“It is not for one of Napoleon’s old soldiers to let himself be intimidated by the mob,” he replied.
He was already on the landing, when Granoux hurried after him, crying: “If you go to the mayor’s tell him what’s going on. I’ll just run home to my wife to reassure her.”
Then Félicité bent towards the marquis’s ear, and whispered with discreet gaiety: “Upon my word, it is best that devil of a commander should go and get himself arrested. He’s far too zealous.”
However, Rougon brought Granoux back to the drawing-room. Roudier, who had quietly followed the scene from his corner, making signs in support of the proposed measures of prudence, got up and joined them. When the marquis and Vuillet had likewise risen, Pierre began:
“Now that we are alone, among peaceable men, I propose that we should conceal ourselves so as to avoid certain arrest, and be at liberty as soon as ours again becomes the stronger party.”
Granoux was ready to embrace him. Roudier and Vuillet breathed more easily.
“I shall want you shortly, gentlemen,” the oil-dealer continued, with an important air. “It is to us that the honour of restoring order in Plassans is reserved.”
“You may rely upon us!” cried Vuillet, with an enthusiasm which disturbed Félicité.
Time was pressing. These singular defenders of Plassans, who hid themselves the better to protect the town, hastened away, to bury themselves in some hole or other. Pierre, on being left alone with his wife, advised her not to make the mistake of barricading herself indoors, but to reply, if anybody came to question her, that he, Pierre, had simply gone on a short journey. And as she acted the simpleton, feigning terror and asking what all this was coming to, he replied abruptly: “It’s nothing to do with you. Let me manage our affairs alone. They’ll get on all the better.”
A few minutes later he was rapidly threading his way along the Rue de la Banne. On reaching the Cours Sauvaire, he saw a band of armed workmen coming out of the old quarter and singing the “Marseillaise.”