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‘Le revenant héréditaire’: The Reappearance of Characters in Les Rougon-Macquart

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Reappearing Characters in Nineteenth-Century French Literature

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Modern European Literature ((PMEL))

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Abstract

The reappearance of characters in Zola’s Les Rougon-Macquart poses the problem of originality not only because he was often seen as rewriting La Comédie humaine; the reappearance of his characters is also determined by the notion of heredity which Zola borrowed from Prosper Lucas’s Traité de l’hérédité naturelle, in which the two laws that govern procreation, the law of imitation (heredity) and the law of invention (innéité), have clear aesthetic connotations. I argue that Zola reactivates these aesthetic connotations and that the role played by the biological originality (innéité) of his characters in Les Rougon-Macquart and, especially, in the last novel of the series, Le Docteur Pascal, mirrors his concerns about the aesthetic originality of his characters and of his work in general.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Paul Alexis, ‘Pot-Bouille,’ Le Réveil, 15 April 1882.

  2. 2.

    Ad. Badin, ‘Bulletin bibliographique,’ La Nouvelle Revue 83 (15 July 1893): 444.

  3. 3.

    Charles Arnaud, ‘Romans, contes et nouvelles,’ Polybiblion 28, no. 4 (October 1893): 304.

  4. 4.

    Gustave Frederix, ‘Émile Zola: Le Docteur Pascal,’ [1893] in Trente ans de critique, 2 vols (Paris: Hetzel, 1900), 1:388.

  5. 5.

    Arnaud, ‘Romans, contes et nouvelles,’ 304.

  6. 6.

    Georges Bonnamour, ‘Critique littéraire: Roman: La Débâcle,’ La Revue indépendante, n.s., 24, no. 69 (July 1892): 89. Zola himself described the novel in similar terms: ‘Résumé.’ (1883–1884 list of novels, cited in RM, 5:1568); ‘une conclusion générale’ (letter to Van Santen Kolff, 25 January 1893, cited in RM, 5:1570).

  7. 7.

    See, e.g., Michel Butor, ‘Au feu des pages,’ CN 34 (1967): 101; on the last chapter of Le Docteur Pascal as repeating symmetrically the first chapter of La Fortune des Rougon, see Naomi Schor, Zola’s Crowds (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 68–69.

  8. 8.

    E. Ledrain, ‘Opinions: Le Docteur Pascal,’ L’Éclair, 2 August 1893.

  9. 9.

    The first definite mention of the novel dates from 1872–1873: see RM, 5:1568.

  10. 10.

    Philippe Hamon points out that protagonists of novels who go on to assume a secondary role in subsequent novels appear to be ‘“fixés” et relativement “stationnaires” […], comme si le fait d’avoir agi dans un roman antérieur avait épuisé leurs possibilités narratives’ [‘fixed’ and relatively ‘stationary’ […], as if their having acted in a previous novel had exhausted their narrative possibilities]. See Philippe Hamon, Le Personnel du roman: Le Système des personnages dans “Les Rougon-Macquart” d’Émile Zola (Geneva: Droz, 1983), 58.

  11. 11.

    On the lack of closure of the series, see Gaston d’Hailly, ‘Chronique,’ Revue des livres nouveaux 26 (1893): 10. On Le Docteur Pascal as a novel with ‘two endings and no closure’, see Janet L. Beizer, ‘Remembering and Repeating the Rougon-Macquart: Clotilde’s Story,’ L’Esprit créateur 25, no. 4 (1985): 51–58; on the novel’s optimism as clashing with the deterministic pessimism of most of Zola’s earlier novels and as heralding a new phase of Zola’s work, see Rita Schober, ‘Le Docteur Pascal ou le sens de la vie,’ CN 53 (1979): 53–74.

  12. 12.

    See RM, 5:930 (‘vous êtes de la famille maintenant’ [you are now part of the family]), 1044 (‘fille dévouée, aujourd’hui de la famille’ [a devoted girl, now part of the family]).

  13. 13.

    On incest in Le Docteur Pascal and Les Rougon-Macquart, see Nicholas White, ‘Le Docteur Pascal entre l’inceste et l’innéité,’ CN 68 (1994): 77–88 and The Family in Crisis in Late Nineteenth-Century French Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 98–123.

  14. 14.

    Hamon, Le Personnel du roman, 166–84.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 33.

  16. 16.

    See also Daniel Aranda, ‘Personnages récurrents, personnages familiaux dans les séries romanesques de Zola,’ CN 74 (2000): 61–73.

  17. 17.

    Hamon (Le Personnel du roman, 58) refers to the same example and notes that ‘quant aux personnages non Rougon-Macquart, tout se passe comme s’ils n’existaient plus’ [as for the characters outside the Rougon-Macquart family, it is as if they no longer existed].

  18. 18.

    See Aranda, ‘Personnages récurrents,’ 63–65.

  19. 19.

    Prosper Lucas, Traité de l’hérédité naturelle, 2 vols (Paris: J.-B. Baillière, 1847–50), 2:1.

  20. 20.

    Timothée Colani, ‘Les Rougon-Macquart,’ La Nouvelle Revue 3 (1 March 1880): 139.

  21. 21.

    G. Vapereau, ‘Roman,’ in L’Année littéraire et dramatique. Septième année (1864) (Paris: Hachette, 1865), 83.

  22. 22.

    Max Nordau, Dégénérescence, trans. Auguste Dietrich, 2 vols (Paris: F. Alcan, 1894), 2:409–68. A section was reprinted as ‘La Prétendue Originalité de Zola,’ La Chronique médicale, 9e année, no. 20 (15 October 1902): 655–60.

  23. 23.

    ‘Zola et les “Cinq”,’ [1887] in OC, 13:816.

