Chaulieu, the poetic abbé, and the favourite of both the Vendômes, hailed this new product of his native province in rapturous strophes. In an invitation to supper addressed to his friend, the Marquis de la Fare, in 1701, he describes how 'Of fivescore clear glasses the number and brightness Make up for of dishes the absence and lightness, And the foam, sparkling pure, Of fresh delicate wine For Fortune's frail lure Blots out all regret in this memory of mine.'[120] In a letter to St. Evremond, he mentions sundry wonderful things that should happen 'if the Muses were as fond of the wine of Champagne as the poet who writes this to you;' and, in one to the Marquis de Dangeau, jestingly remarks that 'St. Maur's harsher muse All flight will refuse, Unless you sustain Her wings with Champagne.'[121] Replying to an invitation to Sonning's house at Neuilly on July 20, 1707, he says that when he comes it will be wonderful to see how the Champagne will be drained from the tall glasses known as _flutes_.[122] That the Champagne he extols was a sparkling wine is established in a poetical epistle to Madame D., in answer to her complaint that the wine he had sent her did not froth as when they supped together, and in this he also speaks of its newness. His brother-rhymster, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, who must not be confounded with the philosophic Jean Jacques, invited Chaulieu to join him at Neuilly, in mingling the water of Hippocrene with the wine of Hautvillers,[123] and announced to the Champagne-loving Marquis d'Ussé, _apropos_ of the latter's favourite source of inspiration, that even 'Ph[oe]bus will no more go climbing For water up Helicon's mount, But admit, as a source of good rhyming, Champagne excels Hippocrene's fount.'[124] Such general attention did the subject attract that Frederick William II. of Prussia actually proposed to the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Berlin the question, 'Why does Champagne foam?' for solution. The Academicians, with unexpected sharpness, petitioned the King for a supply of the beverage in question on which to experiment. But the parsimonious monarch was equal to the occasion, and a solitary dozen of the wine was all he would consent to furnish them with. His ally, Augustus the Strong of Saxony, was the hero of a ludicrous adventure connected with sparkling Champagne. At a banquet given to him at Dresden, a page, who had surreptitiously appropriated a bottle of this costly beverage, and hidden it in the breast of his coat, had to approach the King. The heat and motion combined had imparted briskness to the wine, out popped the cork, and the embroidered garments and flowing periwig of Mr. Carlyle's 'Man of Sin' were drenched with the foaming liquid. The page fell on his knees and roared for mercy, and the King, as soon as he recovered from his bursts of laughter, freely forgave him his offence.