Zola's theory and practice in the genealogical novel

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Authors Wright, Grace, 1901-

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Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/553467 ZOLA'S THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE GENEALOGICAL NOVEL

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. PREPARING FOR THE EXPERIMENT 12

1. The Method 2. The Defining of the Purpose 3. The Selection of the Material

III. FORMATION OF THE TWO BRANCHES 21

1. Inherited Characteristics 2. Differences

IV. THE GROUP EXPERIMENT 33

1. Subjecti The Family 2. Environmental Changes The Coup d*Etat 3. Reactions

V. INDIVIDUAL EXPERIMENTS WITH THE THIRD GENERATION

1. Eugbne 2. Aristide and Sidonie 3. Marthe and Francois 4. H61fene 5. Lisa 6. Gervaise 7. Jean

VI. EXPERIMENTS ON THE FOURTH GENERATION...... 76

1. Jeanne 2. Octave 3. Serge 4. Desiree 5. Pauline and Nana 6. Claude 7. Etienne

1

j??F87 Chapter 8. Jaequee 9. AngSlique 10. Maxim© 11. Clotilda - ■■ ■ ■ • 12. Victor '■ ■ ; ; ' ' •' VII. RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT ...... 114

VIII. CONCLUSION ...... •...... U 8

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... ISO

11 CHAPTER I

IHTRODTJGTIOI

Salle 2Sola, ncweliafc and refomer, began his literary career In France shortly after the. middle of the nineteenth century when Hie intelleetual world had become definitely selentiflc in outlook. It was the age when Darwin was revo­ lutionizing thinking with M s theories of evolution, when

Talne was. advocating scientific criticism in literature, and when Balzac, Flaubert, and the Qonoourts were breaking from the traditional romantic pattern to write more realistic flc-

!-!!!/ ■ Zola *s idea was to go further than any of M s pred#- : oessors had done to achieve reality in the novel. He sought to give a photographic reproduction of life sparing none of its sad or even disgusting details. Vihen his works began to appear, the public, accustomed to the pleasing and diverting tales of the romanticists, was enraged at the grossness of their reality. Undaunted by criticism, he began work on a long series of novels, which would crush by the weight of their reality all opposition to the new kind of fiction.

In 1865, when Zola was writing the third novel of hie aeries. Dr. Claude Bernard's treatise. Introduction a 1*Etude de la M§deoine ExpSrimentale. came to his attention. The publication of this famous work, which was to revolutionize 8

mediotoe, proved timely from Zola’s point of view. Besides suggesting that he publish his theories of the novel in vin- dication of M s work, it actually furnished M m with argu­ ments to support his theories.

The purpose of Dr. Bernard’s treatise was to advocate

the use of the experimental method in the practice of medi­ cine. He did not lay claim to originating a new method; he was simply attempting to show that the method of the

chemist and the physicist, who deal with inanimate bodies,

could be used to advantage by the physician in his work with living bodies. Zola maintained that the method should he carried a step further into the field of literature, the

province of which is the minds and passions of men.

The purpose of this essay Is to explain how Zola formu­ lated his theories of the scientific novel; and then to dem­

onstrate in detail how he applied these theories to M s most

important work, the Rougon-Macquart series of novels.

When Zola began to write, the French realistic novel mas still in the early stages of its development. In the

eighteenth century Le Sage had published M s picaresque romance, Gil Bias, which, with its loosely knit chain of

adventures, bore little resemblance to the novel as it has

since come to be known. Then came Voltaire and Rousseau, who used the novel as a vehicle for their ideas: the one

for an attack on the absurdities of religious and political government; the other to popularise his hew and democratic 3

conception of man# It was Chateaubriand who established the novel as its own raison d*8tre. It so happened that his

interest in mediaeval monarchism and Christianity, together with his travels to foreign countries - north America,

England, Holland, and the far East - furnished him with, material romantic in nature.

Many writers followed him to make up the Romantic school,

the most outstanding of whom was Victor Hugo. A prolific writer, Hugo furnished French readers with frequent and excel­

lent examples of romanticism at its peak. Among others were

George Sand, Madame de Sta&l, Dumas, Stend^hl, and Mdrlm^e,

the latter particularly in his early work. Mdrimde and

Stenda^l showed qualities of keen analysis, however, which pointed to the later scientific writers. Where Dumas and Hugo, for example, occupied themselves with the novel of inci­

dent, these later writers showed more interest In character.

Of these transitional novelists. Honors de Balzac, who

Is usually claimed for the Romantic school, was the most cele­ brated. In La Ccaaddle Humaine. a long series of novels, he sought to depict all the passions that govern human beings. It was his method to take a primary passion, put It in a

human body, and set it to work Itself out in visible action. From this series Zola took his Inspiration for the Rougon-

Maoquart series, using hereditary tendencies instead of the

dominant passim. Balzac’s employment of facts obtained through observation, the force of his analysis, tide use of detail transport one from the world of the imagination to 4 that of science. Although the public was becoming accustomed to a change in tho novel, it was scandalized when Flaubert brought out his definitely realistic Madame Bovary* In spite of the hor­ ror Inspired by scenes such as that at Emma's deathbed, the book was a great success* Its readers, no doubt, recognized

in It at the time the qualities of perfection which make it a masterpiece. So careful of his phrasing was Flaubert that he spent hours searching for the right word. The same can be

said of his attention to structure. It was good for the ;. ' • „; ■ ■ - v ■- . . . - ■ cause of realism that Madame Bovary should have had such

qualities of intrinsic Redness•

In Salaambo, Flaubert offers an Illustration of another method of writing a novel, a method which was to be used to

a great extent by Zola and the naturalists - the use of docu­

ments of all kinds as a means of securing accuracy of detail. ■ ■ :■ • - V '■ ■ : : - . - , His subject lent Itself perfectly to his experiment. Car­ thage, about which so little Is known by the modern world, was reconstructed through documents and made the scene of

his story. He visited the ruins of the ancient city to get

what first-hand information there was to he had. Next, he studied the Bible, Theophrastus, Maroellinus, and other his­

torians for the details of customs, of architecture, of re­

ligious rites, and for perfumes, Punic names, etc. Then he

fitted into this background his story, striving to keep it

in harmony with the documentary evidence. 6

Like Flaubert, the Goncourt brother#* Jules and Edmond, bequeathed to Zola and his followers sorae doeuraested work.

They did a aeries of studies on the sixteenth century in

France, using as their documents autographed letters, scraps of costumes, engravings, and songs. Unfortunately they did not succeed in handing doen the best part of their method, the artist1a prerogative to select from his data.

In their fiction, the Goncourt brothers were more in - - ' - ■ - ■ : . . : •. • ; ; : - . • '. - . : accord with the ideas Zola was to present. They chose sor- did subjects and held to simplicity in plot. They laid claim toward the end of the century to being the founders of the school of naturalism.

As in the field of creative literature, a movement in the scientific direction had been made among the critics.

S&lnte-Beuve laid down the first principles of a more scien­ tific method in criticism. Instead of following cut-and- dried standards which the critic either outlined himself or formulated from traditional beliefs, Sainte-Beuve judged an author from a study of his life, circumstances, aims, and literary aspirations. He approached the subject of his in­ vestigations through his admirers and through his antago­ nists, getting every possible point of view on him.

Thine following Sainte-Beuve enlarged and systematized these ideas. In his introduction to a History of English Literature. he says: 6

A literary work Is not a mere play of the Imagina­ tion, the Isolated eaprlee of an exalted man, hut ^ traaserlpt of contemporary manners and customs and the sign of a particular state of mind.I

_Bae author*s method tiiould he observation with “tiie eyes of

his head.® So .a.picture of the visible .nan is arrived at.

Then, through applying psychology to his own observations.

the Invisible man is deduced, m Talne*s own words:

You have observed the house in which he lives to discover his habits and traits; you have listened to his conversation to judge his spirit; you con­ sider his works of art to measure the limits of his Intelligence • All these externals are ave- n m s converging to

Then comes Tains*8 third step. After having a picture

of the visible and invisible man, the author should search

for the causes which have produced the observed phenomena.

For there are causes • Tains says:

Whether the facts be physical or moral matters little; they always have their causes. There are causes for ambition, courage, and veracity as for digestion, muscular movement, animal heat. Vice and virtue are chemical products like sugar ■ and vitriol.S "■ -; ------T M last sentence of the above quotation beoaros the credo of

Zola and his followers. : - ;

When he attained an a ^ to think seriously of writing, - ■ . Zola found that a break from tite roaantic to the scientific

IT falne, H. A. vmMsmsMM-mnMSi terasure. Introduction^ p. 1. 2 . ffild.. p. 5. 5. ibid., p. 8. 7

hovel had been made. Writers like Balzac had ceased to spin stories from their imaginations as the romanticists did and were examining people around them to analyze the passions that governed them; novelists like Flaubert were seeing that average, common-place people and their trivial every­ day activities could be made the subject of literature; critics like Sainte-Beuve and Taine were proclaiming that criticism should be based on relative and not absolute stand­ ards and that the causes underlying the manifestations of the phenomena which they observed could and should be worked out.

It was natural that such scientific theories should appeal t© Zola, who, at m e time, had considered choosing a scien­ tific rather than a literary career.

When Zola began to write, however, he did not have a definite eonecptlcn of just what he wanted to do. He did know that he wanted to find a field in which he could achieve fame and fortune and he went about searching consciously for a medium by which he could attain his goal. His early works were of various kinds and were pot-boilers. He wrote for journals, articles of criticism on art and literature; he tried fiction, which was received indifferently; and he even considered epic poetry, for there was a poetic side to his nature.

His first two writings of consequence were Th&rese

Raquin in 1867 and Madeleine P6rat in 1868, both of which showed the traits which characterized his later works. 8

In these novels Zola gave his principal attention to the

characters. Working out carefully their Individual and In­

herited traits, he placed them In the morbid surroundings

for which he showed a preference in all his books. Then,

instead of inventing the incident* of the story as the roman­

ticist did, he let the story grow. According to Zola, the

force that controlled their actions was determinism, which

he was to explain later

These two novels, published at first serially, accord­

ing to Ma Josephson, one of Zola *8 biographers, met

with an "animated" reception • They were denounced by the

•'press as "joutrld literature" and "pornography." The publish­

ers were compelled to cut long passages from the copy before

they could issue the novels in book form. The horror occa­

sioned by the publication of these two books was destined to

be repeated every time one of his novels came out. And.Zola

each time rushed to their defense with long articles in sup­ port of his theories.

The theme of Thdrfese Raquln and Madeleine Fdrat showed

that Zola had come under the influence of the physiological

thinkers. Dr. Claude Bernard had opened^a laboratory of

physlologyCat%1&e]^o31ege^e ^ M ^ w? for making experiments

to test his theory of medicine. He was to spend his life

proving that medicine is not an art but a science; that the

old empirical method, based on observation alone, should be

complemented by the employment of experiment, the end of 9

which is to find the relations which unite a phenomenon of any kind to its nearest cause. As a result, scientific cri­

terion would he substituted for personal authority, and medical knowledge could become a system of inter-related

principles instead of a collection of isolated facts.

These new theories were published by Dr. Bernard in Intro­ duction a 1 'Etude de la M§declne Experimentsle.

Zola was particularly impressed with the views pre­

sented in Dr. Bernard*s treatise, because he saw in them

a striking parallelism to his conception of the novel. At*"

the time, Zola was engaged in writing his most important

work, the Rougon-Maequart series of novels, by which he meant

to establish conclusively the superiority of the scientific

method of writing. In order to hasten the public«s acceptance

of M s novels, he wrote an essay, Le Roman Experimental, in

which he based his arguments on those used by Dr. Bernard In M s work on experimental medicine.

Zola opens Le Roman Experimental with the query as to

whether experiment is possible in literature. In which up to

the present time only observation has been employed. He

turned to Dr. Bernard, who shows the difference between the two functions in t M s way:

The name of observer is given to M m who applies the simple or complex process of investigation in the study of phenomena which he does not vary and which he gathers, consequently, as nature offers them; the name of experimentalist is given to M m who employs the simple and complex process 10

of Investigation to vary or modify, for an end of some kind, the natural phenomena and to make them appear under circumstances In which they are not piresented by nature.4

For example. Dr. Bernard explained that astronomy is a science of observation because the astronomer is capable only of looking and recording; while chemistry is an experi­ mental science because the scientist with some hypothesis In mind varies (by combining or breaking down substances) the phenomena he finds in nature* In an experimental science, the two methods work perfectly together, giving way to each other. The observer has an exact picture of the phenomena; the experimentalist varies the conditions of the phenomena

in order to try out an hypothesis • The minute the result appears, the experimentalist becomes again an observer. Zola held that the same two processes should exist in the novelist. He wrote:

The observer gives the facts as he has observed them, suggests the point of departure, displays the solid ground on which his characters are to tread and the phenomena to develop. Then the experimentalist appears, sets the characters going so as to show that the succession of facts will be such as the requirements of the determin­ ism of the phenomena under examination call for.5

So he adapts the method of the scientist to the experimental

novel. ■ ' ■ . ...

4. Zola, kinile. The Experimental Novel, p. 6. 5. Ibid., p. 8. — ~ In the Rougon-Macquart series, Zola takes as his gen­ eral fact, received through observation, the far-reaching effects that a neurosis has on all phases of the life of ^ ^

Its possessor. He puts his characters in all conditions, every environment, (this, according to Zola, is where the invention or genius of the novelist comes in, all other steps being e ither the recording of Observed facts or the working of a scientific principle) and watches their ac­ tions# The force that produces and controls the "succes­ sion of facts" ("the determinism inherent in the phenomena," as Zola puts it) will be, in the case of tbs Rougon-

Maoquarts, heredity. Almost equal with heredity will be

environment. Zola states this clearly: - New that we possess the tool, the experimental method, our goal is very plain - to know the determinism of phenomena and to make ourselves master of these phenomena. Without daring to formulate laws, I consider that the question of heredity has a great influence on the intel­ lectual and passionate manifestations of man. ' I also attach considerable importance to the surroundings.6 ..: r "'v ' : cHipfra ii : ■ ; ' '■ " :

, ; PREPARING FOR THE EXPERIMENT

In hie notes and various essays, Zola gave a complete exposition of how he actually wrote his novels. After choosing his subject, he gathered all the knowledge he had of that subject into a complete set of notes.^ Such mate­ rial he considered of the greatest importance to his book as "it had ripened within himself.”2 Next he consulted people experienced in the field in which he was wgrking, obtaining expressions, stories, and portraits releting to his "sdb jeet. Then he went to documents, histwies, court trials, mvap&ymr articles, etc, for information. Thus equipped, he was ready to visit the locality of which he was to write, living there, if possible, until he had saturated himself with the atmosphere of the place.

Finally he was ready to make his manuscript notes.

Often the manuscript notes would have made a volume larger than %ie book that was to spring from them. He prepared first an "dbauehe* or sketch, which he likened to a long, ohatty letter to himself, discussing the diar- aoters, their homes, the food they ate, their personal' and

X. &ola*s Notes, ninety gross volumes, were deposited in tim Imperial Library at Paris, 2. "The Novel." The Experimental Novel and Other Essays, p. 211. 13

their occupational habits# Next he drew up his plan,which consisted of a list of characters and an elaborate scenario of events. Then and then only was he ready to begin the actual writing of his novel; Yetta DoBury described the method of Zola fittingly in saying that he combined more than any other writer 0the elements of saturation and radia­ tion.". V; ; % ... : ’

% e ldea of writing a monumental work, a long series, first occurred to Zola in 1868. Having accepted the doc­ trine of determinism and believing that heredity was the force that determined the manifestations of phenomena in the case of human beings, he decided to use heredity as the system on which to build the series. His choice served him well, for it unified the series and furnished him with the making of a plot for the individual novels.

In presenting the first novel of the series to the pub­ lic, he makes clear his purpose. He wrote:

I wish to explain how a family, a small group of human beings, conducts itself in a given social system — after giving birth to ten or twenty members, who, though they appear profoundly dis­ similar, are as analysis demonstrates most closely linked together. Heredity like gravity has its laws .4 : ; ■

m e n Zola began the series, ”the small family of ten to twenty members,r was to be written up in ten volumes. As he5

5. k,Zola as an Evolutionist." French Literature or Today. ' : - p. 37. ■■ — — — — . 4. The Fortune of the Rougona. p. xi. 14

wrote, his Idea grew; he discovered more environments that

Interested him. When his work was completed, he had a family of twenty-eight people who figured actively in his stories, not Including the fifth generation, who were children too young for a story of their own. The number of novels grew from ten to twenty volumes.

Zola wished to give a complete picture of his age with all Glasses represented. Therefore, he planned a central family within whloh there was the action of at least two families. He gave to one branch of the family a better heritage and, as befitted Its dignity, the sonorous name,

Rougon; to the other branch of more lowly origin, he gave the vulgar name of Macquart. Thus, besides broadening his field, he made an opportunity for drawing comparisons and contrasts. • * ' ■ - - • ■ ' -

As he was an advocate of observation as the first tool of the novelist, ho chose the period in which he lived as the background for the activities of the family. The reign of napoleon III ushered in by the dramatic Coup d*6tat and characterized by growth, expansion, and changing standards was ideal for the work he had in mind. He took as the key­ note of this environment the feverishness of the time. Hs wrote in his dbauche; "the characteristic of the modern en­ vironment is the upheaval of the ambitions. The time is 5 troubled; 1 must absolutely stress this," Y/hen he began

£>. Josephs on. Matthew. Zola and me. p. 145T 15

writing, he did not know when and how the end of the reign would come about. He had not long to wait, however, for

In 1870 the force a of Louis Napoleon suffered defeat at the battle of Sedan, ending the regime of Hapoleon as emperor and furnishing a dramatic denouement for the Rougon-Macquart . series. ' r;/";-,'.-:': ■

It was Zola «s intention to show the family expanding

and moving out to make a conquest of the m o d e m world. Its members were to have ambitions and appetites, both high and

lew, with an impatience to gratify them. The too rapid flight upward, combined with other environmental and hered­

itary forces, was to bring about degeneration in the family

through an exhaustion of the Intelligence.

