Note 171 — PART I. (continued 2)

A curious proof of the popularity of sparkling Champagne, and of the singular system of provincial government into which France was broken up during the reign of Louis XV., is found in a decree of the Council of State, dated May 25, 1728. The decree in question begins by setting forth that, by the Ordonnance des aides de Normandie, wine was forbidden to be brought into Rouen or its suburbs in bottles, jugs, or any less vessels than hogsheads and barrels—with the exception of vin de liqueur packed in boxes—under pain of confiscation and one hundred livres’ fine, and that carriers were prohibited from conveying wine in bottles in the province without leave from the fermier des aides. Nevertheless, petitions had been presented by the maire and échevins of Reims, stating ‘that the trade in the gray wines of Champagne had considerably increased for some years past, through the precautions taken at the place of production to bottle them during the first moon of the month of March following the vintage, in order to render them mousseux; that those who make use of the gray wine of Champagne prefer that which is mousseux to that which is not; and that this gray wine cannot be transported in casks into the interior of the kingdom or to foreign countries without totally losing its qualities,’—a statement probably intentionally overdrawn, since Bertin du Rocheret used to export it in casks to England. Yet the fermiers des aides de Normandie claimed to prohibit the transport of wines in bottle; and if their pretension held good, the trade in the gray wine of Champagne would be destroyed. ‘Shifting the cause, as a lawyer knows how,’ the decree recapitulates the plea of the fermiers that the transport of wine in bottles offered facilities for defrauding the revenue, since a carrier with a load could easily leave some of it en route with innkeepers, and these in turn could hide bottles holding a pinte de Paris from the officers in chests, cupboards, &c., and sell them subsequently, to the detriment of the droits de détail.

The foregoing duly rehearsed, there follows the decree permitting ‘to be sent in bottles into the province of Normandy, for the consumption of the said province, gray wine of Champagne in baskets, which must not hold less than one hundred bottles,’ but prohibiting the introduction in bottles of any other growth or quality, under the penalty of confiscation and one hundred livres’ fine. Permission is also given to pass gray and red wine of Champagne, or of any other cru or quality, in baskets of fifty or one hundred bottles for conveyance into other provinces, or for shipment to foreign parts by the ports of Rouen, Caen, Dieppe, and Havre. The wagoners, however, in all cases are to have certificates signed and countersigned by all manner of authorities, and are only to enter the province by certain specified routes. All wine, too, is to pay the droit de détail, except in the case of people not continuously residing in the province, who may be going to their estates, or those bound for the eaux de Forges, a celebrated watering-place, both of whom may take a certain quantity in bottle with them for their own consumption free of duty.