But if you want the best French brandy, distilled from the luscious grape, see that you get it; and let your vision be in thorough working order. With the exception of the good, conscientious spirit-distillers, all French houses import potato-spirit in large quantities from Germany, and re-ship it to the home of the brave and free as superior cognac. This alone would seem sufficient excuse for another invasion of France; although these evil-minded distillers seek to justify their actions by blaming the _phylloxera_, a little insect which has laboured more assiduously in the cause of temperance—by destroying the main source of intemperance—than Sir Wilfrid Lawson himself. “The ravages of the _phylloxera_,” say the distillers, in effect, “compel us to employ other _matériel_, in order to fulfil our cognac contracts with the merchants of the perfidious isle.” It is related of a theatrical “property-man” that, upon being rebuked by the tragedian for making a snowstorm out of brown, instead of white, paper, he replied curtly: “It was the only paper I had; and if you can’t snow white you must snow brown.” This excuse is on a par with that urged on behalf of the German potato-spirit. _Phylloxera vastatrix_ (why not _devastatrix_?) has cost France, it is said, a pecuniary loss far exceeding that of the Franco-Prussian war. The little monster was discovered in North America in 1854, and whether the discoverer or one of his friends brought the vine-killer on a holiday-trip to Europe, or whether it worked its own passage will never be known. But certain it is that the {74} little monster made its first appearance on this side in the year 1863. Striking an attitude, with the exclamation, “Hallo! here’s a vine, let’s have the first suck,” the _phylloxera_ commenced a long starring engagement (to borrow another metaphor from the theatres), which in another fifteen years’ time had developed into an enormous success, as far as the _vastatrix_ was concerned. Naturally, it is the she-phylly who does the harm. From August to October Madam lays her little eggs on the vine-leaves, beneath the surface. The _ova_ develop late in autumn into males and females, who migrate to the stem of the vine. There each bold, bad female lays an egg, under the bark. This egg lies dormant, after the manner of pesky little insect-nuisances, through the winter, and develops in April or May into a wingless, voracious, merciless little “vine-louse,” with power to add to its number. “The rest,” as the mechanical engineers tell us, just before our brains go, “is easy.” The vine-louse attacks the roots, without waiting, the silly idiot, for the grapes to ripen, the vine dies, and the potato reigns in its stead. Without burning the plant, or drowning it, it is impossible to eradicate the _phylloxera_, without spending three times as much cash, in chemicals, as the vine is worth. This is the true story of France’s great trouble.