X.

/The Champagne Establishments of Epernay and Pierry./

Early records of the Moët family at Reims and Epernay--Jean Remi Moët, the founder of the commerce in Champagne wines--Extracts from old account-books of the Moëts--Jean Remi Moët receives the Emperor Napoleon, the Empress Josephine, and the King of Westphalia--The firm of Moët & Chandon constituted--Their establishment in the Rue du Commerce--The delivery and washing of new bottles--The numerous vineyards and vendangeoirs of the firm--Their cuvée made in vats of 12,000 gallons--The bottling of the wine--A subterranean city, with miles of streets, cross-roads, open spaces, tramways, and stations--The ancient entrance to these vaults--Tablet commemorative of the visit of Napoleon I.--The original vaults known as Siberia--Scene in the packing-hall--Messrs. Moët & Chandon's large and complete staff--The famous 'Star' brand of the firm--Perrier-Jouët's château, offices, and cellars--Classification of the wine of the house--The establishment of Messrs. Pol Roger & Co.--Their large stock of the fine 1874 vintage--The preparations for the tirage--Their vast fireproof cellier and its temperature--Their lofty and capacious cellars--Pierry becomes a wine-growing district consequent upon Dom Perignon's discovery--Esteem in which the growths of the Clos St. Pierre were held--Cazotte, author of _Le Diable Amoureux_, and guillotined for planning the escape of Louis XVI. from France, a resident at Pierry--His contest with the Abbot of Hautvillers with reference to the abbey tithes of wine--The Château of Pierry--Its owner demands to have it searched to prove that he is not a forestaller of corn--The vineyards and Champagne establishment of Gé-Dufaut & Co.--The reserves of old wines in the cellars of this firm--Honours secured by them at Vienna and Paris.

[Illustration]

Those magnates of the Champagne trade, Messrs. Moët & Chandon, whose famous 'Star' brand is familiar in every part of the civilised globe, and whose half-score miles of cellars contain as many million bottles of Champagne as there are millions of inhabitants in most of the secondary European States, have their head-quarters at Epernay in a spacious château--in that street of châteaux named the Rue du Commerce, but commonly known as the Faubourg de la Folie--which is approached through handsome iron gates, and has beautiful gardens in the rear extending in the direction of the River Marne. The existing firm dates from the year 1833, but the family of Moët--conjectured to have originally come from the Low Countries--had already been associated with the Champagne wine trade for well-nigh a century previously. If the Moëts came from Holland they must have established themselves in the Champagne at a very early date, for the annals of Reims record that in the fourteenth century Jehan Moët de Mennemont, _escuier_, held a fief at Attigny from the Archbishop Richard Pique, and that in the following century Jean and Nicolas Moët were _échevins_ of the city. A Moët was present in that capacity at the coronation of Charles VII. in 1429, when Joan of Arc stood erect by the principal altar of the cathedral with her sacred banner in her hand; and for having contributed to repulse an attempt on the part of the English to prevent the entrance of the Royal party into the city, the Moëts were subsequently ennobled by the same monarch. A mural tablet in the church of St. Remi records the death of D. G. Moët, Grand Prior, in 1554; and nine years later we find Nicol Moët claiming exemption at Epernay for the payment of _tailles_ on the ground of his being a noble.

An old commercial book preserved in the family archives shows that in the year 1743--at the epoch when the rashness of the Duc de Grammont saved the English army under George II. from being cut to pieces at Dettingen--a descendant of the foregoing, one Claude Louis Nicolas Moët, who owned considerable vineyard property in the vicinity of Epernay, decided upon embarking in the wine trade. It is his son, however, Jean Remi Moët, born in 1758, who may be looked upon as the veritable founder of the present commerce in Champagne wines, which, thanks to his efforts, received a wonderful impulse, so that instead of the consumption of the vintages of the Marne being limited as heretofore to the privileged few, it spread all over the civilised world.

[Illustration: JEAN REMI MOËT.]

