NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION, SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY [at the end]
=====
EXPLANATORY NOTES
1 Germinal: this was the name given to the seventh month of
the Revolutionary calendar (21 March to 19 April). Germinal
year III (1795) was the occasion of hunger riots by the
Parisian people against the Convention government. It thus
has overtones both of violent insurrection and revolutionary
renewal,
5 Marchiennes: an industrial town situated half-way between
Douai and Valenciennes in northern France.
Aiontsou: a fictitious town, whose name echoes that of the real
Montceau-les-Mines, but also the themes of poverty and greed
(‘mon sou’ = ‘my cash').
6 tippler: a frame or cage into which a tub of coal would have
been run, and which was then revolved so that the tub was
turned upside-down and unloaded its contents.
Etienne Lantier: the son of Auguste Lantier and Gervaise
Macquart (the heroine of VAssommoir^ 1877). Etienne inherits
a tendency to alcoholism from Gervaise (who is also the mother
of the promiscuous heroine of Nana, 1880).
7 Le Voreux: the name of the pit immediately suggests that it is
‘voracious', ‘devouring’ the men who work in it. The whole
novel is permeated with such Dickensian names.
headgear: the overground structure at the pit-head, whose frame¬
work supports the pulley wheels which winch the cages up and
down.
Les Forges: the local foundry clearly belongs to the recently
founded (1864) mine and factory employers’ union Le Comite
des Forges, the largest industrial combine in France. The fact
that such a ‘big name’ is affected indicates the gravity of the
slump.
8 black phlegm: this is ‘black spit’, or silicosis, a disease caused by
the inhalation of stone dust. It was actually less common than
miners' asthma, or pneumoconiosis, caused by the inhalation of
coal-dust, which was so common that every miner seems to
have been afflicted by it to some degree in the course of his
working life. Bonnemort appears to have contracted a bit of
both.
526 Explanatory Notes
8 people laid off, workshops closing down: the policy of financial
and industrial expansion followed throughout the Second
Empire was translated in practice into years of boom inter¬
spersed with years of slump: the slump of 1866, where the
novel appears to be situated, was one of the most severe.
the Emperor's: a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis-Napo-
leon (1808-73) had led the Bonapartist opposition to Louis-
Philippe’s bourgeois monarchy (1830-48). He entertained liberal
economic theories based on the ideas of the utopian thinker
Saint-Simon. After the 1848 Revolution he was elected Presi¬
dent of the Second Republic. He asserted his personal power,
however, by his coup d'etat of 2 December 1851, reinforced by
a plebiscite on 2 December 1852, when he abolished the Repub¬
lic and proclaimed himself Emperor. The Second Empire
(1852-70) was the period chosen by Zola as the setting for his
whole Rougon-Macquart cycle. It was marked throughout by
Napoleon Ill’s commitment to popular dictatorship and indus¬
trial growth.
America: Napoleon Ill’s foreign policy brought him initial
popularity, when he sent troops to support Italian freedom
from Austria in 1859, and final disaster, when he challenged
Prussia and was forced to capitulate at Sedan in 1870. The
Mexican war referred to here (1861-7) was in its death throes
in 1866. In 1861 Britain, Spain, and France had sent troops to
Mexico to challenge the new President Juarez, who had founded
a republic and refused to honour foreign debts. Britain and
Spain, however, made peace in 1862, leaving Napoleon III to
conduct the war on his own and impose an unpopular puppet
emperor, Maximilian of Austria, in 1863. In 1867 the United
States forced France to withdraw, leaving Maximilian to his
fate. (His execution is ironically commemorated in a famous
painting by Manet.)
cholera: there was an epidemic of cholera in the Lille and
Valenciennes region in 1866. Roger Magraw, in France 1815-
1914: The Bourgeois Century^ states that there were 2,000
deaths in Lille alone. Sanitation in the industrial cities was
minimal, and even apart from this epidemic other fatal
diseases—^typhoid, diphtheria, tuberculosis—^were rampant. Av¬
erage life expectancy in Lille was 24 years, and 40% of children
died before the age of 5.
10 Bonnemort: Zola’s French literally means ‘Nice Death’. (An
equivalent nickname might be ‘Barebones’.)
Explanatory Notes
S^l
11 trammer: the usual British terms for the person who pushed the
coal-tub were ‘putter’ and ‘trammer’, depending on the region.
But these terms do not differentiate between male and female
workers. So I have used ‘trammer’ for male workers or mixed
groups and ‘tram girl’ for females.
under my skin: in fact Bonnemort appears to have contracted
rheumatism and inflammation, caused as much by the constant
chafing of the joints against the walls of the narrow underground
tunnels as by the damp. Here, as elsewhere, Zola deliberately
makes Bonnemort naively underestimate the gravity and the
causes of his afflictions.
