remarked his repeated efforts to get to the front. Nevertheless they
were somewhat surprised by the praise which had fallen from Gautier's
lips. He, subsequent to this conversation, caused Zola to be informed
of the recommendation he had given him, and the young novelist soon
called on M. Charpentier, whose establishment was then on the Quai
du Louvre. For just one moment there had been a little hesitation on
Zola's part. His only suit of clothes was quite disreputable, and both
he and his devoted young wife felt that he ought, at least, to appear
decently clad before this publisher on whom his fate depended. There
was very little money in the house, but Madame Zola took it and hurried
to the "slop" market of the Temple, where she purchased a second-hand
suit of black, the nearest approach to a fit that she could find. In
those slop garments--which remind one of Daudet's black trousers,
similarly acquired, which suddenly became a military red, having been
very imperfectly dyed--Zola presented himself before Charpentier, and
was pleased to find that he had to deal, not with the stern founder of
the business, whom some authors regarded as a kind of terror, but with
the son, a pleasant, cordial man of about his own age.
The position was explained: Lacroix was ruined, and Zola wished to
transfer his contract with certain modifications. M. Charpentier asked
for twenty-four hours to consider the matter, and on the morrow an
agreement was arrived at. During a period of five years Zola was to
supply two novels every twelvemonth, and Charpentier was to hand him
five hundred francs every month; that is to say, in addition to the two
volumes published by Lacroix there would be ten others, representing
in the aggregate a sum of thirty thousand francs. Whereas, however, in
the contract with Lacroix, the money received by Zola was regarded as
an advance, in that with M. Charpentier it was to be actual payment,
in return for which the full copyright in each of the ten novels which
Zola engaged to write would belong to M. Charpentier for ten years.
During that period he would be at liberty to produce them in whatever
manner he pleased, both serially and in book form, as well as to sell
the rights of translation to foreign publishers, without paying Zola
a single franc beyond the stipulated monthly allowance.[31] As Zola
desired that the entire series should be in the hands of one publisher,
a desire which Charpentier shared, there was also an understanding
respecting "La Fortune des Rougon" and "La Curée," the right to
republish which was secured from Lacroix by a payment of eight hundred
francs.
The agreement with Charpentier certainly extricated Zola from an
extremely difficult position, and it is unlikely that he would have
secured better terms, or even as good, elsewhere. But what did they
amount to? To the prospect of an income of two hundred and forty
pounds[32] a year for five years, in exchange for ten novels. As the
sequel showed, such an income would hardly have sufficed for Zola's
wants, particularly as there were many claims on him with respect to
the bills he had given Lacroix. No less than thirty thousand francs'
worth of paper bearing his signature or endorsement was in circulation
about this time, says Alexis, and Zola had the greatest difficulty
to prove that he had not been the ruined publisher's "man of straw."
The nominal amount of his indebtedness was swollen, and the intricacy
of the position increased, by the circumstance that many a time when
a bill had been renewed it had not been returned to him, though the
new bill was placed in circulation. It was only in 1875 that Zola was
able to recover his notes and acceptances, and generally liquidate
his position, by the payment of various amounts in accordance with an
arrangement entered into with M. Lacroix. The latter, be it said, was
an honourable but unlucky man, a victim both of circumstances and of
misplaced confidence in others.
But, to return to Zola. His contract with M. Charpentier did not free
him from the necessity of doing his utmost to increase his income
by journalism, to which he devoted no little time. This threw him
back with his novels, which, as will be shown, often necessitated
considerable preliminary study, and which he refused to "scamp."
The publishing arrangement he had made partook undoubtedly of a
"pot-boiling" character; but he was resolved that there should be
nothing of the nature of pot-boiling about his literary work. He found
at last that he could not write more than one novel a year, and thus,
though he drew his money regularly enough, the time came--in or about
1875--when he owed M. Charpentier two or three volumes. Mustering his
courage, he called on his publisher to explain his position. But at the
first words he spoke with respect to his overdraughts, M. Charpentier
interrupted him.
"My dear friend," said he, "I do not wish to rob you. I do not want to
derive more than my usual profits from your work. I have lately had an
account of your sales drawn up on the basis of an author's royalty of
forty centimes per volume,[33] and according to this account, it is not
you who owe me money, it is I who owe you some ten thousand francs.
Here is our agreement, I tear it up, and all you have to do is to see
my cashier."
