V.

/The Preparation of Champagne./

The treatment of Champagne after it comes from the wine-press--The racking and blending of the wine--The proportions of red and white vintages composing the 'cuvée'--Deficiency and excess of effervescence--Strength and form of Champagne bottles--The 'tirage' or bottling of the wine--The process of gas-making commences--Details of the origin and development of the effervescent properties of Champagne--The inevitable breakage of bottles which ensues--This remedied by transferring the wine to a lower temperature--The wine stacked in piles--Formation of sediment--Bottles placed 'sur pointe' and daily shaken to detach the deposit--Effect of this occupation on those incessantly engaged in it--The present system originated by a workman of Madame Clicquot's--'Claws' and 'masks'--Champagne cellars--Their construction and aspect--Raw recruits for the 'Regiment de Champagne'--Transforming the 'vin brut' into Champagne--Disgorging and liqueuring the wine--The composition of the liqueur--Variation in the quantity added to suit diverse national tastes--The corking, stringing, wiring, and amalgamating--The wine's agitated existence comes to an end--The bottles have their toilettes made--Champagne sets out on its beneficial pilgrimage round the world.

[Illustration]

The special characteristic of Champagne is that its manufacture only commences where that of other wines ordinarily ends. No one would recognise in the still brut fluid--which, after being duly racked and fined, has somewhat the taste and colour of an acrid Rhine wine, with a more or less pronounced bitter flavour--that exhilarating essence which is capable of raising the most depressed spirits, and imparting gaiety to the dismallest gatherings. Much as Champagne may stand indebted to Nature, soil, climate, and species of vine, the sparkling fluid has contracted a far greater debt towards man, to whose incessant labour, patient skill, and minute precautions it owes that combination of qualities which causes it to be so highly prized.

In the preceding chapter we left the newly-expressed must flowing direct from the press into capacious reservoirs, whence it is drawn off into large vats, where it clears itself by depositing its mucous lees, usually within twenty-four hours. It is then transferred to new or perfectly clean casks, holding some forty gallons each, in which a sulphur match has been previously burnt. These casks are not filled quite up to the bunghole, which is generally covered with a vine-leaf kept in its place by a piece of tile. The bulk of the newly-made wine is left to repose at the vendangeoirs until the commencement of the following year; still, when the vintage is over, numbers of long narrow carts laden with casks of newly-expressed must may be seen rolling along the dusty highways, bound for those towns and villages in the department of the Marne where the manufacture of Champagne is carried on, and where the leading firms have their establishments. Chief amongst these is the cathedral city of Reims, after which comes the rising town of Epernay, stretching to the very verge of the river; then Ay, nestling between the vine-clad slopes and the Marne canal, with the neighbouring village of Mareuil; next Pierry; and finally Avize, in the centre of the white-grape district southwards of Epernay. Châlons, owing to its distance from the vineyards, does not usually draw its supply of wine until the new year.

In the vast celliers of the manufacturers' establishments, where a temperature of about 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit usually prevails, the wine undergoes its first fermentation, entailing a loss of about 7-1/2 per cent, and lasting from a fortnight to a month, according as to whether the wine be _mou_--that is, rich in sugar--or the reverse. In the former case fermentation naturally lasts much longer than when the wine is _vert_ or green. This active fermentation is converted into latent fermentation by transferring the wine to a cooler cellar, as it is essential it should retain a certain proportion of its natural saccharine to insure its future effervescence. The casks have previously been completely filled, and their bungholes tightly stopped, a necessary precaution to guard the wine from absorbing oxygen, the effect of which would be to turn it yellow, and cause it to lose some of its lightness and perfume. After being racked and fined--an operation generally performed about the third week in December--the produce of the different vineyards is ready for mixing together in accordance with the traditional theories of the various manufacturers; and should the vintage have been an indifferent one, a certain proportion of old reserved wine of a good year enters into the blend.

