" WORKS BY M. ZOLA. Crown 8vo. cloth extra, 3*. 6d. THE DOWNFALL e LA By EMILE ZOLA. Translated by ERNEST A. VIZETELLY. With 2 Maps. 'A masterly piece of work. France should be proud of M. Zola. . . ." The Downfall " is the most instructive and fearfully fascinating book that has been written, or possibly could be written, on the Franco-German War.' PBOPLK. 'A most fascinating story.' CHRISTIAN WORLD. ' " The Downfall " is one of the most realistic and fascinating narratives placed in the hands of the reading public for a long time past. It is a work that reflects the genius of the great writer in every page. M. Zoia set himself a big task, and he has faithfully and fearlessly accomplished it.' SALA'S JOURNAL. ' The suoject has turned the terribly conscientious transcriber of documents into a poet. . . . The grander side of the awful struggle is never lost sight of, and, in its own way, M. Zola's novel is almost as religious as H Greek tragedy. ... It is impossible not to admire the thoroughly artistic way in which M. Zola has succeeded in blending the personal and national elements in his drama.' GLASGOW HKI: AI.D. ' From first to last the reader will be Jascinateil with M. Zola's brilliant style, for he rises to greater heights of sublimity in "The Downfall" than in any of his ot'ier books. ... It is one of the greatest historical dramas ever written. . . . Zola was the only man who was equal to it. He has produced a masterpiece.' MORNING LEADER. 'This long-promised addition to the celebrated Rougou-Macquart series has broueht joy to trie admirers of M. Zola, and has raised him in the estimation even of those who ijave no sympathy with his methods.' AKMY AND NAVY GAZKTFE. ' That M. Zola attempted a very ambitious piece of work, and that he has carried it out in a very masterly manner, there can be no doubt. The story "catches on" at once, for from the very beginning the reader is bound to fall under the spell of a style which fascinates irresistibly.' PALL MALL GAZKTTE. ' M. /ola has risen to "the height of his great argument." . . . He has done his work in the grand style, with immense breadth of survey, with dignity and power on a level u ith his subject. It would have been nothing short of a disaster to literature if this great theme had been unworthily handled. All apprehensions on that score arc now set at lust, for " La Debacle" is a masterpiece.' SPEAKER. ' It would probably be no exaggeration to say that, taken as a whole, " La Debacle" is the most wonderfully faithful reproduction of an historical drama ever committed to writing. It is a literally true Inferno.' SPECTATOR. ' " La Debacle" is lull of magnificent work.' FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. ' It is only when you have come to the end that you appreciate the feverish hurry in which yon have read page after page, and that you know the splendid art with which M. Zola has concealed the fervour, the pity, the agony, and the inspiration with which he lias told the tale.' SUNDAY Srx. ' M. Zola has given us a veritable masterpiece. " La Debacle " is the pros'? epic of modern war. . . . M. Zola has made a contribution of the greatest v.ilue to history and to literature. He will assuredly have his reward, not only in the appreciation ot others, but in that greatest of all joys to the creative artist, the consciousness of having worthily treated a great subject.' VANITY FAIR. 'In "La Debacle " M. Zola has given to the world a prose epic of extraordinary ]Kiwer and interest. . . . The word-pictures are extraordinarily powerful, painful, and pathetic.' DAILY TELEGRAPH. Crown 8vo. cloth extra, 3. 6d. THE DEE AM OLE REVE'). By EMILE ZOLA. Translated by ELIZA E. CHASE. With 8 full-page Illustrations by GEORGES JEANNIOT. 'A touching and beautiful story, developed with great skill, and steeped in know- ledge of human nature. . . The feeung for nature is keen and true, and we breathe the nir of France, as well as make the acquaintance of a portion of the French people.' KM; is OTRANT. ' A charming iydl ... a delightfully original story.' CHRISTIAN WORLD. ' One of the most beautilul idyls in the language.' TAP. LET. ' An idyl go exquisite, so pure and dainty, that one wonders involuntarily how it can have emanatoi from the mind that produced " La Terrc." . . . Not a jarring touch, not a lal*e note mars the harmony of this beautiful story of ideal love. . . . Zola's perfect WORKS DY M. ZOLA. ease, the masterly simplicity of his workmanship, his wondrous insight, are no loss remarkable than the delicacy, grace, and inlinite charm of the great master's literary style.' MORNING LEADER. " The Dream " is a simple story, glowing with romance and imagery.' SCOTSMAN. ' The tale is well worth reading, and it is here presented in a very pleasing garb.' GLOBE. ' One great charm of this most exquisite love-st ory is that Zola procures you Kxnething of the sensations of dreaming as you read. . . . The impression it produces upon the mini! is ineffaceable.' TH 8 MORNING. ' M. Zola has sought in this charming story to prove to the world that he too can write for the virgin, and that he can paint the better side of human nature in colours as tender and true as those employed by any of his contemporaries. ... It is a bcamiful story, admirably told.' SPKAKER. ' A very pretty story. . . . The word-painting for which M. Zola is justly renowned has lost nothing of its force by Miss Chase's translation.' COLONIES AND INDIA. 'A good translation of "Le llGve," a delicate idyl which it is almost difficult to believe was written by the same uncompromising realist who gave us " Nana." '- RKVIKW OF REVIEWS. Crown 8vo. cloth extra, 3s. Gd. DK. PASCAL. By EMILE ZOLA. Translated by E. A. VIZETELLY. With a Portrait. 'A beautiful and most touching love story. . . . If anything were wanting to establish M. Zola's right to the title of the first of living novelists, "Dr. Pascal" would put the question beyond dispute.' VANITY FAIR. ' M. Zola's latest book, which is the orown and conclusion of a series of twenty volumes, strikes us as being in some respects the most powerful, the most dramatic, and the most pathetic. It is more self-contained and far more scientific in treatment than Balzac's magnificently cynical "Comedie Humaine."' TIMKS. In "Dr. Pascal". . . Zola define* and expounds, in magnificent prose, the stately and pathetic poetry of which will appeal to every imagination, his literary method, his moral aim, his penetrating love of his kind, his large political and social ideas, his belief above all in the three ideals of the modern mind the search for truth, the rectification and the glorificat.on of life.' DAILY CHKONICLK. ' In the final chapters . . . M. Z >la wrings our hearts in spite of ourselves. . . . Mr. Vizetelly's translation is most admirably done. STAR. ' Of great power and interest.' WKSTMINSTKH GAZETTE. ' ' Dr. Pascal " throws so much light on the author's motives and objects, and ex- plains fo many points of intenst in connection witli liis earlier writings, that it will doubtless b widely read both by his admirers and his adversaries.' WEEKLY TIMES. ' In this powerful story M. Zola has surpassed himself in intensity of pathos and in sublime horror. Once commenced, the fascination of the tale is extraordinary.' PUHLISHERS' CIRCULAR. ' There can be no question as to the power and pathos of the story in which M. Zoli bids farewell to the Rougon-Macquarts.' SCOTSMAN. ' From the literary and artistic point of view it is impossible not to admire the vigour and the subtle analysis of character displayed by the author.' GLASGOW HKRAI.D. In" Dr. Pascal " M. Zola has completed one of the most gigantic tasks which a literary man ever allotted to himself. The work was begun a quarter of a century ago, and has proceeded steadily ever since; and it would be churlish not to congratulate M. Zola on one of the most marvellous manifestations of literary tenacity, courage, and conscientiousness which the world has ever seen. The only other task which can be compared with it is that enterprise of Balzac which doubtless first suggested to M. Zola his own scheme.' SUN. In the press, crown 8vo. cloth extra, 3. Gd. MONEY ('I/ARGENT'). Ey EMILE ZOLA. Translated by EKNEST A. VIZETELLY. London: C1IATTO & WINDUS, 214 Piccadilly. EMILE ZOLA PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NiiW-STRIiCT SQUAKE M. EMILE ZOLA. From a photograoh taken during his visit to London on September 29th, 1893. EMILE ZOLA A BIOGRAPHICAL & CRITICAL STUDY BY ROBERT HARBOROUGH SHERARD ' Le travail constant est la loi de 1'art comme celle de la vie, car 1'art c'est la creation idealisee . . . .' BALZAC WITH 3 PORTRAITS, FACSIMILE LETTER, & 5 ILLUSTRATIONS CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1893 TO M. GEORGE CHARPENTIER THE PUBLISHER OF EMILE ZOLA'S WORKS TO WHOSE INTUITION AND COURAGE THE WORLD OWLS A GREAT DEBT THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED PREFACE I WISH to express here my indebtedness to M. PAUL ALEXIS, from whose biography of EMILE ZOLA, ' Notes d'un Ami,' I have, with his kind permission and that of M. GEORGE CHARPENTIER, the publisher of his interesting work, largely drawn in writing this book. I have also to express my very best thanks to M. HENRI CEARD for very valuable assistance afforded. But, of course, my greatest debt is to M. EMILE ZOLA himself, who for some years past has honoured me with his acquaintance, to whom I have never addressed myself in vain for advice or informa- tion, and who, with great readiness, gave me every assistance in his power when I assumed the pleasant task of writing this book. ROBERT H. SHERARD. PARIS : September, 1893. CONTENTS CHATTER PAGE I. EMILE ZOLA'S FAMILY AND BIRTrr . . . ] II. SCHOOLDAYS IN AIX 1.3 III. DAYS OF MISERY IN PARIS . . . . .27 IV. THE STRUGGLE UPWARDS 42 V. IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT ..... 56 VI. FEELING HIS WAY 72 VII. THE ' ROUGON- MACQUART : ' 'LA FORTUNE DES ROUGONS ' ' LA CUREE ' . . . . . 83 VIII. THE ' ROUGON-MACQUART : ' ' LE VENTRE DE PARIS '- ' LA CONQUETE DE PLASSANS ' ' LA FAUTE DE L'ABBE MOURET ' 'SON EXCELLENCE EUGENE ROUGON ' 102 IX. BEFORE THE ' ASSOMMOIR ' ZOLA'S FRIENDS HIS WANT OF SUCCESS . . . . . .116 x. ' L'ASSOMMOIR ' ZOLA AS A JOURNALIST . . . 1.30 xi. THE 'ASSOMMOIR' 147 xii. ' UNE PAGE D'AMOUR' 'NANA' 159 XIII. ' LES SOIREES DE MEDAN ' ZOLA AT HOME . 173 x EMILE ZOLA CHAPTER \-\C.\-: XIV. ' POT-DOUILLE ' ' AU BONIIEUR DES DAMES ' . . 186 XV. 'LA JOIE DE VIVRE ' 'GERMINAL* 'MEDAN'. . 200 XVI. LIFE AT MEDAN 'LA TERRE ' ' LE REVE ' . . . 215 XVII. ZOLA AS A DRAMATIST .232 XVIII. ' LA BETE IIUMAINE ' ' L'ARGENT ' ' LA DEBACLE '- ' LE DOCTEUR PASCAL' . . . . 24 1 XIX. AN UNREALISED AMBITION .... .258 XX. THE FRENCH ACADEMY . 273 ILLUSTRATIONS EMILE ZOLA. Photo-mezzotype, from a Photograph by tlic London Stereoscopic Company . . . Frontispiece FACSIMILE LETTER FROM M. ZOLA TO MR. R. H. SHERARD To face p. 1 M. Louis HACHETTB. From a Photograph . . 42 EMILE ZOLA. Etched by E. Bocourt and C, Mauigaud 80 M. ZOLA IN HIS WORKING DRESS .... 168 MEDAN .......... 174 M. ZOLA'S HOUSE AT MKDAN 214 M. ZOLA AT WORK ,,216 THE COUNTRY ROUND MEDAN, SEEN FROM THE BALCONY 218 M. ZOLA'S DINING ROOM 224 DRAWING ROOM , 225 - <$ IV fcS>/\^,pv} \ L V ' \K* V/*>A \i "1 /**& degree to his only son. Unfortunately for him,his industry was less well- applied than has been that of his descendant. A certain tinge of romanticism, which many profess to be able to trace in Emile Zola, also seems to have pervaded his character, and to have combated the chances of success to which, in other ways, he was certainly entitled. He was a man of large- views, of immense 1 In the Journal de Paris for January 16,. 1830, appears, under the heading ' Our Munich Correspondent Writes,' a brief allusion to one of M. Francois Zola's enterprises. The name is mis-spelt ' Zolo.' E 2 4 EMILE ZOLA conceptions, a builder of pyramids, but, unlike his son, unwilling to produce his pyramids brick by brick, stone upon stone. Almost immediately after his arrival at Marseilles, he conceived the plan of endowing Marseilles with no less a construction than an entirely new harbour, at that time greatly wanted by the busy port. He at once set to work, produced plans and maps, travelled to Paris to lay his idea before the competent authorities, and had the morti- fication of seeing himself superseded by a more fortunate competitor. The plans and maps which he designed for this immense scheme, and which are now in the possession of his son, were all that re- mained to him for close upon three years of labour. Undiscouraged discouragement being unknown to the exuberant Zola temperament Francois Zola cast about for something else to which to apply his energies. Some thirty kilometres from Marseilles, approached at that time by diligence only, lies Aix, which it may here be stated is the Plassans of Zola's novels. Aix, like all the rest of Provence, suffered bitterly at that time from want of water. Drought is in summer the curse of this lovely country, and on no subject is Daudet, that other Provencal, perhaps more eloquent, than when speaking of the arida nutria;, who reared him and his glorious brother in letters. ' It was our great joy as children,' he once said to me, ' to go and meet the train which brought EMILE ZOLA'S FAMILY AND BIRTH 5 the washerwomen home from the Khone, and to stand where they would pass us with their damp bundles slung over their backs. The smell of the water was the most delicious thing that we could think of.' There were only three fountains, at the time of Francois Zola's visit to Aix, in the town, and of these, in the summer months, only one performed its functions. The water, moreover, was tepid and almost unfit for use. Franois Zola determined that here was scope for his activity. He would endow Aix with a copious water-supply, and this by means of such a canal as he had often seen in Germany, a canal with locks, which, starting from an artificial reservoir, which he proposed to create at a distance of three kilometres from the town, would bring a plentiful supply of mountain and rain water to the parched city. It was to this work that Zola devoted his life ; it was whilst engaged in this work that he met his death. Innumerable difficulties were placed in his path. Your provincial Frenchman is notoriously conservative, your Prove^al, where he is not ardently active, is inertia itself. The good people of Aix would not hear of the canal. Aix had got along for centuries with the then existing water-supply, why should any change be made ? The constitution of a company to provide the necessary funds involved months of labour, innumerable diligence journeys from Aix to Marseilles and from Marseilles to Aix, 6 'EMILE ZOLA and from Aix to Paris. It was in the course of one of these journeys to Paris that Francois Zola met his future wife. Her beauty, her sweetness, her sim- plicity at once captivated the heart of the engineer, and for the few weeks that were all their courtship the canal was forgotten, only to be taken up again with renewed ardour directly after the marriage, which took place in 1839. Madame Zola accom- panied her husband to Provence, encouraging him in his scheme, sharing his feverish runnings to and fro, and never once saying a single word such as might have been expected from a woman's caution about a plan which almost everybody described as Utopian and unrealisable. It was during one of the visits to Paris that Emile Zola was born. His father had returned to the capital to try and gain over to his side such influences as he hoped would enable him to overcome the prejudice and routine of the local authorities at Aix. Foreseeing that this task would be a lengthy one, and his wife being at that time near to her confinement, he leased a fourth floor in the rue St. Joseph, and summarily furnished the same. The rent paid for this fourth floor, as rents were at that time in Paris, shows that Francois Zola was possessed of a certain affluence, the sum paid being twelve hundred francs per annum. Contrasted to other homes which Emile Zola afterwards dwelt in during his years of struggle, EMILE ZOLA'S FAMILY AND BIRTH 7 this fourth floor in the rue St. Joseph must appear a very palace. It was in number 10 of this street that Emile Zola was born on April 2, 1840. 