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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune of the Rougons, by Emile Zola
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fortune of the Rougons
+
+Author: Emile Zola
+
+Editor: Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
+
+Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #5135]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
+
+By Emile Zola
+
+
+Edited With Introduction By Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+"The Fortune of the Rougons" is the initial volume of the
+Rougon-Macquart series. Though it was by no means M. Zola's first essay
+in fiction, it was undoubtedly his first great bid for genuine literary
+fame, and the foundation of what must necessarily be regarded as his
+life-work. The idea of writing the "natural and social history of a
+family under the Second Empire," extending to a score of volumes, was
+doubtless suggested to M. Zola by Balzac's immortal "Comedie Humaine."
+He was twenty-eight years of age when this idea first occurred to him;
+he was fifty-three when he at last sent the manuscript of his concluding
+volume, "Dr. Pascal," to the press. He had spent five-and-twenty years
+in working out his scheme, persevering with it doggedly and stubbornly,
+whatever rebuffs he might encounter, whatever jeers and whatever insults
+might be directed against him by the ignorant, the prejudiced, and the
+hypocritical. Truth was on the march and nothing could stay it; even as,
+at the present hour, its march, if slow, none the less continues athwart
+another and a different crisis of the illustrious novelist's career.
+
+It was in the early summer of 1869 that M. Zola first began the actual
+writing of "The Fortune of the Rougons." It was only in the following
+year, however, that the serial publication of the work commenced in
+the columns of "Le Siecle," the Republican journal of most influence
+in Paris in those days of the Second Empire. The Franco-German war
+interrupted this issue of the story, and publication in book form did
+not take place until the latter half of 1871, a time when both the war
+and the Commune had left Paris exhausted, supine, with little or no
+interest in anything. No more unfavourable moment for the issue of an
+ambitious work of fiction could have been found. Some two or three
+years went by, as I well remember, before anything like a revival of
+literature and of public interest in literature took place. Thus, M.
+Zola launched his gigantic scheme under auspices which would have made
+many another man recoil. "The Fortune of the Rougons," and two or three
+subsequent volumes of his series, attracted but a moderate degree
+of attention, and it was only on the morrow of the publication of
+"L'Assommoir" that he awoke, like Byron, to find himself famous.
+
+As previously mentioned, the Rougon-Macquart series forms twenty
+volumes. The last of these, "Dr. Pascal," appeared in 1893. Since
+then M. Zola has written "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris." Critics have
+repeated _ad nauseam_ that these last works constitute a new departure
+on M. Zola's part, and, so far as they formed a new series, this
+is true. But the suggestion that he has in any way repented of the
+Rougon-Macquart novels is ridiculous. As he has often told me of recent
+years, it is, as far as possible, his plan to subordinate his style and
+methods to his subject. To have written a book like "Rome," so largely
+devoted to the ambitions of the Papal See, in the same way as he had
+written books dealing with the drunkenness or other vices of Paris,
+would have been the climax of absurdity.
+
+Yet the publication of "Rome," was the signal for a general outcry on
+the part of English and American reviewers that Zolaism, as typified by
+the Rougon-Macquart series, was altogether a thing of the past. To my
+thinking this is a profound error. M. Zola has always remained faithful
+to himself. The only difference that I perceive between his latest
+work, "Paris," and certain Rougon-Macquart volumes, is that with time,
+experience and assiduity, his genius has expanded and ripened, and that
+the hesitation, the groping for truth, so to say, which may be found in
+some of his earlier writings, has disappeared.
+
+At the time when "The Fortune of the Rougons" was first published, none
+but the author himself can have imagined that the foundation-stone of
+one of the great literary monuments of the century had just been laid.
+From the "story" point of view the book is one of M. Zola's very best,
+although its construction--particularly as regards the long interlude of
+the idyll of Miette and Silvere--is far from being perfect. Such a work
+when first issued might well bring its author a measure of popularity,
+but it could hardly confer fame. Nowadays, however, looking backward,
+and bearing in mind that one here has the genius of M. Zola's lifework,
+"The Fortune of the Rougons" becomes a book of exceptional interest
+and importance. This has been so well understood by French readers that
+during the last six or seven years the annual sales of the work have
+increased threefold. Where, over a course of twenty years, 1,000 copies
+were sold, 2,500 and 3,000 are sold to-day. How many living English
+novelists can say the same of their early essays in fiction, issued more
+than a quarter of a century ago?
+
+I may here mention that at the last date to which I have authentic
+figures, that is, Midsummer 1897 (prior, of course, to what is called
+"L'Affaire Dreyfus"), there had been sold of the entire Rougon-Macquart
+series (which had begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies. These were of the
+ordinary Charpentier editions of the French originals. By adding thereto
+several _editions de luxe_ and the widely-circulated popular illustrated
+editions of certain volumes, the total amounts roundly to 2,100,000.
+"Rome," "Lourdes," "Paris," and all M. Zola's other works, apart from
+the "Rougon-Macquart" series, together with the translations into a
+dozen different languages--English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch,
+Danish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and others--are not included
+in the above figures. Otherwise the latter might well be doubled. Nor
+is account taken of the many serial issues which have brought M. Zola's
+views to the knowledge of the masses of all Europe.
+
+It is, of course, the celebrity attaching to certain of M. Zola's
+literary efforts that has stimulated the demand for his other writings.
+Among those which are well worthy of being read for their own sakes, I
+would assign a prominent place to the present volume. Much of the story
+element in it is admirable, and, further, it shows M. Zola as a
+genuine satirist and humorist. The Rougons' yellow drawing-room and
+its habitues, and many of the scenes between Pierre Rougon and his wife
+Felicite, are worthy of the pen of Douglas Jerrold. The whole account,
+indeed, of the town of Plassans, its customs and its notabilities, is
+satire of the most effective kind, because it is satire true to life,
+and never degenerates into mere caricature.
+
+It is a rather curious coincidence that, at the time when M. Zola was
+thus portraying the life of Provence, his great contemporary, bosom
+friend, and rival for literary fame, the late Alphonse Daudet, should
+have been producing, under the title of "The Provencal Don Quixote,"
+that unrivalled presentment of the foibles of the French Southerner,
+with everyone nowadays knows as "Tartarin of Tarascon." It is possible
+that M. Zola, while writing his book, may have read the instalments of
+"Le Don Quichotte Provencal" published in the Paris "Figaro," and it may
+be that this perusal imparted that fillip to his pen to which we owe
+the many amusing particulars that he gives us of the town of Plassans.
+Plassans, I may mention, is really the Provencal Aix, which M. Zola's
+father provided with water by means of a canal still bearing his name.
+M. Zola himself, though born in Paris, spent the greater part of his
+childhood there. Tarascon, as is well known, never forgave Alphonse
+Daudet for his "Tartarin"; and in a like way M. Zola, who doubtless
+counts more enemies than any other literary man of the period, has none
+bitterer than the worthy citizens of Aix. They cannot forget or forgive
+the rascally Rougon-Macquarts.
+
+The name Rougon-Macquart has to me always suggested that splendid and
+amusing type of the cynical rogue, Robert Macaire. But, of course, both
+Rougon and Macquart are genuine French names and not inventions. Indeed,
+several years ago I came by chance upon them both, in an old French deed
+which I was examining at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. I
+there found mention of a Rougon family and a Macquart family dwelling
+virtually side by side in the same village. This, however, was in
+Champagne, not in Provence. Both families farmed vineyards for a once
+famous abbey in the vicinity of Epernay, early in the seventeenth
+century. To me, personally, this trivial discovery meant a great deal.
+It somehow aroused my interest in M. Zola and his works. Of the latter I
+had then only glanced through two or three volumes. With M. Zola himself
+I was absolutely unacquainted. However, I took the liberty to inform him
+of my little discovery; and afterwards I read all the books that he had
+published. Now, as it is fairly well known, I have given the greater
+part of my time, for several years past, to the task of familiarising
+English readers with his writings. An old deed, a chance glance,
+followed by the great friendship of my life and years of patient labour.
+If I mention this matter, it is solely with the object of endorsing the
+truth of the saying that the most insignificant incidents frequently
+influence and even shape our careers.
+
+But I must come back to "The Fortune of the Rougons." It has, as I have
+said, its satirical and humorous side; but it also contains a strong
+element of pathos. The idyll of Miette and Silvere is a very touching
+one, and quite in accord with the conditions of life prevailing in
+Provence at the period M. Zola selects for his narrative. Miette is
+a frank child of nature; Silvere, her lover, in certain respects
+foreshadows, a quarter of a century in advance, the Abbe Pierre Fromont
+of "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris." The environment differs, of course,
+but germs of the same nature may readily be detected in both characters.
+As for the other personages of M. Zola's book--on the one hand, Aunt
+Dide, Pierre Rougon, his wife, Felicite, and their sons Eugene, Aristide
+and Pascal, and, on the other, Macquart, his daughter Gervaise of
+"L'Assommoir," and his son Jean of "La Terre" and "La Debacle," together
+with the members of the Mouret branch of the ravenous, neurotic, duplex
+family--these are analysed or sketched in a way which renders their
+subsequent careers, as related in other volumes of the series,
+thoroughly consistent with their origin and their up-bringing. I venture
+to asset that, although it is possible to read individual volumes of
+the Rougon-Macquart series while neglecting others, nobody can really
+understand any one of these books unless he makes himself acquainted
+with the alpha and the omega of the edifice, that is, "The Fortune of
+the Rougons" and "Dr. Pascal."
+
+With regard to the present English translation, it is based on one made
+for my father several years ago. But to convey M. Zola's meaning more
+accurately I have found it necessary to alter, on an average, at least
+one sentence out of every three. Thus, though I only claim to edit the
+volume, it is, to all intents and purposes, quite a new English version
+of M. Zola's work.
+
+E. A. V. MERTON, SURREY: August, 1898.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE
+
+I wish to explain how a family, a small group of human beings, conducts
+itself in a given social system after blossoming forth and giving birth
+to ten or twenty members, who, though they may appear, at the first
+glance, profoundly dissimilar one from the other, are, as analysis
+demonstrates, most closely linked together from the point of view of
+affinity. Heredity, like gravity, has its laws.
+
+By resolving the duplex question of temperament and environment, I shall
+endeavour to discover and follow the thread of connection which leads
+mathematically from one man to another. And when I have possession of
+every thread, and hold a complete social group in my hands, I shall
+show this group at work, participating in an historical period; I shall
+depict it in action, with all its varied energies, and I shall analyse
+both the will power of each member, and the general tendency of the
+whole.
+
+The great characteristic of the Rougon-Macquarts, the group or family
+which I propose to study, is their ravenous appetite, the great
+outburst of our age which rushes upon enjoyment. Physiologically the
+Rougon-Macquarts represent the slow succession of accidents pertaining
+to the nerves or the blood, which befall a race after the first organic
+lesion, and, according to environment, determine in each individual
+member of the race those feelings, desires and passions--briefly, all
+the natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to humanity--whose
+outcome assumes the conventional name of virtue or vice. Historically
+the Rougon-Macquarts proceed from the masses, radiate throughout the
+whole of contemporary society, and ascend to all sorts of positions by
+the force of that impulsion of essentially modern origin, which sets the
+lower classes marching through the social system. And thus the dramas of
+their individual lives recount the story of the Second Empire, from the
+ambuscade of the Coup d'Etat to the treachery of Sedan.
+
+For three years I had been collecting the necessary documents for this
+long work, and the present volume was even written, when the fall of the
+Bonapartes, which I needed artistically, and with, as if by fate, I
+ever found at the end of the drama, without daring to hope that it
+would prove so near at hand, suddenly occurred and furnished me with
+the terrible but necessary denouement for my work. My scheme is, at
+this date, completed; the circle in which my characters will revolve
+is perfected; and my work becomes a picture of a departed reign, of a
+strange period of human madness and shame.
+
+This work, which will comprise several episodes, is therefore, in
+my mind, the natural and social history of a family under the Second
+Empire. And the first episode, here called "The Fortune of the Rougons,"
+should scientifically be entitled "The Origin."
+
+EMILE ZOLA PARIS, July 1, 1871.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+On quitting Plassans by the Rome Gate, on the southern side of the town,
+you will find, on the right side of the road to Nice, and a little way
+past the first suburban houses, a plot of land locally known as the Aire
+Saint-Mittre.
+
+This Aire Saint-Mittre is of oblong shape and on a level with the
+footpath of the adjacent road, from which it is separated by a strip of
+trodden grass. A narrow blind alley fringed with a row of hovels borders
+it on the right; while on the left, and at the further end, it is closed
+in by bits of wall overgrown with moss, above which can be seen the
+top branches of the mulberry-trees of the Jas-Meiffren--an extensive
+property with an entrance lower down the road. Enclosed upon three
+sides, the Aire Saint-Mittre leads nowhere, and is only crossed by
+people out for a stroll.
+
+In former times it was a cemetery under the patronage of Saint-Mittre, a
+greatly honoured Provencal saint; and in 1851 the old people of Plassans
+could still remember having seen the wall of the cemetery standing,
+although the place itself had been closed for years. The soil had been
+so glutted with corpses that it had been found necessary to open a new
+burial-ground at the other end of town. Then the old abandoned cemetery
+had been gradually purified by the dark thick-set vegetation which had
+sprouted over it every spring. The rich soil, in which the gravediggers
+could no longer delve without turning up some human remains, was
+possessed of wondrous fertility. The tall weeds overtopped the walls
+after the May rains and the June sunshine so as to be visible from the
+high road; while inside, the place presented the appearance of a deep,
+dark green sea studded with large blossoms of singular brilliancy.
+Beneath one's feet amidst the close-set stalks one could feel that the
+damp soil reeked and bubbled with sap.
+
+Among the curiosities of the place at that time were some large
+pear-trees, with twisted and knotty boughs; but none of the housewives
+of Plassans cared to pluck the large fruit which grew upon them. Indeed,
+the townspeople spoke of this fruit with grimaces of disgust. No such
+delicacy, however, restrained the suburban urchins, who assembled in
+bands at twilight and climbed the walls to steal the pears, even before
+they were ripe.
+
+The trees and the weeds with their vigorous growth had rapidly
+assimilated all the decomposing matter in the old cemetery of
+Saint-Mittre; the malaria rising from the human remains interred
+there had been greedily absorbed by the flowers and the fruit; so that
+eventually the only odour one could detect in passing by was the strong
+perfume of wild gillyflowers. This had merely been a question of a few
+summers.
+
+At last the townspeople determined to utilise this common property,
+which had long served no purpose. The walls bordering the roadway and
+the blind alley were pulled down; the weeds and the pear-trees uprooted;
+the sepulchral remains were removed; the ground was dug deep, and such
+bones as the earth was willing to surrender were heaped up in a
+corner. For nearly a month the youngsters, who lamented the loss of
+the pear-trees, played at bowls with the skulls; and one night
+some practical jokers even suspended femurs and tibias to all the
+bell-handles of the town. This scandal, which is still remembered at
+Plassans, did not cease until the authorities decided to have the bones
+shot into a hole which had been dug for the purpose in the new cemetery.
+All work, however, is usually carried out with discreet dilatoriness
+in country towns, and so during an entire week the inhabitants saw a
+solitary cart removing these human remains as if they had been mere
+rubbish. The vehicle had to cross Plassans from end to end, and owing to
+the bad condition of the roads fragments of bones and handfuls of rich
+mould were scattered at every jolt. There was not the briefest religious
+ceremony, nothing but slow and brutish cartage. Never before had a town
+felt so disgusted.
+
+For several years the old cemetery remained an object of terror.
+Although it adjoined the main thoroughfare and was open to all comers,
+it was left quite deserted, a prey to fresh vegetable growth. The local
+authorities, who had doubtless counted on selling it and seeing
+houses built upon it, were evidently unable to find a purchaser. The
+recollection of the heaps of bones and the cart persistently jolting
+through the streets may have made people recoil from the spot; or
+perhaps the indifference that was shown was due to the indolence, the
+repugnance to pulling down and setting up again, which is characteristic
+of country people. At all events the authorities still retained
+possession of the ground, and at last forgot their desire to dispose of
+it. They did not even erect a fence round it, but left it open to all
+comers. Then, as time rolled on, people gradually grew accustomed to
+this barren spot; they would sit on the grass at the edges, walk about,
+or gather in groups. When the grass had been worn away and the
+trodden soil had become grey and hard, the old cemetery resembled a
+badly-levelled public square. As if the more effectually to efface the
+memory of all objectionable associations, the inhabitants slowly changed
+the very appellation of the place, retaining but the name of the saint,
+which was likewise applied to the blind alley dipping down at one corner
+of the field. Thus there was the Aire Saint-Mittre and the Impasse
+Saint-Mittre.
+
+All this dates, however, from some considerable time back. For more
+than thirty years now the Aire Saint-Mittre has presented a different
+appearance. One day the townspeople, far too inert and indifferent to
+derive any advantage from it, let it, for a trifling consideration,
+to some suburban wheelwrights, who turned it into a wood-yard. At the
+present day it is still littered with huge pieces of timber thirty or
+forty feet long, lying here and there in piles, and looking like lofty
+overturned columns. These piles of timber, disposed at intervals from
+one end of the yard to the other, are a continual source of delight
+to the local urchins. In some places the ground is covered with fallen
+wood, forming a kind of uneven flooring over which it is impossible to
+walk, unless one balance one's self with marvellous dexterity. Troops of
+children amuse themselves with this exercise all day long. You will see
+them jumping over the big beams, walking in Indian file along the narrow
+ends, or else crawling astride them; various games which generally
+terminate in blows and bellowings. Sometimes, too, a dozen of them will
+sit, closely packed one against the other, on the thin end of a pole
+raised a few feet from the ground, and will see-saw there for hours
+together. The Aire Saint-Mittre thus serves as a recreation ground,
+where for more than a quarter of a century all the little suburban
+ragamuffins have been in the habit of wearing out the seats of their
+breeches.
+
+The strangeness of the place is increased by the circumstance that
+wandering gipsies, by a sort of traditional custom always select the
+vacant portions of it for their encampments. Whenever any caravan
+arrives at Plassans it takes up its quarters on the Aire Saint-Mittre.
+The place is consequently never empty. There is always some strange band
+there, some troop of wild men and withered women, among whom groups of
+healthy-looking children roll about on the grass. These people live
+in the open air, regardless of everybody, setting their pots boiling,
+eating nameless things, freely displaying their tattered garments, and
+sleeping, fighting, kissing, and reeking with mingled filth and misery.
+
+The field, formerly so still and deserted, save for the buzzing of
+hornets around the rich blossoms in the heavy sunshine, has thus become
+a very rowdy spot, resounding with the noisy quarrels of the gipsies and
+the shrill cries of the urchins of the suburb. In one corner there is a
+primitive saw-mill for cutting the timber, the noise from which serves
+as a dull, continuous bass accompaniment to the sharp voices. The wood
+is placed on two high tressels, and a couple of sawyers, one of whom
+stands aloft on the timber itself, while the other underneath is half
+blinded by the falling sawdust, work a large saw to and fro for
+hours together, with rigid machine-like regularity, as if they were
+wire-pulled puppets. The wood they saw is stacked, plank by plank, along
+the wall at the end, in carefully arranged piles six or eight feet high,
+which often remain there several seasons, and constitute one of the
+charms of the Aire Saint-Mittre. Between these stacks are mysterious,
+retired little alleys leading to a broader path between the timber and
+the wall, a deserted strip of verdure whence only small patches of
+sky can be seen. The vigorous vegetation and the quivering, deathlike
+stillness of the old cemetery still reign in this path. In all the
+country round Plassans there is no spot more instinct with languor,
+solitude, and love. It is a most delightful place for love-making. When
+the cemetery was being cleared the bones must have been heaped up in
+this corner; for even to-day it frequently happens that one's foot comes
+across some fragment of a skull lying concealed in the damp turf.
+
+Nobody, however, now thinks of the bodies that once slept under that
+turf. In the daytime only the children go behind the piles of wood when
+playing at hide and seek. The green path remains virginal, unknown to
+others who see nought but the wood-yard crowded with timber and grey
+with dust. In the morning and afternoon, when the sun is warm, the whole
+place swarms with life. Above all the turmoil, above the ragamuffins
+playing among the timber, and the gipsies kindling fires under their
+cauldrons, the sharp silhouette of the sawyer mounted on his beam stands
+out against the sky, moving to and fro with the precision of clockwork,
+as if to regulate the busy activity that has sprung up in this spot
+once set apart for eternal slumber. Only the old people who sit on the
+planks, basking in the setting sun, speak occasionally among themselves
+of the bones which they once saw carted through the streets of Plassans
+by the legendary tumbrel.
+
+When night falls the Aire Saint-Mittre loses its animation, and looks
+like some great black hole. At the far end one may just espy the dying
+embers of the gipsies' fires, and at times shadows slink noiselessly
+into the dense darkness. The place becomes quite sinister, particularly
+in winter time.
+
+One Sunday evening, at about seven o'clock, a young man stepped lightly
+from the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and, closely skirting the walls, took
+his way among the timber in the wood-yard. It was in the early part of
+December, 1851. The weather was dry and cold. The full moon shone with
+that sharp brilliancy peculiar to winter moons. The wood-yard did not
+have the forbidding appearance which it wears on rainy nights; illumined
+by stretches of white light, and wrapped in deep and chilly silence, it
+spread around with a soft, melancholy aspect.
+
+For a few seconds the young man paused on the edge of the yard and gazed
+mistrustfully in front of him. He carried a long gun, the butt-end of
+which was hidden under his jacket, while the barrel, pointed towards the
+ground, glittered in the moonlight. Pressing the weapon to his side, he
+attentively examined the square shadows cast by the piles of timber. The
+ground looked like a chess-board, with black and white squares clearly
+defined by alternate patches of light and shade. The sawyers' tressels
+in the centre of the plot threw long, narrow fantastic shadows,
+suggesting some huge geometrical figure, upon a strip of bare grey
+ground. The rest of the yard, the flooring of beams, formed a great
+couch on which the light reposed, streaked here and there with the
+slender black shadows which edged the different pieces of timber. In the
+frigid silence under the wintry moon, the motionless, recumbent poles,
+stiffened, as it were, with sleep and cold, recalled the corpses of
+the old cemetery. The young man cast but a rapid glance round the empty
+space; there was not a creature, not a sound, no danger of being seen or
+heard. The black patches at the further end caused him more anxiety, but
+after a brief examination he plucked up courage and hurriedly crossed
+the wood-yard.
+
+As soon as he felt himself under cover he slackened his pace. He was now
+in the green pathway skirting the wall behind the piles of planks. Here
+his very footsteps became inaudible; the frozen grass scarcely crackled
+under his tread. He must have loved the spot, have feared no danger,
+sought nothing but what was pleasant there. He no longer concealed
+his gun. The path stretched away like a dark trench, except that the
+moonrays, gliding ever and anon between the piles of timber, then
+streaked the grass with patches of light. All slept, both darkness and
+light, with the same deep, soft, sad slumber. No words can describe the
+calm peacefulness of the place. The young man went right down the path,
+and stopped at the end where the walls of the Jas-Meiffren form an
+angle. Here he listened as if to ascertain whether any sound might be
+coming from the adjoining estate. At last, hearing nothing, he stooped
+down, thrust a plank aside, and hid his gun in a timber-stack.
+
+An old tombstone, which had been overlooked in the clearing of the
+burial-ground, lay in the corner, resting on its side and forming a high
+and slightly sloping seat. The rain had worn its edges, and moss was
+slowly eating into it. Nevertheless, the following fragment of an
+inscription, cut on the side which was sinking into the ground, might
+still have been distinguished in the moonlight: "_Here lieth . . . Marie
+. . . died . . ._" The finger of time had effaced the rest.
+
+When the young man had concealed his gun he again listened attentively,
+and still hearing nothing, resolved to climb upon the stone. The wall
+being low, he was able to rest his elbows on the coping. He could,
+however, perceive nothing except a flood of light beyond the row of
+mulberry-trees skirting the wall. The flat ground of the Jas-Meiffren
+spread out under the moon like an immense sheet of unbleached linen;
+a hundred yards away the farmhouse and its outbuildings formed a still
+whiter patch. The young man was still gazing anxiously in that direction
+when, suddenly, one of the town clocks slowly and solemnly struck seven.
+He counted the strokes, and then jumped down, apparently surprised and
+relieved.
+
+He seated himself on the tombstone, like one who is prepared to
+wait some considerable time. And for about half an hour he remained
+motionless and deep in thought, apparently quite unconscious of the
+cold, while his eyes gazed fixedly at a mass of shadow. He had placed
+himself in a dark corner, but the beams of the rising moon had gradually
+reached him, and at last his head was in the full light.
+
+He was a strong, sturdy-looking lad, with a fine mouth, and soft
+delicate skin that bespoke youthfulness. He looked about seventeen years
+of age, and was handsome in a characteristic way.
+
+His thin, long face looked like the work of some master sculptor; his
+high forehead, overhanging brows, aquiline nose, broad flat chin, and
+protruding cheek bones, gave singularly bold relief to his countenance.
+Such a face would, with advancing age, become too bony, as fleshless as
+that of a knight errant. But at this stage of youth, with chin and cheek
+lightly covered with soft down, its latent harshness was attenuated by
+the charming softness of certain contours which had remained vague and
+childlike. His soft black eyes, still full of youth, also lent delicacy
+to his otherwise vigorous countenance. The young fellow would probably
+not have fascinated all women, as he was not what one calls a handsome
+man; but his features, as a whole, expressed such ardent and sympathetic
+life, such enthusiasm and energy, that they doubtless engaged the
+thoughts of the girls of his own part--those sunburnt girls of the
+South--as he passed their doors on sultry July evenings.
+
+He remained seated upon the tombstone, wrapped in thought, and
+apparently quite unconscious of the moonlight which now fell upon
+his chest and legs. He was of middle stature, rather thick-set, with
+over-developed arms and a labourer's hands, already hardened by toil;
+his feet, shod with heavy laced boots, looked large and square-toed.
+His general appearance, more particularly the heaviness of his limbs,
+bespoke lowly origin. There was, however, something in him, in the
+upright bearing of his neck and the thoughtful gleams of his eyes, which
+seemed to indicate an inner revolt against the brutifying manual labour
+which was beginning to bend him to the ground. He was, no doubt, an
+intelligent nature buried beneath the oppressive burden of race and
+class; one of those delicate refined minds embedded in a rough envelope,
+from which they in vain struggle to free themselves. Thus, in spite of
+his vigour, he seemed timid and restless, feeling a kind of unconscious
+shame at his imperfection. An honest lad he doubtless was, whose very
+ignorance had generated enthusiasm, whose manly heart was impelled by
+childish intellect, and who could show alike the submissiveness of
+a woman and the courage of a hero. On the evening in question he was
+dressed in a coat and trousers of greenish corduroy. A soft felt hat,
+placed lightly on the back of his head, cast a streak of shadow over his
+brow.
+
+As the neighbouring clock struck the half hour, he suddenly started from
+his reverie. Perceiving that the white moonlight was shining full upon
+him, he gazed anxiously ahead. Then he abruptly dived back into the
+shade, but was unable to recover the thread of his thoughts. He now
+realised that his hands and feet were becoming very cold, and impatience
+seized hold of him. So he jumped upon the stone again, and once more
+glanced over the Jas-Meiffren, which was still empty and silent.
+Finally, at a loss how to employ his time, he jumped down, fetched
+his gun from the pile of planks where he had concealed it, and amused
+himself by working the trigger. The weapon was a long, heavy carbine,
+which had doubtless belonged to some smuggler. The thickness of the butt
+and the breech of the barrel showed it to be an old flintlock which had
+been altered into a percussion gun by some local gunsmith. Such firearms
+are to be found in farmhouses, hanging against the wall over the
+chimney-piece. The young man caressed his weapon with affection; twenty
+times or more he pulled the trigger, thrust his little finger into the
+barrel, and examined the butt attentively. By degrees he grew full of
+youth enthusiasm, combined with childish frolicsomeness, and ended by
+levelling his weapon and aiming at space, like a recruit going through
+his drill.
+
+It was now very nearly eight o'clock, and he had been holding his gun
+levelled for over a minute, when all at once a low, panting call, light
+as a breath, came from the direction of the Jas-Meiffren.
+
+"Are you there, Silvere?" the voice asked.
+
+Silvere dropped his gun and bounded on to the tombstone.
+
+"Yes, yes," he replied, also in a hushed voice. "Wait, I'll help you."
+
+Before he could stretch out his arms, however, a girl's head appeared
+above the wall. With singular agility the damsel had availed herself of
+the trunk of a mulberry-tree, and climbed aloft like a kitten. The ease
+and certainty with which she moved showed that she was familiar with
+this strange spot. In another moment she was seated on the coping of
+the wall. Then Silvere, taking her in his arms, carried her, though not
+without a struggle, to the seat.
+
+"Let go," she laughingly cried; "let go, I can get down alone very
+well." And when she was seated on the stone slab she added:
+
+"Have you been waiting for me long? I've been running, and am quite out
+of breath."
+
+Silvere made no reply. He seemed in no laughing humour, but gazed
+sorrowfully into the girl's face. "I wanted to see you, Miette," he
+said, as he seated himself beside her. "I should have waited all night
+for you. I am going away at daybreak to-morrow morning."
+
+Miette had just caught sight of the gun lying on the grass, and with a
+thoughtful air, she murmured: "Ah! so it's decided then? There's your
+gun!"
+
+"Yes," replied Silvere, after a brief pause, his voice still faltering,
+"it's my gun. I thought it best to remove it from the house to-night;
+to-morrow morning aunt Dide might have seen me take it, and have felt
+uneasy about it. I am going to hide it, and shall fetch it just before
+starting."
+
+Then, as Miette could not remove her eyes from the weapon which he had
+so foolishly left on the grass, he jumped up and again hid it among the
+woodstacks.
+
+"We learnt this morning," he said, as he resumed his seat, "that the
+insurgents of La Palud and Saint Martin-de-Vaulx were on the march, and
+spent last night at Alboise. We have decided to join them. Some of the
+workmen of Plassans have already left the town this afternoon; those who
+still remain will join their brothers to-morrow."
+
+He spoke the word brothers with youthful emphasis.
+
+"A contest is becoming inevitable," he added; "but, at any rate, we have
+right on our side, and we shall triumph."
+
+Miette listened to Silvere, her eyes meantime gazing in front of her,
+without observing anything.
+
+"'Tis well," she said, when he had finished speaking. And after a fresh
+pause she continued: "You warned me, yet I still hoped. . . . However,
+it is decided."
+
+Neither of them knew what else to say. The green path in the deserted
+corner of the wood-yard relapsed into melancholy stillness; only the
+moon chased the shadows of the piles of timber over the grass. The two
+young people on the tombstone remained silent and motionless in the
+pale light. Silvere had passed his arm round Miette's waist, and she was
+leaning against his shoulder. They exchanged no kisses, naught but
+an embrace in which love showed the innocent tenderness of fraternal
+affection.
+
+Miette was enveloped in a long brown hooded cloak reaching to her feet,
+and leaving only her head and hands visible. The women of the lower
+classes in Provence--the peasantry and workpeople--still wear these
+ample cloaks, which are called pelisses; it is a fashion which must have
+lasted for ages. Miette had thrown back her hood on arriving. Living in
+the open air and born of a hotblooded race, she never wore a cap. Her
+bare head showed in bold relief against the wall, which the moonlight
+whitened. She was still a child, no doubt, but a child ripening into
+womanhood. She had reached that adorable, uncertain hour when the
+frolicsome girl changes to a young woman. At that stage of life a
+bud-like delicacy, a hesitancy of contour that is exquisitely charming,
+distinguishes young girls. The outlines of womanhood appear amidst
+girlhood's innocent slimness, and woman shoots forth at first all
+embarrassment, still retaining much of the child, and ever and
+unconsciously betraying her sex. This period is very unpropitious for
+some girls, who suddenly shoot up, become ugly, sallow and frail, like
+plants before their due season. For those, however, who, like Miette,
+are healthy and live in the open air, it is a time of delightful
+gracefulness which once passed can never be recalled.
+
+Miette was thirteen years of age, and although strong and sturdy did not
+look any older, so bright and childish was the smile which lit up her
+countenance. However, she was nearly as tall as Silvere, plump and full
+of life. Like her lover, she had no common beauty. She would not have
+been considered ugly, but she might have appeared peculiar to many young
+exquisites. Her rich black hair rose roughly erect above her forehead,
+streamed back like a rushing wave, and flowed over her head and neck
+like an inky sea, tossing and bubbling capriciously. It was very thick
+and inconvenient to arrange. However, she twisted it as tightly as
+possible into coils as thick as a child's fist, which she wound together
+at the back of her head. She had little time to devote to her toilette,
+but this huge chignon, hastily contrived without the aid of any mirror,
+was often instinct with vigorous grace. On seeing her thus naturally
+helmeted with a mass of frizzy hair which hung about her neck and
+temples like a mane, one could readily understand why she always went
+bareheaded, heedless alike of rain and frost.
+
+Under her dark locks appeared her low forehead, curved and golden like a
+crescent moon. Her large prominent eyes, her short tip-tilted nose with
+dilated nostrils, and her thick ruddy lips, when regarded apart from one
+another, would have looked ugly; viewed, however, all together, amidst
+the delightful roundness and vivacious mobility of her countenance, they
+formed an ensemble of strange, surprising beauty. When Miette laughed,
+throwing back her head and gently resting it on her right shoulder, she
+resembled an old-time Bacchante, her throat distending with sonorous
+gaiety, her cheeks round like those of a child, her teeth large and
+white, her twists of woolly hair tossed by every outburst of merriment,
+and waving like a crown of vine leaves. To realise that she was only a
+child of thirteen, one had to notice the innocence underlying her full
+womanly laughter, and especially the child-like delicacy of her chin and
+soft transparency of her temples. In certain lights Miette's sun-tanned
+face showed yellow like amber. A little soft black down already shaded
+her upper lip. Toil too was beginning to disfigure her small hands,
+which, if left idle, would have become charmingly plump and delicate.
+
+Miette and Silvere long remained silent. They were reading their own
+anxious thoughts, and, as they pondered upon the unknown terrors of the
+morrow, they tightened their mutual embrace. Their hearts communed with
+each other, they understood how useless and cruel would be any verbal
+plaint. The girl, however, could at last no longer contain herself,
+and, choking with emotion, she gave expression, in one phrase, to their
+mutual misgivings.
+
+"You will come back again, won't you?" she whispered, as she hung on
+Silvere's neck.
+
+Silvere made no reply, but, half-stifling, and fearing lest he should
+give way to tears like herself, he kissed her in brotherly fashion
+on the cheek, at a loss for any other consolation. Then disengaging
+themselves they again lapsed into silence.
+
+After a moment Miette shuddered. Now that she no longer leant against
+Silvere's shoulder she was becoming icy cold. Yet she would not have
+shuddered thus had she been in this deserted path the previous evening,
+seated on this tombstone, where for several seasons they had tasted so
+much happiness.
+
+"I'm very cold," she said, as she pulled her hood over her head.
+
+"Shall we walk about a little?" the young man asked her. "It's not yet
+nine o'clock; we can take a stroll along the road."
+
+Miette reflected that for a long time she would probably not have the
+pleasure of another meeting--another of those evening chats, the joy of
+which served to sustain her all day long.
+
+"Yes, let us walk a little," she eagerly replied. "Let us go as far as
+the mill. I could pass the whole night like this if you wanted to."
+
+They rose from the tombstone, and were soon hidden in the shadow of a
+pile of planks. Here Miette opened her cloak, which had a quilted
+lining of red twill, and threw half of it over Silvere's shoulders,
+thus enveloping him as he stood there close beside her. The same garment
+cloaked them both, and they passed their arms round each other's waist,
+and became as it were but one being. When they were thus shrouded in the
+pelisse they walked slowly towards the high road, fearlessly crossing
+the vacant parts of the wood-yard, which looked white in the moonlight.
+Miette had thrown the cloak over Silvere, and he had submitted to it
+quite naturally, as though indeed the garment rendered them a similar
+service every evening.
+
+The road to Nice, on either side of which the suburban houses are built,
+was, in the year 1851, lined with ancient elm-trees, grand and gigantic
+ruins, still full of vigour, which the fastidious town council has
+replaced, some years since, by some little plane-trees. When Silvere and
+Miette found themselves under the elms, the huge boughs of which cast
+shadows on the moonlit footpath, they met now and again black forms
+which silently skirted the house fronts. These, too, were amorous
+couples, closely wrapped in one and the same cloak, and strolling in the
+darkness.
+
+This style of promenading has been instituted by the young lovers of
+Southern towns. Those boys and girls among the people who mean to marry
+sooner or later, but who do not dislike a kiss or two in advance, know
+no spot where they can kiss at their ease without exposing themselves to
+recognition and gossip. Accordingly, while strolling about the suburbs,
+the plots of waste land, the footpaths of the high road--in fact,
+all these places where there are few passers-by and numerous shady
+nooks--they conceal their identity by wrapping themselves in these long
+cloaks, which are capacious enough to cover a whole family. The parents
+tolerate these proceedings; however stiff may be provincial propriety,
+no apprehensions, seemingly, are entertained. And, on the other hand,
+nothing could be more charming than these lovers' rambles, which appeal
+so keenly to the Southerner's fanciful imagination. There is a veritable
+masquerade, fertile in innocent enjoyments, within the reach of the most
+humble. The girl clasps her sweetheart to her bosom, enveloping him in
+her own warm cloak; and no doubt it is delightful to be able to kiss
+one's sweetheart within those shrouding folds without danger of being
+recognised. One couple is exactly like another. And to the belated
+pedestrian, who sees the vague groups gliding hither and thither, 'tis
+merely love passing, love guessed and scarce espied. The lovers
+know they are safely concealed within their cloaks, they converse in
+undertones and make themselves quite at home; most frequently they do
+not converse at all, but walk along at random and in silence, content
+in their embrace. The climate alone is to blame for having in the first
+instance prompted these young lovers to retire to secluded spots in the
+suburbs. On fine summer nights one cannot walk round Plassans without
+coming across a hooded couple in every patch of shadow falling from the
+house walls. Certain places, the Aire Saint-Mittre, for instance, are
+full of these dark "dominoes" brushing past one another, gliding softly
+in the warm nocturnal air. One might imagine they were guests invited
+to some mysterious ball given by the stars to lowly lovers. When the
+weather is very warm and the girls do not wear cloaks, they simply turn
+up their over-skirts. And in the winter the more passionate lovers make
+light of the frosts. Thus, Miette and Silvere, as they descended the
+Nice road, thought little of the chill December night.
+
+They passed through the slumbering suburb without exchanging a word,
+but enjoying the mute delight of their warm embrace. Their hearts were
+heavy; the joy which they felt in being side by side was tinged with the
+painful emotion which comes from the thought of approaching severance,
+and it seemed to them that they could never exhaust the mingled
+sweetness and bitterness of the silence which slowly lulled their
+steps. But the houses soon grew fewer, and they reached the end of the
+Faubourg. There stands the entrance to the Jas-Meiffren, an iron gate
+fixed to two strong pillars; a low row of mulberry-trees being visible
+through the bars. Silvere and Miette instinctively cast a glance inside
+as they passed on.
+
+Beyond the Jas-Meiffren the road descends with a gentle slope to a
+valley, which serves as the bed of a little rivulet, the Viorne, a brook
+in summer but a torrent in winter. The rows of elms still extended the
+whole way at that time, making the high road a magnificent avenue, which
+cast a broad band of gigantic trees across the hill, which was planted
+with corn and stunted vines. On that December night, under the clear
+cold moonlight, the newly-ploughed fields stretching away on either hand
+resembled vast beds of greyish wadding which deadened every sound in the
+atmosphere. The dull murmur of the Viorne in the distance alone sent a
+quivering thrill through the profound silence of the country-side.
+
+When the young people had begun to descend the avenue, Miette's thoughts
+reverted to the Jas-Meiffren which they had just left behind them.
+
+"I had great difficulty in getting away this evening," she said. "My
+uncle wouldn't let me go. He had shut himself up in a cellar, where he
+was hiding his money, I think, for he seemed greatly frightened this
+morning at the events that are taking place."
+
+Silvere clasped her yet more lovingly. "Be brave!" said he. "The time
+will come when we shall be able to see each other freely the whole day
+long. You must not fret."
+
+"Oh," replied the girl, shaking her head, "you are very hopeful. For my
+part I sometimes feel very sad. It isn't the hard work which grieves me;
+on the contrary, I am often very glad of my uncle's severity, and the
+tasks he sets me. He was quite right to make me a peasant girl; I should
+perhaps have turned out badly, for, do you know, Silvere, there are
+moments when I fancy myself under a curse. . . . I feel, then, that I
+should like to be dead. . . . I think of you know whom."
+
+As she spoke these last words, her voice broke into a sob. Silvere
+interrupted her somewhat harshly. "Be quiet," he said. "You promised not
+to think about it. It's no crime of yours. . . . We love each other very
+much, don't we?" he added in a gentler tone. "When we're married you'll
+have no more unpleasant hours."
+
+"I know," murmured Miette. "You are so kind, you sustain me. But what am
+I to do? I sometimes have fears and feelings of revolt. I think at times
+that I have been wronged, and then I should like to do something wicked.
+You see I pour forth my heart to you. Whenever my father's name is
+thrown in my face, I feel my whole body burning. When the urchins cry
+at me as I pass, 'Eh, La Chantegreil,' I lose all control of myself, and
+feel that I should like to lay hold of them and whip them."
+
+After a savage pause she resumed: "As for you, you're a man; you're
+going to fight; you're very lucky."
+
+Silvere had let her speak on. After a few steps he observed sorrowfully:
+"You are wrong, Miette; yours is bad anger. You shouldn't rebel against
+justice. As for me, I'm going to fight in defence of our common rights,
+not to gratify any personal animosity."
+
+"All the same," the young girl continued, "I should like to be a man and
+handle a gun. I feel that it would do me good."
+
+Then, as Silvere remained silent, she perceived that she had displeased
+him. Her feverishness subsided, and she whispered in a supplicating
+tone: "You are not angry with me, are you? It's your departure which
+grieves me and awakens such ideas. I know very well you are right--that
+I ought to be humble."
+
+Then she began to cry, and Silvere, moved by her tears, grasped her
+hands and kissed them.
+
+"See, now, how you pass from anger to tears, like a child," he said
+lovingly. "You must be reasonable. I'm not scolding you. I only want to
+see you happier, and that depends largely upon yourself."
+
+The remembrance of the drama which Miette had so sadly evoked cast a
+temporary gloom over the lovers. They continued their walk with bowed
+heads and troubled thoughts.
+
+"Do you think I'm much happier than you?" Silvere at last inquired,
+resuming the conversation in spite of himself. "If my grandmother had
+not taken care of me and educated me, what would have become of me? With
+the exception of my Uncle Antoine, who is an artisan like myself, and
+who taught me to love the Republic, all my other relations seem to fear
+that I might besmirch them by coming near them."
+
+He was now speaking with animation, and suddenly stopped, detaining
+Miette in the middle of the road.
+
+"God is my witness," he continued, "that I do not envy or hate anybody.
+But if we triumph, I shall have to tell the truth to those fine
+gentlemen. Uncle Antoine knows all about this matter. You'll see when we
+return. We shall all live free and happy."
+
+Then Miette gently led him on, and they resumed their walk.
+
+"You dearly love your Republic?" the girl asked, essaying a joke. "Do
+you love me as much?"
+
+Her smile was not altogether free from a tinge of bitterness. She was
+thinking, perhaps, how easily Silvere abandoned her to go and scour the
+country-side. But the lad gravely replied: "You are my wife, to whom I
+have given my whole heart. I love the Republic because I love you. When
+we are married we shall want plenty of happiness, and it is to procure a
+share of that happiness that I'm going way to-morrow morning. You surely
+don't want to persuade me to remain at home?"
+
+"Oh, no!" cried the girl eagerly. "A man should be brave! Courage
+is beautiful! You must forgive my jealousy. I should like to be as
+strong-minded as you are. You would love me all the more, wouldn't you?"
+
+After a moment's silence she added, with charming vivacity and
+ingenuousness: "Ah, how willingly I shall kiss you when you come back!"
+
+This outburst of a loving and courageous heart deeply affected Silvere.
+He clasped Miette in his arms and printed several kisses on her cheek.
+As she laughingly struggled to escape him, her eyes filled with tears of
+emotion.
+
+All around the lovers the country still slumbered amid the deep
+stillness of the cold. They were now half-way down the hill. On the top
+of a rather lofty hillock to the left stood the ruins of a windmill,
+blanched by the moon; the tower, which had fallen in on one side, alone
+remained. This was the limit which the young people had assigned to
+their walk. They had come straight from the Faubourg without casting a
+single glance at the fields between which they passed. When Silvere had
+kissed Miette's cheek, he raised his head and observed the mill.
+
+"What a long walk we've had!" he exclaimed. "See--here is the mill. It
+must be nearly half-past nine. We must go home."
+
+But Miette pouted. "Let us walk a little further," she implored; "only a
+few steps, just as far as the little cross-road, no farther, really."
+
+Silvere smiled as he again took her round the waist. Then they continued
+to descend the hill, no longer fearing inquisitive glances, for they had
+not met a living soul since passing the last houses. They nevertheless
+remained enveloped in the long pelisse, which seemed, as it were, a
+natural nest for their love. It had shrouded them on so many happy
+evenings! Had they simply walked side by side, they would have felt
+small and isolated in that vast stretch of country, whereas, blended
+together as they were, they became bolder and seemed less puny. Between
+the folds of the pelisse they gazed upon the fields stretching on both
+sides of the road, without experiencing that crushing feeling with which
+far-stretching callous vistas oppress the human affections. It seemed
+to them as though they had brought their house with them; they felt a
+pleasure in viewing the country-side as from a window, delighting in the
+calm solitude, the sheets of slumbering light, the glimpses of nature
+vaguely distinguishable beneath the shroud of night and winter, the
+whole of that valley indeed, which while charming them could not thrust
+itself between their close-pressed hearts.
+
+All continuity of conversation had ceased; they spoke no more of others,
+nor even of themselves. They were absorbed by the present, pressing each
+other's hands, uttering exclamations at the sight of some particular
+spot, exchanging words at rare intervals, and then understanding each
+other but little, for drowsiness came from the warmth of their embrace.
+Silvere forgot his Republican enthusiasm; Miette no longer reflected
+that her lover would be leaving her in an hour, for a long time, perhaps
+for ever. The transports of their affection lulled them into a feeling
+of security, as on other days, when no prospect of parting had marred
+the tranquility of their meetings.
+
+They still walked on, and soon reached the little crossroad mentioned by
+Miette--a bit of a lane which led through the fields to a village on the
+banks of the Viorne. But they passed on, pretending not to notice
+this path, where they had agreed to stop. And it was only some minutes
+afterwards that Silvere whispered, "It must be very late; you will get
+tired."
+
+"No; I assure you I'm not at all tired," the girl replied. "I could walk
+several leagues like this easily." Then, in a coaxing tone, she added:
+"Let us go down as far as the meadows of Sainte-Claire. There we will
+really stop and turn back."
+
+Silvere, whom the girl's rhythmic gait lulled to semi-somnolence, made
+no objection, and their rapture began afresh. They now went on more
+slowly, fearing the moment when they would have to retrace their steps.
+So long as they walked onward, they felt as though they were advancing
+to the eternity of their mutual embrace; the return would mean
+separation and bitter leave-taking.
+
+The declivity of the road was gradually becoming more gentle. In the
+valley below there are meadows extending as far as the Viorne, which
+runs at the other end, beneath a range of low hills. These meadows,
+separated from the high-road by thickset hedges, are the meadows of
+Sainte-Claire.
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Silvere this time, as he caught sight of the first
+patches of grass: "we may as well go as far as the bridge."
+
+At this Miette burst out laughing, clasped the young man round the neck,
+and kissed him noisily.
+
+At the spot where the hedges begin, there were in those days two elms
+forming the end of the long avenue, two colossal trees larger than any
+of the others. The treeless fields stretch out from the high road, like
+a broad band of green wool, as far as the willows and birches by the
+river. The distance from the last elms to the bridge is scarcely three
+hundred yards. The lovers took a good quarter of an hour to cover that
+space. At last, however slow their gait, they reached the bridge, and
+there they stopped.
+
+The road to Nice ran up in front of them, along the opposite slope of
+the valley. But they could only see a small portion of it, as it takes a
+sudden turn about half a mile from the bridge, and is lost to view among
+the wooded hills. On looking round they caught sight of the other end
+of the road, that which they had just traversed, and which leads in
+a direct line from Plassans to the Viorne. In the beautiful winter
+moonlight it looked like a long silver ribbon, with dark edgings traced
+by the rows of elms. On the right and left the ploughed hill-land showed
+like vast, grey, vague seas intersected by this ribbon, this roadway
+white with frost, and brilliant as with metallic lustre. Up above, on a
+level with the horizon, lights shone from a few windows in the Faubourg,
+resembling glowing sparks. By degrees Miette and Silvere had walked
+fully a league. They gazed at the intervening road, full of silent
+admiration for the vast amphitheatre which rose to the verge of the
+heavens, and over which flowed bluish streams of light, as over the
+superposed rocks of a gigantic waterfall. The strange and colossal
+picture spread out amid deathlike stillness and silence. Nothing could
+have been of more sovereign grandeur.
+
+Then the young people, having leant against the parapet of the bridge,
+gazed beneath them. The Viorne, swollen by the rains, flowed on with a
+dull, continuous sound. Up and down stream, despite the darkness which
+filled the hollows, they perceived the black lines of the trees growing
+on the banks; here and there glided the moonbeams, casting a trail of
+molten metal, as it were, over the water, which glittered and danced
+like rays of light on the scales of some live animal. The gleams darted
+with a mysterious charm along the gray torrent, betwixt the vague
+phantom-like foliage. You might have thought this an enchanted valley,
+some wondrous retreat where a community of shadows and gleams lived a
+fantastic life.
+
+This part of the river was familiar to the lovers; they had often come
+here in search of coolness on warm July nights; they had spent hours
+hidden among the clusters of willows on the right bank, at the spot
+where the meadows of Sainte-Claire spread their verdant carpet to the
+waterside. They remembered every bend of the bank, the stones on which
+they had stepped in order to cross the Viorne, at that season as narrow
+as a brooklet, and certain little grassy hollows where they had indulged
+in their dreams of love. Miette, therefore, now gazed from the bridge at
+the right bank of the torrent with longing eyes.
+
+"If it were warmer," she sighed, "we might go down and rest awhile
+before going back up the hill." Then, after a pause, during which
+she kept her eyes fixed on the banks, she resumed: "Look down there,
+Silvere, at that black mass yonder in front of the lock. Do you
+remember? That's the brushwood where we sat last Corpus Christi Day."
+
+"Yes, so it is," replied Silvere, softly.
+
+This was the spot where they had first ventured to kiss each other on
+the cheek. The remembrance just roused by the girl's words brought both
+of them a delightful feeling, an emotion in which the joys of the
+past mingled with the hopes of the morrow. Before their eyes, with the
+rapidity of lightening, there passed all the delightful evenings they
+had spent together, especially that evening of Corpus Christi Day, with
+the warm sky, the cool willows of the Viorne, and their own loving talk.
+And at the same time, whilst the past came back to their hearts full
+of a delightful savour, they fancied they could plunge into the unknown
+future, see their dreams realised, and march through life arm in
+arm--even as they had just been doing on the highway--warmly wrapped in
+the same cloak. Then rapture came to them again, and they smiled in each
+other's eyes, alone amidst all the silent radiance.
+
+Suddenly, however, Silvere raised his head and, throwing off the cloak,
+listened attentively. Miette, in her surprise, imitated him, at a loss
+to understand why he had started so abruptly from her side.
+
+Confused sounds had for a moment been coming from behind the hills
+in the midst of which the Nice road wends its way. They suggested the
+distant jolting of a procession of carts; but not distinctly, so loud
+was the roaring of the Viorne. Gradually, however, they became more
+pronounced, and rose at last like the tramping of an army on the march.
+Then amidst the continuous growing rumble one detected the shouts of a
+crowd, strange rhythmical blasts as of a hurricane. One could even have
+fancied they were the thunderclaps of a rapidly approaching storm which
+was already disturbing the slumbering atmosphere. Silvere listened
+attentively, unable to tell, however, what were those tempest-like
+shouts, for the hills prevented them from reaching him distinctly.
+Suddenly a dark mass appeared at the turn of the road, and then the
+"Marseillaise" burst forth, formidable, sung as with avenging fury.
+
+"Ah, here they are!" cried Silvere, with a burst of joyous enthusiasm.
+
+Forthwith he began to run up the hill, dragging Miette with him. On the
+left of the road was an embankment planted with evergreen oaks, up which
+he clambered with the young girl, to avoid being carried away by the
+surging, howling multitude.
+
+When he had reached the top of the bank and the shadow of the brushwood,
+Miette, rather pale, gazed sorrowfully at those men whose distant song
+had sufficed to draw Silvere from her embrace. It seemed as if the
+whole band had thrust itself between them. They had been so happy a few
+minutes before, locked in each other's arms, alone and lost amidst the
+overwhelming silence and discreet glimmer of the moon! And now Silvere,
+whose head was turned away from her, who no longer seemed even conscious
+of her presence, had eyes only for those strangers whom he called his
+brothers.
+
+The band descended the slope with a superb, irresistible stride. There
+could have been nothing grander than the irruption of those few thousand
+men into that cold, still, deathly scene. The highway became a torrent,
+rolling with living waves which seemed inexhaustible. At the bend in the
+road fresh masses ever appeared, whose songs ever helped to swell the
+roar of this human tempest. When the last battalions came in sight the
+uproar was deafening. The "Marseillaise" filled the atmosphere as
+if blown through enormous trumpets by giant mouths, which cast it,
+vibrating with a brazen clang, into every corner of the valley. The
+slumbering country-side awoke with a start--quivering like a beaten drum
+resonant to its very entrails, and repeating with each and every echo
+the passionate notes of the national song. And then the singing was
+no longer confined to the men. From the very horizon, from the distant
+rocks, the ploughed land, the meadows, the copses, the smallest bits
+of brushwood, human voices seemed to come. The great amphitheatre,
+extending from the river to Plassans, the gigantic cascade over which
+the bluish moonlight flowed, was as if filled with innumerable invisible
+people cheering the insurgents; and in the depths of the Viorne, along
+the waters streaked with mysterious metallic reflections, there was not
+a dark nook but seemed to conceal human beings, who took up each refrain
+with yet greater passion. With air and earth alike quivering, the whole
+country-side cried for vengeance and liberty. So long as the little army
+was descending the slope, the roar of the populace thus rolled on in
+sonorous waves broken by abrupt outbursts which shook the very stones in
+the roadway.
+
+Silvere, pale with emotion, still listened and looked on. The insurgents
+who led the van of that swarming, roaring stream, so vague and monstrous
+in the darkness, were rapidly approaching the bridge.
+
+"I thought," murmured Miette, "that you would not pass through
+Plassans?"
+
+"They must have altered the plan of operations," Silvere replied; "we
+were, in fact, to have marched to the chief town by the Toulon road,
+passing to the left of Plassans and Orcheres. They must have left
+Alboise this afternoon and passed Les Tulettes this evening."
+
+The head of the column had already arrived in front of the young people.
+The little army was more orderly than one would have expected from a
+band of undisciplined men. The contingents from the various towns and
+villages formed separate battalions, each separated by a distance of a
+few paces. These battalions were apparently under the orders of certain
+chiefs. For the nonce the pace at which they were descending the
+hillside made them a compact mass of invincible strength. There were
+probably about three thousand men, all united and carried away by the
+same storm of indignation. The strange details of the scene were not
+discernible amidst the shadows cast over the highway by the lofty
+slopes. At five or six feet from the brushwood, however, where Miette
+and Silvere were sheltered, the left-hand embankment gave place to
+a little pathway which ran alongside the Viorne; and the moonlight,
+flowing through this gap, cast a broad band of radiance across the road.
+When the first insurgents reached this patch of light they were
+suddenly illumined by a sharp white glow which revealed, with singular
+distinctness, every outline of visage or costume. And as the various
+contingents swept on, the young people thus saw them emerge, fiercely
+and without cessation, from the surrounding darkness.
+
+As the first men passed through the light Miette instinctively clung
+to Silvere, although she knew she was safe, even from observation. She
+passed her arm round the young fellow's neck, resting her head against
+his shoulder. And with the hood of her pelisse encircling her pale
+face she gazed fixedly at that square patch of light as it was rapidly
+traversed by those strange faces, transfigured by enthusiasm, with dark
+open mouths full of the furious cry of the "Marseillaise." Silvere,
+whom she felt quivering at her side, then bent towards her and named the
+various contingents as they passed.
+
+The column marched along eight abreast. In the van were a number of big,
+square-headed fellows, who seemed to possess the herculean strength and
+naïve confidence of giants. They would doubtless prove blind, intrepid
+defenders of the Republic. On their shoulders they carried large axes,
+whose edges, freshly sharpened, glittered in the moonlight.
+
+"Those are the woodcutters of the forests of the Seille," said Silvere.
+"They have been formed into a corps of sappers. At a signal from their
+leaders they would march as far as Paris, battering down the gates of
+the towns with their axes, just as they cut down the old cork-trees on
+the mountain."
+
+The young man spoke with pride of the heavy fists of his brethren. And
+on seeing a band of labourers and rough-bearded men, tanned by the
+sun, coming along behind the woodcutters, he continued: "That is the
+contingent from La Palud. That was the first place to rise. The men in
+blouses are labourers who cut up the cork-trees; the others in velveteen
+jackets must be sportsmen, poachers, and charcoal-burners living in the
+passes of the Seille. The poachers knew your father, Miette. They have
+good firearms, which they handle skilfully. Ah! if all were armed in the
+same manner! We are short of muskets. See, the labourers have only got
+cudgels!"
+
+Miette, still speechless, looked on and listened. As Silvere spoke to
+her of her father, the blood surged to her cheeks. Her face burnt as she
+scrutinised the sportsmen with a strange air of mingled indignation and
+sympathy. From this moment she grew animated, yielding to the feverish
+quiver which the insurgents' songs awakened.
+
+The column, which had just begun the "Marseillaise" afresh, was still
+marching down as though lashed on by the sharp blasts of the "Mistral."
+The men of La Palud were followed by another troop of workmen, among
+whom a goodly number of middle class folks in great-coats were to be
+seen.
+
+"Those are the men of Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx," Silvere resumed. "That
+_bourg_ rose almost at the same time as La Palud. The masters joined the
+workmen. There are some rich men there, Miette; men whose wealth would
+enable them to live peacefully at home, but who prefer to risk their
+lives in defence of liberty. One can but admire them. Weapons are very
+scarce, however; they've scarcely got a few fowling-pieces. But do you
+see those men yonder, Miette, with red bands round their left elbows?
+They are the leaders."
+
+The contingents descended the hill more rapidly than Silvere could
+speak. While he was naming the men from Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx, two
+battalions had already crossed the ray of light which blanched the
+roadway.
+
+"Did you see the insurgents from Alboise and Les Tulettes pass by just
+now?" he asked. "I recognised Burgat the blacksmith. They must have
+joined the band to-day. How they do run!"
+
+Miette was now leaning forward, in order to see more of the little bands
+described to her by the young man. The quiver she felt rose from her
+bosom to her throat. Then a battalion larger and better disciplined than
+the others appeared. The insurgents composing it were nearly all dressed
+in blue blouses, with red sashes round their waists. One would have
+thought they were arrayed in uniform. A man on horseback, with a sabre
+at his side, was in the midst of them. And most of these improvised
+soldiers carried guns, probably carbines and old muskets of the National
+Guard.
+
+"I don't know those," said Silvere. "The man on horseback must be the
+chief I've heard spoken of. He brought with him the contingents from
+Faverolles and the neighbouring villages. The whole column ought to be
+equipped in the same manner."
+
+He had no time to take breath. "Ah! see, here are the country people!"
+he suddenly cried.
+
+Small groups of ten or twenty men at the most were now advancing behind
+the men of Faverolles. They all wore the short jacket of the Southern
+peasantry, and as they sang they brandished pitchforks and scythes. Some
+of them even only carried large navvies' shovels. Every hamlet, however,
+had sent its able-bodied men.
+
+Silvere, who recognised the parties by their leaders, enumerated them in
+feverish tones. "The contingent from Chavanoz!" said he. "There are
+only eight men, but they are strong; Uncle Antoine knows them. Here's
+Nazeres! Here's Poujols! They're all here; not one has failed to answer
+the summons. Valqueyras! Hold, there's the parson amongst them; I've
+heard about him, he's a staunch Republican."
+
+He was becoming intoxicated with the spectacle. Now that each battalion
+consisted of only a few insurgents he had to name them yet more hastily,
+and his precipitancy gave him the appearance of one in a frenzy.
+
+"Ah! Miette," he continued, "what a fine march past! Rozan! Vernoux!
+Corbiere! And there are more still, you'll see. These have only got
+scythes, but they'll mow down the troops as close as the grass in their
+meadows--Saint-Eutrope! Mazet! Les Gardes, Marsanne! The whole north
+side of the Seille! Ah, we shall be victorious! The whole country is
+with us. Look at those men's arms, they are hard and black as iron.
+There's no end to them. There's Pruinas! Roches Noires! Those last
+are smugglers: they are carrying carbines. Still more scythes and
+pitchforks, the contingents of country folk are still passing.
+Castel-le-Vieux! Sainte-Anne! Graille! Estourmel! Murdaran!"
+
+His voice was husky with emotion as he finished naming these men, who
+seemed to be borne away by a whirlwind as fast as he enumerated them.
+Erect, with glowing countenance, he pointed out the several contingents
+with a nervous gesture. Miette followed his movements. The road below
+attracted her like the depths of a precipice. To avoid slipping down
+the incline she clung to the young man's neck. A strange intoxication
+emanated from those men, who themselves were inebriated with clamour,
+courage, and confidence. Those beings, seen athwart a moonbeam, those
+youths and those men in their prime, those old people brandishing
+strange weapons and dressed in the most diverse costumes, from working
+smock to middle class overcoat, those endless rows of heads, which
+the hour and the circumstances endowed with an expression of fanatical
+energy and enthusiasm, gradually appeared to the girl like a whirling,
+impetuous torrent. At certain moments she fancied they were not of
+themselves moving, that they were really being carried away by the force
+of the "Marseillaise," by that hoarse, sonorous chant. She could not
+distinguish any conversation, she heard but a continuous volume of
+sound, alternating from bass to shrill notes, as piercing as nails
+driven into one's flesh. This roar of revolt, this call to combat,
+to death, with its outbursts of indignation, its burning thirst for
+liberty, its remarkable blending of bloodthirsty and sublime impulses,
+unceasingly smote her heart, penetrating more deeply at each fierce
+outburst, and filling her with the voluptuous pangs of a virgin martyr
+who stands erect and smiles under the lash. And the crowd flowed on ever
+amidst the same sonorous wave of sound. The march past, which did not
+really last more than a few minutes, seemed to the young people to be
+interminable.
+
+Truly, Miette was but a child. She had turned pale at the approach of
+the band, she had wept for the loss of love, but she was a brave child,
+whose ardent nature was easily fired by enthusiasm. Thus ardent emotions
+had gradually got possession of her, and she became as courageous as
+a youth. She would willingly have seized a weapon and followed the
+insurgents. As the muskets and scythes filed past, her white teeth
+glistened longer and sharper between her red lips, like the fangs of
+a young wolf eager to bite and tear. And as she listened to Silvere
+enumerating the contingents from the country-side with ever-increasing
+haste, the pace of the column seemed to her to accelerate still more.
+She soon fancied it all a cloud of human dust swept along by a tempest.
+Everything began to whirl before her. Then she closed her eyes; big hot
+tears were rolling down her cheeks.
+
+Silvere's eyelashes were also moist. "I don't see the men who left
+Plassans this afternoon," he murmured.
+
+He tried to distinguish the end of the column, which was still hidden by
+the darkness. Suddenly he cried with joyous exultation: "Ah, here they
+are! They've got the banner--the banner has been entrusted to them!"
+
+Then he wanted to leap from the slope in order to join his companions.
+At this moment, however, the insurgents halted. Words of command ran
+along the column, the "Marseillaise" died out in a final rumble, and
+one could only hear the confused murmuring of the still surging crowd.
+Silvere, as he listened, caught the orders which were passed on from one
+contingent to another; they called the men of Plassans to the van. Then,
+as each battalion ranged itself alongside the road to make way for the
+banner, the young man reascended the embankment, dragging Miette with
+him.
+
+"Come," he said; "we can get across the river before they do."
+
+When they were on the top, among the ploughed land, they ran along to a
+mill whose lock bars the river. Then they crossed the Viorne on a
+plank placed there by the millers, and cut across the meadows of
+Sainte-Claire, running hand-in-hand, without exchanging a word. The
+column threw a dark line over the highway, which they followed alongside
+the hedges. There were some gaps in the hawthorns, and at last Silvere
+and Miette sprang on to the road through one of them.
+
+In spite of the circuitous way they had come, they arrived at the same
+time as the men of Plassans. Silvere shook hands with some of them. They
+must have thought he had heard of the new route they had chosen, and had
+come to meet them. Miette, whose face was half-concealed by her hood,
+was scrutinised rather inquisitively.
+
+"Why, it's Chantegreil," at last said one of the men from the Faubourg
+of Plassans, "the niece of Rebufat, the _meger_[*] of the Jas-Meiffren."
+
+     [*] A _meger_ is a farmer in Provence who shares the
+     expenses and profits of his farm with the owner of the land.
+
+"Where have you sprung from, gadabout?" cried another voice.
+
+Silvere, intoxicated with enthusiasm, had not thought of the distress
+which his sweetheart would feel at the jeers of the workmen. Miette, all
+confusion, looked at him as if to implore his aid. But before he
+could even open his lips another voice rose from the crowd, brutally
+exclaiming:
+
+"Her father's at the galleys; we don't want the daughter of a thief and
+murderer amongst us."
+
+At this Miette turned dreadfully pale.
+
+"You lie!" she muttered. "If my father did kill anybody, he never
+thieved!"
+
+And as Silvere, pale and trembling more than she, began to clench his
+fists: "Stop!" she continued; "this is my affair."
+
+Then, turning to the men, she repeated with a shout: "You lie! You lie!
+He never stole a copper from anybody. You know it well enough. Why do
+you insult him when he can't be here?"
+
+She drew herself up, superb with indignation. With her ardent, half-wild
+nature she seemed to accept the charge of murder composedly enough, but
+that of theft exasperated her. They knew it, and that was why folks,
+from stupid malice, often cast the accusation in her face.
+
+The man who had just called her father a thief was merely repeating
+what he had heard said for many years. The girl's defiant attitude
+only incited the workmen to jeer the more. Silvere still had his fists
+clenched, and matters might have become serious if a poacher from
+the Seille, who had been sitting on a heap of stones at the roadside
+awaiting the order to march, had not come to the girl's assistance.
+
+"The little one's right," he said. "Chantegreil was one of us. I knew
+him. Nobody knows the real facts of his little matter. I always believed
+in the truth of his deposition before the judge. The gendarme whom he
+brought down with a bullet, while he was out shooting, was no doubt
+taking aim at him at the time. A man must defend himself! At all events
+Chantegreil was a decent fellow; he committed no robbery."
+
+As often happens in such cases, the testimony of this poacher sufficed
+to bring other defenders to Miette's aid. Several workmen also professed
+to have known Chantegreil.
+
+"Yes, yes, it's true!" they all said. "He wasn't a thief. There are
+some scoundrels at Plassans who ought to be sent to prison in his place.
+Chantegreil was our brother. Come, now, be calm, little one."
+
+Miette had never before heard anyone speak well of her father. He was
+generally referred to as a beggar, a villain, and now she found good
+fellows who had forgiving words for him, and declared him to be an
+honest man. She burst into tears, again full of the emotion awakened in
+her by the "Marseillaise;" and she bethought herself how she might thank
+these men for their kindness to her in misfortune. For a moment she
+conceived the idea of shaking them all by the hand like a man. But her
+heart suggested something better. By her side stood the insurgent
+who carried the banner. She touched the staff, and, to express her
+gratitude, said in an entreating tone, "Give it to me; I will carry it."
+
+The simple-minded workmen understood the ingenuous sublimity of this
+form of gratitude.
+
+"Yes," they all cried, "Chantegreil shall carry the banner."
+
+However, a woodcutter remarked that she would soon get tired, and would
+not be able to go far.
+
+"Oh! I'm quite strong," she retorted proudly, tucking up her sleeves and
+showing a pair of arms as big as those of a grown woman. Then as they
+handed her the flag she resumed, "Wait just a moment."
+
+Forthwith she pulled off her cloak, and put it on again after turning
+the red lining outside. In the clear moonlight she appeared to be
+arrayed in a purple mantle reaching to her feet. The hood resting on the
+edge of her chignon formed a kind of Phrygian cap. She took the flag,
+pressed the staff to her bosom, and held herself upright amid the folds
+of that blood-coloured banner which waved behind her. Enthusiastic child
+that she was, her countenance, with its curly hair, large eyes moist
+with tears, and lips parted in a smile, seemed to rise with energetic
+pride as she turned it towards the sky. At that moment she was the
+virgin Liberty.
+
+The insurgents burst into applause. The vivid imagination of those
+Southerners was fired with enthusiasm at the sudden apparition of this
+girl so nervously clasping their banner to her bosom. Shouts rose from
+the nearest group:
+
+"Bravo, Chantegreil! Chantegreil for ever! She shall remain with us;
+she'll bring us luck!"
+
+They would have cheered her for a long time yet had not the order to
+resume the march arrived. Whilst the column moved on, Miette pressed
+Silvere's hand and whispered in his ear: "You hear! I shall remain with
+you. Are you glad?"
+
+Silvere, without replying, returned the pressure. He consented. In fact,
+he was deeply affected, unable to resist the enthusiasm which fired his
+companions. Miette seemed to him so lovely, so grand, so saintly! During
+the whole climb up the hill he still saw her before him, radiant, amidst
+a purple glory. She was now blended with his other adored mistress--the
+Republic. He would have liked to be in action already, with his gun on
+his shoulder. But the insurgents moved slowly. They had orders to make
+as little noise as possible. Thus the column advanced between the
+rows of elms like some gigantic serpent whose every ring had a strange
+quivering. The frosty December night had again sunk into silence, and
+the Viorne alone seemed to roar more loudly.
+
+On reaching the first houses of the Faubourg, Silvere ran on in front to
+fetch his gun from the Aire Saint-Mittre, which he found slumbering in
+the moonlight. When he again joined the insurgents they had reached
+the Porte de Rome. Miette bent towards him, and with her childish smile
+observed: "I feel as if I were at the procession on Corpus Christi Day
+carrying the banner of the Virgin."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Plassans is a sub-prefecture with about ten thousand inhabitants. Built
+on a plateau overlooking the Viorne, and resting on the north side
+against the Garrigues hills, one of the last spurs of the Alps, the
+town is situated, as it were, in the depths of a cul-de-sac. In 1851
+it communicated with the adjoining country by two roads only, the Nice
+road, which runs down to the east, and the Lyons road, which rises to
+the west, the one continuing the other on almost parallel lines. Since
+that time a railway has been built which passes to the south of the
+town, below the hill which descends steeply from the old ramparts to
+the river. At the present day, on coming out of the station on the right
+bank of the little torrent, one can see, by raising one's head, the
+first houses of Plassans, with their gardens disposed in terrace
+fashion. It is, however, only after an uphill walk lasting a full
+quarter of an hour that one reaches these houses.
+
+About twenty years ago, owing, no doubt, to deficient means of
+communication, there was no town that had more completely retained the
+pious and aristocratic character of the old Provencal cities. Plassans
+then had, and has even now, a whole district of large mansions built
+in the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., a dozen churches, Jesuit
+and Capuchin houses, and a considerable number of convents. Class
+distinctions were long perpetuated by the town's division into various
+districts. There were three of them, each forming, as it were, a
+separate and complete locality, with its own churches, promenades,
+customs, and landscapes.
+
+The district of the nobility, called Saint-Marc, after the name of one
+of its parish churches, is a sort of miniature Versailles, with straight
+streets overgrown with grass, and large square houses which conceal
+extensive gardens. It extends to the south along the edge of the
+plateau. Some of the mansions built on the declivity itself have a
+double row of terraces whence one can see the whole valley of the
+Viorne, a most charming vista much vaunted in that part of the country.
+Then on the north-west, the old quarter, formed of the original town,
+rears its narrow, tortuous lanes bordered with tottering hovels. The
+Town-Hall, the Civil Court, the Market, and the Gendarmerie barracks
+are situated here. This, the most populous part of the Plassans, is
+inhabited by working-men and shop-keepers, all the wretched, toiling,
+common folk. The new town forms a sort of parallelogram to the
+north-east; the well-to-do, those who have slowly amassed a fortune, and
+those engaged in the liberal professions, here occupy houses set out
+in straight lines and coloured a light yellow. This district, which is
+embellished by the Sub-Prefecture, an ugly plaster building decorated
+with rose-mouldings, numbered scarcely five or six streets in 1851; it
+is of quite recent formation, and it is only since the construction of
+the railway that it has been growing in extent.
+
+One circumstance which even at the present time tends to divide
+Plassans into three distinct independent parts is that the limits of the
+districts are clearly defined by the principal thoroughfares. The Cours
+Sauvaire and the Rue de Rome, which is, as it were, a narrow extension
+of the former, run from west to east, from the Grand'-Porte to the
+Porte de Rome, thus cutting the town into two portions, and dividing
+the quarter of the nobility from the others. The latter are themselves
+parted by the Rue de la Banne. This street, the finest in the locality,
+starts from the extremity of the Cours Sauvaire, and ascends northwards,
+leaving the black masses of the old quarter on its left, and the
+light-yellow houses of the new town on its right. It is here, about
+half-way along the street, that stands the Sub-Prefecture, in the rear
+of a small square planted with sickly trees; the people of Plassans are
+very proud of this edifice.
+
+As if to keep more isolated and shut up within itself, the town is
+belted with old ramparts, which only serve to increase its gloom and
+render it more confined. These ridiculous fortifications, preyed upon by
+ivy and crowned with wild gillyflowers, are about as high and as thick
+as the walls of a convent, and could be demolished by gunshot. They
+have several openings, the principal of which, the Porte de Rome and the
+Grand'-Porte, afford access to the Nice road and the Lyons road, at the
+other end of town. Until 1853 these openings were furnished with huge
+wooden two-leaved gates, arched at the top, and strengthened with bars
+of iron. These gates were double-locked at eleven o'clock in summer, and
+ten o'clock in winter. The town having thus shot its bolts like a timid
+girl, went quietly to sleep. A keeper, who lived in a little cell in one
+of the inner corners of each gateway, was authorised to admit belated
+persons. But it was necessary to stand parleying a long time. The keeper
+would not let people in until, by the light of his lantern, he had
+carefully scrutinised their faces through a peep-hole. If their looks
+displeased him they had to sleep outside. This custom of locking the
+gates every evening was highly characteristic of the spirit of the town,
+which was a commingling of cowardice, egotism, routine, exclusiveness,
+and devout longing for a cloistered life. Plassans, when it had shut
+itself up, would say to itself, "I am at home," with the satisfaction
+of some pious bourgeois, who, assured of the safety of his cash-box,
+and certain that no noise will disturb him, duly says his prayers and
+retires gladly to bed. No other town, I believe, has so long persisted
+in thus incarcerating itself like a nun.
+
+The population of Plassans is divided into three groups, corresponding
+with the same number of districts. Putting aside the functionaries--the
+sub-prefect, the receiver of taxes, the mortgage commissioner, and
+the postmaster, who are all strangers to the locality, where they are
+objects of envy rather than of esteem, and who live after their own
+fashion--the real inhabitants, those who were born there and have
+every intention of ending their days there, feel too much respect for
+traditional usages and established boundaries not to pen themselves of
+their own accord in one or other of the town's social divisions.
+
+The nobility virtually cloister themselves. Since the fall of Charles X.
+they scarcely ever go out, and when they do they are eager to return
+to their large dismal mansions, and walk along furtively as though they
+were in a hostile country. They do not visit anyone, nor do they even
+receive each other. Their drawing-rooms are frequented by a few priests
+only. They spend the summer in the chateaux which they possess in the
+environs; in the winter, they sit round their firesides. They are, as
+it were, dead people weary of life. And thus the gloomy silence of a
+cemetery hangs over their quarter of the town. The doors and windows
+are carefully barricaded; one would think their mansions were so many
+convents shut off from all the tumult of the world. At rare intervals
+an abbe, whose measured tread adds to the gloomy silence of these sealed
+houses, passes by and glides like a shadow through some half-opened
+doorway.
+
+The well-to-do people, the retired tradesmen, the lawyers and notaries,
+all those of the little easy-going, ambitious world that inhabits the
+new town, endeavour to infuse some liveliness into Plassans. They go
+to the parties given by the sub-prefect, and dream of giving similar
+entertainments. They eagerly seek popularity, call a workman "my good
+fellow," chat with the peasants about the harvest, read the papers, and
+walk out with their wives on Sundays. Theirs are the enlightened
+minds of the district, they are the only persons who venture to speak
+disparagingly of the ramparts; in fact, they have several times demanded
+of the authorities the demolition of those old walls, relics of a former
+age. At the same time, the most sceptical among them experience a shock
+of delight whenever a marquis or a count deigns to honour them with a
+stiff salutation. Indeed, the dream of every citizen of the new town is
+to be admitted to a drawing-room of the Saint-Marc quarter. They know
+very well that their ambition is not attainable, and it is this which
+makes them proclaim all the louder that they are freethinkers. But they
+are freethinkers in words only; firm friends of the authorities, they
+are ready to rush into the arms of the first deliverer at the slightest
+indication of popular discontent.
+
+The group which toils and vegetates in the old quarter is not so clearly
+defined as the others. The labouring classes are here in a majority; but
+retail dealers and even a few wholesale traders are to be found among
+them. As a matter of fact, Plassans is far from being a commercial
+centre; there is only just sufficient trade to dispose of the products
+of the country--oil, wine, and almonds. As for industrial labour, it is
+represented almost entirely by three or four evil-smelling tanyards,
+a felt hat manufactory, and some soap-boiling works, which last are
+relegated to a corner of the Faubourg. This little commercial and
+industrial world, though it may on high days and holidays visit the
+people of the new district, generally takes up its quarters among the
+operatives of the old town. Merchants, retail traders, and artisans have
+common interests which unite them together. On Sundays only, the masters
+make themselves spruce and foregather apart. On the other hand, the
+labouring classes, which constitute scarcely a fifth of the population,
+mingle with the idlers of the district.
+
+It is only once a week, and during the fine weather, that the three
+districts of Plassans come together face to face. The whole town repairs
+to the Cours Sauvaire on Sunday after vespers; even the nobility venture
+thither. Three distinct currents flow along this sort of boulevard
+planted with rows of plane-trees. The well-to-do citizens of the new
+quarter merely pass along before quitting the town by the Grand'-Porte
+and taking the Avenue du Mail on the right, where they walk up and down
+till nightfall. Meantime, the nobility and the lower classes share the
+Cours Sauvaire between them. For more than a century past the nobility
+have selected the walk on the south side, which is bordered with large
+mansions, and is the first to escape the heat of the sun; the lower
+classes have to rest content with the walk on the north, where the
+cafes, inns, and tobacconists' shops are located. The people and the
+nobility promenade the whole afternoon, walking up and down the Cours
+without anyone of either party thinking of changing sides. They are only
+separated by a distance of some seven or eight yards, yet it is as if
+they were a thousand leagues away from each other, for they scrupulously
+follow those two parallel lines, as though they must not come in contact
+here below. Even during the revolutionary periods each party kept to
+its own side. This regulation walk on Sunday and the locking of the town
+gates in the evening are analogous instances which suffice to indicate
+the character of the ten thousand people inhabiting the town.
+
+Here, amidst these surroundings, until the year 1848, there vegetated
+an obscure family that enjoyed little esteem, but whose head, Pierre
+Rougon, subsequently played an important part in life owing to certain
+circumstances.
+
+Pierre Rougon was the son of a peasant. His mother's family, the
+Fouques, owned, towards the end of the last century, a large plot of
+ground in the Faubourg, behind the old cemetery of Saint-Mittre; this
+ground was subsequently joined to the Jas-Meiffren. The Fouques were the
+richest market-gardeners in that part of the country; they supplied an
+entire district of Plassans with vegetables. However, their name
+died out a few years before the Revolution. Only one girl, Adelaide,
+remained; born in 1768, she had become an orphan at the age of eighteen.
+This girl, whose father had died insane, was a long, lank, pale
+creature, with a scared look and strange ways which one might have taken
+for shyness so long as she was a little girl. As she grew up,
+however, she became still stranger; she did certain things which were
+inexplicable even to the cleverest folk of the Faubourg, and from that
+time it was rumoured that she was cracked like her father.
+
+She had scarcely been an orphan six months, in possession of a fortune
+which rendered her an eagerly sought heiress, when it transpired that
+she had married a young gardener named Rougon, a rough-hewn peasant from
+the Basses-Alpes. This Rougon, after the death of the last of the male
+Fouques, who had engaged him for a term, had remained in the service
+of the deceased's daughter. From the situation of salaried servant he
+ascended rapidly to the enviable position of husband. This marriage was
+a first shock to public opinion. No one could comprehend why Adelaide
+preferred this poor fellow, coarse, heavy, vulgar, scarce able to speak
+French, to those other young men, sons of well-to-do farmers, who had
+been seen hovering round her for some time. And, as provincial people do
+not allow anything to remain unexplained, they made sure there was some
+mystery at the bottom of this affair, alleging even that the marriage of
+the two young people had become an absolute necessity. But events proved
+the falsity of the accusation. More than a year went by before Adelaide
+had a son. The Faubourg was annoyed; it could not admit that it was
+wrong, and determined to penetrate the supposed mystery; accordingly all
+the gossips kept a watch upon the Rougons. They soon found ample matter
+for tittle-tattle. Rougon died almost suddenly, fifteen months after his
+marriage, from a sunstroke received one afternoon while he was weeding a
+bed of carrots.
+
+Scarcely a year then elapsed before the young widow caused unheard-of
+scandal. It became known, as an indisputable fact, that she had a lover.
+She did not appear to make any secret of it; several persons asserted
+that they had heard her use endearing terms in public to poor Rougon's
+successor. Scarcely a year of widowhood and a lover already! Such a
+disregard of propriety seemed monstrous out of all reason. And the
+scandal was heightened by Adelaide's strange choice. At that time there
+dwelt at the end of the Impasse Saint-Mittre, in a hovel the back
+of which abutted on the Fouques' land, a man of bad repute, who was
+generally referred to as "that scoundrel Macquart." This man would
+vanish for weeks and then turn up some fine evening, sauntering about
+with his hands in his pockets and whistling as though he had just
+come from a short walk. And the women sitting at their doorsteps as he
+passed: "There's that scoundrel Macquart! He has hidden his bales and
+his gun in some hollow of the Viorne." The truth was, Macquart had
+no means, and yet ate and drank like a happy drone during his short
+sojourns in the town. He drank copiously and with fierce obstinacy.
+Seating himself alone at a table in some tavern, he would linger there
+evening after evening, with his eyes stupidly fixed on his glass,
+neither seeing nor hearing anything around him. When the landlord closed
+his establishment, he would retire with a firm step, with his head
+raised, as if he were kept yet more erect by inebriation. "Macquart
+walks so straight, he's surely dead drunk," people used to say, as they
+saw him going home. Usually, when he had had no drink, he walked with
+a slight stoop and shunned the gaze of curious people with a kind of
+savage shyness.
+
+Since the death of his father, a journeyman tanner who had left him as
+sole heritage the hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, he had never
+been known to have either relatives or friends. The proximity of the
+frontiers and the neighbouring forests of the Seille had turned this
+singular, lazy fellow into a combination of smuggler and poacher, one
+of those suspicious-looking characters of whom passers-by observe: "I
+shouldn't care to meet that man at midnight in a dark wood." Tall, with
+a formidable beard and lean face, Macquart was the terror of the
+good women of the Faubourg of Plassans; they actually accused him of
+devouring little children raw. Though he was hardly thirty years old,
+he looked fifty. Amidst his bushy beard and the locks of hair which hung
+over his face in poodle fashion, one could only distinguish the gleam
+of his brown eyes, the furtive sorrowful glance of a man of vagrant
+instincts, rendered vicious by wine and a pariah life. Although no
+crimes had actually been brought home to him, no theft or murder was
+ever perpetrated in the district without suspicion at once falling upon
+him.
+
+And it was this ogre, this brigand, this scoundrel Macquart, whom
+Adelaide had chosen! In twenty months she had two children by him, first
+a boy and then a girl. There was no question of marriage between
+them. Never had the Faubourg beheld such audacious impropriety. The
+stupefaction was so great, the idea of Macquart having found a young and
+wealthy mistress so completely upset the gossips, that they even spoke
+gently of Adelaide. "Poor thing! She's gone quite mad," they would say.
+"If she had any relatives she would have been placed in confinement long
+ago." And as they never knew anything of the history of those strange
+amours, they accused that rogue Macquart of having taken advantage of
+Adelaide's weak mind to rob her of her money.
+
+The legitimate son, little Pierre Rougon, grew up with his mother's
+other offspring. The latter, Antoine and Ursule, the young wolves as
+they were called in the district, were kept at home by Adelaide, who
+treated them as affectionately as her first child. She did not appear to
+entertain a very clear idea of the position in life reserved for these
+two poor creatures. To her they were the same in every respect as her
+first-born. She would sometimes go out holding Pierre with one hand and
+Antoine with the other, never noticing how differently the two little
+fellows were already regarded.
+
+It was a strange home. For nearly twenty years everyone lived there
+after his or her fancy, the children like the mother. Everything went
+on free from control. In growing to womanhood, Adelaide had retained the
+strangeness which had been taken for shyness when she was fifteen. It
+was not that she was insane, as the people of the Faubourg asserted,
+but there was a lack of equilibrium between her nerves and her blood,
+a disorder of the brain and heart which made her lead a life out of
+the ordinary, different from that of the rest of the world. She was
+certainly very natural, very consistent with herself; but in the eyes of
+the neighbours her consistency became pure insanity. She seemed
+desirous of making herself conspicuous, it was thought she was wickedly
+determined to turn things at home from bad to worse, whereas with great
+naivete she simply acted according to the impulses of her nature.
+
+Ever since giving birth to her first child she had been subject to
+nervous fits which brought on terrible convulsions. These fits recurred
+periodically, every two or three months. The doctors whom she consulted
+declared they could do nothing for her, that age would weaken the
+severity of the attacks. They simply prescribed a dietary regimen of
+underdone meat and quinine wine. However, these repeated shocks led to
+cerebral disorder. She lived on from day to day like a child, like
+a fawning animal yielding to its instincts. When Macquart was on his
+rounds, she passed her time in lazy, pensive idleness. All she did for
+her children was to kiss and play with them. Then as soon as her lover
+returned she would disappear.
+
+Behind Macquart's hovel there was a little yard, separated from the
+Fouques' property by a wall. One morning the neighbours were much
+astonished to find in this wall a door which had not been there the
+previous evening. Before an hour had elapsed, the entire Faubourg had
+flocked to the neighbouring windows. The lovers must have worked the
+whole night to pierce the opening and place the door there. They could
+now go freely from one house to the other. The scandal was revived,
+everyone felt less pity for Adelaide, who was certainly the disgrace
+of the suburb; she was reproached more wrathfully for that door, that
+tacit, brutal admission of her union, than even for her two illegitimate
+children. "People should at least study appearances," the most tolerant
+women would say. But Adelaide did not understand what was meant by
+studying appearances. She was very happy, very proud of her door; she
+had assisted Macquart to knock the stones from the wall and had even
+mixed the mortar so that the work might proceed the quicker; and she
+came with childish delight to inspect the work by daylight on the
+morrow--an act which was deemed a climax of shamelessness by three
+gossips who observed her contemplating the masonry. From that date,
+whenever Macquart reappeared, it was thought, as no one then ever
+saw the young woman, that she was living with him in the hovel of the
+Impasse Saint-Mittre.
+
+The smuggler would come very irregularly, almost always unexpectedly,
+to Plassans. Nobody ever knew what life the lovers led during the two
+or three days he spent there at distant intervals. They used to shut
+themselves up; the little dwelling seemed uninhabited. Then, as the
+gossips had declared that Macquart had simply seduced Adelaide in order
+to spend her money, they were astonished, after a time, to see him still
+lead his wonted life, ever up hill and down dale and as badly equipped
+as previously. Perhaps the young woman loved him all the more for
+seeing him at rare intervals, perhaps he had disregarded her entreaties,
+feeling an irresistible desire for a life of adventure. The gossips
+invented a thousand fables, without succeeding in giving any reasonable
+explanation of a connection which had originated and continued in so
+strange a manner. The hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre remained closed
+and preserved its secrets. It was merely guessed that Macquart had
+probably acquired the habit of beating Adelaide, although the sound of
+a quarrel never issued from the house. However, on several occasions she
+was seen with her face black and blue, and her hair torn away. At the
+same time, she did not display the least dejection or grief, nor did she
+seek in any way to hide her bruises. She smiled, and seemed happy. No
+doubt she allowed herself to be beaten without breathing a word. This
+existence lasted for more than fifteen years.
+
+At times when Adelaide returned home she would find her house upside
+down, but would not take the least notice of it. She was utterly
+ignorant of the practical meaning of life, of the proper value of things
+and the necessity for order. She let her children grow up like those
+plum-trees which sprout along the highways at the pleasure of the rain
+and sun. They bore their natural fruits like wild stock which has never
+known grafting or pruning. Never was nature allowed such complete sway,
+never did such mischievous creatures grow up more freely under the sole
+influence of instinct. They rolled among the vegetables, passed their
+days in the open air playing and fighting like good-for-nothing urchins.
+They stole provisions from the house and pillaged the few fruit-trees in
+the enclosure; they were the plundering, squalling, familiar demons of
+this strange abode of lucid insanity. When their mother was absent
+for days together, they would make such an uproar, and hit upon such
+diabolical devices for annoying people, that the neighbours had to
+threaten them with a whipping. Moreover, Adelaide did not inspire them
+with much fear; if they were less obnoxious to other people when she was
+at home, it was because they made her their victim, shirking school
+five or six times a week and doing everything they could to receive some
+punishment which would allow them to squall to their hearts' content.
+But she never beat them, nor even lost her temper; she lived on very
+well, placidly, indolently, in a state of mental abstraction amidst all
+the uproar. At last, indeed, this uproar became indispensable to her,
+to fill the void in her brain. She smiled complacently when she heard
+anyone say, "Her children will beat her some day, and it will serve her
+right." To all remarks, her utter indifference seemed to reply, "What
+does it matter?" She troubled even less about her property than about
+her children. The Fouques' enclosure, during the many years that this
+singular existence lasted would have become a piece of waste ground
+if the young woman had not luckily entrusted the cultivation of her
+vegetables to a clever market-gardener. This man, who was to share the
+profits with her, robbed her impudently, though she never noticed it.
+This circumstance had its advantages, however; for, in order to steal
+the more, the gardener drew as much as possible from the land, which in
+the result almost doubled in value.
+
+Pierre, the legitimate son, either from secret instinct or from his
+knowledge of the different manner in which he and the others were
+regarded by the neighbours, domineered over his brother and sister
+from an early age. In their quarrels, although he was much weaker than
+Antoine, he always got the better of the contest, beating the other with
+all the authority of a master. With regard to Ursule, a poor, puny, wan
+little creature, she was handled with equal roughness by both the
+boys. Indeed, until they were fifteen or sixteen, the three children
+fraternally beat each other without understanding their vague, mutual
+hatred, without realising how foreign they were to one another. It was
+only in youth that they found themselves face to face with definite,
+self-conscious personalities.
+
+At sixteen, Antoine was a tall fellow, a blend of Macquart's and
+Adelaide's failings. Macquart, however, predominated in him, with his
+love of vagrancy, his tendency to drunkenness, and his brutish savagery.
+At the same time, under the influence of Adelaide's nervous nature, the
+vices which in the father assumed a kind of sanguinary frankness were
+in the son tinged with an artfulness full of hypocrisy and cowardice.
+Antoine resembled his mother by his total want of dignified will, by his
+effeminate voluptuous egotism, which disposed him to accept any bed of
+infamy provided he could lounge upon it at his ease and sleep warmly in
+it. People said of him: "Ah! the brigand! He hasn't even the courage of
+his villainy like Macquart; if ever he commits a murder, it will be with
+pin pricks." Physically, Antoine inherited Adelaide's thick lips only;
+his other features resembled those of the smuggler, but they were softer
+and more prone to change of expression.
+
+In Ursule, on the other hand, physical and moral resemblance to the
+mother predominated. There was a mixture of certain characteristics in
+her also; but born the last, at a time when Adelaide's love was warmer
+than Macquart's, the poor little thing seemed to have received with her
+sex a deeper impress of her mother's temperament. Moreover, hers was not
+a fusion of the two natures, but rather a juxtaposition, a remarkably
+close soldering. Ursule was whimsical, and displayed at times the
+shyness, the melancholy, and the transports of a pariah; then she would
+often break out into nervous fits of laughter, and muse lazily, like
+a woman unsound both in head and heart. Her eyes, which at times had
+a scared expression like those of Adelaide, were as limpid as crystal,
+similar to those of kittens doomed to die of consumption.
+
+In presence of those two illegitimate children Pierre seemed a stranger;
+to one who had not penetrated to the roots of his being he would have
+appeared profoundly dissimilar. Never did child's nature show a more
+equal balance of the characteristics of its parents. He was the exact
+mean between the peasant Rougon and the nervous Adelaide. Paternal
+grossness was attenuated by the maternal influence. One found in him the
+first phase of that evolution of temperaments which ultimately brings
+about the amelioration or deterioration of a race. Although he was still
+a peasant, his skin was less coarse, his face less heavy, his intellect
+more capacious and more supple. In him the defects of his father and his
+mother had advantageously reacted upon each other. If Adelaide's nature,
+rendered exquisitely sensitive by her rebellious nerves, had combated
+and lessened Rougon's full-bodied ponderosity, the latter had
+successfully prevented the young woman's tendency to cerebral disorder
+from being implanted in the child. Pierre knew neither the passions nor
+the sickly ravings of Macquart's young whelps. Very badly brought up,
+unruly and noisy, like all children who are not restrained during their
+infancy, he nevertheless possessed at bottom such sense and intelligence
+as would always preserve him from perpetrating any unproductive folly.
+His vices, his laziness, his appetite for indulgence, lacked the
+instinctiveness which characterised Antoine's; he meant to cultivate
+and gratify them honourably and openly. In his plump person of medium
+height, in his long pale face, in which the features derived from his
+father had acquired some of the maternal refinement, one could already
+detect signs of sly and crafty ambition and insatiable desire, with
+the hardness of heart and envious hatred of a peasant's son whom his
+mother's means and nervous temperament had turned into a member of the
+middle classes.
+
+When, at the age of seventeen, Pierre observed and was able to
+understand Adelaide's disorders and the singular position of Antoine and
+Ursule, he seemed neither sorry nor indignant, but simply worried as to
+the course which would best serve his own interests. He was the only
+one of the three children who had pursued his studies with any industry.
+When a peasant begins to feel the need of instruction he most frequently
+becomes a fierce calculator. At school Pierre's playmates roused his
+first suspicions by the manner in which they treated and hooted his
+brother. Later on he came to understand the significance of many looks
+and words. And at last he clearly saw that the house was being pillaged.
+From that time forward he regarded Antoine and Ursule as shameless
+parasites, mouths that were devouring his own substance. Like the people
+of the Faubourg, he thought that his mother was a fit subject for a
+lunatic asylum, and feared she would end by squandering all her money,
+if he did not take steps to prevent it. What gave him the finishing
+stroke was the dishonesty of the gardener who cultivated the land.
+At this, in one day, the unruly child was transformed into a thrifty,
+selfish lad, hurriedly matured, as regards his instincts, by the strange
+improvident life which he could no longer bear to see around him without
+a feeling of anguish. Those vegetables, from the sale of which the
+market-gardener derived the largest profits, really belonged to him;
+the wine which his mother's offspring drank, the bread they ate, also
+belonged to him. The whole house, the entire fortune, was his by right;
+according to his boorish logic, he alone, the legitimate son, was
+the heir. And as his riches were in danger, as everybody was greedily
+gnawing at his future fortune, he sought a means of turning them all
+out--mother, brother, sister, servants--and of succeeding immediately to
+his inheritance.
+
+The conflict was a cruel one; the lad knew that he must first strike his
+mother. Step by step, with patient tenacity, he executed a plan whose
+every detail he had long previously thought out. His tactics were to
+appear before Adelaide like a living reproach--not that he flew into
+a passion, or upbraided her for her misconduct; but he had acquired a
+certain manner of looking at her, without saying a word, which terrified
+her. Whenever she returned from a short sojourn in Macquart's hovel she
+could not turn her eyes on her son without a shudder. She felt his cold
+glances, as sharp as steel blades pierce her deeply and pitilessly. The
+severe, taciturn demeanour of the child of the man whom she had so soon
+forgotten strangely troubled her poor disordered brain. She would fancy
+at times that Rougon had risen from the dead to punish her for her
+dissoluteness. Every week she fell into one of those nervous fits which
+were shattering her constitution. She was left to struggle until she
+recovered consciousness, after which she would creep about more feebly
+than ever. She would also often sob the whole night long, holding her
+head in her hands, and accepting the wounds that Pierre dealt her with
+resignation, as if they had been the strokes of an avenging deity. At
+other times she repudiated him; she would not acknowledge her own
+flesh and blood in that heavy-faced lad, whose calmness chilled her own
+feverishness so painfully. She would a thousand times rather have been
+beaten than glared at like that. Those implacable looks, which followed
+her everywhere, threw her at last into such unbearable torments that
+on several occasions she determined to see her lover no more. As soon,
+however, as Macquart returned she forgot her vows and hastened to him.
+The conflict with her son began afresh, silent and terrible, when she
+came back home. At the end of a few months she fell completely under his
+sway. She stood before him like a child doubtful of her behaviour and
+fearing that she deserves a whipping. Pierre had skilfully bound her
+hand and foot, and made a very submissive servant of her, without
+opening his lips, without once entering into difficult and compromising
+explanations.
+
+When the young man felt that his mother was in his power, that he could
+treat her like a slave, he began, in his own interest, to turn her
+cerebral weakness and the foolish terror with which his glances inspired
+her to his own advantage. His first care, as soon as he was master at
+home, was to dismiss the market-gardener and replace him by one of his
+own creatures. Then he took upon himself the supreme direction of the
+household, selling, buying, and holding the cash-box. On the other hand,
+he made no attempt to regulate Adelaide's actions, or to correct Antoine
+and Ursule for their laziness. That mattered little to him, for he
+counted upon getting rid of these people as soon as an opportunity
+presented itself. He contented himself with portioning out their bread
+and water. Then, having already got all the property in his own hands,
+he awaited an event which would permit him to dispose of it as he
+pleased.
+
+Circumstances proved singularly favourable. He escaped the conscription
+on the ground of being a widow's eldest son. But two years later Antoine
+was called out. His bad luck did not affect him much; he counted on his
+mother purchasing a substitute for him. Adelaide, in fact, wished to
+save him from serving; Pierre, however, who held the money, turned a
+deaf ear to her. His brother's compulsory departure would be a lucky
+event for him, and greatly assist the accomplishment of his plans. When
+his mother mentioned the matter to him, he gave her such a look that
+she did not venture to pursue it. His glance plainly signified, "Do you
+wish, then, to ruin me for the sake of your illegitimate offspring?"
+Forthwith she selfishly abandoned Antoine, for before everything else
+she sought her own peace and quietness. Pierre, who did not like violent
+measures, and who rejoiced at being able to eject his brother without a
+disturbance, then played the part of a man in despair: the year had been
+a bad one, money was scarce, and to raise any he would be compelled to
+sell a portion of the land, which would be the beginning of their ruin.
+Then he pledged his word of honour to Antoine that he would buy him out
+the following year, though he meant to do nothing of the kind. Antoine
+then went off, duped, and half satisfied.
+
+Pierre got rid of Ursule in a still more unexpected manner. A journeyman
+hatter of the Faubourg, named Mouret, conceived a real affection for the
+girl, whom he thought as white and delicate as any young lady from the
+Saint-Marc quarter. He married her. On his part it was a love match,
+free from all sordid motives. As for Ursule, she accepted the marriage
+in order to escape a home where her eldest brother rendered life
+intolerable. Her mother, absorbed in her own courses, and using her
+remaining energy to defend her own particular interests, regarded
+the matter with absolute indifference. She was even glad of Ursule's
+departure from the house, hoping that Pierre, now that he had no further
+cause for dissatisfaction, would let her live in peace after her
+own fashion. No sooner had the young people been married than Mouret
+perceived that he would have to quit Plassans, if he did not wish to
+hear endless disparaging remarks about his wife and his mother-in-law.
+Taking Ursule with him, he accordingly repaired to Marseilles, where he
+worked at his trade. It should be mentioned that he had not asked
+for one sou of dowry. When Pierre, somewhat surprised by this
+disinterestedness, commenced to stammer out some explanations, Mouret
+closed his mouth by saying that he preferred to earn his wife's bread.
+Nevertheless the worthy son of the peasant remained uneasy; Mouret's
+indifference seemed to him to conceal some trap.
+
+Adelaide now remained to be disposed of. Nothing in the world would have
+induced Pierre to live with her any longer. She was compromising him;
+it was with her that he would have liked to make a start. But he found
+himself between two very embarrassing alternatives: to keep her, and
+thus, in a measure, share her disgrace, and bind a fetter to his feet
+which would arrest him in his ambitious flight; or to turn her out, with
+the certainty of being pointed at as a bad son, which would have robbed
+him of the reputation for good nature which he desired. Knowing that he
+would be in want of everybody, he desired to secure an untarnished
+name throughout Plassans. There was but one method to adopt, namely, to
+induce Adelaide to leave of her own accord. Pierre neglected nothing to
+accomplish this end. He considered his mother's misconduct a sufficient
+excuse for his own hard-heartedness. He punished her as one would
+chastise a child. The tables were turned. The poor woman cowered under
+the stick which, figuratively, was constantly held over her. She was
+scarcely forty-two years old, and already had the stammerings of
+terror, and vague, pitiful looks of an old woman in her dotage. Her son
+continued to stab her with his piercing glances, hoping that she would
+run away when her courage was exhausted. The unfortunate woman suffered
+terribly from shame, restrained desire and enforced cowardice, receiving
+the blows dealt her with passive resignation, and nevertheless returning
+to Macquart with the determination to die on the spot rather than
+submit. There were nights when she would have got out of bed, and thrown
+herself into the Viorne, if with her weak, nervous, nature she had not
+felt the greatest fear of death. On several occasions she thought of
+running away and joining her lover on the frontier. It was only
+because she did not know whither to go that she remained in the house,
+submitting to her son's contemptuous silence and secret brutality.
+Pierre divined that she would have left long ago if she had only had a
+refuge. He was waiting an opportunity to take a little apartment for her
+somewhere, when a fortuitous occurrence, which he had not ventured
+to anticipate, abruptly brought about the realisation of his desires.
+Information reached the Faubourg that Macquart had just been killed on
+the frontier by a shot from a custom-house officer, at the moment when
+he was endeavouring to smuggle a load of Geneva watches into France. The
+story was true. The smuggler's body was not even brought home, but was
+interred in the cemetery of a little mountain village. Adelaide's grief
+plunged her into stupor. Her son, who watched her curiously, did not see
+her shed a tear. Macquart had made her sole legatee. She inherited
+his hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and his carbine, which a
+fellow-smuggler, braving the balls of the custom-house officers, loyally
+brought back to her. On the following day she retired to the little
+house, hung the carbine above the mantelpiece, and lived there estranged
+from all the world, solitary and silent.
+
+Pierre was at last sole master of the house. The Fouques' land belonged
+to him in fact, if not in law. He never thought of establishing himself
+on it. It was too narrow a field for his ambition. To till the ground
+and cultivate vegetables seemed to him boorish, unworthy of his
+faculties. He was in a hurry to divest himself of everything
+recalling the peasant. With his nature refined by his mother's nervous
+temperament, he felt an irresistible longing for the enjoyments of the
+middle classes. In all his calculations, therefore, he had regarded the
+sale of the Fouques' property as the final consummation. This sale, by
+placing a round sum of money in his hands, would enable him to marry the
+daughter of some merchant who would take him into partnership. At this
+period the wars of the First Empire were greatly thinning the ranks of
+eligible young men. Parents were not so fastidious as previously in the
+choice of a son-in-law. Pierre persuaded himself that money would
+smooth all difficulties, and that the gossip of the Faubourg would be
+overlooked; he intended to pose as a victim, as an honest man suffering
+from a family disgrace, which he deplored, without being soiled by it or
+excusing it.
+
+For several months already he had cast his eyes on a certain Felicite
+Puech, the daughter of an oil-dealer. The firm of Puech & Lacamp, whose
+warehouses were in one of the darkest lanes of the old quarter, was
+far from prosperous. It enjoyed but doubtful credit in the market, and
+people talked vaguely of bankruptcy. It was precisely in consequence of
+these evil reports that Pierre turned his batteries in this direction.
+No well-to-do trader would have given him his daughter. He meant to
+appear on the scene at the very moment when old Puech should no longer
+know which way to turn; he would then purchase Felicite of him, and
+re-establish the credit of the house by his own energy and intelligence.
+It was a clever expedient for ascending the first rung of the social
+ladder, for raising himself above his station. Above all things, he
+wished to escape from that frightful Faubourg where everybody reviled
+his family, and to obliterate all these foul legends, by effacing even
+the very name of the Fouques' enclosure. For that reason the filthy
+streets of the old quarter seemed to him perfect paradise. There, only,
+he would be able to change his skin.
+
+The moment which he had been awaiting soon arrived. The firm of Puech
+and Lacamp seemed to be at the last gasp. The young man then negotiated
+the match with prudent skill. He was received, if not as a deliverer, at
+least as a necessary and acceptable expedient. The marriage agreed upon,
+he turned his attention to the sale of the ground. The owner of the
+Jas-Meiffren, desiring to enlarge his estate, had made him repeated
+offers. A low, thin, party-wall alone separated the two estates. Pierre
+speculated on the eagerness of his wealthy neighbour, who, to gratify
+his caprice, offered as much as fifty thousand francs for the land. It
+was double its value. Pierre, whoever, with the craftiness of a peasant,
+pulled a long face, and said that he did not care to sell; that his
+mother would never consent to get rid of the property where the Fouques
+had lived from father to son for nearly two centuries. But all the time
+that he was seemingly holding back he was really making preparations for
+the sale. Certain doubts had arisen in his mind. According to his own
+brutal logic, the property belonged to him; he had the right to dispose
+of it as he chose. Beneath this assurance, however, he had vague
+presentiments of legal complications. So he indirectly consulted a
+lawyer of the Faubourg.
+
+He learnt some fine things from him. According to the lawyer, his hands
+were completely tied. His mother alone could alienate the property, and
+he doubted whether she would. But what he did not know, what came as a
+heavy blow to him, was that Ursule and Antoine, those young wolves,
+had claims on the estate. What! they would despoil him, rob him, the
+legitimate child! The lawyer's explanations were clear and precise,
+however; Adelaide, it is true, had married Rougon under the common
+property system; but as the whole fortune consisted of land, the young
+woman, according to law, again came into possession of everything at her
+husband's death. Moreover, Macquart and Adelaide had duly acknowledged
+their children when declaring their birth for registration, and thus
+these children were entitled to inherit from their mother. For
+sole consolation, Pierre learnt that the law reduced the share of
+illegitimate children in favour of the others. This, however, did not
+console him at all. He wanted to have everything. He would not have
+shared ten sous with Ursule and Antoine.
+
+This vista of the intricacies of the Code opened up a new horizon, which
+he scanned with a singularly thoughtful air. He soon recognised that
+a shrewd man must always keep the law on his side. And this is what he
+devised without consulting anyone, even the lawyer, whose suspicions he
+was afraid of arousing. He knew how to turn his mother round his finger.
+One fine morning he took her to a notary and made her sign a deed of
+sale. Provided she were left the hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre,
+Adelaide would have sold all Plassans. Besides, Pierre assured her an
+annual income of six hundred francs, and made the most solemn promises
+to watch over his brother and sister. This oath satisfied the good
+woman. She recited, before the notary, the lesson which it had pleased
+her son to teach her. On the following day the young man made her place
+her name at the foot of a document in which she acknowledged having
+received fifty thousand francs as the price of the property. This was
+his stroke of genius, the act of a rogue. He contented himself with
+telling his mother, who was a little surprised at signing such a receipt
+when she had not seen a centime of the fifty thousand francs, that it
+was a pure formality of no consequence whatever. As he slipped the paper
+into his pocket, he thought to himself, "Now, let the young wolves ask
+me to render an account. I will tell them the old woman has squandered
+everything. They will never dare to go to law with me about it." A week
+afterwards, the party-wall no longer existed: a plough had turned up
+the vegetable beds; the Fouques' enclosure, in accordance with young
+Rougon's wish, was about to become a thing of the past. A few months
+later, the owner of the Jas-Meiffren even had the old market-gardener's
+house, which was falling to pieces, pulled down.
+
+When Pierre had secured the fifty thousand francs he married Felicite
+Puech with as little delay as possible. Felicite was a short, dark
+woman, such as one often meets in Provence. She looked like one of
+those brown, lean, noisy grasshoppers, which in their sudden leaps often
+strike their heads against the almond-trees. Thin, flat-breasted, with
+pointed shoulders and a face like that of a pole-cat, her features
+singularly sunken and attenuated, it was not easy to tell her age;
+she looked as near fifteen as thirty, although she was in reality only
+nineteen, four years younger than her husband. There was much feline
+slyness in the depths of her little black eyes, which suggested gimlet
+holes. Her low, bumpy forehead, her slightly depressed nose with
+delicate quivering nostrils, her thin red lips and prominent chin,
+parted from her cheeks by strange hollows, all suggested the countenance
+of an artful dwarf, a living mask of intrigue, an active, envious
+ambition. With all her ugliness, however, Felicite possessed a sort of
+gracefulness which rendered her seductive. People said of her that she
+could be pretty or ugly as she pleased. It would depend on the fashion
+in which she tied her magnificent hair; but it depended still more on
+the triumphant smile which illumined her golden complexion when she
+thought she had got the better of somebody. Born under an evil star,
+and believing herself ill-used by fortune, she was generally content
+to appear an ugly creature. She did not, however, intend to abandon the
+struggle, for she had vowed that she would some day make the whole town
+burst with envy, by an insolent display of happiness and luxury. Had
+she been able to act her part on a more spacious stage, where full play
+would have been allowed her ready wit, she would have quickly brought
+her dream to pass. Her intelligence was far superior to that of the
+girls of her own station and education. Evil tongues asserted that her
+mother, who had died a few years after she was born, had, during the
+early period of her married life, been familiar with the Marquis de
+Carnavant, a young nobleman of the Saint-Marc quarter. In fact, Felicite
+had the hands and feet of a marchioness, and, in this respect, did not
+appear to belong to that class of workers from which she was descended.
+
+Her marriage with Pierre Rougon, that semi-peasant, that man of the
+Faubourg, whose family was in such bad odour, kept the old quarter in
+a state of astonishment for more than a month. She let people gossip,
+however, receiving the stiff congratulations of her friends with strange
+smiles. Her calculations had been made; she had chosen Rougon for a
+husband as one would choose an accomplice. Her father, in accepting the
+young man, had merely had eyes for the fifty thousand francs which were
+to save him from bankruptcy. Felicite, however, was more keen-sighted.
+She looked into the future, and felt that she would be in want of a
+robust man, even if he were somewhat rustic, behind whom she might
+conceal herself, and whose limbs she would move at will. She entertained
+a deliberate hatred for the insignificant little exquisites of
+provincial towns, the lean herd of notaries' clerks and prospective
+barristers, who stand shivering with cold while waiting for clients.
+Having no dowry, and despairing of ever marrying a rich merchant's son,
+she by far preferred a peasant whom she could use as a passive tool,
+to some lank graduate who would overwhelm her with his academical
+superiority, and drag her about all her life in search of hollow
+vanities. She was of opinion that the woman ought to make the man. She
+believed herself capable of carving a minister out of a cow-herd. That
+which had attracted her in Rougon was his broad chest, his heavy frame,
+which was not altogether wanting in elegance. A man thus built would
+bear with ease and sprightliness the mass of intrigues which she
+dreamt of placing on his shoulders. However, while she appreciated her
+husband's strength and vigour, she also perceived that he was far
+from being a fool; under his coarse flesh she had divined the cunning
+suppleness of his mind. Still she was a long way from really knowing her
+Rougon; she thought him far stupider than he was. A few days after her
+marriage, as she was by chance fumbling in the drawer of a secretaire,
+she came across the receipt for fifty thousand francs which Adelaide
+had signed. At sight of it she understood things, and felt rather
+frightened; her own natural average honesty rendered her hostile to such
+expedients. Her terror, however, was not unmixed with admiration; Rougon
+became in her eyes a very smart fellow.
+
+The young couple bravely sought to conquer fortune. The firm of Puech
+& Lacamp was not, after all, so embarrassed as Pierre had thought. Its
+liabilities were small, it was merely in want of ready-money. In the
+provinces, traders adopt prudent courses to save them from serious
+disasters. Puech & Lacamp were prudent to an excessive degree; they
+never risked a thousand crowns without the greatest fear, and thus their
+house, a veritable hole, was an unimportant one. The fifty thousand
+francs that Pierre brought into it sufficed to pay the debts and extend
+the business. The beginnings were good. During three successive years
+the olive harvest was an abundant one. Felicite, by a bold stroke which
+absolutely frightened both Pierre and old Puech, made them purchase
+a considerable quantity of oil, which they stored in their warehouse.
+During the following years, as the young woman had foreseen, the crops
+failed, and a considerable rise in prices having set in, they realised
+large profits by selling out their stock.
+
+A short time after this haul, Puech & Lacamp retired from the firm,
+content with the few sous they had just secured, and ambitious of living
+on their incomes.
+
+The young couple now had sole control of the business, and thought
+that they had at last laid the foundation of their fortune. "You have
+vanquished my ill-luck," Felicite would sometimes say to her husband.
+
+One of the rare weaknesses of her energetic nature was to believe
+herself stricken by misfortune. Hitherto, so she asserted, nothing had
+been successful with either herself or her father, in spite of all their
+efforts. Goaded by her southern superstition, she prepared to struggle
+with fate as one struggles with somebody who is endeavouring to strangle
+one. Circumstances soon justified her apprehensions in a singular
+manner. Ill-luck returned inexorably. Every year some fresh disaster
+shook Rougon's business. A bankruptcy resulted in the loss of a few
+thousand francs; his estimates of crops proved incorrect, through
+the most incredible circumstances; the safest speculations collapsed
+miserably. It was a truceless, merciless combat.
+
+"You see I was born under an unlucky star!" Felicite would bitterly
+exclaim.
+
+And yet she still struggled furiously, not understanding how it was that
+she, who had shown such keen scent in a first speculation, could now
+only give her husband the most deplorable advice.
+
+Pierre, dejected and less tenacious than herself, would have gone
+into liquidation a score of times had it not been for his wife's firm
+obstinacy. She longed to be rich. She perceived that her ambition could
+only be attained by fortune. As soon as they possessed a few hundred
+thousand francs they would be masters of the town. She would get her
+husband appointed to an important post, and she would govern. It was
+not the attainment of honours which troubled her; she felt herself
+marvellously well armed for such a combat. But she could do nothing to
+get together the first few bags of money which were needed. Though the
+ruling of men caused her no apprehensions, she felt a sort of impotent
+rage at the thought of those inert, white, cold, five-franc pieces over
+which her intriguing spirit had no power, and which obstinately resisted
+her.
+
+The battle lasted for more than thirty years. The death of Puech proved
+another heavy blow. Felicite, who had counted upon an inheritance of
+about forty thousand francs, found that the selfish old man, in order
+to indulge himself in his old age, had sunk all his money in a life
+annuity. The discovery made her quite ill. She was gradually becoming
+soured, she was growing more lean and harsh. To see her, from morning
+till night, whirling round the jars of oil, one would have thought she
+believed that she could stimulate the sales by continually flitting
+about like a restless fly. Her husband, on the contrary, became heavier;
+misfortune fattened him, making him duller and more indolent. These
+thirty years of combat did not, however, bring him to ruin. At each
+annual stock-taking they managed to make both ends meet fairly well; if
+they suffered any loss during one season, they recouped themselves the
+next. However, it was precisely this living from hand to mouth which
+exasperated Felicite. She would, by far, have preferred a big failure.
+They would then, perhaps, have been able to commence life over again,
+instead of obstinately persisting in their petty business, working
+themselves to death to gain the bare necessaries of life. During one
+third of a century they did not save fifty thousand francs.
+
+It should be mentioned that, from the very first years of their married
+life, they had a numerous family, which in the long run became a heavy
+burden to them. In the course of five years, from 1811 to 1815, Felicite
+gave birth to three boys. Then during the four ensuing years she
+presented her husband with two girls. These had but an indifferent
+welcome; daughters are a terrible embarrassment when one has no dowry to
+give them.
+
+However, the young woman did not regard this troop of children as the
+cause of their ruin. On the contrary, she based on her sons' heads the
+building of the fortune which was crumbling in her own hands. They were
+hardly ten years old before she discounted their future careers in her
+dreams. Doubting whether she would ever succeed herself, she centred
+in them all her hopes of overcoming the animosity of fate. They would
+provide satisfaction for her disappointed vanity, they would give her
+that wealthy, honourable position which she had hitherto sought in vain.
+From that time forward, without abandoning the business struggle,
+she conceived a second plan for obtaining the gratification of her
+domineering instincts. It seemed to her impossible that, amongst her
+three sons, there should not be a man of superior intellect, who would
+enrich them all. She felt it, she said. Accordingly, she nursed the
+children with a fervour in which maternal severity was blended with an
+usurer's solicitude. She amused herself by fattening them as though they
+constituted a capital which, later on, would return a large interest.
+
+"Enough!" Pierre would sometimes exclaim, "all children are ungrateful.
+You are spoiling them, you are ruining us."
+
+When Felicite spoke of sending them to college, he got angry. Latin was
+a useless luxury, it would be quite sufficient if they went through
+the classes of a little neighbouring school The young woman, however,
+persisted in her design. She possessed certain elevated instincts which
+made her take a great pride in surrounding herself with accomplished
+children; moreover, she felt that her sons must never remain as
+illiterate as her husband, if she wished to see them become prominent
+men. She fancied them all three in Paris in high positions, which she
+did not clearly define. When Rougon consented, and the three youngsters
+had entered the eighth class, Felicite felt the most lively satisfaction
+she had ever experienced. She listened with delight as they talked of
+their professors and their studies. When she heard her eldest son make
+one of his brothers decline _Rosa, a rose_, it sounded like delicious
+music to her. It is only fair to add that her delight was not tarnished
+by any sordid calculations. Even Rougon felt the satisfaction which an
+illiterate man experiences on perceiving his sons grow more learned than
+himself. Then the fellowship which grew up between their sons and
+those of the local big-wigs completed the parents' gratification. The
+youngsters were soon on familiar terms with the sons of the Mayor and
+the Sub-Prefect, and even with two or three young noblemen whom the
+Saint-Marc quarter had deigned to send to the Plassans College. Felicite
+was at a loss how to repay such an honour. The education of the three
+lads weighed seriously on the budget of the Rougon household.
+
+Until the boys had taken their degrees, their parents, who kept them at
+college at enormous sacrifices, lived in hopes of their success. When
+they had obtained their diplomas Felicite wished to continue her work,
+and even persuaded her husband to send the three to Paris. Two of them
+devoted themselves to the study of law, and the third passed through
+the School of Medicine. Then, when they were men, and had exhausted the
+resources of the Rougon family and were obliged to return and establish
+themselves in the provinces, their parents' disenchantment began. They
+idled about and grew fat. And Felicite again felt all the bitterness of
+her ill-luck. Her sons were failing her. They had ruined her, and did
+not return any interest on the capital which they represented. This
+last blow of fate was the heaviest, as it fell on her ambition and her
+maternal vanity alike. Rougon repeated to her from morning till night,
+"I told you so!" which only exasperated her the more.
+
+One day, as she was bitterly reproaching her eldest son with the large
+amount of money expended on his education, he said to her with equal
+bitterness, "I will repay you later on if I can. But as you had no
+means, you should have brought us up to a trade. We are out of our
+element, we are suffering more than you."
+
+Felicite understood the wisdom of these words. From that time she ceased
+to accuse her children, and turned her anger against fate, which never
+wearied of striking her. She started her old complaints afresh, and
+bemoaned more and more the want of means which made her strand, as it
+were, in port. Whenever Rougon said to her, "Your sons are lazy fellows,
+they will eat up all we have," she sourly replied, "Would to God I had
+more money to give them; if they do vegetate, poor fellows, it's because
+they haven't got a sou to bless themselves with."
+
+At the beginning of the year 1848, on the eve of the Revolution of
+February, the three young Rougons held very precarious positions
+at Plassans. They presented most curious and profoundly dissimilar
+characteristics, though they came of the same stock. They were in
+reality superior to their parents. The race of the Rougons was destined
+to become refined through its female side. Adelaide had made Pierre
+a man of moderate enterprise, disposed to low ambitions; Felicite
+had inspired her sons with a higher intelligence, with a capacity for
+greater vices and greater virtues.
+
+At the period now referred to the eldest, Eugene, was nearly forty years
+old. He was a man of middle height, slightly bald, and already disposed
+to obesity. He had his father's face, a long face with broad features;
+beneath his skin one could divine the fat to which were due the flabby
+roundness of his features, and his yellowish, waxy complexion. Though
+his massive square head still recalled the peasant, his physiognomy was
+transfigured, lit up from within as it were, when his drooping eyelids
+were raised and his eyes awoke to life. In the son's case, the father's
+ponderousness had turned to gravity. This big fellow, Eugene, usually
+preserved a heavy somnolent demeanour. At the same time, certain of his
+heavy, languid movements suggested those of a giant stretching his limbs
+pending the time for action. By one of those alleged freaks of nature,
+of which, however, science is now commencing to discover the laws, if
+physical resemblance to Pierre was perfect in Eugene, Felicite on
+her side seemed to have furnished him with his brains. He offered an
+instance of certain moral and intellectual qualities of maternal origin
+being embedded in the coarse flesh he had derived from his father. He
+cherished lofty ambitions, possessed domineering instincts, and showed
+singular contempt for trifling expedients and petty fortunes.
+
+He was a proof that Plassans was perhaps not mistaken in suspecting that
+Felicite had some blue blood in her veins. The passion for indulgence,
+which became formidably developed in the Rougons, and was, in fact, the
+family characteristic, attained in his case its highest pitch; he longed
+for self-gratification, but in the form of mental enjoyment such as
+would gratify his burning desire for domination. A man such as this was
+never intended to succeed in a provincial town. He vegetated there
+for fifteen years, his eyes turned towards Paris, watching his
+opportunities. On his return home he had entered his name on the rolls,
+in order to be independent of his parents. After that he pleaded from
+time to time, earning a bare livelihood, without appearing to rise above
+average mediocrity. At Plassans his voice was considered thick, his
+movements heavy. He generally wandered from the question at issue,
+rambled, as the wiseacres expressed it. On one occasion particularly,
+when he was pleading in a case for damages, he so forgot himself as to
+stray into a political disquisition, to such a point that the presiding
+judge interfered, whereupon he immediately sat down with a strange
+smile. His client was condemned to pay a considerable sum of money,
+a circumstance which did not, however, seem to cause Eugene the least
+regret for his irrelevant digression. He appeared to regard his speeches
+as mere exercises which would be of use to him later on. It was this
+that puzzled and disheartened Felicite. She would have liked to see her
+son dictating the law to the Civil Court of Plassans. At last she came
+to entertain a very unfavourable opinion of her first-born. To her
+mind this lazy fellow would never be the one to shed any lustre on the
+family. Pierre, on the contrary, felt absolute confidence in him,
+not that he had more intuition than his wife, but because external
+appearances sufficed him, and he flattered himself by believing in
+the genius of a son who was his living image. A month prior to the
+Revolution of February, 1848, Eugene became restless; some special
+inspiration made him anticipate the crisis. From that time forward he
+seemed to feel out of his element at Plassans. He would wander about the
+streets like a distressed soul. At last he formed a sudden resolution,
+and left for Paris, with scarcely five hundred francs in his pocket.
+
+Aristide, the youngest son, was, so to speak, diametrically opposed
+to Eugene. He had his mother's face, and a covetousness and slyness of
+character prone to trivial intrigues, in which his father's instincts
+predominated. Nature has need of symmetry. Short, with a pitiful
+countenance suggesting the knob of a stick carved into a Punch's head,
+Aristide ferretted and fumbled everywhere, without any scruples, eager
+only to gratify himself. He loved money as his eldest brother loved
+power. While Eugene dreamed of bending a people to his will, and
+intoxicated himself with visions of future omnipotence, the other
+fancied himself ten times a millionaire, installed in a princely
+mansion, eating and drinking to his heart's content, and enjoying life
+to the fullest possible extent. Above all things, he longed to make a
+rapid fortune. When he was building his castles in the air, they would
+rise in his mind as if by magic; he would become possessed of tons of
+gold in one night. These visions agreed with his indolence, as he never
+troubled himself about the means, considering those the best which were
+the most expeditious. In his case the race of the Rougons, of those
+coarse, greedy peasants with brutish appetites, had matured too rapidly;
+every desire for material indulgence was found in him, augmented
+threefold by hasty education, and rendered the more insatiable and
+dangerous by the deliberate way in which the young man had come to
+regard their realisation as his set purpose. In spite of her keen
+feminine intuition, Felicite preferred this son; she did not perceive
+the greater affinity between herself and Eugene; she excused the follies
+and indolence of her youngest son under the pretext that he would
+some day be the superior genius of the family, and that such a man
+was entitled to live a disorderly life until his intellectual strength
+should be revealed.
+
+Aristide subjected her indulgence to a rude test. In Paris he led a low,
+idle life; he was one of those students who enter their names at the
+taverns of the Quartier Latin. He did not remain there, however, more
+than two years; his father, growing apprehensive, and seeing that he had
+not yet passed a single examination, kept him at Plassans and spoke of
+finding a wife for him, hoping that domestic responsibility would make
+him more steady. Aristide let himself be married. He had no very
+clear idea of his own ambitions at this time; provincial life did not
+displease him; he was battening in his little town--eating, sleeping,
+and sauntering about. Felicite pleaded his cause so earnestly that
+Pierre consented to board and lodge the newly-married couple, on
+condition that the young man should turn his attention to the business.
+From that time, however, Aristide led a life of ease and idleness. He
+spent his days and the best part of his nights at the club, again and
+again slipping out of his father's office like a schoolboy to go and
+gamble away the few louis that his mother gave him clandestinely.
+
+It is necessary to have lived in the depths of the French provinces to
+form an idea of the four brutifying years which the young fellow spent
+in this fashion. In every little town there is a group of individuals
+who thus live on their parents, pretending at times to work, but in
+reality cultivating idleness with a sort of religious zeal. Aristide was
+typical of these incorrigible drones. For four years he did little
+but play ecarte. While he passed his time at the club, his wife, a
+fair-complexioned nerveless woman, helped to ruin the Rougon business
+by her inordinate passion for showy gowns and her formidable appetite,
+a rather remarkable peculiarity in so frail a creature. Angele, however,
+adored sky-blue ribbons and roast beef. She was the daughter of a
+retired captain who was called Commander Sicardot, a good-hearted old
+gentleman, who had given her a dowry of ten thousand francs--all his
+savings. Pierre, in selecting Angele for his son had considered that
+he had made an unexpected bargain, so lightly did he esteem Aristide.
+However, that dowry of ten thousand francs, which determined his choice,
+ultimately became a millstone round his neck. His son, who was already
+a cunning rogue, deposited the ten thousand francs with his father,
+with whom he entered into partnership, declining, with the most sincere
+professions of devotion, to keep a single copper.
+
+"We have no need of anything," he said; "you will keep my wife and
+myself, and we will reckon up later on."
+
+Pierre was short of money at the time, and accepted, not, however,
+without some uneasiness at Aristide's disinterestedness. The latter
+calculated that it would be years before his father would have ten
+thousand francs in ready money to repay him, so that he and his wife
+would live at the paternal expense so long as the partnership could not
+be dissolved. It was an admirable investment for his few bank-notes.
+When the oil-dealer understood what a foolish bargain he had made he
+was not in a position to rid himself of Aristide; Angele's dowry was
+involved in speculations which were turning out unfavourably. He
+was exasperated, stung to the heart, at having to provide for his
+daughter-in-law's voracious appetite and keep his son in idleness. Had
+he been able to buy them out of the business he would twenty times have
+shut his doors on those bloodsuckers, as he emphatically expressed it.
+Felicite secretly defended them; the young man, who had divined her
+dreams of ambition, would every evening describe to her the elaborate
+plans by which he would shortly make a fortune. By a rare chance she
+had remained on excellent terms with her daughter-in-law. It must be
+confessed that Angele had no will of her own--she could be moved and
+disposed of like a piece of furniture.
+
+Meantime Pierre became enraged whenever his wife spoke to him of the
+success their youngest son would ultimately achieve; he declared that
+he would really bring them to ruin. During the four years that the young
+couple lived with him he stormed in this manner, wasting his impotent
+rage in quarrels, without in the least disturbing the equanimity of
+Aristide and Angele. They were located there, and there they intended
+to remain like blocks of wood. At last Pierre met with a stroke of luck
+which enabled him to return the ten thousand francs to his son. When,
+however, he wanted to reckon up accounts with him, Aristide interposed
+so much chicanery that he had to let the couple go without deducting
+a copper for their board and lodging. They installed themselves but
+a short distance off, in a part of the old quarter called the Place
+Saint-Louis. The ten thousand francs were soon consumed. They had
+everything to get for their new home. Moreover Aristide made no change
+in his mode of living as long as any money was left in the house. When
+he had reached the last hundred-franc note he felt rather nervous. He
+was seen prowling about the town in a suspicious manner. He no longer
+took his customary cup of coffee at the club; he watched feverishly
+whilst play was going on, without touching a card. Poverty made him more
+spiteful than he would otherwise have been. He bore the blow for a long
+time, obstinately refusing to do anything in the way of work.
+
+In 1840 he had a son, little Maxime, whom his grandmother Felicite
+fortunately sent to college, paying his fees clandestinely. That made
+one mouth less at home; but poor Angele was dying of hunger, and her
+husband was at last compelled to seek a situation. He secured one at the
+Sub-Prefecture. He remained there nearly ten years, and only attained a
+salary of eighteen hundred francs per annum. From that time forward it
+was with ever increasing malevolence and rancour that he hungered for
+the enjoyments of which he was deprived. His lowly position exasperated
+him; the paltry hundred and fifty francs which he received every month
+seemed to him an irony of fate. Never did man burn with such desire for
+self-gratification. Felicite, to whom he imparted his sufferings, was
+by no means grieved to see him so eager. She thought his misery would
+stimulate his energies. At last, crouching in ambush as it were, with
+his ears wide open, he began to look about him like a thief seeking his
+opportunity. At the beginning of 1848, when his brother left for Paris,
+he had a momentary idea of following him. But Eugene was a bachelor;
+and he, Aristide, could not take his wife so far without money. So he
+waited, scenting a catastrophe, and ready to fall on the first prey that
+might come within his reach.
+
+The other son, Pascal, born between Eugene and Aristide, did not appear
+to belong to the family. He was one of those frequent cases which give
+the lie to the laws of heredity. During the evolution of a race nature
+often produces some one being whose every element she derives from her
+own creative powers. Nothing in the moral or physical constitution of
+Pascal recalled the Rougons. Tall, with a grave and gentle face, he
+had an uprightness of mind, a love of study, a retiring modesty which
+contrasted strangely with the feverish ambitions and unscrupulous
+intrigues of his relatives. After acquitting himself admirably of his
+medical studies in Paris, he had retired, by preference, to Plassans,
+notwithstanding the offers he received from his professors. He loved a
+quiet provincial life; he maintained that for a studious man such a life
+was preferable to the excitement of Paris. Even at Plassans he did
+not exert himself to extend his practice. Very steady, and despising
+fortune, he contented himself with the few patients sent him by chance.
+All his pleasures were centred in a bright little house in the new town,
+where he shut himself up, lovingly devoting his whole time to the study
+of natural history. He was particularly fond of physiology. It was known
+in the town that he frequently purchased dead bodies from the hospital
+grave-digger, a circumstance which rendered him an object of horror to
+delicate ladies and certain timid gentlemen. Fortunately, they did not
+actually look upon him as a sorcerer; but his practice diminished,
+and he was regarded as an eccentric character, to whom people of good
+society ought not to entrust even a finger-tip, for fear of being
+compromised. The mayor's wife was one day heard to say: "I would sooner
+die than be attended by that gentleman. He smells of death."
+
+From that time, Pascal was condemned. He seemed to rejoice at the mute
+terror which he inspired. The fewer patients he had, the more time he
+could devote to his favourite sciences. As his fees were very moderate,
+the poorer people remained faithful to him; he earned just enough to
+live, and lived contentedly, a thousand leagues away from the rest
+of the country, absorbed in the pure delight of his researches and
+discoveries. From time to time he sent a memoir to the Academie des
+Sciences at Paris. Plassans did not know that this eccentric character,
+this gentleman who smelt of death was well-known and highly-esteemed
+in the world of science. When people saw him starting on Sundays for an
+excursion among the Garrigues hills, with a botanist's bag hung round
+his neck and a geologist's hammer in his hand, they would shrug their
+shoulders and institute a comparison between him and some other doctor
+of the town who was noted for his smart cravat, his affability to the
+ladies, and the delicious odour of violets which his garments always
+diffused. Pascal's parents did not understand him any better than other
+people. When Felicite saw him adopting such a strange, unpretentious
+mode of life she was stupefied, and reproached him for disappointing
+her hopes. She, who tolerated Aristide's idleness because she thought it
+would prove fertile, could not view without regret the slow progress
+of Pascal, his partiality for obscurity and contempt for riches, his
+determined resolve to lead a life of retirement. He was certainly not
+the child who would ever gratify her vanities.
+
+"But where do you spring from?" she would sometimes say to him. "You
+are not one of us. Look at your brothers, how they keep their eyes open,
+striving to profit by the education we have given them, whilst you waste
+your time on follies and trifles. You make a very poor return to us, who
+have ruined ourselves for your education. No, you are certainly not one
+of us."
+
+Pascal, who preferred to laugh whenever he was called upon to feel
+annoyed, replied cheerfully, but not without a sting of irony: "Oh,
+you need not be frightened, I shall never drive you to the verge of
+bankruptcy; when any of you are ill, I will attend you for nothing."
+
+Moreover, though he never displayed any repugnance to his relatives,
+he very rarely saw them, following in this wise his natural instincts.
+Before Aristide obtained a situation at the Sub-Prefecture, Pascal
+had frequently come to his assistance. For his part he had remained a
+bachelor. He had not the least suspicion of the grave events that were
+preparing. For two or three years he had been studying the great problem
+of heredity, comparing the human and animal races together, and becoming
+absorbed in the strange results which he obtained. Certain observations
+which he had made with respect to himself and his relatives had been, so
+to say, the starting-point of his studies. The common people, with their
+natural intuition, so well understood that he was quite different from
+the other Rougons, that they invariably called him Monsieur Pascal,
+without ever adding his family name.
+
+Three years prior to the Revolution of 1848 Pierre and Felicite retired
+from business. Old age was coming on apace; they were both past fifty
+and were weary enough of the struggle. In face of their ill fortune,
+they were afraid of being ultimately ruined if they obstinately
+persisted in the fight. Their sons, by disappointing their expectations,
+had dealt them the final blow. Now that they despaired of ever being
+enriched by them, they were anxious to make some little provision for
+old age. They retired with forty thousand francs at the utmost. This
+sum provided an annual income of two thousand francs, just sufficient
+to live in a small way in the provinces. Fortunately, they were by
+themselves, having succeeded in marrying their daughters Marthe and
+Sidonie, the former of whom resided at Marseilles and the latter in
+Paris.
+
+After they had settled their affairs they would much have liked to take
+up their abode in the new town, the quarter of the retired traders, but
+they dared not do so. Their income was too small; they were afraid that
+they would cut but a poor figure there. So, as a sort of compromise,
+they took apartments in the Rue de la Banne, the street which separates
+the old quarter from the new one. As their abode was one of the row
+of houses bordering the old quarter, they still lived among the common
+people; nevertheless, they could see the town of the richer classes from
+their windows, so that they were just on the threshold of the promised
+land.
+
+Their apartments, situated on the second floor, consisted of three
+large rooms--dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom. The first floor was
+occupied by the owner of the house, a stick and umbrella manufacturer,
+who had a shop on the ground floor. The house, which was narrow and
+by no means deep, had only two storeys. Felicite moved into it with a
+bitter pang. In the provinces, to live in another person's house is an
+avowal of poverty. Every family of position at Plassans has a house
+of its own, landed property being very cheap there. Pierre kept the
+purse-strings well tied; he would not hear of any embellishments. The
+old furniture, faded, worn, damaged though it was, had to suffice,
+without even being repaired. Felicite, however, who keenly felt the
+necessity for this parsimony, exerted herself to give fresh polish to
+all the wreckage; she herself knocked nails into some of the furniture
+which was more dilapidated than the rest, and darned the frayed velvet
+of the arm-chairs.
+
+The dining-room, which, like the kitchen, was at the back of the house,
+was nearly bare; a table and a dozen chairs were lost in the gloom of
+this large apartment, whose window faced the grey wall of a neighbouring
+building. As no strangers ever went into the bedroom, Felicite had
+stowed all her useless furniture there; thus, besides a bedstead,
+wardrobe, secretaire, and wash-stand, it contained two cradles, one
+perched atop of the other, a sideboard whose doors were missing, and an
+empty bookcase, venerable ruins which the old woman could not make up
+her mind to part with. All her cares, however, were bestowed upon the
+drawing-room, and she almost succeeded in making it comfortable and
+decent. The furniture was covered with yellowish velvet with satin
+flowers; in the middle stood a round table with a marble top, while a
+couple of pier tables, surmounted by mirrors, leant against the walls at
+either end of the room. There was even a carpet, which just covered the
+middle of the floor, and a chandelier in a white muslin cover which the
+flies had spotted with black specks. On the walls hung six lithographs
+representing the great battles of Napoleon I. Moreover, the furniture
+dated from the first years of the Empire. The only embellishment that
+Felicite could obtain was to have the walls hung with orange-hued paper
+covered with large flowers. Thus the drawing room had a strange yellow
+glow, which filled it with an artificial dazzling light. The furniture,
+the paper, and the window curtains were yellow; the carpet and even the
+marble table-tops showed touches of yellow. However, when the curtains
+were drawn the colours harmonised fairly well and the drawing-room
+looked almost decent.
+
+But Felicite had dreamed of quite a different kind of luxury. She
+regarded with mute despair this ill-concealed misery. She usually
+occupied the drawing-room, the best apartment in the house, and the
+sweetest and bitterest of her pastimes was to sit at one of the windows
+which overlooked the Rue de la Banne and gave her a side view of the
+square in front of the Sub-Prefecture. That was the paradise of her
+dreams. That little, neat, tidy square, with its bright houses, seemed
+to her a Garden of Eden. She would have given ten years of her life to
+possess one of those habitations. The house at the left-hand corner,
+in which the receiver of taxes resided, particularly tempted her. She
+contemplated it with eager longing. Sometimes, when the windows of
+this abode were open, she could catch a glimpse of rich furniture and
+tasteful elegance which made her burn with envy.
+
+At this period the Rougons passed through a curious crisis of vanity
+and unsatiated appetite. The few proper feelings which they had once
+entertained had become embittered. They posed as victims of evil
+fortune, not with resignation, however, for they seemed still more
+keenly determined that they would not die before they had satisfied
+their ambitions. In reality, they did not abandon any of their hopes,
+notwithstanding their advanced age. Felicite professed to feel a
+presentiment that she would die rich. However, each day of poverty
+weighed them down the more. When they recapitulated their vain
+attempts--when they recalled their thirty years' struggle, and the
+defection of their children--when they saw their airy castles end in
+this yellow drawing-room, whose shabbiness they could only conceal by
+drawing the curtains, they were overcome with bitter rage. Then, as a
+consolation, they would think of plans for making a colossal fortune,
+seeking all sorts of devices. Felicite would fancy herself the winner
+of the grand prize of a hundred thousand francs in some lottery, while
+Pierre pictured himself carrying out some wonderful speculation. They
+lived with one sole thought--that of making a fortune immediately, in a
+few hours--of becoming rich and enjoying themselves, if only for a year.
+Their whole beings tended to this, stubbornly, without a pause. And they
+still cherished some faint hopes with regard to their sons, with that
+peculiar egotism of parents who cannot bear to think that they have sent
+their children to college without deriving some personal advantage from
+it.
+
+Felicite did not appear to have aged; she was still the same dark little
+woman, ever on the move, buzzing about like a grasshopper. Any person
+walking behind her on the pavement would have thought her a girl of
+fifteen, from the lightness of her step and the angularity of her
+shoulders and waist. Even her face had scarcely undergone any change; it
+was simply rather more sunken, rather more suggestive of the snout of a
+pole-cat.
+
+As for Pierre Rougon, he had grown corpulent, and had become a highly
+respectable looking citizen, who only lacked a decent income to make him
+a very dignified individual. His pale, flabby face, his heaviness,
+his languid manner, seemed redolent of wealth. He had one day heard a
+peasant who did not know him say: "Ah! he's some rich fellow, that fat
+old gentleman there. He's no cause to worry about his dinner!" This
+was a remark which stung him to the heart, for he considered it cruel
+mockery to be only a poor devil while possessing the bulk and contented
+gravity of a millionaire. When he shaved on Sundays in front of a small
+five-sou looking-glass hanging from the fastening of a window, he would
+often think that in a dress coat and white tie he would cut a far better
+figure at the Sub-Prefect's than such or such a functionary of Plassans.
+This peasant's son, who had grown sallow from business worries, and
+corpulent from a sedentary life, whose hateful passions were hidden
+beneath naturally placid features, really had that air of solemn
+imbecility which gives a man a position in an official salon. People
+imagined that his wife held a rod over him, but they were mistaken. He
+was as self-willed as a brute. Any determined expression of extraneous
+will would drive him into a violent rage. Felicite was far too supple to
+thwart him openly; with her light fluttering nature she did not attack
+obstacles in front. When she wished to obtain something from her
+husband, or drive him the way she thought best, she would buzz round him
+in her grasshopper fashion, stinging him on all sides, and returning
+to the charge a hundred times until he yielded almost unconsciously. He
+felt, moreover, that she was shrewder than he, and tolerated her advice
+fairly patiently. Felicite, more useful than the coach fly, would
+sometimes do all the work while she was thus buzzing round Pierre's
+ears. Strange to say, the husband and wife never accused each other
+of their ill-success. The only bone of contention between them was the
+education lavished on their children.
+
+The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the lookout, exasperated
+by their bad luck, and disposed to lay violent hands on fortune if ever
+they should meet her in a byway. They were a family of bandits lying in
+wait, ready to rifle and plunder. Eugene kept an eye on Paris; Aristide
+dreamed of strangling Plassans; the mother and father, perhaps the most
+eager of the lot, intended to work on their own account, and reap
+some additional advantage from their sons' doings. Pascal alone, that
+discreet wooer of science, led the happy, indifferent life of a lover in
+his bright little house in the new town.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+In that closed, sequestered town of Plassans, where class distinction
+was so clearly marked in 1848, the commotion caused by political events
+was very slight. Even at the present day the popular voice sounds very
+faintly there; the middle classes bring their prudence to bear in the
+matter, the nobility their mute despair, and the clergy their shrewd
+cunning. Kings may usurp thrones, or republics may be established,
+without scarcely any stir in the town. Plassans sleeps while Paris
+fights. But though on the surface the town may appear calm and
+indifferent, in the depths hidden work goes on which it is curious
+to study. If shots are rare in the streets, intrigues consume the
+drawing-rooms of both the new town and the Saint-Marc quarter. Until the
+year 1830 the masses were reckoned of no account. Even at the present
+time they are similarly ignored. Everything is settled between the
+clergy, the nobility, and the bourgeoisie. The priests, who are very
+numerous, give the cue to the local politics; they lay subterranean
+mines, as it were, and deal blows in the dark, following a prudent
+tactical system, which hardly allows of a step in advance or retreat
+even in the course of ten years. The secret intrigues of men who desire
+above all things to avoid noise requires special shrewdness, a special
+aptitude for dealing with small matters, and a patient endurance such
+as one only finds in persons callous to all passions. It is thus that
+provincial dilatoriness, which is so freely ridiculed in Paris, is full
+of treachery, secret stabs, hidden victories and defeats. These worthy
+men, particularly when their interests are at stake, kill at home with
+a snap of the fingers, as we, the Parisians, kill with cannon in the
+public thoroughfares.
+
+The political history of Plassans, like that of all little towns in
+Provence, is singularly characteristic. Until 1830, the inhabitants
+remained observant Catholics and fervent royalists; even the lower
+classes only swore by God and their legitimate sovereigns. Then there
+came a sudden change; faith departed, the working and middle classes
+deserted the cause of legitimacy, and gradually espoused the great
+democratic movement of our time. When the Revolution of 1848 broke out,
+the nobility and the clergy were left alone to labour for the triumph
+of Henri V. For a long time they had regarded the accession of the
+Orleanists as a ridiculous experiment, which sooner or later would bring
+back the Bourbons; although their hopes were singularly shaken, they
+nevertheless continued the struggle, scandalised by the defection of
+their former allies, whom they strove to win back to their cause. The
+Saint-Marc quarter, assisted by all the parish priests, set to
+work. Among the middle classes, and especially among the people, the
+enthusiasm was very great on the morrow of the events of February; these
+apprentice republicans were in haste to display their revolutionary
+fervour. As regards the gentry of the new town, however, the
+conflagration, bright though it was, lasted no longer than a fire of
+straw. The small houseowners and retired tradespeople who had had their
+good days, or had made snug little fortunes under the monarchy, were
+soon seized with panic; the Republic, with its constant shocks and
+convulsions, made them tremble for their money and their life of
+selfishness.
+
+Consequently, when the Clerical reaction of 1849 declared itself, nearly
+all the middle classes passed over to the Conservative party. They were
+received with open arms. The new town had never before had such close
+relations with the Saint-Marc quarter: some of the nobility even went
+so far as to shake hands with lawyers and retired oil-dealers. This
+unexpected familiarity kindled the enthusiasm of the new quarter, which
+henceforward waged bitter warfare against the republican government. To
+bring about such a coalition, the clergy had to display marvellous skill
+and endurance. The nobility of Plassans for the most part lay prostrate,
+as if half dead. They retained their faith, but lethargy had fallen on
+them, and they preferred to remain inactive, allowing the heavens to
+work their will. They would gladly have contented themselves with silent
+protest, feeling, perhaps, a vague presentiment that their divinities
+were dead, and that there was nothing left for them to do but rejoin
+them. Even at this period of confusion, when the catastrophe of 1848 was
+calculated to give them a momentary hope of the return of the Bourbons,
+they showed themselves spiritless and indifferent, speaking of rushing
+into the melee, yet never quitting their hearths without a pang of
+regret.
+
+The clergy battled indefatigably against this feeling of impotence and
+resignation. They infused a kind of passion into their work: a priest,
+when he despairs, struggles all the more fiercely. The fundamental
+policy of the Church is to march straight forward; even though she
+may have to postpone the accomplishment of her projects for several
+centuries, she never wastes a single hour, but is always pushing forward
+with increasing energy. So it was the clergy who led the reaction of
+Plassans; the nobility only lent them their name, nothing more. The
+priests hid themselves behind the nobles, restrained them, directed
+them, and even succeeded in endowing them with a semblance of life. When
+they had induced them to overcome their repugnance so far as to make
+common cause with the middle classes, they believed themselves certain
+of victory. The ground was marvellously well prepared. This ancient
+royalist town, with its population of peaceful householders and timorous
+tradespeople, was destined to range itself, sooner or later, on the side
+of law and order. The clergy, by their tactics, hastened the conversion.
+After gaining the landlords of the new town to their side, they even
+succeeded in convincing the little retail-dealers of the old quarter.
+From that time the reactionary movement obtained complete possession of
+the town. All opinions were represented in this reaction; such a mixture
+of embittered Liberals, Legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, and
+Clericals had never before been seen. It mattered little, however, at
+that time. The sole object was to kill the Republic; and the Republic
+was at the point of death. Only a fraction of the people--a thousand
+workmen at most, out of the ten thousand souls in the town--still
+saluted the tree of liberty planted in the middle of the square in front
+of the Sub-Prefecture.
+
+The shrewdest politicians of Plassans, those who led the reactionary
+movement, did not scent the approach of the Empire until very much
+later. Prince Louis Napoleon's popularity seemed to them a mere passing
+fancy of the multitude. His person inspired them with but little
+admiration. They reckoned him a nonentity, a dreamer, incapable of
+laying his hands on France, and especially of maintaining his authority.
+To them he was only a tool whom they would make use of, who would clear
+the way for them, and whom they would turn out as soon as the hour
+arrived for the rightful Pretender to show himself.[*] However, months
+went by, and they became uneasy. It was only then that they vaguely
+perceived they were being duped: they had no time, however, to take any
+steps; the Coup d'Etat burst over their heads, and they were compelled
+to applaud. That great abomination, the Republic, had been assassinated;
+that, at least, was some sort of triumph. So the clergy and the nobility
+accepted accomplished facts with resignation; postponing, until
+later, the realisation of their hopes, and making amends for their
+miscalculations by uniting with the Bonapartists for the purpose of
+crushing the last Republicans.
+
+     [*] The Count de Chambord, "Henri V."
+
+It was these events that laid the foundation of the Rougons' fortune.
+After being mixed up with the various phases of the crisis, they rose to
+eminence on the ruins of liberty. These bandits had been lying in wait
+to rob the Republic; as soon as it had been strangled, they helped to
+plunder it.
+
+After the events of February 1848, Felicite, who had the keenest scent
+of all the members of the family, perceived that they were at last on
+the right track. So she began to flutter round her husband, goading
+him on to bestir himself. The first rumours of the Revolution that had
+overturned King Louis Philippe had terrified Pierre. When his wife,
+however, made him understand that they had little to lose and much to
+gain from a convulsion, he soon came round to her way of thinking.
+
+"I don't know what you can do," Felicite repeatedly said, "but it seems
+to me that there's plenty to be done. Did not Monsieur de Carnavant say
+to us one day that he would be rich if ever Henri V. should return, and
+that this sovereign would magnificently recompense those who had worked
+for his restoration? Perhaps our fortune lies in that direction. We may
+yet be lucky."
+
+The Marquis de Carnavant, the nobleman who, according to the scandalous
+talk of the town, had been on very familiar terms with Felicite's
+mother, used occasionally to visit the Rougons. Evil tongues asserted
+that Madame Rougon resembled him. He was a little, lean, active man,
+seventy-five years old at that time, and Felicite certainly appeared to
+be taking his features and manner as she grew older. It was said that
+the wreck of his fortune, which had already been greatly diminished by
+his father at the time of the Emigration, had been squandered on women.
+Indeed, he cheerfully acknowledged his poverty. Brought up by one of
+his relatives, the Count de Valqueyras, he lived the life of a parasite,
+eating at the count's table and occupying a small apartment just under
+his roof.
+
+"Little one," he would often say to Felicite, as he patted her on
+the cheek, "if ever Henri V. gives me a fortune, I will make you my
+heiress!"
+
+He still called Felicite "little one," even when she was fifty years
+old. It was of these friendly pats, of these repeated promises of an
+inheritance, that Madame Rougon was thinking when she endeavoured
+to drive her husband into politics. Monsieur de Carnavant had often
+bitterly lamented his inability to render her any assistance. No
+doubt he would treat her like a father if ever he should acquire some
+influence. Pierre, to whom his wife half explained the situation in
+veiled terms, declared his readiness to move in any direction indicated.
+
+The marquis's peculiar position qualified him to act as an energetic
+agent of the reactionary movement at Plassans from the first days of the
+Republic. This bustling little man, who had everything to gain from the
+return of his legitimate sovereigns, worked assiduously for their cause.
+While the wealthy nobility of the Saint-Marc quarter were slumbering in
+mute despair, fearing, perhaps that they might compromise themselves and
+again be condemned to exile, he multiplied himself, as it were, spread
+the propaganda and rallied faithful ones together. He was a weapon whose
+hilt was held by an invisible hand. From that time forward he paid daily
+visits to the Rougons. He required a centre of operations. His relative,
+Monsieur de Valqueyras, had forbidden him to bring any of his associates
+into his house, so he had chosen Felicite's yellow drawing-room.
+Moreover, he very soon found Pierre a valuable assistant. He could not
+go himself and preach the cause of Legitimacy to the petty traders and
+workmen of the old quarter; they would have hooted him. Pierre, on the
+other hand, who had lived among these people, spoke their language and
+knew their wants, was able to catechise them in a friendly way. He thus
+became an indispensable man. In less than a fortnight the Rougons were
+more determined royalists than the king himself. The marquis, perceiving
+Pierre's zeal, shrewdly sheltered himself behind him. What was the use
+of making himself conspicuous, when a man with such broad shoulders was
+willing to bear on them the burden of all the follies of a party? He
+allowed Pierre to reign, puff himself out with importance and speak
+with authority, content to restrain or urge him on, according to
+the necessities of the cause. Thus, the old oil-dealer soon became a
+personage of mark. In the evening, when they were alone, Felicite used
+to say to him: "Go on, don't be frightened. We're on the right track. If
+this continues we shall be rich; we shall have a drawing-room like the
+tax-receiver's, and be able to entertain people."
+
+A little party of Conservatives had already been formed at the Rougons'
+house, and meetings were held every evening in the yellow drawing-room
+to declaim against the Republic.
+
+Among those who came were three or four retired merchants who trembled
+for their money, and clamoured with all their might for a wise and
+strong government. An old almond-dealer, a member of the Municipal
+Council, Monsieur Isidore Granoux, was the head of this group. His
+hare-lipped mouth was cloven a little way from the nose; his round eyes,
+his air of mingled satisfaction and astonishment, made him resemble a
+fat goose whose digestion is attended by wholesome terror of the cook.
+He spoke little, having no command of words; and he only pricked up
+his ears when anyone accused the Republicans of wishing to pillage the
+houses of the rich; whereupon he would colour up to such a degree as
+to make one fear an approaching apoplectic fit, and mutter low
+imprecations, in which the words "idlers," "scoundrels," "thieves," and
+"assassins" frequently recurred.
+
+All those who frequented the yellow drawing-room were not, however,
+as heavy as this fat goose. A rich landowner, Monsieur Roudier, with a
+plump, insinuating face, used to discourse there for hours altogether,
+with all the passion of an Orleanist whose calculations had been upset
+by the fall of Louis Philippe. He had formerly been a hosier at Paris,
+and a purveyor to the Court, but had now retired to Plassans. He had
+made his son a magistrate, relying on the Orleanist party to promote him
+to the highest dignities. The revolution having ruined all his hopes, he
+had rushed wildly into the reaction. His fortune, his former commercial
+relations with the Tuileries, which he transformed into friendly
+intercourse, that prestige which is enjoyed by every man in the
+provinces who has made his money in Paris and deigns to come and spend
+it in a far away department, gave him great influence in the district;
+some persons listened to him as though he were an oracle.
+
+However, the strongest intellect of the yellow drawing-room was
+certainly Commander Sicardot, Aristide's father-in-law. Of Herculean
+frame, with a brick-red face, scarred and planted with tufts of grey
+hair, he was one of the most glorious old dolts of the Grande Armee.
+During the February Revolution he had been exasperated with the
+street warfare and never wearied of referring to it, proclaiming with
+indignation that this kind of fighting was shameful: whereupon he
+recalled with pride the grand reign of Napoleon.
+
+Another person seen at the Rougons' house was an individual with clammy
+hands and equivocal look, one Monsieur Vuillet, a bookseller, who
+supplied all the devout ladies of the town with holy images and
+rosaries. Vuillet dealt in both classical and religious works; he was
+a strict Catholic, a circumstance which insured him the custom of the
+numerous convents and parish churches. Further, by a stroke of genius he
+had added to his business the publication of a little bi-weekly
+journal, the "Gazette de Plassans," which was devoted exclusively to
+the interests of the clergy. This paper involved an annual loss of a
+thousand francs, but it made him the champion of the Church, and enabled
+him to dispose of his sacred unsaleable stock. Though he was virtually
+illiterate and could not even spell correctly, he himself wrote the
+articles of the "Gazette" with a humility and rancour that compensated
+for his lack of talent. The marquis, in entering on the campaign, had
+perceived immediately the advantage that might be derived from the
+co-operation of this insipid sacristan with the coarse, mercenary pen.
+After the February Revolution the articles in the "Gazette" contained
+fewer mistakes; the marquis revised them.
+
+One can now imagine what a singular spectacle the Rougons' yellow
+drawing-room presented every evening. All opinions met there to bark at
+the Republic. Their hatred of that institution made them agree together.
+The marquis, who never missed a meeting, appeased by his presence the
+little squabbles which occasionally arose between the commander and
+the other adherents. These plebeians were inwardly flattered by the
+handshakes which he distributed on his arrival and departure. Roudier,
+however, like a free-thinker of the Rue Saint-Honore, asserted that the
+marquis had not a copper to bless himself with, and was disposed to make
+light of him. M. de Carnavant on his side preserved the amiable smile of
+a nobleman lowering himself to the level of these middle class people,
+without making any of those contemptuous grimaces which any other
+resident of the Saint-Marc quarter would have thought fit under such
+circumstances. The parasite life he had led had rendered him supple. He
+was the life and soul of the group, commanding in the name of unknown
+personages whom he never revealed. "They want this, they don't want
+that," he would say. The concealed divinities who thus watched over
+the destinies of Plassans from behind some cloud, without appearing to
+interfere directly in public matters, must have been certain priests,
+the great political agents of the country. When the marquis pronounced
+that mysterious word "they," which inspired the assembly with such
+marvellous respect, Vuillet confessed, with a gesture of pious devotion,
+that he knew them very well.
+
+The happiest person in all this was Felicite. At last she had people
+coming to her drawing-room. It was true she felt a little ashamed of her
+old yellow velvet furniture. She consoled herself, however, thinking
+of the rich things she would purchase when the good cause should have
+triumphed. The Rougons had, in the end, regarded their royalism as very
+serious. Felicite went as far as to say, when Roudier was not present,
+that if they had not made a fortune in the oil business the fault lay in
+the monarchy of July. This was her mode of giving a political tinge to
+their poverty. She had a friendly word for everybody, even for Granoux,
+inventing each evening some new polite method of waking him up when it
+was time for departure.
+
+The drawing-room, that little band of Conservatives belonging to
+all parties, and daily increasing in numbers, soon wielded powerful
+influence. Owing to the diversified characters of its members, and
+especially to the secret impulse which each one received from the
+clergy, it became the centre of the reactionary movement and spread its
+influence throughout Plassans. The policy of the marquis, who sank his
+own personality, transformed Rougon into the leader of the party. The
+meetings were held at his house, and this circumstance sufficed in the
+eyes of most people to make him the head of the group, and draw public
+attention to him. The whole work was attributed to him; he was believed
+to be the chief artisan of the movement which was gradually bringing
+over to the Conservative party those who had lately been enthusiastic
+Republicans. There are some situations which benefit only persons of bad
+repute. These lay the foundations of their fortune where men of better
+position and more influence would never dare to risk theirs. Roudier,
+Granoux, and the others, all men of means and respectability, certainly
+seemed a thousand times preferable to Pierre as the acting leaders of
+the Conservative party. But none of them would have consented to turn
+his drawing-room into a political centre. Their convictions did not go
+so far as to induce them to compromise themselves openly; in fact, they
+were only so many provincial babblers, who liked to inveigh against the
+Republic at a neighbour's house as long as the neighbour was willing to
+bear the responsibility of their chatter. The game was too risky. There
+was no one among the middle classes of Plassans who cared to play it
+except the Rougons, whose ungratified longings urged them on to extreme
+measures.
+
+In the month of April, 1849, Eugene suddenly left Paris, and came to
+stay with his father for a fortnight. Nobody ever knew the purpose of
+this journey. It is probable that Eugene wanted to sound his native
+town, to ascertain whether he might successfully stand as a candidate
+for the legislature which was about to replace the Constituent Assembly.
+He was too shrewd to risk a failure. No doubt public opinion appeared to
+him little in his favour, for he abstained from any attempt. It was not
+known at Plassans what had become of him in Paris, what he was doing
+there. On his return to his native place, folks found him less heavy and
+somnolent than formerly. They surrounded him and endeavoured to make him
+speak out concerning the political situation. But he feigned ignorance
+and compelled them to talk. A little perspicacity would have detected
+that beneath his apparent unconcern there was great anxiety with regard
+to the political opinions of the town. However, he seemed to be sounding
+the ground more on behalf of a party than on his own account.
+
+Although he had renounced all hope for himself, he remained at Plassans
+until the end of the month, assiduously attending the meetings in the
+yellow drawing-room. As soon as the bell rang, announcing the first
+visitor, he would take up his position in one of the window recesses as
+far as possible from the lamp. And he remained there the whole
+evening, resting his chin on the palm of his right hand, and listening
+religiously. The greatest absurdities did not disturb his equanimity.
+He nodded approval even to the wild grunts of Granoux. When anyone asked
+him his own opinion, he politely repeated that of the majority. Nothing
+seemed to tire his patience, neither the hollow dreams of the marquis,
+who spoke of the Bourbons as if 1815 were a recent date, nor the
+effusions of citizen Roudier, who grew quite pathetic when he recounted
+how many pairs of socks he had supplied to the citizen king, Louis
+Philippe. On the contrary, he seemed quite at his ease in this Tower of
+Babel. Sometimes, when these grotesque personages were storming against
+the Republic, his eyes would smile, while his lips retained their
+expression of gravity. His meditative manner of listening, and his
+invariable complacency, had earned him the sympathy of everyone. He was
+considered a nonentity, but a very decent fellow. Whenever an old oil or
+almond dealer failed to get a hearing, amidst the clamour, for some plan
+by which he could save France if he were only a master, he took himself
+off to Eugene and shouted his marvellous suggestions in his ear. And
+Eugene gently nodded his head, as though delighted with the grand
+projects he was listening to. Vuillet, alone, regarded him with a
+suspicious eye. This bookseller, half-sacristan and half-journalist,
+spoke less than the others, but was more observant. He had noticed
+that Eugene occasionally conversed at times in a corner with Commander
+Sicardot. So he determined to watch them, but never succeeded in
+overhearing a word. Eugene silenced the commander by a wink whenever
+Vuillet approached them. From that time, Sicardot never spoke of the
+Napoleons without a mysterious smile.
+
+Two days before his return to Paris, Eugene met his brother Aristide, on
+the Cours Sauvaire, and the latter accompanied him for a short distance
+with the importunity of a man in search of advice. As a matter of fact,
+Aristide was in great perplexity. Ever since the proclamation of the
+Republic, he had manifested the most lively enthusiasm for the new
+government. His intelligence, sharpened by two years' stay at Paris,
+enabled him to see farther than the thick heads of Plassans. He divined
+the powerlessness of the Legitimists and Orleanists, without clearly
+distinguishing, however, what third thief would come and juggle the
+Republic away. At all hazard he had ranged himself on the side of the
+victors, and he had severed his connection with his father, whom he
+publicly denounced as an old fool, an old dolt whom the nobility had
+bamboozled.
+
+"Yet my mother is an intelligent woman," he would add. "I should never
+have thought her capable of inducing her husband to join a party whose
+hopes are simply chimerical. They are taking the right course to end
+their lives in poverty. But then women know nothing about politics."
+
+For his part he wanted to sell himself as dearly as possible. His great
+anxiety as to the direction in which the wind was blowing, so that he
+might invariably range himself on the side of that party, which, in
+the hour of triumph, would be able to reward him munificently.
+Unfortunately, he was groping in the dark. Shut up in his far away
+province, without a guide, without any precise information, he felt
+quite lost. While waiting for events to trace out a sure and certain
+path, he preserved the enthusiastic republican attitude which he had
+assumed from the very first day. Thanks to this demeanour, he remained
+at the Sub-Prefecture; and his salary was even raised. Burning, however,
+with the desire to play a prominent part, he persuaded a bookseller,
+one of Vuillet's rivals, to establish a democratic journal, to which
+he became one of the most energetic contributors. Under his impulse the
+"Independant" waged merciless warfare against the reactionaries. But the
+current gradually carried him further than he wished to go; he ended by
+writing inflammatory articles, which made him shudder when he re-perused
+them. It was remarked at Plassans that he directed a series of attacks
+against all whom his father was in the habit of receiving of an evening
+in his famous yellow drawing-room. The fact is that the wealth of
+Roudier and Granoux exasperated Aristide to such a degree as to make him
+forget all prudence. Urged on by his jealous, insatiate bitterness,
+he had already made the middle classes his irreconcilable enemy,
+when Eugene's arrival and demeanour at Plassans caused him great
+consternation. He confessed to himself that his brother was a skilful
+man. According to him, that big, drowsy fellow always slept with one
+eye open, like a cat lying in wait before a mouse-hole. And now here was
+Eugene spending entire evenings in the yellow drawing-room, and devoting
+himself to those same grotesque personages whom he, Aristide, had so
+mercilessly ridiculed. When he discovered from the gossip of the town
+that his brother shook hands with Granoux and the marquis, he asked
+himself, with considerable anxiety, what was the meaning of it? Could he
+himself have been deceived? Had the Legitimists or the Orleanists
+really any chance of success? The thought terrified him. He lost his
+equilibrium, and, as frequently happens, he fell upon the Conservatives
+with increased rancour, as if to avenge his own blindness.
+
+On the evening prior to the day when he stopped Eugene on the Cours
+Sauvaire, he had published, in the "Independant," a terrible article
+on the intrigues of the clergy, in response to a short paragraph from
+Vuillet, who had accused the Republicans of desiring to demolish the
+churches. Vuillet was Aristide's bugbear. Never a week passed but these
+two journalists exchanged the greatest insults. In the provinces,
+where a periphrastic style is still cultivated, polemics are clothed in
+high-sounding phrases. Aristide called his adversary "brother Judas,"
+or "slave of Saint-Anthony." Vuillet gallantly retorted by terming the
+Republican "a monster glutted with blood whose ignoble purveyor was the
+guillotine."
+
+In order to sound his brother, Aristide, who did not dare to appear
+openly uneasy, contented himself with asking: "Did you read my article
+yesterday? What do you think of it?"
+
+Eugene lightly shrugged his shoulders. "You're a simpleton, brother,"
+was his sole reply.
+
+"Then you think Vuillet right?" cried the journalist, turning pale; "you
+believe in Vuillet's triumph?"
+
+"I!--Vuillet----"
+
+He was certainly about to add, "Vuillet is as big a fool as you are."
+But, observing his brother's distorted face anxiously extended towards
+him, he experienced sudden mistrust. "Vuillet has his good points," he
+calmly replied.
+
+On parting from his brother, Aristide felt more perplexed than before.
+Eugene must certainly have been making game of him, for Vuillet was
+really the most abominable person imaginable. However, he determined to
+be prudent and not tie himself down any more; for he wished to have his
+hands free should he ever be called upon to help any party in strangling
+the Republic.
+
+Eugene, on the morning of his departure, an hour before getting into the
+diligence, took his father into the bedroom and had a long conversation
+with him. Felicite, who remained in the drawing-room, vainly tried to
+catch what they were saying. They spoke in whispers, as if they feared
+lest a single word should be heard outside. When at last they quitted
+the bedroom they seemed in high spirits. After kissing his father and
+mother, Eugene, who usually spoke in a drawling tone, exclaimed with
+vivacity: "You have understood me, father? There lies our fortune. We
+must work with all our energy in that direction. Trust in me."
+
+"I'll follow your instructions faithfully," Rougon replied. "Only don't
+forget what I asked you as the price of my cooperation."
+
+"If we succeed your demands shall be satisfied, I give you my word.
+Moreover, I will write to you and guide you according to the direction
+which events may take. Mind, no panic or excitement. You must obey me
+implicitly."
+
+"What have you been plotting there?" Felicite asked inquisitively.
+
+"My dear mother," Eugene replied with a smile, "you have had too
+little faith in me thitherto to induce me to confide in you my hopes,
+particularly as at present they are only based on probabilities. To
+be able to understand me you would require faith. However, father will
+inform you when the right time comes."
+
+Then, as Felicite assumed the demeanour of a woman who feels somewhat
+piqued, he added in her ear, as he kissed her once more: "I take after
+you, although you disowned me. Too much intelligence would be dangerous
+at the present moment. When the crisis comes, it is you who will have to
+manage the business."
+
+He then quitted the room, but, suddenly re-opening the door, exclaimed
+in an imperious tone: "Above all things, do not trust Aristide; he is a
+mar-all, who would spoil everything. I have studied him sufficiently to
+feel certain that he will always fall on his feet. Don't have any
+pity; if we make a fortune, he'll know well enough how to rob us of his
+share."
+
+When Eugene had gone, Felicite endeavoured to ferret out the secret that
+was being hidden from her. She knew her husband too well to interrogate
+him openly. He would have angrily replied that it was no business of
+hers. In spite, however, of the clever tactics she pursued, she learnt
+absolutely nothing. Eugene had chosen a good confidant for those
+troubled times, when the greatest discretion was necessary. Pierre,
+flattered by his son's confidence, exaggerated that passive ponderosity
+which made him so impenetrable. When Felicite saw she would not learn
+anything from him, she ceased to flutter round him. On one point only
+did she remain inquisitive, but in this respect her curiosity was
+intense. The two men had mentioned a price stipulated by Pierre himself.
+What could that price be? This after all was the sole point of interest
+for Felicite, who did not care a rap for political matters. She knew
+that her husband must have sold himself dearly, but she was burning to
+know the nature of the bargain. One evening, when they had gone to bed,
+finding Pierre in a good humour, she brought the conversation round to
+the discomforts of their poverty.
+
+"It's quite time to put an end to this," she said. "We have been ruining
+ourselves in oil and fuel since those gentlemen have been coming here.
+And who will pay the reckoning? Nobody perhaps."
+
+Her husband fell into the trap, and smiled with complacent superiority.
+"Patience," said he. And with an air of shrewdness he looked into his
+wife's eyes and added: "Would you be glad to be the wife of a receiver
+of taxes?"
+
+Felicite's face flushed with a joyous glow. She sat up in bed and
+clapped her old withered little hands like a child.
+
+"Really?" she stammered. "At Plassans?"
+
+Pierre, without replying, gave a long affirmative nod. He enjoyed his
+consort's astonishment and emotion.
+
+"But," she at last resumed, half sitting, "you would have to deposit
+an enormous sum as security. I have heard that our neighbour, Monsieur
+Peirotte, had to deposit eighty thousand francs with the Treasury."
+
+"Eh!" said the retired oil-dealer, "that's nothing to do with me; Eugene
+will see to that. He will get the money advanced by a banker in Paris.
+You see, I selected an appointment bringing in a good income. Eugene at
+first made a wry face, saying one must be rich to occupy such posts, to
+which influential men were usually nominated. I persisted, however, and
+he yielded. To be a receiver of taxes one need not know either Greek
+or Latin. I shall have a representative, like Monsieur Peirotte, and he
+will do all the work."
+
+Felicite listened to him with rapture.
+
+"I guessed, however," he continued, "what it was that worried our dear
+son. We're not much liked here. People know that we have no means, and
+will make themselves obnoxious. But all sorts of things occur in a
+time of crisis. Eugene wished to get me an appointment in another town.
+However, I objected; I want to remain at Plassans."
+
+"Yes, yes, we must remain here," the old woman quickly replied. "We have
+suffered here, and here we must triumph. Ah! I'll crush them all, those
+fine ladies on the Mail, who scornfully eye my woollen dresses! I didn't
+think of the appointment of receiver of taxes at all; I thought you
+wanted to become mayor."
+
+"Mayor! Nonsense. That appointment is honorary. Eugene also mentioned
+the mayoralty to me. I replied: 'I'll accept, if you give me an income
+of fifteen thousand francs.'"
+
+This conversation, in which high figures flew about like rockets, quite
+excited Felicite. She felt delightfully buoyant. But at last she put on
+a devout air, and gravely said: "Come, let us reckon it out. How much
+will you earn?"
+
+"Well," said Pierre, "the fixed salary, I believe, is three thousand
+francs."
+
+"Three thousand," Felicite counted.
+
+"Then there is so much per cent on the receipts, which at Plassans, may
+produce the sum of twelve thousand francs."
+
+"That makes fifteen thousand."
+
+"Yes, about fifteen thousand francs. That's what Peirotte earns. That's
+not all. Peirotte does a little banking business on his own account.
+It's allowed. Perhaps I shall be disposed to make a venture when I feel
+luck on my side."
+
+"Well, let us say twenty thousand. Twenty thousand francs a year!"
+repeated Felicite, overwhelmed by the amount.
+
+"We shall have to repay the advances," Pierre observed.
+
+"That doesn't matter," Felicite replied, "we shall be richer than many
+of those gentlemen. Are the marquis and the others going to share the
+cake with you?"
+
+"No, no; it will be all for us," he replied.
+
+Then, as she continued to importune him with her questions, Pierre
+frowned, thinking that she wanted to wrest his secret from him. "We've
+talked enough," he said, abruptly. "It's late, let us go to sleep. It
+will bring us bad luck to count our chickens beforehand. I haven't got
+the place yet. Above all things, be prudent."
+
+When the lamp was extinguished, Felicite could not sleep. With her eyes
+closed she built the most marvellous castles in the air. Those twenty
+thousand francs a year danced a diabolical dance before her in the
+darkness. She occupied splendid apartments in the new town, enjoyed the
+same luxuries as Monsieur Peirotte, gave parties, and bespattered the
+whole place with her wealth. That, however, which tickled her vanity
+most was the high position that her husband would then occupy. He would
+pay their state dividends to Granoux, Roudier, and all those people who
+now came to her house as they might come to a cafe, to swagger and learn
+the latest news. She had noticed the free-and-easy manner in which these
+people entered her drawing-room, and it had made her take a dislike to
+them. Even the marquis, with his ironical politeness, was beginning
+to displease her. To triumph alone, therefore, to keep the cake
+for themselves, as she expressed it, was a revenge which she fondly
+cherished. Later on, when all those ill-bred persons presented
+themselves, hats off, before Monsieur Rougon the receiver of taxes,
+she would crush them in her turn. She was busy with these thoughts all
+night; and on the morrow, as she opened the shutters, she instinctively
+cast her first glance across the street towards Monsieur Peirotte's
+house, and smiled as she contemplated the broad damask curtains hanging
+in the windows.
+
+Felicite's hopes, in becoming modified, had grown yet more intense. Like
+all women, she did not object to a tinge of mystery. The secret object
+that her husband was pursuing excited her far more than the Legitimist
+intrigues of Monsieur de Carnavant had ever done. She abandoned, without
+much regret, the calculations she had based on the marquis's success
+now that her husband declared he would be able to make large profits
+by other means. She displayed, moreover, remarkable prudence and
+discretion.
+
+In reality, she was still tortured by anxious curiosity; she studied
+Pierre's slightest actions, endeavouring to discover their meaning.
+What if by chance he were following the wrong track? What if Eugene were
+dragging them in his train into some break-neck pit, whence they would
+emerge yet more hungry and impoverished? However, faith was dawning
+on her. Eugene had commanded with such an air of authority that she
+ultimately came to believe in him. In this case again some unknown power
+was at work. Pierre would speak mysteriously of the high personages whom
+their eldest son visited in Paris. For her part she did not know what
+he could have to do with them, but on the other hand she was unable to
+close her eyes to Aristide's ill-advised acts at Plassans. The
+visitors to her drawing-room did not scruple to denounce the democratic
+journalist with extreme severity. Granoux muttered that he was a
+brigand, and Roudier would three or four times a week repeat to
+Felicite: "Your son is writing some fine articles. Only yesterday he
+attacked our friend Vuillet with revolting scurrility."
+
+The whole room joined in the chorus, and Commander Sicardot spoke of
+boxing his son-in-law's ears, while Pierre flatly disowned him. The poor
+mother hung her head, restraining her tears. For an instant she felt
+an inclination to burst forth, to tell Roudier that her dear child,
+in spite of his faults, was worth more than he and all the others put
+together. But she was tied down, and did not wish to compromise the
+position they had so laboriously attained. Seeing the whole town so
+bitter against Aristide, she despaired of his future, thinking he was
+hopelessly ruining himself. On two occasions she spoke to him in
+secret, imploring him to return to them, and not to irritate the yellow
+drawing-room any further. Aristide replied that she did not understand
+such matters; that she was the one who had committed a great blunder in
+placing her husband at the service of the marquis. So she had to abandon
+her son to his own courses, resolving, however that if Eugene succeeded
+she would compel him to share the spoils with the poor fellow who was
+her favourite child.
+
+After the departure of his eldest son, Pierre Rougon pursued his
+reactionary intrigues. Nothing seemed to have changed in the opinions of
+the famous yellow drawing-room. Every evening the same men came to join
+in the same propaganda in favour of the establishment of a monarchy,
+while the master of the house approved and aided them with as much zeal
+as in the past. Eugene had left Plassans on May 1. A few days later,
+the yellow drawing-room was in raptures. The gossips were discussing the
+letter of the President of the Republic to General Oudinot, in which
+the siege of Rome had been decided upon. This letter was regarded as a
+brilliant victory, due to the firm demeanour of the reactionary party.
+Since 1848 the Chambers had been discussing the Roman question; but it
+had been reserved for a Bonaparte to stifle a rising Republic by an act
+of intervention which France, if free, would never have countenanced.
+The marquis declared, however, that one could not better promote the
+cause of legitimacy, and Vuillet wrote a superb article on the matter.
+The enthusiasm became unbounded when, a month later, Commander Sicardot
+entered the Rougons' house one evening and announced to the company
+that the French army was fighting under the walls of Rome. Then, while
+everybody was raising exclamations at this news, he went up to Pierre,
+and shook hands with him in a significant manner. And when he had taken
+a seat, he began to sound the praises of the President of the Republic,
+who, said he, was the only person able to save France from anarchy.
+
+"Let him save it, then, as quickly as possible," interrupted the
+marquis, "and let him then understand his duty by restoring it to its
+legitimate masters."
+
+Pierre seemed to approve this fine retort, and having thus given
+proof of his ardent royalism, he ventured to remark that Prince Louis
+Bonaparte had his entire sympathy in the matter. He thereupon exchanged
+a few short sentences with the commander, commending the excellent
+intentions of the President, which sentences one might have thought
+prepared and learnt beforehand. Bonapartism now, for the first time,
+made its entry into the yellow drawing-room. It is true that since the
+election of December 10 the Prince had been treated there with a certain
+amount of consideration. He was preferred a thousand times to Cavaignac,
+and the whole reactionary party had voted for him. But they regarded
+him rather as an accomplice than a friend; and, as such, they distrusted
+him, and even began to accuse him of a desire to keep for himself
+the chestnuts which he had pulled out of the fire. On that particular
+evening, however, owing to the fighting at Rome, they listened with
+favour to the praises of Pierre and the commander.
+
+The group led by Granoux and Roudier already demanded that the President
+should order all republican rascals to be shot; while the marquis,
+leaning against the mantelpiece, gazed meditatively at a faded rose on
+the carpet. When he at last lifted his head, Pierre, who had furtively
+watched his countenance as if to see the effect of his words, suddenly
+ceased speaking. However, Monsieur de Carnavant merely smiled and
+glanced at Felicite with a knowing look. This rapid by-play was not
+observed by the other people. Vuillet alone remarked in a sharp tone:
+
+"I would rather see your Bonaparte at London than at Paris. Our affairs
+would get along better then."
+
+At this the old oil-dealer turned slightly pale, fearing that he had
+gone too far. "I'm not anxious to retain 'my' Bonaparte," he said, with
+some firmness; "you know where I would send him to if I were the master.
+I simply assert that the expedition to Rome was a good stroke."
+
+Felicite had followed this scene with inquisitive astonishment. However,
+she did not speak of it to her husband, which proved that she adopted it
+as the basis of secret study. The marquis's smile, the significance of
+which escaped her, set her thinking.
+
+From that day forward, Rougon, at distant intervals, whenever the
+occasion offered, slipped in a good word for the President of the
+Republic. On such evenings, Commander Sicardot acted the part of a
+willing accomplice. At the same time, Clerical opinions still reigned
+supreme in the yellow drawing-room. It was more particularly in
+the following year that this group of reactionaries gained decisive
+influence in the town, thanks to the retrograde movement which was going
+on at Paris. All those anti-Liberal laws which the country called "the
+Roman expedition at home" definitively secured the triumph of the Rougon
+faction. The last enthusiastic bourgeois saw the Republic tottering, and
+hastened to rally round the Conservatives. Thus the Rougons' hour had
+arrived; the new town almost gave them an ovation on the day when the
+tree of Liberty, planted on the square before the Sub-Prefecture, was
+sawed down. This tree, a young poplar brought from the banks of the
+Viorne, had gradually withered, much to the despair of the republican
+working-men, who would come every Sunday to observe the progress of
+the decay without being able to comprehend the cause of it. A hatter's
+apprentice at last asserted that he had seen a woman leave Rougon's
+house and pour a pail of poisoned water at the foot of the tree. It
+thenceforward became a matter of history that Felicite herself got up
+every night to sprinkle the poplar with vitriol. When the tree was dead
+the Municipal Council declared that the dignity of the Republic required
+its removal. For this, as they feared the displeasure of the working
+classes, they selected an advanced hour of the night. However, the
+conservative householders of the new town got wind of the little
+ceremony, and all came down to the square before the Sub-Prefecture in
+order to see how the tree of Liberty would fall. The frequenters of the
+yellow drawing-room stationed themselves at the windows there. When the
+poplar cracked and fell with a thud in the darkness, as tragically rigid
+as some mortally stricken hero, Felicite felt bound to wave a white
+handkerchief. This induced the crowd to applaud, and many responded to
+the salute by waving their handkerchiefs likewise. A group of people
+even came under the window shouting: "We'll bury it, we'll bury it."
+
+They meant the Republic, no doubt. Such was Felicite's emotion, that
+she almost had a nervous attack. It was a fine evening for the yellow
+drawing-room.
+
+However, the marquis still looked at Felicite with the same mysterious
+smile. This little old man was far too shrewd to be ignorant of whither
+France was tending. He was among the first to scent the coming of the
+Empire. When the Legislative Assembly, later on, exhausted its energies
+in useless squabbling, when the Orleanists and the Legitimists tacitly
+accepted the idea of the Coup d'Etat, he said to himself that the
+game was definitely lost. In fact, he was the only one who saw things
+clearly. Vuillet certainly felt that the cause of Henry V., which his
+paper defended, was becoming detestable; but it mattered little to him;
+he was content to be the obedient creature of the clergy; his entire
+policy was framed so as to enable him to dispose of as many rosaries and
+sacred images as possible. As for Roudier and Granoux, they lived in
+a state of blind scare; it was not certain whether they really had any
+opinions; all that they desired was to eat and sleep in peace; their
+political aspirations went no further. The marquis, though he had bidden
+farewell to his hopes, continued to come to the Rougons' as regularly as
+ever. He enjoyed himself there. The clash of rival ambitions among
+the middle classes, and the display of their follies, had become an
+extremely amusing spectacle to him. He shuddered at the thought of again
+shutting himself in the little room which he owed to the beneficence of
+the Count de Valqueyras. With a kind of malicious delight, he kept to
+himself the conviction that the Bourbons' hour had not yet arrived. He
+feigned blindness, working as hitherto for the triumph of Legitimacy,
+and still remaining at the orders of the clergy and nobility, though
+from the very first day he had penetrated Pierre's new course of action,
+and believed that Felicite was his accomplice.
+
+One evening, being the first to arrive, he found the old lady alone
+in the drawing-room. "Well! little one," he asked, with his smiling
+familiarity, "are your affairs going on all right? Why the deuce do you
+make such mysteries with me?"
+
+"I'm not hiding anything from you," Felicite replied, somewhat
+perplexed.
+
+"Come, do you think you can deceive an old fox like me, eh? My dear
+child, treat me as a friend. I'm quite ready to help you secretly. Come
+now, be frank!"
+
+A bright idea struck Felicite. She had nothing to tell; but perhaps she
+might find out something if she kept quiet.
+
+"Why do you smile?" Monsieur de Carnavant resumed. "That's the beginning
+of a confession, you know. I suspected that you must be behind your
+husband. Pierre is too stupid to invent the pretty treason you are
+hatching. I sincerely hope the Bonapartists will give you what I should
+have asked for you from the Bourbons."
+
+This single sentence confirmed the suspicions which the old woman had
+entertained for some time past.
+
+"Prince Louis has every chance, hasn't he?" she eagerly inquired.
+
+"Will you betray me if I tell you that I believe so?" the marquis
+laughingly replied. "I've donned my mourning over it, little one. I'm
+simply a poor old man, worn out and only fit to be laid on the shelf.
+It was for you, however, that I was working. Since you have been able to
+find the right track without me, I shall feel some consolation in seeing
+you triumph amidst my own defeat. Above all things, don't make any more
+mysteries. Come to me if you are ever in trouble."
+
+And he added, with the sceptical smile of a nobleman who has lost caste:
+"Pshaw! I also can go in for a little treachery!"
+
+At this moment the clan of retired oil and almond dealers arrived.
+
+"Ah! the dear reactionaries!" Monsieur de Carnavant continued in an
+undertone. "You see, little one, the great art of politics consists in
+having a pair of good eyes when other people are blind. You hold all the
+best cards in the pack."
+
+On the following day, Felicite, incited by this conversation, desired
+to make sure on the matter. They were then in the first days of the year
+1851. For more than eighteen months, Rougon had been in the habit of
+receiving a letter from his son Eugene regularly every fortnight. He
+would shut himself in the bedroom to read these letters, which he then
+hid at the bottom of an old secretaire, the key of which he carefully
+kept in his waistcoat pocket. Whenever his wife questioned him about
+their son he would simply answer: "Eugene writes that he is going on
+all right." Felicite had long since thought of laying hands on her son's
+letters. So early on the morning after her chat with the marquis, while
+Pierre was still asleep, she got up on tiptoes, took the key of the
+secretaire from her husband's waistcoat and substituted in its place
+that of the chest of drawers, which was of the same size. Then, as soon
+as her husband had gone out, she shut herself in the room in her turn,
+emptied the drawer, and read all the letters with feverish curiosity.
+
+Monsieur de Carnavant had not been mistaken, and her own suspicions were
+confirmed. There were about forty letters, which enabled her to follow
+the course of that great Bonapartist movement which was to terminate in
+the second Empire. The letters constituted a sort of concise journal,
+narrating events as they occurred, and drawing hopes and suggestions
+from each of them. Eugene was full of faith. He described Prince Louis
+Bonaparte to his father as the predestined necessary man who alone could
+unravel the situation. He had believed in him prior even to his return
+to France, at a time when Bonapartism was treated as a ridiculous
+chimera. Felicite understood that her son had been a very active secret
+agent since 1848. Although he did not clearly explain his position in
+Paris, it was evident that he was working for the Empire, under
+the orders of personages whose names he mentioned with a sort of
+familiarity. Each of his letters gave information as to the progress of
+the cause, to which an early denouement was foreshadowed; and usually
+concluded by pointing out the line of action that Pierre should pursue
+at Plassans. Felicite could now comprehend certain words and acts of
+her husband, whose significance had previously escaped her; Pierre was
+obeying his son, and blindly following his recommendations.
+
+When the old woman had finished reading, she was convinced. Eugene's
+entire thoughts were clearly revealed to her. He reckoned upon making
+his political fortune in the squabble, and repaying his parents the debt
+he owed them for his education, by throwing them a scrap of the prey as
+soon as the quarry was secured. However small the assistance his father
+might render to him and to the cause, it would not be difficult to get
+him appointed receiver of taxes. Nothing would be refused to one who
+like Eugene had steeped his hands in the most secret machinations. His
+letters were simply a kind attention on his part, a device to prevent
+the Rougons from committing any act of imprudence, for which Felicite
+felt deeply grateful. She read certain passages of the letters twice
+over, notably those in which Eugene spoke, in vague terms, of "a final
+catastrophe." This catastrophe, the nature or bearings of which she
+could not well conceive became a sort of end of the world for her. God
+would range the chosen ones on His right hand and the damned on His
+left, and she placed herself among the former.
+
+When she succeeded in replacing the key in her husband's waistcoat
+pocket on the following night, she made up her mind to employ the same
+expedient for reading every fresh letter that arrived. She resolved,
+likewise, to profess complete ignorance. This plan was an excellent one.
+Henceforward, she gave her husband the more assistance as she appeared
+to render it unconsciously. When Pierre thought he was working alone
+it was she who brought the conversation round to the desired topic,
+recruiting partisans for the decisive moment. She felt hurt at Eugene's
+distrust of her. She wanted to be able to say to him, after the triumph:
+"I knew all, and so far from spoiling anything, I have secured the
+victory." Never did an accomplice make less noise or work harder. The
+marquis, whom she had taken into her confidence, was astounded at it.
+
+The fate of her dear Aristide, however, continued to make her uneasy.
+Now that she shared the faith of her eldest son, the rabid articles of
+the "Independant" alarmed her all the more. She longed to convert the
+unfortunate republican to Napoleonist ideas; but she did not know how
+to accomplish this in a discreet manner. She recalled the emphasis with
+which Eugene had told them to be on their guard against Aristide. At
+last she submitted the matter to Monsieur de Carnavant, who was entirely
+of the same opinion.
+
+"Little one," he said to her, "in politics one must know how to look
+after one's self. If you were to convert your son, and the 'Independant'
+were to start writing in defence of Bonapartism, it would deal the party
+a rude blow. The 'Independant' has already been condemned, its title
+alone suffices to enrage the middle classes of Plassans. Let dear
+Aristide flounder about; this only moulds young people. He does not
+appear to me to be cut out for carrying on the role of a martyr for any
+length of time."
+
+However, in her eagerness to point out the right way to her family,
+now that she believed herself in possession of the truth, Felicite even
+sought to convert her son Pascal. The doctor, with the egotism of a
+scientist immersed in his researches, gave little heed to politics.
+Empires might fall while he was making an experiment, yet he would not
+have deigned to turn his head. He at last yielded, however, to certain
+importunities of his mother, who accused him more than ever of living
+like an unsociable churl.
+
+"If you were to go into society," she said to him, "you would get some
+well-to-do patients. Come, at least, and spend some evenings in our
+drawing-room. You will make the acquaintance of Messieurs Roudier,
+Granoux, and Sicardot, all gentlemen in good circumstances, who will pay
+you four or five francs a visit. The poor people will never enrich you."
+
+The idea of succeeding in life, of seeing all her family attain to
+fortune, had become a form of monomania with Felicite. Pascal, in order
+to be agreeable to her, came and spent a few evenings in the yellow
+drawing-room. He was much less bored there than he had apprehended. At
+first he was rather stupefied at the degree of imbecility to which
+sane men can sink. The old oil and almond dealers, the marquis and the
+commander even, appeared to him so many curious animals, which he
+had not hitherto had an opportunity of studying. He looked with a
+naturalist's interest at their grimacing faces, in which he discerned
+traces of their occupations and appetites; he listened also to their
+inane chatter, just as he might have tried to catch the meaning of
+a cat's mew or a dog's bark. At this period he was occupied with
+comparative natural history, applying to the human race the observations
+which he had made upon animals with regard to the working of heredity.
+While he was in the yellow drawing-room, therefore, he amused himself
+with the belief that he had fallen in with a menagerie. He established
+comparisons between the grotesque creatures he found there and certain
+animals of his acquaintance. The marquis, with his leanness and small
+crafty-looking head, reminded him exactly of a long green grasshopper.
+Vuillet impressed him as a pale, slimy toad. He was more considerate for
+Roudier, a fat sheep, and for the commander, an old toothless mastiff.
+But the prodigious Granoux was a perpetual cause of astonishment to him.
+He spent a whole evening measuring this imbecile's facial angle. When he
+heard him mutter indistinct imprecations against those blood-suckers
+the Republicans, he always expected to hear him moan like a calf; and
+he could never see him rise from his chair without imagining that he was
+about to leave the room on all fours.
+
+"Talk to them," his mother used to say in an undertone; "try and make a
+practice out of these gentlemen."
+
+"I am not a veterinary surgeon," he at last replied, exasperated.
+
+One evening Felicite took him into a corner and tired to catechise
+him. She was glad to see him come to her house rather assiduously.
+She thought him reconciled to Society, not suspecting for a moment the
+singular amusement that he derived from ridiculing these rich people.
+She cherished the secret project of making him the fashionable doctor
+of Plassans. It would be sufficient if men like Granoux and Roudier
+consented to give him a start. She wished, above all, to impart to
+him the political views of the family, considering that a doctor had
+everything to gain by constituting himself a warm partisan of the regime
+which was to succeed the Republic.
+
+"My dear boy," she said to him, "as you have now become reasonable,
+you must give some thought to the future. You are accused of being a
+Republican, because you are foolish enough to attend all the beggars
+of the town without making any charge. Be frank, what are your real
+opinions?"
+
+Pascal looked at his mother with naïve astonishment, then with a smile
+replied: "My real opinions? I don't quite know--I am accused of being a
+Republican, did you say? Very well! I don't feel at all offended. I
+am undoubtedly a Republican, if you understand by that word a man who
+wishes the welfare of everybody."
+
+"But you will never attain to any position," Felicite quickly
+interrupted. "You will be crushed. Look at your brothers, they are
+trying to make their way."
+
+Pascal then comprehended that he was not called upon to defend his
+philosophic egotism. His mother simply accused him of not speculating
+on the political situation. He began to laugh somewhat sadly, and then
+turned the conversation into another channel. Felicite could never
+induce him to consider the chances of the various parties, nor to enlist
+in that one of them which seemed likely to carry the day. However, he
+still occasionally came to spend an evening in the yellow drawing-room.
+Granoux interested him like an antediluvian animal.
+
+In the meantime, events were moving. The year 1851 was a year of anxiety
+and apprehension for the politicians of Plassans, and the cause which
+the Rougons served derived advantage from this circumstance. The most
+contradictory news arrived from Paris; sometimes the Republicans were
+in the ascendant, sometimes the Conservative party was crushing the
+Republic. The echoes of the squabbles which were rending the Legislative
+Assembly reached the depths of the provinces, now in an exaggerated, now
+in an attenuated form, varying so greatly as to obscure the vision of
+the most clear-sighted. The only general feeling was that a denouement
+was approaching. The prevailing ignorance as to the nature of this
+denouement kept timid middle class people in a terrible state of
+anxiety. Everybody wished to see the end. They were sick of uncertainty,
+and would have flung themselves into the arms of the Grand Turk, if he
+would have deigned to save France from anarchy.
+
+The marquis's smile became more acute. Of an evening, in the yellow
+drawing-room, when Granoux's growl was rendered indistinct by fright, he
+would draw near to Felicite and whisper in her ear: "Come, little one,
+the fruit is ripe--but you must make yourself useful."
+
+Felicite, who continued to read Eugene's letters, and knew that
+a decisive crisis might any day occur, had already often felt the
+necessity of making herself useful, and reflected as to the manner in
+which the Rougons should employ themselves. At last she consulted the
+marquis.
+
+"It all depends upon circumstances," the little old man replied. "If the
+department remains quiet, if no insurrection occurs to terrify Plassans,
+it will be difficult for you to make yourselves conspicuous and render
+any services to the new government. I advise you, in that case, to
+remain at home, and peacefully await the bounties of your son Eugene.
+But if the people rise, and our brave bourgeois think themselves in
+danger, there will be a fine part to play. Your husband is somewhat
+heavy--"
+
+"Oh!" said Felicite, "I'll undertake to make him supple. Do you think
+the department will revolt?"
+
+"To my mind it's a certainty. Plassans, perhaps, will not make a
+stir; the reaction has secured too firm a hold here for that. But the
+neighbouring towns, especially the small ones and the villages, have
+long been worked by certain secret societies, and belong to the advanced
+Republican party. If a Coup d'Etat should burst forth, the tocsin will
+be heard throughout the entire country, from the forests of the Seille
+to the plateau of Sainte-Roure."
+
+Felicite reflected. "You think, then," she resumed, "that an
+insurrection is necessary to ensure our fortune!"
+
+"That's my opinion," replied Monsieur de Carnavant. And he added, with a
+slightly ironical smile: "A new dynasty is never founded excepting upon
+an affray. Blood is good manure. It will be a fine thing for the Rougons
+to date from a massacre, like certain illustrious families."
+
+These words, accompanied by a sneer, sent a cold chill through
+Felicite's bones. But she was a strong-minded woman, and the sight of
+Monsieur Peirotte's beautiful curtains, which she religiously viewed
+every morning, sustained her courage. Whenever she felt herself
+giving way, she planted herself at the window and contemplated the
+tax-receiver's house. For her it was the Tuileries. She had determined
+upon the most extreme measures in order to secure an entree into the new
+town, that promised land, on the threshold of which she had stood with
+burning longing for so many years.
+
+The conversation which she had held with the marquis had at last clearly
+revealed the situation to her. A few days afterwards, she succeeded in
+reading one of Eugene's letters, in which he, who was working for the
+Coup d'Etat, seemed also to rely upon an insurrection as the means of
+endowing his father with some importance. Eugene knew his department
+well. All his suggestions had been framed with the object of placing
+as much influence as possible in the hands of the yellow drawing-room
+reactionaries, so that the Rougons might be able to hold the town at the
+critical moment. In accordance with his desires, the yellow drawing-room
+was master of Plassans in November, 1851. Roudier represented the rich
+citizens there, and his attitude would certainly decide that of the
+entire new town. Granoux was still more valuable; he had the Municipal
+Council behind him: he was its most powerful member, a fact which
+will give some idea of its other members. Finally, through Commander
+Sicardot, whom the marquis had succeeded in getting appointed as chief
+of the National Guard, the yellow drawing-room had the armed forces at
+their disposal.
+
+The Rougons, those poor disreputable devils, had thus succeeded
+in rallying round themselves the instruments of their own fortune.
+Everyone, from cowardice or stupidity, would have to obey them and work
+in the dark for their aggrandisement. They simply had to fear those
+other influences which might be working with the same object as
+themselves, and might partially rob them of the merit of victory. That
+was their great fear, for they wanted to reserve to themselves the role
+of deliverers. They knew beforehand that they would be aided rather than
+hindered by the clergy and the nobility. But if the sub-prefect, the
+mayor, and the other functionaries were to take a step in advance and at
+once stifle the insurrection they would find themselves thrown into the
+shade, and even arrested in their exploits; they would have neither time
+nor means to make themselves useful. What they longed for was complete
+abstention, general panic among the functionaries. If only all regular
+administration should disappear, and they could dispose of the destinies
+of Plassans for a single day, their fortune would be firmly established.
+
+Happily for them, there was not a man in the government service whose
+convictions were so firm or whose circumstances were so needy as to
+make him disposed to risk the game. The sub-prefect was a man of liberal
+spirit whom the executive had forgetfully left at Plassans, owing, no
+doubt, to the good repute of the town. Of timid character and incapable
+of exceeding his authority, he would no doubt be greatly embarrassed in
+the presence of an insurrection. The Rougons, who knew that he was in
+favour of the democratic cause, and who consequently never dreaded his
+zeal, were simply curious to know what attitude he would assume. As for
+the municipality, this did not cause them much apprehension. The mayor,
+Monsieur Garconnet, was a Legitimist whose nomination had been procured
+by the influence of the Saint-Marc quarter in 1849. He detested the
+Republicans and treated them with undisguised disdain; but he was too
+closely united by bonds of friendship with certain members of the
+church to lend any active hand in a Bonapartist Coup d'Etat. The other
+functionaries were in exactly the same position. The justices of the
+peace, the post-master, the tax-collector, as well as Monsieur Peirotte,
+the chief receiver of taxes, were all indebted for their posts to
+the Clerical reaction, and could not accept the Empire with any great
+enthusiasm. The Rougons, though they did not quite see how they might
+get rid of these people and clear the way for themselves, nevertheless
+indulged in sanguine hopes on finding there was little likelihood of
+anybody disputing their role as deliverers.
+
+The denouement was drawing near. In the last few days of November, as
+the rumour of a Coup d'Etat was circulating, the prince-president was
+accused of seeking the position of emperor.
+
+"Eh! we'll call him whatever he likes," Granoux exclaimed, "provided he
+has those Republican rascals shot!"
+
+This exclamation from Granoux, who was believed to be asleep, caused
+great commotion. The marquis pretended not to have heard it; but all
+the bourgeois nodded approval. Roudier, who, being rich, did not fear to
+applaud the sentiment aloud, went so far as to declare, while glancing
+askance at Monsieur de Carnavant, that the position was no longer
+tenable, and that France must be chastised as soon as possible, never
+mind by what hand.
+
+The marquis still maintained a silence which was interpreted as
+acquiescence. And thereupon the Conservative clan, abandoning the cause
+of Legitimacy, ventured to offer up prayers in favour of the Empire.
+
+"My friends," said Commander Sicardot, rising from his seat, "only a
+Napoleon can now protect threatened life and property. Have no fear,
+I've taken the necessary precautions to preserve order at Plassans."
+
+As a matter of fact the commander, in concert with Rougon, had
+concealed, in a kind of cart-house near the ramparts, both a supply of
+cartridges and a considerable number of muskets; he had also taken steps
+to secure the co-operation of the National Guard, on which he believed
+he could rely. His words produced a very favourable impression.
+On separating for the evening, the peaceful citizens of the yellow
+drawing-room spoke of massacring the "Reds" if they should dare to stir.
+
+On December 1, Pierre Rougon received a letter from Eugene which he went
+to read in his bedroom, in accordance with his prudent habit. Felicite
+observed, however, that he was very agitated when he came out again.
+She fluttered round the secretaire all day. When night came, she could
+restrain her impatience no longer. Her husband had scarcely fallen
+asleep, when she quietly got up, took the key of the secretaire from
+the waistcoat pocket, and gained possession of the letter with as little
+noise as possible. Eugene, in ten lines, warned his father that the
+crisis was at hand, and advised him to acquaint his mother with the
+situation of affairs. The hour for informing her had arrived; he might
+stand in need of her advice.
+
+Felicite awaited, on the morrow, a disclosure which did not come. She
+did not dare to confess her curiosity; but continued to feign ignorance,
+though enraged at the foolish distrust of her husband, who, doubtless,
+considered her a gossip, and weak like other women. Pierre, with
+that marital pride which inspires a man with the belief in his own
+superiority at home, had ended by attributing all their past ill-luck to
+his wife. From the time that he fancied he had been conducting matters
+alone everything seemed to him to have gone as he desired. He had
+decided, therefore, to dispense altogether with his consort's counsels,
+and to confide nothing to her, in spite of his son's recommendations.
+
+Felicite was piqued to such a degree that she would have upset the whole
+affair had she not desired the triumph as ardently as Pierre. So she
+continued to work energetically for victory, while endeavouring to take
+her revenge.
+
+"Ah! if he could only have some great fright," thought she; "if he would
+only commit some act of imprudence! Then I should see him come to me and
+humbly ask for advice; it would be my turn to lay down the law."
+
+She felt somewhat uneasy at the imperious attitude Pierre would
+certainly assume if he were to triumph without her aid. On marrying this
+peasant's son, in preference to some notary's clerk, she had intended to
+make use of him as a strongly made puppet, whose strings she would pull
+in her own way; and now, at the decisive moment, the puppet, in his
+blind stupidity, wanted to work alone! All the cunning, all the feverish
+activity within the old woman protested against this. She knew Pierre
+was quite capable of some brutal resolve such as that which he had taken
+when he compelled his mother to sign the receipt for fifty thousand
+francs; the tool was indeed a useful and unscrupulous one; but she felt
+the necessity for guiding it, especially under present circumstances,
+when considerable suppleness was requisite.
+
+The official news of the Coup d'Etat did not reach Plassans until the
+afternoon of December 3--a Thursday. Already, at seven o'clock in the
+evening, there was a full meeting in the yellow drawing-room. Although
+the crisis had been eagerly desired, vague uneasiness appeared on the
+faces of the majority. They discussed events amid endless chatter.
+Pierre, who like the others was slightly pale, thought it right, as an
+extreme measure of prudence, to excuse Prince Louis's decisive act to
+the Legitimists and Orleanists who were present.
+
+"There is talk of an appeal to the people," he said; "the nation will
+then be free to choose whatever government it likes. The president is a
+man to retire before our legitimate masters."
+
+The marquis, who had retained his aristocratic coolness, was the only
+one who greeted these words with a smile. The others, in the enthusiasm
+of the moment, concerned themselves very little about what might follow.
+All their opinions foundered. Roudier, forgetting the esteem which as a
+former shopkeeper he had entertained for the Orleanists, stopped Pierre
+rather abruptly. And everybody exclaimed: "Don't argue the matter. Let
+us think of preserving order."
+
+These good people were terribly afraid of the Republicans. There had,
+however been very little commotion in the town on the announcement of
+the events in Paris. People had collected in front of the notices posted
+on the door of the Sub-Prefecture; it was also rumoured that a few
+hundred workmen had left their work and were endeavouring to organise
+resistance. That was all. No serious disturbance seemed likely to occur.
+The course which the neighbouring towns and rural districts might take
+seemed more likely to occasion anxiety; however, it was not yet known
+how they had received the news of the Coup d'Etat.
+
+Granoux arrived at about nine o'clock, quite out of breath. He had just
+left a sitting of the Municipal Council which had been hastily summoned
+together. Choking with emotion, he announced that the mayor, Monsieur
+Garconnet, had declared, while making due reserves, that he was
+determined to preserve order by the most stringent measures. However,
+the intelligence which caused the noisiest chattering in the yellow
+drawing-room was that of the resignation of the sub-prefect. This
+functionary had absolutely refused to communicate the despatches of the
+Minister of the Interior to the inhabitants of Plassans; he had just
+left the town, so Granoux asserted, and it was thanks to the mayor that
+the messages had been posted. This was perhaps the only sub-prefect in
+France who ever had the courage of his democratic opinions.
+
+Although Monsieur Garconnet's firm demeanour caused the Rougons
+some secret anxiety, they rubbed their hands at the flight of the
+sub-prefect, which left the post vacant for them. It was decided on this
+memorable evening that the yellow drawing-room party should accept the
+Coup d'Etat and openly declare that it was in favour of accomplished
+facts. Vuillet was commissioned to write an article to that effect, and
+publish it on the morrow in the "Gazette." Neither he nor the marquis
+raised any objection. They had, no doubt, received instructions from the
+mysterious individuals to whom they sometimes made pious allusions. The
+clergy and the nobility were already resigned to the course of lending
+a strong hand to the victors, in order to crush their common enemy, the
+Republic.
+
+While the yellow drawing-room was deliberating on the evening in
+question, Aristide was perspiring with anxiety. Never had gambler,
+staking his last louis on a card, felt such anguish. During the day the
+resignation of his chief, the sub-prefect, had given him much matter for
+reflection. He had heard him repeat several times that the Coup d'Etat
+must prove a failure. This functionary, endowed with a limited amount of
+honesty, believed in the final triumph of the democracy, though he
+had not the courage to work for that triumph by offering resistance.
+Aristide was in the habit of listening at the doors of the
+Sub-Prefecture, in order to get precise information, for he felt that he
+was groping in the dark, and clung to the intelligence which he gleaned
+from the officials. The sub-prefect's opinion struck him forcibly; but
+he remained perplexed. He thought to himself: "Why does the fellow go
+away if he is so certain that the prince-president will meet with a
+check?" However, as he was compelled to espouse one side or the other,
+he resolved to continue his opposition. He wrote a very hostile article
+on the Coup d'Etat, and took it to the "Independant" the same evening
+for the following morning's issue. He had corrected the proofs of this
+article, and was returning home somewhat calmed, when, as he passed
+along the Rue de la Banne, he instinctively raised his head and glanced
+at the Rougons' windows. Their windows were brightly lighted up.
+
+"What can they be plotting up there?" the journalist asked himself, with
+anxious curiosity.
+
+A fierce desire to know the opinion of the yellow drawing-room with
+regard to recent events then assailed him. He credited this group of
+reactionaries with little intelligence; but his doubts recurred, he was
+in that frame of mind when one might seek advice from a child. He
+could not think of entering his father's home at that moment, after the
+campaign he had waged against Granoux and the others. Nevertheless, he
+went upstairs, reflecting what a singular figure he would cut if he were
+surprised on the way by anyone. On reaching the Rougons' door, he could
+only catch a confused echo of voices.
+
+"What a child I am," said he, "fear makes me stupid." And he was going
+to descend again, when he heard the approach of his mother, who was
+about to show somebody out. He had barely time to hide in a dark corner
+formed by a little staircase leading to the garrets of the house. The
+Rougons' door opened, and the marquis appeared, followed by Felicite.
+Monsieur de Carnavant usually left before the gentlemen of the new town
+did, in order no doubt to avoid having to shake hands with them in the
+street.
+
+"Eh! little one," he said on the landing, in a low voice, "these men are
+greater cowards than I should have thought. With such men France will
+always be at the mercy of whoever dares to lay his hands upon her!"
+And he added, with some bitterness, as though speaking to himself: "The
+monarchy is decidedly becoming too honest for modern times. Its day is
+over."
+
+"Eugene announced the crisis to his father," replied Felicite. "Prince
+Louis's triumph seems to him certain."
+
+"Oh, you can proceed without fear," the marquis replied, as he descended
+the first steps. "In two or three days the country will be well bound
+and gagged. Good-bye till to-morrow, little one."
+
+Felicite closed the door again. Aristide had received quite a shock in
+his dark corner. However, without waiting for the marquis to reach the
+street, he bounded down the staircase, four steps at a time, rushed
+outside like a madman, and turned his steps towards the printing-office
+of the "Independant." A flood of thoughts surged through his mind. He
+was enraged, and accused his family of having duped him. What! Eugene
+kept his parents informed of the situation, and yet his mother had never
+given him any of his eldest brother's letters to read, in order that he
+might follow the advice given therein! And it was only now he learnt by
+chance that his eldest brother regarded the success of the Coup d'Etat
+as certain! This circumstance, moreover, confirmed certain presentiments
+which that idiot of a sub-prefect had prevented him from obeying. He was
+especially exasperated against his father, whom he had thought stupid
+enough to be a Legitimist, but who revealed himself as a Bonapartist at
+the right moment.
+
+"What a lot of folly they have allowed me to perpetrate," he muttered as
+he ran along. "I'm a fine fellow now. Ah! what a lesson! Granoux is more
+capable than I."
+
+He entered the office of the "Independant" like a hurricane, and
+asked for his article in a choking voice. The article had already been
+imposed. He had the forme unlocked and would not rest until he had
+himself destroyed the setting, mixing the type in a furious manner, like
+a set of dominoes. The bookseller who managed the paper looked at him
+in amazement. He was, in reality, rather glad of the incident, as the
+article had seemed to him somewhat dangerous. But he was absolutely
+obliged to have some copy, if the "Independant" was to appear.
+
+"Are you going to give me something else?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly," replied Aristide.
+
+He sat down at the table and began a warm panegyric on the Coup d'Etat.
+At the very first line, he swore that Prince Louis had just saved the
+Republic; but he had hardly written a page before he stopped and seemed
+at a loss how to continue. A troubled look came over his pole-cat face.
+
+"I must go home," he said at last. "I will send you this immediately.
+Your paper can appear a little later, if necessary."
+
+He walked slowly on his way home, lost in meditation. He was again
+giving way to indecision. Why should he veer round so quickly? Eugene
+was an intelligent fellow, but his mother had perhaps exaggerated the
+significance of some sentence in his letter. In any case, it would be
+better to wait and hold his tongue.
+
+An hour later Angele called at the bookseller's, feigning deep emotion.
+
+"My husband has just severely injured himself," she said. "He jammed his
+four fingers in a door as he was coming in. In spite of his sufferings,
+he has dictated this little note, which he begs you to publish
+to-morrow."
+
+On the following day the "Independant," made up almost entirely of
+miscellaneous items of news, appeared with these few lines at the head
+of the first column:
+
+"A deplorable accident which has occurred to our eminent contributor
+Monsieur Aristide Rougon will deprive us of his articles for some
+time. He will suffer at having to remain silent in the present grave
+circumstances. None of our readers will doubt, however, the good wishes
+which he offers up with patriotic feelings for the welfare of France."
+
+This burlesque note had been maturely studied. The last sentence might
+be interpreted in favour of all parties. By this expedient, Aristide
+devised a glorious return for himself on the morrow of battle, in the
+shape of a laudatory article on the victors. On the following day he
+showed himself to the whole town, with his arm in a sling. His mother,
+frightened by the notice in the paper, hastily called upon him, but
+he refused to show her his hand, and spoke with a bitterness which
+enlightened the old woman.
+
+"It won't be anything," she said in a reassuring and somewhat sarcastic
+tone, as she was leaving. "You only want a little rest."
+
+It was no doubt owing to this pretended accident, and the sub-prefect's
+departure, that the "Independant" was not interfered with, like most of
+the democratic papers of the departments.
+
+The 4th day of the month proved comparatively quiet at Plassans. In the
+evening there was a public demonstration which the mere appearance
+of the gendarmes sufficed to disperse. A band of working-men came to
+request Monsieur Garconnet to communicate the despatches he had received
+from Paris, which the latter haughtily refused to do; as it retired
+the band shouted: "Long live the Republic! Long live the Constitution!"
+After this, order was restored. The yellow drawing-room, after
+commenting at some length on this innocent parade, concluded that
+affairs were going on excellently.
+
+The 5th and 6th were, however, more disquieting. Intelligence was
+received of successive risings in small neighbouring towns; the
+whole southern part of the department had taken up arms; La Palud and
+Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx had been the first to rise, drawing after them
+the villages of Chavanos, Nazeres, Poujols, Valqueyras and Vernoux. The
+yellow drawing-room party was now becoming seriously alarmed. It felt
+particularly uneasy at seeing Plassans isolated in the very midst of the
+revolt. Bands of insurgents would certainly scour the country and cut
+off all communications. Granoux announced, with a terrified look, that
+the mayor was without any news. Some people even asserted that blood had
+been shed at Marseilles, and that a formidable revolution had broken out
+in Paris. Commander Sicardot, enraged at the cowardice of the bourgeois,
+vowed he would die at the head of his men.
+
+On Sunday the 7th the terror reached a climax. Already at six o'clock
+the yellow drawing-room, where a sort of reactionary committee sat _en
+permanence_, was crowded with pale, trembling men, who conversed in
+undertones, as though they were in a chamber of death. It had been
+ascertained during the day that a column of insurgents, about three
+thousand strong, had assembled at Alboise, a big village not more than
+three leagues away. It was true that this column had been ordered to
+make for the chief town of the department, leaving Plassans on its left;
+but the plan of campaign might at any time be altered; moreover, it
+sufficed for these cowardly cits to know that there were insurgents a
+few miles off, to make them feel the horny hands of the toilers already
+tightened round their throats. They had had a foretaste of the revolt in
+the morning; the few Republicans at Plassans, seeing that they would
+be unable to make any determined move in the town, had resolved to join
+their brethren of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx; the first group
+had left at about eleven o'clock, by the Porte de Rome, shouting the
+"Marseillaise" and smashing a few windows. Granoux had had one broken.
+He mentioned the circumstance with stammerings of terror.
+
+Meantime, the most acute anxiety agitated the yellow drawing-room. The
+commander had sent his servant to obtain some information as to the
+exact movements of the insurgents, and the others awaited this man's
+return, making the most astonishing surmises. They had a full meeting.
+Roudier and Granoux, sinking back in their arm-chairs, exchanged the
+most pitiable glances, whilst behind them moaned a terror-stricken group
+of retired tradesmen. Vuillet, without appearing over scared, reflected
+upon what precautions he should take to protect his shop and person; he
+was in doubt whether he should hide himself in his garret or cellar,
+and inclined towards the latter. For their part Pierre and the commander
+walked up and down, exchanging a word ever and anon. The old oil-dealer
+clung to this friend Sicardot as if to borrow a little courage from
+him. He, who had been awaiting the crisis for such a long time, now
+endeavoured to keep his countenance, in spite of the emotion which was
+stifling him. As for the marquis, more spruce and smiling than usual, he
+conversed in a corner with Felicite, who seemed very gay.
+
+At last a ring came. The gentlemen started as if they had heard a
+gun-shot. Dead silence reigned in the drawing-room when Felicite went to
+open the door, towards which their pale, anxious faces were turned. Then
+the commander's servant appeared on the threshold, quite out of breath,
+and said abruptly to his master: "Sir, the insurgents will be here in an
+hour."
+
+This was a thunderbolt. They all started up, vociferating, and raising
+their arms towards the ceiling. For several minutes it was impossible
+to hear one's self speak. The company surrounded the messenger,
+overwhelming him with questions.
+
+"Damnation!" the commander at length shouted, "don't make such a row. Be
+calm, or I won't answer for anything."
+
+Everyone sank back in his chair again, heaving long-drawn sighs. They
+then obtained a few particulars. The messenger had met the column at Les
+Tulettes, and had hastened to return.
+
+"There are at least three thousand of them," said he. "They are marching
+in battalions, like soldiers. I thought I caught sight of some prisoners
+in their midst."
+
+"Prisoners!" cried the terrified bourgeois.
+
+"No doubt," the marquis interrupted in his shrill voice. "I've
+heard that the insurgents arrest all persons who are known to have
+conservative leanings."
+
+This information gave a finishing touch to the consternation of the
+yellow drawing-room. A few bourgeois got up and stealthily made for the
+door, reflecting that they had not too much time before them to gain a
+place of safety.
+
+The announcement of the arrests made by the Republicans appeared to
+strike Felicite. She took the marquis aside and asked him: "What do
+these men do with the people they arrest?"
+
+"Why, they carry them off in their train," Monsieur de Carnavant
+replied. "They no doubt consider them excellent hostages."
+
+"Ah!" the old woman rejoined, in a strange tone.
+
+Then she again thoughtfully watched the curious scene of panic around
+her. The bourgeois gradually disappeared; soon there only remained
+Vuillet and Roudier, whom the approaching danger inspired with some
+courage. As for Granoux, he likewise remained in his corner, his legs
+refusing to perform their office.
+
+"Well, I like this better," Sicardot remarked, as he observed the flight
+of the other adherents. "Those cowards were exasperating me at last.
+For more than two years they've been speaking of shooting all the
+Republicans in the province, and to-day they wouldn't even fire a
+halfpenny cracker under their noses."
+
+Then he took up his hat and turned towards the door.
+
+"Let's see," he continued, "time presses. Come, Rougon."
+
+Felicite, it seemed, had been waiting for this moment. She placed
+herself between the door and her husband, who, for that matter, was not
+particularly eager to follow the formidable Sicardot.
+
+"I won't have you go out," she cried, feigning sudden despair. "I won't
+let you leave my side. Those scoundrels will kill you."
+
+The commander stopped in amazement.
+
+"Hang it all!" he growled, "if the women are going to whine now--Come
+along, Rougon!'
+
+"No, no," continued the old woman, affecting increase of terror, "he
+sha'n't follow you. I will hang on to his clothes and prevent him."
+
+The marquis, very much surprised at the scene, looked inquiringly at
+Felicite. Was this really the woman who had just now been conversing so
+merrily? What comedy was she playing? Pierre, meantime, seeing that his
+wife wanted to detain him, deigned a determination to force his way out.
+
+"I tell you you shall not go," the old woman reiterated, as she clung
+to one of his arms. And turning towards the commander, she said to him:
+"How can you think of offering any resistance? They are three thousand
+strong, and you won't be able to collect a hundred men of any spirit.
+You are rushing into the cannon's mouth to no purpose."
+
+"Eh! that is our duty," said Sicardot, impatiently.
+
+Felicite burst into sobs.
+
+"If they don't kill him, they'll make him a prisoner," she continued,
+looked fixedly at her husband. "Good heavens! What will become of me,
+left alone in an abandoned town?"
+
+"But," exclaimed the commander, "we shall be arrested just the same if
+we allow the insurgents to enter the town unmolested. I believe that
+before an hour has elapsed the mayor and all the functionaries will be
+prisoners, to say nothing of your husband and the frequenters of this
+drawing-room."
+
+The marquis thought he saw a vague smile play about Felicite's lips as
+she answered, with a look of dismay: "Do you really think so?"
+
+"Of course!" replied Sicardot; "the Republicans are not so stupid as
+to leave enemies behind them. To-morrow Plassans will be emptied of its
+functionaries and good citizens."
+
+At these words, which she had so cleverly provoked, Felicite released
+her husband's arms. Pierre no longer looked as if he wanted to go out.
+Thanks to his wife, whose skilful tactics escaped him, however, and
+whose secret complicity he never for a moment suspected, he had just
+lighted on a whole plan of campaign.
+
+"We must deliberate before taking any decision," he said to the
+commander. "My wife is perhaps not wrong in accusing us of forgetting
+the true interests of our families."
+
+"No, indeed, madame is not wrong," cried Granoux, who had been listening
+to Felicite's terrified cries with the rapture of a coward.
+
+Thereupon the commander energetically clapped his hat on his head, and
+said in a clear voice: "Right or wrong, it matters little to me. I am
+commander of the National Guard. I ought to have been at the mayor's
+before now. Confess that you are afraid, that you leaven me to act
+alone. . . . Well, good-night."
+
+He was just turning the handle of the door, when Rougon forcibly
+detained him.
+
+"Listen, Sicardot," he said.
+
+He drew him into a corner, on seeing Vuillet prick up his big ears. And
+there he explained to him, in an undertone, that it would be a good plan
+to leave a few energetic men behind the insurgents, so as to restore
+order in the town. And as the fierce commander obstinately refused to
+desert his post, Pierre offered to place himself at the head of such a
+reserve corps.
+
+"Give me the key of the cart-shed in which the arms and ammunition are
+kept," he said to him, "and order some fifty of our men not to stir
+until I call for them."
+
+Sicardot ended by consenting to these prudent measures. He entrusted
+Pierre with the key of the cart-shed, convinced as he was of the
+inexpediency of present resistance, but still desirous of sacrificing
+himself.
+
+During this conversation, the marquis had whispered a few words in
+Felicite's ear with a knowing look. He complimented her, no doubt, on
+her theatrical display. The old woman could not repress a faint smile.
+But, as Sicardot shook hands with Rougon and prepared to go, she again
+asked him with an air of fright: "Are you really determined to leave
+us?"
+
+"It is not for one of Napoleon's old soldiers to let himself be
+intimidated by the mob," he replied.
+
+He was already on the landing, when Granoux hurried after him, crying:
+"If you go to the mayor's tell him what's going on. I'll just run home
+to my wife to reassure her."
+
+Then Felicite bent towards the marquis's ear, and whispered with
+discreet gaiety: "Upon my word, it is best that devil of a commander
+should go and get himself arrested. He's far too zealous."
+
+However, Rougon brought Granoux back to the drawing-room. Roudier, who
+had quietly followed the scene from his corner, making signs in support
+of the proposed measures of prudence, got up and joined them. When the
+marquis and Vuillet had likewise risen, Pierre began:
+
+"Now that we are alone, among peaceable men, I propose that we should
+conceal ourselves so as to avoid certain arrest, and be at liberty as
+soon as ours again becomes the stronger party."
+
+Granoux was ready to embrace him. Roudier and Vuillet breathed more
+easily.
+
+"I shall want you shortly, gentlemen," the oil-dealer continued, with
+an important air. "It is to us that the honour of restoring order in
+Plassans is reserved."
+
+"You may rely upon us!" cried Vuillet, with an enthusiasm which
+disturbed Felicite.
+
+Time was pressing. These singular defenders of Plassans, who hid
+themselves the better to protect the town, hastened away, to bury
+themselves in some hole or other. Pierre, on being left alone with
+his wife, advised her not to make the mistake of barricading herself
+indoors, but to reply, if anybody came to question her, that he, Pierre,
+had simply gone on a short journey. And as she acted the simpleton,
+feigning terror and asking what all this was coming to, he replied
+abruptly: "It's nothing to do with you. Let me manage our affairs alone.
+They'll get on all the better."
+
+A few minutes later he was rapidly threading his way along the Rue de
+la Banne. On reaching the Cours Sauvaire, he saw a band of armed workmen
+coming out of the old quarter and singing the "Marseillaise."
+
+"The devil!" he thought. "It was quite time, indeed; here's the town
+itself in revolt now!"
+
+He quickened his steps in the direction of the Porte de Rome. Cold
+perspiration came over him while he waited there for the dilatory keeper
+to open the gate. Almost as soon as he set foot on the high road, he
+perceived in the moonlight at the other end of the Faubourg the column
+of insurgents, whose gun barrels gleamed like white flames. So it was
+at a run that he dived into the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and reached his
+mother's house, which he had not visited for many a long year.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Antoine Macquart had returned to Plassans after the fall of the first
+Napoleon. He had had the incredible good fortune to escape all the
+final murderous campaigns of the Empire. He had moved from barracks
+to barracks, dragging on his brutifying military life. This mode of
+existence brought his natural vices to full development. His idleness
+became deliberate; his intemperance, which brought him countless
+punishments, became, to his mind, a veritable religious duty. But that
+which above all made him the worst of scapegraces was the supercilious
+disdain which he entertained for the poor devils who had to earn their
+bread.
+
+"I've got money waiting for me at home," he often said to his comrades;
+"when I've served my time, I shall be able to live like a gentleman."
+
+This belief, together with his stupid ignorance, prevented him from
+rising even to the grade of corporal.
+
+Since his departure he had never spent a day's furlough at Plassans, his
+brother having invented a thousand pretexts to keep him at a distance.
+He was therefore completely ignorant of the adroit manner in which
+Pierre had got possession of their mother's fortune. Adelaide, with her
+profound indifference, did not even write to him three times to tell him
+how she was going on. The silence which generally greeted his numerous
+requests for money did not awaken the least suspicion in him; Pierre's
+stinginess sufficed to explain the difficulty he experienced in securing
+from time to time a paltry twenty-franc piece. This, however, only
+increased his animosity towards his brother, who left him to languish
+in military service in spite of his formal promise to purchase his
+discharge. He vowed to himself that on his return home he would no
+longer submit like a child, but would flatly demand his share of the
+fortune to enable him to live as he pleased. In the diligence which
+conveyed him home he dreamed of a delightful life of idleness. The
+shattering of his castles in the air was terrible. When he reached
+the Faubourg, and could no longer even recognise the Fouques' plot of
+ground, he was stupefied. He was compelled to ask for his mother's new
+address. There a terrible scene occurred. Adelaide calmly informed him
+of the sale of the property. He flew into a rage, and even raised his
+hand against her.
+
+The poor woman kept repeating: "Your brother has taken everything; it is
+understood that he will take care of you."
+
+At last he left her and ran off to see Pierre, whom he had previously
+informed of his return, and who was prepared to receive him in such a
+way as to put an end to the matter at the first word of abuse.
+
+"Listen," the oil-dealer said to him, affecting distant coldness; "don't
+rouse my anger, or I'll turn you out. As a matter of fact, I don't know
+you. We don't bear the same name. It's quite misfortune enough for me
+that my mother misconducted herself, without having her offspring coming
+here and insulting me. I was well disposed towards you, but since you
+are insolent I shall do nothing for you, absolutely nothing."
+
+Antoine was almost choking with rage.
+
+"And what about my money," he cried; "will you give it up, you thief, or
+shall I have to drag you before the judges?"
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I've got no money of yours," he replied, more calmly than ever. "My
+mother disposed of her fortune as she thought proper. I am certainly not
+going to poke my nose into her business. I willingly renounced all hope
+of inheritance. I am quite safe from your foul accusations."
+
+And as his brother, exasperated by this composure, and not knowing what
+to think, muttered something, Pierre thrust Adelaide's receipt under his
+nose. The reading of this scrap of paper completed Antoine's dismay.
+
+"Very well," he said, in a calmer voice, "I know now what I have to do."
+
+The truth was, however, he did not know what to do. His inability to hit
+upon any immediate expedient for obtaining his share of the money and
+satisfying his desire of revenge increased his fury. He went back to
+his mother and subjected her to a disgraceful cross-examination. The
+wretched woman could do nothing but again refer him to Pierre.
+
+"Do you think you are going to make me run to and fro like a shuttle?"
+he cried, insolently. "I'll soon find out which of you two has the
+hoard. You've already squandered it, perhaps?"
+
+And making an allusion to her former misconduct he asked her if there
+were still not some low fellow to whom she gave her last sous? He did
+not even spare his father, that drunkard Macquart, as he called him,
+who must have lived on her till the day of his death, and who left his
+children in poverty. The poor woman listened with a stupefied air; big
+tears rolled down her cheeks. She defended herself with the terror of
+a child, replying to her son's questions as though he were a judge; she
+swore that she was living respectably, and reiterated with emphasis that
+she had never had a sou of the money, that Pierre had taken everything.
+Antoine almost came to believe it at last.
+
+"Ah! the scoundrel!" he muttered; "that's why he wouldn't purchase my
+discharge."
+
+He had to sleep at his mother's house, on a straw mattress flung in
+a corner. He had returned with his pockets perfectly empty, and was
+exasperated at finding himself destitute of resources, abandoned like
+a dog in the streets, without hearth or home, while his brother, as he
+thought, was in a good way of business, and living on the fat of
+the land. As he had no money to buy clothes with, he went out on the
+following day in his regimental cap and trousers. He had the good
+fortune to find, at the bottom of a cupboard, an old yellowish velveteen
+jacket, threadbare and patched, which had belonged to Macquart. In this
+strange attire he walked about the town, relating his story to everyone,
+and demanding justice.
+
+The people whom he went to consult received him with a contempt which
+made him shed tears of rage. Provincial folks are inexorable towards
+fallen families. In the general opinion it was only natural that the
+Rougon-Macquarts should seek to devour each other; the spectators,
+instead of separating them, were more inclined to urge them on. Pierre,
+however, was at that time already beginning to purify himself of his
+early stains. People laughed at his roguery; some even went so far as to
+say that he had done quite right, if he really had taken possession of
+the money, and that it would be a good lesson to the dissolute folks of
+the town.
+
+Antoine returned home discouraged. A lawyer had advised him, in a
+scornful manner, to wash his dirty linen at home, though not until he
+had skilfully ascertained whether Antoine possessed the requisite
+means to carry on a lawsuit. According to this man, the case was very
+involved, the pleadings would be very lengthy, and success was doubtful.
+Moreover, it would require money, and plenty of it.
+
+Antoine treated his mother yet more harshly that evening. Not knowing
+on whom else to wreak his vengeance, he repeated his accusation of the
+previous day; he kept the wretched woman up till midnight, trembling
+with shame and fright. Adelaide having informed him that Pierre made
+her an allowance, he now felt certain that his brother had pocketed
+the fifty thousand francs. But, in his irritation, he still affected to
+doubt it, and did not cease to question the poor woman, again and again
+reproaching her with misconduct.
+
+Antoine soon found out that, alone and without resources, he could not
+successfully carry on a contest with his brother. He then endeavoured
+to gain Adelaide to his cause; an accusation lodged by her might have
+serious consequences. But, at Antoine's first suggestion of it, the
+poor, lazy, lethargic creature firmly refused to bring trouble on her
+eldest son.
+
+"I am an unhappy woman," she stammered; "it is quite right of you to get
+angry. But I should feel too much remorse if I caused one of my sons to
+be sent to prison. No; I'd rather let you beat me."
+
+He saw that he would get nothing but tears out of her, and contented
+himself with saying that she was justly punished, and that he had no
+pity for her. In the evening, upset by the continual quarrels which her
+son had sought with her, Adelaide had one of those nervous attacks which
+kept her as rigid as if she had been dead. The young man threw her on
+her bed, and then began to rummage the house to see if the wretched
+woman had any savings hidden away. He found about forty francs. He took
+possession of them, and, while his mother still lay there, rigid and
+scarce able to breathe, he quietly took the diligence to Marseilles.
+
+He had just bethought himself that Mouret, the journeyman hatter who had
+married his sister Ursule, must be indignant at Pierre's roguery, and
+would no doubt be willing to defend his wife's interests. But he did
+not find in him the man he expected. Mouret plainly told him that he had
+become accustomed to look upon Ursule as an orphan, and would have no
+contentions with her family at any price. Their affairs were prospering.
+Antoine was received so coldly that he hastened to take the diligence
+home again. But, before leaving, he was anxious to revenge himself for
+the secret contempt which he read in the workman's eyes; and, observing
+that his sister appeared rather pale and dejected, he said to her
+husband, in a slyly cruel way, as he took his departure: "Have a care,
+my sister was always sickly, and I find her much changed for the worse;
+you may lose her altogether."
+
+The tears which rushed to Mouret's eyes convinced him that he had
+touched a sore wound. But then those work-people made too great a
+display of their happiness.
+
+When he was back again in Plassans, Antoine became the more menacing
+from the conviction that his hands were tied. During a whole month he
+was seen all over the place. He paraded the streets, recounting his
+story to all who would listen to him. Whenever he succeeded in extorting
+a franc from his mother, he would drink it away at some tavern, where he
+would revile his brother, declaring that the rascal should shortly hear
+from him. In places like these, the good-natured fraternity which reigns
+among drunkards procured him a sympathetic audience; all the scum of the
+town espoused his cause, and poured forth bitter imprecations against
+that rascal Rougon, who left a brave soldier to starve; the discussion
+generally terminating with an indiscriminate condemnation of the rich.
+Antoine, the better to revenge himself, continued to march about in his
+regimental cap and trousers and his old yellow velvet jacket, although
+his mother had offered to purchase some more becoming clothes for him.
+But no; he preferred to make a display of his rags, and paraded them on
+Sundays in the most frequented parts of the Cours Sauvaire.
+
+One of his most exquisite pleasures was to pass Pierre's shop ten
+times a day. He would enlarge the holes in his jacket with his fingers,
+slacken his step, and sometimes stand talking in front of the door, so
+as to remain longer in the street. On these occasions, too, he would
+bring one of his drunken friends and gossip to him; telling him about
+the theft of the fifty thousand francs, accompanying his narrative
+with loud insults and menaces, which could be heard by everyone in
+the street, and taking particular care that his abuse should reach the
+furthest end of the shop.
+
+"He'll finish by coming to beg in front of our house," Felicite used to
+say in despair.
+
+The vain little woman suffered terribly from this scandal. She even at
+this time felt some regret at ever having married Rougon; his family
+connections were so objectionable. She would have given all she had in
+the world to prevent Antoine from parading his rags. But Pierre, who
+was maddened by his brother's conduct, would not allow his name to be
+mentioned. When his wife tried to convince him that it would perhaps
+be better to free himself from all annoyance by giving Antoine a little
+money: "No, nothing; not a sou," he cried with rage. "Let him starve!"
+
+He confessed, however, at last that Antoine's demeanour was becoming
+intolerable. One day, Felicite, desiring to put an end to it, called to
+"that man," as she styled him with a disdainful curl on her lip. "That
+man" was in the act of calling her a foul name in the middle of the
+street, where he stood with one of his friends, even more ragged than
+himself. They were both drunk.
+
+"Come, they want us in there," said Antoine to his companion in a
+jeering tone.
+
+But Felicite drew back, muttering: "It's you alone we wish to speak to."
+
+"Bah!" the young man replied, "my friend's a decent fellow. You needn't
+mind him hearing. He'll be my witness."
+
+The witness sank heavily on a chair. He did not take off his hat, but
+began to stare around him, with the maudlin, stupid grin of drunkards
+and coarse people who know that they are insolent. Felicite was so
+ashamed that she stood in front of the shop door in order that
+people outside might not see what strange company she was receiving.
+Fortunately her husband came to the rescue. A violent quarrel ensued
+between him and his brother. The latter, after stammering insults,
+reiterated his old grievances twenty times over. At last he even began
+to cry, and his companion was near following his example. Pierre had
+defended himself in a very dignified manner.
+
+"Look here," he said at last, "you're unfortunate, and I pity you.
+Although you have cruelly insulted me, I can't forget that we are
+children of the same mother. If I give you anything, however, you must
+understand I give it you out of kindness, and not from fear. Would you
+like a hundred francs to help you out of your difficulties?"
+
+This abrupt offer of a hundred francs dazzled Antoine's companion. He
+looked at the other with an air of delight, which clearly signified: "As
+the gentleman offers a hundred francs, it is time to leave off
+abusing him." But Antoine was determined to speculate on his brother's
+favourable disposition. He asked him whether he took him for a fool; it
+was his share, ten thousand francs, that he wanted.
+
+"You're wrong, you're wrong," stuttered his friend.
+
+At last, as Pierre, losing all patience, was threatening to turn
+them both out, Antoine lowered his demands and contented himself with
+claiming one thousand francs. They quarrelled for another quarter of
+an hour over this amount. Finally, Felicite interfered. A crowd was
+gathering round the shop.
+
+"Listen," she said, excitedly; "my husband will give you two hundred
+francs. I'll undertake to buy you a suit of clothes, and hire a room for
+a year for you."
+
+Rougon got angry at this. But Antoine's comrade cried, with transports
+of delight: "All right, it's settled, then; my friend accepts."
+
+Antoine did, in fact, declare, in a surly way, that he would accept.
+He felt he would not be able to get any more. It was arranged that the
+money and clothes should be sent to him on the following day, and that a
+few days later, as soon as Felicite should have found a room for him, he
+would take up his quarters there. As they were leaving, the young
+man's sottish companion became as respectful as he had previously been
+insolent. He bowed to the company more than a dozen times, in an awkward
+and humble manner, muttering many indistinct thanks, as if the Rougons'
+gifts had been intended for himself.
+
+A week later Antoine occupied a large room in the old quarter, in which
+Felicite, exceeding her promises, had placed a bed, a table, and some
+chairs, on the young man formally undertaking not to molest them in
+future. Adelaide felt no regret at her son leaving her; the short stay
+he had made with her had condemned her to bread and water for more than
+three months. However, Antoine had soon eaten and drunk the two hundred
+francs he received from Pierre. He never for a moment thought of
+investing them in some little business which would have helped him to
+live. When he was again penniless, having no trade, and being, moreover,
+unwilling to work, he again sought to slip a hand into the Rougons'
+purse. Circumstances were not the same as before, however, and he failed
+to intimidate them. Pierre even took advantage of this opportunity to
+turn him out, and forbade him ever to set foot in his house again.
+It was of no avail for Antoine to repeat his former accusations. The
+townspeople, who were acquainted with his brother's munificence from
+the publicity which Felicite had given to it, declared him to be in
+the wrong, and called him a lazy, idle fellow. Meantime his hunger was
+pressing. He threatened to turn smuggler like his father, and perpetrate
+some crime which would dishonour his family. At this the Rougons
+shrugged their shoulders; they knew he was too much of a coward to risk
+his neck. At last, blindly enraged against his relatives in particular
+and society in general, Antoine made up his mind to seek some work.
+
+In a tavern of the Faubourg he made the acquaintance of a basket-maker
+who worked at home. He offered to help him. In a short time he learnt to
+plait baskets and hampers--a coarse and poorly-paid kind of labour which
+finds a ready market. He was very soon able to work on his own account.
+This trade pleased him, as it was not over laborious. He could still
+indulge his idleness, and that was what he chiefly cared for. He would
+only take to his work when he could no longer do otherwise; then he
+would hurriedly plait a dozen baskets and go and sell them in the
+market. As long as the money lasted he lounged about, visiting all
+the taverns and digesting his drink in the sunshine. Then, when he had
+fasted a whole day, he would once more take up his osier with a low
+growl and revile the wealthy who lived in idleness. The trade of a
+basket-maker, when followed in such a manner, is a thankless one.
+Antoine's work would not have sufficed to pay for his drinking bouts
+if he had not contrived a means of procuring his osier at low cost. He
+never bought any at Plassans, but used to say that he went each month to
+purchase a stock at a neighbouring town, where he pretended it was
+sold cheaper. The truth, however, was that he supplied himself from
+the osier-grounds of the Viorne on dark nights. A rural policeman even
+caught him once in the very act, and Antoine underwent a few days'
+imprisonment in consequence. It was from that time forward that he posed
+in the town as a fierce Republican. He declared that he had been quietly
+smoking his pipe by the riverside when the rural policeman arrested him.
+And he added: "They would like to get me out of the way because they
+know what my opinions are. But I'm not afraid of them, those rich
+scoundrels."
+
+At last, at the end of ten years of idleness, Antoine considered that
+he had been working too hard. His constant dream was to devise some
+expedient by which he might live at his ease without having to do
+anything. His idleness would never have rested content with bread and
+water; he was not like certain lazy persons who are willing to put up
+with hunger provided they can keep their hands in their pockets. He
+liked good feeding and nothing to do. He talked at one time of taking a
+situation as servant in some nobleman's house in the Saint-Marc quarter.
+But one of his friends, a groom, frightened him by describing the
+exacting ways of his masters. Finally Macquart, sick of his baskets,
+and seeing the time approach when he would be compelled to purchase
+the requisite osier, was on the point of selling himself as an army
+substitute and resuming his military life, which he preferred a thousand
+times to that of an artisan, when he made the acquaintance of a woman,
+an acquaintance which modified his plans.
+
+Josephine Gavaudan, who was known throughout the town by the familiar
+diminutive of Fine, was a tall, strapping wench of about thirty. With
+a square face of masculine proportions, and a few terribly long hairs
+about her chin and lips, she was cited as a doughty woman, one who could
+make the weight of her fist felt. Her broad shoulders and huge arms
+consequently inspired the town urchins with marvellous respect; and they
+did not even dare to smile at her moustache. Notwithstanding all this,
+Fine had a faint voice, weak and clear like that of a child. Those who
+were acquainted with her asserted that she was as gentle as a lamb, in
+spite of her formidable appearance. As she was very hard-working, she
+might have put some money aside if she had not had a partiality for
+liqueurs. She adored aniseed, and very often had to be carried home on
+Sunday evenings.
+
+On week days she would toil with the stubbornness of an animal. She had
+three or four different occupations; she sold fruit or boiled chestnuts
+in the market, according to the season; went out charring for a few
+well-to-do people; washed up plates and dishes at houses when parties
+were given, and employed her spare time in mending old chairs. She was
+more particularly known in the town as a chair-mender. In the South
+large numbers of straw-bottomed chairs are used.
+
+Antoine Macquart formed an acquaintance with Fine at the market. When he
+went to sell his baskets in the winter he would stand beside the stove
+on which she cooled her chestnuts and warm himself. He was astonished
+at her courage, he who was frightened of the least work. By degrees he
+discerned, beneath the apparent roughness of this strapping creature,
+signs of timidity and kindliness. He frequently saw her give handfuls of
+chestnuts to the ragged urchins who stood in ecstasy round her smoking
+pot. At other times, when the market inspector hustled her, she very
+nearly began to cry, apparently forgetting all about her heavy fists.
+Antoine at last decided that she was exactly the woman he wanted. She
+would work for both and he would lay down the law at home. She would
+be his beast of burden, an obedient, indefatigable animal. As for her
+partiality for liqueurs, he regarded this as quite natural. After well
+weighing the advantages of such an union, he declared himself to Fine,
+who was delighted with his proposal. No man had ever yet ventured to
+propose to her. Though she was told that Antoine was the most worthless
+of vagabonds, she lacked the courage to refuse matrimony. The very
+evening of the nuptials the young man took up his abode in his wife's
+lodgings in the Rue Civadiere, near the market. These lodgings,
+consisting of three rooms, were much more comfortably furnished than his
+own, and he gave a sigh of satisfaction as he stretched himself out on
+the two excellent mattresses which covered the bedstead.
+
+Everything went on very well for the first few days. Fine attended to
+her various occupations as in the past; Antoine, seized with a sort of
+marital self-pride which astonished even himself, plaited in one week
+more baskets than he had ever before done in a month. On the first
+Sunday, however, war broke out. The couple had a goodly sum of money in
+the house, and they spent it freely. During the night, when they were
+both drunk, they beat each other outrageously, without being able to
+remember on the morrow how it was that the quarrel had commenced. They
+had remained on most affectionate terms until about ten o'clock, when
+Antoine had begun to beat Fine brutally, whereupon the latter, growing
+exasperated and forgetting her meekness, had given him back as much as
+she received. She went to work again bravely on the following day, as
+though nothing had happened. But her husband, with sullen rancour,
+rose late and passed the remainder of the day smoking his pipe in the
+sunshine.
+
+From that time forward the Macquarts adopted the kind of life which
+they were destined to lead in the future. It became, as it were, tacitly
+understood between them that the wife should toil and moil to keep her
+husband. Fine, who had an instinctive liking for work, did not object
+to this. She was as patient as a saint, provided she had had no drink,
+thought it quite natural that her husband should remain idle, and even
+strove to spare him the most trifling labour. Her little weakness,
+aniseed, did not make her vicious, but just. On the evenings when
+she had forgotten herself in the company of a bottle of her favourite
+liqueur, if Antoine tried to pick a quarrel with her, she would set
+upon him with might and main, reproaching him with his idleness and
+ingratitude. The neighbours grew accustomed to the disturbances which
+periodically broke out in the couple's room. The two battered each other
+conscientiously; the wife slapped like a mother chastising a naughty
+child; but the husband, treacherous and spiteful as he was, measured his
+blows, and, on several occasions, very nearly crippled the unfortunate
+woman.
+
+"You'll be in a fine plight when you've broken one of my arms or legs,"
+she would say to him. "Who'll keep you then, you lazy fellow?"
+
+Excepting for these turbulent scenes, Antoine began to find his new mode
+of existence quite endurable. He was well clothed, and ate and drank his
+fill. He had laid aside the basket work altogether; sometimes, when he
+was feeling over-bored, he would resolve to plait a dozen baskets for
+the next market day; but very often he did not even finish the first
+one. He kept, under a couch, a bundle of osier which he did not use up
+in twenty years.
+
+The Macquarts had three children, two girls and a boy. Lisa,[*] born
+the first, in 1827, one year after the marriage, remained but little
+at home. She was a fine, big, healthy, full-blooded child, greatly
+resembling her mother. She did not, however, inherit the latter's animal
+devotion and endurance. Macquart had implanted in her a most decided
+longing for ease and comfort. While she was a child she would consent to
+work for a whole day in return for a cake. When she was scarcely seven
+years old, the wife of the postmaster, who was a neighbour of the
+Macquarts, took a liking to her. She made a little maid of her. And when
+she lost her husband in 1839, and went to live in Paris, she took Lisa
+with her. The parents had almost given her their daughter.
+
+     [*] The pork-butcher's wife in _Le Ventre de Paris_ (_The
+     Fat and the Thin_).
+
+The second girl, Gervaise,[*] born the following year, was a cripple
+from birth. Her right thigh was smaller than the left and showed signs
+of curvature, a curious hereditary result of the brutality which her
+mother had to endure during her fierce drunken brawls with Macquart.
+Gervaise remained puny, and Fine, observing her pallor and weakness,
+put her on a course of aniseed, under the pretext that she required
+something to strengthen her. But the poor child became still more
+emaciated. She was a tall, lank girl, whose frocks, invariably too
+large, hung round her as if they had nothing under them. Above a
+deformed and puny body she had a sweet little doll-like head, a tiny
+round face, pale and exquisitely delicate. Her infirmity almost became
+graceful. Her body swayed gently at every step with a sort of rhythmical
+swing.
+
+     [*] The chief female character in _L'Assommoir_ (_The Dramshop_).
+
+The Macquarts' son, Jean,[*] was born three years later. He was a robust
+child, in no respect recalling Gervaise. Like the eldest girl, he took
+after his mother, without having any physical resemblance to her. He
+was the first to import into the Rougon-Macquart stock a fat face with
+regular features, which showed all the coldness of a grave yet not
+over-intelligent nature. This boy grew up with the determination of
+some day making an independent position for himself. He attended school
+diligently, and tortured his dull brain to force a little arithmetic and
+spelling into it. After that he became an apprentice, repeating much
+the same efforts with a perseverance that was the more meritorious as it
+took him a whole day to learn what others acquired in an hour.
+
+     [*] Figures prominently in _La Terre_ (_The Earth_) and _La
+     Debacle_ (_The Downfall_).
+
+As long as these poor little things remained a burden to the house,
+Antoine grumbled. They were useless mouths that lessened his own share.
+He vowed, like his brother, that he would have no more children, those
+greedy creatures who bring their parents to penury. It was something to
+hear him bemoan his lot when they sat five at table, and the mother gave
+the best morsels to Jean, Lisa, and Gervaise.
+
+"That's right," he would growl; "stuff them, make them burst!"
+
+Whenever Fine bought a garment or a pair of boots for them, he would
+sulk for days together. Ah! if he had only known, he would never had had
+that pack of brats, who compelled him to limit his smoking to four sous'
+worth of tobacco a day, and too frequently obliged him to eat stewed
+potatoes for dinner, a dish which he heartily detested.
+
+Later on, however, as soon as Jean and Gervaise earned their first
+francs, he found some good in children after all. Lisa was no longer
+there. He lived upon the earnings of the two others without compunction,
+as he had already lived upon their mother. It was a well-planned
+speculation on his part. As soon as little Gervaise was eight years old,
+she went to a neighbouring dealer's to crack almonds; she there earned
+ten sous a day, which her father pocketed right royally, without even
+a question from Fine as to what became of the money. The young girl was
+next apprenticed to a laundress, and as soon as she received two francs
+a day for her work, the two francs strayed in a similar manner into
+Macquart's hands. Jean, who had learnt the trade of a carpenter, was
+likewise despoiled on pay-days, whenever Macquart succeeded in catching
+him before he had handed the money to his mother. If the money escaped
+Macquart, which sometimes happened, he became frightfully surly. He
+would glare at his wife and children for a whole week, picking a quarrel
+for nothing, although he was, as yet, ashamed to confess the real cause
+of his irritations. On the next pay-day, however, he would station
+himself on the watch, and as soon as he had succeeded in pilfering the
+youngster's earnings, he disappeared for days together.
+
+Gervaise, beaten and brought up in the streets among all the lads of the
+neighbourhood, became a mother when she was fourteen years of age. The
+father of her child was not eighteen years old. He was a journeyman
+tanner named Lantier. At first Macquart was furious, but he calmed
+down somewhat when he learnt that Lantier's mother, a worthy woman, was
+willing to take charge of the child. He kept Gervaise, however; she was
+then already earning twenty-five sous a day, and he therefore avoided
+all question of marriage. Four years later she had a second child, which
+was likewise taken in by Lantier's mother. This time Macquart shut his
+eyes altogether. And when Fine timidly suggested that it was time to
+come to some understanding with the tanner, in order to end a state of
+things which made people chatter, he flatly declared that his daughter
+should not leave him, and that he would give her to her lover later on,
+"when he was worthy of her, and had enough money to furnish a home."
+
+This was a fine time for Antoine Macquart. He dressed like a gentleman,
+in frock-coats and trousers of the finest cloth. Cleanly shaved, and
+almost fat, he was no longer the emaciated ragged vagabond who had been
+wont to frequent the taverns. He dropped into cafes, read the papers,
+and strolled on the Cours Sauvaire. He played the gentleman as long as
+he had any money in his pocket. At times of impecuniosity he remained at
+home, exasperated at being kept in his hovel and prevented from taking
+his customary cup of coffee. On such occasions he would reproach the
+whole human race with his poverty, making himself ill with rage and
+envy, until Fine, out of pity, would often give him the last silver coin
+in the house so that he might spend his evening at the cafe. This dear
+fellow was fiercely selfish. Gervaise, who brought home as much as sixty
+francs a month, wore only thin cotton frocks, while he had black satin
+waistcoats made for him by one of the best tailors in Plassans.
+
+Jean, the big lad who earned three or four francs a day, was perhaps
+robbed even more impudently. The cafe where his father passed entire
+days was just opposite his master's workshop, and while he had plane or
+saw in hand he could see "Monsieur" Macquart on the other side of the
+way, sweetening his coffee or playing piquet with some petty annuitant.
+It was his money that the lazy old fellow was gambling away. He, Jean,
+never stepped inside a cafe, he never had so much as five sous to pay
+for a drink. Antoine treated him like a little girl, never leaving him a
+centime, and always demanding an exact account of the manner in which he
+had employed his time. If the unfortunate lad, led away by some of
+his mates, wasted a day somewhere in the country, on the banks of the
+Viorne, or on the slopes of Garrigues, his father would storm and raise
+his hand, and long bear him a grudge on account of the four francs less
+that he received at the end of the fortnight. He thus held his son in
+a state of dependence, sometimes even looking upon the sweethearts whom
+the young carpenter courted as his own. Several of Gervaise's friends
+used to come to the Macquarts' house, work-girls from sixteen to
+eighteen years of age, bold and boisterous girls who, on certain
+evenings, filled the room with youth and gaiety. Poor Jean, deprived of
+all pleasure, ever kept at home by the lack of money, looked at these
+girls with longing eyes; but the childish life which he was compelled
+to lead had implanted invincible shyness in him; in playing with his
+sister's friends, he was hardly bold enough to touch them with the tips
+of his fingers. Macquart used to shrug his shoulders with pity.
+
+"What a simpleton!" he would mutter, with an air of ironical
+superiority.
+
+And it was he who would kiss the girls, when his wife's back was turned.
+He carried his attentions even further with a little laundress whom Jean
+pursued rather more earnestly than the others. One fine evening he stole
+her almost from his arms. The old rogue prided himself on his gallantry.
+
+There are some men who live upon their mistresses. Antoine Macquart
+lived on his wife and children with as much shamelessness and impudence.
+He did not feel the least compunction in pillaging the home and going
+out to enjoy himself when the house was bare. He still assumed a
+supercilious air, returning from the cafe only to rail against the
+poverty and wretchedness that awaited him at home. He found the dinner
+detestable, he called Gervaise a blockhead, and declared that Jean would
+never be a man. Immersed in his own selfish indulgence, he rubbed his
+hands whenever he had eaten the best piece in the dish; and then he
+smoked his pipe, puffing slowly, while the two poor children, overcome
+with fatigue, went to sleep with their heads resting on the table.
+Thus Macquart passed his days in lazy enjoyment. It seemed to him quite
+natural that he should be kept in idleness like a girl, to sprawl about
+on the benches of some tavern, or stroll in the cool of the day along
+the Cours or the Mail. At last he went so far as to relate his amorous
+escapades in the presence of his son, who listened with glistening
+eyes. The children never protested, accustomed as they were to see their
+mother humble herself before her husband.
+
+Fine, that strapping woman who drubbed him soundly when they were both
+intoxicated, always trembled before him when she was sober, and allowed
+him to rule despotically at home. He robbed her in the night of the
+coppers which she had earned during the day at the market, but she
+never dared to protest, except by veiled rebukes. Sometimes, when he had
+squandered the week's money in advance, he accused her, poor thing, who
+worked herself to death, of being stupid and not knowing how to manage.
+Fine, as gentle as a lamb, replied, in her soft, clear voice, which
+contrasted so strangely with her big figure, that she was no longer
+twenty years old, and that money was becoming hard to earn. In order
+to console herself, she would buy a pint of aniseed, and drink little
+glassfuls of it with her daughter of an evening, after Antoine had gone
+back to the cafe. That was their dissipation. Jean went to bed, while
+the two women remained at the table, listening attentively in order to
+remove the bottle and glasses at the first sound.
+
+When Macquart was late, they often became intoxicated by the many "nips"
+they thus thoughtlessly imbibed. Stupefied and gazing at each other
+with vague smiles, this mother and daughter would end by stuttering.
+Red patches appeared on Gervaise's cheeks; her delicate doll-like face
+assumed a look of maudlin beatitude. Nothing could be more heart-rending
+than to see this wretched, pale child, aglow with drink and wearing the
+idiotic smile of a confirmed sot about her moist lips. Fine, huddled
+up on her chair, became heavy and drowsy. They sometimes forgot to keep
+watch, or even lacked the strength to remove the bottle and glasses when
+Antoine's footsteps were heard on the stairs. On these occasions
+blows were freely exchanged among the Macquarts. Jean had to get up
+to separate his father and mother and make his sister go to bed, as
+otherwise she would have slept on the floor.
+
+Every political party numbers its grotesques and its villains. Antoine
+Macquart, devoured by envy and hatred, and meditating revenge against
+society in general, welcomed the Republic as a happy era when he would
+be allowed to fill his pockets from his neighbour's cash-box, and even
+strangle the neighbour if the latter manifested any displeasure.
+His cafe life and all the newspaper articles he had read without
+understanding them had made him a terrible ranter who enunciated the
+strangest of political theories. It is necessary to have heard one of
+those malcontents who ill digest what they read, haranguing the company
+in some provincial taproom, in order to conceive the degree of hateful
+folly at which Macquart had arrived. As he talked a good deal, had
+seen active service, and was naturally regarded as a man of energy and
+spirit, he was much sought after and listened to by simpletons. Although
+he was not the chief of any party, he had succeeded in collecting
+round him a small group of working-men who took his jealous ravings for
+expressions of honest and conscientious indignation.
+
+Directly after the Revolution of February '48, he persuaded himself that
+Plassans was his own, and, as he strolled along the streets, the
+jeering manner in which he regarded the little retail traders who stood
+terrified at their shop doors clearly signified: "Our day has come,
+my little lambs; we are going to lead you a fine dance!" He had grown
+insolent beyond belief; he acted the part of a victorious despot to
+such a degree that he ceased to pay for his drinks at the cafe, and the
+landlord, a simpleton who trembled whenever Antoine rolled his eyes,
+dared not present his bill. The number of cups of coffee he consumed
+during this period was incalculable; sometimes he invited his friends,
+and shouted for hours together that the people were dying of hunger, and
+that the rich ought to share their wealth with them. He himself would
+never have given a sou to a beggar.
+
+That which chiefly converted him into a fierce Republican was the hope
+of at last being able to revenge himself on the Rougons, who had openly
+ranged themselves on the side of the reactionary party. Ah, what a
+triumph if he could only hold Pierre and Felicite at his mercy! Although
+the latter had not succeeded over well in business, they had at
+last become gentlefolks, while he, Macquart, had still remained a
+working-man. That exasperated him. Perhaps he was still more mortified
+because one of their sons was a barrister, another a doctor, and the
+third a clerk, while his son Jean merely worked at a carpenter's shop,
+and his daughter Gervaise at a washerwoman's. When he compared the
+Macquarts with the Rougons, he was still more ashamed to see his wife
+selling chestnuts in the market, and mending the greasy old straw-seated
+chairs of the neighbourhood in the evening. Pierre, after all, was but
+his brother, and had no more right than himself to live fatly on his
+income. Moreover, this brother was actually playing the gentleman with
+money stolen from him. Whenever Macquart touched upon this subject, he
+became fiercely enraged; he clamoured for hours together, incessantly
+repeating his old accusations, and never wearying of exclaiming: "If
+my brother was where he ought to be, I should be the moneyed man at the
+present time!"
+
+And when anyone asked him where his brother ought to be, he would reply,
+"At the galleys!" in a formidable voice.
+
+His hatred further increased when the Rougons had gathered the
+Conservatives round them, and thus acquired a certain influence in
+Plassans. The famous yellow drawing-room became, in his hare-brained
+chatter at the cafe, a cave of bandits, an assembly of villains who
+every evening swore on their daggers that they would murder the people.
+In order to incite the starvelings against Pierre, Macquart went so far
+as to circulate a report that the retired oil-dealer was not so poor as
+he pretended, but that he concealed his treasures through avarice and
+fear of robbery. His tactics thus tended to rouse the poor people by a
+repetition of absurdly ridiculous tales, which he often came to believe
+in himself. His personal animosity and his desire for revenge were ill
+concealed beneath his professions of patriotism; but he was heard so
+frequently, and he had such a loud voice, that no one would have dared
+to doubt the genuineness of his convictions.
+
+At bottom, all the members of this family had the same brutish passions.
+Felicite, who clearly understood that Macquart's wild theories were
+simply the fruit of restrained rage and embittered envy, would much have
+liked to purchase his silence. Unfortunately, she was short of money,
+and did not dare to interest him in the dangerous game which her husband
+was playing. Antoine now injured them very much among the well-to-do
+people of the new town. It sufficed that he was a relation of theirs.
+Granoux and Roudier often scornfully reproached them for having such a
+man in their family. Felicite consequently asked herself with anguish
+how they could manage to cleanse themselves of such a stain.
+
+It seemed to her monstrous and indecent that Monsieur Rougon should have
+a brother whose wife sold chestnuts, and who himself lived in crapulous
+idleness. She at last even trembled for the success of their secret
+intrigues, so long as Antoine seemingly took pleasure in compromising
+them. When the diatribes which he levelled at the yellow drawing-room
+were reported to her, she shuddered at the thought that he was capable
+of becoming desperate and ruining all their hopes by force of scandal.
+
+Antoine knew what consternation his demeanour must cause the Rougons,
+and it was solely for the purpose of exhausting their patience that he
+from day to day affected fiercer opinions. At the cafe he frequented
+he used to speak of "my brother Pierre" in a voice which made everybody
+turn round; and if he happened to meet some reactionary from the yellow
+drawing-room in the street, he would mutter some low abuse which the
+worthy citizen, amazed at such audacity, would repeat to the Rougons
+in the evening, as though to make them responsible for his disagreeable
+encounter.
+
+One day Granoux arrived in a state of fury.
+
+"Really," he exclaimed, when scarcely across the threshold, "it's
+intolerable; one can't move a step without being insulted." Then,
+addressing Pierre, he added: "When one has a brother like yours, sir,
+one should rid society of him. I was just quietly walking past the
+Sub-Prefecture, when that rascal passed me muttering something in which
+I could clearly distinguish the words 'old rogue.'"
+
+Felicite turned pale, and felt it necessary to apologise to Granoux, but
+he refused to accept any excuses, and threatened to leave altogether.
+The marquis, however, exerted himself to arrange matters.
+
+"It is very strange," he said, "that the wretched fellow should have
+called you an old rogue. Are you sure that he intended the insult for
+you?"
+
+Granoux was perplexed; he admitted at last, however, that Antoine might
+have muttered: "So you are again going to that old rogue's?"
+
+At this Monsieur de Carnavant stroked his chin to conceal the smile
+which rose to his lips in spite of himself.
+
+Then Rougon, with superb composure, replied: "I thought as much; the
+'old rogue' was no doubt intended for me. I've very glad that this
+misunderstanding is now cleared up. Gentlemen, pray avoid the man in
+question, whom I formally repudiate."
+
+Felicite, however, did not take matters so coolly; every fresh scandal
+caused by Macquart made her more and more uneasy; she would sometimes
+pass the whole night wondering what those gentlemen must think of the
+matter.
+
+A few months before the Coup d'Etat, the Rougons received an anonymous
+letter, three pages of foul insults, in which they were warned that
+if their party should ever triumph, the scandalous story of Adelaide's
+amours would be published in some newspaper, together with an account
+of the robbery perpetrated by Pierre, when he had compelled his mother,
+driven out of her senses by debauchery, to sign a receipt for fifty
+thousand francs. This letter was a heavy blow for Rougon himself.
+Felicite could not refrain from reproaching her husband with his
+disreputable family; for the husband and wife never for a moment doubted
+that this letter was Antoine's work.
+
+"We shall have to get rid of the blackguard at any price," said Pierre
+in a gloomy tone. "He's becoming too troublesome by far."
+
+In the meantime, Macquart, resorting to his former tactics, looked round
+among his own relatives for accomplices who would join him against the
+Rougons. He had counted upon Aristide at first, on reading his terrible
+articles in the "Independant." But the young man, in spite of all his
+jealous rage, was not so foolish as to make common cause with such
+a fellow as his uncle. He never even minced matters with him, but
+invariably kept him at a distance, a circumstance which induced Antoine
+to regard him suspiciously. In the taverns, where Macquart reigned
+supreme, people went so far as to say the journalist was paid to provoke
+disturbances.
+
+Baffled on this side, Macquart had no alternative but to sound his
+sister Ursule's children. Ursule had died in 1839, thus fulfilling her
+brother's evil prophecy. The nervous affection which she had inherited
+from her mother had turned into slow consumption, which gradually killed
+her. She left three children; a daughter, eighteen years of age, named
+Helene, who married a clerk, and two boys, the elder, Francois, a young
+man of twenty-three, and the younger, a sickly little fellow scarcely
+six years old, named Silvere. The death of his wife, whom he adored,
+proved a thunderbolt to Mouret. He dragged on his existence for another
+year, neglecting his business and losing all the money he had saved.
+Then, one morning, he was found hanging in a cupboard where Ursule's
+dresses were still suspended. His elder son, who had received a good
+commercial training, took a situation in the house of his uncle Rougon,
+where he replaced Aristide, who had just left.
+
+Rougon, in spite of his profound hatred for the Macquarts, gladly
+welcomed this nephew, whom he knew to be industrious and sober. He
+was in want of a youth whom he could trust, and who would help him to
+retrieve his affairs. Moreover, during the time of Mouret's prosperity,
+he had learnt to esteem the young couple, who knew how to make money,
+and thus he had soon become reconciled with his sister. Perhaps he
+thought he was making Francois some compensation by taking him into his
+business; having robbed the mother, he would shield himself from remorse
+by giving employment to the son; even rogues make honest calculations
+sometimes. It was, however, a good thing for him. If the house of Rougon
+did not make a fortune at this time, it was certainly through no fault
+of that quiet, punctilious youth, Francois, who seemed born to pass his
+life behind a grocer's counter, between a jar of oil and a bundle
+of dried cod-fish. Although he physically resembled his mother, he
+inherited from his father a just if narrow mind, with an instinctive
+liking for a methodical life and the safe speculations of a small
+business.
+
+Three months after his arrival, Pierre, pursuing his system of
+compensation, married him to his young daughter Marthe,[*] whom he did
+not know how to dispose of. The two young people fell in love with
+each other quite suddenly, in a few days. A peculiar circumstance had
+doubtless determined and enhanced their mutual affection. There was a
+remarkably close resemblance between them, suggesting that of brother
+and sister. Francois inherited, through Ursule, the face of his
+grandmother Adelaide. Marthe's case was still more curious; she was an
+equally exact portrait of Adelaide, although Pierre Rougon had none of
+his mother's features distinctly marked; the physical resemblance
+had, as it were, passed over Pierre, to reappear in his daughter. The
+similarity between husband and wife went, however, no further than
+their faces; if the worthy son of a steady matter-of-fact hatter was
+distinguishable in Francois, Marthe showed the nervousness and mental
+weakness of her grandmother. Perhaps it was this combination of physical
+resemblance and moral dissimilarity which threw the young people into
+each other's arms. From 1840 to 1844 they had three children. Francois
+remained in his uncle's employ until the latter retired. Pierre had
+desired to sell him the business, but the young man knew what small
+chance there was of making a fortune in trade at Plassans; so he
+declined the offer and repaired to Marseilles, where he established
+himself with his little savings.
+
+     [*] Both Francois and Marthe figure largely in _The Conquest
+     of Plassans_.
+
+Macquart soon had to abandon all hope of dragging this big industrious
+fellow into his campaign against the Rougons; whereupon, with all the
+spite of a lazybones, he regarded him as a cunning miser. He fancied,
+however, that he had discovered the accomplice he was seeking in
+Mouret's second son, a lad of fifteen years of age. Young Silvere had
+never even been to school at the time when Mouret was found hanging
+among his wife's skirts. His elder brother, not knowing what to do
+with him, took him also to his uncle's. The latter made a wry face on
+beholding the child; he had no intention of carrying his compensation so
+far as to feed a useless mouth. Thus Silvere, to whom Felicite also took
+a dislike, was growing up in tears, like an unfortunate little outcast,
+when his grandmother Adelaide, during one of the rare visits she paid
+the Rougons, took pity on him, and expressed a wish to have him with
+her. Pierre was delighted; he let the child go, without even suggesting
+an increase of the paltry allowance that he made Adelaide, and which
+henceforward would have to suffice for two.
+
+Adelaide was then nearly seventy-five years of age. Grown old while
+leading a cloistered existence, she was no longer the lanky ardent girl
+who formerly ran to embrace the smuggler Macquart. She had stiffened and
+hardened in her hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, that dismal silent
+hole where she lived entirely alone on potatoes and dry vegetables, and
+which she did not leave once in the course of a month. On seeing her
+pass, you might have thought her to be one of those delicately white old
+nuns with automatic gait, whom the cloister has kept apart from all the
+concerns of this world. Her pale face, always scrupulously girt with a
+white cap, looked like that of a dying woman; a vague, calm countenance
+it was, wearing an air of supreme indifference. Prolonged taciturnity
+had made her dumb; the darkness of her dwelling and the continual
+sight of the same objects had dulled her glance and given her eyes the
+limpidity of spring water. Absolute renunciation, slow physical and
+moral death, had little by little converted this crazy _amorosa_ into a
+grave matron. When, as often happened, a blank stare came into her
+eyes, and she gazed before her without seeing anything, one could detect
+utter, internal void through those deep bright cavities.
+
+Nothing now remained of her former voluptuous ardour but weariness of
+the flesh and a senile tremor of the hands. She had once loved like
+a she-wolf, but was now wasted, already sufficiently worn out for the
+grave. There had been strange workings of her nerves during her long
+years of chastity. A dissolute life would perhaps have wrecked her less
+than the slow hidden ravages of unsatisfied fever which had modified her
+organism.
+
+Sometimes, even now, this moribund, pale old woman, who seemed to have
+no blood left in her, was seized with nervous fits like electric shocks,
+which galvanised her, and for an hour brought her atrocious intensity of
+life. She would lie on her bed rigid, with her eyes open; then hiccoughs
+would come upon her and she would writhe and struggle, acquiring the
+frightful strength of those hysterical madwomen whom one has to tie down
+in order to prevent them from breaking their heads against a wall.
+This return to former vigour, these sudden attacks, gave her a terrible
+shock. When she came to again, she would stagger about with such a
+scared, stupefied look, that the gossips of the Faubourg used to say:
+"She's been drinking, the crazy old thing!"
+
+Little Silvere's childish smile was for her the last pale ray which
+brought some warmth to her frozen limbs. Weary of solitude, and
+frightened at the thought of dying alone in one of her fits, she had
+asked to have the child. With the little fellow running about near
+her, she felt secure against death. Without relinquishing her habits of
+taciturnity, or seeking to render her automatic movements more supple,
+she conceived inexpressible affection for him. Stiff and speechless, she
+would watch him playing for hours together, listening with delight to
+the intolerable noise with which he filled the old hovel. That tomb
+had resounded with uproar ever since Silvere had been running about it,
+bestriding broomsticks, knocking up against the doors, and shouting and
+crying. He brought Adelaide back to the world, as it were; she looked
+after him with the most adorable awkwardness; she who, in her youth,
+had neglected the duties of a mother, now felt the divine pleasures
+of maternity in washing his face, dressing him, and watching over his
+sickly life. It was a reawakening of love, a last soothing passion which
+heaven had granted to this woman who had been so ravaged by the want of
+some one to love; the touching agony of a heart that had lived amidst
+the most acute desires, and which was now dying full of love for a
+child.
+
+She was already too far gone to pour forth the babble of good plump
+grandmothers; she adored the child in secret with the bashfulness of a
+young girl, without knowing how to fondle him. Sometimes she took him on
+her knees, and gazed at him for a long time with her pale eyes. When
+the little one, frightened by her mute white visage, began to cry, she
+seemed perplexed by what she had done, and quickly put him down upon the
+floor without even kissing him. Perhaps she recognised in him a faint
+resemblance to Macquart the poacher.
+
+Silvere grew up, ever tete-a-tete with Adelaide. With childish cajolery
+he used to call her aunt Dide, a name which ultimately clung to the
+old woman; the word "aunt" employed in this way is simply a term of
+endearment in Provence. The child entertained singular affection, not
+unmixed with respectful terror, for his grandmother. During her nervous
+fits, when he was quite a little boy, he ran away from her, crying,
+terrified by her disfigured countenance; and he came back very timidly
+after the attack, ready to run away again, as though the old woman were
+disposed to beat him. Later on, however, when he was twelve years old,
+he would stop there bravely and watch in order that she might not hurt
+herself by falling off the bed. He stood for hours holding her tightly
+in his arms to subdue the rude shocks which distorted her. During
+intervals of calmness he would gaze with pity on her convulsed features
+and withered frame, over which her skirts lay like a shroud. These
+hidden dramas, which recurred every month, this old woman as rigid as
+a corpse, this child bent over her, silently watching for the return
+of consciousness, made up amidst the darkness of the hovel a strange
+picture of mournful horror and broken-hearted tenderness.
+
+When aunt Dide came round, she would get up with difficulty, and set
+about her work in the hovel without even questioning Silvere. She
+remembered nothing, and the child, from a sort of instinctive prudence,
+avoided the least allusion to what had taken place. These recurring
+fits, more than anything else, strengthened Silvere's deep attachment
+for his grandmother. In the same manner as she adored him without any
+garrulous effusiveness, he felt a secret, almost bashful, affection for
+her. While he was really very grateful to her for having taken him in
+and brought him up, he could not help regarding her as an extraordinary
+creature, a prey to some strange malady, whom he ought to pity and
+respect. No doubt there was not sufficient life left in Adelaide; she
+was too white and too stiff for Silvere to throw himself on her neck.
+Thus they lived together amidst melancholy silence, in the depths of
+which they felt the tremor of boundless love.
+
+The sad, solemn atmosphere, which he had breathed from childhood, gave
+Silvere a strong heart, in which gathered every form of enthusiasm. He
+early became a serious, thoughtful little man, seeking instruction with
+a kind of stubbornness. He only learnt a little spelling and arithmetic
+at the school of the Christian Brothers, which he was compelled to leave
+when he was but twelve years old, on account of his apprenticeship. He
+never acquired the first rudiments of knowledge. However, he read all
+the odd volumes which fell into his hands, and thus provided himself
+with strange equipment; he had some notions of a multitude of subjects,
+ill-digested notions, which he could never classify distinctly in his
+head. When he was quite young, he had been in the habit of playing in
+the workshop of a master wheelwright, a worthy man named Vian, who lived
+at the entrance of the blind-alley in front of the Aire Saint-Mittre
+where he stored his timber. Silvere used to jump up on the wheels of the
+tilted carts undergoing repair, and amuse himself by dragging about
+the heavy tools which his tiny hands could scarcely lift. One of his
+greatest pleasures, too, was to assist the workmen by holding some piece
+of wood for them, or bringing them the iron-work which they required.
+When he had grown older he naturally became apprenticed to Vian. The
+latter had taken a liking to the little fellow who was always kicking
+about his heels, and asked Adelaide to let him come, refusing to take
+anything for his board and lodging. Silvere eagerly accepted, already
+foreseeing the time when he would be able to make his poor aunt Dide
+some return for all she had spent upon him.
+
+In a short time he became an excellent workman. He cherished, however,
+much higher ambitions. Having once seen, at a coachbuilder's at
+Plassans, a fine new carriage, shining with varnish, he vowed that he
+would one day build carriages himself. He remembered this carriage as
+a rare and unique work of art, an ideal towards which his aspirations
+should tend. The tilted carts at which he worked in Vian's shop, those
+carts which he had lovingly cherished, now seemed unworthy of his
+affections. He began to attend the local drawing-school, where he formed
+a connection with a youngster who had left college, and who lent him an
+old treatise on geometry. He plunged into this study without a guide,
+racking his brains for weeks together in order to grasp the simplest
+problem in the world. In this matter he gradually became one of those
+learned workmen who can hardly sign their name and yet talk about
+algebra as though it were an intimate friend.
+
+Nothing unsettles the mind so much as this desultory kind of education,
+which reposes on no firm basis. Most frequently such scraps of knowledge
+convey an absolutely false idea of the highest truths, and render
+persons of limited intellect insufferably stupid. In Silvere's case,
+however, his scraps of stolen knowledge only augmented his liberal
+aspirations. He was conscious of horizons which at present remained
+closed to him. He formed for himself divine conceptions of things beyond
+his reach, and lived on, regarding in a deep, innocent, religious way
+the noble thoughts and grand conceptions towards which he was raising
+himself, but which he could not as yet comprehend. He was one of the
+simple-minded, one whose simplicity was divine, and who had remained
+on the threshold of the temple, kneeling before the tapers which from a
+distance he took for stars.
+
+The hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre consisted, in the first place,
+of a large room into which the street door opened. The only pieces of
+furniture in this room, which had a stone floor, and served both as a
+kitchen and a dining-room, were some straw-seated chairs, a table on
+trestles, and an old coffer which Adelaide had converted into a sofa, by
+spreading a piece of woollen stuff over the lid. In the left hand
+corner of the large fireplace stood a plaster image of the Holy Virgin,
+surrounded by artificial flowers; she is the traditional good mother of
+all old Provencal women, however irreligious they may be. A passage led
+from the room into a yard situated at the rear of the house; in this
+yard there was a well. Aunt Dide's bedroom was on the left side of the
+passage; it was a little apartment containing an iron bedstead and one
+chair; Silvere slept in a still smaller room on the right hand side,
+just large enough for a trestle bedstead; and he had been obliged to
+plan a set of shelves, reaching up to the ceiling, to keep by him
+all those dear odd volumes which he saved his sous to purchase from a
+neighbouring general dealer. When he read at night-time, he would hang
+his lamp on a nail at the head of the bed. If his grandmother had an
+attack, he merely had to leap out at the first gasp to be at her side in
+a moment.
+
+The young man led the life of a child. He passed his existence in this
+lonely spot. Like his father, he felt a dislike for taverns and Sunday
+strolling. His mates wounded his delicate susceptibilities by their
+coarse jokes. He preferred to read, to rack his rain over some simple
+geometrical problem. Since aunt Dide had entrusted him with the
+little household commissions she did not go out at all, but ceased all
+intercourse even with her family. The young man sometimes thought of her
+forlornness; he reflected that the poor old woman lived but a few steps
+from the children who strove to forget her, as though she were dead;
+and this made him love her all the more, for himself and for the others.
+When he at times entertained a vague idea that aunt Dide might be
+expiating some former transgressions, he would say to himself: "I was
+born to pardon her."
+
+A nature such as Silvere's, ardent yet self-restrained, naturally
+cherished the most exalted republican ideas. At night, in his little
+hovel, Silvere would again and again read a work of Rousseau's which he
+had picked up at the neighbouring dealer's among a number of old locks.
+The reading of this book kept him awake till daylight. Amidst his dream
+of universal happiness so dear to the poor, the words liberty, equality,
+fraternity, rang in his ears like those sonorous sacred calls of the
+bells, at the sound of which the faithful fall upon their knees. When,
+therefore, he learnt that the Republic had just been proclaimed in
+France he fancied that the whole world would enjoy a life of celestial
+beatitude. His knowledge, though imperfect, made him see farther than
+other workmen; his aspirations did not stop at daily bread; but his
+extreme ingenuousness, his complete ignorance of mankind, kept him
+in the dreamland of theory, a Garden of Eden where universal justice
+reigned. His paradise was for a long time a delightful spot in which he
+forgot himself.
+
+When he came to perceive that things did not go on quite satisfactorily
+in the best of republics he was sorely grieved, and indulged in another
+dream, that of compelling men to be happy even by force. Every act which
+seemed to him prejudicial to the interest of the people roused him to
+revengeful indignation. Though he was as gentle as a child, he cherished
+the fiercest political animosity. He would not have killed a fly, and
+yet he was for ever talking of a call to arms. Liberty was his passion,
+an unreasoning, absolute passion, to which he gave all the feverish
+ardour of his blood. Blinded by enthusiasm, he was both too ignorant and
+too learned to be tolerant, and would not allow for men's weaknesses; he
+required an ideal government of perfect justice and perfect liberty. It
+was at this period that Antoine Macquart thought of setting him against
+the Rougons. He fancied that this young enthusiast would work terrible
+havoc if he were only exasperated to the proper pitch. This calculation
+was not altogether devoid of shrewdness.
+
+Such being Antoine's scheme, he tried to induce Silvere to visit him, by
+professing inordinate admiration for the young man's ideas. But he
+very nearly compromised the whole matter at the outset. He had a way
+of regarding the triumph of the Republic as a question of personal
+interest, as an era of happy idleness and endless junketing, which
+chilled his nephew's purely moral aspirations. However, he perceived
+that he was on the wrong track, and plunged into strange bathos, a
+string of empty but high-sounding words, which Silvere accepted as a
+satisfactory proof of his civism. Before long the uncle and the nephew
+saw each other two or three times a week. During their long discussions,
+in which the fate of the country was flatly settled, Antoine endeavoured
+to persuade the young man that the Rougons' drawing-room was the chief
+obstacle to the welfare of France. But he again made a false move by
+calling his mother "old jade" in Silvere's presence. He even repeated to
+him the early scandals about the poor woman. The young man blushed for
+shame, but listened without interruption. He had not asked his uncle
+for this information; he felt heart-broken by such confidences, which
+wounded his feeling of respectful affection for aunt Dide. From that
+time forward he lavished yet more attention upon his grandmother,
+greeting her always with pleasant smiles and looks of forgiveness.
+However, Macquart felt that he had acted foolishly, and strove to take
+advantage of Silvere's affection for Adelaide by charging the Rougons
+with her forlornness and poverty. According to him, he had always been
+the best of sons, whereas his brother had behaved disgracefully; Pierre
+had robbed his mother, and now, when she was penniless, he was ashamed
+of her. He never ceased descanting on this subject. Silvere thereupon
+became indignant with his uncle Pierre, much to the satisfaction of his
+uncle Antoine.
+
+The scene was much the same every time the young man called. He used
+to come in the evening, while the Macquarts were at dinner. The father
+would be swallowing some potato stew with a growl, picking out the
+pieces of bacon, and watching the dish when it passed into the hands of
+Jean and Gervaise.
+
+"You see, Silvere," he would say with a sullen rage which was
+ill-concealed beneath his air of cynical indifference, "more potatoes,
+always potatoes! We never eat anything else now. Meat is only for
+rich people. It's getting quite impossible to make both ends meet with
+children who have the devil's appetite and their own too."
+
+Gervaise and Jean bent over their plates, no longer even daring to cut
+some bread. Silvere, who in his dream lived in heaven, did not grasp the
+situation. In a calm voice he pronounced these storm-laden words:
+
+"But you should work, uncle."
+
+"Ah! yes," sneered Macquart, stung to the quick. "You want me to work,
+eh! To let those beggars, the rich folk, continue to prey upon me. I
+should earn probably twenty sous a day, and ruin my constitution. It's
+worth while, isn't it?"
+
+"Everyone earns what he can," the young man replied. "Twenty sous are
+twenty sous; and it all helps in a home. Besides, you're an old soldier,
+why don't you seek some employment?"
+
+Fine would then interpose, with a thoughtlessness of which she soon
+repented.
+
+"That's what I'm always telling him," said she. "The market inspector
+wants an assistant; I mentioned my husband to him, and he seems well
+disposed towards us."
+
+But Macquart interrupted her with a fulminating glance. "Eh! hold
+your tongue," he growled with suppressed anger. "Women never know
+what they're talking about! Nobody would have me; my opinions are too
+well-known."
+
+Every time he was offered employment he displayed similar irritation. He
+did not cease, however, to ask for situations, though he always refused
+such as were found for him, assigning the most extraordinary reasons.
+When pressed upon the point he became terrible.
+
+If Jean were to take up a newspaper after dinner he would at once
+exclaim: "You'd better go to bed. You'll be getting up late to-morrow,
+and that'll be another day lost. To think of that young rascal coming
+home with eight francs short last week! However, I've requested his
+master not give him his money in future; I'll call for it myself."
+
+Jean would go to bed to avoid his father's recriminations. He had but
+little sympathy with Silvere; politics bored him, and he thought his
+cousin "cracked." When only the women remained, if they unfortunately
+started some whispered converse after clearing the table, Macquart would
+cry: "Now, you idlers! Is there nothing that requires mending? we're
+all in rags. Look here, Gervaise, I was at your mistress's to-day, and I
+learnt some fine things. You're a good-for-nothing, a gad-about."
+
+Gervaise, now a grown girl of more than twenty, coloured up at
+thus being scolded in the presence of Silvere, who himself felt
+uncomfortable. One evening, having come rather late, when his uncle was
+not at home, he had found the mother and daughter intoxicated before
+an empty bottle. From that time he could never see his cousin without
+recalling the disgraceful spectacle she had presented, with the maudlin
+grin and large red patches on her poor, pale, puny face. He was not
+less shocked by the nasty stories that circulated with regard to her.
+He sometimes looked at her stealthily, with the timid surprise of a
+schoolboy in the presence of a disreputable character.
+
+When the two women had taken up their needles, and were ruining their
+eyesight in order to mend his old shirts, Macquart, taking the best
+seat, would throw himself back with an air of delicious comfort, and sip
+and smoke like a man who relishes his laziness. This was the time when
+the old rogue generally railed against the wealthy for living on
+the sweat of the poor man's brow. He was superbly indignant with the
+gentlemen of the new town, who lived so idly, and compelled the poor
+to keep them in luxury. The fragments of communistic notions which he
+culled from the newspapers in the morning became grotesque and monstrous
+on falling from his lips. He would talk of a time near at hand when
+no one would be obliged to work. He always, however, kept his fiercest
+animosity for the Rougons. He never could digest the potatoes he had
+eaten.
+
+"I saw that vile creature Felicite buying a chicken in the market this
+morning," he would say. "Those robbers of inheritances must eat chicken,
+forsooth!"
+
+"Aunt Dide," interposed Silvere, "says that uncle Pierre was very kind
+to you when you left the army. Didn't he spend a large sum of money in
+lodging and clothing you?"
+
+"A large sum of money!" roared Macquart in exasperation; "your
+grandmother is mad. It was those thieves who spread those reports
+themselves, so as to close my mouth. I never had anything."
+
+Fine again foolishly interfered, reminding him that he had received two
+hundred francs, besides a suit of clothes and a year's rent. Antoine
+thereupon shouted to her to hold her tongue, and continued, with
+increasing fury: "Two hundred francs! A fine thing! I want my due, ten
+thousand francs. Ah! yes, talk of the hole they shoved me into like a
+dog, and the old frock-coat which Pierre gave me because he was ashamed
+to wear it any longer himself, it was so dirty and ragged!"
+
+He was not speaking the truth; but, seeing the rage that he was in,
+nobody ventured to protest any further. Then, turning towards Silvere:
+"It's very stupid of you to defend them!" he added. "They robbed your
+mother, who, good woman, would be alive now if she had had the means of
+taking care of herself."
+
+"Oh! you're not just, uncle," the young man said; "my mother did not
+die for want of attention, and I'm certain my father would never have
+accepted a sou from his wife's family!"
+
+"Pooh! don't talk to me! your father would have taken the money just
+like anybody else. We were disgracefully plundered, and it's high time
+we had our rights."
+
+Then Macquart, for the hundredth time, began to recount the story of
+the fifty thousand francs. His nephew, who knew it by heart, and all
+the variations with which he embellished it, listened to him rather
+impatiently.
+
+"If you were a man," Antoine would say in conclusion, "you would come
+some day with me, and we would kick up a nice row at the Rougons. We
+would not leave without having some money given us."
+
+Silvere, however, grew serious, and frankly replied: "If those wretches
+robbed us, so much the worse for them. I don't want their money. You
+see, uncle, it's not for us to fall on our relatives. If they've done
+wrong, well, one of these days they'll be severely punished for it."
+
+"Ah! what a big simpleton you are!" the uncle cried. "When we have the
+upper hand, you'll see whether I sha'n't settle my own little affairs
+myself. God cares a lot about us indeed! What a foul family ours is!
+Even if I were starving to death, not one of those scoundrels would
+throw me a dry crust."
+
+Whenever Macquart touched upon this subject, he proved inexhaustible. He
+bared all his bleeding wounds of envy and covetousness. He grew mad
+with rage when he came to think that he was the only unlucky one in the
+family, and was forced to eat potatoes, while the others had meat to
+their heart's content. He would pass all his relations in review, even
+his grand-nephews, and find some grievance and reason for threatening
+every one of them.
+
+"Yes, yes," he repeated bitterly, "they'd leave me to die like a dog."
+
+Gervaise, without raising her head or ceasing to ply her needle, would
+sometimes say timidly: "Still, father, cousin Pascal was very kind to
+us, last year, when you were ill."
+
+"He attended you without charging a sou," continued Fine, coming to her
+daughter's aid, "and he often slipped a five-franc piece into my hand to
+make you some broth."
+
+"He! he'd have killed me if I hadn't had a strong constitution!"
+Macquart retorted. "Hold your tongues, you fools! You'd let yourselves
+be twisted about like children. They'd all like to see me dead. When I'm
+ill again, I beg you not to go and fetch my nephew, for I didn't feel at
+all comfortable in his hands. He's only a twopenny-halfpenny doctor, and
+hasn't got a decent patient in all his practice."
+
+When once Macquart was fully launched, he could not stop. "It's like
+that little viper, Aristide," he would say, "a false brother, a traitor.
+Are you taken in by his articles in the 'Independant,' Silvere? You
+would be a fine fool if you were. They're not even written in good
+French; I've always maintained that this contraband Republican is in
+league with his worthy father to humbug us. You'll see how he'll turn
+his coat. And his brother, the illustrious Eugene, that big blockhead
+of whom the Rougons make such a fuss! Why, they've got the impudence to
+assert that he occupies a good position in Paris! I know something about
+his position; he's employed at the Rue de Jerusalem; he's a police spy."
+
+"Who told you so? You know nothing about it," interrupted Silvere, whose
+upright spirit at last felt hurt by his uncle's lying accusations.
+
+"Ah! I know nothing about it? Do you think so? I tell you he is a
+police spy. You'll be shorn like a lamb one of these days, with your
+benevolence. You're not manly enough. I don't want to say anything
+against your brother Francois; but, if I were in your place, I shouldn't
+like the scurvy manner in which he treats you. He earns a heap of money
+at Marseilles, and yet he never sends you a paltry twenty-franc pierce
+for pocket money. If ever you become poor, I shouldn't advise you to
+look to him for anything."
+
+"I've no need of anybody," the young man replied in a proud and slightly
+injured tone of voice. "My own work suffices for aunt Dide and myself.
+You're cruel, uncle."
+
+"I only say what's true, that's all. I should like to open your eyes.
+Our family is a disreputable lot; it's sad but true. Even that little
+Maxime, Aristide's son, that little nine-year-old brat, pokes his
+tongue out at me when me meets me. That child will some day beat his
+own mother, and a good job too! Say what you like, all those folks don't
+deserve their luck; but it's always like this in families, the good ones
+suffer while the bad ones make their fortunes."
+
+All this dirty linen, which Macquart washed with such complacency before
+his nephew, profoundly disgusted the young man. He would have liked to
+soar back into his dream. As soon as he began to show unmistakable signs
+of impatience, Antoine would employ strong expedients to exasperate him
+against their relatives.
+
+"Defend them! Defend them!" he would say, appearing to calm down. "I,
+for my part, have arranged to have nothing more to do with them. I only
+mention the matter out of pity for my poor mother, whom all that gang
+treat in a most revolting manner."
+
+"They are wretches!" Silvere murmured.
+
+"Oh! you don't know, you don't understand. These Rougons pour all sorts
+of insults and abuse on the good woman. Aristide has forbidden his son
+even to recognise her. Felicite talks of having her placed in a lunatic
+asylum."
+
+The young man, as white as a sheet, abruptly interrupted his uncle:
+"Enough!" he cried. "I don't want to know any more about it. There will
+have to be an end to all this."
+
+"I'll hold my tongue, since it annoys you," the old rascal replied,
+feigning a good-natured manner. "Still, there are some things that
+you ought not to be ignorant of, unless you want to play the part of a
+fool."
+
+Macquart, while exerting himself to set Silvere against the Rougons,
+experienced the keenest pleasure on drawing tears of anguish from the
+young man's eyes. He detested him, perhaps, more than he did the others,
+and this because he was an excellent workman and never drank. He brought
+all his instincts of refined cruelty into play, in order to invent
+atrocious falsehoods which should sting the poor lad to the heart; then
+he revelled in his pallor, his trembling hands and his heart-rending
+looks, with the delight of some evil spirit who measures his stabs and
+finds that he has struck his victim in the right place. When he thought
+that he had wounded and exasperated Silvere sufficiently, he would at
+last touch upon politics.
+
+"I've been assured," he would say, lowering his voice, "that the Rougons
+are preparing some treachery."
+
+"Treachery?" Silvere asked, becoming attentive.
+
+"Yes, one of these nights they are going to seize all the good citizens
+of the town and throw them into prison."
+
+The young man was at first disposed to doubt it, but his uncle gave
+precise details; he spoke of lists that had been drawn up, he mentioned
+the persons whose names were on these lists, he indicated in what
+manner, at what hour, and under what circumstances the plot would be
+carried into effect. Silvere gradually allowed himself to be taken in
+by this old woman's tale, and was soon raving against the enemies of the
+Republic.
+
+"It's they that we shall have to reduce to impotence if they persist in
+betraying the country!" he cried. "And what do they intend to do with
+the citizens whom they arrest?"
+
+"What do they intend to do with them? Why, they will shoot them in the
+lowest dungeons of the prison, of course," replied Macquart, with a
+hoarse laugh. And as the young man, stupefied with horror, looked at
+him without knowing what to say: "This will not be the first lot to be
+assassinated there," he continued. "You need only go and prowl about the
+Palais de Justice of an evening to hear the shots and groans."
+
+"Oh, the wretches!" Silvere murmured.
+
+Thereupon uncle and nephew launched out into high politics. Fine and
+Gervaise, on finding them hotly debating things, quietly went to bed
+without attracting their attention. Then the two men remained together
+till midnight, commenting on the news from Paris and discussing the
+approaching and inevitable struggle. Macquart bitterly denounced the men
+of his own party, Silvere dreamed his dream of ideal liberty aloud, and
+for himself only. Strange conversations these were, during which the
+uncle poured out many a little nip for himself, and from which the
+nephew emerged quite intoxicated with enthusiasm. Antoine, however,
+never succeeded in obtaining from the young Republican any perfidious
+suggestion or play of warfare against the Rougons. In vain he tried to
+goad him on; he seldom heard him suggest aught but an appeal to eternal
+justice, which sooner or later would punish the evil-doers.
+
+The ingenuous youth did indeed speak warmly of taking up arms and
+massacring the enemies of the Republic; but, as soon as these enemies
+strayed out of his dream or became personified in his uncle Pierre or
+any other person of his acquaintance, he relied upon heaven to spare
+him the horror of shedding blood. It is very probable that he would have
+ceased visiting Macquart, whose jealous fury made him so uncomfortable,
+if he had not tasted the pleasure of being able to speak freely of his
+dear Republic there. In the end, however, his uncle exercised decisive
+influence over his destiny; he irritated his nerves by his everlasting
+diatribes, and succeeded in making him eager for an armed struggle, the
+conquest of universal happiness by violence.
+
+When Silvere reached his sixteenth year, Macquart had him admitted into
+the secret society of the Montagnards, a powerful association whose
+influence extended throughout Southern France. From that moment the
+young Republican gazed with longing eyes at the smuggler's carbine,
+which Adelaide had hung over her chimney-piece. Once night, while his
+grandmother was asleep, he cleaned and put it in proper condition. Then
+he replaced it on its nail and waited, indulging in brilliant reveries,
+fancying gigantic epics, Homeric struggles, and knightly tournaments,
+whence the defenders of liberty would emerge victorious and acclaimed by
+the whole world.
+
+Macquart meantime was not discouraged. He said to himself that he would
+be able to strangle the Rougons alone if he could ever get them into a
+corner. His envious rage and slothful greed were increased by certain
+successive accidents which compelled him to resume work. In the early
+part of 1850 Fine died, almost suddenly, from inflammation of the lungs,
+which she had caught by going one evening to wash the family linen in
+the Viorne, and carrying it home wet on her back. She returned soaked
+with water and perspiration, bowed down by her load, which was terribly
+heavy, and she never recovered.
+
+Her death filled Macquart with consternation. His most reliable source
+of income was gone. When, a few days later, he sold the caldron in which
+his wife had boiled her chestnuts, and the wooden horse which she used
+in reseating old chairs, he foully accused the Divinity of having robbed
+him of that strong strapping woman of whom he had often felt ashamed,
+but whose real worth he now appreciated. He now also fell upon the
+children's earnings with greater avidity than ever. But, a month later,
+Gervaise, tired of his continual exactions, ran away with her two
+children and Lantier, whose mother was dead. The lovers took refuge in
+Paris. Antoine, overwhelmed, vented his rage against his daughter by
+expressing the hope that she might die in hospital like most of her
+kind. This abuse did not, however, improve the situation, which was
+decidedly becoming bad. Jean soon followed his sister's example. He
+waited for pay-day to come round, and then contrived to receive the
+money himself. As he was leaving he told one of his friends, who
+repeated it to Antoine, that he would no longer keep his lazy father,
+and that if the latter should take it into his head to have him brought
+back by the gendarmes he would touch neither saw nor plane.
+
+On the morrow, when Antoine, having vainly sought him, found himself
+alone and penniless in the house where for twenty years he had been
+comfortably kept, he flew into the most frantic rage, kicked the
+furniture about, and yelled the vilest imprecations. Then he sank down
+exhausted, and began to drag himself about and moan like a convalescent.
+The fear of having to earn his bread made him positively ill. When
+Silvere came to see him, he complained, with tears, of his children's
+ingratitude. Had he not always been a good father to them? Jean and
+Gervaise were monsters, who had made him an evil return for all he had
+done for them. Now they abandoned him because he was old, and they could
+not get anything more out of him!
+
+"But uncle," said Silvere, "you are not yet too old to work!"
+
+Macquart, coughing and stooping, shook his head mournfully, as if to say
+that he could not bear the least fatigue for any length of time. Just
+as his nephew was about to withdraw, he borrowed ten francs of him. Then
+for a month he lived by taking his children's old clothes, one by one,
+to a second-hand dealer's, and in the same way, little by little, he
+sold all the small articles in the house. Soon nothing remained but
+a table, a chair, his bed, and the clothes on his back. He ended by
+exchanging the walnut-wood bedstead for a plain strap one. When he had
+exhausted all his resources, he cried with rage; and, with the fierce
+pallor of a man who is resigned to suicide, he went to look for the
+bundle of osier that he had forgotten in some corner for a quarter of
+a century past. As he took it up he seemed to be lifting a mountain.
+However, he again began to plait baskets and hampers, while denouncing
+the human race for their neglect.
+
+It was particularly at this time that he talked of dividing and sharing
+the riches of the wealthy. He showed himself terrible. His speeches
+kept up a constant conflagration in the tavern, where his furious looks
+secured him unlimited credit. Moreover, he only worked when he had been
+unable to get a five-franc piece out of Silvere or a comrade. He was
+no longer "Monsieur" Macquart, the clean-shaven workman, who wore his
+Sunday clothes every day and played the gentleman; he again became the
+big slovenly devil who had once speculated on his rags. Felicite did not
+dare to go to market now that he was so often coming there to sell
+his baskets. He once had a violent quarrel with her there. His hatred
+against the Rougons grew with his wretchedness. He swore, with horrible
+threats, that he would wreak justice himself, since the rich were
+leagued together to compel him to toil.
+
+In this state of mind, he welcomed the Coup d'Etat with the ardent,
+obstreperous delight of a hound scenting the quarry. As the few honest
+Liberals in the town had failed to arrive at an understanding amongst
+themselves, and therefore kept apart, he became naturally one of
+the most prominent agents of the insurrection. The working classes,
+notwithstanding the unfavourable opinion which they at last entertained
+of this lazy fellow, would, when the time arrived, have to accept him
+as a rallying flag. On the first few days, however, the town remained
+quiet, and Macquart thought that his plans were frustrated. It was not
+until the news arrived of the rising of the rural districts that he
+recovered hope. For his own part he would not have left Plassans for all
+the world; accordingly he invented some pretext for not following those
+workmen who, on the Sunday morning, set off to join the insurrectionary
+band of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx.
+
+On the evening of the same day he was sitting in some disreputable
+tavern of the old quarter with a few friends, when a comrade came to
+inform him that the insurgents were only a few miles from Plassans. This
+news had just been brought by an express, who had succeeded in making
+his way into the town, and had been charged to get the gates opened
+for the column. There was an outburst of triumph. Macquart, especially,
+appeared to be delirious with enthusiasm. The unforeseen arrival of the
+insurgents seemed to him a delicate attention of Providence for his own
+particular benefit. His hands trembled at the idea that he would soon
+hold the Rougons by the throat.
+
+He hastily quitted the tavern with his friends. All the Republicans who
+had not yet left the town were soon assembled on the Cours Sauvaire. It
+was this band that Rougon had perceived as he was hastening to conceal
+himself in his mother's house. When the band had reached the top of
+the Rue de la Banne, Macquart, who had stationed himself at the rear,
+detained four of his companions, big fellows who were not over-burdened
+with brains and whom he swayed by his tavern bluster. He easily
+persuaded them that the enemies of the Republic must be arrested
+immediately if they wished to prevent the greatest calamities. The truth
+was that he feared Pierre might escape him in the midst of the confusion
+which the entry of the insurgents would produce. However, the four big
+fellows followed him with exemplary docility, and knocked violently
+at the door of the Rougons' abode. In this critical situation Felicite
+displayed admirable courage. She went down and opened the street door
+herself.
+
+"We want to go upstairs into your rooms," Macquart said to her brutally.
+
+"Very well, gentlemen, walk up," she replied with ironical politeness,
+pretending that she did not recognise her brother-in-law.
+
+Once upstairs, Macquart ordered her to fetch her husband.
+
+"My husband is not here," she said with perfect calmness; "he is
+travelling on business. He took the diligence for Marseilles at six
+o'clock this evening."
+
+Antoine at this declaration, which Felicite uttered in a clear voice,
+made a gesture of rage. He rushed through the drawing-room, and then
+into the bedroom, turned the bed up, looked behind the curtains and
+under the furniture. The four big fellows assisted him. They searched
+the place for a quarter of an hour. Felicite meantime quietly seated
+herself on the drawing-room sofa, and began to fasten the strings of her
+petticoats, like a person who has been surprised in her sleep and has
+not had time to dress properly.
+
+"It's true then, he's run away, the coward!" Macquart muttered on
+returning to the drawing-room.
+
+Nevertheless, he continued to look about him with a suspicious air. He
+felt a presentiment that Pierre could not have given up the game at the
+decisive moment. At last he approached Felicite, who was yawning: "Show
+us the place where your husband is hidden," he said to her, "and I
+promise no harm shall be done to him."
+
+"I have told you the truth," she replied impatiently. "I can't deliver
+my husband to you, as he's not here. You have searched everywhere,
+haven't you? Then leave me alone now."
+
+Macquart, exasperated by her composure, was just going to strike her,
+when a rumbling noise arose from the street. It was the column of
+insurgents entering the Rue de la Banne.
+
+He then had to leave the yellow drawing-room, after shaking his fist
+at his sister-in-law, calling her an old jade, and threatening that he
+would soon return. At the foot of the staircase, he took one of the men
+who accompanied him, a navvy named Cassoute, the most wooden-headed of
+the four, and ordered him to sit on the first step, and remain there.
+
+"You must come and inform me," he said to him, "if you see the scoundrel
+from upstairs return."
+
+The man sat down heavily. When Macquart reached the pavement, he
+raised his eyes and observed Felicite leaning out of the window of the
+yellow-drawing room, watching the march past of the insurgents, as if
+it was nothing but a regiment passing through the town to the strains
+of its band. This last sign of perfect composure irritated him to such a
+degree that he was almost tempted to go up again and throw the old woman
+into the street. However, he followed the column, muttering in a hoarse
+voice: "Yes, yes, look at us passing. We'll see whether you will station
+yourself at your balcony to-morrow."
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock at night when the insurgents entered the
+town by the Porte de Rome. The workmen remaining in Plassans had opened
+the gate for them, in spite of the wailings of the keeper, from whom
+they could only wrest the keys by force. This man, very jealous of his
+office, stood dumbfoundered in the presence of the surging crowd. To
+think of it! he, who never allowed more than one person to pass in at
+a time, and then only after a prolonged examination of his face! And
+he murmured that he was dishonoured. The men of Plassans were still
+marching at the head of the column by way of guiding the others; Miette,
+who was in the front rank, with Silvere on her left, held up her banner
+more proudly than ever now that she could divine behind the closed
+blinds the scared looks of well-to-do bourgeois startled out of their
+sleep. The insurgents passed along the Rue de Rome and the Rue de la
+Banne slowly and warily; at every crossway, although they well knew the
+quiet disposition of the inhabitants, they feared they might be received
+with bullets. The town seemed lifeless, however; there was scarcely
+a stifled exclamation to be heard at the windows. Only five or six
+shutters opened. Some old householder then appeared in his night-shirt,
+candle in hand, and leant out to obtain a better view; but as soon as he
+distinguished the tall red girl who appeared to be drawing that crowd of
+black demons behind her, he hastily closed his window again, terrified
+by such a diabolical apparition.
+
+The silence of the slumbering town reassured the insurgents, who
+ventured to make their way through the lanes of the old quarter, and
+thus reached the market-place and the Place de l'Hotel-de-Ville, which
+was connected by a short but broad street. These open spaces, planted
+with slender trees, were brilliantly illumined by the moon. Against the
+clear sky the recently restored town-hall appeared like a large patch of
+crude whiteness, the fine black lines of the wrought-iron arabesques of
+the first-floor balcony showing in bold relief. Several persons could
+be plainly distinguished standing on this balcony, the mayor, Commander
+Sicardot, three or four municipal councillors, and other functionaries.
+The doors below were closed. The three thousand Republicans, who covered
+both open spaces, halted with upraised heads, ready to force the doors
+with a single push.
+
+The arrival of the insurrectionary column at such an hour took the
+authorities by surprise. Before repairing to the mayor's, Commander
+Sicardot had taken time to don his uniform. He then had to run and rouse
+the mayor. When the keeper of the Porte de Rome, who had been left free
+by the insurgents, came to announce that the villains were already in
+the town, the commander had so far only managed to assemble a score of
+the national guards. The gendarmes, though their barracks were close by,
+could not even be warned. It was necessary to shut the town-hall
+doors in all haste, in order to deliberate. Five minutes later a low
+continuous rumbling announced the approach of the column.
+
+Monsieur Garconnet, out of hatred to the Republic, would have greatly
+liked to offer resistance. But he was of a prudent nature, and
+comprehended the futility of a struggle on finding only a few pale men,
+who were scarcely awake, around him. So the deliberations did not last
+long. Sicardot alone was obstinate; he wanted to fight, asserting that
+twenty men would suffice to bring these three thousand villains to
+reason. At this Monsieur Garconnet shrugged his shoulders, and declared
+that the only step to take was to make an honourable capitulation. As
+the uproar of the mob increased, he went out on the balcony, followed
+by all the persons present. Silence was gradually obtained. Below, among
+the black, quivering mass of insurgents, the guns and scythes glittered
+in the moonlight.
+
+"Who are you, and what do you want?" cried the mayor in a loud voice.
+
+Thereupon a man in a greatcoat, a landowner of La Palud, stepped
+forward.
+
+"Open the doors," he said, without replying to Monsieur Garconnet's
+question. "Avoid a fratricidal conflict."
+
+"I call upon you to withdraw," the mayor continued. "I protest in the
+name of the law."
+
+These words provoked deafening shouts from the crowd. When the tumult
+had somewhat abated, vehement calls ascended to the balcony. Voices
+shouted: "It is in the name of the law that we have come here!"
+
+"Your duty as a functionary is to secure respect for the fundamental
+law of the land, the constitution, which has just been outrageously
+violated."
+
+"Long live the constitution! Long live the Republic!"
+
+Then as Monsieur Garconnet endeavoured to make himself heard, and
+continued to invoke his official dignity, the land-owner of La
+Palud, who was standing under the balcony, interrupted him with
+great vehemence: "You are now nothing but the functionary of a fallen
+functionary; we have come to dismiss you from your office."
+
+Hitherto, Commander Sicardot had been ragefully biting his moustache,
+and muttering insulting words. The sight of the cudgels and scythes
+exasperated him; and he made desperate efforts to restrain himself
+from treating these twopenny-halfpenny soldiers, who had not even a
+gun apiece, as they deserved. But when he heard a gentleman in a mere
+greatcoat speak of deposing a mayor girded with his scarf, he could no
+longer contain himself and shouted: "You pack of rascals! If I only had
+four men and a corporal, I'd come down and pull your ears for you, and
+make you behave yourselves!"
+
+Less than this was needed to raise a serious disturbance. A long shout
+rose from the mob as it made a rush for the doors. Monsieur Garconnet,
+in consternation, hastily quitted the balcony, entreating Sicardot to be
+reasonable unless he wished to have them massacred. But in two minutes
+the doors gave way, the people invaded the building and disarmed the
+national guards. The mayor and the other functionaries present were
+arrested. Sicardot, who declined to surrender his sword, had to
+be protected from the fury of some insurgents by the chief of the
+contingent from Les Tulettes, a man of great self-possession. When the
+town-hall was in the hands of the Republicans, they led their prisoners
+to a small cafe in the market-place, and there kept them closely
+watched.
+
+The insurrectionary army would have avoided marching through Plassans
+if its leaders had not decided that a little food and a few hours' rest
+were absolutely necessary for the men. Instead of pushing forward
+direct to the chief town of the department, the column, owing to the
+inexcusable weakness and the inexperience of the improvised general who
+commanded it, was now diverging to the left, making a detour which was
+destined, ultimately, to lead it to destruction. It was bound for the
+heights of Sainte-Roure, still about ten leagues distant, and it was
+in view of this long march that it had been decided to pass through
+Plassans, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. It was now half-past
+eleven.
+
+When Monsieur Garconnet learnt that the band was in quest of provisions,
+he offered his services to procure them. This functionary formed, under
+very difficult circumstances, a proper estimate of the situation. Those
+three thousand starving men would have to be satisfied; it would never
+do for Plassans, on waking up, to find them still squatting on the
+pavements; if they withdrew before daybreak they would simply have
+passed through the slumbering town like an evil dream, like one of those
+nightmares which depart with the arrival of dawn. And so, although he
+remained a prisoner, Monsieur Garconnet, followed by two guards, went
+about knocking at the bakers' doors, and had all the provisions that he
+could find distributed among the insurgents.
+
+Towards one o'clock the three thousand men began to eat, squatting on
+the ground, with their weapons between their legs. The market-place
+and the neighbourhood of the town-hall were turned into vast open-air
+refectories. In spite of the bitter cold, humorous sallies were
+exchanged among the swarming multitude, the smallest groups of which
+showed forth in the brilliant moonlight. The poor famished fellows
+eagerly devoured their portions while breathing on their fingers to warm
+them; and, from the depths of adjoining streets, where vague black forms
+sat on the white thresholds of the houses, there came sudden bursts
+of laughter. At the windows emboldened, inquisitive women, with silk
+handkerchiefs tied round their heads, watched the repast of those
+terrible insurgents, those blood-suckers who went in turn to the market
+pump to drink a little water in the hollows of their hands.
+
+While the town-hall was being invaded, the gendarmes' barracks, situated
+a few steps away, in the Rue Canquoin, which leads to the market, had
+also fallen into the hands of the mob. The gendarmes were surprised in
+their beds and disarmed in a few minutes. The impetus of the crowd had
+carried Miette and Silvere along in this direction. The girl, who still
+clasped her flagstaff to her breast, was pushed against the wall of
+the barracks, while the young man, carried away by the human wave,
+penetrated into the interior, and helped his comrades to wrest from the
+gendarmes the carbines which they had hastily caught up. Silvere, waxing
+ferocious, intoxicated by the onslaught, attacked a big devil of a
+gendarme named Rengade, with whom for a few moments he struggled. At
+last, by a sudden jerk, he succeeded in wresting his carbine from him.
+But the barrel struck Rengade a violent blow in the face, which put his
+right eye out. Blood flowed, and, some of it splashing Silvere's hands,
+quickly brought him to his senses. He looked at his hands, dropped the
+carbine, and ran out, in a state of frenzy, shaking his fingers.
+
+"You are wounded!" cried Miette.
+
+"No, no," he replied in a stifled voice, "I've just killed a gendarme."
+
+"Is he really dead?" asked Miette.
+
+"I don't know," replied Silvere, "his face was all covered with blood.
+Come quickly."
+
+Then he hurried the girl away. On reaching the market, he made her sit
+down on a stone bench, and told her to wait there for him. He was still
+looking at his hands, muttering something at the same time. Miette at
+last understood from his disquieted words that he wished to go and kiss
+his grandmother before leaving.
+
+"Well, go," she said; "don't trouble yourself about me. Wash your
+hands."
+
+But he went quickly away, keeping his fingers apart, without thinking
+of washing them at the pump which he passed. Since he had felt Rengade's
+warm blood on his skin, he had been possessed by one idea, that of
+running to Aunt Dide's and dipping his hands in the well-trough at the
+back of the little yard. There only, he thought, would he be able
+to wash off the stain of that blood. Moreover, all his calm, gentle
+childhood seemed to return to him; he felt an irresistible longing
+to take refuge in his grandmother's skirts, if only for a minute.
+He arrived quite out of breath. Aunt Dide had not gone to bed, a
+circumstance which at any other time would have greatly surprised
+Silvere. But on entering he did not even see his uncle Rougon, who was
+seated in a corner on the old chest. He did not wait for the poor old
+woman's questions. "Grandmother," he said quickly, "you must forgive
+me; I'm going to leave with the others. You see I've got blood on me. I
+believe I've killed a gendarme."
+
+"You've killed a gendarme?" Aunt Dide repeated in a strange voice.
+
+Her eyes gleamed brightly as she fixed them on the red stains. And
+suddenly she turned towards the chimney-piece. "You've taken the gun,"
+she said; "where's the gun?"
+
+Silvere, who had left the weapon with Miette, swore to her that it was
+quite safe. And for the very first time, Adelaide made an allusion to
+the smuggler Macquart in her grandson's presence.
+
+"You'll bring the gun back? You promise me!" she said with singular
+energy. "It's all I have left of him. You've killed a gendarme; ah, it
+was the gendarmes who killed him!"
+
+She continued gazing fixedly at Silvere with an air of cruel
+satisfaction, and apparently without thought of detaining him. She never
+asked him for any explanation, nor wept like those good grandmothers who
+always imagine, at sight of the least scratch, that their grandchildren
+are dying. All her nature was concentrated in one unique thought, to
+which she at last gave expression with ardent curiosity: "Did you kill
+the gendarme with the gun?"
+
+Either Silvere did not quite catch what she said, or else he
+misunderstood her.
+
+"Yes!" he replied. "I'm going to wash my hands."
+
+It was only on returning from the well that he perceived his uncle.
+Pierre had turned pale on hearing the young man's words. Felicite was
+indeed right; his family took a pleasure in compromising him. One of
+his nephews had now killed a gendarme! He would never get the post
+of receiver of taxes, if he did not prevent this foolish madman from
+rejoining the insurgents. So he planted himself in front of the door,
+determined to prevent Silvere from going out.
+
+"Listen," he said to the young fellow, who was greatly surprised to find
+him there. "I am the head of the family, and I forbid you to leave this
+house. You're risking both your honour and ours. To-morrow I will try to
+get you across the frontier."
+
+But Silvere shrugged his shoulders. "Let me pass," he calmly replied.
+"I'm not a police-spy; I shall not reveal your hiding-place, never
+fear." And as Rougon continued to speak of the family dignity and the
+authority with which his seniority invested him: "Do I belong to your
+family?" the young man continued. "You have always disowned me. To-day,
+fear has driven you here, because you feel that the day of judgment has
+arrived. Come, make way! I don't hide myself; I have a duty to perform."
+
+Rougon did not stir. But Aunt Dide, who had listened with a sort of
+delight to Silvere's vehement language, laid her withered hand on her
+son's arm. "Get out of the way, Pierre," she said; "the lad must go."
+
+The young man gave his uncle a slight shove, and dashed outside. Then
+Rougon, having carefully shut the door again, said to his mother in an
+angry, threatening tone: "If any mischief happens to him it will be your
+fault. You're an old mad-woman; you don't know what you've just done."
+
+Adelaide, however, did not appear to hear him. She went and threw some
+vine-branches on the fire, which was going out, and murmured with a
+vague smile: "I'm used to it. He would remain away for months together,
+and then come back to me in much better health."
+
+She was no doubt speaking of Macquart.
+
+In the meantime, Silvere hastily regained the market-place. As he
+approached the spot where he had left Miette, he heard a loud uproar of
+voices and saw a crowd which made him quicken his steps. A cruel scene
+had just occurred. Some inquisitive people were walking among the
+insurgents, while the latter quietly partook of their meal. Amongst
+these onlookers was Justin Rebufat, the son of the farmer of the
+Jas-Meiffren, a youth of twenty years old, a sickly, squint-eyed
+creature, who harboured implacable hatred against his cousin Miette.
+At home he grudged her the bread she ate, and treated her like a beggar
+picked up from the gutter out of charity. It is probable that the young
+girl had rejected his advances. Lank and pale, with ill-proportioned
+limbs and face all awry, he revenged himself upon her for his own
+ugliness, and the contempt which the handsome, vigorous girl must have
+evinced for him. He ardently longed to induce his father to send her
+about her business; and for this reason he was always spying upon her.
+For some time past, he had become aware of the meetings with Silvere,
+and had only awaited a decisive opportunity to reveal everything to his
+father, Rebufat.
+
+On the evening in question, having seen her leave home at about eight
+o'clock, Justin's hatred had overpowered him, and he had been unable
+to keep silent any longer. Rebufat, on hearing his story, fell into a
+terrible rage, and declared that he would kick the gadabout out of his
+house should she have the audacity to return. Justin then went to
+bed, relishing beforehand the fine scene which would take place on the
+morrow. Then, however, a burning desire came upon him for some immediate
+foretaste of his revenge. So he dressed himself again and went out.
+Perhaps he might meet Miette. In that case he was resolved to treat
+her insolently. This is how he came to witness the arrival of the
+insurgents, whom he followed to the town-hall with a vague presentiment
+that he would find the lovers there. And, indeed, he at last caught
+sight of his cousin on the seat where she was waiting for Silvere.
+Seeing her wrapped in her long pelisse, with the red flag at her side,
+resting against a market pillar, he began to sneer and deride her in
+foul language. The girl, thunderstruck at seeing him, was unable
+to speak. She wept beneath his abuse, and whist she was overcome by
+sobbing, bowing her head and hiding her face, Justin called her a
+convict's daughter, and shouted that old Rebufat would give her a good
+thrashing should she ever dare to return to Jas-Meiffren.
+
+For a quarter of an hour he thus kept her smarting and trembling. Some
+people had gathered round, and grinned stupidly at the painful scene.
+At last a few insurgents interfered, and threatened the young man with
+exemplary chastisement if he did not leave Miette alone. But Justin,
+although he retreated, declared that he was not afraid of them. It was
+just at this moment that Silvere came up. Young Rebufat, on catching
+sight of him, made a sudden bound, as if to take flight; for he was
+afraid of him, knowing that he was much stronger than himself. He could
+not, however, resist the temptation to cast a parting insult on the girl
+in her lover's presence.
+
+"Ah! I knew very well," he cried, "that the wheelwright could not be
+far off! You left us to run after that crack-brained fellow, eh? You
+wretched girl! When's the baptism to be?"
+
+Then he retreated a few steps further on seeing Silvere clench his
+fists.
+
+"And mind," he continued, with a vile sneer, "don't come to our house
+again. My father will kick you out if you do! Do you hear?"
+
+But he ran away howling, with bruised visage. For Silvere had bounded
+upon him and dealt him a blow full in the face. The young man did
+not pursue him. When he returned to Miette he found her standing up,
+feverishly wiping her tears away with the palm of her hand. And as
+he gazed at her tenderly, in order to console her, she made a sudden
+energetic gesture. "No," she said, "I'm not going to cry any more,
+you'll see. I'm very glad of it. I don't feel any regret now for having
+left home. I am free."
