Chapter XXI: M. Anatole France speaking at Zola's Funeral (4)

At that time, it should be mentioned, Édouard Manet, whose high talent needs no praise nowadays, was generally regarded as a mystifier, an impudent scamp who delighted to play jokes with the public, and it followed that this man Zola, who defended him, must be either another mystifier or else a mere ignorant jackass. Villemessant, however, less alarmed than amused by the storm which had been raised, was unwilling to dismiss him. In lieu thereof he decided to run a second series of articles on the Salon, one of the orthodox type, by Théodore Pelloquet, which it was thought would counterbalance the revolutionary utterances emanating from Zola. But this decision, although almost worthy of Solomon, did not satisfy the readers of "L'Événement." They would not have Zola as art critic at any price, and so he brought his campaign to an end after two more strongly written articles. In the first, truthfully enough, and in a regretful spirit, he pointed out the decline of Courbet, Millet, and particularly Théodore Rousseau, whose pictures that year were of an inferior quality, while, in the second, after attacking Fromentin for painting Oriental scenes with plenty of colour, but with an absolute lack of light, he turned the now-forgotten Nazon's sunsets into ridicule, and dismissed Gérome and Dubuffe with a few stinging words. On the other hand, he praised Daubigny, Pissarro (then a newcomer among the realists), and Corot, observing of the last, however, that he would like his work far better if he would only slaughter the nymphs with which he peopled his woods, and set real peasants in their places. And he wound up as follows, in words which, applied to much of his after-life, were almost prophetic:----

"In these articles I have defended M. Manet as, throughout
my life, I shall always defend every frank personality
that may be assailed. I shall always be on the side of
the vanquished. There is always a contest between men of
unconquerable temperaments and the herd. I am on the side
of the temperaments, and I attack the herd. Thus my case
is judged, and I am condemned. I have been guilty of such
enormity as to fail to admire M. Dubuffe, after admiring
Courbet--the enormity of complying with inexorable logic.
Such has been my guilt and simplicity that I have been unable
to swallow without disgust the _fadeurs_ of the period, and
have demanded power and originality in artistic work. I have
blasphemed in declaring that the history of art proves that
only temperaments dominate the ages, and that the paintings
we treasure are those which have been lived and felt. I
have committed such horrible sacrilege as to speak with
scant respect of the petty reputations of the day and to
predict their approaching demise, their passage into eternal
nothingness. I have behaved as a heretic in demolishing the
paltry religions of coteries and firmly setting forth the
great religion of art, that which says to every painter:
'Open your eyes, behold nature. Open your heart, behold
life.' I have also displayed crass ignorance because I have
not shared the opinions of the patented critics, and have
neglected to speak of the foreshortening of a torso, the
modelling of a belly, draughtsmanship and colour, schools and
precepts. I have behaved, too, like a ruffian in marching
straight towards my goal without thinking of the poor devils
whom I might crush on the way. I sought Truth and I acted so
badly as to hurt people while trying to reach it. In a word,
I have shown cruelty, foolishness, and ignorance, I have been
guilty of sacrilege and heresy, because, weary of falsehood
and mediocrity, I looked for men in a crowd of eunuchs. And
that is why I am condemned."

Such writing as this was bound to ruffle many dovecotes. There had previously been various efforts on behalf of the new school of painting, the complaints of injustice having led one year to the granting of a Salon des Réfusés, but never had any writer hit out so vigorously, with such disregard for the pretentious vanity of the artistic demigods of the hour. If, however, Zola was banished from "L'Événement" as an art critic, he was not silenced, for he republished his articles in pamphlet form,[10] with a dedicatory preface addressed to Paul Cézanne, in which he said: "I have faith in the views I profess; I know that in a few years everybody will hold me to be right. So I have no fear that they may be cast in my face hereafter." In this again he was fairly accurate: at least several of the views then held to be not merely revolutionary but ridiculous have become commonplaces of criticism.

Though this campaign did not improve Zola's material position, it brought him into notoriety among the public, and gave him quite a position among the young men of the French art-world. At this time he still had his home in the Rue de Vaugirard, overlooking the Luxembourg gardens, but in the summer of 1866 he was able to spend several weeks at Bennecourt, a little village on the right bank of the Seine, near Bonnières, and--as the crow flies--about half-way between Paris and Rouen. Here he was joined at intervals by some of his Provençal friends, Baille, Cézanne, Marius Roux, and Numa Coste;[11] and they roamed and boated, rested on the pleasant river islets and formed the grandest plans for the future, while Paris became all excitement about the war which had broken out between Prussia and Austria. The crash of Kœnigsgratz echoed but faintly in that pleasant valley of the Seine, among those young men whose minds were intent on art and literature. But politically the year was an important one for France, for, from that time, the Franco-German War became inevitable. The Napoleonic _prestige_ was departing. The recall of the expeditionary force from Mexico had become imperative. In vain did the unhappy Empress Charlotte hasten to Paris and beg and pray and weep; Napoleon III, who had placed her husband Maximilian in his dangerous position, would give him no further help, and she, poor woman, was soon to lose her reason and sink into living death.

The year which had opened so brightly for Zola was to end badly for him also. After shocking the readers of "L'Événement" as an art critic, he imagined he might be more successful with them as a story writer. So he proposed a serial to Villemessant, who after examining a synopsis of the suggested narrative, accepted the offer. The story which Zola then wrote was called "Le Vœu d'une Morte," but it met with no more success than the art criticisms, and after issuing the first part, Villemessant stopped the publication. The second part was never written; yet the abortion--for it was nothing else--was issued in volume form,[12] and of recent years has even been translated into English,[13] and reviewed approvingly by English critics! Zola himself always regarded it as the very worst of his productions. "What a wretched thing, my friend!" he remarked in a letter to M. George Charpentier twenty years after this story's first appearance. "Nowadays young men of eighteen turn out work ten times superior in craftsmanship to what we produced when we were five and twenty."

