The end was rapid. Coupeau died in the asylum of
Sainte-Anne after an illness the description of which is for pure horror
unparalleled in fiction; while Gervaise, after sinking to the lowest
depths of degradation and poverty, died miserably in a garret. The
tragedy of it all is that Gervaise, despite her early lapse with
Lantier, was a good and naturally virtuous woman, whose ruin was
wrought by circumstances and by the operation of the relentless laws of
heredity.
It may be useful to note here that though Zola states in _L'Assommoir_
that Gervaise and Lantier had two sons (Claude, born 1842, and Etienne,
born 1846), he makes a third son (Jacques, born 1844), not elsewhere
mentioned, the hero of _La Bete Humaine_, a subsequent work in the
Rougon-Macquart series.
L'Oeuvre.
A novel dealing with artistic life in Paris towards the close of the
Second Empire.
Claude Lantier, the eldest son of Auguste Lantier and Gervaise Macquart
(_La Fortune des Rougon_ and _L'Assommoir_), had been educated at
Plassans by an old gentleman who was interested in his childish skill in
drawing. His benefactor died, leaving him a sum which yielded an annual
income of a thousand francs, and he came to Paris to follow an artistic
career.
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