XI.

/Some Champagne Establishments at Ay and Mareuil./

The _bourgade_ of Ay and its eighteenth-century château--Gambling propensities of a former owner, Balthazar Constance Dangé-Dorçay--Appreciation of the Ay vintage by Sigismund of Bohemia, Leo X., Charles V., Francis I., and Henry VIII.--Bertin du Rocheret celebrates this partiality in triolets--Estimation of the Ay wine in the reigns of Charles IX. and Henri III.--Is a favoured drink with the leaders of the League, and with Henri IV., Catherine de Medicis, and the courtiers of that epoch--The 'Vendangeoir d'Henri Quatre' at Ay--The King's pride in his title of Seigneur d'Ay and Gonesse--Dominicus Baudius punningly suggests that the 'Vin d'Ay' should be called 'Vinum Dei'--The merits of the wine sung by poets and extolled by wits--The Ay wine in its palmy days evidently not sparkling--Arthur Young's visit to Ay in 1787--The establishment of Deutz & Geldermann--Drawing off the cuvée there--Mode of excavating cellars in the Champagne--The firm's new cellars, vineyards, and vendangeoir--M. Duminy's cellars and wines--The house founded in 1814--The new model Duminy establishment--Picturesque old house at Ay--Messrs. Pfungst Frères & Co.'s cellars--Their finely-matured dry Champagnes--The old church of Ay and its numerous decorations of grapes and vine-leaves--The sculptured figure above the Renaissance doorway--The Montebello establishment at Mareuil--The château formerly the property of the Dukes of Orleans--A titled Champagne firm--The brilliant career of Marshal Lannes--A promenade through the Montebello establishment--The press-house, the cuvée-vat, the packing-room, the offices, and the cellars--Portraits and relics at the château--The establishment of Bruch-Foucher & Co.--The handsome carved gigantic cuvée-tun--The cellars and their lofty shafts--The wines of the firm.

[Illustration: FIGURE ABOVE THE DOORWAY OF AY CHURCH.]

The historic _bourgade_ of Ay is within a short walk of the station on the line of railway connecting Epernay with Reims. The road lies across the light bridge spanning the Marne canal, the tall trees fringing which hide for a time the clustering houses; still we catch sight of the steeple of the antique church, relieved by a background of vine-covered slopes, and of an eighteenth-century château rising above a mass of foliage. Perched half-way up the slope, covered with 'golden plants,' which rises in the rear of the village, the château, with its long façade of windows, commands the valley of the Marne for miles; and from the stately-terraced walk, planted with ancient lime-trees, geometrically clipped in the fashion of the last century, a splendid view of the distant vineyards of Avize, Cramant, Epernay, and Chouilly is obtained. The château formed one of a quartette of seignorial residences which, at the commencement of the present century, belonged to Balthazar Constance Dangé-Dorçay, whose ancestors had been lords of Chouilly under the _ancien régime_. Dorçay had inherited from an aunt the châteaux of Ay, Mareuil, Boursault, and Chouilly, together with a large patrimony in land and money; but a mania for gambling brought him to utter ruin, and he dispossessed himself of money, lands, and châteaux in succession, and was reduced, in his old age, to earn a meagre pittance as a violin-player at the Paris Opera-house. The old château of Boursault, which still exists contiguous to the stately edifice raised by Madame Clicquot on the summit of the hill, was risked and lost on a single game at cards by this pertinacious gamester, whose pressing pecuniary difficulties compelled him to sell the remaining châteaux one by one. That of Ay was purchased by M. Froc de la Boulaye, and by him bequeathed to his cousin the Count de Mareuil, whose son is to-day a partner in the Champagne house of Ayala & Co.

The wine of Ay, from an early date, has found equal favour in the eyes of poets and princes. Eustache Deschamps sang its praises in the fourteenth century, and was echoed a hundred years later by the anonymous author of the _Eglogue sur le Retour de Bacchus_.[456] Sigismund of Bohemia, the betrayer of John Huss, on visiting France in 1410, desired to pass through Ay in order to taste the wine at the place of its production.[457] Leo X., Charles V., Francis III., and our own Henry VIII., each had a house in or near Ay; 'for amongst all the great affairs of state which these princes had to unravel, supplying themselves with this vintage was not the least of their cares.'[458] Malicious tongues have asserted that they were somewhat suspicious of the honesty of the wine-growers of the district, and, in order to secure a genuine article, deemed it needful to have a commissioner or agent resident on the spot, to superintend the making of the wine set apart for their own consumption.[459] Tradition still points out, on the right of the road from Dizy to Ay, a vineyard called Le Léon, as the one whence the Pope derived his wine, though no traces remain of the vendangeoir built by the Emperor in a coppice above Ay during the siege of Epernay in 1544, and still standing in 1727.[460] The president Bertin du Rocheret has celebrated the partiality of a couple of these potentates for the wine of Ay in some triolets addressed to M. de Senécé, and published in the _Mercure_ in 1728:

