Over these vineyards there presided in 1670 a worthy Benedictine named Dom Perignon, who was destined to gain for the abbey a more world-wide fame than the devoutest of its monks or the proudest of its abbots. His position was an onerous one, for the reputation of the wine was considerable, and it was necessary to maintain it. Henry of Andelys had sung its praises as early as the thirteenth century; and St. Evremond, though absent from France for nearly half a score years, wrote of it in terms proving that he had preserved a lively recollection of its merits. Dom Perignon was born at Sainte Ménehould in 1638, and had been elected to the post of procureur of the abbey about 1668, on account of the purity of his taste and the soundness of his head. He proved himself fully equal to the momentous task, devotion to which does not seem to have shortened his days, since he died at the ripe old age of seventy-seven. It was Dom Perignon's duty to superintend the abbey vineyards, supervise the making of the wine, and see after the tithes, paid either in wine or grapes[96] by the neighbouring cultivators to their seignorial lord the abbot. The wine which thus came into his charge was naturally of various qualities; and having noted that one kind of soil imparted fragrance and another generosity, while the produce of others was deficient in both of these attributes, Dom Perignon, in the spirit of a true Benedictine, hit upon the happy idea of 'marrying,' or blending, the produce of different vineyards together,[97] a practice which is to-day very generally followed by the manufacturers of Champagne. Such was the perfection of Dom Perignon's skill and the delicacy of his palate, that in his later years, when blind from age, he used to have the grapes of the different districts brought to him, and, recognising each kind by its flavour, would say, 'You must marry the wine of this vineyard with that of such another.'[98] [Illustration]