← catalogue

A Zola Dictionary; the Characters of the Rougon-Macquart Novels of Emile Zola;

by J. G Patterson · English · Gutenberg #5103 · 592,309 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Zola Dictionary; the Characters of the Rougon-Macquart Novels of Emile Zola;
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: A Zola Dictionary; the Characters of the Rougon-Macquart Novels of Emile Zola;

Author: J. G Patterson


        
Release date: April 22, 2006 [eBook #5103]
                Most recently updated: September 5, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5103

Credits: Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A ZOLA DICTIONARY; THE CHARACTERS OF THE ROUGON-MACQUART NOVELS OF EMILE ZOLA; ***




Produced by Dagny; John Bickers





A ZOLA DICTIONARY

The Characters Of The Rougon-Macquart Novels Of Emile Zola


By J. G. Patterson



With a Biographical and Critical Introduction, Synopses of the Plots,
Bibliographical Note, Map, Genealogy, etc.





PREFATORY NOTE

In the preparation of my Introduction I have, of course, relied for
information on the recognized Biographies of Zola, namely _Notes d’un
Ami_, by Paul Alexis (Paris, Charpentier); _Emile Zola, A biographical
and Critical Study_, by R. H. Sherrard (London, Chatto & Windus, 1893);
_Emile Zola, Novelist and Reformer_: An account of his Life and Work,
by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (London, John Lane, 1904). Reference has also
been made to Mr. Arthur Symons’ _Studies in Prose and Verse_, and
to articles in the _Fortnightly Review_ by Mr. Andrew Lang, in the
_Atlantic Monthly_ by Mr. Henry James, and in the _Contemporary
Review_ by M. Edouard Rod, as well as to articles in the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ and in the _Dictionnaire Universel des Contemporains_.

By kind permission of Messrs. Chatto & Windus it has been possible to
include the diagram of the Rougon-Macquart Genealogical Tree, which
appears in the Preface to their edition of _Doctor Pascal_, and to
make use of their translations in the preparation of the Dictionary.
In compiling the latter, Zola’s own words have been adopted so far as
possible, though usually they have required such condensation as to make
direct quotation difficult. This difficulty was increased by the fact
that occasional use was made of different translations of the same book,
and that frequent references to the original were found necessary.

The Synopses of the Plots of the novels are arranged in the order in
which the books should be read, as indicated by their Author in _Le
Docteur Pascal_, and confirmed by his biographer, Mr. E. A. Vizetelly.

EDINBURGH, May, 1912. J. G. P.




INTRODUCTION

Emile Zola was born at Paris on 2nd April, 1840. His father, Francois
Zola, was a man whose career up to that time had not been a success,
though this was not due to any lack of energy or ability. Zola _pere_
was of mixed nationality, his father being an Italian and his mother a
Greek, and it is not unlikely that his unrest and want of concentration
were due to the accident of his parentage. When quite a young man,
Francois fought under the great Napoleon, after whose fall he became a
civil engineer. He spent some time in Germany, where he was engaged
in the construction of the first tramway line in Europe, afterwards
visiting Holland and possibly England. Failure seems to have accompanied
him, for in 1831 he applied for and obtained an appointment, as
lieutenant in the Foreign Legion in Algeria. His career in Africa was,
however, of short duration; some irregularities were discovered, and he
disappeared for a time, though ultimately he came forward and made
up his accounts, paying the balance that was due. No prosecution took
place, and resignation of his commission was accepted. Nothing more was
heard of the matter till 1898, when his son Emile identified himself
with the cause of Dreyfus, and in the campaign of calumny that followed
had to submit to the vilest charges against the memory of his father.
The old dossier was produced by the French Ministry of War, the
officials of which did not hesitate to strengthen their case by the
forgery of some documents and the suppression of others. In view
of these proved facts, and of the circumstance that Francois Zola,
immediately after his resignation from the Foreign Legion, established
himself as a civil engineer at Marseilles and prepared a scheme for new
maritime docks there, and that in connection with this scheme he
visited Paris repeatedly, obtaining private audiences with the King and
interviewing statesmen, it must be held that the charges against him
were of a venial nature, in no way warranting the accusations brought
forward by the War Office nearly seventy years later to cast discredit
on his son. Nothing came of the Marseilles harbour scheme, and the same
fate attended subsequent plans for the fortification of Paris. Zola
_pere_, who by this time had married, then turned his attention to a
proposal to supply water to the town of Aix, in Provence, by means of
a reservoir and canal. He removed thither with his wife and child, and
after many delays and disappointments ultimately signed an agreement for
the construction of the works. Even then further delays took place, and
it was not till three years later that the work could be commenced. But
the engineer’s ill fortune still attended him, for one morning while he
was superintending his workmen the treacherous mistral began to blow,
and he took a chill, from the effects of which he died a few days
afterwards.

The young widow, with her son Emile, then a child of seven, was left
in poor circumstances, her only fortune being a claim against the
municipality of Aix. Fortunately her parents had some means, and came to
her assistance during the years of fruitless struggle to establish the
rights of her dead husband. Emile had up to this time been allowed
to run wild, and he had spent most of his time out of doors, where he
acquired a love of the country which he retained in later years. Even
when he was sent to school he was backward, only learning his letters
with difficulty and showing little inclination for study. It was not
till 1852, when he was twelve years sold, that his education really
began. By this time he was able to realize his mother’s financial
position, and to see the sacrifices which were being made to send him
as a boarder to the _lycee_ at Aix. His progress then became rapid, and
during the next five years he gained many prizes. Throughout all these
years the struggle between Madame Zola and the municipality had gone
on, each year diminishing her chance of success. In the end her position
became desperate, and finding it impossible to continue to reside at
Aix, the little family removed to Paris in 1858. Fortunately Emile was
enabled by the intervention of certain friends of his late father to
continue his studies, and became a day pupil at the Lycee St. Louis,
on the Boulevard St. Michael. For some reason he made little progress
there, and when he presented himself for his _baccalaureat_ degree he
failed to pass the examination. A later attempt at the University of
Marseilles had the same result. As this examination is in France the
passport to all the learned professions, Zola’s failure to pass it
placed him in a serious position. His mother’s resources were by this
time entirely exhausted, and some means of support had to be sought
without delay. After many attempts, he got a place as clerk in a
business house at a salary of twenty-six pounds a year, but the work
proved so distasteful that after two months of drudgery he threw it
up. Then followed a period of deep misery, but a period which must
have greatly influenced the work of the future novelist. Wandering the
streets by day and, when he could find money to buy a candle, writing
poems and short stories by night, he was gaining that experience in the
school of life of which he was later to make such splendid use. Meantime
his wretchedness was deep. A miserable lodging in a garret, insufficient
food, inadequate clothing, and complete absence of fire may be an
incentive to high endeavour, but do not render easy the pathway of
fame. The position had become all but untenable when Zola received
an appointment in the publishing house of M. Hachette, of Paris, at
a salary beginning at a pound a week, but soon afterwards increased.
During the next two years he wrote a number of short stories which were
published later under the title _Contes a Ninon_. The book did not prove
a great success, though its undoubted ability attracted attention to the
writer and opened the way to some journalistic work. About this time he
appears to have been studying Balzac, and the recently published _Madame
Bovary_ of Flaubert, which was opening up a new world not only in French
fiction, but in the literature of Europe. He had also read the _Germinie
Lacerteux_ of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, on which he wrote an
appreciative article, and this remarkable book cannot have been without
its influence on his work. The effect was indeed immediate, for in
1865 he published his next book, _La Confession de Claud_, which showed
strong traces of that departure from conventional fiction which he
was afterwards to make more pronounced. The book was not a financial
success, though it attracted attention, and produced many reviews,
some favourable, others merciless. Influenced by the latter, the
Public Prosecutor caused inquiries regarding the author to be made at
Hachette’s, but nothing more was done, and it is indeed doubtful if any
successful prosecution could have been raised, even at a period when it
was thought necessary to indict the author of _Madame Bovary_.

Zola’s employers had, however, begun to look askance at his literary
work; they may have considered that it was occupying too much of the
time for which they paid, or, more probably, they were becoming alarmed
at their clerk’s advanced views both on politics and literary art. As
Zola afterwards explained the matter, one of the partners said to him,
“You are earning two hundred francs a month here, which is ridiculous.
You have plenty of talent, and would do better to take up literature
altogether. You would find glory and profit there.” The hint was a
direct one, and it was taken. The young author was again thrown upon
his own resources, but was no longer entirely unknown, for the not
unfavourable reception of his first book and the violent attacks on
his second had given him a certain position, even though it may to some
extent have partaken of the nature of a _succes de scandale_. As
he wrote at the time, he did not mean to pander to the likes or the
dislikes of the crowd; he intended to force the public to caress or
insult him.

Journalism was the avenue which now appeared most open, and Zola got an
appointment on the staff of a newspaper called _L’Evenement_, in which
he wrote articles on literary and artistic subjects. His views were
not tempered by moderation, and when he depreciated the members of the
_Salon_ in order to exalt Manet, afterwards an artist of distinction,
but then regarded as a dangerous revolutionary, the public outcry was
such that he was forced to discontinue publication of the articles.
He then began a second story called _Le Vaeu d’une Morte_ in the same
newspaper. It was intended to please the readers of _L’Evenement_, but
from the first failed to do so, and its publication was stopped before
it was half completed. Soon afterwards _L’Evenement_ was incorporated
with the _Figaro_, and Zola’s connection with it terminated. A time of
hardship again began, and during the year 1867 the wolf was only kept
from the door by unremitting toil of the least agreeable kind. In the
midst of his difficulties Zola wrote two books simultaneously, one
supremely good and the other unquestionably bad. The one was _Therese
Raquin_, and the other _Les Mysteres de Marseille_. The latter, which
was pure hack-work, was written to the order of the publisher of a
Marseillaise newspaper, who supplied historical material from researches
made by himself at the Marseilles and Aix law courts, about the various
_causes celebres_ which during the previous fifty years had attracted
the most public attention. These were to be strung together, and by an
effort of legerdemain combined into a coherent whole in the form of a
novel. Zola, desiring bread, undertook the task, with results that might
have been anticipated.

_Therese Raquin_ is a work of another kind, for into it Zola put the
best that was in him, and elaborated the story with the greatest care.
It is a tale of Divine Justice, wherein a husband is murdered by his
wife and her lover, who, though safe from earthly consequence, are yet
separated by the horror of their deed, and come to hate each other for
the thing they have done. The book is one of remarkable power, and it is
interesting to note that in the preface to it Zola first made use of
the word _naturalisme_ as describing that form of fiction which he
was afterwards to uphold in and out of season. A violent attack in the
_Figaro_ gave opportunity for a vigorous reply, and the advertisement
so obtained assisted the sales of the book, which from the first was a
success. It was followed by _Madeleine Ferat_, which, however, was less
fortunate. The subject is unpleasant, and its treatment lacks the force
which made _Therese Raquin_ convincing.

Up to this time Zola’s life had been a steady struggle against poverty.
He was terribly in earnest, and was determined to create for himself
a place in literature; to accomplish this end he counted no labour
too arduous, no sacrifice too great. His habits were Spartan in their
simplicity; he was a slave to work and method, good equipment for the
vast task he was next to undertake. He had long been an earnest student
of Balzac, and there is no doubt that it was the example of the great
_Comedie Humaine_ which inspired his scheme for a series of novels
dealing with the life history of a family during a particular period;
as he described it himself, “the history natural and social of a family
under the Second Empire.” It is possible that he was also influenced
by the financial success of the series of historical novels written by
Erckmann-Chatrian, known as the _Romans Nationaux_. It was not, however,
the past about which he proposed to write; no period was more suitable
for his purpose than that in which he lived, that Second Empire whose
regime began in blood and continued in corruption. He had there,
under his own eyes and within his personal knowledge, a suitable
_mise-en-scene_ wherein to further develop those theories of hereditary
influence which had already attracted his attention while he was writing
_Madeleine Ferat_. The scheme was further attractive in as much as it
lent itself readily to the system of treatment to which he had applied
the term _naturalisme_, to distinguish it from the crudities of the
realistic school. The scientific tendency of the period was to rely not
on previously accepted propositions, but on observation and experience,
or on facts and documents. To Zola the voice of science conveyed the
word of ultimate truth, and with desperate earnestness he set out to
apply its methods to literary production. His position was that the
novelist is, like the scientist, an observer and an experimentalist
combined. The observer, he says, gives the facts as he has observed
them, fixes the starting-point, lays the solid ground on which
his characters are to walk and his phenomena to develop. Then the
experimentalist appears and starts the experiment, that is to say, he
makes the personages in a particular story move, in order to show that
the succession of events will be just what the determinism of phenomena
together with study demand that they should be. The author must abstain
from comment, never show his own personality, and never turn to the
reader for sympathy; he must, as Mr. Andrew Lang has observed, be as
cold as a vivisectionist at a lecture. Zola thought the application
of this method would raise the position of the novel to the level of
a science, and that it would become a medium for the expression of
established truths. The fallacy of the argument has been exposed by
more than one critic. It is self-evident that the “experiments” by the
novelist cannot be made on subjects apart from himself, but are made by
him and in him; so that they prove more regarding his own temperament
than about what he professes to regard as the inevitable actions of
his characters. The conclusion drawn by a writer from such actions must
always be open to the retort that he invented the whole himself and
that fiction is only fiction. But to Zola in the late sixties the theory
seemed unassailable and it was upon it that he founded the whole edifice
of _Les Rougon-Macquart_. The considerations then that influenced Zola
in beginning a series of novels connected by subject into one gigantic
whole were somewhat various. There was the example of Balzac’s great
_Comedie Humaine_; there was the desire of working out the theories of
heredity in which he had become interested; there was the opportunity of
putting into operation the system which he had termed _naturalisme_;
and there was also the consideration that if he could get a publisher to
agree to his proposals he would secure a certain income for a number of
years. His original scheme was a series of twelve novels to be written
at the rate of two a year, and he entered into a contract with a
publisher named Lacroix, who was to pay him five hundred francs a month
as an advance. M. Lacroix would, however, only bind himself to publish
four out of the twelve novels. The arrangement could not be carried out,
and at the end of three years only two volumes of the Rougon-Macquart
series had been published, while Zola found that he had become indebted
to the publisher for a very considerable sum.

The first novel of the series was begun in 1869, but was not published
till the winter of 1871, delay having occurred on account of the war
with Germany. Zola was never a rapid writer, and seems to have regulated
his literary production with machinelike uniformity. As his friend and
biographer Paul Alexis writes: “Only four pages, but four pages every
day, every day without exception, the action of the drop of water always
falling on the same place, and in the end wearing out the hardest
stone. It seems nothing, but in course of time chapters follow chapters,
volumes follow upon volumes, and a whole life’s work sprouts, multiplies
its branches, extends its foliage like a lofty oak, destined to
rise high into the air and to remain standing in the forest of human
productions.”

His literary creed at the time he began the Rougon-Macquart series may
be conveniently summed up in a few words from an article which he had
only a month before written in the _Gaulois_: “If I kept a school of
morals,” he says, “I would hasten to place in the hands of my pupils
_Madame Bovary_ or _Germinie Lacerteux_, persuaded that truth alone can
instruct and fortify generous souls.”

In _La Fortune des Rougon_, then, Zola set out to plant the roots of
the great family tree which was to occupy his attention during the next
twenty years of his life. His object was to describe the origin of
the family which he had selected for dissection in his series, and to
outline the various principal characters, members of that family. Mr.
Andrew Lang, writing on this subject in the _Fortnightly Review_, points
out that certain Arab tribes trace their descent from a female Dog, and
suggests that the Rougon-Macquart family might have claimed the same
ancestry. Adelaide Fouque came of a race of peasants who had long lived
at Plassans, a name invented by Zola to conceal the identity of Aix,
the town in Provence where his youth had been spent. She was highly
neurotic, with a tendency to epilepsy, but from the point of view of the
naturalistic novelist she offered many advantages. When a mere girl she
married a man named Rougon, who died soon afterwards, leaving her with
a son named Pierre, from whom descended the legitimate branch of the
family. Then followed a liaison with a drunken smuggler named Macquart,
as a result of which two children were born, the Macquarts. Adelaide’s
original neurosis had by this time become more pronounced, and she
ultimately became insane. Pierre married and had five children, but his
financial affairs had not prospered, though by underhand methods he had
contrived to get possession of his mother’s property, to the exclusion
of her other children. Then came the _Coup d’Etat_ of 1851, and
Pierre, quick to seize his opportunity, rendered such services to the
Bonapartist party as to lay the foundation of the family fortune, a
foundation which was, however, cemented with treachery and blood. It was
with these two families, then, both descended from a common ancestress,
and sometimes subsequently united by intermarriage, that the whole
series of novels was to deal. They do not form an edifying group,
these Rougon-Macquarts, but Zola, who had based his whole theory of the
experimental novel upon the analogy of medical research, was not on the
outlook for healthy subjects; he wanted social sores to probe. This is
a fact much too often overlooked by readers of detached parts of the
series, for it should always be kept in mind that the whole was written
with the express purpose of laying bare all the social evils of one of
the most corrupt periods in recent history, in the belief that through
publicity might come regeneration. Zola was all along a reformer as
well as a novelist, and his zeal was shown in many a bitter newspaper
controversy. It has been urged against him that there were plenty of
virtuous people about whom he could have written, but these critics
appear to forget that he was in a sense a propagandist, and that it was
not his _metier_ to convert persons already in the odour of sanctity.

_La Fortune des Rougon_ was not particularly successful on its
publication, but in view of the fact that the war with Germany was
barely concluded no surprise need be experienced. Zola’s financial
position was, however, by the arrangement with his publisher now more
secure, and he felt justified in marrying. This he did, and settled down
into the quiet bourgeois existence in which his life was spent.

The next book was _La Curee_, a study of the mushroom society of the
Second Empire. The subject--the story of Phaedra adapted to modern
environment--is unpleasant and the treatment is daring; but despite a
slight _succes de scandale_, its reception by the public was no more
favorable than that of _La Fortune des Rougon_.

_La Curee_ was followed by _Le Ventre de Paris_, which reached a second
edition. It contained some excellent descriptive writing, but was
severely attacked by certain critics, who denounced it as the apotheosis
of gluttony, while they resented the transference of a pork butcher’s
shop to literature and took particular exceptions to a certain “symphony
of cheeses.”

Next came _La Conquete de Plassans_, an excellent story, to be followed
by _La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret_, one of Zola’s most romantic books,
and the first to attain any considerable success. He next wrote _Son
Excellence Eugene Rougon_, in which he dealt with the political side
of the Second Empire and sketched the life of the Imperial Court at
Compiegne. For this task he was not particularly well equipped, and the
book was only moderately successful. Then came _L’Assommoir_, and
with it fame and fortune for the writer. It is a terrible story of
working-class life in Paris, a study of the ravages wrought by drink.
Again to quote Mr. Andrew Lang, “It is a dreadful but not an immoral
book. It is the most powerful temperance tract that ever was written. As
M. Zola saw much of the life of the poor in his early years, as he once
lived, when a boy, in one of the huge lodging-houses he describes, one
may fear that _L’Assommoir_ is a not untruthful picture of the lives of
many men and women in Paris.”

In order to heighten the effect, Zola deliberately wrote the whole
of _L’Assommoir_ in the argot of the streets, sparing nothing of its
coarseness and nothing of its force. For this alone he was attacked by
many critics, and from its publication onwards an unexampled controversy
arose regarding the author and his methods. Looking backwards it is
difficult to see why such an outcry should have arisen about such a
masterpiece of literature, but water has flowed beneath many bridges
since 1877, and, largely by the influence of Zola’s own work, the limits
of convention have been widely extended. At the time, however, the
work was savagely attacked, and to the author the basest motives
were assigned, while libels on his own personal character were freely
circulated. Zola replied to these attacks in a manner so calm and so
convincing that quotation may be permitted. “It would be well,” he said,
“to read my novels, to understand them, to see them clearly in their
entirety, before bringing forward the ready-made opinions, ridiculous
and odious, which are circulated concerning myself and my works. Ah!
if people only knew how my friends laugh at the appalling legend which
amuses the crowd! If they only knew how the blood-thirsty wretch, the
formidable novelist, is simply a respectable bourgeois, a man devoted to
study and to art, living quietly in his corner, whose sole ambition is
to leave as large and living a work as he can. I contradict no reports,
I work on, and I rely on time, and on the good faith of the public, to
discover me at last under the accumulation of nonsense that has been
heaped upon me.” This statement is absolutely in accordance with fact,
and when it is realized that the writer of the Rougon-Macquart novels
was merely a hard-working, earnest man, filled with a determination to
complete the vast task which he had planned, and not to be turned
from his ideas by praise or blame, it will go far to promote a better
understanding of his aims and methods. It is necessary too, as has
already been said, that the various novels forming the Rougon-Macquart
series be considered not as separate entities, but as chapters of one
vast whole.

_L’Assommoir_ was an immediate success with the public, and the sales
were unusually large for the time, while now (1912) they amount to one
hundred and sixty-two thousand copies in the original French alone.

In 1878 Zola published _Une Page d’Amour_, the next volume of the
series, a simple love story containing some very beautiful and romantic
descriptions of Paris. Then followed _Nana_, to which _L’Assommoir_ was
the prelude. _Nana_ dealt with the vast demimonde of Paris, and while it
was his greatest popular success, was in every sense his worst book. Of
no subject on which he wrote was Zola more ignorant than of this, and
the result is a laboured collection of scandals acquired at second-hand.
Mr. Arthur Symons, in his _Studies in Prose and Verse_, recounts how an
English paper once reported an interview in which the author of _Nana_,
indiscreetly questioned as to the amount of personal observation he had
put into the book, replied that he had once lunched with an actress
of the Varietes. “The reply was generally taken for a joke,” says
Mr. Symons, “but the lunch was a reality, and it was assuredly a rare
experience in the life of a solitary diligence to which we owe so
many impersonal studies in life.” The sales of the book were, however,
enormous, and Zola’s financial position was now assured.