In accordance with the spirit of the time, - a time

when man's brain, nerves, and blood were of primary Interest

to the scientists - Zola chose for the mother-ancestor of all his characters a woman possessed of a neurosis. As be

explained It, "there was a lack of equilibrium between her

nerves and her blood, a disorder of the brain and heart, whSsh made her lead a life different from the rest of the

world."6

She was Adelaide Fouque, who was born about 1765 on

a vegetable farm at Plassans. Situated in Provence in

Southern France, Plassans was a pious and aristocratic

I'he Fortune of the kougona. p. 4&Y """""" town with a dozen churches and convents and three well de­ fined social classes• The Saint-Marc Quarter* where the nobility cloistered themselves, was a miniature of Ver- sallies with grassy streets and large homes surrounded by extensive gardens and hidden from the vulgar eye behind high walls. The old town, whore the civil court,. the mar­ ket, and the barracks were located, was the most populous section, the home of the lowest classes • The streets were tortuous lanes defined on each side by the hovels of the poor. The new town contained the sub-prefecture, the seat of the local government, as well as the homes of the well- to-do professional people, houses set in straight lines and painted yellow. Each quarter was built well to itself, and up until 1849 there was no social intercourse between the inhabitants of the different sections.

Plassana itself was as isolated from Its neighboring towns as the three quarters were from each other. Belted by ramparts, it had two gates, which were closed and looked every evening. The inhabitants made their living dealing

in oil, wine, and almonds, the produce of the country-side, and operating the two industries of the town, the soap works and the felt hat manufactory.

Such was the birthplace of the Rougon-Macquart family.

Adelaide»s father was not identified with any one of the

three social classes of the town. Living on a farm behind the cento tery m the oi3*toUpts of piss sans, he had become If

wealthy supplying the town with vegetables. Consequently

Adelaide, left an heiress at eighteen years of ago, was in V position to make an advantageous marriage. It was at this point in Adelaide*a life that certain peeullarlt lea be came pronounced. Pale and shy as a child, she grew lnfco a tall, lanlcy young woman with peculiar ways. Her long face had only one striking feature, the eyes, large, dark, liquid, and very much alive, bespeaking a nervous tem­ perament. When she came into her fortune, she Sid the inex­ plicable . thing which earned her the reputation among the townspeople of being "cracked.”. Instead of marrying one of the best of her suiters, of Whom as am heiress she had a number, she chose a farm hand on her place, a heavy, stolid peasant named Rougon. When he died from sunstroke while weeding a bed of carrots, she was left alone again with an infant son.

Her second choice of a mate was worse than the first. She conceived a passion for a dirty fellow called Maoquart, who lived in a hut behind the wall at the back of her estate.

Throughout the town, he was considered a perfect scoundrel because of M s unsavory habits and the smuggling expeditions by which he made a living. When he was in town, Adelaide would leave her small son, Pierre, for days and live in

Maoquart1 a hovel shut off from the rest of the world.

Often, when her lover was drunk, she was beaten unmerci­

fully. Regardless of M s cruelty, she remained devoted to 18

him though she never married him. On his side, Mac quart

always returned to bar at the hovel when he came back from

a smuggling expedition. Although he was poor, ill-dressed,

and a drinker, he never made any attempt to profit by Adelaide *a fortune. This seeond unlon yielded two children,

a son, Antoine, and a daughter, Ursula.

Adelaidefs parenthood failed to change her or her way

of living though it did affect her health. After the two

last children were born, she was subject to nervous fits,

which came on her at intervals, causing her to grow rigid,

cold, and death-like. Her visits to Eacquart * s hove 1 con­

tinued, however, as they had before the ©hildren were born.

The two ISacquart offspring were brought up in Ad6la3.de *s house with Pierre. They received very little attention and

no training. As a result, they fought among themselves,

stole from their neighbors, and created so much commotion that they added to their mother«s disgrace. Adelaide lived in the uproar of the household without seeming to be incon-

venleneed. Occasionally she played with the children, fond­ ling and caressing them, but that was as far as her minis-

tratlons went. She took no responsibility for their actions.

The explanation of Addlaid#1s peculiar behavior is that she was affected by a neurosis transmitted to her by her

father. She was controlled by one force, her sexual feeling.

She was a creature of instinct, totally devoid of will power

except to gratify her amorous nature. Her environment had IS

little effect on her; she was not conscious of it in most of its phases.

During Adelaide's later life, however, there were two events which Imd sufficient meaning to call forth a response from her. The first was the death of Macquart. When Pierre

■ . ' ' : ■ / ' ; : ■■■ . .... ■■ . was sewnteen years old, the old smuggler was shot by the gendarmes on (me of his expeditions. When word was brought to her by his comrades, who placed his old carbine in her bands, she received a nervous shock from which she never re­ covered. Thereafter, the only object in her surroundings which seemed of importance to her was the old carbine. She moved into Nacquart's hut and lived there in isolation. X ■ • ' . - The second environmental shake-up came years later when

Adelaide had grown to be an old woman. At the death of her daughter TJrsule, she became the guardian of her small grand­ son, Silvbre, whom no one else wanted. The affection she developed for him as her only associate, the care she had te bestow on him. as a dependent child, and the division of her scanty allowance with him, all served to some extent to re­ vive the spark of her dying intellect.

These years with Silvdre were the most normal of her existence. She was free from the.absorption of her early love affairs and she had a mother’s duties to perform. The child in turn was devoted to her; in fact he was the only living being to show affection for her. For twelve years

Adelaide enjoyed her grandson’s companionship. Then again BO

the gendarmes deprived her of her only love. She was a wit-j nesa when the soldiers stood Silvdre against a wall and shot him for his activities in a political uprising# CHAPTER III

FORMATIOB OF THE TOO BRANCHES

With the ancestral background completed, Zola was ready to show the family growing, expanding, and moving out to = make Its conquest of the world. The second generation, namely, Pierre Rougon, TJrsulo and Antoine Macquart, started with few material advantages. The bad reputation of their mother and their cam disreputable childhood made them social outcasts. The rich vegetable farm was their only asset.

As the children grew up, it was apparent that the two branches of the family were to have radically different characteristics. When Pierre was seventeen, he displayed an equal balance of the characteristics of both parents.

“He was the exact mean between the peasant Rougon and the nervous Adelaide.""*" Although he had the peasant build of his father, his features were refined and his ponderosity was lessened through the influence of his mother. On the other hand, any lack of balance in the nervous system be­ queathed him by his mother was offset by the physical strength and the mental stolidity of the farmer Rougon.

Adelaide's appetite for vice, which went down to her son, 1

1. Zola. Smile. The Fortune of the Rougons. p. 46. 22

was rendered less harmful by a wariness of disposition, which. In the case of the elder Rougon, had enabled a farm­ hand to marry his employer. In short, Pierre had the good sturdy qualities of the peasant, sharpened and refined through the nervous influence of his mother. It was In­ evitable, therefore, that he should take steps to better the position of the family.

half brother and slstor were not so fortunate in

•timlr. heritage, Antoine at sixteen was a .blend of Macquart1 s and Adelaide's failings. Laziness# drunlten- neas, and brutishness bequeathed by the father were inten­ sified by the total leek of will power which characterised Adelaide * s and, in turn, Antoine * s disposition. However, whore the father was bold and masculine in his vicious ways, a certain effeminacy resulting from Addlaide *s nervousness caused Antoine to be sneaking and hypocritical In wrong doing. Physically ho resembled his father except for the fact that he had the thick, passionate lips of his mother. Where Pierre Rougon would lead the family upward, Antoine .

Macquart was destined to drag it down.

tfiraulo Macquart unfortunately had almost all of

Adelaide’s traits without the ameliorating influence of her father*s more robust health. Adelaide’s youthful dhy- ness in Ursulo became melancholy; the mother's nervousness reappeared in the daughter in the form of hysterical fits of laughter, which contrasted strangely with her habitual state . *a

of dejection. They both were devoid of mental interests, a deficiency that led them to muse for hours in idleness.

Physically, W sule was small and white with" the delicate features of a girl in poor health.

In their earliest associations, Pierre demonstrated his superiority to his brother and sister. In their child­ hood fights, he always won. When they were In school,

Pierre was the only one of the three who made progress in his studies. '

As they grew older, Pierre learned the details of his brother's and sister's birth, and he felt that his legiti­ macy made him superior to them. He determined to have the farm for. his own. A series of circumstances favored him.

The manager hired by Adelaide was caught stealing, and Fierro discharged him and took over the management of the farm himself. Then.Antoine was drawn by conscription for military service, and, although Adelaide indicated in her feeble way that she wanted her son bought off, Pierre de­ layed the matter so long that Antoine had to go. He ridded himself easily of M s sister, too. A journeyman hatter came to Plassans and fell in love with Ursule's fragile beauty. He married the girl without demanding a dowry, and Pierre offered nono. When the hatter moved with his wife to Marseilles to escape the stigma of the family name,

Pierre's satisfaction was complete.

Adelaide remained the only obstacle standing between 24

Piorre and the farn. The mothcd he used to get rid of her typified hio disposition. He could have forced her to move at once, for she was too weak of will to offer resistance.

This course he hesitated to take, however, not because of conscientious scruples, for he had no conscience, but be­ cause ho considered the good will of his neighbors essen­ tial to M o advancement in the world. Instead, ho chose to make an insidious campaign which would accomplish his pur­ pose without Incurring blame for himself. By severe looks and unspoken criticism, he began to condemn Addlaide for her bad reputation. It was simply a matter of increasing the mental ascendancy ho had had over her since the day he had learned the nature of her alliance with old Hacquarfc. Ex­ istence became so miserable for her that sho, herself* sug­ gested moving into the old poacher’s hovel, which had boon left her at his death. Pierro was left in possession of the farm.

The schemer’s next otop was to convert M s assets into cash and, at the same time, to destroy, if possible, the familiar landmarks of M o family’s ignominious existence.

Ho hwtiod a buyer for the farm who would want to rase the house and the outbuildings. Finding such a one, he sold his patrimony for 50,000 franca, tricked Adelaide into sign­

ing a roooipt for the sum, and pocketed the money himself.

Thus Fierro, buoyed up by a so If-righteous fooling of

superiority over the rest of the family, had lied, cheated. 25

and stolen to bring a measure of respectability to himself*

He had been aided in his accomplishment by a craftiness of disposition, a total lack of conscience, and a mentality superior to that of his adversaries. As his environment offered no obstacles, success came to him easily. With his success, ambition grew. He meant to take his next step upward through an advantageous marriage.

As he needed a business as well as a wife, he turned his search to the business firms of the old Faubourg. He had good judgment enough to know that a prosperous merchant would not welcome a Rougon as a son-in-law. Therefore he hunted for a tradesman In difficulty who would need his

50,000 francs. He found that the firm of Puech and La Camp,

oil dealers, was almost in a state of bankruptcy. *Mr. Puech had an unmarried daughter, he wanted money, so the deal was made.,.

Fellcite Puech was typical of the women of Provence. She was short, dark, and sprightly in her movements. Zola describes her:

Thin, flat breasted, with pointed shoulders and face like a polecat, her features singularly sunk­ en and attenuated, it was not easy to tell her age. She looked as near fifteen as thirty, al­ though she was in reality only nineteen, four years younger than her husband.8

Although usually considered ugly, her face when enlivened

by animation was pretty. A certain gracefulness of form,

%. Zola, ikailo. I'ho Fortune of the Kougons. p. 55. """"" 26

small hands and feet confirmed the rumor that she had noble blood in her veins. Her mother in her younger days had had a lover, the Marquis de Carnavanfc, whose child F6lieltd was said to be.

Her mentality harmonized with her appearance. Ber mind was quick, her wits nimble, and her will power was of that tough fiber that never yields. Tremendously ambitious, she saw in Pierre's broad frame a husband behind whom she could work safely her artful Intrigues. Yet she was of average honesty with enough conscience to tremble when she found the receipt Pierre had extorted from Adelaide. Her marriage into a family such as Pierre *s was the occasion of a groat deal of gossip, but she had the tenacity to sit back and await the day when she should triumph over the town. ' ■ V' ' * * ' ' - ■' - ; ' . As Adelaide had sharpened and made more acute Pierre's mental traits handed down from a peasant father, so PdllcitA was to carry the process further in her offspring. Zola sums it up: “The race of the Rougons was destined to become refined through its female side.”3 Pierre found the conditions of his new environment harder to conquer than the old had been. He now had real competition in his endeavors where before he had had none.

His mental traits were not of the constructive kind that brought success in business. After twenty years of woric In

B. ime Fortune of •the Rougons. p. 6%. the oil firm, he and M s wife still had to struggle to get along. Five children came to them. To Pierre they were five mouths to feed and five reasons why he had not attained financial success. To Feliclte they were the means to at­ tain the position for which she and Pierre had worked so many years. She insisted that they be well educated along with 'the.,sea#' of the best families of Plassans. The three sons were sent to Paris, two to study law, and one, medi­ cine ; the two daughters, who promised less, received less attention. ; ^ <"■ ■...... , . A Feliclte was disappointed when her three sons returned to Plassans to practice their professions. The sleepy lit­ tle town was not a commercial center; hence, it offered few business opportunities. Eugene and Aristide, who had stud­ ied law, settled down indifferently to their work. Eugdne, who had received his diploma, practiced with only mediocre success; Aristide, who had failed to graduate, married a girl and lived in idleness on her marriage portion. Pascal, who had been a brilliant medical student in Paris and who had rejected an offer to remain In the city, spent most of his time in research work. His mother urged him to get the fashionable practice of the town, which he could have done easily, but he was not Interested in material success.

Pierre and Felioitd, still ambitious, felt that they had failed again.

Another stumbling block that barred the path of the 28

Rougons in their attempts at success was the Macquart branch of the family living disreputably at Plassans. When Antoine had been released from military service, he had returned homo to find that Pierre had appropriated the family estate. He had threatened legal action to regain his part, but he was too lazy to carry through any con­ structive program. Besides it was more ©one Is tent with his blackguardly nature to extort bribes from the Rougons, who, for the sake of their respectability, were willing to purchase his silence.

Antoine*s mature life was no more deserving of respect than his ehlldttiood had been. He spent his time loafing and drinking and abusing the Rougons. When bribes were not forthcoming and he was forced to work, he wove osier bas­ kets, which he sold at the market. Following M s father, the old poacher, he stole M s osier from another mania supply. . : ■' ' Antoine made the typical choice of a mate. He married a woman he had met in the market place, a large, industrious peddler called Fine, on whom he could rely for support. She was tall and masculine looking with broad shoulders and a moustache, which contrasted ludicrously with her small, high pitched voice.

When compared with Antoine, Fine added some good qualities to the Macquart branch of the house. Where he worked only as a last resort, she was never willingly Idle; ; 29

Where he showed no consideration for anyone but himself, she was always willing to he Ip those in trouble j where he led a careless existence, she was methodical and orderly.

From the point of view of the future, however. Fine*s influ­ ence was bad, for she, like Antoine, was addicted to drink. When she was sober, she was gentle and easily imposed upon; but on the occasions when she drank, she was violent*

Antoine beat her when she was sober; and she beat him when she was drunk. Consequently, they created an environment unpropitious for bringing up children.

Antoine and Fine had three children, two daughters and a son. As soon as they were old enough, Antoine took them out of school and put them to work to augment the family income. His way of living improved; he wore tailor- made clothes and spent mere time in the tavern. At the same time, he begrudged them the food they ate, demanding that ell the dainties he put on his plate*

With his children working, Antoine did not have to rely on bribes from the Rougons; hence he permitted him­ self the luxury of abusing them more freely. Although his audience was usually made up of his cronies, the drunkards and hoodlums of tiie town, yet Plassans was so small? that the stories got around. To F^llcitd, Antoine was a thorn in the flesh, for, while she strove to oufc-llve the scandalous past of her husband*s family, he took a perverse delight in keep­ ing it alive* Then F6llelt6, who had social aspirations. 30

was ashamed of her hrothar-la-law * s family • The Rougons had educated their ohildren 5 they lived, though not actually in the New Quarter, at least on a street adjacent to it $ they had a drawing-room done in yellow where • they displayed all their best furniture, relegating the broken pieces to the back of the house. The Kacquart family never thought' of trying to create an impression. They lived just any way they could after most of their earnings had gone for Antolna'm luxuries. Fdlieltd spent a great deal of time wishing that Antoine was out of her way.

One of Felicite *0 schemes to better her position in

Plan sans was to open her drawing-room on contain evenings each week to the political-minded citizens of the town who had an interest in national affairs. Never before had any

©lass except the nobility paid attention to polities * How­ ever, under the reign of the Hcitizen king”, Louis Philippe, greater privileges had been extended to the commercial class, who, as a result, were becoming wealthy and powerful. The common people everywhere were beginning to think about their rights. Fdlioiti hoped to find in the new turn affairs were taking a chance to better the fortunes of the family.

It was from the conservative class in Plassans that

Fdlicltd drew her attendance. After a few evenings the company settled down to a small group composed of a wealthy, retired oil merchant, a large landholder, a dealer in holy images, an old soldier who had served with Napoleon, and 31

Monsieur C a r m w n t , the nobleman whose nano had been linked with F6lielt6*3 mother's and who had always shown a strong

Interest in Fdlioltd. Each momber of tho group attondod with a definite ob jo ctlve. The wealthy members cane be cause they wanted a stable government which would enable them to keep their fortunes; tho dealer in holy images thought it helped his business to be identified with a conservative group; the Napoleonic soldier. Commander Sicardot, v/ho had the boot intellect of the group, joined because ho saw an opportunity to fight the rising tide of Republican­ ism for which tie had a traditional hatred; and Monsieur

Caraav&nt was there to help F^licitd. All had convictions to u^iold except Pierre and Fdlicitd, who hoped to throw the group with any party that promised victory. Any mem­ ber was more capable than Pierre, yet the husband and wife were concentrating their efforts toward making him the leader. They had failed to reach their goal in their own business; they had not accomplished fame and fortune through their t»m sons, who, though around forty years of age, were

still marking time in Plasssoas. Now they wero staking all

their hopes on leading the drawing-room the right way should a crisis arise. Zola describes the Rougon family at the eve

of tho Revolution of 1848s

The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the look-out, oxaoperated by their bad luck and disposed to lay violent hands on Fortune if over they should meet her in a by-way. They were & family of bandits lying in wait to rifle and plunder

It was in the troubled days of 1848, that Eugene Rougon left suddenly for Paris. For three years ho wrote constantly to his father giving the political developments and advising him how to sway sentiment in the yellow drawing-room.

