While conversing with M. Xau, Zola mentioned that some of his friends believed the manifesto to be an echo of the opinions of certain persons whom he held in high esteem, both personally and from a literary standpoint; but he had reason to know that the persons in question were really grieved by the factum to which they had given neither inspiration nor assent. The allusion was in part to Alphonse Daudet, by reason of his friendship with Bonnetain, but more particularly to Edmond de Goncourt, as the latter's "Journal" explains. Goncourt's house, his _grenier_, as one said in those days, had become the meeting-place of a number of young authors, who looked up to him much as others had looked up to Flaubert. And Goncourt, on reading the manifesto in "Le Figaro," had immediately exclaimed, "_Diable_, why four of them belong to my _grenier_!"[66] It naturally occurred to him that Zola might think the plot had been hatched there, under his auspices, and he felt extremely annoyed. A journalist who called on him suggested an article showing that he had no responsibility in the matter, but Goncourt declined to hide behind others. If anything had to be said he would say it himself. However, he went to dine at Champrosay with Daudet, and after they had decided that the manifesto was very badly written and outrageously insulting, they communicated privately with Zola, who was thus able to tell M. Xau that whatever might be said elsewhere, he knew that "the certain persons whom he held in high esteem" had nothing to do with the affair. On the other hand, some minor literary men adhered to the protest, and the incident was so sedulously exaggerated by Zola's enemies that one might have imagined the manifesto had come from novelists of high reputation instead of from beginners, who, with the exception of Bonnetain, had not yet half-won their spurs. The affair has been related in some detail here, first because a kind of legend has gathered round it, a legend repeated in many of the memoirs issued after Zola's death, and secondly because it ultimately had a notable result: the nomination of Zola as a knight of the Legion of Honour. Before recounting how that occurred it must be mentioned that "La Terre" was published in volume form late in 1887.[67] The attacks made upon it ever since the so-called "Manifesto of the Five" then acquired yet greater intensity, which a little later was checked somewhat by the uproar attending the decorations scandal in which President Grévy's son-in-law was implicated, followed by the President's resignation, the election of Carnot, and the increase of the Boulangist propaganda. However, at every pause in that turmoil the denunciation of Zola began afresh.