And light and pure as crystal the distant tolling of a bell rose from the plain.
The gentlemen could not deny it.

It was indeed the tocsin.

Rougon pretended that he recognised the bell of Beage, a village fully a league from Plassans.

This he said in order to reassure his colleagues.
But the marquis interrupted him.

"Listen, listen: this time it is the bell of Saint-Maur." And he indicated another point of the horizon to them.