Complete Works of Emile Zola (178 page)

“What a lot of folly they have allowed me to perpetrate,” he muttered as he ran along. “I’m a fine fellow now. Ah! what a lesson! Granoux is more capable than I.”

He entered the office of the “Independant” like a hurricane, and asked for his article in a choking voice. The article had already been imposed. He had the forme unlocked and would not rest until he had himself destroyed the setting, mixing the type in a furious manner, like a set of dominoes. The bookseller who managed the paper looked at him in amazement. He was, in reality, rather glad of the incident, as the article had seemed to him somewhat dangerous. But he was absolutely obliged to have some copy, if the “Independant” was to appear.

“Are you going to give me something else?” he asked.

“Certainly,” replied Aristide.

He sat down at the table and began a warm panegyric on the Coup d’Etat. At the very first line, he swore that Prince Louis had just saved the Republic; but he had hardly written a page before he stopped and seemed at a loss how to continue. A troubled look came over his pole-cat face.

“I must go home,” he said at last. “I will send you this immediately. Your paper can appear a little later, if necessary.”

He walked slowly on his way home, lost in meditation. He was again giving way to indecision. Why should he veer round so quickly? Eugene was an intelligent fellow, but his mother had perhaps exaggerated the significance of some sentence in his letter. In any case, it would be better to wait and hold his tongue.

An hour later Angele called at the bookseller’s, feigning deep emotion.

“My husband has just severely injured himself,” she said. “He jammed his four fingers in a door as he was coming in. In spite of his sufferings, he has dictated this little note, which he begs you to publish to-morrow.”

On the following day the “Independant,” made up almost entirely of miscellaneous items of news, appeared with these few lines at the head of the first column:

“A deplorable accident which has occurred to our eminent contributor Monsieur Aristide Rougon will deprive us of his articles for some time. He will suffer at having to remain silent in the present grave circumstances. None of our readers will doubt, however, the good wishes which he offers up with patriotic feelings for the welfare of France.”

This burlesque note had been maturely studied. The last sentence might be interpreted in favour of all parties. By this expedient, Aristide devised a glorious return for himself on the morrow of battle, in the shape of a laudatory article on the victors. On the following day he showed himself to the whole town, with his arm in a sling. His mother, frightened by the notice in the paper, hastily called upon him, but he refused to show her his hand, and spoke with a bitterness which enlightened the old woman.

“It won’t be anything,” she said in a reassuring and somewhat sarcastic tone, as she was leaving. “You only want a little rest.”

It was no doubt owing to this pretended accident, and the sub-prefect’s departure, that the “Independant” was not interfered with, like most of the democratic papers of the departments.

The 4th day of the month proved comparatively quiet at Plassans. In the evening there was a public demonstration which the mere appearance of the gendarmes sufficed to disperse. A band of working-men came to request Monsieur Garconnet to communicate the despatches he had received from Paris, which the latter haughtily refused to do; as it retired the band shouted: “Long live the Republic! Long live the Constitution!” After this, order was restored. The yellow drawing-room, after commenting at some length on this innocent parade, concluded that affairs were going on excellently.

The 5th and 6th were, however, more disquieting. Intelligence was received of successive risings in small neighbouring towns; the whole southern part of the department had taken up arms; La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx had been the first to rise, drawing after them the villages of Chavanos, Nazeres, Poujols, Valqueyras and Vernoux. The yellow drawing-room party was now becoming seriously alarmed. It felt particularly uneasy at seeing Plassans isolated in the very midst of the revolt. Bands of insurgents would certainly scour the country and cut off all communications. Granoux announced, with a terrified look, that the mayor was without any news. Some people even asserted that blood had been shed at Marseilles, and that a formidable revolution had broken out in Paris. Commander Sicardot, enraged at the cowardice of the bourgeois, vowed he would die at the head of his men.

