On Friday I sent my daughter Violette to Norwood with a parcel of M. Zola’s photographs, received by Messrs. Chatto and Windus from Miss Loie Fuller, who being greatly interested in the Clarence Ward of St. Mary’s Hospital, particularly wished M. Zola to sign these portraits in order that they might be sold at a bazaar which was to be held for the benefit of the hospital referred to.  I told my daughter that I should myself go down to the Queen’s Hotel on the morrow, and she brought me back a message to the effect that I really must go, as complications had arisen, and M. Zola particularly desired to see me.

On the following day, Saturday, I therefore betook myself to Norwood with a parcel of M. Zola’s books, which I had received from Messrs. Macmillan & Co. on behalf of the Countess of Bective, who (prompted by the same spirit as Miss Loie Fuller) wished to sell these volumes at the ‘Bookland’ stall on the occasion of the Charing Cross Hospital Bazaar.  And when I arrived I found indeed that it was most desirable that the programme of M. Zola’s departure should be modified.

He had already seen M. and Mme. Fasquelle, the former of whom was much annoyed at the reports of his presence in London, and thought it most advisable to precipitate the departure.  Delay might, indeed, be harmful if it was desired to avoid demonstrations.  Besides, why should he wait until the ensuing Tuesday?  Why not return the very next night—­that of Sunday, June 4—­by the Dover and Calais route?  Mme. Fasquelle had declared that she in no way objected to travelling at night time; and so far as the departure from London was concerned, there would be few people about on a Sunday evening, which was another point to be considered.  I cordially assented, for now that the imminence of M. Zola’s return to Paris had been reported in the newspapers it was certain that delay meant a possibility of demonstrations both for and against him.  In spite of his prohibition, many of his friends still wished to greet him like a conquering hero on his arrival at the Northern Railway Station in Paris.  And the other side would unfailingly send out its recruiting agents to assemble a contingent of loafers at two francs per demonstration, who would be duly instructed to yell ‘Conspuez,’ and ‘A bas les juifs.’  Then a brawl would inevitably follow.

Now M. Zola (as I have already mentioned) did not wish for a homecoming of that kind.  There was no question of refusing to ‘face the music,’ of shunning a hostile crowd, and so forth.  It was purely and simply a matter of dignity and of doing nothing that might lead to a disturbance of the public peace.  The triumph of justice was undoubtedly imminent, and it must not be followed by disorder.

When I had expressed my concurrence in the views held by M. Zola and M. Fasquelle, M. Zola and I attended to business.  First came the question of Lady Bective’s books, in each of which a suitable inscription was inserted.  Afterwards, in a friend’s birthday book M. Zola inscribed his famous, epoch-making phrase, ’Truth is on the march, and nothing will be able to stop it.’  Finally, a few brief notes were written and posted, and work was over.