om Plassans. He fitted up his
establishment by degrees, and even became possessed of a horse and trap.
Where the money came from no one knew, but it was believed that his
brother Pierre Rougon was keeping him. Notwithstanding this, he had
great ill-will towards the Rougons, and lost no opportunity of annoying
them. Partly with this object, and partly at the instigation of Abbe
Fenil, who wished to be revenged on Abbe Faujas, he contrived the escape
of Francois Mouret from the asylum at Les Tulettes; as result, Mouret
returned to Plassans, and setting fire to his house, caused the death of
Abbe Faujas, himself perishing in the flames. La Conquete de Plassans.

Macquart lived to an old age at Les Tulettes, though he increasingly
gave way to drunkenness. His relations with the Rougons were friendly,
but he was hated by Felicite on account of his knowledge of the origin
of the family fortune. At eighty-four years of age he was still healthy,
but his flesh was so saturated with alcohol that it seemed to be
preserved by it. One day, as he was sitting helpless with drink and
smoking his pipe, he set fire to his clothes, and his body, soaked as
it was with ardent spirits, was burned to the last bone. Felicite Rougon
chanced to enter the house just as the conflagration began, but she
did nothing to stop it, and went silently away. The combustion was so
complete that there was nothing left to bury, and the family had to
content itself with having masses said for the repose of the dead. When
Macquart's will was opened, it was found that he had left all his money
for the erection of a magnificent tomb for himself, with weeping angels
at the head and foot. Le Docteur Pascal.

MACQUART (MADAME ANTOINE), wife of the preceding. See Josephine
Gavaudan.

MACQUART (GERVAISE), born 1828, was a daughter of Antoine Macquart, and
was slightly lame from birth. She was apprenticed to a laundress, but at
an early age had two children to a journeyman tanner named Lantier.[*]

Soon after the death of her mother, in 1850, she ran off to Paris with
Lantier and her children, Claude, a boy of eight, and Etienne, aged
four. La Fortune des Rougon.

The party had only been in the city a few weeks when Lantier ran off
with a girl named Adele, leaving Gervaise and the children unprovided
for. She got work in the laundry of Madame Fauconnier, and not long
after received an offer of marriage from Coupeau, a respectable
zinc-worker, which after some hesi