1 The rue St. Joseph, by a coincidence, is a street of houses where the trade in literature, or at any rate in the products of the printing press, is almost exclusively engaged in. It is a cross between our London Fleet Street and Paternoster Eow ; for, whilst one end is the centre of the wholesale newspaper trade, the other is occupied by a number of publishing houses. It is another coincidence, and to some extent an exemplification of the irony of fate, that number 10 is also the address of a publisher who exclusively publishes books of a highly moral order. 1 The following is a copy from the register of births of the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, Zola's ' acte de naissance.' It is given in the original French : ' L'an 1840 le 4 avril, & deux heures un quart de releve"e, par devant nous Barthelemy-Benoit Decau, chevalier de la Legion d'honneur, maire du 3me. arrondissement de Paris, faisant fonctions d'officier de 1'etat civil, a comparu le sieur FranQois-Antoine-Joseph-Marie Zola, ingenieur civil, age de quarante-quatre ans, demeurant & Paris rue Saint-Joseph 10 bis, lequel nous a pre"sente" un enfant masculin, ne avant-hier & onze heures du soir en sa demeure, fils de lui comparant et de Frangoise-Emilie Aubert, son epouse, maries a Paris en la mairie du ler. arrondissement le seize mars 1839, auquel enfant il a donne les prenoms d'Emile, Edouard, Charles, Antoine, fait en presence des sieurs Norbert Lecerf, marchand epicier, age de 52 ans, demeurant a Paris, rue St. Joseph 18 k et Louis-Etienne-Auguste Aubert, rentier, age de cinquante-six ans, demeurant & Paris rue de C16ry 106, aieul maternel de 1' enfant. ' Et ont le pere et les temoins signe apres lecture. Signe", Zola, Lecerf, Aubert et Decau, maire.' 8 EMILE ZOLA Here, then, on April 2, 1840, was born a male child, issue of a love marriage between a man of forty-three and a woman of nineteen, in whose veins flowed the triple melange of Greek, Italian, and French blood, and of that French blood which is most French, his mother's race being natives of what, in the days of French provinces, was known as the Island, or the Core, of France. The father, as has been seen, was a man of puissant energy and inde- fatigable industry, but to some extent a Bohemian in temperament, as was proved by his early wanderings, his repeated changes of profession, and a certain intermittency of tenacity. The mother was a simple, good-hearted woman, in whom the soul and body devotion of the Frenchwoman to her husband and her home were the main characteristics. These are things which, in view of the fact that Zola himself has set the example of the study of hereditary influ- ences, it is well to note. In writing about Emile Zola's father, one thinks almost involuntarily of the father of a great English novelist who also was not fortunate in his enterprises, and whose son was left an orphan without resources. But I do not think that the comparison will bear investigation. Francois Zola was an unlucky man, and unlucky without any fault of his. He worked hard, and, if he failed, it was because fate was against him, in so far as fate may be intended to imply a conca- EMILE ZOLA'S FAMILY AND BIRTH 9 tenation of untoward circumstances. The birth of his son seems to have spurred the engineer on to renewed industry and effort. Just at that time the fortifications of Paris were in process of construction, and M. Thiers, the Prime Minister, was personally and especially interested in this work, which has since been condemned as worse than useless. Frangois Zola set about to win the favour of the then powerful minister, invented a machine for the removal and transportation of earth, and submitted it to M. Thiers. It was experimented with and accepted, and this suc- cess won over the support and patronage of the Prime Minister. Three more years were spent in Paris in the winning of influences, and, in 1843, Emile Zola being then three years old, Frangois Zola, now assured of protection, removed himself and his family back to Aix, there to settle down and to carry out his great scheme. The first home was in the Cours Ste. Anne, whence the family removed to a house in the impasse Sylvacane, which had been formerly inhabited by members of the Thiers family. Two years and a half passed without any progress being made in the business which had induced Frangois Zola to settle in Aix, and at the end of this period he was obliged to return to Paris to solicit a royal decree compelling various refractory landlords to sell the land through which the canal was to pass. Knowing that the fight would be a hard one, he removed his io EMILE ZOLA family back to Paris, and it was not until the end of 1846 that, thanks to the protection of M. Thiers, he was able to return again to Aix, this time equipped with full powers. One cannot but wonder to what extent these early wanderings, this involuntary Bohemianism, must have affected and influenced the child Emile. Ten years had been spent in effort by Francois Zola, and the end was at last attained. The en- gineer's happiness knew no bounds. He foresaw fame and fortune fame for himself and fortune for his dear ones. So anxious was he to identify his little son with his great enterprise, that on the day when the first spadeful of earth was turned Emile was with him, hand in hand, to watch the first act towards the consummation of a hardly-won triumph. The ill-fortune which had pursued Frangois Zola all his life was not, however, to abandon him. One early morning, whilst superintending his workmen on the canal, the treacherous mistral smote him with her icy hands ; a pleurisy ensued, and, three months after the triumphant inauguration of the canal-works, he died, away from home in a hotel-room in Mar- seilles. Emile Zola has described this mournful event in his ' Page d' Amour,' where Madame Grand- jean relates the death of her husband, far from home, in a town of strangers. Frangois Zola lies buried in the Aix cemetery. EMILE ZOLA'S FAMILY AND BIRTH n Over his grave is a stone, with, the simple inscrip- tion of his name and the dates of his birth and of his death. His great work was afterwards carried through, though without benefit to his family, and it is to the ' Canal Zola,' as it is known by the people, that Aix owes the first necessary of life. A boulevard in the town was christened after the unfortunate engineer, and this is perhaps all the reward that came to him, long after his death, for his ten years of unremitting labour. The young widow, with her orphan child, then seven years old, were thus left practically destitute, and with that worst of inheritances a claim against the authorities, which could only be enforced, if it was to be enforced at all, by unending lawsuits. Fortunately Madame Zola's parents, the Auberts, were living with her. These had some small pro- perty, and, better than this, Madame Aubert, the grandmother of the little boy, was in point of courage and domestic ability a typical Frenchwoman. A native of that Beauce which Emile Zola was after- wards to describe with such maestria in his book, * La Terre,' she was endowed with all the hard- headed business capacity of the French rustic, lively withal, and, in spite of her seventy years of age, vivacity and gaiety personified. It is said that at this advanced age there was not a grey hair to be seen on her head. It was she who, after her entire 12 EMILE ZOLA fortune, as well as the savings of Madame Zola, had been swallowed up in the various lawsuits which her daughter-in-law engaged in to establish her claims against the authorities, took the management of the little household into her hands ; who, as Paul Alexis relates, ' tucked up her sleeves and set to work about the house,' and who, by clever bargains with the furniture merchants and second-hand dealers a re- miniscence of which we may, perhaps, trace in Martine's skirmishes in ' Le Docteur Pascal ' kept the wolf from the door of the house in the impasse Sylvacane. CHAPTEE II SCHOOLDAYS IN AIX LITTLE EMILE was the spoilt child of his mother and his grandparents. From the very first they seem to have been convinced that the youngster would some day restore the fallen fortune of his family; but what chiefly guided them in their treatment was their pity for the lad left fatherless at so early an age. Their treatment of him resolved itself into letting him do just what he liked. There was an immense garden in front of the house, and it was in this garden which may afterwards have suggested *le Paradou ' that the urchin spent most of his time. His earliest recollections are of mad gallops down the overgrown pathways of this verdant wilderness, of games of hide-and-seek with the merry old grand- mother, and of childish musings in shady and solitary corners. He was a very inquisitive child, plying in- cessant questions, anxious to know the why and wherefore of all things, and often startling his mother and grandparents with the strangest queries. Apart i 4 EMILE ZOLA from this he was not, however, a very precocious child. It must be related that, at the age of seven, Emile Zola, who was afterwards to take so prepon- derant a place in the world of letters, did not know his alphabet. It was grandpapa Aubert who one day put his foot down and said that that sort of thing would not do, and, the women agreeing, a family council as to the best steps to be taken to- wards the lad's education was held. The grand- father suggested that he should be sent to the local lycee, or public school, but Madame Aubert would not hear of this, for Emile, she said, was too young to rough it amongst other boys, and it was she who found a place in the town of Aix where he could be instructed in the rudiments without being exposed to the harsh treatment that is the lot of the young lyceen, as it is that of every small boy in every public school the world over. The school to which Emile was sent was a pension, known as the ' Pension Notre-Dame,' kept by a M. Isoard, who appears to have been the least terrible of schoolmasters. Whether it was that his heart opened at once to the sharp-faced, soft-eyed little orphan, or that Madame Aubert had stipulated at the outset that the little boy was to be allowed to do what he liked, it is certain that, during the five years that Emile re- mained at the Pension Notre-Dame, which he fre- quented as a day-boy, he was treated with the SCHOOLDAYS IN A IX 15 greatest kindness. Here also the system c We mustn't upset him ' was put into practice. As a very natural consequence, he did not make great progress in his studies. He was a very long time in learning his alphabet, and it was only when M. Isoard took him specially in hand, keeping him in after school hours to give him private instruction, that he at last mastered the rudiments. One of the first books that Zola learned to read was a book of the fables of La Fontaine, an author for whom he has since professed the highest admiration. Isoard coaxed the lad into learning. Emile, however, for a long time showed but little inclination for study. What he vastly pre- ferred was to run about in the big garden at home ; or, afterwards, when the family removed to a cheaper house at Pont-au-Beraud, in the country, outside the town, to wander about the fields. If ever there was a little truant in the world, it was Emile Zola, than whom in after life there has never been a man less truant to what he considered his duty and his task. Near the house at Pont-au-Beraud was a winding stream, called 'La Torse,' which was his favourite playmate. Wandering for hours together along its banks, it was here, no doubt, that he acquired that intense love for the country that has clung to him ever since, and which has leavened with poetry the prosaic realism of his work, so that the author of 4 L'Assommoir ' is also the writer of the ' Contes a 1 6 EMILE ZOLA Ninon.' It is in the latter work, by the way, that he speaks of ' La Torse ' as ' torrent in December, so dis- creet a brook in the fine days.' At the age of eight Zola was described by one who knew him at the time as ' a gifted child, open, and, being accustomed to have his way, frank, gentle, and full of initiative.' Still, there was nothing to show the sort of man that he was destined to become, and if he did like his truant excursions about the country, he very probably preferred the games of marbles or of horses and driver which he used to play with remarkable zest with his two earliest and oldest friends, Solari, who afterwards became a sculptor, and Marius Roux, who took to letters also, and was a writer in later years on the c Petit Journal.' It was in 1852 that is to say, when he was twelve years old that the boy's education began in earnest. In this year he was sent to the lycee at Aix as a boarder. It was at the cost of great sacrifices that his family were able to do this for him, for at that time ruin was close upon them. So that they might be near the lad and could visit him on the days allowed by the regulations, they once more moved into town, taking a small house in the rue Beauregard. Emile was placed, on his entrance into the school, at the