December, 1851, he wrote that the time for decisive action • • - - - : - . : : : : ■ ■ >:s.- series opened.

The greatest part of the opening novel of the series ^ is devoted to giving the ancestral and environmental back­ ground of the first, second, and third generations of lass

Bougon-Maoquart family* Here before the eyes of the reader,

Zola examines his phenomena (character and environment) like the scientist in his laboratory. The traits of the edsaraoters, as v/ell as their sburces, are set forth in detail, t h m constituting the first step of his method - observation of phenomena * He is now ready for the second step, the experiments* ; 4

4. I'he Fortune olr the Rougons. p. Vd. CHAPTER IV

THE GROUP EXPERUaENT

Zola Interpreted nthe experiment" in novel writing to be the manipulating of the conditions of an environment to see what changes resulted in a character. He pointed out that in actual life people are continually altering their environment, either consciously or unconsciously, and that their beings are In turn modified by such changes. The two-fold action resulting from these changes constituted

Zola's plot.

The first experiment to which Zola subjects the

Rougon-Maoquarfc family was the Coup d'Etat of 1851. On going to Paris, Eugene with the Intuitive shrewdness of

M s mother had studied the chances of the various factions struggling for power and had chosen correctly. When Louis

Napoleon seised the reigns of government in December, 1851,

Engine had made for himself a key position as one of his leader's most valuable lieutenant a. From the time of his arrival in Paris, he had sent news of the developments to his parents in Plassans. When the Coup d'Stat actually took place, Pierre and Fdllcitd knew It several days before the other citizens of the torn. They had made Bonapartists of their following before the slowly travelling news reached 34

the provinces*

The six members of the Rougon-Macquart family who

were affected by the Coup d 1fitat responded differently,

each according to his own nature and training* While . V'' . . . .. Pierre and F611eit6 were secretly converting their follow­

ers, the orphan Sllvbre Mouret had become actively involved

in the conflict. He joined a band of Insurgents who bed . . . ” • ' ..." ■■ - beeome inf lamed by the incendiary literature put out by ^

the Republicans. This group, made up chiefly of artisans,

ragged and ill-armed, were marching through the country

toward Paris, picking up from the little towns volunteers

who would fight for the Republic. Few joined the army when

It arrived at Plassans because interest in politics was

slighter there than in other less isolated towns. Silvbre,

just eighteen years old, whs swept into the volunteer ranks ' ' by a youthful enthusiasm, the nature of which was more per­ sonal than political*

Circumstances had made of Silvbre a champion of the

downtrodden. When he was left an orphan at the age of six through the death of UTeule and the hatter Mouret, he was a sickly child with the long, thin face and the limpid, dark eyes of Adelaide. No hotter disposition could be made of

the boy than to put him in the poverty-stricken home of M s

insane grandmother* Here he witnessed the neglect the old

woman suffered through her calloused children and hoard stories of the way she had been robbed by Pierre, Antoine 35

w a M s informant; he made friends with his nephew for the purpose of stirring up his sympathetic nature against the

Rougon aide of the house. Lacking the opportunity for formal schooling, Silvdre had attempted to educate him­ self by reading books he bought from a second-hand dealer with his earnings as a blacksmith's helper. A great deal of the Utopian literature popular at the time fell into his hands and found a ready response in the nervous and ardent temperament that was so like Adelaide's. The same disposi­ tion that kept his mother musing idly for hours led Sllvbre to dream of the day when he should be able to right the wrongs he saw about him.

One of these injustices that touched Silvdre was that suffered by a girl named Miette,who lived on her uncle's farm adjoining Adelaide's little yard. She was forced to labor like a man and to-submit to the cruelty of her cousin and the other children who taunted her with being the daugh­ ter of a galley slave. Silvdre fell in love with her and became her champion. He loved Miette in much the same way he loved his grandmother - for the wrongs that were done her. ■■ - ■" ' -

When the Insurgent volunteers marched through Plnasana crying "liberty, equality, and fraternity," Silvdre joined them, for their ideal was his. And when Miette dreaded being left friendlessi he took her along. The men made her their standard bearer, and she and Silvdre marched in 36

front carrying the tri-colored flag of the Republicans.

Mlette was killed in one of their first encounters with the government soldiers. Dazed by the injustice of his sweetheart«s death, Silvbre lost all interest in his own safety. Later when the government soldiers marched through Plassans to see that order was restored, Silvbre was one of the few Republicans they could find. They shot him as an example to all Republican sympathizers.

After Pierre and pdlieltd had converted their follow­ ers to the side of Napoleon, they still had to contrive to

W i n g themselves to the attention of the government in

Paris. The Republican march through Plassans offered them the ideal situation for accomplishing their purpose. Pierre could have gone out, as Commander Sicardot did, to oppose the enemies of Napoleon, a course which Fdlicltd urged. It was midnight, however, when the Republicans went through, and

Pierre shared the general consternation of the town at the rattling of muskets and the shouts of the armed men. Ambi­ tion could not overcome hi a cowardice . He M M in hi.s'; :Sed-;' ' '■ room until all danger was passed j then he sneaked out to the mayor’s office to take charge of the affairs of the

town. He found his brother and a few stragglers there be­

fore him. In the name of the new emperor, he and his men

captured and bound Antoine and dispersed the stragglers.

Pierre fired a few shots at the windows and mirrors and upset the furniture to create the semblance of a desperate struggle. The next morning he enjoyed the role of hero for s few hours* When the oitlzeno failed to find dead bodies or even one wounded man, they came to their senses* Pierre

ate action was necessary*

Then Pierrots Intriguing mind concocted another plan to bring him to his goal. He sent Pd 11cltd to bribe Antoine to round up all M s cronies for an attack on the courthouse.

Pierre with his power as acting mayor was to send the militia out of the city* Then Antoine ta side was to allow Pierre to beat them off and to claim the city for napoleon*

The attack came off as scheduled* Pierre, however, had not sent the militia away but had armed them heavily with ammunition from the arsenal. In the conflict, he singled out

Antoine and fired to kill M s brother so that there would be no bribe to pay and no danger of the plot's becoming known.

He missed his aim and Antoine got away, leaving many of M s companions dead on the courthouse lawn* Pierre's ruse was successful this time. The dead bodies were evidence enougi.

He was proclaimed savior of the town; he was decorated with

the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor; and ho was given the post of commissioner of taxes, the most lucrative position 38

Ambition had been the motivating force of the lives of

Pierre and Felicity. With the former, it had developed early as a reaction against the purposelessness of the lives of the rest of his family. In the latter, it had grown to colossal proportions by reason of her alliance with a family whose name was held in contempt.

Although the husband and wife had planned and plotted toward the same end for years, there remained certain in­ herent and fundamental differences between them. Fdlicltd had a keen mind in comparison with which Pierre*s was stupid. Then she had an inexhaustible fund of energy, while her husband was lazy. If it had not been for Fdlicite,

Pierre's ambition would not have survived the rebuffs of their unsuccessful years. She was the one who saw the possi­ bilities in the troubled political situation. Her tact and energy furnished the impetus for the political meetings at their home. She had the daring to dip into their meager savings to finance these meetings, the outcome of which, to say the least, was very doubtful. Fdlieit6, however* did not have the disposition to devise the plot which consum­ mated all their efforts. It took the crafty mind of Pierre to evolve a scheme so ruthless and so treacherous. The qualities that had led him to trick and rob M s family in

M s younger days characterized his action at the court- house. The older Pierre, calloused by the years, did not hesitate to add murder to M s list of crimes. 39

Likewise, Antoine *s action in the Coup cVEtat was con­ sistent with M s heredity and environment. Laziness, men­ tal and physical, and lack of ambition were M s by birth, and there hsd been nothing in his environment to develop more constructive virtues. Under the pampering of his wife and children, hia laziness had developed Into a love of ease which came to be his predominant characteristic;

Even his hatred of the Rougons meant nothing to him when weighed against a chance for luxurious living. When Felioitd offered him the bribe for his part in the court­ house plot, he accepted it, for ho had the slyness to sense the advantage he would have over the Rougons for the rest of his life. The Coup d fEtat could have offered him nothing better...... ; ' ' The second son of the Rougon family had a part in the political crisis, which threatened to be disastrous for him. When the Revolution of 1848 was disturbing France,

Aristide was one of the "hungry Rougons" who were out for easy money. He had dissipated M s wife's dowry and was forced to find work. At the time Fdlioit6 was holding her meetings in the yellow drawing-room, he was working on a paper in Plassans, hoping to profit by the political activities of M s family. He was not informed of the counsel sent by Eug&ne from Paris, however, as the latter, aware of the foolhardiness of M s brother, had demanded ' , . secrecy of M s parents. Consequently, the aspiring jour- nailst had to rely on his own judgment. As Aristide took his mental qualities from Pierre, it was natural that in choosing a cause to support he should make the wrong choice. He thought victory would go to the

Republicans, so he wrote condemnatory artieles agaia#t the b t W r parties despite his mother’s advice to await develop­ ments. On the night the Republicans marched to Paris,

Aristide, who posed as their leader, tied up his arm in a sling to keep from joining their ranks. Like Pierre, he was afraid to fight*

On receiving word of napoleon’s success, Felicite

could not refrain from informing Aristide, her favorite

eon. When Plassans received the news, they found from

their local paper that their erstwhile Republican jour­

nalist had become a Bonapartlst. Aristide had held up

the press while he interchanged the words "Republican"

and "Bonapartlst* in a highly partisan editorial.

In the Coup d ’ltat Silvdre played the most admir­

able part of any member of the Rougon-Macquart family.

The traits inherited from Adelaide, intensified by en­

vironmental influences, wore responsible. The passion­

ate sexual nature, a bad feature in the woman, transla­

ted itself into an enthusiastic love of principle in the

grandson. He acted from idealistic motives, but it was the idealism of youth growing out of an abnormal view of life. There was no thought of gain in the mind of Silvers 41

as he marched out to give his life for his ideals*

The other members of the family acted from selfish motives* Eugene*s part in the Coup d ’Etat was similar to

that of Fdlioitd, for the son was like the mother. Both had good minds which urged them to initiative action*

Both forced themselves into a situation where in the

normal course of events they did not belong. Folicltd

picked out politics as her field of activity at the oppor­

tune time and Eug&no picked out the propitious moment to

go to Baris. They wore both willing to work hard for what

they wanted* Without Eugdne and Fdlicltd, the family for­

tune would not have boon made.

In the case of Pierre and Aristide, there were re­

actions common to both* The father and son each pretended to bo the leader of a political faction, yet neither would

stay in front when the time for fighting came. They were

both cowards. Neither had the mentality to analyze the situation which confronted him. Fierro had to follow

Felioitd, and Aristide, loft without guidance, made a

mistake* Both were lazy and both had an inclination to prefer underhand rather than direct methods of action*

Antoine’s part in the Coup d ’Etat was made for him,

for ho was too shiftless to make it for himself. He had no ambition to fulfill and no desire to bring respect on

the name of Maoqusrt* Circumstances had made of him a blackmailer, and the events surrounding the acquisition of the Rougon fortune enabled him to remain one all his life. CHAPTER V

INDIVIDUAL EXPERIMENTS WITH THE THIRD GMBiATIOII

Zola’s first exporlmont bad to do with the Rougon-

Maeqrarfc family as a whole, whereas succeeding ones were performed on the Individual members. Be ■ Mid' thi: .expert- ' ment which made Eugene’s story In the days directly fol­ lowing the Coup d ’fitat. In this case, changing the en­ vironment meant removing a man forty years old from the

■ ' . : ’• . . • . . . provincial town of Plassans, where life moved slowly and uneventfully for a lawyer, to Paris, where government was making a radical change and social conditions were in up­ heaval.

As to hereditary traits to meet the new situation

Eugbne was well endowed. In inheriting the physical characteristics of his father and the mentality of his mother, the eldest son had the best that his parents were able to give. Such a combination of traits is accepted as a matter of course today, but in Zola’s time, when the

laws of heredity were just being formulated, it was thought peculiar. He writes t By one of those alleged freaks of nature of which, however, science is now commencing to discover the laws, if physical resemblance to Pierre was perfect in Eug&ne, F6lieit6 on her side seemed to have furnished him with his brains.1

Like his father, he was of middle height with a heavy

frame tending as ho grew older to dignity as well as obes­

ity. The long, broad-featured face and the square head

wont back to the peasant farmer Rougon. When animated,

his long faee showed the intellect handed down b y F6 lie ltd.

.. ■ " ■ ; ■ : • ■■■; Like her ho had lofty ambitions, a domineering spirit, and

a desire to do big things at once, overlooking the more

trifling intermediary steps which are usually necessary

for success. In Eugbne's particular case, the Rougon ambition narrowed down to a desire for power not as a means to an end, but power for its own sake. So far as preparation was concerned, he had the best legal training that the times afforded.

When he had arrived in Paris in his shabby provincial

clothes, and with only mediocre success in his profession

to his credit, his intellect had at once awakened to the

possibilities before him. Depending only on himself, he had looked over the field of contenders for control of

the government and had dhoson wisely. He had thrown all

his efforts toward helping Napoleon through his presidency and through the crisis of the Coup d ’&tat.

Eugtine roso with his leader first from the Corps Ldgis-

latif to the Senate; thence to the presidency of the Council

1. The fortune of tbs Rougons. p. 62. 45

of State, which he resigned to accept a ministerial port­ folio; and finally to the triumphal position as vice­ emperor. He described his achievement in these words: My grandfather sold vegetables• I myself, till I was thirty-eight years of age, kicked up ray heels as a country lawyer in the depths of the provinces. Yesterday I was unknown. I can*t boast of little EscoraiHe's fine name or poor Ccofoelotts handsome face. My father did not leave me five million francs as Delestaag** left him. I wasn*t born on the steps of a throne like Count de Marsy was. No, I*m a self- made man. I*ve only ray hands -2

Eugbne reached his high position through his own ef­ forts combined with the chance afforded him by his environ­ ment. in addition to his great ambition for power, he had a singleness of purpose which kept him moving always toward his goal. When he fell in love with a young adventuress,

"the fair Clorinde," who fascinated him completely, he struggled with himself for weeks against marrying her.

Beautiful but eccentric, impractical in financial matters, with a disposition to do scandalous things wherever she went, she was not the wife for a successful politician.

Realising this, Eugene married her to a friend and chose ' ' ■■ ' - :: ' ■. for himself the sister © f a powerful colleague, a woman nearer his own age, who had all the practical and domestie virtues. With her to preside over his house, to manage his finances, and to provide a solid and undistracting back­ ground, Eugene was free to devote all his time to making

SV His iExcellenoy. p. 66. : ~ ” 46

himself successful. Aad as always with "the great man,"

Intellect dominated the emotions, carrying him unerringly tO hiS goal. . ■ . ; .<

Environment also played its part in.his success. Had he remained in Plassans, he would have ended his days a struggling country lawyer. Or if he had come to Paris in the earlier conservative days, his talents would have been wasted. But under Napoleon, a new order came Into being; a new aristocracy was rising| and new men had opportuni­ ties. Hence EugSne’s success.

Zola made another of his experiments oh the third gene­ ration of Rougona hy Bringing Aristide to Paris. That this member of the family made Interesting material for experi­ ment was evidenced by the fact that Zola devoted two novels3 to him. ' - : v -y ; : -r

By Inheritance, this third son of the Rougon family

was the exact antithesis of Eug&ne. The eldest son had

taken the best characteristics of his parents, while Aris­

tide inherited the worst. In appearance, he was small and

ugly with the polecat face, small head, and insignificant

stature of Fdllcltd. Where Eugfcne had the large. Imposing • ■ ...■■> ■ . physique of a great man, Aristide *s physical make-up be- ;

spoke the meanness of his mind. Where Eugbne scorned lit­

tleness, Aristide, like his father, would employ any means

'ihe ftuah f or the Spoils and Money. / 47

to attain hia end. And money was that end. He had Ade­ laide* a seminal appetites, but these he sacrificed whem- ever money was the alternative. Educated like Engine in law, he had failed to grasp the subject and had left Paris without completing his course. According to Zola, he was an example of a race maturing too rapidly - ncoarse,bru­ tish, peasant appetites augmented three-fold by a too hasty education."4 With Napoleon*s accession as emperor, Aristide headed for Paris to make a fortune. He felt himself unnecessarily encumbered with his wife, Angela, and a small daughter, whom he had brought along on condition that their other child should remain at Plasaans. It was a Paris ripe for plundering in which Aristide found himself. The city was in the midst of a wave of specu- lation caused in part by the emperor *s scheme to demolish old buildings and inadequate thoroughfares and to replace them by new ones. Everyone realized that there were for­ tunes to be made by enterprising men. And Aristide, furi­ ous with himself at the mistake he had made in regard to the Coup d*Etat and. determined not to make another, viewed

Paris on his arrival with every sense alert to make the most of the golden opportunity.

Each time he leaned from his window and felt the gigantic labor of Paris beneath him, he experienced a mad longing to throw himself

4. The fortune of the Rougona. p. 64. 48

Into the furnace so as to mould the gold with : hie quivering fingers as though it had been vex* H® Inhaled those still vague vapors which rose _ from the great city, that breath of the nascent Empire laden already with the warm efflswtm of ; every kind of enjoyment,-— the pursuit of adven­ tures, of women, and of millions «5 . ^ 1

On appealing to Eugbne for help, he was given a posi­ tion as government clerk, a menial situation not at all to his liking. He was exasperated that his brother had not catapulted him at once into a fortune • As Eug&ne would do nothing else, he had to make the most of his new employ­ ment , He exaggerated his southern animation when he found that it was an asset in making friends. He helped the other elerks with their work, be listened at keyholes, he delved-into papers not.meant for his eyes, he inter- eepted messages by making friends with the messenger boys •

At the read of two years, die was in possession of many

state secrets and was considered the most amiable of fel­

lows despite the fact that he was inwardly raging at the

slowness of his advancement. : ; : ^ w

Then Eugdne secured him an appointment as commissioner

of roads. In his new position with a few thousand francs

he could make his millions. He lacked the money, however.

