dy; and it is then that we find, according to the
testimony of the learned Paulmier de Grandmesnil, kings and queens making
champagne their favourite beverage. Tradition has it that Francis I.,
Charles Quint, Henry VIII., and Pope Leon X. all possessed vineyards in
Champagne at the same time. Burgundy, that pure and pleasant wine, was not
despised, and it was in its honour that Erasmus said, "Happy province! she
may well call herself the mother of men, since she produces such milk."
Nevertheless, the above-mentioned physician, Paulmier, preferred to
burgundy, "if not perhaps for their flavour, yet for their wholesomeness,
the vines of the _Ile de France_ or _vins francais_, which agree, he says,
with scholars, invalids, the bourgeois, and all other persons who do not
devote themselves to manual labour; for they do not parch the blood, like
the wines of Gascony, nor fly to the head like those of Orleans and
Chateau-Thierry; nor do they cause obstructions like those of Bordeaux."
This is also the opinion of Baccius, who in his Latin treatise on the
natural history of wines (1596) asserts that the wines of Paris "are in no
way inferior to those of any other district of the kingdom." These thin
and sour wines, so much esteemed in the first periods of monarchy and so
long abandoned, first lost favour in the reign of Francis I., who
preferred the strong and stimulating productions of the South.

Notwithstanding the great number of excellent wines made in their own
country, the French imported from other lands. In the thirteenth century,
in the "Battle of Wines" we find those of Aquila, Spain, and, above all,
those of Cyprus, spoken of in high terms. A century later, Eustace
Deschamps praised the Rhine wines, and those of Greece, Malmsey, and
Grenache. In an edict of Charles VI. mention is also made of the muscatel,
rosette, and the wine of Lieppe. Generally, the Malmsey which was drunk in
France was an artificial preparation, which had neither the colour nor
taste of the Cyprian wine. Olivier de Serres tells us that in his time it
was made with water, honey, clary juice, beer grounds, and brandy. At
first the same name was used for the natural wine, mulled and spiced,
which was produced in the island of Madeira from the grapes which the
Portuguese brought there from Cyprus in 1420.

The reputation which this wine acquired in Europe induced Francis I. to
import some vines from Greece, and he planted fifty acres with them near