up to this time Zola's life had been a steady struggle against poverty.

He was terribly in earnest, and

wasdetermined to create for himself a place in literature; to accomplish this end he counted no labour
too arduous,no sacrifice too great. His habits were Spartan in their simplicity; he was a slave to work and
method, goodequipment for the vast task he was next to undertake. He had long been an earnest
student of Balzac, and thereis no doubt that it was the example of the great

Comedie Humaine

which inspired his scheme for a series of novels dealing with the life history of a family during a
particular period; as he described it himself, "thehistory natural and social of a family under the Second
Empire." It is possible that he was also influenced bythe financial success of the series of historical
novels written by Erckmann-Chatrian, known as the

Romans Nationaux

. It was not, however, the past about which he proposed to write; no period was more suitable forhis
purpose than that in which he lived, that Second Empire whose regime began in blood and continued
incorruption. He had there, under his own eyes and within his personal knowledge, a suitable

mise-en-scene

wherein to further develop those theories of hereditary influence which had already attracted his
attentionwhile he was writing

Madeleine Ferat

. The scheme was further attractive in as much as it lent itself readily tothe system of treatment to
which he had applied the term

naturalisme

, to distinguish it from the crudities of the realistic school. The scientific