His refusal, at the first opportunity, of the sub-prefectoral appointment which he had only accepted as a _pis-aller_, was therefore wise. He could not get rid of politics, whatever may have been his desires, but he at least confined himself to the duties of a political journalist. He became a correspondent of "Le Sémaphore," the chief daily paper of Marseilles, his connection with which lasted seven years. Further he placed himself in communication with "La Cloche" of Paris, for which he had written a few articles previous to the Siege, and which, curiously enough, was directed by Louis Ulbach,--the novelist and critic who had denounced "Thérèse Raquin" as "putrid literature." That quarrel, apparently, had been patched up, and Zola and Ulbach, while remaining of antagonistic literary schools, had found some basis of agreement in politics. At all events the former now became the descriptive parliamentary correspondent of "La Cloche," recording the doings of the National Assembly, first at Bordeaux, later at Versailles, his connection with this journal lasting till the summer of 1872, when he carried his pen to "Le Corsaire," for which he wrote several fiery political articles, one of which, called "The Morrow of the Crisis"[26] almost led to the paper's suppression. Leaving Bordeaux for Paris about the time when the Assembly removed to Versailles, Zola who had seen nothing of the German siege, at least witnessed various incidents of the Commune.[27] The little house in the Rue de La Condamine was now again his home, and at times he went about the city, and at others betook himself to Versailles, zealously attending to his duties for "La Cloche." At that moment there could be no thought of book-writing; but after the fall of the Commune at the end of May, 1871, he again turned to "La Curée," and prevailed upon Ulbach to print that story as a serial. Considerable confusion still prevailed in Paris, and he was put to many shifts for information which he needed--shifts which some of his critics afterwards imputed to him as crimes, though the wonder is that he should have been able to write such a book at all, in the hurly-burly through which France was passing.