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PARIS

FROM THE THREE CITIES

By Emile Zola

Translated By Ernest A. Vizetelly

BOOK I.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

WITH the present work M. Zola completes the "Trilogy of the Three

Cities," which he began with "Lourdes" and continued with "Rome"; and

thus the adventures and experiences of Abbe Pierre Froment, the doubting

Catholic priest who failed to find faith at the miraculous grotto by the

Cave, and hope amidst the crumbling theocracy of the Vatican, are here

brought to what, from M. Zola's point of view, is their logical

conclusion. From the first pages of "Lourdes," many readers will have

divined that Abbe Froment was bound to finish as he does, for, frankly,

no other finish was possible from a writer of M. Zola's opinions.

Taking the Trilogy as a whole, one will find that it is essentially

symbolical. Abbe Froment is Man, and his struggles are the struggles

between Religion, as personified by the Roman Catholic Church, on the one

hand, and Reason and Life on the other. In the Abbe's case the victory

ultimately rests with the latter; and we may take it as being M. Zola's

opinion that the same will eventually be the case with the great bulk of

mankind. English writers are often accused of treating subjects from an

insular point of view, and certainly there may be good ground for such a

charge. But they are not the only writers guilty of the practice. The

purview of French authors is often quite as limited: they regard French

opinion as the only good opinion, and judge the rest of the world by

their own standard. In the present case, if we leave the world and

mankind generally on one side, and apply M. Zola's facts and theories to

France alone, it will be found, I think, that he has made out a

remarkably good case for himself. For it is certain that Catholicism, I

may say Christianity, is fast crumbling in France. There may be revivals

in certain limited circles, efforts of the greatest energy to prop up the

tottering edifice by a "rallying" of believers to the democratic cause,

and by a kindling of the most bitter anti-Semitic warfare; but all these

revivals and efforts, although they are extremely well-advertised and

create no little stir, produce very little impression on the bulk of the

population. So far as France is concerned, the policy of Leo XIII. seems

to have come too late. The French masses regard Catholicism or

Christianity, whichever one pleases, as a religion of death,--a religion

which, taking its stand on the text "There shall always be poor among

you," condemns them to toil and moil in poverty and distress their whole

life long, with no other consolation than the promise of happiness in

heaven. And, on the other hand, they see the ministers of the Deity,

"whose kingdom is not of this world," supporting the wealthy and

powerful, and striving to secure wealth and power for themselves. Charity

exists, of course, but the masses declare that it is no remedy; they do

not ask for doles, they ask for Justice. It is largely by reason of all

this that Socialism and Anarchism have made such great strides in France

of recent years. Robespierre, as will be remembered, once tried to

suppress Christianity altogether, and for a time certainly there was a

virtually general cessation of religious observances in France. But no

such Reign of Terror prevails there to-day. Men are perfectly free to

believe if they are inclined to do so; and yet never were there fewer

religious marriages, fewer baptisms or smaller congregations in the

French churches. I refer not merely to Paris and other large cities, but

to the smaller towns, and even the little hamlets of many parts. Old

village priests, men practising what they teach and possessed of the most

loving, benevolent hearts, have told me with tears in their eyes of the

growing infidelity of their parishioners.

I have been studying this matter for some years, and write without

prejudice, merely setting down what I believe to be the truth. Of course

we are all aware that the most stupendous efforts are being made by the

Catholic clergy and zealous believers to bring about a revival of the

faith, and certainly in some circles there has been a measure of success.

But the reconversion of a nation is the most formidable of tasks; and, in

my own opinion, as in M. Zola's, France as a whole is lost to the

Christian religion. On this proposition, combined with a second one,

namely, that even as France as a nation will be the first to discard

Christianity, so she will be the first to promulgate a new faith based on

reason, science and the teachings of life, is founded the whole argument

of M. Zola's Trilogy.

