--E. V.
Zola, cast, so to say, adrift, with "Les Contes a Ninon" and "La
Confession de Claude" as scant literary baggage, buckled to, and set
about "Les Mysteres de Marseille" and "Therese Raquin," while at the
same time contributing art criticisms to the "Evenement"--a series of
articles which raised such a storm that painters and sculptors were in
the habit of purchasing copies of the paper and tearing it up in the
faces of Zola and De Villemessant, the owner, whenever they chanced to
meet them. Nevertheless it was these articles that first drew attention
to Manet, who had hitherto been regarded as a painter of no account, and
many of whose pictures now hang in the Luxembourg Gallery.
"Therese Raquin" originally came out under the title of "A Love Story"
in a paper called the "Artiste," edited by that famous art critic and
courtier of the Second Empire, Arsene Houssaye, author of "Les Grandes
Dames," as well as of those charming volumes "Hommes et Femmes du 18eme
Siecle," and many other works.
Zola received no more than twenty-four pounds for the serial rights of
the novel, and he consented at the insistence of the Editor, who pointed
out to him that the periodical was read by the Empress Eugenie, to draw
his pen through certain passages, which were reinstated when the story
was published in volume form.
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