''L'Inondation'' (''The Flood'') is an 1880 novella by
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...
. Set in the village of
Saint-Jory
Saint-Jory (; oc, Sent JĂ²ri) is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France. It is served by Saint-Jory station on the Bordeaux-Toulouse line.
Population
Sights
The ChĂ¢teau de Saint-Jory is a 16th-century castle which ...
, several miles up the
Garonne
The Garonne (, also , ; Occitan, Catalan, Basque, and es, Garona, ; la, Garumna
or ) is a river of southwest France and northern Spain. It flows from the central Spanish Pyrenees to the Gironde estuary at the French port of Bordeaux – a ...
from
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
, it is the story of a family tragedy, told by its patriarch, seventy-year-old Louis Roubieu.
Plot summary
On a beautiful May day, the Garonne floods, washing away all the bridges; ruining nearly two thousand houses; drowning hundreds; and leaving twenty thousand starving to death. The novella describes the immediate impact this flood has on one household.
External links
Project Gutenberg free eBook*
1880 French novels
Novels by Émile Zola
Novels set in France
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