Urban was as much cried up at Avignon as
the ill-behaviour of the chevalier had been reprobated in Paris. A
reputation equal to his own, but so opposite in kind, could not fail
to be very offensive to him, therefore he determined immediately upon
arriving to play one against the other.

Nothing was easier than the attempt. M. d'Urban, sure of his wife's
virtue, allowed her entire liberty; the chevalier saw her wherever he
chose to see her, and every time he saw her found means to express a
growing passion. Whether because the hour had come for Madame d'Urban,
or whether because she was dazzled by the splendour of the chevalier's
belonging to a princely house, her virtue, hitherto so fierce, melted
like snow in the May sunshine; and the chevalier, luckier than the poor
page, took the husband's place without any attempt on Madame d'Urban's
part to cry for help.

As all the chevalier desired was public triumph, he took care to make
the whole town acquainted at once with his success; then, as some
infidels of the neighbourhood still doubted, the chevalier ordered one
of his servants to wait for him at the marquise's door with a lantern
and a bell. At one in the morning, the chevalier came out, and the
servant walked before him, ringing the bell. At this unaccustomed sound,
a great number of townspeople, who had been quietly asleep, awoke, and,
curious to see what was happening, opened their windows. They beheld the
chevalier, walking gravely behind his servant, who continued to light
his master's way and to ring along the course of the street that lay
between Madame d'Urban's house and his own. As he had made no mystery
to anyone of his love affair, nobody took the trouble even to ask
him whence he came. However, as there might possibly be persons still
unconvinced, he repeated this same jest, for his own satisfaction, three
nights running; so that by the morning of the fourth day nobody had any
doubts left.

As generally happens in such cases, M. d'Urban did not know a word of
what was going on until the moment when his friends warned him that
he was the talk of the town. Then he forbade his wife to see her lover
again. The prohibition produced the usual results: on the morrow, as,
soon as M. d'Urban had gone out, the marquise sent for the chevalier to
inform him of the catastrophe in which they were both involved; but she
found him far better prepared than herself for such blows, and he tried
to prove to her, by reproa