home” definitively secured the triumph of the Rougon faction.  The last enthusiastic bourgeois saw the Republic tottering, and hastened to rally round the Conservatives.  Thus the Rougons’ hour had arrived; the new town almost gave them an ovation on the day when the tree of Liberty, planted on the square before the Sub-Prefecture, was sawed down.  This tree, a young poplar brought from the banks of the Viorne, had gradually withered, much to the despair of the republican working-men, who would come every Sunday to observe the progress of the decay without being able to comprehend the cause of it.  A hatter’s apprentice at last asserted that he had seen a woman leave Rougon’s house and pour a pail of poisoned water at the foot of the tree.  It thenceforward became a matter of history that Felicite herself got up every night to sprinkle the poplar with vitriol.  When the tree was dead the Municipal Council declared that the dignity of the Republic required its removal.  For this, as they feared the displeasure of the working classes, they selected an advanced hour of the night.  However, the conservative householders of the new town got wind of the little ceremony, and all came down to the square before the Sub-Prefecture in order to see how the tree of Liberty would fall.  The frequenters of the yellow drawing-room stationed themselves at the windows there.  When the poplar cracked and fell with a thud in the darkness, as tragically rigid as some mortally stricken hero, Felicite felt bound to wave a white handkerchief.  This induced the crowd to applaud, and many responded to the salute by waving their handkerchiefs likewise.  A group of people even came under the window shouting:  “We’ll bury it, we’ll bury it.”

They meant the Republic, no doubt.  Such was Felicite’s emotion, that she almost had a nervous attack.  It was a fine evening for the yellow drawing-room.

However, the marquis still looked at Felicite with the same mysterious smile.  This little old man was far too shrewd to be ignorant of whither France was tending.  He was among the first to scent the coming of the Empire.  When the Legislative Assembly, later on, exhausted its energies in useless squabbling, when the Orleanists and the Legitimists tacitly accepted the idea of the Coup d’Etat, he said to himself that the game was definitely lost.  In fact, he was the only one who saw things clearly.  Vuillet certainly felt that the cause of Henry V., which his paper defended, was becoming detestable; but it mattered little to him; he was content to be the obedient creature of the clergy; his entire policy was framed so as to enable him to dispose of as many rosaries and sacred images as possible.  As for Roudier and Granoux, they lived in a state of blind scare; it was not certain whether they really had any opinions; all that they desired was to eat and sleep in peace; their political aspirations went no further.  The marquis, though he had bidden farewell to his hopes, continued to