With Zola in England Part 1

With Zola in England.

by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly.

PREFACE

All that I claim for this little book, reprinted from the columns of 'The Evening News,' is the quality of frankness. I do not desire to check or disarm criticism, but I have a right to point out that I have performed my work rapidly and have largely subordinated certain literary considerations to a desire to write my story naturally and simply, in much the same way as I should have told it in conversation with a friend.

Very rarely, I think, have I departed from this rule.

The book supplies an accurate account of Emile Zola's exile in this country; but some matters I have treated briefly because he himself proposes to give the world--probably in diary form--some impressions of his sojourn in England with a record of his feelings day by day whilst the great campaign in favour of the unfortunate Alfred Dreyfus was in progress.

First, however, M. Zola intends to collect in a volume all his published declarations, articles and letters on the Affair. Secondly, he will recount in another volume his trials at Paris and Versailles; and only in a third volume will he be able to deal with his English experiences. The last work can scarcely be ready before the end of 1900, and possibly it may not appear until the following year. And this is one of the reasons which have induced me to offer to all who are interested in the great French writer this present narrative of mine. Should the master's promised record duly appear, my own will sink into oblivion; but if, for one or another reason, M. Zola is prevented from carrying out his plans, here, then, will at least be found some account of one of the most curious pa.s.sages in his life. And then, perchance, my narrative may attain to the rank of _memoire pour servir_.

I have said that I claim for my book the quality of frankness. In this connection I may point out that I have made in it a full confession of certain delinquencies which were forced on me by circ.u.mstances. I trust, however, that my brother-journalists will forgive me if I occasionally led them astray with regard to M. Zola's presence in England; for I did so purely and simply in the interests of the ill.u.s.trious friend who had placed himself in my hands.

That M. Zola should have applied to me directly he arrived in London will surprise none of those who are aware of the confidence he has for several years reposed in me. A newspaper referring to our connection recently called the great novelist 'my employer.' But there has never been any question of employer or employed between Mr. Zola and me. I should certainly never think of accepting remuneration for any little service I might have been able to render him; nor would he dream of hurting my feelings by offering it. No. The simple truth is that for some years now I have translated M. Zola's novels into English, and that I have taken my share of the proceeds of the translations. For the rest our intercourse has been purely and simply that of friends.

It is because, I believe, I know and understand Emile Zola so well, that I never once lost confidence in him throughout the events which led to his exile in England. That exile, curiously enough, I foreshadowed in a letter addressed to the 'Star' some months before it actually began.

When, however, one has been intimate with the French for thirty years or so it is not, to my thinking, so very difficult to tell what is likely to happen in a given French crisis. The unexpected has to be reckoned with, of course; and much depends on ability to estimate the form which the unexpected may take. Here experience, familiarity with details of contemporary French history, and personal knowledge of the men concerned in the issue, become indispensable.

On January 16, 1898, three days after M. Zola's famous 'J'accuse' letter appeared in 'L'Aurore,' and two days before the French Government instructed the Public Prosecutor to proceed against its author, I wrote to the 'Westminster Gazette' a long letter dealing with M. Zola's position. In this letter, which appeared in the issue of the 19th, I began by establishing a comparison between Zola and Voltaire, whose action with regard to the memory of Jean Calas I briefly epitomised.

Curiously enough at that moment M. Zola, as I afterwards learnt, was telling the Paris correspondent of the 'Daily Chronicle' that the opposition offered to his advocacy of the cause of Alfred Dreyfus was identical with that encountered by Voltaire in his championship of Calas.

This was a curious little coincidence, for I wrote my letter without having any communication with M. Zola respecting it. It contained some pa.s.ses which I here venture to quote. In a book dealing with the great novelist these pa.s.sages may not be out of place, as they serve to ill.u.s.trate his general att.i.tude towards the Dreyfus case.

'Truth,' I wrote, 'has been the one pa.s.sion of Emile Zola's life.* "May all be revealed so that all may be cured" has been his sole motto in dealing with social problems. "Light, more light!"--the last words gasped by Goethe on his death-bed--has ever been his cry. Holding the views he holds, he could not do otherwise than come forward at this crisis in French history as the champion of truth and justice. Silence on his part would have been a denial of all his principles, all his past life. . . .

