The Fortune of the Rougons
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''La Fortune des Rougon'' ''(The Fortune of the Rougons)'', originally published in 1871, is the first novel in Émile Zola's monumental twenty-volume series ''
Les Rougon-Macquart ''Les Rougon-Macquart'' is the collective title given to a cycle of twenty novels by French writer Émile Zola. Subtitled ''Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le Second Empire'' (''Natural and social history of a family under the Se ...
''. The novel is partly an origin story, with a large cast of characters - many of whom become the central figures of later novels in the series - and partly an account of the December 1851 coup d'Ă©tat that created the French Second Empire under Napoleon III. The events are experienced through the eyes of a large provincial town in
southern France Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French language, French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi ...
. The title refers not only to the "fortune" chased by protagonists Pierre and Felicité Rougon, but also to the fortunes of the various disparate family members Zola introduces, whose lives are of central importance to later books in the series.


Plot summary

After a stirring opening on the eve of the coup d'Ă©tat, involving an idealistic young village couple joining up with the republican militia in the middle of the night, Zola then spends the next few chapters going back in time to pre-Revolutionary Provence, and proceeds to lay the foundations for the entire Rougon-Macquart cycle, committing himself to what would become the next twenty-two years of his life's work. The fictional town of Plassans (loosely based on the real city of
Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...
, where Zola grew up and Lorgues, in the Var, where the insurrectional events described in the novel took place in December 1851) is established as the setting for the novel and described in intimate detail, and then we are introduced to the eccentric heroine Adelaide Fouque, later known as "Tante Dide", who becomes the common ancestor for both the Rougon and Macquart families. Her legitimate son from her short marriage to her late husband, a labourer named Rougon who worked on Dide's land, is forced to grow up alongside two illegitimate children — a boy and a girl — from Dide's later romance with the smuggler, poacher and alcoholic Macquart, while the ageing Dide slides further and further into a state of mental illness and borderline senile dementia. From this premise, the next nineteen novels all get their central protagonists and to a certain extent their themes. The narrative continues along double lines, following both "branches" of the family. We see Pierre Rougon (the legitimate son) in his attempts to disinherit his Macquart half-siblings, his marriage to FelicitĂ© Puech, the voraciously ambitious daughter of a local merchant, and their continued failure to establish the fortune, fame and renown they seek, despite their greed and relatively comfortable lifestyles. Approaching old age, the Rougon couple finally admit defeat and settle, crushed, into their lower middle class destinies, until by a remarkable stroke of luck their eldest son Eugène reports from Paris that he has some news that they might find interesting. Eugène has become one of the closest allies of the future Emperor Napoleon III and informs his parents that a coup is imminent. Having been effectively given insider information about which side to back in the coming revolution, the Rougons then make a series of seemingly bold moves to show their loyal and steadfast support for Napoleon III, winning the admiration of the most influential people in the town, mostly royalists who are themselves afraid of showing too much commitment for fear of backing the "wrong horse" and losing their standing and fortune. The narrative then switches over to the Macquart side of the family, whose grim working-class struggles to survive are juxtaposed keenly with the Rougons' seemingly trivial quest for greater wealth and influence in genteel drawing-room society. Descended from a drunken ne'er-do-well and a madwoman, Zola effectively predestines the Macquarts to lives of toil and misery. Zola's theories of heredity, laid out in the original preface to this novel, were a cornerstone of his entire philosophy and a major reason for his embarking on the mammoth Rougon-Macquart project in the first place in order to illustrate them. Largely discredited nowadays, the theories are largely "present but unseen" in most of the novels in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, allowing those books to be enjoyed without the overshadowing effect of Zola's somewhat suspect scientific ideas. Due to the original story nature of ''La Fortune des Rougon'', the theories are placed much more to the fore, and can appear somewhat heavy-handed as a result. A third branch of the family, the Mourets, descended from Macquart and Dide's daughter, are then introduced before the novel's focus is brought back to the "present", the night of the coup, via a quite brilliantly told love story. The idealistic but naĂŻve Silvère Mouret falls madly in love with the innocent Miette Chantegreil, and after a long courtship they decide to join up with the republicans to fight the coup. The rest of the novel then picks up from where the opening chapter left off, and from then on is basically a dual narrative telling the story of the old Rougon couple and their increasingly Machiavellian machinations to get themselves into a position of fortune and respect in Plassans, juxtaposed with Silvère and Miette's continuing love story and the doomed republican militia's disastrous attempt to take the town back. Eventually, the Rougons exploit their half-brother Antoine Macquart into inadvertently helping crush the republican threat, and they achieve their life's ambition, fortune and favour. For Silvère and Miette, who committed themselves so completely to a doomed cause, there can be no such happy ending and Zola wisely leaves their half of the story at a bleak dead end.


Translations

The first English translation by
Henry Vizetelly Henry Richard Vizetelly (30 July 18201 January 1894) was a British publisher and writer. He started the publications ''Pictorial Times'' and ''Illustrated Times'', wrote several books while working in Paris and Berlin as correspondent for the ''I ...
was published in 1886 and extensively revised (to meet Victorian standards of propriety and avoid prosecution for issuing an indecent publication) by
Ernest Vizetelly Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (1853–1922) was an English journalist and author. Life He was a son of the English publisher Henry Vizetelly, by his first marriage to Ellen Elizabeth Pollard. He was known as a war correspondent. Ernest was present wit ...
in 1898, issued under the title ''The Fortune of the Rougons'' by
Chatto & Windus Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business ...
. It is of reasonably poor quality, not helped by Vizetelly's boast that he had changed one in every three sentences in the course of his editing. No other translation was available until 2012, when Brian Nelson published one under the Oxford World's Classics imprint. Brian Nelson (trans.), ''The Fortune of the Rougons'', Oxford World's Classics, 2012. * ''The Fortune of the Rougons'' (1886, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.) * ''The Fortune of the Rougons'' (1898, tr. unknown edited by
E. A. Vizetelly Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (1853–1922) was an English journalist and author. Life He was a son of the English publisher Henry Vizetelly, by his first marriage to Ellen Elizabeth Pollard. He was known as a war correspondent. Ernest was present wit ...
, Chatto & Windus) * ''The Fortune of the Rougons'' (2012, tr. Brian Nelson, Oxford University Press) Correction: T. B. Peterson & Brothers published an English translation, done by John Stirling, in 1879.


Adaptations

The novel was adapted into a 1980 French TV miniseries, ''La fortune des Rougon'', directed by
Yves-André Hubert Yves-André Hubert is a French actor, television film director and theatre '' metteur en scène''. He received a Sept d'or award in 1988 for '' L'Affaire Marie Besnard''. Filmography * 1961 : ''Youm et les longues moustaches'' * 1962 : '' Les ...
and starring Madeleine Robinson as Adelaide and
Christian Barbier Christian Barbier (28 June 1924 – 3 November 2009) was a French film and television actor. Barbier was born at Saint-Ouen, Seine (currently Seine-Saint-Denis), France. During his career (1964 to 1997), he specialized in drama rather t ...
as the adult Pierre.


References


External links

(English)
French Language Text
*

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fortune Des Rougon 1871 French novels Novels by Émile Zola Books of Les Rougon-Macquart Fiction set in 1851 Novels set in the 1850s Novels set in Provence Chatto & Windus books