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-Déme. 
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 octroz. 
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- 
