"I have been here [Châteaudun] since yesterday, and have found the spot I need. It is a little valley, four leagues hence, in the canton of Cloyes, between Le Perche and La Beauce, and on the confines of the latter. I shall introduce a little brook into it, which will flow into the Loir—such a brook, by the way, exists. I shall there have all I require—large farms and small, a central spot, thoroughly French, a typical and very characteristic horizon, gay people speaking patois—in short what I always hoped for.... I shall return to Cloyes to-morrow and shall go thence to visit my valley and my bit of Beauce frontier in detail. For the day after to-morrow I have an appointment with a farmer living three leagues from here, in La Beauce, and shall visit his farm in detail.... I remained to-day at Châteaudun to attend a big cattle-market."[62]
In June Zola returned to Médan, and throughout that year and indeed until August, 1887, one finds him busy with this book from which he turned only for a short time in February and April to attend to the production, first of a dramatic version of "Le Ventre de Paris,"[63] which had at least a succès de curiosité, and secondly of a play called "Renée"—based on "La Curée"—which proved a resounding failure and was attended by an acrimonious controversy in the press. In the opinion of the critics, apparently, Racine's "Phædra" sufficed for all time, and the idea of a modern one in the person of "Renée" was monstrous: thus Zola sinned both against the great classic writer and against modern society.[64]
While he was dividing his attention between those plays and his novel "La Terre," France was becoming more and more absorbed in political questions. General Boulanger, who had been Minister of War in the Freycinet administration of 1886 had lost that position, but his popularity remained extreme, fanned as it was by a large party of malcontents of various political schools. Many were actuated solely by patriotic considerations, for there had been trouble with Germany over an Alsatian frontier incident known historically as the Schnæbelé Affair. Some people who believed the general to be sincerely Republican only wished him to relieve them of certain men of the hour, such as President Grévy, for rumours were already abroad respecting the nefarious practices of the latter's son-in-law, M. Wilson. But others were intent on purposes of their own, the overthrow of the Republic and the establishment of a monarchy or a dictatorship, into which enterprise they hoped to inveigle the popular ex-Minister of War. Briefly, at this time a great crisis was gradually approaching.
Nevertheless, though the unrest penetrated to the literary world, the latter did not neglect the subjects which more particularly concerned it, and there was some commotion among men of letters when on August 18 that year (1887) "Le Figaro" published a manifesto directed against Zola's new work, which had been appearing in the "Gil Blas" since May, and the concluding pages of which were at that very moment being written at Médan. This manifesto (which, when one recalls the presumptuous preface to "Les Soirées de Médan," may be regarded as a Roland for an Oliver) was signed by five young writers, Paul Bonnetain, J. H. Rosny, Lucien Descaves, Paul Margueritte, and Gustave Guiches, who, "in the name of their supreme respect for art, protested against a literature devoid of all nobility." The factum was of some length, diffuse, bristling with scientific jargon, and disfigured by a ridiculous attack on the personal appearance of Zola, whose leadership these young men solemnly renounced.
At that time the best known of the five was Paul Bonnetain, a Provençal of Nîmes, and a friend of Alphonse Daudet, who came from the same city. Bonnetain had then published four or five books, the first of which, "Chariot s'amuse," had so out-Zola'd anything written by Zola himself that its author had been prosecuted for it. M. Rosny on his side had at that date written two books, "Nell Horn," a ridiculous story of "English manners," and "Le Bilatéral," a study of Anarchism and Collectivism which showed marked improvement. M. Gustave Guiches was the author of three volumes, none of which had attracted attention, while Lucien Descaves had published four novels, and was gradually emerging from obscurity, though another two years were to elapse before his venturesome book, "Sous-Off,"—for which he was tried and acquitted—made his name at all widely known. Finally, M. Paul Margueritte—destined like M. Rosny to acquire a high position in literature, in conjunction, be it said, with his younger brother, Victor—was as yet only known by an estimable book on his father, the gallant general killed at Sedan, and a couple of works of fiction, "Tous Quatre" and "Une Confession posthume." The eldest of the band, Bonnetain, was in his thirtieth year, the others were six or seven and twenty.
