"
His literary creed at the time he began the Rougon-Macquart series may
be conveniently summed up in a few words from an article which he had
only a month before written in the _Gaulois_: "If I kept a school of
morals," he says, "I would hasten to place in the hands of my pupils
_Madame Bovary_ or _Germinie Lacerteux_, persuaded that truth alone can
instruct and fortify generous souls."
In _La Fortune des Rougon_, then, Zola set out to plant the roots of
the great family tree which was to occupy his attention during the next
twenty years of his life. His object was to describe the origin of
the family which he had selected for dissection in his series, and to
outline the various principal characters, members of that family. Mr.
Andrew Lang, writing on this subject in the _Fortnightly Review_, points
out that certain Arab tribes trace their descent from a female Dog, and
suggests that the Rougon-Macquart family might have claimed the same
ancestry. Adelaide Fouque came of a race of peasants who had long lived
at Plassans, a name invented by Zola to conceal the identity of Aix,
the town in Provence where his youth had been spent.
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