VI.
/Reims and its Champagne Establishments./
The city of Reims--Its historical associations--The Cathedral--Its western front one of the most splendid conceptions of the thirteenth century--The sovereigns crowned within its walls--Present aspect of the ancient archiepiscopal city--The woollen manufactures and other industries of Reims--The city undermined with the cellars of the great Champagne firms--Reims hotels--Gothic house in the Rue du Bourg St. Denis--Renaissance house in the Rue de Vesle--Church of St. Jacques: its gateway and quaint weathercock--The Rue des Tapissiers and the Chapter Court--The long tapers used at religious processions--The Place des Marchés and its ancient houses--The Hôtel de Ville--Statue of Louis XIII.--The Rues de la Prison and du Temple--Messrs. Werlé & Co., successors to the Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin--Their offices and cellars on the site of a former Commanderie of the Templars--Origin of the celebrity of Madame Clicquot's wines--M. Werlé and his son--Remains of the Commanderie--The forty-five cellars of the Clicquot-Werlé establishment--Our tour of inspection through them--Ingenious dosing machine--An explosion and its consequences--M. Werlé's gallery of paintings--Madame Clicquot's Renaissance house and its picturesque bas-reliefs--The Werlé vineyards and vendangeoirs.
[Illustration: HEAD OF BACCHUS IN THE COURTYARD OF THE HÔTEL DU LION D'OR.]
The ancient city of Reims is pleasantly situate in a spacious natural basin, surrounded by calcareous hills, for the most part planted with vines. It is fertile in historical associations, rich in archæological treasures, and at the same time able to claim the respect more readily accorded in the nineteenth century to a busy and prosperous commercial centre. Indeed, its historical, archæological, and commercial importance is in advance of its actual political situation, for administratively it only ranks as a simple subprefecture in the department of the Marne. The student of history can hardly afford to neglect a city so intimately associated with the story of monarchy in France, and one which has witnessed the coronations of a long series of sovereigns, beginning with Clovis and ending with Charles X. From the day when the 'proud Sicamber' bent his neck at the adjuration of St. Remi, and vowed to adore that which he had burnt and to burn that which he had adored, down to the time when the future exile of Holyrood had his forehead touched by Jean Baptiste Antoine de Latil with the remnant of the 'sacred pomatum' so miraculously saved from revolutionary hands, few of the titular rulers of the country have failed to honour it with their presence. As the Durocortorum of Cæsar, the residence of Charlemagne, the seat of the great Ecclesiastical Councils of the twelfth century, the stronghold of the League, and the scene of one of the first Napoleon's most brilliant feats of arms during the campaign of 1813-14, it has also earned for itself a conspicuous place in history. To Englishmen it is, perhaps, most noteworthy as having successfully checked the victorious advance of the third Edward after Cressy, and witnessed the apogee of that meteoric career, which began in the inn-yard at Domremi and ended in the market-place at Rouen, the career of Jeanne la Pucelle. Nor must it be forgotten that Reims sheltered the childhood of Mary Stuart, and saw the heralds of England hurl solemn defiance at Henri II. in the Abbey of St. Remi, at the command of Mary Tudor.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF REIMS, 1880.]
