acquiring that of "Franciot," or "Frenchy," which was given him
because his pronunciation of various words differed from that of his
Provençal school-fellows. This was not to be wondered at, the parent
to whom he owed his mother tongue being a Beauceronne. Other anecdotes
which picture him suffering from an impediment in his speech may be
taken with a grain of salt, perhaps, as the official records show
that he gained prizes and _accessits_ for recitation. As had been
the case at the Pension Notre Dame, he formed a close friendship
with a few of his school-fellows. One of these was a lawyer's son,
named Marguery, a bright, merry lad with musical tastes, who a few
years later, to the general amazement, blew his brains out in a fit
of insanity. Another was Antony Valabrègue, afterwards a tasteful
poet, whose family, curiously enough, became connected with that of
Captain Dreyfus. Valabrègue being some years younger than Zola, their
companionship at school did not go very far, but they subsequently
corresponded, and intimacy ensued between them. At the college Zola's
more particular chums were Cézanne and Baille, the former afterwards
well known as an impressionist painter, the second as a professor at
the École Polytechnique. Baille, Cézanne, and Zola became inseparables,
and though all three were fairly diligent pupils in class-time, they
indulged in many a boyish prank together during the earlier years of
their sojourn at the college.
One morning, in a spirit of mischievousness, they burnt the shoes of
a school-fellow, a lank lad called Mimi-la-Mort, _alias_ the Skeleton
Day Boarder, who smuggled snuff into the school. Then one winter
evening they purloined some matches in the chapel and smoked dry
chestnut leaves in reed pipes there. Zola, who was the ringleader on
that occasion, afterwards frankly confessed his terror; owning that
a cold perspiration had come upon him as he scrambled out of the dark
choir. Again, another day, Cézanne hit upon the idea of roasting some
cock-chafers in his desk to see whether they were good to eat, as
people said they were. So terrible became the stench, so dense the
smoke, that the usher rushed for some water, under the impression that
the place was on fire. At another time they sawed off the wooden seats
in one of the courtyards, and carried them like corpses round the basin
of so-called ornamental water in the centre of the yard, other boys
joining them, forming in procession, and singing funeral dirges. But in
the midst of it all, Baille, who played the priest, tumbled into the
basin while trying to scoop some water into his cap, which was to have
served as a holy-water pot.[10]
The three inseparables engaged also in many a stone-throwing fight with
the town lads, clambered over the old, crumbling, ivy-clad ramparts,
and basked on "King René's chimney"[11] on occasions when the mistral
thundered by,--"buffeting the houses, carrying away their roofs,
dishevelling the trees, and raising great clouds of dust, while the
sky became a livid blue, and the sun turned pale."[12] There were
excursions also, sometimes by way of escorting regiments, which on
changing garrison passed through the town, at other moments on the
occasion of religious processions when the clergy appeared in their
finest vestments, their acolytes swinging censers and ringing hells,
the military and municipal bands discoursing music, the white-gowned
girls carrying banners, and the boys scattering roses and golden broom.
Although Émile Zola eventually lost all faith in the dogmas of the
Roman Church, the pomp of its cult impressed him throughout his life,
as is shown by many passages in his works. And in his boyhood the
processions of Aix delighted him. He himself sometimes took part in
them--acting on at least one occasion, in 1856, as a clarionet player
of the college _fanfare_, for his friend Marguery had imparted to him
some taste for music.
Then as now Aix had its theatre, which Zola and his young friends
patronised whenever they could afford a franc for a pit seat, but they
eschewed _café_ life and the gambling which usually attends it in the
provinces, for whenever they had time at their disposal they infinitely
preferred to roam the country. The environs of Aix are strangely
picturesque. There is the famous Mont Ste. Victoire, ascended through
thickets of evergreen oaks and holly, pines, wild roses, and junipers,
till at last only some box plants dot the precipitous slopes, veined
like marble; while in a cavern near the summit is the weird bottomless
pit of Le Garagay, whose demon-spirits Margaret of Anjou vainly
interrogated in "Anne of Geierstein." Again, there is the historic
castle of Vauvenargues, the ruined castle of Puyricard, the hermitage
of St. Honorat, and there are other mountainous hills with goat paths,
gorges, and ravines, and also stretches of plain, watered now by the
Arc or the Torse, now by the canal which François Zola planned. In his
son's youth that canal had not yet transformed the thirsty expanse;
when Émile roamed the region with his friends "the red and yellow
ochreous fields, spreading under the oppressive sun, were for the
most part planted merely with stunted almond and olive trees, with
branches twisted in positions which seemed to suggest suffering and
revolt. Afar off, like dots on the bare stripped hills, one saw only
the white-walled _bastides_, each flanked by dark, bar-like cypresses.
