those who in 1840 first saw the light were John Addington Symonds and Thomas Hardy.
Meantime, across the Atlantic, Van Buren being President of the United States, Emerson was writing his "Method of Nature"; Longfellow his "Voices of the Night"; Lowell, "A Year's Life"; Irving on his side contributing "Wolfert's Roost" to the "Knickerbocker," Willis publishing his "Corsair," and Poe his "Tales of the Grotesque."
To English and American readers those imperfect summaries may give some idea of the "literary movement" in Great Britain and the United States at the time when Émile Zola was born. But what of his own country, France? During nearly ten years Louis Philippe had been reigning there; and a few months later the ashes of Napoleon were to be brought back from St. Helena; for the Orléans monarchy, which had now reached its zenith, imagined itself to be quite secure. Indeed, when in August, that same year, the great conqueror's nephew descended on Boulogne, with a tame eagle upon his arm and a proclamation in his pocket, he covered himself with ridicule instead of the glory he had anticipated. And, again, though it was in 1840 that Louis Blanc first issued his "Organisation du Travail," before beginning his "Histoire de Dix Ans," Republican and Socialist propaganda was not as yet sufficiently advanced to bear much fruit.
Literature flourished, and cast upon the reign the glory which it failed to glean on other fields, for little came from Algerian exploits, however dashing, and none at all was harvested by an adventurous diplomacy. But a generation of remarkable writers had arisen, some among them great, many of them eminent in their respective spheres. In 1840, no doubt, the shadows were gathering around Chateaubriand, Casimir Delavigne could see his transient popularity declining, Alfred de Vigny's best work was already done; but Hugo, "Victor in drama, victor in romance," pursued with undimmed lustre his triumphal course. Moreover, Lamartine had just issued his "Recueillements poétiques," and Musset was publishing his tales in prose. Meantime, Michelet and the Thierrys gave life to History; while Ste. Beuve—when not wandering after petticoats, and meditating on that "Livre d'Amour" which he was to produce three years later, and afterwards to destroy, as far as possible, with his own hands—was penning those Monday criticisms which may still be read with so much profit as well as pleasure.
Gautier was in Spain, having left the critical arm-chair of "La Presse" to the gifted and ill-fated Gérard de Nerval; but Janin discoursed in the "Débats" with his usual flippancy, at one moment suggesting (in ignorance that any "Mrs. Grundy" would ever assert herself) that Paul de Kock and his indecorum were best suited to the English taste, whereas Monsieur de Balzac might well seek popularity in Russia. Thither, as it happened, the great delineator of "La Comédie Humaine" repaired for the first time towards the close of that year, which found him in a despondent mood. In March, "Vautrin" had been produced and promptly laid under interdict, because Frédérick Lemaître, who impersonated the great rascal, had "made himself a head" like the King's. And sixteen volumes and twenty acts, written in a twelvemonth, Balzac complained, had not brought him freedom from pecuniary worries, even though the proceeds amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand francs.
If Balzac took his pecuniary cares to heart, there was little if any fretting on the part of that splendid prodigal the great Dumas, who now issued his "Chevalier d'Harmental," an inferior work, no doubt, yet one which showed traces of the lion's paw. Sue's contribution to the literature of 1840, "La Vigie de Koat-Ven," is now almost forgotten; so is Legouvé's "Edith de Falsen," though it ran through several editions. Doubtless one of the most popular novels of the day was still Charles de Bernard's best work, "Gerfaut," the fifth edition of which now came from the press. George Sand, for her part, was penning a minor work, "Pauline"; Soulié was building his "Château des Pyrénées"; and Mérimée, diffident and painstaking, was copying and modifying, sixteen times in succession, his still familiar tale of "Colomba." Stendhal had given his "Chartreuse de Parme" to the world in the previous year. Flaubert was but a young man of nineteen, travelling in southern France and plunging, at Marseilles, into a transient love affair, which was to suggest an episode of "Madame Bovary." Finally, in that same year, 1840—within six weeks after the birth of Émile Zola—Alphonse Daudet, who was destined to become his friend, and, in a sense, his rival for fame, came into the world at Nîmes in Provence.
In these two, Zola and Daudet, was repeated a phenomenon often observed in the history of French literature: the advent of a superior man of strong masculinity, attended or soon followed by that of another, distinguished by femininity of mind. Thus Corneille and Racine, Voltaire and Rousseau, Hugo and Lamartine. Very similar was the accouplement of Zola and Daudet, who, the one appealing to the reason, the other to the heart, stood in the domain of fiction, at least at one period of their careers, head and shoulders above every contemporary. Daudet waged his battle with a quick and slender rapier, Zola brandished a heavy mace—akin to those redoubtable weapons with which the warriors of mediæval days beat down the helms of their antagonists. Some, too, have likened Daudet to an Arab horse, all eagerness and nerves, while Zola has been called a cactus of Provence that had sprouted between the paving-stones of Paris. The great city was his birthplace, and he was proud of it; yet Provence certainly had many claims on him, for there he was conceived, and there, as the following pages will show, he spent the greater part of his childhood under circumstances which exercised no little influence on his disposition, life, and work.
[1] Only one of Giuseppe Zola's works—"Lezioni di Storia delle Leggi e di Costume de' popoli," etc., Milan, 1809—is in the British Museum Library. Among the others, in addition to the volumes placed in the "Index expurgatorius," were some elaborate commentaries on the history of the Church (3 vols., 1780–1786), a dissertation on the theological authority of St. Augustine, a treatise on Death, etc.
[2] "La Vérité en Marche," by Émile Zola, Paris, 1901, p. 259. (Documents in the Dossier François Zola at the French War Office.)
[3] "Trattato di Livellazione topografica," by Francesco Zola, Dr. in Math., Lieut., Padua, 1818. 8vo.
[4] Funeral oration on F. Zola, by Maître Labot, Advocate at the Bar of the French Council of State.
[5] Documents printed by the "Neue Freie Presse" of Vienna (No. 12,028, February 17, 1898) and quoted in "Le Père d'Émile Zola," by Jacques Dhur, Paris, 1899.
[6] Baedecker's "Southern Germany and Austria," 1871.
[7] "La Vérité en Marche," pp. 259, 280–282.
[8] Probably in March, 1898. "La Vérité en Marche," pp. 251–253.
[9] Ibid., pp. 277–279.
[10] "La Vérité en Marche," pp. 264–266.
[11] This idea has suggested itself to many people, and, curiously enough, is embodied in a five-act drama entitled "Fatalité," by M. Eugène Quènemeur, produced at Nantes in March, 1903, with Parisian artists in the chief parts. The play is a strange blending of François Zola's adventure and the Dreyfus case.
[12] "Le Père d'Émile Zola," pp. 176, 177.
