des Dames," found him lugubrious. "The big sales are all over," said
he, in much the same tone as a Trappist might have ejaculated the
customary greeting, "Brother, one must die." Nevertheless, though
he had several excellent subjects in his mind,--books which under
favourable circumstances might well have compelled a renewal of public
attention,--he deliberately postponed them, and turned to a work which
he must have known would appeal to only a small audience, that study of
suffering, egotism, and sacrifice which he called satirically "La Joie
de Vivre," and which he had put aside in 1881.
After all, in his estimation apparently, it mattered little what
book he took in hand, for as he remarked to Goncourt at the Comédie
Française on the night of the revival of Victor Hugo's "Le Roi
s'amuse" (November 23, 1882), novels were always the same thing over
and over again; and it would only be possible to take an interest in
the writing of them if one could invent a new form. Personally his
great desire was an opportunity to produce a play, one really all his
own. In a word he was as stage-struck as ever, and it seemed unlikely
that he would feel content until he had given the world an acknowledged
dramatic masterpiece. That comparative disregard for the work for which
one is best fitted, that craving to excel in something else, and to be
praised for it, has appeared in many men, in various degrees and ways.
There was Thackeray, who always longed to see his drawings commended;
there was Ingres, who courted more applause for his proficiency as a
violinist than for his gifts as a painter.
At the opening of the Salon of 1883, Zola lunched with Daudet and
Goncourt, and Daudet unbosoming himself, as was often his wont,
solicited the advice of his friends as to whether he should offer
himself as a candidate for the French Academy. Both Zola and Goncourt
urged him to do so, and there was no reason why they should have
acted otherwise, for he had many chances in his favour. He occupied a
high position as a novelist, and though nowadays no thinking critic
can place him in the same rank as Zola, he was at that time far more
popular, for if, here and there, he had lampooned one or another
individual in his books, he had never given anything like the offence
which Zola had given in many directions.
It may be said, perhaps, that in 1883 Alphonse Daudet had reached the
height of his reputation. In any case his best work was already done.
His novel, "Le Nabab," published in 1878, had been followed the next
year by "Les Rois en Exil," and in 1880 by "Numa Roumestan," which
would seem to mark the apogee of his career, for a decline was already
observable in "L'Évangéliste," published in 1882, and although "Sapho,"
issued two years later, sold prodigiously, it was not really a great
book in the opinion of the present writer, who, cast young into the
vortex of Paris, knows something of the existence depicted in Daudet's
pages, and has always held that picture to be artificial, untrue to
nature in many essential respects, and absolutely deficient in depth.
Indeed "Sapho" is a mere skimming of the surface; it never probes.
But when all is said, Daudet could be an admirable story-teller when
he chose, and the very gifts, which on one hand led to some adverse
criticism,--his veneer of poetry, his sentimentality, his inclination
to moralise,--won him favour far and wide among people of average
intellects.
As was suggested earlier in these pages, Daudet brought a feminine
talent into competition with the masculine talent of Zola. Each had his
champions in the Parisian world of those days, and nothing would have
given some folk greater pleasure than a fierce battle for supremacy
between the two men who had become the most widely read novelists of
their time. But as a matter of fact they were the best of friends. One
has only to glance at Zola's collected essays to see how he praised
some of Daudet's writings; while on consulting the pages of Goncourt's
"Journal" one will find the two rivals constantly together, dining and
lunching and making excursions. Daudet frequently went to Médan, where
he boated on the Seine, singing gaily while he rowed, for his health
was still good, his spirits were still those of the joyous South, all
brightness and geniality, which often helped to dispel his friend's
hypochondria. That he was worthy of a place in the French Academy goes
without saying, and it was only natural that he should have thought of
offering himself as a candidate and have solicited his friends' advice.
But, as will be remembered, his views on the subject changed entirely;
he allowed it to be known that he regarded the Academy as beneath his
notice, and then, in a contradictory spirit, went out of his way to
lampoon it in a third-rate book, "L'Immortel." As for Zola, in 1883
there could be no question of an Academical seat for him. He was still
in the midst of his battle, with his work only half done.