Publication of the Rougon-Macquart series went steadily on.
_Pot-Bouille_ a story of middle-class life, was followed by its sequel
_Au Bonheur des Dames_, a study of life in one of the great emporiums
which were beginning to crush out the small shopkeepers of Paris. _La
Joie de Vivre_, that drab story of hypochondria and self-sacrifice, was
succeeded by _Germinal_, the greatest, if not the only really great,
novel of labour that has ever been written in any language. After
_Germinal_ came _L’Oeuvre_, which deals with art life in Paris, and is
in part an autobiography of the author. We now come to _La Terre_
around which the greatest controversy has raged. In parts the book is
Shakespearian in its strength and insight, but it has to be admitted at
once that the artistic quality of the work has been destroyed in large
measure by the gratuitous coarseness which the author has thought
necessary to put into it. Even allowing for the fact that the subject is
the brutishness and animality of French peasant life, and admitting that
the picture drawn may be a true one, the effect had been lessened by the
fact that nothing has been left to the imagination. On the other hand
there has, since Shakespeare, been nothing so fine as the treatment of
Pere Fouan, that peasant King Lear, by his ungrateful family. It has
been urged that Zola overdid the horrors of the situation and that no
parent would have been so treated by his children. By a singular chance
a complete answer to this objection may be found in a paragraph which
appeared in the _Daily Mail_ of 18th April, 1911. A few days before, a
peasant woman in France had entered her father’s bedroom and struck him
nine times on the head with an axe, afterwards going home to bed. The
reason for the crime was that the old man two years previously had
divided his property between his two daughters on condition that they
paid him a monthly allowance. His elder daughter was always in arrear
with her share of the pension, and, after constant altercations between
father and daughter, the latter extinguished her liability in the manner
indicated. Now this tragedy in real life is the actual plot of _La
Terre_, which was written twenty-four years before it occurred.

In accordance with the author’s usual plan, whereby a heavy book was
followed by a light one, _La Terre_ was succeeded by _Le Reve_, a work
at the other extreme of the literary gamut. As _La Terre_ is of the
earth, earthy, so is _Le Reve_ spiritual and idyllic, the work of a man
enamoured of the refined and the beautiful. It has indeed been described
as the most beautiful work written in France during the whole of the
nineteenth century.

_La Bete Humaine_, the next of the series, is a work of a different
class, and is to the English reader the most fascinating of all Zola’s
novels. It deals with human passions in their elemental forms, with a
background of constant interest in the railway life of Western France.
The motives are always obvious and strong, a criticism which can by no
means be invariably applied to French fiction.

Next appeared _L’Argent_, which is the sequel to _La Curee_ and deals
with financial scandals. It was inspired by the failure of the Union
Generale Bank a few years before, and is a powerful indictment of the
law affecting joint-stock companies. To _L’Argent_ there succeeded _La
Debacle_, that prose epic of modern war, more complete and coherent
than even the best of Tolstoi. And to end all came _Le Docteur Pascal_,
winding up the series on a note of pure romance.

Regarded as a literary tour de force the work is only comparable to
the _Comedie Humaine_. It occupied nearly twenty-five years in writing,
consists of twenty volumes containing over twelve hundred characters,
and a number of words estimated by Mr. E. A. Vizetelly at two million
five hundred thousand.

There can be little doubt that Zola’s best work was expended on the
Rougon-Macquart series. With its conclusion his zeal as a reformer began
to outrun his judgment as an artist, and his later books partake more of
the nature of active propaganda than of works of fiction. They comprise
two series: _Les Trois Villes_ (Lourdes, Paris, Rome) and _Les Quatre
Evangiles_, of which only three (Fecondite, Travail, and Verite) were
written before the author’s death. Politics had begun to occupy his
attention, and from 1896 onwards he increasingly interested himself in
the Jewish question which culminated in the Dreyfus case. His sense of
justice, always keen, was outraged by the action of the authorities and
on 13th January, 1898, he published his famous letter, beginning with
the words _J’accuse_, a letter which altered the whole course of events
in France. It is difficult now to realize the effect of Zola’s action
in this matter; he was attacked with a virulence almost unexampled, a
virulence which followed him beyond the grave. Four years later, on the
day after his death, the Paris correspondent of _The Times_ wrote: “It
is evident the passions of two or three years ago are still alive. Many
persons expressed their joy with such boisterous gestures as men indulge
in on learning of a victory, and some exclaimed savagely, ‘It is none
too soon.’ The unseemliness of this extraordinary spectacle evoked no
retort from the passers-by.” The feeling of resentment is still alive in
France, and it is necessary to take it into account in the consideration
of any estimates of his literary work by his own countrymen. It is a
mistake to attribute Zola’s campaign for the rehabilitation of Dreyfus
to mere lust of fame, as has been freely done. He certainly was
ambitious, but had he wished to gain the plaudits of the crowd he
would not have adopted a cause which was opposed by the majority of the
nation. As a result of the agitation, he was obliged to leave France
and take refuge in England, till such time as a change of circumstances
enabled him to return.

On 29th September, 1902, the world was startled to learn that Emile Zola
had been found dead in his bedroom, suffocated by the fumes of a
stove, and that his wife had narrowly escaped dying with him. A life of
incessant literary labour had been quenched.

The reputation of Zola has suffered, it is to be feared, in no small
degree from the indiscretions of his friends. In England he was
introduced to the notice of the reading public by Mr. Henry Vizetelly,
who between 1884 and 1889 published a number of translations of his
novels. The last of these was _The Soil_, a translation of _La Terre_,
which aroused such an outcry that a prosecution followed, and Mr.
Vizetelly was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. Without raising
any question as to the propriety of this prosecution, it is difficult to
avoid pointing out that Mr. Vizetelly was singularly ill advised not to
have taken into account the essential differences between English
and French literature, and not have seen that the publication of this
particular book in its entirety was an impossibility under existing
conditions. It is regrettable also that Mr. Vizetelly, who though a
gentleman of the highest character, was no doubt anxious to make the
most possible out of his venture, did not duly appreciate that the
word “Realistic,” which was blazoned on the covers of the various books
issued by him, was in the early eighties invariably interpreted
as meaning pornographic. Presumably nothing was further from Mr.
Vizetelly’s wish--his defence at the trial was that the books were
literature of the highest kind--but it is unquestionable that the format
was such as to give the impression indicated, an impression deepened by
the extremely Gallic freedom of the illustrations. There can be little
doubt that had the works been issued in an unobtrusive form, without
illustrations, they would have attracted less attention of the
undesirable kind which they afterwards received. The use of the term
“Realistic” was the more remarkable as Zola had previously invented the
word _Naturalisme_ to distinguish his work from that of the Realistic
school. But if Zola’s reputation in England suffered in this way, it
is right to refer here to the debt of gratitude to Mr. E. A. Vizetelly
under which the English public now lies. Some time after the prosecution
of his father, Mr. Vizetelly began to publish, through Messrs. Chatto
& Windus, a series of versions of Zola’s works. The translations
were admirably done, and while it was found necessary to make certain
omissions, the task was so skilfully accomplished that in many cases
actual improvement has resulted. These versions are at present the chief
translations of Zola’s works in circulation in this country; but while
their number has been added to from time to time, it has not been found
possible to include the whole of the Rougon-Macquart series. In 1894-5,
however, the Lutetian Society issued to its members a literal and
unabridged translation of six of the novels, made by writers of such
eminence as Havelock Ellis, Arthur Symons, and Ernest Dowson. These
are the only translations of these works which are of any value to the
student, but they are unfortunately almost unobtainable, as the entire
edition was restricted to three hundred copies on hand-made paper and
ten on Japanese vellum.

A charge not unfrequently brought against Zola is that he was a somewhat
ignorant person, who required to get up from textbooks every subject
upon which he wrote. Now there seems to be little doubt that it was in
the first instance due to the indiscretion of his biographer, M. Paul
Alexis, that this charge has arisen. Impressed by the vast industry of
his friend, M. Alexis said so much about “research” and “documents”
 that less friendly critics seized the opportunity of exaggerating the
importance of these. Every novelist of any consequence has found it
necessary to “cram” his subjects, but says little about the fact. James
Payn, for instance, could not have written his admirable descriptions of
China in _By Proxy_ without much reading of many books, and Mr.
Rudyard Kipling has not been blamed for studying the technicalities of
engineering before he wrote _The Ship that found Herself_. It is open to
question even whether Mr. Robert Hichens acquired his intimate knowledge
of the conditions of life in Southern Europe and Northern Africa
entirely without the assistance of Herr Baedeker. Zola undoubtedly
studied his subjects, but far too much has been made of the necessity
for his doing so. His equipment for the task he undertook was not less
complete than that of many another novelist, and, like Dickens, he
studied life in that school of a “stony-hearted stepmother,” the streets
of a great city.

Zola’s literary method may be described as a piling up of detail upon
detail till there is attained an effect portentous, overwhelming. He
lacked, however, a sense of proportion; he became so carried away by
his visions of human depravity, that his characters developed powers of
wickedness beyond mortal strength; he lay under an obsession regarding
the iniquities of mankind. In dealing with this it was unfortunately
his method to leave nothing to the imagination, and herein lies the most
serious blemish on his work. There is undoubtedly much coarseness in
some of his books, and the regrettable feature is that it is not only
unnecessary, but in some cases actually lessens the effect at which he
aimed. It is doubtful whether he was possessed of any sense of humour.
Mr. Andrew Lang says that his lack of it was absolute, a darkness that
can be felt; Mr. R. H. Sherrard, on the other hand, indicates that his
work “teems with quiet fun.” On the whole, truth seems to lie with Mr.
Lang. M. and Madame Charles Badeuil, in _La Terre_ may seem Dickensian
to an English reader, but there is always the Gallic point of view to be
reckoned with, and it is doubtful if Zola did not regard these persons
merely as types of a virtuous bourgeoisie.

It was in the treatment of crowds in motion that Zola chiefly excelled;
there is nothing finer in literature than the march of the strikers in
_Germinal_ or the charges of the troops in _La Debacle_. Contrast him
with such a master of prose as George Meredith, and we see how immensely
strong the battle scenes in _La Debacle_ are when compared with those
in _Vittoria_; it is here that his method of piling detail on detail and
horror on horror is most effectual. “To make his characters swarm,” said
Mr. Henry James in a critical article in the _Atlantic Monthly_ (August,
1903), “was the task he set himself very nearly from the first, that was
the secret he triumphantly mastered.”

“Naturalism” as a school had a comparatively brief existence--Zola
himself departed largely from its principles after the conclusion of the
Rougon-Macquart series--but its effects have been far-reaching on
the literature of many countries. In England the limits of literary
convention have been extended, and pathways have been opened up along
which later writers have not hesitated to travel, even while denying the
influence of the craftsman who had cleared the way. It is safe to say
that had _L’Assommoir_ never been written there would have been no _Jude
the Obscure_, and the same remark applies to much of the best modern
fiction. In America, Frank Norris, an able writer who unfortunately died
before the full fruition of his genius had obviously accepted Zola
as his master, and the same influence is also apparent in the work of
George Douglas, a brilliant young Scotsman whose premature death left
only one book, _The House with the Green Shutters_, as an indication
of what might have sprung from the methods of modified naturalism.
M. Edouard Rod, an able critic, writing in the _Contemporary Review_
(1902), pointed out that the influence of Zola has transformed novel
writing in Italy, and that its effect in Germany has been not less
pronounced. The virtue of this influence on German letters was
undoubtedly great. It made an end of sentimentality, it shook literature
out of the sleepy rut into which it had fallen and forced it to face
universal problems.

One must regret for his own sake that Zola was unable to avoid offending
those prejudices which were so powerful in his time. The novelist who
adopts the method of the surgeon finds it necessary to expose many
painful sores, and is open to the taunt that he finds pleasure in the
task. On no one did this personal obloquy fall more hardly than on
Zola, and never with less reason. It may be that he accumulated unseemly
details and risky situations too readily; but he was an earnest man with
a definite aim in view, and had formulated for himself a system which
he allowed to work itself out with relentless fatality. The unredeemed
baseness and profligacy of the period with which he had to deal must
also be borne in mind. As to his personal character, it has been fitly
described by M. Anatole France, himself a distinguished novelist.
Zola, said he, “had the candour and sincerity of great souls. He was
profoundly moral. He has depicted vice with a rough and vigorous hand.
His apparent pessimism ill conceals a real optimism, a persistent faith
in the progress of intelligence and justice. In his romances, which
are social studies, he attacks with vigorous hatred an idle, frivolous
society, a base and noxious aristocracy. He combated social evil
wherever he encountered it. His work is comparable only in greatness
with that of Tolstoi. At the two extremities of European thought the
lyre has raised two vast cities. Both are generous and pacific; but
whereas Tolstoi’s is the city of resignation, Zola’s is the city of
work.”

It is still too soon to form an opinion as to the permanent value
of Zola’s writings, for posterity has set aside many well-considered
judgments; but their influence has been, and will continue to be, far
reaching. They have opened up new avenues in literature, and have made
possible to others much that was formerly unattainable.




THE ROUGON-MACQUART GENEALOGICAL TREE.


First Generation:

1. ADELAIDE FOUQUE, called AUNT DIDE, born in 1768, married in 1786 to
Rougon, a placid, lubberly gardener; bears him a son in 1787; loses her
husband in 1788; takes in 1789 a lover, Macquart, a smuggler, addicted
to drink and half crazed; bears him a son in 1789, and a daughter in
1791; goes mad, and is sent to the Asylum of Les Tulettes in 1851; dies
there of cerebral congestion in 1873 at 105 years of age. Supplies the
original neurosis.


Second Generation:

2. PIERRE ROUGON, born in 1787, married in 1810 to Felicite Puech, an
intelligent, active and healthy woman; has five children by her; dies
in 1870, on the morrow of Sedan, from cerebral congestion due to
overfeeding. An equilibrious blending of characteristics, the moral
average of his father and mother, resembles them physically. An oil
merchant, afterwards receiver of taxes.

3. ANTOINE MACQUART, born in 1789; a soldier in 1809; married in 1829
to a market dealer, Josephine Gavaudan, a vigorous, industrious, but
intemperate woman; has three children by her; loses her in 1851;
dies himself in 1873 from spontaneous combustion, brought about by
alcoholism. A fusion of characteristics. Moral prepotency of and
physical likeness to his father. A soldier, then a basket-maker,
afterwards lives idle on his income.

4. URSULE MACQUART, born in 1791; married in 1810 to a
journeyman-hatter, Mouret, a healthy man with a well-balanced mind.
Bears him three children, dies of consumption in 1840. An adjunction of
characteristics, her mother predominating morally and physically.


Third Generation:

5. EUGENE ROUGON, born in 1811, married in 1857 to Veronique Beulin
d’Orcheres, by whom he has no children. A fusion of characteristics.
Prepotency and ambition of his mother. Physical likeness to his father.
A politician, at one time Cabinet Minister. Still alive in Paris, a
deputy.

6. PASCAL ROUGON, born in 1813, never marries, has a posthumous child
by Clotilde Rougon in 1874; dies of heart disease on November 7,
1873. Innateness, a combination in which the physical and moral
characteristics of the parents are so blended that nothing of them
appears manifest in the offspring. A doctor.

7. ARISTIDE ROUGON, alias SACCARD, born in 1815, married in 1836 to
Angele Sicardot, the calm, dreamy-minded daughter of an officer; has
by her a son in 1840, a daughter in 1847; loses his wife in 1854; has
a natural son in 1853 by a work-girl, Rosalie Chavaille, counting
consumptives and epileptics among her forerunners; remarried in 1855
to Renee Beraud Du Chatel, who dies childless in 1864. An adjunction of
characteristics, moral prepotency of his father, physical likeness to
his mother. Her ambition, modified by his father’s appetites. A clerk,
then a speculator. Still alive in Paris, directing a newspaper.

8. SIDONIE ROUGON, born in 1818, married at Plassans in 1838 to a
solicitor’s clerk, who dies in Paris in 1850. Has, by a stranger, in
1851, a daughter Angelique, whom she places in the foundling asylum.
Prepotency of her father, physical likeness to her mother. A commission
agent and procuress, dabbling in every shady calling; but eventually
becomes very austere. Still alive in Paris, treasurer to the OEuvre du
Sacrement.

9. MARTHE ROUGON, born in 1820, married in 1840 to her cousin Francois
Mouret, bears him three children, dies in 1864 from a nervous disease.
Reverting heredity, skipping one generation. Hysteria. Moral and
physical likeness to Adelaide Fouque. Resembles her husband.

10. FRANCOIS MOURET, born in 1817, married in 1840 to Marthe Rougon, who
bears him three children; dies mad in 1864 in a conflagration kindled
by himself. Prepotency of his father. Physical likeness to his mother.
Resembles his wife. At first a wine-merchant, then lives on his income.

11. HELENE MOURET, born in 1824, married in 1841 to Grandjean, a puny
man, inclined to phthisis, who dies in 1853; has a daughter by him in
1842; remarried in 1857 to M. Rambaud, by whom she has no children.
Innateness as in Pascal Rougon’s case. Still living, at Marseilles, in
retirement with her second husband.

12. SILVERE MOURET, born in 1834; shot dead by a gendarme in
1851. Prepotency of his mother. Innateness with regard to physical
resemblance.

13. LISA MACQUART, born in 1827, married in 1852 to Quenu, a healthy
man with a well-balanced mind. Bears him a daughter, dies in 1863 from
decomposition of the blood. Prepotency of and physical likeness to her
mother. Keeps a large pork-butcher’s shop at the Paris markets.

14. GERVAISE MACQUART, born in 1828, has three sons by her lover
Lantier, who counts paralytics among his ancestors; is taken to Paris,
and there deserted by him; is married in 1852 to a workman, Coupeau, who
comes of an alcoholic stock; has a daughter by him; dies of misery and
drink in 1869. Prepotency of her father. Conceived in drunkenness. Is
lame. A washerwoman.

15. JEAN MACQUART, born in 1831, married in 1867 to Francoise Mouche,
who dies childless in 1870; remarried in 1871 to Melanie Vial, a sturdy,
healthy peasant-girl, by whom he has a son, and who is again _enceinte_.
Innateness, as with Pascal and Helene. First a peasant, then a soldier,
then peasant again. Still alive at Valqueyras.


Fourth Generation:

16. MAXIME ROUGON, alias SACCARD, born in 1840, has a son in 1857 by
a servant, Justine Megot, the chlorotic daughter of drunken parents;
married in 1863 to Louise de Mareuil, who dies childless the same year;
succumbs to ataxia in 1873. A dissemination of characteristics. Moral
prepotency of his father, physical likeness to his mother. Idle,
inclined to spending unearned money.

17. CLOTILDE ROUGON, alias SACCARD, born in 1847, has a son by Pascal
Rougon in 1874. Prepotency of her mother. Reverting heredity, the moral
and physical characteristics of her maternal grandfather preponderant.
Still alive at Plassans.

18. VICTOR ROUGON, alias SACCARD, born in 1853. Adjunction of
characteristics. Physical resemblance to his father. Has disappeared.

19. ANGELIQUE ROUGON, born in 1851, married in 1869 to Felicien de
Hautecoeur, and dies the same day of a complaint never determined.
Innateness: no resemblance to her mother or forerunners on the maternal
side. No information as to her father.

20. OCTAVE MOURET, born in 1840, married in 1865 to Madame Hedouin, who
dies the same year; remarried in 1869 to Denise Baudu, a healthy girl
with a well-balanced mind, by whom he has a boy and a girl, still too
young to be classified. Prepotency of his father. Physical resemblance
to his uncle, Eugene Rougon. Indirect heredity. Establishes and directs
“The Ladies’ Paradise.” Still alive in Paris.

21. SERGE MOURET, born in 1841. A dissemination of characteristics;
moral and physical resemblance to his mother. Has his father’s brain,
influenced by the diseased condition of his mother. Heredity of a form
of neurosis developing into mysticism. A priest, still alive at St.
Eutrope.

22. DESIREE MOURET, born in 1844. Prepotency of and physical likeness to
her mother. Heredity of a form of neurosis developing into idiocy. Still
alive at St. Eutrope with her brother Serge.

23. JEANNE GRANDJEAN, born in 1842, dies of a nervous complaint in
1855. Reverting heredity, skipping two generations. Physical and moral
resemblance to Adelaide Fouque.

24. Pauline Quenu, born in 1852, never marries. An equilibrious blending
of characteristics. Moral and physical resemblance to her father and
mother. An example of honesty. Still alive at Bonneville.

25. CLAUDE LANTIER, born in 1842, married in 1865 to Caroline
Hallegrain, whose father succumbed to paraplegia; has by her, prior to
marriage, a son, Jacques, who dies in 1869; hangs himself in 1870. A
fusion of characteristics. Moral prepotency of and physical resemblance
to his mother. Heredity of a form of neurosis developing into genius. A
painter.

26. JACQUES LANTIER, born in 1844, killed in an accident in 1870.
Prepotency of his mother. Physical likeness to his father. Heredity of
alcoholism, developing into homicidal mania. An example of crime. An
engine-driver.

27. ETIENNE LANTIER, born in 1846. A dissemination of characteristics.
Physical resemblance, first to his mother, afterwards to his father. A
miner. Still alive, transported to Noumea, there married, with children,
it is said, who cannot, however, be classified.

28. ANNA COUPEAU, alias NANA, born in 1852, gives birth to a child,
Louis, in 1867, loses him in 1870, dies herself of small-pox a few days
later. A blending of characteristics. Moral prepotency of her father.
Physical resemblance to her mother’s first lover, Lantier. Heredity of
alcoholism developing into mental and physical perversion. An example of
vice.


