[63] ] Dom Guillaume Marlot’s Histoire de Reims.
[64] ] Pluche’s Spectacle de la Nature.
[65] ] St. Simon’s Mémoires.
[66] ] Mémoire sur la manière de cultiver la vigne et de faire le vin en Champagne.
[67] ] Lavardin, Bishop of Le Mans, and himself a great gourmet, was one day at dinner with St. Evremond, and began to rally the latter on the delicacy of himself and his friends the Marquis de Bois Dauphin and the Comte d’Olonne. ‘These gentlemen,’ said the prelate, ‘in seeking refinement in everything carry it to extremes. They can only eat Normandy veal; their partridges must come from Auvergne, and their rabbits from La Roche Guyon, or from Versin; they are not less particular as to fruit; and as to wine, they can only drink that of the good coteaux of Ay, Hautvillers, and Avenay.’ St. Evremond having repeated the story, he, the marquis, and the count were nicknamed ‘the three coteaux.’ Hence Boileau, in one of his satires, describes an epicurean guest as ‘profès dans l’ordre des coteaux.’
[68] ] St. Evremond’s Works (London, 1714).
[69] ] L’Art de bien traiter ... mis en lumière, par L. S. R. (Paris, 1674).
[70] ] Brossette’s notes to Boileau’s Works (1716). Bertin du Rocheret, in correcting this error in the Mercure of January 1728, points out that neither the family of Colbert nor that of Le Tellier ever owned a single vinestock of the River, and that their holdings on the Mountain were very insignificant.
‘Il n’est cité que je préfère à Reims,