This second failure to catch the public fancy injured Zola considerably in the opinion of Villemessant, but the latter continued to take various articles from him, such as a series of literary character-sketches, entitled "Marbres et Plâtres," in which figured such men as Flaubert, Janin, Taine, Paradol, and About. These articles were merely signed "Simplice,"--Zola's name having become odious to the readers of "L'Événement,"--and portions were worked by the author into later studies on French literary men.

About this time Villemessant found himself in serious difficulties with the authorities, through having sailed too near to politics in a journal only authorised for literature and news. "L'Événement" was suppressed, but its editor turned "Le Figaro" into a daily organ, and Zola's services were transferred to the latter journal. He contributed to it a number of Parisian and other sketches, portions of which will be found under the title "Souvenirs," in a second volume of "Contes à Ninon," published in 1874.

In the latter part of 1866 his pecuniary position was a declining one. As he wrote to his friend, Antony Valabrègue, he found himself in a period of transition. He had penned a pretty and pathetic _nouvelle_, "Les Quatre Journées de Jean Gourdon," for "L'Illustration,"[14] but he was chiefly turning his thoughts to dramatic art, going, he said, as often as possible to the theatre--with the idea, undoubtedly, that, as he had failed to conquer Paris as an art critic and a novelist, he might yet do so as a playwright. The young man was certainly indomitable; after each repulse he came up, smiling, to try the effect of another attack. Already in 1865, although his comedy, "La Laide," had been declined by the Odéon Theatre, he had started on a three-act drama, called "La Madeleine," and this now being finished he sent it to Montigny, the director of the Gymnase Theatre, who replied, however, that the play was "impossible, mad, and would bring down the very chandeliers if an attempt were made to perform it." Harmant of the Vaudeville also declined "La Madeleine," but on the ground that the piece was "too colourless," from which, as Alexis points out, one may surmise that he had not troubled to read it.

After this experience Zola slipped his manuscript into a drawer and turned to other matters. In December, 1866, he is found informing Valabrègue that he has received a very flattering invitation to the Scientific Congress of France,[15] and asking him, as he cannot attend personally, to read on his behalf a paper he has written for it. This was a "definition of the novel," prepared, said Zola, according to the methods of Taine,[16] and it embodied at least the germs of the theories which he afterwards applied to his own work. When writing to Valabrègue on the subject he was in a somewhat despondent mood, for his position on "Le Figaro" had now become very precarious. He wished to undertake some serious work, he said, but it was imperative that he should raise money, and he was "very unskilful in such matters." Indeed, in spite of every effort, he did not earn more than an average of three hundred francs a month. Nevertheless, he still received his friends every Thursday, when Pissarro, Baille, Solari, and others went "to complain with him about the hardness of the times."[17] And he at least had a ray of comfort amid his difficulties, for he was now in love, was loved in return, and hoped to marry at the first favourable opportunity. The young person was tall, dark haired, very charming, very intelligent, with a gift, too, of that prudent thrift which makes so many Frenchwomen the most desirable of companions for the men who have to fight for position and fame. Her name was Alexandrine Gabrielle Mesley; before very long she became Madame Zola.

In 1867 Zola put forth a large quantity of work. Early in the year he quitted "Le Figaro," and bade good-bye to the Quartier Latin, removing to Batignolles, quite at the other end of Paris; his new address being 1, Rue Moncey, at the corner of the Avenue de Clichy. He was now near his artistic friends of Montmartre, and complained to Valabrègue of having only painters around him, without a single literary chum to join him in his battle. His association with artists led, however, to the production of a fresh study on Manet,[18] and to another abortive effort to write a "Salon," this time in a newspaper called "La Situation," which the blind, despoiled King of Hanover had started in Paris for the purpose of inciting the French against the Prussians. This journal was edited by Édouard Grénier, a _publiciste_ and minor poet of the time, who was well disposed towards Zola, but the latter's articles again called forth so many protests, that Grénier, fearing the newspaper would be wrecked when it was barely launched, cast his contributor overboard.

Zola fortunately had other work in hand, having arranged with the director of a Marseillese newspaper, "Le Messager de Provence," to supply him with a serial story, based (so Zola wrote to Valabrègue), on certain criminal trials, respecting which he had received such an infinity of documents that he hardly knew how to reduce so much chaos to order and invest it with life. He hoped, however, that the story, which he called "Les Mystères de Marseille," might give him a reputation in the south of France, even if from a pecuniary standpoint it provided little beyond bread and cheese, the remuneration being fixed at no more than two _sous_ a line. That, perhaps, was full value for such matter, at all events the London Sunday papers and halfpenny evening journals often pay no more, if indeed as much, for the serials they issue nowadays, the majority of which are no whit better than was Zola's tale. It was not literature certainly, but it was clearly and concisely written, and generally good as narrative, in spite of some sentimental mawkishness and sensational absurdity. As often happens with hack work of this description the tale opens better than it ends. Long, indeed, before it was finished, the writer had grown heartily tired of it, as many of its readers must have perceived. At the same time it was not a work to be ashamed of, particularly in the case of an author fighting for his daily bread, and Zola, when at the height of his reputation, showed that he was not ashamed of it, for on his adversaries casting this forgotten "pot boiler" in his face, he caused it to be reprinted, with a vigorous preface, in which he recounted under what circumstances the story had been written.[19]

