[173] ] D’Argenson’s Mémoires.
[174] ] Bois-Jourdain’s Mélanges Historiques. The editor of the Journal de Barbier observes in a note to a passage referring to the King’s suppers at La Muette with Madame de Mailly, under the date of November 1737: ‘These suppers were drinking bouts. It was there that the King acquired a taste for Champagne.’
[175] ] Clauteau’s Relation de ce qui s’est passé au Passage du Roi. Reims, 1744.
[176] ] Ibid.
[177] ] Varin’s Archives Administratives de Reims.
[178] ] Louis Paris’ Histoire de l’Abbaye d’Avenay.
[179] ] Amongst these may be cited the Abbé Bignon, who, in a letter to Bertin du Rocheret dated January 1734, says: ‘The less the wine is mousseux and glittering, and the more, on the contrary, it shows at the outset of what you style liqueur, and I, in chemical terms, should rather call balsamic parts, the better I shall think of it.’
[180] ] Louis Perrier’s Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne.
‘Chloris, Eglé me versent de leur main