His novel "La Joie de Vivre," begun at Médan, was written chiefly
amid the wild, primitive surroundings of the Anse de Benodet, a creek
on the rocky coast of Finistère; but the scene of the book was laid
on the Norman shore, between St. Aubin and Grandcamp, where Zola had
stayed in previous years. In Lazare Chanteau, the "hero" of his story,
he depicted much of his own hypochondria, at which he had already
glanced in a tale called "La Mort d'Olivier Bécaille." Lazare's fear
of death, his petty superstitions, his irresolution, were all based on
Zola's personal experience. So gray a work, which only the devotion and
self-sacrifice of Pauline, the heroine, occasionally brightens, could
not attract the mass of the reading public. It was published first by
the "Gil Blas," which again paid twenty thousand francs for the serial
rights; but when it appeared as a volume its sales were small.[52] In
fact, from the standpoint of circulation, Zola now relapsed into the
position he had occupied before "L'Assommoir."
But he had made a fresh effort as a playwright, having prepared a
dramatic version of "Pot-Bouille," in conjunction with M. Busnach.
This, which was produced at the Ambigu Theatre on December 13, 1883,
proved less successful than its forerunners, "L'Assommoir" and "Nana,"
and Zola, in a grumpish mood, decided to remain at "the mill," that is,
write another novel. This time, however, he hesitated awhile as to his
subject. Among those he had selected for consideration was the railway
world, but he was still at a loss how he might work it into a novel.
It would be better to turn to the peasantry, to whom he must certainly
devote a book; and so, after telling Goncourt that his next novel would
be called "La Terre," and that in order to obtain the requisite local
colour he would have to spend at least a month on a farm in La Beauce,
he asked his friend if it would be possible to procure him a letter of
recommendation from some large landowner to one of his farmers, who
might be willing to give a lodging to a lady in poor health and in need
of country air. The lady in question--Madame Zola--would naturally
be accompanied by her husband, and, added Zola, a double-bedded room
with whitewashed walls would be ample accommodation, though it must be
arranged that he and his wife should take their meals with the farmer
and his family, for otherwise he would learn virtually nothing.[53]
He realised, apparently, that folks unbutton themselves (in the
figurative sense) more readily at meal-time than at any other.
Goncourt was unable to help his friend in this matter, at all events
immediately; so Zola turned to another subject which he mentioned on
the same occasion, that of a strike in a mining district, such as was
in progress among the pitmen of northern France at that very moment.
Forthwith he started for the scene of the trouble. "At Valenciennes
since Saturday, among the strikers, who are remarkably calm," he wrote
in February, 1884. "A splendid country as a scene for my book." This
time his subject fairly carried him away. "He spent," says Mr. Sherard,
"the best part of six months in travelling about, note-book in hand,
through the various mining districts of the north of France and of
Belgium, interviewing miners, exploring mines from pit-mouth to lowest
depths, attending political meetings among the miners, studying various
types of Socialist lecturers, drinking horrible beer and still more
horrible brandy in the forlorn _cabarets_ of the _corons_ [miners'
villages], interrogating miners' wives, and wandering about the fields
in the neighbourhood of these _corons_ to watch the lads and lassies
taking their poor pastimes when the day's drudgery was over."[54]
Some eight or nine years subsequently, Mr. Sherard, on visiting the
Borinage, as the coal district round Mons is called, fell in with an
old _porion_ or "viewer" who had acted as one of Zola's guides, and
who pronounced him to have been the most inquisitive gentleman he
had ever met. Never had he known anybody who asked more questions,
said he, unless, indeed, it were an investigating magistrate. Mr.
Sherard mentions also that "Germinal"--for that was the book which
proceeded from Zola's sojourn among the pitmen--was known in every
mining village which he visited. There was not a _coron_ where at least
one well-thumbed copy of the work could not be found: a proof of the
appreciation in which it was held by the toilers on whose behalf it had
been written.
