Chapter XXI: M. Anatole France speaking at Zola's Funeral (7)

Zola's enemies naturally imputed the writing of "Nana" to his partiality for vice and scandal, but those who are acquainted with "L'Assommoir" will recognise that, in such a series as "Les Rougon-Macquart," a study of the courtesan was the necessary corollary of the study on drink and the general degradation of the working class. It is from such homes as those of Coupeau and Gervaise that spring nine-tenths of the unhappy creatures so grimly denominated _filles de joie_. Nana's childhood and youth had already been recounted in "L'Assommoir," and it was certain that Zola would not leave her there. How could he picture the degenerescence of a period if he omitted the harlot, who had played--people hardly seem to recognise it nowadays--such a prominent, such a commanding part, during the years when Napoleon III.--dallying himself with La Castiglione, La Bellanger, and a dozen others, while his cousin Prince Napoleon Jérôme kept the notorious Cora Pearl--had transformed the proud city of Paris into the brothel of Europe? Again, scores of Zola's contemporaries, writers of various degrees, by trying to poetise the courtesan, had increased her influence a hundred-fold, and the time had come to check her encroachments by exhibiting her in her true colours, with all her vulgarity, her greed, her degradation, her shamelessness and heartlessness.

In September, 1879, when Zola had written about half of "Nana," he arranged with M. Laffitte, editor of "Le Voltaire," which was then publishing his articles on "scientific fiction," to produce the story in that newspaper, and M. Laffitte at once advertised it in a fashion worthy of Barnum himself. Huge posters appeared on all the walls of Paris, "displayed" announcements invaded the newspapers, sandwich men patrolled the streets, ticket-advertisements were even affixed to the gutta-percha tubes of the pipe-lights in the tobacconists' shops; and, indeed, upon every side one found the imperious injunction: _Read Nana! Nana!! Nana!!_[19] All this greatly vexed Zola, who had shut himself up at Médan to finish the book, and who did not at all desire to be advertised in such an extravagant fashion. To make matters worse, the serial issue had scarcely commenced (October 16, 1879) when several newspapers began to discuss the story, all the quidnuncs demonstrating by A _plus_ B that the opening chapter was not at all such as it ought to be, and that the work was bound to prove a failure. Then, too, letters full of suggestions or criticism or denunciation rained upon Zola at Médan, putting his nerves to the severest test. Nevertheless, he worked on steadily, taking the greatest care over even the most trifling details, employing a friend to obtain precise information on such matters as phaetons and tandems, the decorations of Mabille, the aspect of the rooms on the top-floor of the Grand Hotel, the view from them, and the facial mask of a woman dying (as Nana died) from small-pox.[20]

As the publication proceeded in "Le Voltaire" the complaints became more numerous. A good many people professed to be shocked, Gambetta presently complained to the editor that the story was "too strong"; and the editor requested Zola's permission to curtail or omit certain passages. This was accorded, the latter half of the work appearing in "Le Voltaire" in a bowdlerized form. On January 2, 1880, Zola started on the fourteenth and last chapter, and on January 7 he completed it. "Let me tell you a great piece of news," he wrote to a friend that day, "I finished 'Nana' this morning.... What relief! Never did any previous work of mine upset me as this has done. At present let it be worth what it may, it has ceased to exist for me. I write to you in the joy of deliverance. My last chapter seems to me to be the most weird and successful thing I have ever written."[21]

A few weeks later, that is on February 15, "Nana" appeared in book form, the passages omitted from "Le Voltaire" being reinstated in the text. Large orders having been received from various parts of the world, M. Charpentier had ordered fifty-five thousand copies to be printed, but on the very day of publication he found it necessary to order ten thousand more.[22] In the case of "Nana," as in that of "L'Assommoir," the public gave no heed to the critics, who, of course, raised their customary protests. In certain matters of detail their objections were well founded. Zola had made a few mistakes in dealing with some of the _minutiæ_ of theatrical and turf life, and, as Madame Edmond Adam remarked in the "Nouvelle Revue"--and as the author himself subsequently admitted--Nana was shown accomplishing in few years what, in actual life, would have taken a woman much longer to accomplish. That, however, was forced upon Zola by the scheme of his series, the incidents recorded in which had to occur between the years 1852 and 1870.[23] When all is said, taking "Nana" in its _ensemble_, it was certainly the most truthful picture ever traced of the so-called Parisian world of pleasure in Imperial times. Of course the book was denounced as immoral. The Parisian smart set shrieked loudly, many a Boulevardian journalist, whose looseness of life was notorious, perorated in club and café respecting the amazing depravity of that man Zola, and in addition to abusive newspaper articles, there again came scurrilous pamphlets and parodies after the fashion of those which had followed "L'Assommoir."

Zola did not reply immediately; but in 1881, when "Nana" had been dramatised, he contributed a few articles to "Le Figaro" on the subject, besides penning a longer paper on "Immorality in Literature," in which he contended that writers of the Idealist school made vice all roses and rapture, whereas the Naturalists made it repulsive. And he was absolutely convinced, he said, that far more heads had been turned, more young men and girls and women led into dangerous courses, by the works of George Sand, Octave Feuillet, Barbey d'Aurévilly, and even Sir Walter Scott, than by the writings of Flaubert, Balzac, Goncourt, and their followers. As for "Nana," said he, it had given offence because it was a true picture, and therefore spoilt the pleasure of the _viveurs_ of Paris, who wished to see everything _couleur de rose_ beneath a cloud of _poudre-de-riz_.[24]

In 1880, after the publication of "Nana," Zola wrote several short stories. He had published one, "Naïs Micoulin," in a paper called "La Réforme," towards the close of the previous year; and he now gave "La Fête à Coqueville," "L'Inondation," and "Nantas," to "Le Voltaire," to which journal he also contributed some papers on Théophile Gautier, Ste.-Beuve, and others. But a better known publication in which he was interested appeared during the spring. This was the collection of stories called "Les Soirées de Médan,"[25] to which Zola contributed his well-known tale, "L'Attaque du Moulin," which he had previously published in Russia, and which subsequently provided his friend M. Alfred Bruneau with the subject for an opera. Nowadays in its form as a story "L'Attaque du Moulin" has become a reading book in many French and English schools.