On Sunday the 7th the terror reached a climax. Already at six o’clock the yellow drawing-room, where a sort of reactionary committee sat
en permanence
, was crowded with pale, trembling men, who conversed in undertones, as though they were in a chamber of death. It had been ascertained during the day that a column of insurgents, about three thousand strong, had assembled at Alboise, a big village not more than three leagues away. It was true that this column had been ordered to make for the chief town of the department, leaving Plassans on its left; but the plan of campaign might at any time be altered; moreover, it sufficed for these cowardly cits to know that there were insurgents a few miles off, to make them feel the horny hands of the toilers already tightened round their throats. They had had a foretaste of the revolt in the morning; the few Republicans at Plassans, seeing that they would be unable to make any determined move in the town, had resolved to join their brethren of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx; the first group had left at about eleven o’clock, by the Porte de Rome, shouting the “Marseillaise” and smashing a few windows. Granoux had had one broken. He mentioned the circumstance with stammerings of terror.

Meantime, the most acute anxiety agitated the yellow drawing-room. The commander had sent his servant to obtain some information as to the exact movements of the insurgents, and the others awaited this man’s return, making the most astonishing surmises. They had a full meeting. Roudier and Granoux, sinking back in their arm-chairs, exchanged the most pitiable glances, whilst behind them moaned a terror-stricken group of retired tradesmen. Vuillet, without appearing over scared, reflected upon what precautions he should take to protect his shop and person; he was in doubt whether he should hide himself in his garret or cellar, and inclined towards the latter. For their part Pierre and the commander walked up and down, exchanging a word ever and anon. The old oil-dealer clung to this friend Sicardot as if to borrow a little courage from him. He, who had been awaiting the crisis for such a long time, now endeavoured to keep his countenance, in spite of the emotion which was stifling him. As for the marquis, more spruce and smiling than usual, he conversed in a corner with Felicite, who seemed very gay.

At last a ring came. The gentlemen started as if they had heard a gun-shot. Dead silence reigned in the drawing-room when Felicite went to open the door, towards which their pale, anxious faces were turned. Then the commander’s servant appeared on the threshold, quite out of breath, and said abruptly to his master: “Sir, the insurgents will be here in an hour.”

This was a thunderbolt. They all started up, vociferating, and raising their arms towards the ceiling. For several minutes it was impossible to hear one’s self speak. The company surrounded the messenger, overwhelming him with questions.

“Damnation!” the commander at length shouted, “don’t make such a row. Be calm, or I won’t answer for anything.”

Everyone sank back in his chair again, heaving long-drawn sighs. They then obtained a few particulars. The messenger had met the column at Les Tulettes, and had hastened to return.

“There are at least three thousand of them,” said he. “They are marching in battalions, like soldiers. I thought I caught sight of some prisoners in their midst.”

“Prisoners!” cried the terrified bourgeois.

“No doubt,” the marquis interrupted in his shrill voice. “I’ve heard that the insurgents arrest all persons who are known to have conservative leanings.”

This information gave a finishing touch to the consternation of the yellow drawing-room. A few bourgeois got up and stealthily made for the door, reflecting that they had not too much time before them to gain a place of safety.

The announcement of the arrests made by the Republicans appeared to strike Felicite. She took the marquis aside and asked him: “What do these men do with the people they arrest?”

“Why, they carry them off in their train,” Monsieur de Carnavant replied. “They no doubt consider them excellent hostages.”

“Ah!” the old woman rejoined, in a strange tone.

Then she again thoughtfully watched the curious scene of panic around her. The bourgeois gradually disappeared; soon there only remained Vuillet and Roudier, whom the approaching danger inspired with some courage. As for Granoux, he likewise remained in his corner, his legs refusing to perform their office.

“Well, I like this better,” Sicardot remarked, as he observed the flight of the other adherents. “Those cowards were exasperating me at last. For more than two years they’ve been speaking of shooting all the Republicans in the province, and to-day they wouldn’t even fire a halfpenny cracker under their noses.”

Then he took up his hat and turned towards the door.

“Let’s see,” he continued, “time presses. Come, Rougon.”

Felicite, it seemed, had been waiting for this moment. She placed herself between the door and her husband, who, for that matter, was not particularly eager to follow the formidable Sicardot.

“I won’t have you go out,” she cried, feigning sudden despair. “I won’t let you leave my side. Those scoundrels will kill you.”

