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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.
When he thought that he had wounded and exasperated Silvere sufficiently, he would at last touch upon politics. "I've been assured," he would say, lowering his voice, "that the Rougons are preparing some treachery." "Treachery?" Silvere asked, becoming attentive. "Yes, one of these nights they are going to seize all the good citizens of the town and throw them into prison."
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.
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.
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.
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."
The Marquis de Carnavant, the nobleman who, according to the scandalous talk of the town, had been on very familiar terms with Felicite's mother, used occasionally to visit the Rougons. Evil tongues asserted that Madame Rougon resembled him.
However, Macquart felt that he had acted foolishly, and strove to take advantage of Silvere's affection for Adelaide by charging the Rougons with her forlornness and poverty. According to him, he had always been the best of sons, whereas his brother had behaved disgracefully; Pierre had robbed his mother, and now, when she was penniless, he was ashamed of her.
No one was unaware that the Rougons, in 1851, had saved Plassans from anarchy, by causing the coup d'etat of the 2d of December to triumph there, and that, a few years later, they had won it again from the legitimist and republican candidates, to give it to a Bonapartist deputy.
He always, however, kept his fiercest animosity for the Rougons. He never could digest the potatoes he had eaten. "I saw that vile creature Felicite buying a chicken in the market this morning," he would say. "Those robbers of inheritances must eat chicken, forsooth!" "Aunt Dide," interposed Silvere, "says that uncle Pierre was very kind to you when you left the army.
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