'Ay produces the best wine-- I call the world to witness this; Though you may for Reims opine, Ay produces the best wine. It ranks the first, and the most fine St. Evremond has said it is. Ay produces the best wine-- I call the world to witness this.

Charles the Fifth was well aware Of this--far better than his friend Adrian in the papal chair; Charles the Fifth was well aware Of this, and so, to get his share, Sought in France his days to end. Charles the Fifth was well aware Of this--far better than his friend.

Lest some fraud the juice should mix, And his table thus disgrace, He would his own vintage fix, Lest some fraud the juice should mix. Leo, fearing the like tricks, Bought in Ay a pressing-place, Lest some fraud the juice should mix, And his table thus disgrace.'[461]

The wine of Ay ranked at the court of Charles IX. as 'a very pleasant and noble wine;'[462] and even that bigoted uprooter of vines and heresy had a vendangeoir in this stronghold of Protestantism,[463] which the Catholics of the Champagne marched against, singing--

'Parpaillot d'Ay, T'es bien misérable, T'as quitté ton Di Pour servir le diable; Tu n'auras ni chien, ni chat, Pour te chanter Libera, Et tu mourras mau-chrétien, Toi qu'a maudit Saint Trézain.'[464]

[Illustration: HENRI III.

(From a painting of the period).]

In the reign of Henri III. the wines of Ay--'claret and yellowish, subtile, fine, and in taste very pleasing to the palate, ... yet therewithal such wines as the Greeks call Oligophora, and as will not admit the mixture of much water'[465]--were 'eagerly sought after for the use of kings, princes, and great lords.'[466] At a time when the bulk of the vintage of Burgundy was denounced as rough, sour, and harsh; and that of Bordeaux stigmatised as thick and black; and when good and bad years were allowed to have a considerable influence upon the growths of the Isle of France, the Orleannais, and Anjou, it was admitted that 'the wines of Ay do, for the most part, hold the first and principal place, ... and are, in all good and evil years, found better than any others.'[467] The kings and princes of the day made the wines of Ay their ordinary drink.[468] They flowed freely in the scandalous orgies with which the French Heliogabalus and his _mignons_ alternated their pious flagellations and solemn processions, and mantled in the beakers over which the chiefs of the League sat in dark and solemn conclave; they were quaffed by the Béarnais to the bright eyes of the fair De Saulve, and cheered the nightly vigils of Catherine de Medicis and Ruggieri; they sharpened the biting wit of Chicot, and spurred the plotting spirit of Francis of Anjou. Guise and Crillon, Joyeuse and D'Epernon, Mayenne and D'Aubigné made common cause in recognising their merits; Quelus and Maugiron may have quaffed a goblet before setting forth on their fatal journey to the Barrière Saint Antoine; and a cup, filled by the fair hands of the Duchess de Montpensier, may have fired the brain and nerved the arm of the regicide Jacques Clément.

[Illustration: OLD HOUSE AT AY, KNOWN AS THE VENDANGEOIR OF HENRI QUATRE.]

Henri Quatre boasted the merits of his vineyard at Prepaton, near Vendôme, when he was only King of Navarre,[469] and delighted in the wine of Arbois.[470] At Ay, within a few yards of the church, there is a quaint old timber house traditionally known as the 'vendangeoir d'Henri Quatre,' with obliterated carved escutcheons on the pillars of its doorway. In this dilapidated yet interesting structure we have a mute but certain testimony to the King's appreciation of the wine of Ay, if not a confirmation of the truth of the assertion that Henri was as proud of his title of Seigneur d'Ay as of that of King of France.[471] Giving an audience to the Spanish ambassador, and irritated at the long list of titles appended by the punctilious hidalgo to his royal master's name, he exclaimed: 'You will say to his Highness Philip, King of Spain and the Indies, Castille, Leon, Arragon, Murcia, and the Balearic Isles, that Henri, Sieur of Ay and of Gonesse ...,' being the places producing the best wine and the whitest bread in France.[472] When encamped at Damery, during the siege of Epernay, this favourite beverage, and the smiles of the fair Anne Dudey, Présidente du Puy, helped to relieve the tedium of campaigning; for, as Bertin du Rocheret has sung,