+
+She took up the flag and led Silvere back into the midst of the
+insurgents. It was now nearly two o'clock in the morning. The cold was
+becoming so intense that the Republicans had risen to their feet and
+were marching to and fro in order to warm themselves while they finished
+their bread. At last their leaders gave orders for departure. The column
+formed again. The prisoners were placed in the middle of it. Besides
+Monsieur Garconnet and Commander Sicardot, the insurgents had
+arrested Monsieur Peirotte, the receiver of taxes, and several other
+functionaries, all of whom they led away.
+
+At this moment Aristide was observed walking about among the groups.
+In presence of this formidable rising, the dear fellow had thought it
+imprudent not to remain on friendly terms with the Republicans; but as,
+on the other hand, he did not desire to compromise himself too much,
+he had come to bid them farewell with his arm in a sling, complaining
+bitterly of the accursed injury which prevented him from carrying
+a weapon. As he walked through the crowd he came across his brother
+Pascal, provided with a case of surgical instruments and a little
+portable medicine chest. The doctor informed him, in his quiet, way,
+that he intended to follow the insurgents. At this Aristide inwardly
+pronounced him a great fool. At last he himself slunk away, fearing lest
+the others should entrust the care of the town to him, a post which he
+deemed exceptionally perilous.
+
+The insurgents could not think of keeping Plassans in their power. The
+town was animated by so reactionary a spirit that it seemed impossible
+even to establish a democratic municipal commission there, as had
+already been done in other places. So they would simply have gone off
+without taking any further steps if Macquart, prompted and emboldened by
+his own private animosities, had not offered to hold Plassans in awe, on
+condition that they left him twenty determined men. These men were given
+him, and at their head he marched off triumphantly to take possession
+of the town-hall. Meantime the column of insurgents was wending its
+way along the Cours Sauvaire, and making its exit by the Grand'-Porte,
+leaving the streets, which it had traversed like a tempest, silent
+and deserted in its rear. The high road, whitened by the moonshine,
+stretched far into the distance. Miette had refused the support of
+Silvere's arm; she marched on bravely, steady and upright, holding the
+red flag aloft with both hands, without complaining of the cold which
+was turning her fingers blue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The high roads stretched far way, white with moonlight.
+
+The insurrectionary army was continuing its heroic march through the
+cold, clear country. It was like a mighty wave of enthusiasm. The thrill
+of patriotism, which transported Miette and Silvere, big children that
+they were, eager for love and liberty, sped, with generous fervour,
+athwart the sordid intrigues of the Macquarts and the Rougons. At
+intervals the trumpet-voice of the people rose and drowned the prattle
+of the yellow drawing-room and the hateful discourses of uncle Antoine.
+And vulgar, ignoble farce was turned into a great historical drama.
+
+On quitting Plassans, the insurgents had taken the road to Orcheres.
+They expected to reach that town at about ten o'clock in the morning.
+The road skirts the course of the Viorne, following at some height the
+windings of the hillocks, below which the torrent flows. On the left,
+the plain spreads out like an immense green carpet, dotted here and
+there with grey villages. On the right, the chain of the Garrigues rears
+its desolate peaks, its plateaux of stones, its huge rusty boulders
+that look as though they had been reddened by the sun. The high road,
+embanked along the riverside, passes on amidst enormous rocks, between
+which glimpses of the valley are caught at every step. Nothing could be
+wilder or more strikingly grand than this road out of the hillside. At
+night time, especially, it inspires one with a feeling of deep awe. The
+insurgents advanced under the pale light, along what seemed the chief
+street of some ruined town, bordered on either side with fragments
+of temples. The moon turned each rock into a broken column, crumbling
+capital, or stretch of wall pierced with mysterious arches. On high
+slumbered the mass of the Garrigues, suffused with a milky tinge, and
+resembling some immense Cyclopean city whose towers, obelisks, houses
+and high terraces hid one half of the heavens; and in the depths below,
+on the side of the plain, was a spreading ocean of diffused light,
+vague and limitless, over which floated masses of luminous haze. The
+insurrectionary force might well have thought they were following some
+gigantic causeway, making their rounds along some military road built on
+the shore of a phosphorescent sea, and circling some unknown Babel.
+
+On the night in question, the Viorne roared hoarsely at the foot of
+the rocks bordering the route. Amidst the continuous rumbling of the
+torrent, the insurgents could distinguish the sharp, wailing notes of
+the tocsin. The villages scattered about the plain, on the other side of
+the river, were rising, sounding alarm-bells, and lighting signal fires.
+Till daybreak the marching column, which the persistent tolling of
+a mournful knell seemed to pursue in the darkness, thus beheld the
+insurrection spreading along the valley, like a train of powder. The
+fires showed in the darkness like stains of blood; echoes of distant
+songs were wafted to them; the whole vague distance, blurred by the
+whitish vapours of the moon, stirred confusedly, and suddenly broke into
+a spasm of anger. For leagues and leagues the scene remained the same.
+
+These men, marching on under the blind impetus of the fever with which
+the events in Paris had inspired Republican hearts, became elated at
+seeing that long stretch of country quivering with revolt. Intoxicated
+with enthusiastic belief in the general insurrection of which they
+dreamed, they fancied that France was following them; on the other side
+of the Viorne, in that vast ocean of diffused light, they imagined there
+were endless files of men rushing like themselves to the defence of the
+Republic. All simplicity and delusion, as multitudes so often are, they
+imagined, in their uncultured minds, that victory was easy and certain.
+They would have seized and shot as a traitor any one who had then
+asserted that they were the only ones who had the courage of their
+duty, and that the rest of the country, overwhelmed with fright, was
+pusillanimously allowing itself to be garrotted.
+
+They derived fresh courage, too, from the welcome accorded to them
+by the few localities that lay along their route on the slopes of the
+Garrigues. The inhabitants rose _en masse_ immediately the little army
+drew near; women ran to meet them, wishing them a speedy victory, while
+men, half clad, seized the first weapons they could find and rushed to
+join their ranks. There was a fresh ovation at every village, shouts of
+welcome and farewell many times reiterated.
+
+Towards daybreak the moon disappeared behind the Garrigues and the
+insurgents continued their rapid march amidst the dense darkness of
+a winter night. They were now unable to distinguish the valley or the
+hills; they heard only the hoarse plaints of the bells, sounding through
+the deep obscurity like invisible drums, hidden they knew not where, but
+ever goading them on with despairing calls.
+
+Miette and Silvere went on, all eagerness like the others. Towards
+daybreak, the girl suffered greatly from fatigue; she could only walk
+with short hurried steps, and was unable to keep up with the long
+strides of the men who surrounded her. Nevertheless she courageously
+strove to suppress all complaints; it would have cost her too much
+to confess that she was not as strong as a boy. During the first few
+leagues of the march Silvere gave her his arm; then, seeing that the
+standard was gradually slipping from her benumbed hands, he tried to
+take it in order to relieve her; but she grew angry, and would only
+allow him to hold it with one hand while she continued to carry it on
+her shoulder. She thus maintained her heroic demeanour with childish
+stubbornness, smiling at the young man each time he gave her a glance of
+loving anxiety. At last, when the moon hid itself, she gave way in the
+sheltering darkness. Silvere felt her leaning more heavily on his arm.
+He now had to carry the flag, and hold her round the waist to prevent
+her from stumbling. Nevertheless she still made no complaint.
+
+"Are you very tired, poor Miette?" Silvere asked her.
+
+"Yea, a little tired," she replied in a weary tone.
+
+"Would you like to rest a bit?"
+
+She made no reply; but he realised that she was staggering. He thereupon
+handed the flag to one of the other insurgents and quitted the ranks,
+almost carrying the girl in his arms. She struggled a little, she felt
+so distressed at appearing such a child. But he calmed her, telling her
+that he knew of a cross-road which shortened the distance by one half.
+They would be able to take a good hour's rest and reach Orcheres at the
+same time as the others.
+
+It was then six o'clock. There must have been a slight mist rising from
+the Viorne, for the darkness seemed to be growing denser. The young
+people groped their way along the slope of the Garrigues, till they came
+to a rock on which they sat down. Around them lay an abyss of darkness.
+They were stranded, as it were, on some reef above a dense void. And
+athwart that void, when the dull tramp of the little army had died away,
+they only heard two bells, the one clear toned and ringing doubtless at
+their feet, in some village across the road; and the other far-off and
+faint, responding, as it were, with distant sobs to the feverish plaints
+of the first. One might have thought that these bells were recounting to
+each other, through the empty waste, the sinister story of a perishing
+world.
+
+Miette and Silvere, warmed by their quick march, did not at first feel
+the cold. They remained silent, listening in great dejection to the
+sounds of the tocsin, which made the darkness quiver. They could not
+even see one another. Miette felt frightened, and, seeking for Silvere's
+hand, clasped it in her own. After the feverish enthusiasm which for
+several hours had carried them along with the others, this sudden halt
+and the solitude in which they found themselves side by side left them
+exhausted and bewildered as though they had suddenly awakened from a
+strange dream. They felt as if a wave had cast them beside the highway,
+then ebbed back and left them stranded. Irresistible reaction plunged
+them into listless stupor; they forgot their enthusiasm; they thought no
+more of the men whom they had to rejoin; they surrendered themselves to
+the melancholy sweetness of finding themselves alone, hand in hand, in
+the midst of the wild darkness.
+
+"You are not angry with me?" the girl at length inquired. "I could
+easily walk the whole night with you; but they were running too quickly,
+I could hardly breathe."
+
+"Why should I be angry with you?" the young man said.
+
+"I don't know. I was afraid you might not love me any longer. I wish I
+could have taken long strides like you, and have walked along without
+stopping. You will think I am a child."
+
+Silvere smiled, and Miette, though the darkness prevented her from
+seeing him, guessed that he was doing so. Then she continued with
+determination: "You must not always treat me like a sister. I want to be
+your wife some day."
+
+Forthwith she clasped Silvere to her bosom, and, still with her arms
+about him, murmured: "We shall grow so cold; come close to me that we
+may be warm."
+
+Then they lapsed into silence. Until that troublous hour, they had loved
+one another with the affection of brother and sister. In their ignorance
+they still mistook their feelings for tender friendship, although
+beneath their guileless love their ardent blood surged more wildly
+day by day. Given age and experience, a violent passion of southern
+intensity would at last spring from this idyll. Every girl who hangs on
+a youth's neck is already a woman, a woman unconsciously, whom a caress
+may awaken to conscious womanhood. When lovers kiss on the cheeks, it is
+because they are searching, feeling for one another's lips. Lovers are
+made by a kiss. It was on that dark and cold December night, amid the
+bitter wailing of the tocsin, that Miette and Silvere exchanged one of
+those kisses that bring all the heart's blood to the lips.
+
+They remained silent, close to one another. A gentle glow soon
+penetrated them, languor overcame them, and steeped them in feverish
+drowsiness. They were quite warm at last, and lights seemed to flit
+before their closed eyelids, while a buzzing mounted to their brains.
+This state of painful ecstasy, which lasted some minutes, seemed
+endless to them. Then, in a kind of dream, their lips met. The kiss they
+exchanged was long and greedy. It seemed to them as if they had never
+kissed before. Yet their embrace was fraught with suffering and they
+released one another. And the chilliness of the night having cooled
+their fever, they remained in great confusion at some distance one from
+the other.
+
+Meantime the bells were keeping up their sinister converse in the
+dark abyss which surrounded the young people. Miette, trembling and
+frightened, did not dare to draw near to Silvere again. She did not even
+know if he were still there, for she could no longer hear him move. The
+stinging sweetness of their kiss still clung to their lips, to which
+passionate phrases surged, and they longed to kiss once more. But shame
+restrained them from the expression of any such desire. They felt that
+they would rather never taste that bliss again than speak of it aloud.
+If their blood had not been lashed by their rapid march, if the darkness
+had not offered complicity, they would, for a long time yet, have
+continued kissing each other on the cheeks like old playfellows.
+Feelings of modesty were coming to Miette. She remembered Justin's
+coarseness. A few hours previously she had listened, without a blush,
+to that fellow who called her a shameless girl. She had wept without
+understanding his meaning, she had wept simply because she guessed that
+what he spoke of must be base. Now that she was becoming a woman, she
+wondered in a last innocent transport whether that kiss, whose burning
+smart she could still feel, would not perhaps suffice to cover her with
+the shame to which her cousin had referred. Thereupon she was seized
+with remorse, and burst into sobs.
+
+"What is the matter; why are you crying?" asked Silvere in an anxious
+voice.
+
+"Oh, leave me," she faltered, "I do not know."
+
+Then in spite of herself, as it were, she continued amidst her tears:
+"Ah! what an unfortunate creature I am! When I was ten years old
+people used to throw stones at me. To-day I am treated as the vilest of
+creatures. Justin did right to despise me before everybody. We have been
+doing wrong, Silvere."
+
+The young man, quite dismayed, clasped her in his arms again, trying
+to console her. "I love you," he whispered, "I am your brother. Why
+say that we have been doing wrong? We kissed each other because we were
+cold. You know very well that we used to kiss each other every evening
+before separating."
+
+"Oh! not as we did just now," she whispered. "It must be wrong, for a
+strange feeling came over me. The men will laugh at me now as I pass,
+and they will be right in doing so. I shall not be able to defend
+myself."
+
+The young fellow remained silent, unable to find a word to calm the
+agitation of this big child, trembling at her first kiss of love. He
+clasped her gently, imagining that he might calm her by his embrace.
+She struggled, however, and continued: "If you like, we will go away; we
+will leave the province. I can never return to Plassans; my uncle would
+beat me; all the townspeople would point their fingers at me--" And
+then, as if seized with sudden irritation, she added: "But no! I am
+cursed! I forbid you to leave aunt Dide to follow me. You must leave me
+on the highway."
+
+"Miette, Miette!" Silvere implored; "don't talk like that."
+
+"Yes. I want to please you. Be reasonable. They have turned me out like
+a vagabond. If I went back with you, you would always be fighting for my
+sake, and I don't want that."
+
+At this the young man again pressed a kiss upon her lips, murmuring:
+"You shall be my wife, and nobody will then dare to hurt you."
+
+"Oh! please, I entreat you!" she said, with a stifled cry; "don't kiss
+me so. You hurt me."
+
+Then, after a short silence: "You know quite well that I cannot be your
+wife now. We are too young. You would have to wait for me, and meanwhile
+I should die of shame. You are wrong in protesting; you will be forced
+to leave me in some corner."
+
+At this Silvere, his fortitude exhausted, began to cry. A man's sobs
+are fraught with distressing hoarseness. Miette, quite frightened as
+she felt the poor fellow shaking in her arms, kissed him on the face,
+forgetting she was burning her lips. But it was all her fault. She was
+a little simpleton to have let a kiss upset her so completely. She
+now clasped her lover to her bosom as if to beg forgiveness for having
+pained him. These weeping children, so anxiously clasping one another,
+made the dark night yet more woeful than before. In the distance, the
+bells continued to complain unceasingly in panting accents.
+
+"It is better to die," repeated Silvere, amidst his sobs; "it is better
+to die."
+
+"Don't cry; forgive me," stammered Miette. "I will be brave; I will do
+all you wish."
+
+When the young man had dried his tears: "You are right," he said; "we
+cannot return to Plassans. But the time for cowardice has not yet come.
+If we come out of the struggle triumphant, I will go for aunt Dide, and
+we will take her ever so far away with us. If we are beaten----"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"If we are beaten?" repeated Miette, softly.
+
+"Then be it as God wills!" continued Silvere, in a softer voice. "I most
+likely shall not be there. You will comfort the poor woman. That would
+be better."
+
+"Ah! as you said just now," the young girl murmured, "it would be better
+to die."
+
+At this longing for death they tightened their embrace. Miette relied
+upon dying with Silvere; he had only spoken of himself, but she felt
+that he would gladly take her with him into the earth. They would there
+be able to love each other more freely than under the sun. Aunt
+Dide would die likewise and join them. It was, so to say, a rapid
+presentiment, a desire for some strange voluptuousness, to which
+Heaven, by the mournful accents of the tocsin, was promising early
+gratification. To die! To die! The bells repeated these words with
+increasing passion, and the lovers yielded to the calls of the darkness;
+they fancied they experienced a foretaste of the last sleep, in the
+drowsiness into which they again sank, whilst their lips met once more.
+
+Miette no longer turned away. It was she, now, who pressed her lips to
+Silvere's, who sought with mute ardour for the delight whose stinging
+smart she had not at first been able to endure. The thought of
+approaching death had excited her; she no longer felt herself blushing,
+but hung upon her love, while he in faltering voice repeated: "I love
+you! I love you!"
+
+But at this Miette shook her head, as if to say it was not true. With
+her free and ardent nature she had a secret instinct of the meaning and
+purposes of life, and though she was right willing to die she would fain
+have known life first. At last, growing calmer, she gently rested her
+head on the young man's shoulder, without uttering a word. Silvere
+kissed her again. She tasted those kisses slowly, seeking their meaning,
+their hidden sweetness. As she felt them course through her veins,
+she interrogated them, asking if they were all love, all passion. But
+languor at last overcame her, and she fell into gentle slumber. Silvere
+had enveloped her in her pelisse, drawing the skirt around himself at
+the same time. They no longer felt cold. The young man rejoiced to find,
+from the regularity of her breathing, that the girl was now asleep;
+this repose would enable them to proceed on their way with spirit. He
+resolved to let her slumber for an hour. The sky was still black, and
+the approach of day was but faintly indicated by a whitish line in the
+east. Behind the lovers there must have been a pine wood whose musical
+awakening it was that the young man heard amidst the morning breezes.
+And meantime the wailing of the bells grew more sonorous in the
+quivering atmosphere, lulling Miette's slumber even as it had
+accompanied her passionate fever.
+
+Until that troublous night, these young people had lived through one
+of those innocent idylls that blossom among the toiling masses, those
+outcasts and folks of simple mind amidst whom one may yet occasionally
+find amours as primitive as those of the ancient Greek romances.
+
+Miette had been scarcely nine years old at the time when her father was
+sent to the galleys for shooting a gendarme. The trial of Chantegreil
+had remained a memorable case in the province. The poacher boldly
+confessed that he had killed the gendarme, but he swore that the latter
+had been taking aim at him. "I only anticipated him," he said, "I
+defended myself; it was a duel, not a murder." He never desisted from
+this line of argument. The presiding Judge of the Assizes could not make
+him understand that, although a gendarme has the right to fire upon a
+poacher, a poacher has no right to fire upon a gendarme. Chantegreil
+escaped the guillotine, owing to his obviously sincere belief in his own
+innocence, and his previous good character. The man wept like a child
+when his daughter was brought to him prior to his departure for Toulon.
+The little thing, who had lost her mother in her infancy, dwelt at this
+time with her grandfather at Chavanoz, a village in the passes of the
+Seille. When the poacher was no longer there, the old man and the
+girl lived upon alms. The inhabitants of Chavanoz, all sportsmen and
+poachers, came to the assistance of the poor creatures whom the convict
+had left behind him. After a while, however, the old man died of grief,
+and Miette, left alone by herself, would have had to beg on the high
+roads, if the neighbours had not remembered that she had an aunt at
+Plassans. A charitable soul was kind enough to take her to this aunt,
+who did not, however, receive her very kindly.
+
+Eulalie Chantegreil, the spouse of _meger_ Rebufat, was a big, dark,
+stubborn creature, who ruled the home. She led her husband by the noise,
+said the people of the Faubourg of Plassans. The truth was, Rebufat,
+avaricious and eager for work and gain, felt a sort of respect for this
+big creature, who combined uncommon vigour with strict sobriety and
+economy.
+
+Thanks to her, the household thrived. The _meger_ grumbled one evening
+when, on returning home from work, he found Miette installed there. But
+his wife closed his mouth by saying in her gruff voice: "Bah, the little
+thing's strongly built, she'll do for a servant; we'll keep her and save
+wages."
+
+This calculation pleased Rebufat. He went so far as to feel the little
+thing's arms, and declared with satisfaction that she was sturdy for her
+age. Miette was then nine years old. From the very next day he made use
+of her. The work of the peasant-woman in the South of France is much
+lighter than in the North. One seldom sees them employed in digging the
+ground, carrying loads, or doing other kinds of men's work. They bind
+sheaves, gather olives and mulberry leaves; perhaps their most laborious
+work is that of weeding. Miette worked away willingly. Open-air life
+was her delight, her health. So long as her aunt lived she was always
+smiling. The good woman, in spite of her roughness, at last loved her
+as her own child; she forbade her doing the hard work which her husband
+sometimes tried to force upon her, saying to the latter:
+
+"Ah! you're a clever fellow! You don't understand, you fool, that if you
+tire her too much to-day, she won't be able to do anything to-morrow!"
+
+This argument was decisive. Rebufat bowed his head, and carried the load
+which he had desired to set on the young girl's shoulders.
+
+The latter would have lived in perfect happiness under the secret
+protection of her aunt Eulalie, but for the teasing of her cousin, who
+was then a lad of sixteen, and employed his idle hours in hating and
+persecuting her. Justin's happiest moments were those when by means of
+some gross falsehood he succeeded in getting her scolded. Whenever he
+could tread on her feet, or push her roughly, pretending not to have
+seen her, he laughed and felt the delight of those crafty folks who
+rejoice at other people's misfortunes. Miette, however, would stare at
+him with her large black childish eyes gleaming with anger and silent
+scorn, which checked the cowardly youngster's sneers. In reality he was
+terribly afraid of his cousin.
+
+The young girl was just attaining her eleventh year when her aunt
+Eulalie suddenly died. From that day everything changed in the house.
+Rebufat gradually come to treat her like a farm-labourer. He overwhelmed
+her with all sorts of rough work, and made use of her as a beast of
+burden. She never even complained, however, thinking that she had a debt
+of gratitude to repay him. In the evening, when she was worn out with
+fatigue, she mourned for her aunt, that terrible woman whose latent
+kindliness she now realised. However, it was not the hard work that
+distressed her, for she delighted in her strength, and took a pride in
+her big arms and broad shoulders. What distressed her was her uncle's
+distrustful surveillance, his continual reproaches, and the irritated
+employer-like manner he assumed towards her. She had now become a
+stranger in the house. Yet even a stranger would not have been so badly
+treated as she was. Rebufat took the most unscrupulous advantage of
+this poor little relative, whom he pretended to keep out of charity. She
+repaid his harsh hospitality ten times over with her work, and yet never
+a day passed but he grudged her the bread she ate. Justin especially
+excelled in wounding her. Since his mother had been dead, seeing her
+without a protector, he had brought all his evil instincts into play in
+trying to make the house intolerable to her. The most ingenious torture
+which he invented was to speak to Miette of her father. The poor girl,
+living away from the world, under the protection of her aunt, who had
+forbidden any one ever to mention the words "galleys" or "convict"
+before her, hardly understood their meaning. It was Justin who explained
+it to her by relating, in his own manner, the story of the murder of the
+gendarme, and Chantegreil's conviction. There was no end to the horrible
+particulars he supplied: the convicts had a cannonball fastened to one
+ankle by a chain, they worked fifteen hours a day, and all died under
+their punishment; their prison, too, was a frightful place, the horrors
+of which he described minutely. Miette listened to him, stupefied, her
+eyes full of tears. Sometimes she was roused to sudden violence, and
+Justin quickly retired before her clenched fists. However, he took a
+savage delight in thus instructing her as to the nature of prison
+life. When his father flew into a passion with the child for any little
+negligence, he chimed in, glad to be able to insult her without danger.
+And if she attempted to defend herself, he would exclaim: "Bah! bad
+blood always shows itself. You'll end at the galleys like your father."
+
+At this Miette sobbed, stung to the heart, powerless and overwhelmed
+with shame.
+
+She was already growing to womanhood at this period. Of precocious
+nature, she endured her martyrdom with extraordinary fortitude. She
+rarely gave way, excepting when her natural pride succumbed to her
+cousin's outrages. Soon even, she was able to bear, without a tear, the
+incessant insults of this cowardly fellow, who ever watched her while he
+spoke, for fear lest she should fly at his face. Then, too, she learnt
+to silence him by staring at him fixedly. She had several times felt
+inclined to run away from the Jas-Meiffren; but she did not do so,
+as her courage could not brook the idea of confessing that she was
+vanquished by the persecution she endured. She certainly earned her
+bread, she did not steal the Rebufats' hospitality; and this conviction
+satisfied her pride. So she remained there to continue the struggle,
+stiffening herself and living on with the one thought of resistance. Her
+plan was to do her work in silence, and revenge herself for all harsh
+treatment by mute contempt. She knew that her uncle derived too much
+advantage from her to listen readily to the insinuations of Justin,
+who longed to get her turned out of doors. And in a defiant spirit she
+resolved that she would not go away of her own accord.
+
+Her continuous voluntary silence was full of strange fancies. Passing
+her days in the enclosure, isolated from all the world, she formed ideas
+for herself which would have strangely shocked the good people of the
+Faubourg. Her father's fate particularly occupied her thoughts. All
+Justin's abuse recurred to her; and she ended by accepting the charge
+of murder, saying to herself, however, that her father had done well
+to kill the gendarme who had tried to kill him. She had learnt the real
+story from a labourer who had worked for a time at the Jas-Meiffren.
+From that moment, on the few occasions when she went out, she no longer
+even turned if the ragamuffins of the Faubourg followed her, crying:
+"Hey! La Chantegreil!"
+
+She simply hastened her steps homeward, with lips compressed, and black,
+fierce eyes. Then after shutting the gate, she perhaps cast one long
+glance at the gang of urchins. She would have become vicious, have
+lapsed into fierce pariah savagery, if her childishness had not
+sometimes gained the mastery. Her extreme youth brought her little
+girlish weaknesses which relieved her. She would then cry with shame for
+herself and her father. She would hide herself in a stable so that she
+might sob to her heart's content, for she knew that, if the others saw
+her crying, they would torment her all the more. And when she had wept
+sufficiently, she would bathe her eyes in the kitchen, and then again
+subside into uncomplaining silence. It was not interest alone, however,
+which prompted her to hide herself; she carried her pride in her
+precocious strength so far that she was unwilling to appear a child. In
+time she would have become very unhappy. Fortunately she was saved by
+discovering the latent tenderness of her loving nature.
+
+The well in the yard of the house occupied by aunt Dide and Silvere was
+a party-well. The wall of the Jas-Meiffren cut it in halves. Formerly,
+before the Fouques' property was united to the neighbouring estate, the
+market-gardeners had used this well daily. Since the transfer of the
+Fouques' ground, however, as it was at some distance from the outhouses,
+the inmates of the Jas, who had large cisterns at their disposal, did
+not draw a pail of water from it in a month. On the other side, one
+could hear the grating of the pulley every morning when Silvere drew the
+water for aunt Dide.
+
+One day the pulley broke. The young wheelwright made a good strong one
+of oak, and put it up in the evening after his day's work. To do this
+he had to climb upon the wall. When he had finished the job he remained
+resting astride the coping, and surveyed with curiosity the large
+expanse of the Jas-Meiffren. At last a peasant-girl, who was weeding the
+ground a few feet from him, attracted his attention. It was in July, and
+the air was broiling, although the sun had already sank to the horizon.
+The peasant-girl had taken off her jacket. In a white bodice, with a
+coloured neckerchief tied over her shoulders, and the sleeves of her
+chemise turned up as far as her elbows, she was squatting amid the folds
+of her blue cotton skirt, which was secured to a pair of braces crossed
+behind her back. She crawled about on her knees as she pulled up the
+tares and threw them into a basket. The young man could only see her
+bare, sun-tanned arms stretching out right and left to seize some
+overlooked weed. He followed this rapid play of her arms complacently,
+deriving a singular pleasure from seeing them so firm and quick. The
+young person had slightly raised herself on noticing that he was
+no longer at work, but had again lowered her head before he could
+distinguish her features. This shyness kept him in suspense. Like an
+inquisitive lad he wondered who this weeder could be, and while he
+lingered there, whistling and beating time with a chisel, the latter
+suddenly slipped out of his hand. It fell into the Jas-Meiffren,
+striking the curb of the well, and then bounding a few feet from the
+wall. Silvere looked at it, leaning forward and hesitating to get over.
+But the peasant-girl must have been watching the young man askance, for
+she jumped up without saying anything, picked up the chisel, and handed
+it to Silvere, who then perceived that she was a mere child. He was
+surprised and rather intimidated. The young girl raised herself towards
+him in the red glare of the sunset. The wall at this spot was low, but
+nevertheless too high for her to reach him. So he bent low over the
+coping, while she still raised herself on tiptoes. They did not speak,
+but looked at each other with an air of smiling confusion. The young man
+would indeed have liked to keep the girl in that position. She turned to
+him a charming head, with handsome black eyes, and red lips, which quite
+astonished and stirred him. He had never before seen a girl so near;
+he had not known that lips and eyes could be so pleasant to look at.
+Everything about the girl seemed to possess a strange fascination for
+him--her coloured neckerchief, her white bodice, her blue cotton skirt
+hanging from braces which stretched with the motion of her shoulders.
+Then his glance glided along the arm which was handing him the tool; as
+far as the elbow this arm was of a golden brown, as though clothed with
+sun-burn; but higher up, in the shadow of the tucked-up sleeve, Silvere
+perceived a bare, milk-white roundness. At this he felt confused;
+however, he leant further over, and at last managed to grasp the chisel.
+The little peasant-girl was becoming embarrassed. Still they remained
+there, smiling at each other, the child beneath with upturned face, and
+the lad half reclining on the coping of the wall. They could not part
+from each other. So far they had not exchanged a word, and Silvere even
+forgot to say, "Thank you."
+
+"What's your name?" he asked.
+
+"Marie," replied the peasant-girl; "but everybody calls me Miette."
+
+Again she raised herself slightly, and in a clear voice inquired in her
+turn: "And yours?"
+
+"My name is Silvere," the young workman replied.
+
+A pause ensued, during which they seemed to be listening complacently to
+the music of their names.
+
+"I'm fifteen years old," resumed Silvere. "And you?"
+
+"I!" said Miette; "oh, I shall be eleven on All Saints' Day."
+
+The young workman made a gesture of surprise. "Ah! really!" he said,
+laughing, "and to think I took you for a woman! You've such big arms."
+
+She also began to laugh, as she lowered her eyes to her arms. Then they
+ceased speaking. They remained for another moment gazing and smiling at
+each other. And finally, as Silvere seemingly had no more questions to
+ask her, Miette quietly withdrew and went on plucking her weeds, without
+raising her head. The lad for his part remained on the wall for a while.
+The sun was setting; a stream of oblique rays poured over the yellow
+soil of the Jas-Meiffren, which seemed to be all ablaze--one would have
+said that a fire was running along the ground--and, in the midst of the
+flaming expanse, Silvere saw the little stooping peasant-girl, whose
+bare arms had resumed their rapid motion. The blue cotton skirt was
+now becoming white; and rays of light streamed over the child's
+copper-coloured arms. At last Silvere felt somewhat ashamed of remaining
+there, and accordingly got off the wall.
+
+In the evening, preoccupied with his adventure, he endeavoured to
+question aunt Dide. Perhaps she would know who this Miette was who had
+such black eyes and such red lips. But, since she had lived in the house
+in the alley, the old woman had never once given a look behind the wall
+of the little yard. It was, to her, like an impassable rampart, which
+shut off her past. She did not know--she did not want to know--what
+there might now be on the other side of that wall, in that old enclosure
+of the Fouques, where she had buried her love, her heart and her flesh.
+As soon as Silvere began to question her she looked at him with childish
+terror. Was he, then, going to stir up the ashes of those days now dead
+and gone, and make her weep like her son Antoine had done?
+
+"I don't know," she said in a hasty voice; "I no longer go out, I never
+see anybody."
+
+Silvere waited the morrow with considerable impatience. And as soon
+as he got to his master's workshop, he drew his fellow-workmen into
+conversation. He did not say anything about his interview with Miette;
+but spoke vaguely of a girl whom he had seen from a distance in the
+Jas-Meiffren.
+
+"Oh! that's La Chantegreil!" cried one of the workmen.
+
+There was no necessity for Silvere to question them further, for they
+told him the story of the poacher Chantegreil and his daughter Miette,
+with that unreasoning spite which is felt for social outcasts. The girl,
+in particular, they treated in a foul manner; and the insulting gibe
+of "daughter of a galley-slave" constantly rose to their lips like an
+incontestable reason for condemning the poor, dear innocent creature to
+eternal disgrace.
+
+However, wheelwright Vian, an honest, worthy fellow, at last silenced
+his men.
+
+"Hold your tongues, you foul mouths!" he said, as he let fall the
+shaft of a cart that he had been examining. "You ought to be ashamed of
+yourselves for being so hard upon the child. I've seen her, the little
+thing looks a very good girl. Besides, I'm told she doesn't mind work,
+and already does as much as any woman of thirty. There are some lazy
+fellows here who aren't a match for her. I hope, later on, that she'll
+get a good husband who'll stop this evil talk."
+
+Silvere, who had been chilled by the workmen's gross jests and insults,
+felt tears rise to his eyes at the last words spoken by Vian. However,
+he did not open his lips. He took up his hammer, which he had laid down
+near him, and began with all his might to strike the nave of a wheel
+which he was binding with iron.
+
+In the evening, as soon as he had returned home from the workshop, he
+ran to the wall and climbed upon it. He found Miette engaged upon the
+same labour as the day before. He called her. She came to him, with her
+smile of embarrassment, and the charming shyness of a child who from
+infancy had grown up in tears.
+
+"You're La Chantegreil, aren't you?" he asked her, abruptly.
+
+She recoiled, she ceased smiling, and her eyes turned sternly black,
+gleaming with defiance. So this lad was going to insult her, like the
+others! She was turning her back upon him, without giving an answer,
+when Silvere, perplexed by her sudden change of countenance, hastened to
+add: "Stay, I beg you--I don't want to pain you--I've got so many things
+to tell you!"
+
+She turned round, still distrustful. Silvere, whose heart was full, and
+who had resolved to relieve it, remained for a moment speechless, not
+knowing how to continue, for he feared lest he should commit a fresh
+blunder. At last he put his whole heart in one phrase: "Would you like
+me to be your friend?" he said, in a voice full of emotion. And as
+Miette, in surprise, raised her eyes, which were again moist and
+smiling, he continued with animation: "I know that people try to vex
+you. It's time to put a stop to it. I will be your protector now. Shall
+I?"
+
+The child beamed with delight. This proffered friendship roused her from
+all her evil dreams of taciturn hatred. Still she shook her head and
+answered: "No, I don't want you to fight on my account. You'd have
+too much to do. Besides which, there are persons from whom you cannot
+protect me."
+
+Silvere wished to declare that he would defend her against the whole
+world, but she closed his mouth with a coaxing gesture, as she added: "I
+am satisfied to have you as a friend."
+
+They then conversed together for a few minutes, lowering their voices as
+much as possible. Miette spoke to Silvere of her uncle and her cousin.
+For all the world she would not have liked them to catch him astride
+the coping of the wall. Justin would be implacable with such a weapon
+against her. She spoke of her misgivings with the fright of a schoolgirl
+on meeting a friend with whom her mother has forbidden her to associate.
+Silvere merely understood, however, that he would not be able to see
+Miette at his pleasure. This made him very sad. Still, he promised that
+he would not climb upon the wall any more. They were both endeavouring
+to find some expedient for seeing each other again, when Miette suddenly
+begged him to go away; she had just caught sight of Justin, who was
+crossing the grounds in the direction of the wall. Silvere quickly
+descended. When he was in the little yard again, he remained by the wall
+to listen, irritated by his flight. After a few minutes he ventured to
+climb again and cast a glance into the Jas-Meiffren, but he saw Justin
+speaking with Miette, and quickly withdrew his head. On the following
+day he could see nothing of his friend, not even in the distance; she
+must have finished her work in that part of the Jas. A week passed in
+this fashion, and the young people had no opportunity of exchanging a
+single word. Silvere was in despair; he thought of boldly going to the
+Rebufats to ask for Miette.
+
+The party-well was a large one, but not very deep. On either side of
+the wall the curb formed a large semicircle. The water was only ten or
+twelve feet down at the utmost. This slumbering water reflected the two
+apertures of the well, two half-moons between which the shadow of the
+wall cast a black streak. On leaning over, one might have fancied in the
+vague light that the half-moons were two mirrors of singular clearness
+and brilliance. Under the morning sunshine, when the dripping of the
+ropes did not disturb the surface of the water, these mirrors, these
+reflections of the heavens, showed like white patches on the green
+water, and in them the leaves of the ivy which had spread along the wall
+over the well were repeated with marvellous exactness.
+
+One morning, at an early hour, Silvere, as he came to draw water for
+aunt Dide, bent over the well mechanically, just as he was taking hold
+of the rope. He started, and then stood motionless, still leaning over.
+He had fancied that he could distinguish in the well the face of a young
+girl who was looking at him with a smile; however, he had shaken the
+rope, and the disturbed water was now but a dim mirror that no longer
+reflected anything clearly. Silvere, who did not venture to stir, and
+whose heart beat rapidly, then waited for the water to settle. As
+its ripples gradually widened and died away, he perceived the image
+reappearing. It oscillated for a long time, with a swing which lent
+a vague, phantom-like grace to its features, but at last it remained
+stationary. It was the smiling countenance of Miette, with her head
+and shoulders, her coloured neckerchief, her white bodice, and her blue
+braces. Silvere next perceived his own image in the other mirror. Then,
+knowing that they could see each other, they nodded their heads. For
+the first moment, they did not even think of speaking. At last they
+exchanged greetings.
+
+"Good morning, Silvere."
+
+"Good morning, Miette."
+
+They were surprised by the strange sound of their voices, which became
+singularly soft and sweet in that damp hole. The sound seemed, indeed,
+to come from a distance, like the soft music of voices heard of an
+evening in the country. They understood that it would suffice to speak
+in a whisper in order to hear each other. The well echoed the faintest
+breath. Leaning over its brink, they conversed while gazing at one
+another's reflection. Miette related how sad she had been the last week.
+She was now working at the other end of the Jas, and could only get out
+early in the morning. Then she made a pout of annoyance which Silvere
+distinguished perfectly, and to which he replied by nodding his head
+with an air of vexation. They were exchanging all those gestures and
+facial expressions that speech entails. They cared but little for the
+wall which separated them now that they could see each other in those
+hidden depths.
+
+"I knew," continued Miette, with a knowing look, "that you came here to
+draw water every morning at the same hour. I can hear the grating of the
+pulley from the house. So I made an excuse, I pretended that the water
+in this well boiled the vegetables better. I thought that I might come
+here every morning to draw water at the same time as you, so as to say
+good morning to you without anyone suspecting it."
+
+She smiled innocently, as though well pleased with her device, and
+ended by saying: "But I did not imagine we should see each other in the
+water."
+
+It was, in fact, this unhoped-for pleasure which so delighted them. They
+only spoke to see their lips move, so greatly did this new frolic amuse
+their childish natures. And they resolved to use all means in their
+power to meet here every morning. When Miette had said that she must go
+away, she told Silvere that he could draw his pail of water. But he did
+not dare to shake the rope; Miette was still leaning over--he could see
+her smiling face, and it was too painful to him to dispel that smile. As
+he slightly stirred his pail, the water murmured, and the smile faded.
+Then he stopped, seized with a strange fear; he fancied that he had
+vexed her and made her cry. But the child called to him, "Go on! go on!"
+with a laugh which the echo prolonged and rendered more sonorous. She
+herself then nosily sent down a pail. There was a perfect tempest.
+Everything disappeared under the black water. And Silvere made up his
+mind to fill two pitchers, while listening to the retreating steps of
+Miette on the other side of the wall.
+
+From that day, the young people never missed their assignations. The
+slumbering water, the white mirrors in which they gazed at one another,
+imparted to their interviews a charm which long sufficed their playful,
+childish imaginations. They had no desire to see each other face to
+face: it seemed much more amusing to them to use the well as a mirror,
+and confide their morning greetings to its echo. They soon came to look
+upon the well as an old friend. They loved to bend over the motionless
+water that resembled molten silver. A greenish glimmer hovered below,
+in a mysterious half light, and seemed to change the damp hole into some
+hiding-place in the depths of a wood. They saw each other in a sort
+of greenish nest bedecked with moss, in the midst of fresh water and
+foliage. And all the strangeness of the deep spring, the hollow tower
+over which they bent, trembling with fascination, added unconfessed and
+delightful fear to their merry laughter. The wild idea occurred to them
+of going down and seating themselves on a row of large stones which
+formed a kind of circular bench at a few inches above the water. They
+would dip their feet in the latter, converse there for hours, and no
+one would think of coming to look for them in such a spot. But when
+they asked each other what there might be down there, their vague fears
+returned; they thought it quite sufficient to let their reflected images
+descend into the depths amidst those green glimmers which tinged the
+stones with strange moire-like reflections, and amidst those mysterious
+noises which rose from the dark corners. Those sounds issuing from the
+invisible made them particularly uneasy; they often fancied that voices
+were replying to their own; and then they would remain silent, detecting
+a thousand faint plaints which they could not understand. These came
+from the secret travail of the moisture, the sighs of the atmosphere,
+the drops that glided over the stones, and fell below with the
+sonorousness of sobs. They would nod affectionately to each other
+in order to reassure themselves. Thus the attraction which kept them
+leaning over the brink had a tinge of secret terror, like all poignant
+charms. But the well still remained their old friend. It was such
+an excellent pretext for meeting! Justin, who watched Miette's every
+movement, never suspected the cause of her eagerness to go and draw some
+water every morning. At times, he saw her from the distance, leaning
+over and loitering. "Ah! the lazy thing!" he muttered; "how fond she is
+of dawdling about!" How could he suspect that, on the other side of the
+wall, there was a wooer contemplating the girl's smile in the water, and
+saying to her: "If that red-haired donkey Justin should illtreat you,
+just tell me of it, and he shall hear from me!"
+
+This amusement lasted for more than a month. It was July then; the
+mornings were sultry; the sun shone brightly, and it was quite a
+pleasure to come to that damp spot. It was delightful to feel the cold
+breath of the well on one's face, and make love amidst this spring water
+while the skies were kindling their fires. Miette would arrive out of
+breath after crossing the stubble fields; as she ran along, her hair
+fell down over her forehead and temples; and it was with flushed face
+and dishevelled locks that she would lean over, shaking with laughter,
+almost before she had had time to set her pitcher down. Silvere, who
+was almost always the first at the well, felt, as he suddenly saw her
+smiling face in the water, as keen a joy as he would have experienced
+had she suddenly thrown herself into his arms at the bend of a pathway.
+Around them the radiant morning hummed with mirth; a wave of warm light,
+sonorous with the buzzing of insects, beat against the old wall, the
+posts, and the curbstone. They, however, no longer saw the shower of
+morning sunshine, nor heard the thousand sounds rising from the ground;
+they were in the depths of their green hiding-place, under the earth, in
+that mysterious and awesome cavity, and quivered with pleasure as they
+lingered there enjoying its fresh coolness and dim light.
+
+On some mornings, Miette, who by nature could not long maintain a
+contemplative attitude, began to tease; she would shake the rope, and
+make drops of water fall in order to ripple the mirrors and deface the
+reflections. Silvere would then entreat her to remain still; he, whose
+fervour was deeper than hers, knew no keener pleasure than that of
+gazing at his love's image reflected so distinctly in every feature.
+But she would not listen to him; she would joke and feign a rough old
+bogey's voice, to which the echo imparted a raucous melodiousness.
+
+"No, no," she would say in chiding fashion; "I don't love you to-day!
+I'm making faces at you; see how ugly I am."
+
+And she laughed at seeing the fantastic forms which their spreading
+faces assumed as they danced upon the disturbed water.
+
+One morning she got angry in real earnest. She did not find Silvere at
+the trysting-place, and waited for him for nearly a quarter of an hour,
+vainly making the pulley grate. She was just about to depart in a rage
+when he arrived. As soon as she perceived him she let a perfect tempest
+loose in the well, shook her pail in an irritated manner, and made the
+blackish water whirl and splash against the stones. In vain did Silvere
+try to explain that aunt Dide had detained him. To all his excuses she
+replied: "You've vexed me; I don't want to see you."
+
+The poor lad, in despair, vainly questioned that sombre cavity, now so
+full of lamentable sounds, where, on other days, such a bright vision
+usually awaited him amid the silence of the stagnant water. He had to go
+away without seeing Miette. On the morrow, arriving before the time,
+he gazed sadly into the well, hearing nothing, and thinking that the
+obstinate girl would not come, when she, who was already on the other
+side slyly watching his arrival, bent over suddenly with a burst of
+laughter. All was at once forgotten.
+
+In this wise the well was the scene of many a little drama and comedy.
+That happy cavity, with its gleaming mirrors and musical echoes, quickly
+ripened their love. They endowed it with such strange life, so filled it
+with their youthful love, that, long after they had ceased to come and
+lean over the brink, Silvere, as he drew water every morning, would
+fancy he could see Miette's smiling face in the dim light that still
+quivered with the joy they had set there.
+
+That month of playful love rescued Miette from her mute despair. She
+felt a revival of her affections, her happy childish carelessness, which
+had been held in check by the hateful loneliness in which she lived.
+The certainty that she was loved by somebody, and that she was no longer
+alone in the world, enabled her to endure the persecutions of Justin
+and the Faubourg urchins. A song of joy, whose glad notes drowned their
+hootings, now sounded in her heart. She thought of her father with
+tender compassion, and did not now so frequently yield to dreams of
+bitter vengeance. Her dawning love cooled her feverish broodings
+like the fresh breezes of the dawn. At the same time she acquired the
+instinctive cunning of a young girl in love. She felt that she must
+maintain her usual silent and rebellious demeanour if she were to escape
+Justin's suspicions. But, in spite of her efforts, her eyes retained a
+sweet unruffled expression when the lad bullied her; she was no longer
+able to put on her old black look of indignant anger. One morning he
+heard her humming to herself at breakfast-time.
+
+"You seem very gay, Chantegreil!" he said to her suspiciously, glancing
+keenly at her from his lowering eyes. "I bet you've been up to some of
+your tricks again!"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, but she trembled inwardly; and she did all
+she could to regain her old appearance of rebellious martyrdom. However,
+though Justin suspected some secret happiness, it was long before he was
+able to discover how his victim had escaped him.
+
+Silvere, on his side, enjoyed profound happiness. His daily meetings
+with Miette made his idle hours pass pleasantly away. During his
+long silent companionship with aunt Dide, he recalled one by one his
+remembrances of the morning, revelling in their most trifling details.
+From that time forward, the fulness of his heart cloistered him yet more
+in the lonely existence which he had adopted with his grandmother. He
+was naturally fond of hidden spots, of solitary retirement, where he
+could give himself up to his thoughts. At this period already he had
+eagerly begun to read all the old odd volumes which he could pick up at
+brokers' shops in the Faubourg, and which were destined to lead him to
+a strange and generous social religion and morality. His
+reading--ill-digested and lacking all solid foundation--gave him
+glimpses of the world's vanities and pleasures, especially with regard
+to women, which would have seriously troubled his mind if his heart
+had not been contented. When Miette came, he received her at first as
+a companion, then as the joy and ambition of his life. In the evening,
+when he had retired to the little nook where he slept, and hung his lamp
+at the head of his strap-bedstead, he would find Miette on every page of
+the dusty old volume which he had taken at random from a shelf above his
+head and was reading devoutly. He never came across a young girl, a good
+and beautiful creature, in his reading, without immediately identifying
+her with his sweetheart. And he would set himself in the narrative as
+well. If he were reading a love story, it was he who married Miette at
+the end, or died with her. If, on the contrary, he were perusing some
+political pamphlet, some grave dissertation on social economy, works
+which he preferred to romances, for he had that singular partiality for
+difficult subjects which characterises persons of imperfect scholarship,
+he still found some means of associating her with the tedious themes
+which frequently he could not even understand. For instance, he tried
+to persuade himself that he was learning how to be good and kind to her
+when they were married. He thus associated her with all his visionary
+dreamings. Protected by the purity of his affection against the
+obscenity of certain eighteenth-century tales which fell into his hands,
+he found particular pleasure in shutting himself up with her in those
+humanitarian Utopias which some great minds of our own time, infatuated
+by visions of universal happiness have imagined. Miette, in his mind,
+became quite essential to the abolition of pauperism and the definitive
+triumph of the principles of the Revolution. There were nights of
+feverish reading, when his mind could not tear itself from his book,
+which he would lay down and take up at least a score of times, nights
+of voluptuous weariness which he enjoyed till daybreak like some secret
+orgie, cramped up in that tiny room, his eyes troubled by the flickering
+yellow light, while he yielded to the fever of insomnia and schemed
+out new social schemes of the most absurdly ingenuous nature, in which
+woman, always personified by Miette, was worshipped by the nations on
+their knees.
+
+He was predisposed to Utopian ideas by certain hereditary influences;
+his grandmother's nervous disorders became in him so much chronic
+enthusiasm, striving after everything that was grandiose and impossible.
+His lonely childhood, his imperfect education, had developed his natural
+tendencies in a singular manner. However, he had not yet reached the age
+when the fixed idea plants itself in a man's mind. In the morning, after
+he had dipped his head in a bucket of water, he remembered his thoughts
+and visions of the night but vaguely; nothing remained of his dreams
+save a childlike innocence, full of trustful confidence and yearning
+tenderness. He felt like a child again. He ran to the well, solely
+desirous of meeting his sweetheart's smile, and tasting the delights
+of the radiant morning. And during the day, when thoughts of the future
+sometimes made him silent and dreamy, he would often, prompted by some
+sudden impulse, spring up and kiss aunt Dide on both cheeks, whereat the
+old woman would gaze at him anxiously, perturbed at seeing his eyes so
+bright, and gleaming with a joy which she thought she could divine.
+
+At last, as time went on, Miette and Silvere began to tire of only
+seeing each other's reflection. The novelty of their play was gone, and
+now they began to dream of keener pleasures than the well could afford
+them. In this longing for reality which came upon them, there was the
+wish to see each other face to face, to run through the open fields, and
+return out of breath with their arms around each other's waist, clinging
+closely together in order that they might the better feel each other's
+love. One morning Silvere spoke of climbing over the wall, and walking
+in the Jas with Miette. But the child implored him not to perpetrate
+such folly, which would place her at Justin's mercy. He then promised to
+seek some other means.
+
+The wall in which the well was set made a sudden bend a few paces
+further on, thereby forming a sort of recess, where the lovers would be
+free from observation, if they were to take shelter there. The question
+was how to reach this recess. Silvere could no longer entertain the idea
+of climbing over, as Miette had appeared so afraid. He secretly thought
+of another plan. The little door which Macquart and Adelaide had set up
+one night long years previously had remained forgotten in this remote
+corner. The owner of the Jas-Meiffren had not even thought of blocking
+it up. Blackened by damp and green with moss, its lock and hinges eaten
+away with rust, it looked like a part of the old wall. Doubtless the
+key was lost; the grass growing beside the lower boards, against which
+slight mounds had formed, amply proved that no one had passed that way
+for many a long year. However, it was the lost key that Silvere hoped to
+find. He knew with what devotion his aunt Dide allowed the relics of the
+past to lie rotting wherever they might be. He searched the house for a
+week without any result, and went stealthily night by night to see if
+he had at last put his hand on the right key during the daytime. In this
+way he tried more than thirty keys which had doubtless come from the old
+property of the Fouques, and which he found all over the place, against
+the walls, on the floors, and at the bottom of drawers. He was becoming
+disheartened, when all at once he found the precious key. It was simply
+tied by a string to the street door latch-key, which always remained in
+the lock. It had hung there for nearly forty years. Aunt Dide must every
+day have touched it with her hand, without ever making up her mind to
+throw it away, although it could now only carry her back sorrowfully
+into the past. When Silvere had convinced himself that it really opened
+the little door, he awaited the ensuing day, dreaming of the joyful
+surprise which he was preparing for Miette. He had not told her for what
+he had been searching.
+
+On the morrow, as soon as he heard the girl set her pitcher down, he
+gently opened the door, sweeping away with a push the tall weeds which
+covered the threshold. Stretching out his head, he saw Miette leaning
+over the brink of the well, looking into the water, absorbed in
+expectation. Thereupon, in a couple of strides, he reached the recess
+formed by the wall, and thence called, "Miette! Miette!" in a soft
+voice, which made her tremble. She raised her head, thinking he was on
+the coping of the wall. But when she saw him in the Jas, at a few steps
+from her, she gave a faint cry of surprise, and ran up to him. They took
+each other's hand, and looked at one another, delighted to be so near,
+thinking themselves far handsomer like this, in the warm sunshine. It
+was the middle of August, the Feast of the Assumption. In the
+distance, the bells were pealing in the limpid atmosphere that so often
+accompanies great days of festival, an atmosphere full of bright gaiety.
+
+"Good morning, Silvere!"
+
+"Good morning, Miette!"
+
+The voices in which they exchanged their morning greetings sounded
+strange to them. They knew only the muffled accents transmitted by the
+echo of the well. And now their voices seemed to them as clear as the
+notes of a lark. And ah! how delightful it was in that warm corner, in
+that holiday atmosphere! They still held each other's hands. Silvere
+leaning against the wall, Miette with her figure slightly thrown
+backwards. They were about to tell each other all the soft things which
+they had not dared to confide to the reverberations of the well, when
+Silvere, hearing a slight noise, started, and, turning pale, dropped
+Miette's hands. He had just seen aunt Dide standing before him erect and
+motionless on the threshold of the doorway.
+
+The grandmother had come to the well by chance. And on perceiving, in
+the old black wall, the white gap formed by the doorway which Silvere
+had left wide open, she had experienced a violent shock. That open gap
+seemed to her like a gulf of light violently illumining her past. She
+once more saw herself running to the door amidst the morning brightness,
+and crossing the threshold full of the transports of her nervous love.
+And Macquart was there awaiting her. She hung upon his neck and pressed
+against his bosom, whilst the rising sun, following her through the
+doorway, which she had left open in her hurry, enveloped them with
+radiance. It was a sudden vision which roused her cruelly from the
+slumber of old age, like some supreme chastisement, and awakened a
+multitude of bitter memories within her. Had the well, had the entire
+wall, disappeared beneath the earth, she would not have been more
+stupefied. She had never thought that this door would open again. In her
+mind it had been walled up ever since the hour of Macquart's death. And
+amidst her amazement she felt angry, indignant with the sacrilegious
+hand that had penetrated this violation, and left that white open space
+agape like a yawning tomb. She stepped forward, yielding to a kind of
+fascination, and halted erect within the framework of the door.
+
+Then she gazed out before her, with a feeling of dolorous surprise. She
+had certainly been told that the old enclosure of the Fouques was
+now joined to the Jas-Meiffren; but she would never have thought the
+associations of her youth could have vanished so completely. It seemed
+as though some tempest had carried off everything that her memory
+cherished. The old dwelling, the large kitchen-garden, the beds of green
+vegetables, all had disappeared. Not a stone, not a tree of former times
+remained. And instead of the scene amidst which she had grown up, and
+which in her mind's eye she had seen but yesterday, there lay a strip
+of barren soil, a broad patch of stubbles, bare like a desert.
+Henceforward, when, on closing her eyes, she might try to recall the
+objects of the past, that stubble would always appear to her like a
+shroud of yellowish drugget spread over the soil, in which her youth lay
+buried. In the presence of that unfamiliar commonplace scene her heart
+died, as it were, a second time. Now all was completely, finally ended.
+She was robbed even of her dreams of the past. Then she began to regret
+that she had yielded to the attraction of that white opening, of that
+doorway gaping upon the days which were now for ever lost.
+
+She was about to retire and close the accursed door, without even
+seeking to discover who had opened it, when she suddenly perceived
+Miette and Silvere. And the sight of the two young lovers, who, with
+hanging heads, nervously awaited her glance, kept her on the threshold,
+quivering with yet keener pain. She now understood all. To the very end,
+she was destined to picture herself there, clasped in Macquart's arms
+in the bright sunshine. Yet a second time had the door served as an
+accomplice. Where love had once passed, there was it passing again.
+'Twas the eternal and endless renewal, with present joys and future
+tears. Aunt Dide could only see the tears, and a sudden presentiment
+showed her the two children bleeding, with stricken hearts. Overwhelmed
+by the recollection of her life's sorrow, which this spot had just
+awakened within her, she grieved for her dear Silvere. She alone was
+guilty; if she had not formerly had that door made Silvere would not
+now be at a girl's feet in that lonely nook, intoxicating himself with a
+bliss which prompts and angers the jealousy of death.
+
+After a brief pause, she went up to the young man, and, without a
+word, took him by the hand. She might, perhaps, have left them there,
+chattering under the wall, had she not felt that she herself was, to
+some extent, an accomplice in this fatal love. As she came back with
+Silvere, she turned on hearing the light footfall of Miette, who, having
+quickly taken up her pitcher, was hastening across the stubble. She was
+running wildly, glad at having escaped so easily. And aunt Dide smiled
+involuntarily as she watched her bound over the ground like a runaway
+goat.
+
+"She is very young," she murmured, "she has plenty of time."
+
+She meant, no doubt, that Miette had plenty of time before her to suffer
+and weep. Then, turning her eyes upon Silvere, who with a glance of
+ecstasy had followed the child as she ran off in the bright sunshine,
+she simply added: "Take care, my boy; this sort of thing sometimes kills
+one."
+
+These were the only words she spoke with reference to the incident which
+had awakened all the sorrows that lay slumbering in the depths of her
+being. Silence had become a real religion with her. When Silvere came
+in, she double-locked the door, and threw the key down the well. In
+this wise she felt certain that the door would no longer make her an
+accomplice. She examined it for a moment, glad at seeing it reassume its
+usual gloomy, barrier-like aspect. The tomb was closed once more; the
+white gap was for ever boarded up with that damp-stained mossy timber
+over which the snails had shed silvery tears.
+
+In the evening, aunt Dide had another of those nervous attacks which
+came upon her at intervals. At these times she would often talk aloud
+and ramble incoherently, as though she was suffering from nightmare.
+That evening, while Silvere held her down on her bed, he heard her
+stammer in a panting voice such words as "custom-house officer," "fire,"
+and "murder." And she struggled, and begged for mercy, and dreamed aloud
+of vengeance. At last, as always happened when the attack was drawing to
+a close, she fell into a strange fright, her teeth chattering, while her
+limbs quivered with abject terror. Finally, after raising herself into
+a sitting posture, she cast a haggard look of astonishment at one and
+another corner of the room, and then fell back upon the pillow, heaving
+deep sighs. She was, doubtless, a prey to some hallucination. However,
+she drew Silvere to her bosom, and seemed to some degree to recognise
+him, though ever and anon she confused him with someone else.
+
+"There they are!" she stammered. "Do you see? They are going to take
+you, they will kill you again. I don't want them to--Send them away,
+tell them I won't; tell them they are hurting me, staring at me like
+that--"
+
+Then she turned to the wall, to avoid seeing the people of whom she was
+talking. And after an interval of silence, she continued: "You are near
+me, my child, aren't you? You must not leave me. I thought I was going
+to die just now. We did wrong to make an opening in the wall. I have
+suffered ever since. I was certain that door would bring us further
+misfortune--Oh! the innocent darlings, what sorrow! They will kill them
+as well, they will be shot down like dogs."
+
+Then she relapsed into catalepsy; she was no longer even aware of
+Silvere's presence. Suddenly, however, she sat up, and gazed at the foot
+of her bed, with a fearful expression of terror.
+
+"Why didn't you send them away?" she cried, hiding her white head
+against the young man's breast. "They are still there. The one with the
+gun is making signs that he is going to fire."
+
+Shortly afterwards she fell into the heavy slumber that usually
+terminated these attacks. On the next day, she seemed to have forgotten
+everything. She never again spoke to Silvere of the morning on which she
+had found him with a sweetheart behind the wall.
+
+The young people did not see each other for a couple of days. When
+Miette ventured to return to the well, they resolved not to recommence
+the pranks which had upset aunt Dide. However, the meeting which had
+been so strangely interrupted had filled them with a keen desire to
+meet again in some happy solitude. Weary of the delights afforded by the
+well, and unwilling to vex aunt Dide by seeing Miette again on the other
+side of the wall, Silvere begged the girl to meet him somewhere else.
+She required but little pressing; she received the proposal with the
+willing smile of a frolicsome lass who has no thought of evil. What
+made her smile was the idea of outwitting that spy of a Justin. When the
+lovers had come to agreement, they discussed at length the choice of a
+favourable spot. Silvere proposed the most impossible trysting-places.
+He planned regular journeys, and even suggested meeting the young girl
+at midnight in the barns of the Jas-Meiffren. Miette, who was much more
+practical, shrugged her shoulders, declaring she would try to think of
+some spot. On the morrow, she tarried but a minute at the well, just
+time enough to smile at Silvere and tell him to be at the far end of the
+Aire Saint-Mittre at about ten o'clock in the evening. One may be
+sure that the young man was punctual. All day long Miette's choice had
+puzzled him, and his curiosity increased when he found himself in the
+narrow lane formed by the piles of planks at the end of the plot of
+ground. "She will come this way," he said to himself, looking along the
+road to Nice. But he suddenly heard a loud shaking of boughs behind
+the wall, and saw a laughing head, with tumbled hair, appear above the
+coping, whilst a joyous voice called out: "It's me!"
+
+And it was, in fact, Miette, who had climbed like an urchin up one of
+the mulberry-trees, which even nowadays still border the boundary of
+the Jas-Meiffren. In a couple of leaps she reached the tombstone, half
+buried in the corner at the end of the lane. Silvere watched her descend
+with delight and surprise, without even thinking of helping her. As soon
+as she had alighted, however, he took both her hands in his, and said:
+"How nimble you are!--you climb better than I do."
+
+It was thus that they met for the first time in that hidden corner where
+they were destined to pass such happy hours. From that evening forward
+they saw each other there nearly every night. They now only used the
+well to warn each other of unforeseen obstacles to their meetings, of
+a change of time, and of all the trifling little news that seemed
+important in their eyes, and allowed of no delay. It sufficed for the
+one who had a communication to make to set the pulley in motion, for its
+creaking noise could be heard a long way off. But although, on certain
+days, they summoned one another two or three times in succession to
+speak of trifles of immense importance, it was only in the evening in
+that lonely little passage that they tasted real happiness. Miette was
+exceptionally punctual. She fortunately slept over the kitchen, in a
+room where the winter provisions had been kept before her arrival, and
+which was reached by a little private staircase. She was thus able to go
+out at all hours, without being seen by Rebufat or Justin. Moreover, if
+the latter should ever see her returning she intended to tell him some
+tale or other, staring at him the while with that stern look which
+always reduced him to silence.
+
+Ah! how happy those warm evenings were! The lovers had now reached the
+first days of September, a month of bright sunshine in Provence. It was
+hardly possible for them to join each other before nine o'clock. Miette
+arrived from over the wall, in surmounting which she soon acquired such
+dexterity that she was almost always on the old tombstone before Silvere
+had time to stretch out his arms. She would laugh at her own strength
+and agility as, for a moment, with her hair in disorder, she remained
+almost breathless, tapping her skirt to make it fall. Her sweetheart
+laughingly called her an impudent urchin. In reality he much admired
+her pluck. He watched her jump over the wall with the complacency of an
+older brother supervising the exercises of a younger one. Indeed,
+there was yet much that was childlike in their growing love. On several
+occasions they spoke of going on some bird's-nesting expedition on the
+banks of the Viorne.
+
+"You'll see how I can climb," said Miette proudly. "When I lived at
+Chavanoz, I used to go right up to the top of old Andre's walnut-trees.
+Have you ever taken a magpie's nest? It's very difficult!"
+
+Then a discussion arose as to how one ought to climb a poplar. Miette
+stated her opinions, with all a boy's confidence.
+
+However, Silvere, clasping her round the knees, had by this time lifted
+her to the ground, and then they would walk on, side by side, their arms
+encircling each other's waist. Though they were but children, fond of
+frolicsome play and chatter, and knew not even how to speak of love, yet
+they already partook of love's delight. It sufficed them to press each
+other's hands. Ignorant whither their feelings and their hearts were
+drifting, they did not seek to hide the blissful thrills which the
+slightest touch awoke. Smiling, often wondering at the delight they
+experienced, they yielded unconsciously to the sweetness of new feelings
+even while talking, like a couple of schoolboys, of the magpies' nests
+which are so difficult to reach.
+
+And as they talked they went down the silent path, between the piles of
+planks and the wall of the Jas-Meiffren. They never went beyond the end
+of that narrow blind alley, but invariably retraced their steps. They
+were quite at home there. Miette, happy in the knowledge of their
+safe concealment, would often pause and congratulate herself on her
+discovery.
+
+"Wasn't I lucky!" she would gleefully exclaim. "We might walk a long way
+without finding such a good hiding-place."
+
+The thick grass muffled the noise of their footsteps. They were steeped
+in gloom, shut in between two black walls, and only a strip of dark sky,
+spangled with stars, was visible above their heads. And as they stepped
+along, pacing this path which resembled a dark stream flowing beneath
+the black star-sprent sky, they were often thrilled with undefinable
+emotion, and lowered their voices, although there was nobody to hear
+them. Surrendering themselves as it were to the silent waves of night,
+over which they seemed to drift, they recounted to one another, with
+lovers' rapture, the thousand trifles of the day.
+
+At other times, on bright nights, when the moonlight clearly outlined
+the wall and the timber-stacks, Miette and Silvere would romp about with
+all the carelessness of children. The path stretched out, alight with
+white rays, and retaining no suggestion of secrecy, and the young people
+laughed and chased each other like boys at play, at times venturing even
+to climb upon the piles of timber. Silvere was occasionally obliged to
+frighten Miette by telling her that Justin might be watching her from
+over the wall. Then, quite out of breath, they would stroll side
+by side, and plan how they might some day go for a scamper in the
+Sainte-Claire meadows, to see which of the two would catch the other.
+
+Their growing love thus accommodated itself to dark and clear nights.
+Their hearts were ever on the alert, and a little shade sufficed to
+sweeten the pleasure of their embrace, and soften their laughter. This
+dearly-loved retreat--so gay in the moonshine, so strangely thrilling
+in the gloom--seemed an inexhaustible source of both gaiety and silent
+emotion. They would remain there until midnight, while the town dropped
+off to sleep and the lights in the windows of the Faubourg went out one
+by one.
+
+They were never disturbed in their solitude. At that late hour children
+were no longer playing at hide-and-seek behind the piles of planks.
+Occasionally, when the young couple heard sounds in the distance--the
+singing of some workmen as they passed along the road, or conversation
+coming from the neighbouring sidewalks--they would cast stealthy glances
+over the Aire Saint-Mittre. The timber-yard stretched out, empty of
+all, save here and there some falling shadows. On warm evenings they
+sometimes caught glimpses of loving couples there, and of old men
+sitting on the big beams by the roadside. When the evenings grew colder,
+all that they ever saw on the melancholy, deserted spot was some gipsy
+fire, before which, perhaps, a few black shadows passed to and fro.
+Through the still night air words and sundry faint sounds were wafted to
+them, the "good-night" of a townsman shutting his door, the closing of a
+window-shutter, the deep striking of a clock, all the parting sounds of
+a provincial town retiring to rest. And when Plassans was slumbering,
+they might still hear the quarrelling of the gipsies and the crackling
+of their fires, amidst which suddenly rose the guttural voices of girls
+singing in a strange tongue, full of rugged accents.
+
+But the lovers did not concern themselves much with what went on in the
+Aire Saint-Mittre; they hastened back into their own little privacy, and
+again walked along their favourite retired path. Little did they care
+for others, or for the town itself! The few planks which separated them
+from the wicked world seemed to them, after a while, an insurmountable
+rampart. They were so secluded, so free in this nook, situated though it
+was in the very midst of the Faubourg, at only fifty paces from the Rome
+Gate, that they sometimes fancied themselves far away in some hollow of
+the Viorne, with the open country around them. Of all the sounds
+which reached them, only one made them feel uneasy, that of the clocks
+striking slowly in the darkness. At times, when the hour sounded, they
+pretended not to hear, at other moments they stopped short as if to
+protest. However, they could not go on for ever taking just another
+ten minutes, and so the time came when they were at last obliged to say
+good-night. Then Miette reluctantly climbed upon the wall again. But all
+was not ended yet, they would linger over their leave-taking for a
+good quarter of an hour. When the girl had climbed upon the wall, she
+remained there with her elbows on the coping, and her feet supported
+by the branches of the mulberry-tree, which served her as a ladder.
+Silvere, perched on the tombstone, was able to take her hands again, and
+renew their whispered conversation. They repeated "till to-morrow!" a
+dozen times, and still and ever found something more to say. At last
+Silvere began to scold.
+
+"Come, you must get down, it is past midnight."
+
+But Miette, with a girl's waywardness, wished him to descend first; she
+wanted to see him go away. And as he persisted in remaining, she ended
+by saying abruptly, by way of punishment, perhaps: "Look! I am going to
+jump down."
+
+Then she sprang from the mulberry-tree, to the great consternation of
+Silvere. He heard the dull thud of her fall, and the burst of laughter
+with which she ran off, without choosing to reply to his last adieu. For
+some minutes he would remain watching her vague figure as it disappeared
+in the darkness, then, slowly descending, he regained the Impasse
+Saint-Mittre.
+
+During two years they came to the path every day. At the time of their
+first meetings they enjoyed some beautiful warm nights. They might
+almost have fancied themselves in the month of May, the month of
+seething sap, when a pleasant odour of earth and fresh leaves pervades
+the warm air. This _renouveau_, this second spring, was like a gift from
+heaven which allowed them to run freely about the path and tighten their
+bonds of affection.
+
+At last came rain, and snow, and frost. But the disagreeableness of
+winter did not keep them away. Miette put on her long brown pelisse, and
+they both made light of the bad weather. When the nights were dry and
+clear, and puffs of wind raised the hoar frost beneath their footsteps
+and fell on their faces like taps from a switch, they refrained from
+sitting down. They walked quickly to and fro, wrapped in the pelisse,
+their cheeks blue with cold, and their eyes watering; and they laughed
+heartily, quite quivering with mirth, at the rapidity of their
+march through the freezing atmosphere. One snowy evening they amused
+themselves with making an enormous snowball, which they rolled into
+a corner. It remained there fully a month, which caused them fresh
+astonishment each time they met in the path. Nor did the rain frighten
+them. They came to see each other through the heaviest downpours, though
+they got wet to the skin in doing so. Silvere would hasten to the spot,
+saying to himself that Miette would never be mad enough to come; and
+when Miette arrived, he could not find it in his heart to scold her.
+In reality he had been expecting her. At last he sought some shelter
+against the inclement weather, knowing quite well that they would
+certainly come out, however much they might promise one another not to
+do so when it rained. To find a shelter he only had to disturb one of
+the timber-stacks; pulling out several pieces of wood and arranging them
+so that they would move easily, in such wise that he could displace and
+replace them at pleasure.
+
+From that time forward the lovers possessed a sort of low and narrow
+sentry-box, a square hole, which was only big enough to hold them
+closely squeezed together on a beam which they had left at the bottom
+of the little cell. Whenever it rained, the first to arrive would take
+shelter here; and on finding themselves together again they would listen
+with delight to the rain beating on the piles of planks. Before and
+around them, through the inky blackness of the night, came a rush of
+water which they could not see, but which resounded continuously like
+the roar of a mob. They were nevertheless quite alone, as though they
+had been at the end of the world or beneath the sea. They never felt so
+happy, so isolated, as when they found themselves in that timber-stack,
+in the midst of some such deluge which threatened to carry them away at
+every moment. Their bent knees almost reached the opening, and though
+they thrust themselves back as far as possible, the spray of the rain
+bathed their cheeks and hands. The big drops, falling from the planks,
+splashed at regular intervals at their feet. The brown pelisse kept them
+warm, and the nook was so small that Miette was compelled to sit almost
+on Silvere's knees. And they would chatter and then lapse into silence,
+overcome with languor, lulled by the warmth of their embrace and the
+monotonous beating of the shower. For hours and hours they remained
+there, with that same enjoyment of the rain which prompts little
+children to stroll along solemnly in stormy weather with open umbrellas
+in their hands. After a while they came to prefer the rainy evenings,
+though their parting became more painful on those occasions. Miette was
+obliged to climb the wall in the driving rain, and cross the puddles of
+the Jas-Meiffren in perfect darkness. As soon as she had left his arms,
+she was lost to Silvere amidst the gloom and the noise of the falling
+water. In vain he listened, he was deafened, blinded. However, the
+anxiety caused by this brusque separation proved an additional charm,
+and, until the morrow, each would be uneasy lest anything should have
+befallen the other in such weather, when one would not even have turned
+a dog out of doors. Perchance one of them had slipped, or lost the way;
+such were the mutual fears which possessed them, and rendered their next
+interview yet more loving.
+
+At last the fine days returned, April brought mild nights, and the grass
+in the green alley sprouted up wildly. Amidst the stream of life flowing
+from heaven and rising from the earth, amidst all the intoxication of
+the budding spring-time, the lovers sometimes regretted their winter
+solitude, the rainy evenings and the freezing nights, during which they
+had been so isolated so far from all human sounds. At present the days
+did not draw to a close soon enough, and they grew impatient with the
+lagging twilights. When the night had fallen sufficiently for Miette to
+climb upon the wall without danger of being seen, and they could at last
+glide along their dear path, they no longer found there the solitude
+congenial to their shy, childish love. People began to flock to the Aire
+Saint-Mittre, the urchins of the Faubourg remained there, romping about
+the beams, and shouting, till eleven o'clock at night. It even happened
+occasionally that one of them would go and hide behind the piles of
+timber, and assail Miette and Silvere with boyish jeers. The fear of
+being surprised amidst that general awakening of life as the season
+gradually grew warmer, tinged their meetings with anxiety.
+
+Then, too, they began to stifle in the narrow lane. Never had it
+throbbed with so ardent a quiver; never had that soil, in which the
+last bones left of the former cemetery lay mouldering, sent forth such
+oppressive and disturbing odours. They were still too young to relish
+the voluptuous charm of that secluded nook which the springtide filled
+with fever. The grass grew to their knees, they moved to and fro with
+difficulty, and certain plants, when they crushed their young shoots,
+sent forth a pungent odour which made them dizzy. Then, seized with
+strange drowsiness and staggering with giddiness, their feet as
+though entangled in the grass, they would lean against the wall, with
+half-closed eyes, unable to move a step. All the soft languor from the
+skies seemed to penetrate them.
+
+With the petulance of beginners, impatient and irritated at this sudden
+faintness, they began to think their retreat too confined, and decided
+to ramble through the open fields. Every evening came fresh frolics.
+Miette arrived with her pelisse; they wrapped themselves in it, and
+then, gliding past the walls, reached the high-road and the open
+country, the broad fields where the wind rolled with full strength,
+like the waves at high tide. And here they no longer felt stifled; they
+recovered all their youthfulness, free from the giddy intoxication born
+of the tall rank weeds of the Aire Saint-Mittre.
+
+During two summers they rambled through the district. Every rock ledge,
+every bed of turf soon knew them; there was not a cluster of trees, a
+hedge, or a bush, which did not become their friend. They realized their
+dreams: they chased each other wildly over the meadows of Sainte-Claire,
+and Miette ran so well that Silvere had to put his best foot forward
+to catch her. Sometimes, too, they went in search of magpies' nests.
+Headstrong Miette, wishing to show how she had climbed trees at
+Chavanoz, would tie up her skirts with a piece of string, and ascend the
+highest poplars; while Silvere stood trembling beneath, with his arms
+outstretched to catch her should she slip. These frolics so turned them
+from thoughts of love that one evening they almost fought like a couple
+of lads coming out of school. But there were nooks in the country side
+which were not healthful for them. So long as they rambled on they were
+continually shouting with laughter, pushing and teasing one another.
+They covered miles and miles of ground; sometimes they went as far as
+the chain of the Garrigues, following the narrowest paths and cutting
+across the fields. The region belonged to them; they lived there as in a
+conquered territory, enjoying all that the earth and the sky could give
+them. Miette, with a woman's lack of scruple, did not hesitate to pluck
+a bunch of grapes, or a cluster of green almonds, from the vines
+and almond-trees whose boughs brushed her as she passed; and at this
+Silvere, with his absolute ideas of honesty, felt vexed, although he
+did not venture to find fault with the girl, whose occasional sulking
+distressed him. "Oh! the bad girl!" thought he, childishly exaggerating
+the matter, "she would make a thief of me." But Miette would thereupon
+force his share of the stolen fruit into his mouth. The artifices he
+employed, such as holding her round the waist, avoiding the fruit trees,
+and making her run after him when they were near the vines, so as
+to keep her out of the way of temptation, quickly exhausted his
+imagination. At last there was nothing to do but to make her sit
+down. And then they again began to experience their former stifling
+sensations. The gloomy valley of the Viorne particularly disturbed
+them. When weariness brought them to the banks of the torrent, all their
+childish gaiety seemed to disappear. A grey shadow floated under the
+willows, like the scented crape of a woman's dress. The children felt
+this crape descend warm and balmy from the voluptuous shoulders of the
+night, kiss their temples and envelop them with irresistible languor. In
+the distance the crickets chirped in the meadows of Sainte-Claire,
+and at their feet the ripples of the Viorne sounded like lovers'
+whispers--like the soft cooing of humid lips. The stars cast a rain of
+sparkles from the slumbering heavens. And, amidst the throbbing of the
+sky, the waters and the darkness, the children reposing on the grass
+sought each other's hands and pressed them.
+
+Silvere, who vaguely understood the danger of these ecstasies, would
+sometimes jump up and propose to cross over to one of the islets left
+by the low water in the middle of the stream. Both ventured forth, with
+bare feet. Miette made light of the pebbles, refusing Silvere's help,
+and it once happened that she sat down in the very middle of the stream;
+however, there were only a few inches of water, and she escaped with
+nothing worse than a wet petticoat. Then, having reached the island,
+they threw themselves on the long neck of sand, their eyes on a level
+with the surface of the river whose silvery scales they saw quivering
+far away in the clear night. Then Miette would declare that they were
+in a boat, that the island was certainly floating; she could feel it
+carrying her along. The dizziness caused by the rippling of the water
+amused them for a moment, and they lingered there, singing in an
+undertone, like boatmen as they strike the water with their oars. At
+other times, when the island had a low bank, they sat there as on a bed
+of verdure, and let their bare feet dangle in the stream. And then for
+hours they chatted together, swinging their legs, and splashing the
+water, delighted to set a tempest raging in the peaceful pool whose
+freshness cooled their fever.
+
+These footbaths suggested a dangerous idea to Miette. Nothing would
+satisfy her but a complete bath. A little above the bridge over the
+Viorne there was a very convenient spot, she said, barely three or four
+feet deep and quite safe; the weather was so warm, it would be so nice
+to have the water up to their necks; besides which, she had been dying
+to learn to swim for such a long time, and Silvere would be able to
+teach her. Silvere raised objections; it was not prudent at night time;
+they might be seen; perhaps, too they might catch cold. However, nothing
+could turn Miette from her purpose. One evening she came with a bathing
+costume which she had made out of an old dress; and Silvere was then
+obliged to go back to aunt Dide's for his bathing drawers. Their
+proceedings were characterised by great simplicity. Miette disrobed
+herself beneath the shade of a stout willow; and when both were ready,
+enveloped in the blackness which fell from the foliage around them, they
+gaily entered the cool water, oblivious of all previous scruples, and
+knowing in their innocence no sense of shame. They remained in the river
+quite an hour, splashing and throwing water into each other's faces;
+Miette now getting cross, now breaking out into laughter, while Silvere
+gave her her first lesson, dipping her head under every now and again so
+as to accustom her to the water. As long as he held her up she threw her
+arms and legs about violently, thinking she was swimming; but directly
+he let her go, she cried and struggled, striking the water with her
+outstretched hands, clutching at anything she could get hold of, the
+young man's waist or one of his wrists. She leant against him for an
+instant, resting, out of breath and dripping with water; and then she
+cried: "Once more; but you do it on purpose, you don't hold me."
+
+At the end of a fortnight, the girl was able to swim. With her limbs
+moving freely, rocked by the stream, playing with it, she yielded form
+and spirit alike to its soft motion, to the silence of the heavens,
+and the dreaminess of the melancholy banks. As she and Silvere swam
+noiselessly along, she seemed to see the foliage of both banks thicken
+and hang over them, draping them round as with a huge curtain. When
+the moon shone, its rays glided between the trunks of the trees, and
+phantoms seemed to flit along the river-side in white robes. Miette felt
+no nervousness, however, only an indefinable emotion as she followed
+the play of the shadows. As she went onward with slower motion, the calm
+water, which the moon converted into a bright mirror, rippled at
+her approach like a silver-broidered cloth; eddies widened and lost
+themselves amid the shadows of the banks, under the hanging willow
+branches, whence issued weird, plashing sounds. At every stroke she
+perceived recesses full of sound; dark cavities which she hastened
+to pass by; clusters and rows of trees, whose sombre masses were
+continually changing form, stretching forward and apparently following
+her from the summit of the bank. And when she threw herself on her back,
+the depths of the heavens affected her still more. From the fields, from
+the distant horizon, which she could no longer see, a solemn lingering
+strain, composed of all the sighs of the night, was wafted to her.
+
+She was not of a dreamy nature; it was physically, through the medium of
+each of her senses, that she derived enjoyment from the sky, the river,
+and the play of light and shadow. The river, in particular, bore her
+along with endless caresses. When she swam against the current she was
+delighted to feel the stream flow rapidly against her bosom and limbs.
+She dipped herself in it yet more deeply, with the water reaching to her
+lips, so that it might pass over her shoulders, and envelop her, from
+chin to feet, with flying kisses. Then she would float, languid and
+quiescent, on the surface, whilst the ripples glided softly between her
+costume and her skin. And she would also roll over in the still pools
+like a cat on a carpet; and swim from the luminous patches where
+the moonbeams were bathing, to the dark water shaded by the foliage,
+shivering the while, as though she had quitted a sunny plain and then
+felt the cold from the boughs falling on her neck.
+
+She now remained quite silent in the water, and would not allow Silvere
+to touch her. Gliding softly by his side, she swam on with the light
+rustling of a bird flying across the copse, or else she would circle
+round him, a prey to vague disquietude which she did not comprehend.
+He himself darted quickly away if he happened to brush against her.
+The river was now but a source of enervating intoxication, voluptuous
+languor, which disturbed them strangely. When they emerged from their
+bath they felt dizzy, weary, and drowsy. Fortunately, the girl declared
+one evening that she would bathe no more, as the cold water made the
+blood run to her head. And it was in all truth and innocence that she
+said this.
+
+Then their long conversations began anew. The dangers to which the
+innocence of their love had lately been exposed had left no other trace
+in Silvere's mind than great admiration for Miette's physical strength.
+She had learned to swim in a fortnight, and often, when they raced
+together, he had seen her stem the current with a stroke as rapid as his
+own. He, who delighted in strength and bodily exercises, felt a
+thrill of pleasure at seeing her so strong, so active and adroit. He
+entertained at heart a singular admiration for her stout arms. One
+evening, after one of the first baths that had left them so playful,
+they caught each other round the waist on a strip of sand, and wrestled
+for several minutes without Silvere being able to throw Miette. At
+last, indeed, it was the young man who lost his balance, while the girl
+remained standing. Her sweetheart treated her like a boy, and it was
+those long rambles of theirs, those wild races across the meadows, those
+birds' nests filched from the tree crests, those struggles and violent
+games of one and another kind that so long shielded them and their love
+from all impurity.
+
+Then, too, apart from his youthful admiration for his sweetheart's
+dashing pluck, Silvere felt for her all the compassionate tenderness of
+a heart that ever softened towards the unfortunate. He, who could never
+see any forsaken creature, a poor man, or a child, walking barefooted
+along the dusty roads, without a throb of pity, loved Miette because
+nobody else loved her, because she virtually led an outcast's hard life.
+When he saw her smile he was deeply moved by the joy he brought her.
+Moreover, the child was a wildling, like himself, and they were of the
+same mind in hating all the gossips of the Faubourg. The dreams in which
+Silvere indulged in the daytime, while he plied his heavy hammer round
+the cartwheels in his master's shop, were full of generous enthusiasm.
+He fancied himself Miette's redeemer. All his reading rushed to his
+head; he meant to marry his sweetheart some day, in order to raise her
+in the eyes of the world. It was like a holy mission that he imposed
+upon himself, that of redeeming and saving the convict's daughter. And
+his head was so full of certain theories and arguments, that he did not
+tell himself these things in simple fashion, but became lost in perfect
+social mysticism; imagining rehabilitation in the form of an apotheosis
+in which he pictured Miette seated on a throne, at the end of the Cours
+Sauvaire, while the whole town prostrated itself before her, entreating
+her pardon and singing her praises. Happily he forgot all these fine
+things as soon as Miette jumped over the wall, and said to him on the
+high road: "Let us have a race! I'm sure you won't catch me."
+
+However, if the young man dreamt like this of the glorification of his
+sweetheart, he also showed such passion for justice that he often made
+her weep on speaking to her about her father. In spite of the softening
+effect which Silvere's friendship had had upon her, she still at times
+gave way to angry outbreaks of temper, when all the stubbornness and
+rebellion latent in her nature stiffened her with scowling eyes and
+tightly-drawn lips. She would then contend that her father had done
+quite right to kill the gendarme, that the earth belongs to everybody,
+and that one has the right to fire a gun when and where one likes.
+Thereupon Silvere, in a grave voice, explained the law to her as he
+understood it, with strange commentaries which would have startled the
+whole magistracy of Plassans. These discussions took place most often in
+some remote corner of the Sainte-Claire meadows. The grassy carpet of a
+dusky green hue stretched further than they could see, undotted even by
+a single tree, and the sky seemed colossal, spangling the bare horizon
+with the stars. It seemed to the young couple as if they were being
+rocked on a sea of verdure. Miette argued the point obstinately; she
+asked Silvere if her father should have let the gendarme kill him, and
+Silvere, after a momentary silence, replied that, in such a case, it
+was better to be the victim than the murderer, and that it was a great
+misfortune for anyone to kill a fellow man, even in legitimate defence.
+The law was something holy to him, and the judges had done right in
+sending Chantegreil to the galleys. At this the girl grew angry, and
+almost struck her sweetheart, crying out that he was as heartless as the
+rest. And as he still firmly defended his ideas of justice, she finished
+by bursting into sobs, and stammering that he was doubtless ashamed
+of her, since he was always reminding her of her father's crime. These
+discussions ended in tears, in mutual emotion. But although the child
+cried, and acknowledged that she was perhaps wrong, she still retained
+deep within her a wild resentful temper. She once related, with hearty
+laughter, that she had seen a gendarme fall off his horse and break his
+leg. Apart from this, Miette only lived for Silvere. When he asked her
+about her uncle and cousin, she replied that "She did not know;" and
+if he pressed her, fearing that they were making her too unhappy at the
+Jas-Meiffren, she simply answered that she worked hard, and that nothing
+had changed. She believed, however, that Justin had at last found out
+what made her sing in the morning, and filled her eyes with delight. But
+she added: "What does it matter? If ever he comes to disturb us we'll
+receive him in such a way that he won't be in a hurry to meddle with our
+affairs any more."
+
+Now and again the open country, their long rambles in the fresh air,
+wearied them somewhat. They then invariably returned to the Aire
+Saint-Mittre, to the narrow lane, whence they had been driven by the
+noisy summer evenings, the pungent scent of the trodden grass, all the
+warm oppressive emanations. On certain nights, however, the path proved
+cooler, and the winds freshened it so that they could remain there
+without feeling faint. They then enjoyed a feeling of delightful repose.
+Seated on the tombstone, deaf to the noise of the children and gipsies,
+they felt at home again. Silvere had on various occasions picked
+up fragments of bones, even pieces of skulls, and they were fond of
+speaking of the ancient burial-ground. It seemed to them, in their
+lively fancies, that their love had shot up like some vigorous plant in
+this nook of soil which dead men's bones had fertilised. It had grown,
+indeed, like those wild weeds, it had blossomed as blossom the poppies
+which sway like bare bleeding hearts at the slightest breeze. And
+they ended by fancying that the warm breaths passing over them, the
+whisperings heard in the gloom, the long quivering which thrilled the
+path, came from the dead folk sighing their departed passions in
+their faces, telling them the stories of their bridals, as they turned
+restlessly in their graves, full of a fierce longing to live and love
+again. Those fragments of bone, they felt convinced of it, were full of
+affection for them; the shattered skulls grew warm again by contact with
+their own youthful fire, the smallest particles surrounded them with
+passionate whispering, anxious solicitude, throbbing jealousy. And when
+they departed, the old burial-ground seemed to groan. Those weeds,
+in which their entangled feet often stumbled on sultry nights, were
+fingers, tapered by tomb life, that sprang up from the earth to detain
+them and cast them into each other's arms. That pungent and penetrating
+odour exhaled by the broken stems was the fertilising perfume, the
+mighty quintessence of life which is slowly elaborated in the grave,
+and intoxicates the lovers who wander in the solitude of the paths.
+The dead, the old departed dead, longed for the bridal of Miette and
+Silvere.
+
+They were never afraid. The sympathy which seemed to hover around them
+thrilled them and made them love the invisible beings whose soft touch
+they often imagined they could feel, like a gentle flapping of wings.
+Sometimes they were saddened by sweet melancholy, and could not
+understand what the dead desired of them. They went on basking in their
+innocent love, amidst this flood of sap, this abandoned cemetery, whose
+rich soil teemed with life, and imperiously demanded their union. They
+still remained ignorant of the meaning of the buzzing voices which they
+heard ringing in their ears, the sudden glow which sent the blood flying
+to their faces.
+
+They often questioned each other about the remains which they
+discovered. Miette, after a woman's fashion, was partial to lugubrious
+subjects. At each new discovery she launched into endless suppositions.
+If the bone were small, she spoke of some beautiful girl a prey to
+consumption, or carried off by fever on the eve of her marriage; if the
+bone were large, she pictured some big old man, a soldier or a judge,
+some one who had inspired others with terror. For a long time the
+tombstone particularly engaged their attention. One fine moonlight night
+Miette distinguished some half-obliterated letters on one side of it,
+and thereupon she made Silvere scrape the moss away with his knife. Then
+they read the mutilated inscription: "Here lieth . . . Marie . . .
+died . . ." And Miette, finding her own name on the stone, was quite
+terror-stricken. Silvere called her a "big baby," but she could not
+restrain her tears. She had received a stab in the heart, she said; she
+would soon die, and that stone was meant for her. The young man himself
+felt alarmed. However, he succeeded in shaming the child out of these
+thoughts. What! she so courageous, to dream about such trifles! They
+ended by laughing. Then they avoided speaking of it again. But in
+melancholy moments, when the cloudy sky saddened the pathway, Miette
+could not help thinking of that dead one, that unknown Marie, whose
+tomb had so long facilitated their meetings. The poor girl's bones were
+perhaps still lying there. And at this thought Miette one evening had a
+strange whim, and asked Silvere to turn the stone over to see what might
+be under it. He refused, as though it were sacrilege, and his refusal
+strengthened Miette's fancies with regard to the dear phantom which bore
+her name. She positively insisted that the girl had died young, as
+she was, and in the very midst of her love. She even began to pity the
+stone, that stone which she climbed so nimbly, and on which they had
+sat so often, a stone which death had chilled, and which their love had
+warmed again.
+
+"You'll see, this tombstone will bring us misfortune," she added. "If
+you were to die, I should come and lie here, and then I should like to
+have this stone set over my body."
+
+At this, Silvere, choking with emotion, scolded her for thinking of such
+mournful things.
+
+And so, for nearly two years, their love grew alike in the narrow
+pathway and the open country. Their idyll passed through the chilling
+rains of December and the burning solicitations of July, free from all
+touch of impurity, ever retaining the sweet charm of some old Greek
+love-tale, all the naive hesitancy of youth which desires but knows not.
+In vain did the long-departed dead whisper in their ears. They carried
+nothing away from the old cemetery but emotional melancholy and a vague
+presentiment of a short life. A voice seemed to whisper to them that
+they would depart amidst their virginal love, long ere the bridal day
+would give them wholly to each other. It was there, on the tombstone and
+among the bones that lay hidden beneath the rank grass, that they had
+first come to indulge in that longing for death, that eager desire to
+sleep together in the earth, that now set them stammering and sighing
+beside the Orcheres road, on that December night, while the two bells
+repeated their mournful warnings to one another.
+
+Miette was sleeping calmly, with her head resting on Silvere's chest
+while he mused upon their past meeting, their lovely years of unbroken
+happiness. At daybreak the girl awoke. The valley now spread out clearly
+under the bright sky. The sun was still behind the hills, but a stream
+of crystal light, limpid and cold as spring-water, flowed from the
+pale horizon. In the distance, the Viorne, like a white satin ribbon,
+disappeared among an expanse of red and yellow land. It was a boundless
+vista, with grey seas of olive-trees, and vineyards that looked like
+huge pieces of striped cloth. The whole country was magnified by the
+clearness of the atmosphere and the peaceful cold. However, sharp gusts
+of wind chilled the young people's faces. And thereupon they sprang to
+their feet, cheered by the sight of the clear morning. Their melancholy
+forebodings had vanished with the darkness, and they gazed with delight
+at the immense expanse of the plain, and listened to the tolling of the
+two bells that now seemed to be joyfully ringing in a holiday.
+
+"Ah! I've had a good sleep!" Miette cried. "I dreamt you were kissing
+me. Tell me now, did you kiss me?"
+
+"It's very possible," Silvere replied laughing. "I was not very warm. It
+is bitterly cold."
+
+"I only feel cold in the feet," Miette rejoined.
+
+"Well! let us have a run," said Silvere. "We have still two good leagues
+to go. You will get warm."
+
+Thereupon they descended the hill and ran until they reached the high
+road. When they were below they raised their heads as if to say farewell
+to that rock on which they had wept while their kisses burned their
+lips. But they did not again speak of that ardent embrace which had
+thrilled them so strongly with vague, unknown desire. Under the pretext
+of walking more quickly they did not even take each other's arm. They
+experienced some slight confusion when they looked at one another,
+though why they could not tell. Meantime the dawn was rising around
+them. The young man, who had sometimes been sent to Orcheres by his
+master, knew all the shortest cuts. Thus they walked on for more than
+two leagues, along dingle paths by the side of interminable ledges and
+walls. Now and again Miette accused Silvere of having taken her the
+wrong way; for, at times--for a quarter of an hour at a stretch--they
+lost all sight of the surrounding country, seeing above the walls and
+hedges nothing but long rows of almond-trees whose slender branches
+showed sharply against the pale sky.
+
+All at once, however, they came out just in front of Orcheres. Loud
+cries of joy, the shouting of a crowd, sounded clearly in the limpid
+air. The insurrectionary forces were only now entering the town. Miette
+and Silvere went in with the stragglers. Never had they seen such
+enthusiasm. To judge from the streets, one would have thought it was a
+procession day, when the windows are decked with the finest drapery to
+honour the passage of the Canopy. The townsfolk welcomed the insurgents
+as though they were deliverers. The men embraced them, while the women
+brought them food. Old men were to be seen weeping at the doors. And the
+joyousness was of an essentially Southern character, pouring forth in
+clamorous fashion, in singing, dancing, and gesticulation. As Miette
+passed along she was carried away by a _farandole_[*] which spread
+whirling all round the Grand' Place. Silvere followed her. His thoughts
+of death and his discouragement were now far away. He wanted to fight,
+to sell his life dearly at least. The idea of a struggle intoxicated
+him afresh. He dreamed of victory to be followed by a happy life with
+Miette, amidst the peacefulness of the universal Republic.
+
+     [*] The _farandole_ is the popular dance of Provence.
+
+The fraternal reception accorded them by the inhabitants of Orcheres
+proved to be the insurgents' last delight. They spent the day amidst
+radiant confidence and boundless hope. The prisoners, Commander
+Sicardot, Messieurs Garconnet, Peirotte and the others, who had been
+shut up in one of the rooms at the mayor's, the windows of which
+overlooked the Grand' Place, watched the _farandoles_ and wild outbursts
+of enthusiasm with surprise and dismay.
+
+"The villains!" muttered the Commander, leaning upon a window-bar, as
+though bending over the velvet-covered hand-rest of a box at a theatre:
+"To think that there isn't a battery or two to make a clean sweep of all
+that rabble!"
+
+Then he perceived Miette, and addressing himself to Monsieur Garconnet,
+he added: "Do you see, sir, that big girl in red over yonder? How
+disgraceful! They've even brought their mistresses with them. If this
+continues much longer we shall see some fine goings-on."
+
+Monsieur Garconnet shook his head, saying something about "unbridled
+passions," and "the most evil days of history." Monsieur Peirotte, as
+white as a sheet, remained silent; he only opened his lips once, to say
+to Sicardot, who was still bitterly railing: "Not so loud, sir; not so
+loud! You will get us all massacred."
+
+As a matter of fact, the insurgents treated the gentlemen with the
+greatest kindness. They even provided them with an excellent dinner in
+the evening. Such attentions, however, were terrifying to such a quaker
+as the receiver of taxes; the insurgents he thought would not treat them
+so well unless they wished to make them fat and tender for the day when
+they might wish to devour them.
+
+At dusk that day Silvere came face to face with his cousin, Doctor
+Pascal. The latter had followed the band on foot, chatting with the
+workmen who held him in the greatest respect. At first he had striven
+to dissuade them from the struggle; and then, as if convinced by their
+arguments, he had said to them with his kindly smile: "Well, perhaps you
+are right, my friends; fight if you like, I shall be here to patch up
+your arms and legs."
+
+Then, in the morning he began to gather pebbles and plants along the
+high road. He regretted that he had not brought his geologist's hammer
+and botanical wallet with him. His pockets were now so full of stones
+that they were almost bursting, while bundles of long herbs peered forth
+from the surgeon's case which he carried under his arm.
+
+"Hallo! You here, my lad?" he cried, as he perceived Silvere. "I thought
+I was the only member of the family here."
+
+He spoke these last words with a touch of irony, as if deriding the
+intrigues of his father and his uncle Antoine. Silvere was very glad
+to meet his cousin; the doctor was the only one of the Rougons who
+ever shook hands with him in the street, and showed him any sincere
+friendship. Seeing him, therefore, still covered with dust from the
+march, the young man thought him gained over to the Republican cause,
+and was much delighted thereat. He talked to the doctor, with youthful
+magniloquence, of the people's rights, their holy cause, and their
+certain triumph. Pascal smiled as he listened, and watched the youth's
+gestures and the ardent play of his features with curiosity, as though
+he were studying a patient, or analysing an enthusiasm, to ascertain
+what might be at the bottom of it.
+
+"How you run on! How you run on!" he finally exclaimed. "Ah! you are
+your grandmother's true grandson." And, in a whisper, he added, like
+some chemist taking notes: "Hysteria or enthusiasm, shameful madness
+or sublime madness. It's always those terrible nerves!" Then, again
+speaking aloud, as if summing up the matter, he said: "The family is
+complete now. It will count a hero among its members."
+
+Silvere did not hear him. He was still talking of his dear Republic.
+Miette had dropped a few paces off; she was still wrapped in her large
+red pelisse. She and Silvere had traversed the town arm-in-arm.
+The sight of this tall red girl at last puzzled Pascal, and again
+interrupting his cousin, he asked him: "Who is this child with you?"
+
+"She is my wife," Silvere gravely answered.
+
+The doctor opened his eyes wide, for he did not understand. He was very
+shy with women; however, he raised his hat to Miette as he went away.
+
+The night proved an anxious one. Forebodings of misfortune swept over
+the insurgents. The enthusiasm and confidence of the previous evening
+seemed to die away in the darkness. In the morning there were gloomy
+faces; sad looks were exchanged, followed by discouraging silence.
+Terrifying rumours were now circulating. Bad news, which the leaders
+had managed to conceal the previous evening, had spread abroad, though
+nobody in particular was known to have spoken. It was the work of
+that invisible voice, which, with a word, throws a mob into a panic.
+According to some reports Paris was subdued, and the provinces had
+offered their hands and feet, eager to be bound. And it was added that
+a large party of troops, which had left Marseilles under the command of
+Colonel Masson and Monsieur de Bleriot, the prefect of the department,
+was advancing by forced marches to disperse the insurrectionary bands.
+This news came like a thunderbolt, at once awakening rage and despair.
+These men, who on the previous evening had been all aglow with patriotic
+fever, now shivered with cold, chilled to their hearts by the shameful
+submissiveness of prostrate France. They alone, then, had had the
+courage to do their duty! And now they were to be left to perish amidst
+the general panic, the death-like silence of the country; they had
+become mere rebels, who would be hunted down like wild beasts; they,
+who had dreamed of a great war, of a whole nation in revolt, and of
+the glorious conquest of the people's rights! Miserably baffled and
+betrayed, this handful of men could but weep for their dead faith and
+their vanished dreams of justice. There were some who, while taunting
+France with her cowardice, flung away their arms, and sat down by the
+roadside, declaring that they would there await the bullets of the
+troops, and show how Republicans could die.
+
+Although these men had nothing now but death or exile before them,
+there were very few desertions from their ranks. A splendid feeling of
+solidarity kept them together. Their indignation turned chiefly against
+their leaders, who had really proved incapable. Irreparable mistakes
+had been committed; and now the insurgents, without order or discipline,
+barely protected by a few sentries, and under the command of irresolute
+men, found themselves at the mercy of the first soldiers that might
+arrive.
+
+They spent two more days at Orcheres, Tuesday and Wednesday, thus losing
+time and aggravating the situation. The general, the man with the sabre,
+whom Silvere had pointed out to Miette on the Plassans road, vacillated
+and hesitated under the terrible responsibility that weighed upon him.
+On Thursday he came to the conclusion that the position of Orcheres
+was a decidedly dangerous one; so towards one o'clock he gave orders to
+march, and led his little army to the heights of Sainte-Roure. That was,
+indeed, an impregnable position for any one who knew how to defend it.
+The houses of Sainte-Roure rise in tiers along a hill-side; behind the
+town all approach is shut off by enormous rocks, so that this kind of
+citadel can only be reached by the Nores plain, which spreads out at the
+foot of the plateau. An esplanade, converted into a public walk planted
+with magnificent elms, overlooks the plain. It was on this esplanade
+that the insurgents encamped. The hostages were imprisoned in the Hotel
+de la Mule-Blanche, standing half-way along the promenade. The night
+passed away heavy and black. The insurgents spoke of treachery. As soon
+as it was morning, however, the man with the sabre, who had neglected to
+take the simplest precautions, reviewed the troops. The contingents were
+drawn up in line with their backs turned to the plain. They presented
+a wonderful medley of costume, some wearing brown jackets, others
+dark greatcoats, and others again blue blouses girded with red sashes.
+Moreover, their arms were an equally odd collection: there were newly
+sharpened scythes, large navvies' spades, and fowling-pieces with
+burnished barrels glittering in the sunshine. And at the very moment
+when the improvised general was riding past the little army, a sentry,
+who had been forgotten in an olive-plantation, ran up gesticulating and
+shouting:
+
+"The soldiers! The soldiers!"
+
+There was indescribable emotion. At first, they thought it a false
+alarm. Forgetting all discipline, they rushed forward to the end of the
+esplanade in order to see the soldiers. The ranks were broken, and as
+the dark line of troops appeared, marching in perfect order with a long
+glitter of bayonets, on the other side of the greyish curtain of olive
+trees, there came a hasty and disorderly retreat, which sent a quiver of
+panic to the other end of the plateau. Nevertheless, the contingents
+of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx had again formed in line in
+the middle of the promenade, and stood there erect and fierce. A
+wood-cutter, who was a head taller than any of his companions, shouted,
+as he waved his red neckerchief: "To arms, Chavanoz, Graille, Poujols,
+Saint-Eutrope! To arms, Les Tulettes! To arms, Plassans!"
+
+Crowds streamed across the esplanade. The man with the sabre, surrounded
+by the folks from Faverolles, marched off with several of the country
+contingents--Vernoux, Corbiere, Marsanne, and Pruinas--to outflank the
+enemy and then attack him. Other contingents, from Valqueyras, Nazere,
+Castel-le-Vieux, Les Roches-Noires, and Murdaran, dashed to the left,
+scattering themselves in skirmishing parties over the Nores plain.
+
+And meantime the men of the towns and villages that the wood-cutter had
+called to his aid mustered together under the elms, there forming a dark
+irregular mass, grouped without regard to any of the rules of strategy,
+simply placed there like a rock, as it were, to bar the way or die. The
+men of Plassans stood in the middle of this heroic battalion. Amid the
+grey hues of the blouses and jackets, and the bluish glitter of the
+weapons, the pelisse worn by Miette, who was holding the banner with
+both hands, looked like a large red splotch--a fresh and bleeding wound.
+
+All at once perfect silence fell. Monsieur Peirotte's pale face appeared
+at a window of the Hotel de la Mule-Blanche. And he began to speak,
+gesticulating with his hands.
+
+"Go in, close the shutters," the insurgents furiously shouted; "you'll
+get yourself killed."
+
+Thereupon the shutters were quickly closed, and nothing was heard save
+the regular, rhythmical tramp of the soldiers who were drawing near.
+
+A minute, that seemed an age, went by. The troops had disappeared,
+hidden by an undulation of the ground; but over yonder, on the side of
+the Nores plain, the insurgents soon perceived the bayonets shooting
+up, one after another, like a field of steel-eared corn under the rising
+sun. At that moment Silvere, who was glowing with feverish agitation,
+fancied he could see the gendarme whose blood had stained his hands. He
+knew, from the accounts of his companions, that Rengade was not dead,
+that he had only lost an eye; and he clearly distinguished the unlucky
+man with his empty socket bleeding horribly. The keen recollection of
+this gendarme, to whom he had not given a thought since his departure
+from Plassans, proved unbearable. He was afraid that fear might get the
+better of him, and he tightened his hold on his carbine, while a mist
+gathered before his eyes. He felt a longing to discharge his gun
+and fire at the phantom of that one-eyed man so as to drive it away.
+Meantime the bayonets were still and ever slowly ascending.
+
+When the heads of the soldiers appeared on a level with the esplanade,
+Silvere instinctively turned to Miette. She stood there with flushed
+face, looking taller than ever amidst the folds of the red banner; she
+was indeed standing on tiptoes in order to see the troops, and nervous
+expectation made her nostrils quiver and her red lips part so as to
+show her white, eager, gleaming teeth. Silvere smiled at her. But he had
+scarcely turned his head when a fusillade burst out. The soldiers, who
+could only be seen from their shoulders upwards, had just fired their
+first volley. It seemed to Silvere as though a great gust of wind was
+passing over his head, while a shower of leaves, lopped off by the
+bullets, fell from the elms. A sharp sound, like the snapping of a dead
+branch, made him look to his right. Then, prone on the ground, he saw
+the big wood-cutter, he who was a head taller than the others. There was
+a little black hole in the middle of his forehead. And thereupon Silvere
+fired straight before him, without taking aim, reloaded and fired again
+like a madman or an unthinking wild beast, in haste only to kill. He
+could not even distinguish the soldiers now; smoke, resembling strips of
+grey muslin, was floating under the elms. The leaves still rained upon
+the insurgents, for the troops were firing too high. Every now and then,
+athwart the fierce crackling of the fusillade, the young man heard a
+sigh or a low rattle, and a rush was made among the band as if to make
+room for some poor wretch clutching hold of his neighbours as he fell.
+The firing lasted ten minutes.
+
+Then, between two volleys some one exclaimed in a voice of terror:
+"Every man for himself! _Sauve qui peut!_" This roused shouts and
+murmurs of rage, as if to say, "The cowards! Oh! the cowards!" sinister
+rumours were spreading--the general had fled; cavalry were sabring the
+skirmishers in the Nores plain. However, the irregular firing did not
+cease, every now and again sudden bursts of flame sped through the
+clouds of smoke. A gruff voice, the voice of terror, shouted yet louder:
+"Every man for himself! _Sauve qui peut!_" Some men took to flight,
+throwing down their weapons and leaping over the dead. The others closed
+their ranks. At last there were only some ten insurgents left. Two more
+took to flight, and of the remaining eight three were killed at one
+discharge.
+
+The two children had remained there mechanically without understanding
+anything. As the battalion diminished in numbers, Miette raised the
+banner still higher in the air; she held it in front of her with
+clenched fists as if it were a huge taper. It was completely riddled
+by bullets. When Silvere had no more cartridges left in his pocket, he
+ceased firing, and gazed at the carbine with an air of stupor. It was
+then that a shadow passed over his face, as though the flapping wings
+of some colossal bird had brushed against his forehead. And raising his
+eyes he saw the banner fall from Miette's grasp. The child, her hands
+clasped to her breast, her head thrown back with an expression of
+excruciating suffering, was staggering to the ground. She did not utter
+a single cry, but sank at last upon the red banner.
+
+"Get up; come quickly," Silvere said, in despair, as he held out his
+hand to her.
+
+But she lay upon the ground without uttering a word, her eyes wide open.
+Then he understood, and fell on his knees beside her.
+
+"You are wounded, eh? tell me? Where are you wounded?"
+
+She still spoke no word; she was stifling, and gazing at him out of her
+large eyes, while short quivers shook her frame. Then he pulled away her
+hands.
+
+"It's there, isn't it? it's there."
+
+And he tore open her bodice, and laid her bosom bare. He searched, but
+saw nothing. His eyes were brimming with tears. At last under the left
+breast he perceived a small pink hole; a single drop of blood stained
+the wound.
+
+"It's nothing," he whispered; "I'll go and find Pascal, he'll put you
+all right again. If you could only get up. Can't you move?"
+
+The soldiers were not firing now; they had dashed to the left in pursuit
+of the contingents led away by the man with the sabre. And in the centre
+of the esplanade there only remained Silvere kneeling beside Miette's
+body. With the stubbornness of despair, he had taken her in his arms. He
+wanted to set her on her feet, but such a quiver of pain came upon the
+girl that he laid her down again, and said to her entreatingly: "Speak
+to me, pray. Why don't you say something to me?"
+
+She could not; she slowly, gently shook her hand, as if to say that
+it was not her fault. Her close-pressed lips were already contracting
+beneath the touch of death. With her unbound hair streaming around her,
+and her head resting amid the folds of the blood-red banner, all her
+life now centred in her eyes, those black eyes glittering in her white
+face. Silvere sobbed. The glance of those big sorrowful eyes filled him
+with distress. He read in them bitter, immense regret for life. Miette
+was telling him that she was going away all alone, and before their
+bridal day; that she was leaving him ere she had become his wife. She
+was telling him, too, that it was he who had willed that it should
+be so, that he should have loved her as other lovers love their
+sweethearts. In the hour of her agony, amidst that stern conflict
+between death and her vigorous nature, she bewailed her fate in going
+like that to the grave. Silvere, as he bent over her, understood how
+bitter was the pang. He recalled their caresses, how she had hung round
+his neck, and had yearned for his love, but he had not understood, and
+now she was departing from him for evermore. Bitterly grieved at the
+thought that throughout her eternal rest she would remember him solely
+as a companion and playfellow, he kissed her on the bosom while his hot
+tears fell upon her lips. Those passionate kisses brought a last gleam
+of joy to Miette's eyes. They loved one another, and their idyll ended
+in death.
+
+But Silvere could not believe she was dying. "No, you will see, it will
+prove only a trifle," he declared. "Don't speak if it hurts you. Wait, I
+will raise your head and then warm you; your hands are quite frozen."
+
+But the fusillade had begun afresh, this time on the left, in the olive
+plantations. A dull sound of galloping cavalry rose from the plain.
+At times there were loud cries, as of men being slaughtered. And
+thick clouds of smoke were wafted along and hung about the elms on the
+esplanade. Silvere for his part no longer heard or saw anything. Pascal,
+who came running down in the direction of the plain, saw him stretched
+upon the ground, and hastened towards him, thinking he was wounded. As
+soon as the young man saw him, he clutched hold of him and pointed to
+Miette.
+
+"Look," he said, "she's wounded, there, under the breast. Ah! how good
+of you to come! You will save her."
+
+At that moment, however, a slight convulsion shook the dying girl. A
+pain-fraught shadow passed over her face, and as her contracted lips
+suddenly parted, a faint sigh escaped from them. Her eyes, still wide
+open, gazed fixedly at the young man.
+
+Then Pascal, who had stooped down, rose again, saying in a low voice:
+"She is dead."
+
+Dead! Silvere reeled at the sound of the word. He had been kneeling
+forward, but now he sank back, as though thrown down by Miette's last
+faint sigh.
+
+"Dead! Dead!" he repeated; "it is not true, she is looking at me. See
+how she is looking at me!"
+
+Then he caught the doctor by the coat, entreating him to remain there,
+assuring him that he was mistaken, that she was not dead, and that he
+could save her if he only would. Pascal resisted gently, saying, in his
+kindly voice: "I can do nothing for her, others are waiting for me. Let
+go, my poor child; she is quite dead."
+
+At last Silvere released his hold and again fell back. Dead! Dead! Still
+that word, which rang like a knell in his dazed brain! When he was alone
+he crept up close to the corpse. Miette still seemed to be looking
+at him. He threw himself upon her, laid his head upon her bosom, and
+watered it with his tears. He was beside himself with grief. He pressed
+his lips wildly to her, and breathed out all his passion, all his soul,
+in one long kiss, as though in the hope that it might bring her to life
+again. But the girl was turning cold in spite of his caresses. He felt
+her lifeless and nerveless beneath his touch. Then he was seized with
+terror, and with haggard face and listless hanging arms he remained
+crouching in a state of stupor, and repeating: "She is dead, yet she is
+looking at me; she does not close her eyes, she sees me still."
+
+This fancy was very sweet to him. He remained there perfectly still,
+exchanging a long look with Miette, in whose glance, deepened by death,
+he still seemed to read the girl's lament for her sad fate.
+
+In the meantime, the cavalry were still sabring the fugitives over the
+Nores plain; the cries of the wounded and the galloping of the horses
+became more distant, softening like music wafted from afar through the
+clear air. Silvere was no longer conscious of the fighting. He did
+not even see his cousin, who mounted the slope again and crossed the
+promenade. Pascal, as he passed along, picked up Macquart's carbine
+which Silvere had thrown down; he knew it, as he had seen it hanging
+over aunt Dide's chimney-piece, and he thought he might as well save it
+from the hands of the victors. He had scarcely entered the Hotel de la
+Mule-Blanche, whither a large number of the wounded had been taken, when
+a band of insurgents, chased by the soldiers like a herd of cattle, once
+more rushed into the esplanade. The man with the sabre had fled; it was
+the last contingents from the country who were being exterminated. There
+was a terrible massacre. In vain did Colonel Masson and the prefect,
+Monsieur de Bleriot, overcome by pity, order a retreat. The infuriated
+soldiers continued firing upon the mass, and pinning isolated fugitives
+to the walls with their bayonets. When they had no more enemies before
+them, they riddled the facade of the Mule-Blanche with bullets. The
+shutters flew into splinters; one window which had been left half-open
+was torn out, and there was a loud rattle of broken glass. Pitiful
+voices were crying out from within; "The prisoners! The prisoners!" But
+the troops did not hear; they continued firing. All at once Commander
+Sicardot, growing exasperated, appeared at the door, waved his arms, and
+endeavoured to speak. Monsieur Peirotte, the receiver of taxes, with his
+slim figure and scared face, stood by his side. However, another volley
+was fired, and Monsieur Peirotte fell face foremost, with a heavy thud,
+to the ground.
+
+Silvere and Miette were still looking at each other. Silvere had
+remained by the corpse, through all the fusillade and the howls of
+agony, without even turning his head. He was only conscious of the
+presence of some men around him, and, from a feeling of modesty, he drew
+the red banner over Miette's breast. Then their eyes still continued to
+gaze at one another.
+
+The conflict, however, was at an end. The death of the receiver of
+taxes had satiated the soldiers. Some of these ran about, scouring every
+corner of the esplanade, to prevent the escape of a single insurgent.
+A gendarme who perceived Silvere under the trees, ran up to him, and
+seeing that it was a lad he had to deal with, called: "What are you
+doing there, youngster?"
+
+Silvere, whose eyes were still fixed on those of Miette, made no reply.
+
+"Ah! the bandit, his hands are black with powder," the gendarme
+exclaimed, as he stooped down. "Come, get up, you scoundrel! You know
+what you've got to expect."
+
+Then, as Silvere only smiled vaguely and did not move, the other looked
+more attentively, and saw that the corpse swathed in the banner was that
+of a girl.
+
+"A fine girl; what a pity!" he muttered. "Your mistress, eh? you
+rascal!"
+
+Then he made a violent grab at Silvere, and setting him on his feet led
+him away like a dog that is dragged by one leg. Silvere submitted in
+silence, as quietly as a child. He just turned round to give another
+glance at Miette. He felt distressed at thus leaving her alone under the
+trees. For the last time he looked at her from afar. She was still lying
+there in all her purity, wrapped in the red banner, her head slightly
+raised, and her big eyes turned upward towards heaven.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+It was about five o'clock in the morning when Rougon at last ventured to
+leave his mother's house. The old woman had gone to sleep on a chair. He
+crept stealthily to the end of the Impasse Saint-Mittre. There was not a
+sound, not a shadow. He pushed on as far as the Porte de Rome. The gates
+stood wide open in the darkness that enveloped the slumbering town.
+Plassans was sleeping as sound as a top, quite unconscious, apparently,
+of the risk it was running in allowing the gates to remain unsecured.
+It seemed like a city of the dead. Rougon, taking courage, made his way
+into the Rue de Nice. He scanned from a distance the corners of each
+successive lane; and trembled at every door, fearing lest he should see
+a band of insurgents rush out upon him. However, he reached the Cours
+Sauvaire without any mishap. The insurgents seemed to have vanished in
+the darkness like a nightmare.
+
+Pierre then paused for a moment on the deserted pavement, heaving a
+deep sigh of relief and triumph. So those rascals had really abandoned
+Plassans to him. The town belonged to him now; it slept like the foolish
+thing it was; there it lay, dark and tranquil, silent and confident, and
+he had only to stretch out his hand to take possession of it. That
+brief halt, the supercilious glance which he cast over the drowsy place,
+thrilled him with unspeakable delight. He remained there, alone in the
+darkness, and crossed his arms, in the attitude of a great general on
+the eve of a victory. He could hear nothing in the distance but the
+murmur of the fountains of the Cours Sauvaire, whose jets of water fell
+into the basins with a musical plashing.
+
+Then he began to feel a little uneasy. What if the Empire should
+unhappily have been established without his aid? What if Sicardot,
+Garconnet, and Peirotte, instead of being arrested and led away by
+the insurrectionary band, had shut the rebels up in prison? A cold
+perspiration broke out over him, and he went on his way again, hoping
+that Felicite would give him some accurate information. He now pushed on
+more rapidly, and was skirting the houses of the Rue de la Banne, when a
+strange spectacle, which caught his eyes as he raised his head, riveted
+him to the ground. One of the windows of the yellow drawing-room was
+brilliantly illuminated, and, in the glare, he saw a dark form, which he
+recognized as that of his wife, bending forward, and shaking its arms in
+a violent manner. He asked himself what this could mean, but, unable to
+think of any explanation, was beginning to feel seriously alarmed, when
+some hard object bounded over the pavement at his feet. Felicite had
+thrown him the key of the cart-house, where he had concealed a supply
+of muskets. This key clearly signified that he must take up arms. So he
+turned away again, unable to comprehend why his wife had prevented him
+from going upstairs, and imagining the most horrible things.
+
+He now went straight to Roudier, whom he found dressed and ready to
+march, but completely ignorant of the events of the night. Roudier lived
+at the far end of the new town, as in a desert, whither no tidings of
+the insurgents' movements had penetrated. Pierre, however, proposed
+to him that they should go to Granoux, whose house stood on one of
+the corners of the Place des Recollets, and under whose windows the
+insurgent contingents must have passed. The municipal councillor's
+servant remained for a long time parleying before consenting to admit
+them, and they heard poor Granoux calling from the first floor in a
+trembling voice:
+
+"Don't open the door, Catherine! The streets are full of bandits."
+
+He was in his bedroom, in the dark. When he recognised his two faithful
+friends he felt relieved; but he would not let the maid bring a lamp,
+fearing lest the light might attract a bullet. He seemed to think that
+the town was still full of insurgents. Lying back on an arm-chair near
+the window, in his pants, and with a silk handkerchief round his head,
+he moaned: "Ah! my friends, if you only knew!--I tried to go to bed, but
+they were making such a disturbance! At last I lay down in my arm-chair
+here. I've seen it all, everything. Such awful-looking men; a band of
+escaped convicts! Then they passed by again, dragging brave Commander
+Sicardot, worthy Monsieur Garconnet, the postmaster, and others away
+with them, and howling the while like cannibals!"
+
+Rougon felt a thrill of joy. He made Granoux repeat to him how he had
+seen the mayor and the others surrounded by the "brigands."
+
+"I saw it all!" the poor man wailed. "I was standing behind the blind.
+They had just seized Monsieur Peirotte, and I heard him saying as he
+passed under my window: 'Gentlemen, don't hurt me!' They were certainly
+maltreating him. It's abominable, abominable."
+
+However, Roudier calmed Granoux by assuring him that the town was free.
+And the worthy gentleman began to feel quite a glow of martial ardour
+when Pierre informed him that he had come to recruit his services for
+the purpose of saving Plassans. These three saviours then took council
+together. They each resolved to go and rouse their friends, and appoint
+a meeting at the cart-shed, the secret arsenal of the reactionary
+party. Meantime Rougon constantly bethought himself of Felicite's wild
+gestures, which seemed to betoken danger somewhere. Granoux, assuredly
+the most foolish of the three, was the first to suggest that there must
+be some Republicans left in the town. This proved a flash of light,
+and Rougon, with a feeling of conviction, reflected: "There must be
+something of Macquart's doing under all this."
+
+An hour or so later the friends met again in the cart-shed, which was
+situated in a very lonely spot. They had glided stealthily from door to
+door, knocking and ringing as quietly as possible, and picking up all
+the men they could. However, they had only succeeded in collecting some
+forty, who arrived one after the other, creeping along in the dark, with
+the pale and drowsy countenances of men who had been violently startled
+from their sleep. The cart-shed, let to a cooper, was littered with old
+hoops and broken casks, of which there were piles in every corner. The
+guns were stored in the middle, in three long boxes. A taper, stuck on
+a piece of wood, illumined the strange scene with a flickering glimmer.
+When Rougon had removed the covers of the three boxes, the spectacle
+became weirdly grotesque. Above the fire-arms, whose barrels shown with
+a bluish, phosphorescent glitter, were outstretched necks and heads that
+bent with a sort of secret fear, while the yellow light of the taper
+cast shadows of huge noses and locks of stiffened hair upon the walls.
+
+However, the reactionary forces counted their numbers, and the smallness
+of the total filled them with hesitation. They were only thirty-nine all
+told, and this adventure would mean certain death for them. A father
+of a family spoke of his children; others, without troubling themselves
+about excuses, turned towards the door. Then, however, two fresh
+conspirators arrived, who lived in the neighbourhood of the Town
+Hall, and knew for certain that there were not more than about twenty
+Republicans still at the mayor's. The band thereupon deliberated afresh.
+Forty-one against twenty--these seemed practicable conditions. So the
+arms were distributed amid a little trembling. It was Rougon who took
+them from the boxes, and each man present, as he received his gun, the
+barrel of which on that December night was icy cold, felt a sudden chill
+freeze him to his bones. The shadows on the walls assumed the clumsy
+postures of bewildered conscripts stretching out their fingers. Pierre
+closed the boxes regretfully; he left there a hundred and nine guns
+which he would willingly have distributed; however, he now had to divide
+the cartridges. Of these, there were two large barrels full in the
+furthest corner of the cart-shed, sufficient to defend Plassans against
+an army. And as this corner was dark, one of the gentlemen brought the
+taper near, whereupon another conspirator--a burly pork-butcher, with
+immense fists--grew angry, declaring that it was most imprudent to bring
+a light so close. They strongly approved his words, so the cartridges
+were distributed in the dark. They completely filled their pockets with
+them. Then, after they had loaded their guns, with endless precautions,
+they lingered there for another moment, looking at each other with
+suspicious eyes, or exchanging glances in which cowardly ferocity was
+mingled with an expression of stupidity.
+
+In the streets they kept close to the houses, marching silently and
+in single file, like savages on the war-path. Rougon had insisted upon
+having the honour of marching at their head; the time had come when he
+must needs run some risk, if he wanted to see his schemes successful.
+Drops of perspiration poured down his forehead in spite of the cold.
+Nevertheless he preserved a very martial bearing. Roudier and Granoux
+were immediately behind him. Upon two occasions the column came to an
+abrupt halt. They fancied they had heard some distant sound of fighting;
+but it was only the jingle of the little brass shaving-dishes hanging
+from chains, which are used as signs by the barbers of Southern France.
+These dishes were gently shaking to and fro in the breeze. After each
+halt, the saviours of Plassans continued their stealthy march in the
+dark, retaining the while the mien of terrified heroes. In this manner
+they reached the square in front of the Town Hall. There they formed a
+group round Rougon, and took counsel together once more. In the facade
+of the building in front of them only one window was lighted. It was now
+nearly seven o'clock and the dawn was approaching.
+
+After a good ten minutes' discussion, it was decided to advance as
+far as the door, so as to ascertain what might be the meaning of this
+disquieting darkness and silence. The door proved to be half open. One
+of the conspirators thereupon popped his head in, but quickly withdrew
+it, announcing that there was a man under the porch, sitting against the
+wall fast asleep, with a gun between his legs. Rougon, seeing a chance
+of commencing with a deed of valour, thereupon entered first, and,
+seizing the man, held him down while Roudier gagged him. This first
+triumph, gained in silence, singularly emboldened the little troop, who
+had dreamed of a murderous fusillade. And Rougon had to make imperious
+signs to restrain his soldiers from indulging in over-boisterous
+delight.
+
+They continued their advance on tip-toes. Then, on the left, in the
+police guard-room, which was situated there, they perceived some fifteen
+men lying on camp-beds and snoring, amid the dim glimmer of a lantern
+hanging from the wall. Rougon, who was decidedly becoming a great
+general, left half of his men in front of the guard-room with orders not
+to rouse the sleepers, but to watch them and make them prisoners if they
+stirred. He was personally uneasy about the lighted window which they
+had seen from the square. He still scented Macquart's hand in the
+business, and, as he felt that he would first have to make prisoners of
+those who were watching upstairs, he was not sorry to be able to adopt
+surprise tactics before the noise of a conflict should impel them to
+barricade themselves in the first-floor rooms. So he went up quietly,
+followed by the twenty heroes whom he still had at his disposal. Roudier
+commanded the detachment remaining in the courtyard.
+
+As Rougon had surmised, it was Macquart who was comfortably installed
+upstairs in the mayor's office. He sat in the mayor's arm-chair,
+with his elbows on the mayor's writing-table. With the characteristic
+confidence of a man of coarse intellect, who is absorbed by a fixed idea
+and bent upon his own triumph, he had imagined after the departure of
+the insurgents that Plassans was now at his complete disposal, and that
+he would be able to act there like a conqueror. In his opinion that
+body of three thousand men who had just passed through the town was
+an invincible army, whose mere proximity would suffice to keep the
+bourgeois humble and docile in his hands. The insurgents had imprisoned
+the gendarmes in their barracks, the National Guard was already
+dismembered, the nobility must be quaking with terror, and the retired
+citizens of the new town had certainly never handled a gun in their
+lives. Moreover, there were no arms any more than there were soldiers.
+Thus Macquart did not even take the precaution to have the gates shut.
+His men carried their confidence still further by falling asleep, while
+he calmly awaited the dawn which he fancied would attract and rally all
+the Republicans of the district round him.
+
+He was already meditating important revolutionary measures; the
+nomination of a Commune of which he would be the chief, the imprisonment
+of all bad patriots, and particularly of all such persons as had
+incurred his displeasure. The thought of the baffled Rougons and their
+yellow drawing-room, of all that clique entreating him for mercy,
+thrilled him with exquisite pleasure. In order to while away the time he
+resolved to issue a proclamation to the inhabitants of Plassans. Four
+of his party set to work to draw up this proclamation, and when it was
+finished Macquart, assuming a dignified manner in the mayor's arm-chair,
+had it read to him before sending it to the printing office of the
+"Independant," on whose patriotism he reckoned. One of the writers was
+commencing, in an emphatic voice, "Inhabitants of Plassans, the hour
+of independence has struck, the reign of justice has begun----" when a
+noise was heard at the door of the office, which was slowly pushed open.
+
+"Is it you, Cassoute?" Macquart asked, interrupting the perusal.
+
+Nobody answered; but the door opened wider.
+
+"Come in, do!" he continued, impatiently. "Is my brigand of a brother at
+home?"
+
+Then, all at once both leaves of the door were violently thrown back
+and slammed against the walls, and a crowd of armed men, in the midst of
+whom marched Rougon, with his face very red and his eyes starting out
+of their sockets, swarmed into the office, brandishing their guns like
+cudgels.
+
+"Ah! the blackguards, they're armed!" shouted Macquart.
+
+He was about to seize a pair of pistols which were lying on the
+writing-table, when five men caught hold of him by the throat and held
+him in check. The four authors of the proclamation struggled for an
+instant. There was a good deal of scuffling and stamping, and a noise
+of persons falling. The combatants were greatly hampered by their guns,
+which they would not lay aside, although they could not use them. In the
+struggle, Rougon's weapon, which an insurgent had tried to wrest from
+him, went off of itself with a frightful report, and filled the room
+with smoke. The bullet shattered a magnificent mirror that reached from
+the mantelpiece to the ceiling, and was reputed to be one of the
+finest mirrors in the town. This shot, fired no one knew why, deafened
+everybody, and put an end to the battle.
+
+Then, while the gentlemen were panting and puffing, three other reports
+were heard in the courtyard. Granoux immediately rushed to one of the
+windows. And as he and the others anxiously leaned out, their faces
+lengthened perceptibly, for they were in nowise eager for a struggle
+with the men in the guard-room, whom they had forgotten amidst their
+triumph. However, Roudier cried out from below that all was right. And
+Granoux then shut the window again, beaming with joy. The fact of
+the matter was, that Rougon's shot had aroused the sleepers, who had
+promptly surrendered, seeing that resistance was impossible. Then,
+however, three of Roudier's men, in their blind haste to get the
+business over, had discharged their firearms in the air, as a sort of
+answer to the report from above, without knowing quite why they did so.
+It frequently happens that guns go off of their own accord when they are
+in the hands of cowards.
+
+And now, in the room upstairs, Rougon ordered Macquart's hands to be
+bound with the bands of the large green curtains which hung at the
+windows. At this, Macquart, wild with rage, broke into scornful jeers.
+"All right; go on," he muttered. "This evening or to-morrow, when the
+others return, we'll settle accounts!"
+
+This allusion to the insurrectionary forces sent a shudder to the
+victors' very marrow; Rougon for his part almost choked. His brother,
+who was exasperated at having been surprised like a child by these
+terrified bourgeois, who, old soldier that he was, he disdainfully
+looked upon as good-for-nothing civilians, defied him with a glance of
+the bitterest hatred.
+
+"Ah! I can tell some pretty stories about you, very pretty ones!"
+the rascal exclaimed, without removing his eyes from the retired oil
+merchant. "Just send me before the Assize Court, so that I may tell the
+judge a few tales that will make them laugh."
+
+At this Rougon turned pale. He was terribly afraid lest Macquart should
+blab then and there, and ruin him in the esteem of the gentlemen who had
+just been assisting him to save Plassans. These gentlemen, astounded by
+the dramatic encounter between the two brothers, and, foreseeing some
+stormy passages, had retired to a corner of the room. Rougon, however,
+formed a heroic resolution. He advanced towards the group, and in a very
+proud tone exclaimed: "We will keep this man here. When he has reflected
+on his position he will be able to give us some useful information."
+Then, in a still more dignified voice, he went on: "I will discharge my
+duty, gentlemen. I have sworn to save the town from anarchy, and I
+will save it, even should I have to be the executioner of my nearest
+relative."
+
+One might have thought him some old Roman sacrificing his family on the
+altar of his country. Granoux, who felt deeply moved, came to press his
+hand with a tearful countenance, which seemed to say: "I understand you;
+you are sublime!" And then he did him the kindness to take everybody
+away, under the pretext of conducting the four other prisoners into the
+courtyard.
+
+When Pierre was alone with his brother, he felt all his self-possession
+return to him. "You hardly expected me, did you?" he resumed. "I
+understand things now; you have been laying plots against me. You
+wretched fellow; see what your vices and disorderly life have brought
+you to!"
+
+Macquart shrugged his shoulders. "Shut up," he replied; "go to the
+devil. You're an old rogue. He laughs best who laughs last."
+
+Thereupon Rougon, who had formed no definite plan with regard to him,
+thrust him into a dressing-room whither Monsieur Garconnet retired to
+rest sometimes. This room lighted from above, had no other means of
+exit than the doorway by which one entered. It was furnished with a few
+arm-chairs, a sofa, and a marble wash-stand. Pierre double-locked the
+door, after partially unbinding his brother's hands. Macquart was then
+heard to throw himself on the sofa, and start singing the "Ca Ira" in a
+loud voice, as though he were trying to sing himself to sleep.
+
+Rougon, who at last found himself alone, now in his turn sat down in
+the mayor's arm-chair. He heaved a sigh as he wiped his brow. How hard,
+indeed, it was to win fortune and honours! However, he was nearing the
+end at last. He felt the soft seat of the arm-chair yield beneath him,
+while with a mechanical movement he caressed the mahogany writing-table
+with his hands, finding it apparently quite silky and delicate, like the
+skin of a beautiful woman. Then he spread himself out, and assumed
+the dignified attitude which Macquart had previously affected while
+listening to the proclamation. The silence of the room seemed fraught
+with religious solemnity, which inspired Rougon with exquisite delight.
+Everything, even the dust and the old documents lying in the corners,
+seemed to exhale an odour of incense, which rose to his dilated
+nostrils. This room, with its faded hangings redolent of petty
+transactions, all the trivial concerns of a third-rate municipality,
+became a temple of which he was the god.
+
+Nevertheless, amidst his rapture, he started nervously at every shout
+from Macquart. The words aristocrat and lamp-post, the threats of
+hanging that form the refrain of the famous revolutionary song, the "Ca
+Ira," reached him in angry bursts, interrupting his triumphant dream in
+the most disagreeable manner. Always that man! And his dream, in which
+he saw Plassans at his feet, ended with a sudden vision of the Assize
+Court, of the judges, the jury, and the public listening to Macquart's
+disgraceful revelations; the story of the fifty thousand francs, and
+many other unpleasant matters; or else, while enjoying the softness of
+Monsieur Garconnet's arm-chair, he suddenly pictured himself suspended
+from a lamp-post in the Rue de la Banne. Who would rid him of that
+wretched fellow? At last Antoine fell asleep, and then Pierre enjoyed
+ten good minutes' pure ecstasy.
+
+Roudier and Granoux came to rouse him from this state of beatitude.
+They had just returned from the prison, whither they had taken the
+insurgents. Daylight was coming on apace, the town would soon be awake,
+and it was necessary to take some decisive step. Roudier declared that,
+before anything else, it would be advisable to issue a proclamation to
+the inhabitants. Pierre was, at that moment, reading the one which the
+insurgents had left upon the table.
+
+"Why," cried he, "this will suit us admirably! There are only a few
+words to be altered."
+
+And, in fact, a quarter of an hour sufficed for the necessary changes,
+after which Granoux read out, in an earnest voice: "Inhabitants of
+Plassans--The hour of resistance has struck, the reign of order has
+returned----"
+
+It was decided that the proclamation should be printed at the office of
+the "Gazette," and posted at all the street corners.
+
+"Now listen," said Rougon; "we'll go to my house; and in the meantime
+Monsieur Granoux will assemble here the members of the municipal council
+who had not been arrested and acquaint them with the terrible events of
+the night." Then he added, majestically: "I am quite prepared to accept
+the responsibility of my actions. If what I have already done appears a
+satisfactory pledge of my desire for order, I am willing to place myself
+at the head of a municipal commission, until such time as the regular
+authorities can be reinstated. But, in order, that nobody may accuse me
+of ambitious designs, I shall not re-enter the Town Hall unless called
+upon to do so by my fellow-citizens."
+
+At this Granoux and Roudier protested that Plassans would not be
+ungrateful. Their friend had indeed saved the town. And they recalled
+all that he had done for the cause of order: the yellow drawing-room
+always open to the friends of authority, his services as spokesman in
+the three quarters of the town, the store of arms which had been his
+idea, and especially that memorable night--that night of prudence and
+heroism--in which he had rendered himself forever illustrious. Granoux
+added that he felt sure of the admiration and gratitude of the municipal
+councillors.
+
+"Don't stir from your house," he concluded; "I will come and fetch you
+to lead you back in triumph."
+
+Then Roudier said that he quite understood the tact and modesty of their
+friend, and approved it. Nobody would think of accusing him of ambition,
+but all would appreciate the delicacy which prompted him to take no
+office save with the consent of his fellow-citizens. That was very
+dignified, very noble, altogether grand.
+
+Under this shower of eulogies, Rougon humbly bowed his head. "No, no;
+you go too far," he murmured, with voluptuous thrillings of exquisite
+pleasure. Each sentence that fell from the retired hosier and the old
+almond-merchant, who stood on his right and left respectively, fell
+sweetly on his ears; and, leaning back in the mayor's arm-chair, steeped
+in the odour of officiality which pervaded the room, he bowed to the
+right and to the left, like a royal pretender whom a _coup d'etat_ is
+about to convert into an emperor.
+
+When they were tired of belauding each other, they all three went
+downstairs. Granoux started off to call the municipal council together,
+while Roudier told Rougon to go on in front, saying that he would join
+him at his house, after giving the necessary orders for guarding the
+Town Hall. The dawn was now fast rising, and Pierre proceeded to the Rue
+de la Banne, tapping his heels in a martial manner on the still deserted
+pavement. He carried his hat in his hand in spite of the bitter cold;
+for puffs of pride sent all his blood to his head.
+
+On reaching his house he found Cassoute at the bottom of the stairs. The
+navvy had not stirred, for he had seen nobody enter. He sat there, on
+the first step, resting his big head in his hands, and gazing fixedly in
+front of him, with the vacant stare and mute stubbornness of a faithful
+dog.
+
+"You were waiting for me, weren't you?" Pierre said to him, taking in
+the situation at a glance. "Well, go and tell Monsieur Macquart that
+I've come home. Go and ask for him at the Town Hall."
+
+Cassoute rose and took himself off, with an awkward bow. He was going
+to get himself arrested like a lamb, to the great delight of Pierre,
+who laughed as he went upstairs, asking himself, with a feeling of vague
+surprise: "I have certainly plenty of courage; shall I turn out as good
+a diplomatist?"
+
+Felicite had not gone to bed last night. He found her dressed in her
+Sunday clothes, wearing a cap with lemon-coloured ribbons, like a lady
+expecting visitors. She had sat at the window in vain; she had heard
+nothing, and was dying with curiosity.
+
+"Well?" she asked, rushing to meet her husband.
+
+The latter, quite out of breath, entered the yellow drawing-room,
+whither she followed him, carefully closing the door behind her. He sank
+into an arm-chair, and, in a gasping voice, faltered: "It's done; we
+shall get the receivership."
+
+At this she fell on his neck and kissed him.
+
+"Really? Really?" she cried. "But I haven't heard anything. Oh, my
+darling husband, do tell me; tell me all!"
+
+She felt fifteen years old again, and began to coax him and whirl round
+him like a grasshopper fascinated by the light and heat. And Pierre,
+in the effusion of his triumph, poured out his heart to her. He did not
+omit a single detail. He even explained his future projects, forgetting
+that, according to his theories, wives were good for nothing, and that
+his must be kept in complete ignorance of what went on if he wished to
+remain master. Felicite leant over him and drank in his words. She made
+him repeat certain parts of his story, declaring she had not heard; in
+fact, her delight bewildered her so much that at times she seemed quite
+deaf. When Pierre related the events at the Town Hall, she burst into a
+fit of laughter, changed her chair three times, and moved the furniture
+about, quite unable to sit still. After forty years of continuous
+struggle, fortune had at last yielded to them. Eventually she became so
+mad over it that she forgot all prudence.
+
+"It's to me you owe all this!" she exclaimed, in an outburst of triumph.
+"If I hadn't looked after you, you would have been nicely taken in by
+the insurgents. You booby, it was Garconnet, Sicardot, and the others,
+that had got to be thrown to those wild beasts."
+
+Then, showing her teeth, loosened by age, she added, with a girlish
+smile: "Well, the Republic for ever! It has made our path clear."
+
+But Pierre had turned cross. "That's just like you!" he muttered; "you
+always fancy that you've foreseen everything. It was I who had the idea
+of hiding myself. As though women understood anything about politics!
+Bah, my poor girl, if you were to steer the bark we should very soon be
+shipwrecked."
+
+Felicite bit her lip. She had gone too far and forgotten her
+self-assigned part of good, silent fairy. Then she was seized with one
+of those fits of covert exasperation, which she generally experienced
+when her husband tried to crush her with his superiority. And she again
+promised herself, when the right time should arrive, some exquisite
+revenge, which would deliver this man into her power, bound hand and
+foot.
+
+"Ah! I was forgetting!" resumed Rougon, "Monsieur Peirotte is amongst
+them. Granoux saw him struggling in the hands of the insurgents."
+
+Felicite gave a start. She was just at that moment standing at the
+window, gazing with longing eyes at the house where the receiver of
+taxes lived. She had felt a desire to do so, for in her mind the idea of
+triumph was always associated with envy of that fine house.
+
+"So Monsieur Peirotte is arrested!" she exclaimed in a strange tone as
+she turned round.
+
+For an instant she smiled complacently; then a crimson blush rushed
+to her face. A murderous wish had just ascended from the depths of her
+being. "Ah! if the insurgents would only kill him!"
+
+Pierre no doubt read her thoughts in her eyes.
+
+"Well, if some ball were to hit him," he muttered, "our business would
+be settled. There would be no necessity to supercede him, eh? and it
+would be no fault of ours."
+
+But Felicite shuddered. She felt that she had just condemned a man to
+death. If Monsieur Peirotte should now be killed, she would always
+see his ghost at night time. He would come and haunt her. So she only
+ventured to cast furtive glances, full of fearful delight, at the
+unhappy man's windows. Henceforward all her enjoyment would be fraught
+with a touch of guilty terror.
+
+Moreover, Pierre, having now poured out his soul, began to perceive the
+other side of the situation. He mentioned Macquart. How could they
+get rid of that blackguard? But Felicite, again fired with enthusiasm,
+exclaimed: "Oh! one can't do everything at once. We'll gag him, somehow.
+We'll soon find some means or other."
+
+She was now walking to and fro, putting the arm-chairs in order, and
+dusting their backs. Suddenly, she stopped in the middle of the room,
+and gave the faded furniture a long glance.
+
+"Good Heavens!" she said, "how ugly it is here! And we shall have
+everybody coming to call upon us!"
+
+"Bah!" replied Pierre, with supreme indifference, "we'll alter all
+that."
+
+He who, the night before, had entertained almost religious veneration
+for the arm-chairs and the sofa, would now have willingly stamped on
+them. Felicite, who felt the same contempt, even went so far as to
+upset an arm-chair which was short of a castor and did not yield to her
+quickly enough.
+
+It was at this moment that Roudier entered. It at once occurred to
+the old woman that he had become much more polite. His "Monsieur" and
+"Madame" rolled forth in delightfully musical fashion. But the other
+habitues were now arriving one after the other; and the drawing-room was
+fast getting full. Nobody yet knew the full particulars of the events
+of the night, and all had come in haste, with wondering eyes and smiling
+lips, urged on by the rumours which were beginning to circulate through
+the town. These gentlemen who, on the previous evening, had left the
+drawing-room with such precipitation at the news of the insurgents'
+approach, came back, inquisitive and importunate, like a swarm of
+buzzing flies which a puff of wind would have dispersed. Some of
+them had not even taken time to put on their braces. They were very
+impatient, but it was evident that Rougon was waiting for some one else
+before speaking out. He constantly turned an anxious look towards
+the door. For an hour there was only significant hand-shaking, vague
+congratulation, admiring whispering, suppressed joy of uncertain origin,
+which only awaited a word of enlightenment to turn to enthusiasm.
+
+At last Granoux appeared. He paused for a moment on the threshold,
+with his right hand pressed to his breast between the buttons of his
+frock-coat; his broad pale face was beaming; in vain he strove to
+conceal his emotion beneath an expression of dignity. All the others
+became silent on perceiving him; they felt that something extraordinary
+was about to take place. Granoux walked straight up to Rougon, through
+two lines of visitors, and held out his hand to him.
+
+"My friend," he said, "I bring you the homage of the Municipal Council.
+They call you to their head, until our mayor shall be restored to us.
+You have saved Plassans. In the terrible crisis through which we are
+passing we want men who, like yourself, unite intelligence with courage.
+Come--"
+
+At this point Granoux, who was reciting a little speech which he had
+taken great trouble to prepare on his way from the Town Hall to the
+Rue de la Banne felt his memory fail him. But Rougon, overwhelmed with
+emotion, broke in, shaking his hand and repeating: "Thank you, my dear
+Granoux; I thank you very much."
+
+He could find nothing else to say. However, a loud burst of voices
+followed. Every one rushed upon him, tried to shake hands, poured forth
+praises and compliments, and eagerly questioned him. But he, already
+putting on official dignity, begged for a few minutes' delay in order
+that he might confer with Messieurs Granoux and Roudier. Business before
+everything. The town was in such a critical situation! Then the three
+accomplices retired to a corner of the drawing-room, where, in an
+undertone, they divided power amongst themselves; the rest of the
+visitors, who remained a few paces away, trying meanwhile to look
+extremely wise and furtively glancing at them with mingled admiration
+and curiosity. It was decided that Rougon should take the title of
+president of the Municipal Commission; Granoux was to be secretary;
+whilst, as for Roudier, he became commander-in-chief of the reorganised
+National Guard. They also swore to support each other against all
+opposition.
+
+However, Felicite, who had drawn near, abruptly inquired: "And Vuillet?"
+
+At this they looked at each other. Nobody had seen Vuillet. Rougon
+seemed somewhat uneasy.
+
+"Perhaps they've taken him away with the others," he said, to ease his
+mind.
+
+But Felicite shook her head. Vuillet was not the man to let himself be
+arrested. Since nobody had seen or heard him, it was certain he had been
+doing something wrong.
+
+Suddenly the door opened and Vuillet entered, bowing humbly, with
+blinking glance and stiff sacristan's smile. Then he held out his moist
+hand to Rougon and the two others.
+
+Vuillet had settled his little affairs alone. He had cut his own slice
+out of the cake, as Felicite would have said. While peeping through
+the ventilator of his cellar he had seen the insurgents arrest
+the postmaster, whose offices were near his bookshop. At daybreak,
+therefore, at the moment when Rougon was comfortably seated in the
+mayor's arm-chair, he had quietly installed himself in the postmaster's
+office. He knew the clerks; so he received them on their arrival,
+told them that he would replace their chief until his return, and that
+meantime they need be in nowise uneasy. Then he ransacked the morning
+mail with ill-concealed curiosity. He examined the letters, and seemed
+to be seeking a particular one. His new berth doubtless suited his
+secret plans, for his satisfaction became so great that he actually gave
+one of the clerks a copy of the "Oeuvres Badines de Piron." Vuillet, it
+should be mentioned, did business in objectionable literature, which he
+kept concealed in a large drawer, under the stock of heads and
+religious images. It is probable that he felt some slight qualms at
+the free-and-easy manner in which he had taken possession of the post
+office, and recognised the desirability of getting his usurpation
+confirmed as far as possible. At all events, he had thought it well to
+call upon Rougon, who was fast becoming an important personage.
+
+"Why! where have you been?" Felicite asked him in a distrustful manner.
+
+Thereupon he related his story with sundry embellishments. According to
+his own account he had saved the post-office from pillage.
+
+"All right then! That's settled! Stay on there!" said Pierre, after a
+moment's reflection. "Make yourself useful."
+
+This last sentence revealed the one great fear that possessed the
+Rougons. They were afraid that some one might prove too useful, and
+do more than themselves to save the town. Still, Pierre saw no serious
+danger in leaving Vuillet as provisional postmaster; it was even a
+convenient means of getting rid of him. Felicite, however, made a sharp
+gesture of annoyance.
+
+The consultation having ended, the three accomplices mingled with the
+various groups that filled the drawing-room. They were at last obliged
+to satisfy the general curiosity by giving detailed accounts of recent
+events. Rougon proved magnificent. He exaggerated, embellished, and
+dramatised the story which he had related to his wife. The distribution
+of the guns and cartridges made everybody hold their breath. But it was
+the march through the deserted streets and the seizure of the town-hall
+that most amazed these worthy bourgeois. At each fresh detail there was
+an interruption.
+
+"And you were only forty-one; it's marvellous!"
+
+"Ah, indeed! it must have been frightfully dark!"
+
+"No; I confess I never should have dared it!"
+
+"Then you seized him, like that, by the throat?
+
+"And the insurgents, what did they say?"
+
+These remarks and questions only incited Rougon's imagination the more.
+He replied to everybody. He mimicked the action. This stout man, in his
+admiration of his own achievements, became as nimble as a schoolboy; he
+began afresh, repeated himself, amidst the exclamations of surprise and
+individual discussions which suddenly arose about some trifling detail.
+And thus he continued blowing his trumpet, making himself more and
+more important as if some irresistible force impelled him to turn his
+narrative into a genuine epic. Moreover Granoux and Roudier stood by
+his side prompting him, reminding him of such trifling matters as he
+omitted. They also were burning to put in a word, and occasionally
+they could not restrain themselves, so that all three went on talking
+together. When, in order to keep the episode of the broken mirror for
+the denouement, like some crowning glory, Rougon began to describe what
+had taken place downstairs in the courtyard, after the arrest of the
+guard, Roudier accused him of spoiling the narrative by changing
+the sequence of events. For a moment they wrangled about it somewhat
+sharply. Then Roudier, seeing a good opportunity for himself, suddenly
+exclaimed: "Very well, let it be so. But you weren't there. So let me
+tell it."
+
+He thereupon explained at great length how the insurgents had awoke, and
+how the muskets of the town's deliverers had been levelled at them to
+reduce them to impotence. He added, however, that no blood, fortunately,
+had been shed. This last sentence disappointed his audience, who had
+counted upon one corpse at least.
+
+"But I thought you fired," interrupted Felicite, recognising that the
+story was wretchedly deficient in dramatic interest.
+
+"Yes, yes, three shots," resumed the old hosier. "The pork-butcher
+Dubruel, Monsieur Lievin, and Monsieur Massicot discharged their guns
+with really culpable alacrity." And as there were some murmurs at this
+remark; "Culpable, I repeat the word," he continued. "There are quite
+enough cruel necessities in warfare without any useless shedding of
+blood. Besides, these gentlemen swore to me that it was not their fault;
+they can't understand how it was their guns went off. Nevertheless, a
+spent ball after ricocheting grazed the cheek of one of the insurgents
+and left a mark on it."
+
+This graze, this unexpected wound, satisfied the audience. Which cheek,
+right or left, had been grazed, and how was it that a bullet, a spent
+one, even, could strike a cheek without piercing it? These points
+supplied material for some long discussions.
+
+"Meantime," continued Rougon at the top of his voice, without giving
+time for the excitement to abate; "meantime we had plenty to do
+upstairs. The struggle was quite desperate."
+
+Then he described, at length, the arrival of his brother and the four
+other insurgents, without naming Macquart, whom he simply called "the
+leader." The words, "the mayor's office," "the mayor's arm-chair,"
+"the mayor's writing table," recurred to him every instant, and in the
+opinion of his audience imparted marvellous grandeur to the terrible
+scene. It was not at the porter's lodge that the fight was now being
+waged, but in the private sanctum of the chief magistrate of the town.
+Roudier was quite cast in to the background. Then Rougon at last came to
+the episode which he had been keeping in reserve from the commencement,
+and which would certainly exalt him to the dignity of a hero.
+
+"Thereupon," said he, "an insurgent rushes upon me. I push the mayor's
+arm-chair away, and seize the man by the throat. I hold him tightly,
+you may be sure of it! But my gun was in my way. I didn't want to let
+it drop; a man always sticks to his gun. I held it, like this, under the
+left arm. All of a sudden, it went off--"
+
+The whole audience hung on Rougon's lips. But Granoux, who was opening
+his mouth wide with a violent itching to say something, shouted: "No,
+no, that isn't right. You were not in a position to see things, my
+friend; you were fighting like a lion. But I saw everything, while I was
+helping to bind one of the prisoners. The man tried to murder you; it
+was he who fired the gun; I saw him distinctly slip his black fingers
+under your arm."
+
+"Really?" said Rougon, turning quite pale.
+
+He did not know he had been in such danger, and the old almond
+merchant's account of the incident chilled him with fright. Granoux, as
+a rule, did not lie; but, on a day of battle, it is surely allowable to
+view things dramatically.
+
+"I tell you the man tried to murder you," he repeated, with conviction.
+
+"Ah," said Rougon in a faint voice, "that's how it is I heard the bullet
+whiz past my ear!"
+
+At this, violent emotion came upon the audience. Everybody gazed at
+the hero with respectful awe. He had heard a bullet whiz past his ear!
+Certainly, none of the other bourgeois who were there could say as much.
+Felicite felt bound to rush into her husband's arms so as to work up
+the emotion to boiling point. But Rougon immediately freed himself,
+and concluded his narrative with this heroic sentence, which has become
+famous at Plassans: "The shot goes off; I hear the bullet whiz past my
+ear; and whish! it smashes the mayor's mirror."
+
+This caused complete consternation. Such a magnificent mirror, too!
+It was scarcely credible! the damage done to that looking-glass almost
+out-balanced Rougon's heroism, in the estimation of the company. The
+glass became an object of absorbing interest, and they talked about
+it for a quarter of an hour, with many exclamations and expressions of
+regret, as though it had been some dear friend that had been stricken to
+the heart. This was the culminating point that Rougon had aimed at, the
+denouement of his wonderful Odyssey. A loud hubbub of voices filled
+the yellow drawing-room. The visitors were repeating what they had just
+heard, and every now and then one of them would leave a group to ask the
+three heroes the exact truth with regard to some contested incident. The
+heroes set the matter right with scrupulous minuteness, for they felt
+that they were speaking for history!
+
+At last Rougon and his two lieutenants announced that they were expected
+at the town-hall. Respectful silence was then restored, and the company
+smiled at each other discreetly. Granoux was swelling with importance.
+He was the only one who had seen the insurgent pull the trigger and
+smash the mirror; this sufficed to exalt him, and almost made him burst
+his skin. On leaving the drawing-room, he took Roudier's arm with the
+air of a great general who is broken down with fatigue. "I've been up
+for thirty-six hours," he murmured, "and heaven alone knows when I shall
+get to bed!"
+
+Rougon, as he withdrew, took Vuillet aside and told him that the party
+of order relied more than ever on him and the "Gazette." He would have
+to publish an effective article to reassure the inhabitants and treat
+the band of villains who had passed through Plassans as it deserved.
+
+"Be easy!" replied Vuillet. "In the ordinary course the 'Gazette'
+ought not to appear till to-morrow morning, but I'll issue it this very
+evening."
+
+When the leaders had left, the rest of the visitors remained in the
+yellow drawing-room for another moment, chattering like so many
+old women, whom the escape of a canary has gathered together on the
+pavement. These retired tradesmen, oil dealers, and wholesale hatters,
+felt as if they were in a sort of fairyland. Never had they experienced
+such thrilling excitement before. They could not get over their surprise
+at discovering such heroes as Rougon, Granoux, and Roudier in their
+midst. At last, half stifled by the stuffy atmosphere, and tired of ever
+telling each other the same things, they decided to go off and spread
+the momentous news abroad. They glided away one by one, each anxious
+to have the glory of being the first to know and relate everything, and
+Felicite, as she leaned out of the window, on being left alone, saw
+them dispersing in the Rue de la Banne, waving their arms in an excited
+manner, eager as they were to diffuse emotion to the four corners of the
+town.
+
+It was ten o'clock, and Plassans, now wide awake, was running about the
+streets, wildly excited by the reports which were circulating. Those who
+had seen or heard the insurrectionary forces, related the most foolish
+stories, contradicting each other, and indulging in the wildest
+suppositions. The majority, however, knew nothing at all about the
+matter; they lived at the further end of the town, and listened with
+gaping mouths, like children to a nursery tale, to the stories of how
+several thousand bandits had invaded the streets during the night and
+vanished before daybreak like an army of phantoms. A few of the most
+sceptical said: "Nonsense!" Yet some of the details were very precise;
+and Plassans at last felt convinced that some frightful danger had
+passed over it while it slept. The darkness which had shrouded this
+danger, the various contradictory reports that spread, all invested the
+matter with mystery and vague horror, which made the bravest shudder.
+Whose hand had diverted the thunderbolt from them? There seemed to
+be something quite miraculous about it. There were rumours of unknown
+deliverers, of a handful of brave men who had cut off the hydra's head;
+but no one seemed acquainted with the exact particulars, and the whole
+story appeared scarcely credible, until the company from the yellow
+drawing-room spread through the streets, scattering tidings, ever
+repeating the same narrative at each door they came to.
+
+It was like a train of powder. In a few minutes the story had spread
+from one end of the town to the other. Rougon's name flew from mouth to
+mouth, with exclamations of surprise in the new town, and of praise in
+the old quarter. The idea of being without a sub-prefect, a mayor, a
+postmaster, a receiver of taxes, or authorities of any kind, at first
+threw the inhabitants into consternation. They were stupefied at having
+been able to sleep through the night and get up as usual, in the
+absence of any settled government. Their first stupor over, they
+threw themselves recklessly into the arms of their liberators. The few
+Republicans shrugged their shoulders, but the petty shopkeepers, the
+small householders, the Conservatives of all shades, invoked blessings
+on those modest heroes whose achievements had been shrouded by the
+night. When it was known that Rougon had arrested his own brother, the
+popular admiration knew no bounds. People talked of Brutus, and thus the
+indiscretion which had made Pierre rather anxious, really redounded
+to his glory. At this moment when terror still hovered over them,
+the townsfolk were virtually unanimous in their gratitude. Rougon was
+accepted as their saviour without the slightest show of opposition.
+
+"Just think of it!" the poltroons exclaimed, "there were only forty-one
+of them!"
+
+That number of forty-one amazed the whole town, and this was the
+origin of the Plassans legend of how forty-one bourgeois had made three
+thousand insurgents bite the dust. There were only a few envious spirits
+of the new town, lawyers without work and retired military men ashamed
+of having slept ingloriously through that memorable night, who raised
+any doubts. The insurgents, these sceptics hinted, had no doubt left
+the town of their own accord. There were no indications of a combat,
+no corpses, no blood-stains. So the deliverers had certainly had a very
+easy task.
+
+"But the mirror, the mirror!" repeated the enthusiasts. "You can't deny
+that the mayor's mirror has been smashed; go and see it for yourselves."
+
+And, in fact, until night-time, quite a stream of town's-people flowed,
+under one pretext or another, into the mayor's private office, the door
+of which Rougon left wide open. The visitors planted themselves in front
+of the mirror, which the bullet had pierced and starred, and they all
+gave vent to the same exclamation: "By Jove; that ball must have had
+terrible force!"
+
+Then they departed quite convinced.
+
+Felicite, at her window, listened with delight to all the rumours and
+laudatory and grateful remarks which arose from the town. At that moment
+all Plassans was talking of her husband. She felt that the two districts
+below her were quivering, wafting her the hope of approaching triumph.
+Ah! how she would crush that town which she had been so long in getting
+beneath her feet! All her grievances crowded back to her memory, and her
+past disappointments redoubled her appetite for immediate enjoyment.
+
+At last she left the window, and walked slowly round the drawing-room.
+It was there that, a little while previously, everybody had held out
+their hands to her husband and herself. He and she had conquered; the
+citizens were at their feet. The yellow drawing-room seemed to her a
+holy place. The dilapidated furniture, the frayed velvet, the chandelier
+soiled with fly-marks, all those poor wrecks now seemed to her like
+the glorious bullet-riddled debris of a battle-field. The plain of
+Austerlitz would not have stirred her to deeper emotion.
+
+When she returned to the window, she perceived Aristide wandering about
+the place of the Sub-Prefecture, with his nose in the air. She beckoned
+to him to come up, which he immediately did. It seemed as if he had only
+been waiting for this invitation.
+
+"Come in," his mother said to him on the landing, seeing that he
+hesitated. "Your father is not here."
+
+Aristide evinced all the shyness of a prodigal son returning home. He
+had not been inside the yellow drawing-room for nearly four years. He
+still carried his arm in a sling.
+
+"Does your hand still pain you?" his mother asked him, ironically.
+
+He blushed as he answered with some embarrassment: "Oh! it's getting
+better; it's nearly well again now."
+
+Then he lingered there, loitering about and not knowing what to say.
+Felicite came to the rescue. "I suppose you've heard them talking about
+your father's noble conduct?" she resumed.
+
+He replied that the whole town was talking of it. And then, as he
+regained his self-possession, he paid his mother back for her raillery
+in her own coin. Looking her full in the face he added: "I came to see
+if father was wounded."
+
+"Come, don't play the fool!" cried Felicite, petulantly. "If I were you
+I would act boldly and decisively. Confess now that you made a false
+move in joining those good-for-nothing Republicans. You would be very
+glad, I'm sure, to be well rid of them, and to return to us, who are the
+stronger party. Well, the house is open to you!"
+
+But Aristide protested. The Republic was a grand idea. Moreover, the
+insurgents might still carry the day.
+
+"Don't talk nonsense to me!" retorted the old woman, with some
+irritation. "You're afraid that your father won't have a very warm
+welcome for you. But I'll see to that. Listen to me: go back to your
+newspaper, and, between now and to-morrow, prepare a number strongly
+favouring the Coup d'Etat. To-morrow evening, when this number has
+appeared, come back here and you will be received with open arms."
+
+Then seeing that the young man remained silent: "Do you hear?" she
+added, in a lower and more eager tone; "it is necessary for our sake,
+and for your own, too, that it should be done. Don't let us have any
+more nonsense and folly. You've already compromised yourself enough in
+that way."
+
+The young man made a gesture--the gesture of a Caesar crossing the
+Rubicon--and by doing so escaped entering into any verbal engagement. As
+he was about to withdraw, his mother, looking for the knot in his sling,
+remarked: "First of all, you must let me take off this rag. It's getting
+a little ridiculous, you know!"
+
+Aristide let her remove it. When the silk handkerchief was untied,
+he folded it neatly and placed it in his pocket. And as he kissed his
+mother he exclaimed: "Till to-morrow then!"
+
+In the meanwhile, Rougon was taking official possession of the mayor's
+offices. There were only eight municipal councillors left; the others
+were in the hands of the insurgents, as well as the mayor and his two
+assessors. The eight remaining gentlemen, who were all on a par with
+Granoux, perspired with fright when the latter explained to them the
+critical situation of the town. It requires an intimate knowledge of the
+kind of men who compose the municipal councils of some of the smaller
+towns, in order to form an idea of the terror with which these timid
+folk threw themselves into Rougon's arms. At Plassans, the mayor had
+the most incredible blockheads under him, men without any ideas of their
+own, and accustomed to passive obedience. Consequently, as Monsieur
+Garconnet was no longer there, the municipal machine was bound to get
+out of order, and fall completely under the control of the man who might
+know how to set it working. Moreover, as the sub-prefect had left the
+district, Rougon naturally became sole and absolute master of the town;
+and thus, strange to relate, the chief administrative authority fell
+into the hands of a man of indifferent repute, to whom, on the previous
+evening, not one of his fellow-citizens would have lent a hundred
+francs.
+
+Pierre's first act was to declare the Provisional Commission "en
+permanence." Then he gave his attention to the organisation of the
+national guard, and succeeded in raising three hundred men. The
+hundred and nine muskets left in the cart-shed were also distributed
+to volunteers, thereby bringing up the number of men armed by the
+reactionary party to one hundred and fifty; the remaining one hundred
+and fifty guards consisted of well-affected citizens and some of
+Sicardot's soldiers. When Commander Roudier reviewed the little army in
+front of the town-hall, he was annoyed to see the market-people smiling
+in their sleeves. The fact is that several of his men had no uniforms,
+and some of them looked very droll with their black hats, frock-coats,
+and muskets. But, at any rate, they meant well. A guard was left at the
+town-hall and the rest of the forces were sent in detachments to the
+various town gates. Roudier reserved to himself the command of the guard
+stationed at the Grand'-Porte, which seemed to be more liable to attack
+than the others.
+
+Rougon, who now felt very conscious of his power, repaired to the Rue
+Canquoin to beg the gendarmes to remain in their barracks and interfere
+with nothing. He certainly had the doors of the gendarmerie opened--the
+keys having been carried off by the insurgents--but he wanted to triumph
+alone, and had no intention of letting the gendarmes rob him of any part
+of his glory. If he should really have need of them he could always
+send for them. So he explained to them that their presence might tend to
+irritate the working-men and thus aggravate the situation. The sergeant
+in command thereupon complimented him on his prudence. When Rougon was
+informed that there was a wounded man in the barracks, he asked to see
+him, by way of rendering himself popular. He found Rengade in bed, with
+his eye bandaged, and his big moustaches just peeping out from under the
+linen. With some high-sounding words about duty, Rougon endeavoured to
+comfort the unfortunate fellow who, having lost an eye, was swearing
+with exasperation at the thought that his injury would compel him to
+quit the service. At last Rougon promised to send the doctor to him.
+
+"I'm much obliged to you, sir," Rengade replied; "but, you know, what
+would do me more good than any quantity of doctor's stuff would be to
+wring the neck of the villain who put my eye out. Oh! I shall know him
+again; he's a little thin, palish fellow, quite young."
+
+Thereupon Pierre bethought himself of the blood he had seen on Silvere's
+hand. He stepped back a little, as though he was afraid that Rengade
+would fly at his throat, and cry: "It was your nephew who blinded me;
+and you will have to pay for it." And whilst he was mentally cursing his
+disreputable family, he solemnly declared that if the guilty person were
+found he should be punished with all the rigour of the law.
+
+"No, no, it isn't worth all that trouble," the one-eyed man replied;
+"I'll just wring his neck for him when I catch him."
+
+Rougon hastened back to the town-hall. The afternoon was employed in
+taking various measures. The proclamation posted up about one o'clock
+produced an excellent impression. It ended by an appeal to the good
+sense of the citizens, and gave a firm assurance that order would not
+again be disturbed. Until dusk, in fact, the streets presented a picture
+of general relief and perfect confidence. On the pavements, the groups
+who were reading the proclamation exclaimed:
+
+"It's all finished now; we shall soon see the troops who have been sent
+in pursuit of the insurgents."
+
+This belief that some soldiers were approaching was so general that the
+idles of the Cours Sauvaire repaired to the Nice road, in order to
+meet and hear the regimental band. But they returned at nightfall
+disappointed, having seen nothing; and then a feeling of vague alarm
+began to disturb the townspeople.
+
+At the town-hall, the Provisional Commission had talked so much, without
+coming to any decision, that the members, whose stomachs were quite
+empty, began to feel alarmed again. Rougon dismissed them to dine,
+saying that they would meet afresh at nine o'clock in the evening. He
+was just about to leave the room himself, when Macquart awoke and began
+to pommel the door of his prison. He declared he was hungry, then asked
+what time it was, and when his brother had told him it was five o'clock,
+he feigned great astonishment, and muttered, with diabolical malice,
+that the insurgents had promised to return much earlier, and that they
+were very slow in coming to deliver him. Rougon, having ordered
+some food to be taken to him, went downstairs, quite worried by the
+earnestness with which the rascal spoke of the return of the insurgents.
+
+When he reached the street, his disquietude increased. The town seemed
+to him quite altered. It was assuming a strange aspect; shadows were
+gliding along the footpaths, which were growing deserted and silent,
+while gloomy fear seemed, like fine rain, to be slowly, persistently
+falling with the dusk over the mournful-looking houses. The babbling
+confidence of the daytime was fatally terminating in groundless panic,
+in growing alarm as the night drew nearer; the inhabitants were so weary
+and so satiated with their triumph that they had no strength left but to
+dream of some terrible retaliation on the part of the insurgents. Rougon
+shuddered as he passed through this current of terror. He hastened his
+steps, feeling as if he would choke. As he passed a cafe on the Place
+des Recollets, where the lamps had just been lit, and where the petty
+cits of the new town were assembled, he heard a few words of terrifying
+conversation.
+
+"Well! Monsieur Picou," said one man in a thick voice, "you've heard the
+news? The regiment that was expected has not arrived."
+
+"But nobody expected any regiment, Monsieur Touche," a shrill voice
+replied.
+
+"I beg your pardon. You haven't read the proclamation, then?"
+
+"Oh yes, it's true the placards declare that order will be maintained by
+force, if necessary."
+
+"You see, then, there's force mentioned; that means armed forces, of
+course."
+
+"What do people say then?"
+
+"Well, you know, folks are beginning to feel rather frightened; they say
+that this delay on the part of the soldiers isn't natural, and that the
+insurgents may well have slaughtered them."
+
+A cry of horror resounded through the cafe. Rougon was inclined to go in
+and tell those bourgeois that the proclamation had never announced the
+arrival of a regiment, that they had no right to strain its meaning
+to such a degree, nor to spread such foolish theories abroad. But he
+himself, amidst the disquietude which was coming over him, was not quite
+sure he had not counted upon a despatch of troops; and he did, in fact,
+consider it strange that not a single soldier had made his appearance.
+So he reached home in a very uneasy state of mind. Felicite, still
+petulant and full of courage, became quite angry at seeing him upset by
+such silly trifles. Over the dessert she comforted him.
+
+"Well, you great simpleton," she said, "so much the better, if the
+prefect does forget us! We shall save the town by ourselves. For my
+part, I should like to see the insurgents return, so that we might
+receive them with bullets and cover ourselves with glory. Listen to
+me, go and have the gates closed, and don't go to bed; bustle about all
+night; it will all be taken into account later on."
+
+Pierre returned to the town-hall in rather more cheerful spirits. He
+required some courage to remain firm amidst the woeful maunderings of
+his colleagues. The members of the Provisional Commission seemed to reek
+with panic, just as they might with damp in the rainy season. They all
+professed to have counted upon the despatch of a regiment, and began to
+exclaim that brave citizens ought not to be abandoned in such a manner
+to the fury of the rabble. Pierre, to preserve peace, almost promised
+they should have a regiment on the morrow. Then he announced, in a
+solemn manner, that he was going to have the gates closed. This came as
+a relief. Detachments of the national guards had to repair immediately
+to each gate and double-lock it. When they had returned, several members
+confessed that they really felt more comfortable; and when Pierre
+remarked that the critical situation of the town imposed upon them the
+duty of remaining at their posts, some of them made arrangements with
+the view of spending the night in an arm-chair. Granoux put on a black
+silk skull cap which he had brought with him by way of precaution.
+Towards eleven o'clock, half of the gentlemen were sleeping round
+Monsieur Garconnet's writing table. Those who still managed to keep
+their eyes open fancied, as they listened to the measured tramp of
+the national guards in the courtyard, that they were heroes and were
+receiving decorations. A large lamp, placed on the writing-table,
+illumined this strange vigil. All at once, however, Rougon, who had
+seemed to be slumbering, jumped up, and sent for Vuillet. He had just
+remembered that he had not received the "Gazette."
+
+The bookseller made his appearance in a very bad humour.
+
+"Well!" Rougon asked him as he took him aside, "what about the article
+you promised me? I haven't seen the paper."
+
+"Is that what you disturbed me for?" Vuillet angrily retorted. "The
+'Gazette' has not been issued; I've no desire to get myself murdered
+to-morrow, should the insurgents come back."
+
+Rougon tried to smile as he declared that, thank heaven, nobody would be
+murdered at all. It was precisely because false and disquieting rumours
+were running about that the article in question would have rendered
+great service to the good cause.
+
+"Possibly," Vuillet resumed; "but the best of causes at the present
+time is to keep one's head on one's shoulders." And he added, with
+maliciousness, "And I was under the impression you had killed all the
+insurgents! You've left too many of them for me to run any risk."
+
+Rougon, when he was alone again, felt amazed at this mutiny on the part
+of a man who was usually so meek and mild. Vuillet's conduct seemed
+to him suspicious. But he had no time to seek an explanation; he had
+scarcely stretched himself out afresh in his arm-chair, when Roudier
+entered, with a big sabre, which he had attached to his belt, clattering
+noisily against his legs. The sleepers awoke in a fright. Granoux
+thought it was a call to arms.
+
+"Eh? what! What's the matter?" he asked, as he hastily put his black
+silk cap into his pocket.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Roudier, breathlessly, without thinking of taking
+any oratorical precautions, "I believe that a band of insurgents is
+approaching the town."
+
+These words were received with the silence of terror. Rougon alone had
+the strength to ask, "Have you seen them?"
+
+"No," the retired hosier replied; "but we hear strange noises out in the
+country; one of my men assured me that he had seen fires along the slope
+of the Garrigues."
+
+Then, as all the gentlemen stared at each other white and speechless,
+"I'll return to my post," he continued. "I fear an attack. You had
+better take precautions."
+
+Rougon would have followed him, to obtain further particulars, but he
+was already too far away. After this the Commission was by no means
+inclined to go to sleep again. Strange noises! Fires! An attack! And
+in the middle of the night too! It was very easy to talk of taking
+precautions, but what were they to do? Granoux was very near advising
+the course which had proved so successful the previous evening: that
+is of hiding themselves, waiting till the insurgents has passed through
+Plassans, and then triumphing in the deserted streets. Pierre, however,
+fortunately remembering his wife's advice, said that Roudier might
+have made a mistake, and that the best thing would be to go and see for
+themselves. Some of the members made a wry face at this suggestion;
+but when it had been agreed that an armed escort should accompany the
+Commission, they all descended very courageously. They only left a few
+men downstairs; they surrounded themselves with about thirty of the
+national guards, and then they ventured into the slumbering town, where
+the moon, creeping over the house roofs, slowly cast lengthened shadows.
+They went along the ramparts, from one gate to the other, seeing nothing
+and hearing nothing. The national guards at the various posts certainly
+told them that peculiar sounds occasionally reached them from the
+country through the closed gates. When they strained their ears,
+however, they detected nothing but a distant murmur, which Granoux said
+was merely the noise of the Viorne.
+
+Nevertheless they remained doubtful. And they were about to return to
+the town-hall in a state of alarm, though they made a show of shrugging
+their shoulders and of treating Roudier as a poltroon and a dreamer,
+when Rougon, anxious to reassure them, thought of enabling them to
+view the plain over a distance of several leagues. Thereupon he led the
+little company to the Saint-Marc quarter and knocked at the door of the
+Valqueyras mansion.
+
+At the very outset of the disturbances Count de Valqueyras had left for
+his chateau at Corbiere. There was no one but the Marquis de Carnavant
+at the Plassans house. He, since the previous evening, had prudently
+kept aloof; not that he was afraid, but because he did not care to be
+seen plotting with the Rougons at the critical moment. As a matter
+of fact, he was burning with curiosity. He had been compelled to shut
+himself up in order to resist the temptation of hastening to the yellow
+drawing-room. When the footman came to tell him, in the middle of the
+night, that there were some gentlemen below asking for him, he could not
+hold back any longer. He got up and went downstairs in all haste.
+
+"My dear Marquis," said Rougon, as he introduced to him the members
+of the Municipal Commission, "we want to ask a favour of you. Will you
+allow us to go into the garden of the mansion?"
+
+"By all means," replied the astonished marquis, "I will conduct you
+there myself."
+
+On the way thither he ascertained what their object was. At the end of
+the garden rose a terrace which overlooked the plain. A large portion of
+the ramparts had there tumbled in, leaving a boundless prospect to the
+view. It had occurred to Rougon that this would serve as an excellent
+post of observation. While conversing together the members of the
+Commission leaned over the parapet. The strange spectacle that spread
+out before them soon made them silent. In the distance, in the valley of
+the Viorne, across the vast hollow which stretched westward between the
+chain of the Garrigues and the mountains of the Seille, the rays of the
+moon were streaming like a river of pale light. The clumps of trees, the
+gloomy rocks, looked, here and there, like islets and tongues of land,
+emerging from a luminous sea; and, according to the bends of the Viorne
+one could now and again distinguish detached portions of the river,
+glittering like armour amidst the fine silvery dust falling from the
+firmament. It all looked like an ocean, a world, magnified by the
+darkness, the cold, and their own secret fears. At first the gentlemen
+could neither hear nor see anything. The quiver of light and of distant
+sound blinded their eyes and confused their ears. Granoux, though he
+was not naturally poetic, was struck by the calm serenity of that winter
+night, and murmured: "What a beautiful night, gentlemen!"
+
+"Roudier was certainly dreaming," exclaimed Rougon, rather disdainfully.
+
+But the marquis, whose ears were quick, had begun to listen. "Ah!" he
+observed in his clear voice, "I hear the tocsin."
+
+At this they all leant over the parapet, holding their breath. And light
+and pure as crystal the distant tolling of a bell rose from the plain.
+The gentlemen could not deny it. It was indeed the tocsin. Rougon
+pretended that he recognised the bell of Beage, a village fully a league
+from Plassans. This he said in order to reassure his colleagues.
+
+But the marquis interrupted him. "Listen, listen: this time it is the
+bell of Saint-Maur." And he indicated another point of the horizon to
+them. There was, in fact, a second bell wailing through the clear night.
+And very soon there were ten bells, twenty bells, whose despairing
+tollings were detected by their ears, which had by this time grown
+accustomed to the quivering of the darkness. Ominous calls rose from all
+sides, like the faint rattles of dying men. Soon the whole plain seemed
+to be wailing. The gentlemen no longer jeered at Roudier; particularly
+as the marquis, who took a malicious delight in terrifying them, was
+kind enough to explain the cause of all this bell-ringing.
+
+"It is the neighbouring villages," he said to Rougon, "banding together
+to attack Plassans at daybreak."
+
+At this Granoux opened his eyes wide. "Didn't you see something just
+this moment over there?" he asked all of a sudden.
+
+Nobody had looked; the gentlemen had been keeping their eyes closed in
+order to hear the better.
+
+"Ah! look!" he resumed after a short pause. "There, beyond the Viorne,
+near that black mass."
+
+"Yes, I see," replied Rougon, in despair; "it's a fire they're kindling."
+
+A moment later another fire appeared almost immediately in front of
+the first one, then a third, and a fourth. In this wise red splotches
+appeared at nearly equal distances throughout the whole length of the
+valley, resembling the lamps of some gigantic avenue. The moonlight,
+which dimmed their radiance, made them look like pools of blood. This
+melancholy illumination gave a finishing touch to the consternation of
+the Municipal Commission.
+
+"Of course!" the marquis muttered, with his bitterest sneer, "those
+brigands are signalling to each other." And he counted the fires
+complacently, to get some idea, he said, as to how many men "the brave
+national guard of Plassans" would have to deal with. Rougon endeavoured
+to raise doubts by saying the villages were taking up arms in order to
+join the army of the insurgents, and not for the purpose of attacking
+the town. But the gentlemen, by their silent consternation, made
+it clear that they had formed their own opinion, and were not to be
+consoled.
+
+"I can hear the 'Marseillaise' now," remarked Granoux in a hushed voice.
+
+It was indeed true. A detachment must have been following the course of
+the Viorne, passing, at that moment, just under the town. The cry, "To
+arms, citizens! Form your battalions!" reached the on-lookers in sudden
+bursts with vibrating distinctness. Ah! what an awful night it was! The
+gentlemen spent it leaning over the parapet of the terrace, numbed by
+the terrible cold, and yet quite unable to tear themselves away from
+the sight of that plain which resounded with the tocsin and the
+"Marseillaise," and was all ablaze with signal-fires. They feasted their
+eyes upon that sea of light, flecked with blood-red flames; and they
+strained their ears in order to listen to the confused clamour, till at
+last their senses began to deceive them, and they saw and heard the most
+frightful things. Nothing in the world would have induced them to leave
+the spot. If they had turned their backs, they would have fancied that
+a whole army was at their heels. After the manner of a certain class
+of cowards, they wished to witness the approach of the danger, in order
+that they might take flight at the right moment. Towards morning, when
+the moon had set and they could see nothing in front of them but a
+dark void, they fell into a terrible fright. They fancied they were
+surrounded by invisible enemies, who were crawling along in the
+darkness, ready to fly at their throats. At the slightest noise they
+imagined there were enemies deliberating beneath the terrace, prior to
+scaling it. Yet there was nothing, nothing but darkness upon which they
+fixed their eyes distractedly. The marquis, as if to console them, said
+in his ironical way: "Don't be uneasy! They will certainly wait till
+daybreak."
+
+Meanwhile Rougon cursed and swore. He felt himself again giving way to
+fear. As for Granoux, his hair turned completely white. At last the dawn
+appeared with weary slowness. This again was a terribly anxious moment.
+The gentlemen, at the first ray of light, expected to see an army drawn
+up in line before the town. It so happened that day that the dawn was
+lazy and lingered awhile on the edge of the horizon. With outstretched
+necks and fixed gaze, the party on the terrace peered anxiously into the
+misty expanse. In the uncertain light they fancied they caught glimpses
+of colossal profiles, the plain seemed to be transformed into a lake of
+blood, the rocks looked like corpses floating on its surface, and the
+clusters of trees took the forms of battalions drawn up and threatening
+attack. When the growing light had at last dispersed these phantoms,
+the morning broke so pale, so mournful, so melancholy, that even the
+marquis's spirits sank. Not a single insurgent was to be seen, and the
+high roads were free; but the grey valley wore a gruesomely sad and
+deserted aspect. The fires had now gone out, but the bells still rang
+on. Towards eight o'clock, Rougon observed a small party of men who were
+moving off along the Viorne.
+
+By this time the gentlemen were half dead with cold and fatigue. Seeing
+no immediate danger, they determined to take a few hours' rest. A
+national guard was left on the terrace as a sentinel, with orders to
+run and inform Roudier if he should perceive any band approaching in the
+distance. Then Granoux and Rougon, quite worn out by the emotions of the
+night, repaired to their homes, which were close together, and supported
+each other on the way.
+
+Felicite put her husband to bed with every care. She called him "poor
+dear," and repeatedly told him that he ought not to give way to evil
+fancies, and that all would end well. But he shook his head; he felt
+grave apprehensions. She let him sleep till eleven o'clock. Then, after
+he had had something to eat, she gently turned him out of doors, making
+him understand that he must go through with the matter to the end.
+At the town-hall, Rougon found only four members of the Commission in
+attendance; the others had sent excuses, they were really ill. Panic
+had been sweeping through the town with growing violence all through the
+morning. The gentlemen had not been able to keep quiet respecting the
+memorable night they had spent on the terrace of the Valqueyras mansion.
+Their servants had hastened to spread the news, embellishing it with
+various dramatic details. By this time it had already become a matter of
+history that from the heights of Plassans troops of cannibals had been
+seen dancing and devouring their prisoners. Yes, bands of witches had
+circled hand in hand round their caldrons in which they were boiling
+children, while on and on marched endless files of bandits, whose
+weapons glittered in the moonlight. People spoke too of bells that of
+their own accord, sent the tocsin ringing through the desolate air,
+and it was even asserted that the insurgents had fired the neighbouring
+forests, so that the whole country side was in flames.
+
+It was Tuesday, the market-day at Plassans, and Roudier had thought it
+necessary to have the gates opened in order to admit the few peasants
+who had brought vegetables, butter, and eggs. As soon as it had
+assembled, the Municipal Commission, now composed of five members only,
+including its president, declared that this was unpardonable imprudence.
+Although the sentinel stationed at the Valqueyras mansion had seen
+nothing, the town ought to have been kept closed. Then Rougon decided
+that the public crier, accompanied by a drummer, should go through the
+streets, proclaim a state of siege, and announce to the inhabitants
+that whoever might go out would not be allowed to return. The gates were
+officially closed in broad daylight. This measure, adopted in order to
+reassure the inhabitants, raised the scare to its highest pitch. And
+there could scarcely have been a more curious sight than that of this
+little city, thus padlocking and bolting itself up beneath the bright
+sunshine, in the middle of the nineteenth century.
+
+When Plassans had buckled and tightened its belt of dilapidated
+ramparts, when it had bolted itself in like a besieged fortress at
+the approach of an assault, the most terrible anguish passed over the
+mournful houses. At every moment, in the centre of the town, people
+fancied they could hear a discharge of musketry in the Faubourgs. They
+no longer received any news; they were, so to say, at the bottom of
+a cellar, in a walled hole, where they were anxiously awaiting
+either deliverance or the finishing stroke. For the last two days
+the insurgents, who were scouring the country, had cut off all
+communication. Plassans found itself isolated from the rest of France.
+It felt that it was surrounded by a region in open rebellion, where the
+tocsin was ever ringing and the "Marseillaise" was ever roaring like
+a river that has overflowed its banks. Abandoned to its fate and
+shuddering with alarm the town lay there like some prey which would
+prove the reward of the victorious party. The strollers on the Cours
+Sauvaire were ever swaying between fear and hope according as they
+fancied that they could see the blouses of insurgents or the uniforms
+of soldiers at the Grand'-Porte. Never had sub-prefecture, pent within
+tumble-down walls, endured more agonising torture.
+
+Towards two o'clock it was rumoured that the Coup d'Etat had failed,
+that the prince-president was imprisoned at Vincennes, and that Paris
+was in the hands of the most advanced demagogues. It was reported also
+that Marseilles, Toulon, Draguignan, the entire South, belonged to the
+victorious insurrectionary army. The insurgents would arrive in the
+evening and put Plassans to the sword.
+
+Thereupon a deputation repaired to the town-hall to expostulate with
+the Municipal Commission for closing the gates, whereby they would only
+irritate the insurgents. Rougon, who was losing his head, defended his
+order with all his remaining strength. This locking of the gates seemed
+to him one of the most ingenious acts of his administration; he advanced
+the most convincing arguments in its justification. But the others
+embarrassed him by their questions, asking him where were the soldiers,
+the regiment that he had promised. Then he began to lie, and told them
+flatly that he had promised nothing at all. The non-appearance of this
+legendary regiment, which the inhabitants longed for with such eagerness
+that they had actually dreamt of its arrival, was the chief cause of the
+panic. Well-informed people even named the exact spot on the high road
+where the soldiers had been butchered.
+
+At four o'clock Rougon, followed by Granoux, again repaired to the
+Valqueyras mansion. Small bands, on their way to join the insurgents at
+Orcheres, still passed along in the distance, through the valley of the
+Viorne. Throughout the day urchins climbed the ramparts, and bourgeois
+came to peep through the loopholes. These volunteer sentinels kept up
+the terror by counting the various bands, which were taken for so many
+strong battalions. The timorous population fancied it could see from the
+battlements the preparations for some universal massacre. At dusk, as on
+the previous evening, the panic became yet more chilling.
+
+On returning to the municipal offices Rougon and his inseparable
+companion, Granoux, recognised that the situation was growing
+intolerable. During their absence another member of the Commission had
+disappeared. They were only four now, and they felt they were making
+themselves ridiculous by staying there for hours, looking at each
+other's pale countenances, and never saying a word. Moreover, they were
+terribly afraid of having to spend a second night on the terrace of the
+Valqueyras mansion.
+
+Rougon gravely declared that as the situation of affairs was unchanged,
+there was no need for them to continue to remain there _en permanence_.
+If anything serious should occur information would be sent to them. And,
+by a decision duly taken in council, he deputed to Roudier the carrying
+on of the administration. Poor Roudier, who remembered that he had
+served as a national guard in Paris under Louis-Philippe, was meantime
+conscientiously keeping watch at the Grand'-Porte.
+
+Rougon went home looking very downcast, and creeping along under the
+shadows of the houses. He felt that Plassans was becoming hostile
+to him. He heard his name bandied about amongst the groups, with
+expressions of anger and contempt. He walked upstairs, reeling and
+perspiring. Felicite received him with speechless consternation. She,
+also, was beginning to despair. Their dreams were being completely
+shattered. They stood silent, face to face, in the yellow drawing-room.
+The day was drawing to a close, a murky winter day which imparted a
+muddy tint to the orange-coloured wall-paper with its large flower
+pattern; never had the room looked more faded, more mean, more shabby.
+And at this hour they were alone; they no longer had a crowd of
+courtiers congratulating them, as on the previous evening. A single
+day had sufficed to topple them over, at the very moment when they were
+singing victory. If the situation did not change on the morrow their
+game would be lost.
+
+Felicite who, when gazing on the previous evening at the ruins of
+the yellow drawing-room, had thought of the plains of Austerlitz, now
+recalled the accursed field of Waterloo as she observed how mournful
+and deserted the place was. Then, as her husband said nothing, she
+mechanically went to the window--that window where she had inhaled with
+delight the incense of the entire town. She perceived numerous groups
+below on the square, but she closed the blinds upon seeing some heads
+turn towards their house, for she feared that she might be hooted. She
+felt quite sure that those people were speaking about them.
+
+Indeed, voices rose through the twilight. A lawyer was clamouring in the
+tone of a triumphant pleader. "That's just what I said; the insurgents
+left of their own accord, and they won't ask the permission of the
+forty-one to come back. The forty-one indeed! a fine farce! Why, I
+believe there were at least two hundred."
+
+"No, indeed," said a burly trader, an oil-dealer and a great politician,
+"there were probably not even ten. There was no fighting or else we
+should have seen some blood in the morning. I went to the town-hall
+myself to look; the courtyard was as clean as my hand."
+
+Then a workman, who stepped timidly up to the group, added: "There was
+no need of any violence to seize the building; the door wasn't even
+shut."
+
+This remark was received with laughter, and the workman, thus
+encouraged, continued: "As for those Rougons, everybody knows that they
+are a bad lot."
+
+This insult pierced Felicite to the heart. The ingratitude of the
+people was heartrending to her, for she herself was at last beginning to
+believe in the mission of the Rougons. She called for her husband. She
+wanted him to learn how fickle was the multitude.
+
+"It's all a piece with their mirror," continued the lawyer. "What a fuss
+they made about that broken glass! You know that Rougon is quite capable
+of having fired his gun at it just to make believe there had been a
+battle."
+
+Pierre restrained a cry of pain. What! they did not even believe in his
+mirror now! They would soon assert that he had not heard a bullet whiz
+past his ear. The legend of the Rougons would be blotted out; nothing
+would remain of their glory. But his torture was not at an end yet.
+The groups manifested their hostility as heartily as they had displayed
+their approval on the previous evening. A retired hatter, an old man
+seventy years of age, whose factory had formerly been in the Faubourg,
+ferreted out the Rougons' past history. He spoke vaguely, with the
+hesitation of a wandering memory, about the Fouques' property, and
+Adelaide, and her amours with a smuggler. He said just enough to give
+a fresh start to the gossip. The tattlers drew closer together and such
+words as "rogues," "thieves," and "shameless intriguers," ascended to
+the shutter behind which Pierre and Felicite were perspiring with fear
+and indignation. The people on the square even went so far as to pity
+Macquart. This was the final blow. On the previous day Rougon had been a
+Brutus, a stoic soul sacrificing his own affections to his country; now
+he was nothing but an ambitious villain, who felled his brother to the
+ground and made use of him as a stepping-stone to fortune.
+
+"You hear, you hear them?" Pierre murmured in a stifled voice. "Ah! the
+scoundrels, they are killing us; we shall never retrieve ourselves."
+
+Felicite, enraged, was beating a tattoo on the shutter with her
+impatient fingers.
+
+"Let them talk," she answered. "If we get the upper hand again they
+shall see what stuff I'm made of. I know where the blow comes from. The
+new town hates us."
+
+She guessed rightly. The sudden unpopularity of the Rougons was the
+work of a group of lawyers who were very much annoyed at the importance
+acquired by an old illiterate oil-dealer, whose house had been on the
+verge of bankruptcy. The Saint-Marc quarter had shown no sign of life
+for the last two days. The inhabitants of the old quarter and the new
+town alone remained in presence, and the latter had taken advantage
+of the panic to injure the yellow drawing-room in the minds of the
+tradespeople and working-classes. Roudier and Granoux were said to
+be excellent men, honourable citizens, who had been led away by the
+Rougons' intrigues. Their eyes ought to be opened to it. Ought not
+Monsieur Isidore Granoux to be seated in the mayor's arm-chair, in the
+place of that big portly beggar who had not a copper to bless himself
+with? Thus launched, the envious folks began to reproach Rougon for
+all the acts of his administration, which only dated from the previous
+evening. He had no right to retain the services of the former Municipal
+Council; he had been guilty of grave folly in ordering the gates to be
+closed; it was through his stupidity that five members of the Commission
+had contracted inflammation of the lungs on the terrace of the
+Valqueyras mansion. There was no end to his faults. The Republicans
+likewise raised their heads. They talked of the possibility of a sudden
+attack upon the town-hall by the workmen of the Faubourg. The reaction
+was at its last gasp.
+
+Pierre, at this overthrow of all his hopes, began to wonder what support
+he might still rely on if occasion should require any.
+
+"Wasn't Aristide to come here this evening," he asked, "to make it up
+with us?"
+
+"Yes," answered Felicite. "He promised me a good article. The
+'Independant' has not appeared yet--"
+
+But her husband interrupted her, crying: "See! isn't that he who is just
+coming out of the Sub-Prefecture?"
+
+The old woman glanced in that direction. "He's got his arm in a sling
+again!" she cried.
+
+Aristide's hand was indeed wrapped in the silk handkerchief once more.
+The Empire was breaking up, but the Republic was not yet triumphant,
+and he had judged it prudent to resume the part of a disabled man. He
+crossed the square stealthily, without raising his head. Then doubtless
+hearing some dangerous and compromising remarks among the groups of
+bystanders, he made all haste to turn the corner of the Rue de la Banne.
+
+"Bah! he won't come here," said Felicite bitterly. "It's all up with us.
+Even our children forsake us!"
+
+She shut the window violently, in order that she might not see or hear
+anything more. When she had lit the lamp, she and her husband sat down
+to dinner, disheartened and without appetite, leaving most of their food
+on their plates. They only had a few hours left them to take a decisive
+step. It was absolutely indispensable that before daybreak Plassans
+should be at their feet beseeching forgiveness, or else they must
+entirely renounce the fortune which they had dreamed of. The total
+absence of any reliable news was the sole cause of their anxious
+indecision. Felicite, with her clear intellect, had quickly perceived
+this. If they had been able to learn the result of the Coup d'Etat,
+they would either have faced it out and have still pursued their role of
+deliverers, or else have done what they could to efface all recollection
+of their unlucky campaign. But they had no precise information; they
+were losing their heads; the thought that they were thus risking their
+fortune on a throw, in complete ignorance of what was happening, brought
+a cold perspiration to their brows.
+
+"And why the devil doesn't Eugene write to me?" Rougon suddenly cried,
+in an outburst of despair, forgetting that he was betraying the secret
+of his correspondence to his wife.
+
+But Felicite pretended not to have heard. Her husband's exclamation
+had profoundly affected her. Why, indeed, did not Eugene write to his
+father? After keeping him so accurately informed of the progress of the
+Bonapartist cause, he ought at least to have announced the triumph or
+defeat of Prince Louis. Mere prudence would have counselled the
+despatch of such information. If he remained silent, it must be that the
+victorious Republic had sent him to join the pretender in the dungeons
+of Vincennes. At this thought Felicite felt chilled to the marrow; her
+son's silence destroyed her last hopes.
+
+At that moment somebody brought up the "Gazette," which had only just
+appeared.
+
+"Ah!" said Pierre, with surprise. "Vuillet has issued his paper!"
+
+Thereupon he tore off the wrapper, read the leading article, and
+finished it looking as white as a sheet, and swaying on his chair.
+
+"Here, read," he resumed, handing the paper to Felicite.
+
+It was a magnificent article, attacking the insurgents with unheard of
+violence. Never had so much stinging bitterness, so many falsehoods,
+such bigoted abuse flowed from pen before. Vuillet commenced by
+narrating the entry of the insurgents into Plassans. The description
+was a perfect masterpiece. He spoke of "those bandits, those
+villainous-looking countenances, that scum of the galleys," invading the
+town, "intoxicated with brandy, lust, and pillage." Then he exhibited
+them "parading their cynicism in the streets, terrifying the inhabitants
+with their savage cries and seeking only violence and murder." Further
+on, the scene at the town-hall and the arrest of the authorities became
+a most horrible drama. "Then they seized the most respectable people by
+the throat; and the mayor, the brave commander of the national
+guard, the postmaster, that kindly functionary, were--even like the
+Divinity--crowned with thorns by those wretches, who spat in their
+faces." The passage devoted to Miette and her red pelisse was quite a
+flight of imagination. Vuillet had seen ten, twenty girls steeped in
+blood: "and who," he wrote, "did not behold among those monsters some
+infamous creatures clothed in red, who must have bathed themselves in
+the blood of the martyrs murdered by the brigands along the high roads?
+They were brandishing banners, and openly receiving the vile caresses of
+the entire horde." And Vuillet added, with Biblical magniloquence, "The
+Republic ever marches on amidst debauchery and murder."
+
+That, however, was only the first part of the article; the narrative
+being ended, the editor asked if the country would any longer tolerate
+"the shamelessness of those wild beasts, who respected neither property
+nor persons." He made an appeal to all valorous citizens, declaring that
+to tolerate such things any longer would be to encourage them, and
+that the insurgents would then come and snatch "the daughter from her
+mother's arms, the wife from her husband's embraces." And at last,
+after a pious sentence in which he declared that Heaven willed the
+extermination of the wicked, he concluded with this trumpet blast: "It
+is asserted that these wretches are once more at our gates; well then
+let each one of us take a gun and shoot them down like dogs. I for my
+part shall be seen in the front rank, happy to rid the earth of such
+vermin."
+
+This article, in which periphrastic abuse was strung together with all
+the heaviness of touch which characterises French provincial journalism,
+quite terrified Rougon, who muttered, as Felicite replaced the "Gazette"
+on the table: "Ah! the wretch! he is giving us the last blow; people
+will believe that I inspired this diatribe."
+
+"But," his wife remarked, pensively, "did you not this morning tell me
+that he absolutely refused to write against the Republicans? The news
+that circulated had terrified him, and he was as pale as death, you
+said."
+
+"Yes! yes! I can't understand it at all. When I insisted, he went so
+far as to reproach me for not having killed all the insurgents. It was
+yesterday that he ought to have written that article; to-day he'll get
+us all butchered!"
+
+Felicite was lost in amazement. What could have prompted Vuillet's
+change of front? The idea of that wretched semi-sacristan carrying a
+musket and firing on the ramparts of Plassans seemed to her one of the
+most ridiculous things imaginable. There was certainly some determining
+cause underlying all this which escaped her. Only one thing seemed
+certain. Vuillet was too impudent in his abuse and too ready with his
+valour, for the insurrectionary band to be really so near the town as
+some people asserted.
+
+"He's a spiteful fellow, I always said so," Rougon resumed, after
+reading the article again. "He has only been waiting for an opportunity
+to do us this injury. What a fool I was to leave him in charge of the
+post-office!"
+
+This last sentence proved a flash of light. Felicite started up quickly,
+as though at some sudden thought. Then she put on a cap and threw a
+shawl over her shoulders.
+
+"Where are you going, pray?" her husband asked her with surprise. "It's
+past nine o'clock."
+
+"You go to bed," she replied rather brusquely, "you're not well; go and
+rest yourself. Sleep on till I come back; I'll wake you if necessary,
+and then we can talk the matter over."
+
+She went out with her usual nimble gait, ran to the post-office, and
+abruptly entered the room where Vuillet was still at work. On seeing her
+he made a hasty gesture of vexation.
+
+Never in his life had Vuillet felt so happy. Since he had been able
+to slip his little fingers into the mail-bag he had enjoyed the most
+exquisite pleasure, the pleasure of an inquisitive priest about to
+relish the confessions of his penitents. All the sly blabbing, all the
+vague chatter of sacristies resounded in his ears. He poked his long,
+pale nose into the letters, gazed amorously at the superscriptions with
+his suspicious eyes, sounded the envelopes just like little abbes sound
+the souls of maidens. He experienced endless enjoyment, was titillated
+by the most enticing temptation. The thousand secrets of Plassans lay
+there. He held in his hand the honour of women, the fortunes of men,
+and had only to break a seal to know as much as the grand vicar at the
+cathedral who was the confidant of all the better people of the town.
+Vuillet was one of those terribly bitter, frigid gossips, who worm out
+everything, but never repeat what they hear, except by way of dealing
+somebody a mortal blow. He had, consequently, often longed to dip his
+arms into the public letter-box. Since the previous evening the private
+room at the post-office had become a big confessional full of darkness
+and mystery, in which he tasted exquisite rapture while sniffing at the
+letters which exhaled veiled longings and quivering avowals. Moreover,
+he carried on his work with consummate impudence. The crisis through
+which the country was passing secured him perfect impunity. If some
+letters should be delayed, or others should miscarry altogether, it
+would be the fault of those villainous Republicans who were scouring
+the country and interrupting all communication. The closing of the town
+gates had for a moment vexed him, but he had come to an understanding
+with Roudier, whereby the couriers were allowed to enter and bring the
+mails direct to him without passing by the town-hall.
+
+As a matter of fact he had only opened a few letters, the important
+ones, those in which his keen scent divined some information which it
+would be useful for him to know before anybody else. Then he contented
+himself by locking up in a drawer, for delivery subsequently, such
+letters as might give information and rob him of the merit of his
+valour at a time when the whole town was trembling with fear. This pious
+personage, in selecting the management of the post-office as his own
+share of the spoils, had given proof of singular insight into the
+situation.
+
+When Madame Rougon entered, he was taking his choice of a heap of
+letters and papers, under the pretext, no doubt, of classifying them.
+He rose, with his humble smile, and offered her a seat; his reddened
+eyelids blinking rather uneasily. But Felicite did not sit down; she
+roughly exclaimed: "I want the letter."
+
+At this Vuillet's eyes opened widely, with an expression of perfect
+innocence.
+
+"What letter, madame?" he asked.
+
+"The letter you received this morning for my husband. Come, Monsieur
+Vuillet, I'm in a hurry."
+
+And as he stammered that he did not know, that he had not seen anything,
+that it was very strange, Felicite continued in a covertly threatening
+voice: "A letter from Paris, from my son, Eugene; you know what I mean,
+don't you? I'll look for it myself."
+
+Thereupon she stepped forward as if intending to examine the various
+packets which littered the writing table. But he at once bestirred
+himself, and said he would go and see. The service was necessarily in
+great confusion! Perhaps, indeed, there might be a letter. In that case
+they would find it. But, as far as he was concerned, he swore he had not
+seen any. While he was speaking he moved about the office turning over
+all the papers. Then he opened the drawers and the portfolios. Felicite
+waited, quite calm and collected.
+
+"Yes, indeed, you're right, here's a letter for you," he cried at last,
+as he took a few papers from a portfolio. "Ah! those confounded clerks,
+they take advantage of the situation to do nothing in the proper way."
+
+Felicite took the letter and examined the seal attentively, apparently
+quite regardless of the fact that such scrutiny might wound Vuillet's
+susceptibilities. She clearly perceived that the envelope must have been
+opened; the bookseller, in his unskilful way, had used some sealing
+wax of a darker colour to secure it again. She took care to open the
+envelope in such a manner as to preserve the seal intact, so that it
+might serve as proof of this. Then she read the note. Eugene briefly
+announced the complete success of the Coup d'Etat. Paris was subdued,
+the provinces generally speaking remained quiet, and he counselled
+his parents to maintain a very firm attitude in face of the partial
+insurrection which was disturbing the South. In conclusion he told them
+that the foundation of their fortune was laid, if they did not weaken.
+
+Madame Rougon put the letter in her pocket, and sat down slowly, looking
+into Vuillet's face. The latter had resumed his sorting in a feverish
+manner, as though he were very busy.
+
+"Listen to me, Monsieur Vuillet," she said to him. And when he raised
+his head: "let us play our cards openly; you do wrong to betray us; some
+misfortune may befall you. If, instead of unsealing our letters--"
+
+At this he protested, and feigned great indignation. But she calmly
+continued: "I know, I know your school, you never confess. Come, don't
+let us waste any more words, what interest have you in favouring the
+Coup d'Etat?"
+
+And, as he continued to assert his perfect honesty, she at last lost
+patience. "You take me for a fool!" she cried. "I've read your article.
+You would do much better to act in concert with us."
+
+Thereupon, without avowing anything, he flatly submitted that he wished
+to have the custom of the college. Formerly it was he who had supplied
+that establishment with school books. But it had become known that he
+sold objectionable literature clandestinely to the pupils; for which
+reason, indeed, he had almost been prosecuted at the Correctional Police
+Court. Since then he had jealously longed to be received back into the
+good graces of the directors.
+
+Felicite was surprised at the modesty of his ambition, and told him so.
+To open letters and risk the galleys just for the sake of selling a few
+dictionaries and grammars!
+
+"Eh!" he exclaimed in a shrill voice, "it's an assured sale of four or
+five thousand francs a year. I don't aspire to impossibilities like some
+people."
+
+She did not take any notice of his last taunting words. No more was said
+about his opening the letters. A treaty of alliance was concluded, by
+which Vuillet engaged that he would not circulate any news or take any
+step in advance, on condition that the Rougons should secure him the
+custom of the college. As she was leaving, Felicite advised him not to
+compromise himself any further. It would be sufficient for him to detain
+the letters and distribute them only on the second day.
+
+"What a knave," she muttered, when she reached the street, forgetting
+that she herself had just laid an interdict upon the mail.
+
+She went home slowly, wrapped in thought. She even went out of her
+way, passing along the Cours Sauvaire, as if to gain time and ease for
+reflection before going in. Under the trees of the promenade she met
+Monsieur de Carnavant, who was taking advantage of the darkness to
+ferret about the town without compromising himself. The clergy of
+Plassans, to whom all energetic action was distasteful, had, since the
+announcement of the Coup d'Etat, preserved absolute neutrality. In the
+priests' opinion the Empire was virtually established, and they awaited
+an opportunity to resume in some new direction their secular intrigues.
+The marquis, who had now become a useless agent, remained only
+inquisitive on one point--he wished to know how the turmoil would
+finish, and in what manner the Rougons would play their role to the end.
+
+"Oh! it's you, little one!" he exclaimed, as soon as he recognized
+Felicite. "I wanted to see you; your affairs are getting muddled!"
+
+"Oh, no; everything is going on all right," she replied, in an
+absent-minded way.
+
+"So much the better. You'll tell me all about it, won't you? Ah! I must
+confess that I gave your husband and his colleagues a terrible fright
+the other night. You should have seen how comical they looked on the
+terrace, while I was pointing out a band of insurgents in every cluster
+of trees in the valley! You forgive me?"
+
+"I'm much obliged to you," said Felicite quickly. "You should have made
+them die of fright. My husband is a big sly-boots. Come and see me some
+morning, when I am alone."
+
+Then she turned away, as though this meeting with the marquis had
+determined her. From head to foot the whole of her little person
+betokened implacable resolution. At last she was going to revenge
+herself on Pierre for his petty mysteries, have him under her heel, and
+secure, once for all, her omnipotence at home. There would be a fine
+scene, quite a comedy, indeed, the points of which she was already
+enjoying in anticipation, while she worked out her plan with all the
+spitefulness of an injured woman.
+
+She found Pierre in bed, sleeping heavily; she brought the candle near
+him for an instant, and gazed with an air of compassion, at his big
+face, across which slight twitches occasionally passed; then she sat
+down at the head of the bed, took off her cap, let her hair fall loose,
+assumed the appearance of one in despair, and began to sob quite loudly.
+
+"Hallo! What's the matter? What are you crying for?" asked Pierre,
+suddenly awaking.
+
+She did not reply, but cried more bitterly.
+
+"Come, come, do answer," continued her husband, frightened by this mute
+despair. "Where have you been? Have you seen the insurgents?"
+
+She shook her head; then, in a faint voice, she said: "I've just come
+from the Valqueyras mansion. I wanted to ask Monsieur de Carnavant's
+advice. Ah! my dear, all is lost."
+
+Pierre sat up in bed, very pale. His bull neck, which his unbuttoned
+night-shirt exposed to view, all his soft, flabby flesh seemed to swell
+with terror. At last he sank back, pale and tearful, looking like some
+grotesque Chinese figure in the middle of the untidy bed.
+
+"The marquis," continued Felicite, "thinks that Prince Louis has
+succumbed. We are ruined; we shall never get a sou."
+
+Thereupon, as often happens with cowards, Pierre flew into a passion. It
+was the marquis's fault, it was his wife's fault, the fault of all
+his family. Had he ever thought of politics at all, until Monsieur de
+Carnavant and Felicite had driven him to that tomfoolery?
+
+"I wash my hands of it altogether," he cried. "It's you two who are
+responsible for the blunder. Wasn't it better to go on living on
+our little savings in peace and quietness? But then, you were always
+determined to have your own way! You see what it has brought us to."
+
+He was losing his head completely, and forgot that he had shown himself
+as eager as his wife. However, his only desire now was to vent his
+anger, by laying the blame of his ruin upon others.
+
+"And, moreover," he continued, "could we ever have succeeded with
+children like ours? Eugene abandons us just at the critical moment;
+Aristide has dragged us through the mire, and even that big simpleton
+Pascal is compromising us by his philanthropic practising among the
+insurgents. And to think that we brought ourselves to poverty simply to
+give them a university education!"
+
+Then, as he drew breath, Felicite said to him softly: "You are
+forgetting Macquart."
+
+"Ah! yes; I was forgetting him," he resumed more violently than ever;
+"there's another whom I can't think of without losing all patience! But
+that's not all; you know little Silvere. Well, I saw him at my mother's
+the other evening with his hands covered with blood. He has put some
+gendarme's eye out. I did not tell you of it, as I didn't want to
+frighten you. But you'll see one of my nephews in the Assize Court. Ah!
+what a family! As for Macquart, he has annoyed us to such an extent that
+I felt inclined to break his head for him the other day when I had a gun
+in my hand. Yes, I had a mind to do it."
+
+Felicite let the storm pass over. She had received her husband's
+reproaches with angelic sweetness, bowing her head like a culprit,
+whereby she was able to smile in her sleeve. Her demeanour provoked and
+maddened Pierre. When speech failed the poor man, she heaved deep sighs,
+feigning repentance; and then she repeated, in a disconsolate voice:
+"Whatever shall we do! Whatever shall we do! We are over head and ears
+in debt."
+
+"It's your fault!" Pierre cried, with all his remaining strength.
+
+The Rougons, in fact, owed money on every side. The hope of approaching
+success had made them forget all prudence. Since the beginning of 1851
+they had gone so far as to entertain the frequenters of the yellow
+drawing-room every evening with syrup and punch, and cakes--providing,
+in fact, complete collations, at which they one and all drank to the
+death of the Republic. Besides this, Pierre had placed a quarter of
+his capital at the disposal of the reactionary party, as a contribution
+towards the purchase of guns and cartridges.
+
+"The pastry-cook's bill amounts to at least a thousand francs," Felicite
+resumed, in her sweetest tone, "and we probably owe twice as much to
+the liqueur-dealer. Then there's the butcher, the baker, the
+greengrocer----"
+
+Pierre was in agony. And Felicite struck him a final blow by adding: "I
+say nothing of the ten thousand francs you gave for the guns."
+
+"I, I!" he faltered, "but I was deceived, I was robbed! It was that
+idiot Sicardot who let me in for that by swearing that the Napoleonists
+would be triumphant. I thought I was only making an advance. But the old
+dolt will have to repay me my money."
+
+"Ah! you won't get anything back," said his wife, shrugging her
+shoulders. "We shall suffer the fate of war. When we have paid off
+everything, we sha'n't even have enough to buy dry bread with. Ah! it's
+been a fine campaign. We can now go and live in some hovel in the old
+quarter."
+
+This last phrase had a most lugubrious sound. It seemed like the knell
+of their existence. Pierre pictured the hovel in the old quarter, which
+had just been mentioned by Felicite. 'Twas there, then, that he would
+die on a pallet, after striving all his life for the enjoyment of ease
+and luxury. In vain had he robbed his mother, steeped his hands in the
+foulest intrigues, and lied and lied for many a long year. The Empire
+would not pay his debts--that Empire which alone could save him. He
+jumped out of bed in his night-shirt, crying: "No; I'll take my gun; I
+would rather let the insurgents kill me."
+
+"Well!" Felicite rejoined, with great composure, "you can have that done
+to-morrow or the day after; the Republicans are not far off. And that
+way will do as well as another to make an end of matters."
+
+Pierre shuddered. It seemed as if some one had suddenly poured a large
+pail of cold water over his shoulders. He slowly got into bed again, and
+when he was warmly wrapped up in the sheets, he began to cry. This
+fat fellow easily burst into tears--gently flowing, inexhaustible
+tears--which streamed from his eyes without an effort. A terrible
+reaction was now going on within him. After his wrath he became as
+weak as a child. Felicite, who had been waiting for this crisis, was
+delighted to see him so spiritless, so resourceless, and so humbled
+before her. She still preserved silence, and an appearance of distressed
+humility. After a long pause, her seeming resignation, her mute
+dejection, irritated Pierre's nerves.
+
+"But do say something!" he implored; "let us think matters over
+together. Is there really no hope left us?"
+
+"None, you know very well," she replied; "you explained the situation
+yourself just now; we have no help to expect from anyone; even our
+children have betrayed us."
+
+"Let us flee, then. Shall we leave Plassans to-night--immediately?"
+
+"Flee! Why, my dear, to-morrow we should be the talk of the whole town.
+Don't you remember, too, that you have had the gates closed?"
+
+A violent struggle was going on in Pierre's mind, which he exerted to
+the utmost in seeking for some solution; at last, as though he felt
+vanquished, he murmured, in supplicating tones: "I beseech you, do try
+to think of something; you haven't said anything yet."
+
+Felicite raised her head, feigning surprise; and with a gesture of
+complete powerlessness she said: "I am a fool in these matters. I don't
+understand anything about politics, you've told me so a hundred times."
+
+And then, as her embarrassed husband held his tongue and lowered his
+eyes, she continued slowly, but not reproachfully: "You have not kept me
+informed of your affairs, have you? I know nothing at all about them, I
+can't even give you any advice. It was quite right of you, though; women
+chatter sometimes, and it is a thousand times better for the men to
+steer the ship alone."
+
+She said this with such refined irony that her husband did not detect
+that she was deriding him. He simply felt profound remorse. And, all of
+a sudden, he burst out into a confession. He spoke of Eugene's letters,
+explained his plans, his conduct, with all the loquacity of a man who
+is relieving his conscience and imploring a saviour. At every moment
+he broke off to ask: "What would you have done in my place?" or else
+he cried, "Isn't that so? I was right, I could not act otherwise." But
+Felicite did not even deign to make a sign. She listened with all the
+frigid reserve of a judge. In reality she was tasting the most exquisite
+pleasure; she had got that sly-boots fast at last; she played with him
+like a cat playing with a ball of paper; and he virtually held out his
+hands to be manacled by her.
+
+"But wait," he said hastily, jumping out of bed. "I'll give you Eugene's
+correspondence to read. You can judge the situation better then."
+
+She vainly tried to hold him back by his night-shirt. He spread out the
+letters on the table by the bed-side, and then got into bed again, and
+read whole pages of them, and compelled her to go through them herself.
+She suppressed a smile, and began to feel some pity for the poor man.
+
+"Well," he said anxiously, when he had finished, "now you know
+everything. Do you see any means of saving us from ruin!"
+
+She still gave no answer. She appeared to be pondering deeply.
+
+"You are an intelligent woman," he continued, in order to flatter her,
+"I did wrong in keeping any secret from you; I see it now."
+
+"Let us say nothing more about that," she replied. "In my opinion, if
+you had enough courage----" And as he looked at her eagerly, she broke
+off and said, with a smile: "But you promise not to distrust me any
+more? You will tell me everything, eh? You will do nothing without
+consulting me?"
+
+He swore, and accepted the most rigid conditions. Felicite then got into
+bed; and in a whisper, as if she feared somebody might hear them, she
+explained at length her plan of campaign. In her opinion the town
+must be allowed to fall into still greater panic, while Pierre was to
+maintain an heroic demeanour in the midst of the terrified inhabitants.
+A secret presentiment, she said, warned her that the insurgents were
+still at a distance. Moreover, the party of order would sooner or later
+carry the day, and the Rougons would be rewarded. After the role of
+deliverer, that of martyr was not to be despised. And she argued so
+well, and spoke with so much conviction, that her husband, surprised at
+first by the simplicity of her plan, which consisted in facing it out,
+at last detected in it a marvellous tactical scheme, and promised to
+conform to it with the greatest possible courage.
+
+"And don't forget that it is I who am saving you," the old woman
+murmured in a coaxing tone. "Will you be nice to me?"
+
+They kissed each other and said good-night. But neither of them slept;
+after a quarter of an hour had gone by, Pierre, who had been gazing at
+the round reflection of the night-lamp on the ceiling, turned, and in a
+faint whisper told his wife of an idea that had just occurred to him.
+
+"Oh! no, no," Felicite murmured, with a shudder. "That would be too
+cruel."
+
+"Well," he resumed, "but you want to spread consternation among the
+inhabitants! They would take me seriously, if what I told you should
+occur." Then perfecting his scheme, he cried: "We might employ Macquart.
+That would be a means of getting rid of him."
+
+Felicite seemed to be struck with the idea. She reflected, seemed to
+hesitate, and then, in a distressful tone faltered: "Perhaps you are
+right. We must see. After all we should be very stupid if we were
+over-scrupulous, for it's a matter of life and death to us. Let me do
+it. I'll see Macquart to-morrow, and ascertain if we can come to
+an understanding with him. You would only wrangle and spoil all.
+Good-night; sleep well, my poor dear. Our troubles will soon be ended,
+you'll see."
+
+They again kissed each other and fell asleep. The patch of light on the
+ceiling now seemed to be assuming the shape of a terrified eye, that
+stared wildly and fixedly upon the pale, slumbering couple who reeked
+with crime beneath their very sheets, and dreamt they could see a rain
+of blood falling in big drops which turned into golden coins as they
+plashed upon the floor.
+
+On the morrow, before daylight, Felicite repaired to the town-hall,
+armed with instructions from Pierre to seek an interview with Macquart.
+She took her husband's national guard uniform with her, wrapped in a
+cloth. There were only a few men fast asleep in the guard-house. The
+doorkeeper, who was entrusted with the duty of supplying Macquart with
+food, went upstairs with her to open the door of the dressing-room,
+which had been turned into a cell. Then quietly he came down again.
+
+Macquart had now been kept in the room for two days and two nights. He
+had had time to indulge in lengthy reflections. After his sleep, his
+first hours had been given up to outbursts of impotent rage. Goaded by
+the idea that his brother was lording it in the adjoining room, he had
+felt a great longing to break the door open. At all events he would
+strangle Rougon with his own hands, as soon as the insurgents should
+return and release him. But, in the evening, at twilight, he calmed
+down, and gave over striding furiously round the little room. He inhaled
+a sweet odour there; a feeling of comfort relaxed his nerves. Monsieur
+Garconnet, who was very rich, refined, and vain, had caused this little
+room to be arranged in a very elegant fashion; the sofa was soft and
+warm; scents, pomades, and soaps adorned the marble washstand, and the
+pale light fell from the ceiling with a soft glow, like the gleams of
+a lamp suspended in an alcove. Macquart, amidst this perfumed soporific
+atmosphere fell asleep, thinking that those scoundrels, the rich, "were
+very fortunate, all the same." He had covered himself with a blanket
+which had been given to him, and with his head and back and arms
+reposing on the cushions, he stretched himself out on the couch until
+morning. When he opened his eyes, a ray of sunshine was gliding through
+the opening above. Still he did not leave the sofa. He felt warm, and
+lay thinking as he gazed around him. He bethought himself that he would
+never again have such a place to wash in. The washstand particularly
+interested him. It was by no means hard, he thought, to keep oneself
+spruce when one had so many little pots and phials at one's disposal.
+This made him think bitterly of his own life of privation. The idea
+occurred to him that perhaps he had been on the wrong track. There
+is nothing to be gained by associating with beggars. He ought to have
+played the scamp; he should have acted in concert with the Rougons.
+
+Then, however, he rejected this idea. The Rougons were villains who had
+robbed him. But the warmth and softness of the sofa, continued to work
+upon his feelings, and fill him with vague regrets. After all, the
+insurgents were abandoning him, and allowing themselves to be beaten
+like idiots. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the Republic was
+mere dupery. Those Rougons were lucky! And he recalled his own bootless
+wickedness and underhand intrigues. Not one member of the family had
+ever been on his side; neither Aristide, nor Silvere's brother, nor
+Silvere himself, who was a fool to grow so enthusiastic about the
+Republic and would never do any good for himself. Then Macquart
+reflected that his wife was dead, that his children had left him, and
+that he would die alone, like a dog in some wretched corner, without a
+copper to bless himself with. Decidedly, he ought to have sold himself
+to the reactionary party. Pondering in this fashion, he eyed the
+washstand, feeling a strong inclination to go and wash his hands with a
+certain powder soap which he saw in a glass jar. Like all lazy fellows
+who live upon their wives or children, he had foppish tastes. Although
+he wore patched trousers, he liked to inundate himself with aromatic
+oil. He spent hours with his barber, who talked politics, and brushed
+his hair for him between their discussions. So, at last, the temptation
+became too strong, and Macquart installed himself before the washstand.
+He washed his hands and face, dressed his hair, perfumed himself, in
+fact went through a complete toilet. He made use in turn of all the
+bottles, all the various soaps and powders; but his greatest pleasure
+was to dry his hands with the mayor's towels, which were so soft and
+thick. He buried his wet face in them, and inhaled, with delight, all
+the odour of wealth. Then, having pomaded himself, and smelling sweetly
+from head to foot, he once more stretched himself on the sofa, feeling
+quite youthful again, and disposed to the most conciliatory thoughts. He
+felt yet greater contempt for the Republic since he had dipped his nose
+into Monsieur Garconnet's phials. The idea occurred to him that there
+was, perhaps, still time for him to make peace with his brother. He
+wondered what he might well ask in return for playing the traitor. His
+rancour against the Rougons still gnawed at his heart; but he was in one
+of those moods when, lying on one's back in silence, one is apt to admit
+stern facts, and scold oneself for neglecting to feather a comfortable
+nest in which one may wallow in slothful ease, even at the cost of
+relinquishing one's most cherished animosities. Towards evening Antoine
+determined to send for his brother on the following day. But when, in
+the morning, he saw Felicite enter the room he understood that his aid
+was wanted, so he remained on his guard.
+
+The negotiations were long and full of pitfalls, being conducted on
+either side with infinite skill. At first they both indulged in vague
+complaints, then Felicite, who was surprised to find Macquart almost
+polite, after the violent manner in which he had behaved at her house on
+the Sunday evening, assumed a tone of gentle reproach. She deplored
+the hatred which severed their families. But, in truth, he had so
+calumniated his brother, and manifested such bitter animosity towards
+him, that he had made poor Rougon quite lose his head.
+
+"But, dash it, my brother has never behaved like a brother to me,"
+Macquart replied, with restrained violence. "Has he ever given me
+any assistance? He would have let me die in my hovel! When he behaved
+differently towards me--you remember, at the time he gave me two hundred
+francs--I am sure no one can reproach me with having said a single
+unpleasant word about him. I said everywhere that he was a very
+good-hearted fellow."
+
+This clearly signified: "If you had continued to supply me with money,
+I should have been very pleasant towards you, and would have helped you,
+instead of fighting against you. It's your own fault. You ought to have
+bought me."
+
+Felicite understood this so well that she replied: "I know you have
+accused us of being hard upon you, because you imagine we are in
+comfortable circumstances; but you are mistaken, my dear brother; we are
+poor people; we have never been able to act towards you as our hearts
+would have desired." She hesitated a moment, and then continued: "If it
+were absolutely necessary in some serious contingency, we might perhaps
+be able to make a sacrifice; but, truly, we are very poor, very poor!"
+
+Macquart pricked up his ears. "I have them!" he thought. Then, without
+appearing to understand his sister-in-law's indirect offer, he detailed
+the wretchedness of his life in a doleful manner, and spoke of his
+wife's death and his children's flight. Felicite, on her side, referred
+to the crisis through which the country was passing, and declared that
+the Republic had completely ruined them. Then from word to word she
+began to bemoan the exigencies of a situation which compelled one
+brother to imprison another. How their hearts would bleed if justice
+refused to release its prey! And finally she let slip the word
+"galleys!"
+
+"Bah! I defy you," said Macquart calmly.
+
+But she hastily exclaimed: "Oh! I would rather redeem the honour of the
+family with my own blood. I tell you all this to show you that we shall
+not abandon you. I have come to give you the means of effecting your
+escape, my dear Antoine."
+
+They gazed at each other for a moment, sounding each other with a look,
+before engaging in the contest.
+
+"Unconditionally?" he asked, at length.
+
+"Without any condition," she replied.
+
+Then she sat down beside him on the sofa, and continued, in a determined
+voice: "And even, before crossing the frontier, if you want to earn a
+thousand-franc note, I can put you in the way of doing so."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+"If it's all above board I shall have no objection," Antoine muttered,
+apparently reflecting. "You know I don't want to mix myself up with your
+underhand dealings."
+
+"But there are no underhand dealings about it," Felicite resumed,
+smiling at the old rascal's scruples. "Nothing can be more simple: you
+will presently leave this room, and go and conceal yourself in your
+mother's house, and this evening you can assemble your friends and come
+and seize the town-hall again."
+
+Macquart did not conceal his extreme surprise. He did not understand it
+at all.
+
+"I thought," he said, "that you were victorious."
+
+"Oh! I haven't got time now to tell you all about it," the old woman
+replied, somewhat impatiently. "Do you accept or not?"
+
+"Well, no; I don't accept--I want to think it over. It would be very
+stupid of me to risk a possible fortune for a thousand francs."
+
+Felicite rose. "Just as you like my dear fellow," she said, coldly. "You
+don't seem to realise the position you are in. You came to my house and
+treated me as though I were a mere outcast; and then, when I am kind
+enough to hold out a hand to you in the hole into which you have
+stupidly let yourself fall, you stand on ceremony, and refuse to be
+rescued. Well, then, stay here, wait till the authorities come back. As
+for me, I wash my hands of the whole business."
+
+With these words she reached the door.
+
+"But give me some explanations," he implored. "I can't strike a bargain
+with you in perfect ignorance of everything. For two days past I have
+been quite in the dark as to what's going on. How do I know that you are
+not cheating me?"
+
+"Bah! you're a simpleton," replied Felicite, who had retraced her steps
+at Antoine's doleful appeal. "You are very foolish not to trust yourself
+implicitly to us. A thousand francs! That's a fine sum, a sum that one
+would only risk in a winning cause. I advise you to accept."
+
+He still hesitated.
+
+"But when we want to seize the place, shall we be allowed to enter
+quietly?"
+
+"Ah! I don't know," she said, with a smile. "There will perhaps be a
+shot or two fired."
+
+He looked at her fixedly.
+
+"Well, but I say, little woman," he resumed in a hoarse voice, "you
+don't intend, do you, to have a bullet lodged in my head?"
+
+Felicite blushed. She was, in fact, just thinking that they would be
+rendered a great service, if, during the attack on the town-hall, a
+bullet should rid them of Antoine. It would be a gain of a thousand
+francs, besides all the rest. So she muttered with irritation: "What an
+idea! Really, it's abominable to think such things!"
+
+Then, suddenly calming down, she added:
+
+"Do you accept? You understand now, don't you?"
+
+Macquart had understood perfectly. It was an ambush that they were
+proposing to him. He did not perceive the reasons or the consequences
+of it, and this was what induced him to haggle. After speaking of the
+Republic as though it were a mistress whom, to his great grief, he could
+no longer love, he recapitulated the risks which he would have to run,
+and finished by asking for two thousand francs. But Felicite abided
+by her original offer. They debated the matter until she promised to
+procure him, on his return to France, some post in which he would
+have nothing to do, and which would pay him well. The bargain was then
+concluded. She made him don the uniform she had brought with her. He
+was to betake himself quietly to aunt Dide's, and afterwards, towards
+midnight, assemble all the Republicans he could in the neighbourhood of
+the town-hall, telling them that the municipal offices were unguarded,
+and that they had only to push open the door to take possession of them.
+Antoine then asked for earnest money, and received two hundred francs.
+Felicite undertook to pay the remaining eight hundred on the following
+day. The Rougons were risking the last sum they had at their disposal.
+
+When Felicite had gone downstairs, she remained on the square for a
+moment to watch Macquart go out. He passed the guard-house, quietly
+blowing his nose. He had previously broken the skylight in the
+dressing-room, to make it appear that he had escaped that way.
+
+"It's all arranged," Felicite said to her husband, when she returned
+home. "It will be at midnight. It doesn't matter to me at all now. I
+should like to see them all shot. How they slandered us yesterday in the
+street!"
+
+"It was rather silly of you to hesitate," replied Pierre, who was
+shaving. "Every one would do the same in our place."
+
+That morning--it was a Wednesday--he was particularly careful about his
+toilet. His wife combed his hair and tied his cravat, turning him about
+like a child going to a distribution of prizes. And when he was ready,
+she examined him, declared that he looked very nice, and that he would
+make a very good figure in the midst of the serious events that were
+preparing. His big pale face wore an expression of grave dignity and
+heroic determination. She accompanied him to the first landing, giving
+him her last advice: he was not to depart in any way from his courageous
+demeanour, however great the panic might be; he was to have the gates
+closed more hermetically than ever, and leave the town in agonies of
+terror within its ramparts; it would be all the better if he were to
+appear the only one willing to die for the cause of order.
+
+What a day it was! The Rougons still speak of it as of a glorious and
+decisive battle. Pierre went straight to the town-hall, heedless of the
+looks or words that greeted him on his way. He installed himself there
+in magisterial fashion, like a man who did not intend to quit the place,
+whatever might happen. And he simply sent a note to Roudier, to advise
+him that he was resuming authority.
+
+"Keep watch at the gates," he added, knowing that these lines might
+become public: "I myself will watch over the town and ensure the
+security of life and property. It is at the moment when evil passions
+reappear and threaten to prevail that good citizens should endeavour to
+stifle them, even at the peril of their lives." The style, and the very
+errors in spelling, made this note--the brevity of which suggested the
+laconic style of the ancients--appear all the more heroic. Not one of
+the gentlemen of the Provisional Commission put in an appearance. The
+last two who had hitherto remained faithful, and Granoux himself,
+even, prudently stopped at home. Thus Rougon was the only member of the
+Commission who remained at his post, in his presidential arm-chair, all
+the others having vanished as the panic increased. He did not even
+deign to issue an order summoning them to attend. He was there, and that
+sufficed, a sublime spectacle, which a local journal depicted later on
+in a sentence: "Courage giving the hand to duty."
+
+During the whole morning Pierre was seen animating the town-hall with
+his goings and comings. He was absolutely alone in the large, empty
+building, whose lofty halls reechoed with the noise of his heels. All
+the doors were left open. He made an ostentatious show of his presidency
+over a non-existent council in the midst of this desert, and appeared
+so deeply impressed with the responsibility of his mission that the
+doorkeeper, meeting him two or three times in the passages, bowed to him
+with an air of mingled surprise and respect. He was seen, too, at every
+window, and, in spite of the bitter cold, he appeared several times
+on the balcony with bundles of papers in his hand, like a busy man
+attending to important despatches.
+
+Then, towards noon, he passed through the town and visited the
+guard-houses, speaking of a possible attack, and letting it be
+understood, that the insurgents were not far off; but he relied, he
+said, on the courage of the brave national guards. If necessary they
+must be ready to die to the last man for the defence of the good cause.
+When he returned from this round, slowly and solemnly, after the manner
+of a hero who has set the affairs of his country in order, and now only
+awaits death, he observed signs of perfect stupor along his path; the
+people promenading in the Cours, the incorrigible little householders,
+whom no catastrophe would have prevented from coming at certain hours
+to bask in the sun, looked at him in amazement, as if they did not
+recognize him, and could not believe that one of their own set, a former
+oil-dealer, should have the boldness to face a whole army.
+
+In the town the anxiety was at its height. The insurrectionists were
+expected every moment. The rumour of Macquart's escape was commented
+upon in a most alarming manner. It was asserted that he had been rescued
+by his friends, the Reds, and that he was only waiting for nighttime in
+order to fall upon the inhabitants and set fire to the four corners of
+the town. Plassans, closed in and terror-stricken, gnawing at its own
+vitals within its prison-like walls, no longer knew what to imagine in
+order to frighten itself. The Republicans, in the face of Rougon's
+bold demeanour, felt for a moment distrustful. As for the new
+town--the lawyers and retired tradespeople who had denounced the yellow
+drawing-room on the previous evening--they were so surprised that
+they dared not again openly attack such a valiant man. They contented
+themselves with saying "It was madness to brave victorious insurgents
+like that, and such useless heroism would bring the greatest misfortunes
+upon Plassans." Then, at about three o'clock, they organised a
+deputation. Pierre, though he was burning with desire to make a display
+of his devotion before his fellow-citizens, had not ventured to reckon
+upon such a fine opportunity.
+
+He spoke sublimely. It was in the mayor's private room that the
+president of the Provisional Commission received the deputation from the
+new town. The gentlemen of the deputation, after paying homage to his
+patriotism, besought him to forego all resistance. But he, in a loud
+voice, talked of duty, of his country, of order, of liberty, and various
+other things. Moreover, he did not wish to compel any one to imitate
+him; he was simply discharging a duty which his conscience and his heart
+dictated to him.
+
+"You see, gentlemen, I am alone," he said in conclusion. "I will take
+all the responsibility, so that nobody but myself may be compromised.
+And if a victim is required I willingly offer myself; I wish to
+sacrifice my own life for the safety of the inhabitants."
+
+A notary, the wiseacre of the party, remarked that he was running to
+certain death.
+
+"I know it," he resumed solemnly. "I am prepared!"
+
+The gentlemen looked at each other. Those words "I am prepared!" filled
+them with admiration. Decidedly this man was a brave fellow. The notary
+implored him to call in the aid of the gendarmes; but he replied that
+the blood of those brave soldiers was precious, and he would not have
+it shed, except in the last extremity. The deputation slowly withdrew,
+feeling deeply moved. An hour afterwards, Plassans was speaking of
+Rougon as of a hero; the most cowardly called him "an old fool."
+
+Towards evening, Rougon was much surprised to see Granoux hasten to
+him. The old almond-dealer threw himself in his arms, calling him
+"great man," and declaring that he would die with him. The words "I am
+prepared!" which had just been reported to him by his maid-servant,
+who had heard it at the greengrocer's, had made him quite enthusiastic.
+There was charming naivete in the nature of this grotesque, timorous
+old man. Pierre kept him with him, thinking that he would not be of
+much consequence. He was even touched by the poor fellow's devotion, and
+resolved to have him publicly complimented by the prefect, in order to
+rouse the envy of the other citizens who had so cowardly abandoned him.
+And so both of them awaited the night in the deserted building.
+
+At the same time Aristide was striding about at home in an uneasy
+manner. Vuillet's article had astonished him. His father's demeanour
+stupefied him. He had just caught sight of him at the window, in a white
+cravat and black frock-coat, so calm at the approach of danger that all
+his ideas were upset. Yet the insurgents were coming back triumphant,
+that was the belief of the whole town. But Aristide felt some doubts
+on the point; he had suspicions of some lugubrious farce. As he did not
+dare to present himself at his parents' house, he sent his wife thither.
+And when Angele returned, she said to him, in her drawling voice: "Your
+mother expects you; she is not angry at all, she seems rather to be
+making fun of you. She told me several times that you could just put
+your sling back in your pocket."
+
+Aristide felt terribly vexed. However, he ran to the Rue de la Banne,
+prepared to make the most humble submission. His mother was content
+to receive him with scornful laughter. "Ah! my poor fellow," said she,
+"you're certainly not very shrewd."
+
+"But what can one do in a hole like Plassans!" he angrily retorted. "On
+my word of honour, I am becoming a fool here. No news, and everybody
+shivering! That's what it is to be shut up in these villainous ramparts.
+Ah! If I had only been able to follow Eugene to Paris!"
+
+Then, seeing that his mother was still smiling, he added bitterly:
+"You haven't been very kind to me, mother. I know many things, I do. My
+brother kept you informed of what was going on, and you have never given
+me the faintest hint that might have been useful to me."
+
+"You know that, do you?" exclaimed Felicite, becoming serious and
+distrustful. "Well, you're not so foolish as I thought, then. Do you
+open letters like some one of my acquaintance?"
+
+"No; but I listen at doors," Aristide replied, with great assurance.
+
+This frankness did not displease the old woman. She began to smile
+again, and asked more softly: "Well, then, you blockhead, how is it you
+didn't rally to us sooner?"
+
+"Ah! that's where it is," the young man said, with some embarrassment.
+"I didn't have much confidence in you. You received such idiots: my
+father-in-law, Granoux, and the others!--And then, I didn't want to go
+too far. . . ." He hesitated, and then resumed, with some uneasiness:
+"To-day you are at least quite sure of the success of the Coup d'Etat,
+aren't you?"
+
+"I!" cried Felicite, wounded by her son's doubts; "no, I'm not sure of
+anything."
+
+"And yet you sent word to say that I was to take off my sling!"
+
+"Yes; because all the gentlemen are laughing at you."
+
+Aristide remained stock still, apparently contemplating one of the
+flowers of the orange-coloured wall-paper. And his mother felt sudden
+impatience as she saw him hesitating thus.
+
+"Ah! well," she said, "I've come back again to my former opinion; you're
+not very shrewd. And you think you ought to have had Eugene's letters
+to read? Why, my poor fellow you would have spoilt everything, with
+your perpetual vacillation. You never can make up your mind. You are
+hesitating now."
+
+"I hesitate?" he interrupted, giving his mother a cold, keen glance.
+"Ah! well, you don't know me. I would set the whole town on fire if it
+were necessary, and I wanted to warm my feet. But, understand me, I've
+no desire to take the wrong road! I'm tired of eating hard bread, and I
+hope to play fortune a trick. But I only play for certainties."
+
+He spoke these words so sharply, with such a keen longing for success,
+that his mother recognised the cry of her own blood.
+
+"Your father is very brave," she whispered.
+
+"Yes, I've seen him," he resumed with a sneer. "He's got a fine look on
+him! He reminded me of Leonidas at Thermopylae. Is it you, mother, who
+have made him cut this figure?"
+
+And he added cheerfully, with a gesture of determination: "Well, so much
+the worse! I'm a Bonapartist! Father is not the man to risk the chance
+of being killed unless it pays him well."
+
+"You're quite right," his mother replied; "I mustn't say anything; but
+to-morrow you'll see."
+
+He did not press her, but swore that she would soon have reason to be
+proud of him; and then he took his departure, while Felicite, feeling
+her old preference reviving, said to herself at the window, as she
+watched him going off, that he had the devil's own wit, that she would
+never have had sufficient courage to let him leave without setting him
+in the right path.
+
+And now for the third time a night full of anguish fell upon Plassans.
+The unhappy town was almost at its death-rattle. The citizens hastened
+home and barricaded their doors with a great clattering of iron bolts
+and bars. The general feeling seemed to be that, by the morrow, Plassans
+would no longer exist, that it would either be swallowed up by the earth
+or would evaporate in the atmosphere. When Rougon went home to dine, he
+found the streets completely deserted. This desolation made him sad and
+melancholy. As a result of this, when he had finished his meal, he
+felt some slight misgivings, and asked his wife if it were necessary to
+follow up the insurrection that Macquart was preparing.
+
+"Nobody will run us down now," said he. "You should have seen those
+gentlemen of the new town, how they bowed to me! It seems to me quite
+unnecessary now to kill anybody--eh? What do you think? We shall feather
+our nest without that."
+
+"Ah! what a nerveless fellow you are!" Felicite cried angrily. "It was
+your own idea to do it, and now you back out! I tell you that you'll
+never do anything without me! Go then, go your own way. Do you think the
+Republicans would spare you if they got hold of you?"
+
+Rougon went back to the town-hall, and prepared for the ambush. Granoux
+was very useful to him. He despatched him with orders to the different
+posts guarding the ramparts. The national guards were to repair to the
+town-hall in small detachments, as secretly as possible. Roudier, that
+bourgeois who was quite out of his element in the provinces, and who
+would have spoilt the whole affair with his humanitarian preaching, was
+not even informed of it. Towards eleven o'clock, the court-yard of the
+town-hall was full of national guards. Then Rougon frightened them; he
+told them that the Republicans still remaining in Plassans were about
+to attempt a desperate _coup de main_, and plumed himself on having been
+warned in time by his secret police. When he had pictured the bloody
+massacre which would overtake the town, should these wretches get the
+upper hand, he ordered his men to cease speaking, and extinguish all
+lights. He took a gun himself. Ever since the morning he had been living
+as in a dream; he no longer knew himself; he felt Felicite behind him.
+The crisis of the previous night had thrown him into her hands, and he
+would have allowed himself to be hanged, thinking: "It does not matter,
+my wife will come and cut me down." To augment the tumult, and prolong
+the terror of the slumbering town, he begged Granoux to repair to the
+cathedral and have the tocsin rung at the first shots he might hear. The
+marquis's name would open the beadle's door. And then, in darkness and
+dismal silence, the national guards waited in the yard, in a terrible
+state of anxiety, their eyes fixed on the porch, eager to fire, as
+though they were lying in wait for a pack of wolves.
+
+In the meantime, Macquart had spent the day at aunt Dide's house.
+Stretching himself on the old coffer, and lamenting the loss of Monsieur
+Garconnet's sofa, he had several times felt a mad inclination to break
+into his two hundred francs at some neighbouring cafe. This money was
+burning a hole in his waistcoat pocket; however, he whiled away his time
+by spending it in imagination. His mother moved about, in her stiff,
+automatic way, as if she were not even aware of his presence. During the
+last few days her children had been coming to her rather frequently,
+in a state of pallor and desperation, but she departed neither from her
+taciturnity, nor her stiff, lifeless expression. She knew nothing of
+the fears which were throwing the pent-up town topsy-turvy, she was a
+thousand leagues away from Plassans, soaring into the one constant
+fixed idea which imparted such a blank stare to her eyes. Now and again,
+however, at this particular moment, some feeling of uneasiness, some
+human anxiety, occasionally made her blink. Antoine, unable to resist
+the temptation of having something nice to eat, sent her to get a roast
+chicken from an eating-house in the Faubourg. When it was set on the
+table: "Hey!" he said to her, "you don't often eat fowl, do you? It's
+only for those who work, and know how to manage their affairs. As for
+you, you always squandered everything. I bet you're giving all your
+savings to that little hypocrite, Silvere. He's got a mistress, the sly
+fellow. If you've a hoard of money hidden in some corner, he'll ease you
+of it nicely some day."
+
+Macquart was in a jesting mood, glowing with wild exultation. The money
+he had in his pocket, the treachery he was preparing, the conviction
+that he had sold himself at a good price--all filled him with the
+self-satisfaction characteristic of vicious people who naturally
+became merry and scornful amidst their evil practices. Of all his talk,
+however, aunt Dide only heard Silvere's name.
+
+"Have you seen him?" she asked, opening her lips at last.
+
+"Who? Silvere?" Antoine replied. "He was walking about among the
+insurgents with a tall red girl on his arm. It will serve him right if
+he gets into trouble."
+
+The grandmother looked at him fixedly, then, in a solemn voice,
+inquired: "Why?"
+
+"Eh! Why, he shouldn't be so stupid," resumed Macquart, feeling somewhat
+embarrassed. "People don't risk their necks for the sake of ideas. I've
+settled my own little business. I'm no fool."
+
+But aunt Dide was no longer listening to him. She was murmuring: "He had
+his hands covered with blood. They'll kill him like the other one. His
+uncles will send the gendarmes after him."
+
+"What are you muttering there?" asked her son, as he finished picking
+the bones of the chicken. "You know I like people to accuse me to
+my face. If I have sometimes talked to the little fellow about the
+Republic, it was only to bring him round to a more reasonable way of
+thinking. He was dotty. I love liberty myself, but it mustn't degenerate
+into license. And as for Rougon, I esteem him. He's a man of courage and
+common-sense."
+
+"He had the gun, hadn't he?" interrupted aunt Dide, whose wandering mind
+seemed to be following Silvere far away along the high road.
+
+"The gun? Ah! yes; Macquart's carbine," continued Antoine, after casting
+a glance at the mantel-shelf, where the fire-arm was usually hung. "I
+fancy I saw it in his hands. A fine instrument to scour the country
+with, when one has a girl on one's arm. What a fool!"
+
+Then he thought he might as well indulge in a few coarse jokes. Aunt
+Dide had begun to bustle about the room again. She did not say a word.
+Towards the evening Antoine went out, after putting on a blouse, and
+pulling over his eyes a big cap which his mother had bought for him.
+He returned into the town in the same manner as he had quitted it, by
+relating some nonsensical story to the national guards who were on duty
+at the Rome Gate. Then he made his way to the old quarter, where he
+crept from house to house in a mysterious manner. All the Republicans of
+advanced views, all the members of the brotherhood who had not followed
+the insurrectionary army, met in an obscure inn, where Macquart had made
+an appointment with them. When about fifty men were assembled, he made a
+speech, in which he spoke of personal vengeance that must be wreaked,
+of a victory that must be gained, and of a disgraceful yoke that must be
+thrown off. And he ended by undertaking to deliver the town-hall over
+to them in ten minutes. He had just left it, it was quite unguarded,
+he said, and the red flag would wave over it that very night if they so
+desired. The workmen deliberated. At that moment the reaction seemed to
+be in its death throes. The insurgents were virtually at the gates of
+the town. It would therefore be more honourable to make an effort to
+regain power without awaiting their return, so as to be able to receive
+them as brothers, with the gates wide open, and the streets and squares
+adorned with flags. Moreover, none of those present distrusted Macquart.
+His hatred of the Rougons, the personal vengeance of which he spoke,
+could be taken as guaranteeing his loyalty. It was arranged that each of
+them who was a sportsman and had a gun at home should fetch it, and
+that the band should assemble at midnight in the neighbourhood of
+the town-hall. A question of detail very nearly put an end to their
+plans--they had no bullets; however, they decided to load their weapons
+with small shot: and even that seemed unnecessary, as they were told
+that they would meet with no resistance.
+
+Once more Plassans beheld a band of armed men filing along close to the
+houses, in the quiet moonlight. When the band was assembled in front of
+the town-hall, Macquart, while keeping a sharp look-out, boldly advanced
+to the building. He knocked, and when the door-keeper, who had learnt
+his lesson, asked what was wanted, he uttered such terrible threats,
+that the man, feigning fright, made haste to open the door. Both leaves
+of it swung back slowly, and the porch then lay open and empty before
+them, while Macquart shouted in a loud voice: "Come on, my friends!"
+
+That was the signal. He himself quickly jumped aside, and as the
+Republicans rushed in, there came, from the darkness of the yard, a
+stream of fire and a hail of bullets, which swept through the gaping
+porch with a roar as of thunder. The doorway vomited death. The
+national guards, exasperated by their long wait, eager to shake off the
+discomfort weighing upon them in that dismal court-yard, had fired a
+volley with feverish haste. The flash of the firing was so bright, that,
+through the yellow gleams Macquart distinctly saw Rougon taking aim. He
+fancied that his brother's gun was deliberately levelled at himself,
+and he recalled Felicite's blush, and made his escape, muttering: "No
+tricks! The rascal would kill me. He owes me eight hundred francs."
+
+In the meantime a loud howl had arisen amid the darkness. The surprised
+Republicans shouted treachery, and fired in their turn. A national guard
+fell under the porch. But the Republicans, on their side, had three
+dead. They took to flight, stumbling over the corpses, stricken with
+panic, and shouting through the quiet lanes: "Our brothers are being
+murdered!" in despairing voices which found no echo. Thereupon the
+defenders of order, having had time to reload their weapons, rushed into
+the empty square, firing at every street corner, wherever the darkness
+of a door, the shadow of a lamp-post, or the jutting of a stone made
+them fancy they saw an insurgent. In this wise they remained there ten
+minutes, firing into space.
+
+The affray had burst over the slumbering town like a thunderclap. The
+inhabitants in the neighbouring streets, roused from sleep by this
+terrible fusillade, sat up in bed, their teeth chattering with fright.
+Nothing in the world would have induced them to poke their noses out of
+the window. And slowly, athwart the air, in which the shots had suddenly
+resounded, one of the cathedral bells began to ring the tocsin with so
+irregular, so strange a rhythm, that one might have thought the noise to
+be the hammering of an anvil or the echoes of a colossal kettle struck
+by a child in a fit of passion. This howling bell, whose sound the
+citizens did not recognise, terrified them yet more than the reports of
+the fire-arms had done; and there were some who thought they heard an
+endless train of artillery rumbling over the paving-stones. They lay
+down again and buried themselves beneath their blankets, as if they
+would have incurred some danger by still sitting up in bed in their
+closely-fastened rooms. With their sheets drawn up to their chins, they
+held their breath, and made themselves as small as possible, while their
+wives, by their side, almost fainted with terror as they buried their
+heads among the pillows.
+
+The national guards who had remained at the ramparts had also heard the
+shots, and thinking that the insurgents had entered by means of some
+subterranean passage, they ran up helter-skelter, in groups of five
+or six, disturbing the silence of the streets with the tumult of their
+excited rush. Roudier was one of the first to arrive. However, Rougon
+sent them all back to their posts, after reprimanding them severely
+for abandoning the gates of the town. Thrown into consternation by
+this reproach--for in their panic, they had, in fact, left the gates
+absolutely defenceless--they again set off at a gallop, hurrying through
+the streets with still more frightful uproar. Plassans might well have
+thought that an infuriated army was crossing it in all directions. The
+fusillade, the tocsin, the marches and countermarches of the national
+guards, the weapons which were being dragged along like clubs, the
+terrified cries in the darkness, all produced a deafening tumult,
+such as might break forth in a town taken by assault and given over
+to plunder. It was the final blow of the unfortunate inhabitants, who
+really believed that the insurgents had arrived. They had, indeed, said
+that it would be their last night--that Plassans would be swallowed up
+in the earth, or would evaporate into smoke before daybreak; and now,
+lying in their beds, they awaited the catastrophe in the most abject
+terror, fancying at times that their houses were already tottering.
+
+Meantime Granoux still rang the tocsin. When, in other respects, silence
+had again fallen upon the town, the mournfulness of that ringing became
+intolerable. Rougon, who was in a high fever, felt exasperated by its
+distant wailing. He hastened to the cathedral, and found the door open.
+The beadle was on the threshold.
+
+"Ah! that's quite enough!" he shouted to the man; "anybody would think
+there was some one crying; it's quite unbearable."
+
+"But it isn't me, sir," replied the beadle in a distressed manner. "It's
+Monsieur Granoux, he's gone up into the steeple. I must tell you that I
+removed the clapper of the bell, by his Reverence's order, precisely
+to prevent the tocsin from being sounded. But Monsieur Granoux wouldn't
+listen to reason. He climbed up, and I've no idea what he can be making
+that noise with."
+
+Thereupon Rougon hastily ascended the staircase which led to the bells,
+shouting: "That will do! That will do! For goodness' sake leave off!"
+
+When he had reached the top he caught sight of Granoux, by the light
+of the moon which glided through an embrasure; the ex almond dealer was
+standing there hatless, and dealing furious blows with a heavy hammer.
+He did so with a right good will. He first threw himself back, then took
+a spring, and finally fell upon the sonorous bronze as if he wanted
+to crack it. One might have thought he was a blacksmith striking hot
+iron--but a frock-coated blacksmith, short and bald, working in a wild
+and awkward way.
+
+Surprise kept Rougon motionless for a moment at the sight of this
+frantic bourgeois thus belabouring the bell in the moonlight. Then
+he understood the kettle-like clang which this strange ringer had
+disseminated over the town. He shouted to him to stop, but Granoux did
+not hear. Rougon was obliged to take hold of his frock-coat, and then
+the other recognising him, exclaimed in a triumphant voice: "Ah! you've
+heard it. At first I tried to knock the bell with my fists, but that
+hurt me. Fortunately I found this hammer. Just a few more blows, eh?"
+
+However, Rougon dragged him away. Granoux was radiant. He wiped his
+forehead, and made his companion promise to let everybody know in the
+morning that he had produced all that noise with a mere hammer. What
+an achievement, and what a position of importance that furious ringing
+would confer upon him!
+
+Towards morning, Rougon bethought himself of reassuring Felicite. In
+accordance with his orders, the national guards had shut themselves up
+in the town-hall. He had forbidden them to remove the corpses, under the
+pretext that it was necessary to give the populace of the old quarter a
+lesson. And as, while hastening to the Rue de la Banne, he passed over
+the square, on which the moon was no longer shining, he inadvertently
+stepped on the clenched hand of a corpse that lay beside the footpath.
+At this he almost fell. That soft hand, which yielded beneath his
+heel, brought him an indefinable sensation of disgust and horror. And
+thereupon he hastened at full speed along the deserted streets, fancying
+that a bloody fist was pursuing him.
+
+"There are four of them on the ground," he said, as he entered his
+house.
+
+He and his wife looked at one another as though they were astonished at
+their crime.
+
+The lamplight imparted the hue of yellow wax to their pale faces.
+
+"Have you left them there?" asked Felicite; "they must be found there."
+
+"Of course! I didn't pick them up. They are lying on their backs. I
+stepped on something soft----"
+
+Then he looked at his boot; its heel was covered with blood. While he
+was putting on a pair of shoes, Felicite resumed:
+
+"Well! so much the better! It's over now. People won't be inclined to
+repeat that you only fire at mirrors."
+
+The fusillade which the Rougons had planned in order that they might
+be finally recognised as the saviours of Plassans, brought the whole
+terrified and grateful town to their feet. The day broke mournfully
+with the grey melancholy of a winter-morning. The inhabitants, hearing
+nothing further, ventured forth, weary of trembling beneath their
+sheets. At first some ten or fifteen appeared. Later on, when a rumour
+spread that the insurgents had taken flight, leaving their dead in
+every gutter, Plassans rose in a body and descended upon the town-hall.
+Throughout the morning people strolled inquisitively round the four
+corpses. They were horribly mutilated, particularly one, which had three
+bullets in the head. But the most horrible to look upon was the body
+of a national guard, who had fallen under the porch; he had received a
+charge of the small shot, used by the Republicans in lieu of bullets,
+full in the face; and blood oozed from his torn and riddled countenance.
+The crowd feasted their eyes upon this horror, with the avidity for
+revolting spectacles which is so characteristic of cowards. The national
+guard was freely recognised; he was the pork-butcher Dubruel, the man
+whom Roudier had accused on the Monday morning of having fired with
+culpable eagerness. Of the three other corpses, two were journeymen
+hatters; the third was not identified. For a long while gaping groups
+remained shuddering in front of the red pools which stained the
+pavement, often looking behind them with an air of mistrust, as though
+that summary justice which had restored order during the night by force
+of arms, were, even now, watching and listening to them, ready to shoot
+them down in their turn, unless they kissed with enthusiasm the hand
+that had just rescued them from the demagogy.
+
+The panic of the night further augmented the terrible effect produced
+in the morning by the sight of the four corpses. The true history of
+the fusillade was never known. The firing of the combatants, Granoux's
+hammering, the helter-skelter rush of the national guards through the
+streets, had filled people's ears with such terrifying sounds that most
+of them dreamed of a gigantic battle waged against countless enemies.
+When the victors, magnifying the number of their adversaries with
+instinctive braggardism, spoke of about five hundred men, everybody
+protested against such a low estimate. Some citizens asserted that they
+had looked out of their windows and seen an immense stream of fugitives
+passing by for more than an hour. Moreover everybody had heard the
+bandits running about. Five hundred men would never have been able to
+rouse a whole town. It must have been an army, and a fine big army too,
+which the brave militia of Plassans had "driven back into the ground."
+This phrase of their having been "driven back into the ground," first
+used by Rougon, struck people as being singularly appropriate, for the
+guards who were charged with the defence of the ramparts swore by all
+that was holy that not a single man had entered or quitted the town,
+a circumstance which tinged what had happened with mystery, even
+suggesting the idea of horned demons who had vanished amidst flames, and
+thus fairly upsetting the minds of the multitude. It is true the guards
+avoided all mention of their mad gallops; and so the more rational
+citizens were inclined to believe that a band of insurgents had really
+entered the town either by a breach in the wall or some other channel.
+Later on, rumours of treachery were spread abroad, and people talked of
+an ambush. The cruel truth could no longer be concealed by the men whom
+Macquart had led to slaughter, but so much terror still prevailed,
+and the sight of blood had thrown so many cowards into the arms of the
+reactionary party, that these rumours were attributed to the rage of
+the vanquished Republicans. It was asserted, on the other hand, that
+Macquart had been made prisoner by Rougon, who kept him in a damp cell,
+where he was letting him slowly die of starvation. This horrible tale
+made people bow to the very ground whenever they encountered Rougon.
+
+Thus it was that this grotesque personage, this pale, flabby,
+tun-bellied citizen became, in one night, a terrible captain, whom
+nobody dared to ridicule any more. He had steeped his foot in blood.
+The inhabitants of the old quarter stood dumb with fright before the
+corpses. But towards ten o'clock, when the respectable people of the new
+town arrived, the whole square hummed with subdued chatter. People spoke
+of the other attack, of the seizure of the mayor's office, in which a
+mirror only had been wounded; but this time they no longer pooh-poohed
+Rougon, they spoke of him with respectful dismay; he was indeed a hero,
+a deliverer. The corpses, with open eyes, stared at those gentlemen, the
+lawyers and householders, who shuddered as they murmured that civil war
+had many cruel necessities. The notary, the chief of the deputation
+sent to the town-hall on the previous evening, went from group to group,
+recalling the proud words "I am prepared!" then used by the energetic
+man to whom the town owed its safety. There was a general feeling of
+humiliation. Those who had railed most cruelly against the forty-one,
+those, especially, who had referred to the Rougons as intriguers and
+cowards who merely fired shots in the air, were the first to speak of
+granting a crown of laurels "to the noble citizen of whom Plassans would
+be for ever proud." For the pools of blood were drying on the pavement,
+and the corpses proclaimed to what a degree of audacity the party of
+disorder, pillage, and murder had gone, and what an iron hand had been
+required to put down the insurrection.
+
+Moreover, the whole crowd was eager to congratulate Granoux, and shake
+hands with him. The story of the hammer had become known. By an innocent
+falsehood, however, of which he himself soon became unconscious, he
+asserted that, having been the first to see the insurgents, he had set
+about striking the bell, in order to sound the alarm, so that, but for
+him, the national guards would have been massacred. This doubled his
+importance. His achievement was declared prodigious. People spoke of him
+now as "Monsieur Isidore, don't you know? the gentleman who sounded
+the tocsin with a hammer!" Although the sentence was somewhat lengthy,
+Granoux would willingly have accepted it as a title of nobility; and
+from that day forward he never heard the word "hammer" pronounced
+without imagining it to be some delicate flattery.
+
+While the corpses were being removed, Aristide came to look at them. He
+examined them on all sides, sniffing and looking inquisitively at
+their faces. His eyes were bright, and he had a sharp expression of
+countenance. In order to see some wound the better he even lifted up the
+blouse of one corpse with the very hand which on the previous day had
+been suspended in a sling. This examination seemed to convince him and
+remove all doubt from his mind. He bit his lips, remained there for a
+moment in silence, and then went off for the purpose of hastening the
+issue of the "Independant," for which he had written a most important
+article. And as he hurried along beside the houses he recalled his
+mother's words: "You will see to-morrow!" Well, he had seen now; it was
+very clever; it even frightened him somewhat.
+
+In the meantime, Rougon's triumph was beginning to embarrass him. Alone
+in Monsieur Garconnet's office, hearing the buzzing of the crowd, he
+became conscious of a strange feeling, which prevented him from showing
+himself on the balcony. That blood, in which he had stepped, seemed to
+have numbed his legs. He wondered what he should do until the evening.
+His poor empty brain, upset by the events of the night, sought
+desperately for some occupation, some order to give, or some measure to
+be taken, which might afford him some distraction. But he could think
+about nothing clearly. Whither was Felicite leading him? Was it really
+all finished now, or would he still have to kill somebody else? Then
+fear again assailed him, terrible doubts arose in his mind, and he
+already saw the ramparts broken down on all sides by an avenging army
+of the Republicans, when a loud shout: "The insurgents! The insurgents!"
+burst forth under the very windows of his room. At this he jumped up,
+and raising a curtain, saw the crowd rushing about the square in a state
+of terror. What a thunderbolt! In less than a second he pictured himself
+ruined, plundered, and murdered; he cursed his wife, he cursed the whole
+town. Then, as he looked behind him in a suspicious manner, seeking
+some means of escape, he heard the mob break out into applause, uttering
+shouts of joy, making the very glass rattle with their wild
+delight. Then he returned to the window; the women were waving their
+handkerchiefs, and the men were embracing each other. There were some
+among them who joined hands and began to dance. Rougon stood there
+stupefied, unable to comprehend it all, and feeling his head swimming.
+The big, deserted, silent building, in which he was alone, quite
+frightened him.
+
+When he afterwards confessed his feelings to Felicite, he was unable to
+say how long his torture had lasted. He only remembered that a noise of
+footsteps, re-echoing through the vast halls, had roused him from his
+stupor. He expected to be attacked by men in blouses, armed with scythes
+and clubs, whereas it was the Municipal Commission which entered, quite
+orderly and in evening dress, each member with a beaming countenance.
+Not one of them was absent. A piece of good news had simultaneously
+cured all these gentlemen. Granoux rushed into the arms of his dear
+president.
+
+"The soldiers!" he stammered, "the soldiers!"
+
+A regiment had, in fact, just arrived, under the command of Colonel
+Masson and Monsieur de Bleriot, prefect of the department. The
+gunbarrels which had been observed from the ramparts, far away in the
+plain, had at first suggested the approach of the insurgents. Rougon was
+so deeply moved on learning the truth, that two big tears rolled down
+his cheeks. He was weeping, the great citizen! The Municipal Commission
+watched those big tears with most respectful admiration. But Granoux
+again threw himself on his friend's neck, crying:
+
+"Ah! how glad I am! You know I'm a straightforward man. Well, we were
+all of us afraid; it is not so, gentlemen? You, alone, were great,
+brave, sublime! What energy you must have had! I was just now saying to
+my wife: 'Rougon is a great man; he deserves to be decorated.'"
+
+Then the gentlemen proposed to go and meet the prefect. For a moment
+Rougon felt both stunned and suffocated; he was unable to believe
+in this sudden triumph, and stammered like a child. However, he drew
+breath, and went downstairs with the quiet dignity suited to the
+solemnity of the occasion. But the enthusiasm which greeted the
+commission and its president outside the town-hall almost upset his
+magisterial gravity afresh. His name sped through the crowd, accompanied
+this time by the warmest eulogies. He heard everyone repeat Granoux's
+avowal, and treat him as a hero who had stood firm and resolute amidst
+universal panic. And, as far as the Sub-Prefecture, where the commission
+met the prefect, he drank his fill of popularity and glory.
+
+Monsieur de Bleriot and Colonel Masson had entered the town alone,
+leaving their troops encamped on the Lyons road. They had lost
+considerable time through a misunderstanding as to the direction taken
+by the insurgents. Now, however, they knew the latter were at Orcheres;
+and it would only be necessary to stop an hour at Plassans, just
+sufficient time to reassure the population and publish the cruel
+ordinances which decreed the sequestration of the insurgents' property,
+and death to every individual who might be taken with arms in his
+hands. Colonel Masson smiled when, in accordance with the orders of the
+commander of the national guards, the bolts of the Rome Gate were drawn
+back with a great rattling of rusty old iron. The detachment on duty
+there accompanied the prefect and the colonel as a guard of honour.
+As they traversed the Cours Sauvaire, Roudier related Rougon's epic
+achievements to the gentlemen--the three days of panic that had
+terminated with the brilliant victory of the previous night. When the
+two processions came face to face therefore, Monsieur de Bleriot quickly
+advanced towards the president of the Commission, shook hands with him,
+congratulated him, and begged him to continue to watch over the town
+until the return of the authorities. Rougon bowed, while the prefect,
+having reached the door of the Sub-Prefecture, where he wished to take
+a brief rest, proclaimed in a loud voice that he would not forget to
+mention his brave and noble conduct in his report.
+
+In the meantime, in spite of the bitter cold, everybody had come to
+their windows. Felicite, leaning forward at the risk of falling out,
+was quite pale with joy. Aristide had just arrived with a number of the
+"Independant," in which he had openly declared himself in favour of the
+Coup d'Etat, which he welcomed "as the aurora of liberty in order and
+of order in liberty." He had also made a delicate allusion to the
+yellow drawing-room, acknowledging his errors, declaring that "youth is
+presumptuous," and that "great citizens say nothing, reflect in silence,
+and let insults pass by, in order to rise heroically when the day of
+struggle comes." He was particularly pleased with this sentence. His
+mother thought his article extremely well written. She kissed her dear
+child, and placed him on her right hand. The Marquis de Carnavant, weary
+of incarcerating himself, and full of eager curiosity, had likewise come
+to see her, and stood on her left, leaning on the window rail.
+
+When Monsieur de Bleriot offered his hand to Rougon on the square below
+Felicite began to weep. "Oh! see, see," she said to Aristide. "He has
+shaken hands with him. Look! he is doing it again!" And casting a glance
+at the windows, where groups of people were congregated, she added: "How
+wild they must be! Look at Monsieur Peirotte's wife, she's biting
+her handkerchief. And over there, the notary's daughter, and Madame
+Massicot, and the Brunet family, what faces, eh? how angry they look!
+Ah, indeed, it's our turn now."
+
+She followed the scene which was being acted outside the Sub-Prefecture
+with thrills of delight, which shook her ardent, grasshopper-like figure
+from head to foot. She interpreted the slightest gesture, invented words
+which she was unable to catch, and declared that Pierre bowed very well
+indeed. She was a little vexed when the prefect deigned to speak to poor
+Granoux, who was hovering about him fishing for a word of praise. No
+doubt Monsieur de Bleriot already knew the story of the hammer, for the
+retired almond-dealer turned as red as a young girl, and seemed to
+be saying that he had only done his duty. However, that which angered
+Felicite still more was her husband's excessive amiability in presenting
+Vuillet to the authorities. Vuillet, it is true, pushed himself forward
+amongst them, and Rougon was compelled to mention him.
+
+"What a schemer!" muttered Felicite. "He creeps in everywhere. How
+confused my poor dear husband must be! See, there's the colonel speaking
+to him. What can he be saying to him?"
+
+"Ah! little one," the marquis replied with a touch of irony, "he is
+complimenting him for having closed the gates so carefully."
+
+"My father has saved the town," Aristide retorted curtly. "Have you seen
+the corpses, sir?"
+
+Monsieur de Carnavant did not answer. He withdrew from the window, and
+sat down in an arm-chair, shaking his head with an air of some disgust.
+At that moment, the prefect having taken his departure, Rougon came
+upstairs and threw himself upon his wife's neck.
+
+"Ah! my dear!" he stammered.
+
+He was unable to say more. Felicite made him kiss Aristide after telling
+him of the superb article which the young man had inserted in the
+"Independant." Pierre would have kissed the marquis as well, he was
+deeply affected. However, his wife took him aside, and gave him Eugene's
+letter which she had sealed up in an envelope again. She pretended that
+it had just been delivered. Pierre read it and then triumphantly held it
+out to her.
+
+"You are a sorceress," he said to her laughing. "You guessed everything.
+What folly I should have committed without you! We'll manage our little
+affairs together now. Kiss me: you're a good woman."
+
+He clasped her in his arms, while she discreetly exchanged a knowing
+smile with the marquis.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+It was not until Sunday, the day after the massacre at Sainte-Roure,
+that the troops passed through Plassans again. The prefect and the
+colonel, whom Monsieur Garconnet had invited to dinner, once more
+entered the town alone. The soldiers went round the ramparts and
+encamped in the Faubourg, on the Nice road. Night was falling; the sky,
+overcast since the morning, had a strange yellow tint, and illumined
+the town with a murky light, similar to the copper-coloured glimmer
+of stormy weather. The reception of the troops by the inhabitants was
+timid; the bloodstained soldiers, who passed by weary and silent, in
+the yellow twilight, horrified the cleanly citizens promenading on
+the Cours. They stepped out of the way whispering terrible stories of
+fusillades and revengeful reprisals which still live in the recollection
+of the region. The Coup d'Etat terror was beginning to make itself felt,
+an overwhelming terror which kept the South in a state of tremor for
+many a long month. Plassans, in its fear and hatred of the insurgents,
+had welcomed the troops on their first arrival with enthusiasm; but now,
+at the appearance of that gloomy taciturn regiment, whose men were ready
+to fire at a word from their officers, the retired merchants and even
+the notaries of the new town anxiously examined their consciences,
+asking if they had not committed some political peccadilloes which might
+be thought deserving of a bullet.
+
+The municipal authorities had returned on the previous evening in a
+couple of carts hired at Sainte-Roure. Their unexpected entry was devoid
+of all triumphal display. Rougon surrendered the mayor's arm-chair
+without much regret. The game was over; and with feverish longing he now
+awaited the recompense for his devotion. On the Sunday--he had not hoped
+for it until the following day--he received a letter from Eugene.
+Since the previous Thursday Felicite had taken care to send her son
+the numbers of the "Gazette" and "Independant" which, in special second
+editions had narrated the battle of the night and the arrival of the
+prefect at Plassans. Eugene now replied by return of post that the
+nomination of a receivership would soon be signed; but added that he
+wished to give them some good news immediately. He had obtained the
+ribbon of the Legion of Honour for his father. Felicite wept with joy.
+Her husband decorated! Her proud dream had never gone as far as that.
+Rougon, pale with delight, declared they must give a grand dinner that
+very evening. He no longer thought of expense; he would have thrown his
+last fifty francs out of the drawing-room windows in order to celebrate
+that glorious day.
+
+"Listen," he said to his wife; "you must invite Sicardot: he has annoyed
+me with that rosette of his for a long time! Then Granoux and Roudier;
+I shouldn't be at all sorry to make them feel that it isn't their purses
+that will ever win them the cross. Vuillet is a skinflint, but the
+triumph ought to be complete: invite him as well as the small fry. I was
+forgetting; you must go and call on the marquis in person; we will seat
+him on your right; he'll look very well at our table. You know that
+Monsieur Garconnet is entertaining the colonel and the prefect. That is
+to make me understand that I am nobody now. But I can afford to laugh at
+his mayoralty; it doesn't bring him in a sou! He has invited me, but
+I shall tell him that I also have some people coming. The others will
+laugh on the wrong side of their mouths to-morrow. And let everything
+be of the best. Have everything sent from the Hotel de Provence. We must
+outdo the mayor's dinner."
+
+Felicite set to work. Pierre still felt some vague uneasiness amidst his
+rapture. The Coup d'Etat was going to pay his debts, his son Aristide
+had repented of his faults, and he was at last freeing himself from
+Macquart; but he feared some folly on Pascal's part, and was especially
+anxious about the lot reserved for Silvere. Not that he felt the least
+pity for the lad; he was simply afraid the matter of the gendarme might
+come before the Assize Court. Ah! if only some discriminating bullet had
+managed to rid him of that young scoundrel! As his wife had pointed out
+to him in the morning, all obstacles had fallen away before him; the
+family which had dishonoured him had, at the last moment, worked for his
+elevation; his sons Eugene and Aristide, those spend-thrifts, the cost
+of whose college life he had so bitterly regretted, were at last paying
+interest on the capital expended for their education. And yet the
+thought of that wretched Silvere must come to mar his hour of triumph!
+
+While Felicite was running about to prepare the dinner for the evening,
+Pierre heard of the arrival of the troops and determined to go and make
+inquiries. Sicardot, whom he had questioned on his return, knew nothing;
+Pascal must have remained to look after the wounded; as for Silvere, he
+had not even been seen by the commander, who scarcely knew him. Rougon
+therefore repaired to the Faubourg, intending to make inquiries there
+and at the same time pay Macquart the eight hundred francs which he had
+just succeeded in raising with great difficulty. However, when he found
+himself in the crowded encampment, and from a distance saw the prisoners
+sitting in long files on the beams in the Aire Saint-Mittre, guarded by
+soldiers gun in hand, he felt afraid of being compromised, and so slunk
+off to his mother's house, with the intention of sending the old woman
+out to pick up some information.
+
+When he entered the hovel it was almost night. At first the only person
+he saw there was Macquart smoking and drinking brandy.
+
+"Is that you? I'm glad of it," muttered Antoine. "I'm growing deuced
+cold here. Have you got the money?"
+
+But Pierre did not reply. He had just perceived his son Pascal leaning
+over the bed. And thereupon he questioned him eagerly. The doctor,
+surprised by his uneasiness, which he attributed to paternal affection,
+told him that the soldiers had taken him and would have shot him, had
+it not been for the intervention of some honest fellow whom he did not
+know. Saved by his profession of surgeon, he had returned to Plassans
+with the troops. This greatly relieved Rougon. So there was yet another
+who would not compromise him. He was evincing his delight by repeated
+hand-shakings, when Pascal concluded in a sorrowful voice: "Oh! don't
+make merry. I have just found my poor grandmother in a very dangerous
+state. I brought her back this carbine, which she values very much; I
+found her lying here, and she has not moved since."
+
+Pierre's eyes were becoming accustomed to the dimness. In the fast
+fading light he saw aunt Dide stretched, rigid and seemingly lifeless,
+upon her bed. Her wretched frame, attacked by neurosis from the hour of
+birth, was at length laid prostrate by a supreme shock. Her nerves had
+so to say consumed her blood. Moreover some cruel grief seemed to have
+suddenly accelerated her slow wasting-away. Her pale nun-like face,
+drawn and pinched by a life of gloom and cloister-like self-denial, was
+now stained with red blotches. With convulsed features, eyes that glared
+terribly, and hands twisted and clenched, she lay at full length in her
+skirts, which failed to hide the sharp outlines of her scrawny limbs.
+Extended there with lips closely pressed she imparted to the dim room
+all the horror of a mute death-agony.
+
+Rougon made a gesture of vexation. This heart-rending spectacle was very
+distasteful to him. He had company coming to dinner in the evening, and
+it would be extremely inconvenient for him to have to appear mournful.
+His mother was always doing something to bother him. She might just
+as well have chosen another day. However, he put on an appearance of
+perfect ease, as he said: "Bah! it's nothing. I've seen her like that a
+hundred times. You must let her lie still; it's the only thing that does
+her any good."
+
+Pascal shook his head. "No, this fit isn't like the others," he
+whispered. "I have often studied her, and have never observed such
+symptoms before. Just look at her eyes: there is a peculiar fluidity, a
+pale brightness about them which causes me considerable uneasiness. And
+her face, how frightfully every muscle of it is distorted!"
+
+Then bending over to observe her features more closely, he continued
+in a whisper, as though speaking to himself: "I have never seen such a
+face, excepting among people who have been murdered or have died from
+fright. She must have experienced some terrible shock."
+
+"But how did the attack begin?" Rougon impatiently inquired, at a loss
+for an excuse to leave the room.
+
+Pascal did not know. Macquart, as he poured himself out another glass
+of brandy, explained that he had felt an inclination to drink a little
+Cognac, and had sent her to fetch a bottle. She had not been long
+absent, and at the very moment when she returned she had fallen rigid on
+the floor without uttering a word. Macquart himself had carried her to
+the bed.
+
+"What surprises me," he said, by way of conclusion, "is, that she did
+not break the bottle."
+
+The young doctor reflected. After a short pause he resumed: "I heard two
+shots fired as I came here. Perhaps those ruffians have been shooting
+some more prisoners. If she passed through the ranks of the soldiers at
+that moment, the sight of blood may have thrown her into this fit. She
+must have had some dreadful shock."
+
+Fortunately he had with him the little medicine-case which he had been
+carrying about ever since the departure of the insurgents. He tried
+to pour a few drops of reddish liquid between aunt Dide's closely-set
+teeth, while Macquart again asked his brother: "Have you got the money?"
+
+"Yes, I've brought it; we'll settle now," Rougon replied, glad of this
+diversion.
+
+Thereupon Macquart, seeing that he was about to be paid, began to moan.
+He had only learnt the consequence of his treachery when it was too
+late; otherwise he would have demanded twice or thrice as much. And he
+complained bitterly. Really now a thousand francs was not enough. His
+children had forsaken him, he was all alone in the world, and obliged to
+quit France. He almost wept as he spoke of his coming exile.
+
+"Come now, will you take the eight hundred francs?" said Rougon, who was
+in haste to be off.
+
+"No, certainly not; double the sum. Your wife cheated me. If she had
+told me distinctly what it was she expected of me, I would never have
+compromised myself for such a trifle."
+
+Rougon laid the eight hundred francs upon the table.
+
+"I swear I haven't got any more," he resumed. "I will think of you
+later. But do, for mercy's sake, get away this evening."
+
+Macquart, cursing and muttering protests, thereupon carried the table
+to the window, and began to count the gold in the fading twilight. The
+coins tickled the tips of his fingers very pleasantly as he let them
+fall, and jingled musically in the darkness. At last he paused for a
+moment to say: "You promised to get me a berth, remember. I want to
+return to France. The post of rural guard in some pleasant neighbourhood
+which I could mention, would just suit me."
+
+"Very well, I'll see about it," Rougon replied. "Have you got the eight
+hundred francs?"
+
+Macquart resumed his counting. The last coins were just clinking when a
+burst of laughter made them turn their heads. Aunt Dide was standing up
+in front of the bed, with her bodice unfastened, her white hair hanging
+loose, and her face stained with red blotches. Pascal had in vain
+endeavoured to hold her down. Trembling all over, and with her arms
+outstretched, she shook her head deliriously.
+
+"The blood-money! the blood-money!" she again and again repeated. "I
+heard the gold. And it is they, they who sold him. Ah! the murderers!
+They are a pack of wolves."
+
+Then she pushed her hair aback, and passed her hand over her brow, as
+though seeking to collect her thoughts. And she continued: "Ah! I have
+long seen him with a bullet-hole in his forehead. There were always
+people lying in wait for him with guns. They used to sign to me that
+they were going to fire. . . . It's terrible! I feel some one breaking
+my bones and battering out my brains. Oh! Mercy! Mercy! I beseech you;
+he shall not see her any more--never, never! I will shut him up. I will
+prevent him from walking out with her. Mercy! Mercy! Don't fire. It is
+not my fault. If you knew----"
+
+She had almost fallen on her knees, and was weeping and entreating while
+she stretched her poor trembling hands towards some horrible vision
+which she saw in the darkness. Then she suddenly rose upright, and her
+eyes opened still more widely as a terrible cry came from her convulsed
+throat, as though some awful sight, visible to her alone, had filled her
+with mad terror.
+
+"Oh, the gendarme!" she said, choking and falling backwards on the bed,
+where she rolled about, breaking into long bursts of furious, insane
+laughter.
+
+Pascal was studying the attack attentively. The two brothers, who felt
+very frightened, and only detected snatches of what their mother said,
+had taken refuge in a corner of the room. When Rougon heard the word
+gendarme, he thought he understood her. Ever since the murder of her
+lover, the elder Macquart, on the frontier, aunt Dide had cherished a
+bitter hatred against all gendarmes and custom-house officers, whom she
+mingled together in one common longing for vengeance.
+
+"Why, it's the story of the poacher that she's telling us," he
+whispered.
+
+But Pascal made a sign to him to keep quiet. The stricken woman had
+raised herself with difficulty, and was looking round her, with a
+stupefied air. She remained silent for a moment, endeavouring to
+recognise the various objects in the room, as though she were in some
+strange place. Then, with a sudden expression of anxiety, she asked:
+"Where is the gun?"
+
+The doctor put the carbine into her hands. At this she raised a light
+cry of joy, and gazed at the weapon, saying in a soft, sing-song,
+girlish whisper: "That is it. Oh! I recognise it! It is all stained with
+blood. The stains are quite fresh to-day. His red hands have left marks
+of blood on the butt. Ah! poor, poor aunt Dide!"
+
+Then she became dizzy once more, and lapsed into silent thought.
+
+"The gendarme was dead," she murmured at last, "but I have seen him
+again; he has come back. They never die, those blackguards!"
+
+Again did gloomy passion come over her, and, shaking the carbine, she
+advanced towards her two sons who, speechless with fright, retreated to
+the very wall. Her loosened skirts trailed along the ground, as she drew
+up her twisted frame, which age had reduced to mere bones.
+
+"It's you who fired!" she cried. "I heard the gold. . . . Wretched woman
+that I am! . . . I brought nothing but wolves into the world--a whole
+family--a whole litter of wolves! . . . There was only one poor lad,
+and him they have devoured; each had a bite at him, and their lips are
+covered with blood. . . . Ah! the accursed villains! They have robbed,
+they have murdered. . . . And they live like gentlemen. Villains!
+Accursed villains!"
+
+She sang, laughed, cried, and repeated "accursed villains!" in strangely
+sonorous tones, which suggested a crackling of a fusillade. Pascal, with
+tears in his eyes, took her in his arms and laid her on the bed
+again. She submitted like a child, but persisted in her wailing cries,
+accelerating their rhythm, and beating time on the sheet with her
+withered hands.
+
+"That's just what I was afraid of," the doctor said; "she is mad. The
+blow has been too heavy for a poor creature already subject, as she is,
+to acute neurosis. She will die in a lunatic asylum like her father."
+
+"But what could she have seen?" asked Rougon, at last venturing to quit
+the corner where he had hidden himself.
+
+"I have a terrible suspicion," Pascal replied. "I was going to speak to
+you about Silvere when you came in. He is a prisoner. You must endeavour
+to obtain his release from the prefect, if there is still time."
+
+The old oil-dealer turned pale as he looked at his son. Then, rapidly,
+he responded: "Listen to me; you stay here and watch her. I'm too busy
+this evening. We will see to-morrow about conveying her to the lunatic
+asylum at Les Tulettes. As for you, Macquart, you must leave this
+very night. Swear to me that you will! I'm going to find Monsieur de
+Bleriot."
+
+He stammered as he spoke, and felt more eager than ever to get out into
+the fresh air of the streets. Pascal fixed a penetrating look on the
+madwoman, and then on his father and uncle. His professional instinct
+was getting the better of him, and he studied the mother and the sons,
+with all the keenness of a naturalist observing the metamorphosis of
+some insect. He pondered over the growth of that family to which he
+belonged, over the different branches growing from one parent stock,
+whose sap carried identical germs to the farthest twigs, which bent in
+divers ways according to the sunshine or shade in which they lived. And
+for a moment, as by the glow of a lightning flash, he thought he could
+espy the future of the Rougon-Macquart family, a pack of unbridled,
+insatiate appetites amidst a blaze of gold and blood.
+
+Aunt Dide, however, had ceased her wailing chant at the mention of
+Silvere's name. For a moment she listened anxiously. Then she broke out
+into terrible shrieks. Night had now completely fallen, and the black
+room seemed void and horrible. The shrieks of the madwoman, who was
+no longer visible, rang out from the darkness as from a grave. Rougon,
+losing his head, took to flight, pursued by those taunting cries, whose
+bitterness seemed to increase amidst the gloom.
+
+As he was emerging from the Impasse Saint-Mittre with hesitating steps,
+wondering whether it would not be dangerous to solicit Silvere's pardon
+from the prefect, he saw Aristide prowling about the timber-yard. The
+latter, recognising his father, ran up to him with an expression of
+anxiety and whispered a few words in his ear. Pierre turned pale, and
+cast a look of alarm towards the end of the yard, where the darkness was
+only relieved by the ruddy glow of a little gipsy fire. Then they both
+disappeared down the Rue de Rome, quickening their steps as though they
+had committed a murder, and turning up their coat-collars in order that
+they might not be recognised.
+
+"That saves me an errand," Rougon whispered. "Let us go to dinner. They
+are waiting for us."
+
+When they arrived, the yellow drawing-room was resplendent. Felicite
+was all over the place. Everybody was there; Sicardot, Granoux, Roudier,
+Vuillet, the oil-dealers, the almond-dealers, the whole set. The
+marquis, however, had excused himself on the plea of rheumatism;
+and, besides, he was about to leave Plassans on a short trip. Those
+bloodstained bourgeois offended his feelings of delicacy, and moreover
+his relative, the Count de Valqueyras, had begged him to withdraw from
+public notice for a little time. Monsieur de Carnavant's refusal vexed
+the Rougons; but Felicite consoled herself by resolving to make a more
+profuse display. She hired a pair of candelabra and ordered several
+additional dishes as a kind of substitute for the marquis. The table was
+laid in the yellow drawing-room, in order to impart more solemnity to
+the occasion. The Hotel de Provence had supplied the silver, the china,
+and the glass. The cloth had been laid ever since five o'clock in order
+that the guests on arriving might feast their eyes upon it. At either
+end of the table, on the white cloth, were bouquets of artificial roses,
+in porcelain vases gilded and painted with flowers.
+
+When the habitual guests of the yellow drawing-room were assembled
+there they could not conceal their admiration of the spectacle. Several
+gentlemen smiled with an air of embarrassment while they exchanged
+furtive glances, which clearly signified, "These Rougons are mad,
+they are throwing their money out of the window." The truth was that
+Felicite, on going round to invite her guests, had been unable to hold
+her tongue. So everybody knew that Pierre had been decorated, and that
+he was about to be nominated to some post; at which, of course, they
+pulled wry faces. Roudier indeed observed that "the little black woman
+was puffing herself out too much." Now that "prize-day" had come this
+band of bourgeois, who had rushed upon the expiring Republic--each one
+keeping an eye on the other, and glorying in giving a deeper bite than
+his neighbour--did not think it fair that their hosts should have all
+the laurels of the battle. Even those who had merely howled by instinct,
+asking no recompense of the rising Empire, were greatly annoyed to see
+that, thanks to them, the poorest and least reputable of them all should
+be decorated with the red ribbon. The whole yellow drawing-room ought to
+have been decorated!
+
+"Not that I value the decoration," Roudier said to Granoux, whom he had
+dragged into the embrasure of a window. "I refused it in the time of
+Louis-Philippe, when I was purveyor to the court. Ah! Louis-Philippe was
+a good king. France will never find his equal!"
+
+Roudier was becoming an Orleanist once more. And he added, with the
+crafty hypocrisy of an old hosier from the Rue Saint-Honore: "But you,
+my dear Granoux; don't you think the ribbon would look well in your
+button-hole? After all, you did as much to save the town as Rougon did.
+Yesterday, when I was calling upon some very distinguished persons, they
+could scarcely believe it possible that you had made so much noise with
+a mere hammer."
+
+Granoux stammered his thanks, and, blushing like a maiden at her first
+confession of love, whispered in Roudier's ear: "Don't say anything
+about it, but I have reason to believe that Rougon will ask the ribbon
+for me. He's a good fellow at heart, you know."
+
+The old hosier thereupon became grave, and assumed a very affable
+manner. When Vuillet came and spoke to him of the well-deserved reward
+that their friend had just received, he replied in a loud voice, so as
+to be heard by Felicite, who was sitting a little way off, that "men
+like Rougon were an ornament to the Legion of Honour." The bookseller
+joined in the chorus; he had that morning received a formal assurance
+that the custom of the college would be restored to him. As for
+Sicardot, he at first felt somewhat annoyed to find himself no longer
+the only one of the set who was decorated. According to him, none but
+soldiers had a right to the ribbon. Pierre's valour surprised him.
+However, being in reality a good-natured fellow, he at last grew warmer,
+and ended by saying that the Napoleons always knew how to distinguish
+men of spirit and energy.
+
+Rougon and Aristide consequently had an enthusiastic reception; on their
+arrival all hands were held out to them. Some of the guests went so
+far as to embrace them. Angele sat on the sofa, by the side of her
+mother-in-law, feeling very happy, and gazing at the table with the
+astonishment of a gourmand who has never seen so many dishes at once.
+When Aristide approached, Sicardot complimented his son-in-law upon his
+superb article in the "Independant." He restored his friendship to
+him. The young man, in answer to the fatherly questions which Sicardot
+addressed to him, replied that he was anxious to take his little family
+with him to Paris, where his brother Eugene would push him forward; but
+he was in want of five hundred francs. Sicardot thereupon promised
+him the money, already foreseeing the day when his daughter would be
+received at the Tuileries by Napoleon III.
+
+In the meantime, Felicite had made a sign to her husband. Pierre,
+surrounded by everybody and anxiously questioned about his pallor, could
+only escape for a minute. He was just able to whisper in his wife's ear
+that he had found Pascal and that Macquart would leave that night. Then
+lowering his voice still more he told her of his mother's insanity, and
+placed his finger on his lips, as if to say: "Not a word; that would
+spoil the whole evening." Felicite bit her lips. They exchanged a look
+in which they read their common thoughts: so now the old woman would not
+trouble them any more: the poacher's hovel would be razed to the ground,
+as the walls of the Fouques' enclosure had been demolished; and they
+would for ever enjoy the respect and esteem of Plassans.
+
+But the guests were looking at the table. Felicite showed the gentlemen
+their seats. It was perfect bliss. As each one took his spoon, Sicardot
+made a gesture to solicit a moment's delay. Then he rose and gravely
+said: "Gentlemen, on behalf of the company present, I wish to express
+to our host how pleased we are at the rewards which his courage and
+patriotism have procured for him. I now see that he must have acted upon
+a heaven-sent inspiration in remaining here, while those beggars were
+dragging myself and others along the high roads. Therefore, I heartily
+applaud the decision of the government. . . . Let me finish, you can
+then congratulate our friend. . . . Know, then, that our friend, besides
+being made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, is also to be appointed
+to a receiver of taxes."
+
+There was a cry of surprise. They had expected a small post. Some of
+them tried to force a smile; but, aided by the sight of the table, the
+compliments again poured forth profusely.
+
+Sicardot once more begged for silence. "Wait one moment," he resumed;
+"I have not finished. Just one word. It is probable that our friend will
+remain among us, owing to the death of Monsieur Peirotte."
+
+Whilst the guests burst out into exclamations, Felicite felt a keen pain
+in her heart. Sicardot had already told her that the receiver had been
+shot; but at the mention of that sudden and shocking death, just as they
+were starting on that triumphal dinner, it seemed as if a chilling gust
+swept past her face. She remembered her wish; it was she who had killed
+that man. However, amidst the tinkling music of the silver, the company
+began to do honour to the banquet. In the provinces, people eat
+very much and very noisily. By the time the _releve_ was served, the
+gentlemen were all talking together; they showered kicks upon the
+vanquished, flattered one another, and made disparaging remarks about
+the absence of the marquis. It was impossible, they said, to maintain
+intercourse with the nobility. Roudier even gave out that the marquis
+had begged to be excused because his fear of the insurgents had given
+him jaundice. At the second course they all scrambled like hounds at
+the quarry. The oil-dealers and almond-dealers were the men who saved
+France. They clinked glasses to the glory of the Rougons. Granoux, who
+was very red, began to stammer, while Vuillet, very pale, was quite
+drunk. Nevertheless Sicardot continued filling his glass. For her part
+Angele, who had already eaten too much, prepared herself some sugar and
+water. The gentlemen were so delighted at being freed from panic, and
+finding themselves together again in that yellow drawing-room, round a
+good table, in the bright light radiating from the candelabra and
+the chandelier--which they now saw for the first time without its
+fly-specked cover--that they gave way to most exuberant folly and
+indulged in the coarsest enjoyment. Their voices rose in the warm
+atmosphere more huskily and eulogistically at each successive dish till
+they could scarcely invent fresh compliments. However, one of them, an
+old retired master-tanner, hit upon this fine phrase--that the dinner
+was a "perfect feast worthy of Lucullus."
+
+Pierre was radiant, and his big pale face perspired with triumph.
+Felicite, already accustoming herself to her new station in life, said
+that they would probably rent poor Monsieur Peirotte's flat until they
+could purchase a house of their own in the new town. She was already
+planning how she would place her future furniture in the receiver's
+rooms. She was entering into possession of her Tuileries. At one
+moment, however, as the uproar of voices became deafening, she seemed to
+recollect something, and quitting her seat she whispered in Aristide's
+ear: "And Silvere?"
+
+The young man started with surprise at the question.
+
+"He is dead," he replied, likewise in a whisper. "I was there when the
+gendarme blew his brains out with a pistol."
+
+Felicite in her turn shuddered. She opened her mouth to ask her son
+why he had not prevented this murder by claiming the lad; but abruptly
+hesitating she remained there speechless. Then Aristide, who had read
+her question on her quivering lips, whispered: "You understand, I said
+nothing--so much the worse for him! I did quite right. It's a good
+riddance."
+
+This brutal frankness displeased Felicite. So Aristide had his skeleton,
+like his father and mother. He would certainly not have confessed so
+openly that he had been strolling about the Faubourg and had allowed his
+cousin to be shot, had not the wine from the Hotel de Provence and the
+dreams he was building upon his approaching arrival in Paris, made
+him depart from his habitual cunning. The words once spoken, he
+swung himself to and fro on his chair. Pierre, who had watched the
+conversation between his wife and son from a distance, understood what
+had passed and glanced at them like an accomplice imploring silence. It
+was the last blast of terror, as it were, which blew over the Rougons,
+amidst the splendour and enthusiastic merriment of the dinner. True,
+Felicite, on returning to her seat, espied a taper burning behind a
+window on the other side of the road. Some one sat watching Monsieur
+Peirotte's corpse, which had been brought back from Sainte-Roure that
+morning. She sat down, feeling as if that taper were heating her back.
+But the gaiety was now increasing, and exclamations of rapture rang
+through the yellow drawing-room when the dessert appeared.
+
+At that same hour, the Faubourg was still shuddering at the tragedy
+which had just stained the Aire Saint-Mittre with blood. The return of
+the troops, after the carnage on the Nores plain, had been marked by the
+most cruel reprisals. Men were beaten to death behind bits of wall, with
+the butt-ends of muskets, others had their brains blown out in ravines
+by the pistols of gendarmes. In order that terror might impose silence,
+the soldiers strewed their road with corpses. One might have followed
+them by the red trail which they left behind.[*] It was a long butchery.
+At every halting-place, a few insurgents were massacred. Two were killed
+at Sainte-Roure, three at Ocheres, one at Beage. When the troops were
+encamped at Plassans, on the Nice road, it was decided that one more
+prisoner, the most guilty, should be shot. The victors judged it wise
+to leave this fresh corpse behind them in order to inspire the town
+with respect for the new-born Empire. But the soldiers were now weary of
+killing; none offered himself for the fatal task. The prisoners, thrown
+on the beams in the timber-yard as though on a camp bed, and bound
+together in pairs by the hands, listened and waited in a state of weary,
+resigned stupor.
+
+     [*] Though M. Zola has changed his place in his account of
+     the insurrection, that account is strictly accurate in all
+     its chief particulars. What he says of the savagery both of
+     the soldiers and of their officers is confirmed by all
+     impartial historical writers.--EDITOR.
+
+At that moment the gendarme Rengade roughly opened a way for himself
+through the crowd of inquisitive idlers. As soon as he heard that the
+troops had returned with several hundred insurgents, he had risen
+from bed, shivering with fever, and risking his life in the cold, dark
+December air. Scarcely was he out of doors when his wound reopened, the
+bandage which covered his eyeless socket became stained with blood,
+and a red streamlet trickled over his cheek and moustache. He looked
+frightful in his dumb fury with his pale face and blood-stained bandage,
+as he ran along closely scrutinising each of the prisoners. He followed
+the beams, bending down and going to and fro, making the bravest shudder
+by his abrupt appearance. And, all of a sudden: "Ah! the bandit, I've
+got him!" he cried.
+
+He had just laid his hand on Silvere's shoulder. Silvere, crouching down
+on a beam, with lifeless and expressionless face, was looking straight
+before him into the pale twilight, with a calm, stupefied air. Ever
+since his departure from Sainte-Roure, he had retained that vacant
+stare. Along the high road, for many a league, whenever the soldiers
+urged on the march of their captives with the butt-ends of their rifles,
+he had shown himself as gentle as a child. Covered with dust, thirsty
+and weary, he trudged onward without saying a word, like one of those
+docile animals that herdsmen drive along. He was thinking of Miette. He
+ever saw her lying on the banner, under the trees with her eyes turned
+upwards. For three days he had seen none but her; and at this very
+moment, amidst the growing darkness, he still saw her.
+
+Rengade turned towards the officer, who had failed to find among the
+soldiers the requisite men for an execution.
+
+"This villain put my eye out," he said, pointing to Silvere. "Hand him
+over to me. It's as good as done for you."
+
+The officer did not reply in words, but withdrew with an air of
+indifference, making a vague gesture. The gendarme understood that the
+man was surrendered to him.
+
+"Come, get up!" he resumed, as he shook him.
+
+Silvere, like all the other prisoners, had a companion attached to him.
+He was fastened by the arm to a peasant of Poujols named Mourgue, a man
+about fifty, who had been brutified by the scorching sun and the
+hard labour of tilling the ground. Crooked-backed already, his hands
+hardened, his face coarse and heavy, he blinked his eyes in a stupid
+manner, with the stubborn, distrustful expression of an animal subject
+to the lash. He had set out armed with a pitchfork, because his fellow
+villagers had done so; but he could not have explained what had thus
+set him adrift on the high roads. Since he had been made a prisoner
+he understood it still less. He had some vague idea that he was being
+conveyed home. His amazement at finding himself bound, the sight of all
+the people staring at him, stupefied him still more. As he only spoke
+and understood the dialect of the region, he could not imagine what the
+gendarme wanted. He raised his coarse, heavy face towards him with an
+effort; then, fancying he was being asked the name of his village, he
+said in his hoarse voice:
+
+"I come from Poujols."
+
+A burst of laughter ran through the crowd, and some voices cried:
+"Release the peasant."
+
+"Bah!" Rengade replied; "the more of this vermin that's crushed the
+better. As they're together, they can both go."
+
+There was a murmur.
+
+But the gendarme turned his terrible blood-stained face upon the
+onlookers, and they slunk off. One cleanly little citizen went away
+declaring that if he remained any longer it would spoil his appetite for
+dinner. However some boys who recognised Silvere, began to speak of "the
+red girl." Thereupon the little citizen retraced his steps, in order to
+see the lover of the female standard-bearer, that depraved creature who
+had been mentioned in the "Gazette."
+
+Silvere, for his part, neither saw nor heard anything; Rengade had to
+seize him by the collar. Thereupon he got up, forcing Mourgue to rise
+also.
+
+"Come," said the gendarme. "It won't take long."
+
+Silvere then recognised the one-eyed man. He smiled. He must have
+understood. But he turned his head away. The sight of the one-eyed man,
+of his moustaches which congealed blood stiffened as with sinister rime,
+caused him profound grief. He would have liked to die in perfect peace.
+So he avoided the gaze of Rengade's one eye, which glared from beneath
+the white bandage. And of his own accord he proceeded to the end of
+the Aire Saint-Mittre, to the narrow lane hidden by the timber stacks.
+Mourgue followed him thither.
+
+The Aire stretched out, with an aspect of desolation under the sallow
+sky. A murky light fell here and there from the copper-coloured clouds.
+Never had a sadder and more lingering twilight cast its melancholy over
+this bare expanse--this wood-yard with its slumbering timber, so stiff
+and rigid in the cold. The prisoners, the soldiers, and the mob along
+the high road disappeared amid the darkness of the trees. The expanse,
+the beams, the piles of planks alone grew pale under the fading light,
+assuming a muddy tint that vaguely suggested the bed of a dried-up
+torrent. The sawyers' trestles, rearing their meagre framework in a
+corner, seemed to form gallows, or the uprights of a guillotine. And
+there was no living soul there excepting three gipsies who showed their
+frightened faces at the door of their van--an old man and woman, and a
+big girl with woolly hair, whose eyes gleamed like those of a wolf.
+
+Before reaching the secluded path, Silvere looked round him. He
+bethought himself of a far away Sunday when he had crossed the wood-yard
+in the bright moonlight. How calm and soft it had been!--how slowly had
+the pale rays passed over the beams! Supreme silence had fallen from the
+frozen sky. And amidst this silence, the woolly-haired gipsy girl had
+sung in a low key and an unknown tongue. Then Silvere remembered that
+the seemingly far-off Sunday was only a week old. But a week ago he had
+come to bid Miette farewell! How long past it seemed! He felt as though
+he had not set foot in the wood-yard for years. But when he reached the
+narrow path his heart failed him. He recognised the odour of the grass,
+the shadows of the planks, the holes in the wall. A woeful voice rose
+from all those things. The path stretched out sad and lonely; it seemed
+longer to him than usual, and he felt a cold wind blowing down it. The
+spot had aged cruelly. He saw that the wall was moss-eaten, that the
+verdant carpet was dried up by frost, that the piles of timber had been
+rotted by rain. It was perfect devastation. The yellow twilight fell
+like fine dust upon the ruins of all that had been most dear to him. He
+was obliged to close his eyes that he might again behold the lane green,
+and live his happy hours afresh. It was warm weather; and he was
+racing with Miette in the balmy air. Then the cruel December rains fell
+unceasingly, yet they still came there, sheltering themselves beneath
+the planks and listening with rapture to the heavy plashing of the
+shower. His whole life--all his happiness--passed before him like a
+flash of lightning. Miette was climbing over the wall, running to
+him, shaking with sonorous laughter. She was there; he could see her,
+gleaming white through the darkness, with her living helm of ink-black
+hair. She was talking about the magpies' nests, which are so difficult
+to steal, and she dragged him along with her. Then he heard the gentle
+murmur of the Viorne in the distance, the chirping of the belated
+grasshoppers, and the blowing of the breeze among the poplars in
+the meadows of Sainte-Claire. Ah, how they used to run! How well he
+remembered it! She had learnt to swim in a fortnight. She was a plucky
+girl. She had only had one great fault: she was inclined to pilfering.
+But he would have cured her of that. Then the thought of their first
+embraces brought him back to the narrow path. They had always ended by
+returning to that nook. He fancied he could hear the gipsy girl's song
+dying away, the creaking of the last shutters, the solemn striking of
+the clocks. Then the hour of separation came, and Miette climbed the
+wall again and threw him a kiss. And he saw her no more. Emotion choked
+him at the thought: he would never see her again--never!
+
+"When you're ready," jeered the one-eyed man; "come, choose your place."
+
+Silvere took a few more steps. He was approaching the end of the path,
+and could see nothing but a strip of sky in which the rust-coloured
+light was fading away. Here had he spent his life for two years past.
+The slow approach of death added an ineffable charm to this pathway
+which had so long served as a lovers' walk. He loitered, bidding a long
+and lingering farewell to all he loved; the grass, the timber, the stone
+of the old wall, all those things into which Miette had breathed life.
+And again his thoughts wandered. They were waiting till they should be
+old enough to marry: Aunt Dide would remain with them. Ah! if they had
+fled far away, very far away, to some unknown village, where the
+scamps of the Faubourg would no longer have been able to come and cast
+Chantegreil's crime in his daughter's face. What peaceful bliss! They
+would have opened a wheelwright's workshop beside some high road. No
+doubt, he cared little for his ambitions now; he no longer thought
+of coachmaking, of carriages with broad varnished panels as shiny as
+mirrors. In the stupor of his despair he could not remember why his
+dream of bliss would never come to pass. Why did he not go away with
+Miette and aunt Dide? Then as he racked his memory, he heard the sharp
+crackling of a fusillade; he saw a standard fall before him, its staff
+broken and its folds drooping like the wings of a bird brought down by a
+shot. It was the Republic falling asleep with Miette under the red flag.
+Ah, what wretchedness! They were both dead, both had bleeding wounds in
+their breasts. And it was they--the corpses of his two loves--that now
+barred his path of life. He had nothing left him and might well die
+himself. These were the thoughts that had made him so gentle, so
+listless, so childlike all the way from Sainte-Roure. The soldiers
+might have struck him, he would not have felt it. His spirit no longer
+inhabited his body. It was far away, prostrate beside the loved ones who
+were dead under the trees amidst the pungent smoke of the gunpowder.
+
+But the one-eyed man was growing impatient; giving a push to Mourgue,
+who was lagging behind, he growled: "Get along, do; I don't want to be
+here all night."
+
+Silvere stumbled. He looked at his feet. A fragment of a skull lay
+whitening in the grass. He thought he heard a murmur of voices filling
+the pathway. The dead were calling him, those long departed ones, whose
+warm breath had so strangely perturbed him and his sweetheart during
+the sultry July evenings. He recognised their low whispers. They were
+rejoicing, they were telling him to come, and promising to restore
+Miette to him beneath the earth, in some retreat which would prove
+still more sequestered than this old trysting-place. The cemetery, whose
+oppressive odours and dark vegetation had breathed eager desire into the
+children's hearts, while alluringly spreading out its couches of rank
+grass, without succeeding however in throwing them into one another's
+arms, now longed to imbibe Silvere's warm blood. For two summers past it
+had been expecting the young lovers.
+
+"Is it here?" asked the one-eyed man.
+
+Silvere looked in front of him. He had reached the end of the path. His
+eyes fell on the tombstone, and he started. Miette was right, that stone
+was for her. _"Here lieth . . . Marie . . . died . . . "_ She was
+dead, that slab had fallen over her. His strength failing him, he leant
+against the frozen stone. How warm it had been when they sat in that
+nook, chatting for many a long evening! She had always come that way,
+and the pressure of her foot, as she alighted from the wall, had worn
+away the stone's surface in one corner. The mark seemed instinct with
+something of her lissom figure. And to Silvere it appeared as if some
+fatalism attached to all these objects--as if the stone were there
+precisely in order that he might come to die beside it, there where he
+had loved.
+
+The one-eyed man cocked his pistols.
+
+Death! death! the thought fascinated Silvere. It was to this spot,
+then, that they had led him, by the long white road which descends from
+Sainte-Roure to Plassans. If he had known it, he would have hastened on
+yet more quickly in order to die on that stone, at the end of the
+narrow path, in the atmosphere where he could still detect the scent of
+Miette's breath! Never had he hoped for such consolation in his grief.
+Heaven was merciful. He waited, a vague smile playing on is face.
+
+Mourgue, meantime, had caught sight of the pistols. Hitherto he had
+allowed himself to be dragged along stupidly. But fear now overcame him,
+and he repeated, in a tone of despair: "I come from Poujols--I come from
+Poujols!"
+
+Then he threw himself on the ground, rolling at the gendarme's feet,
+breaking out into prayers for mercy, and imagining that he was being
+mistaken for some one else.
+
+"What does it matter to me that you come from Poujols?" Rengade
+muttered.
+
+And as the wretched man, shivering and crying with terror, and quite
+unable to understand why he was going to die, held out his trembling
+hands--his deformed, hard, labourer's hands--exclaiming in his patois
+that he had done nothing and ought to be pardoned, the one-eyed man grew
+quite exasperated at being unable to put the pistol to his temple, owing
+to his constant movements.
+
+"Will you hold your tongue?" he shouted.
+
+Thereupon Mourgue, mad with fright and unwilling to die, began to howl
+like a beast--like a pig that is being slaughtered.
+
+"Hold your tongue, you scoundrel!" the gendarme repeated.
+
+And he blew his brains out. The peasant fell with a thud. His body
+rolled to the foot of a timber-stack, where it remained doubled up. The
+violence of the shock had severed the rope which fastened him to his
+companion. Silvere fell on his knees before the tombstone.
+
+It was to make his vengeance the more terrible that Rengade had killed
+Mourgue first. He played with his second pistol, raising it slowly in
+order to relish Silvere's agony. But the latter looked at him quietly.
+Then again the sight of this man, with the one fierce, scorching eye,
+made him feel uneasy. He averted his glance, fearing that he might die
+cowardly if he continued to look at that feverishly quivering gendarme,
+with blood-stained bandage and bleeding moustache. However, as he raised
+his eyes to avoid him, he perceived Justin's head just above the wall,
+at the very spot where Miette had been wont to leap over.
+
+Justin had been at the Porte de Rome, among the crowd, when the gendarme
+had led the prisoners away. He had set off as fast as he could by way of
+the Jas-Meiffren, in his eagerness to witness the execution. The thought
+that he alone, of all the Faubourg scamps, would view the tragedy at
+his ease, as from a balcony, made him run so quickly that he twice fell
+down. And in spite of his wild chase, he arrived too late to witness the
+first shot. He climbed the mulberry tree in despair; but he smiled when
+he saw that Silvere still remained. The soldiers had informed him of
+his cousin's death, and now the murder of the wheelwright brought his
+happiness to a climax. He awaited the shot with that delight which the
+sufferings of others always afforded him--a delight increased tenfold by
+the horror of the scene, and a feeling of exquisite fear.
+
+Silvere, on recognising that vile scamp's head all by itself above the
+wall--that pale grinning face, with hair standing on end--experienced a
+feeling of fierce rage, a sudden desire to live. It was the last revolt
+of his blood--a momentary mutiny. He again sank down on his knees,
+gazing straight before him. A last vision passed before his eyes in
+the melancholy twilight. At the end of the path, at the entrance of the
+Impasse Saint-Mittre, he fancied he could see aunt Dide standing erect,
+white and rigid like the statue of a saint, while she witnessed his
+agony from a distance.
+
+At that moment he felt the cold pistol on his temple. There was a smile
+on Justin's pale face. Closing his eyes, Silvere heard the long-departed
+dead wildly summoning him. In the darkness, he now saw nothing save
+Miette, wrapped in the banner, under the trees, with her eyes turned
+towards heaven. Then the one-eyed man fired, and all was over; the lad's
+skull burst open like a ripe pomegranate; his face fell upon the stone,
+with his lips pressed to the spot which Miette's feet had worn--that
+warm spot which still retained a trace of his dead love.
+
+And in the evening at dessert, at the Rougons' abode, bursts of laughter
+arose with the fumes from the table, which was still warm with the
+remains of the dinner. At last the Rougons were nibbling at the
+pleasures of the wealthy! Their appetites, sharpened by thirty years
+of restrained desire, now fell to with wolfish teeth. These fierce,
+insatiate wild beasts, scarcely entering upon indulgence, exulted at
+the birth of the Empire--the dawn of the Rush for the Spoils. The Coup
+d'Etat, which retrieved the fortune of the Bonapartes, also laid the
+foundation for that of the Rougons.
+
+Pierre stood up, held out his glass, and exclaimed: "I drink to Prince
+Louis--to the Emperor!"
+
+The gentlemen, who had drowned their jealousies in champagne, rose in a
+body and clinked glasses with deafening shouts. It was a fine spectacle.
+The bourgeois of Plassans, Roudier, Granoux, Vuillet, and all the
+others, wept and embraced each other over the corpse of the Republic,
+which as yet was scarcely cold. But a splendid idea occurred to
+Sicardot. He took from Felicite's hair a pink satin bow, which she had
+placed over her right ear in honour of the occasion, cut off a strip
+of the satin with his dessert knife, and then solemnly fastened it
+to Rougon's button-hole. The latter feigned modesty, and pretended to
+resist. But his face beamed with joy, as he murmured: "No, I beg you, it
+is too soon. We must wait until the decree is published."
+
+"Zounds!" Sicardot exclaimed, "will you please keep that! It's an old
+soldier of Napoleon who decorates you!"
+
+The whole company burst into applause. Felicite almost swooned with
+delight. Silent Granoux jumped up on a chair in his enthusiasm, waving
+his napkin and making a speech which was lost amid the uproar. The
+yellow drawing-room was wild with triumph.
+
+But the strip of pink satin fastened to Pierre's button-hole was not
+the only red spot in that triumph of the Rougons. A shoe, with a
+blood-stained heel, still lay forgotten under the bedstead in the
+adjoining room. The taper burning at Monsieur Peirotte's bedside, over
+the way, gleamed too with the lurid redness of a gaping wound amidst
+the dark night. And yonder, far away, in the depths of the Aire
+Saint-Mittre, a pool of blood was congealing upon a tombstone.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortune of the Rougons, by Emile Zola
+
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Fortune of the Rougons, by Emile Zola
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune of the Rougons, by Emile Zola
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fortune of the Rougons
+
+Author: Emile Zola
+
+Editor: Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
+
+Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #5135]
+Last Updated: September 5, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Emile Zola
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Edited With Introduction By Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> AUTHOR&rsquo;S PREFACE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> <big><b>THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS</b></big>
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      INTRODUCTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Fortune of the Rougons&rdquo; is the initial volume of the Rougon-Macquart
+      series. Though it was by no means M. Zola&rsquo;s first essay in fiction, it was
+      undoubtedly his first great bid for genuine literary fame, and the
+      foundation of what must necessarily be regarded as his life-work. The idea
+      of writing the &ldquo;natural and social history of a family under the Second
+      Empire,&rdquo; extending to a score of volumes, was doubtless suggested to M.
+      Zola by Balzac&rsquo;s immortal &ldquo;Comedie Humaine.&rdquo; He was twenty-eight years of
+      age when this idea first occurred to him; he was fifty-three when he at
+      last sent the manuscript of his concluding volume, &ldquo;Dr. Pascal,&rdquo; to the
+      press. He had spent five-and-twenty years in working out his scheme,
+      persevering with it doggedly and stubbornly, whatever rebuffs he might
+      encounter, whatever jeers and whatever insults might be directed against
+      him by the ignorant, the prejudiced, and the hypocritical. Truth was on
+      the march and nothing could stay it; even as, at the present hour, its
+      march, if slow, none the less continues athwart another and a different
+      crisis of the illustrious novelist&rsquo;s career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in the early summer of 1869 that M. Zola first began the actual
+      writing of &ldquo;The Fortune of the Rougons.&rdquo; It was only in the following
+      year, however, that the serial publication of the work commenced in the
+      columns of &ldquo;Le Siecle,&rdquo; the Republican journal of most influence in Paris
+      in those days of the Second Empire. The Franco-German war interrupted this
+      issue of the story, and publication in book form did not take place until
+      the latter half of 1871, a time when both the war and the Commune had left
+      Paris exhausted, supine, with little or no interest in anything. No more
+      unfavourable moment for the issue of an ambitious work of fiction could
+      have been found. Some two or three years went by, as I well remember,
+      before anything like a revival of literature and of public interest in
+      literature took place. Thus, M. Zola launched his gigantic scheme under
+      auspices which would have made many another man recoil. &ldquo;The Fortune of
+      the Rougons,&rdquo; and two or three subsequent volumes of his series, attracted
+      but a moderate degree of attention, and it was only on the morrow of the
+      publication of &ldquo;L&rsquo;Assommoir&rdquo; that he awoke, like Byron, to find himself
+      famous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As previously mentioned, the Rougon-Macquart series forms twenty volumes.
+      The last of these, &ldquo;Dr. Pascal,&rdquo; appeared in 1893. Since then M. Zola has
+      written &ldquo;Lourdes,&rdquo; &ldquo;Rome,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Paris.&rdquo; Critics have repeated <i>ad
+      nauseam</i> that these last works constitute a new departure on M. Zola&rsquo;s
+      part, and, so far as they formed a new series, this is true. But the
+      suggestion that he has in any way repented of the Rougon-Macquart novels
+      is ridiculous. As he has often told me of recent years, it is, as far as
+      possible, his plan to subordinate his style and methods to his subject. To
+      have written a book like &ldquo;Rome,&rdquo; so largely devoted to the ambitions of
+      the Papal See, in the same way as he had written books dealing with the
+      drunkenness or other vices of Paris, would have been the climax of
+      absurdity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet the publication of &ldquo;Rome,&rdquo; was the signal for a general outcry on the
+      part of English and American reviewers that Zolaism, as typified by the
+      Rougon-Macquart series, was altogether a thing of the past. To my thinking
+      this is a profound error. M. Zola has always remained faithful to himself.
+      The only difference that I perceive between his latest work, &ldquo;Paris,&rdquo; and
+      certain Rougon-Macquart volumes, is that with time, experience and
+      assiduity, his genius has expanded and ripened, and that the hesitation,
+      the groping for truth, so to say, which may be found in some of his
+      earlier writings, has disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time when &ldquo;The Fortune of the Rougons&rdquo; was first published, none
+      but the author himself can have imagined that the foundation-stone of one
+      of the great literary monuments of the century had just been laid. From
+      the &ldquo;story&rdquo; point of view the book is one of M. Zola&rsquo;s very best, although
+      its construction&mdash;particularly as regards the long interlude of the
+      idyll of Miette and Silvere&mdash;is far from being perfect. Such a work
+      when first issued might well bring its author a measure of popularity, but
+      it could hardly confer fame. Nowadays, however, looking backward, and
+      bearing in mind that one here has the genius of M. Zola&rsquo;s lifework, &ldquo;The
+      Fortune of the Rougons&rdquo; becomes a book of exceptional interest and
+      importance. This has been so well understood by French readers that during
+      the last six or seven years the annual sales of the work have increased
+      threefold. Where, over a course of twenty years, 1,000 copies were sold,
+      2,500 and 3,000 are sold to-day. How many living English novelists can say
+      the same of their early essays in fiction, issued more than a quarter of a
+      century ago?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I may here mention that at the last date to which I have authentic
+      figures, that is, Midsummer 1897 (prior, of course, to what is called
+      &ldquo;L&rsquo;Affaire Dreyfus&rdquo;), there had been sold of the entire Rougon-Macquart
+      series (which had begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies. These were of the
+      ordinary Charpentier editions of the French originals. By adding thereto
+      several <i>editions de luxe</i> and the widely-circulated popular
+      illustrated editions of certain volumes, the total amounts roundly to
+      2,100,000. &ldquo;Rome,&rdquo; &ldquo;Lourdes,&rdquo; &ldquo;Paris,&rdquo; and all M. Zola&rsquo;s other works,
+      apart from the &ldquo;Rougon-Macquart&rdquo; series, together with the translations
+      into a dozen different languages&mdash;English, German, Italian, Spanish,
+      Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and others&mdash;are not
+      included in the above figures. Otherwise the latter might well be doubled.
+      Nor is account taken of the many serial issues which have brought M.
+      Zola&rsquo;s views to the knowledge of the masses of all Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is, of course, the celebrity attaching to certain of M. Zola&rsquo;s literary
+      efforts that has stimulated the demand for his other writings. Among those
+      which are well worthy of being read for their own sakes, I would assign a
+      prominent place to the present volume. Much of the story element in it is
+      admirable, and, further, it shows M. Zola as a genuine satirist and
+      humorist. The Rougons&rsquo; yellow drawing-room and its habitues, and many of
+      the scenes between Pierre Rougon and his wife Felicite, are worthy of the
+      pen of Douglas Jerrold. The whole account, indeed, of the town of
+      Plassans, its customs and its notabilities, is satire of the most
+      effective kind, because it is satire true to life, and never degenerates
+      into mere caricature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a rather curious coincidence that, at the time when M. Zola was thus
+      portraying the life of Provence, his great contemporary, bosom friend, and
+      rival for literary fame, the late Alphonse Daudet, should have been
+      producing, under the title of &ldquo;The Provencal Don Quixote,&rdquo; that unrivalled
+      presentment of the foibles of the French Southerner, with everyone
+      nowadays knows as &ldquo;Tartarin of Tarascon.&rdquo; It is possible that M. Zola,
+      while writing his book, may have read the instalments of &ldquo;Le Don Quichotte
+      Provencal&rdquo; published in the Paris &ldquo;Figaro,&rdquo; and it may be that this
+      perusal imparted that fillip to his pen to which we owe the many amusing
+      particulars that he gives us of the town of Plassans. Plassans, I may
+      mention, is really the Provencal Aix, which M. Zola&rsquo;s father provided with
+      water by means of a canal still bearing his name. M. Zola himself, though
+      born in Paris, spent the greater part of his childhood there. Tarascon, as
+      is well known, never forgave Alphonse Daudet for his &ldquo;Tartarin&rdquo;; and in a
+      like way M. Zola, who doubtless counts more enemies than any other
+      literary man of the period, has none bitterer than the worthy citizens of
+      Aix. They cannot forget or forgive the rascally Rougon-Macquarts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The name Rougon-Macquart has to me always suggested that splendid and
+      amusing type of the cynical rogue, Robert Macaire. But, of course, both
+      Rougon and Macquart are genuine French names and not inventions. Indeed,
+      several years ago I came by chance upon them both, in an old French deed
+      which I was examining at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. I there
+      found mention of a Rougon family and a Macquart family dwelling virtually
+      side by side in the same village. This, however, was in Champagne, not in
+      Provence. Both families farmed vineyards for a once famous abbey in the
+      vicinity of Epernay, early in the seventeenth century. To me, personally,
+      this trivial discovery meant a great deal. It somehow aroused my interest
+      in M. Zola and his works. Of the latter I had then only glanced through
+      two or three volumes. With M. Zola himself I was absolutely unacquainted.
