He goes on to accuse the Champenois poet of being unduly inspired by this wine, the effects of which he finds apparent in his inflated style and his attempts to place Champagne in the first rank, and make all other vintages its subjects; and he reiterates his allegations that, unlike Burgundy, it affects both the head and the stomach, and is bound to produce gout and gravel in its systematic imbibers. He concludes by begging Fagon to pronounce in his favour, as having proved the virtues of Burgundy on the King himself, whose strength had been sustained by it. The retort was sharp and to the point, taking the form of a twofold epigram from an anonymous hand: 'To the doctor to go On behalf of your wine Is, as far as I know, Of its sickness a sign. Your cause and your wine Must be equally weak, Since to check their decline A prescription you seek.'[155] Nor was the poet of the funereal cognomen backward in stepping into the field; for he published a metrical decree, supposed to be issued by the faculty of the island of Cos in the fourth year of the ninety-first Olympiad,[156] in which, though a verdict is nominally given in favour of Burgundy, Grenan's pleas on behalf of this wine are treated with withering sarcasm. But whilst these enthusiastic partisans thus belaboured one another, there were not wanting impartial spirits who could recognise that there were merits on both sides. Bellechaume, in an ode jointly addressed to the two combatants,[157] adjures them to live at peace on Parnassus, and, remembering that Horace praised both Falernian and Massica, to jointly animate their muse with Champagne and Burgundy: 'To learn the difference between The wine of Reims and that of Beaune, The fairest plan would be, I ween, To drink them both, not one alone.'[158] Another equally judicious versifier called also on the Burgundian champion[159] to cease the futile contest, since 'Bold Burgundian ever glories With stout Remois to get mellow; Each well filled with vinous lore is Each a jolly tippling fellow.'[160] And the learned Canon Maucroix of Reims exhibited a similar conciliatory spirit in the ingenious parallel which he drew between the two greatest orators of antiquity and the wines of the Marne and the Côte d'Or. 'In the wine of Burgundy,' he observes, 'there is more strength and vigour; it does not play with its man so much, it overthrows him more suddenly,--that is Demosthenes. The wine of Champagne is subtler and more delicate; it amuses more and for a longer time, but in the end it does not produce less effect,--that is Cicero.'[161] [Illustration: REMAINS OF THE GATE OF BACCHUS, NEAR REIMS UNIVERSITY.]