which did duty during the German investment, in erecting others in advance of them so as to enclose a larger stretch of country, whence the city might derive supplies of food in time of siege, the French military authorities have followed in all noteworthy respects the line traced by François Zola, first in 1831, and secondly in 1840! Thus time brings round its revenges. François Zola was a gifted and able man, and well might a son be proud of having such a father. How proud Émile Zola was to have sprung from one who showed such practical and far-seeing genius, how he vindicated his memory, and smote his traducers, all may read in the little volume entitled "Truth on the March." But before François Zola made fresh efforts in the matter of fortifying Paris, he had quitted Marseilles for Aix, the old capital of Provence, having observed in the course of some visits how greatly that ancient city and some of the surrounding country suffered from a lack of water. The idea of damming certain gorges, forming huge reservoirs into which the mountain torrents might fall, and bringing the water to Aix by a canal, occurred to him, and he had already studied the matter for some months, when, in September, 1838, the chief local journal, "Le Mémorial d'Aix," gave publicity to his views. A preliminary agreement with the Municipal Council followed in December, and from that moment, what with this canal scheme, the Marseilles project, and the plans for fortifying Paris, Zola had his hands full. He was frequently compelled to visit the capital, and on one such occasion he fell in love and married. This occurred early in 1839. François Zola, who is described as being a genuine Italian in appearance, dark, with a very expressive face, a delicately curved mouth, a well-shaped nose, and piercing eyes, was then three and forty, while his bride was in her twentieth year, simple, gentle, and very pretty. Their first meeting recalled that of Faust and Marguerite. He perceived her as she was leaving church, fell in love with her on the spot, sought her home and her parents in the Rue de Cléry, and wooed her with all the ardour of his Italian temperament. Her name was Françoise Émilie Aubert. Born in 1819, under the shadow of the tower of Philip Augustus, in the little town of Dourdan,[13] between the forest of that name and the great grain-producing plain of La Beauce--where Émile Zola laid the scene of his novel "La Terre"--she was of modest condition, her father having retired from business as a tradesman at Dourdan, and made his home in Paris, where he lived on a small income. But François Zola was no dowry hunter. He loved Émilie Aubert, and that sufficed. Her parents consenting to the match, everything was settled in a few weeks, the marriage taking place at the town hall of the First Arrondissement of Paris, on March 16, 1839.