The Fortune of the Rougons

by Émile Zola

Edited With Introduction By Ernest Alfred Vizetelly


Contents

 INTRODUCTION
 AUTHOR’S PREFACE
 THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
 CHAPTER I
 CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER III
 CHAPTER IV
 CHAPTER V
 CHAPTER VI
 CHAPTER VII




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 Siècle,” 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 Silvère—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 _éditions 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
_habitués_, and many of the scenes between Pierre Rougon and his wife
Félicité, 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 Bibliothèque 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 Silvère 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; Silvère, her lover, in certain respects
foreshadows, a quarter of a century in advance, the Abbé 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, Félicité, and their sons
Eugène, 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’État 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 _dénouement_ 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.”

 ÉMILE 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, Silvère?” the voice asked.

Silvère 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 Silvère, 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.”

Silvère 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 Silvère, 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 Silvère, 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. Silvère 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 Silvère, 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 Silvère 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
Silvère’s neck.

Silvère 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
Silvère’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 Silvère’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 Silvère, 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
Silvère 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 Silvère, 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. Silvère 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.”

Silvère 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, Silvère, 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. Silvère
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.”

Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère, 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?” Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère.
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 Silvère 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.”

Silvère 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. Silvère 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 Silvère 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.”

Silvère, 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 Silvère 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 Silvère
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,
Silvère, 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 Silvère, 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, Silvère 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. Silvère 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 Silvère, 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 Silvère 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 Silvère, 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.

Silvère, 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,” Silvère 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 Silvère 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
Silvère, 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.” Silvère,
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 Silvère.
“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 Silvère 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,” Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère. “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.

Silvère, 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!
Corbière! 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
Silvère 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.

Silvère’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.
Silvère, 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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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 _méger_[*] of the
Jas-Meiffren.”

[*] A _méger_ 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.

Silvère, 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 Silvère, 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. Silvère 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
Silvère’s hand and whispered in his ear: “You hear! I shall remain with
you. Are you glad?”

Silvère, 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, Silvère 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 abbé, 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, Adélaïde,
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 Adélaïde 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 Adélaïde 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 Adélaïde’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
Adélaïde 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 Adélaïde. “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 Adélaïde’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 Adélaïde, 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, Adélaïde 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 Adélaïde, 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 Adélaïde 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 Adélaïde 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 Adélaïde, 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 Adélaïde 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, Adélaïde 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
Adélaïde’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 Adélaïde’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 Adélaïde’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 Adélaïde’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 Adélaïde, 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 Adélaïde.
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 Adélaïde’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 Adélaïde’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 Adélaïde 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 Adélaïde’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. Adélaïde, 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.

Adélaïde 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 Adélaïde 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. Adélaïde’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 Félicité
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 Félicité 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; Adélaïde, 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 Adélaïde 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, Adélaïde 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 Félicité
Puech with as little delay as possible. Félicité 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, Félicité 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, Félicité 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. Félicité, 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 Adélaïde 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. Félicité, 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,” Félicité 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!” Félicité 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. Félicité, 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 Félicité. 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,
Félicité 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 Félicité 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, Félicité 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. Félicité 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 Félicité 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 Félicité 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.”

Félicité 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. Adélaïde had made Pierre a
man of moderate enterprise, disposed to low ambitions; Félicité 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, Eugène, 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, Eugène, 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
Eugène, Félicité 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 Félicité 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 Eugène 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 Félicité. 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, Eugène 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
Eugène. 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 Eugène 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, Félicité preferred this son; she did not
perceive the greater affinity between herself and Eugène; 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. Félicité 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 écarté. 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. Angèle,
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 Angèle 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; Angèle’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.
Félicité 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 Angèle 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 Angèle. 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 Félicité
fortunately sent to college, paying his fees clandestinely. That made
one mouth less at home; but poor Angèle 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. Félicité, 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 Eugène 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 Eugène 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 Félicité 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 Félicité 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. Félicité 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. Félicité, 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,
Félicité 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 Félicité 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 Félicité 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. Félicité 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. Félicité 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.

