road, whitened by the moonshine,
stretched far into the distance. Miette had refused the support of
Silvere'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 Silvere, 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