mine
The Voreux
The fictional coalmine at the centre of Germinal — dark, devouring, almost alive. Its name (from Latin vorare, to devour) signals its role as the maw that swallows men whole. The flooding and collapse of the Voreux in the novel's climax is one of the great catastrophic set pieces of nineteenth-century fiction.
La mine fictive au cœur de Germinal. Son nom vient du latin vorare (dévorer). Son inondation finale est une des grandes catastrophes de la fiction du XIXe siècle.