'Our great Henry, king benign, With it cheered his "belle hôtesse." When at Damery he'd dine, Our great Henry, king benign, Chose it for his favourite wine; And for bread, that of Gonesse Our great Henry, king benign, With it cheered his "belle hôtesse."'[473]

With the vintage of Ay in such universal esteem, it is scarcely to be wondered at that Dominicus Baudius, professor of eloquence at the University of Leyden and historiographer to the States of the Netherlands, should, in the fulness of his admiration, have declared to his friend the Président du Thou that instead of _vin d'Ay_ it ought to be called _vinum Dei_.[474]

Olivier de Serres, the French Tusser, praises this divine liquor.[475] The anonymous author of the _Hercule Guepin_, a poem penned at the commencement of the seventeenth century in honour of the wine of Orleans, is forced to acknowledge the merits of that of Ay;[476] and that indefatigable commentator, the Abbé de Marolles, in a note to his edition of Martial, classes the growths of Ay, Avenay, and Epernay amongst the best that France produced. 'Vive le bon vin d'Ay!' exclaims Guy Patin enthusiastically; and that strange compound of the wit and the philosopher, St. Evremond, has extolled its qualities in prose and verse.[477] 'If you ask me which wine of all others I prefer,' he writes from London to the Count d'Olonne, about 1671, 'without yielding to tastes introduced by people of sham daintiness, I will answer that good wine of Ay is the most natural of all wines, the most healthy, the best purified from all earth smack; of a most exquisite charm, through the peach flavour which is peculiar to it; and is, in my opinion, the finest of all flavours.'[478]

It is improbable that the wine of Ay of Francis I., or of Henri Quatre, was _mousseux_, for had it been so history would have mentioned it. In good years the still wine of Ay has a bouquet and perfume sufficient to account for its ancient reputation. Neither was the wine St. Evremond preferred sparkling, though his reference to the taste introduced by sham _gourmets_ points probably to the custom of drinking the wine before its fermentation was completed, or else to the practice of icing it. When once, however, the introduction of _vin mousseux_ added a new charm to the pleasures of the table, the poets who sang the praises of the foaming nectar seem one and all to have celebrated it as the 'pétillant Ay,' and to have chosen, perhaps for euphonistic reasons, that spot as its birthplace.[479] The material results were equally satisfactory; for Arthur Young mentions that when, on July 8, 1787, he visited 'Ay, a village not far out on the road to Reims very famous for its wines,' he was provided with a letter for M. Lasnier, who had 60,000 bottles in his cellar, whilst M. Dorsé had from 30,000 to 40,000.[480]

A century ago the foregoing were no doubt considered large stocks, but to-day the very smallest of the Ay firms would think itself poorly provided if its cellars contained under quadruple this quantity. The largest Champagne establishment at Ay is that of Messrs. Deutz & Geldermann, whose extra dry 'Gold Lack' and 'Cabinet' Champagnes have long been favourably known in England, through the energetic exertions of their agents, Messrs. J. R. Parkington & Co., of Crutched Friars. The Ay firm have their offices in a massive-looking corner-house at the further extremity of the town, in the direction of the steep hills sheltering it on the north. This forms their central establishment, and here are spacious celliers for disgorging and finishing off the wine, a large packing-hall, and rooms where bales of corks and other accessories of the trade are stored, the operations of making the cuvées and bottling being accomplished in an establishment some little distance off.

On proceeding thither, we find an elegant château with a charming terraced garden, lying at the very foot of the vine-clad slopes, and on the opposite side of the road some large celliers where wine in wood is stored, and where the cuvées of the firm, consisting usually of upwards of 50,000 gallons each, are made in a vat of gigantic proportions, furnished with a raised platform at one end for the accommodation of the workman who agitates the customary paddles. When the wine is completely blended it is drawn off into casks disposed for the purpose in the cellar below, as shown in the accompanying engraving, and after being fined it rests for about a month to clear itself. To each of these casks of newly-blended wine a portion of old wine is added separately, and at the moment of bottling the whole is newly amalgamated.