To the archæologist as to the ordinary sightseer, the chief attractions presented by Reims consist in its numerous ecclesiastical edifices, some still serving the purpose for which they were originally erected, others long since converted to secular usages. Most conspicuous among them is the cathedral church of Notre Dame, the stately basilica in which the sovereigns of France were wont to be crowned. This superb monument of Gothic architecture was commenced in 1210, upon the plans of Robert de Coucy, by Archbishop Alberic de Humbert. It was completed at the commencement of the fourteenth century, and though the original design was somewhat modified--owing, it is said, to the contributions of the faithful not coming in with sufficient rapidity--it remains a marvel of strength, admirably combined with grace. The exterior is extremely fine; and the western face, with its elaborately ornate portal, has been described as 'one of the most splendid conceptions of the thirteenth century.'[422] Amidst the almost bewildering multiplicity of ornament, the triple porch, surmounted by a group representing the Coronation of the Virgin, the great rose window, flanked by colossal effigies of David and Goliath, and the range of statues known as the Gallery of the Kings, running across the façade near its summit, are conspicuous. The interior, although fine, and containing many objects of interest, is less impressive, while the plundered treasury can still boast of many quaint and curious relics of bygone times. But the chief interest centres in the fact of the surrounding walls having witnessed so many scenes of stately pomp and pageantry. St. Louis, Philip the Fair, Philip of Valois, the unfortunate John the Good, Charles the Simple, and Charles the Victorious, with Joan of Arc, standard in hand, by his side; the wily Louis XI., Louis the Father of his People, the magnificent Francis I., and his scarcely less magnificent son, the young husband of Mary Queen of Scots; the savage Charles IX., Henri III., with his protest that the crown hurt him, Louis the Just, the Roi Soleil himself, Louis the Well-Beloved, the hapless Louis Seize, and Charles X., have all knelt here in turns whilst the crown was placed on their heads, the sword girded to their sides, and the oriflamme waved above them.
Many of the most famous cities of the Middle Ages are mere fossilised representatives of former grandeur, but with Reims the case is otherwise. If somewhat fallen from its former high estate, politically speaking--though it should be remembered that Troyes was the titular capital of the Champagne when the province was ruled by independent Counts--its material prosperity has augmented. Round the nucleus of narrow and often tortuous streets, representing the old archiepiscopal city--the 'Little Rome' of the twelfth century--a network of spacious thoroughfares and broad boulevards has spread itself, and the life and movement of a busy manufacturing population are not lacking. In addition to the wine trade, which of course employs, both directly and indirectly, a large number of hands, Reims is one of the most important seats of the woollen manufacture in France, and the industrial element forms a very important factor amongst its inhabitants. In addition to the flannels, merinoes, blankets, trouserings, shawls, &c., that are annually produced, to the value of from thirty to forty million of francs, there is also a considerable production of gingerbread, biscuits, and dried pears, enjoying a wide-spread reputation.
The cellars of the great Champagne manufacturers of Reims are scattered in all directions over the historical old city. They undermine its narrowest and most insignificant streets, its broad and handsome boulevards, and on the eastern side extend beyond its more distant outskirts. In whichever direction we may elect to proceed when visiting the principal Champagne establishments, our starting-point will necessarily be the vicinity of the Cathedral, for it is here that all the hotels are situated. Facing the great western doorway of the ancient Gothic edifice is the Hôtel Lion d'Or, formerly the Hôtel Petit Moulinet, where the allied sovereigns sojourned on their way to Paris in 1814, and Napoleon rested on his flight after the battle of Waterloo. Close by is the Hôtel Maison Rouge, with the commemorative tablet on its renovated façade setting forth that in the year 1429, at the coronation of Charles VII. in this hostelry, then named the Striped Ass, the father and mother of Jeanne Darc were lodged at the expense of the city council. Almost facing is the newly-erected Grand Hôtel, and on the north-western side of the Cathedral is the Hôtel de Commerce, the resort, as its name implies, of most of the commercial travellers frequenting the capital of the Champagne. The visitor to Reims, be his object business or pleasure, is bound to put up at one or other of these four hostelries, and hence the starting-point of his peregrinations is necessarily the same.
[Illustration: GOTHIC DOORWAY IN THE RUE DU BOURG ST. DENIS, REIMS.]