13 good long family history: the history of the accidents which
befell Bonnemort and his family is intended to be typical rather
than extraordinary. John Benson, in British Coalminers in the
Nineteenth Century (New York, 1980), notes that there were
about 1,000 deaths a year in British mines at this period, and
that there were about 100 non-fatal accidents for every death.
d'Anzin: Anzin is an industrial town on the outskirts of Valenci¬
ennes. The d’Anzin Mining Company was the real mining
company whose pits (the Renard pit at Denain and the Thiers pit
at Bruay, a small town near Anzin) Zola had visited between 23
February and 3 March 1884. Zola’s notes on his visit are
recorded in ‘Mes notes sur Anzin’. Zola also took information
from Louis L. Simonin’s La Vie souterraine (1866), and Emile
Dormoy’s Topographie souterraine du Bassin houillier de Valenci¬
ennes {\S61), Zola’s readers might have been expected to appreci¬
ate the irony that, during the period in which Germinal is situated,
it was Adolphe Thiers, later to head the Versailles government
which crushed the Paris Commune in 1871, who was president
of the Board of Directors of the d’Anzin Company.
15 village number Two Hundred and Forty: the numbering rather
than naming of the purpose-built mining villages draws our
attention to the fact that these were mass-produced workers’
settlements, rather than communities that had evolved naturally,
and that the employers who built them were motivated by
utility as much as philanthropy.
19 stoneman: the stoneman’s job is explained on p. 41
overman: the official in charge of day-to-day operations at the
pit-head.
20 fortnight's pay: throughout most of the nineteenth century
528
Explanatory Notes
miners in France as well as Britain were usually paid fortnightly.
Since pay-day usually meant a day off work, employers resisted
moves towards weekly payment, which would have made family
budgeting easier.
21 sous: the familiar name for the five-centime piece.
the bourgeois: the term ‘bourgeois’ is often used nowadays in
France to refer loosely to the rich, or simply the middle classes.
Here the term has more of the force intended by Marx, who
used the term to refer to an elite of rentiers living off unearned
income, typically from rented property, land ownership, or
investment in stocks and shares.
a hundred sous: what La Maheude hopes for is actually a five-
franc piece. Zola’s workers reveal their poverty by counting the
sum as a formidable number of the small coins they usually
handle.
22 Empress: Empress Eugenie (1826-1920), Napoleon Ill’s wife,
was a staunch Catholic, of Spanish origins. The twin portraits
displayed in a workman’s cottage underline the extent to which
the Imperial regime projected a popular image encouraging
traditional family values as well as hierarchical respect. One
cannot help thinking of the popularity of images of their
contemporaries Victoria and Albert.
23 'slaF: the French term for this makeshift sandwich, ‘briquet’,
makes derisory reference to a brick or a slab (‘brique’).
25 deputy: the equivalent of a foreman, or team-leader.
32 Davy lamps: in 1815 Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829) designed
the safety lamp which avoided the explosions which naked light
had previously provoked. The Davy lamp’s flame was encased
in a fine metal gauze mesh which allowed it to burn while
keeping out the inflammable methane gas given off by the
coal.
35 onsetters: pit boys who load the cages at the pit bottom.
38 boys are stealing the girls' bread: female labour underground was
not abolished until 1874, whereas it bad been banned in British
mines in 1842. Nor is there anything unusual in children under
12, like Lydie, Jeanlin, and Bebert, working underground. John
Benson, in British Coalminers in the Nineteenth Century (New
York, 1980), notes that 5,000 children between the ages of 5
and 10 were working underground in Britain towards the
middle of the nineteenth century. Girls were traditionally used
Explanatory Notes 529
to push the tubs, while young boys operated ventilation traps
until they were old enough to become hewers. The miners
themselves tended to resist attempts to control or suppress
female and child labour, since allowing a grown man to perform
their tasks would mean that a miner^s family would lose the
extra income his children might have brought home.
46 long line of alcoholics: Zola believed, on the best scientific
evidence available at the time, that alcoholism was inherited.
This fatal flaw in the Rougon-Macquart family is one of the
covert motors of the whole novel-cycle. Etienne's mother
Gervaise and father Lantier, who figure in L*Assommoir (1877),
are the immediate transmitters.
Paris , .. she*s a laundress, in the rue de la Goutte d*Or: Etienne's
mother Gervaise lives in a dilapidated tenement building in a
poor working-class street situated between Montmartre and the
Gare du Nord. She tries to earn an honest living as a laundress,
but readers of VAssommoir (1877) would have already been
aware of her fatal descent into prostitution and squalid death,
although this has not yet ‘happened' at the time of Germinal
(published in 1885 but set in 1866).
49 flame of his lamp had turned blue: when the Davy lamp’s flame
turned blue, this signalled the presence of firedamp in the atmo¬
sphere.
50 firedamp: the popular term for the inflammable gas methane,
given off by the coal-seams, which is one of the worst hazards
facing the coal-miner.
