policy of our country.
Now, one word of topography. Issoudun stretches north and south, along

a hillside which rounds towards the highroad to Chateauroux. At the
foot of the hill, a canal, now called the "Riviere forcee" whose

waters are taken from the Theols, was constructed in former times,
when the town was flourishing, for the use of manufactories or to

flood the moats of the rampart. The "Riviere forcee" forms an
artificial arm of a natural river, the Tournemine, which unites with

several other streams beyond the suburb of Rome. These little threads
of running water and the two rivers irrigate a tract of wide-spreading

meadow-land, enclosed on all sides by little yellowish or white
terraces dotted with black speckles; for such is the aspect of the

vineyards of Issoudun during seven months of the year. The
vine-growers cut the plants down yearly, leaving only an ugly stump,

without support, sheltered by a barrel. The traveller arriving from
Vierzon, Vatan, or Chateauroux, his eyes weary with monotonous plains,

is agreeably surprised by the meadows of Issoudun,--the oasis of this
part of Berry, which supplies the inhabitants with vegetables

throughout a region of thirty miles in circumference. Below the suburb
of Rome, lies a vast tract entirely covered with kitchen-gardens, and

divided into two sections, which bear the name of upper and lower
Baltan. A long avenue of poplars leads from the town across the

meadows to an ancient convent named Frapesle, whose English gardens,
quite unique in that arrondissement, have received the ambitious name

of Tivoli. Loving couples whisper their vows in its alleys of a
Sunday.

Traces of the ancient grandeur of Issoudun of course reveal themselves
to the eyes of a careful observer; and the most suggestive are the

divisions of the town. The chateau, formerly almost a town itself with
its walls and moats, is a distinct quarter which can only be entered,

even at the present day, through its ancient gateways,--by means of
three bridges thrown across the arms of the two rivers,--and has all

the appearance of an ancient city. The ramparts show, in places, the
formidable strata of their foundations, on which houses have now

sprung up. Above the chateau, is the famous tower of Issoudun, once
the citadel. The conqueror of the city, which lay around these two

fortified points, had still to gain possession of the tower and the
castle; and possession of the castle did not insure that of the tower,

or citadel.
The suburb of Saint-Paterne, which lies in the shape of a palette

beyond the tower, encroaching on the meadow-lands, is so considerable
that in the very earliest ages it must have been part of the city

itself. This opinion derived, in 1822, a sort of certainty from the
then existence of the charming church of Saint-Paterne, recently

pulled down by the heir of the individual who bought it of the nation.
This church, one of the finest specimens of the Romanesque that France

possessed, actually perished without a single drawing being made of
the portal, which was in perfect preservation. The only voice raised

to save this monument of a past art found no echo, either in the town
itself or in the department. Though the castle of Issoudun has the

appearance of an old town, with its narrow streets and its ancient
mansions, the city itself, properly so called, which was captured and

burned at different epochs, notably during the Fronde, when it was
laid in ashes, has a modern air. Streets that are spacious in

comparison with those of other towns, and well-built houses form a
striking contrast to the aspect of the citadel,--a contrast that has

won for Issoudun, in certain geographies, the epithet of "pretty."
In a town thus constituted, without the least activity, even business

activity, without a taste for art, or for learnedoccupations, and
where everybody stayed in the little round of his or her own home, it

was likely to happen, and did happen under the Restoration in 1816
when the war was over, that many of the young men of the place had no

career before them, and knew not where to turn for occupation until
they could marry or inherit the property of their fathers. Bored in

their own homes, these young fellows found little or no distraction
elsewhere in the city; and as, in the language of that region, "youth

must shed its cuticle" they sowed their wild oats at the expense of
the town itself. It was difficult to carry on such operations in open

day, lest the perpetrators should be recognized; for the cup of their
misdemeanors once filled, they were liable to be arraigned at their

next peccadillo before the police courts; and they therefore
judiciously selected the night time for the performance of their