  24. 24.

    See OC, 9:342–43.

  25. 25.

    On the centrality of the epistemological premises of experimental medicine in Zola’s project, see Lawrence Rothfield, Vital Signs: Medical Realism in Nineteenth-Century Fiction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 120–29.

  26. 26.

    Armand de Pontmartin, ‘Nana partout: L’Assommoir à Athènes,’ [1879] in Nouveaux samedis. Dix-neuvième série (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1880), 367.

  27. 27.

    Hugues Le Roux, ‘Chronique,’ La République française, 28 April 1886.

  28. 28.

    On Zola copying Le Sublime, see Auguste Dumont, ‘Un scandale littéraire,’ Le Télégraphe, 17 March 1877; anonymous, ‘M. Zola plagiaire,’ Gazette anecdotique, 2e année, 1, no. 6 (31 March 1877): 161–65; Paul Perret, ‘Un mot sur le naturalisme,’ Revue de France, 9e année, 2e période, 33 (January 1879): 328–29; Jean Richepin, ‘Portraits à l’encre: M. Zola, critique,’ Gil Blas, 17 March 1880; Colani, ‘Les Rougon-Macquart,’ 159. A selection of other accusations of plagiarism would include: Firmin Boissin, ‘Romans, contes et nouvelles,’ Polybiblion 2, no. 1 (July 1875): 14; Georges Brunet, ‘Les Romanciers contemporains: M. Émile Zola, L’Assommoir,’ La Vie littéraire, 22 February 1877; Nordau, Dégénérescence, 2:439–40; Caroline Berton, ‘Le Plagiat de M. É. Zola,’ La Paix sociale, 2 June 1888; Ferdinand Brunetière, ‘Le Roman expérimental,’ Revue des deux mondes, 3e période, 37 (15 February 1880): 944–45; anonymous, ‘M. Zola plagiaire,’ Gazette anecdotique, 5e année, 1, no. 4 (29 February 1880): 111–12; Français Maurice, ‘Un nouveau plagiat: Chez M. É. Zola,’ Le Voltaire, 3 May 1886; Philinte, ‘Causeries, plagiats,’ L’Autorité, 5 May 1886; anonymous, ‘Causerie littéraire: À propos de L’Œuvre,’ Le Français, 21 May 1886; Robert Charvay, ‘Zola et Diderot,’ L’Événement, 6 May 1886; ‘Zola plagiaire,’ [1890] in OC, 14:583.

  29. 29.

    ‘La Question du plagiat,’ [1895] in OC, 16:925.

  30. 30.

    ZC, 2:548.

  31. 31.

    NAF 10345, fo 13/4.

  32. 32.

    Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Journal: Mémoires de la vie littéraire, ed. Robert Ricatte, 3 vols (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1989), 2:186 (14 December 1868).

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 856 (24 February 1880).

  34. 34.

    Henri Houssaye, ‘Le Vin bleu littéraire: L’Assommoir,’ Journal des débats, 14 March 1877; see also Louis Ulbach, ‘Nana par Émile Zola,’ Le Livre 1 (10 March 1880): 199.

  35. 35.

    Albert Wolff, ‘Le Rêve d’Émile Zola,’ Le Figaro, 22 December 1878.

  36. 36.

    NAF 10345, fo 13/4, also cited in RM, 5:1744.

  37. 37.

    NAF 10345, fo 15/2, also cited in RM, 5:1737.

  38. 38.

    Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, ‘La Faute de l’abbé Mouret, par M. Émile Zola,’ [1875] in Les Œuvres et les hommes, 26 vols (Paris: Lemerre, 1902), 18:227.

  39. 39.

    On repetition and recurrence in general in Les Rougon-Macquart, see Auguste Dezalay, L’Opéra des “Rougon-Macquart”: Essai de rythmologie romanesque (Paris: Klincksieck, 1983).

  40. 40.

    See ‘Livres d’aujourd’hui et de demain,’ OC, 3:589–91; ‘Causerie,’ OC, 3:612–16; ‘Les Livres. Balzac (Édition complète et définitive),’ OC, 3:625–31; ‘Balzac,’ OC, 5:915–17; ‘[Balzac juge d’Hernani],’ OC, 5:922–25.

  41. 41.

    See ‘Le Sens du réel,’ OC, 9:418.

  42. 42.

    On the fear of heredity and the metaphor of the ghost (also popularised by Ibsen), see Françoise Gaillard, ‘Histoire de peur,’ Littérature, no. 64 (1986): 13–22; for a comparison between Le Docteur Pascal and Ibsen’s Ghosts, see Jean Borie, Mythologies de l’hérédité au XIX e siècle (Paris: Galilée, 1981), 123–45.

  43. 43.

    In this context, it is interesting to note that Zola feared that some of his characters may be too repetitive: see, e.g., his Notes préparatoires: NAF 10345, fo 10/1: ‘Prendre garde surtout à remettre trop souvent en scène le même bonhomme nerveux (Claude, Daniel, Guillaume.) Trouver des tempéraments divers’ [Be careful not to put too often on stage the same nervous fellow (Claude, Daniel, Guillaume). Find different temperaments]. See also F. W. J. Hemmings, ‘The Elaboration of Character in the ébauches of Zola’s Rougon-Macquart novels,’ PMLA 81, no. 3 (1966): 286–96.

  44. 44.

    Lucas, Traité, 1:148.

  45. 45.

    On the ‘incorporation’ of extra-literary discourses by Zola and on Le Docteur Pascal as a novel which is about this very process of incorporation, see Larry Duffy, Flaubert, Zola, and the Incorporation of Disciplinary Knowledge (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), esp. 194–217.

  46. 46.