The mixing is usually effected in gigantic vats holding at times as many as 12,000 gallons each, and having fan-shaped appliances inside, which, on being worked by handles, insure a complete amalgamation of the wine. This process of marrying wine on a gigantic scale is technically known as making the _cuvée_. Usually four-fifths of wine obtained from black grapes, and now of a pale-pink hue, are tempered by one-fifth of the juice of white ones. It is necessary that the first should comprise a more or less powerful dash of the finer growths both of the Mountain of Reims and of the River; while, as regards the latter, one or other of the delicate vintages of the Côte d'Avize is essential to the perfect _cuvée_. The aim is to combine and develop the special qualities of the respective crus, body and vinosity being secured by the red vintages of Bouzy and Verzenay, softness and roundness by those of Ay and Dizy, and lightness, delicacy, and effervescence by the white growths of Avize and Cramant. The proportions are never absolute, but vary according to the manufacturer's style of wine and the taste of the countries which form his principal markets. In the opinion of some clever amalgamators, a blend comprising one-third of the vintages of Sillery, Verzenay, and Bouzy, one-third of those of Mareuil, Ay, and Dizy, and the remaining third composed of the produce of Pierry, Cramant, and Avize, constitutes the wine of Champagne _par excellence_. Others not less expert declare that a simple mixture of the Ay, Pierry, and Cramant vintages furnishes a perfect wine. As when this blending takes place the wine is only imperfectly fermented and exceedingly crude, the reader may imagine the delicacy and discrimination of palate requisite to judge of the flavour, finesse, and bouquet which the _cuvée_ is likely eventually to develop.

These, however, are not the only matters to be considered. There is, above everything, the effervescence, which depends upon the quantity of carbonic acid gas the wine already contains, and the further quantity it is likely to develop, which depends upon the amount of its natural saccharine. After the bottling, if the gas be present in excess, there will be a shattering of bottles and a flooding of cellars; while, on the other hand, if there be a paucity, the corks will refuse to pop, and the wine to sparkle aright in the glass. The amount of saccharine in the _cuvée_ has therefore to be accurately ascertained by means of a glucometer; and should it fail to reach the required standard, as is the case at times when the season has been wet and cold and the vintage a poor one, the deficiency is made up by the addition of the purest sugar-candy. If, on the other hand, there be an excess of saccharine, the only thing to be done is to defer the final blending and bottling of the wine until the superfluous saccharine matter has been absorbed by fermentation in the cask.

[Illustration]

The _cuvée_ completed, the blended wine, which in its present condition gives to the uninitiated palate no promise of the exquisite delicacy and aroma it is destined to develop, is drawn off again into casks for further treatment. This comprises fining with some gelatinous substance, usually isinglass, made into a jelly and strained through a 'tammy;' while, as a precaution against ropiness and other maladies, liquid tannin, derived from nut-galls, catechu, or grape husks and pips, is at the same time frequently added to supply the place of the natural tannin, which has departed from the wine with its reddish hue at the epoch of its first fermentation. If at the expiration of a month the wine has not become perfectly clear and limpid, it is racked off the lees, and the operation of fining is repeated.

[Illustration]

The operation of bottling the wine next ensues, when the scriptural advice not to put new wine into old bottles is rigorously followed. For the tremendous pressure of the gas engendered during the subsequent fermentation of the wine is such that the bottle becomes weakened, and can never be safely trusted again.[410] It is because of this pressure that the Champagne bottle is one of the strongest made, as indicated by its weight, which is almost a couple of pounds. To insure this unusual strength, it is necessary that the sides should be of equal thickness and the bottom of a uniform solidity throughout, in order that no

## particular expansion may ensue from sudden changes of temperature. The

neck must, moreover, be perfectly round and widen gradually towards the shoulder. In addition--and this is of the utmost consequence--the inside ought to be perfectly smooth, as a rough interior causes the gas to make efforts to escape, and thus renders an explosion imminent. The composition of the glass, too, is not without its importance, as on one occasion a manufactory established for the production of glass by a new process turned out Champagne bottles charged with alkaline sulphurets, and the consequence was that an entire _cuvée_ was ruined by their use, through the reciprocal action of the wine and these sulphurets. The acids of the former disengaged hydrosulphuric acid, and instead of Champagne the result was a new species of mineral water.

