When it was known that Rougon had arrested his own brother, the popular admiration knew no bounds.

People talked of Brutus, and thus the indiscretion which had made Pierre rather anxious, really redounded to his glory.

At this moment when terror still hovered over them, the townsfolk were virtually unanimous in their gratitude.

Rougon was accepted as their saviour without the slightest show of opposition.
"Just think of it!" the poltroons exclaimed, "there were only forty-one of them!" That number of forty-one amazed the whole town, and this was the origin of the Plassans legend of how forty-one bourgeois had made three thousand insurgents bite the dust.

There were only a few envious spirits of the new town, lawyers without work and retired military men ashamed of having slept ingloriously through that memorable night, who raised any doubts.