Next came

  La Conquete de Plassans

, an excellent story, to be followed by

  La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret 

, one of Zola's most romantic books, and the first to attain any considerable success. He next wrote

  Son Excellence  Eugene Rougon

, in which he dealt with the political side of the Second Empire and sketched the life of theImperial Court
at Compiegne. For this task he was not particularly well equipped, and the book was onlymoderately
successful. Then came

  L'Assommoir 

, and with it fame and fortune for the writer. It is a terriblestory of working-class life in Paris, a study of
the ravages wrought by drink. Again to quote Mr. AndrewLang, "It is a dreadful but not an immoral
book. It is the most powerful temperance tract that ever was written.As M. Zola saw much of the life of
the poor in his early years, as he once lived, when a boy, in one of thehuge lodging-houses he describes,
one may fear that

  L'Assommoir 

 is a not untruthful picture of the lives of many men and women in Paris.