This functionary formed, under very difficult circumstances, a proper estimate of the situation.

Those three thousand starving men would have to be satisfied; it would never do for Plassans, on waking up, to find them still squatting on the pavements; if they withdrew before daybreak they would simply have passed through the slumbering town like an evil dream, like one of those nightmares which depart with the arrival of dawn.

And so, although he remained a prisoner, Monsieur Garconnet, followed by two guards, went about knocking at the bakers' doors, and had all the provisions that he could find distributed among the insurgents.
Towards one o'clock the three thousand men began to eat, squatting on the ground, with their weapons between their legs.

The market-place and the neighbourhood of the town-hall were turned into vast open-air refectories.

In spite of the bitter cold, humorous sallies were exchanged among the swarming multitude, the smallest groups of which showed forth in the brilliant moonlight.