"Jean, take that tapestry down, roll it up, and put it in the garret."
Every word my uncle spoke went through my heart like a poniard-thrust.
Jean rolled up my sweetheart Omphale, otherwise the Marchioness Antoinette de T———, together with Hercules, or the Marquis de T———, and carried the whole thing off to the garret. I could not restrain my tears.
Next day my uncle sent me back in the B——— diligence to my respectable parents, to whom, you may feel assured, I never breathed a word of my adventure.
My uncle died; his house and furniture were sold; probably the tapestry was sold with the rest.
But a long time afterward, while foraging the shop of a bric-à-brac merchant in search of oddities, I stumbled over a great dusty roll of something covered with cobwebs.
"What is that?" I said to the Auvergnat.
"That is a rococo tapestry representing the amours of Madame Omphale and Monsieur Hercule. It is genuine Beauvais,