Félicité 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. Félicité 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. Félicité, 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. Eugène 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’État 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, Félicité, 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,” Félicité 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 Félicité’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 Félicité 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 Félicité, as he patted her on the
cheek, “if ever Henri V. gives me a fortune, I will make you my
heiress!”

He still called Félicité “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 Félicité’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, Félicité 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 Armée.
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-Honoré, 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 Félicité. 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. Félicité 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, Eugène 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 Eugène 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 Eugène and shouted his marvellous
suggestions in his ear. And Eugène 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 Eugène occasionally conversed at times in a corner
with Commander Sicardot. So he determined to watch them, but never
succeeded in overhearing a word. Eugène 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, Eugène 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 “Indépendant” 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 Eugène’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 Eugène 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 Eugène on the Cours
Sauvaire, he had published, in the “Indépendant,” 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?”

Eugène 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.
Eugène 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.

Eugène, 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. Félicité, 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, Eugène, 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?” Félicité asked inquisitively.

“My dear mother,” Eugène 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 Félicité 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 Eugène had gone, Félicité 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. Eugène 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 Félicité 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 Félicité, 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?”

Félicité’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;
Eugène 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.
Eugène 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.”

Félicité 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. Eugène 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. Eugène 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 Félicité. 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,” Félicité 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 Félicité, overwhelmed by the amount.

“We shall have to repay the advances,” Pierre observed.

“That doesn’t matter,” Félicité 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, Félicité 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.

Félicité’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 Eugène
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. Eugène 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 Félicité: “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
Eugène 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. Eugène 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 Félicité 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.”

Félicité 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 Félicité 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, Félicité
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 Félicité’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 Félicité 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’État, 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 Félicité 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,” Félicité 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 Félicité. 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, Félicité, 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 Eugène 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: “Eugène writes that he is going on
all right.” Félicité 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. Eugène 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. Félicité 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 _dénouement_ was
foreshadowed; and usually concluded by pointing out the line of action
that Pierre should pursue at Plassans. Félicité 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. Eugène’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 Eugène 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 Félicité felt deeply grateful. She read certain passages of
the letters twice over, notably those in which Eugène 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
Eugène’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 “Indépendant” 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 Eugène 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
‘Indépendant’ were to start writing in defence of Bonapartism, it would
deal the party a rude blow. The ‘Indépendant’ 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, Félicité 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 Félicité. 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 Félicité 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,” Félicité 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. Félicité 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 _dénouement_ was approaching. The prevailing ignorance as to
the nature of this _dénouement_ 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 Félicité and whisper in her ear: “Come, little
one, the fruit is ripe—but you must make yourself useful.”

Félicité, who continued to read Eugène’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
Eugène. 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 Félicité, “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’État should burst forth, the
tocsin will be heard throughout the entire country, from the forests of
the Seille to the plateau of Sainte-Roure.”

Félicité 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
Félicité’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 Eugène’s letters, in which he, who was
working for the Coup d’État, seemed also to rely upon an insurrection
as the means of endowing his father with some importance. Eugène 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’État. 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 _dénouement_ was drawing near. In the last few days of November, as
the rumour of a Coup d’État 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 Eugène which he
went to read in his bedroom, in accordance with his prudent habit.
Félicité 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. Eugène, 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.

Félicité 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.

Félicité 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’État 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’État.

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’État 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’État 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’État, and took it to the “Indépendant”
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 Félicité.
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.”

“Eugène announced the crisis to his father,” replied Félicité. “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.”

Félicité 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 “Indépendant.” A flood of thoughts surged through his mind. He
was enraged, and accused his family of having duped him. What! Eugène
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’État 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 “Indépendant” 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 “Indépendant” 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’État.
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? Eugène
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 Angèle 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 “Indépendant,” 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 “Indépendant” 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 Félicité, 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 Félicité 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 Félicité. 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.”

Félicité, 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
Félicité. 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.

Félicité 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 Félicité’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, Félicité 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 Félicité’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 leave 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
Félicité’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 Félicité 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 Félicité.