    See François Jacob, The Logic of Life: A History of Heredity, trans. Betty E. Spillmann (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973), 19–20; see also Staffan Müller-Wille and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, ‘Heredity: The Formation of an Epistemic Space,’ in Heredity Produced: At the Crossroads of Biology, Politics, and Culture, 1500–1870, ed. Staffan Müller-Wille and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007), 3–34. On eighteenth-century theories of heredity and the difficulty in distinguishing them from theories of generation, see Roselyne Rey, ‘Génération et hérédité au XVIIIe siècle,’ in L’Ordre des caractères: Aspects de l’hérédité dans l’histoire des sciences de l’homme, ed. Claude Bénichou (Paris: Vrin, 1989), 7–48.

  47. 47.

    Carlos López-Beltrán, ‘In the Cradle of Heredity: French Physicians and l’hérédité naturelle in the Early Nineteenth Century,’ Journal of the History of Biology 37, no. 1 (2004): 41–53.

  48. 48.

    Carlos López-Beltrán, ‘Forging Heredity: From Metaphor to Cause, a Reification History,’ Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 25, no. 2 (1994): 211–35.

  49. 49.

    On Lucas, see Frederick B. Churchill, ‘From Heredity Theory to Vererbung: The Transmission Problem, 1850–1915,’ Isis 78, no. 3 (1987): 342–43; López-Beltrán, ‘In the Cradle of Heredity,’ 62–68. On Lucas and the emergence of the theory of heredity in the context of the discourse on degeneration created by public health issues, see Sean M. Quinlan, The Great Nation in Decline: Sex, Modernity and Health Crises in Revolutionary France c. 1750–1850 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 199–203.

  50. 50.

    There is no entry for the word in the Dictionnaire des sciences médicales, 60 vols (Paris: Panckoucke, 1812–22): most of the entry inné (25:232–35) is devoted to innate ideas.

  51. 51.

    In the case of Lucas , ‘observation’ is not the most accurate term: Lucas’s sources are very frequently prior treatises on hereditary phenomena and he does not hesitate to use mythological examples: e.g., Nestor recognising Telemachus from the similarity of his voice to that of Ulysses (Traité, 1:603). This ‘pre-scientific’ character of Lucas’s erudition is what causes Balan to conclude, rather anachronistically, that ‘le Traité de Lucas n’appartient donc pas à l’histoire des sciences et surtout pas à la science de l’hérédité’ [Lucas’s Treatise does not belong to the history of the sciences and certainly not to the science of heredity]: see Bernard Balan, ‘Prosper Lucas,’ in Bénichou, L’Ordre des caractères, 65. On the ‘literary’ aspect of the case studies in treatises of heredity, see Borie, Mythologies de l’hérédité, 87–100 and Henri Mitterand, ‘Zola et l’hérédité ou les contes fantastiques du docteur Lucas,’ Transversalités, no. 69 (1999): 11–18; on the narrative character of medical treatises, see Françoise Gaillard, ‘Du traité de médecine au roman médical ou la petite histoire du névrosisme,’ in Typologie du roman, ed. Józef Heistein and Christiane Moatti (Wrocław: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego; Paris: A. G. Nizet, 1984), 83–95; also, on the melodramatic way in which Zola dramatised medical case studies, see Jean-Louis Cabanès, ‘Zola réécrit les traités médicaux: Pathos et invention romanesque,’ Eidôlon 50 (1997): 161–74.

  52. 52.

    Lucas, Traité, 2:30.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., 1:585.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., 1:594–606.

  55. 55.

    Ibid., 2:84.

  56. 56.

    Ibid., 2:109.

  57. 57.

    Ibid., 2:178.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., 2:194.

  59. 59.

    Ibid., 2:226.

  60. 60.

    Ibid., 2:193–94.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., 2:207.

  62. 62.

    Ibid., 2:214–15. Malinas seems to be mistakenly implying that the chemical metaphor is Pascal’s own explanation of innateness: see Yves Malinas, Zola et les hérédités imaginaires (Paris: Expansion scientifique française, 1985), 67, 78, 129.

  63. 63.

    Charles Nodier, Questions de littérature légale, ed. Jean-François Jeandillou (Geneva: Droz, 2003), 23.

  64. 64.

    Lucas, Traité, 1:23–24.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., 1:96.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., 2:53, 217.

  67. 67.

    See, e.g., Joseph Sauton, De l’hérédité morbide et de ses manifestations vésaniques dans la paralysie générale (Paris: A. Delahaye and E. Lecrosnier, 1883), 8–12.

  68. 68.