At Messrs. Moët & Chandon's we had the opportunity of inspecting some of the old account-books of the firm, and more particularly those recording the transactions of Jean Remi Moët and his father. The first sales of sparkling wine, on May 23d, 1743, comprised 301 bottles of the vintage of 1741 to Pierre Joly, wine-merchant, _bon des douze chez le Roi_, whatever that may mean, at Paris; 120 bottles to Pierre Gabriel Baudoin, also _bon des douze_, at Paris; and a similar quantity to the Sieur Compoin, keeping the 'hotellerie ditte la pestitte Escurie,' Rue du Port-Maillart, at Nantes in Brittany. The entry specifies that the wine for Nantes is to be left at Choisy-le-Roi, and taken by land to Orleans by the carters of that town, who are to be found at the Ecu d'Orléans, Porte St. Michel, Paris, the carriage as far as Choisy being 4 livres 10 deniers (about 4 francs) for the two half-baskets, and to Paris 3 livres 15 deniers the basket.

Between 1750 and '60 parcels of wine were despatched to Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin, Königsberg, Dantzig, Stettin, Brussels, and Amsterdam; but one found no mention of any sales to England till the year 1788, when the customers of the firm included 'Milord' Farnham, of London, and Messrs. Felix Calvert & Sylvin, who had a couple of sample-bottles sent to them, for which they were charged five shillings. In the same year Messrs. Carbonnell, Moody, & Walker (predecessors of the well-known existing firm of Carbonnell & Co.) wrote in French for two baskets, of ten dozens each, of _vin de Champagne_ 'of good body, not too charged with liqueur, but of excellent taste, and not at all sparkling.' The Chevalier Colebrook, writing from Bath, also requests that 72 bottles of Champagne may be sent to his friend the Hon. John Butler, Molesworth-street, Dublin, 'who, if contented with the wine, will become a good customer, he being rich, keeping a good house, and receiving many amateurs of _vin de Champagne_.' Shortly afterwards the Chevalier himself receives 50 bottles of still wine, vintage 1783. In 1789 120 bottles of Champagne, vintage 1788, are supplied to 'Milord' Findlater, of London; and in 1790 the customers of the house include Power & Michel, of 44 Lamb-street, London, and Manning, of the St. Alban Tavern, the latter of whom is supplied on March 30th with 130 bottles of Champagne at three livres, or two 'schillings,' per bottle; while a month later Mr. Lockart, banker, of 36 Pall Mall, is debited with 360 bottles, vintage 1788, at three shillings.

In this same year M. Moët despatches a traveller to England named Jeanson, and his letters, some two hundred in number, are all preserved in the archives of the house. On the 17th May 1790 he writes from London as follows: 'As yet I have only gone on preparatory and often useless errands. I have distributed samples of which I have no news. Patience is necessary, and I endeavour to provide myself with it. How the taste of this country has changed since ten years ago! Almost everywhere they ask for dry wine, but at the same time require it so vinous and so strong that there is scarcely any other than the wine of Sillery which can satisfy them.... To-morrow I dine five miles from here, at M. Macnamara's. We shall uncork four bottles of our wine, which will probably be all right.' In May 1792 Jean Remi Moët is married, and thenceforward assumes the full management of the house. On December 20 of the year following, when the Reign of Terror was fairly inaugurated, we find the accounts in the ledger opened to this or the other 'citoyen.' The orthodox Republican formula, however, did not long continue, and 'sieur' and 'monsieur' resumed their accustomed places, showing that Jean Remi Moët had no sympathy with the Jacobin faction of the day. In 1805 he became Mayor of Epernay, and between this time and the fall of the Empire received Napoleon several times at his residence, as well as the Empress Josephine and the King of Westphalia. The Emperor, after recapturing Reims from the Allies, came on to Epernay, on which occasion he presented M. Moët with the Cross of the Legion of Honour. In 1830 the latter was arbitrarily dismissed from his mayoralty by Charles X., but was speedily reinstated by Louis Philippe, though he did not retain his office for long, his advanced age compelling him to retire from active life in the course of 1833. At this epoch the firm, which since 1807 had been known as Moët & Co., was remodelled under the style of Moët & Chandon, the two partners being M. Victor Moët, son of the outgoing partner, and M. P. G. Chandon, the descendant of an old ennobled family of the Mâconnais, who had married M. Jean Remi Moët's eldest daughter. The descendants of these gentlemen are to-day (1880) at the head of the business, the partners being, on the one hand, M. Victor Moët-Romont and M. C. J. V. Auban Moët-Romont; and on the other, MM. Paul and Raoul Chandon de Briailles.