[Illustration: DRAWING OFF THE CUVÉE AT DEUTZ AND GELDERMANN'S, AY.]

Adjoining M. Deutz's château is the principal entrance to the extensive cellars of the firm, to which, at our visit in 1877, considerable additions were being made. In excavating these cellars in the chalk a uniform system is pursued. The workmen commence by rounding off the roof of the gallery, and then proceed to work gradually downwards, extracting the chalk, whenever practicable, in blocks suitable for building purposes, which, being worth from three to four shillings the square yard, help to reduce the cost of the excavation. When any serious flaws present themselves in the sides or roof of the galleries, they are invariably made good with masonry.

This splendid range of cellars now comprises eight long and lofty galleries no less than seventeen feet wide, and the same number of feet in height, and of the aggregate length of 2200 yards. These spacious vaults, which run parallel with each other, and communicate by means of cross passages, underlie the street, the château, the garden, and the vineyard slopes beyond, and possess the great advantage of being always dry. They are capable, we were informed, of containing several million bottles of Champagne, in addition to a large quantity of wine in cask.

Messrs. Deutz & Geldermann possess vineyards at Ay, and own a large vendangeoir at Verzenay, where in good years they usually press 500 pièces of wine. They, moreover, make large purchases of grapes at Bouzy, Cramant, Le Mesnil, Pierry, &c., and invariably have these pressed under their own superintendence. Beyond large shipments to England, where their wine is deservedly held in high estimation, Messrs. Deutz & Geldermann transact a considerable business with other countries, and more especially with Germany, in which country their brand has been for years one of the most popular, while to-day it is the favourite at numerous regimental messes and the principal hotels.

Within a hundred yards of the open space, surrounded by houses of different epochs and considerable diversity of design, where the Ay market-hall stands, and in one of those narrow winding streets common to the town, an escutcheon, with a bunch of grapes for device, surmounting a lofty gateway, attracts attention. Beyond, a trim courtyard, girt round with orange-trees in bright green boxes, and clipped in orthodox fashion, affords access to the handsome residence and offices of M. Duminy, well known in England and America as a shipper of high-class Champagnes, and whose Parisian connection is extensive. On the right-hand side of the courtyard is the packing-room; and through the cellars, which have an entrance here, one can reach the celliers in an adjoining street, where the cuvée is made and the bottling of the wine accomplished.

[Illustration: THE EXCAVATION OF DEUTZ AND GELDERMANN'S NEW CELLARS AT AY.]

M. Duminy's cellars are remarkably old, and consequently of somewhat irregular construction, being at times rather low and narrow, as well as on different levels. In addition, however, to these venerable vaults, packed with wines of 1874 and '78, M. Duminy has a new and extensive establishment on the outskirts of Ay, as well as various subterranean adjuncts in the town itself. This new establishment, which stands under the vineclad slope, and merely a stone's throw from the railway line to Reims, consists of a large ornamental building looking on to a spacious courtyard ordinarily alive with busy workpeople. In addition to the pavilion already erected, it is intended to construct one of similar design, and to connect the two with a monumental tower. The requisite land has already been purchased, the architectural plans are prepared, and the work is now in active progress.

[Illustration]

Entering the courtyard of which we have spoken, we notice the new offices of the firm on the left hand, and extending along the wall beyond is a long zinc-roofed shed, crowded with baskets filled with newly-purchased Champagne bottles. On the opposite side of the courtyard is a building in which the operation of bottle-washing is carried on. The pavilion in the rear of the courtyard is of somewhat monumental proportions, and is ornamented with dressings of white stone and red brick. Entering through the principal doorway, we find ourselves in a vast cellier, where the packing operations are carried on, and where are a couple of huge tuns in which the cuvées of the house are made. A stone staircase conducts to an upper cellier, where several hundred casks of _vin brut_ are stored, and for the raising or lowering of which lifts are provided at stated distances. In an apartment above this second cellier straw envelopes for bottles and other accessories employed in the trade are kept.

[Illustration: M. DUMINY'S NEW ESTABLISHMENT AT AY.]