59 Bataille. ., Trompette: ‘Battle’,‘Trumpet'—the triumphal mili¬
tary names given to these equine drudges echo the martial
ambitions of the Second Empire (the struggle for Italian unity,
the Crimean War, the Mexican adventure). But the effect for
Zola's readers would have been bathetic, given their knowledge
of the Mexican and Prussian fiascos (1867, 1870).
62 Volcan: ‘the Volcano'—one of several local pubs which an¬
nounces its true colours; in this case a potent mixture of sex and
alcohol. Theodore Zeldin, in France 1848-1945, calculates that
there were around 1,000 pubs in Lille alone in the middle of the
nineteenth century,
65 Avantage: ‘the Advantage'—a more socially responsible-
sounding pub, as befits an establishment belonging to
Rasseneur.
66 Rasseneur: the figure of the pragmatic, reformist socialist Rasse-
530
Explanatory Notes
neur was probably inspired by the characters of Emile Basly, an
ex-miner who became a pub-owner, then leader of the new
miners’ union in Denain in 1883 (his nascent union was in fact
broken by the strike of 1884, but he became a Member of
Parliament in 1885), and Dr Paul Brousse, leader of the ‘possibil-
ist’ opposition (Federation of Socialist Workers, 1881) to Jules
Guesde’s overt Marxism.
70 river Scarpe: the Scarpe flows through Arras, Douai, and Mar-
chiennes on its way towards Belgium. It is linked by a system of
canals to the Channel ports of Calais and Dunkirk.
75 brioche: a sweetish tea-cake.
79 sou . gold standard .. . deniers .. . pounds .. . crowns: this
flood of financial terms from the ancien regime (the official
nineteenth-century currency being denominated in francs and
centimes) serves to emphasize how the rich have grown richer,
while the poor are left to scrape a few coins together in order to
buy a crust of bread. The phenomenal increase in value of the
Montsou shares is based on the real history of the d’Anzin
Company.
revolutionary regime: the French Revolution of 1789 had confis¬
cated the lands of the aristocracy, and sold them to those of the
middle classes able to afford them.
overthrow of Napoleon: Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) had
consolidated many of the innovations of the Revolutionary
State, as First Consul (1799) and Emperor (1804), but after
fighting off most of Europe on behalf of the French nation he
was forced out of office by the allies in 1814, and defeated
again, at Waterloo, after his escape from exile in 1815.
82 Salon: the annual Paris art exhibition, which showed thousands
of paintings cho.sen from a vast number submitted by amateur
and professional painters. To have an exhibit selected would
help a painter make a name and sell his or her works. In 1863
so many major artists and important works (including Manet’s
Dejeuner sur Pherhe) were rejected by the traditionally minded
selection committee that Napoleon III himself inaugurated an
alternative Salon, the Salon des Refuses. Zola’s novel VCEuvre
(1886) shows the unsucces.sful struggle of an archetypal Im¬
pressionist painter, Claude Lantier (Etienne’s brother), to be
accepted by the Salon.
89 Nord: this Department (roughly equivalent to a British county)
includes the port of Dunkirk and the industrial cities of
Explanatory Notes 531
Lille and Valenciennes. It lies along the northern frontier of
France.
94 farthing: the French is ‘liard\ an ancien regime coin of little
worth, no longer current during this period.
96 bread , .. brioche: in Cecile Gregoire^s ineffectual and absent-
minded generosity there may perhaps be an ironic reminder of
Marie Antoinette's famous answer to the plight of the starving
Parisian people when she heard that they had no bread to
eat, ‘Qu’ils mangent done de la brioche*—‘Then why don't they
eat cake.^'
128 Piquette*s: ‘piquette’ means a weak and vinegary wine—not a
good advertisement for a pub.
139 Souvarine: Souvarine's theories seem to be based on those of
the Russian anarchist Bakunin, and his personal history on the
lives of more than one Russian terrorist.
140 Tsar: On 17 February 1880 there was an explosion in the
dining-room of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, which
failed to kill the Tsar. On 13 March 1881 he fell victim to a
successful assassination attempt. These events refer Zola's con¬
temporary readers to incidents in their own day rather than to
the 1860s, the period at which the novel is situated.
141 'Poland': this unhappy rabbit’s name is perhaps deliberately
chosen by the anarchist Souvarine because of the prolonged
martyrdom of that country, whose people's struggle for free¬
dom was repeatedly crushed by tsarist Russia throughout the
nineteenth century, France was a favourite haven for Polish
refugees.
Pluchart: he seems to share some of the characteristics of the
careerism of Basly, but with a more Marxist programme, in¬
spired perhaps by Zola’s conversations with Jules Guesde, the
founder (in 1879) of the first French socialist party based on
Marxism (Le Parti des Travailleurs Socialistes), whose aims
included the revolutionary overthrow of bourgeois democracy.
Marx helped Guesde draw up its programme.
142 the Workers* International Association: it was founded in
London in September 1864 under the impetus of Karl Marx
(1818-83), who solicited the seizure of power by the proletariat
after the demise of the capitalist economy. The International
aimed to found a world federation of socialist associations—
French sections were formed in 1865—^and this ‘First Inter¬
national’ lasted until 1876.
