The Fortune of the Rougons
INTRODUCTION
"The Fortune of the Rougons" is the initial volume of the Rougon-Macquart
series. Though it was by no means M. Zola's first essay in fiction, it was
undoubtedly his first great bid for genuine literary fame, and the foundation of
what must necessarily be regarded as his life-work. The idea of writing the
"natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire," extending to a
score of volumes, was doubtless suggested to M. Zola by Balzac's immortal
"Comedie Humaine." He was twenty-eight years of age when this idea first
occurred to him; he was fifty-three when he at last sent the manuscript of his
concluding volume, "Dr. Pascal," to the press. He had spent five-and-twenty
years in working out his scheme, persevering with it doggedly and stubbornly,
whatever rebuffs he might encounter, whatever jeers and whatever insults might
be directed against him by the ignorant, the prejudiced, and the hypocritical.
Truth was on the march and nothing could stay it; even as, at the present hour,
its march, if slow, none the less continues athwart another and a different
crisis of the illustrious novelist's career.
It was in the early summer of 1869 that M. Zola first began the actual
writing of "The Fortune of the Rougons." It was only in the following year,
however, that the serial publication of the work commenced in the columns of "Le
Siecle," the Republican journal of most influence in Paris in those days of the
Second Empire. The Franco-German war interrupted this issue of the story, and
publication in book form did not take place until the latter half of 1871, a
time when both the war and the Commune had left Paris exhausted, supine, with
little or no interest in anything. No more unfavourable moment for the issue of
an ambitious work of fiction could have been found. Some two or three years went
by, as I well remember, before anything like a revival of literature and of
public interest in literature took place. Thus, M. Zola launched his gigantic
scheme under auspices which would have made many another man recoil. "The
Fortune of the Rougons," and two or three subsequent volumes of his series,
attracted but a moderate degree of attention, and it was only on the morrow of
the publication of "L'Assommoir" that he awoke, like Byron, to find himself
famous.
As previously mentioned, the Rougon-Macquart series forms twenty volumes. The
last of these, "Dr. Pascal," appeared in 1893. Since then M. Zola has written
"Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris." Critics have repeated ad nauseam that
these last works constitute a new departure on M. Zola's part, and, so far as
they formed a new series, this is true. But the suggestion that he has in any
way repented of the Rougon-Macquart novels is ridiculous. As he has often told
me of recent years, it is, as far as possible, his plan to subordinate his style
and methods to his subject. To have written a book like "Rome," so largely
devoted to the ambitions of the Papal See, in the same way as he had written
books dealing with the drunkenness or other vices of Paris, would have been the
climax of absurdity.
Yet the publication of "Rome," was the signal for a general outcry on the
part of English and American reviewers that Zolaism, as typified by the
Rougon-Macquart series, was altogether a thing of the past. To my thinking this
is a profound error. M. Zola has always remained faithful to himself. The only
difference that I perceive between his latest work, "Paris," and certain
Rougon-Macquart volumes, is that with time, experience and assiduity, his genius
has expanded and ripened, and that the hesitation, the groping for truth, so to
say, which may be found in some of his earlier writings, has disappeared.
At the time when "The Fortune of the Rougons" was first published, none but
the author himself can have imagined that the foundation-stone of one of the
great literary monuments of the century had just been laid. From the "story"
point of view the book is one of M. Zola's very best, although its
construction—particularly as regards the long interlude of the idyll of Miette
and Silvere—is far from being perfect. Such a work when first issued might well
bring its author a measure of popularity, but it could hardly confer fame.
Nowadays, however, looking backward, and bearing in mind that one here has the
genius of M. Zola's lifework, "The Fortune of the Rougons" becomes a book of
exceptional interest and importance. This has been so well understood by French
readers that during the last six or seven years the annual sales of the work
have increased threefold. Where, over a course of twenty years, 1,000 copies
were sold, 2,500 and 3,000 are sold to-day. How many living English novelists
can say the same of their early essays in fiction, issued more than a quarter of
a century ago?
I may here mention that at the last date to which I have authentic figures,
that is, Midsummer 1897 (prior, of course, to what is called "L'Affaire
Dreyfus"), there had been sold of the entire Rougon-Macquart series (which had
begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies. These were of the ordinary Charpentier editions
of the French originals. By adding thereto several editions de luxe and
the widely-circulated popular illustrated editions of certain volumes, the total
amounts roundly to 2,100,000. "Rome," "Lourdes," "Paris," and all M. Zola's
other works, apart from the "Rougon-Macquart" series, together with the
translations into a dozen different languages—English, German, Italian, Spanish,
Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and others—are not included in
the above figures. Otherwise the latter might well be doubled. Nor is account
taken of the many serial issues which have brought M. Zola's views to the
knowledge of the masses of all Europe.