The cellars extend, not merely beneath this large building and the courtyard in front, but run under the adjacent mountain-slope. They comprise four galleries on the same level, vaulted and faced with brick or stone, each gallery being about 500 feet in length and upwards of twelve feet in width and height. Eight transverse passages connect these galleries with each other, and numerous lifts communicate with the cellier and the courtyard above. The galleries that run under the vineyard slope are ventilated by shafts no less than 120 feet in height. M. Duminy has already provided room here for a million bottles of sparkling wine; and it is estimated that, when the establishment is completed, two and a half millions of bottles can be stored here in addition to the stock contained in the old cellars possessed by M. Duminy in the town. During its two-thirds of a century of existence the house has invariably confined itself to first-class wines, taking

## particular pride in shipping fully-matured growths. Besides its own

large reserve of these, it holds considerable stocks long since disposed of, and now merely awaiting the purchasers' orders to be shipped.

[Illustration]

A few paces beyond M. Duminy's we come upon an antiquated, decrepit-looking timber house, with its ancient gable bulging over as though the tough oak brackets on which it rests were at last grown weary of supporting their unwieldy burden. Judging from the quaint carved devices on the timbers at the lower portions of this building, one may imagine it to have been the residence of an individual of some importance in the days when the principal European potentates had their commissioners installed at Ay to secure them the finest vintages. The house evidently dates back to this or to an earlier epoch.

[Illustration: ANCIENT TIMBER HOUSE AT AY.]

The cellars of Messrs. Pfungst Frères et Cie. are situated some little distance from the vineyard owned by them at Ay. The firm lay themselves out exclusively for the shipment of high-class Champagne, and the excellent growths of this district necessarily form an important element in their carefully-composed cuvées. A considerable portion of their stock consists of reserves of old wine of grand years; and a variety of samples of finely-matured Champagnes were submitted to our judgment. All of these wines were of superior quality, combining delicacy and fragrance with dryness, the latter being their especial feature. In addition to their business with England, where the brand of the firm is rapidly increasing in popularity among connoisseurs of matured wines, Messrs. Pfungst Frères ship largely to India and the United States.

[Illustration: CAPITALS AND MOULDINGS IN AY CHURCH.]

On the northern side of the town stands the handsome Gothic church of Ay, dating from about the middle of the fifteenth century. The existing building replaced the edifice erected some two hundred years previously, and traces of which are still to be seen in the present transept. The stone tower, which is in striking contrast with the other portions of the structure, bears the date 1541 on its western face. This tower and the interior of the church were greatly damaged by the fire--traditionally ascribed to lightning--which occurred at the close of the sixteenth century, and the former had to be strengthened by filling up the arched windows and by the addition of buttresses. The bell, whose terrible tocsin used to warn good citizens that the _patrie_ was in danger in the days of the Revolution, when the church was converted into a Temple of Reason, had previously swung in the abbey of Hautvillers, and may have summoned the vintagers to labour as well as the faithful to prayer. From 1867 to 1877 extensive interior repairs and restorations, costing upwards of 6000_l._, greatly transformed the interior of the church. Care was, however, taken to preserve the numerous bits of mediæval and Renaissance sculpture with which both the interior and exterior of the edifice were studded. In many of the ornamental mouldings, as well as the capitals of the columns, grape-laden vine-branches had been freely introduced, as if to indicate the honour in which the vine, the material source of all the prosperity enjoyed by the little town, was held both by mediæval and later architects; and these appear all to have been scrupulously restored. One of the most characteristic decorations of this character is the sculptured figure of a boy bearing a basket of grapes upon his head, which surmounts the handsome Renaissance doorway.

[Illustration: MOULDINGS FROM AY CHURCH.]

Within half an hour's walk of Ay, in an easterly direction, is the village of Mareuil, a long straight street of straggling houses, bounded by trees and garden-plots, with vine-clad hills rising abruptly behind on the one side, and the Marne canal flowing placidly by on the other. The archaic church, a mixture of the Romanesque and Early Gothic, stands at the farther end of the village, and some little distance on this side of it is a massive-looking eighteenth-century building, spacious enough to accommodate a regiment of horse, but conventual rather than barrack-like in aspect, from the paucity of windows looking on to the road. A broad gateway leads into a spacious courtyard, to the left of which stands a grand château; while on the right there rises an ornate round tower of three stories, from the gallery on the summit of which a fine view over the valley of the Marne is obtained. The buildings, enclosing the court on three sides, comprise press-houses, celliers, and packing-rooms, an antiquated sun-dial marking the hour on the blank space above the vines that climb beside the entrance gateway. The more ancient of these tenements formed the vendangeoir of the Dukes of Orleans at the time they owned the château of Mareuil, purchased in 1830 by the Duke de Montebello, son of the famous Marshal Lannes, and minister and ambassador of Louis Philippe and Napoleon III.

