She is unlikely to have explained to Napoléon the symbolism of the comet insignia branded on the end of each of her corks in that year’s vintage, a comet said by those who worked the vineyards and the fields to prophesy the end of his empire. In the weeks and months that were to come, Napoléon must have remembered those days with the Ponsardins and the champagne of the young Widow Clicquot as the last taste of victory itself, for within three weeks, his meteoric career would be at an end, and Napoléon would find himself stripped of power and sent into a forced exile.