The vast expanse was devoid of greenery; but on the other hand, with
the broad folds and sharply defined tints of its desolate fields, it
possessed some fine outlines of a severe, classic grandeur."[13]
[Illustration: Dam and Reservoir of the Zola Canal]
Apart from the plain, but very characteristic of the region, were the
Infernet gorges, near which François Zola planned one of his huge
reservoirs. There one found "a narrow defile between giant walls of
rock which the blazing sun had baked and gilded. Pines had sprung up in
the clefts. Plumes of trees, appearing from below no larger than tufts
of herbage, fringed the crests and waved above the chasm. This was a
perfect chaos. With its many sudden twists, its streams of blood-red
soil, pouring from each gash in its sides, its desolation and its
solitude, disturbed only by the eagles hovering on high, it looked like
some spot riven by the bolts of heaven, some gallery of hell."[14]
There were also the villages, whose houses, at times, were mere hovels
of rubble and boards, some squatting amid muck-heaps, and dingy with
woeful want; others more roomy and cheerful, with roofs of pinkish
tiles. Strips of garden, victoriously planted amid stony soil,
displayed plots of vegetables enclosed by quickset hedges. Much of the
aridity of the region had arisen from the ruthless deforesting of the
hills; formerly the falling leaves had spread rich vegetable soil over
the mountain flanks, there had been good pasture for sheep where barren
crags alone were left, and the climate, equalised by the moisture of
the woods, had been less abrupt and violent in its changes.[15] Yet,
in Zola's youth, as now, "wherever there was the smallest spring, the
smallest brook, the glowing land still burst into powerful vegetation,
and a dense shade prevailed, with paths lying deep and delightfully
cool between plane trees, horse-chestnuts, and elms, all growing
vigorously."[16]
Those various scenes were a delight to Zola and his friends. "They
craved for the open air, the broad sunlight, the sequestered paths in
the ravines. They roamed the hills, rested in green nooks, returned
home at night through the thick dusk of the highways. In winter they
relished the cold, the frosty, gaily echoing ground, the pure sky,
and the sharp atmosphere. In summer they always assembled beside the
river--the willow-fringed Arc--for the water then became their supreme
passion, and they spent whole afternoons bathing, swimming, paddling,
and stretching themselves to dry on the fine sun-warmed sand. In the
autumn they became sportsmen--inoffensive ones, for there is virtually
no game, scarcely even a rabbit, in the district, and at the most one
might bring down an occasional petty-chap, fig-pecker, or some other
small bird. But if, now and again, they fired a shot, it was chiefly
for the pleasure of making a noise, and their expeditions always ended
in the shade of a tree, where they lay on their backs, chatting freely
of their preferences."[17]
A little later, when Zola's young muse essayed her flight, he recalled
those days of Provence, singing:
"O Provence, des pleurs s'échappent de mes yeux
Quand vibre sur mon luth ton nom mélodieux....
O région d'amour, de parfum, de lumière,
Il me serait bien doux de t'appeler ma mère....
Autour d'Aix, la romaine, il n'est pas de ravines,
Pas de rochers perdus au penchant des collines,
Dans la vallée en fleur pas de lointains sentiers,
Où, l'on ne puisse voir l'empreinte de mes pieds....
Écolier échappé de la docte prison,
Et jetant aux échos son rire et sa chanson,
Adolescent rêveur poursuivant sous tes saules
La nymphe dont il croit voir blanchir les épaules,
Jusqu'aux derniers taillis j'ai couru tes forêts,
O Provence, et foulé tes lieux les plus secrets.
Mes lèvres nommeraient chacune de tes pierres,
Chacun de tes buissons perdus dans tes clairières.
