Epernay 1 57 



whom I found to be Mademoiselle Le Blanc. Her mama would 

 return to dinner, her papa at night ; and, if I wished to see him, I 

 had better stay. \Vhen persuasion takes so pleasing a form, it is 

 not easy to resist it. There is a manner of doing everything 

 that either leaves it absolutely indifferent or that interests. The 

 unaffected good humour and simplicity of Mademoiselle Le Blanc 

 entertained me till the return of her mama, and made me say to 

 myself, you will make a good farmer's wife. Madame Le Blanc, 

 when she returned, confirmed the native hospitality of her 

 daughter; assured me that her husband would be at home 

 early in the morning, as she must dispatch a messenger to him 

 on other business. In the evening we supped with Monsieur B. 

 in the same village, who married Madame Le Blanc's niece; to 

 pass Mareuil, it has the appearance of a small hamlet of incon- 

 siderable farmers, with the houses of their labourers; and the 

 sentiment that would arise in most bosoms would be that of 

 picturing the banishment of being condemned to live in it. Who 

 would think that there should be two gentlemen's families in it: 

 and that in one I should find Mademoiselle Le Blanc singing to 

 her systrum, and in the other Madame B. young and handsome, 

 performing on an excellent English pianoforte? Compared 

 notes of the expenses of living in Champagne and Suffolk; 

 agreed that 100 louis d'or a year in Champagne were as good 

 an income as 180 in England, which I believe true. On his 

 return, Monsieur Le Blanc, in the most obliging manner, satisfied 

 all my inquiries, and gave me letters to the most celebrated 

 wine districts. 



-jth. To Epernay, famous for its wanes. I had letters for 

 Monsieur Paretilaine, one of the most considerable merchants, 

 who was so obliging as to enter, with two other gentlemen, into 

 a minute disquisition of the produce and profit of the fine vine- 

 yards. The hotel de Rohan here is a very good inn, where I 

 solaced myself with a bottle of excellent vin mousseux for 40 

 sous and drank prosperity to true liberty in France. — 12 miles. 



8///. To Ay, a village not far out of the road to Rheims, very 

 famous for its wines. I had a letter for Monsieur Lasnier, who 

 has 60,000 bottles in his cellar, but unfortunately he was not at 

 home. Monsieur Dorse has from 30.000 to 40,000. All through 

 this country the crop promises miserably, not owing to the 

 great frost, but the cold weather of last week. 



To Rheims, through a forest of five miles, on the crown of the 

 hill, which separates the narrow vale of Epernay from the great 

 plain of Rheims. The first view of that city from this hill, just 



