ditor asked if the country would any longer tolerate
"the shamelessness of those wild beasts, who respected neither property
nor persons." He made an appeal to all valorous citizens, declaring that
to tolerate such things any longer would be to encourage them, and
that the insurgents would then come and snatch "the daughter from her
mother's arms, the wife from her husband's embraces." And at last,
after a pious sentence in which he declared that Heaven willed the
extermination of the wicked, he concluded with this trumpet blast: "It
is asserted that these wretches are once more at our gates; well then
let each one of us take a gun and shoot them down like dogs. I for my
part shall be seen in the front rank, happy to rid the earth of such
vermin."

This article, in which periphrastic abuse was strung together with all
the heaviness of touch which characterises French provincial journalism,
quite terrified Rougon, who muttered, as Felicite replaced the "Gazette"
on the table: "Ah! the wretch! he is giving us the last blow; people
will believe that I inspired this diatribe."

"But," his wife remarked, pensively, "did you not this morning tell me
that he absolutely refused to write against the Republicans? The news
that circulated had terrified him, and he was as pale as death, you
said."

"Yes! yes! I can't understand it at all. When I insisted, he went so
far as to reproach me for not having killed all the insurgents. It was
yesterday that he ought to have written that article; to-day he'll get
us all butchered!"

Felicite was lost in amazement. What could have prompted Vuillet's
change of front? The idea of that wretched semi-sacristan carrying a
musket and firing on the ramparts of Plassans seemed to her one of the
most ridiculous things imaginable. There was certainly some determining
cause underlying all this which escaped her. Only one thing seemed
certain. Vuillet was too impudent in his abuse and too ready with his
valour, for the insurrectionary band to be really so near the town as
some people asserted.

"He's a spiteful fellow, I always said so," Rougon resumed, after
reading the article again. "He has only been waiting for an opportunity
to do us this injury. What a fool I was to leave him in charge of the
post-office!"

This last sentence proved a flash of light. Felicite started up quickly,
as though at some sudden thought. Then she put on a cap and threw a
shawl over her shoulders.

"Where are you