Having thus dealt with the Trilogy's religious aspects, I would now speak

of "Paris," its concluding volume. This is very different from "Lourdes"

and "Rome." Whilst recounting the struggles and fate of Abbe Froment and

his brother Guillaume, and entering largely into the problem of Capital

and Labour, which problem has done so much to turn the masses away from

Christianity, it contains many an interesting and valuable picture of the

Parisian world at the close of the nineteenth century. It is no

guide-book to Paris; but it paints the city's social life, its rich and

poor, its scandals and crimes, its work and its pleasures. Among the

households to which the reader is introduced are those of a banker, an

aged Countess of the old _noblesse_, a cosmopolitan Princess, of a kind

that Paris knows only too well, a scientist, a manufacturer, a working

mechanician, a priest, an Anarchist, a petty clerk and an actress of a

class that so often dishonours the French stage. Science and art and

learning and religion, all have their representatives. Then, too, the

political world is well to the front. There are honest and unscrupulous

Ministers of State, upright and venal deputies, enthusiastic and cautious

candidates for power, together with social theoreticians of various

schools. And the _blase_, weak-minded man of fashion is here, as well as

the young "symbolist" of perverted, degraded mind. The women are of all

types, from the most loathsome to the most lovable. Then, too, the

journalists are portrayed in such life-like fashion that I might give

each of them his real name. And journalism, Parisian journalism, is

flagellated, shown as it really is,--if just a few well-conducted organs

be excepted,--that is, venal and impudent, mendacious and even petty.

The actual scenes depicted are quite as kaleidoscopic as are the

characters in their variety. We enter the banker's gilded saloon and the

hovel of the pauper, the busy factory, the priest's retired home and the

laboratory of the scientist. We wait in the lobbies of the Chamber of

Deputies, and afterwards witness "a great debate"; we penetrate into the

private sanctum of a Minister of the Interior; we attend a fashionable

wedding at the Madeleine and a first performance at the Comedie

Francaise; we dine at the Cafe Anglais and listen to a notorious vocalist

in a low music hall at Montmartre; we pursue an Anarchist through the

Bois de Boulogne; we slip into the Assize Court and see that Anarchist

tried there; we afterwards gaze upon his execution by the guillotine; we

are also on the boulevards when the lamps are lighted for a long night of

revelry, and we stroll along the quiet streets in the small hours of the

morning, when crime and homeless want are prowling round.

And ever the scene changes; the whole world of Paris passes before one.

Yet the book, to my thinking, is far less descriptive than analytical.

The souls of the principal characters are probed to their lowest depths.

Many of the scenes, too, are intensely dramatic, admirably adapted for

the stage; as, for instance, Baroness Duvillard's interview with her

daughter in the chapter which I have called "The Rivals." And side by

side with baseness there is heroism, while beauty of the flesh finds its

counterpart in beauty of the mind. M. Zola has often been reproached for

showing us the vileness of human nature; and no doubt such vileness may

be found in "Paris," but there are contrasting pictures. If some of M.

Zola's characters horrify the reader, there are others that the latter

can but admire. Life is compounded of good and evil, and unfortunately it

is usually the evil that makes the most noise and attracts the most

attention. Moreover, in M. Zola's case, it has always been his purpose to

expose the evils from which society suffers in the hope of directing

attention to them and thereby hastening a remedy, and thus, in the course

of his works, he could not do otherwise than drag the whole frightful

mass of human villany and degradation into the full light of day. But if

there are, again, black pages in "Paris," others, bright and comforting,

will be found near them. And the book ends in no pessimist strain.

Whatever may be thought of the writer's views on religion, most readers

will, I imagine, agree with his opinion that, despite much social

injustice, much crime, vice, cupidity and baseness, we are ever marching

on to better things.