The money paid for it had been very acceptable to him, for it had meant an income of two hundred francs a month for nine months in succession; and it had enabled him to give time to some real literary work, the writing of his first notable novel, "Thérèse Raquin." This he had begun in 1866; the idea of it then being suggested to him by Adolphe Belot and Ernest Daudet's "Vénus de Gordes," in which a husband is killed by the wife's lover, who, with his mistress, is sent to the Assizes. Zola, for his part, pictured a similar crime in which the paramours escaped detection, but suffered all the torment of remorse, and ended by punishing each other. An article, a kind of _nouvelle_ which he contributed to "Le Figaro" on the subject, led him to develop this theme in the form of a novel. In parts, "Thérèse Raquin," as the author afterwards remarked, was neither more nor less than a study of the animality existing in human nature. It was, therefore, bound to be repulsive to many folk. But if one accept the subject, the book will be found to possess considerable literary merit, a quality which cannot be claimed for Émile Gaboriau's "Crime d'Orcival," with which it has been compared by Mr. Andrew Lang. Gaboriau was a clever man in his way, but he wrote in commonplace language for the folk of little education who patronised the _feuilletons_ of "Le Petit Journal." No French critic, except, perhaps, the ineffable M. de Brunetière, who has declared the illiterate Ponson du Terrail to be infinitely superior to the Goncourts, would think of associating Gaboriau's name with that of Émile Zola.

Under the title of "Un Mariage d'Amour," "Thérèse Raquin" was published during the summer and autumn of 1867, in Arsène Houssaye's review, "L'Artiste," which paid Zola the sum of six hundred francs[20] for the serial rights. There was some delay and difficulty in the matter. Houssaye, who was _bien en cour_, as the French say, and desirous of doing nothing that might interfere with his admission to the Tuileries, informed Zola that the Empress Eugénie read the review, and on that ground obtained his assent to the omission of certain strongly worded passages from the serial issue. But the author rebelled indignantly when he found that Houssaye, not content with this expurgation, had written a fine moral tag at the end of the last sheet of proofs. Zola would have none of it, and he was right; yet for years the great quarrel between him and his critics arose less from the outspokenness with which he treated certain subjects than from his refusal to interlard his references to evil with pious ejaculations and moral precepts. But for all intelligent folk the statement of fact should carry its own moral, and books are usually written for intelligent folk, not for idiots. In the case in point the spectacle of Arsène Houssaye, a curled, dyed, perfumed ex-lady killer, tendering moral reflections to the author of "Thérèse Raquin," was extremely amusing. Here was a man who for years had pandered to vice, adorned, beautified, and worshipped it, not only in a score of novels, but also in numerous semi-historical sketches. For him it was all "roses and rapture," whereas under Zola's pen it appeared absolutely vile. In the end Houssaye had to give way, and the moral tag was deleted.

Zola took his story to M. Albert Lacroix, who in the autumn of 1867 published it as a volume. Naturally it was attacked; and notably by Louis Ulbach, a writer with whom Zola frequently came in contact, for Ulbach did a large amount of work for Lacroix, and was often to be met at the afternoon gatherings at the Librairie Internationale. It was he who had initiated the most popular book of that year: Lacroix's famous "Paris Guide by the principal authors and artists of France"; but at the same time he did not neglect journalism, and just then he was one of the principal contributors to "Le Figaro," for which he wrote under the pseudonym of "Ferragus." In an article printed by that journal he frankly denounced "Thérèse Raquin" as "putrid literature," and Zola, with Villemessant's sanction, issued a slashing reply. This certainly attracted attention to the book, with the result that a second edition was called for at the end of the year, which had not been a remunerative one for the book-selling world, for it was that of the great Exhibition when Paris, receiving visits from almost every ruler and prince of Europe, gave nearly all its attention to sight-seeing and festivity.[21]

Zola had sent a copy of his book to Ste.-Beuve, for whom, as for Taine, he always professed considerable deference, though he reproached him somewhat sharply for having failed to understand Balzac, Flaubert, and others. Ste.-Beuve, having read "Thérèse Raquin," pronounced it to be a "remarkable and conscientious" work, but objected to certain of its features. Some years afterwards Zola had occasion to refer to this subject, and the remarks he then penned[22] may be quoted with the more advantage as they embody his own criticism of his book:----

"I had sent 'Thérèse Raquin' to Ste.-Beuve, and he replied
to me with a critical letter, in which I find that desire
for average truth, of which I have just spoken. Nothing
could be fairer than that criticism. For instance, he
remarked of my description of the Passage du Pont Neuf [the
chief scene of the novel]: 'It is not accurate, it is a
fantastic description, like Balzac's of the Rue Soli. The
passage is bald, commonplace, ugly, and, in particular,
narrow, but it has not the dense blackness, the shades _à
la Rembrandt_ which you impute to it. This also is a way
of being unfaithful [to the truth].' He was right; only it
must be admitted that places merely have such mournfulness
or gaiety of aspect as we may attribute to them. One passes
with a shudder before the house where a murder has just
been committed, and which seemed quite commonplace only the
previous day. None the less, Ste.-Beuve's criticism holds
good. It is certain that things are carried to the point of
nightmare in 'Thérèse Raquin,' and that the strict truth
falls short of so many horrors. In making this admission I
wish to show that I perfectly understand and even accept
Ste.-Beuve's standpoint of average truth. He is also
right when he expresses his astonishment that Thérèse and
Laurent [the wife and lover] do not content their passion
immediately after the murder of Camille [the husband]; the
case is open to argument, but in the ordinary course of
things they would live in each other's arms before being
maddened by remorse. It will be seen then that, in spite of
my own books, I share this respect for logic and truth, and
do not try to defend myself against criticism which seems
quite just. Yes, certainly, it is a bad thing to forsake the
substantial ground of reality to plunge into exaggerations of
draughtsmanship and colouring."

