Thanks to the bitterness which the refuse infuses into the wine, and which, they say, lessens with age, a vintage will keep a century.

This reason, given by the vine-grower in excuse for his obstinacy, is of sufficient importance to oenology to be made public here; Guillaume le Breton has also proclaimed it in some lines of his "Phillippide." The decline of Issoudun is explained by this spirit of sluggishness, sunken to actual torpor, which a single fact will illustrate.

When the authorities were talking of a highroad between Paris and Toulouse, it was natural to think of taking it from Vierzon to Chateauroux by way of Issoudun.

The distance was shorter than to make it, as the road now is, through Vatan, but the leading people of the neighborhood and the city council of Issoudun (whose discussion of the matter is said to be recorded), demanded that it should go by Vatan, on the ground that if the highroad went through their town, provisions would rise in price and they might be forced to pay thirty sous for a chicken.

The only analogy to be found for this proceeding is in the wilder parts of Sardinia, a land once so rich and populous, now so deserted.