It is, of course, the celebrity attaching to certain of M. Zola's literary
efforts that has stimulated the demand for his other writings. Among those which
are well worthy of being read for their own sakes, I would assign a prominent
place to the present volume. Much of the story element in it is admirable, and,
further, it shows M. Zola as a genuine satirist and humorist. The Rougons'
yellow drawing-room and its habitues, and many of the scenes between Pierre
Rougon and his wife Felicite, are worthy of the pen of Douglas Jerrold. The
whole account, indeed, of the town of Plassans, its customs and its
notabilities, is satire of the most effective kind, because it is satire true to
life, and never degenerates into mere caricature.
It is a rather curious coincidence that, at the time when M. Zola was thus
portraying the life of Provence, his great contemporary, bosom friend, and rival
for literary fame, the late Alphonse Daudet, should have been producing, under
the title of "The Provencal Don Quixote," that unrivalled presentment of the
foibles of the French Southerner, with everyone nowadays knows as "Tartarin of
Tarascon." It is possible that M. Zola, while writing his book, may have read
the instalments of "Le Don Quichotte Provencal" published in the Paris "Figaro,"
and it may be that this perusal imparted that fillip to his pen to which we owe
the many amusing particulars that he gives us of the town of Plassans. Plassans,
I may mention, is really the Provencal Aix, which M. Zola's father provided with
water by means of a canal still bearing his name. M. Zola himself, though born
in Paris, spent the greater part of his childhood there. Tarascon, as is well
known, never forgave Alphonse Daudet for his "Tartarin"; and in a like way M.
Zola, who doubtless counts more enemies than any other literary man of the
period, has none bitterer than the worthy citizens of Aix. They cannot forget or
forgive the rascally Rougon-Macquarts.
The name Rougon-Macquart has to me always suggested that splendid and amusing
type of the cynical rogue, Robert Macaire. But, of course, both Rougon and
Macquart are genuine French names and not inventions. Indeed, several years ago
I came by chance upon them both, in an old French deed which I was examining at
the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. I there found mention of a Rougon family
and a Macquart family dwelling virtually side by side in the same village. This,
however, was in Champagne, not in Provence. Both families farmed vineyards for a
once famous abbey in the vicinity of Epernay, early in the seventeenth century.
To me, personally, this trivial discovery meant a great deal. It somehow aroused
my interest in M. Zola and his works. Of the latter I had then only glanced
through two or three volumes. With M. Zola himself I was absolutely
unacquainted. However, I took the liberty to inform him of my little discovery;
and afterwards I read all the books that he had published. Now, as it is fairly
well known, I have given the greater part of my time, for several years past, to
the task of familiarising English readers with his writings. An old deed, a
chance glance, followed by the great friendship of my life and years of patient
labour. If I mention this matter, it is solely with the object of endorsing the
truth of the saying that the most insignificant incidents frequently influence
and even shape our careers.
But I must come back to "The Fortune of the Rougons." It has, as I have said,
its satirical and humorous side; but it also contains a strong element of
pathos. The idyll of Miette and Silvere is a very touching one, and quite in
accord with the conditions of life prevailing in Provence at the period M. Zola
selects for his narrative. Miette is a frank child of nature; Silvere, her
lover, in certain respects foreshadows, a quarter of a century in advance, the
Abbe Pierre Fromont of "Lourdes," "Rome," and "Paris." The environment differs,
of course, but germs of the same nature may readily be detected in both
characters. As for the other personages of M. Zola's book—on the one hand, Aunt
Dide, Pierre Rougon, his wife, Felicite, and their sons Eugene, Aristide and
Pascal, and, on the other, Macquart, his daughter Gervaise of "L'Assommoir," and
his son Jean of "La Terre" and "La Debacle," together with the members of the
Mouret branch of the ravenous, neurotic, duplex family—these are analysed or
sketched in a way which renders their subsequent careers, as related in other
volumes of the series, thoroughly consistent with their origin and their
up-bringing. I venture to asset that, although it is possible to read individual
volumes of the Rougon-Macquart series while neglecting others, nobody can really
understand any one of these books unless he makes himself acquainted with the
alpha and the omega of the edifice, that is, "The Fortune of the Rougons" and
"Dr. Pascal."
With regard to the present English translation, it is based on one made for
my father several years ago. But to convey M. Zola's meaning more accurately I
have found it necessary to alter, on an average, at least one sentence out of
every three. Thus, though I only claim to edit the volume, it is, to all intents
and purposes, quite a new English version of M. Zola's work.
E. A. V. MERTON, SURREY: August, 1898.