of Lourdes justified, was any real hope to be found in Rome, was the charity of Paris adequate or not? Zola returned a negative answer to all those questions; and at an early stage of the writing of "Les Trois Villes" he resolved to supplement this series by a further one which would enunciate the principles in which he himself believed, that is, Fruitfulness, Work, Truth, and Justice, all springing from the fundamental basis of Love. "Lourdes" gave him occupation throughout the winter of 1893-1894. It appeared first in the "Gil-Blas," which paid fifty thousand francs for the serial rights, and early in the autumn of 1894 it was issued as a volume,[9] whereupon a prelate of the papal household, a certain Monseigneur Ricard, vicar-general of the diocese of Aix, in Provence, arose to answer Zola, which he did in a very blundering way.[10] The fathers of the Lourdes grotto also attempted some direct denials of Zola's accusations of greed and imposture, and being all powerful in the town prevented the sale of the book there, while as a crowning stroke of condemnation it was deferred to Rome and promptly placed, like some of Zola's previous works, in the famous "Index Librorum Prohibitorum." Once again, also, abusive letters rained upon the author, some emanating from deluded believers in the Lourdes miracles, and others from angry priests and monks. Several of those correspondents interlarded their effusions with the language of the gutter, while others contented themselves with briefly cursing the man who presumed to doubt the sanctity of the unfortunate Bernadette, and the virtues of the spring which the Assumptionist Fathers had turned into a river of gold. That money was used in part for the purpose of subsidising Leo XIII, but the bulk was employed in fighting the French Republic with the object of restoring a monarchy under which the Church, and particularly its monks, would have been all powerful. Soon after "Lourdes" was finished Zola turned to "Rome," which necessitated a great deal of study. He was immersed in it when there came an incident fraught with grave future consequences for France. An artillery captain named Alfred Dreyfus, attached to the General Staff of the army, was arrested on a charge of communicating military secrets to the German embassy. The arrest took place on October 15, 1894, but did not become known until the end of the month, when it was divulged by two newspapers, "La Libre Parole" and "L'Éclair." Zola gave little or no heed to it, for quitting his books and papers he was at that very moment preparing for a visit to Rome, which he had projected for some time past.