    Moreau de Tours, in La Pathologie morbide, mentions Lucas’s two laws without explicitly rejecting innateness but states that it does not interest him, since his aim is to prove that exceptional intellectual powers are linked with ‘la névrosité morbide’, whether the latter is inherited or not; in his section on non-inheritable idiosyncrasies which may give rise to exceptional intellectual powers, he does not mention the term at all. See J. Moreau de Tours, La Psychologie morbide dans ses rapports avec la philosophie d’histoire (Paris: Victor Masson, 1859), 103–04, 193–94. A forceful refutation of innateness can be found in Théodule Ribot, L’Hérédité: Étude psychologique sur ses phénomènes, ses lois, ses causes, ses conséquences (Paris: Librairie philosophique de Ladrange, 1873). Ribot denies the existence of Lucas’s two laws and accepts only the law of heredity, which suffices to explain any exceptions (ibid., 269). He declares that most of the instances of innateness mentioned by Lucas are either dubious or simply false (ibid., 273). However, there are exceptions to heredity (ibid., 274) but these can be explained by the combination of the different heredities of the parents, by accidental factors during conception, or by subsequent influences (ibid., 279). Innateness is pronounced ‘une entité inintelligible’ (ibid., 281). Likewise, Jules Dejerine, one of Zola’s known sources, proclaims that ‘il n’y a rien qui ressemble à la prétendue loi d’innéité’ [there is no such thing as the so-called law of innateness] and that the apparent exceptions to the law of heredity that led Lucas to speak of a second law can be explained by evolution, natural selection, and the action of the milieu. See J. Dejerine, L’Hérédité dans les maladies du système nerveux (Paris: Asselin et Houzeau, 1886), 19–20. By the 1880s, innateness is a decidedly outdated concept and its effects are simply attributed to heredity: see, e.g., Jean-Marie Guyau, Éducation et hérédité: Étude sociologique (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1889), 75; Charles-Marie Debierre, L’Hérédité normale et pathologique (Paris: Masson, 1897), 152. Innateness is considered to be no more than ‘une pure conception de l’esprit’ [a purely intellectual notion], ‘une chimère’ (André Sanson, L’Hérédité normale et pathologique (Paris: Asselin et Houzeau, 1893), 8–9, 62), one among many theories ‘n’ayant plus qu’une valeur historique’ [which no longer have but historical value] (Yves Delage, La Structure du protoplasma et les théories sur l’hérédité (Paris: C. Reinwald, 1895), 367n1), ‘cette entité métaphysique’ (Debierre, L’Hérédité, 121), while Lucas is accused of ‘mysticisme obscur’ (Sanson, L’Hérédité, 394).

  69. 69.

    d’Hailly, ‘Chronique,’ 10.

  70. 70.

    Michel Serres, Feux et signaux de brume: Zola (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1975), 36.

  71. 71.

    Zola seems to be using the term to refer exclusively to the heredity of moral traits, given the emphatic way in which he distinguishes between ‘élection’ and ‘ressemblance physique’ in the description of his characters in the family tree—something which has no basis in Lucas nor in Zola’s notes from his treatise.

  72. 72.

    While this fourth type is used by Zola since the very first (unpublished) version of the family tree (in the case of Pierre), this difference from Lucas is subtly signalled only in Le Docteur Pascal, in which the discovery of this type is attributed to Pascal himself (RM, 5:1007). While its definition by Zola corresponds precisely to the definition of mélange fusion by Lucas (Traité, 2:207), a close look at Zola’s notes from Lucas and his ‘notes préparatoires’ for the series shows that his mélange équilibre corresponds to what Lucas calls mélange égal, which is not a fourth kind of mélange but indicates the quality of the parents’ influence in all three kinds of mélange.

  73. 73.

    Hérédité en retour is one of the four kinds of heredity (the others being hérédité directe, hérédité indirecte, and hérédité d’influence) which determine whose genetic traits are passed on to a child (a distant ancestor, the parents, a parent’s sibling, or the first lover of the mother, respectively); regardless of the relative in whom the traits originate, they are transmitted by the parents, whose respective roles in shaping their offspring are measured by élection, mélange, and innéité. While (according to Lucas ) all four kinds of heredity are cases of the latter three, Zola uses hérédité en retour without any further specifications, giving thus the impression to a reader unacquainted with Lucas’s treatise that this term is on a par with élection, mélange, and innéité.

  74. 74.

    By contrast, Lucas insists on the fact that each parent may influence different and very specific elements of the physical and moral constitution of the child. He stresses in particular (and Zola copies the passage in his notes) that ‘vue dans son ensemble, l’organisation […] n’est qu’un composé d’ÉLECTIONS, de MÉLANGES et de COMBINAISONS des divers caractères des deux générateurs’ [viewed as a whole, the organism […] is but a composite of ELECTIONS, MÉLANGES and COMBINATIONS of the various characteristics of the two parents] (Traité, 2:219; Zola, NAF 10345, fo 91/34, also cited in RM, 5:1712).

  75. 75.

    On Zola’s insistence on morbid heredity, see Henri Mitterand, Zola: L’Histoire et la fiction (Paris: PUF, 1990), 49; on Lucas as maintaining a balance between the positive and the negative effects of heredity, see Jean Borie, ‘L’Artiste comme médecin: Zola, Ibsen et le problème de la tragédie,’ in Le Statut de la littérature: Mélanges offerts à Paul Bénichou, ed. Marc Fumaroli (Geneva: Droz, 1982), 337.

  76. 76.

    For a range of examples, see Lucas, Traité, 1:105–36. It is interesting that Zola’s notes from Lucas are clear on the potentially harmful consequences of innateness: ‘Anomalie chez les individus toujours par le fait de l’innéité’ [Anomaly in individuals always because of innateness] (NAF 10345, fo 67/10, also cited in RM, 5:1697).

  77. 77.

    Lucas, Traité, 2:518; copied by Zola, NAF 10345, fo 103/46, cited in RM, 5:1720.

  78. 78.

    Paul Bourget, ‘M. Émile Zola,’ Le Parlement, 27 January 1881. On Zola’s strict adherence to his plan, see also Henry Céard, ‘Pot-Bouille, d’Émile Zola,’ L’Express, 3 August 1882; Colani, ‘Les Rougon-Macquart,’ 141.

  79. 79.

    The family tree, however, was met with irony by the critics, who believed that it was irrelevant to the novels: see, e.g., Armand de Pontmartin, ‘Le Roman contemporain: Émile Zola, Une page d’amour,’ [1878] in Nouveaux samedis. Dix-septième série (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1879), 169–70. White argues that the tree was meant to act as a recapitulation for the new readers who were becoming familiar with Zola’s work after the scandal of L’Assommoir: see Nicholas White, ‘Family Histories and Family Plots,’ in The Cambridge Companion to Zola, ed. Brian Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 22.

  80. 80.

