tried by default at Versailles and sentenced to twelve months'
imprisonment on the charge of having libelled, in his letter 'J'accuse,'
the military tribunal which had acquitted Commandant Esterhazy. On the
evening of the 19th his disappearance was signalled by various telegrams
from Paris. Most of these asserted that he had gone on a tour to Norway,
a course which the 'Daily News' correspondent declared to be very
sensible on M. Zola's part, given the tropical heat which then prevailed
in the French metropolis.

On the 20th, however, the telegrams gave out that Zola had left Paris on
the previous evening by the 8.35 express for Lucerne, being accompanied
by his wife and her maid. Later, the same day, appeared a graphic account
of how he had dined at a Paris restaurant and thence despatched a waiter
to the Eastern Railway Station to procure tickets for himself and a
friend. The very numbers of these tickets were given!

Yet a further telegram asserted that he had been recognised by a
fellow-passenger, had left the train before reaching the Swiss frontier,
and had gaily continued his journey on a bicycle. But another newspaper
correspondent treated this account as pure invention, and pledged his
word that M. Zola had gone to Holland by way of Brussels.

On July 21 his destination was again alleged to be Norway; but--so
desperate were the efforts made to reconcile all the conflicting
rumours--his route was said to lie through Switzerland, Luxemburg, and
the Netherlands. His wife (so the papers reported) was with him, and they
were bicycling up hill and down dale through the aforenamed countries.
Two days later it was declared that he had actually been recognised at a
cafe in Brussels whence he had fled in consequence of the threats of the
customers, who were enraged 'by the presence of such a traitor.' Then he