As Alexis remarks, after telling this story, what other publisher
would have done such a thing? In Zola's case it raised him from modest
circumstances to affluence. Had the original contract remained in
force he would have earned, inclusive of the earlier payments from
Lacroix, no more than forty thousand francs by the first twelve volumes
of his "Rougon-Macquart" series. At least he would have earned no
more during the first ten years of their circulation. But thanks to
M. Charpentier's generous honesty,--the successive increase, too, of
Zola's royalty from forty to fifty and sixty centimes per volume,
the various sums accruing from special issues, illustrated editions,
popular editions, _éditions de luxe_, serial rights and translation
rights--all of which, under the agreement, would have belonged to the
publisher--he earned by those twelve books fully twenty times the
amount of money he had covenanted to take for them.
That said, it is as well to return to the year 1872, and show how, his
long spell of absolute ill-luck ceasing, Zola, while still encountering
much hostility, which presently was to grow into a furious storm,
gradually advanced along the path of success, assisted by literature's
handmaiden, journalism, and cheered by the friendship of some of the
foremost men of letters of his time.
[1] "Lettres de Jules de Goncourt," etc., Paris, 1885, p. 219. (Letter
dated February 27, 1865.)
[2] "Lettres de Jules de Goncourt," p. 273 (February 5, 1868).
[3] "Journal des Goncourt," Paris, 1888, 1ère Série, Vol. III.
[4] "Lettres de Jules de Goncourt." See those of January 10, January
17, and April 10, 1869.
[5] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol III, p. 245 _et seq._
[6] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol. IV, p. 15.
[7] "La Tribune," October, 1869.
[8] "Traité philosophique et physiologique de l'Hérédité Naturelle dans
les états de santé et de maladie du Système Nerveux," Paris, 1847-1850,
2 vols. 8vo.
[9] This tree was subsequently inserted at the beginning of "Une Page
d'Amour," 1878 _et seq._ The leaves bear the names of twenty-six
characters. But the series expanded, and with its last volume, "Le
Docteur Pascal," 1893, a new genealogical tree was issued giving six
more names.
[10] That was then the usual price of a French novel. The rise to 3
francs 50 centimes took place after the War of 1870.
[11] £240, about $1,200.
[12] See _ante_, p. 30.
[13] Notably with regard to the publication of that extraordinary
romance, "L'Homme qui Rit," for which Lacroix paid much more than its
value.
[14] The Parnassians, who were brought together by Xavier de Ricard,
dated from about 1860. The first series of "Le Parnasse contemporain"
was issued by Lemerre in 1866.
[15] "The Adventures of my Life," by Henri Rochefort, English edition,
London, 1896, Vol. I, p. 206.
[16] His brother, Charles Vacquerie, after marrying the poet's
daughter, Léopoldine Hugo, had been drowned with her off Villequier, in
1843.
[17] This was perhaps due to the circumstance that Glais-Bizoin, the
_enfant terrible_ of the Republican opposition in the Corps Législatif,
played the chief part in the directorship of the paper, the latter's
better features being imparted to it by his co-editor, the scholarly
Eugène Pelletan. It was run chiefly in view of the 1869 elections and
Zola subsequently remarked that excepting himself and the office boy
every member of its staff was a parliamentary candidate.
[18] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol V, p. 150 (November 13, 1874).
[19] "Papiers et Correspondance de la Famille Impériale," Paris,
Imprimerie Nationale, 1870.
[20] See _ante_, p. 100.
[21] "L'Œuvre," p. 208.
[22] "L'Œuvre," p. 251. Alexis, p. 91.
[23] "Le Gaulois," March 26, 1869.
[24] The "Blowitz Memoirs" (London, 1903) give an erroneous version of
this story, transferring the scene to the Quai d'Orsay, in Paris, and
making Cavalié secretary to Paschal Grousset, "Delegate for Foreign
Affairs" of the Commune of 1871. As Lord Lyons was not then in Paris,
that version is obviously wrong. The incident, which the ambassador
himself narrated more than once in after years, really occurred at
Tours late in 1870, Cavalie's words being: "Dites donc, mon vieux, il
ne faut pas se faire de bile, au sujet du patron. Allons plutôt prendre
in bon bock!" Cavalié was a notorious bohemian, worthy of Murger; he
had been one of the leaders of the cabal against the Goncourts' play,
"Henriette Maréchal."
[25] Alexis, _l. c._, p. 173.
[26] This was a crisis provoked by Thiers' Presidential Message of
November 13, 1872, by which he asked for the definite constitution of a
Republic, a proposal which led to a great outcry on the part of those
who wished to place the Count de Chambord or the Count de Paris on the
throne.
