However, Felicite, who had drawn near, abruptly inquired:  “And Vuillet?”

At this they looked at each other.  Nobody had seen Vuillet.  Rougon seemed somewhat uneasy.

“Perhaps they’ve taken him away with the others,” he said, to ease his mind.

But Felicite shook her head.  Vuillet was not the man to let himself be arrested.  Since nobody had seen or heard him, it was certain he had been doing something wrong.

Suddenly the door opened and Vuillet entered, bowing humbly, with blinking glance and stiff sacristan’s smile.  Then he held out his moist hand to Rougon and the two others.

Vuillet had settled his little affairs alone.  He had cut his own slice out of the cake, as Felicite would have said.  While peeping through the ventilator of his cellar he had seen the insurgents arrest the postmaster, whose offices were near his bookshop.  At daybreak, therefore, at the moment when Rougon was comfortably seated in the mayor’s arm-chair, he had quietly installed himself in the postmaster’s office.  He knew the clerks; so he received them on their arrival, told them that he would replace their chief until his return, and that meantime they need be in nowise uneasy.  Then he ransacked the morning mail with ill-concealed curiosity.  He examined the letters, and seemed to be seeking a particular one.  His new berth doubtless suited his secret plans, for his satisfaction became so great that he actually gave one of the clerks a copy of the “Oeuvres Badines de Piron.”  Vuillet, it should be mentioned, did business in objectionable literature, which he kept concealed in a large drawer, under the stock of heads and religious images.  It is probable that he felt some slight qualms at the free-and-easy manner in which he had taken possession of the post office, and recognised the desirability of getting his usurpation confirmed as far as possible.  At all events, he had thought it well to call upon Rougon, who was fast becoming an important personage.

“Why! where have you been?” Felicite asked him in a distrustful manner.

Thereupon he related his story with sundry embellishments.  According to his own account he had saved the post-office from pillage.

“All right then!  That’s settled!  Stay on there!” said Pierre, after a moment’s reflection.  “Make yourself useful.”

This last sentence revealed the one great fear that possessed the Rougons.  They were afraid that some one might prove too useful, and do more than themselves to save the town.  Still, Pierre saw no serious danger in leaving Vuillet as provisional postmaster; it was even a convenient means of getting rid of him.  Felicite, however, made a sharp gesture of annoyance.

The consultation having ended, the three accomplices mingled with the various groups that filled the drawing-room.  They were at last obliged to satisfy the general curiosity by giving detailed accounts of recent events.  Rougon proved magnificent.  He exaggerated, embellished, and dramatised the story which he had related to his wife.  The distribution of the guns and cartridges made everybody hold their breath.  But it was the march through the deserted streets and the seizure of the town-hall that most amazed these worthy bourgeois.  At each fresh detail there was an interruption.