Fifth Generation:

29. CHARLES ROUGON, alias SACCARD, born in 1857, dies of hemorrhage in
1873. Reverting heredity skipping three generations. Physical and moral
resemblance to Adelaide Fouque. The last outcome of an exhausted stock.

30. JACQUES LOUIS LANTIER, born in 1860, a case of hydrocephalus, dies
in 1869. Prepotency of his mother, whom he physically resembles.

31. LOUIS COUPEAU, called LOUISET, born in 1867, dies of small-pox in
1870. Prepotency of his mother, whom he physically resembles.

32. THE UNKNOWN CHILD will be born in 1874. What will it be?




SYNOPSES OF THE PLOTS OF THE ROUGON-MACQUART NOVELS


La Fortune des Rougon.

In the preface to this novel Zola explains his theories of heredity,
and the work itself forms the introductory chapter to that great series
which deals with the life history of a family and its descendants during
the second empire.

The common ancestress of the Rougons and the Macquarts was Adelaide
Fouque, a girl who from youth had been subject to nervous seizures.
From her father she inherited a small farm, and at the age of eighteen
married one of her own labourers, a man named Rougon, who died fifteen
months afterwards, leaving her with one son, named Pierre. Shortly after
her husband’s death she fell completely under the influence of Macquart,
a drunken smuggler and poacher, by whom in course of time she had a
son named Antoine and a daughter named Ursule. She became more and more
subject to cataleptic attacks, until eventually her mind was completely
unhinged. Pierre Rougon, her legitimate son, was a man of strong will
inherited from his father, and he early saw that his mother’s property
was being squandered by the Macquarts. By means approximating to fraud
he induced his mother, who was then facile, to sell her property and
hand over the proceeds to him. Soon after he married Felicite Peuch, a
woman of great shrewdness and keen intelligence, by whom he had three
sons (Eugene, Aristide, and Pascal) and two daughters (Marthe and
Sidonie). Pierre Rougon was not particularly prosperous, but his eldest
son, Eugene, went to Paris and became mixed up in the Bonapartist plots
which led to the _Coup d’Etat_ of 1851. He was consequently able to give
his parents early information as to the probable course of events, and
the result of their action was to lay the foundations of the family
fortune.

The scene of the book is the Provencal town of Plassans, and the tragic
events attending the rising of the populace against the _Coup d’Etat_
are told with accuracy and knowledge. There is a charming love idyll
between Silvere Mouret, a son of Ursule Macquart, and a young girl named
Miette, both of whom fall as victims in the rising which followed the
_Coup d’Etat_.

Mr. E. A. Vizetelly, in his introduction to the English translation of
_The Conquest of Plassans_ (London: Chatto & Windus), points out that
almost every incident in _The Fortune of the Rougons_ is based upon
historical fact. “For instance,” he says, “Miette had a counterpart
in Madame Ferrier, that being the real name of the young woman who,
carrying the insurgents’ blood-red banner, was hailed by them as the
Goddess of Liberty on their dramatic march. And in like way the tragic
death of Silvere, linked to another hapless prisoner, was founded by
M. Zola on an incident that followed the rising, as recorded by an
eye-witness.”


Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

An account of the career of Eugene Rougon, the eldest son of Pierre
Rougon (_La Fortune des Rougon_), who went to Paris from Plassans,
becoming involved in the plots which resulted in the _Coup d’Etat_ of
1851 and the return of a Bonaparte to Imperial power. The future
career of Rougon was assured; his services had been too important to be
overlooked, and he ultimately became Minister of State and practically
Vice-Emperor. He fell for a time under the influence of Clorinde Balbi,
the daughter of an Italian adventuress, but realizing the risk of
compromising himself, he shook himself free, and married a lady whose
position in society tended to make his own still more secure. The novel
gives an excellent account of the political and social life of the
Second Empire, and of the cynical corruption which characterized the
period.

In a preface to the English translation (_His Excellency_. London:
Chatto & Windus), Mr. E. A. Vizetelly states that in his opinion,
“with all due allowance for its somewhat limited range of subject, _Son
Excellence Eugene Rougon_ is the one existing French novel which gives
the reader a fair general idea of what occurred in political spheres at
an important period of the Empire. But His Excellency Eugene Rougon
is not, as many critics and others have supposed, a mere portrait or
caricature of His Excellency Eugene Rouher, the famous Vice-Emperor of
history. Symbolism is to be found in every one of Zola’s novels, and
Rougon, in his main lines, is but the symbol of a principle, or, to be
accurate, the symbol of a certain form of the principle of authority.
His face is Rouher’s, like his build and his favorite gesture; but with
Rouher’s words, actions, opinions, and experiences are blended those of
half a dozen other personages. He is the incarnation of that craving,
that lust for power which impelled so many men of ability to throw
all principle to the winds and become the instruments of an abominable
system of government. And his transformation at the close of the story
is in strict accordance with historical facts.”


La Curee.

In this novel Aristide Saccard, who followed his brother Eugene to Paris
in the hope of sharing the spoils of the Second Empire (_La Fortune des
Rougon_), was successful in amassing a vast fortune by speculation in
building-sites. His first wife having died, he married Renee Beraud du
Chatel, a lady of good family, whose dowry first enabled him to throw
himself into the struggle of financial life. In a magnificent mansion
which he built in the Parc Monceau a life of inconceivable extravagance
began. The mushroom society of Paris was at this period the most corrupt
in Europe, and the Saccards soon came to be regarded as leaders in every
form of pleasure. Vast though their fortune was, their expenses were
greater, and a catastrophe was frequently imminent. Renee, satisfied
with prodigality of every kind, entered on an infamous liaison with her
husband’s son, a liaison which Aristide condoned in order to extract
money from his wife. Rene ultimately died, leaving her husband immersed
in his feverish speculations.

The novel gives a powerful though unpleasant picture of Parisian society
in the period which followed the restoration of the Empire in 1851.


L’Argent.

After a disastrous speculation, Aristide Saccard (_La Fortune des
Rougon_ and _La Curee_) was forced to sell his mansion in the Parc
Monceau and to cast about for means of creating a fresh fortune. Chance
made him acquainted with Hamelin, an engineer whose residence in the
East had suggested to him financial schemes which at once attracted
the attention of Saccard. With a view to financing these schemes
the Universal Bank was formed, and by force of advertising became
immediately successful. Emboldened by success, Saccard launched into
wild speculation, involving the bank, which ultimately became insolvent,
and so caused the ruin of thousands of depositors. The scandal was so
serious that Saccard was forced to disappear from France and to take
refuge in Belgium.

The book was intended to show the terrible effects of speculation and
fraudulent company promotion, the culpable negligence of directors, and
the impotency of the existing laws. It deals with the shady underwoods
of the financial world.

Mr. E. A. Vizetelly, in his preface to the English translation (_Money_.
London: Chatto & Windus), suggests that Zola in sketching Saccard,
that daring and unscrupulous financier, “must have bethought himself of
Mires, whose name is so closely linked to the history of Second Empire
finance. Mires, however, was a Jew, whereas Saccard was a Jew-hater, and
outwardly, at all events, a zealous Roman Catholic. In this respect he
reminds one of Bontoux, of Union General notoriety, just as Hamelin the
engineer reminds one of Feder, Bontoux’s associate. Indeed, the history
of M. Zola’s Universal Bank is much the history of the Union General.
The latter was solemnly blessed by the Pope, and in a like way Zola
shows us the Universal receiving the Papal benediction. Moreover, the
second object of the Union General was to undermine the financial power
of the Jews, and in the novel we find a similar purpose ascribed to
Saccard’s Bank. The union, we know, was eventually crushed by the great
Israelite financiers, and this again is the fate which overtakes
the institution whose meteor-like career is traced in the pages of
_L’Argent_.”


La Reve.

Written as a “passport to the Academy,” this novel stands alone among
the Rougon-Macquart series for its pure, idyllic grace. Angelique,
a daughter of Sidonie Rougon (_Le Curee_), had been deserted by her
mother, and was adopted by a maker of ecclesiastical embroideries, who
with his wife lived and worked under the shadow of an ancient cathedral.
In this atmosphere the child grew to womanhood, and as she fashioned the
rich embroideries of the sacred vestments she had a vision of love and
happiness which was ultimately realized, though the realization proved
too much for her frail strength, and she died in its supreme moment. The
vast cathedral with its solemn ritual dominates the book and colours the
lives of its characters.


La Conquete de Plassans.

The heroine of this book is Marthe Rougon, the youngest daughter of
Pierre and Felicite Rougon (_La Fortune des Rougon_), who had inherited
much of the neurasthenic nature of her grandmother Adelaide Fouque. She
married her cousin, Francois Mouret. Plassans, where the Mourets lived,
was becoming a stronghold of the clerical party, when Abbe Faujas, a
wily and arrogant priest, was sent to win it back for the Government.
This powerful and unscrupulous ecclesiastic ruthlessly set aside every
obstacle to his purpose, and in the course of his operations wrecked the
home of the Mourets. Marthe having become infatuated with the priest,
ruined her family for him and died neglected. Francois Mouret, her
husband, who by the machinations of Faujas was confined in an asylum as
a lunatic, became insane in fact, and having escaped, brought about
a conflagration in which he perished along with the disturber of his
domestic peace.

The book contains a vivid picture of the petty jealousies and intrigues
of a country town, and of the political movements which followed the
_Coup d’Etat_ of 1851.


Pot-Bouille.

A study of middle-class life in Paris. Octave, the elder son of Francois
Mouret, has come to the city, where he has got a situation in “The
Ladies’ Paradise,” a draper’s shop carried on by Madame Hedouin, a lady
whom he ultimately marries. The interest of the book centres in a house
in Rue de Choiseul which is let in flats to various tenants, the Vabres,
Duvreyiers, and Josserands among others. The inner lives of these
people, their struggles, their jealousies and their sins, are shown
with an unsparing hand. Under the thin skin of an intense respectability
there is a seething mass of depravity, and with ruthless art Zola has
laid his subjects upon the dissecting-table. Of plot there is little,
but as a terrible study in realism the book is a masterpiece.


An Bonheur des Dames.

Octave Mouret, after his marriage with Madame Hedouin, greatly increased
the business of “The Ladies’ Paradise,” which he hoped would ultimately
rival the _Bon Marche_ and other great drapery establishments in Paris.
While an addition to the shop was in progress Madame Mouret met with an
accident which resulted in her death, and her husband remained a widower
for a number of years. During this time his business grew to such an
extent that his employees numbered many hundreds, among whom was Denise
Baudu, a young girl who had come from the provinces. Mouret fell in
love with her, and she, after resisting his advances for some time,
ultimately married him. The book deals chiefly with life among the
assistants in a great drapery establishment, their petty rivalries
and their struggles; it contains some pathetic studies of the small
shopkeepers of the district, crushed out of existence under the wheels
of Mouret’s moneymaking machine.


La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret.

Serge Mouret, the younger son of Francois Mouret (see _La Conquete de
Plassans_), was ordained to the priesthood and appointed cure of Les
Artaud, a squalid village in Provence, to whose degenerate inhabitants
he ministered with small encouragement. He had inherited the family
taint of the Rougon-Macquarts, which in him took the same form as in the
case of his mother--a morbid religious enthusiasm bordering on hysteria.
Brain fever followed, and bodily recovery left the priest without a
mental past. Dr. Pascal Rougon, his uncle, hoping to save his reason,
removed him from his accustomed surroundings and left him at the
Paradou, the neglected demesne of a ruined mansion-house near Les
Artaud, where he was nursed by Albine, niece of the caretaker. The Abbe
fell in love with Albine, and, oblivious of his vows, broke them. A
meeting with Archangias, a Christian Brother with whom he had been
associated, and a chance glimpse of the world beyond the Paradou, served
to restore his memory, and, filled with horror at himself, he fled from
that enchanted garden. A long mental struggle followed, but in the end
the Church was victorious, and the Abbe returned to her service with
even more feverish devotion than before. Albine, broken-hearted, died
among her loved flowers in the Paradou.

The tale is to some extend an indictment of the celibacy of the
priesthood, though it has to be admitted that the issue is not put quite
fairly, inasmuch as the Abbe was, at the time of his lapse, in entire
forgetfulness of his sacred office. As a whole, the book contains some
of Zola’s best work, and is both poetical and convincing.


Une Page d’Amour.

A tale of Parisian life, in which the principal character is Helene
Mouret, daughter of Mouret the hatter, and sister of Silvere Mouret (_La
Fortune des Rougon_) and Francois Mouret (_La Conquete de Plassans_).
Helene married M. Grandjean, son of a wealthy sugar-refiner of
Marseilles, whose family opposed the marriage on the ground of her
poverty. The marriage was a secret one, and some years of hardship
had followed, when an uncle of M. Grandjean died, leaving his nephew
a substantial income. The couple then moved to Paris with their young
daughter Jeanne, but the day after their arrival Grandjean was seized
with illness from which he died. Helene remained in Paris, though she
had at first no friends there except Abbe Jouve and his half-brother M.
Rambaud. Jeanne had inherited much of the family neurosis, along with
a consumptive tendency derived from her father, and one of her sudden
illnesses caused her mother to make the acquaintance of Doctor Deberle.
An intimacy between the two families followed, which ripened into love
between the doctor and Helene. Events were precipitated by an attempt
on the part of Helene to save Madame Deberle from the consequences of
an indiscretion in arranging an assignation with M. Malignon, with the
result that she was herself seriously compromised in the eyes of Doctor
Deberle and for the first and only time fell from virtue. Jeanne, whose
jealous affection for her mother amounted to mania, was so affected by
the belief that she was not longer the sole object of her mother’s love
that she became dangerously ill and died soon afterwards. This bitter
punishment for her brief lapse killed Helene’s love for Doctor Deberle,
and two years later she married M. Rambaud. As Mr. Andrew Lang has
observed, Helene was a good and pure woman, upon whom the fate of her
family fell.

In writing the book Zola announced that his intention was to make all
Paris weep, and there is no doubt that, though a study in realism, it
contains much that is truly pathetic. The descriptions of Paris under
varying atmospheric aspects, with which each section of the book closes,
are wholly admirable.


Le Ventre de Paris.

A study of the teeming life which surrounds the great central markets
of Paris. The heroine is Lisa Quenu, a daughter of Antoine Macquart (_La
Fortune des Rougon_). She has become prosperous, and with prosperity her
selfishness has increased. Her brother-in-law Florent had escaped from
penal servitude in Cayenne and lived for a short time in her house, but
she became tired of his presence and ultimately denounced him to the
police. The book contains vivid pictures of the markets, bursting with
the food of a great city, and of the vast population which lives
by handling and distributing it. “But it also embraces a powerful
allegory,” writes Mr. E. A. Vizetelly in his preface to the English
translation (_The Fat and the Thin_. London: Chatto & Windus), “the
prose song of the eternal battle between the lean of this world and the
fat--a battle in which, as the author shows, the latter always come off
successful. M. Zola had a distinct social aim in writing this book.”


La Joie de Vivre.

Pauline Quenu (_Le Ventre de Paris_), having been left an orphan, was
sent to live with relatives in a village on the Normandy coast. It was
a bleak, inhospitable shore, and its inhabitants lived their drab,
hopeless lives under the morbid fear of inevitable death. The Chanteaus,
Pauline’s guardians, took advantage of her in every way, and Lazare
Chanteau, her cousin, with whom she fell in love, got from her large
sums of money to carry out wild schemes which he devised. The character
of Pauline is a fine conception; basely wronged and treated with
heartless ingratitude, her hopes blighted and her heart broken, she
found consolation in the complete renunciation of herself for the sake
of those who had so greatly injured her.

“The title selected by M. Zola for this book,” says Mr. E. A. Vizetelly
in his preface to the English translation (_The Joy of Life_. London:
Chatto & Windus), “is to be taken in an ironical or sarcastic sense.
There is no joy at all in the lives of the characters whom he portrays
in it. The story of the hero is one of mental weakness, poisoned by a
constantly recurring fear of death; whilst that of his father is one
of intense physical suffering, blended with an eager desire to continue
living, even at the cost of yet greater torture. Again, the story of the
heroine is one of blighted affections, the wrecking of all which might
have made her life worth living.”


L’Assommoir.

A terrible study of the effects of drink on the moral and social
condition of the working-class in Paris. There is probably no other
work of fiction in which the effects of intemperance are shown with such
grimness of realism and uncompromising force.

Gervaise Macquart, daughter of Antoine Macquart (_La Fortune des
Rougon_), having accompanied her lover Lantier to Paris, taking with her
their two children, was deserted by him a few weeks after their arrival
in the city. She got employment in the laundry of Madame Fauconnier, and
a few months later married Coupeau, a zinc-worker, who, though the son
of drunken parents, was himself steady and industrious. For a while
everything prospered with the Coupeaus; by hard work they were able to
save a little money, and in time a daughter (Nana) was born to them.
Then an accident to Coupeau, who fell from the roof of a house,
brought about a change. His recovery was slow, and left him with
an unwillingness to work and an inclination to pass his time in
neighbouring dram-shops. Meantime Gervaise, with money borrowed from
Goujet, a man who loved her with almost idyllic affection, had started
a laundry of her own. She was successful for a time, in spite of her
husband’s growing intemperance and an increasing desire in herself
for ease and good living; but deterioration had begun, and with the
reappearance of Lantier, her old lover, it became rapid. Coupeau was by
this time a confirmed loafer and drunkard, while Gervaise was growing
careless and ease-loving. Lantier, having become a lodger with the
Coupeaus, ceased doing any work, and as he never paid anything for his
board, his presence not unnaturally hastened the downfall of his hosts.
Circumstances conspired to renew the old relations between Gervaise and
Lantier, and by easy stages she descended that somewhat slippery stair
which leads to ruin. The shop was given up, and she again got employment
in the laundry of Madame Fauconnier, though she was no longer the
capable workwoman of former times. Nana, her daughter, vicious from
childhood, had taken to evil courses; her husband had at least one
attack of delirium tremens; and she herself was fast giving way
to intemperance. The end was rapid. Coupeau died in the asylum of
Sainte-Anne after an illness the description of which is for pure horror
unparalleled in fiction; while Gervaise, after sinking to the lowest
depths of degradation and poverty, died miserably in a garret. The
tragedy of it all is that Gervaise, despite her early lapse with
Lantier, was a good and naturally virtuous woman, whose ruin was
wrought by circumstances and by the operation of the relentless laws of
heredity.

It may be useful to note here that though Zola states in _L’Assommoir_
that Gervaise and Lantier had two sons (Claude, born 1842, and Etienne,
born 1846), he makes a third son (Jacques, born 1844), not elsewhere
mentioned, the hero of _La Bete Humaine_, a subsequent work in the
Rougon-Macquart series.


L’Oeuvre.

A novel dealing with artistic life in Paris towards the close of the
Second Empire.

Claude Lantier, the eldest son of Auguste Lantier and Gervaise Macquart
(_La Fortune des Rougon_ and _L’Assommoir_), had been educated at
Plassans by an old gentleman who was interested in his childish skill in
drawing. His benefactor died, leaving him a sum which yielded an annual
income of a thousand francs, and he came to Paris to follow an artistic
career. There he met Dubuche, Pierre Sandoz, and others of his former
schoolboy friends, and the little band formed a coterie of revolutionary
spirits, whose aim was to introduce new ideas and drastic changes into
the accepted canons of art. Claude attempted to embody his theories in a
picture which he called _Plein Air_ (“Open Air”) in which he went direct
to nature for inspiration, and threw aside all recognized conventions.
The picture was refused by the committee of the _Salon_, and when
subsequently shown at a minor exhibition was greeted with derision by
the public. The artist was in despair, and left Paris with
Christine Hallegrain, a young girl between whom and himself a chance
acquaintanceship had ripened into love. They lived happily in a little
cottage in the country for several years, a son being born to them, but
Claude became restless, and they returned to Paris. Here he gradually
became obsessed by an idea for a great picture, which would show the
truth of his theories and cover his detractors with confusion. By this
time there is no doubt that his mind was becoming affected by repeated
disappointments, and that the family virus was beginning to manifest
itself in him. Everything was now sacrificed to this picture; his little
fortune was gradually encroached on, and his wife and child (he had
married Christine some time after their return to Paris) were frequently
without the necessaries of life. Christine was, however, devoted to her
husband, and did all she could to induce him to leave the picture, which
she saw was increasing his mental disturbance. This was becoming more
serious, and in the death of his child he saw only the subject of a
picture, _L’Enfant Mort_, which was exhibited at the _Salon_ and was
received with even more contempt than _Plein Air_. Despite all the
efforts of Christine, Claude returned to his intended masterpiece, and
one morning, in despair of achieving his aims, hanged himself in front
of the fatal picture.

As a study of artistic life the novel is full of interest. There is
little doubt that the character of Claude Lantier was suggested by that
of Edouard Manet, the founder of the French Impressionist school, with
whom Zola was on terms of friendship. It is also certain that Pierre
Sandoz, the journalist with an idea for a vast series of novels dealing
with the life history of a family, was the prototype of Zola himself.


La Bete Humaine.

A novel dealing with railway life in France towards the close of the
Second Empire. The hero is Jacques Lantier, the second son of Gervaise
Macquart and August Lantier (_La Fortune des Rougon_ and _L’Assommoir_).
When his parents went to Paris with his two brothers, he remained at
Plassans with his godmother, “Aunt Phasie,” who afterwards married
Misard, a railway signalman, by whom she was slowly poisoned to secure
a small legacy which she had concealed. After Jacques had passed
through the School of Arts and Crafts at Plassans he became a railway
engine-driver, and entered the service of the Western Railway Company,
regularly driving the express train between Paris and Havre. He was a
steady man and a competent engineer, but from his early youth he had
been affected by a curious form of insanity, the desire to murder any
woman of whom he became fond. “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.” There was also in the
employment of the railway company, as assistant station-master at Havre,
a compatriot of Lantier named Roubaud, who had married Severine Aubry,
the godchild of President Grandmorin, a director of the company. A
chance word of Severine’s roused the suspicions of Roubaud regarding her
former relations with the President, and, driven to frenzy by jealousy,
he compelled her to become his accomplice in the murder of Grandmorin in
an express train between Paris and Havre.