[27] See "Souvenirs; XIV," in the "Nouveaux Contes à Ninon."
[28] "La Fortune des Rougon," Librairie Internationale. 1st and 2d
editions: 1871, 389 pages, 18mo, 3 francs; 3d edition, Charpentier,
1872, 385 pages, 18mo, 3 francs 50 centimes. Thirty-eighth thousand on
sale in 1903.
[29] "La Curée," Librairie Internationale; 1st edition: covers dated
1872, title-pages, 1871, 360 pages, 18mo, 3 francs; 2d edition,
Charpentier, 1872, 354 pages, 18mo, 3 francs 50 centimes; 5th edition,
360 pages, 1876; fiftieth thousand on sale in 1903.
[30] M. Adolphe Brisson in "Le Temps," October 3, 1902.
[31] All that the author retained was the dramatic rights.
[32] About $1,200.
[33] The books sold at 3 francs 50 centimes each; so the above would
represent a royalty of about 11 per cent.
VI
THE PATH OF SUCCESS
1872-1877
Flaubert and his intimates: Zola, Goncourt, Tourgeneff, Daudet,
and Maupassant--"Thérèse Raquin" as a play--"Le Ventre de Paris"
and the sensitive critics--A first charge of plagiarism--The
"Dinners of the Hissed Authors"--Zola and good fare--Sunday
gatherings at Flaubert's--"La Conquête de Plassans"--"Les Héritiers
Rabourdin"--Zola in the Rue St. Georges--His contributions to a
Russian review--"La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret"--"Nouveaux Contes à
Ninon"--"Son Excellence Eugène Rougon"--The truth about "back-stairs
gossip"--Flaubert's mimicry of Napoleon III--Zola, Daudet, and
"personalities" in fiction--Zola "sees mice and birds"--His stay
at St Aubin-sur-Mer--He plans "L'Assommoir"--Publication of "Son
Excellence"--Dramatic criticism for "Le Bien Public"--Zola's income
early in 1876--Serial issue of "L'Assommoir"--The outcry and the
cessation of publication--Catulle Mendès to the rescue--"L'Assommoir"
as a book--Its large sales--A furious controversy--Articles, pamphlets,
poems, parodies, and lectures--The years of "L'Assommoir" a date in
French Literature--Other writings of the time--Zola's "band," Alexis,
Huysmans, Maupassant, Céard, and Hennique--Flaubert, "L'Assommoir" and
"Naturalism"--Zola's hammer, journalism--Self-assertion and pushfulness
the weapons of the age.
After the Franco-German War, Gustave Flaubert, who during fifteen years
of the imperial _régime_ had resided, when in Paris, on the Boulevard
du Temple, found a _pied-à-terre_ in the Rue Murillo, near the Parc
Monceau, thereby becoming one of Zola's neighbours, for the Rue
Murillo is only a few minutes' walk from the Rue de La Condamine. Zola
frequently called on Flaubert, whom he at first found very downcast,
for the fall of the Empire seemed to him the end of the world, and
besides, he had not yet recovered from the failure of his book,
"L'Education sentimentale," published in 1869. It was at Flaubert's
that Zola again met Edmond de Goncourt, who was still mourning his
brother, and feeling so discouraged that he hardly dared to take pen
in hand. With Zola and Goncourt came Flaubert's young disciple, Guy
de Maupassant, at that moment little more than one-and-twenty, then
Ivan Tourgeneff and Alphonse Daudet, whom Zola had already met in the
days of "L'Événement," these five being for a time the only intimates
of the author of "Madame Bovary." They were not a very gay party, it
would seem. One Shrove Sunday, says Zola, while the carnival horns were
resounding in the streets, he sat till nightfall listening to Goncourt
and Flaubert, who for hours did not cease recalling the past and
lamenting its disappearance.[1] Goncourt, on his side, receiving Zola
about this time (June, 1872), once more found him sickly and neurotic,
complaining confusedly of rheumatism, heart and bladder trouble, and
mastered by such acute nervous trembling that he had to employ both
hands to carry his glass to his lips.[2]
At that date Zola was planning a novel on the Paris markets--"Le Ventre
de Paris"--and dramatising his earlier book, "Thérèse Raquin," working,
so he told Goncourt, some nine hours and a half every day. When his
play was finished he offered it to M. Hostein, the director of a new
Parisian theatre, La Renaissance, and after numerous alterations had
been effected, its five acts being reduced to four, it was staged
and produced on July 11, 1873, when it met with a curious reception.