    Émile Faguet, ‘Courier littéraire: M. Émile Zola, Le Docteur Pascal,’ La Revue politique et littéraire 52, no. 1 (1 July 1893): 24.

  81. 81.

    Roger Ripoll is one of the few scholars who notes that the chapter in which Pascal summarises the family tree is a rewriting rather than a recapitulation of the series, but he is interested in another aspect of this rewriting: he argues that the summary brings the plot of the earlier novels in the foreground, while, in fact, in the novels themselves, it is of secondary importance, since Zola focuses more on the description of the milieu. See Roger Ripoll, Réalité et mythe chez Zola, 2 vols (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1981), 2:902.

  82. 82.

    Baguley also mentions the modifications of Nana’s description and the retrospective attribution of innateness to characters in the 1893 family tree, noting that, in Zola’s work, ‘science is readily manipulated to serve the teleology of the series’: see David Baguley, ‘Darwin, Zola and Dr Prosper Lucas’s Treatise on Natural Heredity,’ in The Literary and Cultural Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe, ed. Thomas F. Glick and Elinor Shaffer, 4 vols (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 4:428.

  83. 83.

    For a complete list of the changes, see Appendix B.

  84. 84.

    Émile Zola, Thérèse Raquin, ed. Henri Mitterand (Paris: Garnier Flammarion, 2008), 207.

  85. 85.

    NAF 10345, fo 15/2, also cited in RM, 5:1737.

  86. 86.

    NAF 10345, fo 90/33–91/34, also cited in RM, 5:1712.

  87. 87.

    NAF 10345, fo 18, also cited in RM, 5:1732.

  88. 88.

    NAF 10318, fo 476.

  89. 89.

    NAF 10329, fo 3.

  90. 90.

    NAF 10286, fo 57.

  91. 91.

    NAF 10323, fo 199. On Le Rêve as dramatising the victory of environment over heredity in comparison to La Faute de l’abbé Mouret, see Catherine Marachi, ‘La Place du Rêve dans la série des Rougon-Macquart,’ CN 58 (1984): 89–95; on the role of heredity in Le Rêve, see also Paul Pelckmans, ‘Hérédité ou mimétisme familial? Pour une nouvelle lecture du Rêve,’ CN 57 (1983): 86–103.

  92. 92.

    See, e.g., Victor Fournel, ‘Variétés: Germinal par Émile Zola,’ Le Moniteur universel, 14 April 1885: ‘Des esprits pointilleux pourraient trouver que l’innéité suffit à détruire tout ce système physiologique si laborieusement échafaudé’ [Meticulous minds would conclude that innateness suffices to destroy this so laboriously constructed physiological system].

  93. 93.

    Albert Rogat, ‘Chronique,’ L’Autorité, 20 August 1887. See also Armand de Pontmartin, ‘La Bête humaine, par Émile Zola,’ Gazette de France, 23 March 1890; Waller, ‘Chronique littéraire,’ La Jeune Belgique, 8e année, 7, no. 11 (10 November 1888): 366; anonymous , ‘Chronique,’ Le Réveil, 26 August 1887. Even Harry Levin describes the family tree dismissively as ‘a sort of literary parlour game’: see Harry Levin, The Gates of Horn: A Study of Five French Realists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), 340.

  94. 94.

    Anonymous , ‘Chronique,’ Le Réveil, 26 August 1887.

  95. 95.

    X., ‘Notes sur l’auteur de La Terre,’ La Revue moderne, politique et littéraire, 4e année, 2 (20 October 1887): 283. On Zola’s inadequate scientific qualifications, see also, e.g., Bonnamour, ‘Critique littéraire,’ 89–90; anonymous, ‘Chronique,’ Le Temps, 15 January 1879; Maxime Gaucher, ‘Causerie littéraire,’ La Revue politique et littéraire, 2e série, 25, no. 36 (6 March 1880): 854; Colani, ‘Les Rougon-Macquart,’ 160; see also the extremely negative pamphlet by one of Claude Bernard’s students, René Ferdas, La Physiologie expérimentale et le “Roman expérimental”: Claude Bernard et Monsieur Zola (Paris: Hurtau, 1881). On the other hand, Maurice de Fleury, whom Zola had consulted while he was writing Le Docteur Pascal, praises his fidelity to his sources and the scientific accuracy of the novel: see Maurice de Fleury, ‘Les Idées scientifiques du docteur Pascal,’ Le Figaro, 17 July 1893. In a similar vein, Malinas believes Pascal to be ahead of the science of his time: see Malinas, Zola et les hérédités imaginaires, 5–6. On the relation between Zola and de Fleury, see Isabelle Delamotte, ‘Maurice de Fleury et Zola: Le Médecin, l’écrivain et la médecine,’ CN 75 (2001): 157–71.

  96. 96.

    Anonymous , ‘Chronique ,’ Le Réveil, 26 August 1887.

  97. 97.

    Maxime Gaucher, ‘Causerie littéraire,’ La Revue politique et littéraire, 2e série, 21, no. 43 (27 April 1878): 1024; Gaucher here repeats a similar remark from his ‘Causerie littéraire,’ La Revue politique et littéraire, 2e série, 15, no. 41 (10 April 1875): 976.

  98. 98.

    Gaucher, ‘Causerie littéraire,’ La Revue politique et littéraire, 2e série, 15, no. 41 (10 April 1875): 976.

  99. 99.

    Ulbach , ‘Nana,’ 200.

  100. 100.

    Marcel Fouquier , ‘L’Œuvre, par M. É. Zola,’ La France, 2 May 1886.

  101. 101.

    Max Waller , ‘Chronique littéraire,’ La Jeune Belgique, 8e année, 7, no. 11 (10 November 1888): 366.

  102. 102.

