Zola’s employers had, however, begun to look askance at his literary work; they may have considered that it was occupying too much of the time for which they paid, or, more probably, they were becoming alarmed at their clerk’s advanced views both on politics and literary art.  As Zola afterwards explained the matter, one of the partners said to him, “You are earning two hundred francs a month here, which is ridiculous.  You have plenty of talent, and would do better to take up literature altogether.  You would find glory and profit there.”  The hint was a direct one, and it was taken.  The young author was again thrown upon his own resources, but was no longer entirely unknown, for the not unfavourable reception of his first book and the violent attacks on his second had given him a certain position, even though it may to some extent have partaken of the nature of a succes de scandale.  As he wrote at the time, he did not mean to pander to the likes or the dislikes of the crowd; he intended to force the public to caress or insult him.

Journalism was the avenue which now appeared most open, and Zola got an appointment on the staff of a newspaper called L’Evenement, in which he wrote articles on literary and artistic subjects.  His views were not tempered by moderation, and when he depreciated the members of the Salon in order to exalt Manet, afterwards an artist of distinction, but then regarded as a dangerous revolutionary, the public outcry was such that he was forced to discontinue publication of the articles.  He then began a second story called Le Vaeu d’une Morte in the same newspaper.  It was intended to please the readers of L’Evenement, but from the first failed to do so, and its publication was stopped before it was half completed.  Soon afterwards L’Evenement was incorporated with the Figaro, and Zola’s connection with it terminated.  A time of hardship again began, and during the year 1867 the wolf was only kept from the door by unremitting toil of the least agreeable kind.  In the midst of his difficulties Zola wrote two books simultaneously, one supremely good and the other unquestionably bad.  The one was Therese Raquin, and the other Les Mysteres de Marseille.  The latter, which was pure hack-work, was written to the order of the publisher of a Marseillaise newspaper, who supplied historical material from researches made by himself at the Marseilles and Aix law courts, about the various causes celebres which during the previous fifty years had attracted the most public attention.  These were to be strung together, and by an effort of legerdemain combined into a coherent whole in the form of a novel.  Zola, desiring bread, undertook the task, with results that might have been anticipated.