About the time of the publication of "Thérèse Raquin" Zola at last obtained the coveted honours of the footlights. In conjunction with his friend Marius Roux he wrote a drama based on his "Mystères de Marseille," and the director of the Marseillese Gymnase consented to stage it. It is possible that this arrangement was effected during a visit which the director made to Paris, for, according to some accounts, a trial performance of the play took place in the capital.[23] Zola and Roux, being anxious to witness its production at Marseilles, afterwards repaired thither, and superintended the last rehearsals; but their hopes were scarcely fulfilled, for although, as Alexis points out rather naïvely, the first performance[24] "proceeded fairly well, enlivened by only a little hissing," no more than two others were ever given. And while it is true that a "run" could hardly be expected in a provincial city, particularly in those days, three solitary performances, followed by no revival, could not be interpreted as signifying success.

Perhaps it was the failure of this effort that caused Zola to abandon for some years all hope of making his way as a dramatic author. Judging by the comparative success of "Thérèse Raquin," novel writing seemed the safer course for him. Accordingly, he transformed his rejected play, "La Madeleine," into a novel, which he entitled "La Honte," and offered as a serial to a certain M. Bauer, who had established a new "Evénement." Bauer accepted it, but its minute descriptions of the working of sensual passion in a woman shocked his readers, and the publication ceased abruptly. On the whole, this story, written in a large degree on the same lines as "Thérèse Raquin," was not a good piece of work. When Lacroix published it, however, in volume form, under the title of "Madeleine Férat," it soon went into a second edition.[25]

This was the chief literary work accomplished by Zola in 1868, when he also published a variety of articles in different Paris newspapers. And as his books were now selling fairly well, he began to think of giving some fulfilment to an old and once vague project, to which the example of Balzac's works had at last imparted shape. Writing in May, 1867, to his friend Valabrègue, he had then said: "By the way, have you read all Balzac? What a man he was! I am reperusing him at this moment. To my mind, Victor Hugo and the others dwindle away beside him, I am thinking of a book on Balzac, a great study, a kind of real romance."

That book was never written, but the perusal of "La Comédie Humaine" and its haunting influence at least largely inspired "Les Rougon-Macquart."

[1] This was in the early sixties. Marx, who "interviewed" the boyish Prince Imperial, Baron James de Rothschild, M. de Lesseps, and many others, collected his articles in a volume entitled, "Indiscrétions Parisiennes."

[2] Alexis, _l. c._, p. 67.

[3] The first volume had appeared in 1863.

[4] Napoleon III. and his wife attended the first performance at the Odéon (March, 1866), and when Got, one of the performers, had occasion to exclaim, "England, the land of liberty!" nearly the entire audience, composed of the intellectual leaders of Paris, rose and applauded tumultuously, in spite of the Emperor's presence. He was deeply impressed by this demonstration.

[5] Zola's "Les Romanciers Naturalistes," Paris, Charpentier, 1881 _et seq._

[6] The present writer can speak of these matters from personal knowledge; he well knew M. Bourdilliat, the founder of the Librairie Nouvelle, and afterwards connected for many years with "Le Monde Illustré," which Frank Vizetelly helped to establish, and of which he was the first editor. As for the Librairie Internationale, it became the commercial agency of the "Illustrated London News," which Henry Vizetelly (the writer's father) represented in Paris for several years.

[7] "Le Maudit" was followed by "La Réligieuse," "Le Jésuite," "Le Moine," etc., all of these books having very large sales in Paris.

[8] See _ante_. p. 66.

[9] The above passage corrects and supplements the particulars given by the writer in the preface to the English translation of "L'Œuvre," edited by him. "His Masterpiece," by É. Zola, London, Chatto and Windus, 1902.

[10] "Mon Salon," Paris, Librairie Centrale, 1866, 12mo, 99 pages. The articles are also given in the volume entitled "Mes Haines" (Charpentier and Fasquelle).

[11] M. Coste, who is well known as a _publiciste_ in France, should have been mentioned earlier in this work. Though not so intimate with Zola as Baille and Cézanne, he knew him in his school days. He largely helped Paul Alexis in the preparation of the latter's biographical work on Zola.

[12] "Le Vœu d'une Morte," Paris, Faure, 1866, 18mo. Reissued by Charpentier, 1889 and 1891.

[13] "A Dead Woman's Wish," translated by Count C. S. de Soissons, London, 1902.

[14] "L'Illustration," December 15, 1866, to February 16, 1867. The story is included in the "Nouveaux Contes à Ninon," 1874.

[15] It must have been held, we think, at Marseilles or Aix.

[16] The substance of the paper was worked into the articles which Zola collected in the volume entitled "Le Roman Expérimental," Paris, 1880 _et seq._

[17] "La Grande Revue," May, 1903, p. 254.

[18] First issued in the "Revue du XIXe Siècle"; afterwards in pamphlet form by Dentu, with a portrait of Manet by Bracquemond, and an etching of Manet's "Olympia" by the painter himself. The text was reprinted in the volume, "Mes Haines."

[19] Besides appearing serially in "Le Messager de Provence," "Les Mystères de Marseille" was issued in parts (16mo) by Mengelle of Marseilles, 1867-1868; and in volume form (with preface) by Charpentier, Paris, 1884. Both "La Lanterne" and "Le Corsaire," of Paris, published the story serially after the Franco-German War. In the latter journal it was called "Un Duel Social," by "Agrippa," under which title it was again issued in parts (12mo) for popular consumption. There is an English translation: "The Mysteries of Marseilles," translated by Edward Vizetelly. London, Hutchinson & Co., 1895 _et seq._

[20] £24 or about $120. Houssaye had previously paid Zola a third of that amount for his study on Manet (see _ante_, p. 101), and the money had reached the young author just in time to enable him to save his furniture from being seized and sold by a creditor.

