With their sheets drawn up to their chins, they
held their breath, and made themselves as small as possible, while their
wives, by their side, almost fainted with terror as they buried their
heads among the pillows.
The national guards who had remained at the ramparts had also heard the
shots, and thinking that the insurgents had entered by means of some
subterranean passage, they ran up helter-skelter, in groups of five
or six, disturbing the silence of the streets with the tumult of their
excited rush. Roudier was one of the first to arrive. However, Rougon
sent them all back to their posts, after reprimanding them severely
for abandoning the gates of the town. Thrown into consternation by
this reproach--for in their panic, they had, in fact, left the gates
absolutely defenceless--they again set off at a gallop, hurrying through
the streets with still more frightful uproar. Plassans might well have
thought that an infuriated army was crossing it in all directions. The
fusillade, the tocsin, the marches and countermarches of the national
guards, the weapons which were being dragged along like clubs, the
terrified cries in the darkness, all produced a deafening tumult,
such as might break forth in a town taken by assault and given over
to plunder. It was the final blow of the unfortunate inhabitants, who
really believed that the insurgents had arrived. They had, indeed, said
that it would be their last night--that Plassans would be swallowed up
in the earth, or would evaporate into smoke before daybreak; and now,
lying in their beds, they awaited the catastrophe in the most abject
terror, fancying at times that their houses were already tottering.
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