Vivandière

“ The jaunty vivandières, in their short blue petticoats, their tight red jacket boddices, and their little boots, with hats, bearing tricolor-cockades, stuck jauntily on the sides of their heads, are serving out wine to red-epauletted and red-breeched soldiers under the green branches, from their little painted barrels; and booths there are in every direction, with canvass coverings, gleaming out from the low forest, where there are wine and cider venders, and where sausages and other savoury dainties are being fired by little hand-stoves upon the ground. ”

“ La Figlia del Reggimento would wear a short scarlet cloth skirt; green velvet jacket like a riding-habit, faced with scarlet; a white cloth waistcoat beneath; a felt hat, with a rosette, and plume of scarlet and green; black patent leather boots with brass heels; a small barrel slung by a ribbon across one shoulder, and under the other arm. An oak barrel with silver hoops is what is usually used. A Vivandière is really a woman who is authorised to march with a regiment ”

“ Shall we say that I hold brevet rank, and am seconded for service in the noble regiment of the soldiers of fortune?"
"And the enemies you fight with," said Miranda, with a contemptuous droop of the lips, "are women like myself."
"Pardon me," retorted Wilbraham, with unabashed good humour. "Women like yourself, Mrs. Warriner, are the vivandières whom we regretfully impress to supply our needs upon the march. Our enemies are the rozzers--again I beg your pardon--the gentlemen in blue who lurk at the street corners, by whom from time to time we are worsted and interned." ”

“ How they reach out like sentient hands! and when they have found, how strong and firm their clasp! Then, who does not know and love the curious aroma of her small green flowers, bringing back to memory the smell of a Southern vineyard? Very soon, now, autumn suns will swell the clustered fruit, and purple bloom will begin to show between the leaves. A Vine is one of the only plants whose every leaf, well nigh, may be painted with care in a picture, and yet not seem too much made out. Yet rarely indeed can human hand give the fine thinness and yielding texture of a Vine leaf! ”

“ Now and then you find a patch of vines unsupported, drooping, and straggling, and sprawling, and intertwisting their branches like beds of snakes; and again, you come into the district of a new species of bush, a thicker, stouter affair, a grenadier vine, growing to at least six feet, and supported [Pg 28] by a corresponding stake. But the low, two-feet dwarfs are invariably the great wine givers. If ever you want to see a homily, not read, but grown by nature, against trusting to appearances, go to Medoc and study the vines. ”

“ Vines should be trained to the height of a man and the interval between the props should be sufficient to give room for a yoke of oxen to plough. The least expensive kind of a vineyard is that which brings wine to the jug without the aid of any sort of prop. There are two of this kind, one in which the earth serves as a bed for the grapes, as in many places in Asia, and where usually the foxes share the crop with man; [64] or, if mice appear, it is they who make the vintage, unless you put a mouse trap in every vine, as they do on the island of Pandataria. ”

“ The open door framed an oblong of glaring white road, and tendrils of vine with the sun shining through their leaves, and the light struck up on the boarded ceiling, and dealt mercifully with the details of a long table with black bottles on it that was disposed beyond the region of the straw.
‘It is here that the vintagers eat and sleep,’ said the vigneron, taking a loving sip from the tumbler for fear it should overflow. ”

“ The handsome red and white buildings{203} which held the cuvier, the long line of stables and farm-buildings, the immense storehouses full of wine and wine barrels, were at their busiest, and on the slopes below the château the vintagers were working at top speed to finish by the end of the week. As we walked through the long vineyards by the river, the grapeless rows of vines looked forlorn and elderly, like mothers who have married off their daughters and have no occupation left. ”

“ A week of dreamy autumn weather came on, during which Beverley managed to be with Alice a great deal, mostly sitting on the Roussillon gallery, where the fading vine leaves made fairy whispering, and where the tempered breeze blew deliciously cool from over the distant multi-colored woods. The men of Vincennes were gathering their Indian corn early to dry it on the cob for grating into winter meal. Many women made wine from the native grapes and from the sweeter and richer fruit of imported vines. ”

