BAS-RELIEF ON THE ANCIENT HÔTEL DES FERMES AT REIMS.
On arriving at the town where it was to be drunk, the wine was subject to a fresh series of charges—octroi, droit de détail, le billot, le cinquième en sus l’impôt, jaugeage, courtage, gourmettage, &c.—frequently ranging up to 60 or 70 francs.[229] All this really affected the grower; for if the retail consumer, inhibited by high prices, could not buy, the former was unable to sell. At this epoch vine-grower and pauper were synonymous terms.[230] In certain districts of the Champagne the inhabitants actually threw their wine into the river to avoid paying the duties, and the Provincial Assembly declared that ‘in the greater part of the province the slightest increase in duty would cause all the husbandmen to abandon the soil.’[231] It is scarcely to be wondered at that under such a system of excessive taxation the fermiers généraux, who all made good bargains with the State, should have amassed immense fortunes, whilst denying themselves no kind of luxury and enjoyment. They built themselves princely hotels, rivalled the nobility and even the Court in the splendour of their entertainments, grasped at money for the sensual gratification it would purchase, and loved pleasure for its own sake, and women for their beauty and complaisance. The fermiers généraux of the province of Champagne had their bureaux, known as the Hôtel des Fermes, at Reims, and, after the town-hall, this was the handsomest civil edifice in the city. Erected in 1756 from designs by Legendre, it occupies to-day the principal side of the Place Royale. On the pediment of the façade is a bas-relief of Mercury, the god of commerce, in company with Penelope and the youthful Pan, surrounding whom are children engaged with the vintage and with bales of wool, typical of the staple trades of the capital of the Champagne.
L’ACCORD FRATERNEL
(From a print published at the commencement of the Revolution).
The revolutionary epoch presents a wide gap in the written history of sparkling Champagne which no one seems to have taken the trouble of filling, though this hiatus can be to some extent bridged over by a glance at the caricatures of the period. It is evident from these that Champagne continued to be the fashionable wine par excellence. We can comprehend it was de rigueur to ‘fouetter le Champagne’[232] at the epicurean repasts held at the petits maisons of the rich fermiers généraux, and that the talons rouges of the Court of Louis Seize were not averse to the payment of 3 livres 10 sols for a bottle of this delightful beverage[233] when regaling some fair émule of Sophie Arnould or Mademoiselle Guimard in the coulisses. One evening Mademoiselle Laguerre appeared on the stage as Iphigenia unmistakably intoxicated. ‘Ah,’ interjected the lively Sophie, ‘this is not Iphigenia in Tauris, but Iphigenia in Champagne.’ A proof of the aristocratic status of the wine is furnished by a print entitled L’Accord Fraternel, published at the very outset of the revolutionary movement, when it was fondly hoped that the Three Orders of the States General would unite in bringing about a harmonious solution to the evils by which France was sorely beset. In this the burly well-fed representative of the clergy holds out a bumper of Burgundy; the peasant—not one of the lean scraggy labourers, with neither shirt nor sabots,[234] prowling about half naked and hunger-stricken in quest of roots and nettle-tops, but a regular stage peasant in white stockings and pumps—grips a tumbler well filled with vin du pays; while the nobleman, elaborately arrayed in full military costume, with sword, cockade, and tie-wig all complete, delicately poises between his finger and thumb a tall flute charged with sparkling Champagne. Moreover, we can plainly trace the exhilarating influence of the wine upon the ‘feather-headed young ensigns’ at the memorable banquet given to the officers of the Régiment de Flandre by the Gardes du Corps at Versailles, on the 2d Oct. 1789.[235]
MIRABEAU TONNEAU
(From a sketch by Camille Desmoulins).