bottom of the eighth class that is to SCHOOLDAYS IN AIX 17 say, that he commenced his studies at Aix lycee as the lowest boy in the school. But he was a good- hearted as well as an intelligent lad, and he under- stood how affairs stood at home and saw that it was his duty to work hard so as to requite his family for their sacrifices on his behalf, and to be able, as soon as possible, to assist them in their daily increasing embarrassments. So, setting to work with a will, he made such progress that at the end of the year Madame Zola and the grand- parents had the satisfaction of seeing Emile carry off five prizes, and, better still, to be now so far advanced that he was allowed to skip the seventh form and commence a new year in the sixth. The want of liberty as a boarder weighing upon him, his family arranged for him to sleep at home, so that in the evenings at least he was free, after his work was done, to wander about the country as his taste prompted him to do. Perhaps this was one reason why his second year at the school was not as successful as the first, though Zola says that the reason was that the form-master bore him a grudge and made his life a burden to him. However this may be, he got no prizes at the end of the year. Moved up to the fifth form, and afterwards to the fourth, and placed under another form-master, he again distinguished himself, carrying off numerous prizes. Afterwards attending the school, where he c 1 8 EMILE ZOLA was now in the third class, as a day-boy, he carried off all the first prizes, and at a time when, after study- ing there for four years and a half, he was obliged to leave the lycee whilst half-way through the second class, he was considered one of the cleverest boys in the school. It may be noted that, being allowed on entering the third form the option between clas- sical and modern, that is to say scientific studies, he chose the latter. Latin and Greek simply disgusted him, and what he specially abhorred was Latin composition and verse, which he considered useless and a bore. Natural science, on the contrary, attracted him from the first, and his essays on subjects in this branch used to be considered remarkable pieces of work by his professors. Will his critics say that this early dislike of the studies which are pre-eminently supposed to convey culture explains much in his after work ? However that may be, it should be noted that his conception of the Kougon-Macquart series of novels was that it should be a contribution to a certain branch of science, and that this is in accordance with the author's tastes as a boy. In Zola also the child was father of the man. Already as a schoolboy he distinguished himself by the precise method of his labour and his entire con- scientiousness. A daily task having to be performed, he performed it, whether he liked to do so or not. SC HO OLD A YS IN A IX 19 Never has the word ' Duty ' been better understood by any man than by Emile Zola, even when he was a mere lad. He was not an ardent worker, but a steady one. He did what he had to do regularly, but no more. When, as a day-boy, he got back to his home, however tempting the country without might be, he would first of all sit down to his task, nor leave it until it was finished. The advantages of the little by little, of the line upon line, method of work have never been more brilliantly exemplified than in Zola, man and boy. It was whilst a schoolboy at Aix that Zola first showed his tastes for literary composition. His first work was written whilst he was in the eighth form. Like most very juvenile work, it was an exceedingly ambitious attempt, being nothing less than a long novel of the Middle Ages, a story of the Crusades, doubtless inspired to the young author by his readings of Michaud. This manuscript still exists, for it is one of Zola's habits to preserve every scrap of writing addressed to or written by himself, and, like his present manuscript, is almost entirely without a correction. There is only~ one drawback about it, and that is that it is entirely illegible. Zola himself cannot decipher a single word of his boyish hieroglyphics, and it is his joke a joke against himself at times to produce this novel and to submit it to the examination of visitors. Besides c 2 20 EMILE ZOLA this novel, the lad wrote a quantity of poetry, doubt- less at the time when he was in the fourth class and had begun to read the poets. Still later he wrote a comedy of three acts in verse, on a school subject, as is indicated by its title, 'Enfonce le Pion,' which may be roughly Englished into, ' Selling the Usher.' As a schoolboy, Zola seems to have been a timid, reserved lad, timidity and reserve being still, it may be observed, his leading characteristics. He was rather shortsighted and used to stammer, two defects which naturally increased his reluctance to associate with his noisy and teasing school-mates. These seem to have felt some animosity towards the lad, who, having learned to speak in Paris, had a way of talking which differed from theirs, and whom, in consequence, they nicknamed ' Le Franciot.' Fortu- nately for his happiness, at a very early period in his school career he made friends with two lads Cezanne and Bailie, with whom he soon became in- separable. In fact, Zola, Cezanne, and Bailie used to be called ' the three inseparables ' in Aix. This friendship appears to have originated in a com- panionship in arms. At that time the schoolboys were in warfare with the ' cads,' which is, I believe, the generic name given by schoolboys to the boys of the town. In the Provence towns these guerillas are the rule, not the exception, the arm invariably SCHOOLDAYS IN AIX 21 used being the stone deftly hurled. Daudet relates that when a boy at Nimes he and his comrades were constantly fighting battles with stones, but in his case it was Huguenots or Protestants against Catholics, whilst the war in Aix was of the nature of town against gown. In the ' Faute de 1'Abbe Mouret ' there is a passage describing such a battle with stones, which is an evident souvenir of Zola's boyish adventures in the faubourgs of Aix. In the ' Nouveaux Contes a Ninon ' will be found souvenirs of other boyish pleasures, the watching of the troops marching by, with flags flying and the band ahead. And then the processions, not then for- bidden by a church-baiting Eepublican Government ; what brave shows were these, and how the youth, in his artistic temperament, must have enjoyed the sight ; the girls in white, strewing flowers, the red - robed choir-boys, the swinging censers, the high- borne crucifix, the priests in brave array, the gorgeous dais, and closing in the procession the military band ! One cannot but wonder whether it may not be to these early impressions that may be attributed Zola's latest departure, and whether the souvenirs of these clerical pomps may not have been the impulse to- wards the book that is even now in preparation, ' Lourdes,' which is to be followed by another novel, which will go still deeper into the Catholic question, 22 EMILE ZOLA and is to be called ' Eome.' Zola himself used, as a boy, to take part in these processions, and as a musi- cian withal. Zola, though a great admirer of music, never had an ear for it, and it is to be feared that his performances on the clarionet-horn in the procession band cannot, to any extent, have added to the credit of its performance. It has been said that in his habits of industry and of method, Zola at an early age showed what would be the characteristics of the man. In another respect also was the child the father of the man. Zola is a poet deeply tinged with romanticism a romanticism which is constantly striving to break out in his work, and for which safety-valves, such as ' Une Page d' Amour,' La Faute de 1'Abbe Mouret,' ' Le Eeve,' have had to be found in the course of the writing of the most prosaic, if most faithful, descriptions of the ugly, material world. Now, there never was a more romantic lad than Emile Zola, once his daily task was done, and he was free to give vent to his in- stincts. The greatest pleasure of the three insepara- bles was excursions over all the surrounding country, but excursions, moreover, where, besides exercise and fresh air, other delights were ensued. For when a likely spot had been reached after miles of walking, on some hillside or in some shady glen by the river Arc, and after the delightful open-air meal had been consumed, invariably a book would be produced, a SCHOOLDA YS IN AIX 23 book of verse withal, and hours would be spent in reading aloud. Hugo was at first the favourite, as he would naturally be to boys romantically inclined ; but the time came when he was dethroned by Alfred de Musset, who seemed more material and more of the living world, and to whose influence, no doubt, Zola owed his first impulses to analyse the workings of that great pulse which is the life of man. Sometimes, and here romanticism again betrays it- self, the excursions would be prolonged overnight. A mysterious cave would be sought out, beds of leaves would be made, and with who knows what remi- niscences of Hugoesque brigands teeming in their heads, the lads would go to sleep. On one occasion Zola would have it that their couch should be made entirely of thyme and lavender, but that time the excursion came to an abrupt ending, a thunderstorm coming on that made the cave untenable, so that they left it at two in the morning and made their way back to town, though not until they had made the most picturesque of bonfires with the scented materials of their beds. These are amongst Zola's most pleasant souvenirs. His schooldays, on the whole, seem to have been happy ones, in spite of the sad state of things at home. Whenever he has written about lycee life, it has been kindly, though there IS" one passage in his works where the abominable food which used to be 24 EMILE ZOLA served to the boarders in a certain communal school is very sharply criticised. He describes a revolt and a barring-out, because the provisor would insist on having served up to the boys an abominable dish of cod with a more abominable sauce. This dish of morue a la sauce blanche, and the unhappy year under the unsympathetic form-master, seem to have been Zola's worst reminiscences of his school-life in Aix Grammar Scnool. But what undoubtedly cast a gloom over his youthful days, a gloom, the shadow of which has lengthened out over all his life, and may perhaps account for the deep tinge of melancholy, not only on his work but on his character also, was the un- ceasing trouble at home. It has been related in what position the Zola family were left at the death of Francois Zola. The hopeless struggle of his widow to enforce her claim lasted all the time that Zola was at school in Aix. Year after year the unequal fight between the poor woman and a rich corporation was waged, each year making her chances of success more remote. The day came at last, when, in spite of Madame Aubert's sacrifices, in spite of the strictest economy at home, there was no more money to go on with. The solicitors refused to continue without guarantee for costs, and in 1857, misery real hard misery was staring the Zolas in the face. Just at this time, too, the valiant SCHOOLDA YS IN AIX 25 old grandmother, whose courage and merriness had done so much towards keeping up the spirits of the family, died. Emile at that time was halfway through the second form, when suddenly his studies were inter- rupted. His mother, after the death of Madame Aubert, matters being then desperate, had gone up to Paris to solicit the protection of her late husband's former patrons. Her absence prolonged itself omin- ously, until one day in February 1858 a letter arrived in which she bade her son sell the furniture in the little cottage for whatever it would fetch, and to come to Paris at once with his grandfather, old M. Aubert, ' it being impossible to live any longer in Aix.' Emile Zola winced at this news. It was terrible to leave Aix and the dear Provence which he so loved. It was hard to leave Bailie and Cezanne, his two inseparable friends. But what pained him most was that his studies had to be interrupted, if not altogether cut short. With a sorrowful heart he informed his master of his mother's orders, and then set about obeying them. The parting between Bailie and Cezanne and himself was a sad one. Still they all hoped to meet again in Paris, and this hope was afterwards realised, and the romantic boy-friendship, which had been cemented in Aix, was continued in later years under 26 EMILE ZOLA more prosaic circumstances in Paris. Cezanne dis- tinguished himself in the metropolis as an impres- sionist painter. Bailie became a professor at the Polytechnic School, and had official functions as adjoint to the mayor of the llth Arrondissement. CHAPTER III DAYS OF MISEET IN PAEIS HAVING sold the few sticks of furniture in the cottage at Aix, Emile Zola had just about enough money to pay for a third-class ticket to Paris for himself and for another for his old grandfather, and it was almost without a penny in his pocket that, after a long and fatiguing journey, the old man and the youth alighted in the metropolis. Emile Zola was at that time close upon eighteen years of age, a timid, retiring youth, full of romanticism and poetry, a votary of the country and the open air, but en- dowed by instinct and by the force of habit with per- severance, energy, and an indomitable determination to make his way and to retrieve the fortunes of his family. Few men have entered Paris under such forlorn circumstances as he did, and fewer still, having thus entered it, have so brilliantly suc- ceeded. It makes one think of the arrival of Chatterton in London ; but there was this difference that 28 EMILE ZOLA Chatterton had a five-pound note in his pocket, and certain business and other relations in the capital. Zola, in the way of relations, had none but an aged and infirm grandfather and a mother, who, as subse- quent events proved, was to be almost entirely dependent on his efforts for her livelihood. Zola, however, had something that Chatterton had not, and that was a tenacity of steel, an immense store of patience, and the firm conviction that all comes to him who knows how to wait, and who is prepared to suffer whilst waiting. Of literary baggage he had none, beyond the childish novel and play, and the early verses. It is possible that at that time he may have founded some hopes on the latter. A piece of good news awaited him at his new home, which was a dingy hotel in that dingiest of the Latin Quarter streets the rue Monsieur-le- Prince, at number 63 which to-day is the least reputable of abodes, and which is but a few doors removed, on