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. Adélaïde,
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. Adélaïde
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 Adélaïde’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. Adélaïde 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 Adélaïde 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, Adélaïde 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,” Félicité 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, Félicité, 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 Félicité 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. Félicité 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, Félicité 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 Félicité 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
Félicité, exceeding her promises, had placed a bed, a table, and some
chairs, on the young man formally undertaking not to molest them in
future. Adélaïde 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 Félicité 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 Civadière, near the market.
These lodgings, consisting of three rooms, were much more comfortably
furnished than his own, and he gave a sigh of satisfaction as he
stretched himself out on the two excellent mattresses which covered the
bedstead.

Everything went on very well for the first few days. Fine attended to
her various occupations as in the past; Antoine, seized with a sort of
marital self-pride which astonished even himself, plaited in one week
more baskets than he had ever before done in a month. On the first
Sunday, however, war broke out. The couple had a goodly sum of money in
the house, and they spent it freely. During the night, when they were
both drunk, they beat each other outrageously, without being able to
remember on the morrow how it was that the quarrel had commenced. They
had remained on most affectionate terms until about ten o’clock, when
Antoine had begun to beat Fine brutally, whereupon the latter, growing
exasperated and forgetting her meekness, had given him back as much as
she received. She went to work again bravely on the following day, as
though nothing had happened. But her husband, with sullen rancour, rose
late and passed the remainder of the day smoking his pipe in the
sunshine.

From that time forward the Macquarts adopted the kind of life which
they were destined to lead in the future. It became, as it were,
tacitly understood between them that the wife should toil and moil to
keep her husband. Fine, who had an instinctive liking for work, did not
object to this. She was as patient as a saint, provided she had had no
drink, thought it quite natural that her husband should remain idle,
and even strove to spare him the most trifling labour. Her little
weakness, aniseed, did not make her vicious, but just. On the evenings
when she had forgotten herself in the company of a bottle of her
favourite liqueur, if Antoine tried to pick a quarrel with her, she
would set upon him with might and main, reproaching him with his
idleness and ingratitude. The neighbours grew accustomed to the
disturbances which periodically broke out in the couple’s room. The two
battered each other conscientiously; the wife slapped like a mother
chastising a naughty child; but the husband, treacherous and spiteful
as he was, measured his blows, and, on several occasions, very nearly
crippled the unfortunate woman.

“You’ll be in a fine plight when you’ve broken one of my arms or legs,”
she would say to him. “Who’ll keep you then, you lazy fellow?”

Excepting for these turbulent scenes, Antoine began to find his new
mode of existence quite endurable. He was well clothed, and ate and
drank his fill. He had laid aside the basket work altogether;
sometimes, when he was feeling over-bored, he would resolve to plait a
dozen baskets for the next market day; but very often he did not even
finish the first one. He kept, under a couch, a bundle of osier which
he did not use up in twenty years.

The Macquarts had three children, two girls and a boy. Lisa,[*] born
the first, in 1827, one year after the marriage, remained but little at
home. She was a fine, big, healthy, full-blooded child, greatly
resembling her mother. She did not, however, inherit the latter’s
animal devotion and endurance. Macquart had implanted in her a most
decided longing for ease and comfort. While she was a child she would
consent to work for a whole day in return for a cake. When she was
scarcely seven years old, the wife of the postmaster, who was a
neighbour of the Macquarts, took a liking to her. She made a little
maid of her. And when she lost her husband in 1839, and went to live in
Paris, she took Lisa with her. The parents had almost given her their
daughter.

[*] The pork-butcher’s wife in _Le Ventre de Paris_ (_The Fat and the
Thin_).


The second girl, Gervaise,[*] born the following year, was a cripple
from birth. Her right thigh was smaller than the left and showed signs
of curvature, a curious hereditary result of the brutality which her
mother had to endure during her fierce drunken brawls with Macquart.
Gervaise remained puny, and Fine, observing her pallor and weakness,
put her on a course of aniseed, under the pretext that she required
something to strengthen her. But the poor child became still more
emaciated. She was a tall, lank girl, whose frocks, invariably too
large, hung round her as if they had nothing under them. Above a
deformed and puny body she had a sweet little doll-like head, a tiny
round face, pale and exquisitely delicate. Her infirmity almost became
graceful. Her body swayed gently at every step with a sort of
rhythmical swing.