A comical feature of the affair was that of these five indignant writers, who so solemnly disowned "the Master of Médan," only one, Bonnetain, was personally known to him. They had met just twice. With the others Zola had no acquaintance at all. This appears clearly from the statements he made to M. Fernand Xau of the "Gil Blas," who, directly the manifesto appeared and Zola's enemies raised a cry of jubilation at the so-called "great Naturalist schism," hurried to Médan to interview the author of "La Terre." A portion of Zola's declarations to M. Xau may well be given here:
"I do not know what is thought in Paris of this protest which has brought me some very kind letters from my confrères, but it has stupefied me. I do not know those young men. They do not belong to my entourage, they have never sat at my table, they are not my friends. If they are disciples of mine—and remember I do not seek to make disciples—they are so without my knowledge. Why then do they repudiate me? The situation is original. It is as if a woman with whom a man never had any intercourse were to write him: 'I have had quite enough of you, let us separate!' The man would certainly reply to that: 'It's all one to me.' Well, the position is very similar.
"If friends of mine, if Maupassant, Huysmans, and Céard, had addressed me in such language publicly, I should certainly have felt somewhat offended. But this declaration can have no such effect on me. I shall make no answer to it at all. It would be giving importance to a matter which has none. When I am fighting a theatrical battle I write an open letter to Sarcey because Sarcey certainly exercises great authority. In some literary discussions I have written in a similar way to Albert Wolff, because he is an old chroniqueur to whom people listen. But whatever may be my feelings towards the five gentlemen who have signed the document we are speaking of, they must excuse me if I don't answer, for I have nothing to say to them.... One thing I cannot understand is why these young men should pass themselves off as soldiers of mine deserting my flag. The only one I know a very, very little is Bonnetain, whose 'Opium' I have read, and whose talent I esteem. He once called on me; and when he appeared before the Tribunal of Correctional Police, after 'Chariot s'amuse,' he wrote asking me to let him have a letter to be read in court. I sent him one, but I advised him not to use it, for the judges, I fancy, hold me in slight esteem. Well, I met Bonnetain again at Daudet's, at the 'Sapho' dinner, and that is all!... The comical part of the affair is that people used to reproach me with what they called 'my tail.' They were willing to tolerate what I wrote, but they refused to accept the productions of the young men who claimed to be my disciples—though I cried from the house roofs that I had none. 'Cut your tail off!' people repeated. Well, it is cut off at last. It has taken itself off of its own accord, and now, perhaps, folk will be satisfied."[65]
While conversing with M. Xau, Zola mentioned that some of his friends believed the manifesto to be an echo of the opinions of certain persons whom he held in high esteem, both personally and from a literary standpoint; but he had reason to know that the persons in question were really grieved by the factum to which they had given neither inspiration nor assent. The allusion was in part to Alphonse Daudet, by reason of his friendship with Bonnetain, but more particularly to Edmond de Goncourt, as the latter's "Journal" explains. Goncourt's house, his grenier, as one said in those days, had become the meeting-place of a number of young authors, who looked up to him much as others had looked up to Flaubert. And Goncourt, on reading the manifesto in "Le Figaro," had immediately exclaimed, "Diable, why four of them belong to my grenier!"[66] It naturally occurred to him that Zola might think the plot had been hatched there, under his auspices, and he felt extremely annoyed. A journalist who called on him suggested an article showing that he had no responsibility in the matter, but Goncourt declined to hide behind others. If anything had to be said he would say it himself. However, he went to dine at Champrosay with Daudet, and after they had decided that the manifesto was very badly written and outrageously insulting, they communicated privately with Zola, who was thus able to tell M. Xau that whatever might be said elsewhere, he knew that "the certain persons whom he held in high esteem" had nothing to do with the affair.