people conceived only of punishing the vindicator along with
victim, for daring to accuse their processes of injustice.
Outrage, violence, and the peril of death greeted Zola from his
fellow-citizens, and from the authorities ignominy, fine, and
prison. But nothing silenced or deterred him, and, in the swift
course of moral adjustment characteristic of our time, an
innumerable multitude of those who were ready a few years ago to
rend him in pieces joined in paying tribute to the greatness of
his soul, at the grave which received his body already buried
under an avalanche of flowers. The government has not been so
prompt as the mob, but with the history of France in mind,
remembering how official action has always responded to the
national impulses in behalf of humanity and justice, one cannot
believe that the representatives of the French people will long
remain behind the French people in offering reparation to the
memory of one of the greatest and most heroic of French citizens.

It is a pity for the government that it did not take part in the
obsequies of Zola; it would have been well for the army, which he
was falsely supposed to have defamed, to have been present to
testify of the real service and honor he had done it. But, in
good time enough, the reparation will be official as well as
popular, and when the monument to Zola, which has already risen
in the hearts of his countrymen, shall embody itself in enduring
marble or perennial bronze, the army will be there to join in its
consecration.


V