"In these articles I have defended M. Manet as, throughout my life, I shall always defend every frank personality that may be assailed. I shall always be on the side of the vanquished. There is always a contest between men of unconquerable temperaments and the herd. I am on the side of the temperaments, and I attack the herd. Thus my case is judged, and I am condemned. I have been guilty of such enormity as to fail to admire M. Dubuffe, after admiring Courbet--the enormity of complying with inexorable logic. Such has been my guilt and simplicity that I have been unable to swallow without disgust the _fadeurs_ of the period, and have demanded power and originality in artistic work. I have blasphemed in declaring that the history of art proves that only temperaments dominate the ages, and that the paintings we treasure are those which have been lived and felt. I have committed such horrible sacrilege as to speak with scant respect of the petty reputations of the day and to predict their approaching demise, their passage into eternal nothingness. I have behaved as a heretic in demolishing the paltry religions of coteries and firmly setting forth the great religion of art, that which says to every painter: 'Open your eyes, behold nature. Open your heart, behold life.' I have also displayed crass ignorance because I have not shared the opinions of the patented critics, and have neglected to speak of the foreshortening of a torso, the modelling of a belly, draughtsmanship and colour, schools and precepts. I have behaved, too, like a ruffian in marching straight towards my goal without thinking of the poor devils whom I might crush on the way. I sought Truth and I acted so badly as to hurt people while trying to reach it. In a word, I have shown cruelty, foolishness, and ignorance, I have been guilty of sacrilege and heresy, because, weary of falsehood and mediocrity, I looked for men in a crowd of eunuchs. And that is why I am condemned." Such writing as this was bound to ruffle many dovecotes. There had previously been various efforts on behalf of the new school of painting, the complaints of injustice having led one year to the granting of a Salon des Réfusés, but never had any writer hit out so vigorously, with such disregard for the pretentious vanity of the artistic demigods of the hour. If, however, Zola was banished from "L'Événement" as an art critic, he was not silenced, for he republished his articles in pamphlet form,[10] with a dedicatory preface addressed to Paul Cézanne, in which he said: "I have faith in the views I profess; I know that in a few years everybody will hold me to be right. So I have no fear that they may be cast in my face hereafter." In this again he was fairly accurate: at least several of the views then held to be not merely revolutionary but ridiculous have become commonplaces of criticism.