DEATH OF M. ZOLA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12472, 1 October 1902, Page 5

DEATH OF M. ZOLA.

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. PARIS, September 29. (Received Sept. 30, at 1.7 p.m.) M. Emile Zola, the novelist, is dead. The cause was accidental asphyxiation. Zola was 62 years of age. (Received Sept. 20, at L 7 p.m.) M. Zola's death was caused by a defective stovepipe in his bedroom. Madame Zola was also affected, but she is recovering. September 30. (Received Sept. 30, at "9.35 p.m. ) j M. Zola returned from the country on Sunday. The house was cold, and a fire was lighted in a fireplace. The chimney smoked, and . the servants lowered a metal sheet, leaving blocks of fuel to smoulder, but opened the windows, closing them again at night. There are indications that the blocks burned slowly and exhaled a gas, which, accumulating in the defective chimney, penetrated M. Zola's bedroom. The servants knocked at the bedroom door, but, obtaining no response, entered, and found M.' Zola lying on the floor quite dead. Madame was in bed unconscious. When animation was restored she stat-ed that she had had a headache, and asked her husband to open a window. He then fell and she fainted. Experts say the fumes were strongest near the floor.

CM. Emile Zok, was born at Aix in 1840. He lost his father, an Italian, who gained eminence as a civil engineei, when seven years of age. Young Zola was taken to Paris in 1858, and obtained a scholarship. He left the Lycee in 1860, and spent some two months working at the dock, but threw up the post. From abject misery he was rescued by the introduction a friend gave him to M. Louis Hachette, head of the great publishing house. In 18G2 Zola entered the office as a clerk, at £1 a week. He was at first employed to pack up parcels of books, but was soon promoted to the advertising department, with a slightly increased salary. All his spare time he devoted to literary work. He gave up poetry, and from 1852-62 wrote short stories, afterwards published as " Contes a Ninon." In 1806 he resigned his position, convinced he could earn a living by his pen. He published serials and novels, but despite his six published volumes he had'achieved no great success. Then came to him the idea of bringing the scientific laws of heredity within the scope of romance, and he drew tip, after eight months' hard work in libraries, museums, and the streets, the now famous genealogical tree of the family of the Rougons (to be found in " Une Page d'Amour " and in " Docteur Pascal"). In 1869 he went to his publisher, Lacroix," and offered to write 12 volumes of a series to be styled " Le3 Kougon-Mocouart," and the contract was signed in Iv'ay of that year. He applied his theory to the document huuiain, and in doing so he had to master the technical details of most professions, trades, and occupations. But the Franco-Prussian war and various other causes no doubt affected' the success of the first books of the series. But all this changed with the appearance of " L'Assomrnoir." Its serial appearance was as usual stopped by the outcries as to its immorality. It was dramatised, and the play is well known as " Drink." The next volume of the series was " U-;* Page d'Amour," and this was followed by " N-.uia," a work which made even a greater sensation than " L'Assomnioir." It was published serially 'by the Voltaire, and its first edition, ran ir.to 55.000, a number up till then v.-hhoct precedent in French publishing. Alter th'a c&ch successive volume of the Rov.gon-MacQusi.rt had its success .-ssivccd beforehand, and their author was recognised even by his most violent opponents as one of the forces to be recorded with in contemporary literature. In 1893 he visited London as the guest of the English Institute of Journalists, and received a cordial reception. The year 1898 was it momentous one in the w.thor's life. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, condemned in 1891, had been languishing for three yuars off. the fever-stricken coact of Cayenne; during those three years his devoted family and friends had been struggling to obtained a revision of his so-called trial. They could gain no hearing, but Zola, once convinced of the injustice that had beer, dons, and supremely careless of all personal consequences, compelled France and the entire world to listen to his case. His letter j'i;ocus t > was published in M. Ciemenceau's journal L'Aurore on January 13, 1603. The sensation created was enormous, and he wa3 immediately prosecuted for having said that the judges who tried Estorhazy had acquitted him by order. The trial took place in Paris 'from the 7th to the 23rd February, and was the one subject of interest at the time. People waited for hours for a. chance of a peep into the court, and the courageous author had to be protected by the police from the attacks of a brutal mob. The evidence was strongly in favour of M. Zola's contentions—namely, that Dreyfus had been condemned illegally, that the fact's against him had been without significance, and that the bordereau ws,3 written not by Dreyfus but by Esterhazy. But Genera! dc Boisdeffre, the chief of the General .9tafF. came forward and threatened the jury with the resignation of the whole staff if Zola were acquitted, and in the end he was condemned to the maximum penally, m spite of the heroic efforts of his council, M. Imbori. He appealed against this decision, and the trial was quashed on an informality; again the military authorities decided to prosecute him, and he was again condemned, this time by dofault, at "Versailles. "Whereupon he left the country and came to England, where he lived in retirement in a village near Birmingham until the Court of Cassation gave its judgment on the whole question of revision. In consequence of his condemnation the Chancellor of the Legion of Honour erased his name from the rollj