In the making of the coming, though still far-away, era of truth and

justice, Paris, he thinks, will play the leading part, for whatever the

stains upon her, they are but surface-deep; her heart remains good and

sound; she has genius and courage and energy and wit and fancy. She can

be generous, too, when she chooses, and more than once her ideas have

irradiated the world. Thus M. Zola hopes much from her, and who will

gainsay him? Not I, who can apply to her the words which Byron addressed

to the home of my own and M. Zola's forefathers:--

"I loved her from my boyhood; she to me

Was as a fairy city of the heart."

Thus I can but hope that Paris, where I learnt the little I know, where I

struggled and found love and happiness, whose every woe and disaster and

triumph I have shared for over thirty years, may, however dark the clouds

that still pass over her, some day fully justify M. Zola's confidence,

and bring to pass his splendid dream of perfect truth and perfect

justice.

E. A. V.

MERTON, SURREY, ENGLAND,

Feb. 5, 1898.

I. THE PRIEST AND THE POOR

THAT morning, one towards the end of January, Abbe Pierre Froment, who

had a mass to say at the Sacred Heart at Montmartre, was on the height,

in front of the basilica, already at eight o'clock. And before going in

he gazed for a moment upon the immensity of Paris spread out below him.

After two months of bitter cold, ice and snow, the city was steeped in a

mournful, quivering thaw. From the far-spreading, leaden-hued heavens a

thick mist fell like a mourning shroud. All the eastern portion of the

city, the abodes of misery and toil, seemed submerged beneath ruddy

steam, amid which the panting of workshops and factories could be

divined; while westwards, towards the districts of wealth and enjoyment,

the fog broke and lightened, becoming but a fine and motionless veil of

vapour. The curved line of the horizon could scarcely be divined, the

expanse of houses, which nothing bounded, appeared like a chaos of stone,

studded with stagnant pools, which filled the hollows with pale steam;

whilst against them the summits of the edifices, the housetops of the

loftier streets, showed black like soot. It was a Paris of mystery,

shrouded by clouds, buried as it were beneath the ashes of some disaster,

already half-sunken in the suffering and the shame of that which its

immensity concealed.

Thin and sombre in his flimsy cassock, Pierre was looking on when Abbe

Rose, who seemed to have sheltered himself behind a pillar of the porch

on purpose to watch for him, came forward: "Ah! it's you at last, my dear

child," said he, "I have something to ask you."

He seemed embarrassed and anxious, and glanced round distrustfully to

make sure that nobody was near. Then, as if the solitude thereabouts did

not suffice to reassure him, he led Pierre some distance away, through

the icy, biting wind, which he himself did not seem to feel. "This is the

matter," he resumed, "I have been told that a poor fellow, a former

house-painter, an old man of seventy, who naturally can work no more, is

dying of hunger in a hovel in the Rue des Saules. So, my dear child, I

thought of you. I thought you would consent to take him these three

francs from me, so that he may at least have some bread to eat for a few

days."

"But why don't you take him your alms yourself?"

At this Abbe Rose again grew anxious, and cast vague, frightened glances

about him. "Oh, no, oh, no!" he said, "I can no longer do that after all

the worries that have befallen me. You know that I am watched, and should

get another scolding if I were caught giving alms like this, scarcely

knowing to whom I give them. It is true that I had to sell something to

get these three francs. But, my dear child, render me this service, I

pray you."

Pierre, with heart oppressed, stood contemplating the old priest, whose

locks were quite white, whose full lips spoke of infinite kindliness, and

whose eyes shone clear and childlike in his round and smiling face. And

he bitterly recalled the story of that lover of the poor, the

semi-disgrace into which he had fallen through the sublime candour of his

charitable goodness. His little ground-floor of the Rue de Charonne,

which he had turned into a refuge where he offered shelter to all the

wretchedness of the streets, had ended by giving cause for scandal. His

_naivete_ and innocence had been abused; and abominable things had gone

on under his roof without his knowledge. Vice had turned the asylum into

a meeting-place; and at last, one night, the police had descended upon it