For several months, however, the great novelist's widow continued to receive tributes of sympathy. The municipalities of various towns bestowed the name of Rue or Boulevard Zola on one and another thoroughfare, thus testifying to the revulsion of feeling in favour of Dreyfus's champion. A considerable sum was yielded by the subscription[10] for a public monument to be erected in some part of Paris, perhaps the Tuileries garden, and a design for this monument was commissioned. In February, 1903, the novelist's last book "Vérité" was published.[11] Then in March the greater part of his library was sold at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris, some twenty-six hundred volumes being thus dispersed.[12] There was a curious illuminated manuscript breviary of the fourteenth century which Zola had used while writing "Le Rêve," and numerous historical, philosophical, medical, and other scientific works, with some volumes of voyages and travels, and collections of periodicals. None of the above, the breviary excepted, were of much value, but considerable interest attached to a very large collection of presentation copies of modern novels and stories, including all those of Guy de Maupassant and many by the Goncourts, Gustave Flaubert, Alphonse Daudet, Paul Bourget, Halévy, Huysmans, Marcel Prévost, Anatole France, Claretie, and others. All those works were inscribed to Zola by their authors. In a copy of Flaubert's "Tentation de St. Antoine" were written the words, "à Zola un solide que j'aime"; while the "Trois Contes" contained the inscription "à Émile Zola, bon bougre! et du talent! son vieux, Gve. Flaubert." Some interest attached also to M. Waldeck-Rousseau's "Questions Sociales," published in 1900, for it was inscribed "à Émile Zola en témoignage d'admiration"—and yet M. Waldeck-Rousseau was the statesman who in that same year carried the Amnesty Law against which Zola so strongly protested! From this little circumstance one can divine what were M. Waldeck-Rousseau's private sentiments, whatever may have been his public declarations with respect to the Affair. The books sold at the Hôtel Drouot comprised also many of the translations of Zola's novels in different foreign languages, and the sale further included a variety of tapestry, curios, and works of art. The total proceeds were about six thousand one hundred pounds. It may be added that more than eight hundred of the inscribed presentation volumes were purchased by Mr. James Carleton Young, a well-known American book-collector, of Minneapolis, who proposes to establish in that city a magnificent library, in which every work will bear an inscription by its author. Autograph letters and manuscripts are also to be included in the collection, which already comprises several thousand volumes by dead and living writers in virtually all languages.[13]
It remains to be added here that on May 26, 1903, in the presence of a few relatives and friends, Zola's remains were quietly translated from their provisional resting-place to a tomb—designed by M. Frantz-Jourdain—facing the rond-point or open space near the entrance of the Montmartre cemetery There they will probably remain until the French nation decrees their removal to the Pantheon.
[1] See ante, p. 430.
[2] "Travail," Paris, Fasquelle, 1901, 18mo, 666 pages; some copies on special papers, etc. Seventy-seventh thousand in 1903.
[3] In the early parts of this year, 1902, Messrs. Raoul de Saint-Arroman and Charles Hugot produced a dramatic version of "La Terre" which attracted considerable attention. Some scenes were certainly interesting, but the play was deficient in cohesion. The same authors had previously adapted "Au Bonheur des Dames" for the stage. Subsequent to Zola's death M. de Saint-Arroman related in "Le Siècle" that on being asked what percentage of the author's rights in those plays should be paid to him the novelist had answered, "Whatever you like." Zola's enemies often insinuated that his nature was a grasping one in money as in other matters, but there was no truth whatever in the charge.
[4] The pet dog which had slept in the bedroom was in a very weak state, but it had vomited during the night, and this may have helped to save it. Another little dog which had remained in the dressing-room had not been ill.
[5] The statement current in some newspapers at the time that the fire which had such a fatal result was of artificial fuel such as compressed coal dust was inaccurate. Coal was employed, and the writer believes it to have been Welsh anthracite, for Zola bought such coal in considerable quantities, chiefly for the electric light installation at Médan, whither it was brought up the Seine by barge from Rouen. That such coal would not burn well in a defective chimney is certain. It ignites with difficulty unless there be a good current of air. On the other hand, it throws out little if any smoke, and it is a significant circumstance that none was found in the bedroom.
[6] The writer was in the house while the post-mortem examination was made, and to the best of his knowledge and belief it lasted about forty minutes. In view of the stifling fits induced by a form of angina from which Zola had suffered periodically ever since 1875, it was strange to hear that all the organs were sound. It is not for the writer to engage in any discussion with medical men, but he cannot reconcile their report with the complaint from which Zola undoubtedly suffered.