My surprise was even greater when I found that I did not recognize the country where I had landed. It seemed to me that, having gone straight up, I should have come back down at the same place I had left. Despite my attire, I made my way toward a cottage where I noticed some smoke coming from the chimney. When I was no further away from it than the distance of a pistol shot, I found myself surrounded by a large group of savages. They seemed surprised to meet me. For I was the first person, or so I believe, whom they had ever seen who was dressed entirely in bottles. And to confuse even more any interpretations they might find for explaining my garments, they could see that as I walked I barely touched the ground. They had no way of knowing that at my tiniest movement the heat of the midday sun lifted me and my dew up off of the ground, and, even though very few of my vials were still intact, I might well have been taken back up into the heavens right before their eyes.
I wanted to approach them; but as if fear had turned them into birds, they disappeared, in a moment, into the forest nearby. Still I was able to grab one of them, whose legs had doubtless betrayed his heart. I asked him, with some difficulty (I was out of breath), how far we were from Paris, how long the French have been going about naked, and why they were fleeing me with such terror. The man to whom I spoke was an olive skinned old man who immediately threw himself at my knees and, putting his hands together behind his head, opened his mouth and closed his eyes. He babbled for quite a while, but I was unable to see that he was actually saying anything. I took his language for the hoarse gurgling of a mute.
A bit later there appeared a company of soldiers, with their drum beating, and two men broke off from the rest to approach me. When they were close enough to me to be heard, I asked them where I was.
"You are in France," they answered. "But who in the Devil put you in such a state? And how is it that we don't know you? Have the ships arrived? Are you going to report to the Governor? And why have you split up your brandy among so many different bottles?"
I replied that the Devil had not put me in such a state; that they didn't know me, since they could not be acquainted with everyone; that I did not know that ships sailed on the Seine; that I had no opinions to share with Monsieur de Montbazon; and that I was not loaded down with brandy.
"Oh ho!" they said, taking me by the arm. "Are you playing smart with us? The Governor will know you all right!"
With these words they led me back to the main body of their troop. And I learned from them that though I was in France, I was not in Europe. I was in New France. I was introduced to Monsieur de Montmagny, the viceroy of that territory. He asked me for my region of origin, my name, and my estate. And after I had answered him satisfactorily and told him of the pleasant success of my journey, either because he believed me or because he pretended to believe me he was so good as to offer me a room in his own apartment. I was happy indeed to meet a man capable of lofty opinions, who showed no surprise when I told him that the Earth must have turned while I was in the sky. For having begun my ascent two leagues from Paris, I had come down in an almost perpendicular line in Canada.
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