The commander stopped in amazement.

“Hang it all!” he growled, “if the women are going to whine now — Come along, Rougon!’

“No, no,” continued the old woman, affecting increase of terror, “he sha’n’t follow you. I will hang on to his clothes and prevent him.”

The marquis, very much surprised at the scene, looked inquiringly at Felicite. Was this really the woman who had just now been conversing so merrily? What comedy was she playing? Pierre, meantime, seeing that his wife wanted to detain him, deigned a determination to force his way out.

“I tell you you shall not go,” the old woman reiterated, as she clung to one of his arms. And turning towards the commander, she said to him: “How can you think of offering any resistance? They are three thousand strong, and you won’t be able to collect a hundred men of any spirit. You are rushing into the cannon’s mouth to no purpose.”

“Eh! that is our duty,” said Sicardot, impatiently.

Felicite burst into sobs.

“If they don’t kill him, they’ll make him a prisoner,” she continued, looked fixedly at her husband. “Good heavens! What will become of me, left alone in an abandoned town?”

“But,” exclaimed the commander, “we shall be arrested just the same if we allow the insurgents to enter the town unmolested. I believe that before an hour has elapsed the mayor and all the functionaries will be prisoners, to say nothing of your husband and the frequenters of this drawing-room.”

The marquis thought he saw a vague smile play about Felicite’s lips as she answered, with a look of dismay: “Do you really think so?”

“Of course!” replied Sicardot; “the Republicans are not so stupid as to leave enemies behind them. To-morrow Plassans will be emptied of its functionaries and good citizens.”

At these words, which she had so cleverly provoked, Felicite released her husband’s arms. Pierre no longer looked as if he wanted to go out. Thanks to his wife, whose skilful tactics escaped him, however, and whose secret complicity he never for a moment suspected, he had just lighted on a whole plan of campaign.

“We must deliberate before taking any decision,” he said to the commander. “My wife is perhaps not wrong in accusing us of forgetting the true interests of our families.”

“No, indeed, madame is not wrong,” cried Granoux, who had been listening to Felicite’s terrified cries with the rapture of a coward.

Thereupon the commander energetically clapped his hat on his head, and said in a clear voice: “Right or wrong, it matters little to me. I am commander of the National Guard. I ought to have been at the mayor’s before now. Confess that you are afraid, that you leaven me to act alone. . . . Well, good-night.”

He was just turning the handle of the door, when Rougon forcibly detained him.

“Listen, Sicardot,” he said.

He drew him into a corner, on seeing Vuillet prick up his big ears. And there he explained to him, in an undertone, that it would be a good plan to leave a few energetic men behind the insurgents, so as to restore order in the town. And as the fierce commander obstinately refused to desert his post, Pierre offered to place himself at the head of such a reserve corps.

“Give me the key of the cart-shed in which the arms and ammunition are kept,” he said to him, “and order some fifty of our men not to stir until I call for them.”

Sicardot ended by consenting to these prudent measures. He entrusted Pierre with the key of the cart-shed, convinced as he was of the inexpediency of present resistance, but still desirous of sacrificing himself.

During this conversation, the marquis had whispered a few words in Felicite’s ear with a knowing look. He complimented her, no doubt, on her theatrical display. The old woman could not repress a faint smile. But, as Sicardot shook hands with Rougon and prepared to go, she again asked him with an air of fright: “Are you really determined to leave us?”

“It is not for one of Napoleon’s old soldiers to let himself be intimidated by the mob,” he replied.

He was already on the landing, when Granoux hurried after him, crying: “If you go to the mayor’s tell him what’s going on. I’ll just run home to my wife to reassure her.”

Then Felicite bent towards the marquis’s ear, and whispered with discreet gaiety: “Upon my word, it is best that devil of a commander should go and get himself arrested. He’s far too zealous.”

However, Rougon brought Granoux back to the drawing-room. Roudier, who had quietly followed the scene from his corner, making signs in support of the proposed measures of prudence, got up and joined them. When the marquis and Vuillet had likewise risen, Pierre began: