It is still too soon to form an opinion as to the permanent value of Zola’s writings, for posterity has set aside many well-considered judgments; but their influence has been, and will continue to be, far reaching.  They have opened up new avenues in literature, and have made possible to others much that was formerly unattainable.

THE ROUGON-MACQUART GENEALOGICAL TREE.

First Generation: 

1.  ADELAIDE FOUQUE, called AUNT DIDE, born in 1768, married in 1786 to Rougon, a placid, lubberly gardener; bears him a son in 1787; loses her husband in 1788; takes in 1789 a lover, Macquart, a smuggler, addicted to drink and half crazed; bears him a son in 1789, and a daughter in 1791; goes mad, and is sent to the Asylum of Les Tulettes in 1851; dies there of cerebral congestion in 1873 at 105 years of age.  Supplies the original neurosis.

Second Generation: 

2.  PIERRE ROUGON, born in 1787, married in 1810 to Felicite Puech, an intelligent, active and healthy woman; has five children by her; dies in 1870, on the morrow of Sedan, from cerebral congestion due to overfeeding.  An equilibrious blending of characteristics, the moral average of his father and mother, resembles them physically.  An oil merchant, afterwards receiver of taxes.

3.  ANTOINE MACQUART, born in 1789; a soldier in 1809; married in 1829 to a market dealer, Josephine Gavaudan, a vigorous, industrious, but intemperate woman; has three children by her; loses her in 1851; dies himself in 1873 from spontaneous combustion, brought about by alcoholism.  A fusion of characteristics.  Moral prepotency of and physical likeness to his father.  A soldier, then a basket-maker, afterwards lives idle on his income.

4.  URSULE MACQUART, born in 1791; married in 1810 to a journeyman-hatter, Mouret, a healthy man with a well-balanced mind.  Bears him three children, dies of consumption in 1840.  An adjunction of characteristics, her mother predominating morally and physically.

Third Generation: 

5.  EUGENE ROUGON, born in 1811, married in 1857 to Veronique Beulin d’Orcheres, by whom he has no children.  A fusion of characteristics.  Prepotency and ambition of his mother.  Physical likeness to his father.  A politician, at one time Cabinet Minister.  Still alive in Paris, a deputy.

6.  PASCAL ROUGON, born in 1813, never marries, has a posthumous child by Clotilde Rougon in 1874; dies of heart disease on November 7, 1873.  Innateness, a combination in which the physical and moral characteristics of the parents are so blended that nothing of them appears manifest in the offspring.  A doctor.

7.  ARISTIDE ROUGON, alias SACCARD, born in 1815, married in 1836 to Angele Sicardot, the calm, dreamy-minded daughter of an officer; has by her a son in 1840, a daughter in 1847; loses his wife in 1854; has a natural son in 1853 by a work-girl, Rosalie Chavaille, counting consumptives and epileptics among her forerunners; remarried in 1855 to Renee Beraud Du Chatel, who dies childless in 1864.  An adjunction of characteristics, moral prepotency of his father, physical likeness to his mother.  Her ambition, modified by his father’s appetites.  A clerk, then a speculator.  Still alive in Paris, directing a newspaper.