However, the strongest intellect of the yellow drawing-room was certainly Commander Sicardot, Aristide’s father-in-law.  Of Herculean frame, with a brick-red face, scarred and planted with tufts of grey hair, he was one of the most glorious old dolts of the Grande Armee.  During the February Revolution he had been exasperated with the street warfare and never wearied of referring to it, proclaiming with indignation that this kind of fighting was shameful:  whereupon he recalled with pride the grand reign of Napoleon.

Another person seen at the Rougons’ house was an individual with clammy hands and equivocal look, one Monsieur Vuillet, a bookseller, who supplied all the devout ladies of the town with holy images and rosaries.  Vuillet dealt in both classical and religious works; he was a strict Catholic, a circumstance which insured him the custom of the numerous convents and parish churches.  Further, by a stroke of genius he had added to his business the publication of a little bi-weekly journal, the “Gazette de Plassans,” which was devoted exclusively to the interests of the clergy.  This paper involved an annual loss of a thousand francs, but it made him the champion of the Church, and enabled him to dispose of his sacred unsaleable stock.  Though he was virtually illiterate and could not even spell correctly, he himself wrote the articles of the “Gazette” with a humility and rancour that compensated for his lack of talent.  The marquis, in entering on the campaign, had perceived immediately the advantage that might be derived from the co-operation of this insipid sacristan with the coarse, mercenary pen.  After the February Revolution the articles in the “Gazette” contained fewer mistakes; the marquis revised them.

One can now imagine what a singular spectacle the Rougons’ yellow drawing-room presented every evening.  All opinions met there to bark at the Republic.  Their hatred of that institution made them agree together.  The marquis, who never missed a meeting, appeased by his presence the little squabbles which occasionally arose between the commander and the other adherents.  These plebeians were inwardly flattered by the handshakes which he distributed on his arrival and departure.  Roudier, however, like a free-thinker of the Rue Saint-Honore, asserted that the marquis had not a copper to bless himself with, and was disposed to make light of him.  M. de Carnavant on his side preserved the amiable smile of a nobleman lowering himself to the level of these middle class people, without making any of those contemptuous grimaces which any other resident of the Saint-Marc quarter would have thought fit under such circumstances.  The parasite life he had led had rendered him supple.  He was the life and soul of the group, commanding in the name of unknown personages whom he never revealed.  “They want this, they don’t want that,” he would say.  The concealed divinities who thus watched over the destinies of Plassans from behind some cloud, without appearing to interfere directly in public matters, must have been certain priests, the great political agents of the country.  When the marquis pronounced that mysterious word “they,” which inspired the assembly with such marvellous respect, Vuillet confessed, with a gesture of pious devotion, that he knew them very well.