A History of Champagne, with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of France. Henry Vizetelly
Perhaps to the state of depression that followed is due the fact that there are no records of festivities at the coronation of King John the Good in 1350, though we find the citizens seeking two years later to propitiate the evil genius of France, Charles the Bad of Navarre, by the gift of a queue of wine costing five crowns.
THE BATTLE OF CRÉCY
(From a MS. of Froissart’s Chronicles).
During the frightful anarchy prevailing after the battle of Poitiers, when the victorious English and the disbanded forces of France made common cause against the hapless peasants, the fields and vineyards of Reims remained uncultivated for three years,[33] and the people of the archbishopric would have perished of hunger had they not been able to get food and wine from Hainault. Despite the prohibitions of the regent, the nobles pillaged the country around Reims and ravaged the vineyards from June to August 1358, and the havoc they wrought exceeded even that accomplished during the Jacquerie. Nor were matters improved by the advent of the English king, Edward III., when, on the wet St. Andrew’s-day of 1359, he sat down before the town with his host, which starved and shivered throughout the bitter and tempestuous winter, despite the comfort derived from the ‘three thousand vessels of wine’ captured by Eustace Dabreticourt in ‘the town of Achery, on the river of Esne.’[34] But the Rémois stood firm behind the fortifications reared by Gaucher de Châtillon till the following spring, when the victor of Crécy drew off his baffled forces, consoling them with the promise of bringing them back during the ensuing vintage, and made a reluctant peace at Bretigny.[35]
ANCIENT TOWER BELONGING TO THE FORTIFICATIONS OF REIMS.
Yet, though plague and famine in turn almost depopulated the city, the importance of its vineyards augmented from this time forward. In 1361 the citizens, who had already been in the habit of granting ‘aides’ to the king out of the dues levied on the wine sold in the town, obtained leave to impose an octroi on wine, in order to maintain their fortifications. Henceforward the connection between the wines and the walls of Reims became permanent. The octroi was from time to time renewed or modified in various ways by different monarchs; but their decrees always commenced with a preliminary flourish concerning the necessity of keeping the walls of so important a city in good order, and the admirable opportunity afforded of so doing by the ever-increasing prosperity of the trade in wine. Conspicuous amongst the few existing fragments of the circuit of walls and towers with which Reims was formerly begirt is the tower of which a view is here given.[36]
The Rémois, although willing enough to tax themselves for the defence of their city, submitted the reverse of cheerfully to the preliminary levies of provisions, wines, meats, and other things necessary, made by the king’s ‘maistres d’hôtel’ for the coronation of Charles V., which took place on the 19th May 1364, at a cost to the town of 7712 livres 15 sols 5 deniers parisis.[37] The citizens had, however, something to gaze at for their money, if that were any consolation. The king and his queen (Jeanne de Bourbon) were accompanied by King Peter of Cyprus; Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia and Duke of Brabant; the Dukes of Burgundy and Anjou; the Counts of Eu, Dampmartin, Tancarville, and Vaudemont, and many other prelates and lords, who did full justice to the good cheer provided for the great feasts and solemnities taking place during the five days of the royal sojourn.[38] The crown, borne by Philip of Burgundy, the king’s youngest brother, having been placed upon Charles’s head by the Archbishop Jean de Craon, that prelate proceeded to smear the royal breast and brow with what the irreverent Republicans of the eighteenth century designated ‘sacred pomatum,’ from the Sainte Ampoule presented to him by the Bishop of Laon, amidst the enthusiastic applause of nobles and prelates.[39]
CORONATION OF CHARLES V. AT REIMS
(From a MS. Histoire de Charles V.).
The great planting of vines in the Champagne district plainly dates from the last quarter of the fourteenth century, at which epoch large exports of wine to the provinces of Hainault and Flanders, and especially to the ports of Sluys, are noted. In a list of the revenues of the archbishopric of Reims, drawn up by Richard Pique towards 1375, are included patches of vineland and annual payments of wine from almost every village and hamlet within twenty miles of Reims; though it is only fair to mention that many of the places enumerated produce to-day wines of very ordinary character, which, although they have a local habitation, have certainly failed to secure themselves a name.[40] A general return of church property made to the Bailli of Vermandois, the king’s representative in 1384, at a time when Charles VI. was busily engaged in confiscating whatever he could lay hands on, shows that the religious establishments of Reims were equally well endowed with vineyards. These were mostly situate to the north-east and south-west of Reims, or in the immediate vicinity of the city; and according to their owners, whose object was of course to offer as few temptations as possible to the monarch, they frequently cost more to dress than they brought in.[41] In the return furnished by the archbishop in the following year, he complains that, owing to the great plantation of vines throughout the district, the right of licensing the brewing of ale and beer had failed to bring him in any revenue for the past three years. This prelate, by the way, seems to have loved his liquor like many of his predecessors, judging from the inventory made after his death, in 1389, of the contents of his cellars.[42] All this abundance of wine was not without its fruits; and we find the clerk of Troyes asserting that liars swarm in Picardy as drunkards do in Champagne, where a man not worth a rap will drink wine every day;[43] and a boast in the chanson of the Comte de Brie to the effect that the province abounded in wheat, wine, fodder, and litter.[44]
CHURCH OF ST. REMI, REIMS.
Under these circumstances it is not at all surprising that that renowned vinous soaker, King Wenceslaus (surnamed the Drunkard) of Bohemia, found ample opportunities for self-indulgence when he visited Reims to confer with Charles VI. on the subject of the schism of the popes of Avignon, then desolating the Church—certainly a very fit subject for a drunkard and a madman to put their heads together about. No sooner had the illustrious visitor alighted at the Abbey of St. Remi—to-day the Hôtel Dieu—where quarters had been assigned him, than he expressed a wish to taste the wine of the district, with the quality of which he had long been acquainted. The wine was brought, and tasted again and again in such conscientious style that when the Dukes of Bourbon and Berri came to escort him to dinner with the king they found him dead-drunk and utterly unfit to treat of affairs of State, still less those of the Church. The same kind of thing went on daily—the ‘same old drunk,’ as the nigger expressed it, lasting week after week; and the French monarch, who must have surely had a lucid interval, resolved to profit by his guest’s weakness. Accordingly he gave special orders to the cup-bearers, at a grand banquet at which matters were to be finally settled, to be particularly attentive in filling the Bohemian king’s goblet. This they did so frequently that the royal sot, overcome by wine, yielded during the discussion following the repast whatever was asked of him; whilst his host probably returned special thanks to St. Archideclin, the supposed bridegroom of the marriage of Cana, whom the piety of the Middle Ages had transformed into a saint and created the especial patron of all appertaining to the cellar. This triumph of wine over diplomacy occurred in 1397.[45]
A charter of Charles VI., dated July 1412, which gave the municipal authorities of Reims the sole right of appointing sworn wine-brokers, expressly mentions that the trade of the town was chiefly based upon the wine grown in the environs.[46] The wine, the charter states, when stored in the cellars of the town, was customarily sold by brokers, who of their own authority were in the habit of levying a commission of twopence, and even more, per piece, selling it to the person who offered them most, and taking money from both buyer and seller. To remedy this state of things, from which it was asserted the trade had begun to suffer, it was decreed that every broker should take an oath, before the Captain of Reims and the eschevins, to act honestly and without favour, and not to receive more