e pit, whereby
many of his comrades were entombed. Among them was Lantier, who was,
however, eventually rescued.

As a study of the ever-lasting struggle between capital and labour the
work has no rival in fiction; the miseries and degradation of the mining
class, their tardy revolt against their employers, and their sufferings
from hunger during its futile course, these are the theme, and the
result is a picture of gloom, horrible and without relief.

Nana.

A novel dealing largely with theatrical life in Paris. Nana, the
daughter of Coupeau and Gervaise Macquart his wife (_L'Assommoir_), has
been given a part in a play produced at the Theatre des Varietes, and
though she can neither sing nor act, achieves by the sheer force of
her beauty an overwhelming success. All Paris is at her feet, and she
selects her lovers from among the wealthiest and best born. But her
extravagance knows no bounds, and ruin invariably overtakes those who
yield to her fascination. After squandering vast sums she goes to the
East, and stories spread that she had captivated a viceroy and gained a
great fortune in Russia. Her return to Paris is speedily followed by her
death from small-pox. In this novel the life of the courtesan class is
dealt with by Zola with unhesitating frankness; there are many vivid
studies of theatrical manners; and the racecourse also comes within its
scope. The work was intended to lay bare the canker which was eating
into the social life of the Second Empire and ultimately led to the
_debacle_ of 1870.

La Terre.

This is a novel which treats of the conditions of agricultural life in
France before the war with Prussia, and the subsequent downfall of the
Second Empire. It is, in some respects, the most powerful of all Zola's
novels, but in dealing with the subject he unfortunately thought it
necessary to introduce incidents and expressions which, from their
nature, must always render it impossible to submit the book in its
entirety to the general English reader.

Its connection with the Rougon-Macquart series is somewhat slight. Jean
Macquart, son of Antoine Macquart and brother of Gervaise (_La Fortune
des Rougon_), having served his time in the Army, came to the plain
of La Beauce, and became an agricultural labourer on the farm of La
Borderie, which belonged to Alexandre Hourdequin. He fell in love with
Lise Mouche, who, however, married Buteau, and Macquart subsequently
married her sister Francoise. Con