The male half of the auberge declared that he was forbidden to open them to strangers, except by special order from a certain monsieur in Besancon; but the female half, scenting centimes, stated her belief that the monsieur in Besancon could never wish them to turn away a stranger who had come so many kilometres through the dust to see the ice.

She put the proposed disobedience in so persuasive and Christian a form, that I was obliged to take the husband's side,--not that he was in any need of support, for he had been longer married than Adam was, and showed no signs of giving way.

It turned out, after all, that though there was no doubt about the existence of the glacieres, there was equally no doubt that they were _glacieres artificielles_, being simply ice-houses dug in the side of a hill, and the property of a _glacier_ in Besancon; so that my friend the driver had sent me to a mare's-nest.
The pathway across the hills to Besancon was rather intricate, and by good fortune an old Frenchman appeared, who was returning from his work at a neighbouring church, and served as companion and guide.

He had bid farewell to sixty some years before, and, being a builder, had been going up and down a ladder all day, with full and empty _hottes_, to an extent which outdid the Shanars of missionary meetings; and yet he walked faster than any foreigner of my experience.

He talked in due proportion, and told some interesting details of the bombardment of Besancon, which he remembered well.