[*] The chief female character in _L’Assommoir_ (_The Dramshop_).


The Macquarts’ son, Jean,[*] was born three years later. He was a
robust child, in no respect recalling Gervaise. Like the eldest girl,
he took after his mother, without having any physical resemblance to
her. He was the first to import into the Rougon-Macquart stock a fat
face with regular features, which showed all the coldness of a grave
yet not over-intelligent nature. This boy grew up with the
determination of some day making an independent position for himself.
He attended school diligently, and tortured his dull brain to force a
little arithmetic and spelling into it. After that he became an
apprentice, repeating much the same efforts with a perseverance that
was the more meritorious as it took him a whole day to learn what
others acquired in an hour.

[*] Figures prominently in _La Terre_ (_The Earth_) and _La Debacle_
(_The Downfall_).


As long as these poor little things remained a burden to the house,
Antoine grumbled. They were useless mouths that lessened his own share.
He vowed, like his brother, that he would have no more children, those
greedy creatures who bring their parents to penury. It was something to
hear him bemoan his lot when they sat five at table, and the mother
gave the best morsels to Jean, Lisa, and Gervaise.

“That’s right,” he would growl; “stuff them, make them burst!”

Whenever Fine bought a garment or a pair of boots for them, he would
sulk for days together. Ah! if he had only known, he would never had
had that pack of brats, who compelled him to limit his smoking to four
sous’ worth of tobacco a day, and too frequently obliged him to eat
stewed potatoes for dinner, a dish which he heartily detested.

Later on, however, as soon as Jean and Gervaise earned their first
francs, he found some good in children after all. Lisa was no longer
there. He lived upon the earnings of the two others without
compunction, as he had already lived upon their mother. It was a
well-planned speculation on his part. As soon as little Gervaise was
eight years old, she went to a neighbouring dealer’s to crack almonds;
she there earned ten sous a day, which her father pocketed right
royally, without even a question from Fine as to what became of the
money. The young girl was next apprenticed to a laundress, and as soon
as she received two francs a day for her work, the two francs strayed
in a similar manner into Macquart’s hands. Jean, who had learnt the
trade of a carpenter, was likewise despoiled on pay-days, whenever
Macquart succeeded in catching him before he had handed the money to
his mother. If the money escaped Macquart, which sometimes happened, he
became frightfully surly. He would glare at his wife and children for a
whole week, picking a quarrel for nothing, although he was, as yet,
ashamed to confess the real cause of his irritations. On the next
pay-day, however, he would station himself on the watch, and as soon as
he had succeeded in pilfering the youngster’s earnings, he disappeared
for days together.

Gervaise, beaten and brought up in the streets among all the lads of
the neighbourhood, became a mother when she was fourteen years of age.
The father of her child was not eighteen years old. He was a journeyman
tanner named Lantier. At first Macquart was furious, but he calmed down
somewhat when he learnt that Lantier’s mother, a worthy woman, was
willing to take charge of the child. He kept Gervaise, however; she was
then already earning twenty-five sous a day, and he therefore avoided
all question of marriage. Four years later she had a second child,
which was likewise taken in by Lantier’s mother. This time Macquart
shut his eyes altogether. And when Fine timidly suggested that it was
time to come to some understanding with the tanner, in order to end a
state of things which made people chatter, he flatly declared that his
daughter should not leave him, and that he would give her to her lover
later on, “when he was worthy of her, and had enough money to furnish a
home.”

This was a fine time for Antoine Macquart. He dressed like a gentleman,
in frock-coats and trousers of the finest cloth. Cleanly shaved, and
almost fat, he was no longer the emaciated ragged vagabond who had been
wont to frequent the taverns. He dropped into cafes, read the papers,
and strolled on the Cours Sauvaire. He played the gentleman as long as
he had any money in his pocket. At times of impecuniosity he remained
at home, exasperated at being kept in his hovel and prevented from
taking his customary cup of coffee. On such occasions he would reproach
the whole human race with his poverty, making himself ill with rage and
envy, until Fine, out of pity, would often give him the last silver
coin in the house so that he might spend his evening at the cafe. This
dear fellow was fiercely selfish. Gervaise, who brought home as much as
sixty francs a month, wore only thin cotton frocks, while he had black
satin waistcoats made for him by one of the best tailors in Plassans.