+      However, I took the liberty to inform him of my little discovery; and
+      afterwards I read all the books that he had published. Now, as it is
+      fairly well known, I have given the greater part of my time, for several
+      years past, to the task of familiarising English readers with his
+      writings. An old deed, a chance glance, followed by the great friendship
+      of my life and years of patient labour. If I mention this matter, it is
+      solely with the object of endorsing the truth of the saying that the most
+      insignificant incidents frequently influence and even shape our careers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I must come back to &ldquo;The Fortune of the Rougons.&rdquo; It has, as I have
+      said, its satirical and humorous side; but it also contains a strong
+      element of pathos. The idyll of Miette and Silvere is a very touching one,
+      and quite in accord with the conditions of life prevailing in Provence at
+      the period M. Zola selects for his narrative. Miette is a frank child of
+      nature; Silvere, her lover, in certain respects foreshadows, a quarter of
+      a century in advance, the Abbe Pierre Fromont of &ldquo;Lourdes,&rdquo; &ldquo;Rome,&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Paris.&rdquo; The environment differs, of course, but germs of the same nature
+      may readily be detected in both characters. As for the other personages of
+      M. Zola&rsquo;s book&mdash;on the one hand, Aunt Dide, Pierre Rougon, his wife,
+      Felicite, and their sons Eugene, Aristide and Pascal, and, on the other,
+      Macquart, his daughter Gervaise of &ldquo;L&rsquo;Assommoir,&rdquo; and his son Jean of &ldquo;La
+      Terre&rdquo; and &ldquo;La Debacle,&rdquo; together with the members of the Mouret branch of
+      the ravenous, neurotic, duplex family&mdash;these are analysed or sketched
+      in a way which renders their subsequent careers, as related in other
+      volumes of the series, thoroughly consistent with their origin and their
+      up-bringing. I venture to asset that, although it is possible to read
+      individual volumes of the Rougon-Macquart series while neglecting others,
+      nobody can really understand any one of these books unless he makes
+      himself acquainted with the alpha and the omega of the edifice, that is,
+      &ldquo;The Fortune of the Rougons&rdquo; and &ldquo;Dr. Pascal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With regard to the present English translation, it is based on one made
+      for my father several years ago. But to convey M. Zola&rsquo;s meaning more
+      accurately I have found it necessary to alter, on an average, at least one
+      sentence out of every three. Thus, though I only claim to edit the volume,
+      it is, to all intents and purposes, quite a new English version of M.
+      Zola&rsquo;s work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E. A. V. MERTON, SURREY: August, 1898.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      AUTHOR&rsquo;S PREFACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I wish to explain how a family, a small group of human beings, conducts
+      itself in a given social system after blossoming forth and giving birth to
+      ten or twenty members, who, though they may appear, at the first glance,
+      profoundly dissimilar one from the other, are, as analysis demonstrates,
+      most closely linked together from the point of view of affinity. Heredity,
+      like gravity, has its laws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By resolving the duplex question of temperament and environment, I shall
+      endeavour to discover and follow the thread of connection which leads
+      mathematically from one man to another. And when I have possession of
+      every thread, and hold a complete social group in my hands, I shall show
+      this group at work, participating in an historical period; I shall depict
+      it in action, with all its varied energies, and I shall analyse both the
+      will power of each member, and the general tendency of the whole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great characteristic of the Rougon-Macquarts, the group or family
+      which I propose to study, is their ravenous appetite, the great outburst
+      of our age which rushes upon enjoyment. Physiologically the
+      Rougon-Macquarts represent the slow succession of accidents pertaining to
+      the nerves or the blood, which befall a race after the first organic
+      lesion, and, according to environment, determine in each individual member
+      of the race those feelings, desires and passions&mdash;briefly, all the
+      natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to humanity&mdash;whose
+      outcome assumes the conventional name of virtue or vice. Historically the
+      Rougon-Macquarts proceed from the masses, radiate throughout the whole of
+      contemporary society, and ascend to all sorts of positions by the force of
+      that impulsion of essentially modern origin, which sets the lower classes
+      marching through the social system. And thus the dramas of their
+      individual lives recount the story of the Second Empire, from the
+      ambuscade of the Coup d&rsquo;Etat to the treachery of Sedan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For three years I had been collecting the necessary documents for this
+      long work, and the present volume was even written, when the fall of the
+      Bonapartes, which I needed artistically, and with, as if by fate, I ever
+      found at the end of the drama, without daring to hope that it would prove
+      so near at hand, suddenly occurred and furnished me with the terrible but
+      necessary denouement for my work. My scheme is, at this date, completed;
+      the circle in which my characters will revolve is perfected; and my work
+      becomes a picture of a departed reign, of a strange period of human
+      madness and shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This work, which will comprise several episodes, is therefore, in my mind,
+      the natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire. And
+      the first episode, here called &ldquo;The Fortune of the Rougons,&rdquo; should
+      scientifically be entitled &ldquo;The Origin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      EMILE ZOLA PARIS, July 1, 1871.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On quitting Plassans by the Rome Gate, on the southern side of the town,
+      you will find, on the right side of the road to Nice, and a little way
+      past the first suburban houses, a plot of land locally known as the Aire
+      Saint-Mittre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Aire Saint-Mittre is of oblong shape and on a level with the footpath
+      of the adjacent road, from which it is separated by a strip of trodden
+      grass. A narrow blind alley fringed with a row of hovels borders it on the
+      right; while on the left, and at the further end, it is closed in by bits
+      of wall overgrown with moss, above which can be seen the top branches of
+      the mulberry-trees of the Jas-Meiffren&mdash;an extensive property with an
+      entrance lower down the road. Enclosed upon three sides, the Aire
+      Saint-Mittre leads nowhere, and is only crossed by people out for a
+      stroll.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In former times it was a cemetery under the patronage of Saint-Mittre, a
+      greatly honoured Provencal saint; and in 1851 the old people of Plassans
+      could still remember having seen the wall of the cemetery standing,
+      although the place itself had been closed for years. The soil had been so
+      glutted with corpses that it had been found necessary to open a new
+      burial-ground at the other end of town. Then the old abandoned cemetery
+      had been gradually purified by the dark thick-set vegetation which had
+      sprouted over it every spring. The rich soil, in which the gravediggers
+      could no longer delve without turning up some human remains, was possessed
+      of wondrous fertility. The tall weeds overtopped the walls after the May
+      rains and the June sunshine so as to be visible from the high road; while
+      inside, the place presented the appearance of a deep, dark green sea
+      studded with large blossoms of singular brilliancy. Beneath one&rsquo;s feet
+      amidst the close-set stalks one could feel that the damp soil reeked and
+      bubbled with sap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the curiosities of the place at that time were some large
+      pear-trees, with twisted and knotty boughs; but none of the housewives of
+      Plassans cared to pluck the large fruit which grew upon them. Indeed, the
+      townspeople spoke of this fruit with grimaces of disgust. No such
+      delicacy, however, restrained the suburban urchins, who assembled in bands
+      at twilight and climbed the walls to steal the pears, even before they
+      were ripe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trees and the weeds with their vigorous growth had rapidly assimilated
+      all the decomposing matter in the old cemetery of Saint-Mittre; the
+      malaria rising from the human remains interred there had been greedily
+      absorbed by the flowers and the fruit; so that eventually the only odour
+      one could detect in passing by was the strong perfume of wild
+      gillyflowers. This had merely been a question of a few summers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the townspeople determined to utilise this common property, which
+      had long served no purpose. The walls bordering the roadway and the blind
+      alley were pulled down; the weeds and the pear-trees uprooted; the
+      sepulchral remains were removed; the ground was dug deep, and such bones
+      as the earth was willing to surrender were heaped up in a corner. For
+      nearly a month the youngsters, who lamented the loss of the pear-trees,
+      played at bowls with the skulls; and one night some practical jokers even
+      suspended femurs and tibias to all the bell-handles of the town. This
+      scandal, which is still remembered at Plassans, did not cease until the
+      authorities decided to have the bones shot into a hole which had been dug
+      for the purpose in the new cemetery. All work, however, is usually carried
+      out with discreet dilatoriness in country towns, and so during an entire
+      week the inhabitants saw a solitary cart removing these human remains as
+      if they had been mere rubbish. The vehicle had to cross Plassans from end
+      to end, and owing to the bad condition of the roads fragments of bones and
+      handfuls of rich mould were scattered at every jolt. There was not the
+      briefest religious ceremony, nothing but slow and brutish cartage. Never
+      before had a town felt so disgusted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For several years the old cemetery remained an object of terror. Although
+      it adjoined the main thoroughfare and was open to all comers, it was left
+      quite deserted, a prey to fresh vegetable growth. The local authorities,
+      who had doubtless counted on selling it and seeing houses built upon it,
+      were evidently unable to find a purchaser. The recollection of the heaps
+      of bones and the cart persistently jolting through the streets may have
+      made people recoil from the spot; or perhaps the indifference that was
+      shown was due to the indolence, the repugnance to pulling down and setting
+      up again, which is characteristic of country people. At all events the
+      authorities still retained possession of the ground, and at last forgot
+      their desire to dispose of it. They did not even erect a fence round it,
+      but left it open to all comers. Then, as time rolled on, people gradually
+      grew accustomed to this barren spot; they would sit on the grass at the
+      edges, walk about, or gather in groups. When the grass had been worn away
+      and the trodden soil had become grey and hard, the old cemetery resembled
+      a badly-levelled public square. As if the more effectually to efface the
+      memory of all objectionable associations, the inhabitants slowly changed
+      the very appellation of the place, retaining but the name of the saint,
+      which was likewise applied to the blind alley dipping down at one corner
+      of the field. Thus there was the Aire Saint-Mittre and the Impasse
+      Saint-Mittre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this dates, however, from some considerable time back. For more than
+      thirty years now the Aire Saint-Mittre has presented a different
+      appearance. One day the townspeople, far too inert and indifferent to
+      derive any advantage from it, let it, for a trifling consideration, to
+      some suburban wheelwrights, who turned it into a wood-yard. At the present
+      day it is still littered with huge pieces of timber thirty or forty feet
+      long, lying here and there in piles, and looking like lofty overturned
+      columns. These piles of timber, disposed at intervals from one end of the
+      yard to the other, are a continual source of delight to the local urchins.
+      In some places the ground is covered with fallen wood, forming a kind of
+      uneven flooring over which it is impossible to walk, unless one balance
+      one&rsquo;s self with marvellous dexterity. Troops of children amuse themselves
+      with this exercise all day long. You will see them jumping over the big
+      beams, walking in Indian file along the narrow ends, or else crawling
+      astride them; various games which generally terminate in blows and
+      bellowings. Sometimes, too, a dozen of them will sit, closely packed one
+      against the other, on the thin end of a pole raised a few feet from the
+      ground, and will see-saw there for hours together. The Aire Saint-Mittre
+      thus serves as a recreation ground, where for more than a quarter of a
+      century all the little suburban ragamuffins have been in the habit of
+      wearing out the seats of their breeches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The strangeness of the place is increased by the circumstance that
+      wandering gipsies, by a sort of traditional custom always select the
+      vacant portions of it for their encampments. Whenever any caravan arrives
+      at Plassans it takes up its quarters on the Aire Saint-Mittre. The place
+      is consequently never empty. There is always some strange band there, some
+      troop of wild men and withered women, among whom groups of healthy-looking
+      children roll about on the grass. These people live in the open air,
+      regardless of everybody, setting their pots boiling, eating nameless
+      things, freely displaying their tattered garments, and sleeping, fighting,
+      kissing, and reeking with mingled filth and misery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The field, formerly so still and deserted, save for the buzzing of hornets
+      around the rich blossoms in the heavy sunshine, has thus become a very
+      rowdy spot, resounding with the noisy quarrels of the gipsies and the
+      shrill cries of the urchins of the suburb. In one corner there is a
+      primitive saw-mill for cutting the timber, the noise from which serves as
+      a dull, continuous bass accompaniment to the sharp voices. The wood is
+      placed on two high tressels, and a couple of sawyers, one of whom stands
+      aloft on the timber itself, while the other underneath is half blinded by
+      the falling sawdust, work a large saw to and fro for hours together, with
+      rigid machine-like regularity, as if they were wire-pulled puppets. The
+      wood they saw is stacked, plank by plank, along the wall at the end, in
+      carefully arranged piles six or eight feet high, which often remain there
+      several seasons, and constitute one of the charms of the Aire
+      Saint-Mittre. Between these stacks are mysterious, retired little alleys
+      leading to a broader path between the timber and the wall, a deserted
+      strip of verdure whence only small patches of sky can be seen. The
+      vigorous vegetation and the quivering, deathlike stillness of the old
+      cemetery still reign in this path. In all the country round Plassans there
+      is no spot more instinct with languor, solitude, and love. It is a most
+      delightful place for love-making. When the cemetery was being cleared the
+      bones must have been heaped up in this corner; for even to-day it
+      frequently happens that one&rsquo;s foot comes across some fragment of a skull
+      lying concealed in the damp turf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody, however, now thinks of the bodies that once slept under that turf.
+      In the daytime only the children go behind the piles of wood when playing
+      at hide and seek. The green path remains virginal, unknown to others who
+      see nought but the wood-yard crowded with timber and grey with dust. In
+      the morning and afternoon, when the sun is warm, the whole place swarms
+      with life. Above all the turmoil, above the ragamuffins playing among the
+      timber, and the gipsies kindling fires under their cauldrons, the sharp
+      silhouette of the sawyer mounted on his beam stands out against the sky,
+      moving to and fro with the precision of clockwork, as if to regulate the
+      busy activity that has sprung up in this spot once set apart for eternal
+      slumber. Only the old people who sit on the planks, basking in the setting
+      sun, speak occasionally among themselves of the bones which they once saw
+      carted through the streets of Plassans by the legendary tumbrel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When night falls the Aire Saint-Mittre loses its animation, and looks like
+      some great black hole. At the far end one may just espy the dying embers
+      of the gipsies&rsquo; fires, and at times shadows slink noiselessly into the
+      dense darkness. The place becomes quite sinister, particularly in winter
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One Sunday evening, at about seven o&rsquo;clock, a young man stepped lightly
+      from the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and, closely skirting the walls, took his
+      way among the timber in the wood-yard. It was in the early part of
+      December, 1851. The weather was dry and cold. The full moon shone with
+      that sharp brilliancy peculiar to winter moons. The wood-yard did not have
+      the forbidding appearance which it wears on rainy nights; illumined by
+      stretches of white light, and wrapped in deep and chilly silence, it
+      spread around with a soft, melancholy aspect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a few seconds the young man paused on the edge of the yard and gazed
+      mistrustfully in front of him. He carried a long gun, the butt-end of
+      which was hidden under his jacket, while the barrel, pointed towards the
+      ground, glittered in the moonlight. Pressing the weapon to his side, he
+      attentively examined the square shadows cast by the piles of timber. The
+      ground looked like a chess-board, with black and white squares clearly
+      defined by alternate patches of light and shade. The sawyers&rsquo; tressels in
+      the centre of the plot threw long, narrow fantastic shadows, suggesting
+      some huge geometrical figure, upon a strip of bare grey ground. The rest
+      of the yard, the flooring of beams, formed a great couch on which the
+      light reposed, streaked here and there with the slender black shadows
+      which edged the different pieces of timber. In the frigid silence under
+      the wintry moon, the motionless, recumbent poles, stiffened, as it were,
+      with sleep and cold, recalled the corpses of the old cemetery. The young
+      man cast but a rapid glance round the empty space; there was not a
+      creature, not a sound, no danger of being seen or heard. The black patches
+      at the further end caused him more anxiety, but after a brief examination
+      he plucked up courage and hurriedly crossed the wood-yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as he felt himself under cover he slackened his pace. He was now
+      in the green pathway skirting the wall behind the piles of planks. Here
+      his very footsteps became inaudible; the frozen grass scarcely crackled
+      under his tread. He must have loved the spot, have feared no danger,
+      sought nothing but what was pleasant there. He no longer concealed his
+      gun. The path stretched away like a dark trench, except that the moonrays,
+      gliding ever and anon between the piles of timber, then streaked the grass
+      with patches of light. All slept, both darkness and light, with the same
+      deep, soft, sad slumber. No words can describe the calm peacefulness of
+      the place. The young man went right down the path, and stopped at the end
+      where the walls of the Jas-Meiffren form an angle. Here he listened as if
+      to ascertain whether any sound might be coming from the adjoining estate.
+      At last, hearing nothing, he stooped down, thrust a plank aside, and hid
+      his gun in a timber-stack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An old tombstone, which had been overlooked in the clearing of the
+      burial-ground, lay in the corner, resting on its side and forming a high
+      and slightly sloping seat. The rain had worn its edges, and moss was
+      slowly eating into it. Nevertheless, the following fragment of an
+      inscription, cut on the side which was sinking into the ground, might
+      still have been distinguished in the moonlight: &ldquo;<i>Here lieth . . . Marie
+      . . . died . . .</i>&rdquo; The finger of time had effaced the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the young man had concealed his gun he again listened attentively,
+      and still hearing nothing, resolved to climb upon the stone. The wall
+      being low, he was able to rest his elbows on the coping. He could,
+      however, perceive nothing except a flood of light beyond the row of
+      mulberry-trees skirting the wall. The flat ground of the Jas-Meiffren
+      spread out under the moon like an immense sheet of unbleached linen; a
+      hundred yards away the farmhouse and its outbuildings formed a still
+      whiter patch. The young man was still gazing anxiously in that direction
+      when, suddenly, one of the town clocks slowly and solemnly struck seven.
+      He counted the strokes, and then jumped down, apparently surprised and
+      relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seated himself on the tombstone, like one who is prepared to wait some
+      considerable time. And for about half an hour he remained motionless and
+      deep in thought, apparently quite unconscious of the cold, while his eyes
+      gazed fixedly at a mass of shadow. He had placed himself in a dark corner,
+      but the beams of the rising moon had gradually reached him, and at last
+      his head was in the full light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a strong, sturdy-looking lad, with a fine mouth, and soft delicate
+      skin that bespoke youthfulness. He looked about seventeen years of age,
+      and was handsome in a characteristic way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His thin, long face looked like the work of some master sculptor; his high
+      forehead, overhanging brows, aquiline nose, broad flat chin, and
+      protruding cheek bones, gave singularly bold relief to his countenance.
+      Such a face would, with advancing age, become too bony, as fleshless as
+      that of a knight errant. But at this stage of youth, with chin and cheek
+      lightly covered with soft down, its latent harshness was attenuated by the
+      charming softness of certain contours which had remained vague and
+      childlike. His soft black eyes, still full of youth, also lent delicacy to
+      his otherwise vigorous countenance. The young fellow would probably not
+      have fascinated all women, as he was not what one calls a handsome man;
+      but his features, as a whole, expressed such ardent and sympathetic life,
+      such enthusiasm and energy, that they doubtless engaged the thoughts of
+      the girls of his own part&mdash;those sunburnt girls of the South&mdash;as
+      he passed their doors on sultry July evenings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remained seated upon the tombstone, wrapped in thought, and apparently
+      quite unconscious of the moonlight which now fell upon his chest and legs.
+      He was of middle stature, rather thick-set, with over-developed arms and a
+      labourer&rsquo;s hands, already hardened by toil; his feet, shod with heavy
+      laced boots, looked large and square-toed. His general appearance, more
+      particularly the heaviness of his limbs, bespoke lowly origin. There was,
+      however, something in him, in the upright bearing of his neck and the
+      thoughtful gleams of his eyes, which seemed to indicate an inner revolt
+      against the brutifying manual labour which was beginning to bend him to
+      the ground. He was, no doubt, an intelligent nature buried beneath the
+      oppressive burden of race and class; one of those delicate refined minds
+      embedded in a rough envelope, from which they in vain struggle to free
+      themselves. Thus, in spite of his vigour, he seemed timid and restless,
+      feeling a kind of unconscious shame at his imperfection. An honest lad he
+      doubtless was, whose very ignorance had generated enthusiasm, whose manly
+      heart was impelled by childish intellect, and who could show alike the
+      submissiveness of a woman and the courage of a hero. On the evening in
+      question he was dressed in a coat and trousers of greenish corduroy. A
+      soft felt hat, placed lightly on the back of his head, cast a streak of
+      shadow over his brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the neighbouring clock struck the half hour, he suddenly started from
+      his reverie. Perceiving that the white moonlight was shining full upon
+      him, he gazed anxiously ahead. Then he abruptly dived back into the shade,
+      but was unable to recover the thread of his thoughts. He now realised that
+      his hands and feet were becoming very cold, and impatience seized hold of
+      him. So he jumped upon the stone again, and once more glanced over the
+      Jas-Meiffren, which was still empty and silent. Finally, at a loss how to
+      employ his time, he jumped down, fetched his gun from the pile of planks
+      where he had concealed it, and amused himself by working the trigger. The
+      weapon was a long, heavy carbine, which had doubtless belonged to some
+      smuggler. The thickness of the butt and the breech of the barrel showed it
+      to be an old flintlock which had been altered into a percussion gun by
+      some local gunsmith. Such firearms are to be found in farmhouses, hanging
+      against the wall over the chimney-piece. The young man caressed his weapon
+      with affection; twenty times or more he pulled the trigger, thrust his
+      little finger into the barrel, and examined the butt attentively. By
+      degrees he grew full of youth enthusiasm, combined with childish
+      frolicsomeness, and ended by levelling his weapon and aiming at space,
+      like a recruit going through his drill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now very nearly eight o&rsquo;clock, and he had been holding his gun
+      levelled for over a minute, when all at once a low, panting call, light as
+      a breath, came from the direction of the Jas-Meiffren.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you there, Silvere?&rdquo; the voice asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere dropped his gun and bounded on to the tombstone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; he replied, also in a hushed voice. &ldquo;Wait, I&rsquo;ll help you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he could stretch out his arms, however, a girl&rsquo;s head appeared
+      above the wall. With singular agility the damsel had availed herself of
+      the trunk of a mulberry-tree, and climbed aloft like a kitten. The ease
+      and certainty with which she moved showed that she was familiar with this
+      strange spot. In another moment she was seated on the coping of the wall.
+      Then Silvere, taking her in his arms, carried her, though not without a
+      struggle, to the seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let go,&rdquo; she laughingly cried; &ldquo;let go, I can get down alone very well.&rdquo;
+       And when she was seated on the stone slab she added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been waiting for me long? I&rsquo;ve been running, and am quite out of
+      breath.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere made no reply. He seemed in no laughing humour, but gazed
+      sorrowfully into the girl&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;I wanted to see you, Miette,&rdquo; he said,
+      as he seated himself beside her. &ldquo;I should have waited all night for you.
+      I am going away at daybreak to-morrow morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette had just caught sight of the gun lying on the grass, and with a
+      thoughtful air, she murmured: &ldquo;Ah! so it&rsquo;s decided then? There&rsquo;s your
+      gun!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Silvere, after a brief pause, his voice still faltering,
+      &ldquo;it&rsquo;s my gun. I thought it best to remove it from the house to-night;
+      to-morrow morning aunt Dide might have seen me take it, and have felt
+      uneasy about it. I am going to hide it, and shall fetch it just before
+      starting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, as Miette could not remove her eyes from the weapon which he had so
+      foolishly left on the grass, he jumped up and again hid it among the
+      woodstacks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We learnt this morning,&rdquo; he said, as he resumed his seat, &ldquo;that the
+      insurgents of La Palud and Saint Martin-de-Vaulx were on the march, and
+      spent last night at Alboise. We have decided to join them. Some of the
+      workmen of Plassans have already left the town this afternoon; those who
+      still remain will join their brothers to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke the word brothers with youthful emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A contest is becoming inevitable,&rdquo; he added; &ldquo;but, at any rate, we have
+      right on our side, and we shall triumph.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette listened to Silvere, her eyes meantime gazing in front of her,
+      without observing anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Tis well,&rdquo; she said, when he had finished speaking. And after a fresh
+      pause she continued: &ldquo;You warned me, yet I still hoped. . . . However, it
+      is decided.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither of them knew what else to say. The green path in the deserted
+      corner of the wood-yard relapsed into melancholy stillness; only the moon
+      chased the shadows of the piles of timber over the grass. The two young
+      people on the tombstone remained silent and motionless in the pale light.
+      Silvere had passed his arm round Miette&rsquo;s waist, and she was leaning
+      against his shoulder. They exchanged no kisses, naught but an embrace in
+      which love showed the innocent tenderness of fraternal affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette was enveloped in a long brown hooded cloak reaching to her feet,
+      and leaving only her head and hands visible. The women of the lower
+      classes in Provence&mdash;the peasantry and workpeople&mdash;still wear
+      these ample cloaks, which are called pelisses; it is a fashion which must
+      have lasted for ages. Miette had thrown back her hood on arriving. Living
+      in the open air and born of a hotblooded race, she never wore a cap. Her
+      bare head showed in bold relief against the wall, which the moonlight
+      whitened. She was still a child, no doubt, but a child ripening into
+      womanhood. She had reached that adorable, uncertain hour when the
+      frolicsome girl changes to a young woman. At that stage of life a bud-like
+      delicacy, a hesitancy of contour that is exquisitely charming,
+      distinguishes young girls. The outlines of womanhood appear amidst
+      girlhood&rsquo;s innocent slimness, and woman shoots forth at first all
+      embarrassment, still retaining much of the child, and ever and
+      unconsciously betraying her sex. This period is very unpropitious for some
+      girls, who suddenly shoot up, become ugly, sallow and frail, like plants
+      before their due season. For those, however, who, like Miette, are healthy
+      and live in the open air, it is a time of delightful gracefulness which
+      once passed can never be recalled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette was thirteen years of age, and although strong and sturdy did not
+      look any older, so bright and childish was the smile which lit up her
+      countenance. However, she was nearly as tall as Silvere, plump and full of
+      life. Like her lover, she had no common beauty. She would not have been
+      considered ugly, but she might have appeared peculiar to many young
+      exquisites. Her rich black hair rose roughly erect above her forehead,
+      streamed back like a rushing wave, and flowed over her head and neck like
+      an inky sea, tossing and bubbling capriciously. It was very thick and
+      inconvenient to arrange. However, she twisted it as tightly as possible
+      into coils as thick as a child&rsquo;s fist, which she wound together at the
+      back of her head. She had little time to devote to her toilette, but this
+      huge chignon, hastily contrived without the aid of any mirror, was often
+      instinct with vigorous grace. On seeing her thus naturally helmeted with a
+      mass of frizzy hair which hung about her neck and temples like a mane, one
+      could readily understand why she always went bareheaded, heedless alike of
+      rain and frost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under her dark locks appeared her low forehead, curved and golden like a
+      crescent moon. Her large prominent eyes, her short tip-tilted nose with
+      dilated nostrils, and her thick ruddy lips, when regarded apart from one
+      another, would have looked ugly; viewed, however, all together, amidst the
+      delightful roundness and vivacious mobility of her countenance, they
+      formed an ensemble of strange, surprising beauty. When Miette laughed,
+      throwing back her head and gently resting it on her right shoulder, she
+      resembled an old-time Bacchante, her throat distending with sonorous
+      gaiety, her cheeks round like those of a child, her teeth large and white,
+      her twists of woolly hair tossed by every outburst of merriment, and
+      waving like a crown of vine leaves. To realise that she was only a child
+      of thirteen, one had to notice the innocence underlying her full womanly
+      laughter, and especially the child-like delicacy of her chin and soft
+      transparency of her temples. In certain lights Miette&rsquo;s sun-tanned face
+      showed yellow like amber. A little soft black down already shaded her
+      upper lip. Toil too was beginning to disfigure her small hands, which, if
+      left idle, would have become charmingly plump and delicate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette and Silvere long remained silent. They were reading their own
+      anxious thoughts, and, as they pondered upon the unknown terrors of the
+      morrow, they tightened their mutual embrace. Their hearts communed with
+      each other, they understood how useless and cruel would be any verbal
+      plaint. The girl, however, could at last no longer contain herself, and,
+      choking with emotion, she gave expression, in one phrase, to their mutual
+      misgivings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will come back again, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; she whispered, as she hung on
+      Silvere&rsquo;s neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere made no reply, but, half-stifling, and fearing lest he should give
+      way to tears like herself, he kissed her in brotherly fashion on the
+      cheek, at a loss for any other consolation. Then disengaging themselves
+      they again lapsed into silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment Miette shuddered. Now that she no longer leant against
+      Silvere&rsquo;s shoulder she was becoming icy cold. Yet she would not have
+      shuddered thus had she been in this deserted path the previous evening,
+      seated on this tombstone, where for several seasons they had tasted so
+      much happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very cold,&rdquo; she said, as she pulled her hood over her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we walk about a little?&rdquo; the young man asked her. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not yet
+      nine o&rsquo;clock; we can take a stroll along the road.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette reflected that for a long time she would probably not have the
+      pleasure of another meeting&mdash;another of those evening chats, the joy
+      of which served to sustain her all day long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, let us walk a little,&rdquo; she eagerly replied. &ldquo;Let us go as far as the
+      mill. I could pass the whole night like this if you wanted to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They rose from the tombstone, and were soon hidden in the shadow of a pile
+      of planks. Here Miette opened her cloak, which had a quilted lining of red
+      twill, and threw half of it over Silvere&rsquo;s shoulders, thus enveloping him
+      as he stood there close beside her. The same garment cloaked them both,
+      and they passed their arms round each other&rsquo;s waist, and became as it were
+      but one being. When they were thus shrouded in the pelisse they walked
+      slowly towards the high road, fearlessly crossing the vacant parts of the
+      wood-yard, which looked white in the moonlight. Miette had thrown the
+      cloak over Silvere, and he had submitted to it quite naturally, as though
+      indeed the garment rendered them a similar service every evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road to Nice, on either side of which the suburban houses are built,
+      was, in the year 1851, lined with ancient elm-trees, grand and gigantic
+      ruins, still full of vigour, which the fastidious town council has
+      replaced, some years since, by some little plane-trees. When Silvere and
+      Miette found themselves under the elms, the huge boughs of which cast
+      shadows on the moonlit footpath, they met now and again black forms which
+      silently skirted the house fronts. These, too, were amorous couples,
+      closely wrapped in one and the same cloak, and strolling in the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This style of promenading has been instituted by the young lovers of
+      Southern towns. Those boys and girls among the people who mean to marry
+      sooner or later, but who do not dislike a kiss or two in advance, know no
+      spot where they can kiss at their ease without exposing themselves to
+      recognition and gossip. Accordingly, while strolling about the suburbs,
+      the plots of waste land, the footpaths of the high road&mdash;in fact, all
+      these places where there are few passers-by and numerous shady nooks&mdash;they
+      conceal their identity by wrapping themselves in these long cloaks, which
+      are capacious enough to cover a whole family. The parents tolerate these
+      proceedings; however stiff may be provincial propriety, no apprehensions,
+      seemingly, are entertained. And, on the other hand, nothing could be more
+      charming than these lovers&rsquo; rambles, which appeal so keenly to the
+      Southerner&rsquo;s fanciful imagination. There is a veritable masquerade,
+      fertile in innocent enjoyments, within the reach of the most humble. The
+      girl clasps her sweetheart to her bosom, enveloping him in her own warm
+      cloak; and no doubt it is delightful to be able to kiss one&rsquo;s sweetheart
+      within those shrouding folds without danger of being recognised. One
+      couple is exactly like another. And to the belated pedestrian, who sees
+      the vague groups gliding hither and thither, &lsquo;tis merely love passing,
+      love guessed and scarce espied. The lovers know they are safely concealed
+      within their cloaks, they converse in undertones and make themselves quite
+      at home; most frequently they do not converse at all, but walk along at
+      random and in silence, content in their embrace. The climate alone is to
+      blame for having in the first instance prompted these young lovers to
+      retire to secluded spots in the suburbs. On fine summer nights one cannot
+      walk round Plassans without coming across a hooded couple in every patch
+      of shadow falling from the house walls. Certain places, the Aire
+      Saint-Mittre, for instance, are full of these dark &ldquo;dominoes&rdquo; brushing
+      past one another, gliding softly in the warm nocturnal air. One might
+      imagine they were guests invited to some mysterious ball given by the
+      stars to lowly lovers. When the weather is very warm and the girls do not
+      wear cloaks, they simply turn up their over-skirts. And in the winter the
+      more passionate lovers make light of the frosts. Thus, Miette and Silvere,
+      as they descended the Nice road, thought little of the chill December
+      night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They passed through the slumbering suburb without exchanging a word, but
+      enjoying the mute delight of their warm embrace. Their hearts were heavy;
+      the joy which they felt in being side by side was tinged with the painful
+      emotion which comes from the thought of approaching severance, and it
+      seemed to them that they could never exhaust the mingled sweetness and
+      bitterness of the silence which slowly lulled their steps. But the houses
+      soon grew fewer, and they reached the end of the Faubourg. There stands
+      the entrance to the Jas-Meiffren, an iron gate fixed to two strong
+      pillars; a low row of mulberry-trees being visible through the bars.
+      Silvere and Miette instinctively cast a glance inside as they passed on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond the Jas-Meiffren the road descends with a gentle slope to a valley,
+      which serves as the bed of a little rivulet, the Viorne, a brook in summer
+      but a torrent in winter. The rows of elms still extended the whole way at
+      that time, making the high road a magnificent avenue, which cast a broad
+      band of gigantic trees across the hill, which was planted with corn and
+      stunted vines. On that December night, under the clear cold moonlight, the
+      newly-ploughed fields stretching away on either hand resembled vast beds
+      of greyish wadding which deadened every sound in the atmosphere. The dull
+      murmur of the Viorne in the distance alone sent a quivering thrill through
+      the profound silence of the country-side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the young people had begun to descend the avenue, Miette&rsquo;s thoughts
+      reverted to the Jas-Meiffren which they had just left behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had great difficulty in getting away this evening,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My uncle
+      wouldn&rsquo;t let me go. He had shut himself up in a cellar, where he was
+      hiding his money, I think, for he seemed greatly frightened this morning
+      at the events that are taking place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere clasped her yet more lovingly. &ldquo;Be brave!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;The time will
+      come when we shall be able to see each other freely the whole day long.
+      You must not fret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; replied the girl, shaking her head, &ldquo;you are very hopeful. For my
+      part I sometimes feel very sad. It isn&rsquo;t the hard work which grieves me;
+      on the contrary, I am often very glad of my uncle&rsquo;s severity, and the
+      tasks he sets me. He was quite right to make me a peasant girl; I should
+      perhaps have turned out badly, for, do you know, Silvere, there are
+      moments when I fancy myself under a curse. . . . I feel, then, that I
+      should like to be dead. . . . I think of you know whom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke these last words, her voice broke into a sob. Silvere
+      interrupted her somewhat harshly. &ldquo;Be quiet,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You promised not
+      to think about it. It&rsquo;s no crime of yours. . . . We love each other very
+      much, don&rsquo;t we?&rdquo; he added in a gentler tone. &ldquo;When we&rsquo;re married you&rsquo;ll
+      have no more unpleasant hours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; murmured Miette. &ldquo;You are so kind, you sustain me. But what am I
+      to do? I sometimes have fears and feelings of revolt. I think at times
+      that I have been wronged, and then I should like to do something wicked.
+      You see I pour forth my heart to you. Whenever my father&rsquo;s name is thrown
+      in my face, I feel my whole body burning. When the urchins cry at me as I
+      pass, &lsquo;Eh, La Chantegreil,&rsquo; I lose all control of myself, and feel that I
+      should like to lay hold of them and whip them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a savage pause she resumed: &ldquo;As for you, you&rsquo;re a man; you&rsquo;re going
+      to fight; you&rsquo;re very lucky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere had let her speak on. After a few steps he observed sorrowfully:
+      &ldquo;You are wrong, Miette; yours is bad anger. You shouldn&rsquo;t rebel against
+      justice. As for me, I&rsquo;m going to fight in defence of our common rights,
+      not to gratify any personal animosity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the same,&rdquo; the young girl continued, &ldquo;I should like to be a man and
+      handle a gun. I feel that it would do me good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, as Silvere remained silent, she perceived that she had displeased
+      him. Her feverishness subsided, and she whispered in a supplicating tone:
+      &ldquo;You are not angry with me, are you? It&rsquo;s your departure which grieves me
+      and awakens such ideas. I know very well you are right&mdash;that I ought
+      to be humble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she began to cry, and Silvere, moved by her tears, grasped her hands
+      and kissed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See, now, how you pass from anger to tears, like a child,&rdquo; he said
+      lovingly. &ldquo;You must be reasonable. I&rsquo;m not scolding you. I only want to
+      see you happier, and that depends largely upon yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The remembrance of the drama which Miette had so sadly evoked cast a
+      temporary gloom over the lovers. They continued their walk with bowed
+      heads and troubled thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think I&rsquo;m much happier than you?&rdquo; Silvere at last inquired,
+      resuming the conversation in spite of himself. &ldquo;If my grandmother had not
+      taken care of me and educated me, what would have become of me? With the
+      exception of my Uncle Antoine, who is an artisan like myself, and who
+      taught me to love the Republic, all my other relations seem to fear that I
+      might besmirch them by coming near them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was now speaking with animation, and suddenly stopped, detaining Miette
+      in the middle of the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God is my witness,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;that I do not envy or hate anybody.
+      But if we triumph, I shall have to tell the truth to those fine gentlemen.
+      Uncle Antoine knows all about this matter. You&rsquo;ll see when we return. We
+      shall all live free and happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Miette gently led him on, and they resumed their walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You dearly love your Republic?&rdquo; the girl asked, essaying a joke. &ldquo;Do you
+      love me as much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her smile was not altogether free from a tinge of bitterness. She was
+      thinking, perhaps, how easily Silvere abandoned her to go and scour the
+      country-side. But the lad gravely replied: &ldquo;You are my wife, to whom I
+      have given my whole heart. I love the Republic because I love you. When we
+      are married we shall want plenty of happiness, and it is to procure a
+      share of that happiness that I&rsquo;m going way to-morrow morning. You surely
+      don&rsquo;t want to persuade me to remain at home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; cried the girl eagerly. &ldquo;A man should be brave! Courage is
+      beautiful! You must forgive my jealousy. I should like to be as
+      strong-minded as you are. You would love me all the more, wouldn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment&rsquo;s silence she added, with charming vivacity and
+      ingenuousness: &ldquo;Ah, how willingly I shall kiss you when you come back!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This outburst of a loving and courageous heart deeply affected Silvere. He
+      clasped Miette in his arms and printed several kisses on her cheek. As she
+      laughingly struggled to escape him, her eyes filled with tears of emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All around the lovers the country still slumbered amid the deep stillness
+      of the cold. They were now half-way down the hill. On the top of a rather
+      lofty hillock to the left stood the ruins of a windmill, blanched by the
+      moon; the tower, which had fallen in on one side, alone remained. This was
+      the limit which the young people had assigned to their walk. They had come
+      straight from the Faubourg without casting a single glance at the fields
+      between which they passed. When Silvere had kissed Miette&rsquo;s cheek, he
+      raised his head and observed the mill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a long walk we&rsquo;ve had!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;See&mdash;here is the mill.
+      It must be nearly half-past nine. We must go home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Miette pouted. &ldquo;Let us walk a little further,&rdquo; she implored; &ldquo;only a
+      few steps, just as far as the little cross-road, no farther, really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere smiled as he again took her round the waist. Then they continued
+      to descend the hill, no longer fearing inquisitive glances, for they had
+      not met a living soul since passing the last houses. They nevertheless
+      remained enveloped in the long pelisse, which seemed, as it were, a
+      natural nest for their love. It had shrouded them on so many happy
+      evenings! Had they simply walked side by side, they would have felt small
+      and isolated in that vast stretch of country, whereas, blended together as
+      they were, they became bolder and seemed less puny. Between the folds of
+      the pelisse they gazed upon the fields stretching on both sides of the
+      road, without experiencing that crushing feeling with which far-stretching
+      callous vistas oppress the human affections. It seemed to them as though
+      they had brought their house with them; they felt a pleasure in viewing
+      the country-side as from a window, delighting in the calm solitude, the
+      sheets of slumbering light, the glimpses of nature vaguely distinguishable
+      beneath the shroud of night and winter, the whole of that valley indeed,
+      which while charming them could not thrust itself between their
+      close-pressed hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All continuity of conversation had ceased; they spoke no more of others,
+      nor even of themselves. They were absorbed by the present, pressing each
+      other&rsquo;s hands, uttering exclamations at the sight of some particular spot,
+      exchanging words at rare intervals, and then understanding each other but
+      little, for drowsiness came from the warmth of their embrace. Silvere
+      forgot his Republican enthusiasm; Miette no longer reflected that her
+      lover would be leaving her in an hour, for a long time, perhaps for ever.
+      The transports of their affection lulled them into a feeling of security,
+      as on other days, when no prospect of parting had marred the tranquility
+      of their meetings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They still walked on, and soon reached the little crossroad mentioned by
+      Miette&mdash;a bit of a lane which led through the fields to a village on
+      the banks of the Viorne. But they passed on, pretending not to notice this
+      path, where they had agreed to stop. And it was only some minutes
+      afterwards that Silvere whispered, &ldquo;It must be very late; you will get
+      tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I assure you I&rsquo;m not at all tired,&rdquo; the girl replied. &ldquo;I could walk
+      several leagues like this easily.&rdquo; Then, in a coaxing tone, she added:
+      &ldquo;Let us go down as far as the meadows of Sainte-Claire. There we will
+      really stop and turn back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, whom the girl&rsquo;s rhythmic gait lulled to semi-somnolence, made no
+      objection, and their rapture began afresh. They now went on more slowly,
+      fearing the moment when they would have to retrace their steps. So long as
+      they walked onward, they felt as though they were advancing to the
+      eternity of their mutual embrace; the return would mean separation and
+      bitter leave-taking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The declivity of the road was gradually becoming more gentle. In the
+      valley below there are meadows extending as far as the Viorne, which runs
+      at the other end, beneath a range of low hills. These meadows, separated
+      from the high-road by thickset hedges, are the meadows of Sainte-Claire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah!&rdquo; exclaimed Silvere this time, as he caught sight of the first
+      patches of grass: &ldquo;we may as well go as far as the bridge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this Miette burst out laughing, clasped the young man round the neck,
+      and kissed him noisily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the spot where the hedges begin, there were in those days two elms
+      forming the end of the long avenue, two colossal trees larger than any of
+      the others. The treeless fields stretch out from the high road, like a
+      broad band of green wool, as far as the willows and birches by the river.
+      The distance from the last elms to the bridge is scarcely three hundred
+      yards. The lovers took a good quarter of an hour to cover that space. At
+      last, however slow their gait, they reached the bridge, and there they
+      stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road to Nice ran up in front of them, along the opposite slope of the
+      valley. But they could only see a small portion of it, as it takes a
+      sudden turn about half a mile from the bridge, and is lost to view among
+      the wooded hills. On looking round they caught sight of the other end of
+      the road, that which they had just traversed, and which leads in a direct
+      line from Plassans to the Viorne. In the beautiful winter moonlight it
+      looked like a long silver ribbon, with dark edgings traced by the rows of
+      elms. On the right and left the ploughed hill-land showed like vast, grey,
+      vague seas intersected by this ribbon, this roadway white with frost, and
+      brilliant as with metallic lustre. Up above, on a level with the horizon,
+      lights shone from a few windows in the Faubourg, resembling glowing
+      sparks. By degrees Miette and Silvere had walked fully a league. They
+      gazed at the intervening road, full of silent admiration for the vast
+      amphitheatre which rose to the verge of the heavens, and over which flowed
+      bluish streams of light, as over the superposed rocks of a gigantic
+      waterfall. The strange and colossal picture spread out amid deathlike
+      stillness and silence. Nothing could have been of more sovereign grandeur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the young people, having leant against the parapet of the bridge,
+      gazed beneath them. The Viorne, swollen by the rains, flowed on with a
+      dull, continuous sound. Up and down stream, despite the darkness which
+      filled the hollows, they perceived the black lines of the trees growing on
+      the banks; here and there glided the moonbeams, casting a trail of molten
+      metal, as it were, over the water, which glittered and danced like rays of
+      light on the scales of some live animal. The gleams darted with a
+      mysterious charm along the gray torrent, betwixt the vague phantom-like
+      foliage. You might have thought this an enchanted valley, some wondrous
+      retreat where a community of shadows and gleams lived a fantastic life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This part of the river was familiar to the lovers; they had often come
+      here in search of coolness on warm July nights; they had spent hours
+      hidden among the clusters of willows on the right bank, at the spot where
+      the meadows of Sainte-Claire spread their verdant carpet to the waterside.
+      They remembered every bend of the bank, the stones on which they had
+      stepped in order to cross the Viorne, at that season as narrow as a
+      brooklet, and certain little grassy hollows where they had indulged in
+      their dreams of love. Miette, therefore, now gazed from the bridge at the
+      right bank of the torrent with longing eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it were warmer,&rdquo; she sighed, &ldquo;we might go down and rest awhile before
+      going back up the hill.&rdquo; Then, after a pause, during which she kept her
+      eyes fixed on the banks, she resumed: &ldquo;Look down there, Silvere, at that
+      black mass yonder in front of the lock. Do you remember? That&rsquo;s the
+      brushwood where we sat last Corpus Christi Day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, so it is,&rdquo; replied Silvere, softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the spot where they had first ventured to kiss each other on the
+      cheek. The remembrance just roused by the girl&rsquo;s words brought both of
+      them a delightful feeling, an emotion in which the joys of the past
+      mingled with the hopes of the morrow. Before their eyes, with the rapidity
+      of lightening, there passed all the delightful evenings they had spent
+      together, especially that evening of Corpus Christi Day, with the warm
+      sky, the cool willows of the Viorne, and their own loving talk. And at the
+      same time, whilst the past came back to their hearts full of a delightful
+      savour, they fancied they could plunge into the unknown future, see their
+      dreams realised, and march through life arm in arm&mdash;even as they had
+      just been doing on the highway&mdash;warmly wrapped in the same cloak.
+      Then rapture came to them again, and they smiled in each other&rsquo;s eyes,
+      alone amidst all the silent radiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, however, Silvere raised his head and, throwing off the cloak,
+      listened attentively. Miette, in her surprise, imitated him, at a loss to
+      understand why he had started so abruptly from her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Confused sounds had for a moment been coming from behind the hills in the
+      midst of which the Nice road wends its way. They suggested the distant
+      jolting of a procession of carts; but not distinctly, so loud was the
+      roaring of the Viorne. Gradually, however, they became more pronounced,
+      and rose at last like the tramping of an army on the march. Then amidst
+      the continuous growing rumble one detected the shouts of a crowd, strange
+      rhythmical blasts as of a hurricane. One could even have fancied they were
+      the thunderclaps of a rapidly approaching storm which was already
+      disturbing the slumbering atmosphere. Silvere listened attentively, unable
+      to tell, however, what were those tempest-like shouts, for the hills
+      prevented them from reaching him distinctly. Suddenly a dark mass appeared
+      at the turn of the road, and then the &ldquo;Marseillaise&rdquo; burst forth,
+      formidable, sung as with avenging fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, here they are!&rdquo; cried Silvere, with a burst of joyous enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forthwith he began to run up the hill, dragging Miette with him. On the
+      left of the road was an embankment planted with evergreen oaks, up which
+      he clambered with the young girl, to avoid being carried away by the
+      surging, howling multitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had reached the top of the bank and the shadow of the brushwood,
+      Miette, rather pale, gazed sorrowfully at those men whose distant song had
+      sufficed to draw Silvere from her embrace. It seemed as if the whole band
+      had thrust itself between them. They had been so happy a few minutes
+      before, locked in each other&rsquo;s arms, alone and lost amidst the
+      overwhelming silence and discreet glimmer of the moon! And now Silvere,
+      whose head was turned away from her, who no longer seemed even conscious
+      of her presence, had eyes only for those strangers whom he called his
+      brothers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The band descended the slope with a superb, irresistible stride. There
+      could have been nothing grander than the irruption of those few thousand
+      men into that cold, still, deathly scene. The highway became a torrent,
+      rolling with living waves which seemed inexhaustible. At the bend in the
+      road fresh masses ever appeared, whose songs ever helped to swell the roar
+      of this human tempest. When the last battalions came in sight the uproar
+      was deafening. The &ldquo;Marseillaise&rdquo; filled the atmosphere as if blown
+      through enormous trumpets by giant mouths, which cast it, vibrating with a
+      brazen clang, into every corner of the valley. The slumbering country-side
+      awoke with a start&mdash;quivering like a beaten drum resonant to its very
+      entrails, and repeating with each and every echo the passionate notes of
+      the national song. And then the singing was no longer confined to the men.
+      From the very horizon, from the distant rocks, the ploughed land, the
+      meadows, the copses, the smallest bits of brushwood, human voices seemed
+      to come. The great amphitheatre, extending from the river to Plassans, the
+      gigantic cascade over which the bluish moonlight flowed, was as if filled
+      with innumerable invisible people cheering the insurgents; and in the
+      depths of the Viorne, along the waters streaked with mysterious metallic
+      reflections, there was not a dark nook but seemed to conceal human beings,
+      who took up each refrain with yet greater passion. With air and earth
+      alike quivering, the whole country-side cried for vengeance and liberty.
+      So long as the little army was descending the slope, the roar of the
+      populace thus rolled on in sonorous waves broken by abrupt outbursts which
+      shook the very stones in the roadway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, pale with emotion, still listened and looked on. The insurgents
+      who led the van of that swarming, roaring stream, so vague and monstrous
+      in the darkness, were rapidly approaching the bridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought,&rdquo; murmured Miette, &ldquo;that you would not pass through Plassans?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They must have altered the plan of operations,&rdquo; Silvere replied; &ldquo;we
+      were, in fact, to have marched to the chief town by the Toulon road,
+      passing to the left of Plassans and Orcheres. They must have left Alboise
+      this afternoon and passed Les Tulettes this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The head of the column had already arrived in front of the young people.
+      The little army was more orderly than one would have expected from a band
+      of undisciplined men. The contingents from the various towns and villages
+      formed separate battalions, each separated by a distance of a few paces.
+      These battalions were apparently under the orders of certain chiefs. For
+      the nonce the pace at which they were descending the hillside made them a
+      compact mass of invincible strength. There were probably about three
+      thousand men, all united and carried away by the same storm of
+      indignation. The strange details of the scene were not discernible amidst
+      the shadows cast over the highway by the lofty slopes. At five or six feet
+      from the brushwood, however, where Miette and Silvere were sheltered, the
+      left-hand embankment gave place to a little pathway which ran alongside
+      the Viorne; and the moonlight, flowing through this gap, cast a broad band
+      of radiance across the road. When the first insurgents reached this patch
+      of light they were suddenly illumined by a sharp white glow which
+      revealed, with singular distinctness, every outline of visage or costume.
+      And as the various contingents swept on, the young people thus saw them
+      emerge, fiercely and without cessation, from the surrounding darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the first men passed through the light Miette instinctively clung to
+      Silvere, although she knew she was safe, even from observation. She passed
+      her arm round the young fellow&rsquo;s neck, resting her head against his
+      shoulder. And with the hood of her pelisse encircling her pale face she
+      gazed fixedly at that square patch of light as it was rapidly traversed by
+      those strange faces, transfigured by enthusiasm, with dark open mouths
+      full of the furious cry of the &ldquo;Marseillaise.&rdquo; Silvere, whom she felt
+      quivering at her side, then bent towards her and named the various
+      contingents as they passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The column marched along eight abreast. In the van were a number of big,
+      square-headed fellows, who seemed to possess the herculean strength and
+      naïve confidence of giants. They would doubtless prove blind, intrepid
+      defenders of the Republic. On their shoulders they carried large axes,
+      whose edges, freshly sharpened, glittered in the moonlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those are the woodcutters of the forests of the Seille,&rdquo; said Silvere.
+      &ldquo;They have been formed into a corps of sappers. At a signal from their
+      leaders they would march as far as Paris, battering down the gates of the
+      towns with their axes, just as they cut down the old cork-trees on the
+      mountain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man spoke with pride of the heavy fists of his brethren. And on
+      seeing a band of labourers and rough-bearded men, tanned by the sun,
+      coming along behind the woodcutters, he continued: &ldquo;That is the contingent
+      from La Palud. That was the first place to rise. The men in blouses are
+      labourers who cut up the cork-trees; the others in velveteen jackets must
+      be sportsmen, poachers, and charcoal-burners living in the passes of the
+      Seille. The poachers knew your father, Miette. They have good firearms,
+      which they handle skilfully. Ah! if all were armed in the same manner! We
+      are short of muskets. See, the labourers have only got cudgels!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette, still speechless, looked on and listened. As Silvere spoke to her
+      of her father, the blood surged to her cheeks. Her face burnt as she
+      scrutinised the sportsmen with a strange air of mingled indignation and
+      sympathy. From this moment she grew animated, yielding to the feverish
+      quiver which the insurgents&rsquo; songs awakened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The column, which had just begun the &ldquo;Marseillaise&rdquo; afresh, was still
+      marching down as though lashed on by the sharp blasts of the &ldquo;Mistral.&rdquo;
+       The men of La Palud were followed by another troop of workmen, among whom
+      a goodly number of middle class folks in great-coats were to be seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those are the men of Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx,&rdquo; Silvere resumed. &ldquo;That <i>bourg</i>
+      rose almost at the same time as La Palud. The masters joined the workmen.
+      There are some rich men there, Miette; men whose wealth would enable them
+      to live peacefully at home, but who prefer to risk their lives in defence
+      of liberty. One can but admire them. Weapons are very scarce, however;
+      they&rsquo;ve scarcely got a few fowling-pieces. But do you see those men
+      yonder, Miette, with red bands round their left elbows? They are the
+      leaders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The contingents descended the hill more rapidly than Silvere could speak.
+      While he was naming the men from Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx, two battalions had
+      already crossed the ray of light which blanched the roadway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you see the insurgents from Alboise and Les Tulettes pass by just
+      now?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I recognised Burgat the blacksmith. They must have joined
+      the band to-day. How they do run!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette was now leaning forward, in order to see more of the little bands
+      described to her by the young man. The quiver she felt rose from her bosom
+      to her throat. Then a battalion larger and better disciplined than the
+      others appeared. The insurgents composing it were nearly all dressed in
+      blue blouses, with red sashes round their waists. One would have thought
+      they were arrayed in uniform. A man on horseback, with a sabre at his
+      side, was in the midst of them. And most of these improvised soldiers
+      carried guns, probably carbines and old muskets of the National Guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know those,&rdquo; said Silvere. &ldquo;The man on horseback must be the
+      chief I&rsquo;ve heard spoken of. He brought with him the contingents from
+      Faverolles and the neighbouring villages. The whole column ought to be
+      equipped in the same manner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no time to take breath. &ldquo;Ah! see, here are the country people!&rdquo; he
+      suddenly cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Small groups of ten or twenty men at the most were now advancing behind
+      the men of Faverolles. They all wore the short jacket of the Southern
+      peasantry, and as they sang they brandished pitchforks and scythes. Some
+      of them even only carried large navvies&rsquo; shovels. Every hamlet, however,
+      had sent its able-bodied men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, who recognised the parties by their leaders, enumerated them in
+      feverish tones. &ldquo;The contingent from Chavanoz!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;There are only
+      eight men, but they are strong; Uncle Antoine knows them. Here&rsquo;s Nazeres!
+      Here&rsquo;s Poujols! They&rsquo;re all here; not one has failed to answer the
+      summons. Valqueyras! Hold, there&rsquo;s the parson amongst them; I&rsquo;ve heard
+      about him, he&rsquo;s a staunch Republican.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was becoming intoxicated with the spectacle. Now that each battalion
+      consisted of only a few insurgents he had to name them yet more hastily,
+      and his precipitancy gave him the appearance of one in a frenzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! Miette,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;what a fine march past! Rozan! Vernoux!
+      Corbiere! And there are more still, you&rsquo;ll see. These have only got
+      scythes, but they&rsquo;ll mow down the troops as close as the grass in their
+      meadows&mdash;Saint-Eutrope! Mazet! Les Gardes, Marsanne! The whole north
+      side of the Seille! Ah, we shall be victorious! The whole country is with
+      us. Look at those men&rsquo;s arms, they are hard and black as iron. There&rsquo;s no
+      end to them. There&rsquo;s Pruinas! Roches Noires! Those last are smugglers:
+      they are carrying carbines. Still more scythes and pitchforks, the
+      contingents of country folk are still passing. Castel-le-Vieux!
+      Sainte-Anne! Graille! Estourmel! Murdaran!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice was husky with emotion as he finished naming these men, who
+      seemed to be borne away by a whirlwind as fast as he enumerated them.
+      Erect, with glowing countenance, he pointed out the several contingents
+      with a nervous gesture. Miette followed his movements. The road below
+      attracted her like the depths of a precipice. To avoid slipping down the
+      incline she clung to the young man&rsquo;s neck. A strange intoxication emanated
+      from those men, who themselves were inebriated with clamour, courage, and
+      confidence. Those beings, seen athwart a moonbeam, those youths and those
+      men in their prime, those old people brandishing strange weapons and
+      dressed in the most diverse costumes, from working smock to middle class
+      overcoat, those endless rows of heads, which the hour and the
+      circumstances endowed with an expression of fanatical energy and
+      enthusiasm, gradually appeared to the girl like a whirling, impetuous
+      torrent. At certain moments she fancied they were not of themselves
+      moving, that they were really being carried away by the force of the
+      &ldquo;Marseillaise,&rdquo; by that hoarse, sonorous chant. She could not distinguish
+      any conversation, she heard but a continuous volume of sound, alternating
+      from bass to shrill notes, as piercing as nails driven into one&rsquo;s flesh.
+      This roar of revolt, this call to combat, to death, with its outbursts of
+      indignation, its burning thirst for liberty, its remarkable blending of
+      bloodthirsty and sublime impulses, unceasingly smote her heart,
+      penetrating more deeply at each fierce outburst, and filling her with the
+      voluptuous pangs of a virgin martyr who stands erect and smiles under the
+      lash. And the crowd flowed on ever amidst the same sonorous wave of sound.
+      The march past, which did not really last more than a few minutes, seemed
+      to the young people to be interminable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Truly, Miette was but a child. She had turned pale at the approach of the
+      band, she had wept for the loss of love, but she was a brave child, whose
+      ardent nature was easily fired by enthusiasm. Thus ardent emotions had
+      gradually got possession of her, and she became as courageous as a youth.
+      She would willingly have seized a weapon and followed the insurgents. As
+      the muskets and scythes filed past, her white teeth glistened longer and
+      sharper between her red lips, like the fangs of a young wolf eager to bite
+      and tear. And as she listened to Silvere enumerating the contingents from
+      the country-side with ever-increasing haste, the pace of the column seemed
+      to her to accelerate still more. She soon fancied it all a cloud of human
+      dust swept along by a tempest. Everything began to whirl before her. Then
+      she closed her eyes; big hot tears were rolling down her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere&rsquo;s eyelashes were also moist. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see the men who left
+      Plassans this afternoon,&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried to distinguish the end of the column, which was still hidden by
+      the darkness. Suddenly he cried with joyous exultation: &ldquo;Ah, here they
+      are! They&rsquo;ve got the banner&mdash;the banner has been entrusted to them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he wanted to leap from the slope in order to join his companions. At
+      this moment, however, the insurgents halted. Words of command ran along
+      the column, the &ldquo;Marseillaise&rdquo; died out in a final rumble, and one could
+      only hear the confused murmuring of the still surging crowd. Silvere, as
+      he listened, caught the orders which were passed on from one contingent to
+      another; they called the men of Plassans to the van. Then, as each
+      battalion ranged itself alongside the road to make way for the banner, the
+      young man reascended the embankment, dragging Miette with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;we can get across the river before they do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they were on the top, among the ploughed land, they ran along to a
+      mill whose lock bars the river. Then they crossed the Viorne on a plank
+      placed there by the millers, and cut across the meadows of Sainte-Claire,
+      running hand-in-hand, without exchanging a word. The column threw a dark
+      line over the highway, which they followed alongside the hedges. There
+      were some gaps in the hawthorns, and at last Silvere and Miette sprang on
+      to the road through one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of the circuitous way they had come, they arrived at the same
+      time as the men of Plassans. Silvere shook hands with some of them. They
+      must have thought he had heard of the new route they had chosen, and had
+      come to meet them. Miette, whose face was half-concealed by her hood, was
+      scrutinised rather inquisitively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s Chantegreil,&rdquo; at last said one of the men from the Faubourg of
+      Plassans, &ldquo;the niece of Rebufat, the <i>meger</i>[*] of the Jas-Meiffren.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [*] A <i>meger</i> is a farmer in Provence who shares the
+     expenses and profits of his farm with the owner of the land.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where have you sprung from, gadabout?&rdquo; cried another voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, intoxicated with enthusiasm, had not thought of the distress
+      which his sweetheart would feel at the jeers of the workmen. Miette, all
+      confusion, looked at him as if to implore his aid. But before he could
+      even open his lips another voice rose from the crowd, brutally exclaiming:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her father&rsquo;s at the galleys; we don&rsquo;t want the daughter of a thief and
+      murderer amongst us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this Miette turned dreadfully pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You lie!&rdquo; she muttered. &ldquo;If my father did kill anybody, he never
+      thieved!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as Silvere, pale and trembling more than she, began to clench his
+      fists: &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; she continued; &ldquo;this is my affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, turning to the men, she repeated with a shout: &ldquo;You lie! You lie! He
+      never stole a copper from anybody. You know it well enough. Why do you
+      insult him when he can&rsquo;t be here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew herself up, superb with indignation. With her ardent, half-wild
+      nature she seemed to accept the charge of murder composedly enough, but
+      that of theft exasperated her. They knew it, and that was why folks, from
+      stupid malice, often cast the accusation in her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man who had just called her father a thief was merely repeating what
+      he had heard said for many years. The girl&rsquo;s defiant attitude only incited
+      the workmen to jeer the more. Silvere still had his fists clenched, and
+      matters might have become serious if a poacher from the Seille, who had
+      been sitting on a heap of stones at the roadside awaiting the order to
+      march, had not come to the girl&rsquo;s assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The little one&rsquo;s right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Chantegreil was one of us. I knew him.
+      Nobody knows the real facts of his little matter. I always believed in the
+      truth of his deposition before the judge. The gendarme whom he brought
+      down with a bullet, while he was out shooting, was no doubt taking aim at
+      him at the time. A man must defend himself! At all events Chantegreil was
+      a decent fellow; he committed no robbery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As often happens in such cases, the testimony of this poacher sufficed to
+      bring other defenders to Miette&rsquo;s aid. Several workmen also professed to
+      have known Chantegreil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, it&rsquo;s true!&rdquo; they all said. &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t a thief. There are some
+      scoundrels at Plassans who ought to be sent to prison in his place.
+      Chantegreil was our brother. Come, now, be calm, little one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette had never before heard anyone speak well of her father. He was
+      generally referred to as a beggar, a villain, and now she found good
+      fellows who had forgiving words for him, and declared him to be an honest
+      man. She burst into tears, again full of the emotion awakened in her by
+      the &ldquo;Marseillaise;&rdquo; and she bethought herself how she might thank these
+      men for their kindness to her in misfortune. For a moment she conceived
+      the idea of shaking them all by the hand like a man. But her heart
+      suggested something better. By her side stood the insurgent who carried
+      the banner. She touched the staff, and, to express her gratitude, said in
+      an entreating tone, &ldquo;Give it to me; I will carry it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The simple-minded workmen understood the ingenuous sublimity of this form
+      of gratitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; they all cried, &ldquo;Chantegreil shall carry the banner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, a woodcutter remarked that she would soon get tired, and would
+      not be able to go far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;m quite strong,&rdquo; she retorted proudly, tucking up her sleeves and
+      showing a pair of arms as big as those of a grown woman. Then as they
+      handed her the flag she resumed, &ldquo;Wait just a moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Forthwith she pulled off her cloak, and put it on again after turning the
+      red lining outside. In the clear moonlight she appeared to be arrayed in a
+      purple mantle reaching to her feet. The hood resting on the edge of her
+      chignon formed a kind of Phrygian cap. She took the flag, pressed the
+      staff to her bosom, and held herself upright amid the folds of that
+      blood-coloured banner which waved behind her. Enthusiastic child that she
+      was, her countenance, with its curly hair, large eyes moist with tears,
+      and lips parted in a smile, seemed to rise with energetic pride as she
+      turned it towards the sky. At that moment she was the virgin Liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The insurgents burst into applause. The vivid imagination of those
+      Southerners was fired with enthusiasm at the sudden apparition of this
+      girl so nervously clasping their banner to her bosom. Shouts rose from the
+      nearest group:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bravo, Chantegreil! Chantegreil for ever! She shall remain with us;
+      she&rsquo;ll bring us luck!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They would have cheered her for a long time yet had not the order to
+      resume the march arrived. Whilst the column moved on, Miette pressed
+      Silvere&rsquo;s hand and whispered in his ear: &ldquo;You hear! I shall remain with
+      you. Are you glad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, without replying, returned the pressure. He consented. In fact,
+      he was deeply affected, unable to resist the enthusiasm which fired his
+      companions. Miette seemed to him so lovely, so grand, so saintly! During
+      the whole climb up the hill he still saw her before him, radiant, amidst a
+      purple glory. She was now blended with his other adored mistress&mdash;the
+      Republic. He would have liked to be in action already, with his gun on his
+      shoulder. But the insurgents moved slowly. They had orders to make as
+      little noise as possible. Thus the column advanced between the rows of
+      elms like some gigantic serpent whose every ring had a strange quivering.
+      The frosty December night had again sunk into silence, and the Viorne
+      alone seemed to roar more loudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On reaching the first houses of the Faubourg, Silvere ran on in front to
+      fetch his gun from the Aire Saint-Mittre, which he found slumbering in the
+      moonlight. When he again joined the insurgents they had reached the Porte
+      de Rome. Miette bent towards him, and with her childish smile observed: &ldquo;I
+      feel as if I were at the procession on Corpus Christi Day carrying the
+      banner of the Virgin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Plassans is a sub-prefecture with about ten thousand inhabitants. Built on
+      a plateau overlooking the Viorne, and resting on the north side against
+      the Garrigues hills, one of the last spurs of the Alps, the town is
+      situated, as it were, in the depths of a cul-de-sac. In 1851 it
+      communicated with the adjoining country by two roads only, the Nice road,
+      which runs down to the east, and the Lyons road, which rises to the west,
+      the one continuing the other on almost parallel lines. Since that time a
+      railway has been built which passes to the south of the town, below the
+      hill which descends steeply from the old ramparts to the river. At the
+      present day, on coming out of the station on the right bank of the little
+      torrent, one can see, by raising one&rsquo;s head, the first houses of Plassans,
+      with their gardens disposed in terrace fashion. It is, however, only after
+      an uphill walk lasting a full quarter of an hour that one reaches these
+      houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About twenty years ago, owing, no doubt, to deficient means of
+      communication, there was no town that had more completely retained the
+      pious and aristocratic character of the old Provencal cities. Plassans
+      then had, and has even now, a whole district of large mansions built in
+      the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., a dozen churches, Jesuit and
+      Capuchin houses, and a considerable number of convents. Class distinctions
+      were long perpetuated by the town&rsquo;s division into various districts. There
+      were three of them, each forming, as it were, a separate and complete
+      locality, with its own churches, promenades, customs, and landscapes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The district of the nobility, called Saint-Marc, after the name of one of
+      its parish churches, is a sort of miniature Versailles, with straight
+      streets overgrown with grass, and large square houses which conceal
+      extensive gardens. It extends to the south along the edge of the plateau.
+      Some of the mansions built on the declivity itself have a double row of
+      terraces whence one can see the whole valley of the Viorne, a most
+      charming vista much vaunted in that part of the country. Then on the
+      north-west, the old quarter, formed of the original town, rears its
+      narrow, tortuous lanes bordered with tottering hovels. The Town-Hall, the
+      Civil Court, the Market, and the Gendarmerie barracks are situated here.
+      This, the most populous part of the Plassans, is inhabited by working-men
+      and shop-keepers, all the wretched, toiling, common folk. The new town
+      forms a sort of parallelogram to the north-east; the well-to-do, those who
+      have slowly amassed a fortune, and those engaged in the liberal
+      professions, here occupy houses set out in straight lines and coloured a
+      light yellow. This district, which is embellished by the Sub-Prefecture,
+      an ugly plaster building decorated with rose-mouldings, numbered scarcely
+      five or six streets in 1851; it is of quite recent formation, and it is
+      only since the construction of the railway that it has been growing in
+      extent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One circumstance which even at the present time tends to divide Plassans
+      into three distinct independent parts is that the limits of the districts
+      are clearly defined by the principal thoroughfares. The Cours Sauvaire and
+      the Rue de Rome, which is, as it were, a narrow extension of the former,
+      run from west to east, from the Grand&rsquo;-Porte to the Porte de Rome, thus
+      cutting the town into two portions, and dividing the quarter of the
+      nobility from the others. The latter are themselves parted by the Rue de
+      la Banne. This street, the finest in the locality, starts from the
+      extremity of the Cours Sauvaire, and ascends northwards, leaving the black
+      masses of the old quarter on its left, and the light-yellow houses of the
+      new town on its right. It is here, about half-way along the street, that
+      stands the Sub-Prefecture, in the rear of a small square planted with
+      sickly trees; the people of Plassans are very proud of this edifice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As if to keep more isolated and shut up within itself, the town is belted
+      with old ramparts, which only serve to increase its gloom and render it
+      more confined. These ridiculous fortifications, preyed upon by ivy and
+      crowned with wild gillyflowers, are about as high and as thick as the
+      walls of a convent, and could be demolished by gunshot. They have several
+      openings, the principal of which, the Porte de Rome and the Grand&rsquo;-Porte,
+      afford access to the Nice road and the Lyons road, at the other end of
+      town. Until 1853 these openings were furnished with huge wooden two-leaved
+      gates, arched at the top, and strengthened with bars of iron. These gates
+      were double-locked at eleven o&rsquo;clock in summer, and ten o&rsquo;clock in winter.
+      The town having thus shot its bolts like a timid girl, went quietly to
+      sleep. A keeper, who lived in a little cell in one of the inner corners of
+      each gateway, was authorised to admit belated persons. But it was
+      necessary to stand parleying a long time. The keeper would not let people
+      in until, by the light of his lantern, he had carefully scrutinised their
+      faces through a peep-hole. If their looks displeased him they had to sleep
+      outside. This custom of locking the gates every evening was highly
+      characteristic of the spirit of the town, which was a commingling of
+      cowardice, egotism, routine, exclusiveness, and devout longing for a
+      cloistered life. Plassans, when it had shut itself up, would say to
+      itself, &ldquo;I am at home,&rdquo; with the satisfaction of some pious bourgeois,
+      who, assured of the safety of his cash-box, and certain that no noise will
+      disturb him, duly says his prayers and retires gladly to bed. No other
+      town, I believe, has so long persisted in thus incarcerating itself like a
+      nun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The population of Plassans is divided into three groups, corresponding
+      with the same number of districts. Putting aside the functionaries&mdash;the
+      sub-prefect, the receiver of taxes, the mortgage commissioner, and the
+      postmaster, who are all strangers to the locality, where they are objects
+      of envy rather than of esteem, and who live after their own fashion&mdash;the
+      real inhabitants, those who were born there and have every intention of
+      ending their days there, feel too much respect for traditional usages and
+      established boundaries not to pen themselves of their own accord in one or
+      other of the town&rsquo;s social divisions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nobility virtually cloister themselves. Since the fall of Charles X.
+      they scarcely ever go out, and when they do they are eager to return to
+      their large dismal mansions, and walk along furtively as though they were
+      in a hostile country. They do not visit anyone, nor do they even receive
+      each other. Their drawing-rooms are frequented by a few priests only. They
+      spend the summer in the chateaux which they possess in the environs; in
+      the winter, they sit round their firesides. They are, as it were, dead
+      people weary of life. And thus the gloomy silence of a cemetery hangs over
+      their quarter of the town. The doors and windows are carefully barricaded;
+      one would think their mansions were so many convents shut off from all the
+      tumult of the world. At rare intervals an abbe, whose measured tread adds
+      to the gloomy silence of these sealed houses, passes by and glides like a
+      shadow through some half-opened doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The well-to-do people, the retired tradesmen, the lawyers and notaries,
+      all those of the little easy-going, ambitious world that inhabits the new
+      town, endeavour to infuse some liveliness into Plassans. They go to the
+      parties given by the sub-prefect, and dream of giving similar
+      entertainments. They eagerly seek popularity, call a workman &ldquo;my good
+      fellow,&rdquo; chat with the peasants about the harvest, read the papers, and
+      walk out with their wives on Sundays. Theirs are the enlightened minds of
+      the district, they are the only persons who venture to speak disparagingly
+      of the ramparts; in fact, they have several times demanded of the
+      authorities the demolition of those old walls, relics of a former age. At
+      the same time, the most sceptical among them experience a shock of delight
+      whenever a marquis or a count deigns to honour them with a stiff
+      salutation. Indeed, the dream of every citizen of the new town is to be
+      admitted to a drawing-room of the Saint-Marc quarter. They know very well
+      that their ambition is not attainable, and it is this which makes them
+      proclaim all the louder that they are freethinkers. But they are
+      freethinkers in words only; firm friends of the authorities, they are
+      ready to rush into the arms of the first deliverer at the slightest
+      indication of popular discontent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The group which toils and vegetates in the old quarter is not so clearly
+      defined as the others. The labouring classes are here in a majority; but
+      retail dealers and even a few wholesale traders are to be found among
+      them. As a matter of fact, Plassans is far from being a commercial centre;
+      there is only just sufficient trade to dispose of the products of the
+      country&mdash;oil, wine, and almonds. As for industrial labour, it is
+      represented almost entirely by three or four evil-smelling tanyards, a
+      felt hat manufactory, and some soap-boiling works, which last are
+      relegated to a corner of the Faubourg. This little commercial and
+      industrial world, though it may on high days and holidays visit the people
+      of the new district, generally takes up its quarters among the operatives
+      of the old town. Merchants, retail traders, and artisans have common
+      interests which unite them together. On Sundays only, the masters make
+      themselves spruce and foregather apart. On the other hand, the labouring
+      classes, which constitute scarcely a fifth of the population, mingle with
+      the idlers of the district.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is only once a week, and during the fine weather, that the three
+      districts of Plassans come together face to face. The whole town repairs
+      to the Cours Sauvaire on Sunday after vespers; even the nobility venture
+      thither. Three distinct currents flow along this sort of boulevard planted
+      with rows of plane-trees. The well-to-do citizens of the new quarter
+      merely pass along before quitting the town by the Grand&rsquo;-Porte and taking
+      the Avenue du Mail on the right, where they walk up and down till
+      nightfall. Meantime, the nobility and the lower classes share the Cours
+      Sauvaire between them. For more than a century past the nobility have
+      selected the walk on the south side, which is bordered with large
+      mansions, and is the first to escape the heat of the sun; the lower
+      classes have to rest content with the walk on the north, where the cafes,
+      inns, and tobacconists&rsquo; shops are located. The people and the nobility
+      promenade the whole afternoon, walking up and down the Cours without
+      anyone of either party thinking of changing sides. They are only separated
+      by a distance of some seven or eight yards, yet it is as if they were a
+      thousand leagues away from each other, for they scrupulously follow those
+      two parallel lines, as though they must not come in contact here below.
+      Even during the revolutionary periods each party kept to its own side.
+      This regulation walk on Sunday and the locking of the town gates in the
+      evening are analogous instances which suffice to indicate the character of
+      the ten thousand people inhabiting the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, amidst these surroundings, until the year 1848, there vegetated an
+      obscure family that enjoyed little esteem, but whose head, Pierre Rougon,
+      subsequently played an important part in life owing to certain
+      circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre Rougon was the son of a peasant. His mother&rsquo;s family, the Fouques,
+      owned, towards the end of the last century, a large plot of ground in the
+      Faubourg, behind the old cemetery of Saint-Mittre; this ground was
+      subsequently joined to the Jas-Meiffren. The Fouques were the richest
+      market-gardeners in that part of the country; they supplied an entire
+      district of Plassans with vegetables. However, their name died out a few
+      years before the Revolution. Only one girl, Adelaide, remained; born in
+      1768, she had become an orphan at the age of eighteen. This girl, whose
+      father had died insane, was a long, lank, pale creature, with a scared
+      look and strange ways which one might have taken for shyness so long as
+      she was a little girl. As she grew up, however, she became still stranger;
+      she did certain things which were inexplicable even to the cleverest folk
+      of the Faubourg, and from that time it was rumoured that she was cracked
+      like her father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had scarcely been an orphan six months, in possession of a fortune
+      which rendered her an eagerly sought heiress, when it transpired that she
+      had married a young gardener named Rougon, a rough-hewn peasant from the
+      Basses-Alpes. This Rougon, after the death of the last of the male
+      Fouques, who had engaged him for a term, had remained in the service of
+      the deceased&rsquo;s daughter. From the situation of salaried servant he
+      ascended rapidly to the enviable position of husband. This marriage was a
+      first shock to public opinion. No one could comprehend why Adelaide
+      preferred this poor fellow, coarse, heavy, vulgar, scarce able to speak
+      French, to those other young men, sons of well-to-do farmers, who had been
+      seen hovering round her for some time. And, as provincial people do not
+      allow anything to remain unexplained, they made sure there was some
+      mystery at the bottom of this affair, alleging even that the marriage of
+      the two young people had become an absolute necessity. But events proved
+      the falsity of the accusation. More than a year went by before Adelaide
+      had a son. The Faubourg was annoyed; it could not admit that it was wrong,
+      and determined to penetrate the supposed mystery; accordingly all the
+      gossips kept a watch upon the Rougons. They soon found ample matter for
+      tittle-tattle. Rougon died almost suddenly, fifteen months after his
+      marriage, from a sunstroke received one afternoon while he was weeding a
+      bed of carrots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely a year then elapsed before the young widow caused unheard-of
+      scandal. It became known, as an indisputable fact, that she had a lover.
+      She did not appear to make any secret of it; several persons asserted that
+      they had heard her use endearing terms in public to poor Rougon&rsquo;s
+      successor. Scarcely a year of widowhood and a lover already! Such a
+      disregard of propriety seemed monstrous out of all reason. And the scandal
+      was heightened by Adelaide&rsquo;s strange choice. At that time there dwelt at
+      the end of the Impasse Saint-Mittre, in a hovel the back of which abutted
+      on the Fouques&rsquo; land, a man of bad repute, who was generally referred to
+      as &ldquo;that scoundrel Macquart.&rdquo; This man would vanish for weeks and then
+      turn up some fine evening, sauntering about with his hands in his pockets
+      and whistling as though he had just come from a short walk. And the women
+      sitting at their doorsteps as he passed: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s that scoundrel Macquart!
+      He has hidden his bales and his gun in some hollow of the Viorne.&rdquo; The
+      truth was, Macquart had no means, and yet ate and drank like a happy drone
+      during his short sojourns in the town. He drank copiously and with fierce
+      obstinacy. Seating himself alone at a table in some tavern, he would
+      linger there evening after evening, with his eyes stupidly fixed on his
+      glass, neither seeing nor hearing anything around him. When the landlord
+      closed his establishment, he would retire with a firm step, with his head
+      raised, as if he were kept yet more erect by inebriation. &ldquo;Macquart walks
+      so straight, he&rsquo;s surely dead drunk,&rdquo; people used to say, as they saw him
+      going home. Usually, when he had had no drink, he walked with a slight
+      stoop and shunned the gaze of curious people with a kind of savage
+      shyness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since the death of his father, a journeyman tanner who had left him as
+      sole heritage the hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, he had never been
+      known to have either relatives or friends. The proximity of the frontiers
+      and the neighbouring forests of the Seille had turned this singular, lazy
+      fellow into a combination of smuggler and poacher, one of those
+      suspicious-looking characters of whom passers-by observe: &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t
+      care to meet that man at midnight in a dark wood.&rdquo; Tall, with a formidable
+      beard and lean face, Macquart was the terror of the good women of the
+      Faubourg of Plassans; they actually accused him of devouring little
+      children raw. Though he was hardly thirty years old, he looked fifty.
+      Amidst his bushy beard and the locks of hair which hung over his face in
+      poodle fashion, one could only distinguish the gleam of his brown eyes,
+      the furtive sorrowful glance of a man of vagrant instincts, rendered
+      vicious by wine and a pariah life. Although no crimes had actually been
+      brought home to him, no theft or murder was ever perpetrated in the
+      district without suspicion at once falling upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was this ogre, this brigand, this scoundrel Macquart, whom Adelaide
+      had chosen! In twenty months she had two children by him, first a boy and
+      then a girl. There was no question of marriage between them. Never had the
+      Faubourg beheld such audacious impropriety. The stupefaction was so great,
+      the idea of Macquart having found a young and wealthy mistress so
+      completely upset the gossips, that they even spoke gently of Adelaide.
+      &ldquo;Poor thing! She&rsquo;s gone quite mad,&rdquo; they would say. &ldquo;If she had any
+      relatives she would have been placed in confinement long ago.&rdquo; And as they
+      never knew anything of the history of those strange amours, they accused
+      that rogue Macquart of having taken advantage of Adelaide&rsquo;s weak mind to
+      rob her of her money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The legitimate son, little Pierre Rougon, grew up with his mother&rsquo;s other
+      offspring. The latter, Antoine and Ursule, the young wolves as they were
+      called in the district, were kept at home by Adelaide, who treated them as
+      affectionately as her first child. She did not appear to entertain a very
+      clear idea of the position in life reserved for these two poor creatures.
+      To her they were the same in every respect as her first-born. She would
+      sometimes go out holding Pierre with one hand and Antoine with the other,
+      never noticing how differently the two little fellows were already
+      regarded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a strange home. For nearly twenty years everyone lived there after
+      his or her fancy, the children like the mother. Everything went on free
+      from control. In growing to womanhood, Adelaide had retained the
+      strangeness which had been taken for shyness when she was fifteen. It was
+      not that she was insane, as the people of the Faubourg asserted, but there
+      was a lack of equilibrium between her nerves and her blood, a disorder of
+      the brain and heart which made her lead a life out of the ordinary,
+      different from that of the rest of the world. She was certainly very
+      natural, very consistent with herself; but in the eyes of the neighbours
+      her consistency became pure insanity. She seemed desirous of making
+      herself conspicuous, it was thought she was wickedly determined to turn
+      things at home from bad to worse, whereas with great naivete she simply
+      acted according to the impulses of her nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ever since giving birth to her first child she had been subject to nervous
+      fits which brought on terrible convulsions. These fits recurred
+      periodically, every two or three months. The doctors whom she consulted
+      declared they could do nothing for her, that age would weaken the severity
+      of the attacks. They simply prescribed a dietary regimen of underdone meat
+      and quinine wine. However, these repeated shocks led to cerebral disorder.
+      She lived on from day to day like a child, like a fawning animal yielding
+      to its instincts. When Macquart was on his rounds, she passed her time in
+      lazy, pensive idleness. All she did for her children was to kiss and play
+      with them. Then as soon as her lover returned she would disappear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind Macquart&rsquo;s hovel there was a little yard, separated from the
+      Fouques&rsquo; property by a wall. One morning the neighbours were much
+      astonished to find in this wall a door which had not been there the
+      previous evening. Before an hour had elapsed, the entire Faubourg had
+      flocked to the neighbouring windows. The lovers must have worked the whole
+      night to pierce the opening and place the door there. They could now go
+      freely from one house to the other. The scandal was revived, everyone felt
+      less pity for Adelaide, who was certainly the disgrace of the suburb; she
+      was reproached more wrathfully for that door, that tacit, brutal admission
+      of her union, than even for her two illegitimate children. &ldquo;People should
+      at least study appearances,&rdquo; the most tolerant women would say. But
+      Adelaide did not understand what was meant by studying appearances. She
+      was very happy, very proud of her door; she had assisted Macquart to knock
+      the stones from the wall and had even mixed the mortar so that the work
+      might proceed the quicker; and she came with childish delight to inspect
+      the work by daylight on the morrow&mdash;an act which was deemed a climax
+      of shamelessness by three gossips who observed her contemplating the
+      masonry. From that date, whenever Macquart reappeared, it was thought, as
+      no one then ever saw the young woman, that she was living with him in the
+      hovel of the Impasse Saint-Mittre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smuggler would come very irregularly, almost always unexpectedly, to
+      Plassans. Nobody ever knew what life the lovers led during the two or
+      three days he spent there at distant intervals. They used to shut
+      themselves up; the little dwelling seemed uninhabited. Then, as the
+      gossips had declared that Macquart had simply seduced Adelaide in order to
+      spend her money, they were astonished, after a time, to see him still lead
+      his wonted life, ever up hill and down dale and as badly equipped as
+      previously. Perhaps the young woman loved him all the more for seeing him
+      at rare intervals, perhaps he had disregarded her entreaties, feeling an
+      irresistible desire for a life of adventure. The gossips invented a
+      thousand fables, without succeeding in giving any reasonable explanation
+      of a connection which had originated and continued in so strange a manner.
+      The hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre remained closed and preserved its
+      secrets. It was merely guessed that Macquart had probably acquired the
+      habit of beating Adelaide, although the sound of a quarrel never issued
+      from the house. However, on several occasions she was seen with her face
+      black and blue, and her hair torn away. At the same time, she did not
+      display the least dejection or grief, nor did she seek in any way to hide
+      her bruises. She smiled, and seemed happy. No doubt she allowed herself to
+      be beaten without breathing a word. This existence lasted for more than
+      fifteen years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At times when Adelaide returned home she would find her house upside down,
+      but would not take the least notice of it. She was utterly ignorant of the
+      practical meaning of life, of the proper value of things and the necessity
+      for order. She let her children grow up like those plum-trees which sprout
+      along the highways at the pleasure of the rain and sun. They bore their
+      natural fruits like wild stock which has never known grafting or pruning.
+      Never was nature allowed such complete sway, never did such mischievous
+      creatures grow up more freely under the sole influence of instinct. They
+      rolled among the vegetables, passed their days in the open air playing and
+      fighting like good-for-nothing urchins. They stole provisions from the
+      house and pillaged the few fruit-trees in the enclosure; they were the
+      plundering, squalling, familiar demons of this strange abode of lucid
+      insanity. When their mother was absent for days together, they would make
+      such an uproar, and hit upon such diabolical devices for annoying people,
+      that the neighbours had to threaten them with a whipping. Moreover,
+      Adelaide did not inspire them with much fear; if they were less obnoxious
+      to other people when she was at home, it was because they made her their
+      victim, shirking school five or six times a week and doing everything they
+      could to receive some punishment which would allow them to squall to their
+      hearts&rsquo; content. But she never beat them, nor even lost her temper; she
+      lived on very well, placidly, indolently, in a state of mental abstraction
+      amidst all the uproar. At last, indeed, this uproar became indispensable
+      to her, to fill the void in her brain. She smiled complacently when she
+      heard anyone say, &ldquo;Her children will beat her some day, and it will serve
+      her right.&rdquo; To all remarks, her utter indifference seemed to reply, &ldquo;What
+      does it matter?&rdquo; She troubled even less about her property than about her
+      children. The Fouques&rsquo; enclosure, during the many years that this singular
+      existence lasted would have become a piece of waste ground if the young
+      woman had not luckily entrusted the cultivation of her vegetables to a
+      clever market-gardener. This man, who was to share the profits with her,
+      robbed her impudently, though she never noticed it. This circumstance had
+      its advantages, however; for, in order to steal the more, the gardener
+      drew as much as possible from the land, which in the result almost doubled
+      in value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre, the legitimate son, either from secret instinct or from his
+      knowledge of the different manner in which he and the others were regarded
+      by the neighbours, domineered over his brother and sister from an early
+      age. In their quarrels, although he was much weaker than Antoine, he
+      always got the better of the contest, beating the other with all the
+      authority of a master. With regard to Ursule, a poor, puny, wan little
+      creature, she was handled with equal roughness by both the boys. Indeed,
+      until they were fifteen or sixteen, the three children fraternally beat
+      each other without understanding their vague, mutual hatred, without
+      realising how foreign they were to one another. It was only in youth that
+      they found themselves face to face with definite, self-conscious
+      personalities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At sixteen, Antoine was a tall fellow, a blend of Macquart&rsquo;s and
+      Adelaide&rsquo;s failings. Macquart, however, predominated in him, with his love
+      of vagrancy, his tendency to drunkenness, and his brutish savagery. At the
+      same time, under the influence of Adelaide&rsquo;s nervous nature, the vices
+      which in the father assumed a kind of sanguinary frankness were in the son
+      tinged with an artfulness full of hypocrisy and cowardice. Antoine
+      resembled his mother by his total want of dignified will, by his
+      effeminate voluptuous egotism, which disposed him to accept any bed of
+      infamy provided he could lounge upon it at his ease and sleep warmly in
+      it. People said of him: &ldquo;Ah! the brigand! He hasn&rsquo;t even the courage of
+      his villainy like Macquart; if ever he commits a murder, it will be with
+      pin pricks.&rdquo; Physically, Antoine inherited Adelaide&rsquo;s thick lips only; his
+      other features resembled those of the smuggler, but they were softer and
+      more prone to change of expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Ursule, on the other hand, physical and moral resemblance to the mother
+      predominated. There was a mixture of certain characteristics in her also;
+      but born the last, at a time when Adelaide&rsquo;s love was warmer than
+      Macquart&rsquo;s, the poor little thing seemed to have received with her sex a
+      deeper impress of her mother&rsquo;s temperament. Moreover, hers was not a
+      fusion of the two natures, but rather a juxtaposition, a remarkably close
+      soldering. Ursule was whimsical, and displayed at times the shyness, the
+      melancholy, and the transports of a pariah; then she would often break out
+      into nervous fits of laughter, and muse lazily, like a woman unsound both
+      in head and heart. Her eyes, which at times had a scared expression like
+      those of Adelaide, were as limpid as crystal, similar to those of kittens
+      doomed to die of consumption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In presence of those two illegitimate children Pierre seemed a stranger;
+      to one who had not penetrated to the roots of his being he would have
+      appeared profoundly dissimilar. Never did child&rsquo;s nature show a more equal
+      balance of the characteristics of its parents. He was the exact mean
+      between the peasant Rougon and the nervous Adelaide. Paternal grossness
+      was attenuated by the maternal influence. One found in him the first phase
+      of that evolution of temperaments which ultimately brings about the
+      amelioration or deterioration of a race. Although he was still a peasant,
+      his skin was less coarse, his face less heavy, his intellect more
+      capacious and more supple. In him the defects of his father and his mother
+      had advantageously reacted upon each other. If Adelaide&rsquo;s nature, rendered
+      exquisitely sensitive by her rebellious nerves, had combated and lessened
+      Rougon&rsquo;s full-bodied ponderosity, the latter had successfully prevented
+      the young woman&rsquo;s tendency to cerebral disorder from being implanted in
+      the child. Pierre knew neither the passions nor the sickly ravings of
+      Macquart&rsquo;s young whelps. Very badly brought up, unruly and noisy, like all
+      children who are not restrained during their infancy, he nevertheless
+      possessed at bottom such sense and intelligence as would always preserve
+      him from perpetrating any unproductive folly. His vices, his laziness, his
+      appetite for indulgence, lacked the instinctiveness which characterised
+      Antoine&rsquo;s; he meant to cultivate and gratify them honourably and openly.
+      In his plump person of medium height, in his long pale face, in which the
+      features derived from his father had acquired some of the maternal
+      refinement, one could already detect signs of sly and crafty ambition and
+      insatiable desire, with the hardness of heart and envious hatred of a
+      peasant&rsquo;s son whom his mother&rsquo;s means and nervous temperament had turned
+      into a member of the middle classes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, at the age of seventeen, Pierre observed and was able to understand
+      Adelaide&rsquo;s disorders and the singular position of Antoine and Ursule, he
+      seemed neither sorry nor indignant, but simply worried as to the course
+      which would best serve his own interests. He was the only one of the three
+      children who had pursued his studies with any industry. When a peasant
+      begins to feel the need of instruction he most frequently becomes a fierce
+      calculator. At school Pierre&rsquo;s playmates roused his first suspicions by
+      the manner in which they treated and hooted his brother. Later on he came
+      to understand the significance of many looks and words. And at last he
+      clearly saw that the house was being pillaged. From that time forward he
+      regarded Antoine and Ursule as shameless parasites, mouths that were
+      devouring his own substance. Like the people of the Faubourg, he thought
+      that his mother was a fit subject for a lunatic asylum, and feared she
+      would end by squandering all her money, if he did not take steps to
+      prevent it. What gave him the finishing stroke was the dishonesty of the
+      gardener who cultivated the land. At this, in one day, the unruly child
+      was transformed into a thrifty, selfish lad, hurriedly matured, as regards
+      his instincts, by the strange improvident life which he could no longer
+      bear to see around him without a feeling of anguish. Those vegetables,
+      from the sale of which the market-gardener derived the largest profits,
+      really belonged to him; the wine which his mother&rsquo;s offspring drank, the
+      bread they ate, also belonged to him. The whole house, the entire fortune,
+      was his by right; according to his boorish logic, he alone, the legitimate
+      son, was the heir. And as his riches were in danger, as everybody was
+      greedily gnawing at his future fortune, he sought a means of turning them
+      all out&mdash;mother, brother, sister, servants&mdash;and of succeeding
+      immediately to his inheritance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conflict was a cruel one; the lad knew that he must first strike his
+      mother. Step by step, with patient tenacity, he executed a plan whose
+      every detail he had long previously thought out. His tactics were to
+      appear before Adelaide like a living reproach&mdash;not that he flew into
+      a passion, or upbraided her for her misconduct; but he had acquired a
+      certain manner of looking at her, without saying a word, which terrified
+      her. Whenever she returned from a short sojourn in Macquart&rsquo;s hovel she
+      could not turn her eyes on her son without a shudder. She felt his cold
+      glances, as sharp as steel blades pierce her deeply and pitilessly. The
+      severe, taciturn demeanour of the child of the man whom she had so soon
+      forgotten strangely troubled her poor disordered brain. She would fancy at
+      times that Rougon had risen from the dead to punish her for her
+      dissoluteness. Every week she fell into one of those nervous fits which
+      were shattering her constitution. She was left to struggle until she
+      recovered consciousness, after which she would creep about more feebly
+      than ever. She would also often sob the whole night long, holding her head
+      in her hands, and accepting the wounds that Pierre dealt her with
+      resignation, as if they had been the strokes of an avenging deity. At
+      other times she repudiated him; she would not acknowledge her own flesh
+      and blood in that heavy-faced lad, whose calmness chilled her own
+      feverishness so painfully. She would a thousand times rather have been
+      beaten than glared at like that. Those implacable looks, which followed
+      her everywhere, threw her at last into such unbearable torments that on
+      several occasions she determined to see her lover no more. As soon,
+      however, as Macquart returned she forgot her vows and hastened to him. The
+      conflict with her son began afresh, silent and terrible, when she came
+      back home. At the end of a few months she fell completely under his sway.
+      She stood before him like a child doubtful of her behaviour and fearing
+      that she deserves a whipping. Pierre had skilfully bound her hand and
+      foot, and made a very submissive servant of her, without opening his lips,
+      without once entering into difficult and compromising explanations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the young man felt that his mother was in his power, that he could
+      treat her like a slave, he began, in his own interest, to turn her
+      cerebral weakness and the foolish terror with which his glances inspired
+      her to his own advantage. His first care, as soon as he was master at
+      home, was to dismiss the market-gardener and replace him by one of his own
+      creatures. Then he took upon himself the supreme direction of the
+      household, selling, buying, and holding the cash-box. On the other hand,
+      he made no attempt to regulate Adelaide&rsquo;s actions, or to correct Antoine
+      and Ursule for their laziness. That mattered little to him, for he counted
+      upon getting rid of these people as soon as an opportunity presented
+      itself. He contented himself with portioning out their bread and water.
+      Then, having already got all the property in his own hands, he awaited an
+      event which would permit him to dispose of it as he pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Circumstances proved singularly favourable. He escaped the conscription on
+      the ground of being a widow&rsquo;s eldest son. But two years later Antoine was
+      called out. His bad luck did not affect him much; he counted on his mother
+      purchasing a substitute for him. Adelaide, in fact, wished to save him
+      from serving; Pierre, however, who held the money, turned a deaf ear to
+      her. His brother&rsquo;s compulsory departure would be a lucky event for him,
+      and greatly assist the accomplishment of his plans. When his mother
+      mentioned the matter to him, he gave her such a look that she did not
+      venture to pursue it. His glance plainly signified, &ldquo;Do you wish, then, to
+      ruin me for the sake of your illegitimate offspring?&rdquo; Forthwith she
+      selfishly abandoned Antoine, for before everything else she sought her own
+      peace and quietness. Pierre, who did not like violent measures, and who
+      rejoiced at being able to eject his brother without a disturbance, then
+      played the part of a man in despair: the year had been a bad one, money
+      was scarce, and to raise any he would be compelled to sell a portion of
+      the land, which would be the beginning of their ruin. Then he pledged his
+      word of honour to Antoine that he would buy him out the following year,
+      though he meant to do nothing of the kind. Antoine then went off, duped,
+      and half satisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre got rid of Ursule in a still more unexpected manner. A journeyman
+      hatter of the Faubourg, named Mouret, conceived a real affection for the
+      girl, whom he thought as white and delicate as any young lady from the
+      Saint-Marc quarter. He married her. On his part it was a love match, free
+      from all sordid motives. As for Ursule, she accepted the marriage in order
+      to escape a home where her eldest brother rendered life intolerable. Her
+      mother, absorbed in her own courses, and using her remaining energy to
+      defend her own particular interests, regarded the matter with absolute
+      indifference. She was even glad of Ursule&rsquo;s departure from the house,
+      hoping that Pierre, now that he had no further cause for dissatisfaction,
+      would let her live in peace after her own fashion. No sooner had the young
+      people been married than Mouret perceived that he would have to quit
+      Plassans, if he did not wish to hear endless disparaging remarks about his
+      wife and his mother-in-law. Taking Ursule with him, he accordingly
+      repaired to Marseilles, where he worked at his trade. It should be
+      mentioned that he had not asked for one sou of dowry. When Pierre,
+      somewhat surprised by this disinterestedness, commenced to stammer out
+      some explanations, Mouret closed his mouth by saying that he preferred to
+      earn his wife&rsquo;s bread. Nevertheless the worthy son of the peasant remained
+      uneasy; Mouret&rsquo;s indifference seemed to him to conceal some trap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adelaide now remained to be disposed of. Nothing in the world would have
+      induced Pierre to live with her any longer. She was compromising him; it
+      was with her that he would have liked to make a start. But he found
+      himself between two very embarrassing alternatives: to keep her, and thus,
+      in a measure, share her disgrace, and bind a fetter to his feet which
+      would arrest him in his ambitious flight; or to turn her out, with the
+      certainty of being pointed at as a bad son, which would have robbed him of
+      the reputation for good nature which he desired. Knowing that he would be
+      in want of everybody, he desired to secure an untarnished name throughout
+      Plassans. There was but one method to adopt, namely, to induce Adelaide to
+      leave of her own accord. Pierre neglected nothing to accomplish this end.
+      He considered his mother&rsquo;s misconduct a sufficient excuse for his own
+      hard-heartedness. He punished her as one would chastise a child. The
+      tables were turned. The poor woman cowered under the stick which,
+      figuratively, was constantly held over her. She was scarcely forty-two
+      years old, and already had the stammerings of terror, and vague, pitiful
+      looks of an old woman in her dotage. Her son continued to stab her with
+      his piercing glances, hoping that she would run away when her courage was
+      exhausted. The unfortunate woman suffered terribly from shame, restrained
+      desire and enforced cowardice, receiving the blows dealt her with passive
+      resignation, and nevertheless returning to Macquart with the determination
+      to die on the spot rather than submit. There were nights when she would
+      have got out of bed, and thrown herself into the Viorne, if with her weak,
+      nervous, nature she had not felt the greatest fear of death. On several
+      occasions she thought of running away and joining her lover on the
+      frontier. It was only because she did not know whither to go that she
+      remained in the house, submitting to her son&rsquo;s contemptuous silence and
+      secret brutality. Pierre divined that she would have left long ago if she
+      had only had a refuge. He was waiting an opportunity to take a little
+      apartment for her somewhere, when a fortuitous occurrence, which he had
+      not ventured to anticipate, abruptly brought about the realisation of his
+      desires. Information reached the Faubourg that Macquart had just been
+      killed on the frontier by a shot from a custom-house officer, at the
+      moment when he was endeavouring to smuggle a load of Geneva watches into
+      France. The story was true. The smuggler&rsquo;s body was not even brought home,
+      but was interred in the cemetery of a little mountain village. Adelaide&rsquo;s
+      grief plunged her into stupor. Her son, who watched her curiously, did not
+      see her shed a tear. Macquart had made her sole legatee. She inherited his
+      hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and his carbine, which a
+      fellow-smuggler, braving the balls of the custom-house officers, loyally
+      brought back to her. On the following day she retired to the little house,
+      hung the carbine above the mantelpiece, and lived there estranged from all
+      the world, solitary and silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre was at last sole master of the house. The Fouques&rsquo; land belonged to
+      him in fact, if not in law. He never thought of establishing himself on
+      it. It was too narrow a field for his ambition. To till the ground and
+      cultivate vegetables seemed to him boorish, unworthy of his faculties. He
+      was in a hurry to divest himself of everything recalling the peasant. With
+      his nature refined by his mother&rsquo;s nervous temperament, he felt an
+      irresistible longing for the enjoyments of the middle classes. In all his
+      calculations, therefore, he had regarded the sale of the Fouques&rsquo; property
+      as the final consummation. This sale, by placing a round sum of money in
+      his hands, would enable him to marry the daughter of some merchant who
+      would take him into partnership. At this period the wars of the First
+      Empire were greatly thinning the ranks of eligible young men. Parents were
+      not so fastidious as previously in the choice of a son-in-law. Pierre
+      persuaded himself that money would smooth all difficulties, and that the
+      gossip of the Faubourg would be overlooked; he intended to pose as a
+      victim, as an honest man suffering from a family disgrace, which he
+      deplored, without being soiled by it or excusing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For several months already he had cast his eyes on a certain Felicite
+      Puech, the daughter of an oil-dealer. The firm of Puech &amp; Lacamp,
+      whose warehouses were in one of the darkest lanes of the old quarter, was
+      far from prosperous. It enjoyed but doubtful credit in the market, and
+      people talked vaguely of bankruptcy. It was precisely in consequence of
+      these evil reports that Pierre turned his batteries in this direction. No
+      well-to-do trader would have given him his daughter. He meant to appear on
+      the scene at the very moment when old Puech should no longer know which
+      way to turn; he would then purchase Felicite of him, and re-establish the
+      credit of the house by his own energy and intelligence. It was a clever
+      expedient for ascending the first rung of the social ladder, for raising
+      himself above his station. Above all things, he wished to escape from that
+      frightful Faubourg where everybody reviled his family, and to obliterate
+      all these foul legends, by effacing even the very name of the Fouques&rsquo; 
+      enclosure. For that reason the filthy streets of the old quarter seemed to
+      him perfect paradise. There, only, he would be able to change his skin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment which he had been awaiting soon arrived. The firm of Puech and
+      Lacamp seemed to be at the last gasp. The young man then negotiated the
+      match with prudent skill. He was received, if not as a deliverer, at least
+      as a necessary and acceptable expedient. The marriage agreed upon, he
+      turned his attention to the sale of the ground. The owner of the
+      Jas-Meiffren, desiring to enlarge his estate, had made him repeated
+      offers. A low, thin, party-wall alone separated the two estates. Pierre
+      speculated on the eagerness of his wealthy neighbour, who, to gratify his
+      caprice, offered as much as fifty thousand francs for the land. It was
+      double its value. Pierre, whoever, with the craftiness of a peasant,
+      pulled a long face, and said that he did not care to sell; that his mother
+      would never consent to get rid of the property where the Fouques had lived
+      from father to son for nearly two centuries. But all the time that he was
+      seemingly holding back he was really making preparations for the sale.
+      Certain doubts had arisen in his mind. According to his own brutal logic,
+      the property belonged to him; he had the right to dispose of it as he
+      chose. Beneath this assurance, however, he had vague presentiments of
+      legal complications. So he indirectly consulted a lawyer of the Faubourg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He learnt some fine things from him. According to the lawyer, his hands
+      were completely tied. His mother alone could alienate the property, and he
+      doubted whether she would. But what he did not know, what came as a heavy
+      blow to him, was that Ursule and Antoine, those young wolves, had claims
+      on the estate. What! they would despoil him, rob him, the legitimate
+      child! The lawyer&rsquo;s explanations were clear and precise, however;
+      Adelaide, it is true, had married Rougon under the common property system;
+      but as the whole fortune consisted of land, the young woman, according to
+      law, again came into possession of everything at her husband&rsquo;s death.
+      Moreover, Macquart and Adelaide had duly acknowledged their children when
+      declaring their birth for registration, and thus these children were
+      entitled to inherit from their mother. For sole consolation, Pierre learnt
+      that the law reduced the share of illegitimate children in favour of the
+      others. This, however, did not console him at all. He wanted to have
+      everything. He would not have shared ten sous with Ursule and Antoine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This vista of the intricacies of the Code opened up a new horizon, which
+      he scanned with a singularly thoughtful air. He soon recognised that a
+      shrewd man must always keep the law on his side. And this is what he
+      devised without consulting anyone, even the lawyer, whose suspicions he
+      was afraid of arousing. He knew how to turn his mother round his finger.
+      One fine morning he took her to a notary and made her sign a deed of sale.
+      Provided she were left the hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, Adelaide
+      would have sold all Plassans. Besides, Pierre assured her an annual income
+      of six hundred francs, and made the most solemn promises to watch over his
+      brother and sister. This oath satisfied the good woman. She recited,
+      before the notary, the lesson which it had pleased her son to teach her.
+      On the following day the young man made her place her name at the foot of
+      a document in which she acknowledged having received fifty thousand francs
+      as the price of the property. This was his stroke of genius, the act of a
+      rogue. He contented himself with telling his mother, who was a little
+      surprised at signing such a receipt when she had not seen a centime of the
+      fifty thousand francs, that it was a pure formality of no consequence
+      whatever. As he slipped the paper into his pocket, he thought to himself,
+      &ldquo;Now, let the young wolves ask me to render an account. I will tell them
+      the old woman has squandered everything. They will never dare to go to law
+      with me about it.&rdquo; A week afterwards, the party-wall no longer existed: a
+      plough had turned up the vegetable beds; the Fouques&rsquo; enclosure, in
+      accordance with young Rougon&rsquo;s wish, was about to become a thing of the
+      past. A few months later, the owner of the Jas-Meiffren even had the old
+      market-gardener&rsquo;s house, which was falling to pieces, pulled down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Pierre had secured the fifty thousand francs he married Felicite
+      Puech with as little delay as possible. Felicite was a short, dark woman,
+      such as one often meets in Provence. She looked like one of those brown,
+      lean, noisy grasshoppers, which in their sudden leaps often strike their
+      heads against the almond-trees. Thin, flat-breasted, with pointed
+      shoulders and a face like that of a pole-cat, her features singularly
+      sunken and attenuated, it was not easy to tell her age; she looked as near
+      fifteen as thirty, although she was in reality only nineteen, four years
+      younger than her husband. There was much feline slyness in the depths of
+      her little black eyes, which suggested gimlet holes. Her low, bumpy
+      forehead, her slightly depressed nose with delicate quivering nostrils,
+      her thin red lips and prominent chin, parted from her cheeks by strange
+      hollows, all suggested the countenance of an artful dwarf, a living mask
+      of intrigue, an active, envious ambition. With all her ugliness, however,
+      Felicite possessed a sort of gracefulness which rendered her seductive.
+      People said of her that she could be pretty or ugly as she pleased. It
+      would depend on the fashion in which she tied her magnificent hair; but it
+      depended still more on the triumphant smile which illumined her golden
+      complexion when she thought she had got the better of somebody. Born under
+      an evil star, and believing herself ill-used by fortune, she was generally
+      content to appear an ugly creature. She did not, however, intend to
+      abandon the struggle, for she had vowed that she would some day make the
+      whole town burst with envy, by an insolent display of happiness and
+      luxury. Had she been able to act her part on a more spacious stage, where
+      full play would have been allowed her ready wit, she would have quickly
+      brought her dream to pass. Her intelligence was far superior to that of
+      the girls of her own station and education. Evil tongues asserted that her
+      mother, who had died a few years after she was born, had, during the early
+      period of her married life, been familiar with the Marquis de Carnavant, a
+      young nobleman of the Saint-Marc quarter. In fact, Felicite had the hands
+      and feet of a marchioness, and, in this respect, did not appear to belong
+      to that class of workers from which she was descended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her marriage with Pierre Rougon, that semi-peasant, that man of the
+      Faubourg, whose family was in such bad odour, kept the old quarter in a
+      state of astonishment for more than a month. She let people gossip,
+      however, receiving the stiff congratulations of her friends with strange
+      smiles. Her calculations had been made; she had chosen Rougon for a
+      husband as one would choose an accomplice. Her father, in accepting the
+      young man, had merely had eyes for the fifty thousand francs which were to
+      save him from bankruptcy. Felicite, however, was more keen-sighted. She
+      looked into the future, and felt that she would be in want of a robust
+      man, even if he were somewhat rustic, behind whom she might conceal
+      herself, and whose limbs she would move at will. She entertained a
+      deliberate hatred for the insignificant little exquisites of provincial
+      towns, the lean herd of notaries&rsquo; clerks and prospective barristers, who
+      stand shivering with cold while waiting for clients. Having no dowry, and
+      despairing of ever marrying a rich merchant&rsquo;s son, she by far preferred a
+      peasant whom she could use as a passive tool, to some lank graduate who
+      would overwhelm her with his academical superiority, and drag her about
+      all her life in search of hollow vanities. She was of opinion that the
+      woman ought to make the man. She believed herself capable of carving a
+      minister out of a cow-herd. That which had attracted her in Rougon was his
+      broad chest, his heavy frame, which was not altogether wanting in
+      elegance. A man thus built would bear with ease and sprightliness the mass
+      of intrigues which she dreamt of placing on his shoulders. However, while
+      she appreciated her husband&rsquo;s strength and vigour, she also perceived that
+      he was far from being a fool; under his coarse flesh she had divined the
+      cunning suppleness of his mind. Still she was a long way from really
+      knowing her Rougon; she thought him far stupider than he was. A few days
+      after her marriage, as she was by chance fumbling in the drawer of a
+      secretaire, she came across the receipt for fifty thousand francs which
+      Adelaide had signed. At sight of it she understood things, and felt rather
+      frightened; her own natural average honesty rendered her hostile to such
+      expedients. Her terror, however, was not unmixed with admiration; Rougon
+      became in her eyes a very smart fellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young couple bravely sought to conquer fortune. The firm of Puech
+      &amp; Lacamp was not, after all, so embarrassed as Pierre had thought. Its
+      liabilities were small, it was merely in want of ready-money. In the
+      provinces, traders adopt prudent courses to save them from serious
+      disasters. Puech &amp; Lacamp were prudent to an excessive degree; they
+      never risked a thousand crowns without the greatest fear, and thus their
+      house, a veritable hole, was an unimportant one. The fifty thousand francs
+      that Pierre brought into it sufficed to pay the debts and extend the
+      business. The beginnings were good. During three successive years the
+      olive harvest was an abundant one. Felicite, by a bold stroke which
+      absolutely frightened both Pierre and old Puech, made them purchase a
+      considerable quantity of oil, which they stored in their warehouse. During
+      the following years, as the young woman had foreseen, the crops failed,
+      and a considerable rise in prices having set in, they realised large
+      profits by selling out their stock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A short time after this haul, Puech &amp; Lacamp retired from the firm,
+      content with the few sous they had just secured, and ambitious of living
+      on their incomes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young couple now had sole control of the business, and thought that
+      they had at last laid the foundation of their fortune. &ldquo;You have
+      vanquished my ill-luck,&rdquo; Felicite would sometimes say to her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the rare weaknesses of her energetic nature was to believe herself
+      stricken by misfortune. Hitherto, so she asserted, nothing had been
+      successful with either herself or her father, in spite of all their
+      efforts. Goaded by her southern superstition, she prepared to struggle
+      with fate as one struggles with somebody who is endeavouring to strangle
+      one. Circumstances soon justified her apprehensions in a singular manner.
+      Ill-luck returned inexorably. Every year some fresh disaster shook
+      Rougon&rsquo;s business. A bankruptcy resulted in the loss of a few thousand
+      francs; his estimates of crops proved incorrect, through the most
+      incredible circumstances; the safest speculations collapsed miserably. It
+      was a truceless, merciless combat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see I was born under an unlucky star!&rdquo; Felicite would bitterly
+      exclaim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet she still struggled furiously, not understanding how it was that
+      she, who had shown such keen scent in a first speculation, could now only
+      give her husband the most deplorable advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre, dejected and less tenacious than herself, would have gone into
+      liquidation a score of times had it not been for his wife&rsquo;s firm
+      obstinacy. She longed to be rich. She perceived that her ambition could
+      only be attained by fortune. As soon as they possessed a few hundred
+      thousand francs they would be masters of the town. She would get her
+      husband appointed to an important post, and she would govern. It was not
+      the attainment of honours which troubled her; she felt herself
+      marvellously well armed for such a combat. But she could do nothing to get
+      together the first few bags of money which were needed. Though the ruling
+      of men caused her no apprehensions, she felt a sort of impotent rage at
+      the thought of those inert, white, cold, five-franc pieces over which her
+      intriguing spirit had no power, and which obstinately resisted her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle lasted for more than thirty years. The death of Puech proved
+      another heavy blow. Felicite, who had counted upon an inheritance of about
+      forty thousand francs, found that the selfish old man, in order to indulge
+      himself in his old age, had sunk all his money in a life annuity. The
+      discovery made her quite ill. She was gradually becoming soured, she was
+      growing more lean and harsh. To see her, from morning till night, whirling
+      round the jars of oil, one would have thought she believed that she could
+      stimulate the sales by continually flitting about like a restless fly. Her
+      husband, on the contrary, became heavier; misfortune fattened him, making
+      him duller and more indolent. These thirty years of combat did not,
+      however, bring him to ruin. At each annual stock-taking they managed to
+      make both ends meet fairly well; if they suffered any loss during one
+      season, they recouped themselves the next. However, it was precisely this
+      living from hand to mouth which exasperated Felicite. She would, by far,
+      have preferred a big failure. They would then, perhaps, have been able to
+      commence life over again, instead of obstinately persisting in their petty
+      business, working themselves to death to gain the bare necessaries of
+      life. During one third of a century they did not save fifty thousand
+      francs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It should be mentioned that, from the very first years of their married
+      life, they had a numerous family, which in the long run became a heavy
+      burden to them. In the course of five years, from 1811 to 1815, Felicite
+      gave birth to three boys. Then during the four ensuing years she presented
+      her husband with two girls. These had but an indifferent welcome;
+      daughters are a terrible embarrassment when one has no dowry to give them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, the young woman did not regard this troop of children as the
+      cause of their ruin. On the contrary, she based on her sons&rsquo; heads the
+      building of the fortune which was crumbling in her own hands. They were
+      hardly ten years old before she discounted their future careers in her
+      dreams. Doubting whether she would ever succeed herself, she centred in
+      them all her hopes of overcoming the animosity of fate. They would provide
+      satisfaction for her disappointed vanity, they would give her that
+      wealthy, honourable position which she had hitherto sought in vain. From
+      that time forward, without abandoning the business struggle, she conceived
+      a second plan for obtaining the gratification of her domineering
+      instincts. It seemed to her impossible that, amongst her three sons, there
+      should not be a man of superior intellect, who would enrich them all. She
+      felt it, she said. Accordingly, she nursed the children with a fervour in
+      which maternal severity was blended with an usurer&rsquo;s solicitude. She
+      amused herself by fattening them as though they constituted a capital
+      which, later on, would return a large interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough!&rdquo; Pierre would sometimes exclaim, &ldquo;all children are ungrateful.
+      You are spoiling them, you are ruining us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Felicite spoke of sending them to college, he got angry. Latin was a
+      useless luxury, it would be quite sufficient if they went through the
+      classes of a little neighbouring school The young woman, however,
+      persisted in her design. She possessed certain elevated instincts which
+      made her take a great pride in surrounding herself with accomplished
+      children; moreover, she felt that her sons must never remain as illiterate
+      as her husband, if she wished to see them become prominent men. She
+      fancied them all three in Paris in high positions, which she did not
+      clearly define. When Rougon consented, and the three youngsters had
+      entered the eighth class, Felicite felt the most lively satisfaction she
+      had ever experienced. She listened with delight as they talked of their
+      professors and their studies. When she heard her eldest son make one of
+      his brothers decline <i>Rosa, a rose</i>, it sounded like delicious music
+      to her. It is only fair to add that her delight was not tarnished by any
+      sordid calculations. Even Rougon felt the satisfaction which an illiterate
+      man experiences on perceiving his sons grow more learned than himself.
+      Then the fellowship which grew up between their sons and those of the
+      local big-wigs completed the parents&rsquo; gratification. The youngsters were
+      soon on familiar terms with the sons of the Mayor and the Sub-Prefect, and
+      even with two or three young noblemen whom the Saint-Marc quarter had
+      deigned to send to the Plassans College. Felicite was at a loss how to
+      repay such an honour. The education of the three lads weighed seriously on
+      the budget of the Rougon household.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until the boys had taken their degrees, their parents, who kept them at
+      college at enormous sacrifices, lived in hopes of their success. When they
+      had obtained their diplomas Felicite wished to continue her work, and even
+      persuaded her husband to send the three to Paris. Two of them devoted
+      themselves to the study of law, and the third passed through the School of
+      Medicine. Then, when they were men, and had exhausted the resources of the
+      Rougon family and were obliged to return and establish themselves in the
+      provinces, their parents&rsquo; disenchantment began. They idled about and grew
+      fat. And Felicite again felt all the bitterness of her ill-luck. Her sons
+      were failing her. They had ruined her, and did not return any interest on
+      the capital which they represented. This last blow of fate was the
+      heaviest, as it fell on her ambition and her maternal vanity alike. Rougon
+      repeated to her from morning till night, &ldquo;I told you so!&rdquo; which only
+      exasperated her the more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, as she was bitterly reproaching her eldest son with the large
+      amount of money expended on his education, he said to her with equal
+      bitterness, &ldquo;I will repay you later on if I can. But as you had no means,
+      you should have brought us up to a trade. We are out of our element, we
+      are suffering more than you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite understood the wisdom of these words. From that time she ceased
+      to accuse her children, and turned her anger against fate, which never
+      wearied of striking her. She started her old complaints afresh, and
+      bemoaned more and more the want of means which made her strand, as it
+      were, in port. Whenever Rougon said to her, &ldquo;Your sons are lazy fellows,
+      they will eat up all we have,&rdquo; she sourly replied, &ldquo;Would to God I had
+      more money to give them; if they do vegetate, poor fellows, it&rsquo;s because
+      they haven&rsquo;t got a sou to bless themselves with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the beginning of the year 1848, on the eve of the Revolution of
+      February, the three young Rougons held very precarious positions at
+      Plassans. They presented most curious and profoundly dissimilar
+      characteristics, though they came of the same stock. They were in reality
+      superior to their parents. The race of the Rougons was destined to become
+      refined through its female side. Adelaide had made Pierre a man of
+      moderate enterprise, disposed to low ambitions; Felicite had inspired her
+      sons with a higher intelligence, with a capacity for greater vices and
+      greater virtues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the period now referred to the eldest, Eugene, was nearly forty years
+      old. He was a man of middle height, slightly bald, and already disposed to
+      obesity. He had his father&rsquo;s face, a long face with broad features;
+      beneath his skin one could divine the fat to which were due the flabby
+      roundness of his features, and his yellowish, waxy complexion. Though his
+      massive square head still recalled the peasant, his physiognomy was
+      transfigured, lit up from within as it were, when his drooping eyelids
+      were raised and his eyes awoke to life. In the son&rsquo;s case, the father&rsquo;s
+      ponderousness had turned to gravity. This big fellow, Eugene, usually
+      preserved a heavy somnolent demeanour. At the same time, certain of his
+      heavy, languid movements suggested those of a giant stretching his limbs
+      pending the time for action. By one of those alleged freaks of nature, of
+      which, however, science is now commencing to discover the laws, if
+      physical resemblance to Pierre was perfect in Eugene, Felicite on her side
+      seemed to have furnished him with his brains. He offered an instance of
+      certain moral and intellectual qualities of maternal origin being embedded
+      in the coarse flesh he had derived from his father. He cherished lofty
+      ambitions, possessed domineering instincts, and showed singular contempt
+      for trifling expedients and petty fortunes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a proof that Plassans was perhaps not mistaken in suspecting that
+      Felicite had some blue blood in her veins. The passion for indulgence,
+      which became formidably developed in the Rougons, and was, in fact, the
+      family characteristic, attained in his case its highest pitch; he longed
+      for self-gratification, but in the form of mental enjoyment such as would
+      gratify his burning desire for domination. A man such as this was never
+      intended to succeed in a provincial town. He vegetated there for fifteen
+      years, his eyes turned towards Paris, watching his opportunities. On his
+      return home he had entered his name on the rolls, in order to be
+      independent of his parents. After that he pleaded from time to time,
+      earning a bare livelihood, without appearing to rise above average
+      mediocrity. At Plassans his voice was considered thick, his movements
+      heavy. He generally wandered from the question at issue, rambled, as the
+      wiseacres expressed it. On one occasion particularly, when he was pleading
+      in a case for damages, he so forgot himself as to stray into a political
+      disquisition, to such a point that the presiding judge interfered,
+      whereupon he immediately sat down with a strange smile. His client was
+      condemned to pay a considerable sum of money, a circumstance which did
+      not, however, seem to cause Eugene the least regret for his irrelevant
+      digression. He appeared to regard his speeches as mere exercises which
+      would be of use to him later on. It was this that puzzled and disheartened
+      Felicite. She would have liked to see her son dictating the law to the
+      Civil Court of Plassans. At last she came to entertain a very unfavourable
+      opinion of her first-born. To her mind this lazy fellow would never be the
+      one to shed any lustre on the family. Pierre, on the contrary, felt
+      absolute confidence in him, not that he had more intuition than his wife,
+      but because external appearances sufficed him, and he flattered himself by
+      believing in the genius of a son who was his living image. A month prior
+      to the Revolution of February, 1848, Eugene became restless; some special
+      inspiration made him anticipate the crisis. From that time forward he
+      seemed to feel out of his element at Plassans. He would wander about the
+      streets like a distressed soul. At last he formed a sudden resolution, and
+      left for Paris, with scarcely five hundred francs in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aristide, the youngest son, was, so to speak, diametrically opposed to
+      Eugene. He had his mother&rsquo;s face, and a covetousness and slyness of
+      character prone to trivial intrigues, in which his father&rsquo;s instincts
+      predominated. Nature has need of symmetry. Short, with a pitiful
+      countenance suggesting the knob of a stick carved into a Punch&rsquo;s head,
+      Aristide ferretted and fumbled everywhere, without any scruples, eager
+      only to gratify himself. He loved money as his eldest brother loved power.
+      While Eugene dreamed of bending a people to his will, and intoxicated
+      himself with visions of future omnipotence, the other fancied himself ten
+      times a millionaire, installed in a princely mansion, eating and drinking
+      to his heart&rsquo;s content, and enjoying life to the fullest possible extent.
+      Above all things, he longed to make a rapid fortune. When he was building
+      his castles in the air, they would rise in his mind as if by magic; he
+      would become possessed of tons of gold in one night. These visions agreed
+      with his indolence, as he never troubled himself about the means,
+      considering those the best which were the most expeditious. In his case
+      the race of the Rougons, of those coarse, greedy peasants with brutish
+      appetites, had matured too rapidly; every desire for material indulgence
+      was found in him, augmented threefold by hasty education, and rendered the
+      more insatiable and dangerous by the deliberate way in which the young man
+      had come to regard their realisation as his set purpose. In spite of her
+      keen feminine intuition, Felicite preferred this son; she did not perceive
+      the greater affinity between herself and Eugene; she excused the follies
+      and indolence of her youngest son under the pretext that he would some day
+      be the superior genius of the family, and that such a man was entitled to
+      live a disorderly life until his intellectual strength should be revealed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aristide subjected her indulgence to a rude test. In Paris he led a low,
+      idle life; he was one of those students who enter their names at the
+      taverns of the Quartier Latin. He did not remain there, however, more than
+      two years; his father, growing apprehensive, and seeing that he had not
+      yet passed a single examination, kept him at Plassans and spoke of finding
+      a wife for him, hoping that domestic responsibility would make him more
+      steady. Aristide let himself be married. He had no very clear idea of his
+      own ambitions at this time; provincial life did not displease him; he was
+      battening in his little town&mdash;eating, sleeping, and sauntering about.
+      Felicite pleaded his cause so earnestly that Pierre consented to board and
+      lodge the newly-married couple, on condition that the young man should
+      turn his attention to the business. From that time, however, Aristide led
+      a life of ease and idleness. He spent his days and the best part of his
+      nights at the club, again and again slipping out of his father&rsquo;s office
+      like a schoolboy to go and gamble away the few louis that his mother gave
+      him clandestinely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is necessary to have lived in the depths of the French provinces to
+      form an idea of the four brutifying years which the young fellow spent in
+      this fashion. In every little town there is a group of individuals who
+      thus live on their parents, pretending at times to work, but in reality
+      cultivating idleness with a sort of religious zeal. Aristide was typical
+      of these incorrigible drones. For four years he did little but play
+      ecarte. While he passed his time at the club, his wife, a
+      fair-complexioned nerveless woman, helped to ruin the Rougon business by
+      her inordinate passion for showy gowns and her formidable appetite, a
+      rather remarkable peculiarity in so frail a creature. Angele, however,
+      adored sky-blue ribbons and roast beef. She was the daughter of a retired
+      captain who was called Commander Sicardot, a good-hearted old gentleman,
+      who had given her a dowry of ten thousand francs&mdash;all his savings.
+      Pierre, in selecting Angele for his son had considered that he had made an
+      unexpected bargain, so lightly did he esteem Aristide. However, that dowry
+      of ten thousand francs, which determined his choice, ultimately became a
+      millstone round his neck. His son, who was already a cunning rogue,
+      deposited the ten thousand francs with his father, with whom he entered
+      into partnership, declining, with the most sincere professions of
+      devotion, to keep a single copper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no need of anything,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;you will keep my wife and myself,
+      and we will reckon up later on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre was short of money at the time, and accepted, not, however, without
+      some uneasiness at Aristide&rsquo;s disinterestedness. The latter calculated
+      that it would be years before his father would have ten thousand francs in
+      ready money to repay him, so that he and his wife would live at the
+      paternal expense so long as the partnership could not be dissolved. It was
+      an admirable investment for his few bank-notes. When the oil-dealer
+      understood what a foolish bargain he had made he was not in a position to
+      rid himself of Aristide; Angele&rsquo;s dowry was involved in speculations which
+      were turning out unfavourably. He was exasperated, stung to the heart, at
+      having to provide for his daughter-in-law&rsquo;s voracious appetite and keep
+      his son in idleness. Had he been able to buy them out of the business he
+      would twenty times have shut his doors on those bloodsuckers, as he
+      emphatically expressed it. Felicite secretly defended them; the young man,
+      who had divined her dreams of ambition, would every evening describe to
+      her the elaborate plans by which he would shortly make a fortune. By a
+      rare chance she had remained on excellent terms with her daughter-in-law.
+      It must be confessed that Angele had no will of her own&mdash;she could be
+      moved and disposed of like a piece of furniture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime Pierre became enraged whenever his wife spoke to him of the
+      success their youngest son would ultimately achieve; he declared that he
+      would really bring them to ruin. During the four years that the young
+      couple lived with him he stormed in this manner, wasting his impotent rage
+      in quarrels, without in the least disturbing the equanimity of Aristide
+      and Angele. They were located there, and there they intended to remain
+      like blocks of wood. At last Pierre met with a stroke of luck which
+      enabled him to return the ten thousand francs to his son. When, however,
+      he wanted to reckon up accounts with him, Aristide interposed so much
+      chicanery that he had to let the couple go without deducting a copper for
+      their board and lodging. They installed themselves but a short distance
+      off, in a part of the old quarter called the Place Saint-Louis. The ten
+      thousand francs were soon consumed. They had everything to get for their
+      new home. Moreover Aristide made no change in his mode of living as long
+      as any money was left in the house. When he had reached the last
+      hundred-franc note he felt rather nervous. He was seen prowling about the
+      town in a suspicious manner. He no longer took his customary cup of coffee
+      at the club; he watched feverishly whilst play was going on, without
+      touching a card. Poverty made him more spiteful than he would otherwise
+      have been. He bore the blow for a long time, obstinately refusing to do
+      anything in the way of work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1840 he had a son, little Maxime, whom his grandmother Felicite
+      fortunately sent to college, paying his fees clandestinely. That made one
+      mouth less at home; but poor Angele was dying of hunger, and her husband
+      was at last compelled to seek a situation. He secured one at the
+      Sub-Prefecture. He remained there nearly ten years, and only attained a
+      salary of eighteen hundred francs per annum. From that time forward it was
+      with ever increasing malevolence and rancour that he hungered for the
+      enjoyments of which he was deprived. His lowly position exasperated him;
+      the paltry hundred and fifty francs which he received every month seemed
+      to him an irony of fate. Never did man burn with such desire for
+      self-gratification. Felicite, to whom he imparted his sufferings, was by
+      no means grieved to see him so eager. She thought his misery would
+      stimulate his energies. At last, crouching in ambush as it were, with his
+      ears wide open, he began to look about him like a thief seeking his
+      opportunity. At the beginning of 1848, when his brother left for Paris, he
+      had a momentary idea of following him. But Eugene was a bachelor; and he,
+      Aristide, could not take his wife so far without money. So he waited,
+      scenting a catastrophe, and ready to fall on the first prey that might
+      come within his reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other son, Pascal, born between Eugene and Aristide, did not appear to
+      belong to the family. He was one of those frequent cases which give the
+      lie to the laws of heredity. During the evolution of a race nature often
+      produces some one being whose every element she derives from her own
+      creative powers. Nothing in the moral or physical constitution of Pascal
+      recalled the Rougons. Tall, with a grave and gentle face, he had an
+      uprightness of mind, a love of study, a retiring modesty which contrasted
+      strangely with the feverish ambitions and unscrupulous intrigues of his
+      relatives. After acquitting himself admirably of his medical studies in
+      Paris, he had retired, by preference, to Plassans, notwithstanding the
+      offers he received from his professors. He loved a quiet provincial life;
+      he maintained that for a studious man such a life was preferable to the
+      excitement of Paris. Even at Plassans he did not exert himself to extend
+      his practice. Very steady, and despising fortune, he contented himself
+      with the few patients sent him by chance. All his pleasures were centred
+      in a bright little house in the new town, where he shut himself up,
+      lovingly devoting his whole time to the study of natural history. He was
+      particularly fond of physiology. It was known in the town that he
+      frequently purchased dead bodies from the hospital grave-digger, a
+      circumstance which rendered him an object of horror to delicate ladies and
+      certain timid gentlemen. Fortunately, they did not actually look upon him
+      as a sorcerer; but his practice diminished, and he was regarded as an
+      eccentric character, to whom people of good society ought not to entrust
+      even a finger-tip, for fear of being compromised. The mayor&rsquo;s wife was one
+      day heard to say: &ldquo;I would sooner die than be attended by that gentleman.
+      He smells of death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From that time, Pascal was condemned. He seemed to rejoice at the mute
+      terror which he inspired. The fewer patients he had, the more time he
+      could devote to his favourite sciences. As his fees were very moderate,
+      the poorer people remained faithful to him; he earned just enough to live,
+      and lived contentedly, a thousand leagues away from the rest of the
+      country, absorbed in the pure delight of his researches and discoveries.
+      From time to time he sent a memoir to the Academie des Sciences at Paris.
+      Plassans did not know that this eccentric character, this gentleman who
+      smelt of death was well-known and highly-esteemed in the world of science.
+      When people saw him starting on Sundays for an excursion among the
+      Garrigues hills, with a botanist&rsquo;s bag hung round his neck and a
+      geologist&rsquo;s hammer in his hand, they would shrug their shoulders and
+      institute a comparison between him and some other doctor of the town who
+      was noted for his smart cravat, his affability to the ladies, and the
+      delicious odour of violets which his garments always diffused. Pascal&rsquo;s
+      parents did not understand him any better than other people. When Felicite
+      saw him adopting such a strange, unpretentious mode of life she was
+      stupefied, and reproached him for disappointing her hopes. She, who
+      tolerated Aristide&rsquo;s idleness because she thought it would prove fertile,
+      could not view without regret the slow progress of Pascal, his partiality
+      for obscurity and contempt for riches, his determined resolve to lead a
+      life of retirement. He was certainly not the child who would ever gratify
+      her vanities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where do you spring from?&rdquo; she would sometimes say to him. &ldquo;You are
+      not one of us. Look at your brothers, how they keep their eyes open,
+      striving to profit by the education we have given them, whilst you waste
+      your time on follies and trifles. You make a very poor return to us, who
+      have ruined ourselves for your education. No, you are certainly not one of
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pascal, who preferred to laugh whenever he was called upon to feel
+      annoyed, replied cheerfully, but not without a sting of irony: &ldquo;Oh, you
+      need not be frightened, I shall never drive you to the verge of
+      bankruptcy; when any of you are ill, I will attend you for nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, though he never displayed any repugnance to his relatives, he
+      very rarely saw them, following in this wise his natural instincts. Before
+      Aristide obtained a situation at the Sub-Prefecture, Pascal had frequently
+      come to his assistance. For his part he had remained a bachelor. He had
+      not the least suspicion of the grave events that were preparing. For two
+      or three years he had been studying the great problem of heredity,
+      comparing the human and animal races together, and becoming absorbed in
+      the strange results which he obtained. Certain observations which he had
+      made with respect to himself and his relatives had been, so to say, the
+      starting-point of his studies. The common people, with their natural
+      intuition, so well understood that he was quite different from the other
+      Rougons, that they invariably called him Monsieur Pascal, without ever
+      adding his family name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three years prior to the Revolution of 1848 Pierre and Felicite retired
+      from business. Old age was coming on apace; they were both past fifty and
+      were weary enough of the struggle. In face of their ill fortune, they were
+      afraid of being ultimately ruined if they obstinately persisted in the
+      fight. Their sons, by disappointing their expectations, had dealt them the
+      final blow. Now that they despaired of ever being enriched by them, they
+      were anxious to make some little provision for old age. They retired with
+      forty thousand francs at the utmost. This sum provided an annual income of
+      two thousand francs, just sufficient to live in a small way in the
+      provinces. Fortunately, they were by themselves, having succeeded in
+      marrying their daughters Marthe and Sidonie, the former of whom resided at
+      Marseilles and the latter in Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After they had settled their affairs they would much have liked to take up
+      their abode in the new town, the quarter of the retired traders, but they
+      dared not do so. Their income was too small; they were afraid that they
+      would cut but a poor figure there. So, as a sort of compromise, they took
+      apartments in the Rue de la Banne, the street which separates the old
+      quarter from the new one. As their abode was one of the row of houses
+      bordering the old quarter, they still lived among the common people;
+      nevertheless, they could see the town of the richer classes from their
+      windows, so that they were just on the threshold of the promised land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their apartments, situated on the second floor, consisted of three large
+      rooms&mdash;dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom. The first floor was
+      occupied by the owner of the house, a stick and umbrella manufacturer, who
+      had a shop on the ground floor. The house, which was narrow and by no
+      means deep, had only two storeys. Felicite moved into it with a bitter
+      pang. In the provinces, to live in another person&rsquo;s house is an avowal of
+      poverty. Every family of position at Plassans has a house of its own,
+      landed property being very cheap there. Pierre kept the purse-strings well
+      tied; he would not hear of any embellishments. The old furniture, faded,
+      worn, damaged though it was, had to suffice, without even being repaired.
+      Felicite, however, who keenly felt the necessity for this parsimony,
+      exerted herself to give fresh polish to all the wreckage; she herself
+      knocked nails into some of the furniture which was more dilapidated than
+      the rest, and darned the frayed velvet of the arm-chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dining-room, which, like the kitchen, was at the back of the house,
+      was nearly bare; a table and a dozen chairs were lost in the gloom of this
+      large apartment, whose window faced the grey wall of a neighbouring
+      building. As no strangers ever went into the bedroom, Felicite had stowed
+      all her useless furniture there; thus, besides a bedstead, wardrobe,
+      secretaire, and wash-stand, it contained two cradles, one perched atop of
+      the other, a sideboard whose doors were missing, and an empty bookcase,
+      venerable ruins which the old woman could not make up her mind to part
+      with. All her cares, however, were bestowed upon the drawing-room, and she
+      almost succeeded in making it comfortable and decent. The furniture was
+      covered with yellowish velvet with satin flowers; in the middle stood a
+      round table with a marble top, while a couple of pier tables, surmounted
+      by mirrors, leant against the walls at either end of the room. There was
+      even a carpet, which just covered the middle of the floor, and a
+      chandelier in a white muslin cover which the flies had spotted with black
+      specks. On the walls hung six lithographs representing the great battles
+      of Napoleon I. Moreover, the furniture dated from the first years of the
+      Empire. The only embellishment that Felicite could obtain was to have the
+      walls hung with orange-hued paper covered with large flowers. Thus the
+      drawing room had a strange yellow glow, which filled it with an artificial
+      dazzling light. The furniture, the paper, and the window curtains were
+      yellow; the carpet and even the marble table-tops showed touches of
+      yellow. However, when the curtains were drawn the colours harmonised
+      fairly well and the drawing-room looked almost decent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Felicite had dreamed of quite a different kind of luxury. She regarded
+      with mute despair this ill-concealed misery. She usually occupied the
+      drawing-room, the best apartment in the house, and the sweetest and
+      bitterest of her pastimes was to sit at one of the windows which
+      overlooked the Rue de la Banne and gave her a side view of the square in
+      front of the Sub-Prefecture. That was the paradise of her dreams. That
+      little, neat, tidy square, with its bright houses, seemed to her a Garden
+      of Eden. She would have given ten years of her life to possess one of
+      those habitations. The house at the left-hand corner, in which the
+      receiver of taxes resided, particularly tempted her. She contemplated it
+      with eager longing. Sometimes, when the windows of this abode were open,
+      she could catch a glimpse of rich furniture and tasteful elegance which
+      made her burn with envy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this period the Rougons passed through a curious crisis of vanity and
+      unsatiated appetite. The few proper feelings which they had once
+      entertained had become embittered. They posed as victims of evil fortune,
+      not with resignation, however, for they seemed still more keenly
+      determined that they would not die before they had satisfied their
+      ambitions. In reality, they did not abandon any of their hopes,
+      notwithstanding their advanced age. Felicite professed to feel a
+      presentiment that she would die rich. However, each day of poverty weighed
+      them down the more. When they recapitulated their vain attempts&mdash;when
+      they recalled their thirty years&rsquo; struggle, and the defection of their
+      children&mdash;when they saw their airy castles end in this yellow
+      drawing-room, whose shabbiness they could only conceal by drawing the
+      curtains, they were overcome with bitter rage. Then, as a consolation,
+      they would think of plans for making a colossal fortune, seeking all sorts
+      of devices. Felicite would fancy herself the winner of the grand prize of
+      a hundred thousand francs in some lottery, while Pierre pictured himself
+      carrying out some wonderful speculation. They lived with one sole thought&mdash;that
+      of making a fortune immediately, in a few hours&mdash;of becoming rich and
+      enjoying themselves, if only for a year. Their whole beings tended to
+      this, stubbornly, without a pause. And they still cherished some faint
+      hopes with regard to their sons, with that peculiar egotism of parents who
+      cannot bear to think that they have sent their children to college without
+      deriving some personal advantage from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite did not appear to have aged; she was still the same dark little
+      woman, ever on the move, buzzing about like a grasshopper. Any person
+      walking behind her on the pavement would have thought her a girl of
+      fifteen, from the lightness of her step and the angularity of her
+      shoulders and waist. Even her face had scarcely undergone any change; it
+      was simply rather more sunken, rather more suggestive of the snout of a
+      pole-cat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Pierre Rougon, he had grown corpulent, and had become a highly
+      respectable looking citizen, who only lacked a decent income to make him a
+      very dignified individual. His pale, flabby face, his heaviness, his
+      languid manner, seemed redolent of wealth. He had one day heard a peasant
+      who did not know him say: &ldquo;Ah! he&rsquo;s some rich fellow, that fat old
+      gentleman there. He&rsquo;s no cause to worry about his dinner!&rdquo; This was a
+      remark which stung him to the heart, for he considered it cruel mockery to
+      be only a poor devil while possessing the bulk and contented gravity of a
+      millionaire. When he shaved on Sundays in front of a small five-sou
+      looking-glass hanging from the fastening of a window, he would often think
+      that in a dress coat and white tie he would cut a far better figure at the
+      Sub-Prefect&rsquo;s than such or such a functionary of Plassans. This peasant&rsquo;s
+      son, who had grown sallow from business worries, and corpulent from a
+      sedentary life, whose hateful passions were hidden beneath naturally
+      placid features, really had that air of solemn imbecility which gives a
+      man a position in an official salon. People imagined that his wife held a
+      rod over him, but they were mistaken. He was as self-willed as a brute.
+      Any determined expression of extraneous will would drive him into a
+      violent rage. Felicite was far too supple to thwart him openly; with her
+      light fluttering nature she did not attack obstacles in front. When she
+      wished to obtain something from her husband, or drive him the way she
+      thought best, she would buzz round him in her grasshopper fashion,
+      stinging him on all sides, and returning to the charge a hundred times
+      until he yielded almost unconsciously. He felt, moreover, that she was
+      shrewder than he, and tolerated her advice fairly patiently. Felicite,
+      more useful than the coach fly, would sometimes do all the work while she
+      was thus buzzing round Pierre&rsquo;s ears. Strange to say, the husband and wife
+      never accused each other of their ill-success. The only bone of contention
+      between them was the education lavished on their children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the lookout, exasperated
+      by their bad luck, and disposed to lay violent hands on fortune if ever
+      they should meet her in a byway. They were a family of bandits lying in
+      wait, ready to rifle and plunder. Eugene kept an eye on Paris; Aristide
+      dreamed of strangling Plassans; the mother and father, perhaps the most
+      eager of the lot, intended to work on their own account, and reap some
+      additional advantage from their sons&rsquo; doings. Pascal alone, that discreet
+      wooer of science, led the happy, indifferent life of a lover in his bright
+      little house in the new town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In that closed, sequestered town of Plassans, where class distinction was
+      so clearly marked in 1848, the commotion caused by political events was
+      very slight. Even at the present day the popular voice sounds very faintly
+      there; the middle classes bring their prudence to bear in the matter, the
+      nobility their mute despair, and the clergy their shrewd cunning. Kings
+      may usurp thrones, or republics may be established, without scarcely any
+      stir in the town. Plassans sleeps while Paris fights. But though on the
+      surface the town may appear calm and indifferent, in the depths hidden
+      work goes on which it is curious to study. If shots are rare in the
+      streets, intrigues consume the drawing-rooms of both the new town and the
+      Saint-Marc quarter. Until the year 1830 the masses were reckoned of no
+      account. Even at the present time they are similarly ignored. Everything
+      is settled between the clergy, the nobility, and the bourgeoisie. The
+      priests, who are very numerous, give the cue to the local politics; they
+      lay subterranean mines, as it were, and deal blows in the dark, following
+      a prudent tactical system, which hardly allows of a step in advance or
+      retreat even in the course of ten years. The secret intrigues of men who
+      desire above all things to avoid noise requires special shrewdness, a
+      special aptitude for dealing with small matters, and a patient endurance
+      such as one only finds in persons callous to all passions. It is thus that
+      provincial dilatoriness, which is so freely ridiculed in Paris, is full of
+      treachery, secret stabs, hidden victories and defeats. These worthy men,
+      particularly when their interests are at stake, kill at home with a snap
+      of the fingers, as we, the Parisians, kill with cannon in the public
+      thoroughfares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The political history of Plassans, like that of all little towns in
+      Provence, is singularly characteristic. Until 1830, the inhabitants
+      remained observant Catholics and fervent royalists; even the lower classes
+      only swore by God and their legitimate sovereigns. Then there came a
+      sudden change; faith departed, the working and middle classes deserted the
+      cause of legitimacy, and gradually espoused the great democratic movement
+      of our time. When the Revolution of 1848 broke out, the nobility and the
+      clergy were left alone to labour for the triumph of Henri V. For a long
+      time they had regarded the accession of the Orleanists as a ridiculous
+      experiment, which sooner or later would bring back the Bourbons; although
+      their hopes were singularly shaken, they nevertheless continued the
+      struggle, scandalised by the defection of their former allies, whom they
+      strove to win back to their cause. The Saint-Marc quarter, assisted by all
+      the parish priests, set to work. Among the middle classes, and especially
+      among the people, the enthusiasm was very great on the morrow of the
+      events of February; these apprentice republicans were in haste to display
+      their revolutionary fervour. As regards the gentry of the new town,
+      however, the conflagration, bright though it was, lasted no longer than a
+      fire of straw. The small houseowners and retired tradespeople who had had
+      their good days, or had made snug little fortunes under the monarchy, were
+      soon seized with panic; the Republic, with its constant shocks and
+      convulsions, made them tremble for their money and their life of
+      selfishness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Consequently, when the Clerical reaction of 1849 declared itself, nearly
+      all the middle classes passed over to the Conservative party. They were
+      received with open arms. The new town had never before had such close
+      relations with the Saint-Marc quarter: some of the nobility even went so
+      far as to shake hands with lawyers and retired oil-dealers. This
+      unexpected familiarity kindled the enthusiasm of the new quarter, which
+      henceforward waged bitter warfare against the republican government. To
+      bring about such a coalition, the clergy had to display marvellous skill
+      and endurance. The nobility of Plassans for the most part lay prostrate,
+      as if half dead. They retained their faith, but lethargy had fallen on
+      them, and they preferred to remain inactive, allowing the heavens to work
+      their will. They would gladly have contented themselves with silent
+      protest, feeling, perhaps, a vague presentiment that their divinities were
+      dead, and that there was nothing left for them to do but rejoin them. Even
+      at this period of confusion, when the catastrophe of 1848 was calculated
+      to give them a momentary hope of the return of the Bourbons, they showed
+      themselves spiritless and indifferent, speaking of rushing into the melee,
+      yet never quitting their hearths without a pang of regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clergy battled indefatigably against this feeling of impotence and
+      resignation. They infused a kind of passion into their work: a priest,
+      when he despairs, struggles all the more fiercely. The fundamental policy
+      of the Church is to march straight forward; even though she may have to
+      postpone the accomplishment of her projects for several centuries, she
+      never wastes a single hour, but is always pushing forward with increasing
+      energy. So it was the clergy who led the reaction of Plassans; the
+      nobility only lent them their name, nothing more. The priests hid
+      themselves behind the nobles, restrained them, directed them, and even
+      succeeded in endowing them with a semblance of life. When they had induced
+      them to overcome their repugnance so far as to make common cause with the
+      middle classes, they believed themselves certain of victory. The ground
+      was marvellously well prepared. This ancient royalist town, with its
+      population of peaceful householders and timorous tradespeople, was
+      destined to range itself, sooner or later, on the side of law and order.
+      The clergy, by their tactics, hastened the conversion. After gaining the
+      landlords of the new town to their side, they even succeeded in convincing
+      the little retail-dealers of the old quarter. From that time the
+      reactionary movement obtained complete possession of the town. All
+      opinions were represented in this reaction; such a mixture of embittered
+      Liberals, Legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, and Clericals had never
+      before been seen. It mattered little, however, at that time. The sole
+      object was to kill the Republic; and the Republic was at the point of
+      death. Only a fraction of the people&mdash;a thousand workmen at most, out
+      of the ten thousand souls in the town&mdash;still saluted the tree of
+      liberty planted in the middle of the square in front of the
+      Sub-Prefecture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shrewdest politicians of Plassans, those who led the reactionary
+      movement, did not scent the approach of the Empire until very much later.
+      Prince Louis Napoleon&rsquo;s popularity seemed to them a mere passing fancy of
+      the multitude. His person inspired them with but little admiration. They
+      reckoned him a nonentity, a dreamer, incapable of laying his hands on
+      France, and especially of maintaining his authority. To them he was only a
+      tool whom they would make use of, who would clear the way for them, and
+      whom they would turn out as soon as the hour arrived for the rightful
+      Pretender to show himself.[*] However, months went by, and they became
+      uneasy. It was only then that they vaguely perceived they were being
+      duped: they had no time, however, to take any steps; the Coup d&rsquo;Etat burst
+      over their heads, and they were compelled to applaud. That great
+      abomination, the Republic, had been assassinated; that, at least, was some
+      sort of triumph. So the clergy and the nobility accepted accomplished
+      facts with resignation; postponing, until later, the realisation of their
+      hopes, and making amends for their miscalculations by uniting with the
+      Bonapartists for the purpose of crushing the last Republicans.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [*] The Count de Chambord, &ldquo;Henri V.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      It was these events that laid the foundation of the Rougons&rsquo; fortune.
+      After being mixed up with the various phases of the crisis, they rose to
+      eminence on the ruins of liberty. These bandits had been lying in wait to
+      rob the Republic; as soon as it had been strangled, they helped to plunder
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the events of February 1848, Felicite, who had the keenest scent of
+      all the members of the family, perceived that they were at last on the
+      right track. So she began to flutter round her husband, goading him on to
+      bestir himself. The first rumours of the Revolution that had overturned
+      King Louis Philippe had terrified Pierre. When his wife, however, made him
+      understand that they had little to lose and much to gain from a
+      convulsion, he soon came round to her way of thinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you can do,&rdquo; Felicite repeatedly said, &ldquo;but it seems to
+      me that there&rsquo;s plenty to be done. Did not Monsieur de Carnavant say to us
+      one day that he would be rich if ever Henri V. should return, and that
+      this sovereign would magnificently recompense those who had worked for his
+      restoration? Perhaps our fortune lies in that direction. We may yet be
+      lucky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis de Carnavant, the nobleman who, according to the scandalous
+      talk of the town, had been on very familiar terms with Felicite&rsquo;s mother,
+      used occasionally to visit the Rougons. Evil tongues asserted that Madame
+      Rougon resembled him. He was a little, lean, active man, seventy-five
+      years old at that time, and Felicite certainly appeared to be taking his
+      features and manner as she grew older. It was said that the wreck of his
+      fortune, which had already been greatly diminished by his father at the
+      time of the Emigration, had been squandered on women. Indeed, he
+      cheerfully acknowledged his poverty. Brought up by one of his relatives,
+      the Count de Valqueyras, he lived the life of a parasite, eating at the
+      count&rsquo;s table and occupying a small apartment just under his roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Little one,&rdquo; he would often say to Felicite, as he patted her on the
+      cheek, &ldquo;if ever Henri V. gives me a fortune, I will make you my heiress!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He still called Felicite &ldquo;little one,&rdquo; even when she was fifty years old.
+      It was of these friendly pats, of these repeated promises of an
+      inheritance, that Madame Rougon was thinking when she endeavoured to drive
+      her husband into politics. Monsieur de Carnavant had often bitterly
+      lamented his inability to render her any assistance. No doubt he would
+      treat her like a father if ever he should acquire some influence. Pierre,
+      to whom his wife half explained the situation in veiled terms, declared
+      his readiness to move in any direction indicated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The marquis&rsquo;s peculiar position qualified him to act as an energetic agent
+      of the reactionary movement at Plassans from the first days of the
+      Republic. This bustling little man, who had everything to gain from the
+      return of his legitimate sovereigns, worked assiduously for their cause.
+      While the wealthy nobility of the Saint-Marc quarter were slumbering in
+      mute despair, fearing, perhaps that they might compromise themselves and
+      again be condemned to exile, he multiplied himself, as it were, spread the
+      propaganda and rallied faithful ones together. He was a weapon whose hilt
+      was held by an invisible hand. From that time forward he paid daily visits
+      to the Rougons. He required a centre of operations. His relative, Monsieur
+      de Valqueyras, had forbidden him to bring any of his associates into his
+      house, so he had chosen Felicite&rsquo;s yellow drawing-room. Moreover, he very
+      soon found Pierre a valuable assistant. He could not go himself and preach
+      the cause of Legitimacy to the petty traders and workmen of the old
+      quarter; they would have hooted him. Pierre, on the other hand, who had
+      lived among these people, spoke their language and knew their wants, was
+      able to catechise them in a friendly way. He thus became an indispensable
+      man. In less than a fortnight the Rougons were more determined royalists
+      than the king himself. The marquis, perceiving Pierre&rsquo;s zeal, shrewdly
+      sheltered himself behind him. What was the use of making himself
+      conspicuous, when a man with such broad shoulders was willing to bear on
+      them the burden of all the follies of a party? He allowed Pierre to reign,
+      puff himself out with importance and speak with authority, content to
+      restrain or urge him on, according to the necessities of the cause. Thus,
+      the old oil-dealer soon became a personage of mark. In the evening, when
+      they were alone, Felicite used to say to him: &ldquo;Go on, don&rsquo;t be frightened.
+      We&rsquo;re on the right track. If this continues we shall be rich; we shall
+      have a drawing-room like the tax-receiver&rsquo;s, and be able to entertain
+      people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little party of Conservatives had already been formed at the Rougons&rsquo; 
+      house, and meetings were held every evening in the yellow drawing-room to
+      declaim against the Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among those who came were three or four retired merchants who trembled for
+      their money, and clamoured with all their might for a wise and strong
+      government. An old almond-dealer, a member of the Municipal Council,
+      Monsieur Isidore Granoux, was the head of this group. His hare-lipped
+      mouth was cloven a little way from the nose; his round eyes, his air of
+      mingled satisfaction and astonishment, made him resemble a fat goose whose
+      digestion is attended by wholesome terror of the cook. He spoke little,
+      having no command of words; and he only pricked up his ears when anyone
+      accused the Republicans of wishing to pillage the houses of the rich;
+      whereupon he would colour up to such a degree as to make one fear an
+      approaching apoplectic fit, and mutter low imprecations, in which the
+      words &ldquo;idlers,&rdquo; &ldquo;scoundrels,&rdquo; &ldquo;thieves,&rdquo; and &ldquo;assassins&rdquo; frequently
+      recurred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All those who frequented the yellow drawing-room were not, however, as
+      heavy as this fat goose. A rich landowner, Monsieur Roudier, with a plump,
+      insinuating face, used to discourse there for hours altogether, with all
+      the passion of an Orleanist whose calculations had been upset by the fall
+      of Louis Philippe. He had formerly been a hosier at Paris, and a purveyor
+      to the Court, but had now retired to Plassans. He had made his son a
+      magistrate, relying on the Orleanist party to promote him to the highest
+      dignities. The revolution having ruined all his hopes, he had rushed
+      wildly into the reaction. His fortune, his former commercial relations
+      with the Tuileries, which he transformed into friendly intercourse, that
+      prestige which is enjoyed by every man in the provinces who has made his
+      money in Paris and deigns to come and spend it in a far away department,
+      gave him great influence in the district; some persons listened to him as
+      though he were an oracle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, the strongest intellect of the yellow drawing-room was certainly
+      Commander Sicardot, Aristide&rsquo;s father-in-law. Of Herculean frame, with a
+      brick-red face, scarred and planted with tufts of grey hair, he was one of
+      the most glorious old dolts of the Grande Armee. During the February
+      Revolution he had been exasperated with the street warfare and never
+      wearied of referring to it, proclaiming with indignation that this kind of
+      fighting was shameful: whereupon he recalled with pride the grand reign of
+      Napoleon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another person seen at the Rougons&rsquo; house was an individual with clammy
+      hands and equivocal look, one Monsieur Vuillet, a bookseller, who supplied
+      all the devout ladies of the town with holy images and rosaries. Vuillet
+      dealt in both classical and religious works; he was a strict Catholic, a
+      circumstance which insured him the custom of the numerous convents and
+      parish churches. Further, by a stroke of genius he had added to his
+      business the publication of a little bi-weekly journal, the &ldquo;Gazette de
+      Plassans,&rdquo; which was devoted exclusively to the interests of the clergy.
+      This paper involved an annual loss of a thousand francs, but it made him
+      the champion of the Church, and enabled him to dispose of his sacred
+      unsaleable stock. Though he was virtually illiterate and could not even
+      spell correctly, he himself wrote the articles of the &ldquo;Gazette&rdquo; with a
+      humility and rancour that compensated for his lack of talent. The marquis,
+      in entering on the campaign, had perceived immediately the advantage that
+      might be derived from the co-operation of this insipid sacristan with the
+      coarse, mercenary pen. After the February Revolution the articles in the
+      &ldquo;Gazette&rdquo; contained fewer mistakes; the marquis revised them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One can now imagine what a singular spectacle the Rougons&rsquo; yellow
+      drawing-room presented every evening. All opinions met there to bark at
+      the Republic. Their hatred of that institution made them agree together.
+      The marquis, who never missed a meeting, appeased by his presence the
+      little squabbles which occasionally arose between the commander and the
+      other adherents. These plebeians were inwardly flattered by the handshakes
+      which he distributed on his arrival and departure. Roudier, however, like
+      a free-thinker of the Rue Saint-Honore, asserted that the marquis had not
+      a copper to bless himself with, and was disposed to make light of him. M.
+      de Carnavant on his side preserved the amiable smile of a nobleman
+      lowering himself to the level of these middle class people, without making
+      any of those contemptuous grimaces which any other resident of the
+      Saint-Marc quarter would have thought fit under such circumstances. The
+      parasite life he had led had rendered him supple. He was the life and soul
+      of the group, commanding in the name of unknown personages whom he never
+      revealed. &ldquo;They want this, they don&rsquo;t want that,&rdquo; he would say. The
+      concealed divinities who thus watched over the destinies of Plassans from
+      behind some cloud, without appearing to interfere directly in public
+      matters, must have been certain priests, the great political agents of the
+      country. When the marquis pronounced that mysterious word &ldquo;they,&rdquo; which
+      inspired the assembly with such marvellous respect, Vuillet confessed,
+      with a gesture of pious devotion, that he knew them very well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The happiest person in all this was Felicite. At last she had people
+      coming to her drawing-room. It was true she felt a little ashamed of her
+      old yellow velvet furniture. She consoled herself, however, thinking of
+      the rich things she would purchase when the good cause should have
+      triumphed. The Rougons had, in the end, regarded their royalism as very
+      serious. Felicite went as far as to say, when Roudier was not present,
+      that if they had not made a fortune in the oil business the fault lay in
+      the monarchy of July. This was her mode of giving a political tinge to
+      their poverty. She had a friendly word for everybody, even for Granoux,
+      inventing each evening some new polite method of waking him up when it was
+      time for departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The drawing-room, that little band of Conservatives belonging to all
+      parties, and daily increasing in numbers, soon wielded powerful influence.
+      Owing to the diversified characters of its members, and especially to the
+      secret impulse which each one received from the clergy, it became the
+      centre of the reactionary movement and spread its influence throughout
+      Plassans. The policy of the marquis, who sank his own personality,
+      transformed Rougon into the leader of the party. The meetings were held at
+      his house, and this circumstance sufficed in the eyes of most people to
+      make him the head of the group, and draw public attention to him. The
+      whole work was attributed to him; he was believed to be the chief artisan
+      of the movement which was gradually bringing over to the Conservative
+      party those who had lately been enthusiastic Republicans. There are some
+      situations which benefit only persons of bad repute. These lay the
+      foundations of their fortune where men of better position and more
+      influence would never dare to risk theirs. Roudier, Granoux, and the
+      others, all men of means and respectability, certainly seemed a thousand
+      times preferable to Pierre as the acting leaders of the Conservative
+      party. But none of them would have consented to turn his drawing-room into
+      a political centre. Their convictions did not go so far as to induce them
+      to compromise themselves openly; in fact, they were only so many
+      provincial babblers, who liked to inveigh against the Republic at a
+      neighbour&rsquo;s house as long as the neighbour was willing to bear the
+      responsibility of their chatter. The game was too risky. There was no one
+      among the middle classes of Plassans who cared to play it except the
+      Rougons, whose ungratified longings urged them on to extreme measures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the month of April, 1849, Eugene suddenly left Paris, and came to stay
+      with his father for a fortnight. Nobody ever knew the purpose of this
+      journey. It is probable that Eugene wanted to sound his native town, to
+      ascertain whether he might successfully stand as a candidate for the
+      legislature which was about to replace the Constituent Assembly. He was
+      too shrewd to risk a failure. No doubt public opinion appeared to him
+      little in his favour, for he abstained from any attempt. It was not known
+      at Plassans what had become of him in Paris, what he was doing there. On
+      his return to his native place, folks found him less heavy and somnolent
+      than formerly. They surrounded him and endeavoured to make him speak out
+      concerning the political situation. But he feigned ignorance and compelled
+      them to talk. A little perspicacity would have detected that beneath his
+      apparent unconcern there was great anxiety with regard to the political
+      opinions of the town. However, he seemed to be sounding the ground more on
+      behalf of a party than on his own account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although he had renounced all hope for himself, he remained at Plassans
+      until the end of the month, assiduously attending the meetings in the
+      yellow drawing-room. As soon as the bell rang, announcing the first
+      visitor, he would take up his position in one of the window recesses as
+      far as possible from the lamp. And he remained there the whole evening,
+      resting his chin on the palm of his right hand, and listening religiously.
+      The greatest absurdities did not disturb his equanimity. He nodded
+      approval even to the wild grunts of Granoux. When anyone asked him his own
+      opinion, he politely repeated that of the majority. Nothing seemed to tire
+      his patience, neither the hollow dreams of the marquis, who spoke of the
+      Bourbons as if 1815 were a recent date, nor the effusions of citizen
+      Roudier, who grew quite pathetic when he recounted how many pairs of socks
+      he had supplied to the citizen king, Louis Philippe. On the contrary, he
+      seemed quite at his ease in this Tower of Babel. Sometimes, when these
+      grotesque personages were storming against the Republic, his eyes would
+      smile, while his lips retained their expression of gravity. His meditative
+      manner of listening, and his invariable complacency, had earned him the
+      sympathy of everyone. He was considered a nonentity, but a very decent
+      fellow. Whenever an old oil or almond dealer failed to get a hearing,
+      amidst the clamour, for some plan by which he could save France if he were
+      only a master, he took himself off to Eugene and shouted his marvellous
+      suggestions in his ear. And Eugene gently nodded his head, as though
+      delighted with the grand projects he was listening to. Vuillet, alone,
+      regarded him with a suspicious eye. This bookseller, half-sacristan and
+      half-journalist, spoke less than the others, but was more observant. He
+      had noticed that Eugene occasionally conversed at times in a corner with
+      Commander Sicardot. So he determined to watch them, but never succeeded in
+      overhearing a word. Eugene silenced the commander by a wink whenever
+      Vuillet approached them. From that time, Sicardot never spoke of the
+      Napoleons without a mysterious smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days before his return to Paris, Eugene met his brother Aristide, on
+      the Cours Sauvaire, and the latter accompanied him for a short distance
+      with the importunity of a man in search of advice. As a matter of fact,
+      Aristide was in great perplexity. Ever since the proclamation of the
+      Republic, he had manifested the most lively enthusiasm for the new
+      government. His intelligence, sharpened by two years&rsquo; stay at Paris,
+      enabled him to see farther than the thick heads of Plassans. He divined
+      the powerlessness of the Legitimists and Orleanists, without clearly
+      distinguishing, however, what third thief would come and juggle the
+      Republic away. At all hazard he had ranged himself on the side of the
+      victors, and he had severed his connection with his father, whom he
+      publicly denounced as an old fool, an old dolt whom the nobility had
+      bamboozled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet my mother is an intelligent woman,&rdquo; he would add. &ldquo;I should never
+      have thought her capable of inducing her husband to join a party whose
+      hopes are simply chimerical. They are taking the right course to end their
+      lives in poverty. But then women know nothing about politics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For his part he wanted to sell himself as dearly as possible. His great
+      anxiety as to the direction in which the wind was blowing, so that he
+      might invariably range himself on the side of that party, which, in the
+      hour of triumph, would be able to reward him munificently. Unfortunately,
+      he was groping in the dark. Shut up in his far away province, without a
+      guide, without any precise information, he felt quite lost. While waiting
+      for events to trace out a sure and certain path, he preserved the
+      enthusiastic republican attitude which he had assumed from the very first
+      day. Thanks to this demeanour, he remained at the Sub-Prefecture; and his
+      salary was even raised. Burning, however, with the desire to play a
+      prominent part, he persuaded a bookseller, one of Vuillet&rsquo;s rivals, to
+      establish a democratic journal, to which he became one of the most
+      energetic contributors. Under his impulse the &ldquo;Independant&rdquo; waged
+      merciless warfare against the reactionaries. But the current gradually
+      carried him further than he wished to go; he ended by writing inflammatory
+      articles, which made him shudder when he re-perused them. It was remarked
+      at Plassans that he directed a series of attacks against all whom his
+      father was in the habit of receiving of an evening in his famous yellow
+      drawing-room. The fact is that the wealth of Roudier and Granoux
+      exasperated Aristide to such a degree as to make him forget all prudence.
+      Urged on by his jealous, insatiate bitterness, he had already made the
+      middle classes his irreconcilable enemy, when Eugene&rsquo;s arrival and
+      demeanour at Plassans caused him great consternation. He confessed to
+      himself that his brother was a skilful man. According to him, that big,
+      drowsy fellow always slept with one eye open, like a cat lying in wait
+      before a mouse-hole. And now here was Eugene spending entire evenings in
+      the yellow drawing-room, and devoting himself to those same grotesque
+      personages whom he, Aristide, had so mercilessly ridiculed. When he
+      discovered from the gossip of the town that his brother shook hands with
+      Granoux and the marquis, he asked himself, with considerable anxiety, what
+      was the meaning of it? Could he himself have been deceived? Had the
+      Legitimists or the Orleanists really any chance of success? The thought
+      terrified him. He lost his equilibrium, and, as frequently happens, he
+      fell upon the Conservatives with increased rancour, as if to avenge his
+      own blindness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening prior to the day when he stopped Eugene on the Cours
+      Sauvaire, he had published, in the &ldquo;Independant,&rdquo; a terrible article on
+      the intrigues of the clergy, in response to a short paragraph from
+      Vuillet, who had accused the Republicans of desiring to demolish the
+      churches. Vuillet was Aristide&rsquo;s bugbear. Never a week passed but these
+      two journalists exchanged the greatest insults. In the provinces, where a
+      periphrastic style is still cultivated, polemics are clothed in
+      high-sounding phrases. Aristide called his adversary &ldquo;brother Judas,&rdquo; or
+      &ldquo;slave of Saint-Anthony.&rdquo; Vuillet gallantly retorted by terming the
+      Republican &ldquo;a monster glutted with blood whose ignoble purveyor was the
+      guillotine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to sound his brother, Aristide, who did not dare to appear openly
+      uneasy, contented himself with asking: &ldquo;Did you read my article yesterday?
+      What do you think of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugene lightly shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a simpleton, brother,&rdquo; was
+      his sole reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you think Vuillet right?&rdquo; cried the journalist, turning pale; &ldquo;you
+      believe in Vuillet&rsquo;s triumph?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I!&mdash;Vuillet&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was certainly about to add, &ldquo;Vuillet is as big a fool as you are.&rdquo; But,
+      observing his brother&rsquo;s distorted face anxiously extended towards him, he
+      experienced sudden mistrust. &ldquo;Vuillet has his good points,&rdquo; he calmly
+      replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On parting from his brother, Aristide felt more perplexed than before.
+      Eugene must certainly have been making game of him, for Vuillet was really
+      the most abominable person imaginable. However, he determined to be
+      prudent and not tie himself down any more; for he wished to have his hands
+      free should he ever be called upon to help any party in strangling the
+      Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugene, on the morning of his departure, an hour before getting into the
+      diligence, took his father into the bedroom and had a long conversation
+      with him. Felicite, who remained in the drawing-room, vainly tried to
+      catch what they were saying. They spoke in whispers, as if they feared
+      lest a single word should be heard outside. When at last they quitted the
+      bedroom they seemed in high spirits. After kissing his father and mother,
+      Eugene, who usually spoke in a drawling tone, exclaimed with vivacity:
+      &ldquo;You have understood me, father? There lies our fortune. We must work with
+      all our energy in that direction. Trust in me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll follow your instructions faithfully,&rdquo; Rougon replied. &ldquo;Only don&rsquo;t
+      forget what I asked you as the price of my cooperation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we succeed your demands shall be satisfied, I give you my word.
+      Moreover, I will write to you and guide you according to the direction
+      which events may take. Mind, no panic or excitement. You must obey me
+      implicitly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have you been plotting there?&rdquo; Felicite asked inquisitively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear mother,&rdquo; Eugene replied with a smile, &ldquo;you have had too little
+      faith in me thitherto to induce me to confide in you my hopes,
+      particularly as at present they are only based on probabilities. To be
+      able to understand me you would require faith. However, father will inform
+      you when the right time comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, as Felicite assumed the demeanour of a woman who feels somewhat
+      piqued, he added in her ear, as he kissed her once more: &ldquo;I take after
+      you, although you disowned me. Too much intelligence would be dangerous at
+      the present moment. When the crisis comes, it is you who will have to
+      manage the business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He then quitted the room, but, suddenly re-opening the door, exclaimed in
+      an imperious tone: &ldquo;Above all things, do not trust Aristide; he is a
+      mar-all, who would spoil everything. I have studied him sufficiently to
+      feel certain that he will always fall on his feet. Don&rsquo;t have any pity; if
+      we make a fortune, he&rsquo;ll know well enough how to rob us of his share.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Eugene had gone, Felicite endeavoured to ferret out the secret that
+      was being hidden from her. She knew her husband too well to interrogate
+      him openly. He would have angrily replied that it was no business of hers.
+      In spite, however, of the clever tactics she pursued, she learnt
+      absolutely nothing. Eugene had chosen a good confidant for those troubled
+      times, when the greatest discretion was necessary. Pierre, flattered by
+      his son&rsquo;s confidence, exaggerated that passive ponderosity which made him
+      so impenetrable. When Felicite saw she would not learn anything from him,
+      she ceased to flutter round him. On one point only did she remain
+      inquisitive, but in this respect her curiosity was intense. The two men
+      had mentioned a price stipulated by Pierre himself. What could that price
+      be? This after all was the sole point of interest for Felicite, who did
+      not care a rap for political matters. She knew that her husband must have
+      sold himself dearly, but she was burning to know the nature of the
+      bargain. One evening, when they had gone to bed, finding Pierre in a good
+      humour, she brought the conversation round to the discomforts of their
+      poverty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s quite time to put an end to this,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;We have been ruining
+      ourselves in oil and fuel since those gentlemen have been coming here. And
+      who will pay the reckoning? Nobody perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband fell into the trap, and smiled with complacent superiority.
+      &ldquo;Patience,&rdquo; said he. And with an air of shrewdness he looked into his
+      wife&rsquo;s eyes and added: &ldquo;Would you be glad to be the wife of a receiver of
+      taxes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite&rsquo;s face flushed with a joyous glow. She sat up in bed and clapped
+      her old withered little hands like a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really?&rdquo; she stammered. &ldquo;At Plassans?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre, without replying, gave a long affirmative nod. He enjoyed his
+      consort&rsquo;s astonishment and emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; she at last resumed, half sitting, &ldquo;you would have to deposit an
+      enormous sum as security. I have heard that our neighbour, Monsieur
+      Peirotte, had to deposit eighty thousand francs with the Treasury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh!&rdquo; said the retired oil-dealer, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s nothing to do with me; Eugene
+      will see to that. He will get the money advanced by a banker in Paris. You
+      see, I selected an appointment bringing in a good income. Eugene at first
+      made a wry face, saying one must be rich to occupy such posts, to which
+      influential men were usually nominated. I persisted, however, and he
+      yielded. To be a receiver of taxes one need not know either Greek or
+      Latin. I shall have a representative, like Monsieur Peirotte, and he will
+      do all the work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite listened to him with rapture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guessed, however,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;what it was that worried our dear
+      son. We&rsquo;re not much liked here. People know that we have no means, and
+      will make themselves obnoxious. But all sorts of things occur in a time of
+      crisis. Eugene wished to get me an appointment in another town. However, I
+      objected; I want to remain at Plassans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, we must remain here,&rdquo; the old woman quickly replied. &ldquo;We have
+      suffered here, and here we must triumph. Ah! I&rsquo;ll crush them all, those
+      fine ladies on the Mail, who scornfully eye my woollen dresses! I didn&rsquo;t
+      think of the appointment of receiver of taxes at all; I thought you wanted
+      to become mayor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mayor! Nonsense. That appointment is honorary. Eugene also mentioned the
+      mayoralty to me. I replied: &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll accept, if you give me an income of
+      fifteen thousand francs.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This conversation, in which high figures flew about like rockets, quite
+      excited Felicite. She felt delightfully buoyant. But at last she put on a
+      devout air, and gravely said: &ldquo;Come, let us reckon it out. How much will
+      you earn?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Pierre, &ldquo;the fixed salary, I believe, is three thousand
+      francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three thousand,&rdquo; Felicite counted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there is so much per cent on the receipts, which at Plassans, may
+      produce the sum of twelve thousand francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That makes fifteen thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, about fifteen thousand francs. That&rsquo;s what Peirotte earns. That&rsquo;s
+      not all. Peirotte does a little banking business on his own account. It&rsquo;s
+      allowed. Perhaps I shall be disposed to make a venture when I feel luck on
+      my side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let us say twenty thousand. Twenty thousand francs a year!&rdquo;
+       repeated Felicite, overwhelmed by the amount.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall have to repay the advances,&rdquo; Pierre observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t matter,&rdquo; Felicite replied, &ldquo;we shall be richer than many of
+      those gentlemen. Are the marquis and the others going to share the cake
+      with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no; it will be all for us,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, as she continued to importune him with her questions, Pierre
+      frowned, thinking that she wanted to wrest his secret from him. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve
+      talked enough,&rdquo; he said, abruptly. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s late, let us go to sleep. It will
+      bring us bad luck to count our chickens beforehand. I haven&rsquo;t got the
+      place yet. Above all things, be prudent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the lamp was extinguished, Felicite could not sleep. With her eyes
+      closed she built the most marvellous castles in the air. Those twenty
+      thousand francs a year danced a diabolical dance before her in the
+      darkness. She occupied splendid apartments in the new town, enjoyed the
+      same luxuries as Monsieur Peirotte, gave parties, and bespattered the
+      whole place with her wealth. That, however, which tickled her vanity most
+      was the high position that her husband would then occupy. He would pay
+      their state dividends to Granoux, Roudier, and all those people who now
+      came to her house as they might come to a cafe, to swagger and learn the
+      latest news. She had noticed the free-and-easy manner in which these
+      people entered her drawing-room, and it had made her take a dislike to
+      them. Even the marquis, with his ironical politeness, was beginning to
+      displease her. To triumph alone, therefore, to keep the cake for
+      themselves, as she expressed it, was a revenge which she fondly cherished.
+      Later on, when all those ill-bred persons presented themselves, hats off,
+      before Monsieur Rougon the receiver of taxes, she would crush them in her
+      turn. She was busy with these thoughts all night; and on the morrow, as
+      she opened the shutters, she instinctively cast her first glance across
+      the street towards Monsieur Peirotte&rsquo;s house, and smiled as she
+      contemplated the broad damask curtains hanging in the windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite&rsquo;s hopes, in becoming modified, had grown yet more intense. Like
+      all women, she did not object to a tinge of mystery. The secret object
+      that her husband was pursuing excited her far more than the Legitimist
+      intrigues of Monsieur de Carnavant had ever done. She abandoned, without
+      much regret, the calculations she had based on the marquis&rsquo;s success now
+      that her husband declared he would be able to make large profits by other
+      means. She displayed, moreover, remarkable prudence and discretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In reality, she was still tortured by anxious curiosity; she studied
+      Pierre&rsquo;s slightest actions, endeavouring to discover their meaning. What
+      if by chance he were following the wrong track? What if Eugene were
+      dragging them in his train into some break-neck pit, whence they would
+      emerge yet more hungry and impoverished? However, faith was dawning on
+      her. Eugene had commanded with such an air of authority that she
+      ultimately came to believe in him. In this case again some unknown power
+      was at work. Pierre would speak mysteriously of the high personages whom
+      their eldest son visited in Paris. For her part she did not know what he
+      could have to do with them, but on the other hand she was unable to close
+      her eyes to Aristide&rsquo;s ill-advised acts at Plassans. The visitors to her
+      drawing-room did not scruple to denounce the democratic journalist with
+      extreme severity. Granoux muttered that he was a brigand, and Roudier
+      would three or four times a week repeat to Felicite: &ldquo;Your son is writing
+      some fine articles. Only yesterday he attacked our friend Vuillet with
+      revolting scurrility.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole room joined in the chorus, and Commander Sicardot spoke of
+      boxing his son-in-law&rsquo;s ears, while Pierre flatly disowned him. The poor
+      mother hung her head, restraining her tears. For an instant she felt an
+      inclination to burst forth, to tell Roudier that her dear child, in spite
+      of his faults, was worth more than he and all the others put together. But
+      she was tied down, and did not wish to compromise the position they had so
+      laboriously attained. Seeing the whole town so bitter against Aristide,
+      she despaired of his future, thinking he was hopelessly ruining himself.
+      On two occasions she spoke to him in secret, imploring him to return to
+      them, and not to irritate the yellow drawing-room any further. Aristide
+      replied that she did not understand such matters; that she was the one who
+      had committed a great blunder in placing her husband at the service of the
+      marquis. So she had to abandon her son to his own courses, resolving,
+      however that if Eugene succeeded she would compel him to share the spoils
+      with the poor fellow who was her favourite child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the departure of his eldest son, Pierre Rougon pursued his
+      reactionary intrigues. Nothing seemed to have changed in the opinions of
+      the famous yellow drawing-room. Every evening the same men came to join in
+      the same propaganda in favour of the establishment of a monarchy, while
+      the master of the house approved and aided them with as much zeal as in
+      the past. Eugene had left Plassans on May 1. A few days later, the yellow
+      drawing-room was in raptures. The gossips were discussing the letter of
+      the President of the Republic to General Oudinot, in which the siege of
+      Rome had been decided upon. This letter was regarded as a brilliant
+      victory, due to the firm demeanour of the reactionary party. Since 1848
+      the Chambers had been discussing the Roman question; but it had been
+      reserved for a Bonaparte to stifle a rising Republic by an act of
+      intervention which France, if free, would never have countenanced. The
+      marquis declared, however, that one could not better promote the cause of
+      legitimacy, and Vuillet wrote a superb article on the matter. The
+      enthusiasm became unbounded when, a month later, Commander Sicardot
+      entered the Rougons&rsquo; house one evening and announced to the company that
+      the French army was fighting under the walls of Rome. Then, while
+      everybody was raising exclamations at this news, he went up to Pierre, and
+      shook hands with him in a significant manner. And when he had taken a
+      seat, he began to sound the praises of the President of the Republic, who,
+      said he, was the only person able to save France from anarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him save it, then, as quickly as possible,&rdquo; interrupted the marquis,
+      &ldquo;and let him then understand his duty by restoring it to its legitimate
+      masters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre seemed to approve this fine retort, and having thus given proof of
+      his ardent royalism, he ventured to remark that Prince Louis Bonaparte had
+      his entire sympathy in the matter. He thereupon exchanged a few short
+      sentences with the commander, commending the excellent intentions of the
+      President, which sentences one might have thought prepared and learnt
+      beforehand. Bonapartism now, for the first time, made its entry into the
+      yellow drawing-room. It is true that since the election of December 10 the
+      Prince had been treated there with a certain amount of consideration. He
+      was preferred a thousand times to Cavaignac, and the whole reactionary
+      party had voted for him. But they regarded him rather as an accomplice
+      than a friend; and, as such, they distrusted him, and even began to accuse
+      him of a desire to keep for himself the chestnuts which he had pulled out
+      of the fire. On that particular evening, however, owing to the fighting at
+      Rome, they listened with favour to the praises of Pierre and the
+      commander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The group led by Granoux and Roudier already demanded that the President
+      should order all republican rascals to be shot; while the marquis, leaning
+      against the mantelpiece, gazed meditatively at a faded rose on the carpet.
+      When he at last lifted his head, Pierre, who had furtively watched his
+      countenance as if to see the effect of his words, suddenly ceased
+      speaking. However, Monsieur de Carnavant merely smiled and glanced at
+      Felicite with a knowing look. This rapid by-play was not observed by the
+      other people. Vuillet alone remarked in a sharp tone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would rather see your Bonaparte at London than at Paris. Our affairs
+      would get along better then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this the old oil-dealer turned slightly pale, fearing that he had gone
+      too far. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not anxious to retain &lsquo;my&rsquo; Bonaparte,&rdquo; he said, with some
+      firmness; &ldquo;you know where I would send him to if I were the master. I
+      simply assert that the expedition to Rome was a good stroke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite had followed this scene with inquisitive astonishment. However,
+      she did not speak of it to her husband, which proved that she adopted it
+      as the basis of secret study. The marquis&rsquo;s smile, the significance of
+      which escaped her, set her thinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that day forward, Rougon, at distant intervals, whenever the occasion
+      offered, slipped in a good word for the President of the Republic. On such
+      evenings, Commander Sicardot acted the part of a willing accomplice. At
+      the same time, Clerical opinions still reigned supreme in the yellow
+      drawing-room. It was more particularly in the following year that this
+      group of reactionaries gained decisive influence in the town, thanks to
+      the retrograde movement which was going on at Paris. All those
+      anti-Liberal laws which the country called &ldquo;the Roman expedition at home&rdquo;
+       definitively secured the triumph of the Rougon faction. The last
+      enthusiastic bourgeois saw the Republic tottering, and hastened to rally
+      round the Conservatives. Thus the Rougons&rsquo; hour had arrived; the new town
+      almost gave them an ovation on the day when the tree of Liberty, planted
+      on the square before the Sub-Prefecture, was sawed down. This tree, a
+      young poplar brought from the banks of the Viorne, had gradually withered,
+      much to the despair of the republican working-men, who would come every
+      Sunday to observe the progress of the decay without being able to
+      comprehend the cause of it. A hatter&rsquo;s apprentice at last asserted that he
+      had seen a woman leave Rougon&rsquo;s house and pour a pail of poisoned water at
+      the foot of the tree. It thenceforward became a matter of history that
+      Felicite herself got up every night to sprinkle the poplar with vitriol.
+      When the tree was dead the Municipal Council declared that the dignity of
+      the Republic required its removal. For this, as they feared the
+      displeasure of the working classes, they selected an advanced hour of the
+      night. However, the conservative householders of the new town got wind of
+      the little ceremony, and all came down to the square before the
+      Sub-Prefecture in order to see how the tree of Liberty would fall. The
+      frequenters of the yellow drawing-room stationed themselves at the windows
+      there. When the poplar cracked and fell with a thud in the darkness, as
+      tragically rigid as some mortally stricken hero, Felicite felt bound to
+      wave a white handkerchief. This induced the crowd to applaud, and many
+      responded to the salute by waving their handkerchiefs likewise. A group of
+      people even came under the window shouting: &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll bury it, we&rsquo;ll bury
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They meant the Republic, no doubt. Such was Felicite&rsquo;s emotion, that she
+      almost had a nervous attack. It was a fine evening for the yellow
+      drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, the marquis still looked at Felicite with the same mysterious
+      smile. This little old man was far too shrewd to be ignorant of whither
+      France was tending. He was among the first to scent the coming of the
+      Empire. When the Legislative Assembly, later on, exhausted its energies in
+      useless squabbling, when the Orleanists and the Legitimists tacitly
+      accepted the idea of the Coup d&rsquo;Etat, he said to himself that the game was
+      definitely lost. In fact, he was the only one who saw things clearly.
+      Vuillet certainly felt that the cause of Henry V., which his paper
+      defended, was becoming detestable; but it mattered little to him; he was
+      content to be the obedient creature of the clergy; his entire policy was
+      framed so as to enable him to dispose of as many rosaries and sacred
+      images as possible. As for Roudier and Granoux, they lived in a state of
+      blind scare; it was not certain whether they really had any opinions; all
+      that they desired was to eat and sleep in peace; their political
+      aspirations went no further. The marquis, though he had bidden farewell to
+      his hopes, continued to come to the Rougons&rsquo; as regularly as ever. He
+      enjoyed himself there. The clash of rival ambitions among the middle
+      classes, and the display of their follies, had become an extremely amusing
+      spectacle to him. He shuddered at the thought of again shutting himself in
+      the little room which he owed to the beneficence of the Count de
+      Valqueyras. With a kind of malicious delight, he kept to himself the
+      conviction that the Bourbons&rsquo; hour had not yet arrived. He feigned
+      blindness, working as hitherto for the triumph of Legitimacy, and still
+      remaining at the orders of the clergy and nobility, though from the very
+      first day he had penetrated Pierre&rsquo;s new course of action, and believed
+      that Felicite was his accomplice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening, being the first to arrive, he found the old lady alone in the
+      drawing-room. &ldquo;Well! little one,&rdquo; he asked, with his smiling familiarity,
+      &ldquo;are your affairs going on all right? Why the deuce do you make such
+      mysteries with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not hiding anything from you,&rdquo; Felicite replied, somewhat perplexed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, do you think you can deceive an old fox like me, eh? My dear child,
+      treat me as a friend. I&rsquo;m quite ready to help you secretly. Come now, be
+      frank!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A bright idea struck Felicite. She had nothing to tell; but perhaps she
+      might find out something if she kept quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you smile?&rdquo; Monsieur de Carnavant resumed. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the beginning
+      of a confession, you know. I suspected that you must be behind your
+      husband. Pierre is too stupid to invent the pretty treason you are
+      hatching. I sincerely hope the Bonapartists will give you what I should
+      have asked for you from the Bourbons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This single sentence confirmed the suspicions which the old woman had
+      entertained for some time past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince Louis has every chance, hasn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo; she eagerly inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you betray me if I tell you that I believe so?&rdquo; the marquis
+      laughingly replied. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve donned my mourning over it, little one. I&rsquo;m
+      simply a poor old man, worn out and only fit to be laid on the shelf. It
+      was for you, however, that I was working. Since you have been able to find
+      the right track without me, I shall feel some consolation in seeing you
+      triumph amidst my own defeat. Above all things, don&rsquo;t make any more
+      mysteries. Come to me if you are ever in trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added, with the sceptical smile of a nobleman who has lost caste:
+      &ldquo;Pshaw! I also can go in for a little treachery!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the clan of retired oil and almond dealers arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! the dear reactionaries!&rdquo; Monsieur de Carnavant continued in an
+      undertone. &ldquo;You see, little one, the great art of politics consists in
+      having a pair of good eyes when other people are blind. You hold all the
+      best cards in the pack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the following day, Felicite, incited by this conversation, desired to
+      make sure on the matter. They were then in the first days of the year
+      1851. For more than eighteen months, Rougon had been in the habit of
+      receiving a letter from his son Eugene regularly every fortnight. He would
+      shut himself in the bedroom to read these letters, which he then hid at
+      the bottom of an old secretaire, the key of which he carefully kept in his
+      waistcoat pocket. Whenever his wife questioned him about their son he
+      would simply answer: &ldquo;Eugene writes that he is going on all right.&rdquo;
+       Felicite had long since thought of laying hands on her son&rsquo;s letters. So
+      early on the morning after her chat with the marquis, while Pierre was
+      still asleep, she got up on tiptoes, took the key of the secretaire from
+      her husband&rsquo;s waistcoat and substituted in its place that of the chest of
+      drawers, which was of the same size. Then, as soon as her husband had gone
+      out, she shut herself in the room in her turn, emptied the drawer, and
+      read all the letters with feverish curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur de Carnavant had not been mistaken, and her own suspicions were
+      confirmed. There were about forty letters, which enabled her to follow the
+      course of that great Bonapartist movement which was to terminate in the
+      second Empire. The letters constituted a sort of concise journal,
+      narrating events as they occurred, and drawing hopes and suggestions from
+      each of them. Eugene was full of faith. He described Prince Louis
+      Bonaparte to his father as the predestined necessary man who alone could
+      unravel the situation. He had believed in him prior even to his return to
+      France, at a time when Bonapartism was treated as a ridiculous chimera.
+      Felicite understood that her son had been a very active secret agent since
+      1848. Although he did not clearly explain his position in Paris, it was
+      evident that he was working for the Empire, under the orders of personages
+      whose names he mentioned with a sort of familiarity. Each of his letters
+      gave information as to the progress of the cause, to which an early
+      denouement was foreshadowed; and usually concluded by pointing out the
+      line of action that Pierre should pursue at Plassans. Felicite could now
+      comprehend certain words and acts of her husband, whose significance had
+      previously escaped her; Pierre was obeying his son, and blindly following
+      his recommendations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the old woman had finished reading, she was convinced. Eugene&rsquo;s
+      entire thoughts were clearly revealed to her. He reckoned upon making his
+      political fortune in the squabble, and repaying his parents the debt he
+      owed them for his education, by throwing them a scrap of the prey as soon
+      as the quarry was secured. However small the assistance his father might
+      render to him and to the cause, it would not be difficult to get him
+      appointed receiver of taxes. Nothing would be refused to one who like
+      Eugene had steeped his hands in the most secret machinations. His letters
+      were simply a kind attention on his part, a device to prevent the Rougons
+      from committing any act of imprudence, for which Felicite felt deeply
+      grateful. She read certain passages of the letters twice over, notably
+      those in which Eugene spoke, in vague terms, of &ldquo;a final catastrophe.&rdquo;
+       This catastrophe, the nature or bearings of which she could not well
+      conceive became a sort of end of the world for her. God would range the
+      chosen ones on His right hand and the damned on His left, and she placed
+      herself among the former.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she succeeded in replacing the key in her husband&rsquo;s waistcoat pocket
+      on the following night, she made up her mind to employ the same expedient
+      for reading every fresh letter that arrived. She resolved, likewise, to
+      profess complete ignorance. This plan was an excellent one. Henceforward,
+      she gave her husband the more assistance as she appeared to render it
+      unconsciously. When Pierre thought he was working alone it was she who
+      brought the conversation round to the desired topic, recruiting partisans
+      for the decisive moment. She felt hurt at Eugene&rsquo;s distrust of her. She
+      wanted to be able to say to him, after the triumph: &ldquo;I knew all, and so
+      far from spoiling anything, I have secured the victory.&rdquo; Never did an
+      accomplice make less noise or work harder. The marquis, whom she had taken
+      into her confidence, was astounded at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fate of her dear Aristide, however, continued to make her uneasy. Now
+      that she shared the faith of her eldest son, the rabid articles of the
+      &ldquo;Independant&rdquo; alarmed her all the more. She longed to convert the
+      unfortunate republican to Napoleonist ideas; but she did not know how to
+      accomplish this in a discreet manner. She recalled the emphasis with which
+      Eugene had told them to be on their guard against Aristide. At last she
+      submitted the matter to Monsieur de Carnavant, who was entirely of the
+      same opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Little one,&rdquo; he said to her, &ldquo;in politics one must know how to look after
+      one&rsquo;s self. If you were to convert your son, and the &lsquo;Independant&rsquo; were to
+      start writing in defence of Bonapartism, it would deal the party a rude
+      blow. The &lsquo;Independant&rsquo; has already been condemned, its title alone
+      suffices to enrage the middle classes of Plassans. Let dear Aristide
+      flounder about; this only moulds young people. He does not appear to me to
+      be cut out for carrying on the role of a martyr for any length of time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, in her eagerness to point out the right way to her family, now
+      that she believed herself in possession of the truth, Felicite even sought
+      to convert her son Pascal. The doctor, with the egotism of a scientist
+      immersed in his researches, gave little heed to politics. Empires might
+      fall while he was making an experiment, yet he would not have deigned to
+      turn his head. He at last yielded, however, to certain importunities of
+      his mother, who accused him more than ever of living like an unsociable
+      churl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you were to go into society,&rdquo; she said to him, &ldquo;you would get some
+      well-to-do patients. Come, at least, and spend some evenings in our
+      drawing-room. You will make the acquaintance of Messieurs Roudier,
+      Granoux, and Sicardot, all gentlemen in good circumstances, who will pay
+      you four or five francs a visit. The poor people will never enrich you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea of succeeding in life, of seeing all her family attain to
+      fortune, had become a form of monomania with Felicite. Pascal, in order to
+      be agreeable to her, came and spent a few evenings in the yellow
+      drawing-room. He was much less bored there than he had apprehended. At
+      first he was rather stupefied at the degree of imbecility to which sane
+      men can sink. The old oil and almond dealers, the marquis and the
+      commander even, appeared to him so many curious animals, which he had not
+      hitherto had an opportunity of studying. He looked with a naturalist&rsquo;s
+      interest at their grimacing faces, in which he discerned traces of their
+      occupations and appetites; he listened also to their inane chatter, just
+      as he might have tried to catch the meaning of a cat&rsquo;s mew or a dog&rsquo;s
+      bark. At this period he was occupied with comparative natural history,
+      applying to the human race the observations which he had made upon animals
+      with regard to the working of heredity. While he was in the yellow
+      drawing-room, therefore, he amused himself with the belief that he had
+      fallen in with a menagerie. He established comparisons between the
+      grotesque creatures he found there and certain animals of his
+      acquaintance. The marquis, with his leanness and small crafty-looking
+      head, reminded him exactly of a long green grasshopper. Vuillet impressed
+      him as a pale, slimy toad. He was more considerate for Roudier, a fat
+      sheep, and for the commander, an old toothless mastiff. But the prodigious
+      Granoux was a perpetual cause of astonishment to him. He spent a whole
+      evening measuring this imbecile&rsquo;s facial angle. When he heard him mutter
+      indistinct imprecations against those blood-suckers the Republicans, he
+      always expected to hear him moan like a calf; and he could never see him
+      rise from his chair without imagining that he was about to leave the room
+      on all fours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Talk to them,&rdquo; his mother used to say in an undertone; &ldquo;try and make a
+      practice out of these gentlemen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not a veterinary surgeon,&rdquo; he at last replied, exasperated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening Felicite took him into a corner and tired to catechise him.
+      She was glad to see him come to her house rather assiduously. She thought
+      him reconciled to Society, not suspecting for a moment the singular
+      amusement that he derived from ridiculing these rich people. She cherished
+      the secret project of making him the fashionable doctor of Plassans. It
+      would be sufficient if men like Granoux and Roudier consented to give him
+      a start. She wished, above all, to impart to him the political views of
+      the family, considering that a doctor had everything to gain by
+      constituting himself a warm partisan of the regime which was to succeed
+      the Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear boy,&rdquo; she said to him, &ldquo;as you have now become reasonable, you
+      must give some thought to the future. You are accused of being a
+      Republican, because you are foolish enough to attend all the beggars of
+      the town without making any charge. Be frank, what are your real
+      opinions?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pascal looked at his mother with naïve astonishment, then with a smile
+      replied: &ldquo;My real opinions? I don&rsquo;t quite know&mdash;I am accused of being
+      a Republican, did you say? Very well! I don&rsquo;t feel at all offended. I am
+      undoubtedly a Republican, if you understand by that word a man who wishes
+      the welfare of everybody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will never attain to any position,&rdquo; Felicite quickly interrupted.
+      &ldquo;You will be crushed. Look at your brothers, they are trying to make their
+      way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pascal then comprehended that he was not called upon to defend his
+      philosophic egotism. His mother simply accused him of not speculating on
+      the political situation. He began to laugh somewhat sadly, and then turned
+      the conversation into another channel. Felicite could never induce him to
+      consider the chances of the various parties, nor to enlist in that one of
+      them which seemed likely to carry the day. However, he still occasionally
+      came to spend an evening in the yellow drawing-room. Granoux interested
+      him like an antediluvian animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, events were moving. The year 1851 was a year of anxiety
+      and apprehension for the politicians of Plassans, and the cause which the
+      Rougons served derived advantage from this circumstance. The most
+      contradictory news arrived from Paris; sometimes the Republicans were in
+      the ascendant, sometimes the Conservative party was crushing the Republic.
+      The echoes of the squabbles which were rending the Legislative Assembly
+      reached the depths of the provinces, now in an exaggerated, now in an
+      attenuated form, varying so greatly as to obscure the vision of the most
+      clear-sighted. The only general feeling was that a denouement was
+      approaching. The prevailing ignorance as to the nature of this denouement
+      kept timid middle class people in a terrible state of anxiety. Everybody
+      wished to see the end. They were sick of uncertainty, and would have flung
+      themselves into the arms of the Grand Turk, if he would have deigned to
+      save France from anarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The marquis&rsquo;s smile became more acute. Of an evening, in the yellow
+      drawing-room, when Granoux&rsquo;s growl was rendered indistinct by fright, he
+      would draw near to Felicite and whisper in her ear: &ldquo;Come, little one, the
+      fruit is ripe&mdash;but you must make yourself useful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite, who continued to read Eugene&rsquo;s letters, and knew that a decisive
+      crisis might any day occur, had already often felt the necessity of making
+      herself useful, and reflected as to the manner in which the Rougons should
+      employ themselves. At last she consulted the marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It all depends upon circumstances,&rdquo; the little old man replied. &ldquo;If the
+      department remains quiet, if no insurrection occurs to terrify Plassans,
+      it will be difficult for you to make yourselves conspicuous and render any
+      services to the new government. I advise you, in that case, to remain at
+      home, and peacefully await the bounties of your son Eugene. But if the
+      people rise, and our brave bourgeois think themselves in danger, there
+      will be a fine part to play. Your husband is somewhat heavy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Felicite, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll undertake to make him supple. Do you think the
+      department will revolt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To my mind it&rsquo;s a certainty. Plassans, perhaps, will not make a stir; the
+      reaction has secured too firm a hold here for that. But the neighbouring
+      towns, especially the small ones and the villages, have long been worked
+      by certain secret societies, and belong to the advanced Republican party.
+      If a Coup d&rsquo;Etat should burst forth, the tocsin will be heard throughout
+      the entire country, from the forests of the Seille to the plateau of
+      Sainte-Roure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite reflected. &ldquo;You think, then,&rdquo; she resumed, &ldquo;that an insurrection
+      is necessary to ensure our fortune!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s my opinion,&rdquo; replied Monsieur de Carnavant. And he added, with a
+      slightly ironical smile: &ldquo;A new dynasty is never founded excepting upon an
+      affray. Blood is good manure. It will be a fine thing for the Rougons to
+      date from a massacre, like certain illustrious families.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words, accompanied by a sneer, sent a cold chill through Felicite&rsquo;s
+      bones. But she was a strong-minded woman, and the sight of Monsieur
+      Peirotte&rsquo;s beautiful curtains, which she religiously viewed every morning,
+      sustained her courage. Whenever she felt herself giving way, she planted
+      herself at the window and contemplated the tax-receiver&rsquo;s house. For her
+      it was the Tuileries. She had determined upon the most extreme measures in
+      order to secure an entree into the new town, that promised land, on the
+      threshold of which she had stood with burning longing for so many years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation which she had held with the marquis had at last clearly
+      revealed the situation to her. A few days afterwards, she succeeded in
+      reading one of Eugene&rsquo;s letters, in which he, who was working for the Coup
+      d&rsquo;Etat, seemed also to rely upon an insurrection as the means of endowing
+      his father with some importance. Eugene knew his department well. All his
+      suggestions had been framed with the object of placing as much influence
+      as possible in the hands of the yellow drawing-room reactionaries, so that
+      the Rougons might be able to hold the town at the critical moment. In
+      accordance with his desires, the yellow drawing-room was master of
+      Plassans in November, 1851. Roudier represented the rich citizens there,
+      and his attitude would certainly decide that of the entire new town.
+      Granoux was still more valuable; he had the Municipal Council behind him:
+      he was its most powerful member, a fact which will give some idea of its
+      other members. Finally, through Commander Sicardot, whom the marquis had
+      succeeded in getting appointed as chief of the National Guard, the yellow
+      drawing-room had the armed forces at their disposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Rougons, those poor disreputable devils, had thus succeeded in
+      rallying round themselves the instruments of their own fortune. Everyone,
+      from cowardice or stupidity, would have to obey them and work in the dark
+      for their aggrandisement. They simply had to fear those other influences
+      which might be working with the same object as themselves, and might
+      partially rob them of the merit of victory. That was their great fear, for
+      they wanted to reserve to themselves the role of deliverers. They knew
+      beforehand that they would be aided rather than hindered by the clergy and
+      the nobility. But if the sub-prefect, the mayor, and the other
+      functionaries were to take a step in advance and at once stifle the
+      insurrection they would find themselves thrown into the shade, and even
+      arrested in their exploits; they would have neither time nor means to make
+      themselves useful. What they longed for was complete abstention, general
+      panic among the functionaries. If only all regular administration should
+      disappear, and they could dispose of the destinies of Plassans for a
+      single day, their fortune would be firmly established.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Happily for them, there was not a man in the government service whose
+      convictions were so firm or whose circumstances were so needy as to make
+      him disposed to risk the game. The sub-prefect was a man of liberal spirit
+      whom the executive had forgetfully left at Plassans, owing, no doubt, to
+      the good repute of the town. Of timid character and incapable of exceeding
+      his authority, he would no doubt be greatly embarrassed in the presence of
+      an insurrection. The Rougons, who knew that he was in favour of the
+      democratic cause, and who consequently never dreaded his zeal, were simply
+      curious to know what attitude he would assume. As for the municipality,
+      this did not cause them much apprehension. The mayor, Monsieur Garconnet,
+      was a Legitimist whose nomination had been procured by the influence of
+      the Saint-Marc quarter in 1849. He detested the Republicans and treated
+      them with undisguised disdain; but he was too closely united by bonds of
+      friendship with certain members of the church to lend any active hand in a
+      Bonapartist Coup d&rsquo;Etat. The other functionaries were in exactly the same
+      position. The justices of the peace, the post-master, the tax-collector,
+      as well as Monsieur Peirotte, the chief receiver of taxes, were all
+      indebted for their posts to the Clerical reaction, and could not accept
+      the Empire with any great enthusiasm. The Rougons, though they did not
+      quite see how they might get rid of these people and clear the way for
+      themselves, nevertheless indulged in sanguine hopes on finding there was
+      little likelihood of anybody disputing their role as deliverers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The denouement was drawing near. In the last few days of November, as the
+      rumour of a Coup d&rsquo;Etat was circulating, the prince-president was accused
+      of seeking the position of emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh! we&rsquo;ll call him whatever he likes,&rdquo; Granoux exclaimed, &ldquo;provided he
+      has those Republican rascals shot!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This exclamation from Granoux, who was believed to be asleep, caused great
+      commotion. The marquis pretended not to have heard it; but all the
+      bourgeois nodded approval. Roudier, who, being rich, did not fear to
+      applaud the sentiment aloud, went so far as to declare, while glancing
+      askance at Monsieur de Carnavant, that the position was no longer tenable,
+      and that France must be chastised as soon as possible, never mind by what
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The marquis still maintained a silence which was interpreted as
+      acquiescence. And thereupon the Conservative clan, abandoning the cause of
+      Legitimacy, ventured to offer up prayers in favour of the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friends,&rdquo; said Commander Sicardot, rising from his seat, &ldquo;only a
+      Napoleon can now protect threatened life and property. Have no fear, I&rsquo;ve
+      taken the necessary precautions to preserve order at Plassans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact the commander, in concert with Rougon, had concealed,
+      in a kind of cart-house near the ramparts, both a supply of cartridges and
+      a considerable number of muskets; he had also taken steps to secure the
+      co-operation of the National Guard, on which he believed he could rely.
+      His words produced a very favourable impression. On separating for the
+      evening, the peaceful citizens of the yellow drawing-room spoke of
+      massacring the &ldquo;Reds&rdquo; if they should dare to stir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On December 1, Pierre Rougon received a letter from Eugene which he went
+      to read in his bedroom, in accordance with his prudent habit. Felicite
+      observed, however, that he was very agitated when he came out again. She
+      fluttered round the secretaire all day. When night came, she could
+      restrain her impatience no longer. Her husband had scarcely fallen asleep,
+      when she quietly got up, took the key of the secretaire from the waistcoat
+      pocket, and gained possession of the letter with as little noise as
+      possible. Eugene, in ten lines, warned his father that the crisis was at
+      hand, and advised him to acquaint his mother with the situation of
+      affairs. The hour for informing her had arrived; he might stand in need of
+      her advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite awaited, on the morrow, a disclosure which did not come. She did
+      not dare to confess her curiosity; but continued to feign ignorance,
+      though enraged at the foolish distrust of her husband, who, doubtless,
+      considered her a gossip, and weak like other women. Pierre, with that
+      marital pride which inspires a man with the belief in his own superiority
+      at home, had ended by attributing all their past ill-luck to his wife.
+      From the time that he fancied he had been conducting matters alone
+      everything seemed to him to have gone as he desired. He had decided,
+      therefore, to dispense altogether with his consort&rsquo;s counsels, and to
+      confide nothing to her, in spite of his son&rsquo;s recommendations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite was piqued to such a degree that she would have upset the whole
+      affair had she not desired the triumph as ardently as Pierre. So she
+      continued to work energetically for victory, while endeavouring to take
+      her revenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! if he could only have some great fright,&rdquo; thought she; &ldquo;if he would
+      only commit some act of imprudence! Then I should see him come to me and
+      humbly ask for advice; it would be my turn to lay down the law.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt somewhat uneasy at the imperious attitude Pierre would certainly
+      assume if he were to triumph without her aid. On marrying this peasant&rsquo;s
+      son, in preference to some notary&rsquo;s clerk, she had intended to make use of
+      him as a strongly made puppet, whose strings she would pull in her own
+      way; and now, at the decisive moment, the puppet, in his blind stupidity,
+      wanted to work alone! All the cunning, all the feverish activity within
+      the old woman protested against this. She knew Pierre was quite capable of
+      some brutal resolve such as that which he had taken when he compelled his
+      mother to sign the receipt for fifty thousand francs; the tool was indeed
+      a useful and unscrupulous one; but she felt the necessity for guiding it,
+      especially under present circumstances, when considerable suppleness was
+      requisite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The official news of the Coup d&rsquo;Etat did not reach Plassans until the
+      afternoon of December 3&mdash;a Thursday. Already, at seven o&rsquo;clock in the
+      evening, there was a full meeting in the yellow drawing-room. Although the
+      crisis had been eagerly desired, vague uneasiness appeared on the faces of
+      the majority. They discussed events amid endless chatter. Pierre, who like
+      the others was slightly pale, thought it right, as an extreme measure of
+      prudence, to excuse Prince Louis&rsquo;s decisive act to the Legitimists and
+      Orleanists who were present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is talk of an appeal to the people,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the nation will then
+      be free to choose whatever government it likes. The president is a man to
+      retire before our legitimate masters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The marquis, who had retained his aristocratic coolness, was the only one
+      who greeted these words with a smile. The others, in the enthusiasm of the
+      moment, concerned themselves very little about what might follow. All
+      their opinions foundered. Roudier, forgetting the esteem which as a former
+      shopkeeper he had entertained for the Orleanists, stopped Pierre rather
+      abruptly. And everybody exclaimed: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t argue the matter. Let us think
+      of preserving order.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These good people were terribly afraid of the Republicans. There had,
+      however been very little commotion in the town on the announcement of the
+      events in Paris. People had collected in front of the notices posted on
+      the door of the Sub-Prefecture; it was also rumoured that a few hundred
+      workmen had left their work and were endeavouring to organise resistance.
+      That was all. No serious disturbance seemed likely to occur. The course
+      which the neighbouring towns and rural districts might take seemed more
+      likely to occasion anxiety; however, it was not yet known how they had
+      received the news of the Coup d&rsquo;Etat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Granoux arrived at about nine o&rsquo;clock, quite out of breath. He had just
+      left a sitting of the Municipal Council which had been hastily summoned
+      together. Choking with emotion, he announced that the mayor, Monsieur
+      Garconnet, had declared, while making due reserves, that he was determined
+      to preserve order by the most stringent measures. However, the
+      intelligence which caused the noisiest chattering in the yellow
+      drawing-room was that of the resignation of the sub-prefect. This
+      functionary had absolutely refused to communicate the despatches of the
+      Minister of the Interior to the inhabitants of Plassans; he had just left
+      the town, so Granoux asserted, and it was thanks to the mayor that the
+      messages had been posted. This was perhaps the only sub-prefect in France
+      who ever had the courage of his democratic opinions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although Monsieur Garconnet&rsquo;s firm demeanour caused the Rougons some
+      secret anxiety, they rubbed their hands at the flight of the sub-prefect,
+      which left the post vacant for them. It was decided on this memorable
+      evening that the yellow drawing-room party should accept the Coup d&rsquo;Etat
+      and openly declare that it was in favour of accomplished facts. Vuillet
+      was commissioned to write an article to that effect, and publish it on the
+      morrow in the &ldquo;Gazette.&rdquo; Neither he nor the marquis raised any objection.
+      They had, no doubt, received instructions from the mysterious individuals
+      to whom they sometimes made pious allusions. The clergy and the nobility
+      were already resigned to the course of lending a strong hand to the
+      victors, in order to crush their common enemy, the Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the yellow drawing-room was deliberating on the evening in question,
+      Aristide was perspiring with anxiety. Never had gambler, staking his last
+      louis on a card, felt such anguish. During the day the resignation of his
+      chief, the sub-prefect, had given him much matter for reflection. He had
+      heard him repeat several times that the Coup d&rsquo;Etat must prove a failure.
+      This functionary, endowed with a limited amount of honesty, believed in
+      the final triumph of the democracy, though he had not the courage to work
+      for that triumph by offering resistance. Aristide was in the habit of
+      listening at the doors of the Sub-Prefecture, in order to get precise
+      information, for he felt that he was groping in the dark, and clung to the
+      intelligence which he gleaned from the officials. The sub-prefect&rsquo;s
+      opinion struck him forcibly; but he remained perplexed. He thought to
+      himself: &ldquo;Why does the fellow go away if he is so certain that the
+      prince-president will meet with a check?&rdquo; However, as he was compelled to
+      espouse one side or the other, he resolved to continue his opposition. He
+      wrote a very hostile article on the Coup d&rsquo;Etat, and took it to the
+      &ldquo;Independant&rdquo; the same evening for the following morning&rsquo;s issue. He had
+      corrected the proofs of this article, and was returning home somewhat
+      calmed, when, as he passed along the Rue de la Banne, he instinctively
+      raised his head and glanced at the Rougons&rsquo; windows. Their windows were
+      brightly lighted up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can they be plotting up there?&rdquo; the journalist asked himself, with
+      anxious curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fierce desire to know the opinion of the yellow drawing-room with regard
+      to recent events then assailed him. He credited this group of
+      reactionaries with little intelligence; but his doubts recurred, he was in
+      that frame of mind when one might seek advice from a child. He could not
+      think of entering his father&rsquo;s home at that moment, after the campaign he
+      had waged against Granoux and the others. Nevertheless, he went upstairs,
+      reflecting what a singular figure he would cut if he were surprised on the
+      way by anyone. On reaching the Rougons&rsquo; door, he could only catch a
+      confused echo of voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a child I am,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;fear makes me stupid.&rdquo; And he was going to
+      descend again, when he heard the approach of his mother, who was about to
+      show somebody out. He had barely time to hide in a dark corner formed by a
+      little staircase leading to the garrets of the house. The Rougons&rsquo; door
+      opened, and the marquis appeared, followed by Felicite. Monsieur de
+      Carnavant usually left before the gentlemen of the new town did, in order
+      no doubt to avoid having to shake hands with them in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh! little one,&rdquo; he said on the landing, in a low voice, &ldquo;these men are
+      greater cowards than I should have thought. With such men France will
+      always be at the mercy of whoever dares to lay his hands upon her!&rdquo; And he
+      added, with some bitterness, as though speaking to himself: &ldquo;The monarchy
+      is decidedly becoming too honest for modern times. Its day is over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eugene announced the crisis to his father,&rdquo; replied Felicite. &ldquo;Prince
+      Louis&rsquo;s triumph seems to him certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you can proceed without fear,&rdquo; the marquis replied, as he descended
+      the first steps. &ldquo;In two or three days the country will be well bound and
+      gagged. Good-bye till to-morrow, little one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite closed the door again. Aristide had received quite a shock in his
+      dark corner. However, without waiting for the marquis to reach the street,
+      he bounded down the staircase, four steps at a time, rushed outside like a
+      madman, and turned his steps towards the printing-office of the
+      &ldquo;Independant.&rdquo; A flood of thoughts surged through his mind. He was
+      enraged, and accused his family of having duped him. What! Eugene kept his
+      parents informed of the situation, and yet his mother had never given him
+      any of his eldest brother&rsquo;s letters to read, in order that he might follow
+      the advice given therein! And it was only now he learnt by chance that his
+      eldest brother regarded the success of the Coup d&rsquo;Etat as certain! This
+      circumstance, moreover, confirmed certain presentiments which that idiot
+      of a sub-prefect had prevented him from obeying. He was especially
+      exasperated against his father, whom he had thought stupid enough to be a
+      Legitimist, but who revealed himself as a Bonapartist at the right moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a lot of folly they have allowed me to perpetrate,&rdquo; he muttered as
+      he ran along. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a fine fellow now. Ah! what a lesson! Granoux is more
+      capable than I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He entered the office of the &ldquo;Independant&rdquo; like a hurricane, and asked for
+      his article in a choking voice. The article had already been imposed. He
+      had the forme unlocked and would not rest until he had himself destroyed
+      the setting, mixing the type in a furious manner, like a set of dominoes.
+      The bookseller who managed the paper looked at him in amazement. He was,
+      in reality, rather glad of the incident, as the article had seemed to him
+      somewhat dangerous. But he was absolutely obliged to have some copy, if
+      the &ldquo;Independant&rdquo; was to appear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to give me something else?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; replied Aristide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down at the table and began a warm panegyric on the Coup d&rsquo;Etat. At
+      the very first line, he swore that Prince Louis had just saved the
+      Republic; but he had hardly written a page before he stopped and seemed at
+      a loss how to continue. A troubled look came over his pole-cat face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go home,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;I will send you this immediately. Your
+      paper can appear a little later, if necessary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked slowly on his way home, lost in meditation. He was again giving
+      way to indecision. Why should he veer round so quickly? Eugene was an
+      intelligent fellow, but his mother had perhaps exaggerated the
+      significance of some sentence in his letter. In any case, it would be
+      better to wait and hold his tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later Angele called at the bookseller&rsquo;s, feigning deep emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband has just severely injured himself,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He jammed his
+      four fingers in a door as he was coming in. In spite of his sufferings, he
+      has dictated this little note, which he begs you to publish to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the following day the &ldquo;Independant,&rdquo; made up almost entirely of
+      miscellaneous items of news, appeared with these few lines at the head of
+      the first column:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A deplorable accident which has occurred to our eminent contributor
+      Monsieur Aristide Rougon will deprive us of his articles for some time. He
+      will suffer at having to remain silent in the present grave circumstances.
+      None of our readers will doubt, however, the good wishes which he offers
+      up with patriotic feelings for the welfare of France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This burlesque note had been maturely studied. The last sentence might be
+      interpreted in favour of all parties. By this expedient, Aristide devised
+      a glorious return for himself on the morrow of battle, in the shape of a
+      laudatory article on the victors. On the following day he showed himself
+      to the whole town, with his arm in a sling. His mother, frightened by the
+      notice in the paper, hastily called upon him, but he refused to show her
+      his hand, and spoke with a bitterness which enlightened the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t be anything,&rdquo; she said in a reassuring and somewhat sarcastic
+      tone, as she was leaving. &ldquo;You only want a little rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was no doubt owing to this pretended accident, and the sub-prefect&rsquo;s
+      departure, that the &ldquo;Independant&rdquo; was not interfered with, like most of
+      the democratic papers of the departments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The 4th day of the month proved comparatively quiet at Plassans. In the
+      evening there was a public demonstration which the mere appearance of the
+      gendarmes sufficed to disperse. A band of working-men came to request
+      Monsieur Garconnet to communicate the despatches he had received from
+      Paris, which the latter haughtily refused to do; as it retired the band
+      shouted: &ldquo;Long live the Republic! Long live the Constitution!&rdquo; After this,
+      order was restored. The yellow drawing-room, after commenting at some
+      length on this innocent parade, concluded that affairs were going on
+      excellently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The 5th and 6th were, however, more disquieting. Intelligence was received
+      of successive risings in small neighbouring towns; the whole southern part
+      of the department had taken up arms; La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx
+      had been the first to rise, drawing after them the villages of Chavanos,
+      Nazeres, Poujols, Valqueyras and Vernoux. The yellow drawing-room party
+      was now becoming seriously alarmed. It felt particularly uneasy at seeing
+      Plassans isolated in the very midst of the revolt. Bands of insurgents
+      would certainly scour the country and cut off all communications. Granoux
+      announced, with a terrified look, that the mayor was without any news.
+      Some people even asserted that blood had been shed at Marseilles, and that
+      a formidable revolution had broken out in Paris. Commander Sicardot,
+      enraged at the cowardice of the bourgeois, vowed he would die at the head
+      of his men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Sunday the 7th the terror reached a climax. Already at six o&rsquo;clock the
+      yellow drawing-room, where a sort of reactionary committee sat <i>en
+      permanence</i>, was crowded with pale, trembling men, who conversed in
+      undertones, as though they were in a chamber of death. It had been
+      ascertained during the day that a column of insurgents, about three
+      thousand strong, had assembled at Alboise, a big village not more than
+      three leagues away. It was true that this column had been ordered to make
+      for the chief town of the department, leaving Plassans on its left; but
+      the plan of campaign might at any time be altered; moreover, it sufficed
+      for these cowardly cits to know that there were insurgents a few miles
+      off, to make them feel the horny hands of the toilers already tightened
+      round their throats. They had had a foretaste of the revolt in the
+      morning; the few Republicans at Plassans, seeing that they would be unable
+      to make any determined move in the town, had resolved to join their
+      brethren of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx; the first group had left
+      at about eleven o&rsquo;clock, by the Porte de Rome, shouting the &ldquo;Marseillaise&rdquo;
+       and smashing a few windows. Granoux had had one broken. He mentioned the
+      circumstance with stammerings of terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime, the most acute anxiety agitated the yellow drawing-room. The
+      commander had sent his servant to obtain some information as to the exact
+      movements of the insurgents, and the others awaited this man&rsquo;s return,
+      making the most astonishing surmises. They had a full meeting. Roudier and
+      Granoux, sinking back in their arm-chairs, exchanged the most pitiable
+      glances, whilst behind them moaned a terror-stricken group of retired
+      tradesmen. Vuillet, without appearing over scared, reflected upon what
+      precautions he should take to protect his shop and person; he was in doubt
+      whether he should hide himself in his garret or cellar, and inclined
+      towards the latter. For their part Pierre and the commander walked up and
+      down, exchanging a word ever and anon. The old oil-dealer clung to this
+      friend Sicardot as if to borrow a little courage from him. He, who had
+      been awaiting the crisis for such a long time, now endeavoured to keep his
+      countenance, in spite of the emotion which was stifling him. As for the
+      marquis, more spruce and smiling than usual, he conversed in a corner with
+      Felicite, who seemed very gay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last a ring came. The gentlemen started as if they had heard a
+      gun-shot. Dead silence reigned in the drawing-room when Felicite went to
+      open the door, towards which their pale, anxious faces were turned. Then
+      the commander&rsquo;s servant appeared on the threshold, quite out of breath,
+      and said abruptly to his master: &ldquo;Sir, the insurgents will be here in an
+      hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a thunderbolt. They all started up, vociferating, and raising
+      their arms towards the ceiling. For several minutes it was impossible to
+      hear one&rsquo;s self speak. The company surrounded the messenger, overwhelming
+      him with questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damnation!&rdquo; the commander at length shouted, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t make such a row. Be
+      calm, or I won&rsquo;t answer for anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone sank back in his chair again, heaving long-drawn sighs. They then
+      obtained a few particulars. The messenger had met the column at Les
+      Tulettes, and had hastened to return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are at least three thousand of them,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;They are marching
+      in battalions, like soldiers. I thought I caught sight of some prisoners
+      in their midst.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prisoners!&rdquo; cried the terrified bourgeois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; the marquis interrupted in his shrill voice. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard that
+      the insurgents arrest all persons who are known to have conservative
+      leanings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This information gave a finishing touch to the consternation of the yellow
+      drawing-room. A few bourgeois got up and stealthily made for the door,
+      reflecting that they had not too much time before them to gain a place of
+      safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The announcement of the arrests made by the Republicans appeared to strike
+      Felicite. She took the marquis aside and asked him: &ldquo;What do these men do
+      with the people they arrest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, they carry them off in their train,&rdquo; Monsieur de Carnavant replied.
+      &ldquo;They no doubt consider them excellent hostages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; the old woman rejoined, in a strange tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she again thoughtfully watched the curious scene of panic around her.
+      The bourgeois gradually disappeared; soon there only remained Vuillet and
+      Roudier, whom the approaching danger inspired with some courage. As for
+      Granoux, he likewise remained in his corner, his legs refusing to perform
+      their office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I like this better,&rdquo; Sicardot remarked, as he observed the flight
+      of the other adherents. &ldquo;Those cowards were exasperating me at last. For
+      more than two years they&rsquo;ve been speaking of shooting all the Republicans
+      in the province, and to-day they wouldn&rsquo;t even fire a halfpenny cracker
+      under their noses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he took up his hat and turned towards the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s see,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;time presses. Come, Rougon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite, it seemed, had been waiting for this moment. She placed herself
+      between the door and her husband, who, for that matter, was not
+      particularly eager to follow the formidable Sicardot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t have you go out,&rdquo; she cried, feigning sudden despair. &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t
+      let you leave my side. Those scoundrels will kill you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The commander stopped in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang it all!&rdquo; he growled, &ldquo;if the women are going to whine now&mdash;Come
+      along, Rougon!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; continued the old woman, affecting increase of terror, &ldquo;he
+      sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t follow you. I will hang on to his clothes and prevent him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The marquis, very much surprised at the scene, looked inquiringly at
+      Felicite. Was this really the woman who had just now been conversing so
+      merrily? What comedy was she playing? Pierre, meantime, seeing that his
+      wife wanted to detain him, deigned a determination to force his way out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you you shall not go,&rdquo; the old woman reiterated, as she clung to
+      one of his arms. And turning towards the commander, she said to him: &ldquo;How
+      can you think of offering any resistance? They are three thousand strong,
+      and you won&rsquo;t be able to collect a hundred men of any spirit. You are
+      rushing into the cannon&rsquo;s mouth to no purpose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh! that is our duty,&rdquo; said Sicardot, impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite burst into sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they don&rsquo;t kill him, they&rsquo;ll make him a prisoner,&rdquo; she continued,
+      looked fixedly at her husband. &ldquo;Good heavens! What will become of me, left
+      alone in an abandoned town?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; exclaimed the commander, &ldquo;we shall be arrested just the same if we
+      allow the insurgents to enter the town unmolested. I believe that before
+      an hour has elapsed the mayor and all the functionaries will be prisoners,
+      to say nothing of your husband and the frequenters of this drawing-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The marquis thought he saw a vague smile play about Felicite&rsquo;s lips as she
+      answered, with a look of dismay: &ldquo;Do you really think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course!&rdquo; replied Sicardot; &ldquo;the Republicans are not so stupid as to
+      leave enemies behind them. To-morrow Plassans will be emptied of its
+      functionaries and good citizens.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words, which she had so cleverly provoked, Felicite released her
+      husband&rsquo;s arms. Pierre no longer looked as if he wanted to go out. Thanks
+      to his wife, whose skilful tactics escaped him, however, and whose secret
+      complicity he never for a moment suspected, he had just lighted on a whole
+      plan of campaign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must deliberate before taking any decision,&rdquo; he said to the commander.
+      &ldquo;My wife is perhaps not wrong in accusing us of forgetting the true
+      interests of our families.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed, madame is not wrong,&rdquo; cried Granoux, who had been listening
+      to Felicite&rsquo;s terrified cries with the rapture of a coward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon the commander energetically clapped his hat on his head, and
+      said in a clear voice: &ldquo;Right or wrong, it matters little to me. I am
+      commander of the National Guard. I ought to have been at the mayor&rsquo;s
+      before now. Confess that you are afraid, that you leaven me to act alone.
+      . . . Well, good-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was just turning the handle of the door, when Rougon forcibly detained
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, Sicardot,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew him into a corner, on seeing Vuillet prick up his big ears. And
+      there he explained to him, in an undertone, that it would be a good plan
+      to leave a few energetic men behind the insurgents, so as to restore order
+      in the town. And as the fierce commander obstinately refused to desert his
+      post, Pierre offered to place himself at the head of such a reserve corps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me the key of the cart-shed in which the arms and ammunition are
+      kept,&rdquo; he said to him, &ldquo;and order some fifty of our men not to stir until
+      I call for them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sicardot ended by consenting to these prudent measures. He entrusted
+      Pierre with the key of the cart-shed, convinced as he was of the
+      inexpediency of present resistance, but still desirous of sacrificing
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this conversation, the marquis had whispered a few words in
+      Felicite&rsquo;s ear with a knowing look. He complimented her, no doubt, on her
+      theatrical display. The old woman could not repress a faint smile. But, as
+      Sicardot shook hands with Rougon and prepared to go, she again asked him
+      with an air of fright: &ldquo;Are you really determined to leave us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not for one of Napoleon&rsquo;s old soldiers to let himself be
+      intimidated by the mob,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was already on the landing, when Granoux hurried after him, crying: &ldquo;If
+      you go to the mayor&rsquo;s tell him what&rsquo;s going on. I&rsquo;ll just run home to my
+      wife to reassure her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Felicite bent towards the marquis&rsquo;s ear, and whispered with discreet
+      gaiety: &ldquo;Upon my word, it is best that devil of a commander should go and
+      get himself arrested. He&rsquo;s far too zealous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, Rougon brought Granoux back to the drawing-room. Roudier, who had
+      quietly followed the scene from his corner, making signs in support of the
+      proposed measures of prudence, got up and joined them. When the marquis
+      and Vuillet had likewise risen, Pierre began:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now that we are alone, among peaceable men, I propose that we should
+      conceal ourselves so as to avoid certain arrest, and be at liberty as soon
+      as ours again becomes the stronger party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Granoux was ready to embrace him. Roudier and Vuillet breathed more
+      easily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall want you shortly, gentlemen,&rdquo; the oil-dealer continued, with an
+      important air. &ldquo;It is to us that the honour of restoring order in Plassans
+      is reserved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may rely upon us!&rdquo; cried Vuillet, with an enthusiasm which disturbed
+      Felicite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Time was pressing. These singular defenders of Plassans, who hid
+      themselves the better to protect the town, hastened away, to bury
+      themselves in some hole or other. Pierre, on being left alone with his
+      wife, advised her not to make the mistake of barricading herself indoors,
+      but to reply, if anybody came to question her, that he, Pierre, had simply
+      gone on a short journey. And as she acted the simpleton, feigning terror
+      and asking what all this was coming to, he replied abruptly: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nothing
+      to do with you. Let me manage our affairs alone. They&rsquo;ll get on all the
+      better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later he was rapidly threading his way along the Rue de la
+      Banne. On reaching the Cours Sauvaire, he saw a band of armed workmen
+      coming out of the old quarter and singing the &ldquo;Marseillaise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The devil!&rdquo; he thought. &ldquo;It was quite time, indeed; here&rsquo;s the town
+      itself in revolt now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He quickened his steps in the direction of the Porte de Rome. Cold
+      perspiration came over him while he waited there for the dilatory keeper
+      to open the gate. Almost as soon as he set foot on the high road, he
+      perceived in the moonlight at the other end of the Faubourg the column of
+      insurgents, whose gun barrels gleamed like white flames. So it was at a
+      run that he dived into the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and reached his mother&rsquo;s
+      house, which he had not visited for many a long year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Antoine Macquart had returned to Plassans after the fall of the first
+      Napoleon. He had had the incredible good fortune to escape all the final
+      murderous campaigns of the Empire. He had moved from barracks to barracks,
+      dragging on his brutifying military life. This mode of existence brought
+      his natural vices to full development. His idleness became deliberate; his
+      intemperance, which brought him countless punishments, became, to his
+      mind, a veritable religious duty. But that which above all made him the
+      worst of scapegraces was the supercilious disdain which he entertained for
+      the poor devils who had to earn their bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got money waiting for me at home,&rdquo; he often said to his comrades;
+      &ldquo;when I&rsquo;ve served my time, I shall be able to live like a gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This belief, together with his stupid ignorance, prevented him from rising
+      even to the grade of corporal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since his departure he had never spent a day&rsquo;s furlough at Plassans, his
+      brother having invented a thousand pretexts to keep him at a distance. He
+      was therefore completely ignorant of the adroit manner in which Pierre had
+      got possession of their mother&rsquo;s fortune. Adelaide, with her profound
+      indifference, did not even write to him three times to tell him how she
+      was going on. The silence which generally greeted his numerous requests
+      for money did not awaken the least suspicion in him; Pierre&rsquo;s stinginess
+      sufficed to explain the difficulty he experienced in securing from time to
+      time a paltry twenty-franc piece. This, however, only increased his
+      animosity towards his brother, who left him to languish in military
+      service in spite of his formal promise to purchase his discharge. He vowed
+      to himself that on his return home he would no longer submit like a child,
+      but would flatly demand his share of the fortune to enable him to live as
+      he pleased. In the diligence which conveyed him home he dreamed of a
+      delightful life of idleness. The shattering of his castles in the air was
+      terrible. When he reached the Faubourg, and could no longer even recognise
+      the Fouques&rsquo; plot of ground, he was stupefied. He was compelled to ask for
+      his mother&rsquo;s new address. There a terrible scene occurred. Adelaide calmly
+      informed him of the sale of the property. He flew into a rage, and even
+      raised his hand against her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor woman kept repeating: &ldquo;Your brother has taken everything; it is
+      understood that he will take care of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he left her and ran off to see Pierre, whom he had previously
+      informed of his return, and who was prepared to receive him in such a way
+      as to put an end to the matter at the first word of abuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; the oil-dealer said to him, affecting distant coldness; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t
+      rouse my anger, or I&rsquo;ll turn you out. As a matter of fact, I don&rsquo;t know
+      you. We don&rsquo;t bear the same name. It&rsquo;s quite misfortune enough for me that
+      my mother misconducted herself, without having her offspring coming here
+      and insulting me. I was well disposed towards you, but since you are
+      insolent I shall do nothing for you, absolutely nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoine was almost choking with rage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what about my money,&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;will you give it up, you thief, or
+      shall I have to drag you before the judges?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got no money of yours,&rdquo; he replied, more calmly than ever. &ldquo;My
+      mother disposed of her fortune as she thought proper. I am certainly not
+      going to poke my nose into her business. I willingly renounced all hope of
+      inheritance. I am quite safe from your foul accusations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as his brother, exasperated by this composure, and not knowing what to
+      think, muttered something, Pierre thrust Adelaide&rsquo;s receipt under his
+      nose. The reading of this scrap of paper completed Antoine&rsquo;s dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; he said, in a calmer voice, &ldquo;I know now what I have to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth was, however, he did not know what to do. His inability to hit
+      upon any immediate expedient for obtaining his share of the money and
+      satisfying his desire of revenge increased his fury. He went back to his
+      mother and subjected her to a disgraceful cross-examination. The wretched
+      woman could do nothing but again refer him to Pierre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think you are going to make me run to and fro like a shuttle?&rdquo; he
+      cried, insolently. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll soon find out which of you two has the hoard.
+      You&rsquo;ve already squandered it, perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And making an allusion to her former misconduct he asked her if there were
+      still not some low fellow to whom she gave her last sous? He did not even
+      spare his father, that drunkard Macquart, as he called him, who must have
+      lived on her till the day of his death, and who left his children in
+      poverty. The poor woman listened with a stupefied air; big tears rolled
+      down her cheeks. She defended herself with the terror of a child, replying
+      to her son&rsquo;s questions as though he were a judge; she swore that she was
+      living respectably, and reiterated with emphasis that she had never had a
+      sou of the money, that Pierre had taken everything. Antoine almost came to
+      believe it at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! the scoundrel!&rdquo; he muttered; &ldquo;that&rsquo;s why he wouldn&rsquo;t purchase my
+      discharge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had to sleep at his mother&rsquo;s house, on a straw mattress flung in a
+      corner. He had returned with his pockets perfectly empty, and was
+      exasperated at finding himself destitute of resources, abandoned like a
+      dog in the streets, without hearth or home, while his brother, as he
+      thought, was in a good way of business, and living on the fat of the land.
+      As he had no money to buy clothes with, he went out on the following day
+      in his regimental cap and trousers. He had the good fortune to find, at
+      the bottom of a cupboard, an old yellowish velveteen jacket, threadbare
+      and patched, which had belonged to Macquart. In this strange attire he
+      walked about the town, relating his story to everyone, and demanding
+      justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people whom he went to consult received him with a contempt which made
+      him shed tears of rage. Provincial folks are inexorable towards fallen
+      families. In the general opinion it was only natural that the
+      Rougon-Macquarts should seek to devour each other; the spectators, instead
+      of separating them, were more inclined to urge them on. Pierre, however,
+      was at that time already beginning to purify himself of his early stains.
+      People laughed at his roguery; some even went so far as to say that he had
+      done quite right, if he really had taken possession of the money, and that
+      it would be a good lesson to the dissolute folks of the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoine returned home discouraged. A lawyer had advised him, in a scornful
+      manner, to wash his dirty linen at home, though not until he had skilfully
+      ascertained whether Antoine possessed the requisite means to carry on a
+      lawsuit. According to this man, the case was very involved, the pleadings
+      would be very lengthy, and success was doubtful. Moreover, it would
+      require money, and plenty of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoine treated his mother yet more harshly that evening. Not knowing on
+      whom else to wreak his vengeance, he repeated his accusation of the
+      previous day; he kept the wretched woman up till midnight, trembling with
+      shame and fright. Adelaide having informed him that Pierre made her an
+      allowance, he now felt certain that his brother had pocketed the fifty
+      thousand francs. But, in his irritation, he still affected to doubt it,
+      and did not cease to question the poor woman, again and again reproaching
+      her with misconduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoine soon found out that, alone and without resources, he could not
+      successfully carry on a contest with his brother. He then endeavoured to
+      gain Adelaide to his cause; an accusation lodged by her might have serious
+      consequences. But, at Antoine&rsquo;s first suggestion of it, the poor, lazy,
+      lethargic creature firmly refused to bring trouble on her eldest son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am an unhappy woman,&rdquo; she stammered; &ldquo;it is quite right of you to get
+      angry. But I should feel too much remorse if I caused one of my sons to be
+      sent to prison. No; I&rsquo;d rather let you beat me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw that he would get nothing but tears out of her, and contented
+      himself with saying that she was justly punished, and that he had no pity
+      for her. In the evening, upset by the continual quarrels which her son had
+      sought with her, Adelaide had one of those nervous attacks which kept her
+      as rigid as if she had been dead. The young man threw her on her bed, and
+      then began to rummage the house to see if the wretched woman had any
+      savings hidden away. He found about forty francs. He took possession of
+      them, and, while his mother still lay there, rigid and scarce able to
+      breathe, he quietly took the diligence to Marseilles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had just bethought himself that Mouret, the journeyman hatter who had
+      married his sister Ursule, must be indignant at Pierre&rsquo;s roguery, and
+      would no doubt be willing to defend his wife&rsquo;s interests. But he did not
+      find in him the man he expected. Mouret plainly told him that he had
+      become accustomed to look upon Ursule as an orphan, and would have no
+      contentions with her family at any price. Their affairs were prospering.
+      Antoine was received so coldly that he hastened to take the diligence home
+      again. But, before leaving, he was anxious to revenge himself for the
+      secret contempt which he read in the workman&rsquo;s eyes; and, observing that
+      his sister appeared rather pale and dejected, he said to her husband, in a
+      slyly cruel way, as he took his departure: &ldquo;Have a care, my sister was
+      always sickly, and I find her much changed for the worse; you may lose her
+      altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tears which rushed to Mouret&rsquo;s eyes convinced him that he had touched
+      a sore wound. But then those work-people made too great a display of their
+      happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he was back again in Plassans, Antoine became the more menacing from
+      the conviction that his hands were tied. During a whole month he was seen
+      all over the place. He paraded the streets, recounting his story to all
+      who would listen to him. Whenever he succeeded in extorting a franc from
+      his mother, he would drink it away at some tavern, where he would revile
+      his brother, declaring that the rascal should shortly hear from him. In
+      places like these, the good-natured fraternity which reigns among
+      drunkards procured him a sympathetic audience; all the scum of the town
+      espoused his cause, and poured forth bitter imprecations against that
+      rascal Rougon, who left a brave soldier to starve; the discussion
+      generally terminating with an indiscriminate condemnation of the rich.
+      Antoine, the better to revenge himself, continued to march about in his
+      regimental cap and trousers and his old yellow velvet jacket, although his
+      mother had offered to purchase some more becoming clothes for him. But no;
+      he preferred to make a display of his rags, and paraded them on Sundays in
+      the most frequented parts of the Cours Sauvaire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of his most exquisite pleasures was to pass Pierre&rsquo;s shop ten times a
+      day. He would enlarge the holes in his jacket with his fingers, slacken
+      his step, and sometimes stand talking in front of the door, so as to
+      remain longer in the street. On these occasions, too, he would bring one
+      of his drunken friends and gossip to him; telling him about the theft of
+      the fifty thousand francs, accompanying his narrative with loud insults
+      and menaces, which could be heard by everyone in the street, and taking
+      particular care that his abuse should reach the furthest end of the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll finish by coming to beg in front of our house,&rdquo; Felicite used to
+      say in despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The vain little woman suffered terribly from this scandal. She even at
+      this time felt some regret at ever having married Rougon; his family
+      connections were so objectionable. She would have given all she had in the
+      world to prevent Antoine from parading his rags. But Pierre, who was
+      maddened by his brother&rsquo;s conduct, would not allow his name to be
+      mentioned. When his wife tried to convince him that it would perhaps be
+      better to free himself from all annoyance by giving Antoine a little
+      money: &ldquo;No, nothing; not a sou,&rdquo; he cried with rage. &ldquo;Let him starve!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He confessed, however, at last that Antoine&rsquo;s demeanour was becoming
+      intolerable. One day, Felicite, desiring to put an end to it, called to
+      &ldquo;that man,&rdquo; as she styled him with a disdainful curl on her lip. &ldquo;That
+      man&rdquo; was in the act of calling her a foul name in the middle of the
+      street, where he stood with one of his friends, even more ragged than
+      himself. They were both drunk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, they want us in there,&rdquo; said Antoine to his companion in a jeering
+      tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Felicite drew back, muttering: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s you alone we wish to speak to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah!&rdquo; the young man replied, &ldquo;my friend&rsquo;s a decent fellow. You needn&rsquo;t
+      mind him hearing. He&rsquo;ll be my witness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The witness sank heavily on a chair. He did not take off his hat, but
+      began to stare around him, with the maudlin, stupid grin of drunkards and
+      coarse people who know that they are insolent. Felicite was so ashamed
+      that she stood in front of the shop door in order that people outside
+      might not see what strange company she was receiving. Fortunately her
+      husband came to the rescue. A violent quarrel ensued between him and his
+      brother. The latter, after stammering insults, reiterated his old
+      grievances twenty times over. At last he even began to cry, and his
+      companion was near following his example. Pierre had defended himself in a
+      very dignified manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re unfortunate, and I pity you.
+      Although you have cruelly insulted me, I can&rsquo;t forget that we are children
+      of the same mother. If I give you anything, however, you must understand I
+      give it you out of kindness, and not from fear. Would you like a hundred
+      francs to help you out of your difficulties?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This abrupt offer of a hundred francs dazzled Antoine&rsquo;s companion. He
+      looked at the other with an air of delight, which clearly signified: &ldquo;As
+      the gentleman offers a hundred francs, it is time to leave off abusing
+      him.&rdquo; But Antoine was determined to speculate on his brother&rsquo;s favourable
+      disposition. He asked him whether he took him for a fool; it was his
+      share, ten thousand francs, that he wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re wrong, you&rsquo;re wrong,&rdquo; stuttered his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, as Pierre, losing all patience, was threatening to turn them both
+      out, Antoine lowered his demands and contented himself with claiming one
+      thousand francs. They quarrelled for another quarter of an hour over this
+      amount. Finally, Felicite interfered. A crowd was gathering round the
+      shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; she said, excitedly; &ldquo;my husband will give you two hundred
+      francs. I&rsquo;ll undertake to buy you a suit of clothes, and hire a room for a
+      year for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon got angry at this. But Antoine&rsquo;s comrade cried, with transports of
+      delight: &ldquo;All right, it&rsquo;s settled, then; my friend accepts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoine did, in fact, declare, in a surly way, that he would accept. He
+      felt he would not be able to get any more. It was arranged that the money
+      and clothes should be sent to him on the following day, and that a few
+      days later, as soon as Felicite should have found a room for him, he would
+      take up his quarters there. As they were leaving, the young man&rsquo;s sottish
+      companion became as respectful as he had previously been insolent. He
+      bowed to the company more than a dozen times, in an awkward and humble
+      manner, muttering many indistinct thanks, as if the Rougons&rsquo; gifts had
+      been intended for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A week later Antoine occupied a large room in the old quarter, in which
+      Felicite, exceeding her promises, had placed a bed, a table, and some
+      chairs, on the young man formally undertaking not to molest them in
+      future. Adelaide felt no regret at her son leaving her; the short stay he
+      had made with her had condemned her to bread and water for more than three
+      months. However, Antoine had soon eaten and drunk the two hundred francs
+      he received from Pierre. He never for a moment thought of investing them
+      in some little business which would have helped him to live. When he was
+      again penniless, having no trade, and being, moreover, unwilling to work,
+      he again sought to slip a hand into the Rougons&rsquo; purse. Circumstances were
+      not the same as before, however, and he failed to intimidate them. Pierre
+      even took advantage of this opportunity to turn him out, and forbade him
+      ever to set foot in his house again. It was of no avail for Antoine to
+      repeat his former accusations. The townspeople, who were acquainted with
+      his brother&rsquo;s munificence from the publicity which Felicite had given to
+      it, declared him to be in the wrong, and called him a lazy, idle fellow.
+      Meantime his hunger was pressing. He threatened to turn smuggler like his
+      father, and perpetrate some crime which would dishonour his family. At
+      this the Rougons shrugged their shoulders; they knew he was too much of a
+      coward to risk his neck. At last, blindly enraged against his relatives in
+      particular and society in general, Antoine made up his mind to seek some
+      work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a tavern of the Faubourg he made the acquaintance of a basket-maker who
+      worked at home. He offered to help him. In a short time he learnt to plait
+      baskets and hampers&mdash;a coarse and poorly-paid kind of labour which
+      finds a ready market. He was very soon able to work on his own account.
+      This trade pleased him, as it was not over laborious. He could still
+      indulge his idleness, and that was what he chiefly cared for. He would
+      only take to his work when he could no longer do otherwise; then he would
+      hurriedly plait a dozen baskets and go and sell them in the market. As
+      long as the money lasted he lounged about, visiting all the taverns and
+      digesting his drink in the sunshine. Then, when he had fasted a whole day,
+      he would once more take up his osier with a low growl and revile the
+      wealthy who lived in idleness. The trade of a basket-maker, when followed
+      in such a manner, is a thankless one. Antoine&rsquo;s work would not have
+      sufficed to pay for his drinking bouts if he had not contrived a means of
+      procuring his osier at low cost. He never bought any at Plassans, but used
+      to say that he went each month to purchase a stock at a neighbouring town,
+      where he pretended it was sold cheaper. The truth, however, was that he
+      supplied himself from the osier-grounds of the Viorne on dark nights. A
+      rural policeman even caught him once in the very act, and Antoine
+      underwent a few days&rsquo; imprisonment in consequence. It was from that time
+      forward that he posed in the town as a fierce Republican. He declared that
+      he had been quietly smoking his pipe by the riverside when the rural
+      policeman arrested him. And he added: &ldquo;They would like to get me out of
+      the way because they know what my opinions are. But I&rsquo;m not afraid of
+      them, those rich scoundrels.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, at the end of ten years of idleness, Antoine considered that he
+      had been working too hard. His constant dream was to devise some expedient
+      by which he might live at his ease without having to do anything. His
+      idleness would never have rested content with bread and water; he was not
+      like certain lazy persons who are willing to put up with hunger provided
+      they can keep their hands in their pockets. He liked good feeding and
+      nothing to do. He talked at one time of taking a situation as servant in
+      some nobleman&rsquo;s house in the Saint-Marc quarter. But one of his friends, a
+      groom, frightened him by describing the exacting ways of his masters.
+      Finally Macquart, sick of his baskets, and seeing the time approach when
+      he would be compelled to purchase the requisite osier, was on the point of
+      selling himself as an army substitute and resuming his military life,
+      which he preferred a thousand times to that of an artisan, when he made
+      the acquaintance of a woman, an acquaintance which modified his plans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine Gavaudan, who was known throughout the town by the familiar
+      diminutive of Fine, was a tall, strapping wench of about thirty. With a
+      square face of masculine proportions, and a few terribly long hairs about
+      her chin and lips, she was cited as a doughty woman, one who could make
+      the weight of her fist felt. Her broad shoulders and huge arms
+      consequently inspired the town urchins with marvellous respect; and they
+      did not even dare to smile at her moustache. Notwithstanding all this,
+      Fine had a faint voice, weak and clear like that of a child. Those who
+      were acquainted with her asserted that she was as gentle as a lamb, in
+      spite of her formidable appearance. As she was very hard-working, she
+      might have put some money aside if she had not had a partiality for
+      liqueurs. She adored aniseed, and very often had to be carried home on
+      Sunday evenings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On week days she would toil with the stubbornness of an animal. She had
+      three or four different occupations; she sold fruit or boiled chestnuts in
+      the market, according to the season; went out charring for a few
+      well-to-do people; washed up plates and dishes at houses when parties were
+      given, and employed her spare time in mending old chairs. She was more
+      particularly known in the town as a chair-mender. In the South large
+      numbers of straw-bottomed chairs are used.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoine Macquart formed an acquaintance with Fine at the market. When he
+      went to sell his baskets in the winter he would stand beside the stove on
+      which she cooled her chestnuts and warm himself. He was astonished at her
+      courage, he who was frightened of the least work. By degrees he discerned,
+      beneath the apparent roughness of this strapping creature, signs of
+      timidity and kindliness. He frequently saw her give handfuls of chestnuts
+      to the ragged urchins who stood in ecstasy round her smoking pot. At other
+      times, when the market inspector hustled her, she very nearly began to
+      cry, apparently forgetting all about her heavy fists. Antoine at last
+      decided that she was exactly the woman he wanted. She would work for both
+      and he would lay down the law at home. She would be his beast of burden,
+      an obedient, indefatigable animal. As for her partiality for liqueurs, he
+      regarded this as quite natural. After well weighing the advantages of such
+      an union, he declared himself to Fine, who was delighted with his
+      proposal. No man had ever yet ventured to propose to her. Though she was
+      told that Antoine was the most worthless of vagabonds, she lacked the
+      courage to refuse matrimony. The very evening of the nuptials the young
+      man took up his abode in his wife&rsquo;s lodgings in the Rue Civadiere, near
+      the market. These lodgings, consisting of three rooms, were much more
+      comfortably furnished than his own, and he gave a sigh of satisfaction as
+      he stretched himself out on the two excellent mattresses which covered the
+      bedstead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything went on very well for the first few days. Fine attended to her
+      various occupations as in the past; Antoine, seized with a sort of marital
+      self-pride which astonished even himself, plaited in one week more baskets
+      than he had ever before done in a month. On the first Sunday, however, war
+      broke out. The couple had a goodly sum of money in the house, and they
+      spent it freely. During the night, when they were both drunk, they beat
+      each other outrageously, without being able to remember on the morrow how
+      it was that the quarrel had commenced. They had remained on most
+      affectionate terms until about ten o&rsquo;clock, when Antoine had begun to beat
+      Fine brutally, whereupon the latter, growing exasperated and forgetting
+      her meekness, had given him back as much as she received. She went to work
+      again bravely on the following day, as though nothing had happened. But
+      her husband, with sullen rancour, rose late and passed the remainder of
+      the day smoking his pipe in the sunshine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that time forward the Macquarts adopted the kind of life which they
+      were destined to lead in the future. It became, as it were, tacitly
+      understood between them that the wife should toil and moil to keep her
+      husband. Fine, who had an instinctive liking for work, did not object to
+      this. She was as patient as a saint, provided she had had no drink,
+      thought it quite natural that her husband should remain idle, and even
+      strove to spare him the most trifling labour. Her little weakness,
+      aniseed, did not make her vicious, but just. On the evenings when she had
+      forgotten herself in the company of a bottle of her favourite liqueur, if
+      Antoine tried to pick a quarrel with her, she would set upon him with
+      might and main, reproaching him with his idleness and ingratitude. The
+      neighbours grew accustomed to the disturbances which periodically broke
+      out in the couple&rsquo;s room. The two battered each other conscientiously; the
+      wife slapped like a mother chastising a naughty child; but the husband,
+      treacherous and spiteful as he was, measured his blows, and, on several
+      occasions, very nearly crippled the unfortunate woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be in a fine plight when you&rsquo;ve broken one of my arms or legs,&rdquo;
+       she would say to him. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;ll keep you then, you lazy fellow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Excepting for these turbulent scenes, Antoine began to find his new mode
+      of existence quite endurable. He was well clothed, and ate and drank his
+      fill. He had laid aside the basket work altogether; sometimes, when he was
+      feeling over-bored, he would resolve to plait a dozen baskets for the next
+      market day; but very often he did not even finish the first one. He kept,
+      under a couch, a bundle of osier which he did not use up in twenty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Macquarts had three children, two girls and a boy. Lisa,[*] born the
+      first, in 1827, one year after the marriage, remained but little at home.
+      She was a fine, big, healthy, full-blooded child, greatly resembling her
+      mother. She did not, however, inherit the latter&rsquo;s animal devotion and
+      endurance. Macquart had implanted in her a most decided longing for ease
+      and comfort. While she was a child she would consent to work for a whole
+      day in return for a cake. When she was scarcely seven years old, the wife
+      of the postmaster, who was a neighbour of the Macquarts, took a liking to
+      her. She made a little maid of her. And when she lost her husband in 1839,
+      and went to live in Paris, she took Lisa with her. The parents had almost
+      given her their daughter.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [*] The pork-butcher&rsquo;s wife in <i>Le Ventre de Paris</i> (<i>The
+     Fat and the Thin</i>).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The second girl, Gervaise,[*] born the following year, was a cripple from
+      birth. Her right thigh was smaller than the left and showed signs of
+      curvature, a curious hereditary result of the brutality which her mother
+      had to endure during her fierce drunken brawls with Macquart. Gervaise
+      remained puny, and Fine, observing her pallor and weakness, put her on a
+      course of aniseed, under the pretext that she required something to
+      strengthen her. But the poor child became still more emaciated. She was a
+      tall, lank girl, whose frocks, invariably too large, hung round her as if
+      they had nothing under them. Above a deformed and puny body she had a
+      sweet little doll-like head, a tiny round face, pale and exquisitely
+      delicate. Her infirmity almost became graceful. Her body swayed gently at
+      every step with a sort of rhythmical swing.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [*] The chief female character in <i>L&rsquo;Assommoir</i> (<i>The Dramshop</i>).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Macquarts&rsquo; son, Jean,[*] was born three years later. He was a robust
+      child, in no respect recalling Gervaise. Like the eldest girl, he took
+      after his mother, without having any physical resemblance to her. He was
+      the first to import into the Rougon-Macquart stock a fat face with regular
+      features, which showed all the coldness of a grave yet not
+      over-intelligent nature. This boy grew up with the determination of some
+      day making an independent position for himself. He attended school
+      diligently, and tortured his dull brain to force a little arithmetic and
+      spelling into it. After that he became an apprentice, repeating much the
+      same efforts with a perseverance that was the more meritorious as it took
+      him a whole day to learn what others acquired in an hour.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [*] Figures prominently in <i>La Terre</i> (<i>The Earth</i>) and <i>La
+     Debacle</i> (<i>The Downfall</i>).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As long as these poor little things remained a burden to the house,
+      Antoine grumbled. They were useless mouths that lessened his own share. He
+      vowed, like his brother, that he would have no more children, those greedy
+      creatures who bring their parents to penury. It was something to hear him
+      bemoan his lot when they sat five at table, and the mother gave the best
+      morsels to Jean, Lisa, and Gervaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s right,&rdquo; he would growl; &ldquo;stuff them, make them burst!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whenever Fine bought a garment or a pair of boots for them, he would sulk
+      for days together. Ah! if he had only known, he would never had had that
+      pack of brats, who compelled him to limit his smoking to four sous&rsquo; worth
+      of tobacco a day, and too frequently obliged him to eat stewed potatoes
+      for dinner, a dish which he heartily detested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later on, however, as soon as Jean and Gervaise earned their first francs,
+      he found some good in children after all. Lisa was no longer there. He
+      lived upon the earnings of the two others without compunction, as he had
+      already lived upon their mother. It was a well-planned speculation on his
+      part. As soon as little Gervaise was eight years old, she went to a
+      neighbouring dealer&rsquo;s to crack almonds; she there earned ten sous a day,
+      which her father pocketed right royally, without even a question from Fine
+      as to what became of the money. The young girl was next apprenticed to a
+      laundress, and as soon as she received two francs a day for her work, the
+      two francs strayed in a similar manner into Macquart&rsquo;s hands. Jean, who
+      had learnt the trade of a carpenter, was likewise despoiled on pay-days,
+      whenever Macquart succeeded in catching him before he had handed the money
+      to his mother. If the money escaped Macquart, which sometimes happened, he
+      became frightfully surly. He would glare at his wife and children for a
+      whole week, picking a quarrel for nothing, although he was, as yet,
+      ashamed to confess the real cause of his irritations. On the next pay-day,
+      however, he would station himself on the watch, and as soon as he had
+      succeeded in pilfering the youngster&rsquo;s earnings, he disappeared for days
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gervaise, beaten and brought up in the streets among all the lads of the
+      neighbourhood, became a mother when she was fourteen years of age. The
+      father of her child was not eighteen years old. He was a journeyman tanner
+      named Lantier. At first Macquart was furious, but he calmed down somewhat
+      when he learnt that Lantier&rsquo;s mother, a worthy woman, was willing to take
+      charge of the child. He kept Gervaise, however; she was then already
+      earning twenty-five sous a day, and he therefore avoided all question of
+      marriage. Four years later she had a second child, which was likewise
+      taken in by Lantier&rsquo;s mother. This time Macquart shut his eyes altogether.
+      And when Fine timidly suggested that it was time to come to some
+      understanding with the tanner, in order to end a state of things which
+      made people chatter, he flatly declared that his daughter should not leave
+      him, and that he would give her to her lover later on, &ldquo;when he was worthy
+      of her, and had enough money to furnish a home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a fine time for Antoine Macquart. He dressed like a gentleman, in
+      frock-coats and trousers of the finest cloth. Cleanly shaved, and almost
+      fat, he was no longer the emaciated ragged vagabond who had been wont to
+      frequent the taverns. He dropped into cafes, read the papers, and strolled
+      on the Cours Sauvaire. He played the gentleman as long as he had any money
+      in his pocket. At times of impecuniosity he remained at home, exasperated
+      at being kept in his hovel and prevented from taking his customary cup of
+      coffee. On such occasions he would reproach the whole human race with his
+      poverty, making himself ill with rage and envy, until Fine, out of pity,
+      would often give him the last silver coin in the house so that he might
+      spend his evening at the cafe. This dear fellow was fiercely selfish.
+      Gervaise, who brought home as much as sixty francs a month, wore only thin
+      cotton frocks, while he had black satin waistcoats made for him by one of
+      the best tailors in Plassans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jean, the big lad who earned three or four francs a day, was perhaps
+      robbed even more impudently. The cafe where his father passed entire days
+      was just opposite his master&rsquo;s workshop, and while he had plane or saw in
+      hand he could see &ldquo;Monsieur&rdquo; Macquart on the other side of the way,
+      sweetening his coffee or playing piquet with some petty annuitant. It was
+      his money that the lazy old fellow was gambling away. He, Jean, never
+      stepped inside a cafe, he never had so much as five sous to pay for a
+      drink. Antoine treated him like a little girl, never leaving him a
+      centime, and always demanding an exact account of the manner in which he
+      had employed his time. If the unfortunate lad, led away by some of his
+      mates, wasted a day somewhere in the country, on the banks of the Viorne,
+      or on the slopes of Garrigues, his father would storm and raise his hand,
+      and long bear him a grudge on account of the four francs less that he
+      received at the end of the fortnight. He thus held his son in a state of
+      dependence, sometimes even looking upon the sweethearts whom the young
+      carpenter courted as his own. Several of Gervaise&rsquo;s friends used to come
+      to the Macquarts&rsquo; house, work-girls from sixteen to eighteen years of age,
+      bold and boisterous girls who, on certain evenings, filled the room with
+      youth and gaiety. Poor Jean, deprived of all pleasure, ever kept at home
+      by the lack of money, looked at these girls with longing eyes; but the
+      childish life which he was compelled to lead had implanted invincible
+      shyness in him; in playing with his sister&rsquo;s friends, he was hardly bold
+      enough to touch them with the tips of his fingers. Macquart used to shrug
+      his shoulders with pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a simpleton!&rdquo; he would mutter, with an air of ironical superiority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was he who would kiss the girls, when his wife&rsquo;s back was turned.
+      He carried his attentions even further with a little laundress whom Jean
+      pursued rather more earnestly than the others. One fine evening he stole
+      her almost from his arms. The old rogue prided himself on his gallantry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are some men who live upon their mistresses. Antoine Macquart lived
+      on his wife and children with as much shamelessness and impudence. He did
+      not feel the least compunction in pillaging the home and going out to
+      enjoy himself when the house was bare. He still assumed a supercilious
+      air, returning from the cafe only to rail against the poverty and
+      wretchedness that awaited him at home. He found the dinner detestable, he
+      called Gervaise a blockhead, and declared that Jean would never be a man.
+      Immersed in his own selfish indulgence, he rubbed his hands whenever he
+      had eaten the best piece in the dish; and then he smoked his pipe, puffing
+      slowly, while the two poor children, overcome with fatigue, went to sleep
+      with their heads resting on the table. Thus Macquart passed his days in
+      lazy enjoyment. It seemed to him quite natural that he should be kept in
+      idleness like a girl, to sprawl about on the benches of some tavern, or
+      stroll in the cool of the day along the Cours or the Mail. At last he went
+      so far as to relate his amorous escapades in the presence of his son, who
+      listened with glistening eyes. The children never protested, accustomed as
+      they were to see their mother humble herself before her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fine, that strapping woman who drubbed him soundly when they were both
+      intoxicated, always trembled before him when she was sober, and allowed
+      him to rule despotically at home. He robbed her in the night of the
+      coppers which she had earned during the day at the market, but she never
+      dared to protest, except by veiled rebukes. Sometimes, when he had
+      squandered the week&rsquo;s money in advance, he accused her, poor thing, who
+      worked herself to death, of being stupid and not knowing how to manage.
+      Fine, as gentle as a lamb, replied, in her soft, clear voice, which
+      contrasted so strangely with her big figure, that she was no longer twenty
+      years old, and that money was becoming hard to earn. In order to console
+      herself, she would buy a pint of aniseed, and drink little glassfuls of it
+      with her daughter of an evening, after Antoine had gone back to the cafe.
+      That was their dissipation. Jean went to bed, while the two women remained
+      at the table, listening attentively in order to remove the bottle and
+      glasses at the first sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Macquart was late, they often became intoxicated by the many &ldquo;nips&rdquo;
+       they thus thoughtlessly imbibed. Stupefied and gazing at each other with
+      vague smiles, this mother and daughter would end by stuttering. Red
+      patches appeared on Gervaise&rsquo;s cheeks; her delicate doll-like face assumed
+      a look of maudlin beatitude. Nothing could be more heart-rending than to
+      see this wretched, pale child, aglow with drink and wearing the idiotic
+      smile of a confirmed sot about her moist lips. Fine, huddled up on her
+      chair, became heavy and drowsy. They sometimes forgot to keep watch, or
+      even lacked the strength to remove the bottle and glasses when Antoine&rsquo;s
+      footsteps were heard on the stairs. On these occasions blows were freely
+      exchanged among the Macquarts. Jean had to get up to separate his father
+      and mother and make his sister go to bed, as otherwise she would have
+      slept on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every political party numbers its grotesques and its villains. Antoine
+      Macquart, devoured by envy and hatred, and meditating revenge against
+      society in general, welcomed the Republic as a happy era when he would be
+      allowed to fill his pockets from his neighbour&rsquo;s cash-box, and even
+      strangle the neighbour if the latter manifested any displeasure. His cafe
+      life and all the newspaper articles he had read without understanding them
+      had made him a terrible ranter who enunciated the strangest of political
+      theories. It is necessary to have heard one of those malcontents who ill
+      digest what they read, haranguing the company in some provincial taproom,
+      in order to conceive the degree of hateful folly at which Macquart had
+      arrived. As he talked a good deal, had seen active service, and was
+      naturally regarded as a man of energy and spirit, he was much sought after
+      and listened to by simpletons. Although he was not the chief of any party,
+      he had succeeded in collecting round him a small group of working-men who
+      took his jealous ravings for expressions of honest and conscientious
+      indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Directly after the Revolution of February &lsquo;48, he persuaded himself that
+      Plassans was his own, and, as he strolled along the streets, the jeering
+      manner in which he regarded the little retail traders who stood terrified
+      at their shop doors clearly signified: &ldquo;Our day has come, my little lambs;
+      we are going to lead you a fine dance!&rdquo; He had grown insolent beyond
+      belief; he acted the part of a victorious despot to such a degree that he
+      ceased to pay for his drinks at the cafe, and the landlord, a simpleton
+      who trembled whenever Antoine rolled his eyes, dared not present his bill.
+      The number of cups of coffee he consumed during this period was
+      incalculable; sometimes he invited his friends, and shouted for hours
+      together that the people were dying of hunger, and that the rich ought to
+      share their wealth with them. He himself would never have given a sou to a
+      beggar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That which chiefly converted him into a fierce Republican was the hope of
+      at last being able to revenge himself on the Rougons, who had openly
+      ranged themselves on the side of the reactionary party. Ah, what a triumph
+      if he could only hold Pierre and Felicite at his mercy! Although the
+      latter had not succeeded over well in business, they had at last become
+      gentlefolks, while he, Macquart, had still remained a working-man. That
+      exasperated him. Perhaps he was still more mortified because one of their
+      sons was a barrister, another a doctor, and the third a clerk, while his
+      son Jean merely worked at a carpenter&rsquo;s shop, and his daughter Gervaise at
+      a washerwoman&rsquo;s. When he compared the Macquarts with the Rougons, he was
+      still more ashamed to see his wife selling chestnuts in the market, and
+      mending the greasy old straw-seated chairs of the neighbourhood in the
+      evening. Pierre, after all, was but his brother, and had no more right
+      than himself to live fatly on his income. Moreover, this brother was
+      actually playing the gentleman with money stolen from him. Whenever
+      Macquart touched upon this subject, he became fiercely enraged; he
+      clamoured for hours together, incessantly repeating his old accusations,
+      and never wearying of exclaiming: &ldquo;If my brother was where he ought to be,
+      I should be the moneyed man at the present time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And when anyone asked him where his brother ought to be, he would reply,
+      &ldquo;At the galleys!&rdquo; in a formidable voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His hatred further increased when the Rougons had gathered the
+      Conservatives round them, and thus acquired a certain influence in
+      Plassans. The famous yellow drawing-room became, in his hare-brained
+      chatter at the cafe, a cave of bandits, an assembly of villains who every
+      evening swore on their daggers that they would murder the people. In order
+      to incite the starvelings against Pierre, Macquart went so far as to
+      circulate a report that the retired oil-dealer was not so poor as he
+      pretended, but that he concealed his treasures through avarice and fear of
+      robbery. His tactics thus tended to rouse the poor people by a repetition
+      of absurdly ridiculous tales, which he often came to believe in himself.
+      His personal animosity and his desire for revenge were ill concealed
+      beneath his professions of patriotism; but he was heard so frequently, and
+      he had such a loud voice, that no one would have dared to doubt the
+      genuineness of his convictions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At bottom, all the members of this family had the same brutish passions.
+      Felicite, who clearly understood that Macquart&rsquo;s wild theories were simply
+      the fruit of restrained rage and embittered envy, would much have liked to
+      purchase his silence. Unfortunately, she was short of money, and did not
+      dare to interest him in the dangerous game which her husband was playing.
+      Antoine now injured them very much among the well-to-do people of the new
+      town. It sufficed that he was a relation of theirs. Granoux and Roudier
+      often scornfully reproached them for having such a man in their family.
+      Felicite consequently asked herself with anguish how they could manage to
+      cleanse themselves of such a stain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to her monstrous and indecent that Monsieur Rougon should have a
+      brother whose wife sold chestnuts, and who himself lived in crapulous
+      idleness. She at last even trembled for the success of their secret
+      intrigues, so long as Antoine seemingly took pleasure in compromising
+      them. When the diatribes which he levelled at the yellow drawing-room were
+      reported to her, she shuddered at the thought that he was capable of
+      becoming desperate and ruining all their hopes by force of scandal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoine knew what consternation his demeanour must cause the Rougons, and
+      it was solely for the purpose of exhausting their patience that he from
+      day to day affected fiercer opinions. At the cafe he frequented he used to
+      speak of &ldquo;my brother Pierre&rdquo; in a voice which made everybody turn round;
+      and if he happened to meet some reactionary from the yellow drawing-room
+      in the street, he would mutter some low abuse which the worthy citizen,
+      amazed at such audacity, would repeat to the Rougons in the evening, as
+      though to make them responsible for his disagreeable encounter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day Granoux arrived in a state of fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really,&rdquo; he exclaimed, when scarcely across the threshold, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s
+      intolerable; one can&rsquo;t move a step without being insulted.&rdquo; Then,
+      addressing Pierre, he added: &ldquo;When one has a brother like yours, sir, one
+      should rid society of him. I was just quietly walking past the
+      Sub-Prefecture, when that rascal passed me muttering something in which I
+      could clearly distinguish the words &lsquo;old rogue.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite turned pale, and felt it necessary to apologise to Granoux, but
+      he refused to accept any excuses, and threatened to leave altogether. The
+      marquis, however, exerted himself to arrange matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very strange,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that the wretched fellow should have
+      called you an old rogue. Are you sure that he intended the insult for
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Granoux was perplexed; he admitted at last, however, that Antoine might
+      have muttered: &ldquo;So you are again going to that old rogue&rsquo;s?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this Monsieur de Carnavant stroked his chin to conceal the smile which
+      rose to his lips in spite of himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Rougon, with superb composure, replied: &ldquo;I thought as much; the &lsquo;old
+      rogue&rsquo; was no doubt intended for me. I&rsquo;ve very glad that this
+      misunderstanding is now cleared up. Gentlemen, pray avoid the man in
+      question, whom I formally repudiate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite, however, did not take matters so coolly; every fresh scandal
+      caused by Macquart made her more and more uneasy; she would sometimes pass
+      the whole night wondering what those gentlemen must think of the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few months before the Coup d&rsquo;Etat, the Rougons received an anonymous
+      letter, three pages of foul insults, in which they were warned that if
+      their party should ever triumph, the scandalous story of Adelaide&rsquo;s amours
+      would be published in some newspaper, together with an account of the
+      robbery perpetrated by Pierre, when he had compelled his mother, driven
+      out of her senses by debauchery, to sign a receipt for fifty thousand
+      francs. This letter was a heavy blow for Rougon himself. Felicite could
+      not refrain from reproaching her husband with his disreputable family; for
+      the husband and wife never for a moment doubted that this letter was
+      Antoine&rsquo;s work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall have to get rid of the blackguard at any price,&rdquo; said Pierre in
+      a gloomy tone. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s becoming too troublesome by far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, Macquart, resorting to his former tactics, looked round
+      among his own relatives for accomplices who would join him against the
+      Rougons. He had counted upon Aristide at first, on reading his terrible
+      articles in the &ldquo;Independant.&rdquo; But the young man, in spite of all his
+      jealous rage, was not so foolish as to make common cause with such a
+      fellow as his uncle. He never even minced matters with him, but invariably
+      kept him at a distance, a circumstance which induced Antoine to regard him
+      suspiciously. In the taverns, where Macquart reigned supreme, people went
+      so far as to say the journalist was paid to provoke disturbances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baffled on this side, Macquart had no alternative but to sound his sister
+      Ursule&rsquo;s children. Ursule had died in 1839, thus fulfilling her brother&rsquo;s
+      evil prophecy. The nervous affection which she had inherited from her
+      mother had turned into slow consumption, which gradually killed her. She
+      left three children; a daughter, eighteen years of age, named Helene, who
+      married a clerk, and two boys, the elder, Francois, a young man of
+      twenty-three, and the younger, a sickly little fellow scarcely six years
+      old, named Silvere. The death of his wife, whom he adored, proved a
+      thunderbolt to Mouret. He dragged on his existence for another year,
+      neglecting his business and losing all the money he had saved. Then, one
+      morning, he was found hanging in a cupboard where Ursule&rsquo;s dresses were
+      still suspended. His elder son, who had received a good commercial
+      training, took a situation in the house of his uncle Rougon, where he
+      replaced Aristide, who had just left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon, in spite of his profound hatred for the Macquarts, gladly welcomed
+      this nephew, whom he knew to be industrious and sober. He was in want of a
+      youth whom he could trust, and who would help him to retrieve his affairs.
+      Moreover, during the time of Mouret&rsquo;s prosperity, he had learnt to esteem
+      the young couple, who knew how to make money, and thus he had soon become
+      reconciled with his sister. Perhaps he thought he was making Francois some
+      compensation by taking him into his business; having robbed the mother, he
+      would shield himself from remorse by giving employment to the son; even
+      rogues make honest calculations sometimes. It was, however, a good thing
+      for him. If the house of Rougon did not make a fortune at this time, it
+      was certainly through no fault of that quiet, punctilious youth, Francois,
+      who seemed born to pass his life behind a grocer&rsquo;s counter, between a jar
+      of oil and a bundle of dried cod-fish. Although he physically resembled
+      his mother, he inherited from his father a just if narrow mind, with an
+      instinctive liking for a methodical life and the safe speculations of a
+      small business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three months after his arrival, Pierre, pursuing his system of
+      compensation, married him to his young daughter Marthe,[*] whom he did not
+      know how to dispose of. The two young people fell in love with each other
+      quite suddenly, in a few days. A peculiar circumstance had doubtless
+      determined and enhanced their mutual affection. There was a remarkably
+      close resemblance between them, suggesting that of brother and sister.
+      Francois inherited, through Ursule, the face of his grandmother Adelaide.
+      Marthe&rsquo;s case was still more curious; she was an equally exact portrait of
+      Adelaide, although Pierre Rougon had none of his mother&rsquo;s features
+      distinctly marked; the physical resemblance had, as it were, passed over
+      Pierre, to reappear in his daughter. The similarity between husband and
+      wife went, however, no further than their faces; if the worthy son of a
+      steady matter-of-fact hatter was distinguishable in Francois, Marthe
+      showed the nervousness and mental weakness of her grandmother. Perhaps it
+      was this combination of physical resemblance and moral dissimilarity which
+      threw the young people into each other&rsquo;s arms. From 1840 to 1844 they had
+      three children. Francois remained in his uncle&rsquo;s employ until the latter
+      retired. Pierre had desired to sell him the business, but the young man
+      knew what small chance there was of making a fortune in trade at Plassans;
+      so he declined the offer and repaired to Marseilles, where he established
+      himself with his little savings.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [*] Both Francois and Marthe figure largely in <i>The Conquest
+     of Plassans</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Macquart soon had to abandon all hope of dragging this big industrious
+      fellow into his campaign against the Rougons; whereupon, with all the
+      spite of a lazybones, he regarded him as a cunning miser. He fancied,
+      however, that he had discovered the accomplice he was seeking in Mouret&rsquo;s
+      second son, a lad of fifteen years of age. Young Silvere had never even
+      been to school at the time when Mouret was found hanging among his wife&rsquo;s
+      skirts. His elder brother, not knowing what to do with him, took him also
+      to his uncle&rsquo;s. The latter made a wry face on beholding the child; he had
+      no intention of carrying his compensation so far as to feed a useless
+      mouth. Thus Silvere, to whom Felicite also took a dislike, was growing up
+      in tears, like an unfortunate little outcast, when his grandmother
+      Adelaide, during one of the rare visits she paid the Rougons, took pity on
+      him, and expressed a wish to have him with her. Pierre was delighted; he
+      let the child go, without even suggesting an increase of the paltry
+      allowance that he made Adelaide, and which henceforward would have to
+      suffice for two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adelaide was then nearly seventy-five years of age. Grown old while
+      leading a cloistered existence, she was no longer the lanky ardent girl
+      who formerly ran to embrace the smuggler Macquart. She had stiffened and
+      hardened in her hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, that dismal silent hole
+      where she lived entirely alone on potatoes and dry vegetables, and which
+      she did not leave once in the course of a month. On seeing her pass, you
+      might have thought her to be one of those delicately white old nuns with
+      automatic gait, whom the cloister has kept apart from all the concerns of
+      this world. Her pale face, always scrupulously girt with a white cap,
+      looked like that of a dying woman; a vague, calm countenance it was,
+      wearing an air of supreme indifference. Prolonged taciturnity had made her
+      dumb; the darkness of her dwelling and the continual sight of the same
+      objects had dulled her glance and given her eyes the limpidity of spring
+      water. Absolute renunciation, slow physical and moral death, had little by
+      little converted this crazy <i>amorosa</i> into a grave matron. When, as
+      often happened, a blank stare came into her eyes, and she gazed before her
+      without seeing anything, one could detect utter, internal void through
+      those deep bright cavities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing now remained of her former voluptuous ardour but weariness of the
+      flesh and a senile tremor of the hands. She had once loved like a
+      she-wolf, but was now wasted, already sufficiently worn out for the grave.
+      There had been strange workings of her nerves during her long years of
+      chastity. A dissolute life would perhaps have wrecked her less than the
+      slow hidden ravages of unsatisfied fever which had modified her organism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes, even now, this moribund, pale old woman, who seemed to have no
+      blood left in her, was seized with nervous fits like electric shocks,
+      which galvanised her, and for an hour brought her atrocious intensity of
+      life. She would lie on her bed rigid, with her eyes open; then hiccoughs
+      would come upon her and she would writhe and struggle, acquiring the
+      frightful strength of those hysterical madwomen whom one has to tie down
+      in order to prevent them from breaking their heads against a wall. This
+      return to former vigour, these sudden attacks, gave her a terrible shock.
+      When she came to again, she would stagger about with such a scared,
+      stupefied look, that the gossips of the Faubourg used to say: &ldquo;She&rsquo;s been
+      drinking, the crazy old thing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Silvere&rsquo;s childish smile was for her the last pale ray which
+      brought some warmth to her frozen limbs. Weary of solitude, and frightened
+      at the thought of dying alone in one of her fits, she had asked to have
+      the child. With the little fellow running about near her, she felt secure
+      against death. Without relinquishing her habits of taciturnity, or seeking
+      to render her automatic movements more supple, she conceived inexpressible
+      affection for him. Stiff and speechless, she would watch him playing for
+      hours together, listening with delight to the intolerable noise with which
+      he filled the old hovel. That tomb had resounded with uproar ever since
+      Silvere had been running about it, bestriding broomsticks, knocking up
+      against the doors, and shouting and crying. He brought Adelaide back to
+      the world, as it were; she looked after him with the most adorable
+      awkwardness; she who, in her youth, had neglected the duties of a mother,
+      now felt the divine pleasures of maternity in washing his face, dressing
+      him, and watching over his sickly life. It was a reawakening of love, a
+      last soothing passion which heaven had granted to this woman who had been
+      so ravaged by the want of some one to love; the touching agony of a heart
+      that had lived amidst the most acute desires, and which was now dying full
+      of love for a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was already too far gone to pour forth the babble of good plump
+      grandmothers; she adored the child in secret with the bashfulness of a
+      young girl, without knowing how to fondle him. Sometimes she took him on
+      her knees, and gazed at him for a long time with her pale eyes. When the
+      little one, frightened by her mute white visage, began to cry, she seemed
+      perplexed by what she had done, and quickly put him down upon the floor
+      without even kissing him. Perhaps she recognised in him a faint
+      resemblance to Macquart the poacher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere grew up, ever tete-a-tete with Adelaide. With childish cajolery he
+      used to call her aunt Dide, a name which ultimately clung to the old
+      woman; the word &ldquo;aunt&rdquo; employed in this way is simply a term of endearment
+      in Provence. The child entertained singular affection, not unmixed with
+      respectful terror, for his grandmother. During her nervous fits, when he
+      was quite a little boy, he ran away from her, crying, terrified by her
+      disfigured countenance; and he came back very timidly after the attack,
+      ready to run away again, as though the old woman were disposed to beat
+      him. Later on, however, when he was twelve years old, he would stop there
+      bravely and watch in order that she might not hurt herself by falling off
+      the bed. He stood for hours holding her tightly in his arms to subdue the
+      rude shocks which distorted her. During intervals of calmness he would
+      gaze with pity on her convulsed features and withered frame, over which
+      her skirts lay like a shroud. These hidden dramas, which recurred every
+      month, this old woman as rigid as a corpse, this child bent over her,
+      silently watching for the return of consciousness, made up amidst the
+      darkness of the hovel a strange picture of mournful horror and
+      broken-hearted tenderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When aunt Dide came round, she would get up with difficulty, and set about
+      her work in the hovel without even questioning Silvere. She remembered
+      nothing, and the child, from a sort of instinctive prudence, avoided the
+      least allusion to what had taken place. These recurring fits, more than
+      anything else, strengthened Silvere&rsquo;s deep attachment for his grandmother.
+      In the same manner as she adored him without any garrulous effusiveness,
+      he felt a secret, almost bashful, affection for her. While he was really
+      very grateful to her for having taken him in and brought him up, he could
+      not help regarding her as an extraordinary creature, a prey to some
+      strange malady, whom he ought to pity and respect. No doubt there was not
+      sufficient life left in Adelaide; she was too white and too stiff for
+      Silvere to throw himself on her neck. Thus they lived together amidst
+      melancholy silence, in the depths of which they felt the tremor of
+      boundless love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sad, solemn atmosphere, which he had breathed from childhood, gave
+      Silvere a strong heart, in which gathered every form of enthusiasm. He
+      early became a serious, thoughtful little man, seeking instruction with a
+      kind of stubbornness. He only learnt a little spelling and arithmetic at
+      the school of the Christian Brothers, which he was compelled to leave when
+      he was but twelve years old, on account of his apprenticeship. He never
+      acquired the first rudiments of knowledge. However, he read all the odd
+      volumes which fell into his hands, and thus provided himself with strange
+      equipment; he had some notions of a multitude of subjects, ill-digested
+      notions, which he could never classify distinctly in his head. When he was
+      quite young, he had been in the habit of playing in the workshop of a
+      master wheelwright, a worthy man named Vian, who lived at the entrance of
+      the blind-alley in front of the Aire Saint-Mittre where he stored his
+      timber. Silvere used to jump up on the wheels of the tilted carts
+      undergoing repair, and amuse himself by dragging about the heavy tools
+      which his tiny hands could scarcely lift. One of his greatest pleasures,
+      too, was to assist the workmen by holding some piece of wood for them, or
+      bringing them the iron-work which they required. When he had grown older
+      he naturally became apprenticed to Vian. The latter had taken a liking to
+      the little fellow who was always kicking about his heels, and asked
+      Adelaide to let him come, refusing to take anything for his board and
+      lodging. Silvere eagerly accepted, already foreseeing the time when he
+      would be able to make his poor aunt Dide some return for all she had spent
+      upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a short time he became an excellent workman. He cherished, however,
+      much higher ambitions. Having once seen, at a coachbuilder&rsquo;s at Plassans,
+      a fine new carriage, shining with varnish, he vowed that he would one day
+      build carriages himself. He remembered this carriage as a rare and unique
+      work of art, an ideal towards which his aspirations should tend. The
+      tilted carts at which he worked in Vian&rsquo;s shop, those carts which he had
+      lovingly cherished, now seemed unworthy of his affections. He began to
+      attend the local drawing-school, where he formed a connection with a
+      youngster who had left college, and who lent him an old treatise on
+      geometry. He plunged into this study without a guide, racking his brains
+      for weeks together in order to grasp the simplest problem in the world. In
+      this matter he gradually became one of those learned workmen who can
+      hardly sign their name and yet talk about algebra as though it were an
+      intimate friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing unsettles the mind so much as this desultory kind of education,
+      which reposes on no firm basis. Most frequently such scraps of knowledge
+      convey an absolutely false idea of the highest truths, and render persons
+      of limited intellect insufferably stupid. In Silvere&rsquo;s case, however, his
+      scraps of stolen knowledge only augmented his liberal aspirations. He was
+      conscious of horizons which at present remained closed to him. He formed
+      for himself divine conceptions of things beyond his reach, and lived on,
+      regarding in a deep, innocent, religious way the noble thoughts and grand
+      conceptions towards which he was raising himself, but which he could not
+      as yet comprehend. He was one of the simple-minded, one whose simplicity
+      was divine, and who had remained on the threshold of the temple, kneeling
+      before the tapers which from a distance he took for stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre consisted, in the first place, of a
+      large room into which the street door opened. The only pieces of furniture
+      in this room, which had a stone floor, and served both as a kitchen and a
+      dining-room, were some straw-seated chairs, a table on trestles, and an
+      old coffer which Adelaide had converted into a sofa, by spreading a piece
+      of woollen stuff over the lid. In the left hand corner of the large
+      fireplace stood a plaster image of the Holy Virgin, surrounded by
+      artificial flowers; she is the traditional good mother of all old
+      Provencal women, however irreligious they may be. A passage led from the
+      room into a yard situated at the rear of the house; in this yard there was
+      a well. Aunt Dide&rsquo;s bedroom was on the left side of the passage; it was a
+      little apartment containing an iron bedstead and one chair; Silvere slept
+      in a still smaller room on the right hand side, just large enough for a
+      trestle bedstead; and he had been obliged to plan a set of shelves,
+      reaching up to the ceiling, to keep by him all those dear odd volumes
+      which he saved his sous to purchase from a neighbouring general dealer.
+      When he read at night-time, he would hang his lamp on a nail at the head
+      of the bed. If his grandmother had an attack, he merely had to leap out at
+      the first gasp to be at her side in a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man led the life of a child. He passed his existence in this
+      lonely spot. Like his father, he felt a dislike for taverns and Sunday
+      strolling. His mates wounded his delicate susceptibilities by their coarse
+      jokes. He preferred to read, to rack his rain over some simple geometrical
+      problem. Since aunt Dide had entrusted him with the little household
+      commissions she did not go out at all, but ceased all intercourse even
+      with her family. The young man sometimes thought of her forlornness; he
+      reflected that the poor old woman lived but a few steps from the children
+      who strove to forget her, as though she were dead; and this made him love
+      her all the more, for himself and for the others. When he at times
+      entertained a vague idea that aunt Dide might be expiating some former
+      transgressions, he would say to himself: &ldquo;I was born to pardon her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A nature such as Silvere&rsquo;s, ardent yet self-restrained, naturally
+      cherished the most exalted republican ideas. At night, in his little
+      hovel, Silvere would again and again read a work of Rousseau&rsquo;s which he
+      had picked up at the neighbouring dealer&rsquo;s among a number of old locks.
+      The reading of this book kept him awake till daylight. Amidst his dream of
+      universal happiness so dear to the poor, the words liberty, equality,
+      fraternity, rang in his ears like those sonorous sacred calls of the
+      bells, at the sound of which the faithful fall upon their knees. When,
+      therefore, he learnt that the Republic had just been proclaimed in France
+      he fancied that the whole world would enjoy a life of celestial beatitude.
+      His knowledge, though imperfect, made him see farther than other workmen;
+      his aspirations did not stop at daily bread; but his extreme
+      ingenuousness, his complete ignorance of mankind, kept him in the
+      dreamland of theory, a Garden of Eden where universal justice reigned. His
+      paradise was for a long time a delightful spot in which he forgot himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he came to perceive that things did not go on quite satisfactorily in
+      the best of republics he was sorely grieved, and indulged in another
+      dream, that of compelling men to be happy even by force. Every act which
+      seemed to him prejudicial to the interest of the people roused him to
+      revengeful indignation. Though he was as gentle as a child, he cherished
+      the fiercest political animosity. He would not have killed a fly, and yet
+      he was for ever talking of a call to arms. Liberty was his passion, an
+      unreasoning, absolute passion, to which he gave all the feverish ardour of
+      his blood. Blinded by enthusiasm, he was both too ignorant and too learned
+      to be tolerant, and would not allow for men&rsquo;s weaknesses; he required an
+      ideal government of perfect justice and perfect liberty. It was at this
+      period that Antoine Macquart thought of setting him against the Rougons.
+      He fancied that this young enthusiast would work terrible havoc if he were
+      only exasperated to the proper pitch. This calculation was not altogether
+      devoid of shrewdness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such being Antoine&rsquo;s scheme, he tried to induce Silvere to visit him, by
+      professing inordinate admiration for the young man&rsquo;s ideas. But he very
+      nearly compromised the whole matter at the outset. He had a way of
+      regarding the triumph of the Republic as a question of personal interest,
+      as an era of happy idleness and endless junketing, which chilled his
+      nephew&rsquo;s purely moral aspirations. However, he perceived that he was on
+      the wrong track, and plunged into strange bathos, a string of empty but
+      high-sounding words, which Silvere accepted as a satisfactory proof of his
+      civism. Before long the uncle and the nephew saw each other two or three
+      times a week. During their long discussions, in which the fate of the
+      country was flatly settled, Antoine endeavoured to persuade the young man
+      that the Rougons&rsquo; drawing-room was the chief obstacle to the welfare of
+      France. But he again made a false move by calling his mother &ldquo;old jade&rdquo; in
+      Silvere&rsquo;s presence. He even repeated to him the early scandals about the
+      poor woman. The young man blushed for shame, but listened without
+      interruption. He had not asked his uncle for this information; he felt
+      heart-broken by such confidences, which wounded his feeling of respectful
+      affection for aunt Dide. From that time forward he lavished yet more
+      attention upon his grandmother, greeting her always with pleasant smiles
+      and looks of forgiveness. However, Macquart felt that he had acted
+      foolishly, and strove to take advantage of Silvere&rsquo;s affection for
+      Adelaide by charging the Rougons with her forlornness and poverty.
+      According to him, he had always been the best of sons, whereas his brother
+      had behaved disgracefully; Pierre had robbed his mother, and now, when she
+      was penniless, he was ashamed of her. He never ceased descanting on this
+      subject. Silvere thereupon became indignant with his uncle Pierre, much to
+      the satisfaction of his uncle Antoine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scene was much the same every time the young man called. He used to
+      come in the evening, while the Macquarts were at dinner. The father would
+      be swallowing some potato stew with a growl, picking out the pieces of
+      bacon, and watching the dish when it passed into the hands of Jean and
+      Gervaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, Silvere,&rdquo; he would say with a sullen rage which was
+      ill-concealed beneath his air of cynical indifference, &ldquo;more potatoes,
+      always potatoes! We never eat anything else now. Meat is only for rich
+      people. It&rsquo;s getting quite impossible to make both ends meet with children
+      who have the devil&rsquo;s appetite and their own too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gervaise and Jean bent over their plates, no longer even daring to cut
+      some bread. Silvere, who in his dream lived in heaven, did not grasp the
+      situation. In a calm voice he pronounced these storm-laden words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you should work, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! yes,&rdquo; sneered Macquart, stung to the quick. &ldquo;You want me to work, eh!
+      To let those beggars, the rich folk, continue to prey upon me. I should
+      earn probably twenty sous a day, and ruin my constitution. It&rsquo;s worth
+      while, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everyone earns what he can,&rdquo; the young man replied. &ldquo;Twenty sous are
+      twenty sous; and it all helps in a home. Besides, you&rsquo;re an old soldier,
+      why don&rsquo;t you seek some employment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fine would then interpose, with a thoughtlessness of which she soon
+      repented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m always telling him,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;The market inspector
+      wants an assistant; I mentioned my husband to him, and he seems well
+      disposed towards us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Macquart interrupted her with a fulminating glance. &ldquo;Eh! hold your
+      tongue,&rdquo; he growled with suppressed anger. &ldquo;Women never know what they&rsquo;re
+      talking about! Nobody would have me; my opinions are too well-known.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every time he was offered employment he displayed similar irritation. He
+      did not cease, however, to ask for situations, though he always refused
+      such as were found for him, assigning the most extraordinary reasons. When
+      pressed upon the point he became terrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Jean were to take up a newspaper after dinner he would at once exclaim:
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;d better go to bed. You&rsquo;ll be getting up late to-morrow, and that&rsquo;ll
+      be another day lost. To think of that young rascal coming home with eight
+      francs short last week! However, I&rsquo;ve requested his master not give him
+      his money in future; I&rsquo;ll call for it myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jean would go to bed to avoid his father&rsquo;s recriminations. He had but
+      little sympathy with Silvere; politics bored him, and he thought his
+      cousin &ldquo;cracked.&rdquo; When only the women remained, if they unfortunately
+      started some whispered converse after clearing the table, Macquart would
+      cry: &ldquo;Now, you idlers! Is there nothing that requires mending? we&rsquo;re all
+      in rags. Look here, Gervaise, I was at your mistress&rsquo;s to-day, and I
+      learnt some fine things. You&rsquo;re a good-for-nothing, a gad-about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gervaise, now a grown girl of more than twenty, coloured up at thus being
+      scolded in the presence of Silvere, who himself felt uncomfortable. One
+      evening, having come rather late, when his uncle was not at home, he had
+      found the mother and daughter intoxicated before an empty bottle. From
+      that time he could never see his cousin without recalling the disgraceful
+      spectacle she had presented, with the maudlin grin and large red patches
+      on her poor, pale, puny face. He was not less shocked by the nasty stories
+      that circulated with regard to her. He sometimes looked at her stealthily,
+      with the timid surprise of a schoolboy in the presence of a disreputable
+      character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the two women had taken up their needles, and were ruining their
+      eyesight in order to mend his old shirts, Macquart, taking the best seat,
+      would throw himself back with an air of delicious comfort, and sip and
+      smoke like a man who relishes his laziness. This was the time when the old
+      rogue generally railed against the wealthy for living on the sweat of the
+      poor man&rsquo;s brow. He was superbly indignant with the gentlemen of the new
+      town, who lived so idly, and compelled the poor to keep them in luxury.
+      The fragments of communistic notions which he culled from the newspapers
+      in the morning became grotesque and monstrous on falling from his lips. He
+      would talk of a time near at hand when no one would be obliged to work. He
+      always, however, kept his fiercest animosity for the Rougons. He never
+      could digest the potatoes he had eaten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw that vile creature Felicite buying a chicken in the market this
+      morning,&rdquo; he would say. &ldquo;Those robbers of inheritances must eat chicken,
+      forsooth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Dide,&rdquo; interposed Silvere, &ldquo;says that uncle Pierre was very kind to
+      you when you left the army. Didn&rsquo;t he spend a large sum of money in
+      lodging and clothing you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A large sum of money!&rdquo; roared Macquart in exasperation; &ldquo;your grandmother
+      is mad. It was those thieves who spread those reports themselves, so as to
+      close my mouth. I never had anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fine again foolishly interfered, reminding him that he had received two
+      hundred francs, besides a suit of clothes and a year&rsquo;s rent. Antoine
+      thereupon shouted to her to hold her tongue, and continued, with
+      increasing fury: &ldquo;Two hundred francs! A fine thing! I want my due, ten
+      thousand francs. Ah! yes, talk of the hole they shoved me into like a dog,
+      and the old frock-coat which Pierre gave me because he was ashamed to wear
+      it any longer himself, it was so dirty and ragged!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not speaking the truth; but, seeing the rage that he was in, nobody
+      ventured to protest any further. Then, turning towards Silvere: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very
+      stupid of you to defend them!&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;They robbed your mother, who,
+      good woman, would be alive now if she had had the means of taking care of
+      herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! you&rsquo;re not just, uncle,&rdquo; the young man said; &ldquo;my mother did not die
+      for want of attention, and I&rsquo;m certain my father would never have accepted
+      a sou from his wife&rsquo;s family!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh! don&rsquo;t talk to me! your father would have taken the money just like
+      anybody else. We were disgracefully plundered, and it&rsquo;s high time we had
+      our rights.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Macquart, for the hundredth time, began to recount the story of the
+      fifty thousand francs. His nephew, who knew it by heart, and all the
+      variations with which he embellished it, listened to him rather
+      impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you were a man,&rdquo; Antoine would say in conclusion, &ldquo;you would come some
+      day with me, and we would kick up a nice row at the Rougons. We would not
+      leave without having some money given us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, however, grew serious, and frankly replied: &ldquo;If those wretches
+      robbed us, so much the worse for them. I don&rsquo;t want their money. You see,
+      uncle, it&rsquo;s not for us to fall on our relatives. If they&rsquo;ve done wrong,
+      well, one of these days they&rsquo;ll be severely punished for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! what a big simpleton you are!&rdquo; the uncle cried. &ldquo;When we have the
+      upper hand, you&rsquo;ll see whether I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t settle my own little affairs
+      myself. God cares a lot about us indeed! What a foul family ours is! Even
+      if I were starving to death, not one of those scoundrels would throw me a
+      dry crust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whenever Macquart touched upon this subject, he proved inexhaustible. He
+      bared all his bleeding wounds of envy and covetousness. He grew mad with
+      rage when he came to think that he was the only unlucky one in the family,
+      and was forced to eat potatoes, while the others had meat to their heart&rsquo;s
+      content. He would pass all his relations in review, even his
+      grand-nephews, and find some grievance and reason for threatening every
+      one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; he repeated bitterly, &ldquo;they&rsquo;d leave me to die like a dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gervaise, without raising her head or ceasing to ply her needle, would
+      sometimes say timidly: &ldquo;Still, father, cousin Pascal was very kind to us,
+      last year, when you were ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He attended you without charging a sou,&rdquo; continued Fine, coming to her
+      daughter&rsquo;s aid, &ldquo;and he often slipped a five-franc piece into my hand to
+      make you some broth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He! he&rsquo;d have killed me if I hadn&rsquo;t had a strong constitution!&rdquo; Macquart
+      retorted. &ldquo;Hold your tongues, you fools! You&rsquo;d let yourselves be twisted
+      about like children. They&rsquo;d all like to see me dead. When I&rsquo;m ill again, I
+      beg you not to go and fetch my nephew, for I didn&rsquo;t feel at all
+      comfortable in his hands. He&rsquo;s only a twopenny-halfpenny doctor, and
+      hasn&rsquo;t got a decent patient in all his practice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When once Macquart was fully launched, he could not stop. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like that
+      little viper, Aristide,&rdquo; he would say, &ldquo;a false brother, a traitor. Are
+      you taken in by his articles in the &lsquo;Independant,&rsquo; Silvere? You would be a
+      fine fool if you were. They&rsquo;re not even written in good French; I&rsquo;ve
+      always maintained that this contraband Republican is in league with his
+      worthy father to humbug us. You&rsquo;ll see how he&rsquo;ll turn his coat. And his
+      brother, the illustrious Eugene, that big blockhead of whom the Rougons
+      make such a fuss! Why, they&rsquo;ve got the impudence to assert that he
+      occupies a good position in Paris! I know something about his position;
+      he&rsquo;s employed at the Rue de Jerusalem; he&rsquo;s a police spy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who told you so? You know nothing about it,&rdquo; interrupted Silvere, whose
+      upright spirit at last felt hurt by his uncle&rsquo;s lying accusations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! I know nothing about it? Do you think so? I tell you he is a police
+      spy. You&rsquo;ll be shorn like a lamb one of these days, with your benevolence.
+      You&rsquo;re not manly enough. I don&rsquo;t want to say anything against your brother
+      Francois; but, if I were in your place, I shouldn&rsquo;t like the scurvy manner
+      in which he treats you. He earns a heap of money at Marseilles, and yet he
+      never sends you a paltry twenty-franc pierce for pocket money. If ever you
+      become poor, I shouldn&rsquo;t advise you to look to him for anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no need of anybody,&rdquo; the young man replied in a proud and slightly
+      injured tone of voice. &ldquo;My own work suffices for aunt Dide and myself.
+      You&rsquo;re cruel, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only say what&rsquo;s true, that&rsquo;s all. I should like to open your eyes. Our
+      family is a disreputable lot; it&rsquo;s sad but true. Even that little Maxime,
+      Aristide&rsquo;s son, that little nine-year-old brat, pokes his tongue out at me
+      when me meets me. That child will some day beat his own mother, and a good
+      job too! Say what you like, all those folks don&rsquo;t deserve their luck; but
+      it&rsquo;s always like this in families, the good ones suffer while the bad ones
+      make their fortunes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All this dirty linen, which Macquart washed with such complacency before
+      his nephew, profoundly disgusted the young man. He would have liked to
+      soar back into his dream. As soon as he began to show unmistakable signs
+      of impatience, Antoine would employ strong expedients to exasperate him
+      against their relatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Defend them! Defend them!&rdquo; he would say, appearing to calm down. &ldquo;I, for
+      my part, have arranged to have nothing more to do with them. I only
+      mention the matter out of pity for my poor mother, whom all that gang
+      treat in a most revolting manner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are wretches!&rdquo; Silvere murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! you don&rsquo;t know, you don&rsquo;t understand. These Rougons pour all sorts of
+      insults and abuse on the good woman. Aristide has forbidden his son even
+      to recognise her. Felicite talks of having her placed in a lunatic
+      asylum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man, as white as a sheet, abruptly interrupted his uncle:
+      &ldquo;Enough!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to know any more about it. There will
+      have to be an end to all this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll hold my tongue, since it annoys you,&rdquo; the old rascal replied,
+      feigning a good-natured manner. &ldquo;Still, there are some things that you
+      ought not to be ignorant of, unless you want to play the part of a fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart, while exerting himself to set Silvere against the Rougons,
+      experienced the keenest pleasure on drawing tears of anguish from the
+      young man&rsquo;s eyes. He detested him, perhaps, more than he did the others,
+      and this because he was an excellent workman and never drank. He brought
+      all his instincts of refined cruelty into play, in order to invent
+      atrocious falsehoods which should sting the poor lad to the heart; then he
+      revelled in his pallor, his trembling hands and his heart-rending looks,
+      with the delight of some evil spirit who measures his stabs and finds that
+      he has struck his victim in the right place. When he thought that he had
+      wounded and exasperated Silvere sufficiently, he would at last touch upon
+      politics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been assured,&rdquo; he would say, lowering his voice, &ldquo;that the Rougons
+      are preparing some treachery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Treachery?&rdquo; Silvere asked, becoming attentive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, one of these nights they are going to seize all the good citizens of
+      the town and throw them into prison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man was at first disposed to doubt it, but his uncle gave
+      precise details; he spoke of lists that had been drawn up, he mentioned
+      the persons whose names were on these lists, he indicated in what manner,
+      at what hour, and under what circumstances the plot would be carried into
+      effect. Silvere gradually allowed himself to be taken in by this old
+      woman&rsquo;s tale, and was soon raving against the enemies of the Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s they that we shall have to reduce to impotence if they persist in
+      betraying the country!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;And what do they intend to do with the
+      citizens whom they arrest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do they intend to do with them? Why, they will shoot them in the
+      lowest dungeons of the prison, of course,&rdquo; replied Macquart, with a hoarse
+      laugh. And as the young man, stupefied with horror, looked at him without
+      knowing what to say: &ldquo;This will not be the first lot to be assassinated
+      there,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;You need only go and prowl about the Palais de
+      Justice of an evening to hear the shots and groans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the wretches!&rdquo; Silvere murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon uncle and nephew launched out into high politics. Fine and
+      Gervaise, on finding them hotly debating things, quietly went to bed
+      without attracting their attention. Then the two men remained together
+      till midnight, commenting on the news from Paris and discussing the
+      approaching and inevitable struggle. Macquart bitterly denounced the men
+      of his own party, Silvere dreamed his dream of ideal liberty aloud, and
+      for himself only. Strange conversations these were, during which the uncle
+      poured out many a little nip for himself, and from which the nephew
+      emerged quite intoxicated with enthusiasm. Antoine, however, never
+      succeeded in obtaining from the young Republican any perfidious suggestion
+      or play of warfare against the Rougons. In vain he tried to goad him on;
+      he seldom heard him suggest aught but an appeal to eternal justice, which
+      sooner or later would punish the evil-doers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ingenuous youth did indeed speak warmly of taking up arms and
+      massacring the enemies of the Republic; but, as soon as these enemies
+      strayed out of his dream or became personified in his uncle Pierre or any
+      other person of his acquaintance, he relied upon heaven to spare him the
+      horror of shedding blood. It is very probable that he would have ceased
+      visiting Macquart, whose jealous fury made him so uncomfortable, if he had
+      not tasted the pleasure of being able to speak freely of his dear Republic
+      there. In the end, however, his uncle exercised decisive influence over
+      his destiny; he irritated his nerves by his everlasting diatribes, and
+      succeeded in making him eager for an armed struggle, the conquest of
+      universal happiness by violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Silvere reached his sixteenth year, Macquart had him admitted into
+      the secret society of the Montagnards, a powerful association whose
+      influence extended throughout Southern France. From that moment the young
+      Republican gazed with longing eyes at the smuggler&rsquo;s carbine, which
+      Adelaide had hung over her chimney-piece. Once night, while his
+      grandmother was asleep, he cleaned and put it in proper condition. Then he
+      replaced it on its nail and waited, indulging in brilliant reveries,
+      fancying gigantic epics, Homeric struggles, and knightly tournaments,
+      whence the defenders of liberty would emerge victorious and acclaimed by
+      the whole world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart meantime was not discouraged. He said to himself that he would be
+      able to strangle the Rougons alone if he could ever get them into a
+      corner. His envious rage and slothful greed were increased by certain
+      successive accidents which compelled him to resume work. In the early part
+      of 1850 Fine died, almost suddenly, from inflammation of the lungs, which
+      she had caught by going one evening to wash the family linen in the
+      Viorne, and carrying it home wet on her back. She returned soaked with
+      water and perspiration, bowed down by her load, which was terribly heavy,
+      and she never recovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her death filled Macquart with consternation. His most reliable source of
+      income was gone. When, a few days later, he sold the caldron in which his
+      wife had boiled her chestnuts, and the wooden horse which she used in
+      reseating old chairs, he foully accused the Divinity of having robbed him
+      of that strong strapping woman of whom he had often felt ashamed, but
+      whose real worth he now appreciated. He now also fell upon the children&rsquo;s
+      earnings with greater avidity than ever. But, a month later, Gervaise,
+      tired of his continual exactions, ran away with her two children and
+      Lantier, whose mother was dead. The lovers took refuge in Paris. Antoine,
+      overwhelmed, vented his rage against his daughter by expressing the hope
+      that she might die in hospital like most of her kind. This abuse did not,
+      however, improve the situation, which was decidedly becoming bad. Jean
+      soon followed his sister&rsquo;s example. He waited for pay-day to come round,
+      and then contrived to receive the money himself. As he was leaving he told
+      one of his friends, who repeated it to Antoine, that he would no longer
+      keep his lazy father, and that if the latter should take it into his head
+      to have him brought back by the gendarmes he would touch neither saw nor
+      plane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morrow, when Antoine, having vainly sought him, found himself alone
+      and penniless in the house where for twenty years he had been comfortably
+      kept, he flew into the most frantic rage, kicked the furniture about, and
+      yelled the vilest imprecations. Then he sank down exhausted, and began to
+      drag himself about and moan like a convalescent. The fear of having to
+      earn his bread made him positively ill. When Silvere came to see him, he
+      complained, with tears, of his children&rsquo;s ingratitude. Had he not always
+      been a good father to them? Jean and Gervaise were monsters, who had made
+      him an evil return for all he had done for them. Now they abandoned him
+      because he was old, and they could not get anything more out of him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But uncle,&rdquo; said Silvere, &ldquo;you are not yet too old to work!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart, coughing and stooping, shook his head mournfully, as if to say
+      that he could not bear the least fatigue for any length of time. Just as
+      his nephew was about to withdraw, he borrowed ten francs of him. Then for
+      a month he lived by taking his children&rsquo;s old clothes, one by one, to a
+      second-hand dealer&rsquo;s, and in the same way, little by little, he sold all
+      the small articles in the house. Soon nothing remained but a table, a
+      chair, his bed, and the clothes on his back. He ended by exchanging the
+      walnut-wood bedstead for a plain strap one. When he had exhausted all his
+      resources, he cried with rage; and, with the fierce pallor of a man who is
+      resigned to suicide, he went to look for the bundle of osier that he had
+      forgotten in some corner for a quarter of a century past. As he took it up
+      he seemed to be lifting a mountain. However, he again began to plait
+      baskets and hampers, while denouncing the human race for their neglect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was particularly at this time that he talked of dividing and sharing
+      the riches of the wealthy. He showed himself terrible. His speeches kept
+      up a constant conflagration in the tavern, where his furious looks secured
+      him unlimited credit. Moreover, he only worked when he had been unable to
+      get a five-franc piece out of Silvere or a comrade. He was no longer
+      &ldquo;Monsieur&rdquo; Macquart, the clean-shaven workman, who wore his Sunday clothes
+      every day and played the gentleman; he again became the big slovenly devil
+      who had once speculated on his rags. Felicite did not dare to go to market
+      now that he was so often coming there to sell his baskets. He once had a
+      violent quarrel with her there. His hatred against the Rougons grew with
+      his wretchedness. He swore, with horrible threats, that he would wreak
+      justice himself, since the rich were leagued together to compel him to
+      toil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this state of mind, he welcomed the Coup d&rsquo;Etat with the ardent,
+      obstreperous delight of a hound scenting the quarry. As the few honest
+      Liberals in the town had failed to arrive at an understanding amongst
+      themselves, and therefore kept apart, he became naturally one of the most
+      prominent agents of the insurrection. The working classes, notwithstanding
+      the unfavourable opinion which they at last entertained of this lazy
+      fellow, would, when the time arrived, have to accept him as a rallying
+      flag. On the first few days, however, the town remained quiet, and
+      Macquart thought that his plans were frustrated. It was not until the news
+      arrived of the rising of the rural districts that he recovered hope. For
+      his own part he would not have left Plassans for all the world;
+      accordingly he invented some pretext for not following those workmen who,
+      on the Sunday morning, set off to join the insurrectionary band of La
+      Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of the same day he was sitting in some disreputable tavern
+      of the old quarter with a few friends, when a comrade came to inform him
+      that the insurgents were only a few miles from Plassans. This news had
+      just been brought by an express, who had succeeded in making his way into
+      the town, and had been charged to get the gates opened for the column.
+      There was an outburst of triumph. Macquart, especially, appeared to be
+      delirious with enthusiasm. The unforeseen arrival of the insurgents seemed
+      to him a delicate attention of Providence for his own particular benefit.
+      His hands trembled at the idea that he would soon hold the Rougons by the
+      throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hastily quitted the tavern with his friends. All the Republicans who
+      had not yet left the town were soon assembled on the Cours Sauvaire. It
+      was this band that Rougon had perceived as he was hastening to conceal
+      himself in his mother&rsquo;s house. When the band had reached the top of the
+      Rue de la Banne, Macquart, who had stationed himself at the rear, detained
+      four of his companions, big fellows who were not over-burdened with brains
+      and whom he swayed by his tavern bluster. He easily persuaded them that
+      the enemies of the Republic must be arrested immediately if they wished to
+      prevent the greatest calamities. The truth was that he feared Pierre might
+      escape him in the midst of the confusion which the entry of the insurgents
+      would produce. However, the four big fellows followed him with exemplary
+      docility, and knocked violently at the door of the Rougons&rsquo; abode. In this
+      critical situation Felicite displayed admirable courage. She went down and
+      opened the street door herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We want to go upstairs into your rooms,&rdquo; Macquart said to her brutally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, gentlemen, walk up,&rdquo; she replied with ironical politeness,
+      pretending that she did not recognise her brother-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once upstairs, Macquart ordered her to fetch her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband is not here,&rdquo; she said with perfect calmness; &ldquo;he is
+      travelling on business. He took the diligence for Marseilles at six
+      o&rsquo;clock this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoine at this declaration, which Felicite uttered in a clear voice, made
+      a gesture of rage. He rushed through the drawing-room, and then into the
+      bedroom, turned the bed up, looked behind the curtains and under the
+      furniture. The four big fellows assisted him. They searched the place for
+      a quarter of an hour. Felicite meantime quietly seated herself on the
+      drawing-room sofa, and began to fasten the strings of her petticoats, like
+      a person who has been surprised in her sleep and has not had time to dress
+      properly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s true then, he&rsquo;s run away, the coward!&rdquo; Macquart muttered on
+      returning to the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, he continued to look about him with a suspicious air. He
+      felt a presentiment that Pierre could not have given up the game at the
+      decisive moment. At last he approached Felicite, who was yawning: &ldquo;Show us
+      the place where your husband is hidden,&rdquo; he said to her, &ldquo;and I promise no
+      harm shall be done to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have told you the truth,&rdquo; she replied impatiently. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t deliver my
+      husband to you, as he&rsquo;s not here. You have searched everywhere, haven&rsquo;t
+      you? Then leave me alone now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart, exasperated by her composure, was just going to strike her, when
+      a rumbling noise arose from the street. It was the column of insurgents
+      entering the Rue de la Banne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then had to leave the yellow drawing-room, after shaking his fist at
+      his sister-in-law, calling her an old jade, and threatening that he would
+      soon return. At the foot of the staircase, he took one of the men who
+      accompanied him, a navvy named Cassoute, the most wooden-headed of the
+      four, and ordered him to sit on the first step, and remain there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must come and inform me,&rdquo; he said to him, &ldquo;if you see the scoundrel
+      from upstairs return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man sat down heavily. When Macquart reached the pavement, he raised
+      his eyes and observed Felicite leaning out of the window of the
+      yellow-drawing room, watching the march past of the insurgents, as if it
+      was nothing but a regiment passing through the town to the strains of its
+      band. This last sign of perfect composure irritated him to such a degree
+      that he was almost tempted to go up again and throw the old woman into the
+      street. However, he followed the column, muttering in a hoarse voice:
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, look at us passing. We&rsquo;ll see whether you will station yourself
+      at your balcony to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was nearly eleven o&rsquo;clock at night when the insurgents entered the town
+      by the Porte de Rome. The workmen remaining in Plassans had opened the
+      gate for them, in spite of the wailings of the keeper, from whom they
+      could only wrest the keys by force. This man, very jealous of his office,
+      stood dumbfoundered in the presence of the surging crowd. To think of it!
+      he, who never allowed more than one person to pass in at a time, and then
+      only after a prolonged examination of his face! And he murmured that he
+      was dishonoured. The men of Plassans were still marching at the head of
+      the column by way of guiding the others; Miette, who was in the front
+      rank, with Silvere on her left, held up her banner more proudly than ever
+      now that she could divine behind the closed blinds the scared looks of
+      well-to-do bourgeois startled out of their sleep. The insurgents passed
+      along the Rue de Rome and the Rue de la Banne slowly and warily; at every
+      crossway, although they well knew the quiet disposition of the
+      inhabitants, they feared they might be received with bullets. The town
+      seemed lifeless, however; there was scarcely a stifled exclamation to be
+      heard at the windows. Only five or six shutters opened. Some old
+      householder then appeared in his night-shirt, candle in hand, and leant
+      out to obtain a better view; but as soon as he distinguished the tall red
+      girl who appeared to be drawing that crowd of black demons behind her, he
+      hastily closed his window again, terrified by such a diabolical
+      apparition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The silence of the slumbering town reassured the insurgents, who ventured
+      to make their way through the lanes of the old quarter, and thus reached
+      the market-place and the Place de l&rsquo;Hotel-de-Ville, which was connected by
+      a short but broad street. These open spaces, planted with slender trees,
+      were brilliantly illumined by the moon. Against the clear sky the recently
+      restored town-hall appeared like a large patch of crude whiteness, the
+      fine black lines of the wrought-iron arabesques of the first-floor balcony
+      showing in bold relief. Several persons could be plainly distinguished
+      standing on this balcony, the mayor, Commander Sicardot, three or four
+      municipal councillors, and other functionaries. The doors below were
+      closed. The three thousand Republicans, who covered both open spaces,
+      halted with upraised heads, ready to force the doors with a single push.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arrival of the insurrectionary column at such an hour took the
+      authorities by surprise. Before repairing to the mayor&rsquo;s, Commander
+      Sicardot had taken time to don his uniform. He then had to run and rouse
+      the mayor. When the keeper of the Porte de Rome, who had been left free by
+      the insurgents, came to announce that the villains were already in the
+      town, the commander had so far only managed to assemble a score of the
+      national guards. The gendarmes, though their barracks were close by, could
+      not even be warned. It was necessary to shut the town-hall doors in all
+      haste, in order to deliberate. Five minutes later a low continuous
+      rumbling announced the approach of the column.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Garconnet, out of hatred to the Republic, would have greatly
+      liked to offer resistance. But he was of a prudent nature, and
+      comprehended the futility of a struggle on finding only a few pale men,
+      who were scarcely awake, around him. So the deliberations did not last
+      long. Sicardot alone was obstinate; he wanted to fight, asserting that
+      twenty men would suffice to bring these three thousand villains to reason.
+      At this Monsieur Garconnet shrugged his shoulders, and declared that the
+      only step to take was to make an honourable capitulation. As the uproar of
+      the mob increased, he went out on the balcony, followed by all the persons
+      present. Silence was gradually obtained. Below, among the black, quivering
+      mass of insurgents, the guns and scythes glittered in the moonlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you, and what do you want?&rdquo; cried the mayor in a loud voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon a man in a greatcoat, a landowner of La Palud, stepped forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Open the doors,&rdquo; he said, without replying to Monsieur Garconnet&rsquo;s
+      question. &ldquo;Avoid a fratricidal conflict.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call upon you to withdraw,&rdquo; the mayor continued. &ldquo;I protest in the name
+      of the law.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words provoked deafening shouts from the crowd. When the tumult had
+      somewhat abated, vehement calls ascended to the balcony. Voices shouted:
+      &ldquo;It is in the name of the law that we have come here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your duty as a functionary is to secure respect for the fundamental law
+      of the land, the constitution, which has just been outrageously violated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Long live the constitution! Long live the Republic!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then as Monsieur Garconnet endeavoured to make himself heard, and
+      continued to invoke his official dignity, the land-owner of La Palud, who
+      was standing under the balcony, interrupted him with great vehemence: &ldquo;You
+      are now nothing but the functionary of a fallen functionary; we have come
+      to dismiss you from your office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hitherto, Commander Sicardot had been ragefully biting his moustache, and
+      muttering insulting words. The sight of the cudgels and scythes
+      exasperated him; and he made desperate efforts to restrain himself from
+      treating these twopenny-halfpenny soldiers, who had not even a gun apiece,
+      as they deserved. But when he heard a gentleman in a mere greatcoat speak
+      of deposing a mayor girded with his scarf, he could no longer contain
+      himself and shouted: &ldquo;You pack of rascals! If I only had four men and a
+      corporal, I&rsquo;d come down and pull your ears for you, and make you behave
+      yourselves!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Less than this was needed to raise a serious disturbance. A long shout
+      rose from the mob as it made a rush for the doors. Monsieur Garconnet, in
+      consternation, hastily quitted the balcony, entreating Sicardot to be
+      reasonable unless he wished to have them massacred. But in two minutes the
+      doors gave way, the people invaded the building and disarmed the national
+      guards. The mayor and the other functionaries present were arrested.
+      Sicardot, who declined to surrender his sword, had to be protected from
+      the fury of some insurgents by the chief of the contingent from Les
+      Tulettes, a man of great self-possession. When the town-hall was in the
+      hands of the Republicans, they led their prisoners to a small cafe in the
+      market-place, and there kept them closely watched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The insurrectionary army would have avoided marching through Plassans if
+      its leaders had not decided that a little food and a few hours&rsquo; rest were
+      absolutely necessary for the men. Instead of pushing forward direct to the
+      chief town of the department, the column, owing to the inexcusable
+      weakness and the inexperience of the improvised general who commanded it,
+      was now diverging to the left, making a detour which was destined,
+      ultimately, to lead it to destruction. It was bound for the heights of
+      Sainte-Roure, still about ten leagues distant, and it was in view of this
+      long march that it had been decided to pass through Plassans,
+      notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. It was now half-past eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Monsieur Garconnet learnt that the band was in quest of provisions,
+      he offered his services to procure them. This functionary formed, under
+      very difficult circumstances, a proper estimate of the situation. Those
+      three thousand starving men would have to be satisfied; it would never do
+      for Plassans, on waking up, to find them still squatting on the pavements;
+      if they withdrew before daybreak they would simply have passed through the
+      slumbering town like an evil dream, like one of those nightmares which
+      depart with the arrival of dawn. And so, although he remained a prisoner,
+      Monsieur Garconnet, followed by two guards, went about knocking at the
+      bakers&rsquo; doors, and had all the provisions that he could find distributed
+      among the insurgents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards one o&rsquo;clock the three thousand men began to eat, squatting on the
+      ground, with their weapons between their legs. The market-place and the
+      neighbourhood of the town-hall were turned into vast open-air refectories.
+      In spite of the bitter cold, humorous sallies were exchanged among the
+      swarming multitude, the smallest groups of which showed forth in the
+      brilliant moonlight. The poor famished fellows eagerly devoured their
+      portions while breathing on their fingers to warm them; and, from the
+      depths of adjoining streets, where vague black forms sat on the white
+      thresholds of the houses, there came sudden bursts of laughter. At the
+      windows emboldened, inquisitive women, with silk handkerchiefs tied round
+      their heads, watched the repast of those terrible insurgents, those
+      blood-suckers who went in turn to the market pump to drink a little water
+      in the hollows of their hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the town-hall was being invaded, the gendarmes&rsquo; barracks, situated a
+      few steps away, in the Rue Canquoin, which leads to the market, had also
+      fallen into the hands of the mob. The gendarmes were surprised in their
+      beds and disarmed in a few minutes. The impetus of the crowd had carried
+      Miette and Silvere along in this direction. The girl, who still clasped
+      her flagstaff to her breast, was pushed against the wall of the barracks,
+      while the young man, carried away by the human wave, penetrated into the
+      interior, and helped his comrades to wrest from the gendarmes the carbines
+      which they had hastily caught up. Silvere, waxing ferocious, intoxicated
+      by the onslaught, attacked a big devil of a gendarme named Rengade, with
+      whom for a few moments he struggled. At last, by a sudden jerk, he
+      succeeded in wresting his carbine from him. But the barrel struck Rengade
+      a violent blow in the face, which put his right eye out. Blood flowed,
+      and, some of it splashing Silvere&rsquo;s hands, quickly brought him to his
+      senses. He looked at his hands, dropped the carbine, and ran out, in a
+      state of frenzy, shaking his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wounded!&rdquo; cried Miette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; he replied in a stifled voice, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just killed a gendarme.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he really dead?&rdquo; asked Miette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; replied Silvere, &ldquo;his face was all covered with blood.