Though slight suspicion fell upon the Roubauds, they were able to
prove an alibi, and as, for political reasons, it was not desired that
Grandmorin’s character should be publicly discussed, the inquiry into
the murder was dropped. By a singular chance, however, Jacques Lantier
had been a momentary witness of the crime, and the Roubauds became aware
of his suspicions. To secure his silence they invited him constantly to
their house, and a liaison with Severine followed. For the first time
Lantier’s blood lust was not aroused; the knowledge that this woman
had killed seemed to constitute her a being apart and sacred. After the
murder of Grandmorin a gradual disintegration of Roubaud’s character set
in, and he became in time a confirmed gambler. His relations with his
wife were ultimately so strained that she induced Lantier to promise to
murder him, in order that they might fly together to America with
the proceeds of a small legacy she had received from Grandmorin. The
arrangements were made, but at the last moment Lantier’s frenzy overtook
him, and it was Severine who was struck down by the knife destined for
her husband. Lantier escaped without suspicion; but Roubaud, who
was found on the scene of the crime under circumstances considered
compromising, was tried, and along with a companion equally innocent,
was sentenced to penal servitude for life. But Nemesis was not distant;
Jacques had aroused the jealous fury of his fireman, Pecqueux, who, one
night in 1870, attacked him as they were driving a train loaded with
soldiers bound for the war. A fierce struggle followed, and in the end
the two men fell from the engine and were cut in pieces beneath the
wheels of the train, which, no longer under control, rushed on into the
darkness with its living freight.


Germinal.

A novel dealing with the labour question in its special relation to
coal-mining. The scene of the book is laid in the north of France at a
time preceding and during a great strike; the hero is Etienne Lantier
(_La Fortune des Rougon_ and _L’Assommoir_). In a moment of passion
Lantier had struck one of his superiors, and having been dismissed from
his employment as an engineer, found it difficult to get work, till,
after drifting from place to place, he eventually became a coal-miner.
The hardships of the life and its miserable remuneration impressed
him deeply, and he began to indoctrinate his comrades with a spirit of
revolt. His influence grew, and he became the acknowledged leader of the
strike which followed. The result was disastrous. After weeks of misery
from cold and hunger the infuriated workmen attempted to destroy one of
the pits, and were fired upon by soldiers sent to guard it. Many were
killed, and the survivors, with their spirits crushed, returned to work.
But worse was yet to come. Souvarine, an Anarchist, disgusted with the
ineffectual struggle, brought about an inundation of the pit, whereby
many of his comrades were entombed. Among them was Lantier, who was,
however, eventually rescued.

As a study of the ever-lasting struggle between capital and labour the
work has no rival in fiction; the miseries and degradation of the mining
class, their tardy revolt against their employers, and their sufferings
from hunger during its futile course, these are the theme, and the
result is a picture of gloom, horrible and without relief.


Nana.

A novel dealing largely with theatrical life in Paris. Nana, the
daughter of Coupeau and Gervaise Macquart his wife (_L’Assommoir_), has
been given a part in a play produced at the Theatre des Varietes, and
though she can neither sing nor act, achieves by the sheer force of
her beauty an overwhelming success. All Paris is at her feet, and she
selects her lovers from among the wealthiest and best born. But her
extravagance knows no bounds, and ruin invariably overtakes those who
yield to her fascination. After squandering vast sums she goes to the
East, and stories spread that she had captivated a viceroy and gained a
great fortune in Russia. Her return to Paris is speedily followed by her
death from small-pox. In this novel the life of the courtesan class is
dealt with by Zola with unhesitating frankness; there are many vivid
studies of theatrical manners; and the racecourse also comes within its
scope. The work was intended to lay bare the canker which was eating
into the social life of the Second Empire and ultimately led to the
_debacle_ of 1870.


La Terre.

This is a novel which treats of the conditions of agricultural life in
France before the war with Prussia, and the subsequent downfall of the
Second Empire. It is, in some respects, the most powerful of all Zola’s
novels, but in dealing with the subject he unfortunately thought it
necessary to introduce incidents and expressions which, from their
nature, must always render it impossible to submit the book in its
entirety to the general English reader.

Its connection with the Rougon-Macquart series is somewhat slight. Jean
Macquart, son of Antoine Macquart and brother of Gervaise (_La Fortune
des Rougon_), having served his time in the Army, came to the plain
of La Beauce, and became an agricultural labourer on the farm of La
Borderie, which belonged to Alexandre Hourdequin. He fell in love with
Lise Mouche, who, however, married Buteau, and Macquart subsequently
married her sister Francoise. Constant quarrels now arose between the
two sisters as to the division of their father’s property, and in
the end Francoise was murdered by her sister. Macquart, tired of the
struggle, decided to rejoin the army, which he did immediately after the
outbreak of war.

The interest of the book is, however, largely connected with the history
of the Fouans, a family of peasants, the senior member of which, having
grown old, divided his land among his three children. The intense and
brutish rapacity of these peasants, their utter lack of any feeling
of morality or duty, their perfect selfishness, not stopping short of
parricide, form a picture of horror unequalled in fiction. It is only to
be regretted that the author, in leaving nothing to the imagination, has
produced a work suitable only for the serious student of sociology.


La Debacle.

In the earlier volumes of the Rougon-Macquart series Zola had dealt with
every phase of life under the Second Empire, and in this novel he tells
the story of that terrific land-slide which overwhelmed the regime. It
is a story of war, grim and terrible; of a struggle to the death between
two great nations. In it the author has put much of his finest work, and
the result is one of the masterpieces of literature. The hero is Jean
Macquart, son of Antoine Macquart and brother of Gervaise (_La Fortune
des Rougon_). After the terrible death of his wife, as told in _La
Terre_, Jean enlisted for the second time in the army, and went through
the campaign up to the battle of Sedan. After the capitulation he was
made prisoner, and in escaping was wounded. When he returned to active
service he took part in crushing the excesses of the Commune in Paris,
and by a strange chance it was his hand that killed his dearest friend,
Maurice Levasseur, who had joined the Communist ranks. _La Debacle_
has been described as “a prose epic of modern war,” and vast though the
subject be, it is treated in a manner that is powerful, painful, and
pathetic.

In the preface to the English translation (_The Downfall_. London:
Chatto & Windus) Mr. E. A. Vizetelly quotes from an interview with Zola
regarding his aim in writing the work. A novel, he says, “contains, or
may be made to contain, everything; and it is because that is my creed
that I am a novelist. I have, to my thinking, certain contributions to
make to the thought of the world on certain subjects, and I have chosen
the novel as the best way of communicating these contributions to the
world. Thus _La Debacle_, in the form of a very precise and accurate
relation of a series of historical facts--in other words, in the form of
a realistic historical novel--is a document on the psychology of France
in 1870. This will explain the enormous number of characters which
figure in the book. Each character represents one _etat d’ame
psychologique_ of the France of the day. If my work be well done, the
reader will be able to understand what was in men’s minds and what was
the bent of men’s minds--what they thought and how they thought at that
period.”


Le Docteur Pascal.

In this, the concluding novel of the Rougon-Macquart series, Zola
gathers together the threads of the preceding volumes and makes a
vigorous defence of his theories of heredity. The story in the book is
both simple and sad. Doctor Pascal Rougon, a medical man at Plassans and
a distinguished student of heredity, had brought up his niece Clotilde
(daughter of Aristide Rougon alias Saccard) from childhood. Years
afterwards they found that they passionately loved one another, but they
did not marry, as Pascal, who had lost money, thought that by doing so
she would sacrifice her interests. (In this connection it is right to
mention that marriage between an uncle and a niece is legal in France,
and is not uncommon.) With fine self-sacrifice Pascal persuaded Clotilde
to go to Paris to live with her brother who was wealthy and wanted her
to nurse him. Soon after her departure Pascal showed symptoms of a
fatal affection of the heart, and after some weeks of great suffering
telegraphed for Clotilde to come back. One hour before her return he
died. His mother, Madame Felicite Rougon, who feared that his researches
on heredity might bring scandal on the family, burned all his papers,
and in one hour destroyed the work of a lifetime. A child was born to
Clotilde seven months after the death of Doctor Pascal; a child which
he intensely desired, in the hope that through it might come the
regeneration and rejuvenation of his race.

Zola, in an interview quoted by Mr. E. A. Vizetelly in the preface to
his translation of _Le Docteur Pascal_ (London: Chatto & Windus), states
that in this book he has been able to defend himself against all the
accusations which have been brought against him. “Pascal’s works on the
members of his family,” says Zola, “is, in small, what I have attempted
to do on humanity, _to show all so that all may be cured_. It is not a
book which, like _La Debacle_, will stir the passions of the mob. It
is a scientific work, the logical deduction and conclusion of all my
preceding novels, and at the same time it is my speech in defence of all
that I have done before the court of public opinion.”





THE ZOLA DICTIONARY




A

ADELE, the girl for whom Auguste Lantier deserted Gervaise Macquart.
They lived together for seven years, a life of constant bickerings and
quarrels, accompanied, not infrequently, by blows, until the connection
was ended by Adele running away. Her sister was Virginie, with whom
Gervaise fought in the public washing-house on the day of her desertion
by Lantier. L’Assommoir.

ADELE, maid-servant to the Josserands, and one of Hector Trublot’s
friends. Pot-Bouille.

ADELE, an assistant in the shop of Quenu, the pork-butcher. It was
she who took charge of the shop on the sudden death of her master. And
subsequently sent Pauline Quenu to Madame Chanteau. La Joie de Vivre.

ADOLPHE, an artillery driver in the same battery as Honore Fouchard. In
accordance with a rule of the French artillery, under which a driver and
a gunner are coupled, he messed with Louis, the gunner, whom, however,
he was inclined to treat as a servant. At the battle of Sedan, before
the Calvary d’Illy, where the French were almost exterminated by the
Prussian artillery, Adolphe fell, killed by a wound in the chest; in a
last convulsion he clasped in his arms Louis, who had fallen at the same
moment, killed by the same shot. La Debacle.

ALBINE, niece of Jeanbernat, keeper of the Paradou, a neglected demesne
in Provence. Her father had ruined himself and committed suicide when
she was nine years old, and she then came to live with her uncle. She
grew up in that vast garden of flowers, herself its fairest, almost in
ignorance of the world outside, and when Abbe Mouret came to the Paradou
forgetful of his past, she loved him unconsciously from the first. As
she nursed him towards health, and his mind began again to grow from
that fresh starting-point to which it had been thrown back, there
developed an idyll as beautiful and as innocent as that which had its
place in another and an earlier garden. The awakening of Abbe Mouret to
the recollections of his priesthood ended the romance, for the call
of his training was too strong for his love. One effort Albine made
to bring him back, and it was successful in so much that one day he
returned to the Paradou. Again there followed the struggle between the
flesh and the Church, and again the Church prevailed. Broken-hearted,
Albine passed for the last time through her loved garden, gathering as
she went vast heaps of flowers. More and more she gathered, till her
room was nearly full; then, closing the door and windows, she lay down
amongst the flowers, and allowed herself to be suffocated by their
overpowering perfume. La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret.

ALEXANDRE, a porter at the Halles Centrales, where he became a friend
of Claude Lantier. He was involved along with Florent and Gavard in the
revolutionary meetings at Lebigre’s wine-shop, and was sentenced to two
years’ imprisonment. Le Ventre de Paris.

ALEXANDRE, one of the warders at the asylum of Les Tulettes. He was a
friend of Antoine Macquart, and at his request allowed Francois Mouret
to escape from the asylum, with disastrous results to Abbe Faujas and
his relations. La Conquete de Plassans.

ALEXANDRE, a boy employed in the shop known as _Au Bonheur des Dames_.
Pot-Bouille.

AMADIEU, a speculator on the Paris Bourse who made a fortune by a rash
purchase of mining stock. He went into the affair without calculation
or knowledge, but his success made him revered by the entire Bourse.
He placed no more orders, however, but seemed to be satisfied with his
single victory. L’Argent.

AMANDA, one of the singers at a cafe concert in Boulevard Rochechouart.
L’Assommoir.

AMELIE, a _demi-mondaine_ who lodged at the Hotel Vanneau, which was
kept by Madame Correur. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

AMELIE, wife of a journeyman carpenter who occupied a little room at the
top of Vabre’s tenement-house in Rue Choiseul. Pot-Bouille.

ANDRE (LE PERE), an old countryman at Chavanoz, the village where Miette
spent her childhood. La Fortune des Rougon.

ANGELE (SISTER), a nun attached to the infirmary of the college of
Plassans. Her Madonna-like face turned the heads of all the older
pupils, and one morning she disappeared with Hermeline, a student of
rhetoric. L’Oeuvre.

ANGELIQUE MARIE, born 1851, was the daughter of Sidonie Rougon, by an
unknown father. Soon after her birth she was taken to the Foundling
Hospital by a nurse, Madame Foucart, and no further inquiries were ever
made about her. She was at first boarded with Francoise Hamelin, by whom
she was not unkindly treated, and subsequently went to Paris with
Louis Franchomme and his wife, who wished to teach her the trade of
artificial-flower making. Franchomme having died three months later,
his widow went to reside at Beaumont with her brother, Rabier, taking
Angelique with her. Unfortunately, Madame Franchomme died a few months
afterwards, leaving Angelique to the care of the Rabiers, who used
her badly, not even giving her enough to eat. In consequence of their
treatment, she ran away on Christmas Day, 1860, and the following
morning was found in a fainting condition by Hubert, the chasuble-maker,
who noticed her lying in the snow within the porch of the cathedral
of Beaumont. Hubert and his wife took the child into their home, and,
becoming attached to her, ultimately adopted her as their daughter,
teaching her the art of embroidering vestments, in which she became
very skilful. Angelique, though an amiable girl, was at first liable
to violent attacks of temper, and it was only by the exercise of much
patience and tact on the part of Madame Hubert that this tendency was
overcome. The girl was always a dreamer, and her cloistered life with
the Huberts, along with constant reading of the lives of the saints,
brought out all that was mystic in her nature. A chance meeting between
Angelique and a young man named Felicien led to their falling in
love, she being in entire ignorance of the fact that he was the son of
Monseigneur d’Hautecoeur, and a member of one of the oldest and proudest
families in France. Felicien’s father having refused his consent to a
marriage, and a personal appeal to him by Angelique having failed,
the lovers were separated for a time. The girl gradually fell into
ill-health, and seemed at the point of death when Monseigneur
himself came to administer the last rites of the Church. Having been
miraculously restored to a measure of health, Angelique was married to
Felicien d’Hautecoeur in the great cathedral of Beaumont. She was very
feeble, and as she was leaving the church on the arm of her husband she
sank to the ground. In the midst of her happiness she died; quietly and
gently as she had lived. Le Reve.

ANGLARS (IRMA D’), a _demi-mondaine_ of former times who had been
celebrated under the First Empire. In her later years she retired to a
house which she owned at Chamont, where she lived a simple yet stately
life, treated with the greatest respect by all the neighbourhood. Nana.

ANNOUCHKA, mistress of Souvarine, and implicated with him in a political
plot. Disguised as a countryman, she assisted in the undermining of a
railway over which an imperial train was to pass, and it was she
who eventually lit the fuse. She was captured along with others, and
Souvarine, who had escaped, was present at her trial during six long
days. When she came to be executed, she looked in vain among the crowd
for her lover, till Souvarine mounted on a stone, and, their eyes having
met, remained fixed in one long gaze till the end. Germinal.

ANTONIA, waiting-maid to Clorinde Balbi, with whom she was on familiar
terms. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

ARCHANGLAS (BROTHER), a Christian Brother, who lived at Les Artaud, and
taught children there. He was a coarse-minded man of violent temper,
whose hatred of women led him to make the gravest charges against them.
He constituted himself a spy on the actions of Abbe Mouret, and was
partly the means of calling back the priest’s memory of his sacred
calling. He insulted Jeanbernat and Albine so grossly, that after the
girl’s death the old man attacked him and cut off his right ear with a
pocket-knife. La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret.

AUBERTOT (MADAME ELIZABETH), sister of M. Beraud du Chatel, and aunt
of Renee and Christine. She gave a large sum of money to Saccard on his
marriage to Renee. La Curee.

AUBRY (SEVERINE), youngest daughter of a gardener in the employment of
Grandmorin. Her mother died when she was in infancy, and she was only
thirteen when she lost her father also. President Grandmorin, who was
her godfather, took charge of her, and brought her up with his daughter
Berthe. The two girls were sent to the same school at Rouen, and spent
their holidays together at Doinville. Ignorant and facile, Severine
yielded to the designs of the old President, who subsequently arranged
a marriage for her with Roubaud, an employee of the Western Railway
Company. For three years the couple lived happily, but a moment of
forgetfulness, a trifling lie which she neglected to sustain, revealed
everything to Roubaud. In an accession of jealous fury he forced his
wife to become his accomplice in the murder of Grandmorin, and it
was she who threw herself across the limbs of the President while her
husband struck the fatal blow. Suspicions fell upon the Roubauds,
and indeed the truth was known to M. Camy-Lamotte, but political
considerations made it desirable that the character of President
Grandmorin should not be publicly discussed, and the inquiry into the
murder was dropped. The domestic relations between the Roubauds were
becoming more and more strained, and Severine became entirely enamoured
of Jacques Lantier. In order to free herself from her husband, she
persuaded Lantier to murder Roubaud and fly with her to America. The
arrangements were completed when Lantier was seized with one of the
homicidal frenzies to which he was subject, and it was Severine herself
who fell under his knife instead of their intended victim. La Bete
Humaine.

AUGUSTE, keeper of an eating-house known as _Le Moulin d’Argent_ on
Boulevard de la Chapelle. The wedding party of Coupeau and Gervaise was
given there. L’Assommoir.

AUGUSTE, a waiter at the Cafe des Varietes. Nana.

AUGUSTE, a young swine-herd at La Borderie. He assisted Soulas, the old
shepherd, to look after the sheep. La Terre.

AUGUSTINE, a young girl who assisted Gervaise Coupeau in her laundry.
She was squint-eyed and mischievous, and was always making trouble with
the other employees. As she was the least qualified and therefore the
worst-paid assistant in the laundry, she was kept on after decreasing
business caused the others to leave. L’Assommoir.

AUGUSTINE, an artificial-flower maker who was employed by Madame
Titreville. L’Assommoir.

AURELIE (MADEMOISELLE), an elderly friend of Madame Deberle, at whose
house she was a frequent visitor. She was in straitened circumstances.
Une Page d’Amour.

AURELIE (MADAME). See Madame Aurelie Lhomme. Au Bonheur des Dames.

AURIGNY (LAURE D’), a celebrated _demi-mondaine_ of the Second Empire.
At a sale of her effects, Aristide Saccard bought a diamond necklace and
aigrette for his second wife. La Curee.




B

BABET, one of the peasant girls of Les Artaud, who came to decorate the
church for the festival of the Virgin. She was a hunchback. La Faute de
l’Abbe Mouret.

BACHELARD (PERE), brother of Narcisse Bachelard and uncle of Madame
Josserand. He conducted for forty years a boarding-school known as the
Institution-Bachelard. Pot-Bouille.

BACHELARD (ELEONORE). See Madame Josserand. Pot-Bouille.

BACHELARD (NARCISSE), a commission agent, whose keen business instincts
were not blunted by his intemperate habits. He was a brother of Madame
Josserand, and had at one time promised to give a dowry to her daughter
Berthe; this promise he was unwilling to implement, and when spoken to
on the subject usually feigned intoxication; eventually he suggested
the somewhat dishonest plan by which Berthe’s intended husband was
hoodwinked into the belief that the dowry would be duly forthcoming. His
protegee, Fifi, having compromised herself with Gueulin, his nephew,
he insisted on their marriage, and presented the girl with a dowry.
Pot-Bouille.

BADEUIL (CHARLES), married Laure Fouan, and went to live at Chartres. He
tried commerce without much success, and, haunted by a desire for rapid
fortune, acquired a _maison publique_ which had fallen into bad repute
through mismanagement. Thanks to the firm control of Badeuil, and the
extraordinary activity of his wife, the establishment prospered, and in
less than twenty-five years the couple had saved three hundred thousand
francs. They were then able to realize the dream of their life, and
to retire to the country, where they purchased a property named
Roseblanche, near Madame Badeuil’s native place. M. Badeuil was a
handsome man, sixty-five years of age, with a solemn face, and the air
of a retired magistrate. He was respected by his neighbours, and held
the strictest views on morality. The old couple lived in complete
happiness, their only worry being that Vaucogne, who had married their
daughter Estelle and taken over the property in Chartres, was not
managing it properly. La Terre.

BADEUIL (MADAME LAURE), wife of the preceding, was the youngest daughter
of Joseph Casimir Fouan. She was the sister of La Grande, of Pere Fouan,
and of Michel Fouan, known as Mouche. When her father’s estate was
divided, she got no land, but received an indemnity in money instead.
After she and her husband acquired the establishment in Chartres, she
assisted ably in its management. At the time of their retirement to
the country, she was a woman of sixty-two years of age, of respectable
appearance and an air of religious seclusion. She set a good example by
going regularly to Mass, and paid great attention to the education of
her granddaughter, Elodie, whom she endeavoured to bring up in entire
ignorance of life. She had, however, still a passion for active life,
and in busy seasons frequently returned to Chartres to assist her
daughter, who had taken over the establishment there. Madame Badeuil
received the greatest surprise of her life when she found that her
granddaughter whom she had brought up in the innocence of ignorance, was
quite aware of the source of the family fortune, and was ready to take
up the work begun by her grandparents. La Terre.