The preliminary study which "Germinal" necessitated, the long sojourn
among new and strange scenes, the strong interest, the compassion
roused by all Zola saw and heard, most certainly proved very beneficial
to him, reinvigorating him, checking his hypochondriacal tendency,
diverting his mind from self, renewing and enlarging his ideas. Thus
he was again in possession of physical and mental strength when he
began the actual writing of the book. Like his more recent novels it
was published _en feuilleton_ by the "Gil Blas";[55] and an English
version, prepared by Mr. Albert Vandam, appeared in a London weekly
newspaper, "The People."[56]
While the serial issue was in progress Zola was once again accused
of plagiarism. This time he was said to have borrowed the idea of
"Germinal" from a story called "Le Grisou" ("Firedamp"), by M. Maurice
Talmeyre--a story which likewise dealt with the coal-pits of northern
France, and which when published a few years previously had attracted
some attention, being full of interest and written with literary
ability. But the idea that Zola had stolen his idea of "Germinal" from
it was ridiculous. It had been pointed out long since by Alexis that
he proposed to add a second volume on the masses to the study he had
made of them in "L'Assommoir," intending on the second occasion to deal
more particularly with their social and political aspirations. That
intention was partially carried into effect in "Germinal," and the idea
of laying the scene of his story in the "black country" of northern
France was a sudden inspiration which came to Zola when he found it
difficult to proceed immediately with his proposed work on some of
the French peasantry--an inspiration which was not derived from M.
Talmeyre's book at all, but from the circumstance that some thousands
of pitmen were on strike at that very time.
Surely no author can claim a monopoly of any subject or any locality.
One writer, for instance, may lay a scene in Regent Street; another is
equally entitled to do so; and in the result there may well be some
resemblance between their descriptions of the thoroughfare. Moreover,
in giving an account of any form of life, all writers are confronted
by the same essential facts. They may regard them, interpret them,
differently, but each must take them into account. Thus if somewhat
similar scenes and corresponding facts figure occasionally in "Le
Grisou" and "Germinal" it does not follow that the second is stolen
from the first. But Zola, unfortunately, was a much-hated man, and the
flimsiest peg was good enough for his enemies. As a matter of fact,
with respect to "Germinal," he gave nearly six months to personal study
of his subject on the spot, and though he derived a few incidents, as
he was well entitled to do, from officially recorded instances of the
horrors and dangers of the pitman's life,[57] his work well deserved
to be regarded not only as an original one but even as a _livre vécu_.
When "Germinal" appeared as a volume there was a large demand for
it, though its circulation did not approach that of "L'Assommoir"
or "Nana." This has surprised several writers on Zola, who hold
"Germinal" to be his masterpiece, but it has already been pointed out
in these pages that his sales had been declining for some time past,
books like "Pot-Bouille" having angered many of his readers. It was
hardly to be expected that he would regain all his lost ground at one
leap, and under the circumstances the reception given to "Germinal"
was distinctly cheering. Moreover, whereas there had been no popular
illustrated edition of "Au Bonheur des Dames" or "La Joie de Vivre,"
one of "Germinal" in parts soon made its appearance, and sold very
widely, in such wise that the full extent of the book's circulation
cannot be gauged by M. Charpentier's printings.[58]
The next work which Zola took in hand was "L'Œuvre," the most
autobiographical of all his novels, and one for which he had no need
to collect documents, for his materials were stored away in his
memory. A little of his hypochondria had now returned to him, and the
writing of "Germinal" having compelled him to give some attention to
politics, he did not cease to rail at politicians. At the "Henriette
Maréchal" anniversary dinner (May 6, 1885) he made quite a _sortie_
against them, declaring that they were the sworn foes of literary men,
in which opinion Edmond de Goncourt cordially agreed. About that time
"L'Assommoir" was revived as a play, and at a dinner given at the
Maison Dorée to celebrate the event, Zola turned from the politicians
to rate some of the young authors of the time, their alacrity of
speech, and on the other hand their unwillingness to take the trouble
of writing, unless they were positively assured of publication. One
of these young men, said Zola, would expound an idea that had come to
him, depict in glowing terms all the interest which such or such a book
would have, and then conclude coldly: "Ah! if a publisher would only
order it of me!" For young men of that stamp there was no question of
striving. They would work to order or not at all. Thus literature was
becoming a mere commercial pursuit.
