Proceeding along the Rue de Vesle and the neighbouring Rue des Tapissiers, we find ourselves once more in the Place Royale, the principal side of which is occupied by the once notable Hôtel des Fermes, where, in the days of the _ancien régime_, the farmers-general of the Champagne were accustomed to receive the revenues of the province. A bronze 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 inscription 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 characterise the monument as a brazen lie. Leading out of the Place Royale is the Rue de Cérès, in which there is a modernised sixteenth-century house claiming to be the birthplace, on the 29th August 1619, of Jean Baptiste Colbert, son of a Reims wool-merchant, and the famous minister who did so much to consolidate the finances of the State which the royal voluptuary, masquerading at Reims in Roman garb, afterwards made such dreadful havoc of. [Illustration: HEADS SURMOUNTING THE PRINCIPAL WINDOWS OF THE RENAISSANCE HOUSE IN THE RUE DES DEUX ANGES.] [Illustration: JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT (From a portrait of the time).] We again cross the Place des Marchés, at the farther end of which, on the left-hand side, is the Rue de l'Arbalète, notable for a curious Renaissance gateway, with its pediment supported by two life-size figures, which the Rémois, for no very sufficient reason, have popularly christened Adam and Eve. Beyond the Place des Marchés and the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, and at no great distance from the Clicquot-Werlé establishment, is the narrow winding Rue de Sedan, where the old-established firm of Heidsieck & Co., which has secured a high-class reputation in both eastern and western hemispheres for its famous Monopole and Dry Monopole brands, has its central offices. The original firm dates back to 1785, when France was struggling with those financial difficulties that a few years later culminated in that great social upheaving which kept Europe in a state of turmoil for more than a quarter of a century. Among the archives of the firm is a patent, bearing the signature of the Minister of the Prussian Royal Household, appointing Heidsieck & Co. purveyors of Champagne to Frederick William III. The Champagne-drinking Hohenzollern _par excellence_, however, was the son and successor of the preceding, who, from habitual over-indulgence in the exhilarating sparkling beverage during the last few years of his reign, acquired the _sobriquet_ of King Clicquot. [Illustration: ADAM AND EVE GATEWAY, RUE DE L'ARBALÈTE, REIMS.]