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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.
For more than two years they've been speaking of shooting all the Republicans in the province, and to-day they wouldn't even fire a halfpenny cracker under their noses." Then he took up his hat and turned towards the door. "Let's see," he continued, "time presses. Come, Rougon." Felicite, it seemed, had been waiting for this moment.
Marthe's case was still more curious; she was an equally exact portrait of Adelaide, although Pierre Rougon had none of his mother's features distinctly marked; the physical resemblance had, as it were, passed over Pierre, to reappear in his daughter.
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.
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.
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!"
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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