532 Explanatory Notes
144 tablets of bronze: the British economist Ricardo, influenced also
by Mai thus’ pessimistic views on demography, formulated this
'bronze law of wages’, which was reported in E. de Lavelaye’s
Le Socialisme contemporain (1883), read by Zola. Zola may also
have had in mind the reformulation by the German socialist
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-64) of the same ‘iron law of econom¬
ics’, expressed in his Open Letter of 1863, that wages tend to
sink towards the vital minimum necessary for the subsistence of
the family.
Anarchy: the movement is actually called ‘anarchism’, as prom¬
ulgated by Mikhail Bakunin and by Proudhon, that is, not a
totally random and chaotic society, but a community based on
autonomous, small-scale units, rejecting the hierarchical and
universal structures of the traditional State. Souvarine himself
is a rather extreme example of a Russian ‘nihilist’, who seems
not to entertain Bakunin’s vision of industrial democracy.
145 co-operative societies: these were part of the social project of
Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809-65), a socialist militant, journal¬
ist, and thinker. His social theory was a kind of anarchism,
formulated before Bakunin’s, but it was relatively mild and
structured, involving trade unions, co-operatives, and friendly
societies. Marx attacked his Philosophie de la misere (1846) in
Misere de la philosophie (1847), accusing Proudhon of not being
revolutionary enough.
147 bucasse: this annual festival was specific to the Nord region. It
may remind us of the kind of festival enjoyed by Flemish
peasants in earlier centuries, as shown in paintings by Brueghel,
for instance.
148 the Imperial Prince: Eugene Louis Napoleon (1856-79), about
10 years old at the time of the novel. The portrait pinned up in
a worker’s cottage gives us another example of the penetrative
power of the regime’s image of the ruling family as an idealized
version of the popular family.
151 provident fund: this develops one of the key ideas of Proudhon’s
anarchism, the structuring of society around ‘mutuality’—a
federation of small, quasi-autonomous workers’ mutual self-help
associations.
152 Lenfant ... Progres ... Tison: ‘The Child’, ‘The Progress’,
and ‘The Burning Coal’—pubs implying varying degrees of
family morality, social evolution, and hard work.
154 Walloon: the Walloons are the Belgians who speak a dialectal
Explanatory Notes 533
form of French, as opposed to the Flemish, who speak a Dutch
dialect.
155 Tete-Coupee: the ‘Severed Head’—a violent, either criminal-
or revolutionary-sounding pub.
finch contest: the miners’ interest in finches or linnets may
go back to the days before the Davy lamp, when caged birds
were taken down the mine, because they succumbed to any
gas escape more quickly than humans, and a dead bird
constituted a timely warning of danger. See Benson (note to
p. 13), and also Theodore Zeldin on the nineteenth-century
games and pastimes practised by miners’ clubs in Lille at the
period.
156 Bon-Joyeux: the ‘Jolly Good Fellow’.
164 Miners* Hygiene: Zola himself consulted a tome by Dr
Boens-Boisseau, Traite pratique des maladies, des accidents et
des difformites des houilleurs (Brussels, 1862).
167 hand you your booklet: since 1803 workmen had had to pos¬
sess a professional record booklet, stamped by each successive
employer and certified by the municipality. This requirement
was finally abolished by a law of 25 April 1869. When a
workman was sacked his registration booklet was returned to
him.
187 'Chicot*: Berloque’s nickname means a ‘squirt’ or ‘cud’ of
chewed tobacco.
199 the strike had just broken out: the strike at Anzin in 1884 (19
February-16 April) had been precipitated by a change in work¬
ing rates. Jules Guesde, following Karl Marx, believed in the
strike as a revolutionary weapon, whereas Proudhon rejected
this illegal means. ‘Combination’ (including striking) was
legalized by a law of 25 May 1864.
telegraph: before the invention of wireless telegraphy and
the telephone towards the end of the nineteenth century, the
telegraph was the only means of instant long-distance com¬
munication.
Prefect at Lille: the Prefect was the representative of the State
in each Department, responsible to the Minister of the Interior
and empowered to deploy armed police. The Prefect was also in
control of the civil apparatus and at this period could appoint
teachers and mayors.
211 Louis-Philippe: Louis-Philippe (1773-1850), the ‘Bourgeois
534
Explanatory Notes
Monarch’, brought to power by the Revolution of 1830, had
signed a Charter acknowledging that he governed according to a
constitution agreed with the nation. However, he was deposed
in 1848 because of his authoritarianism. After the seizure of
power by Napoleon III (in whose Second Empire the ‘Rougon-
Macquart novels are set), Louis-Philippe came to seem liberal
in retrospect.
211 dangerous concessions: Napoleon III ruled by a mixture of
authoritarian decree and demagogic plebiscite. The press was
severely censored, but in some ways the workers were (equally
arbitrarily) favoured. He went against the employers’ advice to
legalize strikes. See Roger Magraw, France 1815-1914: The
Bourgeois Century.