As Eugene refused to help him, he turned to his sister

Sidonie, who had come to Paris many years before him. »

Aristide*s and Sidonie»s lives became closely associated for a long time.

5. Zola. Emile. The Rush forthe Spoils, p.feS. Sldonle was a familiar figure on the streets of Paris.

Short, skinny, and pale, dressed in rusty black silk, she could be seen going hither and yon with a bag bulging with

papers on missions known only to herself. Ostensibly she ran a lace shop, acquired when she came to Paris with her

provincial husband who had long since disappeared. Ho one

bought laces, however, though her rooms were filled with

people who entered surreptitiously by the back door. The

fact was that her house was a meeting place where gentle­

men met ladies secure from the public gaze. Sldonle was active, energetic, and resourceful, like

her mother, Fdlicite, though in other ways she resembled

her father. She had Pierre *s love of questionable matters and intrigue, which led her to insinuate herself Into the

confidence of ladles In trouble. She secured loans for

gentlemen in trouble and found husbands for girls who had

been compromised. For the world she had a sweet, nun-

like, hypocritical smile which led people to confide in

her. Her family recognized in her a shrewd intellect, marred, however, by a crack which led her to deceive her­

self about her motives.

When Aristide appealed to her for help, she took up

his problem with avidity. She knew a young lady who, on

a vacation from a convent, had been seduced and was badly

in need of a husband. At about the same time Angela be­

came ill and Sidonie established herself as nurse. In a 50

short time Ariatide*8 wife died, and Aristide, posing as the young lady * s seducer, married her. The . new wife, Rende, a charming girl, the daughter of a wealthy and highly re­ puted judge, brought as a dowry the money Aristide needed.

Aristide soon became a financial.power in Paris. He bought up under another name land that was to be condemned for the now streets and, as commissioner, appraised it at a fabulous price and sold it to the city. He tricked Reneo out of her fortune; he blackmailed prominent citizens and was in turn blackmailed; he traded, lied, and cheated; in short he used every form of chicanery his cunning brain eould devise to amass the fortune he had always dreamed of*

As he made money fast, he spent it fast. He had no particular desire for the things money would buy, but he had a mania for making the golden tide flow. He encouraged

Rende, who was naturally extravagant, to out-dress all the women in Paris; his balls rivalled those given by the em­ peror; his house was the most elaborate in Paris; his cour­ tesan had to be the reigning favorite. He brought his son,

Maximo, to Paris and made a fashionable gentleman of him, not because he loved the boy but because he thought it added to his prestige*

As Aristide made money, his appetite for it grew.

Soon all interests were submerged in it. Although he went

to his courtesan's house, it was not for his amusement but

for business reasons. He encouraged M s wife to use his 51

•on aa an escort with the result that Maximo became Rente's lover. V/hen ho discovered the monstrous guilt of the pair, he sold his wife his forgiveness in return for her signa­ ture deeding him her last piece of property.

The end of Aristide*a career came when his wife's last resources were spent and there was no longer anything solid behind him. He had made several fortunes speculating on her money, but he was too daring and rockless to keep a reserve. Rende, who had a conscience, paid for the crime

of her Incestuous love for Maxima with her life. To

Aristide and Maxima, fortified by the Rougon lack of con­ science, the whole affair was just another episode in their lives. Aristide lost all his money and left the old judge

to pay his daughter's last bills.

With the loss of his fortune, Aristide was not con­

tent to take life at a moderate pace. He had felt the

frenzied delight of making gold rain down from daring specu­ lations and he wished to do it again. Again he wanted money,

not for what it would buy but simply because he experienced

pleasure at having large sums pass through his hands.

Through a chance acquaintance, Aristide or, to use the

rams he assumed in Paris, Saoeard conceived a new scheme for piling up gold.® Living in the same hotel with him was

an engineer named Hamel in, who had worked all over the world. 6

6. Narrated in Money# He had made ©harts of silver mines in Africa; he knew of

rich Oriental countries with natural resources which could

he opened up by a modern system of railways and roads; he

knew of the need on the Mediterranean of a modern shipping

company, which, if operated efficiently, could control the

commerce in that part of the world. Hamelin was a vision­

ary, who had good ideas but who lacked the ability to sell them to men with money. Saccard, who had never travelled out of France, v/as fascinated by these possibilities of

which he had never dreamed. He had a taste for the grand

and the gorgeous and no idea was too colossal to be en­

compassed by his imagination.

Saccardrs reaction was almost instantaneous. He

planned to form a gigantic syndicate for handling the

series of projects which would draw gold from all the

world Into France. He would establish a modest house of

credit ("modest" because he meant to be more conservative

than he had been in the past) to handle the launching of

the first enterprises. The profits from the first ones

would aid in developing the others, and he would gain con­

trol of the markets and conquer the world.

Saccard*s conservatism was short-lived. He succeeded

in interesting Parisian financiers, and the syndicate and

bank were incorporated. With the easy initial success,

his imagination ran away with him. He advertized the new

scheme lavishly so that all Paris was fired by the enor- mousmss of the enterprise. People clamored for stock, es­ pecially little people who wanted to make profits on the savings of a lifetime. When the stock was put on the

Bourse, all went well as long as Saocard was satisfied with normal profits. But his old fever of speculation seized him and he used every known, trick to stimulate his market , when the stocks rose in price week after week, the first extreme confidence was succeeded by a reaction of fear. In one day of panic at the Bourse, Saocard*s bubble burst, leaving behind a trail of ruined fortunes.

S&ecard from his cell in prison analyzed his failure:

I am too passionate; that is evident# There is no.other reason for my defeat; that is why ray back has been broken so often. And it must be added that, if my passion kills me. It Is also my passion that gives me life. — It adds to ray stature; It pushes me very far and it strikes me down."

With the collapse of tho market, Saocard had lost every sou#

He had not tried to save a reserve fund for the future. It was characteristic of the man to fight with all he had#

Speculation with him was a disease which had its roots in the ancestry of his family# Pascal, the second sen of the Rougon family, was un­ like any of his known ancestors, physically, mentally, and morally# Zola explains him thus:“During the evolution of a race. Nature often produces some one being whose every 7

7. Money, p. 419. ' — element she derives from her own creative powers.1,8 Nature did a good work when she created Pascal. Tall and thin with a kindly face and modesty of hearing, he lacked the wolfish appetites characterizing the other Rougons. In mental en­ dowment he was superior to any of them. He had the scien­

tific type of mind with the spirit of the investigator.

While the rest of the family were in a mad race to gratify their appetites, Pascal lived quietly and unevent­ fully in hie laboratory at Plasaans. Zola uses him for an experiment,9 but that story belongs to the fourth genera­

tion where it will be treated.

The Rougon and Macquart lines unite in the marriage of

Mar the, the youngest daughter of the Rougons, and Frangois, the oldest son of Ursule Maoquart and her husband Mouret,

the hatter. By inheritance, Karthe was an example of ata­

vism, deriving her physical, mental, and moral traits from

her grandmother Adelaide. She was nervous, high-strung, and

lacking in the active interests and robust health that char­

acterized her mother and father. Frangois, on the other hand, was a Mouret, - which meant that he had a sound head and a

just, if sonewhat narrow, outlook on life. The Mourets had

a talent for business, not big business with its specula­

tions and risks, but small business conducted in a conserva­

tive way that led to security. When Frangois was left an 55

orphan, Pierre Rougon took his nephew as a helper In his store. It was here that Martha and Frangols fell In love, owing In part to their remarkable physical resemblance.

In making his experiments on the brothers and sisters of Marthe, Zola takes them to Paris. In the case of Mar the, he simply alters the atmosphere of the home.

When the two cousins were first married, they had a comfortable home, a thriving business, and two sons, who were bright fellows at school. The only sadness of the household was the mental Incapability of the youngest child, DdsSrie. Religion played small part In the family life, though outwardly they were Catholics.

Into this family group In the early days of the Second Empire, there came one Abb6 Faujas and his mother seeking

rooms. They were taken In by Marthe over the disapproval .

of Frangpis and given the upper story of the house as their

quarters. From these rooms, the Abbd conducted his cam­

paign for the conquest of the town. He was sent to Plassans

as a secret agent by the emperor to combat the priests of

the Vatican, who were working for the restoration of the

Legitimists. Despite the support the Vatican priests re­

ceived from the Saint-Marc quarter of Plassans, the ruth­

less Abb4 Faujas reconquered the town for Napoleon. In so

doing, he wrecked the household of Frangols Houret. The trouble came about through Marthe. The energetic Abb6, saw In her hysterical mind fertile ground for sowing the seeds of religion. He set out to make of her a devotee.

As time went on, she spent more and more time going to church services. She knelt for hours on the cold stones ' of the church in atonement for the sin of her early indif­ ference. She gradually gave up all her household duties; then her frail health began to break under the strain of her religious devotion*•

As she lost her health, she began to lose her sanity. Nothing mattered to her except religion as typified by the

Abb6. She fell in love with him. The best food from her table was sent up to the old priest and his mother; then

she had them at her own table; and finally she turned over

the house to them, forcing her own family to take the leav­

ings. Frangois strove valiantly to save his household. He

opposed the Abbe at every turn but with no success. As Marthe«s sanity broke, Abb6 Faujas took the initiative

against the recalcitrant husband. He gradually built up

the fiction that Frangois was losing his mind. He drove

the poor man from his house in rages; he called attention

to all his peculiarities* Finally under the strain and

sorrow, Frangols did lose his mind and was comaltted to an

asylum. He retained sanity enough to seek revenge on his antagonist. One night he returned from the asylum to set

fire to his house, destroying AbbtS Faujas and his mother t Marthe and himself. The seed of Adelaide’s madness had been transmitted to Marthe at birth. Had she been permitted to lead a tranquil life, she would probably have been able to run her house until her death. With the excitement provided by the old Abb*, her hereditary weakness claimed her as a

- '■■'■■ ■: ' v: . ' "■ • ’■ - ■ ■■ - ' ■ ‘ ' Prangois had a brother, the heroic Silver©, and a slater H61*ne, who is the heroine of A Love Episode.

H^l&ne does not add to Zola’s study of heredity because she, like Dr. Pascal, inherited none of the family traits.

He told her story for three reasons $ first, to prove to his critics that he could write a beautiful story that was realistic; secondly, to keep an unbroken account of the

Rougon-Maequart family; and, thirdly, to represent every type of heredity, Y/hile H<§l*ne was not subject to the family influences, she had a child who in the fourth gene­ ration suffered severely from the weakness Adelaide had implanted in her descendants.

Hdlbne Mouret was a young girl of seventeen living at Marseilles when within a year she lost both mother and father. The delicate Drsule had died from an hereditary weakness and her husband, who loved her devotedly, had grieved for her a year and then hanged himself in her clothes closet. Shortly after these tragedies, H*l6ne, who had extraordinary physical beauty as well as most of the other womanly virtues, had excited the admiration of a gentleman named Grandjean, the son of a wealthy sugar refiner. Although twice her age, he fell in love with her and married her despite the disapproval of his family, who disinherited him.

The married life of the couple was of eleven years

: At first they struggled with poverty until a

Grand Jean uncle died and left them a comfortable yearly income. They had a daughter, who was a sickly and nervous child. Then one day after they had taken up residence in

Paris, Grand jean suddenly died after an illness of eight days. His death was caused by pthlsls, the germ of which, unknown to him, had been present in his blood.

Hil&no and her daughter led a lonely life in Paris.

Little Jeanne took all her mother’s time. Pale, weak, and

undeveloped for her age, she loved her mother with an in­

tensity far beyond her physical strength. She had an ex­

tremely Jealous disposition and flew into tantrums if any­

one showed affoction for Hel&ne. Monsieur Rambaud, an

. ‘ estimable gentleman, who with his brother, Abbd Jouve,

were the sole guests of the little family, became the

target of the child’s jealousy when he proposed marriage

to Helene. The hours that Jeanne and Monsieur Rambaud had

spent together when he mended her toys and told her stories

went for nothing when she faced the probability of having

to share her beloved mother. Her love for him turned to

hate. 59

The night of Monsieur Rambaud»s proposal, Jeanne«s jealousy brought on a convulsion identical in nature with the fits of Adelaide’s early married life* Her body grew rigid and cold, and her hands clutched at imaginary horrors.

She would have died but for the services of a neighborhood dostor, whom Helene found by chance.

Dr* Deberle detected from the symptoms of the child*s

Illness and her age (she was approaching adolescence) the presence of a strain of insanity in the family. He pre­ scribed a happy and quiet life, free of shocks of the emotional kind, until she passed the age critical to one

of her sex.

The doctor, one of the most fashionable in Paris because of his good looks and social prominence, under­

took the treatment of Jeanne’s case. Often a visitor in \ E*l6ne*s apartment, he fell in love with the beautiful t young mother who was still in her twenties. For H6l6ne, who had never loved her elderly husband, the new affair was exciting; it was her first experience of romantic

love. She did not mean to let the doctor know of her love,

for he was married.

The ever watchful Jeanne discovered her mother's feel­

ing for the physician at once. The nervous tantrums began

again whenever Dr. Deberle was present. Consequently

B6l&ne forbade him the house, for Jeanne meant more to her

than anyone else. She often met him, however, while on 60

missions of charity in the neighborhood. Jeanne with un­ canny perception always knew whenever such a meeting had taken place. One day Hdlbne stayed out longer than usual and the child, knowing that she was with the doctor, watched for her return for hours by the open window. A cold rain was falling of which she was unconscious, so rapt was she in desire for her mother's return. There followed a sick­ ness of several weeks which was complicated by a nervous fever resulting from the child's jealousy. Finally she died. ' ' ' : ‘ ; ' Jeanne's death brought Hblbne to her senses. She recognized in the doctor a trifler who sought the admira- tlon of all his women patients. She realized that her love for him was inspired by a romantic ideal set up in her mind and founded on her reading of romances.

Zola portrays HClbne as the ideal of normal womanhood.

Her love affair was the result of environmental influences.

The strain of the exacting life she led with Jeanne; the loneliness of her existence in a big city; the fact that, although a widow, she had never been in love; the proxim­ ity to the young and handsome doctor to whom she owed her child's life - all were circumstances that produced a cer­ tain reaction in her. Unlike the other members of the

Rougon-Maoquart family, she had a conscience, she ex­ perienced remorse for her mistake, a remorse that brought back her normally clear perception and mental balance. The Pat and the Thin relates the story of the oldest

daughter of Antoine Macquart, Lisa, who was the first •oneIn of Edl&ne Mouret. The title of this novel reveals one of Zola's common views of the world - a place where

fat, well-fed men (materialists) with the victory always l 8°i5e..5?.tto _lafctQr type. Idea, who wed the pork butcher

Quenu, was "a fat" as well as her husband, while Florent,

Quenu«s brother and the main character of the novel, was

"a thin.” . Lisa, who was pretty, plump, and stolid in temperament

and who had inherited most of her mother*s traits, would

not, at first glance, be recognized as a Macquart. She did

not have the neurotic family tendencies nor was she sub­

jected to the Influence of Antoine*s and Fine's household.

Zola experiments with her by removing her at an early age

from her family environment. The life of Lisa showed that

he attributed great Importance to environment in shaping an

individual's actions. When she was six years old, she was adopted by the wife of the postmaster at Plassans, who later took her to

Paris and kept her until she was grown. From her adopted

mother, who was a woman of gentle birth, she learned habits

of neatness and orderliness. In fact she was given train- - . ■ . • . ing such as she would never have received in her father's

home. She did inherit one Macquart trait, however, for she bad her father's love of Idleness and ease, which was off­

set by enough, of her mother's energy and Industry to enable

her to Indulge this craving for the comforts of life*

Circumstances helped to make Lisa "a fat." At the

death of her adopted mother, she Inherited 10,000 francs.

Then she was hired as a saleswoman by a pork butcher who

considered her healthful beauty a good advertisement for

his shop. Here she was associated with her employer's nephew, Quenu, whose stuffed sausages and black puddings

were known throughout Paris • The butcher died soon there­

after, leaving a fortune of 80,000 francs hidden in his

basement. Lisa and Quenu found the money, to which Lisa

added her own inheritance, the two married, and set up a

shop of their own. The old butcher's fortune belonged

legally to Quenu and his brother Florent, who had been departed to Dutch Galana for resisting the Coup d'istat.

Such an exile meant almost certain death, a point which

Lisa considered before appropriating the fortune.

The new shop was typical of Lisa. In it she put

pink and white marble counters and floors, mirrored walls,

deep glass show oases. Her living quarters she furnished

with thick rugs, fine mahogany pieces, and beds with four

mattresses. Despite the immense outlay of money, she sold

only the best meats and always gave honest weight. In a

few years the prosperity of the shop was so great that the

80,000 francs had been made back and invested in govern- 63

ment seoiaritiea. Her sense of orderliness and thrift de­ manded that she pass on to her only child, Pauline, at least as much as had been given to her. Mo family in the neighborhood commanded greater respect than the smoothly run household of the pork butoher. Then Florent, sick, hungry, and dressed in rags, re­ turned after a miraculous escape from Cayenne. Lisa nursed him to health, bought him new clothes, and sought to con­

ceal his identity by Introducing him as her cousin. On his recovery, she called him to her office to pay him his

part of his uncle * s inheritance . Wishing to be scrupu­

lously honest about it, she had figured out the interest

they owed him to the penny. To her amazement Florent re­ fused It, saying that he had no use for so large a sum of

money. He was "a thin" and money meant little to him. All

he desired was a place to stay, food enough to ward off

hunger, and leisure to plan for the return of the Republi­

cans to power. Lisa and Quenu furnished him board, and

Florent spent his time with a group of revolutionists who held meetings in a nearby cafe.

