A proof of the popularity of French wines at this period is found in the fact that in 1713, the year of the Peace of Utrecht, the registered imports, despite high duties, reached 2551 tuns, an amount not exceeded till 1786. The Treaty of Commerce, with which Bolingbroke (whose partiality to Champagne we have seen) and M. de Torcy sought to supplement that of Peace, having fallen through, the tavern-keepers put such a price on these wines that it was only members of the fashionable world who could afford to have what was termed 'a good Champagne stomach.'[322] Their vogue is confirmed by the order given to her servant by a lady aspiring to take a leading position in the _beau monde_ to 'go to Mr. Mixture, the wine-merchant, and order him to send in twelve dozen of his best Champaign, twelve dozen of Burgundy, and twelve dozen of Hermitage,'[323] as the entire stock for her cellar. 'Good wine' was indeed, in those days, 'a gentleman.' [Illustration: 'GOOD WINE A GENTLEMAN.'] The unvarying rule that the fashions set by the most select are inevitably aped by the most degraded, so far as lies in their power, is exemplified in the Tavern Scene of Hogarth's _Rake's Progress_, where the table at which the hero and his _inamoratas_ are seated is set out with the tall wine-glasses wherein 'Champaign goes briskly round.'[324] [Illustration: TAVERN SCENE FROM 'THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.'] The Jacobites, faithful to their traditional ally, continued to toast 'the King over the water' by passing glasses charged with the sparkling wine of France across a bowl filled to the brim with the pure element. The middle classes clung to their beer, or at most indulged in Port and punch; whilst the lower orders seem to have become seized with that insane passion for ardent spirits which Hogarth satirised in his 'Gin Lane,' and hailed with glee Sir Robert Walpole's 'attempt, Superior to Canary or Champagne, Geneva salutiferous to enhance.'[325] [Illustration: 'THE KING OVER THE WATER.'] [Illustration] The registered imports of the wines of France--though figures in this respect are, we admit, exceedingly deceptive--show a continuous falling off, which reached its lowest ebb in 1746, during war time; and we may be certain that when, after supper, 'Champagne was the word for two whole hours by Shrewsbury clock,'[326] it was at the cost of a pretty penny. Although the recorded imports of French wines show but little improvement with the return of peace in 1748, we gather from other sources that the Champagne of 1749 met with a ready market over here, and find Bertin du Rocheret writing exultingly to his friend, the Marquis de Calvières, that the Champenois were making the English pay the cost of the war.