presented his jeweled finger 
 to be kissed by the adoring crowd, he seemed to 
 single out the little children, and favor them with 
 an especial kindness of smile. No one at Eheims 
 spoke an Ul word of the venerable ecclesiastic. 
 
 * It is tlie custom to hang from the height of the arched roof 
 of the Cathedral, ahove the vault beneath the sanctuary reserved 
 for the burial of the Archbishops, the hat of a dead Cardinal : it is 
 allowed to remain there until the cord which holds it gives way ; 
 whoever first picks up the hat is entitled to a gratuity. 
 
 "f* The Cardinal de Latil. 
 
220 TSB CSAMPAGNE COUNTRT. 
 
 Victor Htigo, however, has exposed, in that de- 
 grading historical pillory, Napokon le Petit, which 
 he has set up to the eternal shame of tyranny, the 
 henevolent Archbishop Grousset, charged as an ac- 
 complice of the great criminal, the present Em- 
 peror, in the cruel assassination of French Kherty. 
 
 At Eheims the clergy seem a class of men apart, 
 and entirely distinct, from the rest of the com- 
 munity. They go skulking about the streets like 
 so many lepers or outcasts from society. I hardly 
 ever saw one of the numerous priests in company 
 with a layman. At the many dinners and other 
 social gatherings, where I have been a guest, I 
 never met an ecclesiastic. "When, moreover, I 
 expressed a desire to make the acquaintance of the 
 clergy, my wish was met almost with derision, and 
 always with an expression of surprise, as if I were 
 seeking something that the usage of good society 
 forbade. 
 
 This exclusion of the clergy must act unfavor- 
 ably, not only upon them, but on the laity. It 
 makes of the former a class of mere Bonzes, or con- 
 ductors of public ceremonials, with the sole duty of 
 Kghting the candles, uncovering the idols, doing the 
 posturing, and enacting the other performances re- 
 quired by a traditional superstition. The moral and 
 intellectual iofluence which, with the learning and 
 virtue they may possess, they might exercise upon 
 the people, is entirely lost. Their example as decent 
 livers, and the refining effect of their conversation 
 
TSE MAN OF TEE WORLD CJTRE. 221 
 
 as men of cultivated minds, are much, wanted by 
 tbe grossly sensual and unintellectual people of 
 Eheims. 
 
 By the merest accident I made the acquaintance 
 of two of the most prominent priests of Eheims, 
 one the euri* of the Cathedral, and the other the 
 cur-e of Saint Thomas. I find them both, in ac- 
 cordance with their general reputation, men of the 
 utmost affability of manners and integrity of cha- 
 racter. 
 
 The cure of the Cathedral having passed his early 
 Hfe in the army, had acquired, by a freer intercourse 
 with his fellows, a flexibility of mind that all the 
 pressure of ecclesiastical formality and discipline 
 had not succeeded in stiffening. I accordingly 
 found him always ready for the discussion of worldly 
 topics, and disposed to take, within church limits, 
 a liberal view of social and political questions. He 
 is a stalwart man, over six feet in height, of goodly 
 rotundity of person, and rubicund face, jointly 
 expressive of jollity and benevolence. He is a man 
 of great activity and business capacity. Though 
 he resigned, while I was at Eheims, his position as 
 airi, he retained the oflSce of treasurer of the 
 Cathedral, whose immense property, one of the 
 largest of any ecclesiastical establishment in the 
 world, he has administered for a score of years with 
 consTmimate ability. 
 
 * Cur^ is not the equivalent of cvuate in English, but of vicar; 
 and vicaire in French is the same as curate in English. 
 
222 TSM CMAMFAGNE COTHfTRT. 
 
 He has obtained wealth from the thrift of a long 
 career, for he is now ahout seventy years of age. 
 The house in which he lives, just under the eaves 
 of the Cathedral, belongs to him, and has one of 
 the snuggest interiors in all Eheims. I dined fre- 
 quently with him, and never dined better. TTis 
 wine-cellar is one of the best of the whole province 
 of Champagne, and he is no niggard of its generous 
 stores when he has a guest at his table capable of 
 appreciating Ms bottles of the choicest vintage. On 
 my first morning visit he pressed upon me a glass 
 of maraschino, saying that I would find it good, 
 as he had it in his cellar since some thirty years 
 before, when the Cardinal had made him a present 
 of it. I was, on tasting it, grateful to him for his 
 urgency in overcoming my reluctance, and took a 
 second glass without even being asked. 
 
 Tn addition to his other acquirements, which are 
 various and profound, he is an excellent player at 
 billiards, and has set up a table in his own house 
 for the amusement of himself and clerical friends. 
 
