curious coincidence. These strangely
bonnetted females agree with the Norfolk
farmers' wives in making their butter into
exactly similar "pints"— only smaller—
which they call marottes (marotte also means
a fool's bauble), weighing half a French pound
each. Thus, there is an oleaginous bond of
alliance between East Anglia and Saintonge,
and Angoumois. Will the children, I ask
myself, of these peasant capitalists, be content
to jog on in the same humble routine of life ?
Will they be wise enough to know that true
happiness lies in a quiet conscience, and easy
fortune, a healthy body,and a contented mind ;
and will they leave the vanities and strifes of
the world to the vast multitude who, clutching
after gewgaws, lose their hold of solid
and priceless possessions ? Probably not;
ambitious notions will inoculate their quiet
existence, and break out in various forms of
display. They will follow the beaten track
of self-advancement, though their French
frugality may possibly save them. Full
occupation will also come to their aid; for brandy is
distilled, as well as grown, not in the town of
Cognac itself (where there are no distilleries),
but on the premises of the respective vine-
growing proprietors; where they are called
brûleries, or burning-places, the provincial
expression being to brûler, or burn, wine, not
to distil it.

The discovery of eau-de-vie is referred to
the twelfth century. In the thirteenth
century, Arnaud de Villeneuve and Raymond
Lulle made known the process of the
fabrication of Alcohol; but its manufacture
did not begin to assume importance until
after the close of the fourteenth century.
Wine was drunk, age after age, without the
least suspicion being entertained that it was
possible to disengage from its mass the
spiritous portion which alone gives it its
intoxicating powers. The Arabs having taught
us the art of distillation, which they had
invented to extract the perfume of flowers— of
the rose especially— so lauded in their literature,
the possibility suggested itself that we
might discover the essence which gives to
wine its special flavour and effect. After
repeated attempts and experiments, alcohol,
spirits of wine, and eau-de-vie appeared.

Alcohol is the monarch of potable liquids,
and carries palatal excitement to the highest
pitch. By entering into the composition of
liqueurs, it has opened to epicures a new
series of pleasures, as well as to merchants
a new branch of commerce; and by
helping to fabricate tinctures and elixirs, it
has imparted to certain medicaments an
energy in which they were before delicient.
It has acted as the gunpowder, when they
were merely dead, ineffective shot. It has
also furnished our aggressive hand with a
formidable and deadly weapon. The unhappy
aborigines of new-found lands have been
exterminated almost as much by the influence
of fire-water, as by the force of fire-arms.

The processes which helped to discover
alcohol have led us to other important
results. For, as they consist in separating and
sorting the particles of which a body is
composed, and by the combination of which it is
distinguished from every other, they served
as a pattern and a guide to inquisitive inves-
tigators who were anxious to pursue analo-
gous researches. Hence, we have a long list
of completely new substances, the results of
distillation and sublimation, discovered, or
to be so, one of these days such as quinine,
morphine, and a host of others.

I am no spirit-drinker myself, and might,
therefore, consistently decry the use of ardent
spirits. But the use, and the abuse, of a
thing are two. There are many persons in
France, both French and English, both men
and women— but mostly people in the
miserable condition of having little or nothing to
do— who will drink you a quart of brandy, or
more, per day, regularly. It is a marvel that
they can live to the end of a month, or that
they can blow out a candle without catching
fire at the mouth, like a gas-burner when
the gas is turned on. On the other hand,
there are innumerable industrious workmen
and tradesfolk who simply swallow their
goutte, or dram, before the labours of the
day commence, taking no more afterwards,
and who say that it gives them great powers
of endurance. There are countless aged
persons and invalids, whose stomachs cannot
bear either wine or beer, to whom pure
brandy, or brandy-and-water, is an indispensable
sustenance. There are crises in the
history of humanity— such as excessive loss
of blood, protracted exposure to wet and
cold, violent and long-continued sea-sickness,
or overwhelming mental agitation threatening
prostration of the intellectual powers—
wherein the judicious administration of
brandy, or other alcoholic draught, is the
only means of saving life. We are therefore
interested in, and obliged to, a district which
supplies stores for our medicine-chest as well
as for our cellar. If men yield to temptation,
and transfer the boon to their corner-cupboard,
on themselves alone the fault must
rest.

Although Cognac brandy is made from
wine, the culture of vines for making eau-de-
vie differs considerably from the management
of mere wine-making vines. It is also more
careless or slovenly in appearance. The level
or slightly-inclined vineyards of Charente
contrast strongly with the steep côtes of
Burgundy. The soil, too, is of a more
heterogeneous nature, comprising clay, loam, and
calcareous earths. A slope to the north is
rather preferred, as less liable to injury from
spring frosts. The Cognac vines, before they
begin to shoot, look like a legion of great
black worms writhing to make their escape
to the surface, to get out of the way of some
gigantic mole that is devouring their lower
extremities under ground. Although the