As I laid but little stress upon the figure I should make in my new habiliments, it did not cause me much mortification to find that the clothes were considerably too small, the jacket scarcely coming beneath my arms, and the sleeves being so short that my hands and wrists projected beyond the cuffs like two enormous claws; the leathers were also limited in their length, and when drawn up to a proper height, permitted my knees to be seen beneath, like the short costume of a Spanish Tauridor, but scarcely as graceful; not wishing to encumber myself in the heavy and noisy masses of wood, iron, and leather, they call "les bottes forts," I slipped my feet into my slippers, and stole gently from the room. How I must have looked at the moment I leave my reader to guess, as with anxious and stealthy pace I crept along the low gallery that led to the narrow staircase, down which I proceeded, step by step; but just as I reached the bottom, perceived a little distance from me, with her back turned towards me, a short, squat peasant on her knees, belabouring with a brush the well waxed floor; to pass therefore, unobserved was impossible, so that I did not hesitate to address her, and endeavour to interest her in my behalf, and enlist her as my guide. "Bon jour, ma chere," said I in a soft insinuating tone; she did not hear me, so I repeated, "Bon jour, ma chere, bon jour." Upon this she turned round, and looking fixedly at me for a second, called out in a thick pathos, "Ah, le bon Dieu! qu'il est drole comme ca, Francois, savez vous, mais ce n'est pas Francois;" saying which, she sprang from her kneeling position to her feet, and with a speed that her shape and sabots seemed little to promise, rushed down the stairs as if she had seen the devil himself.