[Illustration: Zola in his Study]
On May 22, 1885, France lost her great poet, Victor Hugo. He had been
sinking for some time; nevertheless the news that he was really dead
quite startled Paris. During his last illness he had declined the
ministrations of "any priest of any religion," and the announcement
that he would be buried without rites or prayers angered the Church
party exceedingly, and led to unseemly scenes in the Chamber of
Deputies when it was proposed that the Pantheon should be restored
to its former destination as the resting-place of the great men of
France, and that Hugo's remains should be laid in it. This proposal
having been shelved by the Chamber, the popular indignation became so
great that President Grévy virtually took the law into his own hands,
and issued a decree in accordance with public opinion. The obsequies
became a great anticlerical demonstration. Of course, for years past,
many free-thinkers had been buried without the celebration of religious
rites, but there had been only a few great secular public funerals,
such as that of Félicien David, the composer, in 1876, later that of
M. Hérold, Prefect of the Seine, and, later still, that of Gambetta.
The _enterrement civil_ of Victor Hugo marked another step in the same
direction and it impressed thousands. More, even, than any of its
forerunners, it set an example largely followed in later years.
When Zola heard of the death of Hugo he felt deeply stirred. He
remembered the days of long ago, the happy days of Provence when he had
learnt by heart page after page of the poet's writings. He had then
drunk deeply of Hugo's sonorous rhetoric, and he had not ceased to
admire his genius. The virtual failure of "Le Roi s'amuse" when it was
revived in 1882 had pleased him from the Naturalist standpoint; yet he
had not concealed his opinion that many passages of the play deserved
applause, and in fact he had applauded them. "Why not, indeed?" he had
ejaculated, turning to Edmond de Goncourt who had accompanied him to
the Théâtre Français. And whatever criticism Zola had levelled at the
productions of Hugo's declining years, whatever reservations he might
make respecting even some of the poet's prime, he knew that this man
had been a Master, the most powerful that his age had produced in
France. So Zola immediately despatched the following telegram to M.
George Hugo, the poet's young grandson:
You will learn, perhaps, some day, Monsieur, that even with
respect to Victor Hugo, I claimed the rights of criticism.
And this is why, amid the frightful grief that has befallen
you, I desire to tell you that every heart has broken with
yours.
Victor Hugo was my youth. I remember what I owe him. No
discussion is possible on such a day as this; all hands must
unite, all the writers of France must rise to do honour to a
Master, and affirm the absolute triumph of literary genius.
Pray believe, Monsieur, in my deep and dolorous sympathy,
ÉMILE ZOLA.[59] PARIS, May 22, 1885.
Besides writing his novel "L'Œuvre" that year, Zola helped M. Busnach
to adapt "Germinal" for the stage; but when the play was ready in the
autumn, the censorship forbade its performance on the ground that it
would excite revolutionary passions. Zola's indignation boiled over
at this rebuff, and with the approval of Alphonse Daudet and Edmond
de Goncourt, whom he consulted, he issued a protest in "Le Figaro,"
trouncing M. René Goblet, the responsible Minister, a fussy little
advocate who played the part of a Radical when it suited his purposes,
but who was really a Philistine _dans l'âme_. However, the protest had
no effect, nor had an offer to allow all reasonable alterations in
the play for the sake of M. Busnach, whose interests were chiefly at
stake; and it was only in the spring of 1888, when other ministers
were in office, that "Germinal" was at last produced at the Théâtre
du Châtelet. It may be convenient to mention here that for some years
subsequent to the publication of "Germinal" as a novel there was never
a strike in France without some foolish and prejudiced journalists
casting the blame on Zola and his book. When in 1887 Décazeville became
the scene of some terrible disturbances, Zola was charged in many
directions--even in the Chamber of Deputies by some of its reactionary
members--with the responsibility of those misfortunes. He disdained
to reply to such ridiculous accusations; but it so happened that a
few months previously (December 27, 1886) when authorising "Le Petit
Rouennais" to publish "Germinal" serially, he had written the following
prefatory note, in which he explained the book's real purport, which of
course had never been doubtful for sensible minds:
"'Germinal' is a work of compassion, not a revolutionary
work. In writing it my desire was to cry aloud to the happy
ones of this world, to those who are the masters: 'Take heed!