The acquisition of this property, to which were attached some important vineyards, led, several years later, to the duke's founding, in conjunction with his brothers, the Marquis and General Count de Montebello, a Champagne firm, whose brand speedily acquired a notable popularity. To-day the business is carried on by their sons and heirs, for all the original partners in the house have followed their valiant father to the grave. Struck down by an Austrian cannon-ball in the zenith of his fame, the career of Marshal Lannes, brief as it was, furnishes one of the most brilliant pages in French military annals. Joining the army of Italy as a volunteer in 1796, he was made a colonel on the battle-field in the gorges of Millesimo, when Augereau's bold advance opened Piedmont to the French. He fought at Bassano and Lodi, took part in the assault of Pavia and the siege of Mantua, and at Arcola, when Napoleon dashed flag in hand upon the bridge, Lannes was seriously wounded whilst shielding his general from danger. He afterwards distinguished himself in Egypt, and led the van of the French army across the Alps, displaying his accustomed bravery both at Montebello and Marengo. At Austerlitz, where he commanded the right wing of the army, he greatly contributed to the victory; and at Jena, Friedland, and Eylau his valour was again conspicuous. Sent to Spain, he defeated the Spaniards at Tudela, and took part in the operations against Saragossa. Wounded at the battle of Essling, when the Archduke Charles inflicted upon Napoleon I. the first serious repulse he had met with on the field of battle, the valiant Lannes expired a few days afterwards in the Emperor's arms.

[Illustration: THE MONTEBELLO ESTABLISHMENT AT MAREUIL.]

We were met at Mareuil, on the occasion of our visit, by Count Alfred Ferdinand de Montebello, the present manager of the house, and conducted by him over the establishment. In the press-house, to the left of the courtyard, were two of the ponderous presses used in the Champagne, for, like all other large firms, the house makes its own wine. Grapes grown in the Mareuil vineyards arrive here in baskets slung over the backs of mules, muzzled, so that while awaiting their loads they may not devour the fruit within reach. In a cellier adjoining the press-house stands a large vat, capable of holding fifty pièces of wine, with a crane beside it for hauling up the casks when the cuvée is made. Here the tirage likewise takes place; and in the range of buildings roofed with glass, in the rear of the tower, the bottled wine is labelled, capped with foil, and packed in cases for transmission to Paris, England, and other places abroad.

A double flight of steps, decorated with lamps and vases, leads to the handsome offices of the firm, situated on the first-floor of the tower; while above is an apartment with a panelled ceiling, gracefully decorated with groups of Cupids engaged in the vintage and the various operations which the famous wines of the Mountain and the River undergo during their conversion into Champagne. On the ground-floor of the tower a low doorway conducts to the spacious cellars, which, owing to the proximity of the Marne, are all on the same level as well as constructed in masonry. The older vaults, where the Marquis de Pange, a former owner of the château, stored the wine which he used to sell to the Champagne manufacturers, are somewhat low and tortuous compared with the broad and lofty galleries of more recent date, which have been constructed as the growing connection of the firm obliged them to increase their stocks. Spite, however, of numerous additions, portions of their reserves have to be stored in other cellars in Mareuil. Considerable stocks of each of the four qualities of wine supplied by the firm are being got ready for disgorgement, including Cartes Noires and Bleues, with the refined Carte Blanche and the delicate Crêmant, which challenge comparison with brands of the highest repute.

[Illustration: CHÂTEAU OF MAREUIL, BELONGING TO THE DUKE OF MONTEBELLO.]

In the adjacent château, the gardens of which slope down to the Marne canal, there are various interesting portraits, with one or two relics of the distinguished founder of the Montebello family, notably Marshal Lannes's gold-embroidered velvet saddle trappings, his portrait and that of Marshal Gerard, as well as one of Napoleon I., by David, with a handsome clock and candelabra of Egyptian design, a bust of Augustus Cæsar, and a portrait of the Regent d'Orleans.

[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF AVIZE.]