BADEUIL (ESTELLE), daughter of the preceding, was educated by the
Sisters of the Visitation at Chateaudun, and at eighteen was married to
Hector Vaucogne, by whom she had one daughter, Elodie. She was thirty
years of age before she had any suspicion of the calling of her parents,
and at that time she took over the management of their establishment.
She proved a capable manager, and in spite of the laziness of her
husband, was able to keep up the reputation of the house, though in a
few years she killed herself with hard work. La Terre.

BADINGUET, a popular nickname for Napoleon III. It was the name of the
workman whose clothes he wore when he escaped from the fortress of Ham.
Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BAILLEHACHE, a notary at Cloyes, was born in 1805, and succeeded to
several generations of lawyers. He had a large business amongst the
peasantry, in whose quarrels he mediated with professional calmness. He
arranged the division of Fouan’s property between the various members of
the old man’s family. La Terre.

BAILLEHACHE (MADEMOISELLE), eldest sister of the preceding, was born in
1799. She was plain-looking, but good-natured, and at thirty-two married
Alexandre Hourdequin, to whom she brought a considerable dowry. She had
two children, a son and a daughter, and died in 1855. La Terre.

BALBI (CLORINDE), daughter of Comtesse Balbi, was a lady of great
beauty, but of eccentric habits. Her position in society being
precarious, she determined to establish it by a good marriage, and used
every endeavour to induce Eugene Rougon to make her his wife. Having
become fascinated by her beauty and charm, he made overtures which she
resisted in the belief that he would be the more certain to marry her.
He practically decided to do so, but reflection convinced him that
marriage with Clorinde Balbi would only injure his prospects of
political success. He suggested to her that she should marry his friend
Delestang, who was a man of wealth and position, and had expressed
admiration for her. Though naturally piqued at such a suggestion coming
from Rougon, she consented, and soon after was married. She remained on
outwardly friendly terms with Rougon, who was still infatuated by her,
but was determined to make him regret the slight he had put upon her.
After Rougon’s return to office, Delestang, her husband, was, at her
request, appointed Minister of Commerce and Agriculture. She had not,
however, forgiven Rougon, and privately took a leading part in the
agitation against his administration. Having become on somewhat
equivocal terms with the Emperor, she was able to secure the acceptance
of Rougon’s second resignation, and the office of Minister of the
Interior for her husband. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BALBI (COMTESSE LENORA), an Italian lady who lived in Paris with her
daughter Clorinde. Little was known of her past, and it was generally
believed that she was in the employment of the Sardinian Government.
After her daughter’s marriage to Delestang, she left Paris for some
time, the eccentricity of her habits having begun to excite remark. M.
De Plouguern, who had originally met her in Italy, remained her lover
for thirty years. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BALTHAZER, the old horse driven by Madame Francois between Nanterre and
Paris. Le Ventre de Paris.

BAMBOUSSE, mayor of the commune of Les Artaud, was more prosperous than
the others of his class, as he owned several fields of corn, olives,
and vines. His daughter Rosalie having become compromised with Fortune
Brichet, Abbe Mouret strongly urged him to consent to a marriage between
them, but this he at first refused, as he would lose the services of his
daughter, and Fortune was too poor to make him any return. He ultimately
consented, and the marriage was solemnized by Abbe Mouret. La Faute de
l’Abbe Mouret.

BAMBOUSSE (CATHERINE), younger daughter of the preceding, was always in
disgrace with Brother Archangias on account of her idle habits and her
friendship for Vincent Brichet. La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret.

BAMBOUSSE (ROSALIE), elder daughter of the preceding. As she had become
compromised by Fortune Brichet, Abbe Mouret urged her father to consent
to their marriage, but this he refused to do, though he ultimately
consented and the wedding took place. Her child died, and was buried on
the same day as Albine. La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret.

BAPTISTE, Aristide Saccard’s footman. La Curee.

BAPTISTIN, a clerk in the employment of Larsonneau, who made him play
the part of principal in a scheme whereby he intended to blackmail
Aristide Saccard. La Curee.

BAQUET (LA MERE), a wine dealer who sold the wines of Orleans at a cheap
rate. L’Assommoir.

BARILLOT, “call-boy” at the Theatre des Varietes, where he had been for
thirty years. He was a little, sallow man, with a shrill voice. Nana.

BASTIAN, a drummer in the 106th regiment of the line, commanded by
Colonel de Vineuil. During the retreat on Sedan, after the battle was
over, he had the misfortune to be struck by a stray bullet. He was
removed to an ambulance at the house of M. Delaherche, where he died
during the division of treasure of the Seventh Army Corps. The gold
coins which the sergeant put into his dying hands rolled on to the
ground, and were picked up by a wounded companion. La Debacle.

BATAILLE, an old white horse, which had been for six years in the
coal-pit at Voreux. It was killed by the flooding of the mine. Germinal.

BAUDEQUIN, a draughtsman who lived on the first floor of the house in
which lived the Coupeaus and the Lorilleux. He was a confirmed sponger
who was in debt all round, but spent his time in smoking and talking
with his friends. L’Assommoir.

BAUDEQUIN, the proprietor of a cafe in the Boulevard des Batignolles,
which was the resort on Sunday evenings during many years of Claude
Lantier, Pierre Sandoz, Dubuche, Mahoudeau, and their friends, a band
of youths devoted to art and determined to conquer Paris. Gradually,
however, the little company became submerged by a flood of newcomers,
and in time the meetings ceased. The cafe changed hands three times, and
when, after some years, Claude and Sandoz chanced to return, they found
everything completely altered. L’Oeuvre.

BAUDU (M.), proprietor of a drapery shop opposite “The Ladies’
Paradise.” The business had been in existence for many years and M.
Baudu conducted it on such old-fashioned lines that in competition
with Mouret’s great establishment it was rapidly disappearing. He had
acquired it from his father-in-law, and in turn he proposed to hand it
to Colomban, his shopman, who was engaged to be married to Genevieve,
his only daughter. Baudu postponed the marriage, however, from time to
time, as he did not wish to hand over the business in a worse state
than that in which he himself got it. Meanwhile Colomban had become
infatuated with Clara Prunaire, who ultimately induced him to run off.
Genevieve, who was in bad health, died soon afterwards, and before long
her mother died also. The business had gone from bad to worse, and, in
the end, Baudu lost everything, only avoiding bankruptcy by a complete
surrender. Like many of his neighbours, he was crushed out of existence
by Octave Mouret’s triumphant success. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BAUDU (MADAME ELIZABETH), wife of the preceding, was the daughter of a
draper whose business she brought to her husband. Her health was broken
down by worry, and by anxiety regarding her daughter Genevieve, whose
death she did not long survive. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BAUDU (CAPTAIN), son of Baudu, the draper. He went to Mexico. Au Bonheur
des Dames.

BAUDU (DENISE) was the daughter of a dyer at Valognes. The death of her
father left her with two young brothers dependent on her, and, the elder
having got a situation in Paris, she determined to accompany him. M.
Baudu, her uncle, had formerly promised assistance, but when Denise
arrived she found that his business was rapidly being ruined by
the steady extension of “The Ladies’ Paradise,” an enormous drapery
establishment belonging to Octave Mouret. In these circumstances she
could not be dependent on her uncle, and, to his annoyance, she applied
for and got a situation in this rival business. On account of petty
jealousies, her life there was not happy, and, having incurred the
enmity of Jouve, one of the inspectors, she was dismissed on a false
accusation. A time of great hardship followed, only lightened by the
kindness of old Bourras, in whose house she had rented a room for
herself and her young brother Pepe. She next got a situation with
Robineau, who had bought a silk merchant’s business and she remained
there for some time. While Denise was at “The Ladies’ Paradise” she had
attracted the attention of Octave Mouret, and, chancing to meet her one
day, he asked her to return. As she found that Robineau’s business was
not prospering, she consented, and from that time her position in “The
Ladies’ Paradise” was assured. Mouret had fallen in love with her, and
she with him, but she had sufficient strength of mind to refuse his
proposals. Ultimately he asked her to marry him, and to this she agreed.
Au Bonheur des Dames.

Madame Denise Mouret had two children, the elder being a girl and the
younger a boy. These resembled their mother, and grew magnificently. Le
Docteur Pascal.

BAUDU (GENEVIEVE), daughter of Baudu, the draper. She was engaged for a
number of years to Colomban, her father’s shopman, but in consequence of
the state of trade the marriage was put off from time to time. Genevieve
ultimately learned that her fiance had become infatuated with Clara
Prunaire, one of the shop-girls in “The Ladies’ Paradise.” Her health,
never good, suffered greatly, and soon after Colomban’s disappearance
she died. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BAUDU (JACQUELINE). See Blanche de Sivry.

BAUDU (JEAN), the elder brother of Denise. He worked for a time with
a cabinet-maker in Valognes, but earned nothing, though he learned to
carve so well that a gentleman promised to find a place for him with an
ivory-carver in Paris. He accepted the offer, and came to the city with
his sister and young brother. At first he earned only his board and
lodging, and, as he was good-looking and a favourite with women, he made
heavy inroads on his sister’s small purse. Ultimately, when he did get a
wage, he took the earliest opportunity of getting married, inducing his
sister, as usual, to give him what little money she had been able to
save. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BAUDU (PEPE), the youngest brother of Denise. He was a mere child when
the family came to Paris, and it was only by the greatest self-sacrifice
that Denise was able to support him. When she went to “The Ladies’
Paradise” he was boarded with Madame Gras, and after his sister’s
dismissal he went with her to Bourras, who showed great kindness to both
of them. After Denise returned to “The Ladies’ Paradise,” Pepe again
went to live with Madame Gras for a time. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BAUDU (THERESE), wife of Jean Baudu. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BAUGE, who was the younger son of a grocer at Dunkerque, came to Paris
and got a situation in the linen department of the “Bon Marche,” where
he was able to make a fairly good income. He became the lover of Pauline
Cugnot, whom he afterwards married, and, in order to be near her, left
the “Bon Marche” and took an appointment in “The Ladies’ Paradise.” Au
Bonheur des Dames.

BAUGE (MADAME), wife of the preceding. See Pauline Cugnot. Au Bonheur
des Dames.

BAVOUX, a salesman in Octave Mouret’s shop. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BAZOUGE, an undertaker’s assistant who lived in an attic of the same
tenement-house as the Coupeaus and the Lorilleux. He was generally drunk
and made ribald jests about his dismal calling. It was he who buried
Gervaise Coupeau after she was found dead in an attic adjoining his own.
L’Assommoir.

BEAUCHAMP (FLORE), an artist’s model, who lived in Rue de Laval. She was
fresh in colouring, but too thin. L’Oeuvre.

BEAUDOIN, a friend of the Hamelins whom they had known at Beyrout, where
he lived. He promised to marry Caroline Hamelin after the death of her
husband, but instead of waiting for that event he obtained the hand of a
young and rich girl, the daughter of an English Consul. L’Argent.

BEAUDOIN, Captain of the 106th regiment of the line, commanded by
Colonel de Vineuil. He was educated at Saint-Cyr, and having a fine
tenor voice and good manners, along with Bonapartist principles, he was
early marked for advancement. With his men he was unpopular, and, not
caring for his profession, he did not readily adapt himself to the
necessities of war. In the march to the Meuse he lost his baggage, and
arrived at Sedan in a pitiable condition, his uniform soiled, his face
and hands dirty. In former days at Charleville he had been on intimate
terms with Gilberte Maginot, whom he now found at Sedan, married to
Jules Delaherche. Their former relations were renewed for the moment,
and next day Beaudoin rejoined his company, astonishing every one by
the neatness of his attire. At the attack on the Calvary d’Illy he
was severely wounded, and having been removed to the ambulance at
Delaherche’s house, his arm was amputated; but the hemorrhage had been
too great, and he did not survive. La Debacle.

BEAU-FRANCOIS (LE), chief of a band of brigands, whose terrible exploits
were still recounted at La Beauce. La Terre.

BEAURIVAGE (DUC DE), a character in _La Petite Duchesse_, a piece staged
by Fauchery at the Theatre des Varietes. The part was taken by Bosc.
Nana.

BEAUVILLIERS (COMTE CHARLES DE), a man of dissipated habits, who
succeeded to the immense fortune of the Beauvilliers, which he
completely squandered in a few years. He was killed in an accident of
the chase, some said by the vengeance of a keeper. They found later a
document signed by him in 1854 undertaking to pay ten thousand francs to
a girl named Leonie Cron. L’Argent.

BEAUVILLIERS (COMTESSE DE), an old lady who lived with her daughter
Alice in a house in the Rue Saint-Lazare, adjoining the Orviedo mansion.
The family had at one time possessed large estates, but these had all
gone, and the Comtesse and her daughter had barely sufficient to live
upon, though they endeavoured to keep up before their neighbours as
much as possible of their ancient state. Having made the acquaintance
of Saccard, the Comtesse invested a small sum in the Universal Bank,
increasing it from time to time until her whole means were involved. By
the failure of the bank she was entirely ruined, and, to complete the
catastrophe, Busch, who had become possessor of some papers compromising
the honour of her dead husband, took the opportunity of blackmailing
her. When she had handed over her jewels to him, she was left penniless.
L’Argent.

BEAUVILLIERS (ALICE), daughter of Comtesse de Beauvilliers. The
extravagance of her father had dissipated the family estates, and she
and her mother were left with barely sufficient to keep up appearances.
She was plain-looking, and had reached the age of twenty-five years
without any offers of marriage. It was, however, in the hope of
providing a suitable dowry for her, that the Comtesse invested her
money in the Universal Bank, with disastrous results. Alice, who had few
amusements, interested herself in charities, and frequently visited the
institutions founded by Princess d’Orviedo. On a visit to _L’Oeuvre du
Travail_ she was attacked and robbed of a small sum by Victor Saccard,
who was at that time an inmate. Her injuries were severe, and a serious
illness followed. The failure of the Universal Bank left her and her
mother in poverty. L’Argent.

BEAUVILLIERS (FERDINANDE DE), son of Comte Beauvilliers. He was for
a time the cause of anxiety to his mother on account of some youthful
extravagances, but early settled down, and having received a commission
in the Papal troops, served with distinction. He was delicate, however,
and died of fever in Rome. L’Argent.

BECKER, a jeweller in Paris. He supplied a set of sapphires for the
mistress of Comte de Muffat. Nana.

BECOT, a grocer in Rue Montorgueil. Having become a widower, he took
to dissolute courses, and his shop was gradually swallowed up, with its
dried vegetables, jars, and drawers of sweetstuff. Eventually the place
was sold up and Becot died of apoplexy soon afterwards. L’Oeuvre.

BECOT (IRMA), daughter of the preceding. After her father’s death she
went to live with an aunt, but soon afterwards ran off with a young
fellow who lived across the street. She did not remain long with him,
but, having a passion for artists, experienced in turn a caprice for
Fagerolles, Gagniere, and many others. A young and foolish Marquis
furnished a flat for her, and later she occupied a house in Rue de
Moscou, the rent of which was twenty thousand francs. In the end she
realized her dream of a princely house in the Avenue de Villiers;
the site was bought by one lover, the house built by another, and the
furniture provided by a third. But fortune did not alter her tastes;
behind the backs of her serious lovers she still retained her fancy
for Art, in the person of Henri Fagerolles, one of her early admirers.
L’Oeuvre.

BEC-SALE, alias BOIT-SANS-SOIF, a rivet-maker employed in the same
factory as Goujet. He drank enormous quantities of brandy, and was a
boon companion of Coupeau. On the occasion of Gervaise Coupeau’s first
visit to the factory to see her son Etienne, Bec-Sale entered into a
contest of strength with Goujet in which he was beaten. L’Assommoir.

BECU, gamekeeper and bell-ringer at Rognes, was a man of fifty years of
age who had at one time been in the army. He was an intense Bonapartist,
and pretended that he had met the Emperor. Himself a confirmed
drunkard, he was on friendly terms with Hyacinthe Fouan, whose poaching
expeditions he overlooked. La Terre.

BECU (LA), wife of the preceding, was on intimate terms with Hyacinthe
Fouan. Her chief amusement was to throw Celine Macqueron and Flore
Lengaigne against one another under the pretext of reconciling them.
Though she was not devout, she made ardent intercessions to Heaven to
reserve for her son a lucky number in the drawing for the conscription,
but, after the event, turned her anger against the Deity because her
prayers had not been answered. La Terre.

BECU (DELPHIN), son of the preceding, was a strong lad who, on leaving
school, went to work as a farm labourer. He was much averse to leaving
home, and, having drawn an unlucky number for the conscription, he
chopped off with a cleaver the first finger of his right hand, in order
that he might be unfit for service. La Terre.

BECU (MICHEL), uncle of Delphin. He died at Orleans. La Terre.

BEDORE, a hosier in Rue Gaillon, whose business was ruined by the
extension of “The Ladies’ Paradise.” Au Bonheur des Dames.

BEJUIN (LEON), a Member of the Corps Legislatif, and a supporter of
Eugene Rougon. He was proprietor of the Saint-Florent Cut-Glass Works.
“A very worthy fellow, votes straight, never speaks, is very patient and
waits contentedly till you think of him, but he is always on the spot
to take care that you don’t forget him.” He received the Cross of the
Legion of Honour after Rougon’s return to office, and an appointment as
Inspector. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BEJUIN (MADAME), wife of the preceding. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BELLOMBRE, a neighbour of Doctor Pascal at La Souleiade. He was a
retired Professor, sixty-six years of age, who lived in his little house
with no other company than his gardener, a man as old and crabbed as
himself. His interests were solely centred in himself, and his egotism
was a constant subject of irritation with Doctor Pascal. Le Docteur
Pascal.

BELLOQUE (LE PERE), the first art-master of Claude Lantier. A retired
infantry captain, with one arm, he had for a quarter of a century
taught drawing to the youths of Plassans, in one of the galleries of the
museum. L’Oeuvre.

BENARD, one of the tenants of the house in which Madame Coupeau carried
on her laundry business. Benard and his wife were of intemperate
habits, and few days passed without their fighting with one another.
L’Assommoir.

BERAUD DU CHATEL (M.) was the last representative of an old middle-class
family. A staunch Republican, he had grown old in the Magistracy, which
he resigned at the time of the _Coup d’Etat_. Since then he lived in
retirement in his house on the Ile Saint-Louis with his sister Madame
Aubertot and his young daughter Christine. His elder daughter Renee,
who was educated at a convent, was married to Aristide Saccard, and the
circumstances which led to her marriage came as a severe blow to the
stern old man. Though on nominally friendly terms with his daughter
after her marriage, he never visited her, but when she died he paid her
debts. La Curee.

BERAUD DU CHATEL (CHRISTINE), the second daughter of M. Beraud du
Chatel, and sister of Madame Renee Saccard. La Curee.

BERAUD DU CHATEL (RENEE). See Madame Renee Rougon, alias Saccard.

BERGASSE, a second-hand dealer in Plassans. He supplied the old
furniture bought by Madame Faujas. La Conquete de Plassans.

BERGERET (MADAME), concierge of the house at Plassy occupied by Helene
Grandjean. Une Page d’Amour.

BERLINGOT, a horse which belonged to M. Mechain and gained the Prix
d’Ispahan. Nana.

BERLOQUE, alias CHICOT, a miner who was killed by a landslip in the pit
at Voreux. Germinal.

BERNHEIM (LES FRERES), proprietors of the glass-works of Saint-Joseph
where Josserand was employed as cashier. Pot-Bouille.

BERTHIER (MADAME), was a friend of Madame Deberle, and took part in the
amateur theatricals arranged by that lady. Une Page d’Amour.

BERTHIER, authorized clerk to Mazaud, the stockbroker. L’Argent.

BERTHOU, the celebrated painter of _Nero in the Arena_. Claude Lantier
took lessons from him for six months, but their ideas were not in
sympathy, and repeatedly the master told Claude that he would never do
anything good. L’Oeuvre.

BERTRAND, a large dog which belonged to Sandoz. It barked furiously
at visitors, until it recognized a friend of its master, whom it would
greet with joyous welcome. L’Oeuvre.

BESNUS (CLARISSE), an actress at the Theatre des Varietes, where she
played the part of Iris in the _Blonde Venus_, and Geraldine in the
_Petite Duchesse_. She was mistress of Hector de la Faloise for a time.
Nana.

BESSIERE, station-master at Barentin. He saw the Roubauds in the Havre
express on the evening of the murder of President Grandmorin, and his
evidence confirmed their alibi. La Bete Humaine.

BEULIN-D’ORCHERE (M.) was a member of a legal family. After being public
prosecutor at Orleans and advocate-general at Rouen, he came to Paris as
counsellor at the Appeal Court, of which he afterwards became president.
His sister Veronique married Eugene Rougon. He was appointed first
president of the Court of Paris after Rougon’s return to office. Son
Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BEULIN-D’ORCHERE (VERONIQUE), a quiet, subdued woman about thirty-six
years of age, who lived with her brother and seldom went out except to
attend Low Mass at Saint-Sulpice. She married Eugene Rougon, to whom she
brought a considerable fortune. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BIBI-LA-GRILLADE, the sobriquet of one of Coupeau’s fellow-workmen,
with whom he was on intimate terms. He was one of the party at Coupeau’s
wedding with Gervaise Macquart. L’Assommoir.

BIJARD, a drunken locksmith, who killed his wife by systematic
ill-usage. On the rare occasions when he worked, he always had a
bottle of alcohol beside him, from which he took large draughts every
half-hour. After the death of his wife, he transferred his cruelty to
his little daughter Lalie, who did not long survive. L’Assommoir.

BIJARD (MADAME) lived with her husband and their children in the same
tenement as the Coupeaus and Lorilleux. She was a hard-working woman who
did washing for Gervaise Coupeau’s laundry, but her husband, a drunken
brute, abused her to such an extent that she ultimately died of injuries
received at his hands, or, more accurately, feet. The poor woman, in
order to save her husband from the scaffold, said before she died that
she had hurt herself by falling on the edge of a tub. L’Assommoir.