Facing Messrs. Moët & Chandon's offices at Epernay is a range of comparatively new buildings, with its white façade ornamented with the well-known monogram M. & C., surmounted by the familiar star. It is here that the business of blending and bottling the wine is carried on. Passing through the arched gateway, access is obtained to a spacious courtyard, where carts laden with bottles are being expeditiously lightened of their fragile contents by the busy hands of numerous workmen. Another gateway on the left leads into the spacious bottle-washing room, which from the middle of May until the middle of July presents a scene of extraordinary animation. Bottle-washing apparatus, supplied by a steam-engine with 20,000 gallons of water per diem, are ranged in fifteen rows down the entire length of this hall, and nearly 200 women strive to excel each other in diligence and celerity in their management, a practised hand washing from 900 to 1000 bottles in the course of the day. To the right of this _salle de rinçage_, as it is styled, bottles are stacked in their tens of thousands, and lads furnished with barrows, known as _diables_, hurry to and fro, conveying these to the washers, or removing the clean bottles to the adjacent courtyard, where they are allowed to drain prior to being taken to the _salle de tirage_ or bottling-room.

Before, however, the washing of bottles on this gigantic scale commences, the 'marrying' or blending of the wine is accomplished in a vast apartment, 250 feet in length and 100 feet broad, during the early spring. The casks of newly-vintaged wine, which have been stowed away during the winter months in the extensive range of cellars hewn out of the chalk underlying Epernay, where they have slowly fermented, are mixed together in due proportion in huge vats, each holding upwards of 12,000 gallons. Some of this wine is the growth of Messrs. Moët & Chandon's own vineyards, of which they possess as many as 900 acres (giving constant employment to 800 labourers and vinedressers) at Ay, Avenay, Bouzy, Cramant, Champillon, Chouilly, Dizy, Epernay, Grauves, Hautvillers, Le Mesnil, Moussy, Pierry, Saran, St. Martin, Verzy, and Verzenay, and the average annual cost of cultivating which is about £40 per acre. At Ay the firm own 210 acres of vineyards; at Cramant and Chouilly, nearly 180 acres; at Verzy and Verzenay, 120 acres; at Pierry and Grauves, upwards of 100 acres; at Hautvillers, 90 acres; at Le Mesnil, 80 acres; at Epernay, nearly 60 acres; and at Bouzy, 55 acres. Messrs. Moët & Chandon, moreover, possess vendangeoirs, or pressing-houses, at Ay, Bouzy, Cramant, Epernay, Hautvillers, Le Mesnil, Pierry, Saran, and Verzenay, in which the large number of 40 presses are installed. At these vendangeoirs no less than 5450 pièces of fine white wine, sufficient for 1,360,000 bottles of Champagne, are annually made--that is, 1200 pièces at Ay, 1100 at Cramant and Saran, 800 at Verzy and Verzenay, and smaller quantities at the remaining establishments. All these establishments have their celliers and their cellars, together with cottages for the accommodation of the numerous vinedressers in the employment of the firm.

[Illustration: WASHING BOTTLES AT MESSRS. MOËT AND CHANDON'S, EPERNAY.]

Extensive as are the vineyards owned by Messrs. Moët & Chandon, the yield from them is utterly inadequate to the enormous demand which the great Epernay firm are annually called upon to supply, and large purchases have to be made by their agents from the growers throughout the Champagne. The wine thus secured, as well as that grown by the firm, is duly mixed together in such proportions as will insure lightness with the requisite vinosity, and fragrance combined with effervescence, a thorough amalgamation being effected by stirring up the wine with long poles provided with fan-shaped ends. If the vintage be indifferent in quality, the firm have scores of huge tuns filled with the yield of more favoured seasons to fall back upon to insure any deficiencies of character and flavour being supplied.

[Illustration: MESSRS. MOËT AND CHANDON'S VENDANGEOIR AT BOUZY.]

The casks of wine to be blended are raised from the cellars, half a dozen at a time, by means of a lift provided with an endless chain, and worked by the steam-engine of which we have already spoken. They are emptied, through traps in the floor of the room above, into the huge vats which, standing upon a raised platform, reach almost to the ceiling. From these vats the fluid is allowed to flow through hose into rows of casks stationed below. Before being bottled the wine reposes for a certain time; is next duly racked and again blended; and is eventually conveyed through silver-plated pipes into oblong reservoirs, each fitted with a dozen syphon-taps, so arranged that directly the bottle slipped on to one of them becomes full the wine ceases to flow.