+      Come quickly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he hurried the girl away. On reaching the market, he made her sit
+      down on a stone bench, and told her to wait there for him. He was still
+      looking at his hands, muttering something at the same time. Miette at last
+      understood from his disquieted words that he wished to go and kiss his
+      grandmother before leaving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, go,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t trouble yourself about me. Wash your hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he went quickly away, keeping his fingers apart, without thinking of
+      washing them at the pump which he passed. Since he had felt Rengade&rsquo;s warm
+      blood on his skin, he had been possessed by one idea, that of running to
+      Aunt Dide&rsquo;s and dipping his hands in the well-trough at the back of the
+      little yard. There only, he thought, would he be able to wash off the
+      stain of that blood. Moreover, all his calm, gentle childhood seemed to
+      return to him; he felt an irresistible longing to take refuge in his
+      grandmother&rsquo;s skirts, if only for a minute. He arrived quite out of
+      breath. Aunt Dide had not gone to bed, a circumstance which at any other
+      time would have greatly surprised Silvere. But on entering he did not even
+      see his uncle Rougon, who was seated in a corner on the old chest. He did
+      not wait for the poor old woman&rsquo;s questions. &ldquo;Grandmother,&rdquo; he said
+      quickly, &ldquo;you must forgive me; I&rsquo;m going to leave with the others. You see
+      I&rsquo;ve got blood on me. I believe I&rsquo;ve killed a gendarme.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve killed a gendarme?&rdquo; Aunt Dide repeated in a strange voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes gleamed brightly as she fixed them on the red stains. And
+      suddenly she turned towards the chimney-piece. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve taken the gun,&rdquo; she
+      said; &ldquo;where&rsquo;s the gun?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, who had left the weapon with Miette, swore to her that it was
+      quite safe. And for the very first time, Adelaide made an allusion to the
+      smuggler Macquart in her grandson&rsquo;s presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll bring the gun back? You promise me!&rdquo; she said with singular
+      energy. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all I have left of him. You&rsquo;ve killed a gendarme; ah, it was
+      the gendarmes who killed him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She continued gazing fixedly at Silvere with an air of cruel satisfaction,
+      and apparently without thought of detaining him. She never asked him for
+      any explanation, nor wept like those good grandmothers who always imagine,
+      at sight of the least scratch, that their grandchildren are dying. All her
+      nature was concentrated in one unique thought, to which she at last gave
+      expression with ardent curiosity: &ldquo;Did you kill the gendarme with the
+      gun?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Either Silvere did not quite catch what she said, or else he misunderstood
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to wash my hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was only on returning from the well that he perceived his uncle. Pierre
+      had turned pale on hearing the young man&rsquo;s words. Felicite was indeed
+      right; his family took a pleasure in compromising him. One of his nephews
+      had now killed a gendarme! He would never get the post of receiver of
+      taxes, if he did not prevent this foolish madman from rejoining the
+      insurgents. So he planted himself in front of the door, determined to
+      prevent Silvere from going out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; he said to the young fellow, who was greatly surprised to find
+      him there. &ldquo;I am the head of the family, and I forbid you to leave this
+      house. You&rsquo;re risking both your honour and ours. To-morrow I will try to
+      get you across the frontier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Silvere shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;Let me pass,&rdquo; he calmly replied. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+      not a police-spy; I shall not reveal your hiding-place, never fear.&rdquo; And
+      as Rougon continued to speak of the family dignity and the authority with
+      which his seniority invested him: &ldquo;Do I belong to your family?&rdquo; the young
+      man continued. &ldquo;You have always disowned me. To-day, fear has driven you
+      here, because you feel that the day of judgment has arrived. Come, make
+      way! I don&rsquo;t hide myself; I have a duty to perform.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon did not stir. But Aunt Dide, who had listened with a sort of
+      delight to Silvere&rsquo;s vehement language, laid her withered hand on her
+      son&rsquo;s arm. &ldquo;Get out of the way, Pierre,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;the lad must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man gave his uncle a slight shove, and dashed outside. Then
+      Rougon, having carefully shut the door again, said to his mother in an
+      angry, threatening tone: &ldquo;If any mischief happens to him it will be your
+      fault. You&rsquo;re an old mad-woman; you don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;ve just done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Adelaide, however, did not appear to hear him. She went and threw some
+      vine-branches on the fire, which was going out, and murmured with a vague
+      smile: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m used to it. He would remain away for months together, and then
+      come back to me in much better health.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was no doubt speaking of Macquart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, Silvere hastily regained the market-place. As he
+      approached the spot where he had left Miette, he heard a loud uproar of
+      voices and saw a crowd which made him quicken his steps. A cruel scene had
+      just occurred. Some inquisitive people were walking among the insurgents,
+      while the latter quietly partook of their meal. Amongst these onlookers
+      was Justin Rebufat, the son of the farmer of the Jas-Meiffren, a youth of
+      twenty years old, a sickly, squint-eyed creature, who harboured implacable
+      hatred against his cousin Miette. At home he grudged her the bread she
+      ate, and treated her like a beggar picked up from the gutter out of
+      charity. It is probable that the young girl had rejected his advances.
+      Lank and pale, with ill-proportioned limbs and face all awry, he revenged
+      himself upon her for his own ugliness, and the contempt which the
+      handsome, vigorous girl must have evinced for him. He ardently longed to
+      induce his father to send her about her business; and for this reason he
+      was always spying upon her. For some time past, he had become aware of the
+      meetings with Silvere, and had only awaited a decisive opportunity to
+      reveal everything to his father, Rebufat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening in question, having seen her leave home at about eight
+      o&rsquo;clock, Justin&rsquo;s hatred had overpowered him, and he had been unable to
+      keep silent any longer. Rebufat, on hearing his story, fell into a
+      terrible rage, and declared that he would kick the gadabout out of his
+      house should she have the audacity to return. Justin then went to bed,
+      relishing beforehand the fine scene which would take place on the morrow.
+      Then, however, a burning desire came upon him for some immediate foretaste
+      of his revenge. So he dressed himself again and went out. Perhaps he might
+      meet Miette. In that case he was resolved to treat her insolently. This is
+      how he came to witness the arrival of the insurgents, whom he followed to
+      the town-hall with a vague presentiment that he would find the lovers
+      there. And, indeed, he at last caught sight of his cousin on the seat
+      where she was waiting for Silvere. Seeing her wrapped in her long pelisse,
+      with the red flag at her side, resting against a market pillar, he began
+      to sneer and deride her in foul language. The girl, thunderstruck at
+      seeing him, was unable to speak. She wept beneath his abuse, and whist she
+      was overcome by sobbing, bowing her head and hiding her face, Justin
+      called her a convict&rsquo;s daughter, and shouted that old Rebufat would give
+      her a good thrashing should she ever dare to return to Jas-Meiffren.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a quarter of an hour he thus kept her smarting and trembling. Some
+      people had gathered round, and grinned stupidly at the painful scene. At
+      last a few insurgents interfered, and threatened the young man with
+      exemplary chastisement if he did not leave Miette alone. But Justin,
+      although he retreated, declared that he was not afraid of them. It was
+      just at this moment that Silvere came up. Young Rebufat, on catching sight
+      of him, made a sudden bound, as if to take flight; for he was afraid of
+      him, knowing that he was much stronger than himself. He could not,
+      however, resist the temptation to cast a parting insult on the girl in her
+      lover&rsquo;s presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! I knew very well,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;that the wheelwright could not be far
+      off! You left us to run after that crack-brained fellow, eh? You wretched
+      girl! When&rsquo;s the baptism to be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he retreated a few steps further on seeing Silvere clench his fists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And mind,&rdquo; he continued, with a vile sneer, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t come to our house
+      again. My father will kick you out if you do! Do you hear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he ran away howling, with bruised visage. For Silvere had bounded upon
+      him and dealt him a blow full in the face. The young man did not pursue
+      him. When he returned to Miette he found her standing up, feverishly
+      wiping her tears away with the palm of her hand. And as he gazed at her
+      tenderly, in order to console her, she made a sudden energetic gesture.
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to cry any more, you&rsquo;ll see. I&rsquo;m very glad
+      of it. I don&rsquo;t feel any regret now for having left home. I am free.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took up the flag and led Silvere back into the midst of the
+      insurgents. It was now nearly two o&rsquo;clock in the morning. The cold was
+      becoming so intense that the Republicans had risen to their feet and were
+      marching to and fro in order to warm themselves while they finished their
+      bread. At last their leaders gave orders for departure. The column formed
+      again. The prisoners were placed in the middle of it. Besides Monsieur
+      Garconnet and Commander Sicardot, the insurgents had arrested Monsieur
+      Peirotte, the receiver of taxes, and several other functionaries, all of
+      whom they led away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment Aristide was observed walking about among the groups. In
+      presence of this formidable rising, the dear fellow had thought it
+      imprudent not to remain on friendly terms with the Republicans; but as, on
+      the other hand, he did not desire to compromise himself too much, he had
+      come to bid them farewell with his arm in a sling, complaining bitterly of
+      the accursed injury which prevented him from carrying a weapon. As he
+      walked through the crowd he came across his brother Pascal, provided with
+      a case of surgical instruments and a little portable medicine chest. The
+      doctor informed him, in his quiet, way, that he intended to follow the
+      insurgents. At this Aristide inwardly pronounced him a great fool. At last
+      he himself slunk away, fearing lest the others should entrust the care of
+      the town to him, a post which he deemed exceptionally perilous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The insurgents could not think of keeping Plassans in their power. The
+      town was animated by so reactionary a spirit that it seemed impossible
+      even to establish a democratic municipal commission there, as had already
+      been done in other places. So they would simply have gone off without
+      taking any further steps if Macquart, prompted and emboldened by his own
+      private animosities, had not offered to hold Plassans in awe, on condition
+      that they left him twenty determined men. These men were given him, and at
+      their head he marched off triumphantly to take possession of the
+      town-hall. Meantime the column of insurgents was wending its way along the
+      Cours Sauvaire, and making its exit by the Grand&rsquo;-Porte, leaving the
+      streets, which it had traversed like a tempest, silent and deserted in its
+      rear. The high road, whitened by the moonshine, stretched far into the
+      distance. Miette had refused the support of Silvere&rsquo;s arm; she marched on
+      bravely, steady and upright, holding the red flag aloft with both hands,
+      without complaining of the cold which was turning her fingers blue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The high roads stretched far way, white with moonlight.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The insurrectionary army was continuing its heroic march through the cold,
+      clear country. It was like a mighty wave of enthusiasm. The thrill of
+      patriotism, which transported Miette and Silvere, big children that they
+      were, eager for love and liberty, sped, with generous fervour, athwart the
+      sordid intrigues of the Macquarts and the Rougons. At intervals the
+      trumpet-voice of the people rose and drowned the prattle of the yellow
+      drawing-room and the hateful discourses of uncle Antoine. And vulgar,
+      ignoble farce was turned into a great historical drama.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On quitting Plassans, the insurgents had taken the road to Orcheres. They
+      expected to reach that town at about ten o&rsquo;clock in the morning. The road
+      skirts the course of the Viorne, following at some height the windings of
+      the hillocks, below which the torrent flows. On the left, the plain
+      spreads out like an immense green carpet, dotted here and there with grey
+      villages. On the right, the chain of the Garrigues rears its desolate
+      peaks, its plateaux of stones, its huge rusty boulders that look as though
+      they had been reddened by the sun. The high road, embanked along the
+      riverside, passes on amidst enormous rocks, between which glimpses of the
+      valley are caught at every step. Nothing could be wilder or more
+      strikingly grand than this road out of the hillside. At night time,
+      especially, it inspires one with a feeling of deep awe. The insurgents
+      advanced under the pale light, along what seemed the chief street of some
+      ruined town, bordered on either side with fragments of temples. The moon
+      turned each rock into a broken column, crumbling capital, or stretch of
+      wall pierced with mysterious arches. On high slumbered the mass of the
+      Garrigues, suffused with a milky tinge, and resembling some immense
+      Cyclopean city whose towers, obelisks, houses and high terraces hid one
+      half of the heavens; and in the depths below, on the side of the plain,
+      was a spreading ocean of diffused light, vague and limitless, over which
+      floated masses of luminous haze. The insurrectionary force might well have
+      thought they were following some gigantic causeway, making their rounds
+      along some military road built on the shore of a phosphorescent sea, and
+      circling some unknown Babel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the night in question, the Viorne roared hoarsely at the foot of the
+      rocks bordering the route. Amidst the continuous rumbling of the torrent,
+      the insurgents could distinguish the sharp, wailing notes of the tocsin.
+      The villages scattered about the plain, on the other side of the river,
+      were rising, sounding alarm-bells, and lighting signal fires. Till
+      daybreak the marching column, which the persistent tolling of a mournful
+      knell seemed to pursue in the darkness, thus beheld the insurrection
+      spreading along the valley, like a train of powder. The fires showed in
+      the darkness like stains of blood; echoes of distant songs were wafted to
+      them; the whole vague distance, blurred by the whitish vapours of the
+      moon, stirred confusedly, and suddenly broke into a spasm of anger. For
+      leagues and leagues the scene remained the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These men, marching on under the blind impetus of the fever with which the
+      events in Paris had inspired Republican hearts, became elated at seeing
+      that long stretch of country quivering with revolt. Intoxicated with
+      enthusiastic belief in the general insurrection of which they dreamed,
+      they fancied that France was following them; on the other side of the
+      Viorne, in that vast ocean of diffused light, they imagined there were
+      endless files of men rushing like themselves to the defence of the
+      Republic. All simplicity and delusion, as multitudes so often are, they
+      imagined, in their uncultured minds, that victory was easy and certain.
+      They would have seized and shot as a traitor any one who had then asserted
+      that they were the only ones who had the courage of their duty, and that
+      the rest of the country, overwhelmed with fright, was pusillanimously
+      allowing itself to be garrotted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They derived fresh courage, too, from the welcome accorded to them by the
+      few localities that lay along their route on the slopes of the Garrigues.
+      The inhabitants rose <i>en masse</i> immediately the little army drew
+      near; women ran to meet them, wishing them a speedy victory, while men,
+      half clad, seized the first weapons they could find and rushed to join
+      their ranks. There was a fresh ovation at every village, shouts of welcome
+      and farewell many times reiterated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards daybreak the moon disappeared behind the Garrigues and the
+      insurgents continued their rapid march amidst the dense darkness of a
+      winter night. They were now unable to distinguish the valley or the hills;
+      they heard only the hoarse plaints of the bells, sounding through the deep
+      obscurity like invisible drums, hidden they knew not where, but ever
+      goading them on with despairing calls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette and Silvere went on, all eagerness like the others. Towards
+      daybreak, the girl suffered greatly from fatigue; she could only walk with
+      short hurried steps, and was unable to keep up with the long strides of
+      the men who surrounded her. Nevertheless she courageously strove to
+      suppress all complaints; it would have cost her too much to confess that
+      she was not as strong as a boy. During the first few leagues of the march
+      Silvere gave her his arm; then, seeing that the standard was gradually
+      slipping from her benumbed hands, he tried to take it in order to relieve
+      her; but she grew angry, and would only allow him to hold it with one hand
+      while she continued to carry it on her shoulder. She thus maintained her
+      heroic demeanour with childish stubbornness, smiling at the young man each
+      time he gave her a glance of loving anxiety. At last, when the moon hid
+      itself, she gave way in the sheltering darkness. Silvere felt her leaning
+      more heavily on his arm. He now had to carry the flag, and hold her round
+      the waist to prevent her from stumbling. Nevertheless she still made no
+      complaint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you very tired, poor Miette?&rdquo; Silvere asked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yea, a little tired,&rdquo; she replied in a weary tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you like to rest a bit?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made no reply; but he realised that she was staggering. He thereupon
+      handed the flag to one of the other insurgents and quitted the ranks,
+      almost carrying the girl in his arms. She struggled a little, she felt so
+      distressed at appearing such a child. But he calmed her, telling her that
+      he knew of a cross-road which shortened the distance by one half. They
+      would be able to take a good hour&rsquo;s rest and reach Orcheres at the same
+      time as the others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then six o&rsquo;clock. There must have been a slight mist rising from
+      the Viorne, for the darkness seemed to be growing denser. The young people
+      groped their way along the slope of the Garrigues, till they came to a
+      rock on which they sat down. Around them lay an abyss of darkness. They
+      were stranded, as it were, on some reef above a dense void. And athwart
+      that void, when the dull tramp of the little army had died away, they only
+      heard two bells, the one clear toned and ringing doubtless at their feet,
+      in some village across the road; and the other far-off and faint,
+      responding, as it were, with distant sobs to the feverish plaints of the
+      first. One might have thought that these bells were recounting to each
+      other, through the empty waste, the sinister story of a perishing world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette and Silvere, warmed by their quick march, did not at first feel the
+      cold. They remained silent, listening in great dejection to the sounds of
+      the tocsin, which made the darkness quiver. They could not even see one
+      another. Miette felt frightened, and, seeking for Silvere&rsquo;s hand, clasped
+      it in her own. After the feverish enthusiasm which for several hours had
+      carried them along with the others, this sudden halt and the solitude in
+      which they found themselves side by side left them exhausted and
+      bewildered as though they had suddenly awakened from a strange dream. They
+      felt as if a wave had cast them beside the highway, then ebbed back and
+      left them stranded. Irresistible reaction plunged them into listless
+      stupor; they forgot their enthusiasm; they thought no more of the men whom
+      they had to rejoin; they surrendered themselves to the melancholy
+      sweetness of finding themselves alone, hand in hand, in the midst of the
+      wild darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not angry with me?&rdquo; the girl at length inquired. &ldquo;I could easily
+      walk the whole night with you; but they were running too quickly, I could
+      hardly breathe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I be angry with you?&rdquo; the young man said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. I was afraid you might not love me any longer. I wish I
+      could have taken long strides like you, and have walked along without
+      stopping. You will think I am a child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere smiled, and Miette, though the darkness prevented her from seeing
+      him, guessed that he was doing so. Then she continued with determination:
+      &ldquo;You must not always treat me like a sister. I want to be your wife some
+      day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Forthwith she clasped Silvere to her bosom, and, still with her arms about
+      him, murmured: &ldquo;We shall grow so cold; come close to me that we may be
+      warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they lapsed into silence. Until that troublous hour, they had loved
+      one another with the affection of brother and sister. In their ignorance
+      they still mistook their feelings for tender friendship, although beneath
+      their guileless love their ardent blood surged more wildly day by day.
+      Given age and experience, a violent passion of southern intensity would at
+      last spring from this idyll. Every girl who hangs on a youth&rsquo;s neck is
+      already a woman, a woman unconsciously, whom a caress may awaken to
+      conscious womanhood. When lovers kiss on the cheeks, it is because they
+      are searching, feeling for one another&rsquo;s lips. Lovers are made by a kiss.
+      It was on that dark and cold December night, amid the bitter wailing of
+      the tocsin, that Miette and Silvere exchanged one of those kisses that
+      bring all the heart&rsquo;s blood to the lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They remained silent, close to one another. A gentle glow soon penetrated
+      them, languor overcame them, and steeped them in feverish drowsiness. They
+      were quite warm at last, and lights seemed to flit before their closed
+      eyelids, while a buzzing mounted to their brains. This state of painful
+      ecstasy, which lasted some minutes, seemed endless to them. Then, in a
+      kind of dream, their lips met. The kiss they exchanged was long and
+      greedy. It seemed to them as if they had never kissed before. Yet their
+      embrace was fraught with suffering and they released one another. And the
+      chilliness of the night having cooled their fever, they remained in great
+      confusion at some distance one from the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime the bells were keeping up their sinister converse in the dark
+      abyss which surrounded the young people. Miette, trembling and frightened,
+      did not dare to draw near to Silvere again. She did not even know if he
+      were still there, for she could no longer hear him move. The stinging
+      sweetness of their kiss still clung to their lips, to which passionate
+      phrases surged, and they longed to kiss once more. But shame restrained
+      them from the expression of any such desire. They felt that they would
+      rather never taste that bliss again than speak of it aloud. If their blood
+      had not been lashed by their rapid march, if the darkness had not offered
+      complicity, they would, for a long time yet, have continued kissing each
+      other on the cheeks like old playfellows. Feelings of modesty were coming
+      to Miette. She remembered Justin&rsquo;s coarseness. A few hours previously she
+      had listened, without a blush, to that fellow who called her a shameless
+      girl. She had wept without understanding his meaning, she had wept simply
+      because she guessed that what he spoke of must be base. Now that she was
+      becoming a woman, she wondered in a last innocent transport whether that
+      kiss, whose burning smart she could still feel, would not perhaps suffice
+      to cover her with the shame to which her cousin had referred. Thereupon
+      she was seized with remorse, and burst into sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter; why are you crying?&rdquo; asked Silvere in an anxious
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, leave me,&rdquo; she faltered, &ldquo;I do not know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then in spite of herself, as it were, she continued amidst her tears: &ldquo;Ah!
+      what an unfortunate creature I am! When I was ten years old people used to
+      throw stones at me. To-day I am treated as the vilest of creatures. Justin
+      did right to despise me before everybody. We have been doing wrong,
+      Silvere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man, quite dismayed, clasped her in his arms again, trying to
+      console her. &ldquo;I love you,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;I am your brother. Why say that
+      we have been doing wrong? We kissed each other because we were cold. You
+      know very well that we used to kiss each other every evening before
+      separating.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! not as we did just now,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;It must be wrong, for a
+      strange feeling came over me. The men will laugh at me now as I pass, and
+      they will be right in doing so. I shall not be able to defend myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young fellow remained silent, unable to find a word to calm the
+      agitation of this big child, trembling at her first kiss of love. He
+      clasped her gently, imagining that he might calm her by his embrace. She
+      struggled, however, and continued: &ldquo;If you like, we will go away; we will
+      leave the province. I can never return to Plassans; my uncle would beat
+      me; all the townspeople would point their fingers at me&mdash;&rdquo; And then,
+      as if seized with sudden irritation, she added: &ldquo;But no! I am cursed! I
+      forbid you to leave aunt Dide to follow me. You must leave me on the
+      highway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miette, Miette!&rdquo; Silvere implored; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t talk like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I want to please you. Be reasonable. They have turned me out like a
+      vagabond. If I went back with you, you would always be fighting for my
+      sake, and I don&rsquo;t want that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this the young man again pressed a kiss upon her lips, murmuring: &ldquo;You
+      shall be my wife, and nobody will then dare to hurt you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! please, I entreat you!&rdquo; she said, with a stifled cry; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t kiss me
+      so. You hurt me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, after a short silence: &ldquo;You know quite well that I cannot be your
+      wife now. We are too young. You would have to wait for me, and meanwhile I
+      should die of shame. You are wrong in protesting; you will be forced to
+      leave me in some corner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this Silvere, his fortitude exhausted, began to cry. A man&rsquo;s sobs are
+      fraught with distressing hoarseness. Miette, quite frightened as she felt
+      the poor fellow shaking in her arms, kissed him on the face, forgetting
+      she was burning her lips. But it was all her fault. She was a little
+      simpleton to have let a kiss upset her so completely. She now clasped her
+      lover to her bosom as if to beg forgiveness for having pained him. These
+      weeping children, so anxiously clasping one another, made the dark night
+      yet more woeful than before. In the distance, the bells continued to
+      complain unceasingly in panting accents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is better to die,&rdquo; repeated Silvere, amidst his sobs; &ldquo;it is better to
+      die.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry; forgive me,&rdquo; stammered Miette. &ldquo;I will be brave; I will do all
+      you wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the young man had dried his tears: &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;we
+      cannot return to Plassans. But the time for cowardice has not yet come. If
+      we come out of the struggle triumphant, I will go for aunt Dide, and we
+      will take her ever so far away with us. If we are beaten&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we are beaten?&rdquo; repeated Miette, softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then be it as God wills!&rdquo; continued Silvere, in a softer voice. &ldquo;I most
+      likely shall not be there. You will comfort the poor woman. That would be
+      better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! as you said just now,&rdquo; the young girl murmured, &ldquo;it would be better
+      to die.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this longing for death they tightened their embrace. Miette relied upon
+      dying with Silvere; he had only spoken of himself, but she felt that he
+      would gladly take her with him into the earth. They would there be able to
+      love each other more freely than under the sun. Aunt Dide would die
+      likewise and join them. It was, so to say, a rapid presentiment, a desire
+      for some strange voluptuousness, to which Heaven, by the mournful accents
+      of the tocsin, was promising early gratification. To die! To die! The
+      bells repeated these words with increasing passion, and the lovers yielded
+      to the calls of the darkness; they fancied they experienced a foretaste of
+      the last sleep, in the drowsiness into which they again sank, whilst their
+      lips met once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette no longer turned away. It was she, now, who pressed her lips to
+      Silvere&rsquo;s, who sought with mute ardour for the delight whose stinging
+      smart she had not at first been able to endure. The thought of approaching
+      death had excited her; she no longer felt herself blushing, but hung upon
+      her love, while he in faltering voice repeated: &ldquo;I love you! I love you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But at this Miette shook her head, as if to say it was not true. With her
+      free and ardent nature she had a secret instinct of the meaning and
+      purposes of life, and though she was right willing to die she would fain
+      have known life first. At last, growing calmer, she gently rested her head
+      on the young man&rsquo;s shoulder, without uttering a word. Silvere kissed her
+      again. She tasted those kisses slowly, seeking their meaning, their hidden
+      sweetness. As she felt them course through her veins, she interrogated
+      them, asking if they were all love, all passion. But languor at last
+      overcame her, and she fell into gentle slumber. Silvere had enveloped her
+      in her pelisse, drawing the skirt around himself at the same time. They no
+      longer felt cold. The young man rejoiced to find, from the regularity of
+      her breathing, that the girl was now asleep; this repose would enable them
+      to proceed on their way with spirit. He resolved to let her slumber for an
+      hour. The sky was still black, and the approach of day was but faintly
+      indicated by a whitish line in the east. Behind the lovers there must have
+      been a pine wood whose musical awakening it was that the young man heard
+      amidst the morning breezes. And meantime the wailing of the bells grew
+      more sonorous in the quivering atmosphere, lulling Miette&rsquo;s slumber even
+      as it had accompanied her passionate fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until that troublous night, these young people had lived through one of
+      those innocent idylls that blossom among the toiling masses, those
+      outcasts and folks of simple mind amidst whom one may yet occasionally
+      find amours as primitive as those of the ancient Greek romances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette had been scarcely nine years old at the time when her father was
+      sent to the galleys for shooting a gendarme. The trial of Chantegreil had
+      remained a memorable case in the province. The poacher boldly confessed
+      that he had killed the gendarme, but he swore that the latter had been
+      taking aim at him. &ldquo;I only anticipated him,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I defended myself;
+      it was a duel, not a murder.&rdquo; He never desisted from this line of
+      argument. The presiding Judge of the Assizes could not make him understand
+      that, although a gendarme has the right to fire upon a poacher, a poacher
+      has no right to fire upon a gendarme. Chantegreil escaped the guillotine,
+      owing to his obviously sincere belief in his own innocence, and his
+      previous good character. The man wept like a child when his daughter was
+      brought to him prior to his departure for Toulon. The little thing, who
+      had lost her mother in her infancy, dwelt at this time with her
+      grandfather at Chavanoz, a village in the passes of the Seille. When the
+      poacher was no longer there, the old man and the girl lived upon alms. The
+      inhabitants of Chavanoz, all sportsmen and poachers, came to the
+      assistance of the poor creatures whom the convict had left behind him.
+      After a while, however, the old man died of grief, and Miette, left alone
+      by herself, would have had to beg on the high roads, if the neighbours had
+      not remembered that she had an aunt at Plassans. A charitable soul was
+      kind enough to take her to this aunt, who did not, however, receive her
+      very kindly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eulalie Chantegreil, the spouse of <i>meger</i> Rebufat, was a big, dark,
+      stubborn creature, who ruled the home. She led her husband by the noise,
+      said the people of the Faubourg of Plassans. The truth was, Rebufat,
+      avaricious and eager for work and gain, felt a sort of respect for this
+      big creature, who combined uncommon vigour with strict sobriety and
+      economy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thanks to her, the household thrived. The <i>meger</i> grumbled one
+      evening when, on returning home from work, he found Miette installed
+      there. But his wife closed his mouth by saying in her gruff voice: &ldquo;Bah,
+      the little thing&rsquo;s strongly built, she&rsquo;ll do for a servant; we&rsquo;ll keep her
+      and save wages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This calculation pleased Rebufat. He went so far as to feel the little
+      thing&rsquo;s arms, and declared with satisfaction that she was sturdy for her
+      age. Miette was then nine years old. From the very next day he made use of
+      her. The work of the peasant-woman in the South of France is much lighter
+      than in the North. One seldom sees them employed in digging the ground,
+      carrying loads, or doing other kinds of men&rsquo;s work. They bind sheaves,
+      gather olives and mulberry leaves; perhaps their most laborious work is
+      that of weeding. Miette worked away willingly. Open-air life was her
+      delight, her health. So long as her aunt lived she was always smiling. The
+      good woman, in spite of her roughness, at last loved her as her own child;
+      she forbade her doing the hard work which her husband sometimes tried to
+      force upon her, saying to the latter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! you&rsquo;re a clever fellow! You don&rsquo;t understand, you fool, that if you
+      tire her too much to-day, she won&rsquo;t be able to do anything to-morrow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This argument was decisive. Rebufat bowed his head, and carried the load
+      which he had desired to set on the young girl&rsquo;s shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter would have lived in perfect happiness under the secret
+      protection of her aunt Eulalie, but for the teasing of her cousin, who was
+      then a lad of sixteen, and employed his idle hours in hating and
+      persecuting her. Justin&rsquo;s happiest moments were those when by means of
+      some gross falsehood he succeeded in getting her scolded. Whenever he
+      could tread on her feet, or push her roughly, pretending not to have seen
+      her, he laughed and felt the delight of those crafty folks who rejoice at
+      other people&rsquo;s misfortunes. Miette, however, would stare at him with her
+      large black childish eyes gleaming with anger and silent scorn, which
+      checked the cowardly youngster&rsquo;s sneers. In reality he was terribly afraid
+      of his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl was just attaining her eleventh year when her aunt Eulalie
+      suddenly died. From that day everything changed in the house. Rebufat
+      gradually come to treat her like a farm-labourer. He overwhelmed her with
+      all sorts of rough work, and made use of her as a beast of burden. She
+      never even complained, however, thinking that she had a debt of gratitude
+      to repay him. In the evening, when she was worn out with fatigue, she
+      mourned for her aunt, that terrible woman whose latent kindliness she now
+      realised. However, it was not the hard work that distressed her, for she
+      delighted in her strength, and took a pride in her big arms and broad
+      shoulders. What distressed her was her uncle&rsquo;s distrustful surveillance,
+      his continual reproaches, and the irritated employer-like manner he
+      assumed towards her. She had now become a stranger in the house. Yet even
+      a stranger would not have been so badly treated as she was. Rebufat took
+      the most unscrupulous advantage of this poor little relative, whom he
+      pretended to keep out of charity. She repaid his harsh hospitality ten
+      times over with her work, and yet never a day passed but he grudged her
+      the bread she ate. Justin especially excelled in wounding her. Since his
+      mother had been dead, seeing her without a protector, he had brought all
+      his evil instincts into play in trying to make the house intolerable to
+      her. The most ingenious torture which he invented was to speak to Miette
+      of her father. The poor girl, living away from the world, under the
+      protection of her aunt, who had forbidden any one ever to mention the
+      words &ldquo;galleys&rdquo; or &ldquo;convict&rdquo; before her, hardly understood their meaning.
+      It was Justin who explained it to her by relating, in his own manner, the
+      story of the murder of the gendarme, and Chantegreil&rsquo;s conviction. There
+      was no end to the horrible particulars he supplied: the convicts had a
+      cannonball fastened to one ankle by a chain, they worked fifteen hours a
+      day, and all died under their punishment; their prison, too, was a
+      frightful place, the horrors of which he described minutely. Miette
+      listened to him, stupefied, her eyes full of tears. Sometimes she was
+      roused to sudden violence, and Justin quickly retired before her clenched
+      fists. However, he took a savage delight in thus instructing her as to the
+      nature of prison life. When his father flew into a passion with the child
+      for any little negligence, he chimed in, glad to be able to insult her
+      without danger. And if she attempted to defend herself, he would exclaim:
+      &ldquo;Bah! bad blood always shows itself. You&rsquo;ll end at the galleys like your
+      father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this Miette sobbed, stung to the heart, powerless and overwhelmed with
+      shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was already growing to womanhood at this period. Of precocious nature,
+      she endured her martyrdom with extraordinary fortitude. She rarely gave
+      way, excepting when her natural pride succumbed to her cousin&rsquo;s outrages.
+      Soon even, she was able to bear, without a tear, the incessant insults of
+      this cowardly fellow, who ever watched her while he spoke, for fear lest
+      she should fly at his face. Then, too, she learnt to silence him by
+      staring at him fixedly. She had several times felt inclined to run away
+      from the Jas-Meiffren; but she did not do so, as her courage could not
+      brook the idea of confessing that she was vanquished by the persecution
+      she endured. She certainly earned her bread, she did not steal the
+      Rebufats&rsquo; hospitality; and this conviction satisfied her pride. So she
+      remained there to continue the struggle, stiffening herself and living on
+      with the one thought of resistance. Her plan was to do her work in
+      silence, and revenge herself for all harsh treatment by mute contempt. She
+      knew that her uncle derived too much advantage from her to listen readily
+      to the insinuations of Justin, who longed to get her turned out of doors.
+      And in a defiant spirit she resolved that she would not go away of her own
+      accord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her continuous voluntary silence was full of strange fancies. Passing her
+      days in the enclosure, isolated from all the world, she formed ideas for
+      herself which would have strangely shocked the good people of the
+      Faubourg. Her father&rsquo;s fate particularly occupied her thoughts. All
+      Justin&rsquo;s abuse recurred to her; and she ended by accepting the charge of
+      murder, saying to herself, however, that her father had done well to kill
+      the gendarme who had tried to kill him. She had learnt the real story from
+      a labourer who had worked for a time at the Jas-Meiffren. From that
+      moment, on the few occasions when she went out, she no longer even turned
+      if the ragamuffins of the Faubourg followed her, crying: &ldquo;Hey! La
+      Chantegreil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She simply hastened her steps homeward, with lips compressed, and black,
+      fierce eyes. Then after shutting the gate, she perhaps cast one long
+      glance at the gang of urchins. She would have become vicious, have lapsed
+      into fierce pariah savagery, if her childishness had not sometimes gained
+      the mastery. Her extreme youth brought her little girlish weaknesses which
+      relieved her. She would then cry with shame for herself and her father.
+      She would hide herself in a stable so that she might sob to her heart&rsquo;s
+      content, for she knew that, if the others saw her crying, they would
+      torment her all the more. And when she had wept sufficiently, she would
+      bathe her eyes in the kitchen, and then again subside into uncomplaining
+      silence. It was not interest alone, however, which prompted her to hide
+      herself; she carried her pride in her precocious strength so far that she
+      was unwilling to appear a child. In time she would have become very
+      unhappy. Fortunately she was saved by discovering the latent tenderness of
+      her loving nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The well in the yard of the house occupied by aunt Dide and Silvere was a
+      party-well. The wall of the Jas-Meiffren cut it in halves. Formerly,
+      before the Fouques&rsquo; property was united to the neighbouring estate, the
+      market-gardeners had used this well daily. Since the transfer of the
+      Fouques&rsquo; ground, however, as it was at some distance from the outhouses,
+      the inmates of the Jas, who had large cisterns at their disposal, did not
+      draw a pail of water from it in a month. On the other side, one could hear
+      the grating of the pulley every morning when Silvere drew the water for
+      aunt Dide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day the pulley broke. The young wheelwright made a good strong one of
+      oak, and put it up in the evening after his day&rsquo;s work. To do this he had
+      to climb upon the wall. When he had finished the job he remained resting
+      astride the coping, and surveyed with curiosity the large expanse of the
+      Jas-Meiffren. At last a peasant-girl, who was weeding the ground a few
+      feet from him, attracted his attention. It was in July, and the air was
+      broiling, although the sun had already sank to the horizon. The
+      peasant-girl had taken off her jacket. In a white bodice, with a coloured
+      neckerchief tied over her shoulders, and the sleeves of her chemise turned
+      up as far as her elbows, she was squatting amid the folds of her blue
+      cotton skirt, which was secured to a pair of braces crossed behind her
+      back. She crawled about on her knees as she pulled up the tares and threw
+      them into a basket. The young man could only see her bare, sun-tanned arms
+      stretching out right and left to seize some overlooked weed. He followed
+      this rapid play of her arms complacently, deriving a singular pleasure
+      from seeing them so firm and quick. The young person had slightly raised
+      herself on noticing that he was no longer at work, but had again lowered
+      her head before he could distinguish her features. This shyness kept him
+      in suspense. Like an inquisitive lad he wondered who this weeder could be,
+      and while he lingered there, whistling and beating time with a chisel, the
+      latter suddenly slipped out of his hand. It fell into the Jas-Meiffren,
+      striking the curb of the well, and then bounding a few feet from the wall.
+      Silvere looked at it, leaning forward and hesitating to get over. But the
+      peasant-girl must have been watching the young man askance, for she jumped
+      up without saying anything, picked up the chisel, and handed it to
+      Silvere, who then perceived that she was a mere child. He was surprised
+      and rather intimidated. The young girl raised herself towards him in the
+      red glare of the sunset. The wall at this spot was low, but nevertheless
+      too high for her to reach him. So he bent low over the coping, while she
+      still raised herself on tiptoes. They did not speak, but looked at each
+      other with an air of smiling confusion. The young man would indeed have
+      liked to keep the girl in that position. She turned to him a charming
+      head, with handsome black eyes, and red lips, which quite astonished and
+      stirred him. He had never before seen a girl so near; he had not known
+      that lips and eyes could be so pleasant to look at. Everything about the
+      girl seemed to possess a strange fascination for him&mdash;her coloured
+      neckerchief, her white bodice, her blue cotton skirt hanging from braces
+      which stretched with the motion of her shoulders. Then his glance glided
+      along the arm which was handing him the tool; as far as the elbow this arm
+      was of a golden brown, as though clothed with sun-burn; but higher up, in
+      the shadow of the tucked-up sleeve, Silvere perceived a bare, milk-white
+      roundness. At this he felt confused; however, he leant further over, and
+      at last managed to grasp the chisel. The little peasant-girl was becoming
+      embarrassed. Still they remained there, smiling at each other, the child
+      beneath with upturned face, and the lad half reclining on the coping of
+      the wall. They could not part from each other. So far they had not
+      exchanged a word, and Silvere even forgot to say, &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your name?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marie,&rdquo; replied the peasant-girl; &ldquo;but everybody calls me Miette.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she raised herself slightly, and in a clear voice inquired in her
+      turn: &ldquo;And yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Silvere,&rdquo; the young workman replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pause ensued, during which they seemed to be listening complacently to
+      the music of their names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m fifteen years old,&rdquo; resumed Silvere. &ldquo;And you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I!&rdquo; said Miette; &ldquo;oh, I shall be eleven on All Saints&rsquo; Day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young workman made a gesture of surprise. &ldquo;Ah! really!&rdquo; he said,
+      laughing, &ldquo;and to think I took you for a woman! You&rsquo;ve such big arms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She also began to laugh, as she lowered her eyes to her arms. Then they
+      ceased speaking. They remained for another moment gazing and smiling at
+      each other. And finally, as Silvere seemingly had no more questions to ask
+      her, Miette quietly withdrew and went on plucking her weeds, without
+      raising her head. The lad for his part remained on the wall for a while.
+      The sun was setting; a stream of oblique rays poured over the yellow soil
+      of the Jas-Meiffren, which seemed to be all ablaze&mdash;one would have
+      said that a fire was running along the ground&mdash;and, in the midst of
+      the flaming expanse, Silvere saw the little stooping peasant-girl, whose
+      bare arms had resumed their rapid motion. The blue cotton skirt was now
+      becoming white; and rays of light streamed over the child&rsquo;s
+      copper-coloured arms. At last Silvere felt somewhat ashamed of remaining
+      there, and accordingly got off the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening, preoccupied with his adventure, he endeavoured to question
+      aunt Dide. Perhaps she would know who this Miette was who had such black
+      eyes and such red lips. But, since she had lived in the house in the
+      alley, the old woman had never once given a look behind the wall of the
+      little yard. It was, to her, like an impassable rampart, which shut off
+      her past. She did not know&mdash;she did not want to know&mdash;what there
+      might now be on the other side of that wall, in that old enclosure of the
+      Fouques, where she had buried her love, her heart and her flesh. As soon
+      as Silvere began to question her she looked at him with childish terror.
+      Was he, then, going to stir up the ashes of those days now dead and gone,
+      and make her weep like her son Antoine had done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; she said in a hasty voice; &ldquo;I no longer go out, I never
+      see anybody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere waited the morrow with considerable impatience. And as soon as he
+      got to his master&rsquo;s workshop, he drew his fellow-workmen into
+      conversation. He did not say anything about his interview with Miette; but
+      spoke vaguely of a girl whom he had seen from a distance in the
+      Jas-Meiffren.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! that&rsquo;s La Chantegreil!&rdquo; cried one of the workmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no necessity for Silvere to question them further, for they told
+      him the story of the poacher Chantegreil and his daughter Miette, with
+      that unreasoning spite which is felt for social outcasts. The girl, in
+      particular, they treated in a foul manner; and the insulting gibe of
+      &ldquo;daughter of a galley-slave&rdquo; constantly rose to their lips like an
+      incontestable reason for condemning the poor, dear innocent creature to
+      eternal disgrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, wheelwright Vian, an honest, worthy fellow, at last silenced his
+      men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold your tongues, you foul mouths!&rdquo; he said, as he let fall the shaft of
+      a cart that he had been examining. &ldquo;You ought to be ashamed of yourselves
+      for being so hard upon the child. I&rsquo;ve seen her, the little thing looks a
+      very good girl. Besides, I&rsquo;m told she doesn&rsquo;t mind work, and already does
+      as much as any woman of thirty. There are some lazy fellows here who
+      aren&rsquo;t a match for her. I hope, later on, that she&rsquo;ll get a good husband
+      who&rsquo;ll stop this evil talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, who had been chilled by the workmen&rsquo;s gross jests and insults,
+      felt tears rise to his eyes at the last words spoken by Vian. However, he
+      did not open his lips. He took up his hammer, which he had laid down near
+      him, and began with all his might to strike the nave of a wheel which he
+      was binding with iron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening, as soon as he had returned home from the workshop, he ran
+      to the wall and climbed upon it. He found Miette engaged upon the same
+      labour as the day before. He called her. She came to him, with her smile
+      of embarrassment, and the charming shyness of a child who from infancy had
+      grown up in tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re La Chantegreil, aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; he asked her, abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She recoiled, she ceased smiling, and her eyes turned sternly black,
+      gleaming with defiance. So this lad was going to insult her, like the
+      others! She was turning her back upon him, without giving an answer, when
+      Silvere, perplexed by her sudden change of countenance, hastened to add:
+      &ldquo;Stay, I beg you&mdash;I don&rsquo;t want to pain you&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got so many
+      things to tell you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned round, still distrustful. Silvere, whose heart was full, and
+      who had resolved to relieve it, remained for a moment speechless, not
+      knowing how to continue, for he feared lest he should commit a fresh
+      blunder. At last he put his whole heart in one phrase: &ldquo;Would you like me
+      to be your friend?&rdquo; he said, in a voice full of emotion. And as Miette, in
+      surprise, raised her eyes, which were again moist and smiling, he
+      continued with animation: &ldquo;I know that people try to vex you. It&rsquo;s time to
+      put a stop to it. I will be your protector now. Shall I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child beamed with delight. This proffered friendship roused her from
+      all her evil dreams of taciturn hatred. Still she shook her head and
+      answered: &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t want you to fight on my account. You&rsquo;d have too
+      much to do. Besides which, there are persons from whom you cannot protect
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere wished to declare that he would defend her against the whole
+      world, but she closed his mouth with a coaxing gesture, as she added: &ldquo;I
+      am satisfied to have you as a friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They then conversed together for a few minutes, lowering their voices as
+      much as possible. Miette spoke to Silvere of her uncle and her cousin. For
+      all the world she would not have liked them to catch him astride the
+      coping of the wall. Justin would be implacable with such a weapon against
+      her. She spoke of her misgivings with the fright of a schoolgirl on
+      meeting a friend with whom her mother has forbidden her to associate.
+      Silvere merely understood, however, that he would not be able to see
+      Miette at his pleasure. This made him very sad. Still, he promised that he
+      would not climb upon the wall any more. They were both endeavouring to
+      find some expedient for seeing each other again, when Miette suddenly
+      begged him to go away; she had just caught sight of Justin, who was
+      crossing the grounds in the direction of the wall. Silvere quickly
+      descended. When he was in the little yard again, he remained by the wall
+      to listen, irritated by his flight. After a few minutes he ventured to
+      climb again and cast a glance into the Jas-Meiffren, but he saw Justin
+      speaking with Miette, and quickly withdrew his head. On the following day
+      he could see nothing of his friend, not even in the distance; she must
+      have finished her work in that part of the Jas. A week passed in this
+      fashion, and the young people had no opportunity of exchanging a single
+      word. Silvere was in despair; he thought of boldly going to the Rebufats
+      to ask for Miette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The party-well was a large one, but not very deep. On either side of the
+      wall the curb formed a large semicircle. The water was only ten or twelve
+      feet down at the utmost. This slumbering water reflected the two apertures
+      of the well, two half-moons between which the shadow of the wall cast a
+      black streak. On leaning over, one might have fancied in the vague light
+      that the half-moons were two mirrors of singular clearness and brilliance.
+      Under the morning sunshine, when the dripping of the ropes did not disturb
+      the surface of the water, these mirrors, these reflections of the heavens,
+      showed like white patches on the green water, and in them the leaves of
+      the ivy which had spread along the wall over the well were repeated with
+      marvellous exactness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning, at an early hour, Silvere, as he came to draw water for aunt
+      Dide, bent over the well mechanically, just as he was taking hold of the
+      rope. He started, and then stood motionless, still leaning over. He had
+      fancied that he could distinguish in the well the face of a young girl who
+      was looking at him with a smile; however, he had shaken the rope, and the
+      disturbed water was now but a dim mirror that no longer reflected anything
+      clearly. Silvere, who did not venture to stir, and whose heart beat
+      rapidly, then waited for the water to settle. As its ripples gradually
+      widened and died away, he perceived the image reappearing. It oscillated
+      for a long time, with a swing which lent a vague, phantom-like grace to
+      its features, but at last it remained stationary. It was the smiling
+      countenance of Miette, with her head and shoulders, her coloured
+      neckerchief, her white bodice, and her blue braces. Silvere next perceived
+      his own image in the other mirror. Then, knowing that they could see each
+      other, they nodded their heads. For the first moment, they did not even
+      think of speaking. At last they exchanged greetings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Silvere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Miette.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were surprised by the strange sound of their voices, which became
+      singularly soft and sweet in that damp hole. The sound seemed, indeed, to
+      come from a distance, like the soft music of voices heard of an evening in
+      the country. They understood that it would suffice to speak in a whisper
+      in order to hear each other. The well echoed the faintest breath. Leaning
+      over its brink, they conversed while gazing at one another&rsquo;s reflection.
+      Miette related how sad she had been the last week. She was now working at
+      the other end of the Jas, and could only get out early in the morning.
+      Then she made a pout of annoyance which Silvere distinguished perfectly,
+      and to which he replied by nodding his head with an air of vexation. They
+      were exchanging all those gestures and facial expressions that speech
+      entails. They cared but little for the wall which separated them now that
+      they could see each other in those hidden depths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew,&rdquo; continued Miette, with a knowing look, &ldquo;that you came here to
+      draw water every morning at the same hour. I can hear the grating of the
+      pulley from the house. So I made an excuse, I pretended that the water in
+      this well boiled the vegetables better. I thought that I might come here
+      every morning to draw water at the same time as you, so as to say good
+      morning to you without anyone suspecting it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled innocently, as though well pleased with her device, and ended
+      by saying: &ldquo;But I did not imagine we should see each other in the water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, in fact, this unhoped-for pleasure which so delighted them. They
+      only spoke to see their lips move, so greatly did this new frolic amuse
+      their childish natures. And they resolved to use all means in their power
+      to meet here every morning. When Miette had said that she must go away,
+      she told Silvere that he could draw his pail of water. But he did not dare
+      to shake the rope; Miette was still leaning over&mdash;he could see her
+      smiling face, and it was too painful to him to dispel that smile. As he
+      slightly stirred his pail, the water murmured, and the smile faded. Then
+      he stopped, seized with a strange fear; he fancied that he had vexed her
+      and made her cry. But the child called to him, &ldquo;Go on! go on!&rdquo; with a
+      laugh which the echo prolonged and rendered more sonorous. She herself
+      then nosily sent down a pail. There was a perfect tempest. Everything
+      disappeared under the black water. And Silvere made up his mind to fill
+      two pitchers, while listening to the retreating steps of Miette on the
+      other side of the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that day, the young people never missed their assignations. The
+      slumbering water, the white mirrors in which they gazed at one another,
+      imparted to their interviews a charm which long sufficed their playful,
+      childish imaginations. They had no desire to see each other face to face:
+      it seemed much more amusing to them to use the well as a mirror, and
+      confide their morning greetings to its echo. They soon came to look upon
+      the well as an old friend. They loved to bend over the motionless water
+      that resembled molten silver. A greenish glimmer hovered below, in a
+      mysterious half light, and seemed to change the damp hole into some
+      hiding-place in the depths of a wood. They saw each other in a sort of
+      greenish nest bedecked with moss, in the midst of fresh water and foliage.
+      And all the strangeness of the deep spring, the hollow tower over which
+      they bent, trembling with fascination, added unconfessed and delightful
+      fear to their merry laughter. The wild idea occurred to them of going down
+      and seating themselves on a row of large stones which formed a kind of
+      circular bench at a few inches above the water. They would dip their feet
+      in the latter, converse there for hours, and no one would think of coming
+      to look for them in such a spot. But when they asked each other what there
+      might be down there, their vague fears returned; they thought it quite
+      sufficient to let their reflected images descend into the depths amidst
+      those green glimmers which tinged the stones with strange moire-like
+      reflections, and amidst those mysterious noises which rose from the dark
+      corners. Those sounds issuing from the invisible made them particularly
+      uneasy; they often fancied that voices were replying to their own; and
+      then they would remain silent, detecting a thousand faint plaints which
+      they could not understand. These came from the secret travail of the
+      moisture, the sighs of the atmosphere, the drops that glided over the
+      stones, and fell below with the sonorousness of sobs. They would nod
+      affectionately to each other in order to reassure themselves. Thus the
+      attraction which kept them leaning over the brink had a tinge of secret
+      terror, like all poignant charms. But the well still remained their old
+      friend. It was such an excellent pretext for meeting! Justin, who watched
+      Miette&rsquo;s every movement, never suspected the cause of her eagerness to go
+      and draw some water every morning. At times, he saw her from the distance,
+      leaning over and loitering. &ldquo;Ah! the lazy thing!&rdquo; he muttered; &ldquo;how fond
+      she is of dawdling about!&rdquo; How could he suspect that, on the other side of
+      the wall, there was a wooer contemplating the girl&rsquo;s smile in the water,
+      and saying to her: &ldquo;If that red-haired donkey Justin should illtreat you,
+      just tell me of it, and he shall hear from me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This amusement lasted for more than a month. It was July then; the
+      mornings were sultry; the sun shone brightly, and it was quite a pleasure
+      to come to that damp spot. It was delightful to feel the cold breath of
+      the well on one&rsquo;s face, and make love amidst this spring water while the
+      skies were kindling their fires. Miette would arrive out of breath after
+      crossing the stubble fields; as she ran along, her hair fell down over her
+      forehead and temples; and it was with flushed face and dishevelled locks
+      that she would lean over, shaking with laughter, almost before she had had
+      time to set her pitcher down. Silvere, who was almost always the first at
+      the well, felt, as he suddenly saw her smiling face in the water, as keen
+      a joy as he would have experienced had she suddenly thrown herself into
+      his arms at the bend of a pathway. Around them the radiant morning hummed
+      with mirth; a wave of warm light, sonorous with the buzzing of insects,
+      beat against the old wall, the posts, and the curbstone. They, however, no
+      longer saw the shower of morning sunshine, nor heard the thousand sounds
+      rising from the ground; they were in the depths of their green
+      hiding-place, under the earth, in that mysterious and awesome cavity, and
+      quivered with pleasure as they lingered there enjoying its fresh coolness
+      and dim light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On some mornings, Miette, who by nature could not long maintain a
+      contemplative attitude, began to tease; she would shake the rope, and make
+      drops of water fall in order to ripple the mirrors and deface the
+      reflections. Silvere would then entreat her to remain still; he, whose
+      fervour was deeper than hers, knew no keener pleasure than that of gazing
+      at his love&rsquo;s image reflected so distinctly in every feature. But she
+      would not listen to him; she would joke and feign a rough old bogey&rsquo;s
+      voice, to which the echo imparted a raucous melodiousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she would say in chiding fashion; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t love you to-day! I&rsquo;m
+      making faces at you; see how ugly I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she laughed at seeing the fantastic forms which their spreading faces
+      assumed as they danced upon the disturbed water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning she got angry in real earnest. She did not find Silvere at the
+      trysting-place, and waited for him for nearly a quarter of an hour, vainly
+      making the pulley grate. She was just about to depart in a rage when he
+      arrived. As soon as she perceived him she let a perfect tempest loose in
+      the well, shook her pail in an irritated manner, and made the blackish
+      water whirl and splash against the stones. In vain did Silvere try to
+      explain that aunt Dide had detained him. To all his excuses she replied:
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve vexed me; I don&rsquo;t want to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor lad, in despair, vainly questioned that sombre cavity, now so
+      full of lamentable sounds, where, on other days, such a bright vision
+      usually awaited him amid the silence of the stagnant water. He had to go
+      away without seeing Miette. On the morrow, arriving before the time, he
+      gazed sadly into the well, hearing nothing, and thinking that the
+      obstinate girl would not come, when she, who was already on the other side
+      slyly watching his arrival, bent over suddenly with a burst of laughter.
+      All was at once forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this wise the well was the scene of many a little drama and comedy.
+      That happy cavity, with its gleaming mirrors and musical echoes, quickly
+      ripened their love. They endowed it with such strange life, so filled it
+      with their youthful love, that, long after they had ceased to come and
+      lean over the brink, Silvere, as he drew water every morning, would fancy
+      he could see Miette&rsquo;s smiling face in the dim light that still quivered
+      with the joy they had set there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That month of playful love rescued Miette from her mute despair. She felt
+      a revival of her affections, her happy childish carelessness, which had
+      been held in check by the hateful loneliness in which she lived. The
+      certainty that she was loved by somebody, and that she was no longer alone
+      in the world, enabled her to endure the persecutions of Justin and the
+      Faubourg urchins. A song of joy, whose glad notes drowned their hootings,
+      now sounded in her heart. She thought of her father with tender
+      compassion, and did not now so frequently yield to dreams of bitter
+      vengeance. Her dawning love cooled her feverish broodings like the fresh
+      breezes of the dawn. At the same time she acquired the instinctive cunning
+      of a young girl in love. She felt that she must maintain her usual silent
+      and rebellious demeanour if she were to escape Justin&rsquo;s suspicions. But,
+      in spite of her efforts, her eyes retained a sweet unruffled expression
+      when the lad bullied her; she was no longer able to put on her old black
+      look of indignant anger. One morning he heard her humming to herself at
+      breakfast-time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem very gay, Chantegreil!&rdquo; he said to her suspiciously, glancing
+      keenly at her from his lowering eyes. &ldquo;I bet you&rsquo;ve been up to some of
+      your tricks again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrugged her shoulders, but she trembled inwardly; and she did all she
+      could to regain her old appearance of rebellious martyrdom. However,
+      though Justin suspected some secret happiness, it was long before he was
+      able to discover how his victim had escaped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, on his side, enjoyed profound happiness. His daily meetings with
+      Miette made his idle hours pass pleasantly away. During his long silent
+      companionship with aunt Dide, he recalled one by one his remembrances of
+      the morning, revelling in their most trifling details. From that time
+      forward, the fulness of his heart cloistered him yet more in the lonely
+      existence which he had adopted with his grandmother. He was naturally fond
+      of hidden spots, of solitary retirement, where he could give himself up to
+      his thoughts. At this period already he had eagerly begun to read all the
+      old odd volumes which he could pick up at brokers&rsquo; shops in the Faubourg,
+      and which were destined to lead him to a strange and generous social
+      religion and morality. His reading&mdash;ill-digested and lacking all
+      solid foundation&mdash;gave him glimpses of the world&rsquo;s vanities and
+      pleasures, especially with regard to women, which would have seriously
+      troubled his mind if his heart had not been contented. When Miette came,
+      he received her at first as a companion, then as the joy and ambition of
+      his life. In the evening, when he had retired to the little nook where he
+      slept, and hung his lamp at the head of his strap-bedstead, he would find
+      Miette on every page of the dusty old volume which he had taken at random
+      from a shelf above his head and was reading devoutly. He never came across
+      a young girl, a good and beautiful creature, in his reading, without
+      immediately identifying her with his sweetheart. And he would set himself
+      in the narrative as well. If he were reading a love story, it was he who
+      married Miette at the end, or died with her. If, on the contrary, he were
+      perusing some political pamphlet, some grave dissertation on social
+      economy, works which he preferred to romances, for he had that singular
+      partiality for difficult subjects which characterises persons of imperfect
+      scholarship, he still found some means of associating her with the tedious
+      themes which frequently he could not even understand. For instance, he
+      tried to persuade himself that he was learning how to be good and kind to
+      her when they were married. He thus associated her with all his visionary
+      dreamings. Protected by the purity of his affection against the obscenity
+      of certain eighteenth-century tales which fell into his hands, he found
+      particular pleasure in shutting himself up with her in those humanitarian
+      Utopias which some great minds of our own time, infatuated by visions of
+      universal happiness have imagined. Miette, in his mind, became quite
+      essential to the abolition of pauperism and the definitive triumph of the
+      principles of the Revolution. There were nights of feverish reading, when
+      his mind could not tear itself from his book, which he would lay down and
+      take up at least a score of times, nights of voluptuous weariness which he
+      enjoyed till daybreak like some secret orgie, cramped up in that tiny
+      room, his eyes troubled by the flickering yellow light, while he yielded
+      to the fever of insomnia and schemed out new social schemes of the most
+      absurdly ingenuous nature, in which woman, always personified by Miette,
+      was worshipped by the nations on their knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was predisposed to Utopian ideas by certain hereditary influences; his
+      grandmother&rsquo;s nervous disorders became in him so much chronic enthusiasm,
+      striving after everything that was grandiose and impossible. His lonely
+      childhood, his imperfect education, had developed his natural tendencies
+      in a singular manner. However, he had not yet reached the age when the
+      fixed idea plants itself in a man&rsquo;s mind. In the morning, after he had
+      dipped his head in a bucket of water, he remembered his thoughts and
+      visions of the night but vaguely; nothing remained of his dreams save a
+      childlike innocence, full of trustful confidence and yearning tenderness.
+      He felt like a child again. He ran to the well, solely desirous of meeting
+      his sweetheart&rsquo;s smile, and tasting the delights of the radiant morning.
+      And during the day, when thoughts of the future sometimes made him silent
+      and dreamy, he would often, prompted by some sudden impulse, spring up and
+      kiss aunt Dide on both cheeks, whereat the old woman would gaze at him
+      anxiously, perturbed at seeing his eyes so bright, and gleaming with a joy
+      which she thought she could divine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, as time went on, Miette and Silvere began to tire of only seeing
+      each other&rsquo;s reflection. The novelty of their play was gone, and now they
+      began to dream of keener pleasures than the well could afford them. In
+      this longing for reality which came upon them, there was the wish to see
+      each other face to face, to run through the open fields, and return out of
+      breath with their arms around each other&rsquo;s waist, clinging closely
+      together in order that they might the better feel each other&rsquo;s love. One
+      morning Silvere spoke of climbing over the wall, and walking in the Jas
+      with Miette. But the child implored him not to perpetrate such folly,
+      which would place her at Justin&rsquo;s mercy. He then promised to seek some
+      other means.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wall in which the well was set made a sudden bend a few paces further
+      on, thereby forming a sort of recess, where the lovers would be free from
+      observation, if they were to take shelter there. The question was how to
+      reach this recess. Silvere could no longer entertain the idea of climbing
+      over, as Miette had appeared so afraid. He secretly thought of another
+      plan. The little door which Macquart and Adelaide had set up one night
+      long years previously had remained forgotten in this remote corner. The
+      owner of the Jas-Meiffren had not even thought of blocking it up.
+      Blackened by damp and green with moss, its lock and hinges eaten away with
+      rust, it looked like a part of the old wall. Doubtless the key was lost;
+      the grass growing beside the lower boards, against which slight mounds had
+      formed, amply proved that no one had passed that way for many a long year.
+      However, it was the lost key that Silvere hoped to find. He knew with what
+      devotion his aunt Dide allowed the relics of the past to lie rotting
+      wherever they might be. He searched the house for a week without any
+      result, and went stealthily night by night to see if he had at last put
+      his hand on the right key during the daytime. In this way he tried more
+      than thirty keys which had doubtless come from the old property of the
+      Fouques, and which he found all over the place, against the walls, on the
+      floors, and at the bottom of drawers. He was becoming disheartened, when
+      all at once he found the precious key. It was simply tied by a string to
+      the street door latch-key, which always remained in the lock. It had hung
+      there for nearly forty years. Aunt Dide must every day have touched it
+      with her hand, without ever making up her mind to throw it away, although
+      it could now only carry her back sorrowfully into the past. When Silvere
+      had convinced himself that it really opened the little door, he awaited
+      the ensuing day, dreaming of the joyful surprise which he was preparing
+      for Miette. He had not told her for what he had been searching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morrow, as soon as he heard the girl set her pitcher down, he
+      gently opened the door, sweeping away with a push the tall weeds which
+      covered the threshold. Stretching out his head, he saw Miette leaning over
+      the brink of the well, looking into the water, absorbed in expectation.
+      Thereupon, in a couple of strides, he reached the recess formed by the
+      wall, and thence called, &ldquo;Miette! Miette!&rdquo; in a soft voice, which made her
+      tremble. She raised her head, thinking he was on the coping of the wall.
+      But when she saw him in the Jas, at a few steps from her, she gave a faint
+      cry of surprise, and ran up to him. They took each other&rsquo;s hand, and
+      looked at one another, delighted to be so near, thinking themselves far
+      handsomer like this, in the warm sunshine. It was the middle of August,
+      the Feast of the Assumption. In the distance, the bells were pealing in
+      the limpid atmosphere that so often accompanies great days of festival, an
+      atmosphere full of bright gaiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Silvere!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Miette!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voices in which they exchanged their morning greetings sounded strange
+      to them. They knew only the muffled accents transmitted by the echo of the
+      well. And now their voices seemed to them as clear as the notes of a lark.
+      And ah! how delightful it was in that warm corner, in that holiday
+      atmosphere! They still held each other&rsquo;s hands. Silvere leaning against
+      the wall, Miette with her figure slightly thrown backwards. They were
+      about to tell each other all the soft things which they had not dared to
+      confide to the reverberations of the well, when Silvere, hearing a slight
+      noise, started, and, turning pale, dropped Miette&rsquo;s hands. He had just
+      seen aunt Dide standing before him erect and motionless on the threshold
+      of the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grandmother had come to the well by chance. And on perceiving, in the
+      old black wall, the white gap formed by the doorway which Silvere had left
+      wide open, she had experienced a violent shock. That open gap seemed to
+      her like a gulf of light violently illumining her past. She once more saw
+      herself running to the door amidst the morning brightness, and crossing
+      the threshold full of the transports of her nervous love. And Macquart was
+      there awaiting her. She hung upon his neck and pressed against his bosom,
+      whilst the rising sun, following her through the doorway, which she had
+      left open in her hurry, enveloped them with radiance. It was a sudden
+      vision which roused her cruelly from the slumber of old age, like some
+      supreme chastisement, and awakened a multitude of bitter memories within
+      her. Had the well, had the entire wall, disappeared beneath the earth, she
+      would not have been more stupefied. She had never thought that this door
+      would open again. In her mind it had been walled up ever since the hour of
+      Macquart&rsquo;s death. And amidst her amazement she felt angry, indignant with
+      the sacrilegious hand that had penetrated this violation, and left that
+      white open space agape like a yawning tomb. She stepped forward, yielding
+      to a kind of fascination, and halted erect within the framework of the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she gazed out before her, with a feeling of dolorous surprise. She
+      had certainly been told that the old enclosure of the Fouques was now
+      joined to the Jas-Meiffren; but she would never have thought the
+      associations of her youth could have vanished so completely. It seemed as
+      though some tempest had carried off everything that her memory cherished.
+      The old dwelling, the large kitchen-garden, the beds of green vegetables,
+      all had disappeared. Not a stone, not a tree of former times remained. And
+      instead of the scene amidst which she had grown up, and which in her
+      mind&rsquo;s eye she had seen but yesterday, there lay a strip of barren soil, a
+      broad patch of stubbles, bare like a desert. Henceforward, when, on
+      closing her eyes, she might try to recall the objects of the past, that
+      stubble would always appear to her like a shroud of yellowish drugget
+      spread over the soil, in which her youth lay buried. In the presence of
+      that unfamiliar commonplace scene her heart died, as it were, a second
+      time. Now all was completely, finally ended. She was robbed even of her
+      dreams of the past. Then she began to regret that she had yielded to the
+      attraction of that white opening, of that doorway gaping upon the days
+      which were now for ever lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was about to retire and close the accursed door, without even seeking
+      to discover who had opened it, when she suddenly perceived Miette and
+      Silvere. And the sight of the two young lovers, who, with hanging heads,
+      nervously awaited her glance, kept her on the threshold, quivering with
+      yet keener pain. She now understood all. To the very end, she was destined
+      to picture herself there, clasped in Macquart&rsquo;s arms in the bright
+      sunshine. Yet a second time had the door served as an accomplice. Where
+      love had once passed, there was it passing again. &lsquo;Twas the eternal and
+      endless renewal, with present joys and future tears. Aunt Dide could only
+      see the tears, and a sudden presentiment showed her the two children
+      bleeding, with stricken hearts. Overwhelmed by the recollection of her
+      life&rsquo;s sorrow, which this spot had just awakened within her, she grieved
+      for her dear Silvere. She alone was guilty; if she had not formerly had
+      that door made Silvere would not now be at a girl&rsquo;s feet in that lonely
+      nook, intoxicating himself with a bliss which prompts and angers the
+      jealousy of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a brief pause, she went up to the young man, and, without a word,
+      took him by the hand. She might, perhaps, have left them there, chattering
+      under the wall, had she not felt that she herself was, to some extent, an
+      accomplice in this fatal love. As she came back with Silvere, she turned
+      on hearing the light footfall of Miette, who, having quickly taken up her
+      pitcher, was hastening across the stubble. She was running wildly, glad at
+      having escaped so easily. And aunt Dide smiled involuntarily as she
+      watched her bound over the ground like a runaway goat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is very young,&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;she has plenty of time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She meant, no doubt, that Miette had plenty of time before her to suffer
+      and weep. Then, turning her eyes upon Silvere, who with a glance of
+      ecstasy had followed the child as she ran off in the bright sunshine, she
+      simply added: &ldquo;Take care, my boy; this sort of thing sometimes kills one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These were the only words she spoke with reference to the incident which
+      had awakened all the sorrows that lay slumbering in the depths of her
+      being. Silence had become a real religion with her. When Silvere came in,
+      she double-locked the door, and threw the key down the well. In this wise
+      she felt certain that the door would no longer make her an accomplice. She
+      examined it for a moment, glad at seeing it reassume its usual gloomy,
+      barrier-like aspect. The tomb was closed once more; the white gap was for
+      ever boarded up with that damp-stained mossy timber over which the snails
+      had shed silvery tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening, aunt Dide had another of those nervous attacks which came
+      upon her at intervals. At these times she would often talk aloud and
+      ramble incoherently, as though she was suffering from nightmare. That
+      evening, while Silvere held her down on her bed, he heard her stammer in a
+      panting voice such words as &ldquo;custom-house officer,&rdquo; &ldquo;fire,&rdquo; and &ldquo;murder.&rdquo;
+       And she struggled, and begged for mercy, and dreamed aloud of vengeance.
+      At last, as always happened when the attack was drawing to a close, she
+      fell into a strange fright, her teeth chattering, while her limbs quivered
+      with abject terror. Finally, after raising herself into a sitting posture,
+      she cast a haggard look of astonishment at one and another corner of the
+      room, and then fell back upon the pillow, heaving deep sighs. She was,
+      doubtless, a prey to some hallucination. However, she drew Silvere to her
+      bosom, and seemed to some degree to recognise him, though ever and anon
+      she confused him with someone else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There they are!&rdquo; she stammered. &ldquo;Do you see? They are going to take you,
+      they will kill you again. I don&rsquo;t want them to&mdash;Send them away, tell
+      them I won&rsquo;t; tell them they are hurting me, staring at me like that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she turned to the wall, to avoid seeing the people of whom she was
+      talking. And after an interval of silence, she continued: &ldquo;You are near
+      me, my child, aren&rsquo;t you? You must not leave me. I thought I was going to
+      die just now. We did wrong to make an opening in the wall. I have suffered
+      ever since. I was certain that door would bring us further misfortune&mdash;Oh!
+      the innocent darlings, what sorrow! They will kill them as well, they will
+      be shot down like dogs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she relapsed into catalepsy; she was no longer even aware of
+      Silvere&rsquo;s presence. Suddenly, however, she sat up, and gazed at the foot
+      of her bed, with a fearful expression of terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you send them away?&rdquo; she cried, hiding her white head against
+      the young man&rsquo;s breast. &ldquo;They are still there. The one with the gun is
+      making signs that he is going to fire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly afterwards she fell into the heavy slumber that usually terminated
+      these attacks. On the next day, she seemed to have forgotten everything.
+      She never again spoke to Silvere of the morning on which she had found him
+      with a sweetheart behind the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young people did not see each other for a couple of days. When Miette
+      ventured to return to the well, they resolved not to recommence the pranks
+      which had upset aunt Dide. However, the meeting which had been so
+      strangely interrupted had filled them with a keen desire to meet again in
+      some happy solitude. Weary of the delights afforded by the well, and
+      unwilling to vex aunt Dide by seeing Miette again on the other side of the
+      wall, Silvere begged the girl to meet him somewhere else. She required but
+      little pressing; she received the proposal with the willing smile of a
+      frolicsome lass who has no thought of evil. What made her smile was the
+      idea of outwitting that spy of a Justin. When the lovers had come to
+      agreement, they discussed at length the choice of a favourable spot.
+      Silvere proposed the most impossible trysting-places. He planned regular
+      journeys, and even suggested meeting the young girl at midnight in the
+      barns of the Jas-Meiffren. Miette, who was much more practical, shrugged
+      her shoulders, declaring she would try to think of some spot. On the
+      morrow, she tarried but a minute at the well, just time enough to smile at
+      Silvere and tell him to be at the far end of the Aire Saint-Mittre at
+      about ten o&rsquo;clock in the evening. One may be sure that the young man was
+      punctual. All day long Miette&rsquo;s choice had puzzled him, and his curiosity
+      increased when he found himself in the narrow lane formed by the piles of
+      planks at the end of the plot of ground. &ldquo;She will come this way,&rdquo; he said
+      to himself, looking along the road to Nice. But he suddenly heard a loud
+      shaking of boughs behind the wall, and saw a laughing head, with tumbled
+      hair, appear above the coping, whilst a joyous voice called out: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was, in fact, Miette, who had climbed like an urchin up one of the
+      mulberry-trees, which even nowadays still border the boundary of the
+      Jas-Meiffren. In a couple of leaps she reached the tombstone, half buried
+      in the corner at the end of the lane. Silvere watched her descend with
+      delight and surprise, without even thinking of helping her. As soon as she
+      had alighted, however, he took both her hands in his, and said: &ldquo;How
+      nimble you are!&mdash;you climb better than I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was thus that they met for the first time in that hidden corner where
+      they were destined to pass such happy hours. From that evening forward
+      they saw each other there nearly every night. They now only used the well
+      to warn each other of unforeseen obstacles to their meetings, of a change
+      of time, and of all the trifling little news that seemed important in
+      their eyes, and allowed of no delay. It sufficed for the one who had a
+      communication to make to set the pulley in motion, for its creaking noise
+      could be heard a long way off. But although, on certain days, they
+      summoned one another two or three times in succession to speak of trifles
+      of immense importance, it was only in the evening in that lonely little
+      passage that they tasted real happiness. Miette was exceptionally
+      punctual. She fortunately slept over the kitchen, in a room where the
+      winter provisions had been kept before her arrival, and which was reached
+      by a little private staircase. She was thus able to go out at all hours,
+      without being seen by Rebufat or Justin. Moreover, if the latter should
+      ever see her returning she intended to tell him some tale or other,
+      staring at him the while with that stern look which always reduced him to
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah! how happy those warm evenings were! The lovers had now reached the
+      first days of September, a month of bright sunshine in Provence. It was
+      hardly possible for them to join each other before nine o&rsquo;clock. Miette
+      arrived from over the wall, in surmounting which she soon acquired such
+      dexterity that she was almost always on the old tombstone before Silvere
+      had time to stretch out his arms. She would laugh at her own strength and
+      agility as, for a moment, with her hair in disorder, she remained almost
+      breathless, tapping her skirt to make it fall. Her sweetheart laughingly
+      called her an impudent urchin. In reality he much admired her pluck. He
+      watched her jump over the wall with the complacency of an older brother
+      supervising the exercises of a younger one. Indeed, there was yet much
+      that was childlike in their growing love. On several occasions they spoke
+      of going on some bird&rsquo;s-nesting expedition on the banks of the Viorne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see how I can climb,&rdquo; said Miette proudly. &ldquo;When I lived at
+      Chavanoz, I used to go right up to the top of old Andre&rsquo;s walnut-trees.
+      Have you ever taken a magpie&rsquo;s nest? It&rsquo;s very difficult!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a discussion arose as to how one ought to climb a poplar. Miette
+      stated her opinions, with all a boy&rsquo;s confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, Silvere, clasping her round the knees, had by this time lifted
+      her to the ground, and then they would walk on, side by side, their arms
+      encircling each other&rsquo;s waist. Though they were but children, fond of
+      frolicsome play and chatter, and knew not even how to speak of love, yet
+      they already partook of love&rsquo;s delight. It sufficed them to press each
+      other&rsquo;s hands. Ignorant whither their feelings and their hearts were
+      drifting, they did not seek to hide the blissful thrills which the
+      slightest touch awoke. Smiling, often wondering at the delight they
+      experienced, they yielded unconsciously to the sweetness of new feelings
+      even while talking, like a couple of schoolboys, of the magpies&rsquo; nests
+      which are so difficult to reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as they talked they went down the silent path, between the piles of
+      planks and the wall of the Jas-Meiffren. They never went beyond the end of
+      that narrow blind alley, but invariably retraced their steps. They were
+      quite at home there. Miette, happy in the knowledge of their safe
+      concealment, would often pause and congratulate herself on her discovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t I lucky!&rdquo; she would gleefully exclaim. &ldquo;We might walk a long way
+      without finding such a good hiding-place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The thick grass muffled the noise of their footsteps. They were steeped in
+      gloom, shut in between two black walls, and only a strip of dark sky,
+      spangled with stars, was visible above their heads. And as they stepped
+      along, pacing this path which resembled a dark stream flowing beneath the
+      black star-sprent sky, they were often thrilled with undefinable emotion,
+      and lowered their voices, although there was nobody to hear them.
+      Surrendering themselves as it were to the silent waves of night, over
+      which they seemed to drift, they recounted to one another, with lovers&rsquo; 
+      rapture, the thousand trifles of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At other times, on bright nights, when the moonlight clearly outlined the
+      wall and the timber-stacks, Miette and Silvere would romp about with all
+      the carelessness of children. The path stretched out, alight with white
+      rays, and retaining no suggestion of secrecy, and the young people laughed
+      and chased each other like boys at play, at times venturing even to climb
+      upon the piles of timber. Silvere was occasionally obliged to frighten
+      Miette by telling her that Justin might be watching her from over the
+      wall. Then, quite out of breath, they would stroll side by side, and plan
+      how they might some day go for a scamper in the Sainte-Claire meadows, to
+      see which of the two would catch the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their growing love thus accommodated itself to dark and clear nights.
+      Their hearts were ever on the alert, and a little shade sufficed to
+      sweeten the pleasure of their embrace, and soften their laughter. This
+      dearly-loved retreat&mdash;so gay in the moonshine, so strangely thrilling
+      in the gloom&mdash;seemed an inexhaustible source of both gaiety and
+      silent emotion. They would remain there until midnight, while the town
+      dropped off to sleep and the lights in the windows of the Faubourg went
+      out one by one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were never disturbed in their solitude. At that late hour children
+      were no longer playing at hide-and-seek behind the piles of planks.
+      Occasionally, when the young couple heard sounds in the distance&mdash;the
+      singing of some workmen as they passed along the road, or conversation
+      coming from the neighbouring sidewalks&mdash;they would cast stealthy
+      glances over the Aire Saint-Mittre. The timber-yard stretched out, empty
+      of all, save here and there some falling shadows. On warm evenings they
+      sometimes caught glimpses of loving couples there, and of old men sitting
+      on the big beams by the roadside. When the evenings grew colder, all that
+      they ever saw on the melancholy, deserted spot was some gipsy fire, before
+      which, perhaps, a few black shadows passed to and fro. Through the still
+      night air words and sundry faint sounds were wafted to them, the
+      &ldquo;good-night&rdquo; of a townsman shutting his door, the closing of a
+      window-shutter, the deep striking of a clock, all the parting sounds of a
+      provincial town retiring to rest. And when Plassans was slumbering, they
+      might still hear the quarrelling of the gipsies and the crackling of their
+      fires, amidst which suddenly rose the guttural voices of girls singing in
+      a strange tongue, full of rugged accents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the lovers did not concern themselves much with what went on in the
+      Aire Saint-Mittre; they hastened back into their own little privacy, and
+      again walked along their favourite retired path. Little did they care for
+      others, or for the town itself! The few planks which separated them from
+      the wicked world seemed to them, after a while, an insurmountable rampart.
+      They were so secluded, so free in this nook, situated though it was in the
+      very midst of the Faubourg, at only fifty paces from the Rome Gate, that
+      they sometimes fancied themselves far away in some hollow of the Viorne,
+      with the open country around them. Of all the sounds which reached them,
+      only one made them feel uneasy, that of the clocks striking slowly in the
+      darkness. At times, when the hour sounded, they pretended not to hear, at
+      other moments they stopped short as if to protest. However, they could not
+      go on for ever taking just another ten minutes, and so the time came when
+      they were at last obliged to say good-night. Then Miette reluctantly
+      climbed upon the wall again. But all was not ended yet, they would linger
+      over their leave-taking for a good quarter of an hour. When the girl had
+      climbed upon the wall, she remained there with her elbows on the coping,
+      and her feet supported by the branches of the mulberry-tree, which served
+      her as a ladder. Silvere, perched on the tombstone, was able to take her
+      hands again, and renew their whispered conversation. They repeated &ldquo;till
+      to-morrow!&rdquo; a dozen times, and still and ever found something more to say.
+      At last Silvere began to scold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, you must get down, it is past midnight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Miette, with a girl&rsquo;s waywardness, wished him to descend first; she
+      wanted to see him go away. And as he persisted in remaining, she ended by
+      saying abruptly, by way of punishment, perhaps: &ldquo;Look! I am going to jump
+      down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she sprang from the mulberry-tree, to the great consternation of
+      Silvere. He heard the dull thud of her fall, and the burst of laughter
+      with which she ran off, without choosing to reply to his last adieu. For
+      some minutes he would remain watching her vague figure as it disappeared
+      in the darkness, then, slowly descending, he regained the Impasse
+      Saint-Mittre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During two years they came to the path every day. At the time of their
+      first meetings they enjoyed some beautiful warm nights. They might almost
+      have fancied themselves in the month of May, the month of seething sap,
+      when a pleasant odour of earth and fresh leaves pervades the warm air.
+      This <i>renouveau</i>, this second spring, was like a gift from heaven
+      which allowed them to run freely about the path and tighten their bonds of
+      affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last came rain, and snow, and frost. But the disagreeableness of winter
+      did not keep them away. Miette put on her long brown pelisse, and they
+      both made light of the bad weather. When the nights were dry and clear,
+      and puffs of wind raised the hoar frost beneath their footsteps and fell
+      on their faces like taps from a switch, they refrained from sitting down.
+      They walked quickly to and fro, wrapped in the pelisse, their cheeks blue
+      with cold, and their eyes watering; and they laughed heartily, quite
+      quivering with mirth, at the rapidity of their march through the freezing
+      atmosphere. One snowy evening they amused themselves with making an
+      enormous snowball, which they rolled into a corner. It remained there
+      fully a month, which caused them fresh astonishment each time they met in
+      the path. Nor did the rain frighten them. They came to see each other
+      through the heaviest downpours, though they got wet to the skin in doing
+      so. Silvere would hasten to the spot, saying to himself that Miette would
+      never be mad enough to come; and when Miette arrived, he could not find it
+      in his heart to scold her. In reality he had been expecting her. At last
+      he sought some shelter against the inclement weather, knowing quite well
+      that they would certainly come out, however much they might promise one
+      another not to do so when it rained. To find a shelter he only had to
+      disturb one of the timber-stacks; pulling out several pieces of wood and
+      arranging them so that they would move easily, in such wise that he could
+      displace and replace them at pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that time forward the lovers possessed a sort of low and narrow
+      sentry-box, a square hole, which was only big enough to hold them closely
+      squeezed together on a beam which they had left at the bottom of the
+      little cell. Whenever it rained, the first to arrive would take shelter
+      here; and on finding themselves together again they would listen with
+      delight to the rain beating on the piles of planks. Before and around
+      them, through the inky blackness of the night, came a rush of water which
+      they could not see, but which resounded continuously like the roar of a
+      mob. They were nevertheless quite alone, as though they had been at the
+      end of the world or beneath the sea. They never felt so happy, so
+      isolated, as when they found themselves in that timber-stack, in the midst
+      of some such deluge which threatened to carry them away at every moment.
+      Their bent knees almost reached the opening, and though they thrust
+      themselves back as far as possible, the spray of the rain bathed their
+      cheeks and hands. The big drops, falling from the planks, splashed at
+      regular intervals at their feet. The brown pelisse kept them warm, and the
+      nook was so small that Miette was compelled to sit almost on Silvere&rsquo;s
+      knees. And they would chatter and then lapse into silence, overcome with
+      languor, lulled by the warmth of their embrace and the monotonous beating
+      of the shower. For hours and hours they remained there, with that same
+      enjoyment of the rain which prompts little children to stroll along
+      solemnly in stormy weather with open umbrellas in their hands. After a
+      while they came to prefer the rainy evenings, though their parting became
+      more painful on those occasions. Miette was obliged to climb the wall in
+      the driving rain, and cross the puddles of the Jas-Meiffren in perfect
+      darkness. As soon as she had left his arms, she was lost to Silvere amidst
+      the gloom and the noise of the falling water. In vain he listened, he was
+      deafened, blinded. However, the anxiety caused by this brusque separation
+      proved an additional charm, and, until the morrow, each would be uneasy
+      lest anything should have befallen the other in such weather, when one
+      would not even have turned a dog out of doors. Perchance one of them had
+      slipped, or lost the way; such were the mutual fears which possessed them,
+      and rendered their next interview yet more loving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the fine days returned, April brought mild nights, and the grass
+      in the green alley sprouted up wildly. Amidst the stream of life flowing
+      from heaven and rising from the earth, amidst all the intoxication of the
+      budding spring-time, the lovers sometimes regretted their winter solitude,
+      the rainy evenings and the freezing nights, during which they had been so
+      isolated so far from all human sounds. At present the days did not draw to
+      a close soon enough, and they grew impatient with the lagging twilights.
+      When the night had fallen sufficiently for Miette to climb upon the wall
+      without danger of being seen, and they could at last glide along their
+      dear path, they no longer found there the solitude congenial to their shy,
+      childish love. People began to flock to the Aire Saint-Mittre, the urchins
+      of the Faubourg remained there, romping about the beams, and shouting,
+      till eleven o&rsquo;clock at night. It even happened occasionally that one of
+      them would go and hide behind the piles of timber, and assail Miette and
+      Silvere with boyish jeers. The fear of being surprised amidst that general
+      awakening of life as the season gradually grew warmer, tinged their
+      meetings with anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, too, they began to stifle in the narrow lane. Never had it throbbed
+      with so ardent a quiver; never had that soil, in which the last bones left
+      of the former cemetery lay mouldering, sent forth such oppressive and
+      disturbing odours. They were still too young to relish the voluptuous
+      charm of that secluded nook which the springtide filled with fever. The
+      grass grew to their knees, they moved to and fro with difficulty, and
+      certain plants, when they crushed their young shoots, sent forth a pungent
+      odour which made them dizzy. Then, seized with strange drowsiness and
+      staggering with giddiness, their feet as though entangled in the grass,
+      they would lean against the wall, with half-closed eyes, unable to move a
+      step. All the soft languor from the skies seemed to penetrate them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the petulance of beginners, impatient and irritated at this sudden
+      faintness, they began to think their retreat too confined, and decided to
+      ramble through the open fields. Every evening came fresh frolics. Miette
+      arrived with her pelisse; they wrapped themselves in it, and then, gliding
+      past the walls, reached the high-road and the open country, the broad
+      fields where the wind rolled with full strength, like the waves at high
+      tide. And here they no longer felt stifled; they recovered all their
+      youthfulness, free from the giddy intoxication born of the tall rank weeds
+      of the Aire Saint-Mittre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During two summers they rambled through the district. Every rock ledge,
+      every bed of turf soon knew them; there was not a cluster of trees, a
+      hedge, or a bush, which did not become their friend. They realized their
+      dreams: they chased each other wildly over the meadows of Sainte-Claire,
+      and Miette ran so well that Silvere had to put his best foot forward to
+      catch her. Sometimes, too, they went in search of magpies&rsquo; nests.
+      Headstrong Miette, wishing to show how she had climbed trees at Chavanoz,
+      would tie up her skirts with a piece of string, and ascend the highest
+      poplars; while Silvere stood trembling beneath, with his arms outstretched
+      to catch her should she slip. These frolics so turned them from thoughts
+      of love that one evening they almost fought like a couple of lads coming
+      out of school. But there were nooks in the country side which were not
+      healthful for them. So long as they rambled on they were continually
+      shouting with laughter, pushing and teasing one another. They covered
+      miles and miles of ground; sometimes they went as far as the chain of the
+      Garrigues, following the narrowest paths and cutting across the fields.
+      The region belonged to them; they lived there as in a conquered territory,
+      enjoying all that the earth and the sky could give them. Miette, with a
+      woman&rsquo;s lack of scruple, did not hesitate to pluck a bunch of grapes, or a
+      cluster of green almonds, from the vines and almond-trees whose boughs
+      brushed her as she passed; and at this Silvere, with his absolute ideas of
+      honesty, felt vexed, although he did not venture to find fault with the
+      girl, whose occasional sulking distressed him. &ldquo;Oh! the bad girl!&rdquo; thought
+      he, childishly exaggerating the matter, &ldquo;she would make a thief of me.&rdquo;
+       But Miette would thereupon force his share of the stolen fruit into his
+      mouth. The artifices he employed, such as holding her round the waist,
+      avoiding the fruit trees, and making her run after him when they were near
+      the vines, so as to keep her out of the way of temptation, quickly
+      exhausted his imagination. At last there was nothing to do but to make her
+      sit down. And then they again began to experience their former stifling
+      sensations. The gloomy valley of the Viorne particularly disturbed them.
+      When weariness brought them to the banks of the torrent, all their
+      childish gaiety seemed to disappear. A grey shadow floated under the
+      willows, like the scented crape of a woman&rsquo;s dress. The children felt this
+      crape descend warm and balmy from the voluptuous shoulders of the night,
+      kiss their temples and envelop them with irresistible languor. In the
+      distance the crickets chirped in the meadows of Sainte-Claire, and at
+      their feet the ripples of the Viorne sounded like lovers&rsquo; whispers&mdash;like
+      the soft cooing of humid lips. The stars cast a rain of sparkles from the
+      slumbering heavens. And, amidst the throbbing of the sky, the waters and
+      the darkness, the children reposing on the grass sought each other&rsquo;s hands
+      and pressed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, who vaguely understood the danger of these ecstasies, would
+      sometimes jump up and propose to cross over to one of the islets left by
+      the low water in the middle of the stream. Both ventured forth, with bare
+      feet. Miette made light of the pebbles, refusing Silvere&rsquo;s help, and it
+      once happened that she sat down in the very middle of the stream; however,
+      there were only a few inches of water, and she escaped with nothing worse
+      than a wet petticoat. Then, having reached the island, they threw
+      themselves on the long neck of sand, their eyes on a level with the
+      surface of the river whose silvery scales they saw quivering far away in
+      the clear night. Then Miette would declare that they were in a boat, that
+      the island was certainly floating; she could feel it carrying her along.
+      The dizziness caused by the rippling of the water amused them for a
+      moment, and they lingered there, singing in an undertone, like boatmen as
+      they strike the water with their oars. At other times, when the island had
+      a low bank, they sat there as on a bed of verdure, and let their bare feet
+      dangle in the stream. And then for hours they chatted together, swinging
+      their legs, and splashing the water, delighted to set a tempest raging in
+      the peaceful pool whose freshness cooled their fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These footbaths suggested a dangerous idea to Miette. Nothing would
+      satisfy her but a complete bath. A little above the bridge over the Viorne
+      there was a very convenient spot, she said, barely three or four feet deep
+      and quite safe; the weather was so warm, it would be so nice to have the
+      water up to their necks; besides which, she had been dying to learn to
+      swim for such a long time, and Silvere would be able to teach her. Silvere
+      raised objections; it was not prudent at night time; they might be seen;
+      perhaps, too they might catch cold. However, nothing could turn Miette
+      from her purpose. One evening she came with a bathing costume which she
+      had made out of an old dress; and Silvere was then obliged to go back to
+      aunt Dide&rsquo;s for his bathing drawers. Their proceedings were characterised
+      by great simplicity. Miette disrobed herself beneath the shade of a stout
+      willow; and when both were ready, enveloped in the blackness which fell
+      from the foliage around them, they gaily entered the cool water, oblivious
+      of all previous scruples, and knowing in their innocence no sense of
+      shame. They remained in the river quite an hour, splashing and throwing
+      water into each other&rsquo;s faces; Miette now getting cross, now breaking out
+      into laughter, while Silvere gave her her first lesson, dipping her head
+      under every now and again so as to accustom her to the water. As long as
+      he held her up she threw her arms and legs about violently, thinking she
+      was swimming; but directly he let her go, she cried and struggled,
+      striking the water with her outstretched hands, clutching at anything she
+      could get hold of, the young man&rsquo;s waist or one of his wrists. She leant
+      against him for an instant, resting, out of breath and dripping with
+      water; and then she cried: &ldquo;Once more; but you do it on purpose, you don&rsquo;t
+      hold me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of a fortnight, the girl was able to swim. With her limbs
+      moving freely, rocked by the stream, playing with it, she yielded form and
+      spirit alike to its soft motion, to the silence of the heavens, and the
+      dreaminess of the melancholy banks. As she and Silvere swam noiselessly
+      along, she seemed to see the foliage of both banks thicken and hang over
+      them, draping them round as with a huge curtain. When the moon shone, its
+      rays glided between the trunks of the trees, and phantoms seemed to flit
+      along the river-side in white robes. Miette felt no nervousness, however,
+      only an indefinable emotion as she followed the play of the shadows. As
+      she went onward with slower motion, the calm water, which the moon
+      converted into a bright mirror, rippled at her approach like a
+      silver-broidered cloth; eddies widened and lost themselves amid the
+      shadows of the banks, under the hanging willow branches, whence issued
+      weird, plashing sounds. At every stroke she perceived recesses full of
+      sound; dark cavities which she hastened to pass by; clusters and rows of
+      trees, whose sombre masses were continually changing form, stretching
+      forward and apparently following her from the summit of the bank. And when
+      she threw herself on her back, the depths of the heavens affected her
+      still more. From the fields, from the distant horizon, which she could no
+      longer see, a solemn lingering strain, composed of all the sighs of the
+      night, was wafted to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was not of a dreamy nature; it was physically, through the medium of
+      each of her senses, that she derived enjoyment from the sky, the river,
+      and the play of light and shadow. The river, in particular, bore her along
+      with endless caresses. When she swam against the current she was delighted
+      to feel the stream flow rapidly against her bosom and limbs. She dipped
+      herself in it yet more deeply, with the water reaching to her lips, so
+      that it might pass over her shoulders, and envelop her, from chin to feet,
+      with flying kisses. Then she would float, languid and quiescent, on the
+      surface, whilst the ripples glided softly between her costume and her
+      skin. And she would also roll over in the still pools like a cat on a
+      carpet; and swim from the luminous patches where the moonbeams were
+      bathing, to the dark water shaded by the foliage, shivering the while, as
+      though she had quitted a sunny plain and then felt the cold from the
+      boughs falling on her neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She now remained quite silent in the water, and would not allow Silvere to
+      touch her. Gliding softly by his side, she swam on with the light rustling
+      of a bird flying across the copse, or else she would circle round him, a
+      prey to vague disquietude which she did not comprehend. He himself darted
+      quickly away if he happened to brush against her. The river was now but a
+      source of enervating intoxication, voluptuous languor, which disturbed
+      them strangely. When they emerged from their bath they felt dizzy, weary,
+      and drowsy. Fortunately, the girl declared one evening that she would
+      bathe no more, as the cold water made the blood run to her head. And it
+      was in all truth and innocence that she said this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then their long conversations began anew. The dangers to which the
+      innocence of their love had lately been exposed had left no other trace in
+      Silvere&rsquo;s mind than great admiration for Miette&rsquo;s physical strength. She
+      had learned to swim in a fortnight, and often, when they raced together,
+      he had seen her stem the current with a stroke as rapid as his own. He,
+      who delighted in strength and bodily exercises, felt a thrill of pleasure
+      at seeing her so strong, so active and adroit. He entertained at heart a
+      singular admiration for her stout arms. One evening, after one of the
+      first baths that had left them so playful, they caught each other round
+      the waist on a strip of sand, and wrestled for several minutes without
+      Silvere being able to throw Miette. At last, indeed, it was the young man
+      who lost his balance, while the girl remained standing. Her sweetheart
+      treated her like a boy, and it was those long rambles of theirs, those
+      wild races across the meadows, those birds&rsquo; nests filched from the tree
+      crests, those struggles and violent games of one and another kind that so
+      long shielded them and their love from all impurity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, too, apart from his youthful admiration for his sweetheart&rsquo;s dashing
+      pluck, Silvere felt for her all the compassionate tenderness of a heart
+      that ever softened towards the unfortunate. He, who could never see any
+      forsaken creature, a poor man, or a child, walking barefooted along the
+      dusty roads, without a throb of pity, loved Miette because nobody else
+      loved her, because she virtually led an outcast&rsquo;s hard life. When he saw
+      her smile he was deeply moved by the joy he brought her. Moreover, the
+      child was a wildling, like himself, and they were of the same mind in
+      hating all the gossips of the Faubourg. The dreams in which Silvere
+      indulged in the daytime, while he plied his heavy hammer round the
+      cartwheels in his master&rsquo;s shop, were full of generous enthusiasm. He
+      fancied himself Miette&rsquo;s redeemer. All his reading rushed to his head; he
+      meant to marry his sweetheart some day, in order to raise her in the eyes
+      of the world. It was like a holy mission that he imposed upon himself,
+      that of redeeming and saving the convict&rsquo;s daughter. And his head was so
+      full of certain theories and arguments, that he did not tell himself these
+      things in simple fashion, but became lost in perfect social mysticism;
+      imagining rehabilitation in the form of an apotheosis in which he pictured
+      Miette seated on a throne, at the end of the Cours Sauvaire, while the
+      whole town prostrated itself before her, entreating her pardon and singing
+      her praises. Happily he forgot all these fine things as soon as Miette
+      jumped over the wall, and said to him on the high road: &ldquo;Let us have a
+      race! I&rsquo;m sure you won&rsquo;t catch me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, if the young man dreamt like this of the glorification of his
+      sweetheart, he also showed such passion for justice that he often made her
+      weep on speaking to her about her father. In spite of the softening effect
+      which Silvere&rsquo;s friendship had had upon her, she still at times gave way
+      to angry outbreaks of temper, when all the stubbornness and rebellion
+      latent in her nature stiffened her with scowling eyes and tightly-drawn
+      lips. She would then contend that her father had done quite right to kill
+      the gendarme, that the earth belongs to everybody, and that one has the
+      right to fire a gun when and where one likes. Thereupon Silvere, in a
+      grave voice, explained the law to her as he understood it, with strange
+      commentaries which would have startled the whole magistracy of Plassans.
+      These discussions took place most often in some remote corner of the
+      Sainte-Claire meadows. The grassy carpet of a dusky green hue stretched
+      further than they could see, undotted even by a single tree, and the sky
+      seemed colossal, spangling the bare horizon with the stars. It seemed to
+      the young couple as if they were being rocked on a sea of verdure. Miette
+      argued the point obstinately; she asked Silvere if her father should have
+      let the gendarme kill him, and Silvere, after a momentary silence, replied
+      that, in such a case, it was better to be the victim than the murderer,
+      and that it was a great misfortune for anyone to kill a fellow man, even
+      in legitimate defence. The law was something holy to him, and the judges
+      had done right in sending Chantegreil to the galleys. At this the girl
+      grew angry, and almost struck her sweetheart, crying out that he was as
+      heartless as the rest. And as he still firmly defended his ideas of
+      justice, she finished by bursting into sobs, and stammering that he was
+      doubtless ashamed of her, since he was always reminding her of her
+      father&rsquo;s crime. These discussions ended in tears, in mutual emotion. But
+      although the child cried, and acknowledged that she was perhaps wrong, she
+      still retained deep within her a wild resentful temper. She once related,
+      with hearty laughter, that she had seen a gendarme fall off his horse and
+      break his leg. Apart from this, Miette only lived for Silvere. When he
+      asked her about her uncle and cousin, she replied that &ldquo;She did not know;&rdquo;
+       and if he pressed her, fearing that they were making her too unhappy at
+      the Jas-Meiffren, she simply answered that she worked hard, and that
+      nothing had changed. She believed, however, that Justin had at last found
+      out what made her sing in the morning, and filled her eyes with delight.
+      But she added: &ldquo;What does it matter? If ever he comes to disturb us we&rsquo;ll
+      receive him in such a way that he won&rsquo;t be in a hurry to meddle with our
+      affairs any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now and again the open country, their long rambles in the fresh air,
+      wearied them somewhat. They then invariably returned to the Aire
+      Saint-Mittre, to the narrow lane, whence they had been driven by the noisy
+      summer evenings, the pungent scent of the trodden grass, all the warm
+      oppressive emanations. On certain nights, however, the path proved cooler,
+      and the winds freshened it so that they could remain there without feeling
+      faint. They then enjoyed a feeling of delightful repose. Seated on the
+      tombstone, deaf to the noise of the children and gipsies, they felt at
+      home again. Silvere had on various occasions picked up fragments of bones,
+      even pieces of skulls, and they were fond of speaking of the ancient
+      burial-ground. It seemed to them, in their lively fancies, that their love
+      had shot up like some vigorous plant in this nook of soil which dead men&rsquo;s
+      bones had fertilised. It had grown, indeed, like those wild weeds, it had
+      blossomed as blossom the poppies which sway like bare bleeding hearts at
+      the slightest breeze. And they ended by fancying that the warm breaths
+      passing over them, the whisperings heard in the gloom, the long quivering
+      which thrilled the path, came from the dead folk sighing their departed
+      passions in their faces, telling them the stories of their bridals, as
+      they turned restlessly in their graves, full of a fierce longing to live
+      and love again. Those fragments of bone, they felt convinced of it, were
+      full of affection for them; the shattered skulls grew warm again by
+      contact with their own youthful fire, the smallest particles surrounded
+      them with passionate whispering, anxious solicitude, throbbing jealousy.
+      And when they departed, the old burial-ground seemed to groan. Those
+      weeds, in which their entangled feet often stumbled on sultry nights, were
+      fingers, tapered by tomb life, that sprang up from the earth to detain
+      them and cast them into each other&rsquo;s arms. That pungent and penetrating
+      odour exhaled by the broken stems was the fertilising perfume, the mighty
+      quintessence of life which is slowly elaborated in the grave, and
+      intoxicates the lovers who wander in the solitude of the paths. The dead,
+      the old departed dead, longed for the bridal of Miette and Silvere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were never afraid. The sympathy which seemed to hover around them
+      thrilled them and made them love the invisible beings whose soft touch
+      they often imagined they could feel, like a gentle flapping of wings.
+      Sometimes they were saddened by sweet melancholy, and could not understand
+      what the dead desired of them. They went on basking in their innocent
+      love, amidst this flood of sap, this abandoned cemetery, whose rich soil
+      teemed with life, and imperiously demanded their union. They still
+      remained ignorant of the meaning of the buzzing voices which they heard
+      ringing in their ears, the sudden glow which sent the blood flying to
+      their faces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They often questioned each other about the remains which they discovered.
+      Miette, after a woman&rsquo;s fashion, was partial to lugubrious subjects. At
+      each new discovery she launched into endless suppositions. If the bone
+      were small, she spoke of some beautiful girl a prey to consumption, or
+      carried off by fever on the eve of her marriage; if the bone were large,
+      she pictured some big old man, a soldier or a judge, some one who had
+      inspired others with terror. For a long time the tombstone particularly
+      engaged their attention. One fine moonlight night Miette distinguished
+      some half-obliterated letters on one side of it, and thereupon she made
+      Silvere scrape the moss away with his knife. Then they read the mutilated
+      inscription: &ldquo;Here lieth . . . Marie . . . died . . .&rdquo; And Miette, finding
+      her own name on the stone, was quite terror-stricken. Silvere called her a
+      &ldquo;big baby,&rdquo; but she could not restrain her tears. She had received a stab
+      in the heart, she said; she would soon die, and that stone was meant for
+      her. The young man himself felt alarmed. However, he succeeded in shaming
+      the child out of these thoughts. What! she so courageous, to dream about
+      such trifles! They ended by laughing. Then they avoided speaking of it
+      again. But in melancholy moments, when the cloudy sky saddened the
+      pathway, Miette could not help thinking of that dead one, that unknown
+      Marie, whose tomb had so long facilitated their meetings. The poor girl&rsquo;s
+      bones were perhaps still lying there. And at this thought Miette one
+      evening had a strange whim, and asked Silvere to turn the stone over to
+      see what might be under it. He refused, as though it were sacrilege, and
+      his refusal strengthened Miette&rsquo;s fancies with regard to the dear phantom
+      which bore her name. She positively insisted that the girl had died young,
+      as she was, and in the very midst of her love. She even began to pity the
+      stone, that stone which she climbed so nimbly, and on which they had sat
+      so often, a stone which death had chilled, and which their love had warmed
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see, this tombstone will bring us misfortune,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;If you
+      were to die, I should come and lie here, and then I should like to have
+      this stone set over my body.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this, Silvere, choking with emotion, scolded her for thinking of such
+      mournful things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, for nearly two years, their love grew alike in the narrow pathway
+      and the open country. Their idyll passed through the chilling rains of
+      December and the burning solicitations of July, free from all touch of
+      impurity, ever retaining the sweet charm of some old Greek love-tale, all
+      the naive hesitancy of youth which desires but knows not. In vain did the
+      long-departed dead whisper in their ears. They carried nothing away from
+      the old cemetery but emotional melancholy and a vague presentiment of a
+      short life. A voice seemed to whisper to them that they would depart
+      amidst their virginal love, long ere the bridal day would give them wholly
+      to each other. It was there, on the tombstone and among the bones that lay
+      hidden beneath the rank grass, that they had first come to indulge in that
+      longing for death, that eager desire to sleep together in the earth, that
+      now set them stammering and sighing beside the Orcheres road, on that
+      December night, while the two bells repeated their mournful warnings to
+      one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miette was sleeping calmly, with her head resting on Silvere&rsquo;s chest while
+      he mused upon their past meeting, their lovely years of unbroken
+      happiness. At daybreak the girl awoke. The valley now spread out clearly
+      under the bright sky. The sun was still behind the hills, but a stream of
+      crystal light, limpid and cold as spring-water, flowed from the pale
+      horizon. In the distance, the Viorne, like a white satin ribbon,
+      disappeared among an expanse of red and yellow land. It was a boundless
+      vista, with grey seas of olive-trees, and vineyards that looked like huge
+      pieces of striped cloth. The whole country was magnified by the clearness
+      of the atmosphere and the peaceful cold. However, sharp gusts of wind
+      chilled the young people&rsquo;s faces. And thereupon they sprang to their feet,
+      cheered by the sight of the clear morning. Their melancholy forebodings
+      had vanished with the darkness, and they gazed with delight at the immense
+      expanse of the plain, and listened to the tolling of the two bells that
+      now seemed to be joyfully ringing in a holiday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! I&rsquo;ve had a good sleep!&rdquo; Miette cried. &ldquo;I dreamt you were kissing me.
+      Tell me now, did you kiss me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very possible,&rdquo; Silvere replied laughing. &ldquo;I was not very warm. It
+      is bitterly cold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only feel cold in the feet,&rdquo; Miette rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! let us have a run,&rdquo; said Silvere. &ldquo;We have still two good leagues
+      to go. You will get warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon they descended the hill and ran until they reached the high
+      road. When they were below they raised their heads as if to say farewell
+      to that rock on which they had wept while their kisses burned their lips.
+      But they did not again speak of that ardent embrace which had thrilled
+      them so strongly with vague, unknown desire. Under the pretext of walking
+      more quickly they did not even take each other&rsquo;s arm. They experienced
+      some slight confusion when they looked at one another, though why they
+      could not tell. Meantime the dawn was rising around them. The young man,
+      who had sometimes been sent to Orcheres by his master, knew all the
+      shortest cuts. Thus they walked on for more than two leagues, along dingle
+      paths by the side of interminable ledges and walls. Now and again Miette
+      accused Silvere of having taken her the wrong way; for, at times&mdash;for
+      a quarter of an hour at a stretch&mdash;they lost all sight of the
+      surrounding country, seeing above the walls and hedges nothing but long
+      rows of almond-trees whose slender branches showed sharply against the
+      pale sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once, however, they came out just in front of Orcheres. Loud cries
+      of joy, the shouting of a crowd, sounded clearly in the limpid air. The
+      insurrectionary forces were only now entering the town. Miette and Silvere
+      went in with the stragglers. Never had they seen such enthusiasm. To judge
+      from the streets, one would have thought it was a procession day, when the
+      windows are decked with the finest drapery to honour the passage of the
+      Canopy. The townsfolk welcomed the insurgents as though they were
+      deliverers. The men embraced them, while the women brought them food. Old
+      men were to be seen weeping at the doors. And the joyousness was of an
+      essentially Southern character, pouring forth in clamorous fashion, in
+      singing, dancing, and gesticulation. As Miette passed along she was
+      carried away by a <i>farandole</i>[*] which spread whirling all round the
+      Grand&rsquo; Place. Silvere followed her. His thoughts of death and his
+      discouragement were now far away. He wanted to fight, to sell his life
+      dearly at least. The idea of a struggle intoxicated him afresh. He dreamed
+      of victory to be followed by a happy life with Miette, amidst the
+      peacefulness of the universal Republic.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [*] The <i>farandole</i> is the popular dance of Provence.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The fraternal reception accorded them by the inhabitants of Orcheres
+      proved to be the insurgents&rsquo; last delight. They spent the day amidst
+      radiant confidence and boundless hope. The prisoners, Commander Sicardot,
+      Messieurs Garconnet, Peirotte and the others, who had been shut up in one
+      of the rooms at the mayor&rsquo;s, the windows of which overlooked the Grand&rsquo; 
+      Place, watched the <i>farandoles</i> and wild outbursts of enthusiasm with
+      surprise and dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The villains!&rdquo; muttered the Commander, leaning upon a window-bar, as
+      though bending over the velvet-covered hand-rest of a box at a theatre:
+      &ldquo;To think that there isn&rsquo;t a battery or two to make a clean sweep of all
+      that rabble!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he perceived Miette, and addressing himself to Monsieur Garconnet, he
+      added: &ldquo;Do you see, sir, that big girl in red over yonder? How
+      disgraceful! They&rsquo;ve even brought their mistresses with them. If this
+      continues much longer we shall see some fine goings-on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Garconnet shook his head, saying something about &ldquo;unbridled
+      passions,&rdquo; and &ldquo;the most evil days of history.&rdquo; Monsieur Peirotte, as
+      white as a sheet, remained silent; he only opened his lips once, to say to
+      Sicardot, who was still bitterly railing: &ldquo;Not so loud, sir; not so loud!
+      You will get us all massacred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, the insurgents treated the gentlemen with the
+      greatest kindness. They even provided them with an excellent dinner in the
+      evening. Such attentions, however, were terrifying to such a quaker as the
+      receiver of taxes; the insurgents he thought would not treat them so well
+      unless they wished to make them fat and tender for the day when they might
+      wish to devour them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At dusk that day Silvere came face to face with his cousin, Doctor Pascal.
+      The latter had followed the band on foot, chatting with the workmen who
+      held him in the greatest respect. At first he had striven to dissuade them
+      from the struggle; and then, as if convinced by their arguments, he had
+      said to them with his kindly smile: &ldquo;Well, perhaps you are right, my
+      friends; fight if you like, I shall be here to patch up your arms and
+      legs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, in the morning he began to gather pebbles and plants along the high
+      road. He regretted that he had not brought his geologist&rsquo;s hammer and
+      botanical wallet with him. His pockets were now so full of stones that
+      they were almost bursting, while bundles of long herbs peered forth from
+      the surgeon&rsquo;s case which he carried under his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hallo! You here, my lad?&rdquo; he cried, as he perceived Silvere. &ldquo;I thought I
+      was the only member of the family here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke these last words with a touch of irony, as if deriding the
+      intrigues of his father and his uncle Antoine. Silvere was very glad to
+      meet his cousin; the doctor was the only one of the Rougons who ever shook
+      hands with him in the street, and showed him any sincere friendship.
+      Seeing him, therefore, still covered with dust from the march, the young
+      man thought him gained over to the Republican cause, and was much
+      delighted thereat. He talked to the doctor, with youthful magniloquence,
+      of the people&rsquo;s rights, their holy cause, and their certain triumph.
+      Pascal smiled as he listened, and watched the youth&rsquo;s gestures and the
+      ardent play of his features with curiosity, as though he were studying a
+      patient, or analysing an enthusiasm, to ascertain what might be at the
+      bottom of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How you run on! How you run on!&rdquo; he finally exclaimed. &ldquo;Ah! you are your
+      grandmother&rsquo;s true grandson.&rdquo; And, in a whisper, he added, like some
+      chemist taking notes: &ldquo;Hysteria or enthusiasm, shameful madness or sublime
+      madness. It&rsquo;s always those terrible nerves!&rdquo; Then, again speaking aloud,
+      as if summing up the matter, he said: &ldquo;The family is complete now. It will
+      count a hero among its members.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere did not hear him. He was still talking of his dear Republic.
+      Miette had dropped a few paces off; she was still wrapped in her large red
+      pelisse. She and Silvere had traversed the town arm-in-arm. The sight of
+      this tall red girl at last puzzled Pascal, and again interrupting his
+      cousin, he asked him: &ldquo;Who is this child with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is my wife,&rdquo; Silvere gravely answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor opened his eyes wide, for he did not understand. He was very
+      shy with women; however, he raised his hat to Miette as he went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night proved an anxious one. Forebodings of misfortune swept over the
+      insurgents. The enthusiasm and confidence of the previous evening seemed
+      to die away in the darkness. In the morning there were gloomy faces; sad
+      looks were exchanged, followed by discouraging silence. Terrifying rumours
+      were now circulating. Bad news, which the leaders had managed to conceal
+      the previous evening, had spread abroad, though nobody in particular was
+      known to have spoken. It was the work of that invisible voice, which, with
+      a word, throws a mob into a panic. According to some reports Paris was
+      subdued, and the provinces had offered their hands and feet, eager to be
+      bound. And it was added that a large party of troops, which had left
+      Marseilles under the command of Colonel Masson and Monsieur de Bleriot,
+      the prefect of the department, was advancing by forced marches to disperse
+      the insurrectionary bands. This news came like a thunderbolt, at once
+      awakening rage and despair. These men, who on the previous evening had
+      been all aglow with patriotic fever, now shivered with cold, chilled to
+      their hearts by the shameful submissiveness of prostrate France. They
+      alone, then, had had the courage to do their duty! And now they were to be
+      left to perish amidst the general panic, the death-like silence of the
+      country; they had become mere rebels, who would be hunted down like wild
+      beasts; they, who had dreamed of a great war, of a whole nation in revolt,
+      and of the glorious conquest of the people&rsquo;s rights! Miserably baffled and
+      betrayed, this handful of men could but weep for their dead faith and
+      their vanished dreams of justice. There were some who, while taunting
+      France with her cowardice, flung away their arms, and sat down by the
+      roadside, declaring that they would there await the bullets of the troops,
+      and show how Republicans could die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although these men had nothing now but death or exile before them, there
+      were very few desertions from their ranks. A splendid feeling of
+      solidarity kept them together. Their indignation turned chiefly against
+      their leaders, who had really proved incapable. Irreparable mistakes had
+      been committed; and now the insurgents, without order or discipline,
+      barely protected by a few sentries, and under the command of irresolute
+      men, found themselves at the mercy of the first soldiers that might
+      arrive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They spent two more days at Orcheres, Tuesday and Wednesday, thus losing
+      time and aggravating the situation. The general, the man with the sabre,
+      whom Silvere had pointed out to Miette on the Plassans road, vacillated
+      and hesitated under the terrible responsibility that weighed upon him. On
+      Thursday he came to the conclusion that the position of Orcheres was a
+      decidedly dangerous one; so towards one o&rsquo;clock he gave orders to march,
+      and led his little army to the heights of Sainte-Roure. That was, indeed,
+      an impregnable position for any one who knew how to defend it. The houses
+      of Sainte-Roure rise in tiers along a hill-side; behind the town all
+      approach is shut off by enormous rocks, so that this kind of citadel can
+      only be reached by the Nores plain, which spreads out at the foot of the
+      plateau. An esplanade, converted into a public walk planted with
+      magnificent elms, overlooks the plain. It was on this esplanade that the
+      insurgents encamped. The hostages were imprisoned in the Hotel de la
+      Mule-Blanche, standing half-way along the promenade. The night passed away
+      heavy and black. The insurgents spoke of treachery. As soon as it was
+      morning, however, the man with the sabre, who had neglected to take the
+      simplest precautions, reviewed the troops. The contingents were drawn up
+      in line with their backs turned to the plain. They presented a wonderful
+      medley of costume, some wearing brown jackets, others dark greatcoats, and
+      others again blue blouses girded with red sashes. Moreover, their arms
+      were an equally odd collection: there were newly sharpened scythes, large
+      navvies&rsquo; spades, and fowling-pieces with burnished barrels glittering in
+      the sunshine. And at the very moment when the improvised general was
+      riding past the little army, a sentry, who had been forgotten in an
+      olive-plantation, ran up gesticulating and shouting:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The soldiers! The soldiers!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was indescribable emotion. At first, they thought it a false alarm.
+      Forgetting all discipline, they rushed forward to the end of the esplanade
+      in order to see the soldiers. The ranks were broken, and as the dark line
+      of troops appeared, marching in perfect order with a long glitter of
+      bayonets, on the other side of the greyish curtain of olive trees, there
+      came a hasty and disorderly retreat, which sent a quiver of panic to the
+      other end of the plateau. Nevertheless, the contingents of La Palud and
+      Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx had again formed in line in the middle of the
+      promenade, and stood there erect and fierce. A wood-cutter, who was a head
+      taller than any of his companions, shouted, as he waved his red
+      neckerchief: &ldquo;To arms, Chavanoz, Graille, Poujols, Saint-Eutrope! To arms,
+      Les Tulettes! To arms, Plassans!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Crowds streamed across the esplanade. The man with the sabre, surrounded
+      by the folks from Faverolles, marched off with several of the country
+      contingents&mdash;Vernoux, Corbiere, Marsanne, and Pruinas&mdash;to
+      outflank the enemy and then attack him. Other contingents, from
+      Valqueyras, Nazere, Castel-le-Vieux, Les Roches-Noires, and Murdaran,
+      dashed to the left, scattering themselves in skirmishing parties over the
+      Nores plain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And meantime the men of the towns and villages that the wood-cutter had
+      called to his aid mustered together under the elms, there forming a dark
+      irregular mass, grouped without regard to any of the rules of strategy,
+      simply placed there like a rock, as it were, to bar the way or die. The
+      men of Plassans stood in the middle of this heroic battalion. Amid the
+      grey hues of the blouses and jackets, and the bluish glitter of the
+      weapons, the pelisse worn by Miette, who was holding the banner with both
+      hands, looked like a large red splotch&mdash;a fresh and bleeding wound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once perfect silence fell. Monsieur Peirotte&rsquo;s pale face appeared
+      at a window of the Hotel de la Mule-Blanche. And he began to speak,
+      gesticulating with his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go in, close the shutters,&rdquo; the insurgents furiously shouted; &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll get
+      yourself killed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon the shutters were quickly closed, and nothing was heard save the
+      regular, rhythmical tramp of the soldiers who were drawing near.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute, that seemed an age, went by. The troops had disappeared, hidden
+      by an undulation of the ground; but over yonder, on the side of the Nores
+      plain, the insurgents soon perceived the bayonets shooting up, one after
+      another, like a field of steel-eared corn under the rising sun. At that
+      moment Silvere, who was glowing with feverish agitation, fancied he could
+      see the gendarme whose blood had stained his hands. He knew, from the
+      accounts of his companions, that Rengade was not dead, that he had only
+      lost an eye; and he clearly distinguished the unlucky man with his empty
+      socket bleeding horribly. The keen recollection of this gendarme, to whom
+      he had not given a thought since his departure from Plassans, proved
+      unbearable. He was afraid that fear might get the better of him, and he
+      tightened his hold on his carbine, while a mist gathered before his eyes.
+      He felt a longing to discharge his gun and fire at the phantom of that
+      one-eyed man so as to drive it away. Meantime the bayonets were still and
+      ever slowly ascending.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the heads of the soldiers appeared on a level with the esplanade,
+      Silvere instinctively turned to Miette. She stood there with flushed face,
+      looking taller than ever amidst the folds of the red banner; she was
+      indeed standing on tiptoes in order to see the troops, and nervous
+      expectation made her nostrils quiver and her red lips part so as to show
+      her white, eager, gleaming teeth. Silvere smiled at her. But he had
+      scarcely turned his head when a fusillade burst out. The soldiers, who
+      could only be seen from their shoulders upwards, had just fired their
+      first volley. It seemed to Silvere as though a great gust of wind was
+      passing over his head, while a shower of leaves, lopped off by the
+      bullets, fell from the elms. A sharp sound, like the snapping of a dead
+      branch, made him look to his right. Then, prone on the ground, he saw the
+      big wood-cutter, he who was a head taller than the others. There was a
+      little black hole in the middle of his forehead. And thereupon Silvere
+      fired straight before him, without taking aim, reloaded and fired again
+      like a madman or an unthinking wild beast, in haste only to kill. He could
+      not even distinguish the soldiers now; smoke, resembling strips of grey
+      muslin, was floating under the elms. The leaves still rained upon the
+      insurgents, for the troops were firing too high. Every now and then,
+      athwart the fierce crackling of the fusillade, the young man heard a sigh
+      or a low rattle, and a rush was made among the band as if to make room for
+      some poor wretch clutching hold of his neighbours as he fell. The firing
+      lasted ten minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, between two volleys some one exclaimed in a voice of terror: &ldquo;Every
+      man for himself! <i>Sauve qui peut!</i>&rdquo; This roused shouts and murmurs of
+      rage, as if to say, &ldquo;The cowards! Oh! the cowards!&rdquo; sinister rumours were
+      spreading&mdash;the general had fled; cavalry were sabring the skirmishers
+      in the Nores plain. However, the irregular firing did not cease, every now
+      and again sudden bursts of flame sped through the clouds of smoke. A gruff
+      voice, the voice of terror, shouted yet louder: &ldquo;Every man for himself! <i>Sauve
+      qui peut!</i>&rdquo; Some men took to flight, throwing down their weapons and
+      leaping over the dead. The others closed their ranks. At last there were
+      only some ten insurgents left. Two more took to flight, and of the
+      remaining eight three were killed at one discharge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two children had remained there mechanically without understanding
+      anything. As the battalion diminished in numbers, Miette raised the banner
+      still higher in the air; she held it in front of her with clenched fists
+      as if it were a huge taper. It was completely riddled by bullets. When
+      Silvere had no more cartridges left in his pocket, he ceased firing, and
+      gazed at the carbine with an air of stupor. It was then that a shadow
+      passed over his face, as though the flapping wings of some colossal bird
+      had brushed against his forehead. And raising his eyes he saw the banner
+      fall from Miette&rsquo;s grasp. The child, her hands clasped to her breast, her
+      head thrown back with an expression of excruciating suffering, was
+      staggering to the ground. She did not utter a single cry, but sank at last
+      upon the red banner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get up; come quickly,&rdquo; Silvere said, in despair, as he held out his hand
+      to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she lay upon the ground without uttering a word, her eyes wide open.
+      Then he understood, and fell on his knees beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wounded, eh? tell me? Where are you wounded?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She still spoke no word; she was stifling, and gazing at him out of her
+      large eyes, while short quivers shook her frame. Then he pulled away her
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s there, isn&rsquo;t it? it&rsquo;s there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he tore open her bodice, and laid her bosom bare. He searched, but saw
+      nothing. His eyes were brimming with tears. At last under the left breast
+      he perceived a small pink hole; a single drop of blood stained the wound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nothing,&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go and find Pascal, he&rsquo;ll put you all
+      right again. If you could only get up. Can&rsquo;t you move?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers were not firing now; they had dashed to the left in pursuit
+      of the contingents led away by the man with the sabre. And in the centre
+      of the esplanade there only remained Silvere kneeling beside Miette&rsquo;s
+      body. With the stubbornness of despair, he had taken her in his arms. He
+      wanted to set her on her feet, but such a quiver of pain came upon the
+      girl that he laid her down again, and said to her entreatingly: &ldquo;Speak to
+      me, pray. Why don&rsquo;t you say something to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not; she slowly, gently shook her hand, as if to say that it was
+      not her fault. Her close-pressed lips were already contracting beneath the
+      touch of death. With her unbound hair streaming around her, and her head
+      resting amid the folds of the blood-red banner, all her life now centred
+      in her eyes, those black eyes glittering in her white face. Silvere
+      sobbed. The glance of those big sorrowful eyes filled him with distress.
+      He read in them bitter, immense regret for life. Miette was telling him
+      that she was going away all alone, and before their bridal day; that she
+      was leaving him ere she had become his wife. She was telling him, too,
+      that it was he who had willed that it should be so, that he should have
+      loved her as other lovers love their sweethearts. In the hour of her
+      agony, amidst that stern conflict between death and her vigorous nature,
+      she bewailed her fate in going like that to the grave. Silvere, as he bent
+      over her, understood how bitter was the pang. He recalled their caresses,
+      how she had hung round his neck, and had yearned for his love, but he had
+      not understood, and now she was departing from him for evermore. Bitterly
+      grieved at the thought that throughout her eternal rest she would remember
+      him solely as a companion and playfellow, he kissed her on the bosom while
+      his hot tears fell upon her lips. Those passionate kisses brought a last
+      gleam of joy to Miette&rsquo;s eyes. They loved one another, and their idyll
+      ended in death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Silvere could not believe she was dying. &ldquo;No, you will see, it will
+      prove only a trifle,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t speak if it hurts you. Wait, I
+      will raise your head and then warm you; your hands are quite frozen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the fusillade had begun afresh, this time on the left, in the olive
+      plantations. A dull sound of galloping cavalry rose from the plain. At
+      times there were loud cries, as of men being slaughtered. And thick clouds
+      of smoke were wafted along and hung about the elms on the esplanade.
+      Silvere for his part no longer heard or saw anything. Pascal, who came
+      running down in the direction of the plain, saw him stretched upon the
+      ground, and hastened towards him, thinking he was wounded. As soon as the
+      young man saw him, he clutched hold of him and pointed to Miette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;she&rsquo;s wounded, there, under the breast. Ah! how good of
+      you to come! You will save her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment, however, a slight convulsion shook the dying girl. A
+      pain-fraught shadow passed over her face, and as her contracted lips
+      suddenly parted, a faint sigh escaped from them. Her eyes, still wide
+      open, gazed fixedly at the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Pascal, who had stooped down, rose again, saying in a low voice: &ldquo;She
+      is dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dead! Silvere reeled at the sound of the word. He had been kneeling
+      forward, but now he sank back, as though thrown down by Miette&rsquo;s last
+      faint sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead! Dead!&rdquo; he repeated; &ldquo;it is not true, she is looking at me. See how
+      she is looking at me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he caught the doctor by the coat, entreating him to remain there,
+      assuring him that he was mistaken, that she was not dead, and that he
+      could save her if he only would. Pascal resisted gently, saying, in his
+      kindly voice: &ldquo;I can do nothing for her, others are waiting for me. Let
+      go, my poor child; she is quite dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Silvere released his hold and again fell back. Dead! Dead! Still
+      that word, which rang like a knell in his dazed brain! When he was alone
+      he crept up close to the corpse. Miette still seemed to be looking at him.
+      He threw himself upon her, laid his head upon her bosom, and watered it
+      with his tears. He was beside himself with grief. He pressed his lips
+      wildly to her, and breathed out all his passion, all his soul, in one long
+      kiss, as though in the hope that it might bring her to life again. But the
+      girl was turning cold in spite of his caresses. He felt her lifeless and
+      nerveless beneath his touch. Then he was seized with terror, and with
+      haggard face and listless hanging arms he remained crouching in a state of
+      stupor, and repeating: &ldquo;She is dead, yet she is looking at me; she does
+      not close her eyes, she sees me still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This fancy was very sweet to him. He remained there perfectly still,
+      exchanging a long look with Miette, in whose glance, deepened by death, he
+      still seemed to read the girl&rsquo;s lament for her sad fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, the cavalry were still sabring the fugitives over the
+      Nores plain; the cries of the wounded and the galloping of the horses
+      became more distant, softening like music wafted from afar through the
+      clear air. Silvere was no longer conscious of the fighting. He did not
+      even see his cousin, who mounted the slope again and crossed the
+      promenade. Pascal, as he passed along, picked up Macquart&rsquo;s carbine which
+      Silvere had thrown down; he knew it, as he had seen it hanging over aunt
+      Dide&rsquo;s chimney-piece, and he thought he might as well save it from the
+      hands of the victors. He had scarcely entered the Hotel de la
+      Mule-Blanche, whither a large number of the wounded had been taken, when a
+      band of insurgents, chased by the soldiers like a herd of cattle, once
+      more rushed into the esplanade. The man with the sabre had fled; it was
+      the last contingents from the country who were being exterminated. There
+      was a terrible massacre. In vain did Colonel Masson and the prefect,
+      Monsieur de Bleriot, overcome by pity, order a retreat. The infuriated
+      soldiers continued firing upon the mass, and pinning isolated fugitives to
+      the walls with their bayonets. When they had no more enemies before them,
+      they riddled the facade of the Mule-Blanche with bullets. The shutters
+      flew into splinters; one window which had been left half-open was torn
+      out, and there was a loud rattle of broken glass. Pitiful voices were
+      crying out from within; &ldquo;The prisoners! The prisoners!&rdquo; But the troops did
+      not hear; they continued firing. All at once Commander Sicardot, growing
+      exasperated, appeared at the door, waved his arms, and endeavoured to
+      speak. Monsieur Peirotte, the receiver of taxes, with his slim figure and
+      scared face, stood by his side. However, another volley was fired, and
+      Monsieur Peirotte fell face foremost, with a heavy thud, to the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere and Miette were still looking at each other. Silvere had remained
+      by the corpse, through all the fusillade and the howls of agony, without
+      even turning his head. He was only conscious of the presence of some men
+      around him, and, from a feeling of modesty, he drew the red banner over
+      Miette&rsquo;s breast. Then their eyes still continued to gaze at one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conflict, however, was at an end. The death of the receiver of taxes
+      had satiated the soldiers. Some of these ran about, scouring every corner
+      of the esplanade, to prevent the escape of a single insurgent. A gendarme
+      who perceived Silvere under the trees, ran up to him, and seeing that it
+      was a lad he had to deal with, called: &ldquo;What are you doing there,
+      youngster?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, whose eyes were still fixed on those of Miette, made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! the bandit, his hands are black with powder,&rdquo; the gendarme exclaimed,
+      as he stooped down. &ldquo;Come, get up, you scoundrel! You know what you&rsquo;ve got
+      to expect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, as Silvere only smiled vaguely and did not move, the other looked
+      more attentively, and saw that the corpse swathed in the banner was that
+      of a girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fine girl; what a pity!&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Your mistress, eh? you rascal!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he made a violent grab at Silvere, and setting him on his feet led
+      him away like a dog that is dragged by one leg. Silvere submitted in
+      silence, as quietly as a child. He just turned round to give another
+      glance at Miette. He felt distressed at thus leaving her alone under the
+      trees. For the last time he looked at her from afar. She was still lying
+      there in all her purity, wrapped in the red banner, her head slightly
+      raised, and her big eyes turned upward towards heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was about five o&rsquo;clock in the morning when Rougon at last ventured to
+      leave his mother&rsquo;s house. The old woman had gone to sleep on a chair. He
+      crept stealthily to the end of the Impasse Saint-Mittre. There was not a
+      sound, not a shadow. He pushed on as far as the Porte de Rome. The gates
+      stood wide open in the darkness that enveloped the slumbering town.
+      Plassans was sleeping as sound as a top, quite unconscious, apparently, of
+      the risk it was running in allowing the gates to remain unsecured. It
+      seemed like a city of the dead. Rougon, taking courage, made his way into
+      the Rue de Nice. He scanned from a distance the corners of each successive
+      lane; and trembled at every door, fearing lest he should see a band of
+      insurgents rush out upon him. However, he reached the Cours Sauvaire
+      without any mishap. The insurgents seemed to have vanished in the darkness
+      like a nightmare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre then paused for a moment on the deserted pavement, heaving a deep
+      sigh of relief and triumph. So those rascals had really abandoned Plassans
+      to him. The town belonged to him now; it slept like the foolish thing it
+      was; there it lay, dark and tranquil, silent and confident, and he had
+      only to stretch out his hand to take possession of it. That brief halt,
+      the supercilious glance which he cast over the drowsy place, thrilled him
+      with unspeakable delight. He remained there, alone in the darkness, and
+      crossed his arms, in the attitude of a great general on the eve of a
+      victory. He could hear nothing in the distance but the murmur of the
+      fountains of the Cours Sauvaire, whose jets of water fell into the basins
+      with a musical plashing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he began to feel a little uneasy. What if the Empire should unhappily
+      have been established without his aid? What if Sicardot, Garconnet, and
+      Peirotte, instead of being arrested and led away by the insurrectionary
+      band, had shut the rebels up in prison? A cold perspiration broke out over
+      him, and he went on his way again, hoping that Felicite would give him
+      some accurate information. He now pushed on more rapidly, and was skirting
+      the houses of the Rue de la Banne, when a strange spectacle, which caught
+      his eyes as he raised his head, riveted him to the ground. One of the
+      windows of the yellow drawing-room was brilliantly illuminated, and, in
+      the glare, he saw a dark form, which he recognized as that of his wife,
+      bending forward, and shaking its arms in a violent manner. He asked
+      himself what this could mean, but, unable to think of any explanation, was
+      beginning to feel seriously alarmed, when some hard object bounded over
+      the pavement at his feet. Felicite had thrown him the key of the
+      cart-house, where he had concealed a supply of muskets. This key clearly
+      signified that he must take up arms. So he turned away again, unable to
+      comprehend why his wife had prevented him from going upstairs, and
+      imagining the most horrible things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He now went straight to Roudier, whom he found dressed and ready to march,
+      but completely ignorant of the events of the night. Roudier lived at the
+      far end of the new town, as in a desert, whither no tidings of the
+      insurgents&rsquo; movements had penetrated. Pierre, however, proposed to him
+      that they should go to Granoux, whose house stood on one of the corners of
+      the Place des Recollets, and under whose windows the insurgent contingents
+      must have passed. The municipal councillor&rsquo;s servant remained for a long
+      time parleying before consenting to admit them, and they heard poor
+      Granoux calling from the first floor in a trembling voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t open the door, Catherine! The streets are full of bandits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in his bedroom, in the dark. When he recognised his two faithful
+      friends he felt relieved; but he would not let the maid bring a lamp,
+      fearing lest the light might attract a bullet. He seemed to think that the
+      town was still full of insurgents. Lying back on an arm-chair near the
+      window, in his pants, and with a silk handkerchief round his head, he
+      moaned: &ldquo;Ah! my friends, if you only knew!&mdash;I tried to go to bed, but
+      they were making such a disturbance! At last I lay down in my arm-chair
+      here. I&rsquo;ve seen it all, everything. Such awful-looking men; a band of
+      escaped convicts! Then they passed by again, dragging brave Commander
+      Sicardot, worthy Monsieur Garconnet, the postmaster, and others away with
+      them, and howling the while like cannibals!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon felt a thrill of joy. He made Granoux repeat to him how he had seen
+      the mayor and the others surrounded by the &ldquo;brigands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw it all!&rdquo; the poor man wailed. &ldquo;I was standing behind the blind.
+      They had just seized Monsieur Peirotte, and I heard him saying as he
+      passed under my window: &lsquo;Gentlemen, don&rsquo;t hurt me!&rsquo; They were certainly
+      maltreating him. It&rsquo;s abominable, abominable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, Roudier calmed Granoux by assuring him that the town was free.
+      And the worthy gentleman began to feel quite a glow of martial ardour when
+      Pierre informed him that he had come to recruit his services for the
+      purpose of saving Plassans. These three saviours then took council
+      together. They each resolved to go and rouse their friends, and appoint a
+      meeting at the cart-shed, the secret arsenal of the reactionary party.
+      Meantime Rougon constantly bethought himself of Felicite&rsquo;s wild gestures,
+      which seemed to betoken danger somewhere. Granoux, assuredly the most
+      foolish of the three, was the first to suggest that there must be some
+      Republicans left in the town. This proved a flash of light, and Rougon,
+      with a feeling of conviction, reflected: &ldquo;There must be something of
+      Macquart&rsquo;s doing under all this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour or so later the friends met again in the cart-shed, which was
+      situated in a very lonely spot. They had glided stealthily from door to
+      door, knocking and ringing as quietly as possible, and picking up all the
+      men they could. However, they had only succeeded in collecting some forty,
+      who arrived one after the other, creeping along in the dark, with the pale
+      and drowsy countenances of men who had been violently startled from their
+      sleep. The cart-shed, let to a cooper, was littered with old hoops and
+      broken casks, of which there were piles in every corner. The guns were
+      stored in the middle, in three long boxes. A taper, stuck on a piece of
+      wood, illumined the strange scene with a flickering glimmer. When Rougon
+      had removed the covers of the three boxes, the spectacle became weirdly
+      grotesque. Above the fire-arms, whose barrels shown with a bluish,
+      phosphorescent glitter, were outstretched necks and heads that bent with a
+      sort of secret fear, while the yellow light of the taper cast shadows of
+      huge noses and locks of stiffened hair upon the walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, the reactionary forces counted their numbers, and the smallness
+      of the total filled them with hesitation. They were only thirty-nine all
+      told, and this adventure would mean certain death for them. A father of a
+      family spoke of his children; others, without troubling themselves about
+      excuses, turned towards the door. Then, however, two fresh conspirators
+      arrived, who lived in the neighbourhood of the Town Hall, and knew for
+      certain that there were not more than about twenty Republicans still at
+      the mayor&rsquo;s. The band thereupon deliberated afresh. Forty-one against
+      twenty&mdash;these seemed practicable conditions. So the arms were
+      distributed amid a little trembling. It was Rougon who took them from the
+      boxes, and each man present, as he received his gun, the barrel of which
+      on that December night was icy cold, felt a sudden chill freeze him to his
+      bones. The shadows on the walls assumed the clumsy postures of bewildered
+      conscripts stretching out their fingers. Pierre closed the boxes
+      regretfully; he left there a hundred and nine guns which he would
+      willingly have distributed; however, he now had to divide the cartridges.
+      Of these, there were two large barrels full in the furthest corner of the
+      cart-shed, sufficient to defend Plassans against an army. And as this
+      corner was dark, one of the gentlemen brought the taper near, whereupon
+      another conspirator&mdash;a burly pork-butcher, with immense fists&mdash;grew
+      angry, declaring that it was most imprudent to bring a light so close.
+      They strongly approved his words, so the cartridges were distributed in
+      the dark. They completely filled their pockets with them. Then, after they
+      had loaded their guns, with endless precautions, they lingered there for
+      another moment, looking at each other with suspicious eyes, or exchanging
+      glances in which cowardly ferocity was mingled with an expression of
+      stupidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the streets they kept close to the houses, marching silently and in
+      single file, like savages on the war-path. Rougon had insisted upon having
+      the honour of marching at their head; the time had come when he must needs
+      run some risk, if he wanted to see his schemes successful. Drops of
+      perspiration poured down his forehead in spite of the cold. Nevertheless
+      he preserved a very martial bearing. Roudier and Granoux were immediately
+      behind him. Upon two occasions the column came to an abrupt halt. They
+      fancied they had heard some distant sound of fighting; but it was only the
+      jingle of the little brass shaving-dishes hanging from chains, which are
+      used as signs by the barbers of Southern France. These dishes were gently
+      shaking to and fro in the breeze. After each halt, the saviours of
+      Plassans continued their stealthy march in the dark, retaining the while
+      the mien of terrified heroes. In this manner they reached the square in
+      front of the Town Hall. There they formed a group round Rougon, and took
+      counsel together once more. In the facade of the building in front of them
+      only one window was lighted. It was now nearly seven o&rsquo;clock and the dawn
+      was approaching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a good ten minutes&rsquo; discussion, it was decided to advance as far as
+      the door, so as to ascertain what might be the meaning of this disquieting
+      darkness and silence. The door proved to be half open. One of the
+      conspirators thereupon popped his head in, but quickly withdrew it,
+      announcing that there was a man under the porch, sitting against the wall
+      fast asleep, with a gun between his legs. Rougon, seeing a chance of
+      commencing with a deed of valour, thereupon entered first, and, seizing
+      the man, held him down while Roudier gagged him. This first triumph,
+      gained in silence, singularly emboldened the little troop, who had dreamed
+      of a murderous fusillade. And Rougon had to make imperious signs to
+      restrain his soldiers from indulging in over-boisterous delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They continued their advance on tip-toes. Then, on the left, in the police
+      guard-room, which was situated there, they perceived some fifteen men
+      lying on camp-beds and snoring, amid the dim glimmer of a lantern hanging
+      from the wall. Rougon, who was decidedly becoming a great general, left
+      half of his men in front of the guard-room with orders not to rouse the
+      sleepers, but to watch them and make them prisoners if they stirred. He
+      was personally uneasy about the lighted window which they had seen from
+      the square. He still scented Macquart&rsquo;s hand in the business, and, as he
+      felt that he would first have to make prisoners of those who were watching
+      upstairs, he was not sorry to be able to adopt surprise tactics before the
+      noise of a conflict should impel them to barricade themselves in the
+      first-floor rooms. So he went up quietly, followed by the twenty heroes
+      whom he still had at his disposal. Roudier commanded the detachment
+      remaining in the courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Rougon had surmised, it was Macquart who was comfortably installed
+      upstairs in the mayor&rsquo;s office. He sat in the mayor&rsquo;s arm-chair, with his
+      elbows on the mayor&rsquo;s writing-table. With the characteristic confidence of
+      a man of coarse intellect, who is absorbed by a fixed idea and bent upon
+      his own triumph, he had imagined after the departure of the insurgents
+      that Plassans was now at his complete disposal, and that he would be able
+      to act there like a conqueror. In his opinion that body of three thousand
+      men who had just passed through the town was an invincible army, whose
+      mere proximity would suffice to keep the bourgeois humble and docile in
+      his hands. The insurgents had imprisoned the gendarmes in their barracks,
+      the National Guard was already dismembered, the nobility must be quaking
+      with terror, and the retired citizens of the new town had certainly never
+      handled a gun in their lives. Moreover, there were no arms any more than
+      there were soldiers. Thus Macquart did not even take the precaution to
+      have the gates shut. His men carried their confidence still further by
+      falling asleep, while he calmly awaited the dawn which he fancied would
+      attract and rally all the Republicans of the district round him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was already meditating important revolutionary measures; the nomination
+      of a Commune of which he would be the chief, the imprisonment of all bad
+      patriots, and particularly of all such persons as had incurred his
+      displeasure. The thought of the baffled Rougons and their yellow
+      drawing-room, of all that clique entreating him for mercy, thrilled him
+      with exquisite pleasure. In order to while away the time he resolved to
+      issue a proclamation to the inhabitants of Plassans. Four of his party set
+      to work to draw up this proclamation, and when it was finished Macquart,
+      assuming a dignified manner in the mayor&rsquo;s arm-chair, had it read to him
+      before sending it to the printing office of the &ldquo;Independant,&rdquo; on whose
+      patriotism he reckoned. One of the writers was commencing, in an emphatic
+      voice, &ldquo;Inhabitants of Plassans, the hour of independence has struck, the
+      reign of justice has begun&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; when a noise was heard at the
+      door of the office, which was slowly pushed open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it you, Cassoute?&rdquo; Macquart asked, interrupting the perusal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody answered; but the door opened wider.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in, do!&rdquo; he continued, impatiently. &ldquo;Is my brigand of a brother at
+      home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, all at once both leaves of the door were violently thrown back and
+      slammed against the walls, and a crowd of armed men, in the midst of whom
+      marched Rougon, with his face very red and his eyes starting out of their
+      sockets, swarmed into the office, brandishing their guns like cudgels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! the blackguards, they&rsquo;re armed!&rdquo; shouted Macquart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was about to seize a pair of pistols which were lying on the
+      writing-table, when five men caught hold of him by the throat and held him
+      in check. The four authors of the proclamation struggled for an instant.
+      There was a good deal of scuffling and stamping, and a noise of persons
+      falling. The combatants were greatly hampered by their guns, which they
+      would not lay aside, although they could not use them. In the struggle,
+      Rougon&rsquo;s weapon, which an insurgent had tried to wrest from him, went off
+      of itself with a frightful report, and filled the room with smoke. The
+      bullet shattered a magnificent mirror that reached from the mantelpiece to
+      the ceiling, and was reputed to be one of the finest mirrors in the town.
+      This shot, fired no one knew why, deafened everybody, and put an end to
+      the battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, while the gentlemen were panting and puffing, three other reports
+      were heard in the courtyard. Granoux immediately rushed to one of the
+      windows. And as he and the others anxiously leaned out, their faces
+      lengthened perceptibly, for they were in nowise eager for a struggle with
+      the men in the guard-room, whom they had forgotten amidst their triumph.
+      However, Roudier cried out from below that all was right. And Granoux then
+      shut the window again, beaming with joy. The fact of the matter was, that
+      Rougon&rsquo;s shot had aroused the sleepers, who had promptly surrendered,
+      seeing that resistance was impossible. Then, however, three of Roudier&rsquo;s
+      men, in their blind haste to get the business over, had discharged their
+      firearms in the air, as a sort of answer to the report from above, without
+      knowing quite why they did so. It frequently happens that guns go off of
+      their own accord when they are in the hands of cowards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, in the room upstairs, Rougon ordered Macquart&rsquo;s hands to be bound
+      with the bands of the large green curtains which hung at the windows. At
+      this, Macquart, wild with rage, broke into scornful jeers. &ldquo;All right; go
+      on,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;This evening or to-morrow, when the others return,
+      we&rsquo;ll settle accounts!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This allusion to the insurrectionary forces sent a shudder to the victors&rsquo; 
+      very marrow; Rougon for his part almost choked. His brother, who was
+      exasperated at having been surprised like a child by these terrified
+      bourgeois, who, old soldier that he was, he disdainfully looked upon as
+      good-for-nothing civilians, defied him with a glance of the bitterest
+      hatred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! I can tell some pretty stories about you, very pretty ones!&rdquo; the
+      rascal exclaimed, without removing his eyes from the retired oil merchant.
+      &ldquo;Just send me before the Assize Court, so that I may tell the judge a few
+      tales that will make them laugh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this Rougon turned pale. He was terribly afraid lest Macquart should
+      blab then and there, and ruin him in the esteem of the gentlemen who had
+      just been assisting him to save Plassans. These gentlemen, astounded by
+      the dramatic encounter between the two brothers, and, foreseeing some
+      stormy passages, had retired to a corner of the room. Rougon, however,
+      formed a heroic resolution. He advanced towards the group, and in a very
+      proud tone exclaimed: &ldquo;We will keep this man here. When he has reflected
+      on his position he will be able to give us some useful information.&rdquo; Then,
+      in a still more dignified voice, he went on: &ldquo;I will discharge my duty,
+      gentlemen. I have sworn to save the town from anarchy, and I will save it,
+      even should I have to be the executioner of my nearest relative.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One might have thought him some old Roman sacrificing his family on the
+      altar of his country. Granoux, who felt deeply moved, came to press his
+      hand with a tearful countenance, which seemed to say: &ldquo;I understand you;
+      you are sublime!&rdquo; And then he did him the kindness to take everybody away,
+      under the pretext of conducting the four other prisoners into the
+      courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Pierre was alone with his brother, he felt all his self-possession
+      return to him. &ldquo;You hardly expected me, did you?&rdquo; he resumed. &ldquo;I
+      understand things now; you have been laying plots against me. You wretched
+      fellow; see what your vices and disorderly life have brought you to!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;Shut up,&rdquo; he replied; &ldquo;go to the devil.
+      You&rsquo;re an old rogue. He laughs best who laughs last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon Rougon, who had formed no definite plan with regard to him,
+      thrust him into a dressing-room whither Monsieur Garconnet retired to rest
+      sometimes. This room lighted from above, had no other means of exit than
+      the doorway by which one entered. It was furnished with a few arm-chairs,
+      a sofa, and a marble wash-stand. Pierre double-locked the door, after
+      partially unbinding his brother&rsquo;s hands. Macquart was then heard to throw
+      himself on the sofa, and start singing the &ldquo;Ca Ira&rdquo; in a loud voice, as
+      though he were trying to sing himself to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon, who at last found himself alone, now in his turn sat down in the
+      mayor&rsquo;s arm-chair. He heaved a sigh as he wiped his brow. How hard,
+      indeed, it was to win fortune and honours! However, he was nearing the end
+      at last. He felt the soft seat of the arm-chair yield beneath him, while
+      with a mechanical movement he caressed the mahogany writing-table with his
+      hands, finding it apparently quite silky and delicate, like the skin of a
+      beautiful woman. Then he spread himself out, and assumed the dignified
+      attitude which Macquart had previously affected while listening to the
+      proclamation. The silence of the room seemed fraught with religious
+      solemnity, which inspired Rougon with exquisite delight. Everything, even
+      the dust and the old documents lying in the corners, seemed to exhale an
+      odour of incense, which rose to his dilated nostrils. This room, with its
+      faded hangings redolent of petty transactions, all the trivial concerns of
+      a third-rate municipality, became a temple of which he was the god.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, amidst his rapture, he started nervously at every shout from
+      Macquart. The words aristocrat and lamp-post, the threats of hanging that
+      form the refrain of the famous revolutionary song, the &ldquo;Ca Ira,&rdquo; reached
+      him in angry bursts, interrupting his triumphant dream in the most
+      disagreeable manner. Always that man! And his dream, in which he saw
+      Plassans at his feet, ended with a sudden vision of the Assize Court, of
+      the judges, the jury, and the public listening to Macquart&rsquo;s disgraceful
+      revelations; the story of the fifty thousand francs, and many other
+      unpleasant matters; or else, while enjoying the softness of Monsieur
+      Garconnet&rsquo;s arm-chair, he suddenly pictured himself suspended from a
+      lamp-post in the Rue de la Banne. Who would rid him of that wretched
+      fellow? At last Antoine fell asleep, and then Pierre enjoyed ten good
+      minutes&rsquo; pure ecstasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Roudier and Granoux came to rouse him from this state of beatitude. They
+      had just returned from the prison, whither they had taken the insurgents.
+      Daylight was coming on apace, the town would soon be awake, and it was
+      necessary to take some decisive step. Roudier declared that, before
+      anything else, it would be advisable to issue a proclamation to the
+      inhabitants. Pierre was, at that moment, reading the one which the
+      insurgents had left upon the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;this will suit us admirably! There are only a few words
+      to be altered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, in fact, a quarter of an hour sufficed for the necessary changes,
+      after which Granoux read out, in an earnest voice: &ldquo;Inhabitants of
+      Plassans&mdash;The hour of resistance has struck, the reign of order has
+      returned&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was decided that the proclamation should be printed at the office of
+      the &ldquo;Gazette,&rdquo; and posted at all the street corners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now listen,&rdquo; said Rougon; &ldquo;we&rsquo;ll go to my house; and in the meantime
+      Monsieur Granoux will assemble here the members of the municipal council
+      who had not been arrested and acquaint them with the terrible events of
+      the night.&rdquo; Then he added, majestically: &ldquo;I am quite prepared to accept
+      the responsibility of my actions. If what I have already done appears a
+      satisfactory pledge of my desire for order, I am willing to place myself
+      at the head of a municipal commission, until such time as the regular
+      authorities can be reinstated. But, in order, that nobody may accuse me of
+      ambitious designs, I shall not re-enter the Town Hall unless called upon
+      to do so by my fellow-citizens.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this Granoux and Roudier protested that Plassans would not be
+      ungrateful. Their friend had indeed saved the town. And they recalled all
+      that he had done for the cause of order: the yellow drawing-room always
+      open to the friends of authority, his services as spokesman in the three
+      quarters of the town, the store of arms which had been his idea, and
+      especially that memorable night&mdash;that night of prudence and heroism&mdash;in
+      which he had rendered himself forever illustrious. Granoux added that he
+      felt sure of the admiration and gratitude of the municipal councillors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t stir from your house,&rdquo; he concluded; &ldquo;I will come and fetch you to
+      lead you back in triumph.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Roudier said that he quite understood the tact and modesty of their
+      friend, and approved it. Nobody would think of accusing him of ambition,
+      but all would appreciate the delicacy which prompted him to take no office
+      save with the consent of his fellow-citizens. That was very dignified,
+      very noble, altogether grand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under this shower of eulogies, Rougon humbly bowed his head. &ldquo;No, no; you
+      go too far,&rdquo; he murmured, with voluptuous thrillings of exquisite
+      pleasure. Each sentence that fell from the retired hosier and the old
+      almond-merchant, who stood on his right and left respectively, fell
+      sweetly on his ears; and, leaning back in the mayor&rsquo;s arm-chair, steeped
+      in the odour of officiality which pervaded the room, he bowed to the right
+      and to the left, like a royal pretender whom a <i>coup d&rsquo;etat</i> is about
+      to convert into an emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they were tired of belauding each other, they all three went
+      downstairs. Granoux started off to call the municipal council together,
+      while Roudier told Rougon to go on in front, saying that he would join him
+      at his house, after giving the necessary orders for guarding the Town
+      Hall. The dawn was now fast rising, and Pierre proceeded to the Rue de la
+      Banne, tapping his heels in a martial manner on the still deserted
+      pavement. He carried his hat in his hand in spite of the bitter cold; for
+      puffs of pride sent all his blood to his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On reaching his house he found Cassoute at the bottom of the stairs. The
+      navvy had not stirred, for he had seen nobody enter. He sat there, on the
+      first step, resting his big head in his hands, and gazing fixedly in front
+      of him, with the vacant stare and mute stubbornness of a faithful dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were waiting for me, weren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; Pierre said to him, taking in the
+      situation at a glance. &ldquo;Well, go and tell Monsieur Macquart that I&rsquo;ve come
+      home. Go and ask for him at the Town Hall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cassoute rose and took himself off, with an awkward bow. He was going to
+      get himself arrested like a lamb, to the great delight of Pierre, who
+      laughed as he went upstairs, asking himself, with a feeling of vague
+      surprise: &ldquo;I have certainly plenty of courage; shall I turn out as good a
+      diplomatist?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite had not gone to bed last night. He found her dressed in her
+      Sunday clothes, wearing a cap with lemon-coloured ribbons, like a lady
+      expecting visitors. She had sat at the window in vain; she had heard
+      nothing, and was dying with curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; she asked, rushing to meet her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter, quite out of breath, entered the yellow drawing-room, whither
+      she followed him, carefully closing the door behind her. He sank into an
+      arm-chair, and, in a gasping voice, faltered: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s done; we shall get the
+      receivership.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this she fell on his neck and kissed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really? Really?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;But I haven&rsquo;t heard anything. Oh, my darling
+      husband, do tell me; tell me all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt fifteen years old again, and began to coax him and whirl round
+      him like a grasshopper fascinated by the light and heat. And Pierre, in
+      the effusion of his triumph, poured out his heart to her. He did not omit
+      a single detail. He even explained his future projects, forgetting that,
+      according to his theories, wives were good for nothing, and that his must
+      be kept in complete ignorance of what went on if he wished to remain
+      master. Felicite leant over him and drank in his words. She made him
+      repeat certain parts of his story, declaring she had not heard; in fact,
+      her delight bewildered her so much that at times she seemed quite deaf.
+      When Pierre related the events at the Town Hall, she burst into a fit of
+      laughter, changed her chair three times, and moved the furniture about,
+      quite unable to sit still. After forty years of continuous struggle,
+      fortune had at last yielded to them. Eventually she became so mad over it
+      that she forgot all prudence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s to me you owe all this!&rdquo; she exclaimed, in an outburst of triumph.
+      &ldquo;If I hadn&rsquo;t looked after you, you would have been nicely taken in by the
+      insurgents. You booby, it was Garconnet, Sicardot, and the others, that
+      had got to be thrown to those wild beasts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, showing her teeth, loosened by age, she added, with a girlish smile:
+      &ldquo;Well, the Republic for ever! It has made our path clear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Pierre had turned cross. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just like you!&rdquo; he muttered; &ldquo;you
+      always fancy that you&rsquo;ve foreseen everything. It was I who had the idea of
+      hiding myself. As though women understood anything about politics! Bah, my
+      poor girl, if you were to steer the bark we should very soon be
+      shipwrecked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite bit her lip. She had gone too far and forgotten her self-assigned
+      part of good, silent fairy. Then she was seized with one of those fits of
+      covert exasperation, which she generally experienced when her husband
+      tried to crush her with his superiority. And she again promised herself,
+      when the right time should arrive, some exquisite revenge, which would
+      deliver this man into her power, bound hand and foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! I was forgetting!&rdquo; resumed Rougon, &ldquo;Monsieur Peirotte is amongst
+      them. Granoux saw him struggling in the hands of the insurgents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite gave a start. She was just at that moment standing at the window,
+      gazing with longing eyes at the house where the receiver of taxes lived.
+      She had felt a desire to do so, for in her mind the idea of triumph was
+      always associated with envy of that fine house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So Monsieur Peirotte is arrested!&rdquo; she exclaimed in a strange tone as she
+      turned round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant she smiled complacently; then a crimson blush rushed to her
+      face. A murderous wish had just ascended from the depths of her being.
+      &ldquo;Ah! if the insurgents would only kill him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre no doubt read her thoughts in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if some ball were to hit him,&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;our business would be
+      settled. There would be no necessity to supercede him, eh? and it would be
+      no fault of ours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Felicite shuddered. She felt that she had just condemned a man to
+      death. If Monsieur Peirotte should now be killed, she would always see his
+      ghost at night time. He would come and haunt her. So she only ventured to
+      cast furtive glances, full of fearful delight, at the unhappy man&rsquo;s
+      windows. Henceforward all her enjoyment would be fraught with a touch of
+      guilty terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, Pierre, having now poured out his soul, began to perceive the
+      other side of the situation. He mentioned Macquart. How could they get rid
+      of that blackguard? But Felicite, again fired with enthusiasm, exclaimed:
+      &ldquo;Oh! one can&rsquo;t do everything at once. We&rsquo;ll gag him, somehow. We&rsquo;ll soon
+      find some means or other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was now walking to and fro, putting the arm-chairs in order, and
+      dusting their backs. Suddenly, she stopped in the middle of the room, and
+      gave the faded furniture a long glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Heavens!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how ugly it is here! And we shall have
+      everybody coming to call upon us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah!&rdquo; replied Pierre, with supreme indifference, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ll alter all that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He who, the night before, had entertained almost religious veneration for
+      the arm-chairs and the sofa, would now have willingly stamped on them.
+      Felicite, who felt the same contempt, even went so far as to upset an
+      arm-chair which was short of a castor and did not yield to her quickly
+      enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was at this moment that Roudier entered. It at once occurred to the old
+      woman that he had become much more polite. His &ldquo;Monsieur&rdquo; and &ldquo;Madame&rdquo;
+       rolled forth in delightfully musical fashion. But the other habitues were
+      now arriving one after the other; and the drawing-room was fast getting
+      full. Nobody yet knew the full particulars of the events of the night, and
+      all had come in haste, with wondering eyes and smiling lips, urged on by
+      the rumours which were beginning to circulate through the town. These
+      gentlemen who, on the previous evening, had left the drawing-room with
+      such precipitation at the news of the insurgents&rsquo; approach, came back,
+      inquisitive and importunate, like a swarm of buzzing flies which a puff of
+      wind would have dispersed. Some of them had not even taken time to put on
+      their braces. They were very impatient, but it was evident that Rougon was
+      waiting for some one else before speaking out. He constantly turned an
+      anxious look towards the door. For an hour there was only significant
+      hand-shaking, vague congratulation, admiring whispering, suppressed joy of
+      uncertain origin, which only awaited a word of enlightenment to turn to
+      enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Granoux appeared. He paused for a moment on the threshold, with
+      his right hand pressed to his breast between the buttons of his
+      frock-coat; his broad pale face was beaming; in vain he strove to conceal
+      his emotion beneath an expression of dignity. All the others became silent
+      on perceiving him; they felt that something extraordinary was about to
+      take place. Granoux walked straight up to Rougon, through two lines of
+      visitors, and held out his hand to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I bring you the homage of the Municipal Council.
+      They call you to their head, until our mayor shall be restored to us. You
+      have saved Plassans. In the terrible crisis through which we are passing
+      we want men who, like yourself, unite intelligence with courage. Come&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point Granoux, who was reciting a little speech which he had taken
+      great trouble to prepare on his way from the Town Hall to the Rue de la
+      Banne felt his memory fail him. But Rougon, overwhelmed with emotion,
+      broke in, shaking his hand and repeating: &ldquo;Thank you, my dear Granoux; I
+      thank you very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could find nothing else to say. However, a loud burst of voices
+      followed. Every one rushed upon him, tried to shake hands, poured forth
+      praises and compliments, and eagerly questioned him. But he, already
+      putting on official dignity, begged for a few minutes&rsquo; delay in order that
+      he might confer with Messieurs Granoux and Roudier. Business before
+      everything. The town was in such a critical situation! Then the three
+      accomplices retired to a corner of the drawing-room, where, in an
+      undertone, they divided power amongst themselves; the rest of the
+      visitors, who remained a few paces away, trying meanwhile to look
+      extremely wise and furtively glancing at them with mingled admiration and
+      curiosity. It was decided that Rougon should take the title of president
+      of the Municipal Commission; Granoux was to be secretary; whilst, as for
+      Roudier, he became commander-in-chief of the reorganised National Guard.
+      They also swore to support each other against all opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, Felicite, who had drawn near, abruptly inquired: &ldquo;And Vuillet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this they looked at each other. Nobody had seen Vuillet. Rougon seemed
+      somewhat uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps they&rsquo;ve taken him away with the others,&rdquo; he said, to ease his
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Felicite shook her head. Vuillet was not the man to let himself be
+      arrested. Since nobody had seen or heard him, it was certain he had been
+      doing something wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the door opened and Vuillet entered, bowing humbly, with blinking
+      glance and stiff sacristan&rsquo;s smile. Then he held out his moist hand to
+      Rougon and the two others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vuillet had settled his little affairs alone. He had cut his own slice out
+      of the cake, as Felicite would have said. While peeping through the
+      ventilator of his cellar he had seen the insurgents arrest the postmaster,
+      whose offices were near his bookshop. At daybreak, therefore, at the
+      moment when Rougon was comfortably seated in the mayor&rsquo;s arm-chair, he had
+      quietly installed himself in the postmaster&rsquo;s office. He knew the clerks;
+      so he received them on their arrival, told them that he would replace
+      their chief until his return, and that meantime they need be in nowise
+      uneasy. Then he ransacked the morning mail with ill-concealed curiosity.
+      He examined the letters, and seemed to be seeking a particular one. His
+      new berth doubtless suited his secret plans, for his satisfaction became
+      so great that he actually gave one of the clerks a copy of the &ldquo;Oeuvres
+      Badines de Piron.&rdquo; Vuillet, it should be mentioned, did business in
+      objectionable literature, which he kept concealed in a large drawer, under
+      the stock of heads and religious images. It is probable that he felt some
+      slight qualms at the free-and-easy manner in which he had taken possession
+      of the post office, and recognised the desirability of getting his
+      usurpation confirmed as far as possible. At all events, he had thought it
+      well to call upon Rougon, who was fast becoming an important personage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why! where have you been?&rdquo; Felicite asked him in a distrustful manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon he related his story with sundry embellishments. According to
+      his own account he had saved the post-office from pillage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right then! That&rsquo;s settled! Stay on there!&rdquo; said Pierre, after a
+      moment&rsquo;s reflection. &ldquo;Make yourself useful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This last sentence revealed the one great fear that possessed the Rougons.
+      They were afraid that some one might prove too useful, and do more than
+      themselves to save the town. Still, Pierre saw no serious danger in
+      leaving Vuillet as provisional postmaster; it was even a convenient means
+      of getting rid of him. Felicite, however, made a sharp gesture of
+      annoyance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The consultation having ended, the three accomplices mingled with the
+      various groups that filled the drawing-room. They were at last obliged to
+      satisfy the general curiosity by giving detailed accounts of recent
+      events. Rougon proved magnificent. He exaggerated, embellished, and
+      dramatised the story which he had related to his wife. The distribution of
+      the guns and cartridges made everybody hold their breath. But it was the
+      march through the deserted streets and the seizure of the town-hall that
+      most amazed these worthy bourgeois. At each fresh detail there was an
+      interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you were only forty-one; it&rsquo;s marvellous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, indeed! it must have been frightfully dark!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I confess I never should have dared it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you seized him, like that, by the throat?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the insurgents, what did they say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These remarks and questions only incited Rougon&rsquo;s imagination the more. He
+      replied to everybody. He mimicked the action. This stout man, in his
+      admiration of his own achievements, became as nimble as a schoolboy; he
+      began afresh, repeated himself, amidst the exclamations of surprise and
+      individual discussions which suddenly arose about some trifling detail.
+      And thus he continued blowing his trumpet, making himself more and more
+      important as if some irresistible force impelled him to turn his narrative
+      into a genuine epic. Moreover Granoux and Roudier stood by his side
+      prompting him, reminding him of such trifling matters as he omitted. They
+      also were burning to put in a word, and occasionally they could not
+      restrain themselves, so that all three went on talking together. When, in
+      order to keep the episode of the broken mirror for the denouement, like
+      some crowning glory, Rougon began to describe what had taken place
+      downstairs in the courtyard, after the arrest of the guard, Roudier
+      accused him of spoiling the narrative by changing the sequence of events.
+      For a moment they wrangled about it somewhat sharply. Then Roudier, seeing
+      a good opportunity for himself, suddenly exclaimed: &ldquo;Very well, let it be
+      so. But you weren&rsquo;t there. So let me tell it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thereupon explained at great length how the insurgents had awoke, and
+      how the muskets of the town&rsquo;s deliverers had been levelled at them to
+      reduce them to impotence. He added, however, that no blood, fortunately,
+      had been shed. This last sentence disappointed his audience, who had
+      counted upon one corpse at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I thought you fired,&rdquo; interrupted Felicite, recognising that the
+      story was wretchedly deficient in dramatic interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, three shots,&rdquo; resumed the old hosier. &ldquo;The pork-butcher
+      Dubruel, Monsieur Lievin, and Monsieur Massicot discharged their guns with
+      really culpable alacrity.&rdquo; And as there were some murmurs at this remark;
+      &ldquo;Culpable, I repeat the word,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;There are quite enough cruel
+      necessities in warfare without any useless shedding of blood. Besides,
+      these gentlemen swore to me that it was not their fault; they can&rsquo;t
+      understand how it was their guns went off. Nevertheless, a spent ball
+      after ricocheting grazed the cheek of one of the insurgents and left a
+      mark on it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This graze, this unexpected wound, satisfied the audience. Which cheek,
+      right or left, had been grazed, and how was it that a bullet, a spent one,
+      even, could strike a cheek without piercing it? These points supplied
+      material for some long discussions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meantime,&rdquo; continued Rougon at the top of his voice, without giving time
+      for the excitement to abate; &ldquo;meantime we had plenty to do upstairs. The
+      struggle was quite desperate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he described, at length, the arrival of his brother and the four
+      other insurgents, without naming Macquart, whom he simply called &ldquo;the
+      leader.&rdquo; The words, &ldquo;the mayor&rsquo;s office,&rdquo; &ldquo;the mayor&rsquo;s arm-chair,&rdquo; &ldquo;the
+      mayor&rsquo;s writing table,&rdquo; recurred to him every instant, and in the opinion
+      of his audience imparted marvellous grandeur to the terrible scene. It was
+      not at the porter&rsquo;s lodge that the fight was now being waged, but in the
+      private sanctum of the chief magistrate of the town. Roudier was quite
+      cast in to the background. Then Rougon at last came to the episode which
+      he had been keeping in reserve from the commencement, and which would
+      certainly exalt him to the dignity of a hero.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thereupon,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;an insurgent rushes upon me. I push the mayor&rsquo;s
+      arm-chair away, and seize the man by the throat. I hold him tightly, you
+      may be sure of it! But my gun was in my way. I didn&rsquo;t want to let it drop;
+      a man always sticks to his gun. I held it, like this, under the left arm.
+      All of a sudden, it went off&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole audience hung on Rougon&rsquo;s lips. But Granoux, who was opening his
+      mouth wide with a violent itching to say something, shouted: &ldquo;No, no, that
+      isn&rsquo;t right. You were not in a position to see things, my friend; you were
+      fighting like a lion. But I saw everything, while I was helping to bind
+      one of the prisoners. The man tried to murder you; it was he who fired the
+      gun; I saw him distinctly slip his black fingers under your arm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really?&rdquo; said Rougon, turning quite pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not know he had been in such danger, and the old almond merchant&rsquo;s
+      account of the incident chilled him with fright. Granoux, as a rule, did
+      not lie; but, on a day of battle, it is surely allowable to view things
+      dramatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you the man tried to murder you,&rdquo; he repeated, with conviction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Rougon in a faint voice, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s how it is I heard the bullet
+      whiz past my ear!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this, violent emotion came upon the audience. Everybody gazed at the
+      hero with respectful awe. He had heard a bullet whiz past his ear!
+      Certainly, none of the other bourgeois who were there could say as much.
+      Felicite felt bound to rush into her husband&rsquo;s arms so as to work up the
+      emotion to boiling point. But Rougon immediately freed himself, and
+      concluded his narrative with this heroic sentence, which has become famous
+      at Plassans: &ldquo;The shot goes off; I hear the bullet whiz past my ear; and
+      whish! it smashes the mayor&rsquo;s mirror.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This caused complete consternation. Such a magnificent mirror, too! It was
+      scarcely credible! the damage done to that looking-glass almost
+      out-balanced Rougon&rsquo;s heroism, in the estimation of the company. The glass
+      became an object of absorbing interest, and they talked about it for a
+      quarter of an hour, with many exclamations and expressions of regret, as
+      though it had been some dear friend that had been stricken to the heart.
+      This was the culminating point that Rougon had aimed at, the denouement of
+      his wonderful Odyssey. A loud hubbub of voices filled the yellow
+      drawing-room. The visitors were repeating what they had just heard, and
+      every now and then one of them would leave a group to ask the three heroes
+      the exact truth with regard to some contested incident. The heroes set the
+      matter right with scrupulous minuteness, for they felt that they were
+      speaking for history!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Rougon and his two lieutenants announced that they were expected
+      at the town-hall. Respectful silence was then restored, and the company
+      smiled at each other discreetly. Granoux was swelling with importance. He
+      was the only one who had seen the insurgent pull the trigger and smash the
+      mirror; this sufficed to exalt him, and almost made him burst his skin. On
+      leaving the drawing-room, he took Roudier&rsquo;s arm with the air of a great
+      general who is broken down with fatigue. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been up for thirty-six
+      hours,&rdquo; he murmured, &ldquo;and heaven alone knows when I shall get to bed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon, as he withdrew, took Vuillet aside and told him that the party of
+      order relied more than ever on him and the &ldquo;Gazette.&rdquo; He would have to
+      publish an effective article to reassure the inhabitants and treat the
+      band of villains who had passed through Plassans as it deserved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be easy!&rdquo; replied Vuillet. &ldquo;In the ordinary course the &lsquo;Gazette&rsquo; ought
+      not to appear till to-morrow morning, but I&rsquo;ll issue it this very
+      evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the leaders had left, the rest of the visitors remained in the yellow
+      drawing-room for another moment, chattering like so many old women, whom
+      the escape of a canary has gathered together on the pavement. These
+      retired tradesmen, oil dealers, and wholesale hatters, felt as if they
+      were in a sort of fairyland. Never had they experienced such thrilling
+      excitement before. They could not get over their surprise at discovering
+      such heroes as Rougon, Granoux, and Roudier in their midst. At last, half
+      stifled by the stuffy atmosphere, and tired of ever telling each other the
+      same things, they decided to go off and spread the momentous news abroad.
+      They glided away one by one, each anxious to have the glory of being the
+      first to know and relate everything, and Felicite, as she leaned out of
+      the window, on being left alone, saw them dispersing in the Rue de la
+      Banne, waving their arms in an excited manner, eager as they were to
+      diffuse emotion to the four corners of the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was ten o&rsquo;clock, and Plassans, now wide awake, was running about the
+      streets, wildly excited by the reports which were circulating. Those who
+      had seen or heard the insurrectionary forces, related the most foolish
+      stories, contradicting each other, and indulging in the wildest
+      suppositions. The majority, however, knew nothing at all about the matter;
+      they lived at the further end of the town, and listened with gaping
+      mouths, like children to a nursery tale, to the stories of how several
+      thousand bandits had invaded the streets during the night and vanished
+      before daybreak like an army of phantoms. A few of the most sceptical
+      said: &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; Yet some of the details were very precise; and Plassans
+      at last felt convinced that some frightful danger had passed over it while
+      it slept. The darkness which had shrouded this danger, the various
+      contradictory reports that spread, all invested the matter with mystery
+      and vague horror, which made the bravest shudder. Whose hand had diverted
+      the thunderbolt from them? There seemed to be something quite miraculous
+      about it. There were rumours of unknown deliverers, of a handful of brave
+      men who had cut off the hydra&rsquo;s head; but no one seemed acquainted with
+      the exact particulars, and the whole story appeared scarcely credible,
+      until the company from the yellow drawing-room spread through the streets,
+      scattering tidings, ever repeating the same narrative at each door they
+      came to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was like a train of powder. In a few minutes the story had spread from
+      one end of the town to the other. Rougon&rsquo;s name flew from mouth to mouth,
+      with exclamations of surprise in the new town, and of praise in the old
+      quarter. The idea of being without a sub-prefect, a mayor, a postmaster, a
+      receiver of taxes, or authorities of any kind, at first threw the
+      inhabitants into consternation. They were stupefied at having been able to
+      sleep through the night and get up as usual, in the absence of any settled
+      government. Their first stupor over, they threw themselves recklessly into
+      the arms of their liberators. The few Republicans shrugged their
+      shoulders, but the petty shopkeepers, the small householders, the
+      Conservatives of all shades, invoked blessings on those modest heroes
+      whose achievements had been shrouded by the night. When it was known that
+      Rougon had arrested his own brother, the popular admiration knew no
+      bounds. People talked of Brutus, and thus the indiscretion which had made
+      Pierre rather anxious, really redounded to his glory. At this moment when
+      terror still hovered over them, the townsfolk were virtually unanimous in
+      their gratitude. Rougon was accepted as their saviour without the
+      slightest show of opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just think of it!&rdquo; the poltroons exclaimed, &ldquo;there were only forty-one of
+      them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That number of forty-one amazed the whole town, and this was the origin of
+      the Plassans legend of how forty-one bourgeois had made three thousand
+      insurgents bite the dust. There were only a few envious spirits of the new
+      town, lawyers without work and retired military men ashamed of having
+      slept ingloriously through that memorable night, who raised any doubts.
+      The insurgents, these sceptics hinted, had no doubt left the town of their
+      own accord. There were no indications of a combat, no corpses, no
+      blood-stains. So the deliverers had certainly had a very easy task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the mirror, the mirror!&rdquo; repeated the enthusiasts. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t deny
+      that the mayor&rsquo;s mirror has been smashed; go and see it for yourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, in fact, until night-time, quite a stream of town&rsquo;s-people flowed,
+      under one pretext or another, into the mayor&rsquo;s private office, the door of
+      which Rougon left wide open. The visitors planted themselves in front of
+      the mirror, which the bullet had pierced and starred, and they all gave
+      vent to the same exclamation: &ldquo;By Jove; that ball must have had terrible
+      force!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they departed quite convinced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite, at her window, listened with delight to all the rumours and
+      laudatory and grateful remarks which arose from the town. At that moment
+      all Plassans was talking of her husband. She felt that the two districts
+      below her were quivering, wafting her the hope of approaching triumph. Ah!
+      how she would crush that town which she had been so long in getting
+      beneath her feet! All her grievances crowded back to her memory, and her
+      past disappointments redoubled her appetite for immediate enjoyment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last she left the window, and walked slowly round the drawing-room. It
+      was there that, a little while previously, everybody had held out their
+      hands to her husband and herself. He and she had conquered; the citizens
+      were at their feet. The yellow drawing-room seemed to her a holy place.
+      The dilapidated furniture, the frayed velvet, the chandelier soiled with
+      fly-marks, all those poor wrecks now seemed to her like the glorious
+      bullet-riddled debris of a battle-field. The plain of Austerlitz would not
+      have stirred her to deeper emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she returned to the window, she perceived Aristide wandering about
+      the place of the Sub-Prefecture, with his nose in the air. She beckoned to
+      him to come up, which he immediately did. It seemed as if he had only been
+      waiting for this invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; his mother said to him on the landing, seeing that he
+      hesitated. &ldquo;Your father is not here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aristide evinced all the shyness of a prodigal son returning home. He had
+      not been inside the yellow drawing-room for nearly four years. He still
+      carried his arm in a sling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does your hand still pain you?&rdquo; his mother asked him, ironically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He blushed as he answered with some embarrassment: &ldquo;Oh! it&rsquo;s getting
+      better; it&rsquo;s nearly well again now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he lingered there, loitering about and not knowing what to say.
+      Felicite came to the rescue. &ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;ve heard them talking about
+      your father&rsquo;s noble conduct?&rdquo; she resumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He replied that the whole town was talking of it. And then, as he regained
+      his self-possession, he paid his mother back for her raillery in her own
+      coin. Looking her full in the face he added: &ldquo;I came to see if father was
+      wounded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, don&rsquo;t play the fool!&rdquo; cried Felicite, petulantly. &ldquo;If I were you I
+      would act boldly and decisively. Confess now that you made a false move in
+      joining those good-for-nothing Republicans. You would be very glad, I&rsquo;m
+      sure, to be well rid of them, and to return to us, who are the stronger
+      party. Well, the house is open to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Aristide protested. The Republic was a grand idea. Moreover, the
+      insurgents might still carry the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t talk nonsense to me!&rdquo; retorted the old woman, with some irritation.
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re afraid that your father won&rsquo;t have a very warm welcome for you.
+      But I&rsquo;ll see to that. Listen to me: go back to your newspaper, and,
+      between now and to-morrow, prepare a number strongly favouring the Coup
+      d&rsquo;Etat. To-morrow evening, when this number has appeared, come back here
+      and you will be received with open arms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then seeing that the young man remained silent: &ldquo;Do you hear?&rdquo; she added,
+      in a lower and more eager tone; &ldquo;it is necessary for our sake, and for
+      your own, too, that it should be done. Don&rsquo;t let us have any more nonsense
+      and folly. You&rsquo;ve already compromised yourself enough in that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man made a gesture&mdash;the gesture of a Caesar crossing the
+      Rubicon&mdash;and by doing so escaped entering into any verbal engagement.
+      As he was about to withdraw, his mother, looking for the knot in his
+      sling, remarked: &ldquo;First of all, you must let me take off this rag. It&rsquo;s
+      getting a little ridiculous, you know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aristide let her remove it. When the silk handkerchief was untied, he
+      folded it neatly and placed it in his pocket. And as he kissed his mother
+      he exclaimed: &ldquo;Till to-morrow then!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meanwhile, Rougon was taking official possession of the mayor&rsquo;s
+      offices. There were only eight municipal councillors left; the others were
+      in the hands of the insurgents, as well as the mayor and his two
+      assessors. The eight remaining gentlemen, who were all on a par with
+      Granoux, perspired with fright when the latter explained to them the
+      critical situation of the town. It requires an intimate knowledge of the
+      kind of men who compose the municipal councils of some of the smaller
+      towns, in order to form an idea of the terror with which these timid folk
+      threw themselves into Rougon&rsquo;s arms. At Plassans, the mayor had the most
+      incredible blockheads under him, men without any ideas of their own, and
+      accustomed to passive obedience. Consequently, as Monsieur Garconnet was
+      no longer there, the municipal machine was bound to get out of order, and
+      fall completely under the control of the man who might know how to set it
+      working. Moreover, as the sub-prefect had left the district, Rougon
+      naturally became sole and absolute master of the town; and thus, strange
+      to relate, the chief administrative authority fell into the hands of a man
+      of indifferent repute, to whom, on the previous evening, not one of his
+      fellow-citizens would have lent a hundred francs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre&rsquo;s first act was to declare the Provisional Commission &ldquo;en
+      permanence.&rdquo; Then he gave his attention to the organisation of the
+      national guard, and succeeded in raising three hundred men. The hundred
+      and nine muskets left in the cart-shed were also distributed to
+      volunteers, thereby bringing up the number of men armed by the reactionary
+      party to one hundred and fifty; the remaining one hundred and fifty guards
+      consisted of well-affected citizens and some of Sicardot&rsquo;s soldiers. When
+      Commander Roudier reviewed the little army in front of the town-hall, he
+      was annoyed to see the market-people smiling in their sleeves. The fact is
+      that several of his men had no uniforms, and some of them looked very
+      droll with their black hats, frock-coats, and muskets. But, at any rate,
+      they meant well. A guard was left at the town-hall and the rest of the
+      forces were sent in detachments to the various town gates. Roudier
+      reserved to himself the command of the guard stationed at the
+      Grand&rsquo;-Porte, which seemed to be more liable to attack than the others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon, who now felt very conscious of his power, repaired to the Rue
+      Canquoin to beg the gendarmes to remain in their barracks and interfere
+      with nothing. He certainly had the doors of the gendarmerie opened&mdash;the
+      keys having been carried off by the insurgents&mdash;but he wanted to
+      triumph alone, and had no intention of letting the gendarmes rob him of
+      any part of his glory. If he should really have need of them he could
+      always send for them. So he explained to them that their presence might
+      tend to irritate the working-men and thus aggravate the situation. The
+      sergeant in command thereupon complimented him on his prudence. When
+      Rougon was informed that there was a wounded man in the barracks, he asked
+      to see him, by way of rendering himself popular. He found Rengade in bed,
+      with his eye bandaged, and his big moustaches just peeping out from under
+      the linen. With some high-sounding words about duty, Rougon endeavoured to
+      comfort the unfortunate fellow who, having lost an eye, was swearing with
+      exasperation at the thought that his injury would compel him to quit the
+      service. At last Rougon promised to send the doctor to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m much obliged to you, sir,&rdquo; Rengade replied; &ldquo;but, you know, what
+      would do me more good than any quantity of doctor&rsquo;s stuff would be to
+      wring the neck of the villain who put my eye out. Oh! I shall know him
+      again; he&rsquo;s a little thin, palish fellow, quite young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon Pierre bethought himself of the blood he had seen on Silvere&rsquo;s
+      hand. He stepped back a little, as though he was afraid that Rengade would
+      fly at his throat, and cry: &ldquo;It was your nephew who blinded me; and you
+      will have to pay for it.&rdquo; And whilst he was mentally cursing his
+      disreputable family, he solemnly declared that if the guilty person were
+      found he should be punished with all the rigour of the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, it isn&rsquo;t worth all that trouble,&rdquo; the one-eyed man replied; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+      just wring his neck for him when I catch him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon hastened back to the town-hall. The afternoon was employed in
+      taking various measures. The proclamation posted up about one o&rsquo;clock
+      produced an excellent impression. It ended by an appeal to the good sense
+      of the citizens, and gave a firm assurance that order would not again be
+      disturbed. Until dusk, in fact, the streets presented a picture of general
+      relief and perfect confidence. On the pavements, the groups who were
+      reading the proclamation exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all finished now; we shall soon see the troops who have been sent in
+      pursuit of the insurgents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This belief that some soldiers were approaching was so general that the
+      idles of the Cours Sauvaire repaired to the Nice road, in order to meet
+      and hear the regimental band. But they returned at nightfall disappointed,
+      having seen nothing; and then a feeling of vague alarm began to disturb
+      the townspeople.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the town-hall, the Provisional Commission had talked so much, without
+      coming to any decision, that the members, whose stomachs were quite empty,
+      began to feel alarmed again. Rougon dismissed them to dine, saying that
+      they would meet afresh at nine o&rsquo;clock in the evening. He was just about
+      to leave the room himself, when Macquart awoke and began to pommel the
+      door of his prison. He declared he was hungry, then asked what time it
+      was, and when his brother had told him it was five o&rsquo;clock, he feigned
+      great astonishment, and muttered, with diabolical malice, that the
+      insurgents had promised to return much earlier, and that they were very
+      slow in coming to deliver him. Rougon, having ordered some food to be
+      taken to him, went downstairs, quite worried by the earnestness with which
+      the rascal spoke of the return of the insurgents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he reached the street, his disquietude increased. The town seemed to
+      him quite altered. It was assuming a strange aspect; shadows were gliding
+      along the footpaths, which were growing deserted and silent, while gloomy
+      fear seemed, like fine rain, to be slowly, persistently falling with the
+      dusk over the mournful-looking houses. The babbling confidence of the
+      daytime was fatally terminating in groundless panic, in growing alarm as
+      the night drew nearer; the inhabitants were so weary and so satiated with
+      their triumph that they had no strength left but to dream of some terrible
+      retaliation on the part of the insurgents. Rougon shuddered as he passed
+      through this current of terror. He hastened his steps, feeling as if he
+      would choke. As he passed a cafe on the Place des Recollets, where the
+      lamps had just been lit, and where the petty cits of the new town were
+      assembled, he heard a few words of terrifying conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! Monsieur Picou,&rdquo; said one man in a thick voice, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve heard the
+      news? The regiment that was expected has not arrived.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But nobody expected any regiment, Monsieur Touche,&rdquo; a shrill voice
+      replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon. You haven&rsquo;t read the proclamation, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, it&rsquo;s true the placards declare that order will be maintained by
+      force, if necessary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, then, there&rsquo;s force mentioned; that means armed forces, of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do people say then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you know, folks are beginning to feel rather frightened; they say
+      that this delay on the part of the soldiers isn&rsquo;t natural, and that the
+      insurgents may well have slaughtered them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A cry of horror resounded through the cafe. Rougon was inclined to go in
+      and tell those bourgeois that the proclamation had never announced the
+      arrival of a regiment, that they had no right to strain its meaning to
+      such a degree, nor to spread such foolish theories abroad. But he himself,
+      amidst the disquietude which was coming over him, was not quite sure he
+      had not counted upon a despatch of troops; and he did, in fact, consider
+      it strange that not a single soldier had made his appearance. So he
+      reached home in a very uneasy state of mind. Felicite, still petulant and
+      full of courage, became quite angry at seeing him upset by such silly
+      trifles. Over the dessert she comforted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you great simpleton,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;so much the better, if the prefect
+      does forget us! We shall save the town by ourselves. For my part, I should
+      like to see the insurgents return, so that we might receive them with
+      bullets and cover ourselves with glory. Listen to me, go and have the
+      gates closed, and don&rsquo;t go to bed; bustle about all night; it will all be
+      taken into account later on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre returned to the town-hall in rather more cheerful spirits. He
+      required some courage to remain firm amidst the woeful maunderings of his
+      colleagues. The members of the Provisional Commission seemed to reek with
+      panic, just as they might with damp in the rainy season. They all
+      professed to have counted upon the despatch of a regiment, and began to
+      exclaim that brave citizens ought not to be abandoned in such a manner to
+      the fury of the rabble. Pierre, to preserve peace, almost promised they
+      should have a regiment on the morrow. Then he announced, in a solemn
+      manner, that he was going to have the gates closed. This came as a relief.
+      Detachments of the national guards had to repair immediately to each gate
+      and double-lock it. When they had returned, several members confessed that
+      they really felt more comfortable; and when Pierre remarked that the
+      critical situation of the town imposed upon them the duty of remaining at
+      their posts, some of them made arrangements with the view of spending the
+      night in an arm-chair. Granoux put on a black silk skull cap which he had
+      brought with him by way of precaution. Towards eleven o&rsquo;clock, half of the
+      gentlemen were sleeping round Monsieur Garconnet&rsquo;s writing table. Those
+      who still managed to keep their eyes open fancied, as they listened to the
+      measured tramp of the national guards in the courtyard, that they were
+      heroes and were receiving decorations. A large lamp, placed on the
+      writing-table, illumined this strange vigil. All at once, however, Rougon,
+      who had seemed to be slumbering, jumped up, and sent for Vuillet. He had
+      just remembered that he had not received the &ldquo;Gazette.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bookseller made his appearance in a very bad humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; Rougon asked him as he took him aside, &ldquo;what about the article you
+      promised me? I haven&rsquo;t seen the paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that what you disturbed me for?&rdquo; Vuillet angrily retorted. &ldquo;The
+      &lsquo;Gazette&rsquo; has not been issued; I&rsquo;ve no desire to get myself murdered
+      to-morrow, should the insurgents come back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon tried to smile as he declared that, thank heaven, nobody would be
+      murdered at all. It was precisely because false and disquieting rumours
+      were running about that the article in question would have rendered great
+      service to the good cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly,&rdquo; Vuillet resumed; &ldquo;but the best of causes at the present time
+      is to keep one&rsquo;s head on one&rsquo;s shoulders.&rdquo; And he added, with
+      maliciousness, &ldquo;And I was under the impression you had killed all the
+      insurgents! You&rsquo;ve left too many of them for me to run any risk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon, when he was alone again, felt amazed at this mutiny on the part of
+      a man who was usually so meek and mild. Vuillet&rsquo;s conduct seemed to him
+      suspicious. But he had no time to seek an explanation; he had scarcely
+      stretched himself out afresh in his arm-chair, when Roudier entered, with
+      a big sabre, which he had attached to his belt, clattering noisily against
+      his legs. The sleepers awoke in a fright. Granoux thought it was a call to
+      arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? what! What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo; he asked, as he hastily put his black silk
+      cap into his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said Roudier, breathlessly, without thinking of taking any
+      oratorical precautions, &ldquo;I believe that a band of insurgents is
+      approaching the town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words were received with the silence of terror. Rougon alone had the
+      strength to ask, &ldquo;Have you seen them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; the retired hosier replied; &ldquo;but we hear strange noises out in the
+      country; one of my men assured me that he had seen fires along the slope
+      of the Garrigues.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, as all the gentlemen stared at each other white and speechless,
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll return to my post,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I fear an attack. You had better
+      take precautions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon would have followed him, to obtain further particulars, but he was
+      already too far away. After this the Commission was by no means inclined
+      to go to sleep again. Strange noises! Fires! An attack! And in the middle
+      of the night too! It was very easy to talk of taking precautions, but what
+      were they to do? Granoux was very near advising the course which had
+      proved so successful the previous evening: that is of hiding themselves,
+      waiting till the insurgents has passed through Plassans, and then
+      triumphing in the deserted streets. Pierre, however, fortunately
+      remembering his wife&rsquo;s advice, said that Roudier might have made a
+      mistake, and that the best thing would be to go and see for themselves.
+      Some of the members made a wry face at this suggestion; but when it had
+      been agreed that an armed escort should accompany the Commission, they all
+      descended very courageously. They only left a few men downstairs; they
+      surrounded themselves with about thirty of the national guards, and then
+      they ventured into the slumbering town, where the moon, creeping over the
+      house roofs, slowly cast lengthened shadows. They went along the ramparts,
+      from one gate to the other, seeing nothing and hearing nothing. The
+      national guards at the various posts certainly told them that peculiar
+      sounds occasionally reached them from the country through the closed
+      gates. When they strained their ears, however, they detected nothing but a
+      distant murmur, which Granoux said was merely the noise of the Viorne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless they remained doubtful. And they were about to return to the
+      town-hall in a state of alarm, though they made a show of shrugging their
+      shoulders and of treating Roudier as a poltroon and a dreamer, when
+      Rougon, anxious to reassure them, thought of enabling them to view the
+      plain over a distance of several leagues. Thereupon he led the little
+      company to the Saint-Marc quarter and knocked at the door of the
+      Valqueyras mansion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the very outset of the disturbances Count de Valqueyras had left for
+      his chateau at Corbiere. There was no one but the Marquis de Carnavant at
+      the Plassans house. He, since the previous evening, had prudently kept
+      aloof; not that he was afraid, but because he did not care to be seen
+      plotting with the Rougons at the critical moment. As a matter of fact, he
+      was burning with curiosity. He had been compelled to shut himself up in
+      order to resist the temptation of hastening to the yellow drawing-room.
+      When the footman came to tell him, in the middle of the night, that there
+      were some gentlemen below asking for him, he could not hold back any
+      longer. He got up and went downstairs in all haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Marquis,&rdquo; said Rougon, as he introduced to him the members of the
+      Municipal Commission, &ldquo;we want to ask a favour of you. Will you allow us
+      to go into the garden of the mansion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By all means,&rdquo; replied the astonished marquis, &ldquo;I will conduct you there
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the way thither he ascertained what their object was. At the end of the
+      garden rose a terrace which overlooked the plain. A large portion of the
+      ramparts had there tumbled in, leaving a boundless prospect to the view.
+      It had occurred to Rougon that this would serve as an excellent post of
+      observation. While conversing together the members of the Commission
+      leaned over the parapet. The strange spectacle that spread out before them
+      soon made them silent. In the distance, in the valley of the Viorne,
+      across the vast hollow which stretched westward between the chain of the
+      Garrigues and the mountains of the Seille, the rays of the moon were
+      streaming like a river of pale light. The clumps of trees, the gloomy
+      rocks, looked, here and there, like islets and tongues of land, emerging
+      from a luminous sea; and, according to the bends of the Viorne one could
+      now and again distinguish detached portions of the river, glittering like
+      armour amidst the fine silvery dust falling from the firmament. It all
+      looked like an ocean, a world, magnified by the darkness, the cold, and
+      their own secret fears. At first the gentlemen could neither hear nor see
+      anything. The quiver of light and of distant sound blinded their eyes and
+      confused their ears. Granoux, though he was not naturally poetic, was
+      struck by the calm serenity of that winter night, and murmured: &ldquo;What a
+      beautiful night, gentlemen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Roudier was certainly dreaming,&rdquo; exclaimed Rougon, rather disdainfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the marquis, whose ears were quick, had begun to listen. &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he
+      observed in his clear voice, &ldquo;I hear the tocsin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this they all leant over the parapet, holding their breath. And light
+      and pure as crystal the distant tolling of a bell rose from the plain. The
+      gentlemen could not deny it. It was indeed the tocsin. Rougon pretended
+      that he recognised the bell of Beage, a village fully a league from
+      Plassans. This he said in order to reassure his colleagues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the marquis interrupted him. &ldquo;Listen, listen: this time it is the bell
+      of Saint-Maur.&rdquo; And he indicated another point of the horizon to them.
+      There was, in fact, a second bell wailing through the clear night. And
+      very soon there were ten bells, twenty bells, whose despairing tollings
+      were detected by their ears, which had by this time grown accustomed to
+      the quivering of the darkness. Ominous calls rose from all sides, like the
+      faint rattles of dying men. Soon the whole plain seemed to be wailing. The
+      gentlemen no longer jeered at Roudier; particularly as the marquis, who
+      took a malicious delight in terrifying them, was kind enough to explain
+      the cause of all this bell-ringing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the neighbouring villages,&rdquo; he said to Rougon, &ldquo;banding together to
+      attack Plassans at daybreak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this Granoux opened his eyes wide. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you see something just this
+      moment over there?&rdquo; he asked all of a sudden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody had looked; the gentlemen had been keeping their eyes closed in
+      order to hear the better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! look!&rdquo; he resumed after a short pause. &ldquo;There, beyond the Viorne,
+      near that black mass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I see,&rdquo; replied Rougon, in despair; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a fire they&rsquo;re kindling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A moment later another fire appeared almost immediately in front of the
+      first one, then a third, and a fourth. In this wise red splotches appeared
+      at nearly equal distances throughout the whole length of the valley,
+      resembling the lamps of some gigantic avenue. The moonlight, which dimmed
+      their radiance, made them look like pools of blood. This melancholy
+      illumination gave a finishing touch to the consternation of the Municipal
+      Commission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course!&rdquo; the marquis muttered, with his bitterest sneer, &ldquo;those
+      brigands are signalling to each other.&rdquo; And he counted the fires
+      complacently, to get some idea, he said, as to how many men &ldquo;the brave
+      national guard of Plassans&rdquo; would have to deal with. Rougon endeavoured to
+      raise doubts by saying the villages were taking up arms in order to join
+      the army of the insurgents, and not for the purpose of attacking the town.
+      But the gentlemen, by their silent consternation, made it clear that they
+      had formed their own opinion, and were not to be consoled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can hear the &lsquo;Marseillaise&rsquo; now,&rdquo; remarked Granoux in a hushed voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was indeed true. A detachment must have been following the course of
+      the Viorne, passing, at that moment, just under the town. The cry, &ldquo;To
+      arms, citizens! Form your battalions!&rdquo; reached the on-lookers in sudden
+      bursts with vibrating distinctness. Ah! what an awful night it was! The
+      gentlemen spent it leaning over the parapet of the terrace, numbed by the
+      terrible cold, and yet quite unable to tear themselves away from the sight
+      of that plain which resounded with the tocsin and the &ldquo;Marseillaise,&rdquo; and
+      was all ablaze with signal-fires. They feasted their eyes upon that sea of
+      light, flecked with blood-red flames; and they strained their ears in
+      order to listen to the confused clamour, till at last their senses began
+      to deceive them, and they saw and heard the most frightful things. Nothing
+      in the world would have induced them to leave the spot. If they had turned
+      their backs, they would have fancied that a whole army was at their heels.
+      After the manner of a certain class of cowards, they wished to witness the
+      approach of the danger, in order that they might take flight at the right
+      moment. Towards morning, when the moon had set and they could see nothing
+      in front of them but a dark void, they fell into a terrible fright. They
+      fancied they were surrounded by invisible enemies, who were crawling along
+      in the darkness, ready to fly at their throats. At the slightest noise
+      they imagined there were enemies deliberating beneath the terrace, prior
+      to scaling it. Yet there was nothing, nothing but darkness upon which they
+      fixed their eyes distractedly. The marquis, as if to console them, said in
+      his ironical way: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be uneasy! They will certainly wait till
+      daybreak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Rougon cursed and swore. He felt himself again giving way to
+      fear. As for Granoux, his hair turned completely white. At last the dawn
+      appeared with weary slowness. This again was a terribly anxious moment.
+      The gentlemen, at the first ray of light, expected to see an army drawn up
+      in line before the town. It so happened that day that the dawn was lazy
+      and lingered awhile on the edge of the horizon. With outstretched necks
+      and fixed gaze, the party on the terrace peered anxiously into the misty
+      expanse. In the uncertain light they fancied they caught glimpses of
+      colossal profiles, the plain seemed to be transformed into a lake of
+      blood, the rocks looked like corpses floating on its surface, and the
+      clusters of trees took the forms of battalions drawn up and threatening
+      attack. When the growing light had at last dispersed these phantoms, the
+      morning broke so pale, so mournful, so melancholy, that even the marquis&rsquo;s
+      spirits sank. Not a single insurgent was to be seen, and the high roads
+      were free; but the grey valley wore a gruesomely sad and deserted aspect.
+      The fires had now gone out, but the bells still rang on. Towards eight
+      o&rsquo;clock, Rougon observed a small party of men who were moving off along
+      the Viorne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time the gentlemen were half dead with cold and fatigue. Seeing no
+      immediate danger, they determined to take a few hours&rsquo; rest. A national
+      guard was left on the terrace as a sentinel, with orders to run and inform
+      Roudier if he should perceive any band approaching in the distance. Then
+      Granoux and Rougon, quite worn out by the emotions of the night, repaired
+      to their homes, which were close together, and supported each other on the
+      way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite put her husband to bed with every care. She called him &ldquo;poor
+      dear,&rdquo; and repeatedly told him that he ought not to give way to evil
+      fancies, and that all would end well. But he shook his head; he felt grave
+      apprehensions. She let him sleep till eleven o&rsquo;clock. Then, after he had
+      had something to eat, she gently turned him out of doors, making him
+      understand that he must go through with the matter to the end. At the
+      town-hall, Rougon found only four members of the Commission in attendance;
+      the others had sent excuses, they were really ill. Panic had been sweeping
+      through the town with growing violence all through the morning. The
+      gentlemen had not been able to keep quiet respecting the memorable night
+      they had spent on the terrace of the Valqueyras mansion. Their servants
+      had hastened to spread the news, embellishing it with various dramatic
+      details. By this time it had already become a matter of history that from
+      the heights of Plassans troops of cannibals had been seen dancing and
+      devouring their prisoners. Yes, bands of witches had circled hand in hand
+      round their caldrons in which they were boiling children, while on and on
+      marched endless files of bandits, whose weapons glittered in the
+      moonlight. People spoke too of bells that of their own accord, sent the
+      tocsin ringing through the desolate air, and it was even asserted that the
+      insurgents had fired the neighbouring forests, so that the whole country
+      side was in flames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Tuesday, the market-day at Plassans, and Roudier had thought it
+      necessary to have the gates opened in order to admit the few peasants who
+      had brought vegetables, butter, and eggs. As soon as it had assembled, the
+      Municipal Commission, now composed of five members only, including its
+      president, declared that this was unpardonable imprudence. Although the
+      sentinel stationed at the Valqueyras mansion had seen nothing, the town
+      ought to have been kept closed. Then Rougon decided that the public crier,
+      accompanied by a drummer, should go through the streets, proclaim a state
+      of siege, and announce to the inhabitants that whoever might go out would
+      not be allowed to return. The gates were officially closed in broad
+      daylight. This measure, adopted in order to reassure the inhabitants,
+      raised the scare to its highest pitch. And there could scarcely have been
+      a more curious sight than that of this little city, thus padlocking and
+      bolting itself up beneath the bright sunshine, in the middle of the
+      nineteenth century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Plassans had buckled and tightened its belt of dilapidated ramparts,
+      when it had bolted itself in like a besieged fortress at the approach of
+      an assault, the most terrible anguish passed over the mournful houses. At
+      every moment, in the centre of the town, people fancied they could hear a
+      discharge of musketry in the Faubourgs. They no longer received any news;
+      they were, so to say, at the bottom of a cellar, in a walled hole, where
+      they were anxiously awaiting either deliverance or the finishing stroke.
+      For the last two days the insurgents, who were scouring the country, had
+      cut off all communication. Plassans found itself isolated from the rest of
+      France. It felt that it was surrounded by a region in open rebellion,
+      where the tocsin was ever ringing and the &ldquo;Marseillaise&rdquo; was ever roaring
+      like a river that has overflowed its banks. Abandoned to its fate and
+      shuddering with alarm the town lay there like some prey which would prove
+      the reward of the victorious party. The strollers on the Cours Sauvaire
+      were ever swaying between fear and hope according as they fancied that
+      they could see the blouses of insurgents or the uniforms of soldiers at
+      the Grand&rsquo;-Porte. Never had sub-prefecture, pent within tumble-down walls,
+      endured more agonising torture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards two o&rsquo;clock it was rumoured that the Coup d&rsquo;Etat had failed, that
+      the prince-president was imprisoned at Vincennes, and that Paris was in
+      the hands of the most advanced demagogues. It was reported also that
+      Marseilles, Toulon, Draguignan, the entire South, belonged to the
+      victorious insurrectionary army. The insurgents would arrive in the
+      evening and put Plassans to the sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon a deputation repaired to the town-hall to expostulate with the
+      Municipal Commission for closing the gates, whereby they would only
+      irritate the insurgents. Rougon, who was losing his head, defended his
+      order with all his remaining strength. This locking of the gates seemed to
+      him one of the most ingenious acts of his administration; he advanced the
+      most convincing arguments in its justification. But the others embarrassed
+      him by their questions, asking him where were the soldiers, the regiment
+      that he had promised. Then he began to lie, and told them flatly that he
+      had promised nothing at all. The non-appearance of this legendary
+      regiment, which the inhabitants longed for with such eagerness that they
+      had actually dreamt of its arrival, was the chief cause of the panic.
+      Well-informed people even named the exact spot on the high road where the
+      soldiers had been butchered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At four o&rsquo;clock Rougon, followed by Granoux, again repaired to the
+      Valqueyras mansion. Small bands, on their way to join the insurgents at
+      Orcheres, still passed along in the distance, through the valley of the
+      Viorne. Throughout the day urchins climbed the ramparts, and bourgeois
+      came to peep through the loopholes. These volunteer sentinels kept up the
+      terror by counting the various bands, which were taken for so many strong
+      battalions. The timorous population fancied it could see from the
+      battlements the preparations for some universal massacre. At dusk, as on
+      the previous evening, the panic became yet more chilling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On returning to the municipal offices Rougon and his inseparable
+      companion, Granoux, recognised that the situation was growing intolerable.
+      During their absence another member of the Commission had disappeared.
+      They were only four now, and they felt they were making themselves
+      ridiculous by staying there for hours, looking at each other&rsquo;s pale
+      countenances, and never saying a word. Moreover, they were terribly afraid
+      of having to spend a second night on the terrace of the Valqueyras
+      mansion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon gravely declared that as the situation of affairs was unchanged,
+      there was no need for them to continue to remain there <i>en permanence</i>.
+      If anything serious should occur information would be sent to them. And,
+      by a decision duly taken in council, he deputed to Roudier the carrying on
+      of the administration. Poor Roudier, who remembered that he had served as
+      a national guard in Paris under Louis-Philippe, was meantime
+      conscientiously keeping watch at the Grand&rsquo;-Porte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon went home looking very downcast, and creeping along under the
+      shadows of the houses. He felt that Plassans was becoming hostile to him.
+      He heard his name bandied about amongst the groups, with expressions of
+      anger and contempt. He walked upstairs, reeling and perspiring. Felicite
+      received him with speechless consternation. She, also, was beginning to
+      despair. Their dreams were being completely shattered. They stood silent,
+      face to face, in the yellow drawing-room. The day was drawing to a close,
+      a murky winter day which imparted a muddy tint to the orange-coloured
+      wall-paper with its large flower pattern; never had the room looked more
+      faded, more mean, more shabby. And at this hour they were alone; they no
+      longer had a crowd of courtiers congratulating them, as on the previous
+      evening. A single day had sufficed to topple them over, at the very moment
+      when they were singing victory. If the situation did not change on the
+      morrow their game would be lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite who, when gazing on the previous evening at the ruins of the
+      yellow drawing-room, had thought of the plains of Austerlitz, now recalled
+      the accursed field of Waterloo as she observed how mournful and deserted
+      the place was. Then, as her husband said nothing, she mechanically went to
+      the window&mdash;that window where she had inhaled with delight the
+      incense of the entire town. She perceived numerous groups below on the
+      square, but she closed the blinds upon seeing some heads turn towards
+      their house, for she feared that she might be hooted. She felt quite sure
+      that those people were speaking about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, voices rose through the twilight. A lawyer was clamouring in the
+      tone of a triumphant pleader. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I said; the insurgents
+      left of their own accord, and they won&rsquo;t ask the permission of the
+      forty-one to come back. The forty-one indeed! a fine farce! Why, I believe
+      there were at least two hundred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed,&rdquo; said a burly trader, an oil-dealer and a great politician,
+      &ldquo;there were probably not even ten. There was no fighting or else we should
+      have seen some blood in the morning. I went to the town-hall myself to
+      look; the courtyard was as clean as my hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a workman, who stepped timidly up to the group, added: &ldquo;There was no
+      need of any violence to seize the building; the door wasn&rsquo;t even shut.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This remark was received with laughter, and the workman, thus encouraged,
+      continued: &ldquo;As for those Rougons, everybody knows that they are a bad
+      lot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This insult pierced Felicite to the heart. The ingratitude of the people
+      was heartrending to her, for she herself was at last beginning to believe
+      in the mission of the Rougons. She called for her husband. She wanted him
+      to learn how fickle was the multitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all a piece with their mirror,&rdquo; continued the lawyer. &ldquo;What a fuss
+      they made about that broken glass! You know that Rougon is quite capable
+      of having fired his gun at it just to make believe there had been a
+      battle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre restrained a cry of pain. What! they did not even believe in his
+      mirror now! They would soon assert that he had not heard a bullet whiz
+      past his ear. The legend of the Rougons would be blotted out; nothing
+      would remain of their glory. But his torture was not at an end yet. The
+      groups manifested their hostility as heartily as they had displayed their
+      approval on the previous evening. A retired hatter, an old man seventy
+      years of age, whose factory had formerly been in the Faubourg, ferreted
+      out the Rougons&rsquo; past history. He spoke vaguely, with the hesitation of a
+      wandering memory, about the Fouques&rsquo; property, and Adelaide, and her
+      amours with a smuggler. He said just enough to give a fresh start to the
+      gossip. The tattlers drew closer together and such words as &ldquo;rogues,&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;thieves,&rdquo; and &ldquo;shameless intriguers,&rdquo; ascended to the shutter behind
+      which Pierre and Felicite were perspiring with fear and indignation. The
+      people on the square even went so far as to pity Macquart. This was the
+      final blow. On the previous day Rougon had been a Brutus, a stoic soul
+      sacrificing his own affections to his country; now he was nothing but an
+      ambitious villain, who felled his brother to the ground and made use of
+      him as a stepping-stone to fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hear, you hear them?&rdquo; Pierre murmured in a stifled voice. &ldquo;Ah! the
+      scoundrels, they are killing us; we shall never retrieve ourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite, enraged, was beating a tattoo on the shutter with her impatient
+      fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let them talk,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;If we get the upper hand again they shall
+      see what stuff I&rsquo;m made of. I know where the blow comes from. The new town
+      hates us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She guessed rightly. The sudden unpopularity of the Rougons was the work
+      of a group of lawyers who were very much annoyed at the importance
+      acquired by an old illiterate oil-dealer, whose house had been on the
+      verge of bankruptcy. The Saint-Marc quarter had shown no sign of life for
+      the last two days. The inhabitants of the old quarter and the new town
+      alone remained in presence, and the latter had taken advantage of the
+      panic to injure the yellow drawing-room in the minds of the tradespeople
+      and working-classes. Roudier and Granoux were said to be excellent men,
+      honourable citizens, who had been led away by the Rougons&rsquo; intrigues.
+      Their eyes ought to be opened to it. Ought not Monsieur Isidore Granoux to
+      be seated in the mayor&rsquo;s arm-chair, in the place of that big portly beggar
+      who had not a copper to bless himself with? Thus launched, the envious
+      folks began to reproach Rougon for all the acts of his administration,
+      which only dated from the previous evening. He had no right to retain the
+      services of the former Municipal Council; he had been guilty of grave
+      folly in ordering the gates to be closed; it was through his stupidity
+      that five members of the Commission had contracted inflammation of the
+      lungs on the terrace of the Valqueyras mansion. There was no end to his
+      faults. The Republicans likewise raised their heads. They talked of the
+      possibility of a sudden attack upon the town-hall by the workmen of the
+      Faubourg. The reaction was at its last gasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre, at this overthrow of all his hopes, began to wonder what support
+      he might still rely on if occasion should require any.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t Aristide to come here this evening,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;to make it up with
+      us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Felicite. &ldquo;He promised me a good article. The
+      &lsquo;Independant&rsquo; has not appeared yet&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But her husband interrupted her, crying: &ldquo;See! isn&rsquo;t that he who is just
+      coming out of the Sub-Prefecture?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman glanced in that direction. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got his arm in a sling
+      again!&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aristide&rsquo;s hand was indeed wrapped in the silk handkerchief once more. The
+      Empire was breaking up, but the Republic was not yet triumphant, and he
+      had judged it prudent to resume the part of a disabled man. He crossed the
+      square stealthily, without raising his head. Then doubtless hearing some
+      dangerous and compromising remarks among the groups of bystanders, he made
+      all haste to turn the corner of the Rue de la Banne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah! he won&rsquo;t come here,&rdquo; said Felicite bitterly. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all up with us.
+      Even our children forsake us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shut the window violently, in order that she might not see or hear
+      anything more. When she had lit the lamp, she and her husband sat down to
+      dinner, disheartened and without appetite, leaving most of their food on
+      their plates. They only had a few hours left them to take a decisive step.
+      It was absolutely indispensable that before daybreak Plassans should be at
+      their feet beseeching forgiveness, or else they must entirely renounce the
+      fortune which they had dreamed of. The total absence of any reliable news
+      was the sole cause of their anxious indecision. Felicite, with her clear
+      intellect, had quickly perceived this. If they had been able to learn the
+      result of the Coup d&rsquo;Etat, they would either have faced it out and have
+      still pursued their role of deliverers, or else have done what they could
+      to efface all recollection of their unlucky campaign. But they had no
+      precise information; they were losing their heads; the thought that they
+      were thus risking their fortune on a throw, in complete ignorance of what
+      was happening, brought a cold perspiration to their brows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why the devil doesn&rsquo;t Eugene write to me?&rdquo; Rougon suddenly cried, in
+      an outburst of despair, forgetting that he was betraying the secret of his
+      correspondence to his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Felicite pretended not to have heard. Her husband&rsquo;s exclamation had
+      profoundly affected her. Why, indeed, did not Eugene write to his father?
+      After keeping him so accurately informed of the progress of the
+      Bonapartist cause, he ought at least to have announced the triumph or
+      defeat of Prince Louis. Mere prudence would have counselled the despatch
+      of such information. If he remained silent, it must be that the victorious
+      Republic had sent him to join the pretender in the dungeons of Vincennes.
+      At this thought Felicite felt chilled to the marrow; her son&rsquo;s silence
+      destroyed her last hopes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment somebody brought up the &ldquo;Gazette,&rdquo; which had only just
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Pierre, with surprise. &ldquo;Vuillet has issued his paper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon he tore off the wrapper, read the leading article, and finished
+      it looking as white as a sheet, and swaying on his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, read,&rdquo; he resumed, handing the paper to Felicite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a magnificent article, attacking the insurgents with unheard of
+      violence. Never had so much stinging bitterness, so many falsehoods, such
+      bigoted abuse flowed from pen before. Vuillet commenced by narrating the
+      entry of the insurgents into Plassans. The description was a perfect
+      masterpiece. He spoke of &ldquo;those bandits, those villainous-looking
+      countenances, that scum of the galleys,&rdquo; invading the town, &ldquo;intoxicated
+      with brandy, lust, and pillage.&rdquo; Then he exhibited them &ldquo;parading their
+      cynicism in the streets, terrifying the inhabitants with their savage
+      cries and seeking only violence and murder.&rdquo; Further on, the scene at the
+      town-hall and the arrest of the authorities became a most horrible drama.
+      &ldquo;Then they seized the most respectable people by the throat; and the
+      mayor, the brave commander of the national guard, the postmaster, that
+      kindly functionary, were&mdash;even like the Divinity&mdash;crowned with
+      thorns by those wretches, who spat in their faces.&rdquo; The passage devoted to
+      Miette and her red pelisse was quite a flight of imagination. Vuillet had
+      seen ten, twenty girls steeped in blood: &ldquo;and who,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;did not
+      behold among those monsters some infamous creatures clothed in red, who
+      must have bathed themselves in the blood of the martyrs murdered by the
+      brigands along the high roads? They were brandishing banners, and openly
+      receiving the vile caresses of the entire horde.&rdquo; And Vuillet added, with
+      Biblical magniloquence, &ldquo;The Republic ever marches on amidst debauchery
+      and murder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That, however, was only the first part of the article; the narrative being
+      ended, the editor asked if the country would any longer tolerate &ldquo;the
+      shamelessness of those wild beasts, who respected neither property nor
+      persons.&rdquo; He made an appeal to all valorous citizens, declaring that to
+      tolerate such things any longer would be to encourage them, and that the
+      insurgents would then come and snatch &ldquo;the daughter from her mother&rsquo;s
+      arms, the wife from her husband&rsquo;s embraces.&rdquo; And at last, after a pious
+      sentence in which he declared that Heaven willed the extermination of the
+      wicked, he concluded with this trumpet blast: &ldquo;It is asserted that these
+      wretches are once more at our gates; well then let each one of us take a
+      gun and shoot them down like dogs. I for my part shall be seen in the
+      front rank, happy to rid the earth of such vermin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This article, in which periphrastic abuse was strung together with all the
+      heaviness of touch which characterises French provincial journalism, quite
+      terrified Rougon, who muttered, as Felicite replaced the &ldquo;Gazette&rdquo; on the
+      table: &ldquo;Ah! the wretch! he is giving us the last blow; people will believe
+      that I inspired this diatribe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; his wife remarked, pensively, &ldquo;did you not this morning tell me
+      that he absolutely refused to write against the Republicans? The news that
+      circulated had terrified him, and he was as pale as death, you said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes! yes! I can&rsquo;t understand it at all. When I insisted, he went so far
+      as to reproach me for not having killed all the insurgents. It was
+      yesterday that he ought to have written that article; to-day he&rsquo;ll get us
+      all butchered!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite was lost in amazement. What could have prompted Vuillet&rsquo;s change
+      of front? The idea of that wretched semi-sacristan carrying a musket and
+      firing on the ramparts of Plassans seemed to her one of the most
+      ridiculous things imaginable. There was certainly some determining cause
+      underlying all this which escaped her. Only one thing seemed certain.
+      Vuillet was too impudent in his abuse and too ready with his valour, for
+      the insurrectionary band to be really so near the town as some people
+      asserted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a spiteful fellow, I always said so,&rdquo; Rougon resumed, after reading
+      the article again. &ldquo;He has only been waiting for an opportunity to do us
+      this injury. What a fool I was to leave him in charge of the post-office!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This last sentence proved a flash of light. Felicite started up quickly,
+      as though at some sudden thought. Then she put on a cap and threw a shawl
+      over her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going, pray?&rdquo; her husband asked her with surprise. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      past nine o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go to bed,&rdquo; she replied rather brusquely, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re not well; go and
+      rest yourself. Sleep on till I come back; I&rsquo;ll wake you if necessary, and
+      then we can talk the matter over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went out with her usual nimble gait, ran to the post-office, and
+      abruptly entered the room where Vuillet was still at work. On seeing her
+      he made a hasty gesture of vexation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never in his life had Vuillet felt so happy. Since he had been able to
+      slip his little fingers into the mail-bag he had enjoyed the most
+      exquisite pleasure, the pleasure of an inquisitive priest about to relish
+      the confessions of his penitents. All the sly blabbing, all the vague
+      chatter of sacristies resounded in his ears. He poked his long, pale nose
+      into the letters, gazed amorously at the superscriptions with his
+      suspicious eyes, sounded the envelopes just like little abbes sound the
+      souls of maidens. He experienced endless enjoyment, was titillated by the
+      most enticing temptation. The thousand secrets of Plassans lay there. He
+      held in his hand the honour of women, the fortunes of men, and had only to
+      break a seal to know as much as the grand vicar at the cathedral who was
+      the confidant of all the better people of the town. Vuillet was one of
+      those terribly bitter, frigid gossips, who worm out everything, but never
+      repeat what they hear, except by way of dealing somebody a mortal blow. He
+      had, consequently, often longed to dip his arms into the public
+      letter-box. Since the previous evening the private room at the post-office
+      had become a big confessional full of darkness and mystery, in which he
+      tasted exquisite rapture while sniffing at the letters which exhaled
+      veiled longings and quivering avowals. Moreover, he carried on his work
+      with consummate impudence. The crisis through which the country was
+      passing secured him perfect impunity. If some letters should be delayed,
+      or others should miscarry altogether, it would be the fault of those
+      villainous Republicans who were scouring the country and interrupting all
+      communication. The closing of the town gates had for a moment vexed him,
+      but he had come to an understanding with Roudier, whereby the couriers
+      were allowed to enter and bring the mails direct to him without passing by
+      the town-hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact he had only opened a few letters, the important ones,
+      those in which his keen scent divined some information which it would be
+      useful for him to know before anybody else. Then he contented himself by
+      locking up in a drawer, for delivery subsequently, such letters as might
+      give information and rob him of the merit of his valour at a time when the
+      whole town was trembling with fear. This pious personage, in selecting the
+      management of the post-office as his own share of the spoils, had given
+      proof of singular insight into the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Madame Rougon entered, he was taking his choice of a heap of letters
+      and papers, under the pretext, no doubt, of classifying them. He rose,
+      with his humble smile, and offered her a seat; his reddened eyelids
+      blinking rather uneasily. But Felicite did not sit down; she roughly
+      exclaimed: &ldquo;I want the letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this Vuillet&rsquo;s eyes opened widely, with an expression of perfect
+      innocence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What letter, madame?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The letter you received this morning for my husband. Come, Monsieur
+      Vuillet, I&rsquo;m in a hurry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as he stammered that he did not know, that he had not seen anything,
+      that it was very strange, Felicite continued in a covertly threatening
+      voice: &ldquo;A letter from Paris, from my son, Eugene; you know what I mean,
+      don&rsquo;t you? I&rsquo;ll look for it myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon she stepped forward as if intending to examine the various
+      packets which littered the writing table. But he at once bestirred
+      himself, and said he would go and see. The service was necessarily in
+      great confusion! Perhaps, indeed, there might be a letter. In that case
+      they would find it. But, as far as he was concerned, he swore he had not
+      seen any. While he was speaking he moved about the office turning over all
+      the papers. Then he opened the drawers and the portfolios. Felicite
+      waited, quite calm and collected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed, you&rsquo;re right, here&rsquo;s a letter for you,&rdquo; he cried at last, as
+      he took a few papers from a portfolio. &ldquo;Ah! those confounded clerks, they
+      take advantage of the situation to do nothing in the proper way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite took the letter and examined the seal attentively, apparently
+      quite regardless of the fact that such scrutiny might wound Vuillet&rsquo;s
+      susceptibilities. She clearly perceived that the envelope must have been
+      opened; the bookseller, in his unskilful way, had used some sealing wax of
+      a darker colour to secure it again. She took care to open the envelope in
+      such a manner as to preserve the seal intact, so that it might serve as
+      proof of this. Then she read the note. Eugene briefly announced the
+      complete success of the Coup d&rsquo;Etat. Paris was subdued, the provinces
+      generally speaking remained quiet, and he counselled his parents to
+      maintain a very firm attitude in face of the partial insurrection which
+      was disturbing the South. In conclusion he told them that the foundation
+      of their fortune was laid, if they did not weaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Rougon put the letter in her pocket, and sat down slowly, looking
+      into Vuillet&rsquo;s face. The latter had resumed his sorting in a feverish
+      manner, as though he were very busy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen to me, Monsieur Vuillet,&rdquo; she said to him. And when he raised his
+      head: &ldquo;let us play our cards openly; you do wrong to betray us; some
+      misfortune may befall you. If, instead of unsealing our letters&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this he protested, and feigned great indignation. But she calmly
+      continued: &ldquo;I know, I know your school, you never confess. Come, don&rsquo;t let
+      us waste any more words, what interest have you in favouring the Coup
+      d&rsquo;Etat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, as he continued to assert his perfect honesty, she at last lost
+      patience. &ldquo;You take me for a fool!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve read your article.
+      You would do much better to act in concert with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon, without avowing anything, he flatly submitted that he wished to
+      have the custom of the college. Formerly it was he who had supplied that
+      establishment with school books. But it had become known that he sold
+      objectionable literature clandestinely to the pupils; for which reason,
+      indeed, he had almost been prosecuted at the Correctional Police Court.
+      Since then he had jealously longed to be received back into the good
+      graces of the directors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite was surprised at the modesty of his ambition, and told him so. To
+      open letters and risk the galleys just for the sake of selling a few
+      dictionaries and grammars!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh!&rdquo; he exclaimed in a shrill voice, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s an assured sale of four or
+      five thousand francs a year. I don&rsquo;t aspire to impossibilities like some
+      people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not take any notice of his last taunting words. No more was said
+      about his opening the letters. A treaty of alliance was concluded, by
+      which Vuillet engaged that he would not circulate any news or take any
+      step in advance, on condition that the Rougons should secure him the
+      custom of the college. As she was leaving, Felicite advised him not to
+      compromise himself any further. It would be sufficient for him to detain
+      the letters and distribute them only on the second day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a knave,&rdquo; she muttered, when she reached the street, forgetting that
+      she herself had just laid an interdict upon the mail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went home slowly, wrapped in thought. She even went out of her way,
+      passing along the Cours Sauvaire, as if to gain time and ease for
+      reflection before going in. Under the trees of the promenade she met
+      Monsieur de Carnavant, who was taking advantage of the darkness to ferret
+      about the town without compromising himself. The clergy of Plassans, to
+      whom all energetic action was distasteful, had, since the announcement of
+      the Coup d&rsquo;Etat, preserved absolute neutrality. In the priests&rsquo; opinion
+      the Empire was virtually established, and they awaited an opportunity to
+      resume in some new direction their secular intrigues. The marquis, who had
+      now become a useless agent, remained only inquisitive on one point&mdash;he
+      wished to know how the turmoil would finish, and in what manner the
+      Rougons would play their role to the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! it&rsquo;s you, little one!&rdquo; he exclaimed, as soon as he recognized
+      Felicite. &ldquo;I wanted to see you; your affairs are getting muddled!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no; everything is going on all right,&rdquo; she replied, in an
+      absent-minded way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So much the better. You&rsquo;ll tell me all about it, won&rsquo;t you? Ah! I must
+      confess that I gave your husband and his colleagues a terrible fright the
+      other night. You should have seen how comical they looked on the terrace,
+      while I was pointing out a band of insurgents in every cluster of trees in
+      the valley! You forgive me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m much obliged to you,&rdquo; said Felicite quickly. &ldquo;You should have made
+      them die of fright. My husband is a big sly-boots. Come and see me some
+      morning, when I am alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she turned away, as though this meeting with the marquis had
+      determined her. From head to foot the whole of her little person betokened
+      implacable resolution. At last she was going to revenge herself on Pierre
+      for his petty mysteries, have him under her heel, and secure, once for
+      all, her omnipotence at home. There would be a fine scene, quite a comedy,
+      indeed, the points of which she was already enjoying in anticipation,
+      while she worked out her plan with all the spitefulness of an injured
+      woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She found Pierre in bed, sleeping heavily; she brought the candle near him
+      for an instant, and gazed with an air of compassion, at his big face,
+      across which slight twitches occasionally passed; then she sat down at the
+      head of the bed, took off her cap, let her hair fall loose, assumed the
+      appearance of one in despair, and began to sob quite loudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hallo! What&rsquo;s the matter? What are you crying for?&rdquo; asked Pierre,
+      suddenly awaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not reply, but cried more bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come, do answer,&rdquo; continued her husband, frightened by this mute
+      despair. &ldquo;Where have you been? Have you seen the insurgents?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head; then, in a faint voice, she said: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just come from
+      the Valqueyras mansion. I wanted to ask Monsieur de Carnavant&rsquo;s advice.
+      Ah! my dear, all is lost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre sat up in bed, very pale. His bull neck, which his unbuttoned
+      night-shirt exposed to view, all his soft, flabby flesh seemed to swell
+      with terror. At last he sank back, pale and tearful, looking like some
+      grotesque Chinese figure in the middle of the untidy bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The marquis,&rdquo; continued Felicite, &ldquo;thinks that Prince Louis has
+      succumbed. We are ruined; we shall never get a sou.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon, as often happens with cowards, Pierre flew into a passion. It
+      was the marquis&rsquo;s fault, it was his wife&rsquo;s fault, the fault of all his
+      family. Had he ever thought of politics at all, until Monsieur de
+      Carnavant and Felicite had driven him to that tomfoolery?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wash my hands of it altogether,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s you two who are
+      responsible for the blunder. Wasn&rsquo;t it better to go on living on our
+      little savings in peace and quietness? But then, you were always
+      determined to have your own way! You see what it has brought us to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was losing his head completely, and forgot that he had shown himself as
+      eager as his wife. However, his only desire now was to vent his anger, by
+      laying the blame of his ruin upon others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, moreover,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;could we ever have succeeded with children
+      like ours? Eugene abandons us just at the critical moment; Aristide has
+      dragged us through the mire, and even that big simpleton Pascal is
+      compromising us by his philanthropic practising among the insurgents. And
+      to think that we brought ourselves to poverty simply to give them a
+      university education!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, as he drew breath, Felicite said to him softly: &ldquo;You are forgetting
+      Macquart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! yes; I was forgetting him,&rdquo; he resumed more violently than ever;
+      &ldquo;there&rsquo;s another whom I can&rsquo;t think of without losing all patience! But
+      that&rsquo;s not all; you know little Silvere. Well, I saw him at my mother&rsquo;s
+      the other evening with his hands covered with blood. He has put some
+      gendarme&rsquo;s eye out. I did not tell you of it, as I didn&rsquo;t want to frighten
+      you. But you&rsquo;ll see one of my nephews in the Assize Court. Ah! what a
+      family! As for Macquart, he has annoyed us to such an extent that I felt
+      inclined to break his head for him the other day when I had a gun in my
+      hand. Yes, I had a mind to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite let the storm pass over. She had received her husband&rsquo;s
+      reproaches with angelic sweetness, bowing her head like a culprit, whereby
+      she was able to smile in her sleeve. Her demeanour provoked and maddened
+      Pierre. When speech failed the poor man, she heaved deep sighs, feigning
+      repentance; and then she repeated, in a disconsolate voice: &ldquo;Whatever
+      shall we do! Whatever shall we do! We are over head and ears in debt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s your fault!&rdquo; Pierre cried, with all his remaining strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Rougons, in fact, owed money on every side. The hope of approaching
+      success had made them forget all prudence. Since the beginning of 1851
+      they had gone so far as to entertain the frequenters of the yellow
+      drawing-room every evening with syrup and punch, and cakes&mdash;providing,
+      in fact, complete collations, at which they one and all drank to the death
+      of the Republic. Besides this, Pierre had placed a quarter of his capital
+      at the disposal of the reactionary party, as a contribution towards the
+      purchase of guns and cartridges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The pastry-cook&rsquo;s bill amounts to at least a thousand francs,&rdquo; Felicite
+      resumed, in her sweetest tone, &ldquo;and we probably owe twice as much to the
+      liqueur-dealer. Then there&rsquo;s the butcher, the baker, the greengrocer&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre was in agony. And Felicite struck him a final blow by adding: &ldquo;I
+      say nothing of the ten thousand francs you gave for the guns.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, I!&rdquo; he faltered, &ldquo;but I was deceived, I was robbed! It was that idiot
+      Sicardot who let me in for that by swearing that the Napoleonists would be
+      triumphant. I thought I was only making an advance. But the old dolt will
+      have to repay me my money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! you won&rsquo;t get anything back,&rdquo; said his wife, shrugging her shoulders.
+      &ldquo;We shall suffer the fate of war. When we have paid off everything, we
+      sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t even have enough to buy dry bread with. Ah! it&rsquo;s been a fine
+      campaign. We can now go and live in some hovel in the old quarter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This last phrase had a most lugubrious sound. It seemed like the knell of
+      their existence. Pierre pictured the hovel in the old quarter, which had
+      just been mentioned by Felicite. &lsquo;Twas there, then, that he would die on a
+      pallet, after striving all his life for the enjoyment of ease and luxury.
+      In vain had he robbed his mother, steeped his hands in the foulest
+      intrigues, and lied and lied for many a long year. The Empire would not
+      pay his debts&mdash;that Empire which alone could save him. He jumped out
+      of bed in his night-shirt, crying: &ldquo;No; I&rsquo;ll take my gun; I would rather
+      let the insurgents kill me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; Felicite rejoined, with great composure, &ldquo;you can have that done
+      to-morrow or the day after; the Republicans are not far off. And that way
+      will do as well as another to make an end of matters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre shuddered. It seemed as if some one had suddenly poured a large
+      pail of cold water over his shoulders. He slowly got into bed again, and
+      when he was warmly wrapped up in the sheets, he began to cry. This fat
+      fellow easily burst into tears&mdash;gently flowing, inexhaustible tears&mdash;which
+      streamed from his eyes without an effort. A terrible reaction was now
+      going on within him. After his wrath he became as weak as a child.
+      Felicite, who had been waiting for this crisis, was delighted to see him
+      so spiritless, so resourceless, and so humbled before her. She still
+      preserved silence, and an appearance of distressed humility. After a long
+      pause, her seeming resignation, her mute dejection, irritated Pierre&rsquo;s
+      nerves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But do say something!&rdquo; he implored; &ldquo;let us think matters over together.
+      Is there really no hope left us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None, you know very well,&rdquo; she replied; &ldquo;you explained the situation
+      yourself just now; we have no help to expect from anyone; even our
+      children have betrayed us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us flee, then. Shall we leave Plassans to-night&mdash;immediately?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flee! Why, my dear, to-morrow we should be the talk of the whole town.
+      Don&rsquo;t you remember, too, that you have had the gates closed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A violent struggle was going on in Pierre&rsquo;s mind, which he exerted to the
+      utmost in seeking for some solution; at last, as though he felt
+      vanquished, he murmured, in supplicating tones: &ldquo;I beseech you, do try to
+      think of something; you haven&rsquo;t said anything yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite raised her head, feigning surprise; and with a gesture of
+      complete powerlessness she said: &ldquo;I am a fool in these matters. I don&rsquo;t
+      understand anything about politics, you&rsquo;ve told me so a hundred times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, as her embarrassed husband held his tongue and lowered his eyes,
+      she continued slowly, but not reproachfully: &ldquo;You have not kept me
+      informed of your affairs, have you? I know nothing at all about them, I
+      can&rsquo;t even give you any advice. It was quite right of you, though; women
+      chatter sometimes, and it is a thousand times better for the men to steer
+      the ship alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said this with such refined irony that her husband did not detect that
+      she was deriding him. He simply felt profound remorse. And, all of a
+      sudden, he burst out into a confession. He spoke of Eugene&rsquo;s letters,
+      explained his plans, his conduct, with all the loquacity of a man who is
+      relieving his conscience and imploring a saviour. At every moment he broke
+      off to ask: &ldquo;What would you have done in my place?&rdquo; or else he cried,
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t that so? I was right, I could not act otherwise.&rdquo; But Felicite did
+      not even deign to make a sign. She listened with all the frigid reserve of
+      a judge. In reality she was tasting the most exquisite pleasure; she had
+      got that sly-boots fast at last; she played with him like a cat playing
+      with a ball of paper; and he virtually held out his hands to be manacled
+      by her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But wait,&rdquo; he said hastily, jumping out of bed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give you Eugene&rsquo;s
+      correspondence to read. You can judge the situation better then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She vainly tried to hold him back by his night-shirt. He spread out the
+      letters on the table by the bed-side, and then got into bed again, and
+      read whole pages of them, and compelled her to go through them herself.
+      She suppressed a smile, and began to feel some pity for the poor man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said anxiously, when he had finished, &ldquo;now you know everything.
+      Do you see any means of saving us from ruin!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She still gave no answer. She appeared to be pondering deeply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are an intelligent woman,&rdquo; he continued, in order to flatter her, &ldquo;I
+      did wrong in keeping any secret from you; I see it now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us say nothing more about that,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;In my opinion, if you
+      had enough courage&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; And as he looked at her eagerly, she
+      broke off and said, with a smile: &ldquo;But you promise not to distrust me any
+      more? You will tell me everything, eh? You will do nothing without
+      consulting me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He swore, and accepted the most rigid conditions. Felicite then got into
+      bed; and in a whisper, as if she feared somebody might hear them, she
+      explained at length her plan of campaign. In her opinion the town must be
+      allowed to fall into still greater panic, while Pierre was to maintain an
+      heroic demeanour in the midst of the terrified inhabitants. A secret
+      presentiment, she said, warned her that the insurgents were still at a
+      distance. Moreover, the party of order would sooner or later carry the
+      day, and the Rougons would be rewarded. After the role of deliverer, that
+      of martyr was not to be despised. And she argued so well, and spoke with
+      so much conviction, that her husband, surprised at first by the simplicity
+      of her plan, which consisted in facing it out, at last detected in it a
+      marvellous tactical scheme, and promised to conform to it with the
+      greatest possible courage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t forget that it is I who am saving you,&rdquo; the old woman murmured
+      in a coaxing tone. &ldquo;Will you be nice to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They kissed each other and said good-night. But neither of them slept;
+      after a quarter of an hour had gone by, Pierre, who had been gazing at the
+      round reflection of the night-lamp on the ceiling, turned, and in a faint
+      whisper told his wife of an idea that had just occurred to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! no, no,&rdquo; Felicite murmured, with a shudder. &ldquo;That would be too
+      cruel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he resumed, &ldquo;but you want to spread consternation among the
+      inhabitants! They would take me seriously, if what I told you should
+      occur.&rdquo; Then perfecting his scheme, he cried: &ldquo;We might employ Macquart.
+      That would be a means of getting rid of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite seemed to be struck with the idea. She reflected, seemed to
+      hesitate, and then, in a distressful tone faltered: &ldquo;Perhaps you are
+      right. We must see. After all we should be very stupid if we were
+      over-scrupulous, for it&rsquo;s a matter of life and death to us. Let me do it.
+      I&rsquo;ll see Macquart to-morrow, and ascertain if we can come to an
+      understanding with him. You would only wrangle and spoil all. Good-night;
+      sleep well, my poor dear. Our troubles will soon be ended, you&rsquo;ll see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They again kissed each other and fell asleep. The patch of light on the
+      ceiling now seemed to be assuming the shape of a terrified eye, that
+      stared wildly and fixedly upon the pale, slumbering couple who reeked with
+      crime beneath their very sheets, and dreamt they could see a rain of blood
+      falling in big drops which turned into golden coins as they plashed upon
+      the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morrow, before daylight, Felicite repaired to the town-hall, armed
+      with instructions from Pierre to seek an interview with Macquart. She took
+      her husband&rsquo;s national guard uniform with her, wrapped in a cloth. There
+      were only a few men fast asleep in the guard-house. The doorkeeper, who
+      was entrusted with the duty of supplying Macquart with food, went upstairs
+      with her to open the door of the dressing-room, which had been turned into
+      a cell. Then quietly he came down again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart had now been kept in the room for two days and two nights. He had
+      had time to indulge in lengthy reflections. After his sleep, his first
+      hours had been given up to outbursts of impotent rage. Goaded by the idea
+      that his brother was lording it in the adjoining room, he had felt a great
+      longing to break the door open. At all events he would strangle Rougon
+      with his own hands, as soon as the insurgents should return and release
+      him. But, in the evening, at twilight, he calmed down, and gave over
+      striding furiously round the little room. He inhaled a sweet odour there;
+      a feeling of comfort relaxed his nerves. Monsieur Garconnet, who was very
+      rich, refined, and vain, had caused this little room to be arranged in a
+      very elegant fashion; the sofa was soft and warm; scents, pomades, and
+      soaps adorned the marble washstand, and the pale light fell from the
+      ceiling with a soft glow, like the gleams of a lamp suspended in an
+      alcove. Macquart, amidst this perfumed soporific atmosphere fell asleep,
+      thinking that those scoundrels, the rich, &ldquo;were very fortunate, all the
+      same.&rdquo; He had covered himself with a blanket which had been given to him,
+      and with his head and back and arms reposing on the cushions, he stretched
+      himself out on the couch until morning. When he opened his eyes, a ray of
+      sunshine was gliding through the opening above. Still he did not leave the
+      sofa. He felt warm, and lay thinking as he gazed around him. He bethought
+      himself that he would never again have such a place to wash in. The
+      washstand particularly interested him. It was by no means hard, he
+      thought, to keep oneself spruce when one had so many little pots and
+      phials at one&rsquo;s disposal. This made him think bitterly of his own life of
+      privation. The idea occurred to him that perhaps he had been on the wrong
+      track. There is nothing to be gained by associating with beggars. He ought
+      to have played the scamp; he should have acted in concert with the
+      Rougons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, however, he rejected this idea. The Rougons were villains who had
+      robbed him. But the warmth and softness of the sofa, continued to work
+      upon his feelings, and fill him with vague regrets. After all, the
+      insurgents were abandoning him, and allowing themselves to be beaten like
+      idiots. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the Republic was mere
+      dupery. Those Rougons were lucky! And he recalled his own bootless
+      wickedness and underhand intrigues. Not one member of the family had ever
+      been on his side; neither Aristide, nor Silvere&rsquo;s brother, nor Silvere
+      himself, who was a fool to grow so enthusiastic about the Republic and
+      would never do any good for himself. Then Macquart reflected that his wife
+      was dead, that his children had left him, and that he would die alone,
+      like a dog in some wretched corner, without a copper to bless himself
+      with. Decidedly, he ought to have sold himself to the reactionary party.
+      Pondering in this fashion, he eyed the washstand, feeling a strong
+      inclination to go and wash his hands with a certain powder soap which he
+      saw in a glass jar. Like all lazy fellows who live upon their wives or
+      children, he had foppish tastes. Although he wore patched trousers, he
+      liked to inundate himself with aromatic oil. He spent hours with his
+      barber, who talked politics, and brushed his hair for him between their
+      discussions. So, at last, the temptation became too strong, and Macquart
+      installed himself before the washstand. He washed his hands and face,
+      dressed his hair, perfumed himself, in fact went through a complete
+      toilet. He made use in turn of all the bottles, all the various soaps and
+      powders; but his greatest pleasure was to dry his hands with the mayor&rsquo;s
+      towels, which were so soft and thick. He buried his wet face in them, and
+      inhaled, with delight, all the odour of wealth. Then, having pomaded
+      himself, and smelling sweetly from head to foot, he once more stretched
+      himself on the sofa, feeling quite youthful again, and disposed to the
+      most conciliatory thoughts. He felt yet greater contempt for the Republic
+      since he had dipped his nose into Monsieur Garconnet&rsquo;s phials. The idea
+      occurred to him that there was, perhaps, still time for him to make peace
+      with his brother. He wondered what he might well ask in return for playing
+      the traitor. His rancour against the Rougons still gnawed at his heart;
+      but he was in one of those moods when, lying on one&rsquo;s back in silence, one
+      is apt to admit stern facts, and scold oneself for neglecting to feather a
+      comfortable nest in which one may wallow in slothful ease, even at the
+      cost of relinquishing one&rsquo;s most cherished animosities. Towards evening
+      Antoine determined to send for his brother on the following day. But when,
+      in the morning, he saw Felicite enter the room he understood that his aid
+      was wanted, so he remained on his guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The negotiations were long and full of pitfalls, being conducted on either
+      side with infinite skill. At first they both indulged in vague complaints,
+      then Felicite, who was surprised to find Macquart almost polite, after the
+      violent manner in which he had behaved at her house on the Sunday evening,
+      assumed a tone of gentle reproach. She deplored the hatred which severed
+      their families. But, in truth, he had so calumniated his brother, and
+      manifested such bitter animosity towards him, that he had made poor Rougon
+      quite lose his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, dash it, my brother has never behaved like a brother to me,&rdquo;
+       Macquart replied, with restrained violence. &ldquo;Has he ever given me any
+      assistance? He would have let me die in my hovel! When he behaved
+      differently towards me&mdash;you remember, at the time he gave me two
+      hundred francs&mdash;I am sure no one can reproach me with having said a
+      single unpleasant word about him. I said everywhere that he was a very
+      good-hearted fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This clearly signified: &ldquo;If you had continued to supply me with money, I
+      should have been very pleasant towards you, and would have helped you,
+      instead of fighting against you. It&rsquo;s your own fault. You ought to have
+      bought me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite understood this so well that she replied: &ldquo;I know you have
+      accused us of being hard upon you, because you imagine we are in
+      comfortable circumstances; but you are mistaken, my dear brother; we are
+      poor people; we have never been able to act towards you as our hearts
+      would have desired.&rdquo; She hesitated a moment, and then continued: &ldquo;If it
+      were absolutely necessary in some serious contingency, we might perhaps be
+      able to make a sacrifice; but, truly, we are very poor, very poor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart pricked up his ears. &ldquo;I have them!&rdquo; he thought. Then, without
+      appearing to understand his sister-in-law&rsquo;s indirect offer, he detailed
+      the wretchedness of his life in a doleful manner, and spoke of his wife&rsquo;s
+      death and his children&rsquo;s flight. Felicite, on her side, referred to the
+      crisis through which the country was passing, and declared that the
+      Republic had completely ruined them. Then from word to word she began to
+      bemoan the exigencies of a situation which compelled one brother to
+      imprison another. How their hearts would bleed if justice refused to
+      release its prey! And finally she let slip the word &ldquo;galleys!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah! I defy you,&rdquo; said Macquart calmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she hastily exclaimed: &ldquo;Oh! I would rather redeem the honour of the
+      family with my own blood. I tell you all this to show you that we shall
+      not abandon you. I have come to give you the means of effecting your
+      escape, my dear Antoine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They gazed at each other for a moment, sounding each other with a look,
+      before engaging in the contest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unconditionally?&rdquo; he asked, at length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without any condition,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she sat down beside him on the sofa, and continued, in a determined
+      voice: &ldquo;And even, before crossing the frontier, if you want to earn a
+      thousand-franc note, I can put you in the way of doing so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it&rsquo;s all above board I shall have no objection,&rdquo; Antoine muttered,
+      apparently reflecting. &ldquo;You know I don&rsquo;t want to mix myself up with your
+      underhand dealings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there are no underhand dealings about it,&rdquo; Felicite resumed, smiling
+      at the old rascal&rsquo;s scruples. &ldquo;Nothing can be more simple: you will
+      presently leave this room, and go and conceal yourself in your mother&rsquo;s
+      house, and this evening you can assemble your friends and come and seize
+      the town-hall again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart did not conceal his extreme surprise. He did not understand it at
+      all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that you were victorious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I haven&rsquo;t got time now to tell you all about it,&rdquo; the old woman
+      replied, somewhat impatiently. &ldquo;Do you accept or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, no; I don&rsquo;t accept&mdash;I want to think it over. It would be very
+      stupid of me to risk a possible fortune for a thousand francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite rose. &ldquo;Just as you like my dear fellow,&rdquo; she said, coldly. &ldquo;You
+      don&rsquo;t seem to realise the position you are in. You came to my house and
+      treated me as though I were a mere outcast; and then, when I am kind
+      enough to hold out a hand to you in the hole into which you have stupidly
+      let yourself fall, you stand on ceremony, and refuse to be rescued. Well,
+      then, stay here, wait till the authorities come back. As for me, I wash my
+      hands of the whole business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words she reached the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But give me some explanations,&rdquo; he implored. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t strike a bargain
+      with you in perfect ignorance of everything. For two days past I have been
+      quite in the dark as to what&rsquo;s going on. How do I know that you are not
+      cheating me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah! you&rsquo;re a simpleton,&rdquo; replied Felicite, who had retraced her steps at
+      Antoine&rsquo;s doleful appeal. &ldquo;You are very foolish not to trust yourself
+      implicitly to us. A thousand francs! That&rsquo;s a fine sum, a sum that one
+      would only risk in a winning cause. I advise you to accept.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He still hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But when we want to seize the place, shall we be allowed to enter
+      quietly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; she said, with a smile. &ldquo;There will perhaps be a shot
+      or two fired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her fixedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, but I say, little woman,&rdquo; he resumed in a hoarse voice, &ldquo;you don&rsquo;t
+      intend, do you, to have a bullet lodged in my head?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite blushed. She was, in fact, just thinking that they would be
+      rendered a great service, if, during the attack on the town-hall, a bullet
+      should rid them of Antoine. It would be a gain of a thousand francs,
+      besides all the rest. So she muttered with irritation: &ldquo;What an idea!
+      Really, it&rsquo;s abominable to think such things!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, suddenly calming down, she added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you accept? You understand now, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart had understood perfectly. It was an ambush that they were
+      proposing to him. He did not perceive the reasons or the consequences of
+      it, and this was what induced him to haggle. After speaking of the
+      Republic as though it were a mistress whom, to his great grief, he could
+      no longer love, he recapitulated the risks which he would have to run, and
+      finished by asking for two thousand francs. But Felicite abided by her
+      original offer. They debated the matter until she promised to procure him,
+      on his return to France, some post in which he would have nothing to do,
+      and which would pay him well. The bargain was then concluded. She made him
+      don the uniform she had brought with her. He was to betake himself quietly
+      to aunt Dide&rsquo;s, and afterwards, towards midnight, assemble all the
+      Republicans he could in the neighbourhood of the town-hall, telling them
+      that the municipal offices were unguarded, and that they had only to push
+      open the door to take possession of them. Antoine then asked for earnest
+      money, and received two hundred francs. Felicite undertook to pay the
+      remaining eight hundred on the following day. The Rougons were risking the
+      last sum they had at their disposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Felicite had gone downstairs, she remained on the square for a moment
+      to watch Macquart go out. He passed the guard-house, quietly blowing his
+      nose. He had previously broken the skylight in the dressing-room, to make
+      it appear that he had escaped that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all arranged,&rdquo; Felicite said to her husband, when she returned home.
+      &ldquo;It will be at midnight. It doesn&rsquo;t matter to me at all now. I should like
+      to see them all shot. How they slandered us yesterday in the street!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was rather silly of you to hesitate,&rdquo; replied Pierre, who was shaving.
+      &ldquo;Every one would do the same in our place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That morning&mdash;it was a Wednesday&mdash;he was particularly careful
+      about his toilet. His wife combed his hair and tied his cravat, turning
+      him about like a child going to a distribution of prizes. And when he was
+      ready, she examined him, declared that he looked very nice, and that he
+      would make a very good figure in the midst of the serious events that were
+      preparing. His big pale face wore an expression of grave dignity and
+      heroic determination. She accompanied him to the first landing, giving him
+      her last advice: he was not to depart in any way from his courageous
+      demeanour, however great the panic might be; he was to have the gates
+      closed more hermetically than ever, and leave the town in agonies of
+      terror within its ramparts; it would be all the better if he were to
+      appear the only one willing to die for the cause of order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a day it was! The Rougons still speak of it as of a glorious and
+      decisive battle. Pierre went straight to the town-hall, heedless of the
+      looks or words that greeted him on his way. He installed himself there in
+      magisterial fashion, like a man who did not intend to quit the place,
+      whatever might happen. And he simply sent a note to Roudier, to advise him
+      that he was resuming authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep watch at the gates,&rdquo; he added, knowing that these lines might become
+      public: &ldquo;I myself will watch over the town and ensure the security of life
+      and property. It is at the moment when evil passions reappear and threaten
+      to prevail that good citizens should endeavour to stifle them, even at the
+      peril of their lives.&rdquo; The style, and the very errors in spelling, made
+      this note&mdash;the brevity of which suggested the laconic style of the
+      ancients&mdash;appear all the more heroic. Not one of the gentlemen of the
+      Provisional Commission put in an appearance. The last two who had hitherto
+      remained faithful, and Granoux himself, even, prudently stopped at home.
+      Thus Rougon was the only member of the Commission who remained at his
+      post, in his presidential arm-chair, all the others having vanished as the
+      panic increased. He did not even deign to issue an order summoning them to
+      attend. He was there, and that sufficed, a sublime spectacle, which a
+      local journal depicted later on in a sentence: &ldquo;Courage giving the hand to
+      duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      During the whole morning Pierre was seen animating the town-hall with his
+      goings and comings. He was absolutely alone in the large, empty building,
+      whose lofty halls reechoed with the noise of his heels. All the doors were
+      left open. He made an ostentatious show of his presidency over a
+      non-existent council in the midst of this desert, and appeared so deeply
+      impressed with the responsibility of his mission that the doorkeeper,
+      meeting him two or three times in the passages, bowed to him with an air
+      of mingled surprise and respect. He was seen, too, at every window, and,
+      in spite of the bitter cold, he appeared several times on the balcony with
+      bundles of papers in his hand, like a busy man attending to important
+      despatches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, towards noon, he passed through the town and visited the
+      guard-houses, speaking of a possible attack, and letting it be understood,
+      that the insurgents were not far off; but he relied, he said, on the
+      courage of the brave national guards. If necessary they must be ready to
+      die to the last man for the defence of the good cause. When he returned
+      from this round, slowly and solemnly, after the manner of a hero who has
+      set the affairs of his country in order, and now only awaits death, he
+      observed signs of perfect stupor along his path; the people promenading in
+      the Cours, the incorrigible little householders, whom no catastrophe would
+      have prevented from coming at certain hours to bask in the sun, looked at
+      him in amazement, as if they did not recognize him, and could not believe
+      that one of their own set, a former oil-dealer, should have the boldness
+      to face a whole army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the town the anxiety was at its height. The insurrectionists were
+      expected every moment. The rumour of Macquart&rsquo;s escape was commented upon
+      in a most alarming manner. It was asserted that he had been rescued by his
+      friends, the Reds, and that he was only waiting for nighttime in order to
+      fall upon the inhabitants and set fire to the four corners of the town.
+      Plassans, closed in and terror-stricken, gnawing at its own vitals within
+      its prison-like walls, no longer knew what to imagine in order to frighten
+      itself. The Republicans, in the face of Rougon&rsquo;s bold demeanour, felt for
+      a moment distrustful. As for the new town&mdash;the lawyers and retired
+      tradespeople who had denounced the yellow drawing-room on the previous
+      evening&mdash;they were so surprised that they dared not again openly
+      attack such a valiant man. They contented themselves with saying &ldquo;It was
+      madness to brave victorious insurgents like that, and such useless heroism
+      would bring the greatest misfortunes upon Plassans.&rdquo; Then, at about three
+      o&rsquo;clock, they organised a deputation. Pierre, though he was burning with
+      desire to make a display of his devotion before his fellow-citizens, had
+      not ventured to reckon upon such a fine opportunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke sublimely. It was in the mayor&rsquo;s private room that the president
+      of the Provisional Commission received the deputation from the new town.
+      The gentlemen of the deputation, after paying homage to his patriotism,
+      besought him to forego all resistance. But he, in a loud voice, talked of
+      duty, of his country, of order, of liberty, and various other things.
+      Moreover, he did not wish to compel any one to imitate him; he was simply
+      discharging a duty which his conscience and his heart dictated to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, gentlemen, I am alone,&rdquo; he said in conclusion. &ldquo;I will take all
+      the responsibility, so that nobody but myself may be compromised. And if a
+      victim is required I willingly offer myself; I wish to sacrifice my own
+      life for the safety of the inhabitants.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A notary, the wiseacre of the party, remarked that he was running to
+      certain death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; he resumed solemnly. &ldquo;I am prepared!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentlemen looked at each other. Those words &ldquo;I am prepared!&rdquo; filled
+      them with admiration. Decidedly this man was a brave fellow. The notary
+      implored him to call in the aid of the gendarmes; but he replied that the
+      blood of those brave soldiers was precious, and he would not have it shed,
+      except in the last extremity. The deputation slowly withdrew, feeling
+      deeply moved. An hour afterwards, Plassans was speaking of Rougon as of a
+      hero; the most cowardly called him &ldquo;an old fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards evening, Rougon was much surprised to see Granoux hasten to him.
+      The old almond-dealer threw himself in his arms, calling him &ldquo;great man,&rdquo;
+       and declaring that he would die with him. The words &ldquo;I am prepared!&rdquo; which
+      had just been reported to him by his maid-servant, who had heard it at the
+      greengrocer&rsquo;s, had made him quite enthusiastic. There was charming naivete
+      in the nature of this grotesque, timorous old man. Pierre kept him with
+      him, thinking that he would not be of much consequence. He was even
+      touched by the poor fellow&rsquo;s devotion, and resolved to have him publicly
+      complimented by the prefect, in order to rouse the envy of the other
+      citizens who had so cowardly abandoned him. And so both of them awaited
+      the night in the deserted building.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time Aristide was striding about at home in an uneasy manner.
+      Vuillet&rsquo;s article had astonished him. His father&rsquo;s demeanour stupefied
+      him. He had just caught sight of him at the window, in a white cravat and
+      black frock-coat, so calm at the approach of danger that all his ideas
+      were upset. Yet the insurgents were coming back triumphant, that was the
+      belief of the whole town. But Aristide felt some doubts on the point; he
+      had suspicions of some lugubrious farce. As he did not dare to present
+      himself at his parents&rsquo; house, he sent his wife thither. And when Angele
+      returned, she said to him, in her drawling voice: &ldquo;Your mother expects
+      you; she is not angry at all, she seems rather to be making fun of you.
+      She told me several times that you could just put your sling back in your
+      pocket.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aristide felt terribly vexed. However, he ran to the Rue de la Banne,
+      prepared to make the most humble submission. His mother was content to
+      receive him with scornful laughter. &ldquo;Ah! my poor fellow,&rdquo; said she,
+      &ldquo;you&rsquo;re certainly not very shrewd.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what can one do in a hole like Plassans!&rdquo; he angrily retorted. &ldquo;On my
+      word of honour, I am becoming a fool here. No news, and everybody
+      shivering! That&rsquo;s what it is to be shut up in these villainous ramparts.
+      Ah! If I had only been able to follow Eugene to Paris!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, seeing that his mother was still smiling, he added bitterly: &ldquo;You
+      haven&rsquo;t been very kind to me, mother. I know many things, I do. My brother
+      kept you informed of what was going on, and you have never given me the
+      faintest hint that might have been useful to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know that, do you?&rdquo; exclaimed Felicite, becoming serious and
+      distrustful. &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;re not so foolish as I thought, then. Do you open
+      letters like some one of my acquaintance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but I listen at doors,&rdquo; Aristide replied, with great assurance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This frankness did not displease the old woman. She began to smile again,
+      and asked more softly: &ldquo;Well, then, you blockhead, how is it you didn&rsquo;t
+      rally to us sooner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! that&rsquo;s where it is,&rdquo; the young man said, with some embarrassment. &ldquo;I
+      didn&rsquo;t have much confidence in you. You received such idiots: my
+      father-in-law, Granoux, and the others!&mdash;And then, I didn&rsquo;t want to
+      go too far. . . .&rdquo; He hesitated, and then resumed, with some uneasiness:
+      &ldquo;To-day you are at least quite sure of the success of the Coup d&rsquo;Etat,
+      aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I!&rdquo; cried Felicite, wounded by her son&rsquo;s doubts; &ldquo;no, I&rsquo;m not sure of
+      anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet you sent word to say that I was to take off my sling!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; because all the gentlemen are laughing at you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aristide remained stock still, apparently contemplating one of the flowers
+      of the orange-coloured wall-paper. And his mother felt sudden impatience
+      as she saw him hesitating thus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve come back again to my former opinion; you&rsquo;re
+      not very shrewd. And you think you ought to have had Eugene&rsquo;s letters to
+      read? Why, my poor fellow you would have spoilt everything, with your
+      perpetual vacillation. You never can make up your mind. You are hesitating
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hesitate?&rdquo; he interrupted, giving his mother a cold, keen glance. &ldquo;Ah!
+      well, you don&rsquo;t know me. I would set the whole town on fire if it were
+      necessary, and I wanted to warm my feet. But, understand me, I&rsquo;ve no
+      desire to take the wrong road! I&rsquo;m tired of eating hard bread, and I hope
+      to play fortune a trick. But I only play for certainties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke these words so sharply, with such a keen longing for success,
+      that his mother recognised the cry of her own blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father is very brave,&rdquo; she whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;ve seen him,&rdquo; he resumed with a sneer. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a fine look on
+      him! He reminded me of Leonidas at Thermopylae. Is it you, mother, who
+      have made him cut this figure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added cheerfully, with a gesture of determination: &ldquo;Well, so much
+      the worse! I&rsquo;m a Bonapartist! Father is not the man to risk the chance of
+      being killed unless it pays him well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re quite right,&rdquo; his mother replied; &ldquo;I mustn&rsquo;t say anything; but
+      to-morrow you&rsquo;ll see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not press her, but swore that she would soon have reason to be
+      proud of him; and then he took his departure, while Felicite, feeling her
+      old preference reviving, said to herself at the window, as she watched him
+      going off, that he had the devil&rsquo;s own wit, that she would never have had
+      sufficient courage to let him leave without setting him in the right path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now for the third time a night full of anguish fell upon Plassans. The
+      unhappy town was almost at its death-rattle. The citizens hastened home
+      and barricaded their doors with a great clattering of iron bolts and bars.
+      The general feeling seemed to be that, by the morrow, Plassans would no
+      longer exist, that it would either be swallowed up by the earth or would
+      evaporate in the atmosphere. When Rougon went home to dine, he found the
+      streets completely deserted. This desolation made him sad and melancholy.
+      As a result of this, when he had finished his meal, he felt some slight
+      misgivings, and asked his wife if it were necessary to follow up the
+      insurrection that Macquart was preparing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody will run us down now,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;You should have seen those
+      gentlemen of the new town, how they bowed to me! It seems to me quite
+      unnecessary now to kill anybody&mdash;eh? What do you think? We shall
+      feather our nest without that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! what a nerveless fellow you are!&rdquo; Felicite cried angrily. &ldquo;It was
+      your own idea to do it, and now you back out! I tell you that you&rsquo;ll never
+      do anything without me! Go then, go your own way. Do you think the
+      Republicans would spare you if they got hold of you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon went back to the town-hall, and prepared for the ambush. Granoux
+      was very useful to him. He despatched him with orders to the different
+      posts guarding the ramparts. The national guards were to repair to the
+      town-hall in small detachments, as secretly as possible. Roudier, that
+      bourgeois who was quite out of his element in the provinces, and who would
+      have spoilt the whole affair with his humanitarian preaching, was not even
+      informed of it. Towards eleven o&rsquo;clock, the court-yard of the town-hall
+      was full of national guards. Then Rougon frightened them; he told them
+      that the Republicans still remaining in Plassans were about to attempt a
+      desperate <i>coup de main</i>, and plumed himself on having been warned in
+      time by his secret police. When he had pictured the bloody massacre which
+      would overtake the town, should these wretches get the upper hand, he
+      ordered his men to cease speaking, and extinguish all lights. He took a
+      gun himself. Ever since the morning he had been living as in a dream; he
+      no longer knew himself; he felt Felicite behind him. The crisis of the
+      previous night had thrown him into her hands, and he would have allowed
+      himself to be hanged, thinking: &ldquo;It does not matter, my wife will come and
+      cut me down.&rdquo; To augment the tumult, and prolong the terror of the
+      slumbering town, he begged Granoux to repair to the cathedral and have the
+      tocsin rung at the first shots he might hear. The marquis&rsquo;s name would
+      open the beadle&rsquo;s door. And then, in darkness and dismal silence, the
+      national guards waited in the yard, in a terrible state of anxiety, their
+      eyes fixed on the porch, eager to fire, as though they were lying in wait
+      for a pack of wolves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, Macquart had spent the day at aunt Dide&rsquo;s house.
+      Stretching himself on the old coffer, and lamenting the loss of Monsieur
+      Garconnet&rsquo;s sofa, he had several times felt a mad inclination to break
+      into his two hundred francs at some neighbouring cafe. This money was
+      burning a hole in his waistcoat pocket; however, he whiled away his time
+      by spending it in imagination. His mother moved about, in her stiff,
+      automatic way, as if she were not even aware of his presence. During the
+      last few days her children had been coming to her rather frequently, in a
+      state of pallor and desperation, but she departed neither from her
+      taciturnity, nor her stiff, lifeless expression. She knew nothing of the
+      fears which were throwing the pent-up town topsy-turvy, she was a thousand
+      leagues away from Plassans, soaring into the one constant fixed idea which
+      imparted such a blank stare to her eyes. Now and again, however, at this
+      particular moment, some feeling of uneasiness, some human anxiety,
+      occasionally made her blink. Antoine, unable to resist the temptation of
+      having something nice to eat, sent her to get a roast chicken from an
+      eating-house in the Faubourg. When it was set on the table: &ldquo;Hey!&rdquo; he said
+      to her, &ldquo;you don&rsquo;t often eat fowl, do you? It&rsquo;s only for those who work,
+      and know how to manage their affairs. As for you, you always squandered
+      everything. I bet you&rsquo;re giving all your savings to that little hypocrite,
+      Silvere. He&rsquo;s got a mistress, the sly fellow. If you&rsquo;ve a hoard of money
+      hidden in some corner, he&rsquo;ll ease you of it nicely some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart was in a jesting mood, glowing with wild exultation. The money he
+      had in his pocket, the treachery he was preparing, the conviction that he
+      had sold himself at a good price&mdash;all filled him with the
+      self-satisfaction characteristic of vicious people who naturally became
+      merry and scornful amidst their evil practices. Of all his talk, however,
+      aunt Dide only heard Silvere&rsquo;s name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you seen him?&rdquo; she asked, opening her lips at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who? Silvere?&rdquo; Antoine replied. &ldquo;He was walking about among the
+      insurgents with a tall red girl on his arm. It will serve him right if he
+      gets into trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The grandmother looked at him fixedly, then, in a solemn voice, inquired:
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh! Why, he shouldn&rsquo;t be so stupid,&rdquo; resumed Macquart, feeling somewhat
+      embarrassed. &ldquo;People don&rsquo;t risk their necks for the sake of ideas. I&rsquo;ve
+      settled my own little business. I&rsquo;m no fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But aunt Dide was no longer listening to him. She was murmuring: &ldquo;He had
+      his hands covered with blood. They&rsquo;ll kill him like the other one. His
+      uncles will send the gendarmes after him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you muttering there?&rdquo; asked her son, as he finished picking the
+      bones of the chicken. &ldquo;You know I like people to accuse me to my face. If
+      I have sometimes talked to the little fellow about the Republic, it was
+      only to bring him round to a more reasonable way of thinking. He was
+      dotty. I love liberty myself, but it mustn&rsquo;t degenerate into license. And
+      as for Rougon, I esteem him. He&rsquo;s a man of courage and common-sense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had the gun, hadn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo; interrupted aunt Dide, whose wandering mind
+      seemed to be following Silvere far away along the high road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gun? Ah! yes; Macquart&rsquo;s carbine,&rdquo; continued Antoine, after casting a
+      glance at the mantel-shelf, where the fire-arm was usually hung. &ldquo;I fancy
+      I saw it in his hands. A fine instrument to scour the country with, when
+      one has a girl on one&rsquo;s arm. What a fool!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he thought he might as well indulge in a few coarse jokes. Aunt Dide
+      had begun to bustle about the room again. She did not say a word. Towards
+      the evening Antoine went out, after putting on a blouse, and pulling over
+      his eyes a big cap which his mother had bought for him. He returned into
+      the town in the same manner as he had quitted it, by relating some
+      nonsensical story to the national guards who were on duty at the Rome
+      Gate. Then he made his way to the old quarter, where he crept from house
+      to house in a mysterious manner. All the Republicans of advanced views,
+      all the members of the brotherhood who had not followed the
+      insurrectionary army, met in an obscure inn, where Macquart had made an
+      appointment with them. When about fifty men were assembled, he made a
+      speech, in which he spoke of personal vengeance that must be wreaked, of a
+      victory that must be gained, and of a disgraceful yoke that must be thrown
+      off. And he ended by undertaking to deliver the town-hall over to them in
+      ten minutes. He had just left it, it was quite unguarded, he said, and the
+      red flag would wave over it that very night if they so desired. The
+      workmen deliberated. At that moment the reaction seemed to be in its death
+      throes. The insurgents were virtually at the gates of the town. It would
+      therefore be more honourable to make an effort to regain power without
+      awaiting their return, so as to be able to receive them as brothers, with
+      the gates wide open, and the streets and squares adorned with flags.
+      Moreover, none of those present distrusted Macquart. His hatred of the
+      Rougons, the personal vengeance of which he spoke, could be taken as
+      guaranteeing his loyalty. It was arranged that each of them who was a
+      sportsman and had a gun at home should fetch it, and that the band should
+      assemble at midnight in the neighbourhood of the town-hall. A question of
+      detail very nearly put an end to their plans&mdash;they had no bullets;
+      however, they decided to load their weapons with small shot: and even that
+      seemed unnecessary, as they were told that they would meet with no
+      resistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more Plassans beheld a band of armed men filing along close to the
+      houses, in the quiet moonlight. When the band was assembled in front of
+      the town-hall, Macquart, while keeping a sharp look-out, boldly advanced
+      to the building. He knocked, and when the door-keeper, who had learnt his
+      lesson, asked what was wanted, he uttered such terrible threats, that the
+      man, feigning fright, made haste to open the door. Both leaves of it swung
+      back slowly, and the porch then lay open and empty before them, while
+      Macquart shouted in a loud voice: &ldquo;Come on, my friends!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the signal. He himself quickly jumped aside, and as the
+      Republicans rushed in, there came, from the darkness of the yard, a stream
+      of fire and a hail of bullets, which swept through the gaping porch with a
+      roar as of thunder. The doorway vomited death. The national guards,
+      exasperated by their long wait, eager to shake off the discomfort weighing
+      upon them in that dismal court-yard, had fired a volley with feverish
+      haste. The flash of the firing was so bright, that, through the yellow
+      gleams Macquart distinctly saw Rougon taking aim. He fancied that his
+      brother&rsquo;s gun was deliberately levelled at himself, and he recalled
+      Felicite&rsquo;s blush, and made his escape, muttering: &ldquo;No tricks! The rascal
+      would kill me. He owes me eight hundred francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime a loud howl had arisen amid the darkness. The surprised
+      Republicans shouted treachery, and fired in their turn. A national guard
+      fell under the porch. But the Republicans, on their side, had three dead.
+      They took to flight, stumbling over the corpses, stricken with panic, and
+      shouting through the quiet lanes: &ldquo;Our brothers are being murdered!&rdquo; in
+      despairing voices which found no echo. Thereupon the defenders of order,
+      having had time to reload their weapons, rushed into the empty square,
+      firing at every street corner, wherever the darkness of a door, the shadow
+      of a lamp-post, or the jutting of a stone made them fancy they saw an
+      insurgent. In this wise they remained there ten minutes, firing into
+      space.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The affray had burst over the slumbering town like a thunderclap. The
+      inhabitants in the neighbouring streets, roused from sleep by this
+      terrible fusillade, sat up in bed, their teeth chattering with fright.
+      Nothing in the world would have induced them to poke their noses out of
+      the window. And slowly, athwart the air, in which the shots had suddenly
+      resounded, one of the cathedral bells began to ring the tocsin with so
+      irregular, so strange a rhythm, that one might have thought the noise to
+      be the hammering of an anvil or the echoes of a colossal kettle struck by
+      a child in a fit of passion. This howling bell, whose sound the citizens
+      did not recognise, terrified them yet more than the reports of the
+      fire-arms had done; and there were some who thought they heard an endless
+      train of artillery rumbling over the paving-stones. They lay down again
+      and buried themselves beneath their blankets, as if they would have
+      incurred some danger by still sitting up in bed in their closely-fastened
+      rooms. With their sheets drawn up to their chins, they held their breath,
+      and made themselves as small as possible, while their wives, by their
+      side, almost fainted with terror as they buried their heads among the
+      pillows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The national guards who had remained at the ramparts had also heard the
+      shots, and thinking that the insurgents had entered by means of some
+      subterranean passage, they ran up helter-skelter, in groups of five or
+      six, disturbing the silence of the streets with the tumult of their
+      excited rush. Roudier was one of the first to arrive. However, Rougon sent
+      them all back to their posts, after reprimanding them severely for
+      abandoning the gates of the town. Thrown into consternation by this
+      reproach&mdash;for in their panic, they had, in fact, left the gates
+      absolutely defenceless&mdash;they again set off at a gallop, hurrying
+      through the streets with still more frightful uproar. Plassans might well
+      have thought that an infuriated army was crossing it in all directions.
+      The fusillade, the tocsin, the marches and countermarches of the national
+      guards, the weapons which were being dragged along like clubs, the
+      terrified cries in the darkness, all produced a deafening tumult, such as
+      might break forth in a town taken by assault and given over to plunder. It
+      was the final blow of the unfortunate inhabitants, who really believed
+      that the insurgents had arrived. They had, indeed, said that it would be
+      their last night&mdash;that Plassans would be swallowed up in the earth,
+      or would evaporate into smoke before daybreak; and now, lying in their
+      beds, they awaited the catastrophe in the most abject terror, fancying at
+      times that their houses were already tottering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime Granoux still rang the tocsin. When, in other respects, silence
+      had again fallen upon the town, the mournfulness of that ringing became
+      intolerable. Rougon, who was in a high fever, felt exasperated by its
+      distant wailing. He hastened to the cathedral, and found the door open.
+      The beadle was on the threshold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! that&rsquo;s quite enough!&rdquo; he shouted to the man; &ldquo;anybody would think
+      there was some one crying; it&rsquo;s quite unbearable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it isn&rsquo;t me, sir,&rdquo; replied the beadle in a distressed manner. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      Monsieur Granoux, he&rsquo;s gone up into the steeple. I must tell you that I
+      removed the clapper of the bell, by his Reverence&rsquo;s order, precisely to
+      prevent the tocsin from being sounded. But Monsieur Granoux wouldn&rsquo;t
+      listen to reason. He climbed up, and I&rsquo;ve no idea what he can be making
+      that noise with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon Rougon hastily ascended the staircase which led to the bells,
+      shouting: &ldquo;That will do! That will do! For goodness&rsquo; sake leave off!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had reached the top he caught sight of Granoux, by the light of
+      the moon which glided through an embrasure; the ex almond dealer was
+      standing there hatless, and dealing furious blows with a heavy hammer. He
+      did so with a right good will. He first threw himself back, then took a
+      spring, and finally fell upon the sonorous bronze as if he wanted to crack
+      it. One might have thought he was a blacksmith striking hot iron&mdash;but
+      a frock-coated blacksmith, short and bald, working in a wild and awkward
+      way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surprise kept Rougon motionless for a moment at the sight of this frantic
+      bourgeois thus belabouring the bell in the moonlight. Then he understood
+      the kettle-like clang which this strange ringer had disseminated over the
+      town. He shouted to him to stop, but Granoux did not hear. Rougon was
+      obliged to take hold of his frock-coat, and then the other recognising
+      him, exclaimed in a triumphant voice: &ldquo;Ah! you&rsquo;ve heard it. At first I
+      tried to knock the bell with my fists, but that hurt me. Fortunately I
+      found this hammer. Just a few more blows, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, Rougon dragged him away. Granoux was radiant. He wiped his
+      forehead, and made his companion promise to let everybody know in the
+      morning that he had produced all that noise with a mere hammer. What an
+      achievement, and what a position of importance that furious ringing would
+      confer upon him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards morning, Rougon bethought himself of reassuring Felicite. In
+      accordance with his orders, the national guards had shut themselves up in
+      the town-hall. He had forbidden them to remove the corpses, under the
+      pretext that it was necessary to give the populace of the old quarter a
+      lesson. And as, while hastening to the Rue de la Banne, he passed over the
+      square, on which the moon was no longer shining, he inadvertently stepped
+      on the clenched hand of a corpse that lay beside the footpath. At this he
+      almost fell. That soft hand, which yielded beneath his heel, brought him
+      an indefinable sensation of disgust and horror. And thereupon he hastened
+      at full speed along the deserted streets, fancying that a bloody fist was
+      pursuing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are four of them on the ground,&rdquo; he said, as he entered his house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He and his wife looked at one another as though they were astonished at
+      their crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lamplight imparted the hue of yellow wax to their pale faces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you left them there?&rdquo; asked Felicite; &ldquo;they must be found there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course! I didn&rsquo;t pick them up. They are lying on their backs. I
+      stepped on something soft&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he looked at his boot; its heel was covered with blood. While he was
+      putting on a pair of shoes, Felicite resumed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! so much the better! It&rsquo;s over now. People won&rsquo;t be inclined to
+      repeat that you only fire at mirrors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fusillade which the Rougons had planned in order that they might be
+      finally recognised as the saviours of Plassans, brought the whole
+      terrified and grateful town to their feet. The day broke mournfully with
+      the grey melancholy of a winter-morning. The inhabitants, hearing nothing
+      further, ventured forth, weary of trembling beneath their sheets. At first
+      some ten or fifteen appeared. Later on, when a rumour spread that the
+      insurgents had taken flight, leaving their dead in every gutter, Plassans
+      rose in a body and descended upon the town-hall. Throughout the morning
+      people strolled inquisitively round the four corpses. They were horribly
+      mutilated, particularly one, which had three bullets in the head. But the
+      most horrible to look upon was the body of a national guard, who had
+      fallen under the porch; he had received a charge of the small shot, used
+      by the Republicans in lieu of bullets, full in the face; and blood oozed
+      from his torn and riddled countenance. The crowd feasted their eyes upon
+      this horror, with the avidity for revolting spectacles which is so
+      characteristic of cowards. The national guard was freely recognised; he
+      was the pork-butcher Dubruel, the man whom Roudier had accused on the
+      Monday morning of having fired with culpable eagerness. Of the three other
+      corpses, two were journeymen hatters; the third was not identified. For a
+      long while gaping groups remained shuddering in front of the red pools
+      which stained the pavement, often looking behind them with an air of
+      mistrust, as though that summary justice which had restored order during
+      the night by force of arms, were, even now, watching and listening to
+      them, ready to shoot them down in their turn, unless they kissed with
+      enthusiasm the hand that had just rescued them from the demagogy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The panic of the night further augmented the terrible effect produced in
+      the morning by the sight of the four corpses. The true history of the
+      fusillade was never known. The firing of the combatants, Granoux&rsquo;s
+      hammering, the helter-skelter rush of the national guards through the
+      streets, had filled people&rsquo;s ears with such terrifying sounds that most of
+      them dreamed of a gigantic battle waged against countless enemies. When
+      the victors, magnifying the number of their adversaries with instinctive
+      braggardism, spoke of about five hundred men, everybody protested against
+      such a low estimate. Some citizens asserted that they had looked out of
+      their windows and seen an immense stream of fugitives passing by for more
+      than an hour. Moreover everybody had heard the bandits running about. Five
+      hundred men would never have been able to rouse a whole town. It must have
+      been an army, and a fine big army too, which the brave militia of Plassans
+      had &ldquo;driven back into the ground.&rdquo; This phrase of their having been
+      &ldquo;driven back into the ground,&rdquo; first used by Rougon, struck people as
+      being singularly appropriate, for the guards who were charged with the
+      defence of the ramparts swore by all that was holy that not a single man
+      had entered or quitted the town, a circumstance which tinged what had
+      happened with mystery, even suggesting the idea of horned demons who had
+      vanished amidst flames, and thus fairly upsetting the minds of the
+      multitude. It is true the guards avoided all mention of their mad gallops;
+      and so the more rational citizens were inclined to believe that a band of
+      insurgents had really entered the town either by a breach in the wall or
+      some other channel. Later on, rumours of treachery were spread abroad, and
+      people talked of an ambush. The cruel truth could no longer be concealed
+      by the men whom Macquart had led to slaughter, but so much terror still
+      prevailed, and the sight of blood had thrown so many cowards into the arms
+      of the reactionary party, that these rumours were attributed to the rage
+      of the vanquished Republicans. It was asserted, on the other hand, that
+      Macquart had been made prisoner by Rougon, who kept him in a damp cell,
+      where he was letting him slowly die of starvation. This horrible tale made
+      people bow to the very ground whenever they encountered Rougon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it was that this grotesque personage, this pale, flabby, tun-bellied
+      citizen became, in one night, a terrible captain, whom nobody dared to
+      ridicule any more. He had steeped his foot in blood. The inhabitants of
+      the old quarter stood dumb with fright before the corpses. But towards ten
+      o&rsquo;clock, when the respectable people of the new town arrived, the whole
+      square hummed with subdued chatter. People spoke of the other attack, of
+      the seizure of the mayor&rsquo;s office, in which a mirror only had been
+      wounded; but this time they no longer pooh-poohed Rougon, they spoke of
+      him with respectful dismay; he was indeed a hero, a deliverer. The
+      corpses, with open eyes, stared at those gentlemen, the lawyers and
+      householders, who shuddered as they murmured that civil war had many cruel
+      necessities. The notary, the chief of the deputation sent to the town-hall
+      on the previous evening, went from group to group, recalling the proud
+      words &ldquo;I am prepared!&rdquo; then used by the energetic man to whom the town
+      owed its safety. There was a general feeling of humiliation. Those who had
+      railed most cruelly against the forty-one, those, especially, who had
+      referred to the Rougons as intriguers and cowards who merely fired shots
+      in the air, were the first to speak of granting a crown of laurels &ldquo;to the
+      noble citizen of whom Plassans would be for ever proud.&rdquo; For the pools of
+      blood were drying on the pavement, and the corpses proclaimed to what a
+      degree of audacity the party of disorder, pillage, and murder had gone,
+      and what an iron hand had been required to put down the insurrection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, the whole crowd was eager to congratulate Granoux, and shake
+      hands with him. The story of the hammer had become known. By an innocent
+      falsehood, however, of which he himself soon became unconscious, he
+      asserted that, having been the first to see the insurgents, he had set
+      about striking the bell, in order to sound the alarm, so that, but for
+      him, the national guards would have been massacred. This doubled his
+      importance. His achievement was declared prodigious. People spoke of him
+      now as &ldquo;Monsieur Isidore, don&rsquo;t you know? the gentleman who sounded the
+      tocsin with a hammer!&rdquo; Although the sentence was somewhat lengthy, Granoux
+      would willingly have accepted it as a title of nobility; and from that day
+      forward he never heard the word &ldquo;hammer&rdquo; pronounced without imagining it
+      to be some delicate flattery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the corpses were being removed, Aristide came to look at them. He
+      examined them on all sides, sniffing and looking inquisitively at their
+      faces. His eyes were bright, and he had a sharp expression of countenance.
+      In order to see some wound the better he even lifted up the blouse of one
+      corpse with the very hand which on the previous day had been suspended in
+      a sling. This examination seemed to convince him and remove all doubt from
+      his mind. He bit his lips, remained there for a moment in silence, and
+      then went off for the purpose of hastening the issue of the &ldquo;Independant,&rdquo;
+       for which he had written a most important article. And as he hurried along
+      beside the houses he recalled his mother&rsquo;s words: &ldquo;You will see
+      to-morrow!&rdquo; Well, he had seen now; it was very clever; it even frightened
+      him somewhat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, Rougon&rsquo;s triumph was beginning to embarrass him. Alone in
+      Monsieur Garconnet&rsquo;s office, hearing the buzzing of the crowd, he became
+      conscious of a strange feeling, which prevented him from showing himself
+      on the balcony. That blood, in which he had stepped, seemed to have numbed
+      his legs. He wondered what he should do until the evening. His poor empty
+      brain, upset by the events of the night, sought desperately for some
+      occupation, some order to give, or some measure to be taken, which might
+      afford him some distraction. But he could think about nothing clearly.
+      Whither was Felicite leading him? Was it really all finished now, or would
+      he still have to kill somebody else? Then fear again assailed him,
+      terrible doubts arose in his mind, and he already saw the ramparts broken
+      down on all sides by an avenging army of the Republicans, when a loud
+      shout: &ldquo;The insurgents! The insurgents!&rdquo; burst forth under the very
+      windows of his room. At this he jumped up, and raising a curtain, saw the
+      crowd rushing about the square in a state of terror. What a thunderbolt!
+      In less than a second he pictured himself ruined, plundered, and murdered;
+      he cursed his wife, he cursed the whole town. Then, as he looked behind
+      him in a suspicious manner, seeking some means of escape, he heard the mob
+      break out into applause, uttering shouts of joy, making the very glass
+      rattle with their wild delight. Then he returned to the window; the women
+      were waving their handkerchiefs, and the men were embracing each other.
+      There were some among them who joined hands and began to dance. Rougon
+      stood there stupefied, unable to comprehend it all, and feeling his head
+      swimming. The big, deserted, silent building, in which he was alone, quite
+      frightened him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he afterwards confessed his feelings to Felicite, he was unable to
+      say how long his torture had lasted. He only remembered that a noise of
+      footsteps, re-echoing through the vast halls, had roused him from his
+      stupor. He expected to be attacked by men in blouses, armed with scythes
+      and clubs, whereas it was the Municipal Commission which entered, quite
+      orderly and in evening dress, each member with a beaming countenance. Not
+      one of them was absent. A piece of good news had simultaneously cured all
+      these gentlemen. Granoux rushed into the arms of his dear president.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The soldiers!&rdquo; he stammered, &ldquo;the soldiers!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A regiment had, in fact, just arrived, under the command of Colonel Masson
+      and Monsieur de Bleriot, prefect of the department. The gunbarrels which
+      had been observed from the ramparts, far away in the plain, had at first
+      suggested the approach of the insurgents. Rougon was so deeply moved on
+      learning the truth, that two big tears rolled down his cheeks. He was
+      weeping, the great citizen! The Municipal Commission watched those big
+      tears with most respectful admiration. But Granoux again threw himself on
+      his friend&rsquo;s neck, crying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! how glad I am! You know I&rsquo;m a straightforward man. Well, we were all
+      of us afraid; it is not so, gentlemen? You, alone, were great, brave,
+      sublime! What energy you must have had! I was just now saying to my wife:
+      &lsquo;Rougon is a great man; he deserves to be decorated.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the gentlemen proposed to go and meet the prefect. For a moment
+      Rougon felt both stunned and suffocated; he was unable to believe in this
+      sudden triumph, and stammered like a child. However, he drew breath, and
+      went downstairs with the quiet dignity suited to the solemnity of the
+      occasion. But the enthusiasm which greeted the commission and its
+      president outside the town-hall almost upset his magisterial gravity
+      afresh. His name sped through the crowd, accompanied this time by the
+      warmest eulogies. He heard everyone repeat Granoux&rsquo;s avowal, and treat him
+      as a hero who had stood firm and resolute amidst universal panic. And, as
+      far as the Sub-Prefecture, where the commission met the prefect, he drank
+      his fill of popularity and glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur de Bleriot and Colonel Masson had entered the town alone, leaving
+      their troops encamped on the Lyons road. They had lost considerable time
+      through a misunderstanding as to the direction taken by the insurgents.
+      Now, however, they knew the latter were at Orcheres; and it would only be
+      necessary to stop an hour at Plassans, just sufficient time to reassure
+      the population and publish the cruel ordinances which decreed the
+      sequestration of the insurgents&rsquo; property, and death to every individual
+      who might be taken with arms in his hands. Colonel Masson smiled when, in
+      accordance with the orders of the commander of the national guards, the
+      bolts of the Rome Gate were drawn back with a great rattling of rusty old
+      iron. The detachment on duty there accompanied the prefect and the colonel
+      as a guard of honour. As they traversed the Cours Sauvaire, Roudier
+      related Rougon&rsquo;s epic achievements to the gentlemen&mdash;the three days
+      of panic that had terminated with the brilliant victory of the previous
+      night. When the two processions came face to face therefore, Monsieur de
+      Bleriot quickly advanced towards the president of the Commission, shook
+      hands with him, congratulated him, and begged him to continue to watch
+      over the town until the return of the authorities. Rougon bowed, while the
+      prefect, having reached the door of the Sub-Prefecture, where he wished to
+      take a brief rest, proclaimed in a loud voice that he would not forget to
+      mention his brave and noble conduct in his report.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, in spite of the bitter cold, everybody had come to their
+      windows. Felicite, leaning forward at the risk of falling out, was quite
+      pale with joy. Aristide had just arrived with a number of the
+      &ldquo;Independant,&rdquo; in which he had openly declared himself in favour of the
+      Coup d&rsquo;Etat, which he welcomed &ldquo;as the aurora of liberty in order and of
+      order in liberty.&rdquo; He had also made a delicate allusion to the yellow
+      drawing-room, acknowledging his errors, declaring that &ldquo;youth is
+      presumptuous,&rdquo; and that &ldquo;great citizens say nothing, reflect in silence,
+      and let insults pass by, in order to rise heroically when the day of
+      struggle comes.&rdquo; He was particularly pleased with this sentence. His
+      mother thought his article extremely well written. She kissed her dear
+      child, and placed him on her right hand. The Marquis de Carnavant, weary
+      of incarcerating himself, and full of eager curiosity, had likewise come
+      to see her, and stood on her left, leaning on the window rail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Monsieur de Bleriot offered his hand to Rougon on the square below
+      Felicite began to weep. &ldquo;Oh! see, see,&rdquo; she said to Aristide. &ldquo;He has
+      shaken hands with him. Look! he is doing it again!&rdquo; And casting a glance
+      at the windows, where groups of people were congregated, she added: &ldquo;How
+      wild they must be! Look at Monsieur Peirotte&rsquo;s wife, she&rsquo;s biting her
+      handkerchief. And over there, the notary&rsquo;s daughter, and Madame Massicot,
+      and the Brunet family, what faces, eh? how angry they look! Ah, indeed,
+      it&rsquo;s our turn now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She followed the scene which was being acted outside the Sub-Prefecture
+      with thrills of delight, which shook her ardent, grasshopper-like figure
+      from head to foot. She interpreted the slightest gesture, invented words
+      which she was unable to catch, and declared that Pierre bowed very well
+      indeed. She was a little vexed when the prefect deigned to speak to poor
+      Granoux, who was hovering about him fishing for a word of praise. No doubt
+      Monsieur de Bleriot already knew the story of the hammer, for the retired
+      almond-dealer turned as red as a young girl, and seemed to be saying that
+      he had only done his duty. However, that which angered Felicite still more
+      was her husband&rsquo;s excessive amiability in presenting Vuillet to the
+      authorities. Vuillet, it is true, pushed himself forward amongst them, and
+      Rougon was compelled to mention him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a schemer!&rdquo; muttered Felicite. &ldquo;He creeps in everywhere. How
+      confused my poor dear husband must be! See, there&rsquo;s the colonel speaking
+      to him. What can he be saying to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! little one,&rdquo; the marquis replied with a touch of irony, &ldquo;he is
+      complimenting him for having closed the gates so carefully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father has saved the town,&rdquo; Aristide retorted curtly. &ldquo;Have you seen
+      the corpses, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur de Carnavant did not answer. He withdrew from the window, and sat
+      down in an arm-chair, shaking his head with an air of some disgust. At
+      that moment, the prefect having taken his departure, Rougon came upstairs
+      and threw himself upon his wife&rsquo;s neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! my dear!&rdquo; he stammered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was unable to say more. Felicite made him kiss Aristide after telling
+      him of the superb article which the young man had inserted in the
+      &ldquo;Independant.&rdquo; Pierre would have kissed the marquis as well, he was deeply
+      affected. However, his wife took him aside, and gave him Eugene&rsquo;s letter
+      which she had sealed up in an envelope again. She pretended that it had
+      just been delivered. Pierre read it and then triumphantly held it out to
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a sorceress,&rdquo; he said to her laughing. &ldquo;You guessed everything.
+      What folly I should have committed without you! We&rsquo;ll manage our little
+      affairs together now. Kiss me: you&rsquo;re a good woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He clasped her in his arms, while she discreetly exchanged a knowing smile
+      with the marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was not until Sunday, the day after the massacre at Sainte-Roure, that
+      the troops passed through Plassans again. The prefect and the colonel,
+      whom Monsieur Garconnet had invited to dinner, once more entered the town
+      alone. The soldiers went round the ramparts and encamped in the Faubourg,
+      on the Nice road. Night was falling; the sky, overcast since the morning,
+      had a strange yellow tint, and illumined the town with a murky light,
+      similar to the copper-coloured glimmer of stormy weather. The reception of
+      the troops by the inhabitants was timid; the bloodstained soldiers, who
+      passed by weary and silent, in the yellow twilight, horrified the cleanly
+      citizens promenading on the Cours. They stepped out of the way whispering
+      terrible stories of fusillades and revengeful reprisals which still live
+      in the recollection of the region. The Coup d&rsquo;Etat terror was beginning to
+      make itself felt, an overwhelming terror which kept the South in a state
+      of tremor for many a long month. Plassans, in its fear and hatred of the
+      insurgents, had welcomed the troops on their first arrival with
+      enthusiasm; but now, at the appearance of that gloomy taciturn regiment,
+      whose men were ready to fire at a word from their officers, the retired
+      merchants and even the notaries of the new town anxiously examined their
+      consciences, asking if they had not committed some political peccadilloes
+      which might be thought deserving of a bullet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The municipal authorities had returned on the previous evening in a couple
+      of carts hired at Sainte-Roure. Their unexpected entry was devoid of all
+      triumphal display. Rougon surrendered the mayor&rsquo;s arm-chair without much
+      regret. The game was over; and with feverish longing he now awaited the
+      recompense for his devotion. On the Sunday&mdash;he had not hoped for it
+      until the following day&mdash;he received a letter from Eugene. Since the
+      previous Thursday Felicite had taken care to send her son the numbers of
+      the &ldquo;Gazette&rdquo; and &ldquo;Independant&rdquo; which, in special second editions had
+      narrated the battle of the night and the arrival of the prefect at
+      Plassans. Eugene now replied by return of post that the nomination of a
+      receivership would soon be signed; but added that he wished to give them
+      some good news immediately. He had obtained the ribbon of the Legion of
+      Honour for his father. Felicite wept with joy. Her husband decorated! Her
+      proud dream had never gone as far as that. Rougon, pale with delight,
+      declared they must give a grand dinner that very evening. He no longer
+      thought of expense; he would have thrown his last fifty francs out of the
+      drawing-room windows in order to celebrate that glorious day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; he said to his wife; &ldquo;you must invite Sicardot: he has annoyed
+      me with that rosette of his for a long time! Then Granoux and Roudier; I
+      shouldn&rsquo;t be at all sorry to make them feel that it isn&rsquo;t their purses
+      that will ever win them the cross. Vuillet is a skinflint, but the triumph
+      ought to be complete: invite him as well as the small fry. I was
+      forgetting; you must go and call on the marquis in person; we will seat
+      him on your right; he&rsquo;ll look very well at our table. You know that
+      Monsieur Garconnet is entertaining the colonel and the prefect. That is to
+      make me understand that I am nobody now. But I can afford to laugh at his
+      mayoralty; it doesn&rsquo;t bring him in a sou! He has invited me, but I shall
+      tell him that I also have some people coming. The others will laugh on the
+      wrong side of their mouths to-morrow. And let everything be of the best.
+      Have everything sent from the Hotel de Provence. We must outdo the mayor&rsquo;s
+      dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite set to work. Pierre still felt some vague uneasiness amidst his
+      rapture. The Coup d&rsquo;Etat was going to pay his debts, his son Aristide had
+      repented of his faults, and he was at last freeing himself from Macquart;
+      but he feared some folly on Pascal&rsquo;s part, and was especially anxious
+      about the lot reserved for Silvere. Not that he felt the least pity for
+      the lad; he was simply afraid the matter of the gendarme might come before
+      the Assize Court. Ah! if only some discriminating bullet had managed to
+      rid him of that young scoundrel! As his wife had pointed out to him in the
+      morning, all obstacles had fallen away before him; the family which had
+      dishonoured him had, at the last moment, worked for his elevation; his
+      sons Eugene and Aristide, those spend-thrifts, the cost of whose college
+      life he had so bitterly regretted, were at last paying interest on the
+      capital expended for their education. And yet the thought of that wretched
+      Silvere must come to mar his hour of triumph!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Felicite was running about to prepare the dinner for the evening,
+      Pierre heard of the arrival of the troops and determined to go and make
+      inquiries. Sicardot, whom he had questioned on his return, knew nothing;
+      Pascal must have remained to look after the wounded; as for Silvere, he
+      had not even been seen by the commander, who scarcely knew him. Rougon
+      therefore repaired to the Faubourg, intending to make inquiries there and
+      at the same time pay Macquart the eight hundred francs which he had just
+      succeeded in raising with great difficulty. However, when he found himself
+      in the crowded encampment, and from a distance saw the prisoners sitting
+      in long files on the beams in the Aire Saint-Mittre, guarded by soldiers
+      gun in hand, he felt afraid of being compromised, and so slunk off to his
+      mother&rsquo;s house, with the intention of sending the old woman out to pick up
+      some information.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he entered the hovel it was almost night. At first the only person he
+      saw there was Macquart smoking and drinking brandy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you? I&rsquo;m glad of it,&rdquo; muttered Antoine. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m growing deuced cold
+      here. Have you got the money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Pierre did not reply. He had just perceived his son Pascal leaning
+      over the bed. And thereupon he questioned him eagerly. The doctor,
+      surprised by his uneasiness, which he attributed to paternal affection,
+      told him that the soldiers had taken him and would have shot him, had it
+      not been for the intervention of some honest fellow whom he did not know.
+      Saved by his profession of surgeon, he had returned to Plassans with the
+      troops. This greatly relieved Rougon. So there was yet another who would
+      not compromise him. He was evincing his delight by repeated hand-shakings,
+      when Pascal concluded in a sorrowful voice: &ldquo;Oh! don&rsquo;t make merry. I have
+      just found my poor grandmother in a very dangerous state. I brought her
+      back this carbine, which she values very much; I found her lying here, and
+      she has not moved since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre&rsquo;s eyes were becoming accustomed to the dimness. In the fast fading
+      light he saw aunt Dide stretched, rigid and seemingly lifeless, upon her
+      bed. Her wretched frame, attacked by neurosis from the hour of birth, was
+      at length laid prostrate by a supreme shock. Her nerves had so to say
+      consumed her blood. Moreover some cruel grief seemed to have suddenly
+      accelerated her slow wasting-away. Her pale nun-like face, drawn and
+      pinched by a life of gloom and cloister-like self-denial, was now stained
+      with red blotches. With convulsed features, eyes that glared terribly, and
+      hands twisted and clenched, she lay at full length in her skirts, which
+      failed to hide the sharp outlines of her scrawny limbs. Extended there
+      with lips closely pressed she imparted to the dim room all the horror of a
+      mute death-agony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon made a gesture of vexation. This heart-rending spectacle was very
+      distasteful to him. He had company coming to dinner in the evening, and it
+      would be extremely inconvenient for him to have to appear mournful. His
+      mother was always doing something to bother him. She might just as well
+      have chosen another day. However, he put on an appearance of perfect ease,
+      as he said: &ldquo;Bah! it&rsquo;s nothing. I&rsquo;ve seen her like that a hundred times.
+      You must let her lie still; it&rsquo;s the only thing that does her any good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pascal shook his head. &ldquo;No, this fit isn&rsquo;t like the others,&rdquo; he whispered.
+      &ldquo;I have often studied her, and have never observed such symptoms before.
+      Just look at her eyes: there is a peculiar fluidity, a pale brightness
+      about them which causes me considerable uneasiness. And her face, how
+      frightfully every muscle of it is distorted!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then bending over to observe her features more closely, he continued in a
+      whisper, as though speaking to himself: &ldquo;I have never seen such a face,
+      excepting among people who have been murdered or have died from fright.
+      She must have experienced some terrible shock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how did the attack begin?&rdquo; Rougon impatiently inquired, at a loss for
+      an excuse to leave the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pascal did not know. Macquart, as he poured himself out another glass of
+      brandy, explained that he had felt an inclination to drink a little
+      Cognac, and had sent her to fetch a bottle. She had not been long absent,
+      and at the very moment when she returned she had fallen rigid on the floor
+      without uttering a word. Macquart himself had carried her to the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What surprises me,&rdquo; he said, by way of conclusion, &ldquo;is, that she did not
+      break the bottle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young doctor reflected. After a short pause he resumed: &ldquo;I heard two
+      shots fired as I came here. Perhaps those ruffians have been shooting some
+      more prisoners. If she passed through the ranks of the soldiers at that
+      moment, the sight of blood may have thrown her into this fit. She must
+      have had some dreadful shock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately he had with him the little medicine-case which he had been
+      carrying about ever since the departure of the insurgents. He tried to
+      pour a few drops of reddish liquid between aunt Dide&rsquo;s closely-set teeth,
+      while Macquart again asked his brother: &ldquo;Have you got the money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;ve brought it; we&rsquo;ll settle now,&rdquo; Rougon replied, glad of this
+      diversion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon Macquart, seeing that he was about to be paid, began to moan. He
+      had only learnt the consequence of his treachery when it was too late;
+      otherwise he would have demanded twice or thrice as much. And he
+      complained bitterly. Really now a thousand francs was not enough. His
+      children had forsaken him, he was all alone in the world, and obliged to
+      quit France. He almost wept as he spoke of his coming exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come now, will you take the eight hundred francs?&rdquo; said Rougon, who was
+      in haste to be off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, certainly not; double the sum. Your wife cheated me. If she had told
+      me distinctly what it was she expected of me, I would never have
+      compromised myself for such a trifle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon laid the eight hundred francs upon the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear I haven&rsquo;t got any more,&rdquo; he resumed. &ldquo;I will think of you later.
+      But do, for mercy&rsquo;s sake, get away this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart, cursing and muttering protests, thereupon carried the table to
+      the window, and began to count the gold in the fading twilight. The coins
+      tickled the tips of his fingers very pleasantly as he let them fall, and
+      jingled musically in the darkness. At last he paused for a moment to say:
+      &ldquo;You promised to get me a berth, remember. I want to return to France. The
+      post of rural guard in some pleasant neighbourhood which I could mention,
+      would just suit me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, I&rsquo;ll see about it,&rdquo; Rougon replied. &ldquo;Have you got the eight
+      hundred francs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Macquart resumed his counting. The last coins were just clinking when a
+      burst of laughter made them turn their heads. Aunt Dide was standing up in
+      front of the bed, with her bodice unfastened, her white hair hanging
+      loose, and her face stained with red blotches. Pascal had in vain
+      endeavoured to hold her down. Trembling all over, and with her arms
+      outstretched, she shook her head deliriously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The blood-money! the blood-money!&rdquo; she again and again repeated. &ldquo;I heard
+      the gold. And it is they, they who sold him. Ah! the murderers! They are a
+      pack of wolves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she pushed her hair aback, and passed her hand over her brow, as
+      though seeking to collect her thoughts. And she continued: &ldquo;Ah! I have
+      long seen him with a bullet-hole in his forehead. There were always people
+      lying in wait for him with guns. They used to sign to me that they were
+      going to fire. . . . It&rsquo;s terrible! I feel some one breaking my bones and
+      battering out my brains. Oh! Mercy! Mercy! I beseech you; he shall not see
+      her any more&mdash;never, never! I will shut him up. I will prevent him
+      from walking out with her. Mercy! Mercy! Don&rsquo;t fire. It is not my fault.
+      If you knew&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had almost fallen on her knees, and was weeping and entreating while
+      she stretched her poor trembling hands towards some horrible vision which
+      she saw in the darkness. Then she suddenly rose upright, and her eyes
+      opened still more widely as a terrible cry came from her convulsed throat,
+      as though some awful sight, visible to her alone, had filled her with mad
+      terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the gendarme!&rdquo; she said, choking and falling backwards on the bed,
+      where she rolled about, breaking into long bursts of furious, insane
+      laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pascal was studying the attack attentively. The two brothers, who felt
+      very frightened, and only detected snatches of what their mother said, had
+      taken refuge in a corner of the room. When Rougon heard the word gendarme,
+      he thought he understood her. Ever since the murder of her lover, the
+      elder Macquart, on the frontier, aunt Dide had cherished a bitter hatred
+      against all gendarmes and custom-house officers, whom she mingled together
+      in one common longing for vengeance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s the story of the poacher that she&rsquo;s telling us,&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Pascal made a sign to him to keep quiet. The stricken woman had raised
+      herself with difficulty, and was looking round her, with a stupefied air.
+      She remained silent for a moment, endeavouring to recognise the various
+      objects in the room, as though she were in some strange place. Then, with
+      a sudden expression of anxiety, she asked: &ldquo;Where is the gun?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor put the carbine into her hands. At this she raised a light cry
+      of joy, and gazed at the weapon, saying in a soft, sing-song, girlish
+      whisper: &ldquo;That is it. Oh! I recognise it! It is all stained with blood.
+      The stains are quite fresh to-day. His red hands have left marks of blood
+      on the butt. Ah! poor, poor aunt Dide!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she became dizzy once more, and lapsed into silent thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gendarme was dead,&rdquo; she murmured at last, &ldquo;but I have seen him again;
+      he has come back. They never die, those blackguards!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again did gloomy passion come over her, and, shaking the carbine, she
+      advanced towards her two sons who, speechless with fright, retreated to
+      the very wall. Her loosened skirts trailed along the ground, as she drew
+      up her twisted frame, which age had reduced to mere bones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s you who fired!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I heard the gold. . . . Wretched woman
+      that I am! . . . I brought nothing but wolves into the world&mdash;a whole
+      family&mdash;a whole litter of wolves! . . . There was only one poor lad,
+      and him they have devoured; each had a bite at him, and their lips are
+      covered with blood. . . . Ah! the accursed villains! They have robbed,
+      they have murdered. . . . And they live like gentlemen. Villains! Accursed
+      villains!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sang, laughed, cried, and repeated &ldquo;accursed villains!&rdquo; in strangely
+      sonorous tones, which suggested a crackling of a fusillade. Pascal, with
+      tears in his eyes, took her in his arms and laid her on the bed again. She
+      submitted like a child, but persisted in her wailing cries, accelerating
+      their rhythm, and beating time on the sheet with her withered hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I was afraid of,&rdquo; the doctor said; &ldquo;she is mad. The blow
+      has been too heavy for a poor creature already subject, as she is, to
+      acute neurosis. She will die in a lunatic asylum like her father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what could she have seen?&rdquo; asked Rougon, at last venturing to quit
+      the corner where he had hidden himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a terrible suspicion,&rdquo; Pascal replied. &ldquo;I was going to speak to
+      you about Silvere when you came in. He is a prisoner. You must endeavour
+      to obtain his release from the prefect, if there is still time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old oil-dealer turned pale as he looked at his son. Then, rapidly, he
+      responded: &ldquo;Listen to me; you stay here and watch her. I&rsquo;m too busy this
+      evening. We will see to-morrow about conveying her to the lunatic asylum
+      at Les Tulettes. As for you, Macquart, you must leave this very night.
+      Swear to me that you will! I&rsquo;m going to find Monsieur de Bleriot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stammered as he spoke, and felt more eager than ever to get out into
+      the fresh air of the streets. Pascal fixed a penetrating look on the
+      madwoman, and then on his father and uncle. His professional instinct was
+      getting the better of him, and he studied the mother and the sons, with
+      all the keenness of a naturalist observing the metamorphosis of some
+      insect. He pondered over the growth of that family to which he belonged,
+      over the different branches growing from one parent stock, whose sap
+      carried identical germs to the farthest twigs, which bent in divers ways
+      according to the sunshine or shade in which they lived. And for a moment,
+      as by the glow of a lightning flash, he thought he could espy the future
+      of the Rougon-Macquart family, a pack of unbridled, insatiate appetites
+      amidst a blaze of gold and blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aunt Dide, however, had ceased her wailing chant at the mention of
+      Silvere&rsquo;s name. For a moment she listened anxiously. Then she broke out
+      into terrible shrieks. Night had now completely fallen, and the black room
+      seemed void and horrible. The shrieks of the madwoman, who was no longer
+      visible, rang out from the darkness as from a grave. Rougon, losing his
+      head, took to flight, pursued by those taunting cries, whose bitterness
+      seemed to increase amidst the gloom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was emerging from the Impasse Saint-Mittre with hesitating steps,
+      wondering whether it would not be dangerous to solicit Silvere&rsquo;s pardon
+      from the prefect, he saw Aristide prowling about the timber-yard. The
+      latter, recognising his father, ran up to him with an expression of
+      anxiety and whispered a few words in his ear. Pierre turned pale, and cast
+      a look of alarm towards the end of the yard, where the darkness was only
+      relieved by the ruddy glow of a little gipsy fire. Then they both
+      disappeared down the Rue de Rome, quickening their steps as though they
+      had committed a murder, and turning up their coat-collars in order that
+      they might not be recognised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That saves me an errand,&rdquo; Rougon whispered. &ldquo;Let us go to dinner. They
+      are waiting for us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they arrived, the yellow drawing-room was resplendent. Felicite was
+      all over the place. Everybody was there; Sicardot, Granoux, Roudier,
+      Vuillet, the oil-dealers, the almond-dealers, the whole set. The marquis,
+      however, had excused himself on the plea of rheumatism; and, besides, he
+      was about to leave Plassans on a short trip. Those bloodstained bourgeois
+      offended his feelings of delicacy, and moreover his relative, the Count de
+      Valqueyras, had begged him to withdraw from public notice for a little
+      time. Monsieur de Carnavant&rsquo;s refusal vexed the Rougons; but Felicite
+      consoled herself by resolving to make a more profuse display. She hired a
+      pair of candelabra and ordered several additional dishes as a kind of
+      substitute for the marquis. The table was laid in the yellow drawing-room,
+      in order to impart more solemnity to the occasion. The Hotel de Provence
+      had supplied the silver, the china, and the glass. The cloth had been laid
+      ever since five o&rsquo;clock in order that the guests on arriving might feast
+      their eyes upon it. At either end of the table, on the white cloth, were
+      bouquets of artificial roses, in porcelain vases gilded and painted with
+      flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the habitual guests of the yellow drawing-room were assembled there
+      they could not conceal their admiration of the spectacle. Several
+      gentlemen smiled with an air of embarrassment while they exchanged furtive
+      glances, which clearly signified, &ldquo;These Rougons are mad, they are
+      throwing their money out of the window.&rdquo; The truth was that Felicite, on
+      going round to invite her guests, had been unable to hold her tongue. So
+      everybody knew that Pierre had been decorated, and that he was about to be
+      nominated to some post; at which, of course, they pulled wry faces.
+      Roudier indeed observed that &ldquo;the little black woman was puffing herself
+      out too much.&rdquo; Now that &ldquo;prize-day&rdquo; had come this band of bourgeois, who
+      had rushed upon the expiring Republic&mdash;each one keeping an eye on the
+      other, and glorying in giving a deeper bite than his neighbour&mdash;did
+      not think it fair that their hosts should have all the laurels of the
+      battle. Even those who had merely howled by instinct, asking no recompense
+      of the rising Empire, were greatly annoyed to see that, thanks to them,
+      the poorest and least reputable of them all should be decorated with the
+      red ribbon. The whole yellow drawing-room ought to have been decorated!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I value the decoration,&rdquo; Roudier said to Granoux, whom he had
+      dragged into the embrasure of a window. &ldquo;I refused it in the time of
+      Louis-Philippe, when I was purveyor to the court. Ah! Louis-Philippe was a
+      good king. France will never find his equal!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Roudier was becoming an Orleanist once more. And he added, with the crafty
+      hypocrisy of an old hosier from the Rue Saint-Honore: &ldquo;But you, my dear
+      Granoux; don&rsquo;t you think the ribbon would look well in your button-hole?
+      After all, you did as much to save the town as Rougon did. Yesterday, when
+      I was calling upon some very distinguished persons, they could scarcely
+      believe it possible that you had made so much noise with a mere hammer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Granoux stammered his thanks, and, blushing like a maiden at her first
+      confession of love, whispered in Roudier&rsquo;s ear: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t say anything about
+      it, but I have reason to believe that Rougon will ask the ribbon for me.
+      He&rsquo;s a good fellow at heart, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old hosier thereupon became grave, and assumed a very affable manner.
+      When Vuillet came and spoke to him of the well-deserved reward that their
+      friend had just received, he replied in a loud voice, so as to be heard by
+      Felicite, who was sitting a little way off, that &ldquo;men like Rougon were an
+      ornament to the Legion of Honour.&rdquo; The bookseller joined in the chorus; he
+      had that morning received a formal assurance that the custom of the
+      college would be restored to him. As for Sicardot, he at first felt
+      somewhat annoyed to find himself no longer the only one of the set who was
+      decorated. According to him, none but soldiers had a right to the ribbon.
+      Pierre&rsquo;s valour surprised him. However, being in reality a good-natured
+      fellow, he at last grew warmer, and ended by saying that the Napoleons
+      always knew how to distinguish men of spirit and energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rougon and Aristide consequently had an enthusiastic reception; on their
+      arrival all hands were held out to them. Some of the guests went so far as
+      to embrace them. Angele sat on the sofa, by the side of her mother-in-law,
+      feeling very happy, and gazing at the table with the astonishment of a
+      gourmand who has never seen so many dishes at once. When Aristide
+      approached, Sicardot complimented his son-in-law upon his superb article
+      in the &ldquo;Independant.&rdquo; He restored his friendship to him. The young man, in
+      answer to the fatherly questions which Sicardot addressed to him, replied
+      that he was anxious to take his little family with him to Paris, where his
+      brother Eugene would push him forward; but he was in want of five hundred
+      francs. Sicardot thereupon promised him the money, already foreseeing the
+      day when his daughter would be received at the Tuileries by Napoleon III.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, Felicite had made a sign to her husband. Pierre,
+      surrounded by everybody and anxiously questioned about his pallor, could
+      only escape for a minute. He was just able to whisper in his wife&rsquo;s ear
+      that he had found Pascal and that Macquart would leave that night. Then
+      lowering his voice still more he told her of his mother&rsquo;s insanity, and
+      placed his finger on his lips, as if to say: &ldquo;Not a word; that would spoil
+      the whole evening.&rdquo; Felicite bit her lips. They exchanged a look in which
+      they read their common thoughts: so now the old woman would not trouble
+      them any more: the poacher&rsquo;s hovel would be razed to the ground, as the
+      walls of the Fouques&rsquo; enclosure had been demolished; and they would for
+      ever enjoy the respect and esteem of Plassans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the guests were looking at the table. Felicite showed the gentlemen
+      their seats. It was perfect bliss. As each one took his spoon, Sicardot
+      made a gesture to solicit a moment&rsquo;s delay. Then he rose and gravely said:
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen, on behalf of the company present, I wish to express to our
+      host how pleased we are at the rewards which his courage and patriotism
+      have procured for him. I now see that he must have acted upon a
+      heaven-sent inspiration in remaining here, while those beggars were
+      dragging myself and others along the high roads. Therefore, I heartily
+      applaud the decision of the government. . . . Let me finish, you can then
+      congratulate our friend. . . . Know, then, that our friend, besides being
+      made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, is also to be appointed to a
+      receiver of taxes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a cry of surprise. They had expected a small post. Some of them
+      tried to force a smile; but, aided by the sight of the table, the
+      compliments again poured forth profusely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sicardot once more begged for silence. &ldquo;Wait one moment,&rdquo; he resumed; &ldquo;I
+      have not finished. Just one word. It is probable that our friend will
+      remain among us, owing to the death of Monsieur Peirotte.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whilst the guests burst out into exclamations, Felicite felt a keen pain
+      in her heart. Sicardot had already told her that the receiver had been
+      shot; but at the mention of that sudden and shocking death, just as they
+      were starting on that triumphal dinner, it seemed as if a chilling gust
+      swept past her face. She remembered her wish; it was she who had killed
+      that man. However, amidst the tinkling music of the silver, the company
+      began to do honour to the banquet. In the provinces, people eat very much
+      and very noisily. By the time the <i>releve</i> was served, the gentlemen
+      were all talking together; they showered kicks upon the vanquished,
+      flattered one another, and made disparaging remarks about the absence of
+      the marquis. It was impossible, they said, to maintain intercourse with
+      the nobility. Roudier even gave out that the marquis had begged to be
+      excused because his fear of the insurgents had given him jaundice. At the
+      second course they all scrambled like hounds at the quarry. The
+      oil-dealers and almond-dealers were the men who saved France. They clinked
+      glasses to the glory of the Rougons. Granoux, who was very red, began to
+      stammer, while Vuillet, very pale, was quite drunk. Nevertheless Sicardot
+      continued filling his glass. For her part Angele, who had already eaten
+      too much, prepared herself some sugar and water. The gentlemen were so
+      delighted at being freed from panic, and finding themselves together again
+      in that yellow drawing-room, round a good table, in the bright light
+      radiating from the candelabra and the chandelier&mdash;which they now saw
+      for the first time without its fly-specked cover&mdash;that they gave way
+      to most exuberant folly and indulged in the coarsest enjoyment. Their
+      voices rose in the warm atmosphere more huskily and eulogistically at each
+      successive dish till they could scarcely invent fresh compliments.
+      However, one of them, an old retired master-tanner, hit upon this fine
+      phrase&mdash;that the dinner was a &ldquo;perfect feast worthy of Lucullus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre was radiant, and his big pale face perspired with triumph.
+      Felicite, already accustoming herself to her new station in life, said
+      that they would probably rent poor Monsieur Peirotte&rsquo;s flat until they
+      could purchase a house of their own in the new town. She was already
+      planning how she would place her future furniture in the receiver&rsquo;s rooms.
+      She was entering into possession of her Tuileries. At one moment, however,
+      as the uproar of voices became deafening, she seemed to recollect
+      something, and quitting her seat she whispered in Aristide&rsquo;s ear: &ldquo;And
+      Silvere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man started with surprise at the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is dead,&rdquo; he replied, likewise in a whisper. &ldquo;I was there when the
+      gendarme blew his brains out with a pistol.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Felicite in her turn shuddered. She opened her mouth to ask her son why he
+      had not prevented this murder by claiming the lad; but abruptly hesitating
+      she remained there speechless. Then Aristide, who had read her question on
+      her quivering lips, whispered: &ldquo;You understand, I said nothing&mdash;so
+      much the worse for him! I did quite right. It&rsquo;s a good riddance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This brutal frankness displeased Felicite. So Aristide had his skeleton,
+      like his father and mother. He would certainly not have confessed so
+      openly that he had been strolling about the Faubourg and had allowed his
+      cousin to be shot, had not the wine from the Hotel de Provence and the
+      dreams he was building upon his approaching arrival in Paris, made him
+      depart from his habitual cunning. The words once spoken, he swung himself
+      to and fro on his chair. Pierre, who had watched the conversation between
+      his wife and son from a distance, understood what had passed and glanced
+      at them like an accomplice imploring silence. It was the last blast of
+      terror, as it were, which blew over the Rougons, amidst the splendour and
+      enthusiastic merriment of the dinner. True, Felicite, on returning to her
+      seat, espied a taper burning behind a window on the other side of the
+      road. Some one sat watching Monsieur Peirotte&rsquo;s corpse, which had been
+      brought back from Sainte-Roure that morning. She sat down, feeling as if
+      that taper were heating her back. But the gaiety was now increasing, and
+      exclamations of rapture rang through the yellow drawing-room when the
+      dessert appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that same hour, the Faubourg was still shuddering at the tragedy which
+      had just stained the Aire Saint-Mittre with blood. The return of the
+      troops, after the carnage on the Nores plain, had been marked by the most
+      cruel reprisals. Men were beaten to death behind bits of wall, with the
+      butt-ends of muskets, others had their brains blown out in ravines by the
+      pistols of gendarmes. In order that terror might impose silence, the
+      soldiers strewed their road with corpses. One might have followed them by
+      the red trail which they left behind.[*] It was a long butchery. At every
+      halting-place, a few insurgents were massacred. Two were killed at
+      Sainte-Roure, three at Ocheres, one at Beage. When the troops were
+      encamped at Plassans, on the Nice road, it was decided that one more
+      prisoner, the most guilty, should be shot. The victors judged it wise to
+      leave this fresh corpse behind them in order to inspire the town with
+      respect for the new-born Empire. But the soldiers were now weary of
+      killing; none offered himself for the fatal task. The prisoners, thrown on
+      the beams in the timber-yard as though on a camp bed, and bound together
+      in pairs by the hands, listened and waited in a state of weary, resigned
+      stupor.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [*] Though M. Zola has changed his place in his account of
+     the insurrection, that account is strictly accurate in all
+     its chief particulars. What he says of the savagery both of
+     the soldiers and of their officers is confirmed by all
+     impartial historical writers.&mdash;EDITOR.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the gendarme Rengade roughly opened a way for himself
+      through the crowd of inquisitive idlers. As soon as he heard that the
+      troops had returned with several hundred insurgents, he had risen from
+      bed, shivering with fever, and risking his life in the cold, dark December
+      air. Scarcely was he out of doors when his wound reopened, the bandage
+      which covered his eyeless socket became stained with blood, and a red
+      streamlet trickled over his cheek and moustache. He looked frightful in
+      his dumb fury with his pale face and blood-stained bandage, as he ran
+      along closely scrutinising each of the prisoners. He followed the beams,
+      bending down and going to and fro, making the bravest shudder by his
+      abrupt appearance. And, all of a sudden: &ldquo;Ah! the bandit, I&rsquo;ve got him!&rdquo;
+       he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had just laid his hand on Silvere&rsquo;s shoulder. Silvere, crouching down
+      on a beam, with lifeless and expressionless face, was looking straight
+      before him into the pale twilight, with a calm, stupefied air. Ever since
+      his departure from Sainte-Roure, he had retained that vacant stare. Along
+      the high road, for many a league, whenever the soldiers urged on the march
+      of their captives with the butt-ends of their rifles, he had shown himself
+      as gentle as a child. Covered with dust, thirsty and weary, he trudged
+      onward without saying a word, like one of those docile animals that
+      herdsmen drive along. He was thinking of Miette. He ever saw her lying on
+      the banner, under the trees with her eyes turned upwards. For three days
+      he had seen none but her; and at this very moment, amidst the growing
+      darkness, he still saw her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rengade turned towards the officer, who had failed to find among the
+      soldiers the requisite men for an execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This villain put my eye out,&rdquo; he said, pointing to Silvere. &ldquo;Hand him
+      over to me. It&rsquo;s as good as done for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer did not reply in words, but withdrew with an air of
+      indifference, making a vague gesture. The gendarme understood that the man
+      was surrendered to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, get up!&rdquo; he resumed, as he shook him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, like all the other prisoners, had a companion attached to him. He
+      was fastened by the arm to a peasant of Poujols named Mourgue, a man about
+      fifty, who had been brutified by the scorching sun and the hard labour of
+      tilling the ground. Crooked-backed already, his hands hardened, his face
+      coarse and heavy, he blinked his eyes in a stupid manner, with the
+      stubborn, distrustful expression of an animal subject to the lash. He had
+      set out armed with a pitchfork, because his fellow villagers had done so;
+      but he could not have explained what had thus set him adrift on the high
+      roads. Since he had been made a prisoner he understood it still less. He
+      had some vague idea that he was being conveyed home. His amazement at
+      finding himself bound, the sight of all the people staring at him,
+      stupefied him still more. As he only spoke and understood the dialect of
+      the region, he could not imagine what the gendarme wanted. He raised his
+      coarse, heavy face towards him with an effort; then, fancying he was being
+      asked the name of his village, he said in his hoarse voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come from Poujols.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A burst of laughter ran through the crowd, and some voices cried: &ldquo;Release
+      the peasant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah!&rdquo; Rengade replied; &ldquo;the more of this vermin that&rsquo;s crushed the
+      better. As they&rsquo;re together, they can both go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a murmur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the gendarme turned his terrible blood-stained face upon the
+      onlookers, and they slunk off. One cleanly little citizen went away
+      declaring that if he remained any longer it would spoil his appetite for
+      dinner. However some boys who recognised Silvere, began to speak of &ldquo;the
+      red girl.&rdquo; Thereupon the little citizen retraced his steps, in order to
+      see the lover of the female standard-bearer, that depraved creature who
+      had been mentioned in the &ldquo;Gazette.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, for his part, neither saw nor heard anything; Rengade had to
+      seize him by the collar. Thereupon he got up, forcing Mourgue to rise
+      also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said the gendarme. &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t take long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere then recognised the one-eyed man. He smiled. He must have
+      understood. But he turned his head away. The sight of the one-eyed man, of
+      his moustaches which congealed blood stiffened as with sinister rime,
+      caused him profound grief. He would have liked to die in perfect peace. So
+      he avoided the gaze of Rengade&rsquo;s one eye, which glared from beneath the
+      white bandage. And of his own accord he proceeded to the end of the Aire
+      Saint-Mittre, to the narrow lane hidden by the timber stacks. Mourgue
+      followed him thither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Aire stretched out, with an aspect of desolation under the sallow sky.