[21] "Thérèse Raquin," Paris, Librairie Internationale: 1st edition, 1867; 2d, 1868; 3d, 1872; 4th and 5th, 1876; 6th, 7th, etc., Charpentier, 1880, 1882, etc. Illustrated editions: Marpon, 8vo, 1883; Charpentier, 32mo, 1884. Popular edition at 60 centimes: Marpon, 16mo, 1887. English translations: (1) anonymous, Vizetelly & Co., _cir._ 1886-1889; (2) by Edward Vizetelly, London, Grant Richards, 1902.

[22] "Le Voltaire," August 10-14, 1880. See also "Documents Littéraires," by É. Zola, Paris, Charpentier (and Fasquelle), 1881 _et seq._

[23] Théâtre Beaumarchais, October 17, 1867.

[24] October 27, 1867.

[25] "Madeleine Férat," Paris, Librairie Internationale, 1st and 2d editions, 1868; 3d, Marpon and Flammarion, 1878; 4th, Charpentier, 1880; new edition, Charpentier, 1892, etc. Popular edition at 60 centimes, Marpon, 1891. English translation: Vizetelly & Co., _cir._ 1888.

V

THE FIRST "ROUGON-MACQUARTS"

1868-1872

The Goncourts, Zola, and his proposed "family history"--Origin of this idea--Degeneration and heredity--Zola's agreement with M. Lacroix--He begins "La Fortune des Rougon"--His intercourse with Meurice, Coppée, etc.--His work on "Le Rappel," "La Tribune," "Le Gaulois"--Sincerity of his democratic views--Goncourt's allegation that he would have sold his pen to the Empire--Some venal French journalists--Zola's marriage and opinion of the married state--His home in the Rue de La Condamine--"Le Siècle" and "La Fortune des Rougon"--"La Curée" begun--Zola takes his ailing wife to Provence--Outbreak of war with Germany--Zola and military service--He conducts a newspaper at Marseilles, becomes Secretary to Glais-Bizoin at Bordeaux, and is offered a Sub-Prefecture--His chances as a state functionary--He reverts to journalism and literature--His work on "La Cloche" and "Le Corsaire"--Publication of "La Fortune des Rougon"--The public prosecutor and "La Curée"--Its issue in book form--Failure of Zola's publisher, Lacroix--The novelist's dire distress--The wool of his mattresses sold to buy bread--He is recommended by Théophile Gautier to M. Charpentier--His "slop" clothes and his new publishing contract--M. Charpentier's generous honesty--How Zola passed from penury to affluence.

It has been mentioned already that when the Goncourts' novel, "Germinie Lacerteux," was published in 1865, some little correspondence took place between Zola and the authors, they being really grateful to him for the favourable review of their work which he had contributed to "Le Salut Public," of Lyons. They told him that he alone had understood the book, that his frankness consoled them for much of the literary hypocrisy of the times, and that they admired his courage in daring to confess his likings.[1] Subsequently, wishing to become personally acquainted with Zola, they called on him, but found him absent. In February, 1868, however, still remembering his article on their book, they wrote to him in praise of "Thérèse Raquin," in which they detected the hand of an artist, one who had probed human truth and crime to the core.[2]

From Alexis's account it has been inferred by several writers that Zola and the Goncourts became intimate in 1865; but the latter's "Journal" shows, peremptorily, that they did not actually meet till December 14, 1868,[3] when Zola lunched with the brothers at their house on the Boulevard Montmorency, at Auteuil. This time the approaches probably came from Zola.[4] The Goncourts were preparing their novel "Madame Gervaisais," and he, with the idea of writing an anticipatory article on it, seems to have applied for information, whereupon he was invited to the Goncourts' house. They had pictured him as somewhat of a _Normalien_, a pedagogue, and they found him sickly, nervous, anxious, deep, intricate, in fact almost a riddle! He told them of the difficulties of his position, admitted that his novel, "Madeleine Férat," ran off the rails and ought to have been limited to three characters; complained of having to conform to idiotic editorial opinions in some articles he was then contributing to "La Tribune," a weekly opposition journal, and expressed a keen desire to find a publisher who, over a term of six years, would pay him a sum of thirty thousand francs for eight novels, in which the history of a family would be recounted.[5] This history, of course, was that of the Rougon-Macquarts, which finally expanded into a series of twenty volumes.

At a later date, on August 27, 1870, while lunching with Edmond de Goncourt,[6]--Jules had died in the previous June--Zola reverted to this subject and expressed his conviction that, after all which had been accomplished by others, such as by Flaubert in "Madame Bovary," after all the analysis of petty shades of feeling, all the minute jewelry work, so to say, which had been done in literature, there was no longer any call for the younger men to imagine and build up any one or two characters, they could only appeal to the public by the power and the breadth of their creations,--briefly, they must work on a large scale. And Zola allowed it to be inferred that it was this view which had prompted his scheme of a family history

But he had not been influenced solely by that consideration. The original germ of his idea lay far back, in that projected poetic trilogy, "Genèse," which was to have recounted the advent, development, and destiny of mankind. That vague scheme, suggested by the pages of Lucretius, had been resuscitated, transformed, modernised, so to say, by the repeated perusal of Balzac's "Comédie Humaine"; and there is little doubt that, from the practical standpoint of personal advantage, Zola was also influenced by the success of many connected series of books. It is a question whether Balzac's novels were widely read at that moment. Cheap, badly printed on the vilest paper, they were to be seen in almost every bookseller's shop, but their covers, soiled and fading, often spoke of long continuance in the dealers' custody, whereas there could be no doubt of the ready sale, the immense vogue, of Erckmann-Chatrian's numerous productions. Those so-called "Romans Nationaux" hung well together, thanks to a variety of connecting links, and in their prodigious circulation Zola constantly had before his eyes an example of the great success which might attend a series of novels leading skilfully one from the other.