As time passed and Florent made no effort to find work,

U s s became annoyed with him. Her irritation r6se not from

stinginess but from her conviction that every man should work hard enough to enjoy his meals, she finally induced him to accept a position as inspector in the fish markets,

a situation she procured for him. Florent did not achieve 64

success at his new job, as the fishwives were too rough for him. He studied Utopian schemes of government in his office, while pandemonium reigned in the market. Lisa is annoyance reached a climax when Florent took Quenu to one

of his political meetings. She did not like to take any

chance of disrupting the even course of her life. She

turned Florent over to the police by disclosing his iden­

tity. \ -S\I ■ Lisa i s predominant trait, her love of easy living,

made her perpetrate the treachery against Florent. Kind

and generous like her mother, honest by reason of her

early training, she was willing to take care of Florent

or deposit a fortune in his lap. When he failed to act

as "a fat" acted, she disliked him; when he threatened

her tranquillity, she destroyed him.. Hardly capable of

a thought above a sausage, Lisa was constitutionally in­

capable of understanding a dreamer. 10 Gervalse, the sister of Lisa, was not so favored

by inheritance nor childhood environment. Where in Lisa

the mother's prepotency was manifest, in Gervaise it was

Antoine's. The lack of will power that had made Antoine

Maequart incapable of constructive action appeared again

in Gervaise. All her life she was to be a victim of cir­

cumstances because of this deficiency. She did, however,

10* Gervaise's story is told in The Dram-Shop. Inherit one quality from her mother, a love of work, which acted for a while as a balance wheel. In appearance she was small and delicate with a face like a doll*s.

Where Lisa had good training during childhood, Gervaise

grew up without direction amidst the drunken brawls of Fine and Antoine. Her father sent her out to work at an early

age to provide money for his shiftless existence. As she

was slightly lame and sickly from birth, her mother attempt­ ed to make her more robust by giving her aniseed. Hence

the Inherited taste for liquor was intensified by regular

drinking through childhood* Gervaise*s life history was almost an exact reflection

of the conditions in which she found herself. By the time i " ' ■ .. . . ■...'2/ she was fifteen,, she had three illegitimate children by a

handsome rowdy of Plassans named Lantier. Her seducer would

have married her bad her father permitted, but, as Lantier *s

mother kept the children, Antoine preferred to keep his

daughter*s earnings himself. When her mother died, Lantier

persuaded her to go with him and the three children to Paris

so that he could Invest a recent inheritance in a profit­

able business. in a short time the money was spent on hotel

bills and fine clothes, after which he deserted her. Gervaise

found employment as a washerwoman to provide support for the three children.

For a time, Gervaise was free from her two worst ene­

mies, drink and men. She had no money for drink, and her code of morals, such as It was, made her true to Lantler. She kept her children clean and well-fed and built for herself a reputation for efficiency as a laundress. Her

pluck gained her a good reputation, which, unaccustomed as It was, spurred her on to greater effort. She began to

plan for a shop of her own.

Then a young zinc-worker, Goupeau, whom she often met

on her way to work, fell In love with her. Gervalse, bol­

stered up by her recent good name, showed more will power

than she ever showed again In her life. She refused his attentions until he proposed marriage. As he was honest,

thrifty, sober, and efficient at M s work, she assented

even though she did not want to particularly.

The new marriage promised at first to be successful.

Goupeau shared Gervalse *s enthusiasm for the new shop and

together they saved their moroy. They furnished an apart­

ment which was the best home Gervalse had ever had; they had

a daughter, Nana; and Goupeau acted as a father to Gervalse*s

three sons. Then came Goupeau*s accident; he fell from tbs

top of a building on which he was at woi&. Gervalse, tender­

hearted like her mother, pampered her husband during M s

convalescence, even buying him wine to hasten M s recovery.

Such treatment brought out hereditary weaknesses of

w M o h Goupeau, himself, was ignorant. His father had died

of delirium tremens from excessive drinking. The wine, which was the only liquor he had ever had, made him utterly 67

worthless. Most of the time he refused to work, and, when he did, he quarreled with his employer. Thereafter, Ger- vaiee supported'him.

Osrvalse's principal regret over Coupeau*s defection arose from the fact that she could no longer plan to have her own shop. When a young blacksmith named Goujet, who had long admired Gervaise, offered her a loan to finance her shop, she accepted it.

From the day Gervaise accepted the loan from Gou jet, her doom was sealed. Although the long-dreamed-of shop became a reality - blue and white walls, ruffled curtains, and all, - and although she worked up from the first a

lucrative business, she was destined to fail. When she

had plenty of money, she spent it on feasts for her friends, liquor for Coupeau, and extravagant living generally5 when

she was short of funds, she borrowed from Gou jet, who never

refused her. Soon her debt to the blacksmith became so

large that she ceased even to think of paying it back.

With the knowledge that she was taking money from a friend

for whom she did nothing, Gervaise began to lose her newly acquired self-respect.

The loss of her self-respect was complete when Lantlor

returned. He heard of Gervaise»s prosperity, and, as was

typical of him, he came back to find an easy berth for him­

self. Coupeau, who had become a maudlin drunkard, took

him into the household. Gervaise served as wife to them Gervaloe lost the shop# Then when she was hungry, she started going to the dram-shop with Coupeau, Finally she was reduced to begging on the streets# Coupeau died of delirium tromens, and Gervaise followed him shortly, ruined by starvation and drink.

The factors contributing to Gervaise

one of the best members of the Rougon-Btcquart family.

He was not so well endowed mentally, for he was slow of wit, but neither was he handicapped by the neurotic ten­

dencies inflicted on s o many of the other members of the family. His very stolidity belied M s relation to Adelaide. ' - - In fact, Jean was an example of innateness in heredity; he

long heavy faces, he had a fat round one; where they were

possessed of insatiable appetites of one kind or another, he had the modest desire to make for himself an independent

position in the world. He was well equipped to accomplish his aim, for M s most outstanding trait was a d o g ^ d per­

sistence to succeed at what he tried. ;

As for education, he received the most rudimentary

kind, being put to work early. He labored industriously

to learn to read, write, and cipher, after the accomplish­

ment of which he was sent to a carpenter as an apprentice.

Although Zola allowed Jean little formal schooling,

he put him through many environmental changes to broaden

and educate him, for t M s stolid, sober lad was one of the

"salt of the earth" types to whom he looked for the future

salvation of France. First, conscription took Jean from

M s workman's bench into Italy with Napoleon's army, where

he stayed for seven years mastering the hardsMps- of a

soldier's life and learning to think out for himself the pros and cons of the cause for which he was fighting.

Zola records the changes made in Jean:

Seven years of service had put his hand out of practice and had so set him against the saw and plane that he seemed a different being. - - - politics, which once bored M m , 70

new absorbed him and led him to reason on equality and fraternity.12

On M s return from the army, Jean had no intention of settling in Plassana under the despotic rule of old Antoine,

Be went Instead to Rogues with a war comrade, where he was engaged by a farmer to make repairs on his house. So at­ tracted to rustle life was he that the fanner kept him as ah extra hand# : - ■': -v. ^

, Here Jean saw life as he had never seen it in Plassans.

land passed down from father to son and loved with an ardor that amounted almost to irnbeeillty. Brothers and sisters usually hated each other as a result of disputes over Its ownership, and sons often killed fathers in their

Impatience to inherit the precious fields. Morals were bad

In this community, Marriage always succeeded the births of

In frightful promiscuity.

Jean, who eano Into this community at the age of twenty-nine, a large, well-built fellow with regular fea­

tures and a ruddy, healthful color, lived among the people for several years, married, tilled his wife's land, and

finally became a widower - went through all these intimate

12." .mirwrm-m:: the rustics*. Although his wife had mentioned making him , - .; '' ' \ \ y. a deed to her land, he was prevented by a feeling of deli-

her death. Again, the same feeling of delicacy and a sense

of discrimination kept Jean from adopting the native *s views

of sexual relationtixlp. Antoine in the same situation would

have wallowed in the low life around him. But Jean*s better

nature, fortified by an independence growing out of his

earlier experiences, enabled him to leave Rognes untainted

by the animal life he had seen there.

■ ■■ ■■ 13 ■■ . - ' : - Jean* s next experiences were on another battle field

in that war between Prance and Germany which from France *s

point of view should never have been fought. Napoleon

allowed Bismarck to inveigle him into a war which brought

his country to inglorious defeat and which ended his reign

as emperor. Even before the first battle was fought, the 13

13. Related I5n We were taken unprepared? we bad neither guns, nor men, nor generals while our despised foe was an innumerable host provided with all _ modern appliances and faultless in discipline.14 With such a view prevailing among the fitting forces, the

. - - - : : ■; . ' ' ' ' ;■ . ' ' ' *■ : morale of the men was broken before the first shot was fired.

Defeat of the French soldiers was inevitable. Officers were changed so frequently that the army was without direc­ tion. Supply trains never arrived in time and the soldiers were worn out by fruitless marching before they met the

enemy. The hungry men fought among themselves for food,

and desertions were frequent. When the war was taken to

the gates of Paris, a group of soldiers organized an in­

surgent band and fought against the regular army.

Through all this conflict when there were few good sol­

diers to be found, Jean*s conduct was exemplary. As cor­

poral, he commanded the respect of every man in his squad.

A young aristocrat, widely separated from him by birth and

education, began by despising Jean because of his lowly

birth and ended by loving him as his best friend. A big

bully who sought to spread among the squad the sedition

■ ' ' ■ ^ ■ ■■ . ' ■ . ■■ , , that was threatening the whole army was rendered harmless by the prompt and courageous action of his corporal. He *

administerad to the physical as well as to the moral wel-

14. The downfall, p. 66. 73

fare of his men. He kept them dry In rainy weather* he found rations when none were Issued; he held a stern rein when it was needed* he relaxed his severity when the sit­ uation demanded it. . -

; Jean and Maurice, the young aristocrat, formed an interesting contrast. On the one. hand, the lowly peasant with the peasant>8 traditional hatred of war, untutored except by the hard conditions of his environment, remain­ ing the truest and best soldier of them all; on the other, the fortunate Maurice, born the grandson of an illustrious

Napoleonic soldier, brought up on tales of heroism, educa­ ted in the best of schools, losing his balance and turning insurgent in the conflict at Paris.

Although Maurice was more favored by birth than Jean was, there was less in his environment to produce a good

soldier. He received the education of a man of culture

and had spent a great deal of money enjoying the advan­

tages consistent with his life as such. He had never been

self-sufficient, however; he had to be rescued continually

from scrapes by his sister, who spent her own inheritance

on him. On his side, Jean's education had been of the

most elementary kind. Born a humdrum literal fellow, he

was only beginning to learn to think in the abstract -

one of Maurice's greatest gifts. This new way of thinking

had come about gradually in Jean after an active life fol­

lowed by several reflective years In the country. Then, is 74

Jean had never received any help from his family. Instead

he had known In the beginning that he must rely on himself

to get away from his terrible family. The years he had

spent enduring the tyranny of Antoine had developed pa­

tience In the eon. Everything Jean had achieved he had

wbn through difficulty! consequently, he had a reserve of

strength Maurice had never had.

Destiny ruled that Maurice should die at the hand of

his beloved friend Jean. They were on opposite sides of

a street fight in Paris when Jean inflicted the fatal

bayonet thrust, Maurice with the Insurgents and Jean with

the regular soldiers. For the death of an Insurgent Jean

had no grief, for to his well-ordered mind Insurgency was the worst of crimes; but for the death of his friend he

suffered Immeasurably.

Jean*s accidental wounding of Maurice affected M s life Incalculably. It broke up a love affair between

Jean and Maurice's sister, Henrietta. The young woman. In whom all Maurice1 s weaknesses were strengths, had de­ veloped a deep attachment for the husky young corporal

when she acted for weeks as M s nurse. However, with the

death of Maurice, the blood of the dead brother and friend

stood between them, rendering marriage Impossible.

Jean, though; heartbroken by his losses, bore his mis­

fortune with resignation. After the armistice, he left

Paris to go back to the country where, with hope in M s r' heart, he meant to help build France anew* A strong ■ ' healthy wife who owned a me land, a sensible. Industrious

husband who was not afraid of the plough, and a largo

rapidly increasing family gave Dr. Pascal, who kept the

family records, the hope that the healthy branch of the ::: - .' ' ' ' - ' ' .. . - - . ' family troo would spring from Joan. For tho, doctor had great faith that In Joanns children was to be found . - . ■ ■ . . . - ■ "tho revivifying sap of the races which acquire renewed " -■ vigor by returning to the soil." *16

c..

Is• Zola*s mouthpiece. 16. Dr. Pascal, p. 27. h - CHAPTER VI

EXPERIMENTS ON THE FOURTH IATION

By the time the Rougon-Maoqunrt family bad reached the

. ' . . ... ■ ■ : ' ' . ■ .■ - - - .. , . ' fourth generation, the ratio of fecundity was falling off.

The three member# of the second generation produced eleven

children, whereas these eleven yielded only thirteen progeny : . ■ ' : : . ' : ; ■ ■ ..1 5*':. ■ , to the fourth. Injudicious choice of mates, late marriages due to ab-

sorption in business, and too rapid living were responsible

■■ ‘ . • ■ ■ ■ : ..... ■ ’ ' for the declining birth rate. Of splendid physical consti­

tution and good mind, Eug&ne might have made a good father,

but he was too busy pursuing ambition to have any children;

■ '. . - : . ■. ■ . ■ - ■■■ . Pascal, who was free of the family weakness and who had the

best mind of them all, had one child only, a posthumous one,

when he was an old man; Hdlfene, also unaffected by the fam­ ily taint, a lovely and gracious lady, married a sickly

husband and had only one child; Silv&re was shot, a martyr ri.: ■ . ' . . , , . ' ' . . ' . ; ..: ' in his youth; and Jean's children were born so late that

they grew up with the fifth generation.

Although Adelaide's neurosis had affected almost all

of her descendants though in various ways, sometimes ad­

vantageously and more often disadvantage ously, and although

it had caused the death of her daughter Ursula and had re­ identical in nature with tho

' ' ■ . ' The marriage of for they were first cousins, was not affected by the family latent in him, for Adelaide wai

Their three children. Octave,

sly neurotic. In Octave’s

1, giving him a well as an insight into the

so successfully that it

p UJUvS « VAAlt V l l g U14VJ mysticism and resulted in his Joining the $

Ddoirdo, tho daughter, it made an Idiot.

The differences in the children were i hood. Octavo, In whom his father’s traits

healthy. In physical appearance, he was the only case of collateral heredity in the Rougon-Maequart family; he hen

m marked resemblance to hie uncle, EugSno Rougen, Serge

was a pale, sickly child, who did not like boys’ sports but

who lived in his mind. Ho paid so little attention to J M U A J L & i tAJULU. U V U U i l VJL

fowls loved her and

i her shoulder without ;• ■: '-'V- " .wn toward business as T" his bachelor1 •

a mercantile store at mrsoillos. He made his nest egg in

a short time by buying a bankrupt stock of calico. So easy

was his approach to women that Octave had them clamoring for

the last romnant of tho stuff, which before had been unsale­

able •

With money for investment. Octave went to Paris. Zola

He had a passion for trade, the trade in women’s luxuries into which enters a seduction, a slow i possession by gilded words and adulatory glances * - - - He had the prudence of a Jew beneath the exterior of an amiable, giddy-headed fellow.^

With "the prudence of a Jew," Octave set out to learn -some­

thing about the Parisian women. He secured lodgings in a

1* Piping Hot,. p. 18. .... 5 • 79

it house and soon

In the house, He made, at

their way of thinking, their des

i* On his side. Octave received

is. He had a secret

companionship only as an aid Octave secured

iper*s shop of long s

that time, business was carried on in

one limited as to space and

line of merchandise. Octave, whoso

■ .* by a nervous fantasy Inherited from his mother, visualized a

new style of business, carried on in spacious, attractive quarters, displaying all kinds of wares, and made profitable

by a rapid turn-over of stoek. This idea he imparted to his

now employer, Madame Hddouin, to whom he made love at the

same time. Meeting with repulse from the woman, who was

married and honorable, the young promoter took his services and his ideas to a rival firm.

Here again. Octave met failure. The firm was in finan­

cial difficulties and could not expand despite the fact that

the move was advocated by the owner's wife, to whom he was

paying his attentions. Accustomed to success, he was des-

87 Octave's experiences here are related in Piping Hot, 80

# TbBn Mono lour Hddouln died. In a year, uoi>avo

the husband of his former employer.

the city. Hey/ space was acquired; lighting was 1m-

1; new goods were bought and arranged in departments.

end of the year, Parista first.department store had

Into being, and Octave Mourot was its owner. The former

Hddouin had fallen to her death through a trap door

; open d url^ repairs in the store.

Restricted no longer by the more conservative views of

Hddouin, Octave increased his program of expansion.

He extended his walls until thgrencompassed the block; ho added now departments by the dozens; he numbered his em­

ployees by the hundreds. One by one, the small shop-holders

were forced to the wall, giving way to the new system of

business. . .

With his expansion. Octave knew that he must Increase

his market. He appeared at women** teas to promote interest

in buying? he exhibited laoes and novelties; he advised each

woman individually on what she should wear, for his taste

was good; he put on sales to which he drew his crowds by advertising free drinks; he flirted; he cajoled. The women

came to the store in droves; they bought until their purses

wero empty and their husbands were bankrupt. As a result of

the caprices of women. Octave became a wealthy man.

" ■ ■ ■ : ■ : : ■. , . - /, : • . . .■ ■ ■ ; • 81

: In all his dealings with the sex, he was balked only

once. He fell In love with one of the shop-girls in his

store, a girl named Denise, idealistic, honorable, and old-

fashioned. Denise, so unlike the other shop-girls, spent most of her time and money on her two younger brothers to whom she acted as parent . So little did wealth mean to

Denise that she was Indifferent to her employer’s power and

money. She even failed to respond to the blandishments that

were always successful with other girls.