 The cvtri of Saiat Thomas I found more of the 
 priest in his appearance, manners, and range of 
 thought. He is a little shriveled up man, with 
 an ascetic length and dryness of face, though with 
 a smile of exceeding benevolence. I saw him for 
 the first time on a Sunday, just on his return from 
 preachiug a sermon, as he told me, on the Devil, 
 whom, I have no doubt, he painted in aU his awfiil 
 materiality of horns, hoofe, barbed tail, and breath 
 
TBS FMIMTZT CURE. 223 
 
 of fire. He was full of chat, and plunged at once 
 into the subject of the American war, which he 
 deplored greatly, and said that if the Pope had 
 been still the sovereign of the world, as he ought 
 to and would again be, the difficulty between the 
 North and South would have been settled without a 
 blow, and simply by a word from the holy mouth 
 of the successor of Saint Peter. 
 
 SVeemasonry the eti/ri thought the great evil of 
 the present day, and he denoTmced it vigorously as 
 destructive of all good morals. " History, particu- 
 larly English," he said, "was a lie. Not one of 
 the British historians, with the exception of the 
 priest Ldngard, ever told the tnith." The good 
 cure of Saint Thomas, although his head may still 
 be enveloped in the darkness of the Middle Ages, 
 has his heart in the right place. He is a devoted 
 friend of the poor people of the crowded and dirty 
 suburb over which his ministration extends, and is 
 revered and beloved by the great and humble alike. 
 
 I was surprised to learn, as I soon did, that those 
 tidy girls whom I had noticed toiling along the 
 streets with their great burdens, and had compared, 
 at first sight, to so many industrious ants, were no 
 better, but in fact a great deal worse, than they 
 should be. From the police authorities, whose 
 sharp eyes are constantiy on them, I learned that 
 the young working females, almost without excep- 
 tion, added to what they received for labor the 
 wages of sin. They all work with more or less 
 
224 TEE CSAMPAGNE COVNTRT. 
 
 industry, for they can only thus retain a 
 respectability, and keep themselves from being reg- 
 istered by the police as professional outcasts, upon 
 whom they look down with supreme contempt. 
 These girls are generally what is called Rentrer- 
 euses, and their business consists in filling up with 
 the needle the defects left ia all the stufis woven 
 by machinery. They go in crowds to the various 
 fiietoiies, where the roUs of cloth are given out, and 
 beariag them off do their work at home. These 
 girls thus loaded down, going and comiag, are 
 a noticeable feature of the street-life of Rheims. 
 They are all coquetfcishly dressed, and most of 
 them more expensively than the twenty or thirty 
 sous they gain a day as Rentrereuses could possibly 
 account for. The MaUlle and Cbserie of Paris are 
 said to be largely recruited from these girls of 
 Rheims, who have the reputation of beauty. They 
 certainly have a large share of personal charms. 
 Champagne, in fact, has been long noted both for 
 its lovely and facile women. Marion Delorme — ^the 
 famous courtesan who brought to her knees Louis 
 XTTT. and his crafty coimsellor Richelieu, had De 
 Grammont and Saint Evremond for lovers, and the 
 unfortunate Oinq Mars and an English lord for 
 husbands — ^was bom in Champagne. Victor Hugo 
 makes that graceful creature of his imagination, 
 Esmeralda, first to see the light at Rheims, where 
 her mother, bom under the shadow of the great 
 Cathedral, was the victim of a heartless seducer. 
 
LICENTIOUSNESS. 225 
 
 Though, such a relation is not so openly acknow- 
 ledged at Eheims as in Paris, it is universally al- 
 lowed that every man, whether single or married, 
 has his mistress. Most of the young clerks, who 
 are generally from a distance, are never in any 
 other female society, for they are not admitted 
 within the secluded precincts of the homes of the 
 thriving citizens. The unmarried girls, except of 
 the lower classes, are jealously guarded, and are 
 not permitted to have the least communication with 
 the youth of the opposite sex. I never saw the 
 daughter of respectahility, so-called, in the streets 
 tmaccompanied by her parents, governess, or aged 
 female servant. This indicated, it seemed to me, a 
 great fear on the part of anxious relatives of danger 
 from within, or from without, or from both. The 
 corruption of the male youth is notorious; hut 
 whether the virtue of the young girls is too un- 
 sound to resist the contamination of its slightest 
 contact, is more than I can say, hut I Imow that 
 there is not a mother in Eheims willing to take 
 the risk. 
 