J'ai joué si longtemps sur tes coteaux fleuris,
Que brins d'herbe et graviers me sont de vieux amis."[18]
Those rambles undoubtedly helped to rouse a sense of poetry in Zola and
his companions. Besides providing themselves with provisions,--at times
a small joint of raw mutton and some salad plants, which they cooked
or dressed in the wilds,--they carried books, volumes of the poets,
in their pockets or their bags. One year, 1856, Victor Hugo reigned
over them like an absolute monarch. They were conquered by the majesty
of his compositions, enraptured by his powerful rhetoric. His dramas
haunted them like splendid visions. After being chilled by the classic
monologues which they were compelled to learn by heart at the college,
they felt warmed, transported into an orgy of quivering ecstacy, when
they lodged passages of "Hernani" and "Ruy Blas" in their minds. Many
a time, on the river-bank, after bathing, they acted some scenes
together.[19] Indeed, they knew entire plays, and on the way home,
in the twilight, they would adapt their steps to the rhythm of those
lines which were sonorous like trumpet-blasts. But a day came when one
of them produced a volume of Alfred de Musset's poems, the perusal of
which set their hearts quivering. From that hour their worship for Hugo
received a great blow, his lines fled from their memories, and Musset
alone reigned over them. He became their constant companion in the
hollows, the grottoes, the little village inns where they rested; and,
again and again, they read "Rolla" or the "Nights," aloud.[20]
Thus their young natures awoke to love. Cézanne and Baille were
then about eighteen years of age, Zola was seventeen. But their
aspirations remained full of ideality. There were a few brief,
uncertain attempts at love-making, nipped in the bud by circumstances.
Already, before the time we have now reached, Zola, or his musically
minded friend Marguery, or perhaps both, had nursed a boyish flame for
the fair-haired daughter of a local haberdasher, and had serenaded
her in company, the former with his clarionet, the latter with a
_cornet-à-piston_, until one evening the indignant parents emptied
their water-jugs over them. Later Zola dreamt of encountering "fair
beings in his rambles, beautiful maidens, who would suddenly spring
up in some strange wood, charm him for a whole day, and melt into air
at dusk."[21] And at last a young girl, Gratienne, flits by in the
moonlight near the Clos des Chartreux, with her heavy tresses of
raven hair resting on her young white neck;[22] but even she remains
little more than a vision, and as yet, neither into Zola's life
nor his friends' does woman, the real creature of flesh and blood,
really enter, to achieve that work of disillusion by which she almost
invariably destroys the youthful ecstacy which she, or her semblance,
has inspired. Ninon, the Ninon of the "Contes"[23], comes later. As yet
she is only dreamt of, though the name by which she is to be known to
the world is already suggested by an old gravestone in the cemetery,
with only the word "Nina" remaining of its time-worn inscription:**
"Ami, te souviens-tu de la tombe noircie,
Tout au bord d'une allée, à demi sous les fleurs,
Qui nous retint longtemps, et nous laissa rêveurs?
Le marbre en est rongé par les vents et la pluie.
Elle songe dans l'herbe et, discrête, se tait,
Souriante et sereine au blond soleil de mai.
"Elle songe dans l'herbe, et, de sa rêverie,
La tombe, chastement, à ceux qui passent là,
Ne livre que le nom effacé de NINA.
. . . . .
Ami, te souviens-tu, nous la rêvâmes belle,
Et depuis, bien souvent, sans jamais parler d'elle,
Nos regards se sont dit, dans un dernier regret:
'Si je l'avais connue, oh! Ninette vivrait!'"[24]
But serious trouble was now impending in Zola's home. While he studied
at the college, while his heart opened and his mind expanded, the
position of his mother and grandparents gradually became desperate.
All the savings, even the Auberts' funds, were exhausted; the lawsuits
still dragged on, entailing heavy costs, which drained the home of all
resources. Already in 1855, the rent in the Rue Bellegarde proving
too heavy, it became necessary to take a cheaper lodging on the Cours
des Minimes. Then, early in 1857, that also was found too dear, and
two little rooms were rented at the corner of the Rue Mazarine. They
overlooked the Barri[25], a lane-like _chemin-de-ronde_ encompassing
the old town, with small and sordid houses on one hand, and the
crumbling ramparts on the other.
