. She was highly
neurotic, with a tendency to epilepsy, but from the point of view of the
naturalistic novelist she offered many advantages. When a mere girl she
married a man named Rougon, who died soon afterwards, leaving her with
a son named Pierre, from whom descended the legitimate branch of the
family. Then followed a liaison with a drunken smuggler named Macquart,
as a result of which two children were born, the Macquarts. Adelaide's
original neurosis had by this time become more pronounced, and she
ultimately became insane. Pierre married and had five children, but his
financial affairs had not prospered, though by underhand methods he had
contrived to get possession of his mother's property, to the exclusion
of her other children. Then came the _Coup d'Etat_ of 1851, and
Pierre, quick to seize his opportunity, rendered such services to the
Bonapartist party as to lay the foundation of the family fortune, a
foundation which was, however, cemented with treachery and blood. It was
with these two families, then, both descended from a common ancestress,
and sometimes subsequently united by intermarriage, that the whole
series of novels was to deal. They do not form an edifying group,
these Rougon-Macquarts, but Zola, who had based his whole theory of the
experimental novel upon the analogy of medical research, was not on the
outlook for healthy subjects; he wanted social sores to probe. This is
a fact much too often overlooked by readers of detached parts of the
series, for it should always be kept in mind that the whole was written
with the express purpose of laying bare all the social evils of one of
the most corrupt periods in recent history, in the belief that through
publicity might come regeneration. Zola was all along a reformer as
well as a novelist, and his zeal was shown in many a bitter newspaper
controversy. It has been urged against him that there were plenty of
virtuous people about whom he could have written, but these critics
appear to forget that he was in a sense a propagandist, and that it was
not his _metier_ to convert persons already in the odour of sanctity.

_La Fortune des Rougon_ was not particularly successful on its
publication, but in view of the fact that the war with Germany was
barely concluded no surprise need be experienced. Zola's financial
position was, however, by the arrangement with his publisher now more
secure, and he felt justified in marrying. This he did, and settled down