Most of the bottles used for Champagne come from the factories of Loivre (which supplies the largest quantity), Folembray, Vauxrot, and Quiquengrogne, and they cost on the average from 28 to 33 francs the hundred.[411] They are generally tested by a practised hand, who, by knocking them sharply together, professes to be able to tell, from the sound that they give, the substance of the glass and its temper, though occasionally a special machine, subjecting them to hydraulic pressure, is had recourse to.

[Illustration]

The operation of washing, which takes place immediately preceding the bottling of the wine, is invariably performed by women, who at the larger establishments accomplish it with the aid of machines, provided at times with a revolving brush, although small glass beads are generally used by preference. Each bottle after being washed is minutely examined, to make certain of its perfect purity, and is then placed neck downwards in a tall basket to drain.

[Illustration: MACHINE FOR FIXING THE AGRAFES.]

With the different Champagne houses the mode of bottling the wine, which may take place any time between April and August, varies in some measure, still the _tirage_, as this operation is called, is ordinarily effected as follows: The wine, after a preliminary test as to its fitness for bottling, is emptied from the casks into vats or tuns of varying capacity in the _salle du tirage_. From these it flows through pipes into oblong reservoirs, each provided with a row of syphon-taps, on to which the bottles are slipped, and from which the wine ceases to flow directly the bottles become filled. Men or lads remove the full bottles, replacing them by empty ones, while other hands convey them to the corkers, whose guillotine machines are incessantly in motion. Speed in the process is of much importance, as during a single day the wine may undergo a notable change. From the corkers the bottles are passed on to the _agrafeurs_, who secure the corks by means of an iron clip termed an agrafe; and they are afterwards conveyed either to a spacious room above-ground known as a cellier or to a cool vault underground, according to the number of atmospheres which the wine may indicate.

[Illustration]

With reference to these atmospheres, it should be explained that air compressed to half its volume acquires twice its ordinary force, and to a quarter of its volume quadruple this force--hence the phrase of two, four, or more atmospheres. The exact degree of pressure is readily ascertained by means of a manometer, an instrument resembling a pressure-gauge, with a hollow screw at the base, which is driven through the cork of the bottle. A pressure of 5-3/4 atmospheres constitutes what is styled a 'grand mousseux,' and the wine exhibiting it may be safely conveyed to the coolest subterranean depths, for no doubt need be entertained as to its future effervescent properties. Should the pressure, however, scarcely exceed four atmospheres, it is advisable to keep the wine in a cellier above-ground, that it may more rapidly acquire the requisite sparkling qualities. If fewer than four atmospheres are indicated, it would be necessary to pour the wine back into the casks again, and add a certain amount of cane-sugar to it; but such an eventuality very rarely happens, thanks to the scientific formulas and apparatus, which enable the degree of pressure the wine will show to be determined beforehand to a nicety. Still mistakes are sometimes made, and there are instances where charcoal fires have had to be lighted in the cellars to encourage the latent effervescence to develop itself.[412]

[Illustration: THE TIRAGE OR BOTTLING OF CHAMPAGNE.]

The bottles are first placed in a horizontal position, the side to be kept uppermost being indicated by a daub of whitewash, and are stacked in rows of varying length and depth, one above the other, to about the height of a man, with narrow laths between them. Thus they will spend the summer, providing all goes well; but in about three weeks' time the process of gas-making inside the bottles is at its height, and a period of considerable anxiety to the Champagne manufacturer ensues, through his dread lest an undue number of them should burst from the expansion of the carbonic acid gas generated in the wine. The glucometer notwithstanding, it is impossible to check a certain amount of breakage, especially when a hot season has caused the grapes, and consequently the raw wine, to be sweeter than usual. Moreover, when once _casse_ or breakage sets in on a large scale, the temperature of the cellar is raised by the volume of carbonic acid gas let loose, which is not without its effect on the remaining bottles. Not only does the increased temperature unduly accelerate fermentation, but the mere shock of one bottle exploding often starts such of its neighbours as are predisposed that way, in addition to the direct havoc wrought by the heavier fragments of flying glass. The only remedy is the instant removal of the wine to a lower temperature whenever this is practicable.

