In sharp contrast with that greed for gain is the picture offered by the next volume, "Le Rêve" (V), where an immaculate lily arises from the hot-bed of vice, whence later, and as a further contrast, a type of foul shamelessness, Nana, the harlot, is also to spring. But it is best not to anticipate. In the first four volumes the Rougons, under the influence of heredity and surroundings, have shown themselves scoundrels, whereas in Angélique, the heroine of "Le Rêve," a girl of their blood appears who is all purity and candour. She comes upon the scene, precisely at this moment, to emphasise the author's conviction that, whatever he may have had to depict in his solicitude for truth, all is not vice, degradation, and materialism, that there are other aspirations in life besides the thirst for wealth, enjoyment and power. And here, too, the priesthood is shown in its better aspect: the good Abbé Cornille, the proud, heartbroken Bishop d'Hautecœur, in contrast with whom the scheming, unscrupulous Abbé Faujas appears in the next section of the series. This is "La Conquête de Plassans" (VI) which retains one in the provinces (whither one is carried from Paris in "Le Rêve"), and one is confronted by a carefully painted picture of middle-class society in a small town, this in its turn contrasting with the previous pictures of life in Paris. And now the baleful results which may attend marriages between cousins are exemplified. Marthe Rougon has married François Mouret, and both have inherited lesions from their common ancestress, Adélaïde Fouque. One of their children, Désirée, physically strong and healthy, is mentally an "innocent"; and they themselves are unhinged, the workings of their heredity being accentuated and hastened by the wiles of Faujas, the priest, who gains access to their home. He is a secret agent of the imperial government, and thus one again sees the Empire at work in the provinces, utilising the clergy to enforce its authority, and as often as not betrayed by it. In the end all collapses. The maddened Mouret sets fire to his home and perishes in the flames with Abbé Faujas, while Marthe dies of a disorder springing from her inherited hysteria.