The more frivolous, the "society" section of the audience, could not
endure such tragic sombreness, and Francisque Sarcey, who held that
the stage only existed for the amusement of the public, declared that
"this man Zola" made him feel "quite ill." If, however, there was some
hissing at the first performance of "Thérèse Raquin," there was also
some applause, and when the curtain fell the question of success or
failure seemed still to be hanging in the balance. But the professional
critics agreed to slate the play, and moreover the "dog-days" were just
beginning, the heat emptying even those theatres which had hitherto
drawn large audiences, in such wise that after nine performances La
Renaissance closed its doors for the summer vacation, and "Thérèse
Raquin," as a play, was heard of no more.
Zola consoled himself with the comparative success of his novel, "Le
Ventre de Paris,"[3] which reached a second edition deservedly, for its
kaleidoscopic pictures of the Paris markets were the best descriptive
work that the author had as yet penned. Nevertheless, the book
encountered some severe criticism at the hands of the few reviewers
who condescended to notice it. Writers devoid of any Rabelaisian sense
denounced it as the apotheosis of gluttony; the transference of a
pork-butcher's shop to literature was regarded as outrageous; and a
certain "symphony of cheeses" gave one critic such a fit of nausea,
that an unsuspecting foreigner reading his remarks might have imagined
cheese to be an abomination to the delicately constituted Parisians,
whereas, in fact, they then consumed--and still consume to-day--a
greater amount and a greater variety of cheese, often with the
strangest flavours and odours, than any other community in the world.
But, apropos of this same "symphony," a Parnassian poet,--one who was
then regarded as a neo-Grecian, neither more nor less,--M. Anatole
France, pointed out rightly enough that the imagery in which Zola
indulged was inconsistent with his claim already put forward, though
not definitely enunciated, to be a realistic writer. "Such vain,
empty, and detestable _virtuosité_" had no place, said M. France, in
the realist system, and indeed, taking that system as it was defined
by Zola under the name of naturalism a little later, M. France was
assuredly correct. As a matter of fact the duality of Zola's nature was
always appearing. He was for ever straying beyond the limits of the
doctrines he propounded, having quaffed too deeply of Hugo's rhetoric
in his youth to be able to restrain himself. And it was as well,
perhaps, to show that even at this early stage of his great series,
his vagaries, his deviations from his self-chosen principles, already
attracted attention.
It was also apropos of this same "Ventre de Paris," that the first of
many charges of plagiarism was preferred against Zola. In this instance
it was M. Nadar, photographer, aeronaut, caricaturist, and author,
who declared that "the colour scale" of the sea of vegetables which
Zola showed spreading around the Paris markets had been borrowed from
something which he, Nadar, had written. But Zola had merely expanded
a passage of one of his own early articles; and the suggestion of
plagiarism was the more ridiculous as the first thing which strikes
anybody, even with only a little artistic perception, when witnessing
daybreak at the Paris markets, is the diversity of the picture's hues,
the great medley of colour gradually accentuated by the light of the
rising sun. M. Nadar probably realised that his contention could not be
regarded seriously. At all events the matter dropped, and Zola turned
to his next volume, "La Conquête de Plassans," as well as to a new
play, a three-act comedy, which he entitled "Les Héritiers Rabourdin."
Meantime, it had occurred to Flaubert to unite his intimates in
a monthly dinner, which, said he, might be called "the Dinner of
the Hissed Authors." He himself had been hissed for his play, "Le
Candidat," Zola had encountered a similar experience with "Thérèse
Raquin," Alphonse Daudet with "L'Arlésienne," and Edmond de Goncourt
with "Henriette Maréchal." Tourgeneff, also, was admitted to the
company on the strength of his assertion that he had been hissed in
Russia; but, according to Daudet, when Émile de Girardin, hearing
of the project, wished to join the others--pleading, no doubt, the
reception given to the notorious "Supplice d'une Femme"--they promptly
blackballed him on the ground that he was not a _littérateur_.[4]
[Illustration: Émile Zola, 1876-1880--Photo by Nadar]
Thanks to the wine provided at those monthly dinners, they were
livelier, though perhaps not more interesting, than the Sunday meetings
in Flaubert's rooms. They took place at various restaurants, the
first at the Café Riche, on April 14, 1874.[5] Then, as Flaubert was
starting for Le Croisset, near Rouen, the next was adjourned till
the winter months. As Zola tells us, during the years over which
these dinners were spread, the choice of a restaurant for the next
repast invariably led to great discussion among the five _convives_.