Proceeding along the Rue Tronçon Ducoudray, we reached the Rue de Vesle, where the Palais de Justice and the new theatre are situated. In the adjacent Rue du Bourg St. Denis is an old house--the ground-floor of which is a wine-shop styled Buvette du Théâtre--notable for its antique Gothic doorway, containing, within the upper portion of the arch, the bas-relief of a man fighting with a bear. There is a tradition that on this spot formerly stood a hospital dedicated to St. Hubert, and intended for the reception of persons wounded when hunting, or who might have chanced to be bitten by mad dogs. In the Rue de Vesle is another old house with an ornamental frieze surmounting its façade, which looks on to one of the entrances of the Church of St. Jacques. This edifice, originally erected at the close of the twelfth century, is hemmed in on all sides by venerable-looking buildings, while above them rises its tapering steeple, surmounted by a mediæval weathercock in the form of an angel. The interior of the church presents a curious jumble of architectural styles from early Gothic to late Renaissance. One noteworthy object of art which it contains is a life-size crucifix carved by Pierre Jacques, a Remois sculptor of the days of the Good King Henri, and from an anatomical point of view a perfect _chef-d'[oe]uvre_.
[Illustration: FRIEZE OF OLD HOUSE IN THE RUE DE VESLE, REIMS.]
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES, REIMS.]
[Illustration: WEATHERCOCK OF THE CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES.]
The Rue de Vesle merges into the Rue des Tapissiers, where in former times the carpet manufacturers of Reims had their warehouses. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the carpets of Reims were as famous in France as those of Aubusson are to-day, but subsequently they began to decline. Half-way up this street--where, by the way, in 1694 the first numbers of the _Gazette de France_, the oldest existing French newspaper, were printed, the news being duly forwarded from Paris--we pass the ancient gateway leading to the chapter-court of the Cathedral. Within the court a weekly market of small wares is now held; but in the days when the archbishops, dukes, and peers of Reims wielded sovereign sway in the capital of the Champagne, this open space was a _champ clos_, where trials by battle took place. The surrounding buildings comprised residences for various ecclesiastics connected with the Cathedral, together with a small farm whence these epicurean priests derived their supply of fresh milk and fatted capons. According to ancient custom, the inhabitants of the houses facing the chapter-gateway were required to keep their doors and windows open on days of religious processions, the tapers carried by the clergy on these occasions being of such immoderate length that it was necessary to incline them, and run them into the doors and windows of the houses opposite when the bearers passed under the archway.
[Illustration: GOTHIC HOUSE IN THE MARKET-PLACE, REIMS.]
At the end of the Rue des Tapissiers is the handsome Place Royale, connected with the Place des Marchés by a broad rectangular street lined with lofty edifices in the modern Parisian style of architecture. A break ensues in this range of massive-looking buildings as we enter the ancient Place des Marchés, the forum of Roman Reims, and to-day bordered more or less by houses of a mediæval character, remarkably well preserved. Principal among these is a Gothic timber-house of the fifteenth century, with its projecting upper stories supported by elaborately-carved corbels, and its entire façade enriched with mouldings and finials, and with columns and capitals overlaid with sculptured ornaments.
[Illustration: STATUE OF LOUIS XIII. ON THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, REIMS.]
Some little distance beyond the Place des Marchés is the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, which derives all its interest from the handsome-looking edifice in the florid Italian style of the early part of the seventeenth century which gives it its name. The façade of this building is profusely decorated with Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns, and on the pediment above the principal entrance is a bas-relief equestrian statue of Louis XIII., whom the Latin inscription beneath fulsomely characterises as 'the just, the pious, the victorious, the clement, the beloved of his people, the terror of his enemies, and the delight of the world,' and to whom 'the senate and inhabitants of Reims have raised this imperishable trophy.' Some century and a half later, however, the imperishable trophy got hurled down and shattered into fragments by the populace, and its vacant place was only filled by the present statue in the year 1818.
To the right of the Place is the Chambre des Notaires of Reims, raised on the site of the ancient _présidial_, or court of justice, where the city magistrates used to be elected during the Middle Ages, and to which a chapel and a prison were attached. The latter building evidently gave its name to the adjoining Rue de la Prison, the gloomy-looking houses of which--of a more massive character than the gabled structures of the market-place and the Rue de l'Etape--with their formidably-barred windows, possible relics of the religious wars, seem to frown, as it were, upon the passer-by. In a narrow tortuous street leading from this thoroughfare Messrs. Werlé & Co., the successors of the famous Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, have their offices and cellars, on the site of a former Commanderie of the Templars; and strangers passing by this quiet spot would scarcely imagine that under their feet hundreds of busy hands are incessantly at work, disgorging, dosing, shaking, corking, storing, wiring, labelling, capsuling, waxing, tinfoiling, and packing hundreds of thousands of bottles of Champagne destined for all parts of the civilised world.
The house of Clicquot, established in the year 1798 by the husband of La Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, who died in 1866, in her 89th year, was indebted for much of the celebrity of its wine to the lucky accident of the Russians occupying Reims in 1814 and 1815, and freely requisitioning the sweet Champagne stored in the widow's capacious cellars. Madame Clicquot's wines were slightly known in Russia prior to this date; but the officers of the invading army, on their return home, proclaimed their merits throughout the length and breadth of the Muscovite Empire, and the fortune of the house was made. Madame Clicquot, as every one knows, amassed enormous wealth, and succeeded in marrying both her daughter and granddaughter to counts of the _ancien régime_.
The present head of the firm is M. Werlé, who comes of an old Lorraine family although born in the ancient free imperial town of Wetzlar on the Lahn, where Goethe lays the scene of his 'Sorrows of Werther,' the leading incidents of which really occurred there. M. Werlé entered the establishment which he has done so much to raise to its existing position so far back as the year 1821. His care and skill, exercised for nearly two-thirds of a century, have largely contributed to obtain for the Clicquot brand that high repute which it enjoys to-day all over the world. M. Werlé, who has long been naturalised in France, was for many years Mayor of Reims and President of its Chamber of Commerce, as well as one of the deputies of the Marne to the Corps Législatif. He enjoys the reputation of being the richest man in Reims, and, like his late partner, Madame Clicquot, he has also secured brilliant alliances for his children, his son, M. Alfred Werlé, having married the daughter of the Duc de Montebello, while his daughter espoused the son of M. Magne, Minister of Finance under the Second Empire.
[Illustration: HEADS OF PH[OE]BUS AND BACCHUS.]
Half-way down the narrow Rue du Temple is an ancient gateway, on which may be traced the half-effaced sculptured heads of Ph[oe]bus and Bacchus. Immediately in front is a green _porte-cochère_ forming the entrance to the Clicquot-Werlé establishment, and conducting to a spacious trim-kept courtyard, set off with a few trees, with some extensive stabling and cart-sheds on the left, and on the right hand the entrance to the cellars. Facing us is an unpretending-looking edifice, where the firm has its counting-houses, with a little corner tower surmounted by a characteristic weathercock consisting of a figure of Bacchus seated astride a cask beneath a vine-branch, and holding up a bottle in one hand and a goblet in the other. The old Remois Commanderie of the Knights Templars existed until the epoch of the Great Revolution, and today a few fragments of the ancient buildings remain adjacent to the 'celliers' of the establishment, which are reached through a pair of folding-doors and down a flight of stone steps. The date of the foundation of this Commanderie is uncertain, but it is known that a Templar's church occupied a portion of the site in 1170. In 1311 both the church and the Commanderie passed into possession of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which held them until the epoch of the Revolution. Formerly the _échevins_ of Reims used to be elected in the ancient hall of the Commanderie, which at one period was a sanctuary for debtors, and also for criminals. Early in the present century the buildings were sold and demolished.
[Illustration: THE CLICQUOT-WERLÉ ESTABLISHMENT AT REIMS.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Arms of the Dauphins of France.
Arms of the Knight of Malta.
DEVICES FROM THE COMMANDERIE AT REIMS.]
