1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

Champagne and Other Sparlcling Wines.

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The pride of the newly-created "duke and peer" having been thus gratified, t he "prelate' 1 had to humble himself, and on the morrow walked barefooted from the church of St. Remi to tq.e cathedral. After the religious wars t he chitteau was sur– rendered to Henri IV., and in 1595 the Rem'ois, anxious to be rid of so formidable a fortress, which, whether held by king or archbishop, was calculate.~ to enfotce a state of passive obedience galling to their pride, purchased from the king t he privilege to demolish it for the sum of 8,000 crowns. Tradition asserts that the Remish Bastille was destr oyed in a single day, but this is exceedingly improbable. Its ruins cert~inly were not cleared away until the close of the century. 'When the old fortress was razed t o the ground its extensive vaults were not inter{ered with, but many long years afterwai·ds were transformed into admirable cellars for the storage of champagne. Above them are two stories of capacious celliers where the wine is blended 1 bot led, and packed, the vaults them– selves comprising two tiers of cellars which contain wine both u;_ cask and bottle. M. Gibert's remaining stocks are stored in the ancient vaults of the abbey of St. P et e!·, in t he heart of the city, and in the roomy cellars which. underlie the old Hotel des Fermes in the Place Royale, where in the days of the ancien nigim.e the farmers-general of the province used to r eceive its revenues, On t~e pediment of this edifice is~ a bas-relief with Mercury, the god of commerce, seated beside a nymph and sur– rounded by children engaged with the vintage and with bales of wool, and evidently intended to symbolise the staple trades of the capital of the Champagne. A br onze statue rises in the centre of the Place which from its Roman costume and martial bearing might be taken for some hero of antiquity did not the inscrip– tion on the pedestal apprise us that it is intended for the " wise, virtuous, and magnanimous Louis XV.," a misuse of terms which has caused a transatlantic Republican to charac– terise the monument as a brazen lie. Leading out of the Place Royale is the Rue de Ceres, in which there is a modernised 16th-cen,tury house clai~ing to be the birthplace of J ean

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