The Express.
London, England, 1868-04-22 00:00:00

H A VNI Aticirr

TiTl9 RTNIFING, A CO.OPYRATIVE MOYRNIENT.—A ad o
OY ROMAACE. Marra Sothern, Bucksrome, Compton, Chippom
dele. Rogers. sad Clark : Mesdames Robertson, Burke Chippen-
dale. Pltrwollant, laws. dc.—And INTRIGUE, Mr. Kendal, dc.

PRTNCERVS

Tmq Ftermnio, POOR PIIIIWIDDY. Mr. D. Mnivay & SIDe
P. IIerehoII—JEANIE DEANS: OR, THE HEART OP MID-
IATTHIAN. Um D. litaelcAult. Meagre Neville. Shore, Maclean,
&c.: Hias Littec.&c,—end NO. ONE, ROUND THE CORNER.

QUZEN'S THEATRY, LONO•ANI.F...
Leases and Moonset. Mr. ALFRED WIGAN.
Tut,. Rename, at 7. MARV JONLA. At a quarter to g,
OLIVRIt TWIST. )lean. J, L. Toole, L. Stough. H. Irving.
Wyndham. J. Clayton, W. H. Ster.hena and John Ryder
Memlamee Hodamt. Everahl, and Nellie Nome. To conclude
vitb LA VIVANDISBE.

STRAND.
Tsp. gym's. SISTERLY SERVICE.—THE HELD OF THE
CLOTH OP GOLD.—And MARRIAGE AT ANY PRICE.

.111LITANNIA,

Two gram a, THE W OLP 01 iIIE PYBENEEi. Mr. W. H.
Pitt, Hewn Chaelton sad Illeerood : Mn. Lane. 'tleadarass
Bandanna, Edwin, Re. —J ACE LONG OF MIAS. Kr. F.
("nailing) —.tad RAISING THE WIND.

RION MATH. AT LONDON MUDD&
Tins DAT —llcening, 111. 46m......Airternoon. 2b. fen.
To-nor adir—Malts, rite..—.. Afternoon, eeni.
NOTICDS of SWIM MAligiegs, and DiATIDA are reee:ved
until 12 o'clock for Insertion seas evening. PrSdo, 31.

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LONDON,WEDNESDAY,APRIL 22.

CLIQUOT AND CLIQUOT.

WHAT'Ii in a name f Well, a great deal, it
•
should seem, when the name is exagucrr. A bottle
of champagne—we do not say by any other name,
tut by the same name will neither smell as sweet,
nor sparkle as brilliantly, nor cream as richly,
when the real name happens not to be the real
thing. Who has not heard of Widow CLIQUOT?
That famous lady is the Queen Dowager and the
Queen Regnant at once over an empire on
which the sun
day and of the night, of court, of camp, and of
grove, of royal banquet, and nuptial feast, of
Looourre' little dinners, and ASI'MIA'N little sup-
pers ; bright as the Bandusian fountain, will as
Ws Well of Truth, who has not acknowledged her

Wanda way f To decide the old dispute between
the Ancient? and the Moderns, it is enough to say
that the Ancients lived and died when as yet
Widow CLTQUOT was not, or would HORACX ever
have made his modest flask of Falennan immortal
Happily there is no Salic law in the realm of
AI, and the dynasty of Widow CLIQUOT is secure
from the conspiracies of pretenders and the rage of
revolutions.
The house of Cliquot, we need not remind our
readers, has enjoyed a world-wide fame for many
generations. A French law court has recently
decided that this more than European reputation
shall not be at the mercy of the font, and
that the name of Widow CLIQOUT shall not be
taken in vain with impunity. According to
the report we find in the lilialration it appears
that at Rheims, that ancient city of coronations
and that modern capital of Marne, where
Widow CLIQUOT holds her court, a certain
Monsieur BLONDIAC was pursuing the native in.
dustry of a manufacturer of sparkling light wines,
commonly known to the unenlightened universal
public as " Champagne." It struck M. BLONDEAII,
as a near neighbour of the Widow CLIQUOT, and an
eye-witness of the prodigious number of cases and
bottles despatched to all parts of the world from the
cellars and storehouses under her band and seal,
that the name of BLONDEAII on a bottle of
champagne was miserably flat and unprofitable,
and that if by careful seeking he could find or
invent another CLIQUOT, a woman CLIQUOT, a
widow CLIQUOT, ready and willing to become a
partner—not, perhaps, an active, not yet a
dormant—but let us say a still partner
in the firm of BLONDEAII et Cie., on
condition of endowing that firm with her name he
might be in a position to dispute on equal
terms the sovereignty of the Widow CLIQUOT.
The audacious simplicity of this ides suffices to
stamp M. BurcrorstT a great man. And he very
nearly succeeded in—may we be allowed to call it
--his coup cr,tigteette. He actually found another
Cuquor—another widow CLIQUOT--and persuaded
her to be godmother to the firm of BLosnesu
et Cie., and to re-christen it Verve Ciao:lvor.