 The most degrading and demoralizing feature of 
 the system of life pursued by the young working- 
 girls, is the fact that it is in most instances with the 
 connivance of their parents, who share the pro- 
 ceeds of the double career of infamy and industry 
 of their daughters. A moral cancer, with its roots 
 thrust deep down into the constitution of society, 
 and deriving nutriment from the very sources of 
 
 Q 
 
226 TSE CSAMPAGKE COXTNTET. 
 
 life, would seem impossible of eradication. The 
 more thriving classes even escape it only by the 
 subterfuge of a change of name. Their system 
 of manages de convenance is Kttle else than a le- 
 galized version of the same thing, and results, if 
 common rumor can be believed, in consequences 
 equally destructive of aU social obligations. There 
 is hardly a woman, even in the highest ranks of 
 society, if prominent from the iclat of personal at- 
 tractions, at whom scandal does not point its busy 
 finger. THs may not be proof of guilt, for Eheims, 
 Kke aU provincial towns, is so rife with gossip that 
 even purity and innocence are no doubt often ma- 
 ligned. 
 
 There is an audacity, too, of display on the part 
 of some of the wives of the rich men of E,heims, 
 showing itself by extravagance of dress, frequent 
 publicity, open coquetry, the aping of the habits 
 and unreserved manners of the grisette or cocotte 
 (as she is now termed), in smoking cigarettes, 
 wearing apparel of exaggerated cut and color, and 
 indulgiag in freedom of conversation and attitude, 
 which so likens them in appearance to the demi- 
 monde that they are, unjustly perhaps, considered 
 as belonging to it. 
 
 The illegitimate relation which prevails between 
 the men of the better and the young women of the 
 lower classes, is marked by great cruelty on the part 
 of the former. No sooner is there an indication of 
 the natural fruit of such a connection, than the 
 
NO 80CIBTT. 227 
 
 poor girl is deserted and left solely to maintain her 
 ofifepring, the whole responsibility of whose support 
 is tiirown by the French law upon the abandoned 
 mother. Eheims is thus fall of children of unre- 
 cognized paternity. The victims of men's heartless 
 pleasures are often treated with great brutality, and 
 one constantly hears of scenes of personal violence. 
 
 There is little at Eheims of what may be justly 
 called society. The rich people, it is true, give 
 occasionally set dinners and balls, to show off their 
 fine upholstery and ostentatiously exhibit their evi- 
 dences of wealth and fashion, but few families open 
 their doors to the admission of friends and acquaint- 
 ances on terms of intimacy. The young men are 
 especially debarred from all freedom of social in- 
 tercourse, and are thus forced back upon the profli- 
 gate associations in which they so freely indulge. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The folio-vying is a translation of a bit of French 
 doggerel I picked up at Eheims. It gives the spirit, 
 and does not pretend to he an improvement upon 
 the form of the original : — 
 
 iLegenti of B>mt Jaemp, 
 
 Of good saints there ne'er -was a tetter tlian he, 
 I mean that good bishop, the great Saint Eemy ; 
 
 He ■would smell out a witch 
 
 like a terrier bitch ; 
 He made a great ado to get up a stew 
 Of a heretic or unbeUeving Jew. 
 
 They made him a saint, and would have made him Pope, 
 For what ia these days he'd have hung by a rope ; 
 
 But miirder and arson 
 
 Were right for a parson 
 When Mother Church was in her fullest renown, 
 Khocldng heretics down by tap on the crown ; 
 That's the way might had of defending the right 
 In those dark ages when they put out the light. 
 
 He was greatly beloved by all, great and small, 
 There was n't a church to refuse him a call. 
 
 But at Eheims he would stay 
 
 Where he had his own way ; 
 They called him to Paris, wanted him at Eome, 
 But, strange' to say, he preferred to stay at home. 
 
230 APPJENDIX. 
 
 The ladies liked their fashionable preacher, 
 He was a " nice man " and "such a good creature." 
 There was n't one who sat under him, I ween, 
 Who admired him like her majesty the queen ; 
 
 She went to church in state. 
 
 And never went too late ; 
 At mass high and low she was on bended knee. 
 And such a good Cihristian you never did see ; 
 But her husband the Hng was an old scapegrace, 
 And inside the church never showed his fece ; 
 
 For men who like to sin 
 
 Hardly ever go in. 
 But her majesty greatly loved her Clovis, 
 And strove to save him, for such woman's love is. 
 So one day, with a kiss and pat on the cheek. 
 She led her old man like a lamb, nuld and meek ; 
 He got to the church and began to refuse. 
 For he liked not to go where he did not choose. 
 
 Men like to have their way 
 
 "Whether to go or stay. 
 
 He got to the door. 
 
 And would not stir more ; 
 He made every excuse and told a big fib. 
 But the queen gave no heed to her darling rib ; 
 And at last, by dint of pulling and tugging, 
 Tlatt'ring and cajoling, kissing and hugging. 
 She into the church got the king fairly in. 
 And it was thus he got convinced of his sin. 
 
