Still, it was absolutely necessary to eat something, and the landlady promised coffee and bread.

She showed me first into the kitchen; but as it was also the place where the domestics slept, with many quadrupeds, I declined to sit there.

Upon this she led me to the _salon_, where the window resisted all our efforts for some little time, and then opened upon such a choice assortment of abominations, that I fled without my baggage.

The next attempt she made was the one remaining room of the house, the family bedroom; but that was so much worse than all, that I took final refuge on the balcony, a sort of ante-room to the hen-house.

The cocks at the _auberge_ of Villaz are the loudest, the hens the most talkative, and the cats the most shaggy and presuming, I have ever met with.