Jean, the big lad who earned three or four francs a day, was perhaps
robbed even more impudently. The cafe where his father passed entire
days was just opposite his master’s workshop, and while he had plane or
saw in hand he could see “Monsieur” Macquart on the other side of the
way, sweetening his coffee or playing piquet with some petty annuitant.
It was his money that the lazy old fellow was gambling away. He, Jean,
never stepped inside a cafe, he never had so much as five sous to pay
for a drink. Antoine treated him like a little girl, never leaving him
a centime, and always demanding an exact account of the manner in which
he had employed his time. If the unfortunate lad, led away by some of
his mates, wasted a day somewhere in the country, on the banks of the
Viorne, or on the slopes of Garrigues, his father would storm and raise
his hand, and long bear him a grudge on account of the four francs less
that he received at the end of the fortnight. He thus held his son in a
state of dependence, sometimes even looking upon the sweethearts whom
the young carpenter courted as his own. Several of Gervaise’s friends
used to come to the Macquarts’ house, work-girls from sixteen to
eighteen years of age, bold and boisterous girls who, on certain
evenings, filled the room with youth and gaiety. Poor Jean, deprived of
all pleasure, ever kept at home by the lack of money, looked at these
girls with longing eyes; but the childish life which he was compelled
to lead had implanted invincible shyness in him; in playing with his
sister’s friends, he was hardly bold enough to touch them with the tips
of his fingers. Macquart used to shrug his shoulders with pity.

“What a simpleton!” he would mutter, with an air of ironical
superiority.

And it was he who would kiss the girls, when his wife’s back was
turned. He carried his attentions even further with a little laundress
whom Jean pursued rather more earnestly than the others. One fine
evening he stole her almost from his arms. The old rogue prided himself
on his gallantry.

There are some men who live upon their mistresses. Antoine Macquart
lived on his wife and children with as much shamelessness and
impudence. He did not feel the least compunction in pillaging the home
and going out to enjoy himself when the house was bare. He still
assumed a supercilious air, returning from the cafe only to rail
against the poverty and wretchedness that awaited him at home. He found
the dinner detestable, he called Gervaise a blockhead, and declared
that Jean would never be a man. Immersed in his own selfish indulgence,
he rubbed his hands whenever he had eaten the best piece in the dish;
and then he smoked his pipe, puffing slowly, while the two poor
children, overcome with fatigue, went to sleep with their heads resting
on the table. Thus Macquart passed his days in lazy enjoyment. It
seemed to him quite natural that he should be kept in idleness like a
girl, to sprawl about on the benches of some tavern, or stroll in the
cool of the day along the Cours or the Mail. At last he went so far as
to relate his amorous escapades in the presence of his son, who
listened with glistening eyes. The children never protested, accustomed
as they were to see their mother humble herself before her husband.

Fine, that strapping woman who drubbed him soundly when they were both
intoxicated, always trembled before him when she was sober, and allowed
him to rule despotically at home. He robbed her in the night of the
coppers which she had earned during the day at the market, but she
never dared to protest, except by veiled rebukes. Sometimes, when he
had squandered the week’s money in advance, he accused her, poor thing,
who worked herself to death, of being stupid and not knowing how to
manage. Fine, as gentle as a lamb, replied, in her soft, clear voice,
which contrasted so strangely with her big figure, that she was no
longer twenty years old, and that money was becoming hard to earn. In
order to console herself, she would buy a pint of aniseed, and drink
little glassfuls of it with her daughter of an evening, after Antoine
had gone back to the cafe. That was their dissipation. Jean went to
bed, while the two women remained at the table, listening attentively
in order to remove the bottle and glasses at the first sound.

