[*] It is interesting to note that by a curious oversight M. Zola in Pot-Bouille refers to Octave Mouret as having passed the examination for his bachelor’s degree before leaving Plassans, and states that at Marseilles the lad showed a passion for business life, being able during his three years’ stay there to make a sum of five thousand francs (two hundred pounds), which he took with him to Paris.

MOURET (MADAME CAROLINE), first wife of the preceding.  See Madame Caroline Hedouin.

MOURET (MADAME DENISE), second wife of Octave Mouret.  See Denise Baudu.

MOURET (SERGE), born 1841, son of Francois Mouret.  La Fortune des Rougon.

He was a young man of nervous temperament and of somewhat delicate health.  Educated at Plassans, he took his degree at the college there, and it was intended that he should go to Paris to study for the bar.  The state of his health caused his departure to be delayed, and meantime he, like his mother, fell under the influence of Abbe Faujas.  Ultimately he decided to abandon the study of the law in order to become a priest, and against the wishes of his father he entered the Seminary at Plassans.  La Conquete de Plassans.

After being ordained to the priesthood he was appointed cure of Les Artaud, a small village in Provence, to whose degenerate inhabitants he ministered with small success.  From his parents he had inherited the family taint of the Rougon-Macquarts, which in him took the form of morbid religious enthusiasm bordering on hysteria.  Brain fever resulted, and bodily recovery left the priest without a mental past.  Dr. Pascal Rougon, his uncle, in the hope of saving his reason, removed him to Paradou, the neglected demesne of a ruined mansion, where he left him in the care of Albine, the keeper’s niece.  Here Serge slowly recovered his health, though the memory of his past was gone, and his mental development was that of a boy.  In that enchanted garden, lush with foliage and with the scent of flowers, the drama of life unfolded, and Serge, loving Albine, and oblivious of his vows unwittingly broke them.  A chance meeting with Brother Archangais, and a glimpse of the world outside the Paradou, recalled to Serge the recollection of his priesthood, and, filled with horror, he tore himself from Albine and returned to his cure of souls.  A fierce struggle between love and duty followed, but in the end the Church conquered, and Albine was left to die, while Serge threw himself even more feverishly than before into the observances of his faith.  La Faute de l’Abbe Mouret.

Sent later to Saint-Eutrope, at the bottom of a marshy gorge, he was cloistered there with his sister Desiree.  He showed a fine humility, refusing all preferment from his bishop, waiting for death like a holy man, averse to remedies, although he was already in the early stage of phthisis.  Le Docteur Pascal.