At the end of 1868 Zola drew up a scheme of his proposed "family history," even then preparing the original genealogical tree of the Rougon-Macquarts such as he conceived it.[9] He set down also the terms on which he would write the series, which at this date he proposed to limit to twelve volumes. And he carried everything to his publisher, M. Lacroix, who, while regarding the offer favourably, would not bind himself at the outset for more than the first four volumes. An agreement in that sense was signed in the spring of 1869; it being stipulated that Zola was to write two volumes each year and to receive five hundred francs a month from Lacroix, not in actual payment for his work but as an advance. The stories were to be sold in the first instance to newspapers for serial issue, and with the proceeds of those sales the publisher was to be refunded his advances, wholly or in part. On the subsequent publication in book form (each volume being priced at three francs[10]) the author was to receive a royalty of forty centimes (or about thirteen per cent) on every copy sold. But if the publisher's advances had not been fully repaid with the newspaper money he was to reimburse himself out of the book royalties as they accrued. So far, the arrangement, though somewhat unusual, would not seem to have been unduly intricate, but it was rendered so by the further stipulation that every month, on receiving his advance of five hundred francs, Zola should hand Lacroix a promissory note for that amount, at three months' date, those notes being renewable until each volume was issued, when a proper account was to be drawn up. But with this system confusion set in, particularly as after a long delay in the serial issue of the first volume the War of 1870 supervened, in consequence of which M. Lacroix found himself in serious financial difficulties. To Zola, at the outset, everything seemed clear sailing. He had ensured himself an annual income of six thousand francs[11] for at least two years, and he had only to set to work. Thus, in May, 1869, he started on his first volume, "La Fortune des Rougon," in which he pictured the origin of the family whose history he proposed to recount, and its first ignoble rise to position with the help of Louis Napoleon's _coup d'état_. The scene of the narrative was laid at Aix, which had so long been Zola's home and which, for his literary purposes, he now called Plassans.[12] His book was written in a Republican spirit with considerable boldness for those Imperial times. And in this connection, by way both of refuting a suggestion made by Edmond de Goncourt, that Zola, in his penury, would willingly have sold himself to the Empire, had it chosen to buy him, and of showing the young author's participation in the journalism of the period, it is as well that one should momentarily retrace one's steps.