And at last came the fateful week which was to prove the accuracy of his surmises.

XV

LAST DAYS—­DEPARTURE

I spent the afternoon of Saturday, May 27, with M. Zola, and we then spoke of the proceedings impending before the Cour de Cassation.  All our information pointed to the conclusion that the Court would give judgment on the Saturday following, and it was decided that M. Zola should return to France a few days afterwards.  The date ultimately agreed upon was Tuesday, June 6, and the train selected was that leaving Charing Cross for Folkestone at 2.45 in the afternoon.

Though according to every probability the Court’s judgment would be in favour of revision, M. Zola was resolved to return home whatever might be the issue, and such were his feelings on the matter that nothing any friend might have urged would have prevented him from doing so.  As a matter of fact one friend did regard the return as somewhat unwise, and intimated it both by telegram and letter.  This compelled me to see M. Zola again on the following Tuesday (May 30), but the objections were overruled by him, and the arrangements which had been planned were adhered to.

M. Zola had now drafted the declaration which he proposed issuing on the morrow of his return home, and this he gave me to read.  It was the article ‘Justice,’ published in ‘L’Aurore,’ to which I have occasionally referred in the course of the present narrative.

I left M. Zola rather late that Tuesday night in the expectation that everything which had been arranged would follow in due course.  As the writing of ‘Fecondite’ was now finished he had time on his hands, and a part of this he proposed to devote to taking a few final snapshots of Norwood, the Crystal Palace, and surrounding scenery.  He needed something to do, for he could not sit hour by hour in his room at the Queen’s Hotel anxiously waiting for news of the proceedings at the Paris Palais de Justice.

For my part I had begun to prepare the present narrative, and as he would not listen to my repeated offers to take him to the Derby, it was arranged that I should not see him again until the end of the week.  On Friday, however, reports were already in circulation to the effect that M. Fasquelle (M.  Zola’s French publisher) had come to London for the purpose of escorting him home.

This was true, and I foresaw that the rumours might lead to some modifications of our programme; for M. Zola did not wish his return to have any public character.  He had forbidden all the demonstrations which his friends in Paris were anxious to arrange in his honour, declaring that he desired to go back quietly and privately, and then at once place himself at the disposal of the public prosecutor.