mischievous pranks. Thus it was that among the traces of divers lost
civilizations, a vestige of the spirit of drollery that characterized

the manners of antiquity burst into a final flame.
The young men amused themselves very much as Charles IX. amused

himself with his courtiers, or Henry V. of England and his companions,
or as in former times young men were wont to amuse themselves in the

provinces. Having once banded together for purposes of mutual help, to
defend each other and inventamusing tricks, there presently developed

among them, through the clash of ideas, that spirit of malicious
mischief which belongs to the period of youth and may even be observed

among animals. The confederation, in itself, gave them the mimic
delights of the mystery of an organized conspiracy. They called

themselves the "Knights of Idleness." During the day these young
scamps were youthful saints; they all pretended to extreme quietness;

and, in fact, they habitually slept late after the nights on which
they had been playing their malicious pranks. The "Knights" began with

mere commonplace tricks, such as unhooking and changing signs, ringing
bells, flinging casks left before one house into the cellar of the

next with a crash, rousing the occupants of the house by a noise that
seemed to their frightened ears like the explosion of a mine. In

Issoudun, as in many country towns, the cellar is entered by an
opening near the door of the house, covered with a wooden scuttle,

secured by strong iron hinges and a padlock.
In 1816, these modern Bad Boys had not altogether given up such tricks

as these, perpetrated in the provinces by all young lads and gamins.
But in 1817 the Order of Idleness acquired a Grand Master, and

distinguished itself by mischief which, up to 1823, spread something
like terror in Issoudun, or at least kept the artisans and the

bourgeoisie perpetually uneasy.
This leader was a certain Maxence Gilet, commonly called Max, whose

antecedents, no less than his youth and his vigor, predestined him for
such a part. Maxence Gilet was supposed by all Issoudun to be the

natural son of the sub-delegate Lousteau, that brother of Madame
Hochon whose gallantries had left memories behind them, and who, as we

have seen, drew down upon himself the hatred of old Doctor Rouget
about the time of Agathe's birth. But the friendship which bound the

two men together before their quarrel was so close that, to use an
expression of that region and that period, "they willingly walked the

same road." Some people said that Maxence was as likely to be the son
of the doctor as of the sub-delegate; but in fact he belonged to

neither the one nor the other,--his father being a charming dragoon
officer in garrison at Bourges. Nevertheless, as a result of their

enmity, and very fortunately for the child, Rouget and Lousteau never
ceased to claim his paternity.

Max's mother, the wife of a poor sabot-maker in the Rome suburb, was
possessed, for the perdition of her soul, of a surprising beauty, a

Trasteverine beauty, the only property which she transmitted to her
son. Madame Gilet, pregnant with Maxence in 1788, had long desired

that blessing, which the town attributed to the gallantries of the two
friends,--probably in the hope of setting them against each other.

Gilet, an old drunkard with a triplethroat, treated his wife's
misconduct with a collusion that is not uncommon among the lower

classes. To make sure of protectors for her son, Madame Gilet was
careful not to enlighten his reputed fathers as to his parentage. In

Paris, she would have turned out a millionaire; at Issoudun she lived
sometimes at her ease, more often miserably, and, in the long run,

despised. Madame Hochon, Lousteau's sister, paid sixty francs a year
for the lad's schooling. This liberality, which Madame Hochon was

quite unable to practise on her own account because of her husband's
stinginess, was naturally attributed to her brother, then living at

Sancerre.
When Doctor Rouget, who certainly was not lucky in sons, observed

Max's beauty, he paid the board of the "young rogue," as he called
him, at the seminary, up to the year 1805. As Lousteau died in 1800,

and the doctor apparently obeyed a feeling of vanity in paying the
lad's board until 1805, the question of the paternity was left forever

undecided. Maxence Gilet, the butt of many jests, was soon forgotten,
--and for this reason: In 1806, a year after Doctor Rouget's death,

the lad, who seemed to have been created for a venturesome life, and
was moreovergifted with remarkable vigor and agility, got into a