“ In all the notices which history has left us, of its introduction into France, and its culture in that country, as well as in those which carry us back to the ages of fable, in Italy and Greece; there is, as far as I have been able to find, no mention of the propagation of the vine by seed. The materials, indeed, from which our information is derived, are scanty and obscure, but it is remarkable, that at this day, the unlettered vigneron of France, is scarcely aware that it is possible by this method to propagate the plant ”

“ Vinegar jumped for joy!
"Now, Vinegar!" said his wife when they had gathered up all the gold pieces, "I will tell you what we must do. You must go to the next market-town and buy a cow; for, see you, money makes the mare to go, truly; but it also goes itself. Now a cow won't run away, but will give us milk and butter, which we can sell. So we shall live in comfort for the rest of our days." ”

“ The vineyards of the Coteau de Saumur, yielding the finest wines, are reached by the road skirting the river, the opposite low banks of which are fringed with willows and endless rows of poplars, which at the time of our visit were already golden with the fading tints of autumn. Numerous fantastic windmills crown the heights, the summit of which is covered with vines, varied by dense patches of woodland. ”

“ When a new vineyard is made, they plant the vines in gutters about four feet apart. As the vines advance, they lay them down. They put out new shoots, and fill all the intermediate space, till all trace of order is lost. They have ultimately about one foot square to each vine. They begin to yield good profit at five or six years old, and last one hundred, or one hundred and fifty years. A vigneron at Voulenay carried me into his vineyard, which was of about ten arpents. ”

“ I visited, among others, the Le Franc vineyard, which dates from 1851, and is the pioneer in making wine-growing a regular industry. Here are about a hundred and seventy-five thousand vines, set out a thousand, perhaps, to the acre. The large, cheerful farm buildings are upon a gentle rise of ground above the area of vines, which is nearly level. An Alsacian foreman showed us through the wine-cellars. A servant-maid bustling about the yard was a thorough French peasant, only lacking the wooden shoes. ”

“ Vinegar, who was a sharp, bustling, tidy woman, swept, brushed, and dusted, brushed and dusted and swept to keep the house clean as a new pin. Now one day she lost her temper with a cobweb and swept so hard after it that bang! bang! the broom-handle went right through the glass, and crash! crash! clitter! clatter! there was the pickle-jar house about her ears all in splinters and bits.
She picked her way over these as best she might, and rushed into the garden.
"Oh, Vinegar, Vinegar!" she cried. "We are clean ruined and done for! Quit these vegetables! they won't be wanted! ”

“ But most of all does the poet-prophet love to linger in the vineyard, marking accurately all the operations of the vine-dresser and all the stages of the growth of the vines. We see the tearing up of the hillside with the mattock, the accumulation of soil, the gathering out of the stones, the construction of the winepress and the watch-tower. ”

“ Now should one experimenting on a vineyard, in America, find vinegar come from his press, he would never have patience to let it ferment itself back into good liquor. Patience, I conceive, is the only obstacle to our becoming a great wine-growing and a great silk-growing country.
I have been led into these remarks by observing the vineyards here. The qualities of wines, of course, are affected by the positions of the vineyards, for all who can make wine do not make good wine, but the vines of Vévey, owing most probably to their exposure, are said to be the best of Switzerland. ”

“ VIII. There be those who assert that the cost of maintaining a vineyard eats up the profit. What kind of vineyard? I ask. For there are several: in one the vines grow on the ground without props, as in Spain; in another, which is the kind common in Italy, the vines climb and are trained either separately on props or one with another on a trellis, which last is what is called marrying the vine. There are four kinds of trellis in use--made out of poles, of reeds, of ropes and of vines themselves, which are in use respectively in Falerum, in Arpinum, in Brundisium and in Mediolanum. ”

