The actress who played the rôle of Nana was Léontine Massin. Fair, with a coaxing glance, a sensual mouth and nose, and a superb figure, she quite looked the part, in spite of her forty years; and, truth to tell, she had in some measure lived it. She had also long been known to the stage in minor rôles; and now, yielding to her natural instincts, she sprang to the front, impersonating Nana with a power and a truth which stirred one deeply. All Paris flocked to see her. But she was not content with acting. She became Nana in reality, and her chosen victim was the manager of the Ambigu, Henri Chabrillat, a bright, talented, gallant man, who had shown his bravery in the Franco-German War, and his literary skill in half a dozen novels. Unhappily he was carried away by a mad infatuation for the temptress; as fast as money poured into his coffers he squandered it upon her; embarrassment followed, and when the end came he put a pistol to his head. Never, perhaps, has the truth of a play, and the disregard of the passions for the most obvious lessons, been exemplified more terribly. Amid the uproar which ensued La Massin vanished, Paris for a week remained lost in amazement, and then, as always happens, the tragedy was forgotten.
In that same year, 1881, Zola republished in book form most of the biographical and literary papers which he had written of recent years. "Le Roman Expérimental" had led the way in 1880, and now there came four more volumes: first "Les Romanciers Naturalistes,"[34] a series of papers on Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Daudet, and the Goncourts, to which was added the much discussed review of contemporary novelists; secondly, "Documents Littéraires: Études et Portraits,"[35] in which will be found papers on Chateaubriand, Hugo, Musset, Gautier, George Sand, Dumas fils, Ste.-Beuve, contemporary poets such as Leconte de Lisle, Baudelaire, Banville, Catulle Mendès, Dierx, Anatole France, Mallarmé, Hérédia, Coppée, Bouchor, Richepin, and Sully-Prudhomme; and critics such as Taine, Pontmartin, Levallois, Babou, Barbey d'Aurévilly, and Sarcey, with some curious notes on Buloz, the founder of the famous "Revue des Deux-Mondes." Next there came "Le Naturalisme au Théâtre," divided into two sections, theory and example; the former including papers on the special gift alleged to be necessary in all writers for the stage, on acting, costumes, scenery, government subventions, etc.; and the latter running through the whole scale of the playwright's art, tragedy, drama, comedy, vaudeville and pantomime, with selections from the many articles which Zola had written as a dramatic critic between 1876 and 1880. Finally there was a fourth volume entitled, "Nos Auteurs Dramatiques," in which plays by Hugo, Augier, Dumas fils, Sardou, Labiche, Halévy, Gondinet, Pailleron, D'Ennery, Barrière, Feuillet, and others, were analysed and discussed.[36]
To some of the theories set forth in those four volumes it may be necessary to refer when we survey Zola's work generally. The books have been mentioned here because they were issued at the period we have now reached, and because it is advisable that the reader should realise how energetic, how zealous Zola always was, how great was his versatility, and how strenuous his life. This man who subsequently preached the gospel of work had practised it unremittingly since the day he emerged from Bohemia. Fortune might frown or success might come, he did not alter in his industrious habits. In spite of every rebuff, every attack, he continued striving undauntedly, even as his father had striven before him. He was a living example of the axiom that life is a battle. He fought for his ideas, his principles, without a pause, until his last hour.
[1] £360 = about $1,800.
[2] "Une Page d'Amour," Paris, Charpentier, 1878, 18mo, vii-486 pages (genealogical tree of the Rougon-Macquarts); seventy-fifth thousand on sale in 1893 when the series was completed; ninety-seventh thousand in 1903. Illustrated edition: Paris, Librairie du Bibliophile (Jouaust), 1884, 2 vols., crown 8vo, iv-261 and 287 pages; portrait and ten designs by Ed. Dantan, etched by Duvivier, ornaments by Giacomelli. Impressions on various papers, Dutch, India, Japanese, etc. Another illustrated edition, Paris, 1894, with etchings and woodcuts designed by F. Thévenot.
[3] "Le Sublime, ou le Travailleur comme il est et ce qu'il peut être," Paris, Charpentier, 1865.
[4] "Le Figaro," Supplément Littéraire, December 22, 1878.
[5] It was as the Paris correspondent of various English newspapers that the writer became acquainted with a good many French literary men. A reference to the Paris letters in the first volumes of the "Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News" will show that the writer at one time dealt largely with the French stage. In that connection he was fortunate enough to secure the favour of Dumas fils to whom he was indebted for many little kindnesses.