Against him are marshalled all the Powers of Darkness, all the energy of those who prefer concealment to light, all the enmity of the military hierarchy which has never forgotten "La Debacle," all the hatred of the Roman hierarchy which will never forgive "Lourdes" and "Rome." And the fetish of Patriotism is brandished hither and thither, rallying even free-thinkers to the cause of concealment, while each and every appeal for light and truth is met by the clamorous cry: "Down with the dirty Jews!"

* He himself wrote these very words seventeen months later in his article 'Justice,' published in Paris on his return from exile.

'For even as Jean Calas was guilty of being a Protestant so is Alfred Dreyfus guilty of being a Jew, and at the present hour unhappily there are millions of French people who can no more believe in a Jew's innocence than their forerunners could believe a Protestant to be guiltless. Zola, for his part, is no Jew, nor can he even be called a friend of the Jews--in several of his books he has attacked them somewhat violently for certain tendencies shown by some of their number--but most a.s.suredly does he regard them as fellow-men and not as loathsome animals.

In the same way Voltaire wrote pungent pages against the narrow practices of Calvinism and yet espoused the causes of Calas and Sirven, even as Zola has espoused that of Dreyfus. The only remaining question is whether Zola will prove as successful as his famous forerunner. [Nearly the whole of the European press was at that stage expressing doubt on this point.]

In this connection I may say that I regard Zola as a man of very calm, methodical, judicial mind. He is no ranter, no lover of words for words'

sake, no fiery enthusiast. Each of his books is a most laborious, painstaking piece of work. If he ever brings forward a theory he bases it on a mountain of evidence, and he invariably subordinates his feeling to his reason. I therefore venture to say that if he has come forward so prominently in this Dreyfus case it is not because he _feels_ that wrong has been done, but because he is absolutely _convinced_ of it. Doubtless many of the expressions in his recent letter to President Faure have come from his heart, but they were in the first place dictated by his reason.

It is not for me here and at the present hour to speak of proofs, however great may be public curiosity; but most certainly Zola has not taken up this case without what he considers to be abundant proof. I do not say he will be able to prove each and every item of his great indictment, but when you wish to bring everything to light it is often necessary to cast your net so wide that none shall escape it, none linger in concealment with their actions unexplained. And I take it that whatever be the verdict of Zola's countrymen, whether or not Alfred Dreyfus be again and this time absolutely proved guilty . . . Zola himself will have done good work in striving to bring the whole truth to light so that it shall be as evident to one and all as the very sun itself. And this, when all is said, is really Zola's one great object in this terrible business.

'I may add that he is risking far more than his great predecessor risked in favour of Calas. Voltaire pleaded from his retirement on the Swiss frontier; Zola pleads the cause he has adopted on the very spot, on the very scene of all the agitation. Anonymous a.s.sa.s.sins threaten him with death in letters and postcards. Fanatical Jew-baiters march through the streets anxious for an opportunity to wreck his house and murder not only himself but his wife also in the sacred name of Patriotism.* Should their menaces be escaped there remains the a.s.size Court with a jury that will need to be brave indeed if it is to resist all the pressure of a deliberately organised "terror." At the end possibly lie imprisonment, fine, disgrace, ruin. How jubilantly some are already rubbing their hands in the bishops' palaces, the parsonages, the sacristies of France! Ah! no stone will be kept unturned to secure a conviction! But Emile Zola does not waver. It may be the truth, the whole truth will only be known to the world in some distant century; but he, anxious to hasten its advent and prevent the irreparable, courageously stakes all that he has, person, position, fame, affections, and friendships. . . . And this he does for no personal object whatsoever, but in the sole cause of truth and justice, ever repeating the cry common to both Goethe and himself: "Light, more light!"

* There is not the slightest doubt that M. Zola incurred the greatest personal danger between January and April 1898.

M. Ranc, the old and tried Republican, who knows what danger is, has lately pointed this out in forcible terms in the Paris journal _Le Matin_.

'Ah! to all the true hearts that have followed and loved him through years of mingled blame and praise, hard-earned victory and unmerited reviling, he is at this hour dearer even than he was before; for he has now put the seal upon his principles, and to the force of precept has added that of the most courageous personal example.'

