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Title: The Fortune of the Rougons



Author: Emile Zola



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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.








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