With Zola in England: A Story of Exile

by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

It was difficult for me to answer M. Zola on the point; I am a very poor scholar in such a matter, and I could find nothing on the subject in any work of reference I had by me. I surmised, however, that the capital I, as a personal pronoun, was a survival of the time when English, whether written or printed, was studded with capitals, even as German is to-day. If I am wrong, perhaps some one who knows better will correct me. One thing I have often noticed is that a child's first impulse is to write 'i,' and that it is only after admonition that the aggressive and egotistical 'I' supplants the humbler form of the letter. This did not surprise M. Zola, since vanity, like most other vices, is acquired, not inherent in our natures. But in a chaffing way he suggested that one might write a very humorous essay on the English character by taking as one's text that tall, stiff, and self-assertive letter 'I.'

How far M. Zola actually carried his study of English I could hardly say, but during the last months of his exile he more than once astonished me by his knowledge of an irregular verb or of the correct comparative and superlative of an adjective. And if he seldom attempted to speak English, he at least made considerable progress in reading it. By the time he returned to France he could always understand any Dreyfus news in the English papers. Of course the language in which the news was couched was of great help to him, as in three instances out of four it was simply direct translation from the French.

In this connection, while praising many features of the English Press, M. Zola more than once expressed to me his surprise that so much of the Paris news printed in London should be simply taken from Paris journals. Some correspondents, said he, never seemed to go anywhere or to see anybody themselves. They purely and simply extracted everything from newspapers. This he was able to check by means of the many Paris prints which he received regularly.

'Here,' he would say, 'this paragraph is taken verbatim from "Le Figaro"; this other appeared in "Le Temps," this other in "Le Siecle,"' and so forth. And he was not alluding to extracts from editorials, but to descriptive matter—accounts of demonstrations and ceremonies, fashionable weddings and other social functions, interviews, and so forth. The practice upset all his ideas of a foreign correspondent's duties, which should be to obtain first-hand and not second-hand information.

In principle this is of course correct, but a correspondent cannot be everywhere at the same time; and nowadays, moreover, English journalists in Paris do not enjoy quite the same facilities as formerly. As regards more particularly the Dreyfus business, the French, with a sensitiveness that can be understood, have all along deprecated anything in the way of foreign interference, and the English Pressman of inquiring mind on the subject has more than once met with a rebuff from those in a position to give information. Again, the political difficulties between the two countries of recent years have often placed the Paris correspondents in a very invidious position.

This brings me to the Fashoda trouble, which arose last autumn while M. Zola was still in his country retreat. The great novelist's enemies have often alleged that he was no true Frenchman; but for my part, after thirty years' intimacy with the French, I would claim for him that his country counts no better patriot. He is on principle opposed to warfare, but there is a higher patriotism than that which consists in perpetually beating the big drum, and that higher patriotism is Zola's.

The Fashoda difficulties troubled him sorely, and directly it seemed likely that the situation might become serious he told me that it would be impossible for him to remain in England. The progress of the negotiations between France and Great Britain was watched with keen vigilance, and M. Zola was ready to start at the first sign of those negotiations collapsing. As all his friends were opposed to his return to France (they had again virtually forbidden it late in September when the Brisson Ministry finally submitted the case for revision to the Criminal Chamber of the Cour de Cassation), he would probably have gone to Belgium, but I doubt whether he would have remained long in that country.

I have said that M. Zola is opposed to warfare on principle. His views in this respect have long been shared by me. Life's keenest impressions are those acquired in childhood and youth. And in my youth—I was but seventeen, though already acting as a war correspondent, the youngest, I suppose, on record—I witnessed war attended by every horror:—A city, Paris, starved by the foreigner and subsequently in part fired by some of its own children. And between those disasters, having passed through the hostile lines, I saw an army of 125,000 men with 350 guns, that of Chanzy, irretrievably routed after battling in a snowstorm of three days' duration, cast into highways and byways, with thousands of barefooted stragglers begging their bread, with hundreds of farmers bewailing their crops, their cattle, and their ruined homesteads, with mothers innumerable weeping for their sons, and fair girls in the heyday of their youth lamenting the lads to whom their troth was plighted. And in that 'Retraite Infernale,' as one of its historians has called it, I saw want, hunger, cupidity, cruelty, disease, stalking beside the war fiend; so no wonder that, like Zola, I regard warfare as the greatest of abominations that fall upon the world. I often regret that, short of actual war itself and its disaster and misery, there should be no means of bringing the whole horror of the thing home to those silly, arm-chair, jingo journalists of many countries, our own included, who, viewing war simply as a means of imposing the will of the stronger upon the weaker, and losing sight of all that attends it, save martial pomp and individual heroism, ever clamour for the exercise of force as soon as any difficulty arises between two governments.

Ties of affection, bonds of marriage, as well as long years of intimacy, link me moreover to the French people; and more keenly, perhaps, than even the master himself, did I realise what war between France and England might mean; thus we both had an anxious time during the Fashoda trouble. Fortunately for the general peace hostilities were averted, and M. Zola was thus able to remain in his secluded English home, and to continue the writing of his novel.

The weather was still very fine, and now and again he ventured upon a little excursion. The principal one was to Virginia Water, where he strolled round the lake, then drove through part of the Great Park, and thence on to Windsor Castle, where he saw all the sights, the State apartments, St. George's Hall and Chapel, the Albert Memorial Chapel, and so forth. And, as he had brought his hand camera with him, he was able to take a few snapshots of what he saw. I was not present on that occasion; his companions were a French gentleman, a very intimate friend, and my daughter, but I was pleased to hear that he had, at all events, seen Windsor. As a rule, it was extremely difficult to induce him to emerge from his solitude. When he took a walk or a bicycle ride his destination was simply some sleepy Surrey village or deserted common.