they saw an insurgent. In this wise they remained there ten
minutes, firing into space.

The affray had burst over the slumbering town like a thunderclap. The
inhabitants in the neighbouring streets, roused from sleep by this
terrible fusillade, sat up in bed, their teeth chattering with fright.
Nothing in the world would have induced them to poke their noses out of
the window. And slowly, athwart the air, in which the shots had suddenly
resounded, one of the cathedral bells began to ring the tocsin with so
irregular, so strange a rhythm, that one might have thought the noise to
be the hammering of an anvil or the echoes of a colossal kettle struck
by a child in a fit of passion. This howling bell, whose sound the
citizens did not recognise, terrified them yet more than the reports of
the fire-arms had done; and there were some who thought they heard an
endless train of artillery rumbling over the paving-stones. They lay
down again and buried themselves beneath their blankets, as if they
would have incurred some danger by still sitting up in bed in their
closely-fastened rooms. With their sheets drawn up to their chins, they
held their breath, and made themselves as small as possible, while their
wives, by their side, almost fainted with terror as they buried their
heads among the pillows.

The national guards who had remained at the ramparts had also heard the
shots, and thinking that the insurgents had entered by means of some
subterranean passage, they ran up helter-skelter, in groups of five
or six, disturbing the silence of the streets with the tumult of their
excited rush. Roudier was one of the first to arrive. However, Rougon
sent them all back to their posts, after reprimanding them severely
for abandoning the gates of the town. Thrown into consternation by
this reproach--for in their panic, they had, in fact, left the gates
absolutely defenceless--they again set off at a gallop, hurrying through
the streets with still more frightful uproar. Plassans might well have
thought that an infuriated army was crossing it in all directions. The
fusillade, the tocsin, the marches and countermarches of the national
guards, the weapons which were being dragged along like clubs, the
terrified cries in the darkness, all produced a deafening tumult,
such as might break forth in a town taken by assault and given over
to plunder. It was the final blow of the unfortunate inhabitants, who
really believed that the insurgents had