In 1831, Louis-Philippe made his first visit to Champagne, signaling renewed royal enthusiasm for sparkling wine. Barbe-Nicole decided to take on a business partner, giving Édouard Werlé a 50% share of the champagne company for 100,000 livres. This effectively cut her daughter Clémentine and son-in-law Louis out of the business, though Barbe-Nicole continued bankrolling his aristocratic lifestyle and gambling debts. Édouard, now a full partner, helped establish the managerial revolution transforming business, contributing to the decline of opportunities for formally untrained bourgeois women.

Édouard traveled as a salesman, soon doubling company sales. In 1837, Barbe-Nicole’s mother, Jeanne-Clémentine, died at 77. In summer 1839, granddaughter Marie-Clémentine married Count Louis Samuel Victorien de Rochechouart de Mortemart, a member of one of France’s most prestigious noble families. Barbe-Nicole gave them the Château de Boursault. Marie bore three children: Pauline, Paul, and Anne.

In 1841, at 64, Barbe-Nicole retired after competitor Jean-Rémy Moët died and his heirs formed Moët et Chandon. Though formally retired, she remained actively involved, reviewing ledgers daily. She made Édouard company director and brought in new partners: Monsieur Dejonge as chief financial officer and Monsieur de Sachs as the new cellar master. The company thrived, with sales exceeding 400,000 bottles annually.

Barbe-Nicole indulged her passion for building and decorating, commissioning architect Jean-Jacques Arveuf-Fransquin to design a magnificent new Renaissance-style château at Boursault. Meanwhile, Louis embarrassed the family by publishing erotic poetry, Les contes rémois, in multiple editions beginning in 1836. Barbe-Nicole attempted to contain the scandal by purchasing as many copies as possible, inadvertently boosting his sales for decades.

After 1850, as Barbe-Nicole retreated into traditional domestic life, her personal story faded from the historical record, though her name remained synonymous with champagne. Her 10-year-old great-granddaughter Pauline died in 1850, followed three years later by 12-year-old Paul from cerebral congestion, possibly linked to the cholera pandemic. Six-year-old Anne, the family’s last surviving child, also contracted the illness but recovered. The family retreated into protective isolation at Boursault, creating a solemn childhood for Anne amid domestic tensions between the religious Count of Mortemart and the irreverent Louis de Chevigné.

In the 1850s, painter Léon Cogniet created a famous portrait of Barbe-Nicole showing a stern, intelligent woman dressed in bourgeois black rather than aristocratic finery. Her commitment to her industrial identity reflected the 1848 summer uprising, which led to an influx of women working in factories despite widespread misogyny proclaiming their place was in the home. The 1858 harvest produced a grand vintage known as Consular Seal champagne. The arrival of railroads transformed commerce, making wine labels essential for international marketing. Barbe-Nicole’s labels simply read “Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Reims,” establishing her name as the ultimate brand.

Édouard Werlé became the richest man in Reims, worth between $8 and $10 billion in modern terms, while Barbe-Nicole was worth considerably more. She donated generously: 80,000 francs for a children’s home, funding to save Reims’s Roman arch, and a spring to supply Épernay’s water. However, Emperor Napoléon III refused to drink their sweet champagne, preferring English dry styles.

In 1858, widow Jeanne Alexandrine Louise Pommery seized this opportunity. Inspired by Barbe-Nicole’s example, Louise took over her late husband’s wine business and in 1860 invented brut champagne—the crisp, dry style now considered ideal. Within a decade, she captured immense market share through marketing and innovation. The house of Veuve Clicquot eventually followed, introducing its now-famous yellow label brut.

In the 1860s, Léon Cogniet painted a second portrait of Barbe-Nicole as a modest domestic lady with great-granddaughter Anne at her feet and Boursault visible in the distance. Though she tried to fit the grandmother role, her heart remained in business. By 1863, her daughter Clémentine had died, leaving her granddaughter Marie-Clémentine and great-granddaughter Anne as her direct descendants. Édouard campaigned for the legislature as a friend of Emperor Napoléon III.

Boursault became a tourist destination on the railway route, attracting writers, artists, princes, and politicians. Barbe-Nicole entertained lavishly, joking that only champagne may be served. Visitors remembered her penetrating intelligence and restless energy, even in old age. In a letter to Anne, she urged audacity, advising that one must invent what comes next and lead rather than follow.

In July 1866, at 89, Barbe-Nicole died, remembered as the uncrowned queen of Reims. In 1867, Anne married Emmanuel de Crussol, Duke of Uzès. Louis de Chevigné inherited Barbe-Nicole’s company assets, though Édouard retained management control.

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, Prussian forces occupied Reims and imprisoned Édouard. After sabotage near Boursault, Louis faced execution, but his courage impressed the commander, who released him. The Count of Mortemart died in 1873, followed by Louis in 1876 and Marie-Clémentine in 1877. Anne, who became sole heir after their deaths, retired to southern estates, and the family’s stake in the company eventually passed to Édouard and his descendants, who guided it for over 130 years without female leadership.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “the widow” as champagne, citing “Veuve Clicquot,” yet Barbe-Nicole herself is absent from the entry—a company name replaces the woman’s story. Despite her celebrity, her biographical record is thin. Few of her personal letters and no diaries apparently survived, leaving historians to piece together her life from business records and scattered accounts.

Barbe-Nicole was not alone among 19th-century businesswomen. In Paris and across Europe, women headed major commercial enterprises. Angela Burdett-Coutts ran England’s most exclusive bank; Louise Pommery built her own champagne empire. Harvard’s Baker Library documents hundreds of American women in commerce during this era—plantation owners, textile mill operators, catalog merchants like Carrie Lippincott, and medicinal purveyor Lydia Pinkham. Most remained invisible, their stories unrecorded.

Barbe-Nicole’s distinction lies in being the first celebrity businesswoman—possibly the first woman to run an international commercial empire. She brought family business values to industrial manufacturing, becoming one of the robber barons who established champagne as a controlled monopoly. By 1880, the great houses had created an exclusive cartel limiting grape sources and controlling the champagne name. Ironically, the system Barbe-Nicole helped create would, by the end of the 19th century, prevent future entrepreneurs like herself from building new fortunes in champagne, while transforming her into a legend whose company name outlasted her own story.