At the very outset of the disturbances Count de Valqueyras had left for his chateau at Corbiere.  There was no one but the Marquis de Carnavant at the Plassans house.  He, since the previous evening, had prudently kept aloof; not that he was afraid, but because he did not care to be seen plotting with the Rougons at the critical moment.  As a matter of fact, he was burning with curiosity.  He had been compelled to shut himself up in order to resist the temptation of hastening to the yellow drawing-room.  When the footman came to tell him, in the middle of the night, that there were some gentlemen below asking for him, he could not hold back any longer.  He got up and went downstairs in all haste.

“My dear Marquis,” said Rougon, as he introduced to him the members of the Municipal Commission, “we want to ask a favour of you.  Will you allow us to go into the garden of the mansion?”

“By all means,” replied the astonished marquis, “I will conduct you there myself.”

On the way thither he ascertained what their object was.  At the end of the garden rose a terrace which overlooked the plain.  A large portion of the ramparts had there tumbled in, leaving a boundless prospect to the view.  It had occurred to Rougon that this would serve as an excellent post of observation.  While conversing together the members of the Commission leaned over the parapet.  The strange spectacle that spread out before them soon made them silent.  In the distance, in the valley of the Viorne, across the vast hollow which stretched westward between the chain of the Garrigues and the mountains of the Seille, the rays of the moon were streaming like a river of pale light.  The clumps of trees, the gloomy rocks, looked, here and there, like islets and tongues of land, emerging from a luminous sea; and, according to the bends of the Viorne one could now and again distinguish detached portions of the river, glittering like armour amidst the fine silvery dust falling from the firmament.  It all looked like an ocean, a world, magnified by the darkness, the cold, and their own secret fears.  At first the gentlemen could neither hear nor see anything.  The quiver of light and of distant sound blinded their eyes and confused their ears.  Granoux, though he was not naturally poetic, was struck by the calm serenity of that winter night, and murmured:  “What a beautiful night, gentlemen!”

“Roudier was certainly dreaming,” exclaimed Rougon, rather disdainfully.

But the marquis, whose ears were quick, had begun to listen.  “Ah!” he observed in his clear voice, “I hear the tocsin.”

At this they all leant over the parapet, holding their breath.  And light and pure as crystal the distant tolling of a bell rose from the plain.  The gentlemen could not deny it.  It was indeed the tocsin.  Rougon pretended that he recognised the bell of Beage, a village fully a league from Plassans.  This he said in order to reassure his colleagues.