series (which had begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies. These were of the
ordinary Charpentier editions of the French originals. By adding thereto
several _editions de luxe_ and the widely-circulated popular illustrated
editions of certain volumes, the total amounts roundly to 2,100,000.
"Rome," "Lourdes," "Paris," and all M. Zola's other works, apart from
the "Rougon-Macquart" series, together with the translations into a
dozen different languages--English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch,
Danish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and others--are not included
in the above figures. Otherwise the latter might well be doubled. Nor
is account taken of the many serial issues which have brought M. Zola's
views to the knowledge of the masses of all Europe.

It is, of course, the celebrity attaching to certain of M. Zola's
literary efforts that has stimulated the demand for his other writings.
Among those which are well worthy of being read for their own sakes, I
would assign a prominent place to the present volume. Much of the story
element in it is admirable, and, further, it shows M. Zola as a
genuine satirist and humorist. The Rougons' yellow drawing-room and
its habitues, and many of the scenes between Pierre Rougon and his wife
Felicite, are worthy of the pen of Douglas Jerrold. The whole account,
indeed, of the town of Plassans, its customs and its notabilities, is
satire of the most effective kind, because it is satire true to life,
and never degenerates into mere caricature.

It is a rather curious coincidence that, at the time when M. Zola was
thus portraying the life of Provence, his great contemporary, bosom
friend, and rival for literary fame, the late Alphonse Daudet, should
have been producing, under the title of "The Provencal Don Quixote,"
that unrivalled presentment of the foibles of the French Southerner,
with everyone nowadays knows as "Tartarin of Tarascon." It is possible