In the meantime, in spite of the bitter cold, everybody had come to their windows. Felicite, leaning forward at the risk of falling out, was quite pale with joy. Aristide had just arrived with a number of the "Independant," in which he had openly declared himself in favour of the Coup d'Etat, which he welcomed "as the aurora of liberty in order and of order in liberty." He had also made a delicate allusion to the yellow drawing-room, acknowledging his errors, declaring that "youth is presumptuous," and that "great citizens say nothing, reflect in silence, and let insults pass by, in order to rise heroically when the day of struggle comes." He was particularly pleased with this sentence. His mother thought his article extremely well written. She kissed her dear child, and placed him on her right hand. The Marquis de Carnavant, weary of incarcerating himself, and full of eager curiosity, had likewise come to see her, and stood on her left, leaning on the window rail.
When Monsieur de Bleriot offered his hand to Rougon on the square below Felicite began to weep. "Oh! see, see," she said to Aristide. "He has shaken hands with him. Look! he is doing it again!" And casting a glance at the windows, where groups of people were congregated, she added: "How wild they must be! Look at Monsieur Peirotte's wife, she's biting her handkerchief. And over there, the notary's daughter, and Madame Massicot, and the Brunet family, what faces, eh? how angry they look! Ah, indeed, it's our turn now."
She followed the scene which was being acted outside the Sub- Prefecture with thrills of delight, which shook her ardent, grasshopper-like figure from head to foot. She interpreted the slightest gesture, invented words which she was unable to catch, and declared that Pierre bowed very well indeed. She was a little vexed when the prefect deigned to speak to poor Granoux, who was hovering about him fishing for a word of praise. No doubt Monsieur de Bleriot already knew the story of the hammer, for the retired almond-dealer turned as red as a young girl, and seemed to be saying that he had only done his duty. However, that which angered Felicite still more was her husband's excessive amiability in presenting Vuillet to the authorities. Vuillet, it is true, pushed himself forward amongst them, and Rougon was compelled to mention him.
"What a schemer!" muttered Felicite. "He creeps in everywhere. How confused my poor dear husband must be! See, there's the colonel speaking to him. What can he be saying to him?"
"Ah! little one," the marquis replied with a touch of irony, "he is complimenting him for having closed the gates so carefully."
"My father has saved the town," Aristide retorted curtly. "Have you seen the corpses, sir?"
Monsieur de Carnavant did not answer. He withdrew from the window, and sat down in an arm-chair, shaking his head with an air of some disgust. At that moment, the prefect having taken his departure, Rougon came upstairs and threw himself upon his wife's neck.
"Ah! my dear!" he stammered.
He was unable to say more. Felicite made him kiss Aristide after telling him of the superb article which the young man had inserted in the "Independant." Pierre would have kissed the marquis as well, he was deeply affected. However, his wife took him aside, and gave him Eugene's letter which she had sealed up in an envelope again. She pretended that it had just been delivered. Pierre read it and then triumphantly held it out to her.
"You are a sorceress," he said to her laughing. "You guessed everything. What folly I should have committed without you! We'll manage our little affairs together now. Kiss me: you're a good woman.
He clasped her in his arms, while she discreetly exchanged a knowing smile with the marquis.
CHAPTER VII
It was not until Sunday, the day after the massacre at Sainte-Roure, that the troops passed through Plassans again. The prefect and the colonel, whom Monsieur Garconnet had invited to dinner, once more entered the town alone. The soldiers went round the ramparts and encamped in the Faubourg, on the Nice road. Night was falling; the sky, overcast since the morning, had a strange yellow tint, and illumined the town with a murky light, similar to the copper-coloured glimmer of stormy weather. The reception of the troops by the inhabitants was timid; the bloodstained soldiers, who passed by weary and silent, in the yellow twilight, horrified the cleanly citizens promenading on the Cours. They stepped out of the way whispering terrible stories of fusillades and revengeful reprisals which still live in the recollection of the region. The Coup d'Etat terror was beginning to make itself felt, an overwhelming terror which kept the South in a state of tremor for many a long month. Plassans, in its fear and hatred of the insurgents, had welcomed the troops on their first arrival with enthusiasm; but now, at the appearance of that gloomy taciturn regiment, whose men were ready to fire at a word from their officers, the retired merchants and even the notaries of the new town anxiously examined their consciences, asking if they had not committed some political peccadilloes which might be thought deserving of a bullet.
The municipal authorities had returned on the previous evening in a couple of carts hired at Sainte-Roure. Their unexpected entry was devoid of all triumphal display. Rougon surrendered the mayor's arm- chair without much regret. The game was over; and with feverish longing he now awaited the recompense for his devotion. On the Sunday -he had not hoped for it until the following day-he received a letter from Eugene. Since the previous Thursday Felicite had taken care to send her son the numbers of the "Gazette" and "Independant" which, in special second editions had narrated the battle of the night and the arrival of the prefect at Plassans. Eugene now replied by return of post that the nomination of a receivership would soon be signed; but added that he wished to give them some good news immediately. He had obtained the ribbon of the Legion of Honour for his father. Felicite wept with joy. Her husband decorated! Her proud dream had never gone as far as that. Rougon, pale with delight, declared they must give a grand dinner that very evening. He no longer thought of expense; he would have thrown his last fifty francs out of the drawing-room windows in order to celebrate that glorious day.
"Listen," he said to his wife; "you must invite Sicardot: he has annoyed me with that rosette of his for a long time! Then Granoux and Roudier; I shouldn't be at all sorry to make them feel that it isn't their purses that will ever win them the cross. Vuillet is a skinflint, but the triumph ought to be complete: invite him as well as the small fry. I was forgetting; you must go and call on the marquis in person; we will seat him on your right; he'll look very well at our table. You know that Monsieur Garconnet is entertaining the colonel and the prefect. That is to make me understand that I am nobody now. But I can afford to laugh at his mayoralty; it doesn't bring him in a sou! He has invited me, but I shall tell him that I also have some people coming. The others will laugh on the wrong side of their mouths to-morrow. And let everything be of the best. Have everything sent from the Hotel de Provence. We must outdo the mayor's dinner."
Felicite set to work. Pierre still felt some vague uneasiness amidst his rapture. The Coup d'Etat was going to pay his debts, his son Aristide had repented of his faults, and he was at last freeing himself from Macquart; but he feared some folly on Pascal's part, and was especially anxious about the lot reserved for Silvere. Not that he felt the least pity for the lad; he was simply afraid the matter of the gendarme might come before the Assize Court. Ah! if only some discriminating bullet had managed to rid him of that young scoundrel! As his wife had pointed out to him in the morning, all obstacles had fallen away before him; the family which had dishonoured him had, at the last moment, worked for his elevation; his sons Eugene and Aristide, those spend-thrifts, the cost of whose college life he had so bitterly regretted, were at last paying interest on the capital expended for their education. And yet the thought of that wretched Silvere must come to mar his hour of triumph!