    Hyren Nilhoc, ‘La Bête humaine,’ La Plume, 2e année , no. 26 (15 May 1890): 88.

  103. 103.

    Colani, ‘Les Rougon-Macquart,’ 136. See also, e.g., Robert de Bonnières, ‘M. Émile Zola,’ in Mémoires d’aujourd’hui. Deuxième série (Paris: Ollendorff , 1885), 281; V. A., ‘La Trilogie ouvrière,’ L’Art moderne, 8e année, no. 7 (12 February 1888): 50.

  104. 104.

    Colani , ‘Les Rougon-Macquart,’ 136.

  105. 105.

    E.g., for Une page d’amour, see Pontmartin, ‘Le Roman contemporain,’ 163; for Le Rêve, see Henri Chantavoine , ‘Le Rêve, par Émile Zola,’ Journal des débats, 24 October 1888 and Gustave Kahn, ‘Le Rêve de M. Émile Zola,’ La Revue indépendante, n.s., 9, no. 25 (November 1888): 303; for La Terre, see H. Pergameni, ‘La Terre, par Émile Zola,’ Revue de Belgique, 19e année, 57 (15 December 1887): 425–26.

  106. 106.

    Edmondo de Amicis, Souvenirs de Paris et de Londres, trans. J. Colomb (Paris: Hachette, 1880), 192.

  107. 107.

    Louis Ulbach [signed Ferragus], ‘La Littérature putride ,’ Le Figaro, 23 January 1868.

  108. 108.

    Ulbach , ‘Nana,’ 199.

  109. 109.

    Pergameni , ‘La Terre,’ 425.

  110. 110.

    Louis Guibert, ‘Madeleine Férat,’ Le Gaulois, 11 February 1869. For similar remarks on La Bête humaine, see also , Pontmartin, ‘La Bête humaine’; Émile Bergerat [signed Caliban], ‘L’Atavisme,’ Le Figaro, 16 March 1890.

  111. 111.

    See, e.g., Firmin Boissin, ‘Romans, contes et nouvelles,’ Polybiblion 31, no. 4 (April 1890): 291.

  112. 112.

    Paul Bourget, ‘Le Roman réaliste et le roman piétiste,’ Revue des deux mondes, 2e période, 106 (15 July 1873): 459.

  113. 113.

    Ulbach , ‘Nana,’ 199.

  114. 114.

    Barbey , ‘Le Ventre de Paris, par M. Émile Zola ,’ [1873] in Les Œuvres et les hommes, 18:204–06.

  115. 115.

    Colani , ‘Les Rougon-Macquart,’ 135.

  116. 116.

    Marius Topin , ‘M. Émile Zola,’ in Romanciers contemporains (Paris: Charpentier, 1876), 254.

  117. 117.

    Auguste Saulière, ‘Les Romanciers nouveaux: I. Émile Zola,’ La République des lettres, 1re série, no. 7 (20 June 1876): 160. At the same time, however, even critics who were hostile towards naturalism recognised that Zola’s talent was more suited to the description of morbid heredity and immorality; the following remark about Le Rêve is typical: ‘J’avoue que la pureté de M. Zola me semble fort méritoire . Elle lui coûte cher: il l’a payée de tout son talent. […] S’il fallait absolument choisir, à M. Zola ailé je préférerais encore M. Zola à quatre pattes’ [I admit that M. Zola’s purity seems to me most worthy. It comes at a great cost: he has paid for it with all his talent. […] If I were forced to choose, I would still prefer M. Zola on all fours rather than with wings]: see Anatole France, ‘La Vie littéraire: Le Rêve par Émile Zola,’ [1888] in La Vie littéraire. 2 e série (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1890), 285–86.

  118. 118.

    Henry Bauer, ‘La Violence en littérature ,’ Le Réveil, 3 February 1883.

  119. 119.

    See, e.g., Eugène Asse, ‘Une page d’amour, par Émile Zola,’ Revue de France, 8e année, 2e période, 29 (May–June 1878): 230–31; Arvède Barine, ‘Le Mouvement littéraire à l’étranger,’ La Revue politique et littéraire, 2e série, 21, no. 47 (25 May 1878): 1113–15; Firmin Boissin, ‘Romans, contes et nouvelles,’ Polybiblion 8, no. 1 (July 1878): 13–15; W. Fabrice, ‘Nouveautés littéraires,’ La Vie littéraire, 25 April 1878; Fourcaud, ‘Une page d’amour,’ Le Gaulois, 27 April 1878; anonymous, ‘Livres nouveaux: Une page d’amour,’ Le Siècle, 5 May 1878; E. Lepelletier, ‘Le Naturalisme et Émile Zola,’ Le Bien public, 27 and 28 April 1878. An exception to this general praise was Pontmartin, ‘Le Roman contemporain,’ 155–70.

  120. 120.

    Fourcaud , ‘Les Nouveaux Légionnaires et M. Zola,’ Le Gaulois, 18 January 1879.

  121. 121.

    Anonymous, ‘Zola académicien : Une conversation avec l’auteur des Rougon,’ La Presse, 19 July 1888.

  122. 122.

    See, e.g., Firmin Boissin, ‘Romans, contes et nouvelles,’ Polybiblion 34, no. 1 (July 1891): 8; anonymous, ‘Chronique: Le Rêve,’ La Paix, 23 October 1888; Eugène Clisson, ‘Un nouveau livre de M. Zola,’ L’Événement, 8 March 1889; Henri Dac, ‘La Débâcle,’ Le Monde, 4 July 1892; Arsène Alexandre, ‘Opinions : Vieille lune ,’ L’Éclair, 23 October 1892; L. Bernard-Derosne, ‘Chronique: Un candidat,’ La République française, 18 March 1891.

  123. 123.

