Truth [Vérité]. Emile Zola

      PREFACE

      Conspicuous among the writings which influenced the great changes witnessed by the world at the end of the eighteenth century were the 'Nouvelle Héloise,' the 'Contrat Social,' the 'Émile ou l'Éducation' of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. At the close of the nineteenth, the advent of the twentieth century, one finds three books, 'Fécondité,' 'Travail,' and 'Vérité,' the works of Émile Zola, Rousseau's foremost descendant. It is too soon by far to attempt to gauge the extent of the influence which these works may exercise; but, disseminated in French and in many other languages to the uttermost ends of the earth, they are works which will certainly have to be reckoned with in a social as well as a literary sense. The writings of Rousseau, violently assailed by some, enthusiastically praised by others, ended by leaving their mark on the world at large. Very few may read them nowadays, but in certain essential respects their spirit pervaded the nineteenth century, and their influence is not dead yet, for the influence which springs from the eternal truths of nature cannot die. As for the critics who will undoubtedly arise to dispute the likelihood of any great influence being exercised by the last writings of Émile Zola, I adjourn them to some twenty years hence. Rome was not built in a day, many long years elapsed before the spirit of Rousseau's writings became fully disseminated, and, although the world moves more quickly now than it did then, time remains a factor of the greatest importance.

      Moreover, the future alone can decide the fate of Émile Zola's last books; for, while dealing with problems of the present time, they are essentially books which appeal to the future for their justification. Each of those three volumes, 'Fécondité,' 'Travail,' and 'Vérité,' takes as its text an existing state of things, and then suggests alterations and remedies which can only be applied gradually, long years being required to bring about any substantial result. It is known that the series was to have comprised a fourth and concluding volume, which would have been entitled 'Justice'; and indeed the actual writing of that volume would have been begun on September 29 last if, at an early hour on that very day, the hand of Émile Zola had not been stayed for ever by a tragic death, which a few precautions would undoubtedly have prevented. At an earlier stage it was surmised—on many sides I see by the newspaper cuttings before me—that this unwritten book, 'Justice,' would deal chiefly with the Dreyfus case, in which Zola played so commanding and well-remembered a part. But that was a mistake, a misconception of his intentions. Though his work would have embraced the justice dispensed in courts of law, his chief thought was social justice, equity as between class and class, man and man. And thus the hand of death at least robbed those who are in any way oppressed of a powerful statement of their rights.

      As for the Dreyfus case, it figures in the present volume, or rather it serves as the basis of one of the narratives unfolded in it. The Dreyfus case certainly revealed injustice; but it even more particularly revealed falsehood, the most unblushing and the most egregious mendacity, the elevation of the suppressio veri and the suggestio falsi to the dignity of a fine art. The world has known greater deeds of injustice than the Dreyfus case, but never has it known—and may it never again know—such a widespread exhibition of mendacity, both so unscrupulous and so persevering, attended too by the most amazing credulity on the part of nine-tenths of the French nation—for small indeed (at the beginning, at all events) was the heroic band which championed the truth. Behind all the mendacity and credulity, beyond the personages directly implicated in the case, stood one of the great forces of the world, the Roman Catholic Church. Of all the ministers of that Church in France, only one raised his voice in favour of the truth, all the others were tacitly or actively accomplices in the great iniquity. And that will explain much which will be found in Émile Zola's last book.

      The horrible crime on which he bases a part of his narrative is not ascribed to any military man (in fact the army scarcely figures in 'Vérité'); it is one of the crimes springing from the unnatural lives led by those who have taken vows in the Roman Church, of which some record will be found in the reports on criminality in France, which the Keeper of the Seals issues every ten years. Many such crimes, particularly those which are not carried to the point of murder, are more or less hushed up, the offenders being helped to escape by their friends in the Church; but sufficient cases have been legally investigated during the last thirty years to enable one to say that the crime set forth in 'Vérité' is not to be regarded as altogether exceptional in its nature. The scene of the book is laid in the French school world, and by the intriguing of clericalist teachers the crime referred to is imputed to a Jew schoolmaster. Forthwith there comes an explosion of that anti-Semitism—cruelly and cowardly spurred on by the Roman Church—which was the very fons et origo of the Dreyfus case.

      On the dogmas of the Roman Church, and on her teaching methods with the young, falls the entire responsibility of such fanaticism and such credulity. Republican France, fully enlightened respecting the Church's aims by many circumstances and occurrences—the Dreyfus case, the treasonable monarchical spirit shown by her officers when educated in Jesuit colleges, the whole Nationalist agitation, and the very educational exhibits sent by the Religious Orders to the last great world-show in Paris, exhibits which proved peremptorily that 1,600,000 children were being reared by Brothers and Sisters in hatred and contempt of the government of the country—France is now driving the Church from both the elementary and the superior schools. Those who merely glance with indifference at the Paris letters and telegrams appearing in the newspapers may be told that a great revolution is now taking place in France, a revolution partaking of some of the features of the Reformation, a change such as England, for instance, has not witnessed since Henry VIII. and James II. The effects of that change upon the world at large may be tremendous; Rome knows it, and resists with the tenacity of despair; but faith in her dogmas and belief in her protestations have departed from the great majority of the French electorate; and, driven from the schools, unable in particular to continue moulding the women by whom hitherto she has so largely exercised her influence, the Church already finds herself in sore straits, at a loss almost how to proceed. By hook or crook she will resist, undoubtedly, to the last gasp; but with the secularisation of the whole educational system it will be difficult for her to recruit adherents in the future, and poison the national life as she did poison it throughout the years of the Dreyfus unrest. She sowed the storm and now she is reaping the whirlwind.

      Besides the powerful 'story of a crime' which is unfolded in the pages of 'Vérité,' besides the discussion of political and religious methods and prospects, and the exposition of educational views which will be found in the book, it has other very interesting features. The whole story of Marc Froment and his struggle with his wife Geneviève is admirable. It has appealed to me intensely, for personal reasons, though happily my home never knew so fierce a conflict. Yet experience has taught me what may happen when man and woman do not share the same faith, and how, over the most passionate love, the sincerest affection, there may for that reason fall a blighting shadow, difficult indeed to dispel. And though Marc Froment at last found his remedy, as I found mine, living to enjoy long after-years of perfect agreement with the chosen helpmate, it is certain that a difference of religious belief is a most serious danger for all who enter the married state, and that it leads to the greatest misery, the absolute wrecking of many homes.