Anxious apparently to sample every kind of _cuisine_, they went from
the Café Riche to Voisin's in the Rue St. Honoré; from Voisin's to
Adolphe and Pelé's near the Grand Opera House, and thence to the Byron
on the Place de l'Opéra Comique. They feasted now on _bouillabaisse_,
now on _poulet au kari_. Tourgeneff naturally required caviar to whet
his appetite; Flaubert always insisted on having Normandy butter, and
revelled in Rouen ducklings _à l'étouffade_; while Goncourt evinced
a depraved taste for preserved ginger. As for Zola, he, according to
Alphonse Daudet, was addicted to shellfish and sea-urchins! His friends
occasionally twitted him respecting the partiality he began to evince
for good fare,--which cast, they said, a lurid light on his novel,
"Le Ventre de Paris"--and he frankly acknowledged his _gourmandise_,
pleading, however, that it was his only vice, and that he had gone
hungry so many years!
Of course there was no ceremony at those monthly dinners. Flaubert
and Zola often took off their coats and sat down at table "in their
shirt-sleeves," as the phrase goes, while between the courses
Tourgeneff would sprawl on a sofa. And directly the coffee was served
the waiters were turned out of the room, and a long discussion
on literary subjects began, that is when it had not been started
already at the outset of the repast. "I remember," wrote Zola, in his
recollections of Flaubert,[6] "a terrible discussion on Chateaubriand,
which lasted from seven in the evening till one o'clock in the
morning. Flaubert and Daudet defended him, Tourgeneff and I attacked
him, while Goncourt remained neutral. At other times we took up the
subject of the passions, talked of women and love, and on those
occasions the waiters looked at us aghast. Then, as Flaubert detested
having to walk home alone, I accompanied him through the dark streets,
and did not get to bed till three o'clock in the morning, for we halted
at the corner of every open space to philosophise."
Meantime the Sunday gatherings at Flaubert's had become far less
gloomy. The author of "Madame Bovary" had gradually accustomed himself
to the new order of things, and when he removed from the Rue Murillo
to the Faubourg St. Honoré, a number of admirers surrounded him, as
well as his half-dozen chosen intimates.[7] On some occasions as
many as twenty visitors assembled in his half-furnished white and
gold drawing-room, which from three till six o'clock became full of
tobacco-smoke, everybody except Zola freely indulging in pipe, cigar,
or cigarette. He had ceased smoking under compulsion, in his days
of dire necessity, and though no such compulsion existed now, even
Flaubert seldom succeeded in forcing a pipe upon him.
In his account of those Sunday gatherings, he allows us to understand
that the speech often suggested the style of Rabelais, perhaps even
of Villon, that spades were called plumply spades, which will not
surprise those who know the Cambronnesque epithet that Flaubert--the
stylist--applied to his own work, "Madame Bovary," in his anger and
weariness at being incessantly complimented on it. For the rest, Zola
tells us that the company "rattled through every subject, always
reverting to literature, to the book or the play of the hour, or to
some general question or venturesome theory; but, at the same time,
excursions were made into every field, and neither men nor things
were spared. Flaubert thundered, Tourgeneff told stories of exquisite
originality and savour, Goncourt pronounced judgment on one matter and
another with all his shrewdness and personal style of phraseology. Then
Daudet acted his anecdotes in that charming manner of his, which made
him the best of companions; while as for myself I did not shine at all,
for I am a very poor conversationalist, and only worth anything when I
feel a deep conviction on some subject, and fly into a passion."
To some of the aforementioned gatherings and dinners it will be
necessary to refer again in the course of this narrative. What has been
set down here will, however, indicate the nature of the companionship
which came to Zola as he toiled along the path leading to success. He
had not shaken off his old friends, he still gave his weekly dinners
which one or another--Alexis, Marius Roux, Coste, Duranty, and Béliard,
the painter,--attended, though some began to fall out of the ranks,
carried hither and thither by their private interests. Meantime, he
worked very zealously. In 1874, he completed his story, "La Conquête
de Plassans,"--the fourth volume of the Rougon-Macquart series--and
ran it through "Le Siècle" as a serial. When it was published, soon
afterwards, in volume form by Charpentier, there was a sufficient
demand to justify the printing of a second edition of this tale of
priestly intrigue in public and private life.[8]