Upwards of 200 workpeople are employed in the _salle de tirage_ at Messrs. Moët & Chandon's, which, while the operation of bottling is going on, presents a scene of bewildering activity. Men and lads are gathered round the syphon-taps, briskly removing the bottles as they become filled, and supplanting them by empty ones. Other lads hasten to transport the filled bottles on trucks to the corkers, whose so-called 'guillotine' machines send the corks home with a sudden thud. The corks being secured with _agrafes_, the bottles are placed in large flat baskets called _manettes_, and wheeled away on trucks, the quarts being deposited in the cellars by means of lifts, while the pints slide down an inclined plane by the aid of an endless chain, which raises the trucks with the empty baskets at the same time the full ones make their descent into the cellars. What with the incessant thud of the corking-machines, the continual rolling of iron-wheeled trucks over the concrete floor, the rattling and creaking of the machinery working the lifts, the occasional sharp report of a bursting bottle, and the loudly-shouted orders of the foremen, who display the national

## partiality for making a noise to perfection, the din becomes at times

all but unbearable. The number of bottles filled in the course of the day naturally varies, still Messrs. Moët & Chandon reckon that during the month of June a daily average of 100,000 are taken in the morning from the stacks in the _salle de rinçage_, washed, dried, filled, corked, wired, lowered into the cellars, and carefully arranged in symmetrical order. This represents a total of two and a half million bottles during that month alone.

The bottles on being lowered into the cellars, either by means of the incline or the lifts, are placed in a horizontal position, and, with their uppermost side daubed with white chalk, are stacked in layers from two to half a dozen bottles deep, with narrow oak laths between. The stacks are usually about 6 or 7 feet high, and 100 feet and upwards in length. Whilst the wine is thus reposing in a temperature of about 55° Fahrenheit, fermentation sets in, and the ensuing month is one of much anxiety. Thanks, however, to the care bestowed, Messrs. Moët & Chandon's annual loss from bottles bursting rarely exceeds three per cent, though fifteen was once regarded as a respectable and satisfactory average. The broken glass is a perquisite of the workmen, the money arising from its sale, which at the last distribution amounted to no less than 20,000 francs, being divided amongst them every couple of years.

[Illustration: BOTTLING CHAMPAGNE AT MESSRS. MOËT AND CHANDON'S, EPERNAY.]

The usual entrance to Messrs. Moët & Chandon's Epernay cellars--which, burrowed out in all directions, are of the aggregate length of nearly seven miles, and have usually between 10,000,000 and 12,000,000 bottles and 20,000 casks of wine stored therein--is through a wide and imposing portal, and down a long and broad flight of steps. It is, however, by the ancient and less imposing entrance, through which more than one crowned head has condescended to pass, that we set forth on our lengthened tour through these intricate underground galleries--this subterranean city, with its miles of streets, cross-roads, open spaces, tramways, and stations devoted solely to Champagne. A gilt inscription on a black-marble tablet testifies that 'on the 26th July 1807, Napoleon the Great, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, honoured commerce by visiting the cellars of Jean Remi Moët, Mayor of Epernay, President of the Canton, and Member of the General Council of the Department,' within three weeks of the signature of the treaty of Tilsit. Passing down the flight of steep slippery steps traversed by the victor of Eylau and Jena, access is gained to the upper range of vaults, brilliantly illuminated by the glare of gas, or dimly lighted by the flickering flame of tallow-candles, upwards of 60,000 lb. of which are annually consumed. Here group after group of the small army of 350 workmen employed in these subterranean galleries are encountered, engaged in the process of transforming the _vin brut_ into Champagne. At Messrs. Moët & Chandon's, the all-important operation of liqueuring the wine is effected by aid of machines of the latest construction, which regulate the quantity administered to the utmost nicety. The corks are branded by being pressed against steel dies heated by gas by women, who can turn out 3000 per day apiece, the quantity of string used to secure them amounting to nearly ten tons in the course of the year.

[Illustration: TABLET COMMEMORATIVE OF THE VISIT OF NAPOLEON I.]

