Rougon, who seemed in high spirits, began, however, to joke at him. Now that he had dined, did he still believe in that story of a plot? Du Poizat, too, affected complete incredulity. He made an appointment for the next morning with Gilquin, to whom, he said, he owed a breakfast. Gilquin, with his cane under his arm, asked as soon as he could get a word in: 'Then you are not going to warn——'
'Yes, I am, of course,' Rougon replied. 'But they'll merely laugh at me. In any case there's no hurry. There will be plenty of time to-morrow morning.'
The ex-commercial traveller had already got his hand upon the handle of the door. However, he stepped back with a grin on his face. 'For all I care,' he said, 'they may blow Badinguet to smithereens.'
'Oh!' replied the great man, with an air of almost religious conviction, 'the Emperor has no cause for fear, even if your story is correct. These plots never succeed. There is a watchful Providence.'
That was the last word spoken on the matter. Du Poizat went off with Gilquin, chatting with him familiarly. An hour later, at half-past ten, when Rougon shook hands with M. Bouchard and the colonel as they took their leave, he stretched his arms and yawned, saying, as was often his wont: 'I am quite tired out. I shall sleep well to-night.'
On the following evening three bombs exploded beneath the Emperor's carriage in front of the Opera-house. A wild panic seized the serried crowd blocking up the Rue Le Peletier.[15] More than fifty people were struck. A woman in a blue silk dress was killed on the spot and stretched stark in the gutter. Two soldiers lay dying on the road. An aide-de-camp, wounded in the neck, left drops of blood behind him. But, under the crude glare of the gas, amidst the wreathing smoke, the Emperor descended unhurt from his riddled carriage, and saluted the throng. Only his hat was torn by a splinter from one of the bombs.
Rougon had spent the day at home. In the morning he had certainly felt a little restless, and had twice been on the point of going out. However, just as he was finishing déjeuner, Clorinde made her appearance; and then, in her society, in his study, where they remained till evening, he forgot everything. She had come to consult him on a matter of great intricacy, and appeared extremely discouraged. She could succeed in nothing, she said. But Rougon began to console her, seemingly much touched by her sadness. He gave her to understand that there was great reason for hope, and that things would altogether change. He was by no means ignorant of the devotion of his friends, and of all that they had done for him, and would make it his care to reward them, even the humblest of them. When Clorinde left him, he kissed her on the forehead. Then after dinner he had an irresistible longing for a walk. He left the house and took the shortest way to the quays, feeling suffocated and craving for the fresh breezes of the river. It was a mild winter evening, and the low, cloudy sky hung over the city in silent blackness. In the distance the rumbling traffic of the main streets could be faintly heard. Rougon walked along the deserted footways with a regular step, brushing the stone parapet with his overcoat. The lights which spread out in the far distance, twinkling through the darkness like stars that marked the boundaries of some dead heaven, brought him a sensation of the spreading magnitude of all those squares and streets, whose houses were now quite invisible. As he walked along Paris seemed to grow bigger, to expand more in harmony with his own huge form, and to be capable of giving him all the air he needed to inflate his lungs. From the inky river, flecked here and there with shimmering gold, there rose a gentle yet mighty breathing, like that of a sleeping giant—fit accompaniment to his colossal dream. Then as he came in front of the Palais de Justice, a clock struck the hour of nine. There was a tremulous throbbing in the air, and he turned to listen. Over the house-tops he fancied he could hear the sounds of a sudden panic, distant reports like those of explosions, and cries of terror. He suddenly pictured Paris in all the stupor born of some great crime. Then he called to mind that afternoon in June, that bright triumphant afternoon of the Baptism, when the bells had pealed out in the hot sunshine, and the quays had been filled with a serried multitude, when everything had told of the glory of the Empire at its apogee, that glory beneath which he had for a moment felt crushed and almost jealous of the Emperor. Now he seemed to be having his revenge. The sky was black and moonless; the city was terror-stricken and dumb; the quays were deserted and swept by a shudder which seemed to scare the very gas-lights, as though some weird evil lay in ambush, yonder, in the darkness of the night. Rougon drew in long breaths of air, and felt that he loved that cut-throat Paris, in whose terror-striking gloom he was regaining supreme power.
Ten days later, he became Minister of the Interior, in the place of M. de Marsy, who was called to the Presidency of the Corps Législatif.