This then is what I wrote immediately after the publication of Zola's letter 'J'accuse,' basing myself simply on my knowledge of the master's character, of the pa.s.sions let loose in France, and of a few matters connected with the Dreyfus case, then kept secret but now public property. And had I to write anything of the kind at the present time, I should, I think, have but few words to alter beyond subst.i.tuting the past for the present or future tense. In one respect I was mistaken. I did not imagine the truth to be quite so near at hand. Since January 1898, however, nine-tenths of it have been revealed and the rest must now soon follow. And I hold, as all hold who know the inner workings of l'Affaire Dreyfus, that M. Zola's exile, like his letter to President Faure and his repeated trials for libel, has in a large degree contributed to this victory of truth. For by going into voluntary banishment, he kept not only his own but also Dreyfus's case 'open,' and thus helped to foil the last desperate attempts that were being made to prevent the truth from being discovered.

I should add that in the following pages I deal very slightly with l'Affaire Dreyfus, on which so many books have already been written.

Indeed, as a rule, I have only touched on those incidents which had any marked influence on M. Zola during his sojourn in this country.

E. A. V.

MERTON, SURREY.

June 1899.

WITH ZOLA IN ENGLAND

I

ZOLA LEAVES FRANCE

From the latter part of the month of July 1898, down to the end of the ensuing August, a frequent heading to newspaper telegrams and paragraphs was the query, 'Where is Zola?' The wildest suppositions concerning the eminent novelist's whereabouts were indulged in and the most contradictory reports were circulated. It was on July 18 that M. Zola was tried by default at Versailles and sentenced to twelve months'

imprisonment on the charge of having libelled, in his letter 'J'accuse,'

the military tribunal which had acquitted Commandant Esterhazy. On the evening of the 19th his disappearance was signalled by various telegrams from Paris. Most of these a.s.serted that he had gone on a tour to Norway, a course which the 'Daily News' correspondent declared to be very sensible on M. Zola's part, given the tropical heat which then prevailed in the French metropolis.

On the 20th, however, the telegrams gave out that Zola had left Paris on the previous evening by the 8.35 express for Lucerne, being accompanied by his wife and her maid. Later, the same day, appeared a graphic account of how he had dined at a Paris restaurant and thence despatched a waiter to the Eastern Railway Station to procure tickets for himself and a friend. The very numbers of these tickets were given!

Yet a further telegram a.s.serted that he had been recognised by a fellow-pa.s.senger, had left the train before reaching the Swiss frontier, and had gaily continued his journey on a bicycle. But another newspaper correspondent treated this account as pure invention, and pledged his word that M. Zola had gone to Holland by way of Brussels.

On July 21 his destination was again alleged to be Norway; but--so desperate were the efforts made to reconcile all the conflicting rumours--his route was said to lie through Switzerland, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands. His wife (so the papers reported) was with him, and they were bicycling up hill and down dale through the aforenamed countries.

Two days later it was declared that he had actually been recognised at a cafe in Brussels whence he had fled in consequence of the threats of the customers, who were enraged 'by the presence of such a traitor.' Then he repaired to Antwerp, where he was also recognised, and where he promptly embarked on board a steamer bound for Christiania.

However, on July 25, the 'Pet.i.t Journal' authoritatively a.s.serted that all the reports. .h.i.therto published were erroneous. M. Zola, said the Paris print, was simply hiding in the suburbs of Paris, hoping to reach Le Havre by night and thence sail for Southampton. But fortunately the Prefecture of Police was acquainted with his plans, and at the first movement he might make he would be arrested.

That same morning our own 'Daily Chronicle' announced M. Zola's presence at a London hotel, and on the following day the 'Morning Leader' was in a position to state that the hotel in question was the Grosvenor. Both 'Chronicle' and 'Leader' were right; but as I had received pressing instructions to contradict all rumours of M. Zola's arrival in London, I did so in this instance through the medium of the Press a.s.sociation. I here frankly acknowledge that I thus deceived both the Press and the public. I acted in this way, however, for weighty reasons, which will hereafter appear.

At this point I would simply say that M. Zola's interests were, in my estimation, of far more consequence than the claims of public curiosity, however well meant and even flattering its nature.

One effect of the Press a.s.sociation's contradiction was to revive the Norway and Switzerland stories. Several papers, while adhering to the statement that M. Zola had been in London, added that he had since left England with his wife, and that Hamburg was their immediate destination.