the same side of the street, from the house where Oliver Wendell Holmes spent two years whilst studying medicine in Paris. This piece of good news was that his mother had seen certain of his late father's friends, and that, thanks to their protection, he would be able the dearest wish of his heart to continue the studies which his sudden departure from Aix had interrupted. DA YS VF MISER Y IN PARIS 29 Shortly after his arrival in Paris he was admitted as a day-boy to the Lycee St. Louis, on the boulevard St. Michel, about two minutes' walk from his home. He was placed in the second class on the modern side of the school, and in the following year that is to say, in 1859 was moved up to the first form, which corresponds with the English sixth, where he finished his studies with that course which is known in French lycees as la rhetorique, and which is in- dispensable for the baccalaureate or Bachelor of Arts examination, which every lyceen desires to pass on leaving school. He appears to have made no new friends at the Lycee St. Louis. The Parisian schoolboys found him provincial, and chaffed him about his accent. He was known as ' Le Marseillais,' and must bitterly have regretted his dear inseparables in the little Provencal town. The change of life and the depressing cir- cumstances under which he was living, cooped up in a small hotel with starvation staring him and his in the face, seems for a while to have sapped his energies. He made no progress at all, and was con- sidered by. his professors and by his schoolmates as something akin to a dunce. Still, in French compo- sition he held his own, and more than that ; for, whilst in all other subjects he was invariably at the bottom of his class, in this he was almost always at the top. On one occasion an essay of his on the 30 EMILE ZOLA subject of ' Milton, blind, dictating to his elder daughter, whilst his second daughter plays the harp,' was considered such a good piece of work by his professor, M. Levasseur, that he read it out to the form, complimenting its author in the warmest terms, and predicting for him future greatness. This M. Levasseur is living to-day, and is now a member of the French Institute. It must be some satisfaction to him to see how fully his prediction has been realised. Whilst not working with any success at his school tasks, other than composition, Zola read with avidity. His favourite authors at that time were Musset, Montaigne, and Rabelais. Eabelais, doubtless, in- fluenced him immensely, and more than once, when certain passages of his novels in after life were cast up against him in reproach, he has quoted in his defence the Gallic wit of the great Canon of Meudon. As to Montaigne, there is probably no author that has more influenced his successors in letters than he. To mention one only, Alphonse Daudet ; it may be related that for years Montaigne was Daudet's livre de chevet, and that he was so devoted to it that he used, when bathing in the sea, to take his copy into the water with him, so that it was stained with the salt water, as can be seen to this day. Hugo, also, was returned to by Zola, in a renouveau of roman- DAYS OF MISERY IN PARIS 31 ticism, inspired, no doubt, by the utterly unromantic circumstances with which he was surrounded. As for composition, there were interminable letters to the two friends at Aix; long, because postage, cost- ing money, and money being scarce, they could not be frequent. It may be hoped that these letters have been preserved by their recipients for eventual publication, full as they were of verse, of literary projects, and of comments on the unhappy youth's surroundings. The summer holidays of his first year at the Lycee St. Louis were spent in Aix, his mother imposing some fresh sacrifice upon herself to allow her son this ardently desired change. A second prize in French composition was all that he had to show for his work at the parish school, but doubtless both Bailie and Cezanne would fully understand how it was that the successful scholar at Aix had failed in Paris. The two months' vacation spent at Aix in 1858 were the pleasantest months that Zola ever remem- bered. How delightful it was after the stuffy Paris streets to wander about the beautiful Provence country, to explore over again the hillsides and the glades of the river Arc, to bathe in the stream, and, above all, far from the Parisian schoolboys who had laughed at the timid ' Marseillaisj to be in company with Bailie and Cezanne, who so fully appreciated 32 EMILE ZOLA him, and to talk of art and literary ambition with those who understood him ! On his return to Paris, Emile Zola fell dangerously ill of fever, and remained absent from school two months after the classes had re-opened. This was a bad beginning to a year which ended still more disastrously, to some extent on that account. In the 1 rhetorique ' class he was under the care of a M. Etienne, who, like M. Levasseur, noticed the excellence of Zola's French compositions, and used to read them out to the class as models of style, whilst warning his pupils against imitating their too great romanticism. The French lyceen having finished his ' rhetorique^ spends another year in the study of philosophy, ancl after that presents himself for his baccalaureat ex- amination, which in France, contrary to what is the case in England, precedes his admission into the University. The degree of Bachelor of Arts is, it may be remarked, an indispensable certificate in France for admission to any class of higher study, as to every examination for any of the professions. The man who has not taken his 'bachot' is considered not suffi- ciently educated, and every door is practically closed against him. Zola was so sick of his life at St. Louis that he determined to skip his philosophy class and to try for his bachelorship at once. In this determination he was also prompted by his poverty and his desire to DA YS OF MISER Y IN PARIS 33 be no longer a burthen on his mother's too slender resources. In his written examination he distin- guished himself to the extent that he was second on the list, his papers on physics and chemistry, as well as in pure mathematics, being described as specially good. His success seemed assured ; and after running post-haste to tell his mother of his triumph, he returned to the examination-hall to go through the vivd-voce examination in living languages and literature. Alas! the truth must be told. Emile Zola was ploughed. He ' fell through,' as the Germans say. He was rejected on the ground of nullity in literature. The first question that was put to him was as to the date of the death of Charlemagne. He men- tioned a year in the reign of Francis I. This was bad, but the next test made matters worse. He was asked to explain one of La Fontaine's fables one of those, it appears, which kind old M. Isouard had taught him to read years ago in the study of the Pension Notre-Dame. Zola readily complied ; but here his romanticism was his stumbling-block, for his explanation was such as made the professor frown ominously ; and, having thereupon utterly failed in reading a German passage, he was dismissed with a 'That is enough, sir,' that foretokened the worst. And the worst it was. A zero was written against his name as his quantum of marks in vivd D 34 EMILE ZOLA voce ; a figure which inevitably entailed his failure. The science professors in vain interceded with their colleague, whose name has not survived. Zola was plucked. Some months later he tried again for the indis- pensable degree, but this time at the University of Marseilles. Here his failure was even more lament- able. Be it that during the holidays which preceded his examination, and which he had again spent in wandering about the country round Aix with his two inseparables, he had forgotten part of what he had learned, or that fate had decreed that he should "be forced into the only liberal profession which re- mains open to the non-diplomaed, the result was that this time he did not even pass the written examina- tion, and had to return defeated to Paris to face the world, with two mouths to feed besides his own, without a farthing in his pocket, and without that little piece of parchment which in France is the in- dispensable laissez-passer to all the arenas where bread can be fought for and won. At this time Zola was twenty years less a few months. His mother had again removed to a cheaper lodging, and it was in an attic at No. 241 rue Saint- Jacques that he was placed at last face to face with the world. After knocking at many doors, one of his father's friends, a M. Labot, procured him a place as clerk in a business house in the rue de la DA YS OF MISER Y IN PARIS 35 Douane at a salary of two pounds eight shillings a month. Previous to obtaining this miserable ap- pointment, Zola had tried to apprentice himself to a printer, so as to serve, in no matter how humble a capacity, that literature which he so loved. The work at the Docks such was the name of the house in the rue de la Douane, a fact which may have given rise to the American story that Zola passed his youth as a ' dock labourer ' was so utterly dis- tasteful to the young man, the salary was so hope- lessly inadequate, and the chances of betterment were so entirely nil, that after two months of drudgery he threw up his clerkship in disgust, preferring the risk of quick starvation in the streets to the slow starva- tion of body, and, above all, of mind, that was the only prospect held out to him by his employment. This was towards the middle of the year 1860, and then began for him a period of Bohemianism of the most squalid kind. Debts, borrowings, the pawn- shop, the men of the law ; home after home broken up and abandoned Zola knew them all. A penny- worth of bread was his usual ordinary ; he considered himself quite rich when he could add to it a penny- worth of pork. Poor Gervaise's mentis in the last chapters of ' L'Assommoir ' were his at that time, and to these early sufferings of his may be attributed in part the infinite pity with which he has always written of the hungry, the ragged, and the roofless. D 2 36 EMILE ZOLA Who has forgotten those words of his in ' L'Assom- moir,' where, after describing how Gervaise lets her tears fall into the dish that Goujet has set before her, he exclaims, ' Ah, Seigneur, que cela est bon et triste de manger, quand on creve ? ' Though there were many days in this period of Zola's life when he literally starved, when humilia- tions so hard to bear when one is young and has the pride and vanity of youth were of almost daily occurrence, he has often said that he was never happier than then. We have all felt this on looking back on evil days ; we have all acknowledged the truth of the ' Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.' But in Zola's case, also and may there not be here traced a hereditary tinge of Bohemianism ? this happiness was due to the fact that, if starving and shoeless, he was free, and that freedom meant to him the power to work as he wanted to work that is to say, with his pen putting into execution the hundred plans that he had carried in his head so long. When he could afford three-halfpence for a candle he was the happiest man in Paris, for the possession of a candle meant that he could write all night, and, as young men of letters will have it, the night was to him at that time the most propitious time for literary composition. DA YS OF MISER Y IN PARIS 37 Zola does not smoke. At Medan or in the hotel of the rue de Bruxelles he has excellent cigars, but they are for his friends. He gave up smoking when a youth, at the time now being written about, because he could not afford it, or, rather, because he preferred to light his candle to lighting his pipe. The habit once lost was not resumed, even when he could afford the costliest Havanas ever im- ported. He was living at this time on the seventh floor of No. 35 rue St. Victor, in a sort of shed built out on the leads, and Cezanne was with him, having come up from Aix to revolutionise Paris with his concep- tions of the pictorial art. Working at nights, when he could afford the light, Zola spent most of his days in wandering about the quays, turning over the books on the stalls of the second-hand booksellers, who have turned the parapets of the Seine into a literary Eialto. He often relates how at that time his overcoat, which once had been black, had assumed such a peculiar shade of green that he was ashamed to go out in it. One day he took it off, though in midwinter, to give it to a starving girl to sell for what it would fetch, and, having no coat beneath, returned to his attic in his shirt-sleeves. The news- papers he never read because he had no money 38 EMILE ZOLA wherewith to purchase them, and he could not afford to enter a cafe or brasserie, even had his taste for retire- ment not rendered such frequentations disagreeable to him. He was writing poetry at this time, and with all his heart and soul. To the literary baggage which he had brought with him from Aix he had now added a tale, entitled ' La Fee Amoureuse,' which was composed whilst he was studying at St. Louis, and a poem, called 'Eodolpho,' which he wrote between his two examinations and failures for the baccalaureat degree. 