Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/454

438 for boots, notwithstanding the payment of the octroi. Accordingly, the old wagons were sent out once in a while, by people who had more cupidity than patriotism. And a little coterie of aristocrats who sneered at the mayor as a demagogue, and at the octroi as a "relic of the middle ages," used to wear Clermont-made boots, and to ape Clermont fashions. But all good citizens discouraged this, and the maintenance of the "Issoire idea" became one of their articles of faith, next to those in the catechism.

But Clermont-made boots often came in on the sly—no one knew how—to the dismay of the local dealers. The Common Council saw that this would not do, and that the single old soldier who guarded each of the city gates could not meet all the requirements of the octroi. So at each gate were placed a dozen gendarmes, in red woolen uniforms, with black caps fastened on by a leather band which went around the lower lip. And the gendarmes searched every cart and every ash-barrel that went in or out. They watched every rat-hole in the wall to see if haply, by day or by night, boots should come into Issoire without the chalk-mark of the octroi. Occasionally some poor wretch was taken in the act of throwing boots over the wall, and made to pay the penalty of his crime. But sometimes even the gendarmes themselves, the guardians of the prosperity of the community, were seen walking about in Clermont-made boots, which they had obtained by a process known as "addition, division, and silence." The mayor noticed this one day, but the gendarmes had just presented him with a gold-headed cane. They were very much devoted to the Issoire idea—it was just before election—and on the whole he thought it best to say nothing about it.

The problem now before the mayor and the Common Council was this: How shall we put life into the boot-trade? The stock was large, its quality was excellent, and yet for days at a time the boot-shops would not see a customer. Something must be done. At last, an ordinance was passed that every citizen of Issoire must have at least one new pair of Issoire-made boots, which must be worn on Sunday afternoons when the band played in the park—at which time the gendarmes would go about on a tour of inspection. When Sunday came, half the workingmen stayed at home all day, because they had not the money to meet the requirements of the law.

But a few of the bolder ones went to the mayor and said openly: "If you want us to wear Issoire-made boots, you must furnish them for us. You ought to do it anyhow. This city owes us a living, and we came over here from Clermont to get it. We were told that the workingman in Issoire would have the octroi on his side, and would not have to work like a slave to keep soul and body together, as we had to do at Clermont. But it is the same