THE OCTROI AT ISSOIRE. 441 



" On the tea, coffee, pepper, brass, tin, diamonds " (here the Com- 

 mon Council heaved a sigh), "and other articles which Issoire can 

 not produce, we will raise the income which the city needs. And 

 the great charm of this tax is, that the people will not feel it at 

 all, for it will all be paid by outsiders, by these merchants from 

 Clermont and Lyons who send their goods to our town. They 

 own the goods, they bring them here, they pay the octroi, for we 

 need not buy of them until the goods are safe inside the city gates. 

 By a single stroke in financial policy, we shall keep our factories 

 running, our workingmen contented, and make the merchants in 

 our rival cities pay all our expenses. As for the other articles 

 which we buy in Clermont, we can make them here, if only we 

 can have the octroi to help us. Extend the octroi to everything, 

 and Issoire will become a microcosm, a little world within a world. 

 We shall do everything for ourselves. There is no excuse for buy- 

 ing anything in Clermont so long as there is a foot of land in Is- 

 soire on which a factory can be built. We shall have woolen-fac- 

 tories, and powder-factories, and iron-foundries, and distilleries, 

 and cotton-factories, and wine-vaults, and chair-factories, and 

 stone-quarries, and gold-mines, and flouring-mills, and paper-mills, 

 and saw-mills, and wind-mills, and gin-mills, and — " 



But here the mayor began to grow a little incoherent. He had 

 been out late the night before, explaining the advantages of the 

 octroi at the club in the Caf^ de la Comddie, and his private secre- 

 tary pulled his coat in warning that he should bring his speech to 

 a close. 



The mayor's recommendation was accepted in part. A few of 

 the Council had been in favor of issuing some kind of cheap 

 money — some sort of brass or paper token, which they could make 

 by machinery whenever the treasury became empty. But the 

 majority had seen this kind of money before, and they firmly re- 

 sisted the suggestion. By way of compromise, they agreed to ex- 

 tend the octroi to twenty-seven articles — mostly articles of food 

 or clothing which had been brought in from Clermont or from 

 the mountains of the Puy-de-D6me. The workman Jacques was 

 dismissed with a pair of boots, for which the mayor himself paid. 

 Jacques left the council-chamber satisfied, and the crisis was 

 averted. 



And now money flowed in again to Issoire. The farmers who 

 brought in onions paid a little, the boy who pulled water-cresses 

 a little, the milkmen a little, the vine-growers a good deal more, 

 but most of all came in from the merchants of Clermont, who in 

 spite of all discouragement still persisted in carrying cheap goods 

 to Issoire. 



Prices went up ; a sure index of prosperity. It was easy to pay 

 one's debts — easier still to make new ones ; but the great thing was 



