But this was not Zola's only work during the year 1874. He had now moved from the Rue de La Condamine to 21, Rue St. Georges (now Rue des Apennins) at Batignolles. Here again, unlike most Parisians, who live in flats, he had a house to himself, with a garden, both considerably larger than the previous ones. In the Rue de La Condamine he himself had attended to his garden, made a kennel for his dog, erected his own fowl and rabbit houses—for he was skilful with his hands—just like any other modestly circumstanced dweller in Suburbia. But in the Rue St. Georges his prosperity increased, and instead of employing a mere femme-de-ménage to help his wife in the housework, he was soon able to engage two servants, man and wife.
His increased prosperity was due to the good offices of his friend, Ivan Tourgeneff, who took no little interest in him. At this time Zola no longer wrote political articles for the Paris press, for editors deemed his pen too violent; and as he also carried revolutionary methods into literary discussion, he was unable to find in France any satisfactory outlet either for certain critical studies on eminent writers which he had often thought of undertaking, or for any adequate expression of his theories respecting fiction. In these circumstances Tourgeneff recommended him to a St. Petersburg review, the "Viestnik Yevropi," otherwise "The European Messenger." To this periodical Zola became a regular and well-paid contributor for several years. The essays and short stories which he wrote for it were naturally translated into Russian, in which language they became known long before the French text was printed.
It was also this Russian review that first issued "La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret," the fifth instalment of the "Rougon-Macquarts" and one of the most romantic of all Zola's novels. He wrote it in the Rue St. Georges in the summer of 1874, after arranging for the publication in book form of ten short stories which he had contributed during recent years to newspapers, almanacs, and other periodicals. The little volume was called "Nouveaux Contes à Ninon," and the reception given to it by both the critics and the public was distinctly encouraging.[12] The former, however, cold-shouldered "La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret," which was published by Charpentier in 1875, though this was the first of Zola's novels that reached, not a great sale certainly, but one which may fairly be called considerable for that period. In 1876 a sixth edition of it was reached, followed by another in the ensuing year.[13]
When "Abbé Mouret" was placed on the market, Zola, who seldom if ever rested, was already working on his next book, "Son Excellence Eugène Rougon," in which he dealt with the political side of the Second Empire and sketched the life of the Imperial Court at Compiègne. Some years previously, in 1865, when he was writing for "L'Événement," that journal had published a series of articles signed "D," chronicling the imperial sojourn at Compiègne; and these had been collected in a volume to which the fanciful subtitle of "Confidences d'un Valet de Chambre"[14] was given, though, in point of fact, the author was simply a journalist, recommended by Théophile Gautier for the express purpose of reporting the doings of the court during its villegiatura, and in that way refuting the thousand rumours of indescribable orgies at Compiègne, which circulated among the more credulous Parisians. From the record in question, a very accurate one, Zola, who, of course had never been a guest at Compiègne, derived considerable information, but sundry critics, unacquainted with the truth, twitted him for having placed reliance on back-stairs gossip, when in reality he had taken as his guide statements issued with the Emperor's express approval.
But further information was given him by Flaubert, who had visited Compiègne more than once as a court guest. And Goncourt tells us that Flaubert, when questioned by Zola, proceeded to mimic the late sovereign in characteristic fashion, walking up and down with his figure bent, resting one hand on his back, and twirling his moustache with the other, while mumbling idiotic remarks. "Napoleon III," added Flaubert, by way of comment, "was unadulterated stupidity"; to which proposition Goncourt retorted, wittily and with great truth, that stupidity was usually loquacious, whereas the Emperor's had been silent stupidity. "It was that which made his strength, it allowed one to suppose everything."[15] No better judgment than this was ever passed on Napoleon III. For twenty years the world regarded him as "deep," though, in reality, he was in many respects a fool, one who would never even have reigned over France had it not been for the energy and acumen of his bastard half-brother, the Duke de Morny.
