Yet the publication of “Rome,” was the signal for a general outcry on the part of English and American reviewers that Zolaism, as typified by the Rougon-Macquart series, was altogether a thing of the past.  To my thinking this is a profound error.  M. Zola has always remained faithful to himself.  The only difference that I perceive between his latest work, “Paris,” and certain Rougon-Macquart volumes, is that with time, experience and assiduity, his genius has expanded and ripened, and that the hesitation, the groping for truth, so to say, which may be found in some of his earlier writings, has disappeared.

At the time when “The Fortune of the Rougons” was first published, none but the author himself can have imagined that the foundation-stone of one of the great literary monuments of the century had just been laid.  From the “story” point of view the book is one of M. Zola’s very best, although its construction—­particularly as regards the long interlude of the idyll of Miette and Silvere—­is far from being perfect.  Such a work when first issued might well bring its author a measure of popularity, but it could hardly confer fame.  Nowadays, however, looking backward, and bearing in mind that one here has the genius of M. Zola’s lifework, “The Fortune of the Rougons” becomes a book of exceptional interest and importance.  This has been so well understood by French readers that during the last six or seven years the annual sales of the work have increased threefold.  Where, over a course of twenty years, 1,000 copies were sold, 2,500 and 3,000 are sold to-day.  How many living English novelists can say the same of their early essays in fiction, issued more than a quarter of a century ago?

I may here mention that at the last date to which I have authentic figures, that is, Midsummer 1897 (prior, of course, to what is called “L’Affaire Dreyfus"), there had been sold of the entire Rougon-Macquart series (which had begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies.  These were of the ordinary Charpentier editions of the French originals.  By adding thereto several editions de luxe and the widely-circulated popular illustrated editions of certain volumes, the total amounts roundly to 2,100,000.  “Rome,” “Lourdes,” “Paris,” and all M. Zola’s other works, apart from the “Rougon-Macquart” series, together with the translations into a dozen different languages—­English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and others—­are not included in the above figures.  Otherwise the latter might well be doubled.  Nor is account taken of the many serial issues which have brought M. Zola’s views to the knowledge of the masses of all Europe.