ne of the partners said to him,
"You are earning two hundred francs a month here, which is ridiculous.
You have plenty of talent, and would do better to take up literature
altogether. You would find glory and profit there." The hint was a
direct one, and it was taken. The young author was again thrown upon
his own resources, but was no longer entirely unknown, for the not
unfavourable reception of his first book and the violent attacks on
his second had given him a certain position, even though it may to some
extent have partaken of the nature of a _succes de scandale_. As
he wrote at the time, he did not mean to pander to the likes or the
dislikes of the crowd; he intended to force the public to caress or
insult him.

Journalism was the avenue which now appeared most open, and Zola got an
appointment on the staff of a newspaper called _L'Evenement_, in which
he wrote articles on literary and artistic subjects. His views were
not tempered by moderation, and when he depreciated the members of the
_Salon_ in order to exalt Manet, afterwards an artist of distinction,
but then regarded as a dangerous revolutionary, the public outcry was
such that he was forced to discontinue publication of the articles.
He then began a second story called _Le Vaeu d'une Morte_ in the same
newspaper. It was intended to please the readers of _L'Evenement_, but
from the first failed to do so, and its publication was stopped before
it was half completed. Soon afterwards _L'Evenement_ was incorporated
with the _Figaro_, and Zola's connection with it terminated. A time of
hardship again began, and during the year 1867 the wolf was only kept
from the door by unremitting toil of the least agreeable kind. In the
midst of his difficulties Zola wrote two books simultaneously, one
supremely good and the other unquestionably bad. The one was _Therese
Raquin_, and the other _Les Mysteres de Marseille_. The latter, which
was pure hack-work, was written to the order of the publisher of a
Marseillaise newspaper, who supplied historical material from researches
made by himself at the Marseilles and Aix law courts, about the various
_causes celebres_ which during the previous fifty years had attracted
the most public attention. These were to be strung together, and by an
effort of legerdemain combined into a coherent whole in the form of a
novel. Zola, desiring bread, undertook the task, with results that might
have been anticipated.

_Therese Raquin_ is a