+      A murky light fell here and there from the copper-coloured clouds. Never
+      had a sadder and more lingering twilight cast its melancholy over this
+      bare expanse&mdash;this wood-yard with its slumbering timber, so stiff and
+      rigid in the cold. The prisoners, the soldiers, and the mob along the high
+      road disappeared amid the darkness of the trees. The expanse, the beams,
+      the piles of planks alone grew pale under the fading light, assuming a
+      muddy tint that vaguely suggested the bed of a dried-up torrent. The
+      sawyers&rsquo; trestles, rearing their meagre framework in a corner, seemed to
+      form gallows, or the uprights of a guillotine. And there was no living
+      soul there excepting three gipsies who showed their frightened faces at
+      the door of their van&mdash;an old man and woman, and a big girl with
+      woolly hair, whose eyes gleamed like those of a wolf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before reaching the secluded path, Silvere looked round him. He bethought
+      himself of a far away Sunday when he had crossed the wood-yard in the
+      bright moonlight. How calm and soft it had been!&mdash;how slowly had the
+      pale rays passed over the beams! Supreme silence had fallen from the
+      frozen sky. And amidst this silence, the woolly-haired gipsy girl had sung
+      in a low key and an unknown tongue. Then Silvere remembered that the
+      seemingly far-off Sunday was only a week old. But a week ago he had come
+      to bid Miette farewell! How long past it seemed! He felt as though he had
+      not set foot in the wood-yard for years. But when he reached the narrow
+      path his heart failed him. He recognised the odour of the grass, the
+      shadows of the planks, the holes in the wall. A woeful voice rose from all
+      those things. The path stretched out sad and lonely; it seemed longer to
+      him than usual, and he felt a cold wind blowing down it. The spot had aged
+      cruelly. He saw that the wall was moss-eaten, that the verdant carpet was
+      dried up by frost, that the piles of timber had been rotted by rain. It
+      was perfect devastation. The yellow twilight fell like fine dust upon the
+      ruins of all that had been most dear to him. He was obliged to close his
+      eyes that he might again behold the lane green, and live his happy hours
+      afresh. It was warm weather; and he was racing with Miette in the balmy
+      air. Then the cruel December rains fell unceasingly, yet they still came
+      there, sheltering themselves beneath the planks and listening with rapture
+      to the heavy plashing of the shower. His whole life&mdash;all his
+      happiness&mdash;passed before him like a flash of lightning. Miette was
+      climbing over the wall, running to him, shaking with sonorous laughter.
+      She was there; he could see her, gleaming white through the darkness, with
+      her living helm of ink-black hair. She was talking about the magpies&rsquo; 
+      nests, which are so difficult to steal, and she dragged him along with
+      her. Then he heard the gentle murmur of the Viorne in the distance, the
+      chirping of the belated grasshoppers, and the blowing of the breeze among
+      the poplars in the meadows of Sainte-Claire. Ah, how they used to run! How
+      well he remembered it! She had learnt to swim in a fortnight. She was a
+      plucky girl. She had only had one great fault: she was inclined to
+      pilfering. But he would have cured her of that. Then the thought of their
+      first embraces brought him back to the narrow path. They had always ended
+      by returning to that nook. He fancied he could hear the gipsy girl&rsquo;s song
+      dying away, the creaking of the last shutters, the solemn striking of the
+      clocks. Then the hour of separation came, and Miette climbed the wall
+      again and threw him a kiss. And he saw her no more. Emotion choked him at
+      the thought: he would never see her again&mdash;never!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you&rsquo;re ready,&rdquo; jeered the one-eyed man; &ldquo;come, choose your place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere took a few more steps. He was approaching the end of the path, and
+      could see nothing but a strip of sky in which the rust-coloured light was
+      fading away. Here had he spent his life for two years past. The slow
+      approach of death added an ineffable charm to this pathway which had so
+      long served as a lovers&rsquo; walk. He loitered, bidding a long and lingering
+      farewell to all he loved; the grass, the timber, the stone of the old
+      wall, all those things into which Miette had breathed life. And again his
+      thoughts wandered. They were waiting till they should be old enough to
+      marry: Aunt Dide would remain with them. Ah! if they had fled far away,
+      very far away, to some unknown village, where the scamps of the Faubourg
+      would no longer have been able to come and cast Chantegreil&rsquo;s crime in his
+      daughter&rsquo;s face. What peaceful bliss! They would have opened a
+      wheelwright&rsquo;s workshop beside some high road. No doubt, he cared little
+      for his ambitions now; he no longer thought of coachmaking, of carriages
+      with broad varnished panels as shiny as mirrors. In the stupor of his
+      despair he could not remember why his dream of bliss would never come to
+      pass. Why did he not go away with Miette and aunt Dide? Then as he racked
+      his memory, he heard the sharp crackling of a fusillade; he saw a standard
+      fall before him, its staff broken and its folds drooping like the wings of
+      a bird brought down by a shot. It was the Republic falling asleep with
+      Miette under the red flag. Ah, what wretchedness! They were both dead,
+      both had bleeding wounds in their breasts. And it was they&mdash;the
+      corpses of his two loves&mdash;that now barred his path of life. He had
+      nothing left him and might well die himself. These were the thoughts that
+      had made him so gentle, so listless, so childlike all the way from
+      Sainte-Roure. The soldiers might have struck him, he would not have felt
+      it. His spirit no longer inhabited his body. It was far away, prostrate
+      beside the loved ones who were dead under the trees amidst the pungent
+      smoke of the gunpowder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the one-eyed man was growing impatient; giving a push to Mourgue, who
+      was lagging behind, he growled: &ldquo;Get along, do; I don&rsquo;t want to be here
+      all night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere stumbled. He looked at his feet. A fragment of a skull lay
+      whitening in the grass. He thought he heard a murmur of voices filling the
+      pathway. The dead were calling him, those long departed ones, whose warm
+      breath had so strangely perturbed him and his sweetheart during the sultry
+      July evenings. He recognised their low whispers. They were rejoicing, they
+      were telling him to come, and promising to restore Miette to him beneath
+      the earth, in some retreat which would prove still more sequestered than
+      this old trysting-place. The cemetery, whose oppressive odours and dark
+      vegetation had breathed eager desire into the children&rsquo;s hearts, while
+      alluringly spreading out its couches of rank grass, without succeeding
+      however in throwing them into one another&rsquo;s arms, now longed to imbibe
+      Silvere&rsquo;s warm blood. For two summers past it had been expecting the young
+      lovers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it here?&rdquo; asked the one-eyed man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere looked in front of him. He had reached the end of the path. His
+      eyes fell on the tombstone, and he started. Miette was right, that stone
+      was for her. <i>&ldquo;Here lieth . . . Marie . . . died . . . &ldquo;</i> She was
+      dead, that slab had fallen over her. His strength failing him, he leant
+      against the frozen stone. How warm it had been when they sat in that nook,
+      chatting for many a long evening! She had always come that way, and the
+      pressure of her foot, as she alighted from the wall, had worn away the
+      stone&rsquo;s surface in one corner. The mark seemed instinct with something of
+      her lissom figure. And to Silvere it appeared as if some fatalism attached
+      to all these objects&mdash;as if the stone were there precisely in order
+      that he might come to die beside it, there where he had loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The one-eyed man cocked his pistols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Death! death! the thought fascinated Silvere. It was to this spot, then,
+      that they had led him, by the long white road which descends from
+      Sainte-Roure to Plassans. If he had known it, he would have hastened on
+      yet more quickly in order to die on that stone, at the end of the narrow
+      path, in the atmosphere where he could still detect the scent of Miette&rsquo;s
+      breath! Never had he hoped for such consolation in his grief. Heaven was
+      merciful. He waited, a vague smile playing on is face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mourgue, meantime, had caught sight of the pistols. Hitherto he had
+      allowed himself to be dragged along stupidly. But fear now overcame him,
+      and he repeated, in a tone of despair: &ldquo;I come from Poujols&mdash;I come
+      from Poujols!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he threw himself on the ground, rolling at the gendarme&rsquo;s feet,
+      breaking out into prayers for mercy, and imagining that he was being
+      mistaken for some one else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it matter to me that you come from Poujols?&rdquo; Rengade muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as the wretched man, shivering and crying with terror, and quite
+      unable to understand why he was going to die, held out his trembling hands&mdash;his
+      deformed, hard, labourer&rsquo;s hands&mdash;exclaiming in his patois that he
+      had done nothing and ought to be pardoned, the one-eyed man grew quite
+      exasperated at being unable to put the pistol to his temple, owing to his
+      constant movements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you hold your tongue?&rdquo; he shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon Mourgue, mad with fright and unwilling to die, began to howl
+      like a beast&mdash;like a pig that is being slaughtered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold your tongue, you scoundrel!&rdquo; the gendarme repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he blew his brains out. The peasant fell with a thud. His body rolled
+      to the foot of a timber-stack, where it remained doubled up. The violence
+      of the shock had severed the rope which fastened him to his companion.
+      Silvere fell on his knees before the tombstone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was to make his vengeance the more terrible that Rengade had killed
+      Mourgue first. He played with his second pistol, raising it slowly in
+      order to relish Silvere&rsquo;s agony. But the latter looked at him quietly.
+      Then again the sight of this man, with the one fierce, scorching eye, made
+      him feel uneasy. He averted his glance, fearing that he might die cowardly
+      if he continued to look at that feverishly quivering gendarme, with
+      blood-stained bandage and bleeding moustache. However, as he raised his
+      eyes to avoid him, he perceived Justin&rsquo;s head just above the wall, at the
+      very spot where Miette had been wont to leap over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Justin had been at the Porte de Rome, among the crowd, when the gendarme
+      had led the prisoners away. He had set off as fast as he could by way of
+      the Jas-Meiffren, in his eagerness to witness the execution. The thought
+      that he alone, of all the Faubourg scamps, would view the tragedy at his
+      ease, as from a balcony, made him run so quickly that he twice fell down.
+      And in spite of his wild chase, he arrived too late to witness the first
+      shot. He climbed the mulberry tree in despair; but he smiled when he saw
+      that Silvere still remained. The soldiers had informed him of his cousin&rsquo;s
+      death, and now the murder of the wheelwright brought his happiness to a
+      climax. He awaited the shot with that delight which the sufferings of
+      others always afforded him&mdash;a delight increased tenfold by the horror
+      of the scene, and a feeling of exquisite fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silvere, on recognising that vile scamp&rsquo;s head all by itself above the
+      wall&mdash;that pale grinning face, with hair standing on end&mdash;experienced
+      a feeling of fierce rage, a sudden desire to live. It was the last revolt
+      of his blood&mdash;a momentary mutiny. He again sank down on his knees,
+      gazing straight before him. A last vision passed before his eyes in the
+      melancholy twilight. At the end of the path, at the entrance of the
+      Impasse Saint-Mittre, he fancied he could see aunt Dide standing erect,
+      white and rigid like the statue of a saint, while she witnessed his agony
+      from a distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment he felt the cold pistol on his temple. There was a smile on
+      Justin&rsquo;s pale face. Closing his eyes, Silvere heard the long-departed dead
+      wildly summoning him. In the darkness, he now saw nothing save Miette,
+      wrapped in the banner, under the trees, with her eyes turned towards
+      heaven. Then the one-eyed man fired, and all was over; the lad&rsquo;s skull
+      burst open like a ripe pomegranate; his face fell upon the stone, with his
+      lips pressed to the spot which Miette&rsquo;s feet had worn&mdash;that warm spot
+      which still retained a trace of his dead love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in the evening at dessert, at the Rougons&rsquo; abode, bursts of laughter
+      arose with the fumes from the table, which was still warm with the remains
+      of the dinner. At last the Rougons were nibbling at the pleasures of the
+      wealthy! Their appetites, sharpened by thirty years of restrained desire,
+      now fell to with wolfish teeth. These fierce, insatiate wild beasts,
+      scarcely entering upon indulgence, exulted at the birth of the Empire&mdash;the
+      dawn of the Rush for the Spoils. The Coup d&rsquo;Etat, which retrieved the
+      fortune of the Bonapartes, also laid the foundation for that of the
+      Rougons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre stood up, held out his glass, and exclaimed: &ldquo;I drink to Prince
+      Louis&mdash;to the Emperor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentlemen, who had drowned their jealousies in champagne, rose in a
+      body and clinked glasses with deafening shouts. It was a fine spectacle.
+      The bourgeois of Plassans, Roudier, Granoux, Vuillet, and all the others,
+      wept and embraced each other over the corpse of the Republic, which as yet
+      was scarcely cold. But a splendid idea occurred to Sicardot. He took from
+      Felicite&rsquo;s hair a pink satin bow, which she had placed over her right ear
+      in honour of the occasion, cut off a strip of the satin with his dessert
+      knife, and then solemnly fastened it to Rougon&rsquo;s button-hole. The latter
+      feigned modesty, and pretended to resist. But his face beamed with joy, as
+      he murmured: &ldquo;No, I beg you, it is too soon. We must wait until the decree
+      is published.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zounds!&rdquo; Sicardot exclaimed, &ldquo;will you please keep that! It&rsquo;s an old
+      soldier of Napoleon who decorates you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole company burst into applause. Felicite almost swooned with
+      delight. Silent Granoux jumped up on a chair in his enthusiasm, waving his
+      napkin and making a speech which was lost amid the uproar. The yellow
+      drawing-room was wild with triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the strip of pink satin fastened to Pierre&rsquo;s button-hole was not the
+      only red spot in that triumph of the Rougons. A shoe, with a blood-stained
+      heel, still lay forgotten under the bedstead in the adjoining room. The
+      taper burning at Monsieur Peirotte&rsquo;s bedside, over the way, gleamed too
+      with the lurid redness of a gaping wound amidst the dark night. And
+      yonder, far away, in the depths of the Aire Saint-Mittre, a pool of blood
+      was congealing upon a tombstone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg&rsquo;s The Fortune of the Rougons, by Emile Zola
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune of the Rougons, by Emile Zola
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fortune of the Rougons
+
+Author: Emile Zola
+
+Editor: Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
+
+Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #5135]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; John Bickers
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
+
+By Emile Zola
+
+
+Edited With Introduction By Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+"The Fortune of the Rougons" is the initial volume of the
+Rougon-Macquart series. Though it was by no means M. Zola's first essay
+in fiction, it was undoubtedly his first great bid for genuine literary
+fame, and the foundation of what must necessarily be regarded as his
+life-work. The idea of writing the "natural and social history of a
+family under the Second Empire," extending to a score of volumes, was
+doubtless suggested to M. Zola by Balzac's immortal "Comedie Humaine."
+He was twenty-eight years of age when this idea first occurred to him;
+he was fifty-three when he at last sent the manuscript of his concluding
+volume, "Dr. Pascal," to the press. He had spent five-and-twenty years
+in working out his scheme, persevering with it doggedly and stubbornly,
+whatever rebuffs he might encounter, whatever jeers and whatever insults
+might be directed against him by the ignorant, the prejudiced, and the
+hypocritical. Truth was on the march and nothing could stay it; even as,
+at the present hour, its march, if slow, none the less continues athwart
+another and a different crisis of the illustrious novelist's career.
+
+It was in the early summer of 1869 that M. Zola first began the actual
+writing of "The Fortune of the Rougons." It was only in the following
+year, however, that the serial publication of the work commenced in
+the columns of "Le Siecle," the Republican journal of most influence
+in Paris in those days of the Second Empire. The Franco-German war
+interrupted this issue of the story, and publication in book form did
+not take place until the latter half of 1871, a time when both the war
+and the Commune had left Paris exhausted, supine, with little or no
+interest in anything. No more unfavourable moment for the issue of an
+ambitious work of fiction could have been found. Some two or three
+years went by, as I well remember, before anything like a revival of
+literature and of public interest in literature took place. Thus, M.
+Zola launched his gigantic scheme under auspices which would have made
+many another man recoil. "The Fortune of the Rougons," and two or three
+subsequent volumes of his series, attracted but a moderate degree
+of attention, and it was only on the morrow of the publication of
+"L'Assommoir" that he awoke, like Byron, to find himself famous.
+
+As previously mentioned, the Rougon-Macquart series forms twenty
+volumes. The last of these, "Dr. Pascal," appeared in 1893. Since
+then M. Zola has written "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris." Critics have
+repeated _ad nauseam_ that these last works constitute a new departure
+on M. Zola's part, and, so far as they formed a new series, this
+is true. But the suggestion that he has in any way repented of the
+Rougon-Macquart novels is ridiculous. As he has often told me of recent
+years, it is, as far as possible, his plan to subordinate his style and
+methods to his subject. To have written a book like "Rome," so largely
+devoted to the ambitions of the Papal See, in the same way as he had
+written books dealing with the drunkenness or other vices of Paris,
+would have been the climax of absurdity.
+
+Yet the publication of "Rome," was the signal for a general outcry on
+the part of English and American reviewers that Zolaism, as typified by
+the Rougon-Macquart series, was altogether a thing of the past. To my
+thinking this is a profound error. M. Zola has always remained faithful
+to himself. The only difference that I perceive between his latest
+work, "Paris," and certain Rougon-Macquart volumes, is that with time,
+experience and assiduity, his genius has expanded and ripened, and that
+the hesitation, the groping for truth, so to say, which may be found in
+some of his earlier writings, has disappeared.
+
+At the time when "The Fortune of the Rougons" was first published, none
+but the author himself can have imagined that the foundation-stone of
+one of the great literary monuments of the century had just been laid.
+From the "story" point of view the book is one of M. Zola's very best,
+although its construction--particularly as regards the long interlude of
+the idyll of Miette and Silvere--is far from being perfect. Such a work
+when first issued might well bring its author a measure of popularity,
+but it could hardly confer fame. Nowadays, however, looking backward,
+and bearing in mind that one here has the genius of M. Zola's lifework,
+"The Fortune of the Rougons" becomes a book of exceptional interest
+and importance. This has been so well understood by French readers that
+during the last six or seven years the annual sales of the work have
+increased threefold. Where, over a course of twenty years, 1,000 copies
+were sold, 2,500 and 3,000 are sold to-day. How many living English
+novelists can say the same of their early essays in fiction, issued more
+than a quarter of a century ago?
+
+I may here mention that at the last date to which I have authentic
+figures, that is, Midsummer 1897 (prior, of course, to what is called
+"L'Affaire Dreyfus"), there had been sold of the entire Rougon-Macquart
+series (which had begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies. These were of the
+ordinary Charpentier editions of the French originals. By adding thereto
+several _editions de luxe_ and the widely-circulated popular illustrated
+editions of certain volumes, the total amounts roundly to 2,100,000.
+"Rome," "Lourdes," "Paris," and all M. Zola's other works, apart from
+the "Rougon-Macquart" series, together with the translations into a
+dozen different languages--English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch,
+Danish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and others--are not included
+in the above figures. Otherwise the latter might well be doubled. Nor
+is account taken of the many serial issues which have brought M. Zola's
+views to the knowledge of the masses of all Europe.
+
+It is, of course, the celebrity attaching to certain of M. Zola's
+literary efforts that has stimulated the demand for his other writings.
+Among those which are well worthy of being read for their own sakes, I
+would assign a prominent place to the present volume. Much of the story
+element in it is admirable, and, further, it shows M. Zola as a
+genuine satirist and humorist. The Rougons' yellow drawing-room and
+its habitues, and many of the scenes between Pierre Rougon and his wife
+Felicite, are worthy of the pen of Douglas Jerrold. The whole account,
+indeed, of the town of Plassans, its customs and its notabilities, is
+satire of the most effective kind, because it is satire true to life,
+and never degenerates into mere caricature.
+
+It is a rather curious coincidence that, at the time when M. Zola was
+thus portraying the life of Provence, his great contemporary, bosom
+friend, and rival for literary fame, the late Alphonse Daudet, should
+have been producing, under the title of "The Provencal Don Quixote,"
+that unrivalled presentment of the foibles of the French Southerner,
+with everyone nowadays knows as "Tartarin of Tarascon." It is possible
+that M. Zola, while writing his book, may have read the instalments of
+"Le Don Quichotte Provencal" published in the Paris "Figaro," and it may
+be that this perusal imparted that fillip to his pen to which we owe
+the many amusing particulars that he gives us of the town of Plassans.
+Plassans, I may mention, is really the Provencal Aix, which M. Zola's
+father provided with water by means of a canal still bearing his name.
+M. Zola himself, though born in Paris, spent the greater part of his
+childhood there. Tarascon, as is well known, never forgave Alphonse
+Daudet for his "Tartarin"; and in a like way M. Zola, who doubtless
+counts more enemies than any other literary man of the period, has none
+bitterer than the worthy citizens of Aix. They cannot forget or forgive
+the rascally Rougon-Macquarts.
+
+The name Rougon-Macquart has to me always suggested that splendid and
+amusing type of the cynical rogue, Robert Macaire. But, of course, both
+Rougon and Macquart are genuine French names and not inventions. Indeed,
+several years ago I came by chance upon them both, in an old French deed
+which I was examining at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. I
+there found mention of a Rougon family and a Macquart family dwelling
+virtually side by side in the same village. This, however, was in
+Champagne, not in Provence. Both families farmed vineyards for a once
+famous abbey in the vicinity of Epernay, early in the seventeenth
+century. To me, personally, this trivial discovery meant a great deal.
+It somehow aroused my interest in M. Zola and his works. Of the latter I
+had then only glanced through two or three volumes. With M. Zola himself
+I was absolutely unacquainted. However, I took the liberty to inform him
+of my little discovery; and afterwards I read all the books that he had
+published. Now, as it is fairly well known, I have given the greater
+part of my time, for several years past, to the task of familiarising
+English readers with his writings. An old deed, a chance glance,
+followed by the great friendship of my life and years of patient labour.
+If I mention this matter, it is solely with the object of endorsing the
+truth of the saying that the most insignificant incidents frequently
+influence and even shape our careers.
+
+But I must come back to "The Fortune of the Rougons." It has, as I have
+said, its satirical and humorous side; but it also contains a strong
+element of pathos. The idyll of Miette and Silvere is a very touching
+one, and quite in accord with the conditions of life prevailing in
+Provence at the period M. Zola selects for his narrative. Miette is
+a frank child of nature; Silvere, her lover, in certain respects
+foreshadows, a quarter of a century in advance, the Abbe Pierre Fromont
+of "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris." The environment differs, of course,
+but germs of the same nature may readily be detected in both characters.
+As for the other personages of M. Zola's book--on the one hand, Aunt
+Dide, Pierre Rougon, his wife, Felicite, and their sons Eugene, Aristide
+and Pascal, and, on the other, Macquart, his daughter Gervaise of
+"L'Assommoir," and his son Jean of "La Terre" and "La Debacle," together
+with the members of the Mouret branch of the ravenous, neurotic, duplex
+family--these are analysed or sketched in a way which renders their
+subsequent careers, as related in other volumes of the series,
+thoroughly consistent with their origin and their up-bringing. I venture
+to asset that, although it is possible to read individual volumes of
+the Rougon-Macquart series while neglecting others, nobody can really
+understand any one of these books unless he makes himself acquainted
+with the alpha and the omega of the edifice, that is, "The Fortune of
+the Rougons" and "Dr. Pascal."
+
+With regard to the present English translation, it is based on one made
+for my father several years ago. But to convey M. Zola's meaning more
+accurately I have found it necessary to alter, on an average, at least
+one sentence out of every three. Thus, though I only claim to edit the
+volume, it is, to all intents and purposes, quite a new English version
+of M. Zola's work.
+
+E. A. V. MERTON, SURREY: August, 1898.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE
+
+I wish to explain how a family, a small group of human beings, conducts
+itself in a given social system after blossoming forth and giving birth
+to ten or twenty members, who, though they may appear, at the first
+glance, profoundly dissimilar one from the other, are, as analysis
+demonstrates, most closely linked together from the point of view of
+affinity. Heredity, like gravity, has its laws.
+
+By resolving the duplex question of temperament and environment, I shall
+endeavour to discover and follow the thread of connection which leads
+mathematically from one man to another. And when I have possession of
+every thread, and hold a complete social group in my hands, I shall
+show this group at work, participating in an historical period; I shall
+depict it in action, with all its varied energies, and I shall analyse
+both the will power of each member, and the general tendency of the
+whole.
+
+The great characteristic of the Rougon-Macquarts, the group or family
+which I propose to study, is their ravenous appetite, the great
+outburst of our age which rushes upon enjoyment. Physiologically the
+Rougon-Macquarts represent the slow succession of accidents pertaining
+to the nerves or the blood, which befall a race after the first organic
+lesion, and, according to environment, determine in each individual
+member of the race those feelings, desires and passions--briefly, all
+the natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to humanity--whose
+outcome assumes the conventional name of virtue or vice. Historically
+the Rougon-Macquarts proceed from the masses, radiate throughout the
+whole of contemporary society, and ascend to all sorts of positions by
+the force of that impulsion of essentially modern origin, which sets the
+lower classes marching through the social system. And thus the dramas of
+their individual lives recount the story of the Second Empire, from the
+ambuscade of the Coup d'Etat to the treachery of Sedan.
+
+For three years I had been collecting the necessary documents for this
+long work, and the present volume was even written, when the fall of the
+Bonapartes, which I needed artistically, and with, as if by fate, I
+ever found at the end of the drama, without daring to hope that it
+would prove so near at hand, suddenly occurred and furnished me with
+the terrible but necessary denouement for my work. My scheme is, at
+this date, completed; the circle in which my characters will revolve
+is perfected; and my work becomes a picture of a departed reign, of a
+strange period of human madness and shame.
+
+This work, which will comprise several episodes, is therefore, in
+my mind, the natural and social history of a family under the Second
+Empire. And the first episode, here called "The Fortune of the Rougons,"
+should scientifically be entitled "The Origin."
+
+EMILE ZOLA PARIS, July 1, 1871.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+On quitting Plassans by the Rome Gate, on the southern side of the town,
+you will find, on the right side of the road to Nice, and a little way
+past the first suburban houses, a plot of land locally known as the Aire
+Saint-Mittre.
+
+This Aire Saint-Mittre is of oblong shape and on a level with the
+footpath of the adjacent road, from which it is separated by a strip of
+trodden grass. A narrow blind alley fringed with a row of hovels borders
+it on the right; while on the left, and at the further end, it is closed
+in by bits of wall overgrown with moss, above which can be seen the
+top branches of the mulberry-trees of the Jas-Meiffren--an extensive
+property with an entrance lower down the road. Enclosed upon three
+sides, the Aire Saint-Mittre leads nowhere, and is only crossed by
+people out for a stroll.
+
+In former times it was a cemetery under the patronage of Saint-Mittre, a
+greatly honoured Provencal saint; and in 1851 the old people of Plassans
+could still remember having seen the wall of the cemetery standing,
+although the place itself had been closed for years. The soil had been
+so glutted with corpses that it had been found necessary to open a new
+burial-ground at the other end of town. Then the old abandoned cemetery
+had been gradually purified by the dark thick-set vegetation which had
+sprouted over it every spring. The rich soil, in which the gravediggers
+could no longer delve without turning up some human remains, was
+possessed of wondrous fertility. The tall weeds overtopped the walls
+after the May rains and the June sunshine so as to be visible from the
+high road; while inside, the place presented the appearance of a deep,
+dark green sea studded with large blossoms of singular brilliancy.
+Beneath one's feet amidst the close-set stalks one could feel that the
+damp soil reeked and bubbled with sap.
+
+Among the curiosities of the place at that time were some large
+pear-trees, with twisted and knotty boughs; but none of the housewives
+of Plassans cared to pluck the large fruit which grew upon them. Indeed,
+the townspeople spoke of this fruit with grimaces of disgust. No such
+delicacy, however, restrained the suburban urchins, who assembled in
+bands at twilight and climbed the walls to steal the pears, even before
+they were ripe.
+
+The trees and the weeds with their vigorous growth had rapidly
+assimilated all the decomposing matter in the old cemetery of
+Saint-Mittre; the malaria rising from the human remains interred
+there had been greedily absorbed by the flowers and the fruit; so that
+eventually the only odour one could detect in passing by was the strong
+perfume of wild gillyflowers. This had merely been a question of a few
+summers.
+
+At last the townspeople determined to utilise this common property,
+which had long served no purpose. The walls bordering the roadway and
+the blind alley were pulled down; the weeds and the pear-trees uprooted;
+the sepulchral remains were removed; the ground was dug deep, and such
+bones as the earth was willing to surrender were heaped up in a
+corner. For nearly a month the youngsters, who lamented the loss of
+the pear-trees, played at bowls with the skulls; and one night
+some practical jokers even suspended femurs and tibias to all the
+bell-handles of the town. This scandal, which is still remembered at
+Plassans, did not cease until the authorities decided to have the bones
+shot into a hole which had been dug for the purpose in the new cemetery.
+All work, however, is usually carried out with discreet dilatoriness
+in country towns, and so during an entire week the inhabitants saw a
+solitary cart removing these human remains as if they had been mere
+rubbish. The vehicle had to cross Plassans from end to end, and owing to
+the bad condition of the roads fragments of bones and handfuls of rich
+mould were scattered at every jolt. There was not the briefest religious
+ceremony, nothing but slow and brutish cartage. Never before had a town
+felt so disgusted.
+
+For several years the old cemetery remained an object of terror.
+Although it adjoined the main thoroughfare and was open to all comers,
+it was left quite deserted, a prey to fresh vegetable growth. The local
+authorities, who had doubtless counted on selling it and seeing
+houses built upon it, were evidently unable to find a purchaser. The
+recollection of the heaps of bones and the cart persistently jolting
+through the streets may have made people recoil from the spot; or
+perhaps the indifference that was shown was due to the indolence, the
+repugnance to pulling down and setting up again, which is characteristic
+of country people. At all events the authorities still retained
+possession of the ground, and at last forgot their desire to dispose of
+it. They did not even erect a fence round it, but left it open to all
+comers. Then, as time rolled on, people gradually grew accustomed to
+this barren spot; they would sit on the grass at the edges, walk about,
+or gather in groups. When the grass had been worn away and the
+trodden soil had become grey and hard, the old cemetery resembled a
+badly-levelled public square. As if the more effectually to efface the
+memory of all objectionable associations, the inhabitants slowly changed
+the very appellation of the place, retaining but the name of the saint,
+which was likewise applied to the blind alley dipping down at one corner
+of the field. Thus there was the Aire Saint-Mittre and the Impasse
+Saint-Mittre.
+
+All this dates, however, from some considerable time back. For more
+than thirty years now the Aire Saint-Mittre has presented a different
+appearance. One day the townspeople, far too inert and indifferent to
+derive any advantage from it, let it, for a trifling consideration,
+to some suburban wheelwrights, who turned it into a wood-yard. At the
+present day it is still littered with huge pieces of timber thirty or
+forty feet long, lying here and there in piles, and looking like lofty
+overturned columns. These piles of timber, disposed at intervals from
+one end of the yard to the other, are a continual source of delight
+to the local urchins. In some places the ground is covered with fallen
+wood, forming a kind of uneven flooring over which it is impossible to
+walk, unless one balance one's self with marvellous dexterity. Troops of
+children amuse themselves with this exercise all day long. You will see
+them jumping over the big beams, walking in Indian file along the narrow
+ends, or else crawling astride them; various games which generally
+terminate in blows and bellowings. Sometimes, too, a dozen of them will
+sit, closely packed one against the other, on the thin end of a pole
+raised a few feet from the ground, and will see-saw there for hours
+together. The Aire Saint-Mittre thus serves as a recreation ground,
+where for more than a quarter of a century all the little suburban
+ragamuffins have been in the habit of wearing out the seats of their
+breeches.
+
+The strangeness of the place is increased by the circumstance that
+wandering gipsies, by a sort of traditional custom always select the
+vacant portions of it for their encampments. Whenever any caravan
+arrives at Plassans it takes up its quarters on the Aire Saint-Mittre.
+The place is consequently never empty. There is always some strange band
+there, some troop of wild men and withered women, among whom groups of
+healthy-looking children roll about on the grass. These people live
+in the open air, regardless of everybody, setting their pots boiling,
+eating nameless things, freely displaying their tattered garments, and
+sleeping, fighting, kissing, and reeking with mingled filth and misery.
+
+The field, formerly so still and deserted, save for the buzzing of
+hornets around the rich blossoms in the heavy sunshine, has thus become
+a very rowdy spot, resounding with the noisy quarrels of the gipsies and
+the shrill cries of the urchins of the suburb. In one corner there is a
+primitive saw-mill for cutting the timber, the noise from which serves
+as a dull, continuous bass accompaniment to the sharp voices. The wood
+is placed on two high tressels, and a couple of sawyers, one of whom
+stands aloft on the timber itself, while the other underneath is half
+blinded by the falling sawdust, work a large saw to and fro for
+hours together, with rigid machine-like regularity, as if they were
+wire-pulled puppets. The wood they saw is stacked, plank by plank, along
+the wall at the end, in carefully arranged piles six or eight feet high,
+which often remain there several seasons, and constitute one of the
+charms of the Aire Saint-Mittre. Between these stacks are mysterious,
+retired little alleys leading to a broader path between the timber and
+the wall, a deserted strip of verdure whence only small patches of
+sky can be seen. The vigorous vegetation and the quivering, deathlike
+stillness of the old cemetery still reign in this path. In all the
+country round Plassans there is no spot more instinct with languor,
+solitude, and love. It is a most delightful place for love-making. When
+the cemetery was being cleared the bones must have been heaped up in
+this corner; for even to-day it frequently happens that one's foot comes
+across some fragment of a skull lying concealed in the damp turf.
+
+Nobody, however, now thinks of the bodies that once slept under that
+turf. In the daytime only the children go behind the piles of wood when
+playing at hide and seek. The green path remains virginal, unknown to
+others who see nought but the wood-yard crowded with timber and grey
+with dust. In the morning and afternoon, when the sun is warm, the whole
+place swarms with life. Above all the turmoil, above the ragamuffins
+playing among the timber, and the gipsies kindling fires under their
+cauldrons, the sharp silhouette of the sawyer mounted on his beam stands
+out against the sky, moving to and fro with the precision of clockwork,
+as if to regulate the busy activity that has sprung up in this spot
+once set apart for eternal slumber. Only the old people who sit on the
+planks, basking in the setting sun, speak occasionally among themselves
+of the bones which they once saw carted through the streets of Plassans
+by the legendary tumbrel.
+
+When night falls the Aire Saint-Mittre loses its animation, and looks
+like some great black hole. At the far end one may just espy the dying
+embers of the gipsies' fires, and at times shadows slink noiselessly
+into the dense darkness. The place becomes quite sinister, particularly
+in winter time.
+
+One Sunday evening, at about seven o'clock, a young man stepped lightly
+from the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and, closely skirting the walls, took
+his way among the timber in the wood-yard. It was in the early part of
+December, 1851. The weather was dry and cold. The full moon shone with
+that sharp brilliancy peculiar to winter moons. The wood-yard did not
+have the forbidding appearance which it wears on rainy nights; illumined
+by stretches of white light, and wrapped in deep and chilly silence, it
+spread around with a soft, melancholy aspect.
+
+For a few seconds the young man paused on the edge of the yard and gazed
+mistrustfully in front of him. He carried a long gun, the butt-end of
+which was hidden under his jacket, while the barrel, pointed towards the
+ground, glittered in the moonlight. Pressing the weapon to his side, he
+attentively examined the square shadows cast by the piles of timber. The
+ground looked like a chess-board, with black and white squares clearly
+defined by alternate patches of light and shade. The sawyers' tressels
+in the centre of the plot threw long, narrow fantastic shadows,
+suggesting some huge geometrical figure, upon a strip of bare grey
+ground. The rest of the yard, the flooring of beams, formed a great
+couch on which the light reposed, streaked here and there with the
+slender black shadows which edged the different pieces of timber. In the
+frigid silence under the wintry moon, the motionless, recumbent poles,
+stiffened, as it were, with sleep and cold, recalled the corpses of
+the old cemetery. The young man cast but a rapid glance round the empty
+space; there was not a creature, not a sound, no danger of being seen or
+heard. The black patches at the further end caused him more anxiety, but
+after a brief examination he plucked up courage and hurriedly crossed
+the wood-yard.
+
+As soon as he felt himself under cover he slackened his pace. He was now
+in the green pathway skirting the wall behind the piles of planks. Here
+his very footsteps became inaudible; the frozen grass scarcely crackled
+under his tread. He must have loved the spot, have feared no danger,
+sought nothing but what was pleasant there. He no longer concealed
+his gun. The path stretched away like a dark trench, except that the
+moonrays, gliding ever and anon between the piles of timber, then
+streaked the grass with patches of light. All slept, both darkness and
+light, with the same deep, soft, sad slumber. No words can describe the
+calm peacefulness of the place. The young man went right down the path,
+and stopped at the end where the walls of the Jas-Meiffren form an
+angle. Here he listened as if to ascertain whether any sound might be
+coming from the adjoining estate. At last, hearing nothing, he stooped
+down, thrust a plank aside, and hid his gun in a timber-stack.
+
+An old tombstone, which had been overlooked in the clearing of the
+burial-ground, lay in the corner, resting on its side and forming a high
+and slightly sloping seat. The rain had worn its edges, and moss was
+slowly eating into it. Nevertheless, the following fragment of an
+inscription, cut on the side which was sinking into the ground, might
+still have been distinguished in the moonlight: "_Here lieth . . . Marie
+. . . died . . ._" The finger of time had effaced the rest.
+
+When the young man had concealed his gun he again listened attentively,
+and still hearing nothing, resolved to climb upon the stone. The wall
+being low, he was able to rest his elbows on the coping. He could,
+however, perceive nothing except a flood of light beyond the row of
+mulberry-trees skirting the wall. The flat ground of the Jas-Meiffren
+spread out under the moon like an immense sheet of unbleached linen;
+a hundred yards away the farmhouse and its outbuildings formed a still
+whiter patch. The young man was still gazing anxiously in that direction
+when, suddenly, one of the town clocks slowly and solemnly struck seven.
+He counted the strokes, and then jumped down, apparently surprised and
+relieved.
+
+He seated himself on the tombstone, like one who is prepared to
+wait some considerable time. And for about half an hour he remained
+motionless and deep in thought, apparently quite unconscious of the
+cold, while his eyes gazed fixedly at a mass of shadow. He had placed
+himself in a dark corner, but the beams of the rising moon had gradually
+reached him, and at last his head was in the full light.
+
+He was a strong, sturdy-looking lad, with a fine mouth, and soft
+delicate skin that bespoke youthfulness. He looked about seventeen years
+of age, and was handsome in a characteristic way.
+
+His thin, long face looked like the work of some master sculptor; his
+high forehead, overhanging brows, aquiline nose, broad flat chin, and
+protruding cheek bones, gave singularly bold relief to his countenance.
+Such a face would, with advancing age, become too bony, as fleshless as
+that of a knight errant. But at this stage of youth, with chin and cheek
+lightly covered with soft down, its latent harshness was attenuated by
+the charming softness of certain contours which had remained vague and
+childlike. His soft black eyes, still full of youth, also lent delicacy
+to his otherwise vigorous countenance. The young fellow would probably
+not have fascinated all women, as he was not what one calls a handsome
+man; but his features, as a whole, expressed such ardent and sympathetic
+life, such enthusiasm and energy, that they doubtless engaged the
+thoughts of the girls of his own part--those sunburnt girls of the
+South--as he passed their doors on sultry July evenings.
+
+He remained seated upon the tombstone, wrapped in thought, and
+apparently quite unconscious of the moonlight which now fell upon
+his chest and legs. He was of middle stature, rather thick-set, with
+over-developed arms and a labourer's hands, already hardened by toil;
+his feet, shod with heavy laced boots, looked large and square-toed.
+His general appearance, more particularly the heaviness of his limbs,
+bespoke lowly origin. There was, however, something in him, in the
+upright bearing of his neck and the thoughtful gleams of his eyes, which
+seemed to indicate an inner revolt against the brutifying manual labour
+which was beginning to bend him to the ground. He was, no doubt, an
+intelligent nature buried beneath the oppressive burden of race and
+class; one of those delicate refined minds embedded in a rough envelope,
+from which they in vain struggle to free themselves. Thus, in spite of
+his vigour, he seemed timid and restless, feeling a kind of unconscious
+shame at his imperfection. An honest lad he doubtless was, whose very
+ignorance had generated enthusiasm, whose manly heart was impelled by
+childish intellect, and who could show alike the submissiveness of
+a woman and the courage of a hero. On the evening in question he was
+dressed in a coat and trousers of greenish corduroy. A soft felt hat,
+placed lightly on the back of his head, cast a streak of shadow over his
+brow.
+
+As the neighbouring clock struck the half hour, he suddenly started from
+his reverie. Perceiving that the white moonlight was shining full upon
+him, he gazed anxiously ahead. Then he abruptly dived back into the
+shade, but was unable to recover the thread of his thoughts. He now
+realised that his hands and feet were becoming very cold, and impatience
+seized hold of him. So he jumped upon the stone again, and once more
+glanced over the Jas-Meiffren, which was still empty and silent.
+Finally, at a loss how to employ his time, he jumped down, fetched
+his gun from the pile of planks where he had concealed it, and amused
+himself by working the trigger. The weapon was a long, heavy carbine,
+which had doubtless belonged to some smuggler. The thickness of the butt
+and the breech of the barrel showed it to be an old flintlock which had
+been altered into a percussion gun by some local gunsmith. Such firearms
+are to be found in farmhouses, hanging against the wall over the
+chimney-piece. The young man caressed his weapon with affection; twenty
+times or more he pulled the trigger, thrust his little finger into the
+barrel, and examined the butt attentively. By degrees he grew full of
+youth enthusiasm, combined with childish frolicsomeness, and ended by
+levelling his weapon and aiming at space, like a recruit going through
+his drill.
+
+It was now very nearly eight o'clock, and he had been holding his gun
+levelled for over a minute, when all at once a low, panting call, light
+as a breath, came from the direction of the Jas-Meiffren.
+
+"Are you there, Silvere?" the voice asked.
+
+Silvere dropped his gun and bounded on to the tombstone.
+
+"Yes, yes," he replied, also in a hushed voice. "Wait, I'll help you."
+
+Before he could stretch out his arms, however, a girl's head appeared
+above the wall. With singular agility the damsel had availed herself of
+the trunk of a mulberry-tree, and climbed aloft like a kitten. The ease
+and certainty with which she moved showed that she was familiar with
+this strange spot. In another moment she was seated on the coping of
+the wall. Then Silvere, taking her in his arms, carried her, though not
+without a struggle, to the seat.
+
+"Let go," she laughingly cried; "let go, I can get down alone very
+well." And when she was seated on the stone slab she added:
+
+"Have you been waiting for me long? I've been running, and am quite out
+of breath."
+
+Silvere made no reply. He seemed in no laughing humour, but gazed
+sorrowfully into the girl's face. "I wanted to see you, Miette," he
+said, as he seated himself beside her. "I should have waited all night
+for you. I am going away at daybreak to-morrow morning."
+
+Miette had just caught sight of the gun lying on the grass, and with a
+thoughtful air, she murmured: "Ah! so it's decided then? There's your
+gun!"
+
+"Yes," replied Silvere, after a brief pause, his voice still faltering,
+"it's my gun. I thought it best to remove it from the house to-night;
+to-morrow morning aunt Dide might have seen me take it, and have felt
+uneasy about it. I am going to hide it, and shall fetch it just before
+starting."
+
+Then, as Miette could not remove her eyes from the weapon which he had
+so foolishly left on the grass, he jumped up and again hid it among the
+woodstacks.
+
+"We learnt this morning," he said, as he resumed his seat, "that the
+insurgents of La Palud and Saint Martin-de-Vaulx were on the march, and
+spent last night at Alboise. We have decided to join them. Some of the
+workmen of Plassans have already left the town this afternoon; those who
+still remain will join their brothers to-morrow."
+
+He spoke the word brothers with youthful emphasis.
+
+"A contest is becoming inevitable," he added; "but, at any rate, we have
+right on our side, and we shall triumph."
+
+Miette listened to Silvere, her eyes meantime gazing in front of her,
+without observing anything.
+
+"'Tis well," she said, when he had finished speaking. And after a fresh
+pause she continued: "You warned me, yet I still hoped. . . . However,
+it is decided."
+
+Neither of them knew what else to say. The green path in the deserted
+corner of the wood-yard relapsed into melancholy stillness; only the
+moon chased the shadows of the piles of timber over the grass. The two
+young people on the tombstone remained silent and motionless in the
+pale light. Silvere had passed his arm round Miette's waist, and she was
+leaning against his shoulder. They exchanged no kisses, naught but
+an embrace in which love showed the innocent tenderness of fraternal
+affection.
+
+Miette was enveloped in a long brown hooded cloak reaching to her feet,
+and leaving only her head and hands visible. The women of the lower
+classes in Provence--the peasantry and workpeople--still wear these
+ample cloaks, which are called pelisses; it is a fashion which must have
+lasted for ages. Miette had thrown back her hood on arriving. Living in
+the open air and born of a hotblooded race, she never wore a cap. Her
+bare head showed in bold relief against the wall, which the moonlight
+whitened. She was still a child, no doubt, but a child ripening into
+womanhood. She had reached that adorable, uncertain hour when the
+frolicsome girl changes to a young woman. At that stage of life a
+bud-like delicacy, a hesitancy of contour that is exquisitely charming,
+distinguishes young girls. The outlines of womanhood appear amidst
+girlhood's innocent slimness, and woman shoots forth at first all
+embarrassment, still retaining much of the child, and ever and
+unconsciously betraying her sex. This period is very unpropitious for
+some girls, who suddenly shoot up, become ugly, sallow and frail, like
+plants before their due season. For those, however, who, like Miette,
+are healthy and live in the open air, it is a time of delightful
+gracefulness which once passed can never be recalled.
+
+Miette was thirteen years of age, and although strong and sturdy did not
+look any older, so bright and childish was the smile which lit up her
+countenance. However, she was nearly as tall as Silvere, plump and full
+of life. Like her lover, she had no common beauty. She would not have
+been considered ugly, but she might have appeared peculiar to many young
+exquisites. Her rich black hair rose roughly erect above her forehead,
+streamed back like a rushing wave, and flowed over her head and neck
+like an inky sea, tossing and bubbling capriciously. It was very thick
+and inconvenient to arrange. However, she twisted it as tightly as
+possible into coils as thick as a child's fist, which she wound together
+at the back of her head. She had little time to devote to her toilette,
+but this huge chignon, hastily contrived without the aid of any mirror,
+was often instinct with vigorous grace. On seeing her thus naturally
+helmeted with a mass of frizzy hair which hung about her neck and
+temples like a mane, one could readily understand why she always went
+bareheaded, heedless alike of rain and frost.
+
+Under her dark locks appeared her low forehead, curved and golden like a
+crescent moon. Her large prominent eyes, her short tip-tilted nose with
+dilated nostrils, and her thick ruddy lips, when regarded apart from one
+another, would have looked ugly; viewed, however, all together, amidst
+the delightful roundness and vivacious mobility of her countenance, they
+formed an ensemble of strange, surprising beauty. When Miette laughed,
+throwing back her head and gently resting it on her right shoulder, she
+resembled an old-time Bacchante, her throat distending with sonorous
+gaiety, her cheeks round like those of a child, her teeth large and
+white, her twists of woolly hair tossed by every outburst of merriment,
+and waving like a crown of vine leaves. To realise that she was only a
+child of thirteen, one had to notice the innocence underlying her full
+womanly laughter, and especially the child-like delicacy of her chin and
+soft transparency of her temples. In certain lights Miette's sun-tanned
+face showed yellow like amber. A little soft black down already shaded
+her upper lip. Toil too was beginning to disfigure her small hands,
+which, if left idle, would have become charmingly plump and delicate.
+
+Miette and Silvere long remained silent. They were reading their own
+anxious thoughts, and, as they pondered upon the unknown terrors of the
+morrow, they tightened their mutual embrace. Their hearts communed with
+each other, they understood how useless and cruel would be any verbal
+plaint. The girl, however, could at last no longer contain herself,
+and, choking with emotion, she gave expression, in one phrase, to their
+mutual misgivings.
+
+"You will come back again, won't you?" she whispered, as she hung on
+Silvere's neck.
+
+Silvere made no reply, but, half-stifling, and fearing lest he should
+give way to tears like herself, he kissed her in brotherly fashion
+on the cheek, at a loss for any other consolation. Then disengaging
+themselves they again lapsed into silence.
+
+After a moment Miette shuddered. Now that she no longer leant against
+Silvere's shoulder she was becoming icy cold. Yet she would not have
+shuddered thus had she been in this deserted path the previous evening,
+seated on this tombstone, where for several seasons they had tasted so
+much happiness.
+
+"I'm very cold," she said, as she pulled her hood over her head.
+
+"Shall we walk about a little?" the young man asked her. "It's not yet
+nine o'clock; we can take a stroll along the road."
+
+Miette reflected that for a long time she would probably not have the
+pleasure of another meeting--another of those evening chats, the joy of
+which served to sustain her all day long.
+
+"Yes, let us walk a little," she eagerly replied. "Let us go as far as
+the mill. I could pass the whole night like this if you wanted to."
+
+They rose from the tombstone, and were soon hidden in the shadow of a
+pile of planks. Here Miette opened her cloak, which had a quilted
+lining of red twill, and threw half of it over Silvere's shoulders,
+thus enveloping him as he stood there close beside her. The same garment
+cloaked them both, and they passed their arms round each other's waist,
+and became as it were but one being. When they were thus shrouded in the
+pelisse they walked slowly towards the high road, fearlessly crossing
+the vacant parts of the wood-yard, which looked white in the moonlight.
+Miette had thrown the cloak over Silvere, and he had submitted to it
+quite naturally, as though indeed the garment rendered them a similar
+service every evening.
+
+The road to Nice, on either side of which the suburban houses are built,
+was, in the year 1851, lined with ancient elm-trees, grand and gigantic
+ruins, still full of vigour, which the fastidious town council has
+replaced, some years since, by some little plane-trees. When Silvere and
+Miette found themselves under the elms, the huge boughs of which cast
+shadows on the moonlit footpath, they met now and again black forms
+which silently skirted the house fronts. These, too, were amorous
+couples, closely wrapped in one and the same cloak, and strolling in the
+darkness.
+
+This style of promenading has been instituted by the young lovers of
+Southern towns. Those boys and girls among the people who mean to marry
+sooner or later, but who do not dislike a kiss or two in advance, know
+no spot where they can kiss at their ease without exposing themselves to
+recognition and gossip. Accordingly, while strolling about the suburbs,
+the plots of waste land, the footpaths of the high road--in fact,
+all these places where there are few passers-by and numerous shady
+nooks--they conceal their identity by wrapping themselves in these long
+cloaks, which are capacious enough to cover a whole family. The parents
+tolerate these proceedings; however stiff may be provincial propriety,
+no apprehensions, seemingly, are entertained. And, on the other hand,
+nothing could be more charming than these lovers' rambles, which appeal
+so keenly to the Southerner's fanciful imagination. There is a veritable
+masquerade, fertile in innocent enjoyments, within the reach of the most
+humble. The girl clasps her sweetheart to her bosom, enveloping him in
+her own warm cloak; and no doubt it is delightful to be able to kiss
+one's sweetheart within those shrouding folds without danger of being
+recognised. One couple is exactly like another. And to the belated
+pedestrian, who sees the vague groups gliding hither and thither, 'tis
+merely love passing, love guessed and scarce espied. The lovers
+know they are safely concealed within their cloaks, they converse in
+undertones and make themselves quite at home; most frequently they do
+not converse at all, but walk along at random and in silence, content
+in their embrace. The climate alone is to blame for having in the first
+instance prompted these young lovers to retire to secluded spots in the
+suburbs. On fine summer nights one cannot walk round Plassans without
+coming across a hooded couple in every patch of shadow falling from the
+house walls. Certain places, the Aire Saint-Mittre, for instance, are
+full of these dark "dominoes" brushing past one another, gliding softly
+in the warm nocturnal air. One might imagine they were guests invited
+to some mysterious ball given by the stars to lowly lovers. When the
+weather is very warm and the girls do not wear cloaks, they simply turn
+up their over-skirts. And in the winter the more passionate lovers make
+light of the frosts. Thus, Miette and Silvere, as they descended the
+Nice road, thought little of the chill December night.
+
+They passed through the slumbering suburb without exchanging a word,
+but enjoying the mute delight of their warm embrace. Their hearts were
+heavy; the joy which they felt in being side by side was tinged with the
+painful emotion which comes from the thought of approaching severance,
+and it seemed to them that they could never exhaust the mingled
+sweetness and bitterness of the silence which slowly lulled their
+steps. But the houses soon grew fewer, and they reached the end of the
+Faubourg. There stands the entrance to the Jas-Meiffren, an iron gate
+fixed to two strong pillars; a low row of mulberry-trees being visible
+through the bars. Silvere and Miette instinctively cast a glance inside
+as they passed on.
+
+Beyond the Jas-Meiffren the road descends with a gentle slope to a
+valley, which serves as the bed of a little rivulet, the Viorne, a brook
+in summer but a torrent in winter. The rows of elms still extended the
+whole way at that time, making the high road a magnificent avenue, which
+cast a broad band of gigantic trees across the hill, which was planted
+with corn and stunted vines. On that December night, under the clear
+cold moonlight, the newly-ploughed fields stretching away on either hand
+resembled vast beds of greyish wadding which deadened every sound in the
+atmosphere. The dull murmur of the Viorne in the distance alone sent a
+quivering thrill through the profound silence of the country-side.
+
+When the young people had begun to descend the avenue, Miette's thoughts
+reverted to the Jas-Meiffren which they had just left behind them.
+
+"I had great difficulty in getting away this evening," she said. "My
+uncle wouldn't let me go. He had shut himself up in a cellar, where he
+was hiding his money, I think, for he seemed greatly frightened this
+morning at the events that are taking place."
+
+Silvere clasped her yet more lovingly. "Be brave!" said he. "The time
+will come when we shall be able to see each other freely the whole day
+long. You must not fret."
+
+"Oh," replied the girl, shaking her head, "you are very hopeful. For my
+part I sometimes feel very sad. It isn't the hard work which grieves me;
+on the contrary, I am often very glad of my uncle's severity, and the
+tasks he sets me. He was quite right to make me a peasant girl; I should
+perhaps have turned out badly, for, do you know, Silvere, there are
+moments when I fancy myself under a curse. . . . I feel, then, that I
+should like to be dead. . . . I think of you know whom."
+
+As she spoke these last words, her voice broke into a sob. Silvere
+interrupted her somewhat harshly. "Be quiet," he said. "You promised not
+to think about it. It's no crime of yours. . . . We love each other very
+much, don't we?" he added in a gentler tone. "When we're married you'll
+have no more unpleasant hours."
+
+"I know," murmured Miette. "You are so kind, you sustain me. But what am
+I to do? I sometimes have fears and feelings of revolt. I think at times
+that I have been wronged, and then I should like to do something wicked.
+You see I pour forth my heart to you. Whenever my father's name is
+thrown in my face, I feel my whole body burning. When the urchins cry
+at me as I pass, 'Eh, La Chantegreil,' I lose all control of myself, and
+feel that I should like to lay hold of them and whip them."
+
+After a savage pause she resumed: "As for you, you're a man; you're
+going to fight; you're very lucky."
+
+Silvere had let her speak on. After a few steps he observed sorrowfully:
+"You are wrong, Miette; yours is bad anger. You shouldn't rebel against
+justice. As for me, I'm going to fight in defence of our common rights,
+not to gratify any personal animosity."
+
+"All the same," the young girl continued, "I should like to be a man and
+handle a gun. I feel that it would do me good."
+
+Then, as Silvere remained silent, she perceived that she had displeased
+him. Her feverishness subsided, and she whispered in a supplicating
+tone: "You are not angry with me, are you? It's your departure which
+grieves me and awakens such ideas. I know very well you are right--that
+I ought to be humble."
+
+Then she began to cry, and Silvere, moved by her tears, grasped her
+hands and kissed them.
+
+"See, now, how you pass from anger to tears, like a child," he said
+lovingly. "You must be reasonable. I'm not scolding you. I only want to
+see you happier, and that depends largely upon yourself."
+
+The remembrance of the drama which Miette had so sadly evoked cast a
+temporary gloom over the lovers. They continued their walk with bowed
+heads and troubled thoughts.
+
+"Do you think I'm much happier than you?" Silvere at last inquired,
+resuming the conversation in spite of himself. "If my grandmother had
+not taken care of me and educated me, what would have become of me? With
+the exception of my Uncle Antoine, who is an artisan like myself, and
+who taught me to love the Republic, all my other relations seem to fear
+that I might besmirch them by coming near them."
+
+He was now speaking with animation, and suddenly stopped, detaining
+Miette in the middle of the road.
+
+"God is my witness," he continued, "that I do not envy or hate anybody.
+But if we triumph, I shall have to tell the truth to those fine
+gentlemen. Uncle Antoine knows all about this matter. You'll see when we
+return. We shall all live free and happy."
+
+Then Miette gently led him on, and they resumed their walk.
+
+"You dearly love your Republic?" the girl asked, essaying a joke. "Do
+you love me as much?"
+
+Her smile was not altogether free from a tinge of bitterness. She was
+thinking, perhaps, how easily Silvere abandoned her to go and scour the
+country-side. But the lad gravely replied: "You are my wife, to whom I
+have given my whole heart. I love the Republic because I love you. When
+we are married we shall want plenty of happiness, and it is to procure a
+share of that happiness that I'm going way to-morrow morning. You surely
+don't want to persuade me to remain at home?"
+
+"Oh, no!" cried the girl eagerly. "A man should be brave! Courage
+is beautiful! You must forgive my jealousy. I should like to be as
+strong-minded as you are. You would love me all the more, wouldn't you?"
+
+After a moment's silence she added, with charming vivacity and
+ingenuousness: "Ah, how willingly I shall kiss you when you come back!"
+
+This outburst of a loving and courageous heart deeply affected Silvere.
+He clasped Miette in his arms and printed several kisses on her cheek.
+As she laughingly struggled to escape him, her eyes filled with tears of
+emotion.
+
+All around the lovers the country still slumbered amid the deep
+stillness of the cold. They were now half-way down the hill. On the top
+of a rather lofty hillock to the left stood the ruins of a windmill,
+blanched by the moon; the tower, which had fallen in on one side, alone
+remained. This was the limit which the young people had assigned to
+their walk. They had come straight from the Faubourg without casting a
+single glance at the fields between which they passed. When Silvere had
+kissed Miette's cheek, he raised his head and observed the mill.
+
+"What a long walk we've had!" he exclaimed. "See--here is the mill. It
+must be nearly half-past nine. We must go home."
+
+But Miette pouted. "Let us walk a little further," she implored; "only a
+few steps, just as far as the little cross-road, no farther, really."
+
+Silvere smiled as he again took her round the waist. Then they continued
+to descend the hill, no longer fearing inquisitive glances, for they had
+not met a living soul since passing the last houses. They nevertheless
+remained enveloped in the long pelisse, which seemed, as it were, a
+natural nest for their love. It had shrouded them on so many happy
+evenings! Had they simply walked side by side, they would have felt
+small and isolated in that vast stretch of country, whereas, blended
+together as they were, they became bolder and seemed less puny. Between
+the folds of the pelisse they gazed upon the fields stretching on both
+sides of the road, without experiencing that crushing feeling with which
+far-stretching callous vistas oppress the human affections. It seemed
+to them as though they had brought their house with them; they felt a
+pleasure in viewing the country-side as from a window, delighting in the
+calm solitude, the sheets of slumbering light, the glimpses of nature
+vaguely distinguishable beneath the shroud of night and winter, the
+whole of that valley indeed, which while charming them could not thrust
+itself between their close-pressed hearts.
+
+All continuity of conversation had ceased; they spoke no more of others,
+nor even of themselves. They were absorbed by the present, pressing each
+other's hands, uttering exclamations at the sight of some particular
+spot, exchanging words at rare intervals, and then understanding each
+other but little, for drowsiness came from the warmth of their embrace.
+Silvere forgot his Republican enthusiasm; Miette no longer reflected
+that her lover would be leaving her in an hour, for a long time, perhaps
+for ever. The transports of their affection lulled them into a feeling
+of security, as on other days, when no prospect of parting had marred
+the tranquility of their meetings.
+
+They still walked on, and soon reached the little crossroad mentioned by
+Miette--a bit of a lane which led through the fields to a village on the
+banks of the Viorne. But they passed on, pretending not to notice
+this path, where they had agreed to stop. And it was only some minutes
+afterwards that Silvere whispered, "It must be very late; you will get
+tired."
+
+"No; I assure you I'm not at all tired," the girl replied. "I could walk
+several leagues like this easily." Then, in a coaxing tone, she added:
+"Let us go down as far as the meadows of Sainte-Claire. There we will
+really stop and turn back."
+
+Silvere, whom the girl's rhythmic gait lulled to semi-somnolence, made
+no objection, and their rapture began afresh. They now went on more
+slowly, fearing the moment when they would have to retrace their steps.
+So long as they walked onward, they felt as though they were advancing
+to the eternity of their mutual embrace; the return would mean
+separation and bitter leave-taking.
+
+The declivity of the road was gradually becoming more gentle. In the
+valley below there are meadows extending as far as the Viorne, which
+runs at the other end, beneath a range of low hills. These meadows,
+separated from the high-road by thickset hedges, are the meadows of
+Sainte-Claire.
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Silvere this time, as he caught sight of the first
+patches of grass: "we may as well go as far as the bridge."
+
+At this Miette burst out laughing, clasped the young man round the neck,
+and kissed him noisily.
+
+At the spot where the hedges begin, there were in those days two elms
+forming the end of the long avenue, two colossal trees larger than any
+of the others. The treeless fields stretch out from the high road, like
+a broad band of green wool, as far as the willows and birches by the
+river. The distance from the last elms to the bridge is scarcely three
+hundred yards. The lovers took a good quarter of an hour to cover that
+space. At last, however slow their gait, they reached the bridge, and
+there they stopped.
+
+The road to Nice ran up in front of them, along the opposite slope of
+the valley. But they could only see a small portion of it, as it takes a
+sudden turn about half a mile from the bridge, and is lost to view among
+the wooded hills. On looking round they caught sight of the other end
+of the road, that which they had just traversed, and which leads in
+a direct line from Plassans to the Viorne. In the beautiful winter
+moonlight it looked like a long silver ribbon, with dark edgings traced
+by the rows of elms. On the right and left the ploughed hill-land showed
+like vast, grey, vague seas intersected by this ribbon, this roadway
+white with frost, and brilliant as with metallic lustre. Up above, on a
+level with the horizon, lights shone from a few windows in the Faubourg,
+resembling glowing sparks. By degrees Miette and Silvere had walked
+fully a league. They gazed at the intervening road, full of silent
+admiration for the vast amphitheatre which rose to the verge of the
+heavens, and over which flowed bluish streams of light, as over the
+superposed rocks of a gigantic waterfall. The strange and colossal
+picture spread out amid deathlike stillness and silence. Nothing could
+have been of more sovereign grandeur.
+
+Then the young people, having leant against the parapet of the bridge,
+gazed beneath them. The Viorne, swollen by the rains, flowed on with a
+dull, continuous sound. Up and down stream, despite the darkness which
+filled the hollows, they perceived the black lines of the trees growing
+on the banks; here and there glided the moonbeams, casting a trail of
+molten metal, as it were, over the water, which glittered and danced
+like rays of light on the scales of some live animal. The gleams darted
+with a mysterious charm along the gray torrent, betwixt the vague
+phantom-like foliage. You might have thought this an enchanted valley,
+some wondrous retreat where a community of shadows and gleams lived a
+fantastic life.
+
+This part of the river was familiar to the lovers; they had often come
+here in search of coolness on warm July nights; they had spent hours
+hidden among the clusters of willows on the right bank, at the spot
+where the meadows of Sainte-Claire spread their verdant carpet to the
+waterside. They remembered every bend of the bank, the stones on which
+they had stepped in order to cross the Viorne, at that season as narrow
+as a brooklet, and certain little grassy hollows where they had indulged
+in their dreams of love. Miette, therefore, now gazed from the bridge at
+the right bank of the torrent with longing eyes.
+
+"If it were warmer," she sighed, "we might go down and rest awhile
+before going back up the hill." Then, after a pause, during which
+she kept her eyes fixed on the banks, she resumed: "Look down there,
+Silvere, at that black mass yonder in front of the lock. Do you
+remember? That's the brushwood where we sat last Corpus Christi Day."
+
+"Yes, so it is," replied Silvere, softly.
+
+This was the spot where they had first ventured to kiss each other on
+the cheek. The remembrance just roused by the girl's words brought both
+of them a delightful feeling, an emotion in which the joys of the
+past mingled with the hopes of the morrow. Before their eyes, with the
+rapidity of lightening, there passed all the delightful evenings they
+had spent together, especially that evening of Corpus Christi Day, with
+the warm sky, the cool willows of the Viorne, and their own loving talk.
+And at the same time, whilst the past came back to their hearts full
+of a delightful savour, they fancied they could plunge into the unknown
+future, see their dreams realised, and march through life arm in
+arm--even as they had just been doing on the highway--warmly wrapped in
+the same cloak. Then rapture came to them again, and they smiled in each
+other's eyes, alone amidst all the silent radiance.
+
+Suddenly, however, Silvere raised his head and, throwing off the cloak,
+listened attentively. Miette, in her surprise, imitated him, at a loss
+to understand why he had started so abruptly from her side.
+
+Confused sounds had for a moment been coming from behind the hills
+in the midst of which the Nice road wends its way. They suggested the
+distant jolting of a procession of carts; but not distinctly, so loud
+was the roaring of the Viorne. Gradually, however, they became more
+pronounced, and rose at last like the tramping of an army on the march.
+Then amidst the continuous growing rumble one detected the shouts of a
+crowd, strange rhythmical blasts as of a hurricane. One could even have
+fancied they were the thunderclaps of a rapidly approaching storm which
+was already disturbing the slumbering atmosphere. Silvere listened
+attentively, unable to tell, however, what were those tempest-like
+shouts, for the hills prevented them from reaching him distinctly.
+Suddenly a dark mass appeared at the turn of the road, and then the
+"Marseillaise" burst forth, formidable, sung as with avenging fury.
+
+"Ah, here they are!" cried Silvere, with a burst of joyous enthusiasm.
+
+Forthwith he began to run up the hill, dragging Miette with him. On the
+left of the road was an embankment planted with evergreen oaks, up which
+he clambered with the young girl, to avoid being carried away by the
+surging, howling multitude.
+
+When he had reached the top of the bank and the shadow of the brushwood,
+Miette, rather pale, gazed sorrowfully at those men whose distant song
+had sufficed to draw Silvere from her embrace. It seemed as if the
+whole band had thrust itself between them. They had been so happy a few
+minutes before, locked in each other's arms, alone and lost amidst the
+overwhelming silence and discreet glimmer of the moon! And now Silvere,
+whose head was turned away from her, who no longer seemed even conscious
+of her presence, had eyes only for those strangers whom he called his
+brothers.
+
+The band descended the slope with a superb, irresistible stride. There
+could have been nothing grander than the irruption of those few thousand
+men into that cold, still, deathly scene. The highway became a torrent,
+rolling with living waves which seemed inexhaustible. At the bend in the
+road fresh masses ever appeared, whose songs ever helped to swell the
+roar of this human tempest. When the last battalions came in sight the
+uproar was deafening. The "Marseillaise" filled the atmosphere as
+if blown through enormous trumpets by giant mouths, which cast it,
+vibrating with a brazen clang, into every corner of the valley. The
+slumbering country-side awoke with a start--quivering like a beaten drum
+resonant to its very entrails, and repeating with each and every echo
+the passionate notes of the national song. And then the singing was
+no longer confined to the men. From the very horizon, from the distant
+rocks, the ploughed land, the meadows, the copses, the smallest bits
+of brushwood, human voices seemed to come. The great amphitheatre,
+extending from the river to Plassans, the gigantic cascade over which
+the bluish moonlight flowed, was as if filled with innumerable invisible
+people cheering the insurgents; and in the depths of the Viorne, along
+the waters streaked with mysterious metallic reflections, there was not
+a dark nook but seemed to conceal human beings, who took up each refrain
+with yet greater passion. With air and earth alike quivering, the whole
+country-side cried for vengeance and liberty. So long as the little army
+was descending the slope, the roar of the populace thus rolled on in
+sonorous waves broken by abrupt outbursts which shook the very stones in
+the roadway.
+
+Silvere, pale with emotion, still listened and looked on. The insurgents
+who led the van of that swarming, roaring stream, so vague and monstrous
+in the darkness, were rapidly approaching the bridge.
+
+"I thought," murmured Miette, "that you would not pass through
+Plassans?"
+
+"They must have altered the plan of operations," Silvere replied; "we
+were, in fact, to have marched to the chief town by the Toulon road,
+passing to the left of Plassans and Orcheres. They must have left
+Alboise this afternoon and passed Les Tulettes this evening."
+
+The head of the column had already arrived in front of the young people.
+The little army was more orderly than one would have expected from a
+band of undisciplined men. The contingents from the various towns and
+villages formed separate battalions, each separated by a distance of a
+few paces. These battalions were apparently under the orders of certain
+chiefs. For the nonce the pace at which they were descending the
+hillside made them a compact mass of invincible strength. There were
+probably about three thousand men, all united and carried away by the
+same storm of indignation. The strange details of the scene were not
+discernible amidst the shadows cast over the highway by the lofty
+slopes. At five or six feet from the brushwood, however, where Miette
+and Silvere were sheltered, the left-hand embankment gave place to
+a little pathway which ran alongside the Viorne; and the moonlight,
+flowing through this gap, cast a broad band of radiance across the road.
+When the first insurgents reached this patch of light they were
+suddenly illumined by a sharp white glow which revealed, with singular
+distinctness, every outline of visage or costume. And as the various
+contingents swept on, the young people thus saw them emerge, fiercely
+and without cessation, from the surrounding darkness.
+
+As the first men passed through the light Miette instinctively clung
+to Silvere, although she knew she was safe, even from observation. She
+passed her arm round the young fellow's neck, resting her head against
+his shoulder. And with the hood of her pelisse encircling her pale
+face she gazed fixedly at that square patch of light as it was rapidly
+traversed by those strange faces, transfigured by enthusiasm, with dark
+open mouths full of the furious cry of the "Marseillaise." Silvere,
+whom she felt quivering at her side, then bent towards her and named the
+various contingents as they passed.
+
+The column marched along eight abreast. In the van were a number of big,
+square-headed fellows, who seemed to possess the herculean strength and
+naive confidence of giants. They would doubtless prove blind, intrepid
+defenders of the Republic. On their shoulders they carried large axes,
+whose edges, freshly sharpened, glittered in the moonlight.
+
+"Those are the woodcutters of the forests of the Seille," said Silvere.
+"They have been formed into a corps of sappers. At a signal from their
+leaders they would march as far as Paris, battering down the gates of
+the towns with their axes, just as they cut down the old cork-trees on
+the mountain."
+
+The young man spoke with pride of the heavy fists of his brethren. And
+on seeing a band of labourers and rough-bearded men, tanned by the
+sun, coming along behind the woodcutters, he continued: "That is the
+contingent from La Palud. That was the first place to rise. The men in
+blouses are labourers who cut up the cork-trees; the others in velveteen
+jackets must be sportsmen, poachers, and charcoal-burners living in the
+passes of the Seille. The poachers knew your father, Miette. They have
+good firearms, which they handle skilfully. Ah! if all were armed in the
+same manner! We are short of muskets. See, the labourers have only got
+cudgels!"
+
+Miette, still speechless, looked on and listened. As Silvere spoke to
+her of her father, the blood surged to her cheeks. Her face burnt as she
+scrutinised the sportsmen with a strange air of mingled indignation and
+sympathy. From this moment she grew animated, yielding to the feverish
+quiver which the insurgents' songs awakened.
+
+The column, which had just begun the "Marseillaise" afresh, was still
+marching down as though lashed on by the sharp blasts of the "Mistral."
+The men of La Palud were followed by another troop of workmen, among
+whom a goodly number of middle class folks in great-coats were to be
+seen.
+
+"Those are the men of Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx," Silvere resumed. "That
+_bourg_ rose almost at the same time as La Palud. The masters joined the
+workmen. There are some rich men there, Miette; men whose wealth would
+enable them to live peacefully at home, but who prefer to risk their
+lives in defence of liberty. One can but admire them. Weapons are very
+scarce, however; they've scarcely got a few fowling-pieces. But do you
+see those men yonder, Miette, with red bands round their left elbows?
+They are the leaders."
+
+The contingents descended the hill more rapidly than Silvere could
+speak. While he was naming the men from Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx, two
+battalions had already crossed the ray of light which blanched the
+roadway.
+
+"Did you see the insurgents from Alboise and Les Tulettes pass by just
+now?" he asked. "I recognised Burgat the blacksmith. They must have
+joined the band to-day. How they do run!"
+
+Miette was now leaning forward, in order to see more of the little bands
+described to her by the young man. The quiver she felt rose from her
+bosom to her throat. Then a battalion larger and better disciplined than
+the others appeared. The insurgents composing it were nearly all dressed
+in blue blouses, with red sashes round their waists. One would have
+thought they were arrayed in uniform. A man on horseback, with a sabre
+at his side, was in the midst of them. And most of these improvised
+soldiers carried guns, probably carbines and old muskets of the National
+Guard.
+
+"I don't know those," said Silvere. "The man on horseback must be the
+chief I've heard spoken of. He brought with him the contingents from
+Faverolles and the neighbouring villages. The whole column ought to be
+equipped in the same manner."
+
+He had no time to take breath. "Ah! see, here are the country people!"
+he suddenly cried.
+
+Small groups of ten or twenty men at the most were now advancing behind
+the men of Faverolles. They all wore the short jacket of the Southern
+peasantry, and as they sang they brandished pitchforks and scythes. Some
+of them even only carried large navvies' shovels. Every hamlet, however,
+had sent its able-bodied men.
+
+Silvere, who recognised the parties by their leaders, enumerated them in
+feverish tones. "The contingent from Chavanoz!" said he. "There are
+only eight men, but they are strong; Uncle Antoine knows them. Here's
+Nazeres! Here's Poujols! They're all here; not one has failed to answer
+the summons. Valqueyras! Hold, there's the parson amongst them; I've
+heard about him, he's a staunch Republican."
+
+He was becoming intoxicated with the spectacle. Now that each battalion
+consisted of only a few insurgents he had to name them yet more hastily,
+and his precipitancy gave him the appearance of one in a frenzy.
+
+"Ah! Miette," he continued, "what a fine march past! Rozan! Vernoux!
+Corbiere! And there are more still, you'll see. These have only got
+scythes, but they'll mow down the troops as close as the grass in their
+meadows--Saint-Eutrope! Mazet! Les Gardes, Marsanne! The whole north
+side of the Seille! Ah, we shall be victorious! The whole country is
+with us. Look at those men's arms, they are hard and black as iron.
+There's no end to them. There's Pruinas! Roches Noires! Those last
+are smugglers: they are carrying carbines. Still more scythes and
+pitchforks, the contingents of country folk are still passing.
+Castel-le-Vieux! Sainte-Anne! Graille! Estourmel! Murdaran!"
+
+His voice was husky with emotion as he finished naming these men, who
+seemed to be borne away by a whirlwind as fast as he enumerated them.
+Erect, with glowing countenance, he pointed out the several contingents
+with a nervous gesture. Miette followed his movements. The road below
+attracted her like the depths of a precipice. To avoid slipping down
+the incline she clung to the young man's neck. A strange intoxication
+emanated from those men, who themselves were inebriated with clamour,
+courage, and confidence. Those beings, seen athwart a moonbeam, those
+youths and those men in their prime, those old people brandishing
+strange weapons and dressed in the most diverse costumes, from working
+smock to middle class overcoat, those endless rows of heads, which
+the hour and the circumstances endowed with an expression of fanatical
+energy and enthusiasm, gradually appeared to the girl like a whirling,
+impetuous torrent. At certain moments she fancied they were not of
+themselves moving, that they were really being carried away by the force
+of the "Marseillaise," by that hoarse, sonorous chant. She could not
+distinguish any conversation, she heard but a continuous volume of
+sound, alternating from bass to shrill notes, as piercing as nails
+driven into one's flesh. This roar of revolt, this call to combat,
+to death, with its outbursts of indignation, its burning thirst for
+liberty, its remarkable blending of bloodthirsty and sublime impulses,
+unceasingly smote her heart, penetrating more deeply at each fierce
+outburst, and filling her with the voluptuous pangs of a virgin martyr
+who stands erect and smiles under the lash. And the crowd flowed on ever
+amidst the same sonorous wave of sound. The march past, which did not
+really last more than a few minutes, seemed to the young people to be
+interminable.
+
+Truly, Miette was but a child. She had turned pale at the approach of
+the band, she had wept for the loss of love, but she was a brave child,
+whose ardent nature was easily fired by enthusiasm. Thus ardent emotions
+had gradually got possession of her, and she became as courageous as
+a youth. She would willingly have seized a weapon and followed the
+insurgents. As the muskets and scythes filed past, her white teeth
+glistened longer and sharper between her red lips, like the fangs of
+a young wolf eager to bite and tear. And as she listened to Silvere
+enumerating the contingents from the country-side with ever-increasing
+haste, the pace of the column seemed to her to accelerate still more.
+She soon fancied it all a cloud of human dust swept along by a tempest.
+Everything began to whirl before her. Then she closed her eyes; big hot
+tears were rolling down her cheeks.
+
+Silvere's eyelashes were also moist. "I don't see the men who left
+Plassans this afternoon," he murmured.
+
+He tried to distinguish the end of the column, which was still hidden by
+the darkness. Suddenly he cried with joyous exultation: "Ah, here they
+are! They've got the banner--the banner has been entrusted to them!"
+
+Then he wanted to leap from the slope in order to join his companions.
+At this moment, however, the insurgents halted. Words of command ran
+along the column, the "Marseillaise" died out in a final rumble, and
+one could only hear the confused murmuring of the still surging crowd.
+Silvere, as he listened, caught the orders which were passed on from one
+contingent to another; they called the men of Plassans to the van. Then,
+as each battalion ranged itself alongside the road to make way for the
+banner, the young man reascended the embankment, dragging Miette with
+him.
+
+"Come," he said; "we can get across the river before they do."
+
+When they were on the top, among the ploughed land, they ran along to a
+mill whose lock bars the river. Then they crossed the Viorne on a
+plank placed there by the millers, and cut across the meadows of
+Sainte-Claire, running hand-in-hand, without exchanging a word. The
+column threw a dark line over the highway, which they followed alongside
+the hedges. There were some gaps in the hawthorns, and at last Silvere
+and Miette sprang on to the road through one of them.
+
+In spite of the circuitous way they had come, they arrived at the same
+time as the men of Plassans. Silvere shook hands with some of them. They
+must have thought he had heard of the new route they had chosen, and had
+come to meet them. Miette, whose face was half-concealed by her hood,
+was scrutinised rather inquisitively.
+
+"Why, it's Chantegreil," at last said one of the men from the Faubourg
+of Plassans, "the niece of Rebufat, the _meger_[*] of the Jas-Meiffren."
+
+     [*] A _meger_ is a farmer in Provence who shares the
+     expenses and profits of his farm with the owner of the land.
+
+"Where have you sprung from, gadabout?" cried another voice.
+
+Silvere, intoxicated with enthusiasm, had not thought of the distress
+which his sweetheart would feel at the jeers of the workmen. Miette, all
+confusion, looked at him as if to implore his aid. But before he
+could even open his lips another voice rose from the crowd, brutally
+exclaiming:
+
+"Her father's at the galleys; we don't want the daughter of a thief and
+murderer amongst us."
+
+At this Miette turned dreadfully pale.
+
+"You lie!" she muttered. "If my father did kill anybody, he never
+thieved!"
+
+And as Silvere, pale and trembling more than she, began to clench his
+fists: "Stop!" she continued; "this is my affair."
+
+Then, turning to the men, she repeated with a shout: "You lie! You lie!
+He never stole a copper from anybody. You know it well enough. Why do
+you insult him when he can't be here?"
+
+She drew herself up, superb with indignation. With her ardent, half-wild
+nature she seemed to accept the charge of murder composedly enough, but
+that of theft exasperated her. They knew it, and that was why folks,
+from stupid malice, often cast the accusation in her face.
+
+The man who had just called her father a thief was merely repeating
+what he had heard said for many years. The girl's defiant attitude
+only incited the workmen to jeer the more. Silvere still had his fists
+clenched, and matters might have become serious if a poacher from
+the Seille, who had been sitting on a heap of stones at the roadside
+awaiting the order to march, had not come to the girl's assistance.
+
+"The little one's right," he said. "Chantegreil was one of us. I knew
+him. Nobody knows the real facts of his little matter. I always believed
+in the truth of his deposition before the judge. The gendarme whom he
+brought down with a bullet, while he was out shooting, was no doubt
+taking aim at him at the time. A man must defend himself! At all events
+Chantegreil was a decent fellow; he committed no robbery."
+
+As often happens in such cases, the testimony of this poacher sufficed
+to bring other defenders to Miette's aid. Several workmen also professed
+to have known Chantegreil.
+
+"Yes, yes, it's true!" they all said. "He wasn't a thief. There are
+some scoundrels at Plassans who ought to be sent to prison in his place.
+Chantegreil was our brother. Come, now, be calm, little one."
+
+Miette had never before heard anyone speak well of her father. He was
+generally referred to as a beggar, a villain, and now she found good
+fellows who had forgiving words for him, and declared him to be an
+honest man. She burst into tears, again full of the emotion awakened in
+her by the "Marseillaise;" and she bethought herself how she might thank
+these men for their kindness to her in misfortune. For a moment she
+conceived the idea of shaking them all by the hand like a man. But her
+heart suggested something better. By her side stood the insurgent
+who carried the banner. She touched the staff, and, to express her
+gratitude, said in an entreating tone, "Give it to me; I will carry it."
+
+The simple-minded workmen understood the ingenuous sublimity of this
+form of gratitude.
+
+"Yes," they all cried, "Chantegreil shall carry the banner."
+
+However, a woodcutter remarked that she would soon get tired, and would
+not be able to go far.
+
+"Oh! I'm quite strong," she retorted proudly, tucking up her sleeves and
+showing a pair of arms as big as those of a grown woman. Then as they
+handed her the flag she resumed, "Wait just a moment."
+
+Forthwith she pulled off her cloak, and put it on again after turning
+the red lining outside. In the clear moonlight she appeared to be
+arrayed in a purple mantle reaching to her feet. The hood resting on the
+edge of her chignon formed a kind of Phrygian cap. She took the flag,
+pressed the staff to her bosom, and held herself upright amid the folds
+of that blood-coloured banner which waved behind her. Enthusiastic child
+that she was, her countenance, with its curly hair, large eyes moist
+with tears, and lips parted in a smile, seemed to rise with energetic
+pride as she turned it towards the sky. At that moment she was the
+virgin Liberty.
+
+The insurgents burst into applause. The vivid imagination of those
+Southerners was fired with enthusiasm at the sudden apparition of this
+girl so nervously clasping their banner to her bosom. Shouts rose from
+the nearest group:
+
+"Bravo, Chantegreil! Chantegreil for ever! She shall remain with us;
+she'll bring us luck!"
+
+They would have cheered her for a long time yet had not the order to
+resume the march arrived. Whilst the column moved on, Miette pressed
+Silvere's hand and whispered in his ear: "You hear! I shall remain with
+you. Are you glad?"
+
+Silvere, without replying, returned the pressure. He consented. In fact,
+he was deeply affected, unable to resist the enthusiasm which fired his
+companions. Miette seemed to him so lovely, so grand, so saintly! During
+the whole climb up the hill he still saw her before him, radiant, amidst
+a purple glory. She was now blended with his other adored mistress--the
+Republic. He would have liked to be in action already, with his gun on
+his shoulder. But the insurgents moved slowly. They had orders to make
+as little noise as possible. Thus the column advanced between the
+rows of elms like some gigantic serpent whose every ring had a strange
+quivering. The frosty December night had again sunk into silence, and
+the Viorne alone seemed to roar more loudly.
+
+On reaching the first houses of the Faubourg, Silvere ran on in front to
+fetch his gun from the Aire Saint-Mittre, which he found slumbering in
+the moonlight. When he again joined the insurgents they had reached
+the Porte de Rome. Miette bent towards him, and with her childish smile
+observed: "I feel as if I were at the procession on Corpus Christi Day
+carrying the banner of the Virgin."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Plassans is a sub-prefecture with about ten thousand inhabitants. Built
+on a plateau overlooking the Viorne, and resting on the north side
+against the Garrigues hills, one of the last spurs of the Alps, the
+town is situated, as it were, in the depths of a cul-de-sac. In 1851
+it communicated with the adjoining country by two roads only, the Nice
+road, which runs down to the east, and the Lyons road, which rises to
+the west, the one continuing the other on almost parallel lines. Since
+that time a railway has been built which passes to the south of the
+town, below the hill which descends steeply from the old ramparts to
+the river. At the present day, on coming out of the station on the right
+bank of the little torrent, one can see, by raising one's head, the
+first houses of Plassans, with their gardens disposed in terrace
+fashion. It is, however, only after an uphill walk lasting a full
+quarter of an hour that one reaches these houses.
+
+About twenty years ago, owing, no doubt, to deficient means of
+communication, there was no town that had more completely retained the
+pious and aristocratic character of the old Provencal cities. Plassans
+then had, and has even now, a whole district of large mansions built
+in the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., a dozen churches, Jesuit
+and Capuchin houses, and a considerable number of convents. Class
+distinctions were long perpetuated by the town's division into various
+districts. There were three of them, each forming, as it were, a
+separate and complete locality, with its own churches, promenades,
+customs, and landscapes.
+
+The district of the nobility, called Saint-Marc, after the name of one
+of its parish churches, is a sort of miniature Versailles, with straight
+streets overgrown with grass, and large square houses which conceal
+extensive gardens. It extends to the south along the edge of the
+plateau. Some of the mansions built on the declivity itself have a
+double row of terraces whence one can see the whole valley of the
+Viorne, a most charming vista much vaunted in that part of the country.
+Then on the north-west, the old quarter, formed of the original town,
+rears its narrow, tortuous lanes bordered with tottering hovels. The
+Town-Hall, the Civil Court, the Market, and the Gendarmerie barracks
+are situated here. This, the most populous part of the Plassans, is
+inhabited by working-men and shop-keepers, all the wretched, toiling,
+common folk. The new town forms a sort of parallelogram to the
+north-east; the well-to-do, those who have slowly amassed a fortune, and
+those engaged in the liberal professions, here occupy houses set out
+in straight lines and coloured a light yellow. This district, which is
+embellished by the Sub-Prefecture, an ugly plaster building decorated
+with rose-mouldings, numbered scarcely five or six streets in 1851; it
+is of quite recent formation, and it is only since the construction of
+the railway that it has been growing in extent.
+
+One circumstance which even at the present time tends to divide
+Plassans into three distinct independent parts is that the limits of the
+districts are clearly defined by the principal thoroughfares. The Cours
+Sauvaire and the Rue de Rome, which is, as it were, a narrow extension
+of the former, run from west to east, from the Grand'-Porte to the
+Porte de Rome, thus cutting the town into two portions, and dividing
+the quarter of the nobility from the others. The latter are themselves
+parted by the Rue de la Banne. This street, the finest in the locality,
+starts from the extremity of the Cours Sauvaire, and ascends northwards,
+leaving the black masses of the old quarter on its left, and the
+light-yellow houses of the new town on its right. It is here, about
+half-way along the street, that stands the Sub-Prefecture, in the rear
+of a small square planted with sickly trees; the people of Plassans are
+very proud of this edifice.
+
+As if to keep more isolated and shut up within itself, the town is
+belted with old ramparts, which only serve to increase its gloom and
+render it more confined. These ridiculous fortifications, preyed upon by
+ivy and crowned with wild gillyflowers, are about as high and as thick
+as the walls of a convent, and could be demolished by gunshot. They
+have several openings, the principal of which, the Porte de Rome and the
+Grand'-Porte, afford access to the Nice road and the Lyons road, at the
+other end of town. Until 1853 these openings were furnished with huge
+wooden two-leaved gates, arched at the top, and strengthened with bars
+of iron. These gates were double-locked at eleven o'clock in summer, and
+ten o'clock in winter. The town having thus shot its bolts like a timid
+girl, went quietly to sleep. A keeper, who lived in a little cell in one
+of the inner corners of each gateway, was authorised to admit belated
+persons. But it was necessary to stand parleying a long time. The keeper
+would not let people in until, by the light of his lantern, he had
+carefully scrutinised their faces through a peep-hole. If their looks
+displeased him they had to sleep outside. This custom of locking the
+gates every evening was highly characteristic of the spirit of the town,
+which was a commingling of cowardice, egotism, routine, exclusiveness,
+and devout longing for a cloistered life. Plassans, when it had shut
+itself up, would say to itself, "I am at home," with the satisfaction
+of some pious bourgeois, who, assured of the safety of his cash-box,
+and certain that no noise will disturb him, duly says his prayers and
+retires gladly to bed. No other town, I believe, has so long persisted
+in thus incarcerating itself like a nun.
+
+The population of Plassans is divided into three groups, corresponding
+with the same number of districts. Putting aside the functionaries--the
+sub-prefect, the receiver of taxes, the mortgage commissioner, and
+the postmaster, who are all strangers to the locality, where they are
+objects of envy rather than of esteem, and who live after their own
+fashion--the real inhabitants, those who were born there and have
+every intention of ending their days there, feel too much respect for
+traditional usages and established boundaries not to pen themselves of
+their own accord in one or other of the town's social divisions.
+
+The nobility virtually cloister themselves. Since the fall of Charles X.
+they scarcely ever go out, and when they do they are eager to return
+to their large dismal mansions, and walk along furtively as though they
+were in a hostile country. They do not visit anyone, nor do they even
+receive each other. Their drawing-rooms are frequented by a few priests
+only. They spend the summer in the chateaux which they possess in the
+environs; in the winter, they sit round their firesides. They are, as
+it were, dead people weary of life. And thus the gloomy silence of a
+cemetery hangs over their quarter of the town. The doors and windows
+are carefully barricaded; one would think their mansions were so many
+convents shut off from all the tumult of the world. At rare intervals
+an abbe, whose measured tread adds to the gloomy silence of these sealed
+houses, passes by and glides like a shadow through some half-opened
+doorway.
+
+The well-to-do people, the retired tradesmen, the lawyers and notaries,
+all those of the little easy-going, ambitious world that inhabits the
+new town, endeavour to infuse some liveliness into Plassans. They go
+to the parties given by the sub-prefect, and dream of giving similar
+entertainments. They eagerly seek popularity, call a workman "my good
+fellow," chat with the peasants about the harvest, read the papers, and
+walk out with their wives on Sundays. Theirs are the enlightened
+minds of the district, they are the only persons who venture to speak
+disparagingly of the ramparts; in fact, they have several times demanded
+of the authorities the demolition of those old walls, relics of a former
+age. At the same time, the most sceptical among them experience a shock
+of delight whenever a marquis or a count deigns to honour them with a
+stiff salutation. Indeed, the dream of every citizen of the new town is
+to be admitted to a drawing-room of the Saint-Marc quarter. They know
+very well that their ambition is not attainable, and it is this which
+makes them proclaim all the louder that they are freethinkers. But they
+are freethinkers in words only; firm friends of the authorities, they
+are ready to rush into the arms of the first deliverer at the slightest
+indication of popular discontent.
+
+The group which toils and vegetates in the old quarter is not so clearly
+defined as the others. The labouring classes are here in a majority; but
+retail dealers and even a few wholesale traders are to be found among
+them. As a matter of fact, Plassans is far from being a commercial
+centre; there is only just sufficient trade to dispose of the products
+of the country--oil, wine, and almonds. As for industrial labour, it is
+represented almost entirely by three or four evil-smelling tanyards,
+a felt hat manufactory, and some soap-boiling works, which last are
+relegated to a corner of the Faubourg. This little commercial and
+industrial world, though it may on high days and holidays visit the
+people of the new district, generally takes up its quarters among the
+operatives of the old town. Merchants, retail traders, and artisans have
+common interests which unite them together. On Sundays only, the masters
+make themselves spruce and foregather apart. On the other hand, the
+labouring classes, which constitute scarcely a fifth of the population,
+mingle with the idlers of the district.
+
+It is only once a week, and during the fine weather, that the three
+districts of Plassans come together face to face. The whole town repairs
+to the Cours Sauvaire on Sunday after vespers; even the nobility venture
+thither. Three distinct currents flow along this sort of boulevard
+planted with rows of plane-trees. The well-to-do citizens of the new
+quarter merely pass along before quitting the town by the Grand'-Porte
+and taking the Avenue du Mail on the right, where they walk up and down
+till nightfall. Meantime, the nobility and the lower classes share the
+Cours Sauvaire between them. For more than a century past the nobility
+have selected the walk on the south side, which is bordered with large
+mansions, and is the first to escape the heat of the sun; the lower
+classes have to rest content with the walk on the north, where the
+cafes, inns, and tobacconists' shops are located. The people and the
+nobility promenade the whole afternoon, walking up and down the Cours
+without anyone of either party thinking of changing sides. They are only
+separated by a distance of some seven or eight yards, yet it is as if
+they were a thousand leagues away from each other, for they scrupulously
+follow those two parallel lines, as though they must not come in contact
+here below. Even during the revolutionary periods each party kept to
+its own side. This regulation walk on Sunday and the locking of the town
+gates in the evening are analogous instances which suffice to indicate
+the character of the ten thousand people inhabiting the town.
+
+Here, amidst these surroundings, until the year 1848, there vegetated
+an obscure family that enjoyed little esteem, but whose head, Pierre
+Rougon, subsequently played an important part in life owing to certain
+circumstances.
+
+Pierre Rougon was the son of a peasant. His mother's family, the
+Fouques, owned, towards the end of the last century, a large plot of
+ground in the Faubourg, behind the old cemetery of Saint-Mittre; this
+ground was subsequently joined to the Jas-Meiffren. The Fouques were the
+richest market-gardeners in that part of the country; they supplied an
+entire district of Plassans with vegetables. However, their name
+died out a few years before the Revolution. Only one girl, Adelaide,
+remained; born in 1768, she had become an orphan at the age of eighteen.
+This girl, whose father had died insane, was a long, lank, pale
+creature, with a scared look and strange ways which one might have taken
+for shyness so long as she was a little girl. As she grew up,
+however, she became still stranger; she did certain things which were
+inexplicable even to the cleverest folk of the Faubourg, and from that
+time it was rumoured that she was cracked like her father.
+
+She had scarcely been an orphan six months, in possession of a fortune
+which rendered her an eagerly sought heiress, when it transpired that
+she had married a young gardener named Rougon, a rough-hewn peasant from
+the Basses-Alpes. This Rougon, after the death of the last of the male
+Fouques, who had engaged him for a term, had remained in the service
+of the deceased's daughter. From the situation of salaried servant he
+ascended rapidly to the enviable position of husband. This marriage was
+a first shock to public opinion. No one could comprehend why Adelaide
+preferred this poor fellow, coarse, heavy, vulgar, scarce able to speak
+French, to those other young men, sons of well-to-do farmers, who had
+been seen hovering round her for some time. And, as provincial people do
+not allow anything to remain unexplained, they made sure there was some
+mystery at the bottom of this affair, alleging even that the marriage of
+the two young people had become an absolute necessity. But events proved
+the falsity of the accusation. More than a year went by before Adelaide
+had a son. The Faubourg was annoyed; it could not admit that it was
+wrong, and determined to penetrate the supposed mystery; accordingly all
+the gossips kept a watch upon the Rougons. They soon found ample matter
+for tittle-tattle. Rougon died almost suddenly, fifteen months after his
+marriage, from a sunstroke received one afternoon while he was weeding a
+bed of carrots.
+
+Scarcely a year then elapsed before the young widow caused unheard-of
+scandal. It became known, as an indisputable fact, that she had a lover.
+She did not appear to make any secret of it; several persons asserted
+that they had heard her use endearing terms in public to poor Rougon's
+successor. Scarcely a year of widowhood and a lover already! Such a
+disregard of propriety seemed monstrous out of all reason. And the
+scandal was heightened by Adelaide's strange choice. At that time there
+dwelt at the end of the Impasse Saint-Mittre, in a hovel the back
+of which abutted on the Fouques' land, a man of bad repute, who was
+generally referred to as "that scoundrel Macquart." This man would
+vanish for weeks and then turn up some fine evening, sauntering about
+with his hands in his pockets and whistling as though he had just
+come from a short walk. And the women sitting at their doorsteps as he
+passed: "There's that scoundrel Macquart! He has hidden his bales and
+his gun in some hollow of the Viorne." The truth was, Macquart had
+no means, and yet ate and drank like a happy drone during his short
+sojourns in the town. He drank copiously and with fierce obstinacy.
+Seating himself alone at a table in some tavern, he would linger there
+evening after evening, with his eyes stupidly fixed on his glass,
+neither seeing nor hearing anything around him. When the landlord closed
+his establishment, he would retire with a firm step, with his head
+raised, as if he were kept yet more erect by inebriation. "Macquart
+walks so straight, he's surely dead drunk," people used to say, as they
+saw him going home. Usually, when he had had no drink, he walked with
+a slight stoop and shunned the gaze of curious people with a kind of
+savage shyness.
+
+Since the death of his father, a journeyman tanner who had left him as
+sole heritage the hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, he had never
+been known to have either relatives or friends. The proximity of the
+frontiers and the neighbouring forests of the Seille had turned this
+singular, lazy fellow into a combination of smuggler and poacher, one
+of those suspicious-looking characters of whom passers-by observe: "I
+shouldn't care to meet that man at midnight in a dark wood." Tall, with
+a formidable beard and lean face, Macquart was the terror of the
+good women of the Faubourg of Plassans; they actually accused him of
+devouring little children raw. Though he was hardly thirty years old,
+he looked fifty. Amidst his bushy beard and the locks of hair which hung
+over his face in poodle fashion, one could only distinguish the gleam
+of his brown eyes, the furtive sorrowful glance of a man of vagrant
+instincts, rendered vicious by wine and a pariah life. Although no
+crimes had actually been brought home to him, no theft or murder was
+ever perpetrated in the district without suspicion at once falling upon
+him.
+
+And it was this ogre, this brigand, this scoundrel Macquart, whom
+Adelaide had chosen! In twenty months she had two children by him, first
+a boy and then a girl. There was no question of marriage between
+them. Never had the Faubourg beheld such audacious impropriety. The
+stupefaction was so great, the idea of Macquart having found a young and
+wealthy mistress so completely upset the gossips, that they even spoke
+gently of Adelaide. "Poor thing! She's gone quite mad," they would say.
+"If she had any relatives she would have been placed in confinement long
+ago." And as they never knew anything of the history of those strange
+amours, they accused that rogue Macquart of having taken advantage of
+Adelaide's weak mind to rob her of her money.
+
+The legitimate son, little Pierre Rougon, grew up with his mother's
+other offspring. The latter, Antoine and Ursule, the young wolves as
+they were called in the district, were kept at home by Adelaide, who
+treated them as affectionately as her first child. She did not appear to
+entertain a very clear idea of the position in life reserved for these
+two poor creatures. To her they were the same in every respect as her
+first-born. She would sometimes go out holding Pierre with one hand and
+Antoine with the other, never noticing how differently the two little
+fellows were already regarded.
+
+It was a strange home. For nearly twenty years everyone lived there
+after his or her fancy, the children like the mother. Everything went
+on free from control. In growing to womanhood, Adelaide had retained the
+strangeness which had been taken for shyness when she was fifteen. It
+was not that she was insane, as the people of the Faubourg asserted,
+but there was a lack of equilibrium between her nerves and her blood,
+a disorder of the brain and heart which made her lead a life out of
+the ordinary, different from that of the rest of the world. She was
+certainly very natural, very consistent with herself; but in the eyes of
+the neighbours her consistency became pure insanity. She seemed
+desirous of making herself conspicuous, it was thought she was wickedly
+determined to turn things at home from bad to worse, whereas with great
+naivete she simply acted according to the impulses of her nature.
+
+Ever since giving birth to her first child she had been subject to
+nervous fits which brought on terrible convulsions. These fits recurred
+periodically, every two or three months. The doctors whom she consulted
+declared they could do nothing for her, that age would weaken the
+severity of the attacks. They simply prescribed a dietary regimen of
+underdone meat and quinine wine. However, these repeated shocks led to
+cerebral disorder. She lived on from day to day like a child, like
+a fawning animal yielding to its instincts. When Macquart was on his
+rounds, she passed her time in lazy, pensive idleness. All she did for
+her children was to kiss and play with them. Then as soon as her lover
+returned she would disappear.
+
+Behind Macquart's hovel there was a little yard, separated from the
+Fouques' property by a wall. One morning the neighbours were much
+astonished to find in this wall a door which had not been there the
+previous evening. Before an hour had elapsed, the entire Faubourg had
+flocked to the neighbouring windows. The lovers must have worked the
+whole night to pierce the opening and place the door there. They could
+now go freely from one house to the other. The scandal was revived,
+everyone felt less pity for Adelaide, who was certainly the disgrace
+of the suburb; she was reproached more wrathfully for that door, that
+tacit, brutal admission of her union, than even for her two illegitimate
+children. "People should at least study appearances," the most tolerant
+women would say. But Adelaide did not understand what was meant by
+studying appearances. She was very happy, very proud of her door; she
+had assisted Macquart to knock the stones from the wall and had even
+mixed the mortar so that the work might proceed the quicker; and she
+came with childish delight to inspect the work by daylight on the
+morrow--an act which was deemed a climax of shamelessness by three
+gossips who observed her contemplating the masonry. From that date,
+whenever Macquart reappeared, it was thought, as no one then ever
+saw the young woman, that she was living with him in the hovel of the
+Impasse Saint-Mittre.
+
+The smuggler would come very irregularly, almost always unexpectedly,
+to Plassans. Nobody ever knew what life the lovers led during the two
+or three days he spent there at distant intervals. They used to shut
+themselves up; the little dwelling seemed uninhabited. Then, as the
+gossips had declared that Macquart had simply seduced Adelaide in order
+to spend her money, they were astonished, after a time, to see him still
+lead his wonted life, ever up hill and down dale and as badly equipped
+as previously. Perhaps the young woman loved him all the more for
+seeing him at rare intervals, perhaps he had disregarded her entreaties,
+feeling an irresistible desire for a life of adventure. The gossips
+invented a thousand fables, without succeeding in giving any reasonable
+explanation of a connection which had originated and continued in so
+strange a manner. The hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre remained closed
+and preserved its secrets. It was merely guessed that Macquart had
+probably acquired the habit of beating Adelaide, although the sound of
+a quarrel never issued from the house. However, on several occasions she
+was seen with her face black and blue, and her hair torn away. At the
+same time, she did not display the least dejection or grief, nor did she
+seek in any way to hide her bruises. She smiled, and seemed happy. No
+doubt she allowed herself to be beaten without breathing a word. This
+existence lasted for more than fifteen years.
+
+At times when Adelaide returned home she would find her house upside
+down, but would not take the least notice of it. She was utterly
+ignorant of the practical meaning of life, of the proper value of things
+and the necessity for order. She let her children grow up like those
+plum-trees which sprout along the highways at the pleasure of the rain
+and sun. They bore their natural fruits like wild stock which has never
+known grafting or pruning. Never was nature allowed such complete sway,
+never did such mischievous creatures grow up more freely under the sole
+influence of instinct. They rolled among the vegetables, passed their
+days in the open air playing and fighting like good-for-nothing urchins.
+They stole provisions from the house and pillaged the few fruit-trees in
+the enclosure; they were the plundering, squalling, familiar demons of
+this strange abode of lucid insanity. When their mother was absent
+for days together, they would make such an uproar, and hit upon such
+diabolical devices for annoying people, that the neighbours had to
+threaten them with a whipping. Moreover, Adelaide did not inspire them
+with much fear; if they were less obnoxious to other people when she was
+at home, it was because they made her their victim, shirking school
+five or six times a week and doing everything they could to receive some
+punishment which would allow them to squall to their hearts' content.
+But she never beat them, nor even lost her temper; she lived on very
+well, placidly, indolently, in a state of mental abstraction amidst all
+the uproar. At last, indeed, this uproar became indispensable to her,
+to fill the void in her brain. She smiled complacently when she heard
+anyone say, "Her children will beat her some day, and it will serve her
+right." To all remarks, her utter indifference seemed to reply, "What
+does it matter?" She troubled even less about her property than about
+her children. The Fouques' enclosure, during the many years that this
+singular existence lasted would have become a piece of waste ground
+if the young woman had not luckily entrusted the cultivation of her
+vegetables to a clever market-gardener. This man, who was to share the
+profits with her, robbed her impudently, though she never noticed it.
+This circumstance had its advantages, however; for, in order to steal
+the more, the gardener drew as much as possible from the land, which in
+the result almost doubled in value.
+
+Pierre, the legitimate son, either from secret instinct or from his
+knowledge of the different manner in which he and the others were
+regarded by the neighbours, domineered over his brother and sister
+from an early age. In their quarrels, although he was much weaker than
+Antoine, he always got the better of the contest, beating the other with
+all the authority of a master. With regard to Ursule, a poor, puny, wan
+little creature, she was handled with equal roughness by both the
+boys. Indeed, until they were fifteen or sixteen, the three children
+fraternally beat each other without understanding their vague, mutual
+hatred, without realising how foreign they were to one another. It was
+only in youth that they found themselves face to face with definite,
+self-conscious personalities.
+
+At sixteen, Antoine was a tall fellow, a blend of Macquart's and
+Adelaide's failings. Macquart, however, predominated in him, with his
+love of vagrancy, his tendency to drunkenness, and his brutish savagery.
+At the same time, under the influence of Adelaide's nervous nature, the
+vices which in the father assumed a kind of sanguinary frankness were
+in the son tinged with an artfulness full of hypocrisy and cowardice.
+Antoine resembled his mother by his total want of dignified will, by his
+effeminate voluptuous egotism, which disposed him to accept any bed of
+infamy provided he could lounge upon it at his ease and sleep warmly in
+it. People said of him: "Ah! the brigand! He hasn't even the courage of
+his villainy like Macquart; if ever he commits a murder, it will be with
+pin pricks." Physically, Antoine inherited Adelaide's thick lips only;
+his other features resembled those of the smuggler, but they were softer
+and more prone to change of expression.
+
+In Ursule, on the other hand, physical and moral resemblance to the
+mother predominated. There was a mixture of certain characteristics in
+her also; but born the last, at a time when Adelaide's love was warmer
+than Macquart's, the poor little thing seemed to have received with her
+sex a deeper impress of her mother's temperament. Moreover, hers was not
+a fusion of the two natures, but rather a juxtaposition, a remarkably
+close soldering. Ursule was whimsical, and displayed at times the
+shyness, the melancholy, and the transports of a pariah; then she would
+often break out into nervous fits of laughter, and muse lazily, like
+a woman unsound both in head and heart. Her eyes, which at times had
+a scared expression like those of Adelaide, were as limpid as crystal,
+similar to those of kittens doomed to die of consumption.
+
+In presence of those two illegitimate children Pierre seemed a stranger;
+to one who had not penetrated to the roots of his being he would have
+appeared profoundly dissimilar. Never did child's nature show a more
+equal balance of the characteristics of its parents. He was the exact
+mean between the peasant Rougon and the nervous Adelaide. Paternal
+grossness was attenuated by the maternal influence. One found in him the
+first phase of that evolution of temperaments which ultimately brings
+about the amelioration or deterioration of a race. Although he was still
+a peasant, his skin was less coarse, his face less heavy, his intellect
+more capacious and more supple. In him the defects of his father and his
+mother had advantageously reacted upon each other. If Adelaide's nature,
+rendered exquisitely sensitive by her rebellious nerves, had combated
+and lessened Rougon's full-bodied ponderosity, the latter had
+successfully prevented the young woman's tendency to cerebral disorder
+from being implanted in the child. Pierre knew neither the passions nor
+the sickly ravings of Macquart's young whelps. Very badly brought up,
+unruly and noisy, like all children who are not restrained during their
+infancy, he nevertheless possessed at bottom such sense and intelligence
+as would always preserve him from perpetrating any unproductive folly.
+His vices, his laziness, his appetite for indulgence, lacked the
+instinctiveness which characterised Antoine's; he meant to cultivate
+and gratify them honourably and openly. In his plump person of medium
+height, in his long pale face, in which the features derived from his
+father had acquired some of the maternal refinement, one could already
+detect signs of sly and crafty ambition and insatiable desire, with
+the hardness of heart and envious hatred of a peasant's son whom his
+mother's means and nervous temperament had turned into a member of the
+middle classes.
+
+When, at the age of seventeen, Pierre observed and was able to
+understand Adelaide's disorders and the singular position of Antoine and
+Ursule, he seemed neither sorry nor indignant, but simply worried as to
+the course which would best serve his own interests. He was the only
+one of the three children who had pursued his studies with any industry.
+When a peasant begins to feel the need of instruction he most frequently
+becomes a fierce calculator. At school Pierre's playmates roused his
+first suspicions by the manner in which they treated and hooted his
+brother. Later on he came to understand the significance of many looks
+and words. And at last he clearly saw that the house was being pillaged.
+From that time forward he regarded Antoine and Ursule as shameless
+parasites, mouths that were devouring his own substance. Like the people
+of the Faubourg, he thought that his mother was a fit subject for a
+lunatic asylum, and feared she would end by squandering all her money,
+if he did not take steps to prevent it. What gave him the finishing
+stroke was the dishonesty of the gardener who cultivated the land.
+At this, in one day, the unruly child was transformed into a thrifty,
+selfish lad, hurriedly matured, as regards his instincts, by the strange
+improvident life which he could no longer bear to see around him without
+a feeling of anguish. Those vegetables, from the sale of which the
+market-gardener derived the largest profits, really belonged to him;
+the wine which his mother's offspring drank, the bread they ate, also
+belonged to him. The whole house, the entire fortune, was his by right;
+according to his boorish logic, he alone, the legitimate son, was
+the heir. And as his riches were in danger, as everybody was greedily
+gnawing at his future fortune, he sought a means of turning them all
+out--mother, brother, sister, servants--and of succeeding immediately to
+his inheritance.
+
+The conflict was a cruel one; the lad knew that he must first strike his
+mother. Step by step, with patient tenacity, he executed a plan whose
+every detail he had long previously thought out. His tactics were to
+appear before Adelaide like a living reproach--not that he flew into
+a passion, or upbraided her for her misconduct; but he had acquired a
+certain manner of looking at her, without saying a word, which terrified
+her. Whenever she returned from a short sojourn in Macquart's hovel she
+could not turn her eyes on her son without a shudder. She felt his cold
+glances, as sharp as steel blades pierce her deeply and pitilessly. The
+severe, taciturn demeanour of the child of the man whom she had so soon
+forgotten strangely troubled her poor disordered brain. She would fancy
+at times that Rougon had risen from the dead to punish her for her
+dissoluteness. Every week she fell into one of those nervous fits which
+were shattering her constitution. She was left to struggle until she
+recovered consciousness, after which she would creep about more feebly
+than ever. She would also often sob the whole night long, holding her
+head in her hands, and accepting the wounds that Pierre dealt her with
+resignation, as if they had been the strokes of an avenging deity. At
+other times she repudiated him; she would not acknowledge her own
+flesh and blood in that heavy-faced lad, whose calmness chilled her own
+feverishness so painfully. She would a thousand times rather have been
+beaten than glared at like that. Those implacable looks, which followed
+her everywhere, threw her at last into such unbearable torments that
+on several occasions she determined to see her lover no more. As soon,
+however, as Macquart returned she forgot her vows and hastened to him.
+The conflict with her son began afresh, silent and terrible, when she
+came back home. At the end of a few months she fell completely under his
+sway. She stood before him like a child doubtful of her behaviour and
+fearing that she deserves a whipping. Pierre had skilfully bound her
+hand and foot, and made a very submissive servant of her, without
+opening his lips, without once entering into difficult and compromising
+explanations.
+
+When the young man felt that his mother was in his power, that he could
+treat her like a slave, he began, in his own interest, to turn her
+cerebral weakness and the foolish terror with which his glances inspired
+her to his own advantage. His first care, as soon as he was master at
+home, was to dismiss the market-gardener and replace him by one of his
+own creatures. Then he took upon himself the supreme direction of the
+household, selling, buying, and holding the cash-box. On the other hand,
+he made no attempt to regulate Adelaide's actions, or to correct Antoine
+and Ursule for their laziness. That mattered little to him, for he
+counted upon getting rid of these people as soon as an opportunity
+presented itself. He contented himself with portioning out their bread
+and water. Then, having already got all the property in his own hands,
+he awaited an event which would permit him to dispose of it as he
+pleased.
+
+Circumstances proved singularly favourable. He escaped the conscription
+on the ground of being a widow's eldest son. But two years later Antoine
+was called out. His bad luck did not affect him much; he counted on his
+mother purchasing a substitute for him. Adelaide, in fact, wished to
+save him from serving; Pierre, however, who held the money, turned a
+deaf ear to her. His brother's compulsory departure would be a lucky
+event for him, and greatly assist the accomplishment of his plans. When
+his mother mentioned the matter to him, he gave her such a look that
+she did not venture to pursue it. His glance plainly signified, "Do you
+wish, then, to ruin me for the sake of your illegitimate offspring?"
+Forthwith she selfishly abandoned Antoine, for before everything else
+she sought her own peace and quietness. Pierre, who did not like violent
+measures, and who rejoiced at being able to eject his brother without a
+disturbance, then played the part of a man in despair: the year had been
+a bad one, money was scarce, and to raise any he would be compelled to
+sell a portion of the land, which would be the beginning of their ruin.
+Then he pledged his word of honour to Antoine that he would buy him out
+the following year, though he meant to do nothing of the kind. Antoine
+then went off, duped, and half satisfied.
+
+Pierre got rid of Ursule in a still more unexpected manner. A journeyman
+hatter of the Faubourg, named Mouret, conceived a real affection for the
+girl, whom he thought as white and delicate as any young lady from the
+Saint-Marc quarter. He married her. On his part it was a love match,
+free from all sordid motives. As for Ursule, she accepted the marriage
+in order to escape a home where her eldest brother rendered life
+intolerable. Her mother, absorbed in her own courses, and using her
+remaining energy to defend her own particular interests, regarded
+the matter with absolute indifference. She was even glad of Ursule's
+departure from the house, hoping that Pierre, now that he had no further
+cause for dissatisfaction, would let her live in peace after her
+own fashion. No sooner had the young people been married than Mouret
+perceived that he would have to quit Plassans, if he did not wish to
+hear endless disparaging remarks about his wife and his mother-in-law.
+Taking Ursule with him, he accordingly repaired to Marseilles, where he
+worked at his trade. It should be mentioned that he had not asked
+for one sou of dowry. When Pierre, somewhat surprised by this
+disinterestedness, commenced to stammer out some explanations, Mouret
+closed his mouth by saying that he preferred to earn his wife's bread.
+Nevertheless the worthy son of the peasant remained uneasy; Mouret's
+indifference seemed to him to conceal some trap.
+
+Adelaide now remained to be disposed of. Nothing in the world would have
+induced Pierre to live with her any longer. She was compromising him;
+it was with her that he would have liked to make a start. But he found
+himself between two very embarrassing alternatives: to keep her, and
+thus, in a measure, share her disgrace, and bind a fetter to his feet
+which would arrest him in his ambitious flight; or to turn her out, with
+the certainty of being pointed at as a bad son, which would have robbed
+him of the reputation for good nature which he desired. Knowing that he
+would be in want of everybody, he desired to secure an untarnished
+name throughout Plassans. There was but one method to adopt, namely, to
+induce Adelaide to leave of her own accord. Pierre neglected nothing to
+accomplish this end. He considered his mother's misconduct a sufficient
+excuse for his own hard-heartedness. He punished her as one would
+chastise a child. The tables were turned. The poor woman cowered under
+the stick which, figuratively, was constantly held over her. She was
+scarcely forty-two years old, and already had the stammerings of
+terror, and vague, pitiful looks of an old woman in her dotage. Her son
+continued to stab her with his piercing glances, hoping that she would
+run away when her courage was exhausted. The unfortunate woman suffered
+terribly from shame, restrained desire and enforced cowardice, receiving
+the blows dealt her with passive resignation, and nevertheless returning
+to Macquart with the determination to die on the spot rather than
+submit. There were nights when she would have got out of bed, and thrown
+herself into the Viorne, if with her weak, nervous, nature she had not
+felt the greatest fear of death. On several occasions she thought of
+running away and joining her lover on the frontier. It was only
+because she did not know whither to go that she remained in the house,
+submitting to her son's contemptuous silence and secret brutality.
+Pierre divined that she would have left long ago if she had only had a
+refuge. He was waiting an opportunity to take a little apartment for her
+somewhere, when a fortuitous occurrence, which he had not ventured
+to anticipate, abruptly brought about the realisation of his desires.
+Information reached the Faubourg that Macquart had just been killed on
+the frontier by a shot from a custom-house officer, at the moment when
+he was endeavouring to smuggle a load of Geneva watches into France. The
+story was true. The smuggler's body was not even brought home, but was
+interred in the cemetery of a little mountain village. Adelaide's grief
+plunged her into stupor. Her son, who watched her curiously, did not see
+her shed a tear. Macquart had made her sole legatee. She inherited
+his hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and his carbine, which a
+fellow-smuggler, braving the balls of the custom-house officers, loyally
+brought back to her. On the following day she retired to the little
+house, hung the carbine above the mantelpiece, and lived there estranged
+from all the world, solitary and silent.
+
+Pierre was at last sole master of the house. The Fouques' land belonged
+to him in fact, if not in law. He never thought of establishing himself
+on it. It was too narrow a field for his ambition. To till the ground
+and cultivate vegetables seemed to him boorish, unworthy of his
+faculties. He was in a hurry to divest himself of everything
+recalling the peasant. With his nature refined by his mother's nervous
+temperament, he felt an irresistible longing for the enjoyments of the
+middle classes. In all his calculations, therefore, he had regarded the
+sale of the Fouques' property as the final consummation. This sale, by
+placing a round sum of money in his hands, would enable him to marry the
+daughter of some merchant who would take him into partnership. At this
+period the wars of the First Empire were greatly thinning the ranks of
+eligible young men. Parents were not so fastidious as previously in the
+choice of a son-in-law. Pierre persuaded himself that money would
+smooth all difficulties, and that the gossip of the Faubourg would be
+overlooked; he intended to pose as a victim, as an honest man suffering
+from a family disgrace, which he deplored, without being soiled by it or
+excusing it.
+
+For several months already he had cast his eyes on a certain Felicite
+Puech, the daughter of an oil-dealer. The firm of Puech & Lacamp, whose
+warehouses were in one of the darkest lanes of the old quarter, was
+far from prosperous. It enjoyed but doubtful credit in the market, and
+people talked vaguely of bankruptcy. It was precisely in consequence of
+these evil reports that Pierre turned his batteries in this direction.
+No well-to-do trader would have given him his daughter. He meant to
+appear on the scene at the very moment when old Puech should no longer
+know which way to turn; he would then purchase Felicite of him, and
+re-establish the credit of the house by his own energy and intelligence.
+It was a clever expedient for ascending the first rung of the social
+ladder, for raising himself above his station. Above all things, he
+wished to escape from that frightful Faubourg where everybody reviled
+his family, and to obliterate all these foul legends, by effacing even
+the very name of the Fouques' enclosure. For that reason the filthy
+streets of the old quarter seemed to him perfect paradise. There, only,
+he would be able to change his skin.
+
+The moment which he had been awaiting soon arrived. The firm of Puech
+and Lacamp seemed to be at the last gasp. The young man then negotiated
+the match with prudent skill. He was received, if not as a deliverer, at
+least as a necessary and acceptable expedient. The marriage agreed upon,
+he turned his attention to the sale of the ground. The owner of the
+Jas-Meiffren, desiring to enlarge his estate, had made him repeated
+offers. A low, thin, party-wall alone separated the two estates. Pierre
+speculated on the eagerness of his wealthy neighbour, who, to gratify
+his caprice, offered as much as fifty thousand francs for the land. It
+was double its value. Pierre, whoever, with the craftiness of a peasant,
+pulled a long face, and said that he did not care to sell; that his
+mother would never consent to get rid of the property where the Fouques
+had lived from father to son for nearly two centuries. But all the time
+that he was seemingly holding back he was really making preparations for
+the sale. Certain doubts had arisen in his mind. According to his own
+brutal logic, the property belonged to him; he had the right to dispose
+of it as he chose. Beneath this assurance, however, he had vague
+presentiments of legal complications. So he indirectly consulted a
+lawyer of the Faubourg.
+
+He learnt some fine things from him. According to the lawyer, his hands
+were completely tied. His mother alone could alienate the property, and
+he doubted whether she would. But what he did not know, what came as a
+heavy blow to him, was that Ursule and Antoine, those young wolves,
+had claims on the estate. What! they would despoil him, rob him, the
+legitimate child! The lawyer's explanations were clear and precise,
+however; Adelaide, it is true, had married Rougon under the common
+property system; but as the whole fortune consisted of land, the young
+woman, according to law, again came into possession of everything at her
+husband's death. Moreover, Macquart and Adelaide had duly acknowledged
+their children when declaring their birth for registration, and thus
+these children were entitled to inherit from their mother. For
+sole consolation, Pierre learnt that the law reduced the share of
+illegitimate children in favour of the others. This, however, did not
+console him at all. He wanted to have everything. He would not have
+shared ten sous with Ursule and Antoine.
+
+This vista of the intricacies of the Code opened up a new horizon, which
+he scanned with a singularly thoughtful air. He soon recognised that
+a shrewd man must always keep the law on his side. And this is what he
+devised without consulting anyone, even the lawyer, whose suspicions he
+was afraid of arousing. He knew how to turn his mother round his finger.
+One fine morning he took her to a notary and made her sign a deed of
+sale. Provided she were left the hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre,
+Adelaide would have sold all Plassans. Besides, Pierre assured her an
+annual income of six hundred francs, and made the most solemn promises
+to watch over his brother and sister. This oath satisfied the good
+woman. She recited, before the notary, the lesson which it had pleased
+her son to teach her. On the following day the young man made her place
+her name at the foot of a document in which she acknowledged having
+received fifty thousand francs as the price of the property. This was
+his stroke of genius, the act of a rogue. He contented himself with
+telling his mother, who was a little surprised at signing such a receipt
+when she had not seen a centime of the fifty thousand francs, that it
+was a pure formality of no consequence whatever. As he slipped the paper
+into his pocket, he thought to himself, "Now, let the young wolves ask
+me to render an account. I will tell them the old woman has squandered
+everything. They will never dare to go to law with me about it." A week
+afterwards, the party-wall no longer existed: a plough had turned up
+the vegetable beds; the Fouques' enclosure, in accordance with young
+Rougon's wish, was about to become a thing of the past. A few months
+later, the owner of the Jas-Meiffren even had the old market-gardener's
+house, which was falling to pieces, pulled down.
+
+When Pierre had secured the fifty thousand francs he married Felicite
+Puech with as little delay as possible. Felicite was a short, dark
+woman, such as one often meets in Provence. She looked like one of
+those brown, lean, noisy grasshoppers, which in their sudden leaps often
+strike their heads against the almond-trees. Thin, flat-breasted, with
+pointed shoulders and a face like that of a pole-cat, her features
+singularly sunken and attenuated, it was not easy to tell her age;
+she looked as near fifteen as thirty, although she was in reality only
+nineteen, four years younger than her husband. There was much feline
+slyness in the depths of her little black eyes, which suggested gimlet
+holes. Her low, bumpy forehead, her slightly depressed nose with
+delicate quivering nostrils, her thin red lips and prominent chin,
+parted from her cheeks by strange hollows, all suggested the countenance
+of an artful dwarf, a living mask of intrigue, an active, envious
+ambition. With all her ugliness, however, Felicite possessed a sort of
+gracefulness which rendered her seductive. People said of her that she
+could be pretty or ugly as she pleased. It would depend on the fashion
+in which she tied her magnificent hair; but it depended still more on
+the triumphant smile which illumined her golden complexion when she
+thought she had got the better of somebody. Born under an evil star,
+and believing herself ill-used by fortune, she was generally content
+to appear an ugly creature. She did not, however, intend to abandon the
+struggle, for she had vowed that she would some day make the whole town
+burst with envy, by an insolent display of happiness and luxury. Had
+she been able to act her part on a more spacious stage, where full play
+would have been allowed her ready wit, she would have quickly brought
+her dream to pass. Her intelligence was far superior to that of the
+girls of her own station and education. Evil tongues asserted that her
+mother, who had died a few years after she was born, had, during the
+early period of her married life, been familiar with the Marquis de
+Carnavant, a young nobleman of the Saint-Marc quarter. In fact, Felicite
+had the hands and feet of a marchioness, and, in this respect, did not
+appear to belong to that class of workers from which she was descended.
+
+Her marriage with Pierre Rougon, that semi-peasant, that man of the
+Faubourg, whose family was in such bad odour, kept the old quarter in
+a state of astonishment for more than a month. She let people gossip,
+however, receiving the stiff congratulations of her friends with strange
+smiles. Her calculations had been made; she had chosen Rougon for a
+husband as one would choose an accomplice. Her father, in accepting the
+young man, had merely had eyes for the fifty thousand francs which were
+to save him from bankruptcy. Felicite, however, was more keen-sighted.
+She looked into the future, and felt that she would be in want of a
+robust man, even if he were somewhat rustic, behind whom she might
+conceal herself, and whose limbs she would move at will. She entertained
+a deliberate hatred for the insignificant little exquisites of
+provincial towns, the lean herd of notaries' clerks and prospective
+barristers, who stand shivering with cold while waiting for clients.
+Having no dowry, and despairing of ever marrying a rich merchant's son,
+she by far preferred a peasant whom she could use as a passive tool,
+to some lank graduate who would overwhelm her with his academical
+superiority, and drag her about all her life in search of hollow
+vanities. She was of opinion that the woman ought to make the man. She
+believed herself capable of carving a minister out of a cow-herd. That
+which had attracted her in Rougon was his broad chest, his heavy frame,
+which was not altogether wanting in elegance. A man thus built would
+bear with ease and sprightliness the mass of intrigues which she
+dreamt of placing on his shoulders. However, while she appreciated her
+husband's strength and vigour, she also perceived that he was far
+from being a fool; under his coarse flesh she had divined the cunning
+suppleness of his mind. Still she was a long way from really knowing her
+Rougon; she thought him far stupider than he was. A few days after her
+marriage, as she was by chance fumbling in the drawer of a secretaire,
+she came across the receipt for fifty thousand francs which Adelaide
+had signed. At sight of it she understood things, and felt rather
+frightened; her own natural average honesty rendered her hostile to such
+expedients. Her terror, however, was not unmixed with admiration; Rougon
+became in her eyes a very smart fellow.
+
+The young couple bravely sought to conquer fortune. The firm of Puech
+& Lacamp was not, after all, so embarrassed as Pierre had thought. Its
+liabilities were small, it was merely in want of ready-money. In the
+provinces, traders adopt prudent courses to save them from serious
+disasters. Puech & Lacamp were prudent to an excessive degree; they
+never risked a thousand crowns without the greatest fear, and thus their
+house, a veritable hole, was an unimportant one. The fifty thousand
+francs that Pierre brought into it sufficed to pay the debts and extend
+the business. The beginnings were good. During three successive years
+the olive harvest was an abundant one. Felicite, by a bold stroke which
+absolutely frightened both Pierre and old Puech, made them purchase
+a considerable quantity of oil, which they stored in their warehouse.
+During the following years, as the young woman had foreseen, the crops
+failed, and a considerable rise in prices having set in, they realised
+large profits by selling out their stock.
+
+A short time after this haul, Puech & Lacamp retired from the firm,
+content with the few sous they had just secured, and ambitious of living
+on their incomes.
+
+The young couple now had sole control of the business, and thought
+that they had at last laid the foundation of their fortune. "You have
+vanquished my ill-luck," Felicite would sometimes say to her husband.
+
+One of the rare weaknesses of her energetic nature was to believe
+herself stricken by misfortune. Hitherto, so she asserted, nothing had
+been successful with either herself or her father, in spite of all their
+efforts. Goaded by her southern superstition, she prepared to struggle
+with fate as one struggles with somebody who is endeavouring to strangle
+one. Circumstances soon justified her apprehensions in a singular
+manner. Ill-luck returned inexorably. Every year some fresh disaster
+shook Rougon's business. A bankruptcy resulted in the loss of a few
+thousand francs; his estimates of crops proved incorrect, through
+the most incredible circumstances; the safest speculations collapsed
+miserably. It was a truceless, merciless combat.
+
+"You see I was born under an unlucky star!" Felicite would bitterly
+exclaim.
+
+And yet she still struggled furiously, not understanding how it was that
+she, who had shown such keen scent in a first speculation, could now
+only give her husband the most deplorable advice.
+
+Pierre, dejected and less tenacious than herself, would have gone
+into liquidation a score of times had it not been for his wife's firm
+obstinacy. She longed to be rich. She perceived that her ambition could
+only be attained by fortune. As soon as they possessed a few hundred
+thousand francs they would be masters of the town. She would get her
+husband appointed to an important post, and she would govern. It was
+not the attainment of honours which troubled her; she felt herself
+marvellously well armed for such a combat. But she could do nothing to
+get together the first few bags of money which were needed. Though the
+ruling of men caused her no apprehensions, she felt a sort of impotent
+rage at the thought of those inert, white, cold, five-franc pieces over
+which her intriguing spirit had no power, and which obstinately resisted
+her.
+
+The battle lasted for more than thirty years. The death of Puech proved
+another heavy blow. Felicite, who had counted upon an inheritance of
+about forty thousand francs, found that the selfish old man, in order
+to indulge himself in his old age, had sunk all his money in a life
+annuity. The discovery made her quite ill. She was gradually becoming
+soured, she was growing more lean and harsh. To see her, from morning
+till night, whirling round the jars of oil, one would have thought she
+believed that she could stimulate the sales by continually flitting
+about like a restless fly. Her husband, on the contrary, became heavier;
+misfortune fattened him, making him duller and more indolent. These
+thirty years of combat did not, however, bring him to ruin. At each
+annual stock-taking they managed to make both ends meet fairly well; if
+they suffered any loss during one season, they recouped themselves the
+next. However, it was precisely this living from hand to mouth which
+exasperated Felicite. She would, by far, have preferred a big failure.
+They would then, perhaps, have been able to commence life over again,
+instead of obstinately persisting in their petty business, working
+themselves to death to gain the bare necessaries of life. During one
+third of a century they did not save fifty thousand francs.
+
+It should be mentioned that, from the very first years of their married
+life, they had a numerous family, which in the long run became a heavy
+burden to them. In the course of five years, from 1811 to 1815, Felicite
+gave birth to three boys. Then during the four ensuing years she
+presented her husband with two girls. These had but an indifferent
+welcome; daughters are a terrible embarrassment when one has no dowry to
+give them.
+
+However, the young woman did not regard this troop of children as the
+cause of their ruin. On the contrary, she based on her sons' heads the
+building of the fortune which was crumbling in her own hands. They were
+hardly ten years old before she discounted their future careers in her
+dreams. Doubting whether she would ever succeed herself, she centred
+in them all her hopes of overcoming the animosity of fate. They would
+provide satisfaction for her disappointed vanity, they would give her
+that wealthy, honourable position which she had hitherto sought in vain.
+From that time forward, without abandoning the business struggle,
+she conceived a second plan for obtaining the gratification of her
+domineering instincts. It seemed to her impossible that, amongst her
+three sons, there should not be a man of superior intellect, who would
+enrich them all. She felt it, she said. Accordingly, she nursed the
+children with a fervour in which maternal severity was blended with an
+usurer's solicitude. She amused herself by fattening them as though they
+constituted a capital which, later on, would return a large interest.
+
+"Enough!" Pierre would sometimes exclaim, "all children are ungrateful.
+You are spoiling them, you are ruining us."
+
+When Felicite spoke of sending them to college, he got angry. Latin was
+a useless luxury, it would be quite sufficient if they went through
+the classes of a little neighbouring school The young woman, however,
+persisted in her design. She possessed certain elevated instincts which
+made her take a great pride in surrounding herself with accomplished
+children; moreover, she felt that her sons must never remain as
+illiterate as her husband, if she wished to see them become prominent
+men. She fancied them all three in Paris in high positions, which she
+did not clearly define. When Rougon consented, and the three youngsters
+had entered the eighth class, Felicite felt the most lively satisfaction
+she had ever experienced. She listened with delight as they talked of
+their professors and their studies. When she heard her eldest son make
+one of his brothers decline _Rosa, a rose_, it sounded like delicious
+music to her. It is only fair to add that her delight was not tarnished
+by any sordid calculations. Even Rougon felt the satisfaction which an
+illiterate man experiences on perceiving his sons grow more learned than
+himself. Then the fellowship which grew up between their sons and
+those of the local big-wigs completed the parents' gratification. The
+youngsters were soon on familiar terms with the sons of the Mayor and
+the Sub-Prefect, and even with two or three young noblemen whom the
+Saint-Marc quarter had deigned to send to the Plassans College. Felicite
+was at a loss how to repay such an honour. The education of the three
+lads weighed seriously on the budget of the Rougon household.
+
+Until the boys had taken their degrees, their parents, who kept them at
+college at enormous sacrifices, lived in hopes of their success. When
+they had obtained their diplomas Felicite wished to continue her work,
+and even persuaded her husband to send the three to Paris. Two of them
+devoted themselves to the study of law, and the third passed through
+the School of Medicine. Then, when they were men, and had exhausted the
+resources of the Rougon family and were obliged to return and establish
+themselves in the provinces, their parents' disenchantment began. They
+idled about and grew fat. And Felicite again felt all the bitterness of
+her ill-luck. Her sons were failing her. They had ruined her, and did
+not return any interest on the capital which they represented. This
+last blow of fate was the heaviest, as it fell on her ambition and her
+maternal vanity alike. Rougon repeated to her from morning till night,
+"I told you so!" which only exasperated her the more.
+
+One day, as she was bitterly reproaching her eldest son with the large
+amount of money expended on his education, he said to her with equal
+bitterness, "I will repay you later on if I can. But as you had no
+means, you should have brought us up to a trade. We are out of our
+element, we are suffering more than you."
+
+Felicite understood the wisdom of these words. From that time she ceased
+to accuse her children, and turned her anger against fate, which never
+wearied of striking her. She started her old complaints afresh, and
+bemoaned more and more the want of means which made her strand, as it
+were, in port. Whenever Rougon said to her, "Your sons are lazy fellows,
+they will eat up all we have," she sourly replied, "Would to God I had
+more money to give them; if they do vegetate, poor fellows, it's because
+they haven't got a sou to bless themselves with."
+
+At the beginning of the year 1848, on the eve of the Revolution of
+February, the three young Rougons held very precarious positions
+at Plassans. They presented most curious and profoundly dissimilar
+characteristics, though they came of the same stock. They were in
+reality superior to their parents. The race of the Rougons was destined
+to become refined through its female side. Adelaide had made Pierre
+a man of moderate enterprise, disposed to low ambitions; Felicite
+had inspired her sons with a higher intelligence, with a capacity for
+greater vices and greater virtues.
+
+At the period now referred to the eldest, Eugene, was nearly forty years
+old. He was a man of middle height, slightly bald, and already disposed
+to obesity. He had his father's face, a long face with broad features;
+beneath his skin one could divine the fat to which were due the flabby
+roundness of his features, and his yellowish, waxy complexion. Though
+his massive square head still recalled the peasant, his physiognomy was
+transfigured, lit up from within as it were, when his drooping eyelids
+were raised and his eyes awoke to life. In the son's case, the father's
+ponderousness had turned to gravity. This big fellow, Eugene, usually
+preserved a heavy somnolent demeanour. At the same time, certain of his
+heavy, languid movements suggested those of a giant stretching his limbs
+pending the time for action. By one of those alleged freaks of nature,
+of which, however, science is now commencing to discover the laws, if
+physical resemblance to Pierre was perfect in Eugene, Felicite on
+her side seemed to have furnished him with his brains. He offered an
+instance of certain moral and intellectual qualities of maternal origin
+being embedded in the coarse flesh he had derived from his father. He
+cherished lofty ambitions, possessed domineering instincts, and showed
+singular contempt for trifling expedients and petty fortunes.
+
+He was a proof that Plassans was perhaps not mistaken in suspecting that
+Felicite had some blue blood in her veins. The passion for indulgence,
+which became formidably developed in the Rougons, and was, in fact, the
+family characteristic, attained in his case its highest pitch; he longed
+for self-gratification, but in the form of mental enjoyment such as
+would gratify his burning desire for domination. A man such as this was
+never intended to succeed in a provincial town. He vegetated there
+for fifteen years, his eyes turned towards Paris, watching his
+opportunities. On his return home he had entered his name on the rolls,
+in order to be independent of his parents. After that he pleaded from
+time to time, earning a bare livelihood, without appearing to rise above
+average mediocrity. At Plassans his voice was considered thick, his
+movements heavy. He generally wandered from the question at issue,
+rambled, as the wiseacres expressed it. On one occasion particularly,
+when he was pleading in a case for damages, he so forgot himself as to
+stray into a political disquisition, to such a point that the presiding
+judge interfered, whereupon he immediately sat down with a strange
+smile. His client was condemned to pay a considerable sum of money,
+a circumstance which did not, however, seem to cause Eugene the least
+regret for his irrelevant digression. He appeared to regard his speeches
+as mere exercises which would be of use to him later on. It was this
+that puzzled and disheartened Felicite. She would have liked to see her
+son dictating the law to the Civil Court of Plassans. At last she came
+to entertain a very unfavourable opinion of her first-born. To her
+mind this lazy fellow would never be the one to shed any lustre on the
+family. Pierre, on the contrary, felt absolute confidence in him,
+not that he had more intuition than his wife, but because external
+appearances sufficed him, and he flattered himself by believing in
+the genius of a son who was his living image. A month prior to the
+Revolution of February, 1848, Eugene became restless; some special
+inspiration made him anticipate the crisis. From that time forward he
+seemed to feel out of his element at Plassans. He would wander about the
+streets like a distressed soul. At last he formed a sudden resolution,
+and left for Paris, with scarcely five hundred francs in his pocket.
+
+Aristide, the youngest son, was, so to speak, diametrically opposed
+to Eugene. He had his mother's face, and a covetousness and slyness of
+character prone to trivial intrigues, in which his father's instincts
+predominated. Nature has need of symmetry. Short, with a pitiful
+countenance suggesting the knob of a stick carved into a Punch's head,
+Aristide ferretted and fumbled everywhere, without any scruples, eager
+only to gratify himself. He loved money as his eldest brother loved
+power. While Eugene dreamed of bending a people to his will, and
+intoxicated himself with visions of future omnipotence, the other
+fancied himself ten times a millionaire, installed in a princely
+mansion, eating and drinking to his heart's content, and enjoying life
+to the fullest possible extent. Above all things, he longed to make a
+rapid fortune. When he was building his castles in the air, they would
+rise in his mind as if by magic; he would become possessed of tons of
+gold in one night. These visions agreed with his indolence, as he never
+troubled himself about the means, considering those the best which were
+the most expeditious. In his case the race of the Rougons, of those
+coarse, greedy peasants with brutish appetites, had matured too rapidly;
+every desire for material indulgence was found in him, augmented
+threefold by hasty education, and rendered the more insatiable and
+dangerous by the deliberate way in which the young man had come to
+regard their realisation as his set purpose. In spite of her keen
+feminine intuition, Felicite preferred this son; she did not perceive
+the greater affinity between herself and Eugene; she excused the follies
+and indolence of her youngest son under the pretext that he would
+some day be the superior genius of the family, and that such a man
+was entitled to live a disorderly life until his intellectual strength
+should be revealed.
+
+Aristide subjected her indulgence to a rude test. In Paris he led a low,
+idle life; he was one of those students who enter their names at the
+taverns of the Quartier Latin. He did not remain there, however, more
+than two years; his father, growing apprehensive, and seeing that he had
+not yet passed a single examination, kept him at Plassans and spoke of
+finding a wife for him, hoping that domestic responsibility would make
+him more steady. Aristide let himself be married. He had no very
+clear idea of his own ambitions at this time; provincial life did not
+displease him; he was battening in his little town--eating, sleeping,
+and sauntering about. Felicite pleaded his cause so earnestly that
+Pierre consented to board and lodge the newly-married couple, on
+condition that the young man should turn his attention to the business.
+From that time, however, Aristide led a life of ease and idleness. He
+spent his days and the best part of his nights at the club, again and
+again slipping out of his father's office like a schoolboy to go and
+gamble away the few louis that his mother gave him clandestinely.
+
+It is necessary to have lived in the depths of the French provinces to
+form an idea of the four brutifying years which the young fellow spent
+in this fashion. In every little town there is a group of individuals
+who thus live on their parents, pretending at times to work, but in
+reality cultivating idleness with a sort of religious zeal. Aristide was
+typical of these incorrigible drones. For four years he did little
+but play ecarte. While he passed his time at the club, his wife, a
+fair-complexioned nerveless woman, helped to ruin the Rougon business
+by her inordinate passion for showy gowns and her formidable appetite,
+a rather remarkable peculiarity in so frail a creature. Angele, however,
+adored sky-blue ribbons and roast beef. She was the daughter of a
+retired captain who was called Commander Sicardot, a good-hearted old
+gentleman, who had given her a dowry of ten thousand francs--all his
+savings. Pierre, in selecting Angele for his son had considered that
+he had made an unexpected bargain, so lightly did he esteem Aristide.
+However, that dowry of ten thousand francs, which determined his choice,
+ultimately became a millstone round his neck. His son, who was already
+a cunning rogue, deposited the ten thousand francs with his father,
+with whom he entered into partnership, declining, with the most sincere
+professions of devotion, to keep a single copper.
+
+"We have no need of anything," he said; "you will keep my wife and
+myself, and we will reckon up later on."
+
+Pierre was short of money at the time, and accepted, not, however,
+without some uneasiness at Aristide's disinterestedness. The latter
+calculated that it would be years before his father would have ten
+thousand francs in ready money to repay him, so that he and his wife
+would live at the paternal expense so long as the partnership could not
+be dissolved. It was an admirable investment for his few bank-notes.
+When the oil-dealer understood what a foolish bargain he had made he
+was not in a position to rid himself of Aristide; Angele's dowry was
+involved in speculations which were turning out unfavourably. He
+was exasperated, stung to the heart, at having to provide for his
+daughter-in-law's voracious appetite and keep his son in idleness. Had
+he been able to buy them out of the business he would twenty times have
+shut his doors on those bloodsuckers, as he emphatically expressed it.
+Felicite secretly defended them; the young man, who had divined her
+dreams of ambition, would every evening describe to her the elaborate
+plans by which he would shortly make a fortune. By a rare chance she
+had remained on excellent terms with her daughter-in-law. It must be
+confessed that Angele had no will of her own--she could be moved and
+disposed of like a piece of furniture.
+
+Meantime Pierre became enraged whenever his wife spoke to him of the
+success their youngest son would ultimately achieve; he declared that
+he would really bring them to ruin. During the four years that the young
+couple lived with him he stormed in this manner, wasting his impotent
+rage in quarrels, without in the least disturbing the equanimity of
+Aristide and Angele. They were located there, and there they intended
+to remain like blocks of wood. At last Pierre met with a stroke of luck
+which enabled him to return the ten thousand francs to his son. When,
+however, he wanted to reckon up accounts with him, Aristide interposed
+so much chicanery that he had to let the couple go without deducting
+a copper for their board and lodging. They installed themselves but
+a short distance off, in a part of the old quarter called the Place
+Saint-Louis. The ten thousand francs were soon consumed. They had
+everything to get for their new home. Moreover Aristide made no change
+in his mode of living as long as any money was left in the house. When
+he had reached the last hundred-franc note he felt rather nervous. He
+was seen prowling about the town in a suspicious manner. He no longer
+took his customary cup of coffee at the club; he watched feverishly
+whilst play was going on, without touching a card. Poverty made him more
+spiteful than he would otherwise have been. He bore the blow for a long
+time, obstinately refusing to do anything in the way of work.
+
+In 1840 he had a son, little Maxime, whom his grandmother Felicite
+fortunately sent to college, paying his fees clandestinely. That made
+one mouth less at home; but poor Angele was dying of hunger, and her
+husband was at last compelled to seek a situation. He secured one at the
+Sub-Prefecture. He remained there nearly ten years, and only attained a
+salary of eighteen hundred francs per annum. From that time forward it
+was with ever increasing malevolence and rancour that he hungered for
+the enjoyments of which he was deprived. His lowly position exasperated
+him; the paltry hundred and fifty francs which he received every month
+seemed to him an irony of fate. Never did man burn with such desire for
+self-gratification. Felicite, to whom he imparted his sufferings, was
+by no means grieved to see him so eager. She thought his misery would
+stimulate his energies. At last, crouching in ambush as it were, with
+his ears wide open, he began to look about him like a thief seeking his
+opportunity. At the beginning of 1848, when his brother left for Paris,
+he had a momentary idea of following him. But Eugene was a bachelor;
+and he, Aristide, could not take his wife so far without money. So he
+waited, scenting a catastrophe, and ready to fall on the first prey that
+might come within his reach.
+
+The other son, Pascal, born between Eugene and Aristide, did not appear
+to belong to the family. He was one of those frequent cases which give
+the lie to the laws of heredity. During the evolution of a race nature
+often produces some one being whose every element she derives from her
+own creative powers. Nothing in the moral or physical constitution of
+Pascal recalled the Rougons. Tall, with a grave and gentle face, he
+had an uprightness of mind, a love of study, a retiring modesty which
+contrasted strangely with the feverish ambitions and unscrupulous
+intrigues of his relatives. After acquitting himself admirably of his
+medical studies in Paris, he had retired, by preference, to Plassans,
+notwithstanding the offers he received from his professors. He loved a
+quiet provincial life; he maintained that for a studious man such a life
+was preferable to the excitement of Paris. Even at Plassans he did
+not exert himself to extend his practice. Very steady, and despising
+fortune, he contented himself with the few patients sent him by chance.
+All his pleasures were centred in a bright little house in the new town,
+where he shut himself up, lovingly devoting his whole time to the study
+of natural history. He was particularly fond of physiology. It was known
+in the town that he frequently purchased dead bodies from the hospital
+grave-digger, a circumstance which rendered him an object of horror to
+delicate ladies and certain timid gentlemen. Fortunately, they did not
+actually look upon him as a sorcerer; but his practice diminished,
+and he was regarded as an eccentric character, to whom people of good
+society ought not to entrust even a finger-tip, for fear of being
+compromised. The mayor's wife was one day heard to say: "I would sooner
+die than be attended by that gentleman. He smells of death."
+
+From that time, Pascal was condemned. He seemed to rejoice at the mute
+terror which he inspired. The fewer patients he had, the more time he
+could devote to his favourite sciences. As his fees were very moderate,
+the poorer people remained faithful to him; he earned just enough to
+live, and lived contentedly, a thousand leagues away from the rest
+of the country, absorbed in the pure delight of his researches and
+discoveries. From time to time he sent a memoir to the Academie des
+Sciences at Paris. Plassans did not know that this eccentric character,
+this gentleman who smelt of death was well-known and highly-esteemed
+in the world of science. When people saw him starting on Sundays for an
+excursion among the Garrigues hills, with a botanist's bag hung round
+his neck and a geologist's hammer in his hand, they would shrug their
+shoulders and institute a comparison between him and some other doctor
+of the town who was noted for his smart cravat, his affability to the
+ladies, and the delicious odour of violets which his garments always
+diffused. Pascal's parents did not understand him any better than other
+people. When Felicite saw him adopting such a strange, unpretentious
+mode of life she was stupefied, and reproached him for disappointing
+her hopes. She, who tolerated Aristide's idleness because she thought it
+would prove fertile, could not view without regret the slow progress
+of Pascal, his partiality for obscurity and contempt for riches, his
+determined resolve to lead a life of retirement. He was certainly not
+the child who would ever gratify her vanities.
+
+"But where do you spring from?" she would sometimes say to him. "You
+are not one of us. Look at your brothers, how they keep their eyes open,
+striving to profit by the education we have given them, whilst you waste
+your time on follies and trifles. You make a very poor return to us, who
+have ruined ourselves for your education. No, you are certainly not one
+of us."
+
+Pascal, who preferred to laugh whenever he was called upon to feel
+annoyed, replied cheerfully, but not without a sting of irony: "Oh,
+you need not be frightened, I shall never drive you to the verge of
+bankruptcy; when any of you are ill, I will attend you for nothing."
+
+Moreover, though he never displayed any repugnance to his relatives,
+he very rarely saw them, following in this wise his natural instincts.
+Before Aristide obtained a situation at the Sub-Prefecture, Pascal
+had frequently come to his assistance. For his part he had remained a
+bachelor. He had not the least suspicion of the grave events that were
+preparing. For two or three years he had been studying the great problem
+of heredity, comparing the human and animal races together, and becoming
+absorbed in the strange results which he obtained. Certain observations
+which he had made with respect to himself and his relatives had been, so
+to say, the starting-point of his studies. The common people, with their
+natural intuition, so well understood that he was quite different from
+the other Rougons, that they invariably called him Monsieur Pascal,
+without ever adding his family name.
+
+Three years prior to the Revolution of 1848 Pierre and Felicite retired
+from business. Old age was coming on apace; they were both past fifty
+and were weary enough of the struggle. In face of their ill fortune,
+they were afraid of being ultimately ruined if they obstinately
+persisted in the fight. Their sons, by disappointing their expectations,
+had dealt them the final blow. Now that they despaired of ever being
+enriched by them, they were anxious to make some little provision for
+old age. They retired with forty thousand francs at the utmost. This
+sum provided an annual income of two thousand francs, just sufficient
+to live in a small way in the provinces. Fortunately, they were by
+themselves, having succeeded in marrying their daughters Marthe and
+Sidonie, the former of whom resided at Marseilles and the latter in
+Paris.
+
+After they had settled their affairs they would much have liked to take
+up their abode in the new town, the quarter of the retired traders, but
+they dared not do so. Their income was too small; they were afraid that
+they would cut but a poor figure there. So, as a sort of compromise,
+they took apartments in the Rue de la Banne, the street which separates
+the old quarter from the new one. As their abode was one of the row
+of houses bordering the old quarter, they still lived among the common
+people; nevertheless, they could see the town of the richer classes from
+their windows, so that they were just on the threshold of the promised
+land.
+
+Their apartments, situated on the second floor, consisted of three
+large rooms--dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom. The first floor was
+occupied by the owner of the house, a stick and umbrella manufacturer,
+who had a shop on the ground floor. The house, which was narrow and
+by no means deep, had only two storeys. Felicite moved into it with a
+bitter pang. In the provinces, to live in another person's house is an
+avowal of poverty. Every family of position at Plassans has a house
+of its own, landed property being very cheap there. Pierre kept the
+purse-strings well tied; he would not hear of any embellishments. The
+old furniture, faded, worn, damaged though it was, had to suffice,
+without even being repaired. Felicite, however, who keenly felt the
+necessity for this parsimony, exerted herself to give fresh polish to
+all the wreckage; she herself knocked nails into some of the furniture
+which was more dilapidated than the rest, and darned the frayed velvet
+of the arm-chairs.
+
+The dining-room, which, like the kitchen, was at the back of the house,
+was nearly bare; a table and a dozen chairs were lost in the gloom of
+this large apartment, whose window faced the grey wall of a neighbouring
+building. As no strangers ever went into the bedroom, Felicite had
+stowed all her useless furniture there; thus, besides a bedstead,
+wardrobe, secretaire, and wash-stand, it contained two cradles, one
+perched atop of the other, a sideboard whose doors were missing, and an
+empty bookcase, venerable ruins which the old woman could not make up
+her mind to part with. All her cares, however, were bestowed upon the
+drawing-room, and she almost succeeded in making it comfortable and
+decent. The furniture was covered with yellowish velvet with satin
+flowers; in the middle stood a round table with a marble top, while a
+couple of pier tables, surmounted by mirrors, leant against the walls at
+either end of the room. There was even a carpet, which just covered the
+middle of the floor, and a chandelier in a white muslin cover which the
+flies had spotted with black specks. On the walls hung six lithographs
+representing the great battles of Napoleon I. Moreover, the furniture
+dated from the first years of the Empire. The only embellishment that
+Felicite could obtain was to have the walls hung with orange-hued paper
+covered with large flowers. Thus the drawing room had a strange yellow
+glow, which filled it with an artificial dazzling light. The furniture,
+the paper, and the window curtains were yellow; the carpet and even the
+marble table-tops showed touches of yellow. However, when the curtains
+were drawn the colours harmonised fairly well and the drawing-room
+looked almost decent.
+
+But Felicite had dreamed of quite a different kind of luxury. She
+regarded with mute despair this ill-concealed misery. She usually
+occupied the drawing-room, the best apartment in the house, and the
+sweetest and bitterest of her pastimes was to sit at one of the windows
+which overlooked the Rue de la Banne and gave her a side view of the
+square in front of the Sub-Prefecture. That was the paradise of her
+dreams. That little, neat, tidy square, with its bright houses, seemed
+to her a Garden of Eden. She would have given ten years of her life to
+possess one of those habitations. The house at the left-hand corner,
+in which the receiver of taxes resided, particularly tempted her. She
+contemplated it with eager longing. Sometimes, when the windows of
+this abode were open, she could catch a glimpse of rich furniture and
+tasteful elegance which made her burn with envy.
+
+At this period the Rougons passed through a curious crisis of vanity
+and unsatiated appetite. The few proper feelings which they had once
+entertained had become embittered. They posed as victims of evil
+fortune, not with resignation, however, for they seemed still more
+keenly determined that they would not die before they had satisfied
+their ambitions. In reality, they did not abandon any of their hopes,
+notwithstanding their advanced age. Felicite professed to feel a
+presentiment that she would die rich. However, each day of poverty
+weighed them down the more. When they recapitulated their vain
+attempts--when they recalled their thirty years' struggle, and the
+defection of their children--when they saw their airy castles end in
+this yellow drawing-room, whose shabbiness they could only conceal by
+drawing the curtains, they were overcome with bitter rage. Then, as a
+consolation, they would think of plans for making a colossal fortune,
+seeking all sorts of devices. Felicite would fancy herself the winner
+of the grand prize of a hundred thousand francs in some lottery, while
+Pierre pictured himself carrying out some wonderful speculation. They
+lived with one sole thought--that of making a fortune immediately, in a
+few hours--of becoming rich and enjoying themselves, if only for a year.
+Their whole beings tended to this, stubbornly, without a pause. And they
+still cherished some faint hopes with regard to their sons, with that
+peculiar egotism of parents who cannot bear to think that they have sent
+their children to college without deriving some personal advantage from
+it.
+
+Felicite did not appear to have aged; she was still the same dark little
+woman, ever on the move, buzzing about like a grasshopper. Any person
+walking behind her on the pavement would have thought her a girl of
+fifteen, from the lightness of her step and the angularity of her
+shoulders and waist. Even her face had scarcely undergone any change; it
+was simply rather more sunken, rather more suggestive of the snout of a
+pole-cat.
+
+As for Pierre Rougon, he had grown corpulent, and had become a highly
+respectable looking citizen, who only lacked a decent income to make him
+a very dignified individual. His pale, flabby face, his heaviness,
+his languid manner, seemed redolent of wealth. He had one day heard a
+peasant who did not know him say: "Ah! he's some rich fellow, that fat
+old gentleman there. He's no cause to worry about his dinner!" This
+was a remark which stung him to the heart, for he considered it cruel
+mockery to be only a poor devil while possessing the bulk and contented
+gravity of a millionaire. When he shaved on Sundays in front of a small
+five-sou looking-glass hanging from the fastening of a window, he would
+often think that in a dress coat and white tie he would cut a far better
+figure at the Sub-Prefect's than such or such a functionary of Plassans.
+This peasant's son, who had grown sallow from business worries, and
+corpulent from a sedentary life, whose hateful passions were hidden
+beneath naturally placid features, really had that air of solemn
+imbecility which gives a man a position in an official salon. People
+imagined that his wife held a rod over him, but they were mistaken. He
+was as self-willed as a brute. Any determined expression of extraneous
+will would drive him into a violent rage. Felicite was far too supple to
+thwart him openly; with her light fluttering nature she did not attack
+obstacles in front. When she wished to obtain something from her
+husband, or drive him the way she thought best, she would buzz round him
+in her grasshopper fashion, stinging him on all sides, and returning
+to the charge a hundred times until he yielded almost unconsciously. He
+felt, moreover, that she was shrewder than he, and tolerated her advice
+fairly patiently. Felicite, more useful than the coach fly, would
+sometimes do all the work while she was thus buzzing round Pierre's
+ears. Strange to say, the husband and wife never accused each other
+of their ill-success. The only bone of contention between them was the
+education lavished on their children.
+
+The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the lookout, exasperated
+by their bad luck, and disposed to lay violent hands on fortune if ever
+they should meet her in a byway. They were a family of bandits lying in
+wait, ready to rifle and plunder. Eugene kept an eye on Paris; Aristide
+dreamed of strangling Plassans; the mother and father, perhaps the most
+eager of the lot, intended to work on their own account, and reap
+some additional advantage from their sons' doings. Pascal alone, that
+discreet wooer of science, led the happy, indifferent life of a lover in
+his bright little house in the new town.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+In that closed, sequestered town of Plassans, where class distinction
+was so clearly marked in 1848, the commotion caused by political events
+was very slight. Even at the present day the popular voice sounds very
+faintly there; the middle classes bring their prudence to bear in the
+matter, the nobility their mute despair, and the clergy their shrewd
+cunning. Kings may usurp thrones, or republics may be established,
+without scarcely any stir in the town. Plassans sleeps while Paris
+fights. But though on the surface the town may appear calm and
+indifferent, in the depths hidden work goes on which it is curious
+to study. If shots are rare in the streets, intrigues consume the
+drawing-rooms of both the new town and the Saint-Marc quarter. Until the
+year 1830 the masses were reckoned of no account. Even at the present
+time they are similarly ignored. Everything is settled between the
+clergy, the nobility, and the bourgeoisie. The priests, who are very
+numerous, give the cue to the local politics; they lay subterranean
+mines, as it were, and deal blows in the dark, following a prudent
+tactical system, which hardly allows of a step in advance or retreat
+even in the course of ten years. The secret intrigues of men who desire
+above all things to avoid noise requires special shrewdness, a special
+aptitude for dealing with small matters, and a patient endurance such
+as one only finds in persons callous to all passions. It is thus that
+provincial dilatoriness, which is so freely ridiculed in Paris, is full
+of treachery, secret stabs, hidden victories and defeats. These worthy
+men, particularly when their interests are at stake, kill at home with
+a snap of the fingers, as we, the Parisians, kill with cannon in the
+public thoroughfares.
+
+The political history of Plassans, like that of all little towns in
+Provence, is singularly characteristic. Until 1830, the inhabitants
+remained observant Catholics and fervent royalists; even the lower
+classes only swore by God and their legitimate sovereigns. Then there
+came a sudden change; faith departed, the working and middle classes
+deserted the cause of legitimacy, and gradually espoused the great
+democratic movement of our time. When the Revolution of 1848 broke out,
+the nobility and the clergy were left alone to labour for the triumph
+of Henri V. For a long time they had regarded the accession of the
+Orleanists as a ridiculous experiment, which sooner or later would bring
+back the Bourbons; although their hopes were singularly shaken, they
+nevertheless continued the struggle, scandalised by the defection of
+their former allies, whom they strove to win back to their cause. The
+Saint-Marc quarter, assisted by all the parish priests, set to
+work. Among the middle classes, and especially among the people, the
+enthusiasm was very great on the morrow of the events of February; these
+apprentice republicans were in haste to display their revolutionary
+fervour. As regards the gentry of the new town, however, the
+conflagration, bright though it was, lasted no longer than a fire of
+straw. The small houseowners and retired tradespeople who had had their
+good days, or had made snug little fortunes under the monarchy, were
+soon seized with panic; the Republic, with its constant shocks and
+convulsions, made them tremble for their money and their life of
+selfishness.
+
+Consequently, when the Clerical reaction of 1849 declared itself, nearly
+all the middle classes passed over to the Conservative party. They were
+received with open arms. The new town had never before had such close
+relations with the Saint-Marc quarter: some of the nobility even went
+so far as to shake hands with lawyers and retired oil-dealers. This
+unexpected familiarity kindled the enthusiasm of the new quarter, which
+henceforward waged bitter warfare against the republican government. To
+bring about such a coalition, the clergy had to display marvellous skill
+and endurance. The nobility of Plassans for the most part lay prostrate,
+as if half dead. They retained their faith, but lethargy had fallen on
+them, and they preferred to remain inactive, allowing the heavens to
+work their will. They would gladly have contented themselves with silent
+protest, feeling, perhaps, a vague presentiment that their divinities
+were dead, and that there was nothing left for them to do but rejoin
+them. Even at this period of confusion, when the catastrophe of 1848 was
+calculated to give them a momentary hope of the return of the Bourbons,
+they showed themselves spiritless and indifferent, speaking of rushing
+into the melee, yet never quitting their hearths without a pang of
+regret.
+
+The clergy battled indefatigably against this feeling of impotence and
+resignation. They infused a kind of passion into their work: a priest,
+when he despairs, struggles all the more fiercely. The fundamental
+policy of the Church is to march straight forward; even though she
+may have to postpone the accomplishment of her projects for several
+centuries, she never wastes a single hour, but is always pushing forward
+with increasing energy. So it was the clergy who led the reaction of
+Plassans; the nobility only lent them their name, nothing more. The
+priests hid themselves behind the nobles, restrained them, directed
+them, and even succeeded in endowing them with a semblance of life. When
+they had induced them to overcome their repugnance so far as to make
+common cause with the middle classes, they believed themselves certain
+of victory. The ground was marvellously well prepared. This ancient
+royalist town, with its population of peaceful householders and timorous
+tradespeople, was destined to range itself, sooner or later, on the side
+of law and order. The clergy, by their tactics, hastened the conversion.
+After gaining the landlords of the new town to their side, they even
+succeeded in convincing the little retail-dealers of the old quarter.
+From that time the reactionary movement obtained complete possession of
+the town. All opinions were represented in this reaction; such a mixture
+of embittered Liberals, Legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, and
+Clericals had never before been seen. It mattered little, however, at
+that time. The sole object was to kill the Republic; and the Republic
+was at the point of death. Only a fraction of the people--a thousand
+workmen at most, out of the ten thousand souls in the town--still
+saluted the tree of liberty planted in the middle of the square in front
+of the Sub-Prefecture.
+
+The shrewdest politicians of Plassans, those who led the reactionary
+movement, did not scent the approach of the Empire until very much
+later. Prince Louis Napoleon's popularity seemed to them a mere passing
+fancy of the multitude. His person inspired them with but little
+admiration. They reckoned him a nonentity, a dreamer, incapable of
+laying his hands on France, and especially of maintaining his authority.
+To them he was only a tool whom they would make use of, who would clear
+the way for them, and whom they would turn out as soon as the hour
+arrived for the rightful Pretender to show himself.[*] However, months
+went by, and they became uneasy. It was only then that they vaguely
+perceived they were being duped: they had no time, however, to take any
+steps; the Coup d'Etat burst over their heads, and they were compelled
+to applaud. That great abomination, the Republic, had been assassinated;
+that, at least, was some sort of triumph. So the clergy and the nobility
+accepted accomplished facts with resignation; postponing, until
+later, the realisation of their hopes, and making amends for their
+miscalculations by uniting with the Bonapartists for the purpose of
+crushing the last Republicans.
+
+     [*] The Count de Chambord, "Henri V."
+
+It was these events that laid the foundation of the Rougons' fortune.
+After being mixed up with the various phases of the crisis, they rose to
+eminence on the ruins of liberty. These bandits had been lying in wait
+to rob the Republic; as soon as it had been strangled, they helped to
+plunder it.
+
+After the events of February 1848, Felicite, who had the keenest scent
+of all the members of the family, perceived that they were at last on
+the right track. So she began to flutter round her husband, goading
+him on to bestir himself. The first rumours of the Revolution that had
+overturned King Louis Philippe had terrified Pierre. When his wife,
+however, made him understand that they had little to lose and much to
+gain from a convulsion, he soon came round to her way of thinking.
+
+"I don't know what you can do," Felicite repeatedly said, "but it seems
+to me that there's plenty to be done. Did not Monsieur de Carnavant say
+to us one day that he would be rich if ever Henri V. should return, and
+that this sovereign would magnificently recompense those who had worked
+for his restoration? Perhaps our fortune lies in that direction. We may
+yet be lucky."
+
+The Marquis de Carnavant, the nobleman who, according to the scandalous
+talk of the town, had been on very familiar terms with Felicite's
+mother, used occasionally to visit the Rougons. Evil tongues asserted
+that Madame Rougon resembled him. He was a little, lean, active man,
+seventy-five years old at that time, and Felicite certainly appeared to
+be taking his features and manner as she grew older. It was said that
+the wreck of his fortune, which had already been greatly diminished by
+his father at the time of the Emigration, had been squandered on women.
+Indeed, he cheerfully acknowledged his poverty. Brought up by one of
+his relatives, the Count de Valqueyras, he lived the life of a parasite,
+eating at the count's table and occupying a small apartment just under
+his roof.
+
+"Little one," he would often say to Felicite, as he patted her on
+the cheek, "if ever Henri V. gives me a fortune, I will make you my
+heiress!"
+
+He still called Felicite "little one," even when she was fifty years
+old. It was of these friendly pats, of these repeated promises of an
+inheritance, that Madame Rougon was thinking when she endeavoured
+to drive her husband into politics. Monsieur de Carnavant had often
+bitterly lamented his inability to render her any assistance. No
+doubt he would treat her like a father if ever he should acquire some
+influence. Pierre, to whom his wife half explained the situation in
+veiled terms, declared his readiness to move in any direction indicated.
+
+The marquis's peculiar position qualified him to act as an energetic
+agent of the reactionary movement at Plassans from the first days of the
+Republic. This bustling little man, who had everything to gain from the
+return of his legitimate sovereigns, worked assiduously for their cause.
+While the wealthy nobility of the Saint-Marc quarter were slumbering in
+mute despair, fearing, perhaps that they might compromise themselves and
+again be condemned to exile, he multiplied himself, as it were, spread
+the propaganda and rallied faithful ones together. He was a weapon whose
+hilt was held by an invisible hand. From that time forward he paid daily
+visits to the Rougons. He required a centre of operations. His relative,
+Monsieur de Valqueyras, had forbidden him to bring any of his associates
+into his house, so he had chosen Felicite's yellow drawing-room.
+Moreover, he very soon found Pierre a valuable assistant. He could not
+go himself and preach the cause of Legitimacy to the petty traders and
+workmen of the old quarter; they would have hooted him. Pierre, on the
+other hand, who had lived among these people, spoke their language and
+knew their wants, was able to catechise them in a friendly way. He thus
+became an indispensable man. In less than a fortnight the Rougons were
+more determined royalists than the king himself. The marquis, perceiving
+Pierre's zeal, shrewdly sheltered himself behind him. What was the use
+of making himself conspicuous, when a man with such broad shoulders was
+willing to bear on them the burden of all the follies of a party? He
+allowed Pierre to reign, puff himself out with importance and speak
+with authority, content to restrain or urge him on, according to
+the necessities of the cause. Thus, the old oil-dealer soon became a
+personage of mark. In the evening, when they were alone, Felicite used
+to say to him: "Go on, don't be frightened. We're on the right track. If
+this continues we shall be rich; we shall have a drawing-room like the
+tax-receiver's, and be able to entertain people."
+
+A little party of Conservatives had already been formed at the Rougons'
+house, and meetings were held every evening in the yellow drawing-room
+to declaim against the Republic.
+
+Among those who came were three or four retired merchants who trembled
+for their money, and clamoured with all their might for a wise and
+strong government. An old almond-dealer, a member of the Municipal
+Council, Monsieur Isidore Granoux, was the head of this group. His
+hare-lipped mouth was cloven a little way from the nose; his round eyes,
+his air of mingled satisfaction and astonishment, made him resemble a
+fat goose whose digestion is attended by wholesome terror of the cook.
+He spoke little, having no command of words; and he only pricked up
+his ears when anyone accused the Republicans of wishing to pillage the
+houses of the rich; whereupon he would colour up to such a degree as
+to make one fear an approaching apoplectic fit, and mutter low
+imprecations, in which the words "idlers," "scoundrels," "thieves," and
+"assassins" frequently recurred.
+
+All those who frequented the yellow drawing-room were not, however,
+as heavy as this fat goose. A rich landowner, Monsieur Roudier, with a
+plump, insinuating face, used to discourse there for hours altogether,
+with all the passion of an Orleanist whose calculations had been upset
+by the fall of Louis Philippe. He had formerly been a hosier at Paris,
+and a purveyor to the Court, but had now retired to Plassans. He had
+made his son a magistrate, relying on the Orleanist party to promote him
+to the highest dignities. The revolution having ruined all his hopes, he
+had rushed wildly into the reaction. His fortune, his former commercial
+relations with the Tuileries, which he transformed into friendly
+intercourse, that prestige which is enjoyed by every man in the
+provinces who has made his money in Paris and deigns to come and spend
+it in a far away department, gave him great influence in the district;
+some persons listened to him as though he were an oracle.
+
+However, the strongest intellect of the yellow drawing-room was
+certainly Commander Sicardot, Aristide's father-in-law. Of Herculean
+frame, with a brick-red face, scarred and planted with tufts of grey
+hair, he was one of the most glorious old dolts of the Grande Armee.
+During the February Revolution he had been exasperated with the
+street warfare and never wearied of referring to it, proclaiming with
+indignation that this kind of fighting was shameful: whereupon he
+recalled with pride the grand reign of Napoleon.
+
+Another person seen at the Rougons' house was an individual with clammy
+hands and equivocal look, one Monsieur Vuillet, a bookseller, who
+supplied all the devout ladies of the town with holy images and
+rosaries. Vuillet dealt in both classical and religious works; he was
+a strict Catholic, a circumstance which insured him the custom of the
+numerous convents and parish churches. Further, by a stroke of genius he
+had added to his business the publication of a little bi-weekly
+journal, the "Gazette de Plassans," which was devoted exclusively to
+the interests of the clergy. This paper involved an annual loss of a
+thousand francs, but it made him the champion of the Church, and enabled
+him to dispose of his sacred unsaleable stock. Though he was virtually
+illiterate and could not even spell correctly, he himself wrote the
+articles of the "Gazette" with a humility and rancour that compensated
+for his lack of talent. The marquis, in entering on the campaign, had
+perceived immediately the advantage that might be derived from the
+co-operation of this insipid sacristan with the coarse, mercenary pen.
+After the February Revolution the articles in the "Gazette" contained
+fewer mistakes; the marquis revised them.
+
+One can now imagine what a singular spectacle the Rougons' yellow
+drawing-room presented every evening. All opinions met there to bark at
+the Republic. Their hatred of that institution made them agree together.
+The marquis, who never missed a meeting, appeased by his presence the
+little squabbles which occasionally arose between the commander and
+the other adherents. These plebeians were inwardly flattered by the
+handshakes which he distributed on his arrival and departure. Roudier,
+however, like a free-thinker of the Rue Saint-Honore, asserted that the
+marquis had not a copper to bless himself with, and was disposed to make
+light of him. M. de Carnavant on his side preserved the amiable smile of
+a nobleman lowering himself to the level of these middle class people,
+without making any of those contemptuous grimaces which any other
+resident of the Saint-Marc quarter would have thought fit under such
+circumstances. The parasite life he had led had rendered him supple. He
+was the life and soul of the group, commanding in the name of unknown
+personages whom he never revealed. "They want this, they don't want
+that," he would say. The concealed divinities who thus watched over
+the destinies of Plassans from behind some cloud, without appearing to
+interfere directly in public matters, must have been certain priests,
+the great political agents of the country. When the marquis pronounced
+that mysterious word "they," which inspired the assembly with such
+marvellous respect, Vuillet confessed, with a gesture of pious devotion,
+that he knew them very well.
+
+The happiest person in all this was Felicite. At last she had people
+coming to her drawing-room. It was true she felt a little ashamed of her
+old yellow velvet furniture. She consoled herself, however, thinking
+of the rich things she would purchase when the good cause should have
+triumphed. The Rougons had, in the end, regarded their royalism as very
+serious. Felicite went as far as to say, when Roudier was not present,
+that if they had not made a fortune in the oil business the fault lay in
+the monarchy of July. This was her mode of giving a political tinge to
+their poverty. She had a friendly word for everybody, even for Granoux,
+inventing each evening some new polite method of waking him up when it
+was time for departure.
+
+The drawing-room, that little band of Conservatives belonging to
+all parties, and daily increasing in numbers, soon wielded powerful
+influence. Owing to the diversified characters of its members, and
+especially to the secret impulse which each one received from the
+clergy, it became the centre of the reactionary movement and spread its
+influence throughout Plassans. The policy of the marquis, who sank his
+own personality, transformed Rougon into the leader of the party. The
+meetings were held at his house, and this circumstance sufficed in the
+eyes of most people to make him the head of the group, and draw public
+attention to him. The whole work was attributed to him; he was believed
+to be the chief artisan of the movement which was gradually bringing
+over to the Conservative party those who had lately been enthusiastic
+Republicans. There are some situations which benefit only persons of bad
+repute. These lay the foundations of their fortune where men of better
+position and more influence would never dare to risk theirs. Roudier,
+Granoux, and the others, all men of means and respectability, certainly
+seemed a thousand times preferable to Pierre as the acting leaders of
+the Conservative party. But none of them would have consented to turn
+his drawing-room into a political centre. Their convictions did not go
+so far as to induce them to compromise themselves openly; in fact, they
+were only so many provincial babblers, who liked to inveigh against the
+Republic at a neighbour's house as long as the neighbour was willing to
+bear the responsibility of their chatter. The game was too risky. There
+was no one among the middle classes of Plassans who cared to play it
+except the Rougons, whose ungratified longings urged them on to extreme
+measures.
+
+In the month of April, 1849, Eugene suddenly left Paris, and came to
+stay with his father for a fortnight. Nobody ever knew the purpose of
+this journey. It is probable that Eugene wanted to sound his native
+town, to ascertain whether he might successfully stand as a candidate
+for the legislature which was about to replace the Constituent Assembly.
+He was too shrewd to risk a failure. No doubt public opinion appeared to
+him little in his favour, for he abstained from any attempt. It was not
+known at Plassans what had become of him in Paris, what he was doing
+there. On his return to his native place, folks found him less heavy and
+somnolent than formerly. They surrounded him and endeavoured to make him
+speak out concerning the political situation. But he feigned ignorance
+and compelled them to talk. A little perspicacity would have detected
+that beneath his apparent unconcern there was great anxiety with regard
+to the political opinions of the town. However, he seemed to be sounding
+the ground more on behalf of a party than on his own account.
+
+Although he had renounced all hope for himself, he remained at Plassans
+until the end of the month, assiduously attending the meetings in the
+yellow drawing-room. As soon as the bell rang, announcing the first
+visitor, he would take up his position in one of the window recesses as
+far as possible from the lamp. And he remained there the whole
+evening, resting his chin on the palm of his right hand, and listening
+religiously. The greatest absurdities did not disturb his equanimity.
+He nodded approval even to the wild grunts of Granoux. When anyone asked
+him his own opinion, he politely repeated that of the majority. Nothing
+seemed to tire his patience, neither the hollow dreams of the marquis,
+who spoke of the Bourbons as if 1815 were a recent date, nor the
+effusions of citizen Roudier, who grew quite pathetic when he recounted
+how many pairs of socks he had supplied to the citizen king, Louis
+Philippe. On the contrary, he seemed quite at his ease in this Tower of
+Babel. Sometimes, when these grotesque personages were storming against
+the Republic, his eyes would smile, while his lips retained their
+expression of gravity. His meditative manner of listening, and his
+invariable complacency, had earned him the sympathy of everyone. He was
+considered a nonentity, but a very decent fellow. Whenever an old oil or
+almond dealer failed to get a hearing, amidst the clamour, for some plan
+by which he could save France if he were only a master, he took himself
+off to Eugene and shouted his marvellous suggestions in his ear. And
+Eugene gently nodded his head, as though delighted with the grand
+projects he was listening to. Vuillet, alone, regarded him with a
+suspicious eye. This bookseller, half-sacristan and half-journalist,
+spoke less than the others, but was more observant. He had noticed
+that Eugene occasionally conversed at times in a corner with Commander
+Sicardot. So he determined to watch them, but never succeeded in
+overhearing a word. Eugene silenced the commander by a wink whenever
+Vuillet approached them. From that time, Sicardot never spoke of the
+Napoleons without a mysterious smile.
+
+Two days before his return to Paris, Eugene met his brother Aristide, on
+the Cours Sauvaire, and the latter accompanied him for a short distance
+with the importunity of a man in search of advice. As a matter of fact,
+Aristide was in great perplexity. Ever since the proclamation of the
+Republic, he had manifested the most lively enthusiasm for the new
+government. His intelligence, sharpened by two years' stay at Paris,
+enabled him to see farther than the thick heads of Plassans. He divined
+the powerlessness of the Legitimists and Orleanists, without clearly
+distinguishing, however, what third thief would come and juggle the
+Republic away. At all hazard he had ranged himself on the side of the
+victors, and he had severed his connection with his father, whom he
+publicly denounced as an old fool, an old dolt whom the nobility had
+bamboozled.
+
+"Yet my mother is an intelligent woman," he would add. "I should never
+have thought her capable of inducing her husband to join a party whose
+hopes are simply chimerical. They are taking the right course to end
+their lives in poverty. But then women know nothing about politics."
+
+For his part he wanted to sell himself as dearly as possible. His great
+anxiety as to the direction in which the wind was blowing, so that he
+might invariably range himself on the side of that party, which, in
+the hour of triumph, would be able to reward him munificently.
+Unfortunately, he was groping in the dark. Shut up in his far away
+province, without a guide, without any precise information, he felt
+quite lost. While waiting for events to trace out a sure and certain
+path, he preserved the enthusiastic republican attitude which he had
+assumed from the very first day. Thanks to this demeanour, he remained
+at the Sub-Prefecture; and his salary was even raised. Burning, however,
+with the desire to play a prominent part, he persuaded a bookseller,
+one of Vuillet's rivals, to establish a democratic journal, to which
+he became one of the most energetic contributors. Under his impulse the
+"Independant" waged merciless warfare against the reactionaries. But the
+current gradually carried him further than he wished to go; he ended by
+writing inflammatory articles, which made him shudder when he re-perused
+them. It was remarked at Plassans that he directed a series of attacks
+against all whom his father was in the habit of receiving of an evening
+in his famous yellow drawing-room. The fact is that the wealth of
+Roudier and Granoux exasperated Aristide to such a degree as to make him
+forget all prudence. Urged on by his jealous, insatiate bitterness,
+he had already made the middle classes his irreconcilable enemy,
+when Eugene's arrival and demeanour at Plassans caused him great
+consternation. He confessed to himself that his brother was a skilful
+man. According to him, that big, drowsy fellow always slept with one
+eye open, like a cat lying in wait before a mouse-hole. And now here was
+Eugene spending entire evenings in the yellow drawing-room, and devoting
+himself to those same grotesque personages whom he, Aristide, had so
+mercilessly ridiculed. When he discovered from the gossip of the town
+that his brother shook hands with Granoux and the marquis, he asked
+himself, with considerable anxiety, what was the meaning of it? Could he
+himself have been deceived? Had the Legitimists or the Orleanists
+really any chance of success? The thought terrified him. He lost his
+equilibrium, and, as frequently happens, he fell upon the Conservatives
+with increased rancour, as if to avenge his own blindness.
+
+On the evening prior to the day when he stopped Eugene on the Cours
+Sauvaire, he had published, in the "Independant," a terrible article
+on the intrigues of the clergy, in response to a short paragraph from
+Vuillet, who had accused the Republicans of desiring to demolish the
+churches. Vuillet was Aristide's bugbear. Never a week passed but these
+two journalists exchanged the greatest insults. In the provinces,
+where a periphrastic style is still cultivated, polemics are clothed in
+high-sounding phrases. Aristide called his adversary "brother Judas,"
+or "slave of Saint-Anthony." Vuillet gallantly retorted by terming the
+Republican "a monster glutted with blood whose ignoble purveyor was the
+guillotine."
+
+In order to sound his brother, Aristide, who did not dare to appear
+openly uneasy, contented himself with asking: "Did you read my article
+yesterday? What do you think of it?"
+
+Eugene lightly shrugged his shoulders. "You're a simpleton, brother,"
+was his sole reply.
+
+"Then you think Vuillet right?" cried the journalist, turning pale; "you
+believe in Vuillet's triumph?"
+
+"I!--Vuillet----"
+
+He was certainly about to add, "Vuillet is as big a fool as you are."
+But, observing his brother's distorted face anxiously extended towards
+him, he experienced sudden mistrust. "Vuillet has his good points," he
+calmly replied.
+
+On parting from his brother, Aristide felt more perplexed than before.
+Eugene must certainly have been making game of him, for Vuillet was
+really the most abominable person imaginable. However, he determined to
+be prudent and not tie himself down any more; for he wished to have his
+hands free should he ever be called upon to help any party in strangling
+the Republic.
+
+Eugene, on the morning of his departure, an hour before getting into the
+diligence, took his father into the bedroom and had a long conversation
+with him. Felicite, who remained in the drawing-room, vainly tried to
+catch what they were saying. They spoke in whispers, as if they feared
+lest a single word should be heard outside. When at last they quitted
+the bedroom they seemed in high spirits. After kissing his father and
+mother, Eugene, who usually spoke in a drawling tone, exclaimed with
+vivacity: "You have understood me, father? There lies our fortune. We
+must work with all our energy in that direction. Trust in me."
+
+"I'll follow your instructions faithfully," Rougon replied. "Only don't
+forget what I asked you as the price of my cooperation."
+
+"If we succeed your demands shall be satisfied, I give you my word.
+Moreover, I will write to you and guide you according to the direction
+which events may take. Mind, no panic or excitement. You must obey me
+implicitly."
+
+"What have you been plotting there?" Felicite asked inquisitively.
+
+"My dear mother," Eugene replied with a smile, "you have had too
+little faith in me thitherto to induce me to confide in you my hopes,
+particularly as at present they are only based on probabilities. To
+be able to understand me you would require faith. However, father will
+inform you when the right time comes."
+
+Then, as Felicite assumed the demeanour of a woman who feels somewhat
+piqued, he added in her ear, as he kissed her once more: "I take after
+you, although you disowned me. Too much intelligence would be dangerous
+at the present moment. When the crisis comes, it is you who will have to
+manage the business."
+
+He then quitted the room, but, suddenly re-opening the door, exclaimed
+in an imperious tone: "Above all things, do not trust Aristide; he is a
+mar-all, who would spoil everything. I have studied him sufficiently to
+feel certain that he will always fall on his feet. Don't have any
+pity; if we make a fortune, he'll know well enough how to rob us of his
+share."
+
+When Eugene had gone, Felicite endeavoured to ferret out the secret that
+was being hidden from her. She knew her husband too well to interrogate
+him openly. He would have angrily replied that it was no business of
+hers. In spite, however, of the clever tactics she pursued, she learnt
+absolutely nothing. Eugene had chosen a good confidant for those
+troubled times, when the greatest discretion was necessary. Pierre,
+flattered by his son's confidence, exaggerated that passive ponderosity
+which made him so impenetrable. When Felicite saw she would not learn
+anything from him, she ceased to flutter round him. On one point only
+did she remain inquisitive, but in this respect her curiosity was
+intense. The two men had mentioned a price stipulated by Pierre himself.
+What could that price be? This after all was the sole point of interest
+for Felicite, who did not care a rap for political matters. She knew
+that her husband must have sold himself dearly, but she was burning to
+know the nature of the bargain. One evening, when they had gone to bed,
+finding Pierre in a good humour, she brought the conversation round to
+the discomforts of their poverty.
+
+"It's quite time to put an end to this," she said. "We have been ruining
+ourselves in oil and fuel since those gentlemen have been coming here.
+And who will pay the reckoning? Nobody perhaps."
+
+Her husband fell into the trap, and smiled with complacent superiority.
+"Patience," said he. And with an air of shrewdness he looked into his
+wife's eyes and added: "Would you be glad to be the wife of a receiver
+of taxes?"
+
+Felicite's face flushed with a joyous glow. She sat up in bed and
+clapped her old withered little hands like a child.
+
+"Really?" she stammered. "At Plassans?"
+
+Pierre, without replying, gave a long affirmative nod. He enjoyed his
+consort's astonishment and emotion.
+
+"But," she at last resumed, half sitting, "you would have to deposit
+an enormous sum as security. I have heard that our neighbour, Monsieur
+Peirotte, had to deposit eighty thousand francs with the Treasury."
+
+"Eh!" said the retired oil-dealer, "that's nothing to do with me; Eugene
+will see to that. He will get the money advanced by a banker in Paris.
+You see, I selected an appointment bringing in a good income. Eugene at
+first made a wry face, saying one must be rich to occupy such posts, to
+which influential men were usually nominated. I persisted, however, and
+he yielded. To be a receiver of taxes one need not know either Greek
+or Latin. I shall have a representative, like Monsieur Peirotte, and he
+will do all the work."
+
+Felicite listened to him with rapture.
+
+"I guessed, however," he continued, "what it was that worried our dear
+son. We're not much liked here. People know that we have no means, and
+will make themselves obnoxious. But all sorts of things occur in a
+time of crisis. Eugene wished to get me an appointment in another town.
+However, I objected; I want to remain at Plassans."
+
+"Yes, yes, we must remain here," the old woman quickly replied. "We have
+suffered here, and here we must triumph. Ah! I'll crush them all, those
+fine ladies on the Mail, who scornfully eye my woollen dresses! I didn't
+think of the appointment of receiver of taxes at all; I thought you
+wanted to become mayor."
+
+"Mayor! Nonsense. That appointment is honorary. Eugene also mentioned
+the mayoralty to me. I replied: 'I'll accept, if you give me an income
+of fifteen thousand francs.'"
+
+This conversation, in which high figures flew about like rockets, quite
+excited Felicite. She felt delightfully buoyant. But at last she put on
+a devout air, and gravely said: "Come, let us reckon it out. How much
+will you earn?"
+
+"Well," said Pierre, "the fixed salary, I believe, is three thousand
+francs."
+
+"Three thousand," Felicite counted.
+
+"Then there is so much per cent on the receipts, which at Plassans, may
+produce the sum of twelve thousand francs."
+
+"That makes fifteen thousand."
+
+"Yes, about fifteen thousand francs. That's what Peirotte earns. That's
+not all. Peirotte does a little banking business on his own account.
+It's allowed. Perhaps I shall be disposed to make a venture when I feel
+luck on my side."
+
+"Well, let us say twenty thousand. Twenty thousand francs a year!"
+repeated Felicite, overwhelmed by the amount.
+
+"We shall have to repay the advances," Pierre observed.
+
+"That doesn't matter," Felicite replied, "we shall be richer than many
+of those gentlemen. Are the marquis and the others going to share the
+cake with you?"
+
+"No, no; it will be all for us," he replied.
+
+Then, as she continued to importune him with her questions, Pierre
+frowned, thinking that she wanted to wrest his secret from him. "We've
+talked enough," he said, abruptly. "It's late, let us go to sleep. It
+will bring us bad luck to count our chickens beforehand. I haven't got
+the place yet. Above all things, be prudent."
+
+When the lamp was extinguished, Felicite could not sleep. With her eyes
+closed she built the most marvellous castles in the air. Those twenty
+thousand francs a year danced a diabolical dance before her in the
+darkness. She occupied splendid apartments in the new town, enjoyed the
+same luxuries as Monsieur Peirotte, gave parties, and bespattered the
+whole place with her wealth. That, however, which tickled her vanity
+most was the high position that her husband would then occupy. He would
+pay their state dividends to Granoux, Roudier, and all those people who
+now came to her house as they might come to a cafe, to swagger and learn
+the latest news. She had noticed the free-and-easy manner in which these
+people entered her drawing-room, and it had made her take a dislike to
+them. Even the marquis, with his ironical politeness, was beginning
+to displease her. To triumph alone, therefore, to keep the cake
+for themselves, as she expressed it, was a revenge which she fondly
+cherished. Later on, when all those ill-bred persons presented
+themselves, hats off, before Monsieur Rougon the receiver of taxes,
+she would crush them in her turn. She was busy with these thoughts all
+night; and on the morrow, as she opened the shutters, she instinctively
+cast her first glance across the street towards Monsieur Peirotte's
+house, and smiled as she contemplated the broad damask curtains hanging
+in the windows.
+
+Felicite's hopes, in becoming modified, had grown yet more intense. Like
+all women, she did not object to a tinge of mystery. The secret object
+that her husband was pursuing excited her far more than the Legitimist
+intrigues of Monsieur de Carnavant had ever done. She abandoned, without
+much regret, the calculations she had based on the marquis's success
+now that her husband declared he would be able to make large profits
+by other means. She displayed, moreover, remarkable prudence and
+discretion.
+
+In reality, she was still tortured by anxious curiosity; she studied
+Pierre's slightest actions, endeavouring to discover their meaning.
+What if by chance he were following the wrong track? What if Eugene were
+dragging them in his train into some break-neck pit, whence they would
+emerge yet more hungry and impoverished? However, faith was dawning
+on her. Eugene had commanded with such an air of authority that she
+ultimately came to believe in him. In this case again some unknown power
+was at work. Pierre would speak mysteriously of the high personages whom
+their eldest son visited in Paris. For her part she did not know what
+he could have to do with them, but on the other hand she was unable to
+close her eyes to Aristide's ill-advised acts at Plassans. The
+visitors to her drawing-room did not scruple to denounce the democratic
+journalist with extreme severity. Granoux muttered that he was a
+brigand, and Roudier would three or four times a week repeat to
+Felicite: "Your son is writing some fine articles. Only yesterday he
+attacked our friend Vuillet with revolting scurrility."
+
+The whole room joined in the chorus, and Commander Sicardot spoke of
+boxing his son-in-law's ears, while Pierre flatly disowned him. The poor
+mother hung her head, restraining her tears. For an instant she felt
+an inclination to burst forth, to tell Roudier that her dear child,
+in spite of his faults, was worth more than he and all the others put
+together. But she was tied down, and did not wish to compromise the
+position they had so laboriously attained. Seeing the whole town so
+bitter against Aristide, she despaired of his future, thinking he was
+hopelessly ruining himself. On two occasions she spoke to him in
+secret, imploring him to return to them, and not to irritate the yellow
+drawing-room any further. Aristide replied that she did not understand
+such matters; that she was the one who had committed a great blunder in
+placing her husband at the service of the marquis. So she had to abandon
+her son to his own courses, resolving, however that if Eugene succeeded
+she would compel him to share the spoils with the poor fellow who was
+her favourite child.
+
+After the departure of his eldest son, Pierre Rougon pursued his
+reactionary intrigues. Nothing seemed to have changed in the opinions of
+the famous yellow drawing-room. Every evening the same men came to join
+in the same propaganda in favour of the establishment of a monarchy,
+while the master of the house approved and aided them with as much zeal
+as in the past. Eugene had left Plassans on May 1. A few days later,
+the yellow drawing-room was in raptures. The gossips were discussing the
+letter of the President of the Republic to General Oudinot, in which
+the siege of Rome had been decided upon. This letter was regarded as a
+brilliant victory, due to the firm demeanour of the reactionary party.
+Since 1848 the Chambers had been discussing the Roman question; but it
+had been reserved for a Bonaparte to stifle a rising Republic by an act
+of intervention which France, if free, would never have countenanced.
+The marquis declared, however, that one could not better promote the
+cause of legitimacy, and Vuillet wrote a superb article on the matter.
+The enthusiasm became unbounded when, a month later, Commander Sicardot
+entered the Rougons' house one evening and announced to the company
+that the French army was fighting under the walls of Rome. Then, while
+everybody was raising exclamations at this news, he went up to Pierre,
+and shook hands with him in a significant manner. And when he had taken
+a seat, he began to sound the praises of the President of the Republic,
+who, said he, was the only person able to save France from anarchy.
+
+"Let him save it, then, as quickly as possible," interrupted the
+marquis, "and let him then understand his duty by restoring it to its
+legitimate masters."
+
+Pierre seemed to approve this fine retort, and having thus given
+proof of his ardent royalism, he ventured to remark that Prince Louis
+Bonaparte had his entire sympathy in the matter. He thereupon exchanged
+a few short sentences with the commander, commending the excellent
+intentions of the President, which sentences one might have thought
+prepared and learnt beforehand. Bonapartism now, for the first time,
+made its entry into the yellow drawing-room. It is true that since the
+election of December 10 the Prince had been treated there with a certain
+amount of consideration. He was preferred a thousand times to Cavaignac,
+and the whole reactionary party had voted for him. But they regarded
+him rather as an accomplice than a friend; and, as such, they distrusted
+him, and even began to accuse him of a desire to keep for himself
+the chestnuts which he had pulled out of the fire. On that particular
+evening, however, owing to the fighting at Rome, they listened with
+favour to the praises of Pierre and the commander.
+
+The group led by Granoux and Roudier already demanded that the President
+should order all republican rascals to be shot; while the marquis,
+leaning against the mantelpiece, gazed meditatively at a faded rose on
+the carpet. When he at last lifted his head, Pierre, who had furtively
+watched his countenance as if to see the effect of his words, suddenly
+ceased speaking. However, Monsieur de Carnavant merely smiled and
+glanced at Felicite with a knowing look. This rapid by-play was not
+observed by the other people. Vuillet alone remarked in a sharp tone:
+
+"I would rather see your Bonaparte at London than at Paris. Our affairs
+would get along better then."
+
+At this the old oil-dealer turned slightly pale, fearing that he had
+gone too far. "I'm not anxious to retain 'my' Bonaparte," he said, with
+some firmness; "you know where I would send him to if I were the master.
+I simply assert that the expedition to Rome was a good stroke."
+
+Felicite had followed this scene with inquisitive astonishment. However,
+she did not speak of it to her husband, which proved that she adopted it
+as the basis of secret study. The marquis's smile, the significance of
+which escaped her, set her thinking.
+
+From that day forward, Rougon, at distant intervals, whenever the
+occasion offered, slipped in a good word for the President of the
+Republic. On such evenings, Commander Sicardot acted the part of a
+willing accomplice. At the same time, Clerical opinions still reigned
+supreme in the yellow drawing-room. It was more particularly in
+the following year that this group of reactionaries gained decisive
+influence in the town, thanks to the retrograde movement which was going
+on at Paris. All those anti-Liberal laws which the country called "the
+Roman expedition at home" definitively secured the triumph of the Rougon
+faction. The last enthusiastic bourgeois saw the Republic tottering, and
+hastened to rally round the Conservatives. Thus the Rougons' hour had
+arrived; the new town almost gave them an ovation on the day when the
+tree of Liberty, planted on the square before the Sub-Prefecture, was
+sawed down. This tree, a young poplar brought from the banks of the
+Viorne, had gradually withered, much to the despair of the republican
+working-men, who would come every Sunday to observe the progress of
+the decay without being able to comprehend the cause of it. A hatter's
+apprentice at last asserted that he had seen a woman leave Rougon's
+house and pour a pail of poisoned water at the foot of the tree. It
+thenceforward became a matter of history that Felicite herself got up
+every night to sprinkle the poplar with vitriol. When the tree was dead
+the Municipal Council declared that the dignity of the Republic required
+its removal. For this, as they feared the displeasure of the working
+classes, they selected an advanced hour of the night. However, the
+conservative householders of the new town got wind of the little
+ceremony, and all came down to the square before the Sub-Prefecture in
+order to see how the tree of Liberty would fall. The frequenters of the
+yellow drawing-room stationed themselves at the windows there. When the
+poplar cracked and fell with a thud in the darkness, as tragically rigid
+as some mortally stricken hero, Felicite felt bound to wave a white
+handkerchief. This induced the crowd to applaud, and many responded to
+the salute by waving their handkerchiefs likewise. A group of people
+even came under the window shouting: "We'll bury it, we'll bury it."
+
+They meant the Republic, no doubt. Such was Felicite's emotion, that
+she almost had a nervous attack. It was a fine evening for the yellow
+drawing-room.
+
+However, the marquis still looked at Felicite with the same mysterious
+smile. This little old man was far too shrewd to be ignorant of whither
+France was tending. He was among the first to scent the coming of the
+Empire. When the Legislative Assembly, later on, exhausted its energies
+in useless squabbling, when the Orleanists and the Legitimists tacitly
+accepted the idea of the Coup d'Etat, he said to himself that the
+game was definitely lost. In fact, he was the only one who saw things
+clearly. Vuillet certainly felt that the cause of Henry V., which his
+paper defended, was becoming detestable; but it mattered little to him;
+he was content to be the obedient creature of the clergy; his entire
+policy was framed so as to enable him to dispose of as many rosaries and
+sacred images as possible. As for Roudier and Granoux, they lived in
+a state of blind scare; it was not certain whether they really had any
+opinions; all that they desired was to eat and sleep in peace; their
+political aspirations went no further. The marquis, though he had bidden
+farewell to his hopes, continued to come to the Rougons' as regularly as
+ever. He enjoyed himself there. The clash of rival ambitions among
+the middle classes, and the display of their follies, had become an
+extremely amusing spectacle to him. He shuddered at the thought of again
+shutting himself in the little room which he owed to the beneficence of
+the Count de Valqueyras. With a kind of malicious delight, he kept to
+himself the conviction that the Bourbons' hour had not yet arrived. He
+feigned blindness, working as hitherto for the triumph of Legitimacy,
+and still remaining at the orders of the clergy and nobility, though
+from the very first day he had penetrated Pierre's new course of action,
+and believed that Felicite was his accomplice.
+
+One evening, being the first to arrive, he found the old lady alone
+in the drawing-room. "Well! little one," he asked, with his smiling
+familiarity, "are your affairs going on all right? Why the deuce do you
+make such mysteries with me?"
+
+"I'm not hiding anything from you," Felicite replied, somewhat
+perplexed.
+
+"Come, do you think you can deceive an old fox like me, eh? My dear
+child, treat me as a friend. I'm quite ready to help you secretly. Come
+now, be frank!"
+
+A bright idea struck Felicite. She had nothing to tell; but perhaps she
+might find out something if she kept quiet.
+
+"Why do you smile?" Monsieur de Carnavant resumed. "That's the beginning
+of a confession, you know. I suspected that you must be behind your
+husband. Pierre is too stupid to invent the pretty treason you are
+hatching. I sincerely hope the Bonapartists will give you what I should
+have asked for you from the Bourbons."
+
+This single sentence confirmed the suspicions which the old woman had
+entertained for some time past.
+
+"Prince Louis has every chance, hasn't he?" she eagerly inquired.
+
+"Will you betray me if I tell you that I believe so?" the marquis
+laughingly replied. "I've donned my mourning over it, little one. I'm
+simply a poor old man, worn out and only fit to be laid on the shelf.
+It was for you, however, that I was working. Since you have been able to
+find the right track without me, I shall feel some consolation in seeing
+you triumph amidst my own defeat. Above all things, don't make any more
+mysteries. Come to me if you are ever in trouble."
+
+And he added, with the sceptical smile of a nobleman who has lost caste:
+"Pshaw! I also can go in for a little treachery!"
+
+At this moment the clan of retired oil and almond dealers arrived.
+
+"Ah! the dear reactionaries!" Monsieur de Carnavant continued in an
+undertone. "You see, little one, the great art of politics consists in
+having a pair of good eyes when other people are blind. You hold all the
+best cards in the pack."
+
+On the following day, Felicite, incited by this conversation, desired
+to make sure on the matter. They were then in the first days of the year
+1851. For more than eighteen months, Rougon had been in the habit of
+receiving a letter from his son Eugene regularly every fortnight. He
+would shut himself in the bedroom to read these letters, which he then
+hid at the bottom of an old secretaire, the key of which he carefully
+kept in his waistcoat pocket. Whenever his wife questioned him about
+their son he would simply answer: "Eugene writes that he is going on
+all right." Felicite had long since thought of laying hands on her son's
+letters. So early on the morning after her chat with the marquis, while
+Pierre was still asleep, she got up on tiptoes, took the key of the
+secretaire from her husband's waistcoat and substituted in its place
+that of the chest of drawers, which was of the same size. Then, as soon
+as her husband had gone out, she shut herself in the room in her turn,
+emptied the drawer, and read all the letters with feverish curiosity.
+
+Monsieur de Carnavant had not been mistaken, and her own suspicions were
+confirmed. There were about forty letters, which enabled her to follow
+the course of that great Bonapartist movement which was to terminate in
+the second Empire. The letters constituted a sort of concise journal,
+narrating events as they occurred, and drawing hopes and suggestions
+from each of them. Eugene was full of faith. He described Prince Louis
+Bonaparte to his father as the predestined necessary man who alone could
+unravel the situation. He had believed in him prior even to his return
+to France, at a time when Bonapartism was treated as a ridiculous
+chimera. Felicite understood that her son had been a very active secret
+agent since 1848. Although he did not clearly explain his position in
+Paris, it was evident that he was working for the Empire, under
+the orders of personages whose names he mentioned with a sort of
+familiarity. Each of his letters gave information as to the progress of
+the cause, to which an early denouement was foreshadowed; and usually
+concluded by pointing out the line of action that Pierre should pursue
+at Plassans. Felicite could now comprehend certain words and acts of
+her husband, whose significance had previously escaped her; Pierre was
+obeying his son, and blindly following his recommendations.
+
+When the old woman had finished reading, she was convinced. Eugene's
+entire thoughts were clearly revealed to her. He reckoned upon making
+his political fortune in the squabble, and repaying his parents the debt
+he owed them for his education, by throwing them a scrap of the prey as
+soon as the quarry was secured. However small the assistance his father
+might render to him and to the cause, it would not be difficult to get
+him appointed receiver of taxes. Nothing would be refused to one who
+like Eugene had steeped his hands in the most secret machinations. His
+letters were simply a kind attention on his part, a device to prevent
+the Rougons from committing any act of imprudence, for which Felicite
+felt deeply grateful. She read certain passages of the letters twice
+over, notably those in which Eugene spoke, in vague terms, of "a final
+catastrophe." This catastrophe, the nature or bearings of which she
+could not well conceive became a sort of end of the world for her. God
+would range the chosen ones on His right hand and the damned on His
+left, and she placed herself among the former.
+
+When she succeeded in replacing the key in her husband's waistcoat
+pocket on the following night, she made up her mind to employ the same
+expedient for reading every fresh letter that arrived. She resolved,
+likewise, to profess complete ignorance. This plan was an excellent one.
+Henceforward, she gave her husband the more assistance as she appeared
+to render it unconsciously. When Pierre thought he was working alone
+it was she who brought the conversation round to the desired topic,
+recruiting partisans for the decisive moment. She felt hurt at Eugene's
+distrust of her. She wanted to be able to say to him, after the triumph:
+"I knew all, and so far from spoiling anything, I have secured the
+victory." Never did an accomplice make less noise or work harder. The
+marquis, whom she had taken into her confidence, was astounded at it.
+
+The fate of her dear Aristide, however, continued to make her uneasy.
+Now that she shared the faith of her eldest son, the rabid articles of
+the "Independant" alarmed her all the more. She longed to convert the
+unfortunate republican to Napoleonist ideas; but she did not know how
+to accomplish this in a discreet manner. She recalled the emphasis with
+which Eugene had told them to be on their guard against Aristide. At
+last she submitted the matter to Monsieur de Carnavant, who was entirely
+of the same opinion.
+
+"Little one," he said to her, "in politics one must know how to look
+after one's self. If you were to convert your son, and the 'Independant'
+were to start writing in defence of Bonapartism, it would deal the party
+a rude blow. The 'Independant' has already been condemned, its title
+alone suffices to enrage the middle classes of Plassans. Let dear
+Aristide flounder about; this only moulds young people. He does not
+appear to me to be cut out for carrying on the role of a martyr for any
+length of time."
+
+However, in her eagerness to point out the right way to her family,
+now that she believed herself in possession of the truth, Felicite even
+sought to convert her son Pascal. The doctor, with the egotism of a
+scientist immersed in his researches, gave little heed to politics.
+Empires might fall while he was making an experiment, yet he would not
+have deigned to turn his head. He at last yielded, however, to certain
+importunities of his mother, who accused him more than ever of living
+like an unsociable churl.
+
+"If you were to go into society," she said to him, "you would get some
+well-to-do patients. Come, at least, and spend some evenings in our
+drawing-room. You will make the acquaintance of Messieurs Roudier,
+Granoux, and Sicardot, all gentlemen in good circumstances, who will pay
+you four or five francs a visit. The poor people will never enrich you."
+
+The idea of succeeding in life, of seeing all her family attain to
+fortune, had become a form of monomania with Felicite. Pascal, in order
+to be agreeable to her, came and spent a few evenings in the yellow
+drawing-room. He was much less bored there than he had apprehended. At
+first he was rather stupefied at the degree of imbecility to which
+sane men can sink. The old oil and almond dealers, the marquis and the
+commander even, appeared to him so many curious animals, which he
+had not hitherto had an opportunity of studying. He looked with a
+naturalist's interest at their grimacing faces, in which he discerned
+traces of their occupations and appetites; he listened also to their
+inane chatter, just as he might have tried to catch the meaning of
+a cat's mew or a dog's bark. At this period he was occupied with
+comparative natural history, applying to the human race the observations
+which he had made upon animals with regard to the working of heredity.
+While he was in the yellow drawing-room, therefore, he amused himself
+with the belief that he had fallen in with a menagerie. He established
+comparisons between the grotesque creatures he found there and certain
+animals of his acquaintance. The marquis, with his leanness and small
+crafty-looking head, reminded him exactly of a long green grasshopper.
+Vuillet impressed him as a pale, slimy toad. He was more considerate for
+Roudier, a fat sheep, and for the commander, an old toothless mastiff.
+But the prodigious Granoux was a perpetual cause of astonishment to him.
+He spent a whole evening measuring this imbecile's facial angle. When he
+heard him mutter indistinct imprecations against those blood-suckers
+the Republicans, he always expected to hear him moan like a calf; and
+he could never see him rise from his chair without imagining that he was
+about to leave the room on all fours.
+
+"Talk to them," his mother used to say in an undertone; "try and make a
+practice out of these gentlemen."
+
+"I am not a veterinary surgeon," he at last replied, exasperated.
+
+One evening Felicite took him into a corner and tired to catechise
+him. She was glad to see him come to her house rather assiduously.
+She thought him reconciled to Society, not suspecting for a moment the
+singular amusement that he derived from ridiculing these rich people.
+She cherished the secret project of making him the fashionable doctor
+of Plassans. It would be sufficient if men like Granoux and Roudier
+consented to give him a start. She wished, above all, to impart to
+him the political views of the family, considering that a doctor had
+everything to gain by constituting himself a warm partisan of the regime
+which was to succeed the Republic.
+
+"My dear boy," she said to him, "as you have now become reasonable,
+you must give some thought to the future. You are accused of being a
+Republican, because you are foolish enough to attend all the beggars
+of the town without making any charge. Be frank, what are your real
+opinions?"
+
+Pascal looked at his mother with naive astonishment, then with a smile
+replied: "My real opinions? I don't quite know--I am accused of being a
+Republican, did you say? Very well! I don't feel at all offended. I
+am undoubtedly a Republican, if you understand by that word a man who
+wishes the welfare of everybody."
+
+"But you will never attain to any position," Felicite quickly
+interrupted. "You will be crushed. Look at your brothers, they are
+trying to make their way."
+
+Pascal then comprehended that he was not called upon to defend his
+philosophic egotism. His mother simply accused him of not speculating
+on the political situation. He began to laugh somewhat sadly, and then
+turned the conversation into another channel. Felicite could never
+induce him to consider the chances of the various parties, nor to enlist
+in that one of them which seemed likely to carry the day. However, he
+still occasionally came to spend an evening in the yellow drawing-room.
+Granoux interested him like an antediluvian animal.
+
+In the meantime, events were moving. The year 1851 was a year of anxiety
+and apprehension for the politicians of Plassans, and the cause which
+the Rougons served derived advantage from this circumstance. The most
+contradictory news arrived from Paris; sometimes the Republicans were
+in the ascendant, sometimes the Conservative party was crushing the
+Republic. The echoes of the squabbles which were rending the Legislative
+Assembly reached the depths of the provinces, now in an exaggerated, now
+in an attenuated form, varying so greatly as to obscure the vision of
+the most clear-sighted. The only general feeling was that a denouement
+was approaching. The prevailing ignorance as to the nature of this
+denouement kept timid middle class people in a terrible state of
+anxiety. Everybody wished to see the end. They were sick of uncertainty,
+and would have flung themselves into the arms of the Grand Turk, if he
+would have deigned to save France from anarchy.
+
+The marquis's smile became more acute. Of an evening, in the yellow
+drawing-room, when Granoux's growl was rendered indistinct by fright, he
+would draw near to Felicite and whisper in her ear: "Come, little one,
+the fruit is ripe--but you must make yourself useful."
+
+Felicite, who continued to read Eugene's letters, and knew that
+a decisive crisis might any day occur, had already often felt the
+necessity of making herself useful, and reflected as to the manner in
+which the Rougons should employ themselves. At last she consulted the
+marquis.
+
+"It all depends upon circumstances," the little old man replied. "If the
+department remains quiet, if no insurrection occurs to terrify Plassans,
+it will be difficult for you to make yourselves conspicuous and render
+any services to the new government. I advise you, in that case, to
+remain at home, and peacefully await the bounties of your son Eugene.
+But if the people rise, and our brave bourgeois think themselves in
+danger, there will be a fine part to play. Your husband is somewhat
+heavy--"
+
+"Oh!" said Felicite, "I'll undertake to make him supple. Do you think
+the department will revolt?"
+
+"To my mind it's a certainty. Plassans, perhaps, will not make a
+stir; the reaction has secured too firm a hold here for that. But the
+neighbouring towns, especially the small ones and the villages, have
+long been worked by certain secret societies, and belong to the advanced
+Republican party. If a Coup d'Etat should burst forth, the tocsin will
+be heard throughout the entire country, from the forests of the Seille
+to the plateau of Sainte-Roure."
+
+Felicite reflected. "You think, then," she resumed, "that an
+insurrection is necessary to ensure our fortune!"
+
+"That's my opinion," replied Monsieur de Carnavant. And he added, with a
+slightly ironical smile: "A new dynasty is never founded excepting upon
+an affray. Blood is good manure. It will be a fine thing for the Rougons
+to date from a massacre, like certain illustrious families."
+
+These words, accompanied by a sneer, sent a cold chill through
+Felicite's bones. But she was a strong-minded woman, and the sight of
+Monsieur Peirotte's beautiful curtains, which she religiously viewed
+every morning, sustained her courage. Whenever she felt herself
+giving way, she planted herself at the window and contemplated the
+tax-receiver's house. For her it was the Tuileries. She had determined
+upon the most extreme measures in order to secure an entree into the new
+town, that promised land, on the threshold of which she had stood with
+burning longing for so many years.
+
+The conversation which she had held with the marquis had at last clearly
+revealed the situation to her. A few days afterwards, she succeeded in
+reading one of Eugene's letters, in which he, who was working for the
+Coup d'Etat, seemed also to rely upon an insurrection as the means of
+endowing his father with some importance. Eugene knew his department
+well. All his suggestions had been framed with the object of placing
+as much influence as possible in the hands of the yellow drawing-room
+reactionaries, so that the Rougons might be able to hold the town at the
+critical moment. In accordance with his desires, the yellow drawing-room
+was master of Plassans in November, 1851. Roudier represented the rich
+citizens there, and his attitude would certainly decide that of the
+entire new town. Granoux was still more valuable; he had the Municipal
+Council behind him: he was its most powerful member, a fact which
+will give some idea of its other members. Finally, through Commander
+Sicardot, whom the marquis had succeeded in getting appointed as chief
+of the National Guard, the yellow drawing-room had the armed forces at
+their disposal.
+
+The Rougons, those poor disreputable devils, had thus succeeded
+in rallying round themselves the instruments of their own fortune.
+Everyone, from cowardice or stupidity, would have to obey them and work
+in the dark for their aggrandisement. They simply had to fear those
+other influences which might be working with the same object as
+themselves, and might partially rob them of the merit of victory. That
+was their great fear, for they wanted to reserve to themselves the role
+of deliverers. They knew beforehand that they would be aided rather than
+hindered by the clergy and the nobility. But if the sub-prefect, the
+mayor, and the other functionaries were to take a step in advance and at
+once stifle the insurrection they would find themselves thrown into the
+shade, and even arrested in their exploits; they would have neither time
+nor means to make themselves useful. What they longed for was complete
+abstention, general panic among the functionaries. If only all regular
+administration should disappear, and they could dispose of the destinies
+of Plassans for a single day, their fortune would be firmly established.
+
+Happily for them, there was not a man in the government service whose
+convictions were so firm or whose circumstances were so needy as to
+make him disposed to risk the game. The sub-prefect was a man of liberal
+spirit whom the executive had forgetfully left at Plassans, owing, no
+doubt, to the good repute of the town. Of timid character and incapable
+of exceeding his authority, he would no doubt be greatly embarrassed in
+the presence of an insurrection. The Rougons, who knew that he was in
+favour of the democratic cause, and who consequently never dreaded his
+zeal, were simply curious to know what attitude he would assume. As for
+the municipality, this did not cause them much apprehension. The mayor,
+Monsieur Garconnet, was a Legitimist whose nomination had been procured
+by the influence of the Saint-Marc quarter in 1849. He detested the
+Republicans and treated them with undisguised disdain; but he was too
+closely united by bonds of friendship with certain members of the
+church to lend any active hand in a Bonapartist Coup d'Etat. The other
+functionaries were in exactly the same position. The justices of the
+peace, the post-master, the tax-collector, as well as Monsieur Peirotte,
+the chief receiver of taxes, were all indebted for their posts to
+the Clerical reaction, and could not accept the Empire with any great
+enthusiasm. The Rougons, though they did not quite see how they might
+get rid of these people and clear the way for themselves, nevertheless
+indulged in sanguine hopes on finding there was little likelihood of
+anybody disputing their role as deliverers.
+
+The denouement was drawing near. In the last few days of November, as
+the rumour of a Coup d'Etat was circulating, the prince-president was
+accused of seeking the position of emperor.
+
+"Eh! we'll call him whatever he likes," Granoux exclaimed, "provided he
+has those Republican rascals shot!"
+
+This exclamation from Granoux, who was believed to be asleep, caused
+great commotion. The marquis pretended not to have heard it; but all
+the bourgeois nodded approval. Roudier, who, being rich, did not fear to
+applaud the sentiment aloud, went so far as to declare, while glancing
+askance at Monsieur de Carnavant, that the position was no longer
+tenable, and that France must be chastised as soon as possible, never
+mind by what hand.
+
+The marquis still maintained a silence which was interpreted as
+acquiescence. And thereupon the Conservative clan, abandoning the cause
+of Legitimacy, ventured to offer up prayers in favour of the Empire.
+
+"My friends," said Commander Sicardot, rising from his seat, "only a
+Napoleon can now protect threatened life and property. Have no fear,
+I've taken the necessary precautions to preserve order at Plassans."
+
+As a matter of fact the commander, in concert with Rougon, had
+concealed, in a kind of cart-house near the ramparts, both a supply of
+cartridges and a considerable number of muskets; he had also taken steps
+to secure the co-operation of the National Guard, on which he believed
+he could rely. His words produced a very favourable impression.
+On separating for the evening, the peaceful citizens of the yellow
+drawing-room spoke of massacring the "Reds" if they should dare to stir.
+
+On December 1, Pierre Rougon received a letter from Eugene which he went
+to read in his bedroom, in accordance with his prudent habit. Felicite
+observed, however, that he was very agitated when he came out again.
+She fluttered round the secretaire all day. When night came, she could
+restrain her impatience no longer. Her husband had scarcely fallen
+asleep, when she quietly got up, took the key of the secretaire from
+the waistcoat pocket, and gained possession of the letter with as little
+noise as possible. Eugene, in ten lines, warned his father that the
+crisis was at hand, and advised him to acquaint his mother with the
+situation of affairs. The hour for informing her had arrived; he might
+stand in need of her advice.
+
+Felicite awaited, on the morrow, a disclosure which did not come. She
+did not dare to confess her curiosity; but continued to feign ignorance,
+though enraged at the foolish distrust of her husband, who, doubtless,
+considered her a gossip, and weak like other women. Pierre, with
+that marital pride which inspires a man with the belief in his own
+superiority at home, had ended by attributing all their past ill-luck to
+his wife. From the time that he fancied he had been conducting matters
+alone everything seemed to him to have gone as he desired. He had
+decided, therefore, to dispense altogether with his consort's counsels,
+and to confide nothing to her, in spite of his son's recommendations.
+
+Felicite was piqued to such a degree that she would have upset the whole
+affair had she not desired the triumph as ardently as Pierre. So she
+continued to work energetically for victory, while endeavouring to take
+her revenge.
+
+"Ah! if he could only have some great fright," thought she; "if he would
+only commit some act of imprudence! Then I should see him come to me and
+humbly ask for advice; it would be my turn to lay down the law."
+
+She felt somewhat uneasy at the imperious attitude Pierre would
+certainly assume if he were to triumph without her aid. On marrying this
+peasant's son, in preference to some notary's clerk, she had intended to
+make use of him as a strongly made puppet, whose strings she would pull
+in her own way; and now, at the decisive moment, the puppet, in his
+blind stupidity, wanted to work alone! All the cunning, all the feverish
+activity within the old woman protested against this. She knew Pierre
+was quite capable of some brutal resolve such as that which he had taken
+when he compelled his mother to sign the receipt for fifty thousand
+francs; the tool was indeed a useful and unscrupulous one; but she felt
+the necessity for guiding it, especially under present circumstances,
+when considerable suppleness was requisite.
+
+The official news of the Coup d'Etat did not reach Plassans until the
+afternoon of December 3--a Thursday. Already, at seven o'clock in the
+evening, there was a full meeting in the yellow drawing-room. Although
+the crisis had been eagerly desired, vague uneasiness appeared on the
+faces of the majority. They discussed events amid endless chatter.
+Pierre, who like the others was slightly pale, thought it right, as an
+extreme measure of prudence, to excuse Prince Louis's decisive act to
+the Legitimists and Orleanists who were present.
+
+"There is talk of an appeal to the people," he said; "the nation will
+then be free to choose whatever government it likes. The president is a
+man to retire before our legitimate masters."
+
+The marquis, who had retained his aristocratic coolness, was the only
+one who greeted these words with a smile. The others, in the enthusiasm
+of the moment, concerned themselves very little about what might follow.
+All their opinions foundered. Roudier, forgetting the esteem which as a
+former shopkeeper he had entertained for the Orleanists, stopped Pierre
+rather abruptly. And everybody exclaimed: "Don't argue the matter. Let
+us think of preserving order."
+
+These good people were terribly afraid of the Republicans. There had,
+however been very little commotion in the town on the announcement of
+the events in Paris. People had collected in front of the notices posted
+on the door of the Sub-Prefecture; it was also rumoured that a few
+hundred workmen had left their work and were endeavouring to organise
+resistance. That was all. No serious disturbance seemed likely to occur.
+The course which the neighbouring towns and rural districts might take
+seemed more likely to occasion anxiety; however, it was not yet known
+how they had received the news of the Coup d'Etat.
+
+Granoux arrived at about nine o'clock, quite out of breath. He had just
+left a sitting of the Municipal Council which had been hastily summoned
+together. Choking with emotion, he announced that the mayor, Monsieur
+Garconnet, had declared, while making due reserves, that he was
+determined to preserve order by the most stringent measures. However,
+the intelligence which caused the noisiest chattering in the yellow
+drawing-room was that of the resignation of the sub-prefect. This
+functionary had absolutely refused to communicate the despatches of the
+Minister of the Interior to the inhabitants of Plassans; he had just
+left the town, so Granoux asserted, and it was thanks to the mayor that
+the messages had been posted. This was perhaps the only sub-prefect in
+France who ever had the courage of his democratic opinions.
+
+Although Monsieur Garconnet's firm demeanour caused the Rougons
+some secret anxiety, they rubbed their hands at the flight of the
+sub-prefect, which left the post vacant for them. It was decided on this
+memorable evening that the yellow drawing-room party should accept the
+Coup d'Etat and openly declare that it was in favour of accomplished
+facts. Vuillet was commissioned to write an article to that effect, and
+publish it on the morrow in the "Gazette." Neither he nor the marquis
+raised any objection. They had, no doubt, received instructions from the
+mysterious individuals to whom they sometimes made pious allusions. The
+clergy and the nobility were already resigned to the course of lending
+a strong hand to the victors, in order to crush their common enemy, the
+Republic.
+
+While the yellow drawing-room was deliberating on the evening in
+question, Aristide was perspiring with anxiety. Never had gambler,
+staking his last louis on a card, felt such anguish. During the day the
+resignation of his chief, the sub-prefect, had given him much matter for
+reflection. He had heard him repeat several times that the Coup d'Etat
+must prove a failure. This functionary, endowed with a limited amount of
+honesty, believed in the final triumph of the democracy, though he
+had not the courage to work for that triumph by offering resistance.
+Aristide was in the habit of listening at the doors of the
+Sub-Prefecture, in order to get precise information, for he felt that he
+was groping in the dark, and clung to the intelligence which he gleaned
+from the officials. The sub-prefect's opinion struck him forcibly; but
+he remained perplexed. He thought to himself: "Why does the fellow go
+away if he is so certain that the prince-president will meet with a
+check?" However, as he was compelled to espouse one side or the other,
+he resolved to continue his opposition. He wrote a very hostile article
+on the Coup d'Etat, and took it to the "Independant" the same evening
+for the following morning's issue. He had corrected the proofs of this
+article, and was returning home somewhat calmed, when, as he passed
+along the Rue de la Banne, he instinctively raised his head and glanced
+at the Rougons' windows. Their windows were brightly lighted up.
+
+"What can they be plotting up there?" the journalist asked himself, with
+anxious curiosity.
+
+A fierce desire to know the opinion of the yellow drawing-room with
+regard to recent events then assailed him. He credited this group of
+reactionaries with little intelligence; but his doubts recurred, he was
+in that frame of mind when one might seek advice from a child. He
+could not think of entering his father's home at that moment, after the
+campaign he had waged against Granoux and the others. Nevertheless, he
+went upstairs, reflecting what a singular figure he would cut if he were
+surprised on the way by anyone. On reaching the Rougons' door, he could
+only catch a confused echo of voices.
+
+"What a child I am," said he, "fear makes me stupid." And he was going
+to descend again, when he heard the approach of his mother, who was
+about to show somebody out. He had barely time to hide in a dark corner
+formed by a little staircase leading to the garrets of the house. The
+Rougons' door opened, and the marquis appeared, followed by Felicite.
+Monsieur de Carnavant usually left before the gentlemen of the new town
+did, in order no doubt to avoid having to shake hands with them in the
+street.
+
+"Eh! little one," he said on the landing, in a low voice, "these men are
+greater cowards than I should have thought. With such men France will
+always be at the mercy of whoever dares to lay his hands upon her!"
+And he added, with some bitterness, as though speaking to himself: "The
+monarchy is decidedly becoming too honest for modern times. Its day is
+over."
+
+"Eugene announced the crisis to his father," replied Felicite. "Prince
+Louis's triumph seems to him certain."
+
+"Oh, you can proceed without fear," the marquis replied, as he descended
+the first steps. "In two or three days the country will be well bound
+and gagged. Good-bye till to-morrow, little one."
+
+Felicite closed the door again. Aristide had received quite a shock in
+his dark corner. However, without waiting for the marquis to reach the
+street, he bounded down the staircase, four steps at a time, rushed
+outside like a madman, and turned his steps towards the printing-office
+of the "Independant." A flood of thoughts surged through his mind. He
+was enraged, and accused his family of having duped him. What! Eugene
+kept his parents informed of the situation, and yet his mother had never
+given him any of his eldest brother's letters to read, in order that he
+might follow the advice given therein! And it was only now he learnt by
+chance that his eldest brother regarded the success of the Coup d'Etat
+as certain! This circumstance, moreover, confirmed certain presentiments
+which that idiot of a sub-prefect had prevented him from obeying. He was
+especially exasperated against his father, whom he had thought stupid
+enough to be a Legitimist, but who revealed himself as a Bonapartist at
+the right moment.
+
+"What a lot of folly they have allowed me to perpetrate," he muttered as
+he ran along. "I'm a fine fellow now. Ah! what a lesson! Granoux is more
+capable than I."
+
+He entered the office of the "Independant" like a hurricane, and
+asked for his article in a choking voice. The article had already been
+imposed. He had the forme unlocked and would not rest until he had
+himself destroyed the setting, mixing the type in a furious manner, like
+a set of dominoes. The bookseller who managed the paper looked at him
+in amazement. He was, in reality, rather glad of the incident, as the
+article had seemed to him somewhat dangerous. But he was absolutely
+obliged to have some copy, if the "Independant" was to appear.
+
+"Are you going to give me something else?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly," replied Aristide.
+
+He sat down at the table and began a warm panegyric on the Coup d'Etat.
+At the very first line, he swore that Prince Louis had just saved the
+Republic; but he had hardly written a page before he stopped and seemed
+at a loss how to continue. A troubled look came over his pole-cat face.
+
+"I must go home," he said at last. "I will send you this immediately.
+Your paper can appear a little later, if necessary."
+
+He walked slowly on his way home, lost in meditation. He was again
+giving way to indecision. Why should he veer round so quickly? Eugene
+was an intelligent fellow, but his mother had perhaps exaggerated the
+significance of some sentence in his letter. In any case, it would be
+better to wait and hold his tongue.
+
+An hour later Angele called at the bookseller's, feigning deep emotion.
+
+"My husband has just severely injured himself," she said. "He jammed his
+four fingers in a door as he was coming in. In spite of his sufferings,
+he has dictated this little note, which he begs you to publish
+to-morrow."
+
+On the following day the "Independant," made up almost entirely of
+miscellaneous items of news, appeared with these few lines at the head
+of the first column:
+
+"A deplorable accident which has occurred to our eminent contributor
+Monsieur Aristide Rougon will deprive us of his articles for some
+time. He will suffer at having to remain silent in the present grave
+circumstances. None of our readers will doubt, however, the good wishes
+which he offers up with patriotic feelings for the welfare of France."
+
+This burlesque note had been maturely studied. The last sentence might
+be interpreted in favour of all parties. By this expedient, Aristide
+devised a glorious return for himself on the morrow of battle, in the
+shape of a laudatory article on the victors. On the following day he
+showed himself to the whole town, with his arm in a sling. His mother,
+frightened by the notice in the paper, hastily called upon him, but
+he refused to show her his hand, and spoke with a bitterness which
+enlightened the old woman.
+
+"It won't be anything," she said in a reassuring and somewhat sarcastic
+tone, as she was leaving. "You only want a little rest."
+
+It was no doubt owing to this pretended accident, and the sub-prefect's
+departure, that the "Independant" was not interfered with, like most of
+the democratic papers of the departments.
+
+The 4th day of the month proved comparatively quiet at Plassans. In the
+evening there was a public demonstration which the mere appearance
+of the gendarmes sufficed to disperse. A band of working-men came to
+request Monsieur Garconnet to communicate the despatches he had received
+from Paris, which the latter haughtily refused to do; as it retired
+the band shouted: "Long live the Republic! Long live the Constitution!"
+After this, order was restored. The yellow drawing-room, after
+commenting at some length on this innocent parade, concluded that
+affairs were going on excellently.
+
+The 5th and 6th were, however, more disquieting. Intelligence was
+received of successive risings in small neighbouring towns; the
+whole southern part of the department had taken up arms; La Palud and
+Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx had been the first to rise, drawing after them
+the villages of Chavanos, Nazeres, Poujols, Valqueyras and Vernoux. The
+yellow drawing-room party was now becoming seriously alarmed. It felt
+particularly uneasy at seeing Plassans isolated in the very midst of the
+revolt. Bands of insurgents would certainly scour the country and cut
+off all communications. Granoux announced, with a terrified look, that
+the mayor was without any news. Some people even asserted that blood had
+been shed at Marseilles, and that a formidable revolution had broken out
+in Paris. Commander Sicardot, enraged at the cowardice of the bourgeois,
+vowed he would die at the head of his men.
+
+On Sunday the 7th the terror reached a climax. Already at six o'clock
+the yellow drawing-room, where a sort of reactionary committee sat _en
+permanence_, was crowded with pale, trembling men, who conversed in
+undertones, as though they were in a chamber of death. It had been
+ascertained during the day that a column of insurgents, about three
+thousand strong, had assembled at Alboise, a big village not more than
+three leagues away. It was true that this column had been ordered to
+make for the chief town of the department, leaving Plassans on its left;
+but the plan of campaign might at any time be altered; moreover, it
+sufficed for these cowardly cits to know that there were insurgents a
+few miles off, to make them feel the horny hands of the toilers already
+tightened round their throats. They had had a foretaste of the revolt in
+the morning; the few Republicans at Plassans, seeing that they would
+be unable to make any determined move in the town, had resolved to join
+their brethren of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx; the first group
+had left at about eleven o'clock, by the Porte de Rome, shouting the
+"Marseillaise" and smashing a few windows. Granoux had had one broken.
+He mentioned the circumstance with stammerings of terror.
+
+Meantime, the most acute anxiety agitated the yellow drawing-room. The
+commander had sent his servant to obtain some information as to the
+exact movements of the insurgents, and the others awaited this man's
+return, making the most astonishing surmises. They had a full meeting.
+Roudier and Granoux, sinking back in their arm-chairs, exchanged the
+most pitiable glances, whilst behind them moaned a terror-stricken group
+of retired tradesmen. Vuillet, without appearing over scared, reflected
+upon what precautions he should take to protect his shop and person; he
+was in doubt whether he should hide himself in his garret or cellar,
+and inclined towards the latter. For their part Pierre and the commander
+walked up and down, exchanging a word ever and anon. The old oil-dealer
+clung to this friend Sicardot as if to borrow a little courage from
+him. He, who had been awaiting the crisis for such a long time, now
+endeavoured to keep his countenance, in spite of the emotion which was
+stifling him. As for the marquis, more spruce and smiling than usual, he
+conversed in a corner with Felicite, who seemed very gay.
+
+At last a ring came. The gentlemen started as if they had heard a
+gun-shot. Dead silence reigned in the drawing-room when Felicite went to
+open the door, towards which their pale, anxious faces were turned. Then
+the commander's servant appeared on the threshold, quite out of breath,
+and said abruptly to his master: "Sir, the insurgents will be here in an
+hour."
+
+This was a thunderbolt. They all started up, vociferating, and raising
+their arms towards the ceiling. For several minutes it was impossible
+to hear one's self speak. The company surrounded the messenger,
+overwhelming him with questions.
+
+"Damnation!" the commander at length shouted, "don't make such a row. Be
+calm, or I won't answer for anything."
+
+Everyone sank back in his chair again, heaving long-drawn sighs. They
+then obtained a few particulars. The messenger had met the column at Les
+Tulettes, and had hastened to return.
+
+"There are at least three thousand of them," said he. "They are marching
+in battalions, like soldiers. I thought I caught sight of some prisoners
+in their midst."
+
+"Prisoners!" cried the terrified bourgeois.
+
+"No doubt," the marquis interrupted in his shrill voice. "I've
+heard that the insurgents arrest all persons who are known to have
+conservative leanings."
+
+This information gave a finishing touch to the consternation of the
+yellow drawing-room. A few bourgeois got up and stealthily made for the
+door, reflecting that they had not too much time before them to gain a
+place of safety.
+
+The announcement of the arrests made by the Republicans appeared to
+strike Felicite. She took the marquis aside and asked him: "What do
+these men do with the people they arrest?"
+
+"Why, they carry them off in their train," Monsieur de Carnavant
+replied. "They no doubt consider them excellent hostages."
+
+"Ah!" the old woman rejoined, in a strange tone.
+
+Then she again thoughtfully watched the curious scene of panic around
+her. The bourgeois gradually disappeared; soon there only remained
+Vuillet and Roudier, whom the approaching danger inspired with some
+courage. As for Granoux, he likewise remained in his corner, his legs
+refusing to perform their office.
+
+"Well, I like this better," Sicardot remarked, as he observed the flight
+of the other adherents. "Those cowards were exasperating me at last.
+For more than two years they've been speaking of shooting all the
+Republicans in the province, and to-day they wouldn't even fire a
+halfpenny cracker under their noses."
+
+Then he took up his hat and turned towards the door.
+
+"Let's see," he continued, "time presses. Come, Rougon."
+
+Felicite, it seemed, had been waiting for this moment. She placed
+herself between the door and her husband, who, for that matter, was not
+particularly eager to follow the formidable Sicardot.
+
+"I won't have you go out," she cried, feigning sudden despair. "I won't
+let you leave my side. Those scoundrels will kill you."
+
+The commander stopped in amazement.
+
+"Hang it all!" he growled, "if the women are going to whine now--Come
+along, Rougon!'
+
+"No, no," continued the old woman, affecting increase of terror, "he
+sha'n't follow you. I will hang on to his clothes and prevent him."
+
+The marquis, very much surprised at the scene, looked inquiringly at
+Felicite. Was this really the woman who had just now been conversing so
+merrily? What comedy was she playing? Pierre, meantime, seeing that his
+wife wanted to detain him, deigned a determination to force his way out.
+
+"I tell you you shall not go," the old woman reiterated, as she clung
+to one of his arms. And turning towards the commander, she said to him:
+"How can you think of offering any resistance? They are three thousand
+strong, and you won't be able to collect a hundred men of any spirit.
+You are rushing into the cannon's mouth to no purpose."
+
+"Eh! that is our duty," said Sicardot, impatiently.
+
+Felicite burst into sobs.
+
+"If they don't kill him, they'll make him a prisoner," she continued,
+looked fixedly at her husband. "Good heavens! What will become of me,
+left alone in an abandoned town?"
+
+"But," exclaimed the commander, "we shall be arrested just the same if
+we allow the insurgents to enter the town unmolested. I believe that
+before an hour has elapsed the mayor and all the functionaries will be
+prisoners, to say nothing of your husband and the frequenters of this
+drawing-room."
+
+The marquis thought he saw a vague smile play about Felicite's lips as
+she answered, with a look of dismay: "Do you really think so?"
+
+"Of course!" replied Sicardot; "the Republicans are not so stupid as
+to leave enemies behind them. To-morrow Plassans will be emptied of its
+functionaries and good citizens."
+
+At these words, which she had so cleverly provoked, Felicite released
+her husband's arms. Pierre no longer looked as if he wanted to go out.
+Thanks to his wife, whose skilful tactics escaped him, however, and
+whose secret complicity he never for a moment suspected, he had just
+lighted on a whole plan of campaign.
+
+"We must deliberate before taking any decision," he said to the
+commander. "My wife is perhaps not wrong in accusing us of forgetting
+the true interests of our families."
+
+"No, indeed, madame is not wrong," cried Granoux, who had been listening
+to Felicite's terrified cries with the rapture of a coward.
+
+Thereupon the commander energetically clapped his hat on his head, and
+said in a clear voice: "Right or wrong, it matters little to me. I am
+commander of the National Guard. I ought to have been at the mayor's
+before now. Confess that you are afraid, that you leaven me to act
+alone. . . . Well, good-night."
+
+He was just turning the handle of the door, when Rougon forcibly
+detained him.
+
+"Listen, Sicardot," he said.
+
+He drew him into a corner, on seeing Vuillet prick up his big ears. And
+there he explained to him, in an undertone, that it would be a good plan
+to leave a few energetic men behind the insurgents, so as to restore
+order in the town. And as the fierce commander obstinately refused to
+desert his post, Pierre offered to place himself at the head of such a
+reserve corps.
+
+"Give me the key of the cart-shed in which the arms and ammunition are
+kept," he said to him, "and order some fifty of our men not to stir
+until I call for them."
+
+Sicardot ended by consenting to these prudent measures. He entrusted
+Pierre with the key of the cart-shed, convinced as he was of the
+inexpediency of present resistance, but still desirous of sacrificing
+himself.
+
+During this conversation, the marquis had whispered a few words in
+Felicite's ear with a knowing look. He complimented her, no doubt, on
+her theatrical display. The old woman could not repress a faint smile.
+But, as Sicardot shook hands with Rougon and prepared to go, she again
+asked him with an air of fright: "Are you really determined to leave
+us?"
+
+"It is not for one of Napoleon's old soldiers to let himself be
+intimidated by the mob," he replied.
+
+He was already on the landing, when Granoux hurried after him, crying:
+"If you go to the mayor's tell him what's going on. I'll just run home
+to my wife to reassure her."
+
+Then Felicite bent towards the marquis's ear, and whispered with
+discreet gaiety: "Upon my word, it is best that devil of a commander
+should go and get himself arrested. He's far too zealous."
+
+However, Rougon brought Granoux back to the drawing-room. Roudier, who
+had quietly followed the scene from his corner, making signs in support
+of the proposed measures of prudence, got up and joined them. When the
+marquis and Vuillet had likewise risen, Pierre began:
+
+"Now that we are alone, among peaceable men, I propose that we should
+conceal ourselves so as to avoid certain arrest, and be at liberty as
+soon as ours again becomes the stronger party."
+
+Granoux was ready to embrace him. Roudier and Vuillet breathed more
+easily.
+
+"I shall want you shortly, gentlemen," the oil-dealer continued, with
+an important air. "It is to us that the honour of restoring order in
+Plassans is reserved."
+
+"You may rely upon us!" cried Vuillet, with an enthusiasm which
+disturbed Felicite.
+
+Time was pressing. These singular defenders of Plassans, who hid
+themselves the better to protect the town, hastened away, to bury
+themselves in some hole or other. Pierre, on being left alone with
+his wife, advised her not to make the mistake of barricading herself
+indoors, but to reply, if anybody came to question her, that he, Pierre,
+had simply gone on a short journey. And as she acted the simpleton,
+feigning terror and asking what all this was coming to, he replied
+abruptly: "It's nothing to do with you. Let me manage our affairs alone.
+They'll get on all the better."
+
+A few minutes later he was rapidly threading his way along the Rue de
+la Banne. On reaching the Cours Sauvaire, he saw a band of armed workmen
+coming out of the old quarter and singing the "Marseillaise."
+
+"The devil!" he thought. "It was quite time, indeed; here's the town
+itself in revolt now!"
+
+He quickened his steps in the direction of the Porte de Rome. Cold
+perspiration came over him while he waited there for the dilatory keeper
+to open the gate. Almost as soon as he set foot on the high road, he
+perceived in the moonlight at the other end of the Faubourg the column
+of insurgents, whose gun barrels gleamed like white flames. So it was
+at a run that he dived into the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and reached his
+mother's house, which he had not visited for many a long year.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Antoine Macquart had returned to Plassans after the fall of the first
+Napoleon. He had had the incredible good fortune to escape all the
+final murderous campaigns of the Empire. He had moved from barracks
+to barracks, dragging on his brutifying military life. This mode of
+existence brought his natural vices to full development. His idleness
+became deliberate; his intemperance, which brought him countless
+punishments, became, to his mind, a veritable religious duty. But that
+which above all made him the worst of scapegraces was the supercilious
+disdain which he entertained for the poor devils who had to earn their
+bread.
+
+"I've got money waiting for me at home," he often said to his comrades;
+"when I've served my time, I shall be able to live like a gentleman."
+
+This belief, together with his stupid ignorance, prevented him from
+rising even to the grade of corporal.
+
+Since his departure he had never spent a day's furlough at Plassans, his
+brother having invented a thousand pretexts to keep him at a distance.
+He was therefore completely ignorant of the adroit manner in which
+Pierre had got possession of their mother's fortune. Adelaide, with her
+profound indifference, did not even write to him three times to tell him
+how she was going on. The silence which generally greeted his numerous
+requests for money did not awaken the least suspicion in him; Pierre's
+stinginess sufficed to explain the difficulty he experienced in securing
+from time to time a paltry twenty-franc piece. This, however, only
+increased his animosity towards his brother, who left him to languish
+in military service in spite of his formal promise to purchase his
+discharge. He vowed to himself that on his return home he would no
+longer submit like a child, but would flatly demand his share of the
+fortune to enable him to live as he pleased. In the diligence which
+conveyed him home he dreamed of a delightful life of idleness. The
+shattering of his castles in the air was terrible. When he reached
+the Faubourg, and could no longer even recognise the Fouques' plot of
+ground, he was stupefied. He was compelled to ask for his mother's new
+address. There a terrible scene occurred. Adelaide calmly informed him
+of the sale of the property. He flew into a rage, and even raised his
+hand against her.
+
+The poor woman kept repeating: "Your brother has taken everything; it is
+understood that he will take care of you."
+
+At last he left her and ran off to see Pierre, whom he had previously
+informed of his return, and who was prepared to receive him in such a
+way as to put an end to the matter at the first word of abuse.
+
+"Listen," the oil-dealer said to him, affecting distant coldness; "don't
+rouse my anger, or I'll turn you out. As a matter of fact, I don't know
+you. We don't bear the same name. It's quite misfortune enough for me
+that my mother misconducted herself, without having her offspring coming
+here and insulting me. I was well disposed towards you, but since you
+are insolent I shall do nothing for you, absolutely nothing."
+
+Antoine was almost choking with rage.
+
+"And what about my money," he cried; "will you give it up, you thief, or
+shall I have to drag you before the judges?"
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I've got no money of yours," he replied, more calmly than ever. "My
+mother disposed of her fortune as she thought proper. I am certainly not
+going to poke my nose into her business. I willingly renounced all hope
+of inheritance. I am quite safe from your foul accusations."
+
+And as his brother, exasperated by this composure, and not knowing what
+to think, muttered something, Pierre thrust Adelaide's receipt under his
+nose. The reading of this scrap of paper completed Antoine's dismay.
+
+"Very well," he said, in a calmer voice, "I know now what I have to do."
+
+The truth was, however, he did not know what to do. His inability to hit
+upon any immediate expedient for obtaining his share of the money and
+satisfying his desire of revenge increased his fury. He went back to
+his mother and subjected her to a disgraceful cross-examination. The
+wretched woman could do nothing but again refer him to Pierre.
+
+"Do you think you are going to make me run to and fro like a shuttle?"
+he cried, insolently. "I'll soon find out which of you two has the
+hoard. You've already squandered it, perhaps?"
+
+And making an allusion to her former misconduct he asked her if there
+were still not some low fellow to whom she gave her last sous? He did
+not even spare his father, that drunkard Macquart, as he called him,
+who must have lived on her till the day of his death, and who left his
+children in poverty. The poor woman listened with a stupefied air; big
+tears rolled down her cheeks. She defended herself with the terror of
+a child, replying to her son's questions as though he were a judge; she
+swore that she was living respectably, and reiterated with emphasis that
+she had never had a sou of the money, that Pierre had taken everything.
+Antoine almost came to believe it at last.
+
+"Ah! the scoundrel!" he muttered; "that's why he wouldn't purchase my
+discharge."
+
+He had to sleep at his mother's house, on a straw mattress flung in
+a corner. He had returned with his pockets perfectly empty, and was
+exasperated at finding himself destitute of resources, abandoned like
+a dog in the streets, without hearth or home, while his brother, as he
+thought, was in a good way of business, and living on the fat of
+the land. As he had no money to buy clothes with, he went out on the
+following day in his regimental cap and trousers. He had the good
+fortune to find, at the bottom of a cupboard, an old yellowish velveteen
+jacket, threadbare and patched, which had belonged to Macquart. In this
+strange attire he walked about the town, relating his story to everyone,
+and demanding justice.
+
+The people whom he went to consult received him with a contempt which
+made him shed tears of rage. Provincial folks are inexorable towards
+fallen families. In the general opinion it was only natural that the
+Rougon-Macquarts should seek to devour each other; the spectators,
+instead of separating them, were more inclined to urge them on. Pierre,
+however, was at that time already beginning to purify himself of his
+early stains. People laughed at his roguery; some even went so far as to
+say that he had done quite right, if he really had taken possession of
+the money, and that it would be a good lesson to the dissolute folks of
+the town.
+
+Antoine returned home discouraged. A lawyer had advised him, in a
+scornful manner, to wash his dirty linen at home, though not until he
+had skilfully ascertained whether Antoine possessed the requisite
+means to carry on a lawsuit. According to this man, the case was very
+involved, the pleadings would be very lengthy, and success was doubtful.
+Moreover, it would require money, and plenty of it.
+
+Antoine treated his mother yet more harshly that evening. Not knowing
+on whom else to wreak his vengeance, he repeated his accusation of the
+previous day; he kept the wretched woman up till midnight, trembling
+with shame and fright. Adelaide having informed him that Pierre made
+her an allowance, he now felt certain that his brother had pocketed
+the fifty thousand francs. But, in his irritation, he still affected to
+doubt it, and did not cease to question the poor woman, again and again
+reproaching her with misconduct.
+
+Antoine soon found out that, alone and without resources, he could not
+successfully carry on a contest with his brother. He then endeavoured
+to gain Adelaide to his cause; an accusation lodged by her might have
+serious consequences. But, at Antoine's first suggestion of it, the
+poor, lazy, lethargic creature firmly refused to bring trouble on her
+eldest son.
+
+"I am an unhappy woman," she stammered; "it is quite right of you to get
+angry. But I should feel too much remorse if I caused one of my sons to
+be sent to prison. No; I'd rather let you beat me."
+
+He saw that he would get nothing but tears out of her, and contented
+himself with saying that she was justly punished, and that he had no
+pity for her. In the evening, upset by the continual quarrels which her
+son had sought with her, Adelaide had one of those nervous attacks which
+kept her as rigid as if she had been dead. The young man threw her on
+her bed, and then began to rummage the house to see if the wretched
+woman had any savings hidden away. He found about forty francs. He took
+possession of them, and, while his mother still lay there, rigid and
+scarce able to breathe, he quietly took the diligence to Marseilles.
+
+He had just bethought himself that Mouret, the journeyman hatter who had
+married his sister Ursule, must be indignant at Pierre's roguery, and
+would no doubt be willing to defend his wife's interests. But he did
+not find in him the man he expected. Mouret plainly told him that he had
+become accustomed to look upon Ursule as an orphan, and would have no
+contentions with her family at any price. Their affairs were prospering.
+Antoine was received so coldly that he hastened to take the diligence
+home again. But, before leaving, he was anxious to revenge himself for
+the secret contempt which he read in the workman's eyes; and, observing
+that his sister appeared rather pale and dejected, he said to her
+husband, in a slyly cruel way, as he took his departure: "Have a care,
+my sister was always sickly, and I find her much changed for the worse;
+you may lose her altogether."
+
+The tears which rushed to Mouret's eyes convinced him that he had
+touched a sore wound. But then those work-people made too great a
+display of their happiness.
+
+When he was back again in Plassans, Antoine became the more menacing
+from the conviction that his hands were tied. During a whole month he
+was seen all over the place. He paraded the streets, recounting his
+story to all who would listen to him. Whenever he succeeded in extorting
+a franc from his mother, he would drink it away at some tavern, where he
+would revile his brother, declaring that the rascal should shortly hear
+from him. In places like these, the good-natured fraternity which reigns
+among drunkards procured him a sympathetic audience; all the scum of the
+town espoused his cause, and poured forth bitter imprecations against
+that rascal Rougon, who left a brave soldier to starve; the discussion
+generally terminating with an indiscriminate condemnation of the rich.
+Antoine, the better to revenge himself, continued to march about in his
+regimental cap and trousers and his old yellow velvet jacket, although
+his mother had offered to purchase some more becoming clothes for him.
+But no; he preferred to make a display of his rags, and paraded them on
+Sundays in the most frequented parts of the Cours Sauvaire.
+
+One of his most exquisite pleasures was to pass Pierre's shop ten
+times a day. He would enlarge the holes in his jacket with his fingers,
+slacken his step, and sometimes stand talking in front of the door, so
+as to remain longer in the street. On these occasions, too, he would
+bring one of his drunken friends and gossip to him; telling him about
+the theft of the fifty thousand francs, accompanying his narrative
+with loud insults and menaces, which could be heard by everyone in
+the street, and taking particular care that his abuse should reach the
+furthest end of the shop.
+
+"He'll finish by coming to beg in front of our house," Felicite used to
+say in despair.
+
+The vain little woman suffered terribly from this scandal. She even at
+this time felt some regret at ever having married Rougon; his family
+connections were so objectionable. She would have given all she had in
+the world to prevent Antoine from parading his rags. But Pierre, who
+was maddened by his brother's conduct, would not allow his name to be
+mentioned. When his wife tried to convince him that it would perhaps
+be better to free himself from all annoyance by giving Antoine a little
+money: "No, nothing; not a sou," he cried with rage. "Let him starve!"
+
+He confessed, however, at last that Antoine's demeanour was becoming
+intolerable. One day, Felicite, desiring to put an end to it, called to
+"that man," as she styled him with a disdainful curl on her lip. "That
+man" was in the act of calling her a foul name in the middle of the
+street, where he stood with one of his friends, even more ragged than
+himself. They were both drunk.
+
+"Come, they want us in there," said Antoine to his companion in a
+jeering tone.
+
+But Felicite drew back, muttering: "It's you alone we wish to speak to."
+
+"Bah!" the young man replied, "my friend's a decent fellow. You needn't
+mind him hearing. He'll be my witness."
+
+The witness sank heavily on a chair. He did not take off his hat, but
+began to stare around him, with the maudlin, stupid grin of drunkards
+and coarse people who know that they are insolent. Felicite was so
+ashamed that she stood in front of the shop door in order that
+people outside might not see what strange company she was receiving.
+Fortunately her husband came to the rescue. A violent quarrel ensued
+between him and his brother. The latter, after stammering insults,
+reiterated his old grievances twenty times over. At last he even began
+to cry, and his companion was near following his example. Pierre had
+defended himself in a very dignified manner.
+
+"Look here," he said at last, "you're unfortunate, and I pity you.
+Although you have cruelly insulted me, I can't forget that we are
+children of the same mother. If I give you anything, however, you must
+understand I give it you out of kindness, and not from fear. Would you
+like a hundred francs to help you out of your difficulties?"
+
+This abrupt offer of a hundred francs dazzled Antoine's companion. He
+looked at the other with an air of delight, which clearly signified: "As
+the gentleman offers a hundred francs, it is time to leave off
+abusing him." But Antoine was determined to speculate on his brother's
+favourable disposition. He asked him whether he took him for a fool; it
+was his share, ten thousand francs, that he wanted.
+
+"You're wrong, you're wrong," stuttered his friend.
+
+At last, as Pierre, losing all patience, was threatening to turn
+them both out, Antoine lowered his demands and contented himself with
+claiming one thousand francs. They quarrelled for another quarter of
+an hour over this amount. Finally, Felicite interfered. A crowd was
+gathering round the shop.
+
+"Listen," she said, excitedly; "my husband will give you two hundred
+francs. I'll undertake to buy you a suit of clothes, and hire a room for
+a year for you."
+
+Rougon got angry at this. But Antoine's comrade cried, with transports
+of delight: "All right, it's settled, then; my friend accepts."
+
+Antoine did, in fact, declare, in a surly way, that he would accept.
+He felt he would not be able to get any more. It was arranged that the
+money and clothes should be sent to him on the following day, and that a
+few days later, as soon as Felicite should have found a room for him, he
+would take up his quarters there. As they were leaving, the young
+man's sottish companion became as respectful as he had previously been
+insolent. He bowed to the company more than a dozen times, in an awkward
+and humble manner, muttering many indistinct thanks, as if the Rougons'
+gifts had been intended for himself.
+
+A week later Antoine occupied a large room in the old quarter, in which
+Felicite, exceeding her promises, had placed a bed, a table, and some
+chairs, on the young man formally undertaking not to molest them in
+future. Adelaide felt no regret at her son leaving her; the short stay
+he had made with her had condemned her to bread and water for more than
+three months. However, Antoine had soon eaten and drunk the two hundred
+francs he received from Pierre. He never for a moment thought of
+investing them in some little business which would have helped him to
+live. When he was again penniless, having no trade, and being, moreover,
+unwilling to work, he again sought to slip a hand into the Rougons'
+purse. Circumstances were not the same as before, however, and he failed
+to intimidate them. Pierre even took advantage of this opportunity to
+turn him out, and forbade him ever to set foot in his house again.
+It was of no avail for Antoine to repeat his former accusations. The
+townspeople, who were acquainted with his brother's munificence from
+the publicity which Felicite had given to it, declared him to be in
+the wrong, and called him a lazy, idle fellow. Meantime his hunger was
+pressing. He threatened to turn smuggler like his father, and perpetrate
+some crime which would dishonour his family. At this the Rougons
+shrugged their shoulders; they knew he was too much of a coward to risk
+his neck. At last, blindly enraged against his relatives in particular
+and society in general, Antoine made up his mind to seek some work.
+
+In a tavern of the Faubourg he made the acquaintance of a basket-maker
+who worked at home. He offered to help him. In a short time he learnt to
+plait baskets and hampers--a coarse and poorly-paid kind of labour which
+finds a ready market. He was very soon able to work on his own account.
+This trade pleased him, as it was not over laborious. He could still
+indulge his idleness, and that was what he chiefly cared for. He would
+only take to his work when he could no longer do otherwise; then he
+would hurriedly plait a dozen baskets and go and sell them in the
+market. As long as the money lasted he lounged about, visiting all
+the taverns and digesting his drink in the sunshine. Then, when he had
+fasted a whole day, he would once more take up his osier with a low
+growl and revile the wealthy who lived in idleness. The trade of a
+basket-maker, when followed in such a manner, is a thankless one.
+Antoine's work would not have sufficed to pay for his drinking bouts
+if he had not contrived a means of procuring his osier at low cost. He
+never bought any at Plassans, but used to say that he went each month to
+purchase a stock at a neighbouring town, where he pretended it was
+sold cheaper. The truth, however, was that he supplied himself from
+the osier-grounds of the Viorne on dark nights. A rural policeman even
+caught him once in the very act, and Antoine underwent a few days'
+imprisonment in consequence. It was from that time forward that he posed
+in the town as a fierce Republican. He declared that he had been quietly
+smoking his pipe by the riverside when the rural policeman arrested him.
+And he added: "They would like to get me out of the way because they
+know what my opinions are. But I'm not afraid of them, those rich
+scoundrels."
+
+At last, at the end of ten years of idleness, Antoine considered that
+he had been working too hard. His constant dream was to devise some
+expedient by which he might live at his ease without having to do
+anything. His idleness would never have rested content with bread and
+water; he was not like certain lazy persons who are willing to put up
+with hunger provided they can keep their hands in their pockets. He
+liked good feeding and nothing to do. He talked at one time of taking a
+situation as servant in some nobleman's house in the Saint-Marc quarter.
+But one of his friends, a groom, frightened him by describing the
+exacting ways of his masters. Finally Macquart, sick of his baskets,
+and seeing the time approach when he would be compelled to purchase
+the requisite osier, was on the point of selling himself as an army
+substitute and resuming his military life, which he preferred a thousand
+times to that of an artisan, when he made the acquaintance of a woman,
+an acquaintance which modified his plans.
+
+Josephine Gavaudan, who was known throughout the town by the familiar
+diminutive of Fine, was a tall, strapping wench of about thirty. With
+a square face of masculine proportions, and a few terribly long hairs
+about her chin and lips, she was cited as a doughty woman, one who could
+make the weight of her fist felt. Her broad shoulders and huge arms
+consequently inspired the town urchins with marvellous respect; and they
+did not even dare to smile at her moustache. Notwithstanding all this,
+Fine had a faint voice, weak and clear like that of a child. Those who
+were acquainted with her asserted that she was as gentle as a lamb, in
+spite of her formidable appearance. As she was very hard-working, she
+might have put some money aside if she had not had a partiality for
+liqueurs. She adored aniseed, and very often had to be carried home on
+Sunday evenings.
+
+On week days she would toil with the stubbornness of an animal. She had
+three or four different occupations; she sold fruit or boiled chestnuts
+in the market, according to the season; went out charring for a few
+well-to-do people; washed up plates and dishes at houses when parties
+were given, and employed her spare time in mending old chairs. She was
+more particularly known in the town as a chair-mender. In the South
+large numbers of straw-bottomed chairs are used.
+
+Antoine Macquart formed an acquaintance with Fine at the market. When he
+went to sell his baskets in the winter he would stand beside the stove
+on which she cooled her chestnuts and warm himself. He was astonished
+at her courage, he who was frightened of the least work. By degrees he
+discerned, beneath the apparent roughness of this strapping creature,
+signs of timidity and kindliness. He frequently saw her give handfuls of
+chestnuts to the ragged urchins who stood in ecstasy round her smoking
+pot. At other times, when the market inspector hustled her, she very
+nearly began to cry, apparently forgetting all about her heavy fists.
+Antoine at last decided that she was exactly the woman he wanted. She
+would work for both and he would lay down the law at home. She would
+be his beast of burden, an obedient, indefatigable animal. As for her
+partiality for liqueurs, he regarded this as quite natural. After well
+weighing the advantages of such an union, he declared himself to Fine,
+who was delighted with his proposal. No man had ever yet ventured to
+propose to her. Though she was told that Antoine was the most worthless
+of vagabonds, she lacked the courage to refuse matrimony. The very
+evening of the nuptials the young man took up his abode in his wife's
+lodgings in the Rue Civadiere, near the market. These lodgings,
+consisting of three rooms, were much more comfortably furnished than his
+own, and he gave a sigh of satisfaction as he stretched himself out on
+the two excellent mattresses which covered the bedstead.
+
+Everything went on very well for the first few days. Fine attended to
+her various occupations as in the past; Antoine, seized with a sort of
+marital self-pride which astonished even himself, plaited in one week
+more baskets than he had ever before done in a month. On the first
+Sunday, however, war broke out. The couple had a goodly sum of money in
+the house, and they spent it freely. During the night, when they were
+both drunk, they beat each other outrageously, without being able to
+remember on the morrow how it was that the quarrel had commenced. They
+had remained on most affectionate terms until about ten o'clock, when
+Antoine had begun to beat Fine brutally, whereupon the latter, growing
+exasperated and forgetting her meekness, had given him back as much as
+she received. She went to work again bravely on the following day, as
+though nothing had happened. But her husband, with sullen rancour,
+rose late and passed the remainder of the day smoking his pipe in the
+sunshine.
+
+From that time forward the Macquarts adopted the kind of life which
+they were destined to lead in the future. It became, as it were, tacitly
+understood between them that the wife should toil and moil to keep her
+husband. Fine, who had an instinctive liking for work, did not object
+to this. She was as patient as a saint, provided she had had no drink,
+thought it quite natural that her husband should remain idle, and even
+strove to spare him the most trifling labour. Her little weakness,
+aniseed, did not make her vicious, but just. On the evenings when
+she had forgotten herself in the company of a bottle of her favourite
+liqueur, if Antoine tried to pick a quarrel with her, she would set
+upon him with might and main, reproaching him with his idleness and
+ingratitude. The neighbours grew accustomed to the disturbances which
+periodically broke out in the couple's room. The two battered each other
+conscientiously; the wife slapped like a mother chastising a naughty
+child; but the husband, treacherous and spiteful as he was, measured his
+blows, and, on several occasions, very nearly crippled the unfortunate
+woman.
+
+"You'll be in a fine plight when you've broken one of my arms or legs,"
+she would say to him. "Who'll keep you then, you lazy fellow?"
+
+Excepting for these turbulent scenes, Antoine began to find his new mode
+of existence quite endurable. He was well clothed, and ate and drank his
+fill. He had laid aside the basket work altogether; sometimes, when he
+was feeling over-bored, he would resolve to plait a dozen baskets for
+the next market day; but very often he did not even finish the first
+one. He kept, under a couch, a bundle of osier which he did not use up
+in twenty years.
+
+The Macquarts had three children, two girls and a boy. Lisa,[*] born
+the first, in 1827, one year after the marriage, remained but little
+at home. She was a fine, big, healthy, full-blooded child, greatly
+resembling her mother. She did not, however, inherit the latter's animal
+devotion and endurance. Macquart had implanted in her a most decided
+longing for ease and comfort. While she was a child she would consent to
+work for a whole day in return for a cake. When she was scarcely seven
+years old, the wife of the postmaster, who was a neighbour of the
+Macquarts, took a liking to her. She made a little maid of her. And when
+she lost her husband in 1839, and went to live in Paris, she took Lisa
+with her. The parents had almost given her their daughter.
+
+     [*] The pork-butcher's wife in _Le Ventre de Paris_ (_The
+     Fat and the Thin_).
+
+The second girl, Gervaise,[*] born the following year, was a cripple
+from birth. Her right thigh was smaller than the left and showed signs
+of curvature, a curious hereditary result of the brutality which her
+mother had to endure during her fierce drunken brawls with Macquart.
+Gervaise remained puny, and Fine, observing her pallor and weakness,
+put her on a course of aniseed, under the pretext that she required
+something to strengthen her. But the poor child became still more
+emaciated. She was a tall, lank girl, whose frocks, invariably too
+large, hung round her as if they had nothing under them. Above a
+deformed and puny body she had a sweet little doll-like head, a tiny
+round face, pale and exquisitely delicate. Her infirmity almost became
+graceful. Her body swayed gently at every step with a sort of rhythmical
+swing.
+
+     [*] The chief female character in _L'Assommoir_ (_The Dramshop_).
+
+The Macquarts' son, Jean,[*] was born three years later. He was a robust
+child, in no respect recalling Gervaise. Like the eldest girl, he took
+after his mother, without having any physical resemblance to her. He
+was the first to import into the Rougon-Macquart stock a fat face with
+regular features, which showed all the coldness of a grave yet not
+over-intelligent nature. This boy grew up with the determination of
+some day making an independent position for himself. He attended school
+diligently, and tortured his dull brain to force a little arithmetic and
+spelling into it. After that he became an apprentice, repeating much
+the same efforts with a perseverance that was the more meritorious as it
+took him a whole day to learn what others acquired in an hour.
+
+     [*] Figures prominently in _La Terre_ (_The Earth_) and _La
+     Debacle_ (_The Downfall_).
+
+As long as these poor little things remained a burden to the house,
+Antoine grumbled. They were useless mouths that lessened his own share.
+He vowed, like his brother, that he would have no more children, those
+greedy creatures who bring their parents to penury. It was something to
+hear him bemoan his lot when they sat five at table, and the mother gave
+the best morsels to Jean, Lisa, and Gervaise.
+
+"That's right," he would growl; "stuff them, make them burst!"
+
+Whenever Fine bought a garment or a pair of boots for them, he would
+sulk for days together. Ah! if he had only known, he would never had had
+that pack of brats, who compelled him to limit his smoking to four sous'
+worth of tobacco a day, and too frequently obliged him to eat stewed
+potatoes for dinner, a dish which he heartily detested.
+
+Later on, however, as soon as Jean and Gervaise earned their first
+francs, he found some good in children after all. Lisa was no longer
+there. He lived upon the earnings of the two others without compunction,
+as he had already lived upon their mother. It was a well-planned
+speculation on his part. As soon as little Gervaise was eight years old,
+she went to a neighbouring dealer's to crack almonds; she there earned
+ten sous a day, which her father pocketed right royally, without even
+a question from Fine as to what became of the money. The young girl was
+next apprenticed to a laundress, and as soon as she received two francs
+a day for her work, the two francs strayed in a similar manner into
+Macquart's hands. Jean, who had learnt the trade of a carpenter, was
+likewise despoiled on pay-days, whenever Macquart succeeded in catching
+him before he had handed the money to his mother. If the money escaped
+Macquart, which sometimes happened, he became frightfully surly. He
+would glare at his wife and children for a whole week, picking a quarrel
+for nothing, although he was, as yet, ashamed to confess the real cause
+of his irritations. On the next pay-day, however, he would station
+himself on the watch, and as soon as he had succeeded in pilfering the
+youngster's earnings, he disappeared for days together.
+
+Gervaise, beaten and brought up in the streets among all the lads of the
+neighbourhood, became a mother when she was fourteen years of age. The
+father of her child was not eighteen years old. He was a journeyman
+tanner named Lantier. At first Macquart was furious, but he calmed
+down somewhat when he learnt that Lantier's mother, a worthy woman, was
+willing to take charge of the child. He kept Gervaise, however; she was
+then already earning twenty-five sous a day, and he therefore avoided
+all question of marriage. Four years later she had a second child, which
+was likewise taken in by Lantier's mother. This time Macquart shut his
+eyes altogether. And when Fine timidly suggested that it was time to
+come to some understanding with the tanner, in order to end a state of
+things which made people chatter, he flatly declared that his daughter
+should not leave him, and that he would give her to her lover later on,
+"when he was worthy of her, and had enough money to furnish a home."
+
+This was a fine time for Antoine Macquart. He dressed like a gentleman,
+in frock-coats and trousers of the finest cloth. Cleanly shaved, and
+almost fat, he was no longer the emaciated ragged vagabond who had been
+wont to frequent the taverns. He dropped into cafes, read the papers,
+and strolled on the Cours Sauvaire. He played the gentleman as long as
+he had any money in his pocket. At times of impecuniosity he remained at
+home, exasperated at being kept in his hovel and prevented from taking
+his customary cup of coffee. On such occasions he would reproach the
+whole human race with his poverty, making himself ill with rage and
+envy, until Fine, out of pity, would often give him the last silver coin
+in the house so that he might spend his evening at the cafe. This dear
+fellow was fiercely selfish. Gervaise, who brought home as much as sixty
+francs a month, wore only thin cotton frocks, while he had black satin
+waistcoats made for him by one of the best tailors in Plassans.
+
+Jean, the big lad who earned three or four francs a day, was perhaps
+robbed even more impudently. The cafe where his father passed entire
+days was just opposite his master's workshop, and while he had plane or
+saw in hand he could see "Monsieur" Macquart on the other side of the
+way, sweetening his coffee or playing piquet with some petty annuitant.
+It was his money that the lazy old fellow was gambling away. He, Jean,
+never stepped inside a cafe, he never had so much as five sous to pay
+for a drink. Antoine treated him like a little girl, never leaving him a
+centime, and always demanding an exact account of the manner in which he
+had employed his time. If the unfortunate lad, led away by some of
+his mates, wasted a day somewhere in the country, on the banks of the
+Viorne, or on the slopes of Garrigues, his father would storm and raise
+his hand, and long bear him a grudge on account of the four francs less
+that he received at the end of the fortnight. He thus held his son in
+a state of dependence, sometimes even looking upon the sweethearts whom
+the young carpenter courted as his own. Several of Gervaise's friends
+used to come to the Macquarts' house, work-girls from sixteen to
+eighteen years of age, bold and boisterous girls who, on certain
+evenings, filled the room with youth and gaiety. Poor Jean, deprived of
+all pleasure, ever kept at home by the lack of money, looked at these
+girls with longing eyes; but the childish life which he was compelled
+to lead had implanted invincible shyness in him; in playing with his
+sister's friends, he was hardly bold enough to touch them with the tips
+of his fingers. Macquart used to shrug his shoulders with pity.
+
+"What a simpleton!" he would mutter, with an air of ironical
+superiority.
+
+And it was he who would kiss the girls, when his wife's back was turned.
+He carried his attentions even further with a little laundress whom Jean
+pursued rather more earnestly than the others. One fine evening he stole
+her almost from his arms. The old rogue prided himself on his gallantry.
+
+There are some men who live upon their mistresses. Antoine Macquart
+lived on his wife and children with as much shamelessness and impudence.
+He did not feel the least compunction in pillaging the home and going
+out to enjoy himself when the house was bare. He still assumed a
+supercilious air, returning from the cafe only to rail against the
+poverty and wretchedness that awaited him at home. He found the dinner
+detestable, he called Gervaise a blockhead, and declared that Jean would
+never be a man. Immersed in his own selfish indulgence, he rubbed his
+hands whenever he had eaten the best piece in the dish; and then he
+smoked his pipe, puffing slowly, while the two poor children, overcome
+with fatigue, went to sleep with their heads resting on the table.
+Thus Macquart passed his days in lazy enjoyment. It seemed to him quite
+natural that he should be kept in idleness like a girl, to sprawl about
+on the benches of some tavern, or stroll in the cool of the day along
+the Cours or the Mail. At last he went so far as to relate his amorous
+escapades in the presence of his son, who listened with glistening
+eyes. The children never protested, accustomed as they were to see their
+mother humble herself before her husband.
+
+Fine, that strapping woman who drubbed him soundly when they were both
+intoxicated, always trembled before him when she was sober, and allowed
+him to rule despotically at home. He robbed her in the night of the
+coppers which she had earned during the day at the market, but she
+never dared to protest, except by veiled rebukes. Sometimes, when he had
+squandered the week's money in advance, he accused her, poor thing, who
+worked herself to death, of being stupid and not knowing how to manage.
+Fine, as gentle as a lamb, replied, in her soft, clear voice, which
+contrasted so strangely with her big figure, that she was no longer
+twenty years old, and that money was becoming hard to earn. In order
+to console herself, she would buy a pint of aniseed, and drink little
+glassfuls of it with her daughter of an evening, after Antoine had gone
+back to the cafe. That was their dissipation. Jean went to bed, while
+the two women remained at the table, listening attentively in order to
+remove the bottle and glasses at the first sound.
+
+When Macquart was late, they often became intoxicated by the many "nips"
+they thus thoughtlessly imbibed. Stupefied and gazing at each other
+with vague smiles, this mother and daughter would end by stuttering.
+Red patches appeared on Gervaise's cheeks; her delicate doll-like face
+assumed a look of maudlin beatitude. Nothing could be more heart-rending
+than to see this wretched, pale child, aglow with drink and wearing the
+idiotic smile of a confirmed sot about her moist lips. Fine, huddled
+up on her chair, became heavy and drowsy. They sometimes forgot to keep
+watch, or even lacked the strength to remove the bottle and glasses when
+Antoine's footsteps were heard on the stairs. On these occasions
+blows were freely exchanged among the Macquarts. Jean had to get up
+to separate his father and mother and make his sister go to bed, as
+otherwise she would have slept on the floor.
+
+Every political party numbers its grotesques and its villains. Antoine
+Macquart, devoured by envy and hatred, and meditating revenge against
+society in general, welcomed the Republic as a happy era when he would
+be allowed to fill his pockets from his neighbour's cash-box, and even
+strangle the neighbour if the latter manifested any displeasure.
+His cafe life and all the newspaper articles he had read without
+understanding them had made him a terrible ranter who enunciated the
+strangest of political theories. It is necessary to have heard one of
+those malcontents who ill digest what they read, haranguing the company
+in some provincial taproom, in order to conceive the degree of hateful
+folly at which Macquart had arrived. As he talked a good deal, had
+seen active service, and was naturally regarded as a man of energy and
+spirit, he was much sought after and listened to by simpletons. Although
+he was not the chief of any party, he had succeeded in collecting
+round him a small group of working-men who took his jealous ravings for
+expressions of honest and conscientious indignation.
+
+Directly after the Revolution of February '48, he persuaded himself that
+Plassans was his own, and, as he strolled along the streets, the
+jeering manner in which he regarded the little retail traders who stood
+terrified at their shop doors clearly signified: "Our day has come,
+my little lambs; we are going to lead you a fine dance!" He had grown
+insolent beyond belief; he acted the part of a victorious despot to
+such a degree that he ceased to pay for his drinks at the cafe, and the
+landlord, a simpleton who trembled whenever Antoine rolled his eyes,
+dared not present his bill. The number of cups of coffee he consumed
+during this period was incalculable; sometimes he invited his friends,
+and shouted for hours together that the people were dying of hunger, and
+that the rich ought to share their wealth with them. He himself would
+never have given a sou to a beggar.
+
+That which chiefly converted him into a fierce Republican was the hope
+of at last being able to revenge himself on the Rougons, who had openly
+ranged themselves on the side of the reactionary party. Ah, what a
+triumph if he could only hold Pierre and Felicite at his mercy! Although
+the latter had not succeeded over well in business, they had at
+last become gentlefolks, while he, Macquart, had still remained a
+working-man. That exasperated him. Perhaps he was still more mortified
+because one of their sons was a barrister, another a doctor, and the
+third a clerk, while his son Jean merely worked at a carpenter's shop,
+and his daughter Gervaise at a washerwoman's. When he compared the
+Macquarts with the Rougons, he was still more ashamed to see his wife
+selling chestnuts in the market, and mending the greasy old straw-seated
+chairs of the neighbourhood in the evening. Pierre, after all, was but
+his brother, and had no more right than himself to live fatly on his
+income. Moreover, this brother was actually playing the gentleman with
+money stolen from him. Whenever Macquart touched upon this subject, he
+became fiercely enraged; he clamoured for hours together, incessantly
+repeating his old accusations, and never wearying of exclaiming: "If
+my brother was where he ought to be, I should be the moneyed man at the
+present time!"
+
+And when anyone asked him where his brother ought to be, he would reply,
+"At the galleys!" in a formidable voice.
+
+His hatred further increased when the Rougons had gathered the
+Conservatives round them, and thus acquired a certain influence in
+Plassans. The famous yellow drawing-room became, in his hare-brained
+chatter at the cafe, a cave of bandits, an assembly of villains who
+every evening swore on their daggers that they would murder the people.
+In order to incite the starvelings against Pierre, Macquart went so far
+as to circulate a report that the retired oil-dealer was not so poor as
+he pretended, but that he concealed his treasures through avarice and
+fear of robbery. His tactics thus tended to rouse the poor people by a
+repetition of absurdly ridiculous tales, which he often came to believe
+in himself. His personal animosity and his desire for revenge were ill
+concealed beneath his professions of patriotism; but he was heard so
+frequently, and he had such a loud voice, that no one would have dared
+to doubt the genuineness of his convictions.
+
+At bottom, all the members of this family had the same brutish passions.
+Felicite, who clearly understood that Macquart's wild theories were
+simply the fruit of restrained rage and embittered envy, would much have
+liked to purchase his silence. Unfortunately, she was short of money,
+and did not dare to interest him in the dangerous game which her husband
+was playing. Antoine now injured them very much among the well-to-do
+people of the new town. It sufficed that he was a relation of theirs.
+Granoux and Roudier often scornfully reproached them for having such a
+man in their family. Felicite consequently asked herself with anguish
+how they could manage to cleanse themselves of such a stain.
+
+It seemed to her monstrous and indecent that Monsieur Rougon should have
+a brother whose wife sold chestnuts, and who himself lived in crapulous
+idleness. She at last even trembled for the success of their secret
+intrigues, so long as Antoine seemingly took pleasure in compromising
+them. When the diatribes which he levelled at the yellow drawing-room
+were reported to her, she shuddered at the thought that he was capable
+of becoming desperate and ruining all their hopes by force of scandal.
+
+Antoine knew what consternation his demeanour must cause the Rougons,
+and it was solely for the purpose of exhausting their patience that he
+from day to day affected fiercer opinions. At the cafe he frequented
+he used to speak of "my brother Pierre" in a voice which made everybody
+turn round; and if he happened to meet some reactionary from the yellow
+drawing-room in the street, he would mutter some low abuse which the
+worthy citizen, amazed at such audacity, would repeat to the Rougons
+in the evening, as though to make them responsible for his disagreeable
+encounter.
+
+One day Granoux arrived in a state of fury.
+
+"Really," he exclaimed, when scarcely across the threshold, "it's
+intolerable; one can't move a step without being insulted." Then,
+addressing Pierre, he added: "When one has a brother like yours, sir,
+one should rid society of him. I was just quietly walking past the
+Sub-Prefecture, when that rascal passed me muttering something in which
+I could clearly distinguish the words 'old rogue.'"
+
+Felicite turned pale, and felt it necessary to apologise to Granoux, but
+he refused to accept any excuses, and threatened to leave altogether.
+The marquis, however, exerted himself to arrange matters.
+
+"It is very strange," he said, "that the wretched fellow should have
+called you an old rogue. Are you sure that he intended the insult for
+you?"
+
+Granoux was perplexed; he admitted at last, however, that Antoine might
+have muttered: "So you are again going to that old rogue's?"
+
+At this Monsieur de Carnavant stroked his chin to conceal the smile
+which rose to his lips in spite of himself.
+
+Then Rougon, with superb composure, replied: "I thought as much; the
+'old rogue' was no doubt intended for me. I've very glad that this
+misunderstanding is now cleared up. Gentlemen, pray avoid the man in
+question, whom I formally repudiate."
+
+Felicite, however, did not take matters so coolly; every fresh scandal
+caused by Macquart made her more and more uneasy; she would sometimes
+pass the whole night wondering what those gentlemen must think of the
+matter.
+
+A few months before the Coup d'Etat, the Rougons received an anonymous
+letter, three pages of foul insults, in which they were warned that
+if their party should ever triumph, the scandalous story of Adelaide's
+amours would be published in some newspaper, together with an account
+of the robbery perpetrated by Pierre, when he had compelled his mother,
+driven out of her senses by debauchery, to sign a receipt for fifty
+thousand francs. This letter was a heavy blow for Rougon himself.
+Felicite could not refrain from reproaching her husband with his
+disreputable family; for the husband and wife never for a moment doubted
+that this letter was Antoine's work.
+
+"We shall have to get rid of the blackguard at any price," said Pierre
+in a gloomy tone. "He's becoming too troublesome by far."
+
+In the meantime, Macquart, resorting to his former tactics, looked round
+among his own relatives for accomplices who would join him against the
+Rougons. He had counted upon Aristide at first, on reading his terrible
+articles in the "Independant." But the young man, in spite of all his
+jealous rage, was not so foolish as to make common cause with such
+a fellow as his uncle. He never even minced matters with him, but
+invariably kept him at a distance, a circumstance which induced Antoine
+to regard him suspiciously. In the taverns, where Macquart reigned
+supreme, people went so far as to say the journalist was paid to provoke
+disturbances.
+
+Baffled on this side, Macquart had no alternative but to sound his
+sister Ursule's children. Ursule had died in 1839, thus fulfilling her
+brother's evil prophecy. The nervous affection which she had inherited
+from her mother had turned into slow consumption, which gradually killed
+her. She left three children; a daughter, eighteen years of age, named
+Helene, who married a clerk, and two boys, the elder, Francois, a young
+man of twenty-three, and the younger, a sickly little fellow scarcely
+six years old, named Silvere. The death of his wife, whom he adored,
+proved a thunderbolt to Mouret. He dragged on his existence for another
+year, neglecting his business and losing all the money he had saved.
+Then, one morning, he was found hanging in a cupboard where Ursule's
+dresses were still suspended. His elder son, who had received a good
+commercial training, took a situation in the house of his uncle Rougon,
+where he replaced Aristide, who had just left.
+
+Rougon, in spite of his profound hatred for the Macquarts, gladly
+welcomed this nephew, whom he knew to be industrious and sober. He
+was in want of a youth whom he could trust, and who would help him to
+retrieve his affairs. Moreover, during the time of Mouret's prosperity,
+he had learnt to esteem the young couple, who knew how to make money,
+and thus he had soon become reconciled with his sister. Perhaps he
+thought he was making Francois some compensation by taking him into his
+business; having robbed the mother, he would shield himself from remorse
+by giving employment to the son; even rogues make honest calculations
+sometimes. It was, however, a good thing for him. If the house of Rougon
+did not make a fortune at this time, it was certainly through no fault
+of that quiet, punctilious youth, Francois, who seemed born to pass his
+life behind a grocer's counter, between a jar of oil and a bundle
+of dried cod-fish. Although he physically resembled his mother, he
+inherited from his father a just if narrow mind, with an instinctive
+liking for a methodical life and the safe speculations of a small
+business.
+
+Three months after his arrival, Pierre, pursuing his system of
+compensation, married him to his young daughter Marthe,[*] whom he did
+not know how to dispose of. The two young people fell in love with
+each other quite suddenly, in a few days. A peculiar circumstance had
+doubtless determined and enhanced their mutual affection. There was a
+remarkably close resemblance between them, suggesting that of brother
+and sister. Francois inherited, through Ursule, the face of his
+grandmother Adelaide. Marthe's case was still more curious; she was an
+equally exact portrait of Adelaide, although Pierre Rougon had none of
+his mother's features distinctly marked; the physical resemblance
+had, as it were, passed over Pierre, to reappear in his daughter. The
+similarity between husband and wife went, however, no further than
+their faces; if the worthy son of a steady matter-of-fact hatter was
+distinguishable in Francois, Marthe showed the nervousness and mental
+weakness of her grandmother. Perhaps it was this combination of physical
+resemblance and moral dissimilarity which threw the young people into
+each other's arms. From 1840 to 1844 they had three children. Francois
+remained in his uncle's employ until the latter retired. Pierre had
+desired to sell him the business, but the young man knew what small
+chance there was of making a fortune in trade at Plassans; so he
+declined the offer and repaired to Marseilles, where he established
+himself with his little savings.
+
+     [*] Both Francois and Marthe figure largely in _The Conquest
+     of Plassans_.
+
+Macquart soon had to abandon all hope of dragging this big industrious
+fellow into his campaign against the Rougons; whereupon, with all the
+spite of a lazybones, he regarded him as a cunning miser. He fancied,
+however, that he had discovered the accomplice he was seeking in
+Mouret's second son, a lad of fifteen years of age. Young Silvere had
+never even been to school at the time when Mouret was found hanging
+among his wife's skirts. His elder brother, not knowing what to do
+with him, took him also to his uncle's. The latter made a wry face on
+beholding the child; he had no intention of carrying his compensation so
+far as to feed a useless mouth. Thus Silvere, to whom Felicite also took
+a dislike, was growing up in tears, like an unfortunate little outcast,
+when his grandmother Adelaide, during one of the rare visits she paid
+the Rougons, took pity on him, and expressed a wish to have him with
+her. Pierre was delighted; he let the child go, without even suggesting
+an increase of the paltry allowance that he made Adelaide, and which
+henceforward would have to suffice for two.
+
+Adelaide was then nearly seventy-five years of age. Grown old while
+leading a cloistered existence, she was no longer the lanky ardent girl
+who formerly ran to embrace the smuggler Macquart. She had stiffened and
+hardened in her hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, that dismal silent
+hole where she lived entirely alone on potatoes and dry vegetables, and
+which she did not leave once in the course of a month. On seeing her
+pass, you might have thought her to be one of those delicately white old
+nuns with automatic gait, whom the cloister has kept apart from all the
+concerns of this world. Her pale face, always scrupulously girt with a
+white cap, looked like that of a dying woman; a vague, calm countenance
+it was, wearing an air of supreme indifference. Prolonged taciturnity
+had made her dumb; the darkness of her dwelling and the continual
+sight of the same objects had dulled her glance and given her eyes the
+limpidity of spring water. Absolute renunciation, slow physical and
+moral death, had little by little converted this crazy _amorosa_ into a
+grave matron. When, as often happened, a blank stare came into her
+eyes, and she gazed before her without seeing anything, one could detect
+utter, internal void through those deep bright cavities.
+
+Nothing now remained of her former voluptuous ardour but weariness of
+the flesh and a senile tremor of the hands. She had once loved like
+a she-wolf, but was now wasted, already sufficiently worn out for the
+grave. There had been strange workings of her nerves during her long
+years of chastity. A dissolute life would perhaps have wrecked her less
+than the slow hidden ravages of unsatisfied fever which had modified her
+organism.
+
+Sometimes, even now, this moribund, pale old woman, who seemed to have
+no blood left in her, was seized with nervous fits like electric shocks,
+which galvanised her, and for an hour brought her atrocious intensity of
+life. She would lie on her bed rigid, with her eyes open; then hiccoughs
+would come upon her and she would writhe and struggle, acquiring the
+frightful strength of those hysterical madwomen whom one has to tie down
+in order to prevent them from breaking their heads against a wall.
+This return to former vigour, these sudden attacks, gave her a terrible
+shock. When she came to again, she would stagger about with such a
+scared, stupefied look, that the gossips of the Faubourg used to say:
+"She's been drinking, the crazy old thing!"
+
+Little Silvere's childish smile was for her the last pale ray which
+brought some warmth to her frozen limbs. Weary of solitude, and
+frightened at the thought of dying alone in one of her fits, she had
+asked to have the child. With the little fellow running about near
+her, she felt secure against death. Without relinquishing her habits of
+taciturnity, or seeking to render her automatic movements more supple,
+she conceived inexpressible affection for him. Stiff and speechless, she
+would watch him playing for hours together, listening with delight to
+the intolerable noise with which he filled the old hovel. That tomb
+had resounded with uproar ever since Silvere had been running about it,
+bestriding broomsticks, knocking up against the doors, and shouting and
+crying. He brought Adelaide back to the world, as it were; she looked
+after him with the most adorable awkwardness; she who, in her youth,
+had neglected the duties of a mother, now felt the divine pleasures
+of maternity in washing his face, dressing him, and watching over his
+sickly life. It was a reawakening of love, a last soothing passion which
+heaven had granted to this woman who had been so ravaged by the want of
+some one to love; the touching agony of a heart that had lived amidst
+the most acute desires, and which was now dying full of love for a
+child.
+
+She was already too far gone to pour forth the babble of good plump
+grandmothers; she adored the child in secret with the bashfulness of a
+young girl, without knowing how to fondle him. Sometimes she took him on
+her knees, and gazed at him for a long time with her pale eyes. When
+the little one, frightened by her mute white visage, began to cry, she
+seemed perplexed by what she had done, and quickly put him down upon the
+floor without even kissing him. Perhaps she recognised in him a faint
+resemblance to Macquart the poacher.
+
+Silvere grew up, ever tete-a-tete with Adelaide. With childish cajolery
+he used to call her aunt Dide, a name which ultimately clung to the
+old woman; the word "aunt" employed in this way is simply a term of
+endearment in Provence. The child entertained singular affection, not
+unmixed with respectful terror, for his grandmother. During her nervous
+fits, when he was quite a little boy, he ran away from her, crying,
+terrified by her disfigured countenance; and he came back very timidly
+after the attack, ready to run away again, as though the old woman were
+disposed to beat him. Later on, however, when he was twelve years old,
+he would stop there bravely and watch in order that she might not hurt
+herself by falling off the bed. He stood for hours holding her tightly
+in his arms to subdue the rude shocks which distorted her. During
+intervals of calmness he would gaze with pity on her convulsed features
+and withered frame, over which her skirts lay like a shroud. These
+hidden dramas, which recurred every month, this old woman as rigid as
+a corpse, this child bent over her, silently watching for the return
+of consciousness, made up amidst the darkness of the hovel a strange
+picture of mournful horror and broken-hearted tenderness.
+
+When aunt Dide came round, she would get up with difficulty, and set
+about her work in the hovel without even questioning Silvere. She
+remembered nothing, and the child, from a sort of instinctive prudence,
+avoided the least allusion to what had taken place. These recurring
+fits, more than anything else, strengthened Silvere's deep attachment
+for his grandmother. In the same manner as she adored him without any
+garrulous effusiveness, he felt a secret, almost bashful, affection for
+her. While he was really very grateful to her for having taken him in
+and brought him up, he could not help regarding her as an extraordinary
+creature, a prey to some strange malady, whom he ought to pity and
+respect. No doubt there was not sufficient life left in Adelaide; she
+was too white and too stiff for Silvere to throw himself on her neck.
+Thus they lived together amidst melancholy silence, in the depths of
+which they felt the tremor of boundless love.
+
+The sad, solemn atmosphere, which he had breathed from childhood, gave
+Silvere a strong heart, in which gathered every form of enthusiasm. He
+early became a serious, thoughtful little man, seeking instruction with
+a kind of stubbornness. He only learnt a little spelling and arithmetic
+at the school of the Christian Brothers, which he was compelled to leave
+when he was but twelve years old, on account of his apprenticeship. He
+never acquired the first rudiments of knowledge. However, he read all
+the odd volumes which fell into his hands, and thus provided himself
+with strange equipment; he had some notions of a multitude of subjects,
+ill-digested notions, which he could never classify distinctly in his
+head. When he was quite young, he had been in the habit of playing in
+the workshop of a master wheelwright, a worthy man named Vian, who lived
+at the entrance of the blind-alley in front of the Aire Saint-Mittre
+where he stored his timber. Silvere used to jump up on the wheels of the
+tilted carts undergoing repair, and amuse himself by dragging about
+the heavy tools which his tiny hands could scarcely lift. One of his
+greatest pleasures, too, was to assist the workmen by holding some piece
+of wood for them, or bringing them the iron-work which they required.
+When he had grown older he naturally became apprenticed to Vian. The
+latter had taken a liking to the little fellow who was always kicking
+about his heels, and asked Adelaide to let him come, refusing to take
+anything for his board and lodging. Silvere eagerly accepted, already
+foreseeing the time when he would be able to make his poor aunt Dide
+some return for all she had spent upon him.
+
+In a short time he became an excellent workman. He cherished, however,
+much higher ambitions. Having once seen, at a coachbuilder's at
+Plassans, a fine new carriage, shining with varnish, he vowed that he
+would one day build carriages himself. He remembered this carriage as
+a rare and unique work of art, an ideal towards which his aspirations
+should tend. The tilted carts at which he worked in Vian's shop, those
+carts which he had lovingly cherished, now seemed unworthy of his
+affections. He began to attend the local drawing-school, where he formed
+a connection with a youngster who had left college, and who lent him an
+old treatise on geometry. He plunged into this study without a guide,
+racking his brains for weeks together in order to grasp the simplest
+problem in the world. In this matter he gradually became one of those
+learned workmen who can hardly sign their name and yet talk about
+algebra as though it were an intimate friend.
+
+Nothing unsettles the mind so much as this desultory kind of education,
+which reposes on no firm basis. Most frequently such scraps of knowledge
+convey an absolutely false idea of the highest truths, and render
+persons of limited intellect insufferably stupid. In Silvere's case,
+however, his scraps of stolen knowledge only augmented his liberal
+aspirations. He was conscious of horizons which at present remained
+closed to him. He formed for himself divine conceptions of things beyond
+his reach, and lived on, regarding in a deep, innocent, religious way
+the noble thoughts and grand conceptions towards which he was raising
+himself, but which he could not as yet comprehend. He was one of the
+simple-minded, one whose simplicity was divine, and who had remained
+on the threshold of the temple, kneeling before the tapers which from a
+distance he took for stars.
+
+The hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre consisted, in the first place,
+of a large room into which the street door opened. The only pieces of
+furniture in this room, which had a stone floor, and served both as a
+kitchen and a dining-room, were some straw-seated chairs, a table on
+trestles, and an old coffer which Adelaide had converted into a sofa, by
+spreading a piece of woollen stuff over the lid. In the left hand
+corner of the large fireplace stood a plaster image of the Holy Virgin,
+surrounded by artificial flowers; she is the traditional good mother of
+all old Provencal women, however irreligious they may be. A passage led
+from the room into a yard situated at the rear of the house; in this
+yard there was a well. Aunt Dide's bedroom was on the left side of the
+passage; it was a little apartment containing an iron bedstead and one
+chair; Silvere slept in a still smaller room on the right hand side,
+just large enough for a trestle bedstead; and he had been obliged to
+plan a set of shelves, reaching up to the ceiling, to keep by him
+all those dear odd volumes which he saved his sous to purchase from a
+neighbouring general dealer. When he read at night-time, he would hang
+his lamp on a nail at the head of the bed. If his grandmother had an
+attack, he merely had to leap out at the first gasp to be at her side in
+a moment.
+
+The young man led the life of a child. He passed his existence in this
+lonely spot. Like his father, he felt a dislike for taverns and Sunday
+strolling. His mates wounded his delicate susceptibilities by their
+coarse jokes. He preferred to read, to rack his rain over some simple
+geometrical problem. Since aunt Dide had entrusted him with the
+little household commissions she did not go out at all, but ceased all
+intercourse even with her family. The young man sometimes thought of her
+forlornness; he reflected that the poor old woman lived but a few steps
+from the children who strove to forget her, as though she were dead;
+and this made him love her all the more, for himself and for the others.
+When he at times entertained a vague idea that aunt Dide might be
+expiating some former transgressions, he would say to himself: "I was
+born to pardon her."
+
+A nature such as Silvere's, ardent yet self-restrained, naturally
+cherished the most exalted republican ideas. At night, in his little
+hovel, Silvere would again and again read a work of Rousseau's which he
+had picked up at the neighbouring dealer's among a number of old locks.
+The reading of this book kept him awake till daylight. Amidst his dream
+of universal happiness so dear to the poor, the words liberty, equality,
+fraternity, rang in his ears like those sonorous sacred calls of the
+bells, at the sound of which the faithful fall upon their knees. When,
+therefore, he learnt that the Republic had just been proclaimed in
+France he fancied that the whole world would enjoy a life of celestial
+beatitude. His knowledge, though imperfect, made him see farther than
+other workmen; his aspirations did not stop at daily bread; but his
+extreme ingenuousness, his complete ignorance of mankind, kept him
+in the dreamland of theory, a Garden of Eden where universal justice
+reigned. His paradise was for a long time a delightful spot in which he
+forgot himself.
+
+When he came to perceive that things did not go on quite satisfactorily
+in the best of republics he was sorely grieved, and indulged in another
+dream, that of compelling men to be happy even by force. Every act which
+seemed to him prejudicial to the interest of the people roused him to
+revengeful indignation. Though he was as gentle as a child, he cherished
+the fiercest political animosity. He would not have killed a fly, and
+yet he was for ever talking of a call to arms. Liberty was his passion,
+an unreasoning, absolute passion, to which he gave all the feverish
+ardour of his blood. Blinded by enthusiasm, he was both too ignorant and
+too learned to be tolerant, and would not allow for men's weaknesses; he
+required an ideal government of perfect justice and perfect liberty. It
+was at this period that Antoine Macquart thought of setting him against
+the Rougons. He fancied that this young enthusiast would work terrible
+havoc if he were only exasperated to the proper pitch. This calculation
+was not altogether devoid of shrewdness.
+
+Such being Antoine's scheme, he tried to induce Silvere to visit him, by
+professing inordinate admiration for the young man's ideas. But he
+very nearly compromised the whole matter at the outset. He had a way
+of regarding the triumph of the Republic as a question of personal
+interest, as an era of happy idleness and endless junketing, which
+chilled his nephew's purely moral aspirations. However, he perceived
+that he was on the wrong track, and plunged into strange bathos, a
+string of empty but high-sounding words, which Silvere accepted as a
+satisfactory proof of his civism. Before long the uncle and the nephew
+saw each other two or three times a week. During their long discussions,
+in which the fate of the country was flatly settled, Antoine endeavoured
+to persuade the young man that the Rougons' drawing-room was the chief
+obstacle to the welfare of France. But he again made a false move by
+calling his mother "old jade" in Silvere's presence. He even repeated to
+him the early scandals about the poor woman. The young man blushed for
+shame, but listened without interruption. He had not asked his uncle
+for this information; he felt heart-broken by such confidences, which
+wounded his feeling of respectful affection for aunt Dide. From that
+time forward he lavished yet more attention upon his grandmother,
+greeting her always with pleasant smiles and looks of forgiveness.
+However, Macquart felt that he had acted foolishly, and strove to take
+advantage of Silvere's affection for Adelaide by charging the Rougons
+with her forlornness and poverty. According to him, he had always been
+the best of sons, whereas his brother had behaved disgracefully; Pierre
+had robbed his mother, and now, when she was penniless, he was ashamed
+of her. He never ceased descanting on this subject. Silvere thereupon
+became indignant with his uncle Pierre, much to the satisfaction of his
+uncle Antoine.
+
+The scene was much the same every time the young man called. He used
+to come in the evening, while the Macquarts were at dinner. The father
+would be swallowing some potato stew with a growl, picking out the
+pieces of bacon, and watching the dish when it passed into the hands of
+Jean and Gervaise.
+
+"You see, Silvere," he would say with a sullen rage which was
+ill-concealed beneath his air of cynical indifference, "more potatoes,
+always potatoes! We never eat anything else now. Meat is only for
+rich people. It's getting quite impossible to make both ends meet with
+children who have the devil's appetite and their own too."
+
+Gervaise and Jean bent over their plates, no longer even daring to cut
+some bread. Silvere, who in his dream lived in heaven, did not grasp the
+situation. In a calm voice he pronounced these storm-laden words:
+
+"But you should work, uncle."
+
+"Ah! yes," sneered Macquart, stung to the quick. "You want me to work,
+eh! To let those beggars, the rich folk, continue to prey upon me. I
+should earn probably twenty sous a day, and ruin my constitution. It's
+worth while, isn't it?"
+
+"Everyone earns what he can," the young man replied. "Twenty sous are
+twenty sous; and it all helps in a home. Besides, you're an old soldier,
+why don't you seek some employment?"
+
+Fine would then interpose, with a thoughtlessness of which she soon
+repented.
+
+"That's what I'm always telling him," said she. "The market inspector
+wants an assistant; I mentioned my husband to him, and he seems well
+disposed towards us."
+
+But Macquart interrupted her with a fulminating glance. "Eh! hold
+your tongue," he growled with suppressed anger. "Women never know
+what they're talking about! Nobody would have me; my opinions are too
+well-known."
+
+Every time he was offered employment he displayed similar irritation. He
+did not cease, however, to ask for situations, though he always refused
+such as were found for him, assigning the most extraordinary reasons.
+When pressed upon the point he became terrible.
+
+If Jean were to take up a newspaper after dinner he would at once
+exclaim: "You'd better go to bed. You'll be getting up late to-morrow,
+and that'll be another day lost. To think of that young rascal coming
+home with eight francs short last week! However, I've requested his
+master not give him his money in future; I'll call for it myself."
+
+Jean would go to bed to avoid his father's recriminations. He had but
+little sympathy with Silvere; politics bored him, and he thought his
+cousin "cracked." When only the women remained, if they unfortunately
+started some whispered converse after clearing the table, Macquart would
+cry: "Now, you idlers! Is there nothing that requires mending? we're
+all in rags. Look here, Gervaise, I was at your mistress's to-day, and I
+learnt some fine things. You're a good-for-nothing, a gad-about."
+
+Gervaise, now a grown girl of more than twenty, coloured up at
+thus being scolded in the presence of Silvere, who himself felt
+uncomfortable. One evening, having come rather late, when his uncle was
+not at home, he had found the mother and daughter intoxicated before
+an empty bottle. From that time he could never see his cousin without
+recalling the disgraceful spectacle she had presented, with the maudlin
+grin and large red patches on her poor, pale, puny face. He was not
+less shocked by the nasty stories that circulated with regard to her.
+He sometimes looked at her stealthily, with the timid surprise of a
+schoolboy in the presence of a disreputable character.
+
+When the two women had taken up their needles, and were ruining their
+eyesight in order to mend his old shirts, Macquart, taking the best
+seat, would throw himself back with an air of delicious comfort, and sip
+and smoke like a man who relishes his laziness. This was the time when
+the old rogue generally railed against the wealthy for living on
+the sweat of the poor man's brow. He was superbly indignant with the
+gentlemen of the new town, who lived so idly, and compelled the poor
+to keep them in luxury. The fragments of communistic notions which he
+culled from the newspapers in the morning became grotesque and monstrous
+on falling from his lips. He would talk of a time near at hand when
+no one would be obliged to work. He always, however, kept his fiercest
+animosity for the Rougons. He never could digest the potatoes he had
+eaten.
+
+"I saw that vile creature Felicite buying a chicken in the market this
+morning," he would say. "Those robbers of inheritances must eat chicken,
+forsooth!"
+
+"Aunt Dide," interposed Silvere, "says that uncle Pierre was very kind
+to you when you left the army. Didn't he spend a large sum of money in
+lodging and clothing you?"
+
+"A large sum of money!" roared Macquart in exasperation; "your
+grandmother is mad. It was those thieves who spread those reports
+themselves, so as to close my mouth. I never had anything."
+
+Fine again foolishly interfered, reminding him that he had received two
+hundred francs, besides a suit of clothes and a year's rent. Antoine
+thereupon shouted to her to hold her tongue, and continued, with
+increasing fury: "Two hundred francs! A fine thing! I want my due, ten
+thousand francs. Ah! yes, talk of the hole they shoved me into like a
+dog, and the old frock-coat which Pierre gave me because he was ashamed
+to wear it any longer himself, it was so dirty and ragged!"
+
+He was not speaking the truth; but, seeing the rage that he was in,
+nobody ventured to protest any further. Then, turning towards Silvere:
+"It's very stupid of you to defend them!" he added. "They robbed your
+mother, who, good woman, would be alive now if she had had the means of
+taking care of herself."
+
+"Oh! you're not just, uncle," the young man said; "my mother did not
+die for want of attention, and I'm certain my father would never have
+accepted a sou from his wife's family!"
+
+"Pooh! don't talk to me! your father would have taken the money just
+like anybody else. We were disgracefully plundered, and it's high time
+we had our rights."
+
+Then Macquart, for the hundredth time, began to recount the story of
+the fifty thousand francs. His nephew, who knew it by heart, and all
+the variations with which he embellished it, listened to him rather
+impatiently.
+
+"If you were a man," Antoine would say in conclusion, "you would come
+some day with me, and we would kick up a nice row at the Rougons. We
+would not leave without having some money given us."
+
+Silvere, however, grew serious, and frankly replied: "If those wretches
+robbed us, so much the worse for them. I don't want their money. You
+see, uncle, it's not for us to fall on our relatives. If they've done
+wrong, well, one of these days they'll be severely punished for it."
+
+"Ah! what a big simpleton you are!" the uncle cried. "When we have the
+upper hand, you'll see whether I sha'n't settle my own little affairs
+myself. God cares a lot about us indeed! What a foul family ours is!
+Even if I were starving to death, not one of those scoundrels would
+throw me a dry crust."
+
+Whenever Macquart touched upon this subject, he proved inexhaustible. He
+bared all his bleeding wounds of envy and covetousness. He grew mad
+with rage when he came to think that he was the only unlucky one in the
+family, and was forced to eat potatoes, while the others had meat to
+their heart's content. He would pass all his relations in review, even
+his grand-nephews, and find some grievance and reason for threatening
+every one of them.
+
+"Yes, yes," he repeated bitterly, "they'd leave me to die like a dog."
+
+Gervaise, without raising her head or ceasing to ply her needle, would
+sometimes say timidly: "Still, father, cousin Pascal was very kind to
+us, last year, when you were ill."
+
+"He attended you without charging a sou," continued Fine, coming to her
+daughter's aid, "and he often slipped a five-franc piece into my hand to
+make you some broth."
+
+"He! he'd have killed me if I hadn't had a strong constitution!"
+Macquart retorted. "Hold your tongues, you fools! You'd let yourselves
+be twisted about like children. They'd all like to see me dead. When I'm
+ill again, I beg you not to go and fetch my nephew, for I didn't feel at
+all comfortable in his hands. He's only a twopenny-halfpenny doctor, and
+hasn't got a decent patient in all his practice."
+
+When once Macquart was fully launched, he could not stop. "It's like
+that little viper, Aristide," he would say, "a false brother, a traitor.
+Are you taken in by his articles in the 'Independant,' Silvere? You
+would be a fine fool if you were. They're not even written in good
+French; I've always maintained that this contraband Republican is in
+league with his worthy father to humbug us. You'll see how he'll turn
+his coat. And his brother, the illustrious Eugene, that big blockhead
+of whom the Rougons make such a fuss! Why, they've got the impudence to
+assert that he occupies a good position in Paris! I know something about
+his position; he's employed at the Rue de Jerusalem; he's a police spy."
+
+"Who told you so? You know nothing about it," interrupted Silvere, whose
+upright spirit at last felt hurt by his uncle's lying accusations.
+
+"Ah! I know nothing about it? Do you think so? I tell you he is a
+police spy. You'll be shorn like a lamb one of these days, with your
+benevolence. You're not manly enough. I don't want to say anything
+against your brother Francois; but, if I were in your place, I shouldn't
+like the scurvy manner in which he treats you. He earns a heap of money
+at Marseilles, and yet he never sends you a paltry twenty-franc pierce
+for pocket money. If ever you become poor, I shouldn't advise you to
+look to him for anything."
+
+"I've no need of anybody," the young man replied in a proud and slightly
+injured tone of voice. "My own work suffices for aunt Dide and myself.
+You're cruel, uncle."
+
+"I only say what's true, that's all. I should like to open your eyes.
+Our family is a disreputable lot; it's sad but true. Even that little
+Maxime, Aristide's son, that little nine-year-old brat, pokes his
+tongue out at me when me meets me. That child will some day beat his
+own mother, and a good job too! Say what you like, all those folks don't
+deserve their luck; but it's always like this in families, the good ones
+suffer while the bad ones make their fortunes."
+
+All this dirty linen, which Macquart washed with such complacency before
+his nephew, profoundly disgusted the young man. He would have liked to
+soar back into his dream. As soon as he began to show unmistakable signs
+of impatience, Antoine would employ strong expedients to exasperate him
+against their relatives.
+
+"Defend them! Defend them!" he would say, appearing to calm down. "I,
+for my part, have arranged to have nothing more to do with them. I only
+mention the matter out of pity for my poor mother, whom all that gang
+treat in a most revolting manner."
+
+"They are wretches!" Silvere murmured.
+
+"Oh! you don't know, you don't understand. These Rougons pour all sorts
+of insults and abuse on the good woman. Aristide has forbidden his son
+even to recognise her. Felicite talks of having her placed in a lunatic
+asylum."
+
+The young man, as white as a sheet, abruptly interrupted his uncle:
+"Enough!" he cried. "I don't want to know any more about it. There will
+have to be an end to all this."
+
+"I'll hold my tongue, since it annoys you," the old rascal replied,
+feigning a good-natured manner. "Still, there are some things that
+you ought not to be ignorant of, unless you want to play the part of a
+fool."
+
+Macquart, while exerting himself to set Silvere against the Rougons,
+experienced the keenest pleasure on drawing tears of anguish from the
+young man's eyes. He detested him, perhaps, more than he did the others,
+and this because he was an excellent workman and never drank. He brought
+all his instincts of refined cruelty into play, in order to invent
+atrocious falsehoods which should sting the poor lad to the heart; then
+he revelled in his pallor, his trembling hands and his heart-rending
+looks, with the delight of some evil spirit who measures his stabs and
+finds that he has struck his victim in the right place. When he thought
+that he had wounded and exasperated Silvere sufficiently, he would at
+last touch upon politics.
+
+"I've been assured," he would say, lowering his voice, "that the Rougons
+are preparing some treachery."
+
+"Treachery?" Silvere asked, becoming attentive.
+
+"Yes, one of these nights they are going to seize all the good citizens
+of the town and throw them into prison."
+
+The young man was at first disposed to doubt it, but his uncle gave
+precise details; he spoke of lists that had been drawn up, he mentioned
+the persons whose names were on these lists, he indicated in what
+manner, at what hour, and under what circumstances the plot would be
+carried into effect. Silvere gradually allowed himself to be taken in
+by this old woman's tale, and was soon raving against the enemies of the
+Republic.
+
+"It's they that we shall have to reduce to impotence if they persist in
+betraying the country!" he cried. "And what do they intend to do with
+the citizens whom they arrest?"
+
+"What do they intend to do with them? Why, they will shoot them in the
+lowest dungeons of the prison, of course," replied Macquart, with a
+hoarse laugh. And as the young man, stupefied with horror, looked at
+him without knowing what to say: "This will not be the first lot to be
+assassinated there," he continued. "You need only go and prowl about the
+Palais de Justice of an evening to hear the shots and groans."
+
+"Oh, the wretches!" Silvere murmured.
+
+Thereupon uncle and nephew launched out into high politics. Fine and
+Gervaise, on finding them hotly debating things, quietly went to bed
+without attracting their attention. Then the two men remained together
+till midnight, commenting on the news from Paris and discussing the
+approaching and inevitable struggle. Macquart bitterly denounced the men
+of his own party, Silvere dreamed his dream of ideal liberty aloud, and
+for himself only. Strange conversations these were, during which the
+uncle poured out many a little nip for himself, and from which the
+nephew emerged quite intoxicated with enthusiasm. Antoine, however,
+never succeeded in obtaining from the young Republican any perfidious
+suggestion or play of warfare against the Rougons. In vain he tried to
+goad him on; he seldom heard him suggest aught but an appeal to eternal
+justice, which sooner or later would punish the evil-doers.
+
+The ingenuous youth did indeed speak warmly of taking up arms and
+massacring the enemies of the Republic; but, as soon as these enemies
+strayed out of his dream or became personified in his uncle Pierre or
+any other person of his acquaintance, he relied upon heaven to spare
+him the horror of shedding blood. It is very probable that he would have
+ceased visiting Macquart, whose jealous fury made him so uncomfortable,
+if he had not tasted the pleasure of being able to speak freely of his
+dear Republic there. In the end, however, his uncle exercised decisive
+influence over his destiny; he irritated his nerves by his everlasting
+diatribes, and succeeded in making him eager for an armed struggle, the
+conquest of universal happiness by violence.
+
+When Silvere reached his sixteenth year, Macquart had him admitted into
+the secret society of the Montagnards, a powerful association whose
+influence extended throughout Southern France. From that moment the
+young Republican gazed with longing eyes at the smuggler's carbine,
+which Adelaide had hung over her chimney-piece. Once night, while his
+grandmother was asleep, he cleaned and put it in proper condition. Then
+he replaced it on its nail and waited, indulging in brilliant reveries,
+fancying gigantic epics, Homeric struggles, and knightly tournaments,
+whence the defenders of liberty would emerge victorious and acclaimed by
+the whole world.
+
+Macquart meantime was not discouraged. He said to himself that he would
+be able to strangle the Rougons alone if he could ever get them into a
+corner. His envious rage and slothful greed were increased by certain
+successive accidents which compelled him to resume work. In the early
+part of 1850 Fine died, almost suddenly, from inflammation of the lungs,
+which she had caught by going one evening to wash the family linen in
+the Viorne, and carrying it home wet on her back. She returned soaked
+with water and perspiration, bowed down by her load, which was terribly
+heavy, and she never recovered.
+
+Her death filled Macquart with consternation. His most reliable source
+of income was gone. When, a few days later, he sold the caldron in which
+his wife had boiled her chestnuts, and the wooden horse which she used
+in reseating old chairs, he foully accused the Divinity of having robbed
+him of that strong strapping woman of whom he had often felt ashamed,
+but whose real worth he now appreciated. He now also fell upon the
+children's earnings with greater avidity than ever. But, a month later,
+Gervaise, tired of his continual exactions, ran away with her two
+children and Lantier, whose mother was dead. The lovers took refuge in
+Paris. Antoine, overwhelmed, vented his rage against his daughter by
+expressing the hope that she might die in hospital like most of her
+kind. This abuse did not, however, improve the situation, which was
+decidedly becoming bad. Jean soon followed his sister's example. He
+waited for pay-day to come round, and then contrived to receive the
+money himself. As he was leaving he told one of his friends, who
+repeated it to Antoine, that he would no longer keep his lazy father,
+and that if the latter should take it into his head to have him brought
+back by the gendarmes he would touch neither saw nor plane.
+
+On the morrow, when Antoine, having vainly sought him, found himself
+alone and penniless in the house where for twenty years he had been
+comfortably kept, he flew into the most frantic rage, kicked the
+furniture about, and yelled the vilest imprecations. Then he sank down
+exhausted, and began to drag himself about and moan like a convalescent.
+The fear of having to earn his bread made him positively ill. When
+Silvere came to see him, he complained, with tears, of his children's
+ingratitude. Had he not always been a good father to them? Jean and
+Gervaise were monsters, who had made him an evil return for all he had
+done for them. Now they abandoned him because he was old, and they could
+not get anything more out of him!
+
+"But uncle," said Silvere, "you are not yet too old to work!"
+
+Macquart, coughing and stooping, shook his head mournfully, as if to say
+that he could not bear the least fatigue for any length of time. Just
+as his nephew was about to withdraw, he borrowed ten francs of him. Then
+for a month he lived by taking his children's old clothes, one by one,
+to a second-hand dealer's, and in the same way, little by little, he
+sold all the small articles in the house. Soon nothing remained but
+a table, a chair, his bed, and the clothes on his back. He ended by
+exchanging the walnut-wood bedstead for a plain strap one. When he had
+exhausted all his resources, he cried with rage; and, with the fierce
+pallor of a man who is resigned to suicide, he went to look for the
+bundle of osier that he had forgotten in some corner for a quarter of
+a century past. As he took it up he seemed to be lifting a mountain.
+However, he again began to plait baskets and hampers, while denouncing
+the human race for their neglect.
+
+It was particularly at this time that he talked of dividing and sharing
+the riches of the wealthy. He showed himself terrible. His speeches
+kept up a constant conflagration in the tavern, where his furious looks
+secured him unlimited credit. Moreover, he only worked when he had been
+unable to get a five-franc piece out of Silvere or a comrade. He was
+no longer "Monsieur" Macquart, the clean-shaven workman, who wore his
+Sunday clothes every day and played the gentleman; he again became the
+big slovenly devil who had once speculated on his rags. Felicite did not
+dare to go to market now that he was so often coming there to sell
+his baskets. He once had a violent quarrel with her there. His hatred
+against the Rougons grew with his wretchedness. He swore, with horrible
+threats, that he would wreak justice himself, since the rich were
+leagued together to compel him to toil.
+
+In this state of mind, he welcomed the Coup d'Etat with the ardent,
+obstreperous delight of a hound scenting the quarry. As the few honest
+Liberals in the town had failed to arrive at an understanding amongst
+themselves, and therefore kept apart, he became naturally one of
+the most prominent agents of the insurrection. The working classes,
+notwithstanding the unfavourable opinion which they at last entertained
+of this lazy fellow, would, when the time arrived, have to accept him
+as a rallying flag. On the first few days, however, the town remained
+quiet, and Macquart thought that his plans were frustrated. It was not
+until the news arrived of the rising of the rural districts that he
+recovered hope. For his own part he would not have left Plassans for all
+the world; accordingly he invented some pretext for not following those
+workmen who, on the Sunday morning, set off to join the insurrectionary
+band of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx.
+
+On the evening of the same day he was sitting in some disreputable
+tavern of the old quarter with a few friends, when a comrade came to
+inform him that the insurgents were only a few miles from Plassans. This
+news had just been brought by an express, who had succeeded in making
+his way into the town, and had been charged to get the gates opened
+for the column. There was an outburst of triumph. Macquart, especially,
+appeared to be delirious with enthusiasm. The unforeseen arrival of the
+insurgents seemed to him a delicate attention of Providence for his own
+particular benefit. His hands trembled at the idea that he would soon
+hold the Rougons by the throat.
+
+He hastily quitted the tavern with his friends. All the Republicans who
+had not yet left the town were soon assembled on the Cours Sauvaire. It
+was this band that Rougon had perceived as he was hastening to conceal
+himself in his mother's house. When the band had reached the top of
+the Rue de la Banne, Macquart, who had stationed himself at the rear,
+detained four of his companions, big fellows who were not over-burdened
+with brains and whom he swayed by his tavern bluster. He easily
+persuaded them that the enemies of the Republic must be arrested
+immediately if they wished to prevent the greatest calamities. The truth
+was that he feared Pierre might escape him in the midst of the confusion
+which the entry of the insurgents would produce. However, the four big
+fellows followed him with exemplary docility, and knocked violently
+at the door of the Rougons' abode. In this critical situation Felicite
+displayed admirable courage. She went down and opened the street door
+herself.
+
+"We want to go upstairs into your rooms," Macquart said to her brutally.
+
+"Very well, gentlemen, walk up," she replied with ironical politeness,
+pretending that she did not recognise her brother-in-law.
+
+Once upstairs, Macquart ordered her to fetch her husband.
+
+"My husband is not here," she said with perfect calmness; "he is
+travelling on business. He took the diligence for Marseilles at six
+o'clock this evening."
+
+Antoine at this declaration, which Felicite uttered in a clear voice,
+made a gesture of rage. He rushed through the drawing-room, and then
+into the bedroom, turned the bed up, looked behind the curtains and
+under the furniture. The four big fellows assisted him. They searched
+the place for a quarter of an hour. Felicite meantime quietly seated
+herself on the drawing-room sofa, and began to fasten the strings of her
+petticoats, like a person who has been surprised in her sleep and has
+not had time to dress properly.
+
+"It's true then, he's run away, the coward!" Macquart muttered on
+returning to the drawing-room.
+
+Nevertheless, he continued to look about him with a suspicious air. He
+felt a presentiment that Pierre could not have given up the game at the
+decisive moment. At last he approached Felicite, who was yawning: "Show
+us the place where your husband is hidden," he said to her, "and I
+promise no harm shall be done to him."
+
+"I have told you the truth," she replied impatiently. "I can't deliver
+my husband to you, as he's not here. You have searched everywhere,
+haven't you? Then leave me alone now."
+
+Macquart, exasperated by her composure, was just going to strike her,
+when a rumbling noise arose from the street. It was the column of
+insurgents entering the Rue de la Banne.
+
+He then had to leave the yellow drawing-room, after shaking his fist
+at his sister-in-law, calling her an old jade, and threatening that he
+would soon return. At the foot of the staircase, he took one of the men
+who accompanied him, a navvy named Cassoute, the most wooden-headed of
+the four, and ordered him to sit on the first step, and remain there.
+
+"You must come and inform me," he said to him, "if you see the scoundrel
+from upstairs return."
+
+The man sat down heavily. When Macquart reached the pavement, he
+raised his eyes and observed Felicite leaning out of the window of the
+yellow-drawing room, watching the march past of the insurgents, as if
+it was nothing but a regiment passing through the town to the strains
+of its band. This last sign of perfect composure irritated him to such a
+degree that he was almost tempted to go up again and throw the old woman
+into the street. However, he followed the column, muttering in a hoarse
+voice: "Yes, yes, look at us passing. We'll see whether you will station
+yourself at your balcony to-morrow."
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock at night when the insurgents entered the
+town by the Porte de Rome. The workmen remaining in Plassans had opened
+the gate for them, in spite of the wailings of the keeper, from whom
+they could only wrest the keys by force. This man, very jealous of his
+office, stood dumbfoundered in the presence of the surging crowd. To
+think of it! he, who never allowed more than one person to pass in at
+a time, and then only after a prolonged examination of his face! And
+he murmured that he was dishonoured. The men of Plassans were still
+marching at the head of the column by way of guiding the others; Miette,
+who was in the front rank, with Silvere on her left, held up her banner
+more proudly than ever now that she could divine behind the closed
+blinds the scared looks of well-to-do bourgeois startled out of their
+sleep. The insurgents passed along the Rue de Rome and the Rue de la
+Banne slowly and warily; at every crossway, although they well knew the
+quiet disposition of the inhabitants, they feared they might be received
+with bullets. The town seemed lifeless, however; there was scarcely
+a stifled exclamation to be heard at the windows. Only five or six
+shutters opened. Some old householder then appeared in his night-shirt,
+candle in hand, and leant out to obtain a better view; but as soon as he
+distinguished the tall red girl who appeared to be drawing that crowd of
+black demons behind her, he hastily closed his window again, terrified
+by such a diabolical apparition.