And thus the game went merrily on. M. Zola's arrival at Hamburg was duly reported. Then he sailed on the 'Capella' for Bergen, where his advent was chronicled by Reuter. Next he was setting out for Trondhiem, whence in a few days he would join his friend Bjornstjerne Bjornson, the novelist, at the latter's estate of Aulestad in the Gudbrandsdalen.

Bjornson, as it happened, was then at Munich, in Germany, but this circ.u.mstance did not weigh for a moment with the newspapers. The Norway story was so generally accepted that a report was spread to the effect that M. Zola had solicited an audience of the Emperor William, who was in Norway about that time, and that the Kaiser had peremptorily refused to see him, so great was the Imperial desire to do nothing of a nature to give umbrage to France.

As I have already mentioned, the only true reports (so far as London was concerned) were those of two English newspapers, but even they were inaccurate in several matters of detail. For instance, the lady currently spoken of as Mme. Zola was my own wife, who, it so happens, is a Frenchwoman. At a later stage the 'Daily Mail' hit the nail on the head by signalling M. Zola's presence at the Oatlands Park Hotel; but so many reports having already proved erroneous, the 'Mail' was by no means certain of the accuracy of its information, and the dubitative form in which its statement was couched prevented the matter from going further.

At last a period of comparative quiet set in, and though gentlemen of the Press were still anxious to extract information from me, nothing further appeared in print as to M. Zola's whereabouts until the 'Times' Paris correspondent, M. de Blowitz, contributed to his paper, early in the present year, a most detailed and amusing account of M. Zola's flight from France and his subsequent movements in exile. In this narrative one found Mme. Zola equipping her husband with a nightgown for his perilous journey abroad, and secreting bank notes in the lining of his garments.

Then, carrying a slip of paper in his hand, the novelist had been pa.s.sed on through London from policeman to policeman, until he took train to a village in Warwickshire, where the little daughter of an innkeeper had recognised him from seeing his portrait in one of the ill.u.s.trated newspapers.

There was something also about his acquaintance with the vicar of the locality and a variety of other particulars, all of which helped to make up as pretty a romance as the 'Times' readers had been favoured with for many a day. But excellent as was M. de Blowitz's narrative from the romantic standpoint his information was sadly inaccurate. Of his _bona fides_ there can be no doubt, but some of M. Zola's friends are rather partial to a little harmless joking, and it is evident that a trap was laid for the shrewd correspondent of the 'Times,' and that he, in an unguarded moment, fell into it.

On the incidents which immediately preceded M. Zola's departure from France I shall here be brief; these incidents are only known to me by statements I have had from M. and Mme. Zola themselves. But the rest is well within my personal knowledge, as one of the first things which M.

Zola did on arriving in England was to communicate with me and in certain respects place himself in my hands.

This, then, is a plain unvarnished narrative--firstly, of the steps that I took in the matter, in conjunction with a friend, who is by profession a solicitor; and, secondly, of the princ.i.p.al incidents which marked M.

Zola's views on some matters of interest, as imparted by him to me at various times. But, ultimately, M. Zola will himself pen his own private impressions, and on these I shall not trespa.s.s. It is because, according to his own statements to me, his book on his English impressions (should he write it) could not possibly appear for another twelve months, that I have put these notes together.

The real circ.u.mstances, then, of M. Zola's departure from France are these: On July 18, the day fixed for his second trial at Versailles, he left Paris in a livery-stable brougham hired for the occasion at a cost of fifty francs. His companion was his _fidus Achates_, M. Fernand Desmoulin, the painter, who had already acted as his bodyguard at the time of the great trial in Paris. Versailles was reached in due course, and the judicial proceedings began under circ.u.mstances which have been chronicled too often to need mention here. When M. Zola had retired from the court, allowing judgment to go against him by default, he was joined by Maitre Labori, his counsel, and the pair of them returned to Paris in the vehicle which had brought M. Zola from the city in the morning. M.

Desmoulin found a seat in another carriage.

The brougham conveying Messrs. Zola and Labori was driven to the residence of M. Georges Charpentier, the eminent publisher, in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and there they were presently joined by M. Georges Clemenceau, Mme. Zola, and a few others. It was then that the necessity of leaving France was pressed upon M. Zola, who, though he found the proposal little to his liking, eventually signified his acquiescence.