Here black ruin fell upon the Zolas and the Auberts. The aged but
active grandmother toiled to the very last, managing the household,
raising money on goods and chattels, resisting the wolf at the door
with all the energy of despair. Bit by bit, every superfluous article
of furniture was sold; remnants of former finery were carried to the
wardrobe dealers, to obtain the means of purchasing daily bread and
paying Émile's college fees. As for the lawsuits, they remained in
abeyance from lack of funds. And blow following blow, poor Madame
Aubert could at last resist no longer, but sickened and died. That
happened in November, 1857. During the previous month Émile Zola had
returned to the college, entering the second class. Towards Christmas
his despairing mother started, alone, for Paris, to implore the help
of some of the personages who had formerly favoured her husband. The
old and almost helpless Monsieur Aubert remained at Aix with his young
grandson, who, after an anxious period of suspense, received in
February a letter from his mother, running much as follows:
"It is no longer possible to continue living at Aix. Sell the
little furniture that is left. You will in any case obtain
sufficient money to enable you to take third-class tickets to
Paris for yourself and your grandfather. Manage it as soon as
possible. I shall be waiting for you."
Young Émile acted in accordance with those instructions, but he could
not tear himself away from Aix and his friends without making with
the latter a farewell excursion to Le Tholonet and the _barrage_ of
the canal reservoir planned by his father. When he at last took the
train with old M. Aubert, his heart was heavy at the thought that he
might never see Provence again. But in that respect his fears were not
realised.
On reaching Paris, he found his mother residing at No. 63 Rue
Monsieur-le-Prince, near the Luxembourg palace. She had obtained some
assistance from friends, one of whom, Maître Labot[26], recommended
Émile to Désiré Nisard, the critic and historian, famous for having
tried to demonstrate that there were two moralities, and Nisard
speedily procured him a free scholarship at the Lycée or college of St.
Louis. This was by Madame Zola's express wish, for, however great might
be her misfortunes, she desired that her son might continue his studies.
But Paris now seemed a horrible place to the youthful Émile. All
was gloom there. Orsini, Pieri, and Rudio had attempted the life of
Napoleon III outside the opera-house a few weeks previously, and a
kind of terror prevailed under the iron rule of General Espinasse and
the new Law of Public Safety. Zola regretted the hills and the sun of
Provence, the companionship of Baille and Cézanne; he felt lost among
his new school-fellows, four hundred in number, and his poverty and
shabbiness increased his bitterness of spirit, for the lads attending
St. Louis were all more fortunately circumstanced than himself. That
Lycée, which then faced the Rue de la Harpe--the transformation of the
old Quartier Latin by the tracing of the Boulevard St. Michel being
as yet uneffected--ranked third among the great colleges of Paris;
and among those who had sat on its benches were the second Dr. Baron
Corvisart, Gounod the composer, Egger the Hellenist and poet, Havet
the Latinist and historian of early Christianity, and Nettement, whose
account of French literature under the Restoration is still worthy of
perusal. Other pupils, before Zola's time, were Henri Rochefort the
erratic journalist and politician, Charles Floquet the advocate, who
became prime minister of France; Dr. Tripier, one of the pioneers in
the application of electricity to medicine, and the well-known General
de Galliffet. Many of the professors also were able men who rose to
eminence, and in such a college one might have thought that Zola would
have made decisive progress.
As it happened, he not only got on badly with his school-fellows,--who
on account of the southern accent he had acquired in Provence
nicknamed him the "Marseillese,"--but, yielding to a brooding spirit,
he neglected his lessons. It was only in French composition that
he occasionally distinguished himself. One day, it appears, when
the allotted subject was "Milton dictating 'Paradise Lost' to his
daughter," he treated it so ably that the professor, M. Levasseur,--the
eminent historian of the French working classes,--publicly
complimented him. Truth to tell, he now read a great deal, even in
class time, still devouring the poets, but finding a delight also in
Rabelais, Montaigne, and other prose authors. And he carried on an
interminable correspondence with his friends in Provence, at times
addressing them in verse, at others launching into discussions on
philosophy, morals, and æsthetics. It was now, too, that he wrote his
tale, "La Fée Amoureuse," which was therefore the earliest of his
"Contes à Ninon," in which volume it afterwards appeared. Thus, in
spite of his declared preference for a scientific career, his literary
bent was steadily asserting itself.