+
+The silence of the slumbering town reassured the insurgents, who
+ventured to make their way through the lanes of the old quarter, and
+thus reached the market-place and the Place de l'Hotel-de-Ville, which
+was connected by a short but broad street. These open spaces, planted
+with slender trees, were brilliantly illumined by the moon. Against the
+clear sky the recently restored town-hall appeared like a large patch of
+crude whiteness, the fine black lines of the wrought-iron arabesques of
+the first-floor balcony showing in bold relief. Several persons could
+be plainly distinguished standing on this balcony, the mayor, Commander
+Sicardot, three or four municipal councillors, and other functionaries.
+The doors below were closed. The three thousand Republicans, who covered
+both open spaces, halted with upraised heads, ready to force the doors
+with a single push.
+
+The arrival of the insurrectionary column at such an hour took the
+authorities by surprise. Before repairing to the mayor's, Commander
+Sicardot had taken time to don his uniform. He then had to run and rouse
+the mayor. When the keeper of the Porte de Rome, who had been left free
+by the insurgents, came to announce that the villains were already in
+the town, the commander had so far only managed to assemble a score of
+the national guards. The gendarmes, though their barracks were close by,
+could not even be warned. It was necessary to shut the town-hall
+doors in all haste, in order to deliberate. Five minutes later a low
+continuous rumbling announced the approach of the column.
+
+Monsieur Garconnet, out of hatred to the Republic, would have greatly
+liked to offer resistance. But he was of a prudent nature, and
+comprehended the futility of a struggle on finding only a few pale men,
+who were scarcely awake, around him. So the deliberations did not last
+long. Sicardot alone was obstinate; he wanted to fight, asserting that
+twenty men would suffice to bring these three thousand villains to
+reason. At this Monsieur Garconnet shrugged his shoulders, and declared
+that the only step to take was to make an honourable capitulation. As
+the uproar of the mob increased, he went out on the balcony, followed
+by all the persons present. Silence was gradually obtained. Below, among
+the black, quivering mass of insurgents, the guns and scythes glittered
+in the moonlight.
+
+"Who are you, and what do you want?" cried the mayor in a loud voice.
+
+Thereupon a man in a greatcoat, a landowner of La Palud, stepped
+forward.
+
+"Open the doors," he said, without replying to Monsieur Garconnet's
+question. "Avoid a fratricidal conflict."
+
+"I call upon you to withdraw," the mayor continued. "I protest in the
+name of the law."
+
+These words provoked deafening shouts from the crowd. When the tumult
+had somewhat abated, vehement calls ascended to the balcony. Voices
+shouted: "It is in the name of the law that we have come here!"
+
+"Your duty as a functionary is to secure respect for the fundamental
+law of the land, the constitution, which has just been outrageously
+violated."
+
+"Long live the constitution! Long live the Republic!"
+
+Then as Monsieur Garconnet endeavoured to make himself heard, and
+continued to invoke his official dignity, the land-owner of La
+Palud, who was standing under the balcony, interrupted him with
+great vehemence: "You are now nothing but the functionary of a fallen
+functionary; we have come to dismiss you from your office."
+
+Hitherto, Commander Sicardot had been ragefully biting his moustache,
+and muttering insulting words. The sight of the cudgels and scythes
+exasperated him; and he made desperate efforts to restrain himself
+from treating these twopenny-halfpenny soldiers, who had not even a
+gun apiece, as they deserved. But when he heard a gentleman in a mere
+greatcoat speak of deposing a mayor girded with his scarf, he could no
+longer contain himself and shouted: "You pack of rascals! If I only had
+four men and a corporal, I'd come down and pull your ears for you, and
+make you behave yourselves!"
+
+Less than this was needed to raise a serious disturbance. A long shout
+rose from the mob as it made a rush for the doors. Monsieur Garconnet,
+in consternation, hastily quitted the balcony, entreating Sicardot to be
+reasonable unless he wished to have them massacred. But in two minutes
+the doors gave way, the people invaded the building and disarmed the
+national guards. The mayor and the other functionaries present were
+arrested. Sicardot, who declined to surrender his sword, had to
+be protected from the fury of some insurgents by the chief of the
+contingent from Les Tulettes, a man of great self-possession. When the
+town-hall was in the hands of the Republicans, they led their prisoners
+to a small cafe in the market-place, and there kept them closely
+watched.
+
+The insurrectionary army would have avoided marching through Plassans
+if its leaders had not decided that a little food and a few hours' rest
+were absolutely necessary for the men. Instead of pushing forward
+direct to the chief town of the department, the column, owing to the
+inexcusable weakness and the inexperience of the improvised general who
+commanded it, was now diverging to the left, making a detour which was
+destined, ultimately, to lead it to destruction. It was bound for the
+heights of Sainte-Roure, still about ten leagues distant, and it was
+in view of this long march that it had been decided to pass through
+Plassans, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. It was now half-past
+eleven.
+
+When Monsieur Garconnet learnt that the band was in quest of provisions,
+he offered his services to procure them. This functionary formed, under
+very difficult circumstances, a proper estimate of the situation. Those
+three thousand starving men would have to be satisfied; it would never
+do for Plassans, on waking up, to find them still squatting on the
+pavements; if they withdrew before daybreak they would simply have
+passed through the slumbering town like an evil dream, like one of those
+nightmares which depart with the arrival of dawn. And so, although he
+remained a prisoner, Monsieur Garconnet, followed by two guards, went
+about knocking at the bakers' doors, and had all the provisions that he
+could find distributed among the insurgents.
+
+Towards one o'clock the three thousand men began to eat, squatting on
+the ground, with their weapons between their legs. The market-place
+and the neighbourhood of the town-hall were turned into vast open-air
+refectories. In spite of the bitter cold, humorous sallies were
+exchanged among the swarming multitude, the smallest groups of which
+showed forth in the brilliant moonlight. The poor famished fellows
+eagerly devoured their portions while breathing on their fingers to warm
+them; and, from the depths of adjoining streets, where vague black forms
+sat on the white thresholds of the houses, there came sudden bursts
+of laughter. At the windows emboldened, inquisitive women, with silk
+handkerchiefs tied round their heads, watched the repast of those
+terrible insurgents, those blood-suckers who went in turn to the market
+pump to drink a little water in the hollows of their hands.
+
+While the town-hall was being invaded, the gendarmes' barracks, situated
+a few steps away, in the Rue Canquoin, which leads to the market, had
+also fallen into the hands of the mob. The gendarmes were surprised in
+their beds and disarmed in a few minutes. The impetus of the crowd had
+carried Miette and Silvere along in this direction. The girl, who still
+clasped her flagstaff to her breast, was pushed against the wall of
+the barracks, while the young man, carried away by the human wave,
+penetrated into the interior, and helped his comrades to wrest from the
+gendarmes the carbines which they had hastily caught up. Silvere, waxing
+ferocious, intoxicated by the onslaught, attacked a big devil of a
+gendarme named Rengade, with whom for a few moments he struggled. At
+last, by a sudden jerk, he succeeded in wresting his carbine from him.
+But the barrel struck Rengade a violent blow in the face, which put his
+right eye out. Blood flowed, and, some of it splashing Silvere's hands,
+quickly brought him to his senses. He looked at his hands, dropped the
+carbine, and ran out, in a state of frenzy, shaking his fingers.
+
+"You are wounded!" cried Miette.
+
+"No, no," he replied in a stifled voice, "I've just killed a gendarme."
+
+"Is he really dead?" asked Miette.
+
+"I don't know," replied Silvere, "his face was all covered with blood.
+Come quickly."
+
+Then he hurried the girl away. On reaching the market, he made her sit
+down on a stone bench, and told her to wait there for him. He was still
+looking at his hands, muttering something at the same time. Miette at
+last understood from his disquieted words that he wished to go and kiss
+his grandmother before leaving.
+
+"Well, go," she said; "don't trouble yourself about me. Wash your
+hands."
+
+But he went quickly away, keeping his fingers apart, without thinking
+of washing them at the pump which he passed. Since he had felt Rengade's
+warm blood on his skin, he had been possessed by one idea, that of
+running to Aunt Dide's and dipping his hands in the well-trough at the
+back of the little yard. There only, he thought, would he be able
+to wash off the stain of that blood. Moreover, all his calm, gentle
+childhood seemed to return to him; he felt an irresistible longing
+to take refuge in his grandmother's skirts, if only for a minute.
+He arrived quite out of breath. Aunt Dide had not gone to bed, a
+circumstance which at any other time would have greatly surprised
+Silvere. But on entering he did not even see his uncle Rougon, who was
+seated in a corner on the old chest. He did not wait for the poor old
+woman's questions. "Grandmother," he said quickly, "you must forgive
+me; I'm going to leave with the others. You see I've got blood on me. I
+believe I've killed a gendarme."
+
+"You've killed a gendarme?" Aunt Dide repeated in a strange voice.
+
+Her eyes gleamed brightly as she fixed them on the red stains. And
+suddenly she turned towards the chimney-piece. "You've taken the gun,"
+she said; "where's the gun?"
+
+Silvere, who had left the weapon with Miette, swore to her that it was
+quite safe. And for the very first time, Adelaide made an allusion to
+the smuggler Macquart in her grandson's presence.
+
+"You'll bring the gun back? You promise me!" she said with singular
+energy. "It's all I have left of him. You've killed a gendarme; ah, it
+was the gendarmes who killed him!"
+
+She continued gazing fixedly at Silvere with an air of cruel
+satisfaction, and apparently without thought of detaining him. She never
+asked him for any explanation, nor wept like those good grandmothers who
+always imagine, at sight of the least scratch, that their grandchildren
+are dying. All her nature was concentrated in one unique thought, to
+which she at last gave expression with ardent curiosity: "Did you kill
+the gendarme with the gun?"
+
+Either Silvere did not quite catch what she said, or else he
+misunderstood her.
+
+"Yes!" he replied. "I'm going to wash my hands."
+
+It was only on returning from the well that he perceived his uncle.
+Pierre had turned pale on hearing the young man's words. Felicite was
+indeed right; his family took a pleasure in compromising him. One of
+his nephews had now killed a gendarme! He would never get the post
+of receiver of taxes, if he did not prevent this foolish madman from
+rejoining the insurgents. So he planted himself in front of the door,
+determined to prevent Silvere from going out.
+
+"Listen," he said to the young fellow, who was greatly surprised to find
+him there. "I am the head of the family, and I forbid you to leave this
+house. You're risking both your honour and ours. To-morrow I will try to
+get you across the frontier."
+
+But Silvere shrugged his shoulders. "Let me pass," he calmly replied.
+"I'm not a police-spy; I shall not reveal your hiding-place, never
+fear." And as Rougon continued to speak of the family dignity and the
+authority with which his seniority invested him: "Do I belong to your
+family?" the young man continued. "You have always disowned me. To-day,
+fear has driven you here, because you feel that the day of judgment has
+arrived. Come, make way! I don't hide myself; I have a duty to perform."
+
+Rougon did not stir. But Aunt Dide, who had listened with a sort of
+delight to Silvere's vehement language, laid her withered hand on her
+son's arm. "Get out of the way, Pierre," she said; "the lad must go."
+
+The young man gave his uncle a slight shove, and dashed outside. Then
+Rougon, having carefully shut the door again, said to his mother in an
+angry, threatening tone: "If any mischief happens to him it will be your
+fault. You're an old mad-woman; you don't know what you've just done."
+
+Adelaide, however, did not appear to hear him. She went and threw some
+vine-branches on the fire, which was going out, and murmured with a
+vague smile: "I'm used to it. He would remain away for months together,
+and then come back to me in much better health."
+
+She was no doubt speaking of Macquart.
+
+In the meantime, Silvere hastily regained the market-place. As he
+approached the spot where he had left Miette, he heard a loud uproar of
+voices and saw a crowd which made him quicken his steps. A cruel scene
+had just occurred. Some inquisitive people were walking among the
+insurgents, while the latter quietly partook of their meal. Amongst
+these onlookers was Justin Rebufat, the son of the farmer of the
+Jas-Meiffren, a youth of twenty years old, a sickly, squint-eyed
+creature, who harboured implacable hatred against his cousin Miette.
+At home he grudged her the bread she ate, and treated her like a beggar
+picked up from the gutter out of charity. It is probable that the young
+girl had rejected his advances. Lank and pale, with ill-proportioned
+limbs and face all awry, he revenged himself upon her for his own
+ugliness, and the contempt which the handsome, vigorous girl must have
+evinced for him. He ardently longed to induce his father to send her
+about her business; and for this reason he was always spying upon her.
+For some time past, he had become aware of the meetings with Silvere,
+and had only awaited a decisive opportunity to reveal everything to his
+father, Rebufat.
+
+On the evening in question, having seen her leave home at about eight
+o'clock, Justin's hatred had overpowered him, and he had been unable
+to keep silent any longer. Rebufat, on hearing his story, fell into a
+terrible rage, and declared that he would kick the gadabout out of his
+house should she have the audacity to return. Justin then went to
+bed, relishing beforehand the fine scene which would take place on the
+morrow. Then, however, a burning desire came upon him for some immediate
+foretaste of his revenge. So he dressed himself again and went out.
+Perhaps he might meet Miette. In that case he was resolved to treat
+her insolently. This is how he came to witness the arrival of the
+insurgents, whom he followed to the town-hall with a vague presentiment
+that he would find the lovers there. And, indeed, he at last caught
+sight of his cousin on the seat where she was waiting for Silvere.
+Seeing her wrapped in her long pelisse, with the red flag at her side,
+resting against a market pillar, he began to sneer and deride her in
+foul language. The girl, thunderstruck at seeing him, was unable
+to speak. She wept beneath his abuse, and whist she was overcome by
+sobbing, bowing her head and hiding her face, Justin called her a
+convict's daughter, and shouted that old Rebufat would give her a good
+thrashing should she ever dare to return to Jas-Meiffren.
+
+For a quarter of an hour he thus kept her smarting and trembling. Some
+people had gathered round, and grinned stupidly at the painful scene.
+At last a few insurgents interfered, and threatened the young man with
+exemplary chastisement if he did not leave Miette alone. But Justin,
+although he retreated, declared that he was not afraid of them. It was
+just at this moment that Silvere came up. Young Rebufat, on catching
+sight of him, made a sudden bound, as if to take flight; for he was
+afraid of him, knowing that he was much stronger than himself. He could
+not, however, resist the temptation to cast a parting insult on the girl
+in her lover's presence.
+
+"Ah! I knew very well," he cried, "that the wheelwright could not be
+far off! You left us to run after that crack-brained fellow, eh? You
+wretched girl! When's the baptism to be?"
+
+Then he retreated a few steps further on seeing Silvere clench his
+fists.
+
+"And mind," he continued, with a vile sneer, "don't come to our house
+again. My father will kick you out if you do! Do you hear?"
+
+But he ran away howling, with bruised visage. For Silvere had bounded
+upon him and dealt him a blow full in the face. The young man did
+not pursue him. When he returned to Miette he found her standing up,
+feverishly wiping her tears away with the palm of her hand. And as
+he gazed at her tenderly, in order to console her, she made a sudden
+energetic gesture. "No," she said, "I'm not going to cry any more,
+you'll see. I'm very glad of it. I don't feel any regret now for having
+left home. I am free."
+
+She took up the flag and led Silvere back into the midst of the
+insurgents. It was now nearly two o'clock in the morning. The cold was
+becoming so intense that the Republicans had risen to their feet and
+were marching to and fro in order to warm themselves while they finished
+their bread. At last their leaders gave orders for departure. The column
+formed again. The prisoners were placed in the middle of it. Besides
+Monsieur Garconnet and Commander Sicardot, the insurgents had
+arrested Monsieur Peirotte, the receiver of taxes, and several other
+functionaries, all of whom they led away.
+
+At this moment Aristide was observed walking about among the groups.
+In presence of this formidable rising, the dear fellow had thought it
+imprudent not to remain on friendly terms with the Republicans; but as,
+on the other hand, he did not desire to compromise himself too much,
+he had come to bid them farewell with his arm in a sling, complaining
+bitterly of the accursed injury which prevented him from carrying
+a weapon. As he walked through the crowd he came across his brother
+Pascal, provided with a case of surgical instruments and a little
+portable medicine chest. The doctor informed him, in his quiet, way,
+that he intended to follow the insurgents. At this Aristide inwardly
+pronounced him a great fool. At last he himself slunk away, fearing lest
+the others should entrust the care of the town to him, a post which he
+deemed exceptionally perilous.
+
+The insurgents could not think of keeping Plassans in their power. The
+town was animated by so reactionary a spirit that it seemed impossible
+even to establish a democratic municipal commission there, as had
+already been done in other places. So they would simply have gone off
+without taking any further steps if Macquart, prompted and emboldened by
+his own private animosities, had not offered to hold Plassans in awe, on
+condition that they left him twenty determined men. These men were given
+him, and at their head he marched off triumphantly to take possession
+of the town-hall. Meantime the column of insurgents was wending its
+way along the Cours Sauvaire, and making its exit by the Grand'-Porte,
+leaving the streets, which it had traversed like a tempest, silent
+and deserted in its rear. The high road, whitened by the moonshine,
+stretched far into the distance. Miette had refused the support of
+Silvere's arm; she marched on bravely, steady and upright, holding the
+red flag aloft with both hands, without complaining of the cold which
+was turning her fingers blue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The high roads stretched far way, white with moonlight.
+
+The insurrectionary army was continuing its heroic march through the
+cold, clear country. It was like a mighty wave of enthusiasm. The thrill
+of patriotism, which transported Miette and Silvere, big children that
+they were, eager for love and liberty, sped, with generous fervour,
+athwart the sordid intrigues of the Macquarts and the Rougons. At
+intervals the trumpet-voice of the people rose and drowned the prattle
+of the yellow drawing-room and the hateful discourses of uncle Antoine.
+And vulgar, ignoble farce was turned into a great historical drama.
+
+On quitting Plassans, the insurgents had taken the road to Orcheres.
+They expected to reach that town at about ten o'clock in the morning.
+The road skirts the course of the Viorne, following at some height the
+windings of the hillocks, below which the torrent flows. On the left,
+the plain spreads out like an immense green carpet, dotted here and
+there with grey villages. On the right, the chain of the Garrigues rears
+its desolate peaks, its plateaux of stones, its huge rusty boulders
+that look as though they had been reddened by the sun. The high road,
+embanked along the riverside, passes on amidst enormous rocks, between
+which glimpses of the valley are caught at every step. Nothing could be
+wilder or more strikingly grand than this road out of the hillside. At
+night time, especially, it inspires one with a feeling of deep awe. The
+insurgents advanced under the pale light, along what seemed the chief
+street of some ruined town, bordered on either side with fragments
+of temples. The moon turned each rock into a broken column, crumbling
+capital, or stretch of wall pierced with mysterious arches. On high
+slumbered the mass of the Garrigues, suffused with a milky tinge, and
+resembling some immense Cyclopean city whose towers, obelisks, houses
+and high terraces hid one half of the heavens; and in the depths below,
+on the side of the plain, was a spreading ocean of diffused light,
+vague and limitless, over which floated masses of luminous haze. The
+insurrectionary force might well have thought they were following some
+gigantic causeway, making their rounds along some military road built on
+the shore of a phosphorescent sea, and circling some unknown Babel.
+
+On the night in question, the Viorne roared hoarsely at the foot of
+the rocks bordering the route. Amidst the continuous rumbling of the
+torrent, the insurgents could distinguish the sharp, wailing notes of
+the tocsin. The villages scattered about the plain, on the other side of
+the river, were rising, sounding alarm-bells, and lighting signal fires.
+Till daybreak the marching column, which the persistent tolling of
+a mournful knell seemed to pursue in the darkness, thus beheld the
+insurrection spreading along the valley, like a train of powder. The
+fires showed in the darkness like stains of blood; echoes of distant
+songs were wafted to them; the whole vague distance, blurred by the
+whitish vapours of the moon, stirred confusedly, and suddenly broke into
+a spasm of anger. For leagues and leagues the scene remained the same.
+
+These men, marching on under the blind impetus of the fever with which
+the events in Paris had inspired Republican hearts, became elated at
+seeing that long stretch of country quivering with revolt. Intoxicated
+with enthusiastic belief in the general insurrection of which they
+dreamed, they fancied that France was following them; on the other side
+of the Viorne, in that vast ocean of diffused light, they imagined there
+were endless files of men rushing like themselves to the defence of the
+Republic. All simplicity and delusion, as multitudes so often are, they
+imagined, in their uncultured minds, that victory was easy and certain.
+They would have seized and shot as a traitor any one who had then
+asserted that they were the only ones who had the courage of their
+duty, and that the rest of the country, overwhelmed with fright, was
+pusillanimously allowing itself to be garrotted.
+
+They derived fresh courage, too, from the welcome accorded to them
+by the few localities that lay along their route on the slopes of the
+Garrigues. The inhabitants rose _en masse_ immediately the little army
+drew near; women ran to meet them, wishing them a speedy victory, while
+men, half clad, seized the first weapons they could find and rushed to
+join their ranks. There was a fresh ovation at every village, shouts of
+welcome and farewell many times reiterated.
+
+Towards daybreak the moon disappeared behind the Garrigues and the
+insurgents continued their rapid march amidst the dense darkness of
+a winter night. They were now unable to distinguish the valley or the
+hills; they heard only the hoarse plaints of the bells, sounding through
+the deep obscurity like invisible drums, hidden they knew not where, but
+ever goading them on with despairing calls.
+
+Miette and Silvere went on, all eagerness like the others. Towards
+daybreak, the girl suffered greatly from fatigue; she could only walk
+with short hurried steps, and was unable to keep up with the long
+strides of the men who surrounded her. Nevertheless she courageously
+strove to suppress all complaints; it would have cost her too much
+to confess that she was not as strong as a boy. During the first few
+leagues of the march Silvere gave her his arm; then, seeing that the
+standard was gradually slipping from her benumbed hands, he tried to
+take it in order to relieve her; but she grew angry, and would only
+allow him to hold it with one hand while she continued to carry it on
+her shoulder. She thus maintained her heroic demeanour with childish
+stubbornness, smiling at the young man each time he gave her a glance of
+loving anxiety. At last, when the moon hid itself, she gave way in the
+sheltering darkness. Silvere felt her leaning more heavily on his arm.
+He now had to carry the flag, and hold her round the waist to prevent
+her from stumbling. Nevertheless she still made no complaint.
+
+"Are you very tired, poor Miette?" Silvere asked her.
+
+"Yea, a little tired," she replied in a weary tone.
+
+"Would you like to rest a bit?"
+
+She made no reply; but he realised that she was staggering. He thereupon
+handed the flag to one of the other insurgents and quitted the ranks,
+almost carrying the girl in his arms. She struggled a little, she felt
+so distressed at appearing such a child. But he calmed her, telling her
+that he knew of a cross-road which shortened the distance by one half.
+They would be able to take a good hour's rest and reach Orcheres at the
+same time as the others.
+
+It was then six o'clock. There must have been a slight mist rising from
+the Viorne, for the darkness seemed to be growing denser. The young
+people groped their way along the slope of the Garrigues, till they came
+to a rock on which they sat down. Around them lay an abyss of darkness.
+They were stranded, as it were, on some reef above a dense void. And
+athwart that void, when the dull tramp of the little army had died away,
+they only heard two bells, the one clear toned and ringing doubtless at
+their feet, in some village across the road; and the other far-off and
+faint, responding, as it were, with distant sobs to the feverish plaints
+of the first. One might have thought that these bells were recounting to
+each other, through the empty waste, the sinister story of a perishing
+world.
+
+Miette and Silvere, warmed by their quick march, did not at first feel
+the cold. They remained silent, listening in great dejection to the
+sounds of the tocsin, which made the darkness quiver. They could not
+even see one another. Miette felt frightened, and, seeking for Silvere's
+hand, clasped it in her own. After the feverish enthusiasm which for
+several hours had carried them along with the others, this sudden halt
+and the solitude in which they found themselves side by side left them
+exhausted and bewildered as though they had suddenly awakened from a
+strange dream. They felt as if a wave had cast them beside the highway,
+then ebbed back and left them stranded. Irresistible reaction plunged
+them into listless stupor; they forgot their enthusiasm; they thought no
+more of the men whom they had to rejoin; they surrendered themselves to
+the melancholy sweetness of finding themselves alone, hand in hand, in
+the midst of the wild darkness.
+
+"You are not angry with me?" the girl at length inquired. "I could
+easily walk the whole night with you; but they were running too quickly,
+I could hardly breathe."
+
+"Why should I be angry with you?" the young man said.
+
+"I don't know. I was afraid you might not love me any longer. I wish I
+could have taken long strides like you, and have walked along without
+stopping. You will think I am a child."
+
+Silvere smiled, and Miette, though the darkness prevented her from
+seeing him, guessed that he was doing so. Then she continued with
+determination: "You must not always treat me like a sister. I want to be
+your wife some day."
+
+Forthwith she clasped Silvere to her bosom, and, still with her arms
+about him, murmured: "We shall grow so cold; come close to me that we
+may be warm."
+
+Then they lapsed into silence. Until that troublous hour, they had loved
+one another with the affection of brother and sister. In their ignorance
+they still mistook their feelings for tender friendship, although
+beneath their guileless love their ardent blood surged more wildly
+day by day. Given age and experience, a violent passion of southern
+intensity would at last spring from this idyll. Every girl who hangs on
+a youth's neck is already a woman, a woman unconsciously, whom a caress
+may awaken to conscious womanhood. When lovers kiss on the cheeks, it is
+because they are searching, feeling for one another's lips. Lovers are
+made by a kiss. It was on that dark and cold December night, amid the
+bitter wailing of the tocsin, that Miette and Silvere exchanged one of
+those kisses that bring all the heart's blood to the lips.
+
+They remained silent, close to one another. A gentle glow soon
+penetrated them, languor overcame them, and steeped them in feverish
+drowsiness. They were quite warm at last, and lights seemed to flit
+before their closed eyelids, while a buzzing mounted to their brains.
+This state of painful ecstasy, which lasted some minutes, seemed
+endless to them. Then, in a kind of dream, their lips met. The kiss they
+exchanged was long and greedy. It seemed to them as if they had never
+kissed before. Yet their embrace was fraught with suffering and they
+released one another. And the chilliness of the night having cooled
+their fever, they remained in great confusion at some distance one from
+the other.
+
+Meantime the bells were keeping up their sinister converse in the
+dark abyss which surrounded the young people. Miette, trembling and
+frightened, did not dare to draw near to Silvere again. She did not even
+know if he were still there, for she could no longer hear him move. The
+stinging sweetness of their kiss still clung to their lips, to which
+passionate phrases surged, and they longed to kiss once more. But shame
+restrained them from the expression of any such desire. They felt that
+they would rather never taste that bliss again than speak of it aloud.
+If their blood had not been lashed by their rapid march, if the darkness
+had not offered complicity, they would, for a long time yet, have
+continued kissing each other on the cheeks like old playfellows.
+Feelings of modesty were coming to Miette. She remembered Justin's
+coarseness. A few hours previously she had listened, without a blush,
+to that fellow who called her a shameless girl. She had wept without
+understanding his meaning, she had wept simply because she guessed that
+what he spoke of must be base. Now that she was becoming a woman, she
+wondered in a last innocent transport whether that kiss, whose burning
+smart she could still feel, would not perhaps suffice to cover her with
+the shame to which her cousin had referred. Thereupon she was seized
+with remorse, and burst into sobs.
+
+"What is the matter; why are you crying?" asked Silvere in an anxious
+voice.
+
+"Oh, leave me," she faltered, "I do not know."
+
+Then in spite of herself, as it were, she continued amidst her tears:
+"Ah! what an unfortunate creature I am! When I was ten years old
+people used to throw stones at me. To-day I am treated as the vilest of
+creatures. Justin did right to despise me before everybody. We have been
+doing wrong, Silvere."
+
+The young man, quite dismayed, clasped her in his arms again, trying
+to console her. "I love you," he whispered, "I am your brother. Why
+say that we have been doing wrong? We kissed each other because we were
+cold. You know very well that we used to kiss each other every evening
+before separating."
+
+"Oh! not as we did just now," she whispered. "It must be wrong, for a
+strange feeling came over me. The men will laugh at me now as I pass,
+and they will be right in doing so. I shall not be able to defend
+myself."
+
+The young fellow remained silent, unable to find a word to calm the
+agitation of this big child, trembling at her first kiss of love. He
+clasped her gently, imagining that he might calm her by his embrace.
+She struggled, however, and continued: "If you like, we will go away; we
+will leave the province. I can never return to Plassans; my uncle would
+beat me; all the townspeople would point their fingers at me--" And
+then, as if seized with sudden irritation, she added: "But no! I am
+cursed! I forbid you to leave aunt Dide to follow me. You must leave me
+on the highway."
+
+"Miette, Miette!" Silvere implored; "don't talk like that."
+
+"Yes. I want to please you. Be reasonable. They have turned me out like
+a vagabond. If I went back with you, you would always be fighting for my
+sake, and I don't want that."
+
+At this the young man again pressed a kiss upon her lips, murmuring:
+"You shall be my wife, and nobody will then dare to hurt you."
+
+"Oh! please, I entreat you!" she said, with a stifled cry; "don't kiss
+me so. You hurt me."
+
+Then, after a short silence: "You know quite well that I cannot be your
+wife now. We are too young. You would have to wait for me, and meanwhile
+I should die of shame. You are wrong in protesting; you will be forced
+to leave me in some corner."
+
+At this Silvere, his fortitude exhausted, began to cry. A man's sobs
+are fraught with distressing hoarseness. Miette, quite frightened as
+she felt the poor fellow shaking in her arms, kissed him on the face,
+forgetting she was burning her lips. But it was all her fault. She was
+a little simpleton to have let a kiss upset her so completely. She
+now clasped her lover to her bosom as if to beg forgiveness for having
+pained him. These weeping children, so anxiously clasping one another,
+made the dark night yet more woeful than before. In the distance, the
+bells continued to complain unceasingly in panting accents.
+
+"It is better to die," repeated Silvere, amidst his sobs; "it is better
+to die."
+
+"Don't cry; forgive me," stammered Miette. "I will be brave; I will do
+all you wish."
+
+When the young man had dried his tears: "You are right," he said; "we
+cannot return to Plassans. But the time for cowardice has not yet come.
+If we come out of the struggle triumphant, I will go for aunt Dide, and
+we will take her ever so far away with us. If we are beaten----"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"If we are beaten?" repeated Miette, softly.
+
+"Then be it as God wills!" continued Silvere, in a softer voice. "I most
+likely shall not be there. You will comfort the poor woman. That would
+be better."
+
+"Ah! as you said just now," the young girl murmured, "it would be better
+to die."
+
+At this longing for death they tightened their embrace. Miette relied
+upon dying with Silvere; he had only spoken of himself, but she felt
+that he would gladly take her with him into the earth. They would there
+be able to love each other more freely than under the sun. Aunt
+Dide would die likewise and join them. It was, so to say, a rapid
+presentiment, a desire for some strange voluptuousness, to which
+Heaven, by the mournful accents of the tocsin, was promising early
+gratification. To die! To die! The bells repeated these words with
+increasing passion, and the lovers yielded to the calls of the darkness;
+they fancied they experienced a foretaste of the last sleep, in the
+drowsiness into which they again sank, whilst their lips met once more.
+
+Miette no longer turned away. It was she, now, who pressed her lips to
+Silvere's, who sought with mute ardour for the delight whose stinging
+smart she had not at first been able to endure. The thought of
+approaching death had excited her; she no longer felt herself blushing,
+but hung upon her love, while he in faltering voice repeated: "I love
+you! I love you!"
+
+But at this Miette shook her head, as if to say it was not true. With
+her free and ardent nature she had a secret instinct of the meaning and
+purposes of life, and though she was right willing to die she would fain
+have known life first. At last, growing calmer, she gently rested her
+head on the young man's shoulder, without uttering a word. Silvere
+kissed her again. She tasted those kisses slowly, seeking their meaning,
+their hidden sweetness. As she felt them course through her veins,
+she interrogated them, asking if they were all love, all passion. But
+languor at last overcame her, and she fell into gentle slumber. Silvere
+had enveloped her in her pelisse, drawing the skirt around himself at
+the same time. They no longer felt cold. The young man rejoiced to find,
+from the regularity of her breathing, that the girl was now asleep;
+this repose would enable them to proceed on their way with spirit. He
+resolved to let her slumber for an hour. The sky was still black, and
+the approach of day was but faintly indicated by a whitish line in the
+east. Behind the lovers there must have been a pine wood whose musical
+awakening it was that the young man heard amidst the morning breezes.
+And meantime the wailing of the bells grew more sonorous in the
+quivering atmosphere, lulling Miette's slumber even as it had
+accompanied her passionate fever.
+
+Until that troublous night, these young people had lived through one
+of those innocent idylls that blossom among the toiling masses, those
+outcasts and folks of simple mind amidst whom one may yet occasionally
+find amours as primitive as those of the ancient Greek romances.
+
+Miette had been scarcely nine years old at the time when her father was
+sent to the galleys for shooting a gendarme. The trial of Chantegreil
+had remained a memorable case in the province. The poacher boldly
+confessed that he had killed the gendarme, but he swore that the latter
+had been taking aim at him. "I only anticipated him," he said, "I
+defended myself; it was a duel, not a murder." He never desisted from
+this line of argument. The presiding Judge of the Assizes could not make
+him understand that, although a gendarme has the right to fire upon a
+poacher, a poacher has no right to fire upon a gendarme. Chantegreil
+escaped the guillotine, owing to his obviously sincere belief in his own
+innocence, and his previous good character. The man wept like a child
+when his daughter was brought to him prior to his departure for Toulon.
+The little thing, who had lost her mother in her infancy, dwelt at this
+time with her grandfather at Chavanoz, a village in the passes of the
+Seille. When the poacher was no longer there, the old man and the
+girl lived upon alms. The inhabitants of Chavanoz, all sportsmen and
+poachers, came to the assistance of the poor creatures whom the convict
+had left behind him. After a while, however, the old man died of grief,
+and Miette, left alone by herself, would have had to beg on the high
+roads, if the neighbours had not remembered that she had an aunt at
+Plassans. A charitable soul was kind enough to take her to this aunt,
+who did not, however, receive her very kindly.
+
+Eulalie Chantegreil, the spouse of _meger_ Rebufat, was a big, dark,
+stubborn creature, who ruled the home. She led her husband by the noise,
+said the people of the Faubourg of Plassans. The truth was, Rebufat,
+avaricious and eager for work and gain, felt a sort of respect for this
+big creature, who combined uncommon vigour with strict sobriety and
+economy.
+
+Thanks to her, the household thrived. The _meger_ grumbled one evening
+when, on returning home from work, he found Miette installed there. But
+his wife closed his mouth by saying in her gruff voice: "Bah, the little
+thing's strongly built, she'll do for a servant; we'll keep her and save
+wages."
+
+This calculation pleased Rebufat. He went so far as to feel the little
+thing's arms, and declared with satisfaction that she was sturdy for her
+age. Miette was then nine years old. From the very next day he made use
+of her. The work of the peasant-woman in the South of France is much
+lighter than in the North. One seldom sees them employed in digging the
+ground, carrying loads, or doing other kinds of men's work. They bind
+sheaves, gather olives and mulberry leaves; perhaps their most laborious
+work is that of weeding. Miette worked away willingly. Open-air life
+was her delight, her health. So long as her aunt lived she was always
+smiling. The good woman, in spite of her roughness, at last loved her
+as her own child; she forbade her doing the hard work which her husband
+sometimes tried to force upon her, saying to the latter:
+
+"Ah! you're a clever fellow! You don't understand, you fool, that if you
+tire her too much to-day, she won't be able to do anything to-morrow!"
+
+This argument was decisive. Rebufat bowed his head, and carried the load
+which he had desired to set on the young girl's shoulders.
+
+The latter would have lived in perfect happiness under the secret
+protection of her aunt Eulalie, but for the teasing of her cousin, who
+was then a lad of sixteen, and employed his idle hours in hating and
+persecuting her. Justin's happiest moments were those when by means of
+some gross falsehood he succeeded in getting her scolded. Whenever he
+could tread on her feet, or push her roughly, pretending not to have
+seen her, he laughed and felt the delight of those crafty folks who
+rejoice at other people's misfortunes. Miette, however, would stare at
+him with her large black childish eyes gleaming with anger and silent
+scorn, which checked the cowardly youngster's sneers. In reality he was
+terribly afraid of his cousin.
+
+The young girl was just attaining her eleventh year when her aunt
+Eulalie suddenly died. From that day everything changed in the house.
+Rebufat gradually come to treat her like a farm-labourer. He overwhelmed
+her with all sorts of rough work, and made use of her as a beast of
+burden. She never even complained, however, thinking that she had a debt
+of gratitude to repay him. In the evening, when she was worn out with
+fatigue, she mourned for her aunt, that terrible woman whose latent
+kindliness she now realised. However, it was not the hard work that
+distressed her, for she delighted in her strength, and took a pride in
+her big arms and broad shoulders. What distressed her was her uncle's
+distrustful surveillance, his continual reproaches, and the irritated
+employer-like manner he assumed towards her. She had now become a
+stranger in the house. Yet even a stranger would not have been so badly
+treated as she was. Rebufat took the most unscrupulous advantage of
+this poor little relative, whom he pretended to keep out of charity. She
+repaid his harsh hospitality ten times over with her work, and yet never
+a day passed but he grudged her the bread she ate. Justin especially
+excelled in wounding her. Since his mother had been dead, seeing her
+without a protector, he had brought all his evil instincts into play in
+trying to make the house intolerable to her. The most ingenious torture
+which he invented was to speak to Miette of her father. The poor girl,
+living away from the world, under the protection of her aunt, who had
+forbidden any one ever to mention the words "galleys" or "convict"
+before her, hardly understood their meaning. It was Justin who explained
+it to her by relating, in his own manner, the story of the murder of the
+gendarme, and Chantegreil's conviction. There was no end to the horrible
+particulars he supplied: the convicts had a cannonball fastened to one
+ankle by a chain, they worked fifteen hours a day, and all died under
+their punishment; their prison, too, was a frightful place, the horrors
+of which he described minutely. Miette listened to him, stupefied, her
+eyes full of tears. Sometimes she was roused to sudden violence, and
+Justin quickly retired before her clenched fists. However, he took a
+savage delight in thus instructing her as to the nature of prison
+life. When his father flew into a passion with the child for any little
+negligence, he chimed in, glad to be able to insult her without danger.
+And if she attempted to defend herself, he would exclaim: "Bah! bad
+blood always shows itself. You'll end at the galleys like your father."
+
+At this Miette sobbed, stung to the heart, powerless and overwhelmed
+with shame.
+
+She was already growing to womanhood at this period. Of precocious
+nature, she endured her martyrdom with extraordinary fortitude. She
+rarely gave way, excepting when her natural pride succumbed to her
+cousin's outrages. Soon even, she was able to bear, without a tear, the
+incessant insults of this cowardly fellow, who ever watched her while he
+spoke, for fear lest she should fly at his face. Then, too, she learnt
+to silence him by staring at him fixedly. She had several times felt
+inclined to run away from the Jas-Meiffren; but she did not do so,
+as her courage could not brook the idea of confessing that she was
+vanquished by the persecution she endured. She certainly earned her
+bread, she did not steal the Rebufats' hospitality; and this conviction
+satisfied her pride. So she remained there to continue the struggle,
+stiffening herself and living on with the one thought of resistance. Her
+plan was to do her work in silence, and revenge herself for all harsh
+treatment by mute contempt. She knew that her uncle derived too much
+advantage from her to listen readily to the insinuations of Justin,
+who longed to get her turned out of doors. And in a defiant spirit she
+resolved that she would not go away of her own accord.
+
+Her continuous voluntary silence was full of strange fancies. Passing
+her days in the enclosure, isolated from all the world, she formed ideas
+for herself which would have strangely shocked the good people of the
+Faubourg. Her father's fate particularly occupied her thoughts. All
+Justin's abuse recurred to her; and she ended by accepting the charge
+of murder, saying to herself, however, that her father had done well
+to kill the gendarme who had tried to kill him. She had learnt the real
+story from a labourer who had worked for a time at the Jas-Meiffren.
+From that moment, on the few occasions when she went out, she no longer
+even turned if the ragamuffins of the Faubourg followed her, crying:
+"Hey! La Chantegreil!"
+
+She simply hastened her steps homeward, with lips compressed, and black,
+fierce eyes. Then after shutting the gate, she perhaps cast one long
+glance at the gang of urchins. She would have become vicious, have
+lapsed into fierce pariah savagery, if her childishness had not
+sometimes gained the mastery. Her extreme youth brought her little
+girlish weaknesses which relieved her. She would then cry with shame for
+herself and her father. She would hide herself in a stable so that she
+might sob to her heart's content, for she knew that, if the others saw
+her crying, they would torment her all the more. And when she had wept
+sufficiently, she would bathe her eyes in the kitchen, and then again
+subside into uncomplaining silence. It was not interest alone, however,
+which prompted her to hide herself; she carried her pride in her
+precocious strength so far that she was unwilling to appear a child. In
+time she would have become very unhappy. Fortunately she was saved by
+discovering the latent tenderness of her loving nature.
+
+The well in the yard of the house occupied by aunt Dide and Silvere was
+a party-well. The wall of the Jas-Meiffren cut it in halves. Formerly,
+before the Fouques' property was united to the neighbouring estate, the
+market-gardeners had used this well daily. Since the transfer of the
+Fouques' ground, however, as it was at some distance from the outhouses,
+the inmates of the Jas, who had large cisterns at their disposal, did
+not draw a pail of water from it in a month. On the other side, one
+could hear the grating of the pulley every morning when Silvere drew the
+water for aunt Dide.
+
+One day the pulley broke. The young wheelwright made a good strong one
+of oak, and put it up in the evening after his day's work. To do this
+he had to climb upon the wall. When he had finished the job he remained
+resting astride the coping, and surveyed with curiosity the large
+expanse of the Jas-Meiffren. At last a peasant-girl, who was weeding the
+ground a few feet from him, attracted his attention. It was in July, and
+the air was broiling, although the sun had already sank to the horizon.
+The peasant-girl had taken off her jacket. In a white bodice, with a
+coloured neckerchief tied over her shoulders, and the sleeves of her
+chemise turned up as far as her elbows, she was squatting amid the folds
+of her blue cotton skirt, which was secured to a pair of braces crossed
+behind her back. She crawled about on her knees as she pulled up the
+tares and threw them into a basket. The young man could only see her
+bare, sun-tanned arms stretching out right and left to seize some
+overlooked weed. He followed this rapid play of her arms complacently,
+deriving a singular pleasure from seeing them so firm and quick. The
+young person had slightly raised herself on noticing that he was
+no longer at work, but had again lowered her head before he could
+distinguish her features. This shyness kept him in suspense. Like an
+inquisitive lad he wondered who this weeder could be, and while he
+lingered there, whistling and beating time with a chisel, the latter
+suddenly slipped out of his hand. It fell into the Jas-Meiffren,
+striking the curb of the well, and then bounding a few feet from the
+wall. Silvere looked at it, leaning forward and hesitating to get over.
+But the peasant-girl must have been watching the young man askance, for
+she jumped up without saying anything, picked up the chisel, and handed
+it to Silvere, who then perceived that she was a mere child. He was
+surprised and rather intimidated. The young girl raised herself towards
+him in the red glare of the sunset. The wall at this spot was low, but
+nevertheless too high for her to reach him. So he bent low over the
+coping, while she still raised herself on tiptoes. They did not speak,
+but looked at each other with an air of smiling confusion. The young man
+would indeed have liked to keep the girl in that position. She turned to
+him a charming head, with handsome black eyes, and red lips, which quite
+astonished and stirred him. He had never before seen a girl so near;
+he had not known that lips and eyes could be so pleasant to look at.
+Everything about the girl seemed to possess a strange fascination for
+him--her coloured neckerchief, her white bodice, her blue cotton skirt
+hanging from braces which stretched with the motion of her shoulders.
+Then his glance glided along the arm which was handing him the tool; as
+far as the elbow this arm was of a golden brown, as though clothed with
+sun-burn; but higher up, in the shadow of the tucked-up sleeve, Silvere
+perceived a bare, milk-white roundness. At this he felt confused;
+however, he leant further over, and at last managed to grasp the chisel.
+The little peasant-girl was becoming embarrassed. Still they remained
+there, smiling at each other, the child beneath with upturned face, and
+the lad half reclining on the coping of the wall. They could not part
+from each other. So far they had not exchanged a word, and Silvere even
+forgot to say, "Thank you."
+
+"What's your name?" he asked.
+
+"Marie," replied the peasant-girl; "but everybody calls me Miette."
+
+Again she raised herself slightly, and in a clear voice inquired in her
+turn: "And yours?"
+
+"My name is Silvere," the young workman replied.
+
+A pause ensued, during which they seemed to be listening complacently to
+the music of their names.
+
+"I'm fifteen years old," resumed Silvere. "And you?"
+
+"I!" said Miette; "oh, I shall be eleven on All Saints' Day."
+
+The young workman made a gesture of surprise. "Ah! really!" he said,
+laughing, "and to think I took you for a woman! You've such big arms."
+
+She also began to laugh, as she lowered her eyes to her arms. Then they
+ceased speaking. They remained for another moment gazing and smiling at
+each other. And finally, as Silvere seemingly had no more questions to
+ask her, Miette quietly withdrew and went on plucking her weeds, without
+raising her head. The lad for his part remained on the wall for a while.
+The sun was setting; a stream of oblique rays poured over the yellow
+soil of the Jas-Meiffren, which seemed to be all ablaze--one would have
+said that a fire was running along the ground--and, in the midst of the
+flaming expanse, Silvere saw the little stooping peasant-girl, whose
+bare arms had resumed their rapid motion. The blue cotton skirt was
+now becoming white; and rays of light streamed over the child's
+copper-coloured arms. At last Silvere felt somewhat ashamed of remaining
+there, and accordingly got off the wall.
+
+In the evening, preoccupied with his adventure, he endeavoured to
+question aunt Dide. Perhaps she would know who this Miette was who had
+such black eyes and such red lips. But, since she had lived in the house
+in the alley, the old woman had never once given a look behind the wall
+of the little yard. It was, to her, like an impassable rampart, which
+shut off her past. She did not know--she did not want to know--what
+there might now be on the other side of that wall, in that old enclosure
+of the Fouques, where she had buried her love, her heart and her flesh.
+As soon as Silvere began to question her she looked at him with childish
+terror. Was he, then, going to stir up the ashes of those days now dead
+and gone, and make her weep like her son Antoine had done?
+
+"I don't know," she said in a hasty voice; "I no longer go out, I never
+see anybody."
+
+Silvere waited the morrow with considerable impatience. And as soon
+as he got to his master's workshop, he drew his fellow-workmen into
+conversation. He did not say anything about his interview with Miette;
+but spoke vaguely of a girl whom he had seen from a distance in the
+Jas-Meiffren.
+
+"Oh! that's La Chantegreil!" cried one of the workmen.
+
+There was no necessity for Silvere to question them further, for they
+told him the story of the poacher Chantegreil and his daughter Miette,
+with that unreasoning spite which is felt for social outcasts. The girl,
+in particular, they treated in a foul manner; and the insulting gibe
+of "daughter of a galley-slave" constantly rose to their lips like an
+incontestable reason for condemning the poor, dear innocent creature to
+eternal disgrace.
+
+However, wheelwright Vian, an honest, worthy fellow, at last silenced
+his men.
+
+"Hold your tongues, you foul mouths!" he said, as he let fall the
+shaft of a cart that he had been examining. "You ought to be ashamed of
+yourselves for being so hard upon the child. I've seen her, the little
+thing looks a very good girl. Besides, I'm told she doesn't mind work,
+and already does as much as any woman of thirty. There are some lazy
+fellows here who aren't a match for her. I hope, later on, that she'll
+get a good husband who'll stop this evil talk."
+
+Silvere, who had been chilled by the workmen's gross jests and insults,
+felt tears rise to his eyes at the last words spoken by Vian. However,
+he did not open his lips. He took up his hammer, which he had laid down
+near him, and began with all his might to strike the nave of a wheel
+which he was binding with iron.
+
+In the evening, as soon as he had returned home from the workshop, he
+ran to the wall and climbed upon it. He found Miette engaged upon the
+same labour as the day before. He called her. She came to him, with her
+smile of embarrassment, and the charming shyness of a child who from
+infancy had grown up in tears.
+
+"You're La Chantegreil, aren't you?" he asked her, abruptly.
+
+She recoiled, she ceased smiling, and her eyes turned sternly black,
+gleaming with defiance. So this lad was going to insult her, like the
+others! She was turning her back upon him, without giving an answer,
+when Silvere, perplexed by her sudden change of countenance, hastened to
+add: "Stay, I beg you--I don't want to pain you--I've got so many things
+to tell you!"
+
+She turned round, still distrustful. Silvere, whose heart was full, and
+who had resolved to relieve it, remained for a moment speechless, not
+knowing how to continue, for he feared lest he should commit a fresh
+blunder. At last he put his whole heart in one phrase: "Would you like
+me to be your friend?" he said, in a voice full of emotion. And as
+Miette, in surprise, raised her eyes, which were again moist and
+smiling, he continued with animation: "I know that people try to vex
+you. It's time to put a stop to it. I will be your protector now. Shall
+I?"
+
+The child beamed with delight. This proffered friendship roused her from
+all her evil dreams of taciturn hatred. Still she shook her head and
+answered: "No, I don't want you to fight on my account. You'd have
+too much to do. Besides which, there are persons from whom you cannot
+protect me."
+
+Silvere wished to declare that he would defend her against the whole
+world, but she closed his mouth with a coaxing gesture, as she added: "I
+am satisfied to have you as a friend."
+
+They then conversed together for a few minutes, lowering their voices as
+much as possible. Miette spoke to Silvere of her uncle and her cousin.
+For all the world she would not have liked them to catch him astride
+the coping of the wall. Justin would be implacable with such a weapon
+against her. She spoke of her misgivings with the fright of a schoolgirl
+on meeting a friend with whom her mother has forbidden her to associate.
+Silvere merely understood, however, that he would not be able to see
+Miette at his pleasure. This made him very sad. Still, he promised that
+he would not climb upon the wall any more. They were both endeavouring
+to find some expedient for seeing each other again, when Miette suddenly
+begged him to go away; she had just caught sight of Justin, who was
+crossing the grounds in the direction of the wall. Silvere quickly
+descended. When he was in the little yard again, he remained by the wall
+to listen, irritated by his flight. After a few minutes he ventured to
+climb again and cast a glance into the Jas-Meiffren, but he saw Justin
+speaking with Miette, and quickly withdrew his head. On the following
+day he could see nothing of his friend, not even in the distance; she
+must have finished her work in that part of the Jas. A week passed in
+this fashion, and the young people had no opportunity of exchanging a
+single word. Silvere was in despair; he thought of boldly going to the
+Rebufats to ask for Miette.
+
+The party-well was a large one, but not very deep. On either side of
+the wall the curb formed a large semicircle. The water was only ten or
+twelve feet down at the utmost. This slumbering water reflected the two
+apertures of the well, two half-moons between which the shadow of the
+wall cast a black streak. On leaning over, one might have fancied in the
+vague light that the half-moons were two mirrors of singular clearness
+and brilliance. Under the morning sunshine, when the dripping of the
+ropes did not disturb the surface of the water, these mirrors, these
+reflections of the heavens, showed like white patches on the green
+water, and in them the leaves of the ivy which had spread along the wall
+over the well were repeated with marvellous exactness.
+
+One morning, at an early hour, Silvere, as he came to draw water for
+aunt Dide, bent over the well mechanically, just as he was taking hold
+of the rope. He started, and then stood motionless, still leaning over.
+He had fancied that he could distinguish in the well the face of a young
+girl who was looking at him with a smile; however, he had shaken the
+rope, and the disturbed water was now but a dim mirror that no longer
+reflected anything clearly. Silvere, who did not venture to stir, and
+whose heart beat rapidly, then waited for the water to settle. As
+its ripples gradually widened and died away, he perceived the image
+reappearing. It oscillated for a long time, with a swing which lent
+a vague, phantom-like grace to its features, but at last it remained
+stationary. It was the smiling countenance of Miette, with her head
+and shoulders, her coloured neckerchief, her white bodice, and her blue
+braces. Silvere next perceived his own image in the other mirror. Then,
+knowing that they could see each other, they nodded their heads. For
+the first moment, they did not even think of speaking. At last they
+exchanged greetings.
+
+"Good morning, Silvere."
+
+"Good morning, Miette."
+
+They were surprised by the strange sound of their voices, which became
+singularly soft and sweet in that damp hole. The sound seemed, indeed,
+to come from a distance, like the soft music of voices heard of an
+evening in the country. They understood that it would suffice to speak
+in a whisper in order to hear each other. The well echoed the faintest
+breath. Leaning over its brink, they conversed while gazing at one
+another's reflection. Miette related how sad she had been the last week.
+She was now working at the other end of the Jas, and could only get out
+early in the morning. Then she made a pout of annoyance which Silvere
+distinguished perfectly, and to which he replied by nodding his head
+with an air of vexation. They were exchanging all those gestures and
+facial expressions that speech entails. They cared but little for the
+wall which separated them now that they could see each other in those
+hidden depths.
+
+"I knew," continued Miette, with a knowing look, "that you came here to
+draw water every morning at the same hour. I can hear the grating of the
+pulley from the house. So I made an excuse, I pretended that the water
+in this well boiled the vegetables better. I thought that I might come
+here every morning to draw water at the same time as you, so as to say
+good morning to you without anyone suspecting it."
+
+She smiled innocently, as though well pleased with her device, and
+ended by saying: "But I did not imagine we should see each other in the
+water."
+
+It was, in fact, this unhoped-for pleasure which so delighted them. They
+only spoke to see their lips move, so greatly did this new frolic amuse
+their childish natures. And they resolved to use all means in their
+power to meet here every morning. When Miette had said that she must go
+away, she told Silvere that he could draw his pail of water. But he did
+not dare to shake the rope; Miette was still leaning over--he could see
+her smiling face, and it was too painful to him to dispel that smile. As
+he slightly stirred his pail, the water murmured, and the smile faded.
+Then he stopped, seized with a strange fear; he fancied that he had
+vexed her and made her cry. But the child called to him, "Go on! go on!"
+with a laugh which the echo prolonged and rendered more sonorous. She
+herself then nosily sent down a pail. There was a perfect tempest.
+Everything disappeared under the black water. And Silvere made up his
+mind to fill two pitchers, while listening to the retreating steps of
+Miette on the other side of the wall.
+
+From that day, the young people never missed their assignations. The
+slumbering water, the white mirrors in which they gazed at one another,
+imparted to their interviews a charm which long sufficed their playful,
+childish imaginations. They had no desire to see each other face to
+face: it seemed much more amusing to them to use the well as a mirror,
+and confide their morning greetings to its echo. They soon came to look
+upon the well as an old friend. They loved to bend over the motionless
+water that resembled molten silver. A greenish glimmer hovered below,
+in a mysterious half light, and seemed to change the damp hole into some
+hiding-place in the depths of a wood. They saw each other in a sort
+of greenish nest bedecked with moss, in the midst of fresh water and
+foliage. And all the strangeness of the deep spring, the hollow tower
+over which they bent, trembling with fascination, added unconfessed and
+delightful fear to their merry laughter. The wild idea occurred to them
+of going down and seating themselves on a row of large stones which
+formed a kind of circular bench at a few inches above the water. They
+would dip their feet in the latter, converse there for hours, and no
+one would think of coming to look for them in such a spot. But when
+they asked each other what there might be down there, their vague fears
+returned; they thought it quite sufficient to let their reflected images
+descend into the depths amidst those green glimmers which tinged the
+stones with strange moire-like reflections, and amidst those mysterious
+noises which rose from the dark corners. Those sounds issuing from the
+invisible made them particularly uneasy; they often fancied that voices
+were replying to their own; and then they would remain silent, detecting
+a thousand faint plaints which they could not understand. These came
+from the secret travail of the moisture, the sighs of the atmosphere,
+the drops that glided over the stones, and fell below with the
+sonorousness of sobs. They would nod affectionately to each other
+in order to reassure themselves. Thus the attraction which kept them
+leaning over the brink had a tinge of secret terror, like all poignant
+charms. But the well still remained their old friend. It was such
+an excellent pretext for meeting! Justin, who watched Miette's every
+movement, never suspected the cause of her eagerness to go and draw some
+water every morning. At times, he saw her from the distance, leaning
+over and loitering. "Ah! the lazy thing!" he muttered; "how fond she is
+of dawdling about!" How could he suspect that, on the other side of the
+wall, there was a wooer contemplating the girl's smile in the water, and
+saying to her: "If that red-haired donkey Justin should illtreat you,
+just tell me of it, and he shall hear from me!"
+
+This amusement lasted for more than a month. It was July then; the
+mornings were sultry; the sun shone brightly, and it was quite a
+pleasure to come to that damp spot. It was delightful to feel the cold
+breath of the well on one's face, and make love amidst this spring water
+while the skies were kindling their fires. Miette would arrive out of
+breath after crossing the stubble fields; as she ran along, her hair
+fell down over her forehead and temples; and it was with flushed face
+and dishevelled locks that she would lean over, shaking with laughter,
+almost before she had had time to set her pitcher down. Silvere, who
+was almost always the first at the well, felt, as he suddenly saw her
+smiling face in the water, as keen a joy as he would have experienced
+had she suddenly thrown herself into his arms at the bend of a pathway.
+Around them the radiant morning hummed with mirth; a wave of warm light,
+sonorous with the buzzing of insects, beat against the old wall, the
+posts, and the curbstone. They, however, no longer saw the shower of
+morning sunshine, nor heard the thousand sounds rising from the ground;
+they were in the depths of their green hiding-place, under the earth, in
+that mysterious and awesome cavity, and quivered with pleasure as they
+lingered there enjoying its fresh coolness and dim light.
+
+On some mornings, Miette, who by nature could not long maintain a
+contemplative attitude, began to tease; she would shake the rope, and
+make drops of water fall in order to ripple the mirrors and deface the
+reflections. Silvere would then entreat her to remain still; he, whose
+fervour was deeper than hers, knew no keener pleasure than that of
+gazing at his love's image reflected so distinctly in every feature.
+But she would not listen to him; she would joke and feign a rough old
+bogey's voice, to which the echo imparted a raucous melodiousness.
+
+"No, no," she would say in chiding fashion; "I don't love you to-day!
+I'm making faces at you; see how ugly I am."
+
+And she laughed at seeing the fantastic forms which their spreading
+faces assumed as they danced upon the disturbed water.
+
+One morning she got angry in real earnest. She did not find Silvere at
+the trysting-place, and waited for him for nearly a quarter of an hour,
+vainly making the pulley grate. She was just about to depart in a rage
+when he arrived. As soon as she perceived him she let a perfect tempest
+loose in the well, shook her pail in an irritated manner, and made the
+blackish water whirl and splash against the stones. In vain did Silvere
+try to explain that aunt Dide had detained him. To all his excuses she
+replied: "You've vexed me; I don't want to see you."
+
+The poor lad, in despair, vainly questioned that sombre cavity, now so
+full of lamentable sounds, where, on other days, such a bright vision
+usually awaited him amid the silence of the stagnant water. He had to go
+away without seeing Miette. On the morrow, arriving before the time,
+he gazed sadly into the well, hearing nothing, and thinking that the
+obstinate girl would not come, when she, who was already on the other
+side slyly watching his arrival, bent over suddenly with a burst of
+laughter. All was at once forgotten.
+
+In this wise the well was the scene of many a little drama and comedy.
+That happy cavity, with its gleaming mirrors and musical echoes, quickly
+ripened their love. They endowed it with such strange life, so filled it
+with their youthful love, that, long after they had ceased to come and
+lean over the brink, Silvere, as he drew water every morning, would
+fancy he could see Miette's smiling face in the dim light that still
+quivered with the joy they had set there.
+
+That month of playful love rescued Miette from her mute despair. She
+felt a revival of her affections, her happy childish carelessness, which
+had been held in check by the hateful loneliness in which she lived.
+The certainty that she was loved by somebody, and that she was no longer
+alone in the world, enabled her to endure the persecutions of Justin
+and the Faubourg urchins. A song of joy, whose glad notes drowned their
+hootings, now sounded in her heart. She thought of her father with
+tender compassion, and did not now so frequently yield to dreams of
+bitter vengeance. Her dawning love cooled her feverish broodings
+like the fresh breezes of the dawn. At the same time she acquired the
+instinctive cunning of a young girl in love. She felt that she must
+maintain her usual silent and rebellious demeanour if she were to escape
+Justin's suspicions. But, in spite of her efforts, her eyes retained a
+sweet unruffled expression when the lad bullied her; she was no longer
+able to put on her old black look of indignant anger. One morning he
+heard her humming to herself at breakfast-time.
+
+"You seem very gay, Chantegreil!" he said to her suspiciously, glancing
+keenly at her from his lowering eyes. "I bet you've been up to some of
+your tricks again!"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, but she trembled inwardly; and she did all
+she could to regain her old appearance of rebellious martyrdom. However,
+though Justin suspected some secret happiness, it was long before he was
+able to discover how his victim had escaped him.
+
+Silvere, on his side, enjoyed profound happiness. His daily meetings
+with Miette made his idle hours pass pleasantly away. During his
+long silent companionship with aunt Dide, he recalled one by one his
+remembrances of the morning, revelling in their most trifling details.
+From that time forward, the fulness of his heart cloistered him yet more
+in the lonely existence which he had adopted with his grandmother. He
+was naturally fond of hidden spots, of solitary retirement, where he
+could give himself up to his thoughts. At this period already he had
+eagerly begun to read all the old odd volumes which he could pick up at
+brokers' shops in the Faubourg, and which were destined to lead him to
+a strange and generous social religion and morality. His
+reading--ill-digested and lacking all solid foundation--gave him
+glimpses of the world's vanities and pleasures, especially with regard
+to women, which would have seriously troubled his mind if his heart
+had not been contented. When Miette came, he received her at first as
+a companion, then as the joy and ambition of his life. In the evening,
+when he had retired to the little nook where he slept, and hung his lamp
+at the head of his strap-bedstead, he would find Miette on every page of
+the dusty old volume which he had taken at random from a shelf above his
+head and was reading devoutly. He never came across a young girl, a good
+and beautiful creature, in his reading, without immediately identifying
+her with his sweetheart. And he would set himself in the narrative as
+well. If he were reading a love story, it was he who married Miette at
+the end, or died with her. If, on the contrary, he were perusing some
+political pamphlet, some grave dissertation on social economy, works
+which he preferred to romances, for he had that singular partiality for
+difficult subjects which characterises persons of imperfect scholarship,
+he still found some means of associating her with the tedious themes
+which frequently he could not even understand. For instance, he tried
+to persuade himself that he was learning how to be good and kind to her
+when they were married. He thus associated her with all his visionary
+dreamings. Protected by the purity of his affection against the
+obscenity of certain eighteenth-century tales which fell into his hands,
+he found particular pleasure in shutting himself up with her in those
+humanitarian Utopias which some great minds of our own time, infatuated
+by visions of universal happiness have imagined. Miette, in his mind,
+became quite essential to the abolition of pauperism and the definitive
+triumph of the principles of the Revolution. There were nights of
+feverish reading, when his mind could not tear itself from his book,
+which he would lay down and take up at least a score of times, nights
+of voluptuous weariness which he enjoyed till daybreak like some secret
+orgie, cramped up in that tiny room, his eyes troubled by the flickering
+yellow light, while he yielded to the fever of insomnia and schemed
+out new social schemes of the most absurdly ingenuous nature, in which
+woman, always personified by Miette, was worshipped by the nations on
+their knees.
+
+He was predisposed to Utopian ideas by certain hereditary influences;
+his grandmother's nervous disorders became in him so much chronic
+enthusiasm, striving after everything that was grandiose and impossible.
+His lonely childhood, his imperfect education, had developed his natural
+tendencies in a singular manner. However, he had not yet reached the age
+when the fixed idea plants itself in a man's mind. In the morning, after
+he had dipped his head in a bucket of water, he remembered his thoughts
+and visions of the night but vaguely; nothing remained of his dreams
+save a childlike innocence, full of trustful confidence and yearning
+tenderness. He felt like a child again. He ran to the well, solely
+desirous of meeting his sweetheart's smile, and tasting the delights
+of the radiant morning. And during the day, when thoughts of the future
+sometimes made him silent and dreamy, he would often, prompted by some
+sudden impulse, spring up and kiss aunt Dide on both cheeks, whereat the
+old woman would gaze at him anxiously, perturbed at seeing his eyes so
+bright, and gleaming with a joy which she thought she could divine.
+
+At last, as time went on, Miette and Silvere began to tire of only
+seeing each other's reflection. The novelty of their play was gone, and
+now they began to dream of keener pleasures than the well could afford
+them. In this longing for reality which came upon them, there was the
+wish to see each other face to face, to run through the open fields, and
+return out of breath with their arms around each other's waist, clinging
+closely together in order that they might the better feel each other's
+love. One morning Silvere spoke of climbing over the wall, and walking
+in the Jas with Miette. But the child implored him not to perpetrate
+such folly, which would place her at Justin's mercy. He then promised to
+seek some other means.
+
+The wall in which the well was set made a sudden bend a few paces
+further on, thereby forming a sort of recess, where the lovers would be
+free from observation, if they were to take shelter there. The question
+was how to reach this recess. Silvere could no longer entertain the idea
+of climbing over, as Miette had appeared so afraid. He secretly thought
+of another plan. The little door which Macquart and Adelaide had set up
+one night long years previously had remained forgotten in this remote
+corner. The owner of the Jas-Meiffren had not even thought of blocking
+it up. Blackened by damp and green with moss, its lock and hinges eaten
+away with rust, it looked like a part of the old wall. Doubtless the
+key was lost; the grass growing beside the lower boards, against which
+slight mounds had formed, amply proved that no one had passed that way
+for many a long year. However, it was the lost key that Silvere hoped to
+find. He knew with what devotion his aunt Dide allowed the relics of the
+past to lie rotting wherever they might be. He searched the house for a
+week without any result, and went stealthily night by night to see if
+he had at last put his hand on the right key during the daytime. In this
+way he tried more than thirty keys which had doubtless come from the old
+property of the Fouques, and which he found all over the place, against
+the walls, on the floors, and at the bottom of drawers. He was becoming
+disheartened, when all at once he found the precious key. It was simply
+tied by a string to the street door latch-key, which always remained in
+the lock. It had hung there for nearly forty years. Aunt Dide must every
+day have touched it with her hand, without ever making up her mind to
+throw it away, although it could now only carry her back sorrowfully
+into the past. When Silvere had convinced himself that it really opened
+the little door, he awaited the ensuing day, dreaming of the joyful
+surprise which he was preparing for Miette. He had not told her for what
+he had been searching.
+
+On the morrow, as soon as he heard the girl set her pitcher down, he
+gently opened the door, sweeping away with a push the tall weeds which
+covered the threshold. Stretching out his head, he saw Miette leaning
+over the brink of the well, looking into the water, absorbed in
+expectation. Thereupon, in a couple of strides, he reached the recess
+formed by the wall, and thence called, "Miette! Miette!" in a soft
+voice, which made her tremble. She raised her head, thinking he was on
+the coping of the wall. But when she saw him in the Jas, at a few steps
+from her, she gave a faint cry of surprise, and ran up to him. They took
+each other's hand, and looked at one another, delighted to be so near,
+thinking themselves far handsomer like this, in the warm sunshine. It
+was the middle of August, the Feast of the Assumption. In the
+distance, the bells were pealing in the limpid atmosphere that so often
+accompanies great days of festival, an atmosphere full of bright gaiety.
+
+"Good morning, Silvere!"
+
+"Good morning, Miette!"
+
+The voices in which they exchanged their morning greetings sounded
+strange to them. They knew only the muffled accents transmitted by the
+echo of the well. And now their voices seemed to them as clear as the
+notes of a lark. And ah! how delightful it was in that warm corner, in
+that holiday atmosphere! They still held each other's hands. Silvere
+leaning against the wall, Miette with her figure slightly thrown
+backwards. They were about to tell each other all the soft things which
+they had not dared to confide to the reverberations of the well, when
+Silvere, hearing a slight noise, started, and, turning pale, dropped
+Miette's hands. He had just seen aunt Dide standing before him erect and
+motionless on the threshold of the doorway.
+
+The grandmother had come to the well by chance. And on perceiving, in
+the old black wall, the white gap formed by the doorway which Silvere
+had left wide open, she had experienced a violent shock. That open gap
+seemed to her like a gulf of light violently illumining her past. She
+once more saw herself running to the door amidst the morning brightness,
+and crossing the threshold full of the transports of her nervous love.
+And Macquart was there awaiting her. She hung upon his neck and pressed
+against his bosom, whilst the rising sun, following her through the
+doorway, which she had left open in her hurry, enveloped them with
+radiance. It was a sudden vision which roused her cruelly from the
+slumber of old age, like some supreme chastisement, and awakened a
+multitude of bitter memories within her. Had the well, had the entire
+wall, disappeared beneath the earth, she would not have been more
+stupefied. She had never thought that this door would open again. In her
+mind it had been walled up ever since the hour of Macquart's death. And
+amidst her amazement she felt angry, indignant with the sacrilegious
+hand that had penetrated this violation, and left that white open space
+agape like a yawning tomb. She stepped forward, yielding to a kind of
+fascination, and halted erect within the framework of the door.
+
+Then she gazed out before her, with a feeling of dolorous surprise. She
+had certainly been told that the old enclosure of the Fouques was
+now joined to the Jas-Meiffren; but she would never have thought the
+associations of her youth could have vanished so completely. It seemed
+as though some tempest had carried off everything that her memory
+cherished. The old dwelling, the large kitchen-garden, the beds of green
+vegetables, all had disappeared. Not a stone, not a tree of former times
+remained. And instead of the scene amidst which she had grown up, and
+which in her mind's eye she had seen but yesterday, there lay a strip
+of barren soil, a broad patch of stubbles, bare like a desert.
+Henceforward, when, on closing her eyes, she might try to recall the
+objects of the past, that stubble would always appear to her like a
+shroud of yellowish drugget spread over the soil, in which her youth lay
+buried. In the presence of that unfamiliar commonplace scene her heart
+died, as it were, a second time. Now all was completely, finally ended.
+She was robbed even of her dreams of the past. Then she began to regret
+that she had yielded to the attraction of that white opening, of that
+doorway gaping upon the days which were now for ever lost.
+
+She was about to retire and close the accursed door, without even
+seeking to discover who had opened it, when she suddenly perceived
+Miette and Silvere. And the sight of the two young lovers, who, with
+hanging heads, nervously awaited her glance, kept her on the threshold,
+quivering with yet keener pain. She now understood all. To the very end,
+she was destined to picture herself there, clasped in Macquart's arms
+in the bright sunshine. Yet a second time had the door served as an
+accomplice. Where love had once passed, there was it passing again.
+'Twas the eternal and endless renewal, with present joys and future
+tears. Aunt Dide could only see the tears, and a sudden presentiment
+showed her the two children bleeding, with stricken hearts. Overwhelmed
+by the recollection of her life's sorrow, which this spot had just
+awakened within her, she grieved for her dear Silvere. She alone was
+guilty; if she had not formerly had that door made Silvere would not
+now be at a girl's feet in that lonely nook, intoxicating himself with a
+bliss which prompts and angers the jealousy of death.
+
+After a brief pause, she went up to the young man, and, without a
+word, took him by the hand. She might, perhaps, have left them there,
+chattering under the wall, had she not felt that she herself was, to
+some extent, an accomplice in this fatal love. As she came back with
+Silvere, she turned on hearing the light footfall of Miette, who, having
+quickly taken up her pitcher, was hastening across the stubble. She was
+running wildly, glad at having escaped so easily. And aunt Dide smiled
+involuntarily as she watched her bound over the ground like a runaway
+goat.
+
+"She is very young," she murmured, "she has plenty of time."
+
+She meant, no doubt, that Miette had plenty of time before her to suffer
+and weep. Then, turning her eyes upon Silvere, who with a glance of
+ecstasy had followed the child as she ran off in the bright sunshine,
+she simply added: "Take care, my boy; this sort of thing sometimes kills
+one."
+
+These were the only words she spoke with reference to the incident which
+had awakened all the sorrows that lay slumbering in the depths of her
+being. Silence had become a real religion with her. When Silvere came
+in, she double-locked the door, and threw the key down the well. In
+this wise she felt certain that the door would no longer make her an
+accomplice. She examined it for a moment, glad at seeing it reassume its
+usual gloomy, barrier-like aspect. The tomb was closed once more; the
+white gap was for ever boarded up with that damp-stained mossy timber
+over which the snails had shed silvery tears.
+
+In the evening, aunt Dide had another of those nervous attacks which
+came upon her at intervals. At these times she would often talk aloud
+and ramble incoherently, as though she was suffering from nightmare.
+That evening, while Silvere held her down on her bed, he heard her
+stammer in a panting voice such words as "custom-house officer," "fire,"
+and "murder." And she struggled, and begged for mercy, and dreamed aloud
+of vengeance. At last, as always happened when the attack was drawing to
+a close, she fell into a strange fright, her teeth chattering, while her
+limbs quivered with abject terror. Finally, after raising herself into
+a sitting posture, she cast a haggard look of astonishment at one and
+another corner of the room, and then fell back upon the pillow, heaving
+deep sighs. She was, doubtless, a prey to some hallucination. However,
+she drew Silvere to her bosom, and seemed to some degree to recognise
+him, though ever and anon she confused him with someone else.
+
+"There they are!" she stammered. "Do you see? They are going to take
+you, they will kill you again. I don't want them to--Send them away,
+tell them I won't; tell them they are hurting me, staring at me like
+that--"
+
+Then she turned to the wall, to avoid seeing the people of whom she was
+talking. And after an interval of silence, she continued: "You are near
+me, my child, aren't you? You must not leave me. I thought I was going
+to die just now. We did wrong to make an opening in the wall. I have
+suffered ever since. I was certain that door would bring us further
+misfortune--Oh! the innocent darlings, what sorrow! They will kill them
+as well, they will be shot down like dogs."
+
+Then she relapsed into catalepsy; she was no longer even aware of
+Silvere's presence. Suddenly, however, she sat up, and gazed at the foot
+of her bed, with a fearful expression of terror.
+
+"Why didn't you send them away?" she cried, hiding her white head
+against the young man's breast. "They are still there. The one with the
+gun is making signs that he is going to fire."
+
+Shortly afterwards she fell into the heavy slumber that usually
+terminated these attacks. On the next day, she seemed to have forgotten
+everything. She never again spoke to Silvere of the morning on which she
+had found him with a sweetheart behind the wall.
+
+The young people did not see each other for a couple of days. When
+Miette ventured to return to the well, they resolved not to recommence
+the pranks which had upset aunt Dide. However, the meeting which had
+been so strangely interrupted had filled them with a keen desire to
+meet again in some happy solitude. Weary of the delights afforded by the
+well, and unwilling to vex aunt Dide by seeing Miette again on the other
+side of the wall, Silvere begged the girl to meet him somewhere else.
+She required but little pressing; she received the proposal with the
+willing smile of a frolicsome lass who has no thought of evil. What
+made her smile was the idea of outwitting that spy of a Justin. When the
+lovers had come to agreement, they discussed at length the choice of a
+favourable spot. Silvere proposed the most impossible trysting-places.
+He planned regular journeys, and even suggested meeting the young girl
+at midnight in the barns of the Jas-Meiffren. Miette, who was much more
+practical, shrugged her shoulders, declaring she would try to think of
+some spot. On the morrow, she tarried but a minute at the well, just
+time enough to smile at Silvere and tell him to be at the far end of the
+Aire Saint-Mittre at about ten o'clock in the evening. One may be
+sure that the young man was punctual. All day long Miette's choice had
+puzzled him, and his curiosity increased when he found himself in the
+narrow lane formed by the piles of planks at the end of the plot of
+ground. "She will come this way," he said to himself, looking along the
+road to Nice. But he suddenly heard a loud shaking of boughs behind
+the wall, and saw a laughing head, with tumbled hair, appear above the
+coping, whilst a joyous voice called out: "It's me!"
+
+And it was, in fact, Miette, who had climbed like an urchin up one of
+the mulberry-trees, which even nowadays still border the boundary of
+the Jas-Meiffren. In a couple of leaps she reached the tombstone, half
+buried in the corner at the end of the lane. Silvere watched her descend
+with delight and surprise, without even thinking of helping her. As soon
+as she had alighted, however, he took both her hands in his, and said:
+"How nimble you are!--you climb better than I do."
+
+It was thus that they met for the first time in that hidden corner where
+they were destined to pass such happy hours. From that evening forward
+they saw each other there nearly every night. They now only used the
+well to warn each other of unforeseen obstacles to their meetings, of
+a change of time, and of all the trifling little news that seemed
+important in their eyes, and allowed of no delay. It sufficed for the
+one who had a communication to make to set the pulley in motion, for its
+creaking noise could be heard a long way off. But although, on certain
+days, they summoned one another two or three times in succession to
+speak of trifles of immense importance, it was only in the evening in
+that lonely little passage that they tasted real happiness. Miette was
+exceptionally punctual. She fortunately slept over the kitchen, in a
+room where the winter provisions had been kept before her arrival, and
+which was reached by a little private staircase. She was thus able to go
+out at all hours, without being seen by Rebufat or Justin. Moreover, if
+the latter should ever see her returning she intended to tell him some
+tale or other, staring at him the while with that stern look which
+always reduced him to silence.
+
+Ah! how happy those warm evenings were! The lovers had now reached the
+first days of September, a month of bright sunshine in Provence. It was
+hardly possible for them to join each other before nine o'clock. Miette
+arrived from over the wall, in surmounting which she soon acquired such
+dexterity that she was almost always on the old tombstone before Silvere
+had time to stretch out his arms. She would laugh at her own strength
+and agility as, for a moment, with her hair in disorder, she remained
+almost breathless, tapping her skirt to make it fall. Her sweetheart
+laughingly called her an impudent urchin. In reality he much admired
+her pluck. He watched her jump over the wall with the complacency of an
+older brother supervising the exercises of a younger one. Indeed,
+there was yet much that was childlike in their growing love. On several
+occasions they spoke of going on some bird's-nesting expedition on the
+banks of the Viorne.
+
+"You'll see how I can climb," said Miette proudly. "When I lived at
+Chavanoz, I used to go right up to the top of old Andre's walnut-trees.
+Have you ever taken a magpie's nest? It's very difficult!"
+
+Then a discussion arose as to how one ought to climb a poplar. Miette
+stated her opinions, with all a boy's confidence.
+
+However, Silvere, clasping her round the knees, had by this time lifted
+her to the ground, and then they would walk on, side by side, their arms
+encircling each other's waist. Though they were but children, fond of
+frolicsome play and chatter, and knew not even how to speak of love, yet
+they already partook of love's delight. It sufficed them to press each
+other's hands. Ignorant whither their feelings and their hearts were
+drifting, they did not seek to hide the blissful thrills which the
+slightest touch awoke. Smiling, often wondering at the delight they
+experienced, they yielded unconsciously to the sweetness of new feelings
+even while talking, like a couple of schoolboys, of the magpies' nests
+which are so difficult to reach.
+
+And as they talked they went down the silent path, between the piles of
+planks and the wall of the Jas-Meiffren. They never went beyond the end
+of that narrow blind alley, but invariably retraced their steps. They
+were quite at home there. Miette, happy in the knowledge of their
+safe concealment, would often pause and congratulate herself on her
+discovery.
+
+"Wasn't I lucky!" she would gleefully exclaim. "We might walk a long way
+without finding such a good hiding-place."
+
+The thick grass muffled the noise of their footsteps. They were steeped
+in gloom, shut in between two black walls, and only a strip of dark sky,
+spangled with stars, was visible above their heads. And as they stepped
+along, pacing this path which resembled a dark stream flowing beneath
+the black star-sprent sky, they were often thrilled with undefinable
+emotion, and lowered their voices, although there was nobody to hear
+them. Surrendering themselves as it were to the silent waves of night,
+over which they seemed to drift, they recounted to one another, with
+lovers' rapture, the thousand trifles of the day.
+
+At other times, on bright nights, when the moonlight clearly outlined
+the wall and the timber-stacks, Miette and Silvere would romp about with
+all the carelessness of children. The path stretched out, alight with
+white rays, and retaining no suggestion of secrecy, and the young people
+laughed and chased each other like boys at play, at times venturing even
+to climb upon the piles of timber. Silvere was occasionally obliged to
+frighten Miette by telling her that Justin might be watching her from
+over the wall. Then, quite out of breath, they would stroll side
+by side, and plan how they might some day go for a scamper in the
+Sainte-Claire meadows, to see which of the two would catch the other.
+
+Their growing love thus accommodated itself to dark and clear nights.
+Their hearts were ever on the alert, and a little shade sufficed to
+sweeten the pleasure of their embrace, and soften their laughter. This
+dearly-loved retreat--so gay in the moonshine, so strangely thrilling
+in the gloom--seemed an inexhaustible source of both gaiety and silent
+emotion. They would remain there until midnight, while the town dropped
+off to sleep and the lights in the windows of the Faubourg went out one
+by one.
+
+They were never disturbed in their solitude. At that late hour children
+were no longer playing at hide-and-seek behind the piles of planks.
+Occasionally, when the young couple heard sounds in the distance--the
+singing of some workmen as they passed along the road, or conversation
+coming from the neighbouring sidewalks--they would cast stealthy glances
+over the Aire Saint-Mittre. The timber-yard stretched out, empty of
+all, save here and there some falling shadows. On warm evenings they
+sometimes caught glimpses of loving couples there, and of old men
+sitting on the big beams by the roadside. When the evenings grew colder,
+all that they ever saw on the melancholy, deserted spot was some gipsy
+fire, before which, perhaps, a few black shadows passed to and fro.
+Through the still night air words and sundry faint sounds were wafted to
+them, the "good-night" of a townsman shutting his door, the closing of a
+window-shutter, the deep striking of a clock, all the parting sounds of
+a provincial town retiring to rest. And when Plassans was slumbering,
+they might still hear the quarrelling of the gipsies and the crackling
+of their fires, amidst which suddenly rose the guttural voices of girls
+singing in a strange tongue, full of rugged accents.
+
+But the lovers did not concern themselves much with what went on in the
+Aire Saint-Mittre; they hastened back into their own little privacy, and
+again walked along their favourite retired path. Little did they care
+for others, or for the town itself! The few planks which separated them
+from the wicked world seemed to them, after a while, an insurmountable
+rampart. They were so secluded, so free in this nook, situated though it
+was in the very midst of the Faubourg, at only fifty paces from the Rome
+Gate, that they sometimes fancied themselves far away in some hollow of
+the Viorne, with the open country around them. Of all the sounds
+which reached them, only one made them feel uneasy, that of the clocks
+striking slowly in the darkness. At times, when the hour sounded, they
+pretended not to hear, at other moments they stopped short as if to
+protest. However, they could not go on for ever taking just another
+ten minutes, and so the time came when they were at last obliged to say
+good-night. Then Miette reluctantly climbed upon the wall again. But all
+was not ended yet, they would linger over their leave-taking for a
+good quarter of an hour. When the girl had climbed upon the wall, she
+remained there with her elbows on the coping, and her feet supported
+by the branches of the mulberry-tree, which served her as a ladder.
+Silvere, perched on the tombstone, was able to take her hands again, and
+renew their whispered conversation. They repeated "till to-morrow!" a
+dozen times, and still and ever found something more to say. At last
+Silvere began to scold.
+
+"Come, you must get down, it is past midnight."
+
+But Miette, with a girl's waywardness, wished him to descend first; she
+wanted to see him go away. And as he persisted in remaining, she ended
+by saying abruptly, by way of punishment, perhaps: "Look! I am going to
+jump down."
+
+Then she sprang from the mulberry-tree, to the great consternation of
+Silvere. He heard the dull thud of her fall, and the burst of laughter
+with which she ran off, without choosing to reply to his last adieu. For
+some minutes he would remain watching her vague figure as it disappeared
+in the darkness, then, slowly descending, he regained the Impasse
+Saint-Mittre.
+
+During two years they came to the path every day. At the time of their
+first meetings they enjoyed some beautiful warm nights. They might
+almost have fancied themselves in the month of May, the month of
+seething sap, when a pleasant odour of earth and fresh leaves pervades
+the warm air. This _renouveau_, this second spring, was like a gift from
+heaven which allowed them to run freely about the path and tighten their
+bonds of affection.
+
+At last came rain, and snow, and frost. But the disagreeableness of
+winter did not keep them away. Miette put on her long brown pelisse, and
+they both made light of the bad weather. When the nights were dry and
+clear, and puffs of wind raised the hoar frost beneath their footsteps
+and fell on their faces like taps from a switch, they refrained from
+sitting down. They walked quickly to and fro, wrapped in the pelisse,
+their cheeks blue with cold, and their eyes watering; and they laughed
+heartily, quite quivering with mirth, at the rapidity of their
+march through the freezing atmosphere. One snowy evening they amused
+themselves with making an enormous snowball, which they rolled into
+a corner. It remained there fully a month, which caused them fresh
+astonishment each time they met in the path. Nor did the rain frighten
+them. They came to see each other through the heaviest downpours, though
+they got wet to the skin in doing so. Silvere would hasten to the spot,
+saying to himself that Miette would never be mad enough to come; and
+when Miette arrived, he could not find it in his heart to scold her.
+In reality he had been expecting her. At last he sought some shelter
+against the inclement weather, knowing quite well that they would
+certainly come out, however much they might promise one another not to
+do so when it rained. To find a shelter he only had to disturb one of
+the timber-stacks; pulling out several pieces of wood and arranging them
+so that they would move easily, in such wise that he could displace and
+replace them at pleasure.
+
+From that time forward the lovers possessed a sort of low and narrow
+sentry-box, a square hole, which was only big enough to hold them
+closely squeezed together on a beam which they had left at the bottom
+of the little cell. Whenever it rained, the first to arrive would take
+shelter here; and on finding themselves together again they would listen
+with delight to the rain beating on the piles of planks. Before and
+around them, through the inky blackness of the night, came a rush of
+water which they could not see, but which resounded continuously like
+the roar of a mob. They were nevertheless quite alone, as though they
+had been at the end of the world or beneath the sea. They never felt so
+happy, so isolated, as when they found themselves in that timber-stack,
+in the midst of some such deluge which threatened to carry them away at
+every moment. Their bent knees almost reached the opening, and though
+they thrust themselves back as far as possible, the spray of the rain
+bathed their cheeks and hands. The big drops, falling from the planks,
+splashed at regular intervals at their feet. The brown pelisse kept them
+warm, and the nook was so small that Miette was compelled to sit almost
+on Silvere's knees. And they would chatter and then lapse into silence,
+overcome with languor, lulled by the warmth of their embrace and the
+monotonous beating of the shower. For hours and hours they remained
+there, with that same enjoyment of the rain which prompts little
+children to stroll along solemnly in stormy weather with open umbrellas
+in their hands. After a while they came to prefer the rainy evenings,
+though their parting became more painful on those occasions. Miette was
+obliged to climb the wall in the driving rain, and cross the puddles of
+the Jas-Meiffren in perfect darkness. As soon as she had left his arms,
+she was lost to Silvere amidst the gloom and the noise of the falling
+water. In vain he listened, he was deafened, blinded. However, the
+anxiety caused by this brusque separation proved an additional charm,
+and, until the morrow, each would be uneasy lest anything should have
+befallen the other in such weather, when one would not even have turned
+a dog out of doors. Perchance one of them had slipped, or lost the way;
+such were the mutual fears which possessed them, and rendered their next
+interview yet more loving.
+
+At last the fine days returned, April brought mild nights, and the grass
+in the green alley sprouted up wildly. Amidst the stream of life flowing
+from heaven and rising from the earth, amidst all the intoxication of
+the budding spring-time, the lovers sometimes regretted their winter
+solitude, the rainy evenings and the freezing nights, during which they
+had been so isolated so far from all human sounds. At present the days
+did not draw to a close soon enough, and they grew impatient with the
+lagging twilights. When the night had fallen sufficiently for Miette to
+climb upon the wall without danger of being seen, and they could at last
+glide along their dear path, they no longer found there the solitude
+congenial to their shy, childish love. People began to flock to the Aire
+Saint-Mittre, the urchins of the Faubourg remained there, romping about
+the beams, and shouting, till eleven o'clock at night. It even happened
+occasionally that one of them would go and hide behind the piles of
+timber, and assail Miette and Silvere with boyish jeers. The fear of
+being surprised amidst that general awakening of life as the season
+gradually grew warmer, tinged their meetings with anxiety.
+
+Then, too, they began to stifle in the narrow lane. Never had it
+throbbed with so ardent a quiver; never had that soil, in which the
+last bones left of the former cemetery lay mouldering, sent forth such
+oppressive and disturbing odours. They were still too young to relish
+the voluptuous charm of that secluded nook which the springtide filled
+with fever. The grass grew to their knees, they moved to and fro with
+difficulty, and certain plants, when they crushed their young shoots,
+sent forth a pungent odour which made them dizzy. Then, seized with
+strange drowsiness and staggering with giddiness, their feet as
+though entangled in the grass, they would lean against the wall, with
+half-closed eyes, unable to move a step. All the soft languor from the
+skies seemed to penetrate them.
+
+With the petulance of beginners, impatient and irritated at this sudden
+faintness, they began to think their retreat too confined, and decided
+to ramble through the open fields. Every evening came fresh frolics.
+Miette arrived with her pelisse; they wrapped themselves in it, and
+then, gliding past the walls, reached the high-road and the open
+country, the broad fields where the wind rolled with full strength,
+like the waves at high tide. And here they no longer felt stifled; they
+recovered all their youthfulness, free from the giddy intoxication born
+of the tall rank weeds of the Aire Saint-Mittre.
+
+During two summers they rambled through the district. Every rock ledge,
+every bed of turf soon knew them; there was not a cluster of trees, a
+hedge, or a bush, which did not become their friend. They realized their
+dreams: they chased each other wildly over the meadows of Sainte-Claire,
+and Miette ran so well that Silvere had to put his best foot forward
+to catch her. Sometimes, too, they went in search of magpies' nests.
+Headstrong Miette, wishing to show how she had climbed trees at
+Chavanoz, would tie up her skirts with a piece of string, and ascend the
+highest poplars; while Silvere stood trembling beneath, with his arms
+outstretched to catch her should she slip. These frolics so turned them
+from thoughts of love that one evening they almost fought like a couple
+of lads coming out of school. But there were nooks in the country side
+which were not healthful for them. So long as they rambled on they were
+continually shouting with laughter, pushing and teasing one another.
+They covered miles and miles of ground; sometimes they went as far as
+the chain of the Garrigues, following the narrowest paths and cutting
+across the fields. The region belonged to them; they lived there as in a
+conquered territory, enjoying all that the earth and the sky could give
+them. Miette, with a woman's lack of scruple, did not hesitate to pluck
+a bunch of grapes, or a cluster of green almonds, from the vines
+and almond-trees whose boughs brushed her as she passed; and at this
+Silvere, with his absolute ideas of honesty, felt vexed, although he
+did not venture to find fault with the girl, whose occasional sulking
+distressed him. "Oh! the bad girl!" thought he, childishly exaggerating
+the matter, "she would make a thief of me." But Miette would thereupon
+force his share of the stolen fruit into his mouth. The artifices he
+employed, such as holding her round the waist, avoiding the fruit trees,
+and making her run after him when they were near the vines, so as
+to keep her out of the way of temptation, quickly exhausted his
+imagination. At last there was nothing to do but to make her sit
+down. And then they again began to experience their former stifling
+sensations. The gloomy valley of the Viorne particularly disturbed
+them. When weariness brought them to the banks of the torrent, all their
+childish gaiety seemed to disappear. A grey shadow floated under the
+willows, like the scented crape of a woman's dress. The children felt
+this crape descend warm and balmy from the voluptuous shoulders of the
+night, kiss their temples and envelop them with irresistible languor. In
+the distance the crickets chirped in the meadows of Sainte-Claire,
+and at their feet the ripples of the Viorne sounded like lovers'
+whispers--like the soft cooing of humid lips. The stars cast a rain of
+sparkles from the slumbering heavens. And, amidst the throbbing of the
+sky, the waters and the darkness, the children reposing on the grass
+sought each other's hands and pressed them.
+
+Silvere, who vaguely understood the danger of these ecstasies, would
+sometimes jump up and propose to cross over to one of the islets left
+by the low water in the middle of the stream. Both ventured forth, with
+bare feet. Miette made light of the pebbles, refusing Silvere's help,
+and it once happened that she sat down in the very middle of the stream;
+however, there were only a few inches of water, and she escaped with
+nothing worse than a wet petticoat. Then, having reached the island,
+they threw themselves on the long neck of sand, their eyes on a level
+with the surface of the river whose silvery scales they saw quivering
+far away in the clear night. Then Miette would declare that they were
+in a boat, that the island was certainly floating; she could feel it
+carrying her along. The dizziness caused by the rippling of the water
+amused them for a moment, and they lingered there, singing in an
+undertone, like boatmen as they strike the water with their oars. At
+other times, when the island had a low bank, they sat there as on a bed
+of verdure, and let their bare feet dangle in the stream. And then for
+hours they chatted together, swinging their legs, and splashing the
+water, delighted to set a tempest raging in the peaceful pool whose
+freshness cooled their fever.
+
+These footbaths suggested a dangerous idea to Miette. Nothing would
+satisfy her but a complete bath. A little above the bridge over the
+Viorne there was a very convenient spot, she said, barely three or four
+feet deep and quite safe; the weather was so warm, it would be so nice
+to have the water up to their necks; besides which, she had been dying
+to learn to swim for such a long time, and Silvere would be able to
+teach her. Silvere raised objections; it was not prudent at night time;
+they might be seen; perhaps, too they might catch cold. However, nothing
+could turn Miette from her purpose. One evening she came with a bathing
+costume which she had made out of an old dress; and Silvere was then
+obliged to go back to aunt Dide's for his bathing drawers. Their
+proceedings were characterised by great simplicity. Miette disrobed
+herself beneath the shade of a stout willow; and when both were ready,
+enveloped in the blackness which fell from the foliage around them, they
+gaily entered the cool water, oblivious of all previous scruples, and
+knowing in their innocence no sense of shame. They remained in the river
+quite an hour, splashing and throwing water into each other's faces;
+Miette now getting cross, now breaking out into laughter, while Silvere
+gave her her first lesson, dipping her head under every now and again so
+as to accustom her to the water. As long as he held her up she threw her
+arms and legs about violently, thinking she was swimming; but directly
+he let her go, she cried and struggled, striking the water with her
+outstretched hands, clutching at anything she could get hold of, the
+young man's waist or one of his wrists. She leant against him for an
+instant, resting, out of breath and dripping with water; and then she
+cried: "Once more; but you do it on purpose, you don't hold me."
+
+At the end of a fortnight, the girl was able to swim. With her limbs
+moving freely, rocked by the stream, playing with it, she yielded form
+and spirit alike to its soft motion, to the silence of the heavens,
+and the dreaminess of the melancholy banks. As she and Silvere swam
+noiselessly along, she seemed to see the foliage of both banks thicken
+and hang over them, draping them round as with a huge curtain. When
+the moon shone, its rays glided between the trunks of the trees, and
+phantoms seemed to flit along the river-side in white robes. Miette felt
+no nervousness, however, only an indefinable emotion as she followed
+the play of the shadows. As she went onward with slower motion, the calm
+water, which the moon converted into a bright mirror, rippled at
+her approach like a silver-broidered cloth; eddies widened and lost
+themselves amid the shadows of the banks, under the hanging willow
+branches, whence issued weird, plashing sounds. At every stroke she
+perceived recesses full of sound; dark cavities which she hastened
+to pass by; clusters and rows of trees, whose sombre masses were
+continually changing form, stretching forward and apparently following
+her from the summit of the bank. And when she threw herself on her back,
+the depths of the heavens affected her still more. From the fields, from
+the distant horizon, which she could no longer see, a solemn lingering
+strain, composed of all the sighs of the night, was wafted to her.
+
+She was not of a dreamy nature; it was physically, through the medium of
+each of her senses, that she derived enjoyment from the sky, the river,
+and the play of light and shadow. The river, in particular, bore her
+along with endless caresses. When she swam against the current she was
+delighted to feel the stream flow rapidly against her bosom and limbs.
+She dipped herself in it yet more deeply, with the water reaching to her
+lips, so that it might pass over her shoulders, and envelop her, from
+chin to feet, with flying kisses. Then she would float, languid and
+quiescent, on the surface, whilst the ripples glided softly between her
+costume and her skin. And she would also roll over in the still pools
+like a cat on a carpet; and swim from the luminous patches where
+the moonbeams were bathing, to the dark water shaded by the foliage,
+shivering the while, as though she had quitted a sunny plain and then
+felt the cold from the boughs falling on her neck.
+
+She now remained quite silent in the water, and would not allow Silvere
+to touch her. Gliding softly by his side, she swam on with the light
+rustling of a bird flying across the copse, or else she would circle
+round him, a prey to vague disquietude which she did not comprehend.
+He himself darted quickly away if he happened to brush against her.
+The river was now but a source of enervating intoxication, voluptuous
+languor, which disturbed them strangely. When they emerged from their
+bath they felt dizzy, weary, and drowsy. Fortunately, the girl declared
+one evening that she would bathe no more, as the cold water made the
+blood run to her head. And it was in all truth and innocence that she
+said this.
+
+Then their long conversations began anew. The dangers to which the
+innocence of their love had lately been exposed had left no other trace
+in Silvere's mind than great admiration for Miette's physical strength.
+She had learned to swim in a fortnight, and often, when they raced
+together, he had seen her stem the current with a stroke as rapid as his
+own. He, who delighted in strength and bodily exercises, felt a
+thrill of pleasure at seeing her so strong, so active and adroit. He
+entertained at heart a singular admiration for her stout arms. One
+evening, after one of the first baths that had left them so playful,
+they caught each other round the waist on a strip of sand, and wrestled
+for several minutes without Silvere being able to throw Miette. At
+last, indeed, it was the young man who lost his balance, while the girl
+remained standing. Her sweetheart treated her like a boy, and it was
+those long rambles of theirs, those wild races across the meadows, those
+birds' nests filched from the tree crests, those struggles and violent
+games of one and another kind that so long shielded them and their love
+from all impurity.
+
+Then, too, apart from his youthful admiration for his sweetheart's
+dashing pluck, Silvere felt for her all the compassionate tenderness of
+a heart that ever softened towards the unfortunate. He, who could never
+see any forsaken creature, a poor man, or a child, walking barefooted
+along the dusty roads, without a throb of pity, loved Miette because
+nobody else loved her, because she virtually led an outcast's hard life.
+When he saw her smile he was deeply moved by the joy he brought her.
+Moreover, the child was a wildling, like himself, and they were of the
+same mind in hating all the gossips of the Faubourg. The dreams in which
+Silvere indulged in the daytime, while he plied his heavy hammer round
+the cartwheels in his master's shop, were full of generous enthusiasm.
+He fancied himself Miette's redeemer. All his reading rushed to his
+head; he meant to marry his sweetheart some day, in order to raise her
+in the eyes of the world. It was like a holy mission that he imposed
+upon himself, that of redeeming and saving the convict's daughter. And
+his head was so full of certain theories and arguments, that he did not
+tell himself these things in simple fashion, but became lost in perfect
+social mysticism; imagining rehabilitation in the form of an apotheosis
+in which he pictured Miette seated on a throne, at the end of the Cours
+Sauvaire, while the whole town prostrated itself before her, entreating
+her pardon and singing her praises. Happily he forgot all these fine
+things as soon as Miette jumped over the wall, and said to him on the
+high road: "Let us have a race! I'm sure you won't catch me."
+
+However, if the young man dreamt like this of the glorification of his
+sweetheart, he also showed such passion for justice that he often made
+her weep on speaking to her about her father. In spite of the softening
+effect which Silvere's friendship had had upon her, she still at times
+gave way to angry outbreaks of temper, when all the stubbornness and
+rebellion latent in her nature stiffened her with scowling eyes and
+tightly-drawn lips. She would then contend that her father had done
+quite right to kill the gendarme, that the earth belongs to everybody,
+and that one has the right to fire a gun when and where one likes.
+Thereupon Silvere, in a grave voice, explained the law to her as he
+understood it, with strange commentaries which would have startled the
+whole magistracy of Plassans. These discussions took place most often in
+some remote corner of the Sainte-Claire meadows. The grassy carpet of a
+dusky green hue stretched further than they could see, undotted even by
+a single tree, and the sky seemed colossal, spangling the bare horizon
+with the stars. It seemed to the young couple as if they were being
+rocked on a sea of verdure. Miette argued the point obstinately; she
+asked Silvere if her father should have let the gendarme kill him, and
+Silvere, after a momentary silence, replied that, in such a case, it
+was better to be the victim than the murderer, and that it was a great
+misfortune for anyone to kill a fellow man, even in legitimate defence.
+The law was something holy to him, and the judges had done right in
+sending Chantegreil to the galleys. At this the girl grew angry, and
+almost struck her sweetheart, crying out that he was as heartless as the
+rest. And as he still firmly defended his ideas of justice, she finished
+by bursting into sobs, and stammering that he was doubtless ashamed
+of her, since he was always reminding her of her father's crime. These
+discussions ended in tears, in mutual emotion. But although the child
+cried, and acknowledged that she was perhaps wrong, she still retained
+deep within her a wild resentful temper. She once related, with hearty
+laughter, that she had seen a gendarme fall off his horse and break his
+leg. Apart from this, Miette only lived for Silvere. When he asked her
+about her uncle and cousin, she replied that "She did not know;" and
+if he pressed her, fearing that they were making her too unhappy at the
+Jas-Meiffren, she simply answered that she worked hard, and that nothing
+had changed. She believed, however, that Justin had at last found out
+what made her sing in the morning, and filled her eyes with delight. But
+she added: "What does it matter? If ever he comes to disturb us we'll
+receive him in such a way that he won't be in a hurry to meddle with our
+affairs any more."
+
+Now and again the open country, their long rambles in the fresh air,
+wearied them somewhat. They then invariably returned to the Aire
+Saint-Mittre, to the narrow lane, whence they had been driven by the
+noisy summer evenings, the pungent scent of the trodden grass, all the
+warm oppressive emanations. On certain nights, however, the path proved
+cooler, and the winds freshened it so that they could remain there
+without feeling faint. They then enjoyed a feeling of delightful repose.
+Seated on the tombstone, deaf to the noise of the children and gipsies,
+they felt at home again. Silvere had on various occasions picked
+up fragments of bones, even pieces of skulls, and they were fond of
+speaking of the ancient burial-ground. It seemed to them, in their
+lively fancies, that their love had shot up like some vigorous plant in
+this nook of soil which dead men's bones had fertilised. It had grown,
+indeed, like those wild weeds, it had blossomed as blossom the poppies
+which sway like bare bleeding hearts at the slightest breeze. And
+they ended by fancying that the warm breaths passing over them, the
+whisperings heard in the gloom, the long quivering which thrilled the
+path, came from the dead folk sighing their departed passions in
+their faces, telling them the stories of their bridals, as they turned
+restlessly in their graves, full of a fierce longing to live and love
+again. Those fragments of bone, they felt convinced of it, were full of
+affection for them; the shattered skulls grew warm again by contact with
+their own youthful fire, the smallest particles surrounded them with
+passionate whispering, anxious solicitude, throbbing jealousy. And when
+they departed, the old burial-ground seemed to groan. Those weeds,
+in which their entangled feet often stumbled on sultry nights, were
+fingers, tapered by tomb life, that sprang up from the earth to detain
+them and cast them into each other's arms. That pungent and penetrating
+odour exhaled by the broken stems was the fertilising perfume, the
+mighty quintessence of life which is slowly elaborated in the grave,
+and intoxicates the lovers who wander in the solitude of the paths.
+The dead, the old departed dead, longed for the bridal of Miette and
+Silvere.
+
+They were never afraid. The sympathy which seemed to hover around them
+thrilled them and made them love the invisible beings whose soft touch
+they often imagined they could feel, like a gentle flapping of wings.
+Sometimes they were saddened by sweet melancholy, and could not
+understand what the dead desired of them. They went on basking in their
+innocent love, amidst this flood of sap, this abandoned cemetery, whose
+rich soil teemed with life, and imperiously demanded their union. They
+still remained ignorant of the meaning of the buzzing voices which they
+heard ringing in their ears, the sudden glow which sent the blood flying
+to their faces.
+
+They often questioned each other about the remains which they
+discovered. Miette, after a woman's fashion, was partial to lugubrious
+subjects. At each new discovery she launched into endless suppositions.
+If the bone were small, she spoke of some beautiful girl a prey to
+consumption, or carried off by fever on the eve of her marriage; if the
+bone were large, she pictured some big old man, a soldier or a judge,
+some one who had inspired others with terror. For a long time the
+tombstone particularly engaged their attention. One fine moonlight night
+Miette distinguished some half-obliterated letters on one side of it,
+and thereupon she made Silvere scrape the moss away with his knife. Then
+they read the mutilated inscription: "Here lieth . . . Marie . . .
+died . . ." And Miette, finding her own name on the stone, was quite
+terror-stricken. Silvere called her a "big baby," but she could not
+restrain her tears. She had received a stab in the heart, she said; she
+would soon die, and that stone was meant for her. The young man himself
+felt alarmed. However, he succeeded in shaming the child out of these
+thoughts. What! she so courageous, to dream about such trifles! They
+ended by laughing. Then they avoided speaking of it again. But in
+melancholy moments, when the cloudy sky saddened the pathway, Miette
+could not help thinking of that dead one, that unknown Marie, whose
+tomb had so long facilitated their meetings. The poor girl's bones were
+perhaps still lying there. And at this thought Miette one evening had a
+strange whim, and asked Silvere to turn the stone over to see what might
+be under it. He refused, as though it were sacrilege, and his refusal
+strengthened Miette's fancies with regard to the dear phantom which bore
+her name. She positively insisted that the girl had died young, as
+she was, and in the very midst of her love. She even began to pity the
+stone, that stone which she climbed so nimbly, and on which they had
+sat so often, a stone which death had chilled, and which their love had
+warmed again.
+
+"You'll see, this tombstone will bring us misfortune," she added. "If
+you were to die, I should come and lie here, and then I should like to
+have this stone set over my body."
+
+At this, Silvere, choking with emotion, scolded her for thinking of such
+mournful things.
+
+And so, for nearly two years, their love grew alike in the narrow
+pathway and the open country. Their idyll passed through the chilling
+rains of December and the burning solicitations of July, free from all
+touch of impurity, ever retaining the sweet charm of some old Greek
+love-tale, all the naive hesitancy of youth which desires but knows not.
+In vain did the long-departed dead whisper in their ears. They carried
+nothing away from the old cemetery but emotional melancholy and a vague
+presentiment of a short life. A voice seemed to whisper to them that
+they would depart amidst their virginal love, long ere the bridal day
+would give them wholly to each other. It was there, on the tombstone and
+among the bones that lay hidden beneath the rank grass, that they had
+first come to indulge in that longing for death, that eager desire to
+sleep together in the earth, that now set them stammering and sighing
+beside the Orcheres road, on that December night, while the two bells
+repeated their mournful warnings to one another.
+
+Miette was sleeping calmly, with her head resting on Silvere's chest
+while he mused upon their past meeting, their lovely years of unbroken
+happiness. At daybreak the girl awoke. The valley now spread out clearly
+under the bright sky. The sun was still behind the hills, but a stream
+of crystal light, limpid and cold as spring-water, flowed from the
+pale horizon. In the distance, the Viorne, like a white satin ribbon,
+disappeared among an expanse of red and yellow land. It was a boundless
+vista, with grey seas of olive-trees, and vineyards that looked like
+huge pieces of striped cloth. The whole country was magnified by the
+clearness of the atmosphere and the peaceful cold. However, sharp gusts
+of wind chilled the young people's faces. And thereupon they sprang to
+their feet, cheered by the sight of the clear morning. Their melancholy
+forebodings had vanished with the darkness, and they gazed with delight
+at the immense expanse of the plain, and listened to the tolling of the
+two bells that now seemed to be joyfully ringing in a holiday.
+
+"Ah! I've had a good sleep!" Miette cried. "I dreamt you were kissing
+me. Tell me now, did you kiss me?"
+
+"It's very possible," Silvere replied laughing. "I was not very warm. It
+is bitterly cold."
+
+"I only feel cold in the feet," Miette rejoined.
+
+"Well! let us have a run," said Silvere. "We have still two good leagues
+to go. You will get warm."
+
+Thereupon they descended the hill and ran until they reached the high
+road. When they were below they raised their heads as if to say farewell
+to that rock on which they had wept while their kisses burned their
+lips. But they did not again speak of that ardent embrace which had
+thrilled them so strongly with vague, unknown desire. Under the pretext
+of walking more quickly they did not even take each other's arm. They
+experienced some slight confusion when they looked at one another,
+though why they could not tell. Meantime the dawn was rising around
+them. The young man, who had sometimes been sent to Orcheres by his
+master, knew all the shortest cuts. Thus they walked on for more than
+two leagues, along dingle paths by the side of interminable ledges and
+walls. Now and again Miette accused Silvere of having taken her the
+wrong way; for, at times--for a quarter of an hour at a stretch--they
+lost all sight of the surrounding country, seeing above the walls and
+hedges nothing but long rows of almond-trees whose slender branches
+showed sharply against the pale sky.
+
+All at once, however, they came out just in front of Orcheres. Loud
+cries of joy, the shouting of a crowd, sounded clearly in the limpid
+air. The insurrectionary forces were only now entering the town. Miette
+and Silvere went in with the stragglers. Never had they seen such
+enthusiasm. To judge from the streets, one would have thought it was a
+procession day, when the windows are decked with the finest drapery to
+honour the passage of the Canopy. The townsfolk welcomed the insurgents
+as though they were deliverers. The men embraced them, while the women
+brought them food. Old men were to be seen weeping at the doors. And the
+joyousness was of an essentially Southern character, pouring forth in
+clamorous fashion, in singing, dancing, and gesticulation. As Miette
+passed along she was carried away by a _farandole_[*] which spread
+whirling all round the Grand' Place. Silvere followed her. His thoughts
+of death and his discouragement were now far away. He wanted to fight,
+to sell his life dearly at least. The idea of a struggle intoxicated
+him afresh. He dreamed of victory to be followed by a happy life with
+Miette, amidst the peacefulness of the universal Republic.
+
+     [*] The _farandole_ is the popular dance of Provence.
+
+The fraternal reception accorded them by the inhabitants of Orcheres
+proved to be the insurgents' last delight. They spent the day amidst
+radiant confidence and boundless hope. The prisoners, Commander
+Sicardot, Messieurs Garconnet, Peirotte and the others, who had been
+shut up in one of the rooms at the mayor's, the windows of which
+overlooked the Grand' Place, watched the _farandoles_ and wild outbursts
+of enthusiasm with surprise and dismay.
+
+"The villains!" muttered the Commander, leaning upon a window-bar, as
+though bending over the velvet-covered hand-rest of a box at a theatre:
+"To think that there isn't a battery or two to make a clean sweep of all
+that rabble!"
+
+Then he perceived Miette, and addressing himself to Monsieur Garconnet,
+he added: "Do you see, sir, that big girl in red over yonder? How
+disgraceful! They've even brought their mistresses with them. If this
+continues much longer we shall see some fine goings-on."
+
+Monsieur Garconnet shook his head, saying something about "unbridled
+passions," and "the most evil days of history." Monsieur Peirotte, as
+white as a sheet, remained silent; he only opened his lips once, to say
+to Sicardot, who was still bitterly railing: "Not so loud, sir; not so
+loud! You will get us all massacred."
+
+As a matter of fact, the insurgents treated the gentlemen with the
+greatest kindness. They even provided them with an excellent dinner in
+the evening. Such attentions, however, were terrifying to such a quaker
+as the receiver of taxes; the insurgents he thought would not treat them
+so well unless they wished to make them fat and tender for the day when
+they might wish to devour them.
+
+At dusk that day Silvere came face to face with his cousin, Doctor
+Pascal. The latter had followed the band on foot, chatting with the
+workmen who held him in the greatest respect. At first he had striven
+to dissuade them from the struggle; and then, as if convinced by their
+arguments, he had said to them with his kindly smile: "Well, perhaps you
+are right, my friends; fight if you like, I shall be here to patch up
+your arms and legs."
+
+Then, in the morning he began to gather pebbles and plants along the
+high road. He regretted that he had not brought his geologist's hammer
+and botanical wallet with him. His pockets were now so full of stones
+that they were almost bursting, while bundles of long herbs peered forth
+from the surgeon's case which he carried under his arm.
+
+"Hallo! You here, my lad?" he cried, as he perceived Silvere. "I thought
+I was the only member of the family here."
+
+He spoke these last words with a touch of irony, as if deriding the
+intrigues of his father and his uncle Antoine. Silvere was very glad
+to meet his cousin; the doctor was the only one of the Rougons who
+ever shook hands with him in the street, and showed him any sincere
+friendship. Seeing him, therefore, still covered with dust from the
+march, the young man thought him gained over to the Republican cause,
+and was much delighted thereat. He talked to the doctor, with youthful
+magniloquence, of the people's rights, their holy cause, and their
+certain triumph. Pascal smiled as he listened, and watched the youth's
+gestures and the ardent play of his features with curiosity, as though
+he were studying a patient, or analysing an enthusiasm, to ascertain
+what might be at the bottom of it.
+
+"How you run on! How you run on!" he finally exclaimed. "Ah! you are
+your grandmother's true grandson." And, in a whisper, he added, like
+some chemist taking notes: "Hysteria or enthusiasm, shameful madness
+or sublime madness. It's always those terrible nerves!" Then, again
+speaking aloud, as if summing up the matter, he said: "The family is
+complete now. It will count a hero among its members."
+
+Silvere did not hear him. He was still talking of his dear Republic.
+Miette had dropped a few paces off; she was still wrapped in her large
+red pelisse. She and Silvere had traversed the town arm-in-arm.
+The sight of this tall red girl at last puzzled Pascal, and again
+interrupting his cousin, he asked him: "Who is this child with you?"
+
+"She is my wife," Silvere gravely answered.
+
+The doctor opened his eyes wide, for he did not understand. He was very
+shy with women; however, he raised his hat to Miette as he went away.
+
+The night proved an anxious one. Forebodings of misfortune swept over
+the insurgents. The enthusiasm and confidence of the previous evening
+seemed to die away in the darkness. In the morning there were gloomy
+faces; sad looks were exchanged, followed by discouraging silence.
+Terrifying rumours were now circulating. Bad news, which the leaders
+had managed to conceal the previous evening, had spread abroad, though
+nobody in particular was known to have spoken. It was the work of
+that invisible voice, which, with a word, throws a mob into a panic.
+According to some reports Paris was subdued, and the provinces had
+offered their hands and feet, eager to be bound. And it was added that
+a large party of troops, which had left Marseilles under the command of
+Colonel Masson and Monsieur de Bleriot, the prefect of the department,
+was advancing by forced marches to disperse the insurrectionary bands.
+This news came like a thunderbolt, at once awakening rage and despair.
+These men, who on the previous evening had been all aglow with patriotic
+fever, now shivered with cold, chilled to their hearts by the shameful
+submissiveness of prostrate France. They alone, then, had had the
+courage to do their duty! And now they were to be left to perish amidst
+the general panic, the death-like silence of the country; they had
+become mere rebels, who would be hunted down like wild beasts; they,
+who had dreamed of a great war, of a whole nation in revolt, and of
+the glorious conquest of the people's rights! Miserably baffled and
+betrayed, this handful of men could but weep for their dead faith and
+their vanished dreams of justice. There were some who, while taunting
+France with her cowardice, flung away their arms, and sat down by the
+roadside, declaring that they would there await the bullets of the
+troops, and show how Republicans could die.
+
+Although these men had nothing now but death or exile before them,
+there were very few desertions from their ranks. A splendid feeling of
+solidarity kept them together. Their indignation turned chiefly against
+their leaders, who had really proved incapable. Irreparable mistakes
+had been committed; and now the insurgents, without order or discipline,
+barely protected by a few sentries, and under the command of irresolute
+men, found themselves at the mercy of the first soldiers that might
+arrive.
+
+They spent two more days at Orcheres, Tuesday and Wednesday, thus losing
+time and aggravating the situation. The general, the man with the sabre,
+whom Silvere had pointed out to Miette on the Plassans road, vacillated
+and hesitated under the terrible responsibility that weighed upon him.
+On Thursday he came to the conclusion that the position of Orcheres
+was a decidedly dangerous one; so towards one o'clock he gave orders to
+march, and led his little army to the heights of Sainte-Roure. That was,
+indeed, an impregnable position for any one who knew how to defend it.
+The houses of Sainte-Roure rise in tiers along a hill-side; behind the
+town all approach is shut off by enormous rocks, so that this kind of
+citadel can only be reached by the Nores plain, which spreads out at the
+foot of the plateau. An esplanade, converted into a public walk planted
+with magnificent elms, overlooks the plain. It was on this esplanade
+that the insurgents encamped. The hostages were imprisoned in the Hotel
+de la Mule-Blanche, standing half-way along the promenade. The night
+passed away heavy and black. The insurgents spoke of treachery. As soon
+as it was morning, however, the man with the sabre, who had neglected to
+take the simplest precautions, reviewed the troops. The contingents were
+drawn up in line with their backs turned to the plain. They presented
+a wonderful medley of costume, some wearing brown jackets, others
+dark greatcoats, and others again blue blouses girded with red sashes.
+Moreover, their arms were an equally odd collection: there were newly
+sharpened scythes, large navvies' spades, and fowling-pieces with
+burnished barrels glittering in the sunshine. And at the very moment
+when the improvised general was riding past the little army, a sentry,
+who had been forgotten in an olive-plantation, ran up gesticulating and
+shouting:
+
+"The soldiers! The soldiers!"
+
+There was indescribable emotion. At first, they thought it a false
+alarm. Forgetting all discipline, they rushed forward to the end of the
+esplanade in order to see the soldiers. The ranks were broken, and as
+the dark line of troops appeared, marching in perfect order with a long
+glitter of bayonets, on the other side of the greyish curtain of olive
+trees, there came a hasty and disorderly retreat, which sent a quiver of
+panic to the other end of the plateau. Nevertheless, the contingents
+of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx had again formed in line in
+the middle of the promenade, and stood there erect and fierce. A
+wood-cutter, who was a head taller than any of his companions, shouted,
+as he waved his red neckerchief: "To arms, Chavanoz, Graille, Poujols,
+Saint-Eutrope! To arms, Les Tulettes! To arms, Plassans!"
+
+Crowds streamed across the esplanade. The man with the sabre, surrounded
+by the folks from Faverolles, marched off with several of the country
+contingents--Vernoux, Corbiere, Marsanne, and Pruinas--to outflank the
+enemy and then attack him. Other contingents, from Valqueyras, Nazere,
+Castel-le-Vieux, Les Roches-Noires, and Murdaran, dashed to the left,
+scattering themselves in skirmishing parties over the Nores plain.
+
+And meantime the men of the towns and villages that the wood-cutter had
+called to his aid mustered together under the elms, there forming a dark
+irregular mass, grouped without regard to any of the rules of strategy,
+simply placed there like a rock, as it were, to bar the way or die. The
+men of Plassans stood in the middle of this heroic battalion. Amid the
+grey hues of the blouses and jackets, and the bluish glitter of the
+weapons, the pelisse worn by Miette, who was holding the banner with
+both hands, looked like a large red splotch--a fresh and bleeding wound.
+
+All at once perfect silence fell. Monsieur Peirotte's pale face appeared
+at a window of the Hotel de la Mule-Blanche. And he began to speak,
+gesticulating with his hands.
+
+"Go in, close the shutters," the insurgents furiously shouted; "you'll
+get yourself killed."
+
+Thereupon the shutters were quickly closed, and nothing was heard save
+the regular, rhythmical tramp of the soldiers who were drawing near.
+
+A minute, that seemed an age, went by. The troops had disappeared,
+hidden by an undulation of the ground; but over yonder, on the side of
+the Nores plain, the insurgents soon perceived the bayonets shooting
+up, one after another, like a field of steel-eared corn under the rising
+sun. At that moment Silvere, who was glowing with feverish agitation,
+fancied he could see the gendarme whose blood had stained his hands. He
+knew, from the accounts of his companions, that Rengade was not dead,
+that he had only lost an eye; and he clearly distinguished the unlucky
+man with his empty socket bleeding horribly. The keen recollection of
+this gendarme, to whom he had not given a thought since his departure
+from Plassans, proved unbearable. He was afraid that fear might get the
+better of him, and he tightened his hold on his carbine, while a mist
+gathered before his eyes. He felt a longing to discharge his gun
+and fire at the phantom of that one-eyed man so as to drive it away.
+Meantime the bayonets were still and ever slowly ascending.
+
+When the heads of the soldiers appeared on a level with the esplanade,
+Silvere instinctively turned to Miette. She stood there with flushed
+face, looking taller than ever amidst the folds of the red banner; she
+was indeed standing on tiptoes in order to see the troops, and nervous
+expectation made her nostrils quiver and her red lips part so as to
+show her white, eager, gleaming teeth. Silvere smiled at her. But he had
+scarcely turned his head when a fusillade burst out. The soldiers, who
+could only be seen from their shoulders upwards, had just fired their
+first volley. It seemed to Silvere as though a great gust of wind was
+passing over his head, while a shower of leaves, lopped off by the
+bullets, fell from the elms. A sharp sound, like the snapping of a dead
+branch, made him look to his right. Then, prone on the ground, he saw
+the big wood-cutter, he who was a head taller than the others. There was
+a little black hole in the middle of his forehead. And thereupon Silvere
+fired straight before him, without taking aim, reloaded and fired again
+like a madman or an unthinking wild beast, in haste only to kill. He
+could not even distinguish the soldiers now; smoke, resembling strips of
+grey muslin, was floating under the elms. The leaves still rained upon
+the insurgents, for the troops were firing too high. Every now and then,
+athwart the fierce crackling of the fusillade, the young man heard a
+sigh or a low rattle, and a rush was made among the band as if to make
+room for some poor wretch clutching hold of his neighbours as he fell.
+The firing lasted ten minutes.
+
+Then, between two volleys some one exclaimed in a voice of terror:
+"Every man for himself! _Sauve qui peut!_" This roused shouts and
+murmurs of rage, as if to say, "The cowards! Oh! the cowards!" sinister
+rumours were spreading--the general had fled; cavalry were sabring the
+skirmishers in the Nores plain. However, the irregular firing did not
+cease, every now and again sudden bursts of flame sped through the
+clouds of smoke. A gruff voice, the voice of terror, shouted yet louder:
+"Every man for himself! _Sauve qui peut!_" Some men took to flight,
+throwing down their weapons and leaping over the dead. The others closed
+their ranks. At last there were only some ten insurgents left. Two more
+took to flight, and of the remaining eight three were killed at one
+discharge.
+
+The two children had remained there mechanically without understanding
+anything. As the battalion diminished in numbers, Miette raised the
+banner still higher in the air; she held it in front of her with
+clenched fists as if it were a huge taper. It was completely riddled
+by bullets. When Silvere had no more cartridges left in his pocket, he
+ceased firing, and gazed at the carbine with an air of stupor. It was
+then that a shadow passed over his face, as though the flapping wings
+of some colossal bird had brushed against his forehead. And raising his
+eyes he saw the banner fall from Miette's grasp. The child, her hands
+clasped to her breast, her head thrown back with an expression of
+excruciating suffering, was staggering to the ground. She did not utter
+a single cry, but sank at last upon the red banner.
+
+"Get up; come quickly," Silvere said, in despair, as he held out his
+hand to her.
+
+But she lay upon the ground without uttering a word, her eyes wide open.
+Then he understood, and fell on his knees beside her.
+
+"You are wounded, eh? tell me? Where are you wounded?"
+
+She still spoke no word; she was stifling, and gazing at him out of her
+large eyes, while short quivers shook her frame. Then he pulled away her
+hands.
+
+"It's there, isn't it? it's there."
+
+And he tore open her bodice, and laid her bosom bare. He searched, but
+saw nothing. His eyes were brimming with tears. At last under the left
+breast he perceived a small pink hole; a single drop of blood stained
+the wound.
+
+"It's nothing," he whispered; "I'll go and find Pascal, he'll put you
+all right again. If you could only get up. Can't you move?"
+
+The soldiers were not firing now; they had dashed to the left in pursuit
+of the contingents led away by the man with the sabre. And in the centre
+of the esplanade there only remained Silvere kneeling beside Miette's
+body. With the stubbornness of despair, he had taken her in his arms. He
+wanted to set her on her feet, but such a quiver of pain came upon the
+girl that he laid her down again, and said to her entreatingly: "Speak
+to me, pray. Why don't you say something to me?"
+
+She could not; she slowly, gently shook her hand, as if to say that
+it was not her fault. Her close-pressed lips were already contracting
+beneath the touch of death. With her unbound hair streaming around her,
+and her head resting amid the folds of the blood-red banner, all her
+life now centred in her eyes, those black eyes glittering in her white
+face. Silvere sobbed. The glance of those big sorrowful eyes filled him
+with distress. He read in them bitter, immense regret for life. Miette
+was telling him that she was going away all alone, and before their
+bridal day; that she was leaving him ere she had become his wife. She
+was telling him, too, that it was he who had willed that it should
+be so, that he should have loved her as other lovers love their
+sweethearts. In the hour of her agony, amidst that stern conflict
+between death and her vigorous nature, she bewailed her fate in going
+like that to the grave. Silvere, as he bent over her, understood how
+bitter was the pang. He recalled their caresses, how she had hung round
+his neck, and had yearned for his love, but he had not understood, and
+now she was departing from him for evermore. Bitterly grieved at the
+thought that throughout her eternal rest she would remember him solely
+as a companion and playfellow, he kissed her on the bosom while his hot
+tears fell upon her lips. Those passionate kisses brought a last gleam
+of joy to Miette's eyes. They loved one another, and their idyll ended
+in death.
+
+But Silvere could not believe she was dying. "No, you will see, it will
+prove only a trifle," he declared. "Don't speak if it hurts you. Wait, I
+will raise your head and then warm you; your hands are quite frozen."
+
+But the fusillade had begun afresh, this time on the left, in the olive
+plantations. A dull sound of galloping cavalry rose from the plain.
+At times there were loud cries, as of men being slaughtered. And
+thick clouds of smoke were wafted along and hung about the elms on the
+esplanade. Silvere for his part no longer heard or saw anything. Pascal,
+who came running down in the direction of the plain, saw him stretched
+upon the ground, and hastened towards him, thinking he was wounded. As
+soon as the young man saw him, he clutched hold of him and pointed to
+Miette.
+
+"Look," he said, "she's wounded, there, under the breast. Ah! how good
+of you to come! You will save her."
+
+At that moment, however, a slight convulsion shook the dying girl. A
+pain-fraught shadow passed over her face, and as her contracted lips
+suddenly parted, a faint sigh escaped from them. Her eyes, still wide
+open, gazed fixedly at the young man.
+
+Then Pascal, who had stooped down, rose again, saying in a low voice:
+"She is dead."
+
+Dead! Silvere reeled at the sound of the word. He had been kneeling
+forward, but now he sank back, as though thrown down by Miette's last
+faint sigh.
+
+"Dead! Dead!" he repeated; "it is not true, she is looking at me. See
+how she is looking at me!"
+
+Then he caught the doctor by the coat, entreating him to remain there,
+assuring him that he was mistaken, that she was not dead, and that he
+could save her if he only would. Pascal resisted gently, saying, in his
+kindly voice: "I can do nothing for her, others are waiting for me. Let
+go, my poor child; she is quite dead."
+
+At last Silvere released his hold and again fell back. Dead! Dead! Still
+that word, which rang like a knell in his dazed brain! When he was alone
+he crept up close to the corpse. Miette still seemed to be looking
+at him. He threw himself upon her, laid his head upon her bosom, and
+watered it with his tears. He was beside himself with grief. He pressed
+his lips wildly to her, and breathed out all his passion, all his soul,
+in one long kiss, as though in the hope that it might bring her to life
+again. But the girl was turning cold in spite of his caresses. He felt
+her lifeless and nerveless beneath his touch. Then he was seized with
+terror, and with haggard face and listless hanging arms he remained
+crouching in a state of stupor, and repeating: "She is dead, yet she is
+looking at me; she does not close her eyes, she sees me still."
+
+This fancy was very sweet to him. He remained there perfectly still,
+exchanging a long look with Miette, in whose glance, deepened by death,
+he still seemed to read the girl's lament for her sad fate.
+
+In the meantime, the cavalry were still sabring the fugitives over the
+Nores plain; the cries of the wounded and the galloping of the horses
+became more distant, softening like music wafted from afar through the
+clear air. Silvere was no longer conscious of the fighting. He did
+not even see his cousin, who mounted the slope again and crossed the
+promenade. Pascal, as he passed along, picked up Macquart's carbine
+which Silvere had thrown down; he knew it, as he had seen it hanging
+over aunt Dide's chimney-piece, and he thought he might as well save it
+from the hands of the victors. He had scarcely entered the Hotel de la
+Mule-Blanche, whither a large number of the wounded had been taken, when
+a band of insurgents, chased by the soldiers like a herd of cattle, once
+more rushed into the esplanade. The man with the sabre had fled; it was
+the last contingents from the country who were being exterminated. There
+was a terrible massacre. In vain did Colonel Masson and the prefect,
+Monsieur de Bleriot, overcome by pity, order a retreat. The infuriated
+soldiers continued firing upon the mass, and pinning isolated fugitives
+to the walls with their bayonets. When they had no more enemies before
+them, they riddled the facade of the Mule-Blanche with bullets. The
+shutters flew into splinters; one window which had been left half-open
+was torn out, and there was a loud rattle of broken glass. Pitiful
+voices were crying out from within; "The prisoners! The prisoners!" But
+the troops did not hear; they continued firing. All at once Commander
+Sicardot, growing exasperated, appeared at the door, waved his arms, and
+endeavoured to speak. Monsieur Peirotte, the receiver of taxes, with his
+slim figure and scared face, stood by his side. However, another volley
+was fired, and Monsieur Peirotte fell face foremost, with a heavy thud,
+to the ground.
+
+Silvere and Miette were still looking at each other. Silvere had
+remained by the corpse, through all the fusillade and the howls of
+agony, without even turning his head. He was only conscious of the
+presence of some men around him, and, from a feeling of modesty, he drew
+the red banner over Miette's breast. Then their eyes still continued to
+gaze at one another.
+
+The conflict, however, was at an end. The death of the receiver of
+taxes had satiated the soldiers. Some of these ran about, scouring every
+corner of the esplanade, to prevent the escape of a single insurgent.
+A gendarme who perceived Silvere under the trees, ran up to him, and
+seeing that it was a lad he had to deal with, called: "What are you
+doing there, youngster?"
+
+Silvere, whose eyes were still fixed on those of Miette, made no reply.
+
+"Ah! the bandit, his hands are black with powder," the gendarme
+exclaimed, as he stooped down. "Come, get up, you scoundrel! You know
+what you've got to expect."
+
+Then, as Silvere only smiled vaguely and did not move, the other looked
+more attentively, and saw that the corpse swathed in the banner was that
+of a girl.
+
+"A fine girl; what a pity!" he muttered. "Your mistress, eh? you
+rascal!"
+
+Then he made a violent grab at Silvere, and setting him on his feet led
+him away like a dog that is dragged by one leg. Silvere submitted in
+silence, as quietly as a child. He just turned round to give another
+glance at Miette. He felt distressed at thus leaving her alone under the
+trees. For the last time he looked at her from afar. She was still lying
+there in all her purity, wrapped in the red banner, her head slightly
+raised, and her big eyes turned upward towards heaven.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+It was about five o'clock in the morning when Rougon at last ventured to
+leave his mother's house. The old woman had gone to sleep on a chair. He
+crept stealthily to the end of the Impasse Saint-Mittre. There was not a
+sound, not a shadow. He pushed on as far as the Porte de Rome. The gates
+stood wide open in the darkness that enveloped the slumbering town.
+Plassans was sleeping as sound as a top, quite unconscious, apparently,
+of the risk it was running in allowing the gates to remain unsecured.
+It seemed like a city of the dead. Rougon, taking courage, made his way
+into the Rue de Nice. He scanned from a distance the corners of each
+successive lane; and trembled at every door, fearing lest he should see
+a band of insurgents rush out upon him. However, he reached the Cours
+Sauvaire without any mishap. The insurgents seemed to have vanished in
+the darkness like a nightmare.
+
+Pierre then paused for a moment on the deserted pavement, heaving a
+deep sigh of relief and triumph. So those rascals had really abandoned
+Plassans to him. The town belonged to him now; it slept like the foolish
+thing it was; there it lay, dark and tranquil, silent and confident, and
+he had only to stretch out his hand to take possession of it. That
+brief halt, the supercilious glance which he cast over the drowsy place,
+thrilled him with unspeakable delight. He remained there, alone in the
+darkness, and crossed his arms, in the attitude of a great general on
+the eve of a victory. He could hear nothing in the distance but the
+murmur of the fountains of the Cours Sauvaire, whose jets of water fell
+into the basins with a musical plashing.
+
+Then he began to feel a little uneasy. What if the Empire should
+unhappily have been established without his aid? What if Sicardot,
+Garconnet, and Peirotte, instead of being arrested and led away by
+the insurrectionary band, had shut the rebels up in prison? A cold
+perspiration broke out over him, and he went on his way again, hoping
+that Felicite would give him some accurate information. He now pushed on
+more rapidly, and was skirting the houses of the Rue de la Banne, when a
+strange spectacle, which caught his eyes as he raised his head, riveted
+him to the ground. One of the windows of the yellow drawing-room was
+brilliantly illuminated, and, in the glare, he saw a dark form, which he
+recognized as that of his wife, bending forward, and shaking its arms in
+a violent manner. He asked himself what this could mean, but, unable to
+think of any explanation, was beginning to feel seriously alarmed, when
+some hard object bounded over the pavement at his feet. Felicite had
+thrown him the key of the cart-house, where he had concealed a supply
+of muskets. This key clearly signified that he must take up arms. So he
+turned away again, unable to comprehend why his wife had prevented him
+from going upstairs, and imagining the most horrible things.
+
+He now went straight to Roudier, whom he found dressed and ready to
+march, but completely ignorant of the events of the night. Roudier lived
+at the far end of the new town, as in a desert, whither no tidings of
+the insurgents' movements had penetrated. Pierre, however, proposed
+to him that they should go to Granoux, whose house stood on one of
+the corners of the Place des Recollets, and under whose windows the
+insurgent contingents must have passed. The municipal councillor's
+servant remained for a long time parleying before consenting to admit
+them, and they heard poor Granoux calling from the first floor in a
+trembling voice:
+
+"Don't open the door, Catherine! The streets are full of bandits."
+
+He was in his bedroom, in the dark. When he recognised his two faithful
+friends he felt relieved; but he would not let the maid bring a lamp,
+fearing lest the light might attract a bullet. He seemed to think that
+the town was still full of insurgents. Lying back on an arm-chair near
+the window, in his pants, and with a silk handkerchief round his head,
+he moaned: "Ah! my friends, if you only knew!--I tried to go to bed, but
+they were making such a disturbance! At last I lay down in my arm-chair
+here. I've seen it all, everything. Such awful-looking men; a band of
+escaped convicts! Then they passed by again, dragging brave Commander
+Sicardot, worthy Monsieur Garconnet, the postmaster, and others away
+with them, and howling the while like cannibals!"
+
+Rougon felt a thrill of joy. He made Granoux repeat to him how he had
+seen the mayor and the others surrounded by the "brigands."
+
+"I saw it all!" the poor man wailed. "I was standing behind the blind.
+They had just seized Monsieur Peirotte, and I heard him saying as he
+passed under my window: 'Gentlemen, don't hurt me!' They were certainly
+maltreating him. It's abominable, abominable."
+
+However, Roudier calmed Granoux by assuring him that the town was free.
+And the worthy gentleman began to feel quite a glow of martial ardour
+when Pierre informed him that he had come to recruit his services for
+the purpose of saving Plassans. These three saviours then took council
+together. They each resolved to go and rouse their friends, and appoint
+a meeting at the cart-shed, the secret arsenal of the reactionary
+party. Meantime Rougon constantly bethought himself of Felicite's wild
+gestures, which seemed to betoken danger somewhere. Granoux, assuredly
+the most foolish of the three, was the first to suggest that there must
+be some Republicans left in the town. This proved a flash of light,
+and Rougon, with a feeling of conviction, reflected: "There must be
+something of Macquart's doing under all this."
+
+An hour or so later the friends met again in the cart-shed, which was
+situated in a very lonely spot. They had glided stealthily from door to
+door, knocking and ringing as quietly as possible, and picking up all
+the men they could. However, they had only succeeded in collecting some
+forty, who arrived one after the other, creeping along in the dark, with
+the pale and drowsy countenances of men who had been violently startled
+from their sleep. The cart-shed, let to a cooper, was littered with old
+hoops and broken casks, of which there were piles in every corner. The
+guns were stored in the middle, in three long boxes. A taper, stuck on
+a piece of wood, illumined the strange scene with a flickering glimmer.
+When Rougon had removed the covers of the three boxes, the spectacle
+became weirdly grotesque. Above the fire-arms, whose barrels shown with
+a bluish, phosphorescent glitter, were outstretched necks and heads that
+bent with a sort of secret fear, while the yellow light of the taper
+cast shadows of huge noses and locks of stiffened hair upon the walls.
+
+However, the reactionary forces counted their numbers, and the smallness
+of the total filled them with hesitation. They were only thirty-nine all
+told, and this adventure would mean certain death for them. A father
+of a family spoke of his children; others, without troubling themselves
+about excuses, turned towards the door. Then, however, two fresh
+conspirators arrived, who lived in the neighbourhood of the Town
+Hall, and knew for certain that there were not more than about twenty
+Republicans still at the mayor's. The band thereupon deliberated afresh.
+Forty-one against twenty--these seemed practicable conditions. So the
+arms were distributed amid a little trembling. It was Rougon who took
+them from the boxes, and each man present, as he received his gun, the
+barrel of which on that December night was icy cold, felt a sudden chill
+freeze him to his bones. The shadows on the walls assumed the clumsy
+postures of bewildered conscripts stretching out their fingers. Pierre
+closed the boxes regretfully; he left there a hundred and nine guns
+which he would willingly have distributed; however, he now had to divide
+the cartridges. Of these, there were two large barrels full in the
+furthest corner of the cart-shed, sufficient to defend Plassans against
+an army. And as this corner was dark, one of the gentlemen brought the
+taper near, whereupon another conspirator--a burly pork-butcher, with
+immense fists--grew angry, declaring that it was most imprudent to bring
+a light so close. They strongly approved his words, so the cartridges
+were distributed in the dark. They completely filled their pockets with
+them. Then, after they had loaded their guns, with endless precautions,
+they lingered there for another moment, looking at each other with
+suspicious eyes, or exchanging glances in which cowardly ferocity was
+mingled with an expression of stupidity.
+
+In the streets they kept close to the houses, marching silently and
+in single file, like savages on the war-path. Rougon had insisted upon
+having the honour of marching at their head; the time had come when he
+must needs run some risk, if he wanted to see his schemes successful.
+Drops of perspiration poured down his forehead in spite of the cold.
+Nevertheless he preserved a very martial bearing. Roudier and Granoux
+were immediately behind him. Upon two occasions the column came to an
+abrupt halt. They fancied they had heard some distant sound of fighting;
+but it was only the jingle of the little brass shaving-dishes hanging
+from chains, which are used as signs by the barbers of Southern France.
+These dishes were gently shaking to and fro in the breeze. After each
+halt, the saviours of Plassans continued their stealthy march in the
+dark, retaining the while the mien of terrified heroes. In this manner
+they reached the square in front of the Town Hall. There they formed a
+group round Rougon, and took counsel together once more. In the facade
+of the building in front of them only one window was lighted. It was now
+nearly seven o'clock and the dawn was approaching.
+
+After a good ten minutes' discussion, it was decided to advance as
+far as the door, so as to ascertain what might be the meaning of this
+disquieting darkness and silence. The door proved to be half open. One
+of the conspirators thereupon popped his head in, but quickly withdrew
+it, announcing that there was a man under the porch, sitting against the
+wall fast asleep, with a gun between his legs. Rougon, seeing a chance
+of commencing with a deed of valour, thereupon entered first, and,
+seizing the man, held him down while Roudier gagged him. This first
+triumph, gained in silence, singularly emboldened the little troop, who
+had dreamed of a murderous fusillade. And Rougon had to make imperious
+signs to restrain his soldiers from indulging in over-boisterous
+delight.
+
+They continued their advance on tip-toes. Then, on the left, in the
+police guard-room, which was situated there, they perceived some fifteen
+men lying on camp-beds and snoring, amid the dim glimmer of a lantern
+hanging from the wall. Rougon, who was decidedly becoming a great
+general, left half of his men in front of the guard-room with orders not
+to rouse the sleepers, but to watch them and make them prisoners if they
+stirred. He was personally uneasy about the lighted window which they
+had seen from the square. He still scented Macquart's hand in the
+business, and, as he felt that he would first have to make prisoners of
+those who were watching upstairs, he was not sorry to be able to adopt
+surprise tactics before the noise of a conflict should impel them to
+barricade themselves in the first-floor rooms. So he went up quietly,
+followed by the twenty heroes whom he still had at his disposal. Roudier
+commanded the detachment remaining in the courtyard.
+
+As Rougon had surmised, it was Macquart who was comfortably installed
+upstairs in the mayor's office. He sat in the mayor's arm-chair,
+with his elbows on the mayor's writing-table. With the characteristic
+confidence of a man of coarse intellect, who is absorbed by a fixed idea
+and bent upon his own triumph, he had imagined after the departure of
+the insurgents that Plassans was now at his complete disposal, and that
+he would be able to act there like a conqueror. In his opinion that
+body of three thousand men who had just passed through the town was
+an invincible army, whose mere proximity would suffice to keep the
+bourgeois humble and docile in his hands. The insurgents had imprisoned
+the gendarmes in their barracks, the National Guard was already
+dismembered, the nobility must be quaking with terror, and the retired
+citizens of the new town had certainly never handled a gun in their
+lives. Moreover, there were no arms any more than there were soldiers.
+Thus Macquart did not even take the precaution to have the gates shut.
+His men carried their confidence still further by falling asleep, while
+he calmly awaited the dawn which he fancied would attract and rally all
+the Republicans of the district round him.
+
+He was already meditating important revolutionary measures; the
+nomination of a Commune of which he would be the chief, the imprisonment
+of all bad patriots, and particularly of all such persons as had
+incurred his displeasure. The thought of the baffled Rougons and their
+yellow drawing-room, of all that clique entreating him for mercy,
+thrilled him with exquisite pleasure. In order to while away the time he
+resolved to issue a proclamation to the inhabitants of Plassans. Four
+of his party set to work to draw up this proclamation, and when it was
+finished Macquart, assuming a dignified manner in the mayor's arm-chair,
+had it read to him before sending it to the printing office of the
+"Independant," on whose patriotism he reckoned. One of the writers was
+commencing, in an emphatic voice, "Inhabitants of Plassans, the hour
+of independence has struck, the reign of justice has begun----" when a
+noise was heard at the door of the office, which was slowly pushed open.
+
+"Is it you, Cassoute?" Macquart asked, interrupting the perusal.
+
+Nobody answered; but the door opened wider.
+
+"Come in, do!" he continued, impatiently. "Is my brigand of a brother at
+home?"
+
+Then, all at once both leaves of the door were violently thrown back
+and slammed against the walls, and a crowd of armed men, in the midst of
+whom marched Rougon, with his face very red and his eyes starting out
+of their sockets, swarmed into the office, brandishing their guns like
+cudgels.
+
+"Ah! the blackguards, they're armed!" shouted Macquart.
+
+He was about to seize a pair of pistols which were lying on the
+writing-table, when five men caught hold of him by the throat and held
+him in check. The four authors of the proclamation struggled for an
+instant. There was a good deal of scuffling and stamping, and a noise
+of persons falling. The combatants were greatly hampered by their guns,
+which they would not lay aside, although they could not use them. In the
+struggle, Rougon's weapon, which an insurgent had tried to wrest from
+him, went off of itself with a frightful report, and filled the room
+with smoke. The bullet shattered a magnificent mirror that reached from
+the mantelpiece to the ceiling, and was reputed to be one of the
+finest mirrors in the town. This shot, fired no one knew why, deafened
+everybody, and put an end to the battle.
+
+Then, while the gentlemen were panting and puffing, three other reports
+were heard in the courtyard. Granoux immediately rushed to one of the
+windows. And as he and the others anxiously leaned out, their faces
+lengthened perceptibly, for they were in nowise eager for a struggle
+with the men in the guard-room, whom they had forgotten amidst their
+triumph. However, Roudier cried out from below that all was right. And
+Granoux then shut the window again, beaming with joy. The fact of
+the matter was, that Rougon's shot had aroused the sleepers, who had
+promptly surrendered, seeing that resistance was impossible. Then,
+however, three of Roudier's men, in their blind haste to get the
+business over, had discharged their firearms in the air, as a sort of
+answer to the report from above, without knowing quite why they did so.
+It frequently happens that guns go off of their own accord when they are
+in the hands of cowards.
+
+And now, in the room upstairs, Rougon ordered Macquart's hands to be
+bound with the bands of the large green curtains which hung at the
+windows. At this, Macquart, wild with rage, broke into scornful jeers.
+"All right; go on," he muttered. "This evening or to-morrow, when the
+others return, we'll settle accounts!"
+
+This allusion to the insurrectionary forces sent a shudder to the
+victors' very marrow; Rougon for his part almost choked. His brother,
+who was exasperated at having been surprised like a child by these
+terrified bourgeois, who, old soldier that he was, he disdainfully
+looked upon as good-for-nothing civilians, defied him with a glance of
+the bitterest hatred.
+
+"Ah! I can tell some pretty stories about you, very pretty ones!"
+the rascal exclaimed, without removing his eyes from the retired oil
+merchant. "Just send me before the Assize Court, so that I may tell the
+judge a few tales that will make them laugh."
+
+At this Rougon turned pale. He was terribly afraid lest Macquart should
+blab then and there, and ruin him in the esteem of the gentlemen who had
+just been assisting him to save Plassans. These gentlemen, astounded by
+the dramatic encounter between the two brothers, and, foreseeing some
+stormy passages, had retired to a corner of the room. Rougon, however,
+formed a heroic resolution. He advanced towards the group, and in a very
+proud tone exclaimed: "We will keep this man here. When he has reflected
+on his position he will be able to give us some useful information."
+Then, in a still more dignified voice, he went on: "I will discharge my
+duty, gentlemen. I have sworn to save the town from anarchy, and I
+will save it, even should I have to be the executioner of my nearest
+relative."
+
+One might have thought him some old Roman sacrificing his family on the
+altar of his country. Granoux, who felt deeply moved, came to press his
+hand with a tearful countenance, which seemed to say: "I understand you;
+you are sublime!" And then he did him the kindness to take everybody
+away, under the pretext of conducting the four other prisoners into the
+courtyard.
+
+When Pierre was alone with his brother, he felt all his self-possession
+return to him. "You hardly expected me, did you?" he resumed. "I
+understand things now; you have been laying plots against me. You
+wretched fellow; see what your vices and disorderly life have brought
+you to!"
+
+Macquart shrugged his shoulders. "Shut up," he replied; "go to the
+devil. You're an old rogue. He laughs best who laughs last."
+
+Thereupon Rougon, who had formed no definite plan with regard to him,
+thrust him into a dressing-room whither Monsieur Garconnet retired to
+rest sometimes. This room lighted from above, had no other means of
+exit than the doorway by which one entered. It was furnished with a few
+arm-chairs, a sofa, and a marble wash-stand. Pierre double-locked the
+door, after partially unbinding his brother's hands. Macquart was then
+heard to throw himself on the sofa, and start singing the "Ca Ira" in a
+loud voice, as though he were trying to sing himself to sleep.
+
+Rougon, who at last found himself alone, now in his turn sat down in
+the mayor's arm-chair. He heaved a sigh as he wiped his brow. How hard,
+indeed, it was to win fortune and honours! However, he was nearing the
+end at last. He felt the soft seat of the arm-chair yield beneath him,
+while with a mechanical movement he caressed the mahogany writing-table
+with his hands, finding it apparently quite silky and delicate, like the
+skin of a beautiful woman. Then he spread himself out, and assumed
+the dignified attitude which Macquart had previously affected while
+listening to the proclamation. The silence of the room seemed fraught
+with religious solemnity, which inspired Rougon with exquisite delight.
+Everything, even the dust and the old documents lying in the corners,
+seemed to exhale an odour of incense, which rose to his dilated
+nostrils. This room, with its faded hangings redolent of petty
+transactions, all the trivial concerns of a third-rate municipality,
+became a temple of which he was the god.
+
+Nevertheless, amidst his rapture, he started nervously at every shout
+from Macquart. The words aristocrat and lamp-post, the threats of
+hanging that form the refrain of the famous revolutionary song, the "Ca
+Ira," reached him in angry bursts, interrupting his triumphant dream in
+the most disagreeable manner. Always that man! And his dream, in which
+he saw Plassans at his feet, ended with a sudden vision of the Assize
+Court, of the judges, the jury, and the public listening to Macquart's
+disgraceful revelations; the story of the fifty thousand francs, and
+many other unpleasant matters; or else, while enjoying the softness of
+Monsieur Garconnet's arm-chair, he suddenly pictured himself suspended
+from a lamp-post in the Rue de la Banne. Who would rid him of that
+wretched fellow? At last Antoine fell asleep, and then Pierre enjoyed
+ten good minutes' pure ecstasy.
+
+Roudier and Granoux came to rouse him from this state of beatitude.
+They had just returned from the prison, whither they had taken the
+insurgents. Daylight was coming on apace, the town would soon be awake,
+and it was necessary to take some decisive step. Roudier declared that,
+before anything else, it would be advisable to issue a proclamation to
+the inhabitants. Pierre was, at that moment, reading the one which the
+insurgents had left upon the table.
+
+"Why," cried he, "this will suit us admirably! There are only a few
+words to be altered."
+
+And, in fact, a quarter of an hour sufficed for the necessary changes,
+after which Granoux read out, in an earnest voice: "Inhabitants of
+Plassans--The hour of resistance has struck, the reign of order has
+returned----"
+
+It was decided that the proclamation should be printed at the office of
+the "Gazette," and posted at all the street corners.
+
+"Now listen," said Rougon; "we'll go to my house; and in the meantime
+Monsieur Granoux will assemble here the members of the municipal council
+who had not been arrested and acquaint them with the terrible events of
+the night." Then he added, majestically: "I am quite prepared to accept
+the responsibility of my actions. If what I have already done appears a
+satisfactory pledge of my desire for order, I am willing to place myself
+at the head of a municipal commission, until such time as the regular
+authorities can be reinstated. But, in order, that nobody may accuse me
+of ambitious designs, I shall not re-enter the Town Hall unless called
+upon to do so by my fellow-citizens."
+
+At this Granoux and Roudier protested that Plassans would not be
+ungrateful. Their friend had indeed saved the town. And they recalled
+all that he had done for the cause of order: the yellow drawing-room
+always open to the friends of authority, his services as spokesman in
+the three quarters of the town, the store of arms which had been his
+idea, and especially that memorable night--that night of prudence and
+heroism--in which he had rendered himself forever illustrious. Granoux
+added that he felt sure of the admiration and gratitude of the municipal
+councillors.
+
+"Don't stir from your house," he concluded; "I will come and fetch you
+to lead you back in triumph."
+
+Then Roudier said that he quite understood the tact and modesty of their
+friend, and approved it. Nobody would think of accusing him of ambition,
+but all would appreciate the delicacy which prompted him to take no
+office save with the consent of his fellow-citizens. That was very
+dignified, very noble, altogether grand.
+
+Under this shower of eulogies, Rougon humbly bowed his head. "No, no;
+you go too far," he murmured, with voluptuous thrillings of exquisite
+pleasure. Each sentence that fell from the retired hosier and the old
+almond-merchant, who stood on his right and left respectively, fell
+sweetly on his ears; and, leaning back in the mayor's arm-chair, steeped
+in the odour of officiality which pervaded the room, he bowed to the
+right and to the left, like a royal pretender whom a _coup d'etat_ is
+about to convert into an emperor.
+
+When they were tired of belauding each other, they all three went
+downstairs. Granoux started off to call the municipal council together,
+while Roudier told Rougon to go on in front, saying that he would join
+him at his house, after giving the necessary orders for guarding the
+Town Hall. The dawn was now fast rising, and Pierre proceeded to the Rue
+de la Banne, tapping his heels in a martial manner on the still deserted
+pavement. He carried his hat in his hand in spite of the bitter cold;
+for puffs of pride sent all his blood to his head.
+
+On reaching his house he found Cassoute at the bottom of the stairs. The
+navvy had not stirred, for he had seen nobody enter. He sat there, on
+the first step, resting his big head in his hands, and gazing fixedly in
+front of him, with the vacant stare and mute stubbornness of a faithful
+dog.
+
+"You were waiting for me, weren't you?" Pierre said to him, taking in
+the situation at a glance. "Well, go and tell Monsieur Macquart that
+I've come home. Go and ask for him at the Town Hall."
+
+Cassoute rose and took himself off, with an awkward bow. He was going
+to get himself arrested like a lamb, to the great delight of Pierre,
+who laughed as he went upstairs, asking himself, with a feeling of vague
+surprise: "I have certainly plenty of courage; shall I turn out as good
+a diplomatist?"
+
+Felicite had not gone to bed last night. He found her dressed in her
+Sunday clothes, wearing a cap with lemon-coloured ribbons, like a lady
+expecting visitors. She had sat at the window in vain; she had heard
+nothing, and was dying with curiosity.
+
+"Well?" she asked, rushing to meet her husband.
+
+The latter, quite out of breath, entered the yellow drawing-room,
+whither she followed him, carefully closing the door behind her. He sank
+into an arm-chair, and, in a gasping voice, faltered: "It's done; we
+shall get the receivership."
+
+At this she fell on his neck and kissed him.
+
+"Really? Really?" she cried. "But I haven't heard anything. Oh, my
+darling husband, do tell me; tell me all!"
+
+She felt fifteen years old again, and began to coax him and whirl round
+him like a grasshopper fascinated by the light and heat. And Pierre,
+in the effusion of his triumph, poured out his heart to her. He did not
+omit a single detail. He even explained his future projects, forgetting
+that, according to his theories, wives were good for nothing, and that
+his must be kept in complete ignorance of what went on if he wished to
+remain master. Felicite leant over him and drank in his words. She made
+him repeat certain parts of his story, declaring she had not heard; in
+fact, her delight bewildered her so much that at times she seemed quite
+deaf. When Pierre related the events at the Town Hall, she burst into a
+fit of laughter, changed her chair three times, and moved the furniture
+about, quite unable to sit still. After forty years of continuous
+struggle, fortune had at last yielded to them. Eventually she became so
+mad over it that she forgot all prudence.
+
+"It's to me you owe all this!" she exclaimed, in an outburst of triumph.
+"If I hadn't looked after you, you would have been nicely taken in by
+the insurgents. You booby, it was Garconnet, Sicardot, and the others,
+that had got to be thrown to those wild beasts."
+
+Then, showing her teeth, loosened by age, she added, with a girlish
+smile: "Well, the Republic for ever! It has made our path clear."
+
+But Pierre had turned cross. "That's just like you!" he muttered; "you
+always fancy that you've foreseen everything. It was I who had the idea
+of hiding myself. As though women understood anything about politics!
+Bah, my poor girl, if you were to steer the bark we should very soon be
+shipwrecked."
+
+Felicite bit her lip. She had gone too far and forgotten her
+self-assigned part of good, silent fairy. Then she was seized with one
+of those fits of covert exasperation, which she generally experienced
+when her husband tried to crush her with his superiority. And she again
+promised herself, when the right time should arrive, some exquisite
+revenge, which would deliver this man into her power, bound hand and
+foot.
+
+"Ah! I was forgetting!" resumed Rougon, "Monsieur Peirotte is amongst
+them. Granoux saw him struggling in the hands of the insurgents."
+
+Felicite gave a start. She was just at that moment standing at the
+window, gazing with longing eyes at the house where the receiver of
+taxes lived. She had felt a desire to do so, for in her mind the idea of
+triumph was always associated with envy of that fine house.
+
+"So Monsieur Peirotte is arrested!" she exclaimed in a strange tone as
+she turned round.
+
+For an instant she smiled complacently; then a crimson blush rushed
+to her face. A murderous wish had just ascended from the depths of her
+being. "Ah! if the insurgents would only kill him!"
+
+Pierre no doubt read her thoughts in her eyes.
+
+"Well, if some ball were to hit him," he muttered, "our business would
+be settled. There would be no necessity to supercede him, eh? and it
+would be no fault of ours."
+
+But Felicite shuddered. She felt that she had just condemned a man to
+death. If Monsieur Peirotte should now be killed, she would always
+see his ghost at night time. He would come and haunt her. So she only
+ventured to cast furtive glances, full of fearful delight, at the
+unhappy man's windows. Henceforward all her enjoyment would be fraught
+with a touch of guilty terror.
+
+Moreover, Pierre, having now poured out his soul, began to perceive the
+other side of the situation. He mentioned Macquart. How could they
+get rid of that blackguard? But Felicite, again fired with enthusiasm,
+exclaimed: "Oh! one can't do everything at once. We'll gag him, somehow.
+We'll soon find some means or other."
+
+She was now walking to and fro, putting the arm-chairs in order, and
+dusting their backs. Suddenly, she stopped in the middle of the room,
+and gave the faded furniture a long glance.
+
+"Good Heavens!" she said, "how ugly it is here! And we shall have
+everybody coming to call upon us!"
+
+"Bah!" replied Pierre, with supreme indifference, "we'll alter all
+that."
+
+He who, the night before, had entertained almost religious veneration
+for the arm-chairs and the sofa, would now have willingly stamped on
+them. Felicite, who felt the same contempt, even went so far as to
+upset an arm-chair which was short of a castor and did not yield to her
+quickly enough.
+
+It was at this moment that Roudier entered. It at once occurred to
+the old woman that he had become much more polite. His "Monsieur" and
+"Madame" rolled forth in delightfully musical fashion. But the other
+habitues were now arriving one after the other; and the drawing-room was
+fast getting full. Nobody yet knew the full particulars of the events
+of the night, and all had come in haste, with wondering eyes and smiling
+lips, urged on by the rumours which were beginning to circulate through
+the town. These gentlemen who, on the previous evening, had left the
+drawing-room with such precipitation at the news of the insurgents'
+approach, came back, inquisitive and importunate, like a swarm of
+buzzing flies which a puff of wind would have dispersed. Some of
+them had not even taken time to put on their braces. They were very
+impatient, but it was evident that Rougon was waiting for some one else
+before speaking out. He constantly turned an anxious look towards
+the door. For an hour there was only significant hand-shaking, vague
+congratulation, admiring whispering, suppressed joy of uncertain origin,
+which only awaited a word of enlightenment to turn to enthusiasm.
+
+At last Granoux appeared. He paused for a moment on the threshold,
+with his right hand pressed to his breast between the buttons of his
+frock-coat; his broad pale face was beaming; in vain he strove to
+conceal his emotion beneath an expression of dignity. All the others
+became silent on perceiving him; they felt that something extraordinary
+was about to take place. Granoux walked straight up to Rougon, through
+two lines of visitors, and held out his hand to him.
+
+"My friend," he said, "I bring you the homage of the Municipal Council.
+They call you to their head, until our mayor shall be restored to us.
+You have saved Plassans. In the terrible crisis through which we are
+passing we want men who, like yourself, unite intelligence with courage.
+Come--"
+
+At this point Granoux, who was reciting a little speech which he had
+taken great trouble to prepare on his way from the Town Hall to the
+Rue de la Banne felt his memory fail him. But Rougon, overwhelmed with
+emotion, broke in, shaking his hand and repeating: "Thank you, my dear
+Granoux; I thank you very much."
+
+He could find nothing else to say. However, a loud burst of voices
+followed. Every one rushed upon him, tried to shake hands, poured forth
+praises and compliments, and eagerly questioned him. But he, already
+putting on official dignity, begged for a few minutes' delay in order
+that he might confer with Messieurs Granoux and Roudier. Business before
+everything. The town was in such a critical situation! Then the three
+accomplices retired to a corner of the drawing-room, where, in an
+undertone, they divided power amongst themselves; the rest of the
+visitors, who remained a few paces away, trying meanwhile to look
+extremely wise and furtively glancing at them with mingled admiration
+and curiosity. It was decided that Rougon should take the title of
+president of the Municipal Commission; Granoux was to be secretary;
+whilst, as for Roudier, he became commander-in-chief of the reorganised
+National Guard. They also swore to support each other against all
+opposition.
+
+However, Felicite, who had drawn near, abruptly inquired: "And Vuillet?"
+
+At this they looked at each other. Nobody had seen Vuillet. Rougon
+seemed somewhat uneasy.
+
+"Perhaps they've taken him away with the others," he said, to ease his
+mind.
+
+But Felicite shook her head. Vuillet was not the man to let himself be
+arrested. Since nobody had seen or heard him, it was certain he had been
+doing something wrong.
+
+Suddenly the door opened and Vuillet entered, bowing humbly, with
+blinking glance and stiff sacristan's smile. Then he held out his moist
+hand to Rougon and the two others.
+
+Vuillet had settled his little affairs alone. He had cut his own slice
+out of the cake, as Felicite would have said. While peeping through
+the ventilator of his cellar he had seen the insurgents arrest
+the postmaster, whose offices were near his bookshop. At daybreak,
+therefore, at the moment when Rougon was comfortably seated in the
+mayor's arm-chair, he had quietly installed himself in the postmaster's
+office. He knew the clerks; so he received them on their arrival,
+told them that he would replace their chief until his return, and that
+meantime they need be in nowise uneasy. Then he ransacked the morning
+mail with ill-concealed curiosity. He examined the letters, and seemed
+to be seeking a particular one. His new berth doubtless suited his
+secret plans, for his satisfaction became so great that he actually gave
+one of the clerks a copy of the "Oeuvres Badines de Piron." Vuillet, it
+should be mentioned, did business in objectionable literature, which he
+kept concealed in a large drawer, under the stock of heads and
+religious images. It is probable that he felt some slight qualms at
+the free-and-easy manner in which he had taken possession of the post
+office, and recognised the desirability of getting his usurpation
+confirmed as far as possible. At all events, he had thought it well to
+call upon Rougon, who was fast becoming an important personage.
+
+"Why! where have you been?" Felicite asked him in a distrustful manner.
+
+Thereupon he related his story with sundry embellishments. According to
+his own account he had saved the post-office from pillage.
+
+"All right then! That's settled! Stay on there!" said Pierre, after a
+moment's reflection. "Make yourself useful."
+
+This last sentence revealed the one great fear that possessed the
+Rougons. They were afraid that some one might prove too useful, and
+do more than themselves to save the town. Still, Pierre saw no serious
+danger in leaving Vuillet as provisional postmaster; it was even a
+convenient means of getting rid of him. Felicite, however, made a sharp
+gesture of annoyance.
+
+The consultation having ended, the three accomplices mingled with the
+various groups that filled the drawing-room. They were at last obliged
+to satisfy the general curiosity by giving detailed accounts of recent
+events. Rougon proved magnificent. He exaggerated, embellished, and
+dramatised the story which he had related to his wife. The distribution
+of the guns and cartridges made everybody hold their breath. But it was
+the march through the deserted streets and the seizure of the town-hall
+that most amazed these worthy bourgeois. At each fresh detail there was
+an interruption.
+
+"And you were only forty-one; it's marvellous!"
+
+"Ah, indeed! it must have been frightfully dark!"
+
+"No; I confess I never should have dared it!"
+
+"Then you seized him, like that, by the throat?
+
+"And the insurgents, what did they say?"
+
+These remarks and questions only incited Rougon's imagination the more.
+He replied to everybody. He mimicked the action. This stout man, in his
+admiration of his own achievements, became as nimble as a schoolboy; he
+began afresh, repeated himself, amidst the exclamations of surprise and
+individual discussions which suddenly arose about some trifling detail.
+And thus he continued blowing his trumpet, making himself more and
+more important as if some irresistible force impelled him to turn his
+narrative into a genuine epic. Moreover Granoux and Roudier stood by
+his side prompting him, reminding him of such trifling matters as he
+omitted. They also were burning to put in a word, and occasionally
+they could not restrain themselves, so that all three went on talking
+together. When, in order to keep the episode of the broken mirror for
+the denouement, like some crowning glory, Rougon began to describe what
+had taken place downstairs in the courtyard, after the arrest of the
+guard, Roudier accused him of spoiling the narrative by changing
+the sequence of events. For a moment they wrangled about it somewhat
+sharply. Then Roudier, seeing a good opportunity for himself, suddenly
+exclaimed: "Very well, let it be so. But you weren't there. So let me
+tell it."
+
+He thereupon explained at great length how the insurgents had awoke, and
+how the muskets of the town's deliverers had been levelled at them to
+reduce them to impotence. He added, however, that no blood, fortunately,
+had been shed. This last sentence disappointed his audience, who had
+counted upon one corpse at least.
+
+"But I thought you fired," interrupted Felicite, recognising that the
+story was wretchedly deficient in dramatic interest.
+
+"Yes, yes, three shots," resumed the old hosier. "The pork-butcher
+Dubruel, Monsieur Lievin, and Monsieur Massicot discharged their guns
+with really culpable alacrity." And as there were some murmurs at this
+remark; "Culpable, I repeat the word," he continued. "There are quite
+enough cruel necessities in warfare without any useless shedding of
+blood. Besides, these gentlemen swore to me that it was not their fault;
+they can't understand how it was their guns went off. Nevertheless, a
+spent ball after ricocheting grazed the cheek of one of the insurgents
+and left a mark on it."
+
+This graze, this unexpected wound, satisfied the audience. Which cheek,
+right or left, had been grazed, and how was it that a bullet, a spent
+one, even, could strike a cheek without piercing it? These points
+supplied material for some long discussions.
+
+"Meantime," continued Rougon at the top of his voice, without giving
+time for the excitement to abate; "meantime we had plenty to do
+upstairs. The struggle was quite desperate."
+
+Then he described, at length, the arrival of his brother and the four
+other insurgents, without naming Macquart, whom he simply called "the
+leader." The words, "the mayor's office," "the mayor's arm-chair,"
+"the mayor's writing table," recurred to him every instant, and in the
+opinion of his audience imparted marvellous grandeur to the terrible
+scene. It was not at the porter's lodge that the fight was now being
+waged, but in the private sanctum of the chief magistrate of the town.
+Roudier was quite cast in to the background. Then Rougon at last came to
+the episode which he had been keeping in reserve from the commencement,
+and which would certainly exalt him to the dignity of a hero.
+
+"Thereupon," said he, "an insurgent rushes upon me. I push the mayor's
+arm-chair away, and seize the man by the throat. I hold him tightly,
+you may be sure of it! But my gun was in my way. I didn't want to let
+it drop; a man always sticks to his gun. I held it, like this, under the
+left arm. All of a sudden, it went off--"
+
+The whole audience hung on Rougon's lips. But Granoux, who was opening
+his mouth wide with a violent itching to say something, shouted: "No,
+no, that isn't right. You were not in a position to see things, my
+friend; you were fighting like a lion. But I saw everything, while I was
+helping to bind one of the prisoners. The man tried to murder you; it
+was he who fired the gun; I saw him distinctly slip his black fingers
+under your arm."
+
+"Really?" said Rougon, turning quite pale.
+
+He did not know he had been in such danger, and the old almond
+merchant's account of the incident chilled him with fright. Granoux, as
+a rule, did not lie; but, on a day of battle, it is surely allowable to
+view things dramatically.
+
+"I tell you the man tried to murder you," he repeated, with conviction.
+
+"Ah," said Rougon in a faint voice, "that's how it is I heard the bullet
+whiz past my ear!"
+
+At this, violent emotion came upon the audience. Everybody gazed at
+the hero with respectful awe. He had heard a bullet whiz past his ear!
+Certainly, none of the other bourgeois who were there could say as much.
+Felicite felt bound to rush into her husband's arms so as to work up
+the emotion to boiling point. But Rougon immediately freed himself,
+and concluded his narrative with this heroic sentence, which has become
+famous at Plassans: "The shot goes off; I hear the bullet whiz past my
+ear; and whish! it smashes the mayor's mirror."
+
+This caused complete consternation. Such a magnificent mirror, too!
+It was scarcely credible! the damage done to that looking-glass almost
+out-balanced Rougon's heroism, in the estimation of the company. The
+glass became an object of absorbing interest, and they talked about
+it for a quarter of an hour, with many exclamations and expressions of
+regret, as though it had been some dear friend that had been stricken to
+the heart. This was the culminating point that Rougon had aimed at, the
+denouement of his wonderful Odyssey. A loud hubbub of voices filled
+the yellow drawing-room. The visitors were repeating what they had just
+heard, and every now and then one of them would leave a group to ask the
+three heroes the exact truth with regard to some contested incident. The
+heroes set the matter right with scrupulous minuteness, for they felt
+that they were speaking for history!
+
+At last Rougon and his two lieutenants announced that they were expected
+at the town-hall. Respectful silence was then restored, and the company
+smiled at each other discreetly. Granoux was swelling with importance.
+He was the only one who had seen the insurgent pull the trigger and
+smash the mirror; this sufficed to exalt him, and almost made him burst
+his skin. On leaving the drawing-room, he took Roudier's arm with the
+air of a great general who is broken down with fatigue. "I've been up
+for thirty-six hours," he murmured, "and heaven alone knows when I shall
+get to bed!"
+
+Rougon, as he withdrew, took Vuillet aside and told him that the party
+of order relied more than ever on him and the "Gazette." He would have
+to publish an effective article to reassure the inhabitants and treat
+the band of villains who had passed through Plassans as it deserved.
+
+"Be easy!" replied Vuillet. "In the ordinary course the 'Gazette'
+ought not to appear till to-morrow morning, but I'll issue it this very
+evening."
+
+When the leaders had left, the rest of the visitors remained in the
+yellow drawing-room for another moment, chattering like so many
+old women, whom the escape of a canary has gathered together on the
+pavement. These retired tradesmen, oil dealers, and wholesale hatters,
+felt as if they were in a sort of fairyland. Never had they experienced
+such thrilling excitement before. They could not get over their surprise
+at discovering such heroes as Rougon, Granoux, and Roudier in their
+midst. At last, half stifled by the stuffy atmosphere, and tired of ever
+telling each other the same things, they decided to go off and spread
+the momentous news abroad. They glided away one by one, each anxious
+to have the glory of being the first to know and relate everything, and
+Felicite, as she leaned out of the window, on being left alone, saw
+them dispersing in the Rue de la Banne, waving their arms in an excited
+manner, eager as they were to diffuse emotion to the four corners of the
+town.
+
+It was ten o'clock, and Plassans, now wide awake, was running about the
+streets, wildly excited by the reports which were circulating. Those who
+had seen or heard the insurrectionary forces, related the most foolish
+stories, contradicting each other, and indulging in the wildest
+suppositions. The majority, however, knew nothing at all about the
+matter; they lived at the further end of the town, and listened with
+gaping mouths, like children to a nursery tale, to the stories of how
+several thousand bandits had invaded the streets during the night and
+vanished before daybreak like an army of phantoms. A few of the most
+sceptical said: "Nonsense!" Yet some of the details were very precise;
+and Plassans at last felt convinced that some frightful danger had
+passed over it while it slept. The darkness which had shrouded this
+danger, the various contradictory reports that spread, all invested the
+matter with mystery and vague horror, which made the bravest shudder.
+Whose hand had diverted the thunderbolt from them? There seemed to
+be something quite miraculous about it. There were rumours of unknown
+deliverers, of a handful of brave men who had cut off the hydra's head;
+but no one seemed acquainted with the exact particulars, and the whole
+story appeared scarcely credible, until the company from the yellow
+drawing-room spread through the streets, scattering tidings, ever
+repeating the same narrative at each door they came to.
+
+It was like a train of powder. In a few minutes the story had spread
+from one end of the town to the other. Rougon's name flew from mouth to
+mouth, with exclamations of surprise in the new town, and of praise in
+the old quarter. The idea of being without a sub-prefect, a mayor, a
+postmaster, a receiver of taxes, or authorities of any kind, at first
+threw the inhabitants into consternation. They were stupefied at having
+been able to sleep through the night and get up as usual, in the
+absence of any settled government. Their first stupor over, they
+threw themselves recklessly into the arms of their liberators. The few
+Republicans shrugged their shoulders, but the petty shopkeepers, the
+small householders, the Conservatives of all shades, invoked blessings
+on those modest heroes whose achievements had been shrouded by the
+night. When it was known that Rougon had arrested his own brother, the
+popular admiration knew no bounds. People talked of Brutus, and thus the
+indiscretion which had made Pierre rather anxious, really redounded
+to his glory. At this moment when terror still hovered over them,
+the townsfolk were virtually unanimous in their gratitude. Rougon was
+accepted as their saviour without the slightest show of opposition.
+
+"Just think of it!" the poltroons exclaimed, "there were only forty-one
+of them!"
+
+That number of forty-one amazed the whole town, and this was the
+origin of the Plassans legend of how forty-one bourgeois had made three
+thousand insurgents bite the dust. There were only a few envious spirits
+of the new town, lawyers without work and retired military men ashamed
+of having slept ingloriously through that memorable night, who raised
+any doubts. The insurgents, these sceptics hinted, had no doubt left
+the town of their own accord. There were no indications of a combat,
+no corpses, no blood-stains. So the deliverers had certainly had a very
+easy task.
+
+"But the mirror, the mirror!" repeated the enthusiasts. "You can't deny
+that the mayor's mirror has been smashed; go and see it for yourselves."
+
+And, in fact, until night-time, quite a stream of town's-people flowed,
+under one pretext or another, into the mayor's private office, the door
+of which Rougon left wide open. The visitors planted themselves in front
+of the mirror, which the bullet had pierced and starred, and they all
+gave vent to the same exclamation: "By Jove; that ball must have had
+terrible force!"
+
+Then they departed quite convinced.
+
+Felicite, at her window, listened with delight to all the rumours and
+laudatory and grateful remarks which arose from the town. At that moment
+all Plassans was talking of her husband. She felt that the two districts
+below her were quivering, wafting her the hope of approaching triumph.
+Ah! how she would crush that town which she had been so long in getting
+beneath her feet! All her grievances crowded back to her memory, and her
+past disappointments redoubled her appetite for immediate enjoyment.
+
+At last she left the window, and walked slowly round the drawing-room.
+It was there that, a little while previously, everybody had held out
+their hands to her husband and herself. He and she had conquered; the
+citizens were at their feet. The yellow drawing-room seemed to her a
+holy place. The dilapidated furniture, the frayed velvet, the chandelier
+soiled with fly-marks, all those poor wrecks now seemed to her like
+the glorious bullet-riddled debris of a battle-field. The plain of
+Austerlitz would not have stirred her to deeper emotion.
+
+When she returned to the window, she perceived Aristide wandering about
+the place of the Sub-Prefecture, with his nose in the air. She beckoned
+to him to come up, which he immediately did. It seemed as if he had only
+been waiting for this invitation.
+
+"Come in," his mother said to him on the landing, seeing that he
+hesitated. "Your father is not here."
+
+Aristide evinced all the shyness of a prodigal son returning home. He
+had not been inside the yellow drawing-room for nearly four years. He
+still carried his arm in a sling.
+
+"Does your hand still pain you?" his mother asked him, ironically.
+
+He blushed as he answered with some embarrassment: "Oh! it's getting
+better; it's nearly well again now."
+
+Then he lingered there, loitering about and not knowing what to say.
+Felicite came to the rescue. "I suppose you've heard them talking about
+your father's noble conduct?" she resumed.
+
+He replied that the whole town was talking of it. And then, as he
+regained his self-possession, he paid his mother back for her raillery
+in her own coin. Looking her full in the face he added: "I came to see
+if father was wounded."
+
+"Come, don't play the fool!" cried Felicite, petulantly. "If I were you
+I would act boldly and decisively. Confess now that you made a false
+move in joining those good-for-nothing Republicans. You would be very
+glad, I'm sure, to be well rid of them, and to return to us, who are the
+stronger party. Well, the house is open to you!"
+
+But Aristide protested. The Republic was a grand idea. Moreover, the
+insurgents might still carry the day.
+
+"Don't talk nonsense to me!" retorted the old woman, with some
+irritation. "You're afraid that your father won't have a very warm
+welcome for you. But I'll see to that. Listen to me: go back to your
+newspaper, and, between now and to-morrow, prepare a number strongly
+favouring the Coup d'Etat. To-morrow evening, when this number has
+appeared, come back here and you will be received with open arms."
+
+Then seeing that the young man remained silent: "Do you hear?" she
+added, in a lower and more eager tone; "it is necessary for our sake,
+and for your own, too, that it should be done. Don't let us have any
+more nonsense and folly. You've already compromised yourself enough in
+that way."
+
+The young man made a gesture--the gesture of a Caesar crossing the
+Rubicon--and by doing so escaped entering into any verbal engagement. As
+he was about to withdraw, his mother, looking for the knot in his sling,
+remarked: "First of all, you must let me take off this rag. It's getting
+a little ridiculous, you know!"
+
+Aristide let her remove it. When the silk handkerchief was untied,
+he folded it neatly and placed it in his pocket. And as he kissed his
+mother he exclaimed: "Till to-morrow then!"
+
+In the meanwhile, Rougon was taking official possession of the mayor's
+offices. There were only eight municipal councillors left; the others
+were in the hands of the insurgents, as well as the mayor and his two
+assessors. The eight remaining gentlemen, who were all on a par with
+Granoux, perspired with fright when the latter explained to them the
+critical situation of the town. It requires an intimate knowledge of the
+kind of men who compose the municipal councils of some of the smaller
+towns, in order to form an idea of the terror with which these timid
+folk threw themselves into Rougon's arms. At Plassans, the mayor had
+the most incredible blockheads under him, men without any ideas of their
+own, and accustomed to passive obedience. Consequently, as Monsieur
+Garconnet was no longer there, the municipal machine was bound to get
+out of order, and fall completely under the control of the man who might
+know how to set it working. Moreover, as the sub-prefect had left the
+district, Rougon naturally became sole and absolute master of the town;
+and thus, strange to relate, the chief administrative authority fell
+into the hands of a man of indifferent repute, to whom, on the previous
+evening, not one of his fellow-citizens would have lent a hundred
+francs.
+
+Pierre's first act was to declare the Provisional Commission "en
+permanence." Then he gave his attention to the organisation of the
+national guard, and succeeded in raising three hundred men. The
+hundred and nine muskets left in the cart-shed were also distributed
+to volunteers, thereby bringing up the number of men armed by the
+reactionary party to one hundred and fifty; the remaining one hundred
+and fifty guards consisted of well-affected citizens and some of
+Sicardot's soldiers. When Commander Roudier reviewed the little army in
+front of the town-hall, he was annoyed to see the market-people smiling
+in their sleeves. The fact is that several of his men had no uniforms,
+and some of them looked very droll with their black hats, frock-coats,
+and muskets. But, at any rate, they meant well. A guard was left at the
+town-hall and the rest of the forces were sent in detachments to the
+various town gates. Roudier reserved to himself the command of the guard
+stationed at the Grand'-Porte, which seemed to be more liable to attack
+than the others.
+
+Rougon, who now felt very conscious of his power, repaired to the Rue
+Canquoin to beg the gendarmes to remain in their barracks and interfere
+with nothing. He certainly had the doors of the gendarmerie opened--the
+keys having been carried off by the insurgents--but he wanted to triumph
+alone, and had no intention of letting the gendarmes rob him of any part
+of his glory. If he should really have need of them he could always
+send for them. So he explained to them that their presence might tend to
+irritate the working-men and thus aggravate the situation. The sergeant
+in command thereupon complimented him on his prudence. When Rougon was
+informed that there was a wounded man in the barracks, he asked to see
+him, by way of rendering himself popular. He found Rengade in bed, with
+his eye bandaged, and his big moustaches just peeping out from under the
+linen. With some high-sounding words about duty, Rougon endeavoured to
+comfort the unfortunate fellow who, having lost an eye, was swearing
+with exasperation at the thought that his injury would compel him to
+quit the service. At last Rougon promised to send the doctor to him.
+
+"I'm much obliged to you, sir," Rengade replied; "but, you know, what
+would do me more good than any quantity of doctor's stuff would be to
+wring the neck of the villain who put my eye out. Oh! I shall know him
+again; he's a little thin, palish fellow, quite young."
+
+Thereupon Pierre bethought himself of the blood he had seen on Silvere's
+hand. He stepped back a little, as though he was afraid that Rengade
+would fly at his throat, and cry: "It was your nephew who blinded me;
+and you will have to pay for it." And whilst he was mentally cursing his
+disreputable family, he solemnly declared that if the guilty person were
+found he should be punished with all the rigour of the law.
+
+"No, no, it isn't worth all that trouble," the one-eyed man replied;
+"I'll just wring his neck for him when I catch him."
+
+Rougon hastened back to the town-hall. The afternoon was employed in
+taking various measures. The proclamation posted up about one o'clock
+produced an excellent impression. It ended by an appeal to the good
+sense of the citizens, and gave a firm assurance that order would not
+again be disturbed. Until dusk, in fact, the streets presented a picture
+of general relief and perfect confidence. On the pavements, the groups
+who were reading the proclamation exclaimed:
+
+"It's all finished now; we shall soon see the troops who have been sent
+in pursuit of the insurgents."
+
+This belief that some soldiers were approaching was so general that the
+idles of the Cours Sauvaire repaired to the Nice road, in order to
+meet and hear the regimental band. But they returned at nightfall
+disappointed, having seen nothing; and then a feeling of vague alarm
+began to disturb the townspeople.
+
+At the town-hall, the Provisional Commission had talked so much, without
+coming to any decision, that the members, whose stomachs were quite
+empty, began to feel alarmed again. Rougon dismissed them to dine,
+saying that they would meet afresh at nine o'clock in the evening. He
+was just about to leave the room himself, when Macquart awoke and began
+to pommel the door of his prison. He declared he was hungry, then asked
+what time it was, and when his brother had told him it was five o'clock,
+he feigned great astonishment, and muttered, with diabolical malice,
+that the insurgents had promised to return much earlier, and that they
+were very slow in coming to deliver him. Rougon, having ordered
+some food to be taken to him, went downstairs, quite worried by the
+earnestness with which the rascal spoke of the return of the insurgents.
+
+When he reached the street, his disquietude increased. The town seemed
+to him quite altered. It was assuming a strange aspect; shadows were
+gliding along the footpaths, which were growing deserted and silent,
+while gloomy fear seemed, like fine rain, to be slowly, persistently
+falling with the dusk over the mournful-looking houses. The babbling
+confidence of the daytime was fatally terminating in groundless panic,
+in growing alarm as the night drew nearer; the inhabitants were so weary
+and so satiated with their triumph that they had no strength left but to
+dream of some terrible retaliation on the part of the insurgents. Rougon
+shuddered as he passed through this current of terror. He hastened his
+steps, feeling as if he would choke. As he passed a cafe on the Place
+des Recollets, where the lamps had just been lit, and where the petty
+cits of the new town were assembled, he heard a few words of terrifying
+conversation.
+
+"Well! Monsieur Picou," said one man in a thick voice, "you've heard the
+news? The regiment that was expected has not arrived."
+
+"But nobody expected any regiment, Monsieur Touche," a shrill voice
+replied.
+
+"I beg your pardon. You haven't read the proclamation, then?"
+
+"Oh yes, it's true the placards declare that order will be maintained by
+force, if necessary."
+
+"You see, then, there's force mentioned; that means armed forces, of
+course."
+
+"What do people say then?"
+
+"Well, you know, folks are beginning to feel rather frightened; they say
+that this delay on the part of the soldiers isn't natural, and that the
+insurgents may well have slaughtered them."
+
+A cry of horror resounded through the cafe. Rougon was inclined to go in
+and tell those bourgeois that the proclamation had never announced the
+arrival of a regiment, that they had no right to strain its meaning
+to such a degree, nor to spread such foolish theories abroad. But he
+himself, amidst the disquietude which was coming over him, was not quite
+sure he had not counted upon a despatch of troops; and he did, in fact,
+consider it strange that not a single soldier had made his appearance.
+So he reached home in a very uneasy state of mind. Felicite, still
+petulant and full of courage, became quite angry at seeing him upset by
+such silly trifles. Over the dessert she comforted him.
+
+"Well, you great simpleton," she said, "so much the better, if the
+prefect does forget us! We shall save the town by ourselves. For my
+part, I should like to see the insurgents return, so that we might
+receive them with bullets and cover ourselves with glory. Listen to
+me, go and have the gates closed, and don't go to bed; bustle about all
+night; it will all be taken into account later on."
+
+Pierre returned to the town-hall in rather more cheerful spirits. He
+required some courage to remain firm amidst the woeful maunderings of
+his colleagues. The members of the Provisional Commission seemed to reek
+with panic, just as they might with damp in the rainy season. They all
+professed to have counted upon the despatch of a regiment, and began to
+exclaim that brave citizens ought not to be abandoned in such a manner
+to the fury of the rabble. Pierre, to preserve peace, almost promised
+they should have a regiment on the morrow. Then he announced, in a
+solemn manner, that he was going to have the gates closed. This came as
+a relief. Detachments of the national guards had to repair immediately
+to each gate and double-lock it. When they had returned, several members
+confessed that they really felt more comfortable; and when Pierre
+remarked that the critical situation of the town imposed upon them the
+duty of remaining at their posts, some of them made arrangements with
+the view of spending the night in an arm-chair. Granoux put on a black
+silk skull cap which he had brought with him by way of precaution.
+Towards eleven o'clock, half of the gentlemen were sleeping round
+Monsieur Garconnet's writing table. Those who still managed to keep
+their eyes open fancied, as they listened to the measured tramp of
+the national guards in the courtyard, that they were heroes and were
+receiving decorations. A large lamp, placed on the writing-table,
+illumined this strange vigil. All at once, however, Rougon, who had
+seemed to be slumbering, jumped up, and sent for Vuillet. He had just
+remembered that he had not received the "Gazette."
+
+The bookseller made his appearance in a very bad humour.
+
+"Well!" Rougon asked him as he took him aside, "what about the article
+you promised me? I haven't seen the paper."
+
+"Is that what you disturbed me for?" Vuillet angrily retorted. "The
+'Gazette' has not been issued; I've no desire to get myself murdered
+to-morrow, should the insurgents come back."
+
+Rougon tried to smile as he declared that, thank heaven, nobody would be
+murdered at all. It was precisely because false and disquieting rumours
+were running about that the article in question would have rendered
+great service to the good cause.
+
+"Possibly," Vuillet resumed; "but the best of causes at the present
+time is to keep one's head on one's shoulders." And he added, with
+maliciousness, "And I was under the impression you had killed all the
+insurgents! You've left too many of them for me to run any risk."
+
+Rougon, when he was alone again, felt amazed at this mutiny on the part
+of a man who was usually so meek and mild. Vuillet's conduct seemed
+to him suspicious. But he had no time to seek an explanation; he had
+scarcely stretched himself out afresh in his arm-chair, when Roudier
+entered, with a big sabre, which he had attached to his belt, clattering
+noisily against his legs. The sleepers awoke in a fright. Granoux
+thought it was a call to arms.
+
+"Eh? what! What's the matter?" he asked, as he hastily put his black
+silk cap into his pocket.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Roudier, breathlessly, without thinking of taking
+any oratorical precautions, "I believe that a band of insurgents is
+approaching the town."
+
+These words were received with the silence of terror. Rougon alone had
+the strength to ask, "Have you seen them?"
+
+"No," the retired hosier replied; "but we hear strange noises out in the
+country; one of my men assured me that he had seen fires along the slope
+of the Garrigues."
+
+Then, as all the gentlemen stared at each other white and speechless,
+"I'll return to my post," he continued. "I fear an attack. You had
+better take precautions."
+
+Rougon would have followed him, to obtain further particulars, but he
+was already too far away. After this the Commission was by no means
+inclined to go to sleep again. Strange noises! Fires! An attack! And
+in the middle of the night too! It was very easy to talk of taking
+precautions, but what were they to do? Granoux was very near advising
+the course which had proved so successful the previous evening: that
+is of hiding themselves, waiting till the insurgents has passed through
+Plassans, and then triumphing in the deserted streets. Pierre, however,
+fortunately remembering his wife's advice, said that Roudier might
+have made a mistake, and that the best thing would be to go and see for
+themselves. Some of the members made a wry face at this suggestion;
+but when it had been agreed that an armed escort should accompany the
+Commission, they all descended very courageously. They only left a few
+men downstairs; they surrounded themselves with about thirty of the
+national guards, and then they ventured into the slumbering town, where
+the moon, creeping over the house roofs, slowly cast lengthened shadows.
+They went along the ramparts, from one gate to the other, seeing nothing
+and hearing nothing. The national guards at the various posts certainly
+told them that peculiar sounds occasionally reached them from the
+country through the closed gates. When they strained their ears,
+however, they detected nothing but a distant murmur, which Granoux said
+was merely the noise of the Viorne.
+
+Nevertheless they remained doubtful. And they were about to return to
+the town-hall in a state of alarm, though they made a show of shrugging
+their shoulders and of treating Roudier as a poltroon and a dreamer,
+when Rougon, anxious to reassure them, thought of enabling them to
+view the plain over a distance of several leagues. Thereupon he led the
+little company to the Saint-Marc quarter and knocked at the door of the
+Valqueyras mansion.
+
+At the very outset of the disturbances Count de Valqueyras had left for
+his chateau at Corbiere. There was no one but the Marquis de Carnavant
+at the Plassans house. He, since the previous evening, had prudently
+kept aloof; not that he was afraid, but because he did not care to be
+seen plotting with the Rougons at the critical moment. As a matter
+of fact, he was burning with curiosity. He had been compelled to shut
+himself up in order to resist the temptation of hastening to the yellow
+drawing-room. When the footman came to tell him, in the middle of the
+night, that there were some gentlemen below asking for him, he could not
+hold back any longer. He got up and went downstairs in all haste.
+
+"My dear Marquis," said Rougon, as he introduced to him the members
+of the Municipal Commission, "we want to ask a favour of you. Will you
+allow us to go into the garden of the mansion?"
+
+"By all means," replied the astonished marquis, "I will conduct you
+there myself."
+
+On the way thither he ascertained what their object was. At the end of
+the garden rose a terrace which overlooked the plain. A large portion of
+the ramparts had there tumbled in, leaving a boundless prospect to the
+view. It had occurred to Rougon that this would serve as an excellent
+post of observation. While conversing together the members of the
+Commission leaned over the parapet. The strange spectacle that spread
+out before them soon made them silent. In the distance, in the valley of
+the Viorne, across the vast hollow which stretched westward between the
+chain of the Garrigues and the mountains of the Seille, the rays of the
+moon were streaming like a river of pale light. The clumps of trees, the
+gloomy rocks, looked, here and there, like islets and tongues of land,
+emerging from a luminous sea; and, according to the bends of the Viorne
+one could now and again distinguish detached portions of the river,
+glittering like armour amidst the fine silvery dust falling from the
+firmament. It all looked like an ocean, a world, magnified by the
+darkness, the cold, and their own secret fears. At first the gentlemen
+could neither hear nor see anything. The quiver of light and of distant
+sound blinded their eyes and confused their ears. Granoux, though he
+was not naturally poetic, was struck by the calm serenity of that winter
+night, and murmured: "What a beautiful night, gentlemen!"
+
+"Roudier was certainly dreaming," exclaimed Rougon, rather disdainfully.
+
+But the marquis, whose ears were quick, had begun to listen. "Ah!" he
+observed in his clear voice, "I hear the tocsin."
+
+At this they all leant over the parapet, holding their breath. And light
+and pure as crystal the distant tolling of a bell rose from the plain.
+The gentlemen could not deny it. It was indeed the tocsin. Rougon
+pretended that he recognised the bell of Beage, a village fully a league
+from Plassans. This he said in order to reassure his colleagues.
+
+But the marquis interrupted him. "Listen, listen: this time it is the
+bell of Saint-Maur." And he indicated another point of the horizon to
+them. There was, in fact, a second bell wailing through the clear night.
+And very soon there were ten bells, twenty bells, whose despairing
+tollings were detected by their ears, which had by this time grown
+accustomed to the quivering of the darkness. Ominous calls rose from all
+sides, like the faint rattles of dying men. Soon the whole plain seemed
+to be wailing. The gentlemen no longer jeered at Roudier; particularly
+as the marquis, who took a malicious delight in terrifying them, was
+kind enough to explain the cause of all this bell-ringing.
+
+"It is the neighbouring villages," he said to Rougon, "banding together
+to attack Plassans at daybreak."
+
+At this Granoux opened his eyes wide. "Didn't you see something just
+this moment over there?" he asked all of a sudden.
+
+Nobody had looked; the gentlemen had been keeping their eyes closed in
+order to hear the better.
+
+"Ah! look!" he resumed after a short pause. "There, beyond the Viorne,
+near that black mass."
+
+"Yes, I see," replied Rougon, in despair; "it's a fire they're kindling."
+
+A moment later another fire appeared almost immediately in front of
+the first one, then a third, and a fourth. In this wise red splotches
+appeared at nearly equal distances throughout the whole length of the
+valley, resembling the lamps of some gigantic avenue. The moonlight,
+which dimmed their radiance, made them look like pools of blood. This
+melancholy illumination gave a finishing touch to the consternation of
+the Municipal Commission.
+
+"Of course!" the marquis muttered, with his bitterest sneer, "those
+brigands are signalling to each other." And he counted the fires
+complacently, to get some idea, he said, as to how many men "the brave
+national guard of Plassans" would have to deal with. Rougon endeavoured
+to raise doubts by saying the villages were taking up arms in order to
+join the army of the insurgents, and not for the purpose of attacking
+the town. But the gentlemen, by their silent consternation, made
+it clear that they had formed their own opinion, and were not to be
+consoled.
+
+"I can hear the 'Marseillaise' now," remarked Granoux in a hushed voice.
+
+It was indeed true. A detachment must have been following the course of
+the Viorne, passing, at that moment, just under the town. The cry, "To
+arms, citizens! Form your battalions!" reached the on-lookers in sudden
+bursts with vibrating distinctness. Ah! what an awful night it was! The
+gentlemen spent it leaning over the parapet of the terrace, numbed by
+the terrible cold, and yet quite unable to tear themselves away from
+the sight of that plain which resounded with the tocsin and the
+"Marseillaise," and was all ablaze with signal-fires. They feasted their
+eyes upon that sea of light, flecked with blood-red flames; and they
+strained their ears in order to listen to the confused clamour, till at
+last their senses began to deceive them, and they saw and heard the most
+frightful things. Nothing in the world would have induced them to leave
+the spot. If they had turned their backs, they would have fancied that
+a whole army was at their heels. After the manner of a certain class
+of cowards, they wished to witness the approach of the danger, in order
+that they might take flight at the right moment. Towards morning, when
+the moon had set and they could see nothing in front of them but a
+dark void, they fell into a terrible fright. They fancied they were
+surrounded by invisible enemies, who were crawling along in the
+darkness, ready to fly at their throats. At the slightest noise they
+imagined there were enemies deliberating beneath the terrace, prior to
+scaling it. Yet there was nothing, nothing but darkness upon which they
+fixed their eyes distractedly. The marquis, as if to console them, said
+in his ironical way: "Don't be uneasy! They will certainly wait till
+daybreak."
+
+Meanwhile Rougon cursed and swore. He felt himself again giving way to
+fear. As for Granoux, his hair turned completely white. At last the dawn
+appeared with weary slowness. This again was a terribly anxious moment.
+The gentlemen, at the first ray of light, expected to see an army drawn
+up in line before the town. It so happened that day that the dawn was
+lazy and lingered awhile on the edge of the horizon. With outstretched
+necks and fixed gaze, the party on the terrace peered anxiously into the
+misty expanse. In the uncertain light they fancied they caught glimpses
+of colossal profiles, the plain seemed to be transformed into a lake of
+blood, the rocks looked like corpses floating on its surface, and the
+clusters of trees took the forms of battalions drawn up and threatening
+attack. When the growing light had at last dispersed these phantoms,
+the morning broke so pale, so mournful, so melancholy, that even the
+marquis's spirits sank. Not a single insurgent was to be seen, and the
+high roads were free; but the grey valley wore a gruesomely sad and
+deserted aspect. The fires had now gone out, but the bells still rang
+on. Towards eight o'clock, Rougon observed a small party of men who were
+moving off along the Viorne.
+
+By this time the gentlemen were half dead with cold and fatigue. Seeing
+no immediate danger, they determined to take a few hours' rest. A
+national guard was left on the terrace as a sentinel, with orders to
+run and inform Roudier if he should perceive any band approaching in the
+distance. Then Granoux and Rougon, quite worn out by the emotions of the
+night, repaired to their homes, which were close together, and supported
+each other on the way.
+
+Felicite put her husband to bed with every care. She called him "poor
+dear," and repeatedly told him that he ought not to give way to evil
+fancies, and that all would end well. But he shook his head; he felt
+grave apprehensions. She let him sleep till eleven o'clock. Then, after
+he had had something to eat, she gently turned him out of doors, making
+him understand that he must go through with the matter to the end.
+At the town-hall, Rougon found only four members of the Commission in
+attendance; the others had sent excuses, they were really ill. Panic
+had been sweeping through the town with growing violence all through the
+morning. The gentlemen had not been able to keep quiet respecting the
+memorable night they had spent on the terrace of the Valqueyras mansion.
+Their servants had hastened to spread the news, embellishing it with
+various dramatic details. By this time it had already become a matter of
+history that from the heights of Plassans troops of cannibals had been
+seen dancing and devouring their prisoners. Yes, bands of witches had
+circled hand in hand round their caldrons in which they were boiling
+children, while on and on marched endless files of bandits, whose
+weapons glittered in the moonlight. People spoke too of bells that of
+their own accord, sent the tocsin ringing through the desolate air,
+and it was even asserted that the insurgents had fired the neighbouring
+forests, so that the whole country side was in flames.
+
+It was Tuesday, the market-day at Plassans, and Roudier had thought it
+necessary to have the gates opened in order to admit the few peasants
+who had brought vegetables, butter, and eggs. As soon as it had
+assembled, the Municipal Commission, now composed of five members only,
+including its president, declared that this was unpardonable imprudence.
+Although the sentinel stationed at the Valqueyras mansion had seen
+nothing, the town ought to have been kept closed. Then Rougon decided
+that the public crier, accompanied by a drummer, should go through the
+streets, proclaim a state of siege, and announce to the inhabitants
+that whoever might go out would not be allowed to return. The gates were
+officially closed in broad daylight. This measure, adopted in order to
+reassure the inhabitants, raised the scare to its highest pitch. And
+there could scarcely have been a more curious sight than that of this
+little city, thus padlocking and bolting itself up beneath the bright
+sunshine, in the middle of the nineteenth century.
+
+When Plassans had buckled and tightened its belt of dilapidated
+ramparts, when it had bolted itself in like a besieged fortress at
+the approach of an assault, the most terrible anguish passed over the
+mournful houses. At every moment, in the centre of the town, people
+fancied they could hear a discharge of musketry in the Faubourgs. They
+no longer received any news; they were, so to say, at the bottom of
+a cellar, in a walled hole, where they were anxiously awaiting
+either deliverance or the finishing stroke. For the last two days
+the insurgents, who were scouring the country, had cut off all
+communication. Plassans found itself isolated from the rest of France.
+It felt that it was surrounded by a region in open rebellion, where the
+tocsin was ever ringing and the "Marseillaise" was ever roaring like
+a river that has overflowed its banks. Abandoned to its fate and
+shuddering with alarm the town lay there like some prey which would
+prove the reward of the victorious party. The strollers on the Cours
+Sauvaire were ever swaying between fear and hope according as they
+fancied that they could see the blouses of insurgents or the uniforms
+of soldiers at the Grand'-Porte. Never had sub-prefecture, pent within
+tumble-down walls, endured more agonising torture.
+
+Towards two o'clock it was rumoured that the Coup d'Etat had failed,
+that the prince-president was imprisoned at Vincennes, and that Paris
+was in the hands of the most advanced demagogues. It was reported also
+that Marseilles, Toulon, Draguignan, the entire South, belonged to the
+victorious insurrectionary army. The insurgents would arrive in the
+evening and put Plassans to the sword.
+
+Thereupon a deputation repaired to the town-hall to expostulate with
+the Municipal Commission for closing the gates, whereby they would only
+irritate the insurgents. Rougon, who was losing his head, defended his
+order with all his remaining strength. This locking of the gates seemed
+to him one of the most ingenious acts of his administration; he advanced
+the most convincing arguments in its justification. But the others
+embarrassed him by their questions, asking him where were the soldiers,
+the regiment that he had promised. Then he began to lie, and told them
+flatly that he had promised nothing at all. The non-appearance of this
+legendary regiment, which the inhabitants longed for with such eagerness
+that they had actually dreamt of its arrival, was the chief cause of the
+panic. Well-informed people even named the exact spot on the high road
+where the soldiers had been butchered.
+
+At four o'clock Rougon, followed by Granoux, again repaired to the
+Valqueyras mansion. Small bands, on their way to join the insurgents at
+Orcheres, still passed along in the distance, through the valley of the
+Viorne. Throughout the day urchins climbed the ramparts, and bourgeois
+came to peep through the loopholes. These volunteer sentinels kept up
+the terror by counting the various bands, which were taken for so many
+strong battalions. The timorous population fancied it could see from the
+battlements the preparations for some universal massacre. At dusk, as on
+the previous evening, the panic became yet more chilling.
+
+On returning to the municipal offices Rougon and his inseparable
+companion, Granoux, recognised that the situation was growing
+intolerable. During their absence another member of the Commission had
+disappeared. They were only four now, and they felt they were making
+themselves ridiculous by staying there for hours, looking at each
+other's pale countenances, and never saying a word. Moreover, they were
+terribly afraid of having to spend a second night on the terrace of the
+Valqueyras mansion.
+
+Rougon gravely declared that as the situation of affairs was unchanged,
+there was no need for them to continue to remain there _en permanence_.
+If anything serious should occur information would be sent to them. And,
+by a decision duly taken in council, he deputed to Roudier the carrying
+on of the administration. Poor Roudier, who remembered that he had
+served as a national guard in Paris under Louis-Philippe, was meantime
+conscientiously keeping watch at the Grand'-Porte.
+
+Rougon went home looking very downcast, and creeping along under the
+shadows of the houses. He felt that Plassans was becoming hostile
+to him. He heard his name bandied about amongst the groups, with
+expressions of anger and contempt. He walked upstairs, reeling and
+perspiring. Felicite received him with speechless consternation. She,
+also, was beginning to despair. Their dreams were being completely
+shattered. They stood silent, face to face, in the yellow drawing-room.
+The day was drawing to a close, a murky winter day which imparted a
+muddy tint to the orange-coloured wall-paper with its large flower
+pattern; never had the room looked more faded, more mean, more shabby.
+And at this hour they were alone; they no longer had a crowd of
+courtiers congratulating them, as on the previous evening. A single
+day had sufficed to topple them over, at the very moment when they were
+singing victory. If the situation did not change on the morrow their
+game would be lost.
+
+Felicite who, when gazing on the previous evening at the ruins of
+the yellow drawing-room, had thought of the plains of Austerlitz, now
+recalled the accursed field of Waterloo as she observed how mournful
+and deserted the place was. Then, as her husband said nothing, she
+mechanically went to the window--that window where she had inhaled with
+delight the incense of the entire town. She perceived numerous groups
+below on the square, but she closed the blinds upon seeing some heads
+turn towards their house, for she feared that she might be hooted. She
+felt quite sure that those people were speaking about them.
+
+Indeed, voices rose through the twilight. A lawyer was clamouring in the
+tone of a triumphant pleader. "That's just what I said; the insurgents
+left of their own accord, and they won't ask the permission of the
+forty-one to come back. The forty-one indeed! a fine farce! Why, I
+believe there were at least two hundred."
+
+"No, indeed," said a burly trader, an oil-dealer and a great politician,
+"there were probably not even ten. There was no fighting or else we
+should have seen some blood in the morning. I went to the town-hall
+myself to look; the courtyard was as clean as my hand."
+
+Then a workman, who stepped timidly up to the group, added: "There was
+no need of any violence to seize the building; the door wasn't even
+shut."
+
+This remark was received with laughter, and the workman, thus
+encouraged, continued: "As for those Rougons, everybody knows that they
+are a bad lot."
+
+This insult pierced Felicite to the heart. The ingratitude of the
+people was heartrending to her, for she herself was at last beginning to
+believe in the mission of the Rougons. She called for her husband. She
+wanted him to learn how fickle was the multitude.
+
+"It's all a piece with their mirror," continued the lawyer. "What a fuss
+they made about that broken glass! You know that Rougon is quite capable
+of having fired his gun at it just to make believe there had been a
+battle."
+
+Pierre restrained a cry of pain. What! they did not even believe in his
+mirror now! They would soon assert that he had not heard a bullet whiz
+past his ear. The legend of the Rougons would be blotted out; nothing
+would remain of their glory. But his torture was not at an end yet.
+The groups manifested their hostility as heartily as they had displayed
+their approval on the previous evening. A retired hatter, an old man
+seventy years of age, whose factory had formerly been in the Faubourg,
+ferreted out the Rougons' past history. He spoke vaguely, with the
+hesitation of a wandering memory, about the Fouques' property, and
+Adelaide, and her amours with a smuggler. He said just enough to give
+a fresh start to the gossip. The tattlers drew closer together and such
+words as "rogues," "thieves," and "shameless intriguers," ascended to
+the shutter behind which Pierre and Felicite were perspiring with fear
+and indignation. The people on the square even went so far as to pity
+Macquart. This was the final blow. On the previous day Rougon had been a
+Brutus, a stoic soul sacrificing his own affections to his country; now
+he was nothing but an ambitious villain, who felled his brother to the
+ground and made use of him as a stepping-stone to fortune.
+
+"You hear, you hear them?" Pierre murmured in a stifled voice. "Ah! the
+scoundrels, they are killing us; we shall never retrieve ourselves."
+
+Felicite, enraged, was beating a tattoo on the shutter with her
+impatient fingers.
+
+"Let them talk," she answered. "If we get the upper hand again they
+shall see what stuff I'm made of. I know where the blow comes from. The
+new town hates us."
+
+She guessed rightly. The sudden unpopularity of the Rougons was the
+work of a group of lawyers who were very much annoyed at the importance
+acquired by an old illiterate oil-dealer, whose house had been on the
+verge of bankruptcy. The Saint-Marc quarter had shown no sign of life
+for the last two days. The inhabitants of the old quarter and the new
+town alone remained in presence, and the latter had taken advantage
+of the panic to injure the yellow drawing-room in the minds of the
+tradespeople and working-classes. Roudier and Granoux were said to
+be excellent men, honourable citizens, who had been led away by the
+Rougons' intrigues. Their eyes ought to be opened to it. Ought not
+Monsieur Isidore Granoux to be seated in the mayor's arm-chair, in the
+place of that big portly beggar who had not a copper to bless himself
+with? Thus launched, the envious folks began to reproach Rougon for
+all the acts of his administration, which only dated from the previous
+evening. He had no right to retain the services of the former Municipal
+Council; he had been guilty of grave folly in ordering the gates to be
+closed; it was through his stupidity that five members of the Commission
+had contracted inflammation of the lungs on the terrace of the
+Valqueyras mansion. There was no end to his faults. The Republicans
+likewise raised their heads. They talked of the possibility of a sudden
+attack upon the town-hall by the workmen of the Faubourg. The reaction
+was at its last gasp.
+
+Pierre, at this overthrow of all his hopes, began to wonder what support
+he might still rely on if occasion should require any.
+
+"Wasn't Aristide to come here this evening," he asked, "to make it up
+with us?"
+
+"Yes," answered Felicite. "He promised me a good article. The
+'Independant' has not appeared yet--"
+
+But her husband interrupted her, crying: "See! isn't that he who is just
+coming out of the Sub-Prefecture?"
+
+The old woman glanced in that direction. "He's got his arm in a sling
+again!" she cried.
+
+Aristide's hand was indeed wrapped in the silk handkerchief once more.
+The Empire was breaking up, but the Republic was not yet triumphant,
+and he had judged it prudent to resume the part of a disabled man. He
+crossed the square stealthily, without raising his head. Then doubtless
+hearing some dangerous and compromising remarks among the groups of
+bystanders, he made all haste to turn the corner of the Rue de la Banne.
+
+"Bah! he won't come here," said Felicite bitterly. "It's all up with us.
+Even our children forsake us!"
+
+She shut the window violently, in order that she might not see or hear
+anything more. When she had lit the lamp, she and her husband sat down
+to dinner, disheartened and without appetite, leaving most of their food
+on their plates. They only had a few hours left them to take a decisive
+step. It was absolutely indispensable that before daybreak Plassans
+should be at their feet beseeching forgiveness, or else they must
+entirely renounce the fortune which they had dreamed of. The total
+absence of any reliable news was the sole cause of their anxious
+indecision. Felicite, with her clear intellect, had quickly perceived
+this. If they had been able to learn the result of the Coup d'Etat,
+they would either have faced it out and have still pursued their role of
+deliverers, or else have done what they could to efface all recollection
+of their unlucky campaign. But they had no precise information; they
+were losing their heads; the thought that they were thus risking their
+fortune on a throw, in complete ignorance of what was happening, brought
+a cold perspiration to their brows.
+
+"And why the devil doesn't Eugene write to me?" Rougon suddenly cried,
+in an outburst of despair, forgetting that he was betraying the secret
+of his correspondence to his wife.
+
+But Felicite pretended not to have heard. Her husband's exclamation
+had profoundly affected her. Why, indeed, did not Eugene write to his
+father? After keeping him so accurately informed of the progress of the
+Bonapartist cause, he ought at least to have announced the triumph or
+defeat of Prince Louis. Mere prudence would have counselled the
+despatch of such information. If he remained silent, it must be that the
+victorious Republic had sent him to join the pretender in the dungeons
+of Vincennes. At this thought Felicite felt chilled to the marrow; her
+son's silence destroyed her last hopes.
+
+At that moment somebody brought up the "Gazette," which had only just
+appeared.
+
+"Ah!" said Pierre, with surprise. "Vuillet has issued his paper!"
+
+Thereupon he tore off the wrapper, read the leading article, and
+finished it looking as white as a sheet, and swaying on his chair.
+
+"Here, read," he resumed, handing the paper to Felicite.
+
+It was a magnificent article, attacking the insurgents with unheard of
+violence. Never had so much stinging bitterness, so many falsehoods,
+such bigoted abuse flowed from pen before. Vuillet commenced by
+narrating the entry of the insurgents into Plassans. The description
+was a perfect masterpiece. He spoke of "those bandits, those
+villainous-looking countenances, that scum of the galleys," invading the
+town, "intoxicated with brandy, lust, and pillage." Then he exhibited
+them "parading their cynicism in the streets, terrifying the inhabitants
+with their savage cries and seeking only violence and murder." Further
+on, the scene at the town-hall and the arrest of the authorities became
+a most horrible drama. "Then they seized the most respectable people by
+the throat; and the mayor, the brave commander of the national
+guard, the postmaster, that kindly functionary, were--even like the
+Divinity--crowned with thorns by those wretches, who spat in their
+faces." The passage devoted to Miette and her red pelisse was quite a
+flight of imagination. Vuillet had seen ten, twenty girls steeped in
+blood: "and who," he wrote, "did not behold among those monsters some
+infamous creatures clothed in red, who must have bathed themselves in
+the blood of the martyrs murdered by the brigands along the high roads?
+They were brandishing banners, and openly receiving the vile caresses of
+the entire horde." And Vuillet added, with Biblical magniloquence, "The
+Republic ever marches on amidst debauchery and murder."
+
+That, however, was only the first part of the article; the narrative
+being ended, the editor asked if the country would any longer tolerate
+"the shamelessness of those wild beasts, who respected neither property
+nor persons." He made an appeal to all valorous citizens, declaring that
+to tolerate such things any longer would be to encourage them, and
+that the insurgents would then come and snatch "the daughter from her
+mother's arms, the wife from her husband's embraces." And at last,
+after a pious sentence in which he declared that Heaven willed the
+extermination of the wicked, he concluded with this trumpet blast: "It
+is asserted that these wretches are once more at our gates; well then
+let each one of us take a gun and shoot them down like dogs. I for my
+part shall be seen in the front rank, happy to rid the earth of such
+vermin."
+
+This article, in which periphrastic abuse was strung together with all
+the heaviness of touch which characterises French provincial journalism,
+quite terrified Rougon, who muttered, as Felicite replaced the "Gazette"
+on the table: "Ah! the wretch! he is giving us the last blow; people
+will believe that I inspired this diatribe."
+
+"But," his wife remarked, pensively, "did you not this morning tell me
+that he absolutely refused to write against the Republicans? The news
+that circulated had terrified him, and he was as pale as death, you
+said."
+
+"Yes! yes! I can't understand it at all. When I insisted, he went so
+far as to reproach me for not having killed all the insurgents. It was
+yesterday that he ought to have written that article; to-day he'll get
+us all butchered!"
+
+Felicite was lost in amazement. What could have prompted Vuillet's
+change of front? The idea of that wretched semi-sacristan carrying a
+musket and firing on the ramparts of Plassans seemed to her one of the
+most ridiculous things imaginable. There was certainly some determining
+cause underlying all this which escaped her. Only one thing seemed
+certain. Vuillet was too impudent in his abuse and too ready with his
+valour, for the insurrectionary band to be really so near the town as
+some people asserted.
+
+"He's a spiteful fellow, I always said so," Rougon resumed, after
+reading the article again. "He has only been waiting for an opportunity
+to do us this injury. What a fool I was to leave him in charge of the
+post-office!"
+
+This last sentence proved a flash of light. Felicite started up quickly,
+as though at some sudden thought. Then she put on a cap and threw a
+shawl over her shoulders.
+
+"Where are you going, pray?" her husband asked her with surprise. "It's
+past nine o'clock."
+
+"You go to bed," she replied rather brusquely, "you're not well; go and
+rest yourself. Sleep on till I come back; I'll wake you if necessary,
+and then we can talk the matter over."
+
+She went out with her usual nimble gait, ran to the post-office, and
+abruptly entered the room where Vuillet was still at work. On seeing her
+he made a hasty gesture of vexation.
+
+Never in his life had Vuillet felt so happy. Since he had been able
+to slip his little fingers into the mail-bag he had enjoyed the most
+exquisite pleasure, the pleasure of an inquisitive priest about to
+relish the confessions of his penitents. All the sly blabbing, all the
+vague chatter of sacristies resounded in his ears. He poked his long,
+pale nose into the letters, gazed amorously at the superscriptions with
+his suspicious eyes, sounded the envelopes just like little abbes sound
+the souls of maidens. He experienced endless enjoyment, was titillated
+by the most enticing temptation. The thousand secrets of Plassans lay
+there. He held in his hand the honour of women, the fortunes of men,
+and had only to break a seal to know as much as the grand vicar at the
+cathedral who was the confidant of all the better people of the town.
+Vuillet was one of those terribly bitter, frigid gossips, who worm out
+everything, but never repeat what they hear, except by way of dealing
+somebody a mortal blow. He had, consequently, often longed to dip his
+arms into the public letter-box. Since the previous evening the private
+room at the post-office had become a big confessional full of darkness
+and mystery, in which he tasted exquisite rapture while sniffing at the
+letters which exhaled veiled longings and quivering avowals. Moreover,
+he carried on his work with consummate impudence. The crisis through
+which the country was passing secured him perfect impunity. If some
+letters should be delayed, or others should miscarry altogether, it
+would be the fault of those villainous Republicans who were scouring
+the country and interrupting all communication. The closing of the town
+gates had for a moment vexed him, but he had come to an understanding
+with Roudier, whereby the couriers were allowed to enter and bring the
+mails direct to him without passing by the town-hall.
+
+As a matter of fact he had only opened a few letters, the important
+ones, those in which his keen scent divined some information which it
+would be useful for him to know before anybody else. Then he contented
+himself by locking up in a drawer, for delivery subsequently, such
+letters as might give information and rob him of the merit of his
+valour at a time when the whole town was trembling with fear. This pious
+personage, in selecting the management of the post-office as his own
+share of the spoils, had given proof of singular insight into the
+situation.
+
+When Madame Rougon entered, he was taking his choice of a heap of
+letters and papers, under the pretext, no doubt, of classifying them.
+He rose, with his humble smile, and offered her a seat; his reddened
+eyelids blinking rather uneasily. But Felicite did not sit down; she
+roughly exclaimed: "I want the letter."
+
+At this Vuillet's eyes opened widely, with an expression of perfect
+innocence.
+
+"What letter, madame?" he asked.
+
+"The letter you received this morning for my husband. Come, Monsieur
+Vuillet, I'm in a hurry."
+
+And as he stammered that he did not know, that he had not seen anything,
+that it was very strange, Felicite continued in a covertly threatening
+voice: "A letter from Paris, from my son, Eugene; you know what I mean,
+don't you? I'll look for it myself."
+
+Thereupon she stepped forward as if intending to examine the various
+packets which littered the writing table. But he at once bestirred
+himself, and said he would go and see. The service was necessarily in
+great confusion! Perhaps, indeed, there might be a letter. In that case
+they would find it. But, as far as he was concerned, he swore he had not
+seen any. While he was speaking he moved about the office turning over
+all the papers. Then he opened the drawers and the portfolios. Felicite
+waited, quite calm and collected.
+
+"Yes, indeed, you're right, here's a letter for you," he cried at last,
+as he took a few papers from a portfolio. "Ah! those confounded clerks,
+they take advantage of the situation to do nothing in the proper way."
+
+Felicite took the letter and examined the seal attentively, apparently
+quite regardless of the fact that such scrutiny might wound Vuillet's
+susceptibilities. She clearly perceived that the envelope must have been
+opened; the bookseller, in his unskilful way, had used some sealing
+wax of a darker colour to secure it again. She took care to open the
+envelope in such a manner as to preserve the seal intact, so that it
+might serve as proof of this. Then she read the note. Eugene briefly
+announced the complete success of the Coup d'Etat. Paris was subdued,
+the provinces generally speaking remained quiet, and he counselled
+his parents to maintain a very firm attitude in face of the partial
+insurrection which was disturbing the South. In conclusion he told them
+that the foundation of their fortune was laid, if they did not weaken.
+
+Madame Rougon put the letter in her pocket, and sat down slowly, looking
+into Vuillet's face. The latter had resumed his sorting in a feverish
+manner, as though he were very busy.
+
+"Listen to me, Monsieur Vuillet," she said to him. And when he raised
+his head: "let us play our cards openly; you do wrong to betray us; some
+misfortune may befall you. If, instead of unsealing our letters--"
+
+At this he protested, and feigned great indignation. But she calmly
+continued: "I know, I know your school, you never confess. Come, don't
+let us waste any more words, what interest have you in favouring the
+Coup d'Etat?"
+
+And, as he continued to assert his perfect honesty, she at last lost
+patience. "You take me for a fool!" she cried. "I've read your article.
+You would do much better to act in concert with us."
+
+Thereupon, without avowing anything, he flatly submitted that he wished
+to have the custom of the college. Formerly it was he who had supplied
+that establishment with school books. But it had become known that he
+sold objectionable literature clandestinely to the pupils; for which
+reason, indeed, he had almost been prosecuted at the Correctional Police
+Court. Since then he had jealously longed to be received back into the
+good graces of the directors.
+
+Felicite was surprised at the modesty of his ambition, and told him so.
+To open letters and risk the galleys just for the sake of selling a few
+dictionaries and grammars!
+
+"Eh!" he exclaimed in a shrill voice, "it's an assured sale of four or
+five thousand francs a year. I don't aspire to impossibilities like some
+people."
+
+She did not take any notice of his last taunting words. No more was said
+about his opening the letters. A treaty of alliance was concluded, by
+which Vuillet engaged that he would not circulate any news or take any
+step in advance, on condition that the Rougons should secure him the
+custom of the college. As she was leaving, Felicite advised him not to
+compromise himself any further. It would be sufficient for him to detain
+the letters and distribute them only on the second day.
+
+"What a knave," she muttered, when she reached the street, forgetting
+that she herself had just laid an interdict upon the mail.
+
+She went home slowly, wrapped in thought. She even went out of her
+way, passing along the Cours Sauvaire, as if to gain time and ease for
+reflection before going in. Under the trees of the promenade she met
+Monsieur de Carnavant, who was taking advantage of the darkness to
+ferret about the town without compromising himself. The clergy of
+Plassans, to whom all energetic action was distasteful, had, since the
+announcement of the Coup d'Etat, preserved absolute neutrality. In the
+priests' opinion the Empire was virtually established, and they awaited
+an opportunity to resume in some new direction their secular intrigues.
+The marquis, who had now become a useless agent, remained only
+inquisitive on one point--he wished to know how the turmoil would
+finish, and in what manner the Rougons would play their role to the end.
+
+"Oh! it's you, little one!" he exclaimed, as soon as he recognized
+Felicite. "I wanted to see you; your affairs are getting muddled!"
+
+"Oh, no; everything is going on all right," she replied, in an
+absent-minded way.
+
+"So much the better. You'll tell me all about it, won't you? Ah! I must
+confess that I gave your husband and his colleagues a terrible fright
+the other night. You should have seen how comical they looked on the
+terrace, while I was pointing out a band of insurgents in every cluster
+of trees in the valley! You forgive me?"
+
+"I'm much obliged to you," said Felicite quickly. "You should have made
+them die of fright. My husband is a big sly-boots. Come and see me some
+morning, when I am alone."
+
+Then she turned away, as though this meeting with the marquis had
+determined her. From head to foot the whole of her little person
+betokened implacable resolution. At last she was going to revenge
+herself on Pierre for his petty mysteries, have him under her heel, and
+secure, once for all, her omnipotence at home. There would be a fine
+scene, quite a comedy, indeed, the points of which she was already
+enjoying in anticipation, while she worked out her plan with all the
+spitefulness of an injured woman.
+
+She found Pierre in bed, sleeping heavily; she brought the candle near
+him for an instant, and gazed with an air of compassion, at his big
+face, across which slight twitches occasionally passed; then she sat
+down at the head of the bed, took off her cap, let her hair fall loose,
+assumed the appearance of one in despair, and began to sob quite loudly.
+
+"Hallo! What's the matter? What are you crying for?" asked Pierre,
+suddenly awaking.
+
+She did not reply, but cried more bitterly.
+
+"Come, come, do answer," continued her husband, frightened by this mute
+despair. "Where have you been? Have you seen the insurgents?"
+
+She shook her head; then, in a faint voice, she said: "I've just come
+from the Valqueyras mansion. I wanted to ask Monsieur de Carnavant's
+advice. Ah! my dear, all is lost."
+
+Pierre sat up in bed, very pale. His bull neck, which his unbuttoned
+night-shirt exposed to view, all his soft, flabby flesh seemed to swell
+with terror. At last he sank back, pale and tearful, looking like some
+grotesque Chinese figure in the middle of the untidy bed.
+
+"The marquis," continued Felicite, "thinks that Prince Louis has
+succumbed. We are ruined; we shall never get a sou."
+
+Thereupon, as often happens with cowards, Pierre flew into a passion. It
+was the marquis's fault, it was his wife's fault, the fault of all
+his family. Had he ever thought of politics at all, until Monsieur de
+Carnavant and Felicite had driven him to that tomfoolery?
+
+"I wash my hands of it altogether," he cried. "It's you two who are
+responsible for the blunder. Wasn't it better to go on living on
+our little savings in peace and quietness? But then, you were always
+determined to have your own way! You see what it has brought us to."
+
+He was losing his head completely, and forgot that he had shown himself
+as eager as his wife. However, his only desire now was to vent his
+anger, by laying the blame of his ruin upon others.
+
+"And, moreover," he continued, "could we ever have succeeded with
+children like ours? Eugene abandons us just at the critical moment;
+Aristide has dragged us through the mire, and even that big simpleton
+Pascal is compromising us by his philanthropic practising among the
+insurgents. And to think that we brought ourselves to poverty simply to
+give them a university education!"
+
+Then, as he drew breath, Felicite said to him softly: "You are
+forgetting Macquart."
+
+"Ah! yes; I was forgetting him," he resumed more violently than ever;
+"there's another whom I can't think of without losing all patience! But
+that's not all; you know little Silvere. Well, I saw him at my mother's
+the other evening with his hands covered with blood. He has put some
+gendarme's eye out. I did not tell you of it, as I didn't want to
+frighten you. But you'll see one of my nephews in the Assize Court. Ah!
+what a family! As for Macquart, he has annoyed us to such an extent that
+I felt inclined to break his head for him the other day when I had a gun
+in my hand. Yes, I had a mind to do it."
+
+Felicite let the storm pass over. She had received her husband's
+reproaches with angelic sweetness, bowing her head like a culprit,
+whereby she was able to smile in her sleeve. Her demeanour provoked and
+maddened Pierre. When speech failed the poor man, she heaved deep sighs,
+feigning repentance; and then she repeated, in a disconsolate voice:
+"Whatever shall we do! Whatever shall we do! We are over head and ears
+in debt."
+
+"It's your fault!" Pierre cried, with all his remaining strength.
+
+The Rougons, in fact, owed money on every side. The hope of approaching
+success had made them forget all prudence. Since the beginning of 1851
+they had gone so far as to entertain the frequenters of the yellow
+drawing-room every evening with syrup and punch, and cakes--providing,
+in fact, complete collations, at which they one and all drank to the
+death of the Republic. Besides this, Pierre had placed a quarter of
+his capital at the disposal of the reactionary party, as a contribution
+towards the purchase of guns and cartridges.
+
+"The pastry-cook's bill amounts to at least a thousand francs," Felicite
+resumed, in her sweetest tone, "and we probably owe twice as much to
+the liqueur-dealer. Then there's the butcher, the baker, the
+greengrocer----"
+
+Pierre was in agony. And Felicite struck him a final blow by adding: "I
+say nothing of the ten thousand francs you gave for the guns."
+
+"I, I!" he faltered, "but I was deceived, I was robbed! It was that
+idiot Sicardot who let me in for that by swearing that the Napoleonists
+would be triumphant. I thought I was only making an advance. But the old
+dolt will have to repay me my money."
+
+"Ah! you won't get anything back," said his wife, shrugging her
+shoulders. "We shall suffer the fate of war. When we have paid off
+everything, we sha'n't even have enough to buy dry bread with. Ah! it's
+been a fine campaign. We can now go and live in some hovel in the old
+quarter."
+
+This last phrase had a most lugubrious sound. It seemed like the knell
+of their existence. Pierre pictured the hovel in the old quarter, which
+had just been mentioned by Felicite. 'Twas there, then, that he would
+die on a pallet, after striving all his life for the enjoyment of ease
+and luxury. In vain had he robbed his mother, steeped his hands in the
+foulest intrigues, and lied and lied for many a long year. The Empire
+would not pay his debts--that Empire which alone could save him. He
+jumped out of bed in his night-shirt, crying: "No; I'll take my gun; I
+would rather let the insurgents kill me."
+
+"Well!" Felicite rejoined, with great composure, "you can have that done
+to-morrow or the day after; the Republicans are not far off. And that
+way will do as well as another to make an end of matters."
+
+Pierre shuddered. It seemed as if some one had suddenly poured a large
+pail of cold water over his shoulders. He slowly got into bed again, and
+when he was warmly wrapped up in the sheets, he began to cry. This
+fat fellow easily burst into tears--gently flowing, inexhaustible
+tears--which streamed from his eyes without an effort. A terrible
+reaction was now going on within him. After his wrath he became as
+weak as a child. Felicite, who had been waiting for this crisis, was
+delighted to see him so spiritless, so resourceless, and so humbled
+before her. She still preserved silence, and an appearance of distressed
+humility. After a long pause, her seeming resignation, her mute
+dejection, irritated Pierre's nerves.
+
+"But do say something!" he implored; "let us think matters over
+together. Is there really no hope left us?"
+
+"None, you know very well," she replied; "you explained the situation
+yourself just now; we have no help to expect from anyone; even our
+children have betrayed us."
+
+"Let us flee, then. Shall we leave Plassans to-night--immediately?"
+
+"Flee! Why, my dear, to-morrow we should be the talk of the whole town.
+Don't you remember, too, that you have had the gates closed?"
+
+A violent struggle was going on in Pierre's mind, which he exerted to
+the utmost in seeking for some solution; at last, as though he felt
+vanquished, he murmured, in supplicating tones: "I beseech you, do try
+to think of something; you haven't said anything yet."
+
+Felicite raised her head, feigning surprise; and with a gesture of
+complete powerlessness she said: "I am a fool in these matters. I don't
+understand anything about politics, you've told me so a hundred times."
+
+And then, as her embarrassed husband held his tongue and lowered his
+eyes, she continued slowly, but not reproachfully: "You have not kept me
+informed of your affairs, have you? I know nothing at all about them, I
+can't even give you any advice. It was quite right of you, though; women
+chatter sometimes, and it is a thousand times better for the men to
+steer the ship alone."
+
+She said this with such refined irony that her husband did not detect
+that she was deriding him. He simply felt profound remorse. And, all of
+a sudden, he burst out into a confession. He spoke of Eugene's letters,
+explained his plans, his conduct, with all the loquacity of a man who
+is relieving his conscience and imploring a saviour. At every moment
+he broke off to ask: "What would you have done in my place?" or else
+he cried, "Isn't that so? I was right, I could not act otherwise." But
+Felicite did not even deign to make a sign. She listened with all the
+frigid reserve of a judge. In reality she was tasting the most exquisite
+pleasure; she had got that sly-boots fast at last; she played with him
+like a cat playing with a ball of paper; and he virtually held out his
+hands to be manacled by her.
+
+"But wait," he said hastily, jumping out of bed. "I'll give you Eugene's
+correspondence to read. You can judge the situation better then."
+
+She vainly tried to hold him back by his night-shirt. He spread out the
+letters on the table by the bed-side, and then got into bed again, and
+read whole pages of them, and compelled her to go through them herself.
+She suppressed a smile, and began to feel some pity for the poor man.
+
+"Well," he said anxiously, when he had finished, "now you know
+everything. Do you see any means of saving us from ruin!"
+
+She still gave no answer. She appeared to be pondering deeply.
+
+"You are an intelligent woman," he continued, in order to flatter her,
+"I did wrong in keeping any secret from you; I see it now."
+
+"Let us say nothing more about that," she replied. "In my opinion, if
+you had enough courage----" And as he looked at her eagerly, she broke
+off and said, with a smile: "But you promise not to distrust me any
+more? You will tell me everything, eh? You will do nothing without
+consulting me?"
+
+He swore, and accepted the most rigid conditions. Felicite then got into
+bed; and in a whisper, as if she feared somebody might hear them, she
+explained at length her plan of campaign. In her opinion the town
+must be allowed to fall into still greater panic, while Pierre was to
+maintain an heroic demeanour in the midst of the terrified inhabitants.
+A secret presentiment, she said, warned her that the insurgents were
+still at a distance. Moreover, the party of order would sooner or later
+carry the day, and the Rougons would be rewarded. After the role of
+deliverer, that of martyr was not to be despised. And she argued so
+well, and spoke with so much conviction, that her husband, surprised at
+first by the simplicity of her plan, which consisted in facing it out,
+at last detected in it a marvellous tactical scheme, and promised to
+conform to it with the greatest possible courage.
+
+"And don't forget that it is I who am saving you," the old woman
+murmured in a coaxing tone. "Will you be nice to me?"
+
+They kissed each other and said good-night. But neither of them slept;
+after a quarter of an hour had gone by, Pierre, who had been gazing at
+the round reflection of the night-lamp on the ceiling, turned, and in a
+faint whisper told his wife of an idea that had just occurred to him.
+
+"Oh! no, no," Felicite murmured, with a shudder. "That would be too
+cruel."
+
+"Well," he resumed, "but you want to spread consternation among the
+inhabitants! They would take me seriously, if what I told you should
+occur." Then perfecting his scheme, he cried: "We might employ Macquart.
+That would be a means of getting rid of him."
+
+Felicite seemed to be struck with the idea. She reflected, seemed to
+hesitate, and then, in a distressful tone faltered: "Perhaps you are
+right. We must see. After all we should be very stupid if we were
+over-scrupulous, for it's a matter of life and death to us. Let me do
+it. I'll see Macquart to-morrow, and ascertain if we can come to
+an understanding with him. You would only wrangle and spoil all.
+Good-night; sleep well, my poor dear. Our troubles will soon be ended,
+you'll see."
+
+They again kissed each other and fell asleep. The patch of light on the
+ceiling now seemed to be assuming the shape of a terrified eye, that
+stared wildly and fixedly upon the pale, slumbering couple who reeked
+with crime beneath their very sheets, and dreamt they could see a rain
+of blood falling in big drops which turned into golden coins as they
+plashed upon the floor.
+
+On the morrow, before daylight, Felicite repaired to the town-hall,
+armed with instructions from Pierre to seek an interview with Macquart.
+She took her husband's national guard uniform with her, wrapped in a
+cloth. There were only a few men fast asleep in the guard-house. The
+doorkeeper, who was entrusted with the duty of supplying Macquart with
+food, went upstairs with her to open the door of the dressing-room,
+which had been turned into a cell. Then quietly he came down again.
+
+Macquart had now been kept in the room for two days and two nights. He
+had had time to indulge in lengthy reflections. After his sleep, his
+first hours had been given up to outbursts of impotent rage. Goaded by
+the idea that his brother was lording it in the adjoining room, he had
+felt a great longing to break the door open. At all events he would
+strangle Rougon with his own hands, as soon as the insurgents should
+return and release him. But, in the evening, at twilight, he calmed
+down, and gave over striding furiously round the little room. He inhaled
+a sweet odour there; a feeling of comfort relaxed his nerves. Monsieur
+Garconnet, who was very rich, refined, and vain, had caused this little
+room to be arranged in a very elegant fashion; the sofa was soft and
+warm; scents, pomades, and soaps adorned the marble washstand, and the
+pale light fell from the ceiling with a soft glow, like the gleams of
+a lamp suspended in an alcove. Macquart, amidst this perfumed soporific
+atmosphere fell asleep, thinking that those scoundrels, the rich, "were
+very fortunate, all the same." He had covered himself with a blanket
+which had been given to him, and with his head and back and arms
+reposing on the cushions, he stretched himself out on the couch until
+morning. When he opened his eyes, a ray of sunshine was gliding through
+the opening above. Still he did not leave the sofa. He felt warm, and
+lay thinking as he gazed around him. He bethought himself that he would
+never again have such a place to wash in. The washstand particularly
+interested him. It was by no means hard, he thought, to keep oneself
+spruce when one had so many little pots and phials at one's disposal.
+This made him think bitterly of his own life of privation. The idea
+occurred to him that perhaps he had been on the wrong track. There
+is nothing to be gained by associating with beggars. He ought to have
+played the scamp; he should have acted in concert with the Rougons.
+
+Then, however, he rejected this idea. The Rougons were villains who had
+robbed him. But the warmth and softness of the sofa, continued to work
+upon his feelings, and fill him with vague regrets. After all, the
+insurgents were abandoning him, and allowing themselves to be beaten
+like idiots. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the Republic was
+mere dupery. Those Rougons were lucky! And he recalled his own bootless
+wickedness and underhand intrigues. Not one member of the family had
+ever been on his side; neither Aristide, nor Silvere's brother, nor
+Silvere himself, who was a fool to grow so enthusiastic about the
+Republic and would never do any good for himself. Then Macquart
+reflected that his wife was dead, that his children had left him, and
+that he would die alone, like a dog in some wretched corner, without a
+copper to bless himself with. Decidedly, he ought to have sold himself
+to the reactionary party. Pondering in this fashion, he eyed the
+washstand, feeling a strong inclination to go and wash his hands with a
+certain powder soap which he saw in a glass jar. Like all lazy fellows
+who live upon their wives or children, he had foppish tastes. Although
+he wore patched trousers, he liked to inundate himself with aromatic
+oil. He spent hours with his barber, who talked politics, and brushed
+his hair for him between their discussions. So, at last, the temptation
+became too strong, and Macquart installed himself before the washstand.
+He washed his hands and face, dressed his hair, perfumed himself, in
+fact went through a complete toilet. He made use in turn of all the
+bottles, all the various soaps and powders; but his greatest pleasure
+was to dry his hands with the mayor's towels, which were so soft and
+thick. He buried his wet face in them, and inhaled, with delight, all
+the odour of wealth. Then, having pomaded himself, and smelling sweetly
+from head to foot, he once more stretched himself on the sofa, feeling
+quite youthful again, and disposed to the most conciliatory thoughts. He
+felt yet greater contempt for the Republic since he had dipped his nose
+into Monsieur Garconnet's phials. The idea occurred to him that there
+was, perhaps, still time for him to make peace with his brother. He
+wondered what he might well ask in return for playing the traitor. His
+rancour against the Rougons still gnawed at his heart; but he was in one
+of those moods when, lying on one's back in silence, one is apt to admit
+stern facts, and scold oneself for neglecting to feather a comfortable
+nest in which one may wallow in slothful ease, even at the cost of
+relinquishing one's most cherished animosities. Towards evening Antoine
+determined to send for his brother on the following day. But when, in
+the morning, he saw Felicite enter the room he understood that his aid
+was wanted, so he remained on his guard.
+
+The negotiations were long and full of pitfalls, being conducted on
+either side with infinite skill. At first they both indulged in vague
+complaints, then Felicite, who was surprised to find Macquart almost
+polite, after the violent manner in which he had behaved at her house on
+the Sunday evening, assumed a tone of gentle reproach. She deplored
+the hatred which severed their families. But, in truth, he had so
+calumniated his brother, and manifested such bitter animosity towards
+him, that he had made poor Rougon quite lose his head.
+
+"But, dash it, my brother has never behaved like a brother to me,"
+Macquart replied, with restrained violence. "Has he ever given me
+any assistance? He would have let me die in my hovel! When he behaved
+differently towards me--you remember, at the time he gave me two hundred
+francs--I am sure no one can reproach me with having said a single
+unpleasant word about him. I said everywhere that he was a very
+good-hearted fellow."
+
+This clearly signified: "If you had continued to supply me with money,
+I should have been very pleasant towards you, and would have helped you,
+instead of fighting against you. It's your own fault. You ought to have
+bought me."
+
+Felicite understood this so well that she replied: "I know you have
+accused us of being hard upon you, because you imagine we are in
+comfortable circumstances; but you are mistaken, my dear brother; we are
+poor people; we have never been able to act towards you as our hearts
+would have desired." She hesitated a moment, and then continued: "If it
+were absolutely necessary in some serious contingency, we might perhaps
+be able to make a sacrifice; but, truly, we are very poor, very poor!"
+
+Macquart pricked up his ears. "I have them!" he thought. Then, without
+appearing to understand his sister-in-law's indirect offer, he detailed
+the wretchedness of his life in a doleful manner, and spoke of his
+wife's death and his children's flight. Felicite, on her side, referred
+to the crisis through which the country was passing, and declared that
+the Republic had completely ruined them. Then from word to word she
+began to bemoan the exigencies of a situation which compelled one
+brother to imprison another. How their hearts would bleed if justice
+refused to release its prey! And finally she let slip the word
+"galleys!"
+
+"Bah! I defy you," said Macquart calmly.
+
+But she hastily exclaimed: "Oh! I would rather redeem the honour of the
+family with my own blood. I tell you all this to show you that we shall
+not abandon you. I have come to give you the means of effecting your
+escape, my dear Antoine."
+
+They gazed at each other for a moment, sounding each other with a look,
+before engaging in the contest.
+
+"Unconditionally?" he asked, at length.
+
+"Without any condition," she replied.
+
+Then she sat down beside him on the sofa, and continued, in a determined
+voice: "And even, before crossing the frontier, if you want to earn a
+thousand-franc note, I can put you in the way of doing so."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+"If it's all above board I shall have no objection," Antoine muttered,
+apparently reflecting. "You know I don't want to mix myself up with your
+underhand dealings."
+
+"But there are no underhand dealings about it," Felicite resumed,
+smiling at the old rascal's scruples. "Nothing can be more simple: you
+will presently leave this room, and go and conceal yourself in your
+mother's house, and this evening you can assemble your friends and come
+and seize the town-hall again."
+
+Macquart did not conceal his extreme surprise. He did not understand it
+at all.
+
+"I thought," he said, "that you were victorious."
+
+"Oh! I haven't got time now to tell you all about it," the old woman
+replied, somewhat impatiently. "Do you accept or not?"
+
+"Well, no; I don't accept--I want to think it over. It would be very
+stupid of me to risk a possible fortune for a thousand francs."
+
+Felicite rose. "Just as you like my dear fellow," she said, coldly. "You
+don't seem to realise the position you are in. You came to my house and
+treated me as though I were a mere outcast; and then, when I am kind
+enough to hold out a hand to you in the hole into which you have
+stupidly let yourself fall, you stand on ceremony, and refuse to be
+rescued. Well, then, stay here, wait till the authorities come back. As
+for me, I wash my hands of the whole business."
+
+With these words she reached the door.
+
+"But give me some explanations," he implored. "I can't strike a bargain
+with you in perfect ignorance of everything. For two days past I have
+been quite in the dark as to what's going on. How do I know that you are
+not cheating me?"
+
+"Bah! you're a simpleton," replied Felicite, who had retraced her steps
+at Antoine's doleful appeal. "You are very foolish not to trust yourself
+implicitly to us. A thousand francs! That's a fine sum, a sum that one
+would only risk in a winning cause. I advise you to accept."
+
+He still hesitated.
+
+"But when we want to seize the place, shall we be allowed to enter
+quietly?"
+
+"Ah! I don't know," she said, with a smile. "There will perhaps be a
+shot or two fired."
+
+He looked at her fixedly.
+
+"Well, but I say, little woman," he resumed in a hoarse voice, "you
+don't intend, do you, to have a bullet lodged in my head?"
+
+Felicite blushed. She was, in fact, just thinking that they would be
+rendered a great service, if, during the attack on the town-hall, a
+bullet should rid them of Antoine. It would be a gain of a thousand
+francs, besides all the rest. So she muttered with irritation: "What an
+idea! Really, it's abominable to think such things!"
+
+Then, suddenly calming down, she added:
+
+"Do you accept? You understand now, don't you?"
+
+Macquart had understood perfectly. It was an ambush that they were
+proposing to him. He did not perceive the reasons or the consequences
+of it, and this was what induced him to haggle. After speaking of the
+Republic as though it were a mistress whom, to his great grief, he could
+no longer love, he recapitulated the risks which he would have to run,
+and finished by asking for two thousand francs. But Felicite abided
+by her original offer. They debated the matter until she promised to
+procure him, on his return to France, some post in which he would
+have nothing to do, and which would pay him well. The bargain was then
+concluded. She made him don the uniform she had brought with her. He
+was to betake himself quietly to aunt Dide's, and afterwards, towards
+midnight, assemble all the Republicans he could in the neighbourhood of
+the town-hall, telling them that the municipal offices were unguarded,
+and that they had only to push open the door to take possession of them.
+Antoine then asked for earnest money, and received two hundred francs.
+Felicite undertook to pay the remaining eight hundred on the following
+day. The Rougons were risking the last sum they had at their disposal.
+
+When Felicite had gone downstairs, she remained on the square for a
+moment to watch Macquart go out. He passed the guard-house, quietly
+blowing his nose. He had previously broken the skylight in the
+dressing-room, to make it appear that he had escaped that way.
+
+"It's all arranged," Felicite said to her husband, when she returned
+home. "It will be at midnight. It doesn't matter to me at all now. I
+should like to see them all shot. How they slandered us yesterday in the
+street!"
+
+"It was rather silly of you to hesitate," replied Pierre, who was
+shaving. "Every one would do the same in our place."
+
+That morning--it was a Wednesday--he was particularly careful about his
+toilet. His wife combed his hair and tied his cravat, turning him about
+like a child going to a distribution of prizes. And when he was ready,
+she examined him, declared that he looked very nice, and that he would
+make a very good figure in the midst of the serious events that were
+preparing. His big pale face wore an expression of grave dignity and
+heroic determination. She accompanied him to the first landing, giving
+him her last advice: he was not to depart in any way from his courageous
+demeanour, however great the panic might be; he was to have the gates
+closed more hermetically than ever, and leave the town in agonies of
+terror within its ramparts; it would be all the better if he were to
+appear the only one willing to die for the cause of order.
+
+What a day it was! The Rougons still speak of it as of a glorious and
+decisive battle. Pierre went straight to the town-hall, heedless of the
+looks or words that greeted him on his way. He installed himself there
+in magisterial fashion, like a man who did not intend to quit the place,
+whatever might happen. And he simply sent a note to Roudier, to advise
+him that he was resuming authority.
+
+"Keep watch at the gates," he added, knowing that these lines might
+become public: "I myself will watch over the town and ensure the
+security of life and property. It is at the moment when evil passions
+reappear and threaten to prevail that good citizens should endeavour to
+stifle them, even at the peril of their lives." The style, and the very
+errors in spelling, made this note--the brevity of which suggested the
+laconic style of the ancients--appear all the more heroic. Not one of
+the gentlemen of the Provisional Commission put in an appearance. The
+last two who had hitherto remained faithful, and Granoux himself,
+even, prudently stopped at home. Thus Rougon was the only member of the
+Commission who remained at his post, in his presidential arm-chair, all
+the others having vanished as the panic increased. He did not even
+deign to issue an order summoning them to attend. He was there, and that
+sufficed, a sublime spectacle, which a local journal depicted later on
+in a sentence: "Courage giving the hand to duty."
+
+During the whole morning Pierre was seen animating the town-hall with
+his goings and comings. He was absolutely alone in the large, empty
+building, whose lofty halls reechoed with the noise of his heels. All
+the doors were left open. He made an ostentatious show of his presidency
+over a non-existent council in the midst of this desert, and appeared
+so deeply impressed with the responsibility of his mission that the
+doorkeeper, meeting him two or three times in the passages, bowed to him
+with an air of mingled surprise and respect. He was seen, too, at every
+window, and, in spite of the bitter cold, he appeared several times
+on the balcony with bundles of papers in his hand, like a busy man
+attending to important despatches.
+
+Then, towards noon, he passed through the town and visited the
+guard-houses, speaking of a possible attack, and letting it be
+understood, that the insurgents were not far off; but he relied, he
+said, on the courage of the brave national guards. If necessary they
+must be ready to die to the last man for the defence of the good cause.
+When he returned from this round, slowly and solemnly, after the manner
+of a hero who has set the affairs of his country in order, and now only
+awaits death, he observed signs of perfect stupor along his path; the
+people promenading in the Cours, the incorrigible little householders,
+whom no catastrophe would have prevented from coming at certain hours
+to bask in the sun, looked at him in amazement, as if they did not
+recognize him, and could not believe that one of their own set, a former
+oil-dealer, should have the boldness to face a whole army.
+
+In the town the anxiety was at its height. The insurrectionists were
+expected every moment. The rumour of Macquart's escape was commented
+upon in a most alarming manner. It was asserted that he had been rescued
+by his friends, the Reds, and that he was only waiting for nighttime in
+order to fall upon the inhabitants and set fire to the four corners of
+the town. Plassans, closed in and terror-stricken, gnawing at its own
+vitals within its prison-like walls, no longer knew what to imagine in
+order to frighten itself. The Republicans, in the face of Rougon's
+bold demeanour, felt for a moment distrustful. As for the new
+town--the lawyers and retired tradespeople who had denounced the yellow
+drawing-room on the previous evening--they were so surprised that
+they dared not again openly attack such a valiant man. They contented
+themselves with saying "It was madness to brave victorious insurgents
+like that, and such useless heroism would bring the greatest misfortunes
+upon Plassans." Then, at about three o'clock, they organised a
+deputation. Pierre, though he was burning with desire to make a display
+of his devotion before his fellow-citizens, had not ventured to reckon
+upon such a fine opportunity.
+
+He spoke sublimely. It was in the mayor's private room that the
+president of the Provisional Commission received the deputation from the
+new town. The gentlemen of the deputation, after paying homage to his
+patriotism, besought him to forego all resistance. But he, in a loud
+voice, talked of duty, of his country, of order, of liberty, and various
+other things. Moreover, he did not wish to compel any one to imitate
+him; he was simply discharging a duty which his conscience and his heart
+dictated to him.
+
+"You see, gentlemen, I am alone," he said in conclusion. "I will take
+all the responsibility, so that nobody but myself may be compromised.
+And if a victim is required I willingly offer myself; I wish to
+sacrifice my own life for the safety of the inhabitants."
+
+A notary, the wiseacre of the party, remarked that he was running to
+certain death.
+
+"I know it," he resumed solemnly. "I am prepared!"
+
+The gentlemen looked at each other. Those words "I am prepared!" filled
+them with admiration. Decidedly this man was a brave fellow. The notary
+implored him to call in the aid of the gendarmes; but he replied that
+the blood of those brave soldiers was precious, and he would not have
+it shed, except in the last extremity. The deputation slowly withdrew,
+feeling deeply moved. An hour afterwards, Plassans was speaking of
+Rougon as of a hero; the most cowardly called him "an old fool."
+
+Towards evening, Rougon was much surprised to see Granoux hasten to
+him. The old almond-dealer threw himself in his arms, calling him
+"great man," and declaring that he would die with him. The words "I am
+prepared!" which had just been reported to him by his maid-servant,
+who had heard it at the greengrocer's, had made him quite enthusiastic.
+There was charming naivete in the nature of this grotesque, timorous
+old man. Pierre kept him with him, thinking that he would not be of
+much consequence. He was even touched by the poor fellow's devotion, and
+resolved to have him publicly complimented by the prefect, in order to
+rouse the envy of the other citizens who had so cowardly abandoned him.
+And so both of them awaited the night in the deserted building.
+
+At the same time Aristide was striding about at home in an uneasy
+manner. Vuillet's article had astonished him. His father's demeanour
+stupefied him. He had just caught sight of him at the window, in a white
+cravat and black frock-coat, so calm at the approach of danger that all
+his ideas were upset. Yet the insurgents were coming back triumphant,
+that was the belief of the whole town. But Aristide felt some doubts
+on the point; he had suspicions of some lugubrious farce. As he did not
+dare to present himself at his parents' house, he sent his wife thither.
+And when Angele returned, she said to him, in her drawling voice: "Your
+mother expects you; she is not angry at all, she seems rather to be
+making fun of you. She told me several times that you could just put
+your sling back in your pocket."
+
+Aristide felt terribly vexed. However, he ran to the Rue de la Banne,
+prepared to make the most humble submission. His mother was content
+to receive him with scornful laughter. "Ah! my poor fellow," said she,
+"you're certainly not very shrewd."
+
+"But what can one do in a hole like Plassans!" he angrily retorted. "On
+my word of honour, I am becoming a fool here. No news, and everybody
+shivering! That's what it is to be shut up in these villainous ramparts.
+Ah! If I had only been able to follow Eugene to Paris!"
+
+Then, seeing that his mother was still smiling, he added bitterly:
+"You haven't been very kind to me, mother. I know many things, I do. My
+brother kept you informed of what was going on, and you have never given
+me the faintest hint that might have been useful to me."
+
+"You know that, do you?" exclaimed Felicite, becoming serious and
+distrustful. "Well, you're not so foolish as I thought, then. Do you
+open letters like some one of my acquaintance?"
+
+"No; but I listen at doors," Aristide replied, with great assurance.
+
+This frankness did not displease the old woman. She began to smile
+again, and asked more softly: "Well, then, you blockhead, how is it you
+didn't rally to us sooner?"
+
+"Ah! that's where it is," the young man said, with some embarrassment.
+"I didn't have much confidence in you. You received such idiots: my
+father-in-law, Granoux, and the others!--And then, I didn't want to go
+too far. . . ." He hesitated, and then resumed, with some uneasiness:
+"To-day you are at least quite sure of the success of the Coup d'Etat,
+aren't you?"
+
+"I!" cried Felicite, wounded by her son's doubts; "no, I'm not sure of
+anything."
+
+"And yet you sent word to say that I was to take off my sling!"
+
+"Yes; because all the gentlemen are laughing at you."
+
+Aristide remained stock still, apparently contemplating one of the
+flowers of the orange-coloured wall-paper. And his mother felt sudden
+impatience as she saw him hesitating thus.
+
+"Ah! well," she said, "I've come back again to my former opinion; you're
+not very shrewd. And you think you ought to have had Eugene's letters
+to read? Why, my poor fellow you would have spoilt everything, with
+your perpetual vacillation. You never can make up your mind. You are
+hesitating now."
+
+"I hesitate?" he interrupted, giving his mother a cold, keen glance.
+"Ah! well, you don't know me. I would set the whole town on fire if it
+were necessary, and I wanted to warm my feet. But, understand me, I've
+no desire to take the wrong road! I'm tired of eating hard bread, and I
+hope to play fortune a trick. But I only play for certainties."
+
+He spoke these words so sharply, with such a keen longing for success,
+that his mother recognised the cry of her own blood.
+
+"Your father is very brave," she whispered.
+
+"Yes, I've seen him," he resumed with a sneer. "He's got a fine look on
+him! He reminded me of Leonidas at Thermopylae. Is it you, mother, who
+have made him cut this figure?"
+
+And he added cheerfully, with a gesture of determination: "Well, so much
+the worse! I'm a Bonapartist! Father is not the man to risk the chance
+of being killed unless it pays him well."
+
+"You're quite right," his mother replied; "I mustn't say anything; but
+to-morrow you'll see."
+
+He did not press her, but swore that she would soon have reason to be
+proud of him; and then he took his departure, while Felicite, feeling
+her old preference reviving, said to herself at the window, as she
+watched him going off, that he had the devil's own wit, that she would
+never have had sufficient courage to let him leave without setting him
+in the right path.
+
+And now for the third time a night full of anguish fell upon Plassans.
+The unhappy town was almost at its death-rattle. The citizens hastened
+home and barricaded their doors with a great clattering of iron bolts
+and bars. The general feeling seemed to be that, by the morrow, Plassans
+would no longer exist, that it would either be swallowed up by the earth
+or would evaporate in the atmosphere. When Rougon went home to dine, he
+found the streets completely deserted. This desolation made him sad and
+melancholy. As a result of this, when he had finished his meal, he
+felt some slight misgivings, and asked his wife if it were necessary to
+follow up the insurrection that Macquart was preparing.
+
+"Nobody will run us down now," said he. "You should have seen those
+gentlemen of the new town, how they bowed to me! It seems to me quite
+unnecessary now to kill anybody--eh? What do you think? We shall feather
+our nest without that."
+
+"Ah! what a nerveless fellow you are!" Felicite cried angrily. "It was
+your own idea to do it, and now you back out! I tell you that you'll
+never do anything without me! Go then, go your own way. Do you think the
+Republicans would spare you if they got hold of you?"
+
+Rougon went back to the town-hall, and prepared for the ambush. Granoux
+was very useful to him. He despatched him with orders to the different
+posts guarding the ramparts. The national guards were to repair to the
+town-hall in small detachments, as secretly as possible. Roudier, that
+bourgeois who was quite out of his element in the provinces, and who
+would have spoilt the whole affair with his humanitarian preaching, was
+not even informed of it. Towards eleven o'clock, the court-yard of the
+town-hall was full of national guards. Then Rougon frightened them; he
+told them that the Republicans still remaining in Plassans were about
+to attempt a desperate _coup de main_, and plumed himself on having been
+warned in time by his secret police. When he had pictured the bloody
+massacre which would overtake the town, should these wretches get the
+upper hand, he ordered his men to cease speaking, and extinguish all
+lights. He took a gun himself. Ever since the morning he had been living
+as in a dream; he no longer knew himself; he felt Felicite behind him.
+The crisis of the previous night had thrown him into her hands, and he
+would have allowed himself to be hanged, thinking: "It does not matter,
+my wife will come and cut me down." To augment the tumult, and prolong
+the terror of the slumbering town, he begged Granoux to repair to the
+cathedral and have the tocsin rung at the first shots he might hear. The
+marquis's name would open the beadle's door. And then, in darkness and
+dismal silence, the national guards waited in the yard, in a terrible
+state of anxiety, their eyes fixed on the porch, eager to fire, as
+though they were lying in wait for a pack of wolves.
+
+In the meantime, Macquart had spent the day at aunt Dide's house.
+Stretching himself on the old coffer, and lamenting the loss of Monsieur
+Garconnet's sofa, he had several times felt a mad inclination to break
+into his two hundred francs at some neighbouring cafe. This money was
+burning a hole in his waistcoat pocket; however, he whiled away his time
+by spending it in imagination. His mother moved about, in her stiff,
+automatic way, as if she were not even aware of his presence. During the
+last few days her children had been coming to her rather frequently,
+in a state of pallor and desperation, but she departed neither from her
+taciturnity, nor her stiff, lifeless expression. She knew nothing of
+the fears which were throwing the pent-up town topsy-turvy, she was a
+thousand leagues away from Plassans, soaring into the one constant
+fixed idea which imparted such a blank stare to her eyes. Now and again,
+however, at this particular moment, some feeling of uneasiness, some
+human anxiety, occasionally made her blink. Antoine, unable to resist
+the temptation of having something nice to eat, sent her to get a roast
+chicken from an eating-house in the Faubourg. When it was set on the
+table: "Hey!" he said to her, "you don't often eat fowl, do you? It's
+only for those who work, and know how to manage their affairs. As for
+you, you always squandered everything. I bet you're giving all your
+savings to that little hypocrite, Silvere. He's got a mistress, the sly
+fellow. If you've a hoard of money hidden in some corner, he'll ease you
+of it nicely some day."
+
+Macquart was in a jesting mood, glowing with wild exultation. The money
+he had in his pocket, the treachery he was preparing, the conviction
+that he had sold himself at a good price--all filled him with the
+self-satisfaction characteristic of vicious people who naturally
+became merry and scornful amidst their evil practices. Of all his talk,
+however, aunt Dide only heard Silvere's name.
+
+"Have you seen him?" she asked, opening her lips at last.
+
+"Who? Silvere?" Antoine replied. "He was walking about among the
+insurgents with a tall red girl on his arm. It will serve him right if
+he gets into trouble."
+
+The grandmother looked at him fixedly, then, in a solemn voice,
+inquired: "Why?"
+
+"Eh! Why, he shouldn't be so stupid," resumed Macquart, feeling somewhat
+embarrassed. "People don't risk their necks for the sake of ideas. I've
+settled my own little business. I'm no fool."
+
+But aunt Dide was no longer listening to him. She was murmuring: "He had
+his hands covered with blood. They'll kill him like the other one. His
+uncles will send the gendarmes after him."
+
+"What are you muttering there?" asked her son, as he finished picking
+the bones of the chicken. "You know I like people to accuse me to
+my face. If I have sometimes talked to the little fellow about the
+Republic, it was only to bring him round to a more reasonable way of
+thinking. He was dotty. I love liberty myself, but it mustn't degenerate
+into license. And as for Rougon, I esteem him. He's a man of courage and
+common-sense."
+
+"He had the gun, hadn't he?" interrupted aunt Dide, whose wandering mind
+seemed to be following Silvere far away along the high road.
+
+"The gun? Ah! yes; Macquart's carbine," continued Antoine, after casting
+a glance at the mantel-shelf, where the fire-arm was usually hung. "I
+fancy I saw it in his hands. A fine instrument to scour the country
+with, when one has a girl on one's arm. What a fool!"
+
+Then he thought he might as well indulge in a few coarse jokes. Aunt
+Dide had begun to bustle about the room again. She did not say a word.
+Towards the evening Antoine went out, after putting on a blouse, and
+pulling over his eyes a big cap which his mother had bought for him.
+He returned into the town in the same manner as he had quitted it, by
+relating some nonsensical story to the national guards who were on duty
+at the Rome Gate. Then he made his way to the old quarter, where he
+crept from house to house in a mysterious manner. All the Republicans of
+advanced views, all the members of the brotherhood who had not followed
+the insurrectionary army, met in an obscure inn, where Macquart had made
+an appointment with them. When about fifty men were assembled, he made a
+speech, in which he spoke of personal vengeance that must be wreaked,
+of a victory that must be gained, and of a disgraceful yoke that must be
+thrown off. And he ended by undertaking to deliver the town-hall over
+to them in ten minutes. He had just left it, it was quite unguarded,
+he said, and the red flag would wave over it that very night if they so
+desired. The workmen deliberated. At that moment the reaction seemed to
+be in its death throes. The insurgents were virtually at the gates of
+the town. It would therefore be more honourable to make an effort to
+regain power without awaiting their return, so as to be able to receive
+them as brothers, with the gates wide open, and the streets and squares
+adorned with flags. Moreover, none of those present distrusted Macquart.
+His hatred of the Rougons, the personal vengeance of which he spoke,
+could be taken as guaranteeing his loyalty. It was arranged that each of
+them who was a sportsman and had a gun at home should fetch it, and
+that the band should assemble at midnight in the neighbourhood of
+the town-hall. A question of detail very nearly put an end to their
+plans--they had no bullets; however, they decided to load their weapons
+with small shot: and even that seemed unnecessary, as they were told
+that they would meet with no resistance.
+
+Once more Plassans beheld a band of armed men filing along close to the
+houses, in the quiet moonlight. When the band was assembled in front of
+the town-hall, Macquart, while keeping a sharp look-out, boldly advanced
+to the building. He knocked, and when the door-keeper, who had learnt
+his lesson, asked what was wanted, he uttered such terrible threats,
+that the man, feigning fright, made haste to open the door. Both leaves
+of it swung back slowly, and the porch then lay open and empty before
+them, while Macquart shouted in a loud voice: "Come on, my friends!"
+
+That was the signal. He himself quickly jumped aside, and as the
+Republicans rushed in, there came, from the darkness of the yard, a
+stream of fire and a hail of bullets, which swept through the gaping
+porch with a roar as of thunder. The doorway vomited death. The
+national guards, exasperated by their long wait, eager to shake off the
+discomfort weighing upon them in that dismal court-yard, had fired a
+volley with feverish haste. The flash of the firing was so bright, that,
+through the yellow gleams Macquart distinctly saw Rougon taking aim. He
+fancied that his brother's gun was deliberately levelled at himself,
+and he recalled Felicite's blush, and made his escape, muttering: "No
+tricks! The rascal would kill me. He owes me eight hundred francs."
+
+In the meantime a loud howl had arisen amid the darkness. The surprised
+Republicans shouted treachery, and fired in their turn. A national guard
+fell under the porch. But the Republicans, on their side, had three
+dead. They took to flight, stumbling over the corpses, stricken with
+panic, and shouting through the quiet lanes: "Our brothers are being
+murdered!" in despairing voices which found no echo. Thereupon the
+defenders of order, having had time to reload their weapons, rushed into
+the empty square, firing at every street corner, wherever the darkness
+of a door, the shadow of a lamp-post, or the jutting of a stone made
+them fancy they saw an insurgent. In this wise they remained there ten
+minutes, firing into space.
+
+The affray had burst over the slumbering town like a thunderclap. The
+inhabitants in the neighbouring streets, roused from sleep by this
+terrible fusillade, sat up in bed, their teeth chattering with fright.
+Nothing in the world would have induced them to poke their noses out of
+the window. And slowly, athwart the air, in which the shots had suddenly
+resounded, one of the cathedral bells began to ring the tocsin with so
+irregular, so strange a rhythm, that one might have thought the noise to
+be the hammering of an anvil or the echoes of a colossal kettle struck
+by a child in a fit of passion. This howling bell, whose sound the
+citizens did not recognise, terrified them yet more than the reports of
+the fire-arms had done; and there were some who thought they heard an
+endless train of artillery rumbling over the paving-stones. They lay
+down again and buried themselves beneath their blankets, as if they
+would have incurred some danger by still sitting up in bed in their
+closely-fastened rooms. With their sheets drawn up to their chins, they
+held their breath, and made themselves as small as possible, while their
+wives, by their side, almost fainted with terror as they buried their
+heads among the pillows.
+
+The national guards who had remained at the ramparts had also heard the
+shots, and thinking that the insurgents had entered by means of some
+subterranean passage, they ran up helter-skelter, in groups of five
+or six, disturbing the silence of the streets with the tumult of their
+excited rush. Roudier was one of the first to arrive. However, Rougon
+sent them all back to their posts, after reprimanding them severely
+for abandoning the gates of the town. Thrown into consternation by
+this reproach--for in their panic, they had, in fact, left the gates
+absolutely defenceless--they again set off at a gallop, hurrying through
+the streets with still more frightful uproar. Plassans might well have
+thought that an infuriated army was crossing it in all directions. The
+fusillade, the tocsin, the marches and countermarches of the national
+guards, the weapons which were being dragged along like clubs, the
+terrified cries in the darkness, all produced a deafening tumult,
+such as might break forth in a town taken by assault and given over
+to plunder. It was the final blow of the unfortunate inhabitants, who
+really believed that the insurgents had arrived. They had, indeed, said
+that it would be their last night--that Plassans would be swallowed up
+in the earth, or would evaporate into smoke before daybreak; and now,
+lying in their beds, they awaited the catastrophe in the most abject
+terror, fancying at times that their houses were already tottering.
+
+Meantime Granoux still rang the tocsin. When, in other respects, silence
+had again fallen upon the town, the mournfulness of that ringing became
+intolerable. Rougon, who was in a high fever, felt exasperated by its
+distant wailing. He hastened to the cathedral, and found the door open.
+The beadle was on the threshold.
+
+"Ah! that's quite enough!" he shouted to the man; "anybody would think
+there was some one crying; it's quite unbearable."
+
+"But it isn't me, sir," replied the beadle in a distressed manner. "It's
+Monsieur Granoux, he's gone up into the steeple. I must tell you that I
+removed the clapper of the bell, by his Reverence's order, precisely
+to prevent the tocsin from being sounded. But Monsieur Granoux wouldn't
+listen to reason. He climbed up, and I've no idea what he can be making
+that noise with."
+
+Thereupon Rougon hastily ascended the staircase which led to the bells,
+shouting: "That will do! That will do! For goodness' sake leave off!"
+
+When he had reached the top he caught sight of Granoux, by the light
+of the moon which glided through an embrasure; the ex almond dealer was
+standing there hatless, and dealing furious blows with a heavy hammer.
+He did so with a right good will. He first threw himself back, then took
+a spring, and finally fell upon the sonorous bronze as if he wanted
+to crack it. One might have thought he was a blacksmith striking hot
+iron--but a frock-coated blacksmith, short and bald, working in a wild
+and awkward way.
+
+Surprise kept Rougon motionless for a moment at the sight of this
+frantic bourgeois thus belabouring the bell in the moonlight. Then
+he understood the kettle-like clang which this strange ringer had
+disseminated over the town. He shouted to him to stop, but Granoux did
+not hear. Rougon was obliged to take hold of his frock-coat, and then
+the other recognising him, exclaimed in a triumphant voice: "Ah! you've
+heard it. At first I tried to knock the bell with my fists, but that
+hurt me. Fortunately I found this hammer. Just a few more blows, eh?"
+
+However, Rougon dragged him away. Granoux was radiant. He wiped his
+forehead, and made his companion promise to let everybody know in the
+morning that he had produced all that noise with a mere hammer. What
+an achievement, and what a position of importance that furious ringing
+would confer upon him!
+
+Towards morning, Rougon bethought himself of reassuring Felicite. In
+accordance with his orders, the national guards had shut themselves up
+in the town-hall. He had forbidden them to remove the corpses, under the
+pretext that it was necessary to give the populace of the old quarter a
+lesson. And as, while hastening to the Rue de la Banne, he passed over
+the square, on which the moon was no longer shining, he inadvertently
+stepped on the clenched hand of a corpse that lay beside the footpath.
+At this he almost fell. That soft hand, which yielded beneath his
+heel, brought him an indefinable sensation of disgust and horror. And
+thereupon he hastened at full speed along the deserted streets, fancying
+that a bloody fist was pursuing him.
+
+"There are four of them on the ground," he said, as he entered his
+house.
+
+He and his wife looked at one another as though they were astonished at
+their crime.
+
+The lamplight imparted the hue of yellow wax to their pale faces.
+
+"Have you left them there?" asked Felicite; "they must be found there."
+
+"Of course! I didn't pick them up. They are lying on their backs. I
+stepped on something soft----"
+
+Then he looked at his boot; its heel was covered with blood. While he
+was putting on a pair of shoes, Felicite resumed:
+
+"Well! so much the better! It's over now. People won't be inclined to
+repeat that you only fire at mirrors."
+
+The fusillade which the Rougons had planned in order that they might
+be finally recognised as the saviours of Plassans, brought the whole
+terrified and grateful town to their feet. The day broke mournfully
+with the grey melancholy of a winter-morning. The inhabitants, hearing
+nothing further, ventured forth, weary of trembling beneath their
+sheets. At first some ten or fifteen appeared. Later on, when a rumour
+spread that the insurgents had taken flight, leaving their dead in
+every gutter, Plassans rose in a body and descended upon the town-hall.
+Throughout the morning people strolled inquisitively round the four
+corpses. They were horribly mutilated, particularly one, which had three
+bullets in the head. But the most horrible to look upon was the body
+of a national guard, who had fallen under the porch; he had received a
+charge of the small shot, used by the Republicans in lieu of bullets,
+full in the face; and blood oozed from his torn and riddled countenance.
+The crowd feasted their eyes upon this horror, with the avidity for
+revolting spectacles which is so characteristic of cowards. The national
+guard was freely recognised; he was the pork-butcher Dubruel, the man
+whom Roudier had accused on the Monday morning of having fired with
+culpable eagerness. Of the three other corpses, two were journeymen
+hatters; the third was not identified. For a long while gaping groups
+remained shuddering in front of the red pools which stained the
+pavement, often looking behind them with an air of mistrust, as though
+that summary justice which had restored order during the night by force
+of arms, were, even now, watching and listening to them, ready to shoot
+them down in their turn, unless they kissed with enthusiasm the hand
+that had just rescued them from the demagogy.
+
+The panic of the night further augmented the terrible effect produced
+in the morning by the sight of the four corpses. The true history of
+the fusillade was never known. The firing of the combatants, Granoux's
+hammering, the helter-skelter rush of the national guards through the
+streets, had filled people's ears with such terrifying sounds that most
+of them dreamed of a gigantic battle waged against countless enemies.
+When the victors, magnifying the number of their adversaries with
+instinctive braggardism, spoke of about five hundred men, everybody
+protested against such a low estimate. Some citizens asserted that they
+had looked out of their windows and seen an immense stream of fugitives
+passing by for more than an hour. Moreover everybody had heard the
+bandits running about. Five hundred men would never have been able to
+rouse a whole town. It must have been an army, and a fine big army too,
+which the brave militia of Plassans had "driven back into the ground."
+This phrase of their having been "driven back into the ground," first
+used by Rougon, struck people as being singularly appropriate, for the
+guards who were charged with the defence of the ramparts swore by all
+that was holy that not a single man had entered or quitted the town,
+a circumstance which tinged what had happened with mystery, even
+suggesting the idea of horned demons who had vanished amidst flames, and
+thus fairly upsetting the minds of the multitude. It is true the guards
+avoided all mention of their mad gallops; and so the more rational
+citizens were inclined to believe that a band of insurgents had really
+entered the town either by a breach in the wall or some other channel.
+Later on, rumours of treachery were spread abroad, and people talked of
+an ambush. The cruel truth could no longer be concealed by the men whom
+Macquart had led to slaughter, but so much terror still prevailed,
+and the sight of blood had thrown so many cowards into the arms of the
+reactionary party, that these rumours were attributed to the rage of
+the vanquished Republicans. It was asserted, on the other hand, that
+Macquart had been made prisoner by Rougon, who kept him in a damp cell,
+where he was letting him slowly die of starvation. This horrible tale
+made people bow to the very ground whenever they encountered Rougon.
+
+Thus it was that this grotesque personage, this pale, flabby,
+tun-bellied citizen became, in one night, a terrible captain, whom
+nobody dared to ridicule any more. He had steeped his foot in blood.
+The inhabitants of the old quarter stood dumb with fright before the
+corpses. But towards ten o'clock, when the respectable people of the new
+town arrived, the whole square hummed with subdued chatter. People spoke
+of the other attack, of the seizure of the mayor's office, in which a
+mirror only had been wounded; but this time they no longer pooh-poohed
+Rougon, they spoke of him with respectful dismay; he was indeed a hero,
+a deliverer. The corpses, with open eyes, stared at those gentlemen, the
+lawyers and householders, who shuddered as they murmured that civil war
+had many cruel necessities. The notary, the chief of the deputation
+sent to the town-hall on the previous evening, went from group to group,
+recalling the proud words "I am prepared!" then used by the energetic
+man to whom the town owed its safety. There was a general feeling of
+humiliation. Those who had railed most cruelly against the forty-one,
+those, especially, who had referred to the Rougons as intriguers and
+cowards who merely fired shots in the air, were the first to speak of
+granting a crown of laurels "to the noble citizen of whom Plassans would
+be for ever proud." For the pools of blood were drying on the pavement,
+and the corpses proclaimed to what a degree of audacity the party of
+disorder, pillage, and murder had gone, and what an iron hand had been
+required to put down the insurrection.
+
+Moreover, the whole crowd was eager to congratulate Granoux, and shake
+hands with him. The story of the hammer had become known. By an innocent
+falsehood, however, of which he himself soon became unconscious, he
+asserted that, having been the first to see the insurgents, he had set
+about striking the bell, in order to sound the alarm, so that, but for
+him, the national guards would have been massacred. This doubled his
+importance. His achievement was declared prodigious. People spoke of him
+now as "Monsieur Isidore, don't you know? the gentleman who sounded
+the tocsin with a hammer!" Although the sentence was somewhat lengthy,
+Granoux would willingly have accepted it as a title of nobility; and
+from that day forward he never heard the word "hammer" pronounced
+without imagining it to be some delicate flattery.
+
+While the corpses were being removed, Aristide came to look at them. He
+examined them on all sides, sniffing and looking inquisitively at
+their faces. His eyes were bright, and he had a sharp expression of
+countenance. In order to see some wound the better he even lifted up the
+blouse of one corpse with the very hand which on the previous day had
+been suspended in a sling. This examination seemed to convince him and
+remove all doubt from his mind. He bit his lips, remained there for a
+moment in silence, and then went off for the purpose of hastening the
+issue of the "Independant," for which he had written a most important
+article. And as he hurried along beside the houses he recalled his
+mother's words: "You will see to-morrow!" Well, he had seen now; it was
+very clever; it even frightened him somewhat.
+
+In the meantime, Rougon's triumph was beginning to embarrass him. Alone
+in Monsieur Garconnet's office, hearing the buzzing of the crowd, he
+became conscious of a strange feeling, which prevented him from showing
+himself on the balcony. That blood, in which he had stepped, seemed to
+have numbed his legs. He wondered what he should do until the evening.
+His poor empty brain, upset by the events of the night, sought
+desperately for some occupation, some order to give, or some measure to
+be taken, which might afford him some distraction. But he could think
+about nothing clearly. Whither was Felicite leading him? Was it really
+all finished now, or would he still have to kill somebody else? Then
+fear again assailed him, terrible doubts arose in his mind, and he
+already saw the ramparts broken down on all sides by an avenging army
+of the Republicans, when a loud shout: "The insurgents! The insurgents!"
+burst forth under the very windows of his room. At this he jumped up,
+and raising a curtain, saw the crowd rushing about the square in a state
+of terror. What a thunderbolt! In less than a second he pictured himself
+ruined, plundered, and murdered; he cursed his wife, he cursed the whole
+town. Then, as he looked behind him in a suspicious manner, seeking
+some means of escape, he heard the mob break out into applause, uttering
+shouts of joy, making the very glass rattle with their wild
+delight. Then he returned to the window; the women were waving their
+handkerchiefs, and the men were embracing each other. There were some
+among them who joined hands and began to dance. Rougon stood there
+stupefied, unable to comprehend it all, and feeling his head swimming.
+The big, deserted, silent building, in which he was alone, quite
+frightened him.
+
+When he afterwards confessed his feelings to Felicite, he was unable to
+say how long his torture had lasted. He only remembered that a noise of
+footsteps, re-echoing through the vast halls, had roused him from his
+stupor. He expected to be attacked by men in blouses, armed with scythes
+and clubs, whereas it was the Municipal Commission which entered, quite
+orderly and in evening dress, each member with a beaming countenance.
+Not one of them was absent. A piece of good news had simultaneously
+cured all these gentlemen. Granoux rushed into the arms of his dear
+president.
+
+"The soldiers!" he stammered, "the soldiers!"
+
+A regiment had, in fact, just arrived, under the command of Colonel
+Masson and Monsieur de Bleriot, prefect of the department. The
+gunbarrels which had been observed from the ramparts, far away in the
+plain, had at first suggested the approach of the insurgents. Rougon was
+so deeply moved on learning the truth, that two big tears rolled down
+his cheeks. He was weeping, the great citizen! The Municipal Commission
+watched those big tears with most respectful admiration. But Granoux
+again threw himself on his friend's neck, crying:
+
+"Ah! how glad I am! You know I'm a straightforward man. Well, we were
+all of us afraid; it is not so, gentlemen? You, alone, were great,
+brave, sublime! What energy you must have had! I was just now saying to
+my wife: 'Rougon is a great man; he deserves to be decorated.'"
+
+Then the gentlemen proposed to go and meet the prefect. For a moment
+Rougon felt both stunned and suffocated; he was unable to believe
+in this sudden triumph, and stammered like a child. However, he drew
+breath, and went downstairs with the quiet dignity suited to the
+solemnity of the occasion. But the enthusiasm which greeted the
+commission and its president outside the town-hall almost upset his
+magisterial gravity afresh. His name sped through the crowd, accompanied
+this time by the warmest eulogies. He heard everyone repeat Granoux's
+avowal, and treat him as a hero who had stood firm and resolute amidst
+universal panic. And, as far as the Sub-Prefecture, where the commission
+met the prefect, he drank his fill of popularity and glory.
+
+Monsieur de Bleriot and Colonel Masson had entered the town alone,
+leaving their troops encamped on the Lyons road. They had lost
+considerable time through a misunderstanding as to the direction taken
+by the insurgents. Now, however, they knew the latter were at Orcheres;
+and it would only be necessary to stop an hour at Plassans, just
+sufficient time to reassure the population and publish the cruel
+ordinances which decreed the sequestration of the insurgents' property,
+and death to every individual who might be taken with arms in his
+hands. Colonel Masson smiled when, in accordance with the orders of the
+commander of the national guards, the bolts of the Rome Gate were drawn
+back with a great rattling of rusty old iron. The detachment on duty
+there accompanied the prefect and the colonel as a guard of honour.
+As they traversed the Cours Sauvaire, Roudier related Rougon's epic
+achievements to the gentlemen--the three days of panic that had
+terminated with the brilliant victory of the previous night. When the
+two processions came face to face therefore, Monsieur de Bleriot quickly
+advanced towards the president of the Commission, shook hands with him,
+congratulated him, and begged him to continue to watch over the town
+until the return of the authorities. Rougon bowed, while the prefect,
+having reached the door of the Sub-Prefecture, where he wished to take
+a brief rest, proclaimed in a loud voice that he would not forget to
+mention his brave and noble conduct in his report.
+
+In the meantime, in spite of the bitter cold, everybody had come to
+their windows. Felicite, leaning forward at the risk of falling out,
+was quite pale with joy. Aristide had just arrived with a number of the
+"Independant," in which he had openly declared himself in favour of the
+Coup d'Etat, which he welcomed "as the aurora of liberty in order and
+of order in liberty." He had also made a delicate allusion to the
+yellow drawing-room, acknowledging his errors, declaring that "youth is
+presumptuous," and that "great citizens say nothing, reflect in silence,
+and let insults pass by, in order to rise heroically when the day of
+struggle comes." He was particularly pleased with this sentence. His
+mother thought his article extremely well written. She kissed her dear
+child, and placed him on her right hand. The Marquis de Carnavant, weary
+of incarcerating himself, and full of eager curiosity, had likewise come
+to see her, and stood on her left, leaning on the window rail.
+
+When Monsieur de Bleriot offered his hand to Rougon on the square below
+Felicite began to weep. "Oh! see, see," she said to Aristide. "He has
+shaken hands with him. Look! he is doing it again!" And casting a glance
+at the windows, where groups of people were congregated, she added: "How
+wild they must be! Look at Monsieur Peirotte's wife, she's biting
+her handkerchief. And over there, the notary's daughter, and Madame
+Massicot, and the Brunet family, what faces, eh? how angry they look!
+Ah, indeed, it's our turn now."
+
+She followed the scene which was being acted outside the Sub-Prefecture
+with thrills of delight, which shook her ardent, grasshopper-like figure
+from head to foot. She interpreted the slightest gesture, invented words
+which she was unable to catch, and declared that Pierre bowed very well
+indeed. She was a little vexed when the prefect deigned to speak to poor
+Granoux, who was hovering about him fishing for a word of praise. No
+doubt Monsieur de Bleriot already knew the story of the hammer, for the
+retired almond-dealer turned as red as a young girl, and seemed to
+be saying that he had only done his duty. However, that which angered
+Felicite still more was her husband's excessive amiability in presenting
+Vuillet to the authorities. Vuillet, it is true, pushed himself forward
+amongst them, and Rougon was compelled to mention him.
+
+"What a schemer!" muttered Felicite. "He creeps in everywhere. How
+confused my poor dear husband must be! See, there's the colonel speaking
+to him. What can he be saying to him?"
+
+"Ah! little one," the marquis replied with a touch of irony, "he is
+complimenting him for having closed the gates so carefully."
+
+"My father has saved the town," Aristide retorted curtly. "Have you seen
+the corpses, sir?"
+
+Monsieur de Carnavant did not answer. He withdrew from the window, and
+sat down in an arm-chair, shaking his head with an air of some disgust.
+At that moment, the prefect having taken his departure, Rougon came
+upstairs and threw himself upon his wife's neck.
+
+"Ah! my dear!" he stammered.
+
+He was unable to say more. Felicite made him kiss Aristide after telling
+him of the superb article which the young man had inserted in the
+"Independant." Pierre would have kissed the marquis as well, he was
+deeply affected. However, his wife took him aside, and gave him Eugene's
+letter which she had sealed up in an envelope again. She pretended that
+it had just been delivered. Pierre read it and then triumphantly held it
+out to her.
+
+"You are a sorceress," he said to her laughing. "You guessed everything.
+What folly I should have committed without you! We'll manage our little
+affairs together now. Kiss me: you're a good woman."
+
+He clasped her in his arms, while she discreetly exchanged a knowing
+smile with the marquis.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+It was not until Sunday, the day after the massacre at Sainte-Roure,
+that the troops passed through Plassans again. The prefect and the
+colonel, whom Monsieur Garconnet had invited to dinner, once more
+entered the town alone. The soldiers went round the ramparts and
+encamped in the Faubourg, on the Nice road. Night was falling; the sky,
+overcast since the morning, had a strange yellow tint, and illumined
+the town with a murky light, similar to the copper-coloured glimmer
+of stormy weather. The reception of the troops by the inhabitants was
+timid; the bloodstained soldiers, who passed by weary and silent, in
+the yellow twilight, horrified the cleanly citizens promenading on
+the Cours. They stepped out of the way whispering terrible stories of
+fusillades and revengeful reprisals which still live in the recollection
+of the region. The Coup d'Etat terror was beginning to make itself felt,
+an overwhelming terror which kept the South in a state of tremor for
+many a long month. Plassans, in its fear and hatred of the insurgents,
+had welcomed the troops on their first arrival with enthusiasm; but now,
+at the appearance of that gloomy taciturn regiment, whose men were ready
+to fire at a word from their officers, the retired merchants and even
+the notaries of the new town anxiously examined their consciences,
+asking if they had not committed some political peccadilloes which might
+be thought deserving of a bullet.
+
+The municipal authorities had returned on the previous evening in a
+couple of carts hired at Sainte-Roure. Their unexpected entry was devoid
+of all triumphal display. Rougon surrendered the mayor's arm-chair
+without much regret. The game was over; and with feverish longing he now
+awaited the recompense for his devotion. On the Sunday--he had not hoped
+for it until the following day--he received a letter from Eugene.
+Since the previous Thursday Felicite had taken care to send her son
+the numbers of the "Gazette" and "Independant" which, in special second
+editions had narrated the battle of the night and the arrival of the
+prefect at Plassans. Eugene now replied by return of post that the
+nomination of a receivership would soon be signed; but added that he
+wished to give them some good news immediately. He had obtained the
+ribbon of the Legion of Honour for his father. Felicite wept with joy.
+Her husband decorated! Her proud dream had never gone as far as that.
+Rougon, pale with delight, declared they must give a grand dinner that
+very evening. He no longer thought of expense; he would have thrown his
+last fifty francs out of the drawing-room windows in order to celebrate
+that glorious day.
+
+"Listen," he said to his wife; "you must invite Sicardot: he has annoyed
+me with that rosette of his for a long time! Then Granoux and Roudier;
+I shouldn't be at all sorry to make them feel that it isn't their purses
+that will ever win them the cross. Vuillet is a skinflint, but the
+triumph ought to be complete: invite him as well as the small fry. I was
+forgetting; you must go and call on the marquis in person; we will seat
+him on your right; he'll look very well at our table. You know that
+Monsieur Garconnet is entertaining the colonel and the prefect. That is
+to make me understand that I am nobody now. But I can afford to laugh at
+his mayoralty; it doesn't bring him in a sou! He has invited me, but
+I shall tell him that I also have some people coming. The others will
+laugh on the wrong side of their mouths to-morrow. And let everything
+be of the best. Have everything sent from the Hotel de Provence. We must
+outdo the mayor's dinner."
+
+Felicite set to work. Pierre still felt some vague uneasiness amidst his
+rapture. The Coup d'Etat was going to pay his debts, his son Aristide
+had repented of his faults, and he was at last freeing himself from
+Macquart; but he feared some folly on Pascal's part, and was especially
+anxious about the lot reserved for Silvere. Not that he felt the least
+pity for the lad; he was simply afraid the matter of the gendarme might
+come before the Assize Court. Ah! if only some discriminating bullet had
+managed to rid him of that young scoundrel! As his wife had pointed out
+to him in the morning, all obstacles had fallen away before him; the
+family which had dishonoured him had, at the last moment, worked for his
+elevation; his sons Eugene and Aristide, those spend-thrifts, the cost
+of whose college life he had so bitterly regretted, were at last paying
+interest on the capital expended for their education. And yet the
+thought of that wretched Silvere must come to mar his hour of triumph!
+
+While Felicite was running about to prepare the dinner for the evening,
+Pierre heard of the arrival of the troops and determined to go and make
+inquiries. Sicardot, whom he had questioned on his return, knew nothing;
+Pascal must have remained to look after the wounded; as for Silvere, he
+had not even been seen by the commander, who scarcely knew him. Rougon
+therefore repaired to the Faubourg, intending to make inquiries there
+and at the same time pay Macquart the eight hundred francs which he had
+just succeeded in raising with great difficulty. However, when he found
+himself in the crowded encampment, and from a distance saw the prisoners
+sitting in long files on the beams in the Aire Saint-Mittre, guarded by
+soldiers gun in hand, he felt afraid of being compromised, and so slunk
+off to his mother's house, with the intention of sending the old woman
+out to pick up some information.
+
+When he entered the hovel it was almost night. At first the only person
+he saw there was Macquart smoking and drinking brandy.
+
+"Is that you? I'm glad of it," muttered Antoine. "I'm growing deuced
+cold here. Have you got the money?"
+
+But Pierre did not reply. He had just perceived his son Pascal leaning
+over the bed. And thereupon he questioned him eagerly. The doctor,
+surprised by his uneasiness, which he attributed to paternal affection,
+told him that the soldiers had taken him and would have shot him, had
+it not been for the intervention of some honest fellow whom he did not
+know. Saved by his profession of surgeon, he had returned to Plassans
+with the troops. This greatly relieved Rougon. So there was yet another
+who would not compromise him. He was evincing his delight by repeated
+hand-shakings, when Pascal concluded in a sorrowful voice: "Oh! don't
+make merry. I have just found my poor grandmother in a very dangerous
+state. I brought her back this carbine, which she values very much; I
+found her lying here, and she has not moved since."
+
+Pierre's eyes were becoming accustomed to the dimness. In the fast
+fading light he saw aunt Dide stretched, rigid and seemingly lifeless,
+upon her bed. Her wretched frame, attacked by neurosis from the hour of
+birth, was at length laid prostrate by a supreme shock. Her nerves had
+so to say consumed her blood. Moreover some cruel grief seemed to have
+suddenly accelerated her slow wasting-away. Her pale nun-like face,
+drawn and pinched by a life of gloom and cloister-like self-denial, was
+now stained with red blotches. With convulsed features, eyes that glared
+terribly, and hands twisted and clenched, she lay at full length in her
+skirts, which failed to hide the sharp outlines of her scrawny limbs.
+Extended there with lips closely pressed she imparted to the dim room
+all the horror of a mute death-agony.
+
+Rougon made a gesture of vexation. This heart-rending spectacle was very
+distasteful to him. He had company coming to dinner in the evening, and
+it would be extremely inconvenient for him to have to appear mournful.
+His mother was always doing something to bother him. She might just
+as well have chosen another day. However, he put on an appearance of
+perfect ease, as he said: "Bah! it's nothing. I've seen her like that a
+hundred times. You must let her lie still; it's the only thing that does
+her any good."
+
+Pascal shook his head. "No, this fit isn't like the others," he
+whispered. "I have often studied her, and have never observed such
+symptoms before. Just look at her eyes: there is a peculiar fluidity, a
+pale brightness about them which causes me considerable uneasiness. And
+her face, how frightfully every muscle of it is distorted!"
+
+Then bending over to observe her features more closely, he continued
+in a whisper, as though speaking to himself: "I have never seen such a
+face, excepting among people who have been murdered or have died from
+fright. She must have experienced some terrible shock."
+
+"But how did the attack begin?" Rougon impatiently inquired, at a loss
+for an excuse to leave the room.
+
+Pascal did not know. Macquart, as he poured himself out another glass
+of brandy, explained that he had felt an inclination to drink a little
+Cognac, and had sent her to fetch a bottle. She had not been long
+absent, and at the very moment when she returned she had fallen rigid on
+the floor without uttering a word. Macquart himself had carried her to
+the bed.
+
+"What surprises me," he said, by way of conclusion, "is, that she did
+not break the bottle."
+
+The young doctor reflected. After a short pause he resumed: "I heard two
+shots fired as I came here. Perhaps those ruffians have been shooting
+some more prisoners. If she passed through the ranks of the soldiers at
+that moment, the sight of blood may have thrown her into this fit. She
+must have had some dreadful shock."
+
+Fortunately he had with him the little medicine-case which he had been
+carrying about ever since the departure of the insurgents. He tried
+to pour a few drops of reddish liquid between aunt Dide's closely-set
+teeth, while Macquart again asked his brother: "Have you got the money?"
+
+"Yes, I've brought it; we'll settle now," Rougon replied, glad of this
+diversion.
+
+Thereupon Macquart, seeing that he was about to be paid, began to moan.
+He had only learnt the consequence of his treachery when it was too
+late; otherwise he would have demanded twice or thrice as much. And he
+complained bitterly. Really now a thousand francs was not enough. His
+children had forsaken him, he was all alone in the world, and obliged to
+quit France. He almost wept as he spoke of his coming exile.
+
+"Come now, will you take the eight hundred francs?" said Rougon, who was
+in haste to be off.
+
+"No, certainly not; double the sum. Your wife cheated me. If she had
+told me distinctly what it was she expected of me, I would never have
+compromised myself for such a trifle."
+
+Rougon laid the eight hundred francs upon the table.
+
+"I swear I haven't got any more," he resumed. "I will think of you
+later. But do, for mercy's sake, get away this evening."
+
+Macquart, cursing and muttering protests, thereupon carried the table
+to the window, and began to count the gold in the fading twilight. The
+coins tickled the tips of his fingers very pleasantly as he let them
+fall, and jingled musically in the darkness. At last he paused for a
+moment to say: "You promised to get me a berth, remember. I want to
+return to France. The post of rural guard in some pleasant neighbourhood
+which I could mention, would just suit me."
+
+"Very well, I'll see about it," Rougon replied. "Have you got the eight
+hundred francs?"
+
+Macquart resumed his counting. The last coins were just clinking when a
+burst of laughter made them turn their heads. Aunt Dide was standing up
+in front of the bed, with her bodice unfastened, her white hair hanging
+loose, and her face stained with red blotches. Pascal had in vain
+endeavoured to hold her down. Trembling all over, and with her arms
+outstretched, she shook her head deliriously.
+
+"The blood-money! the blood-money!" she again and again repeated. "I
+heard the gold. And it is they, they who sold him. Ah! the murderers!
+They are a pack of wolves."
+
+Then she pushed her hair aback, and passed her hand over her brow, as
+though seeking to collect her thoughts. And she continued: "Ah! I have
+long seen him with a bullet-hole in his forehead. There were always
+people lying in wait for him with guns. They used to sign to me that
+they were going to fire. . . . It's terrible! I feel some one breaking
+my bones and battering out my brains. Oh! Mercy! Mercy! I beseech you;
+he shall not see her any more--never, never! I will shut him up. I will
+prevent him from walking out with her. Mercy! Mercy! Don't fire. It is
+not my fault. If you knew----"
+
+She had almost fallen on her knees, and was weeping and entreating while
+she stretched her poor trembling hands towards some horrible vision
+which she saw in the darkness. Then she suddenly rose upright, and her
+eyes opened still more widely as a terrible cry came from her convulsed
+throat, as though some awful sight, visible to her alone, had filled her
+with mad terror.
+
+"Oh, the gendarme!" she said, choking and falling backwards on the bed,
+where she rolled about, breaking into long bursts of furious, insane
+laughter.
+
+Pascal was studying the attack attentively. The two brothers, who felt
+very frightened, and only detected snatches of what their mother said,
+had taken refuge in a corner of the room. When Rougon heard the word
+gendarme, he thought he understood her. Ever since the murder of her
+lover, the elder Macquart, on the frontier, aunt Dide had cherished a
+bitter hatred against all gendarmes and custom-house officers, whom she
+mingled together in one common longing for vengeance.
+
+"Why, it's the story of the poacher that she's telling us," he
+whispered.
+
+But Pascal made a sign to him to keep quiet. The stricken woman had
+raised herself with difficulty, and was looking round her, with a
+stupefied air. She remained silent for a moment, endeavouring to
+recognise the various objects in the room, as though she were in some
+strange place. Then, with a sudden expression of anxiety, she asked:
+"Where is the gun?"
+
+The doctor put the carbine into her hands. At this she raised a light
+cry of joy, and gazed at the weapon, saying in a soft, sing-song,
+girlish whisper: "That is it. Oh! I recognise it! It is all stained with
+blood. The stains are quite fresh to-day. His red hands have left marks
+of blood on the butt. Ah! poor, poor aunt Dide!"
+
+Then she became dizzy once more, and lapsed into silent thought.
+
+"The gendarme was dead," she murmured at last, "but I have seen him
+again; he has come back. They never die, those blackguards!"
+
+Again did gloomy passion come over her, and, shaking the carbine, she
+advanced towards her two sons who, speechless with fright, retreated to
+the very wall. Her loosened skirts trailed along the ground, as she drew
+up her twisted frame, which age had reduced to mere bones.
+
+"It's you who fired!" she cried. "I heard the gold. . . . Wretched woman
+that I am! . . . I brought nothing but wolves into the world--a whole
+family--a whole litter of wolves! . . . There was only one poor lad,
+and him they have devoured; each had a bite at him, and their lips are
+covered with blood. . . . Ah! the accursed villains! They have robbed,
+they have murdered. . . . And they live like gentlemen. Villains!
+Accursed villains!"
+
+She sang, laughed, cried, and repeated "accursed villains!" in strangely
+sonorous tones, which suggested a crackling of a fusillade. Pascal, with
+tears in his eyes, took her in his arms and laid her on the bed
+again. She submitted like a child, but persisted in her wailing cries,
+accelerating their rhythm, and beating time on the sheet with her
+withered hands.
+
+"That's just what I was afraid of," the doctor said; "she is mad. The
+blow has been too heavy for a poor creature already subject, as she is,
+to acute neurosis. She will die in a lunatic asylum like her father."
+
+"But what could she have seen?" asked Rougon, at last venturing to quit
+the corner where he had hidden himself.
+
+"I have a terrible suspicion," Pascal replied. "I was going to speak to
+you about Silvere when you came in. He is a prisoner. You must endeavour
+to obtain his release from the prefect, if there is still time."
+
+The old oil-dealer turned pale as he looked at his son. Then, rapidly,
+he responded: "Listen to me; you stay here and watch her. I'm too busy
+this evening. We will see to-morrow about conveying her to the lunatic
+asylum at Les Tulettes. As for you, Macquart, you must leave this
+very night. Swear to me that you will! I'm going to find Monsieur de
+Bleriot."
+
+He stammered as he spoke, and felt more eager than ever to get out into
+the fresh air of the streets. Pascal fixed a penetrating look on the
+madwoman, and then on his father and uncle. His professional instinct
+was getting the better of him, and he studied the mother and the sons,
+with all the keenness of a naturalist observing the metamorphosis of
+some insect. He pondered over the growth of that family to which he
+belonged, over the different branches growing from one parent stock,
+whose sap carried identical germs to the farthest twigs, which bent in
+divers ways according to the sunshine or shade in which they lived. And
+for a moment, as by the glow of a lightning flash, he thought he could
+espy the future of the Rougon-Macquart family, a pack of unbridled,
+insatiate appetites amidst a blaze of gold and blood.
+
+Aunt Dide, however, had ceased her wailing chant at the mention of
+Silvere's name. For a moment she listened anxiously. Then she broke out
+into terrible shrieks. Night had now completely fallen, and the black
+room seemed void and horrible. The shrieks of the madwoman, who was
+no longer visible, rang out from the darkness as from a grave. Rougon,
+losing his head, took to flight, pursued by those taunting cries, whose
+bitterness seemed to increase amidst the gloom.
+
+As he was emerging from the Impasse Saint-Mittre with hesitating steps,
+wondering whether it would not be dangerous to solicit Silvere's pardon
+from the prefect, he saw Aristide prowling about the timber-yard. The
+latter, recognising his father, ran up to him with an expression of
+anxiety and whispered a few words in his ear. Pierre turned pale, and
+cast a look of alarm towards the end of the yard, where the darkness was
+only relieved by the ruddy glow of a little gipsy fire. Then they both
+disappeared down the Rue de Rome, quickening their steps as though they
+had committed a murder, and turning up their coat-collars in order that
+they might not be recognised.
+
+"That saves me an errand," Rougon whispered. "Let us go to dinner. They
+are waiting for us."
+
+When they arrived, the yellow drawing-room was resplendent. Felicite
+was all over the place. Everybody was there; Sicardot, Granoux, Roudier,
+Vuillet, the oil-dealers, the almond-dealers, the whole set. The
+marquis, however, had excused himself on the plea of rheumatism;
+and, besides, he was about to leave Plassans on a short trip. Those
+bloodstained bourgeois offended his feelings of delicacy, and moreover
+his relative, the Count de Valqueyras, had begged him to withdraw from
+public notice for a little time. Monsieur de Carnavant's refusal vexed
+the Rougons; but Felicite consoled herself by resolving to make a more
+profuse display. She hired a pair of candelabra and ordered several
+additional dishes as a kind of substitute for the marquis. The table was
+laid in the yellow drawing-room, in order to impart more solemnity to
+the occasion. The Hotel de Provence had supplied the silver, the china,
+and the glass. The cloth had been laid ever since five o'clock in order
+that the guests on arriving might feast their eyes upon it. At either
+end of the table, on the white cloth, were bouquets of artificial roses,
+in porcelain vases gilded and painted with flowers.
+
+When the habitual guests of the yellow drawing-room were assembled
+there they could not conceal their admiration of the spectacle. Several
+gentlemen smiled with an air of embarrassment while they exchanged
+furtive glances, which clearly signified, "These Rougons are mad,
+they are throwing their money out of the window." The truth was that
+Felicite, on going round to invite her guests, had been unable to hold
+her tongue. So everybody knew that Pierre had been decorated, and that
+he was about to be nominated to some post; at which, of course, they
+pulled wry faces. Roudier indeed observed that "the little black woman
+was puffing herself out too much." Now that "prize-day" had come this
+band of bourgeois, who had rushed upon the expiring Republic--each one
+keeping an eye on the other, and glorying in giving a deeper bite than
+his neighbour--did not think it fair that their hosts should have all
+the laurels of the battle. Even those who had merely howled by instinct,
+asking no recompense of the rising Empire, were greatly annoyed to see
+that, thanks to them, the poorest and least reputable of them all should
+be decorated with the red ribbon. The whole yellow drawing-room ought to
+have been decorated!
+
+"Not that I value the decoration," Roudier said to Granoux, whom he had
+dragged into the embrasure of a window. "I refused it in the time of
+Louis-Philippe, when I was purveyor to the court. Ah! Louis-Philippe was
+a good king. France will never find his equal!"
+
+Roudier was becoming an Orleanist once more. And he added, with the
+crafty hypocrisy of an old hosier from the Rue Saint-Honore: "But you,
+my dear Granoux; don't you think the ribbon would look well in your
+button-hole? After all, you did as much to save the town as Rougon did.
+Yesterday, when I was calling upon some very distinguished persons, they
+could scarcely believe it possible that you had made so much noise with
+a mere hammer."
+
+Granoux stammered his thanks, and, blushing like a maiden at her first
+confession of love, whispered in Roudier's ear: "Don't say anything
+about it, but I have reason to believe that Rougon will ask the ribbon
+for me. He's a good fellow at heart, you know."
+
+The old hosier thereupon became grave, and assumed a very affable
+manner. When Vuillet came and spoke to him of the well-deserved reward
+that their friend had just received, he replied in a loud voice, so as
+to be heard by Felicite, who was sitting a little way off, that "men
+like Rougon were an ornament to the Legion of Honour." The bookseller
+joined in the chorus; he had that morning received a formal assurance
+that the custom of the college would be restored to him. As for
+Sicardot, he at first felt somewhat annoyed to find himself no longer
+the only one of the set who was decorated. According to him, none but
+soldiers had a right to the ribbon. Pierre's valour surprised him.
+However, being in reality a good-natured fellow, he at last grew warmer,
+and ended by saying that the Napoleons always knew how to distinguish
+men of spirit and energy.
+
+Rougon and Aristide consequently had an enthusiastic reception; on their
+arrival all hands were held out to them. Some of the guests went so
+far as to embrace them. Angele sat on the sofa, by the side of her
+mother-in-law, feeling very happy, and gazing at the table with the
+astonishment of a gourmand who has never seen so many dishes at once.
+When Aristide approached, Sicardot complimented his son-in-law upon his
+superb article in the "Independant." He restored his friendship to
+him. The young man, in answer to the fatherly questions which Sicardot
+addressed to him, replied that he was anxious to take his little family
+with him to Paris, where his brother Eugene would push him forward; but
+he was in want of five hundred francs. Sicardot thereupon promised
+him the money, already foreseeing the day when his daughter would be
+received at the Tuileries by Napoleon III.
+
+In the meantime, Felicite had made a sign to her husband. Pierre,
+surrounded by everybody and anxiously questioned about his pallor, could
+only escape for a minute. He was just able to whisper in his wife's ear
+that he had found Pascal and that Macquart would leave that night. Then
+lowering his voice still more he told her of his mother's insanity, and
+placed his finger on his lips, as if to say: "Not a word; that would
+spoil the whole evening." Felicite bit her lips. They exchanged a look
+in which they read their common thoughts: so now the old woman would not
+trouble them any more: the poacher's hovel would be razed to the ground,
+as the walls of the Fouques' enclosure had been demolished; and they
+would for ever enjoy the respect and esteem of Plassans.
+
+But the guests were looking at the table. Felicite showed the gentlemen
+their seats. It was perfect bliss. As each one took his spoon, Sicardot
+made a gesture to solicit a moment's delay. Then he rose and gravely
+said: "Gentlemen, on behalf of the company present, I wish to express
+to our host how pleased we are at the rewards which his courage and
+patriotism have procured for him. I now see that he must have acted upon
+a heaven-sent inspiration in remaining here, while those beggars were
+dragging myself and others along the high roads. Therefore, I heartily
+applaud the decision of the government. . . . Let me finish, you can
+then congratulate our friend. . . . Know, then, that our friend, besides
+being made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, is also to be appointed
+to a receiver of taxes."
+
+There was a cry of surprise. They had expected a small post. Some of
+them tried to force a smile; but, aided by the sight of the table, the
+compliments again poured forth profusely.
+
+Sicardot once more begged for silence. "Wait one moment," he resumed;
+"I have not finished. Just one word. It is probable that our friend will
+remain among us, owing to the death of Monsieur Peirotte."
+
+Whilst the guests burst out into exclamations, Felicite felt a keen pain
+in her heart. Sicardot had already told her that the receiver had been
+shot; but at the mention of that sudden and shocking death, just as they
+were starting on that triumphal dinner, it seemed as if a chilling gust
+swept past her face. She remembered her wish; it was she who had killed
+that man. However, amidst the tinkling music of the silver, the company
+began to do honour to the banquet. In the provinces, people eat
+very much and very noisily. By the time the _releve_ was served, the
+gentlemen were all talking together; they showered kicks upon the
+vanquished, flattered one another, and made disparaging remarks about
+the absence of the marquis. It was impossible, they said, to maintain
+intercourse with the nobility. Roudier even gave out that the marquis
+had begged to be excused because his fear of the insurgents had given
+him jaundice. At the second course they all scrambled like hounds at
+the quarry. The oil-dealers and almond-dealers were the men who saved
+France. They clinked glasses to the glory of the Rougons. Granoux, who
+was very red, began to stammer, while Vuillet, very pale, was quite
+drunk. Nevertheless Sicardot continued filling his glass. For her part
+Angele, who had already eaten too much, prepared herself some sugar and
+water. The gentlemen were so delighted at being freed from panic, and
+finding themselves together again in that yellow drawing-room, round a
+good table, in the bright light radiating from the candelabra and
+the chandelier--which they now saw for the first time without its
+fly-specked cover--that they gave way to most exuberant folly and
+indulged in the coarsest enjoyment. Their voices rose in the warm
+atmosphere more huskily and eulogistically at each successive dish till
+they could scarcely invent fresh compliments. However, one of them, an
+old retired master-tanner, hit upon this fine phrase--that the dinner
+was a "perfect feast worthy of Lucullus."
+
+Pierre was radiant, and his big pale face perspired with triumph.
+Felicite, already accustoming herself to her new station in life, said
+that they would probably rent poor Monsieur Peirotte's flat until they
+could purchase a house of their own in the new town. She was already
+planning how she would place her future furniture in the receiver's
+rooms. She was entering into possession of her Tuileries. At one
+moment, however, as the uproar of voices became deafening, she seemed to
+recollect something, and quitting her seat she whispered in Aristide's
+ear: "And Silvere?"
+
+The young man started with surprise at the question.
+
+"He is dead," he replied, likewise in a whisper. "I was there when the
+gendarme blew his brains out with a pistol."
+
+Felicite in her turn shuddered. She opened her mouth to ask her son
+why he had not prevented this murder by claiming the lad; but abruptly
+hesitating she remained there speechless. Then Aristide, who had read
+her question on her quivering lips, whispered: "You understand, I said
+nothing--so much the worse for him! I did quite right. It's a good
+riddance."
+
+This brutal frankness displeased Felicite. So Aristide had his skeleton,
+like his father and mother. He would certainly not have confessed so
+openly that he had been strolling about the Faubourg and had allowed his
+cousin to be shot, had not the wine from the Hotel de Provence and the
+dreams he was building upon his approaching arrival in Paris, made
+him depart from his habitual cunning. The words once spoken, he
+swung himself to and fro on his chair. Pierre, who had watched the
+conversation between his wife and son from a distance, understood what
+had passed and glanced at them like an accomplice imploring silence. It
+was the last blast of terror, as it were, which blew over the Rougons,
+amidst the splendour and enthusiastic merriment of the dinner. True,
+Felicite, on returning to her seat, espied a taper burning behind a
+window on the other side of the road. Some one sat watching Monsieur
+Peirotte's corpse, which had been brought back from Sainte-Roure that
+morning. She sat down, feeling as if that taper were heating her back.
+But the gaiety was now increasing, and exclamations of rapture rang
+through the yellow drawing-room when the dessert appeared.
+
+At that same hour, the Faubourg was still shuddering at the tragedy
+which had just stained the Aire Saint-Mittre with blood. The return of
+the troops, after the carnage on the Nores plain, had been marked by the
+most cruel reprisals. Men were beaten to death behind bits of wall, with
+the butt-ends of muskets, others had their brains blown out in ravines
+by the pistols of gendarmes. In order that terror might impose silence,
+the soldiers strewed their road with corpses. One might have followed
+them by the red trail which they left behind.[*] It was a long butchery.
+At every halting-place, a few insurgents were massacred. Two were killed
+at Sainte-Roure, three at Ocheres, one at Beage. When the troops were
+encamped at Plassans, on the Nice road, it was decided that one more
+prisoner, the most guilty, should be shot. The victors judged it wise
+to leave this fresh corpse behind them in order to inspire the town
+with respect for the new-born Empire. But the soldiers were now weary of
+killing; none offered himself for the fatal task. The prisoners, thrown
+on the beams in the timber-yard as though on a camp bed, and bound
+together in pairs by the hands, listened and waited in a state of weary,
+resigned stupor.
+
+     [*] Though M. Zola has changed his place in his account of
+     the insurrection, that account is strictly accurate in all
+     its chief particulars. What he says of the savagery both of
+     the soldiers and of their officers is confirmed by all
+     impartial historical writers.--EDITOR.
+
+At that moment the gendarme Rengade roughly opened a way for himself
+through the crowd of inquisitive idlers. As soon as he heard that the
+troops had returned with several hundred insurgents, he had risen
+from bed, shivering with fever, and risking his life in the cold, dark
+December air. Scarcely was he out of doors when his wound reopened, the
+bandage which covered his eyeless socket became stained with blood,
+and a red streamlet trickled over his cheek and moustache. He looked
+frightful in his dumb fury with his pale face and blood-stained bandage,
+as he ran along closely scrutinising each of the prisoners. He followed
+the beams, bending down and going to and fro, making the bravest shudder
+by his abrupt appearance. And, all of a sudden: "Ah! the bandit, I've
+got him!" he cried.
+
+He had just laid his hand on Silvere's shoulder. Silvere, crouching down
+on a beam, with lifeless and expressionless face, was looking straight
+before him into the pale twilight, with a calm, stupefied air. Ever
+since his departure from Sainte-Roure, he had retained that vacant
+stare. Along the high road, for many a league, whenever the soldiers
+urged on the march of their captives with the butt-ends of their rifles,
+he had shown himself as gentle as a child. Covered with dust, thirsty
+and weary, he trudged onward without saying a word, like one of those
+docile animals that herdsmen drive along. He was thinking of Miette. He
+ever saw her lying on the banner, under the trees with her eyes turned
+upwards. For three days he had seen none but her; and at this very
+moment, amidst the growing darkness, he still saw her.
+
+Rengade turned towards the officer, who had failed to find among the
+soldiers the requisite men for an execution.
+
+"This villain put my eye out," he said, pointing to Silvere. "Hand him
+over to me. It's as good as done for you."
+
+The officer did not reply in words, but withdrew with an air of
+indifference, making a vague gesture. The gendarme understood that the
+man was surrendered to him.
+
+"Come, get up!" he resumed, as he shook him.
+
+Silvere, like all the other prisoners, had a companion attached to him.
+He was fastened by the arm to a peasant of Poujols named Mourgue, a man
+about fifty, who had been brutified by the scorching sun and the
+hard labour of tilling the ground. Crooked-backed already, his hands
+hardened, his face coarse and heavy, he blinked his eyes in a stupid
+manner, with the stubborn, distrustful expression of an animal subject
+to the lash. He had set out armed with a pitchfork, because his fellow
+villagers had done so; but he could not have explained what had thus
+set him adrift on the high roads. Since he had been made a prisoner
+he understood it still less. He had some vague idea that he was being
+conveyed home. His amazement at finding himself bound, the sight of all
+the people staring at him, stupefied him still more. As he only spoke
+and understood the dialect of the region, he could not imagine what the
+gendarme wanted. He raised his coarse, heavy face towards him with an
+effort; then, fancying he was being asked the name of his village, he
+said in his hoarse voice:
+
+"I come from Poujols."
+
+A burst of laughter ran through the crowd, and some voices cried:
+"Release the peasant."
+
+"Bah!" Rengade replied; "the more of this vermin that's crushed the
+better. As they're together, they can both go."
+
+There was a murmur.
+
+But the gendarme turned his terrible blood-stained face upon the
+onlookers, and they slunk off. One cleanly little citizen went away
+declaring that if he remained any longer it would spoil his appetite for
+dinner. However some boys who recognised Silvere, began to speak of "the
+red girl." Thereupon the little citizen retraced his steps, in order to
+see the lover of the female standard-bearer, that depraved creature who
+had been mentioned in the "Gazette."
+
+Silvere, for his part, neither saw nor heard anything; Rengade had to
+seize him by the collar. Thereupon he got up, forcing Mourgue to rise
+also.
+
+"Come," said the gendarme. "It won't take long."
+
+Silvere then recognised the one-eyed man. He smiled. He must have
+understood. But he turned his head away. The sight of the one-eyed man,
+of his moustaches which congealed blood stiffened as with sinister rime,
+caused him profound grief. He would have liked to die in perfect peace.
+So he avoided the gaze of Rengade's one eye, which glared from beneath
+the white bandage. And of his own accord he proceeded to the end of
+the Aire Saint-Mittre, to the narrow lane hidden by the timber stacks.
+Mourgue followed him thither.
+
+The Aire stretched out, with an aspect of desolation under the sallow
+sky. A murky light fell here and there from the copper-coloured clouds.
+Never had a sadder and more lingering twilight cast its melancholy over
+this bare expanse--this wood-yard with its slumbering timber, so stiff
+and rigid in the cold. The prisoners, the soldiers, and the mob along
+the high road disappeared amid the darkness of the trees. The expanse,
+the beams, the piles of planks alone grew pale under the fading light,
+assuming a muddy tint that vaguely suggested the bed of a dried-up
+torrent. The sawyers' trestles, rearing their meagre framework in a
+corner, seemed to form gallows, or the uprights of a guillotine. And
+there was no living soul there excepting three gipsies who showed their
+frightened faces at the door of their van--an old man and woman, and a
+big girl with woolly hair, whose eyes gleamed like those of a wolf.
+
+Before reaching the secluded path, Silvere looked round him. He
+bethought himself of a far away Sunday when he had crossed the wood-yard
+in the bright moonlight. How calm and soft it had been!--how slowly had
+the pale rays passed over the beams! Supreme silence had fallen from the
+frozen sky. And amidst this silence, the woolly-haired gipsy girl had
+sung in a low key and an unknown tongue. Then Silvere remembered that
+the seemingly far-off Sunday was only a week old. But a week ago he had
+come to bid Miette farewell! How long past it seemed! He felt as though
+he had not set foot in the wood-yard for years. But when he reached the
+narrow path his heart failed him. He recognised the odour of the grass,
+the shadows of the planks, the holes in the wall. A woeful voice rose
+from all those things. The path stretched out sad and lonely; it seemed
+longer to him than usual, and he felt a cold wind blowing down it. The
+spot had aged cruelly. He saw that the wall was moss-eaten, that the
+verdant carpet was dried up by frost, that the piles of timber had been
+rotted by rain. It was perfect devastation. The yellow twilight fell
+like fine dust upon the ruins of all that had been most dear to him. He
+was obliged to close his eyes that he might again behold the lane green,
+and live his happy hours afresh. It was warm weather; and he was
+racing with Miette in the balmy air. Then the cruel December rains fell
+unceasingly, yet they still came there, sheltering themselves beneath
+the planks and listening with rapture to the heavy plashing of the
+shower. His whole life--all his happiness--passed before him like a
+flash of lightning. Miette was climbing over the wall, running to
+him, shaking with sonorous laughter. She was there; he could see her,
+gleaming white through the darkness, with her living helm of ink-black
+hair. She was talking about the magpies' nests, which are so difficult
+to steal, and she dragged him along with her. Then he heard the gentle
+murmur of the Viorne in the distance, the chirping of the belated
+grasshoppers, and the blowing of the breeze among the poplars in
+the meadows of Sainte-Claire. Ah, how they used to run! How well he
+remembered it! She had learnt to swim in a fortnight. She was a plucky
+girl. She had only had one great fault: she was inclined to pilfering.
+But he would have cured her of that. Then the thought of their first
+embraces brought him back to the narrow path. They had always ended by
+returning to that nook. He fancied he could hear the gipsy girl's song
+dying away, the creaking of the last shutters, the solemn striking of
+the clocks. Then the hour of separation came, and Miette climbed the
+wall again and threw him a kiss. And he saw her no more. Emotion choked
+him at the thought: he would never see her again--never!
+
+"When you're ready," jeered the one-eyed man; "come, choose your place."
+
+Silvere took a few more steps. He was approaching the end of the path,
+and could see nothing but a strip of sky in which the rust-coloured
+light was fading away. Here had he spent his life for two years past.
+The slow approach of death added an ineffable charm to this pathway
+which had so long served as a lovers' walk. He loitered, bidding a long
+and lingering farewell to all he loved; the grass, the timber, the stone
+of the old wall, all those things into which Miette had breathed life.
+And again his thoughts wandered. They were waiting till they should be
+old enough to marry: Aunt Dide would remain with them. Ah! if they had
+fled far away, very far away, to some unknown village, where the
+scamps of the Faubourg would no longer have been able to come and cast
+Chantegreil's crime in his daughter's face. What peaceful bliss! They
+would have opened a wheelwright's workshop beside some high road. No
+doubt, he cared little for his ambitions now; he no longer thought
+of coachmaking, of carriages with broad varnished panels as shiny as
+mirrors. In the stupor of his despair he could not remember why his
+dream of bliss would never come to pass. Why did he not go away with
+Miette and aunt Dide? Then as he racked his memory, he heard the sharp
+crackling of a fusillade; he saw a standard fall before him, its staff
+broken and its folds drooping like the wings of a bird brought down by a
+shot. It was the Republic falling asleep with Miette under the red flag.
+Ah, what wretchedness! They were both dead, both had bleeding wounds in
+their breasts. And it was they--the corpses of his two loves--that now
+barred his path of life. He had nothing left him and might well die
+himself. These were the thoughts that had made him so gentle, so
+listless, so childlike all the way from Sainte-Roure. The soldiers
+might have struck him, he would not have felt it. His spirit no longer
+inhabited his body. It was far away, prostrate beside the loved ones who
+were dead under the trees amidst the pungent smoke of the gunpowder.
+
+But the one-eyed man was growing impatient; giving a push to Mourgue,
+who was lagging behind, he growled: "Get along, do; I don't want to be
+here all night."
+
+Silvere stumbled. He looked at his feet. A fragment of a skull lay
+whitening in the grass. He thought he heard a murmur of voices filling
+the pathway. The dead were calling him, those long departed ones, whose
+warm breath had so strangely perturbed him and his sweetheart during
+the sultry July evenings. He recognised their low whispers. They were
+rejoicing, they were telling him to come, and promising to restore
+Miette to him beneath the earth, in some retreat which would prove
+still more sequestered than this old trysting-place. The cemetery, whose
+oppressive odours and dark vegetation had breathed eager desire into the
+children's hearts, while alluringly spreading out its couches of rank
+grass, without succeeding however in throwing them into one another's
+arms, now longed to imbibe Silvere's warm blood. For two summers past it
+had been expecting the young lovers.
+
+"Is it here?" asked the one-eyed man.
+
+Silvere looked in front of him. He had reached the end of the path. His
+eyes fell on the tombstone, and he started. Miette was right, that stone
+was for her. _"Here lieth . . . Marie . . . died . . . "_ She was
+dead, that slab had fallen over her. His strength failing him, he leant
+against the frozen stone. How warm it had been when they sat in that
+nook, chatting for many a long evening! She had always come that way,
+and the pressure of her foot, as she alighted from the wall, had worn
+away the stone's surface in one corner. The mark seemed instinct with
+something of her lissom figure. And to Silvere it appeared as if some
+fatalism attached to all these objects--as if the stone were there
+precisely in order that he might come to die beside it, there where he
+had loved.