    On Zola and the Académie française, see also Robert J. Niess, ‘Zola et l’Académie: Notes sur une amitié peu connue,’ CN 55 (1981): 185–93.

  124. 124.

    See, e.g., the first responses to L’Assommoir: Fourcaud, ‘L’Assommoir de M. Zola,’ Le Gaulois, 21 September 1876; Philippe Gille, ‘Revue bibliographique,’ Le Figaro, 12 October 1876; Albert Millaud, ‘Lettres fantaisistes sur Paris: M. Émile Zola,’ Le Figaro, 1 and 7 September 1876.

  125. 125.

    See Alexis, ‘Pot-Bouille’. However, he attracted more critical attention after the publication of L’Œuvre, in relation to Sandoz : see Fouquier, ‘L’Œuvre’; Jules Lemaître, ‘M. Émile Zola: L’Œuvre,’ La Revue politique et littéraire, 3e série, 37, no. 16 (17 April 1886): 481.

  126. 126.

    For reviews which comment on Sandoz as Zola’s persona, see Paul d’Armon, ‘Émile Zola: L’Œuvre,’ La France libre, 16 April 1886; Robert Bernier, ‘Émile Zola et L’Œuvre,’ La Revue moderne 3, no. 29 (20 May 1886): 272; Firmin Boissin, ‘Romans, contes et nouvelles,’ Polybiblion 24, no. 1 (July 1886): 8; Adolphe Brisson, ‘Livres et revues,’ Les Annales politiques et littéraires, 4e année, no. 146 (11 April 1886): 236; Fouquier, ‘L’Œuvre’; Philippe Gille, ‘À propos de L’Œuvre,’ Le Figaro, 5 April 1886; Charles de Larivière, ‘Chronique littéraire,’ La Revue générale, littéraire, politique et artistique, 4e année, 3, no. 61 (15 May 1886): 207; Lemaître, ‘M. Émile Zola: L’Œuvre,’ 481; Un Parisien , ‘Bavardage,’ Le Mot d’ordre, 31 March 1886; Armand de Pontmartin, ‘L’Œuvre par Émile Zola,’ in Souvenirs d’un vieux critique. Septième série (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1886), 375; S., ‘Chronique littéraire,’ L’Élan littéraire, 2e année, no. 4 (15 May 1886): 135; Max Waller, ‘Chronique littéraire,’ La Jeune Belgique, 6e année, 5, no. 4 (5 April 1886): 213; anonymous, ‘Émile Zola: Comment il travaille et ce que sera son prochain livre,’ Le Matin, 17 May 1886.

  127. 127.

    Edmond Deschaumes, ‘Chronique: L’Œuvre,’ L’Événement, 31 March 1886. For similar remarks, see also Victor Fournel , ‘Les Romans ,’ Le Moniteur universel, 30 August 1886 and Gustave Geffroy, ‘L’Œuvre,’ La Justice, 12 May 1886.

  128. 128.

    Faguet , ‘Courier littéraire,’ 23.

  129. 129.

    Malinas seems to be ascribing Pascal’s doubts about innateness to Zola himself: see Malinas, Zola et les hérédités imaginaires, 33, 67, 78. Not only is there no evidence at this stage in Zola’s notes that he had doubts about the concept, but it would also have been unreasonable for Zola to modify the hereditary description of his characters using a concept about which he had doubts.

  130. 130.

    The auto-da-fé may have been inspired by the burning of Balzac’s papers after Mme Hanska’s death, reported by Henry Céard, ‘La Fin de Balzac,’ Le Siècle, 15 April 1890—a cutting of which is found in Zola’s dossier for the novel (NAF 10290, fo 280).

  131. 131.

    For a reading of Félicité as representing Zola’s audience/critics, see Roget Payot, ‘Émile Zola, ou la ressemblance contrariée,’ CN 42 (1972): 168.

  132. 132.

    On the conflict between Pascal and Clotilde as originating in Zola’s reading of Letourneau’s Physiologie des passions, see Silvia Disegni, ‘Zola lecteur de Letourneau,’ CN 81 (2007): 135–53.

  133. 133.

    On which , see also RM, 5:986–87.

  134. 134.

    Gabrielle Mourey , ‘Chronique: Le Rêve,’ Le Parisien, 22 October 1888.

  135. 135.

    Interestingly, imagination is a quality also attributed—in passing—to Pascal himself: ‘C’était pour beaucoup une surprise, de voir que ce savant, avec ses parties de génie gâtées par une imagination trop vive, fût resté à Plassans’ [It was most surprising to see that this scientist , whose claim to genius was thwarted by a most vivid imagination, had remained at Plassans] (RM, 5:944). On the role of the imagination in the study of heredity, see also RM, 5:947.

  136. 136.

    See OC, 9:418. Zola also describes Victor Hugo in a similar manner: while Hugo ‘a eu l’intuition du vaste mouvement naturaliste’ [had sensed the vast naturalist movement] and wanted to ‘replacer l’homme dans la nature et de le peindre tel qu’il était’ [place man back in nature and depict him as he is], his temperament, that of a lyric poet, made him deviate and offer instead ‘une interprétation fantaisiste des vérités de la nature et de l’homme’ [a fanciful interpretation of the truths of nature and man] (OC, 10:267).

  137. 137.

    Eugène Crépet, ‘Chronique littéraire,’ Revue moderne 36, no. 2 (1 February 1866): 389.

  138. 138.

    Ibid., 389. See also, G. Vapereau , ‘Roman,’ L’Année littéraire et dramatique. Huitième année (Paris: Hachette, 1866), 95; G. Vapereau, ‘Roman,’ L’Année littéraire et dramatique. Neuvième année (Paris: Hachette, 1867), 106.

  139. 139.

