he poor wretch, confused at such an honour,
was thanking him with many bows, he said:--

"Pardieu, you are too fat for Lecoq, and I must make you a capon."

This strange proposition was received as men would receive it who were
drunk and accustomed by their position to impunity. The unfortunate
pastry-cook was seized, bound down upon the table, and died under their
treatment. The vice-legate being informed of the murder by one of the
waiters, who had run in on hearing his master's shrieks, and had found
him, covered with blood, in the hands of his butchers, was at first
inclined to arrest the chevalier and bring him conspicuously to
punishment. But he was restrained by his regard for the Cardinal de
Bouillon, the chevalier's uncle, and contented himself with warning the
culprit that unless he left the town instantly he would be put into the
hands of the authorities. The chevalier, who was beginning to have had
enough of Avignon, did not wait to be told twice, ordered the wheels of
his chaise to be greased and horses to be brought. In the interval
before they were ready the fancy took him to go and see Madame d'Urban
again.

As the house of the marquise was the very last at which, after the manner
of his leaving it the day before, the chevalier was expected at such an
hour, he got in with the greatest ease, and, meeting a lady's-maid, who
was in his interests, was taken to the room where the marquise was. She,
who had not reckoned upon seeing the chevalier again, received him with
all the raptures of which a woman in love is capable, especially when her
love is a forbidden one. But the chevalier soon put an end to them by
announcing that his visit was a visit of farewell, and by telling her the
reason that obliged him to leave her. The marquise was like the woman
who pitied the fatigue of the poor horses that tore Damien limb from
limb; all her commiseration was for the chevalier, who on account of such
a trifle was being forced to leave Avignon. At last the farewell had to
be uttered, and as the chevalier, not knowing what to say at the fatal
moment, complained that he had no memento of her, the marquise took down
the frame that contained a portrait of herself corresponding with one of
her husband, and tearing out the canvas, rolled, it up and gave it to the
chevalier. The latter, so far from being touched by this token of love,
laid it down, as he went away, upon a piece of furniture, where the
marquise fou