ry was devoid
of all triumphal display. Rougon surrendered the mayor's arm-chair
without much regret. The game was over; and with feverish longing he now
awaited the recompense for his devotion. On the Sunday--he had not hoped
for it until the following day--he received a letter from Eugene.
Since the previous Thursday Felicite had taken care to send her son
the numbers of the "Gazette" and "Independant" which, in special second
editions had narrated the battle of the night and the arrival of the
prefect at Plassans. Eugene now replied by return of post that the
nomination of a receivership would soon be signed; but added that he
wished to give them some good news immediately. He had obtained the
ribbon of the Legion of Honour for his father. Felicite wept with joy.
Her husband decorated! Her proud dream had never gone as far as that.
Rougon, pale with delight, declared they must give a grand dinner that
very evening. He no longer thought of expense; he would have thrown his
last fifty francs out of the drawing-room windows in order to celebrate
that glorious day.

"Listen," he said to his wife; "you must invite Sicardot: he has annoyed
me with that rosette of his for a long time! Then Granoux and Roudier;
I shouldn't be at all sorry to make them feel that it isn't their purses
that will ever win them the cross. Vuillet is a skinflint, but the
triumph ought to be complete: invite him as well as the small fry. I was
forgetting; you must go and call on the marquis in person; we will seat
him on your right; he'll look very well at our table. You know that
Monsieur Garconnet is entertaining the colonel and the prefect. That is
to make me understand that I am nobody now. But I can afford to laugh at
his mayoralty; it doesn't bring him in a sou! He has invited me, but
I shall tell him that I also have some people coming. The others will
laugh on the wrong side of their mouths to-morrow. And let everything
be of the best. Have everything sent from the Hotel de Provence. We must
outdo the mayor's dinner."

Felicite set to work. Pierre still felt some vague uneasiness amidst his
rapture. The Coup d'Etat was going to pay his debts, his son Aristide
had repented of his faults, and he was at last freeing himself from
Macquart; but he feared some folly on Pascal's part, and was especially
anxious about the lot reserved for Silvere. Not that he felt the least
pity for the lad; he was simply afraid the matter of the gendarme might
c