“Not that I value the decoration,” Roudier said to Granoux, whom he had dragged into the embrasure of a window.  “I refused it in the time of Louis-Philippe, when I was purveyor to the court.  Ah!  Louis-Philippe was a good king.  France will never find his equal!”

Roudier was becoming an Orleanist once more.  And he added, with the crafty hypocrisy of an old hosier from the Rue Saint-Honore:  “But you, my dear Granoux; don’t you think the ribbon would look well in your button-hole?  After all, you did as much to save the town as Rougon did.  Yesterday, when I was calling upon some very distinguished persons, they could scarcely believe it possible that you had made so much noise with a mere hammer.”

Granoux stammered his thanks, and, blushing like a maiden at her first confession of love, whispered in Roudier’s ear:  “Don’t say anything about it, but I have reason to believe that Rougon will ask the ribbon for me.  He’s a good fellow at heart, you know.”

The old hosier thereupon became grave, and assumed a very affable manner.  When Vuillet came and spoke to him of the well-deserved reward that their friend had just received, he replied in a loud voice, so as to be heard by Felicite, who was sitting a little way off, that “men like Rougon were an ornament to the Legion of Honour.”  The bookseller joined in the chorus; he had that morning received a formal assurance that the custom of the college would be restored to him.  As for Sicardot, he at first felt somewhat annoyed to find himself no longer the only one of the set who was decorated.  According to him, none but soldiers had a right to the ribbon.  Pierre’s valour surprised him.  However, being in reality a good-natured fellow, he at last grew warmer, and ended by saying that the Napoleons always knew how to distinguish men of spirit and energy.

Rougon and Aristide consequently had an enthusiastic reception; on their arrival all hands were held out to them.  Some of the guests went so far as to embrace them.  Angele sat on the sofa, by the side of her mother-in-law, feeling very happy, and gazing at the table with the astonishment of a gourmand who has never seen so many dishes at once.  When Aristide approached, Sicardot complimented his son-in-law upon his superb article in the “Independant.”  He restored his friendship to him.  The young man, in answer to the fatherly questions which Sicardot addressed to him, replied that he was anxious to take his little family with him to Paris, where his brother Eugene would push him forward; but he was in want of five hundred francs.  Sicardot thereupon promised him the money, already foreseeing the day when his daughter would be received at the Tuileries by Napoleon III.