you go out," she cried, feigning sudden despair. "I won't
let you leave my side. Those scoundrels will kill you."

The commander stopped in amazement.

"Hang it all!" he growled, "if the women are going to whine now--Come
along, Rougon!'

"No, no," continued the old woman, affecting increase of terror, "he
sha'n't follow you. I will hang on to his clothes and prevent him."

The marquis, very much surprised at the scene, looked inquiringly at
Felicite. Was this really the woman who had just now been conversing so
merrily? What comedy was she playing? Pierre, meantime, seeing that his
wife wanted to detain him, deigned a determination to force his way out.

"I tell you you shall not go," the old woman reiterated, as she clung
to one of his arms. And turning towards the commander, she said to him:
"How can you think of offering any resistance? They are three thousand
strong, and you won't be able to collect a hundred men of any spirit.
You are rushing into the cannon's mouth to no purpose."

"Eh! that is our duty," said Sicardot, impatiently.

Felicite burst into sobs.

"If they don't kill him, they'll make him a prisoner," she continued,
looked fixedly at her husband. "Good heavens! What will become of me,
left alone in an abandoned town?"

"But," exclaimed the commander, "we shall be arrested just the same if
we allow the insurgents to enter the town unmolested. I believe that
before an hour has elapsed the mayor and all the functionaries will be
prisoners, to say nothing of your husband and the frequenters of this
drawing-room."

The marquis thought he saw a vague smile play about Felicite's lips as
she answered, with a look of dismay: "Do you really think so?"

"Of course!" replied Sicardot; "the Republicans are not so stupid as
to leave enemies behind them. To-morrow Plassans will be emptied of its
functionaries and good citizens."

At these words, which she had so cleverly provoked, Felicite 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 Felicite's ter