As mentioned in a previous chapter, five younger writers, Alexis, Huysmans, Maupassant, Céard, and Hennique, had gathered round Zola, whose literary views they largely shared.[26] Each of them contributed to the so-called "Soirées de Médan," the preface of which stated: "The following stories have been published previously, some in France, others abroad. It has seemed to us that they have sprung from one and the same idea, that their philosophy is identical. We therefore unite them. We are prepared for all the attacks, the bad faith, and the ignorance of which current criticism has already given us so many examples. Our only concern has been to affirm publicly what are really our friendships and our literary tendencies."

At that time, of the six writers responsible for that preface, only Zola had acquired a position; and such a solemn manifesto seemed therefore somewhat presumptuous, the more particularly as, apart from Zola's tale, the only other of real merit in the book was Guy de Maupassant's. For him, so far as the book-reading public was concerned, "Les Soirées de Médan" proved virtually a _début_, whose promise his subsequent writings confirmed. "Boule de Suif," as he called his contribution to the volume, was the tale of a woman, who is shown sacrificing herself, during the Franco-German War, for the convenience and safety of others. They entreat her in that sense, and yet as soon as they are free they spurn her and abandon her to her shame. This woman, like the other people figuring in the story, actually lived,[27] and indeed it would be difficult to find half a dozen really imaginary characters in all Guy de Maupassant's tales. He carried the passion for personalities even farther than Alphonse Daudet did, and there exists, it is said, a set of his writings, on the margins of which he himself wrote the real names of almost every person and locality he ever described. One may conclude that he was perhaps a more genuine Naturalist than Zola, his work being invariably based on "human documents," the fruit of personal observation and experience. This occasionally tended to make his art unduly photographic; but, at the same time, as is well known, his literary style was excellent, and from that standpoint some of his tales are undoubtedly masterpieces of their kind.

Unfortunately there was insanity in Guy de Maupassant's family, which was old, of good nobility, but limited means. His father, who had been a painter and had played a prominent part in founding a famous Paris art club, had died in a lunatic asylum. The same fate befell his brother; and, according to some accounts, there was insanity on his mother's side also. In any case, from birth onward a dreadful threat hung over Guy de Maupassant, and the life he led from the time he became his own master was not calculated to ward off the danger. He was a man of the strongest passions, a _beau male_, as the French say; and women began the work which absinthe, opium, and morphia completed. At last, still young in years, at the height of his celebrity, he attempted his life, and was only saved from immediate death to languish awhile in an asylum. One cannot think of him, as of some others, without feeling the force of the contention that very little may at times separate genius from insanity.

Immediately "Les Soirées de Médan" appeared, its contributors were chaffed by the newspapers for attributing undue importance to themselves; and Zola was said to be bringing up these young men in leading-strings for the express advancement of his literary theories. A rather acrimonious controversy ensued, Zola repeatedly declaring that he was not, and did not wish to be, a _chef d'école_, and that those with whom he was associated were his friends and not his disciples. But the discussion suddenly ceased, for the literary world of Paris was startled by the unexpected news of Gustave Flaubert's death at Croisset, near Rouen.

During the previous Easter (March, 1880) the veteran author had received Daudet, Zola, Charpentier, Maupassant, and Goncourt at his country place, and Goncourt has related in his "Journal" how thoroughly they enjoyed Flaubert's paternal hospitality, and how on Easter Monday they lingered in Rouen, ferreting among old curiosity shops, playing billiards, and planning a _diner fin_ at the principal hotel. When, however, they wished to give their order, consternation fell on them: it was a holiday, all the provision shops were closed, the hotel larder was virtually empty, and the _diner fin_ resolved itself into veal cutlets and cheese. That amusing experience was still in Zola's mind when, on May 8, he received at Médan this laconic telegram from Maupassant: "Flaubert dead." Dead--and they had left him so gay and so full of life and health! Zola was profoundly attached to Flaubert, and the tidings quite unmanned him. On May 11 he started for Le Croisset and attended the funeral, of which he has left a deeply interesting account, instinct with all the grief of one who has lost a near and dear friend. In these later years various English versions of some of Flaubert's books have been published, but, so far as the present writer is aware, no editor or publisher has thought of utilising Zola's account of Flaubert as an introduction to a translation. Yet that account is perhaps Zola's best work as an essayist,--full of interest, and much of it admirable in tone and style. One may say, too, that anybody wishing to form an accurate opinion of Gustave Flaubert, both as a writer and as a man, cannot do better than read the hundred pages which Zola devoted to him in his "Romanciers Naturalistes."