[Illustration]

A manufacturer of the pre-scientific days of the last century relates how one year, when the wine was rich and strong, he only preserved 120 out of 6000 bottles; and it is not long since that 120,000 out of 200,000 were destroyed in the cellars of a well-known Champagne firm. M. Mauméné, moreover, relates that in 1850 he was called in to consult about the checking of a _casse_, which had already reached 96 per cent.[413] Over-knowing purchasers affect to select a wine which has exploded in the largest proportion in the cellars, as being well up to the mark as regards its effervescence, and are in the habit of making inquiries as to its performances in this direction.

[Illustration]

It is evident that, in spite of the teachings of science, the bursting of Champagne bottles has not yet been reduced to a minimum, for whereas in some cellars it averages 7 and 8 per cent, and rises to 15 when the pressure is unusually strong, in others it rarely exceeds 2-1/2 or 3. The period between May and September is that in which the greatest destruction takes place. In the month of October, the first and severest breakage being over, the newly-bottled wine is definitively stacked in the cellars in piles from two to half a dozen bottles deep, from six to seven feet high, and frequently a hundred feet or upwards in length. Usually the bottles remain in their horizontal position, in which they gradually develop two essential qualities, that of effervescing well and that of travelling satisfactorily, for about eighteen or twenty months, though some firms, who pride themselves upon shipping perfectly matured wines, leave them thus for double this space of time. During this period the temperature to which the wine is exposed is, as far as practicable, carefully regulated; for the risk of breakage, though greatly diminished, is never entirely at an end.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

By this time the fermentation is over; but in the interval, commencing from a few days after the bottling of the wine, a loose dark-brown sediment has been forming, which has now settled on the lower side of the bottle, and to get rid of which is a delicate and tedious task. As the time approaches for preparing the wine for shipment, the bottles are placed _sur pointe_, as it is termed--that is to say, slantingly in racks with their necks downwards, the inclination being increased from time to time to one more abrupt.[414] The object of this change in their position is to cause the sediment to leave the side of the bottle where it has gathered. Afterwards it becomes necessary to twist and turn it and coagulate it, as it were, until it forms a kind of muddy ball, and eventually to get it well down into the neck of the bottle, so that it may be finally expelled with a bang when the temporary cork is removed and the proper one adjusted. To accomplish this the bottles are sharply turned in one direction every day for at least a month or six weeks, the time being indefinitely extended until the sediment shows a disposition to settle near the cork. The younger the wine the longer the period necessary for the bottles to be shaken, new wine often requiring as much as three months. Only a thoroughly practised hand can give the right amount of revolution and the requisite degree of slope; and in some of the cellars men were pointed out to us who had acquired such dexterity as to be able at a pinch to shake with their two hands as many as 50,000 bottles in a single day, whilst 30,000 to 40,000 is by no means an uncommon performance.

[Illustration]

Some of these men have spent thirty or forty years of their lives engaged in this perpetual task. Fancy being entombed all alone day after day in vaults which are invariably dark and gloomy, and often cold and dank, and being obliged to twist sixty to seventy of these bottles every minute throughout the day of ten hours! Why, the treadmill and the crank, with their periodical respites, must be pastime compared to this maddeningly monotonous occupation, which combines hard labour, with the wrist, at any rate, with next to solitary confinement. One can understand these men becoming gloomy and taciturn, and affirming that they sometimes see devils hovering over the bottle-racks and frantically shaking the bottles beside them, or else grinning at them as they pursue their humdrum task. Still it may be taken for granted that the men who reach this stage are accustomed to drink freely of raw spirits, as an antidote to the damp to which they are exposed, and merely pay the penalty of their over-indulgence.

