up with the chaise a
league and a half farther on; having stopped the postillion, he got off
his horse, and very respectfully presented to the chevalier the picture
which he had been bidden to bring him. But the chevalier, having
recovered from his first alarm, bade him go about his business, and
take back the portrait--which was of no use to him--to the sender. The
servant, however, like a faithful messenger, declared that his orders
were positive, and that he should not dare go back to Madame d'Urban
without fulfilling them. The chevalier, seeing that he could not conquer
the man's determination, sent his postillion to a farrier, whose house
lay on the road, for a hammer and four nails, and with his own hands
nailed the portrait to the back of his chaise; then he stepped in again,
bade the postillion whip up his horses, and drove away, leaving Madame
d'Urban's messenger greatly astonished at the manner in which the
chevalier had used his mistress's portrait.

At the next stage, the postillion, who was going back, asked for his
money, and the chevalier answered that he had none. The postillion
persisted; then the chevalier got out of his chaise, unfastened Madame
d'Urban's portrait, and told him that he need only put it up for sale
in Avignon and declare how it had come into his possession, in order to
receive twenty times the price of his stage; the postillion, seeing that
nothing else was to be got out of the chevalier, accepted the pledge,
and, following his instructions precisely, exhibited it next morning at
the door of a dealer in the town, together with an exact statement of
the story. The picture was bought back the same day for twenty-five
Louis.

As may be supposed, the adventure was much talked of throughout the
town. Next day, Madame d'Urban disappeared, no one knew whither, at the
very time when the relatives of the marquis were met together and had
decided to ask the king for a 'lettre-de-cachet'. One of the gentlemen
present was entrusted with the duty of taking the necessary steps; but
whether because he was not active enough, or whether because he was in
Madame d'Urban's interests, nothing further was heard in Avignon of any
consequences ensuing from such steps. In the meantime, Madame d'Urban,
who had gone to the house of an aunt, opened negotiations with her
husband that were entirely successful, and a month after this adventure
she returned triumphantly to the conjugal roof.

Two hundred pistoles