“I have told you the truth,” she replied impatiently.  “I can’t deliver my husband to you, as he’s not here.  You have searched everywhere, haven’t you?  Then leave me alone now.”

Macquart, exasperated by her composure, was just going to strike her, when a rumbling noise arose from the street.  It was the column of insurgents entering the Rue de la Banne.

He then had to leave the yellow drawing-room, after shaking his fist at his sister-in-law, calling her an old jade, and threatening that he would soon return.  At the foot of the staircase, he took one of the men who accompanied him, a navvy named Cassoute, the most wooden-headed of the four, and ordered him to sit on the first step, and remain there.

“You must come and inform me,” he said to him, “if you see the scoundrel from upstairs return.”

The man sat down heavily.  When Macquart reached the pavement, he raised his eyes and observed Felicite leaning out of the window of the yellow-drawing room, watching the march past of the insurgents, as if it was nothing but a regiment passing through the town to the strains of its band.  This last sign of perfect composure irritated him to such a degree that he was almost tempted to go up again and throw the old woman into the street.  However, he followed the column, muttering in a hoarse voice:  “Yes, yes, look at us passing.  We’ll see whether you will station yourself at your balcony to-morrow.”

It was nearly eleven o’clock at night when the insurgents entered the town by the Porte de Rome.  The workmen remaining in Plassans had opened the gate for them, in spite of the wailings of the keeper, from whom they could only wrest the keys by force.  This man, very jealous of his office, stood dumbfoundered in the presence of the surging crowd.  To think of it! he, who never allowed more than one person to pass in at a time, and then only after a prolonged examination of his face!  And he murmured that he was dishonoured.  The men of Plassans were still marching at the head of the column by way of guiding the others; Miette, who was in the front rank, with Silvere on her left, held up her banner more proudly than ever now that she could divine behind the closed blinds the scared looks of well-to-do bourgeois startled out of their sleep.  The insurgents passed along the Rue de Rome and the Rue de la Banne slowly and warily; at every crossway, although they well knew the quiet disposition of the inhabitants, they feared they might be received with bullets.  The town seemed lifeless, however; there was scarcely a stifled exclamation to be heard at the windows.  Only five or six shutters opened.  Some old householder then appeared in his night-shirt, candle in hand, and leant out to obtain a better view; but as soon as he distinguished the tall red girl who appeared to be drawing that crowd of black demons behind her, he hastily closed his window again, terrified by such a diabolical apparition.