After being furnished with lighted candles, we set out on our tour of inspection of the Clicquot-Werlé establishment, entering first of all the vast cellar of St. Paul, where the thousands of bottles requiring to be daily shaken are reposing necks downward on the large perforated tables which crowd the apartment. It is a peculiarity that each of the Clicquot-Werlé cellars--forty-five in number, and the smallest among them a vast apartment--has its special name. In the adjoining cellar of St. Matthew other bottles are similarly arranged, and here wine in cask is likewise stored. We pass rows of huge tuns, each holding its twelve or thirteen hundred gallons of fine reserved wine designed for blending with more youthful growths; next, are threading our way between seemingly endless piles of hogsheads filled with later vintages, and anon are passing smaller casks containing the syrup with which the _vin préparé_ is dosed. At intervals we come upon some square opening in the floor through which bottles of wine are being hauled up from the cellars beneath in readiness to receive their requisite adornment before being packed in baskets or cases, according to the country to which they are destined to be despatched. To Russia the Clicquot Champagne is sent in cases containing sixty bottles, while the cases for China contain as many as double that number.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE COMMANDERIE AT REIMS.]
The ample cellarage which the house possesses has enabled M. Werlé to make many experiments which firms with less space at their command would find it difficult to carry out on the same satisfactory scale. Such, for instance, is the system of racks in which the bottles repose while the wine undergoes its diurnal shaking. Instead of these racks being, as is commonly the case, at almost upright angles, they are perfectly horizontal, which, in M. Werlé's opinion, offers a material advantage, inasmuch as the bottles are all in readiness for disgorging at the same time, instead of the lower ones being ready before those above, as is the case when the ancient system is followed, owing to the uppermost bottles getting less shaken than the others.
After performing the round of the celliers we descend into the _caves_, a complete labyrinth of gloomy underground corridors excavated in the bed of chalk which underlies the city, and roofed and walled with solid masonry, more or less blackened by age. In one of these cellars we catch sight of rows of workpeople engaged in the operation of dosing, corking, securing, and shaking the bottles of wine which have just left the hands of the _dégorgeur_ by the dim light of half-a-dozen tallow-candles. The latest invention for liqueuring the wine is being employed. Formerly, to prevent the carbonic acid gas escaping from the bottles while the process of liqueuring was going on, it was necessary to press a gutta-percha ball connected with the machine, in order to force the escaping gas back. The new machine, however, renders this unnecessary, the gas, by its own power and composition, forcing itself back into the wine.
In the adjoining cellar of St. Charles are stacks of bottles awaiting the manipulation of the _dégorgeur_; while in that of St. Ferdinand men are engaged in examining other bottles before lighted candles, to make certain that the sediment is thoroughly dislodged, and the wine perfectly clear before the disgorgement is effected. Here, too, the corking, wiring, and stringing of the newly-disgorged wine are going on. Another flight of steps leads to the second tier of cellars, where the moisture trickles down the dank dingy walls, and save the dim light thrown out by the candles we carried, and by some other far-off flickering taper, stuck in a cleft stick, to direct the workmen, who with dexterous turns of their wrists, give a twist to the bottles, all is darkness. On every side bottles are reposing in various attitudes, the majority in huge square piles on their sides, others in racks slightly tilted; others, again, almost standing on their heads, while some, which through overinflation have come to grief, litter the floor and crunch beneath our feet. Tablets are hung against each stack of wine indicating its age, and from time to time a bottle is held up before the light to show us how the sediment commences to form, or to explain how it eventually works its way down the neck of the bottle, and finally settles on the cork. Suddenly we are startled by a loud report, resembling a pistol-shot, which reverberates through the vaulted chamber, as a bottle close at hand explodes, dashing out its heavy bottom as neatly as though it had been cut by a diamond, and dislocating the necks and pounding-in the sides of its immediate neighbours. The wine trickles down, and eventually finds its way along the sloping sides of the slippery floor to the narrow gutter in the centre.
[Illustration: MADAME VEUVE CLICQUOT AT EIGHTY YEARS OF AGE
(From the painting by Léon Coignet).]
Ventilating shafts pass from one tier of cellars to the other, enabling the temperature in a certain measure to be regulated, and thereby obviate an excess of breakage. M. Werlé estimates that the loss in this respect during the first eighteen months of a cuvée amounts to 7 per cent, but subsequently is considerably less. In 1862 one Champagne manufacturer lost as much as 45 per cent of his wine by breakages. The Clicquot cuvée is made in the cave of St. William, where 120 hogsheads of wine are hauled up by means of a crane, and discharged into the vat daily as long as the operation lasts. The tirage, or bottling of the wine, ordinarily commences in the middle of May, and occupies fully a month.
