like those we see at Shrewsbury and Chester.
Bonneterie is the staple manufacture,
comprising stockings, nightcaps, gloves, and
mittens. Numerous stocking-frames are seen at
work, as well as the circular tricot, or knitting
round by machinery. A Champenois,
(but un-French) fashion, to be witnessed at
Troyes, is the custom of employing young
men to act as chambermaids. Altogether,
once in one's life is often enough to have
been at Troyes, in spite of its ancient
importance and repute. After another long,
dull, monotonous ride over the same
everlasting open plains, you perceive a pair of
twin steeples in a verdant hollow. You then
descend, through pleasant and promising
environs, to the fortified town of Vitry le
Français; wherein all the streets run at right
angles to each other from a central square,
with a fountain in the middle. If you eat,
drink, or sleep at Vitry, take care to go to
the Hôtel des Voyageurs, which is one of the
most satisfactory inns in all Champagne. For,
be it known, the people of Champagne are
not popular with their own compatriots.

The inhabitants of several districts of
"France have borne a traditional character
amongst their countrymen from time
immemorial, just as the Scotch and Yorkshiremen
have in England. The Bourguiguon has
always been a favourite; the Champenois
exactly the reverse. The leading feature of
his mind is supposed to be silliness. " Ninety-
nine sheep," say the French, " and one
Champenois make together a hundred
blockheads." In a certain vaudeville, a lady and
gentleman make an acquaintance at a roadside
inn. Gentleman: " I am just arrived from
Troyes."—Lady: " I thought so."—Gentleman:
" What! do I look so foolish as that?"
An analogous saying makes a hundred
blockheads consist of ninety-nine Flemings and one
hog. I like the Fleming better than the
Champenois; he is cleanlier, and moreover a
first-rate gardener. The genuine type of
Champagne dulness is not the sheep, but rather
the goose,—the phalansterian emblem of the
artful peasant, a cunning simpleton with a
purposely vacant look. The Champenois
never forgets to take care that you shall pay
enough. Beware how you touch his grapes!
or he will make you the subject of a procés
verbal. His very vines are often trained in
such a way, that besides bearing fruit, they
serve as hedges and inclosing fences.
Honest-hearted Jean Raisin is degraded to the rank
of a rural policeman. He is compelled to
stretch out an arm to bar the passage, and
to shout " No thoroughfare! " The ban
or proclamation of the date when
grape-gathering is to be first allowed in each
district, shows a nervous fear of being robbed,
which strongly contrasts with the Burgundian
open-handed practice. There things are
conducted in such a style as this: "Monsieur
wishes to walk through my vines? " a Chablis
proprietor asked of my guide. " With
pleasure." He then added, with a good-humoured
smile, "The best, as you know, are on the
hill La Moutonne; but don't eat too many
grapes;" —thereby implying, that though
the crop was very short, we were heartily
welcome to taste in moderation. But the
Mayor of Troyes sternly informs the public
that the opening of the vintaging of vines in
such a territory is fixed for such a day; and
for such other, for such another day. All,
whether owners or tenants of vineyards, are
warned that if they contravene the ban by
beginning before their neighbours, and so
taking the opportunity of plundering them
they shall be delivered over to the Tribunal of
Simple Police. Moreover, all persons
whatsoever, except the owners, are forbidden to
enter the vineyards at any time, on any
pretext. Jean Raisin is watched and guarded
as carefully as a wealthy novice in a convent.

From Vitry, through Châlons, to Epernay,
you are in rich Champagne, in the valley of
the Marne. There are vines: but not even
at Châlons are you yet arrived at the
champagne-wine-producing district. At Epernay
you reach it at last; and if you stroll over
to Ai, to admire its lovely site in the lap of
hills, or stretch as far as Sillery, you are
still amongst the vines which do actually
produce champagne. The wine made and
matured in M. Jacquesson's vast establishment
at Chalons is not grown on the spot;
but is brought there in hogsheads—previous
to being bottled—from his vineyards in the
neighbourhood of Ai and elsewhere. But
the truth is that, even in France, nobody but
the wine-merchant, and not always he
himself, knows where champagne wine does come
from. A good deal is made in Burgundy;
some in Germany; and, in the white wine
districts, great quantities are bought up and
carried away and no one knows whither.
They are kidnapped, burked, dissected,
transmogrified, and successfully resuscitated with
a change of title.

This year, the vintage is comparatively a
blank at Epernay; but we may safely
predict that, though prices will rise, there will
be no perceptible deficiency in the general
supply. No one who can pay for a bottle of
champagne during the years fifty-five and
fifty-six is likely to be compelled to go without
it; although possibly the cider and sugar-and
water of fifty-four will be as famous in,
its way as the wine of 'forty-six. It is much
easier to make good champagne wine beyond
the limits of the ancient province, than it
would be to manufacture burgundy wine far
away from Burgundy. You can fabricate
pinchbeck, but you cannot make gold.
Champagne wine is so completely a factitious
thing, that if the duty on French wines were
taken off in England, champagne could, and
would be prepared in London, so good as to
threaten a serious rivalry to the genuine
article from Chalons-sur-Marne. The
champagne grower's capital really and truly lies