[Illustration]

In former times the bottles used to be placed with their heads downwards on tables pierced with holes, from which they had to be removed and agitated. At a still earlier date the process was more or less successfully accomplished by holding the bottles upside down by the neck, tapping them at the bottom to detach the sediment, and then, after shaking them well up, laying them on their sides until the operation was repeated. In 1818, however, a man named Müller, in the employment of Madame Clicquot, suggested that the bottles should remain in the tables whilst being shaken, and further that the holes should be cut obliquely, so that they might recline at varying angles. His suggestions were privately adopted by Madame Clicquot; but eventually the improved plan got wind, and the system which he initiated now prevails throughout the Champagne.[415]

[Illustration]

When the bottles have gone through their regular course of shaking, they are examined before a lighted candle to ascertain whether the deposit has all fallen on to the cork, and the wine has become perfectly clear. Sometimes it happens that, twist these men never so wisely, the deposit, instead of becoming flaky or granular, refuses to stir, and takes the shape of a bunch of threads technically called a 'claw,' or an adherent membrane styled a 'mask.' When this is the case an attempt is made to start it by tapping the part to which it adheres with a piece of iron, the result being frequently the sudden explosion of the bottle in the workman's hands. By way of precaution, therefore, the operator protects his face with a wire mask, or by gigantic wire spectacles, which give to him a ghoul-like aspect. Frequently it is found impossible to detach the 'mask' from the side of the bottle, and in this case the only thing that remains is to pour the wine back again into the cask, with the view of mixing it in some future _cuvée_.[416]

[Illustration]

The cellars of the Champagne manufacturers are very varied in character. The wine that has been grown on the chalky hills is left to develop itself in vaults burrowed out of the calcareous strata which underlie the entire district. In excavating these cellars the sides and roofs are frequently worked smooth and regular as finished masonry. The larger ones are composed of a number of spacious and lofty galleries, sometimes parallel with each other, but often ramifying in various directions, and evidently constructed on no definite plan. They are of one, two, and, in rare instances, of three stories, and now and then consist of a series of parallel galleries communicating with each other, lined with masonry, and with their stone walls and vaulted roofs resembling the crypt of some conventual building. Others of ancient date are less regular in their form, being merely so many narrow, low, winding corridors, varied, perhaps, by recesses hewn roughly out of the chalk, and resembling the brigands' cave of melodrama; while a certain number of the larger cellars at Reims are simply abandoned quarries, the broad and lofty arches of which are suggestive of the nave and aisles of some Gothic church. In these varied vaults, lighted by solitary lamps in front of metal reflectors, or by the flickering tallow candles which we carry in our hands, we pass rows of casks filled with last year's vintage or reserved wine of former years, and piles after piles of bottles of _vin brut_ in seemingly endless sequence--squares, so to speak, of raw recruits for the historically famous 'Regiment de Champagne'[417]--awaiting their turn to be thoroughly drilled and disciplined. These are varied by bottles reposing neck downwards in racks at different degrees of inclination, according to the progress their education has attained. Reports caused by exploding bottles now and then assail the ear, and as the echo dies away it becomes mingled with the rush of the escaping wine, cascading down the pile, and finding its way across the sloping sides of the floor to the narrow gutter in the centre. The dampness of the floor and the shattered fragments of glass strewn about show the frequency of this kind of accident.

[Illustration: DETACHING THE 'MASK' FROM THE SIDES OF THE BOTTLES.]

In these subterranean galleries we frequently come upon parties of workmen engaged in transforming the perfected _vin brut_ into Champagne. Viewed at a distance while occupied in their monotonous task, they present in the semi-obscurity a series of picturesque Rembrandt-like studies. One of the end figures in each group is engaged in the important process of _dégorgement_, which is performed when the deposit, of which we have already spoken, has satisfactorily settled in the neck of the bottle. Baskets full of bottles with their necks downwards are placed beside the operator, who stands before a cask set on end, and having a large oval opening in front. This nimble-fingered manipulator seizes a bottle, raises it for a moment before the light to test the clearness of the wine and the subsidence of the deposit; holds it horizontally in his left hand, with the neck directed towards the opening already mentioned; and with a jerk of the steel hook which he holds in his right hand loosens the agrafe securing the cork. Bang goes the latter, and with it flies out the sediment and a small glassful or so of wine, further flow being checked by the workman's finger, which also serves to remove any sediment yet remaining in the bottle's neck. Like many other clever tricks, this looks very easy when adroitly performed, though a novice would probably allow the bottle to empty itself by the time he discovered that the cork was out. Yet such is the dexterity acquired by practice that the average amount of wine, foam, and deposit ejected by this operation does not exceed one-fourteenth of the contents of the bottle. Occasionally a bottle bursts in the _dégorgeur's_ hand, and his face is sometimes scarred from such explosions. The sediment removed, the _dégorgeur_ slips a temporary cork into the bottle, or places the latter in a machine provided with fixed gutta-percha corks and springs for securing the bottles firmly in their places. The wine is now ready for the important operation of the _dosage_, upon the nature and amount of which the character of perfected Champagne, whether it be dry or sweet, light or strong, very much depends.[418]