M. Werlé's private residence is close to the establishment in the Rue du Temple, and here he has collected a small gallery of high-class modern paintings by French and other artists, including Meissonier's 'Card-players,' Delaroche's 'Beatrice Cenci on her way to Execution,' Fleury's 'Charles V. picking up the brush of Titian,' various works by the brothers Scheffer, Knaus's highly-characteristic _genre_ picture, 'His Highness on a Journey,' and several fine portraits, among which is one of Madame Clicquot, painted by Léon Coignet, when she was eighty years of age, and another of M. Werlé by the same artist, regarded as a _chef-d'[oe]uvre_. Before her father's death Madame Clicquot used to reside in the Rue de Marc, some short distance from the cellars in which her whole existence centred, in a handsome Renaissance house, said to have had some connection with the row of palaces that at one time lined the neighbouring and then fashionable Rue du Tambour. This, however, is extremely doubtful. A number of interesting and well-preserved bas-reliefs decorate one of the façades of the house looking on to the court. The figures are of the period of François Premier and his son Henri II., who inaugurated his reign with a comforting edict for the Protestants, ordaining that blasphemers were to have their tongues pierced with red-hot irons, and heretics to be burnt alive, and who had the ill-luck to lose his eye and life through a lance-thrust of the Comte de Montgomerie, captain of his Scotch guards, whilst jousting with him at a tournament held in honour of the marriage of his daughter Isabelle with the gloomy widower of Queen Mary of England, of sanguinary fame.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The first of these bas-reliefs represents two soldiers of the Swiss guard, the next a Turk and Slav tilting at each other, and then comes a scroll entwined round a thistle, and inscribed with this enigmatical motto: 'Giane le sur ou rien.' In the third bas-relief a couple of passionate Italians are winding up a gambling dispute with a hand-to-hand combat, in the course of which table and cards have got canted over; the fourth presents us with two French knights, armed _cap-à-pie_, engaged in a tourney; while in the fifth and last a couple of German lansquenets essay their gladiatorial skill with their long and dangerous weapons. Several years back a tablet was discovered in one of the cellars of the house, inscribed 'Ci-gist vénérable religieux maistre Pierre Derclé, docteur en théologie, jadis prieur de céans. Priez Dieu pour luy. 1486,' which would almost indicate that the house had originally a religious character, although the warlike spirit of the bas-reliefs decorating it renders any such supposition with regard to the existing building untenable. We should mention that the spaces above the _porte cochère_, and the window by its side, are occupied by four medallions, which present that curious mingling of classic and contemporary styles for which the epoch of the Renaissance was remarkable.
[Illustration: MEDALLIONS FROM MADAME CLICQUOT'S HOUSE.]
The Messrs. Werlé own numerous acres of vineyards, comprising the very finest situations in the well-known districts of Verzenay, Bouzy, Le Mesnil, and Oger, at all of which places they have vendangeoirs or pressing-houses of their own. Their establishment at Verzenay contains seven presses, that at Bouzy eight, at Le Mesnil six, and at Oger two, in addition to which grapes are pressed under their own supervision at Ay, Avize, and Cramant, in vendangeoirs belonging to their friends.
Since the death of Madame Clicquot the legal style of the firm has been 'Werlé & Co., successors to Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin,' the mark, of which M. Werlé and his son are the sole proprietors, still remaining 'Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin,' while the corks of the bottles are branded with the words 'V. Clicquot-P. Werlé,' encircling the figure of a comet. The style of the wine--light, delicate, elegant, and fragrant--is familiar to all connoisseurs of Champagne. What, however, is not equally well known is that within the last few years the firm, in obedience to the prevailing taste, have introduced a perfectly dry wine of corresponding quality to the richer wine which made the fortune of the house, and gave enduring fame to the Clicquot brand.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE PLACE ROYALE AT REIMS.]