hanged himself in front
of the fatal picture.

As a study of artistic life the novel is full of interest. There is
little doubt that the character of Claude Lantier was suggested by that
of Edouard Manet, the founder of the French Impressionist school, with
whom Zola was on terms of friendship. It is also certain that Pierre
Sandoz, the journalist with an idea for a vast series of novels dealing
with the life history of a family, was the prototype of Zola himself.

La Bete Humaine.

A novel dealing with railway life in France towards the close of the
Second Empire. The hero is Jacques Lantier, the second son of Gervaise
Macquart and August Lantier (_La Fortune des Rougon_ and _L'Assommoir_).
When his parents went to Paris with his two brothers, he remained at
Plassans with his godmother, "Aunt Phasie," who afterwards married
Misard, a railway signalman, by whom she was slowly poisoned to secure
a small legacy which she had concealed. After Jacques had passed
through the School of Arts and Crafts at Plassans he became a railway
engine-driver, and entered the service of the Western Railway Company,
regularly driving the express train between Paris and Havre. He was a
steady man and a competent engineer, but from his early youth he had
been affected by a curious form of insanity, the desire to murder any
woman of whom he became fond. "It seemed like a sudden outburst of blind
rage, an ever-recurring thirst to avenge some very ancient offences,
the exact recollection of which escaped him." There was also in the
employment of the railway company, as assistant station-master at Havre,
a compatriot of Lantier named Roubaud, who had married Severine Aubry,
the godchild of President Grandmorin, a director of the company. A
chance word of Severine's roused the suspicions of Roubaud regarding her
former relations with the President, and, driven to frenzy by jealousy,
he compelled her to become his accomplice in the murder of Grandmorin in
an express train between Paris and Havre.

Though slight suspicion fell upon the Roubauds, they were able to
prove an alibi, and as, for political reasons, it was not desired that
Grandmorin's character should be publicly discussed, the inquiry into
the murder was dropped. By a singular chance, however, Jacques Lantier
had been a momentary witness of the crime, and the Roubauds became aware
of his suspicions. To secure his silence they invited him constantly to
their house, and a liaison wi