La Fortune des Rougon. English Read online

  Produced by Dagny; John Bickers

  THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS

  By Emile Zola

  Edited With Introduction By Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

  INTRODUCTION

  "The Fortune of the Rougons" is the initial volume of theRougon-Macquart series. Though it was by no means M. Zola's first essayin fiction, it was undoubtedly his first great bid for genuine literaryfame, and the foundation of what must necessarily be regarded as hislife-work. The idea of writing the "natural and social history of afamily under the Second Empire," extending to a score of volumes, wasdoubtless suggested to M. Zola by Balzac's immortal "Comedie Humaine."He was twenty-eight years of age when this idea first occurred to him;he was fifty-three when he at last sent the manuscript of his concludingvolume, "Dr. Pascal," to the press. He had spent five-and-twenty yearsin working out his scheme, persevering with it doggedly and stubbornly,whatever rebuffs he might encounter, whatever jeers and whatever insultsmight be directed against him by the ignorant, the prejudiced, and thehypocritical. Truth was on the march and nothing could stay it; even as,at the present hour, its march, if slow, none the less continues athwartanother and a different crisis of the illustrious novelist's career.

  It was in the early summer of 1869 that M. Zola first began the actualwriting of "The Fortune of the Rougons." It was only in the followingyear, however, that the serial publication of the work commenced inthe columns of "Le Siecle," the Republican journal of most influencein Paris in those days of the Second Empire. The Franco-German warinterrupted this issue of the story, and publication in book form didnot take place until the latter half of 1871, a time when both the warand the Commune had left Paris exhausted, supine, with little or nointerest in anything. No more unfavourable moment for the issue of anambitious work of fiction could have been found. Some two or threeyears went by, as I well remember, before anything like a revival ofliterature and of public interest in literature took place. Thus, M.Zola launched his gigantic scheme under auspices which would have mademany another man recoil. "The Fortune of the Rougons," and two or threesubsequent volumes of his series, attracted but a moderate degreeof attention, and it was only on the morrow of the publication of"L'Assommoir" that he awoke, like Byron, to find himself famous.

  As previously mentioned, the Rougon-Macquart series forms twentyvolumes. The last of these, "Dr. Pascal," appeared in 1893. Sincethen M. Zola has written "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris." Critics haverepeated _ad nauseam_ that these last works constitute a new departureon M. Zola's part, and, so far as they formed a new series, thisis true. But the suggestion that he has in any way repented of theRougon-Macquart novels is ridiculous. As he has often told me of recentyears, it is, as far as possible, his plan to subordinate his style andmethods to his subject. To have written a book like "Rome," so largelydevoted to the ambitions of the Papal See, in the same way as he hadwritten books dealing with the drunkenness or other vices of Paris,would have been the climax of absurdity.

  Yet the publication of "Rome," was the signal for a general outcry onthe part of English and American reviewers that Zolaism, as typified bythe Rougon-Macquart series, was altogether a thing of the past. To mythinking this is a profound error. M. Zola has always remained faithfulto himself. The only difference that I perceive between his latestwork, "Paris," and certain Rougon-Macquart volumes, is that with time,experience and assiduity, his genius has expanded and ripened, and thatthe hesitation, the groping for truth, so to say, which may be found insome of his earlier writings, has disappeared.

  At the time when "The Fortune of the Rougons" was first published, nonebut the author himself can have imagined that the foundation-stone ofone of the great literary monuments of the century had just been laid.From the "story" point of view the book is one of M. Zola's very best,although its construction--particularly as regards the long interlude ofthe idyll of Miette and Silvere--is far from being perfect. Such a workwhen first issued might well bring its author a measure of popularity,but it could hardly confer fame. Nowadays, however, looking backward,and bearing in mind that one here has the genius of M. Zola's lifework,"The Fortune of the Rougons" becomes a book of exceptional interestand importance. This has been so well understood by French readers thatduring the last six or seven years the annual sales of the work haveincreased threefold. Where, over a course of twenty years, 1,000 copieswere sold, 2,500 and 3,000 are sold to-day. How many living Englishnovelists can say the same of their early essays in fiction, issued morethan a quarter of a century ago?

  I may here mention that at the last date to which I have authenticfigures, that is, Midsummer 1897 (prior, of course, to what is called"L'Affaire Dreyfus"), there had been sold of the entire Rougon-Macquartseries (which had begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies. These were of theordinary Charpentier editions of the French originals. By adding theretoseveral _editions de luxe_ and the widely-circulated popular illustratededitions of certain volumes, the total amounts roundly to 2,100,000."Rome," "Lourdes," "Paris," and all M. Zola's other works, apart fromthe "Rougon-Macquart" series, together with the translations into adozen different languages--English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch,Danish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and others--are not includedin the above figures. Otherwise the latter might well be doubled. Noris account taken of the many serial issues which have brought M. Zola'sviews to the knowledge of the masses of all Europe.

