Before passing the series in review one may say a few words respecting the two names, Rougon and Macquart, which, linked together, have supplied it with a general title. Some years ago those names were noticed by the present writer in sundry old documents relating to an abbey in Champagne, but Zola declared them to be common names in Provence. As for Macquart—long familiar to Parisians in connection with the knacker's trade—it is a suggestive circumstance that in Zola's younger days there was a bookseller at Aix, named Makaire, whom he may well have known. Makaire, of course is merely a variant of Macaire; and it is not necessary to be familiar with the famous "Auberge des Adrets," and the wonderful impersonation of Frédérick Lemaître, to know that "Robert Macaire" is regarded by the French as a type of braggart rascal, as cynical, as impudent as "Tartuffe" is hypocritical and sneakish. Zola, then, in the writer's opinion, adopted that vulgar name Macquart because it resembled Macaire, and put Rougon before it in lieu of Robert. He pictured the Rougon-Macquarts as the Robert-Macaires of the Second Empire, and the idea came to him, perhaps, the more readily as Napoleon III. had been repeatedly caricatured as Robert Macaire, a brazen knave repeating abracadabrant axioms amid the applause of his followers. Thus the title of the Rougon-Macquarts, if taken as synonymous with the Robert-Macaires, will suffice to explain a good deal of Zola's series.
Let us now glance at the volumes. In "La Fortune des Rougon" (I) the author describes the origin of the Rougons and the Macquarts. One Adélaïde Fouque, a woman of hysterical nature who eventually goes mad,—a variety of disorders being transmitted to most of her descendants,—marries a man named Rougon, and on his death lives with another named Macquart. By the former she has a son, Pierre Rougon; by the latter a son, Antoine, and a daughter, Ursule Macquart. This daughter marries a hatter named Mouret, and thus at the outset of the series the second generation of the family is shown divided into three branches. In the third generation it increases to eleven members; in the fourth to thirteen. In the fifth it dwindles, its vitiated energies now being largely spent; and though there are indications of its continuance in sundry children who do not appear on the scene, the hope of regeneration rests virtually in only one child, a boy three months old when the curtain finally descends. In "La Fortune des Rougon," then, we are shown old Adélaïde Fouque, her children and some of theirs, all more or less poverty-stricken and striving for wealth, which comes with the foundation of the Second Empire. The scene is laid at Plassans—Aix, as was formerly explained—and one sees the Imperial régime established there by craft and bloodshed.
Next comes "Son Excellence Eugène Rougon" (II) which carries one to Paris, where the fortunes of the eldest of the Rougon brothers, first an advocate and at last an all-powerful minister of state, are followed in official and political circles. The court of Napoleon III appears at the Tuileries and at Compiègne, where one meets, among others, a beautiful Italian adventuress, Clorinde Balbi—suggestive of the notorious Countess de Castiglione—with a mother reminiscent of Madame de Montijo. And in other chapters of the volume the scheming and plotting of the reign, the official jobbery and corruption, are traced for several years.
"La Curée" (III) follows, and one turns to Eugène Rougon's younger brother, Aristide, who has assumed the pseudonym of Saccard. With him the reader joins in the great rush for the spoils of the new régime. A passion for money and enjoyment seizes on one and all, debauchery reigns in society, and a fever of reckless speculation is kindled by the transformation of Paris under Baron Haussmann and his acolytes. Men and women sell themselves. Renée, Saccard's second wife, passes from mere adultery to incest, becoming a modern Phædra, while Saccard himself leads the life of an eager, gluttonous bird of prey, which he continues in the ensuing volume, "L'Argent" (IV), where the Bourse—the money-market—is shown with all its gambling, its thousand tricks and frauds.
So far the series might seem a mere record of roguery, vice, and corruption, but those who know the books are aware that such is not the case. Silvère and Miette stand for love and all the better qualities of humanity in the first volume; there are at least the Martinots and the Berauds in the second and third; and the devoted Madame Caroline, the honest Hamelin, the pious Princess d'Orviedo, the dreamy, generous-hearted Sigismond, the loving Jordans, and the unfortunate Mazaud, all figure in the fourth, amid the scramble for gold in which the other characters participate.
Denise and Jacques.—Photo by Émile Zola.
In sharp contrast with that greed for gain is the picture offered by the next volume, "Le Rêve" (V), where an immaculate lily arises from the hot-bed of vice, whence later, and as a further contrast, a type of foul shamelessness, Nana, the harlot, is also to spring. But it is best not to anticipate. In the first four volumes the Rougons, under the influence of heredity and surroundings, have shown themselves scoundrels, whereas in Angélique, the heroine of "Le Rêve," a girl of their blood appears who is all purity and candour. She comes upon the scene, precisely at this moment, to emphasise the author's conviction that, whatever he may have had to depict in his solicitude for truth, all is not vice, degradation, and materialism, that there are other aspirations in life besides the thirst for wealth, enjoyment and power. And here, too, the priesthood is shown in its better aspect: the good Abbé Cornille, the proud, heartbroken Bishop d'Hautecœur, in contrast with whom the scheming, unscrupulous Abbé Faujas appears in the next section of the series.
This is "La Conquête de Plassans" (VI) which retains one in the provinces (whither one is carried from Paris in "Le Rêve"), and one is confronted by a carefully painted picture of middle-class society in a small town, this in its turn contrasting with the previous pictures of life in Paris. And now the baleful results which may attend marriages between cousins are exemplified. Marthe Rougon has married François Mouret, and both have inherited lesions from their common ancestress, Adélaïde Fouque. One of their children, Désirée, physically strong and healthy, is mentally an "innocent"; and they themselves are unhinged, the workings of their heredity being accentuated and hastened by the wiles of Faujas, the priest, who gains access to their home. He is a secret agent of the imperial government, and thus one again sees the Empire at work in the provinces, utilising the clergy to enforce its authority, and as often as not betrayed by it. In the end all collapses. The maddened Mouret sets fire to his home and perishes in the flames with Abbé Faujas, while Marthe dies of a disorder springing from her inherited hysteria.