Apropos of the latter, Goncourt mentions that one day when Alphonse Daudet, who had been in the Duke's employment, was giving various particulars about him, Zola expressed a keen regret that he had not possessed this information in time to use it in "Son Excellence," which contains but a very imperfect sketch of Morny under the name of Marsy. In a discussion which ensued, Zola evinced great eagerness to put everything into his books—that is everything he learnt which might be germane to his subjects and likely to cast light upon them. On the whole, however, he was far less "personal" than Daudet. Both in "Son Excellence Eugène Rougon" and in his later novel, "Paris," although many of the characters suggested well-known people, almost every one of them was a blend, so to say, of three or four originals, whereas Daudet, sketching his characters from the life, often modified them so little that those who knew their Paris could not regard some of his books otherwise than as pillories.
The writing of "Son Excellence Eugène Rougon" proved a somewhat laborious task for Zola, the period selected for the story being largely antecedent to his participation in newspaper life, from which he had learnt so much both politically and socially. And his desire to be scrupulously accurate in all essential particulars led him to undertake a variety of fatiguing researches. Hard work, indeed excessive work, for he wrote regularly for the Russian review, and penned some Parisian correspondence every day for "Le Sémaphore" of Marseilles, besides proceeding with his novel, again reduced him to a nervous condition, and one day, when he was with Goncourt and others, he complained that while he wrote he often fancied he could see mice scampering about him, or birds flying away on one hand or the other. That spring (1875) others also felt "run down," as the saying goes. Tourgeneff, for instance, complained of his nerves, and Flaubert was haunted by the idea that there was always somebody behind him while he worked.[16]
At last, when the summer came and his book was finished, Zola resolved to seek a change, though not absolute rest, for idleness was repugnant to him. His circumstances had now greatly improved; M. Charpentier had torn up the original agreement for the Rougon-Macquart series, and opened his cash-box, and Zola had at last liquidated the liabilities which he had incurred by the failure of Lacroix. So, with his wife and mother, he betook himself to a little Norman watering-place, St. Aubin-sur-Mer, lying between the mouth of the Orne and the Calvados rocks, and reached, in those days, by coach from Caen.
It was there, as Alexis relates, that he planned his next book, "L'Assommoir," the idea of which had occurred to him before his departure from Paris. In his previous volumes he had dealt with the Imperial Court, the Parisian society, the political world, the provincial life, the clerical intrigues of the Second Empire, and it was only in "Le Ventre de Paris" that he had cast some side-lights upon the working class of the capital. They, however, deserved an entire volume to themselves, and Zola felt that he could write one, based largely on his own personal knowledge of their habits and customs, for in his days of poverty he had dwelt among them at Montrouge, and in the Rue St. Jacques, and again on the Boulevard Montparnasse. Besides what he had written about them in a few newspaper articles or short stories, such as "Le Chomage," "Mon voisin Jacques" and "Le Forgeron,"[17] which will be found in the "Nouveaux Contes à Ninon," he remembered a great many things, funerals, festivities, and junketings. He had discovered, too, a suitable title—"L'Assommoir"—in Alfred Delvau's slang dictionary, and it was this circumstance which, when he had written two chapters of the book in his usual style, suddenly inspired him with the idea of penning it in the real vernacular of the Parisian masses, not the special slang of thieves and prostitutes, such as Eugène Sue had employed, and, in part, invented, in "Les Mystères de Paris," but in the current langage populaire, understood by everybody.[18]
It was during Zola's stay at St. Aubin, face to face with the sea,—whose influence was not lost upon him for, as will be shown, it suggested in part a later work, "La Joie de Vivre,"—that he mapped out this book on the Parisian prolétaire, which was to raise him to fame, and Alexis tells us that though he already had the chief scenes of the story in his mind he was for a time at a loss for a suitable intrigue which would weld them well together. The idea of taking a girl of the people, who stumbles and has two children by her seducer, then marries another man, establishes herself in business by dint of hard work, but is borne down by the conduct of her husband, who becomes a drunkard, had previously occurred to him, figuring, indeed, in the original genealogical tree which he had drawn up for his series, but he felt that the husband's drunkenness might not fully account for the wife's downfall, and he remained at a loss how to proceed until, all at once, he was inspired to bring the woman's seducer back into her home. That would make everything possible, and he decided to model his story accordingly.