1789: the date of the first French Revolution.
216 contador: a kind of bureau, originally used by merchants for
their accounts.
portieres: curtains drawn across a door to keep out draughts.
229 the 1848 Revolution: the Revolution of February 1848 which
overthrew Louis->Philippe was triggered by spontaneous
working-class discontent as much as by bourgeois design
(unlike the earlier Revolutions of 1789 and 1830). But the
radical provisional government was unable to prevent the
spread of unemployment, poverty, and famine. Its experimental
socialism seemed to fail, and it was replaced by a more
conservative assembly after the April elections, which finally
confronted a second workers’ insurrection in June and used
the National Guard to crush it. Hence La Maheude’s
disillusion.
239 the confused remnants of a number of theories: Etienne has indeed
conflated several scarcely compatible kinds of socialism. It was
Proudhon who declared that ‘property is theft’, in a notorious
pamphlet of 1840, Quest~ce que la propriete?, and who pleaded
for a society based on ‘equivalent exchange’, where labour
would be rewarded in kind. Lassalle’s Open Letter of 1863
actually rejects the idea that friendly societies, insurance funds,
and consumer co-operatives could reform society unaided. Karl
Marx, in his Misere de la philosophic (1847), attacked Proudhon’s
naive refusal of government machinery, and, in his 1848 Commu¬
nist Manifest Oy written in collaboration with Friedrich Engels,
advocated collective ownership of the means of production.
Marx argued that, although it was the workers through their
Explanatory Notes 535
labour who created wealth, society still had to regulate the
process of remuneration,
242 Bakunin: Mikhail Bakunin (1814-76) was an active revolution¬
ary militant involved in uprisings all over Europe, and a leading
theorist of anarchism (Statehood and Anarchy^ 1873). He
adopted a theory of ‘co-operatism’ inspired by Proudhon, but
he also called for the immediate and revolutionary suppression
of the State. His extremism led him and his followers to be
excluded by Marx from the International in 1872.
243 hanged one rainy morning in Moscow: Sophie Perovskaia was
hanged at St Petersburg with four companions on 15 April 1881
after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. With the nihilist
Leo Hartmann, she had also tried to blow up the Tsar’s train
near Moscow on 1 December 1879 (see pp. 451-2).
246 Citizens: Pluchart deliberately uses the form of address popular¬
ized by the 1789 Revolution, ‘Citoyens’ rather than the more
usual greeting of ‘camarades’ (‘workmates' or ‘comrades'), in
order to signal his revolutionary and egalitarian intentions.
265 cross: a primitive type of cross-country golf. The ‘cross' is the
stick, or club. It is believed that the Roman legions originally
brought the game with them as they spread across northern
Europe.
269 ventilation system: the existing system of ventilation at Le
Voreux, whereby a roaring furnace draws air down the main
shaft, through the tunnels of the mine, and back up a ventilation
shaft, is shown as an inefficient anachronism. By this period
most modern mines used steam pumps to drive air through
their passages, as is shown to be the case at Jean-Bart.
279 great clearing: with public meetings banned, miners were
obliged to hold secret meetings in the woods, as for example at
Anzin in 1878 and at Montceau-les-Mines in 1882.
283 destruction of the State: Proudhon tended to argue that, if
inheritance and property were abolished, a society of small-
scale producers would exist in a condition of natural harmony,
with no call for central government. But he was opposed to
strikes and violent revolution. Marx’s theory supposed rather
that competition and exploitation would recur, unless the pro¬
letariat seized control of the State, and used it to regulate the
economy. It was Bakunin who called for the immediate destruc¬
tion of the State.
536 Explanatory Notes
295 'What is it?' ... 'Sir, it's a rebellion': Deneulin^s innocent
question and its shock answer may well be intended to recall
the famous words of Louis XVI in 1789—‘Is it a rebellion?'—
and the reply they elicited—‘No, Sire, it’s a revolution.’
298 brothel: the French is ‘maison publique’, a polite euphemism
for a registered, legally tolerated, ‘public’ brothel. Prostitution
was legally tolerated where prostitutes registered with the police,
lived in brothels (‘maisons de tolerance’), and submitted to
regular medical inspection. If caught wandering destitute and
arrested as an unregistered streetwalker, Catherine might well
be locked up in a women’s prison and reformatory. There is not
much to choose between this likelihood and that of being
picked up and taken to the brothel by a violent client, nor
between that and being forced by the authorities to register and
reside there. In Nana„ another novel from the ‘Rougon-Mac-
quart’ series, Zola focuses on prostitution and high society in
Paris.
303 Tartarus ... La Cote-Verte: one of Zola’s sources, Simonin,
records instances of permanent underground fires from spon¬
taneous combustion at Le Brule, near Saint-Etienne, and at
Burning Hill, in Staffordshire.
