The harbour of Cette is not quite so bad, but it has no particular transparency of water to recommend it. Brave its foulness, however, and go and visit the quays for the fishing-boats, as they are returning from their night's toil. Mark the Catalan craft—you will perhaps remember that the redoubted Monte Christo's first love was a Catalan girl, of a Catalan village near Marseilles:—did you ever see more exquisitely-formed boats afloat on the water? They swim apparently on the very surface—the curve of the gunwale rising to a gondola peak at stem and stern; but yet they are most buoyant sea-boats, and I suspect their speed, particularly in light winds, would put even that of the Yankee pilot-boats to a severe test. Look, too, at their cargoes, as the slippery masses are being shovelled up in glancing, gleaming spadefuls, to the quays. Did you ever see such odd fish? Respectable haddocks, decent and well-to-do cods, and unpretending soles, would never be seen in such strange, eccentric company—among fellows with heads bigger than bodies, and eyes in their backs, and tails absurdly misplaced, and feelers or legs where no fish with well-regulated minds would dream of having such appendages—never was there seen such a strange omnium gatherum of piscatory eccentricities as the fishes of the Mediterranean.
I said that it was good—good for our stomachs—to see no English bunting at Cette. The reason is, that Cette is a great manufacturing place, and that what they manufacture there is neither cotton nor wool, Perigord pies, nor Rheims biscuits,—but wine. "Ici," will a Cette industrial write with the greatest coolness over his Porte Cochere—"Ici on fabrique des vins." All the wines in the world, indeed, are made in Cette. You have only to give an order for Johannisberg, or Tokay—nay, for all I know, for the Falernian of the Romans, or the Nectar of the gods—and the Cette manufacturers will promptly supply you. They are great chemists, these gentlemen, and have brought the noble art of adulteration to a perfection which would make our own mere logwood and sloe-juice practitioners pale and wan with envy. But the great trade of the place is not so much adulterating as concocting wine. Cette is well-situated for this notable manufacture. The wines of southern Spain are brought by coasters from Barcelona and Valencia. The inferior Bordeaux growths come pouring from the Garonne by the Canal du Midi; and the hot and fiery Rhone wines are floated along the chain of etangs and canals from Beaucaire. With all these raw materials, and, of course, a chemical laboratory to boot, it would be hard if the clever folks of Cette could not turn out a very good imitation of any wine in demand. They will doctor you up bad Bordeaux with violet powders and rough cider—colour it with cochineal and turnsole, and outswear creation that it is precious Chateau Margaux—vintage of '25. Champagne, of course, they make by hogsheads. Do you wish sweet liqueur wines from Italy and the Levant? The Cette people will mingle old Rhone wines with boiled sweet wines from the neighbourhood of Lunel, and charge you any price per bottle. Do you wish to make new Claret old? A Cette manufacturer will place it in his oven, and, after twenty-fours' regulated application of heat, return it to you nine years in bottle. Port, Sherry, and Madeira, of course, are fabricated in abundance with any sort of bad, cheap wine and brandy, for a stock, and with half the concoctions in a druggist's shop for seasoning. Cette, in fact, is the very capital and emporium of the tricks and rascalities of the wine-trade; and it supplies almost all the Brazils, and a great proportion of the northern European nations with their after-dinner drinks. To the grateful Yankees it sends out thousands of tons of Ay and Moet, besides no end of Johannisberg, Hermitage, and Chateau Margaux, the fine qualities and dainty aroma of which are highly prized by the transatlantic amateurs. The Dutch flag fluttered plentifully in the harbour, so that I presume Mynheer is a customer to the Cette industrials—or, at all events, he helps in the distribution of their wares. The old French West Indian colonies also patronise their ingenious countrymen of Cette; and Russian magnates get drunk on Chambertin and Romanee Conti, made of low Rhone, and low Burgundy brewages, eked out by the contents of the graduated phial. I fear, however, that we do come in—in the matter of "fine golden Sherries, at 22s. 9-1/2d. a dozen," or "peculiar old-crusted Port, at 1s. 9d."—for a share of the Cette manufactures; and it is very probable that after the wine is fabricated upon the shores of the Mediterranean, it is still further improved upon the banks of the Thames.
At dinner-time, I found myself placed by the side of a benevolent-looking old priest, with white hair, but cheeks and gills of the most approved rubicund hue, who first eyed the dishes through a pair of vast golden spectacles, and meditated profoundly ere he made a choice—waving away the eternal bouilli with an expression which showed that he was not the man to spoil a good appetite with mere boiled beef. This worthy, hearing me making interest with the waiter for a peculiar bottle of wine, not of native manufacture, smiled paternally, and with an approving countenance: "I would recommend," he said, softly, and in a fat voice, "you to try Masdeu; and, if you please, I will join you. I know Gilliaume (the waiter) of old. C'est un bon enfant." And then, in a severe voice, "The Masdeu, William."
The priest was clearly at home; and presently the wine came. It had the brightly deep glow of Burgundy, a bouquet not unlike Claret, and tasted like the lightest and purest Port glorified and etherealised; in fact, it was a rare good wine.
"Ah!" said the priest, pouring out a second glass; "the vineyard where this was grown once belonged to the Church. The Knights of the Temple once drank this wine, and the Knights of St. John after them. It is a good wine."
"The Church understood the grape," I remarked. "I have drunk Hermitage where the recluse fathers tended the vines, and have always looked upon Rhone wine as one of the reasons why the Holy Father at Avignon was long so loath to be the Holy Father at Rome."
"Wine," replied my compotator, "is not forbidden, either by the laws of God or the Church; and never was. Only the Vulgate denounces mixed wines."
"By the mixed wines prohibited in Holy Writ," said I, "I presume you understand adulterated, not watered liquors. If so, we are in a sad city of sinners."
The priest smiled, but changed the topic.