The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes

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...