[Illustration]

Different manufacturers have different recipes for the composition of this syrup, all more or less complex in character, and varying with the quality of the wine and the country for which it is intended; but the genuine liqueur consists of nothing but old wine of the best quality, to which a certain amount of sugar-candy and perhaps a dash of the finest cognac spirit has been added.[419] The saccharine addition varies according to the market for which the wine is destined: thus the high-class English buyer demands a dry Champagne, the Russian a wine sweet and strong as 'ladies' grog,' and the Frenchman and German a sweet light wine. To the extra-dry Champagnes a modicum dose is added, while the so-called '_brut_' wines receive no more than from one to three per cent of liqueur.[420]

[Illustration]

In establishments wedded to old-fashioned usages the dose is administered with a tin can or ladle; but more generally an ingenious machine which regulates the percentage of liqueur to a nicety is employed. The bottle being usually nearly full when passed to the _doseur_, he, when a heavy percentage of liqueur has to be administered, is constrained, under the old system, to pour out some of the wine to make room for it, and this surplus in many cases is afterwards transformed into the well-known _tisane de Champagne_. As soon as the _dosage_ is accomplished, the bottle is passed to another workman known as the _égaliseur_, who fills it up with pure wine, frequently with a part of that which has been poured out by the _doseur_, to the requisite level for corking. In the event of a pink Champagne being required, the wine thus added will be red, although manufacturers of questionable reputation sometimes employ the solution of elderberries, known as _teinte de Fismes_, to impart that once-favourite roseate hue which has been compared to the glow of fading sunlight on a crystal stream.

[Illustration: THE DOSEUR.]

[Illustration: THE CORKER.]

[Illustration: THE METTEUR DE FIL.]

[Illustration: DOSING MACHINE.]

[Illustration: CORKING MACHINE.]

The _égaliseur_ in his turn hands the bottle to the corker, who places it under a machine furnished with a pair of claws (so as to compress the cork to a size sufficiently small to allow it to enter the neck of the bottle) and a suspended weight, which in falling drives it home. These corks, principally obtained from Catalonia and Andalucia, are bound to possess a close and regular fibre and perfect elasticity. They form no unimportant item in the Champagne manufacturer's budget, costing upwards of twopence each, and are delivered in huge sacks resembling hop-pockets. Previous to being used they are either boiled in wine or soaked in a solution of tartar, or else they have been steamed by the cork merchants, in order to prevent their imparting a bad flavour to the wine, and to hinder any leakage. They are commonly handed warm to the corker, who dips them into a small vessel of wine before making use of them. Some firms, however, prepare their corks by subjecting them to cold-water _douches_ a day or two beforehand. The _ficeleur_ receives the bottle from the corker, and with a twist of the fingers secures the cork with string, at the same time rounding its hitherto flat top, at a rate which allows from a thousand to twelve hundred bottles to pass through his hands in course of the day. The _metteur de fil_ next affixes the wire with like celerity;[421] and then the final operation is performed by a workman seizing a couple of bottles by the neck and whirling them round his head, as though engaged in the Indian-club exercise, in order to secure a perfect amalgamation of the wine and the liqueur.

[Illustration]

The final manipulation accomplished, the agitated course of existence through which the wine has been passing at last comes to an end, and the bottles are conveyed to another part of the establishment, where they repose for several days, or even weeks, in order that the mutual

## action of the wine and the liqueur upon each other may be complete.

When the time arrives for despatching them, they are confided to feminine hands to have their dainty toilettes made, and are tastefully labelled, and are either capsuled, or else have their corks and necks imbedded in sealing-wax or swathed in gold or silver foil, whereby they are rendered presentable at the best-appointed tables. All that now remains is to wrap them up in coloured tissue-paper, to slip them into straw envelopes, or encircle them with wisps of straw, and pack them either in cases or baskets for despatch to all quarters of the civilised globe.

