The successful efforts of Turenne against his great rival Condé during the wars of the Fronde were encouraged by frequent presents of the wine of Epernay. As the brother of the Duc de Bouillon, to whom the town of Epernay had been given in 1643 in exchange for Sedan, and as the protector of the district against the Spaniards, he received numerous tokens of the citizens’ good-will. In September 1652 twelve caques of wine were sent to him, with the result that he at once ordered his soldiers to repair the broken bridge across the Marne. In the following January a chevreuil and two caques, and in June wine, fowls, and game, were presented to him. In June 1654 it was resolved that a deputation should be sent to the coronation of Louis XIV. at Reims, ‘to render the homage due to the King,’ and to present ‘a caque of wine in bottles’ to M. de Turenne, which helped no doubt to spread the fame of the Epernay wine amongst the nobility present on that occasion.
The same social lever was applied in 1660 to the ‘traitant général’ of the so-called ‘don gratuit’ exacted on the occasion of the King’s marriage, two feuillettes being proffered in order to get him to reduce the assessment. Representations made to an eschevin of Paris, despatched to Epernay in 1662 to see if there was any store of grain in the town that could be sold to benefit the starving poor of the capital, to the effect that the district was a wine-growing and not a corn country; and the despatch of a deputation in August 1666 to Louvois, to request that the garrison might be withdrawn to allow of the vintage being gathered in—the inhabitants of the surrounding country having fled to avoid sheltering soldiers,—serve to show the importance of the Epernay wine-trade. In 1671, on the passage of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans from Châlons, fruit and sweetmeats were presented to them, and wine to the lords of their suite, at a cost of 211 livres 7 sols; and two years later, Louis XIV. partook of the local vintage during his sojourn at the ‘maison abbatiale,’ when on his way to the army of the Rhine.
Towards the close of this century the wine grew in repute, and was eagerly sought after. In November 1677 two caques were sent to ‘a person who enjoys some credit,’ and who was willing to accord his protection to the town in the matter of quartering troops upon it; and the following January twelve more caques were despatched to this ‘unknown,’ who may have been Louvois himself. As to Roger Brulart, Marquis de Puisieux et de Sillery and Governor of Epernay, a joyous companion, if we may credit St. Simon, his appreciation of the local vintage is borne ample testimony to. In 1677 six caques of ‘the best’ were sent to him by the town council; but by 1691 he must have become used to larger offerings, as in September a letter was addressed to him begging him to be satisfied with the like amount, as ‘the inhabitants could not manage more,’ and could only promise, with regard to three caques still due, that they would ‘make an effort’ to supply them the following year. Wise in their generation, they sent at the same time ‘twelve bottles of the best wine’ to his intendant, and a similar gift to his secretary; but the following year they were forced to write again that it would be impossible to supply the wine promised unless he obtained a permission to levy it.[443]
The Old Pretender, or, as he is styled in the local records, ‘Jacques Stuart III., roy d’Angleterre,’ arrived at Epernay in September 1712, and was presented with ‘twenty-four bottles of the best;’ whilst the Marquis de Puisieux, who accompanied him, was satisfied with nothing less than a ‘carteau,’ or quarter-cask. And when the latter announced his intention of paying a visit in the autumn of 1719 to Maître Adam Bertin du Rocheret, conseiller du roy and ex-president of the Grenier-à-sel at Epernay, a resolution was passed to offer him wine on his arrival, and to send ‘a hundred flasks of the best’ to his château of Sillery. The use of the word ‘flaçons’ clearly implies that the discoveries of Dom Perignon were being acted upon at Epernay, and that the gift in question was one of sparkling wine.
JAMES EDWARD FRANCIS STUART, THE OLD PRETENDER.
In June 1722 the Sieurs Quatresous and Chertemps, despatched to congratulate the marquis’s nephew and successor, Louis Philogène Brulart, on his appointment to the governorship of the town and his marriage with Mademoiselle de Souvré, granddaughter of Louvois, took with them a similar offering. At the coronation of Louis XV., in October, deputies were sent to compliment the Prince de Turenne, representative of his father the Duc de Bouillon, seigneur d’Epernay, and to present him with ‘game, trout, and other fish,’ and ‘a basket of a hundred flasks of the best.’ In August 1725 the bourgeois were drawn up under arms, and four dozen bottles were got ready, on the passage through the town of the Duke of Orleans, son of the late Regent, on his way to espouse, as the King’s proxy, Marie Leczinska. This was, however, a sad year for the wine-growers, for ten months of incessant rain, beginning in April, not only ruined the at first promising crop entirely, but caused floods which wrought some havoc. The terrible hail-storm of 1730, which devastated the vineyards of Reims, fortunately spared those of Epernay; but a frost in October 1740 destroyed the vintage, and led to a dearness of provisions which pressed even on the most well-to-do.[444]
For the next three-quarters of a century Epernay continued quietly to profit by the yield of ‘the slopes laden with vines producing the most delicious wines in Europe,’ to quote the expression of Stapart, who in 1749 notes the importance of the trade in wine carried on, not only with Paris, but with foreign countries; though at the same time complaining of the decreasing size of the town, and the fact of vineyards being planted where houses had formerly stood.[445] The only events of importance were from time to time an unusually good or an uncommonly bad crop, or—as the manufacture of vin mousseux gradually swallowed up that of still wine—a disastrous casse, like the memorable one of 1776, varied by an occasional royal visit or so. By 1780, Max Sutaine notes that a single manufacturer would turn out from five to six thousand bottles of sparkling Champagne, and exults over the fact that seven years later an enterprising firm risked a tirage of fifty thousand, though people at the time regarded this as something prodigious, and wondered where an outlet would be found.[446] Very likely a bottle of this identical tirage was ‘the excellent vin mousseux’ with which Arthur Young regaled himself, at a cost of forty sous, on the 7th July of the same year, at that ‘very good inn’ the Hôtel de Rohan, at Epernay.[447] At this same inn the hapless Louis XVI. stopped to dine on his return from the intercepted flight to Varennes; and when we recall his timid nature, we may fairly surmise that it was Champagne which inspired him, amidst the insults of the mob, to remind the authorities that his ancestor, Henri Quatre, had entered the town in a very different fashion, and by implication to assert that he might yet do the same.[448]