But another blow fell on Zola in 1880. In October his mother, long ailing and crippled, passed away at Médan. Various painful circumstances attended the death and the funeral; and Goncourt, writing at the end of the year, pictures Zola as having become a perfect hypochondriac in consequence of this loss. He complained of all sorts of ailments, kidney disease and palpitations of the heart, talked of his own death as being near at hand, and feared that he would not have time to finish anything. Briefly, "he was filling the world with his name, his books were selling by the hundred thousand, no other author, perhaps, had ever created such a stir, and yet he felt profoundly miserable."[28]

About the time when his mother died his articles on "scientific fiction," previously issued, some in "Le Voltaire" and others in the "Viestnik Yevropi," were republished in a volume.[29] One of them had greatly offended Laffitte, the editor of "Le Voltaire," who being mixed up in sundry transactions with some of Gambetta's satellites, resented Zola's caustic allusions to them. Nor was an article on some scandal occasioned by the erotic publications of the "Gil Blas" to his liking. He ended by accusing his contributor of defending obscenity and of treating public men with disrespect. A rupture followed. Zola castigated Laffitte in a foot-note to one of the incriminated articles when he reissued them in a book, and turned to "Le Figaro," which gave him all liberty to defend his ideas. He then began a series of articles, republished in a volume the following year under the title of "Une Campagne."[30] They dealt with a great variety of subjects, political, literary, and social, and show how wide was the interest which Zola took in the affairs of his time. One of them on Victor Hugo and his poem "L'Ane" caused a sensation, for most people deemed it positive sacrilege to attack the greatest literary glory of the age. The uproar was even heard across the channel, and Mr. Swinburne, who admired "L'Ane," and held Zola to be mere "stench," manifested particular indignation. But a quarter of a century has elapsed since then, and it is a question whether many people would be inclined nowadays to regard "L'Ane" as a great poem. In a sense, Zola's attack was unkind, but it was essentially one on fetish worship, on the habit of lavishing indiscriminate praise on everything, good, bad, or indifferent, that might come from the pen of a writer of eminence. Let us remember that there has never yet been a poet of whom one might say his every line is a masterpiece. Homer nodded, so did Hugo, and so has even Mr. Swinburne himself.

Some of Zola's articles in "Le Figaro" dealt with his own work; others with that of his friends Goncourt, Huysmans, Maupassant, and Daudet; but several were political--attacks on Gambetta and so forth, written in the same spirit which had prompted the article on Hugo. Gambetta, as will be remembered, had now (1880-1881) reached the crisis of his life. The Tunisian debt scandal, the frauds of the Union Générale,--a Catholic bank established with the papal blessing for the purpose of wresting financial power from the Jews,--were associated by some folk with his "great ministry." Besides, his proposals for changing the electoral system, his patronage of reactionary generals, able men, it must be admitted, divided the Republican party. He was accused, too, of acting as a drag, of checking the progress of the democracy, of sacrificing principles to personal interest. He had certainly become somewhat sluggish so far as measures were concerned, and, as Zola put it, he seemingly imagined that orations sufficed for everything. "It was not his actions which gave him his position, but his phrases," Zola wrote. "He has always defeated his adversaries by phrases. He has acquired authority by phrases. If there be any question of taking a forward step he makes a speech. If there be a question of warding off a danger he makes a speech. If there be a question of making his authority felt he again makes a speech. He speechifies without a break, and all over the country."[31]

Later, after Gambetta had come into conflict with his constituents, and the elections of 1881 had shown that the so-called Opportunist cause was seriously compromised, Zola returned to the attack, and one may the more appropriately quote a passage from his article called "Drunken Slaves," as it shows how deftly he profited by an opportunity to defend his literary cause while dealing with a political subject. Before giving that passage, however, it is as well to explain that Gambetta, having encountered a hostile reception at an electoral meeting at Charonne, had completely lost his head. Threatening his adversaries (all working-men) with his walking stick he shouted to them furiously: "Silence, you squallers! silence, you brawlers!... You pack of drunken slaves, I will track you to your lairs!" And as if this were not sufficient, his newspaper, "La République Française," added in its next issue such choice epithets as: "Cowards, incapables, prostitutes' bullies, jail-birds, and pot-house loafers." All who might not vote for the great man having been thus stigmatised in advance, it might be assumed when Gambetta, in lieu of his usual great majority, polled only 9,404 votes against 8,799, that about half the electorate was given over to drink, crime, and depravity. Taking this as his text Zola wrote as follows:

"The figures on either side are nearly equal, so it is
established that at Belleville and Charonne one of every two
citizens is never sober.... Yes, one half of the masses is
composed of brawlers, drunkards, and cowards. M. Gambetta
said to them: 'We will see which side is the most numerous';
and they have seen. Of 20,000 citizens 10,000 are drunken
slaves ... 10,000 drunken slaves! The figures make me
thoughtful. I remember a novelist who wrote a novel called
'L'Assommoir.' It was a conscientious study of the ravages
caused by drink among the working classes of Paris. It was
instinct with pity and affection, it solicited mercy for
womanhood and for childhood, it showed labour vanquished
by sloth and alcohol, it begged for air and light and
instruction for the unhappy poor, more social comfort, and
less political agitation. Now do you know in what fashion
M. Gambetta's friends and newspapers greeted that book?
They denounced it as an evil action, a crime. They dragged
its author through the mire.... Pamphlets did not suffice
them, they even delivered lectures, and declared publicly
that the author had insulted the people of Paris. They would
have hanged him had they been able, in the hope that by
so doing they might secure a hundred additional votes at
the next elections. Yes, it was so. M. Gambetta's friends
and newspapers were then all tenderness for the people.
M. Gambetta had invariably secured a large majority at
Belleville, and it was consequently impossible that there
could be a single tippler among those who dwelt on the sacred
mount of the democracy ... What! a paltry novelist dared
to insinuate that there were dram-shops in the _faubourgs!_
The man lied, he insulted M. Gambetta's electors, he could
only be a scoundrel. To the cess-pool with him, sweep him
away! And all the hounds who were waiting for their master
to toss them a bone, all the curs who lived on the crumbs
from his table, executed his orders, and sprang, snarling,
after the unlucky writer.... Ah! I laugh. There suddenly
comes a change.... The masses, whose evolution never ceases,
grow tired of M. Gambetta, accuse him of acting contrary
to his programme, of seeking personal enjoyment, of waxing
fat in the seat of power and keeping none of his most
express promises.... And on the day when they hoot him,
he is maddened by rage, he forgets that the Rancs and the
Floquets have vouched for the temperance of Belleville, and
he furiously calls the electors drunken slaves! All brawlers,
and all sots!