'Eodolpho' has since been printed. It forms part of a work schemed out under the title of ' L' Amoureuse Comedie,' which was to depict the three stages of love. ' Eodolpho ' was the first, and represents the Inferno of love ; 'a second poem, en- titled ' L'Aerienne,' describes the Purgatory of love ; whilst the third, called ' Paolo,' is the description of the triumph, or the Paradise of love. The ' Amoureuse Comedie ' was written between 1860 and 1861, and formed a small volume ; but Zola could find no publisher for it, if, indeed, he ever had the courage to seek for one. It only saw the light, after a long repose in the obscurity of his table drawer, in 1881, when it was printed in part at the end of Paul Alexis's ' Notes d'un Ami.' It is difficult to pass any judgment on this early work. DAYS OF MISERY IN PARIS 39 I believe that Zola himself has recognised that his forte was elsewhere. From the rue St. Victor he removed, under stress of circumstances, to the rue Saint-Etienne-du- Mont, his mother now going to live in a family boarding-house. His attic in the rue Saint-Etienne- du-Mont, a kind of belvedere, had formerly, it was said, been tenanted by Bernardin de St. Pierre, the author of ' Paul et Virginie ' an attic so bitterly cold that the poor author used to spend most of his time in bed writing with icy fingers. It was here and under these circumstances that he composed the second part of his ' Amoureuse Comedie,' 'L'Aerienne/ In prose, so far, he had done but little ; indeed, beyond some stray articles in the country papers, nothing but two tales one the 'Fee Amoureuse,' referred to above, and the other his ' Garnet de Danse,' which will be found in his ' Contes a Ninon.' Meanwhile, his misery was getting deeper and deeper. Time was when the only prospect was the street. Even the icy attic in the rue St. Etienne-du- Mont had to be abandoned, his few sticks of furniture being seized upon for rent, so that he drifted to that last refuge from homelessness the hotel borgne, or lowest class of hotel. This hotel, now no longer ex- istent, was in the rue Soufflot and was tenanted by the most raffish of students and the lowest of female 40 EMILE ZOLA outcasts. Eaids by the police were of almost nightly occurrence, and a very inferno it must have been to this sensitive and retiring youth to live amidst scenes of the lowest debauchery. One will remember his description of a police raid on just such an hotel in one of the chapters of ' Nana.' But while living thus, in the most miserable circumstances, cooped up in a squalid room, with the riot of drunkenness in his ears and the stench of vice in his nostrils, with starvation and the street as the only refuge hanging over his head, the young man continued to work with dogged energy and with a high ambition. A great poetical scheme was at that time in his head a poetical trilogy, which was to be entitled ' La Genese,' and which, in three poems, was to relate, with scientific accuracy, first, the creation or birth of the world ; secondly, the history of man from the beginning to the present day ; and, thirdly, the future of man, showing the successive stages by which he should eventually reach to heaven. Of this ambitious work but eight lines were ever written, the work upon it having been confined to drawing out the scheme and preparing the details. It may interest those who have never had a taste of Zola's poetic quality to read these eight lines, and here they are DAYS OF MISERY IN PARIS 41 LA NAISSANCE DU MONDE I Principe createur, seule Force premiere, Qui d'un souffle vivant souleva la matiere, Toi qui vis, ignorant la naissance et la mort, Du prophete inspire donne-moi 1'aile d'or. Je chanterai ton oeuvre et, sur elle tracee, Dans 1'espace et les temps je lirai ta pensee ; Je monterai vers toi, par ton souffle emporte, T'offrir ce chant mortel de 1'iinmortalite and that was all. Let one pause a moment to think of this young man in his miserable attic, rented at twelve shillings a month, in the most squalid of the refuges of poverty and vice, with scarcely a crust to put between his lips and clothes hardly decent enough to allow him to go out, sitting down to such a task as this. How blind is youth, and what a happy blindness it is ! 42 EMILE ZOLA THE end of the year 1861 found Emile Zola in the state that has been described. It was evident to the young poet that, however much liberty might de- light him, it was impossible for him to continue the sort of life that he was leading for a much longer period. A M. Boudet, member of the French Academy of Medicine, gave him a helping hand just at a time when things were at the worst, writing him a letter of introduction to M. Louis Hachette, the publisher, head of what was then, as it is now, one of the most important publishing houses in Paris. M. Hachette had no immediate employment to offer him, though he was able to engage him a month later. Zola must have spent a very miserable Christmas, and would have spent a still more miser- able New Year's Day had not his friend, M. Boudet, invented a little job for him, which enabled him, without hurting the susceptibilities of the sensitive M. Louis Hachette. THE STRUGGLE UPWARDS 43: young Provencal, to hand him a small piece of money. This job was to carry round to the houses of M. Boudet's friends the cards which it is usual in France to leave on acquaintances on New Year's Day. One can imagine poor Emile Zola, with his head full of poetic visions and his shabbiest of coats on his back, trudging about in the slush and the snow to execute this most menial of services. It may here be remarked, to Zola's credit, that the long and bitter sufferings of his youth did not sour his character, as they might very naturally have done. When he talks of those evil days it is without indignation or revolt. ' I had no money,' he will say, when speaking of those bad times, ' and I did not know what was going to become of me ; but, no matter, those were the good times. Ah, youth ! one's first literary passions the happy careless days! When I had read my fill along the bookstalls on the quays, or when I returned from some long walk on the banks of the Bievre, or in the Plain of Ivry, I used to- climb up to my room and eat my penny-halfpenny- worth of potatoes and then set to work. I used to- write poems, I wrote my first tales, and I was per- fectly happy. . . ." Towards the end of January, 1862, he was ad- mitted into M. Hachette's employment as clerk at a salary of a pound a week. For some 44 EMILE ZOLA weeks he was exclusively employed in packing up the books, and made many hundred parcels with brown paper and string. At the end of this period he was promoted into the advertising department with a slightly better salary. * I felt myself saved then,' he says ; ' I had one foot down, and I could say good-bye for ever to Bohemia.' Still, at first he was not happy. Bohemia, how- ever squalid, will always inspire a feeling of nostalgia, and there were times when, over his unsympathetic tasks, he found himself regretting the freedom of his garret, where at least he could work at what he chose. It was also something of a Tantalus task to him to see so many interesting books passing through his hands he who loved reading next best to writing and to be able to read of them nothing but the titles. Still, he saw where duty lay, and respect for duty had always been his characteristic. So, re- pressing his feelings, he did what he had to do with the same method and industry which he had shown at school, and gained the reputation with the firm of being a very fair employe. His ambition had never departed from him, and though his days were taken up in the service of his employers, he had his evenings to himself as well as the whole of Sunday, and these precious hours were THE STRUGGLE UPWARDS 45 turned to their best use by him in literary work. It would seem that, through living in a literary atmosphere so eminently practical as was that of a publishing house, his views on literary production had become more practical, for he abandoned not only the idea of his ' Genese,' but gave up writing poetry altogether. From 1862 to 1804 he wrote a number of contes, or short stories, which were afterwards published under the title of ' Contes a Ninon.' He was a very slow and laborious worker at that time, and was satisfied if, after working several hours, he had finished the equivalent of a printed page as his night's work. His style at this time was elaborate and precise, and ' Contes h Mnon,' though containing little of the power that afterwards dis- tinguished his work, are a very creditable literary effort on the part of a young man of twenty-two. One of the first things that he did after his appointment to Hachette's was to leave the odious hotel in the rue SoufHot, moving his few belongings to a house in the impasse St. Dominique. This house was once a cloister, and Zola's room was like a monk's cell. One thinks of Balzac and his monkish robe and cowl in this connection, and one wonders, also, how far the influence of his surroundings may have prompted Zola in later years to write 1 Le Eeve.' It was here that he wrote three of his tales, 4 6 EMILE ZOLA 1 Le Sang,' ' Simplice,' and ' Les Voleurs et FAne.' 4 Sceur des Pauvres ' was written later on, when Zola had again removed to the rue de la Pepiniere. Here also he wrote ' Celle qui m'aime,' the tale in which his future power, perhaps, first betrayed itself. He afterwards again removed, this time to No. 7 rue des Feuillantines, another of those old-time houses which seem, at that time, to have been dear to his romantic nature. These constant migrations of his are to be noted. They indicate a certain tinge of Bohemianism which was not rubbed off until much later, and they remind one of the restlessness of the nomadic Francois Zola, his father. His salary at Hachette's, although it saved him from absolute misery, was so inadequate that for many years Zola was not free from that wearing anxiety about money which is the worst enemy to mental endeavour. Yet in his case, as in that of Balzac, this constant struggle seems to have been beneficial to have urged him on to constant en- deavour to have made only the stronger his deter- mination to fight his way to success. A great advantage connected with his position in this publishing house was that it brought him into contact with most of the important literary men of the day. He was constantly meeting Taine and About, not to mention other celebrated men of letters, in connection with his business. Yet he seems to THE STRUGGLE UPWARDS 47 have made no friendship with any of these, nor, indeed, reserved as he always was, did he, during all the years that he was at Hachette's, attach himself to any new friends. It is true that both Bailie and Cezanne had now come to Paris and had settled there Bailie to study at the Polytechnic school and Cezanne to paint in his studio. Twice a week that is to say, on the days when the Polytechnician had his exeat the three, now more inseparable than ever, used to walk out together and tell each other of the episodes of the fight to which they had so looked forward when schoolboys at Aix, and in which they were now, and Zola most of all, so keenly engaged. Although he made no new friends, his circle of acquaintances enlarged itself. Already at that age he must have impressed his comrades with his mastership, and a number of young men used to visit him at his room in the rue des Feuillantines, where he ' received ' every Thursday, to drink tea with him, to hear him talk and to listen to such passages of his writings as he could be prevailed upon to read aloud. Marius Eoux, the old school- fellow, was one of the habitues, and so afterwards were Valabregue and Paul Alexis. It is not astonishing that, as a young man, Zola made so few friends. He is at one and the same time the most sympathetic and the least sympathetic 48 EMILE ZOLA of men. There is certainly no better heart in man's bosom than beats in his, and yet, be it from diffi- dence, or from melancholy, or because his sense of the debt of sympathy he has to pay to humanity in general makes him reluctant to pay it out in driblets to individuals, his manner, even to those who have known him a long time, is a distant one. Often, just when it may be thought that the ice has- been broken and that the reserve has been overcome, Zola will suddenly pull himself together and by his manner make it clearly understood that it was only by temporary forgetfulness that he neglected to keep his distance. Withal, he is the most obliging of men. It seems strange that so clever a man as Taine, than whom, perhaps, no better connoisseur of man and of human talent ever lived, should have failed to re- cognise in the young employe, at Hachette's somebody w T ho was destined to higher things than the writing and checking of advertisements in a publisher's office. And it is stranger still that, having known Zola under these circumstances, and having thus been a witness of the tremendous fight which Zola fought ere he reached the pinnacle of success on which he now stands, Taine should have been, even to his last hour, so unsympathetic towards a man whose heroic courage should certainly have com- manded his respect, even if his work did not THE STRUGGLE UPWARDS 49 command his approval. It was certainly to Taine's influence that Zola's repeated defeats at the elections of the French Academy were due. Taine would not hear of Zola's candidature, and opposed it in every way in his power. The regularity of his habits, his industry and method, won the esteem of Zola's employer. Little by little his position at Hachette's improved. One day, however, M. Hachette was to learn that young Zola had higher ambitions than those of clerkship. One Monday morning M. Hachette found on his desk the manuscript of a poem, signed Emile Zola, which was none other than a copy of ' L'Amoureuse Comedie,' that love trilogy of which mention has been made. Zola had placed it where it was found the previous Saturday after the publisher's departure. M. Hachette read the poem through, and though he did not see his way to publishing it to use the consecrated phrase he sent for Zola, asked him to sit down, and had a long conversation with him. From that day forward he seems to have conceived considerable respect for his strange young employe, raised his salary to eight pounds a month, and neg- lected no opportunity of putting extra work in his way. Two months later, moreover, he sent for Zola again and asked him to write a tale for a children's D magazine which was published by him. Zola set to E 5 o EMILE ZOLA work, and wrote his ' Soeur des Pauvres,' which can be read in the c Contes a Ninon.' Hachette read it, and told Zola that he was a revolutionary, and that he could not print it. Zola was not discouraged. He placed the manu- script with the others and continued to work. Every evening, after dinner that is to say, punctu- ally at half-past eight o'clock with unswerving regularity he used to sit down to his table and do his daily task, so many pages of manuscript, nor retire to bed until this task was done. The same amount of work was done on Sundays, but on these days in the morning, before he allowed himself to take any holiday, and the habit of writing at night being so strong upon him, he used to close the shutters of his window and sit down to write by candle-light. His work at Hachette's, as has been related, con- sisted in checking and reading the advertisements and reviews which appeared in the Paris and pro- vincial papers in connection with the publishing house. Zola thus had occasion to study journalism in all its phases, and it must be recorded that at first his opinion on this kind of literary production was a highly contemptuous one. In later years it was to journalism that he had to look for the means by which he was able to carry on the fight for his recognition. THE STRUGGLE UPWARDS 51 His first book, ' Contes a Ninon,' was published on October 24, 1864, by M. Lacroix, of the firm of Hetzel, the publishers of Jules Verne. Some of the stories of which this volume was composed had already been printed. ' La Fee Amoureuse ' had