‘In the name and in virtue of the omnipotence of God, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; of the blessed Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus Christ; of the authority of the holy apostles Peter and Paul; and of that with which we ourselves are invested in this affair, we charge by this act the above-named animals—bruches, éruches, or of any other name by which they may be called—to retire (under penalty of malediction and anathema, within the six days which follow this warning and in accordance with our sentence) from the vines and from the said locality of Villenauxe, and never more to cause, in time to come, any damage, either in this spot or in any other part of the diocese of Troyes; that if, the six days passed, the said animals have not fully obeyed our command, the seventh day, in virtue of the power and authority above mentioned, we pronounce against them by this writing anathema and malediction! Ordering, however, and formally directing the said inhabitants of Villenauxe, no matter of what rank, class, or condition they may be, so as to merit the better from God, all-powerful dispensator of all good and deliverer from all evil, to be released from such a great plague; ordering and directing them to deliver themselves up in concert to good works and pious prayers; to pay, moreover, the tithe without fraud and according to the custom recognised in the locality; and to abstain with care from blaspheming and all other sins, especially from public scandals.—Signed, N. HUPPEROYE, Secretary.’
[54] ] It has been asserted that the Champagne, and notably the town of Troyes, enjoyed the dubious honour of furnishing fools to the court of France. There is certainly a letter of Charles V. to the notables of Troyes, asking them, ‘according to custom,’ for a fool to replace one named Grand Jehan de Troyes, whom he had had buried in the church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, and who has been immortalised by Rabelais. But Brusquet was a Provençal; Triboulet, his predecessor, immortalised by Victor Hugo in the ‘Roi s’amuse,’ a native of Blois; Chicot the Jester, the fool of Henry III., and the favourite hero of Dumas, a Gascon; and Guillaume, his successor, a Norman.
[55] ] The wine of Reims provided at the coronation of Francis II., in 1559, cost from 11 s. 8 d. to 15 s. 10 d. per queue of ninety-six gallons, and the Burgundy 16 s. 8 d. per queue, which, allowing for the cost of transport, would put them about on an equality. At the coronation of Charles IX., in 1561, Reims wine cost from 23 s. 4 d. to 28 s. 4d.; and at that of Henry III., in 1575, from 45 s. to 62 s. 6 d. per queue,—a sufficient proof of the rapidly-increasing estimation in which the wine was held.
[56] ] Paulmier’s treatise De Vino et Pomaceo (Paris, 1588).
[57] ] Jehan Pussot’s Mémorial du Temps.
[58] ] Ibid. Many details respecting the yield of the vines and vineyards of the Mountain and the River are preserved in this Mémorial, which extends from 1569 to 1625, and the author of which was a celebrated builder of Reims. During the last thirty years of the century the vines seem to have suffered greatly from frost and wet. Sometimes the wine was so bad that it was sold, as towards the end of 1579, at 5 s. 6 d. the queue; at others it was so scarce that it rose, as at the vintage of 1587, to 126 s. 8 d. the queue. At the vintage of 1579 the grapes froze on the vines, and were carried to the press in sacks. At the commencement of the vintage the new wine fetched from 12 s. to 16 s. the queue, but it turned out so bad that by Christmas it was sold at 5 s. 6 d.
[59] ]Maison Rustique (1574).
[60] ] Jehan Pussot’s Mémorial du Temps.
[61] ] During the first twenty-five years of the century Pussot shows the new wine to have averaged from about 23 s. to 46 s. the queue, according to quality. In 1600 and 1611 it was as low as 16 s., and in 1604 fetched from merely 12 s. to 32 s. On the other hand, in 1607, it fetched from 57 s. to 95 s., and in 1609 from 79 s. to 95 s.
[62] ] Feillet’s La Misère aux temps de la Fronde.