.
At that moment, the prefect having taken his departure, Rougon came
upstairs and threw himself upon his wife's neck.

"Ah! my dear!" he stammered.

He was unable to say more. Felicite made him kiss Aristide after telling
him of the superb article which the young man had inserted in the
"Independant." Pierre would have kissed the marquis as well, he was
deeply affected. However, his wife took him aside, and gave him Eugene's
letter which she had sealed up in an envelope again. She pretended that
it had just been delivered. Pierre read it and then triumphantly held it
out to her.

"You are a sorceress," he said to her laughing. "You guessed everything.
What folly I should have committed without you! We'll manage our little
affairs together now. Kiss me: you're a good woman."

He clasped her in his arms, while she discreetly exchanged a knowing
smile with the marquis.

CHAPTER VII

It was not until Sunday, the day after the massacre at Sainte-Roure,
that the troops passed through Plassans again. The prefect and the
colonel, whom Monsieur Garconnet had invited to dinner, once more
entered the town alone. The soldiers went round the ramparts and
encamped in the Faubourg, on the Nice road. Night was falling; the sky,
overcast since the morning, had a strange yellow tint, and illumined
the town with a murky light, similar to the copper-coloured glimmer
of stormy weather. The reception of the troops by the inhabitants was
timid; the bloodstained soldiers, who passed by weary and silent, in
the yellow twilight, horrified the cleanly citizens promenading on
the Cours. They stepped out of the way whispering terrible stories of
fusillades and revengeful reprisals which still live in the recollection
of the region. The Coup d'Etat terror was beginning to make itself felt,
an overwhelming terror which kept the South in a state of tremor for
many a long month. Plassans, in its fear and hatred of the insurgents,
had welcomed the troops on their first arrival with enthusiasm; but now,
at the appearance of that gloomy taciturn regiment, whose men were ready
to fire at a word from their officers, the retired merchants and even
the notaries of the new town anxiously examined their consciences,
asking if they had not committed some political peccadilloes which might
be thought deserving of a bullet.

The municipal authorities had returned on the previous evening in a
couple of carts hired at Sainte-Roure. Their unexpected ent