The Christmas kalends of Provence and some other . ersearthly representatives — might come fromAvignon with a few choice kindred spiritsand refreshingly kick up their heels. Aseven in Avignon, in those daj^s, the Popesand cardinals did not keep their heels an^^ toofast to the ground, it is an inferential certaint\^that the kicking up at Chateauneuf musthave been rather prodigiously high; but thepeople of the Middle Ages were too stout ofstomach to be easily scandalized, and thePopes responsibilities in the premises wereall the lighter because the doctrine of hispersonal infallibility had not t
The Christmas kalends of Provence and some other . ersearthly representatives — might come fromAvignon with a few choice kindred spiritsand refreshingly kick up their heels. Aseven in Avignon, in those daj^s, the Popesand cardinals did not keep their heels an^^ toofast to the ground, it is an inferential certaint\^that the kicking up at Chateauneuf musthave been rather prodigiously high; but thepeople of the Middle Ages were too stout ofstomach to be easily scandalized, and thePopes responsibilities in the premises wereall the lighter because the doctrine of hispersonal infallibility had not then been for-mulated officially. And so things went alongcomfortably in a cheerfully reprehensible was in those easy-going days that thevineyards were planted, on the slopes belowthe castle, which were destined to make thename of Chateauneuf - du - Pape famous thetoping world over long after the New Castleshould be an old ruin and the Avignon Popesa legend of the past. Only within the presentgeneration did those precious vines perish,198. THE ROUMAXILLE MOXlMEX B TcdstDav on tbe Rhone when the phylloxera began among them itsdeadly work in France; and even yet may befound, tucked away here and there in thefavoured cellars of Provence and Languedoc, afew dust-covered bottles of their rich vintage:which has for its distinguishing taste a sub-limated spiciness due to the alternate dalli-ance of the bees with the grape-blossoms andwith the blossoms of the wild thyme. It is awine of poets, this bee - kissed Chateauneuf,and its noblest association is not with thePopes who gave their name to it but with theseven poets—Mistral, Roumanille, Aubanel,Matthieu, Brunet, Giera, Tavan — whosechosen drink it was in those glorious dayswhen they all were young together and werefounding the Felibrige: the society that wasto restore the golden age of the Troubadoursand, incidentally, to decentralize of the sweetest and gentlest of the seven,Anselme Matthieu, was born here at
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1902
