Reims had passed under the sway of England by the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, the Earl of Salisbury becoming governor of the Champagne. The scarcity of wine, and the liking of the new possessors for their national beverage, is shown by a prohibition issued by the town council in 1427 against using wheat for making beer; and a statement of Gobin Persin, that he had sold more treacle--a famous medicinal remedy in the Middle Ages--during the past half year than in the four years previous, owing to people complaining that they were swollen up from drinking malt liquor. The English, however, at their abrupt departure from the city on the arrival of Charles and the Maid of Orleans, proved their partiality for the wine of Reims by carrying off as many wagonloads of it as they could manage to lay their hands on.
[Illustration: JEANNE DARC'S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES VII.
(From a tapestry of the fifteenth century).]
The gallant knights and patriot nobles who followed the Maid of Orleans to Reims, and witnessed the coronation of Charles VII. in 1429, despised, of course, the drink of their island foes, and moistened throats grown hoarse with shouting 'Vive le roi' with the choice vintage of the neighbouring slopes, freely drawn forth from the most secret recesses of the cellars of the town in honour of the glorious day. And no doubt Dame Alice, widow of Raulin Marieu, and hostess of the Asne royé (the Striped Ass), put a pot of the very best before the father of 'Jehane la Pucelle,' and did not forget, either, to score it down in the little bill of twenty-four livres which she was paid out of the _deniers communs_ for the old fellow's entertainment.[49] For the next ten years, however, the note of war resounded through the country, the hill-sides bristled with lances in lieu of vine-stakes, and instead of money spent for wine for presentation to guests of a pacific disposition, the archives of the town display a long list of sums expended in the purchase of arms, artillery, and ammunition, for the especial accommodation of less pleasant visitors, in repairing fortifications, and in payments to men charged with watching day and night for the coming of the foe.
The excesses of the licentious followers of Potton de Xaintrailles and Lahire were worse than those of the English and Burgundians, spite of the four hundred and five livres which had been paid to men-at-arms and archers from the neighbouring garrisons, 'engaged by the city of Reims to guard the surrounding country, in order that the wine might be vintaged and brought into the said city and the vineyards dressed,'[50] and bitter were the complaints addressed in 1433 to the king on the falling off of the wine trade which had resulted therefrom. The ravages of the terrible 'Escorcheurs' led, in 1436, to fresh complaints and to an additional duty on each queue of 'wine of Beaune, of the Marne, and of other foreign districts' sold wholesale at Reims, the receipts to be spent in warlike preparations and on the fortifications. Some of this went to Lahire as a recompense for defending the district from 'the great routs and companies' that sought to invade it, he having, presumably on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief, been made Bailli of Vermandois. In troublous times like these it was necessary to secure the good will of men in power and authority, and hence the town records comprise numerous offerings of money, fine linen cloths, and wine given to various nobles 'out of grace and courtesy' for their good will and 'good and agreeable services, pleasures, and love.' Madame Katherine de France (the widow of Henry V.), the Chancellor of France, the Constable Richemont, Lahire (Bailli of Vermandois), the bastard Dunois, the Archbishop of Narbonne, the Count de Vendôme, and many other nobles and dignitaries, were in turn recipients of such gifts; and the visit of King Charles the Victorious, in 1440, was celebrated by their profuse distribution.[51]