E. A. Vizetelly at two million
five hundred thousand.
There can be little doubt that Zola's best work was expended on the
Rougon-Macquart series. With its conclusion his zeal as a reformer began
to outrun his judgment as an artist, and his later books partake more of
the nature of active propaganda than of works of fiction. They comprise
two series: _Les Trois Villes_ (Lourdes, Paris, Rome) and _Les Quatre
Evangiles_, of which only three (Fecondite, Travail, and Verite) were
written before the author's death. Politics had begun to occupy his
attention, and from 1896 onwards he increasingly interested himself in
the Jewish question which culminated in the Dreyfus case. His sense of
justice, always keen, was outraged by the action of the authorities and
on 13th January, 1898, he published his famous letter, beginning with
the words _J'accuse_, a letter which altered the whole course of events
in France. It is difficult now to realize the effect of Zola's action
in this matter; he was attacked with a virulence almost unexampled, a
virulence which followed him beyond the grave. Four years later, on the
day after his death, the Paris correspondent of _The Times_ wrote: "It
is evident the passions of two or three years ago are still alive.
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