At these words, which she had so cleverly provoked, Felicite released her husband’s arms.  Pierre no longer looked as if he wanted to go out.  Thanks to his wife, whose skilful tactics escaped him, however, and whose secret complicity he never for a moment suspected, he had just lighted on a whole plan of campaign.

“We must deliberate before taking any decision,” he said to the commander.  “My wife is perhaps not wrong in accusing us of forgetting the true interests of our families.”

“No, indeed, madame is not wrong,” cried Granoux, who had been listening to Felicite’s terrified cries with the rapture of a coward.

Thereupon the commander energetically clapped his hat on his head, and said in a clear voice:  “Right or wrong, it matters little to me.  I am commander of the National Guard.  I ought to have been at the mayor’s before now.  Confess that you are afraid, that you leaven me to act alone. . . .  Well, good-night.”

He was just turning the handle of the door, when Rougon forcibly detained him.

“Listen, Sicardot,” he said.

He drew him into a corner, on seeing Vuillet prick up his big ears.  And there he explained to him, in an undertone, that it would be a good plan to leave a few energetic men behind the insurgents, so as to restore order in the town.  And as the fierce commander obstinately refused to desert his post, Pierre offered to place himself at the head of such a reserve corps.

“Give me the key of the cart-shed in which the arms and ammunition are kept,” he said to him, “and order some fifty of our men not to stir until I call for them.”

Sicardot ended by consenting to these prudent measures.  He entrusted Pierre with the key of the cart-shed, convinced as he was of the inexpediency of present resistance, but still desirous of sacrificing himself.

During this conversation, the marquis had whispered a few words in Felicite’s ear with a knowing look.  He complimented her, no doubt, on her theatrical display.  The old woman could not repress a faint smile.  But, as Sicardot shook hands with Rougon and prepared to go, she again asked him with an air of fright:  “Are you really determined to leave us?”

“It is not for one of Napoleon’s old soldiers to let himself be intimidated by the mob,” he replied.

He was already on the landing, when Granoux hurried after him, crying:  “If you go to the mayor’s tell him what’s going on.  I’ll just run home to my wife to reassure her.”

Then Felicite bent towards the marquis’s ear, and whispered with discreet gaiety:  “Upon my word, it is best that devil of a commander should go and get himself arrested.  He’s far too zealous.”

However, Rougon brought Granoux back to the drawing-room.  Roudier, who had quietly followed the scene from his corner, making signs in support of the proposed measures of prudence, got up and joined them.  When the marquis and Vuillet had likewise risen, Pierre began: