The
arrangements were made, but at the last moment Lantier's frenzy overtook
him, and it was Severine who was struck down by the knife destined for
her husband. Lantier escaped without suspicion; but Roubaud, who
was found on the scene of the crime under circumstances considered
compromising, was tried, and along with a companion equally innocent,
was sentenced to penal servitude for life. But Nemesis was not distant;
Jacques had aroused the jealous fury of his fireman, Pecqueux, who, one
night in 1870, attacked him as they were driving a train loaded with
soldiers bound for the war. A fierce struggle followed, and in the end
the two men fell from the engine and were cut in pieces beneath the
wheels of the train, which, no longer under control, rushed on into the
darkness with its living freight.
Germinal.
A novel dealing with the labour question in its special relation to
coal-mining. The scene of the book is laid in the north of France at a
time preceding and during a great strike; the hero is Etienne Lantier
(_La Fortune des Rougon_ and _L'Assommoir_). In a moment of passion
Lantier had struck one of his superiors, and having been dismissed from
his employment as an engineer, found it difficult to get work, till,
after drifting from place to place, he eventually became a coal-miner.
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