The Widow Clicquot (26 page)

“a large part of Europe [was] ruined by the famine”
: Alain de Vogüé,
Une maison de vins,
pp. 58–60.

“there are rare advantages that give us a rising name brand”
: Ibid., p. 65.

“Everywhere…business is absolutely dead”
: Ibid., p. 76.

“an order to leave the city and the states of Austria”
: Ibid., p. 72.

In 1809, she managed to sell only forty thousand bottles of wine
: Etienne, p. 269.

the only news he could send: “Business totally dead”
: Alain de Vogüé,
Une maison de vins,
p. 96.

CHAPTER EIGHT: ALONE AT THE BRINK OF RUIN

founded in 1734 by Alexandre’s grandfather under the name Forest-Fourneaux
: Promotional materials, Champagne Taittinger, available at www.taittinger.com; see also Delpal, p. 58.

Nicolas’s reward for his hospitality
: George Lallemand,
Le Baron Ponsardin
(Reims: Chamber of Commerce/Société des Amis de Vieux Reims, 1967).

Austrian archduchess Marie Louise—niece to the ill-fated Marie Antoinette
: Marie Louise of Austria (1791–1847); see Edith Cuthell,
An Imperial
Victim: Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria, Empress of the French, Duchess of Parma
(London: Brentanto’s, 1912).

her father, always a royalist at heart
: Fiévet,
Madame Veuve Clicquot
, p. 24.

“marriage of the Archduchess Louise is fixed for the 25 of March
: Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Company Archives, 1A E 086,
Copie de lettres du 1er Julliet au 9 Novembre 1812
, p. 243; letter of March 3, 1810.

she and Louis referred to him in their letters simply as “the devil”
: Interview, January 8, 2007, Fabienne Huttaux, Historical Resources Manager, Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Reims.

the emperor’s personal appreciation of “the beauty and richness of their cellars”:
Promotional materials, Champagne Jacquesson, available at www.champagnejacquesson.com.

Her account book showed
: Etienne, p. 184.

Now he was engaged to Miss Rheinwald
: Crestin-Billet, p. 89.

burned the symbol of the anchor into the corks
: Delpal, p. 173.

brilliant greens flecked with gold or silver
: Desbois-Thibault, p. 57.

it had always been used because it was the traditional symbol of hope
: Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, tasting-room promotional materials.

selling more local red wines by the barrel
: Etienne, p. 44.

high-end vintages from other, more fashionable parts of France
: Etienne, pp. 47–49.

daughter, Clémentine, away to a convent boarding school in Paris
: Chimay, p. 31.

challenges of raising a child while running a business
: “Women integrated their sense of parenthood with the general business orientation of their lives…evidence does not appear…to suggest that the businesswoman spent much time beyond the market world”; Smith, p. 45.

Her letters show that she was a devoted and pragmatic mother
: See, for example, Chimay, pp. 31–42.

“I pray that you will keep it on your person”
: Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Company Archives, 1A E 086,
Copie de lettres du 1er Juillet 1809 au 9 Novembre 1812
, p. 429; letter of October 19, 1810.

“This is a terrible thing that gets up and goes to bed with me”
: Chimay, p. 18.

“never use the present round saucer animalcula-catching champagne glasses
”: Anonymous,
London at Table: or, How, When, and Where to Dine and Order a Dinner, and Where to Avoid Dining, with Practical Hints to Cooks
(London: Chapman & Hall, 1851), vol. 2, p. 45.

Owing to basic mechanics, the bubbles are smaller and prettier in narrow glasses
: This, p. 257.

country estate outside Oger
: Chimay, p. 17.

“maritime harpies” and the “assassins of prosperity”
: Quotations here and following from Bertrand de Vogüé,
Madame Clicquot à la conquête pacifique de la Russie
(Reims: Imprimerie du Nord-Est, 1947), p. 8.

“2,000 bottles have been easily sold because of the season”
: Alain de Vogüé,
Une maison de vins,
p. 112.

That spring, she had orders for fewer than thirty-three thousand bottles
: Etienne, p. 269.

Lower the prices if need be, she wrote to Louis in Holland
: Crestin-Billet, p. 77.

“There had never been…a grape so ripe, so sugary, and one harvested under such favorable circumstances of weather”
: Tomes, p. 129.

“the great comet was attracting all eyes”
: Harriet Martineau,
Autobiography
(Boston: James R. Osgood, 1877).

“how many superstitious terrors it gave rise to”
: Anonymous, “The Comet,”
Robert Merry’s Museum
(November 1858), pp. 137–139, p. 137.

Louis spent the spring of 1812 hunting orders
: Alain de Vogüé,
Une maison de vins,
p. 118.

pushing the development of new sugar sources for winemakers
: With the continental blockades during the Napoleonic Wars, popular British colonial commodities, including sugar and cotton, were scarce and costly. Because of the need for sugar in the production of wine—and in the production of champagne in particular—“the French wine trade suffered,” and in order to protect his favorite industry, Napoléon saw to it that “investigations were carried out in France to find substitutes for British colonial produce,” including the large-scale extraction of sugar from the locally grown beetroot; William G. Freeman,
New Phytologist
6, no. 1 (January 1907): 18–23, 20. See also Phillips, pp. 186–195. According to Robert Tomes, the winemakers still preferred cane sugar, and he reported that beet sugar is “said to poison wine” and give it a “nauseous flavor”; Tomes, p. 145.

“
an infernal genie who has tormented and ruined the world for five or six years”
: Bertrand de Vogüé,
Conquête pacifique de la Russie
, p. 8.

