tavern, the latter discloses Caesar's plan and reveals his own knowledge of the shield's history, whereupon Asterix, Obelix, and Dogmatix set off in search of the shield themselves. To that end, they interrogate the archer, Lucius Circumbendibus, who now owns a wheel manufacturing business; the second legionary, Marcus Carniverus, who worked at a health resort before opening a restaurant; and the drunken Centurion Crapulus. Vapus and his men in turn search in vain for both the shield and Asterix and Obelix, as a running gag dirtying themselves with charcoal dust while searching the coal heaps belonging to Winesanspirix and their neighbors. The search eventually leads the two Gauls back to Winesanspirix, to whom Crapulus had given the shield in the prologue. Upon the protagonists' reunion with him, Winesanspirix confesses having given the shield to a dispirited Gaulish warrior, who is thereupon identified with the arrival of a newly cured and much slimmer Vitalstatistix. Vitalstatistix reveals he had the shield the whole time and it is the very one he is always carried upon. Upon Caesar's arrival at Gergovia, Asterix and the locals organize a triumph in which Vitalstatistix is carried on Vercingetorix's shield. Caesar then deports Vapus and his troops to Numidia, and Caesar promotes Centurion Crapulus to command of the garrison of Gergovia, and Legionary Pusillanimus to Centurion, on the grounds that they are the only "clean" legionaries present (despite both being visibly drunk). The Gauls return to their village (Vitalstatistix regaining his customary weight at the inns visited earlier in the story) to celebrate; but Vitalstatistix is forced into abstinence from the latter by his wife Impedimenta. Notes A running gag in this book features Vitalstatistix and Winesanspirix falsely claiming "I don't know where Alesia is! No one knows where Alesia is!", as if ashamed at Vercingetorix's defeat. Historically, Alesia's likely location was rediscovered only after this book was published. The ubiquitous wine-and-coal shops in Gergovie allude to the Bougnats, Arvernian immigrants to Paris operating shops selling wine, wood, and coal. This book establishes the origin of Vitalstatistix's shield, on which he is customarily carried, as that of Vercingetorix. This is one among a minority of Asterix books wherein the bard Cacofonix is not tied up and gagged at – and actively participating in – the feast. This is the first album wherein Vitalstatistix's wife Impedimenta is named. The wheel factory is a reference to Michelin, based in