308 bad air, or dead air: carbon dioxide, usually called ‘chokedamp’
by British miners. Whereas firedamp (methane) is lighter than
air, and inflammable, chokedamp extinguishes burning, and is
heavier than air. Hence the failure of Catherine’s lamp, and the
greater danger of suffocation when she falls to the ground. This
is why Chaval has to hold her up off the ground and run up to
a higher level. (See also note to p. 50.)
312 cutting the cables: similar incidents had occurred at Montceau-
les-Mines in 1882 and demonstrations at Denain in 1884.
328 We want bread: historically, a famous and emotive outcry,
uttered by the Parisian market women who marched on Ver¬
sailles with La Fayette at their head in October 1789 to take the
royal family back to Paris as hostages; and also by the Parisian
crowds rioting in protest against the famine they suffered under
the Convention government in 1795. (See also note to title, p. 1.)
348 the 'Marseillaise': the ‘Marseillaise’, the battle hymn and na¬
tional anthem of the French Republic, composed by Rouget de
risle, was banned under the Second Empire.
373 the army had come: the army had picketed the pit-head at
Anzin in 1884.
Explanatory Notes 537
Le Borinage: the Borinage region, an area of the northern
coalfield situated in Belgium.
383 Cossacks: originally a tribe of nomadic warriors, the Cossacks
had settled in the Ukraine, and their soldiers formed a famous
corps of the Russian army. They had held out fiercely against
French and British troops for a whole year (September 1854 to
September 1855) at the siege of Sebastopol during the Crimean
War,
399 set-up is falling to bits ... anarchists ... gradualists: Zola benefits
from a little retrospective foresight here, in his reference to the
debilitating conflict between Marx’s scientific socialists and
Bakunin’s anarchists, who joined the International in 1867. The
anarchists were expelled in 1872, the year after the defeat of the
Paris Commune. The International finally collapsed in 1876,
See Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, i: The
Founders (Oxford 1981), for the history of the International and
an analysis of the theories of Marx, Bakunin, Proudhon, Las-
salle, etc.
427 the Crimean War: this complex religious and territorial dispute
(1854-5) between Russia and Turkey involved France and
Britain as signatories of a mutual defence pact with Turkey.
The allies’ military success gave the nascent Second Empire
illusions of imperial grandeur.
431 They had fired: troops had fired on miners at La Ricamarie
(near Saint-Etienne) on 16 June 1869, killing thirteen, including
two women; and at Aubin (in the Aveyron) on 7 October 1869,
killing fourteen.
438 large yellow posters: Zola takes this detail from what happened
during a miners’ strike at Fourchambault in 1870.
450 Darwin: Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, on
natural selection and evolution, in 1859. A French translation
was published in 1865. Souvarine’s doubts as to whether the
process of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, in
making the survival of a species depend on the ability of its
strongest members to mate and procreate, would lead naturally
towards socialism, were shared by some socialists, since the
theory seemed to devalue personal and social morality, and
make the question of the eventual triumph of the proletariat
over the bourgeoisie seem to depend on arbitrary violence
rather than the objective of a just cause. These doubts were
shared by Engels, who debated the question in Ludwig Feuer-
538 Explanatory Notes
bach. Later in the novel Etienne too starts to lose confidence in
the scientific inevitability of this theory.
475 fallen down into the abyss: Stmonin's book described how a
mine collapsed at Maries in the Pas-de-Calais on 28 and 29
April 1866.
523 trade unions: like strikes, these were illegal during the Second
Empire. They were finally legalized by the Waldeck-Rousseau
Act in March 1884.
NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION
The text on which the translation is based is the revised
edition of Germinal by Colette Becker published in the ‘Clas-
siques Gamier’ series (Paris, 1989), although a number of
other editions were extensively consulted»
This translation is the result of a sustained effort to reconcile
an accurate rendering of nineteenth-century French dialogue,
description, and technical terminology with the twentieth-
century English language, while trying to preserve the force of
Zola’s poetic realism. When I wanted to test what I had
written on a potential audience, I was exceptionally lucky in
finding a series of willing and talented readers, Catherine
Collier, Anne Dunan, Elinor Dorday, Kate Tunstall, and
Meryl Tyers who between them read aloud, listened to, pon¬
dered over, and criticized every word of Zola’s original, and
every word of my draft. Their linguistic flair has helped me in
my ambition to write as far as possible as Zola might have
written, had he been writing in modern English. If there are
moments when my readers are able to forget that they are
reading a translation, I hope that they will join me in thanking
Cathy, Anne, Ellie, Kate, and Meryl.
Peter Collier
====
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Germinal was first published in book form by the Librairie ‘Charpen-
tier in Paris in 1885 (it had been serialized in Le Gil Bias between 26
November 1884 and 25 February 1885). Modern scholarly editions
are Germinal^ ‘Classiques Garnier\ revised edition by Colette Becker
(Paris, 1989), or volume iii of Les Rougon-Macquart in the ‘Biblio-
theque de la Pleiade’ (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), edited by Henri
Mitterand. Paperback editions exist in the following popular collec¬
tions: ‘Garnier-Flammarion’ (ed. Henri Guillemin, Paris, 1968);
‘Folio’ (ed. Henri Mitterand, Paris, 1978); and ‘Livre de Poche’ (ed.