When Macquart was late, they often became intoxicated by the many
“nips” they thus thoughtlessly imbibed. Stupefied and gazing at each
other with vague smiles, this mother and daughter would end by
stuttering. Red patches appeared on Gervaise’s cheeks; her delicate
doll-like face assumed a look of maudlin beatitude. Nothing could be
more heart-rending than to see this wretched, pale child, aglow with
drink and wearing the idiotic smile of a confirmed sot about her moist
lips. Fine, huddled up on her chair, became heavy and drowsy. They
sometimes forgot to keep watch, or even lacked the strength to remove
the bottle and glasses when Antoine’s footsteps were heard on the
stairs. On these occasions blows were freely exchanged among the
Macquarts. Jean had to get up to separate his father and mother and
make his sister go to bed, as otherwise she would have slept on the
floor.

Every political party numbers its grotesques and its villains. Antoine
Macquart, devoured by envy and hatred, and meditating revenge against
society in general, welcomed the Republic as a happy era when he would
be allowed to fill his pockets from his neighbour’s cash-box, and even
strangle the neighbour if the latter manifested any displeasure. His
cafe life and all the newspaper articles he had read without
understanding them had made him a terrible ranter who enunciated the
strangest of political theories. It is necessary to have heard one of
those malcontents who ill digest what they read, haranguing the company
in some provincial taproom, in order to conceive the degree of hateful
folly at which Macquart had arrived. As he talked a good deal, had seen
active service, and was naturally regarded as a man of energy and
spirit, he was much sought after and listened to by simpletons.
Although he was not the chief of any party, he had succeeded in
collecting round him a small group of working-men who took his jealous
ravings for expressions of honest and conscientious indignation.

Directly after the Revolution of February ‘48, he persuaded himself
that Plassans was his own, and, as he strolled along the streets, the
jeering manner in which he regarded the little retail traders who stood
terrified at their shop doors clearly signified: “Our day has come, my
little lambs; we are going to lead you a fine dance!” He had grown
insolent beyond belief; he acted the part of a victorious despot to
such a degree that he ceased to pay for his drinks at the cafe, and the
landlord, a simpleton who trembled whenever Antoine rolled his eyes,
dared not present his bill. The number of cups of coffee he consumed
during this period was incalculable; sometimes he invited his friends,
and shouted for hours together that the people were dying of hunger,
and that the rich ought to share their wealth with them. He himself
would never have given a sou to a beggar.

That which chiefly converted him into a fierce Republican was the hope
of at last being able to revenge himself on the Rougons, who had openly
ranged themselves on the side of the reactionary party. Ah, what a
triumph if he could only hold Pierre and Félicité 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. Félicité, 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. Félicité 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.’”

Félicité 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.”

Félicité, 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’État, 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 Adélaïde’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.
Félicité 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 “Indépendant.” 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 Silvère. 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 Adélaïde. Marthe’s case was still more curious; she was an
equally exact portrait of Adélaïde, 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 Silvère 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 Silvère, to whom Félicité also
took a dislike, was growing up in tears, like an unfortunate little
outcast, when his grandmother Adélaïde, 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 Adélaïde,
and which henceforward would have to suffice for two.

Adélaïde 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 Silvère’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 Silvère had been running about it,
bestriding broomsticks, knocking up against the doors, and shouting and
crying. He brought Adélaïde 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.

Silvère grew up, ever _tête-à-tête_ with Adélaïde. 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 Silvère. 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 Silvère’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 Adélaïde; she
was too white and too stiff for Silvère 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
Silvère 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. Silvère 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 Adélaïde to
let him come, refusing to take anything for his board and lodging.
Silvère 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 Silvère’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 Adélaïde 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; Silvère 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 Silvère’s, ardent yet self-restrained, naturally
cherished the most exalted republican ideas. At night, in his little
hovel, Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère’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 Silvère’s
affection for Adélaïde 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. Silvère 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, Silvère,” 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. Silvère, 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 Silvère; 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 Silvère, 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 Félicité buying a chicken in the market this
morning,” he would say. “Those robbers of inheritances must eat
chicken, forsooth!”

“Aunt Dide,” interposed Silvère, “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 Silvère:
“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.”

