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 learned occupations, 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.