BIJARD (LALIE), daughter of the preceding, a child of eight when her
mother died, had acted as the little mother of the family. “Without a
word said, quite of her own accord, she took the dead woman’s place, to
such an extent that her foolish brute of a father, to make the likeness
complete, battered about the daughter now as he had battered the mother
before. When he came in drunk, he felt the need of a woman to attack. He
did not even notice what a tiny little thing Lalie was; he hit her as he
would have hit a grown woman. He beat her shamelessly, he kicked her for
a yes or no; and she took it all with a resigned look in her beautiful
eyes, without a murmur. Then when her father was tired of kicking her
from corner to corner of the room, she waited until she had the strength
to pick herself up, and then went back to her work. It was part of her
daily task to be beaten.” As the result of this infamous treatment
the child died, but again the man unfortunately escaped punishment.
L’Assommoir.

BIJARD (HENRIETTE), second daughter of Bijard. She was five years old at
the time of her mother’s death. L’Assommoir.

BIJARD (JULES), third child of Bijard. When his mother died he was three
years old. L’Assommoir.

BIJOU, the pet dog of Nana. He excited the jealousy of Comte de Muffat.
Nana.

BILLECOQ (HERMINIE), a protegee of Madame Correur, who induced Eugene
Rougon to provide a dowry, in order that she might marry an officer who
had compromised her. The officer did not, however, fulfill his promise,
but went off with the dowry, of which he had obtained possession. Son
Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BLACHET, a deputy. He desired leave of absence. Son Excellence Eugene
Rougon.

BLAISOT, a banker at Paris. L’Argent.

BLANCHETTE, a cow which belonged to Lise and Francoise Fouan. La Terre.

BLERIOT (M. DE), prefect of the department in which Plassans is
situated. He accompanied Colonel Masson and the troops which crushed the
Republican rising in 1851. La Fortune des Rougon.

BLEUZE, a rope-walk at Montsou which was ruined by the miners’ strike.
Germinal.

BLOND (MARIA), a young girl of fifteen who had grown up on the pavements
of Paris. She frequented the restaurant kept by Laure Piedefer. Nana.

BOCHE (M.) the concierge of the large tenement-house in which resided
the Coupeaus, Lorilleux, and others. He and his wife were friendly with
the various tenants in turn, sometimes siding with one and sometimes
with another in the quarrels which so frequently arose. In the presence
of the landlord, of whom they were afraid, they assumed an air of great
importance, and affected not to know the tenants. They were present at
Gervaise Coupeau’s birthday party. L’Assommoir.

BOCHE (MADAME), wife of the preceding. L’Assommoir.

Nana informed Satin that Madame Boche is dead. Nana.

BOCHE (PAULINE), daughter of the preceding, was a girl of about the same
age as Nana Coupeau, whose companion she was in all kinds of mischief.
L’Assommoir.

BOCQUET (MADAME), mother of Clarisse. Pot-Bouille.

BOCQUET (CLARISSE), a woman on whom Duveyrier squandered large sums of
money. She ultimately gained such complete influence over him, and made
him so unhappy, that he attempted to commit suicide. Pot-Bouille.

BODIN (DOCTOR) was the regular medical attendant of Madame Helene
Grandjean and her daughter Jeanne. A sudden illness of Jeanne made it
necessary to call in Doctor Deberle, who subsequently met the older man
in consultation from time to time. Une Page d’Amour.

BOHAIN (MARQUIS DE), an elderly nobleman whose presence and manners were
of a kind to adorn a board of directors, and whose illustrious name was
of value on a prospectus. He was in consequence always in demand by new
companies. Since he began living by speculation, he and his wife had
been legally separated, so far as estate went, and he lived with her
only as a lodger, with nothing of his own except his clothes. “On two
occasions already he had refused to pay up what he owed; he pocketed as
long as he won, but as soon as he lost he did not pay.” At the request
of Saccard, the Marquis became a director of the Universal Bank. When
the great gamble in the shares of the bank began, the Marquis followed
his usual plan; having played through Mazaud for a rise, he refused to
pay his losses, though he had gained two million francs through Jacoby,
through whom he had played for a fall. L’Argent.

BONGRAND, a great artist, painter of the _Village Wedding_. He was a
stout man, forty-five years old, with an expressive face and long grey
hair; recently he had become a member of the Institute and an officer
of the Legion of Honour. The grandson of a farmer in the Beauce country,
the son of a man risen to the middle classes, with peasant blood in his
veins, owing his culture to a mother of very artistic tastes, he was
rich, had no need to sell his pictures, and retained many tastes and
opinions of Bohemian life. His masterpiece, the _Village Wedding_, had
brought about a revolution in art only parallel with Courbet, and he
was acknowledged as Master by all the artists of the young school. The
picture remained, however, his greatest work, though he objected to have
it so designated, in the fear that it might be thought his powers were
failing. A later picture called the _Village Funeral_ was intended to
surpass it, but failed to arrest attention, and was indeed only an echo
of the earlier work. He was one of the few mourners at the funeral of
Claude Lantier. L’Oeuvre.

BONHOMME, the horse which for a quarter of a century had carried Doctor
Pascal on his visits to his patients. Latterly the old Bonhomme became
blind, and was no longer being driven, but being much loved by his
master, was tenderly cared for until his death. Le Docteur Pascal.

BONNAUD, formerly head of the counting-house of a railway company.
Pot-Bouille.

BONNEHON (MADAME), sister of President Grandmorin. She was married to a
wealthy manufacturer, who left her a widow at the age of thirty. In the
mansion-house of Doinville, which belonged to her, she led a pleasant
life, not without occasional affairs of the heart, but so correct in
every way that she remained a leader of society in Rouen. She was a
handsome woman, and in spite of her fifty years still retained much
of her former charm. Among her friends she included Chaumette and
Desbazeilles, both officials of the court at Rouen. Madame Bonnehon
had a good opinion of the Roubauds, and did not approve of the position
taken up by her niece Berthe regarding the legacy left to them by
President Grandmorin. For the honour of her family she desired that the
inquiry as to the murder of the President should not be continued. La
Bete Humaine.

BONNEMORT, the sobriquet of Vincent Maheu. His family had been miners
for generations, and he himself had worked in the pit since he was eight
years old. After forty-five years of work underground he was given a
post as fireman, and for five years worked each night at the Voreux pit
for a wage of forty sous. He suffered greatly from rheumatism, which
eventually turned into a form of dropsy, while his mind became affected
to some extent by the sufferings occasioned by the great strike which
took place at Voreux and other neighbouring pits. After the terrible
scenes at Montsou, he could only sit in his chair before the fireless
grate, with fixed and unseeing eyes, but in a sudden accession of
madness he found strength to strangle Cecile Gregoire, who chanced to be
left alone with him for a few moments. Germinal.

BONNET. See De Mareuil.

BORDENAVE, manager of the Theatre des Varietes. He was a coarse man,
with cynical views as to the stage, and cared nothing as to the means by
which a popular success might be secured. Though he was well aware that
Nana could neither sing nor act, he saw that her beauty was of a type
likely to attract the Parisian public, and accordingly gave her the
chief part in the _Blonde Venus_. It was he who showed H.R.H. The Prince
of Scots the honours of “behind the scenes.” Nana.

BORGNE-DE-JOUY, one of the band of brigands which was led by
Beau-Francois. He betrayed his companions. La Terre.

BOSC, an old actor at the Theatre des Varietes, where he played the
part of Jupiter in the _Blonde Venus_, and the Duc de Beaurivage in
the _Petite Duchesse_. He had a good-natured but somewhat drunken
appearance. He treated women with disdain, and the idea that any man
should trouble himself about them raised in him the only indignation of
which he was capable. Nana.

BOUCHARD (M.), head-clerk in the office of the Minister of Interior.
His house was the first thrown open to Eugene Rougon on his arrival
in Paris. Later on, Bouchard inherited his father’s property, and at
fifty-four years of age married Adele Desvignes. He was appointed head
of a department after Rougon’s return to office. Son Excellence Eugene
Rougon.

BOUCHARD (MADAME), wife of the preceding, was the daughter of a
respectable family at Rambouillet. M. Bouchard “had been anxious to
marry a young lady from the provinces, because he made a point of having
a steady wife. However, the fair and adorable little Adele, with her
innocent blue eyes, had in less than four years proved to be a great
deal more than a mere flirt.” Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BOULAND(MADAME), the nurse who attended Madame Lazare Chanteau. La Joie
de Vivre.

BOUM, a horse which belonged to M. Gasc and ran in the Grand Prix de
Paris. Nana.

BOURDELAIS, an upper clerk in the office of the Minister of Finance. Au
Bonheur des Dames.

BOURDELAIS (MADAME) was a short, fair woman of thirty, with a delicate
nose and sparkling eyes, who had married a chief clerk in the Treasury.
She was an old schoolfellow of Madame Desforges. Belonging to a good
middle-class family, she managed her household and three children with
an excellent knowledge of practical life. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BOURDEU (M.), formerly Prefect of the Drome, but turned out of office
by the Revolution of 1848. Politically he was a Legitimist, and he was
a friend of M. Rastoil, at whose house his party was in the habit of
meeting. At one time he was suggested as a likely candidate for the
representation of Plassans, but he retired after Delangre had been
brought forward through the machinations of Abbe Faujas. Madame de
Condamin promised him, however, that through her influence he would be
rewarded with a prefecture. La Conquete de Plassans.

BOURDONCLE, the son of a poor farmer near Limoges, started at “The
Ladies’ Paradise” at the same time as Octave Mouret. He was very active
and intelligent, but he lacked that touch of genius possessed by his
companion, before whom he had bowed from the first. Acting on Mouret’s
advice, he put all his savings into the business, and, after passing
through the various grades, he became in time one of the six persons who
assisted Mouret to govern “The Ladies’ Paradise,” exercising a general
control of the whole staff. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BOURGAIN-DESFEUILLES (GENERAL). During the war of 1870 he was at the
head of a brigade of infantry, of which the 106th regiment of the
line, commanded by Colonel de Vineuil, formed part. Like so many other
officers he proved himself incompetent, and after the capitulation he,
alone among the generals, took advantage of the pretext of illness to
sign an undertaking to the Germans not to take any further part in the
war. La Debacle.

BOURGUIGNON, a master zinc-worker from whom Coupeau got employment.
L’Assommoir.

BOUROCHE (SURGEON-MAJOR), of the 106th regiment of the line, commanded
by Colonel Vineuil. During the battle of Sedan he installed an
ambulance in a factory belonging to Jules Delaherche, where he was soon
overwhelmed with work. With untiring energy he performed one operation
after another until the place became like a slaughter-house. Behind
a clump of trees were thrown the bodies of the dead, and the limbs
amputated from the living. Depressed for a moment by the vastness of his
task, Bouroche nearly lost heart, exclaiming, “What is the use?” but
his instincts of discipline recalled him to work, and he continued to
operate even after the supply of chloroform was exhausted. During
the insurrection at Paris he served with the army of Versailles, but
consented to treat one of his old soldiers, Maurice Levasseur, who had
been mortally wounded in the ranks of the Commune. La Debacle.

BOURRAS, an old man who sold umbrellas and walking-sticks in a
tumble-down house which adjoined “The Ladies’ Paradise.” His business
was ruined by the growth of that concern, and he expressed bitter hatred
towards Octave Mouret, its proprietor. Denise Baudu rented a room from
him after her dismissal from “The Ladies’ Paradise,” and he showed much
kindness to her and Pepe, her young brother. He refused several offers
by Mouret, who wished to purchase his lease in order to extend his
own shop, and ultimately, having become bankrupt, was forced to leave
without a penny. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BOURRETTE (ABBE), one of the clergy of the church of Saint-Saturnin at
Plassans. He did duty as vicar during the illness of Abbe Compan,
and had been led to expect the reversion of the appointment. Pressure
brought to bear on Bishop Rousselot led to the selection of Abbe Faujas,
and Bourrette was put off with vague promises for the future. He was
a simple-minded, amiable man, who accepted his disappointment without
murmuring, and continued on friendly terms with Faujas. La Conquete de
Plassans.

BOUTAREL, a doctor who attended Nana. He was a handsome man, still
young, who had a large practice in the demi-monde. Always gay and
laughing, he was popular with his patients, but took care not to
compromise himself with any of them. Nana.

BOUTAREL (MADAME), a lady who lived in the country and economized for
months at a time, only coming to Paris occasionally. When she came, she
made straight for “The Ladies’ Paradise” and spent all her savings in an
afternoon. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BOUTELOUP (LOUIS), a workman at the Voreux pit. He lodged with Madame
Levaque, whose lover he became. Germinal.

BOUTEROUE (HILARION), second child of Vincent Bouteroue, and grandson of
Marianne Fouan (La Grande). The latter had never forgiven the marriage
of her daughter, and would do nothing to assist the two children after
the death of their parents. Hilarion, who was of weak intellect, was
looked after from childhood by his sister Palmyre, who wore herself out
in his service. After Palmyre’s death his grandmother gave him shelter,
but took advantage of his great strength by employing him at work of the
hardest kind. Ultimately Hilarion committed a serious assault on the
old woman, and in defending herself she struck him on the head with a
bill-hook, inflicting a wound from which he died. La Terre.

BOUTEROUE (PALMYRE), sister of the preceding, worked like a slave to
support her brother, and died completely worn out by toil and hardship
at the age of thirty-five. La Terre.

BOUTEROUE (VINCENT), a poor peasant, whom the daughter of the Pechards
insisted on marrying despite the opposition of her mother. They both
died of want, leaving two children, Palmyre and Hilarion. La Terre.

BOUTEROUE (MADAME VINCENT), see Mademoiselle Pechard.

BOUTHEMENT PERE, a shopkeeper at Montpellier, who sent his son to Paris
to learn business. He was disgusted to find that the simple salesman in
Paris could earn three times as much as he himself could make, and he
was stupefied on seeing the vast emporium in which his son served. Au
Bonheur des Dames.

BOUTHEMONT, manager of the silk department at “The Ladies’ Paradise.”
 Noisy and too fond of company, he was not much good for sales, but for
buying he had not his equal. Nearly every month he went to Lyons, living
at the best hotels, with authority to treat the manufacturers with
open purse. He had, moreover, liberty to buy what he liked, provided he
increased the sales of his department in a certain proportion settled
beforehand; and it was on this proportion that his commission was based.
Eventually, however, his position was undermined, and Madame Desforges,
having become jealous of Mouret, and wishing to injure him, introduced
Bouthemont to Baron Hartmann, who lent him money to start an opposition
establishment called “The Four Seasons.” This was burned down three
weeks after its opening, but the enormous loss was covered by insurance.
Au Bonheur des Dames.

BOUTIGNY, Lazare Chanteau’s partner in the chemical business, into which
he put thirty thousand francs. After the failure of the venture, he took
over the whole concern, and began to manufacture potash from seaweed by
the old methods. He was very successful in this, and by degrees began to
employ on a small scale the scientific systems which had before proved
disastrous. In a few years he amassed a considerable fortune. La Joie de
Vivre.

BOUTIN, a retired artist’s-model who kept a studio in Rue de la
Huchette, which was frequented by Claude Lantier, who went there for
purposes of study. A subscription of twenty francs enabled young artists
to have the free use of models. L’Oeuvre.

BOUTIN, an old epileptic attended by Doctor Pascal at Plassans. He died
in one of his fits. Le Docteur Pascal.

BOVES (COMTE DE), Inspector-General of the Imperial Stud, a
tall, handsome man who had married his wife for her great beauty.
Notwithstanding this, he carried on a liaison with Madame Guibal, whose
demands upon his purse were so heavy that he was obliged to economize in
his own establishment. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BOVES (COMTESSE DE), wife of the preceding, was a beautiful woman of
about forty years of age. She was a constant customer at “The Ladies’
Paradise,” but as her husband kept her very short of money, was seldom
able to buy anything. Eventually temptation proved too strong for her,
and she was caught in the act of stealing some valuable lace. The matter
was, however, kept quiet, and a scandal avoided. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BOVES (BLANCHE DE), daughter of the preceding. She usually accompanied
her mother on her shopping expeditions to “The Ladies’ Paradise,” and,
it is to be feared, was not unaware of the theft of lace by her. She
married Paul de Vallagnosc. Au Bonheur des Dames.

BRAMAH, an English horse which won the Grand Prix de Paris. It belonged
to Lord Reading. Nana.

BRAMBILLA (SIGNOR), a Venetian political refugee, and a friend of
Comtesse Balbi. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BRETIGNY (COMTESSE DE). Auguste Lantier, reading the news from a
journal to his friends Coupeau and Mes-Bottes, announced that the eldest
daughter of the Comtesse de Bretigny was to be married to Baron de
Valencay, aide-de-camp to His Majesty the Emperor. L’Assommoir.

BRETON-LE-CUL-SEC, one of the band of brigands led by Beau-Francois. La
Terre.

BRICHET, the father of Fortune, Rosalie Bambousse’s lover. He was a
little man, withered by age, and with a cringing manner. He tilled a
small piece of stony land near Les Artaud, and was very poor. La Faute
de l’Abbe Mouret.

BRICHET (MADAME), wife of the preceding, a tall, lachrymose woman, was
the one solitary devotee of the village of Les Artaud. Whenever she
had been to communion, she hung about the parsonage, knowing that the
priest’s servant always kept a couple of loaves for her from the last
baking. La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret.

BRICHET (FORTUNE), son of the preceding, was a largely built,
bold-looking young fellow of about twenty-five years of age, who had
been the lover of Rosalie Bambousse for some time before Abbe Mouret was
able to induce the girl’s parents to consent to her marriage. La Faute
de l’Abbe Mouret.

BRICHET (VINCENT), brother of Fortune, was the boy who assisted Abbe
Mouret in serving Mass. He was an idle young scamp, and constantly
incurred the chastisement of Brother Archangias, who predicted a bad end
for him on account of his friendship for Catherine Bambousse. La Faute
de l’Abbe Mouret.

BRIQUET, a peasant of Rognes. His son drew the number 13 for the
conscription. La Terre.

BRON (MADAME), concierge at the Theatre des Varietes. She sold liquor to
the employees at the theatre. Nana.

BRU, an old house-painter who lived in a garret in the same
tenement-house as the Coupeaus, where he starved with cold and hunger.
He had lost three sons in the Crimea, and he lived on what he could
pick up, now that for two years past he could hold a brush no longer.
Gervaise Coupeau showed him some kindness and asked him to her famous
birthday party. Things having gone from bad to worse with him, he was
found one morning lying dead in his garret. L’Assommoir.

BRULE (LA), mother of La Pierronne. She was the widow of a miner who had
been killed in the pit, and lived with her daughter at the settlement
known as the Deux-Cent-Quarante. A terrible old woman, frantic to
revenge on the masters the death of her husband, she was the leader in
the outrages perpetrated by the strikers in the Montsou district. It was
she who gave the signal for the attack on the troops, but at the first
volley fired by the soldiers she fell back stiff and crackling like
a bundle of dry faggots, stammering one last oath in the gurgling of
blood. Germinal.

BRUNET (LES), a bourgeois family in the new quarter of Plassans, of whom
Madame Felicite Rougon was jealous. La Fortune des Rougon.

BUDIN (LES), peasants of Rognes, whose daughter was said to have been
cured of a fever by Sourdeau, who cut a live pigeon in two, and applied
the halves to her head. La Terre.

BUQUIN-LECOMTE, a deputy at the Corps Legislatif. He desired leave of
absence. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

BURGAT, a blacksmith, one of the band of insurgents which entered
Plassans in December, 1851. La Fortune des Rougon.

BURNE, an English jockey who rode a horse called Spirit in the Grand
Prix de Paris. Nana.

BUSCH, a man of German origin who came to Paris, and engaged in business
of a shady character on the fringe of the Bourse. “In addition to usury
and a secret traffic in jewels and precious stones, he particularly
occupied himself with the purchase of ‘bad debts.’” In pursuit of
creditors he was unsparing, and his methods were not infrequently of the
nature of blackmail. Jordon, Madame de Beauvilliers, and Saccard himself
fell into his power, though Saccard refused to submit to extortion.
Another of Busch’s lines of business was the purchase of depreciated
shares and debentures, thousands of which he collected together,
selling them to bankrupts who found difficulty in accounting for real or
imaginary losses. His one redeeming feature was his extraordinary love
for his brother Sigismond, whom he nursed with the greatest care until
his death. L’Argent.

BUSCH (SIGISMOND), brother of Busch, the money-lender, was an able man,
educated at a German University, and speaking several languages. He had
met Carl Marx at Cologne in 1849, and became a contributor to the _New
Rhenish Gazette_. “From that time he professed Socialism with an ardent
faith, giving his entire being to the idea of an approaching social
renovation, which would assure the happiness of the poor and humble.”
 After his master was banished from Germany, Sigismond, engrossed in
his dreams, was so careless of his material affairs that he would have
perished of hunger had his brother not taken him to live with him. From
this time the elder Busch, ferocious as a wolf towards a debtor, looked
after his brother with almost maternal care, and was heart-broken when
Sigismond died of consumption a few years later. L’Argent.

BUTEAU, second son of Pere Fouan; brother of Hyacinthe and of Fanny
Delhomme; cousin and husband of Lise Mouche; father of Jules and Laure.
From early youth he was of violent temper, and having drawn a lucky
number in the conscription, he went away from home, and got work, first
at the farm of La Borderie and later at La Chamade. He was a true son
of the soil, knowing nothing of the world beyond the narrow district in
which he was born, and possessing that fierce passion for the land
which is the characteristic of so many peasants. When Pere Fouan made a
division of his property among his family, Buteau was dissatisfied with
the lot which he drew, and refused to take possession of it. In this
attitude he persisted for two years, until the formation of a new road
gave a greatly increased value to his share. In the same way he refused
to marry his cousin Lise Mouche, by whom he already had a son, until,
after her father’s death, she had inherited a share of his property.
Buteau’s chief anxiety then became to prevent a division of this land
between his wife and her sister Francoise, and when, after the girl’s
marriage to Jean Macquart, this became imminent, he and his wife
eventually murdered her. His father had been a witness of the crime, and
as his silence was essential, he too was cruelly done to death. After
these terrible events Buteau was able to sleep calmly, for the land, his
overwhelming passion in life, was his beyond possibility of dispute. La
Terre.

