THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



AUGUST, 1888. 



THE OCTROI AT ISSOIRE: A CITY MADE RICH BY 



TAXATION. 



By DAVID STAER JORDAN, 



PRESIDENT OF TUE UNIVEESITY OF INDIANA. 



IF you look on a good map of France, you will find, a little 

 south of the center, a small, squarish area, painted red, and 

 bearing the name of Puy-de-D6me. This Puy-de-D6me is a strange 

 region, made up of fertile valleys separated from each other by 

 ragged hills which were once volcanoes in Palseozoic times. These 

 volcanoes have long since retired from active life, and are black 

 and dismal now, their faces scored by lava-furrows, like gigantic 

 tear-stains dried on their rugged cheeks. In their craters are 

 ponds of black water full of perch and trout — as black as the 

 rocks above which they swim. The highest of these hills the 

 people call the Puy-de-D6me — the Cathedral-peak. There is an 

 observatory vOn the top of it, and all the country that you can see 

 from the mountain-summit makes up the " department " of Puy- 

 de-D6me. 



On the south side of the department, near what one might call 

 the " county line," you will find, if your map is a good one, the 

 little city of Issoire. Issoire is a very old town. The Romans 

 knew it. They found it when they invaded Gaul, 1900 years ago, 

 and they called it Iciodorum. They found it again in the year 

 287, when they came up to convert the Gauls to Christianity, a 

 thing which they had neglected to do upon their first visit. The 

 Romans brought with them a pious monk, St. Austremoine by 

 name, and the people of Iciodorum captured him, and he was duly 

 roasted in accordance with their heathenish customs. So, as the 

 blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, Issoire came in 



TOL. XXXIII. 28 



