"You have seen our _salle à manger_," said one of my courteous entertainers--he of the broad-brimmed straw hat; "and now you shall see our _chambre à coucher_." Accordingly, he led me to a barn close to his wine-cellars. The place was littered deep with clean, fresh straw. Here and there rolled-up blankets were laid against the wall; while all round, from nails stuck in between the bare bricks, hung by straps and strings the little bundles, knapsacks, and other baggage of the labourers. On one side, two or three swarthy young women were playfully pushing each other aside, so as to get at a morsel of cracked mirror stuck against the wall--their long hair hanging down in black elf-locks, in the preliminary stage of its arrangement. "That is the ladies' side," said my _cicerone_, pointing to the girls; "and that"--extending his other hand--"is the gentlemen's side." "And so they all sleep here together?" "Every night. I find shelter and straw; any other accommodation they must procure for themselves." "Rather unruly, I should suppose?" "Not a bit. They are too tired to do anything but sleep. They go off, sir, like dormice." "_Oh, sil plait à Mossieu!_" put in one of the damsels. "The chief of the band does the police." (_Fait la gen-d'armerie._) "Certainly--certainly," said the proprietor; "the gentlemen lie here, with their heads to the wall; the ladies there; and the _chef de la bande_ stretches himself all along between them." "A sort of living frontier?" "Truly; and he allows no nonsense." "_Il est meme éxcessivement severe_," interpolated the same young lady. "He need be," replied her employer. "He allows no loud speaking--no joking; and as there are no candles, no light, why, they can do nothing better than go quietly to sleep, if it were only in self-defence."