ver the house roofs, slowly cast lengthened shadows.
They went along the ramparts, from one gate to the other, seeing nothing
and hearing nothing. The national guards at the various posts certainly
told them that peculiar sounds occasionally reached them from the
country through the closed gates. When they strained their ears,
however, they detected nothing but a distant murmur, which Granoux said
was merely the noise of the Viorne.

Nevertheless they remained doubtful. And they were about to return to
the town-hall in a state of alarm, though they made a show of shrugging
their shoulders and of treating Roudier as a poltroon and a dreamer,
when Rougon, anxious to reassure them, thought of enabling them to
view the plain over a distance of several leagues. Thereupon he led the
little company to the Saint-Marc quarter and knocked at the door of the
Valqueyras mansion.

At the very outset of the disturbances Count de Valqueyras had left for
his chateau at Corbiere. There was no one but the Marquis de Carnavant
at the Plassans house. He, since the previous evening, had prudently
kept aloof; not that he was afraid, but because he did not care to be
seen plotting with the Rougons at the critical moment. As a matter
of fact, he was burning with curiosity. He had been compelled to shut
himself up in order to resist the temptation of hastening to the yellow
drawing-room. When the footman came to tell him, in the middle of the
night, that there were some gentlemen below asking for him, he could not
hold back any longer. He got up and went downstairs in all haste.

"My dear Marquis," said Rougon, as he introduced to him the members
of the Municipal Commission, "we want to ask a favour of you. Will you
allow us to go into the garden of the mansion?"

"By all means," replied the astonished marquis, "I will conduct you
there myself."

On the way thither he ascertained what their object was. At the end of
the garden rose a terrace which overlooked the plain. A large portion of
the ramparts had there tumbled in, leaving a boundless prospect to the
view. It had occurred to Rougon that this would serve as an excellent
post of observation. While conversing together the members of the
Commission leaned over the parapet. The strange spectacle that spread
out before them soon made them silent. In the distance, in the valley of
the Viorne, across the vast hollow which stretched westward between the
chain of the Garrigues and the mountai