Everything went on well until the fruit season, but as this became ripe, I observed that it disappeared without knowing in what manner it was disposed of.

The gardener assured me it was the dormice which eat it all.

I destroyed a great number of these animals, notwithstanding which the fruit still diminished.

I watched the gardener's motions so narrowly, that I found he was the great dormouse.

He lodged at Montmorency, whence he came in the night with his wife and children to take away the fruit he had concealed in the daytime, and which he sold in the market at Paris as publicly as if he had brought it from a garden of his own.