But he did not propose to write about the past, even the near past, such as the First Republic and the First Empire, which had supplied Erckmann-Chatrian with their themes; his aim was to describe contemporary manners, those of the then-existing Second Empire. That _régime_ had begun in blood, and had passed through some remarkable phases, which would provide him with suitable backgrounds for several stories. And it followed--purely and simply as a matter of course--that the series he contemplated must be largely a record of social and natural degeneration. The degeneracy of the times was a stock subject, a commonplace of contemporary literature. The playwrights--Ponsard, Augier, Feuillet, Barrière, Sardou, Dumas _fils_, and others, had harped upon it for years. It had figured in numerous novels; it had formed the subject of many volumes of so-called "serious" literature; it had appeared in the pages of Tocqueville, it had found an echo amid even the hopefulness of Prévost-Paradol's "France Nouvelle"; it was a theme repeatedly selected by those newspapers which did not pander to the supporters of the _demi-monde_. No doubt, there has never been a time, since men began to write, when some of them have not pictured the world and the human species as degenerate. The cry, _O! tempora, O! mores_, has re-echoed through all the centuries indiscriminately. But under a _régime_ so base and corrupt as the Second French Empire it was justifiable. There could then be no doubt that degeneracy was indeed attacking the nation.

What Zola himself thought on the subject was indicated by him with vigorous indignation in a newspaper article apropos of the licentious operettas of the time. Protesting against all the clappers who went into ecstasies when a so-called actress emphasised "some obscene expression by her contortions," he exclaimed: "_Ah, misère!_ on the day when the sublime idea occurs to some woman to play the part of a ----, _au naturel_, on the stage, Paris will fall ill with enthusiasm. But what else can you expect? We have grown up amid shame, we are the bastard progeny of an accursed age. As yet we have only reached jerking of the hips, exhibition of the bosom; but the slope is fatal, and we shall roll down it to the very gutter unless we promptly draw ourselves erect and become free men."[7]

But another point has to be considered. At the very outset of Zola's scheme the predisposition towards certain branches of science which he had shown in his youth revived. The question of hereditary influence had already attracted his attention while he was writing "Madeleine Férat," and it assumed larger proportions and greater complexity when he began to think of his projected family history. The members of the family in question (like all others) would be affected not merely by their actual environment but also by psychological conditions coming from their progenitors. Zola felt that he must study the question carefully, and for some months his spare time was spent at the Bibliothèque Impériale (now Nationale) where he read every book he could discover treating of hereditary influence. As he himself subsequently stated, among the works which most impressed him, there was particularly one by a now almost forgotten scientist, Dr. Prosper Lucas,[8] the brother of Charles Lucas, the eminent pioneer in criminology.

At the end of 1868 Zola drew up a scheme of his proposed "family history," even then preparing the original genealogical tree of the Rougon-Macquarts such as he conceived it.[9] He set down also the terms on which he would write the series, which at this date he proposed to limit to twelve volumes. And he carried everything to his publisher, M. Lacroix, who, while regarding the offer favourably, would not bind himself at the outset for more than the first four volumes. An agreement in that sense was signed in the spring of 1869; it being stipulated that Zola was to write two volumes each year and to receive five hundred francs a month from Lacroix, not in actual payment for his work but as an advance. The stories were to be sold in the first instance to newspapers for serial issue, and with the proceeds of those sales the publisher was to be refunded his advances, wholly or in part. On the subsequent publication in book form (each volume being priced at three francs[10]) the author was to receive a royalty of forty centimes (or about thirteen per cent) on every copy sold. But if the publisher's advances had not been fully repaid with the newspaper money he was to reimburse himself out of the book royalties as they accrued.

So far, the arrangement, though somewhat unusual, would not seem to have been unduly intricate, but it was rendered so by the further stipulation that every month, on receiving his advance of five hundred francs, Zola should hand Lacroix a promissory note for that amount, at three months' date, those notes being renewable until each volume was issued, when a proper account was to be drawn up. But with this system confusion set in, particularly as after a long delay in the serial issue of the first volume the War of 1870 supervened, in consequence of which M. Lacroix found himself in serious financial difficulties.

To Zola, at the outset, everything seemed clear sailing. He had ensured himself an annual income of six thousand francs[11] for at least two years, and he had only to set to work. Thus, in May, 1869, he started on his first volume, "La Fortune des Rougon," in which he pictured the origin of the family whose history he proposed to recount, and its first ignoble rise to position with the help of Louis Napoleon's _coup d'état_. The scene of the narrative was laid at Aix, which had so long been Zola's home and which, for his literary purposes, he now called Plassans.[12]

His book was written in a Republican spirit with considerable boldness for those Imperial times. And in this connection, by way both of refuting a suggestion made by Edmond de Goncourt, that Zola, in his penury, would willingly have sold himself to the Empire, had it chosen to buy him, and of showing the young author's participation in the journalism of the period, it is as well that one should momentarily retrace one's steps.

