The foregoing in some degree recalls the circumstances under which Gluck, whose fame began to be established about this epoch, was accustomed to seek his musical inspirations. The celebrated composer of Orpheus and Iphegenia in Aulis was wont, when desirous of a visit from the ‘divine afflatus,’ to seat himself in the midst of a flowery meadow with a couple of bottles of Champagne by his side. By the time these were emptied, the air he was in search of was discovered and written down.
The lively and good-humoured Abbé de l’Attaignant, whose occupations as a canon of Reims Cathedral seem to have allowed him an infinite quantity of spare time to devote to versifying, addressed some rather indifferent rhymes to Madame de Blagny on the cork of a bottle of Champagne exploding in her hand;[186] and in some lines to Madame de Boulogne, on her pouring out Champagne for him at table, he maintains that the nectar poured out by Ganymede to Jupiter at his repasts must yield to this vintage.[187]
That boon convivialist Panard—who flourished at the same epoch, and was one of the chief songsters of the original Caveau, and a man of whom it was said that, ‘when set running, the tide of song flowed on till the cask was empty’—has not neglected sparkling Champagne in his Bacchanalian compositions. The ‘La Fontaine of Vaudeville,’ as Marmontel dubbed him, does not hesitate to admit that he preferred the popping of Champagne corks to the martial strains of drum and trumpet.[188] The wine, moreover, furnishes him with frequent illustrations for his code of careless philosophy.
‘Doctor for vintner vials fills
Most carefully, with lymph of wells.
Champagne, that grew on Nanterre’s hills,
Vintner in turn to doctor sells.
So still we find, as on we jog
Throughout the world, ’tis dog bite dog.’[189]