Macquart, coughing and stooping, shook his head mournfully, as if to say that he could not bear the least fatigue for any length of time.  Just as his nephew was about to withdraw, he borrowed ten francs of him.  Then for a month he lived by taking his children’s old clothes, one by one, to a second-hand dealer’s, and in the same way, little by little, he sold all the small articles in the house.  Soon nothing remained but a table, a chair, his bed, and the clothes on his back.  He ended by exchanging the walnut-wood bedstead for a plain strap one.  When he had exhausted all his resources, he cried with rage; and, with the fierce pallor of a man who is resigned to suicide, he went to look for the bundle of osier that he had forgotten in some corner for a quarter of a century past.  As he took it up he seemed to be lifting a mountain.  However, he again began to plait baskets and hampers, while denouncing the human race for their neglect.

It was particularly at this time that he talked of dividing and sharing the riches of the wealthy.  He showed himself terrible.  His speeches kept up a constant conflagration in the tavern, where his furious looks secured him unlimited credit.  Moreover, he only worked when he had been unable to get a five-franc piece out of Silvere or a comrade.  He was no longer “Monsieur” Macquart, the clean-shaven workman, who wore his Sunday clothes every day and played the gentleman; he again became the big slovenly devil who had once speculated on his rags.  Felicite did not dare to go to market now that he was so often coming there to sell his baskets.  He once had a violent quarrel with her there.  His hatred against the Rougons grew with his wretchedness.  He swore, with horrible threats, that he would wreak justice himself, since the rich were leagued together to compel him to toil.

In this state of mind, he welcomed the Coup d’Etat with the ardent, obstreperous delight of a hound scenting the quarry.  As the few honest Liberals in the town had failed to arrive at an understanding amongst themselves, and therefore kept apart, he became naturally one of the most prominent agents of the insurrection.  The working classes, notwithstanding the unfavourable opinion which they at last entertained of this lazy fellow, would, when the time arrived, have to accept him as a rallying flag.  On the first few days, however, the town remained quiet, and Macquart thought that his plans were frustrated.  It was not until the news arrived of the rising of the rural districts that he recovered hope.  For his own part he would not have left Plassans for all the world; accordingly he invented some pretext for not following those workmen who, on the Sunday morning, set off to join the insurrectionary band of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx.