The conquest of Plassans

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Edition from 1880

The Conquest of Plassans ( French La conquête de Plassans ) is a novel by Émile Zola from 1874 and the fourth part of the twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle . As in the first novel Das Glück der Rougon family , the action takes place in the fictional small town of Plassans. The focus is on a clergyman whose intrigues have tragic consequences for several of those involved.

action

City plan of Plassans drawn by Émile Zola for The Conquest of Plassans

Initially, the pleasant and relaxed everyday life of François Mouret and his wife Marthe Mouret, née Rougon, is described. François is a weak character who lacks assertiveness. Marthe suffers from an as yet unrecognized mental illness. You have three children. Her eldest son Octave, an attractive but incompetent young man who is very attractive to women, is the focus of the later novels A Fine House and The Ladies' Paradise . In addition, the Mourets have the younger son Serge and the mentally handicapped daughter Desirée. Both play important roles in The Sin of the Abbé Mouret .

Family life is disrupted when the Abbé Ovide Faujas and his old mother move in as lodgers. As Napoleon's agent, the clergyman is supposed to prevent the Republican candidate from winning the upcoming prefect election, which is not yet clear at the beginning of the plot. At first he appears as a mysterious stranger who over time gains influence over Marthe and various influential residents of Plassans through intrigues and slander. The Abbé Faujas' sister, Olympe, and her husband Trouche also move in with the Mourets. Soon they take up more and more space in the house, eat the groceries from the pantry and push François out of the family. Marthe falls into a religious madness and is fixated on Abbé Faujas. After all, as the confusion increases, a phase begins in which she inflicts multiple injuries on herself. Mouret is accused of deliberate manipulation of the new residents of the house, who is then taken to a madhouse as "insane". Now the unpleasant homeowner and at the same time a political opponent have been removed from the way.

As a result of the events and clever tactics of the Abbé, the previously hostile political camps are now moving closer together again and agree on a common behavior in the upcoming election. The voting decision falls on the Napoleonic candidate.

Marthe realizes that she was just a tool of the Abbé all along and turns away from him. After visiting her husband in his cell full of guilt, she goes to see her uncle Macquart, a free thinker who had been skeptical about developments for some time. He has an old argument with Marthe's parents and considers them to be the masterminds behind the whole intrigue.

That same night, François breaks out to visit his wife at home and finds his house captured by the Faujas clique. He set fire to his house in anger. Together with the intruders, he dies in the fire. Marthe dies shortly afterwards in her mother's house of the consequences of her mental illness and exhaustion (tuberculosis ??).

Macquart, who made the freeing of the “lunatic” Mouret possible in order to damage the Rougon and their clans with his predictable reaction, has done himself a disservice. He must recognize that the death of the Abbé Faujas now paved the way for the Rougon to consolidate their power and influence.

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