"Now the author of 'L'Assommoir' had not insulted them.
He had never called them squallers or cowards, nor, in
particular, had he threatened to track them to their
lairs.... He was less severe: he pitied them.... Leave
the literary men in peace then, you political gentlemen,
you majestic humbugs, who prate with your tongues in your
cheeks, and yet wish to be respected! You can see now how
shameful it was to heap insults upon a peaceable writer whose
one concern was truth, to hunt him down as if he had been
a common malefactor, and this solely by way of electoral
advertisement; for directly an obstacle is offered to your
own ambition, you rush upon the masses to suppress them,
whereas the novelist only spoke of curing them.... And you,
good people, go and vote for all those humbugs who, so long
as you work for their benefit, promise to give you jam! You
are great, you are noble, and if a passer-by ventures to
advise you to work, those humbugs declare it to be sacrilege,
and hasten to immolate him before you, to prove to you that
you are indeed perfect. But on the day when you refuse to be
duped any longer, when you claim the jam they have so often
promised, they turn round on you and insult you, call you
drunken slaves, and threaten to have you shot down in your
lairs! With a fine show of indignation they formerly denied
that My-Boots existed; but, all at once, if they are to be
credited, it is actually My-Boots who reigns as King over a
Belleville of brawlers and toss-pots."[32]

The foregoing extracts will give some idea of the passionate vigour which Zola occasionally displayed in controversy. To some readers it may seem beside the mark to dwell at length upon a series of newspaper articles like "Une Campagne," but it is in such writings, more than in the majority of his novels, that one finds the real Zola with his superb confidence in himself, his disregard for conventionalities, and his glowing passion for truth and rectitude. His pen was certainly not always so virulent as in the passages one has quoted, but it was almost invariably incisive, and when treating sociological subjects it showed that, however impersonal his novels might be, his heart really bled at the thought of the degradation he described in them. Looking back, it seems extraordinary that for so many years his critics, and particularly foreign ones, and among them notably those of England and America, should have persisted in the ridiculous assertion that if he pictured filth, it was solely in order to pander to readers of gross instincts. His articles, his declarations, his explanations, were all before the world, and easily accessible; but through carelessness, or laziness, or ignorance, the great majority of English and American critics never turned to them, and the legend of the filthy Zola, whose favourite habitat was the muck heap or the cess-pool, spread upon all sides.

The humanitarian purpose, the reforming instinct that is to be found in Zola, appears clearly in some of the articles contained in "Une Campagne." The meaning of "L'Assommoir" is indicated in the passages that have been quoted here, and light is thrown on some of his subsequent works, such as "Nana" and "Pot-Bouille," by the papers entitled: "The Harlot on the Stage," "How the Girls grow up," "Adultery in the Middle Classes," "Virtuous Women," and "Divorce and Literature." Some of those articles were written apropos of the performance of "Nana," which was dramatised by M. Busnach in conjunction with Zola (whose name, however, did not appear on the bills) and produced at the Ambigu on January 29, 1881. Zola tells us there had been no little trouble with the theatrical censors, who, when the play was submitted to them in manuscript, deleted the word "night" wherever it appeared, and wished to strike out in its entirety the chief scene between Nana and Count Muffat--a scene of temptation such as had been given in a score of earlier plays. What particularly alarmed the censors, according to Zola, was Nana's consent, the "yes" with which the scene ended; they wished to substitute some such answer as, "Well, we will see," which would have been ridiculous.

Edmond de Goncourt says that the audience at the first performance was on the whole favourably inclined; but Zola points out that it was composed of two distinct elements, on one hand the literary men, friendly or inimical, who came to judge the play, and on the other the faded harlots of Paris, the white-gloved bullies, the men of pleasure and finance who had sunk to the streets, in fact all the characters that figured in the play itself, multiplied fifty times over. And these looked and listened with pale faces, sneering at the representation of their own depravity. However, there was considerable applause when the play ended; and Zola and Busnach received the congratulations of their friends in the manager's private room, where Madame Zola, suddenly turning towards her husband, scolded him for having failed to order any supper to celebrate the happy event. "My dear," Zola answered, remembering, no doubt, the supper intended to celebrate the success of "Le Bouton de Rose," which had become a fiasco, "I'm superstitious, you know, and I'm convinced that if I had ordered a supper the piece would have failed."[33]

It was attacked by the critics on the morrow, some complaining that they had been imposed upon, that they had been led to expect a masterpiece of revolutionary audacity, and that only a repugnant play, base and crapulous in its fidelity to life, had been offered them. Others, of course, protested against the exhibition of the harlot on the stage; and to them Zola responded that he was by no means the first to set her there. He recalled Victor Hugo, with "Marion Delorme" and "La Esmeralda"; Dumas _fils_, with "La Dame aux Camélias"; Barrière and Thiboust with "Les Filles de Marbre," and Émile Augier with "Le Mariage d'Olympe." They and their imitators had lied, however; they had pictured harlots such as had never existed since the world was world, and his sin was that he had done his best to portray such a creature as she really was. "Besides," he added, "it seems to me cowardice to shun certain problems under the pretext that they disturb one. That is turning egotism and hypocrisy into a system. Let be, people say, let us cover up vice and celebrate virtue even when it is not to be found.... I have a different idea of morality. It is not served by rhetorical declamation but by an accurate knowledge of facts. And therein lies that Naturalism which provokes so much laughter, and at which so much mud is foolishly thrown."

