The
condition to which the ascendency of the bourgeoisie has reduced that
local capital is one which will spread over all France, and even to
Paris, if the bourgeois continues to rule the exterior and interior
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.
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