[200] ] Respecting the price of sparkling Champagne during the first half of the eighteenth century, a few instances from the correspondence of Bertin du Rocheret may here he quoted. In 1716 he offers Marshal d’Artagnan 1500 bottles at 35 sols, cash down, and taken at Epernay. In 1725 he offers flacons blancs mousseux liqueur at from 30 to 50 sols, and ambrés non mousseux, sablant, at 25 sols. Ten years later saute bouchon is quoted by him at 40 and 45 sols, and in 1736 at 3 livres, demi-mousseux ranging from 36 to 40 sols, and bon mousseux from 45 to 50 sols. The following year saute bouchon fetched 3 livres 6 sols, and mousseux 42 sols. In 1736 he insisted upon his flacons holding a pinte; and a royal decree of March 8, 1755, which regulated the weight and capacity of sparkling-wine bottles, required these to weigh 25 ounces, and to hold a pinte de Paris, or about 1.64 imperial pint. They were, moreover, to be tied crosswise on the top of the cork, with a string of three strands well twisted. Their cost was 15 livres per hundred in 1734 and 1738, and from 17 to 19 livres in 1754.
[201] ] Louis Perrier’s Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne.
[202] ] It would appear from Bidet that the wines of the Mountain had not been transformed into vin mousseux as late as 1752, as, in his book on wine published during that year, he only includes in the list of places producing sparkling wine Ay, Avenay, Mareuil, Dizy, Hautvillers, Epernay, Pierry, Cramant, Avize, and Le Mesnil.
‘Votre palais, usé, perclus
Par liqueur inflammable,
Préfère de mousseux verjus
Au nectar véritable.’
[204] ] Louis Perrier’s Mémoire sur le Vin de Champagne. In the thesis in favour of Champagne, written by Dr. Xavier of Reims in 1777, the acidulous character of the wine is confirmed by the author, who naïvely remarks that it is as efficacious in preventing putrefaction as are other acids. He also compares it to acidulated waters.
[205] ] Legrand d’Aussy’s Vie privée des Français, 1782.