At each failure to Interest Denise, Octave redoubled

his efforts. He reformed his ways; he showed more consid­

eration to his employees; and finally in desperation ha

offered marriage* With the lifting of the affair to an

honorable plane, Denise, interested all along, consented to

be his wife. It was the best bargain Octave ever drove. He

secured for himself a good moral influence and for the

Rougon-Macquart family a hope for the future.

Prom a sickly and inactive childhood. Serge, the second

Mouret son, went into an ascetic existence at a seminary

chosen to educate him for the priesthood. Here he became

the ideal student, spending his time in study and religious

contemplation, never joining the other students in raids on

the pantry and other mischievous pranks. When he was re­

quired to read Pe rebus veneris ad uaum confessarlorum in

preparation for his duties at the confessional, M s soul

trembled at the sins to which mankind is addicted. He him­ 82

self had never known temptation.

m e n the time c a m for the priests to he assigned to parishes. Serge requested Les Artauds, the poorest ehuroh available, while his classmates were maneuvering for wealthy ones. His choice placed him In a wild, rooky, unproductive part of the country among peasants who bad been inbred for generations and who had to struggle so hard to make a liv­ ing that they were hardly more than beasts.

For the normal man* life in Les Artauds would have been t^comf or table, but to Serge, insensible of his sur­ roundings, it offered no hardships. He did not know that the roof was falling In on M s head nor that the floor rot­

ted beneath his feet. Absorbed in religious ecstasy, he

could not feel the hot desert sun on his neck nor the hard

* rooks over which he walked. Forgetting his meals, ho spent hours on his knees before the shrine of the Virgin Mary, who

symbolized to him all that was good and beautiful In religion.

A crisis In Sergeis life was brought on by an attack of brain fever, resulting from hours of devotion and complete

negleot of M s physical self. He was saved from death by

the ministrations of M s uncle and physician. Doctor Pascal,

who sent him into the country to recuperate.

The Paradou, the name of the estate where Serge was

sent, had once been the heme of a nobleman, who had long

since moved away, leaving the place in charge of a care­

taker. The once fine house had fallen Into decay and the a riot of vegetation. As the soil was very fertile, flowers and shrubs, lacking the restraint of.the pruning shears, grew to several times their normal size and the trees were loaded with fruit. : :

Serge was put in charge of. the caretaker's grand­ daughter Alblne, who was to serve as nurse. She had come from Paris when she was orphaned in childhood. She had laid aside her fashionable clothes and convent-bred manners to adopt the colorful unconventional dress and the free ways of a gypsy. She climbed trees, explored oaves, and captured birds in their nests. Her grandfather, fearing she was grow­ ing too wild, sent her to the village school. There the lay brother Archangdas, who was school master, thought her singu­ lar behavior the work of the devil. He punished her so

severely that she stopped going. She returned to her old

life and grew up a perfect child of nature.

When Serge reached the Paradou, he was almost dead.

His convalescence was practically a rebirth. With return­ ing consciousness, he was delighted with the shadow of a

tree on the curtain, with the song of the bird, with the .

warmth of the sun's rays on his hand. These were all new

experiences for him, for his senses had never been alive

before. Then came his first faltering steps, increasing

in number day by day until he finally reached the garden.

Albino initiated her charge to the mysteries of the garden. 84

They breakfasted on fruit, fished in the streams, and climbed trees together. For the first time in his life.

Serge enjoyed perfect physical health and the mental outlook of a normal person except for the fact that he did not re­ gain his memory. He had forgotten that he was a priest.

Human companionship was a new experience to both Albine and Serge. W hen sexual attraction.entered the relationship, neither understood the new feeling, and they became vaguely unhappy, in order to dispel the new restlessness, Albine proposed that they search for the perfect spot which legend accredited the garden with possessing. Finding it, they com­ mitted the sin of Adam and Eve. Then suddenly. Serge remem­ bered him priesthood. While he hesitated uncertain of what to do, the atern Archangias discovered him through a gap in the fence and dragged him back to his priestly duties.

Then Serge knew his first struggle with temptation.

Albine in person and Albine in memory entreated his return to the Paradou; his early years of training and his devotion to the Virgin Mary urged him to stay with the church. For weeks the battle raged. In the end through praying, fasting, and flaying his body, he regained his old oblivion to worldly

things. When he was called to officiate at the burial of

Albine, who died of a broken heart, it was the Serge of

seminary days, pale, cold, insensate, who threw the handful of earth upon her coffin.

In the experiment with Serge, Zola's method was very 85

plain. Given by inheritance a nervous disposition and ex­ posed to an abnormal environment in childhood, an environ­ ment whore his sickliness caused him to live: more; in the k mind than in the body. Serge found himself fascinated by

the symbolical rites of the church. He was 'drawn to the

priesthood as a refuge from the realities of the world. Then Zola changed him to an environment as nearly approach­

ing the natural state of man as was possible. When his

senses developed and perfect health became his, he was a

normal man. When Arohangias dragged Serge back to his

duties, the decision for the church was won. The habits

of a lifetime were too strong for him to break.

Ddsirde, the innocent, was not exposed to the vicissi­

tudes of life as normal people are but was sheltered and pro­

tected by a solicitous family. When Serge went to Lea

Artauds, he took his sister with him and kept her with him the rest of his life.

The country life offered the best environment for

Ddsirde. She spent all her time, in the barnyard. As she

grew older, her normal instincts found vent in mothering

the young animals. Her perfect health stimulated by the outdoor life promoted the full development of her senses.

The restriction on her reason, handed down from her great­

grandmother, never lifted; she remained a natural all her

life......

The Macquart family produced in Pauline Quenu and 86

Nana Compeau the best and the worst of women. It was not so much what they inherited in the first and second genera­ tions that accounted for the difference, for their maternal ancestors were identical, hut it was the influence of en­ vironment and the characteristics taken in the third;

Pauline had as a mother the sensible, practical, well- balanced Lisa, whose principal weaknesses were selfishness and egotism; while as father she had Quenu, who was high- spirited as to disposition and easily moved to sympathy except in financial matters, Nana was the daughter of

Lisa*8 sister Gervaise, the easy-going washerwoman, who was generous to a fault, so affectionate that she was an easy prey for men and of such good nature that she was un­ able to hurt anyone. Her principal fault was the Macquart failing, lack of will power. In Lisa, a self-centered de­ sire for comfort had engendered a determination to get what she wanted.

Chance or whatever factors control the way that pa­ rental characteristics combine in children was kind to

Pauline. With her there was that same nequllibrious blend­

ing of characteristics"3 that made of Pierre a better indi­ vidual than either of his parents. Her principal traits were mental balance, orderliness both mental and physical, and sympathy to such a degree that it offset the cupidity

3. Pauline and Pierre were the only representatives of this type of heredity in the family. 87

handed down from both parents.

Less fortunate than Pauline was liana, an example of

"influenelve heredity,1,4 which causes a child to resemble a former lover of its mother*s. Physically and in some re­ spects mentally and morally, Nana was like Lantier, the handsome scamp that caused Gervaise so much trouble. She inherited his selfishness and disposition to impose on others rather than to work himself. She took one good quality from Gervaise, a good-natured attitude toward her associates. Her worst fault became apparent in adoles­ cence: Ma nervous exaggeration of the sexual instinct caused by a taint In the blood from a cumulative inheritance of misery and drink."4 5 On both sides of her family for three generations, there had been alcoholism. Then her great­ grandmother had also suffered from am exaggerated sexual Instinct. ' /- ■ v ... . ' ■

Early environment was also a strong influence in the

later life of the two girls. Pauline, who had eaten the best

food, who was always nicely dressed, and who played with com­

panions chosen by her mother, had grown up In an atmosphere

of prosperity and propriety? Kama, who was kicked around by

drunken parent#, who had the worst street urchins in Paris

as companions, who spent part of her nights at home and

part abroad, had never known the decencies of life.

4. A classification of heredity accepted in Zola*s time ' but later disproved. 5. Nana, p. 234. At the age of ten, there came about in the life of

Pauline the change to which Zola always subjects his char meters. She was left an orphan by the death of her mother and father, who by the terms of their will committed the

girl and her fortune to the guardianship of Quenu’s cousin,

m man named Chanteau, who lived at Bonneville, a hamlet on

the oeacoast. , \ '

Pauline *s new home was a desolate place. Over the

hamlet of twenty or thirty houses hong an air of gloom

during the winter months when storms battered and often

destroyed the fishermen's huts. High above the coast line

on a cliff the house of Chanteau and the church were situat­

ed. There warn nothing else In Bonneville.

The Chanteau household was pervaded by the same air of

gloom that filled the town. The house was old, the furni­

ture shabby, and the morale of the family low because of

sickness and lack of money. The family consisted of the

father, a man of fifty-six, prematurely aged by gout, a

disease particularly painful to him because of his love of

dainties; the mother, a bustling woman with a perpetual

craze for activity which concentrated itself on idolizing

her son; and the son Lazare, a neurotic youth,who had re­

ceived his bachelor *s degree and who, though talented along

many linos, was unable to decide on a way to make his living.

He was a wretched human being who was constantly tortured by an unreasonable fear of dying. 89

Pauline was in the unenviable position of being among people who had need of everything but who had nothing to give In turn. Ghantcau found the quiet manners and the orderly ways of the little girl soothing in the siek room and thereafter he would have no other nurse. His wife discovered that Pauline's fortune would set up her eon In business, and, promising good interest, she persuaded her to lend It. Here she encountered difficulty, for her niece was thrifty and a little miserly. She played on Pauline's sympathy, which was unlimited, and, once her purse was opened, it was never closed again# Lasare, a victim of melancholia, derived pleasure from his cousin's cheerful company and throw all his burdens on her shoulders,

Pauline was not repaid in any way by any member of the Chanteau family, yet she continued to sacrifice every­ thing for them. Her uncle consumed in self-pity showed little consideration for her. Her fortune was wasted in one wild scheme after another. Her aunt after robbing her began to hate her and accused her of the most abomi­ nable actions even while Pauline was nursing her through her last illness. Lazare, who had proposed marriage to her and who knew that she loved him devotedly, jilted her

for a weak frivolous girl, who was a wealthier heiress.

When Lazare's baby was born, it was not Its mother but

Pauline who nursed it through an Invalid childhood. 90

The orderliness of Pauline ta nature and her capacity for sympathy were responsible for her reactions to the con­ ditions in the Chantean households At the most impression­ able age, she changed her environment of luxury and security

to one of desolateness and misery. Her ready sympathy was touched by the sordidness of the lives of her new associates.

As she had the methodical mind necessary to restore order and the youth and courage to tackle the problem, she stepped

into the breach. Her courage wavered at times at the re­ buffs she received, but she managed to survive them all without becoming embittered. :: v .

The new environment had its effect on Pauline. It

deepened the better traits of her character and eradicated

an inherited weakness, her miserliness.

Nana in adolescence showed none of Pauline’s virtues.

She acquired the habit of parading in the street, bedecked

in ©heap finery, and talking and laughing loudly to call attention to herself. She found out while still a young

girl that such behavior often brought her presents of cheap

trinkets and gewgaws. She went to work in a paper flower

shop where her paternal aunt, Madame Lerat, was supervisor.

The new environment was the worst possible for adolescent

girls. Madame Lerat was a lascivious old woman who sought

to relive her lost youth in the experiences of the girls.

She joined in telling vile stories at the worktable and

she urged the girls to respond to the advances of the m

strange men who hung around the shop entrance at closing time. She was particularly Interested in Nana* who was growing Into a beautiful but vulgar looking young woman.

At sixteen Nana had a baby, which she put with a nurse in the country. She suffered no chagrin from having borne the child, as illegitimacy was becoming traditional

in the family. Her mother and her great-grandmother had borne children out of wedlock.

Nana's heredity manifested itself also in her atti­

tude toward work. Like her father, she would not exert herself if she could live any other way. For a time, she

led a precarious existence, managing to have herself sup­

ported, sometimes poorly, often in better fashion, by first

one man, then another,

Nana's way of living changed definitely for the bet­

ter when a theatrical producer who happened to see her

offered her the principal role in a musical show, The Blond

Venus. Most of the scenes showed her in the nude, and

although she had not a particle of dramatic ability nor

eould she sing, she knew instinctively how to show off her

body. Even though the show was such a success that she eould live for a while on her earnings, it meant but one

thing to Nana. She could establish herself as one of the

popular courtesans of Paris; not for a minute did she mean to work.

At first Nana was content to have a living and her 92

bills paid. Her inherent good nature, coming from Gervalse, caused her to show consideration for her suitors. As time went on, her appetites grew. She demanded more money than she could use, jewelry she never wore, and luxuries for which she had no use. Satiated with the things money could buy, she then wanted a new thrill; she demanded respecta­ bility. She sought to draw to her scions of the oldest families in Paris, some of them men who had never dallied with courtesans before. When she succeeded in getting the men she picked out, she found they could not (and perhaps would not if it had been possible) bestow on her the coveted position in good society. It was then that H a m began to lose her good nature. Keenly alive to her own lowly origin, she developed a form of class hatred which manifested itself in proportion to the station of her admirer. The greater M s name, the more pleasure she took in debasing it. A gossip column in one of the current papers compared her to a fly:

----- A fly of sunny hue, which has flown out of the dung, a fly w M c h sudks in death on the carrion tolerated by the roadside, and then bus­ sing, dancing, and glittering like a precious stone, enters the windows of palaces and poisons the men within by merely aettllng on them.6 ■

Nana left in her trail broken horns, ruined fortunes, and wrecked morals. Oddly enough, she died of a case of

smallpox contracted during one of her fits of maternal

solicitude when she was nursing her little son, ill of the

6. Nana, p. 254. ' ” ' ~ :------disease

The same factors that ma duced a sort of . Claude,7 in whom madness was a who had the creative painting, which led to the formation of The Open Air

School. He.and his followers. acknowledged nature in its its perfections. The work of the new school met with howls of derision the power of tradition and personal reputation behind them. Claude battled the opposition furiously and yielded at no point to compromise. Many of his followers with less creative ability than himself compromised a little and were accepted by the public. Claude struggled along alone, and with each new failure his mental balance was threatened.

Although gifted with the genius to originate an idea years ahead of its time, he lacked the ability to execute

it. His adult life was a miserable sacrifice of everything to perfecting his execution. He forgot to marry his wife until his friends t disapproval broyg&t him to his senses.

Then he let her starve and their baby die of neglect while he fought for recognition. effect In M s pictures* His work even painted the at the Salon, emphasizing "the head, the waxy tint of the skim, like ■ ■* - . ' - ' • ' V* holes staring Into space*” He work that he suffered the Illusion on his

In love with

.3 The end of it all was that 33: suicide by hanging himself on the scaffold before one of

M e giant canvasses,

Claude«o

denclcs which manifested >lves only under the lus of alcohol* At

"when ho could At all other times, he

the presence of vely timid* An a b

had enabled Etienne to a on the railway at Lille,

he lost his situation

of the few oooasi

10* Germinal* p* M * 95

abstained from drinking, for He hated brandy with the hatred of a last child of a race of drunkards, who suffered in his flesh from all those ancestors soaked and driven d by alcohol to such a point^hat the least drop had become poison to him.

Etienne's mishap occurred in a sion, and the resulting scarcity of jobs for a cept work in the coal mines; at Montsou.

The living conditions among the miners were than any Itienne had known before. Large families were crowded together in flimsy houses, the walls of which were too thin to shut out sounds from neighboring homes. Members of the family, male and female, and boarders slept, bathed, and dressed in the same room. Food was scarce and meat a lux­ ury reserved for feast days. All the members of a family were forced to work to make ends meet, the women excepting during childbirth and the children as soon as their arms could push a train.,

The poor living conditions resulted in low morals.

As there was no privacy in the home, children at an early age knew the facts of life. And since there was no spare money for entertainment, they amused themselves in the most natural way they knew - with each other. Mew families were always started before marriage and as early as it was physically possible.

H . Germinal, p. 65. ~ ~ — : Stlenns«a natural timidity before woman (so like M s

Uncle Jean*a) kept him from engaging in the promiscuous

sexual relations ofthe community. Even though he was

attracted to the daughter of the house where he stayed,

he did hot push his claim as the other swains did. In his spare time on feast days and long summer evenings he

formed the habit of visiting the inn, where he became in­

terested in the discussions of Socialism carried on between ■ ■ ■ ■ . : x ■ • ■ ■ the inn-keeper and a young Russian, who was engine-man at

the mine *

Etienne*s interest in the subject of social Justice

was practical in its nature, for the new teachings answered

a question he had been pondering since his arrival: what to

do to help the Montsou miners. He had suffered at the sight

of the wrongs the miners endured, not because he was a vic­

tim, for he could leave when he liked, but because the

miners as their forefathers had done considered the misery of their existence inevitable.

The roots of Etienne*s sympathy went deep, for the

quality had been handed him by his mother; and it had been

nourished by the conditions of his youth, when he had seen

his mother abused by the two men who ruined her life.

Hence, when he heard of a remedy for the miners* ills, he

threw himself whole-heartedly into a study of the new sub­

ject. He borrowed books and, because he knew his education

to be limited, he discussed his reading with the young 97

Russian, who could help him In an Intellectual .way. He also engaged in correspondence with a former foreman of

M s , who had since become a labor organizer*

The young reformer had no trouble in gaining the co­ operation of the miners for M s new program. They admired . him because he had more education than they and because he had gained several promotions at the mine. They subscribed to his Provident Fund and voted to join the International

Association of Workers. On his side, Etienne, with that nervous enthusiasm handed down from Adelaide, delighted in his new popularity. He bought better clothes and dreamed

of himself in an office in Paris, working for the better­ ment of conditions among the laboring classes.

The opportunity to try out the new theories came when

the manager of the mine announced a new system of pay. The

company insisted that the change was inaugurated to increase

the miner’s safety without lowering his pay, but every

miner, even the moot ignorant, could see a thinly veiled

wage cut of two centimes on each tram of M s output. The indignation of the workers led them to strike.

The strike resulted in disaster for the miners. The

Provident Fund and the aid sent by the Internati oral held

off starvation for a week. Then the Company, seeing the

damage to their property through Idleness, offered to re­

store the two centime reduction, hut the miners, intoxi­

cated with their first small victory, demanded a raise of 98

five cent la*#. When the demand was refused, the men in a mass meeting resolved to stop all work at the neighboring mines. From his reading, ifcienne realized that these maneuvers most be kept well in hand with no bloodshed and

no destruction of property.