There is another and a lower depth of cellars to be explored, to which access is gained by trap-holes in the floor--through which the barrels and baskets of wine are raised and lowered--and by flights of steps. From the foot of the latter there extends an endless vista of lofty and spacious passages hewn out of the chalk, the walls of which, smooth as finished masonry, are lined with thousands of casks of raw wine, varied at intervals by gigantic vats. Miles of long, dark-brown, dampish-looking galleries stretch away to the right and left, devoid of the picturesque festoons of fungi which decorate the London Dock vaults, yet exhibiting a sufficient degree of mouldiness to give them an air of respectable antiquity. These multitudinous galleries, lit up by petroleum-lamps, are mostly lined with wine in bottles stacked in compact masses to a height of six or seven feet, only room enough for a single person to pass being left. Millions of bottles are thus arranged, the majority on their side, in huge piles, with tablets hung up against each stack to note its age and quality; and the rest, which are undergoing daily evolutions at the hands of the twister, in racks at various angles of inclination. These cellars contain nearly 11,000 racks, and as many as 600,000 bottles are commonly twisted here daily.

[Illustration]

The way runs on between regiments of bottles of the same size and shape, save where at intervals pints take the place of quarts; and the visitor, gazing into the black depths of the transverse passages to the right and left, becomes conscious of a feeling that if his guide were suddenly to desert him, he would feel as hopelessly lost as in the catacombs of Rome. There are two galleries, each 650 feet in length, containing about 650,000 bottles, and connected by 32 transverse galleries, with an aggregate length of 4000 feet, in which nearly 1,500,000 bottles are stored. There are, further, eight galleries, each 500 feet in length, and proportionably stocked; also the extensive new vaults, excavated some five or six years back, in the rear of the then existing cellarage, and a considerable number of smaller vaults. The different depths and varying degrees of moisture afford a choice of temperature of which the experienced owners know how to take advantage. The original vaults, wherein more than a century ago the first bottles of Champagne made by the infant firm were stowed away, bear the name of Siberia, on account of their exceeding coldness. This section consists of several roughly-excavated low winding galleries, resembling natural caverns, and affording a striking contrast to the broad, lofty, and regular-shaped corridors of more recent date.

When the proper period arrives for the bottles to emerge once more into the upper air, they are conveyed to the packing-room, a spacious hall 180 feet long and 60 feet broad. In front of its three large double doors wagons are drawn up ready to receive their loads. The 70 men and women employed here easily foil, label, wrap, and pack up some 10,000 bottles a day. Cases and baskets are stacked in different parts of this vast hall, at one end of which numerous trusses of straw used in the packing are piled. Seated at tables ranged along one side of the apartment women are busily occupied in pasting on labels or encasing the necks of bottles in gold or silver foil, whilst elsewhere men, seated on three-legged stools in front of smoking caldrons of molten sealing-wax of a deep green hue, are coating the necks of other bottles by plunging them into the boiling fluid. When labelled and decorated with either wax or foil, the bottles pass on to other women, who swathe them in pink tissue-paper and set them aside for the packers, by whom, after being deftly wrapped round with straw, they are consigned to baskets or cases, to secure which last no less than 10,000 lb. of nails are annually used. England and Russia are partial to gold foil, pink paper, and wooden cases holding a dozen or a couple of dozen bottles of the exhilarating fluid, whereas other nations prefer waxed necks, disdain pink paper, and insist on being supplied in wicker baskets containing fifty bottles each.

Some idea of the complex character of so vast an establishment as that of Messrs. Moët & Chandon may be gathered from a mere enumeration of their staff, which, in addition to twenty clerks and 350 cellarmen proper, includes numerous agrafe-makers and corkcutters, packers and carters, wheelwrights and saddlers, carpenters, masons, slaters and tilers, tinmen, firemen, needlewomen, &c., while the inventory of objects used by this formidable array of workpeople comprises no fewer than 1500 distinct heads. A medical man attached to the establishment gives gratuitous advice to all those employed, and a chemist dispenses drugs and medicines without charge. While suffering from illness the men receive half-pay, but should they be laid up by an accident met with in the course of their work full salary is invariably awarded to them. As may be supposed, so vast an establishment as this is not without a provision for those past work, and all the old hands receive liberal pensions from the firm upon retiring.

