Nevertheless, a spent ball after ricocheting grazed the cheek of one of the insurgents and left a mark on it." This graze, this unexpected wound, satisfied the audience.

Which cheek, right or left, had been grazed, and how was it that a bullet, a spent one, even, could strike a cheek without piercing it?
These points supplied material for some long discussions.
"Meantime," continued Rougon at the top of his voice, without giving time for the excitement to abate; "meantime we had plenty to do upstairs.

The struggle was quite desperate." Then he described, at length, the arrival of his brother and the four other insurgents, without naming Macquart, whom he simply called "the leader." The words, "the mayor's office," "the mayor's arm-chair," "the mayor's writing table," recurred to him every instant, and in the opinion of his audience imparted marvellous grandeur to the terrible scene.

It was not at the porter's lodge that the fight was now being waged, but in the private sanctum of the chief magistrate of the town.
Roudier was quite cast in to the background.

Then Rougon at last came to the episode which he had been keeping in reserve from the commencement, and which would certainly exalt him to the dignity of a hero.
"Thereupon," said he, "an insurgent rushes upon me.