ccident which resulted in her death, and her husband remained a widower
for a number of years. During this time his business grew to such an
extent that his employees numbered many hundreds, among whom was Denise
Baudu, a young girl who had come from the provinces. Mouret fell in
love with her, and she, after resisting his advances for some time,
ultimately married him. The book deals chiefly with life among the
assistants in a great drapery establishment, their petty rivalries
and their struggles; it contains some pathetic studies of the small
shopkeepers of the district, crushed out of existence under the wheels
of Mouret's moneymaking machine.

La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret.

Serge Mouret, the younger son of Francois Mouret (see _La Conquete de
Plassans_), was ordained to the priesthood and appointed cure of Les
Artaud, a squalid village in Provence, to whose degenerate inhabitants
he ministered with small encouragement. He had inherited the family
taint of the Rougon-Macquarts, which in him took the same form as in the
case of his mother--a morbid religious enthusiasm bordering on hysteria.
Brain fever followed, and bodily recovery left the priest without a
mental past. Dr. Pascal Rougon, his uncle, hoping to save his reason,
removed him from his accustomed surroundings and left him at the
Paradou, the neglected demesne of a ruined mansion-house near Les
Artaud, where he was nursed by Albine, niece of the caretaker. The Abbe
fell in love with Albine, and, oblivious of his vows, broke them. A
meeting with Archangias, a Christian Brother with whom he had been
associated, and a chance glimpse of the world beyond the Paradou, served
to restore his memory, and, filled with horror at himself, he fled from
that enchanted garden. A long mental struggle followed, but in the end
the Church was victorious, and the Abbe returned to her service with
even more feverish devotion than before. Albine, broken-hearted, died
among her loved flowers in the Paradou.

The tale is to some extend an indictment of the celibacy of the
priesthood, though it has to be admitted that the issue is not put quite
fairly, inasmuch as the Abbe was, at the time of his lapse, in entire
forgetfulness of his sacred office. As a whole, the book contains some
of Zola's best work, and is both poetical and convincing.

Une Page d'Amour.

A tale of Parisian life, in which the principal character is Helene
Mouret, daughter of Mouret the hatter, and sister