appeared in an Aix paper five years previously, called ' La Provence,' and two others, * Simplice ' and ' Le Sang,' had appeared in a magazine published in Lille. It was one evening in July that Zola heard from M. Hetzel. On his return home from his office he found a note asking him to call on the publisher on the following day. He was so excited that that night he could not work, but spent many hours roaming about the Luxemburg Garden wondering what might be in store for him and his book. He relates that he did not sleep a wink that night. Calling the follow- ing day on M. Hetzel, he heard the joyful news that his book was accepted, and that it would be published by M. Lacroix, who then and there drew up a contract for the young author to sign with trembling fingers. It may be said at once that by this contract no emolument of any kind was assigned to Zola, who, however, was only too glad to get his book published on any conditions. He signed with great pleasure, though he was not to, and never did, receive a penny for his work. When one remembers that, contrary to what so often happens in England, French publishers never, on any condition whatever, E 2 52 EMILE ZOLA will undertake the risk of publishing a first book at their own expense, one will be better able to under- stand Zola's joy at an offer which, though it conveyed no pecuniary benefit, was to give him, at no cost to himself, his first chance of being heard by the great public of Paris. The ' Contes k Ninon,' without being a great success, seems to have attracted some attention to the young author, and to have opened certain doors to him. During the eighteen months which followed on its publication, previous to his departure from Hachette's, he contributed to various Paris and pro- vincial publications. The ' Petit Journal ' accepted three or four articles from his pen, 'La Vie Parisienne' published some of his stories, whilst the * Salut Public ' of Lyons accepted a series of papers on literary and artistic subjects, which were afterwards published in book form under the title of ' Mes Haines,' a title which in itself reveals the fighter and the innovator. In the meanwhile he was working away at a new novel, entitled ' La Confession de Claude,' 1 which he 1 La Confession de Claude was very severely criticised in a paper called Le Nain Jaune by Barbey d'Aurevilly, and on December 31 of that year (1865) the following reply from Zola's pen appeared in that journal : ' SIB, It is customary for writers who are attacked (ereintes) to make no answer to the insults which are addressed to them. I do not, therefore, wish to defend myself against the attacks which one of your writers has thought fit to make upon me. 1 That your correspondent should style La Confession de Claude "une jolie prune de reine-Claude," that he should call my hero "a THE STRUGGLE UPWARDS 53 had begun in 1862, and which was published in October, 1865, a year after ' Contes a Ninon,' by the same publisher, M. Lacroix. This book has not survived, though it is doubtless remembered with some affection by its author, as it was the first that brought in some returns in the form of droits d'auteur, or royalties. It appears to have attracted some attention, and notably that of the Public Pro- secutor, who sent down to Hachette's to have some inquiries made about its author, and for a short time it seemed as though a prosecution were to be in- stituted. Zola's reputation was not, however, to be made in this way. He was to win fame, not notoriety. During these eighteen months Zola worked away with the same method and regularity as before. He had realised that ambition which satisfies so many toad," and should describe my metier as consisting in spinning out over 320 pages what Cambronne, more concisely, expressed in a single word, all that is a mere question of bad taste, which troubles me but little. ' But I cannot allow a publishing firm to be made responsible for a book which they did not issue. Your critic speaks of my book as " Hachette's little book." If that is a statement dictated by malice, or a joke, I declare myself unable to understand its import. If it was made by mistake, I demand a rectification. 'Yours, &c., EMILE ZOLA.' Zola answered Barbey d'Aurevilly in another way as soon as the opportunity presented itself to him. This answer will be found in the volume Mes Haines, under the title of Le Catliolique Hysterique, It is one of the bitterest criticisms which has appeared since the days of the Edinburgh Eeview. 54 EMILE ZOLA Frenchmen of letters, he had had his first book published, but he was far from satisfied with the result obtained. So, plodding away at Hachette's during the daytime, regularly every evening at half- past eight, as soon as dinner was over, he sat down to his table and his work, leaving to other less ambitious confreres the fldneries on the boulevard with the halo of the published book round their heads. He had other work cut out for him, and meant to do it. It was in November of 1865 that the Public Prosecutor's inquiries about the author of the ' Con- fession de Claude ' were made, a circumstance which may possibly have confirmed Zola in a resolution which for some time had been germing in his head and which was none other than to leave Hachette's and its irksome daily tasks and to give himself up entirely to literary production. He had now two books to his name and his entrees into various more or less important publications. His name was no longer totally unknown, his first efforts had excited some curiosity, and a path, however rugged and tortuous, was before his feet. The question was whether he could afford to throw away the certainty of daily bread assured by the monthly salary of eight pounds which Hachette was paying him. Per- haps Bohemia to some extent also exercised her fas- cination. However this may be, Zola determined to THE STRUGGLE UPWARDS 55 take the risk, 1 and at the end of November 1865 gave notice to leave on January 31 of the following year. He was nearly twenty-six years old when, with two books to his name and some manuscripts in his drawer, he stepped into the arena, determined to live by literature and by literature alone, or to starve in the attempt. His decision was not without courage. The cir- cumstances under which it was taken, especially when it is remembered what experiences he had undergone, might almost warrant one in saying that it was heroic. 1 In an admirable interview between M. Zola and M. Xau, published by the latter in 1880, I find, since writing the above, the following explanation, from M. Zola's lips, of his differences with Hachette & Cie. differences which led to their separation : ' However that may be,' said M. Zola after a pause, ' I was at Messrs. Hachette's when I published, in 1864, Les Conies a Ninon, and, in 1865, La Confession de Claude. These gentlemen (Hachette & Cie.) looked askance on my literary work it may be that they considered that I was wasting over it time which belonged to them. Besides, La Confession de Claude seemed to them somewhat stiff. ' So, one day, one of them said to me, outright : ' " You are earning SI. a month, which is ridiculous. You have lots of talent and would do better to take up literature altogether. You would find glory and profit there." ' The hint was a direct one and I understood it. This was at the end of November 1865. I accordingly gave notice to leave on January 31, 1866, for though I was determined to leave them, I did not want to fall into immediate want, and all the less so that the end of the year is in Paris always connected with extraordinary and heavy expenses.' 56 EMILE ZOLA CHAPTEE V IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT ZOLA'S opinion at that time about journalism, as a form of literary production, has already been de- scribed. It was, however, to journalism that he determined to look for his maintenance, now that his daily bread was to be earned by his pen alone. When he gave Hachette notice to leave he appears to have had nothing definite to hope for, although a certain M. Bourdin, the son-in-law of the great De Yillemes- sant, had no doubt persuaded him that his father-in- law might be pleased to make use of his services. It was, indeed, to Villemessant that, acting on M. Bour- din's advice, Zola wrote, and the proposal that he made was the following one. M. de Villemessant, after successfully establishing the ' Figaro,' then a weekly publication, to which, by the way, Zola had previously sent in certain of his tales, where, how- ever, they had not found acceptance, had just founded a new daily penny paper, entitled ' L'Evene- ment.' One of the features of this new paper was its theatrical news column, which, supplied by a IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT 57 special writer, gave those items of tittle-tattle, news, personal items and anecdotes, which since have be- come an indispensable feature on the daily menu of the newspaper reader, but which at that time were considered the newest of that new journalism of which M. de Villemessant was the creator. Zola then proposed to do for books and literature what this other member of the ' Evenement ' staff was doing for the drama and things theatrical. He proposed to keep his readers au courant with the titles of books which were to be published, with a short analysis of each, interspersing these items of news with anecdotes about their authors, and as a special feature to quote the most striking passages in the future publications, from advance-sheets which he undertook to procure from the publisher. De Villemessant, who was always on the look-out for novelties, and who was delighted to find new men sharing his views on journalism, at once wrote to Zola asking him to call upon him. The interview seems to have been a most satisfactory one. De Villemessant was struck with the ardour of the young writer and forthwith engaged him on trial for a month. ' You have carte blanche] he said ; ' the " Evenement " will publish everything that you send in. At the end of the month I shall know the sort of stuff you have in you, and I will then come to definite decision.' 5 8 EMILE ZOLA A very remarkable man was this De Villemes- sant, who after innumerable failures and a fight as hard in its way as was that of Zola in another created for himself in the ' Figaro ' one of the finest news- paper properties in the world. This paper, which at the outset was so poor that time and time again the cashier had to desert his pay-desk rather than face the clamouring members of the staff, now pays away for contributions considerably over forty thousand pounds a year, and divides amongst its fortunate proprietors fully four times that amount per annum. This magnificent success was due to De Villemessant, and to him alone. The paper is to-day edited as though he were still living, and it were to come under his inspection. Before deciding on any new departure the editor, he himself has said it, will say to himself, ' Would De Villemessant approve of this ? ' and is guided in his decision by his remi- niscences of De Villemessant's principles in matters of journalism. He was a very liberal paymaster, and made the fortune of most of those who were asso- ciated with him, but he was also a most exacting employer. It was his rule to read the ' Figaro ' through each day from the first line to the last, and to mark any passages that either specially pleased him, or which he disapproved of. The paper so marked used to be pasted up in the editorial common room, and IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT 59 was, as may be fancied, eagerly scanned by the members of the staff. Such was the man under whom Zola had now en- listed. He began work on ' L'Evenement ' on Febru- ary 2, 1866, and by the 15th of the month had already received a letter of warm congratulations from its proprietor. At the end of the month, on applying to the cashier for his salary, which had not been fixed, he received the sum of 20Z., a very Pactolus to him at that time. It really seemed that in abandoning Hachette's and the salary of 8/. a month he had acted with the best of common sense. This 20/. was the first money that Zola had ever received for the work of his pen, royalties from ' La Confession de Claude ' only coming in later. One can imagine his joy. His column in the 'Evenement,' which by the way was headed ' Books of To day and To-morrow,' was attracting considerable attention in Paris. Everything looked very hopeful. The articles on ' The Books of To-day and To- morrow ' were such a success that De Villemessant asked Zola to do the art criticism as well, beginning with, the Salon of 1886. The series of articles which, in consequence of this order, Zola contributed to the ' Evenement ' under the title of ' Mon Salon ' can be read in a collected form in the volume ' Mes Haines,' and it may be said at once that their tone 60 EMILE ZOLA was fully in accordance with the title of the book in which they were afterwards reprinted. The first article in which Zola discussed the various artists of whom the Salon jury was composed, and very clearly denied the rights of the majority of them to occupy functions so important, created a great sensation in the artistic world. This sensation increased in in- tensity as each new article appeared. Who was this young man who with such undeniable vigour ran tilt against all the accepted notions of art, and laid such irreverent hands on persons whose mastership had until then been undisputed ? This question was in every mouth, and on ' Mon Salon' day the ' Evenement ' could be seen in everybody's hands, and the name of Emile Zola could be heard in every mouth. What created the strongest impression was the power, the conviction with which the unknown critic expressed himself. Those whom he attacked the worst could not but recognise with growing uneasiness that this iconoclast was no contemptible adversary. The fury of his victims knew no bounds. Letters of insult and menace poured in on the ' Evenement ; ' one of the worst-hit artists spoke of provoking his critic, and a duel was narrowly avoided. Demonstrations of hostility against the c Evenement ' could be seen any day on the boulevard. Artists used to buy the paper and, awaiting the passage of either De Villemessant or of Emile Zola, tear it into pieces before their eyes. IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT 61 What specially provoked the old-established masters was, that the young writer whilst demolishing their reputations with indescribable vigour, with no less ardour set up against them a painter, who at that time was considered an innovator as daring as he was ridiculous. This was the great Manet, specimens of whose work may