Look underground, observe all those unhappy beings toiling
and suffering there. Perhaps there is still time to avoid a
great catastrophe. But hasten to act justly, for, otherwise,
the peril is there: the earth will open, and the nations will
be swallowed up in one of the most frightful convulsions
known to the world's history.'
"I descended into the hell of Labour, and if I concealed
nothing, not even the degradation of that sphere, the
shameful things engendered by misery and the huddling of
human beings together as if they were mere cattle, it was
because I wished the picture to be complete, with all its
abominations, so as to draw tears from every eye at the
spectacle of such a dolorous and pariah-like existence.
Those things, no doubt, are not for young girls, but family
people should read me. All of you who work, read what I have
written, and when you raise your voices for pity and justice
my task will be accomplished.
"Yes, a cry of pity, an appeal for justice, I ask no more.
Should the soil still crack, should the disasters predicted
convulse the world to-morrow, it will be because my voice
will have remained unheard."
Thus, in "Germinal," Zola gave rein to his humanitarian feelings, and
in recognition thereof prudes shrieked indignantly: "That man is at
it again! What a beast he must be!" And on their side capitalists,
battening on the labour of the poor and alarmed for the safety of their
pelf, howled in chorus: "This book ought to be suppressed, it certainly
must not be allowed as a play. It means revolution, robbery, rascality
of every kind."
But Zola, though he suffered secretly,--all unjust attacks brought him
the keenest suffering,--hid it, and passed on.
There was a touch of humanitarianism even in his next book, "L'Œuvre,"
for it set forth many of the evils of bohemian life, and embraced an
appeal for woman in the person of the unhappy Christine, its heroine.
Critics may shake their heads, indeed some have done so, and say
sapiently: "All this was not art." They may laugh, too, at the idea of
reforming the world by novels. But even if, judging Zola by some of his
books, one may occasionally feel inclined to set no very lofty estimate
on his artistry, surely the trend of his works, the knowledge of their
aim, the circumstances under which they were written, must increase
one's respect for their author as a man. And, after all, what is the
mere artist? As often as not he is penned within a fanatical creed,
bound to narrow formulas, blind to everything beyond them, full of
prejudice, and even more ridiculous at times than the Philistines at
whom he rails.
As "L'Œuvre" dealt chiefly with the art-world of Paris at a certain
period of the Second Empire, it revived some of the passions which Zola
had kindled by his championship of Manet. By certain painters the book
was roundly abused when M. Charpentier published it early in 1886,[60]
on the completion of the issue in the "Gil Blas." This time the demand
was not great, for by its nature "L'Œuvre" appealed more particularly
to a limited class of readers. Perhaps its sales would have been even
smaller had not Zola woven into his narrative so much interesting
information concerning himself in his earlier years.
No sooner was he delivered of this book than he turned to the novel on
the French peasantry which had been in his mind at the beginning of
1884. Already at that time he had given it considerable thought, made
notes, studied his subject in books and periodicals; and he now took
up the work of preparation in real earnest. At the very outset he had
decided to lay the scene in or near the great grain-producing region of
La Beauce, in some degree because this would enable him to deal, _en
passant_ with certain economic questions, such as the importation of
American wheat, but more particularly because both his mother and his
grandmother, Madame Aubert, had been Beauceronnes, and in his younger
days he had often heard them talk of that part of the country, which
presents various features of interest. La Beauce proper is certainly
flat and monotonous, but its confines are picturesque, and Dourdan,
Auneau, Orgères, and other localities are associated historically
with the horrible crimes of the desperadoes known as _chauffeurs_,
who roamed the region early in the nineteenth century. A strain of
brutishness was long to be observed among some of the inhabitants.
Withal, they are essentially French, that is of the borders of the
Ile de France, for there is no fixed type of French peasant. Those
of Provence, Languedoc, Burgundy, Normandy, Brittany, and other
parts, all differ from one another in important characteristics. Thus
generalisations on the subject of the French peasantry may occasionally
become ridiculous.