“ And yet being separate from wine, the remainder should be nothing but phlegme, and residences, which cannot in any sort make drunke, nor being therewith mingled and adjoined by nature, as to stoppe again the acuity of the aqua vitæ. Yet we see by experience, in Germany and other cold Regions, where aqua vitæ is in good esteem, as well for the quantity which they take; it doth not for that make men drunke, as wine would do in such a quantity, as that, wherewith it should be quenched; and putting a little Salt in very strong wine, it will make men drunk sooner then to drinke it pure. ”

“ Now divided but a little space from the sea-worn old man is a vineyard laden well with fire-red clusters, and on the rough wall a little lad watches the vineyard, sitting there. Round him two she-foxes are skulking, and one goes along the vine-rows to devour the ripe grapes, and the other brings all her cunning to bear against the scrip, and vows she will never leave the lad, till she strand him bare and breakfastless. ”

“ In a wine country the vendange is certainly the most exciting and merriest season of the year—it is a succession of delightful fêtes in the open air, of repasts amongst the vines and under the shade of the peach-trees, riding-parties in the forest, whose echoes are awakened by the melancholy notes of the horn, water-parties on the lakes, dances in the field and round the wine-press, &c. ”

“ Occasional windmills dot the distant heights, while villages nestle among the trees up the mountain sides and in the quiet hollows. Soon a few vineyards occupying the lower slopes, and thronged by bands of vintagers, come in sight, and the country too gets more picturesque. We pass successively on our right hand Rilly, producing a capital red wine, then Chigny, and afterwards Ludes, all three more or less up the mountain, with vines in all directions, relieved by a dark background of forest trees. ”

“ These phenomena, observable in all the products of vegetation, are peculiarly remarkable in the vine. A vine looking to the south, produces fruits which seem of a different nature from those of one looking northwards. Even in a vineyard, having everywhere the same exposure, the greater or less inclination of the surface has its effect in producing modifications in the quality of the wine, while the summit, the middle, and the base of a hill, furnish product's entirely different. ”

“ Vipers are essential, and to get the full benefit of them ‘a dozen vipers should be put alive into white wine.’ The English doctor, anxious for the credit of British vipers, proves that Venice treacle may be made as well in England, ‘though their country is hotter, and so may the more rarify the viperime [Pg 231] juices’; yet the bites of our vipers at the proper time of year, which is the hottest, are as efficacious and deadly as them. ”

“ Many have adventured to make Vineyards in England, not only in these later days but in ancient times, as may well witness the sundry places in this land, entituled by the name of Vineyards, and I have read that many monasteries in this kingdom having Vineyards had as much wine made therefrom as sufficed their convents year by year, but long since they have been destroyed, and the knowledge how to order a Vineyard is also utterly perished with them. ”

“ When the husbandman had resolved on the formation of a new vineyard, he first, of course, encircled the spot with a hedge [1510] which was made both thick and strong for the purpose of repelling the flocks and herds, which, as well as goats, foxes, and soldiers, loved to prey upon the vine. [1511] His next care was to root up the hazel bush and the oleaster, the roots of the former being supposed to be inimical to the Dionysiac tree, while the oily bark of the latter rendered it peculiarly susceptible of taking fire, by which means vineyards would often appear to have been reduced to ashes. ”

“ The means are not difficult. A viper has hidden itself amongst the roots of their tree and feeds on its sap; let them kill the viper and transplant the tree, and they will soon see it covered with fruit as it used to be. ”

“ By the mycoderma aceti, the wine is, in its turn, converted into vinegar. Of the experiments made in connection with this subject one deserves especial mention. It is that in which Pasteur suppressed all albuminous matters, and carried on the fermentation with purely crystallizable substances. He studied the deterioration of vinegar, revealed its cause, and the means of preventing it. He defined the part played by the little eel-like organisms which sometimes swarm in vinegar-casks, and ended by introducing important ameliorations and improvements in the manufacture of vinegar. ”