the gendarmes after him."

"What are you muttering there?" asked her son, as he finished picking
the bones of the chicken. "You know I like people to accuse me to
my face. If I have sometimes talked to the little fellow about the
Republic, it was only to bring him round to a more reasonable way of
thinking. He was dotty. I love liberty myself, but it mustn't degenerate
into license. And as for Rougon, I esteem him. He's a man of courage and
common-sense."

"He had the gun, hadn't he?" interrupted aunt Dide, whose wandering mind
seemed to be following Silvere far away along the high road.

"The gun? Ah! yes; Macquart's carbine," continued Antoine, after casting
a glance at the mantel-shelf, where the fire-arm was usually hung. "I
fancy I saw it in his hands. A fine instrument to scour the country
with, when one has a girl on one's arm. What a fool!"

Then he thought he might as well indulge in a few coarse jokes. Aunt
Dide had begun to bustle about the room again. She did not say a word.
Towards the evening Antoine went out, after putting on a blouse, and
pulling over his eyes a big cap which his mother had bought for him.
He returned into the town in the same manner as he had quitted it, by
relating some nonsensical story to the national guards who were on duty
at the Rome Gate. Then he made his way to the old quarter, where he
crept from house to house in a mysterious manner. All the Republicans of
advanced views, all the members of the brotherhood who had not followed
the insurrectionary army, met in an obscure inn, where Macquart had made
an appointment with them. When about fifty men were assembled, he made a
speech, in which he spoke of personal vengeance that must be wreaked,
of a victory that must be gained, and of a disgraceful yoke that must be
thrown off. And he ended by undertaking to deliver the town-hall over
to them in ten minutes. He had just left it, it was quite unguarded,
he said, and the red flag would wave over it that very night if they so
desired. The workmen deliberated. At that moment the reaction seemed to
be in its death throes. The insurgents were virtually at the gates of
the town. It would therefore be more honourable to make an effort to
regain power without awaiting their return, so as to be able to receive
them as brothers, with the gates wide open, and the streets and squares
adorned with flags. Moreover, none of those present distrusted Macquart.
His hatred of the Rougons, the perso