No. 6 · 1876
Son Excellence Eugène Rougon
His Excellency Eugène Rougon
The Rougon-Macquart cycle's great novel of political power, and one of Zola's most analytically precise. Eugène Rougon — eldest Rougon son, now president of the Council of State under Napoleon III — is surrounded by a 'bande' of clients and followers: ambitious provincials, scheming lawyers, social climbers, all hoping proximity to power will yield personal benefits. When he refuses to play the patronage game and bend his office to their private ends, they combine to engineer his fall. When the Emperor needs him back, he returns on his own terms, more powerful than before. Running through the novel as his equal and antagonist is Clorinde Balbi, an Italian adventuress who matches him strategy for strategy — the one person in his world he cannot dismiss. Zola is systematic about how Second Empire political machinery actually works: appointments, honours, favours, the constant performance of loyalty, the cynical distance between public principles and private calculation. Eugène is not corrupt in the simple sense — he does not steal money — but his devotion to power for its own sake makes him, in Zola's moral universe, the most complete expression of the Empire's values. The novel ends with him back in his ministerial chair, his followers reinstated, nothing changed. It is one of Zola's most controlled and purposefully cold books.
Roman du pouvoir politique pur. Eugène Rougon, président du Conseil d'État, voit sa 'bande' de fidèles le trahir quand il refuse de faire jouer ses relations en leur faveur. Il tombe, puis revient au pouvoir plus fort qu'avant. Face à lui, Clorinde Balbi, aventurière italienne, son égale en ambition et en intelligence. Zola dissèque les mécanismes du Second Empire avec une froideur analytique implacable.
Setting: Paris