“I don’t know what you can do,” Felicite repeatedly said, “but it seems to me that there’s plenty to be done.  Did not Monsieur de Carnavant say to us one day that he would be rich if ever Henri V. should return, and that this sovereign would magnificently recompense those who had worked for his restoration?  Perhaps our fortune lies in that direction.  We may yet be lucky.”

The Marquis de Carnavant, the nobleman who, according to the scandalous talk of the town, had been on very familiar terms with Felicite’s mother, used occasionally to visit the Rougons.  Evil tongues asserted that Madame Rougon resembled him.  He was a little, lean, active man, seventy-five years old at that time, and Felicite certainly appeared to be taking his features and manner as she grew older.  It was said that the wreck of his fortune, which had already been greatly diminished by his father at the time of the Emigration, had been squandered on women.  Indeed, he cheerfully acknowledged his poverty.  Brought up by one of his relatives, the Count de Valqueyras, he lived the life of a parasite, eating at the count’s table and occupying a small apartment just under his roof.

“Little one,” he would often say to Felicite, as he patted her on the cheek, “if ever Henri V. gives me a fortune, I will make you my heiress!”

He still called Felicite “little one,” even when she was fifty years old.  It was of these friendly pats, of these repeated promises of an inheritance, that Madame Rougon was thinking when she endeavoured to drive her husband into politics.  Monsieur de Carnavant had often bitterly lamented his inability to render her any assistance.  No doubt he would treat her like a father if ever he should acquire some influence.  Pierre, to whom his wife half explained the situation in veiled terms, declared his readiness to move in any direction indicated.

The marquis’s peculiar position qualified him to act as an energetic agent of the reactionary movement at Plassans from the first days of the Republic.  This bustling little man, who had everything to gain from the return of his legitimate sovereigns, worked assiduously for their cause.  While the wealthy nobility of the Saint-Marc quarter were slumbering in mute despair, fearing, perhaps that they might compromise themselves and again be condemned to exile, he multiplied himself, as it were, spread the propaganda and rallied faithful ones together.  He was a weapon whose hilt was held by an invisible hand.  From that time forward he paid daily visits to the Rougons.  He required a centre of operations.  His relative, Monsieur de Valqueyras, had forbidden him to bring any of his associates into his house, so he had chosen Felicite’s yellow drawing-room.  Moreover, he very soon found Pierre a valuable assistant.  He could not go himself and preach the cause of Legitimacy to the petty traders and workmen of the old quarter; they would have hooted him.  Pierre, on the other