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* Madame Sidonie, who figures in M. Zola's novel, 'La Curee. The male cousin, mentioned immediately afterwards, is Octave Mouret, the leading character of 'Pot-Bouille' and 'Au Bonheur des Dames. ED. As the procession was starting off, Bongrand came up, and, after shaking hands with Sandoz, remained beside him.
And again is not the long thunderous march of hungry strikers in Zola's "Germinal" as awe-inspiring to those who feel the heart beat of our age even as the heroic deeds of Hannibal's warriors were to his contemporaries? The world stage ever represents a change of participants. The one who played the part of leading man in one century, may become a clown in another.
The truth itself, in the name of which it was done, was put in a corner in the presence of such exigencies. Are you familiar with Zola's "La Terre"? This novel is to represent a picture of a French village. Try and think of a French village, or of any other village. How does it look altogether?
One yarn was to the effect that whenever the Doctor mounted his horse, it was customary for the Crown Prince of Prussia afterwards the Emperor Frederick to hold his stirrup leather for him. I still have some letters which the latter wrote me respecting Zola's novel "La Debacle," in which he took a great interest.
At some distance from the house where he was residing, in the midst of large deserted grounds, overrun with grass and weeds, there stood a mournful-looking, unoccupied private residence of some architectural pretensions, on the building of which a considerable sum had evidently been expended. The place took M. Zola's fancy the first time he passed it on his bicycle.
"Madame's husband," here she looked at my friend, "has kindly lent me several." Among these I afterwards found had been Zola's "Rome" and "Le Desastre" by the brothers Margueritte. Like the Pere A she had married children and entertained precisely the same notion of parental duty. The few sous spent upon such beguilement of long winter nights were most likely economized by some little deprivation.
And so the idea of Emile Zola, President of the Republic, may not be so far-fetched after all, particularly when one remembers Zola's great powers of observation, analysis, and foresight. Had he taken to politics in his younger days he would at least have made his mark in the career thus chosen.
Every-day humanity described in every-day speech was Zola's ideal. That he more than once achieved this ideal is not to be denied. L'Assommoir remains his masterpiece, while Germinal and L'Oeuvre will not be soon forgotten.
The offence for which he had been sentenced did not come within the purview of the Extradition Act. But suppose that French detectives should discover M. Zola's whereabouts, and suppose a French process-server should quietly come to England with a couple of witnesses, and by some craft or good luck should succeed in placing a copy of the Versailles judgment in M. Zola's hands?
But Voltaire's championship of the persecuted Protestant had not the measure of Zola's championship of the persecuted Jew, though in both instances the courage and the persistence of the vindicator forced the reopening of the case and resulted in final justice.
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