It is needless to particularise Messrs. Moët & Chandon's wines, which are familiar to all drinkers of Champagne. Still it may be mentioned that the great Epernay firm, with the view of meeting the requirements of the time, have lately commenced shipping a high-class _vin brut_, or natural Champagne, possessing great vinosity, combined with remarkable delicacy of flavour. To this fine dry wine the name of 'Brut Impérial' has been given by the house. Moët & Chandon's famous 'Star' brand is known in all societies, figures equally at clubs and mess-tables, at garden-parties and picnics, dinners and _soirées_, and has its place in hotel _cartes_ all over the world. One of the best proofs of the wine's universal popularity is found in the circumstance that as many as a thousand visitors from all parts of the world come annually to Epernay and make the tour of Messrs. Moët & Chandon's spacious cellars.

A little beyond Messrs. Moët & Chandon's, in the broad Rue du Commerce, we encounter a heavy, ornate, pretentious-looking château, the residence of the late M. Perrier-Jouët, presenting a striking contrast to the almost mean-looking premises opposite, where the business of the firm is carried on. On the left-hand side of a courtyard surrounded by low buildings, which serve as celliers, store-houses, packing-rooms, and the like, are the offices; and from an inner courtyard, where piles of bottles are stacked under open sheds, the cellars themselves are reached. Previous to descending into these we passed through the various buildings, in one of which a party of men were engaged in disgorging and preparing wine for shipment. In another we noticed one of those heavy beam presses for pressing the grapes which the more intelligent manufacturers regard as obsolete, while in a third was the cuvée vat, holding no more than 2200 gallons. In making their cuvée the firm commonly mix one part of old wine to three parts of new. An indifferent vintage, however, necessitates the admixture of a larger proportion of the older growth. The cellars, like all the more ancient ones at Epernay, are somewhat straggling and irregular; still they are remarkably cool, and on the lower floor remarkably damp as well. This, however, would appear to be no disadvantage, as the breakage in them is calculated never to exceed 2-1/2 per cent.

The firm have no less than five qualities of wine, and at one of the recent Champagne competitions at London, where the experts engaged had no means of identifying the brands submitted to their judgment, Messrs. Perrier-Jouët's First Quality got classed below a cheaper wine of their neighbours, Messrs. Pol Roger & Co., and very considerably below the Extra Sec of Messrs. Périnet et fils, and inferior even to a wine of De Venoge's, the great Epernay manufacturer of common-class Champagne.

Champagne establishments, combined with the handsome residences of the manufacturers, line both sides of the long imposing Rue du Commerce at Epernay. On the left hand is a succession of fine châteaux, commencing with one belonging to M. Auban Moët, whose terraced gardens overlook the valley of the Marne, and command views of the vine-clad heights of Cumières, Hautvillers, Ay, and Mareuil, and the more distant slopes of Ambonnay and Bouzy; while on the other side of the famous Epernay thoroughfare we encounter beyond the establishments of Messrs. Moët & Chandon and Perrier-Jouët the ornate monumental façade which the firm of Piper & Co.--of whom Messrs. Kunkelmann & Co. are to-day the successors--raised some years since above their extensive cellars. In a side street at the farther end of the Rue du Commerce stands a château of red brick, overlooking on the one side an extensive pleasure-garden, and on the other a spacious courtyard, bounded by celliers, stables, and bottle-sheds, all of modern construction and on a most extensive scale. These form the establishment of Messrs. Pol Roger & Co., settled for many years at Epernay, and known throughout the Champagne for their large purchases at the epoch of the vintage. From the knowledge they possess of the best crus, and their relations with the leading vineyard proprietors, they are enabled whenever the wine is good to acquire large stocks of it. Having bottled a considerable quantity of the fine wine of 1874, they resolved to profit by the exceptional quality of this vintage to commence shipping Champagne to England, where their agents, Messrs. Reuss, Lauteren, & Co., have successfully introduced the new brand.

Passing through a large open gateway, we enter the vast courtyard of the establishment, which, with arriving and departing carts--the first loaded with wine in cask or with new bottles, and the others with cases of Champagne--presents rather an animated scene. Under a roof projecting from the wall of the vast cellier on the right hand a tribe of 'Sparnaciennes'--as the feminine inhabitants of Epernay are termed--are occupied in washing bottles in readiness for the coming tirage. The surrounding buildings, most substantially constructed, are not destitute of architectural pretensions.

