And there could scarcely have been a more curious sight than that of this little city, thus padlocking and bolting itself up beneath the bright sunshine, in the middle of the nineteenth century.
When Plassans had buckled and tightened its belt of dilapidated ramparts, when it had bolted itself in like a besieged fortress at the approach of an assault, the most terrible anguish passed over the mournful houses.

At every moment, in the centre of the town, people fancied they could hear a discharge of musketry in the Faubourgs.

They no longer received any news; they were, so to say, at the bottom of a cellar, in a walled hole, where they were anxiously awaiting either deliverance or the finishing stroke.

For the last two days the insurgents, who were scouring the country, had cut off all communication.

Plassans found itself isolated from the rest of France.
It felt that it was surrounded by a region in open rebellion, where the tocsin was ever ringing and the "Marseillaise" was ever roaring like a river that has overflowed its banks.