The actress who played the _rôle_ of Nana was Léontine Massin. Fair, with a coaxing glance, a sensual mouth and nose, and a superb figure, she quite looked the part, in spite of her forty years; and, truth to tell, she had in some measure lived it. She had also long been known to the stage in minor _rôles_; and now, yielding to her natural instincts, she sprang to the front, impersonating Nana with a power and a truth which stirred one deeply. All Paris flocked to see her. But she was not content with acting. She became Nana in reality, and her chosen victim was the manager of the Ambigu, Henri Chabrillat, a bright, talented, gallant man, who had shown his bravery in the Franco-German War, and his literary skill in half a dozen novels. Unhappily he was carried away by a mad infatuation for the temptress; as fast as money poured into his coffers he squandered it upon her; embarrassment followed, and when the end came he put a pistol to his head. Never, perhaps, has the truth of a play, and the disregard of the passions for the most obvious lessons, been exemplified more terribly. Amid the uproar which ensued La Massin vanished, Paris for a week remained lost in amazement, and then, as always happens, the tragedy was forgotten.

In that same year, 1881, Zola republished in book form most of the biographical and literary papers which he had written of recent years. "Le Roman Expérimental" had led the way in 1880, and now there came four more volumes: first "Les Romanciers Naturalistes,"[34] a series of papers on Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Daudet, and the Goncourts, to which was added the much discussed review of contemporary novelists; secondly, "Documents Littéraires: Études et Portraits,"[35] in which will be found papers on Chateaubriand, Hugo, Musset, Gautier, George Sand, Dumas _fils_, Ste.-Beuve, contemporary poets such as Leconte de Lisle, Baudelaire, Banville, Catulle Mendès, Dierx, Anatole France, Mallarmé, Hérédia, Coppée, Bouchor, Richepin, and Sully-Prudhomme; and critics such as Taine, Pontmartin, Levallois, Babou, Barbey d'Aurévilly, and Sarcey, with some curious notes on Buloz, the founder of the famous "Revue des Deux-Mondes." Next there came "Le Naturalisme au Théâtre," divided into two sections, theory and example; the former including papers on the special gift alleged to be necessary in all writers for the stage, on acting, costumes, scenery, government subventions, etc.; and the latter running through the whole scale of the playwright's art, tragedy, drama, comedy, vaudeville and pantomime, with selections from the many articles which Zola had written as a dramatic critic between 1876 and 1880. Finally there was a fourth volume entitled, "Nos Auteurs Dramatiques," in which plays by Hugo, Augier, Dumas _fils_, Sardou, Labiche, Halévy, Gondinet, Pailleron, D'Ennery, Barrière, Feuillet, and others, were analysed and discussed.[36]

To some of the theories set forth in those four volumes it may be necessary to refer when we survey Zola's work generally. The books have been mentioned here because they were issued at the period we have now reached, and because it is advisable that the reader should realise how energetic, how zealous Zola always was, how great was his versatility, and how strenuous his life. This man who subsequently preached the gospel of work had practised it unremittingly since the day he emerged from Bohemia. Fortune might frown or success might come, he did not alter in his industrious habits. In spite of every rebuff, every attack, he continued striving undauntedly, even as his father had striven before him. He was a living example of the axiom that life is a battle. He fought for his ideas, his principles, without a pause, until his last hour.

[1] £360 = about $1,800.

[2] "Une Page d'Amour," Paris, Charpentier, 1878, 18mo, vii-486 pages (genealogical tree of the Rougon-Macquarts); seventy-fifth thousand on sale in 1893 when the series was completed; ninety-seventh thousand in 1903. Illustrated edition: Paris, Librairie du Bibliophile (Jouaust), 1884, 2 vols., crown 8vo, iv-261 and 287 pages; portrait and ten designs by Ed. Dantan, etched by Duvivier, ornaments by Giacomelli. Impressions on various papers, Dutch, India, Japanese, etc. Another illustrated edition, Paris, 1894, with etchings and woodcuts designed by F. Thévenot.

[3] "Le Sublime, ou le Travailleur comme il est et ce qu'il peut être," Paris, Charpentier, 1865.

[4] "Le Figaro," Supplément Littéraire, December 22, 1878.

[5] It was as the Paris correspondent of various English newspapers that the writer became acquainted with a good many French literary men. A reference to the Paris letters in the first volumes of the "Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News" will show that the writer at one time dealt largely with the French stage. In that connection he was fortunate enough to secure the favour of Dumas _fils_ to whom he was indebted for many little kindnesses.

[6] Zola to Vizetelly, November, 1898.

[7] "La République Française et la Littérature," 8vo, Paris, Charpentier, 1879. The text of this pamphlet was added by Zola to the collection of papers entitled "Le Roman Expérimental," which he issued in 1880.

[8] Alexis, _l. c._, p. 190 _et seq._; Adolphe Brisson in "Le Temps," October 3, 1902.

