ÉMILE ZOLA
NOVELIST AND REFORMERAN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE & WORK
BY
ERNEST ALFRED VIZETELLY
ILLUSTRATED BY PORTRAITS, VIEWS,& FAC-SIMILES
JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEADLONDON & NEW YORK MDCCCCIV
TO HIS MEMORY
"If, upon your side, you have the testimony
of your conscience, and, against you, that
of the multitude, take comfort, rest assured
that time will do justice."— DIDEROT
PREFACE
This book is an attempt to chronicle the chief incidentsin the life of the late Émile Zola, and to set out the variousaims he had in view at different periods of a career whichwas one of the most strenuous the modern world has known.Virtually all his work is enumerated in the following pages,which, though some are given to argument and criticism,will be found crowded with facts. The result may not bevery artistic, but it has been partially my object to showwhat a tremendous worker Zola was, how incessantly, howstubbornly, he practised the gospel which he preached. Anattempt has been made also to show the growth of humanitarianand reforming passions in his heart and mind, passionswhich became so powerful at last that the "novelist" in Zolaseemed as nothing. Yet I do not think I can be charged withhaving neglected the literary side of his career. It is thatwhich bulks most largely in the present volume, and that Ithink is as it should be, for while Zola was certainly, andin some respects essentially, a Reformer, the pen was theweapon with which he strove to effect his purposes.
Designed more particularly for British and Americanreaders, the book contains some passages which I shouldhave abbreviated—omitted perhaps—if I had been addressinga French audience. And some subjects, which, in thatcase, I might have treated more fully, have here been dealtwith briefly. For instance, though I have enumerated all the[Pg viii]plays that Zola wrote, and most of those founded by otherson his works, I have not entered into any real discussion ofhis views respecting the stage, or of his indirect influenceon it in France. I have thought it sufficient to indicate thatsuch influence was exercised. A full examination of Zola'srelations with the stage would have materially increasedthe length of a work which is long already, and which Ihave been anxious to keep within the scope of one volume—adesire which has made my task more difficult than itwould have been had I used my materials in all their fulness.But I am distinctly of opinion that biographies in severalvolumes have nowadays little chance of surviving, even fora moderate number of years.
With respect to Zola's share in the Dreyfus case everybodywill recognise, I think, how difficult it is to narrate thedoings of any one individual in such an intricate mêlée withoutconstant reference to the other combatants and explanationof the many points at issue. Nevertheless, though I fullyrecognise that the deliverance of Captain Dreyfus was noteffected by Zola only, that many other able a