+
+The one-eyed man cocked his pistols.
+
+Death! death! the thought fascinated Silvere. It was to this spot,
+then, that they had led him, by the long white road which descends from
+Sainte-Roure to Plassans. If he had known it, he would have hastened on
+yet more quickly in order to die on that stone, at the end of the
+narrow path, in the atmosphere where he could still detect the scent of
+Miette's breath! Never had he hoped for such consolation in his grief.
+Heaven was merciful. He waited, a vague smile playing on is face.
+
+Mourgue, meantime, had caught sight of the pistols. Hitherto he had
+allowed himself to be dragged along stupidly. But fear now overcame him,
+and he repeated, in a tone of despair: "I come from Poujols--I come from
+Poujols!"
+
+Then he threw himself on the ground, rolling at the gendarme's feet,
+breaking out into prayers for mercy, and imagining that he was being
+mistaken for some one else.
+
+"What does it matter to me that you come from Poujols?" Rengade
+muttered.
+
+And as the wretched man, shivering and crying with terror, and quite
+unable to understand why he was going to die, held out his trembling
+hands--his deformed, hard, labourer's hands--exclaiming in his patois
+that he had done nothing and ought to be pardoned, the one-eyed man grew
+quite exasperated at being unable to put the pistol to his temple, owing
+to his constant movements.
+
+"Will you hold your tongue?" he shouted.
+
+Thereupon Mourgue, mad with fright and unwilling to die, began to howl
+like a beast--like a pig that is being slaughtered.
+
+"Hold your tongue, you scoundrel!" the gendarme repeated.
+
+And he blew his brains out. The peasant fell with a thud. His body
+rolled to the foot of a timber-stack, where it remained doubled up. The
+violence of the shock had severed the rope which fastened him to his
+companion. Silvere fell on his knees before the tombstone.
+
+It was to make his vengeance the more terrible that Rengade had killed
+Mourgue first. He played with his second pistol, raising it slowly in
+order to relish Silvere's agony. But the latter looked at him quietly.
+Then again the sight of this man, with the one fierce, scorching eye,
+made him feel uneasy. He averted his glance, fearing that he might die
+cowardly if he continued to look at that feverishly quivering gendarme,
+with blood-stained bandage and bleeding moustache. However, as he raised
+his eyes to avoid him, he perceived Justin's head just above the wall,
+at the very spot where Miette had been wont to leap over.
+
+Justin had been at the Porte de Rome, among the crowd, when the gendarme
+had led the prisoners away. He had set off as fast as he could by way of
+the Jas-Meiffren, in his eagerness to witness the execution. The thought
+that he alone, of all the Faubourg scamps, would view the tragedy at
+his ease, as from a balcony, made him run so quickly that he twice fell
+down. And in spite of his wild chase, he arrived too late to witness the
+first shot. He climbed the mulberry tree in despair; but he smiled when
+he saw that Silvere still remained. The soldiers had informed him of
+his cousin's death, and now the murder of the wheelwright brought his
+happiness to a climax. He awaited the shot with that delight which the
+sufferings of others always afforded him--a delight increased tenfold by
+the horror of the scene, and a feeling of exquisite fear.
+
+Silvere, on recognising that vile scamp's head all by itself above the
+wall--that pale grinning face, with hair standing on end--experienced a
+feeling of fierce rage, a sudden desire to live. It was the last revolt
+of his blood--a momentary mutiny. He again sank down on his knees,
+gazing straight before him. A last vision passed before his eyes in
+the melancholy twilight. At the end of the path, at the entrance of the
+Impasse Saint-Mittre, he fancied he could see aunt Dide standing erect,
+white and rigid like the statue of a saint, while she witnessed his
+agony from a distance.
+
+At that moment he felt the cold pistol on his temple. There was a smile
+on Justin's pale face. Closing his eyes, Silvere heard the long-departed
+dead wildly summoning him. In the darkness, he now saw nothing save
+Miette, wrapped in the banner, under the trees, with her eyes turned
+towards heaven. Then the one-eyed man fired, and all was over; the lad's
+skull burst open like a ripe pomegranate; his face fell upon the stone,
+with his lips pressed to the spot which Miette's feet had worn--that
+warm spot which still retained a trace of his dead love.
+
+And in the evening at dessert, at the Rougons' abode, bursts of laughter
+arose with the fumes from the table, which was still warm with the
+remains of the dinner. At last the Rougons were nibbling at the
+pleasures of the wealthy! Their appetites, sharpened by thirty years
+of restrained desire, now fell to with wolfish teeth. These fierce,
+insatiate wild beasts, scarcely entering upon indulgence, exulted at
+the birth of the Empire--the dawn of the Rush for the Spoils. The Coup
+d'Etat, which retrieved the fortune of the Bonapartes, also laid the
+foundation for that of the Rougons.
+
+Pierre stood up, held out his glass, and exclaimed: "I drink to Prince
+Louis--to the Emperor!"
+
+The gentlemen, who had drowned their jealousies in champagne, rose in a
+body and clinked glasses with deafening shouts. It was a fine spectacle.
+The bourgeois of Plassans, Roudier, Granoux, Vuillet, and all the
+others, wept and embraced each other over the corpse of the Republic,
+which as yet was scarcely cold. But a splendid idea occurred to
+Sicardot. He took from Felicite's hair a pink satin bow, which she had
+placed over her right ear in honour of the occasion, cut off a strip
+of the satin with his dessert knife, and then solemnly fastened it
+to Rougon's button-hole. The latter feigned modesty, and pretended to
+resist. But his face beamed with joy, as he murmured: "No, I beg you, it
+is too soon. We must wait until the decree is published."
+
+"Zounds!" Sicardot exclaimed, "will you please keep that! It's an old
+soldier of Napoleon who decorates you!"
+
+The whole company burst into applause. Felicite almost swooned with
+delight. Silent Granoux jumped up on a chair in his enthusiasm, waving
+his napkin and making a speech which was lost amid the uproar. The
+yellow drawing-room was wild with triumph.
+
+But the strip of pink satin fastened to Pierre's button-hole was not
+the only red spot in that triumph of the Rougons. A shoe, with a
+blood-stained heel, still lay forgotten under the bedstead in the
+adjoining room. The taper burning at Monsieur Peirotte's bedside, over
+the way, gleamed too with the lurid redness of a gaping wound amidst
+the dark night. And yonder, far away, in the depths of the Aire
+Saint-Mittre, a pool of blood was congealing upon a tombstone.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortune of the Rougons, by Emile Zola
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune of the Rougons, by Emile Zola
+
+(#5 in our series by Emile Zola)
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+Title: The Fortune of the Rougons
+
+
+
+Author: Emile Zola
+
+
+
+Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5135]
+
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+
+[This file was first posted on May 11, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
+By Emile Zola
+
+Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnypg@yahoo.com
+              and John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz
+
+
+
+                      THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
+
+                                  BY
+
+                              EMILE ZOLA
+
+                       EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION
+                                  BY
+                       ERNEST ALFRED VIZETELLY
+
+
+
+                             INTRODUCTION
+
+"The Fortune of the Rougons" is the initial volume of the Rougon-
+Macquart series. Though it was by no means M. Zola's first essay in
+fiction, it was undoubtedly his first great bid for genuine literary
+fame, and the foundation of what must necessarily be regarded as his
+life-work. The idea of writing the "natural and social history of a
+family under the Second Empire," extending to a score of volumes, was
+doubtless suggested to M. Zola by Balzac's immortal "Comedie Humaine."
+He was twenty-eight years of age when this idea first occurred to him;
+he was fifty-three when he at last sent the manuscript of his
+concluding volume, "Dr. Pascal," to the press. He had spent five-and-
+twenty years in working out his scheme, persevering with it doggedly
+and stubbornly, whatever rebuffs he might encounter, whatever jeers
+and whatever insults might be directed against him by the ignorant,
+the prejudiced, and the hypocritical. Truth was on the march and
+nothing could stay it; even as, at the present hour, its march, if
+slow, none the less continues athwart another and a different crisis
+of the illustrious novelist's career.
+
+It was in the early summer of 1869 that M. Zola first began the actual
+writing of "The Fortune of the Rougons." It was only in the following
+year, however, that the serial publication of the work commenced in
+the columns of "Le Siecle," the Republican journal of most influence
+in Paris in those days of the Second Empire. The Franco-German war
+interrupted this issue of the story, and publication in book form did
+not take place until the latter half of 1871, a time when both the war
+and the Commune had left Paris exhausted, supine, with little or no
+interest in anything. No more unfavourable moment for the issue of an
+ambitious work of fiction could have been found. Some two or three
+years went by, as I well remember, before anything like a revival of
+literature and of public interest in literature took place. Thus, M.
+Zola launched his gigantic scheme under auspices which would have made
+many another man recoil. "The Fortune of the Rougons," and two or
+three subsequent volumes of his series, attracted but a moderate
+degree of attention, and it was only on the morrow of the publication
+of "L'Assommoir" that he awoke, like Byron, to find himself famous.
+
+As previously mentioned, the Rougon-Macquart series forms twenty
+volumes. The last of these, "Dr. Pascal," appeared in 1893. Since then
+M. Zola has written "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris." Critics have
+repeated /ad nauseam/ that these last works constitute a new departure
+on M. Zola's part, and, so far as they formed a new series, this is
+true. But the suggestion that he has in any way repented of the
+Rougon-Macquart novels is ridiculous. As he has often told me of
+recent years, it is, as far as possible, his plan to subordinate his
+style and methods to his subject. To have written a book like "Rome,"
+so largely devoted to the ambitions of the Papal See, in the same way
+as he had written books dealing with the drunkenness or other vices of
+Paris, would have been the climax of absurdity.
+
+Yet the publication of "Rome," was the signal for a general outcry on
+the part of English and American reviewers that Zolaism, as typified
+by the Rougon-Macquart series, was altogether a thing of the past. To
+my thinking this is a profound error. M. Zola has always remained
+faithful to himself. The only difference that I perceive between his
+latest work, "Paris," and certain Rougon-Macquart volumes, is that
+with time, experience and assiduity, his genius has expanded and
+ripened, and that the hesitation, the groping for truth, so to say,
+which may be found in some of his earlier writings, has disappeared.
+
+At the time when "The Fortune of the Rougons" was first published,
+none but the author himself can have imagined that the foundation-
+stone of one of the great literary monuments of the century had just
+been laid. From the "story" point of view the book is one of M. Zola's
+very best, although its construction--particularly as regards the long
+interlude of the idyll of Miette and Silvere--is far from being
+perfect. Such a work when first issued might well bring its author a
+measure of popularity, but it could hardly confer fame. Nowadays,
+however, looking backward, and bearing in mind that one here has the
+genius of M. Zola's lifework, "The Fortune of the Rougons" becomes a
+book of exceptional interest and importance. This has been so well
+understood by French readers that during the last six or seven years
+the annual sales of the work have increased threefold. Where, over a
+course of twenty years, 1,000 copies were sold, 2,500 and 3,000 are
+sold to-day. How many living English novelists can say the same of
+their early essays in fiction, issued more than a quarter of a century
+ago?
+
+I may here mention that at the last date to which I have authentic
+figures, that is, Midsummer 1897 (prior, of course, to what is called
+"L'Affaire Dreyfus"), there had been sold of the entire Rougon-
+Macquart series (which had begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies. These were
+of the ordinary Charpentier editions of the French originals. By
+adding thereto several /editions de luxe/ and the widely-circulated
+popular illustrated editions of certain volumes, the total amounts
+roundly to 2,100,000. "Rome," "Lourdes," "Paris," and all M. Zola's
+other works, apart from the "Rougon-Macquart" series, together with
+the translations into a dozen different languages--English, German,
+Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and
+others--are not included in the above figures. Otherwise the latter
+might well be doubled. Nor is account taken of the many serial issues
+which have brought M. Zola's views to the knowledge of the masses of
+all Europe.
+
+It is, of course, the celebrity attaching to certain of M. Zola's
+literary efforts that has stimulated the demand for his other
+writings. Among those which are well worthy of being read for their
+own sakes, I would assign a prominent place to the present volume.
+Much of the story element in it is admirable, and, further, it shows
+M. Zola as a genuine satirist and humorist. The Rougons' yellow
+drawing-room and its habitues, and many of the scenes between Pierre
+Rougon and his wife Felicite, are worthy of the pen of Douglas
+Jerrold. The whole account, indeed, of the town of Plassans, its
+customs and its notabilities, is satire of the most effective kind,
+because it is satire true to life, and never degenerates into mere
+caricature.
+
+It is a rather curious coincidence that, at the time when M. Zola was
+thus portraying the life of Provence, his great contemporary, bosom
+friend, and rival for literary fame, the late Alphonse Daudet, should
+have been producing, under the title of "The Provencal Don Quixote,"
+that unrivalled presentment of the foibles of the French Southerner,
+with everyone nowadays knows as "Tartarin of Tarascon." It is possible
+that M. Zola, while writing his book, may have read the instalments of
+"Le Don Quichotte Provencal" published in the Paris "Figaro," and it
+may be that this perusal imparted that fillip to his pen to which we
+owe the many amusing particulars that he gives us of the town of
+Plassans. Plassans, I may mention, is really the Provencal Aix, which
+M. Zola's father provided with water by means of a canal still bearing
+his name. M. Zola himself, though born in Paris, spent the greater
+part of his childhood there. Tarascon, as is well known, never forgave
+Alphonse Daudet for his "Tartarin"; and in a like way M. Zola, who
+doubtless counts more enemies than any other literary man of the
+period, has none bitterer than the worthy citizens of Aix. They cannot
+forget or forgive the rascally Rougon-Macquarts.
+
+The name Rougon-Macquart has to me always suggested that splendid and
+amusing type of the cynical rogue, Robert Macaire. But, of course,
+both Rougon and Macquart are genuine French names and not inventions.
+Indeed, several years ago I came by chance upon them both, in an old
+French deed which I was examining at the Bibliotheque Nationale in
+Paris. I there found mention of a Rougon family and a Macquart family
+dwelling virtually side by side in the same village. This, however,
+was in Champagne, not in Provence. Both families farmed vineyards for
+a once famous abbey in the vicinity of Epernay, early in the
+seventeenth century. To me, personally, this trivial discovery meant a
+great deal. It somehow aroused my interest in M. Zola and his works.
+Of the latter I had then only glanced through two or three volumes.
+With M. Zola himself I was absolutely unacquainted. However, I took
+the liberty to inform him of my little discovery; and afterwards I
+read all the books that he had published. Now, as it is fairly well
+known, I have given the greater part of my time, for several years
+past, to the task of familiarising English readers with his writings.
+An old deed, a chance glance, followed by the great friendship of my
+life and years of patient labour. If I mention this matter, it is
+solely with the object of endorsing the truth of the saying that the
+most insignificant incidents frequently influence and even shape our
+careers.
+
+But I must come back to "The Fortune of the Rougons." It has, as I
+have said, its satirical and humorous side; but it also contains a
+strong element of pathos. The idyll of Miette and Silvere is a very
+touching one, and quite in accord with the conditions of life
+prevailing in Provence at the period M. Zola selects for his
+narrative. Miette is a frank child of nature; Silvere, her lover, in
+certain respects foreshadows, a quarter of a century in advance, the
+Abbe Pierre Fromont of "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris." The environment
+differs, of course, but germs of the same nature may readily be
+detected in both characters. As for the other personages of M. Zola's
+book--on the one hand, Aunt Dide, Pierre Rougon, his wife, Felicite,
+and their sons Eugene, Aristide and Pascal, and, on the other,
+Macquart, his daughter Gervaise of "L'Assommoir," and his son Jean of
+"La Terre" and "La Debacle," together with the members of the Mouret
+branch of the ravenous, neurotic, duplex family--these are analysed or
+sketched in a way which renders their subsequent careers, as related
+in other volumes of the series, thoroughly consistent with their
+origin and their up-bringing. I venture to asset that, although it is
+possible to read individual volumes of the Rougon-Macquart series
+while neglecting others, nobody can really understand any one of these
+books unless he makes himself acquainted with the alpha and the omega
+of the edifice, that is, "The Fortune of the Rougons" and "Dr.
+Pascal."
+
+With regard to the present English translation, it is based on one
+made for my father several years ago. But to convey M. Zola's meaning
+more accurately I have found it necessary to alter, on an average, at
+least one sentence out of every three. Thus, though I only claim to
+edit the volume, it is, to all intents and purposes, quite a new
+English version of M. Zola's work.
+
+E. A. V.
+MERTON, SURREY: August, 1898.
+
+
+
+                           AUTHOR'S PREFACE
+
+I wish to explain how a family, a small group of human beings,
+conducts itself in a given social system after blossoming forth and
+giving birth to ten or twenty members, who, though they may appear, at
+the first glance, profoundly dissimilar one from the other, are, as
+analysis demonstrates, most closely linked together from the point of
+view of affinity. Heredity, like gravity, has its laws.
+
+By resolving the duplex question of temperament and environment, I
+shall endeavour to discover and follow the thread of connection which
+leads mathematically from one man to another. And when I have
+possession of every thread, and hold a complete social group in my
+hands, I shall show this group at work, participating in an historical
+period; I shall depict it in action, with all its varied energies, and
+I shall analyse both the will power of each member, and the general
+tendency of the whole.
+
+The great characteristic of the Rougon-Macquarts, the group or family
+which I propose to study, is their ravenous appetite, the great
+outburst of our age which rushes upon enjoyment. Physiologically the
+Rougon-Macquarts represent the slow succession of accidents pertaining
+to the nerves or the blood, which befall a race after the first
+organic lesion, and, according to environment, determine in each
+individual member of the race those feelings, desires and passions--
+briefly, all the natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to
+humanity--whose outcome assumes the conventional name of virtue or
+vice. Historically the Rougon-Macquarts proceed from the masses,
+radiate throughout the whole of contemporary society, and ascend to
+all sorts of positions by the force of that impulsion of essentially
+modern origin, which sets the lower classes marching through the
+social system. And thus the dramas of their individual lives recount
+the story of the Second Empire, from the ambuscade of the Coup d'Etat
+to the treachery of Sedan.
+
+For three years I had been collecting the necessary documents for this
+long work, and the present volume was even written, when the fall of
+the Bonapartes, which I needed artistically, and with, as if by fate,
+I ever found at the end of the drama, without daring to hope that it
+would prove so near at hand, suddenly occurred and furnished me with
+the terrible but necessary denouement for my work. My scheme is, at
+this date, completed; the circle in which my characters will revolve
+is perfected; and my work becomes a picture of a departed reign, of a
+strange period of human madness and shame.
+
+This work, which will comprise several episodes, is therefore, in my
+mind, the natural and social history of a family under the Second
+Empire. And the first episode, here called "The Fortune of the
+Rougons," should scientifically be entitled "The Origin."
+
+EMILE ZOLA
+PARIS, July 1, 1871.
+
+
+
+
+
+                      THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+On quitting Plassans by the Rome Gate, on the southern side of the
+town, you will find, on the right side of the road to Nice, and a
+little way past the first suburban houses, a plot of land locally
+known as the Aire Saint-Mittre.
+
+This Aire Saint-Mittre is of oblong shape and on a level with the
+footpath of the adjacent road, from which it is separated by a strip
+of trodden grass. A narrow blind alley fringed with a row of hovels
+borders it on the right; while on the left, and at the further end, it
+is closed in by bits of wall overgrown with moss, above which can be
+seen the top branches of the mulberry-trees of the Jas-Meiffren--an
+extensive property with an entrance lower down the road. Enclosed upon
+three sides, the Aire Saint-Mittre leads nowhere, and is only crossed
+by people out for a stroll.
+
+In former times it was a cemetery under the patronage of Saint-Mittre,
+a greatly honoured Provencal saint; and in 1851 the old people of
+Plassans could still remember having seen the wall of the cemetery
+standing, although the place itself had been closed for years. The
+soil had been so glutted with corpses that it had been found necessary
+to open a new burial-ground at the other end of town. Then the old
+abandoned cemetery had been gradually purified by the dark thick-set
+vegetation which had sprouted over it every spring. The rich soil, in
+which the gravediggers could no longer delve without turning up some
+human remains, was possessed of wondrous fertility. The tall weeds
+overtopped the walls after the May rains and the June sunshine so as
+to be visible from the high road; while inside, the place presented
+the appearance of a deep, dark green sea studded with large blossoms
+of singular brilliancy. Beneath one's feet amidst the close-set stalks
+one could feel that the damp soil reeked and bubbled with sap.
+
+Among the curiosities of the place at that time were some large pear-
+trees, with twisted and knotty boughs; but none of the housewives of
+Plassans cared to pluck the large fruit which grew upon them. Indeed,
+the townspeople spoke of this fruit with grimaces of disgust. No such
+delicacy, however, restrained the suburban urchins, who assembled in
+bands at twilight and climbed the walls to steal the pears, even
+before they were ripe.
+
+The trees and the weeds with their vigorous growth had rapidly
+assimilated all the decomposing matter in the old cemetery of Saint-
+Mittre; the malaria rising from the human remains interred there had
+been greedily absorbed by the flowers and the fruit; so that
+eventually the only odour one could detect in passing by was the
+strong perfume of wild gillyflowers. This had merely been a question
+of a few summers.
+
+At last the townspeople determined to utilise this common property,
+which had long served no purpose. The walls bordering the roadway and
+the blind alley were pulled down; the weeds and the pear-trees
+uprooted; the sepulchral remains were removed; the ground was dug
+deep, and such bones as the earth was willing to surrender were heaped
+up in a corner. For nearly a month the youngsters, who lamented the
+loss of the pear-trees, played at bowls with the skulls; and one night
+some practical jokers even suspended femurs and tibias to all the
+bell-handles of the town. This scandal, which is still remembered at
+Plassans, did not cease until the authorities decided to have the
+bones shot into a hole which had been dug for the purpose in the new
+cemetery. All work, however, is usually carried out with discreet
+dilatoriness in country towns, and so during an entire week the
+inhabitants saw a solitary cart removing these human remains as if
+they had been mere rubbish. The vehicle had to cross Plassans from end
+to end, and owing to the bad condition of the roads fragments of bones
+and handfuls of rich mould were scattered at every jolt. There was not
+the briefest religious ceremony, nothing but slow and brutish cartage.
+Never before had a town felt so disgusted.
+
+For several years the old cemetery remained an object of terror.
+Although it adjoined the main thoroughfare and was open to all comers,
+it was left quite deserted, a prey to fresh vegetable growth. The
+local authorities, who had doubtless counted on selling it and seeing
+houses built upon it, were evidently unable to find a purchaser. The
+recollection of the heaps of bones and the cart persistently jolting
+through the streets may have made people recoil from the spot; or
+perhaps the indifference that was shown was due to the indolence, the
+repugnance to pulling down and setting up again, which is
+characteristic of country people. At all events the authorities still
+retained possession of the ground, and at last forgot their desire to
+dispose of it. They did not even erect a fence round it, but left it
+open to all comers. Then, as time rolled on, people gradually grew
+accustomed to this barren spot; they would sit on the grass at the
+edges, walk about, or gather in groups. When the grass had been worn
+away and the trodden soil had become grey and hard, the old cemetery
+resembled a badly-levelled public square. As if the more effectually
+to efface the memory of all objectionable associations, the
+inhabitants slowly changed the very appellation of the place,
+retaining but the name of the saint, which was likewise applied to the
+blind alley dipping down at one corner of the field. Thus there was
+the Aire Saint-Mittre and the Impasse Saint-Mittre.
+
+All this dates, however, from some considerable time back. For more
+than thirty years now the Aire Saint-Mittre has presented a different
+appearance. One day the townspeople, far too inert and indifferent to
+derive any advantage from it, let it, for a trifling consideration, to
+some suburban wheelwrights, who turned it into a wood-yard. At the
+present day it is still littered with huge pieces of timber thirty or
+forty feet long, lying here and there in piles, and looking like lofty
+overturned columns. These piles of timber, disposed at intervals from
+one end of the yard to the other, are a continual source of delight to
+the local urchins. In some places the ground is covered with fallen
+wood, forming a kind of uneven flooring over which it is impossible to
+walk, unless one balance one's self with marvellous dexterity. Troops
+of children amuse themselves with this exercise all day long. You will
+see them jumping over the big beams, walking in Indian file along the
+narrow ends, or else crawling astride them; various games which
+generally terminate in blows and bellowings. Sometimes, too, a dozen
+of them will sit, closely packed one against the other, on the thin
+end of a pole raised a few feet from the ground, and will see-saw
+there for hours together. The Aire Saint-Mittre thus serves as a
+recreation ground, where for more than a quarter of a century all the
+little suburban ragamuffins have been in the habit of wearing out the
+seats of their breeches.
+
+The strangeness of the place is increased by the circumstance that
+wandering gipsies, by a sort of traditional custom always select the
+vacant portions of it for their encampments. Whenever any caravan
+arrives at Plassans it takes up its quarters on the Aire Saint-Mittre.
+The place is consequently never empty. There is always some strange
+band there, some troop of wild men and withered women, among whom
+groups of healthy-looking children roll about on the grass. These
+people live in the open air, regardless of everybody, setting their
+pots boiling, eating nameless things, freely displaying their tattered
+garments, and sleeping, fighting, kissing, and reeking with mingled
+filth and misery.
+
+The field, formerly so still and deserted, save for the buzzing of
+hornets around the rich blossoms in the heavy sunshine, has thus
+become a very rowdy spot, resounding with the noisy quarrels of the
+gipsies and the shrill cries of the urchins of the suburb. In one
+corner there is a primitive saw-mill for cutting the timber, the noise
+from which serves as a dull, continuous bass accompaniment to the
+sharp voices. The wood is placed on two high tressels, and a couple of
+sawyers, one of whom stands aloft on the timber itself, while the
+other underneath is half blinded by the falling sawdust, work a large
+saw to and fro for hours together, with rigid machine-like regularity,
+as if they were wire-pulled puppets. The wood they saw is stacked,
+plank by plank, along the wall at the end, in carefully arranged piles
+six or eight feet high, which often remain there several seasons, and
+constitute one of the charms of the Aire Saint-Mittre. Between these
+stacks are mysterious, retired little alleys leading to a broader path
+between the timber and the wall, a deserted strip of verdure whence
+only small patches of sky can be seen. The vigorous vegetation and the
+quivering, deathlike stillness of the old cemetery still reign in this
+path. In all the country round Plassans there is no spot more instinct
+with languor, solitude, and love. It is a most delightful place for
+love-making. When the cemetery was being cleared the bones must have
+been heaped up in this corner; for even to-day it frequently happens
+that one's foot comes across some fragment of a skull lying concealed
+in the damp turf.
+
+Nobody, however, now thinks of the bodies that once slept under that
+turf. In the daytime only the children go behind the piles of wood
+when playing at hide and seek. The green path remains virginal,
+unknown to others who see nought but the wood-yard crowded with timber
+and grey with dust. In the morning and afternoon, when the sun is
+warm, the whole place swarms with life. Above all the turmoil, above
+the ragamuffins playing among the timber, and the gipsies kindling
+fires under their cauldrons, the sharp silhouette of the sawyer
+mounted on his beam stands out against the sky, moving to and fro with
+the precision of clockwork, as if to regulate the busy activity that
+has sprung up in this spot once set apart for eternal slumber. Only
+the old people who sit on the planks, basking in the setting sun,
+speak occasionally among themselves of the bones which they once saw
+carted through the streets of Plassans by the legendary tumbrel.
+
+When night falls the Aire Saint-Mittre loses its animation, and looks
+like some great black hole. At the far end one may just espy the dying
+embers of the gipsies' fires, and at times shadows slink noiselessly
+into the dense darkness. The place becomes quite sinister,
+particularly in winter time.
+
+One Sunday evening, at about seven o'clock, a young man stepped
+lightly from the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and, closely skirting the
+walls, took his way among the timber in the wood-yard. It was in the
+early part of December, 1851. The weather was dry and cold. The full
+moon shone with that sharp brilliancy peculiar to winter moons. The
+wood-yard did not have the forbidding appearance which it wears on
+rainy nights; illumined by stretches of white light, and wrapped in
+deep and chilly silence, it spread around with a soft, melancholy
+aspect.
+
+For a few seconds the young man paused on the edge of the yard and
+gazed mistrustfully in front of him. He carried a long gun, the butt-
+end of which was hidden under his jacket, while the barrel, pointed
+towards the ground, glittered in the moonlight. Pressing the weapon to
+his side, he attentively examined the square shadows cast by the piles
+of timber. The ground looked like a chess-board, with black and white
+squares clearly defined by alternate patches of light and shade. The
+sawyers' tressels in the centre of the plot threw long, narrow
+fantastic shadows, suggesting some huge geometrical figure, upon a
+strip of bare grey ground. The rest of the yard, the flooring of
+beams, formed a great couch on which the light reposed, streaked here
+and there with the slender black shadows which edged the different
+pieces of timber. In the frigid silence under the wintry moon, the
+motionless, recumbent poles, stiffened, as it were, with sleep and
+cold, recalled the corpses of the old cemetery. The young man cast but
+a rapid glance round the empty space; there was not a creature, not a
+sound, no danger of being seen or heard. The black patches at the
+further end caused him more anxiety, but after a brief examination he
+plucked up courage and hurriedly crossed the wood-yard.
+
+As soon as he felt himself under cover he slackened his pace. He was
+now in the green pathway skirting the wall behind the piles of planks.
+Here his very footsteps became inaudible; the frozen grass scarcely
+crackled under his tread. He must have loved the spot, have feared no
+danger, sought nothing but what was pleasant there. He no longer
+concealed his gun. The path stretched away like a dark trench, except
+that the moonrays, gliding ever and anon between the piles of timber,
+then streaked the grass with patches of light. All slept, both
+darkness and light, with the same deep, soft, sad slumber. No words
+can describe the calm peacefulness of the place. The young man went
+right down the path, and stopped at the end where the walls of the
+Jas-Meiffren form an angle. Here he listened as if to ascertain
+whether any sound might be coming from the adjoining estate. At last,
+hearing nothing, he stooped down, thrust a plank aside, and hid his
+gun in a timber-stack.
+
+An old tombstone, which had been overlooked in the clearing of the
+burial-ground, lay in the corner, resting on its side and forming a
+high and slightly sloping seat. The rain had worn its edges, and moss
+was slowly eating into it. Nevertheless, the following fragment of an
+inscription, cut on the side which was sinking into the ground, might
+still have been distinguished in the moonlight: "/Here lieth . . .
+Marie . . . died . . ./" The finger of time had effaced the rest.
+
+When the young man had concealed his gun he again listened
+attentively, and still hearing nothing, resolved to climb upon the
+stone. The wall being low, he was able to rest his elbows on the
+coping. He could, however, perceive nothing except a flood of light
+beyond the row of mulberry-trees skirting the wall. The flat ground of
+the Jas-Meiffren spread out under the moon like an immense sheet of
+unbleached linen; a hundred yards away the farmhouse and its
+outbuildings formed a still whiter patch. The young man was still
+gazing anxiously in that direction when, suddenly, one of the town
+clocks slowly and solemnly struck seven. He counted the strokes, and
+then jumped down, apparently surprised and relieved.
+
+He seated himself on the tombstone, like one who is prepared to wait
+some considerable time. And for about half an hour he remained
+motionless and deep in thought, apparently quite unconscious of the
+cold, while his eyes gazed fixedly at a mass of shadow. He had placed
+himself in a dark corner, but the beams of the rising moon had
+gradually reached him, and at last his head was in the full light.
+
+He was a strong, sturdy-looking lad, with a fine mouth, and soft
+delicate skin that bespoke youthfulness. He looked about seventeen
+years of age, and was handsome in a characteristic way.
+
+His thin, long face looked like the work of some master sculptor; his
+high forehead, overhanging brows, aquiline nose, broad flat chin, and
+protruding cheek bones, gave singularly bold relief to his
+countenance. Such a face would, with advancing age, become too bony,
+as fleshless as that of a knight errant. But at this stage of youth,
+with chin and cheek lightly covered with soft down, its latent
+harshness was attenuated by the charming softness of certain contours
+which had remained vague and childlike. His soft black eyes, still
+full of youth, also lent delicacy to his otherwise vigorous
+countenance. The young fellow would probably not have fascinated all
+women, as he was not what one calls a handsome man; but his features,
+as a whole, expressed such ardent and sympathetic life, such
+enthusiasm and energy, that they doubtless engaged the thoughts of the
+girls of his own part--those sunburnt girls of the South--as he passed
+their doors on sultry July evenings.
+
+He remained seated upon the tombstone, wrapped in thought, and
+apparently quite unconscious of the moonlight which now fell upon his
+chest and legs. He was of middle stature, rather thick-set, with over-
+developed arms and a labourer's hands, already hardened by toil; his
+feet, shod with heavy laced boots, looked large and square-toed. His
+general appearance, more particularly the heaviness of his limbs,
+bespoke lowly origin. There was, however, something in him, in the
+upright bearing of his neck and the thoughtful gleams of his eyes,
+which seemed to indicate an inner revolt against the brutifying manual
+labour which was beginning to bend him to the ground. He was, no
+doubt, an intelligent nature buried beneath the oppressive burden of
+race and class; one of those delicate refined minds embedded in a
+rough envelope, from which they in vain struggle to free themselves.
+Thus, in spite of his vigour, he seemed timid and restless, feeling a
+kind of unconscious shame at his imperfection. An honest lad he
+doubtless was, whose very ignorance had generated enthusiasm, whose
+manly heart was impelled by childish intellect, and who could show
+alike the submissiveness of a woman and the courage of a hero. On the
+evening in question he was dressed in a coat and trousers of greenish
+corduroy. A soft felt hat, placed lightly on the back of his head,
+cast a streak of shadow over his brow.
+
+As the neighbouring clock struck the half hour, he suddenly started
+from his reverie. Perceiving that the white moonlight was shining full
+upon him, he gazed anxiously ahead. Then he abruptly dived back into
+the shade, but was unable to recover the thread of his thoughts. He
+now realised that his hands and feet were becoming very cold, and
+impatience seized hold of him. So he jumped upon the stone again, and
+once more glanced over the Jas-Meiffren, which was still empty and
+silent. Finally, at a loss how to employ his time, he jumped down,
+fetched his gun from the pile of planks where he had concealed it, and
+amused himself by working the trigger. The weapon was a long, heavy
+carbine, which had doubtless belonged to some smuggler. The thickness
+of the butt and the breech of the barrel showed it to be an old
+flintlock which had been altered into a percussion gun by some local
+gunsmith. Such firearms are to be found in farmhouses, hanging against
+the wall over the chimney-piece. The young man caressed his weapon
+with affection; twenty times or more he pulled the trigger, thrust his
+little finger into the barrel, and examined the butt attentively. By
+degrees he grew full of youth enthusiasm, combined with childish
+frolicsomeness, and ended by levelling his weapon and aiming at space,
+like a recruit going through his drill.
+
+It was now very nearly eight o'clock, and he had been holding his gun
+levelled for over a minute, when all at once a low, panting call,
+light as a breath, came from the direction of the Jas-Meiffren.
+
+"Are you there, Silvere?" the voice asked.
+
+Silvere dropped his gun and bounded on to the tombstone.
+
+"Yes, yes," he replied, also in a hushed voice. "Wait, I'll help you."
+
+Before he could stretch out his arms, however, a girl's head appeared
+above the wall. With singular agility the damsel had availed herself
+of the trunk of a mulberry-tree, and climbed aloft like a kitten. The
+ease and certainty with which she moved showed that she was familiar
+with this strange spot. In another moment she was seated on the coping
+of the wall. Then Silvere, taking her in his arms, carried her, though
+not without a struggle, to the seat.
+
+"Let go," she laughingly cried; "let go, I can get down alone very
+well." And when she was seated on the stone slab she added:
+
+"Have you been waiting for me long? I've been running, and am quite
+out of breath."
+
+Silvere made no reply. He seemed in no laughing humour, but gazed
+sorrowfully into the girl's face. "I wanted to see you, Miette," he
+said, as he seated himself beside her. "I should have waited all night
+for you. I am going away at daybreak to-morrow morning."
+
+Miette had just caught sight of the gun lying on the grass, and with a
+thoughtful air, she murmured: "Ah! so it's decided then? There's your
+gun!"
+
+"Yes," replied Silvere, after a brief pause, his voice still
+faltering, "it's my gun. I thought it best to remove it from the house
+to-night; to-morrow morning aunt Dide might have seen me take it, and
+have felt uneasy about it. I am going to hide it, and shall fetch it
+just before starting."
+
+Then, as Miette could not remove her eyes from the weapon which he had
+so foolishly left on the grass, he jumped up and again hid it among
+the woodstacks.
+
+"We learnt this morning," he said, as he resumed his seat, "that the
+insurgents of La Palud and Saint Martin-de-Vaulx were on the march,
+and spent last night at Alboise. We have decided to join them. Some of
+the workmen of Plassans have already left the town this afternoon;
+those who still remain will join their brothers to-morrow."
+
+He spoke the word brothers with youthful emphasis.
+
+"A contest is becoming inevitable," he added; "but, at any rate, we
+have right on our side, and we shall triumph."
+
+Miette listened to Silvere, her eyes meantime gazing in front of her,
+without observing anything.
+
+"'Tis well," she said, when he had finished speaking. And after a
+fresh pause she continued: "You warned me, yet I still hoped. . . .
+However, it is decided."
+
+Neither of them knew what else to say. The green path in the deserted
+corner of the wood-yard relapsed into melancholy stillness; only the
+moon chased the shadows of the piles of timber over the grass. The two
+young people on the tombstone remained silent and motionless in the
+pale light. Silvere had passed his arm round Miette's waist, and she
+was leaning against his shoulder. They exchanged no kisses, naught but
+an embrace in which love showed the innocent tenderness of fraternal
+affection.
+
+Miette was enveloped in a long brown hooded cloak reaching to her
+feet, and leaving only her head and hands visible. The women of the
+lower classes in Provence--the peasantry and workpeople--still wear
+these ample cloaks, which are called pelisses; it is a fashion which
+must have lasted for ages. Miette had thrown back her hood on
+arriving. Living in the open air and born of a hotblooded race, she
+never wore a cap. Her bare head showed in bold relief against the
+wall, which the moonlight whitened. She was still a child, no doubt,
+but a child ripening into womanhood. She had reached that adorable,
+uncertain hour when the frolicsome girl changes to a young woman. At
+that stage of life a bud-like delicacy, a hesitancy of contour that is
+exquisitely charming, distinguishes young girls. The outlines of
+womanhood appear amidst girlhood's innocent slimness, and woman shoots
+forth at first all embarrassment, still retaining much of the child,
+and ever and unconsciously betraying her sex. This period is very
+unpropitious for some girls, who suddenly shoot up, become ugly,
+sallow and frail, like plants before their due season. For those,
+however, who, like Miette, are healthy and live in the open air, it is
+a time of delightful gracefulness which once passed can never be
+recalled.
+
+Miette was thirteen years of age, and although strong and sturdy did
+not look any older, so bright and childish was the smile which lit up
+her countenance. However, she was nearly as tall as Silvere, plump and
+full of life. Like her lover, she had no common beauty. She would not
+have been considered ugly, but she might have appeared peculiar to
+many young exquisites. Her rich black hair rose roughly erect above
+her forehead, streamed back like a rushing wave, and flowed over her
+head and neck like an inky sea, tossing and bubbling capriciously. It
+was very thick and inconvenient to arrange. However, she twisted it as
+tightly as possible into coils as thick as a child's fist, which she
+wound together at the back of her head. She had little time to devote
+to her toilette, but this huge chignon, hastily contrived without the
+aid of any mirror, was often instinct with vigorous grace. On seeing
+her thus naturally helmeted with a mass of frizzy hair which hung
+about her neck and temples like a mane, one could readily understand
+why she always went bareheaded, heedless alike of rain and frost.
+
+Under her dark locks appeared her low forehead, curved and golden like
+a crescent moon. Her large prominent eyes, her short tip-tilted nose
+with dilated nostrils, and her thick ruddy lips, when regarded apart
+from one another, would have looked ugly; viewed, however, all
+together, amidst the delightful roundness and vivacious mobility of
+her countenance, they formed an ensemble of strange, surprising
+beauty. When Miette laughed, throwing back her head and gently resting
+it on her right shoulder, she resembled an old-time Bacchante, her
+throat distending with sonorous gaiety, her cheeks round like those of
+a child, her teeth large and white, her twists of woolly hair tossed
+by every outburst of merriment, and waving like a crown of vine
+leaves. To realise that she was only a child of thirteen, one had to
+notice the innocence underlying her full womanly laughter, and
+especially the child-like delicacy of her chin and soft transparency
+of her temples. In certain lights Miette's sun-tanned face showed
+yellow like amber. A little soft black down already shaded her upper
+lip. Toil too was beginning to disfigure her small hands, which, if
+left idle, would have become charmingly plump and delicate.
+
+Miette and Silvere long remained silent. They were reading their own
+anxious thoughts, and, as they pondered upon the unknown terrors of
+the morrow, they tightened their mutual embrace. Their hearts communed
+with each other, they understood how useless and cruel would be any
+verbal plaint. The girl, however, could at last no longer contain
+herself, and, choking with emotion, she gave expression, in one
+phrase, to their mutual misgivings.
+
+"You will come back again, won't you?" she whispered, as she hung on
+Silvere's neck.
+
+Silvere made no reply, but, half-stifling, and fearing lest he should
+give way to tears like herself, he kissed her in brotherly fashion on
+the cheek, at a loss for any other consolation. Then disengaging
+themselves they again lapsed into silence.
+
+After a moment Miette shuddered. Now that she no longer leant against
+Silvere's shoulder she was becoming icy cold. Yet she would not have
+shuddered thus had she been in this deserted path the previous
+evening, seated on this tombstone, where for several seasons they had
+tasted so much happiness.
+
+"I'm very cold," she said, as she pulled her hood over her head.
+
+"Shall we walk about a little?" the young man asked her. "It's not yet
+nine o'clock; we can take a stroll along the road."
+
+Miette reflected that for a long time she would probably not have the
+pleasure of another meeting--another of those evening chats, the joy
+of which served to sustain her all day long.
+
+"Yes, let us walk a little," she eagerly replied. "Let us go as far as
+the mill. I could pass the whole night like this if you wanted to."
+
+They rose from the tombstone, and were soon hidden in the shadow of a
+pile of planks. Here Miette opened her cloak, which had a quilted
+lining of red twill, and threw half of it over Silvere's shoulders,
+thus enveloping him as he stood there close beside her. The same
+garment cloaked them both, and they passed their arms round each
+other's waist, and became as it were but one being. When they were
+thus shrouded in the pelisse they walked slowly towards the high road,
+fearlessly crossing the vacant parts of the wood-yard, which looked
+white in the moonlight. Miette had thrown the cloak over Silvere, and
+he had submitted to it quite naturally, as though indeed the garment
+rendered them a similar service every evening.
+
+The road to Nice, on either side of which the suburban houses are
+built, was, in the year 1851, lined with ancient elm-trees, grand and
+gigantic ruins, still full of vigour, which the fastidious town
+council has replaced, some years since, by some little plane-trees.
+When Silvere and Miette found themselves under the elms, the huge
+boughs of which cast shadows on the moonlit footpath, they met now and
+again black forms which silently skirted the house fronts. These, too,
+were amorous couples, closely wrapped in one and the same cloak, and
+strolling in the darkness.
+
+This style of promenading has been instituted by the young lovers of
+Southern towns. Those boys and girls among the people who mean to
+marry sooner or later, but who do not dislike a kiss or two in
+advance, know no spot where they can kiss at their ease without
+exposing themselves to recognition and gossip. Accordingly, while
+strolling about the suburbs, the plots of waste land, the footpaths of
+the high road--in fact, all these places where there are few passers-
+by and numerous shady nooks--they conceal their identity by wrapping
+themselves in these long cloaks, which are capacious enough to cover a
+whole family. The parents tolerate these proceedings; however stiff
+may be provincial propriety, no apprehensions, seemingly, are
+entertained. And, on the other hand, nothing could be more charming
+than these lovers' rambles, which appeal so keenly to the Southerner's
+fanciful imagination. There is a veritable masquerade, fertile in
+innocent enjoyments, within the reach of the most humble. The girl
+clasps her sweetheart to her bosom, enveloping him in her own warm
+cloak; and no doubt it is delightful to be able to kiss one's
+sweetheart within those shrouding folds without danger of being
+recognised. One couple is exactly like another. And to the belated
+pedestrian, who sees the vague groups gliding hither and thither, 'tis
+merely love passing, love guessed and scarce espied. The lovers know
+they are safely concealed within their cloaks, they converse in
+undertones and make themselves quite at home; most frequently they do
+not converse at all, but walk along at random and in silence, content
+in their embrace. The climate alone is to blame for having in the
+first instance prompted these young lovers to retire to secluded spots
+in the suburbs. On fine summer nights one cannot walk round Plassans
+without coming across a hooded couple in every patch of shadow falling
+from the house walls. Certain places, the Aire Saint-Mittre, for
+instance, are full of these dark "dominoes" brushing past one another,
+gliding softly in the warm nocturnal air. One might imagine they were
+guests invited to some mysterious ball given by the stars to lowly
+lovers. When the weather is very warm and the girls do not wear
+cloaks, they simply turn up their over-skirts. And in the winter the
+more passionate lovers make light of the frosts. Thus, Miette and
+Silvere, as they descended the Nice road, thought little of the chill
+December night.
+
+They passed through the slumbering suburb without exchanging a word,
+but enjoying the mute delight of their warm embrace. Their hearts were
+heavy; the joy which they felt in being side by side was tinged with
+the painful emotion which comes from the thought of approaching
+severance, and it seemed to them that they could never exhaust the
+mingled sweetness and bitterness of the silence which slowly lulled
+their steps. But the houses soon grew fewer, and they reached the end
+of the Faubourg. There stands the entrance to the Jas-Meiffren, an
+iron gate fixed to two strong pillars; a low row of mulberry-trees
+being visible through the bars. Silvere and Miette instinctively cast
+a glance inside as they passed on.
+
+Beyond the Jas-Meiffren the road descends with a gentle slope to a
+valley, which serves as the bed of a little rivulet, the Viorne, a
+brook in summer but a torrent in winter. The rows of elms still
+extended the whole way at that time, making the high road a
+magnificent avenue, which cast a broad band of gigantic trees across
+the hill, which was planted with corn and stunted vines. On that
+December night, under the clear cold moonlight, the newly-ploughed
+fields stretching away on either hand resembled vast beds of greyish
+wadding which deadened every sound in the atmosphere. The dull murmur
+of the Viorne in the distance alone sent a quivering thrill through
+the profound silence of the country-side.
+
+When the young people had begun to descend the avenue, Miette's
+thoughts reverted to the Jas-Meiffren which they had just left behind
+them.
+
+"I had great difficulty in getting away this evening," she said. "My
+uncle wouldn't let me go. He had shut himself up in a cellar, where he
+was hiding his money, I think, for he seemed greatly frightened this
+morning at the events that are taking place."
+
+Silvere clasped her yet more lovingly. "Be brave!" said he. "The time
+will come when we shall be able to see each other freely the whole day
+long. You must not fret."
+
+"Oh," replied the girl, shaking her head, "you are very hopeful. For
+my part I sometimes feel very sad. It isn't the hard work which
+grieves me; on the contrary, I am often very glad of my uncle's
+severity, and the tasks he sets me. He was quite right to make me a
+peasant girl; I should perhaps have turned out badly, for, do you
+know, Silvere, there are moments when I fancy myself under a curse.
+. . . I feel, then, that I should like to be dead. . . . I think of
+you know whom."
+
+As she spoke these last words, her voice broke into a sob. Silvere
+interrupted her somewhat harshly. "Be quiet," he said. "You promised
+not to think about it. It's no crime of yours. . . . We love each
+other very much, don't we?" he added in a gentler tone. "When we're
+married you'll have no more unpleasant hours."
+
+"I know," murmured Miette. "You are so kind, you sustain me. But what
+am I to do? I sometimes have fears and feelings of revolt. I think at
+times that I have been wronged, and then I should like to do something
+wicked. You see I pour forth my heart to you. Whenever my father's
+name is thrown in my face, I feel my whole body burning. When the
+urchins cry at me as I pass, 'Eh, La Chantegreil,' I lose all control
+of myself, and feel that I should like to lay hold of them and whip
+them."
+
+After a savage pause she resumed: "As for you, you're a man; you're
+going to fight; you're very lucky."
+
+Silvere had let her speak on. After a few steps he observed
+sorrowfully: "You are wrong, Miette; yours is bad anger. You shouldn't
+rebel against justice. As for me, I'm going to fight in defence of our
+common rights, not to gratify any personal animosity."
+
+"All the same," the young girl continued, "I should like to be a man
+and handle a gun. I feel that it would do me good."
+
+Then, as Silvere remained silent, she perceived that she had
+displeased him. Her feverishness subsided, and she whispered in a
+supplicating tone: "You are not angry with me, are you? It's your
+departure which grieves me and awakens such ideas. I know very well
+you are right--that I ought to be humble."
+
+Then she began to cry, and Silvere, moved by her tears, grasped her
+hands and kissed them.
+
+"See, now, how you pass from anger to tears, like a child," he said
+lovingly. "You must be reasonable. I'm not scolding you. I only want
+to see you happier, and that depends largely upon yourself."
+
+The remembrance of the drama which Miette had so sadly evoked cast a
+temporary gloom over the lovers. They continued their walk with bowed
+heads and troubled thoughts.
+
+"Do you think I'm much happier than you?" Silvere at last inquired,
+resuming the conversation in spite of himself. "If my grandmother had
+not taken care of me and educated me, what would have become of me?
+With the exception of my Uncle Antoine, who is an artisan like myself,
+and who taught me to love the Republic, all my other relations seem to
+fear that I might besmirch them by coming near them."
+
+He was now speaking with animation, and suddenly stopped, detaining
+Miette in the middle of the road.
+
+"God is my witness," he continued, "that I do not envy or hate
+anybody. But if we triumph, I shall have to tell the truth to those
+fine gentlemen. Uncle Antoine knows all about this matter. You'll see
+when we return. We shall all live free and happy."
+
+Then Miette gently led him on, and they resumed their walk.
+
+"You dearly love your Republic?" the girl asked, essaying a joke. "Do
+you love me as much?"
+
+Her smile was not altogether free from a tinge of bitterness. She was
+thinking, perhaps, how easily Silvere abandoned her to go and scour
+the country-side. But the lad gravely replied: "You are my wife, to
+whom I have given my whole heart. I love the Republic because I love
+you. When we are married we shall want plenty of happiness, and it is
+to procure a share of that happiness that I'm going way to-morrow
+morning. You surely don't want to persuade me to remain at home?"
+
+"Oh, no!" cried the girl eagerly. "A man should be brave! Courage is
+beautiful! You must forgive my jealousy. I should like to be as
+strong-minded as you are. You would love me all the more, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+After a moment's silence she added, with charming vivacity and
+ingenuousness: "Ah, how willingly I shall kiss you when you come
+back!"
+
+This outburst of a loving and courageous heart deeply affected
+Silvere. He clasped Miette in his arms and printed several kisses on
+her cheek. As she laughingly struggled to escape him, her eyes filled
+with tears of emotion.
+
+All around the lovers the country still slumbered amid the deep
+stillness of the cold. They were now half-way down the hill. On the
+top of a rather lofty hillock to the left stood the ruins of a
+windmill, blanched by the moon; the tower, which had fallen in on one
+side, alone remained. This was the limit which the young people had
+assigned to their walk. They had come straight from the Faubourg
+without casting a single glance at the fields between which they
+passed. When Silvere had kissed Miette's cheek, he raised his head and
+observed the mill.
+
+"What a long walk we've had!" he exclaimed. "See--here is the mill. It
+must be nearly half-past nine. We must go home."
+
+But Miette pouted. "Let us walk a little further," she implored; "only
+a few steps, just as far as the little cross-road, no farther,
+really."
+
+Silvere smiled as he again took her round the waist. Then they
+continued to descend the hill, no longer fearing inquisitive glances,
+for they had not met a living soul since passing the last houses. They
+nevertheless remained enveloped in the long pelisse, which seemed, as
+it were, a natural nest for their love. It had shrouded them on so
+many happy evenings! Had they simply walked side by side, they would
+have felt small and isolated in that vast stretch of country, whereas,
+blended together as they were, they became bolder and seemed less
+puny. Between the folds of the pelisse they gazed upon the fields
+stretching on both sides of the road, without experiencing that
+crushing feeling with which far-stretching callous vistas oppress the
+human affections. It seemed to them as though they had brought their
+house with them; they felt a pleasure in viewing the country-side as
+from a window, delighting in the calm solitude, the sheets of
+slumbering light, the glimpses of nature vaguely distinguishable
+beneath the shroud of night and winter, the whole of that valley
+indeed, which while charming them could not thrust itself between
+their close-pressed hearts.
+
+All continuity of conversation had ceased; they spoke no more of
+others, nor even of themselves. They were absorbed by the present,
+pressing each other's hands, uttering exclamations at the sight of
+some particular spot, exchanging words at rare intervals, and then
+understanding each other but little, for drowsiness came from the
+warmth of their embrace. Silvere forgot his Republican enthusiasm;
+Miette no longer reflected that her lover would be leaving her in an
+hour, for a long time, perhaps for ever. The transports of their
+affection lulled them into a feeling of security, as on other days,
+when no prospect of parting had marred the tranquility of their
+meetings.
+
+They still walked on, and soon reached the little crossroad mentioned
+by Miette--a bit of a lane which led through the fields to a village
+on the banks of the Viorne. But they passed on, pretending not to
+notice this path, where they had agreed to stop. And it was only some
+minutes afterwards that Silvere whispered, "It must be very late; you
+will get tired."
+
+"No; I assure you I'm not at all tired," the girl replied. "I could
+walk several leagues like this easily." Then, in a coaxing tone, she
+added: "Let us go down as far as the meadows of Sainte-Claire. There
+we will really stop and turn back."
+
+Silvere, whom the girl's rhythmic gait lulled to semi-somnolence, made
+no objection, and their rapture began afresh. They now went on more
+slowly, fearing the moment when they would have to retrace their
+steps. So long as they walked onward, they felt as though they were
+advancing to the eternity of their mutual embrace; the return would
+mean separation and bitter leave-taking.
+
+The declivity of the road was gradually becoming more gentle. In the
+valley below there are meadows extending as far as the Viorne, which
+runs at the other end, beneath a range of low hills. These meadows,
+separated from the high-road by thickset hedges, are the meadows of
+Sainte-Claire.
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Silvere this time, as he caught sight of the first
+patches of grass: "we may as well go as far as the bridge."
+
+At this Miette burst out laughing, clasped the young man round the
+neck, and kissed him noisily.
+
+At the spot where the hedges begin, there were in those days two elms
+forming the end of the long avenue, two colossal trees larger than any
+of the others. The treeless fields stretch out from the high road,
+like a broad band of green wool, as far as the willows and birches by
+the river. The distance from the last elms to the bridge is scarcely
+three hundred yards. The lovers took a good quarter of an hour to
+cover that space. At last, however slow their gait, they reached the
+bridge, and there they stopped.
+
+The road to Nice ran up in front of them, along the opposite slope of
+the valley. But they could only see a small portion of it, as it takes
+a sudden turn about half a mile from the bridge, and is lost to view
+among the wooded hills. On looking round they caught sight of the
+other end of the road, that which they had just traversed, and which
+leads in a direct line from Plassans to the Viorne. In the beautiful
+winter moonlight it looked like a long silver ribbon, with dark
+edgings traced by the rows of elms. On the right and left the ploughed
+hill-land showed like vast, grey, vague seas intersected by this
+ribbon, this roadway white with frost, and brilliant as with metallic
+lustre. Up above, on a level with the horizon, lights shone from a few
+windows in the Faubourg, resembling glowing sparks. By degrees Miette
+and Silvere had walked fully a league. They gazed at the intervening
+road, full of silent admiration for the vast amphitheatre which rose
+to the verge of the heavens, and over which flowed bluish streams of
+light, as over the superposed rocks of a gigantic waterfall. The
+strange and colossal picture spread out amid deathlike stillness and
+silence. Nothing could have been of more sovereign grandeur.
+
+Then the young people, having leant against the parapet of the bridge,
+gazed beneath them. The Viorne, swollen by the rains, flowed on with a
+dull, continuous sound. Up and down stream, despite the darkness which
+filled the hollows, they perceived the black lines of the trees
+growing on the banks; here and there glided the moonbeams, casting a
+trail of molten metal, as it were, over the water, which glittered and
+danced like rays of light on the scales of some live animal. The
+gleams darted with a mysterious charm along the gray torrent, betwixt
+the vague phantom-like foliage. You might have thought this an
+enchanted valley, some wondrous retreat where a community of shadows
+and gleams lived a fantastic life.
+
+This part of the river was familiar to the lovers; they had often come
+here in search of coolness on warm July nights; they had spent hours
+hidden among the clusters of willows on the right bank, at the spot
+where the meadows of Sainte-Claire spread their verdant carpet to the
+waterside. They remembered every bend of the bank, the stones on which
+they had stepped in order to cross the Viorne, at that season as
+narrow as a brooklet, and certain little grassy hollows where they had
+indulged in their dreams of love. Miette, therefore, now gazed from
+the bridge at the right bank of the torrent with longing eyes.
+
+"If it were warmer," she sighed, "we might go down and rest awhile
+before going back up the hill." Then, after a pause, during which she
+kept her eyes fixed on the banks, she resumed: "Look down there,
+Silvere, at that black mass yonder in front of the lock. Do you
+remember? That's the brushwood where we sat last Corpus Christi Day."
+
+"Yes, so it is," replied Silvere, softly.
+
+This was the spot where they had first ventured to kiss each other on
+the cheek. The remembrance just roused by the girl's words brought
+both of them a delightful feeling, an emotion in which the joys of the
+past mingled with the hopes of the morrow. Before their eyes, with the
+rapidity of lightening, there passed all the delightful evenings they
+had spent together, especially that evening of Corpus Christi Day,
+with the warm sky, the cool willows of the Viorne, and their own
+loving talk. And at the same time, whilst the past came back to their
+hearts full of a delightful savour, they fancied they could plunge
+into the unknown future, see their dreams realised, and march through
+life arm in arm--even as they had just been doing on the highway--
+warmly wrapped in the same cloak. Then rapture came to them again, and
+they smiled in each other's eyes, alone amidst all the silent
+radiance.
+
+Suddenly, however, Silvere raised his head and, throwing off the
+cloak, listened attentively. Miette, in her surprise, imitated him, at
+a loss to understand why he had started so abruptly from her side.
+
+Confused sounds had for a moment been coming from behind the hills in
+the midst of which the Nice road wends its way. They suggested the
+distant jolting of a procession of carts; but not distinctly, so loud
+was the roaring of the Viorne. Gradually, however, they became more
+pronounced, and rose at last like the tramping of an army on the
+march. Then amidst the continuous growing rumble one detected the
+shouts of a crowd, strange rhythmical blasts as of a hurricane. One
+could even have fancied they were the thunderclaps of a rapidly
+approaching storm which was already disturbing the slumbering
+atmosphere. Silvere listened attentively, unable to tell, however,
+what were those tempest-like shouts, for the hills prevented them from
+reaching him distinctly. Suddenly a dark mass appeared at the turn of
+the road, and then the "Marseillaise" burst forth, formidable, sung as
+with avenging fury.
+
+"Ah, here they are!" cried Silvere, with a burst of joyous enthusiasm.
+
+Forthwith he began to run up the hill, dragging Miette with him. On
+the left of the road was an embankment planted with evergreen oaks, up
+which he clambered with the young girl, to avoid being carried away by
+the surging, howling multitude.
+
+When he had reached the top of the bank and the shadow of the
+brushwood, Miette, rather pale, gazed sorrowfully at those men whose
+distant song had sufficed to draw Silvere from her embrace. It seemed
+as if the whole band had thrust itself between them. They had been so
+happy a few minutes before, locked in each other's arms, alone and
+lost amidst the overwhelming silence and discreet glimmer of the moon!
+And now Silvere, whose head was turned away from her, who no longer
+seemed even conscious of her presence, had eyes only for those
+strangers whom he called his brothers.
+
+The band descended the slope with a superb, irresistible stride. There
+could have been nothing grander than the irruption of those few
+thousand men into that cold, still, deathly scene. The highway became
+a torrent, rolling with living waves which seemed inexhaustible. At
+the bend in the road fresh masses ever appeared, whose songs ever
+helped to swell the roar of this human tempest. When the last
+battalions came in sight the uproar was deafening. The "Marseillaise"
+filled the atmosphere as if blown through enormous trumpets by giant
+mouths, which cast it, vibrating with a brazen clang, into every
+corner of the valley. The slumbering country-side awoke with a start--
+quivering like a beaten drum resonant to its very entrails, and
+repeating with each and every echo the passionate notes of the
+national song. And then the singing was no longer confined to the men.
+From the very horizon, from the distant rocks, the ploughed land, the
+meadows, the copses, the smallest bits of brushwood, human voices
+seemed to come. The great amphitheatre, extending from the river to
+Plassans, the gigantic cascade over which the bluish moonlight flowed,
+was as if filled with innumerable invisible people cheering the
+insurgents; and in the depths of the Viorne, along the waters streaked
+with mysterious metallic reflections, there was not a dark nook but
+seemed to conceal human beings, who took up each refrain with yet
+greater passion. With air and earth alike quivering, the whole
+country-side cried for vengeance and liberty. So long as the little
+army was descending the slope, the roar of the populace thus rolled on
+in sonorous waves broken by abrupt outbursts which shook the very
+stones in the roadway.
+
+Silvere, pale with emotion, still listened and looked on. The
+insurgents who led the van of that swarming, roaring stream, so vague
+and monstrous in the darkness, were rapidly approaching the bridge.
+
+"I thought," murmured Miette, "that you would not pass through
+Plassans?"
+
+"They must have altered the plan of operations," Silvere replied; "we
+were, in fact, to have marched to the chief town by the Toulon road,
+passing to the left of Plassans and Orcheres. They must have left
+Alboise this afternoon and passed Les Tulettes this evening."
+
+The head of the column had already arrived in front of the young
+people. The little army was more orderly than one would have expected
+from a band of undisciplined men. The contingents from the various
+towns and villages formed separate battalions, each separated by a
+distance of a few paces. These battalions were apparently under the
+orders of certain chiefs. For the nonce the pace at which they were
+descending the hillside made them a compact mass of invincible
+strength. There were probably about three thousand men, all united and
+carried away by the same storm of indignation. The strange details of
+the scene were not discernible amidst the shadows cast over the
+highway by the lofty slopes. At five or six feet from the brushwood,
+however, where Miette and Silvere were sheltered, the left-hand
+embankment gave place to a little pathway which ran alongside the
+Viorne; and the moonlight, flowing through this gap, cast a broad band
+of radiance across the road. When the first insurgents reached this
+patch of light they were suddenly illumined by a sharp white glow
+which revealed, with singular distinctness, every outline of visage or
+costume. And as the various contingents swept on, the young people
+thus saw them emerge, fiercely and without cessation, from the
+surrounding darkness.
+
+As the first men passed through the light Miette instinctively clung
+to Silvere, although she knew she was safe, even from observation. She
+passed her arm round the young fellow's neck, resting her head against
+his shoulder. And with the hood of her pelisse encircling her pale
+face she gazed fixedly at that square patch of light as it was rapidly
+traversed by those strange faces, transfigured by enthusiasm, with
+dark open mouths full of the furious cry of the "Marseillaise."
+Silvere, whom she felt quivering at her side, then bent towards her
+and named the various contingents as they passed.
+
+The column marched along eight abreast. In the van were a number of
+big, square-headed fellows, who seemed to possess the herculean
+strength and naïve confidence of giants. They would doubtless prove
+blind, intrepid defenders of the Republic. On their shoulders they
+carried large axes, whose edges, freshly sharpened, glittered in the
+moonlight.
+
+"Those are the woodcutters of the forests of the Seille," said
+Silvere. "They have been formed into a corps of sappers. At a signal
+from their leaders they would march as far as Paris, battering down
+the gates of the towns with their axes, just as they cut down the old
+cork-trees on the mountain."
+
+The young man spoke with pride of the heavy fists of his brethren. And
+on seeing a band of labourers and rough-bearded men, tanned by the
+sun, coming along behind the woodcutters, he continued: "That is the
+contingent from La Palud. That was the first place to rise. The men in
+blouses are labourers who cut up the cork-trees; the others in
+velveteen jackets must be sportsmen, poachers, and charcoal-burners
+living in the passes of the Seille. The poachers knew your father,
+Miette. They have good firearms, which they handle skilfully. Ah! if
+all were armed in the same manner! We are short of muskets. See, the
+labourers have only got cudgels!"
+
+Miette, still speechless, looked on and listened. As Silvere spoke to
+her of her father, the blood surged to her cheeks. Her face burnt as
+she scrutinised the sportsmen with a strange air of mingled
+indignation and sympathy. From this moment she grew animated, yielding
+to the feverish quiver which the insurgents' songs awakened.
+
+The column, which had just begun the "Marseillaise" afresh, was still
+marching down as though lashed on by the sharp blasts of the
+"Mistral." The men of La Palud were followed by another troop of
+workmen, among whom a goodly number of middle class folks in great-
+coats were to be seen.
+
+"Those are the men of Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx," Silvere resumed. "That
+/bourg/ rose almost at the same time as La Palud. The masters joined
+the workmen. There are some rich men there, Miette; men whose wealth
+would enable them to live peacefully at home, but who prefer to risk
+their lives in defence of liberty. One can but admire them. Weapons
+are very scarce, however; they've scarcely got a few fowling-pieces.
+But do you see those men yonder, Miette, with red bands round their
+left elbows? They are the leaders."
+
+The contingents descended the hill more rapidly than Silvere could
+speak. While he was naming the men from Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx, two
+battalions had already crossed the ray of light which blanched the
+roadway.
+
+"Did you see the insurgents from Alboise and Les Tulettes pass by just
+now?" he asked. "I recognised Burgat the blacksmith. They must have
+joined the band to-day. How they do run!"
+
+Miette was now leaning forward, in order to see more of the little
+bands described to her by the young man. The quiver she felt rose from
+her bosom to her throat. Then a battalion larger and better
+disciplined than the others appeared. The insurgents composing it were
+nearly all dressed in blue blouses, with red sashes round their
+waists. One would have thought they were arrayed in uniform. A man on
+horseback, with a sabre at his side, was in the midst of them. And
+most of these improvised soldiers carried guns, probably carbines and
+old muskets of the National Guard.
+
+"I don't know those," said Silvere. "The man on horseback must be the
+chief I've heard spoken of. He brought with him the contingents from
+Faverolles and the neighbouring villages. The whole column ought to be
+equipped in the same manner."
+
+He had no time to take breath. "Ah! see, here are the country people!"
+he suddenly cried.
+
+Small groups of ten or twenty men at the most were now advancing
+behind the men of Faverolles. They all wore the short jacket of the
+Southern peasantry, and as they sang they brandished pitchforks and
+scythes. Some of them even only carried large navvies' shovels. Every
+hamlet, however, had sent its able-bodied men.
+
+Silvere, who recognised the parties by their leaders, enumerated them
+in feverish tones. "The contingent from Chavanoz!" said he. "There are
+only eight men, but they are strong; Uncle Antoine knows them. Here's
+Nazeres! Here's Poujols! They're all here; not one has failed to
+answer the summons. Valqueyras! Hold, there's the parson amongst them;
+I've heard about him, he's a staunch Republican."
+
+He was becoming intoxicated with the spectacle. Now that each
+battalion consisted of only a few insurgents he had to name them yet
+more hastily, and his precipitancy gave him the appearance of one in a
+frenzy.
+
+"Ah! Miette," he continued, "what a fine march past! Rozan! Vernoux!
+Corbiere! And there are more still, you'll see. These have only got
+scythes, but they'll mow down the troops as close as the grass in
+their meadows--Saint-Eutrope! Mazet! Les Gardes, Marsanne! The whole
+north side of the Seille! Ah, we shall be victorious! The whole
+country is with us. Look at those men's arms, they are hard and black
+as iron. There's no end to them. There's Pruinas! Roches Noires! Those
+last are smugglers: they are carrying carbines. Still more scythes and
+pitchforks, the contingents of country folk are still passing. Castel-
+le-Vieux! Sainte-Anne! Graille! Estourmel! Murdaran!"
+
+His voice was husky with emotion as he finished naming these men, who
+seemed to be borne away by a whirlwind as fast as he enumerated them.
+Erect, with glowing countenance, he pointed out the several
+contingents with a nervous gesture. Miette followed his movements. The
+road below attracted her like the depths of a precipice. To avoid
+slipping down the incline she clung to the young man's neck. A strange
+intoxication emanated from those men, who themselves were inebriated
+with clamour, courage, and confidence. Those beings, seen athwart a
+moonbeam, those youths and those men in their prime, those old people
+brandishing strange weapons and dressed in the most diverse costumes,
+from working smock to middle class overcoat, those endless rows of
+heads, which the hour and the circumstances endowed with an expression
+of fanatical energy and enthusiasm, gradually appeared to the girl
+like a whirling, impetuous torrent. At certain moments she fancied
+they were not of themselves moving, that they were really being
+carried away by the force of the "Marseillaise," by that hoarse,
+sonorous chant. She could not distinguish any conversation, she heard
+but a continuous volume of sound, alternating from bass to shrill
+notes, as piercing as nails driven into one's flesh. This roar of
+revolt, this call to combat, to death, with its outbursts of
+indignation, its burning thirst for liberty, its remarkable blending
+of bloodthirsty and sublime impulses, unceasingly smote her heart,
+penetrating more deeply at each fierce outburst, and filling her with
+the voluptuous pangs of a virgin martyr who stands erect and smiles
+under the lash. And the crowd flowed on ever amidst the same sonorous
+wave of sound. The march past, which did not really last more than a
+few minutes, seemed to the young people to be interminable.
+
+Truly, Miette was but a child. She had turned pale at the approach of
+the band, she had wept for the loss of love, but she was a brave
+child, whose ardent nature was easily fired by enthusiasm. Thus ardent
+emotions had gradually got possession of her, and she became as
+courageous as a youth. She would willingly have seized a weapon and
+followed the insurgents. As the muskets and scythes filed past, her
+white teeth glistened longer and sharper between her red lips, like
+the fangs of a young wolf eager to bite and tear. And as she listened
+to Silvere enumerating the contingents from the country-side with
+ever-increasing haste, the pace of the column seemed to her to
+accelerate still more. She soon fancied it all a cloud of human dust
+swept along by a tempest. Everything began to whirl before her. Then
+she closed her eyes; big hot tears were rolling down her cheeks.
+
+Silvere's eyelashes were also moist. "I don't see the men who left
+Plassans this afternoon," he murmured.
+
+He tried to distinguish the end of the column, which was still hidden
+by the darkness. Suddenly he cried with joyous exultation: "Ah, here
+they are! They've got the banner--the banner has been entrusted to
+them!"
+
+Then he wanted to leap from the slope in order to join his companions.
+At this moment, however, the insurgents halted. Words of command ran
+along the column, the "Marseillaise" died out in a final rumble, and
+one could only hear the confused murmuring of the still surging crowd.
+Silvere, as he listened, caught the orders which were passed on from
+one contingent to another; they called the men of Plassans to the van.
+Then, as each battalion ranged itself alongside the road to make way
+for the banner, the young man reascended the embankment, dragging
+Miette with him.
+
+"Come," he said; "we can get across the river before they do."
+
+When they were on the top, among the ploughed land, they ran along to
+a mill whose lock bars the river. Then they crossed the Viorne on a
+plank placed there by the millers, and cut across the meadows of
+Sainte-Claire, running hand-in-hand, without exchanging a word. The
+column threw a dark line over the highway, which they followed
+alongside the hedges. There were some gaps in the hawthorns, and at
+last Silvere and Miette sprang on to the road through one of them.
+
+In spite of the circuitous way they had come, they arrived at the same
+time as the men of Plassans. Silvere shook hands with some of them.
+They must have thought he had heard of the new route they had chosen,
+and had come to meet them. Miette, whose face was half-concealed by
+her hood, was scrutinised rather inquisitively.
+
+"Why, it's Chantegreil," at last said one of the men from the Faubourg
+of Plassans, "the niece of Rebufat, the /meger/[*] of the Jas-
+Meiffren."
+
+[*] A /meger/ is a farmer in Provence who shares the expenses and
+    profits of his farm with the owner of the land.
+
+"Where have you sprung from, gadabout?" cried another voice.
+
+Silvere, intoxicated with enthusiasm, had not thought of the distress
+which his sweetheart would feel at the jeers of the workmen. Miette,
+all confusion, looked at him as if to implore his aid. But before he
+could even open his lips another voice rose from the crowd, brutally
+exclaiming:
+
+"Her father's at the galleys; we don't want the daughter of a thief
+and murderer amongst us."
+
+At this Miette turned dreadfully pale.
+
+"You lie!" she muttered. "If my father did kill anybody, he never
+thieved!"
+
+And as Silvere, pale and trembling more than she, began to clench his
+fists: "Stop!" she continued; "this is my affair."
+
+Then, turning to the men, she repeated with a shout: "You lie! You
+lie! He never stole a copper from anybody. You know it well enough.
+Why do you insult him when he can't be here?"
+
+She drew herself up, superb with indignation. With her ardent, half-
+wild nature she seemed to accept the charge of murder composedly
+enough, but that of theft exasperated her. They knew it, and that was
+why folks, from stupid malice, often cast the accusation in her face.
+
+The man who had just called her father a thief was merely repeating
+what he had heard said for many years. The girl's defiant attitude
+only incited the workmen to jeer the more. Silvere still had his fists
+clenched, and matters might have become serious if a poacher from the
+Seille, who had been sitting on a heap of stones at the roadside
+awaiting the order to march, had not come to the girl's assistance.
+
+"The little one's right," he said. "Chantegreil was one of us. I knew
+him. Nobody knows the real facts of his little matter. I always
+believed in the truth of his deposition before the judge. The gendarme
+whom he brought down with a bullet, while he was out shooting, was no
+doubt taking aim at him at the time. A man must defend himself! At all
+events Chantegreil was a decent fellow; he committed no robbery."
+
+As often happens in such cases, the testimony of this poacher sufficed
+to bring other defenders to Miette's aid. Several workmen also
+professed to have known Chantegreil.
+
+"Yes, yes, it's true!" they all said. "He wasn't a thief. There are
+some scoundrels at Plassans who ought to be sent to prison in his
+place. Chantegreil was our brother. Come, now, be calm, little one."
+
+Miette had never before heard anyone speak well of her father. He was
+generally referred to as a beggar, a villain, and now she found good
+fellows who had forgiving words for him, and declared him to be an
+honest man. She burst into tears, again full of the emotion awakened
+in her by the "Marseillaise;" and she bethought herself how she might
+thank these men for their kindness to her in misfortune. For a moment
+she conceived the idea of shaking them all by the hand like a man. But
+her heart suggested something better. By her side stood the insurgent
+who carried the banner. She touched the staff, and, to express her
+gratitude, said in an entreating tone, "Give it to me; I will carry
+it."
+
+The simple-minded workmen understood the ingenuous sublimity of this
+form of gratitude.
+
+"Yes," they all cried, "Chantegreil shall carry the banner."
+
+However, a woodcutter remarked that she would soon get tired, and
+would not be able to go far.
+
+"Oh! I'm quite strong," she retorted proudly, tucking up her sleeves
+and showing a pair of arms as big as those of a grown woman. Then as
+they handed her the flag she resumed, "Wait just a moment."
+
+Forthwith she pulled off her cloak, and put it on again after turning
+the red lining outside. In the clear moonlight she appeared to be
+arrayed in a purple mantle reaching to her feet. The hood resting on
+the edge of her chignon formed a kind of Phrygian cap. She took the
+flag, pressed the staff to her bosom, and held herself upright amid
+the folds of that blood-coloured banner which waved behind her.
+Enthusiastic child that she was, her countenance, with its curly hair,
+large eyes moist with tears, and lips parted in a smile, seemed to
+rise with energetic pride as she turned it towards the sky. At that
+moment she was the virgin Liberty.
+
+The insurgents burst into applause. The vivid imagination of those
+Southerners was fired with enthusiasm at the sudden apparition of this
+girl so nervously clasping their banner to her bosom. Shouts rose from
+the nearest group:
+
+"Bravo, Chantegreil! Chantegreil for ever! She shall remain with us;
+she'll bring us luck!"
+
+They would have cheered her for a long time yet had not the order to
+resume the march arrived. Whilst the column moved on, Miette pressed
+Silvere's hand and whispered in his ear: "You hear! I shall remain
+with you. Are you glad?"
+
+Silvere, without replying, returned the pressure. He consented. In
+fact, he was deeply affected, unable to resist the enthusiasm which
+fired his companions. Miette seemed to him so lovely, so grand, so
+saintly! During the whole climb up the hill he still saw her before
+him, radiant, amidst a purple glory. She was now blended with his
+other adored mistress--the Republic. He would have liked to be in
+action already, with his gun on his shoulder. But the insurgents moved
+slowly. They had orders to make as little noise as possible. Thus the
+column advanced between the rows of elms like some gigantic serpent
+whose every ring had a strange quivering. The frosty December night
+had again sunk into silence, and the Viorne alone seemed to roar more
+loudly.
+
+On reaching the first houses of the Faubourg, Silvere ran on in front
+to fetch his gun from the Aire Saint-Mittre, which he found slumbering
+in the moonlight. When he again joined the insurgents they had reached
+the Porte de Rome. Miette bent towards him, and with her childish
+smile observed: "I feel as if I were at the procession on Corpus
+Christi Day carrying the banner of the Virgin."
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+Plassans is a sub-prefecture with about ten thousand inhabitants.
+Built on a plateau overlooking the Viorne, and resting on the north
+side against the Garrigues hills, one of the last spurs of the Alps,
+the town is situated, as it were, in the depths of a cul-de-sac. In
+1851 it communicated with the adjoining country by two roads only, the
+Nice road, which runs down to the east, and the Lyons road, which
+rises to the west, the one continuing the other on almost parallel
+lines. Since that time a railway has been built which passes to the
+south of the town, below the hill which descends steeply from the old
+ramparts to the river. At the present day, on coming out of the
+station on the right bank of the little torrent, one can see, by
+raising one's head, the first houses of Plassans, with their gardens
+disposed in terrace fashion. It is, however, only after an uphill walk
+lasting a full quarter of an hour that one reaches these houses.
+
+About twenty years ago, owing, no doubt, to deficient means of
+communication, there was no town that had more completely retained the
+pious and aristocratic character of the old Provencal cities. Plassans
+then had, and has even now, a whole district of large mansions built
+in the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., a dozen churches, Jesuit
+and Capuchin houses, and a considerable number of convents. Class
+distinctions were long perpetuated by the town's division into various
+districts. There were three of them, each forming, as it were, a
+separate and complete locality, with its own churches, promenades,
+customs, and landscapes.
+
+The district of the nobility, called Saint-Marc, after the name of one
+of its parish churches, is a sort of miniature Versailles, with
+straight streets overgrown with grass, and large square houses which
+conceal extensive gardens. It extends to the south along the edge of
+the plateau. Some of the mansions built on the declivity itself have a
+double row of terraces whence one can see the whole valley of the
+Viorne, a most charming vista much vaunted in that part of the
+country. Then on the north-west, the old quarter, formed of the
+original town, rears its narrow, tortuous lanes bordered with
+tottering hovels. The Town-Hall, the Civil Court, the Market, and the
+Gendarmerie barracks are situated here. This, the most populous part
+of the Plassans, is inhabited by working-men and shop-keepers, all the
+wretched, toiling, common folk. The new town forms a sort of
+parallelogram to the north-east; the well-to-do, those who have slowly
+amassed a fortune, and those engaged in the liberal professions, here
+occupy houses set out in straight lines and coloured a light yellow.
+This district, which is embellished by the Sub-Prefecture, an ugly
+plaster building decorated with rose-mouldings, numbered scarcely five
+or six streets in 1851; it is of quite recent formation, and it is
+only since the construction of the railway that it has been growing in
+extent.
+
+One circumstance which even at the present time tends to divide
+Plassans into three distinct independent parts is that the limits of
+the districts are clearly defined by the principal thoroughfares. The
+Cours Sauvaire and the Rue de Rome, which is, as it were, a narrow
+extension of the former, run from west to east, from the Grand'-Porte
+to the Porte de Rome, thus cutting the town into two portions, and
+dividing the quarter of the nobility from the others. The latter are
+themselves parted by the Rue de la Banne. This street, the finest in
+the locality, starts from the extremity of the Cours Sauvaire, and
+ascends northwards, leaving the black masses of the old quarter on its
+left, and the light-yellow houses of the new town on its right. It is
+here, about half-way along the street, that stands the Sub-Prefecture,
+in the rear of a small square planted with sickly trees; the people of
+Plassans are very proud of this edifice.
+
+As if to keep more isolated and shut up within itself, the town is
+belted with old ramparts, which only serve to increase its gloom and
+render it more confined. These ridiculous fortifications, preyed upon
+by ivy and crowned with wild gillyflowers, are about as high and as
+thick as the walls of a convent, and could be demolished by gunshot.
+They have several openings, the principal of which, the Porte de Rome
+and the Grand'-Porte, afford access to the Nice road and the Lyons
+road, at the other end of town. Until 1853 these openings were
+furnished with huge wooden two-leaved gates, arched at the top, and
+strengthened with bars of iron. These gates were double-locked at
+eleven o'clock in summer, and ten o'clock in winter. The town having
+thus shot its bolts like a timid girl, went quietly to sleep. A
+keeper, who lived in a little cell in one of the inner corners of each
+gateway, was authorised to admit belated persons. But it was necessary
+to stand parleying a long time. The keeper would not let people in
+until, by the light of his lantern, he had carefully scrutinised their
+faces through a peep-hole. If their looks displeased him they had to
+sleep outside. This custom of locking the gates every evening was
+highly characteristic of the spirit of the town, which was a
+commingling of cowardice, egotism, routine, exclusiveness, and devout
+longing for a cloistered life. Plassans, when it had shut itself up,
+would say to itself, "I am at home," with the satisfaction of some
+pious bourgeois, who, assured of the safety of his cash-box, and
+certain that no noise will disturb him, duly says his prayers and
+retires gladly to bed. No other town, I believe, has so long persisted
+in thus incarcerating itself like a nun.
+
+The population of Plassans is divided into three groups, corresponding
+with the same number of districts. Putting aside the functionaries--
+the sub-prefect, the receiver of taxes, the mortgage commissioner, and
+the postmaster, who are all strangers to the locality, where they are
+objects of envy rather than of esteem, and who live after their own
+fashion--the real inhabitants, those who were born there and have
+every intention of ending their days there, feel too much respect for
+traditional usages and established boundaries not to pen themselves of
+their own accord in one or other of the town's social divisions.
+
+The nobility virtually cloister themselves. Since the fall of
+Charles X. they scarcely ever go out, and when they do they are eager
+to return to their large dismal mansions, and walk along furtively as
+though they were in a hostile country. They do not visit anyone, nor
+do they even receive each other. Their drawing-rooms are frequented by
+a few priests only. They spend the summer in the chateaux which they
+possess in the environs; in the winter, they sit round their
+firesides. They are, as it were, dead people weary of life. And thus
+the gloomy silence of a cemetery hangs over their quarter of the town.
+The doors and windows are carefully barricaded; one would think their
+mansions were so many convents shut off from all the tumult of the
+world. At rare intervals an abbe, whose measured tread adds to the
+gloomy silence of these sealed houses, passes by and glides like a
+shadow through some half-opened doorway.
+
+The well-to-do people, the retired tradesmen, the lawyers and
+notaries, all those of the little easy-going, ambitious world that
+inhabits the new town, endeavour to infuse some liveliness into
+Plassans. They go to the parties given by the sub-prefect, and dream
+of giving similar entertainments. They eagerly seek popularity, call a
+workman "my good fellow," chat with the peasants about the harvest,
+read the papers, and walk out with their wives on Sundays. Theirs are
+the enlightened minds of the district, they are the only persons who
+venture to speak disparagingly of the ramparts; in fact, they have
+several times demanded of the authorities the demolition of those old
+walls, relics of a former age. At the same time, the most sceptical
+among them experience a shock of delight whenever a marquis or a count
+deigns to honour them with a stiff salutation. Indeed, the dream of
+every citizen of the new town is to be admitted to a drawing-room of
+the Saint-Marc quarter. They know very well that their ambition is not
+attainable, and it is this which makes them proclaim all the louder
+that they are freethinkers. But they are freethinkers in words only;
+firm friends of the authorities, they are ready to rush into the arms
+of the first deliverer at the slightest indication of popular
+discontent.
+
+The group which toils and vegetates in the old quarter is not so
+clearly defined as the others. The labouring classes are here in a
+majority; but retail dealers and even a few wholesale traders are to
+be found among them. As a matter of fact, Plassans is far from being a
+commercial centre; there is only just sufficient trade to dispose of
+the products of the country--oil, wine, and almonds. As for industrial
+labour, it is represented almost entirely by three or four evil-
+smelling tanyards, a felt hat manufactory, and some soap-boiling
+works, which last are relegated to a corner of the Faubourg. This
+little commercial and industrial world, though it may on high days and
+holidays visit the people of the new district, generally takes up its
+quarters among the operatives of the old town. Merchants, retail
+traders, and artisans have common interests which unite them together.
+On Sundays only, the masters make themselves spruce and foregather
+apart. On the other hand, the labouring classes, which constitute
+scarcely a fifth of the population, mingle with the idlers of the
+district.
+
+It is only once a week, and during the fine weather, that the three
+districts of Plassans come together face to face. The whole town
+repairs to the Cours Sauvaire on Sunday after vespers; even the
+nobility venture thither. Three distinct currents flow along this sort
+of boulevard planted with rows of plane-trees. The well-to-do citizens
+of the new quarter merely pass along before quitting the town by the
+Grand'-Porte and taking the Avenue du Mail on the right, where they
+walk up and down till nightfall. Meantime, the nobility and the lower
+classes share the Cours Sauvaire between them. For more than a century
+past the nobility have selected the walk on the south side, which is
+bordered with large mansions, and is the first to escape the heat of
+the sun; the lower classes have to rest content with the walk on the
+north, where the cafes, inns, and tobacconists' shops are located. The
+people and the nobility promenade the whole afternoon, walking up and
+down the Cours without anyone of either party thinking of changing
+sides. They are only separated by a distance of some seven or eight
+yards, yet it is as if they were a thousand leagues away from each
+other, for they scrupulously follow those two parallel lines, as
+though they must not come in contact here below. Even during the
+revolutionary periods each party kept to its own side. This regulation
+walk on Sunday and the locking of the town gates in the evening are
+analogous instances which suffice to indicate the character of the ten
+thousand people inhabiting the town.
+
+Here, amidst these surroundings, until the year 1848, there vegetated
+an obscure family that enjoyed little esteem, but whose head, Pierre
+Rougon, subsequently played an important part in life owing to certain
+circumstances.
+
+Pierre Rougon was the son of a peasant. His mother's family, the
+Fouques, owned, towards the end of the last century, a large plot of
+ground in the Faubourg, behind the old cemetery of Saint-Mittre; this
+ground was subsequently joined to the Jas-Meiffren. The Fouques were
+the richest market-gardeners in that part of the country; they
+supplied an entire district of Plassans with vegetables. However,
+their name died out a few years before the Revolution. Only one girl,
+Adelaide, remained; born in 1768, she had become an orphan at the age
+of eighteen. This girl, whose father had died insane, was a long,
+lank, pale creature, with a scared look and strange ways which one
+might have taken for shyness so long as she was a little girl. As she
+grew up, however, she became still stranger; she did certain things
+which were inexplicable even to the cleverest folk of the Faubourg,
+and from that time it was rumoured that she was cracked like her
+father.
+
+She had scarcely been an orphan six months, in possession of a fortune
+which rendered her an eagerly sought heiress, when it transpired that
+she had married a young gardener named Rougon, a rough-hewn peasant
+from the Basses-Alpes. This Rougon, after the death of the last of the
+male Fouques, who had engaged him for a term, had remained in the
+service of the deceased's daughter. From the situation of salaried
+servant he ascended rapidly to the enviable position of husband. This
+marriage was a first shock to public opinion. No one could comprehend
+why Adelaide preferred this poor fellow, coarse, heavy, vulgar, scarce
+able to speak French, to those other young men, sons of well-to-do
+farmers, who had been seen hovering round her for some time. And, as
+provincial people do not allow anything to remain unexplained, they
+made sure there was some mystery at the bottom of this affair,
+alleging even that the marriage of the two young people had become an
+absolute necessity. But events proved the falsity of the accusation.
+More than a year went by before Adelaide had a son. The Faubourg was
+annoyed; it could not admit that it was wrong, and determined to
+penetrate the supposed mystery; accordingly all the gossips kept a
+watch upon the Rougons. They soon found ample matter for tittle-
+tattle. Rougon died almost suddenly, fifteen months after his
+marriage, from a sunstroke received one afternoon while he was weeding
+a bed of carrots.
+
+Scarcely a year then elapsed before the young widow caused unheard-of
+scandal. It became known, as an indisputable fact, that she had a
+lover. She did not appear to make any secret of it; several persons
+asserted that they had heard her use endearing terms in public to poor
+Rougon's successor. Scarcely a year of widowhood and a lover already!
+Such a disregard of propriety seemed monstrous out of all reason. And
+the scandal was heightened by Adelaide's strange choice. At that time
+there dwelt at the end of the Impasse Saint-Mittre, in a hovel the
+back of which abutted on the Fouques' land, a man of bad repute, who
+was generally referred to as "that scoundrel Macquart." This man would
+vanish for weeks and then turn up some fine evening, sauntering about
+with his hands in his pockets and whistling as though he had just come
+from a short walk. And the women sitting at their doorsteps as he
+passed: "There's that scoundrel Macquart! He has hidden his bales and
+his gun in some hollow of the Viorne." The truth was, Macquart had no
+means, and yet ate and drank like a happy drone during his short
+sojourns in the town. He drank copiously and with fierce obstinacy.
+Seating himself alone at a table in some tavern, he would linger there
+evening after evening, with his eyes stupidly fixed on his glass,
+neither seeing nor hearing anything around him. When the landlord
+closed his establishment, he would retire with a firm step, with his
+head raised, as if he were kept yet more erect by inebriation.
+"Macquart walks so straight, he's surely dead drunk," people used to
+say, as they saw him going home. Usually, when he had had no drink, he
+walked with a slight stoop and shunned the gaze of curious people with
+a kind of savage shyness.
+
+Since the death of his father, a journeyman tanner who had left him as
+sole heritage the hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, he had never been
+known to have either relatives or friends. The proximity of the
+frontiers and the neighbouring forests of the Seille had turned this
+singular, lazy fellow into a combination of smuggler and poacher, one
+of those suspicious-looking characters of whom passers-by observe: "I
+shouldn't care to meet that man at midnight in a dark wood." Tall,
+with a formidable beard and lean face, Macquart was the terror of the
+good women of the Faubourg of Plassans; they actually accused him of
+devouring little children raw. Though he was hardly thirty years old,
+he looked fifty. Amidst his bushy beard and the locks of hair which
+hung over his face in poodle fashion, one could only distinguish the
+gleam of his brown eyes, the furtive sorrowful glance of a man of
+vagrant instincts, rendered vicious by wine and a pariah life.
+Although no crimes had actually been brought home to him, no theft or
+murder was ever perpetrated in the district without suspicion at once
+falling upon him.
+
+And it was this ogre, this brigand, this scoundrel Macquart, whom
+Adelaide had chosen! In twenty months she had two children by him,
+first a boy and then a girl. There was no question of marriage between
+them. Never had the Faubourg beheld such audacious impropriety. The
+stupefaction was so great, the idea of Macquart having found a young
+and wealthy mistress so completely upset the gossips, that they even
+spoke gently of Adelaide. "Poor thing! She's gone quite mad," they
+would say. "If she had any relatives she would have been placed in
+confinement long ago." And as they never knew anything of the history
+of those strange amours, they accused that rogue Macquart of having
+taken advantage of Adelaide's weak mind to rob her of her money.
+
+The legitimate son, little Pierre Rougon, grew up with his mother's
+other offspring. The latter, Antoine and Ursule, the young wolves as
+they were called in the district, were kept at home by Adelaide, who
+treated them as affectionately as her first child. She did not appear
+to entertain a very clear idea of the position in life reserved for
+these two poor creatures. To her they were the same in every respect
+as her first-born. She would sometimes go out holding Pierre with one
+hand and Antoine with the other, never noticing how differently the
+two little fellows were already regarded.
+
+It was a strange home. For nearly twenty years everyone lived there
+after his or her fancy, the children like the mother. Everything went
+on free from control. In growing to womanhood, Adelaide had retained
+the strangeness which had been taken for shyness when she was fifteen.
+It was not that she was insane, as the people of the Faubourg
+asserted, but there was a lack of equilibrium between her nerves and
+her blood, a disorder of the brain and heart which made her lead a
+life out of the ordinary, different from that of the rest of the
+world. She was certainly very natural, very consistent with herself;
+but in the eyes of the neighbours her consistency became pure
+insanity. She seemed desirous of making herself conspicuous, it was
+thought she was wickedly determined to turn things at home from bad to
+worse, whereas with great naivete she simply acted according to the
+impulses of her nature.
+
+Ever since giving birth to her first child she had been subject to
+nervous fits which brought on terrible convulsions. These fits
+recurred periodically, every two or three months. The doctors whom she
+consulted declared they could do nothing for her, that age would
+weaken the severity of the attacks. They simply prescribed a dietary
+regimen of underdone meat and quinine wine. However, these repeated
+shocks led to cerebral disorder. She lived on from day to day like a
+child, like a fawning animal yielding to its instincts. When Macquart
+was on his rounds, she passed her time in lazy, pensive idleness. All
+she did for her children was to kiss and play with them. Then as soon
+as her lover returned she would disappear.
+
+Behind Macquart's hovel there was a little yard, separated from the
+Fouques' property by a wall. One morning the neighbours were much
+astonished to find in this wall a door which had not been there the
+previous evening. Before an hour had elapsed, the entire Faubourg had
+flocked to the neighbouring windows. The lovers must have worked the
+whole night to pierce the opening and place the door there. They could
+now go freely from one house to the other. The scandal was revived,
+everyone felt less pity for Adelaide, who was certainly the disgrace
+of the suburb; she was reproached more wrathfully for that door, that
+tacit, brutal admission of her union, than even for her two
+illegitimate children. "People should at least study appearances," the
+most tolerant women would say. But Adelaide did not understand what
+was meant by studying appearances. She was very happy, very proud of
+her door; she had assisted Macquart to knock the stones from the wall
+and had even mixed the mortar so that the work might proceed the
+quicker; and she came with childish delight to inspect the work by
+daylight on the morrow--an act which was deemed a climax of
+shamelessness by three gossips who observed her contemplating the
+masonry. From that date, whenever Macquart reappeared, it was thought,
+as no one then ever saw the young woman, that she was living with him
+in the hovel of the Impasse Saint-Mittre.
+
+The smuggler would come very irregularly, almost always unexpectedly,
+to Plassans. Nobody ever knew what life the lovers led during the two
+or three days he spent there at distant intervals. They used to shut
+themselves up; the little dwelling seemed uninhabited. Then, as the
+gossips had declared that Macquart had simply seduced Adelaide in
+order to spend her money, they were astonished, after a time, to see
+him still lead his wonted life, ever up hill and down dale and as
+badly equipped as previously. Perhaps the young woman loved him all
+the more for seeing him at rare intervals, perhaps he had disregarded
+her entreaties, feeling an irresistible desire for a life of
+adventure. The gossips invented a thousand fables, without succeeding
+in giving any reasonable explanation of a connection which had
+originated and continued in so strange a manner. The hovel in the
+Impasse Saint-Mittre remained closed and preserved its secrets. It was
+merely guessed that Macquart had probably acquired the habit of
+beating Adelaide, although the sound of a quarrel never issued from
+the house. However, on several occasions she was seen with her face
+black and blue, and her hair torn away. At the same time, she did not
+display the least dejection or grief, nor did she seek in any way to
+hide her bruises. She smiled, and seemed happy. No doubt she allowed
+herself to be beaten without breathing a word. This existence lasted
+for more than fifteen years.
+
+At times when Adelaide returned home she would find her house upside
+down, but would not take the least notice of it. She was utterly
+ignorant of the practical meaning of life, of the proper value of
+things and the necessity for order. She let her children grow up like
+those plum-trees which sprout along the highways at the pleasure of
+the rain and sun. They bore their natural fruits like wild stock which
+has never known grafting or pruning. Never was nature allowed such
+complete sway, never did such mischievous creatures grow up more
+freely under the sole influence of instinct. They rolled among the
+vegetables, passed their days in the open air playing and fighting
+like good-for-nothing urchins. They stole provisions from the house
+and pillaged the few fruit-trees in the enclosure; they were the
+plundering, squalling, familiar demons of this strange abode of lucid
+insanity. When their mother was absent for days together, they would
+make such an uproar, and hit upon such diabolical devices for annoying
+people, that the neighbours had to threaten them with a whipping.
+Moreover, Adelaide did not inspire them with much fear; if they were
+less obnoxious to other people when she was at home, it was because
+they made her their victim, shirking school five or six times a week
+and doing everything they could to receive some punishment which would
+allow them to squall to their hearts' content. But she never beat
+them, nor even lost her temper; she lived on very well, placidly,
+indolently, in a state of mental abstraction amidst all the uproar. At
+last, indeed, this uproar became indispensable to her, to fill the
+void in her brain. She smiled complacently when she heard anyone say,
+"Her children will beat her some day, and it will serve her right." To
+all remarks, her utter indifference seemed to reply, "What does it
+matter?" She troubled even less about her property than about her
+children. The Fouques' enclosure, during the many years that this
+singular existence lasted would have become a piece of waste ground if
+the young woman had not luckily entrusted the cultivation of her
+vegetables to a clever market-gardener. This man, who was to share the
+profits with her, robbed her impudently, though she never noticed it.
+This circumstance had its advantages, however; for, in order to steal
+the more, the gardener drew as much as possible from the land, which
+in the result almost doubled in value.
+
+Pierre, the legitimate son, either from secret instinct or from his
+knowledge of the different manner in which he and the others were
+regarded by the neighbours, domineered over his brother and sister
+from an early age. In their quarrels, although he was much weaker than
+Antoine, he always got the better of the contest, beating the other
+with all the authority of a master. With regard to Ursule, a poor,
+puny, wan little creature, she was handled with equal roughness by
+both the boys. Indeed, until they were fifteen or sixteen, the three
+children fraternally beat each other without understanding their
+vague, mutual hatred, without realising how foreign they were to one
+another. It was only in youth that they found themselves face to face
+with definite, self-conscious personalities.
+
+At sixteen, Antoine was a tall fellow, a blend of Macquart's and
+Adelaide's failings. Macquart, however, predominated in him, with his
+love of vagrancy, his tendency to drunkenness, and his brutish
+savagery. At the same time, under the influence of Adelaide's nervous
+nature, the vices which in the father assumed a kind of sanguinary
+frankness were in the son tinged with an artfulness full of hypocrisy
+and cowardice. Antoine resembled his mother by his total want of
+dignified will, by his effeminate voluptuous egotism, which disposed
+him to accept any bed of infamy provided he could lounge upon it at
+his ease and sleep warmly in it. People said of him: "Ah! the brigand!
+He hasn't even the courage of his villainy like Macquart; if ever he
+commits a murder, it will be with pin pricks." Physically, Antoine
+inherited Adelaide's thick lips only; his other features resembled
+those of the smuggler, but they were softer and more prone to change
+of expression.
+
+In Ursule, on the other hand, physical and moral resemblance to the
+mother predominated. There was a mixture of certain characteristics in
+her also; but born the last, at a time when Adelaide's love was warmer
+than Macquart's, the poor little thing seemed to have received with
+her sex a deeper impress of her mother's temperament. Moreover, hers
+was not a fusion of the two natures, but rather a juxtaposition, a
+remarkably close soldering. Ursule was whimsical, and displayed at
+times the shyness, the melancholy, and the transports of a pariah;
+then she would often break out into nervous fits of laughter, and muse
+lazily, like a woman unsound both in head and heart. Her eyes, which
+at times had a scared expression like those of Adelaide, were as
+limpid as crystal, similar to those of kittens doomed to die of
+consumption.
+
+In presence of those two illegitimate children Pierre seemed a
+stranger; to one who had not penetrated to the roots of his being he
+would have appeared profoundly dissimilar. Never did child's nature
+show a more equal balance of the characteristics of its parents. He
+was the exact mean between the peasant Rougon and the nervous
+Adelaide. Paternal grossness was attenuated by the maternal influence.
+One found in him the first phase of that evolution of temperaments
+which ultimately brings about the amelioration or deterioration of a
+race. Although he was still a peasant, his skin was less coarse, his
+face less heavy, his intellect more capacious and more supple. In him
+the defects of his father and his mother had advantageously reacted
+upon each other. If Adelaide's nature, rendered exquisitely sensitive
+by her rebellious nerves, had combated and lessened Rougon's full-
+bodied ponderosity, the latter had successfully prevented the young
+woman's tendency to cerebral disorder from being implanted in the
+child. Pierre knew neither the passions nor the sickly ravings of
+Macquart's young whelps. Very badly brought up, unruly and noisy, like
+all children who are not restrained during their infancy, he
+nevertheless possessed at bottom such sense and intelligence as would
+always preserve him from perpetrating any unproductive folly. His
+vices, his laziness, his appetite for indulgence, lacked the
+instinctiveness which characterised Antoine's; he meant to cultivate
+and gratify them honourably and openly. In his plump person of medium
+height, in his long pale face, in which the features derived from his
+father had acquired some of the maternal refinement, one could already
+detect signs of sly and crafty ambition and insatiable desire, with
+the hardness of heart and envious hatred of a peasant's son whom his
+mother's means and nervous temperament had turned into a member of the
+middle classes.
+
+When, at the age of seventeen, Pierre observed and was able to
+understand Adelaide's disorders and the singular position of Antoine
+and Ursule, he seemed neither sorry nor indignant, but simply worried
+as to the course which would best serve his own interests. He was the
+only one of the three children who had pursued his studies with any
+industry. When a peasant begins to feel the need of instruction he
+most frequently becomes a fierce calculator. At school Pierre's
+playmates roused his first suspicions by the manner in which they
+treated and hooted his brother. Later on he came to understand the
+significance of many looks and words. And at last he clearly saw that
+the house was being pillaged. From that time forward he regarded
+Antoine and Ursule as shameless parasites, mouths that were devouring
+his own substance. Like the people of the Faubourg, he thought that
+his mother was a fit subject for a lunatic asylum, and feared she
+would end by squandering all her money, if he did not take steps to
+prevent it. What gave him the finishing stroke was the dishonesty of
+the gardener who cultivated the land. At this, in one day, the unruly
+child was transformed into a thrifty, selfish lad, hurriedly matured,
+as regards his instincts, by the strange improvident life which he
+could no longer bear to see around him without a feeling of anguish.
+Those vegetables, from the sale of which the market-gardener derived
+the largest profits, really belonged to him; the wine which his
+mother's offspring drank, the bread they ate, also belonged to him.
+The whole house, the entire fortune, was his by right; according to
+his boorish logic, he alone, the legitimate son, was the heir. And as
+his riches were in danger, as everybody was greedily gnawing at his
+future fortune, he sought a means of turning them all out--mother,
+brother, sister, servants--and of succeeding immediately to his
+inheritance.
+
+The conflict was a cruel one; the lad knew that he must first strike
+his mother. Step by step, with patient tenacity, he executed a plan
+whose every detail he had long previously thought out. His tactics
+were to appear before Adelaide like a living reproach--not that he
+flew into a passion, or upbraided her for her misconduct; but he had
+acquired a certain manner of looking at her, without saying a word,
+which terrified her. Whenever she returned from a short sojourn in
+Macquart's hovel she could not turn her eyes on her son without a
+shudder. She felt his cold glances, as sharp as steel blades pierce
+her deeply and pitilessly. The severe, taciturn demeanour of the child
+of the man whom she had so soon forgotten strangely troubled her poor
+disordered brain. She would fancy at times that Rougon had risen from
+the dead to punish her for her dissoluteness. Every week she fell into
+one of those nervous fits which were shattering her constitution. She
+was left to struggle until she recovered consciousness, after which
+she would creep about more feebly than ever. She would also often sob
+the whole night long, holding her head in her hands, and accepting the
+wounds that Pierre dealt her with resignation, as if they had been the
+strokes of an avenging deity. At other times she repudiated him; she
+would not acknowledge her own flesh and blood in that heavy-faced lad,
+whose calmness chilled her own feverishness so painfully. She would a
+thousand times rather have been beaten than glared at like that. Those
+implacable looks, which followed her everywhere, threw her at last
+into such unbearable torments that on several occasions she determined
+to see her lover no more. As soon, however, as Macquart returned she
+forgot her vows and hastened to him. The conflict with her son began
+afresh, silent and terrible, when she came back home. At the end of a
+few months she fell completely under his sway. She stood before him
+like a child doubtful of her behaviour and fearing that she deserves a
+whipping. Pierre had skilfully bound her hand and foot, and made a
+very submissive servant of her, without opening his lips, without once
+entering into difficult and compromising explanations.
+
+When the young man felt that his mother was in his power, that he
+could treat her like a slave, he began, in his own interest, to turn
+her cerebral weakness and the foolish terror with which his glances
+inspired her to his own advantage. His first care, as soon as he was
+master at home, was to dismiss the market-gardener and replace him by
+one of his own creatures. Then he took upon himself the supreme
+direction of the household, selling, buying, and holding the cash-box.
+On the other hand, he made no attempt to regulate Adelaide's actions,
+or to correct Antoine and Ursule for their laziness. That mattered
+little to him, for he counted upon getting rid of these people as soon
+as an opportunity presented itself. He contented himself with
+portioning out their bread and water. Then, having already got all the
+property in his own hands, he awaited an event which would permit him
+to dispose of it as he pleased.
+
+Circumstances proved singularly favourable. He escaped the
+conscription on the ground of being a widow's eldest son. But two
+years later Antoine was called out. His bad luck did not affect him
+much; he counted on his mother purchasing a substitute for him.
+Adelaide, in fact, wished to save him from serving; Pierre, however,
+who held the money, turned a deaf ear to her. His brother's compulsory
+departure would be a lucky event for him, and greatly assist the
+accomplishment of his plans. When his mother mentioned the matter to
+him, he gave her such a look that she did not venture to pursue it.
+His glance plainly signified, "Do you wish, then, to ruin me for the
+sake of your illegitimate offspring?" Forthwith she selfishly
+abandoned Antoine, for before everything else she sought her own peace
+and quietness. Pierre, who did not like violent measures, and who
+rejoiced at being able to eject his brother without a disturbance,
+then played the part of a man in despair: the year had been a bad one,
+money was scarce, and to raise any he would be compelled to sell a
+portion of the land, which would be the beginning of their ruin. Then
+he pledged his word of honour to Antoine that he would buy him out the
+following year, though he meant to do nothing of the kind. Antoine
+then went off, duped, and half satisfied.
+
+Pierre got rid of Ursule in a still more unexpected manner. A
+journeyman hatter of the Faubourg, named Mouret, conceived a real
+affection for the girl, whom he thought as white and delicate as any
+young lady from the Saint-Marc quarter. He married her. On his part it
+was a love match, free from all sordid motives. As for Ursule, she
+accepted the marriage in order to escape a home where her eldest
+brother rendered life intolerable. Her mother, absorbed in her own
+courses, and using her remaining energy to defend her own particular
+interests, regarded the matter with absolute indifference. She was
+even glad of Ursule's departure from the house, hoping that Pierre,
+now that he had no further cause for dissatisfaction, would let her
+live in peace after her own fashion. No sooner had the young people
+been married than Mouret perceived that he would have to quit
+Plassans, if he did not wish to hear endless disparaging remarks about
+his wife and his mother-in-law. Taking Ursule with him, he accordingly
+repaired to Marseilles, where he worked at his trade. It should be
+mentioned that he had not asked for one sou of dowry. When Pierre,
+somewhat surprised by this disinterestedness, commenced to stammer out
+some explanations, Mouret closed his mouth by saying that he preferred
+to earn his wife's bread. Nevertheless the worthy son of the peasant
+remained uneasy; Mouret's indifference seemed to him to conceal some
+trap.
+
+Adelaide now remained to be disposed of. Nothing in the world would
+have induced Pierre to live with her any longer. She was compromising
+him; it was with her that he would have liked to make a start. But he
+found himself between two very embarrassing alternatives: to keep her,
+and thus, in a measure, share her disgrace, and bind a fetter to his
+feet which would arrest him in his ambitious flight; or to turn her
+out, with the certainty of being pointed at as a bad son, which would
+have robbed him of the reputation for good nature which he desired.
+Knowing that he would be in want of everybody, he desired to secure an
+untarnished name throughout Plassans. There was but one method to
+adopt, namely, to induce Adelaide to leave of her own accord. Pierre
+neglected nothing to accomplish this end. He considered his mother's
+misconduct a sufficient excuse for his own hard-heartedness. He
+punished her as one would chastise a child. The tables were turned.
+The poor woman cowered under the stick which, figuratively, was
+constantly held over her. She was scarcely forty-two years old, and
+already had the stammerings of terror, and vague, pitiful looks of an
+old woman in her dotage. Her son continued to stab her with his
+piercing glances, hoping that she would run away when her courage was
+exhausted. The unfortunate woman suffered terribly from shame,
+restrained desire and enforced cowardice, receiving the blows dealt
+her with passive resignation, and nevertheless returning to Macquart
+with the determination to die on the spot rather than submit. There
+were nights when she would have got out of bed, and thrown herself
+into the Viorne, if with her weak, nervous, nature she had not felt
+the greatest fear of death. On several occasions she thought of
+running away and joining her lover on the frontier. It was only
+because she did not know whither to go that she remained in the house,
+submitting to her son's contemptuous silence and secret brutality.
+Pierre divined that she would have left long ago if she had only had a
+refuge. He was waiting an opportunity to take a little apartment for
+her somewhere, when a fortuitous occurrence, which he had not ventured
+to anticipate, abruptly brought about the realisation of his desires.
+Information reached the Faubourg that Macquart had just been killed on
+the frontier by a shot from a custom-house officer, at the moment when
+he was endeavouring to smuggle a load of Geneva watches into France.
+The story was true. The smuggler's body was not even brought home, but
+was interred in the cemetery of a little mountain village. Adelaide's
+grief plunged her into stupor. Her son, who watched her curiously, did
+not see her shed a tear. Macquart had made her sole legatee. She
+inherited his hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and his carbine,
+which a fellow-smuggler, braving the balls of the custom-house
+officers, loyally brought back to her. On the following day she
+retired to the little house, hung the carbine above the mantelpiece,
+and lived there estranged from all the world, solitary and silent.
+
+Pierre was at last sole master of the house. The Fouques' land
+belonged to him in fact, if not in law. He never thought of
+establishing himself on it. It was too narrow a field for his
+ambition. To till the ground and cultivate vegetables seemed to him
+boorish, unworthy of his faculties. He was in a hurry to divest
+himself of everything recalling the peasant. With his nature refined
+by his mother's nervous temperament, he felt an irresistible longing
+for the enjoyments of the middle classes. In all his calculations,
+therefore, he had regarded the sale of the Fouques' property as the
+final consummation. This sale, by placing a round sum of money in his
+hands, would enable him to marry the daughter of some merchant who
+would take him into partnership. At this period the wars of the First
+Empire were greatly thinning the ranks of eligible young men. Parents
+were not so fastidious as previously in the choice of a son-in-law.
+Pierre persuaded himself that money would smooth all difficulties, and
+that the gossip of the Faubourg would be overlooked; he intended to
+pose as a victim, as an honest man suffering from a family disgrace,
+which he deplored, without being soiled by it or excusing it.
+
+For several months already he had cast his eyes on a certain Felicite
+Puech, the daughter of an oil-dealer. The firm of Puech & Lacamp,
+whose warehouses were in one of the darkest lanes of the old quarter,
+was far from prosperous. It enjoyed but doubtful credit in the market,
+and people talked vaguely of bankruptcy. It was precisely in
+consequence of these evil reports that Pierre turned his batteries in
+this direction. No well-to-do trader would have given him his
+daughter. He meant to appear on the scene at the very moment when old
+Puech should no longer know which way to turn; he would then purchase
+Felicite of him, and re-establish the credit of the house by his own
+energy and intelligence. It was a clever expedient for ascending the
+first rung of the social ladder, for raising himself above his
+station. Above all things, he wished to escape from that frightful
+Faubourg where everybody reviled his family, and to obliterate all
+these foul legends, by effacing even the very name of the Fouques'
+enclosure. For that reason the filthy streets of the old quarter
+seemed to him perfect paradise. There, only, he would be able to
+change his skin.
+
+The moment which he had been awaiting soon arrived. The firm of Puech
+and Lacamp seemed to be at the last gasp. The young man then
+negotiated the match with prudent skill. He was received, if not as a
+deliverer, at least as a necessary and acceptable expedient. The
+marriage agreed upon, he turned his attention to the sale of the
+ground. The owner of the Jas-Meiffren, desiring to enlarge his estate,
+had made him repeated offers. A low, thin, party-wall alone separated
+the two estates. Pierre speculated on the eagerness of his wealthy
+neighbour, who, to gratify his caprice, offered as much as fifty
+thousand francs for the land. It was double its value. Pierre,
+whoever, with the craftiness of a peasant, pulled a long face, and
+said that he did not care to sell; that his mother would never consent
+to get rid of the property where the Fouques had lived from father to
+son for nearly two centuries. But all the time that he was seemingly
+holding back he was really making preparations for the sale. Certain
+doubts had arisen in his mind. According to his own brutal logic, the
+property belonged to him; he had the right to dispose of it as he
+chose. Beneath this assurance, however, he had vague presentiments of
+legal complications. So he indirectly consulted a lawyer of the
+Faubourg.
+
+He learnt some fine things from him. According to the lawyer, his
+hands were completely tied. His mother alone could alienate the
+property, and he doubted whether she would. But what he did not know,
+what came as a heavy blow to him, was that Ursule and Antoine, those
+young wolves, had claims on the estate. What! they would despoil him,
+rob him, the legitimate child! The lawyer's explanations were clear
+and precise, however; Adelaide, it is true, had married Rougon under
+the common property system; but as the whole fortune consisted of
+land, the young woman, according to law, again came into possession of
+everything at her husband's death. Moreover, Macquart and Adelaide had
+duly acknowledged their children when declaring their birth for
+registration, and thus these children were entitled to inherit from
+their mother. For sole consolation, Pierre learnt that the law reduced
+the share of illegitimate children in favour of the others. This,
+however, did not console him at all. He wanted to have everything. He
+would not have shared ten sous with Ursule and Antoine.
+
+This vista of the intricacies of the Code opened up a new horizon,
+which he scanned with a singularly thoughtful air. He soon recognised
+that a shrewd man must always keep the law on his side. And this is
+what he devised without consulting anyone, even the lawyer, whose
+suspicions he was afraid of arousing. He knew how to turn his mother
+round his finger. One fine morning he took her to a notary and made
+her sign a deed of sale. Provided she were left the hovel in the
+Impasse Saint-Mittre, Adelaide would have sold all Plassans. Besides,
+Pierre assured her an annual income of six hundred francs, and made
+the most solemn promises to watch over his brother and sister. This
+oath satisfied the good woman. She recited, before the notary, the
+lesson which it had pleased her son to teach her. On the following day
+the young man made her place her name at the foot of a document in
+which she acknowledged having received fifty thousand francs as the
+price of the property. This was his stroke of genius, the act of a
+rogue. He contented himself with telling his mother, who was a little
+surprised at signing such a receipt when she had not seen a centime of
+the fifty thousand francs, that it was a pure formality of no
+consequence whatever. As he slipped the paper into his pocket, he
+thought to himself, "Now, let the young wolves ask me to render an
+account. I will tell them the old woman has squandered everything.
+They will never dare to go to law with me about it." A week
+afterwards, the party-wall no longer existed: a plough had turned up
+the vegetable beds; the Fouques' enclosure, in accordance with young
+Rougon's wish, was about to become a thing of the past. A few months
+later, the owner of the Jas-Meiffren even had the old market-
+gardener's house, which was falling to pieces, pulled down.
+
+When Pierre had secured the fifty thousand francs he married Felicite
+Puech with as little delay as possible. Felicite was a short, dark
+woman, such as one often meets in Provence. She looked like one of
+those brown, lean, noisy grasshoppers, which in their sudden leaps
+often strike their heads against the almond-trees. Thin, flat-
+breasted, with pointed shoulders and a face like that of a pole-cat,
+her features singularly sunken and attenuated, it was not easy to tell
+her age; she looked as near fifteen as thirty, although she was in
+reality only nineteen, four years younger than her husband. There was
+much feline slyness in the depths of her little black eyes, which
+suggested gimlet holes. Her low, bumpy forehead, her slightly
+depressed nose with delicate quivering nostrils, her thin red lips and
+prominent chin, parted from her cheeks by strange hollows, all
+suggested the countenance of an artful dwarf, a living mask of
+intrigue, an active, envious ambition. With all her ugliness, however,
+Felicite possessed a sort of gracefulness which rendered her
+seductive. People said of her that she could be pretty or ugly as she
+pleased. It would depend on the fashion in which she tied her
+magnificent hair; but it depended still more on the triumphant smile
+which illumined her golden complexion when she thought she had got the
+better of somebody. Born under an evil star, and believing herself
+ill-used by fortune, she was generally content to appear an ugly
+creature. She did not, however, intend to abandon the struggle, for
+she had vowed that she would some day make the whole town burst with
+envy, by an insolent display of happiness and luxury. Had she been
+able to act her part on a more spacious stage, where full play would
+have been allowed her ready wit, she would have quickly brought her
+dream to pass. Her intelligence was far superior to that of the girls
+of her own station and education. Evil tongues asserted that her
+mother, who had died a few years after she was born, had, during the
+early period of her married life, been familiar with the Marquis de
+Carnavant, a young nobleman of the Saint-Marc quarter. In fact,
+Felicite had the hands and feet of a marchioness, and, in this
+respect, did not appear to belong to that class of workers from which
+she was descended.
+
+Her marriage with Pierre Rougon, that semi-peasant, that man of the
+Faubourg, whose family was in such bad odour, kept the old quarter in
+a state of astonishment for more than a month. She let people gossip,
+however, receiving the stiff congratulations of her friends with
+strange smiles. Her calculations had been made; she had chosen Rougon
+for a husband as one would choose an accomplice. Her father, in
+accepting the young man, had merely had eyes for the fifty thousand
+francs which were to save him from bankruptcy. Felicite, however, was
+more keen-sighted. She looked into the future, and felt that she would
+be in want of a robust man, even if he were somewhat rustic, behind
+whom she might conceal herself, and whose limbs she would move at
+will. She entertained a deliberate hatred for the insignificant little
+exquisites of provincial towns, the lean herd of notaries' clerks and
+prospective barristers, who stand shivering with cold while waiting
+for clients. Having no dowry, and despairing of ever marrying a rich
+merchant's son, she by far preferred a peasant whom she could use as a
+passive tool, to some lank graduate who would overwhelm her with his
+academical superiority, and drag her about all her life in search of
+hollow vanities. She was of opinion that the woman ought to make the
+man. She believed herself capable of carving a minister out of a cow-
+herd. That which had attracted her in Rougon was his broad chest, his
+heavy frame, which was not altogether wanting in elegance. A man thus
+built would bear with ease and sprightliness the mass of intrigues
+which she dreamt of placing on his shoulders. However, while she
+appreciated her husband's strength and vigour, she also perceived that
+he was far from being a fool; under his coarse flesh she had divined
+the cunning suppleness of his mind. Still she was a long way from
+really knowing her Rougon; she thought him far stupider than he was. A
+few days after her marriage, as she was by chance fumbling in the
+drawer of a secretaire, she came across the receipt for fifty thousand
+francs which Adelaide had signed. At sight of it she understood
+things, and felt rather frightened; her own natural average honesty
+rendered her hostile to such expedients. Her terror, however, was not
+unmixed with admiration; Rougon became in her eyes a very smart
+fellow.
+
+The young couple bravely sought to conquer fortune. The firm of Puech
+& Lacamp was not, after all, so embarrassed as Pierre had thought. Its
+liabilities were small, it was merely in want of ready-money. In the
+provinces, traders adopt prudent courses to save them from serious
+disasters. Puech & Lacamp were prudent to an excessive degree; they
+never risked a thousand crowns without the greatest fear, and thus
+their house, a veritable hole, was an unimportant one. The fifty
+thousand francs that Pierre brought into it sufficed to pay the debts
+and extend the business. The beginnings were good. During three
+successive years the olive harvest was an abundant one. Felicite, by a
+bold stroke which absolutely frightened both Pierre and old Puech,
+made them purchase a considerable quantity of oil, which they stored
+in their warehouse. During the following years, as the young woman had
+foreseen, the crops failed, and a considerable rise in prices having
+set in, they realised large profits by selling out their stock.
+
+A short time after this haul, Puech & Lacamp retired from the firm,
+content with the few sous they had just secured, and ambitious of
+living on their incomes.
+
+The young couple now had sole control of the business, and thought
+that they had at last laid the foundation of their fortune. "You have
+vanquished my ill-luck," Felicite would sometimes say to her husband.
+
+One of the rare weaknesses of her energetic nature was to believe
+herself stricken by misfortune. Hitherto, so she asserted, nothing had
+been successful with either herself or her father, in spite of all
+their efforts. Goaded by her southern superstition, she prepared to
+struggle with fate as one struggles with somebody who is endeavouring
+to strangle one. Circumstances soon justified her apprehensions in a
+singular manner. Ill-luck returned inexorably. Every year some fresh
+disaster shook Rougon's business. A bankruptcy resulted in the loss of
+a few thousand francs; his estimates of crops proved incorrect,
+through the most incredible circumstances; the safest speculations
+collapsed miserably. It was a truceless, merciless combat.
+
+"You see I was born under an unlucky star!" Felicite would bitterly
+exclaim.
+
+And yet she still struggled furiously, not understanding how it was
+that she, who had shown such keen scent in a first speculation, could
+now only give her husband the most deplorable advice.
+
+Pierre, dejected and less tenacious than herself, would have gone into
+liquidation a score of times had it not been for his wife's firm
+obstinacy. She longed to be rich. She perceived that her ambition
+could only be attained by fortune. As soon as they possessed a few
+hundred thousand francs they would be masters of the town. She would
+get her husband appointed to an important post, and she would govern.
+It was not the attainment of honours which troubled her; she felt
+herself marvellously well armed for such a combat. But she could do
+nothing to get together the first few bags of money which were needed.
+Though the ruling of men caused her no apprehensions, she felt a sort
+of impotent rage at the thought of those inert, white, cold, five-
+franc pieces over which her intriguing spirit had no power, and which
+obstinately resisted her.
+
+The battle lasted for more than thirty years. The death of Puech
+proved another heavy blow. Felicite, who had counted upon an
+inheritance of about forty thousand francs, found that the selfish old
+man, in order to indulge himself in his old age, had sunk all his
+money in a life annuity. The discovery made her quite ill. She was
+gradually becoming soured, she was growing more lean and harsh. To see
+her, from morning till night, whirling round the jars of oil, one
+would have thought she believed that she could stimulate the sales by
+continually flitting about like a restless fly. Her husband, on the
+contrary, became heavier; misfortune fattened him, making him duller
+and more indolent. These thirty years of combat did not, however,
+bring him to ruin. At each annual stock-taking they managed to make
+both ends meet fairly well; if they suffered any loss during one
+season, they recouped themselves the next. However, it was precisely
+this living from hand to mouth which exasperated Felicite. She would,
+by far, have preferred a big failure. They would then, perhaps, have
+been able to commence life over again, instead of obstinately
+persisting in their petty business, working themselves to death to
+gain the bare necessaries of life. During one third of a century they
+did not save fifty thousand francs.
+
+It should be mentioned that, from the very first years of their
+married life, they had a numerous family, which in the long run became
+a heavy burden to them. In the course of five years, from 1811 to
+1815, Felicite gave birth to three boys. Then during the four ensuing
+years she presented her husband with two girls. These had but an
+indifferent welcome; daughters are a terrible embarrassment when one
+has no dowry to give them.
+
+However, the young woman did not regard this troop of children as the
+cause of their ruin. On the contrary, she based on her sons' heads the
+building of the fortune which was crumbling in her own hands. They
+were hardly ten years old before she discounted their future careers
+in her dreams. Doubting whether she would ever succeed herself, she
+centred in them all her hopes of overcoming the animosity of fate.
+They would provide satisfaction for her disappointed vanity, they
+would give her that wealthy, honourable position which she had
+hitherto sought in vain. From that time forward, without abandoning
+the business struggle, she conceived a second plan for obtaining the
+gratification of her domineering instincts. It seemed to her
+impossible that, amongst her three sons, there should not be a man of
+superior intellect, who would enrich them all. She felt it, she said.
+Accordingly, she nursed the children with a fervour in which maternal
+severity was blended with an usurer's solicitude. She amused herself
+by fattening them as though they constituted a capital which, later
+on, would return a large interest.
+
+"Enough!" Pierre would sometimes exclaim, "all children are
+ungrateful. You are spoiling them, you are ruining us."
+
+When Felicite spoke of sending them to college, he got angry. Latin
+was a useless luxury, it would be quite sufficient if they went
+through the classes of a little neighbouring school The young woman,
+however, persisted in her design. She possessed certain elevated
+instincts which made her take a great pride in surrounding herself
+with accomplished children; moreover, she felt that her sons must
+never remain as illiterate as her husband, if she wished to see them
+become prominent men. She fancied them all three in Paris in high
+positions, which she did not clearly define. When Rougon consented,
+and the three youngsters had entered the eighth class, Felicite felt
+the most lively satisfaction she had ever experienced. She listened
+with delight as they talked of their professors and their studies.
+When she heard her eldest son make one of his brothers decline /Rosa,
+a rose/, it sounded like delicious music to her. It is only fair to
+add that her delight was not tarnished by any sordid calculations.
+Even Rougon felt the satisfaction which an illiterate man experiences
+on perceiving his sons grow more learned than himself. Then the
+fellowship which grew up between their sons and those of the local
+big-wigs completed the parents' gratification. The youngsters were
+soon on familiar terms with the sons of the Mayor and the Sub-Prefect,
+and even with two or three young noblemen whom the Saint-Marc quarter
+had deigned to send to the Plassans College. Felicite was at a loss
+how to repay such an honour. The education of the three lads weighed
+seriously on the budget of the Rougon household.
+
+Until the boys had taken their degrees, their parents, who kept them
+at college at enormous sacrifices, lived in hopes of their success.
+When they had obtained their diplomas Felicite wished to continue her
+work, and even persuaded her husband to send the three to Paris. Two
+of them devoted themselves to the study of law, and the third passed
+through the School of Medicine. Then, when they were men, and had
+exhausted the resources of the Rougon family and were obliged to
+return and establish themselves in the provinces, their parents'
+disenchantment began. They idled about and grew fat. And Felicite
+again felt all the bitterness of her ill-luck. Her sons were failing
+her. They had ruined her, and did not return any interest on the
+capital which they represented. This last blow of fate was the
+heaviest, as it fell on her ambition and her maternal vanity alike.
+Rougon repeated to her from morning till night, "I told you so!" which
+only exasperated her the more.
+
+One day, as she was bitterly reproaching her eldest son with the large
+amount of money expended on his education, he said to her with equal
+bitterness, "I will repay you later on if I can. But as you had no
+means, you should have brought us up to a trade. We are out of our
+element, we are suffering more than you."
+
+Felicite understood the wisdom of these words. From that time she
+ceased to accuse her children, and turned her anger against fate,
+which never wearied of striking her. She started her old complaints
+afresh, and bemoaned more and more the want of means which made her
+strand, as it were, in port. Whenever Rougon said to her, "Your sons
+are lazy fellows, they will eat up all we have," she sourly replied,
+"Would to God I had more money to give them; if they do vegetate, poor
+fellows, it's because they haven't got a sou to bless themselves
+with."
+
+At the beginning of the year 1848, on the eve of the Revolution of
+February, the three young Rougons held very precarious positions at
+Plassans. They presented most curious and profoundly dissimilar
+characteristics, though they came of the same stock. They were in
+reality superior to their parents. The race of the Rougons was
+destined to become refined through its female side. Adelaide had made
+Pierre a man of moderate enterprise, disposed to low ambitions;
+Felicite had inspired her sons with a higher intelligence, with a
+capacity for greater vices and greater virtues.
+
+At the period now referred to the eldest, Eugene, was nearly forty
+years old. He was a man of middle height, slightly bald, and already
+disposed to obesity. He had his father's face, a long face with broad
+features; beneath his skin one could divine the fat to which were due
+the flabby roundness of his features, and his yellowish, waxy
+complexion. Though his massive square head still recalled the peasant,
+his physiognomy was transfigured, lit up from within as it were, when
+his drooping eyelids were raised and his eyes awoke to life. In the
+son's case, the father's ponderousness had turned to gravity. This big
+fellow, Eugene, usually preserved a heavy somnolent demeanour. At the
+same time, certain of his heavy, languid movements suggested those of
+a giant stretching his limbs pending the time for action. By one of
+those alleged freaks of nature, of which, however, science is now
+commencing to discover the laws, if physical resemblance to Pierre was
+perfect in Eugene, Felicite on her side seemed to have furnished him
+with his brains. He offered an instance of certain moral and
+intellectual qualities of maternal origin being embedded in the coarse
+flesh he had derived from his father. He cherished lofty ambitions,
+possessed domineering instincts, and showed singular contempt for
+trifling expedients and petty fortunes.
+
+He was a proof that Plassans was perhaps not mistaken in suspecting
+that Felicite had some blue blood in her veins. The passion for
+indulgence, which became formidably developed in the Rougons, and was,
+in fact, the family characteristic, attained in his case its highest
+pitch; he longed for self-gratification, but in the form of mental
+enjoyment such as would gratify his burning desire for domination. A
+man such as this was never intended to succeed in a provincial town.
+He vegetated there for fifteen years, his eyes turned towards Paris,
+watching his opportunities. On his return home he had entered his name
+on the rolls, in order to be independent of his parents. After that he
+pleaded from time to time, earning a bare livelihood, without
+appearing to rise above average mediocrity. At Plassans his voice was
+considered thick, his movements heavy. He generally wandered from the
+question at issue, rambled, as the wiseacres expressed it. On one
+occasion particularly, when he was pleading in a case for damages, he
+so forgot himself as to stray into a political disquisition, to such a
+point that the presiding judge interfered, whereupon he immediately
+sat down with a strange smile. His client was condemned to pay a
+considerable sum of money, a circumstance which did not, however, seem
+to cause Eugene the least regret for his irrelevant digression. He
+appeared to regard his speeches as mere exercises which would be of
+use to him later on. It was this that puzzled and disheartened
+Felicite. She would have liked to see her son dictating the law to the
+Civil Court of Plassans. At last she came to entertain a very
+unfavourable opinion of her first-born. To her mind this lazy fellow
+would never be the one to shed any lustre on the family. Pierre, on
+the contrary, felt absolute confidence in him, not that he had more
+intuition than his wife, but because external appearances sufficed
+him, and he flattered himself by believing in the genius of a son who
+was his living image. A month prior to the Revolution of February,
+1848, Eugene became restless; some special inspiration made him
+anticipate the crisis. From that time forward he seemed to feel out of
+his element at Plassans. He would wander about the streets like a
+distressed soul. At last he formed a sudden resolution, and left for
+Paris, with scarcely five hundred francs in his pocket.
+
+Aristide, the youngest son, was, so to speak, diametrically opposed to
+Eugene. He had his mother's face, and a covetousness and slyness of
+character prone to trivial intrigues, in which his father's instincts
+predominated. Nature has need of symmetry. Short, with a pitiful
+countenance suggesting the knob of a stick carved into a Punch's head,
+Aristide ferretted and fumbled everywhere, without any scruples, eager
+only to gratify himself. He loved money as his eldest brother loved
+power. While Eugene dreamed of bending a people to his will, and
+intoxicated himself with visions of future omnipotence, the other
+fancied himself ten times a millionaire, installed in a princely
+mansion, eating and drinking to his heart's content, and enjoying life
+to the fullest possible extent. Above all things, he longed to make a
+rapid fortune. When he was building his castles in the air, they would
+rise in his mind as if by magic; he would become possessed of tons of
+gold in one night. These visions agreed with his indolence, as he
+never troubled himself about the means, considering those the best
+which were the most expeditious. In his case the race of the Rougons,
+of those coarse, greedy peasants with brutish appetites, had matured
+too rapidly; every desire for material indulgence was found in him,
+augmented threefold by hasty education, and rendered the more
+insatiable and dangerous by the deliberate way in which the young man
+had come to regard their realisation as his set purpose. In spite of
+her keen feminine intuition, Felicite preferred this son; she did not
+perceive the greater affinity between herself and Eugene; she excused
+the follies and indolence of her youngest son under the pretext that
+he would some day be the superior genius of the family, and that such
+a man was entitled to live a disorderly life until his intellectual
+strength should be revealed.
+
+Aristide subjected her indulgence to a rude test. In Paris he led a
+low, idle life; he was one of those students who enter their names at
+the taverns of the Quartier Latin. He did not remain there, however,
+more than two years; his father, growing apprehensive, and seeing that
+he had not yet passed a single examination, kept him at Plassans and
+spoke of finding a wife for him, hoping that domestic responsibility
+would make him more steady. Aristide let himself be married. He had no
+very clear idea of his own ambitions at this time; provincial life did
+not displease him; he was battening in his little town--eating,
+sleeping, and sauntering about. Felicite pleaded his cause so
+earnestly that Pierre consented to board and lodge the newly-married
+couple, on condition that the young man should turn his attention to
+the business. From that time, however, Aristide led a life of ease and
+idleness. He spent his days and the best part of his nights at the
+club, again and again slipping out of his father's office like a
+schoolboy to go and gamble away the few louis that his mother gave him
+clandestinely.
+
+It is necessary to have lived in the depths of the French provinces to
+form an idea of the four brutifying years which the young fellow spent
+in this fashion. In every little town there is a group of individuals
+who thus live on their parents, pretending at times to work, but in
+reality cultivating idleness with a sort of religious zeal. Aristide
+was typical of these incorrigible drones. For four years he did little
+but play ecarte. While he passed his time at the club, his wife, a
+fair-complexioned nerveless woman, helped to ruin the Rougon business
+by her inordinate passion for showy gowns and her formidable appetite,
+a rather remarkable peculiarity in so frail a creature. Angele,
+however, adored sky-blue ribbons and roast beef. She was the daughter
+of a retired captain who was called Commander Sicardot, a good-hearted
+old gentleman, who had given her a dowry of ten thousand francs--all
+his savings. Pierre, in selecting Angele for his son had considered
+that he had made an unexpected bargain, so lightly did he esteem
+Aristide. However, that dowry of ten thousand francs, which determined
+his choice, ultimately became a millstone round his neck. His son, who
+was already a cunning rogue, deposited the ten thousand francs with
+his father, with whom he entered into partnership, declining, with the
+most sincere professions of devotion, to keep a single copper.
+
+"We have no need of anything," he said; "you will keep my wife and
+myself, and we will reckon up later on."
+
+Pierre was short of money at the time, and accepted, not, however,
+without some uneasiness at Aristide's disinterestedness. The latter
+calculated that it would be years before his father would have ten
+thousand francs in ready money to repay him, so that he and his wife
+would live at the paternal expense so long as the partnership could
+not be dissolved. It was an admirable investment for his few bank-
+notes. When the oil-dealer understood what a foolish bargain he had
+made he was not in a position to rid himself of Aristide; Angele's
+dowry was involved in speculations which were turning out
+unfavourably. He was exasperated, stung to the heart, at having to
+provide for his daughter-in-law's voracious appetite and keep his son
+in idleness. Had he been able to buy them out of the business he would
+twenty times have shut his doors on those bloodsuckers, as he
+emphatically expressed it. Felicite secretly defended them; the young
+man, who had divined her dreams of ambition, would every evening
+describe to her the elaborate plans by which he would shortly make a
+fortune. By a rare chance she had remained on excellent terms with her
+daughter-in-law. It must be confessed that Angele had no will of her
+own--she could be moved and disposed of like a piece of furniture.
+
+Meantime Pierre became enraged whenever his wife spoke to him of the
+success their youngest son would ultimately achieve; he declared that
+he would really bring them to ruin. During the four years that the
+young couple lived with him he stormed in this manner, wasting his
+impotent rage in quarrels, without in the least disturbing the
+equanimity of Aristide and Angele. They were located there, and there
+they intended to remain like blocks of wood. At last Pierre met with a
+stroke of luck which enabled him to return the ten thousand francs to
+his son. When, however, he wanted to reckon up accounts with him,
+Aristide interposed so much chicanery that he had to let the couple go
+without deducting a copper for their board and lodging. They installed
+themselves but a short distance off, in a part of the old quarter
+called the Place Saint-Louis. The ten thousand francs were soon
+consumed. They had everything to get for their new home. Moreover
+Aristide made no change in his mode of living as long as any money was
+left in the house. When he had reached the last hundred-franc note he
+felt rather nervous. He was seen prowling about the town in a
+suspicious manner. He no longer took his customary cup of coffee at
+the club; he watched feverishly whilst play was going on, without
+touching a card. Poverty made him more spiteful than he would
+otherwise have been. He bore the blow for a long time, obstinately
+refusing to do anything in the way of work.
+
+In 1840 he had a son, little Maxime, whom his grandmother Felicite
+fortunately sent to college, paying his fees clandestinely. That made
+one mouth less at home; but poor Angele was dying of hunger, and her
+husband was at last compelled to seek a situation. He secured one at
+the Sub-Prefecture. He remained there nearly ten years, and only
+attained a salary of eighteen hundred francs per annum. From that time
+forward it was with ever increasing malevolence and rancour that he
+hungered for the enjoyments of which he was deprived. His lowly
+position exasperated him; the paltry hundred and fifty francs which he
+received every month seemed to him an irony of fate. Never did man
+burn with such desire for self-gratification. Felicite, to whom he
+imparted his sufferings, was by no means grieved to see him so eager.
+She thought his misery would stimulate his energies. At last,
+crouching in ambush as it were, with his ears wide open, he began to
+look about him like a thief seeking his opportunity. At the beginning
+of 1848, when his brother left for Paris, he had a momentary idea of
+following him. But Eugene was a bachelor; and he, Aristide, could not
+take his wife so far without money. So he waited, scenting a
+catastrophe, and ready to fall on the first prey that might come
+within his reach.
+
+The other son, Pascal, born between Eugene and Aristide, did not
+appear to belong to the family. He was one of those frequent cases
+which give the lie to the laws of heredity. During the evolution of a
+race nature often produces some one being whose every element she
+derives from her own creative powers. Nothing in the moral or physical
+constitution of Pascal recalled the Rougons. Tall, with a grave and
+gentle face, he had an uprightness of mind, a love of study, a
+retiring modesty which contrasted strangely with the feverish
+ambitions and unscrupulous intrigues of his relatives. After
+acquitting himself admirably of his medical studies in Paris, he had
+retired, by preference, to Plassans, notwithstanding the offers he
+received from his professors. He loved a quiet provincial life; he
+maintained that for a studious man such a life was preferable to the
+excitement of Paris. Even at Plassans he did not exert himself to
+extend his practice. Very steady, and despising fortune, he contented
+himself with the few patients sent him by chance. All his pleasures
+were centred in a bright little house in the new town, where he shut
+himself up, lovingly devoting his whole time to the study of natural
+history. He was particularly fond of physiology. It was known in the
+town that he frequently purchased dead bodies from the hospital grave-
+digger, a circumstance which rendered him an object of horror to
+delicate ladies and certain timid gentlemen. Fortunately, they did not
+actually look upon him as a sorcerer; but his practice diminished, and
+he was regarded as an eccentric character, to whom people of good
+society ought not to entrust even a finger-tip, for fear of being
+compromised. The mayor's wife was one day heard to say: "I would
+sooner die than be attended by that gentleman. He smells of death."
+
+From that time, Pascal was condemned. He seemed to rejoice at the mute
+terror which he inspired. The fewer patients he had, the more time he
+could devote to his favourite sciences. As his fees were very
+moderate, the poorer people remained faithful to him; he earned just
+enough to live, and lived contentedly, a thousand leagues away from
+the rest of the country, absorbed in the pure delight of his
+researches and discoveries. From time to time he sent a memoir to the
+Academie des Sciences at Paris. Plassans did not know that this
+eccentric character, this gentleman who smelt of death was well-known
+and highly-esteemed in the world of science. When people saw him
+starting on Sundays for an excursion among the Garrigues hills, with a
+botanist's bag hung round his neck and a geologist's hammer in his
+hand, they would shrug their shoulders and institute a comparison
+between him and some other doctor of the town who was noted for his
+smart cravat, his affability to the ladies, and the delicious odour of
+violets which his garments always diffused. Pascal's parents did not
+understand him any better than other people. When Felicite saw him
+adopting such a strange, unpretentious mode of life she was stupefied,
+and reproached him for disappointing her hopes. She, who tolerated
+Aristide's idleness because she thought it would prove fertile, could
+not view without regret the slow progress of Pascal, his partiality
+for obscurity and contempt for riches, his determined resolve to lead
+a life of retirement. He was certainly not the child who would ever
+gratify her vanities.
+
+"But where do you spring from?" she would sometimes say to him. "You
+are not one of us. Look at your brothers, how they keep their eyes
+open, striving to profit by the education we have given them, whilst
+you waste your time on follies and trifles. You make a very poor
+return to us, who have ruined ourselves for your education. No, you
+are certainly not one of us."
+
+Pascal, who preferred to laugh whenever he was called upon to feel
+annoyed, replied cheerfully, but not without a sting of irony: "Oh,
+you need not be frightened, I shall never drive you to the verge of
+bankruptcy; when any of you are ill, I will attend you for nothing."
+
+Moreover, though he never displayed any repugnance to his relatives,
+he very rarely saw them, following in this wise his natural instincts.
+Before Aristide obtained a situation at the Sub-Prefecture, Pascal had
+frequently come to his assistance. For his part he had remained a
+bachelor. He had not the least suspicion of the grave events that were
+preparing. For two or three years he had been studying the great
+problem of heredity, comparing the human and animal races together,
+and becoming absorbed in the strange results which he obtained.
+Certain observations which he had made with respect to himself and his
+relatives had been, so to say, the starting-point of his studies. The
+common people, with their natural intuition, so well understood that
+he was quite different from the other Rougons, that they invariably
+called him Monsieur Pascal, without ever adding his family name.
+
+Three years prior to the Revolution of 1848 Pierre and Felicite
+retired from business. Old age was coming on apace; they were both
+past fifty and were weary enough of the struggle. In face of their ill
+fortune, they were afraid of being ultimately ruined if they
+obstinately persisted in the fight. Their sons, by disappointing their
+expectations, had dealt them the final blow. Now that they despaired
+of ever being enriched by them, they were anxious to make some little
+provision for old age. They retired with forty thousand francs at the
+utmost. This sum provided an annual income of two thousand francs,
+just sufficient to live in a small way in the provinces. Fortunately,
+they were by themselves, having succeeded in marrying their daughters
+Marthe and Sidonie, the former of whom resided at Marseilles and the
+latter in Paris.
+
+After they had settled their affairs they would much have liked to
+take up their abode in the new town, the quarter of the retired
+traders, but they dared not do so. Their income was too small; they
+were afraid that they would cut but a poor figure there. So, as a sort
+of compromise, they took apartments in the Rue de la Banne, the street
+which separates the old quarter from the new one. As their abode was
+one of the row of houses bordering the old quarter, they still lived
+among the common people; nevertheless, they could see the town of the
+richer classes from their windows, so that they were just on the
+threshold of the promised land.
+
+Their apartments, situated on the second floor, consisted of three
+large rooms--dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom. The first floor
+was occupied by the owner of the house, a stick and umbrella
+manufacturer, who had a shop on the ground floor. The house, which was
+narrow and by no means deep, had only two storeys. Felicite moved into
+it with a bitter pang. In the provinces, to live in another person's
+house is an avowal of poverty. Every family of position at Plassans
+has a house of its own, landed property being very cheap there. Pierre
+kept the purse-strings well tied; he would not hear of any
+embellishments. The old furniture, faded, worn, damaged though it was,
+had to suffice, without even being repaired. Felicite, however, who
+keenly felt the necessity for this parsimony, exerted herself to give
+fresh polish to all the wreckage; she herself knocked nails into some
+of the furniture which was more dilapidated than the rest, and darned
+the frayed velvet of the arm-chairs.
+
+The dining-room, which, like the kitchen, was at the back of the
+house, was nearly bare; a table and a dozen chairs were lost in the
+gloom of this large apartment, whose window faced the grey wall of a
+neighbouring building. As no strangers ever went into the bedroom,
+Felicite had stowed all her useless furniture there; thus, besides a
+bedstead, wardrobe, secretaire, and wash-stand, it contained two
+cradles, one perched atop of the other, a sideboard whose doors were
+missing, and an empty bookcase, venerable ruins which the old woman
+could not make up her mind to part with. All her cares, however, were
+bestowed upon the drawing-room, and she almost succeeded in making it
+comfortable and decent. The furniture was covered with yellowish
+velvet with satin flowers; in the middle stood a round table with a
+marble top, while a couple of pier tables, surmounted by mirrors,
+leant against the walls at either end of the room. There was even a
+carpet, which just covered the middle of the floor, and a chandelier
+in a white muslin cover which the flies had spotted with black specks.
+On the walls hung six lithographs representing the great battles of
+Napoleon I. Moreover, the furniture dated from the first years of the
+Empire. The only embellishment that Felicite could obtain was to have
+the walls hung with orange-hued paper covered with large flowers. Thus
+the drawing room had a strange yellow glow, which filled it with an
+artificial dazzling light. The furniture, the paper, and the window
+curtains were yellow; the carpet and even the marble table-tops showed
+touches of yellow. However, when the curtains were drawn the colours
+harmonised fairly well and the drawing-room looked almost decent.
+
+But Felicite had dreamed of quite a different kind of luxury. She
+regarded with mute despair this ill-concealed misery. She usually
+occupied the drawing-room, the best apartment in the house, and the
+sweetest and bitterest of her pastimes was to sit at one of the
+windows which overlooked the Rue de la Banne and gave her a side view
+of the square in front of the Sub-Prefecture. That was the paradise of
+her dreams. That little, neat, tidy square, with its bright houses,
+seemed to her a Garden of Eden. She would have given ten years of her
+life to possess one of those habitations. The house at the left-hand
+corner, in which the receiver of taxes resided, particularly tempted
+her. She contemplated it with eager longing. Sometimes, when the
+windows of this abode were open, she could catch a glimpse of rich
+furniture and tasteful elegance which made her burn with envy.
+
+At this period the Rougons passed through a curious crisis of vanity
+and unsatiated appetite. The few proper feelings which they had once
+entertained had become embittered. They posed as victims of evil
+fortune, not with resignation, however, for they seemed still more
+keenly determined that they would not die before they had satisfied
+their ambitions. In reality, they did not abandon any of their hopes,
+notwithstanding their advanced age. Felicite professed to feel a
+presentiment that she would die rich. However, each day of poverty
+weighed them down the more. When they recapitulated their vain
+attempts--when they recalled their thirty years' struggle, and the
+defection of their children--when they saw their airy castles end in
+this yellow drawing-room, whose shabbiness they could only conceal by
+drawing the curtains, they were overcome with bitter rage. Then, as a
+consolation, they would think of plans for making a colossal fortune,
+seeking all sorts of devices. Felicite would fancy herself the winner
+of the grand prize of a hundred thousand francs in some lottery, while
+Pierre pictured himself carrying out some wonderful speculation. They
+lived with one sole thought--that of making a fortune immediately, in
+a few hours--of becoming rich and enjoying themselves, if only for a
+year. Their whole beings tended to this, stubbornly, without a pause.
+And they still cherished some faint hopes with regard to their sons,
+with that peculiar egotism of parents who cannot bear to think that
+they have sent their children to college without deriving some
+personal advantage from it.
+
+Felicite did not appear to have aged; she was still the same dark
+little woman, ever on the move, buzzing about like a grasshopper. Any
+person walking behind her on the pavement would have thought her a
+girl of fifteen, from the lightness of her step and the angularity of
+her shoulders and waist. Even her face had scarcely undergone any
+change; it was simply rather more sunken, rather more suggestive of
+the snout of a pole-cat.
+
+As for Pierre Rougon, he had grown corpulent, and had become a highly
+respectable looking citizen, who only lacked a decent income to make
+him a very dignified individual. His pale, flabby face, his heaviness,
+his languid manner, seemed redolent of wealth. He had one day heard a
+peasant who did not know him say: "Ah! he's some rich fellow, that fat
+old gentleman there. He's no cause to worry about his dinner!" This
+was a remark which stung him to the heart, for he considered it cruel
+mockery to be only a poor devil while possessing the bulk and
+contented gravity of a millionaire. When he shaved on Sundays in front
+of a small five-sou looking-glass hanging from the fastening of a
+window, he would often think that in a dress coat and white tie he
+would cut a far better figure at the Sub-Prefect's than such or such a
+functionary of Plassans. This peasant's son, who had grown sallow from
+business worries, and corpulent from a sedentary life, whose hateful
+passions were hidden beneath naturally placid features, really had
+that air of solemn imbecility which gives a man a position in an
+official salon. People imagined that his wife held a rod over him, but
+they were mistaken. He was as self-willed as a brute. Any determined
+expression of extraneous will would drive him into a violent rage.
+Felicite was far too supple to thwart him openly; with her light
+fluttering nature she did not attack obstacles in front. When she
+wished to obtain something from her husband, or drive him the way she
+thought best, she would buzz round him in her grasshopper fashion,
+stinging him on all sides, and returning to the charge a hundred times
+until he yielded almost unconsciously. He felt, moreover, that she was
+shrewder than he, and tolerated her advice fairly patiently. Felicite,
+more useful than the coach fly, would sometimes do all the work while
+she was thus buzzing round Pierre's ears. Strange to say, the husband
+and wife never accused each other of their ill-success. The only bone
+of contention between them was the education lavished on their
+children.
+
+The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the lookout,
+exasperated by their bad luck, and disposed to lay violent hands on
+fortune if ever they should meet her in a byway. They were a family of
+bandits lying in wait, ready to rifle and plunder. Eugene kept an eye
+on Paris; Aristide dreamed of strangling Plassans; the mother and
+father, perhaps the most eager of the lot, intended to work on their
+own account, and reap some additional advantage from their sons'
+doings. Pascal alone, that discreet wooer of science, led the happy,
+indifferent life of a lover in his bright little house in the new
+town.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+In that closed, sequestered town of Plassans, where class distinction
+was so clearly marked in 1848, the commotion caused by political
+events was very slight. Even at the present day the popular voice
+sounds very faintly there; the middle classes bring their prudence to
+bear in the matter, the nobility their mute despair, and the clergy
+their shrewd cunning. Kings may usurp thrones, or republics may be
+established, without scarcely any stir in the town. Plassans sleeps
+while Paris fights. But though on the surface the town may appear calm
+and indifferent, in the depths hidden work goes on which it is curious
+to study. If shots are rare in the streets, intrigues consume the
+drawing-rooms of both the new town and the Saint-Marc quarter. Until
+the year 1830 the masses were reckoned of no account. Even at the
+present time they are similarly ignored. Everything is settled between
+the clergy, the nobility, and the bourgeoisie. The priests, who are
+very numerous, give the cue to the local politics; they lay
+subterranean mines, as it were, and deal blows in the dark, following
+a prudent tactical system, which hardly allows of a step in advance or
+retreat even in the course of ten years. The secret intrigues of men
+who desire above all things to avoid noise requires special
+shrewdness, a special aptitude for dealing with small matters, and a
+patient endurance such as one only finds in persons callous to all
+passions. It is thus that provincial dilatoriness, which is so freely
+ridiculed in Paris, is full of treachery, secret stabs, hidden
+victories and defeats. These worthy men, particularly when their
+interests are at stake, kill at home with a snap of the fingers, as
+we, the Parisians, kill with cannon in the public thoroughfares.
+
+The political history of Plassans, like that of all little towns in
+Provence, is singularly characteristic. Until 1830, the inhabitants
+remained observant Catholics and fervent royalists; even the lower
+classes only swore by God and their legitimate sovereigns. Then there
+came a sudden change; faith departed, the working and middle classes
+deserted the cause of legitimacy, and gradually espoused the great
+democratic movement of our time. When the Revolution of 1848 broke
+out, the nobility and the clergy were left alone to labour for the
+triumph of Henri V. For a long time they had regarded the accession of
+the Orleanists as a ridiculous experiment, which sooner or later would
+bring back the Bourbons; although their hopes were singularly shaken,
+they nevertheless continued the struggle, scandalised by the defection
+of their former allies, whom they strove to win back to their cause.
+The Saint-Marc quarter, assisted by all the parish priests, set to
+work. Among the middle classes, and especially among the people, the
+enthusiasm was very great on the morrow of the events of February;
+these apprentice republicans were in haste to display their
+revolutionary fervour. As regards the gentry of the new town, however,
+the conflagration, bright though it was, lasted no longer than a fire
+of straw. The small houseowners and retired tradespeople who had had
+their good days, or had made snug little fortunes under the monarchy,
+were soon seized with panic; the Republic, with its constant shocks
+and convulsions, made them tremble for their money and their life of
+selfishness.
+
+Consequently, when the Clerical reaction of 1849 declared itself,
+nearly all the middle classes passed over to the Conservative party.
+They were received with open arms. The new town had never before had
+such close relations with the Saint-Marc quarter: some of the nobility
+even went so far as to shake hands with lawyers and retired oil-
+dealers. This unexpected familiarity kindled the enthusiasm of the new
+quarter, which henceforward waged bitter warfare against the
+republican government. To bring about such a coalition, the clergy had
+to display marvellous skill and endurance. The nobility of Plassans
+for the most part lay prostrate, as if half dead. They retained their
+faith, but lethargy had fallen on them, and they preferred to remain
+inactive, allowing the heavens to work their will. They would gladly
+have contented themselves with silent protest, feeling, perhaps, a
+vague presentiment that their divinities were dead, and that there was
+nothing left for them to do but rejoin them. Even at this period of
+confusion, when the catastrophe of 1848 was calculated to give them a
+momentary hope of the return of the Bourbons, they showed themselves
+spiritless and indifferent, speaking of rushing into the melee, yet
+never quitting their hearths without a pang of regret.
+
+The clergy battled indefatigably against this feeling of impotence and
+resignation. They infused a kind of passion into their work: a priest,
+when he despairs, struggles all the more fiercely. The fundamental
+policy of the Church is to march straight forward; even though she may
+have to postpone the accomplishment of her projects for several
+centuries, she never wastes a single hour, but is always pushing
+forward with increasing energy. So it was the clergy who led the
+reaction of Plassans; the nobility only lent them their name, nothing
+more. The priests hid themselves behind the nobles, restrained them,
+directed them, and even succeeded in endowing them with a semblance of
+life. When they had induced them to overcome their repugnance so far
+as to make common cause with the middle classes, they believed
+themselves certain of victory. The ground was marvellously well
+prepared. This ancient royalist town, with its population of peaceful
+householders and timorous tradespeople, was destined to range itself,
+sooner or later, on the side of law and order. The clergy, by their
+tactics, hastened the conversion. After gaining the landlords of the
+new town to their side, they even succeeded in convincing the little
+retail-dealers of the old quarter. From that time the reactionary
+movement obtained complete possession of the town. All opinions were
+represented in this reaction; such a mixture of embittered Liberals,
+Legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, and Clericals had never before
+been seen. It mattered little, however, at that time. The sole object
+was to kill the Republic; and the Republic was at the point of death.
+Only a fraction of the people--a thousand workmen at most, out of the
+ten thousand souls in the town--still saluted the tree of liberty
+planted in the middle of the square in front of the Sub-Prefecture.
+
+The shrewdest politicians of Plassans, those who led the reactionary
+movement, did not scent the approach of the Empire until very much
+later. Prince Louis Napoleon's popularity seemed to them a mere
+passing fancy of the multitude. His person inspired them with but
+little admiration. They reckoned him a nonentity, a dreamer, incapable
+of laying his hands on France, and especially of maintaining his
+authority. To them he was only a tool whom they would make use of, who
+would clear the way for them, and whom they would turn out as soon as
+the hour arrived for the rightful Pretender to show himself.[*]
+However, months went by, and they became uneasy. It was only then that
+they vaguely perceived they were being duped: they had no time,
+however, to take any steps; the Coup d'Etat burst over their heads,
+and they were compelled to applaud. That great abomination, the
+Republic, had been assassinated; that, at least, was some sort of
+triumph. So the clergy and the nobility accepted accomplished facts
+with resignation; postponing, until later, the realisation of their
+hopes, and making amends for their miscalculations by uniting with the
+Bonapartists for the purpose of crushing the last Republicans.
+
+[*] The Count de Chambord, "Henri V."
+
+It was these events that laid the foundation of the Rougons' fortune.
+After being mixed up with the various phases of the crisis, they rose
+to eminence on the ruins of liberty. These bandits had been lying in
+wait to rob the Republic; as soon as it had been strangled, they
+helped to plunder it.
+
+After the events of February 1848, Felicite, who had the keenest scent
+of all the members of the family, perceived that they were at last on
+the right track. So she began to flutter round her husband, goading
+him on to bestir himself. The first rumours of the Revolution that had
+overturned King Louis Philippe had terrified Pierre. When his wife,
+however, made him understand that they had little to lose and much to
+gain from a convulsion, he soon came round to her way of thinking.
+
+"I don't know what you can do," Felicite repeatedly said, "but it
+seems to me that there's plenty to be done. Did not Monsieur de
+Carnavant say to us one day that he would be rich if ever Henri V.
+should return, and that this sovereign would magnificently recompense
+those who had worked for his restoration? Perhaps our fortune lies in
+that direction. We may yet be lucky."
+
+The Marquis de Carnavant, the nobleman who, according to the
+scandalous talk of the town, had been on very familiar terms with
+Felicite's mother, used occasionally to visit the Rougons. Evil
+tongues asserted that Madame Rougon resembled him. He was a little,
+lean, active man, seventy-five years old at that time, and Felicite
+certainly appeared to be taking his features and manner as she grew
+older. It was said that the wreck of his fortune, which had already
+been greatly diminished by his father at the time of the Emigration,
+had been squandered on women. Indeed, he cheerfully acknowledged his
+poverty. Brought up by one of his relatives, the Count de Valqueyras,
+he lived the life of a parasite, eating at the count's table and
+occupying a small apartment just under his roof.
+
+"Little one," he would often say to Felicite, as he patted her on the
+cheek, "if ever Henri V. gives me a fortune, I will make you my
+heiress!"
+
+He still called Felicite "little one," even when she was fifty years
+old. It was of these friendly pats, of these repeated promises of an
+inheritance, that Madame Rougon was thinking when she endeavoured to
+drive her husband into politics. Monsieur de Carnavant had often
+bitterly lamented his inability to render her any assistance. No doubt
+he would treat her like a father if ever he should acquire some
+influence. Pierre, to whom his wife half explained the situation in
+veiled terms, declared his readiness to move in any direction
+indicated.
+
+The marquis's peculiar position qualified him to act as an energetic
+agent of the reactionary movement at Plassans from the first days of
+the Republic. This bustling little man, who had everything to gain
+from the return of his legitimate sovereigns, worked assiduously for
+their cause. While the wealthy nobility of the Saint-Marc quarter were
+slumbering in mute despair, fearing, perhaps that they might
+compromise themselves and again be condemned to exile, he multiplied
+himself, as it were, spread the propaganda and rallied faithful ones
+together. He was a weapon whose hilt was held by an invisible hand.
+From that time forward he paid daily visits to the Rougons. He
+required a centre of operations. His relative, Monsieur de Valqueyras,
+had forbidden him to bring any of his associates into his house, so he
+had chosen Felicite's yellow drawing-room. Moreover, he very soon
+found Pierre a valuable assistant. He could not go himself and preach
+the cause of Legitimacy to the petty traders and workmen of the old
+quarter; they would have hooted him. Pierre, on the other hand, who
+had lived among these people, spoke their language and knew their
+wants, was able to catechise them in a friendly way. He thus became an
+indispensable man. In less than a fortnight the Rougons were more
+determined royalists than the king himself. The marquis, perceiving
+Pierre's zeal, shrewdly sheltered himself behind him. What was the use
+of making himself conspicuous, when a man with such broad shoulders
+was willing to bear on them the burden of all the follies of a party?
+He allowed Pierre to reign, puff himself out with importance and speak
+with authority, content to restrain or urge him on, according to the
+necessities of the cause. Thus, the old oil-dealer soon became a
+personage of mark. In the evening, when they were alone, Felicite used
+to say to him: "Go on, don't be frightened. We're on the right track.
+If this continues we shall be rich; we shall have a drawing-room like
+the tax-receiver's, and be able to entertain people."
+
+A little party of Conservatives had already been formed at the
+Rougons' house, and meetings were held every evening in the yellow
+drawing-room to declaim against the Republic.
+
+Among those who came were three or four retired merchants who trembled
+for their money, and clamoured with all their might for a wise and
+strong government. An old almond-dealer, a member of the Municipal
+Council, Monsieur Isidore Granoux, was the head of this group. His
+hare-lipped mouth was cloven a little way from the nose; his round
+eyes, his air of mingled satisfaction and astonishment, made him
+resemble a fat goose whose digestion is attended by wholesome terror
+of the cook. He spoke little, having no command of words; and he only
+pricked up his ears when anyone accused the Republicans of wishing to
+pillage the houses of the rich; whereupon he would colour up to such a
+degree as to make one fear an approaching apoplectic fit, and mutter
+low imprecations, in which the words "idlers," "scoundrels,"
+"thieves," and "assassins" frequently recurred.
+
+All those who frequented the yellow drawing-room were not, however, as
+heavy as this fat goose. A rich landowner, Monsieur Roudier, with a
+plump, insinuating face, used to discourse there for hours altogether,
+with all the passion of an Orleanist whose calculations had been upset
+by the fall of Louis Philippe. He had formerly been a hosier at Paris,
+and a purveyor to the Court, but had now retired to Plassans. He had
+made his son a magistrate, relying on the Orleanist party to promote
+him to the highest dignities. The revolution having ruined all his
+hopes, he had rushed wildly into the reaction. His fortune, his former
+commercial relations with the Tuileries, which he transformed into
+friendly intercourse, that prestige which is enjoyed by every man in
+the provinces who has made his money in Paris and deigns to come and
+spend it in a far away department, gave him great influence in the
+district; some persons listened to him as though he were an oracle.
+
+However, the strongest intellect of the yellow drawing-room was
+certainly Commander Sicardot, Aristide's father-in-law. Of Herculean
+frame, with a brick-red face, scarred and planted with tufts of grey
+hair, he was one of the most glorious old dolts of the Grande Armee.
+During the February Revolution he had been exasperated with the street
+warfare and never wearied of referring to it, proclaiming with
+indignation that this kind of fighting was shameful: whereupon he
+recalled with pride the grand reign of Napoleon.
+
+Another person seen at the Rougons' house was an individual with
+clammy hands and equivocal look, one Monsieur Vuillet, a bookseller,
+who supplied all the devout ladies of the town with holy images and
+rosaries. Vuillet dealt in both classical and religious works; he was
+a strict Catholic, a circumstance which insured him the custom of the
+numerous convents and parish churches. Further, by a stroke of genius
+he had added to his business the publication of a little bi-weekly
+journal, the "Gazette de Plassans," which was devoted exclusively to
+the interests of the clergy. This paper involved an annual loss of a
+thousand francs, but it made him the champion of the Church, and
+enabled him to dispose of his sacred unsaleable stock. Though he was
+virtually illiterate and could not even spell correctly, he himself
+wrote the articles of the "Gazette" with a humility and rancour that
+compensated for his lack of talent. The marquis, in entering on the
+campaign, had perceived immediately the advantage that might be
+derived from the co-operation of this insipid sacristan with the
+coarse, mercenary pen. After the February Revolution the articles in
+the "Gazette" contained fewer mistakes; the marquis revised them.
+
+One can now imagine what a singular spectacle the Rougons' yellow
+drawing-room presented every evening. All opinions met there to bark
+at the Republic. Their hatred of that institution made them agree
+together. The marquis, who never missed a meeting, appeased by his
+presence the little squabbles which occasionally arose between the
+commander and the other adherents. These plebeians were inwardly
+flattered by the handshakes which he distributed on his arrival and
+departure. Roudier, however, like a free-thinker of the Rue Saint-
+Honore, asserted that the marquis had not a copper to bless himself
+with, and was disposed to make light of him. M. de Carnavant on his
+side preserved the amiable smile of a nobleman lowering himself to the
+level of these middle class people, without making any of those
+contemptuous grimaces which any other resident of the Saint-Marc
+quarter would have thought fit under such circumstances. The parasite
+life he had led had rendered him supple. He was the life and soul of
+the group, commanding in the name of unknown personages whom he never
+revealed. "They want this, they don't want that," he would say. The
+concealed divinities who thus watched over the destinies of Plassans
+from behind some cloud, without appearing to interfere directly in
+public matters, must have been certain priests, the great political
+agents of the country. When the marquis pronounced that mysterious
+word "they," which inspired the assembly with such marvellous respect,
+Vuillet confessed, with a gesture of pious devotion, that he knew them
+very well.
+
+The happiest person in all this was Felicite. At last she had people
+coming to her drawing-room. It was true she felt a little ashamed of
+her old yellow velvet furniture. She consoled herself, however,
+thinking of the rich things she would purchase when the good cause
+should have triumphed. The Rougons had, in the end, regarded their
+royalism as very serious. Felicite went as far as to say, when Roudier
+was not present, that if they had not made a fortune in the oil
+business the fault lay in the monarchy of July. This was her mode of
+giving a political tinge to their poverty. She had a friendly word for
+everybody, even for Granoux, inventing each evening some new polite
+method of waking him up when it was time for departure.
+
+The drawing-room, that little band of Conservatives belonging to all
+parties, and daily increasing in numbers, soon wielded powerful
+influence. Owing to the diversified characters of its members, and
+especially to the secret impulse which each one received from the
+clergy, it became the centre of the reactionary movement and spread
+its influence throughout Plassans. The policy of the marquis, who sank
+his own personality, transformed Rougon into the leader of the party.
+The meetings were held at his house, and this circumstance sufficed in
+the eyes of most people to make him the head of the group, and draw
+public attention to him. The whole work was attributed to him; he was
+believed to be the chief artisan of the movement which was gradually
+bringing over to the Conservative party those who had lately been
+enthusiastic Republicans. There are some situations which benefit only
+persons of bad repute. These lay the foundations of their fortune
+where men of better position and more influence would never dare to
+risk theirs. Roudier, Granoux, and the others, all men of means and
+respectability, certainly seemed a thousand times preferable to Pierre
+as the acting leaders of the Conservative party. But none of them
+would have consented to turn his drawing-room into a political centre.
+Their convictions did not go so far as to induce them to compromise
+themselves openly; in fact, they were only so many provincial
+babblers, who liked to inveigh against the Republic at a neighbour's
+house as long as the neighbour was willing to bear the responsibility
+of their chatter. The game was too risky. There was no one among the
+middle classes of Plassans who cared to play it except the Rougons,
+whose ungratified longings urged them on to extreme measures.
+
+In the month of April, 1849, Eugene suddenly left Paris, and came to
+stay with his father for a fortnight. Nobody ever knew the purpose of
+this journey. It is probable that Eugene wanted to sound his native
+town, to ascertain whether he might successfully stand as a candidate
+for the legislature which was about to replace the Constituent
+Assembly. He was too shrewd to risk a failure. No doubt public opinion
+appeared to him little in his favour, for he abstained from any
+attempt. It was not known at Plassans what had become of him in Paris,
+what he was doing there. On his return to his native place, folks
+found him less heavy and somnolent than formerly. They surrounded him
+and endeavoured to make him speak out concerning the political
+situation. But he feigned ignorance and compelled them to talk. A
+little perspicacity would have detected that beneath his apparent
+unconcern there was great anxiety with regard to the political
+opinions of the town. However, he seemed to be sounding the ground
+more on behalf of a party than on his own account.
+
+Although he had renounced all hope for himself, he remained at
+Plassans until the end of the month, assiduously attending the
+meetings in the yellow drawing-room. As soon as the bell rang,
+announcing the first visitor, he would take up his position in one of
+the window recesses as far as possible from the lamp. And he remained
+there the whole evening, resting his chin on the palm of his right
+hand, and listening religiously. The greatest absurdities did not
+disturb his equanimity. He nodded approval even to the wild grunts of
+Granoux. When anyone asked him his own opinion, he politely repeated
+that of the majority. Nothing seemed to tire his patience, neither the
+hollow dreams of the marquis, who spoke of the Bourbons as if 1815
+were a recent date, nor the effusions of citizen Roudier, who grew
+quite pathetic when he recounted how many pairs of socks he had
+supplied to the citizen king, Louis Philippe. On the contrary, he
+seemed quite at his ease in this Tower of Babel. Sometimes, when these
+grotesque personages were storming against the Republic, his eyes
+would smile, while his lips retained their expression of gravity. His
+meditative manner of listening, and his invariable complacency, had
+earned him the sympathy of everyone. He was considered a nonentity,
+but a very decent fellow. Whenever an old oil or almond dealer failed
+to get a hearing, amidst the clamour, for some plan by which he could
+save France if he were only a master, he took himself off to Eugene
+and shouted his marvellous suggestions in his ear. And Eugene gently
+nodded his head, as though delighted with the grand projects he was
+listening to. Vuillet, alone, regarded him with a suspicious eye. This
+bookseller, half-sacristan and half-journalist, spoke less than the
+others, but was more observant. He had noticed that Eugene
+occasionally conversed at times in a corner with Commander Sicardot.
+So he determined to watch them, but never succeeded in overhearing a
+word. Eugene silenced the commander by a wink whenever Vuillet
+approached them. From that time, Sicardot never spoke of the Napoleons
+without a mysterious smile.
+
+Two days before his return to Paris, Eugene met his brother Aristide,
+on the Cours Sauvaire, and the latter accompanied him for a short
+distance with the importunity of a man in search of advice. As a
+matter of fact, Aristide was in great perplexity. Ever since the
+proclamation of the Republic, he had manifested the most lively
+enthusiasm for the new government. His intelligence, sharpened by two
+years' stay at Paris, enabled him to see farther than the thick heads
+of Plassans. He divined the powerlessness of the Legitimists and
+Orleanists, without clearly distinguishing, however, what third thief
+would come and juggle the Republic away. At all hazard he had ranged
+himself on the side of the victors, and he had severed his connection
+with his father, whom he publicly denounced as an old fool, an old
+dolt whom the nobility had bamboozled.
+
+"Yet my mother is an intelligent woman," he would add. "I should never
+have thought her capable of inducing her husband to join a party whose
+hopes are simply chimerical. They are taking the right course to end
+their lives in poverty. But then women know nothing about politics."
+
+For his part he wanted to sell himself as dearly as possible. His
+great anxiety as to the direction in which the wind was blowing, so
+that he might invariably range himself on the side of that party,
+which, in the hour of triumph, would be able to reward him
+munificently. Unfortunately, he was groping in the dark. Shut up in
+his far away province, without a guide, without any precise
+information, he felt quite lost. While waiting for events to trace out
+a sure and certain path, he preserved the enthusiastic republican
+attitude which he had assumed from the very first day. Thanks to this
+demeanour, he remained at the Sub-Prefecture; and his salary was even
+raised. Burning, however, with the desire to play a prominent part, he
+persuaded a bookseller, one of Vuillet's rivals, to establish a
+democratic journal, to which he became one of the most energetic
+contributors. Under his impulse the "Independant" waged merciless
+warfare against the reactionaries. But the current gradually carried
+him further than he wished to go; he ended by writing inflammatory
+articles, which made him shudder when he re-perused them. It was
+remarked at Plassans that he directed a series of attacks against all
+whom his father was in the habit of receiving of an evening in his
+famous yellow drawing-room. The fact is that the wealth of Roudier and
+Granoux exasperated Aristide to such a degree as to make him forget
+all prudence. Urged on by his jealous, insatiate bitterness, he had
+already made the middle classes his irreconcilable enemy, when
+Eugene's arrival and demeanour at Plassans caused him great
+consternation. He confessed to himself that his brother was a skilful
+man. According to him, that big, drowsy fellow always slept with one
+eye open, like a cat lying in wait before a mouse-hole. And now here
+was Eugene spending entire evenings in the yellow drawing-room, and
+devoting himself to those same grotesque personages whom he, Aristide,
+had so mercilessly ridiculed. When he discovered from the gossip of
+the town that his brother shook hands with Granoux and the marquis, he
+asked himself, with considerable anxiety, what was the meaning of it?
+Could he himself have been deceived? Had the Legitimists or the
+Orleanists really any chance of success? The thought terrified him. He
+lost his equilibrium, and, as frequently happens, he fell upon the
+Conservatives with increased rancour, as if to avenge his own
+blindness.
+
+On the evening prior to the day when he stopped Eugene on the Cours
+Sauvaire, he had published, in the "Independant," a terrible article
+on the intrigues of the clergy, in response to a short paragraph from
+Vuillet, who had accused the Republicans of desiring to demolish the
+churches. Vuillet was Aristide's bugbear. Never a week passed but
+these two journalists exchanged the greatest insults. In the
+provinces, where a periphrastic style is still cultivated, polemics
+are clothed in high-sounding phrases. Aristide called his adversary
+"brother Judas," or "slave of Saint-Anthony." Vuillet gallantly
+retorted by terming the Republican "a monster glutted with blood whose
+ignoble purveyor was the guillotine."
+
+In order to sound his brother, Aristide, who did not dare to appear
+openly uneasy, contented himself with asking: "Did you read my article
+yesterday? What do you think of it?"
+
+Eugene lightly shrugged his shoulders. "You're a simpleton, brother,"
+was his sole reply.
+
+"Then you think Vuillet right?" cried the journalist, turning pale;
+"you believe in Vuillet's triumph?"
+
+"I!--Vuillet----"
+
+He was certainly about to add, "Vuillet is as big a fool as you are."
+But, observing his brother's distorted face anxiously extended towards
+him, he experienced sudden mistrust. "Vuillet has his good points," he
+calmly replied.
+
+On parting from his brother, Aristide felt more perplexed than before.
+Eugene must certainly have been making game of him, for Vuillet was
+really the most abominable person imaginable. However, he determined
+to be prudent and not tie himself down any more; for he wished to have
+his hands free should he ever be called upon to help any party in
+strangling the Republic.
+
+Eugene, on the morning of his departure, an hour before getting into
+the diligence, took his father into the bedroom and had a long
+conversation with him. Felicite, who remained in the drawing-room,
+vainly tried to catch what they were saying. They spoke in whispers,
+as if they feared lest a single word should be heard outside. When at
+last they quitted the bedroom they seemed in high spirits. After
+kissing his father and mother, Eugene, who usually spoke in a drawling
+tone, exclaimed with vivacity: "You have understood me, father? There
+lies our fortune. We must work with all our energy in that direction.
+Trust in me."
+
+"I'll follow your instructions faithfully," Rougon replied. "Only
+don't forget what I asked you as the price of my cooperation."
+
+"If we succeed your demands shall be satisfied, I give you my word.
+Moreover, I will write to you and guide you according to the direction
+which events may take. Mind, no panic or excitement. You must obey me
+implicitly."
+
+"What have you been plotting there?" Felicite asked inquisitively.
+
+"My dear mother," Eugene replied with a smile, "you have had too
+little faith in me thitherto to induce me to confide in you my hopes,
+particularly as at present they are only based on probabilities. To be
+able to understand me you would require faith. However, father will
+inform you when the right time comes."
+
+Then, as Felicite assumed the demeanour of a woman who feels somewhat
+piqued, he added in her ear, as he kissed her once more: "I take after
+you, although you disowned me. Too much intelligence would be
+dangerous at the present moment. When the crisis comes, it is you who
+will have to manage the business."
+
+He then quitted the room, but, suddenly re-opening the door, exclaimed
+in an imperious tone: "Above all things, do not trust Aristide; he is
+a mar-all, who would spoil everything. I have studied him sufficiently
+to feel certain that he will always fall on his feet. Don't have any
+pity; if we make a fortune, he'll know well enough how to rob us of
+his share."
+
+When Eugene had gone, Felicite endeavoured to ferret out the secret
+that was being hidden from her. She knew her husband too well to
+interrogate him openly. He would have angrily replied that it was no
+business of hers. In spite, however, of the clever tactics she
+pursued, she learnt absolutely nothing. Eugene had chosen a good
+confidant for those troubled times, when the greatest discretion was
+necessary. Pierre, flattered by his son's confidence, exaggerated that
+passive ponderosity which made him so impenetrable. When Felicite saw
+she would not learn anything from him, she ceased to flutter round
+him. On one point only did she remain inquisitive, but in this respect
+her curiosity was intense. The two men had mentioned a price
+stipulated by Pierre himself. What could that price be? This after all
+was the sole point of interest for Felicite, who did not care a rap
+for political matters. She knew that her husband must have sold
+himself dearly, but she was burning to know the nature of the bargain.
+One evening, when they had gone to bed, finding Pierre in a good
+humour, she brought the conversation round to the discomforts of their
+poverty.
+
+"It's quite time to put an end to this," she said. "We have been
+ruining ourselves in oil and fuel since those gentlemen have been
+coming here. And who will pay the reckoning? Nobody perhaps."
+
+Her husband fell into the trap, and smiled with complacent
+superiority. "Patience," said he. And with an air of shrewdness he
+looked into his wife's eyes and added: "Would you be glad to be the
+wife of a receiver of taxes?"
+
+Felicite's face flushed with a joyous glow. She sat up in bed and
+clapped her old withered little hands like a child.
+
+"Really?" she stammered. "At Plassans?"
+
+Pierre, without replying, gave a long affirmative nod. He enjoyed his
+consort's astonishment and emotion.
+
+"But," she at last resumed, half sitting, "you would have to deposit
+an enormous sum as security. I have heard that our neighbour, Monsieur
+Peirotte, had to deposit eighty thousand francs with the Treasury."
+
+"Eh!" said the retired oil-dealer, "that's nothing to do with me;
+Eugene will see to that. He will get the money advanced by a banker in
+Paris. You see, I selected an appointment bringing in a good income.
+Eugene at first made a wry face, saying one must be rich to occupy
+such posts, to which influential men were usually nominated. I
+persisted, however, and he yielded. To be a receiver of taxes one need
+not know either Greek or Latin. I shall have a representative, like
+Monsieur Peirotte, and he will do all the work."
+
+Felicite listened to him with rapture.
+
+"I guessed, however," he continued, "what it was that worried our dear
+son. We're not much liked here. People know that we have no means, and
+will make themselves obnoxious. But all sorts of things occur in a
+time of crisis. Eugene wished to get me an appointment in another
+town. However, I objected; I want to remain at Plassans."
+
+"Yes, yes, we must remain here," the old woman quickly replied. "We
+have suffered here, and here we must triumph. Ah! I'll crush them all,
+those fine ladies on the Mail, who scornfully eye my woollen dresses!
+I didn't think of the appointment of receiver of taxes at all; I
+thought you wanted to become mayor."
+
+"Mayor! Nonsense. That appointment is honorary. Eugene also mentioned
+the mayoralty to me. I replied: 'I'll accept, if you give me an income
+of fifteen thousand francs.'"
+
+This conversation, in which high figures flew about like rockets,
+quite excited Felicite. She felt delightfully buoyant. But at last she
+put on a devout air, and gravely said: "Come, let us reckon it out.
+How much will you earn?"
+
+"Well," said Pierre, "the fixed salary, I believe, is three thousand
+francs."
+
+"Three thousand," Felicite counted.
+
+"Then there is so much per cent on the receipts, which at Plassans,
+may produce the sum of twelve thousand francs."
+
+"That makes fifteen thousand."
+
+"Yes, about fifteen thousand francs. That's what Peirotte earns.
+That's not all. Peirotte does a little banking business on his own
+account. It's allowed. Perhaps I shall be disposed to make a venture
+when I feel luck on my side."
+
+"Well, let us say twenty thousand. Twenty thousand francs a year!"
+repeated Felicite, overwhelmed by the amount.
+
+"We shall have to repay the advances," Pierre observed.
+
+"That doesn't matter," Felicite replied, "we shall be richer than many
+of those gentlemen. Are the marquis and the others going to share the
+cake with you?"
+
+"No, no; it will be all for us," he replied.
+
+Then, as she continued to importune him with her questions, Pierre
+frowned, thinking that she wanted to wrest his secret from him. "We've
+talked enough," he said, abruptly. "It's late, let us go to sleep. It
+will bring us bad luck to count our chickens beforehand. I haven't got
+the place yet. Above all things, be prudent."
+
+When the lamp was extinguished, Felicite could not sleep. With her
+eyes closed she built the most marvellous castles in the air. Those
+twenty thousand francs a year danced a diabolical dance before her in
+the darkness. She occupied splendid apartments in the new town,
+enjoyed the same luxuries as Monsieur Peirotte, gave parties, and
+bespattered the whole place with her wealth. That, however, which
+tickled her vanity most was the high position that her husband would
+then occupy. He would pay their state dividends to Granoux, Roudier,
+and all those people who now came to her house as they might come to a
+cafe, to swagger and learn the latest news. She had noticed the free-
+and-easy manner in which these people entered her drawing-room, and it
+had made her take a dislike to them. Even the marquis, with his
+ironical politeness, was beginning to displease her. To triumph alone,
+therefore, to keep the cake for themselves, as she expressed it, was a
+revenge which she fondly cherished. Later on, when all those ill-bred
+persons presented themselves, hats off, before Monsieur Rougon the
+receiver of taxes, she would crush them in her turn. She was busy with
+these thoughts all night; and on the morrow, as she opened the
+shutters, she instinctively cast her first glance across the street
+towards Monsieur Peirotte's house, and smiled as she contemplated the
+broad damask curtains hanging in the windows.
+
+Felicite's hopes, in becoming modified, had grown yet more intense.
+Like all women, she did not object to a tinge of mystery. The secret
+object that her husband was pursuing excited her far more than the
+Legitimist intrigues of Monsieur de Carnavant had ever done. She
+abandoned, without much regret, the calculations she had based on the
+marquis's success now that her husband declared he would be able to
+make large profits by other means. She displayed, moreover, remarkable
+prudence and discretion.
+
+In reality, she was still tortured by anxious curiosity; she studied
+Pierre's slightest actions, endeavouring to discover their meaning.
+What if by chance he were following the wrong track? What if Eugene
+were dragging them in his train into some break-neck pit, whence they
+would emerge yet more hungry and impoverished? However, faith was
+dawning on her. Eugene had commanded with such an air of authority
+that she ultimately came to believe in him. In this case again some
+unknown power was at work. Pierre would speak mysteriously of the high
+personages whom their eldest son visited in Paris. For her part she
+did not know what he could have to do with them, but on the other hand
+she was unable to close her eyes to Aristide's ill-advised acts at
+Plassans. The visitors to her drawing-room did not scruple to denounce
+the democratic journalist with extreme severity. Granoux muttered that
+he was a brigand, and Roudier would three or four times a week repeat
+to Felicite: "Your son is writing some fine articles. Only yesterday
+he attacked our friend Vuillet with revolting scurrility."
+
+The whole room joined in the chorus, and Commander Sicardot spoke of
+boxing his son-in-law's ears, while Pierre flatly disowned him. The
+poor mother hung her head, restraining her tears. For an instant she
+felt an inclination to burst forth, to tell Roudier that her dear
+child, in spite of his faults, was worth more than he and all the
+others put together. But she was tied down, and did not wish to
+compromise the position they had so laboriously attained. Seeing the
+whole town so bitter against Aristide, she despaired of his future,
+thinking he was hopelessly ruining himself. On two occasions she spoke
+to him in secret, imploring him to return to them, and not to irritate
+the yellow drawing-room any further. Aristide replied that she did not
+understand such matters; that she was the one who had committed a
+great blunder in placing her husband at the service of the marquis. So
+she had to abandon her son to his own courses, resolving, however that
+if Eugene succeeded she would compel him to share the spoils with the
+poor fellow who was her favourite child.
+
+After the departure of his eldest son, Pierre Rougon pursued his
+reactionary intrigues. Nothing seemed to have changed in the opinions
+of the famous yellow drawing-room. Every evening the same men came to
+join in the same propaganda in favour of the establishment of a
+monarchy, while the master of the house approved and aided them with
+as much zeal as in the past. Eugene had left Plassans on May 1. A few
+days later, the yellow drawing-room was in raptures. The gossips were
+discussing the letter of the President of the Republic to General
+Oudinot, in which the siege of Rome had been decided upon. This letter
+was regarded as a brilliant victory, due to the firm demeanour of the
+reactionary party. Since 1848 the Chambers had been discussing the
+Roman question; but it had been reserved for a Bonaparte to stifle a
+rising Republic by an act of intervention which France, if free, would
+never have countenanced. The marquis declared, however, that one could
+not better promote the cause of legitimacy, and Vuillet wrote a superb
+article on the matter. The enthusiasm became unbounded when, a month
+later, Commander Sicardot entered the Rougons' house one evening and
+announced to the company that the French army was fighting under the
+walls of Rome. Then, while everybody was raising exclamations at this
+news, he went up to Pierre, and shook hands with him in a significant
+manner. And when he had taken a seat, he began to sound the praises of
+the President of the Republic, who, said he, was the only person able
+to save France from anarchy.
+
+"Let him save it, then, as quickly as possible," interrupted the
+marquis, "and let him then understand his duty by restoring it to its
+legitimate masters."
+
+Pierre seemed to approve this fine retort, and having thus given proof
+of his ardent royalism, he ventured to remark that Prince Louis
+Bonaparte had his entire sympathy in the matter. He thereupon
+exchanged a few short sentences with the commander, commending the
+excellent intentions of the President, which sentences one might have
+thought prepared and learnt beforehand. Bonapartism now, for the first
+time, made its entry into the yellow drawing-room. It is true that
+since the election of December 10 the Prince had been treated there
+with a certain amount of consideration. He was preferred a thousand
+times to Cavaignac, and the whole reactionary party had voted for him.
+But they regarded him rather as an accomplice than a friend; and, as
+such, they distrusted him, and even began to accuse him of a desire to
+keep for himself the chestnuts which he had pulled out of the fire. On
+that particular evening, however, owing to the fighting at Rome, they
+listened with favour to the praises of Pierre and the commander.
+
+The group led by Granoux and Roudier already demanded that the
+President should order all republican rascals to be shot; while the
+marquis, leaning against the mantelpiece, gazed meditatively at a
+faded rose on the carpet. When he at last lifted his head, Pierre, who
+had furtively watched his countenance as if to see the effect of his
+words, suddenly ceased speaking. However, Monsieur de Carnavant merely
+smiled and glanced at Felicite with a knowing look. This rapid by-play
+was not observed by the other people. Vuillet alone remarked in a
+sharp tone:
+
+"I would rather see your Bonaparte at London than at Paris. Our
+affairs would get along better then."
+
+At this the old oil-dealer turned slightly pale, fearing that he had
+gone too far. "I'm not anxious to retain 'my' Bonaparte," he said,
+with some firmness; "you know where I would send him to if I were the
+master. I simply assert that the expedition to Rome was a good
+stroke."
+
+Felicite had followed this scene with inquisitive astonishment.
+However, she did not speak of it to her husband, which proved that she
+adopted it as the basis of secret study. The marquis's smile, the
+significance of which escaped her, set her thinking.
+
+From that day forward, Rougon, at distant intervals, whenever the
+occasion offered, slipped in a good word for the President of the
+Republic. On such evenings, Commander Sicardot acted the part of a
+willing accomplice. At the same time, Clerical opinions still reigned
+supreme in the yellow drawing-room. It was more particularly in the
+following year that this group of reactionaries gained decisive
+influence in the town, thanks to the retrograde movement which was
+going on at Paris. All those anti-Liberal laws which the country
+called "the Roman expedition at home" definitively secured the triumph
+of the Rougon faction. The last enthusiastic bourgeois saw the
+Republic tottering, and hastened to rally round the Conservatives.
+Thus the Rougons' hour had arrived; the new town almost gave them an
+ovation on the day when the tree of Liberty, planted on the square
+before the Sub-Prefecture, was sawed down. This tree, a young poplar
+brought from the banks of the Viorne, had gradually withered, much to
+the despair of the republican working-men, who would come every Sunday
+to observe the progress of the decay without being able to comprehend
+the cause of it. A hatter's apprentice at last asserted that he had
+seen a woman leave Rougon's house and pour a pail of poisoned water at
+the foot of the tree. It thenceforward became a matter of history that
+Felicite herself got up every night to sprinkle the poplar with
+vitriol. When the tree was dead the Municipal Council declared that
+the dignity of the Republic required its removal. For this, as they
+feared the displeasure of the working classes, they selected an
+advanced hour of the night. However, the conservative householders of
+the new town got wind of the little ceremony, and all came down to the
+square before the Sub-Prefecture in order to see how the tree of
+Liberty would fall. The frequenters of the yellow drawing-room
+stationed themselves at the windows there. When the poplar cracked and
+fell with a thud in the darkness, as tragically rigid as some mortally
+stricken hero, Felicite felt bound to wave a white handkerchief. This
+induced the crowd to applaud, and many responded to the salute by
+waving their handkerchiefs likewise. A group of people even came under
+the window shouting: "We'll bury it, we'll bury it."
+
+They meant the Republic, no doubt. Such was Felicite's emotion, that
+she almost had a nervous attack. It was a fine evening for the yellow
+drawing-room.
+
+However, the marquis still looked at Felicite with the same mysterious
+smile. This little old man was far too shrewd to be ignorant of
+whither France was tending. He was among the first to scent the coming
+of the Empire. When the Legislative Assembly, later on, exhausted its
+energies in useless squabbling, when the Orleanists and the
+Legitimists tacitly accepted the idea of the Coup d'Etat, he said to
+himself that the game was definitely lost. In fact, he was the only
+one who saw things clearly. Vuillet certainly felt that the cause of
+Henry V., which his paper defended, was becoming detestable; but it
+mattered little to him; he was content to be the obedient creature of
+the clergy; his entire policy was framed so as to enable him to
+dispose of as many rosaries and sacred images as possible. As for
+Roudier and Granoux, they lived in a state of blind scare; it was not
+certain whether they really had any opinions; all that they desired
+was to eat and sleep in peace; their political aspirations went no
+further. The marquis, though he had bidden farewell to his hopes,
+continued to come to the Rougons' as regularly as ever. He enjoyed
+himself there. The clash of rival ambitions among the middle classes,
+and the display of their follies, had become an extremely amusing
+spectacle to him. He shuddered at the thought of again shutting
+himself in the little room which he owed to the beneficence of the
+Count de Valqueyras. With a kind of malicious delight, he kept to
+himself the conviction that the Bourbons' hour had not yet arrived. He
+feigned blindness, working as hitherto for the triumph of Legitimacy,
+and still remaining at the orders of the clergy and nobility, though
+from the very first day he had penetrated Pierre's new course of
+action, and believed that Felicite was his accomplice.
+
+One evening, being the first to arrive, he found the old lady alone in
+the drawing-room. "Well! little one," he asked, with his smiling
+familiarity, "are your affairs going on all right? Why the deuce do
+you make such mysteries with me?"
+
+"I'm not hiding anything from you," Felicite replied, somewhat
+perplexed.
+
+"Come, do you think you can deceive an old fox like me, eh? My dear
+child, treat me as a friend. I'm quite ready to help you secretly.
+Come now, be frank!"
+
+A bright idea struck Felicite. She had nothing to tell; but perhaps
+she might find out something if she kept quiet.
+
+"Why do you smile?" Monsieur de Carnavant resumed. "That's the
+beginning of a confession, you know. I suspected that you must be
+behind your husband. Pierre is too stupid to invent the pretty treason
+you are hatching. I sincerely hope the Bonapartists will give you what
+I should have asked for you from the Bourbons."
+
+This single sentence confirmed the suspicions which the old woman had
+entertained for some time past.
+
+"Prince Louis has every chance, hasn't he?" she eagerly inquired.
+
+"Will you betray me if I tell you that I believe so?" the marquis
+laughingly replied. "I've donned my mourning over it, little one. I'm
+simply a poor old man, worn out and only fit to be laid on the shelf.
+It was for you, however, that I was working. Since you have been able
+to find the right track without me, I shall feel some consolation in
+seeing you triumph amidst my own defeat. Above all things, don't make
+any more mysteries. Come to me if you are ever in trouble."
+
+And he added, with the sceptical smile of a nobleman who has lost
+caste: "Pshaw! I also can go in for a little treachery!"
+
+At this moment the clan of retired oil and almond dealers arrived.
+
+"Ah! the dear reactionaries!" Monsieur de Carnavant continued in an
+undertone. "You see, little one, the great art of politics consists in
+having a pair of good eyes when other people are blind. You hold all
+the best cards in the pack."
+
+On the following day, Felicite, incited by this conversation, desired
+to make sure on the matter. They were then in the first days of the
+year 1851. For more than eighteen months, Rougon had been in the habit
+of receiving a letter from his son Eugene regularly every fortnight.
+He would shut himself in the bedroom to read these letters, which he
+then hid at the bottom of an old secretaire, the key of which he
+carefully kept in his waistcoat pocket. Whenever his wife questioned
+him about their son he would simply answer: "Eugene writes that he is
+going on all right." Felicite had long since thought of laying hands
+on her son's letters. So early on the morning after her chat with the
+marquis, while Pierre was still asleep, she got up on tiptoes, took
+the key of the secretaire from her husband's waistcoat and substituted
+in its place that of the chest of drawers, which was of the same size.
+Then, as soon as her husband had gone out, she shut herself in the
+room in her turn, emptied the drawer, and read all the letters with
+feverish curiosity.
+
+Monsieur de Carnavant had not been mistaken, and her own suspicions
+were confirmed. There were about forty letters, which enabled her to
+follow the course of that great Bonapartist movement which was to
+terminate in the second Empire. The letters constituted a sort of
+concise journal, narrating events as they occurred, and drawing hopes
+and suggestions from each of them. Eugene was full of faith. He
+described Prince Louis Bonaparte to his father as the predestined
+necessary man who alone could unravel the situation. He had believed
+in him prior even to his return to France, at a time when Bonapartism
+was treated as a ridiculous chimera. Felicite understood that her son
+had been a very active secret agent since 1848. Although he did not
+clearly explain his position in Paris, it was evident that he was
+working for the Empire, under the orders of personages whose names he
+mentioned with a sort of familiarity. Each of his letters gave
+information as to the progress of the cause, to which an early
+denouement was foreshadowed; and usually concluded by pointing out the
+line of action that Pierre should pursue at Plassans. Felicite could
+now comprehend certain words and acts of her husband, whose
+significance had previously escaped her; Pierre was obeying his son,
+and blindly following his recommendations.
+
+When the old woman had finished reading, she was convinced. Eugene's
+entire thoughts were clearly revealed to her. He reckoned upon making
+his political fortune in the squabble, and repaying his parents the
+debt he owed them for his education, by throwing them a scrap of the
+prey as soon as the quarry was secured. However small the assistance
+his father might render to him and to the cause, it would not be
+difficult to get him appointed receiver of taxes. Nothing would be
+refused to one who like Eugene had steeped his hands in the most
+secret machinations. His letters were simply a kind attention on his
+part, a device to prevent the Rougons from committing any act of
+imprudence, for which Felicite felt deeply grateful. She read certain
+passages of the letters twice over, notably those in which Eugene
+spoke, in vague terms, of "a final catastrophe." This catastrophe, the
+nature or bearings of which she could not well conceive became a sort
+of end of the world for her. God would range the chosen ones on His
+right hand and the damned on His left, and she placed herself among
+the former.
+
+When she succeeded in replacing the key in her husband's waistcoat
+pocket on the following night, she made up her mind to employ the same
+expedient for reading every fresh letter that arrived. She resolved,
+likewise, to profess complete ignorance. This plan was an excellent
+one. Henceforward, she gave her husband the more assistance as she
+appeared to render it unconsciously. When Pierre thought he was
+working alone it was she who brought the conversation round to the
+desired topic, recruiting partisans for the decisive moment. She felt
+hurt at Eugene's distrust of her. She wanted to be able to say to him,
+after the triumph: "I knew all, and so far from spoiling anything, I
+have secured the victory." Never did an accomplice make less noise or
+work harder. The marquis, whom she had taken into her confidence, was
+astounded at it.
+
+The fate of her dear Aristide, however, continued to make her uneasy.
+Now that she shared the faith of her eldest son, the rabid articles of
+the "Independant" alarmed her all the more. She longed to convert the
+unfortunate republican to Napoleonist ideas; but she did not know how
+to accomplish this in a discreet manner. She recalled the emphasis
+with which Eugene had told them to be on their guard against Aristide.
+At last she submitted the matter to Monsieur de Carnavant, who was
+entirely of the same opinion.
+
+"Little one," he said to her, "in politics one must know how to look
+after one's self. If you were to convert your son, and the
+'Independant' were to start writing in defence of Bonapartism, it
+would deal the party a rude blow. The 'Independant' has already been
+condemned, its title alone suffices to enrage the middle classes of
+Plassans. Let dear Aristide flounder about; this only moulds young
+people. He does not appear to me to be cut out for carrying on the
+role of a martyr for any length of time."
+
+However, in her eagerness to point out the right way to her family,
+now that she believed herself in possession of the truth, Felicite
+even sought to convert her son Pascal. The doctor, with the egotism of
+a scientist immersed in his researches, gave little heed to politics.
+Empires might fall while he was making an experiment, yet he would not
+have deigned to turn his head. He at last yielded, however, to certain
+importunities of his mother, who accused him more than ever of living
+like an unsociable churl.
+
+"If you were to go into society," she said to him, "you would get some
+well-to-do patients. Come, at least, and spend some evenings in our
+drawing-room. You will make the acquaintance of Messieurs Roudier,
+Granoux, and Sicardot, all gentlemen in good circumstances, who will
+pay you four or five francs a visit. The poor people will never enrich
+you."
+
+The idea of succeeding in life, of seeing all her family attain to
+fortune, had become a form of monomania with Felicite. Pascal, in
+order to be agreeable to her, came and spent a few evenings in the
+yellow drawing-room. He was much less bored there than he had
+apprehended. At first he was rather stupefied at the degree of
+imbecility to which sane men can sink. The old oil and almond dealers,
+the marquis and the commander even, appeared to him so many curious
+animals, which he had not hitherto had an opportunity of studying. He
+looked with a naturalist's interest at their grimacing faces, in which
+he discerned traces of their occupations and appetites; he listened
+also to their inane chatter, just as he might have tried to catch the
+meaning of a cat's mew or a dog's bark. At this period he was occupied
+with comparative natural history, applying to the human race the
+observations which he had made upon animals with regard to the working
+of heredity. While he was in the yellow drawing-room, therefore, he
+amused himself with the belief that he had fallen in with a menagerie.
+He established comparisons between the grotesque creatures he found
+there and certain animals of his acquaintance. The marquis, with his
+leanness and small crafty-looking head, reminded him exactly of a long
+green grasshopper. Vuillet impressed him as a pale, slimy toad. He was
+more considerate for Roudier, a fat sheep, and for the commander, an
+old toothless mastiff. But the prodigious Granoux was a perpetual
+cause of astonishment to him. He spent a whole evening measuring this
+imbecile's facial angle. When he heard him mutter indistinct
+imprecations against those blood-suckers the Republicans, he always
+expected to hear him moan like a calf; and he could never see him rise
+from his chair without imagining that he was about to leave the room
+on all fours.
+
+"Talk to them," his mother used to say in an undertone; "try and make
+a practice out of these gentlemen."
+
+"I am not a veterinary surgeon," he at last replied, exasperated.
+
+One evening Felicite took him into a corner and tired to catechise
+him. She was glad to see him come to her house rather assiduously. She
+thought him reconciled to Society, not suspecting for a moment the
+singular amusement that he derived from ridiculing these rich people.
+She cherished the secret project of making him the fashionable doctor
+of Plassans. It would be sufficient if men like Granoux and Roudier
+consented to give him a start. She wished, above all, to impart to him
+the political views of the family, considering that a doctor had
+everything to gain by constituting himself a warm partisan of the
+regime which was to succeed the Republic.
+
+"My dear boy," she said to him, "as you have now become reasonable,
+you must give some thought to the future. You are accused of being a
+Republican, because you are foolish enough to attend all the beggars
+of the town without making any charge. Be frank, what are your real
+opinions?"
+
+Pascal looked at his mother with naïve astonishment, then with a smile
+replied: "My real opinions? I don't quite know--I am accused of being
+a Republican, did you say? Very well! I don't feel at all offended. I
+am undoubtedly a Republican, if you understand by that word a man who
+wishes the welfare of everybody."
+
+"But you will never attain to any position," Felicite quickly
+interrupted. "You will be crushed. Look at your brothers, they are
+trying to make their way."
+
+Pascal then comprehended that he was not called upon to defend his
+philosophic egotism. His mother simply accused him of not speculating
+on the political situation. He began to laugh somewhat sadly, and then
+turned the conversation into another channel. Felicite could never
+induce him to consider the chances of the various parties, nor to
+enlist in that one of them which seemed likely to carry the day.
+However, he still occasionally came to spend an evening in the yellow
+drawing-room. Granoux interested him like an antediluvian animal.
+
+In the meantime, events were moving. The year 1851 was a year of
+anxiety and apprehension for the politicians of Plassans, and the
+cause which the Rougons served derived advantage from this
+circumstance. The most contradictory news arrived from Paris;
+sometimes the Republicans were in the ascendant, sometimes the
+Conservative party was crushing the Republic. The echoes of the
+squabbles which were rending the Legislative Assembly reached the
+depths of the provinces, now in an exaggerated, now in an attenuated
+form, varying so greatly as to obscure the vision of the most clear-
+sighted. The only general feeling was that a denouement was
+approaching. The prevailing ignorance as to the nature of this
+denouement kept timid middle class people in a terrible state of
+anxiety. Everybody wished to see the end. They were sick of
+uncertainty, and would have flung themselves into the arms of the
+Grand Turk, if he would have deigned to save France from anarchy.
+
+The marquis's smile became more acute. Of an evening, in the yellow
+drawing-room, when Granoux's growl was rendered indistinct by fright,
+he would draw near to Felicite and whisper in her ear: "Come, little
+one, the fruit is ripe--but you must make yourself useful."
+
+Felicite, who continued to read Eugene's letters, and knew that a
+decisive crisis might any day occur, had already often felt the
+necessity of making herself useful, and reflected as to the manner in
+which the Rougons should employ themselves. At last she consulted the
+marquis.
+
+"It all depends upon circumstances," the little old man replied. "If
+the department remains quiet, if no insurrection occurs to terrify
+Plassans, it will be difficult for you to make yourselves conspicuous
+and render any services to the new government. I advise you, in that
+case, to remain at home, and peacefully await the bounties of your son
+Eugene. But if the people rise, and our brave bourgeois think
+themselves in danger, there will be a fine part to play. Your husband
+is somewhat heavy--"
+
+"Oh!" said Felicite, "I'll undertake to make him supple. Do you think
+the department will revolt?"
+
+"To my mind it's a certainty. Plassans, perhaps, will not make a stir;
+the reaction has secured too firm a hold here for that. But the
+neighbouring towns, especially the small ones and the villages, have
+long been worked by certain secret societies, and belong to the
+advanced Republican party. If a Coup d'Etat should burst forth, the
+tocsin will be heard throughout the entire country, from the forests
+of the Seille to the plateau of Sainte-Roure."
+
+Felicite reflected. "You think, then," she resumed, "that an
+insurrection is necessary to ensure our fortune!"
+
+"That's my opinion," replied Monsieur de Carnavant. And he added, with
+a slightly ironical smile: "A new dynasty is never founded excepting
+upon an affray. Blood is good manure. It will be a fine thing for the
+Rougons to date from a massacre, like certain illustrious families."
+
+These words, accompanied by a sneer, sent a cold chill through
+Felicite's bones. But she was a strong-minded woman, and the sight of
+Monsieur Peirotte's beautiful curtains, which she religiously viewed
+every morning, sustained her courage. Whenever she felt herself giving
+way, she planted herself at the window and contemplated the tax-
+receiver's house. For her it was the Tuileries. She had determined
+upon the most extreme measures in order to secure an entree into the
+new town, that promised land, on the threshold of which she had stood
+with burning longing for so many years.
+
+The conversation which she had held with the marquis had at last
+clearly revealed the situation to her. A few days afterwards, she
+succeeded in reading one of Eugene's letters, in which he, who was
+working for the Coup d'Etat, seemed also to rely upon an insurrection
+as the means of endowing his father with some importance. Eugene knew
+his department well. All his suggestions had been framed with the
+object of placing as much influence as possible in the hands of the
+yellow drawing-room reactionaries, so that the Rougons might be able
+to hold the town at the critical moment. In accordance with his
+desires, the yellow drawing-room was master of Plassans in November,
+1851. Roudier represented the rich citizens there, and his attitude
+would certainly decide that of the entire new town. Granoux was still
+more valuable; he had the Municipal Council behind him: he was its
+most powerful member, a fact which will give some idea of its other
+members. Finally, through Commander Sicardot, whom the marquis had
+succeeded in getting appointed as chief of the National Guard, the
+yellow drawing-room had the armed forces at their disposal.
+
+The Rougons, those poor disreputable devils, had thus succeeded in
+rallying round themselves the instruments of their own fortune.
+Everyone, from cowardice or stupidity, would have to obey them and
+work in the dark for their aggrandisement. They simply had to fear
+those other influences which might be working with the same object as
+themselves, and might partially rob them of the merit of victory. That
+was their great fear, for they wanted to reserve to themselves the
+role of deliverers. They knew beforehand that they would be aided
+rather than hindered by the clergy and the nobility. But if the sub-
+prefect, the mayor, and the other functionaries were to take a step in
+advance and at once stifle the insurrection they would find themselves
+thrown into the shade, and even arrested in their exploits; they would
+have neither time nor means to make themselves useful. What they
+longed for was complete abstention, general panic among the
+functionaries. If only all regular administration should disappear,
+and they could dispose of the destinies of Plassans for a single day,
+their fortune would be firmly established.
+
+Happily for them, there was not a man in the government service whose
+convictions were so firm or whose circumstances were so needy as to
+make him disposed to risk the game. The sub-prefect was a man of
+liberal spirit whom the executive had forgetfully left at Plassans,
+owing, no doubt, to the good repute of the town. Of timid character
+and incapable of exceeding his authority, he would no doubt be greatly
+embarrassed in the presence of an insurrection. The Rougons, who knew
+that he was in favour of the democratic cause, and who consequently
+never dreaded his zeal, were simply curious to know what attitude he
+would assume. As for the municipality, this did not cause them much
+apprehension. The mayor, Monsieur Garconnet, was a Legitimist whose
+nomination had been procured by the influence of the Saint-Marc
+quarter in 1849. He detested the Republicans and treated them with
+undisguised disdain; but he was too closely united by bonds of
+friendship with certain members of the church to lend any active hand
+in a Bonapartist Coup d'Etat. The other functionaries were in exactly
+the same position. The justices of the peace, the post-master, the
+tax-collector, as well as Monsieur Peirotte, the chief receiver of
+taxes, were all indebted for their posts to the Clerical reaction, and
+could not accept the Empire with any great enthusiasm. The Rougons,
+though they did not quite see how they might get rid of these people
+and clear the way for themselves, nevertheless indulged in sanguine
+hopes on finding there was little likelihood of anybody disputing
+their role as deliverers.
+
+The denouement was drawing near. In the last few days of November, as
+the rumour of a Coup d'Etat was circulating, the prince-president was
+accused of seeking the position of emperor.
+
+"Eh! we'll call him whatever he likes," Granoux exclaimed, "provided
+he has those Republican rascals shot!"
+
+This exclamation from Granoux, who was believed to be asleep, caused
+great commotion. The marquis pretended not to have heard it; but all
+the bourgeois nodded approval. Roudier, who, being rich, did not fear
+to applaud the sentiment aloud, went so far as to declare, while
+glancing askance at Monsieur de Carnavant, that the position was no
+longer tenable, and that France must be chastised as soon as possible,
+never mind by what hand.
+
+The marquis still maintained a silence which was interpreted as
+acquiescence. And thereupon the Conservative clan, abandoning the
+cause of Legitimacy, ventured to offer up prayers in favour of the
+Empire.
+
+"My friends," said Commander Sicardot, rising from his seat, "only a
+Napoleon can now protect threatened life and property. Have no fear,
+I've taken the necessary precautions to preserve order at Plassans."
+
+As a matter of fact the commander, in concert with Rougon, had
+concealed, in a kind of cart-house near the ramparts, both a supply of
+cartridges and a considerable number of muskets; he had also taken
+steps to secure the co-operation of the National Guard, on which he
+believed he could rely. His words produced a very favourable
+impression. On separating for the evening, the peaceful citizens of
+the yellow drawing-room spoke of massacring the "Reds" if they should
+dare to stir.
+
+On December 1, Pierre Rougon received a letter from Eugene which he
+went to read in his bedroom, in accordance with his prudent habit.
+Felicite observed, however, that he was very agitated when he came out
+again. She fluttered round the secretaire all day. When night came,
+she could restrain her impatience no longer. Her husband had scarcely
+fallen asleep, when she quietly got up, took the key of the secretaire
+from the waistcoat pocket, and gained possession of the letter with as
+little noise as possible. Eugene, in ten lines, warned his father that
+the crisis was at hand, and advised him to acquaint his mother with
+the situation of affairs. The hour for informing her had arrived; he
+might stand in need of her advice.
+
+Felicite awaited, on the morrow, a disclosure which did not come. She
+did not dare to confess her curiosity; but continued to feign
+ignorance, though enraged at the foolish distrust of her husband, who,
+doubtless, considered her a gossip, and weak like other women. Pierre,
+with that marital pride which inspires a man with the belief in his
+own superiority at home, had ended by attributing all their past ill-
+luck to his wife. From the time that he fancied he had been conducting
+matters alone everything seemed to him to have gone as he desired. He
+had decided, therefore, to dispense altogether with his consort's
+counsels, and to confide nothing to her, in spite of his son's
+recommendations.
+
+Felicite was piqued to such a degree that she would have upset the
+whole affair had she not desired the triumph as ardently as Pierre. So
+she continued to work energetically for victory, while endeavouring to
+take her revenge.
+
+"Ah! if he could only have some great fright," thought she; "if he
+would only commit some act of imprudence! Then I should see him come
+to me and humbly ask for advice; it would be my turn to lay down the
+law."
+
+She felt somewhat uneasy at the imperious attitude Pierre would
+certainly assume if he were to triumph without her aid. On marrying
+this peasant's son, in preference to some notary's clerk, she had
+intended to make use of him as a strongly made puppet, whose strings
+she would pull in her own way; and now, at the decisive moment, the
+puppet, in his blind stupidity, wanted to work alone! All the cunning,
+all the feverish activity within the old woman protested against this.
+She knew Pierre was quite capable of some brutal resolve such as that
+which he had taken when he compelled his mother to sign the receipt
+for fifty thousand francs; the tool was indeed a useful and
+unscrupulous one; but she felt the necessity for guiding it,
+especially under present circumstances, when considerable suppleness
+was requisite.
+
+The official news of the Coup d'Etat did not reach Plassans until the
+afternoon of December 3--a Thursday. Already, at seven o'clock in the
+evening, there was a full meeting in the yellow drawing-room. Although
+the crisis had been eagerly desired, vague uneasiness appeared on the
+faces of the majority. They discussed events amid endless chatter.
+Pierre, who like the others was slightly pale, thought it right, as an
+extreme measure of prudence, to excuse Prince Louis's decisive act to
+the Legitimists and Orleanists who were present.
+
+"There is talk of an appeal to the people," he said; "the nation will
+then be free to choose whatever government it likes. The president is
+a man to retire before our legitimate masters."
+
+The marquis, who had retained his aristocratic coolness, was the only
+one who greeted these words with a smile. The others, in the
+enthusiasm of the moment, concerned themselves very little about what
+might follow. All their opinions foundered. Roudier, forgetting the
+esteem which as a former shopkeeper he had entertained for the
+Orleanists, stopped Pierre rather abruptly. And everybody exclaimed:
+"Don't argue the matter. Let us think of preserving order."
+
+These good people were terribly afraid of the Republicans. There had,
+however been very little commotion in the town on the announcement of
+the events in Paris. People had collected in front of the notices
+posted on the door of the Sub-Prefecture; it was also rumoured that a
+few hundred workmen had left their work and were endeavouring to
+organise resistance. That was all. No serious disturbance seemed
+likely to occur. The course which the neighbouring towns and rural
+districts might take seemed more likely to occasion anxiety; however,
+it was not yet known how they had received the news of the Coup
+d'Etat.
+
+Granoux arrived at about nine o'clock, quite out of breath. He had
+just left a sitting of the Municipal Council which had been hastily
+summoned together. Choking with emotion, he announced that the mayor,
+Monsieur Garconnet, had declared, while making due reserves, that he
+was determined to preserve order by the most stringent measures.
+However, the intelligence which caused the noisiest chattering in the
+yellow drawing-room was that of the resignation of the sub-prefect.
+This functionary had absolutely refused to communicate the despatches
+of the Minister of the Interior to the inhabitants of Plassans; he had
+just left the town, so Granoux asserted, and it was thanks to the
+mayor that the messages had been posted. This was perhaps the only
+sub-prefect in France who ever had the courage of his democratic
+opinions.
+
+Although Monsieur Garconnet's firm demeanour caused the Rougons some
+secret anxiety, they rubbed their hands at the flight of the sub-
+prefect, which left the post vacant for them. It was decided on this
+memorable evening that the yellow drawing-room party should accept the
+Coup d'Etat and openly declare that it was in favour of accomplished
+facts. Vuillet was commissioned to write an article to that effect,
+and publish it on the morrow in the "Gazette." Neither he nor the
+marquis raised any objection. They had, no doubt, received
+instructions from the mysterious individuals to whom they sometimes
+made pious allusions. The clergy and the nobility were already
+resigned to the course of lending a strong hand to the victors, in
+order to crush their common enemy, the Republic.
+
+While the yellow drawing-room was deliberating on the evening in
+question, Aristide was perspiring with anxiety. Never had gambler,
+staking his last louis on a card, felt such anguish. During the day
+the resignation of his chief, the sub-prefect, had given him much
+matter for reflection. He had heard him repeat several times that the
+Coup d'Etat must prove a failure. This functionary, endowed with a
+limited amount of honesty, believed in the final triumph of the
+democracy, though he had not the courage to work for that triumph by
+offering resistance. Aristide was in the habit of listening at the
+doors of the Sub-Prefecture, in order to get precise information, for
+he felt that he was groping in the dark, and clung to the intelligence
+which he gleaned from the officials. The sub-prefect's opinion struck
+him forcibly; but he remained perplexed. He thought to himself: "Why
+does the fellow go away if he is so certain that the prince-president
+will meet with a check?" However, as he was compelled to espouse one
+side or the other, he resolved to continue his opposition. He wrote a
+very hostile article on the Coup d'Etat, and took it to the
+"Independant" the same evening for the following morning's issue. He
+had corrected the proofs of this article, and was returning home
+somewhat calmed, when, as he passed along the Rue de la Banne, he
+instinctively raised his head and glanced at the Rougons' windows.
+Their windows were brightly lighted up.
+
+"What can they be plotting up there?" the journalist asked himself,
+with anxious curiosity.
+
+A fierce desire to know the opinion of the yellow drawing-room with
+regard to recent events then assailed him. He credited this group of
+reactionaries with little intelligence; but his doubts recurred, he
+was in that frame of mind when one might seek advice from a child. He
+could not think of entering his father's home at that moment, after
+the campaign he had waged against Granoux and the others.
+Nevertheless, he went upstairs, reflecting what a singular figure he
+would cut if he were surprised on the way by anyone. On reaching the
+Rougons' door, he could only catch a confused echo of voices.
+
+"What a child I am," said he, "fear makes me stupid." And he was going
+to descend again, when he heard the approach of his mother, who was
+about to show somebody out. He had barely time to hide in a dark
+corner formed by a little staircase leading to the garrets of the
+house. The Rougons' door opened, and the marquis appeared, followed by
+Felicite. Monsieur de Carnavant usually left before the gentlemen of
+the new town did, in order no doubt to avoid having to shake hands
+with them in the street.
+
+"Eh! little one," he said on the landing, in a low voice, "these men
+are greater cowards than I should have thought. With such men France
+will always be at the mercy of whoever dares to lay his hands upon
+her!" And he added, with some bitterness, as though speaking to
+himself: "The monarchy is decidedly becoming too honest for modern
+times. Its day is over."
+
+"Eugene announced the crisis to his father," replied Felicite. "Prince
+Louis's triumph seems to him certain."
+
+"Oh, you can proceed without fear," the marquis replied, as he
+descended the first steps. "In two or three days the country will be
+well bound and gagged. Good-bye till to-morrow, little one."
+
+Felicite closed the door again. Aristide had received quite a shock in
+his dark corner. However, without waiting for the marquis to reach the
+street, he bounded down the staircase, four steps at a time, rushed
+outside like a madman, and turned his steps towards the printing-
+office of the "Independant." A flood of thoughts surged through his
+mind. He was enraged, and accused his family of having duped him.
+What! Eugene kept his parents informed of the situation, and yet his
+mother had never given him any of his eldest brother's letters to
+read, in order that he might follow the advice given therein! And it
+was only now he learnt by chance that his eldest brother regarded the
+success of the Coup d'Etat as certain! This circumstance, moreover,
+confirmed certain presentiments which that idiot of a sub-prefect had
+prevented him from obeying. He was especially exasperated against his
+father, whom he had thought stupid enough to be a Legitimist, but who
+revealed himself as a Bonapartist at the right moment.
+
+"What a lot of folly they have allowed me to perpetrate," he muttered
+as he ran along. "I'm a fine fellow now. Ah! what a lesson! Granoux is
+more capable than I."
+
+He entered the office of the "Independant" like a hurricane, and asked
+for his article in a choking voice. The article had already been
+imposed. He had the forme unlocked and would not rest until he had
+himself destroyed the setting, mixing the type in a furious manner,
+like a set of dominoes. The bookseller who managed the paper looked at
+him in amazement. He was, in reality, rather glad of the incident, as
+the article had seemed to him somewhat dangerous. But he was
+absolutely obliged to have some copy, if the "Independant" was to
+appear.
+
+"Are you going to give me something else?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly," replied Aristide.
+
+He sat down at the table and began a warm panegyric on the Coup
+d'Etat. At the very first line, he swore that Prince Louis had just
+saved the Republic; but he had hardly written a page before he stopped
+and seemed at a loss how to continue. A troubled look came over his
+pole-cat face.
+
+"I must go home," he said at last. "I will send you this immediately.
+Your paper can appear a little later, if necessary."
+
+He walked slowly on his way home, lost in meditation. He was again
+giving way to indecision. Why should he veer round so quickly? Eugene
+was an intelligent fellow, but his mother had perhaps exaggerated the
+significance of some sentence in his letter. In any case, it would be
+better to wait and hold his tongue.
+
+An hour later Angele called at the bookseller's, feigning deep
+emotion.
+
+"My husband has just severely injured himself," she said. "He jammed
+his four fingers in a door as he was coming in. In spite of his
+sufferings, he has dictated this little note, which he begs you to
+publish to-morrow."
+
+On the following day the "Independant," made up almost entirely of
+miscellaneous items of news, appeared with these few lines at the head
+of the first column:
+
+"A deplorable accident which has occurred to our eminent contributor
+Monsieur Aristide Rougon will deprive us of his articles for some
+time. He will suffer at having to remain silent in the present grave
+circumstances. None of our readers will doubt, however, the good
+wishes which he offers up with patriotic feelings for the welfare of
+France."
+
+This burlesque note had been maturely studied. The last sentence might
+be interpreted in favour of all parties. By this expedient, Aristide
+devised a glorious return for himself on the morrow of battle, in the
+shape of a laudatory article on the victors. On the following day he
+showed himself to the whole town, with his arm in a sling. His mother,
+frightened by the notice in the paper, hastily called upon him, but he
+refused to show her his hand, and spoke with a bitterness which
+enlightened the old woman.
+
+"It won't be anything," she said in a reassuring and somewhat
+sarcastic tone, as she was leaving. "You only want a little rest."
+
+It was no doubt owing to this pretended accident, and the sub-
+prefect's departure, that the "Independant" was not interfered with,
+like most of the democratic papers of the departments.
+
+The 4th day of the month proved comparatively quiet at Plassans. In
+the evening there was a public demonstration which the mere appearance
+of the gendarmes sufficed to disperse. A band of working-men came to
+request Monsieur Garconnet to communicate the despatches he had
+received from Paris, which the latter haughtily refused to do; as it
+retired the band shouted: "Long live the Republic! Long live the
+Constitution!" After this, order was restored. The yellow drawing-
+room, after commenting at some length on this innocent parade,
+concluded that affairs were going on excellently.
+
+The 5th and 6th were, however, more disquieting. Intelligence was
+received of successive risings in small neighbouring towns; the whole
+southern part of the department had taken up arms; La Palud and Saint-
+Martin-de-Vaulx had been the first to rise, drawing after them the
+villages of Chavanos, Nazeres, Poujols, Valqueyras and Vernoux. The
+yellow drawing-room party was now becoming seriously alarmed. It felt
+particularly uneasy at seeing Plassans isolated in the very midst of
+the revolt. Bands of insurgents would certainly scour the country and
+cut off all communications. Granoux announced, with a terrified look,
+that the mayor was without any news. Some people even asserted that
+blood had been shed at Marseilles, and that a formidable revolution
+had broken out in Paris. Commander Sicardot, enraged at the cowardice
+of the bourgeois, vowed he would die at the head of his men.
+
+On Sunday the 7th the terror reached a climax. Already at six o'clock
+the yellow drawing-room, where a sort of reactionary committee sat /en
+permanence/, was crowded with pale, trembling men, who conversed in
+undertones, as though they were in a chamber of death. It had been
+ascertained during the day that a column of insurgents, about three
+thousand strong, had assembled at Alboise, a big village not more than
+three leagues away. It was true that this column had been ordered to
+make for the chief town of the department, leaving Plassans on its
+left; but the plan of campaign might at any time be altered; moreover,
+it sufficed for these cowardly cits to know that there were insurgents
+a few miles off, to make them feel the horny hands of the toilers
+already tightened round their throats. They had had a foretaste of the
+revolt in the morning; the few Republicans at Plassans, seeing that
+they would be unable to make any determined move in the town, had
+resolved to join their brethren of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx;
+the first group had left at about eleven o'clock, by the Porte de
+Rome, shouting the "Marseillaise" and smashing a few windows. Granoux
+had had one broken. He mentioned the circumstance with stammerings of
+terror.
+
+Meantime, the most acute anxiety agitated the yellow drawing-room. The
+commander had sent his servant to obtain some information as to the
+exact movements of the insurgents, and the others awaited this man's
+return, making the most astonishing surmises. They had a full meeting.
+Roudier and Granoux, sinking back in their arm-chairs, exchanged the
+most pitiable glances, whilst behind them moaned a terror-stricken
+group of retired tradesmen. Vuillet, without appearing over scared,
+reflected upon what precautions he should take to protect his shop and
+person; he was in doubt whether he should hide himself in his garret
+or cellar, and inclined towards the latter. For their part Pierre and
+the commander walked up and down, exchanging a word ever and anon. The
+old oil-dealer clung to this friend Sicardot as if to borrow a little
+courage from him. He, who had been awaiting the crisis for such a long
+time, now endeavoured to keep his countenance, in spite of the emotion
+which was stifling him. As for the marquis, more spruce and smiling
+than usual, he conversed in a corner with Felicite, who seemed very
+gay.
+
+At last a ring came. The gentlemen started as if they had heard a gun-
+shot. Dead silence reigned in the drawing-room when Felicite went to
+open the door, towards which their pale, anxious faces were turned.
+Then the commander's servant appeared on the threshold, quite out of
+breath, and said abruptly to his master: "Sir, the insurgents will be
+here in an hour."
+
+This was a thunderbolt. They all started up, vociferating, and raising
+their arms towards the ceiling. For several minutes it was impossible
+to hear one's self speak. The company surrounded the messenger,
+overwhelming him with questions.
+
+"Damnation!" the commander at length shouted, "don't make such a row.
+Be calm, or I won't answer for anything."
+
+Everyone sank back in his chair again, heaving long-drawn sighs. They
+then obtained a few particulars. The messenger had met the column at
+Les Tulettes, and had hastened to return.
+
+"There are at least three thousand of them," said he. "They are
+marching in battalions, like soldiers. I thought I caught sight of
+some prisoners in their midst."
+
+"Prisoners!" cried the terrified bourgeois.
+
+"No doubt," the marquis interrupted in his shrill voice. "I've heard
+that the insurgents arrest all persons who are known to have
+conservative leanings."
+
+This information gave a finishing touch to the consternation of the
+yellow drawing-room. A few bourgeois got up and stealthily made for
+the door, reflecting that they had not too much time before them to
+gain a place of safety.
+
+The announcement of the arrests made by the Republicans appeared to
+strike Felicite. She took the marquis aside and asked him: "What do
+these men do with the people they arrest?"
+
+"Why, they carry them off in their train," Monsieur de Carnavant
+replied. "They no doubt consider them excellent hostages."
+
+"Ah!" the old woman rejoined, in a strange tone.
+
+Then she again thoughtfully watched the curious scene of panic around
+her. The bourgeois gradually disappeared; soon there only remained
+Vuillet and Roudier, whom the approaching danger inspired with some
+courage. As for Granoux, he likewise remained in his corner, his legs
+refusing to perform their office.
+
+"Well, I like this better," Sicardot remarked, as he observed the
+flight of the other adherents. "Those cowards were exasperating me at
+last. For more than two years they've been speaking of shooting all
+the Republicans in the province, and to-day they wouldn't even fire a
+halfpenny cracker under their noses."
+
+Then he took up his hat and turned towards the door.
+
+"Let's see," he continued, "time presses. Come, Rougon."
+
+Felicite, it seemed, had been waiting for this moment. She placed
+herself between the door and her husband, who, for that matter, was
+not particularly eager to follow the formidable Sicardot.
+
+"I won't have you go out," she cried, feigning sudden despair. "I
+won't let you leave my side. Those scoundrels will kill you."
+
+The commander stopped in amazement.
+
+"Hang it all!" he growled, "if the women are going to whine now-- Come
+along, Rougon!'
+
+"No, no," continued the old woman, affecting increase of terror, "he
+sha'n't follow you. I will hang on to his clothes and prevent him."
+
+The marquis, very much surprised at the scene, looked inquiringly at
+Felicite. Was this really the woman who had just now been conversing
+so merrily? What comedy was she playing? Pierre, meantime, seeing that
+his wife wanted to detain him, deigned a determination to force his
+way out.
+
+"I tell you you shall not go," the old woman reiterated, as she clung
+to one of his arms. And turning towards the commander, she said to
+him: "How can you think of offering any resistance? They are three
+thousand strong, and you won't be able to collect a hundred men of any
+spirit. You are rushing into the cannon's mouth to no purpose."
+
+"Eh! that is our duty," said Sicardot, impatiently.
+
+Felicite burst into sobs.
+
+"If they don't kill him, they'll make him a prisoner," she continued,
+looked fixedly at her husband. "Good heavens! What will become of me,
+left alone in an abandoned town?"
+
+"But," exclaimed the commander, "we shall be arrested just the same if
+we allow the insurgents to enter the town unmolested. I believe that
+before an hour has elapsed the mayor and all the functionaries will be
+prisoners, to say nothing of your husband and the frequenters of this
+drawing-room."
+
+The marquis thought he saw a vague smile play about Felicite's lips as
+she answered, with a look of dismay: "Do you really think so?"
+
+"Of course!" replied Sicardot; "the Republicans are not so stupid as
+to leave enemies behind them. To-morrow Plassans will be emptied of
+its functionaries and good citizens."
+
+At these words, which she had so cleverly provoked, Felicite released
+her husband's arms. Pierre no longer looked as if he wanted to go out.
+Thanks to his wife, whose skilful tactics escaped him, however, and
+whose secret complicity he never for a moment suspected, he had just
+lighted on a whole plan of campaign.
+
+"We must deliberate before taking any decision," he said to the
+commander. "My wife is perhaps not wrong in accusing us of forgetting
+the true interests of our families."
+
+"No, indeed, madame is not wrong," cried Granoux, who had been
+listening to Felicite's terrified cries with the rapture of a coward.
+
+Thereupon the commander energetically clapped his hat on his head, and
+said in a clear voice: "Right or wrong, it matters little to me. I am
+commander of the National Guard. I ought to have been at the mayor's
+before now. Confess that you are afraid, that you leaven me to act
+alone. . . . Well, good-night."
+
+He was just turning the handle of the door, when Rougon forcibly
+detained him.
+
+"Listen, Sicardot," he said.
+
+He drew him into a corner, on seeing Vuillet prick up his big ears.
+And there he explained to him, in an undertone, that it would be a
+good plan to leave a few energetic men behind the insurgents, so as to
+restore order in the town. And as the fierce commander obstinately
+refused to desert his post, Pierre offered to place himself at the
+head of such a reserve corps.
+
+"Give me the key of the cart-shed in which the arms and ammunition are
+kept," he said to him, "and order some fifty of our men not to stir
+until I call for them."
+
+Sicardot ended by consenting to these prudent measures. He entrusted
+Pierre with the key of the cart-shed, convinced as he was of the
+inexpediency of present resistance, but still desirous of sacrificing
+himself.
+
+During this conversation, the marquis had whispered a few words in
+Felicite's ear with a knowing look. He complimented her, no doubt, on
+her theatrical display. The old woman could not repress a faint smile.
+But, as Sicardot shook hands with Rougon and prepared to go, she again
+asked him with an air of fright: "Are you really determined to leave
+us?"
+
+"It is not for one of Napoleon's old soldiers to let himself be
+intimidated by the mob," he replied.
+
+He was already on the landing, when Granoux hurried after him, crying:
+"If you go to the mayor's tell him what's going on. I'll just run home
+to my wife to reassure her."
+
+Then Felicite bent towards the marquis's ear, and whispered with
+discreet gaiety: "Upon my word, it is best that devil of a commander
+should go and get himself arrested. He's far too zealous."
+
+However, Rougon brought Granoux back to the drawing-room. Roudier, who
+had quietly followed the scene from his corner, making signs in
+support of the proposed measures of prudence, got up and joined them.
+When the marquis and Vuillet had likewise risen, Pierre began:
+
+"Now that we are alone, among peaceable men, I propose that we should
+conceal ourselves so as to avoid certain arrest, and be at liberty as
+soon as ours again becomes the stronger party."
+
+Granoux was ready to embrace him. Roudier and Vuillet breathed more
+easily.
+
+"I shall want you shortly, gentlemen," the oil-dealer continued, with
+an important air. "It is to us that the honour of restoring order in
+Plassans is reserved."
+
+"You may rely upon us!" cried Vuillet, with an enthusiasm which
+disturbed Felicite.
+
+Time was pressing. These singular defenders of Plassans, who hid
+themselves the better to protect the town, hastened away, to bury
+themselves in some hole or other. Pierre, on being left alone with his
+wife, advised her not to make the mistake of barricading herself
+indoors, but to reply, if anybody came to question her, that he,
+Pierre, had simply gone on a short journey. And as she acted the
+simpleton, feigning terror and asking what all this was coming to, he
+replied abruptly: "It's nothing to do with you. Let me manage our
+affairs alone. They'll get on all the better."
+
+A few minutes later he was rapidly threading his way along the Rue de
+la Banne. On reaching the Cours Sauvaire, he saw a band of armed
+workmen coming out of the old quarter and singing the "Marseillaise."
+
+"The devil!" he thought. "It was quite time, indeed; here's the town
+itself in revolt now!"
+
+He quickened his steps in the direction of the Porte de Rome. Cold
+perspiration came over him while he waited there for the dilatory
+keeper to open the gate. Almost as soon as he set foot on the high
+road, he perceived in the moonlight at the other end of the Faubourg
+the column of insurgents, whose gun barrels gleamed like white flames.
+So it was at a run that he dived into the Impasse Saint-Mittre, and
+reached his mother's house, which he had not visited for many a long
+year.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+Antoine Macquart had returned to Plassans after the fall of the first
+Napoleon. He had had the incredible good fortune to escape all the
+final murderous campaigns of the Empire. He had moved from barracks to
+barracks, dragging on his brutifying military life. This mode of
+existence brought his natural vices to full development. His idleness
+became deliberate; his intemperance, which brought him countless
+punishments, became, to his mind, a veritable religious duty. But that
+which above all made him the worst of scapegraces was the supercilious
+disdain which he entertained for the poor devils who had to earn their
+bread.
+
+"I've got money waiting for me at home," he often said to his
+comrades; "when I've served my time, I shall be able to live like a
+gentleman."
+
+This belief, together with his stupid ignorance, prevented him from
+rising even to the grade of corporal.
+
+Since his departure he had never spent a day's furlough at Plassans,
+his brother having invented a thousand pretexts to keep him at a
+distance. He was therefore completely ignorant of the adroit manner in
+which Pierre had got possession of their mother's fortune. Adelaide,
+with her profound indifference, did not even write to him three times
+to tell him how she was going on. The silence which generally greeted
+his numerous requests for money did not awaken the least suspicion in
+him; Pierre's stinginess sufficed to explain the difficulty he
+experienced in securing from time to time a paltry twenty-franc piece.
+This, however, only increased his animosity towards his brother, who
+left him to languish in military service in spite of his formal
+promise to purchase his discharge. He vowed to himself that on his
+return home he would no longer submit like a child, but would flatly
+demand his share of the fortune to enable him to live as he pleased.
+In the diligence which conveyed him home he dreamed of a delightful
+life of idleness. The shattering of his castles in the air was
+terrible. When he reached the Faubourg, and could no longer even
+recognise the Fouques' plot of ground, he was stupefied. He was
+compelled to ask for his mother's new address. There a terrible scene
+occurred. Adelaide calmly informed him of the sale of the property. He
+flew into a rage, and even raised his hand against her.
+
+The poor woman kept repeating: "Your brother has taken everything; it
+is understood that he will take care of you."
+
+At last he left her and ran off to see Pierre, whom he had previously
+informed of his return, and who was prepared to receive him in such a
+way as to put an end to the matter at the first word of abuse.
+
+"Listen," the oil-dealer said to him, affecting distant coldness;
+"don't rouse my anger, or I'll turn you out. As a matter of fact, I
+don't know you. We don't bear the same name. It's quite misfortune
+enough for me that my mother misconducted herself, without having her
+offspring coming here and insulting me. I was well disposed towards
+you, but since you are insolent I shall do nothing for you, absolutely
+nothing."
+
+Antoine was almost choking with rage.
+
+"And what about my money," he cried; "will you give it up, you thief,
+or shall I have to drag you before the judges?"
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I've got no money of yours," he replied, more calmly than ever. "My
+mother disposed of her fortune as she thought proper. I am certainly
+not going to poke my nose into her business. I willingly renounced all
+hope of inheritance. I am quite safe from your foul accusations."
+
+And as his brother, exasperated by this composure, and not knowing
+what to think, muttered something, Pierre thrust Adelaide's receipt
+under his nose. The reading of this scrap of paper completed Antoine's
+dismay.
+
+"Very well," he said, in a calmer voice, "I know now what I have to
+do."
+
+The truth was, however, he did not know what to do. His inability to
+hit upon any immediate expedient for obtaining his share of the money
+and satisfying his desire of revenge increased his fury. He went back
+to his mother and subjected her to a disgraceful cross-examination.
+The wretched woman could do nothing but again refer him to Pierre.
+
+"Do you think you are going to make me run to and fro like a shuttle?"
+he cried, insolently. "I'll soon find out which of you two has the
+hoard. You've already squandered it, perhaps?"
+
+And making an allusion to her former misconduct he asked her if there
+were still not some low fellow to whom she gave her last sous? He did
+not even spare his father, that drunkard Macquart, as he called him,
+who must have lived on her till the day of his death, and who left his
+children in poverty. The poor woman listened with a stupefied air; big
+tears rolled down her cheeks. She defended herself with the terror of
+a child, replying to her son's questions as though he were a judge;
+she swore that she was living respectably, and reiterated with
+emphasis that she had never had a sou of the money, that Pierre had
+taken everything. Antoine almost came to believe it at last.
+
+"Ah! the scoundrel!" he muttered; "that's why he wouldn't purchase my
+discharge."
+
+He had to sleep at his mother's house, on a straw mattress flung in a
+corner. He had returned with his pockets perfectly empty, and was
+exasperated at finding himself destitute of resources, abandoned like
+a dog in the streets, without hearth or home, while his brother, as he
+thought, was in a good way of business, and living on the fat of the
+land. As he had no money to buy clothes with, he went out on the
+following day in his regimental cap and trousers. He had the good
+fortune to find, at the bottom of a cupboard, an old yellowish
+velveteen jacket, threadbare and patched, which had belonged to
+Macquart. In this strange attire he walked about the town, relating
+his story to everyone, and demanding justice.
+
+The people whom he went to consult received him with a contempt which
+made him shed tears of rage. Provincial folks are inexorable towards
+fallen families. In the general opinion it was only natural that the
+Rougon-Macquarts should seek to devour each other; the spectators,
+instead of separating them, were more inclined to urge them on.
+Pierre, however, was at that time already beginning to purify himself
+of his early stains. People laughed at his roguery; some even went so
+far as to say that he had done quite right, if he really had taken
+possession of the money, and that it would be a good lesson to the
+dissolute folks of the town.
+
+Antoine returned home discouraged. A lawyer had advised him, in a
+scornful manner, to wash his dirty linen at home, though not until he
+had skilfully ascertained whether Antoine possessed the requisite
+means to carry on a lawsuit. According to this man, the case was very
+involved, the pleadings would be very lengthy, and success was
+doubtful. Moreover, it would require money, and plenty of it.
+
+Antoine treated his mother yet more harshly that evening. Not knowing
+on whom else to wreak his vengeance, he repeated his accusation of the
+previous day; he kept the wretched woman up till midnight, trembling
+with shame and fright. Adelaide having informed him that Pierre made
+her an allowance, he now felt certain that his brother had pocketed
+the fifty thousand francs. But, in his irritation, he still affected
+to doubt it, and did not cease to question the poor woman, again and
+again reproaching her with misconduct.
+
+Antoine soon found out that, alone and without resources, he could not
+successfully carry on a contest with his brother. He then endeavoured
+to gain Adelaide to his cause; an accusation lodged by her might have
+serious consequences. But, at Antoine's first suggestion of it, the
+poor, lazy, lethargic creature firmly refused to bring trouble on her
+eldest son.
+
+"I am an unhappy woman," she stammered; "it is quite right of you to
+get angry. But I should feel too much remorse if I caused one of my
+sons to be sent to prison. No; I'd rather let you beat me."
+
+He saw that he would get nothing but tears out of her, and contented
+himself with saying that she was justly punished, and that he had no
+pity for her. In the evening, upset by the continual quarrels which
+her son had sought with her, Adelaide had one of those nervous attacks
+which kept her as rigid as if she had been dead. The young man threw
+her on her bed, and then began to rummage the house to see if the
+wretched woman had any savings hidden away. He found about forty
+francs. He took possession of them, and, while his mother still lay
+there, rigid and scarce able to breathe, he quietly took the diligence
+to Marseilles.
+
+He had just bethought himself that Mouret, the journeyman hatter who
+had married his sister Ursule, must be indignant at Pierre's roguery,
+and would no doubt be willing to defend his wife's interests. But he
+did not find in him the man he expected. Mouret plainly told him that
+he had become accustomed to look upon Ursule as an orphan, and would
+have no contentions with her family at any price. Their affairs were
+prospering. Antoine was received so coldly that he hastened to take
+the diligence home again. But, before leaving, he was anxious to
+revenge himself for the secret contempt which he read in the workman's
+eyes; and, observing that his sister appeared rather pale and
+dejected, he said to her husband, in a slyly cruel way, as he took his
+departure: "Have a care, my sister was always sickly, and I find her
+much changed for the worse; you may lose her altogether."
+
+The tears which rushed to Mouret's eyes convinced him that he had
+touched a sore wound. But then those work-people made too great a
+display of their happiness.
+
+When he was back again in Plassans, Antoine became the more menacing
+from the conviction that his hands were tied. During a whole month he
+was seen all over the place. He paraded the streets, recounting his
+story to all who would listen to him. Whenever he succeeded in
+extorting a franc from his mother, he would drink it away at some
+tavern, where he would revile his brother, declaring that the rascal
+should shortly hear from him. In places like these, the good-natured
+fraternity which reigns among drunkards procured him a sympathetic
+audience; all the scum of the town espoused his cause, and poured
+forth bitter imprecations against that rascal Rougon, who left a brave
+soldier to starve; the discussion generally terminating with an
+indiscriminate condemnation of the rich. Antoine, the better to
+revenge himself, continued to march about in his regimental cap and
+trousers and his old yellow velvet jacket, although his mother had
+offered to purchase some more becoming clothes for him. But no; he
+preferred to make a display of his rags, and paraded them on Sundays
+in the most frequented parts of the Cours Sauvaire.
+
+One of his most exquisite pleasures was to pass Pierre's shop ten
+times a day. He would enlarge the holes in his jacket with his
+fingers, slacken his step, and sometimes stand talking in front of the
+door, so as to remain longer in the street. On these occasions, too,
+he would bring one of his drunken friends and gossip to him; telling
+him about the theft of the fifty thousand francs, accompanying his
+narrative with loud insults and menaces, which could be heard by
+everyone in the street, and taking particular care that his abuse
+should reach the furthest end of the shop.
+
+"He'll finish by coming to beg in front of our house," Felicite used
+to say in despair.
+
+The vain little woman suffered terribly from this scandal. She even at
+this time felt some regret at ever having married Rougon; his family
+connections were so objectionable. She would have given all she had in
+the world to prevent Antoine from parading his rags. But Pierre, who
+was maddened by his brother's conduct, would not allow his name to be
+mentioned. When his wife tried to convince him that it would perhaps
+be better to free himself from all annoyance by giving Antoine a
+little money: "No, nothing; not a sou," he cried with rage. "Let him
+starve!"
+
+He confessed, however, at last that Antoine's demeanour was becoming
+intolerable. One day, Felicite, desiring to put an end to it, called
+to "that man," as she styled him with a disdainful curl on her lip.
+"That man" was in the act of calling her a foul name in the middle of
+the street, where he stood with one of his friends, even more ragged
+than himself. They were both drunk.
+
+"Come, they want us in there," said Antoine to his companion in a
+jeering tone.
+
+But Felicite drew back, muttering: "It's you alone we wish to speak
+to."
+
+"Bah!" the young man replied, "my friend's a decent fellow. You
+needn't mind him hearing. He'll be my witness."
+
+The witness sank heavily on a chair. He did not take off his hat, but
+began to stare around him, with the maudlin, stupid grin of drunkards
+and coarse people who know that they are insolent. Felicite was so
+ashamed that she stood in front of the shop door in order that people
+outside might not see what strange company she was receiving.
+Fortunately her husband came to the rescue. A violent quarrel ensued
+between him and his brother. The latter, after stammering insults,
+reiterated his old grievances twenty times over. At last he even began
+to cry, and his companion was near following his example. Pierre had
+defended himself in a very dignified manner.
+
+"Look here," he said at last, "you're unfortunate, and I pity you.
+Although you have cruelly insulted me, I can't forget that we are
+children of the same mother. If I give you anything, however, you must
+understand I give it you out of kindness, and not from fear. Would you
+like a hundred francs to help you out of your difficulties?"
+
+This abrupt offer of a hundred francs dazzled Antoine's companion. He
+looked at the other with an air of delight, which clearly signified:
+"As the gentleman offers a hundred francs, it is time to leave off
+abusing him." But Antoine was determined to speculate on his brother's
+favourable disposition. He asked him whether he took him for a fool;
+it was his share, ten thousand francs, that he wanted.
+
+"You're wrong, you're wrong," stuttered his friend.
+
+At last, as Pierre, losing all patience, was threatening to turn them
+both out, Antoine lowered his demands and contented himself with
+claiming one thousand francs. They quarrelled for another quarter of
+an hour over this amount. Finally, Felicite interfered. A crowd was
+gathering round the shop.
+
+"Listen," she said, excitedly; "my husband will give you two hundred
+francs. I'll undertake to buy you a suit of clothes, and hire a room
+for a year for you."
+
+Rougon got angry at this. But Antoine's comrade cried, with transports
+of delight: "All right, it's settled, then; my friend accepts."
+
+Antoine did, in fact, declare, in a surly way, that he would accept.
+He felt he would not be able to get any more. It was arranged that the
+money and clothes should be sent to him on the following day, and that
+a few days later, as soon as Felicite should have found a room for
+him, he would take up his quarters there. As they were leaving, the
+young man's sottish companion became as respectful as he had
+previously been insolent. He bowed to the company more than a dozen
+times, in an awkward and humble manner, muttering many indistinct
+thanks, as if the Rougons' gifts had been intended for himself.
+
+A week later Antoine occupied a large room in the old quarter, in
+which Felicite, exceeding her promises, had placed a bed, a table, and
+some chairs, on the young man formally undertaking not to molest them
+in future. Adelaide felt no regret at her son leaving her; the short
+stay he had made with her had condemned her to bread and water for
+more than three months. However, Antoine had soon eaten and drunk the
+two hundred francs he received from Pierre. He never for a moment
+thought of investing them in some little business which would have
+helped him to live. When he was again penniless, having no trade, and
+being, moreover, unwilling to work, he again sought to slip a hand
+into the Rougons' purse. Circumstances were not the same as before,
+however, and he failed to intimidate them. Pierre even took advantage
+of this opportunity to turn him out, and forbade him ever to set foot
+in his house again. It was of no avail for Antoine to repeat his
+former accusations. The townspeople, who were acquainted with his
+brother's munificence from the publicity which Felicite had given to
+it, declared him to be in the wrong, and called him a lazy, idle
+fellow. Meantime his hunger was pressing. He threatened to turn
+smuggler like his father, and perpetrate some crime which would
+dishonour his family. At this the Rougons shrugged their shoulders;
+they knew he was too much of a coward to risk his neck. At last,
+blindly enraged against his relatives in particular and society in
+general, Antoine made up his mind to seek some work.
+
+In a tavern of the Faubourg he made the acquaintance of a basket-maker
+who worked at home. He offered to help him. In a short time he learnt
+to plait baskets and hampers--a coarse and poorly-paid kind of labour
+which finds a ready market. He was very soon able to work on his own
+account. This trade pleased him, as it was not over laborious. He
+could still indulge his idleness, and that was what he chiefly cared
+for. He would only take to his work when he could no longer do
+otherwise; then he would hurriedly plait a dozen baskets and go and
+sell them in the market. As long as the money lasted he lounged about,
+visiting all the taverns and digesting his drink in the sunshine.
+Then, when he had fasted a whole day, he would once more take up his
+osier with a low growl and revile the wealthy who lived in idleness.
+The trade of a basket-maker, when followed in such a manner, is a
+thankless one. Antoine's work would not have sufficed to pay for his
+drinking bouts if he had not contrived a means of procuring his osier
+at low cost. He never bought any at Plassans, but used to say that he
+went each month to purchase a stock at a neighbouring town, where he
+pretended it was sold cheaper. The truth, however, was that he
+supplied himself from the osier-grounds of the Viorne on dark nights.
+A rural policeman even caught him once in the very act, and Antoine
+underwent a few days' imprisonment in consequence. It was from that
+time forward that he posed in the town as a fierce Republican. He
+declared that he had been quietly smoking his pipe by the riverside
+when the rural policeman arrested him. And he added: "They would like
+to get me out of the way because they know what my opinions are. But
+I'm not afraid of them, those rich scoundrels."
+
+At last, at the end of ten years of idleness, Antoine considered that
+he had been working too hard. His constant dream was to devise some
+expedient by which he might live at his ease without having to do
+anything. His idleness would never have rested content with bread and
+water; he was not like certain lazy persons who are willing to put up
+with hunger provided they can keep their hands in their pockets. He
+liked good feeding and nothing to do. He talked at one time of taking
+a situation as servant in some nobleman's house in the Saint-Marc
+quarter. But one of his friends, a groom, frightened him by describing
+the exacting ways of his masters. Finally Macquart, sick of his
+baskets, and seeing the time approach when he would be compelled to
+purchase the requisite osier, was on the point of selling himself as
+an army substitute and resuming his military life, which he preferred
+a thousand times to that of an artisan, when he made the acquaintance
+of a woman, an acquaintance which modified his plans.
+
+Josephine Gavaudan, who was known throughout the town by the familiar
+diminutive of Fine, was a tall, strapping wench of about thirty. With
+a square face of masculine proportions, and a few terribly long hairs
+about her chin and lips, she was cited as a doughty woman, one who
+could make the weight of her fist felt. Her broad shoulders and huge
+arms consequently inspired the town urchins with marvellous respect;
+and they did not even dare to smile at her moustache. Notwithstanding
+all this, Fine had a faint voice, weak and clear like that of a child.
+Those who were acquainted with her asserted that she was as gentle as
+a lamb, in spite of her formidable appearance. As she was very hard-
+working, she might have put some money aside if she had not had a
+partiality for liqueurs. She adored aniseed, and very often had to be
+carried home on Sunday evenings.
+
+On week days she would toil with the stubbornness of an animal. She
+had three or four different occupations; she sold fruit or boiled
+chestnuts in the market, according to the season; went out charring
+for a few well-to-do people; washed up plates and dishes at houses
+when parties were given, and employed her spare time in mending old
+chairs. She was more particularly known in the town as a chair-mender.
+In the South large numbers of straw-bottomed chairs are used.
+
+Antoine Macquart formed an acquaintance with Fine at the market. When
+he went to sell his baskets in the winter he would stand beside the
+stove on which she cooled her chestnuts and warm himself. He was
+astonished at her courage, he who was frightened of the least work. By
+degrees he discerned, beneath the apparent roughness of this strapping
+creature, signs of timidity and kindliness. He frequently saw her give
+handfuls of chestnuts to the ragged urchins who stood in ecstasy round
+her smoking pot. At other times, when the market inspector hustled
+her, she very nearly began to cry, apparently forgetting all about her
+heavy fists. Antoine at last decided that she was exactly the woman he
+wanted. She would work for both and he would lay down the law at home.
+She would be his beast of burden, an obedient, indefatigable animal.
+As for her partiality for liqueurs, he regarded this as quite natural.
+After well weighing the advantages of such an union, he declared
+himself to Fine, who was delighted with his proposal. No man had ever
+yet ventured to propose to her. Though she was told that Antoine was
+the most worthless of vagabonds, she lacked the courage to refuse
+matrimony. The very evening of the nuptials the young man took up his
+abode in his wife's lodgings in the Rue Civadiere, near the market.
+These lodgings, consisting of three rooms, were much more comfortably
+furnished than his own, and he gave a sigh of satisfaction as he
+stretched himself out on the two excellent mattresses which covered
+the bedstead.
+
+Everything went on very well for the first few days. Fine attended to
+her various occupations as in the past; Antoine, seized with a sort of
+marital self-pride which astonished even himself, plaited in one week
+more baskets than he had ever before done in a month. On the first
+Sunday, however, war broke out. The couple had a goodly sum of money
+in the house, and they spent it freely. During the night, when they
+were both drunk, they beat each other outrageously, without being able
+to remember on the morrow how it was that the quarrel had commenced.
+They had remained on most affectionate terms until about ten o'clock,
+when Antoine had begun to beat Fine brutally, whereupon the latter,
+growing exasperated and forgetting her meekness, had given him back as
+much as she received. She went to work again bravely on the following
+day, as though nothing had happened. But her husband, with sullen
+rancour, rose late and passed the remainder of the day smoking his
+pipe in the sunshine.
+
+From that time forward the Macquarts adopted the kind of life which
+they were destined to lead in the future. It became, as it were,
+tacitly understood between them that the wife should toil and moil to
+keep her husband. Fine, who had an instinctive liking for work, did
+not object to this. She was as patient as a saint, provided she had
+had no drink, thought it quite natural that her husband should remain
+idle, and even strove to spare him the most trifling labour. Her
+little weakness, aniseed, did not make her vicious, but just. On the
+evenings when she had forgotten herself in the company of a bottle of
+her favourite liqueur, if Antoine tried to pick a quarrel with her,
+she would set upon him with might and main, reproaching him with his
+idleness and ingratitude. The neighbours grew accustomed to the
+disturbances which periodically broke out in the couple's room. The
+two battered each other conscientiously; the wife slapped like a
+mother chastising a naughty child; but the husband, treacherous and
+spiteful as he was, measured his blows, and, on several occasions,
+very nearly crippled the unfortunate woman.
+
+"You'll be in a fine plight when you've broken one of my arms or
+legs," she would say to him. "Who'll keep you then, you lazy fellow?"
+
+Excepting for these turbulent scenes, Antoine began to find his new
+mode of existence quite endurable. He was well clothed, and ate and
+drank his fill. He had laid aside the basket work altogether;
+sometimes, when he was feeling over-bored, he would resolve to plait a
+dozen baskets for the next market day; but very often he did not even
+finish the first one. He kept, under a couch, a bundle of osier which
+he did not use up in twenty years.
+
+The Macquarts had three children, two girls and a boy. Lisa,[*] born
+the first, in 1827, one year after the marriage, remained but little
+at home. She was a fine, big, healthy, full-blooded child, greatly
+resembling her mother. She did not, however, inherit the latter's
+animal devotion and endurance. Macquart had implanted in her a most
+decided longing for ease and comfort. While she was a child she would
+consent to work for a whole day in return for a cake. When she was
+scarcely seven years old, the wife of the postmaster, who was a
+neighbour of the Macquarts, took a liking to her. She made a little
+maid of her. And when she lost her husband in 1839, and went to live
+in Paris, she took Lisa with her. The parents had almost given her
+their daughter.
+
+[*] The pork-butcher's wife in /Le Ventre de Paris/ (/The Fat and the
+    Thin/).
+
+The second girl, Gervaise,[*] born the following year, was a cripple
+from birth. Her right thigh was smaller than the left and showed signs
+of curvature, a curious hereditary result of the brutality which her
+mother had to endure during her fierce drunken brawls with Macquart.
+Gervaise remained puny, and Fine, observing her pallor and weakness,
+put her on a course of aniseed, under the pretext that she required
+something to strengthen her. But the poor child became still more
+emaciated. She was a tall, lank girl, whose frocks, invariably too
+large, hung round her as if they had nothing under them. Above a
+deformed and puny body she had a sweet little doll-like head, a tiny
+round face, pale and exquisitely delicate. Her infirmity almost became
+graceful. Her body swayed gently at every step with a sort of
+rhythmical swing.
+
+[*] The chief female character in /L'Assommoir/ (/The Dram-shop/).
+
+The Macquarts' son, Jean,[*] was born three years later. He was a
+robust child, in no respect recalling Gervaise. Like the eldest girl,
+he took after his mother, without having any physical resemblance to
+her. He was the first to import into the Rougon-Macquart stock a fat
+face with regular features, which showed all the coldness of a grave
+yet not over-intelligent nature. This boy grew up with the
+determination of some day making an independent position for himself.
+He attended school diligently, and tortured his dull brain to force a
+little arithmetic and spelling into it. After that he became an
+apprentice, repeating much the same efforts with a perseverance that
+was the more meritorious as it took him a whole day to learn what
+others acquired in an hour.
+
+[*] Figures prominently in /La Terre/ (/The Earth/) and /La Debacle/
+    (/The Downfall/).
+
+As long as these poor little things remained a burden to the house,
+Antoine grumbled. They were useless mouths that lessened his own
+share. He vowed, like his brother, that he would have no more
+children, those greedy creatures who bring their parents to penury. It
+was something to hear him bemoan his lot when they sat five at table,
+and the mother gave the best morsels to Jean, Lisa, and Gervaise.
+
+"That's right," he would growl; "stuff them, make them burst!"
+
+Whenever Fine bought a garment or a pair of boots for them, he would
+sulk for days together. Ah! if he had only known, he would never had
+had that pack of brats, who compelled him to limit his smoking to four
+sous' worth of tobacco a day, and too frequently obliged him to eat
+stewed potatoes for dinner, a dish which he heartily detested.
+
+Later on, however, as soon as Jean and Gervaise earned their first
+francs, he found some good in children after all. Lisa was no longer
+there. He lived upon the earnings of the two others without
+compunction, as he had already lived upon their mother. It was a well-
+planned speculation on his part. As soon as little Gervaise was eight
+years old, she went to a neighbouring dealer's to crack almonds; she
+there earned ten sous a day, which her father pocketed right royally,
+without even a question from Fine as to what became of the money. The
+young girl was next apprenticed to a laundress, and as soon as she
+received two francs a day for her work, the two francs strayed in a
+similar manner into Macquart's hands. Jean, who had learnt the trade
+of a carpenter, was likewise despoiled on pay-days, whenever Macquart
+succeeded in catching him before he had handed the money to his
+mother. If the money escaped Macquart, which sometimes happened, he
+became frightfully surly. He would glare at his wife and children for
+a whole week, picking a quarrel for nothing, although he was, as yet,
+ashamed to confess the real cause of his irritations. On the next pay-
+day, however, he would station himself on the watch, and as soon as he
+had succeeded in pilfering the youngster's earnings, he disappeared
+for days together.
+
+Gervaise, beaten and brought up in the streets among all the lads of
+the neighbourhood, became a mother when she was fourteen years of age.
+The father of her child was not eighteen years old. He was a
+journeyman tanner named Lantier. At first Macquart was furious, but he
+calmed down somewhat when he learnt that Lantier's mother, a worthy
+woman, was willing to take charge of the child. He kept Gervaise,
+however; she was then already earning twenty-five sous a day, and he
+therefore avoided all question of marriage. Four years later she had a
+second child, which was likewise taken in by Lantier's mother. This
+time Macquart shut his eyes altogether. And when Fine timidly
+suggested that it was time to come to some understanding with the
+tanner, in order to end a state of things which made people chatter,
+he flatly declared that his daughter should not leave him, and that he
+would give her to her lover later on, "when he was worthy of her, and
+had enough money to furnish a home."
+
+This was a fine time for Antoine Macquart. He dressed like a
+gentleman, in frock-coats and trousers of the finest cloth. Cleanly
+shaved, and almost fat, he was no longer the emaciated ragged vagabond
+who had been wont to frequent the taverns. He dropped into cafes, read
+the papers, and strolled on the Cours Sauvaire. He played the
+gentleman as long as he had any money in his pocket. At times of
+impecuniosity he remained at home, exasperated at being kept in his
+hovel and prevented from taking his customary cup of coffee. On such
+occasions he would reproach the whole human race with his poverty,
+making himself ill with rage and envy, until Fine, out of pity, would
+often give him the last silver coin in the house so that he might
+spend his evening at the cafe. This dear fellow was fiercely selfish.
+Gervaise, who brought home as much as sixty francs a month, wore only
+thin cotton frocks, while he had black satin waistcoats made for him
+by one of the best tailors in Plassans.
+
+Jean, the big lad who earned three or four francs a day, was perhaps
+robbed even more impudently. The cafe where his father passed entire
+days was just opposite his master's workshop, and while he had plane
+or saw in hand he could see "Monsieur" Macquart on the other side of
+the way, sweetening his coffee or playing piquet with some petty
+annuitant. It was his money that the lazy old fellow was gambling
+away. He, Jean, never stepped inside a cafe, he never had so much as
+five sous to pay for a drink. Antoine treated him like a little girl,
+never leaving him a centime, and always demanding an exact account of
+the manner in which he had employed his time. If the unfortunate lad,
+led away by some of his mates, wasted a day somewhere in the country,
+on the banks of the Viorne, or on the slopes of Garrigues, his father
+would storm and raise his hand, and long bear him a grudge on account
+of the four francs less that he received at the end of the fortnight.
+He thus held his son in a state of dependence, sometimes even looking
+upon the sweethearts whom the young carpenter courted as his own.
+Several of Gervaise's friends used to come to the Macquarts' house,
+work-girls from sixteen to eighteen years of age, bold and boisterous
+girls who, on certain evenings, filled the room with youth and gaiety.
+Poor Jean, deprived of all pleasure, ever kept at home by the lack of
+money, looked at these girls with longing eyes; but the childish life
+which he was compelled to lead had implanted invincible shyness in
+him; in playing with his sister's friends, he was hardly bold enough
+to touch them with the tips of his fingers. Macquart used to shrug his
+shoulders with pity.
+
+"What a simpleton!" he would mutter, with an air of ironical
+superiority.
+
+And it was he who would kiss the girls, when his wife's back was
+turned. He carried his attentions even further with a little laundress
+whom Jean pursued rather more earnestly than the others. One fine
+evening he stole her almost from his arms. The old rogue prided
+himself on his gallantry.
+
+There are some men who live upon their mistresses. Antoine Macquart
+lived on his wife and children with as much shamelessness and
+impudence. He did not feel the least compunction in pillaging the home
+and going out to enjoy himself when the house was bare. He still
+assumed a supercilious air, returning from the cafe only to rail
+against the poverty and wretchedness that awaited him at home. He
+found the dinner detestable, he called Gervaise a blockhead, and
+declared that Jean would never be a man. Immersed in his own selfish
+indulgence, he rubbed his hands whenever he had eaten the best piece
+in the dish; and then he smoked his pipe, puffing slowly, while the
+two poor children, overcome with fatigue, went to sleep with their
+heads resting on the table. Thus Macquart passed his days in lazy
+enjoyment. It seemed to him quite natural that he should be kept in
+idleness like a girl, to sprawl about on the benches of some tavern,
+or stroll in the cool of the day along the Cours or the Mail. At last
+he went so far as to relate his amorous escapades in the presence of
+his son, who listened with glistening eyes. The children never
+protested, accustomed as they were to see their mother humble herself
+before her husband.
+
+Fine, that strapping woman who drubbed him soundly when they were both
+intoxicated, always trembled before him when she was sober, and
+allowed him to rule despotically at home. He robbed her in the night
+of the coppers which she had earned during the day at the market, but
+she never dared to protest, except by veiled rebukes. Sometimes, when
+he had squandered the week's money in advance, he accused her, poor
+thing, who worked herself to death, of being stupid and not knowing
+how to manage. Fine, as gentle as a lamb, replied, in her soft, clear
+voice, which contrasted so strangely with her big figure, that she was
+no longer twenty years old, and that money was becoming hard to earn.
+In order to console herself, she would buy a pint of aniseed, and
+drink little glassfuls of it with her daughter of an evening, after
+Antoine had gone back to the cafe. That was their dissipation. Jean
+went to bed, while the two women remained at the table, listening
+attentively in order to remove the bottle and glasses at the first
+sound.
+
+When Macquart was late, they often became intoxicated by the many
+"nips" they thus thoughtlessly imbibed. Stupefied and gazing at each
+other with vague smiles, this mother and daughter would end by
+stuttering. Red patches appeared on Gervaise's cheeks; her delicate
+doll-like face assumed a look of maudlin beatitude. Nothing could be
+more heart-rending than to see this wretched, pale child, aglow with
+drink and wearing the idiotic smile of a confirmed sot about her moist
+lips. Fine, huddled up on her chair, became heavy and drowsy. They
+sometimes forgot to keep watch, or even lacked the strength to remove
+the bottle and glasses when Antoine's footsteps were heard on the
+stairs. On these occasions blows were freely exchanged among the
+Macquarts. Jean had to get up to separate his father and mother and
+make his sister go to bed, as otherwise she would have slept on the
+floor.
+
+Every political party numbers its grotesques and its villains. Antoine
+Macquart, devoured by envy and hatred, and meditating revenge against
+society in general, welcomed the Republic as a happy era when he would
+be allowed to fill his pockets from his neighbour's cash-box, and even
+strangle the neighbour if the latter manifested any displeasure. His
+cafe life and all the newspaper articles he had read without
+understanding them had made him a terrible ranter who enunciated the
+strangest of political theories. It is necessary to have heard one of
+those malcontents who ill digest what they read, haranguing the
+company in some provincial taproom, in order to conceive the degree of
+hateful folly at which Macquart had arrived. As he talked a good deal,
+had seen active service, and was naturally regarded as a man of energy
+and spirit, he was much sought after and listened to by simpletons.
+Although he was not the chief of any party, he had succeeded in
+collecting round him a small group of working-men who took his jealous
+ravings for expressions of honest and conscientious indignation.
+
+Directly after the Revolution of February '48, he persuaded himself
+that Plassans was his own, and, as he strolled along the streets, the
+jeering manner in which he regarded the little retail traders who
+stood terrified at their shop doors clearly signified: "Our day has
+come, my little lambs; we are going to lead you a fine dance!" He had
+grown insolent beyond belief; he acted the part of a victorious despot
+to such a degree that he ceased to pay for his drinks at the cafe, and
+the landlord, a simpleton who trembled whenever Antoine rolled his
+eyes, dared not present his bill. The number of cups of coffee he
+consumed during this period was incalculable; sometimes he invited his
+friends, and shouted for hours together that the people were dying of
+hunger, and that the rich ought to share their wealth with them. He
+himself would never have given a sou to a beggar.
+
+That which chiefly converted him into a fierce Republican was the hope
+of at last being able to revenge himself on the Rougons, who had
+openly ranged themselves on the side of the reactionary party. Ah,
+what a triumph if he could only hold Pierre and Felicite at his mercy!
+Although the latter had not succeeded over well in business, they had
+at last become gentlefolks, while he, Macquart, had still remained a
+working-man. That exasperated him. Perhaps he was still more mortified
+because one of their sons was a barrister, another a doctor, and the
+third a clerk, while his son Jean merely worked at a carpenter's shop,
+and his daughter Gervaise at a washerwoman's. When he compared the
+Macquarts with the Rougons, he was still more ashamed to see his wife
+selling chestnuts in the market, and mending the greasy old straw-
+seated chairs of the neighbourhood in the evening. Pierre, after all,
+was but his brother, and had no more right than himself to live fatly
+on his income. Moreover, this brother was actually playing the
+gentleman with money stolen from him. Whenever Macquart touched upon
+this subject, he became fiercely enraged; he clamoured for hours
+together, incessantly repeating his old accusations, and never
+wearying of exclaiming: "If my brother was where he ought to be, I
+should be the moneyed man at the present time!"
+
+And when anyone asked him where his brother ought to be, he would
+reply, "At the galleys!" in a formidable voice.
+
+His hatred further increased when the Rougons had gathered the
+Conservatives round them, and thus acquired a certain influence in
+Plassans. The famous yellow drawing-room became, in his hare-brained
+chatter at the cafe, a cave of bandits, an assembly of villains who
+every evening swore on their daggers that they would murder the
+people. In order to incite the starvelings against Pierre, Macquart
+went so far as to circulate a report that the retired oil-dealer was
+not so poor as he pretended, but that he concealed his treasures
+through avarice and fear of robbery. His tactics thus tended to rouse
+the poor people by a repetition of absurdly ridiculous tales, which he
+often came to believe in himself. His personal animosity and his
+desire for revenge were ill concealed beneath his professions of
+patriotism; but he was heard so frequently, and he had such a loud
+voice, that no one would have dared to doubt the genuineness of his
+convictions.
+
+At bottom, all the members of this family had the same brutish
+passions. Felicite, who clearly understood that Macquart's wild
+theories were simply the fruit of restrained rage and embittered envy,
+would much have liked to purchase his silence. Unfortunately, she was
+short of money, and did not dare to interest him in the dangerous game
+which her husband was playing. Antoine now injured them very much
+among the well-to-do people of the new town. It sufficed that he was a
+relation of theirs. Granoux and Roudier often scornfully reproached
+them for having such a man in their family. Felicite consequently
+asked herself with anguish how they could manage to cleanse themselves
+of such a stain.
+
+It seemed to her monstrous and indecent that Monsieur Rougon should
+have a brother whose wife sold chestnuts, and who himself lived in
+crapulous idleness. She at last even trembled for the success of their
+secret intrigues, so long as Antoine seemingly took pleasure in
+compromising them. When the diatribes which he levelled at the yellow
+drawing-room were reported to her, she shuddered at the thought that
+he was capable of becoming desperate and ruining all their hopes by
+force of scandal.
+
+Antoine knew what consternation his demeanour must cause the Rougons,
+and it was solely for the purpose of exhausting their patience that he
+from day to day affected fiercer opinions. At the cafe he frequented
+he used to speak of "my brother Pierre" in a voice which made
+everybody turn round; and if he happened to meet some reactionary from
+the yellow drawing-room in the street, he would mutter some low abuse
+which the worthy citizen, amazed at such audacity, would repeat to the
+Rougons in the evening, as though to make them responsible for his
+disagreeable encounter.
+
+One day Granoux arrived in a state of fury.
+
+"Really," he exclaimed, when scarcely across the threshold, "it's
+intolerable; one can't move a step without being insulted." Then,
+addressing Pierre, he added: "When one has a brother like yours, sir,
+one should rid society of him. I was just quietly walking past the
+Sub-Prefecture, when that rascal passed me muttering something in
+which I could clearly distinguish the words 'old rogue.'"
+
+Felicite turned pale, and felt it necessary to apologise to Granoux,
+but he refused to accept any excuses, and threatened to leave
+altogether. The marquis, however, exerted himself to arrange matters.
+
+"It is very strange," he said, "that the wretched fellow should have
+called you an old rogue. Are you sure that he intended the insult for
+you?"
+
+Granoux was perplexed; he admitted at last, however, that Antoine
+might have muttered: "So you are again going to that old rogue's?"
+
+At this Monsieur de Carnavant stroked his chin to conceal the smile
+which rose to his lips in spite of himself.
+
+Then Rougon, with superb composure, replied: "I thought as much; the
+'old rogue' was no doubt intended for me. I've very glad that this
+misunderstanding is now cleared up. Gentlemen, pray avoid the man in
+question, whom I formally repudiate."
+
+Felicite, however, did not take matters so coolly; every fresh scandal
+caused by Macquart made her more and more uneasy; she would sometimes
+pass the whole night wondering what those gentlemen must think of the
+matter.
+
+A few months before the Coup d'Etat, the Rougons received an anonymous
+letter, three pages of foul insults, in which they were warned that if
+their party should ever triumph, the scandalous story of Adelaide's
+amours would be published in some newspaper, together with an account
+of the robbery perpetrated by Pierre, when he had compelled his
+mother, driven out of her senses by debauchery, to sign a receipt for
+fifty thousand francs. This letter was a heavy blow for Rougon
+himself. Felicite could not refrain from reproaching her husband with
+his disreputable family; for the husband and wife never for a moment
+doubted that this letter was Antoine's work.
+
+"We shall have to get rid of the blackguard at any price," said Pierre
+in a gloomy tone. "He's becoming too troublesome by far."
+
+In the meantime, Macquart, resorting to his former tactics, looked
+round among his own relatives for accomplices who would join him
+against the Rougons. He had counted upon Aristide at first, on reading
+his terrible articles in the "Independant." But the young man, in
+spite of all his jealous rage, was not so foolish as to make common
+cause with such a fellow as his uncle. He never even minced matters
+with him, but invariably kept him at a distance, a circumstance which
+induced Antoine to regard him suspiciously. In the taverns, where
+Macquart reigned supreme, people went so far as to say the journalist
+was paid to provoke disturbances.
+
+Baffled on this side, Macquart had no alternative but to sound his
+sister Ursule's children. Ursule had died in 1839, thus fulfilling her
+brother's evil prophecy. The nervous affection which she had inherited
+from her mother had turned into slow consumption, which gradually
+killed her. She left three children; a daughter, eighteen years of
+age, named Helene, who married a clerk, and two boys, the elder,
+Francois, a young man of twenty-three, and the younger, a sickly
+little fellow scarcely six years old, named Silvere. The death of his
+wife, whom he adored, proved a thunderbolt to Mouret. He dragged on
+his existence for another year, neglecting his business and losing all
+the money he had saved. Then, one morning, he was found hanging in a
+cupboard where Ursule's dresses were still suspended. His elder son,
+who had received a good commercial training, took a situation in the
+house of his uncle Rougon, where he replaced Aristide, who had just
+left.
+
+Rougon, in spite of his profound hatred for the Macquarts, gladly
+welcomed this nephew, whom he knew to be industrious and sober. He was
+in want of a youth whom he could trust, and who would help him to
+retrieve his affairs. Moreover, during the time of Mouret's
+prosperity, he had learnt to esteem the young couple, who knew how to
+make money, and thus he had soon become reconciled with his sister.
+Perhaps he thought he was making Francois some compensation by taking
+him into his business; having robbed the mother, he would shield
+himself from remorse by giving employment to the son; even rogues make
+honest calculations sometimes. It was, however, a good thing for him.
+If the house of Rougon did not make a fortune at this time, it was
+certainly through no fault of that quiet, punctilious youth, Francois,
+who seemed born to pass his life behind a grocer's counter, between a
+jar of oil and a bundle of dried cod-fish. Although he physically
+resembled his mother, he inherited from his father a just if narrow
+mind, with an instinctive liking for a methodical life and the safe
+speculations of a small business.
+
+Three months after his arrival, Pierre, pursuing his system of
+compensation, married him to his young daughter Marthe,[*] whom he did
+not know how to dispose of. The two young people fell in love with
+each other quite suddenly, in a few days. A peculiar circumstance had
+doubtless determined and enhanced their mutual affection. There was a
+remarkably close resemblance between them, suggesting that of brother
+and sister. Francois inherited, through Ursule, the face of his
+grandmother Adelaide. Marthe's case was still more curious; she was an
+equally exact portrait of Adelaide, although Pierre Rougon had none of
+his mother's features distinctly marked; the physical resemblance had,
+as it were, passed over Pierre, to reappear in his daughter. The
+similarity between husband and wife went, however, no further than
+their faces; if the worthy son of a steady matter-of-fact hatter was
+distinguishable in Francois, Marthe showed the nervousness and mental
+weakness of her grandmother. Perhaps it was this combination of
+physical resemblance and moral dissimilarity which threw the young
+people into each other's arms. From 1840 to 1844 they had three
+children. Francois remained in his uncle's employ until the latter
+retired. Pierre had desired to sell him the business, but the young
+man knew what small chance there was of making a fortune in trade at
+Plassans; so he declined the offer and repaired to Marseilles, where
+he established himself with his little savings.
+
+[*] Both Francois and Marthe figure largely in /The Conquest of
+    Plassans/.
+
+Macquart soon had to abandon all hope of dragging this big industrious
+fellow into his campaign against the Rougons; whereupon, with all the
+spite of a lazybones, he regarded him as a cunning miser. He fancied,
+however, that he had discovered the accomplice he was seeking in
+Mouret's second son, a lad of fifteen years of age. Young Silvere had
+never even been to school at the time when Mouret was found hanging
+among his wife's skirts. His elder brother, not knowing what to do
+with him, took him also to his uncle's. The latter made a wry face on
+beholding the child; he had no intention of carrying his compensation
+so far as to feed a useless mouth. Thus Silvere, to whom Felicite also
+took a dislike, was growing up in tears, like an unfortunate little
+outcast, when his grandmother Adelaide, during one of the rare visits
+she paid the Rougons, took pity on him, and expressed a wish to have
+him with her. Pierre was delighted; he let the child go, without even
+suggesting an increase of the paltry allowance that he made Adelaide,
+and which henceforward would have to suffice for two.
+
+Adelaide was then nearly seventy-five years of age. Grown old while
+leading a cloistered existence, she was no longer the lanky ardent
+girl who formerly ran to embrace the smuggler Macquart. She had
+stiffened and hardened in her hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre, that
+dismal silent hole where she lived entirely alone on potatoes and dry
+vegetables, and which she did not leave once in the course of a month.
+On seeing her pass, you might have thought her to be one of those
+delicately white old nuns with automatic gait, whom the cloister has
+kept apart from all the concerns of this world. Her pale face, always
+scrupulously girt with a white cap, looked like that of a dying woman;
+a vague, calm countenance it was, wearing an air of supreme
+indifference. Prolonged taciturnity had made her dumb; the darkness of
+her dwelling and the continual sight of the same objects had dulled
+her glance and given her eyes the limpidity of spring water. Absolute
+renunciation, slow physical and moral death, had little by little
+converted this crazy /amorosa/ into a grave matron. When, as often
+happened, a blank stare came into her eyes, and she gazed before her
+without seeing anything, one could detect utter, internal void through
+those deep bright cavities.
+
+Nothing now remained of her former voluptuous ardour but weariness of
+the flesh and a senile tremor of the hands. She had once loved like a
+she-wolf, but was now wasted, already sufficiently worn out for the
+grave. There had been strange workings of her nerves during her long
+years of chastity. A dissolute life would perhaps have wrecked her
+less than the slow hidden ravages of unsatisfied fever which had
+modified her organism.
+
+Sometimes, even now, this moribund, pale old woman, who seemed to have
+no blood left in her, was seized with nervous fits like electric
+shocks, which galvanised her, and for an hour brought her atrocious
+intensity of life. She would lie on her bed rigid, with her eyes open;
+then hiccoughs would come upon her and she would writhe and struggle,
+acquiring the frightful strength of those hysterical madwomen whom one
+has to tie down in order to prevent them from breaking their heads
+against a wall. This return to former vigour, these sudden attacks,
+gave her a terrible shock. When she came to again, she would stagger
+about with such a scared, stupefied look, that the gossips of the
+Faubourg used to say: "She's been drinking, the crazy old thing!"
+
+Little Silvere's childish smile was for her the last pale ray which
+brought some warmth to her frozen limbs. Weary of solitude, and
+frightened at the thought of dying alone in one of her fits, she had
+asked to have the child. With the little fellow running about near
+her, she felt secure against death. Without relinquishing her habits
+of taciturnity, or seeking to render her automatic movements more
+supple, she conceived inexpressible affection for him. Stiff and
+speechless, she would watch him playing for hours together, listening
+with delight to the intolerable noise with which he filled the old
+hovel. That tomb had resounded with uproar ever since Silvere had been
+running about it, bestriding broomsticks, knocking up against the
+doors, and shouting and crying. He brought Adelaide back to the world,
+as it were; she looked after him with the most adorable awkwardness;
+she who, in her youth, had neglected the duties of a mother, now felt
+the divine pleasures of maternity in washing his face, dressing him,
+and watching over his sickly life. It was a reawakening of love, a
+last soothing passion which heaven had granted to this woman who had
+been so ravaged by the want of some one to love; the touching agony of
+a heart that had lived amidst the most acute desires, and which was
+now dying full of love for a child.
+
+She was already too far gone to pour forth the babble of good plump
+grandmothers; she adored the child in secret with the bashfulness of a
+young girl, without knowing how to fondle him. Sometimes she took him
+on her knees, and gazed at him for a long time with her pale eyes.
+When the little one, frightened by her mute white visage, began to
+cry, she seemed perplexed by what she had done, and quickly put him
+down upon the floor without even kissing him. Perhaps she recognised
+in him a faint resemblance to Macquart the poacher.
+
+Silvere grew up, ever tete-a-tete with Adelaide. With childish
+cajolery he used to call her aunt Dide, a name which ultimately clung
+to the old woman; the word "aunt" employed in this way is simply a
+term of endearment in Provence. The child entertained singular
+affection, not unmixed with respectful terror, for his grandmother.
+During her nervous fits, when he was quite a little boy, he ran away
+from her, crying, terrified by her disfigured countenance; and he came
+back very timidly after the attack, ready to run away again, as though
+the old woman were disposed to beat him. Later on, however, when he
+was twelve years old, he would stop there bravely and watch in order
+that she might not hurt herself by falling off the bed. He stood for
+hours holding her tightly in his arms to subdue the rude shocks which
+distorted her. During intervals of calmness he would gaze with pity on
+her convulsed features and withered frame, over which her skirts lay
+like a shroud. These hidden dramas, which recurred every month, this
+old woman as rigid as a corpse, this child bent over her, silently
+watching for the return of consciousness, made up amidst the darkness
+of the hovel a strange picture of mournful horror and broken-hearted
+tenderness.
+
+When aunt Dide came round, she would get up with difficulty, and set
+about her work in the hovel without even questioning Silvere. She
+remembered nothing, and the child, from a sort of instinctive
+prudence, avoided the least allusion to what had taken place. These
+recurring fits, more than anything else, strengthened Silvere's deep
+attachment for his grandmother. In the same manner as she adored him
+without any garrulous effusiveness, he felt a secret, almost bashful,
+affection for her. While he was really very grateful to her for having
+taken him in and brought him up, he could not help regarding her as an
+extraordinary creature, a prey to some strange malady, whom he ought
+to pity and respect. No doubt there was not sufficient life left in
+Adelaide; she was too white and too stiff for Silvere to throw himself
+on her neck. Thus they lived together amidst melancholy silence, in
+the depths of which they felt the tremor of boundless love.
+
+The sad, solemn atmosphere, which he had breathed from childhood, gave
+Silvere a strong heart, in which gathered every form of enthusiasm. He
+early became a serious, thoughtful little man, seeking instruction
+with a kind of stubbornness. He only learnt a little spelling and
+arithmetic at the school of the Christian Brothers, which he was
+compelled to leave when he was but twelve years old, on account of his
+apprenticeship. He never acquired the first rudiments of knowledge.
+However, he read all the odd volumes which fell into his hands, and
+thus provided himself with strange equipment; he had some notions of a
+multitude of subjects, ill-digested notions, which he could never
+classify distinctly in his head. When he was quite young, he had been
+in the habit of playing in the workshop of a master wheelwright, a
+worthy man named Vian, who lived at the entrance of the blind-alley in
+front of the Aire Saint-Mittre where he stored his timber. Silvere
+used to jump up on the wheels of the tilted carts undergoing repair,
+and amuse himself by dragging about the heavy tools which his tiny
+hands could scarcely lift. One of his greatest pleasures, too, was to
+assist the workmen by holding some piece of wood for them, or bringing
+them the iron-work which they required. When he had grown older he
+naturally became apprenticed to Vian. The latter had taken a liking to
+the little fellow who was always kicking about his heels, and asked
+Adelaide to let him come, refusing to take anything for his board and
+lodging. Silvere eagerly accepted, already foreseeing the time when he
+would be able to make his poor aunt Dide some return for all she had
+spent upon him.
+
+In a short time he became an excellent workman. He cherished, however,
+much higher ambitions. Having once seen, at a coachbuilder's at
+Plassans, a fine new carriage, shining with varnish, he vowed that he
+would one day build carriages himself. He remembered this carriage as
+a rare and unique work of art, an ideal towards which his aspirations
+should tend. The tilted carts at which he worked in Vian's shop, those
+carts which he had lovingly cherished, now seemed unworthy of his
+affections. He began to attend the local drawing-school, where he
+formed a connection with a youngster who had left college, and who
+lent him an old treatise on geometry. He plunged into this study
+without a guide, racking his brains for weeks together in order to
+grasp the simplest problem in the world. In this matter he gradually
+became one of those learned workmen who can hardly sign their name and
+yet talk about algebra as though it were an intimate friend.
+
+Nothing unsettles the mind so much as this desultory kind of
+education, which reposes on no firm basis. Most frequently such scraps
+of knowledge convey an absolutely false idea of the highest truths,
+and render persons of limited intellect insufferably stupid. In
+Silvere's case, however, his scraps of stolen knowledge only augmented
+his liberal aspirations. He was conscious of horizons which at present
+remained closed to him. He formed for himself divine conceptions of
+things beyond his reach, and lived on, regarding in a deep, innocent,
+religious way the noble thoughts and grand conceptions towards which
+he was raising himself, but which he could not as yet comprehend. He
+was one of the simple-minded, one whose simplicity was divine, and who
+had remained on the threshold of the temple, kneeling before the
+tapers which from a distance he took for stars.
+
+The hovel in the Impasse Saint-Mittre consisted, in the first place,
+of a large room into which the street door opened. The only pieces of
+furniture in this room, which had a stone floor, and served both as a
+kitchen and a dining-room, were some straw-seated chairs, a table on
+trestles, and an old coffer which Adelaide had converted into a sofa,
+by spreading a piece of woollen stuff over the lid. In the left hand
+corner of the large fireplace stood a plaster image of the Holy
+Virgin, surrounded by artificial flowers; she is the traditional good
+mother of all old Provencal women, however irreligious they may be. A
+passage led from the room into a yard situated at the rear of the
+house; in this yard there was a well. Aunt Dide's bedroom was on the
+left side of the passage; it was a little apartment containing an iron
+bedstead and one chair; Silvere slept in a still smaller room on the
+right hand side, just large enough for a trestle bedstead; and he had
+been obliged to plan a set of shelves, reaching up to the ceiling, to
+keep by him all those dear odd volumes which he saved his sous to
+purchase from a neighbouring general dealer. When he read at night-
+time, he would hang his lamp on a nail at the head of the bed. If his
+grandmother had an attack, he merely had to leap out at the first gasp
+to be at her side in a moment.
+
+The young man led the life of a child. He passed his existence in this
+lonely spot. Like his father, he felt a dislike for taverns and Sunday
+strolling. His mates wounded his delicate susceptibilities by their
+coarse jokes. He preferred to read, to rack his rain over some simple
+geometrical problem. Since aunt Dide had entrusted him with the little
+household commissions she did not go out at all, but ceased all
+intercourse even with her family. The young man sometimes thought of
+her forlornness; he reflected that the poor old woman lived but a few
+steps from the children who strove to forget her, as though she were
+dead; and this made him love her all the more, for himself and for the
+others. When he at times entertained a vague idea that aunt Dide might
+be expiating some former transgressions, he would say to himself: "I
+was born to pardon her."
+
+A nature such as Silvere's, ardent yet self-restrained, naturally
+cherished the most exalted republican ideas. At night, in his little
+hovel, Silvere would again and again read a work of Rousseau's which
+he had picked up at the neighbouring dealer's among a number of old
+locks. The reading of this book kept him awake till daylight. Amidst
+his dream of universal happiness so dear to the poor, the words
+liberty, equality, fraternity, rang in his ears like those sonorous
+sacred calls of the bells, at the sound of which the faithful fall
+upon their knees. When, therefore, he learnt that the Republic had
+just been proclaimed in France he fancied that the whole world would
+enjoy a life of celestial beatitude. His knowledge, though imperfect,
+made him see farther than other workmen; his aspirations did not stop
+at daily bread; but his extreme ingenuousness, his complete ignorance
+of mankind, kept him in the dreamland of theory, a Garden of Eden
+where universal justice reigned. His paradise was for a long time a
+delightful spot in which he forgot himself.
+
+When he came to perceive that things did not go on quite
+satisfactorily in the best of republics he was sorely grieved, and
+indulged in another dream, that of compelling men to be happy even by
+force. Every act which seemed to him prejudicial to the interest of
+the people roused him to revengeful indignation. Though he was as
+gentle as a child, he cherished the fiercest political animosity. He
+would not have killed a fly, and yet he was for ever talking of a call
+to arms. Liberty was his passion, an unreasoning, absolute passion, to
+which he gave all the feverish ardour of his blood. Blinded by
+enthusiasm, he was both too ignorant and too learned to be tolerant,
+and would not allow for men's weaknesses; he required an ideal
+government of perfect justice and perfect liberty. It was at this
+period that Antoine Macquart thought of setting him against the
+Rougons. He fancied that this young enthusiast would work terrible
+havoc if he were only exasperated to the proper pitch. This
+calculation was not altogether devoid of shrewdness.
+
+Such being Antoine's scheme, he tried to induce Silvere to visit him,
+by professing inordinate admiration for the young man's ideas. But he
+very nearly compromised the whole matter at the outset. He had a way
+of regarding the triumph of the Republic as a question of personal
+interest, as an era of happy idleness and endless junketing, which
+chilled his nephew's purely moral aspirations. However, he perceived
+that he was on the wrong track, and plunged into strange bathos, a
+string of empty but high-sounding words, which Silvere accepted as a
+satisfactory proof of his civism. Before long the uncle and the nephew
+saw each other two or three times a week. During their long
+discussions, in which the fate of the country was flatly settled,
+Antoine endeavoured to persuade the young man that the Rougons'
+drawing-room was the chief obstacle to the welfare of France. But he
+again made a false move by calling his mother "old jade" in Silvere's
+presence. He even repeated to him the early scandals about the poor
+woman. The young man blushed for shame, but listened without
+interruption. He had not asked his uncle for this information; he felt
+heart-broken by such confidences, which wounded his feeling of
+respectful affection for aunt Dide. From that time forward he lavished
+yet more attention upon his grandmother, greeting her always with
+pleasant smiles and looks of forgiveness. However, Macquart felt that
+he had acted foolishly, and strove to take advantage of Silvere's
+affection for Adelaide by charging the Rougons with her forlornness
+and poverty. According to him, he had always been the best of sons,
+whereas his brother had behaved disgracefully; Pierre had robbed his
+mother, and now, when she was penniless, he was ashamed of her. He
+never ceased descanting on this subject. Silvere thereupon became
+indignant with his uncle Pierre, much to the satisfaction of his uncle
+Antoine.
+
+The scene was much the same every time the young man called. He used
+to come in the evening, while the Macquarts were at dinner. The father
+would be swallowing some potato stew with a growl, picking out the
+pieces of bacon, and watching the dish when it passed into the hands
+of Jean and Gervaise.
+
+"You see, Silvere," he would say with a sullen rage which was ill-
+concealed beneath his air of cynical indifference, "more potatoes,
+always potatoes! We never eat anything else now. Meat is only for rich
+people. It's getting quite impossible to make both ends meet with
+children who have the devil's appetite and their own too."
+
+Gervaise and Jean bent over their plates, no longer even daring to cut
+some bread. Silvere, who in his dream lived in heaven, did not grasp
+the situation. In a calm voice he pronounced these storm-laden words:
+
+"But you should work, uncle."
+
+"Ah! yes," sneered Macquart, stung to the quick. "You want me to work,
+eh! To let those beggars, the rich folk, continue to prey upon me. I
+should earn probably twenty sous a day, and ruin my constitution. It's
+worth while, isn't it?"
+
+"Everyone earns what he can," the young man replied. "Twenty sous are
+twenty sous; and it all helps in a home. Besides, you're an old
+soldier, why don't you seek some employment?"
+
+Fine would then interpose, with a thoughtlessness of which she soon
+repented.
+
+"That's what I'm always telling him," said she. "The market inspector
+wants an assistant; I mentioned my husband to him, and he seems well
+disposed towards us."
+
+But Macquart interrupted her with a fulminating glance. "Eh! hold your
+tongue," he growled with suppressed anger. "Women never know what
+they're talking about! Nobody would have me; my opinions are too well-
+known."
+
+Every time he was offered employment he displayed similar irritation.
+He did not cease, however, to ask for situations, though he always
+refused such as were found for him, assigning the most extraordinary
+reasons. When pressed upon the point he became terrible.
+
+If Jean were to take up a newspaper after dinner he would at once
+exclaim: "You'd better go to bed. You'll be getting up late to-morrow,
+and that'll be another day lost. To think of that young rascal coming
+home with eight francs short last week! However, I've requested his
+master not give him his money in future; I'll call for it myself."
+
+Jean would go to bed to avoid his father's recriminations. He had but
+little sympathy with Silvere; politics bored him, and he thought his
+cousin "cracked." When only the women remained, if they unfortunately
+started some whispered converse after clearing the table, Macquart
+would cry: "Now, you idlers! Is there nothing that requires mending?
+we're all in rags. Look here, Gervaise, I was at your mistress's
+to-day, and I learnt some fine things. You're a good-for-nothing, a
+gad-about."
+
+Gervaise, now a grown girl of more than twenty, coloured up at thus
+being scolded in the presence of Silvere, who himself felt
+uncomfortable. One evening, having come rather late, when his uncle
+was not at home, he had found the mother and daughter intoxicated
+before an empty bottle. From that time he could never see his cousin
+without recalling the disgraceful spectacle she had presented, with
+the maudlin grin and large red patches on her poor, pale, puny face.
+He was not less shocked by the nasty stories that circulated with
+regard to her. He sometimes looked at her stealthily, with the timid
+surprise of a schoolboy in the presence of a disreputable character.
+
+When the two women had taken up their needles, and were ruining their
+eyesight in order to mend his old shirts, Macquart, taking the best
+seat, would throw himself back with an air of delicious comfort, and
+sip and smoke like a man who relishes his laziness. This was the time
+when the old rogue generally railed against the wealthy for living on
+the sweat of the poor man's brow. He was superbly indignant with the
+gentlemen of the new town, who lived so idly, and compelled the poor
+to keep them in luxury. The fragments of communistic notions which he
+culled from the newspapers in the morning became grotesque and
+monstrous on falling from his lips. He would talk of a time near at
+hand when no one would be obliged to work. He always, however, kept
+his fiercest animosity for the Rougons. He never could digest the
+potatoes he had eaten.
+
+"I saw that vile creature Felicite buying a chicken in the market this
+morning," he would say. "Those robbers of inheritances must eat
+chicken, forsooth!"
+
+"Aunt Dide," interposed Silvere, "says that uncle Pierre was very kind
+to you when you left the army. Didn't he spend a large sum of money in
+lodging and clothing you?"
+
+"A large sum of money!" roared Macquart in exasperation; "your
+grandmother is mad. It was those thieves who spread those reports
+themselves, so as to close my mouth. I never had anything."
+
+Fine again foolishly interfered, reminding him that he had received
+two hundred francs, besides a suit of clothes and a year's rent.
+Antoine thereupon shouted to her to hold her tongue, and continued,
+with increasing fury: "Two hundred francs! A fine thing! I want my
+due, ten thousand francs. Ah! yes, talk of the hole they shoved me
+into like a dog, and the old frock-coat which Pierre gave me because
+he was ashamed to wear it any longer himself, it was so dirty and
+ragged!"
+
+He was not speaking the truth; but, seeing the rage that he was in,
+nobody ventured to protest any further. Then, turning towards Silvere:
+"It's very stupid of you to defend them!" he added. "They robbed your
+mother, who, good woman, would be alive now if she had had the means
+of taking care of herself."
+
+"Oh! you're not just, uncle," the young man said; "my mother did not
+die for want of attention, and I'm certain my father would never have
+accepted a sou from his wife's family!"
+
+"Pooh! don't talk to me! your father would have taken the money just
+like anybody else. We were disgracefully plundered, and it's high time
+we had our rights."
+
+Then Macquart, for the hundredth time, began to recount the story of
+the fifty thousand francs. His nephew, who knew it by heart, and all
+the variations with which he embellished it, listened to him rather
+impatiently.
+
+"If you were a man," Antoine would say in conclusion, "you would come
+some day with me, and we would kick up a nice row at the Rougons. We
+would not leave without having some money given us."
+
+Silvere, however, grew serious, and frankly replied: "If those
+wretches robbed us, so much the worse for them. I don't want their
+money. You see, uncle, it's not for us to fall on our relatives. If
+they've done wrong, well, one of these days they'll be severely
+punished for it."
+
+"Ah! what a big simpleton you are!" the uncle cried. "When we have the
+upper hand, you'll see whether I sha'n't settle my own little affairs
+myself. God cares a lot about us indeed! What a foul family ours is!
+Even if I were starving to death, not one of those scoundrels would
+throw me a dry crust."
+
+Whenever Macquart touched upon this subject, he proved inexhaustible.
+He bared all his bleeding wounds of envy and covetousness. He grew mad
+with rage when he came to think that he was the only unlucky one in
+the family, and was forced to eat potatoes, while the others had meat
+to their heart's content. He would pass all his relations in review,
+even his grand-nephews, and find some grievance and reason for
+threatening every one of them.
+
+"Yes, yes," he repeated bitterly, "they'd leave me to die like a dog."
+
+Gervaise, without raising her head or ceasing to ply her needle, would
+sometimes say timidly: "Still, father, cousin Pascal was very kind to
+us, last year, when you were ill."
+
+"He attended you without charging a sou," continued Fine, coming to
+her daughter's aid, "and he often slipped a five-franc piece into my
+hand to make you some broth."
+
+"He! he'd have killed me if I hadn't had a strong constitution!"
+Macquart retorted. "Hold your tongues, you fools! You'd let yourselves
+be twisted about like children. They'd all like to see me dead. When
+I'm ill again, I beg you not to go and fetch my nephew, for I didn't
+feel at all comfortable in his hands. He's only a twopenny-halfpenny
+doctor, and hasn't got a decent patient in all his practice."
+
+When once Macquart was fully launched, he could not stop. "It's like
+that little viper, Aristide," he would say, "a false brother, a
+traitor. Are you taken in by his articles in the 'Independant,'
+Silvere? You would be a fine fool if you were. They're not even
+written in good French; I've always maintained that this contraband
+Republican is in league with his worthy father to humbug us. You'll
+see how he'll turn his coat. And his brother, the illustrious Eugene,
+that big blockhead of whom the Rougons make such a fuss! Why, they've
+got the impudence to assert that he occupies a good position in Paris!
+I know something about his position; he's employed at the Rue de
+Jerusalem; he's a police spy."
+
+"Who told you so? You know nothing about it," interrupted Silvere,
+whose upright spirit at last felt hurt by his uncle's lying
+accusations.
+
+"Ah! I know nothing about it? Do you think so? I tell you he is a
+police spy. You'll be shorn like a lamb one of these days, with your
+benevolence. You're not manly enough. I don't want to say anything
+against your brother Francois; but, if I were in your place, I
+shouldn't like the scurvy manner in which he treats you. He earns a
+heap of money at Marseilles, and yet he never sends you a paltry
+twenty-franc pierce for pocket money. If ever you become poor, I
+shouldn't advise you to look to him for anything."
+
+"I've no need of anybody," the young man replied in a proud and
+slightly injured tone of voice. "My own work suffices for aunt Dide
+and myself. You're cruel, uncle."
+
+"I only say what's true, that's all. I should like to open your eyes.
+Our family is a disreputable lot; it's sad but true. Even that little
+Maxime, Aristide's son, that little nine-year-old brat, pokes his
+tongue out at me when me meets me. That child will some day beat his
+own mother, and a good job too! Say what you like, all those folks
+don't deserve their luck; but it's always like this in families, the
+good ones suffer while the bad ones make their fortunes."
+
+All this dirty linen, which Macquart washed with such complacency
+before his nephew, profoundly disgusted the young man. He would have
+liked to soar back into his dream. As soon as he began to show
+unmistakable signs of impatience, Antoine would employ strong
+expedients to exasperate him against their relatives.
+
+"Defend them! Defend them!" he would say, appearing to calm down. "I,
+for my part, have arranged to have nothing more to do with them. I
+only mention the matter out of pity for my poor mother, whom all that
+gang treat in a most revolting manner."
+
+"They are wretches!" Silvere murmured.
+
+"Oh! you don't know, you don't understand. These Rougons pour all
+sorts of insults and abuse on the good woman. Aristide has forbidden
+his son even to recognise her. Felicite talks of having her placed in
+a lunatic asylum."
+
+The young man, as white as a sheet, abruptly interrupted his uncle:
+"Enough!" he cried. "I don't want to know any more about it. There
+will have to be an end to all this."
+
+"I'll hold my tongue, since it annoys you," the old rascal replied,
+feigning a good-natured manner. "Still, there are some things that you
+ought not to be ignorant of, unless you want to play the part of a
+fool."
+
+Macquart, while exerting himself to set Silvere against the Rougons,
+experienced the keenest pleasure on drawing tears of anguish from the
+young man's eyes. He detested him, perhaps, more than he did the
+others, and this because he was an excellent workman and never drank.
+He brought all his instincts of refined cruelty into play, in order to
+invent atrocious falsehoods which should sting the poor lad to the
+heart; then he revelled in his pallor, his trembling hands and his
+heart-rending looks, with the delight of some evil spirit who measures
+his stabs and finds that he has struck his victim in the right place.
+When he thought that he had wounded and exasperated Silvere
+sufficiently, he would at last touch upon politics.
+
+"I've been assured," he would say, lowering his voice, "that the
+Rougons are preparing some treachery."
+
+"Treachery?" Silvere asked, becoming attentive.
+
+"Yes, one of these nights they are going to seize all the good
+citizens of the town and throw them into prison."
+
+The young man was at first disposed to doubt it, but his uncle gave
+precise details; he spoke of lists that had been drawn up, he
+mentioned the persons whose names were on these lists, he indicated in
+what manner, at what hour, and under what circumstances the plot would
+be carried into effect. Silvere gradually allowed himself to be taken
+in by this old woman's tale, and was soon raving against the enemies
+of the Republic.
+
+"It's they that we shall have to reduce to impotence if they persist
+in betraying the country!" he cried. "And what do they intend to do
+with the citizens whom they arrest?"
+
+"What do they intend to do with them? Why, they will shoot them in the
+lowest dungeons of the prison, of course," replied Macquart, with a
+hoarse laugh. And as the young man, stupefied with horror, looked at
+him without knowing what to say: "This will not be the first lot to be
+assassinated there," he continued. "You need only go and prowl about
+the Palais de Justice of an evening to hear the shots and groans."
+
+"Oh, the wretches!" Silvere murmured.
+
+Thereupon uncle and nephew launched out into high politics. Fine and
+Gervaise, on finding them hotly debating things, quietly went to bed
+without attracting their attention. Then the two men remained together
+till midnight, commenting on the news from Paris and discussing the
+approaching and inevitable struggle. Macquart bitterly denounced the
+men of his own party, Silvere dreamed his dream of ideal liberty
+aloud, and for himself only. Strange conversations these were, during
+which the uncle poured out many a little nip for himself, and from
+which the nephew emerged quite intoxicated with enthusiasm. Antoine,
+however, never succeeded in obtaining from the young Republican any
+perfidious suggestion or play of warfare against the Rougons. In vain
+he tried to goad him on; he seldom heard him suggest aught but an
+appeal to eternal justice, which sooner or later would punish the
+evil-doers.
+
+The ingenuous youth did indeed speak warmly of taking up arms and
+massacring the enemies of the Republic; but, as soon as these enemies
+strayed out of his dream or became personified in his uncle Pierre or
+any other person of his acquaintance, he relied upon heaven to spare
+him the horror of shedding blood. It is very probable that he would
+have ceased visiting Macquart, whose jealous fury made him so
+uncomfortable, if he had not tasted the pleasure of being able to
+speak freely of his dear Republic there. In the end, however, his
+uncle exercised decisive influence over his destiny; he irritated his
+nerves by his everlasting diatribes, and succeeded in making him eager
+for an armed struggle, the conquest of universal happiness by
+violence.
+
+When Silvere reached his sixteenth year, Macquart had him admitted
+into the secret society of the Montagnards, a powerful association
+whose influence extended throughout Southern France. From that moment
+the young Republican gazed with longing eyes at the smuggler's
+carbine, which Adelaide had hung over her chimney-piece. Once night,
+while his grandmother was asleep, he cleaned and put it in proper
+condition. Then he replaced it on its nail and waited, indulging in
+brilliant reveries, fancying gigantic epics, Homeric struggles, and
+knightly tournaments, whence the defenders of liberty would emerge
+victorious and acclaimed by the whole world.
+
+Macquart meantime was not discouraged. He said to himself that he
+would be able to strangle the Rougons alone if he could ever get them
+into a corner. His envious rage and slothful greed were increased by
+certain successive accidents which compelled him to resume work. In
+the early part of 1850 Fine died, almost suddenly, from inflammation
+of the lungs, which she had caught by going one evening to wash the
+family linen in the Viorne, and carrying it home wet on her back. She
+returned soaked with water and perspiration, bowed down by her load,
+which was terribly heavy, and she never recovered.
+
+Her death filled Macquart with consternation. His most reliable source
+of income was gone. When, a few days later, he sold the caldron in
+which his wife had boiled her chestnuts, and the wooden horse which
+she used in reseating old chairs, he foully accused the Divinity of
+having robbed him of that strong strapping woman of whom he had often
+felt ashamed, but whose real worth he now appreciated. He now also
+fell upon the children's earnings with greater avidity than ever. But,
+a month later, Gervaise, tired of his continual exactions, ran away
+with her two children and Lantier, whose mother was dead. The lovers
+took refuge in Paris. Antoine, overwhelmed, vented his rage against
+his daughter by expressing the hope that she might die in hospital
+like most of her kind. This abuse did not, however, improve the
+situation, which was decidedly becoming bad. Jean soon followed his
+sister's example. He waited for pay-day to come round, and then
+contrived to receive the money himself. As he was leaving he told one
+of his friends, who repeated it to Antoine, that he would no longer
+keep his lazy father, and that if the latter should take it into his
+head to have him brought back by the gendarmes he would touch neither
+saw nor plane.
+
+On the morrow, when Antoine, having vainly sought him, found himself
+alone and penniless in the house where for twenty years he had been
+comfortably kept, he flew into the most frantic rage, kicked the
+furniture about, and yelled the vilest imprecations. Then he sank down
+exhausted, and began to drag himself about and moan like a
+convalescent. The fear of having to earn his bread made him positively
+ill. When Silvere came to see him, he complained, with tears, of his
+children's ingratitude. Had he not always been a good father to them?
+Jean and Gervaise were monsters, who had made him an evil return for
+all he had done for them. Now they abandoned him because he was old,
+and they could not get anything more out of him!
+
+"But uncle," said Silvere, "you are not yet too old to work!"
+
+Macquart, coughing and stooping, shook his head mournfully, as if to
+say that he could not bear the least fatigue for any length of time.
+Just as his nephew was about to withdraw, he borrowed ten francs of
+him. Then for a month he lived by taking his children's old clothes,
+one by one, to a second-hand dealer's, and in the same way, little by
+little, he sold all the small articles in the house. Soon nothing
+remained but a table, a chair, his bed, and the clothes on his back.
+He ended by exchanging the walnut-wood bedstead for a plain strap one.
+When he had exhausted all his resources, he cried with rage; and, with
+the fierce pallor of a man who is resigned to suicide, he went to look
+for the bundle of osier that he had forgotten in some corner for a
+quarter of a century past. As he took it up he seemed to be lifting a
+mountain. However, he again began to plait baskets and hampers, while
+denouncing the human race for their neglect.
+
+It was particularly at this time that he talked of dividing and
+sharing the riches of the wealthy. He showed himself terrible. His
+speeches kept up a constant conflagration in the tavern, where his
+furious looks secured him unlimited credit. Moreover, he only worked
+when he had been unable to get a five-franc piece out of Silvere or a
+comrade. He was no longer "Monsieur" Macquart, the clean-shaven
+workman, who wore his Sunday clothes every day and played the
+gentleman; he again became the big slovenly devil who had once
+speculated on his rags. Felicite did not dare to go to market now that
+he was so often coming there to sell his baskets. He once had a
+violent quarrel with her there. His hatred against the Rougons grew
+with his wretchedness. He swore, with horrible threats, that he would
+wreak justice himself, since the rich were leagued together to compel
+him to toil.
+
+In this state of mind, he welcomed the Coup d'Etat with the ardent,
+obstreperous delight of a hound scenting the quarry. As the few honest
+Liberals in the town had failed to arrive at an understanding amongst
+themselves, and therefore kept apart, he became naturally one of the
+most prominent agents of the insurrection. The working classes,
+notwithstanding the unfavourable opinion which they at last
+entertained of this lazy fellow, would, when the time arrived, have to
+accept him as a rallying flag. On the first few days, however, the
+town remained quiet, and Macquart thought that his plans were
+frustrated. It was not until the news arrived of the rising of the
+rural districts that he recovered hope. For his own part he would not
+have left Plassans for all the world; accordingly he invented some
+pretext for not following those workmen who, on the Sunday morning,
+set off to join the insurrectionary band of La Palud and Saint-Martin-
+de-Vaulx.
+
+On the evening of the same day he was sitting in some disreputable
+tavern of the old quarter with a few friends, when a comrade came to
+inform him that the insurgents were only a few miles from Plassans.
+This news had just been brought by an express, who had succeeded in
+making his way into the town, and had been charged to get the gates
+opened for the column. There was an outburst of triumph. Macquart,
+especially, appeared to be delirious with enthusiasm. The unforeseen
+arrival of the insurgents seemed to him a delicate attention of
+Providence for his own particular benefit. His hands trembled at the
+idea that he would soon hold the Rougons by the throat.
+
+He hastily quitted the tavern with his friends. All the Republicans
+who had not yet left the town were soon assembled on the Cours
+Sauvaire. It was this band that Rougon had perceived as he was
+hastening to conceal himself in his mother's house. When the band had
+reached the top of the Rue de la Banne, Macquart, who had stationed
+himself at the rear, detained four of his companions, big fellows who
+were not over-burdened with brains and whom he swayed by his tavern
+bluster. He easily persuaded them that the enemies of the Republic
+must be arrested immediately if they wished to prevent the greatest
+calamities. The truth was that he feared Pierre might escape him in
+the midst of the confusion which the entry of the insurgents would
+produce. However, the four big fellows followed him with exemplary
+docility, and knocked violently at the door of the Rougons' abode. In
+this critical situation Felicite displayed admirable courage. She went
+down and opened the street door herself.
+
+"We want to go upstairs into your rooms," Macquart said to her
+brutally.
+
+"Very well, gentlemen, walk up," she replied with ironical politeness,
+pretending that she did not recognise her brother-in-law.
+
+Once upstairs, Macquart ordered her to fetch her husband.
+
+"My husband is not here," she said with perfect calmness; "he is
+travelling on business. He took the diligence for Marseilles at six
+o'clock this evening."
+
+Antoine at this declaration, which Felicite uttered in a clear voice,
+made a gesture of rage. He rushed through the drawing-room, and then
+into the bedroom, turned the bed up, looked behind the curtains and
+under the furniture. The four big fellows assisted him. They searched
+the place for a quarter of an hour. Felicite meantime quietly seated
+herself on the drawing-room sofa, and began to fasten the strings of
+her petticoats, like a person who has been surprised in her sleep and
+has not had time to dress properly.
+
+"It's true then, he's run away, the coward!" Macquart muttered on
+returning to the drawing-room.
+
+Nevertheless, he continued to look about him with a suspicious air. He
+felt a presentiment that Pierre could not have given up the game at
+the decisive moment. At last he approached Felicite, who was yawning:
+"Show us the place where your husband is hidden," he said to her, "and
+I promise no harm shall be done to him."
+
+"I have told you the truth," she replied impatiently. "I can't deliver
+my husband to you, as he's not here. You have searched everywhere,
+haven't you? Then leave me alone now."
+
+Macquart, exasperated by her composure, was just going to strike her,
+when a rumbling noise arose from the street. It was the column of
+insurgents entering the Rue de la Banne.
+
+He then had to leave the yellow drawing-room, after shaking his fist
+at his sister-in-law, calling her an old jade, and threatening that he
+would soon return. At the foot of the staircase, he took one of the
+men who accompanied him, a navvy named Cassoute, the most wooden-
+headed of the four, and ordered him to sit on the first step, and
+remain there.
+
+"You must come and inform me," he said to him, "if you see the
+scoundrel from upstairs return."
+
+The man sat down heavily. When Macquart reached the pavement, he
+raised his eyes and observed Felicite leaning out of the window of the
+yellow-drawing room, watching the march past of the insurgents, as if
+it was nothing but a regiment passing through the town to the strains
+of its band. This last sign of perfect composure irritated him to such
+a degree that he was almost tempted to go up again and throw the old
+woman into the street. However, he followed the column, muttering in a
+hoarse voice: "Yes, yes, look at us passing. We'll see whether you
+will station yourself at your balcony to-morrow."
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock at night when the insurgents entered the
+town by the Porte de Rome. The workmen remaining in Plassans had
+opened the gate for them, in spite of the wailings of the keeper, from
+whom they could only wrest the keys by force. This man, very jealous
+of his office, stood dumbfoundered in the presence of the surging
+crowd. To think of it! he, who never allowed more than one person to
+pass in at a time, and then only after a prolonged examination of his
+face! And he murmured that he was dishonoured. The men of Plassans
+were still marching at the head of the column by way of guiding the
+others; Miette, who was in the front rank, with Silvere on her left,
+held up her banner more proudly than ever now that she could divine
+behind the closed blinds the scared looks of well-to-do bourgeois
+startled out of their sleep. The insurgents passed along the Rue de
+Rome and the Rue de la Banne slowly and warily; at every crossway,
+although they well knew the quiet disposition of the inhabitants, they
+feared they might be received with bullets. The town seemed lifeless,
+however; there was scarcely a stifled exclamation to be heard at the
+windows. Only five or six shutters opened. Some old householder then
+appeared in his night-shirt, candle in hand, and leant out to obtain a
+better view; but as soon as he distinguished the tall red girl who
+appeared to be drawing that crowd of black demons behind her, he
+hastily closed his window again, terrified by such a diabolical
+apparition.
+
+The silence of the slumbering town reassured the insurgents, who
+ventured to make their way through the lanes of the old quarter, and
+thus reached the market-place and the Place de l'Hotel-de-Ville, which
+was connected by a short but broad street. These open spaces, planted
+with slender trees, were brilliantly illumined by the moon. Against
+the clear sky the recently restored town-hall appeared like a large
+patch of crude whiteness, the fine black lines of the wrought-iron
+arabesques of the first-floor balcony showing in bold relief. Several
+persons could be plainly distinguished standing on this balcony, the
+mayor, Commander Sicardot, three or four municipal councillors, and
+other functionaries. The doors below were closed. The three thousand
+Republicans, who covered both open spaces, halted with upraised heads,
+ready to force the doors with a single push.
+
+The arrival of the insurrectionary column at such an hour took the
+authorities by surprise. Before repairing to the mayor's, Commander
+Sicardot had taken time to don his uniform. He then had to run and
+rouse the mayor. When the keeper of the Porte de Rome, who had been
+left free by the insurgents, came to announce that the villains were
+already in the town, the commander had so far only managed to assemble
+a score of the national guards. The gendarmes, though their barracks
+were close by, could not even be warned. It was necessary to shut the
+town-hall doors in all haste, in order to deliberate. Five minutes
+later a low continuous rumbling announced the approach of the column.
+
+Monsieur Garconnet, out of hatred to the Republic, would have greatly
+liked to offer resistance. But he was of a prudent nature, and
+comprehended the futility of a struggle on finding only a few pale
+men, who were scarcely awake, around him. So the deliberations did not
+last long. Sicardot alone was obstinate; he wanted to fight, asserting
+that twenty men would suffice to bring these three thousand villains
+to reason. At this Monsieur Garconnet shrugged his shoulders, and
+declared that the only step to take was to make an honourable
+capitulation. As the uproar of the mob increased, he went out on the
+balcony, followed by all the persons present. Silence was gradually
+obtained. Below, among the black, quivering mass of insurgents, the
+guns and scythes glittered in the moonlight.
+
+"Who are you, and what do you want?" cried the mayor in a loud voice.
+
+Thereupon a man in a greatcoat, a landowner of La Palud, stepped
+forward.
+
+"Open the doors," he said, without replying to Monsieur Garconnet's
+question. "Avoid a fratricidal conflict."
+
+"I call upon you to withdraw," the mayor continued. "I protest in the
+name of the law."
+
+These words provoked deafening shouts from the crowd. When the tumult
+had somewhat abated, vehement calls ascended to the balcony. Voices
+shouted: "It is in the name of the law that we have come here!"
+
+"Your duty as a functionary is to secure respect for the fundamental
+law of the land, the constitution, which has just been outrageously
+violated."
+
+"Long live the constitution! Long live the Republic!"
+
+Then as Monsieur Garconnet endeavoured to make himself heard, and
+continued to invoke his official dignity, the land-owner of La Palud,
+who was standing under the balcony, interrupted him with great
+vehemence: "You are now nothing but the functionary of a fallen
+functionary; we have come to dismiss you from your office."
+
+Hitherto, Commander Sicardot had been ragefully biting his moustache,
+and muttering insulting words. The sight of the cudgels and scythes
+exasperated him; and he made desperate efforts to restrain himself
+from treating these twopenny-halfpenny soldiers, who had not even a
+gun apiece, as they deserved. But when he heard a gentleman in a mere
+greatcoat speak of deposing a mayor girded with his scarf, he could no
+longer contain himself and shouted: "You pack of rascals! If I only
+had four men and a corporal, I'd come down and pull your ears for you,
+and make you behave yourselves!"
+
+Less than this was needed to raise a serious disturbance. A long shout
+rose from the mob as it made a rush for the doors. Monsieur Garconnet,
+in consternation, hastily quitted the balcony, entreating Sicardot to
+be reasonable unless he wished to have them massacred. But in two
+minutes the doors gave way, the people invaded the building and
+disarmed the national guards. The mayor and the other functionaries
+present were arrested. Sicardot, who declined to surrender his sword,
+had to be protected from the fury of some insurgents by the chief of
+the contingent from Les Tulettes, a man of great self-possession. When
+the town-hall was in the hands of the Republicans, they led their
+prisoners to a small cafe in the market-place, and there kept them
+closely watched.
+
+The insurrectionary army would have avoided marching through Plassans
+if its leaders had not decided that a little food and a few hours'
+rest were absolutely necessary for the men. Instead of pushing forward
+direct to the chief town of the department, the column, owing to the
+inexcusable weakness and the inexperience of the improvised general
+who commanded it, was now diverging to the left, making a detour which
+was destined, ultimately, to lead it to destruction. It was bound for
+the heights of Sainte-Roure, still about ten leagues distant, and it
+was in view of this long march that it had been decided to pass
+through Plassans, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. It was now
+half-past eleven.
+
+When Monsieur Garconnet learnt that the band was in quest of
+provisions, he offered his services to procure them. This functionary
+formed, under very difficult circumstances, a proper estimate of the
+situation. Those three thousand starving men would have to be
+satisfied; it would never do for Plassans, on waking up, to find them
+still squatting on the pavements; if they withdrew before daybreak
+they would simply have passed through the slumbering town like an evil
+dream, like one of those nightmares which depart with the arrival of
+dawn. And so, although he remained a prisoner, Monsieur Garconnet,
+followed by two guards, went about knocking at the bakers' doors, and
+had all the provisions that he could find distributed among the
+insurgents.
+
+Towards one o'clock the three thousand men began to eat, squatting on
+the ground, with their weapons between their legs. The market-place
+and the neighbourhood of the town-hall were turned into vast open-air
+refectories. In spite of the bitter cold, humorous sallies were
+exchanged among the swarming multitude, the smallest groups of which
+showed forth in the brilliant moonlight. The poor famished fellows
+eagerly devoured their portions while breathing on their fingers to
+warm them; and, from the depths of adjoining streets, where vague
+black forms sat on the white thresholds of the houses, there came
+sudden bursts of laughter. At the windows emboldened, inquisitive
+women, with silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, watched the
+repast of those terrible insurgents, those blood-suckers who went in
+turn to the market pump to drink a little water in the hollows of
+their hands.
+
+While the town-hall was being invaded, the gendarmes' barracks,
+situated a few steps away, in the Rue Canquoin, which leads to the
+market, had also fallen into the hands of the mob. The gendarmes were
+surprised in their beds and disarmed in a few minutes. The impetus of
+the crowd had carried Miette and Silvere along in this direction. The
+girl, who still clasped her flagstaff to her breast, was pushed
+against the wall of the barracks, while the young man, carried away by
+the human wave, penetrated into the interior, and helped his comrades
+to wrest from the gendarmes the carbines which they had hastily caught
+up. Silvere, waxing ferocious, intoxicated by the onslaught, attacked
+a big devil of a gendarme named Rengade, with whom for a few moments
+he struggled. At last, by a sudden jerk, he succeeded in wresting his
+carbine from him. But the barrel struck Rengade a violent blow in the
+face, which put his right eye out. Blood flowed, and, some of it
+splashing Silvere's hands, quickly brought him to his senses. He
+looked at his hands, dropped the carbine, and ran out, in a state of
+frenzy, shaking his fingers.
+
+"You are wounded!" cried Miette.
+
+"No, no," he replied in a stifled voice, "I've just killed a
+gendarme."
+
+"Is he really dead?" asked Miette.
+
+"I don't know," replied Silvere, "his face was all covered with blood.
+Come quickly."
+
+Then he hurried the girl away. On reaching the market, he made her sit
+down on a stone bench, and told her to wait there for him. He was
+still looking at his hands, muttering something at the same time.