to-day be seen at the Luxemburg, and who chiefly owed it to Zola that his genius first got the chance of imposing itself. One of his best pictures, by the way, to be seen at the Luxemburg is a group of portraits, amongst which will be re- cognised that of Emile Zola at the age of thirty. Now, though De Villemessant was very pleased with all the noise that was made about the ' Evene- ment ' in connection with Zola's articles, he had quite enough battles of his own to fight, and desired no fresh ones not of his seeking. It would be unjust to him to suppose that any feeling of jealousy of the sensation created by the young writer prompted him, because in De Villemessant every personal feeling was subordinated to the interests of his paper. He seems to have thought that the animosity inspired against the paper by Zola's articles more than counterbalanced the benefit of the great publicity given to his paper thereby, and so it was that he suddenly begged Zola to terminate the ' Mon Salon ' series in two articles at the most. Zola was forced to obey, though with reluctance. The articles 62 EMILE ZOLA were afterwards republished in volume form by Julien Lemer, and this volume going out of print, were, as has been stated, incorporated in the collection of literary and artistic criticisms which was published under the significant title of ' My Hatreds.' Zola's next attempt on the ' Evenement ' was very much less successful. Writing art-criticism was all very well, but fiction, he believed, was his forte, and he lost no time in trying to use his connection with the ' Evenement ' for the advancement of his en- deavours in this branch of literary production. He proposed to Villemessant to write a serial story for the ' Evenement,' and submitted the plot of the tale. It was approved of and the order was given. Zola had no other object in view in writing this tale than to make money. He proposed to write it to please the readers of the 'Evenement,' not to expose his own very personal views on fiction. Now, whenever Zola has written to order he has failed as signally as he has succeeded where he has worked according to his own light. ' Le Yoeu d'une Morte ' was a failure from the very commencement. It neither pleased him nor the people for whom it was written. The readers of the ' Evenement ' complained about the serial, threatening to stop their subscriptions if such stories were printed in the paper, the ineVitable result being that De Villemessant stopped its publi- cation before Zola was half way through it. Zola IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT 63 seems to have admitted himself that the story was worth nothing, for ' Le Voeu d'une Morte ' was never finished. Possibly at the time he may have felt some mortification, whilst to console himself for the failure he could recall the fact that Balzac's masterpieces met with just the same fate at the hands of the newspaper-reading public when they were published in serial form. Only, unfortunately, Zola felt that ' Le Vceu d'une Morte ' was very far from being a masterpiece. Before the incorporation of the ' Evenement ' with the ' Figaro,' which was thereupon transformed into a daily paper, Zola contributed a series of articles entitled ' Marbres et Platres,' which were literary portraits of leading litterateurs of the day. Those of Edmond About, Taine, Jules Janin, and Flaubert are especially good and worth preserving. It is a significant fact that these articles were published anonymously, or rather over the pseudonym of ' Simplice.' This was doubtless by De Villemessant's orders, the name of Zola inspiring such rancour at the time. It must be added that by now De Yillemessant had begun to regret his former opinion of Zola ; he believed that for once he had been mistaken. Zola's favour with him diminished daily, and though he was allowed to contribute a few sketches to the daily ' Figaro,' his connection with De Villemessant was abruptly clqsed barely a year after it had commenced under such 64 EMILE ZOLA auspicious circumstances that is to say, in the beginning of 1867. The 'Figaro' was afterwards very hostile to the author, attacking his books with surprising vigour. Zola, however, conquered the ' Figaro ' as he conquered all his other adversaries, and, thirteen years later, re-entered triumphantly through the door out of which he had crept with hanging head. The ' Figaro ' is to-day, and has been for many years past, his warmest supporter. ' The " Figaro " is my paper,' he said to me the other day. During the year that he spent as writer on the ' Evenement,' Zola made a number of new acquaint- ances, and perhaps, in the case of Manet, one new friend. By his vigorous defence of the new ideas in art he won to himself the sympathy of the whole school of innovators and art-revolutionaries, the im- pressionists of to-day, Pissaro, Monet, Degas, Eenoir, and many others. It was a happy year for Zola. Never before had he had such sums of money to dispose of. And the delicious sensation of being his own master after the long drudgeries of his clerkship ! In the summer he took a long holiday at Bennecourt on the Seine, with Bailie, Cezanne, Valabregue and other friends, and whilst boating on the river or wandering about the fields, talked of the books that he meant to write, and impressed all who heard him with the magnitude of his ambition and the firmness of his purpose. IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT 65 Still incessant anxiety overhung him. Though the first skirmishes had been won, little had been gained beyond some notoriety, not, perhaps by reason of the animosity which had engendered it of the most desirable kind. The fact that he had been earning money easily in journalism, and the fuss made about his Work in Paris, had not turned his head, and not for a single day, except when he was taking his holiday at Benne- court, did he interrupt his methodical, regular, daily work. How many young provincials, finding them- selves, after a long period of misery, with money in their pockets, and their names on every tongue, would have resisted the temptations of the cafe, the pleasant triumphs of the walk on the boulevards at the hour of the absinthe, when passers-by would turn and say: 'That's So-and-so, whose articles in the " Evenement " are making such a stir ! ' One must understand Paris and its temptations to appreciate the heroism of Zola's conduct. Not one man in a thousand would have had the courage to act as he did, and it is accordingly only fair that his success has been what not one man in ten thousand, nay, in a hundred thousand, ever achieves. He did not, like hundreds of his confreres, eat his corn in the grass, looking for a better harvest in due season. The only Bohemianism in which he indulged himself whilst living in the most burgherly and F 66 EMILE ZOLA steadiest of fashions, was to move from one house to another. During the year that he was collaborating on the ' Evenement,' he appears to have changed his address three times. From the rue des Feuillan- tines he had moved to the boulevard Montparnasse, thence to the rue Saint-Jacques, and then again to the rue de Vaugirard, where he had two rooms with a balcony which overlooked the Luxemburg Garden. It was after the severance of his connection with the ' Evenement ' that he took what is always a decisive step in the life of the Parisian writer, he moved to the other -side of the water. The French litterateur invariably makes his debut in the Latin Quarter, but a day comes when he feels that life must be taken in earnest, and he packs up his traps and crosses the water. When this day came to Emile Zola, he left the rue Zola of his intentions. FEELING HIS WAY 79 Duranty and Zola used frequently to go together to a literary salon there were salons in those days in Paris, presided over by Madame Meurice, the charming wife of Paul Meurice, to whom Zola had been introduced by the painter Manet. It was the rendezvous of the romantics, with whom Zola who was recently described by Francisque Sarcey in a review of ' Le Docteur Pascal ' as ' the last, the most passionate, and the most illustrious of the sons of romanticism ' considered himself at that time in open warfare. The cultus of Victor Hugo was here practised, and Zola, although himself a deep admirer of the exiled poet who had had such an influence on his youth, seemed to revolt against such entire hero-worship. One day, hearing Balzac attacked, he burst out into an impassioned defence of the merits of the author of the ' Human Comedy,' which must have greatly surprised and shocked his listeners. It was chez Madame Paul Meurice that the ' Eappel ' newspaper was founded a circumstance wliioh will explain why almost from its outset it was the official organ of the glory of Victor Hugo. Zola was one of the founders and first contributors, only accepting M. Meurice's offer on the condition that places on the staff should be found for cer- tain Provencal friends Paul Alexis amongst others. His connection with the ' Eappel ' lasted about two 8o EMILE ZOLA years and terminated suddenly after the appearance of an article on Balzac in which Zola repeated, with additions, the panegyric with which he had so shocked the habitues of Madame Meurice's salon. For some years a kind of armistice between the romantiques, as represented by Vacquerie and Meurice, and the naturalists, as represented by Emile Zola, ensued, in which certain courtesies of log- rolling were exchanged, the ' Eappel ' criticising the Eougon-Macquart novels in a friendly spirit in exchange for Zola's friendly criticisms on M. Vacquerie's ' Mes Premieres Annees a Paris ' in ' La Cloche,' of which at that time M. Zola was a con- tributor. Later on, however, the two parties affected to ignore each other, so that Zola's name was never even mentioned in the ' Eappel.' It was chez Madame Meurice that Zola made the acquaintance of a young poet, with a Napoleon- like profile, who ever since has been a warm admirer of his, though their paths in literature are diametrically opposite. This was Francois Coppee, who had just finished 'Le Passant,' which, played at the Odeon, was to make his name and to give Madame Sarah Bernhardt her first chance of emerg- ing from the obscurity which then environed her. Eomantic then, as now, it seems strange that Coppee should have won Zola's heart, and still more so that Zola should have inspired Coppee with such FEELING HIS WAY 8r deep admiration, that ever since Zola first entered himself as a candidate for the French Academy he has had no warmer supporter than the romantic poet whose acquaintance he made in Madame Meurice's salon. It is true that Francois Coppee has the largest of hearts, and, on the other hand, is the least militant of men. There never was even for a moment any competition between him and Zola as there was between Zola and other friends of his youth, from whom he has since separated him- self. Zola's twenty-eighth birthday, then, found him in this position. He had written and published six novels, of which two, ' Therese Baquin ' and ' Made- leine Ferat,' had reached second editions, and another, 'La Confession de Claude,' had attracted the attention of the police authorities. Besides these novels, he had also published a collection of art critiques, under the title of ' Mon Salon,' re- printed from the ' Evenement.' He had made his mark as a journalist, and by his pen had won for himself many friends, and, what was still more important for a young writer, a number of influential enemies. He was discussed, attacked, defended in other words, he had imposed his personality. He was somebody; he had made his mark in Paris. Still, so far he himself felt it, he had not struck the note of his individuality his real work still lay o 82 EMILE ZOLA before him. To grapple with this task he was at least admirably equipped by temperament and by education, for while misery and privation, having no secrets from him, had equally no terrors, he had learned to school himself to work and method the two best weapons wherewith to fight the world. Paris had never been able to lure him from his duty. The song of the sirens, by which may be under- stood the pleasures of the boulevard, had fallen on deaf ears. Such success as he had had, and which, such as it was, would have intoxicated many a less hard-headed man, had only stimulated him to further effort. His place, he felt, was not amongst the little heroes of Tortoni's, it was in his workroom, and it was only for the purpose of mixing with the masters, or with those from whose intercourse he could derive benefit and instruction, that he ever went out into society. He was a terribly earnest young man, and terribly in earnest. It was under these circumstances and with this equipment that he set to work on the task which, diligently pursued for upwards of a quarter of a century, was to make his name universally known, and to consecrate him one of the masters, if not the master, of French literature in the nineteenth century. CHAPTEE VIE THE ' ROUGON-MACQUART : ' ' LA FORTUNE DES ROUGONS' ' LA CUREE ' VARIOUS were the causes that prompted Zola to the gigantic task of the ' Kougon-Macquart ' series of novels, which he has so recently completed. One of these, no doubt, was the example of his acknow- ledged master, Balzac, to whom, however, the idea of an ceuvre generate that is to say, of a series of novels connected with and proceeding from each other only came after a certain number of the volumes composing the ' Comedie Humaine ' had been written. Still, the example of the creation of a collection of novels embracing one immense sub- ject, and thus forming one gigantic whole, had been set, and the magnitude of the task, as well as the end to be attained in case of success, were enough to stimulate the ambitious young writer. Then, again, it seemed to him that there was here as yet untrodden ground to be explored. The ques- tion of heredity was then, as it is practically to-day, e 2 84 EMILE ZOLA a quarter of a century later, what Zola recently de- scribed as a lisping science, a science yet at nurse, in the domain of which poets and authors are still masters. ' For .here,' he added, ' there is a large margin of territory, as yet unexplored, open to their investigations. Nobody can come and say that one is wrong in his deductions, because nobody knows much about the science, and so the author can set up a theory without fear of definite refutation.' Another consideration was, that if he could get a publisher to back him in his plan of writing a number of novels connected one with the other,. he would have a certain amount of work, and, by the same token, a certain assured income to depend upon. The question of