BUTEAU (MADAME), wife of the preceding. See Lise Mouche. La Terre.

BUTEAU (JULES), the eldest child of the preceding, who were not married
till three years after his birth. At nine years old he was the sole
friend of old Fouan, but he soon came to neglect the old man. La Terre.

BUTEAU (LAURE), the second child of the Buteaus. At four years old
she had already the hard eyes of her family, and was hostile to her
grandfather, old Fouan. By jealousy she detached from him her brother
Jules. La Terre.




C

CABASSE, a franc-tireur of the woods of Dieulet. He was the favourite
companion of Ducat, and along with Guillaume Sambuc formed part of the
band which so greatly embarrassed the Prussians in the neighbourhood of
Sedan. He took part in the execution of Goliath Steinberg, the German
spy. La Debacle.

CABIN (MADAME), the woman who looked after the bedrooms occupied by the
saleswomen in “The Ladies’ Paradise.” In consideration of small bribes,
she allowed numerous breaches of the strict rules of the establishment.
Au Bonheur des Dames.

CABIROCHE (SIMONNE), an actress at the Theatre des Varietes. She was the
daughter of a furniture dealer in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and had
been educated at a boarding-school in order that she might become a
governess. She played the part of Isabelle in the _Petite Duchesse_.
Nana.

CABUCHE, a quarryman at Becourt, who lived alone in a hut in the middle
of the forest. He was condemned to five years’ imprisonment for having
killed a man in a tavern brawl, but on account of his good conduct was
liberated at the end of four years. From that time he was avoided by
every one, and lived like a savage in the woods. Louisette, the younger
daughter of Madame Misard, who was then fourteen years old, met him one
day in the forest, and a strange friendship was formed between them, the
rough man almost adoring this child, who alone was not afraid to speak
to him. The girl afterwards went as a servant to Madame Bonnehon, but
one evening Cabuche found her at his door, half mad with fright and on
the verge of brain fever. He nursed her tenderly, but she died a few
days later. The conduct of President Grandmorin was believed to be the
cause of Louisette’s flight from Doinville, and Cabuche was overheard to
say in ungovernable rage that he would “bleed the pig.” This remark led
Denizet, the examining magistrate, to attribute to him the murder of
the President, which was committed soon afterwards by the Roubauds,
and still later he had the misfortune to be found beside the body of
Severine Roubaud, who had been murdered by Jacques Lantier. He was
found guilty of the two crimes, neither of which he committed, and was
sentenced to imprisonment for life. It was Cabuche’s wagon, loaded with
huge blocks of stone, that Flore stopped in front of an express train in
order to cause an accident. La Bete Humaine.

CADET-CASSIS, the sobriquet of Coupeau. L’Assommoir.

CADINE, a young girl who when only two years old was found by Madame
Chantemesse and adopted by her. She was brought up along with Marjolin,
and the two became inseparable companions and lovers. When she was
eleven years old she set up as a dealer in birds’ food, but in a year or
two became a flower-seller. After the accident to Marjolin by which his
intellect was affected, Cadine looked after him, and the two were seldom
found apart. Le Ventre de Paris.

CAFFIN (ABBE), the predecessor of Abbe Mouret as cure at Les Artaud. He
was originally from Normandy, and had a large face which always seemed
laughing. His history was bad, and he had been sent in disgrace to this
hot and dusty corner of Provence. La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret.

CAMPARDON (ACHILLE), an architect, in whose house Octave Mouret boarded
when he first came to Paris. His views on religion were somewhat
free, but having been appointed diocesan architect he gradually became
orthodox, though this did not prevent him from carrying on an intrigue
with Gasparine, his wife’s cousin, who ultimately came to live with the
family. Pot-Bouille.

CAMPARDON (MADAME), wife of the preceding, nee Rose Domergue. Born at
Plassans, she was an old friend of Madame Mouret, and when Octave Mouret
came to Paris he boarded with the Campardons. After the birth of her
child, Madame Campardon was an invalid, and was obliged to spend much
of her time in bed, amusing herself by reading the works of Dickens.
She tacitly accepted the liaison between her husband and Gasparine, her
cousin, whom she ultimately asked to live with the family and manage the
household affairs. Pot-Bouille.

CAMPARDON (ANGELE), daughter of the preceding. She was brought up at
home by her parents, in order that she might remain ignorant of
the realities of life, but intercourse with the servants in a large
tenement-house early developed her unnatural precocity. Pot-Bouille.

CAMPENON, an incapable person to whom M. de Marsy gave a post as
prefect, which Eugene Rougon had promised to Du Poizat. Son Excellence
Eugene Rougon.

CAMY-LAMOTTE, secretary to the Minister of Justice, an office of great
influence. It was his duty to prepare the list of promotions, and he was
in constant communication with the Tuileries. He was a handsome man, who
started his career as a substitute; but through his connections and his
wife he had been elected deputy and made grand officer of the Legion of
Honour. In examining the papers of President Grandmorin, he discovered
the identity of the murderers, but knowing the probability of serious
scandal arising in the event of public inquiry, he said nothing, and
later, struck by the courage and charm of Severine Roubaud, who threw
herself on his protection, he gave instructions that all proceedings
were to be stopped. He rewarded Denizet, the examining magistrate, with
a decoration and the promise of early promotion. La Bete Humaine.

CANIVET, an old peasant, of whom Zephyrin Lacour announced the death to
Rosalie Pichon. Une Page d’Amour.

CARNAVANT (MARQUIS DE), a nobleman of Plassans. Said to have been
intimate with the mother of Felicite Puech during the early period of
her married life. He visited Pierre Rougon and his wife occasionally,
and after their retirement from business he interested them in politics.
La Fortune des Rougon.

CAROLINE, an artificial-flower maker employed by Madame Titreville. She
was very unhappy at home. L’Assommoir.

CAROLINE (MADAME). See Caroline Hamelin.

CAROUBLE, a baker at Montsou. His business was threatened by the
competition of Maigrat. Germinal.

CASIMIR, a liquor-dealer on the road to Montsou. Germinal.

CASSOUTE, an inhabitant of Plassans, who formed one of the group of
insurgents which accompanied Antoine Macquart to the Rougons’ house. He
was left there to signal the return of Pierre Rougon, but not being
very intelligent, allowed himself to be sent by Rougon to the Town Hall,
where he was arrested. La Fortune des Rougon.

CATHERINE, servant to Granoux. She talked for a long time before letting
in Pierre Rougon and Roudier, who came to seek her master to save
Plassans. La Fortune des Rougon.

CAUCHE, the commissary of police attached to the railway station at
Havre. He was a former officer who considered his present occupation as
practically a sinecure, spending much of his time at the cafe. He was a
confirmed gambler, who could lose or win without change of expression. A
room on the first floor of the Cafe du Commerce was his usual haunt, and
there Roubaud frequently spent half the night playing cards with him.
Later, it fell to him to arrest Roubaud on the charge of murdering
President Grandmorin. La Bete Humaine.

CAZENOVE (DOCTOR), a man of fifty-four years of age, of a vigorous and
lean habit, who after thirty years’ service in the navy settled down
at Arromanches, where an uncle of his had left him a house. He affected
scepticism of the power of medicine, but was unremitting in the care of
his patients. Among the earliest of these was Madame Chanteau, and
he became on intimate terms with the family, for some time acting as
trustee to Pauline Quenu. La Joie de Vivre.

CECILE (MADEMOISELLE), daughter of a butcher in the neighbourhood of the
_Halles Centrales_. Le Ventre de Paris.

CELESTE, lady’s maid and confidante of Madame Renee Saccard. La Curee.

CELESTINE, a friend of Clemence. She was neurotic, and had a horror of
the hair of cats, seeing it everywhere, and even turning her tongue in
the belief that some of it had got into her mouth. L’Assommoir.

CESAR, a bull at the farm of La Borderie. La Terre.

CHADEUIL (MADAME), a milliner in the Rue Sainte-Anne. Octave Mouret’s
shop, “The Ladies’ Paradise,” ruined her within two years. Au Bonheur
des Dames.

CHAINE, the companion of Mahoudeau, the sculptor. He was born at
Saint-Firmin, a village about six miles from Plassans, where he served
as a cowboy until he was drawn in the conscription. Unfortunately for
him, a gentleman of the district who admired the walking-stick handles
which he carved out of roots with his knife, persuaded Chaine that he
was a rustic genius, and with extreme foolishness persuaded him to go
in for painting. Having forty pounds, he went to Paris, where his small
fortune lasted him for a year. Then, as he had only twenty francs left,
he took up his quarters with his friend Mahoudeau. He had no talent,
but had a certain skill in copying pictures with extreme exactness.
The relations of Chaine and Mahoudeau with Mathilde Jabouille led to a
coldness between the two friends, and ultimately they ceased to be on
speaking terms, though they continued to live together, and even to
sleep in the same bed. Some time afterwards Chaine gave up art, and
started a booth at country fairs, in which he ran a wheel-of-fortune
for trifling prizes. The booth was decorated with some of his alleged
masterpieces. L’Oeuvre.

CHAMBOUVARD, a celebrated sculptor. He was said to be the son of a
veterinary surgeon of Amiens, and at forty-five had already produced
twenty masterpieces. He had, however, a complete lack of critical
acumen, and was unable to distinguish between the most glorious
offspring of his hands and the detestably grotesque figures which he
happened to put together now and then. At one _Salon_ he exhibited a
_Sower_, admirable in every way, while at another he showed an execrable
_Reaping Woman_, so bad that it seemed like a hoax; but he was no less
pleased with the later work, feeling sure that he had turned out yet
another masterpiece. L’Oeuvre.

CHAMPION, a master hatter at Montrouge. Auguste Lantier pretended to
have left his employment because they had not the same political views.
L’Assommoir.

CHAMPION, a retired sergeant, who was afterwards delivery manager at
“The Ladies’ Paradise.” Au Bonheur des Dames.

CHANTEAU PERE, came originally from the south of France, beginning
his life as a journeyman carpenter. He created a considerable timber
business at Caen, but being somewhat daring in his speculation, he left
it rather embarrassed at the time of his death. La Joie de Vivre.

CHANTEAU (M.), a cousin of M. Quenu, by whom he was nominated guardian
of his daughter Pauline Quenu. On the death of his father, he succeeded
to the timber business at Caen. Being an inactive man, unaspiring and
careful, he contented himself with putting his affairs on a safe basis,
and living on a moderate but sure profit. He married Eugenie de la
Vigniere, who was an ambitious woman and hoped to rouse his indolent
nature. Her schemes were, however, frustrated by the ill-health of her
husband, who suffered from gout to such a degree that he ultimately
sold his business to Devoine, and retired to Bonneville, where he had
a house. His sufferings from gout gradually became more and more severe
until he was a complete invalid. His ward Pauline Quenu showed him much
kindness, and the Abbe Horteur played draughts with him regularly. La
Joie de Vivre.

Until the end of his life he was taken care of by Pauline. Le Docteur
Pascal.

CHANTEAU (MADAME), wife of the preceding, nee Eugenie de la Vigniere,
was the orphan of one of the ruined squireens of the Cotentin. An
ambitious woman, she hoped to induce her husband to overcome his
indolent nature, but her plans were upset by the ill-health into which
he fell, and she transferred to her son her hopes for the family’s rise
in life. From this source she had nothing but disappointment, as one
after another of Lazare’s schemes failed. To enable him to get money to
start his chemical works, she encouraged the idea of marriage between
him and Pauline Quenu, her husband’s ward, who thereupon lent him thirty
thousand francs. Little by little, Madame Chanteau got possession for
the family use of nearly all Pauline’s fortunes, but with each fresh
loan her feelings towards the girl became more embittered until her
affection for her had turned to hate. From this time, she discouraged
her son’s marriage with Pauline, and endeavoured to turn his thoughts
towards Louise Thibaudier, who had a considerable fortune. She died of
dropsy after a short illness. La Joie de Vivre.

CHANTEAU (LAZARE), born 1844, son of M. Chanteau, was educated at the
college of Caen, where he took his bachelor’s degree. He was undecided
as to what profession he would adopt, and for some time his inclination
turned towards music. Under the influence of Pauline Quenu he decided on
medicine, and went to Paris, where at first he made good progress in his
studies. Unfortunately he tired of this, and led a life of extravagance
and dissipation, failing to pass his examinations. Having chanced to
make the acquaintance of Herbelin, a celebrated chemist, Lazare entered
his laboratory as an assistant. From him he got the idea of turning
seaweed to profitable account by the extraction of chemicals by a new
method. With a view to the commercial employment of this process he
borrowed thirty thousand francs from Pauline Quenu, and entered into
partnership with an old college friend named Boutigny who invested
a similar sum in the business. Lazare was quite carried away by his
enthusiasm, and the works were built on much too large a scale, the cost
greatly exceeding the original estimates. More money was required, and a
marriage having already been arranged between Lazare and Pauline Quenu,
she at once lent him another ten thousand francs. Some slight success
was at first attained, but this only led to fresh extravagances in the
way of apparatus, and before long a hundred thousand francs of Pauline’s
money had been expended. By this time it was evident that the process
could not be worked on a commercial scale, and Lazare, utterly
discouraged, handed over his share to Boutigny for a trifling sum. A
scheme for the protection of Bonneville against the inroads of the sea
was the next subject to attract him, and he entered into it with his
usual enthusiasm. More money was, of course, required, and, as before,
this was found by Pauline. Failure again met his efforts; the barricade
was washed away by the first high sea. All along Lazare had been subject
to fits of morbid depression, accompanied by a frenzied fear of death,
and after the death of his mother this mental disturbance became even
more acute. The marriage with Pauline had been put off on one excuse or
another, and ultimately she saw that his affections had been transferred
to Louise Thibaudier. With noble self-sacrifice, she released him from
his engagement, and his marriage to Louise followed. He went to Paris
as manager of an insurance company, but soon tiring of business, he
returned to Bonneville, where he lived so tormented by the fear of death
that life itself had little charm for him. La Joie de Vivre.

Having become a widower, he left his son with Pauline Quenu, and went to
America to seek his fortune. Le Docteur Pascal.

CHANTEAU (MADAME LAZARE), wife of the preceding. See Louise Thibaudier.
La Joie de Vivre.

CHANTEAU (PAUL), the infant son of Lazare Chanteau. La Joie de Vivre.

CHANTECAILLE (i.e. SINGSMALL), an usher at the college of Plassans.
He was so good-natured that he allowed the pupils to smoke when out
walking. L’Oeuvre.

CHANTEGREIL, a poacher, who was sent to the galleys for shooting a
gendarme. He was the father of Miette. La Fortune des Rougon.

CHANTEGREIL (MARIE), known as Miette, born 1838, daughter of
Chantegreil, the poacher, who was sentenced to the galleys for murder.
She went to live with her aunt, the wife of Rebufat, farmer at Plassans.
Here she met Silvere Mouret, and an idyllic love affair followed. When
Silvere joined the Republican Insurrection in 1861, Miette, fired by his
enthusiasm, accompanied him, and carried the banner of revolt. In the
attack by the regular troops, which soon followed, she fell mortally
wounded. La Fortune des Rougon.

CHANTEGREIL (EULALIE). See Madame Eulalie Rebufat.

CHANTEMESSE (MADAME), a customer of Madame Francois, the
market-gardener. It was she who brought up the two foundling children,
Marjolin and Cadine. Le Ventre de Paris.

CHANTEREAU (MADAME), wife of an ironmaster. She was a cousin of the
Fougerays, and a friend of the Muffats. With Madame du Joncquoy
and Madame Hugon she gave an air of severe respectability to the
drawing-room of Comtesse Sabine de Muffat. Her husband owned a foundry
in Alsace, where war with Germany was feared, and she caused much
amusement to her friends by expressing the opinion that Bismarck would
make war with France and would conquer. Nana.

CHARBONNEL (M.), a retired oil-merchant of Plassans. His cousin
Chevassu, a lawyer, died leaving his fortune of five hundred thousand
francs to the Sisters of the Holy Family. Charbonnel, being next heir,
contested the will on the ground of undue influence; and the Sisterhood
having petitioned the Council of State to authorize the payment of the
bequest to them, he went to Paris, accompanied by his wife, in order to
secure the influence of Eugene Rougon. The matter dragged on for some
months, and was then indefinitely delayed by Rougon’s resignation of
the Presidency of the Council of State. After Rougon’s appointment as
Minister of the Interior, he induced the Council of State to refuse the
petition of the Sisterhood, and M. Charbonnel accordingly succeeded to
the estate. Subsequently the Charbonnels accused the Sisters of having
removed some of Chevassu’s silver plate, and Rougon ordered the police
to make a search in the convent. This caused a scandal in the town, and
brought the Charbonnels, as well as Rougon, into popular disfavour. Son
Excellence Eugene Rougon.

CHARBONNEL (MADAME), wife of the preceding. She accompanied her husband
to Paris to assist him in looking after their interests in the estate of
his cousin Chevassu. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

CHARDON (ABBE), the candidate favoured by Abbe Fenil for the vacancy in
the church of Saint-Saturnin at Plassans. La Conquete de Plassans.

CHARDON (MADAME), a protegee of Madame Melanie Correur. The State having
refused to accept some furnishings supplied by her, Eugene Rougon, the
Minister, arranged the matter. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

CHARLES, a waiter at the Cafe Riche. It was he who served supper to
Maxime Saccard and Renee in the White Salon. La Curee.

CHARLES, the attendant at the public washing-house where Gervaise
Macquart had her great fight with Virginie. L’Assommoir.

CHARLES, a butcher whose shop was in Rue Polonceau. The Coupeaus dealt
with him. L’Assommoir.

CHARLES, coachman in the service of Nana. He left her after a violent
scene, in the course of which he called her a slut. Nana.

CHARLES, a cousin of the little soldier Jules from Plogof. Germinal.

CHARLES, coachman to Aristide Saccard. He was discovered stealing oats,
and was dismissed. In revenge, he disclosed to Madame Caroline the
relations between his master and the Baroness Sandorff. L’Argent.

CHARLES, (MONSIEUR AND MADAME), see Badeuil.

CHARPIER, a grain merchant at Vendome. He became bankrupt, and his
papers having been purchased by Fayeux on behalf of Busch, the latter
found among them a document signed by Comte de Beauvilliers, undertaking
payment of a large sum to Leonie Cron. L’Argent.

CHARRIER, a bricklayer who amassed a fortune by speculations in
building-sites during the early days of the Second Empire. Along
with Mignon, his partner, he had many business dealings with Aristide
Saccard. La Curee.

CHARVET, one of the party which met at Lebigre’s wine-shop to discuss
revolutionary subjects. He was the best educated of the coterie, and his
flood of bitter words generally crushed his adversaries. Le Ventre de
Paris.

CHASSAGNE (DOCTEUR), director of the asylum at Moulineaux, where
Saturnin Josserand was confined for a time. Pot-Bouille.

CHAUMETTE, counsellor at the court of Rouen. At the trial of Roubaud he
acted as assessor to the assizes. La Bete Humaine.

CHAUMETTE FILS, son of the preceding, was a substitute at Rouen. He was
the latest fancy of Madame Bonnehon, who did all she could to secure his
advancement. La Bete Humaine.

CHAVAILLE (ROSALIE), cousin of La Mechain, and mother of Victor Saccard.
She fell into a life of vice and poverty, and died at the age of
twenty-six. L’Argent.

CHAVAL, a miner employed at the Voreux pit. From the first he had an
instinctive hatred towards Etienne Lantier, caused partly by jealousy
regarding Catherine Maheu, whose lover he became. He treated the girl
very badly, and she ultimately left him. During the strike he took up a
position antagonistic to Lantier, who was one of the leaders, and
even undertook the direction of a party of Belgians brought in by the
mine-owners to work the pits. By a strange chance, Chaval met Lantier
and Catherine in a gallery of the pit after a terrible accident, which
resulted in its being flooded; a struggle followed, and Chaval was
killed, his body being thrown into the water. But the rise of the flood
brought him back time after time to the feet of the others, as if his
jealousy continued even after death. Germinal.

CHAVE (CAPTAIN), brother of Madame Maugendre, and uncle of Madame
Jordan. He was a petty gambler of a class who frequent the Bourse daily,
in order to make an almost certain profit of fifteen or twenty francs,
which must be realized before the day’s operations are over. He said
he was forced to speculate, as the pension which he received from the
Government was not sufficient to keep him from starvation. L’Argent.

CHAVIGNAT, an employee at the Ministry of Public Education. Pot-Bouille.

CHEDEVILLE (DE), deputy for Eure-et-Loire under the Empire. He was an
old beau who had flourished in the reign of Louis Philippe, and
was still supposed to have Orleanist sympathies, though his reputed
friendship with the Emperor was sufficient to secure his success at the
polls. He had gone through all his money, and had now only the farm of
La Chamade left. His political career was cut short by a scandal which
gave offence at the Tuileries, and he was defeated by Rochefontaine, who
was nominated by Government as the official candidate. La Terre.

CHERMETTE (MADAME DE), a friend of Madame Deberle. Une Page d’Amour.

CHEVASSU, a lawyer at Faverolles, who died leaving his fortune to the
Sisters of the Holy Family. His cousin, M. Charbonnel, got the will
reduced on the ground of undue influence. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

CHEZELLES (MADAME LEONIDE DE), a school friend of Comtesse Muffat, who
was five years her senior. She was the wife of a magistrate. “It was
rumoured that she deceived him quite openly, but people pardoned her
offence, and received her just the same, because, said they, ‘She’s not
answerable for her actions.’” Nana.

