?‰mile, 1840-1902 / 2008-06-23 00:00:00

EBOOK THREE CITIES: LOURDES ***


Produced by Dagny [dagnypg@yahoo.com]
and David Widger [widger@cecomet.net]


THE THREE CITIES

LOURDES

BY
EMILE ZOLA

TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY

PREFACE

BEFORE perusing this work, it is as well that the reader should
understand M. Zola's aim in writing it, and his views--as distinct from
those of his characters--upon Lourdes, its Grotto, and its cures. A short
time before the book appeared M. Zola was interviewed upon the subject by
his friend and biographer, Mr. Robert H. Sherard, to whom he spoke as
follows:

"'Lourdes' came to be written by mere accident. In 1891 I happened to be
travelling for my pleasure, with my wife, in the Basque country and by
the Pyrenees, and being in the neighbourhood of Lourdes, included it in
my tour. I spent fifteen days there, and was greatly struck by what I
saw, and it then occurred to me that there was material here for just the
sort of novel that I like to write--a novel in which great masses of men
can be shown in motion--/un grand mouvement de foule/--a novel the
subject of which stirred up my philosophical ideas.
"It was too late then to study the question, for I had visited Lourdes
late in September, and so had missed seeing the best pilgrimage, which
takes place in August, under the direction of the Peres de la
Misericorde, of the Rue de l'Assomption in Paris--the National
Pilgrimage, as it is called.
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