Fountains of wine. The practice of distributing wine to the people on joyful occasions is very ancient. Alain Chartier recounts in his history of Charles VII that among the joys of the people of Paris when the king made his entry there, “in front of the Filles-dieu was a fountain , from one of whose taps poured milk, from another ruby red wine, from another white wine, and from another water.” [1]

Monstrelet, in speaking of the royal entry of Charles V, also into Paris, remarks “that there was below the scaffold a fountain spouting hypocras [spiced wine], with three mermaids inside, and the said hypocras was freely available to anyone.” [2]

When King Charles VI, Queen Isabelle of Bavaria, and King Henry of England with his wife Catherine of France, came to France, “all day,” also according to Monstrelet, “and throughout the night, wine ran freely at certain intersections from bronze taps, and other ingeniously made conduits, so that anyone could drink from them at will.” Finally, the same historian reports that during the royal entry of King Louis XI, in the rue St. Denis, “was a fountain that gave forth wine and hypocras to those who wished to drink it.” See details on other celebrations in the article Entry.

1. Alain Chartier (c. 1385-1430), “Histoire de Charles VII, Roy de France, » in Les œuvres de Maistre Alain Chartier, clerc, notaire, et secretaire des roys Charles VI et VII (Paris, 1617), 108-109. The Filles-Dieu was a Catholic religious order founded in 1270. Their convent in Paris was on the rue St. Denis.

2. The reference is to the fifteenth-century chronicler Enguerrand de Monstrelet (c. 1400-1453). The collection of his chronicles published in 1857-62 is 6 volumes.