THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
ambulance where about a dozen wounded National Guards were lying, and had there quietly stolen two complete uniforms amidst the confusion of amputations and the dressing of wounds.
Philippe and Marius had had all the gravity of their position brought home to them, and were on the point of deciding to attempt escape by the roofs, when they understood that their friends were busying themselves about their safety. As soon as they had the uniforms, they rushed up into the lofts where they attired themselves as National Guards, and had barely had time to do so and to throw their own clothes out of a window looking on to a neighbouring courtyard, when they heard the front door giving way. They at once hid themselves; but, after a moment or two, cleverly mingled with the swarm of besiegers, whom they pretended to assist in the search, and eventually quietly walked out into the street where they found M. de Girousse and Sauvaire awaiting them. A short distance further off, on the square, were Cadet and Fine, with M. Martelly and Abbé Chastanier. The young woman, who was carrying little Joseph, had expressed the desire to return at once to the lodging on the Cours Bonaparte. As soon as she perceived Marius and Philippe in the street, she moved away looking behind her at every step. She had requested M. de Girousse to follow her with the two brothers.
Philippe and Marius warmly shook the ex-master-stevedore’s hand, unable to utter a word of thanks.
“All right, all right,” murmured the worthy man, who was very much affected, “the least one can do is to assist one’s friends, hang it! But we must have order, you see, before everything! The National Guard was only formed to preserve order. I’m the man for duty!”
And he began to cry out against the National Guards who were all in a flutter on the square, whilst M. de Girousse and the two brothers rapidly moved away.
As Sauvaire was trying to get his men together, he perceived M. de Cazalis behind a tree looking pale and anxious. He pretended not to see him and watched his movements. The ex-deputy could not understand the strange events that were passing around him. Since Mathéus had disappeared in the house, he awaited his return without being able to form any idea of what was occurring. When he saw Fine appear with little Joseph, when he perceived that his enemies were miraculously escaping from all his snares, he was agitated with sullen rage. What added to his anger was his being tortured by the idea that Mathéus had betrayed him.
“What can the scoundrel be doing?” he murmured. “He’s sold himself to the Cayols and has helped them to escape.”
At last, unable to restrain himself any longer, he made up his mind to go and see what Mathéus could be doing in that house which he did not leave. Had he met him, he would have strangled him. On reaching the first floor landing he came in contact with his accomplice’s corpse. Livid, terrified, and with his mouth wide open he stood and stared at it. Then, he abruptly stooped down and searched it. When he found the pockets were empty, he was in despair, and giving the dead man’s body an angry kick he hurried rapidly away.
“I knew very well,” thought Sauvaire, who had not lost sight of him, “that that bird of ill-omen must have had something to do with the abduction of the child.”
The struggle, however, was over, and the troops victorious. It was about four o’clock. The resistance had been smart but of short duration. The principal leaders of the rioters had fled as soon as the barricades were captured, but a great many workmen were made prisoners. Those who were unable to escape by the roofs of the houses where they had taken refuge, were discovered in the cellars, cupboards, under the beds, in the chimneys and even in the wells, where they had thought they would have been in safety. When the houses had been searched, the six barricades were removed and the Place aux Œufs occupied by the military.
There was a family gathering at Marius’ apartment in the evening. The young couple, Philippe and Joseph, had found themselves united again amidst tears of joy and tenderness. M. de Girousse troubled their happiness by pointing out that it was necessary to make Philippe disappear as soon as possible, if they did not want to see him despatched to one of the colonies. He offered to take him with him to Lambesc on the following day and hide him at one of his houses, and this suggestion was gratefully accepted. In the meanwhile Philippe was to stay with M. Martelly.
When he had left, M. de Girousse had a long conversation with Marius about M. de Cazalis. Cadet had handed his brother-in-law the papers he had found in the spy’s pocket, and among them was the letter which the latter had insisted on his master giving him, and in which he was guaranteed a sum of money for Joseph’s abduction. This document was a terrible arm. Henceforth the Cayols would be able to make Blanche’s uncle disgorge. But Marius thought the best thing would be not to claim anything from M. de Cazalis, confining themselves to preserving the letter as a constant threat and so restrain the ex-deputy from taking any steps against Philippe. A scandal, he thought, would only reflect on the whole family.
M. de Girousse expressed his warm approbation of this disinterested attitude and undertook to see M. de Cazalis personally. The next day he called on him and had an interview that lasted two hours. No one ever knew the tenor of the conversation between the two noblemen, but from the loud, angry tones that reached the servants’ hall, it is supposed that M. de Girousse must have bitterly reproached the former deputy with his unworthy behaviour and have crushed him with the heel of an upright man, in order to wring from him the necessary formal promise to desist from further persecution. It was thus that the nobility, in regard to this matter, washed their dirty linen in private. When M. de Girousse withdrew, the servants noticed that their master accompanied him humbly to the door, with lips firmly set together and pale cheeks.
An hour later the old Count and Philippe were driving along the road to Lambesc in a cabriolet.
CHAPTER XXI
THE DUEL
A YEAR after the sanguinary events just related, the shadow of death passed again over Marseille and the entire city was touched by it. It was no longer a question of a few dozen wounded: people were struck down by hundreds. Civil war had been followed by the cholera.
A history of the numerous and terrible epidemics that have decimated Marseille, would be a most painful one. The position of the city in a warm climate, its constant connection with Asia, the filth of its old streets, everything seems to fatally indicate it as a hot-bed of infection where contagious diseases spread with frightful rapidity. It is threatened as soon as ever summer comes round. At the least negligence, if by mishap the scourge is allowed to enter the city, it never fails to gain all the coast line, and, from there to spread throughout France. The epidemic of 1849 was relatively benign. It broke out about the middle of August, and it is stated that it was not serious until a convoy of invalided troops were landed from Rome and Algiers. Fifty of these soldiers succumbed, it is said, on the night following their arrival. From that moment the disease had taken firm hold in Marseille.
Amidst the outbursts of political passion at that time, the government of the Republic was bitterly reproached with a decree dated August 10, which authorized vessels from the Levant to enter the Port on a simple declaration from the medical man on board. This decree suppressing quarantine, laid the city open to the germs of the disease. The incubation was rather slow. By the end of August there were one hundred and ninety-six victims, but in the following month the mortality was terrible, no less than twelve hundred persons succumbing. The epidemic died out in October, after nearly five hundred more people had been added to the death list.
The inhabitants were seized with panic from the very outbreak of the disease, and there was a general stampede. The news that the cholera had again visited the city ran from quarter to quarter like a train of gunpowder. A man had died in frightful agony, and the case was forthwith multiplied, old women affirming they had seen more than a hundred burials go by. The people spoke in an undertone of poison, accusing the wealthy of having infected the water at all the pumps, and these statements increased the panic. A poor wretch who was drinking at the fountain on the Cours was nearly massacred because a workman pretended he had seen him throw something into the water. Fright produced terrible effect upon the lively imagination of the crowd. The inhabitants believed a foul vapour was passing over the city, and the women walked about the streets with handkerchiefs pressed