Silvère, 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 ‘Indépendant,’
Silvère? 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 Eugène, 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 Silvère,
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 piece 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 he 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!” Silvère 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. Félicité 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 Silvère 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 Silvère
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?” Silvère 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. Silvère 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!” Silvère 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, Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Adélaïde 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 Silvère 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 Silvère, “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 Silvère 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. Félicité 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’État 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
Félicité 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 Félicité 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. Félicité 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 Félicité, 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 Félicité 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 Silvère 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’Hôtel-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 Silvère 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.
Silvère, 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 Silvère’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 Silvère, “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
Silvère. 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?”

Silvère, who had left the weapon with Miette, swore to her that it was
quite safe. And for the very first time, Adélaïde 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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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. Félicité 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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère’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.”

Adélaïde, 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, Silvère 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 Silvère,
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 Silvère.
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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère’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 Silvère, 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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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?” Silvère 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 Silvère, 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
Silvère’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.”

Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère
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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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, Silvère.”

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!” Silvère 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 Silvère, 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 Silvère, 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 Silvère, 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 Silvère; 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
Silvère’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. Silvère
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. Silvère 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 _méger_ 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 _méger_ 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 Silvère 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
Silvère 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. Silvère 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 Silvère, 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, Silvère
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
Silvère 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 Silvère,” 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 Silvère. “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 Silvère 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, Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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.”

Silvère 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 Silvère 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.”

Silvère, 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 Silvère, 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. Silvère, 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.”

Silvère 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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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.
Silvère 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. Silvère 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, Silvère, 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. Silvère, 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. Silvère 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, Silvère.”

“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
Silvère 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 Silvère 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
Silvère 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.
Silvère, 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. Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère
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, Silvère, 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.

Silvère, 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 orgy, 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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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 Adélaïde
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
Silvère 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 Silvère
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, Silvère!”

“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. Silvère
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
Silvère, 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 Silvère
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 Silvère. 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 Silvère. She alone was
guilty; if she had not formerly had that door made Silvère 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
Silvère, 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 Silvère, 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 Silvère
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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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
Silvère’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 Silvère 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, Silvère 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. Silvère 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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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
Silvère 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, Silvère, 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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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. Silvère, 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 Silvère 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
Silvère. 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. Silvère 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 Silvère’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 Silvère 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
Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère, 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.

Silvère, 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 Silvère’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 Silvère would be able to
teach her. Silvère 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 Silvère 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
Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère
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 Silvère’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 Silvère 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, Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère’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 Silvère, 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 Silvère if her father should have let the gendarme kill him,
and Silvère, 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
Silvère. 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. Silvère 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
Silvère.

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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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 Silvère 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, Silvère, 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 Silvère’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,” Silvère 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 Silvère. “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 Silvère 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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère. “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. Silvère 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.”

Silvère 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 Silvère 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,” Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Hôtel 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, Corbière, 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 Hôtel 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 Silvère, 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,
Silvère 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. Silvère 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 Silvère 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
Silvère 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 Silvère 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,” Silvère 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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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. Silvère, 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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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! Silvère 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 Silvère 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. Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Hôtel 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 façade 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.

Silvère and Miette were still looking at each other. Silvère 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 Silvère 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?”

Silvère, 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 Silvère 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 Silvère, and setting him on his feet led
him away like a dog that is dragged by one leg. Silvère 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 Félicité 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. Félicité 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 Récollets, 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 Félicité’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 façade 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 “Indépendant,” 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 “Ça 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?”

Félicité 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. Félicité 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.”

Félicité 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.”

Félicité 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 Félicité 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 Félicité, 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. Félicité, 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
_habitués_ 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, Félicité, 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 Félicité 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 Félicité 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?” Félicité 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. Félicité, 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 _dénouement_, 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 Félicité, 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. Félicité 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 _dénouement_ 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 Félicité, 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.

Félicité, 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.
Félicité 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 Félicité, 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’État. 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
Silvère’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 Récollets, 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.
Félicité, 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 Corbière. 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.

Félicité 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’État 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. Félicité 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.

Félicité 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 Félicité 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
Adélaïde, 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 Félicité 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.”

