But now, I don't find fault with that dispensation in particular. It was one of our calling that the Emperor so honoured, after all, when he might have anointed a tinker, or a ragman, or a street woman's pensioner even. Who knows but that we should have been king's too, but for my crooked legs and your running pole-wound? SECOND POSTILLION We kings? Kings of the underground country, then, by this time, if we hadn't been too rotten-fleshed to follow the drum. However, I'll think over your defence, and I don't mind riding a stage with him, for that matter, to save him from them that mean mischief here. I've lost no sons by his battles, like some others we know. [Enter a TRAVELLER on horseback.] Any tidings along the road, sir of the Emperor Napoleon that was? TRAVELLER Tidings verily! He and his escort are threatened by the mob at every place they come to. A returning courier I have met tells me that at an inn a little way beyond here they have strung up his effigy to the sign-post, smeared it with blood, and placarded it “The Doom that awaits Thee!” He is much delayed by such humorous insults. I have hastened ahead to escape the uproar. SECOND POSTILLION I don't know that you have escaped it. The mob has been waiting up all night for him here. MARKET-WOMAN [coming up] I hope by the Virgin, as 'a called herself, that there'll be no riots here! Though I have not much pity for a man who could treat his wife as he did, and that's my real feeling. He might at least have kept them both on, for half a husband is better than none for poor women. But I'd show mercy to him, that's true, rather than have my stall upset, and messes in the streets wi' folks' brains, and stabbings, and I don't know what all! FIRST POSTILLION If we can do the horsing quietly out here, there will be none of that. He'll dash past the town without stopping at the inn where they expect to waylay him.--Hark, what's this coming? [An approaching cortege is heard. Two couriers enter; then a carriage with NAPOLEON and BERTRAND; then others with the Commissioners of the Powers,--all on the way to Elba. The carriages halt, and the change of horses is set about instantly. But before it is half completed BONAPARTE'S arrival gets known, and throngs of men and women armed with sticks and hammers rush out of Avignon and surround the carriages.] POPULACE Ogre of Corsica! Odious tyrant! Down with Nicholas! BERTRAND [looking out of carriage] Silence, and doff your hats, you ill-mannered devils! POPULACE [scornfully] Listen to him! Is that the Corsican? No; where is he? Give him up; give him up! We'll pitch him into the Rhone! [Some cling to the wheels of NAPOLEON'S carriage, while others, more distant, throw stones at it. A stone breaks the carriage window.] OLD WOMAN [shaking her fist]