As long as 6tienne retained M s balance, he held his

followers within the bounds of reason. But when, to ap­

pease the aching of a hungry stomach, he took a cup or two

of gin, he went wild with the rest. The ensuing riot of

destruction was curbed by the gendarmes, who were forced to

kill several of the miners.

With the miners* defeat, a reaction against Stlenne

set in. They blamed him for all their misfortunes. At

first, he blamed himself and was filled with “anxiety that

he had not risen to the height of his task; It was the

doubts of the half-cultured man still perplexing him.

After the first disappointment was over, fitienne

realized that the strike had accomplished something, even though it was a small part of what he had hoped for. With

this new view of the situation, he felt himself drifting

away from his companions; he knew that M s experience had

broadened and enlightened his mind and that he was moving towards superior class.

He lingered on at Montsou, held by the love of the

157.Wgnlmirp;.------— 99

girl before whom he was so timid, A eawe-lm burled the miners for nine days, the rescue coming too late to save

Etienne»s sweetheart. He was saved, however, and planned to leave the village at once. A letter came from the

International asking him to come to Paris. Again his old enthusiasm returned mingled with the knowledge that he could do something to help the lot of the working man.

"He felt himself strong, seasoned by his hard experience at the bottom of the mine? - - - he was going away armed, a rational soldier of the revolution."13 Jaeques, the brother of Claude ami Etienne, was like­ wise infected with the germ of madness. In his ease, the disease took the form of a homicidal mania directed parti­ cularly at women. In his youth, a rosy-cheeked girl who

passed his door daily had inspired him with the desire to

strangle her. Again, he found himself, overwhelmed with a

bloodthirsty lust, taking a train to follow a strange woman who was going to town to buy orchids for her husband«s birthday. , --: -. . . ' ■ ■ / ; V..-.

It seemed like a sudden outburst of blind rage, an ever-recurring thirst to avenge some very ancient offences, the exact recollection of which escaped him. Did it date from so very far back, from the harm women had done his race, from the rancour laid up from male to male since the first deceptions at the bottoms of the caverns?!*

17 W " .•--- niac, p. 54. the fit#

struggles were so 9 health, he was 1 r :- : < V. " ... . ■'

When Jacques engine-driver on a the best drivers In ly happy in his new job. called La Lison, feelings and away from people. he thought himself

Then one day on a he had a sudden desire to • with a pair of scissors she held in her hand. In an effort

to secure self-control he ran away, taking a route across country. When he was. physically exhausted, he threw him­

self down beside the railroad track and from that position he witnessed a startling sight in a compartment of a pass­

ing train. One man was murdering another with a knife.

The horrible scene inspired Jacques not with revulsion -but

with admiration of an Individual who had the courage to satisfy an impulse to kill.

Although the passage of the train had been too swift

to enable him to Identify the murderer, his connection with the railroad led him to go before the authorities to tell 101

what he - had seen. The guilty man, fearing Jacques had recognized him, urged hia wife Sdv&rine to gain the friend­ ship of the young engine-driver to purchase his silence.

. The result of the new friendship was that Jacques and

Sivdrine fell in love< The relationship brought happiness to Jacques, for, as he had no desire to murder Sdv&rlne, he thought that love of a woman had helped him conquer his rancor against the sex. Finally, however, the woman pro­ posed that they should lure her husband to a lonely spot In the country and stab him. She made all the plans even to supplying tho knife. Just before the husband arrived,

Jacques felt M s old trouble come upon him. He had no taste for a murder in cold blood; he desired to kill Sdvdrlne as he had longed to kill so many women before her. T M s time

Jacques accomplished M s purpose.

For a time, Jacques, who felt no remorse, was happy and

relaxed and apparently cured of M s disease. Then, becoming

lonely, he stole the sweetheart of him fireman, who avenged

the treachery of M s friend by starting a fight with M m on a trip. As the two vmn got a death grip on each other,

they rolled from the engine. Jacques» train, filled with :

drunken soldiers and headed for the Prussian front, plunged on Into the night without a driver.

In conducting his experiment with Angdllque, descended

on the Rouge® side through Sidonie, Zola illustrates one of

the freaks of heredity, "a large, immaculate lily sprung from the hot-had of vioe«n^® Ang6lique*s story^ has "been

called “a symphony In white,” so pure were the thoughts and

actions of the girl. In this case, Zola considered environ­

ment more important than heredity in shaping the life of an

individual. -v

So far as her own parents were concerned, Angdlique

could have inherited little that promised perfections Her

mother, that dark, skinny blackmailer who lived by preying

on the misfortunes of others, had had Angdliquo through a

disgraceful, illicit affair with a stranger. The dhild*s

early days were spent at an orphan asylum, the monotony of

which was broken by several adoptions, all of which ended badly. ... ■■■_. ; : r'

When she was nine years old, she was discovered ox»

snowy Christmas morning on the steps of a church in the

little town of Beaumont iglise. Dressed in rags, she

clutched in her hand her one possession, a little book

Containing the approximate under which she was

that morning she was a dirty, tousled, M i clous of all offers of friendship despite teetion.

Angdllque was found by the family who

to the church, a couple16 *

lb. hr. pascal, p. lie. 16. The Dream. . 103

their only child. They were embroiderers of church vest­ ments and were descended from a long line of ancestors who had lived In the same house and who had been engaged In the

same occupation. Their home life was characterised by love

of each other, consideration toward others, and a pride In

their work, which In those days was an art. They carried

on this work In a large upstairs room built under the eaves

amd furnished with work boards, shuttles* needles, all

colors of silk thread, and gold leaf necessary to the crea­

tion of beautiful embroidery. It was this room dedicated to

the service of the church and endued with the spirit of

creative effort that was to form an Important part of

Angdllque * s environment In her new home. As soon as she

was old enough, she was taken there to assist the Huberts,

and they were repaid for all their efforts when she showed

a proficiency superior to theirs.

Madame Hubert undertook the task of Ang4llque*a educa­

tion herself. The child was taught the rudimentary subjects

considered necessary to a girl's education, and her reading was directed along religious lines, the lives of the saints

and stories of the church.

Angdllque responded to her new environment. She soon

lost her suspicious attitude and loved the.Huberts devotedly

and the Cathedral next door as If she had been born under

Its shadow. She was fascinated by the saints she read

about, especially her patroness. Saint Agnes, whose life she tried to use as a pattern for her own. There was only one trouble to vex the peaceful life of the household - the blind rages to which Angdlique was subjeet. For no apparent reason, she would fly Into fits of anger irhieh seemed to some from the roots of her being.

These outbursts puzzled the gentle Hubertine, who sought to eradicate them by assigning as punishment a task requiring strenuous physical exertion, such as scrubbing the kitchen floor. As Ang6lique grew older, she became ashamed of her weakness and would chastise herself as she read of the saints» doing. Then again she would have peculiar moods of exaltation when she would kiss her hands. passionately. These temperamental excesses bespoke the presence of the nervous lesion which affected so many members of the Rougon- Macquart family.

Angelique’a life during childhood and adolescence was mot that of the normal child. She did not pomp and play . with other ohlldren but occupied her time with Imaginary companions, counterparts of the saints in childhood. As

she grew older, she spent hours daydreaming of a prince

Charming, rich and powerful, who would come to carry her. away, In vain her parents warned her that the daughter of

simple artisans could expect no such good fortune $ she held

to her conviction that she would have great wealth with which she could perform deeds of charity. Then one day she fell in love with a handsome young 105

man who was repairing the stained glass windows of the

Cathedral next door. The window repairer and the young embroiderer met a few times, on the balcony. In the garden, and finally in the workroom where he visited her, using as a pretext the business of ordering some robes for powerful

Monseigneur, the bishop.

It turned out that the young man was Luolen Hautecoeur, son of the bishop before he took orders, the last of one of the wealthiest families in France. When approached by

Luolen, the bishop refused to sanction the marriage of his only son to a foundling who earned a living with the needle.

Neither the charming appearance nor the obvious saintliness of Angdlique could touch him.

AngOlique, who had lived so ardently and Intensely In her imagination, could not survive the disappointment.

Strengthened by years of discipline, imposed by Hubertine and then by herself, she refused the Ignominious expedient of elopement urged by Luolen. She became ill with the result that her fairness was more pronounced and her saint­ liness more real. Finally the bishop gave his consent, but

it was too late. She died as she was being led away from the nuptial altar, the bride of Luolen Hautecoeur.

Maxime and Clotilda Rougon alias Saccard were the children of Aristide and his wife Angela, Maxime the older by seven years. Although the mother was rather negative

In personality, she handed down more of her traits than 106

did Aristide, who possessed the financial genius. A silly, vain creature, Angela was exceedingly feminine and of the type that demanded a great deal of petting, Clotilda and

Maxima resembled her in this respect, which was unfortu­ nate In the case of the son. Early in life. Maxima was hopelessly effeminate, and. In adolescence, this quality with his frail, pale daintiness led his school fellows to dress him as a girl. Maxima enjoyed this game. His love of dress came also from his mother, who had an Inordinate love of pretty clothes and bright ribbons. Unfortunately he did not share her appetite for roast beef, for such a taste might have made him more robust and virile.

When Angela died. Maxima, aged seventeen, went to join

Aristide in Paris. He could not have been put In a worse environment for M s moral development. His stepmother

RenSe, the beautiful butterfly who spent a fortune on her wardrobe and who had tasted every vice of Paris in one of

its most vicious eras, made him her constant companion.

She took him to the dressmaker’s and to boudoirs of her

friends,who enjoyed initiating a youth from the provinces

into the sophistication of Parisian life. So aptly did he

fit into the new life that soon he became the teacher of the women. . - . : - ■ ■_ . ' ■ '. . ■

His appearance and manners underwent a rapid change.

From a droll-looking rustic, he was transformed into one 107

of the city's most fashionable beaus. Maxiiro learned things quickly, for he had a natural precocity growing out of the family's nervous temperament. He did not have the physical stamina, however, to support bis quick intel­ lect nor the environmental stimuli conducive to its develop­ ment along constructive lines. The faster he lived, the faster his nervous energy sapped his strength. He became an old man before tie was out of his twenties.

Maxima was not without experience when he came to

Paris. At the age of seventeen back at Plassans, he had seduced a servant girl, a pale chlorotic creature, who bore him a son. His grandmother, Pelicltd Rougon, had taken charge of the child and had been instrumental in

sending Maxims to Paris to avoid further trouble. But

Maxima was unmoral like his father. His next escapade was

the incestuous affair with his stepmother, which contrib­ uted to her early death.

Where Aristide had a passion for amassing wealth, his

son developed early in life a penchant for spending un­

earned money. It was this trait that led Maxima to agree

to a marriage arranged by his father, the girl a wealthy

hunch-back who was dying of tuberculosis. Six.months after

the wedding, he was left a widower wealthy in his own name.

Consequently, tie was able to continue spending money with­

out knowing anything about the earning of it. But he no

longer desired anything5 his energy was spent; M s appe- tites were gone. He aplracy on the

At the age of thirty-five.

Unlike her

id strength for the ... - ^ ? ite than Maxima In

head and well-balanced

Intellect In F6llclt6 's yellow drawing-room. Old though he was, he had shown courage by going Into battle, while

Pierre and other younger men skulked around the corners.

His own daughter Angela had shown none of his traits, but

they emerged again in Clotllde.

Where Maxima «s environment had been deleterious In

every way, Clotllde*a was most favorable. At the death oi Angela, her uncle. Dr. Pascal, had taken her to live with

him In his country home at Plassans. An outstanding scien­

tist, whose particular study was heredity and environment

and reading along the most advanced lines. He had Imposed

no restraint hut had allowed her to dip Into anything whl

stirred her curiosity. They discussed Intellectual auhJo

and, while he sought to stimulate her Interest, he allowed

her to draw her own conclusions.

Pascal's research work had to do with animal and plant 109

life, and Clotilda became M s laboratory assistant. She made drawings of specimens, kept tables, and tabulated results. He found her work usually most accurate. At times, however, she made weird drawings, depicting flowers that never, grew, showing a mystic symbolism. Dr. Pascal attributed this peculiarity in Clotilde to the superstition in her mother's nature, that quality that held Angela fasoi- nated for hours by old women's tales.

Among Pascal's studies was a complete chart of the genealogical tree of the Rougon-Macquart family. Each mem­ ber was listed with characteristics inherited from each parent, with environmental influences to which he had been exposed, and with the results of the combined action of heredity and environment. This chart became the storm

center of a struggle lasting for months between the doctor

and his mother Fdllcltd. The energetic old woman soutdit to destroy It, for it was making a

nesses whinVi she Vinrt 'been

world forget. To Dr. Pascal the chart was the result of

a life's work and a real contribution to science. F6licit*

solicited the help of Pascal's servant and Clotilde, .

The contest had a peculiar effect on Clotilde. She,

too, began to doubt the doctor's science. A violent reac­

tion took place in her mind. The touch of mysticism in

her nature inspired her to go to church for hours every

day and to bring back arguments for attacks on her uncle. pascal was upset by Clotilda#8 religious mania, for he knew it sprang from hereditary causes, traceable to Angela's superstitious mind. He was not alarmed by it, however, for he recognized that fundamentally Clotilda's mental balance derived from her grandfather would see her through an emo­ tional crisis. He sought an environmental change that would act as an immediate corrective for her disturbed '. ; ' " ...... ' . . : ■ mental condition. He proposed to Clotllde, then past twen- ty years of age, that she accept the proposal of young

Dr. Ramond, for whom she had long held a high regard. Tim girl, faced with the possibility of leaving her uncle's home, forgot her religious upset to examine her heart.

The outcome of the situation was that Clotilda found she had been in love with her uncle all her adult life.

Pascal, who in old age had begun to regret his childless

ual rather than paternal. Free of the family taint, he felt that he could have a child who might inherit his traits

The uncle and the niece thereafter lived together, ignoring the formality of marriage.

When Pascal lost his money, he awoke to the fact that he could not provide security for Clotilda's future. After

a struggle against his desires, his good judgment won, and

he forced his niece to go to Maxlme, who was wealthy and

could afford to provide for his sister. When she found

that she was to have a child, she was completely happy, for Ill

It meant she could return to her uncle at Plassana. After recording the approximate date of his child*s birth, Pascal died from angina pectoris before Clotilde could reach him*

Judged by sooietyta standards, Pascal committed a sin in not marrying Clotilda. However, in his habits of think­

ing and his mode of living there can be found an excuse for his actions. For years he had lived away from society, shut up in his laboratory and working on subjects of vital

importance to humanity^ such as the eradication of disease,.

the prolongation of lifej and the improvement of the race.

His daily work meant so much more to the world than society*s

emiventtonalities 5 the smaller thing was overshadowed by

the larger. The Important point to him was love and re­

production. ' • ^ ^

The youngest member of the fourth generation was

Aristide«s illegitimate son Victor, who was conceived in

a chance encounter with a seamstress.on the deserted stairs

of an old tenement house in Paris. The father did not see

the son for ten or more years $ in fact, he did not know of

his existence until he was Informed by a blackmailer, a

relative of the child's mother. . . ' V- \\ ' " - - - - ' . - - " - - Victor bad lived a life of crime and poverty during , . . -''x; ' ... . the intervening years. His mother had suffered a broken

shoulder in the affair with Aristide and was unable to

earn a living by sewing. When she died, Victor ran wild. He picked pockets, slept in the haunts of the lowest pros- 122

titutea, and committed ©very sin that a child could.

When his identity was made known to Aristide, the child could not be denied, as his resemblance to his father was perfect. He was put in a Catholic home where he was found to he incorrigible. One day when he was ill, he at­ tacked the nurse who was attending him. Afterwards he ran a*ay and was newer heard of again. Dr. Pascal listed him

on his chart as “vanished, living, no doubt, in the haunts

of crime, poisoning humanity with his hereditary virus."17 The surge of ambition which had driven the Rougon

family to great accomplishment in the second and third

generations had receded in the fourth. Octave Mouret,

a Rougon on his mother’s side, was the one menfcer who achieved outstanding success resulting from the drive of

ambition.

Alcoholism, which exaggerated their nervous weakness k-*- " and which was general among the descendants of the Hacquart

branch, took heavy toll in this generation. Claude and

Jacques were ruined by it, fitienne was weakened, and of Hana it made a prostitute.

Bad environmental Influences in league with heredi­

tary faults, particularly moral weakness, were responsible

for the progressive deterioration of Maxima and for the depravity of Victor. An environment, self-imposed to a large extent, abnormal in that it shut him from the out-

■ \ . W . Dr. pascal, p. 124. ' 113

side world, combined with his neurotic temperament, deter­ mined the fate of Serge. On the other hand, favorable environment did a great

deal to correct

Because of her .. . little of good by her parent.. . ■ ■ though not altogether 1; Pauline, behind

those of the average Maequart and who was tried by a life

of hardships, proved to be the most admirable and well-

balanced member of the entire Rougon-Macquart family.

Two children of this generation were such helpless

victims of the hereditary flaw that environment could do

nothing for them, Jeanne, weakened further by pthisls on her father*s side, died from a nervous disorder In child­

hood; and Ddsirde, suffering from the marriage of first

cousins who were subject to a highly transmittible malady, was an Idiot. CHAPTER VII : . - - 1 ' - '

RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT

The fifth generation following Adelaide showed the stock of the Rougon-Macquart family greatly weakened.

The virus implanted In the blood by the insane truek- . .. : . : ■ . .... ■ .; V .■ - . farmer (father of Adelaide) had been performing Its deadly work for over a hundred years. There had been a dlmlnu-

tion in quantity as well as quality of the offspring since ' ; ,- L; - -- ' % - ' ' ' ' "'M., ;' '' . the third generatim.

Of the thirteen members of the fourth generation,

•even left no children* In most of these instances, it

■ ■ ■ - ' ' ■ ' ■■ • . was better so, as undesirable characteristics might have

been perpetuated. In the case of Angellque and Pauline,

however, it was unfortunate, as both girls would have made

good parents.