[9] "Les Romanciers Naturalistes," p. 204.

[10] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol. VI (January 21, 1879).

[11] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol. VI (January 21, 1878).

[12] See Sala's "Paris herself Again," London, Vizetelly & Co., 1879 _et seq._

[13] It will be remembered that Charles Reade prepared an English version entitled "Drink."

[14] "My Impressions of Zola," by George Moore, in "The English Illustrated Magazine," February, 1894.

[15] "L'Œuvre," p. 435.

[16] "English Illustrated Magazine," _l. c._

[17] So stated by M. Yves Guyot in conversation with the writer and others in the autumn of 1902. It ought to have been mentioned that it was M. Guyot who engaged Zola as dramatic critic of "Le Bien Public." See _ante_, p. 156.

[18] This woman had an extraordinary career. She was of German origin, her real name being Theresa Lachmann, but she was born in Russia, and first married a French tailor of Moscow, named Villoing. After eloping with Herz, the well-known pianist, she entered the Parisian _demi-monde_ under the auspices of the notorious Esther Guimond. Finding herself in difficulties she proceeded to London, fascinated and half-ruined a member of an English ducal house, returned to Paris, ruined several French nobles there, and ultimately married Viscount Armijo de Païva of the Portuguese Legation, whom she also ruined and who committed suicide. Though her beauty, which had been great, was then fading, she captivated Count Henckel von Donnersmarck, a connection of the Bismarck family, and he ended by marrying her. She lived in a magnificent mansion in the Champs Élysées adorned by Baudry, Cabanel, Gérôme, and Clésinger; and Girardin, Gautier, About, Ponsard, Angier, Houssaye, and Goncourt were familiars of her drawing-room. She died in 1884 on her husband's estate in Silesia.

[19] Alexis, _l. c._, p. 118.

[20] Mr. R. H. Sherard in his "Émile Zola: a Biographical and Critical Study," London, 1903, prints several of Zola's letters on the above subjects. The following may be given as a specimen: "Médan, September 18, 1879: I have received your book on small-pox. That will evidently suffice for my purpose. I will devise a death mask by comparing the various documents. I am very much tempted to make the disease black pox which, in point of horror, is the strangest. Only I admit that if without taking too much trouble you could manage to see the corpse of a person who had died of that complaint--I say, that is a nice little task!--you would oblige me greatly. In that case mind you supply full details about the state of the eyes, nose and mouth, giving me a precise geographical chart, from which, of course, I should only take what I may need." This suggestion was not acted upon. In describing Nana's death Zola eventually had to rely on the statements he found in medical works.

[21] Sherard, _l. c._, p. 171.

[22] "Nana," Paris, Charpentier, 1880, 18mo, 528 pages; one hundred and sixty-sixth thousand on sale in 1893; one hundred and ninety-eighth thousand in 1903; some special copies on Japan, India, and Dutch papers. Illustrated edition: Marpon and Flammarion, n. d. but 1882, large 8vo titles, 456 pages, with sixty-six wood engravings after Bertall, Gill, Bellenger, Clairin, etc. A hundred copies printed on Dutch paper with impressions of the engravings on India paper, and a special frontispiece showing Nana on a sofa. The ordinary copies of the illustrated edition were priced at 6 francs, but were also sold very largely in fifty-seven parts at 10 centimes. From 1882 to the present time (1903) over two hundred thousand copies of the illustrated edition have been sold, bringing the total sales of the work (apart from translations) to nearly half a million copies.

[23] See his explanations on this subject in the preface to E. A. Vizetelly's translation of "Le Docteur Pascal," London, Chatto, 1893 _et seq._

[24] "Documents Littéraires," p. 375 _et seq._

[25] The first edition (Charpentier, 18mo, 301 pages) was accompanied by ten copies on India and fifty on Dutch paper. There was a special edition in 1890, small 8vo, 307 pages, six portraits etched by Fernand Desmoulin, and six illustrations etched by Muller after Jeanniot. Of this edition one copy was printed on Japan paper with three sets of the etchings; one copy on parchment with two sets of the etchings before lettering; and sixteen on Dutch paper with two sets of the etchings, both before and after lettering.

[26] See _ante_, p. 162.

[27] Her real name was Adrienne Legay and she really bore the nickname of "Ball of Tallow." She was of peasant extraction, and was born near Fécamp about 1850. Coming to Rouen, where she became the mistress of a cavalry officer and later of a manufacturer of cotton goods, she at one time kept a small hosiery shop, at another a little café. Finally, after making a precarious living as a fortune-teller, she committed suicide at Rouen in August, 1892. She often declared to the literary men who became acquainted with her that she herself gave Maupassant the idea of his story by telling him an adventure of hers, which, however, had not resulted in the manner he described; and she accused him of having pilloried her in a spirit of revenge for having rejected his suit when he was a penniless hobbledehoy at Rouen.

[28] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol. VI, p. 127.

[29] "Le Roman Expérimental," Paris, Charpentier, 1880, 18mo, vii-416 pages. This volume, in which the whole theory of Naturalistic fiction is expounded, has been reprinted several times with the mention: "Nouvelle Édition."

[30] "Une Campagne," Paris, Charpentier, 1881, 18mo, x-408 pages.

[31] "Une Campagne," Gambetta, p. 105.

[32] "Une Campagne." Abbreviated from the article entitled "Esclaves Ivres," p. 362 _et seq._ Readers of "L'Assommoir" will remember that the bibulous "My-Boots," referred to above, is one of its principal characters.

