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<<Previous The red wine of the Champagne sparkled on the boards of monarchs in the Middle Ages when they sat at meat amidst their mailclad chivalry, and quaffed mighty beakers to the confusion of the Paynim. Henry of Andely has sung in his fabliau of the “Bataille des Vins,” how, when stout Philip Augustus and his chaplain constituted themselves the earliest known wine-jury, the crûs of Espernai, Auviler, Chaalons, and Reims were amongst those which found most favour in their eyes, though nearly a couple of centuries elapsed before Eustace Deschamps recorded in verse the rival merits of those of Cumières and Ay. King Wenceslaus of Bohemia, a mighty toper, got so royally drunk day after day upon the vintages of the Champagne, that he forgot all about the treaty with Charles VI., that had formed the pretext of his visit to France, and would probably have lingered, goblet in hand, in the old cathedral city till the day of his death, but for the presentation of a little account for wine consumed, which sobered him to repentance and led to his abrupt departure. Dunois, Lahire, Xaintrailles, and their fellows, when they rode with Joan of Arc to the coronation of Charles VII., drank the same generous fluid, through helmets 11 barred, to the speedy expulsion of the detested English from the soil of France.

The vin d’Ay—vinum Dei as Dominicus Baudoin punningly styled it—was, according to old Paulmier, the ordinary drink of the kings and princes of his day. It fostered bluff King Hal’s fits of passion and the tenth Leo’s artistic extravagance; consoled Francis I. for the field of Pavia, and solaced his great rival in his retirement at St. Just. All of them had their commissioners at Ay to secure the best wine for their own consumption. Henri Quatre, whose vendangeoir is still shown in the village, held the wine in such honour that he was wont to style himself the Seigneur d’Ay, just as James of Scotland was known as the Gudeman of Ballangeich. When his son, Louis XIII., was crowned, the wines of the Champagne were the only growths allowed to grace the board at the royal banquet. Freely too did they flow at the coronation feast of the Grand Monarque, when the crowd of assembled courtiers, who quaffed them in his honour, hailed them as the finest wines of the day...next>>