CHIBRAY (COMTE DE), aide-de-camp to the Emperor. He was for a time the
lover of Renee Saccard. La Curee.

CHOUARD (MARQUIS DE), father of Comtesse Sabine Muffat de Beuville.
He was a Councillor of State and Chamberlain to the Empress, but,
notwithstanding this, had kept up his relations with the Legitimist
party; he was known for his piety, and expressed the belief that his
class should show an example in morals to the lower orders. In secret,
however, his life was vicious, and many damaging stories were known
of him. He was one of Nana’s admirers, and after a visit to her he was
struck by sudden imbecility and semi-paralysis, the result of sixty
years of debauchery. Nana.

CHOUARD (SABINE DE), daughter of the preceding and wife of Comte Muffat
de Beuville. She was married at seventeen, and ever since had led a
cloistered existence with a pious husband and a dictatorial stepmother.
The death of her stepmother made little difference, and the family
continued to live in an atmosphere of frigid respectability. At
thirty-four Sabine looked little older than her own daughter, and would
not have been taken for more than twenty-eight. About this time Comte
Muffat fell entirely under the influence of Nana, and a change came
over the household. Sabine accepted the attentions of Fauchery,
whose mistress she became, and soon after launched into a course of
extravagance which in the end went far to complete the ruin to which her
husband was himself contributing. Other lovers followed Fauchery, and
in the end she ran off with the manager of a large drapery store.
Ultimately she returned, and was pardoned by her husband, who had lost
his own self-respect as a result of his intrigue with Nana. Nana.

CHOUTEAU, an old man of over ninety years of age, who with his wife
lived in a little hut in Beaumont, furnished for them by Angelique with
articles taken from the attic of her adopted parents. She, as well as
Felicien d’Hautecoeur, showed them much kindness. Le Reve.

CHOUTEAU, a soldier in the 106th regiment of the line, commanded by
Colonel de Vineuil. He belonged to the squad of Corporal Jean Macquart.
Originally a housepainter of Montmartre, his time was almost expired
when the outbreak of war prevented his leaving the army. A revolutionary
in his ideas, he was the leader in every breach of discipline among
his companions, suggesting to them that they should throw away their
knapsacks and guns; on the plateau of Floing, in front of the enemy,
he declared that as he had not eaten he would not fight. Sergeant Sapin
having been severely wounded, Chouteau offered, along with Loubet,
to remove him to the ambulance, and the two men disappeared from the
battlefield. After the defeat of the French Army he was made prisoner
at Iges, where he continued to advise his companions in committing all
kinds of excesses, going the length of handing a knife to Lapoulle in
order that he might kill Pache, who had hidden some provisions from him.
Along with Loubet he made an attempt to escape from the Germans, and
in this he attained success by treacherously sacrificing his comrade.
During the Commune he took an active part in the excesses which were
then committed; but during the sanguinary repression which followed
he was seen in the blouse of an honest workman applauding the massacre
which ensued. La Debacle.

CHRISTINE. See Christine Hallegrain.

CHUCHU (MADEMOISELLE), an actress at the Varietes. A liaison between her
and Flory led to the ruin of the latter on the Stock Exchange. L’Argent.

CLARISSE, waiting-maid in the service of Baroness Sandorff. She betrayed
to Delcambre the confidences of her mistress. L’Argent.

CLEMENCE, a clerk at the fish auction. She attended the meetings in
Lebigre’s wine-shop along with Charvet, with whom she lived. Le Ventre
de Paris.

CLEMENCE (MADEMOISELLE), occupied a room in the same tenement-house as
the Coupeaus and Lorilleux, where she took in ironing, as well as added
to her income by less reputable means. When Gervaise Coupeau’s laundry
was at the height of its success Clemence got regular employment there,
but when business began to go she had to leave. L’Assommoir.

CLEMENCE, lady’s maid to Madame Duveyrier. Pot-Bouille.

CLORINDE. See Clorinde Balbi.

CLOU, Municipal Councillor at Rognes. He played the trombone at choral
services in church. La Terre.

COEUR (GERMAINE), a _demi-mondaine_ who was on intimate terms with many
members of the Paris Bourse. L’Argent.

COGNET, a roadman at Rognes. He was an old drunkard, who beat his
daughter unmercifully. La Terre.

COGNET (JACQUELINE), alias LA COGNETTE, daughter of the preceding. She
went to La Borderie at the age of twelve years, and before long had
several lovers. She made her fortune, however, by resisting her master,
Alexandre Hourdequin, for six months, and when she ultimately became
his mistress she had made her position so secure that he was afterwards
unable to part with her. Notwithstanding her relations with Hourdequin,
she had other lovers, and the old shepherd Soulas, from motives of
revenge, informed Hourdequin of her intimacy with one of them, a man
named Tron. The latter, having been dismissed, killed Hourdequin and
burned down the farm, so that Jacqueline was compelled to leave La
Borderie no richer than she had come. La Terre.

COLICHE (LA), a fine cow which belonged to the Mouche family and was a
great favourite with them. La Terre.

COLIN, a notary at Havre. It was in his presence that the Roubauds made
a mutual will, leaving everything to the last survivor. La Bete Humaine.

COLOMBAN PERE, a veterinary surgeon known to all in the district of
Seine-et-Oise. He was of dissolute habits. Au Bonheur des Dames.

COLOMBAN, a shopman who had been for many years in the employment of
M. Baudu. He was engaged to his master’s daughter Genevieve, but the
marriage was put off from time to time as Baudu’s business was not
prosperous. Meantime, Colomban had become infatuated by Clara Prunaire,
a girl employed in “The Ladies’ Paradise,” and his affection for
Genevieve rapidly cooled. Ultimately he went off with Clara, thereby
hastening the death of Genevieve, who had been in bad health for some
time. Au Bonheur des Dames.

COLOMBE. See Pere Colombe.

COMBELOT (M. DE), an Imperial Chamberlain whom the Department of the
Landes had chosen as deputy upon the formally expressed desire of the
Emperor. He was a tall, handsome man, with a very white skin, and an
inky black beard, which had been the means of winning him great
favour among the ladies. He was married to a sister of Delestang. Son
Excellence Eugene Rougon.

COMBELOT (MADAME DE), see Henriette Delestang.

COMBETTE, a chemist at Chene-Populeux. He was assessor to the mayor,
and the information which he received on the night of 27th August, 1870,
satisfied him of the unhappy state of the Army of Chalons, which was
then on its way to the front. La Debacle.

COMBETTE (MADAME), wife of the preceding. It was she who on the evening
of 27th August, 1870, offered hospitality to the soldier Maurice
Levasseur, who was worn out with fatigue and with the pain of his foot,
which had been injured by the long march. La Debacle.

COMBEVILLE (DUCHESSE DE), mother of Princess d’Orviedo. L’Argent.

COMBOREL ET CIE, a firm of ship-owners who entered into the great
transport syndicate founded by Aristide Saccard. L’Argent.

COMPAN (ABBE), vicar of the church of Saint-Saturnin at Plassans. He was
on bad terms with Abbe Fenil, and consequently the other priests were
afraid to have any intercourse with him, Abbe Bourrette alone visiting
him during his last illness. La Conquete de Plassans.

CONDAMIN (M. DE), commissioner of woods and rivers for the district of
Plassans. He was an elderly man, whose morality was looked upon with
some suspicion by the respectable inhabitants of Plassans. He married
a young wife, whom he brought from no one knew where, but who had
evidently influential friends at Paris, as it was she who got her
husband and Dr. Porquier decorated. La Conquete de Plassans.

CONDAMIN (MADAME DE), wife of the preceding. She was at first received
with some suspicion at Plassans, nothing being known of her past
history, but by the charm of her manner she soon overcame prejudice.
Madame Mouret having asked her assistance in connection with the Home
for Girls proposed by Abbe Faujas, she entered heartily into the
scheme and used her influence on its behalf. Acting on advice from her
influential friends at Paris, she assisted Faujas in the schemes which
resulted in the election of M. Delangre as deputy for Plassans. La
Conquete de Plassans.

CONIN, a stationer at the corner of Rue Feydeau, who supplied note-books
to most members of the Bourse. He was assisted in the business by his
wife, and seldom came out of the back shop. L’Argent.

CONIN (MADAME), wife of the preceding. She was on too friendly terms
with many of her customers, but was so discreet that no scandal arose.
L’Argent.

COQUART (LES), proprietors of the farm of Saint-Juste, which, however,
they were forced by bad times to sell. The family consisted of the
father, mother, three sons and two daughters. La Terre.

COQUETS, neighbours of the Lorilleux in Rue de la Goutte-d’Or. They took
a fancy to light their cooking-stove on the stair-landing, and, as
they also owed their term’s rent, they were given notice to quit.
L’Assommoir.

CORBIERE (COMTE DE), proprietor of the Paradou, an estate near Artaud.
When he died, the care of the property was confided to Jeanbernat, a
foster-brother of the Comte. La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret.

CORBREUSE (DUC DE), proprietor of a racing-stable. Nana.

CORNAILLE, the principal draper in Valognes. Denise Baudu served her
apprenticeship to him. Au Bonheur des Dames.

CORNEMUSE, a racehorse which was the prize of the City of Paris. Nana.

CORNILLE, a member of the firm of Cornille and Jenard, who held in the
eighteenth century the mineral concession of Joiselle, which was joined
in 1760 to two neighbouring concessions, those of Comte de Cougny and of
Baron Desrumaux, in order to form the Company of the Mines of Montsou.
Germinal.

CORNILLE (ABBE), one of the clergy of the cathedral of Beaumont. He
accompanied Monseigneur d’Hautecoeur when the latter came to administer
the last rites of the Church to Angelique. Le Reve.

CORREUR (MADAME MELANIE), was the daughter of a notary of Coulonges, a
town in the district of Niort. When she was twenty-four years old she
eloped with a journeyman butcher, and thereafter lived in Paris, ignored
by her family. For some time she kept a boarding-house at the Hotel
Vanneau in the Rue Vanneau, where among her lodgers were Eugene Rougon,
Du Poizet, and Theodore Gilquin. She established a claim on Rougon’s
gratitude, and he assisted a number of her friends in obtaining pensions
and appointments. Having ascertained that her brother, M. Martineau, had
made a will by which she would benefit, she, knowing him to be in bad
health, denounced him to Rougon as a dangerous Republican. His arrest
and sudden death followed. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

COSINUS, a racehorse which ran in the Grand Prix de Paris. Nana.

COSSARD (LE PERE), prompter at the Theatre des Varietes. He was a little
hunchback.

COUDELOUP (MADAME), a baker in Rue des Poissonniers. She supplied the
Coupeaus until Lantier decided that they must have finer bread from a
Viennese bakery. L’Assommoir.

COUGNY (COMTE DE), owner in the eighteenth century of the mining
concession of Cougny, which in 1760 was joined to two neighbouring
concessions to form the Company of the Mines of Montsou. Germinal.

COUILLOT (LES), peasants at Rognes. Their son got the number 206 in the
drawing for the conscription. La Terre.

COUPEAU, a zinc-worker, who married Gervaise Macquart after her
desertion by Lantier. He was the son of a drunken father, but was
himself steady and industrious until a serious accident caused by a fall
from a roof brought about a change. After that he became unwilling to
work and began to spend his time in public-houses; his days of work
became fewer and fewer, until, a confirmed drunkard, he lived entirely
on his wife’s earnings. Attacks of delirium tremens followed, and in the
end he died in the Asylum of Sainte-Anne after an attack of more than
usual violence. L’Assommoir.

COUPEAU (MADAME GERVAISE), wife of the preceding. See Gervaise Macquart.
L’Assommoir.

COUPEAU (ANNA, known as NANA), born 1852, was the only child of Coupeau
and Gervaise Macquart, his wife. Almost from infancy she was allowed to
run wild in the gutters of Paris, and even in childhood her instincts
were vicious. At thirteen years of age she was sent to learn
artificial-flower making in the establishment of Madame Titreville,
whose forewoman was Madame Lerat, Nana’s aunt. She had been there some
time when she began to receive attentions from an elderly gentleman who
had noticed her going to work. Meantime her father and mother had taken
to drink so seriously that home life had become intolerable, and, after
one of innumerable quarrels, Nana ran away to her venerable admirer.
After a few months she tired of him and left, to spend her time amongst
the low-class dancing-halls, in one of which she was found by her
father, who brought her home, where she remained for a fortnight, and
then ran off again. From time to time she returned, but her visits
gradually became less frequent till they ceased. L’Assommoir.

At sixteen years of age she had a child by an unknown father, and two
years later was installed in a flat in Boulevard Haussmann by a rich
merchant of Moscow, who had come to pass the winter in Paris. Bordenave,
the director of the Theatre des Varietes, gave her a part in a play
called _La Blonde Venus_, and though her voice was poor and she
was ignorant of acting, she was by the sheer force of her beauty an
immediate and overwhelming success. All Paris was at her feet; Comte
Muffat, Steiner, the Prince of Scots himself, came in turn to offer
homage. It seemed as if this girl, born of four or five generations of
drunkards and brought up on the pavements of Paris, was to revenge her
race upon the idle rich by the wild extravagances into which she dragged
them. Muffat and Steiner were her lovers, and ruined themselves by
the vast sums which she squandered; Georges Hugon killed himself from
jealousy of his brother Philippe, who embezzled for her sake, and
brought himself to imprisonment and disgrace; Vandeuvres too, after
courting dishonour, met death at his own hand; and Foucarmont, stripped
bare and cast off, went to perish in the China seas. The procession was
unending; more money was always required. After a successful appearance
in a play called _Melusine_, Nana suddenly left Paris and went to the
East. Strange stories were told of her--the conquest of a viceroy, a
colossal fortune acquired in Russia--but nothing definite was known.
When she returned to Paris in 1870 she found that her son Louiset had
been attacked by small-pox, and she herself contracted the disease from
him. A few days later she died in a room in the Grand Hotel, nursed only
by Rose Mignon, who had come to her in her trouble. The war with Germany
had just broken out, and as she lay dying the passing crowds were
shouting ceaselessly, “A Berlin, A Berlin.” Nana.

COUPEAU (LOUIS). See Louiset.

COUPEAU (MADAME), mother of Coupeau the zinc-worker. She was an old
woman, and, her sight having given way, was unable to support herself.
Her daughter, Madame Lorilleux, refused anything but the most trifling
assistance, and ultimately Gervaise Coupeau took the old woman into her
own home and supported her till her death, which occurred some years
later. L’Assommoir.

COURAJOD, a great landscape painter, whose masterpiece, the _Pool at
Gagny_, is in the Luxembourg. Long before his death he disappeared from
the world of art, and lived in a little house at Montmartre surrounded
by his hens, ducks, rabbits, and dogs. He refused to speak of his former
fame, and when Claude Lantier called on him the old man seemed to be
entering into a second childhood, forgetful of his past. L’Oeuvre.

COUTARD, a soldier of infantry who belonged to the Second Division of
the First Army Corps, which was defeated at Wissembourg on 4th August,
1870. He and his companion Picot were slightly wounded, and were left
behind, not being able to rejoin their regiments for three weeks,
most of which they spent tramping the country through wet and mud,
endeavouring to overtake the vanquished army of France. La Debacle.

CRASSE (LA), i.e. “The Dirty.” Sobriquet of a professor at the college
of Plassans, so called by the pupils as he marked by the constant
rubbing of his head the back of every chair he occupied. L’Oeuvre.

CREVECOEUR, a lace merchant in Rue Mail. Henri Deloche left his
employment, and entered Octave Mouret’s shop on the same day as Denise
Baudu. Au Bonheur des Dames.

CRON, a carter at Vendome. He was the father of Leonie Cron. L’Argent.

CRON (LEONIE), the girl to whom the Comte de Beauvilliers gave the
document which afterwards came into the hands of Busch, and was used by
him as a means of blackmailing the widow of the Comte. L’Argent.

CUCHE, a family of fisher people who resided at Bonneville. They were
ruined by their house being washed away by the sea. The father and
mother lived extremely dissolute lives, and their son grew up little
better than a savage. Pauline Quenu made great efforts to reform him,
but he refused all attempts to make him settle down. La Joie de Vivre.

CUDORGE (MADAME), a seller of umbrellas in the Rue Neuve de la Goutte
d’Or, where she was a neighbour of Gervaise Lantier. L’Assommoir.

CUGNOT (PAULINE), daughter of a miller at Chartres who was ruined by
a lawsuit. She came to Paris, and eventually got a situation at “The
Ladies’ Paradise,” where she showed much kindness to Denise Baudu, who
was at first badly treated by the other employees there. Later on she
married Bauge, her lover, but was allowed to retain her situation. Au
Bonheur des Dames.




D

DABADIE, chief station-master at Havre. He was a handsome man, with
the bearing of a commercial magnate engrossed in business. Indeed,
he willingly left the passenger department of the station to his
assistants, in order that he might give particular attention to the
enormous transit of merchandise at the docks. It is said that he was
on friendly terms with Mademoiselle Guichon, the office-keeper at the
station. La Bete Humaine.

DAGUENET (PAUL), the favoured lover of Nana. His father who was highly
esteemed by Louis Philippe, occupied a prefecture up to the time of his
death. As for himself, he had gone through three hundred thousand francs
in eighteen months in the pursuit of pleasure, and was only able to
keep going by small speculations on the Stock Exchange. Attracted by
the fortune of Estelle Muffat, he decided to marry her, and with the
assistance of Nana obtained the consent of Count Muffat. Become serious
after marriage, Daguenet came under the influence of Theophile Venot,
and was ruled with a rod of iron by his wife, who now exhibited a
character entirely unsuspected before. He now went to Mass, and was
furious with his father-in-law, who was ruining the family on account of
Nana. Nana.

DAGUENET (MADAME). See Estelle Muffat de Beuville.

DAIGREMONT, a Paris financier who was possessed of an enormous fortune.
It was said that his fidelity was not quite reliable, and that on one
occasion at least he played his allies false and swept away the profits.
He was approached by Saccard before the foundation of the Universal
Bank, and being assured that Eugene Rougon was to back up his brother,
he agreed to become one of the directors. He supported Saccard during
the great gamble in the shares of the bank, and even on the day of the
collapse had promised to come on the market and buy so heavily as to put
up the price of the shares. Having received information through
Jacoby that Gundermann was determined at any cost to break the market,
Daigremont deserted Saccard, and instead of buying, sold all the shares
he had, thereby bringing about the final collapse. L’Argent.

DAIGREMONT (MADAME), wife of the preceding. She was celebrated for her
beauty and for her fine singing. L’Argent.

DALICHAMP, a doctor at Raucourt, six kilometres from Remilly. He was a
man of brusque manner, but of excellent heart, who showed much kindness
to his patients. In the middle of August, 1870, he established an
ambulance at Raucourt, and after Jean Macquart, severely wounded, had
arrived at the house of Pere Fouchard, Dalichamp attended him secretly
till his recovery. It was through him that Henriette Weiss and Jean
gained their knowledge of the disasters which were everywhere overtaking
the French army. La Debacle.

DAMBREVILLE, a Government official who married in order to secure
promotion through the influence of his wife. Pot-Bouille.

DAMBREVILLE (MADAME), wife of the preceding. An elderly woman with a
passion for Leon Josserand, whose appointment as Maitre des Requetes
she procured by her influence. She promised to secure a wealthy wife for
him, but delayed to do so until he insisted on a match being arranged
between him and her niece Raymonde. Her friendly relations with him
continued to subsist even after his marriage. Pot-Bouille.

DAMBREVILLE (RAYMONDE), niece of Dambreville. See Madame Leon Josserand.

DANSAERT, a head captain in the Voreux pit. He was brutal and
overbearing with the workmen, but humble in the presence of his
superiors. Though it was well known that he was the lover of La
Pierronne, he was friendly with her husband, and got information from
him regarding the progress of the strike. On the day of the accident
in the pit he became mad with fear, and leaped into one of the cages,
leaving his men at the bottom. This action, together with the scandals
regarding him, caused the company to decide on his dismissal. Germinal.

DASTE (MADAME), a friend of the Saccards and of Madame de Lauwerens. La
Curee.

DAUVERGNE, deputy station-master for the main lines at the Gare
Saint-Lazare. He occupied with his family, Claire, Henri, and Sophie,
a house belonging to the railway company in the Impasse d’Amsterdam. La
Bete Humaine.

DAUVERGNE (CLAIRE), daughter of the preceding and sister of Sophie.
The two sisters were both charming blondes, one eighteen and the other
twenty, who, amidst a constant stream of gaiety, looked after the
housekeeping with the six thousand francs earned by the two men. The
elder one would be heard laughing, while the younger sang, and a cage
full of exotic birds rivalled one another in roulades. La Bete Humaine.

DAUVERGNE (HENRI), a chief guard in the service of the Western Railway
Company. He was in love with Severine Roubaud, but was aware of her
liaison with Jacques Lantier. He was injured in the railway accident at
Croix-de-Maufras, and having been removed to a house which belonged to
Severine, he was nursed by her there. In a hallucination of illness,
he believed that he heard, outside his window, Roubaud arranging with
Cabuche for the murder of Severine: his mistaken evidence was greatly
instrumental in leading to the conviction of the two men. La Bete
Humaine.

DAUVERGNE (SOPHIE), the elder of the two sisters. La Bete Humaine.

DAVOINE, the purchaser of Chanteau’s timber business at Caen. When
Chanteau became incapacitated by gout, he sold his business to Davoine
for a hundred thousand francs, of which one-half was to be paid in
cash and the balance to remain in the business. Davoine was, however,
constantly launching into speculations, and the consequence was that
the profits were drained away, and t

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/5103