I was visiting my friend Labiche at his princely estate in Sologne, which is so unlike our cheerful countryside of Seine-et-Oise. Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself very much there with my old friend's delightful family, surrounded by the bustling activity of rural pursuits so new to me. A simple flower gardener myself, I derived great pleasure from following this tiller of the soil across the extensive fields which he had reclaimed from sand and briar and replenished with wheat, pine trees, cattle and sheep. And in the presence of this splendid yeoman who strode along the roadways, hobnailed stick in hand, his legs encased in leather gaiters, master of all he surveyed, I found myself completely forgetting the author of so many merry caprices, the grand master of laughter, our first producer of laughing gas.