[Illustration]

It is thus that Champagne sets out on its beneficial pilgrimage to promote the spread of mirth and light-heartedness, to drive away dull care and foment good-fellowship, to comfort the sick and cheer the sound. Wherever civilisation penetrates, Champagne sooner or later is sure to follow; and if Queen Victoria's morning drum beats round the world, its beat is certain to be echoed before the day is over by the popping of Champagne corks. Nowadays the exhilarating wine graces not merely princely but middle-class dinner-tables, and is the needful adjunct at every _petit souper_, as well as the stimulant to the wildest revels in all the gayer capitals of the world. It gives a flush to beauty at garden-parties and picnics, sustains the energies of the votaries of Terpsichore until the hour of dawn, and imparts to many a young gallant the necessary courage to declare his passion. It enlivens the dullest of _réunions_, brings smiles to the lips of the sternest cynics, softens the most irascible tempers, and loosens the most taciturn tongues.

The grim Berliner and the gay Viennese both acknowledge the exhilarating influence of the wine. Champagne sparkles in crystal goblets in the great capital of the North, and the Moslem wipes its creamy foam from his beard beneath the very shadow of the mosque of St. Sophia; for the Prophet has only forbidden the use of wine, and of a surety--Allah be praised!--this strangely-sparkling delicious liquor, which gives to the true believer a foretaste of the joys of Paradise, cannot be wine. At the diamond-fields of South Africa and the diggings of Australia the brawny miner who has hit upon a big bit of crystallised carbon, or a nugget of virgin ore, strolls to the 'saloon' and shouts for Champagne. The mild Hindoo imbibes it quietly, but approvingly, as he watches the evolutions of the Nautch girls, and his partiality for the wine has already enriched the Anglo-Bengalee vocabulary and London slang with the word 'simkin.' It is transported on camel-backs across the deserts of Central Asia, and in frail canoes up the mighty Amazon. The two-sworded Daimio calls for it in the tea-gardens of Yokohama, and the New Yorker, when not rinsing his stomach by libations of iced water, imbibes it freely at Delmonico's.

Wherever the Romans died they left traces behind them in their quaint funeral urns; wherever the civilised man of the nineteenth century has set his foot--at the base of the Pyramids and at the summit of the Cordilleras, in the mangrove swamps of Ashantee and the gulches of the Great Lone Land, in the wilds of the Amoor and on the desert isles of the Pacific--he has left traces of his presence in the shape of the empty bottles that were once full of the sparkling vintage of the Marne. They are strewn broadcast over the face of the globe, literally from Indus to the Pole. The crews of the Alert and the Discovery left them on the ice-bound verge of the paleocrystic sea; the French expeditionary columns have scattered them within the limits of the Great Sahara. In the lodges of the red man they are found playing the part of a great medicine, and in the huts of the negro they assume all the importance due to a big fetish. Stanley, arriving fainting and exhausted at the mouth of the Congo, hailed with joy the foil-tipped flask that the hospitable merchants who answered his appeal for succour had despatched; and as he quaffed its contents, recalled how he and Livingstone, when thousands of miles from any other European, had emptied a bottle of sparkling Champagne together on the night of their memorable meeting at Ujiji. And when, after the battle of Ulundi, the victorious British troops occupied Cetewayo's kraal, they found within the sable potentate's private chamber several empty Champagne bottles, the contents of which, it is to be presumed, he had quaffed the night before to the success of his followers. In the Transvaal too, during the negotiations for an armistice, Sir Evelyn Wood regaled the Boer delegates with Champagne. On a subsequent occasion, the latter were unable to return the compliment, excusing themselves by suggestively remarking, 'We don't take such things with us when we go to fight.'

[Illustration]

[Illustration: RENAISSANCE HOUSE AT REIMS, IN WHICH MADAME CLICQUOT RESIDED.]