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The Conquest of Plassans (Rougon-Macquart)

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FROM THE PUBLISHER
The Conquest of Plassans (Rougon-Macquart): The Rougon family, in M. Zola's narrative, rises to fortune, and the town of Plassans (really Aix-en-Provence) bows down before its power. But time passes, the revolt of the clergy supervenes, by their influence the town chooses a Royalist Marquis as deputy, and it becomes necessary to conquer it once again. ---Abbé Faujas, by whom this conquest is achieved on behalf of the Empire, is a strongly conceived character, perhaps the most real of all the priests that are scattered through M. Zola's books. No other priestly creation of M. Zola's pen vie with the stern, chaste, authoritative, ambitious Faujas, the man who subdues Plassans, and who wrecks the home of the Mouret family, with whom he lives. The book largely deals with the matter of 'the priest in the house,' and towards the end of the volume Mouret, the husband who has been driven mad and shut up in a lunatic asylum, returns home and wreaks the most terrible vengeance upon those who have wronged him. --- The pages which deal with the madman's escape and his horrible revenge are certainly among the most powerful that M. Zola has ever written, and have been commended for their effectiveness by several of his leading critics. --- (Ernest Alfred Vizetelly)

A superb step-by-step account of how to win the hearts and minds of the voters in a small country town. An atmosphere of brooding menace pervades the book as a "creeping Jesus" of a priest is brought in to swing the forthcoming election in favour of the government party. The short chapters make the book highly readable and wind up the tension marvellously. The one person who sees through the priest is powerless to act as his house and his whole life are gradually taken over - until the final cataclysmic scene when .... but I won't spoil it all by telling you what happens. A merciless and meticulous portrayal of the intrigues in a small French provincial town that deserves to be much better known than it is, this early work forms a pair with the following volume (number five) in the Rougon-Macquart saga "La Faute De L'Abbé Mouret/The Sin Of Father Mouret". The subject matter may not be attractive, but Zola has made it compelling reading.

This is the fourth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series about life during the Second Empire in France. Unfortunately, it is a lesser-known work, long out-of-print (though one can find it in ebook form now). While this book is not one of Zola's masterworks, it certainly doesn't deserve the level of obscurity into which it has fallen. The story takes place in the fictional town of Plassans, in Provence. A new priest comes to town, Abbé Faujas, and he and his mother rent a room in the home of the Mourets (Francois Mouret of the Macquart family, and his wife Marthe Rougon). At first stand-offish and shy, Abbé Faujas soon learns the amount of social and political influence that a clergyman can wield in a small town, and he starts to get more and more involved in the affairs of Plassans. He also starts to insinuate himself more and more into the lives of his landlords, much to the chagrin of Francois Mouret. It's an election year, and as various politicians and church officials play a kind of chess game for the votes of Plassans, the once meek and mild Abbé becomes more power-hungry. Is it possible his previous mild-mannered behavior was just an act to conceal a hidden political agenda? This book has a light-hearted satirical tone overall; it's not one of Zola's deep, philosophical works. Those who have read The Fortune of the Rougons will enjoy the depiction of Plassans, and the further development of some of the characters that appeared in that first book. The characters are engaging and the plot has some surprises in it. Zola seems to have had fun writing it, and it is a fun ride for the reader.

A devil of a man: he asks nothing, and you tell him everything.
Imagine you are the father of three teenage kids, one of whom is `innocent', i.e. mentally handicapped. You live with the family in a large house with a nice garden in Southern France. You have earned money as a trader in the past and are now semi - retired. Though you are not religious, you let the local priest talk you into letting the upper level of your house to a new priest, one who moves here from near Paris. The lodger turns up with his mother and moves in stealthily. They are frugal people and nobody knows anything about them. In the course of events you watch the lodger make a church career and a political one and you watch him take over the mind of your wife, who turns religious, while you, the father of the family and owner of the house, are moved out of the way in the most systematic way: the priest and his entourage establish themselves in the house like a cancer grows in a body. That drives you crazy as it would almost anybody. (The process of driving M. Mouret to insanity is worthy of absurd theatre at its best. Did Ionesco know Zola well? I wouldn't be surprised! I need to follow this up.)

This is volume 4 of the Rougon-Macquart series, in terms of publishing chronology. In a way it is a direct sequel to volume 1: it continues the tale how the elder Rougon couple consolidates wealth and influence in provincial Plassans (which stands for Aix en Provence). Central character is the ambitious priest, patronized by the Rougon couple upon recommendation by their high-flying son in Paris (His Excellency). The priest gains political influence in the town as well as personal power over a Rougon daughter. The book is, in Zola's own words, about wolves and rats. The main political subject of the whole series of 20 is the corruption and moral decay of the second empire of Napoleon III. On a personal level, Zola investigates `appetites', like ambitions or greed.

Two key themes of this sequel are worldly ambitions of churchmen and the inheritance of mental insanity. We remember from volume 1, that the mother of Rougon and Macquart was institutionalized. She stays in an asylum until old age. In this volume, one of her grandsons is taken to the same institution. Her great-granddaughter is the `innocent' teenager.
The priest, our bad guy, is one of those sly ones who watch and wait before they make their moves. He is a true relative in spirit of Felicity Rougon, the dynasty matriarch: always watching, if necessary hiding behind a curtain. There is a lot of spying going on here, through key holes and in more sophisticated manners.

Zola was a writer who liked to surprise. After the heavy doses of naturalism in the previous sequel, The Belly of Paris, here we are given a psychological thriller which stays away from theoretical treatises and from his penchant for word orgies. (Read his market inventories in the Belly if you want to know what I mean. Or read the garden descriptions in La Curee.) The political games are played among three parties: the Rougon are on the side of the Bonapartistes, who have to fight for keeping their power against Republicans as well as Legitimists, i.e. supporters of the Bourbons dynasty.

This book has been called by some the best of the whole series. I must suspend my opinion on that until after volume 20.

Lots of political intrigue, but the novel is also interesting, because here Rougons and Macquarts are cross-bred. As one can recall from the first novel "La Fortune des Rougons/the Career of Rougons", Pierre Rougon was never particularly fond of his two
half-siblings, nonetheless, his daughter marries the son of his half-sister. Both die after loosing their sanity. It is a neurological disease that clearly was passed down to them from their grandmother. It sets Martha Rougon apart from her three brothers, two of whom were very practical. In general, all the neurological diseases are much more traceable among Macquarts than Rougons.