Note 453 — PART II. (continued 3)

In 1775 the Abbot of Hautvillers, as décimateur of Pierry, claimed to take tithe of a fortieth of all wines in the cellars of the village. This claim being rejected by the baillage of Epernay in 1777, he appealed to the Parliament of Paris. Cazotte undertook the case of his fellow-proprietors, pleading that the abbey, which, according to strict law, was bound to take the tithe in the shape of grapes left at the foot of each vine, had long since replaced this by a monetary commutation; and that the inhabitants of Pierry, like the other wine-growers of the Champagne, being ‘obliged, in order to obtain perfection in their wines, to mix the grapes of several crus and different tithings, it would be impossible to tithe the wine itself.’ He also argued that the question had been settled by a decision on the same point in favour of the inhabitants of Ay and Dizy. However, the monks obtained a decree from parliament authorising them to take the fortieth of the vintage a month after the wines had been barrelled, unless the wine-growers preferred ‘to pay the tithe at the wine-press, in form of the fortieth load of grapes free from all mixture.’ The inhabitants appealed in 1780, pleading the impossibility of this plan of tithing at the press, on account of the expense and of the difficulty of sorting out the grapes from those brought from Moussy, Vinay, Monthelon, Cuis, Epernay, and other districts in which they had also vineyards. The Revolution cut the Gordian knot of this affair, which really arose from the wish of the monks to hinder as much as possible that plan of mixing grapes from different sources, to which the perfection of their own wine was due.