In relating what happened to Madame des Ursins upon her return to Spain, I have carried the narrative into the year 1705.  It is not necessary to retrace our steps.  Towards the end of 1703 Courtin died.  He had early shone at the Council, and had been made Intendant of Picardy.  M. de Chaulnes, whose estates were there, begged him to tax them as lightly as possible.  Courtin, who was a very intimate friend of M. de Chaulnes, complied with his request; but the next year, in going over his accounts, he found that to do a good turn to M. de Chaulnes he had done an ill turn to many others—­that is to say, he had relieved M. de Chaulnes at the expense of other parishes, which he had overcharged.  The trouble this caused him made him search deeply into the matter, and he found that the wrong he had done amounted to forty thousand francs.  Without a second thought he paid back this money, and asked to be recalled.  As he was much esteemed, his request was not at once complied with, but he represented so well that he could not pass his life doing wrong, and unable to serve his friends, that at last what he asked was granted.  He afterwards had several embassies, went to England as ambassador, and was very successful in that capacity.  I cannot quit Courtin without relating an adventure he had one day with Fieubet, a Councillor of State like himself.  As they were going to Saint Germain they were stopped by several men and robbed; robbery was common in those days, and Fieubet lost all he had in his pockets.  When the thieves had left them, and while Fieubet was complaining of his misfortune, Courtin began to applaud himself for having saved his watch and fifty pistoles that he had time to slip into his trowsers.  Immediately on hearing this, Fieubet put his head out of the coach window, and called back the thieves, who came sure enough to see what he wanted.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “you appear to be honest folks in distress; it is not reasonable that you should be the dupes of this gentleman, who his swindled you out of fifty pistoles and his watch.”  And then turning to Courtin, he smilingly said:  “You told me so yourself, monsieur; so give the things up like a man, without being searched.”

The astonishment and indignation of Courtin were such that he allowed money and watch to be taken from him without uttering a single word; but when the thieves were gone away, he would have strangled Fieubet had not this latter been the stronger of the two.  Fieubet only laughed at him; and upon arriving at Saint Germain told the adventure to everybody he met.  Their friends had all the trouble in the world to reconcile them.