Félicité, 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 Félicité. “He promised me a good article. The
‘Indépendant’ 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 Félicité 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. Félicité, with her clear intellect, had quickly perceived
this. If they had been able to learn the result of the Coup d’État,
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 Eugène 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 Félicité pretended not to have heard. Her husband’s exclamation had
profoundly affected her. Why, indeed, did not Eugène 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 Félicité 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 Félicité.

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 Félicité 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!”

Félicité 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. Félicité 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 abbés 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 Félicité 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, Félicité continued in a covertly
threatening voice: “A letter from Paris, from my son, Eugène; 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.
Félicité 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.”

Félicité 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. Eugène
briefly announced the complete success of the Coup d’État. 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’État?”

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.

Félicité 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, Félicité 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’État, 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
Félicité. “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 Félicité 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 Félicité, “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 Félicité 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? Eugène 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, Félicité 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 Silvère. 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.”

Félicité 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,”
Félicité 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 Félicité 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 Félicité. ‘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!” Félicité 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. Félicité, 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.”

Félicité 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 Eugène’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
Félicité 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
Eugène’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. Félicité 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,” Félicité 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.”

Félicité 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, Félicité 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 Silvère’s brother, nor
Silvère 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 Félicité 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 Félicité, 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.”

Félicité 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. Félicité, 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,” Félicité 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.”

Félicité 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 Félicité, 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?”

Félicité 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 Félicité
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. Félicité undertook to pay the remaining eight
hundred on the following day. The Rougons were risking the last sum
they had at their disposal.

When Félicité 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,” Félicité 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 Angèle 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 Eugène 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 Félicité, 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’État,
aren’t you?”

“I!” cried Félicité, 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 Eugène’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 Félicité, 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!” Félicité 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
Félicité 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, Silvère. 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 Silvère’s name.

“Have you seen him?” she asked, opening her lips at last.

“Who? Silvère?” 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 Silvère 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 Félicité’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 Félicité. 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 Félicité; “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, Félicité 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 “Indépendant,” 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 Félicité 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 Félicité, 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. Félicité, leaning forward at the risk of falling out,
was quite pale with joy. Aristide had just arrived with a number of the
“Indépendant,” in which he had openly declared himself in favour of the
Coup d’État, 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
Félicité 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 Félicité 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 Félicité. “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. Félicité made him kiss Aristide after
telling him of the superb article which the young man had inserted in
the “Indépendant.” Pierre would have kissed the marquis as well, he was
deeply affected. However, his wife took him aside, and gave him
Eugène’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’État 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 Eugène. Since the previous Thursday Félicité had taken care
to send her son the numbers of the “Gazette” and “Indépendant” which,
in special second editions had narrated the battle of the night and the
arrival of the prefect at Plassans. Eugène 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. Félicité
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 Hôtel de
Provence. We must outdo the mayor’s dinner.”

Félicité set to work. Pierre still felt some vague uneasiness amidst
his rapture. The Coup d’État 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 Silvère. 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 Eugène 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
Silvère must come to mar his hour of triumph!

While Félicité 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
Silvère, 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 Silvère 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
Silvère’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 Silvère’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. Félicité
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 Félicité 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 Hôtel 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
Félicité, 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-Honoré: “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 Félicité, 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. Angèle 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 “Indépendant.” 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 Eugène 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, Félicité 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.” Félicité 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. Félicité 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, Félicité 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
_relevé_ 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 Angèle, 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.
Félicité, 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 Silvère?”

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.”

Félicité 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 Félicité. 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 Hôtel 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, Félicité, 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 Silvère’s shoulder. Silvère, 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 Silvère. “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.

Silvère, 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 Silvère, 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.”

Silvère, 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.”

Silvère 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, Silvère 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 Silvère
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.”

Silvère 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.”

Silvère 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 Silvère’s warm blood. For two
summers past it had been expecting the young lovers.

“Is it here?” asked the one-eyed man.

Silvère 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 Silvère 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 Silvère. 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. Silvère 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 Silvère’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 Silvère 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.

Silvère, 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, Silvère 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’État, 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 Félicité’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. Félicité 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.