  It is, of course, the celebrity attaching to certain of M. Zola'sliterary efforts that has stimulated the demand for his other writings.Among those which are well worthy of being read for their own sakes, Iwould assign a prominent place to the present volume. Much of the storyelement in it is admirable, and, further, it shows M. Zola as agenuine satirist and humorist. The Rougons' yellow drawing-room andits habitues, and many of the scenes between Pierre Rougon and his wifeFelicite, are worthy of the pen of Douglas Jerrold. The whole account,indeed, of the town of Plassans, its customs and its notabilities, issatire of the most effective kind, because it is satire true to life,and never degenerates into mere caricature.

  It is a rather curious coincidence that, at the time when M. Zola wasthus portraying the life of Provence, his great contemporary, bosomfriend, and rival for literary fame, the late Alphonse Daudet, shouldhave been producing, under the title of "The Provencal Don Quixote,"that unrivalled presentment of the foibles of the French Southerner,with everyone nowadays knows as "Tartarin of Tarascon." It is possiblethat M. Zola, while writing his book, may have read the instalments of"Le Don Quichotte Provencal" published in the Paris "Figaro," and it maybe that this perusal imparted that fillip to his pen to which we owethe many amusing particulars that he gives us of the town of Plassans.Plassans, I may mention, is really the Provencal Aix, which M. Zola'sfather provided with water by means of a canal still bearing his name.M. Zola himself, though born in Paris, spent the greater part of hischildhood there. Tarascon, as is well known, never forgave AlphonseDaudet for his "Tartarin"; and in a like way M. Zola, who doubtlesscounts more enemies than any other literary man of the period, has nonebitterer than the worthy citizens of Aix. They cannot forget or forgivethe rascally Rougon-Macquarts.

  The name Rougon-Macquart has to me always suggested that splendid andamusing type of the cynical rogue, Robert Macaire. But, of course, bothRougon and Macquart are genuine French names and not inventions. Indeed,several years ago I came by chance upon them both, in an old French deedwhich I was examining at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Ithere found mention of a Rougon family and a Macquart family dwellingvirtually side by side in the same village. This, however, was inChampagne, not in Provence. Both families farmed vineyards for a oncefamous abbey in the vicinity of Epernay, early in the seventeenthcentury. To me, personally, this trivia
l discovery meant a great deal.It somehow aroused my interest in M. Zola and his works. Of the latter Ihad then only glanced through two or three volumes. With M. Zola himselfI was absolutely unacquainted. However, I took the liberty to inform himof my little discovery; and afterwards I read all the books that he hadpublished. Now, as it is fairly well known, I have given the greaterpart of my time, for several years past, to the task of familiarisingEnglish readers with his writings. An old deed, a chance glance,followed by the great friendship of my life and years of patient labour.If I mention this matter, it is solely with the object of endorsing thetruth of the saying that the most insignificant incidents frequentlyinfluence and even shape our careers.

  But I must come back to "The Fortune of the Rougons." It has, as I havesaid, its satirical and humorous side; but it also contains a strongelement of pathos. The idyll of Miette and Silvere is a very touchingone, and quite in accord with the conditions of life prevailing inProvence at the period M. Zola selects for his narrative. Miette isa frank child of nature; Silvere, her lover, in certain respectsforeshadows, a quarter of a century in advance, the Abbe Pierre Fromontof "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris." The environment differs, of course,but germs of the same nature may readily be detected in both characters.As for the other personages of M. Zola's book--on the one hand, AuntDide, Pierre Rougon, his wife, Felicite, and their sons Eugene, Aristideand Pascal, and, on the other, Macquart, his daughter Gervaise of"L'Assommoir," and his son Jean of "La Terre" and "La Debacle," togetherwith the members of the Mouret branch of the ravenous, neurotic, duplexfamily--these are analysed or sketched in a way which renders theirsubsequent careers, as related in other volumes of the series,thoroughly consistent with their origin and their up-bringing. I ventureto asset that, although it is possible to read individual volumes ofthe Rougon-Macquart series while neglecting others, nobody can reallyunderstand any one of these books unless he makes himself acquaintedwith the alpha and the omega of the edifice, that is, "The Fortune ofthe Rougons" and "Dr. Pascal."

  With regard to the present English translation, it is based on one madefor my father several years ago. But to convey M. Zola's meaning moreaccurately I have found it necessary to alter, on an average, at leastone sentence out of every three. Thus, though I only claim to edit thevolume, it is, to all intents and purposes, quite a new English versionof M. Zola's work.

  E. A. V. MERTON, SURREY: August, 1898.