So far nothing could be more easy or more
successful. But the real original Widow
CLIQI7OI could not see M. BLOND/AU% dis-
covery with M. BLONDEALF'S eyes. She laid
her case before the Tribunal of Commerce, pro-
testing against this invasion of her sole and exclu-
sive right by virtue of long possession to bear
both on her cases and bottles of champagne the
style and title of " Veuvr CLIQUOT." M.
Bum:Peru resisted the widow's claim with
indignant amazement. " How !" said his counsel,
" are we to lose our proper name because another
" widow in the city of Rheims is our namesake! The
" p -Men sion is preposterous !" The Tribunal of Com-
merce decided that, although the importation of the
name of Cuocor into the firm of BLONDEAU et Cie.
was clearly intended as an invasion of the original
Widow CLIQUOT'S trade mark, and an imposition
on the public purchaser, nevertheless, it could
not restrain M. BLONDEAU from the use of
his partner's name ; and must content it-
self with certain precautionary and res-
trictive injunctions as to the use of the style
and title of Widow CLIQUOT by M. BLONDEAU'R
firm, with a view to prevent the second Widow
from being confounded with the first. This re-
markable judgment had the merit of leaving both
parties dissatisfied. Both appealed to a court
of law, and the court of law appreciated M. BLorr-
DEAL'S ingenuity in discovering or inventing his
Widow CLIQUOT with a severity from which the
Tribunal of Commerce had recoiled. The Court
decided, that inasmuch as this second
Widow CLIQUOT took no active part in
the management and operations of the firm
of BLONDEAU et Cie., but simply gave it
her name for the sole and obvious purpose of
setting up an adverse title to which it had no
moral claim, her name must cease to appear in
connection with the firm of BLONDEAU et Cie.,
and condemned her jointly with BLOWDZAU to
pay the costs of the suit, and a sum of 30,000
francs damages to the Widow Cuoticrr.
Taking the facts of this case on the faith of the
French newspaper in which we find them, we
venture to believe that our readers will have very
little hesitation in congratulating the original
IWidow CLIQUOT on the reasonable judgment of
the court of law. M. BLONDEAU'S proceeding was
not even justified by the necessity which knows no
law. However justly celebrated might be the name
of Widow CLIQUOT, there was ample room and scope
enough for any number of honourable rivals near
her throne.

Seeing that there is more " Champagne "
annually consumed in the whole civilized
world than the actual district of France
which iu the old time bore that charming
name produces in half a hundred years (and in
saying this we leave entirely out of the calculation
the famous rhubarb and gooseberry growths of
Great Britain), we are justified in assuming what
indeed is perfectly well known to everyone at all
acquainted with the wine trade—that all but
a very limited proportion of the wine called
champagne (we speak of wine only) is not a
native growth of the Champagne country, but a
beverage manufactured in the district of Eper-
nay, and for the most part made out of the
coarser white wines of the Bordeaux, Burgundy,
and Rhonedistricta, withthepeculiar quality of what
is popularly called " champagne" superadded in
a concentrated essence by the manufacturers in and
around Rheims. Millions of bottles of this exhi-
larating manufacture are consumed throughout
Christendom, and beyond it, every year, and
we have heard of Indian Mahommedans being
converted to Christianity for the sake of the
celestial fluid. It is no more to the discredit of
the great champagne houses at Rheims to state
the fact that there are not enough grapes in the
Epernay district to supply the world with their
juice, than it would be to the discredit of the
great houses at Bordeaux and Dijon to mention
the equally obvious and undeniable fact that there
is more " Chateau Margaux " and " Chambertin "
sold every year than those estates are capable of
producing in half a century. Madame Cmonor
does well to protect her name from abuse, and we
rejoice in her recent victory. Still, considering
what passes for the fruit of the vines of Cham-
pagne, we may fairly end these remarks as we
began, with the question, " What's in a name r
Let us be content and thankful as Britons when
it is neither gooseberry nor rhubarb !