At the end of his school year his only award was a second prize for
French composition. Nevertheless, his mother, having scraped a little
money together, allowed him to go to Provence for the vacation, which
he spent with Baille and Cézanne. But on coming back to Paris in
October he fell ill with a mucous fever of such severity that more than
once a fatal issue was feared. When, after a period of convalescence,
he returned to St. Louis, there entering the rhetoric class, two months
had been lost and he still felt weak. Thus, though his new master,
M. Lalanne, commended some of his work, notably his compositions,
his progress was not great, particularly as his mind turned so
frequently to Provence and his friends there, and hesitated between
the scientific avocations of his choice and an increasing ambition to
become a poet. When, however, the school year ended in August, 1859,
his mother's position being as precarious as ever, he resolved to
make an effort. He would skip the philosophy class and at once offer
himself as a candidate for the degree of bachelor in sciences--that,
or a corresponding degree in letters, being a necessary passport for
eventual admission into the recognised professions or the government
service.
The result of Zola's attempt was singular. In his written examination
he proved very successful, his name appearing second on the list,
but in the ensuing _vivâ-voce_ examination, after securing good
marks in physics, chemistry, and natural history, fair ones in pure
mathematics, algebra, and trigonometry, he collapsed in literature and
modern languages. He post-dated Charlemagne's death by five hundred
years, scandalised the examiner by a romantic interpretation of one
of La Fontaine's fables, and virtually confessed his utter ignorance
of German. Thus his mark was zero; and though, it would seem, the
examiners in sciences interceded in his favour with the examiner in
_belles lettres_, the latter remained obdurate and would not modify the
mark. Zola was therefore "sent back," for it was not allowable that a
bachelor in sciences should be absolutely _nul en littérature_.[27]
Several years previously Alexandre Dumas _fils_ had been "ploughed" for
the very same reason. Two distinguished men of Zola's own generation,
Alphonse Daudet and François Coppée, also failed to secure bachelors'
degrees; yet, like Zola himself, they became eminent writers. Of course
it is impossible to found any valid argument for or against degrees on
a few isolated instances. It may be doubted, perhaps, whether they are
any great recommendation to the literary man who is a dramatist or a
novelist or a poet. But Zola's literary aspirations did not enter into
his scheme when he offered himself for examination; he merely wished
to secure a certificate, as it were, qualifying him for employment
in one of the semi-scientific branches of the government service. In
that respect his failure was a severe disappointment, particularly to
his mother, who had set all her hopes upon him, and was distressed to
find that the promise of his college days at Aix remained unfulfilled.
At the same time, mother-like, she blamed the examiners more than
she blamed him, and once more she provided him with enough money to
spend the summer vacation in Provence.[28] A week after he had been
"ploughed" at the Sorbonne, Zola was again roaming the hills, in a
blouse and hob-nailed boots, accompanied by his usual intimates.
There was also no little writing of poetry on Zola's part during those
holidays, the influence of Musset still being in the ascendant, as is
shown by a piece entitled "Rodolpho," in which one can further detect
the change which Parisian life, particularly that of the Quartier
Latin, where he had his home, was now effecting in the youth who had
awoke, in Provence, to little more than ideal love. Musset likewise
inspires some verses entitled "Vision," also dating from this time; but
a perusal of the "Contes de La Fontaine," a book which no discipline
seems able to keep out of French colleges, plainly suggested "Le Diable
ermite," in which the good Abbé's erotic style was imitated only too
successfully. Another piece, entitled "Religion," shows that the young
versifier, the former winner of prizes for "religious instruction," was
already losing his faith under the influence, no doubt, of Parisian
surroundings. In this effort he is found calling on the Deity to
manifest himself in order that he may believe in him, asking the why
and the wherefore of things, and displaying a grim consciousness of the
wretchedness of mankind. There are lines in this poem of his twentieth
year which suggest the Zola of the last stage:
"Hélas! que tout est noir dans la vallée humaine!
Les hommes en troupeaux se parquent dans la plaine,
Vivant sur des égouts, qu'entoure un mur croulant."