Auguste Dezalay, Paris, 1983).
The standard account of Zola’s life is the ‘biographie romancee’ by
Armand Lanoux, Bonjour, Monsieur Zola (Paris: Hachette (‘Livre de
Poche’), 1972), Studies of the whole cycle of the Rougon-Macquart
include Philippe Hamon, Le Personnel du roman: Le Systeme des
personnages dans Ues Rougon-Macquart* d*Emile Zola (Geneva: Droz,
1983) , and Auguste Dezalay, L* Opera des * Rougon-Macquart* (Paris,
Klincksieck, 1983).
Comprehensive studies of Zola written in English are: Elliot M.
Grant, Emile Zola (New York: Twayne (‘World Authors’), 1966);
F. W. J. Hemmings, Emile Zola (2nd edn., Oxford: Oxford Paper¬
backs, 1970); Philip Walker, Zola (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1985); R. IvCthbridge and T, Keefe (eds.), Zola and the Craft of Fiction
(Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990); Naomi Schor, Zola*s
Crowds (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978).
Monographs on Germinal have been written by Colette Becker,
Germinal (Paris, PUF (‘Etudes litteraires’), 1984), E. M. Grant,
Zola* s * Germinal*: A Critical and Historical Study (Leicester: Leicester
University Press, 1962), C. Smethurst, Emile Zola: * Germinal*
(London: Arnold, 1974), and Philip Walker, * Germinal* and Zola*s
Philosophical and Religious Thought (Amsterdam: John Benjamins,
1984) . Those in search of a single, stimulating essay may consult one
or other of the chapters on Germinal in Henri Mitterand, Le Discours
du roman (Paris: PUF, 1980), while two of the best essays in English
are Irving Howe, ‘Zola: The Genius of Germinal\ Encounter^ 34
(1970), 53-61, and David Baguley, ‘The Function of Zola’s Souvar-
ine’. Modern Language Review^ 66 (1971), 186-97.
Those interested in more specialized enquiries into the documentary
sources and social background of the novel should refer to Richard H.
Zakarian, Z(flas 'Germinal': A Critical Study of its Primary Sources
(Geneva: Droz, 1972), Colette Becker, La Fahrique de X^erminaF
(Paris: SEDES, 1986) (which presents Zola’s preparatory dossier),
Henri Marei, 'GertnmaC: Une documentation integrale (Glasgow: Uni¬
versity of Glasgow French and German publications, 1989) (which
includes a specialized bibliography), or two special issues of Les
Cahiers naturaiistes (Paris: Fasquelle): no. 50 (1976), entitled 'Germi-
naF et le mouvement ouvrier en France^ and the centenary number, 59
(1985).
As for the wider context of Zola’s writing, David Baguley has
recently completed an authoritative study of Naturalism, Naturalist
Fiction: The Entropic Vision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990). Finally, the fascinating history of the Second Empire in France
can be followed up either concisely in Roger Magraw’s contribution
to the ‘Fontana History of Modem France’, France I815"1914: The
Bourgeois Century (London: Fontana, 1987), or at leisure in Theodore
Zeldin's France (2 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19^3).
=====
CHRONOLOGY
1840 (2 April) Born in Paris, the only child of Francesco Zola
(b. I795)> an Italian engineer, and Emilie, nee Aubert (b.
1819), the daughter of a glazier. The Naturalist novelist
was later proud that ‘zolla’ in Italian means ‘clod of earth’
1843 Family moves to Aix-^n-Provence
1847 (27 March) Death of father from pneumonia following a
chill caught while supervising work on his scheme to
supply Aix-en-Provence with drinking water
1852 - Becomes a boarder at the College Bourbon at Aix. Friend¬
ship with Baptistin Bailie and Paul Cezanne. Zola, not
Cezanne, wins the school prize for drawing
1858 (February) Leaves Aix to settle in Paris with his mother
(who had preceded him in December). Offered a place and
bursary at the Lycee Saint-Louis. (November) Falls ill
with ‘brain fever’ (typhoid) and convalescence is slow
1859 Fails his baccalaureat twice
1860 (Spring) Is found employment as a copy-clerk but aban¬
dons it after two months, preferring to eke out an existence
as an impecunious writer in the Latin Quarter of Paris
1861 Cezanne follows Zola to Paris, where he meets Camille
Pissarro, fails the entrance examination to the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts, and returns to Aix in September
1862 (February) Taken on by Hachette, the well-known publish¬
ing house, at first in the dispatch office and subsequently
as head of the publicity department. (31 October) Natural¬
ized as a French citizen. Cezanne returns to Paris and stays
with Zola
1863 (31 January) First literary article published, (i May)
Manet’s Dejeuner sur Therhe exhibited at the Salon des
Refuses, which Zola visits with Cezanne
1864 {jDexo\y^x)Tale$ for Ninon
1865 Claudels Confession . A succes de scandale thanks to its bed room
scenes. Meets future wife Alexandrine-Gabrielle Meley (b.