 Now Saint Bemy, to cleanse him of all this sin. 
 Soused biin in holy water up to his chin ; 
 
 Thus all the old Druid, 
 
 Washed in holy fluid. 
 Was turned to a good Christian both pure and clean, 
 Thanks to Saint i.Eemy and to Clotilde the queen. 
 Clovis, it 's true, had been king many a year. 
 But he had not the divine right, it 's quite clear ; 
 For he had not been rubbed with the holy grease. 
 Without which no king could ever reign in peace. 
 
APPENDIX. 231 
 
 So that his majesty might be anointed, 
 Saint Remy had a certain day appointed. 
 A great preparation 
 For the consecration 
 "Was made in Eheims, and the people ail in Gaul 
 Came from far and near at the holy saint's call. 
 The streets were aU tapestry, the walls all flags, 
 The palace all banners, the houses all rags ; 
 ■ Then, to be sure, there was a great procession, ; 
 King, queen, holy priest, all in due succession ; 
 A great niunber of boys, 
 And a very loud noise 
 Of sackbut, harp, and music of every sound. 
 So that little else could be heard all arotmd. 
 The show mazed the king, and so dazzled his eyes, 
 He asked if he were looking on Paradise ; 
 " Not Paradise, sire, but the only true route. 
 If you want to be sure not to be kept out." 
 This, Saint Eemy, it 's clear. 
 Whispered in royal ear 
 At the great church, king, queen, and priest aU arrived ; 
 .And the king was ready after he 'd been shrived. 
 All was in state, but for oil they had to wait. 
 For the clerk had the fate to arrive too late. 
 Saint Eemy, looking glum, began to sputter. 
 When down came a white dove all in a flutter. 
 (Some wicked people, who have no religion, 
 Declare it was nothing but a tame pigeon.) 
 Around its neck it had a holy ampulla. 
 Full of oil of sweet smell and purest color. 
 There had never been a miracle so great ! 
 The clerk was too late and the saint could not wait. 
 The dove came direct from heaven in post-haste. 
 For there was not a single moment to waste ; 
 If it had been delayed. 
 Had miracle been made ? 
 No ! for the clerk, though too late, was good and true, 
 And at last came pushing through, all in a stew. 
 
='THE BROADWAY." 
 
 « rpHE BROADWAY," is our Title, and our Scheme is as broad 
 J- as our name. 
 
 In this era of International Congresses and International 
 Colleges, of International Coinage and iatemational Cookery, 
 and, best of all, of International Exhibitions, firaitfal in honour- 
 able rivalry, in friendly competition, in peace and good fellowship, 
 •we do but bow to the spirit of the age and follow in the track 
 which the wisest and best of our Teachers have maxked out in 
 establishing that which, to a certain extent, may be considered an 
 International Magazine. 
 
 It has been made a matter of reproach against "Quarles' 
 Emblems," that they were so very subtle as to be incomprehen- 
 sible to the majority of students. Such an accusation cannot be 
 levelled against our symbolism. All who run may read it. There 
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George Routledge <md Sons, New York and London. 
 
 The First Numter of "The Bkoabwat," -will he publislied 
 on the 15th of August, 1867. The Magazine -will consist of 
 Eighty pages, illustrated by our best artists and our foremost 
 engravers. The tone of our periodical will be decidedly enter- 
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 to be sociable ■without being Mvolous ; and if we occasionally 
 aim at being instructive, we shall most scrupulously avoid 
 being indigestible. PoUtica we shall eschew: politics being 
 dull things, which few understand, and fewer still are any better 
 for understanding. 
 
 The composition of our Uterary staff will be eminently Inter- 
 national : a graceful blending of right English oak and ash with 
 the tough but pliant hickory, the graceful bird's-eye maple, and 
 the fascinating butternut. We desire that the English green lane 
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 To abandon metaphor, we have made, and are making, arrange- 
 ments with the best authors and authoresses of the United States 
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 us. Some of our British contributors also may from time to time 
 touch on American subjects : the " international ' ' character of our 
 Magazine will thus be sedulously kept in view, to the drawing 
 closer together, we trust, of the bonds of union between the two 
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 We have thus sketched out, as comprehensively as we are 
 enabled to do, the plan of an undertaking which, energetically 
 conducted, cannot fail, we hope, to achieve a legitimate success. 
 The ultimate verdict rests, of course, with the pubKc; but our 
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 There will be plenty to see on both sides of the way ; and there 
 ahall be nothing narrow in our proceedings save oxa price, 
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