    Kahn, ‘Le Rêve de M. Émile Zola,’ 297.

  140. 140.

    Modern scholars also comment on Zola’s duality but from a more abstract point of view, focusing on the conflict between myth or symbolism and realism: see Ripoll, Réalité et mythe chez Zola; Claude Seassau, Émile Zola: Le Réalisme symbolique (Paris: José Corti, 1989); Maarten van Buuren, “Les Rougon-Macquart” d’Émile Zola: De la métaphore au mythe (Paris: José Corti, 1986); Jean Borie, Zola et les mythes ou De la nausée au salut (Paris: Le Livre de poche, 2003). On the mythological allusions in Le Docteur Pascal in particular , see David Baguley, ‘Du naturalisme au mythe: L’Alchimie du docteur Pascal,’ CN 47 (1974): 141–63; Françoise Gaillard, ‘Genèse et généalogie (Le cas du Docteur Pascal),’ Romantisme, no. 31 (1981): 181–96; Claudie Bernard, ‘Cercle familial et cycle romanesque dans Le Docteur Pascal,’ CN 67 (1993): 123–40.

  141. 141.

    André Mori, ‘Germinal, par Émile Zola,’ Journal des débats, 17 March 1885.

  142. 142.

    Barbey, ‘Le Ventre de Paris,’ 208.

  143. 143.

    X., ‘Notes sur l’auteur de La Terre,’ 283.

  144. 144.

    Guy de Maupassant , ‘Émile Zola,’ Le Gaulois, 14 January 1882.

  145. 145.

    Bonnières , ‘M. Émile Zola,’ 275.

  146. 146.

    Georges Renard, ‘Le Naturalisme contemporain ,’ La Nouvelle Revue 28 (May–June 1884): 63.

  147. 147.

    Ibid ., 64, 65.

  148. 148.

    See also OC, 10:275.

  149. 149.

    Alexis, ‘Pot-Bouille’. From less sympathetic quarters: ‘il y a en lui deux hommes, un critique et un artiste, qui ne s’entendront jamais. […] Les romans de M. Zola nous offrent le spectacle d’une collaboration bizarre entre un théoricien “naturaliste” et un poète romantique’ [there are two men in him, a critic and an artist who will never come to an understanding . […] M. Zola’s novels present us with the spectacle of a bizarre collaboration between a ‘naturalist’ theorist and a romantic poet]: see André Mori, ‘Germinal’.

  150. 150.

    André Mori, ‘Germinal’.

  151. 151.

    Eugène-Melchior de Vogue, ‘La Débâcle,’ Revue des deux mondes, 3e période, 112 (15 July 1892): 448.

  152. 152.

    ‘L’enfant inconnu.—C’est le fils de Pascal et de Clotilde qui naît à la fin’ [The unknown child.—It is Pascal’s and Clotilde’s son who is born at the end] (NAF 10290, fo 134).

  153. 153.

    On Le Docteur Pascal as being ‘une tentative pour concilier la passion de la réalité avec le souci de l’idéal’ [an attempt to reconcile the passion for reality with the concern for the ideal], rather than ‘la fanatique apologie d’un positivisme sec et jaloux’ [the fanatical apology of a dry and jealous positivism], see Georges Pelissier, ‘Le Docteur Pascal, par Émile Zola,’ Revue encyclopédique 3, no. 65 (15 August 1893): 800; on Zola’s optimism, see also Georges Bernard, ‘À propos du Docteur Pascal d’Émile Zola,’ [1893] in Critique de combat (Paris: Dentu, 1894), 28–32. It is also noteworthy that Zola’s description of this vague, mysterious, and religious feeling experienced by Clotilde seems to be echoing the language he uses to describe symbolism : in an interview, Zola stated that ‘la littérature de l’avenir […] sera matérialiste mitigée de symbolisme; c’est-à-dire qu’elle n’expliquera pas tout par l’influence des milieux et de l’hérédité, comme nous, non plus que par la seule pensée, comme les symbolistes’ [the literature of the future […] will be materialist, tempered by symbolism; this means that it will not explain everything through the influence of the milieu and heredity, as we do, nor exclusively through thought, like the symbolists]. See ‘Zola et les “Cinq”,’ [1887] in OC, 13:816. However, a few years later, he seems less inclined to believe in a combination of naturalism and symbolism and speaks of the literature of the future as ‘une ouverture plus grande sur l’humanité: une sorte de classicisme du naturalisme’ [embracing humanity more broadly: a sort of classicist naturalism]: see ‘Enquête sur l’évolution littéraire: Les Naturalistes,’ [1891] in OC, 14:592. On Le Docteur Pascal as documenting a range of fin-de-siècle aesthetic tendencies, see Annette Clamor, ‘Roman à thèse ou roman à rêves? Le Rêve, élément narratif dans Le Docteur Pascal,’ CN 82 (2008): 139–64.

  154. 154.

    Zola’s plans for the novel are clear: ‘Cas d’innéité (l’innéité est commode, en ce sens qu’elle permet de tout introduire dans le problème) […] il ne meurt ni de son hérédité, ni de sa neurasthénie. Il mourra d’une maladie accidentelle, à choisir, fluxion de poitrine, fièvre quelconque’ [Case of innateness (innateness is convenient in the sense that it allows to make everything part of the problem) […] he does not die of hereditary causes, nor of his neurasthenia. He will die of an accidental malady, to be found, pneumonia, some kind of fever] (cited in RM, 5:1588).

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    Sotirios Paraschas

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Paraschas, S. (2018). ‘Le revenant héréditaire’: The Reappearance of Characters in Les Rougon-Macquart . In: Reappearing Characters in Nineteenth-Century French Literature. Palgrave Studies in Modern European Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69290-6_3

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