The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Volume 5
Zola, Émile, 1840-1902
English
We will print you a perfectly bound paperback of your selected title and send it to you at your nominated address
Below is a summary of The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Volume 5
and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net]
THE THREE CITIES
PARIS
BY
EMILE ZOLA
TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY
BOOK V
I
THE GUILLOTINE
FOR some reason of his own Guillaume was bent upon witnessing the
execution of Salvat. Pierre tried to dissuade him from doing so; and
finding his efforts vain, became somewhat anxious. He accordingly
resolved to spend the night at Montmartre, accompany his brother and
watch over him. In former times, when engaged with Abbe Rose in
charitable work in the Charonne district, he had learnt that the
guillotine could be seen from the house where Mege, the Socialist deputy,
resided at the corner of the Rue Merlin. He therefore offered himself as
a guide. As the execution was to take place as soon as it should legally
be daybreak, that is, about half-past four o'clock, the brothers did not
go to bed but sat up in the workroom, feeling somewhat drowsy, and
exchanging few words. Then as soon as two o'clock struck, they started
off.
The night was beautifully serene and clear. The full moon, shining like a
silver lamp in the cloudless, far-stretching heavens, threw a calm,
dreamy light over the vague immensity of Paris, which was like some
spell-bound city of sleep, so overcome by fatigue that not a murmur arose
from it. It was as if beneath the soft radiance which spread over its
roofs, its panting labour and its cries of suffering were lulled to
repose until the dawn. Yet, in a far, out of the way district, dark work
was even now progressing, a knife was being raised on high in order that
a man might be killed.
Pierre and Guillaume paused in the Rue St. Eleuthere, and gazed at the
vaporous, tremulous city spread out below then. And as they turned they
perceived the basilica of the Sacred Heart, still domeless but already
looking huge indeed in the moonbeams, whose clear white light accentuated
its outlines and brought them into sharp relief against a mass of
shadows. Under the pale nocturnal sky, the edifice showed like a colossal
monster, symbolical of provocation and sovereign dominion. Never before
had Guillaume found it so huge, never had it appeared to him to dominate
Paris, even in the latter's hours of slumber, with such stubborn and
overwhelming might.
This wounded him so keenly in the state of mind in which he found
himself, that he could not help exclaiming: "Ah! they chose a good site
for it, and how stupid it was to let them do so! I know of nothing more
nonsensical; Paris crowned and dominated by that temple of idolatry! How
impudent it is, what a buffet for the cause of reason after so many
centuries of science, labour, and battle! And to think of it being reared
over Paris, the one city in the world which ought never to have been
soiled in this fashion! One can understand it at Lourdes and Rome; but
not in Paris, in the very field of intelligence which has been so deeply
ploughed, and whence the future is sprouting. It is a declaration of war,
an insolent proclamation that they hope to conquer Paris also!"
Guillaume usually evinced all the tolerance of a /savant/, for whom
religions are simply social phenomena. He even willingly admitted the
grandeur or grace of certain Catholic legends. But Marie Alacoque's
famous vision, which has given rise to the cult of the Sacred Heart,
filled him with irritation and something like physical disgust. He
suffered at the mere idea of Christ's open, bleeding breast, and the
gigantic heart which the saint asserted she had seen beating in the
depths of the wound--the huge heart in which Jesus placed the woman's
little heart to restore it to her inflated and glowing with love. What
base and loathsome materialism there was in all this! What a display of
viscera, muscles and blood suggestive of a butcher's shop! And Guillaume
was particularly disgusted with the engraving which depicted this horror,
and which he found everywhere, crudely coloured with red and yellow and
blue, like some badly executed anatomical plate.
Pierre on his side was also looking at the basilica as, white with
moonlight, it rose out of the darkness like a gigantic fortress raised to
crush and conquer the city slumbering beneath it. It had already brought
him suffering during the last days when he had said mass in it and was
struggling with his torments. "They call it the national votive
offering," he now exclaimed. "But the nation's longing is for health and
Back