RHEIMS.


We arrived at this city before the bustle which the coronation of
_Louis_ the 16th occasioned was quite over; I am sorry I did not see it,
because I now find it worth seeing; but I staid at _Calais_ on purpose
to avoid it; for having paid two guineas to see the coronation of George
the Third, I determined never more to be put to any extraordinary
expence on the score of _crowned heads_. However, my curiosity has been
well gratified in hearing it talked over, and over again, and in reading
_Marmontell_'s letter to a friend upon that subject; but I will not
repeat what he, or others have said upon the occasion, because you have,
no doubt, seen in the English papers a tolerably good one; only that the
Queen was so overcome with the repeated shouts and plaudits of her new
subjects, that she was obliged to retire. The fine Gothic cathedral, in
which the ceremony was performed, is indeed a church worthy of such a
solemnity; the portal is the finest I ever beheld; the windows are
painted in the very best manner; nor is there any thing within the
church but what should be there. I need not tell you that this is the
province which produces the most delicious wine in the world; but I will
assure you, that I should have drank it with more pleasure, had you been
here to have partook of it. In the cellars of one wine-merchant, I was
conducted through long passages more like streets than caves; on each
side of which, bottled _Champaigne_ was piled up some feet higher than
my head, and at least twelve deep. I bought two bottles to taste, of
that which the merchant assured me was each of the best sort he had, and
for which I paid him six livres: if he sells all he had in bottles at
that time, and at the same price, I shall not exceed the bounds of truth
if I say, I saw ten thousand pounds worth of bottled _Champaigne_ in
his cellars. Neither of the bottles, however, contained wine so good as