408 PRÆTERITA-II

quality the English consumer, in any fit of fashion, might desire.

On the whole, the sales varied little from year to year, virtually representing the quantity of wine annually produced by the estate, and a certain quantity of the drier Amontillado, from the hill districts of Montilla, and some lighter and cheaper sherries,-though always pure,-which were purchased by the house for the supply of the wider London market. No effort was ever made to extend that market by lowering quality; no competition was possible with the wines grown by Mr. Domecq, and little with those purchased on his judgment. My father used to fret, as I have told,¹ if the orders he expected were not forthcoming, or if there seemed the slightest risk of any other house contesting his position at the head of the list. But he never attempted, or even permitted, the enlargement of the firm’s operations beyond the scale at which he was sure that his partner’s personal and equal care, or, at least, that of his head cellarman, could be given to the execution of every order.

Mr. Domecq’s own habits of life were luxurious, but never extravagant. He had a house in Paris, chiefly for the sake of his daughters’ education and establishment; the profits of the estate, though not to be named in any comparison with those of modern mercantile dynasty, were enough to secure annual income to each of his five girls large enough to secure their marriages in the best French circles; they became, each in her turn, baronne or comtesse; their father choosing their baron or count for them with as much discretion as he had shown in the choice of his own partner; and all the marriages turned out well. Elise, Comtesse des Roys, and Caroline, Princess Bethune, once or twice came with their husbands to stay with us; partly to see London, partly to discuss with my father his management of the English market: and the way in which these lords, virtually, of lands both in France and Spain, though

¹ [See above, i. § 44 (p. 39).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]