ramparts, and bourgeois
came to peep through the loopholes. These volunteer sentinels kept up
the terror by counting the various bands, which were taken for so many
strong battalions. The timorous population fancied it could see from the
battlements the preparations for some universal massacre. At dusk, as on
the previous evening, the panic became yet more chilling.

On returning to the municipal offices Rougon and his inseparable
companion, Granoux, recognised that the situation was growing
intolerable. During their absence another member of the Commission had
disappeared. They were only four now, and they felt they were making
themselves ridiculous by staying there for hours, looking at each
other's pale countenances, and never saying a word. Moreover, they were
terribly afraid of having to spend a second night on the terrace of the
Valqueyras mansion.

Rougon gravely declared that as the situation of affairs was unchanged,
there was no need for them to continue to remain there _en permanence_.
If anything serious should occur information would be sent to them. And,
by a decision duly taken in council, he deputed to Roudier the carrying
on of the administration. Poor Roudier, who remembered that he had
served as a national guard in Paris under Louis-Philippe, was meantime
conscientiously keeping watch at the Grand'-Porte.

Rougon went home looking very downcast, and creeping along under the
shadows of the houses. He felt that Plassans was becoming hostile
to him. He heard his name bandied about amongst the groups, with
expressions of anger and contempt. He walked upstairs, reeling and
perspiring. Felicite received him with speechless consternation. She,
also, was beginning to despair. Their dreams were being completely
shattered. They stood silent, face to face, in the yellow drawing-room.
The day was drawing to a close, a murky winter day which imparted a
muddy tint to the orange-coloured wall-paper with its large flower
pattern; never had the room looked more faded, more mean, more shabby.
And at this hour they were alone; they no longer had a crowd of
courtiers congratulating them, as on the previous evening. A single
day had sufficed to topple them over, at the very moment when they were
singing victory. If the situation did not change on the morrow their
game would be lost.

Felicite who, when gazing on the previous evening at the ruins of
the yellow drawing-room, had thought of the plains of Austerlitz, now