The Downfall

Émile Zola (1840–1902) grew up in Aix-en-Provence, where his best friend was the future painter Cézanne, and worked as a clerk for a Paris publisher before becoming a journalist and novelist. He planned and wrote a cycle of twenty novels following one family under the Second Empire, including Germinal and Nana.

In 1898 his open letter 'J'accuse...!' defended the wrongly convicted Captain Dreyfus and forced him into exile in England. He died in 1902, poisoned by fumes from a blocked chimney, and his remains were later moved to the Panthéon. Thérèse Raquin was his first success.