In Europe Champagne has continued to be, from the days of Paulmier and Venner downwards, the drink of kings, princes, and great lords as they described it. Take a list of the potentates of the present century, and the majority of them will be found to have evinced at some time or other a partiality for the wine. Louis XVIII. drank nothing else at table. The late ruler of Prussia, Frederick William IV., had such a penchant for Champagne of a particular manufacture, that he obtained the cognomen of King Clicquot. The predecessor of Pio Nono, Gregory XVI., rivalled him in this appreciation, and, terrible to relate, so did the Commander of the Faithful, Abdul Medjid. The latter might, however, have pleaded the excuse put forward by Abd-el-Kader, that although the Prophet had forbidden wine, yet Champagne came into the category of aerated waters, concerning which he had said nothing, a remark justifying the title given to this wit-inspiring beverage of being 'the father of _bons mots_.' Prince Bismarck, in the stormy period of his youth, was in the barbarous habit of imbibing Champagne mixed with porter; but at present he judiciously alternates it with old Port. Marshal MacMahon and the King of the Belgians are said to drink the pink variety of the _vin mousseux_ by preference. [Illustration: 'SOUS LA TONNELLE' (From a print of the time of the Restoration).] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration: 'AU BEAU SEXE!'] Naturally, in France as elsewhere, the sparkling vintage of the Marne maintains its claims to be reckoned the wine of beauty and fashion, and more especially in beauty's gayer hours. A glass of Champagne and a _biscuit de Reims_ has been a refection which, though often verbally declined, was in the end pretty sure to be accepted from the days of the _merveilleuses_ and _incroyables_, through those of the _lionnes_, down to the present epoch of the _cocodettes de la haute gomme_. Neither at ceremonial banquets nor at ordinary dinner-parties among our neighbours does Champagne hold, however, so prominent a place as amongst ourselves, owing to the great variety of other wines--all capable of appreciation by trained palates--entering into the composition of these festive repasts. In fact, a _repas de noces_ is the only occasion on which Champagne flows in France with anything like the freedom to which we are accustomed; and then it is that its exhilarating effect is marked, as some portly old boy rises with twinkling eye to propose the health of the bride, or of that _beau sexe_ to which he feels bound to profess himself deeply devoted. At such open-air gatherings as the races at Longchamps and Chantilly, the _buffet_ will be besieged by a succession of frail fair ones in the most elaborate _toilettes de courses_, seeking to nerve themselves to witness a coming struggle, or to console themselves for the defeat of the horse backed by their favoured admirer. And, when writing of