Some of the members made a wry face at this suggestion; but when it had been agreed that an armed escort should accompany the Commission, they all descended very courageously.

They only left a few men downstairs; they surrounded themselves with about thirty of the national guards, and then they ventured into the slumbering town, where the moon, creeping over the house roofs, slowly cast lengthened shadows.
They went along the ramparts, from one gate to the other, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.

The national guards at the various posts certainly told them that peculiar sounds occasionally reached them from the country through the closed gates.

When they strained their ears, however, they detected nothing but a distant murmur, which Granoux said was merely the noise of the Viorne.
Nevertheless they remained doubtful.

And they were about to return to the town-hall in a state of alarm, though they made a show of shrugging their shoulders and of treating Roudier as a poltroon and a dreamer, when Rougon, anxious to reassure them, thought of enabling them to view the plain over a distance of several leagues.