Then he described, at length, the arrival of his brother and the four other insurgents, without naming Macquart, whom he simply called “the leader.”  The words, “the mayor’s office,” “the mayor’s arm-chair,” “the mayor’s writing table,” recurred to him every instant, and in the opinion of his audience imparted marvellous grandeur to the terrible scene.  It was not at the porter’s lodge that the fight was now being waged, but in the private sanctum of the chief magistrate of the town.  Roudier was quite cast in to the background.  Then Rougon at last came to the episode which he had been keeping in reserve from the commencement, and which would certainly exalt him to the dignity of a hero.

“Thereupon,” said he, “an insurgent rushes upon me.  I push the mayor’s arm-chair away, and seize the man by the throat.  I hold him tightly, you may be sure of it!  But my gun was in my way.  I didn’t want to let it drop; a man always sticks to his gun.  I held it, like this, under the left arm.  All of a sudden, it went off—­”

The whole audience hung on Rougon’s lips.  But Granoux, who was opening his mouth wide with a violent itching to say something, shouted:  “No, no, that isn’t right.  You were not in a position to see things, my friend; you were fighting like a lion.  But I saw everything, while I was helping to bind one of the prisoners.  The man tried to murder you; it was he who fired the gun; I saw him distinctly slip his black fingers under your arm.”

“Really?” said Rougon, turning quite pale.

He did not know he had been in such danger, and the old almond merchant’s account of the incident chilled him with fright.  Granoux, as a rule, did not lie; but, on a day of battle, it is surely allowable to view things dramatically.

“I tell you the man tried to murder you,” he repeated, with conviction.

“Ah,” said Rougon in a faint voice, “that’s how it is I heard the bullet whiz past my ear!”

At this, violent emotion came upon the audience.  Everybody gazed at the hero with respectful awe.  He had heard a bullet whiz past his ear!  Certainly, none of the other bourgeois who were there could say as much.  Felicite felt bound to rush into her husband’s arms so as to work up the emotion to boiling point.  But Rougon immediately freed himself, and concluded his narrative with this heroic sentence, which has become famous at Plassans:  “The shot goes off; I hear the bullet whiz past my ear; and whish! it smashes the mayor’s mirror.”

This caused complete consternation.  Such a magnificent mirror, too!  It was scarcely credible! the damage done to that looking-glass almost out-balanced Rougon’s heroism, in the estimation of the company.  The glass became an object of absorbing interest, and they talked about it for a quarter of an hour, with many exclamations and expressions of regret, as though it had been some dear friend that had been stricken to the heart.  This was the culminating point that Rougon had aimed at, the denouement of his wonderful Odyssey.  A loud hubbub of voices filled the yellow drawing-room.  The visitors were repeating what they had just heard, and every now and then one of them would leave a group to ask the three heroes the exact truth with regard to some contested incident.  The heroes set the matter right with scrupulous minuteness, for they felt that they were speaking for history!