In those days M. Zola’s most intimate friend--a companion of his boyhood and youth--was Paul Cézanne, a painter who developed talent as an impressionist; and the lives of Cézanne and Manet, as well as that of a certain rather dissolute engraver, who sat for the latter’s famous picture _Le Bon Bock_, suggested to M. Zola the novel which he has called _L’Œuvre_. Claude Lantier, the chief character in the book, is, of course, neither Cézanne nor Manet, but from the careers of those two painters, M. Zola has borrowed many little touches and incidents.* The poverty which falls to Claude’s lot is taken from the life of Cézanne, for Manet--the only son of a judge--was almost wealthy. Moreover, Manet married very happily, and in no wise led the pitiful existence which in the novel is ascribed to Claude Lantier and his helpmate, Christine. The original of the latter was a poor woman who for many years shared the life of the engraver to whom I have alluded; and, in that connection, it as well to mention that what may be called the Bennecourt episode of the novel is virtually photographed from life. * So far as Manet is concerned, the curious reader may consult M. Antonin Proust’s interesting ‘Souvenirs,’ published in the _Revue Blanche_, early in 1897. Whilst, however, Claude Lantier, the hero of _L’Œuvre_, is unlike Manet in so many respects, there is a close analogy between the artistic theories and practices of the real painter and the imaginary one. Several of Claude’s pictures are Manet’s, slightly modified. For instance, the former’s painting, ‘In the Open Air,’ is almost a replica of the latter’s _Déjeuner sur l’Herbe_ [‘A Lunch on the Grass’), shown at the Salon of the Rejected in 1863. Again, many of the sayings put into Claude’s mouth in the novel are really sayings of Manet’s. And Claude’s fate, at the end of the book, is virtually that of a moody young fellow who long assisted Manet in his studio, preparing his palette, cleaning his brushes, and so forth. This lad, whom Manet painted in _L’Enfant aux Cerises_ [‘The Boy with the Cherries’), had artistic aspirations of his own and, being unable to justify them, ended by hanging himself.