There are two elements in this remarkable story, which, from the
standpoint of literary style, has never been excelled by anything that
M. Zola has since written; and one may glance at it therefore from two
points of view. Taking it under its sociological and religious aspect,
it will be found to be an indirect indictment of the celibacy of the
priesthood; that celibacy, contrary to Nature's fundamental law, which
assuredly has largely influenced the destinies of the Roman Catholic
Church. To that celibacy, and to all the evils that have sprang from it,
may be ascribed much of the irreligion current in France to-day. The
periodical reports on criminality issued by the French Ministers of
Justice since the foundation of the Republic in 1871, supply materials
for a most formidable indictment of that vow of perpetual chastity which
Rome exacts from her clergy. Nowadays it is undoubtedly too late for
Rome to go back upon that vow and thereby transform the whole of her
sacerdotal organisation; but, perhaps, had she done so in past times,
before the spirit of inquiry and free examination came into being, she
might have assured herself many more centuries of supremacy than have
fallen to her lot. But she has ever sought to dissociate the law of the
Divinity from the law of Nature, as though indeed the latter were but
the invention of the Fiend.

Abbe Mouret, M. Zola's hero, finds himself placed between the law of the
Divinity and the law of Nature: and the struggle waged within him by
those two forces is a terrible one. That which training has implanted in
his mind proves the stronger, and, so far as the canons of the Church
can warrant it, he saves his soul. But the problem is not quite frankly
put by M. Zola; for if Abbe Mouret transgresses he does so unwittingly,
at a time when he is unconscious of his priesthood and has no memory of
any vow. When the truth flashes upon him he is horrified with himself,