THE FATE OF ICIODORUM. 187 
yield. Employment was given to more workmen, 
who came over from Clermont; the hum of machin- 
ery took the place of the creaking of farm-wagons, 
the rich began to grow richer, the poor went bare- 
footed, and the people of moderate means felt able 
to run into debt because they lived in a progressive 
town. The wives of the members of the Common 
Council bought diamonds, and the members pre- 
sented the mayor with a gold-headed cane. Soon 
other boot-factories were started, and still others, 
though, strangely enough, the more boots were 
produced, the more barefooted children were seen 
in the streets. 
By and by the tanners decided that they too 
must ask for help from the octroi. It was as bad, 
they said, for the factories to send to Clermont for 
leather as for the merchants to send for boots. In 
either case the money went out of the town, and 
was gone forever. So the octroi was levied on 
leather as well as on boots. Then the guild of 
butchers put in similar claims. To buy raw hides 
of the herdsmen out on the Puy-de-Déme was a 
part of the same suicidal policy. The octroi was 
therefore assessed on all imported skins. The 
butchers established their own stock-yards within 
the city walls, and were saved from the pauper 
competition of the mountain cattle. Then the 
mountain herdsmen drove the cattle on to Clermont, 
and Issoire was left in peace. 
But some of the boot-makers complained that 
this policy was injuring their business by greatly 
raising the price of hides, whether produced in 
Issoire or at Clermont. So the mayor sent a letter 
