She was highly
neurotic, with a tendency to epilepsy, but from the point of view of the
naturalistic novelist she offered many advantages. When a mere girl she
married a man named Rougon, who died soon afterwards, leaving her with
a son named Pierre, from whom descended the legitimate branch of the
family. Then followed a liaison with a drunken smuggler named Macquart,
as a result of which two children were born, the Macquarts. Adelaide's
original neurosis had by this time become more pronounced, and she
ultimately became insane. Pierre married and had five children, but his
financial affairs had not prospered, though by underhand methods he had
contrived to get possession of his mother's property, to the exclusion
of her other children. Then came the _Coup d'Etat_ of 1851, and
Pierre, quick to seize his opportunity, rendered such services to the
Bonapartist party as to lay the foundation of the family fortune, a
foundation which was, however, cemented with treachery and blood. It was
with these two families, then, both descended from a common ancestress,
and sometimes subsequently united by intermarriage, that the whole
series of novels was to deal.
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