As to the pamphleteers, who advocated the Rights of Man and aspersed Marie Antoinette; the poets, who addressed their countless airy trifles to Phyllis and Chloe; the penniless disciples of Boucher and Greuze; and the incipient demagogues, briefless advocates, unbeneficed abbés, discontented bourgeois, whose eloquence was to shatter the throne of the Bourbons, they were fain for the time being to content themselves with the _petit bleu_ of Argenteuil or Suresnes, consumed in company with Manon or Margot, in one of the dingy smoky _cabarets_ which the _café_ was so soon in a great measure to replace. When, however, their day did come, we may be sure they denied themselves no luxury, and sparkling Champagne would certainly have graced Danton's luxurious repasts, and may possibly have played its part at the last repast of the condemned Girondins. In '93, we find Champagne of 1779--the still wine, of course--announced for sale at Lemoine's shop in the Palais Royal; while a delectable compound, styled _crême de fleur d'orange grillée au vin de Champagne_, was obtainable at Théron's in the Rue St. Martin.[240] The sparkling wine can scarcely have failed to figure on the _carte_ of the sumptuous repasts furnished by the _restaurateurs_, Méot and Beauvillers, to the _de facto_ rulers of France,[241] although in 1795 the price of wine generally in Paris had increased tenfold.[242] Ex-_procureurs_ of the defunct Parliament carefully hoarded all that remained of the Champagne formerly lavished upon them by their ex-clients;[243] whilst the latter had to content themselves with tea at London and beer at Coblenz.[244] [Illustration] Although details respecting the progress of the Champagne wine-trade at home and abroad at the outset of the present century are somewhat scanty, we readily gather that the great popularity of the sparkling wine throughout Europe dates from an event which, at the time of its occurrence, the short-sighted Champenois looked upon as most disastrous. This was the Allied invasion of 1814-15. Consumption, so far as the foreign market was concerned, had been grievously interrupted by the great upset in all commercial matters consequent upon the wars of the Revolution and the Empire. It appears that the white wines of Champagne were sent to Paris, Normandy, Italy, and, 'when circumstances permitted of it,' to England, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Spain, Portugal, and 'beyond the seas.' But the trade had suffered greatly during the wars with Austria and Russia in 1806 and 1807; and in the following years the consumption of white wine had fallen considerably, and a large number of wine-merchants had found themselves unable to meet their engagements.[245]