THE FATE OF ICIODORUM. 183 



The streets of Issoire are narrow, and the houses 

 are crowded closely together, as if struggling to get 

 as near as possible to the church for protection. 

 The city lies in the fertile valley of the little river 

 Couze, surrounded by grain-lands and meadows. 

 Toward the north a long white highway, shaded by 

 poplars, leads out across the meadows and hills 

 toward the larger city of Clermont-Ferrand, the 

 capital of the department of the Puy-de-D6me. 

 Issoire is enclosed by an old wall, and where the 

 highway enters the town, it passes through a pon- 

 derous gate, which is always closed at night, as if 

 to ward off an attack from some other Duke of 

 Alengon. 



I strolled out one midsummer afternoon on the 

 road leading to Clermont. When I came to the 

 city gate, I first made the acquaintance of the octroi. 

 A little house stands by the side of the gate ; and 

 here two or three gendarmes old soldiers dressed 

 in red coats with blue facings watch over the 

 industries of the town. Wheelbarrow loads of tur- 

 nips, baskets of onions or artichokes, wagon-loads 

 of hay, all these come through the city gate, and 

 each pays its toll into the city treasury. One cent 

 is collected for every five cabbage-heads, or ten 

 onions, or twelve turnips, or eight apples, or three 

 bunches of artichokes, and other things pay in pro- 

 portion. This payment of money is called the 

 octroi. The process of its collection interested me 

 so that I gave up all idea of a tramp across the 

 fields, sat down on an empty nail-keg, and devoted 

 myself to the study of the octroi. 



The octroi is an instrument to advance the pros- 