The extensive cellier, the area of which is 23,589 square feet, is understood to be the largest single construction of the kind in the Champagne district. Built entirely of iron, stone, and brick, its framework is a perfect marvel of lightness. The roof, consisting of rows of brick arches, is covered above with a layer of Portland cement, in order to keep it cool in summer and protect it against the winter cold, two most desirable objects in connection with the manipulation of Champagne. Here an endless chain of a new pattern enables wine in bottle to be lowered and raised with great rapidity to or from the cellars beneath--lofty and capacious excavations of two stories, the lower one of which is reached by a flight of no less than 170 steps.

[Illustration: COURTYARD OF MESSRS. POL ROGER AND CO.'S ESTABLISHMENT AT EPERNAY.]

Less than a couple of miles southward of Epernay, on the high-road to Troyes, is the village of Pierry, which, unlike most of the Champagne villages, is one of those happy spots with little or no history. Up to the close of the seventeenth century it was an insignificant hamlet; but at that epoch--when Dom Perignon's discovery gave such an impetus to the viticultural industry of the Marne--the waste land lying around it was broken up and planted with vines, and a number of rich strangers, chiefly from Epernay, built themselves houses and vendangeoirs here, and contributed to the erection of the church. The Benedictines of St.-Pierre-aux-Monts at Châlons, who continued to be the titular seigneurs of Pierry up to the period of the Revolution, were not behindhand in attention to their vines, and during the early part of the eighteenth century the wine vintaged in their Clos St. Pierre, under the fostering care of Brother Jean Oudart--whose renown almost equalled that of Perignon himself--was very highly esteemed.[449]

During the eighteenth century Pierry continued to be a favourite residence of well-to-do landowners,[450] and was further embellished by the construction of numerous handsome châteaux, the most interesting, from a historic point of view, being that formerly belonging to Cazotte.[451] It was here that the ex-Commissary General of the navy composed the greater part of his works, and elaborated that futile scheme for the escape of Louis XVI. after Varennes, which was to conduct its author to the scaffold.[452]

The visionary dreamer, to whom we owe the _Diable Amoureux_, appears at Pierry in the triple character of a practical viticulturist, a village Hampden withstanding with dauntless breast that little tyrant of the surrounding vineyards--the Abbot of Hautvillers,[453] and a local legislator put forward in the proprietarial interest at the outbreak of that Revolution[454] which he appears to have foreseen, if not to have directly prophesied, as he has been credited with doing.[455]

Amongst the most imposing of the remaining Pierry châteaux is the one situate in that part of the village known as Corrigot, and now in the occupation of Messrs. Gé-Dufaut & Co. Its grandiose aspect, various courts, charming garden, fine trees, and clear lake justify this firm in adopting, in combination with an anchor, the title Château de Pierry as the brand of their wine. Prior to the Revolution the château belonged to M. de Papillon de Sannois, a fermier-général of that period. The municipal records of Pierry contain a petition addressed by him to the authorities in 1791, at a time when a panic prevailed respecting the forestallers of corn, begging them to institute a formal search throughout his residence, in order to give the lie to the rumours accusing him of having bought up and stored away a considerable quantity of wheat. The municipality accepted his invitation, and the result was a certificate to the effect that the total amount of wheat and oats stored there only represented three months' consumption for the household.

Messrs. Gé-Dufaut & Co. are the owners of vineyards both in Pierry and the neighbouring parts, and for upwards of thirty years the firm have been engaged in preparing and shipping Champagnes. Their cellars, excavated in the mingled stone, chalk, and earth which form the prevailing soil of the district, extend beneath the vineyards belonging to the firm, and are walled and vaulted throughout. The circumstance of their being on one level, slightly below the celliers of the establishment, is a great convenience as regards the various manipulations which the wine has to undergo. Considerable reserves of old wines of the best years are stored in these vaults. The cultivation of the vineyards owned by the firm, and the pressing, maturing, and general cellar management of their wines are under the personal superintendence of the various partners, with a highly satisfactory result, as is proved by the first-class medal secured by the firm at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, and the gold medal awarded to them at the Paris Exhibition of 1878. Messrs. Gé-Dufaut & Co. ship their wines to Europe, America, and India, and more especially to England, where their dry, natural, and unalcoholised Champagne has acquired a deserved reputation. The firm, moreover, are the officially appointed furnishers of Champagne to the Courts of Italy and Spain.

[Illustration: CHÂTEAU OF PIERRY, THE PROPERTY OF MESSRS. GÉ-DUFAUT AND CO.]

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[Illustration: VIEW OF AY FROM THE BANKS OF THE MARNE CANAL.]