Already in 1867, through M. Albert Lacroix, his publisher, Zola had become acquainted with M. Paul Meurice, an able novelist and playwright, best known, however, by his connection with Victor Hugo. The great man had a horror of proof-correcting, and even in his lifetime much of his writing was passed for the press and, one may add, revised by M. Meurice, to whom, since then, has fallen the task of editing both the poet's correspondence and the _éditions définitives_ of his books. In the last years of the third Napoleon's reign Hugo lived at Brussels, M. Meurice acting in many matters as his Parisian representative.[13] Madame Meurice's drawing-room was thrown open to all the _Hugolâtres_ of the time; and Zola often attended her receptions, accompanied on some occasions by Duranty, on others by Manet. He then met several of the so-called Parnassian poets,[14] who, though their methods were often very different from those of the master, professed great admiration for him. Such were Sully Prudhomme and François Coppée, both of whom Zola first met in Madame Meurice's drawing-room. With M. Coppée, his relations became and remained intimate until the great Dreyfus case, when the so-called "poet of the humble," suffering from a serious chronic disorder, and fearful of losing the services of an expert medical attendant devoted to the priestly cause, resolved to save both soul and body by joining the great crusade against the Jews.

Towards the close of 1868 politics passed before literature in Madame Meurice's _salon_, for the tide of opposition to the Empire was then rising rapidly. In May, that year, Henri Rochefort, thanks to a new press law and the help of Villemessant, had started his famous periodical, "La Lanterne"; and in all directions the liberal newspapers had become more and more outspoken, in spite of the many sentences to fine and imprisonment which were heaped on their managers, writers, and printers. The grant of the right of public meeting added to the general unrest, and when 1869 arrived the excitement of the Parisians became the greater as general elections were appointed to take place in May. "La Lanterne" having been crushed--Rochefort seeking an asylum in Belgium where Hugo gave him hospitality--many suggestions of starting another opposition journal were made in Madame Meurice's _salon_. A certain Barbieux, a victim of the _Coup d'État_, carried the idea to Hugo at Brussels, and no satisfactory title having been as yet suggested, the poet undertook to provide one. The next morning, says Rochefort in his autobiography,[15] he proposed "Le Rappel"--a speaking title for those times, signifying a call to arms, the mustering of all who wished to shake off the rule of Napoleon III.

From the first gossip at Madame Meurice's it had been arranged that Zola should belong to the staff of the proposed journal, the principal contributors to which were Charles and François Hugo, the great man's sons; Louis Blanc the historian; Auguste Vacquerie, perhaps the ablest and most fervent of all the _Hugolâtres;_[16] Paul Meurice, of whom one has already spoken; Rochefort, who reprinted portions of his "Lanternes" in "Le Rappel"; Édouard Lockroy, who subsequently married Charles Hugo's widow, and since those days has been a member of more than one Republican Chamber and Ministry; Laferrière, who under the Republic became President of the Council of State, and later Governor-general of Algeria; and finally Zola.

It has already been shown that the latter was by no means a frantic partisan of Victor Hugo, but he was drawn towards the great man's band by circumstances, by an admiration for the poet, which if tempered by his critical sense was within its limits perfectly sincere, and also by a genuine sympathy with the object which the projected newspaper was to further. In one of his earliest contributions to the press, one dealing with Napoleon III's "Life of Cæsar," he had shown that he in no wise admired the Man of Destiny. Other early writings, even passages of "Les Contes à Ninon," breathed a spirit incompatible with Bonapartist imperialism. Further, life in the Quartier Latin had helped to republicanise Zola, and when he took to journalism for a livelihood, it was to the popular opposition press that he naturally turned. Even if "L'Événement" and "Le Figaro" were originally non-political, their tendencies at any rate were against the Empire. Again, "Le Salut Public," of Lyons, was not a government journal, nor was "Le Gaulois," to which Zola contributed several articles on social subjects, literature, and literary men soon after its establishment by Edmond Tarbé. Then, too, "La Tribune," a weekly journal for which he wrote regularly, was certainly most democratic, if rather eccentric in some of its views.[17]

Nevertheless, a few years after the invasion and revolution, Edmond de Goncourt, lunching one day with Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, did not hesitate to declare that the Empire might have secured Zola's services had it chosen. "He was penniless, he had a mother and a wife to keep. At the outset he had no public opinions. You could have had him on your side like many others, had you chosen. He could only find democratic newspapers to take his copy. Living among all those folk, he became a democrat. It was quite natural." And Goncourt added that the Princess Mathilde had disarmed many hatreds and angers by her friendship, graciousness, and attentions, winning over such men as himself, his brother, and Flaubert to the Empire which, otherwise, they also would have attacked.[18]

Those allegations, so far as they concern Zola, cannot be left unanswered. The Goncourts' "Journal" shows that the brothers, with all their gifts, were not men of the highest principles; and it is evident that they often judged others by their own standard. As a matter of fact there is no shred of evidence that Zola would ever have sold himself to the Empire. At the time of that _régime_, as subsequently, his chief interest lay in literature and art, politics came afterwards; but so far as he concerned himself in them his opinions were essentially democratic. In all respects Edmond de Goncourt's assertions were erroneous. If Zola had cared to sell his pen for political purposes he might have done so with the greatest ease. In 1868-1869, when he first began to give real attention to politics, the authorities were only too anxious to secure clever men who might reply to Rochefort and all the other opposition writers. Large sums were spent in bribing journalists. Villemessant was paid ten thousand pounds to shake off Rochefort and support the authorities; Émile de Girardin was bought with the promise of a senatorship; Clément Duvernois was secured by being placed at the head of a new journal, "Le Peuple Français," on which the Privy-purse, in little more than one year, expended over fifty-six thousand pounds.[19] More money was spent on other journals, new ones like "L'Étendard," for which Auguste Vitu (one of the original characters of Murger's "Vie de Bohème") was engaged; "Le Public," whose editor, Ernest Dréolle, was financed; and "L'Époque," whose nominal proprietor was Dusautoy, the Emperor's tailor. For these and other newspapers contributors were required, and a good many clever but needy men of lax principles presented themselves. The less brazen among them found their excuse in the pretended transformation of the _régime_; they would never have served the "personal Empire"--of course not!--but the "liberal Empire" commanded their sympathies.