1839), the illegitimate daughter of teenage parents who soon
separated, and whose mother died in September 1849
Chronology xxxiii
1866 Forced to resign his position at Hachette (salary: 200
francs a month) and becomes a literary critic on the
recently launched daily UEvenement (salary: 500 francs a
month). Self-styled ‘humble disciple’ of Hippolyte Taine.
Writes a series of provocative articles condemning the
official Salon Selection Committee, expressing reserva¬
tions about Courbet, and praising Manet and Monet.
Begins to frequent the Cafe Guerbois in the Batignoiles
quarter of Paris, the meeting-place of the future Impres¬
sionists. Antoine Guillemet takes Zola to meet Manet.
Summer months spent with Cezanne at Bennecourt on
the Seine. (15 November) L'Evenement suppressed by
the authorities
1867 (November) Therese Raquin
1868 (April) Preface to second edition of J'herese Raquin. (May)
Manet’s portrait of Zola exhibited at the Salon, (December)
Madeleine Ferat. Begins to plan for the Rougon-Macquart
series of novels
1868-70 Working as journalist for a number of different newspa¬
pers
1870 (31 May) Marries Alexandrine in a registry office. (Septem¬
ber) Moves temporarily to Marseilles because of the
Fran co-Prussian War
1871 Political reporter for La Cloche (in Paris) and Le Semaphore
de Marseille. (March) Returns to Paris. (October) Publishes
The Fortune of the Rougons., the first of the twenty novels
making up the Rougon-Macquart series
1872 The Kill
1873 (April) The Belly of Pans
1874 (May) The Conquest of Plassans. First independent Impres¬
sionist exhibition, (November) Further Tales for Ninon
1875 Begins to contribute articles to the Russian newspaper
Vestnik Evropy (European Herald). (April) The Sin of the
Abbe Mouret
1876 (February) His Excellency Eugene Rougon. Second Impres¬
sionist exhibition
1877 (P^ebruary) V Assommoir
1878 Buys a house at Medan on the Seine, forty kilometres west
of Paris, (June) A Page of Love
1880 (March) Nana, (May) Les Soirees de Medan (an anthology
of short stories by Zola and some of his Naturalist ‘disci¬
ples’, including Maupassant). (8 May) Death of Flaubert.
(September) First of a series of articles for Le Figaro. (17
October) Death of his mother. (December) The Experimen¬
tal Novel
1882 (April) Pot-Bouille. (3 September) Death of Turgenev
1883 (13 February) Death of Wagner. (March) Au Bonheur des
dames, (30 April) Death of Manet
1884 (March) La Joie de vivre. Preface to catalogue of Manet exhi¬
bition
1885 (March) Germinal. {12 May) Begins writing The Master¬
piece (UCEuvre). (22 May) Death of Victor Hugo. (23
December) First instalment of The Masterpiece appears in
Le Gil Bias
1886 (27 March) Final instalment of The Masterpiece^ which is
published in book form in April
1887 (18 August) Denounced as an onanistic pornographer in
the Manifesto of the Five in Le Figaro, (November) Earth
1888 (October) The Dream. Jeanne Rozerot becomes his mis¬
tress
1889 (20 September) Birth of Denise, daughter of Zola and
Jeanne
1890 (March) The Beast in Man
1891 (March) Money. (April) Elected President of the Societe
des Gens de Lettres, (25 September) Birth of Jacques, son
of Zola and Jeanne
1892 (June) The Debacle
1893 Guly) Doctor Pascal., the last of the Rougon-Macquart
novels. Feted on a visit to London
1894 (August) LourdeSy the first novel of the trilogy Three Cities.
(22 December) Dreyfus found guilty by a court martial
1896 (Mzy) Rome
1898 (13 January) ‘J’accuse’, his article in defence of Dreyfus,
published in UAurore, (21 February) Found guilty of
libelling the Minister of War and given the maximum
sentence of one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 3,000
francs. Appeal for retrial granted on a technicality. (March)
Chronology xxxv
Paris. (23 May) Retrial delayed. (18 July) Leaves for
England instead of attending court
1899 (4 June) Returns to France. (October) Fecundity^ the first
of his Four Gospels
1901 (May) Toil^ the second ‘Gospel’
1902 (29 September) Dies of fumes from his bedroom fire, the
chimney having been capped either by accident or anti-
Dreyfusard design. Wife survives. (5 October) Public funeral
1903 (March) Truth., the third ‘Gospel’, published posthum¬
ously. Jm-rirc was to be the fourth
1908 (4 June) Remains transferred to the Pantheon
Plan of Montsou and surrounding areas.
=======
PART I
CHAPTER I
==
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