degree he failed to pass the examination.

A later attempt at the University of Marseilles had the same

result.As this examination is in France the passport to all the learned professions, Zola's failure to pass it
placed himin a serious position. His mother's resources were by this time entirely exhausted, and some
means of supporthad to be sought without delay. After many attempts, he got a place as clerk in a
business house at a salary of twenty-six pounds a year, but the work proved so distasteful that after two
months of drudgery he threw it up.Then followed a period of deep misery, but a period which must have
greatly influenced the work of thefuture novelist. Wandering the streets by day and, when he could find
money to buy a candle, writing poemsand short stories by night, he was gaining that experience in the
school of life of which he was later to makesuch splendid use. Meantime his wretchedness was deep. A
miserable lodging in a garret, insufficient food,inadequate clothing, and complete absence of fire may be
an incentive to high endeavour, but do not rendereasy the pathway of fame. The position had become
all but untenable when Zola received an appointment inthe publishing house of M. Hachette, of Paris, at
a salary beginning at a pound a week, but soon afterwardsincreased. During the next two years he wrote
a number of short stories which were published later under thetitle

Contes a Ninon

. The book did not prove a great success, though its undoubted ability attracted attentionto the writer
and opened the way to some journalistic work. About this time he appears to have been studyingBalzac,
and the recently published

Madame Bovary

of Flaubert, which was opening up a new world not onlyin French fiction, but in the literature of Europe.
He had also read the

Germinie Lacerteux

of Edmond andJules de Goncourt, on which he wrote an appreciative article, and this remarkable book
cannot have beenwithout its influence on his work. The effect was indeed immediate, for in 1865 he
published his next book,

La Confession de Claud

, which showed strong traces of that departure from conventional fiction which he wasafterwards to
make more pronounced. The book was not a financial success, though it attracted attention,
andproduced many reviews, some favourable, others merciless. Influenced by the latter, the Public
Prosecutorcaused inquiries regarding the author to be made at Hachette's, but nothing more was done,
and it is indeeddoubtful if any successful prosecution could have been raised, even at a period when it
was thought necessaryto indict the author of

Madame Bovary