It follows that Edmond de Goncourt's estimate of Zola's democratic tendencies was arrant nonsense. Paris had been the young writer's home for several years now; he knew what to think of the Empire, and was against, not with, it. However, he placed literature before politics, particularly as all he saw of the political _cuisine_ of the times inclined him to regard many professional politicians with contempt. And his Republicanism was not so intense as to restrict him exclusively to Republican society. He admired the Goncourts and Flaubert--to whom the former introduced him in 1869--as literary masters, and associated with them freely. Again, he saw no reason why he should not contribute stories to "L'Artiste" and "L'Illustration," even if their editors did not think politically as he did. With respect to "Le Rappel," though his contributions were at times political they more frequently dealt with literary subjects; and the independence of his character was illustrated by the boldness with which he praised Balzac in a journal patronised and in some degree financed by Victor Hugo, who held that Balzac was fated to early and absolute oblivion, because he could not even write French. The result of Zola's championship of Balzac in "Le Rappel" was the severance of his connection with that journal. This, however, did not take place till the last months of the Empire, when much of the paper's purpose was already accomplished.

In the summer of 1869, after signing his contract with Lacroix for the first Rougon-Macquart volumes, Zola felt that he might at last venture to marry, and in July Mademoiselle Mesley, to whom reference has been made already,[20] became his wife. As he afterwards explained, apart from the question of love, he held "the married state to be an indispensable condition for the accomplishment of all good and substantial work. The theory which pictured woman as a destructive creature, one who killed an artist, pounded his heart, and fed upon his brain--was a romantic idea which facts controverted. For his own part, he needed an affection that would guarantee him tranquillity, a loving home, where he might shut himself up, so as to devote his life to the great series of books which he dreamt of. Everything, said he, depended upon a man's choice, and he believed he had found what he needed,--an orphan, the daughter of tradespeople, without a penny, but handsome and intelligent."[21]

At this time, after removing from the corner of the Avenue de Clichy and the Rue Moncey to 23, Rue Truffaut, Zola had secured a little house or "pavilion" in the Rue de La Condamine,--likewise at Batignolles,--a house reached by crossing the courtyards of a larger building divided into flats and facing the street. By opening an iron gate one gained admittance to a small garden with a tiny lawn, over which a large plum-tree cast its shade, while directly in front of the pavilion was an arbour of Virginia creeper. Three rooms on the ground floor, and three on the first, "all like little drawers with partitions as flimsy as paper," such was the accommodation which the house offered, and the dining-room was so small that when a little later Zola purchased a piano, the necessary space for it could only be obtained by transforming a kind of china cupboard into an alcove.[22] The inmates of this band-box were four in number: Zola, his young wife, his aged mother, now in very indifferent health, and his dog, a cross between a sheep-dog and a Newfoundland,--in a word the faithful Mathieu, of whose last years and death the novelist afterwards wrote so pathetically in "La Joie de Vivre." A servant-woman, who slept out, attended to the harder and dirtier housework; Madame Zola the younger took charge of most of the cooking, and it was amid these conditions, in this little pavilion behind No. 14, Rue de La Condamine, that the young author, who had but lately completed his twenty-ninth year, resolutely set to work upon one of the greatest literary efforts ever made, one which not only embraced a most painstaking study of a period and its people, but imported into fiction, for the first time in its history, virtually every application of the scientific theory of atavism.

Thus Zola gave effect to his old desire to try to reconcile science and poetry--which he had only recently enunciated once more in an article in "La Tribune." And in the prosecution of this self-chosen task over a long term of years, amid many difficulties, the greatest ridicule, the most impudent misrepresentation, the most savage abuse that every white-livered critic could think of, he did not once swerve from the view he expressed in "Le Gaulois" about the time when he was signing his contract with Lacroix: "If I kept a school of morals I would hasten to place 'Madame Bovary' or 'Germinie Lacerteux' in my pupils' hands, convinced as I am that only truth can instruct and fortify generous souls."[23]

That view remained Zola's till his last hour.

Early in the summer of 1869 he handed the opening chapters of his first volume, "La Fortune des Rougon," to the acting-editor of "Le Siècle," with which journal he had negotiated its serial issue. "Le Siècle" then held in Paris a position similar to that of "The Morning Advertiser" in London. That is to say, it was largely the organ of the licensed victuallers, without, however, belonging to them. Even as in England, there is sometimes said to be a Beer and Bible alliance between the brewers and the clergy, so "Le Siècle" represented a kind of Wine and Democracy compact. It was found in every Parisian wine shop, and during the earlier years of the Empire it had been the only journal of democratic tendencies which the authorities tolerated. Léonor Havin, who became an Opposition deputy in the Corps Législatif, conducted the paper with great ability for several years, but he was dead when Zola negotiated the publication of his novel, and "Le Siècle" had fallen into the hands of that journalistic abomination, an "editorial board." Zola had a friend at court in the person of M. Castagnary, who many years previously had done for Courbet what Zola, comparatively recently, had done for Manet. But Castagnary, while exercising considerable influence, helping to impart a more resolute Republican tone to the paper, was not all powerful in the board room; and not only had Zola already made a good many enemies in his own profession, but a recollection of the opposition which his earlier novels had encountered from the readers of other newspapers, so influenced "Le Siècle's" editorial committee that it again and again postponed the publication of "La Fortune des Rougon."