At last Rougon and his two lieutenants announced that they were expected at the town-hall.  Respectful silence was then restored, and the company smiled at each other discreetly.  Granoux was swelling with importance.  He was the only one who had seen the insurgent pull the trigger and smash the mirror; this sufficed to exalt him, and almost made him burst his skin.  On leaving the drawing-room, he took Roudier’s arm with the air of a great general who is broken down with fatigue.  “I’ve been up for thirty-six hours,” he murmured, “and heaven alone knows when I shall get to bed!”

Rougon, as he withdrew, took Vuillet aside and told him that the party of order relied more than ever on him and the “Gazette.”  He would have to publish an effective article to reassure the inhabitants and treat the band of villains who had passed through Plassans as it deserved.

“Be easy!” replied Vuillet.  “In the ordinary course the ‘Gazette’ ought not to appear till to-morrow morning, but I’ll issue it this very evening.”

When the leaders had left, the rest of the visitors remained in the yellow drawing-room for another moment, chattering like so many old women, whom the escape of a canary has gathered together on the pavement.  These retired tradesmen, oil dealers, and wholesale hatters, felt as if they were in a sort of fairyland.  Never had they experienced such thrilling excitement before.  They could not get over their surprise at discovering such heroes as Rougon, Granoux, and Roudier in their midst.  At last, half stifled by the stuffy atmosphere, and tired of ever telling each other the same things, they decided to go off and spread the momentous news abroad.  They glided away one by one, each anxious to have the glory of being the first to know and relate everything, and Felicite, as she leaned out of the window, on being left alone, saw them dispersing in the Rue de la Banne, waving their arms in an excited manner, eager as they were to diffuse emotion to the four corners of the town.

It was ten o’clock, and Plassans, now wide awake, was running about the streets, wildly excited by the reports which were circulating.  Those who had seen or heard the insurrectionary forces, related the most foolish stories, contradicting each other, and indulging in the wildest suppositions.  The majority, however, knew nothing at all about the matter; they lived at the further end of the town, and listened with gaping mouths, like children to a nursery tale, to the stories of how several thousand bandits had invaded the streets during the night and vanished before daybreak like an army of phantoms.  A few of the most sceptical said:  “Nonsense!” Yet some of the details were very precise; and Plassans at last felt convinced that some frightful danger had passed over it while it slept.  The darkness which had shrouded this danger, the various contradictory reports that spread, all invested the matter with mystery and vague horror, which made the bravest shudder.