The Fortune of the Rougons

by Émile Zola

"The Fortune of the Rougons" by Émile Zola is a novel published in 1871. It opens the twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart series, tracing two branches of a family descended from the troubled Adelaide Fouque. Against the backdrop of Napoleon III's 1851 coup d'état in provincial France, the ambitious Rougons scheme for wealth and status while their working-class Macquart relatives struggle to survive. A young couple's idealistic romance collides with political upheaval as family destinies unfold.