ieve that a band of insurgents had really
entered the town either by a breach in the wall or some other channel.
Later on, rumours of treachery were spread abroad, and people talked of
an ambush. The cruel truth could no longer be concealed by the men whom
Macquart had led to slaughter, but so much terror still prevailed,
and the sight of blood had thrown so many cowards into the arms of the
reactionary party, that these rumours were attributed to the rage of
the vanquished Republicans. It was asserted, on the other hand, that
Macquart had been made prisoner by Rougon, who kept him in a damp cell,
where he was letting him slowly die of starvation. This horrible tale
made people bow to the very ground whenever they encountered Rougon.

Thus it was that this grotesque personage, this pale, flabby,
tun-bellied citizen became, in one night, a terrible captain, whom
nobody dared to ridicule any more. He had steeped his foot in blood.
The inhabitants of the old quarter stood dumb with fright before the
corpses. But towards ten o'clock, when the respectable people of the new
town arrived, the whole square hummed with subdued chatter. People spoke
of the other attack, of the seizure of the mayor's office, in which a
mirror only had been wounded; but this time they no longer pooh-poohed
Rougon, they spoke of him with respectful dismay; he was indeed a hero,
a deliverer. The corpses, with open eyes, stared at those gentlemen, the
lawyers and householders, who shuddered as they murmured that civil war
had many cruel necessities. The notary, the chief of the deputation
sent to the town-hall on the previous evening, went from group to group,
recalling the proud words "I am prepared!" then used by the energetic
man to whom the town owed its safety. There was a general feeling of
humiliation. Those who had railed most cruelly against the forty-one,
those, especially, who had referred to the Rougons as intriguers and
cowards who merely fired shots in the air, were the first to speak of
granting a crown of laurels "to the noble citizen of whom Plassans would
be for ever proud." For the pools of blood were drying on the pavement,
and the corpses proclaimed to what a degree of audacity the party of
disorder, pillage, and murder had gone, and what an iron hand had been
required to put down the insurrection.

Moreover, the whole crowd was eager to congratulate Granoux, and shake
hands with him. The story of the hammer had become known. By a