“The Good Lord is a joker: eat and you will die, do not eat and you will die, and so patience and perseverance”
: Alain de Vogüé,
Une maison de vins,
p. 125.

“All the houses of the nobility,” wrote a British witness
: Quoted in George Rudé,
Revolutionary Europe: 1783
–
1815
(Glasgow: Fontana Press/HarperCollins, 1985), p. 273.

“If circumstances were less sad,” he told Jean-Rémy
: Victor Fiévet,
Histoire de la ville d’Épernay
(Épernay: V. Fiévet, 1868), p. 151.

More than half a million men had been sent to fight in Russia
: For an account of the Russian campaign, see, for example, Henry Houssaye,
Napoleon and the Campaign of 1814
(Uckfield, UK: Naval and Miltary Press, 2006).

CHAPTER NINE: WAR AND THE WIDOW’S TRIUMPH

Sales of her wine had been down again that year…a staggering 80 percent
: Alain de Vogüé,
Une maison de vins,
pp. 64, 123.

he would lose over half a million bottles of champagne
: Kladstrup, p. 67.

Mademoiselle Gard—to the family, simply Jennie
: Chimay, p. 38.

“I have been occupied for many days with walling up my cellars”
: Bertrand de Vogüé,
Conquête pacifique de la Russie
, p. 26.

Her brother’s textile factory at Saint-Brice was destroyed
: Fiévet,
Madame Veuve Clicquot
, p. 33.

Serge Alexandrovich Wolkonsky, insisted that there would be no looting
: Kladstrup, p. 83; Chimay, p. 24.

“as for your insolent threat of sending troops to Rheims”
: Chimay, p. 24.

“Tomorrow they will pay!”
: Ibid.

“All these officers who ruin me today”
: Desbois-Thibault, p. 35.

General Corbineau recaptured Reims
: Louis Antoine Fauvelet,
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte
(London: Richard Bentley, 1836); also Houssaye.

“about a dozen prisoners were made, who had been laid under the table”
: Tomes, p. 67.

“Madame Clicquot…gave Napoléon’s officers Champagne and glasses”
: Details from “The Noble Art of Sabrage,” available at www.champagnesabering.com.

Hedging his bet, he wrote Napoléon a letter
: According to Fiévet,
Madame Veuve Clicquot
, the letter read: “Sire, at this instant, the city and those who protect it are in your power,” p. 39.

Barbe-Nicole who greeted the emperor at the door of the Hôtel Ponsardin
: Fiévet,
Madame Veuve Clicquot
: “The Widow Clicquot, it was said, welcomed the emperor to the Hôtel Ponsardin herself, deserted by her father, mayor of the village,” p. 19.

As was the custom, she herself filled the emperor’s pillows with the softest new down
: Crestin-Billet, p. 24.

“If fate intervenes and dashes my hopes, I want at least to be able to reward you for your loyal service and steadfast courage”
: Roubinet and Nolleau, p. 63.

“Russian officers…lifted the champagne glass to their lips”
: Tomes, p. 67.

Lord Byron wrote to his friend Thomas Moore
: Thomas Moore,
Life of Lord Byron, with His Letters and Journals
, 6 vols (London: John Murray, 1854), vol. 3, letter 174; letter of April 9, 1814.

“At last the time has come”
: Chimay, p. 24.

Within decades of Napoléon’s defeat, it would multiply more than tenfold
: Brennan, p. 272.

Still, when the Russian czar Alexander ordered provisions
: Roubinet and Nolleau, p. 43.

“Thanks are due to Heaven…I do not have any losses to regret”
: Bertrand de Vogüé,
Conquête pacifique de la Russie
, p. 9.

Monsieur Rondeaux, a shipping merchant in Rouen
: Ibid., p. 11.

“our wines must be properly cared for”
: Chimay, p. 26.

Jean-Rémy was already writing to Count Tolstoy
: Michel Refait,
Moët
& Chandon: De Claude Moët à Bernard Arnault
(Paris: Dominique Gueniot, 1998), p. 41.

she had also slyly included a present for Louis
: Bertrand de Vogüé,
Conquête pacifique de la Russie
, p. 12.

“as strong as the wines of Hungary, as yellow as gold, and as sweet as nectar”
: Ibid., p. 15.

“Our ship is the first, in many years, to travel to the North”
: Ibid., p. 12.

CHAPTER TEN: A COMET OVER RUSSIA: THE VINTAGE OF 1811

“I am bored of seeing them leave us in peace taking the money”
: Bertrand de Vogüé,
Conquête pacifique de la Russie
, p. 18.

“Great God! What a price! How novel!”
: Ibid., p. 17.

“I am adored here…because my wines are adorable”
: Quotations in this paragraph from ibid., p. 14.

“I have already in my portfolio [orders for] a new assault on your caves”
: Ibid., p. 18.

“If my business continues as it has gone since the invasion”
: Ibid., p. 20.

“
your judicious manner of operating, your excellent wine”
: Ibid., p. 19.

In the company archives in Reims…she writes about the shape of the bottles
: Interview, January 8, 2007, Fabienne Huttaux, Historical Resources Manager, Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.

“The world market which was slowly coming into existence”
: Peter Kriedte,
Peasants, Landlords, and Merchant Capitalists
:
Europe and the World Economy, 1500–1800
(Leamington Spa, UK: Berg, 1983), p. 13, quoted in “Proto-Industrialization in France,” Gwynne Lewis,
Economic History Review
(New Series) 47, no. 1 (February 1994): 150–164, 155.

“business historians, agree that those women would have disappeared”
: Craig, p. 52.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE INDUSTRIALIST’S DAUGHTER