into the quiet bourgeois existence in which his life was spent.

The next book was _La Curee_, a study of the mushroom society of the
Second Empire. The subject--the story of Phaedra adapted to modern
environment--is unpleasant and the treatment is daring; but despite a
slight _succes de scandale_, its reception by the public was no more
favorable than that of _La Fortune des Rougon_.

_La Curee_ was followed by _Le Ventre de Paris_, which reached a second
edition. It contained some excellent descriptive writing, but was
severely attacked by certain critics, who denounced it as the apotheosis
of gluttony, while they resented the transference of a pork butcher's
shop to literature and took particular exceptions to a certain "symphony
of cheeses."

Next came _La Conquete de Plassans_, an excellent story, to be followed
by _La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret_, one of Zola's most romantic books,
and the first to attain any considerable success. He next wrote _Son
Excellence Eugene Rougon_, in which he dealt with the political side
of the Second Empire and sketched the life of the Imperial Court at
Compiegne. For this task he was not particularly well equipped, and the
book was only moderately successful. Then came _L'Assommoir_, and
with it fame and fortune for the writer. It is a terrible story of
working-class life in Paris, a study of the ravages wrought by drink.
Again to quote Mr. Andrew Lang, "It is a dreadful but not an immoral
book. It is the most powerful temperance tract that ever was written. As
M. Zola saw much of the life of the poor in his early years, as he once
lived, when a boy, in one of the huge lodging-houses he describes, one
may fear that _L'Assommoir_ is a not untruthful picture of the lives of
many men and women in Paris."

In order to heighten the effect, Zola deliberately wrote the whole
of _L'Assommoir_ in the argot of the streets, sparing nothing of its
coarseness and nothing of its force. For this alone he was attacked by
many critics, and from its publication onwards an unexampled controversy
arose regarding the author and his methods. Looking backwards it is
difficult to see why such an outcry should have arisen about such a
masterpiece of literature, but water has flowed beneath many bridges
since 1877, and, largely by the influence of Zola's own work, the limits
of convention have been widely extended. At the time, however, the
work was savagely attacked, and to the author the basest motives
were