At these words, which she had so cleverly provoked, Félicité released her husband’s arms. Pierre no longer looked as if he wanted to go out. Thanks to his wife, whose skilful tactics escaped him, however, and whose secret complicity he never for a moment suspected, he had just lighted on a whole plan of campaign.
“We must deliberate before taking any decision,” he said to the commander. “My wife is perhaps not wrong in accusing us of forgetting the true interests of our families.”
“No, indeed, madame is not wrong,” cried Granoux, who had been listening to Félicité’s terrified cries with the rapture of a coward.
Thereupon the commander energetically clapped his hat on his head, and said in a clear voice: “Right or wrong, it matters little to me. I am commander of the National Guard. I ought to have been at the mayor’s before now. Confess that you are afraid, that you leave me to act alone. . . . Well, good-night.”
He was just turning the handle of the door, when Rougon forcibly detained him.
“Listen, Sicardot,” he said.
He drew him into a corner, on seeing Vuillet prick up his big ears. And there he explained to him, in an undertone, that it would be a good plan to leave a few energetic men behind the insurgents, so as to restore order in the town. And as the fierce commander obstinately refused to desert his post, Pierre offered to place himself at the head of such a reserve corps.
“Give me the key of the cart-shed in which the arms and ammunition are kept,” he said to him, “and order some fifty of our men not to stir until I call for them.”
Sicardot ended by consenting to these prudent measures. He entrusted Pierre with the key of the cart-shed, convinced as he was of the inexpediency of present resistance, but still desirous of sacrificing himself.
During this conversation, the marquis had whispered a few words in Félicité’s ear with a knowing look. He complimented her, no doubt, on her theatrical display. The old woman could not repress a faint smile. But, as Sicardot shook hands with Rougon and prepared to go, she again asked him with an air of fright: “Are you really determined to leave us?”