Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/61

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CHAMPAGNE

some wails, his enfeebled autocracy, and soured by the falsehood of her true position! What wonder if she and all the bloods and the grand dames and the lesser ladies drank of it and were glad, while Louis looked another way and sipped attenuated Burgundy? Here was enough, you would think, to console their France under those terrific visitations of Corporal John’s; yet the influence has passed clean from the land of its nativity, the genius of the people it represented has been carried to other shores. It has pierced the fogs of Albion, and made us for the moment the compeers of those brighter spirits across the Channel whose image and superscription it bears.

De ce vin frais l’écume pétillante,
De nos Français est l’image brillante,


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