[33] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol. VI, p. 134.

[34] Charpentier, 18mo, 338 pages. Ten copies on Dutch paper. The contents first appeared partly in the "Viestnik Yevropi," partly in "Le Voltaire."

[35] Charpentier, 18mo, 427 pages. Ten copies on Dutch paper. The contents of this volume also appeared originally in the "Viestnik Yevropi."

[36] Both volumes mentioned above were issued by Charpentier uniform with the previous one. Dumas _fils_, whom Zola criticised with great severity in "Nos Auteurs Dramatiques," responded by assailing Zola's dramatic theories, in his preface to "L'Étrangère." See "Théâtre Complet d'Al. Dumas _fils."_ Paris, Calmann Lévy, 1879.

VIII

THE BATTLE CONTINUED

1881-1887

"La Joie de Vivre" begun and put aside--"Pot-Bouille"--The outlay at Médan--Zola's first franc--His hypochondria and dread of death--His opinion of drawing-rooms--His idea of writing a book which would never end--"Au Bonheur des Dames" begun--Zola falls seriously ill--He recovers and finishes "Au Bonheur des Dames"--"Le Capitaine Burle"--The decline of Zola's sales--He is still stage-struck--Alphonse Daudet and the French Academy--His popularity and friendship with Zola--"La Joie de Vivre" finished--"Pot-Bouille" as a play--First ideas of "La Terre"--"Germinal"--Zola among the pitmen--A charge of plagiarism--The reception of "Germinal"--"L'Œuvre"--Zola on politicians and young writers--Death of Victor Hugo--Zola's telegram to George Hugo--"Germinal" forbidden as a play--The purport of "Germinal"--Zola, humanitarianism, and artistry--Publication of "L'Œuvre"--Zola prepares "La Terre"--A glance at the French peasantry--Sketch of "La Terre" by Zola--His tour of investigation--Various plays: "Le Ventre de Paris," "Renée," "Jacques Damour," "Tout pour l'Honneur,"--The "Manifesto of the Five" against Zola and "La Terre"--Zola's opinion of it--Daudet and Goncourt unconnected with it--Prolonged denunciation of Zola--M. Lockroy to the rescue--How Zola became a knight of the Legion of Honour.

In the year 1881, besides launching the critical volumes enumerated in the last chapter, Zola carried his Rougon-Macquart series a step further. Early in the spring he planned "La Joie de Vivre," a tale of pain and suffering, containing numerous autobiographical passages, descriptive of some of his feelings and peculiarities. But while he was preparing his notes the recollection of his mother's recent death constantly pursued him, and he felt it would be impossible for him at that time to write such a book as he wished. So, after a few attempts, he decided to postpone this particular work. It will be remembered that he had first intended to make the Rougon-Macquart series one of eight volumes only. Next, he had decided on twelve, to which figure he had adhered until the time of "L'Assommoir." But plenty of characters for additional volumes figured on the leaves of the genealogical tree which he had long since prepared,[37] and now that success had come he felt that he might extend his series. "Nana" was its ninth volume, and he resolved to add eleven more. "La Joie de Vivre" having been put aside, he was thinking of what subject he might take in hand when, in the course of his "Figaro" campaign, he had occasion to write an article on "Adultery in the Middle Class." The idea that this was the great evil preying on the _bourgeoisie_ seized hold of him, and he began to prepare the book which he called "Pot-Bouille," a title which might be Englished, perhaps, as "The Stockpot," and which signifies every-day _cuisine_ and by extension every-day life. Some of the incidents that he wove into this work had come under his personal observation, others were suggested by friends, some of whom also collected special information which he needed, Huysmans, for instance, supplying notes about the church of St. Roch, and Céard inquiring into diocesan architects, government clerks, judges, and others, their earnings, their duties, their pensions, and so forth.[38]

Begun at Médan, continued at Grandcamp on the Norman coast, whither Zola betook himself during the summer, and eventually finished at Médan in the autumn, "Pot-Bouille" first appeared, somewhat bowdlerised, in "Le Gaulois," which paid the author thirty thousand francs[39] for the serial rights. But even Zola's best friends did not receive the work very favourably. In writing it he had made a trial of his own scientific formula, keeping his descriptions as short as possible, dividing the narrative into acts, as it were, like a play, curbing his fancy throughout, allowing no exuberance of style; and he was afterwards amazed to find so many cavillers. "It is the clearest and most condensed of my novels," he wrote to a friend early in 1882.[40] Nevertheless, this time the public seemed to share the opinion of the critics. The sale of "Pot-Bouille" in volume form[41] was much smaller than that of "L'Assommoir" and "Nana," a circumstance which is worthy of note, for Zola's adversaries had argued that if "Nana" had sold so largely it was solely on account of all the depravity depicted in its pages. But here was a book which, in that respect, actually surpassed "Nana," and yet it had nothing like the same sale. It has been suggested by way of explanation that middle-class people were the chief purchasers of Zola's works, and that while they appreciated his delineation of depravity among others, they were offended by his description of it among themselves. In that respect "Pot-Bouille" certainly brought Zola some worry; for as a gentleman of the law declared he recognised himself in a certain character, legal proceedings supervened, and Zola had to make certain alterations in his work.

