Those magnates of the Champagne trade, Messrs. Moët & Chandon, whose famous 'Star' brand is familiar in every part of the civilised globe, and whose half-score miles of cellars contain as many million bottles of Champagne as there are millions of inhabitants in most of the secondary European States, have their head-quarters at Epernay in a spacious château--in that street of châteaux named the Rue du Commerce, but commonly known as the Faubourg de la Folie--which is approached through handsome iron gates, and has beautiful gardens in the rear extending in the direction of the River Marne. The existing firm dates from the year 1833, but the family of Moët--conjectured to have originally come from the Low Countries--had already been associated with the Champagne wine trade for well-nigh a century previously. If the Moëts came from Holland they must have established themselves in the Champagne at a very early date, for the annals of Reims record that in the fourteenth century Jehan Moët de Mennemont, _escuier_, held a fief at Attigny from the Archbishop Richard Pique, and that in the following century Jean and Nicolas Moët were _échevins_ of the city. A Moët was present in that capacity at the coronation of Charles VII. in 1429, when Joan of Arc stood erect by the principal altar of the cathedral with her sacred banner in her hand; and for having contributed to repulse an attempt on the part of the English to prevent the entrance of the Royal party into the city, the Moëts were subsequently ennobled by the same monarch. A mural tablet in the church of St. Remi records the death of D. G. Moët, Grand Prior, in 1554; and nine years later we find Nicol Moët claiming exemption at Epernay for the payment of _tailles_ on the ground of his being a noble. An old commercial book preserved in the family archives shows that in the year 1743--at the epoch when the rashness of the Duc de Grammont saved the English army under George II. from being cut to pieces at Dettingen--a descendant of the foregoing, one Claude Louis Nicolas Moët, who owned considerable vineyard property in the vicinity of Epernay, decided upon embarking in the wine trade. It is his son, however, Jean Remi Moët, born in 1758, who may be looked upon as the veritable founder of the present commerce in Champagne wines, which, thanks to his efforts, received a wonderful impulse, so that instead of the consumption of the vintages of the Marne being limited as heretofore to the privileged few, it spread all over the civilised world. [Illustration: JEAN REMI MOËT.]