To celebrate its completion his publishers gave a _déjeuner champêtre_ at the Chalet restaurant on the larger of the Grand Lac islands in the Bois de Boulogne. A numerous company of literary men and artists assembled there, but the proceedings may have aroused some jealousy among a few old friends, for men like Daudet and Goncourt were absent. The former, who had long since renounced the Academy and all its pomps, did not approve of Zola's "perpetual candidature"--he was, by the way, then offering himself for three _fauteuils_ simultaneously--and thus there was a coldness between them. Goncourt also was opposed to the Academy, and meditated the establishment of a rival one of his own "for novelists only." So in this case again there was some coldness, particularly as Zola felt that certain references to himself in the earlier volumes of the "Journal des Goncourt," then lately issued, were not quite such as one might have expected from a bosom friend. We know, however, by later entries in the "Journal," that Zola and Goncourt continued to meet virtually until the latter's death. True it is that Goncourt at one time meant to appoint Zola to the chief position in his so-called "Academy," and that he afterwards renounced that intention. But, contrary to what some writers have asserted, Zola was by no means disappointed at being left out of it. As a matter of fact, he had deliberately rendered himself ineligible by seeking admittance to the real Academy; and, besides, from the outset he had put very little faith in Goncourt's scheme. However, his friendship with Goncourt and Daudet, whatever their differences, subsisted till the last. Of the part which he took when Daudet died some mention will be made hereafter. [Illustration: MS.]