Shortly before the publication of "Pot-Bouille," Edmond de Goncourt had suggested to Zola that their monthly dinners, abandoned since the death of Flaubert, might be resumed, and Zola, like Tourgeneff and Alphonse Daudet, immediately assented. Goncourt, by the way, would seem to have then seen little of Zola for some time past. He mentions that he read the first chapters of his novel, "La Faustin," to the Zolas, the Daudets, Hérédia, Charpentier, and the "young men of Médan," on which occasion he was amazed to find that the passages based on study and research produced no effect on his little audience, whereas the chapters in which he had relied on his imagination carried them away. And he was particularly amused when Zola declared that a certain imaginary Greek, called Athaasiadas, must really have been drawn from the life.[42] A little later, when Goncourt, the Daudets, and Charpentier visited Zola at Médan, they found that he had already spent two hundred thousand francs on his house there, besides buying one of the islands on the Seine near the property and building a chalet on it. In talking of those matters, Zola evinced a superb contempt for money. It was impossible for him to hoard, he said; he remembered the first franc-piece given him when he was a very little boy. He had immediately gone to buy a purse, which had cost him nineteen _sous_, in such wise that he had only one _sou_ left to put in it.[43]

When the monthly "Diner des Auteurs Sifflés" was resumed in March, 1882, the two stock subjects of conversation, says Goncourt, were death and love. And the hypochondriasis from which Zola was suffering, which had declared itself at the time of his mother's death and had recently compelled him to put "La Joie de Vivre" aside, now became painfully manifest. An unreasoning fear of death, and, it would seem, even of suffering pursued him. Somewhat later (in 1885) and apropos of the terrible, lingering death of Jules Vallès, who in the midst of a friendly conversation would suddenly blanch with dread as if he could see death approaching him, Zola said to Goncourt: "Ah! to be struck down suddenly, as Flaubert was, that is the death one should desire."[44] This wish, we know, was ultimately granted. But in 1882, according to Goncourt, Zola, who believed that he had a complaint of the heart, was tortured by the idea of "a sudden and violent death which would fall upon him before he had finished his work." Again, we know that such a fate did ultimately befall him; but Goncourt tells us that, at the period we have now reached, the thought of it haunted him to such a degree that "since the death of his mother, whose coffin it had been necessary to bring down by way of the window (there being only a narrow, winding staircase at Médan, in spite of all its embellishments), he had never since been able to set eyes on that window without wondering who would soon be lowered from it, himself or his wife. 'Yes,' he said, 'since that day the thought of death is always lurking in our minds. We now invariably keep a light burning in our bedroom, and very often, when I look at my wife before she falls asleep, I feel that she is thinking of it even as I am. And we remain like that, a certain feeling of delicacy preventing us from making any allusion to what we are both thinking of. Oh! the thought is terrible! There are nights when I suddenly spring out of bed on both feet, and remain for a moment in a state of indescribable fright.'"[45]

And this, it will be observed, was the leading French novelist of the time, a man in the prime of life, whose name was already known all over the world, who had risen from poverty to affluence, and who, if attacked by some, was also envied by thousands!

A few days after telling his friends how he suffered at the thought of death, Zola gave a _diner fin_ at his Paris residence. There was great display, and Goncourt tells us that the _menu_ included _potage au blé vert_, reindeers' tongues, mullet _à la Provençale_, and truffled guineafowl.[46] But Zola was still out of sorts. Success had no charms for him, he said, and, in his estimation, literature was a mere dog's trade. Less than a month afterwards, on April 6, the day when "Pot-Bouille" was published, and when the first orders seemed to indicate a large demand for the book, Goncourt met Zola again and found him as morose as ever. The truth would appear to be that he resented some of the criticisms already levelled at his work. He kept on growling, and finally exclaimed that it was not so necessary to have had actual experience of things as some folk imagined; and as for incessant reading, well, he had not the time for it. "Society?" he added, "why, what does a drawing-room reveal of life? It shows one nothing at all! I have five and twenty men now working at Médan who teach me a hundred times more than any drawing-room would teach me."

Again on April 18, when lunching with Madame Zola at Goncourt's, he was full of spleen, complaining of a score of worries, and notably of some plot, engineered by sundry members of the French Academy, to stop the circulation of "Pot-Bouille." He had now already begun to write the next instalment of the Rougon-Macquarts, that is, "Au Bonheur des Dames," but according to his statements to Goncourt, this story really had no great attraction for him. He dreamt of undertaking some work which he would never be able to finish, he said, something which would give him occupation, and at the same time enable him to retire from the every-day battle without saying so--for instance, some colossal and endless history of French literature. In July that same year--1882--when Goncourt, Daudet, and Charpentier were at Médan, Zola reiterated his dissatisfaction with "Au Bonheur des Dames." His previous success had spoilt his life, he declared; he would never again be able to write a book which would make as much stir as "L'Assommoir" or command such a multitude of readers as "Nana."[47]

Writing to a friend a fortnight previously, he had evinced less pessimism. Indeed, though he referred to "Au Bonheur des Dames" as a _tour de force_ which would end by disgusting people "with the complicated state of French literature," he had expressed himself as being generally satisfied, and as enjoying the solitude in which he found himself at Médan, for it lent him great lucidity of mind. But it is certain that his nerves were overstrained, and that Goncourt's opinion of his condition was accurate; for a little later, in August, he collapsed and had to cease work entirely. His friends were very much alarmed, for his weakness became extreme and a fatal issue seemed possible. But his constitution slowly triumphed over that nervous prostration, and at the end of October, one finds him writing to a friend: "I am a little better. I have been able to get back to work. Nevertheless I am not at all strong. I fancy that something very grave brushed past me but spared me.... How heavy is the pen! For the next two or three years I ought to lead the life of an idiot [i. e. a purely animal life without mental exertion] in order to recover my strength. I have become such a coward that the prospect of having to finish my book terrifies me."[48]