+Miette at last understood from his disquieted words that he wished to
+go and kiss his grandmother before leaving.
+
+"Well, go," she said; "don't trouble yourself about me. Wash your
+hands."
+
+But he went quickly away, keeping his fingers apart, without thinking
+of washing them at the pump which he passed. Since he had felt
+Rengade's warm blood on his skin, he had been possessed by one idea,
+that of running to Aunt Dide's and dipping his hands in the well-
+trough at the back of the little yard. There only, he thought, would
+he be able to wash off the stain of that blood. Moreover, all his
+calm, gentle childhood seemed to return to him; he felt an
+irresistible longing to take refuge in his grandmother's skirts, if
+only for a minute. He arrived quite out of breath. Aunt Dide had not
+gone to bed, a circumstance which at any other time would have greatly
+surprised Silvere. But on entering he did not even see his uncle
+Rougon, who was seated in a corner on the old chest. He did not wait
+for the poor old woman's questions. "Grandmother," he said quickly,
+"you must forgive me; I'm going to leave with the others. You see I've
+got blood on me. I believe I've killed a gendarme."
+
+"You've killed a gendarme?" Aunt Dide repeated in a strange voice.
+
+Her eyes gleamed brightly as she fixed them on the red stains. And
+suddenly she turned towards the chimney-piece. "You've taken the gun,"
+she said; "where's the gun?"
+
+Silvere, who had left the weapon with Miette, swore to her that it was
+quite safe. And for the very first time, Adelaide made an allusion to
+the smuggler Macquart in her grandson's presence.
+
+"You'll bring the gun back? You promise me!" she said with singular
+energy. "It's all I have left of him. You've killed a gendarme; ah, it
+was the gendarmes who killed him!"
+
+She continued gazing fixedly at Silvere with an air of cruel
+satisfaction, and apparently without thought of detaining him. She
+never asked him for any explanation, nor wept like those good
+grandmothers who always imagine, at sight of the least scratch, that
+their grandchildren are dying. All her nature was concentrated in one
+unique thought, to which she at last gave expression with ardent
+curiosity: "Did you kill the gendarme with the gun?"
+
+Either Silvere did not quite catch what she said, or else he
+misunderstood her.
+
+"Yes!" he replied. "I'm going to wash my hands."
+
+It was only on returning from the well that he perceived his uncle.
+Pierre had turned pale on hearing the young man's words. Felicite was
+indeed right; his family took a pleasure in compromising him. One of
+his nephews had now killed a gendarme! He would never get the post of
+receiver of taxes, if he did not prevent this foolish madman from
+rejoining the insurgents. So he planted himself in front of the door,
+determined to prevent Silvere from going out.
+
+"Listen," he said to the young fellow, who was greatly surprised to
+find him there. "I am the head of the family, and I forbid you to
+leave this house. You're risking both your honour and ours. To-morrow
+I will try to get you across the frontier."
+
+But Silvere shrugged his shoulders. "Let me pass," he calmly replied.
+"I'm not a police-spy; I shall not reveal your hiding-place, never
+fear." And as Rougon continued to speak of the family dignity and the
+authority with which his seniority invested him: "Do I belong to your
+family?" the young man continued. "You have always disowned me.
+To-day, fear has driven you here, because you feel that the day of
+judgment has arrived. Come, make way! I don't hide myself; I have a
+duty to perform."
+
+Rougon did not stir. But Aunt Dide, who had listened with a sort of
+delight to Silvere's vehement language, laid her withered hand on her
+son's arm. "Get out of the way, Pierre," she said; "the lad must go."
+
+The young man gave his uncle a slight shove, and dashed outside. Then
+Rougon, having carefully shut the door again, said to his mother in an
+angry, threatening tone: "If any mischief happens to him it will be
+your fault. You're an old mad-woman; you don't know what you've just
+done."
+
+Adelaide, however, did not appear to hear him. She went and threw some
+vine-branches on the fire, which was going out, and murmured with a
+vague smile: "I'm used to it. He would remain away for months
+together, and then come back to me in much better health."
+
+She was no doubt speaking of Macquart.
+
+In the meantime, Silvere hastily regained the market-place. As he
+approached the spot where he had left Miette, he heard a loud uproar
+of voices and saw a crowd which made him quicken his steps. A cruel
+scene had just occurred. Some inquisitive people were walking among
+the insurgents, while the latter quietly partook of their meal.
+Amongst these onlookers was Justin Rebufat, the son of the farmer of
+the Jas-Meiffren, a youth of twenty years old, a sickly, squint-eyed
+creature, who harboured implacable hatred against his cousin Miette.
+At home he grudged her the bread she ate, and treated her like a
+beggar picked up from the gutter out of charity. It is probable that
+the young girl had rejected his advances. Lank and pale, with ill-
+proportioned limbs and face all awry, he revenged himself upon her for
+his own ugliness, and the contempt which the handsome, vigorous girl
+must have evinced for him. He ardently longed to induce his father to
+send her about her business; and for this reason he was always spying
+upon her. For some time past, he had become aware of the meetings with
+Silvere, and had only awaited a decisive opportunity to reveal
+everything to his father, Rebufat.
+
+On the evening in question, having seen her leave home at about eight
+o'clock, Justin's hatred had overpowered him, and he had been unable
+to keep silent any longer. Rebufat, on hearing his story, fell into a
+terrible rage, and declared that he would kick the gadabout out of his
+house should she have the audacity to return. Justin then went to bed,
+relishing beforehand the fine scene which would take place on the
+morrow. Then, however, a burning desire came upon him for some
+immediate foretaste of his revenge. So he dressed himself again and
+went out. Perhaps he might meet Miette. In that case he was resolved
+to treat her insolently. This is how he came to witness the arrival of
+the insurgents, whom he followed to the town-hall with a vague
+presentiment that he would find the lovers there. And, indeed, he at
+last caught sight of his cousin on the seat where she was waiting for
+Silvere. Seeing her wrapped in her long pelisse, with the red flag at
+her side, resting against a market pillar, he began to sneer and
+deride her in foul language. The girl, thunderstruck at seeing him,
+was unable to speak. She wept beneath his abuse, and whist she was
+overcome by sobbing, bowing her head and hiding her face, Justin
+called her a convict's daughter, and shouted that old Rebufat would
+give her a good thrashing should she ever dare to return to Jas-
+Meiffren.
+
+For a quarter of an hour he thus kept her smarting and trembling. Some
+people had gathered round, and grinned stupidly at the painful scene.
+At last a few insurgents interfered, and threatened the young man with
+exemplary chastisement if he did not leave Miette alone. But Justin,
+although he retreated, declared that he was not afraid of them. It was
+just at this moment that Silvere came up. Young Rebufat, on catching
+sight of him, made a sudden bound, as if to take flight; for he was
+afraid of him, knowing that he was much stronger than himself. He
+could not, however, resist the temptation to cast a parting insult on
+the girl in her lover's presence.
+
+"Ah! I knew very well," he cried, "that the wheelwright could not be
+far off! You left us to run after that crack-brained fellow, eh? You
+wretched girl! When's the baptism to be?"
+
+Then he retreated a few steps further on seeing Silvere clench his
+fists.
+
+"And mind," he continued, with a vile sneer, "don't come to our house
+again. My father will kick you out if you do! Do you hear?"
+
+But he ran away howling, with bruised visage. For Silvere had bounded
+upon him and dealt him a blow full in the face. The young man did not
+pursue him. When he returned to Miette he found her standing up,
+feverishly wiping her tears away with the palm of her hand. And as he
+gazed at her tenderly, in order to console her, she made a sudden
+energetic gesture. "No," she said, "I'm not going to cry any more,
+you'll see. I'm very glad of it. I don't feel any regret now for
+having left home. I am free."
+
+She took up the flag and led Silvere back into the midst of the
+insurgents. It was now nearly two o'clock in the morning. The cold was
+becoming so intense that the Republicans had risen to their feet and
+were marching to and fro in order to warm themselves while they
+finished their bread. At last their leaders gave orders for departure.
+The column formed again. The prisoners were placed in the middle of
+it. Besides Monsieur Garconnet and Commander Sicardot, the insurgents
+had arrested Monsieur Peirotte, the receiver of taxes, and several
+other functionaries, all of whom they led away.
+
+At this moment Aristide was observed walking about among the groups.
+In presence of this formidable rising, the dear fellow had thought it
+imprudent not to remain on friendly terms with the Republicans; but
+as, on the other hand, he did not desire to compromise himself too
+much, he had come to bid them farewell with his arm in a sling,
+complaining bitterly of the accursed injury which prevented him from
+carrying a weapon. As he walked through the crowd he came across his
+brother Pascal, provided with a case of surgical instruments and a
+little portable medicine chest. The doctor informed him, in his quiet,
+way, that he intended to follow the insurgents. At this Aristide
+inwardly pronounced him a great fool. At last he himself slunk away,
+fearing lest the others should entrust the care of the town to him, a
+post which he deemed exceptionally perilous.
+
+The insurgents could not think of keeping Plassans in their power. The
+town was animated by so reactionary a spirit that it seemed impossible
+even to establish a democratic municipal commission there, as had
+already been done in other places. So they would simply have gone off
+without taking any further steps if Macquart, prompted and emboldened
+by his own private animosities, had not offered to hold Plassans in
+awe, on condition that they left him twenty determined men. These men
+were given him, and at their head he marched off triumphantly to take
+possession of the town-hall. Meantime the column of insurgents was
+wending its way along the Cours Sauvaire, and making its exit by the
+Grand'-Porte, leaving the streets, which it had traversed like a
+tempest, silent and deserted in its rear. The high road, whitened by
+the moonshine, stretched far into the distance. Miette had refused the
+support of Silvere's arm; she marched on bravely, steady and upright,
+holding the red flag aloft with both hands, without complaining of the
+cold which was turning her fingers blue.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+The high roads stretched far way, white with moonlight.
+
+The insurrectionary army was continuing its heroic march through the
+cold, clear country. It was like a mighty wave of enthusiasm. The
+thrill of patriotism, which transported Miette and Silvere, big
+children that they were, eager for love and liberty, sped, with
+generous fervour, athwart the sordid intrigues of the Macquarts and
+the Rougons. At intervals the trumpet-voice of the people rose and
+drowned the prattle of the yellow drawing-room and the hateful
+discourses of uncle Antoine. And vulgar, ignoble farce was turned into
+a great historical drama.
+
+On quitting Plassans, the insurgents had taken the road to Orcheres.
+They expected to reach that town at about ten o'clock in the morning.
+The road skirts the course of the Viorne, following at some height the
+windings of the hillocks, below which the torrent flows. On the left,
+the plain spreads out like an immense green carpet, dotted here and
+there with grey villages. On the right, the chain of the Garrigues
+rears its desolate peaks, its plateaux of stones, its huge rusty
+boulders that look as though they had been reddened by the sun. The
+high road, embanked along the riverside, passes on amidst enormous
+rocks, between which glimpses of the valley are caught at every step.
+Nothing could be wilder or more strikingly grand than this road out of
+the hillside. At night time, especially, it inspires one with a
+feeling of deep awe. The insurgents advanced under the pale light,
+along what seemed the chief street of some ruined town, bordered on
+either side with fragments of temples. The moon turned each rock into
+a broken column, crumbling capital, or stretch of wall pierced with
+mysterious arches. On high slumbered the mass of the Garrigues,
+suffused with a milky tinge, and resembling some immense Cyclopean
+city whose towers, obelisks, houses and high terraces hid one half of
+the heavens; and in the depths below, on the side of the plain, was a
+spreading ocean of diffused light, vague and limitless, over which
+floated masses of luminous haze. The insurrectionary force might well
+have thought they were following some gigantic causeway, making their
+rounds along some military road built on the shore of a phosphorescent
+sea, and circling some unknown Babel.
+
+On the night in question, the Viorne roared hoarsely at the foot of
+the rocks bordering the route. Amidst the continuous rumbling of the
+torrent, the insurgents could distinguish the sharp, wailing notes of
+the tocsin. The villages scattered about the plain, on the other side
+of the river, were rising, sounding alarm-bells, and lighting signal
+fires. Till daybreak the marching column, which the persistent tolling
+of a mournful knell seemed to pursue in the darkness, thus beheld the
+insurrection spreading along the valley, like a train of powder. The
+fires showed in the darkness like stains of blood; echoes of distant
+songs were wafted to them; the whole vague distance, blurred by the
+whitish vapours of the moon, stirred confusedly, and suddenly broke
+into a spasm of anger. For leagues and leagues the scene remained the
+same.
+
+These men, marching on under the blind impetus of the fever with which
+the events in Paris had inspired Republican hearts, became elated at
+seeing that long stretch of country quivering with revolt. Intoxicated
+with enthusiastic belief in the general insurrection of which they
+dreamed, they fancied that France was following them; on the other
+side of the Viorne, in that vast ocean of diffused light, they
+imagined there were endless files of men rushing like themselves to
+the defence of the Republic. All simplicity and delusion, as
+multitudes so often are, they imagined, in their uncultured minds,
+that victory was easy and certain. They would have seized and shot as
+a traitor any one who had then asserted that they were the only ones
+who had the courage of their duty, and that the rest of the country,
+overwhelmed with fright, was pusillanimously allowing itself to be
+garrotted.
+
+They derived fresh courage, too, from the welcome accorded to them by
+the few localities that lay along their route on the slopes of the
+Garrigues. The inhabitants rose /en masse/ immediately the little army
+drew near; women ran to meet them, wishing them a speedy victory,
+while men, half clad, seized the first weapons they could find and
+rushed to join their ranks. There was a fresh ovation at every
+village, shouts of welcome and farewell many times reiterated.
+
+Towards daybreak the moon disappeared behind the Garrigues and the
+insurgents continued their rapid march amidst the dense darkness of a
+winter night. They were now unable to distinguish the valley or the
+hills; they heard only the hoarse plaints of the bells, sounding
+through the deep obscurity like invisible drums, hidden they knew not
+where, but ever goading them on with despairing calls.
+
+Miette and Silvere went on, all eagerness like the others. Towards
+daybreak, the girl suffered greatly from fatigue; she could only walk
+with short hurried steps, and was unable to keep up with the long
+strides of the men who surrounded her. Nevertheless she courageously
+strove to suppress all complaints; it would have cost her too much to
+confess that she was not as strong as a boy. During the first few
+leagues of the march Silvere gave her his arm; then, seeing that the
+standard was gradually slipping from her benumbed hands, he tried to
+take it in order to relieve her; but she grew angry, and would only
+allow him to hold it with one hand while she continued to carry it on
+her shoulder. She thus maintained her heroic demeanour with childish
+stubbornness, smiling at the young man each time he gave her a glance
+of loving anxiety. At last, when the moon hid itself, she gave way in
+the sheltering darkness. Silvere felt her leaning more heavily on his
+arm. He now had to carry the flag, and hold her round the waist to
+prevent her from stumbling. Nevertheless she still made no complaint.
+
+"Are you very tired, poor Miette?" Silvere asked her.
+
+"Yea, a little tired," she replied in a weary tone.
+
+"Would you like to rest a bit?"
+
+She made no reply; but he realised that she was staggering. He
+thereupon handed the flag to one of the other insurgents and quitted
+the ranks, almost carrying the girl in his arms. She struggled a
+little, she felt so distressed at appearing such a child. But he
+calmed her, telling her that he knew of a cross-road which shortened
+the distance by one half. They would be able to take a good hour's
+rest and reach Orcheres at the same time as the others.
+
+It was then six o'clock. There must have been a slight mist rising
+from the Viorne, for the darkness seemed to be growing denser. The
+young people groped their way along the slope of the Garrigues, till
+they came to a rock on which they sat down. Around them lay an abyss
+of darkness. They were stranded, as it were, on some reef above a
+dense void. And athwart that void, when the dull tramp of the little
+army had died away, they only heard two bells, the one clear toned and
+ringing doubtless at their feet, in some village across the road; and
+the other far-off and faint, responding, as it were, with distant sobs
+to the feverish plaints of the first. One might have thought that
+these bells were recounting to each other, through the empty waste,
+the sinister story of a perishing world.
+
+Miette and Silvere, warmed by their quick march, did not at first feel
+the cold. They remained silent, listening in great dejection to the
+sounds of the tocsin, which made the darkness quiver. They could not
+even see one another. Miette felt frightened, and, seeking for
+Silvere's hand, clasped it in her own. After the feverish enthusiasm
+which for several hours had carried them along with the others, this
+sudden halt and the solitude in which they found themselves side by
+side left them exhausted and bewildered as though they had suddenly
+awakened from a strange dream. They felt as if a wave had cast them
+beside the highway, then ebbed back and left them stranded.
+Irresistible reaction plunged them into listless stupor; they forgot
+their enthusiasm; they thought no more of the men whom they had to
+rejoin; they surrendered themselves to the melancholy sweetness of
+finding themselves alone, hand in hand, in the midst of the wild
+darkness.
+
+"You are not angry with me?" the girl at length inquired. "I could
+easily walk the whole night with you; but they were running too
+quickly, I could hardly breathe."
+
+"Why should I be angry with you?" the young man said.
+
+"I don't know. I was afraid you might not love me any longer. I wish I
+could have taken long strides like you, and have walked along without
+stopping. You will think I am a child."
+
+Silvere smiled, and Miette, though the darkness prevented her from
+seeing him, guessed that he was doing so. Then she continued with
+determination: "You must not always treat me like a sister. I want to
+be your wife some day."
+
+Forthwith she clasped Silvere to her bosom, and, still with her arms
+about him, murmured: "We shall grow so cold; come close to me that we
+may be warm."
+
+Then they lapsed into silence. Until that troublous hour, they had
+loved one another with the affection of brother and sister. In their
+ignorance they still mistook their feelings for tender friendship,
+although beneath their guileless love their ardent blood surged more
+wildly day by day. Given age and experience, a violent passion of
+southern intensity would at last spring from this idyll. Every girl
+who hangs on a youth's neck is already a woman, a woman unconsciously,
+whom a caress may awaken to conscious womanhood. When lovers kiss on
+the cheeks, it is because they are searching, feeling for one
+another's lips. Lovers are made by a kiss. It was on that dark and
+cold December night, amid the bitter wailing of the tocsin, that
+Miette and Silvere exchanged one of those kisses that bring all the
+heart's blood to the lips.
+
+They remained silent, close to one another. A gentle glow soon
+penetrated them, languor overcame them, and steeped them in feverish
+drowsiness. They were quite warm at last, and lights seemed to flit
+before their closed eyelids, while a buzzing mounted to their brains.
+This state of painful ecstasy, which lasted some minutes, seemed
+endless to them. Then, in a kind of dream, their lips met. The kiss
+they exchanged was long and greedy. It seemed to them as if they had
+never kissed before. Yet their embrace was fraught with suffering and
+they released one another. And the chilliness of the night having
+cooled their fever, they remained in great confusion at some distance
+one from the other.
+
+Meantime the bells were keeping up their sinister converse in the dark
+abyss which surrounded the young people. Miette, trembling and
+frightened, did not dare to draw near to Silvere again. She did not
+even know if he were still there, for she could no longer hear him
+move. The stinging sweetness of their kiss still clung to their lips,
+to which passionate phrases surged, and they longed to kiss once more.
+But shame restrained them from the expression of any such desire. They
+felt that they would rather never taste that bliss again than speak of
+it aloud. If their blood had not been lashed by their rapid march, if
+the darkness had not offered complicity, they would, for a long time
+yet, have continued kissing each other on the cheeks like old
+playfellows. Feelings of modesty were coming to Miette. She remembered
+Justin's coarseness. A few hours previously she had listened, without
+a blush, to that fellow who called her a shameless girl. She had wept
+without understanding his meaning, she had wept simply because she
+guessed that what he spoke of must be base. Now that she was becoming
+a woman, she wondered in a last innocent transport whether that kiss,
+whose burning smart she could still feel, would not perhaps suffice to
+cover her with the shame to which her cousin had referred. Thereupon
+she was seized with remorse, and burst into sobs.
+
+"What is the matter; why are you crying?" asked Silvere in an anxious
+voice.
+
+"Oh, leave me," she faltered, "I do not know."
+
+Then in spite of herself, as it were, she continued amidst her tears:
+"Ah! what an unfortunate creature I am! When I was ten years old
+people used to throw stones at me. To-day I am treated as the vilest
+of creatures. Justin did right to despise me before everybody. We have
+been doing wrong, Silvere."
+
+The young man, quite dismayed, clasped her in his arms again, trying
+to console her. "I love you," he whispered, "I am your brother. Why
+say that we have been doing wrong? We kissed each other because we
+were cold. You know very well that we used to kiss each other every
+evening before separating."
+
+"Oh! not as we did just now," she whispered. "It must be wrong, for a
+strange feeling came over me. The men will laugh at me now as I pass,
+and they will be right in doing so. I shall not be able to defend
+myself."
+
+The young fellow remained silent, unable to find a word to calm the
+agitation of this big child, trembling at her first kiss of love. He
+clasped her gently, imagining that he might calm her by his embrace.
+She struggled, however, and continued: "If you like, we will go away;
+we will leave the province. I can never return to Plassans; my uncle
+would beat me; all the townspeople would point their fingers at me--"
+And then, as if seized with sudden irritation, she added: "But no! I
+am cursed! I forbid you to leave aunt Dide to follow me. You must
+leave me on the highway."
+
+"Miette, Miette!" Silvere implored; "don't talk like that."
+
+"Yes. I want to please you. Be reasonable. They have turned me out
+like a vagabond. If I went back with you, you would always be fighting
+for my sake, and I don't want that."
+
+At this the young man again pressed a kiss upon her lips, murmuring:
+"You shall be my wife, and nobody will then dare to hurt you."
+
+"Oh! please, I entreat you!" she said, with a stifled cry; "don't kiss
+me so. You hurt me."
+
+Then, after a short silence: "You know quite well that I cannot be
+your wife now. We are too young. You would have to wait for me, and
+meanwhile I should die of shame. You are wrong in protesting; you will
+be forced to leave me in some corner."
+
+At this Silvere, his fortitude exhausted, began to cry. A man's sobs
+are fraught with distressing hoarseness. Miette, quite frightened as
+she felt the poor fellow shaking in her arms, kissed him on the face,
+forgetting she was burning her lips. But it was all her fault. She was
+a little simpleton to have let a kiss upset her so completely. She now
+clasped her lover to her bosom as if to beg forgiveness for having
+pained him. These weeping children, so anxiously clasping one another,
+made the dark night yet more woeful than before. In the distance, the
+bells continued to complain unceasingly in panting accents.
+
+"It is better to die," repeated Silvere, amidst his sobs; "it is
+better to die."
+
+"Don't cry; forgive me," stammered Miette. "I will be brave; I will do
+all you wish."
+
+When the young man had dried his tears: "You are right," he said; "we
+cannot return to Plassans. But the time for cowardice has not yet
+come. If we come out of the struggle triumphant, I will go for aunt
+Dide, and we will take her ever so far away with us. If we are
+beaten----"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"If we are beaten?" repeated Miette, softly.
+
+"Then be it as God wills!" continued Silvere, in a softer voice. "I
+most likely shall not be there. You will comfort the poor woman. That
+would be better."
+
+"Ah! as you said just now," the young girl murmured, "it would be
+better to die."
+
+At this longing for death they tightened their embrace. Miette relied
+upon dying with Silvere; he had only spoken of himself, but she felt
+that he would gladly take her with him into the earth. They would
+there be able to love each other more freely than under the sun. Aunt
+Dide would die likewise and join them. It was, so to say, a rapid
+presentiment, a desire for some strange voluptuousness, to which
+Heaven, by the mournful accents of the tocsin, was promising early
+gratification. To die! To die! The bells repeated these words with
+increasing passion, and the lovers yielded to the calls of the
+darkness; they fancied they experienced a foretaste of the last sleep,
+in the drowsiness into which they again sank, whilst their lips met
+once more.
+
+Miette no longer turned away. It was she, now, who pressed her lips to
+Silvere's, who sought with mute ardour for the delight whose stinging
+smart she had not at first been able to endure. The thought of
+approaching death had excited her; she no longer felt herself
+blushing, but hung upon her love, while he in faltering voice
+repeated: "I love you! I love you!"
+
+But at this Miette shook her head, as if to say it was not true. With
+her free and ardent nature she had a secret instinct of the meaning
+and purposes of life, and though she was right willing to die she
+would fain have known life first. At last, growing calmer, she gently
+rested her head on the young man's shoulder, without uttering a word.
+Silvere kissed her again. She tasted those kisses slowly, seeking
+their meaning, their hidden sweetness. As she felt them course through
+her veins, she interrogated them, asking if they were all love, all
+passion. But languor at last overcame her, and she fell into gentle
+slumber. Silvere had enveloped her in her pelisse, drawing the skirt
+around himself at the same time. They no longer felt cold. The young
+man rejoiced to find, from the regularity of her breathing, that the
+girl was now asleep; this repose would enable them to proceed on their
+way with spirit. He resolved to let her slumber for an hour. The sky
+was still black, and the approach of day was but faintly indicated by
+a whitish line in the east. Behind the lovers there must have been a
+pine wood whose musical awakening it was that the young man heard
+amidst the morning breezes. And meantime the wailing of the bells grew
+more sonorous in the quivering atmosphere, lulling Miette's slumber
+even as it had accompanied her passionate fever.
+
+Until that troublous night, these young people had lived through one
+of those innocent idylls that blossom among the toiling masses, those
+outcasts and folks of simple mind amidst whom one may yet occasionally
+find amours as primitive as those of the ancient Greek romances.
+
+Miette had been scarcely nine years old at the time when her father
+was sent to the galleys for shooting a gendarme. The trial of
+Chantegreil had remained a memorable case in the province. The poacher
+boldly confessed that he had killed the gendarme, but he swore that
+the latter had been taking aim at him. "I only anticipated him," he
+said, "I defended myself; it was a duel, not a murder." He never
+desisted from this line of argument. The presiding Judge of the
+Assizes could not make him understand that, although a gendarme has
+the right to fire upon a poacher, a poacher has no right to fire upon
+a gendarme. Chantegreil escaped the guillotine, owing to his obviously
+sincere belief in his own innocence, and his previous good character.
+The man wept like a child when his daughter was brought to him prior
+to his departure for Toulon. The little thing, who had lost her mother
+in her infancy, dwelt at this time with her grandfather at Chavanoz, a
+village in the passes of the Seille. When the poacher was no longer
+there, the old man and the girl lived upon alms. The inhabitants of
+Chavanoz, all sportsmen and poachers, came to the assistance of the
+poor creatures whom the convict had left behind him. After a while,
+however, the old man died of grief, and Miette, left alone by herself,
+would have had to beg on the high roads, if the neighbours had not
+remembered that she had an aunt at Plassans. A charitable soul was
+kind enough to take her to this aunt, who did not, however, receive
+her very kindly.
+
+Eulalie Chantegreil, the spouse of /meger/ Rebufat, was a big, dark,
+stubborn creature, who ruled the home. She led her husband by the
+noise, said the people of the Faubourg of Plassans. The truth was,
+Rebufat, avaricious and eager for work and gain, felt a sort of
+respect for this big creature, who combined uncommon vigour with
+strict sobriety and economy.
+
+Thanks to her, the household thrived. The /meger/ grumbled one evening
+when, on returning home from work, he found Miette installed there.
+But his wife closed his mouth by saying in her gruff voice: "Bah, the
+little thing's strongly built, she'll do for a servant; we'll keep her
+and save wages."
+
+This calculation pleased Rebufat. He went so far as to feel the little
+thing's arms, and declared with satisfaction that she was sturdy for
+her age. Miette was then nine years old. From the very next day he
+made use of her. The work of the peasant-woman in the South of France
+is much lighter than in the North. One seldom sees them employed in
+digging the ground, carrying loads, or doing other kinds of men's
+work. They bind sheaves, gather olives and mulberry leaves; perhaps
+their most laborious work is that of weeding. Miette worked away
+willingly. Open-air life was her delight, her health. So long as her
+aunt lived she was always smiling. The good woman, in spite of her
+roughness, at last loved her as her own child; she forbade her doing
+the hard work which her husband sometimes tried to force upon her,
+saying to the latter:
+
+"Ah! you're a clever fellow! You don't understand, you fool, that if
+you tire her too much to-day, she won't be able to do anything
+to-morrow!"
+
+This argument was decisive. Rebufat bowed his head, and carried the
+load which he had desired to set on the young girl's shoulders.
+
+The latter would have lived in perfect happiness under the secret
+protection of her aunt Eulalie, but for the teasing of her cousin, who
+was then a lad of sixteen, and employed his idle hours in hating and
+persecuting her. Justin's happiest moments were those when by means of
+some gross falsehood he succeeded in getting her scolded. Whenever he
+could tread on her feet, or push her roughly, pretending not to have
+seen her, he laughed and felt the delight of those crafty folks who
+rejoice at other people's misfortunes. Miette, however, would stare at
+him with her large black childish eyes gleaming with anger and silent
+scorn, which checked the cowardly youngster's sneers. In reality he
+was terribly afraid of his cousin.
+
+The young girl was just attaining her eleventh year when her aunt
+Eulalie suddenly died. From that day everything changed in the house.
+Rebufat gradually come to treat her like a farm-labourer. He
+overwhelmed her with all sorts of rough work, and made use of her as a
+beast of burden. She never even complained, however, thinking that she
+had a debt of gratitude to repay him. In the evening, when she was
+worn out with fatigue, she mourned for her aunt, that terrible woman
+whose latent kindliness she now realised. However, it was not the hard
+work that distressed her, for she delighted in her strength, and took
+a pride in her big arms and broad shoulders. What distressed her was
+her uncle's distrustful surveillance, his continual reproaches, and
+the irritated employer-like manner he assumed towards her. She had now
+become a stranger in the house. Yet even a stranger would not have
+been so badly treated as she was. Rebufat took the most unscrupulous
+advantage of this poor little relative, whom he pretended to keep out
+of charity. She repaid his harsh hospitality ten times over with her
+work, and yet never a day passed but he grudged her the bread she ate.
+Justin especially excelled in wounding her. Since his mother had been
+dead, seeing her without a protector, he had brought all his evil
+instincts into play in trying to make the house intolerable to her.
+The most ingenious torture which he invented was to speak to Miette of
+her father. The poor girl, living away from the world, under the
+protection of her aunt, who had forbidden any one ever to mention the
+words "galleys" or "convict" before her, hardly understood their
+meaning. It was Justin who explained it to her by relating, in his own
+manner, the story of the murder of the gendarme, and Chantegreil's
+conviction. There was no end to the horrible particulars he supplied:
+the convicts had a cannonball fastened to one ankle by a chain, they
+worked fifteen hours a day, and all died under their punishment; their
+prison, too, was a frightful place, the horrors of which he described
+minutely. Miette listened to him, stupefied, her eyes full of tears.
+Sometimes she was roused to sudden violence, and Justin quickly
+retired before her clenched fists. However, he took a savage delight
+in thus instructing her as to the nature of prison life. When his
+father flew into a passion with the child for any little negligence,
+he chimed in, glad to be able to insult her without danger. And if she
+attempted to defend herself, he would exclaim: "Bah! bad blood always
+shows itself. You'll end at the galleys like your father."
+
+At this Miette sobbed, stung to the heart, powerless and overwhelmed
+with shame.
+
+She was already growing to womanhood at this period. Of precocious
+nature, she endured her martyrdom with extraordinary fortitude. She
+rarely gave way, excepting when her natural pride succumbed to her
+cousin's outrages. Soon even, she was able to bear, without a tear,
+the incessant insults of this cowardly fellow, who ever watched her
+while he spoke, for fear lest she should fly at his face. Then, too,
+she learnt to silence him by staring at him fixedly. She had several
+times felt inclined to run away from the Jas-Meiffren; but she did not
+do so, as her courage could not brook the idea of confessing that she
+was vanquished by the persecution she endured. She certainly earned
+her bread, she did not steal the Rebufats' hospitality; and this
+conviction satisfied her pride. So she remained there to continue the
+struggle, stiffening herself and living on with the one thought of
+resistance. Her plan was to do her work in silence, and revenge
+herself for all harsh treatment by mute contempt. She knew that her
+uncle derived too much advantage from her to listen readily to the
+insinuations of Justin, who longed to get her turned out of doors. And
+in a defiant spirit she resolved that she would not go away of her own
+accord.
+
+Her continuous voluntary silence was full of strange fancies. Passing
+her days in the enclosure, isolated from all the world, she formed
+ideas for herself which would have strangely shocked the good people
+of the Faubourg. Her father's fate particularly occupied her thoughts.
+All Justin's abuse recurred to her; and she ended by accepting the
+charge of murder, saying to herself, however, that her father had done
+well to kill the gendarme who had tried to kill him. She had learnt
+the real story from a labourer who had worked for a time at the Jas-
+Meiffren. From that moment, on the few occasions when she went out,
+she no longer even turned if the ragamuffins of the Faubourg followed
+her, crying: "Hey! La Chantegreil!"
+
+She simply hastened her steps homeward, with lips compressed, and
+black, fierce eyes. Then after shutting the gate, she perhaps cast one
+long glance at the gang of urchins. She would have become vicious,
+have lapsed into fierce pariah savagery, if her childishness had not
+sometimes gained the mastery. Her extreme youth brought her little
+girlish weaknesses which relieved her. She would then cry with shame
+for herself and her father. She would hide herself in a stable so that
+she might sob to her heart's content, for she knew that, if the others
+saw her crying, they would torment her all the more. And when she had
+wept sufficiently, she would bathe her eyes in the kitchen, and then
+again subside into uncomplaining silence. It was not interest alone,
+however, which prompted her to hide herself; she carried her pride in
+her precocious strength so far that she was unwilling to appear a
+child. In time she would have become very unhappy. Fortunately she was
+saved by discovering the latent tenderness of her loving nature.
+
+The well in the yard of the house occupied by aunt Dide and Silvere
+was a party-well. The wall of the Jas-Meiffren cut it in halves.
+Formerly, before the Fouques' property was united to the neighbouring
+estate, the market-gardeners had used this well daily. Since the
+transfer of the Fouques' ground, however, as it was at some distance
+from the outhouses, the inmates of the Jas, who had large cisterns at
+their disposal, did not draw a pail of water from it in a month. On
+the other side, one could hear the grating of the pulley every morning
+when Silvere drew the water for aunt Dide.
+
+One day the pulley broke. The young wheelwright made a good strong one
+of oak, and put it up in the evening after his day's work. To do this
+he had to climb upon the wall. When he had finished the job he
+remained resting astride the coping, and surveyed with curiosity the
+large expanse of the Jas-Meiffren. At last a peasant-girl, who was
+weeding the ground a few feet from him, attracted his attention. It
+was in July, and the air was broiling, although the sun had already
+sank to the horizon. The peasant-girl had taken off her jacket. In a
+white bodice, with a coloured neckerchief tied over her shoulders, and
+the sleeves of her chemise turned up as far as her elbows, she was
+squatting amid the folds of her blue cotton skirt, which was secured
+to a pair of braces crossed behind her back. She crawled about on her
+knees as she pulled up the tares and threw them into a basket. The
+young man could only see her bare, sun-tanned arms stretching out
+right and left to seize some overlooked weed. He followed this rapid
+play of her arms complacently, deriving a singular pleasure from
+seeing them so firm and quick. The young person had slightly raised
+herself on noticing that he was no longer at work, but had again
+lowered her head before he could distinguish her features. This
+shyness kept him in suspense. Like an inquisitive lad he wondered who
+this weeder could be, and while he lingered there, whistling and
+beating time with a chisel, the latter suddenly slipped out of his
+hand. It fell into the Jas-Meiffren, striking the curb of the well,
+and then bounding a few feet from the wall. Silvere looked at it,
+leaning forward and hesitating to get over. But the peasant-girl must
+have been watching the young man askance, for she jumped up without
+saying anything, picked up the chisel, and handed it to Silvere, who
+then perceived that she was a mere child. He was surprised and rather
+intimidated. The young girl raised herself towards him in the red
+glare of the sunset. The wall at this spot was low, but nevertheless
+too high for her to reach him. So he bent low over the coping, while
+she still raised herself on tiptoes. They did not speak, but looked at
+each other with an air of smiling confusion. The young man would
+indeed have liked to keep the girl in that position. She turned to him
+a charming head, with handsome black eyes, and red lips, which quite
+astonished and stirred him. He had never before seen a girl so near;
+he had not known that lips and eyes could be so pleasant to look at.
+Everything about the girl seemed to possess a strange fascination for
+him--her coloured neckerchief, her white bodice, her blue cotton skirt
+hanging from braces which stretched with the motion of her shoulders.
+Then his glance glided along the arm which was handing him the tool;
+as far as the elbow this arm was of a golden brown, as though clothed
+with sun-burn; but higher up, in the shadow of the tucked-up sleeve,
+Silvere perceived a bare, milk-white roundness. At this he felt
+confused; however, he leant further over, and at last managed to grasp
+the chisel. The little peasant-girl was becoming embarrassed. Still
+they remained there, smiling at each other, the child beneath with
+upturned face, and the lad half reclining on the coping of the wall.
+They could not part from each other. So far they had not exchanged a
+word, and Silvere even forgot to say, "Thank you."
+
+"What's your name?" he asked.
+
+"Marie," replied the peasant-girl; "but everybody calls me Miette."
+
+Again she raised herself slightly, and in a clear voice inquired in
+her turn: "And yours?"
+
+"My name is Silvere," the young workman replied.
+
+A pause ensued, during which they seemed to be listening complacently
+to the music of their names.
+
+"I'm fifteen years old," resumed Silvere. "And you?"
+
+"I!" said Miette; "oh, I shall be eleven on All Saints' Day."
+
+The young workman made a gesture of surprise. "Ah! really!" he said,
+laughing, "and to think I took you for a woman! You've such big arms."
+
+She also began to laugh, as she lowered her eyes to her arms. Then
+they ceased speaking. They remained for another moment gazing and
+smiling at each other. And finally, as Silvere seemingly had no more
+questions to ask her, Miette quietly withdrew and went on plucking her
+weeds, without raising her head. The lad for his part remained on the
+wall for a while. The sun was setting; a stream of oblique rays poured
+over the yellow soil of the Jas-Meiffren, which seemed to be all
+ablaze--one would have said that a fire was running along the ground--
+and, in the midst of the flaming expanse, Silvere saw the little
+stooping peasant-girl, whose bare arms had resumed their rapid motion.
+The blue cotton skirt was now becoming white; and rays of light
+streamed over the child's copper-coloured arms. At last Silvere felt
+somewhat ashamed of remaining there, and accordingly got off the wall.
+
+In the evening, preoccupied with his adventure, he endeavoured to
+question aunt Dide. Perhaps she would know who this Miette was who had
+such black eyes and such red lips. But, since she had lived in the
+house in the alley, the old woman had never once given a look behind
+the wall of the little yard. It was, to her, like an impassable
+rampart, which shut off her past. She did not know--she did not want
+to know--what there might now be on the other side of that wall, in
+that old enclosure of the Fouques, where she had buried her love, her
+heart and her flesh. As soon as Silvere began to question her she
+looked at him with childish terror. Was he, then, going to stir up the
+ashes of those days now dead and gone, and make her weep like her son
+Antoine had done?
+
+"I don't know," she said in a hasty voice; "I no longer go out, I
+never see anybody."
+
+Silvere waited the morrow with considerable impatience. And as soon as
+he got to his master's workshop, he drew his fellow-workmen into
+conversation. He did not say anything about his interview with Miette;
+but spoke vaguely of a girl whom he had seen from a distance in the
+Jas-Meiffren.
+
+"Oh! that's La Chantegreil!" cried one of the workmen.
+
+There was no necessity for Silvere to question them further, for they
+told him the story of the poacher Chantegreil and his daughter Miette,
+with that unreasoning spite which is felt for social outcasts. The
+girl, in particular, they treated in a foul manner; and the insulting
+gibe of "daughter of a galley-slave" constantly rose to their lips
+like an incontestable reason for condemning the poor, dear innocent
+creature to eternal disgrace.
+
+However, wheelwright Vian, an honest, worthy fellow, at last silenced
+his men.
+
+"Hold your tongues, you foul mouths!" he said, as he let fall the
+shaft of a cart that he had been examining. "You ought to be ashamed
+of yourselves for being so hard upon the child. I've seen her, the
+little thing looks a very good girl. Besides, I'm told she doesn't
+mind work, and already does as much as any woman of thirty. There are
+some lazy fellows here who aren't a match for her. I hope, later on,
+that she'll get a good husband who'll stop this evil talk."
+
+Silvere, who had been chilled by the workmen's gross jests and
+insults, felt tears rise to his eyes at the last words spoken by Vian.
+However, he did not open his lips. He took up his hammer, which he had
+laid down near him, and began with all his might to strike the nave of
+a wheel which he was binding with iron.
+
+In the evening, as soon as he had returned home from the workshop, he
+ran to the wall and climbed upon it. He found Miette engaged upon the
+same labour as the day before. He called her. She came to him, with
+her smile of embarrassment, and the charming shyness of a child who
+from infancy had grown up in tears.
+
+"You're La Chantegreil, aren't you?" he asked her, abruptly.
+
+She recoiled, she ceased smiling, and her eyes turned sternly black,
+gleaming with defiance. So this lad was going to insult her, like the
+others! She was turning her back upon him, without giving an answer,
+when Silvere, perplexed by her sudden change of countenance, hastened
+to add: "Stay, I beg you--I don't want to pain you--I've got so many
+things to tell you!"
+
+She turned round, still distrustful. Silvere, whose heart was full,
+and who had resolved to relieve it, remained for a moment speechless,
+not knowing how to continue, for he feared lest he should commit a
+fresh blunder. At last he put his whole heart in one phrase: "Would
+you like me to be your friend?" he said, in a voice full of emotion.
+And as Miette, in surprise, raised her eyes, which were again moist
+and smiling, he continued with animation: "I know that people try to
+vex you. It's time to put a stop to it. I will be your protector now.
+Shall I?"
+
+The child beamed with delight. This proffered friendship roused her
+from all her evil dreams of taciturn hatred. Still she shook her head
+and answered: "No, I don't want you to fight on my account. You'd have
+too much to do. Besides which, there are persons from whom you cannot
+protect me."
+
+Silvere wished to declare that he would defend her against the whole
+world, but she closed his mouth with a coaxing gesture, as she added:
+"I am satisfied to have you as a friend."
+
+They then conversed together for a few minutes, lowering their voices
+as much as possible. Miette spoke to Silvere of her uncle and her
+cousin. For all the world she would not have liked them to catch him
+astride the coping of the wall. Justin would be implacable with such a
+weapon against her. She spoke of her misgivings with the fright of a
+schoolgirl on meeting a friend with whom her mother has forbidden her
+to associate. Silvere merely understood, however, that he would not be
+able to see Miette at his pleasure. This made him very sad. Still, he
+promised that he would not climb upon the wall any more. They were
+both endeavouring to find some expedient for seeing each other again,
+when Miette suddenly begged him to go away; she had just caught sight
+of Justin, who was crossing the grounds in the direction of the wall.
+Silvere quickly descended. When he was in the little yard again, he
+remained by the wall to listen, irritated by his flight. After a few
+minutes he ventured to climb again and cast a glance into the
+Jas-Meiffren, but he saw Justin speaking with Miette, and quickly
+withdrew his head. On the following day he could see nothing of his
+friend, not even in the distance; she must have finished her work in
+that part of the Jas. A week passed in this fashion, and the young
+people had no opportunity of exchanging a single word. Silvere was in
+despair; he thought of boldly going to the Rebufats to ask for Miette.
+
+The party-well was a large one, but not very deep. On either side of
+the wall the curb formed a large semicircle. The water was only ten or
+twelve feet down at the utmost. This slumbering water reflected the
+two apertures of the well, two half-moons between which the shadow of
+the wall cast a black streak. On leaning over, one might have fancied
+in the vague light that the half-moons were two mirrors of singular
+clearness and brilliance. Under the morning sunshine, when the
+dripping of the ropes did not disturb the surface of the water, these
+mirrors, these reflections of the heavens, showed like white patches
+on the green water, and in them the leaves of the ivy which had spread
+along the wall over the well were repeated with marvellous exactness.
+
+One morning, at an early hour, Silvere, as he came to draw water for
+aunt Dide, bent over the well mechanically, just as he was taking hold
+of the rope. He started, and then stood motionless, still leaning
+over. He had fancied that he could distinguish in the well the face of
+a young girl who was looking at him with a smile; however, he had
+shaken the rope, and the disturbed water was now but a dim mirror that
+no longer reflected anything clearly. Silvere, who did not venture to
+stir, and whose heart beat rapidly, then waited for the water to
+settle. As its ripples gradually widened and died away, he perceived
+the image reappearing. It oscillated for a long time, with a swing
+which lent a vague, phantom-like grace to its features, but at last it
+remained stationary. It was the smiling countenance of Miette, with
+her head and shoulders, her coloured neckerchief, her white bodice,
+and her blue braces. Silvere next perceived his own image in the other
+mirror. Then, knowing that they could see each other, they nodded
+their heads. For the first moment, they did not even think of
+speaking. At last they exchanged greetings.
+
+"Good morning, Silvere."
+
+"Good morning, Miette."
+
+They were surprised by the strange sound of their voices, which became
+singularly soft and sweet in that damp hole. The sound seemed, indeed,
+to come from a distance, like the soft music of voices heard of an
+evening in the country. They understood that it would suffice to speak
+in a whisper in order to hear each other. The well echoed the faintest
+breath. Leaning over its brink, they conversed while gazing at one
+another's reflection. Miette related how sad she had been the last
+week. She was now working at the other end of the Jas, and could only
+get out early in the morning. Then she made a pout of annoyance which
+Silvere distinguished perfectly, and to which he replied by nodding
+his head with an air of vexation. They were exchanging all those
+gestures and facial expressions that speech entails. They cared but
+little for the wall which separated them now that they could see each
+other in those hidden depths.
+
+"I knew," continued Miette, with a knowing look, "that you came here
+to draw water every morning at the same hour. I can hear the grating
+of the pulley from the house. So I made an excuse, I pretended that
+the water in this well boiled the vegetables better. I thought that I
+might come here every morning to draw water at the same time as you,
+so as to say good morning to you without anyone suspecting it."
+
+She smiled innocently, as though well pleased with her device, and
+ended by saying: "But I did not imagine we should see each other in
+the water."
+
+It was, in fact, this unhoped-for pleasure which so delighted them.
+They only spoke to see their lips move, so greatly did this new frolic
+amuse their childish natures. And they resolved to use all means in
+their power to meet here every morning. When Miette had said that she
+must go away, she told Silvere that he could draw his pail of water.
+But he did not dare to shake the rope; Miette was still leaning over--
+he could see her smiling face, and it was too painful to him to dispel
+that smile. As he slightly stirred his pail, the water murmured, and
+the smile faded. Then he stopped, seized with a strange fear; he
+fancied that he had vexed her and made her cry. But the child called
+to him, "Go on! go on!" with a laugh which the echo prolonged and
+rendered more sonorous. She herself then nosily sent down a pail.
+There was a perfect tempest. Everything disappeared under the black
+water. And Silvere made up his mind to fill two pitchers, while
+listening to the retreating steps of Miette on the other side of the
+wall.
+
+From that day, the young people never missed their assignations. The
+slumbering water, the white mirrors in which they gazed at one
+another, imparted to their interviews a charm which long sufficed
+their playful, childish imaginations. They had no desire to see each
+other face to face: it seemed much more amusing to them to use the
+well as a mirror, and confide their morning greetings to its echo.
+They soon came to look upon the well as an old friend. They loved to
+bend over the motionless water that resembled molten silver. A
+greenish glimmer hovered below, in a mysterious half light, and seemed
+to change the damp hole into some hiding-place in the depths of a
+wood. They saw each other in a sort of greenish nest bedecked with
+moss, in the midst of fresh water and foliage. And all the strangeness
+of the deep spring, the hollow tower over which they bent, trembling
+with fascination, added unconfessed and delightful fear to their merry
+laughter. The wild idea occurred to them of going down and seating
+themselves on a row of large stones which formed a kind of circular
+bench at a few inches above the water. They would dip their feet in
+the latter, converse there for hours, and no one would think of coming
+to look for them in such a spot. But when they asked each other what
+there might be down there, their vague fears returned; they thought it
+quite sufficient to let their reflected images descend into the depths
+amidst those green glimmers which tinged the stones with strange
+moire-like reflections, and amidst those mysterious noises which rose
+from the dark corners. Those sounds issuing from the invisible made
+them particularly uneasy; they often fancied that voices were replying
+to their own; and then they would remain silent, detecting a thousand
+faint plaints which they could not understand. These came from the
+secret travail of the moisture, the sighs of the atmosphere, the drops
+that glided over the stones, and fell below with the sonorousness of
+sobs. They would nod affectionately to each other in order to reassure
+themselves. Thus the attraction which kept them leaning over the brink
+had a tinge of secret terror, like all poignant charms. But the well
+still remained their old friend. It was such an excellent pretext for
+meeting! Justin, who watched Miette's every movement, never suspected
+the cause of her eagerness to go and draw some water every morning. At
+times, he saw her from the distance, leaning over and loitering. "Ah!
+the lazy thing!" he muttered; "how fond she is of dawdling about!" How
+could he suspect that, on the other side of the wall, there was a
+wooer contemplating the girl's smile in the water, and saying to her:
+"If that red-haired donkey Justin should illtreat you, just tell me of
+it, and he shall hear from me!"
+
+This amusement lasted for more than a month. It was July then; the
+mornings were sultry; the sun shone brightly, and it was quite a
+pleasure to come to that damp spot. It was delightful to feel the cold
+breath of the well on one's face, and make love amidst this spring
+water while the skies were kindling their fires. Miette would arrive
+out of breath after crossing the stubble fields; as she ran along, her
+hair fell down over her forehead and temples; and it was with flushed
+face and dishevelled locks that she would lean over, shaking with
+laughter, almost before she had had time to set her pitcher down.
+Silvere, who was almost always the first at the well, felt, as he
+suddenly saw her smiling face in the water, as keen a joy as he would
+have experienced had she suddenly thrown herself into his arms at the
+bend of a pathway. Around them the radiant morning hummed with mirth;
+a wave of warm light, sonorous with the buzzing of insects, beat
+against the old wall, the posts, and the curbstone. They, however, no
+longer saw the shower of morning sunshine, nor heard the thousand
+sounds rising from the ground; they were in the depths of their green
+hiding-place, under the earth, in that mysterious and awesome cavity,
+and quivered with pleasure as they lingered there enjoying its fresh
+coolness and dim light.
+
+On some mornings, Miette, who by nature could not long maintain a
+contemplative attitude, began to tease; she would shake the rope, and
+make drops of water fall in order to ripple the mirrors and deface the
+reflections. Silvere would then entreat her to remain still; he, whose
+fervour was deeper than hers, knew no keener pleasure than that of
+gazing at his love's image reflected so distinctly in every feature.
+But she would not listen to him; she would joke and feign a rough old
+bogey's voice, to which the echo imparted a raucous melodiousness.
+
+"No, no," she would say in chiding fashion; "I don't love you to-day!
+I'm making faces at you; see how ugly I am."
+
+And she laughed at seeing the fantastic forms which their spreading
+faces assumed as they danced upon the disturbed water.
+
+One morning she got angry in real earnest. She did not find Silvere at
+the trysting-place, and waited for him for nearly a quarter of an
+hour, vainly making the pulley grate. She was just about to depart in
+a rage when he arrived. As soon as she perceived him she let a perfect
+tempest loose in the well, shook her pail in an irritated manner, and
+made the blackish water whirl and splash against the stones. In vain
+did Silvere try to explain that aunt Dide had detained him. To all his
+excuses she replied: "You've vexed me; I don't want to see you."
+
+The poor lad, in despair, vainly questioned that sombre cavity, now so
+full of lamentable sounds, where, on other days, such a bright vision
+usually awaited him amid the silence of the stagnant water. He had to
+go away without seeing Miette. On the morrow, arriving before the
+time, he gazed sadly into the well, hearing nothing, and thinking that
+the obstinate girl would not come, when she, who was already on the
+other side slyly watching his arrival, bent over suddenly with a burst
+of laughter. All was at once forgotten.
+
+In this wise the well was the scene of many a little drama and comedy.
+That happy cavity, with its gleaming mirrors and musical echoes,
+quickly ripened their love. They endowed it with such strange life, so
+filled it with their youthful love, that, long after they had ceased
+to come and lean over the brink, Silvere, as he drew water every
+morning, would fancy he could see Miette's smiling face in the dim
+light that still quivered with the joy they had set there.
+
+That month of playful love rescued Miette from her mute despair. She
+felt a revival of her affections, her happy childish carelessness,
+which had been held in check by the hateful loneliness in which she
+lived. The certainty that she was loved by somebody, and that she was
+no longer alone in the world, enabled her to endure the persecutions
+of Justin and the Faubourg urchins. A song of joy, whose glad notes
+drowned their hootings, now sounded in her heart. She thought of her
+father with tender compassion, and did not now so frequently yield to
+dreams of bitter vengeance. Her dawning love cooled her feverish
+broodings like the fresh breezes of the dawn. At the same time she
+acquired the instinctive cunning of a young girl in love. She felt
+that she must maintain her usual silent and rebellious demeanour if
+she were to escape Justin's suspicions. But, in spite of her efforts,
+her eyes retained a sweet unruffled expression when the lad bullied
+her; she was no longer able to put on her old black look of indignant
+anger. One morning he heard her humming to herself at breakfast-time.
+
+"You seem very gay, Chantegreil!" he said to her suspiciously,
+glancing keenly at her from his lowering eyes. "I bet you've been up
+to some of your tricks again!"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, but she trembled inwardly; and she did all
+she could to regain her old appearance of rebellious martyrdom.
+However, though Justin suspected some secret happiness, it was long
+before he was able to discover how his victim had escaped him.
+
+Silvere, on his side, enjoyed profound happiness. His daily meetings
+with Miette made his idle hours pass pleasantly away. During his long
+silent companionship with aunt Dide, he recalled one by one his
+remembrances of the morning, revelling in their most trifling details.
+From that time forward, the fulness of his heart cloistered him yet
+more in the lonely existence which he had adopted with his
+grandmother. He was naturally fond of hidden spots, of solitary
+retirement, where he could give himself up to his thoughts. At this
+period already he had eagerly begun to read all the old odd volumes
+which he could pick up at brokers' shops in the Faubourg, and which
+were destined to lead him to a strange and generous social religion
+and morality. His reading--ill-digested and lacking all solid
+foundation--gave him glimpses of the world's vanities and pleasures,
+especially with regard to women, which would have seriously troubled
+his mind if his heart had not been contented. When Miette came, he
+received her at first as a companion, then as the joy and ambition of
+his life. In the evening, when he had retired to the little nook where
+he slept, and hung his lamp at the head of his strap-bedstead, he
+would find Miette on every page of the dusty old volume which he had
+taken at random from a shelf above his head and was reading devoutly.
+He never came across a young girl, a good and beautiful creature, in
+his reading, without immediately identifying her with his sweetheart.
+And he would set himself in the narrative as well. If he were reading
+a love story, it was he who married Miette at the end, or died with
+her. If, on the contrary, he were perusing some political pamphlet,
+some grave dissertation on social economy, works which he preferred to
+romances, for he had that singular partiality for difficult subjects
+which characterises persons of imperfect scholarship, he still found
+some means of associating her with the tedious themes which frequently
+he could not even understand. For instance, he tried to persuade
+himself that he was learning how to be good and kind to her when they
+were married. He thus associated her with all his visionary dreamings.
+Protected by the purity of his affection against the obscenity of
+certain eighteenth-century tales which fell into his hands, he found
+particular pleasure in shutting himself up with her in those
+humanitarian Utopias which some great minds of our own time,
+infatuated by visions of universal happiness have imagined. Miette, in
+his mind, became quite essential to the abolition of pauperism and the
+definitive triumph of the principles of the Revolution. There were
+nights of feverish reading, when his mind could not tear itself from
+his book, which he would lay down and take up at least a score of
+times, nights of voluptuous weariness which he enjoyed till daybreak
+like some secret orgie, cramped up in that tiny room, his eyes
+troubled by the flickering yellow light, while he yielded to the fever
+of insomnia and schemed out new social schemes of the most absurdly
+ingenuous nature, in which woman, always personified by Miette, was
+worshipped by the nations on their knees.
+
+He was predisposed to Utopian ideas by certain hereditary influences;
+his grandmother's nervous disorders became in him so much chronic
+enthusiasm, striving after everything that was grandiose and
+impossible. His lonely childhood, his imperfect education, had
+developed his natural tendencies in a singular manner. However, he had
+not yet reached the age when the fixed idea plants itself in a man's
+mind. In the morning, after he had dipped his head in a bucket of
+water, he remembered his thoughts and visions of the night but
+vaguely; nothing remained of his dreams save a childlike innocence,
+full of trustful confidence and yearning tenderness. He felt like a
+child again. He ran to the well, solely desirous of meeting his
+sweetheart's smile, and tasting the delights of the radiant morning.
+And during the day, when thoughts of the future sometimes made him
+silent and dreamy, he would often, prompted by some sudden impulse,
+spring up and kiss aunt Dide on both cheeks, whereat the old woman
+would gaze at him anxiously, perturbed at seeing his eyes so bright,
+and gleaming with a joy which she thought she could divine.
+
+At last, as time went on, Miette and Silvere began to tire of only
+seeing each other's reflection. The novelty of their play was gone,
+and now they began to dream of keener pleasures than the well could
+afford them. In this longing for reality which came upon them, there
+was the wish to see each other face to face, to run through the open
+fields, and return out of breath with their arms around each other's
+waist, clinging closely together in order that they might the better
+feel each other's love. One morning Silvere spoke of climbing over the
+wall, and walking in the Jas with Miette. But the child implored him
+not to perpetrate such folly, which would place her at Justin's mercy.
+He then promised to seek some other means.
+
+The wall in which the well was set made a sudden bend a few paces
+further on, thereby forming a sort of recess, where the lovers would
+be free from observation, if they were to take shelter there. The
+question was how to reach this recess. Silvere could no longer
+entertain the idea of climbing over, as Miette had appeared so afraid.
+He secretly thought of another plan. The little door which Macquart
+and Adelaide had set up one night long years previously had remained
+forgotten in this remote corner. The owner of the Jas-Meiffren had not
+even thought of blocking it up. Blackened by damp and green with moss,
+its lock and hinges eaten away with rust, it looked like a part of the
+old wall. Doubtless the key was lost; the grass growing beside the
+lower boards, against which slight mounds had formed, amply proved
+that no one had passed that way for many a long year. However, it was
+the lost key that Silvere hoped to find. He knew with what devotion
+his aunt Dide allowed the relics of the past to lie rotting wherever
+they might be. He searched the house for a week without any result,
+and went stealthily night by night to see if he had at last put his
+hand on the right key during the daytime. In this way he tried more
+than thirty keys which had doubtless come from the old property of the
+Fouques, and which he found all over the place, against the walls, on
+the floors, and at the bottom of drawers. He was becoming
+disheartened, when all at once he found the precious key. It was
+simply tied by a string to the street door latch-key, which always
+remained in the lock. It had hung there for nearly forty years. Aunt
+Dide must every day have touched it with her hand, without ever making
+up her mind to throw it away, although it could now only carry her
+back sorrowfully into the past. When Silvere had convinced himself
+that it really opened the little door, he awaited the ensuing day,
+dreaming of the joyful surprise which he was preparing for Miette. He
+had not told her for what he had been searching.
+
+On the morrow, as soon as he heard the girl set her pitcher down, he
+gently opened the door, sweeping away with a push the tall weeds which
+covered the threshold. Stretching out his head, he saw Miette leaning
+over the brink of the well, looking into the water, absorbed in
+expectation. Thereupon, in a couple of strides, he reached the recess
+formed by the wall, and thence called, "Miette! Miette!" in a soft
+voice, which made her tremble. She raised her head, thinking he was on
+the coping of the wall. But when she saw him in the Jas, at a few
+steps from her, she gave a faint cry of surprise, and ran up to him.
+They took each other's hand, and looked at one another, delighted to
+be so near, thinking themselves far handsomer like this, in the warm
+sunshine. It was the middle of August, the Feast of the Assumption. In
+the distance, the bells were pealing in the limpid atmosphere that so
+often accompanies great days of festival, an atmosphere full of bright
+gaiety.
+
+"Good morning, Silvere!"
+
+"Good morning, Miette!"
+
+The voices in which they exchanged their morning greetings sounded
+strange to them. They knew only the muffled accents transmitted by the
+echo of the well. And now their voices seemed to them as clear as the
+notes of a lark. And ah! how delightful it was in that warm corner, in
+that holiday atmosphere! They still held each other's hands. Silvere
+leaning against the wall, Miette with her figure slightly thrown
+backwards. They were about to tell each other all the soft things
+which they had not dared to confide to the reverberations of the well,
+when Silvere, hearing a slight noise, started, and, turning pale,
+dropped Miette's hands. He had just seen aunt Dide standing before him
+erect and motionless on the threshold of the doorway.
+
+The grandmother had come to the well by chance. And on perceiving, in
+the old black wall, the white gap formed by the doorway which Silvere
+had left wide open, she had experienced a violent shock. That open gap
+seemed to her like a gulf of light violently illumining her past. She
+once more saw herself running to the door amidst the morning
+brightness, and crossing the threshold full of the transports of her
+nervous love. And Macquart was there awaiting her. She hung upon his
+neck and pressed against his bosom, whilst the rising sun, following
+her through the doorway, which she had left open in her hurry,
+enveloped them with radiance. It was a sudden vision which roused her
+cruelly from the slumber of old age, like some supreme chastisement,
+and awakened a multitude of bitter memories within her. Had the well,
+had the entire wall, disappeared beneath the earth, she would not have
+been more stupefied. She had never thought that this door would open
+again. In her mind it had been walled up ever since the hour of
+Macquart's death. And amidst her amazement she felt angry, indignant
+with the sacrilegious hand that had penetrated this violation, and
+left that white open space agape like a yawning tomb. She stepped
+forward, yielding to a kind of fascination, and halted erect within
+the framework of the door.
+
+Then she gazed out before her, with a feeling of dolorous surprise.
+She had certainly been told that the old enclosure of the Fouques was
+now joined to the Jas-Meiffren; but she would never have thought the
+associations of her youth could have vanished so completely. It seemed
+as though some tempest had carried off everything that her memory
+cherished. The old dwelling, the large kitchen-garden, the beds of
+green vegetables, all had disappeared. Not a stone, not a tree of
+former times remained. And instead of the scene amidst which she had
+grown up, and which in her mind's eye she had seen but yesterday,
+there lay a strip of barren soil, a broad patch of stubbles, bare like
+a desert. Henceforward, when, on closing her eyes, she might try to
+recall the objects of the past, that stubble would always appear to
+her like a shroud of yellowish drugget spread over the soil, in which
+her youth lay buried. In the presence of that unfamiliar commonplace
+scene her heart died, as it were, a second time. Now all was
+completely, finally ended. She was robbed even of her dreams of the
+past. Then she began to regret that she had yielded to the attraction
+of that white opening, of that doorway gaping upon the days which were
+now for ever lost.
+
+She was about to retire and close the accursed door, without even
+seeking to discover who had opened it, when she suddenly perceived
+Miette and Silvere. And the sight of the two young lovers, who, with
+hanging heads, nervously awaited her glance, kept her on the
+threshold, quivering with yet keener pain. She now understood all. To
+the very end, she was destined to picture herself there, clasped in
+Macquart's arms in the bright sunshine. Yet a second time had the door
+served as an accomplice. Where love had once passed, there was it
+passing again. 'Twas the eternal and endless renewal, with present
+joys and future tears. Aunt Dide could only see the tears, and a
+sudden presentiment showed her the two children bleeding, with
+stricken hearts. Overwhelmed by the recollection of her life's sorrow,
+which this spot had just awakened within her, she grieved for her dear
+Silvere. She alone was guilty; if she had not formerly had that door
+made Silvere would not now be at a girl's feet in that lonely nook,
+intoxicating himself with a bliss which prompts and angers the
+jealousy of death.
+
+After a brief pause, she went up to the young man, and, without a
+word, took him by the hand. She might, perhaps, have left them there,
+chattering under the wall, had she not felt that she herself was, to
+some extent, an accomplice in this fatal love. As she came back with
+Silvere, she turned on hearing the light footfall of Miette, who,
+having quickly taken up her pitcher, was hastening across the stubble.
+She was running wildly, glad at having escaped so easily. And aunt
+Dide smiled involuntarily as she watched her bound over the ground
+like a runaway goat.
+
+"She is very young," she murmured, "she has plenty of time."
+
+She meant, no doubt, that Miette had plenty of time before her to
+suffer and weep. Then, turning her eyes upon Silvere, who with a
+glance of ecstasy had followed the child as she ran off in the bright
+sunshine, she simply added: "Take care, my boy; this sort of thing
+sometimes kills one."
+
+These were the only words she spoke with reference to the incident
+which had awakened all the sorrows that lay slumbering in the depths
+of her being. Silence had become a real religion with her. When
+Silvere came in, she double-locked the door, and threw the key down
+the well. In this wise she felt certain that the door would no longer
+make her an accomplice. She examined it for a moment, glad at seeing
+it reassume its usual gloomy, barrier-like aspect. The tomb was closed
+once more; the white gap was for ever boarded up with that damp-
+stained mossy timber over which the snails had shed silvery tears.
+
+In the evening, aunt Dide had another of those nervous attacks which
+came upon her at intervals. At these times she would often talk aloud
+and ramble incoherently, as though she was suffering from nightmare.
+That evening, while Silvere held her down on her bed, he heard her
+stammer in a panting voice such words as "custom-house officer,"
+"fire," and "murder." And she struggled, and begged for mercy, and
+dreamed aloud of vengeance. At last, as always happened when the
+attack was drawing to a close, she fell into a strange fright, her
+teeth chattering, while her limbs quivered with abject terror.
+Finally, after raising herself into a sitting posture, she cast a
+haggard look of astonishment at one and another corner of the room,
+and then fell back upon the pillow, heaving deep sighs. She was,
+doubtless, a prey to some hallucination. However, she drew Silvere to
+her bosom, and seemed to some degree to recognise him, though ever and
+anon she confused him with someone else.
+
+"There they are!" she stammered. "Do you see? They are going to take
+you, they will kill you again. I don't want them to-- Send them away,
+tell them I won't; tell them they are hurting me, staring at me like
+that--"
+
+Then she turned to the wall, to avoid seeing the people of whom she
+was talking. And after an interval of silence, she continued: "You are
+near me, my child, aren't you? You must not leave me. I thought I was
+going to die just now. We did wrong to make an opening in the wall. I
+have suffered ever since. I was certain that door would bring us
+further misfortune-- Oh! the innocent darlings, what sorrow! They will
+kill them as well, they will be shot down like dogs."
+
+Then she relapsed into catalepsy; she was no longer even aware of
+Silvere's presence. Suddenly, however, she sat up, and gazed at the
+foot of her bed, with a fearful expression of terror.
+
+"Why didn't you send them away?" she cried, hiding her white head
+against the young man's breast. "They are still there. The one with
+the gun is making signs that he is going to fire."
+
+Shortly afterwards she fell into the heavy slumber that usually
+terminated these attacks. On the next day, she seemed to have
+forgotten everything. She never again spoke to Silvere of the morning
+on which she had found him with a sweetheart behind the wall.
+
+The young people did not see each other for a couple of days. When
+Miette ventured to return to the well, they resolved not to recommence
+the pranks which had upset aunt Dide. However, the meeting which had
+been so strangely interrupted had filled them with a keen desire to
+meet again in some happy solitude. Weary of the delights afforded by
+the well, and unwilling to vex aunt Dide by seeing Miette again on the
+other side of the wall, Silvere begged the girl to meet him somewhere
+else. She required but little pressing; she received the proposal with
+the willing smile of a frolicsome lass who has no thought of evil.
+What made her smile was the idea of outwitting that spy of a Justin.
+When the lovers had come to agreement, they discussed at length the
+choice of a favourable spot. Silvere proposed the most impossible
+trysting-places. He planned regular journeys, and even suggested
+meeting the young girl at midnight in the barns of the Jas-Meiffren.
+Miette, who was much more practical, shrugged her shoulders, declaring
+she would try to think of some spot. On the morrow, she tarried but a
+minute at the well, just time enough to smile at Silvere and tell him
+to be at the far end of the Aire Saint-Mittre at about ten o'clock in
+the evening. One may be sure that the young man was punctual. All day
+long Miette's choice had puzzled him, and his curiosity increased when
+he found himself in the narrow lane formed by the piles of planks at
+the end of the plot of ground. "She will come this way," he said to
+himself, looking along the road to Nice. But he suddenly heard a loud
+shaking of boughs behind the wall, and saw a laughing head, with
+tumbled hair, appear above the coping, whilst a joyous voice called
+out: "It's me!"
+
+And it was, in fact, Miette, who had climbed like an urchin up one of
+the mulberry-trees, which even nowadays still border the boundary of
+the Jas-Meiffren. In a couple of leaps she reached the tombstone, half
+buried in the corner at the end of the lane. Silvere watched her
+descend with delight and surprise, without even thinking of helping
+her. As soon as she had alighted, however, he took both her hands in
+his, and said: "How nimble you are!--you climb better than I do."
+
+It was thus that they met for the first time in that hidden corner
+where they were destined to pass such happy hours. From that evening
+forward they saw each other there nearly every night. They now only
+used the well to warn each other of unforeseen obstacles to their
+meetings, of a change of time, and of all the trifling little news
+that seemed important in their eyes, and allowed of no delay. It
+sufficed for the one who had a communication to make to set the pulley
+in motion, for its creaking noise could be heard a long way off. But
+although, on certain days, they summoned one another two or three
+times in succession to speak of trifles of immense importance, it was
+only in the evening in that lonely little passage that they tasted
+real happiness. Miette was exceptionally punctual. She fortunately
+slept over the kitchen, in a room where the winter provisions had been
+kept before her arrival, and which was reached by a little private
+staircase. She was thus able to go out at all hours, without being
+seen by Rebufat or Justin. Moreover, if the latter should ever see her
+returning she intended to tell him some tale or other, staring at him
+the while with that stern look which always reduced him to silence.
+
+Ah! how happy those warm evenings were! The lovers had now reached the
+first days of September, a month of bright sunshine in Provence. It
+was hardly possible for them to join each other before nine o'clock.
+Miette arrived from over the wall, in surmounting which she soon
+acquired such dexterity that she was almost always on the old
+tombstone before Silvere had time to stretch out his arms. She would
+laugh at her own strength and agility as, for a moment, with her hair
+in disorder, she remained almost breathless, tapping her skirt to make
+it fall. Her sweetheart laughingly called her an impudent urchin. In
+reality he much admired her pluck. He watched her jump over the wall
+with the complacency of an older brother supervising the exercises of
+a younger one. Indeed, there was yet much that was childlike in their
+growing love. On several occasions they spoke of going on some bird's-
+nesting expedition on the banks of the Viorne.
+
+"You'll see how I can climb," said Miette proudly. "When I lived at
+Chavanoz, I used to go right up to the top of old Andre's walnut-
+trees. Have you ever taken a magpie's nest? It's very difficult!"
+
+Then a discussion arose as to how one ought to climb a poplar. Miette
+stated her opinions, with all a boy's confidence.
+
+However, Silvere, clasping her round the knees, had by this time
+lifted her to the ground, and then they would walk on, side by side,
+their arms encircling each other's waist. Though they were but
+children, fond of frolicsome play and chatter, and knew not even how
+to speak of love, yet they already partook of love's delight. It
+sufficed them to press each other's hands. Ignorant whither their
+feelings and their hearts were drifting, they did not seek to hide the
+blissful thrills which the slightest touch awoke. Smiling, often
+wondering at the delight they experienced, they yielded unconsciously
+to the sweetness of new feelings even while talking, like a couple of
+schoolboys, of the magpies' nests which are so difficult to reach.
+
+And as they talked they went down the silent path, between the piles
+of planks and the wall of the Jas-Meiffren. They never went beyond the
+end of that narrow blind alley, but invariably retraced their steps.
+They were quite at home there. Miette, happy in the knowledge of their
+safe concealment, would often pause and congratulate herself on her
+discovery.
+
+"Wasn't I lucky!" she would gleefully exclaim. "We might walk a long
+way without finding such a good hiding-place."
+
+The thick grass muffled the noise of their footsteps. They were
+steeped in gloom, shut in between two black walls, and only a strip of
+dark sky, spangled with stars, was visible above their heads. And as
+they stepped along, pacing this path which resembled a dark stream
+flowing beneath the black star-sprent sky, they were often thrilled
+with undefinable emotion, and lowered their voices, although there was
+nobody to hear them. Surrendering themselves as it were to the silent
+waves of night, over which they seemed to drift, they recounted to one
+another, with lovers' rapture, the thousand trifles of the day.
+
+At other times, on bright nights, when the moonlight clearly outlined
+the wall and the timber-stacks, Miette and Silvere would romp about
+with all the carelessness of children. The path stretched out, alight
+with white rays, and retaining no suggestion of secrecy, and the young
+people laughed and chased each other like boys at play, at times
+venturing even to climb upon the piles of timber. Silvere was
+occasionally obliged to frighten Miette by telling her that Justin
+might be watching her from over the wall. Then, quite out of breath,
+they would stroll side by side, and plan how they might some day go
+for a scamper in the Sainte-Claire meadows, to see which of the two
+would catch the other.
+
+Their growing love thus accommodated itself to dark and clear nights.
+Their hearts were ever on the alert, and a little shade sufficed to
+sweeten the pleasure of their embrace, and soften their laughter. This
+dearly-loved retreat--so gay in the moonshine, so strangely thrilling
+in the gloom--seemed an inexhaustible source of both gaiety and silent
+emotion. They would remain there until midnight, while the town
+dropped off to sleep and the lights in the windows of the Faubourg
+went out one by one.
+
+They were never disturbed in their solitude. At that late hour
+children were no longer playing at hide-and-seek behind the piles of
+planks. Occasionally, when the young couple heard sounds in the
+distance--the singing of some workmen as they passed along the road,
+or conversation coming from the neighbouring sidewalks--they would
+cast stealthy glances over the Aire Saint-Mittre. The timber-yard
+stretched out, empty of all, save here and there some falling shadows.
+On warm evenings they sometimes caught glimpses of loving couples
+there, and of old men sitting on the big beams by the roadside. When
+the evenings grew colder, all that they ever saw on the melancholy,
+deserted spot was some gipsy fire, before which, perhaps, a few black
+shadows passed to and fro. Through the still night air words and
+sundry faint sounds were wafted to them, the "good-night" of a
+townsman shutting his door, the closing of a window-shutter, the deep
+striking of a clock, all the parting sounds of a provincial town
+retiring to rest. And when Plassans was slumbering, they might still
+hear the quarrelling of the gipsies and the crackling of their fires,
+amidst which suddenly rose the guttural voices of girls singing in a
+strange tongue, full of rugged accents.
+
+But the lovers did not concern themselves much with what went on in
+the Aire Saint-Mittre; they hastened back into their own little
+privacy, and again walked along their favourite retired path. Little
+did they care for others, or for the town itself! The few planks which
+separated them from the wicked world seemed to them, after a while, an
+insurmountable rampart. They were so secluded, so free in this nook,
+situated though it was in the very midst of the Faubourg, at only
+fifty paces from the Rome Gate, that they sometimes fancied themselves
+far away in some hollow of the Viorne, with the open country around
+them. Of all the sounds which reached them, only one made them feel
+uneasy, that of the clocks striking slowly in the darkness. At times,
+when the hour sounded, they pretended not to hear, at other moments
+they stopped short as if to protest. However, they could not go on for
+ever taking just another ten minutes, and so the time came when they
+were at last obliged to say good-night. Then Miette reluctantly
+climbed upon the wall again. But all was not ended yet, they would
+linger over their leave-taking for a good quarter of an hour. When the
+girl had climbed upon the wall, she remained there with her elbows on
+the coping, and her feet supported by the branches of the mulberry-
+tree, which served her as a ladder. Silvere, perched on the tombstone,
+was able to take her hands again, and renew their whispered
+conversation. They repeated "till to-morrow!" a dozen times, and still
+and ever found something more to say. At last Silvere began to scold.
+
+"Come, you must get down, it is past midnight."
+
+But Miette, with a girl's waywardness, wished him to descend first;
+she wanted to see him go away. And as he persisted in remaining, she
+ended by saying abruptly, by way of punishment, perhaps: "Look! I am
+going to jump down."
+
+Then she sprang from the mulberry-tree, to the great consternation of
+Silvere. He heard the dull thud of her fall, and the burst of laughter
+with which she ran off, without choosing to reply to his last adieu.
+For some minutes he would remain watching her vague figure as it
+disappeared in the darkness, then, slowly descending, he regained the
+Impasse Saint-Mittre.
+
+During two years they came to the path every day. At the time of their
+first meetings they enjoyed some beautiful warm nights. They might
+almost have fancied themselves in the month of May, the month of
+seething sap, when a pleasant odour of earth and fresh leaves pervades
+the warm air. This /renouveau/, this second spring, was like a gift
+from heaven which allowed them to run freely about the path and
+tighten their bonds of affection.
+
+At last came rain, and snow, and frost. But the disagreeableness of
+winter did not keep them away. Miette put on her long brown pelisse,
+and they both made light of the bad weather. When the nights were dry
+and clear, and puffs of wind raised the hoar frost beneath their
+footsteps and fell on their faces like taps from a switch, they
+refrained from sitting down. They walked quickly to and fro, wrapped
+in the pelisse, their cheeks blue with cold, and their eyes watering;
+and they laughed heartily, quite quivering with mirth, at the rapidity
+of their march through the freezing atmosphere. One snowy evening they
+amused themselves with making an enormous snowball, which they rolled
+into a corner. It remained there fully a month, which caused them
+fresh astonishment each time they met in the path. Nor did the rain
+frighten them. They came to see each other through the heaviest
+downpours, though they got wet to the skin in doing so. Silvere would
+hasten to the spot, saying to himself that Miette would never be mad
+enough to come; and when Miette arrived, he could not find it in his
+heart to scold her. In reality he had been expecting her. At last he
+sought some shelter against the inclement weather, knowing quite well
+that they would certainly come out, however much they might promise
+one another not to do so when it rained. To find a shelter he only had
+to disturb one of the timber-stacks; pulling out several pieces of
+wood and arranging them so that they would move easily, in such wise
+that he could displace and replace them at pleasure.
+
+From that time forward the lovers possessed a sort of low and narrow
+sentry-box, a square hole, which was only big enough to hold them
+closely squeezed together on a beam which they had left at the bottom
+of the little cell. Whenever it rained, the first to arrive would take
+shelter here; and on finding themselves together again they would
+listen with delight to the rain beating on the piles of planks. Before
+and around them, through the inky blackness of the night, came a rush
+of water which they could not see, but which resounded continuously
+like the roar of a mob. They were nevertheless quite alone, as though
+they had been at the end of the world or beneath the sea. They never
+felt so happy, so isolated, as when they found themselves in that
+timber-stack, in the midst of some such deluge which threatened to
+carry them away at every moment. Their bent knees almost reached the
+opening, and though they thrust themselves back as far as possible,
+the spray of the rain bathed their cheeks and hands. The big drops,
+falling from the planks, splashed at regular intervals at their feet.
+The brown pelisse kept them warm, and the nook was so small that
+Miette was compelled to sit almost on Silvere's knees. And they would
+chatter and then lapse into silence, overcome with languor, lulled by
+the warmth of their embrace and the monotonous beating of the shower.
+For hours and hours they remained there, with that same enjoyment of
+the rain which prompts little children to stroll along solemnly in
+stormy weather with open umbrellas in their hands. After a while they
+came to prefer the rainy evenings, though their parting became more
+painful on those occasions. Miette was obliged to climb the wall in
+the driving rain, and cross the puddles of the Jas-Meiffren in perfect
+darkness. As soon as she had left his arms, she was lost to Silvere
+amidst the gloom and the noise of the falling water. In vain he
+listened, he was deafened, blinded. However, the anxiety caused by
+this brusque separation proved an additional charm, and, until the
+morrow, each would be uneasy lest anything should have befallen the
+other in such weather, when one would not even have turned a dog out
+of doors. Perchance one of them had slipped, or lost the way; such
+were the mutual fears which possessed them, and rendered their next
+interview yet more loving.
+
+At last the fine days returned, April brought mild nights, and the
+grass in the green alley sprouted up wildly. Amidst the stream of life
+flowing from heaven and rising from the earth, amidst all the
+intoxication of the budding spring-time, the lovers sometimes
+regretted their winter solitude, the rainy evenings and the freezing
+nights, during which they had been so isolated so far from all human
+sounds. At present the days did not draw to a close soon enough, and
+they grew impatient with the lagging twilights. When the night had
+fallen sufficiently for Miette to climb upon the wall without danger
+of being seen, and they could at last glide along their dear path,
+they no longer found there the solitude congenial to their shy,
+childish love. People began to flock to the Aire Saint-Mittre, the
+urchins of the Faubourg remained there, romping about the beams, and
+shouting, till eleven o'clock at night. It even happened occasionally
+that one of them would go and hide behind the piles of timber, and
+assail Miette and Silvere with boyish jeers. The fear of being
+surprised amidst that general awakening of life as the season
+gradually grew warmer, tinged their meetings with anxiety.
+
+Then, too, they began to stifle in the narrow lane. Never had it
+throbbed with so ardent a quiver; never had that soil, in which the
+last bones left of the former cemetery lay mouldering, sent forth such
+oppressive and disturbing odours. They were still too young to relish
+the voluptuous charm of that secluded nook which the springtide filled
+with fever. The grass grew to their knees, they moved to and fro with
+difficulty, and certain plants, when they crushed their young shoots,
+sent forth a pungent odour which made them dizzy. Then, seized with
+strange drowsiness and staggering with giddiness, their feet as though
+entangled in the grass, they would lean against the wall, with half-
+closed eyes, unable to move a step. All the soft languor from the
+skies seemed to penetrate them.
+
+With the petulance of beginners, impatient and irritated at this
+sudden faintness, they began to think their retreat too confined, and
+decided to ramble through the open fields. Every evening came fresh
+frolics. Miette arrived with her pelisse; they wrapped themselves in
+it, and then, gliding past the walls, reached the high-road and the
+open country, the broad fields where the wind rolled with full
+strength, like the waves at high tide. And here they no longer felt
+stifled; they recovered all their youthfulness, free from the giddy
+intoxication born of the tall rank weeds of the Aire Saint-Mittre.
+
+During two summers they rambled through the district. Every rock
+ledge, every bed of turf soon knew them; there was not a cluster of
+trees, a hedge, or a bush, which did not become their friend. They
+realized their dreams: they chased each other wildly over the meadows
+of Sainte-Claire, and Miette ran so well that Silvere had to put his
+best foot forward to catch her. Sometimes, too, they went in search of
+magpies' nests. Headstrong Miette, wishing to show how she had climbed
+trees at Chavanoz, would tie up her skirts with a piece of string, and
+ascend the highest poplars; while Silvere stood trembling beneath,
+with his arms outstretched to catch her should she slip. These frolics
+so turned them from thoughts of love that one evening they almost
+fought like a couple of lads coming out of school. But there were
+nooks in the country side which were not healthful for them. So long
+as they rambled on they were continually shouting with laughter,
+pushing and teasing one another. They covered miles and miles of
+ground; sometimes they went as far as the chain of the Garrigues,
+following the narrowest paths and cutting across the fields. The
+region belonged to them; they lived there as in a conquered territory,
+enjoying all that the earth and the sky could give them. Miette, with
+a woman's lack of scruple, did not hesitate to pluck a bunch of
+grapes, or a cluster of green almonds, from the vines and almond-trees
+whose boughs brushed her as she passed; and at this Silvere, with his
+absolute ideas of honesty, felt vexed, although he did not venture to
+find fault with the girl, whose occasional sulking distressed him.
+"Oh! the bad girl!" thought he, childishly exaggerating the matter,
+"she would make a thief of me." But Miette would thereupon force his
+share of the stolen fruit into his mouth. The artifices he employed,
+such as holding her round the waist, avoiding the fruit trees, and
+making her run after him when they were near the vines, so as to keep
+her out of the way of temptation, quickly exhausted his imagination.
+At last there was nothing to do but to make her sit down. And then
+they again began to experience their former stifling sensations. The
+gloomy valley of the Viorne particularly disturbed them. When
+weariness brought them to the banks of the torrent, all their childish
+gaiety seemed to disappear. A grey shadow floated under the willows,
+like the scented crape of a woman's dress. The children felt this
+crape descend warm and balmy from the voluptuous shoulders of the
+night, kiss their temples and envelop them with irresistible languor.
+In the distance the crickets chirped in the meadows of Sainte-Claire,
+and at their feet the ripples of the Viorne sounded like lovers'
+whispers--like the soft cooing of humid lips. The stars cast a rain of
+sparkles from the slumbering heavens. And, amidst the throbbing of the
+sky, the waters and the darkness, the children reposing on the grass
+sought each other's hands and pressed them.
+
+Silvere, who vaguely understood the danger of these ecstasies, would
+sometimes jump up and propose to cross over to one of the islets left
+by the low water in the middle of the stream. Both ventured forth,
+with bare feet. Miette made light of the pebbles, refusing Silvere's
+help, and it once happened that she sat down in the very middle of the
+stream; however, there were only a few inches of water, and she
+escaped with nothing worse than a wet petticoat. Then, having reached
+the island, they threw themselves on the long neck of sand, their eyes
+on a level with the surface of the river whose silvery scales they saw
+quivering far away in the clear night. Then Miette would declare that
+they were in a boat, that the island was certainly floating; she could
+feel it carrying her along. The dizziness caused by the rippling of
+the water amused them for a moment, and they lingered there, singing
+in an undertone, like boatmen as they strike the water with their
+oars. At other times, when the island had a low bank, they sat there
+as on a bed of verdure, and let their bare feet dangle in the stream.
+And then for hours they chatted together, swinging their legs, and
+splashing the water, delighted to set a tempest raging in the peaceful
+pool whose freshness cooled their fever.
+
+These footbaths suggested a dangerous idea to Miette. Nothing would
+satisfy her but a complete bath. A little above the bridge over the
+Viorne there was a very convenient spot, she said, barely three or
+four feet deep and quite safe; the weather was so warm, it would be so
+nice to have the water up to their necks; besides which, she had been
+dying to learn to swim for such a long time, and Silvere would be able
+to teach her. Silvere raised objections; it was not prudent at night
+time; they might be seen; perhaps, too they might catch cold. However,
+nothing could turn Miette from her purpose. One evening she came with
+a bathing costume which she had made out of an old dress; and Silvere
+was then obliged to go back to aunt Dide's for his bathing drawers.
+Their proceedings were characterised by great simplicity. Miette
+disrobed herself beneath the shade of a stout willow; and when both
+were ready, enveloped in the blackness which fell from the foliage
+around them, they gaily entered the cool water, oblivious of all
+previous scruples, and knowing in their innocence no sense of shame.
+They remained in the river quite an hour, splashing and throwing water
+into each other's faces; Miette now getting cross, now breaking out
+into laughter, while Silvere gave her her first lesson, dipping her
+head under every now and again so as to accustom her to the water. As
+long as he held her up she threw her arms and legs about violently,
+thinking she was swimming; but directly he let her go, she cried and
+struggled, striking the water with her outstretched hands, clutching
+at anything she could get hold of, the young man's waist or one of his
+wrists. She leant against him for an instant, resting, out of breath
+and dripping with water; and then she cried: "Once more; but you do it
+on purpose, you don't hold me."
+
+At the end of a fortnight, the girl was able to swim. With her limbs
+moving freely, rocked by the stream, playing with it, she yielded form
+and spirit alike to its soft motion, to the silence of the heavens,
+and the dreaminess of the melancholy banks. As she and Silvere swam
+noiselessly along, she seemed to see the foliage of both banks thicken
+and hang over them, draping them round as with a huge curtain. When
+the moon shone, its rays glided between the trunks of the trees, and
+phantoms seemed to flit along the river-side in white robes. Miette
+felt no nervousness, however, only an indefinable emotion as she
+followed the play of the shadows. As she went onward with slower
+motion, the calm water, which the moon converted into a bright mirror,
+rippled at her approach like a silver-broidered cloth; eddies widened
+and lost themselves amid the shadows of the banks, under the hanging
+willow branches, whence issued weird, plashing sounds. At every stroke
+she perceived recesses full of sound; dark cavities which she hastened
+to pass by; clusters and rows of trees, whose sombre masses were
+continually changing form, stretching forward and apparently following
+her from the summit of the bank. And when she threw herself on her
+back, the depths of the heavens affected her still more. From the
+fields, from the distant horizon, which she could no longer see, a
+solemn lingering strain, composed of all the sighs of the night, was
+wafted to her.
+
+She was not of a dreamy nature; it was physically, through the medium
+of each of her senses, that she derived enjoyment from the sky, the
+river, and the play of light and shadow. The river, in particular,
+bore her along with endless caresses. When she swam against the
+current she was delighted to feel the stream flow rapidly against her
+bosom and limbs. She dipped herself in it yet more deeply, with the
+water reaching to her lips, so that it might pass over her shoulders,
+and envelop her, from chin to feet, with flying kisses. Then she would
+float, languid and quiescent, on the surface, whilst the ripples
+glided softly between her costume and her skin. And she would also
+roll over in the still pools like a cat on a carpet; and swim from the
+luminous patches where the moonbeams were bathing, to the dark water
+shaded by the foliage, shivering the while, as though she had quitted
+a sunny plain and then felt the cold from the boughs falling on her
+neck.
+
+She now remained quite silent in the water, and would not allow
+Silvere to touch her. Gliding softly by his side, she swam on with the
+light rustling of a bird flying across the copse, or else she would
+circle round him, a prey to vague disquietude which she did not
+comprehend. He himself darted quickly away if he happened to brush
+against her. The river was now but a source of enervating
+intoxication, voluptuous languor, which disturbed them strangely. When
+they emerged from their bath they felt dizzy, weary, and drowsy.
+Fortunately, the girl declared one evening that she would bathe no
+more, as the cold water made the blood run to her head. And it was in
+all truth and innocence that she said this.
+
+Then their long conversations began anew. The dangers to which the
+innocence of their love had lately been exposed had left no other
+trace in Silvere's mind than great admiration for Miette's physical
+strength. She had learned to swim in a fortnight, and often, when they
+raced together, he had seen her stem the current with a stroke as
+rapid as his own. He, who delighted in strength and bodily exercises,
+felt a thrill of pleasure at seeing her so strong, so active and
+adroit. He entertained at heart a singular admiration for her stout
+arms. One evening, after one of the first baths that had left them so
+playful, they caught each other round the waist on a strip of sand,
+and wrestled for several minutes without Silvere being able to throw
+Miette. At last, indeed, it was the young man who lost his balance,
+while the girl remained standing. Her sweetheart treated her like a
+boy, and it was those long rambles of theirs, those wild races across
+the meadows, those birds' nests filched from the tree crests, those
+struggles and violent games of one and another kind that so long
+shielded them and their love from all impurity.
+
+Then, too, apart from his youthful admiration for his sweetheart's
+dashing pluck, Silvere felt for her all the compassionate tenderness
+of a heart that ever softened towards the unfortunate. He, who could
+never see any forsaken creature, a poor man, or a child, walking
+barefooted along the dusty roads, without a throb of pity, loved
+Miette because nobody else loved her, because she virtually led an
+outcast's hard life. When he saw her smile he was deeply moved by the
+joy he brought her. Moreover, the child was a wildling, like himself,
+and they were of the same mind in hating all the gossips of the
+Faubourg. The dreams in which Silvere indulged in the daytime, while
+he plied his heavy hammer round the cartwheels in his master's shop,
+were full of generous enthusiasm. He fancied himself Miette's
+redeemer. All his reading rushed to his head; he meant to marry his
+sweetheart some day, in order to raise her in the eyes of the world.
+It was like a holy mission that he imposed upon himself, that of
+redeeming and saving the convict's daughter. And his head was so full
+of certain theories and arguments, that he did not tell himself these
+things in simple fashion, but became lost in perfect social mysticism;
+imagining rehabilitation in the form of an apotheosis in which he
+pictured Miette seated on a throne, at the end of the Cours Sauvaire,
+while the whole town prostrated itself before her, entreating her
+pardon and singing her praises. Happily he forgot all these fine
+things as soon as Miette jumped over the wall, and said to him on the
+high road: "Let us have a race! I'm sure you won't catch me."
+
+However, if the young man dreamt like this of the glorification of his
+sweetheart, he also showed such passion for justice that he often made
+her weep on speaking to her about her father. In spite of the
+softening effect which Silvere's friendship had had upon her, she
+still at times gave way to angry outbreaks of temper, when all the
+stubbornness and rebellion latent in her nature stiffened her with
+scowling eyes and tightly-drawn lips. She would then contend that her
+father had done quite right to kill the gendarme, that the earth
+belongs to everybody, and that one has the right to fire a gun when
+and where one likes. Thereupon Silvere, in a grave voice, explained
+the law to her as he understood it, with strange commentaries which
+would have startled the whole magistracy of Plassans. These
+discussions took place most often in some remote corner of the Sainte-
+Claire meadows. The grassy carpet of a dusky green hue stretched
+further than they could see, undotted even by a single tree, and the
+sky seemed colossal, spangling the bare horizon with the stars. It
+seemed to the young couple as if they were being rocked on a sea of
+verdure. Miette argued the point obstinately; she asked Silvere if her
+father should have let the gendarme kill him, and Silvere, after a
+momentary silence, replied that, in such a case, it was better to be
+the victim than the murderer, and that it was a great misfortune for
+anyone to kill a fellow man, even in legitimate defence. The law was
+something holy to him, and the judges had done right in sending
+Chantegreil to the galleys. At this the girl grew angry, and almost
+struck her sweetheart, crying out that he was as heartless as the
+rest. And as he still firmly defended his ideas of justice, she
+finished by bursting into sobs, and stammering that he was doubtless
+ashamed of her, since he was always reminding her of her father's
+crime. These discussions ended in tears, in mutual emotion. But
+although the child cried, and acknowledged that she was perhaps wrong,
+she still retained deep within her a wild resentful temper. She once
+related, with hearty laughter, that she had seen a gendarme fall off
+his horse and break his leg. Apart from this, Miette only lived for
+Silvere. When he asked her about her uncle and cousin, she replied
+that "She did not know;" and if he pressed her, fearing that they were
+making her too unhappy at the Jas-Meiffren, she simply answered that
+she worked hard, and that nothing had changed. She believed, however,
+that Justin had at last found out what made her sing in the morning,
+and filled her eyes with delight. But she added: "What does it matter?
+If ever he comes to disturb us we'll receive him in such a way that he
+won't be in a hurry to meddle with our affairs any more."
+
+Now and again the open country, their long rambles in the fresh air,
+wearied them somewhat. They then invariably returned to the Aire
+Saint-Mittre, to the narrow lane, whence they had been driven by the
+noisy summer evenings, the pungent scent of the trodden grass, all the
+warm oppressive emanations. On certain nights, however, the path
+proved cooler, and the winds freshened it so that they could remain
+there without feeling faint. They then enjoyed a feeling of delightful
+repose. Seated on the tombstone, deaf to the noise of the children and
+gipsies, they felt at home again. Silvere had on various occasions
+picked up fragments of bones, even pieces of skulls, and they were
+fond of speaking of the ancient burial-ground. It seemed to them, in
+their lively fancies, that their love had shot up like some vigorous
+plant in this nook of soil which dead men's bones had fertilised. It
+had grown, indeed, like those wild weeds, it had blossomed as blossom
+the poppies which sway like bare bleeding hearts at the slightest
+breeze. And they ended by fancying that the warm breaths passing over
+them, the whisperings heard in the gloom, the long quivering which
+thrilled the path, came from the dead folk sighing their departed
+passions in their faces, telling them the stories of their bridals, as
+they turned restlessly in their graves, full of a fierce longing to
+live and love again. Those fragments of bone, they felt convinced of
+it, were full of affection for them; the shattered skulls grew warm
+again by contact with their own youthful fire, the smallest particles
+surrounded them with passionate whispering, anxious solicitude,
+throbbing jealousy. And when they departed, the old burial-ground
+seemed to groan. Those weeds, in which their entangled feet often
+stumbled on sultry nights, were fingers, tapered by tomb life, that
+sprang up from the earth to detain them and cast them into each
+other's arms. That pungent and penetrating odour exhaled by the broken
+stems was the fertilising perfume, the mighty quintessence of life
+which is slowly elaborated in the grave, and intoxicates the lovers
+who wander in the solitude of the paths. The dead, the old departed
+dead, longed for the bridal of Miette and Silvere.
+
+They were never afraid. The sympathy which seemed to hover around them
+thrilled them and made them love the invisible beings whose soft touch
+they often imagined they could feel, like a gentle flapping of wings.
+Sometimes they were saddened by sweet melancholy, and could not
+understand what the dead desired of them. They went on basking in
+their innocent love, amidst this flood of sap, this abandoned
+cemetery, whose rich soil teemed with life, and imperiously demanded
+their union. They still remained ignorant of the meaning of the
+buzzing voices which they heard ringing in their ears, the sudden glow
+which sent the blood flying to their faces.
+
+They often questioned each other about the remains which they
+discovered. Miette, after a woman's fashion, was partial to lugubrious
+subjects. At each new discovery she launched into endless
+suppositions. If the bone were small, she spoke of some beautiful girl
+a prey to consumption, or carried off by fever on the eve of her
+marriage; if the bone were large, she pictured some big old man, a
+soldier or a judge, some one who had inspired others with terror. For
+a long time the tombstone particularly engaged their attention. One
+fine moonlight night Miette distinguished some half-obliterated
+letters on one side of it, and thereupon she made Silvere scrape the
+moss away with his knife. Then they read the mutilated inscription:
+"Here lieth . . . Marie . . . died . . ." And Miette, finding her own
+name on the stone, was quite terror-stricken. Silvere called her a
+"big baby," but she could not restrain her tears. She had received a
+stab in the heart, she said; she would soon die, and that stone was
+meant for her. The young man himself felt alarmed. However, he
+succeeded in shaming the child out of these thoughts. What! she so
+courageous, to dream about such trifles! They ended by laughing. Then
+they avoided speaking of it again. But in melancholy moments, when the
+cloudy sky saddened the pathway, Miette could not help thinking of
+that dead one, that unknown Marie, whose tomb had so long facilitated
+their meetings. The poor girl's bones were perhaps still lying there.
+And at this thought Miette one evening had a strange whim, and asked
+Silvere to turn the stone over to see what might be under it. He
+refused, as though it were sacrilege, and his refusal strengthened
+Miette's fancies with regard to the dear phantom which bore her name.
+She positively insisted that the girl had died young, as she was, and
+in the very midst of her love. She even began to pity the stone, that
+stone which she climbed so nimbly, and on which they had sat so often,
+a stone which death had chilled, and which their love had warmed
+again.
+
+"You'll see, this tombstone will bring us misfortune," she added. "If
+you were to die, I should come and lie here, and then I should like to
+have this stone set over my body."
+
+At this, Silvere, choking with emotion, scolded her for thinking of
+such mournful things.
+
+And so, for nearly two years, their love grew alike in the narrow
+pathway and the open country. Their idyll passed through the chilling
+rains of December and the burning solicitations of July, free from all
+touch of impurity, ever retaining the sweet charm of some old Greek
+love-tale, all the naive hesitancy of youth which desires but knows
+not. In vain did the long-departed dead whisper in their ears. They
+carried nothing away from the old cemetery but emotional melancholy
+and a vague presentiment of a short life. A voice seemed to whisper to
+them that they would depart amidst their virginal love, long ere the
+bridal day would give them wholly to each other. It was there, on the
+tombstone and among the bones that lay hidden beneath the rank grass,
+that they had first come to indulge in that longing for death, that
+eager desire to sleep together in the earth, that now set them
+stammering and sighing beside the Orcheres road, on that December
+night, while the two bells repeated their mournful warnings to one
+another.
+
+Miette was sleeping calmly, with her head resting on Silvere's chest
+while he mused upon their past meeting, their lovely years of unbroken
+happiness. At daybreak the girl awoke. The valley now spread out
+clearly under the bright sky. The sun was still behind the hills, but
+a stream of crystal light, limpid and cold as spring-water, flowed
+from the pale horizon. In the distance, the Viorne, like a white satin
+ribbon, disappeared among an expanse of red and yellow land. It was a
+boundless vista, with grey seas of olive-trees, and vineyards that
+looked like huge pieces of striped cloth. The whole country was
+magnified by the clearness of the atmosphere and the peaceful cold.
+However, sharp gusts of wind chilled the young people's faces. And
+thereupon they sprang to their feet, cheered by the sight of the clear
+morning. Their melancholy forebodings had vanished with the darkness,
+and they gazed with delight at the immense expanse of the plain, and
+listened to the tolling of the two bells that now seemed to be
+joyfully ringing in a holiday.
+
+"Ah! I've had a good sleep!" Miette cried. "I dreamt you were kissing
+me. Tell me now, did you kiss me?"
+
+"It's very possible," Silvere replied laughing. "I was not very warm.
+It is bitterly cold."
+
+"I only feel cold in the feet," Miette rejoined.
+
+"Well! let us have a run," said Silvere. "We have still two good
+leagues to go. You will get warm."
+
+Thereupon they descended the hill and ran until they reached the high
+road. When they were below they raised their heads as if to say
+farewell to that rock on which they had wept while their kisses burned
+their lips. But they did not again speak of that ardent embrace which
+had thrilled them so strongly with vague, unknown desire. Under the
+pretext of walking more quickly they did not even take each other's
+arm. They experienced some slight confusion when they looked at one
+another, though why they could not tell. Meantime the dawn was rising
+around them. The young man, who had sometimes been sent to Orcheres by
+his master, knew all the shortest cuts. Thus they walked on for more
+than two leagues, along dingle paths by the side of interminable
+ledges and walls. Now and again Miette accused Silvere of having taken
+her the wrong way; for, at times--for a quarter of an hour at a
+stretch--they lost all sight of the surrounding country, seeing above
+the walls and hedges nothing but long rows of almond-trees whose
+slender branches showed sharply against the pale sky.
+
+All at once, however, they came out just in front of Orcheres. Loud
+cries of joy, the shouting of a crowd, sounded clearly in the limpid
+air. The insurrectionary forces were only now entering the town.
+Miette and Silvere went in with the stragglers. Never had they seen
+such enthusiasm. To judge from the streets, one would have thought it
+was a procession day, when the windows are decked with the finest
+drapery to honour the passage of the Canopy. The townsfolk welcomed
+the insurgents as though they were deliverers. The men embraced them,
+while the women brought them food. Old men were to be seen weeping at
+the doors. And the joyousness was of an essentially Southern
+character, pouring forth in clamorous fashion, in singing, dancing,
+and gesticulation. As Miette passed along she was carried away by a
+/farandole/[*] which spread whirling all round the Grand' Place.
+Silvere followed her. His thoughts of death and his discouragement
+were now far away. He wanted to fight, to sell his life dearly at
+least. The idea of a struggle intoxicated him afresh. He dreamed of
+victory to be followed by a happy life with Miette, amidst the
+peacefulness of the universal Republic.
+
+[*] The /farandole/ is the popular dance of Provence.
+
+The fraternal reception accorded them by the inhabitants of Orcheres
+proved to be the insurgents' last delight. They spent the day amidst
+radiant confidence and boundless hope. The prisoners, Commander
+Sicardot, Messieurs Garconnet, Peirotte and the others, who had been
+shut up in one of the rooms at the mayor's, the windows of which
+overlooked the Grand' Place, watched the /farandoles/ and wild
+outbursts of enthusiasm with surprise and dismay.
+
+"The villains!" muttered the Commander, leaning upon a window-bar, as
+though bending over the velvet-covered hand-rest of a box at a
+theatre: "To think that there isn't a battery or two to make a clean
+sweep of all that rabble!"
+
+Then he perceived Miette, and addressing himself to Monsieur
+Garconnet, he added: "Do you see, sir, that big girl in red over
+yonder? How disgraceful! They've even brought their mistresses with
+them. If this continues much longer we shall see some fine goings-on."
+
+Monsieur Garconnet shook his head, saying something about "unbridled
+passions," and "the most evil days of history." Monsieur Peirotte, as
+white as a sheet, remained silent; he only opened his lips once, to
+say to Sicardot, who was still bitterly railing: "Not so loud, sir;
+not so loud! You will get us all massacred."
+
+As a matter of fact, the insurgents treated the gentlemen with the
+greatest kindness. They even provided them with an excellent dinner in
+the evening. Such attentions, however, were terrifying to such a
+quaker as the receiver of taxes; the insurgents he thought would not
+treat them so well unless they wished to make them fat and tender for
+the day when they might wish to devour them.
+
+At dusk that day Silvere came face to face with his cousin, Doctor
+Pascal. The latter had followed the band on foot, chatting with the
+workmen who held him in the greatest respect. At first he had striven
+to dissuade them from the struggle; and then, as if convinced by their
+arguments, he had said to them with his kindly smile: "Well, perhaps
+you are right, my friends; fight if you like, I shall be here to patch
+up your arms and legs."
+
+Then, in the morning he began to gather pebbles and plants along the
+high road. He regretted that he had not brought his geologist's hammer
+and botanical wallet with him. His pockets were now so full of stones
+that they were almost bursting, while bundles of long herbs peered
+forth from the surgeon's case which he carried under his arm.
+
+"Hallo! You here, my lad?" he cried, as he perceived Silvere. "I
+thought I was the only member of the family here."
+
+He spoke these last words with a touch of irony, as if deriding the
+intrigues of his father and his uncle Antoine. Silvere was very glad
+to meet his cousin; the doctor was the only one of the Rougons who
+ever shook hands with him in the street, and showed him any sincere
+friendship. Seeing him, therefore, still covered with dust from the
+march, the young man thought him gained over to the Republican cause,
+and was much delighted thereat. He talked to the doctor, with youthful
+magniloquence, of the people's rights, their holy cause, and their
+certain triumph. Pascal smiled as he listened, and watched the youth's
+gestures and the ardent play of his features with curiosity, as though
+he were studying a patient, or analysing an enthusiasm, to ascertain
+what might be at the bottom of it.
+
+"How you run on! How you run on!" he finally exclaimed. "Ah! you are
+your grandmother's true grandson." And, in a whisper, he added, like
+some chemist taking notes: "Hysteria or enthusiasm, shameful madness
+or sublime madness. It's always those terrible nerves!" Then, again
+speaking aloud, as if summing up the matter, he said: "The family is
+complete now. It will count a hero among its members."
+
+Silvere did not hear him. He was still talking of his dear Republic.
+Miette had dropped a few paces off; she was still wrapped in her large
+red pelisse. She and Silvere had traversed the town arm-in-arm. The
+sight of this tall red girl at last puzzled Pascal, and again
+interrupting his cousin, he asked him: "Who is this child with you?"
+
+"She is my wife," Silvere gravely answered.
+
+The doctor opened his eyes wide, for he did not understand. He was
+very shy with women; however, he raised his hat to Miette as he went
+away.
+
+The night proved an anxious one. Forebodings of misfortune swept over
+the insurgents. The enthusiasm and confidence of the previous evening
+seemed to die away in the darkness. In the morning there were gloomy
+faces; sad looks were exchanged, followed by discouraging silence.
+Terrifying rumours were now circulating. Bad news, which the leaders
+had managed to conceal the previous evening, had spread abroad, though
+nobody in particular was known to have spoken. It was the work of that
+invisible voice, which, with a word, throws a mob into a panic.
+According to some reports Paris was subdued, and the provinces had
+offered their hands and feet, eager to be bound. And it was added that
+a large party of troops, which had left Marseilles under the command
+of Colonel Masson and Monsieur de Bleriot, the prefect of the
+department, was advancing by forced marches to disperse the
+insurrectionary bands. This news came like a thunderbolt, at once
+awakening rage and despair. These men, who on the previous evening had
+been all aglow with patriotic fever, now shivered with cold, chilled
+to their hearts by the shameful submissiveness of prostrate France.
+They alone, then, had had the courage to do their duty! And now they
+were to be left to perish amidst the general panic, the death-like
+silence of the country; they had become mere rebels, who would be
+hunted down like wild beasts; they, who had dreamed of a great war, of
+a whole nation in revolt, and of the glorious conquest of the people's
+rights! Miserably baffled and betrayed, this handful of men could but
+weep for their dead faith and their vanished dreams of justice. There
+were some who, while taunting France with her cowardice, flung away
+their arms, and sat down by the roadside, declaring that they would
+there await the bullets of the troops, and show how Republicans could
+die.
+
+Although these men had nothing now but death or exile before them,
+there were very few desertions from their ranks. A splendid feeling of
+solidarity kept them together. Their indignation turned chiefly
+against their leaders, who had really proved incapable. Irreparable
+mistakes had been committed; and now the insurgents, without order or
+discipline, barely protected by a few sentries, and under the command
+of irresolute men, found themselves at the mercy of the first soldiers
+that might arrive.
+
+They spent two more days at Orcheres, Tuesday and Wednesday, thus
+losing time and aggravating the situation. The general, the man with
+the sabre, whom Silvere had pointed out to Miette on the Plassans
+road, vacillated and hesitated under the terrible responsibility that
+weighed upon him. On Thursday he came to the conclusion that the
+position of Orcheres was a decidedly dangerous one; so towards one
+o'clock he gave orders to march, and led his little army to the
+heights of Sainte-Roure. That was, indeed, an impregnable position for
+any one who knew how to defend it. The houses of Sainte-Roure rise in
+tiers along a hill-side; behind the town all approach is shut off by
+enormous rocks, so that this kind of citadel can only be reached by
+the Nores plain, which spreads out at the foot of the plateau. An
+esplanade, converted into a public walk planted with magnificent elms,
+overlooks the plain. It was on this esplanade that the insurgents
+encamped. The hostages were imprisoned in the Hotel de la Mule-
+Blanche, standing half-way along the promenade. The night passed away
+heavy and black. The insurgents spoke of treachery. As soon as it was
+morning, however, the man with the sabre, who had neglected to take
+the simplest precautions, reviewed the troops. The contingents were
+drawn up in line with their backs turned to the plain. They presented
+a wonderful medley of costume, some wearing brown jackets, others dark
+greatcoats, and others again blue blouses girded with red sashes.
+Moreover, their arms were an equally odd collection: there were newly
+sharpened scythes, large navvies' spades, and fowling-pieces with
+burnished barrels glittering in the sunshine. And at the very moment
+when the improvised general was riding past the little army, a sentry,
+who had been forgotten in an olive-plantation, ran up gesticulating
+and shouting:
+
+"The soldiers! The soldiers!"
+
+There was indescribable emotion. At first, they thought it a false
+alarm. Forgetting all discipline, they rushed forward to the end of
+the esplanade in order to see the soldiers. The ranks were broken, and
+as the dark line of troops appeared, marching in perfect order with a
+long glitter of bayonets, on the other side of the greyish curtain of
+olive trees, there came a hasty and disorderly retreat, which sent a
+quiver of panic to the other end of the plateau. Nevertheless, the
+contingents of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx had again formed in
+line in the middle of the promenade, and stood there erect and fierce.
+A wood-cutter, who was a head taller than any of his companions,
+shouted, as he waved his red neckerchief: "To arms, Chavanoz, Graille,
+Poujols, Saint-Eutrope! To arms, Les Tulettes! To arms, Plassans!"
+
+Crowds streamed across the esplanade. The man with the sabre,
+surrounded by the folks from Faverolles, marched off with several of
+the country contingents--Vernoux, Corbiere, Marsanne, and Pruinas--to
+outflank the enemy and then attack him. Other contingents, from
+Valqueyras, Nazere, Castel-le-Vieux, Les Roches-Noires, and Murdaran,
+dashed to the left, scattering themselves in skirmishing parties over
+the Nores plain.
+
+And meantime the men of the towns and villages that the wood-cutter
+had called to his aid mustered together under the elms, there forming
+a dark irregular mass, grouped without regard to any of the rules of
+strategy, simply placed there like a rock, as it were, to bar the way
+or die. The men of Plassans stood in the middle of this heroic
+battalion. Amid the grey hues of the blouses and jackets, and the
+bluish glitter of the weapons, the pelisse worn by Miette, who was
+holding the banner with both hands, looked like a large red splotch--a
+fresh and bleeding wound.
+
+All at once perfect silence fell. Monsieur Peirotte's pale face
+appeared at a window of the Hotel de la Mule-Blanche. And he began to
+speak, gesticulating with his hands.
+
+"Go in, close the shutters," the insurgents furiously shouted; "you'll
+get yourself killed."
+
+Thereupon the shutters were quickly closed, and nothing was heard save
+the regular, rhythmical tramp of the soldiers who were drawing near.
+
+A minute, that seemed an age, went by. The troops had disappeared,
+hidden by an undulation of the ground; but over yonder, on the side of
+the Nores plain, the insurgents soon perceived the bayonets shooting
+up, one after another, like a field of steel-eared corn under the
+rising sun. At that moment Silvere, who was glowing with feverish
+agitation, fancied he could see the gendarme whose blood had stained
+his hands. He knew, from the accounts of his companions, that Rengade
+was not dead, that he had only lost an eye; and he clearly
+distinguished the unlucky man with his empty socket bleeding horribly.
+The keen recollection of this gendarme, to whom he had not given a
+thought since his departure from Plassans, proved unbearable. He was
+afraid that fear might get the better of him, and he tightened his
+hold on his carbine, while a mist gathered before his eyes. He felt a
+longing to discharge his gun and fire at the phantom of that one-eyed
+man so as to drive it away. Meantime the bayonets were still and ever
+slowly ascending.
+
+When the heads of the soldiers appeared on a level with the esplanade,
+Silvere instinctively turned to Miette. She stood there with flushed
+face, looking taller than ever amidst the folds of the red banner; she
+was indeed standing on tiptoes in order to see the troops, and nervous
+expectation made her nostrils quiver and her red lips part so as to
+show her white, eager, gleaming teeth. Silvere smiled at her. But he
+had scarcely turned his head when a fusillade burst out. The soldiers,
+who could only be seen from their shoulders upwards, had just fired
+their first volley. It seemed to Silvere as though a great gust of
+wind was passing over his head, while a shower of leaves, lopped off
+by the bullets, fell from the elms. A sharp sound, like the snapping
+of a dead branch, made him look to his right. Then, prone on the
+ground, he saw the big wood-cutter, he who was a head taller than the
+others. There was a little black hole in the middle of his forehead.
+And thereupon Silvere fired straight before him, without taking aim,
+reloaded and fired again like a madman or an unthinking wild beast, in
+haste only to kill. He could not even distinguish the soldiers now;
+smoke, resembling strips of grey muslin, was floating under the elms.
+The leaves still rained upon the insurgents, for the troops were
+firing too high. Every now and then, athwart the fierce crackling of
+the fusillade, the young man heard a sigh or a low rattle, and a rush
+was made among the band as if to make room for some poor wretch
+clutching hold of his neighbours as he fell. The firing lasted ten
+minutes.
+
+Then, between two volleys some one exclaimed in a voice of terror:
+"Every man for himself! /Sauve qui peut!/" This roused shouts and
+murmurs of rage, as if to say, "The cowards! Oh! the cowards!"
+sinister rumours were spreading--the general had fled; cavalry were
+sabring the skirmishers in the Nores plain. However, the irregular
+firing did not cease, every now and again sudden bursts of flame sped
+through the clouds of smoke. A gruff voice, the voice of terror,
+shouted yet louder: "Every man for himself! /Sauve qui peut!/" Some
+men took to flight, throwing down their weapons and leaping over the
+dead. The others closed their ranks. At last there were only some ten
+insurgents left. Two more took to flight, and of the remaining eight
+three were killed at one discharge.
+
+The two children had remained there mechanically without understanding
+anything. As the battalion diminished in numbers, Miette raised the
+banner still higher in the air; she held it in front of her with
+clenched fists as if it were a huge taper. It was completely riddled
+by bullets. When Silvere had no more cartridges left in his pocket, he
+ceased firing, and gazed at the carbine with an air of stupor. It was
+then that a shadow passed over his face, as though the flapping wings
+of some colossal bird had brushed against his forehead. And raising
+his eyes he saw the banner fall from Miette's grasp. The child, her
+hands clasped to her breast, her head thrown back with an expression
+of excruciating suffering, was staggering to the ground. She did not
+utter a single cry, but sank at last upon the red banner.
+
+"Get up; come quickly," Silvere said, in despair, as he held out his
+hand to her.
+
+But she lay upon the ground without uttering a word, her eyes wide
+open. Then he understood, and fell on his knees beside her.
+
+"You are wounded, eh? tell me? Where are you wounded?"
+
+She still spoke no word; she was stifling, and gazing at him out of
+her large eyes, while short quivers shook her frame. Then he pulled
+away her hands.
+
+"It's there, isn't it? it's there."
+
+And he tore open her bodice, and laid her bosom bare. He searched, but
+saw nothing. His eyes were brimming with tears. At last under the left
+breast he perceived a small pink hole; a single drop of blood stained
+the wound.
+
+"It's nothing," he whispered; "I'll go and find Pascal, he'll put you
+all right again. If you could only get up. Can't you move?"
+
+The soldiers were not firing now; they had dashed to the left in
+pursuit of the contingents led away by the man with the sabre. And in
+the centre of the esplanade there only remained Silvere kneeling
+beside Miette's body. With the stubbornness of despair, he had taken
+her in his arms. He wanted to set her on her feet, but such a quiver
+of pain came upon the girl that he laid her down again, and said to
+her entreatingly: "Speak to me, pray. Why don't you say something to
+me?"
+
+She could not; she slowly, gently shook her hand, as if to say that it
+was not her fault. Her close-pressed lips were already contracting
+beneath the touch of death. With her unbound hair streaming around
+her, and her head resting amid the folds of the blood-red banner, all
+her life now centred in her eyes, those black eyes glittering in her
+white face. Silvere sobbed. The glance of those big sorrowful eyes
+filled him with distress. He read in them bitter, immense regret for
+life. Miette was telling him that she was going away all alone, and
+before their bridal day; that she was leaving him ere she had become
+his wife. She was telling him, too, that it was he who had willed that
+it should be so, that he should have loved her as other lovers love
+their sweethearts. In the hour of her agony, amidst that stern
+conflict between death and her vigorous nature, she bewailed her fate
+in going like that to the grave. Silvere, as he bent over her,
+understood how bitter was the pang. He recalled their caresses, how
+she had hung round his neck, and had yearned for his love, but he had
+not understood, and now she was departing from him for evermore.
+Bitterly grieved at the thought that throughout her eternal rest she
+would remember him solely as a companion and playfellow, he kissed her
+on the bosom while his hot tears fell upon her lips. Those passionate
+kisses brought a last gleam of joy to Miette's eyes. They loved one
+another, and their idyll ended in death.
+
+But Silvere could not believe she was dying. "No, you will see, it
+will prove only a trifle," he declared. "Don't speak if it hurts you.
+Wait, I will raise your head and then warm you; your hands are quite
+frozen."
+
+But the fusillade had begun afresh, this time on the left, in the
+olive plantations. A dull sound of galloping cavalry rose from the
+plain. At times there were loud cries, as of men being slaughtered.
+And thick clouds of smoke were wafted along and hung about the elms on
+the esplanade. Silvere for his part no longer heard or saw anything.
+Pascal, who came running down in the direction of the plain, saw him
+stretched upon the ground, and hastened towards him, thinking he was
+wounded. As soon as the young man saw him, he clutched hold of him and
+pointed to Miette.
+
+"Look," he said, "she's wounded, there, under the breast. Ah! how good
+of you to come! You will save her."
+
+At that moment, however, a slight convulsion shook the dying girl. A
+pain-fraught shadow passed over her face, and as her contracted lips
+suddenly parted, a faint sigh escaped from them. Her eyes, still wide
+open, gazed fixedly at the young man.
+
+Then Pascal, who had stooped down, rose again, saying in a low voice:
+"She is dead."
+
+Dead! Silvere reeled at the sound of the word. He had been kneeling
+forward, but now he sank back, as though thrown down by Miette's last
+faint sigh.
+
+"Dead! Dead!" he repeated; "it is not true, she is looking at me. See
+how she is looking at me!"
+
+Then he caught the doctor by the coat, entreating him to remain there,
+assuring him that he was mistaken, that she was not dead, and that he
+could save her if he only would. Pascal resisted gently, saying, in
+his kindly voice: "I can do nothing for her, others are waiting for
+me. Let go, my poor child; she is quite dead."
+
+At last Silvere released his hold and again fell back. Dead! Dead!
+Still that word, which rang like a knell in his dazed brain! When he
+was alone he crept up close to the corpse. Miette still seemed to be
+looking at him. He threw himself upon her, laid his head upon her
+bosom, and watered it with his tears. He was beside himself with
+grief. He pressed his lips wildly to her, and breathed out all his
+passion, all his soul, in one long kiss, as though in the hope that it
+might bring her to life again. But the girl was turning cold in spite
+of his caresses. He felt her lifeless and nerveless beneath his touch.
+Then he was seized with terror, and with haggard face and listless
+hanging arms he remained crouching in a state of stupor, and
+repeating: "She is dead, yet she is looking at me; she does not close
+her eyes, she sees me still."
+
+This fancy was very sweet to him. He remained there perfectly still,
+exchanging a long look with Miette, in whose glance, deepened by
+death, he still seemed to read the girl's lament for her sad fate.
+
+In the meantime, the cavalry were still sabring the fugitives over the
+Nores plain; the cries of the wounded and the galloping of the horses
+became more distant, softening like music wafted from afar through the
+clear air. Silvere was no longer conscious of the fighting. He did not
+even see his cousin, who mounted the slope again and crossed the
+promenade. Pascal, as he passed along, picked up Macquart's carbine
+which Silvere had thrown down; he knew it, as he had seen it hanging
+over aunt Dide's chimney-piece, and he thought he might as well save
+it from the hands of the victors. He had scarcely entered the Hotel de
+la Mule-Blanche, whither a large number of the wounded had been taken,
+when a band of insurgents, chased by the soldiers like a herd of
+cattle, once more rushed into the esplanade. The man with the sabre
+had fled; it was the last contingents from the country who were being
+exterminated. There was a terrible massacre. In vain did Colonel
+Masson and the prefect, Monsieur de Bleriot, overcome by pity, order a
+retreat. The infuriated soldiers continued firing upon the mass, and
+pinning isolated fugitives to the walls with their bayonets. When they
+had no more enemies before them, they riddled the facade of the Mule-
+Blanche with bullets. The shutters flew into splinters; one window
+which had been left half-open was torn out, and there was a loud
+rattle of broken glass. Pitiful voices were crying out from within;
+"The prisoners! The prisoners!" But the troops did not hear; they
+continued firing. All at once Commander Sicardot, growing exasperated,
+appeared at the door, waved his arms, and endeavoured to speak.
+Monsieur Peirotte, the receiver of taxes, with his slim figure and
+scared face, stood by his side. However, another volley was fired, and
+Monsieur Peirotte fell face foremost, with a heavy thud, to the
+ground.
+
+Silvere and Miette were still looking at each other. Silvere had
+remained by the corpse, through all the fusillade and the howls of
+agony, without even turning his head. He was only conscious of the
+presence of some men around him, and, from a feeling of modesty, he
+drew the red banner over Miette's breast. Then their eyes still
+continued to gaze at one another.
+
+The conflict, however, was at an end. The death of the receiver of
+taxes had satiated the soldiers. Some of these ran about, scouring
+every corner of the esplanade, to prevent the escape of a single
+insurgent. A gendarme who perceived Silvere under the trees, ran up to
+him, and seeing that it was a lad he had to deal with, called: "What
+are you doing there, youngster?"
+
+Silvere, whose eyes were still fixed on those of Miette, made no
+reply.
+
+"Ah! the bandit, his hands are black with powder," the gendarme
+exclaimed, as he stooped down. "Come, get up, you scoundrel! You know
+what you've got to expect."
+
+Then, as Silvere only smiled vaguely and did not move, the other
+looked more attentively, and saw that the corpse swathed in the banner
+was that of a girl.
+
+"A fine girl; what a pity!" he muttered. "Your mistress, eh? you
+rascal!"
+
+Then he made a violent grab at Silvere, and setting him on his feet
+led him away like a dog that is dragged by one leg. Silvere submitted
+in silence, as quietly as a child. He just turned round to give
+another glance at Miette. He felt distressed at thus leaving her alone
+under the trees. For the last time he looked at her from afar. She was
+still lying there in all her purity, wrapped in the red banner, her
+head slightly raised, and her big eyes turned upward towards heaven.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+It was about five o'clock in the morning when Rougon at last ventured
+to leave his mother's house. The old woman had gone to sleep on a
+chair. He crept stealthily to the end of the Impasse Saint-Mittre.
+There was not a sound, not a shadow. He pushed on as far as the Porte
+de Rome. The gates stood wide open in the darkness that enveloped the
+slumbering town. Plassans was sleeping as sound as a top, quite
+unconscious, apparently, of the risk it was running in allowing the
+gates to remain unsecured. It seemed like a city of the dead. Rougon,
+taking courage, made his way into the Rue de Nice. He scanned from a
+distance the corners of each successive lane; and trembled at every
+door, fearing lest he should see a band of insurgents rush out upon
+him. However, he reached the Cours Sauvaire without any mishap. The
+insurgents seemed to have vanished in the darkness like a nightmare.
+
+Pierre then paused for a moment on the deserted pavement, heaving a
+deep sigh of relief and triumph. So those rascals had really abandoned
+Plassans to him. The town belonged to him now; it slept like the
+foolish thing it was; there it lay, dark and tranquil, silent and
+confident, and he had only to stretch out his hand to take possession
+of it. That brief halt, the supercilious glance which he cast over the
+drowsy place, thrilled him with unspeakable delight. He remained
+there, alone in the darkness, and crossed his arms, in the attitude of
+a great general on the eve of a victory. He could hear nothing in the
+distance but the murmur of the fountains of the Cours Sauvaire, whose
+jets of water fell into the basins with a musical plashing.
+
+Then he began to feel a little uneasy. What if the Empire should
+unhappily have been established without his aid? What if Sicardot,
+Garconnet, and Peirotte, instead of being arrested and led away by the
+insurrectionary band, had shut the rebels up in prison? A cold
+perspiration broke out over him, and he went on his way again, hoping
+that Felicite would give him some accurate information. He now pushed
+on more rapidly, and was skirting the houses of the Rue de la Banne,
+when a strange spectacle, which caught his eyes as he raised his head,
+riveted him to the ground. One of the windows of the yellow drawing-
+room was brilliantly illuminated, and, in the glare, he saw a dark
+form, which he recognized as that of his wife, bending forward, and
+shaking its arms in a violent manner. He asked himself what this could
+mean, but, unable to think of any explanation, was beginning to feel
+seriously alarmed, when some hard object bounded over the pavement at
+his feet. Felicite had thrown him the key of the cart-house, where he
+had concealed a supply of muskets. This key clearly signified that he
+must take up arms. So he turned away again, unable to comprehend why
+his wife had prevented him from going upstairs, and imagining the most
+horrible things.
+
+He now went straight to Roudier, whom he found dressed and ready to
+march, but completely ignorant of the events of the night. Roudier
+lived at the far end of the new town, as in a desert, whither no
+tidings of the insurgents' movements had penetrated. Pierre, however,
+proposed to him that they should go to Granoux, whose house stood on
+one of the corners of the Place des Recollets, and under whose windows
+the insurgent contingents must have passed. The municipal councillor's
+servant remained for a long time parleying before consenting to admit
+them, and they heard poor Granoux calling from the first floor in a
+trembling voice:
+
+"Don't open the door, Catherine! The streets are full of bandits."
+
+He was in his bedroom, in the dark. When he recognised his two
+faithful friends he felt relieved; but he would not let the maid bring
+a lamp, fearing lest the light might attract a bullet. He seemed to
+think that the town was still full of insurgents. Lying back on an
+arm-chair near the window, in his pants, and with a silk handkerchief
+round his head, he moaned: "Ah! my friends, if you only knew!--I tried
+to go to bed, but they were making such a disturbance! At last I lay
+down in my arm-chair here. I've seen it all, everything. Such awful-
+looking men; a band of escaped convicts! Then they passed by again,
+dragging brave Commander Sicardot, worthy Monsieur Garconnet, the
+postmaster, and others away with them, and howling the while like
+cannibals!"
+
+Rougon felt a thrill of joy. He made Granoux repeat to him how he had
+seen the mayor and the others surrounded by the "brigands."
+
+"I saw it all!" the poor man wailed. "I was standing behind the blind.
+They had just seized Monsieur Peirotte, and I heard him saying as he
+passed under my window: 'Gentlemen, don't hurt me!' They were
+certainly maltreating him. It's abominable, abominable."
+
+However, Roudier calmed Granoux by assuring him that the town was
+free. And the worthy gentleman began to feel quite a glow of martial
+ardour when Pierre informed him that he had come to recruit his
+services for the purpose of saving Plassans. These three saviours then
+took council together. They each resolved to go and rouse their
+friends, and appoint a meeting at the cart-shed, the secret arsenal of
+the reactionary party. Meantime Rougon constantly bethought himself of
+Felicite's wild gestures, which seemed to betoken danger somewhere.
+Granoux, assuredly the most foolish of the three, was the first to
+suggest that there must be some Republicans left in the town. This
+proved a flash of light, and Rougon, with a feeling of conviction,
+reflected: "There must be something of Macquart's doing under all
+this."
+
+An hour or so later the friends met again in the cart-shed, which was
+situated in a very lonely spot. They had glided stealthily from door
+to door, knocking and ringing as quietly as possible, and picking up
+all the men they could. However, they had only succeeded in collecting
+some forty, who arrived one after the other, creeping along in the
+dark, with the pale and drowsy countenances of men who had been
+violently startled from their sleep. The cart-shed, let to a cooper,
+was littered with old hoops and broken casks, of which there were
+piles in every corner. The guns were stored in the middle, in three
+long boxes. A taper, stuck on a piece of wood, illumined the strange
+scene with a flickering glimmer. When Rougon had removed the covers of
+the three boxes, the spectacle became weirdly grotesque. Above the
+fire-arms, whose barrels shown with a bluish, phosphorescent glitter,
+were outstretched necks and heads that bent with a sort of secret
+fear, while the yellow light of the taper cast shadows of huge noses
+and locks of stiffened hair upon the walls.
+
+However, the reactionary forces counted their numbers, and the
+smallness of the total filled them with hesitation. They were only
+thirty-nine all told, and this adventure would mean certain death for
+them. A father of a family spoke of his children; others, without
+troubling themselves about excuses, turned towards the door. Then,
+however, two fresh conspirators arrived, who lived in the
+neighbourhood of the Town Hall, and knew for certain that there were
+not more than about twenty Republicans still at the mayor's. The band
+thereupon deliberated afresh. Forty-one against twenty--these seemed
+practicable conditions. So the arms were distributed amid a little
+trembling. It was Rougon who took them from the boxes, and each man
+present, as he received his gun, the barrel of which on that December
+night was icy cold, felt a sudden chill freeze him to his bones. The
+shadows on the walls assumed the clumsy postures of bewildered
+conscripts stretching out their fingers. Pierre closed the boxes
+regretfully; he left there a hundred and nine guns which he would
+willingly have distributed; however, he now had to divide the
+cartridges. Of these, there were two large barrels full in the
+furthest corner of the cart-shed, sufficient to defend Plassans
+against an army. And as this corner was dark, one of the gentlemen
+brought the taper near, whereupon another conspirator--a burly pork-
+butcher, with immense fists--grew angry, declaring that it was most
+imprudent to bring a light so close. They strongly approved his words,
+so the cartridges were distributed in the dark. They completely filled
+their pockets with them. Then, after they had loaded their guns, with
+endless precautions, they lingered there for another moment, looking
+at each other with suspicious eyes, or exchanging glances in which
+cowardly ferocity was mingled with an expression of stupidity.
+
+In the streets they kept close to the houses, marching silently and in
+single file, like savages on the war-path. Rougon had insisted upon
+having the honour of marching at their head; the time had come when he
+must needs run some risk, if he wanted to see his schemes successful.
+Drops of perspiration poured down his forehead in spite of the cold.
+Nevertheless he preserved a very martial bearing. Roudier and Granoux
+were immediately behind him. Upon two occasions the column came to an
+abrupt halt. They fancied they had heard some distant sound of
+fighting; but it was only the jingle of the little brass shaving-
+dishes hanging from chains, which are used as signs by the barbers of
+Southern France. These dishes were gently shaking to and fro in the
+breeze. After each halt, the saviours of Plassans continued their
+stealthy march in the dark, retaining the while the mien of terrified
+heroes. In this manner they reached the square in front of the Town
+Hall. There they formed a group round Rougon, and took counsel
+together once more. In the facade of the building in front of them
+only one window was lighted. It was now nearly seven o'clock and the
+dawn was approaching.
+
+After a good ten minutes' discussion, it was decided to advance as far
+as the door, so as to ascertain what might be the meaning of this
+disquieting darkness and silence. The door proved to be half open. One
+of the conspirators thereupon popped his head in, but quickly withdrew
+it, announcing that there was a man under the porch, sitting against
+the wall fast asleep, with a gun between his legs. Rougon, seeing a
+chance of commencing with a deed of valour, thereupon entered first,
+and, seizing the man, held him down while Roudier gagged him. This
+first triumph, gained in silence, singularly emboldened the little
+troop, who had dreamed of a murderous fusillade. And Rougon had to
+make imperious signs to restrain his soldiers from indulging in over-
+boisterous delight.
+
+They continued their advance on tip-toes. Then, on the left, in the
+police guard-room, which was situated there, they perceived some
+fifteen men lying on camp-beds and snoring, amid the dim glimmer of a
+lantern hanging from the wall. Rougon, who was decidedly becoming a
+great general, left half of his men in front of the guard-room with
+orders not to rouse the sleepers, but to watch them and make them
+prisoners if they stirred. He was personally uneasy about the lighted
+window which they had seen from the square. He still scented
+Macquart's hand in the business, and, as he felt that he would first
+have to make prisoners of those who were watching upstairs, he was not
+sorry to be able to adopt surprise tactics before the noise of a
+conflict should impel them to barricade themselves in the first-floor
+rooms. So he went up quietly, followed by the twenty heroes whom he
+still had at his disposal. Roudier commanded the detachment remaining
+in the courtyard.
+
+As Rougon had surmised, it was Macquart who was comfortably installed
+upstairs in the mayor's office. He sat in the mayor's arm-chair, with
+his elbows on the mayor's writing-table. With the characteristic
+confidence of a man of coarse intellect, who is absorbed by a fixed
+idea and bent upon his own triumph, he had imagined after the
+departure of the insurgents that Plassans was now at his complete
+disposal, and that he would be able to act there like a conqueror. In
+his opinion that body of three thousand men who had just passed
+through the town was an invincible army, whose mere proximity would
+suffice to keep the bourgeois humble and docile in his hands. The
+insurgents had imprisoned the gendarmes in their barracks, the
+National Guard was already dismembered, the nobility must be quaking
+with terror, and the retired citizens of the new town had certainly
+never handled a gun in their lives. Moreover, there were no arms any
+more than there were soldiers. Thus Macquart did not even take the
+precaution to have the gates shut. His men carried their confidence
+still further by falling asleep, while he calmly awaited the dawn
+which he fancied would attract and rally all the Republicans of the
+district round him.
+
+He was already meditating important revolutionary measures; the
+nomination of a Commune of which he would be the chief, the
+imprisonment of all bad patriots, and particularly of all such persons
+as had incurred his displeasure. The thought of the baffled Rougons
+and their yellow drawing-room, of all that clique entreating him for
+mercy, thrilled him with exquisite pleasure. In order to while away
+the time he resolved to issue a proclamation to the inhabitants of
+Plassans. Four of his party set to work to draw up this proclamation,
+and when it was finished Macquart, assuming a dignified manner in the
+mayor's arm-chair, had it read to him before sending it to the
+printing office of the "Independant," on whose patriotism he reckoned.
+One of the writers was commencing, in an emphatic voice, "Inhabitants
+of Plassans, the hour of independence has struck, the reign of justice
+has begun----" when a noise was heard at the door of the office, which
+was slowly pushed open.
+
+"Is it you, Cassoute?" Macquart asked, interrupting the perusal.
+
+Nobody answered; but the door opened wider.
+
+"Come in, do!" he continued, impatiently. "Is my brigand of a brother
+at home?"
+
+Then, all at once both leaves of the door were violently thrown back
+and slammed against the walls, and a crowd of armed men, in the midst
+of whom marched Rougon, with his face very red and his eyes starting
+out of their sockets, swarmed into the office, brandishing their guns
+like cudgels.
+
+"Ah! the blackguards, they're armed!" shouted Macquart.
+
+He was about to seize a pair of pistols which were lying on the
+writing-table, when five men caught hold of him by the throat and held
+him in check. The four authors of the proclamation struggled for an
+instant. There was a good deal of scuffling and stamping, and a noise
+of persons falling. The combatants were greatly hampered by their
+guns, which they would not lay aside, although they could not use
+them. In the struggle, Rougon's weapon, which an insurgent had tried
+to wrest from him, went off of itself with a frightful report, and
+filled the room with smoke. The bullet shattered a magnificent mirror
+that reached from the mantelpiece to the ceiling, and was reputed to
+be one of the finest mirrors in the town. This shot, fired no one knew
+why, deafened everybody, and put an end to the battle.
+
+Then, while the gentlemen were panting and puffing, three other
+reports were heard in the courtyard. Granoux immediately rushed to one
+of the windows. And as he and the others anxiously leaned out, their
+faces lengthened perceptibly, for they were in nowise eager for a
+struggle with the men in the guard-room, whom they had forgotten
+amidst their triumph. However, Roudier cried out from below that all
+was right. And Granoux then shut the window again, beaming with joy.
+The fact of the matter was, that Rougon's shot had aroused the
+sleepers, who had promptly surrendered, seeing that resistance was
+impossible. Then, however, three of Roudier's men, in their blind
+haste to get the business over, had discharged their firearms in the
+air, as a sort of answer to the report from above, without knowing
+quite why they did so. It frequently happens that guns go off of their
+own accord when they are in the hands of cowards.
+
+And now, in the room upstairs, Rougon ordered Macquart's hands to be
+bound with the bands of the large green curtains which hung at the
+windows. At this, Macquart, wild with rage, broke into scornful jeers.
+"All right; go on," he muttered. "This evening or to-morrow, when the
+others return, we'll settle accounts!"
+
+This allusion to the insurrectionary forces sent a shudder to the
+victors' very marrow; Rougon for his part almost choked. His brother,
+who was exasperated at having been surprised like a child by these
+terrified bourgeois, who, old soldier that he was, he disdainfully
+looked upon as good-for-nothing civilians, defied him with a glance of
+the bitterest hatred.
+
+"Ah! I can tell some pretty stories about you, very pretty ones!" the
+rascal exclaimed, without removing his eyes from the retired oil
+merchant. "Just send me before the Assize Court, so that I may tell
+the judge a few tales that will make them laugh."
+
+At this Rougon turned pale. He was terribly afraid lest Macquart
+should blab then and there, and ruin him in the esteem of the
+gentlemen who had just been assisting him to save Plassans. These
+gentlemen, astounded by the dramatic encounter between the two
+brothers, and, foreseeing some stormy passages, had retired to a
+corner of the room. Rougon, however, formed a heroic resolution. He
+advanced towards the group, and in a very proud tone exclaimed: "We
+will keep this man here. When he has reflected on his position he will
+be able to give us some useful information." Then, in a still more
+dignified voice, he went on: "I will discharge my duty, gentlemen. I
+have sworn to save the town from anarchy, and I will save it, even
+should I have to be the executioner of my nearest relative."
+
+One might have thought him some old Roman sacrificing his family on
+the altar of his country. Granoux, who felt deeply moved, came to
+press his hand with a tearful countenance, which seemed to say: "I
+understand you; you are sublime!" And then he did him the kindness to
+take everybody away, under the pretext of conducting the four other
+prisoners into the courtyard.
+
+When Pierre was alone with his brother, he felt all his self-
+possession return to him. "You hardly expected me, did you?" he
+resumed. "I understand things now; you have been laying plots against
+me. You wretched fellow; see what your vices and disorderly life have
+brought you to!"
+
+Macquart shrugged his shoulders. "Shut up," he replied; "go to the
+devil. You're an old rogue. He laughs best who laughs last."
+
+Thereupon Rougon, who had formed no definite plan with regard to him,
+thrust him into a dressing-room whither Monsieur Garconnet retired to
+rest sometimes. This room lighted from above, had no other means of
+exit than the doorway by which one entered. It was furnished with a
+few arm-chairs, a sofa, and a marble wash-stand. Pierre double-locked
+the door, after partially unbinding his brother's hands. Macquart was
+then heard to throw himself on the sofa, and start singing the "Ca
+Ira" in a loud voice, as though he were trying to sing himself to
+sleep.
+
+Rougon, who at last found himself alone, now in his turn sat down in
+the mayor's arm-chair. He heaved a sigh as he wiped his brow. How
+hard, indeed, it was to win fortune and honours! However, he was
+nearing the end at last. He felt the soft seat of the arm-chair yield
+beneath him, while with a mechanical movement he caressed the mahogany
+writing-table with his hands, finding it apparently quite silky and
+delicate, like the skin of a beautiful woman. Then he spread himself
+out, and assumed the dignified attitude which Macquart had previously
+affected while listening to the proclamation. The silence of the room
+seemed fraught with religious solemnity, which inspired Rougon with
+exquisite delight. Everything, even the dust and the old documents
+lying in the corners, seemed to exhale an odour of incense, which rose
+to his dilated nostrils. This room, with its faded hangings redolent
+of petty transactions, all the trivial concerns of a third-rate
+municipality, became a temple of which he was the god.
+
+Nevertheless, amidst his rapture, he started nervously at every shout
+from Macquart. The words aristocrat and lamp-post, the threats of
+hanging that form the refrain of the famous revolutionary song, the
+"Ca Ira," reached him in angry bursts, interrupting his triumphant
+dream in the most disagreeable manner. Always that man! And his dream,
+in which he saw Plassans at his feet, ended with a sudden vision of
+the Assize Court, of the judges, the jury, and the public listening to
+Macquart's disgraceful revelations; the story of the fifty thousand
+francs, and many other unpleasant matters; or else, while enjoying the
+softness of Monsieur Garconnet's arm-chair, he suddenly pictured
+himself suspended from a lamp-post in the Rue de la Banne. Who would
+rid him of that wretched fellow? At last Antoine fell asleep, and then
+Pierre enjoyed ten good minutes' pure ecstasy.
+
+Roudier and Granoux came to rouse him from this state of beatitude.
+They had just returned from the prison, whither they had taken the
+insurgents. Daylight was coming on apace, the town would soon be
+awake, and it was necessary to take some decisive step. Roudier
+declared that, before anything else, it would be advisable to issue a
+proclamation to the inhabitants. Pierre was, at that moment, reading
+the one which the insurgents had left upon the table.
+
+"Why," cried he, "this will suit us admirably! There are only a few
+words to be altered."
+
+And, in fact, a quarter of an hour sufficed for the necessary changes,
+after which Granoux read out, in an earnest voice: "Inhabitants of
+Plassans--The hour of resistance has struck, the reign of order has
+returned----"
+
+It was decided that the proclamation should be printed at the office
+of the "Gazette," and posted at all the street corners.
+
+"Now listen," said Rougon; "we'll go to my house; and in the meantime
+Monsieur Granoux will assemble here the members of the municipal
+council who had not been arrested and acquaint them with the terrible
+events of the night." Then he added, majestically: "I am quite
+prepared to accept the responsibility of my actions. If what I have
+already done appears a satisfactory pledge of my desire for order, I
+am willing to place myself at the head of a municipal commission,
+until such time as the regular authorities can be reinstated. But, in
+order, that nobody may accuse me of ambitious designs, I shall not re-
+enter the Town Hall unless called upon to do so by my fellow-
+citizens."
+
+At this Granoux and Roudier protested that Plassans would not be
+ungrateful. Their friend had indeed saved the town. And they recalled
+all that he had done for the cause of order: the yellow drawing-room
+always open to the friends of authority, his services as spokesman in
+the three quarters of the town, the store of arms which had been his
+idea, and especially that memorable night--that night of prudence and
+heroism--in which he had rendered himself forever illustrious. Granoux
+added that he felt sure of the admiration and gratitude of the
+municipal councillors.
+
+"Don't stir from your house," he concluded; "I will come and fetch you
+to lead you back in triumph."
+
+Then Roudier said that he quite understood the tact and modesty of
+their friend, and approved it. Nobody would think of accusing him of
+ambition, but all would appreciate the delicacy which prompted him to
+take no office save with the consent of his fellow-citizens. That was
+very dignified, very noble, altogether grand.
+
+Under this shower of eulogies, Rougon humbly bowed his head. "No, no;
+you go too far," he murmured, with voluptuous thrillings of exquisite
+pleasure. Each sentence that fell from the retired hosier and the old
+almond-merchant, who stood on his right and left respectively, fell
+sweetly on his ears; and, leaning back in the mayor's arm-chair,
+steeped in the odour of officiality which pervaded the room, he bowed
+to the right and to the left, like a royal pretender whom a /coup
+d'etat/ is about to convert into an emperor.
+
+When they were tired of belauding each other, they all three went
+downstairs. Granoux started off to call the municipal council
+together, while Roudier told Rougon to go on in front, saying that he
+would join him at his house, after giving the necessary orders for
+guarding the Town Hall. The dawn was now fast rising, and Pierre
+proceeded to the Rue de la Banne, tapping his heels in a martial
+manner on the still deserted pavement. He carried his hat in his hand
+in spite of the bitter cold; for puffs of pride sent all his blood to
+his head.
+
+On reaching his house he found Cassoute at the bottom of the stairs.
+The navvy had not stirred, for he had seen nobody enter. He sat there,
+on the first step, resting his big head in his hands, and gazing
+fixedly in front of him, with the vacant stare and mute stubbornness
+of a faithful dog.
+
+"You were waiting for me, weren't you?" Pierre said to him, taking in
+the situation at a glance. "Well, go and tell Monsieur Macquart that
+I've come home. Go and ask for him at the Town Hall."
+
+Cassoute rose and took himself off, with an awkward bow. He was going
+to get himself arrested like a lamb, to the great delight of Pierre,
+who laughed as he went upstairs, asking himself, with a feeling of
+vague surprise: "I have certainly plenty of courage; shall I turn out
+as good a diplomatist?"
+
+Felicite had not gone to bed last night. He found her dressed in her
+Sunday clothes, wearing a cap with lemon-coloured ribbons, like a lady
+expecting visitors. She had sat at the window in vain; she had heard
+nothing, and was dying with curiosity.
+
+"Well?" she asked, rushing to meet her husband.
+
+The latter, quite out of breath, entered the yellow drawing-room,
+whither she followed him, carefully closing the door behind her. He
+sank into an arm-chair, and, in a gasping voice, faltered: "It's done;
+we shall get the receivership."
+
+At this she fell on his neck and kissed him.
+
+"Really? Really?" she cried. "But I haven't heard anything. Oh, my
+darling husband, do tell me; tell me all!"
+
+She felt fifteen years old again, and began to coax him and whirl
+round him like a grasshopper fascinated by the light and heat. And
+Pierre, in the effusion of his triumph, poured out his heart to her.
+He did not omit a single detail. He even explained his future
+projects, forgetting that, according to his theories, wives were good
+for nothing, and that his must be kept in complete ignorance of what
+went on if he wished to remain master. Felicite leant over him and
+drank in his words. She made him repeat certain parts of his story,
+declaring she had not heard; in fact, her delight bewildered her so
+much that at times she seemed quite deaf. When Pierre related the
+events at the Town Hall, she burst into a fit of laughter, changed her
+chair three times, and moved the furniture about, quite unable to sit
+still. After forty years of continuous struggle, fortune had at last
+yielded to them. Eventually she became so mad over it that she forgot
+all prudence.
+
+"It's to me you owe all this!" she exclaimed, in an outburst of
+triumph. "If I hadn't looked after you, you would have been nicely
+taken in by the insurgents. You booby, it was Garconnet, Sicardot, and
+the others, that had got to be thrown to those wild beasts."
+
+Then, showing her teeth, loosened by age, she added, with a girlish
+smile: "Well, the Republic for ever! It has made our path clear."
+
+But Pierre had turned cross. "That's just like you!" he muttered; "you
+always fancy that you've foreseen everything. It was I who had the
+idea of hiding myself. As though women understood anything about
+politics! Bah, my poor girl, if you were to steer the bark we should
+very soon be shipwrecked."
+
+Felicite bit her lip. She had gone too far and forgotten her self-
+assigned part of good, silent fairy. Then she was seized with one of
+those fits of covert exasperation, which she generally experienced
+when her husband tried to crush her with his superiority. And she
+again promised herself, when the right time should arrive, some
+exquisite revenge, which would deliver this man into her power, bound
+hand and foot.
+
+"Ah! I was forgetting!" resumed Rougon, "Monsieur Peirotte is amongst
+them. Granoux saw him struggling in the hands of the insurgents."
+
+Felicite gave a start. She was just at that moment standing at the
+window, gazing with longing eyes at the house where the receiver of
+taxes lived. She had felt a desire to do so, for in her mind the idea
+of triumph was always associated with envy of that fine house.
+
+"So Monsieur Peirotte is arrested!" she exclaimed in a strange tone as
+she turned round.
+
+For an instant she smiled complacently; then a crimson blush rushed to
+her face. A murderous wish had just ascended from the depths of her
+being. "Ah! if the insurgents would only kill him!"
+
+Pierre no doubt read her thoughts in her eyes.
+
+"Well, if some ball were to hit him," he muttered, "our business would
+be settled. There would be no necessity to supercede him, eh? and it
+would be no fault of ours."
+
+But Felicite shuddered. She felt that she had just condemned a man to
+death. If Monsieur Peirotte should now be killed, she would always see
+his ghost at night time. He would come and haunt her. So she only
+ventured to cast furtive glances, full of fearful delight, at the
+unhappy man's windows. Henceforward all her enjoyment would be fraught
+with a touch of guilty terror.
+
+Moreover, Pierre, having now poured out his soul, began to perceive
+the other side of the situation. He mentioned Macquart. How could they
+get rid of that blackguard? But Felicite, again fired with enthusiasm,
+exclaimed: "Oh! one can't do everything at once. We'll gag him,
+somehow. We'll soon find some means or other."
+
+She was now walking to and fro, putting the arm-chairs in order, and
+dusting their backs. Suddenly, she stopped in the middle of the room,
+and gave the faded furniture a long glance.
+
+"Good Heavens!" she said, "how ugly it is here! And we shall have
+everybody coming to call upon us!"
+
+"Bah!" replied Pierre, with supreme indifference, "we'll alter all
+that."
+
+He who, the night before, had entertained almost religious veneration
+for the arm-chairs and the sofa, would now have willingly stamped on
+them. Felicite, who felt the same contempt, even went so far as to
+upset an arm-chair which was short of a castor and did not yield to
+her quickly enough.
+
+It was at this moment that Roudier entered. It at once occurred to the
+old woman that he had become much more polite. His "Monsieur" and
+"Madame" rolled forth in delightfully musical fashion. But the other
+habitues were now arriving one after the other; and the drawing-room
+was fast getting full. Nobody yet knew the full particulars of the
+events of the night, and all had come in haste, with wondering eyes
+and smiling lips, urged on by the rumours which were beginning to
+circulate through the town. These gentlemen who, on the previous
+evening, had left the drawing-room with such precipitation at the news
+of the insurgents' approach, came back, inquisitive and importunate,
+like a swarm of buzzing flies which a puff of wind would have
+dispersed. Some of them had not even taken time to put on their
+braces. They were very impatient, but it was evident that Rougon was
+waiting for some one else before speaking out. He constantly turned an
+anxious look towards the door. For an hour there was only significant
+hand-shaking, vague congratulation, admiring whispering, suppressed
+joy of uncertain origin, which only awaited a word of enlightenment to
+turn to enthusiasm.
+
+At last Granoux appeared. He paused for a moment on the threshold,
+with his right hand pressed to his breast between the buttons of his
+frock-coat; his broad pale face was beaming; in vain he strove to
+conceal his emotion beneath an expression of dignity. All the others
+became silent on perceiving him; they felt that something
+extraordinary was about to take place. Granoux walked straight up to
+Rougon, through two lines of visitors, and held out his hand to him.
+
+"My friend," he said, "I bring you the homage of the Municipal
+Council. They call you to their head, until our mayor shall be
+restored to us. You have saved Plassans. In the terrible crisis
+through which we are passing we want men who, like yourself, unite
+intelligence with courage. Come--"
+
+At this point Granoux, who was reciting a little speech which he had
+taken great trouble to prepare on his way from the Town Hall to the
+Rue de la Banne felt his memory fail him. But Rougon, overwhelmed with
+emotion, broke in, shaking his hand and repeating: "Thank you, my dear
+Granoux; I thank you very much."
+
+He could find nothing else to say. However, a loud burst of voices
+followed. Every one rushed upon him, tried to shake hands, poured
+forth praises and compliments, and eagerly questioned him. But he,
+already putting on official dignity, begged for a few minutes' delay
+in order that he might confer with Messieurs Granoux and Roudier.
+Business before everything. The town was in such a critical situation!
+Then the three accomplices retired to a corner of the drawing-room,
+where, in an undertone, they divided power amongst themselves; the
+rest of the visitors, who remained a few paces away, trying meanwhile
+to look extremely wise and furtively glancing at them with mingled
+admiration and curiosity. It was decided that Rougon should take the
+title of president of the Municipal Commission; Granoux was to be
+secretary; whilst, as for Roudier, he became commander-in-chief of the
+reorganised National Guard. They also swore to support each other
+against all opposition.
+
+However, Felicite, who had drawn near, abruptly inquired: "And
+Vuillet?"
+
+At this they looked at each other. Nobody had seen Vuillet. Rougon
+seemed somewhat uneasy.
+
+"Perhaps they've taken him away with the others," he said, to ease his
+mind.
+
+But Felicite shook her head. Vuillet was not the man to let himself be
+arrested. Since nobody had seen or heard him, it was certain he had
+been doing something wrong.
+
+Suddenly the door opened and Vuillet entered, bowing humbly, with
+blinking glance and stiff sacristan's smile. Then he held out his
+moist hand to Rougon and the two others.
+
+Vuillet had settled his little affairs alone. He had cut his own slice
+out of the cake, as Felicite would have said. While peeping through
+the ventilator of his cellar he had seen the insurgents arrest the
+postmaster, whose offices were near his bookshop. At daybreak,
+therefore, at the moment when Rougon was comfortably seated in the
+mayor's arm-chair, he had quietly installed himself in the
+postmaster's office. He knew the clerks; so he received them on their
+arrival, told them that he would replace their chief until his return,
+and that meantime they need be in nowise uneasy. Then he ransacked the
+morning mail with ill-concealed curiosity. He examined the letters,
+and seemed to be seeking a particular one. His new berth doubtless
+suited his secret plans, for his satisfaction became so great that he
+actually gave one of the clerks a copy of the "Oeuvres Badines de
+Piron." Vuillet, it should be mentioned, did business in objectionable
+literature, which he kept concealed in a large drawer, under the stock
+of heads and religious images. It is probable that he felt some slight
+qualms at the free-and-easy manner in which he had taken possession of
+the post office, and recognised the desirability of getting his
+usurpation confirmed as far as possible. At all events, he had thought
+it well to call upon Rougon, who was fast becoming an important
+personage.
+
+"Why! where have you been?" Felicite asked him in a distrustful
+manner.
+
+Thereupon he related his story with sundry embellishments. According
+to his own account he had saved the post-office from pillage.
+
+"All right then! That's settled! Stay on there!" said Pierre, after a
+moment's reflection. "Make yourself useful."
+
+This last sentence revealed the one great fear that possessed the
+Rougons. They were afraid that some one might prove too useful, and do
+more than themselves to save the town. Still, Pierre saw no serious
+danger in leaving Vuillet as provisional postmaster; it was even a
+convenient means of getting rid of him. Felicite, however, made a
+sharp gesture of annoyance.
+
+The consultation having ended, the three accomplices mingled with the
+various groups that filled the drawing-room. They were at last obliged
+to satisfy the general curiosity by giving detailed accounts of recent
+events. Rougon proved magnificent. He exaggerated, embellished, and
+dramatised the story which he had related to his wife. The
+distribution of the guns and cartridges made everybody hold their
+breath. But it was the march through the deserted streets and the
+seizure of the town-hall that most amazed these worthy bourgeois. At
+each fresh detail there was an interruption.
+
+"And you were only forty-one; it's marvellous!"
+
+"Ah, indeed! it must have been frightfully dark!"
+
+"No; I confess I never should have dared it!"
+
+"Then you seized him, like that, by the throat?
+
+"And the insurgents, what did they say?"
+
+These remarks and questions only incited Rougon's imagination the
+more. He replied to everybody. He mimicked the action. This stout man,
+in his admiration of his own achievements, became as nimble as a
+schoolboy; he began afresh, repeated himself, amidst the exclamations
+of surprise and individual discussions which suddenly arose about some
+trifling detail. And thus he continued blowing his trumpet, making
+himself more and more important as if some irresistible force impelled
+him to turn his narrative into a genuine epic. Moreover Granoux and
+Roudier stood by his side prompting him, reminding him of such
+trifling matters as he omitted. They also were burning to put in a
+word, and occasionally they could not restrain themselves, so that all
+three went on talking together. When, in order to keep the episode of
+the broken mirror for the denouement, like some crowning glory, Rougon
+began to describe what had taken place downstairs in the courtyard,
+after the arrest of the guard, Roudier accused him of spoiling the
+narrative by changing the sequence of events. For a moment they
+wrangled about it somewhat sharply. Then Roudier, seeing a good
+opportunity for himself, suddenly exclaimed: "Very well, let it be so.
+But you weren't there. So let me tell it."
+
+He thereupon explained at great length how the insurgents had awoke,
+and how the muskets of the town's deliverers had been levelled at them
+to reduce them to impotence. He added, however, that no blood,
+fortunately, had been shed. This last sentence disappointed his
+audience, who had counted upon one corpse at least.
+
+"But I thought you fired," interrupted Felicite, recognising that the
+story was wretchedly deficient in dramatic interest.
+
+"Yes, yes, three shots," resumed the old hosier. "The pork-butcher
+Dubruel, Monsieur Lievin, and Monsieur Massicot discharged their guns
+with really culpable alacrity." And as there were some murmurs at this
+remark; "Culpable, I repeat the word," he continued. "There are quite
+enough cruel necessities in warfare without any useless shedding of
+blood. Besides, these gentlemen swore to me that it was not their
+fault; they can't understand how it was their guns went off.
+Nevertheless, a spent ball after ricocheting grazed the cheek of one
+of the insurgents and left a mark on it."
+
+This graze, this unexpected wound, satisfied the audience. Which
+cheek, right or left, had been grazed, and how was it that a bullet, a
+spent one, even, could strike a cheek without piercing it? These
+points supplied material for some long discussions.
+
+"Meantime," continued Rougon at the top of his voice, without giving
+time for the excitement to abate; "meantime we had plenty to do
+upstairs. The struggle was quite desperate."
+
+Then he described, at length, the arrival of his brother and the four
+other insurgents, without naming Macquart, whom he simply called "the
+leader." The words, "the mayor's office," "the mayor's arm-chair,"
+"the mayor's writing table," recurred to him every instant, and in the
+opinion of his audience imparted marvellous grandeur to the terrible
+scene. It was not at the porter's lodge that the fight was now being
+waged, but in the private sanctum of the chief magistrate of the town.
+Roudier was quite cast in to the background. Then Rougon at last came
+to the episode which he had been keeping in reserve from the
+commencement, and which would certainly exalt him to the dignity of a
+hero.
+
+"Thereupon," said he, "an insurgent rushes upon me. I push the mayor's
+arm-chair away, and seize the man by the throat. I hold him tightly,
+you may be sure of it! But my gun was in my way. I didn't want to let
+it drop; a man always sticks to his gun. I held it, like this, under
+the left arm. All of a sudden, it went off--"
+
+The whole audience hung on Rougon's lips. But Granoux, who was opening
+his mouth wide with a violent itching to say something, shouted: "No,
+no, that isn't right. You were not in a position to see things, my
+friend; you were fighting like a lion. But I saw everything, while I
+was helping to bind one of the prisoners. The man tried to murder you;
+it was he who fired the gun; I saw him distinctly slip his black
+fingers under your arm."
+
+"Really?" said Rougon, turning quite pale.
+
+He did not know he had been in such danger, and the old almond
+merchant's account of the incident chilled him with fright. Granoux,
+as a rule, did not lie; but, on a day of battle, it is surely
+allowable to view things dramatically.
+
+"I tell you the man tried to murder you," he repeated, with
+conviction.
+
+"Ah," said Rougon in a faint voice, "that's how it is I heard the
+bullet whiz past my ear!"
+
+At this, violent emotion came upon the audience. Everybody gazed at
+the hero with respectful awe. He had heard a bullet whiz past his ear!
+Certainly, none of the other bourgeois who were there could say as
+much. Felicite felt bound to rush into her husband's arms so as to
+work up the emotion to boiling point. But Rougon immediately freed
+himself, and concluded his narrative with this heroic sentence, which
+has become famous at Plassans: "The shot goes off; I hear the bullet
+whiz past my ear; and whish! it smashes the mayor's mirror."
+
+This caused complete consternation. Such a magnificent mirror, too! It
+was scarcely credible! the damage done to that looking-glass almost
+out-balanced Rougon's heroism, in the estimation of the company. The
+glass became an object of absorbing interest, and they talked about it
+for a quarter of an hour, with many exclamations and expressions of
+regret, as though it had been some dear friend that had been stricken
+to the heart. This was the culminating point that Rougon had aimed at,
+the denouement of his wonderful Odyssey. A loud hubbub of voices
+filled the yellow drawing-room. The visitors were repeating what they
+had just heard, and every now and then one of them would leave a group
+to ask the three heroes the exact truth with regard to some contested
+incident. The heroes set the matter right with scrupulous minuteness,
+for they felt that they were speaking for history!
+
+At last Rougon and his two lieutenants announced that they were
+expected at the town-hall. Respectful silence was then restored, and
+the company smiled at each other discreetly. Granoux was swelling with
+importance. He was the only one who had seen the insurgent pull the
+trigger and smash the mirror; this sufficed to exalt him, and almost
+made him burst his skin. On leaving the drawing-room, he took
+Roudier's arm with the air of a great general who is broken down with
+fatigue. "I've been up for thirty-six hours," he murmured, "and heaven
+alone knows when I shall get to bed!"
+
+Rougon, as he withdrew, took Vuillet aside and told him that the party
+of order relied more than ever on him and the "Gazette." He would have
+to publish an effective article to reassure the inhabitants and treat
+the band of villains who had passed through Plassans as it deserved.
+
+"Be easy!" replied Vuillet. "In the ordinary course the 'Gazette'
+ought not to appear till to-morrow morning, but I'll issue it this
+very evening."
+
+When the leaders had left, the rest of the visitors remained in the
+yellow drawing-room for another moment, chattering like so many old
+women, whom the escape of a canary has gathered together on the
+pavement. These retired tradesmen, oil dealers, and wholesale hatters,
+felt as if they were in a sort of fairyland. Never had they
+experienced such thrilling excitement before. They could not get over
+their surprise at discovering such heroes as Rougon, Granoux, and
+Roudier in their midst. At last, half stifled by the stuffy
+atmosphere, and tired of ever telling each other the same things, they
+decided to go off and spread the momentous news abroad. They glided
+away one by one, each anxious to have the glory of being the first to
+know and relate everything, and Felicite, as she leaned out of the
+window, on being left alone, saw them dispersing in the Rue de la
+Banne, waving their arms in an excited manner, eager as they were to
+diffuse emotion to the four corners of the town.
+
+It was ten o'clock, and Plassans, now wide awake, was running about
+the streets, wildly excited by the reports which were circulating.
+Those who had seen or heard the insurrectionary forces, related the
+most foolish stories, contradicting each other, and indulging in the
+wildest suppositions. The majority, however, knew nothing at all about
+the matter; they lived at the further end of the town, and listened
+with gaping mouths, like children to a nursery tale, to the stories of
+how several thousand bandits had invaded the streets during the night
+and vanished before daybreak like an army of phantoms. A few of the
+most sceptical said: "Nonsense!" Yet some of the details were very
+precise; and Plassans at last felt convinced that some frightful
+danger had passed over it while it slept. The darkness which had
+shrouded this danger, the various contradictory reports that spread,
+all invested the matter with mystery and vague horror, which made the
+bravest shudder. Whose hand had diverted the thunderbolt from them?
+There seemed to be something quite miraculous about it. There were
+rumours of unknown deliverers, of a handful of brave men who had cut
+off the hydra's head; but no one seemed acquainted with the exact
+particulars, and the whole story appeared scarcely credible, until the
+company from the yellow drawing-room spread through the streets,
+scattering tidings, ever repeating the same narrative at each door
+they came to.
+
+It was like a train of powder. In a few minutes the story had spread
+from one end of the town to the other. Rougon's name flew from mouth
+to mouth, with exclamations of surprise in the new town, and of praise
+in the old quarter. The idea of being without a sub-prefect, a mayor,
+a postmaster, a receiver of taxes, or authorities of any kind, at
+first threw the inhabitants into consternation. They were stupefied at
+having been able to sleep through the night and get up as usual, in
+the absence of any settled government. Their first stupor over, they
+threw themselves recklessly into the arms of their liberators. The few
+Republicans shrugged their shoulders, but the petty shopkeepers, the
+small householders, the Conservatives of all shades, invoked blessings
+on those modest heroes whose achievements had been shrouded by the
+night. When it was known that Rougon had arrested his own brother, the
+popular admiration knew no bounds. People talked of Brutus, and thus
+the indiscretion which had made Pierre rather anxious, really
+redounded to his glory. At this moment when terror still hovered over
+them, the townsfolk were virtually unanimous in their gratitude.
+Rougon was accepted as their saviour without the slightest show of
+opposition.
+
+"Just think of it!" the poltroons exclaimed, "there were only forty-
+one of them!"
+
+That number of forty-one amazed the whole town, and this was the
+origin of the Plassans legend of how forty-one bourgeois had made
+three thousand insurgents bite the dust. There were only a few envious
+spirits of the new town, lawyers without work and retired military men
+ashamed of having slept ingloriously through that memorable night, who
+raised any doubts. The insurgents, these sceptics hinted, had no doubt
+left the town of their own accord. There were no indications of a
+combat, no corpses, no blood-stains. So the deliverers had certainly
+had a very easy task.
+
+"But the mirror, the mirror!" repeated the enthusiasts. "You can't
+deny that the mayor's mirror has been smashed; go and see it for
+yourselves."
+
+And, in fact, until night-time, quite a stream of town's-people
+flowed, under one pretext or another, into the mayor's private office,
+the door of which Rougon left wide open. The visitors planted
+themselves in front of the mirror, which the bullet had pierced and
+starred, and they all gave vent to the same exclamation: "By Jove;
+that ball must have had terrible force!"
+
+Then they departed quite convinced.
+
+Felicite, at her window, listened with delight to all the rumours and
+laudatory and grateful remarks which arose from the town. At that
+moment all Plassans was talking of her husband. She felt that the two
+districts below her were quivering, wafting her the hope of
+approaching triumph. Ah! how she would crush that town which she had
+been so long in getting beneath her feet! All her grievances crowded
+back to her memory, and her past disappointments redoubled her
+appetite for immediate enjoyment.
+
+At last she left the window, and walked slowly round the drawing-room.
+It was there that, a little while previously, everybody had held out
+their hands to her husband and herself. He and she had conquered; the
+citizens were at their feet. The yellow drawing-room seemed to her a
+holy place. The dilapidated furniture, the frayed velvet, the
+chandelier soiled with fly-marks, all those poor wrecks now seemed to
+her like the glorious bullet-riddled debris of a battle-field. The
+plain of Austerlitz would not have stirred her to deeper emotion.
+
+When she returned to the window, she perceived Aristide wandering
+about the place of the Sub-Prefecture, with his nose in the air. She
+beckoned to him to come up, which he immediately did. It seemed as if
+he had only been waiting for this invitation.
+
+"Come in," his mother said to him on the landing, seeing that he
+hesitated. "Your father is not here."
+
+Aristide evinced all the shyness of a prodigal son returning home. He
+had not been inside the yellow drawing-room for nearly four years. He
+still carried his arm in a sling.
+
+"Does your hand still pain you?" his mother asked him, ironically.
+
+He blushed as he answered with some embarrassment: "Oh! it's getting
+better; it's nearly well again now."
+
+Then he lingered there, loitering about and not knowing what to say.
+Felicite came to the rescue. "I suppose you've heard them talking
+about your father's noble conduct?" she resumed.
+
+He replied that the whole town was talking of it. And then, as he
+regained his self-possession, he paid his mother back for her raillery
+in her own coin. Looking her full in the face he added: "I came to see
+if father was wounded."
+
+"Come, don't play the fool!" cried Felicite, petulantly. "If I were
+you I would act boldly and decisively. Confess now that you made a
+false move in joining those good-for-nothing Republicans. You would be
+very glad, I'm sure, to be well rid of them, and to return to us, who
+are the stronger party. Well, the house is open to you!"
+
+But Aristide protested. The Republic was a grand idea. Moreover, the
+insurgents might still carry the day.
+
+"Don't talk nonsense to me!" retorted the old woman, with some
+irritation. "You're afraid that your father won't have a very warm
+welcome for you. But I'll see to that. Listen to me: go back to your
+newspaper, and, between now and to-morrow, prepare a number strongly
+favouring the Coup d'Etat. To-morrow evening, when this number has
+appeared, come back here and you will be received with open arms."
+
+Then seeing that the young man remained silent: "Do you hear?" she
+added, in a lower and more eager tone; "it is necessary for our sake,
+and for your own, too, that it should be done. Don't let us have any
+more nonsense and folly. You've already compromised yourself enough in
+that way."
+
+The young man made a gesture--the gesture of a Caesar crossing the
+Rubicon--and by doing so escaped entering into any verbal engagement.
+As he was about to withdraw, his mother, looking for the knot in his
+sling, remarked: "First of all, you must let me take off this rag.
+It's getting a little ridiculous, you know!"
+
+Aristide let her remove it. When the silk handkerchief was untied, he
+folded it neatly and placed it in his pocket. And as he kissed his
+mother he exclaimed: "Till to-morrow then!"
+
+In the meanwhile, Rougon was taking official possession of the mayor's
+offices. There were only eight municipal councillors left; the others
+were in the hands of the insurgents, as well as the mayor and his two
+assessors. The eight remaining gentlemen, who were all on a par with
+Granoux, perspired with fright when the latter explained to them the
+critical situation of the town. It requires an intimate knowledge of
+the kind of men who compose the municipal councils of some of the
+smaller towns, in order to form an idea of the terror with which these
+timid folk threw themselves into Rougon's arms. At Plassans, the mayor
+had the most incredible blockheads under him, men without any ideas of
+their own, and accustomed to passive obedience. Consequently, as
+Monsieur Garconnet was no longer there, the municipal machine was
+bound to get out of order, and fall completely under the control of
+the man who might know how to set it working. Moreover, as the sub-
+prefect had left the district, Rougon naturally became sole and
+absolute master of the town; and thus, strange to relate, the chief
+administrative authority fell into the hands of a man of indifferent
+repute, to whom, on the previous evening, not one of his fellow-
+citizens would have lent a hundred francs.
+
+Pierre's first act was to declare the Provisional Commission "en
+permanence." Then he gave his attention to the organisation of the
+national guard, and succeeded in raising three hundred men. The
+hundred and nine muskets left in the cart-shed were also distributed
+to volunteers, thereby bringing up the number of men armed by the
+reactionary party to one hundred and fifty; the remaining one hundred
+and fifty guards consisted of well-affected citizens and some of
+Sicardot's soldiers. When Commander Roudier reviewed the little army
+in front of the town-hall, he was annoyed to see the market-people
+smiling in their sleeves. The fact is that several of his men had no
+uniforms, and some of them looked very droll with their black hats,
+frock-coats, and muskets. But, at any rate, they meant well. A guard
+was left at the town-hall and the rest of the forces were sent in
+detachments to the various town gates. Roudier reserved to himself the
+command of the guard stationed at the Grand'-Porte, which seemed to be
+more liable to attack than the others.
+
+Rougon, who now felt very conscious of his power, repaired to the Rue
+Canquoin to beg the gendarmes to remain in their barracks and
+interfere with nothing. He certainly had the doors of the gendarmerie
+opened--the keys having been carried off by the insurgents--but he
+wanted to triumph alone, and had no intention of letting the gendarmes
+rob him of any part of his glory. If he should really have need of
+them he could always send for them. So he explained to them that their
+presence might tend to irritate the working-men and thus aggravate the
+situation. The sergeant in command thereupon complimented him on his
+prudence. When Rougon was informed that there was a wounded man in the
+barracks, he asked to see him, by way of rendering himself popular. He
+found Rengade in bed, with his eye bandaged, and his big moustaches
+just peeping out from under the linen. With some high-sounding words
+about duty, Rougon endeavoured to comfort the unfortunate fellow who,
+having lost an eye, was swearing with exasperation at the thought that
+his injury would compel him to quit the service. At last Rougon
+promised to send the doctor to him.
+
+"I'm much obliged to you, sir," Rengade replied; "but, you know, what
+would do me more good than any quantity of doctor's stuff would be to
+wring the neck of the villain who put my eye out. Oh! I shall know him
+again; he's a little thin, palish fellow, quite young."
+
+Thereupon Pierre bethought himself of the blood he had seen on
+Silvere's hand. He stepped back a little, as though he was afraid that
+Rengade would fly at his throat, and cry: "It was your nephew who
+blinded me; and you will have to pay for it." And whilst he was
+mentally cursing his disreputable family, he solemnly declared that if
+the guilty person were found he should be punished with all the rigour
+of the law.
+
+"No, no, it isn't worth all that trouble," the one-eyed man replied;
+"I'll just wring his neck for him when I catch him."
+
+Rougon hastened back to the town-hall. The afternoon was employed in
+taking various measures. The proclamation posted up about one o'clock
+produced an excellent impression. It ended by an appeal to the good
+sense of the citizens, and gave a firm assurance that order would not
+again be disturbed. Until dusk, in fact, the streets presented a
+picture of general relief and perfect confidence. On the pavements,
+the groups who were reading the proclamation exclaimed:
+
+"It's all finished now; we shall soon see the troops who have been
+sent in pursuit of the insurgents."
+
+This belief that some soldiers were approaching was so general that
+the idles of the Cours Sauvaire repaired to the Nice road, in order to
+meet and hear the regimental band. But they returned at nightfall
+disappointed, having seen nothing; and then a feeling of vague alarm
+began to disturb the townspeople.
+
+At the town-hall, the Provisional Commission had talked so much,
+without coming to any decision, that the members, whose stomachs were
+quite empty, began to feel alarmed again. Rougon dismissed them to
+dine, saying that they would meet afresh at nine o'clock in the
+evening. He was just about to leave the room himself, when Macquart
+awoke and began to pommel the door of his prison. He declared he was
+hungry, then asked what time it was, and when his brother had told him
+it was five o'clock, he feigned great astonishment, and muttered, with
+diabolical malice, that the insurgents had promised to return much
+earlier, and that they were very slow in coming to deliver him.
+Rougon, having ordered some food to be taken to him, went downstairs,
+quite worried by the earnestness with which the rascal spoke of the
+return of the insurgents.
+
+When he reached the street, his disquietude increased. The town seemed
+to him quite altered. It was assuming a strange aspect; shadows were
+gliding along the footpaths, which were growing deserted and silent,
+while gloomy fear seemed, like fine rain, to be slowly, persistently
+falling with the dusk over the mournful-looking houses. The babbling
+confidence of the daytime was fatally terminating in groundless panic,
+in growing alarm as the night drew nearer; the inhabitants were so
+weary and so satiated with their triumph that they had no strength
+left but to dream of some terrible retaliation on the part of the
+insurgents. Rougon shuddered as he passed through this current of
+terror. He hastened his steps, feeling as if he would choke. As he
+passed a cafe on the Place des Recollets, where the lamps had just
+been lit, and where the petty cits of the new town were assembled, he
+heard a few words of terrifying conversation.
+
+"Well! Monsieur Picou," said one man in a thick voice, "you've heard
+the news? The regiment that was expected has not arrived."
+
+"But nobody expected any regiment, Monsieur Touche," a shrill voice
+replied.
+
+"I beg your pardon. You haven't read the proclamation, then?"
+
+"Oh yes, it's true the placards declare that order will be maintained
+by force, if necessary."
+
+"You see, then, there's force mentioned; that means armed forces, of
+course."
+
+"What do people say then?"
+
+"Well, you know, folks are beginning to feel rather frightened; they
+say that this delay on the part of the soldiers isn't natural, and
+that the insurgents may well have slaughtered them."
+
+A cry of horror resounded through the cafe. Rougon was inclined to go
+in and tell those bourgeois that the proclamation had never announced
+the arrival of a regiment, that they had no right to strain its
+meaning to such a degree, nor to spread such foolish theories abroad.
+But he himself, amidst the disquietude which was coming over him, was
+not quite sure he had not counted upon a despatch of troops; and he
+did, in fact, consider it strange that not a single soldier had made
+his appearance. So he reached home in a very uneasy state of mind.
+Felicite, still petulant and full of courage, became quite angry at
+seeing him upset by such silly trifles. Over the dessert she comforted
+him.
+
+"Well, you great simpleton," she said, "so much the better, if the
+prefect does forget us! We shall save the town by ourselves. For my
+part, I should like to see the insurgents return, so that we might
+receive them with bullets and cover ourselves with glory. Listen to
+me, go and have the gates closed, and don't go to bed; bustle about
+all night; it will all be taken into account later on."
+
+Pierre returned to the town-hall in rather more cheerful spirits. He
+required some courage to remain firm amidst the woeful maunderings of
+his colleagues. The members of the Provisional Commission seemed to
+reek with panic, just as they might with damp in the rainy season.
+They all professed to have counted upon the despatch of a regiment,
+and began to exclaim that brave citizens ought not to be abandoned in
+such a manner to the fury of the rabble. Pierre, to preserve peace,
+almost promised they should have a regiment on the morrow. Then he
+announced, in a solemn manner, that he was going to have the gates
+closed. This came as a relief. Detachments of the national guards had
+to repair immediately to each gate and double-lock it. When they had
+returned, several members confessed that they really felt more
+comfortable; and when Pierre remarked that the critical situation of
+the town imposed upon them the duty of remaining at their posts, some
+of them made arrangements with the view of spending the night in an
+arm-chair. Granoux put on a black silk skull cap which he had brought
+with him by way of precaution. Towards eleven o'clock, half of the
+gentlemen were sleeping round Monsieur Garconnet's writing table.
+Those who still managed to keep their eyes open fancied, as they
+listened to the measured tramp of the national guards in the
+courtyard, that they were heroes and were receiving decorations. A
+large lamp, placed on the writing-table, illumined this strange vigil.
+All at once, however, Rougon, who had seemed to be slumbering, jumped
+up, and sent for Vuillet. He had just remembered that he had not
+received the "Gazette."
+
+The bookseller made his appearance in a very bad humour.
+
+"Well!" Rougon asked him as he took him aside, "what about the article
+you promised me? I haven't seen the paper."
+
+"Is that what you disturbed me for?" Vuillet angrily retorted. "The
+'Gazette' has not been issued; I've no desire to get myself murdered
+to-morrow, should the insurgents come back."
+
+Rougon tried to smile as he declared that, thank heaven, nobody would
+be murdered at all. It was precisely because false and disquieting
+rumours were running about that the article in question would have
+rendered great service to the good cause.
+
+"Possibly," Vuillet resumed; "but the best of causes at the present
+time is to keep one's head on one's shoulders." And he added, with
+maliciousness, "And I was under the impression you had killed all the
+insurgents! You've left too many of them for me to run any risk."
+
+Rougon, when he was alone again, felt amazed at this mutiny on the
+part of a man who was usually so meek and mild. Vuillet's conduct
+seemed to him suspicious. But he had no time to seek an explanation;
+he had scarcely stretched himself out afresh in his arm-chair, when
+Roudier entered, with a big sabre, which he had attached to his belt,
+clattering noisily against his legs. The sleepers awoke in a fright.
+Granoux thought it was a call to arms.
+
+"Eh? what! What's the matter?" he asked, as he hastily put his black
+silk cap into his pocket.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Roudier, breathlessly, without thinking of taking
+any oratorical precautions, "I believe that a band of insurgents is
+approaching the town."
+
+These words were received with the silence of terror. Rougon alone had
+the strength to ask, "Have you seen them?"
+
+"No," the retired hosier replied; "but we hear strange noises out in
+the country; one of my men assured me that he had seen fires along the
+slope of the Garrigues."
+
+Then, as all the gentlemen stared at each other white and speechless,
+"I'll return to my post," he continued. "I fear an attack. You had
+better take precautions."
+
+Rougon would have followed him, to obtain further particulars, but he
+was already too far away. After this the Commission was by no means
+inclined to go to sleep again. Strange noises! Fires! An attack! And
+in the middle of the night too! It was very easy to talk of taking
+precautions, but what were they to do? Granoux was very near advising
+the course which had proved so successful the previous evening: that
+is of hiding themselves, waiting till the insurgents has passed
+through Plassans, and then triumphing in the deserted streets. Pierre,
+however, fortunately remembering his wife's advice, said that Roudier
+might have made a mistake, and that the best thing would be to go and
+see for themselves. Some of the members made a wry face at this
+suggestion; but when it had been agreed that an armed escort should
+accompany the Commission, they all descended very courageously. They
+only left a few men downstairs; they surrounded themselves with about
+thirty of the national guards, and then they ventured into the
+slumbering town, where the moon, creeping over the house roofs, slowly
+cast lengthened shadows. They went along the ramparts, from one gate
+to the other, seeing nothing and hearing nothing. The national guards
+at the various posts certainly told them that peculiar sounds
+occasionally reached them from the country through the closed gates.
+When they strained their ears, however, they detected nothing but a
+distant murmur, which Granoux said was merely the noise of the Viorne.
+
+Nevertheless they remained doubtful. And they were about to return to
+the town-hall in a state of alarm, though they made a show of
+shrugging their shoulders and of treating Roudier as a poltroon and a
+dreamer, when Rougon, anxious to reassure them, thought of enabling
+them to view the plain over a distance of several leagues. Thereupon
+he led the little company to the Saint-Marc quarter and knocked at the
+door of the Valqueyras mansion.
+
+At the very outset of the disturbances Count de Valqueyras had left
+for his chateau at Corbiere. There was no one but the Marquis de
+Carnavant at the Plassans house. He, since the previous evening, had
+prudently kept aloof; not that he was afraid, but because he did not
+care to be seen plotting with the Rougons at the critical moment. As a
+matter of fact, he was burning with curiosity. He had been compelled
+to shut himself up in order to resist the temptation of hastening to
+the yellow drawing-room. When the footman came to tell him, in the
+middle of the night, that there were some gentlemen below asking for
+him, he could not hold back any longer. He got up and went downstairs
+in all haste.
+
+"My dear Marquis," said Rougon, as he introduced to him the members of
+the Municipal Commission, "we want to ask a favour of you. Will you
+allow us to go into the garden of the mansion?"
+
+"By all means," replied the astonished marquis, "I will conduct you
+there myself."
+
+On the way thither he ascertained what their object was. At the end of
+the garden rose a terrace which overlooked the plain. A large portion
+of the ramparts had there tumbled in, leaving a boundless prospect to
+the view. It had occurred to Rougon that this would serve as an
+excellent post of observation. While conversing together the members
+of the Commission leaned over the parapet. The strange spectacle that
+spread out before them soon made them silent. In the distance, in the
+valley of the Viorne, across the vast hollow which stretched westward
+between the chain of the Garrigues and the mountains of the Seille,
+the rays of the moon were streaming like a river of pale light. The
+clumps of trees, the gloomy rocks, looked, here and there, like islets
+and tongues of land, emerging from a luminous sea; and, according to
+the bends of the Viorne one could now and again distinguish detached
+portions of the river, glittering like armour amidst the fine silvery
+dust falling from the firmament. It all looked like an ocean, a world,
+magnified by the darkness, the cold, and their own secret fears. At
+first the gentlemen could neither hear nor see anything. The quiver of
+light and of distant sound blinded their eyes and confused their ears.
+Granoux, though he was not naturally poetic, was struck by the calm
+serenity of that winter night, and murmured: "What a beautiful night,
+gentlemen!"
+
+"Roudier was certainly dreaming," exclaimed Rougon, rather
+disdainfully.
+
+But the marquis, whose ears were quick, had begun to listen. "Ah!" he
+observed in his clear voice, "I hear the tocsin."
+
+At this they all leant over the parapet, holding their breath. And
+light and pure as crystal the distant tolling of a bell rose from the
+plain. The gentlemen could not deny it. It was indeed the tocsin.
+Rougon pretended that he recognised the bell of Beage, a village fully
+a league from Plassans. This he said in order to reassure his
+colleagues.
+
+But the marquis interrupted him. "Listen, listen: this time it is the
+bell of Saint-Maur." And he indicated another point of the horizon to
+them. There was, in fact, a second bell wailing through the clear
+night. And very soon there were ten bells, twenty bells, whose
+despairing tollings were detected by their ears, which had by this
+time grown accustomed to the quivering of the darkness. Ominous calls
+rose from all sides, like the faint rattles of dying men. Soon the
+whole plain seemed to be wailing. The gentlemen no longer jeered at
+Roudier; particularly as the marquis, who took a malicious delight in
+terrifying them, was kind enough to explain the cause of all this
+bell-ringing.
+
+"It is the neighbouring villages," he said to Rougon, "banding
+together to attack Plassans at daybreak."
+
+At this Granoux opened his eyes wide. "Didn't you see something just
+this moment over there?" he asked all of a sudden.
+
+Nobody had looked; the gentlemen had been keeping their eyes closed in
+order to hear the better.
+
+"Ah! look!" he resumed after a short pause. "There, beyond the Viorne,
+near that black mass."
+
+"Yes, I see," replied Rougon, in despair; "it's a fire they're
+kindling.
+
+A moment later another fire appeared almost immediately in front of
+the first one, then a third, and a fourth. In this wise red splotches
+appeared at nearly equal distances throughout the whole length of the
+valley, resembling the lamps of some gigantic avenue. The moonlight,
+which dimmed their radiance, made them look like pools of blood. This
+melancholy illumination gave a finishing touch to the consternation of
+the Municipal Commission.
+
+"Of course!" the marquis muttered, with his bitterest sneer, "those
+brigands are signalling to each other." And he counted the fires
+complacently, to get some idea, he said, as to how many men "the brave
+national guard of Plassans" would have to deal with. Rougon
+endeavoured to raise doubts by saying the villages were taking up arms
+in order to join the army of the insurgents, and not for the purpose
+of attacking the town. But the gentlemen, by their silent
+consternation, made it clear that they had formed their own opinion,
+and were not to be consoled.
+
+"I can hear the 'Marseillaise' now," remarked Granoux in a hushed
+voice.
+
+It was indeed true. A detachment must have been following the course
+of the Viorne, passing, at that moment, just under the town. The cry,
+"To arms, citizens! Form your battalions!" reached the on-lookers in
+sudden bursts with vibrating distinctness. Ah! what an awful night it
+was! The gentlemen spent it leaning over the parapet of the terrace,
+numbed by the terrible cold, and yet quite unable to tear themselves
+away from the sight of that plain which resounded with the tocsin and
+the "Marseillaise," and was all ablaze with signal-fires. They feasted
+their eyes upon that sea of light, flecked with blood-red flames; and
+they strained their ears in order to listen to the confused clamour,
+till at last their senses began to deceive them, and they saw and
+heard the most frightful things. Nothing in the world would have
+induced them to leave the spot. If they had turned their backs, they
+would have fancied that a whole army was at their heels. After the
+manner of a certain class of cowards, they wished to witness the
+approach of the danger, in order that they might take flight at the
+right moment. Towards morning, when the moon had set and they could
+see nothing in front of them but a dark void, they fell into a
+terrible fright. They fancied they were surrounded by invisible
+enemies, who were crawling along in the darkness, ready to fly at
+their throats. At the slightest noise they imagined there were enemies
+deliberating beneath the terrace, prior to scaling it. Yet there was
+nothing, nothing but darkness upon which they fixed their eyes
+distractedly. The marquis, as if to console them, said in his ironical
+way: "Don't be uneasy! They will certainly wait till daybreak."
+
+Meanwhile Rougon cursed and swore. He felt himself again giving way to
+fear. As for Granoux, his hair turned completely white. At last the
+dawn appeared with weary slowness. This again was a terribly anxious
+moment. The gentlemen, at the first ray of light, expected to see an
+army drawn up in line before the town. It so happened that day that
+the dawn was lazy and lingered awhile on the edge of the horizon. With
+outstretched necks and fixed gaze, the party on the terrace peered
+anxiously into the misty expanse. In the uncertain light they fancied
+they caught glimpses of colossal profiles, the plain seemed to be
+transformed into a lake of blood, the rocks looked like corpses
+floating on its surface, and the clusters of trees took the forms of
+battalions drawn up and threatening attack. When the growing light had
+at last dispersed these phantoms, the morning broke so pale, so
+mournful, so melancholy, that even the marquis's spirits sank. Not a
+single insurgent was to be seen, and the high roads were free; but the
+grey valley wore a gruesomely sad and deserted aspect. The fires had
+now gone out, but the bells still rang on. Towards eight o'clock,
+Rougon observed a small party of men who were moving off along the
+Viorne.
+
+By this time the gentlemen were half dead with cold and fatigue.
+Seeing no immediate danger, they determined to take a few hours' rest.
+A national guard was left on the terrace as a sentinel, with orders to
+run and inform Roudier if he should perceive any band approaching in
+the distance. Then Granoux and Rougon, quite worn out by the emotions
+of the night, repaired to their homes, which were close together, and
+supported each other on the way.
+
+Felicite put her husband to bed with every care. She called him "poor
+dear," and repeatedly told him that he ought not to give way to evil
+fancies, and that all would end well. But he shook his head; he felt
+grave apprehensions. She let him sleep till eleven o'clock. Then,
+after he had had something to eat, she gently turned him out of doors,
+making him understand that he must go through with the matter to the
+end. At the town-hall, Rougon found only four members of the
+Commission in attendance; the others had sent excuses, they were
+really ill. Panic had been sweeping through the town with growing
+violence all through the morning. The gentlemen had not been able to
+keep quiet respecting the memorable night they had spent on the
+terrace of the Valqueyras mansion. Their servants had hastened to
+spread the news, embellishing it with various dramatic details. By
+this time it had already become a matter of history that from the
+heights of Plassans troops of cannibals had been seen dancing and
+devouring their prisoners. Yes, bands of witches had circled hand in
+hand round their caldrons in which they were boiling children, while
+on and on marched endless files of bandits, whose weapons glittered in
+the moonlight. People spoke too of bells that of their own accord,
+sent the tocsin ringing through the desolate air, and it was even
+asserted that the insurgents had fired the neighbouring forests, so
+that the whole country side was in flames.
+
+It was Tuesday, the market-day at Plassans, and Roudier had thought it
+necessary to have the gates opened in order to admit the few peasants
+who had brought vegetables, butter, and eggs. As soon as it had
+assembled, the Municipal Commission, now composed of five members
+only, including its president, declared that this was unpardonable
+imprudence. Although the sentinel stationed at the Valqueyras mansion
+had seen nothing, the town ought to have been kept closed. Then Rougon
+decided that the public crier, accompanied by a drummer, should go
+through the streets, proclaim a state of siege, and announce to the
+inhabitants that whoever might go out would not be allowed to return.
+The gates were officially closed in broad daylight. This measure,
+adopted in order to reassure the inhabitants, raised the scare to its
+highest pitch. And there could scarcely have been a more curious sight
+than that of this little city, thus padlocking and bolting itself up
+beneath the bright sunshine, in the middle of the nineteenth century.
+
+When Plassans had buckled and tightened its belt of dilapidated
+ramparts, when it had bolted itself in like a besieged fortress at the
+approach of an assault, the most terrible anguish passed over the
+mournful houses. At every moment, in the centre of the town, people
+fancied they could hear a discharge of musketry in the Faubourgs. They
+no longer received any news; they were, so to say, at the bottom of a
+cellar, in a walled hole, where they were anxiously awaiting either
+deliverance or the finishing stroke. For the last two days the
+insurgents, who were scouring the country, had cut off all
+communication. Plassans found itself isolated from the rest of France.
+It felt that it was surrounded by a region in open rebellion, where
+the tocsin was ever ringing and the "Marseillaise" was ever roaring
+like a river that has overflowed its banks. Abandoned to its fate and
+shuddering with alarm the town lay there like some prey which would
+prove the reward of the victorious party. The strollers on the Cours
+Sauvaire were ever swaying between fear and hope according as they
+fancied that they could see the blouses of insurgents or the uniforms
+of soldiers at the Grand'-Porte. Never had sub-prefecture, pent within
+tumble-down walls, endured more agonising torture.
+
+Towards two o'clock it was rumoured that the Coup d'Etat had failed,
+that the prince-president was imprisoned at Vincennes, and that Paris
+was in the hands of the most advanced demagogues. It was reported also
+that Marseilles, Toulon, Draguignan, the entire South, belonged to the
+victorious insurrectionary army. The insurgents would arrive in the
+evening and put Plassans to the sword.
+
+Thereupon a deputation repaired to the town-hall to expostulate with
+the Municipal Commission for closing the gates, whereby they would
+only irritate the insurgents. Rougon, who was losing his head,
+defended his order with all his remaining strength. This locking of
+the gates seemed to him one of the most ingenious acts of his
+administration; he advanced the most convincing arguments in its
+justification. But the others embarrassed him by their questions,
+asking him where were the soldiers, the regiment that he had promised.
+Then he began to lie, and told them flatly that he had promised
+nothing at all. The non-appearance of this legendary regiment, which
+the inhabitants longed for with such eagerness that they had actually
+dreamt of its arrival, was the chief cause of the panic. Well-informed
+people even named the exact spot on the high road where the soldiers
+had been butchered.
+
+At four o'clock Rougon, followed by Granoux, again repaired to the
+Valqueyras mansion. Small bands, on their way to join the insurgents
+at Orcheres, still passed along in the distance, through the valley of
+the Viorne. Throughout the day urchins climbed the ramparts, and
+bourgeois came to peep through the loopholes. These volunteer
+sentinels kept up the terror by counting the various bands, which were
+taken for so many strong battalions. The timorous population fancied
+it could see from the battlements the preparations for some universal
+massacre. At dusk, as on the previous evening, the panic became yet
+more chilling.
+
+On returning to the municipal offices Rougon and his inseparable
+companion, Granoux, recognised that the situation was growing
+intolerable. During their absence another member of the Commission had
+disappeared. They were only four now, and they felt they were making
+themselves ridiculous by staying there for hours, looking at each
+other's pale countenances, and never saying a word. Moreover, they
+were terribly afraid of having to spend a second night on the terrace
+of the Valqueyras mansion.
+
+Rougon gravely declared that as the situation of affairs was
+unchanged, there was no need for them to continue to remain there /en
+permanence/. If anything serious should occur information would be
+sent to them. And, by a decision duly taken in council, he deputed to
+Roudier the carrying on of the administration. Poor Roudier, who
+remembered that he had served as a national guard in Paris under
+Louis-Philippe, was meantime conscientiously keeping watch at the
+Grand'-Porte.
+
+Rougon went home looking very downcast, and creeping along under the
+shadows of the houses. He felt that Plassans was becoming hostile to
+him. He heard his name bandied about amongst the groups, with
+expressions of anger and contempt. He walked upstairs, reeling and
+perspiring. Felicite received him with speechless consternation. She,
+also, was beginning to despair. Their dreams were being completely
+shattered. They stood silent, face to face, in the yellow drawing-
+room. The day was drawing to a close, a murky winter day which
+imparted a muddy tint to the orange-coloured wall-paper with its large
+flower pattern; never had the room looked more faded, more mean, more
+shabby. And at this hour they were alone; they no longer had a crowd
+of courtiers congratulating them, as on the previous evening. A single
+day had sufficed to topple them over, at the very moment when they
+were singing victory. If the situation did not change on the morrow
+their game would be lost.
+
+Felicite who, when gazing on the previous evening at the ruins of the
+yellow drawing-room, had thought of the plains of Austerlitz, now
+recalled the accursed field of Waterloo as she observed how mournful
+and deserted the place was. Then, as her husband said nothing, she
+mechanically went to the window--that window where she had inhaled
+with delight the incense of the entire town. She perceived numerous
+groups below on the square, but she closed the blinds upon seeing some
+heads turn towards their house, for she feared that she might be
+hooted. She felt quite sure that those people were speaking about
+them.
+
+Indeed, voices rose through the twilight. A lawyer was clamouring in
+the tone of a triumphant pleader. "That's just what I said; the
+insurgents left of their own accord, and they won't ask the permission
+of the forty-one to come back. The forty-one indeed! a fine farce!
+Why, I believe there were at least two hundred."
+
+"No, indeed," said a burly trader, an oil-dealer and a great
+politician, "there were probably not even ten. There was no fighting
+or else we should have seen some blood in the morning. I went to the
+town-hall myself to look; the courtyard was as clean as my hand."
+
+Then a workman, who stepped timidly up to the group, added: "There was
+no need of any violence to seize the building; the door wasn't even
+shut."
+
+This remark was received with laughter, and the workman, thus
+encouraged, continued: "As for those Rougons, everybody knows that
+they are a bad lot."
+
+This insult pierced Felicite to the heart. The ingratitude of the
+people was heartrending to her, for she herself was at last beginning
+to believe in the mission of the Rougons. She called for her husband.
+She wanted him to learn how fickle was the multitude.
+
+"It's all a piece with their mirror," continued the lawyer. "What a
+fuss they made about that broken glass! You know that Rougon is quite
+capable of having fired his gun at it just to make believe there had
+been a battle."
+
+Pierre restrained a cry of pain. What! they did not even believe in
+his mirror now! They would soon assert that he had not heard a bullet
+whiz past his ear. The legend of the Rougons would be blotted out;
+nothing would remain of their glory. But his torture was not at an end
+yet. The groups manifested their hostility as heartily as they had
+displayed their approval on the previous evening. A retired hatter, an
+old man seventy years of age, whose factory had formerly been in the
+Faubourg, ferreted out the Rougons' past history. He spoke vaguely,
+with the hesitation of a wandering memory, about the Fouques'
+property, and Adelaide, and her amours with a smuggler. He said just
+enough to give a fresh start to the gossip. The tattlers drew closer
+together and such words as "rogues," "thieves," and "shameless
+intriguers," ascended to the shutter behind which Pierre and Felicite
+were perspiring with fear and indignation. The people on the square
+even went so far as to pity Macquart. This was the final blow. On the
+previous day Rougon had been a Brutus, a stoic soul sacrificing his
+own affections to his country; now he was nothing but an ambitious
+villain, who felled his brother to the ground and made use of him as a
+stepping-stone to fortune.
+
+"You hear, you hear them?" Pierre murmured in a stifled voice. "Ah!
+the scoundrels, they are killing us; we shall never retrieve
+ourselves."
+
+Felicite, enraged, was beating a tattoo on the shutter with her
+impatient fingers.
+
+"Let them talk," she answered. "If we get the upper hand again they
+shall see what stuff I'm made of. I know where the blow comes from.
+The new town hates us."
+
+She guessed rightly. The sudden unpopularity of the Rougons was the
+work of a group of lawyers who were very much annoyed at the
+importance acquired by an old illiterate oil-dealer, whose house had
+been on the verge of bankruptcy. The Saint-Marc quarter had shown no
+sign of life for the last two days. The inhabitants of the old quarter
+and the new town alone remained in presence, and the latter had taken
+advantage of the panic to injure the yellow drawing-room in the minds
+of the tradespeople and working-classes. Roudier and Granoux were said
+to be excellent men, honourable citizens, who had been led away by the
+Rougons' intrigues. Their eyes ought to be opened to it. Ought not
+Monsieur Isidore Granoux to be seated in the mayor's arm-chair, in the
+place of that big portly beggar who had not a copper to bless himself
+with? Thus launched, the envious folks began to reproach Rougon for
+all the acts of his administration, which only dated from the previous
+evening. He had no right to retain the services of the former
+Municipal Council; he had been guilty of grave folly in ordering the
+gates to be closed; it was through his stupidity that five members of
+the Commission had contracted inflammation of the lungs on the terrace
+of the Valqueyras mansion. There was no end to his faults. The
+Republicans likewise raised their heads. They talked of the
+possibility of a sudden attack upon the town-hall by the workmen of
+the Faubourg. The reaction was at its last gasp.
+
+Pierre, at this overthrow of all his hopes, began to wonder what
+support he might still rely on if occasion should require any.
+
+"Wasn't Aristide to come here this evening," he asked, "to make it up
+with us?"
+
+"Yes," answered Felicite. "He promised me a good article. The
+'Independant' has not appeared yet--"
+
+But her husband interrupted her, crying: "See! isn't that he who is
+just coming out of the Sub-Prefecture?"
+
+The old woman glanced in that direction. "He's got his arm in a sling
+again!" she cried.
+
+Aristide's hand was indeed wrapped in the silk handkerchief once more.
+The Empire was breaking up, but the Republic was not yet triumphant,
+and he had judged it prudent to resume the part of a disabled man. He
+crossed the square stealthily, without raising his head. Then
+doubtless hearing some dangerous and compromising remarks among the
+groups of bystanders, he made all haste to turn the corner of the Rue
+de la Banne.
+
+"Bah! he won't come here," said Felicite bitterly. "It's all up with
+us. Even our children forsake us!"
+
+She shut the window violently, in order that she might not see or hear
+anything more. When she had lit the lamp, she and her husband sat down
+to dinner, disheartened and without appetite, leaving most of their
+food on their plates. They only had a few hours left them to take a
+decisive step. It was absolutely indispensable that before daybreak
+Plassans should be at their feet beseeching forgiveness, or else they
+must entirely renounce the fortune which they had dreamed of. The
+total absence of any reliable news was the sole cause of their anxious
+indecision. Felicite, with her clear intellect, had quickly perceived
+this. If they had been able to learn the result of the Coup d'Etat,
+they would either have faced it out and have still pursued their role
+of deliverers, or else have done what they could to efface all
+recollection of their unlucky campaign. But they had no precise
+information; they were losing their heads; the thought that they were
+thus risking their fortune on a throw, in complete ignorance of what
+was happening, brought a cold perspiration to their brows.
+
+"And why the devil doesn't Eugene write to me?" Rougon suddenly cried,
+in an outburst of despair, forgetting that he was betraying the secret
+of his correspondence to his wife.
+
+But Felicite pretended not to have heard. Her husband's exclamation
+had profoundly affected her. Why, indeed, did not Eugene write to his
+father? After keeping him so accurately informed of the progress of
+the Bonapartist cause, he ought at least to have announced the triumph
+or defeat of Prince Louis. Mere prudence would have counselled the
+despatch of such information. If he remained silent, it must be that
+the victorious Republic had sent him to join the pretender in the
+dungeons of Vincennes. At this thought Felicite felt chilled to the
+marrow; her son's silence destroyed her last hopes.
+
+At that moment somebody brought up the "Gazette," which had only just
+appeared.
+
+"Ah!" said Pierre, with surprise. "Vuillet has issued his paper!"
+
+Thereupon he tore off the wrapper, read the leading article, and
+finished it looking as white as a sheet, and swaying on his chair.
+
+"Here, read," he resumed, handing the paper to Felicite.
+
+It was a magnificent article, attacking the insurgents with unheard of
+violence. Never had so much stinging bitterness, so many falsehoods,
+such bigoted abuse flowed from pen before. Vuillet commenced by
+narrating the entry of the insurgents into Plassans. The description
+was a perfect masterpiece. He spoke of "those bandits, those
+villainous-looking countenances, that scum of the galleys," invading
+the town, "intoxicated with brandy, lust, and pillage." Then he
+exhibited them "parading their cynicism in the streets, terrifying the
+inhabitants with their savage cries and seeking only violence and
+murder." Further on, the scene at the town-hall and the arrest of the
+authorities became a most horrible drama. "Then they seized the most
+respectable people by the throat; and the mayor, the brave commander
+of the national guard, the postmaster, that kindly functionary, were--
+even like the Divinity--crowned with thorns by those wretches, who
+spat in their faces." The passage devoted to Miette and her red
+pelisse was quite a flight of imagination. Vuillet had seen ten,
+twenty girls steeped in blood: "and who," he wrote, "did not behold
+among those monsters some infamous creatures clothed in red, who must
+have bathed themselves in the blood of the martyrs murdered by the
+brigands along the high roads? They were brandishing banners, and
+openly receiving the vile caresses of the entire horde." And Vuillet
+added, with Biblical magniloquence, "The Republic ever marches on
+amidst debauchery and murder."
+
+That, however, was only the first part of the article; the narrative
+being ended, the editor asked if the country would any longer tolerate
+"the shamelessness of those wild beasts, who respected neither
+property nor persons." He made an appeal to all valorous citizens,
+declaring that to tolerate such things any longer would be to
+encourage them, and that the insurgents would then come and snatch
+"the daughter from her mother's arms, the wife from her husband's
+embraces." And at last, after a pious sentence in which he declared
+that Heaven willed the extermination of the wicked, he concluded with
+this trumpet blast: "It is asserted that these wretches are once more
+at our gates; well then let each one of us take a gun and shoot them
+down like dogs. I for my part shall be seen in the front rank, happy
+to rid the earth of such vermin."
+
+This article, in which periphrastic abuse was strung together with all
+the heaviness of touch which characterises French provincial
+journalism, quite terrified Rougon, who muttered, as Felicite replaced
+the "Gazette" on the table: "Ah! the wretch! he is giving us the last
+blow; people will believe that I inspired this diatribe."
+
+"But," his wife remarked, pensively, "did you not this morning tell me
+that he absolutely refused to write against the Republicans? The news
+that circulated had terrified him, and he was as pale as death, you
+said."
+
+"Yes! yes! I can't understand it at all. When I insisted, he went so
+far as to reproach me for not having killed all the insurgents. It was
+yesterday that he ought to have written that article; to-day he'll get
+us all butchered!"
+
+Felicite was lost in amazement. What could have prompted Vuillet's
+change of front? The idea of that wretched semi-sacristan carrying a
+musket and firing on the ramparts of Plassans seemed to her one of the
+most ridiculous things imaginable. There was certainly some
+determining cause underlying all this which escaped her. Only one
+thing seemed certain. Vuillet was too impudent in his abuse and too
+ready with his valour, for the insurrectionary band to be really so
+near the town as some people asserted.
+
+"He's a spiteful fellow, I always said so," Rougon resumed, after
+reading the article again. "He has only been waiting for an
+opportunity to do us this injury. What a fool I was to leave him in
+charge of the post-office!"
+
+This last sentence proved a flash of light. Felicite started up
+quickly, as though at some sudden thought. Then she put on a cap and
+threw a shawl over her shoulders.
+
+"Where are you going, pray?" her husband asked her with surprise.
+"It's past nine o'clock."
+
+"You go to bed," she replied rather brusquely. "you're not well; go
+and rest yourself. Sleep on till I come back; I'll wake you if
+necessary, and then we can talk the matter over."
+
+She went out with her usual nimble gait, ran to the post-office, and
+abruptly entered the room where Vuillet was still at work. On seeing
+her he made a hasty gesture of vexation.
+
+Never in his life had Vuillet felt so happy. Since he had been able to
+slip his little fingers into the mail-bag he had enjoyed the most
+exquisite pleasure, the pleasure of an inquisitive priest about to
+relish the confessions of his penitents. All the sly blabbing, all the
+vague chatter of sacristies resounded in his ears. He poked his long,
+pale nose into the letters, gazed amorously at the superscriptions
+with his suspicious eyes, sounded the envelopes just like little abbes
+sound the souls of maidens. He experienced endless enjoyment, was
+titillated by the most enticing temptation. The thousand secrets of
+Plassans lay there. He held in his hand the honour of women, the
+fortunes of men, and had only to break a seal to know as much as the
+grand vicar at the cathedral who was the confidant of all the better
+people of the town. Vuillet was one of those terribly bitter, frigid
+gossips, who worm out everything, but never repeat what they hear,
+except by way of dealing somebody a mortal blow. He had, consequently,
+often longed to dip his arms into the public letter-box. Since the
+previous evening the private room at the post-office had become a big
+confessional full of darkness and mystery, in which he tasted
+exquisite rapture while sniffing at the letters which exhaled veiled
+longings and quivering avowals. Moreover, he carried on his work with
+consummate impudence. The crisis through which the country was passing
+secured him perfect impunity. If some letters should be delayed, or
+others should miscarry altogether, it would be the fault of those
+villainous Republicans who were scouring the country and interrupting
+all communication. The closing of the town gates had for a moment
+vexed him, but he had come to an understanding with Roudier, whereby
+the couriers were allowed to enter and bring the mails direct to him
+without passing by the town-hall.
+
+As a matter of fact he had only opened a few letters, the important
+ones, those in which his keen scent divined some information which it
+would be useful for him to know before anybody else. Then he contented
+himself by locking up in a drawer, for delivery subsequently, such
+letters as might give information and rob him of the merit of his
+valour at a time when the whole town was trembling with fear. This
+pious personage, in selecting the management of the post-office as his
+own share of the spoils, had given proof of singular insight into the
+situation.
+
+When Madame Rougon entered, he was taking his choice of a heap of
+letters and papers, under the pretext, no doubt, of classifying them.
+He rose, with his humble smile, and offered her a seat; his reddened
+eyelids blinking rather uneasily. But Felicite did not sit down; she
+roughly exclaimed: "I want the letter."
+
+At this Vuillet's eyes opened widely, with an expression of perfect
+innocence.
+
+"What letter, madame?" he asked.
+
+"The letter you received this morning for my husband. Come, Monsieur
+Vuillet, I'm in a hurry."
+
+And as he stammered that he did not know, that he had not seen
+anything, that it was very strange, Felicite continued in a covertly
+threatening voice: "A letter from Paris, from my son, Eugene; you know
+what I mean, don't you? I'll look for it myself."
+
+Thereupon she stepped forward as if intending to examine the various
+packets which littered the writing table. But he at once bestirred
+himself, and said he would go and see. The service was necessarily in
+great confusion! Perhaps, indeed, there might be a letter. In that
+case they would find it. But, as far as he was concerned, he swore he
+had not seen any. While he was speaking he moved about the office
+turning over all the papers. Then he opened the drawers and the
+portfolios. Felicite waited, quite calm and collected.
+
+"Yes, indeed, you're right, here's a letter for you," he cried at
+last, as he took a few papers from a portfolio. "Ah! those confounded
+clerks, they take advantage of the situation to do nothing in the
+proper way."
+
+Felicite took the letter and examined the seal attentively, apparently
+quite regardless of the fact that such scrutiny might wound Vuillet's
+susceptibilities. She clearly perceived that the envelope must have
+been opened; the bookseller, in his unskilful way, had used some
+sealing wax of a darker colour to secure it again. She took care to
+open the envelope in such a manner as to preserve the seal intact, so
+that it might serve as proof of this. Then she read the note. Eugene
+briefly announced the complete success of the Coup d'Etat. Paris was
+subdued, the provinces generally speaking remained quiet, and he
+counselled his parents to maintain a very firm attitude in face of the
+partial insurrection which was disturbing the South. In conclusion he
+told them that the foundation of their fortune was laid, if they did
+not weaken.
+
+Madame Rougon put the letter in her pocket, and sat down slowly,
+looking into Vuillet's face. The latter had resumed his sorting in a
+feverish manner, as though he were very busy.
+
+"Listen to me, Monsieur Vuillet," she said to him. And when he raised
+his head: "let us play our cards openly; you do wrong to betray us;
+some misfortune may befall you. If, instead of unsealing our
+letters--"
+
+At this he protested, and feigned great indignation. But she calmly
+continued: "I know, I know your school, you never confess. Come, don't
+let us waste any more words, what interest have you in favouring the
+Coup d'Etat?"
+
+And, as he continued to assert his perfect honesty, she at last lost
+patience. "You take me for a fool!" she cried. "I've read your
+article. You would do much better to act in concert with us."
+
+Thereupon, without avowing anything, he flatly submitted that he
+wished to have the custom of the college. Formerly it was he who had
+supplied that establishment with school books. But it had become known
+that he sold objectionable literature clandestinely to the pupils; for
+which reason, indeed, he had almost been prosecuted at the
+Correctional Police Court. Since then he had jealously longed to be
+received back into the good graces of the directors.
+
+Felicite was surprised at the modesty of his ambition, and told him
+so. To open letters and risk the galleys just for the sake of selling
+a few dictionaries and grammars!
+
+"Eh!" he exclaimed in a shrill voice, "it's an assured sale of four or
+five thousand francs a year. I don't aspire to impossibilities like
+some people."
+
+She did not take any notice of his last taunting words. No more was
+said about his opening the letters. A treaty of alliance was
+concluded, by which Vuillet engaged that he would not circulate any
+news or take any step in advance, on condition that the Rougons should
+secure him the custom of the college. As she was leaving, Felicite
+advised him not to compromise himself any further. It would be
+sufficient for him to detain the letters and distribute them only on
+the second day.
+
+"What a knave," she muttered, when she reached the street, forgetting
+that she herself had just laid an interdict upon the mail.
+
+She went home slowly, wrapped in thought. She even went out of her
+way, passing along the Cours Sauvaire, as if to gain time and ease for
+reflection before going in. Under the trees of the promenade she met
+Monsieur de Carnavant, who was taking advantage of the darkness to
+ferret about the town without compromising himself. The clergy of
+Plassans, to whom all energetic action was distasteful, had, since the
+announcement of the Coup d'Etat, preserved absolute neutrality. In the
+priests' opinion the Empire was virtually established, and they
+awaited an opportunity to resume in some new direction their secular
+intrigues. The marquis, who had now become a useless agent, remained
+only inquisitive on one point--he wished to know how the turmoil would
+finish, and in what manner the Rougons would play their role to the
+end.
+
+"Oh! it's you, little one!" he exclaimed, as soon as he recognized
+Felicite. "I wanted to see you; your affairs are getting muddled!"
+
+"Oh, no; everything is going on all right," she replied, in an absent-
+minded way.
+
+"So much the better. You'll tell me all about it, won't you? Ah! I
+must confess that I gave your husband and his colleagues a terrible
+fright the other night. You should have seen how comical they looked
+on the terrace, while I was pointing out a band of insurgents in every
+cluster of trees in the valley! You forgive me?"
+
+"I'm much obliged to you," said Felicite quickly. "You should have
+made them die of fright. My husband is a big sly-boots. Come and see
+me some morning, when I am alone."
+
+Then she turned away, as though this meeting with the marquis had
+determined her. From head to foot the whole of her little person
+betokened implacable resolution. At last she was going to revenge
+herself on Pierre for his petty mysteries, have him under her heel,
+and secure, once for all, her omnipotence at home. There would be a
+fine scene, quite a comedy, indeed, the points of which she was
+already enjoying in anticipation, while she worked out her plan with
+all the spitefulness of an injured woman.
+
+She found Pierre in bed, sleeping heavily; she brought the candle near
+him for an instant, and gazed with an air of compassion, at his big
+face, across which slight twitches occasionally passed; then she sat
+down at the head of the bed, took off her cap, let her hair fall
+loose, assumed the appearance of one in despair, and began to sob
+quite loudly.
+
+"Hallo! What's the matter? What are you crying for?" asked Pierre,
+suddenly awaking.
+
+She did not reply, but cried more bitterly.
+
+"Come, come, do answer," continued her husband, frightened by this
+mute despair. "Where have you been? Have you seen the insurgents?"
+
+She shook her head; then, in a faint voice, she said: "I've just come
+from the Valqueyras mansion. I wanted to ask Monsieur de Carnavant's
+advice. Ah! my dear, all is lost."
+
+Pierre sat up in bed, very pale. His bull neck, which his unbuttoned
+night-shirt exposed to view, all his soft, flabby flesh seemed to
+swell with terror. At last he sank back, pale and tearful, looking
+like some grotesque Chinese figure in the middle of the untidy bed.
+
+"The marquis," continued Felicite, "thinks that Prince Louis has
+succumbed. We are ruined; we shall never get a sou."
+
+Thereupon, as often happens with cowards, Pierre flew into a passion.
+It was the marquis's fault, it was his wife's fault, the fault of all
+his family. Had he ever thought of politics at all, until Monsieur de
+Carnavant and Felicite had driven him to that tomfoolery?
+
+"I wash my hands of it altogether," he cried. "It's you two who are
+responsible for the blunder. Wasn't it better to go on living on our
+little savings in peace and quietness? But then, you were always
+determined to have your own way! You see what it has brought us to."
+
+He was losing his head completely, and forgot that he had shown
+himself as eager as his wife. However, his only desire now was to vent
+his anger, by laying the blame of his ruin upon others.
+
+"And, moreover," he continued, "could we ever have succeeded with
+children like ours? Eugene abandons us just at the critical moment;
+Aristide has dragged us through the mire, and even that big simpleton
+Pascal is compromising us by his philanthropic practising among the
+insurgents. And to think that we brought ourselves to poverty simply
+to give them a university education!"
+
+Then, as he drew breath, Felicite said to him softly: "You are
+forgetting Macquart."
+
+"Ah! yes; I was forgetting him," he resumed more violently than ever;
+"there's another whom I can't think of without losing all patience!
+But that's not all; you know little Silvere. Well, I saw him at my
+mother's the other evening with his hands covered with blood. He has
+put some gendarme's eye out. I did not tell you of it, as I didn't
+want to frighten you. But you'll see one of my nephews in the Assize
+Court. Ah! what a family! As for Macquart, he has annoyed us to such
+an extent that I felt inclined to break his head for him the other day
+when I had a gun in my hand. Yes, I had a mind to do it."
+
+Felicite let the storm pass over. She had received her husband's
+reproaches with angelic sweetness, bowing her head like a culprit,
+whereby she was able to smile in her sleeve. Her demeanour provoked
+and maddened Pierre. When speech failed the poor man, she heaved deep
+sighs, feigning repentance; and then she repeated, in a disconsolate
+voice: "Whatever shall we do! Whatever shall we do! We are over head
+and ears in debt."
+
+"It's your fault!" Pierre cried, with all his remaining strength.
+
+The Rougons, in fact, owed money on every side. The hope of
+approaching success had made them forget all prudence. Since the
+beginning of 1851 they had gone so far as to entertain the frequenters
+of the yellow drawing-room every evening with syrup and punch, and
+cakes--providing, in fact, complete collations, at which they one and
+all drank to the death of the Republic. Besides this, Pierre had
+placed a quarter of his capital at the disposal of the reactionary
+party, as a contribution towards the purchase of guns and cartridges.
+
+"The pastry-cook's bill amounts to at least a thousand francs,"
+Felicite resumed, in her sweetest tone, "and we probably owe twice as
+much to the liqueur-dealer. Then there's the butcher, the baker, the
+greengrocer----"
+
+Pierre was in agony. And Felicite struck him a final blow by adding:
+"I say nothing of the ten thousand francs you gave for the guns."
+
+"I, I!" he faltered, "but I was deceived, I was robbed! It was that
+idiot Sicardot who let me in for that by swearing that the
+Napoleonists would be triumphant. I thought I was only making an
+advance. But the old dolt will have to repay me my money."
+
+"Ah! you won't get anything back," said his wife, shrugging her
+shoulders. "We shall suffer the fate of war. When we have paid off
+everything, we sha'n't even have enough to buy dry bread with. Ah!
+it's been a fine campaign. We can now go and live in some hovel in the
+old quarter."
+
+This last phrase had a most lugubrious sound. It seemed like the knell
+of their existence. Pierre pictured the hovel in the old quarter,
+which had just been mentioned by Felicite. 'Twas there, then, that he
+would die on a pallet, after striving all his life for the enjoyment
+of ease and luxury. In vain had he robbed his mother, steeped his
+hands in the foulest intrigues, and lied and lied for many a long
+year. The Empire would not pay his debts--that Empire which alone
+could save him. He jumped out of bed in his night-shirt, crying: "No;
+I'll take my gun; I would rather let the insurgents kill me."
+
+"Well!" Felicite rejoined, with great composure, "you can have that
+done to-morrow or the day after; the Republicans are not far off. And
+that way will do as well as another to make an end of matters."
+
+Pierre shuddered. It seemed as if some one had suddenly poured a large
+pail of cold water over his shoulders. He slowly got into bed again,
+and when he was warmly wrapped up in the sheets, he began to cry. This
+fat fellow easily burst into tears--gently flowing, inexhaustible
+tears--which streamed from his eyes without an effort. A terrible
+reaction was now going on within him. After his wrath he became as
+weak as a child. Felicite, who had been waiting for this crisis, was
+delighted to see him so spiritless, so resourceless, and so humbled
+before her. She still preserved silence, and an appearance of
+distressed humility. After a long pause, her seeming resignation, her
+mute dejection, irritated Pierre's nerves.
+
+"But do say something!" he implored; "let us think matters over
+together. Is there really no hope left us?"
+
+"None, you know very well," she replied; "you explained the situation
+yourself just now; we have no help to expect from anyone; even our
+children have betrayed us."
+
+"Let us flee, then. Shall we leave Plassans to-night--immediately?"
+
+"Flee! Why, my dear, to-morrow we should be the talk of the whole
+town. Don't you remember, too, that you have had the gates closed?"
+
+A violent struggle was going on in Pierre's mind, which he exerted to
+the utmost in seeking for some solution; at last, as though he felt
+vanquished, he murmured, in supplicating tones: "I beseech you, do try
+to think of something; you haven't said anything yet."
+
+Felicite raised her head, feigning surprise; and with a gesture of
+complete powerlessness she said: "I am a fool in these matters. I
+don't understand anything about politics, you've told me so a hundred
+times."
+
+And then, as her embarrassed husband held his tongue and lowered his
+eyes, she continued slowly, but not reproachfully: "You have not kept
+me informed of your affairs, have you? I know nothing at all about
+them, I can't even give you any advice. It was quite right of you,
+though; women chatter sometimes, and it is a thousand times better for
+the men to steer the ship alone."
+
+She said this with such refined irony that her husband did not detect
+that she was deriding him. He simply felt profound remorse. And, all
+of a sudden, he burst out into a confession. He spoke of Eugene's
+letters, explained his plans, his conduct, with all the loquacity of a
+man who is relieving his conscience and imploring a saviour. At every
+moment he broke off to ask: "What would you have done in my place?" or
+else he cried, "Isn't that so? I was right, I could not act
+otherwise." But Felicite did not even deign to make a sign. She
+listened with all the frigid reserve of a judge. In reality she was
+tasting the most exquisite pleasure; she had got that sly-boots fast
+at last; she played with him like a cat playing with a ball of paper;
+and he virtually held out his hands to be manacled by her.
+
+"But wait," he said hastily, jumping out of bed. "I'll give you
+Eugene's correspondence to read. You can judge the situation better
+then."
+
+She vainly tried to hold him back by his night-shirt. He spread out
+the letters on the table by the bed-side, and then got into bed again,
+and read whole pages of them, and compelled her to go through them
+herself. She suppressed a smile, and began to feel some pity for the
+poor man.
+
+"Well," he said anxiously, when he had finished, "now you know
+everything. Do you see any means of saving us from ruin!"
+
+She still gave no answer. She appeared to be pondering deeply.
+
+"You are an intelligent woman," he continued, in order to flatter her,
+"I did wrong in keeping any secret from you; I see it now."
+
+"Let us say nothing more about that," she replied. "In my opinion, if
+you had enough courage----" And as he looked at her eagerly, she broke
+off and said, with a smile: "But you promise not to distrust me any
+more? You will tell me everything, eh? You will do nothing without
+consulting me?"
+
+He swore, and accepted the most rigid conditions. Felicite then got
+into bed; and in a whisper, as if she feared somebody might hear them,
+she explained at length her plan of campaign. In her opinion the town
+must be allowed to fall into still greater panic, while Pierre was to
+maintain an heroic demeanour in the midst of the terrified
+inhabitants. A secret presentiment, she said, warned her that the
+insurgents were still at a distance. Moreover, the party of order
+would sooner or later carry the day, and the Rougons would be
+rewarded. After the role of deliverer, that of martyr was not to be
+despised. And she argued so well, and spoke with so much conviction,
+that her husband, surprised at first by the simplicity of her plan,
+which consisted in facing it out, at last detected in it a marvellous
+tactical scheme, and promised to conform to it with the greatest
+possible courage.
+
+"And don't forget that it is I who am saving you," the old woman
+murmured in a coaxing tone. "Will you be nice to me?"
+
+They kissed each other and said good-night. But neither of them slept;
+after a quarter of an hour had gone by, Pierre, who had been gazing at
+the round reflection of the night-lamp on the ceiling, turned, and in
+a faint whisper told his wife of an idea that had just occurred to
+him.
+
+"Oh! no, no," Felicite murmured, with a shudder. "That would be too
+cruel."
+
+"Well," he resumed, "but you want to spread consternation among the
+inhabitants! They would take me seriously, if what I told you should
+occur." Then perfecting his scheme, he cried: "We might employ
+Macquart. That would be a means of getting rid of him."
+
+Felicite seemed to be struck with the idea. She reflected, seemed to
+hesitate, and then, in a distressful tone faltered: "Perhaps you are
+right. We must see. After all we should be very stupid if we were
+over-scrupulous, for it's a matter of life and death to us. Let me do
+it. I'll see Macquart to-morrow, and ascertain if we can come to an
+understanding with him. You would only wrangle and spoil all. Good-
+night; sleep well, my poor dear. Our troubles will soon be ended,
+you'll see."
+
+They again kissed each other and fell asleep. The patch of light on
+the ceiling now seemed to be assuming the shape of a terrified eye,
+that stared wildly and fixedly upon the pale, slumbering couple who
+reeked with crime beneath their very sheets, and dreamt they could see
+a rain of blood falling in big drops which turned into golden coins as
+they plashed upon the floor.
+
+On the morrow, before daylight, Felicite repaired to the town-hall,
+armed with instructions from Pierre to seek an interview with
+Macquart. She took her husband's national guard uniform with her,
+wrapped in a cloth. There were only a few men fast asleep in the
+guard-house. The doorkeeper, who was entrusted with the duty of
+supplying Macquart with food, went upstairs with her to open the door
+of the dressing-room, which had been turned into a cell. Then quietly
+he came down again.
+
+Macquart had now been kept in the room for two days and two nights. He
+had had time to indulge in lengthy reflections. After his sleep, his
+first hours had been given up to outbursts of impotent rage. Goaded by
+the idea that his brother was lording it in the adjoining room, he had
+felt a great longing to break the door open. At all events he would
+strangle Rougon with his own hands, as soon as the insurgents should
+return and release him. But, in the evening, at twilight, he calmed
+down, and gave over striding furiously round the little room. He
+inhaled a sweet odour there; a feeling of comfort relaxed his nerves.
+Monsieur Garconnet, who was very rich, refined, and vain, had caused
+this little room to be arranged in a very elegant fashion; the sofa
+was soft and warm; scents, pomades, and soaps adorned the marble
+washstand, and the pale light fell from the ceiling with a soft glow,
+like the gleams of a lamp suspended in an alcove. Macquart, amidst
+this perfumed soporific atmosphere fell asleep, thinking that those
+scoundrels, the rich, "were very fortunate, all the same." He had
+covered himself with a blanket which had been given to him, and with
+his head and back and arms reposing on the cushions, he stretched
+himself out on the couch until morning. When he opened his eyes, a ray
+of sunshine was gliding through the opening above. Still he did not
+leave the sofa. He felt warm, and lay thinking as he gazed around him.
+He bethought himself that he would never again have such a place to
+wash in. The washstand particularly interested him. It was by no means
+hard, he thought, to keep oneself spruce when one had so many little
+pots and phials at one's disposal. This made him think bitterly of his
+own life of privation. The idea occurred to him that perhaps he had
+been on the wrong track. There is nothing to be gained by associating
+with beggars. He ought to have played the scamp; he should have acted
+in concert with the Rougons.
+
+Then, however, he rejected this idea. The Rougons were villains who
+had robbed him. But the warmth and softness of the sofa, continued to
+work upon his feelings, and fill him with vague regrets. After all,
+the insurgents were abandoning him, and allowing themselves to be
+beaten like idiots. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the
+Republic was mere dupery. Those Rougons were lucky! And he recalled
+his own bootless wickedness and underhand intrigues. Not one member of
+the family had ever been on his side; neither Aristide, nor Silvere's
+brother, nor Silvere himself, who was a fool to grow so enthusiastic
+about the Republic and would never do any good for himself. Then
+Macquart reflected that his wife was dead, that his children had left
+him, and that he would die alone, like a dog in some wretched corner,
+without a copper to bless himself with. Decidedly, he ought to have
+sold himself to the reactionary party. Pondering in this fashion, he
+eyed the washstand, feeling a strong inclination to go and wash his
+hands with a certain powder soap which he saw in a glass jar. Like all
+lazy fellows who live upon their wives or children, he had foppish
+tastes. Although he wore patched trousers, he liked to inundate
+himself with aromatic oil. He spent hours with his barber, who talked
+politics, and brushed his hair for him between their discussions. So,
+at last, the temptation became too strong, and Macquart installed
+himself before the washstand. He washed his hands and face, dressed
+his hair, perfumed himself, in fact went through a complete toilet. He
+made use in turn of all the bottles, all the various soaps and
+powders; but his greatest pleasure was to dry his hands with the
+mayor's towels, which were so soft and thick. He buried his wet face
+in them, and inhaled, with delight, all the odour of wealth. Then,
+having pomaded himself, and smelling sweetly from head to foot, he
+once more stretched himself on the sofa, feeling quite youthful again,
+and disposed to the most conciliatory thoughts. He felt yet greater
+contempt for the Republic since he had dipped his nose into Monsieur
+Garconnet's phials. The idea occurred to him that there was, perhaps,
+still time for him to make peace with his brother. He wondered what he
+might well ask in return for playing the traitor. His rancour against
+the Rougons still gnawed at his heart; but he was in one of those
+moods when, lying on one's back in silence, one is apt to admit stern
+facts, and scold oneself for neglecting to feather a comfortable nest
+in which one may wallow in slothful ease, even at the cost of
+relinquishing one's most cherished animosities. Towards evening
+Antoine determined to send for his brother on the following day. But
+when, in the morning, he saw Felicite enter the room he understood
+that his aid was wanted, so he remained on his guard.
+
+The negotiations were long and full of pitfalls, being conducted on
+either side with infinite skill. At first they both indulged in vague
+complaints, then Felicite, who was surprised to find Macquart almost
+polite, after the violent manner in which he had behaved at her house
+on the Sunday evening, assumed a tone of gentle reproach. She deplored
+the hatred which severed their families. But, in truth, he had so
+calumniated his brother, and manifested such bitter animosity towards
+him, that he had made poor Rougon quite lose his head.
+
+"But, dash it, my brother has never behaved like a brother to me,"
+Macquart replied, with restrained violence. "Has he ever given me any
+assistance? He would have let me die in my hovel! When he behaved
+differently towards me--you remember, at the time he gave me two
+hundred francs--I am sure no one can reproach me with having said a
+single unpleasant word about him. I said everywhere that he was a very
+good-hearted fellow."
+
+This clearly signified: "If you had continued to supply me with money,
+I should have been very pleasant towards you, and would have helped
+you, instead of fighting against you. It's your own fault. You ought
+to have bought me."
+
+Felicite understood this so well that she replied: "I know you have
+accused us of being hard upon you, because you imagine we are in
+comfortable circumstances; but you are mistaken, my dear brother; we
+are poor people; we have never been able to act towards you as our
+hearts would have desired." She hesitated a moment, and then
+continued: "If it were absolutely necessary in some serious
+contingency, we might perhaps be able to make a sacrifice; but, truly,
+we are very poor, very poor!"
+
+Macquart pricked up his ears. "I have them!" he thought. Then, without
+appearing to understand his sister-in-law's indirect offer, he
+detailed the wretchedness of his life in a doleful manner, and spoke
+of his wife's death and his children's flight. Felicite, on her side,
+referred to the crisis through which the country was passing, and
+declared that the Republic had completely ruined them. Then from word
+to word she began to bemoan the exigencies of a situation which
+compelled one brother to imprison another. How their hearts would
+bleed if justice refused to release its prey! And finally she let slip
+the word "galleys!"
+
+"Bah! I defy you," said Macquart calmly.
+
+But she hastily exclaimed: "Oh! I would rather redeem the honour of
+the family with my own blood. I tell you all this to show you that we
+shall not abandon you. I have come to give you the means of effecting
+your escape, my dear Antoine."
+
+They gazed at each other for a moment, sounding each other with a
+look, before engaging in the contest.
+
+"Unconditionally?" he asked, at length.
+
+"Without any condition," she replied.
+
+Then she sat down beside him on the sofa, and continued, in a
+determined voice: "And even, before crossing the frontier, if you want
+to earn a thousand-franc note, I can put you in the way of doing so."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+"If it's all above board I shall have no objection," Antoine muttered,
+apparently reflecting. "You know I don't want to mix myself up with
+your underhand dealings."
+
+"But there are no underhand dealings about it," Felicite resumed,
+smiling at the old rascal's scruples. "Nothing can be more simple: you
+will presently leave this room, and go and conceal yourself in your
+mother's house, and this evening you can assemble your friends and
+come and seize the town-hall again."
+
+Macquart did not conceal his extreme surprise. He did not understand
+it at all.
+
+"I thought," he said, "that you were victorious."
+
+"Oh! I haven't got time now to tell you all about it," the old woman
+replied, somewhat impatiently. "Do you accept or not?"
+
+"Well, no; I don't accept--I want to think it over. It would be very
+stupid of me to risk a possible fortune for a thousand francs."
+
+Felicite rose. "Just as you like my dear fellow," she said, coldly.
+"You don't seem to realise the position you are in. You came to my
+house and treated me as though I were a mere outcast; and then, when I
+am kind enough to hold out a hand to you in the hole into which you
+have stupidly let yourself fall, you stand on ceremony, and refuse to
+be rescued. Well, then, stay here, wait till the authorities come
+back. As for me, I wash my hands of the whole business."
+
+With these words she reached the door.
+
+"But give me some explanations," he implored. "I can't strike a
+bargain with you in perfect ignorance of everything. For two days past
+I have been quite in the dark as to what's going on. How do I know
+that you are not cheating me?"
+
+"Bah! you're a simpleton," replied Felicite, who had retraced her
+steps at Antoine's doleful appeal. "You are very foolish not to trust
+yourself implicitly to us. A thousand francs! That's a fine sum, a sum
+that one would only risk in a winning cause. I advise you to accept."
+
+He still hesitated.
+
+"But when we want to seize the place, shall we be allowed to enter
+quietly?"
+
+"Ah! I don't know," she said, with a smile. "There will perhaps be a
+shot or two fired."
+
+He looked at her fixedly.
+
+"Well, but I say, little woman," he resumed in a hoarse voice, "you
+don't intend, do you, to have a bullet lodged in my head?"
+
+Felicite blushed. She was, in fact, just thinking that they would be
+rendered a great service, if, during the attack on the town-hall, a
+bullet should rid them of Antoine. It would be a gain of a thousand
+francs, besides all the rest. So she muttered with irritation: "What
+an idea! Really, it's abominable to think such things!"
+
+Then, suddenly calming down, she added:
+
+"Do you accept? You understand now, don't you?"
+
+Macquart had understood perfectly. It was an ambush that they were
+proposing to him. He did not perceive the reasons or the consequences
+of it, and this was what induced him to haggle. After speaking of the
+Republic as though it were a mistress whom, to his great grief, he
+could no longer love, he recapitulated the risks which he would have
+to run, and finished by asking for two thousand francs. But Felicite
+abided by her original offer. They debated the matter until she
+promised to procure him, on his return to France, some post in which
+he would have nothing to do, and which would pay him well. The bargain
+was then concluded. She made him don the uniform she had brought with
+her. He was to betake himself quietly to aunt Dide's, and afterwards,
+towards midnight, assemble all the Republicans he could in the
+neighbourhood of the town-hall, telling them that the municipal
+offices were unguarded, and that they had only to push open the door
+to take possession of them. Antoine then asked for earnest money, and
+received two hundred francs. Felicite undertook to pay the remaining
+eight hundred on the following day. The Rougons were risking the last
+sum they had at their disposal.
+
+When Felicite had gone downstairs, she remained on the square for a
+moment to watch Macquart go out. He passed the guard-house, quietly
+blowing his nose. He had previously broken the skylight in the
+dressing-room, to make it appear that he had escaped that way.
+
+"It's all arranged," Felicite said to her husband, when she returned
+home. "It will be at midnight. It doesn't matter to me at all now. I
+should like to see them all shot. How they slandered us yesterday in
+the street!"
+
+"It was rather silly of you to hesitate," replied Pierre, who was
+shaving. "Every one would do the same in our place."
+
+That morning--it was a Wednesday--he was particularly careful about
+his toilet. His wife combed his hair and tied his cravat, turning him
+about like a child going to a distribution of prizes. And when he was
+ready, she examined him, declared that he looked very nice, and that
+he would make a very good figure in the midst of the serious events
+that were preparing. His big pale face wore an expression of grave
+dignity and heroic determination. She accompanied him to the first
+landing, giving him her last advice: he was not to depart in any way
+from his courageous demeanour, however great the panic might be; he
+was to have the gates closed more hermetically than ever, and leave
+the town in agonies of terror within its ramparts; it would be all the
+better if he were to appear the only one willing to die for the cause
+of order.
+
+What a day it was! The Rougons still speak of it as of a glorious and
+decisive battle. Pierre went straight to the town-hall, heedless of
+the looks or words that greeted him on his way. He installed himself
+there in magisterial fashion, like a man who did not intend to quit
+the place, whatever might happen. And he simply sent a note to
+Roudier, to advise him that he was resuming authority.
+
+"Keep watch at the gates," he added, knowing that these lines might
+become public: "I myself will watch over the town and ensure the
+security of life and property. It is at the moment when evil passions
+reappear and threaten to prevail that good citizens should endeavour
+to stifle them, even at the peril of their lives." The style, and the
+very errors in spelling, made this note--the brevity of which
+suggested the laconic style of the ancients--appear all the more
+heroic. Not one of the gentlemen of the Provisional Commission put in
+an appearance. The last two who had hitherto remained faithful, and
+Granoux himself, even, prudently stopped at home. Thus Rougon was the
+only member of the Commission who remained at his post, in his
+presidential arm-chair, all the others having vanished as the panic
+increased. He did not even deign to issue an order summoning them to
+attend. He was there, and that sufficed, a sublime spectacle, which a
+local journal depicted later on in a sentence: "Courage giving the
+hand to duty."
+
+During the whole morning Pierre was seen animating the town-hall with
+his goings and comings. He was absolutely alone in the large, empty
+building, whose lofty halls reechoed with the noise of his heels. All
+the doors were left open. He made an ostentatious show of his
+presidency over a non-existent council in the midst of this desert,
+and appeared so deeply impressed with the responsibility of his
+mission that the doorkeeper, meeting him two or three times in the
+passages, bowed to him with an air of mingled surprise and respect. He
+was seen, too, at every window, and, in spite of the bitter cold, he
+appeared several times on the balcony with bundles of papers in his
+hand, like a busy man attending to important despatches.
+
+Then, towards noon, he passed through the town and visited the guard-
+houses, speaking of a possible attack, and letting it be understood,
+that the insurgents were not far off; but he relied, he said, on the
+courage of the brave national guards. If necessary they must be ready
+to die to the last man for the defence of the good cause. When he
+returned from this round, slowly and solemnly, after the manner of a
+hero who has set the affairs of his country in order, and now only
+awaits death, he observed signs of perfect stupor along his path; the
+people promenading in the Cours, the incorrigible little householders,
+whom no catastrophe would have prevented from coming at certain hours
+to bask in the sun, looked at him in amazement, as if they did not
+recognize him, and could not believe that one of their own set, a
+former oil-dealer, should have the boldness to face a whole army.
+
+In the town the anxiety was at its height. The insurrectionists were
+expected every moment. The rumour of Macquart's escape was commented
+upon in a most alarming manner. It was asserted that he had been
+rescued by his friends, the Reds, and that he was only waiting for
+nighttime in order to fall upon the inhabitants and set fire to the
+four corners of the town. Plassans, closed in and terror-stricken,
+gnawing at its own vitals within its prison-like walls, no longer knew
+what to imagine in order to frighten itself. The Republicans, in the
+face of Rougon's bold demeanour, felt for a moment distrustful. As for
+the new town--the lawyers and retired tradespeople who had denounced
+the yellow drawing-room on the previous evening--they were so
+surprised that they dared not again openly attack such a valiant man.
+They contented themselves with saying "It was madness to brave
+victorious insurgents like that, and such useless heroism would bring
+the greatest misfortunes upon Plassans." Then, at about three o'clock,
+they organised a deputation. Pierre, though he was burning with desire
+to make a display of his devotion before his fellow-citizens, had not
+ventured to reckon upon such a fine opportunity.
+
+He spoke sublimely. It was in the mayor's private room that the
+president of the Provisional Commission received the deputation from
+the new town. The gentlemen of the deputation, after paying homage to
+his patriotism, besought him to forego all resistance. But he, in a
+loud voice, talked of duty, of his country, of order, of liberty, and
+various other things. Moreover, he did not wish to compel any one to
+imitate him; he was simply discharging a duty which his conscience and
+his heart dictated to him.
+
+"You see, gentlemen, I am alone," he said in conclusion. "I will take
+all the responsibility, so that nobody but myself may be compromised.
+And if a victim is required I willingly offer myself; I wish to
+sacrifice my own life for the safety of the inhabitants."
+
+A notary, the wiseacre of the party, remarked that he was running to
+certain death.
+
+"I know it," he resumed solemnly. "I am prepared!"
+
+The gentlemen looked at each other. Those words "I am prepared!"
+filled them with admiration. Decidedly this man was a brave fellow.
+The notary implored him to call in the aid of the gendarmes; but he
+replied that the blood of those brave soldiers was precious, and he
+would not have it shed, except in the last extremity. The deputation
+slowly withdrew, feeling deeply moved. An hour afterwards, Plassans
+was speaking of Rougon as of a hero; the most cowardly called him "an
+old fool."
+
+Towards evening, Rougon was much surprised to see Granoux hasten to
+him. The old almond-dealer threw himself in his arms, calling him
+"great man," and declaring that he would die with him. The words "I am
+prepared!" which had just been reported to him by his maid-servant,
+who had heard it at the greengrocer's, had made him quite
+enthusiastic. There was charming naivete in the nature of this
+grotesque, timorous old man. Pierre kept him with him, thinking that
+he would not be of much consequence. He was even touched by the poor
+fellow's devotion, and resolved to have him publicly complimented by
+the prefect, in order to rouse the envy of the other citizens who had
+so cowardly abandoned him. And so both of them awaited the night in
+the deserted building.
+
+At the same time Aristide was striding about at home in an uneasy
+manner. Vuillet's article had astonished him. His father's demeanour
+stupefied him. He had just caught sight of him at the window, in a
+white cravat and black frock-coat, so calm at the approach of danger
+that all his ideas were upset. Yet the insurgents were coming back
+triumphant, that was the belief of the whole town. But Aristide felt
+some doubts on the point; he had suspicions of some lugubrious farce.
+As he did not dare to present himself at his parents' house, he sent
+his wife thither. And when Angele returned, she said to him, in her
+drawling voice: "Your mother expects you; she is not angry at all, she
+seems rather to be making fun of you. She told me several times that
+you could just put your sling back in your pocket."
+
+Aristide felt terribly vexed. However, he ran to the Rue de la Banne,
+prepared to make the most humble submission. His mother was content to
+receive him with scornful laughter. "Ah! my poor fellow," said she,
+"you're certainly not very shrewd."
+
+"But what can one do in a hole like Plassans!" he angrily retorted.
+"On my word of honour, I am becoming a fool here. No news, and
+everybody shivering! That's what it is to be shut up in these
+villainous ramparts. Ah! If I had only been able to follow Eugene to
+Paris!"
+
+Then, seeing that his mother was still smiling, he added bitterly:
+"You haven't been very kind to me, mother. I know many things, I do.
+My brother kept you informed of what was going on, and you have never
+given me the faintest hint that might have been useful to me."
+
+"You know that, do you?" exclaimed Felicite, becoming serious and
+distrustful. "Well, you're not so foolish as I thought, then. Do you
+open letters like some one of my acquaintance?"
+
+"No; but I listen at doors," Aristide replied, with great assurance.
+
+This frankness did not displease the old woman. She began to smile
+again, and asked more softly: "Well, then, you blockhead, how is it
+you didn't rally to us sooner?"
+
+"Ah! that's where it is," the young man said, with some embarrassment.
+"I didn't have much confidence in you. You received such idiots: my
+father-in-law, Granoux, and the others!-- And then, I didn't want to
+go too far. . . ." He hesitated, and then resumed, with some
+uneasiness: "To-day you are at least quite sure of the success of the
+Coup d'Etat, aren't you?"
+
+"I!" cried Felicite, wounded by her son's doubts; "no, I'm not sure of
+anything."
+
+"And yet you sent word to say that I was to take off my sling!"
+
+"Yes; because all the gentlemen are laughing at you."
+
+Aristide remained stock still, apparently contemplating one of the
+flowers of the orange-coloured wall-paper. And his mother felt sudden
+impatience as she saw him hesitating thus.
+
+"Ah! well," she said, "I've come back again to my former opinion;
+you're not very shrewd. And you think you ought to have had Eugene's
+letters to read? Why, my poor fellow you would have spoilt everything,
+with your perpetual vacillation. You never can make up your mind. You
+are hesitating now."
+
+"I hesitate?" he interrupted, giving his mother a cold, keen glance.
+"Ah! well, you don't know me. I would set the whole town on fire if it
+were necessary, and I wanted to warm my feet. But, understand me, I've
+no desire to take the wrong road! I'm tired of eating hard bread, and
+I hope to play fortune a trick. But I only play for certainties."
+
+He spoke these words so sharply, with such a keen longing for success,
+that his mother recognised the cry of her own blood.
+
+"Your father is very brave," she whispered.
+
+"Yes, I've seen him," he resumed with a sneer. "He's got a fine look
+on him! He reminded me of Leonidas at Thermopylae. Is it you, mother,
+who have made him cut this figure?"
+
+And he added cheerfully, with a gesture of determination: "Well, so
+much the worse! I'm a Bonapartist! Father is not the man to risk the
+chance of being killed unless it pays him well."
+
+"You're quite right," his mother replied; "I mustn't say anything; but
+to-morrow you'll see."
+
+He did not press her, but swore that she would soon have reason to be
+proud of him; and then he took his departure, while Felicite, feeling
+her old preference reviving, said to herself at the window, as she
+watched him going off, that he had the devil's own wit, that she would
+never have had sufficient courage to let him leave without setting him
+in the right path.
+
+And now for the third time a night full of anguish fell upon Plassans.
+The unhappy town was almost at its death-rattle. The citizens hastened
+home and barricaded their doors with a great clattering of iron bolts
+and bars. The general feeling seemed to be that, by the morrow,
+Plassans would no longer exist, that it would either be swallowed up
+by the earth or would evaporate in the atmosphere. When Rougon went
+home to dine, he found the streets completely deserted. This
+desolation made him sad and melancholy. As a result of this, when he
+had finished his meal, he felt some slight misgivings, and asked his
+wife if it were necessary to follow up the insurrection that Macquart
+was preparing.
+
+"Nobody will run us down now," said he. "You should have seen those
+gentlemen of the new town, how they bowed to me! It seems to me quite
+unnecessary now to kill anybody--eh? What do you think? We shall
+feather our nest without that."
+
+"Ah! what a nerveless fellow you are!" Felicite cried angrily. "It was
+your own idea to do it, and now you back out! I tell you that you'll
+never do anything without me! Go then, go your own way. Do you think
+the Republicans would spare you if they got hold of you?"
+
+Rougon went back to the town-hall, and prepared for the ambush.
+Granoux was very useful to him. He despatched him with orders to the
+different posts guarding the ramparts. The national guards were to
+repair to the town-hall in small detachments, as secretly as possible.
+Roudier, that bourgeois who was quite out of his element in the
+provinces, and who would have spoilt the whole affair with his
+humanitarian preaching, was not even informed of it. Towards eleven
+o'clock, the court-yard of the town-hall was full of national guards.
+Then Rougon frightened them; he told them that the Republicans still
+remaining in Plassans were about to attempt a desperate /coup de
+main/, and plumed himself on having been warned in time by his secret
+police. When he had pictured the bloody massacre which would overtake
+the town, should these wretches get the upper hand, he ordered his men
+to cease speaking, and extinguish all lights. He took a gun himself.
+Ever since the morning he had been living as in a dream; he no longer
+knew himself; he felt Felicite behind him. The crisis of the previous
+night had thrown him into her hands, and he would have allowed himself
+to be hanged, thinking: "It does not matter, my wife will come and cut
+me down." To augment the tumult, and prolong the terror of the
+slumbering town, he begged Granoux to repair to the cathedral and have
+the tocsin rung at the first shots he might hear. The marquis's name
+would open the beadle's door. And then, in darkness and dismal
+silence, the national guards waited in the yard, in a terrible state
+of anxiety, their eyes fixed on the porch, eager to fire, as though
+they were lying in wait for a pack of wolves.
+
+In the meantime, Macquart had spent the day at aunt Dide's house.
+Stretching himself on the old coffer, and lamenting the loss of
+Monsieur Garconnet's sofa, he had several times felt a mad inclination
+to break into his two hundred francs at some neighbouring cafe. This
+money was burning a hole in his waistcoat pocket; however, he whiled
+away his time by spending it in imagination. His mother moved about,
+in her stiff, automatic way, as if she were not even aware of his
+presence. During the last few days her children had been coming to her
+rather frequently, in a state of pallor and desperation, but she
+departed neither from her taciturnity, nor her stiff, lifeless
+expression. She knew nothing of the fears which were throwing the
+pent-up town topsy-turvy, she was a thousand leagues away from
+Plassans, soaring into the one constant fixed idea which imparted such
+a blank stare to her eyes. Now and again, however, at this particular
+moment, some feeling of uneasiness, some human anxiety, occasionally
+made her blink. Antoine, unable to resist the temptation of having
+something nice to eat, sent her to get a roast chicken from an eating-
+house in the Faubourg. When it was set on the table: "Hey!" he said to
+her, "you don't often eat fowl, do you? It's only for those who work,
+and know how to manage their affairs. As for you, you always
+squandered everything. I bet you're giving all your savings to that
+little hypocrite, Silvere. He's got a mistress, the sly fellow. If
+you've a hoard of money hidden in some corner, he'll ease you of it
+nicely some day."
+
+Macquart was in a jesting mood, glowing with wild exultation. The
+money he had in his pocket, the treachery he was preparing, the
+conviction that he had sold himself at a good price--all filled him
+with the self-satisfaction characteristic of vicious people who
+naturally became merry and scornful amidst their evil practices. Of
+all his talk, however, aunt Dide only heard Silvere's name.
+
+"Have you seen him?" she asked, opening her lips at last.
+
+"Who? Silvere?" Antoine replied. "He was walking about among the
+insurgents with a tall red girl on his arm. It will serve him right if
+he gets into trouble."
+
+The grandmother looked at him fixedly, then, in a solemn voice,
+inquired: "Why?"
+
+"Eh! Why, he shouldn't be so stupid," resumed Macquart, feeling
+somewhat embarrassed. "People don't risk their necks for the sake of
+ideas. I've settled my own little business. I'm no fool."
+
+But aunt Dide was no longer listening to him. She was murmuring: "He
+had his hands covered with blood. They'll kill him like the other one.
+His uncles will send the gendarmes after him."
+
+"What are you muttering there?" asked her son, as he finished picking
+the bones of the chicken. "You know I like people to accuse me to my
+face. If I have sometimes talked to the little fellow about the
+Republic, it was only to bring him round to a more reasonable way of
+thinking. He was dotty. I love liberty myself, but it mustn't
+degenerate into license. And as for Rougon, I esteem him. He's a man
+of courage and common-sense."
+
+"He had the gun, hadn't he?" interrupted aunt Dide, whose wandering
+mind seemed to be following Silvere far away along the high road.
+
+"The gun? Ah! yes; Macquart's carbine," continued Antoine, after
+casting a glance at the mantel-shelf, where the fire-arm was usually
+hung. "I fancy I saw it in his hands. A fine instrument to scour the
+country with, when one has a girl on one's arm. What a fool!"
+
+Then he thought he might as well indulge in a few coarse jokes. Aunt
+Dide had begun to bustle about the room again. She did not say a word.
+Towards the evening Antoine went out, after putting on a blouse, and
+pulling over his eyes a big cap which his mother had bought for him.
+He returned into the town in the same manner as he had quitted it, by
+relating some nonsensical story to the national guards who were on
+duty at the Rome Gate. Then he made his way to the old quarter, where
+he crept from house to house in a mysterious manner. All the
+Republicans of advanced views, all the members of the brotherhood who
+had not followed the insurrectionary army, met in an obscure inn,
+where Macquart had made an appointment with them. When about fifty men
+were assembled, he made a speech, in which he spoke of personal
+vengeance that must be wreaked, of a victory that must be gained, and
+of a disgraceful yoke that must be thrown off. And he ended by
+undertaking to deliver the town-hall over to them in ten minutes. He
+had just left it, it was quite unguarded, he said, and the red flag
+would wave over it that very night if they so desired. The workmen
+deliberated. At that moment the reaction seemed to be in its death
+throes. The insurgents were virtually at the gates of the town. It
+would therefore be more honourable to make an effort to regain power
+without awaiting their return, so as to be able to receive them as
+brothers, with the gates wide open, and the streets and squares
+adorned with flags. Moreover, none of those present distrusted
+Macquart. His hatred of the Rougons, the personal vengeance of which
+he spoke, could be taken as guaranteeing his loyalty. It was arranged
+that each of them who was a sportsman and had a gun at home should
+fetch it, and that the band should assemble at midnight in the
+neighbourhood of the town-hall. A question of detail very nearly put
+an end to their plans--they had no bullets; however, they decided to
+load their weapons with small shot: and even that seemed unnecessary,
+as they were told that they would meet with no resistance.
+
+Once more Plassans beheld a band of armed men filing along close to
+the houses, in the quiet moonlight. When the band was assembled in
+front of the town-hall, Macquart, while keeping a sharp look-out,
+boldly advanced to the building. He knocked, and when the door-keeper,
+who had learnt his lesson, asked what was wanted, he uttered such
+terrible threats, that the man, feigning fright, made haste to open
+the door. Both leaves of it swung back slowly, and the porch then lay
+open and empty before them, while Macquart shouted in a loud voice:
+"Come on, my friends!"
+
+That was the signal. He himself quickly jumped aside, and as the
+Republicans rushed in, there came, from the darkness of the yard, a
+stream of fire and a hail of bullets, which swept through the gaping
+porch with a roar as of thunder. The doorway vomited death. The
+national guards, exasperated by their long wait, eager to shake off
+the discomfort weighing upon them in that dismal court-yard, had fired
+a volley with feverish haste. The flash of the firing was so bright,
+that, through the yellow gleams Macquart distinctly saw Rougon taking
+aim. He fancied that his brother's gun was deliberately levelled at
+himself, and he recalled Felicite's blush, and made his escape,
+muttering: "No tricks! The rascal would kill me. He owes me eight
+hundred francs."
+
+In the meantime a loud howl had arisen amid the darkness. The
+surprised Republicans shouted treachery, and fired in their turn. A
+national guard fell under the porch. But the Republicans, on their
+side, had three dead. They took to flight, stumbling over the corpses,
+stricken with panic, and shouting through the quiet lanes: "Our
+brothers are being murdered!" in despairing voices which found no
+echo. Thereupon the defenders of order, having had time to reload
+their weapons, rushed into the empty square, firing at every street
+corner, wherever the darkness of a door, the shadow of a lamp-post, or
+the jutting of a stone made them fancy they saw an insurgent. In this
+wise they remained there ten minutes, firing into space.
+
+The affray had burst over the slumbering town like a thunderclap. The
+inhabitants in the neighbouring streets, roused from sleep by this
+terrible fusillade, sat up in bed, their teeth chattering with fright.
+Nothing in the world would have induced them to poke their noses out
+of the window. And slowly, athwart the air, in which the shots had
+suddenly resounded, one of the cathedral bells began to ring the
+tocsin with so irregular, so strange a rhythm, that one might have
+thought the noise to be the hammering of an anvil or the echoes of a
+colossal kettle struck by a child in a fit of passion. This howling
+bell, whose sound the citizens did not recognise, terrified them yet
+more than the reports of the fire-arms had done; and there were some
+who thought they heard an endless train of artillery rumbling over the
+paving-stones. They lay down again and buried themselves beneath their
+blankets, as if they would have incurred some danger by still sitting
+up in bed in their closely-fastened rooms. With their sheets drawn up
+to their chins, they held their breath, and made themselves as small
+as possible, while their wives, by their side, almost fainted with
+terror as they buried their heads among the pillows.
+
+The national guards who had remained at the ramparts had also heard
+the shots, and thinking that the insurgents had entered by means of
+some subterranean passage, they ran up helter-skelter, in groups of
+five or six, disturbing the silence of the streets with the tumult of
+their excited rush. Roudier was one of the first to arrive. However,
+Rougon sent them all back to their posts, after reprimanding them
+severely for abandoning the gates of the town. Thrown into
+consternation by this reproach--for in their panic, they had, in fact,
+left the gates absolutely defenceless--they again set off at a gallop,
+hurrying through the streets with still more frightful uproar.
+Plassans might well have thought that an infuriated army was crossing
+it in all directions. The fusillade, the tocsin, the marches and
+countermarches of the national guards, the weapons which were being
+dragged along like clubs, the terrified cries in the darkness, all
+produced a deafening tumult, such as might break forth in a town taken
+by assault and given over to plunder. It was the final blow of the
+unfortunate inhabitants, who really believed that the insurgents had
+arrived. They had, indeed, said that it would be their last night--
+that Plassans would be swallowed up in the earth, or would evaporate
+into smoke before daybreak; and now, lying in their beds, they awaited
+the catastrophe in the most abject terror, fancying at times that
+their houses were already tottering.
+
+Meantime Granoux still rang the tocsin. When, in other respects,
+silence had again fallen upon the town, the mournfulness of that
+ringing became intolerable. Rougon, who was in a high fever, felt
+exasperated by its distant wailing. He hastened to the cathedral, and
+found the door open. The beadle was on the threshold.
+
+"Ah! that's quite enough!" he shouted to the man; "anybody would think
+there was some one crying; it's quite unbearable."
+
+"But it isn't me, sir," replied the beadle in a distressed manner.
+"It's Monsieur Granoux, he's gone up into the steeple. I must tell you
+that I removed the clapper of the bell, by his Reverence's order,
+precisely to prevent the tocsin from being sounded. But Monsieur
+Granoux wouldn't listen to reason. He climbed up, and I've no idea
+what he can be making that noise with."
+
+Thereupon Rougon hastily ascended the staircase which led to the
+bells, shouting: "That will do! That will do! For goodness' sake leave
+off!"
+
+When he had reached the top he caught sight of Granoux, by the light
+of the moon which glided through an embrasure; the ex almond dealer
+was standing there hatless, and dealing furious blows with a heavy
+hammer. He did so with a right good will. He first threw himself back,
+then took a spring, and finally fell upon the sonorous bronze as if he
+wanted to crack it. One might have thought he was a blacksmith
+striking hot iron--but a frock-coated blacksmith, short and bald,
+working in a wild and awkward way.
+
+Surprise kept Rougon motionless for a moment at the sight of this
+frantic bourgeois thus belabouring the bell in the moonlight. Then he
+understood the kettle-like clang which this strange ringer had
+disseminated over the town. He shouted to him to stop, but Granoux did
+not hear. Rougon was obliged to take hold of his frock-coat, and then
+the other recognising him, exclaimed in a triumphant voice: "Ah!
+you've heard it. At first I tried to knock the bell with my fists, but
+that hurt me. Fortunately I found this hammer. Just a few more blows,
+eh?"
+
+However, Rougon dragged him away. Granoux was radiant. He wiped his
+forehead, and made his companion promise to let everybody know in the
+morning that he had produced all that noise with a mere hammer. What
+an achievement, and what a position of importance that furious ringing
+would confer upon him!
+
+Towards morning, Rougon bethought himself of reassuring Felicite. In
+accordance with his orders, the national guards had shut themselves up
+in the town-hall. He had forbidden them to remove the corpses, under
+the pretext that it was necessary to give the populace of the old
+quarter a lesson. And as, while hastening to the Rue de la Banne, he
+passed over the square, on which the moon was no longer shining, he
+inadvertently stepped on the clenched hand of a corpse that lay beside
+the footpath. At this he almost fell. That soft hand, which yielded
+beneath his heel, brought him an indefinable sensation of disgust and
+horror. And thereupon he hastened at full speed along the deserted
+streets, fancying that a bloody fist was pursuing him.
+
+"There are four of them on the ground," he said, as he entered his
+house.
+
+He and his wife looked at one another as though they were astonished
+at their crime.
+
+The lamplight imparted the hue of yellow wax to their pale faces.
+
+"Have you left them there?" asked Felicite; "they must be found
+there."
+
+"Of course! I didn't pick them up. They are lying on their backs. I
+stepped on something soft----"
+
+Then he looked at his boot; its heel was covered with blood. While he
+was putting on a pair of shoes, Felicite resumed:
+
+"Well! so much the better! It's over now. People won't be inclined to
+repeat that you only fire at mirrors."
+
+The fusillade which the Rougons had planned in order that they might
+be finally recognised as the saviours of Plassans, brought the whole
+terrified and grateful town to their feet. The day broke mournfully
+with the grey melancholy of a winter-morning. The inhabitants, hearing
+nothing further, ventured forth, weary of trembling beneath their
+sheets. At first some ten or fifteen appeared. Later on, when a rumour
+spread that the insurgents had taken flight, leaving their dead in
+every gutter, Plassans rose in a body and descended upon the town-
+hall. Throughout the morning people strolled inquisitively round the
+four corpses. They were horribly mutilated, particularly one, which
+had three bullets in the head. But the most horrible to look upon was
+the body of a national guard, who had fallen under the porch; he had
+received a charge of the small shot, used by the Republicans in lieu
+of bullets, full in the face; and blood oozed from his torn and
+riddled countenance. The crowd feasted their eyes upon this horror,
+with the avidity for revolting spectacles which is so characteristic
+of cowards. The national guard was freely recognised; he was the pork-
+butcher Dubruel, the man whom Roudier had accused on the Monday
+morning of having fired with culpable eagerness. Of the three other
+corpses, two were journeymen hatters; the third was not identified.
+For a long while gaping groups remained shuddering in front of the red
+pools which stained the pavement, often looking behind them with an
+air of mistrust, as though that summary justice which had restored
+order during the night by force of arms, were, even now, watching and
+listening to them, ready to shoot them down in their turn, unless they
+kissed with enthusiasm the hand that had just rescued them from the
+demagogy.
+
+The panic of the night further augmented the terrible effect produced
+in the morning by the sight of the four corpses. The true history of
+the fusillade was never known. The firing of the combatants, Granoux's
+hammering, the helter-skelter rush of the national guards through the
+streets, had filled people's ears with such terrifying sounds that
+most of them dreamed of a gigantic battle waged against countless
+enemies. When the victors, magnifying the number of their adversaries
+with instinctive braggardism, spoke of about five hundred men,
+everybody protested against such a low estimate. Some citizens
+asserted that they had looked out of their windows and seen an immense
+stream of fugitives passing by for more than an hour. Moreover
+everybody had heard the bandits running about. Five hundred men would
+never have been able to rouse a whole town. It must have been an army,
+and a fine big army too, which the brave militia of Plassans had
+"driven back into the ground." This phrase of their having been
+"driven back into the ground," first used by Rougon, struck people as
+being singularly appropriate, for the guards who were charged with the
+defence of the ramparts swore by all that was holy that not a single
+man had entered or quitted the town, a circumstance which tinged what
+had happened with mystery, even suggesting the idea of horned demons
+who had vanished amidst flames, and thus fairly upsetting the minds of
+the multitude. It is true the guards avoided all mention of their mad
+gallops; and so the more rational citizens were inclined to believe
+that a band of insurgents had really entered the town either by a
+breach in the wall or some other channel. Later on, rumours of
+treachery were spread abroad, and people talked of an ambush. The
+cruel truth could no longer be concealed by the men whom Macquart had
+led to slaughter, but so much terror still prevailed, and the sight of
+blood had thrown so many cowards into the arms of the reactionary
+party, that these rumours were attributed to the rage of the
+vanquished Republicans. It was asserted, on the other hand, that
+Macquart had been made prisoner by Rougon, who kept him in a damp
+cell, where he was letting him slowly die of starvation. This horrible
+tale made people bow to the very ground whenever they encountered
+Rougon.
+
+Thus it was that this grotesque personage, this pale, flabby, tun-
+bellied citizen became, in one night, a terrible captain, whom nobody
+dared to ridicule any more. He had steeped his foot in blood. The
+inhabitants of the old quarter stood dumb with fright before the
+corpses. But towards ten o'clock, when the respectable people of the
+new town arrived, the whole square hummed with subdued chatter. People
+spoke of the other attack, of the seizure of the mayor's office, in
+which a mirror only had been wounded; but this time they no longer
+pooh-poohed Rougon, they spoke of him with respectful dismay; he was
+indeed a hero, a deliverer. The corpses, with open eyes, stared at
+those gentlemen, the lawyers and householders, who shuddered as they
+murmured that civil war had many cruel necessities. The notary, the
+chief of the deputation sent to the town-hall on the previous evening,
+went from group to group, recalling the proud words "I am prepared!"
+then used by the energetic man to whom the town owed its safety. There
+was a general feeling of humiliation. Those who had railed most
+cruelly against the forty-one, those, especially, who had referred to
+the Rougons as intriguers and cowards who merely fired shots in the
+air, were the first to speak of granting a crown of laurels "to the
+noble citizen of whom Plassans would be for ever proud." For the pools
+of blood were drying on the pavement, and the corpses proclaimed to
+what a degree of audacity the party of disorder, pillage, and murder
+had gone, and what an iron hand had been required to put down the
+insurrection.
+
+Moreover, the whole crowd was eager to congratulate Granoux, and shake
+hands with him. The story of the hammer had become known. By an
+innocent falsehood, however, of which he himself soon became
+unconscious, he asserted that, having been the first to see the
+insurgents, he had set about striking the bell, in order to sound the
+alarm, so that, but for him, the national guards would have been
+massacred. This doubled his importance. His achievement was declared
+prodigious. People spoke of him now as "Monsieur Isidore, don't you
+know? the gentleman who sounded the tocsin with a hammer!" Although
+the sentence was somewhat lengthy, Granoux would willingly have
+accepted it as a title of nobility; and from that day forward he never
+heard the word "hammer" pronounced without imagining it to be some
+delicate flattery.
+
+While the corpses were being removed, Aristide came to look at them.
+He examined them on all sides, sniffing and looking inquisitively at
+their faces. His eyes were bright, and he had a sharp expression of
+countenance. In order to see some wound the better he even lifted up
+the blouse of one corpse with the very hand which on the previous day
+had been suspended in a sling. This examination seemed to convince him
+and remove all doubt from his mind. He bit his lips, remained there
+for a moment in silence, and then went off for the purpose of
+hastening the issue of the "Independant," for which he had written a
+most important article. And as he hurried along beside the houses he
+recalled his mother's words: "You will see to-morrow!" Well, he had
+seen now; it was very clever; it even frightened him somewhat.
+
+In the meantime, Rougon's triumph was beginning to embarrass him.
+Alone in Monsieur Garconnet's office, hearing the buzzing of the
+crowd, he became conscious of a strange feeling, which prevented him
+from showing himself on the balcony. That blood, in which he had
+stepped, seemed to have numbed his legs. He wondered what he should do
+until the evening. His poor empty brain, upset by the events of the
+night, sought desperately for some occupation, some order to give, or
+some measure to be taken, which might afford him some distraction. But
+he could think about nothing clearly. Whither was Felicite leading
+him? Was it really all finished now, or would he still have to kill
+somebody else? Then fear again assailed him, terrible doubts arose in
+his mind, and he already saw the ramparts broken down on all sides by
+an avenging army of the Republicans, when a loud shout: "The
+insurgents! The insurgents!" burst forth under the very windows of his
+room. At this he jumped up, and raising a curtain, saw the crowd
+rushing about the square in a state of terror. What a thunderbolt! In
+less than a second he pictured himself ruined, plundered, and
+murdered; he cursed his wife, he cursed the whole town. Then, as he
+looked behind him in a suspicious manner, seeking some means of
+escape, he heard the mob break out into applause, uttering shouts of
+joy, making the very glass rattle with their wild delight. Then he
+returned to the window; the women were waving their handkerchiefs, and
+the men were embracing each other. There were some among them who
+joined hands and began to dance. Rougon stood there stupefied, unable
+to comprehend it all, and feeling his head swimming. The big,
+deserted, silent building, in which he was alone, quite frightened
+him.
+
+When he afterwards confessed his feelings to Felicite, he was unable
+to say how long his torture had lasted. He only remembered that a
+noise of footsteps, re-echoing through the vast halls, had roused him
+from his stupor. He expected to be attacked by men in blouses, armed
+with scythes and clubs, whereas it was the Municipal Commission which
+entered, quite orderly and in evening dress, each member with a
+beaming countenance. Not one of them was absent. A piece of good news
+had simultaneously cured all these gentlemen. Granoux rushed into the
+arms of his dear president.
+
+"The soldiers!" he stammered, "the soldiers!"
+
+A regiment had, in fact, just arrived, under the command of Colonel
+Masson and Monsieur de Bleriot, prefect of the department. The
+gunbarrels which had been observed from the ramparts, far away in the
+plain, had at first suggested the approach of the insurgents. Rougon
+was so deeply moved on learning the truth, that two big tears rolled
+down his cheeks. He was weeping, the great citizen! The Municipal
+Commission watched those big tears with most respectful admiration.
+But Granoux again threw himself on his friend's neck, crying:
+
+"Ah! how glad I am! You know I'm a straightforward man. Well, we were
+all of us afraid; it is not so, gentlemen? You, alone, were great,
+brave, sublime! What energy you must have had! I was just now saying
+to my wife: 'Rougon is a great man; he deserves to be decorated.'"
+
+Then the gentlemen proposed to go and meet the prefect. For a moment
+Rougon felt both stunned and suffocated; he was unable to believe in
+this sudden triumph, and stammered like a child. However, he drew
+breath, and went downstairs with the quiet dignity suited to the
+solemnity of the occasion. But the enthusiasm which greeted the
+commission and its president outside the town-hall almost upset his
+magisterial gravity afresh. His name sped through the crowd,
+accompanied this time by the warmest eulogies. He heard everyone
+repeat Granoux's avowal, and treat him as a hero who had stood firm
+and resolute amidst universal panic. And, as far as the Sub-
+Prefecture, where the commission met the prefect, he drank his fill of
+popularity and glory.
+
+Monsieur de Bleriot and Colonel Masson had entered the town alone,
+leaving their troops encamped on the Lyons road. They had lost
+considerable time through a misunderstanding as to the direction taken
+by the insurgents. Now, however, they knew the latter were at
+Orcheres; and it would only be necessary to stop an hour at Plassans,
+just sufficient time to reassure the population and publish the cruel
+ordinances which decreed the sequestration of the insurgents'
+property, and death to every individual who might be taken with arms
+in his hands. Colonel Masson smiled when, in accordance with the
+orders of the commander of the national guards, the bolts of the Rome
+Gate were drawn back with a great rattling of rusty old iron. The
+detachment on duty there accompanied the prefect and the colonel as a
+guard of honour. As they traversed the Cours Sauvaire, Roudier related
+Rougon's epic achievements to the gentlemen--the three days of panic
+that had terminated with the brilliant victory of the previous night.
+When the two processions came face to face therefore, Monsieur de
+Bleriot quickly advanced towards the president of the Commission,
+shook hands with him, congratulated him, and begged him to continue to
+watch over the town until the return of the authorities. Rougon bowed,
+while the prefect, having reached the door of the Sub-Prefecture,
+where he wished to take a brief rest, proclaimed in a loud voice that
+he would not forget to mention his brave and noble conduct in his
+report.
+
+In the meantime, in spite of the bitter cold, everybody had come to
+their windows. Felicite, leaning forward at the risk of falling out,
+was quite pale with joy. Aristide had just arrived with a number of
+the "Independant," in which he had openly declared himself in favour
+of the Coup d'Etat, which he welcomed "as the aurora of liberty in
+order and of order in liberty." He had also made a delicate allusion
+to the yellow drawing-room, acknowledging his errors, declaring that
+"youth is presumptuous," and that "great citizens say nothing, reflect
+in silence, and let insults pass by, in order to rise heroically when
+the day of struggle comes." He was particularly pleased with this
+sentence. His mother thought his article extremely well written. She
+kissed her dear child, and placed him on her right hand. The Marquis
+de Carnavant, weary of incarcerating himself, and full of eager
+curiosity, had likewise come to see her, and stood on her left,
+leaning on the window rail.
+
+When Monsieur de Bleriot offered his hand to Rougon on the square
+below Felicite began to weep. "Oh! see, see," she said to Aristide.
+"He has shaken hands with him. Look! he is doing it again!" And
+casting a glance at the windows, where groups of people were
+congregated, she added: "How wild they must be! Look at Monsieur
+Peirotte's wife, she's biting her handkerchief. And over there, the
+notary's daughter, and Madame Massicot, and the Brunet family, what
+faces, eh? how angry they look! Ah, indeed, it's our turn now."
+
+She followed the scene which was being acted outside the Sub-
+Prefecture with thrills of delight, which shook her ardent,
+grasshopper-like figure from head to foot. She interpreted the
+slightest gesture, invented words which she was unable to catch, and
+declared that Pierre bowed very well indeed. She was a little vexed
+when the prefect deigned to speak to poor Granoux, who was hovering
+about him fishing for a word of praise. No doubt Monsieur de Bleriot
+already knew the story of the hammer, for the retired almond-dealer
+turned as red as a young girl, and seemed to be saying that he had
+only done his duty. However, that which angered Felicite still more
+was her husband's excessive amiability in presenting Vuillet to the
+authorities. Vuillet, it is true, pushed himself forward amongst them,
+and Rougon was compelled to mention him.
+
+"What a schemer!" muttered Felicite. "He creeps in everywhere. How
+confused my poor dear husband must be! See, there's the colonel
+speaking to him. What can he be saying to him?"
+
+"Ah! little one," the marquis replied with a touch of irony, "he is
+complimenting him for having closed the gates so carefully."
+
+"My father has saved the town," Aristide retorted curtly. "Have you
+seen the corpses, sir?"
+
+Monsieur de Carnavant did not answer. He withdrew from the window, and
+sat down in an arm-chair, shaking his head with an air of some
+disgust. At that moment, the prefect having taken his departure,
+Rougon came upstairs and threw himself upon his wife's neck.
+
+"Ah! my dear!" he stammered.
+
+He was unable to say more. Felicite made him kiss Aristide after
+telling him of the superb article which the young man had inserted in
+the "Independant." Pierre would have kissed the marquis as well, he
+was deeply affected. However, his wife took him aside, and gave him
+Eugene's letter which she had sealed up in an envelope again. She
+pretended that it had just been delivered. Pierre read it and then
+triumphantly held it out to her.
+
+"You are a sorceress," he said to her laughing. "You guessed
+everything. What folly I should have committed without you! We'll
+manage our little affairs together now. Kiss me: you're a good woman.
+
+He clasped her in his arms, while she discreetly exchanged a knowing
+smile with the marquis.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+It was not until Sunday, the day after the massacre at Sainte-Roure,
+that the troops passed through Plassans again. The prefect and the
+colonel, whom Monsieur Garconnet had invited to dinner, once more
+entered the town alone. The soldiers went round the ramparts and
+encamped in the Faubourg, on the Nice road. Night was falling; the
+sky, overcast since the morning, had a strange yellow tint, and
+illumined the town with a murky light, similar to the copper-coloured
+glimmer of stormy weather. The reception of the troops by the
+inhabitants was timid; the bloodstained soldiers, who passed by weary
+and silent, in the yellow twilight, horrified the cleanly citizens
+promenading on the Cours. They stepped out of the way whispering
+terrible stories of fusillades and revengeful reprisals which still
+live in the recollection of the region. The Coup d'Etat terror was
+beginning to make itself felt, an overwhelming terror which kept the
+South in a state of tremor for many a long month. Plassans, in its
+fear and hatred of the insurgents, had welcomed the troops on their
+first arrival with enthusiasm; but now, at the appearance of that
+gloomy taciturn regiment, whose men were ready to fire at a word from
+their officers, the retired merchants and even the notaries of the new
+town anxiously examined their consciences, asking if they had not
+committed some political peccadilloes which might be thought deserving
+of a bullet.
+
+The municipal authorities had returned on the previous evening in a
+couple of carts hired at Sainte-Roure. Their unexpected entry was
+devoid of all triumphal display. Rougon surrendered the mayor's arm-
+chair without much regret. The game was over; and with feverish
+longing he now awaited the recompense for his devotion. On the Sunday
+--he had not hoped for it until the following day--he received a
+letter from Eugene. Since the previous Thursday Felicite had taken
+care to send her son the numbers of the "Gazette" and "Independant"
+which, in special second editions had narrated the battle of the night
+and the arrival of the prefect at Plassans. Eugene now replied by
+return of post that the nomination of a receivership would soon be
+signed; but added that he wished to give them some good news
+immediately. He had obtained the ribbon of the Legion of Honour for
+his father. Felicite wept with joy. Her husband decorated! Her proud
+dream had never gone as far as that. Rougon, pale with delight,
+declared they must give a grand dinner that very evening. He no longer
+thought of expense; he would have thrown his last fifty francs out of
+the drawing-room windows in order to celebrate that glorious day.
+
+"Listen," he said to his wife; "you must invite Sicardot: he has
+annoyed me with that rosette of his for a long time! Then Granoux and
+Roudier; I shouldn't be at all sorry to make them feel that it isn't
+their purses that will ever win them the cross. Vuillet is a
+skinflint, but the triumph ought to be complete: invite him as well as
+the small fry. I was forgetting; you must go and call on the marquis
+in person; we will seat him on your right; he'll look very well at our
+table. You know that Monsieur Garconnet is entertaining the colonel
+and the prefect. That is to make me understand that I am nobody now.
+But I can afford to laugh at his mayoralty; it doesn't bring him in a
+sou! He has invited me, but I shall tell him that I also have some
+people coming. The others will laugh on the wrong side of their mouths
+to-morrow. And let everything be of the best. Have everything sent
+from the Hotel de Provence. We must outdo the mayor's dinner."
+
+Felicite set to work. Pierre still felt some vague uneasiness amidst
+his rapture. The Coup d'Etat was going to pay his debts, his son
+Aristide had repented of his faults, and he was at last freeing
+himself from Macquart; but he feared some folly on Pascal's part, and
+was especially anxious about the lot reserved for Silvere. Not that he
+felt the least pity for the lad; he was simply afraid the matter of
+the gendarme might come before the Assize Court. Ah! if only some
+discriminating bullet had managed to rid him of that young scoundrel!
+As his wife had pointed out to him in the morning, all obstacles had
+fallen away before him; the family which had dishonoured him had, at
+the last moment, worked for his elevation; his sons Eugene and
+Aristide, those spend-thrifts, the cost of whose college life he had
+so bitterly regretted, were at last paying interest on the capital
+expended for their education. And yet the thought of that wretched
+Silvere must come to mar his hour of triumph!
+
+While Felicite was running about to prepare the dinner for the
+evening, Pierre heard of the arrival of the troops and determined to
+go and make inquiries. Sicardot, whom he had questioned on his return,
+knew nothing; Pascal must have remained to look after the wounded; as
+for Silvere, he had not even been seen by the commander, who scarcely
+knew him. Rougon therefore repaired to the Faubourg, intending to make
+inquiries there and at the same time pay Macquart the eight hundred
+francs which he had just succeeded in raising with great difficulty.
+However, when he found himself in the crowded encampment, and from a
+distance saw the prisoners sitting in long files on the beams in the
+Aire Saint-Mittre, guarded by soldiers gun in hand, he felt afraid of
+being compromised, and so slunk off to his mother's house, with the
+intention of sending the old woman out to pick up some information.
+
+When he entered the hovel it was almost night. At first the only
+person he saw there was Macquart smoking and drinking brandy.
+
+"Is that you? I'm glad of it," muttered Antoine. "I'm growing deuced
+cold here. Have you got the money?"
+
+But Pierre did not reply. He had just perceived his son Pascal leaning
+over the bed. And thereupon he questioned him eagerly. The doctor,
+surprised by his uneasiness, which he attributed to paternal
+affection, told him that the soldiers had taken him and would have
+shot him, had it not been for the intervention of some honest fellow
+whom he did not know. Saved by his profession of surgeon, he had
+returned to Plassans with the troops. This greatly relieved Rougon. So
+there was yet another who would not compromise him. He was evincing
+his delight by repeated hand-shakings, when Pascal concluded in a
+sorrowful voice: "Oh! don't make merry. I have just found my poor
+grandmother in a very dangerous state. I brought her back this
+carbine, which she values very much; I found her lying here, and she
+has not moved since."
+
+Pierre's eyes were becoming accustomed to the dimness. In the fast
+fading light he saw aunt Dide stretched, rigid and seemingly lifeless,
+upon her bed. Her wretched frame, attacked by neurosis from the hour
+of birth, was at length laid prostrate by a supreme shock. Her nerves
+had so to say consumed her blood. Moreover some cruel grief seemed to
+have suddenly accelerated her slow wasting-away. Her pale nun-like
+face, drawn and pinched by a life of gloom and cloister-like self-
+denial, was now stained with red blotches. With convulsed features,
+eyes that glared terribly, and hands twisted and clenched, she lay at
+full length in her skirts, which failed to hide the sharp outlines of
+her scrawny limbs. Extended there with lips closely pressed she
+imparted to the dim room all the horror of a mute death-agony.
+
+Rougon made a gesture of vexation. This heart-rending spectacle was
+very distasteful to him. He had company coming to dinner in the
+evening, and it would be extremely inconvenient for him to have to
+appear mournful. His mother was always doing something to bother him.
+She might just as well have chosen another day. However, he put on an
+appearance of perfect ease, as he said: "Bah! it's nothing. I've seen
+her like that a hundred times. You must let her lie still; it's the
+only thing that does her any good."
+
+Pascal shook his head. "No, this fit isn't like the others," he
+whispered. "I have often studied her, and have never observed such
+symptoms before. Just look at her eyes: there is a peculiar fluidity,
+a pale brightness about them which causes me considerable uneasiness.
+And her face, how frightfully every muscle of it is distorted!"
+
+Then bending over to observe her features more closely, he continued
+in a whisper, as though speaking to himself: "I have never seen such a
+face, excepting among people who have been murdered or have died from
+fright. She must have experienced some terrible shock."
+
+"But how did the attack begin?" Rougon impatiently inquired, at a loss
+for an excuse to leave the room.
+
+Pascal did not know. Macquart, as he poured himself out another glass
+of brandy, explained that he had felt an inclination to drink a little
+Cognac, and had sent her to fetch a bottle. She had not been long
+absent, and at the very moment when she returned she had fallen rigid
+on the floor without uttering a word. Macquart himself had carried her
+to the bed.
+
+"What surprises me," he said, by way of conclusion, "is, that she did
+not break the bottle."
+
+The young doctor reflected. After a short pause he resumed: "I heard
+two shots fired as I came here. Perhaps those ruffians have been
+shooting some more prisoners. If she passed through the ranks of the
+soldiers at that moment, the sight of blood may have thrown her into
+this fit. She must have had some dreadful shock."
+
+Fortunately he had with him the little medicine-case which he had been
+carrying about ever since the departure of the insurgents. He tried to
+pour a few drops of reddish liquid between aunt Dide's closely-set
+teeth, while Macquart again asked his brother: "Have you got the
+money?"
+
+"Yes, I've brought it; we'll settle now," Rougon replied, glad of this
+diversion.
+
+Thereupon Macquart, seeing that he was about to be paid, began to
+moan. He had only learnt the consequence of his treachery when it was
+too late; otherwise he would have demanded twice or thrice as much.
+And he complained bitterly. Really now a thousand francs was not
+enough. His children had forsaken him, he was all alone in the world,
+and obliged to quit France. He almost wept as he spoke of his coming
+exile.
+
+"Come now, will you take the eight hundred francs?" said Rougon, who
+was in haste to be off.
+
+"No, certainly not; double the sum. Your wife cheated me. If she had
+told me distinctly what it was she expected of me, I would never have
+compromised myself for such a trifle."
+
+Rougon laid the eight hundred francs upon the table.
+
+"I swear I haven't got any more," he resumed. "I will think of you
+later. But do, for mercy's sake, get away this evening."
+
+Macquart, cursing and muttering protests, thereupon carried the table
+to the window, and began to count the gold in the fading twilight. The
+coins tickled the tips of his fingers very pleasantly as he let them
+fall, and jingled musically in the darkness. At last he paused for a
+moment to say: "You promised to get me a berth, remember. I want to
+return to France. The post of rural guard in some pleasant
+neighbourhood which I could mention, would just suit me."
+
+"Very well, I'll see about it," Rougon replied. "Have you got the
+eight hundred francs?"
+
+Macquart resumed his counting. The last coins were just clinking when
+a burst of laughter made them turn their heads. Aunt Dide was standing
+up in front of the bed, with her bodice unfastened, her white hair
+hanging loose, and her face stained with red blotches. Pascal had in
+vain endeavoured to hold her down. Trembling all over, and with her
+arms outstretched, she shook her head deliriously.
+
+"The blood-money! the blood-money!" she again and again repeated. "I
+heard the gold. And it is they, they who sold him. Ah! the murderers!
+They are a pack of wolves."
+
+Then she pushed her hair aback, and passed her hand over her brow, as
+though seeking to collect her thoughts. And she continued: "Ah! I have
+long seen him with a bullet-hole in his forehead. There were always
+people lying in wait for him with guns. They used to sign to me that
+they were going to fire. . . . It's terrible! I feel some one breaking
+my bones and battering out my brains. Oh! Mercy! Mercy! I beseech you;
+he shall not see her any more--never, never! I will shut him up. I
+will prevent him from walking out with her. Mercy! Mercy! Don't fire.
+It is not my fault. If you knew----"
+
+She had almost fallen on her knees, and was weeping and entreating
+while she stretched her poor trembling hands towards some horrible
+vision which she saw in the darkness. Then she suddenly rose upright,
+and her eyes opened still more widely as a terrible cry came from her
+convulsed throat, as though some awful sight, visible to her alone,
+had filled her with mad terror.
+
+"Oh, the gendarme!" she said, choking and falling backwards on the
+bed, where she rolled about, breaking into long bursts of furious,
+insane laughter.
+
+Pascal was studying the attack attentively. The two brothers, who felt
+very frightened, and only detected snatches of what their mother said,
+had taken refuge in a corner of the room. When Rougon heard the word
+gendarme, he thought he understood her. Ever since the murder of her
+lover, the elder Macquart, on the frontier, aunt Dide had cherished a
+bitter hatred against all gendarmes and custom-house officers, whom
+she mingled together in one common longing for vengeance.
+
+"Why, it's the story of the poacher that she's telling us," he
+whispered.
+
+But Pascal made a sign to him to keep quiet. The stricken woman had
+raised herself with difficulty, and was looking round her, with a
+stupefied air. She remained silent for a moment, endeavouring to
+recognise the various objects in the room, as though she were in some
+strange place. Then, with a sudden expression of anxiety, she asked:
+"Where is the gun?"
+
+The doctor put the carbine into her hands. At this she raised a light
+cry of joy, and gazed at the weapon, saying in a soft, sing-song,
+girlish whisper: "That is it. Oh! I recognise it! It is all stained
+with blood. The stains are quite fresh to-day. His red hands have left
+marks of blood on the butt. Ah! poor, poor aunt Dide!"
+
+Then she became dizzy once more, and lapsed into silent thought.
+
+"The gendarme was dead," she murmured at last, "but I have seen him
+again; he has come back. They never die, those blackguards!"
+
+Again did gloomy passion come over her, and, shaking the carbine, she
+advanced towards her two sons who, speechless with fright, retreated
+to the very wall. Her loosened skirts trailed along the ground, as she
+drew up her twisted frame, which age had reduced to mere bones.
+
+"It's you who fired!" she cried. "I heard the gold. . . . Wretched
+woman that I am! . . . I brought nothing but wolves into the world--a
+whole family--a whole litter of wolves! . . . There was only one poor
+lad, and him they have devoured; each had a bite at him, and their
+lips are covered with blood. . . . Ah! the accursed villains! They
+have robbed, they have murdered. . . . And they live like gentlemen.
+Villains! Accursed villains!"
+
+She sang, laughed, cried, and repeated "accursed villains!" in
+strangely sonorous tones, which suggested a crackling of a fusillade.
+Pascal, with tears in his eyes, took her in his arms and laid her on
+the bed again. She submitted like a child, but persisted in her
+wailing cries, accelerating their rhythm, and beating time on the
+sheet with her withered hands.
+
+"That's just what I was afraid of," the doctor said; "she is mad. The
+blow has been too heavy for a poor creature already subject, as she
+is, to acute neurosis. She will die in a lunatic asylum like her
+father."
+
+"But what could she have seen?" asked Rougon, at last venturing to
+quit the corner where he had hidden himself.
+
+"I have a terrible suspicion," Pascal replied. "I was going to speak
+to you about Silvere when you came in. He is a prisoner. You must
+endeavour to obtain his release from the prefect, if there is still
+time."
+
+The old oil-dealer turned pale as he looked at his son. Then, rapidly,
+he responded: "Listen to me; you stay here and watch her. I'm too busy
+this evening. We will see to-morrow about conveying her to the lunatic
+asylum at Les Tulettes. As for you, Macquart, you must leave this very
+night. Swear to me that you will! I'm going to find Monsieur de
+Bleriot."
+
+He stammered as he spoke, and felt more eager than ever to get out
+into the fresh air of the streets. Pascal fixed a penetrating look on
+the madwoman, and then on his father and uncle. His professional
+instinct was getting the better of him, and he studied the mother and
+the sons, with all the keenness of a naturalist observing the
+metamorphosis of some insect. He pondered over the growth of that
+family to which he belonged, over the different branches growing from
+one parent stock, whose sap carried identical germs to the farthest
+twigs, which bent in divers ways according to the sunshine or shade in
+which they lived. And for a moment, as by the glow of a lightning
+flash, he thought he could espy the future of the Rougon-Macquart
+family, a pack of unbridled, insatiate appetites amidst a blaze of
+gold and blood.
+
+Aunt Dide, however, had ceased her wailing chant at the mention of
+Silvere's name. For a moment she listened anxiously. Then she broke
+out into terrible shrieks. Night had now completely fallen, and the
+black room seemed void and horrible. The shrieks of the madwoman, who
+was no longer visible, rang out from the darkness as from a grave.
+Rougon, losing his head, took to flight, pursued by those taunting
+cries, whose bitterness seemed to increase amidst the gloom.
+
+As he was emerging from the Impasse Saint-Mittre with hesitating
+steps, wondering whether it would not be dangerous to solicit
+Silvere's pardon from the prefect, he saw Aristide prowling about the
+timber-yard. The latter, recognising his father, ran up to him with an
+expression of anxiety and whispered a few words in his ear. Pierre
+turned pale, and cast a look of alarm towards the end of the yard,
+where the darkness was only relieved by the ruddy glow of a little
+gipsy fire. Then they both disappeared down the Rue de Rome,
+quickening their steps as though they had committed a murder, and
+turning up their coat-collars in order that they might not be
+recognised.
+
+"That saves me an errand," Rougon whispered. "Let us go to dinner.
+They are waiting for us."
+
+When they arrived, the yellow drawing-room was resplendent. Felicite
+was all over the place. Everybody was there; Sicardot, Granoux,
+Roudier, Vuillet, the oil-dealers, the almond-dealers, the whole set.
+The marquis, however, had excused himself on the plea of rheumatism;
+and, besides, he was about to leave Plassans on a short trip. Those
+bloodstained bourgeois offended his feelings of delicacy, and moreover
+his relative, the Count de Valqueyras, had begged him to withdraw from
+public notice for a little time. Monsieur de Carnavant's refusal vexed
+the Rougons; but Felicite consoled herself by resolving to make a more
+profuse display. She hired a pair of candelabra and ordered several
+additional dishes as a kind of substitute for the marquis. The table
+was laid in the yellow drawing-room, in order to impart more solemnity
+to the occasion. The Hotel de Provence had supplied the silver, the
+china, and the glass. The cloth had been laid ever since five o'clock
+in order that the guests on arriving might feast their eyes upon it.
+At either end of the table, on the white cloth, were bouquets of
+artificial roses, in porcelain vases gilded and painted with flowers.
+
+When the habitual guests of the yellow drawing-room were assembled
+there they could not conceal their admiration of the spectacle.
+Several gentlemen smiled with an air of embarrassment while they
+exchanged furtive glances, which clearly signified, "These Rougons are
+mad, they are throwing their money out of the window." The truth was
+that Felicite, on going round to invite her guests, had been unable to
+hold her tongue. So everybody knew that Pierre had been decorated, and
+that he was about to be nominated to some post; at which, of course,
+they pulled wry faces. Roudier indeed observed that "the little black
+woman was puffing herself out too much." Now that "prize-day" had come
+this band of bourgeois, who had rushed upon the expiring Republic--
+each one keeping an eye on the other, and glorying in giving a deeper
+bite than his neighbour--did not think it fair that their hosts should
+have all the laurels of the battle. Even those who had merely howled
+by instinct, asking no recompense of the rising Empire, were greatly
+annoyed to see that, thanks to them, the poorest and least reputable
+of them all should be decorated with the red ribbon. The whole yellow
+drawing-room ought to have been decorated!
+
+"Not that I value the decoration," Roudier said to Granoux, whom he
+had dragged into the embrasure of a window. "I refused it in the time
+of Louis-Philippe, when I was purveyor to the court. Ah! Louis-
+Philippe was a good king. France will never find his equal!"
+
+Roudier was becoming an Orleanist once more. And he added, with the
+crafty hypocrisy of an old hosier from the Rue Saint-Honore: "But you,
+my dear Granoux; don't you think the ribbon would look well in your
+button-hole? After all, you did as much to save the town as Rougon
+did. Yesterday, when I was calling upon some very distinguished
+persons, they could scarcely believe it possible that you had made so
+much noise with a mere hammer."
+
+Granoux stammered his thanks, and, blushing like a maiden at her first
+confession of love, whispered in Roudier's ear: "Don't say anything
+about it, but I have reason to believe that Rougon will ask the ribbon
+for me. He's a good fellow at heart, you know."
+
+The old hosier thereupon became grave, and assumed a very affable
+manner. When Vuillet came and spoke to him of the well-deserved reward
+that their friend had just received, he replied in a loud voice, so as
+to be heard by Felicite, who was sitting a little way off, that "men
+like Rougon were an ornament to the Legion of Honour." The bookseller
+joined in the chorus; he had that morning received a formal assurance
+that the custom of the college would be restored to him. As for
+Sicardot, he at first felt somewhat annoyed to find himself no longer
+the only one of the set who was decorated. According to him, none but
+soldiers had a right to the ribbon. Pierre's valour surprised him.
+However, being in reality a good-natured fellow, he at last grew
+warmer, and ended by saying that the Napoleons always knew how to
+distinguish men of spirit and energy.
+
+Rougon and Aristide consequently had an enthusiastic reception; on
+their arrival all hands were held out to them. Some of the guests went
+so far as to embrace them. Angele sat on the sofa, by the side of her
+mother-in-law, feeling very happy, and gazing at the table with the
+astonishment of a gourmand who has never seen so many dishes at once.
+When Aristide approached, Sicardot complimented his son-in-law upon
+his superb article in the "Independant." He restored his friendship to
+him. The young man, in answer to the fatherly questions which Sicardot
+addressed to him, replied that he was anxious to take his little
+family with him to Paris, where his brother Eugene would push him
+forward; but he was in want of five hundred francs. Sicardot thereupon
+promised him the money, already foreseeing the day when his daughter
+would be received at the Tuileries by Napoleon III.
+
+In the meantime, Felicite had made a sign to her husband. Pierre,
+surrounded by everybody and anxiously questioned about his pallor,
+could only escape for a minute. He was just able to whisper in his
+wife's ear that he had found Pascal and that Macquart would leave that
+night. Then lowering his voice still more he told her of his mother's
+insanity, and placed his finger on his lips, as if to say: "Not a
+word; that would spoil the whole evening." Felicite bit her lips. They
+exchanged a look in which they read their common thoughts: so now the
+old woman would not trouble them any more: the poacher's hovel would
+be razed to the ground, as the walls of the Fouques' enclosure had
+been demolished; and they would for ever enjoy the respect and esteem
+of Plassans.
+
+But the guests were looking at the table. Felicite showed the
+gentlemen their seats. It was perfect bliss. As each one took his
+spoon, Sicardot made a gesture to solicit a moment's delay. Then he
+rose and gravely said: "Gentlemen, on behalf of the company present, I
+wish to express to our host how pleased we are at the rewards which
+his courage and patriotism have procured for him. I now see that he
+must have acted upon a heaven-sent inspiration in remaining here,
+while those beggars were dragging myself and others along the high
+roads. Therefore, I heartily applaud the decision of the government.
+. . . Let me finish, you can then congratulate our friend. . . . Know,
+then, that our friend, besides being made a chevalier of the Legion of
+Honour, is also to be appointed to a receiver of taxes."
+
+There was a cry of surprise. They had expected a small post. Some of
+them tried to force a smile; but, aided by the sight of the table, the
+compliments again poured forth profusely.
+
+Sicardot once more begged for silence. "Wait one moment," he resumed;
+"I have not finished. Just one word. It is probable that our friend
+will remain among us, owing to the death of Monsieur Peirotte."
+
+Whilst the guests burst out into exclamations, Felicite felt a keen
+pain in her heart. Sicardot had already told her that the receiver had
+been shot; but at the mention of that sudden and shocking death, just
+as they were starting on that triumphal dinner, it seemed as if a
+chilling gust swept past her face. She remembered her wish; it was she
+who had killed that man. However, amidst the tinkling music of the
+silver, the company began to do honour to the banquet. In the
+provinces, people eat very much and very noisily. By the time the
+/releve/ was served, the gentlemen were all talking together; they
+showered kicks upon the vanquished, flattered one another, and made
+disparaging remarks about the absence of the marquis. It was
+impossible, they said, to maintain intercourse with the nobility.
+Roudier even gave out that the marquis had begged to be excused
+because his fear of the insurgents had given him jaundice. At the
+second course they all scrambled like hounds at the quarry. The oil-
+dealers and almond-dealers were the men who saved France. They clinked
+glasses to the glory of the Rougons. Granoux, who was very red, began
+to stammer, while Vuillet, very pale, was quite drunk. Nevertheless
+Sicardot continued filling his glass. For her part Angele, who had
+already eaten too much, prepared herself some sugar and water. The
+gentlemen were so delighted at being freed from panic, and finding
+themselves together again in that yellow drawing-room, round a good
+table, in the bright light radiating from the candelabra and the
+chandelier--which they now saw for the first time without its fly-
+specked cover--that they gave way to most exuberant folly and indulged
+in the coarsest enjoyment. Their voices rose in the warm atmosphere
+more huskily and eulogistically at each successive dish till they
+could scarcely invent fresh compliments. However, one of them, an old
+retired master-tanner, hit upon this fine phrase--that the dinner was
+a "perfect feast worthy of Lucullus."
+
+Pierre was radiant, and his big pale face perspired with triumph.
+Felicite, already accustoming herself to her new station in life, said
+that they would probably rent poor Monsieur Peirotte's flat until they
+could purchase a house of their own in the new town. She was already
+planning how she would place her future furniture in the receiver's
+rooms. She was entering into possession of her Tuileries. At one
+moment, however, as the uproar of voices became deafening, she seemed
+to recollect something, and quitting her seat she whispered in
+Aristide's ear: "And Silvere?"
+
+The young man started with surprise at the question.
+
+"He is dead," he replied, likewise in a whisper. "I was there when the
+gendarme blew his brains out with a pistol."
+
+Felicite in her turn shuddered. She opened her mouth to ask her son
+why he had not prevented this murder by claiming the lad; but abruptly
+hesitating she remained there speechless. Then Aristide, who had read
+her question on her quivering lips, whispered: "You understand, I said
+nothing--so much the worse for him! I did quite right. It's a good
+riddance."
+
+This brutal frankness displeased Felicite. So Aristide had his
+skeleton, like his father and mother. He would certainly not have
+confessed so openly that he had been strolling about the Faubourg and
+had allowed his cousin to be shot, had not the wine from the Hotel de
+Provence and the dreams he was building upon his approaching arrival
+in Paris, made him depart from his habitual cunning. The words once
+spoken, he swung himself to and fro on his chair. Pierre, who had
+watched the conversation between his wife and son from a distance,
+understood what had passed and glanced at them like an accomplice
+imploring silence. It was the last blast of terror, as it were, which
+blew over the Rougons, amidst the splendour and enthusiastic merriment
+of the dinner. True, Felicite, on returning to her seat, espied a
+taper burning behind a window on the other side of the road. Some one
+sat watching Monsieur Peirotte's corpse, which had been brought back
+from Sainte-Roure that morning. She sat down, feeling as if that taper
+were heating her back. But the gaiety was now increasing, and
+exclamations of rapture rang through the yellow drawing-room when the
+dessert appeared.
+
+At that same hour, the Faubourg was still shuddering at the tragedy
+which had just stained the Aire Saint-Mittre with blood. The return of
+the troops, after the carnage on the Nores plain, had been marked by
+the most cruel reprisals. Men were beaten to death behind bits of
+wall, with the butt-ends of muskets, others had their brains blown out
+in ravines by the pistols of gendarmes. In order that terror might
+impose silence, the soldiers strewed their road with corpses. One
+might have followed them by the red trail which they left behind.[*]
+It was a long butchery. At every halting-place, a few insurgents were
+massacred. Two were killed at Sainte-Roure, three at Ocheres, one at
+Beage. When the troops were encamped at Plassans, on the Nice road, it
+was decided that one more prisoner, the most guilty, should be shot.
+The victors judged it wise to leave this fresh corpse behind them in
+order to inspire the town with respect for the new-born Empire. But
+the soldiers were now weary of killing; none offered himself for the
+fatal task. The prisoners, thrown on the beams in the timber-yard as
+though on a camp bed, and bound together in pairs by the hands,
+listened and waited in a state of weary, resigned stupor.
+
+[*] Though M. Zola has changed his place in his account of the
+    insurrection, that account is strictly accurate in all its chief
+    particulars. What he says of the savagery both of the soldiers and
+    of their officers is confirmed by all impartial historical
+    writers.--EDITOR.
+
+At that moment the gendarme Rengade roughly opened a way for himself
+through the crowd of inquisitive idlers. As soon as he heard that the
+troops had returned with several hundred insurgents, he had risen from
+bed, shivering with fever, and risking his life in the cold, dark
+December air. Scarcely was he out of doors when his wound reopened,
+the bandage which covered his eyeless socket became stained with
+blood, and a red streamlet trickled over his cheek and moustache. He
+looked frightful in his dumb fury with his pale face and blood-stained
+bandage, as he ran along closely scrutinising each of the prisoners.
+He followed the beams, bending down and going to and fro, making the
+bravest shudder by his abrupt appearance. And, all of a sudden: "Ah!
+the bandit, I've got him!" he cried.
+
+He had just laid his hand on Silvere's shoulder. Silvere, crouching
+down on a beam, with lifeless and expressionless face, was looking
+straight before him into the pale twilight, with a calm, stupefied
+air. Ever since his departure from Sainte-Roure, he had retained that
+vacant stare. Along the high road, for many a league, whenever the
+soldiers urged on the march of their captives with the butt-ends of
+their rifles, he had shown himself as gentle as a child. Covered with
+dust, thirsty and weary, he trudged onward without saying a word, like
+one of those docile animals that herdsmen drive along. He was thinking
+of Miette. He ever saw her lying on the banner, under the trees with
+her eyes turned upwards. For three days he had seen none but her; and
+at this very moment, amidst the growing darkness, he still saw her.
+
+Rengade turned towards the officer, who had failed to find among the
+soldiers the requisite men for an execution.
+
+"This villain put my eye out," he said, pointing to Silvere. "Hand him
+over to me. It's as good as done for you."
+
+The officer did not reply in words, but withdrew with an air of
+indifference, making a vague gesture. The gendarme understood that the
+man was surrendered to him.
+
+"Come, get up!" he resumed, as he shook him.
+
+Silvere, like all the other prisoners, had a companion attached to
+him. He was fastened by the arm to a peasant of Poujols named Mourgue,
+a man about fifty, who had been brutified by the scorching sun and the
+hard labour of tilling the ground. Crooked-backed already, his hands
+hardened, his face coarse and heavy, he blinked his eyes in a stupid
+manner, with the stubborn, distrustful expression of an animal subject
+to the lash. He had set out armed with a pitchfork, because his fellow
+villagers had done so; but he could not have explained what had thus
+set him adrift on the high roads. Since he had been made a prisoner he
+understood it still less. He had some vague idea that he was being
+conveyed home. His amazement at finding himself bound, the sight of
+all the people staring at him, stupefied him still more. As he only
+spoke and understood the dialect of the region, he could not imagine
+what the gendarme wanted. He raised his coarse, heavy face towards him
+with an effort; then, fancying he was being asked the name of his
+village, he said in his hoarse voice:
+
+"I come from Poujols."
+
+A burst of laughter ran through the crowd, and some voices cried:
+"Release the peasant."
+
+"Bah!" Rengade replied; "the more of this vermin that's crushed the
+better. As they're together, they can both go."
+
+There was a murmur.
+
+But the gendarme turned his terrible blood-stained face upon the
+onlookers, and they slunk off. One cleanly little citizen went away
+declaring that if he remained any longer it would spoil his appetite
+for dinner. However some boys who recognised Silvere, began to speak
+of "the red girl." Thereupon the little citizen retraced his steps, in
+order to see the lover of the female standard-bearer, that depraved
+creature who had been mentioned in the "Gazette."
+
+Silvere, for his part, neither saw nor heard anything; Rengade had to
+seize him by the collar. Thereupon he got up, forcing Mourgue to rise
+also.
+
+"Come," said the gendarme. "It won't take long."
+
+Silvere then recognised the one-eyed man. He smiled. He must have
+understood. But he turned his head away. The sight of the one-eyed
+man, of his moustaches which congealed blood stiffened as with
+sinister rime, caused him profound grief. He would have liked to die
+in perfect peace. So he avoided the gaze of Rengade's one eye, which
+glared from beneath the white bandage. And of his own accord he
+proceeded to the end of the Aire Saint-Mittre, to the narrow lane
+hidden by the timber stacks. Mourgue followed him thither.
+
+The Aire stretched out, with an aspect of desolation under the sallow
+sky. A murky light fell here and there from the copper-coloured
+clouds. Never had a sadder and more lingering twilight cast its
+melancholy over this bare expanse--this wood-yard with its slumbering
+timber, so stiff and rigid in the cold. The prisoners, the soldiers,
+and the mob along the high road disappeared amid the darkness of the
+trees. The expanse, the beams, the piles of planks alone grew pale
+under the fading light, assuming a muddy tint that vaguely suggested
+the bed of a dried-up torrent. The sawyers' trestles, rearing their
+meagre framework in a corner, seemed to form gallows, or the uprights
+of a guillotine. And there was no living soul there excepting three
+gipsies who showed their frightened faces at the door of their van--an
+old man and woman, and a big girl with woolly hair, whose eyes gleamed
+like those of a wolf.
+
+Before reaching the secluded path, Silvere looked round him. He
+bethought himself of a far away Sunday when he had crossed the wood-
+yard in the bright moonlight. How calm and soft it had been!--how
+slowly had the pale rays passed over the beams! Supreme silence had
+fallen from the frozen sky. And amidst this silence, the woolly-haired
+gipsy girl had sung in a low key and an unknown tongue. Then Silvere
+remembered that the seemingly far-off Sunday was only a week old. But
+a week ago he had come to bid Miette farewell! How long past it
+seemed! He felt as though he had not set foot in the wood-yard for
+years. But when he reached the narrow path his heart failed him. He
+recognised the odour of the grass, the shadows of the planks, the
+holes in the wall. A woeful voice rose from all those things. The path
+stretched out sad and lonely; it seemed longer to him than usual, and
+he felt a cold wind blowing down it. The spot had aged cruelly. He saw
+that the wall was moss-eaten, that the verdant carpet was dried up by
+frost, that the piles of timber had been rotted by rain. It was
+perfect devastation. The yellow twilight fell like fine dust upon the
+ruins of all that had been most dear to him. He was obliged to close
+his eyes that he might again behold the lane green, and live his happy
+hours afresh. It was warm weather; and he was racing with Miette in
+the balmy air. Then the cruel December rains fell unceasingly, yet
+they still came there, sheltering themselves beneath the planks and
+listening with rapture to the heavy plashing of the shower. His whole
+life--all his happiness--passed before him like a flash of lightning.
+Miette was climbing over the wall, running to him, shaking with
+sonorous laughter. She was there; he could see her, gleaming white
+through the darkness, with her living helm of ink-black hair. She was
+talking about the magpies' nests, which are so difficult to steal, and
+she dragged him along with her. Then he heard the gentle murmur of the
+Viorne in the distance, the chirping of the belated grasshoppers, and
+the blowing of the breeze among the poplars in the meadows of Sainte-
+Claire. Ah, how they used to run! How well he remembered it! She had
+learnt to swim in a fortnight. She was a plucky girl. She had only had
+one great fault: she was inclined to pilfering. But he would have
+cured her of that. Then the thought of their first embraces brought
+him back to the narrow path. They had always ended by returning to
+that nook. He fancied he could hear the gipsy girl's song dying away,
+the creaking of the last shutters, the solemn striking of the clocks.
+Then the hour of separation came, and Miette climbed the wall again
+and threw him a kiss. And he saw her no more. Emotion choked him at
+the thought: he would never see her again--never!
+
+"When you're ready," jeered the one-eyed man; "come, choose your
+place."
+
+Silvere took a few more steps. He was approaching the end of the path,
+and could see nothing but a strip of sky in which the rust-coloured
+light was fading away. Here had he spent his life for two years past.
+The slow approach of death added an ineffable charm to this pathway
+which had so long served as a lovers' walk. He loitered, bidding a
+long and lingering farewell to all he loved; the grass, the timber,
+the stone of the old wall, all those things into which Miette had
+breathed life. And again his thoughts wandered. They were waiting till
+they should be old enough to marry: Aunt Dide would remain with them.
+Ah! if they had fled far away, very far away, to some unknown village,
+where the scamps of the Faubourg would no longer have been able to
+come and cast Chantegreil's crime in his daughter's face. What
+peaceful bliss! They would have opened a wheelwright's workshop beside
+some high road. No doubt, he cared little for his ambitions now; he no
+longer thought of coachmaking, of carriages with broad varnished
+panels as shiny as mirrors. In the stupor of his despair he could not
+remember why his dream of bliss would never come to pass. Why did he
+not go away with Miette and aunt Dide? Then as he racked his memory,
+he heard the sharp crackling of a fusillade; he saw a standard fall
+before him, its staff broken and its folds drooping like the wings of
+a bird brought down by a shot. It was the Republic falling asleep with
+Miette under the red flag. Ah, what wretchedness! They were both dead,
+both had bleeding wounds in their breasts. And it was they--the
+corpses of his two loves--that now barred his path of life. He had
+nothing left him and might well die himself. These were the thoughts
+that had made him so gentle, so listless, so childlike all the way
+from Sainte-Roure. The soldiers might have struck him, he would not
+have felt it. His spirit no longer inhabited his body. It was far
+away, prostrate beside the loved ones who were dead under the trees
+amidst the pungent smoke of the gunpowder.
+
+But the one-eyed man was growing impatient; giving a push to Mourgue,
+who was lagging behind, he growled: "Get along, do; I don't want to be
+here all night."
+
+Silvere stumbled. He looked at his feet. A fragment of a skull lay
+whitening in the grass. He thought he heard a murmur of voices filling
+the pathway. The dead were calling him, those long departed ones,
+whose warm breath had so strangely perturbed him and his sweetheart
+during the sultry July evenings. He recognised their low whispers.
+They were rejoicing, they were telling him to come, and promising to
+restore Miette to him beneath the earth, in some retreat which would
+prove still more sequestered than this old trysting-place. The
+cemetery, whose oppressive odours and dark vegetation had breathed
+eager desire into the children's hearts, while alluringly spreading
+out its couches of rank grass, without succeeding however in throwing
+them into one another's arms, now longed to imbibe Silvere's warm
+blood. For two summers past it had been expecting the young lovers.
+
+"Is it here?" asked the one-eyed man.
+
+Silvere looked in front of him. He had reached the end of the path.
+His eyes fell on the tombstone, and he started. Miette was right, that
+stone was for her. /"Here lieth . . . Marie . . . died . . . "/ She
+was dead, that slab had fallen over her. His strength failing him, he
+leant against the frozen stone. How warm it had been when they sat in
+that nook, chatting for many a long evening! She had always come that
+way, and the pressure of her foot, as she alighted from the wall, had
+worn away the stone's surface in one corner. The mark seemed instinct
+with something of her lissom figure. And to Silvere it appeared as if
+some fatalism attached to all these objects--as if the stone were
+there precisely in order that he might come to die beside it, there
+where he had loved.
+
+The one-eyed man cocked his pistols.
+
+Death! death! the thought fascinated Silvere. It was to this spot,
+then, that they had led him, by the long white road which descends
+from Sainte-Roure to Plassans. If he had known it, he would have
+hastened on yet more quickly in order to die on that stone, at the end
+of the narrow path, in the atmosphere where he could still detect the
+scent of Miette's breath! Never had he hoped for such consolation in
+his grief. Heaven was merciful. He waited, a vague smile playing on is
+face.
+
+Mourgue, meantime, had caught sight of the pistols. Hitherto he had
+allowed himself to be dragged along stupidly. But fear now overcame
+him, and he repeated, in a tone of despair: "I come from Poujols--I
+come from Poujols!"
+
+Then he threw himself on the ground, rolling at the gendarme's feet,
+breaking out into prayers for mercy, and imagining that he was being
+mistaken for some one else.
+
+"What does it matter to me that you come from Poujols?" Rengade
+muttered.
+
+And as the wretched man, shivering and crying with terror, and quite
+unable to understand why he was going to die, held out his trembling
+hands--his deformed, hard, labourer's hands--exclaiming in his patois
+that he had done nothing and ought to be pardoned, the one-eyed man
+grew quite exasperated at being unable to put the pistol to his
+temple, owing to his constant movements.
+
+"Will you hold your tongue?" he shouted.
+
+Thereupon Mourgue, mad with fright and unwilling to die, began to howl
+like a beast--like a pig that is being slaughtered.
+
+"Hold your tongue, you scoundrel!" the gendarme repeated.
+
+And he blew his brains out. The peasant fell with a thud. His body
+rolled to the foot of a timber-stack, where it remained doubled up.
+The violence of the shock had severed the rope which fastened him to
+his companion. Silvere fell on his knees before the tombstone.
+
+It was to make his vengeance the more terrible that Rengade had killed
+Mourgue first. He played with his second pistol, raising it slowly in
+order to relish Silvere's agony. But the latter looked at him quietly.
+Then again the sight of this man, with the one fierce, scorching eye,
+made him feel uneasy. He averted his glance, fearing that he might die
+cowardly if he continued to look at that feverishly quivering
+gendarme, with blood-stained bandage and bleeding moustache. However,
+as he raised his eyes to avoid him, he perceived Justin's head just
+above the wall, at the very spot where Miette had been wont to leap
+over.
+
+Justin had been at the Porte de Rome, among the crowd, when the
+gendarme had led the prisoners away. He had set off as fast as he
+could by way of the Jas-Meiffren, in his eagerness to witness the
+execution. The thought that he alone, of all the Faubourg scamps,
+would view the tragedy at his ease, as from a balcony, made him run so
+quickly that he twice fell down. And in spite of his wild chase, he
+arrived too late to witness the first shot. He climbed the mulberry
+tree in despair; but he smiled when he saw that Silvere still
+remained. The soldiers had informed him of his cousin's death, and now
+the murder of the wheelwright brought his happiness to a climax. He
+awaited the shot with that delight which the sufferings of others
+always afforded him--a delight increased tenfold by the horror of the
+scene, and a feeling of exquisite fear.
+
+Silvere, on recognising that vile scamp's head all by itself above the
+wall--that pale grinning face, with hair standing on end--experienced
+a feeling of fierce rage, a sudden desire to live. It was the last
+revolt of his blood--a momentary mutiny. He again sank down on his
+knees, gazing straight before him. A last vision passed before his
+eyes in the melancholy twilight. At the end of the path, at the
+entrance of the Impasse Saint-Mittre, he fancied he could see aunt
+Dide standing erect, white and rigid like the statue of a saint, while
+she witnessed his agony from a distance.
+
+At that moment he felt the cold pistol on his temple. There was a
+smile on Justin's pale face. Closing his eyes, Silvere heard the long-
+departed dead wildly summoning him. In the darkness, he now saw
+nothing save Miette, wrapped in the banner, under the trees, with her
+eyes turned towards heaven. Then the one-eyed man fired, and all was
+over; the lad's skull burst open like a ripe pomegranate; his face
+fell upon the stone, with his lips pressed to the spot which Miette's
+feet had worn--that warm spot which still retained a trace of his dead
+love.
+
+And in the evening at dessert, at the Rougons' abode, bursts of
+laughter arose with the fumes from the table, which was still warm
+with the remains of the dinner. At last the Rougons were nibbling at
+the pleasures of the wealthy! Their appetites, sharpened by thirty
+years of restrained desire, now fell to with wolfish teeth. These
+fierce, insatiate wild beasts, scarcely entering upon indulgence,
+exulted at the birth of the Empire--the dawn of the Rush for the
+Spoils. The Coup d'Etat, which retrieved the fortune of the
+Bonapartes, also laid the foundation for that of the Rougons.
+
+Pierre stood up, held out his glass, and exclaimed: "I drink to Prince
+Louis--to the Emperor!"
+
+The gentlemen, who had drowned their jealousies in champagne, rose in
+a body and clinked glasses with deafening shouts. It was a fine
+spectacle. The bourgeois of Plassans, Roudier, Granoux, Vuillet, and
+all the others, wept and embraced each other over the corpse of the
+Republic, which as yet was scarcely cold. But a splendid idea occurred
+to Sicardot. He took from Felicite's hair a pink satin bow, which she
+had placed over her right ear in honour of the occasion, cut off a
+strip of the satin with his dessert knife, and then solemnly fastened
+it to Rougon's button-hole. The latter feigned modesty, and pretended
+to resist. But his face beamed with joy, as he murmured: "No, I beg
+you, it is too soon. We must wait until the decree is published."
+
+"Zounds!" Sicardot exclaimed, "will you please keep that! It's an old
+soldier of Napoleon who decorates you!"
+
+The whole company burst into applause. Felicite almost swooned with
+delight. Silent Granoux jumped up on a chair in his enthusiasm, waving
+his napkin and making a speech which was lost amid the uproar. The
+yellow drawing-room was wild with triumph.
+
+But the strip of pink satin fastened to Pierre's button-hole was not
+the only red spot in that triumph of the Rougons. A shoe, with a
+blood-stained heel, still lay forgotten under the bedstead in the
+adjoining room. The taper burning at Monsieur Peirotte's bedside, over
+the way, gleamed too with the lurid redness of a gaping wound amidst
+the dark night. And yonder, far away, in the depths of the Aire Saint-
+Mittre, a pool of blood was congealing upon a tombstone.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS ***
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