Maxime, Claude, and Nana each had one child, all of

whom were abnormal in some way and died in childhood.

Maxime «s son Charles had for a mother a servant girl who

suffered from chlorosis. The child was weak both mentally

and physically. Haemophilia, transmitted by his mother,

kept him from physical exertion except of the slightest

kind. A light pat on the head brought the blood to the

surface, threatening hemorrhage. His great-grandmother Felicity, with whom he lived, did all in her power to waken the sleeping intellect hut to no avail. Proud of his prettiness, she dressed him beautifully and found some com­ pensation for his deficiencies in the admiration his charm­ ing appearance called forth. He bled to death while cut­ ting out pictures during a visit to his great-great-grand- mother Adelaide at the Insane asylum. In death, the resem­ blance between the aged woman and young boy was remarkable.

Jacques, the son of the painter Claude, was unfortunate both as to heredity and environment. On his father’s side,

there were the Macquart weaknesses behind him; on his

mother’s, a grandfather who was invalided for a large part

of his life by paraplegia, a kind of paralysis. The first • - ' ■ ' ■ - ' * . " v ' ■ three years of Jacques ’ life were spent in the country,

where under the influence of good food and an outdoor life

he seemed a healthy child. Then for the sake of Claude’s

art, he was taken to Paris to the cramped quarters of an artist’s studio.

The family’s small income, which provided good living in the country, afforded a bare existence in the city. . Often food was scarce, and always the best things on the

table were given to Claude to stimulate his lagging appe­

tite. Jacques was neglected in every way, sacrificed to

his father’s art. He was forced to sit still for hours

in order to give Claude the opportunity to concentrate;

he was never given outdoor exercise. Before he was old enough to go to school, his growth became disproportionate *

M s head was very large and his body was undersized.

When he started to school, his mental weakness dis- :

played itself* He could not stay for sore than a week at a stretch, for ”h© became absolutely dazed. 111 with

having tried to learn,*V As he grew older, the effects .

of the disease progressed* While him intellect dimin­

ished, his head kept increasing in size until he could not

hold it up* He died at the age of twelve years,

Louiaet, Hana*s son, was b o m In that period of her life when, as a sixteen-year old girl, she was roaming the

streets of Paris in search of support, The child was shy,

pale, sickly, and * full of tho complaints peculiar to a

child who is being eaten up with the rottenness inherited

The conditions of Louiset*s life were variable. At

times in a fit of maternal solicitude. Bans kept tho/child

with her and surfeited M m with attentions. The rest of

the time he stayed with Kadame Lorat, who cared for M m when

M s mother sent money and neglected M m when sho forgot.

When, in one of these periods of neglect, he took smallpox,

he was unable to throw off the effects of the disease. He* died.

Octave, the wealthy merchant, and M s wife Denise

l: p7w: 117

Mouret added two children to those of the fifth generation: one, a nervous, sickly child, and the other, a robust youngster, strong and healthy. With the environmental ad­ vantages its parents were capable of providing, the lat­ ter promised a great deal for the future of the Rougon-

Macquart family. Then Pascal*s posthumous child was horn in this generation, hut it was too young to classify.

Zola is real hope for the future of the family lay in

Jean*s children* Jean, the calm, sensible carpenter, who turned soldier and farmer twice in turn, who was free of the hereditary taint, and who had married a sturdy wife

■ . . ■' . . . . . physically fit for producing a big family, had settled down to working his living from the soil as man was meant to do. It was through his tiiildren that Zola believed strength would return to the degenerate race. - . ■ . :

CHAPTER VIII - ' ■ ■ ■

CONCLUSION

. ■ •' ' - " ■' ■ ■ ■ ' ' ■ ; ■ . • .: Vihen Zola's work on the Rougon-Kacquart Series Is re­ viewed as a whole. It resolves Itself into one gigantic experiment. The material with which he worked was a neu- rotlc temperament, and tho general environment to which he subjected It was that of the loose. Immoral period of the Second Empire, When considered from the point of view of the characters In his books, he performed numerous ex-

sometimes similar, often dissimilar,

tlon, there came new material in the form of s Indl- vidual, who was In some respects of the

combination, yet different fr

ual altered his environment, consciously or unconsciously,

and was in turn altered by these changes. Zola carried

The first step in his scientific method consisted

of gaining knowledge of the neurotic temperament and its

evolution and also of gathering details of the environ­

ment he wanted to use. m his study he was inclined to investigate the physiological side of his subject to the exclusion of other to Tolstoi, who was

“Zola keeps to the watches the working the germ in expansion, decay, a .il first s he chose was the place of his birth.

Provence where the sun fills the heart with passion and so often maddens it to orime.“3 Then, in accordance with his theory that environment may modify, mitigate, or aggravate hereditary tendencies, he showed in the experiment with the mother-ancestor the aggravation of her tendencies, which resulted in actions very different from those of the normal person. In recording these actions he played again the part of tho observer.

Zola became the experimenter when he mated the traits of Adelaide with those of two men: one, the husband Rougon; the other, the consort Mac quart. Thus were established the legitimate and illegitimate branches of the family.

In combining Add laid© *s and Rougon* s traits, it so hap­ pened that two strains were brought together which, in animal breeders* parlance, "clicked." The line of Rougon,

and having a strong

1. bebury, Yetta Blaze. pa iTwrsT: 2. He uses this same envirl times, 3. Vizetelly, E.A. Preface to Dr. p. viii. 120

The outstanding trait of which was further

a marriage ...t® ;&a was the same. So the traits on the Rougon side directed

this branch upward in the world.

and old Macquart*s traits was not favorable, two weak.

inherited taste for liquor, which, when it was handed

down, was Intensified by the fact that M s wife had the

same taste.4 The Mac quart line descending from this union

was characterized by alcoholism and Illegitimacy. The line

of Maequart coming through the female offspring (a weak

Individual) was strengthened by a marriage into a family

characterized by sound practical and business sense. This

marriage tended to breed out the strain of hysteria and

emotionalism handed down from Adelaide to her daughter.

In the third generation the Rougon and Maequart lines

united, bringing together two sets of traits, part of which

were alike. The first child, who was a genius, was never-

theless a little mad; the second was of a highly mystical

nature and far from normal; the third was an idiot.

In working out his combination of traits as they

passed down the line, Zola traced more carefully those on

4. Zola used theprinciple tEai "like tends to mate with like.0 the Rougon-Macquart side of the family, carrying those coming in through marriage no further back than the indi­ vidual concerned. Ho followed the laws of heredity as they were known in that day, illustrating each type by at least one case. There were cases where the individual took almost all his traits from one or the other parent; there were examples of a crossing of the characteristics coming from both parents; there were two instances of the two sets of characteristics combining perfectly to yield a strong individual; there was m e case each of collateral and influenolve heredity; and there were three examples of reversion and limateness.

In showing how Zola applied scientific principles to

his novels, it has been necessary to examine the twenty

novels of the Rougon-Macquart series and the essay enti­

tled The Experimental Hovel, in the critical work Zola

outlined the method he used in writing the series.

This method consisted of two steps $ the first, obser­

vation of phenomena - not casual observation but careful,

exhaustive Investigation; the second, experimentation.

tions to see what reactions would take place. It has been

shown how Zola took the plan for the experimental novel

from Dr. Bernard*s treatise on experimental medicine.

Where the doctor had to do with man*s body, the novelist dealt with man«a passions. Zola believed that, as all natural phenomena are governed fcy forces inherent In them, mn«s passions are similarly controlled, It is necessary for the novelist to discover nhat that force is. The starting of an experiment is some observed fact, the truth of which the author wishes to test.

In the Rougon-Macquart series, the starting point was the "observed fact" that a neurosis has far-reaching ef­ fects in every phase of the life of its possessor. The forces controlling the reactions of the neurotic tempera­ ment, Zola decided, were heredity and environment.

In demonstrating Zola is use of his method, care has been taken to show how he prepared the list of traits of ## and finally how he recorded the resulting actions, which constituted his plot. Then, through the lives of thirty

individuals, the same process was carried with particular attention paid to the way the parents« traits were trans­ mitted to their children. A variety of environments was used, representing every social phase of life at the time.

While each novel is complete in itself, the central idea of

the series stands out clearly to the casual reader - the

neurotic temperament could not survive in an environment

like that of the Second Empire in France.

In considering Zola’s application of scientific prin- ... 'y-'.

' -;.i‘ oiples to the novel, it mist be " ^ temperament was not that of the average first place, he had a scientific turn of mind and, in the second place,, he was by nature a reformer. The scientific discoveries of his day, stimulating even to the average mind, had a great influence over Zola, who, at one time, had considered choosing a scientific career.

In the Experimental Novel, he devoted a great deal of

space to the question of whether the methods of the scien­

tist could be applied to literature. He pointed out that empiricism, which is observation or accidental experiment, has been the origin of all real knowledge. There was a

time when chemical and physical matter was not subjected

to experiment, but was thought to lie in the realm of the

Irrational and supernatural. Gradually it was found that

this matter was governed by fixed laws, and the sciences

of chemistry and physics emerged.

At that time, life was generally considered a mysteri­

ous and supernatural agent, subject to no laws but the will

of an outside power. Gradually, however, it is being found

that, under certain conditions, life forces always respond

in a certain way. Consequently, the science of physiology la on its way.

The factor responsible for the emergence of these

sciences was the experimental method, which consisted of

relating natural phenomena to thoir nearest causes. If 184

' - ■ !

the Investigator could find what caused tie appearance of

• certain phenomenon, he could become master of it, and, ' V 9 consoquontly, he could direct and control It. The sciences

of phya lea and chemistry gave man mastery over Inanimate

bodies| physiology put him in control of the physical body

of man. The next logical step was the control of the

minds and passions of men, a field which the scientific

. ■■ ' ■ . ■■ • Zola claimed for the novelist.

Zola considered that the medium in which the minds

and passions of men react is society, with which no one

was more able to treat than the novelist. As the physi­

ologist must study the intor-organic conditions of the

body to find the cause of the phenomena on which he is

working, so the novelist must study social conditions.

He pointed out that, in dealing with his subject, the

novelist must observe a constant inter-play of effects:

the effect of society on the individual and the effect of

the individual on society. By approaching his subject with

the scientist*s objective, the novelist becomes an experi­ mentalist. He defines the new novel as "a real experiment

that a novelist makes on man with the help of observation.”5

that the experimental novel came into being, not as a re­

sult of any man's effort, but because it was the next logi-

\ cal step in the evolution of scientific thinking. The

5. fhe Experimental ffovel. p . 16. tho stage of fooling, which created faith and theology; the stage of reason, which gave birth to scholasticism; and the stage of experiment, which demands Investigation

. . 1 ... ■ ' ■ : ' Into the objective reality of things hidden beneath the exterior phenomena. "Romantic" and "classical" are the

terras applied to the literatures of the theological and y. v ' . . ' y. -T - . .y classical ages, eras of the irrational and supernatural,

’ ' . ^ .. .., ■' - when men tried to explain "the why" of things. Modem

science has taken the stand that "the why" of things can

never be proved; it concerns itself with "the how" of

tilings. The novelist of a scientific age should not . . . • ' y.... ^ ‘ grope in his imagination to explain the existonco of phe-

nomona, but should be omtont to show how his phonemena

(man axti society) work, that is, hoar they react toward

each other.

Zola, a reformer first, a novelist afterwards, believed that the best part of the experimental method

was the end that it served. He does not mention that the

aim of literature is to entertain; he emphasizes, instead,

the fact that its purpose is to teach. To him, the novel­

ist was a sort of social doctor, who cured the ills of

mankind. By experiment, he could find the way a certain passion reacts to certain social conditions. Having

gained control of tho mechanism of the passion, he could

work upon the individual and the surroundings to bring 126

about the beat results possible* The experimental novel-

let was, therefore* an experimental moralist*

To say that the experimental method works equally well

in the hand of the scientist and in that of the novelist would mean that an obvious weakness In the latter ease had been overlooked, Zola shows the chemist or the doetcr,

with an hypothesis in his mind, going through the first

step of observation of the phenomenon with which he Is to

work* Then, directed by his theory, he alters the condi­

tions surrounding the phenomenon and watches the reaction

to the change* At this point, the scientist finds out

something definite, something wholly objective, which

derives from the matter itself. He can then form a defi­

nite conclusion relative to his hypothesis.

In the case of the novelist, the starting point Is the

same as that of the scientist* He has hls hypothesis; he

can be as painstaking with the conditions surrounding hls

phenomenon as the scientist? but, from there on, the con­

duct of the experiment must take place in the novelist’s

mind. Ho alters In hls mind the conditions that surround

the phenomenon? he observes In hls mind the changes that

take place in it. Because he can not work objectively as

the scientist does with hls material actually before his

eyes, he can not be sure whether his conclusion is r l # t

or wrong. If he depends on hls logic, he may be led astray. 127

If ho doponda upon observation of the actions of real people under conditions similar to those of the experi­ ment, he has lost control of part of his experiment* He

real people as he knows those of his imaginary characters,

Consequently, he can never be sure of M s conclusions as the scientist is sure.

To meet this difficulty, Zola insisted that the novelist should rely on the sciences as the sciences In turn rely on each other. For several years before begin-

ity and scientific analyses of the passions from the physi­ ological point of view, Kith the nan ooiontiflc discover­ ies before M s eyes, he must have felt that, given time, science would be able to reduce to a chart man»s most inti­ mate thoughts. He did not claim that he had readied perfec­ tion with the experimental method. Eo stated that, with ex­ perimental medioine still lisping, the experimental novel was hardly yet born. Selence was not then, nor has it be­ come since, able to supply all the Information necessary to make the novel as scientific as Zola would have had it.

Zolafe oritios maintained that M s method brought liter­ ature into the gutter. As M s twenty novels, w M c h consti­

tuted his illustration of the method, were related and as

their central these was the neurotic temperament, which, according to the teachings of science, deteriorates in a gloomy In tone. His critics attributed this ugliness and vulgarity to M s tendency to moralize - a purpose w M c h is best served by showing the revolting side of life. Yet again, let it be said that his subject, pursued through so many volumes, rather than M s method, led M m into the gut­

ter. Any attempt to bring light into the picture would have been unscientific. > Zola emphasized again and again that the novelist,

like the scientist, should have no preconceived idea$

that the experiment should serve one end only - to find

th# truth. Yet every man, even the scientist, leans un­

consciously toward M s hypothesis. The scientist, however,

has it within M s power to test his conclusions positively

and objectively, but the novelist can procure no ouch proof.

Herein lies the weakness of the experimental method in fic­

tion.

While the experimental method, considered abstractly,

is subject to criticism, the weakness was mitigated by

Zola is use of it in the Rougon-Baoquart series. Most of

the novels have a large number of characters. He liked to

shew people en masse. His environment is treated in detail

so that each novel leaves the impression of bursting with

its contents. Such treatment precludes any attempt at

deep, psychological analysis. Instead, he has his char­

acters act from instinctive urges, such as a weak charac­ ter, faced with temptation; an ambitious man, excited by the prospect of power; an avaricious man, led on by visions of wealth. In such situations, there is little chance for error on the part of the novelist.

While the experimental method can not be applied to fiction In the same way that it is applied to scientific sub jects, Zola used a good imitation of it in the Rougon- mequart novels. By approaching his subject from a sclent tlf ic point of view, by using the teachings of science as

' ' - - ' ^ /. '' '' . an aid to procure accuracy, by coming into contact with people and environments so that he knew whereof he spoke, he Imparted to fiction a vigor and a robustness which should not be underestimated. According to the judgment of Havelock Ellis, "he put out of court, perhaps forever, those novelists who work out of their vacuity, having neither inner nor outer world to tell of.”6

6. Afflrnailons. p. 144. BIBLIOORAEKT

A. The Rougon-Macquart Series by Emile Zola

1. The Fortune of the Roagona. Albert and Charles Bora, New York, 1925.

2. The Rush for the Spoils. M a e telly and Company, London, 1886.

5. York, 1915. 4. The Conquest of Plasaans. Ghetto and Hindus, London, 1900.

6. '

6. His Excellency. Macmillan and 0ompany. Ltd., London, 1897.

7. The Dram-Shop. Albert andCharles Boni, New York, 1924. 8. A Love Episode. domAdled*Amour Series, Sool^W Des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

9. Nana. 1'he Literary Guild of America, n.p., n.d.

11. The Ladles * Paradise. Vizetelly and Company, London, 1887.

12. gbe Joy of Life. the Clarion Company, New York, 1916.

13 • Germinal. Bl.P. Duttcn and Company, New York, 1933. 14. Hie Masterpiece. Vizetelly and Company, London, 1887. 16. The Soil. Ernest Flaramarion, Paris, n.d. 131

16. The Dream. Chatto and Hindus, London, 1900.

17. The Monomaniac. iu-fechison and Company, London, 1901.

18. Money. • , Benjamin R. Tuticer, Boston, Mass., 1891.

19. The Downfall, h P. P. Collier and Son, Hew York, n.d.

20. Dr. Pascal. Albert and Charles Boni, Hew York, 1925.

- B. Other Books

21. Conklin, Edwin Grant Heredity and Environment. Princeton University Press, Princeton, Fifth Revised Edition, 1922.

22. Joeephson, Matthew Zola and His Time. The Macaulay Company, Hew York, 1928.

23. Saintetrary, Georg# A Short History of French Literature. ‘hhe Clarendon Press, oxford, 1901. 24. Tains, H. A. History of English Literature. World's Greatest Literature, P. F. Collier and Son, Hew York.

28. Vise telly, E. A. Anile Zola, novelist and Reformer. John Lane, London and Mew fork, 1904.

26. Zola, Anile The Experimental Hovel and Other Essays. The Cassell Publishing Company, MewIfork, 1893. 27. DeBury, Yetta Blaze "Zola aa an Evolutionist." French Literature of

28. Ellis, Havelock "Zola." Affixations. Houghton Mifflin Go., Hew York, 1915. 29.

ssarNot6s- charie- 50. Symons, Arthur "A Hote on Zola's E. P. Dutton n.d.

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