heredity and its influences had long preoccupied him, as may be traced in ' Made- leine Ferat,' the plot of which is based upon certain physiological problems. It will be remembered also that even as a schoolboy Zola had shown a marked taste for scientific research. It will also be remembered that, as quite a young writer, his desire to faire grand, as the French say, had more than once revealed itself. His 'Amoureuse Comedie ' was such a work ; the ' Genese,' which he planned out whilst starving in his garret, and which was to cover the whole history of humanity, would have been, had he been able to carry out his plan, THE < ROUGON-MACQUART] ETC. 85 a vaster work than even the one to which he had now determined to devote himself. After pondering for some time on the question of the form in which he should present his ideas on hereditary influence to the public, he hit on the idea of a family, each member of which should form the subject of one novel, each novel being in some sort the development of the work, and closely connected with one or other of the preceding ones. The title ' L'Histoire Naturelle et Sociale d'une Famille sous le Second Empire ' was soon hit upon, and what then remained to be done before setting to work was to study up the question of heredity, which was to> play such a part in the actions of the various members of this family. This was towards the end of 1868, and for eight months Zola gave himself up to study, visiting the National, then the Imperial Library, and reading up all the books on physiology and natural history that he considered likely to be of service for his purpose. A certain ' Traite de 1'Heredite Naturelle,' by Dr. Lucas, was especially studied. Having filled his head and his note-book with information on his subject, Zola sketched out the general plan of the series, which at that time was to comprise twelve novels. He then drew up the genealogical tree, which was afterwards published on the first page of t Une Page d' Amour ' a fact to be noted when it is remembered that the critics of that book declared 86 EMILE ZOLA that this genealogical tree had been invented at the time ' Une Page d' Amour ' was written, so as to give an air of plausibility to the author's pretensions that he was working out a well-defined literary scheme. And it should be noted that it is Zola's chief glory, as it is his chief pride, that it has been a scheme which he has been working out for the last quarter of a century, and which he has brought to a suc- cessful close after such a quarter of a century's toil. That certain modifications were necessary in the general scheme, as may be seen by a comparison of the genealogical tree referred to above, and the one to be found in ' Le Docteur Pascal,' will surprise nobody, Zola having moved with his times, and being nothing .if not a progressist. The scheme having been elaborated, Zola drew up a contract which he took to his publisher, M. Lacroix, who, having made a certain amount of profit with both ' Confession de Claude ' and ' Therese Eaquin,' was likely to be favourably disposed to the speculation. , Zola proposed to supply Lacroix with twelve novels at the rate of two novels a year. Lacroix was to pay him five hundred francs, or twenty pounds, a month, which sums were to be considered advances on his part. Lacroix was to reimburse himself out of the serial rights of each novel, and, after his advances had been covered, was to allow THE ' ROUGON-MACQUART; ETC. 87 Zola a royalty of fourpence per copy of the novel sold in book form. It may be mentioned that at that time a royalty of fivepence a copy was con- sidered very liberal remuneration, De Goncourt him- self not receiving more a circumstance which proves that in drawing up his contract Emile Zola did not set too low an appreciation on his own work. M. Lacroix, however, would not engage himself for more than four out of the twelve novels, and with this condition the contract was signed. It was not, how- ever, destined to be carried out, and, far from as- suring to Zola that tranquillity that he had hoped for, plunged him into the worst difficulties. Each time that he received his five hundred francs he signed a promissory note for this sum at three months, to be renewed, according to the clauses of the contract, until the delivery of the manuscript. Now, owing to circumstances, his original idea of supplying and publishing two novels a year could not be carried out. As a matter of fact, only two volumes of the ' Eougon-Macquart ' series were pub- lished in the three years that followed the signing of the contract, at the end of which period, what with renewals, legal expenses, and so forth, Zola found himself with over thirty thousand francs worth of paper signed by him against his name. It was only in 1875, M. Lacroix having bankrupted in the meanwhile, that he was able to settle the matter by 88 EMILE ZOLA paying over the balance due from him to the estate of the bankrupt ; and in the meanwhile he had had more than once to face that most unpleasant of domestic events, the seizure by huissier of his goods and chattels. It was in May 1869 that Zola set to work on the first novel of the series, which he had now decided should be entitled the 'Kougon-Macquart.' He spent several days in thinking out a name for the family whose adventures he proposed to describe, and in this connection his own words on the subject of names in fiction may be read with interest. Speaking to me on the subject, he said : ' I may say that I have a great faith in names, that I consider the author's choice in this matter a science. I myself often spend days together over the Bottin or Paris Directory making out a list of names which strike me as valuable and likely to be useful, and a much longer time in finally deciding which of the names on the list which I have made out from that source I can use. I am quite a fatalist in this matter, believing firmly that a mysterious correlation exists between the man and the name he bears. Thus I always judge a young author by the names he bestows on his characters. If the names seem to me to be weak, or to be unsuitable to the people who bear them, I put the author down as a man of little talent, and am no longer greatly interested in his book. THE 'ROUGON-MACQUAR7] ETC. 89 Names should possess a consonance to the ear. A dis- sonance between a character in a book and the name bestowed upon him by the author is a very grave defect. True it is that there are historical characters who had names which were not at all suitable to them. Eacine, for instance, a word meaning a root, and which might as easily have been Garotte, or carrot an ugly, stupid name, if ever there was one. In his case, however, the talent of the man has invested it with dignity. Corneille, too. Corneille is only another word for corbeau, or crow. One would find a man named Crow ridiculous, but in Corneille's case also the man's genius is the apologist, of his name. In his case, as in that of Eacine, and of others that I could mention, we have in the end grown accus- tomed to the point of no longer noticing it to the dissonance between the name and the man. But in presenting new characters to the public this dis- sonance must be avoided. It is one of the first rules of the novelist's art. Bad authors choose bad names. Oh, yes, I am all for well-chosen names, even as Balzac and Dumas and George Sand were. Some of my names I consider great discoveries, as Sacchar, for instance, and Cornu-Gradel. As to. the name of the family, the composite Eougon-Macquart. Eougon is a common name in the South, where the genesis of my family is laid, and has something majestic and dignified about it which Macquart has not. 90 EMILE ZOLA Thus the legitimate and the illegitimate branches of the family are thrown into contrast. Macquart, base and vulgar as it is, contrasts with the dignity of Eougon, and the combination of the two names as the name of a family prepares the reader for a vast difference in the characteristics of the various mem- bers of that family, which was just the effect that I desired to produce.' The name of the series being decided upon and let Balzac's influence in this respect, mere detail as it is, be noted Zola's plan of campaign was drawn out. His method of writing his books never having varied from the first to the last, and being the secret of his colossal production, is worthy of description. In sitting down to a novel he has never any idea what it is to be about, and be it remarked en passant that he has never attached much importance to mere plot, and the first thing that he does is to prepare an ebauche, or sketch. This he does pen in hand, because he finds that ideas only come to him when he is writing. He declared to me that he could never evolve a single idea by sitting still in his chair and thinking. He writes as though he were talking to himself, discussing the people, the scenes, the incidents. His ebauche is a sort of chatty letter addressed to himself, which often equals, where it does not exceed in length, the novel which is to spring from it. He then draws out a plan of the book, a THE ' ROUGON-MACQUART] ETC. 91 list of the characters, and a most elaborate and detailed scenario. Each character and each scene is then studied in detail, and wherever possible de visu. Incidents are then prepared for insertion in the story where available. It is only then, having actually written much more than the novel itself, that he sets to work to write it. The text of the sketch is rarely used at all, at most a phrase or two which may seem felicitous. His novels have always been written in the morning directly after breakfast, which for many years has consisted of a couple of fried eggs with- out liquid of any kind. His table is always kept in the most methodical order, each item having its place, another detail in which Balzac's example may have served. He writes very slowly and methodi- cally, forming each sentence before it is put into black and white, and with so much deliberation that he rarely, if ever, has to make any erasures or cor- rections in his manuscript. His daily task, as far as his novel-writing is concerned, has been four pages of print of the Charpentier form of volume daily, and he has never done more nor less, laying down the pen the moment that this amount has been pro- duced, no matter whether he may be in the midst of a sentence. His plan is so clear in his head that he can resume his work on the following morning without having to read over anything of what pre- 92 EMILE ZOLA cedes. He is a slow writer, and seems to have diffi- culty in the mere mechanical operation of penman- ship. Four pages, not a line more nor less, day after day without interruption for years and years, line upon line, line upon line, this has been the secret of a literary production which has not its equal amongst living writers. As Paul Alexis writes : ' Only four pages, but four pages every day, every day without exception, the action of the drop of water always falling on the same place, and in the end wearing out the hardest stone. It seems nothing, but in course of time chapters follow upon chapters, volumes follow upon volumes, and a whole life's work sprouts, multiplies its branches, extends its foliage like a lofty oak, destined to rise high into the air and to remain standing in the forest of human productions.' All the more credit is due to Zola for this industry and this perseverance that he has never taken great pleasure in his work. It has always given him pain and anxiety, and, as he makes Sandoz say in 1 L'CEuvre,' he has always envied those litterateurs who turn out prose whilst smoking cigarettes and tickling their beards. As for him, it is with the knife that he brings forth. The book in progress is a sore fardel on his back, and when it is over he turns from it with the same relief, if not rancour, as a porter whose back has been galled a whole summer's day THE < GERMINAL; ETC. 203 of character, of splendid writing, and of incidents of the greatest interest, ' Germinal,' to the thinking of many, is Zola's masterpiece. At the same time, there is more than enough of reference to the matters which may have induced some of the 166,000 purchasers of ' Nana ' to read that book. ' Ger- minal ' cannot be described as a moral book, and it is in all other respects in Zola's best style, and is also, from its subject life in the French mines one of the most interesting. Still, only half as many people have bought it as bought ' Nana.' This is matter that suggests reflection. Amongst the 88,000 purchasers of ' Germinal ' a large number would be found, could the volumes be traced from the bookshop to the bookshelf, amongst the miners themselves. During a recent tour in the mournful mining districts of Belgium, there was not a coron, or mining village, that I visited where ' Germinal ' was unknown, and where at least one well-thumbed copy of this book could not be found. It was, indeed, in the Borinage, or coal district around Mons, the scene of the recent strike, revolt, and massacre, that Zola to a large extent studied up his subject. ' Germinal ' is, next to ' La Debacle,' the book which gave him the most trouble in the way of documentation. The best part of six months was spent by him in travelling about, note-book in hand, in the various mining districts of the North of 204 EMILE ZOLA France and of Belgium, interviewing miners, explor- ing mines from pit-mouth to lowest depths, attend- ing political meetings amongst the miners, studying various types of Socialist lecturers, drinking horrible beer and more horrible brandy in the forlorn cabarets of the corons, interrogating miners' wives, wandering about the fields in the neighbourhood of these corons to watch the lads and lasses taking their poor pastimes after the day's drudgery was over. In a village not far from Mons, which I visited some days after the fusillade of Mons, to be present at the funeral of one of the miners who had been shot, I fell into conversation with an old porion, or ' gaffer,' who told me that he had piloted M. Zola about the Borinage for some days. ' I never heard a man ask more questions,' he said, c unless it be an examining magistrate. He was curious, was that gentleman.' In February of 1884 Zola writes from Valen- ciennes : ' ... At Valenciennes since Saturday amongst the strikers, who are remarkably calm. A splendid country as a scene for my book.' On January 18 of the following year that is, in 1885, Zola writes from Medan to the same friend : * No ; " Germinal " is not finished yet. I have five or six more days of work before me. This deuce of a novel has cost me any amount of trouble. But I am very pleased, especially with the second part, and