which was ultimately realized, though the realization proved
too much for her frail strength, and she died in its supreme moment. The
vast cathedral with its solemn ritual dominates the book and colours the
lives of its characters.

La Conquete de Plassans.

The heroine of this book is Marthe Rougon, the youngest daughter of
Pierre and Felicite Rougon (_La Fortune des Rougon_), who had inherited
much of the neurasthenic nature of her grandmother Adelaide Fouque. She
married her cousin, Francois Mouret. Plassans, where the Mourets lived,
was becoming a stronghold of the clerical party, when Abbe Faujas, a
wily and arrogant priest, was sent to win it back for the Government.
This powerful and unscrupulous ecclesiastic ruthlessly set aside every
obstacle to his purpose, and in the course of his operations wrecked the
home of the Mourets. Marthe having become infatuated with the priest,
ruined her family for him and died neglected. Francois Mouret, her
husband, who by the machinations of Faujas was confined in an asylum as
a lunatic, became insane in fact, and having escaped, brought about
a conflagration in which he perished along with the disturber of his
domestic peace.

The book contains a vivid picture of the petty jealousies and intrigues
of a country town, and of the political movements which followed the
_Coup d'Etat_ of 1851.

Pot-Bouille.

A study of middle-class life in Paris. Octave, the elder son of Francois
Mouret, has come to the city, where he has got a situation in "The
Ladies' Paradise," a draper's shop carried on by Madame Hedouin, a lady
whom he ultimately marries. The interest of the book centres in a house
in Rue de Choiseul which is let in flats to various tenants, the Vabres,
Duvreyiers, and Josserands among others. The inner lives of these
people, their struggles, their jealousies and their sins, are shown
with an unsparing hand. Under the thin skin of an intense respectability
there is a seething mass of depravity, and with ruthless art Zola has
laid his subjects upon the dissecting-table. Of plot there is little,
but as a terrible study in realism the book is a masterpiece.

An Bonheur des Dames.

Octave Mouret, after his marriage with Madame Hedouin, greatly increased
the business of "The Ladies' Paradise," which he hoped would ultimately
rival the _Bon Marche_ and other great drapery establishments in Paris.
While an addition to the shop was in progress Madame Mouret met with an
a