Of that delectable white wine
Which foams and sparkles in the glass,
And seldom mortal lips does pass;
But cheers, at festivals divine,
The gods to whom it owes its birth,
Or else the great, our gods on earth.”’[182]
Amongst other versifiers of this epoch enamoured with the merits of the wine may be cited Charles Lebatteux, professor of rhetoric at Reims University, who in 1739 composed an ode, ‘In Civitatem Remensam,’ containing the following invocation to Bacchus:
‘’Tis not on the icy-topped mountains of Thrace,