So following Beaune with reverent air,
Let Reims appear but at dessert.’[147]
The gauntlet thus contemptuously thrown down was promptly and indignantly picked up by the Rector of the University of Beauvais, the learned Dr. Charles Coffin, a native of Buzancy, near Reims, who in the quiet retirement of the Picardian Alma Mater had evidently not forgotten to keep up his acquaintance with the vintage of his native province. The Latin poem he produced in reply, under the title of Campania vindicata,[148] had nothing in common with his lugubriously sepulchral name, as may be seen by the following somewhat freely translated extracts from it. After invoking the aid of a bottle of the enlivening liquor whose praises he is about to sing, he exclaims:
‘As the vine, although lowly in aspect, outshines
The stateliest trees by the produce it bears,
So midst all earth’s list of rich generous wines,
Our Reims the bright crown of preëminence wears.
The Massica, erst sang by Horace of old,