A History of Champagne, with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of FranceVizetelly, Henry
History
A History of Champagne, with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of France
Vizetelly, Henry
Champagne (Wine) -- History; Wine and wine making -- France
At the coronation of Charles IV., in 1322, wine flowed in rivers.
Amongst the unconsumed provisions returned by the king's pantler,
Pelvau dou Val, to the burghers, 'vin de Biaune et de Rivière'--that
is, of Beaune and of the Marne--figures for a value of 384 livres
5 sols 2 deniers.[28] The arrangements of the coronation had been
intrusted to the minister of finances, Pierre Remi, who certainly
played the part of the unjust steward. In the first place, he made
the cost of the ceremony amount to 21,000 livres, whereas none of his
predecessors had spent more than 7,000 livres. His opening move had
been to seize upon the greater part of the corn and all the ovens in
Reims 'for the king's use,' and to sell bread to the townsfolk and
visitors at his own price for a fortnight prior to the coronation.
After the ceremony he appropriated in like manner all the plate and
napery, and all the cooking utensils and kitchen furniture, together
with whatever had been left over, in the shape of wine, wax, fish,
bullocks, pigs, and similar trifles. The wine thus taken was estimated
at 1500 livres, part of which he sold to two bourgeois of Reims, and
kept the rest, together with forty-four out of the fifty muids, or
hogsheads, of salt provided.[29] Retributive justice overtook him, for
the chronicler of his ill-doings chuckles over the fact that he was
hanged as high as Haman on a gibbet he had himself erected at Paris.
Things went off better at the coronation of King Philip, in 1328, when
the total amount expended in the three hundred poinçons of the wine of
Beaune, St. Pourçain, and the Marne consumed was 1675 livres 2 sols 3
deniers.[30] Part of this flowed through the mouth of the great bronze
stag before which criminals condemned by the archiepiscopal court used
to be exposed, but which at coronation times was placed in the Parvis
Notre Dame, and spouted forth the 'claré dou cerf,' for the preparation
of which the town records show that the grocer O. la Lale received 16
livres.[31]
[Illustration]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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