J. G. P.

INTRODUCTION

Emile Zola was born at Paris on 2nd April, 1840. His father, Francois
Zola, was a man whose career up to that time had not been a success,
though this was not due to any lack of energy or ability. Zola _pere_
was of mixed nationality, his father being an Italian and his mother a
Greek, and it is not unlikely that his unrest and want of concentration
were due to the accident of his parentage. When quite a young man,
Francois fought under the great Napoleon, after whose fall he became a
civil engineer. He spent some time in Germany, where he was engaged
in the construction of the first tramway line in Europe, afterwards
visiting Holland and possibly England. Failure seems to have accompanied
him, for in 1831 he applied for and obtained an appointment, as
lieutenant in the Foreign Legion in Algeria. His career in Africa was,
however, of short duration; some irregularities were discovered, and he
disappeared for a time, though ultimately he came forward and made
up his accounts, paying the balance that was due. No prosecution took
place, and resignation of his commission was accepted. Nothing more was
heard of the matter till 1898, when his son Emile identified himself
with the cause of Dreyfus, and in the campaign of calumny that followed
had to submit to the vilest charges against the memory of his father.
The old dossier was produced by the French Ministry of War, the
officials of which did not hesitate to strengthen their case by the
forgery of some documents and the suppression of others. In view
of these proved facts, and of the circumstance that Francois Zola,
immediately after his resignation from the Foreign Legion, established
himself as a civil engineer at Marseilles and prepared a scheme for new
maritime docks there, and that in connection with this scheme he
visited Paris repeatedly, obtaining private audiences with the King and
interviewing statesmen, it must be held that the charges against him
were of a venial nature, in no way warranting the accusations brought
forward by the War Office nearly seventy years later to cast discredit
on his son. Nothing came of the Marseilles harbour scheme, and the same
fate attended subsequent plans for the fortification of Paris. Zola
_pere_, who by this time had married, then turned his attention to a
proposal to supply water to the town of Aix, in Provence, by means of
a reservoir and canal. He removed thither with his wife and child, and
a