According to Henry Héricourt (_Revue Bleue_, p. 14), M. Zola was inspired by a recent trial, that of the apothecary Fenayron, who is said to have had much resemblance to Roubaud. Marin Fenayron, the apothecary, was a man of forty-one, intelligent, steady, and industrious. He had married, twelve years before, the youngest daughter of his old employer, whom he had succeeded. His wife, who was eighteen years old at the time of her marriage, and who had consented to the union only with repugnance, was not slow to deceive him, and soon formed an intimacy with his assistant. This triangular relation lasted a time, not precisely stated by the proceedings, but sufficiently long for Gabrielle Fenayron, tired of her first lover, to take the opportunity to replace him by several others. The husband, who during this time has become a gambler and idle fellow, is informed of the misconduct of his wife. Although he did not put much credit in this at first, yet in the quarrels which followed and were continually renewed he ended by abusing her, striking her, and menacing her with death: and at last he obtained from her the confession of her relations with his old assistant Aubert, then himself established as a chemist. According to her recital, the woman could obtain the pardon of her husband only by the promise that she would assist him in his plans of revenge, and she had consented through shame without protesting. Then, by the order of her husband, she writes several letters to her old lover, renews relations with him, and finally, under the pretext of a country excursion, draws him into an ambush where she aided her husband in killing him with a hammer. It will be remembered that Aubert, after the first blow, turned round, recognised his murderer, and prepared to defend himself: but his mistress threw herself on him, twined her arms about him, and the husband could thus finish his work in safety. After the crime there was no remorse on the part of either the one or the other. Far to the contrary. The criminal pair delivered themselves anew to their accustomed distractions with the most perfect tranquillity, and the performance appeared without doubt very natural to Fenayron, for one day, meeting his mother-in-law, he accosted her, saying, "Well, Mother, it is done. I have killed Aubert." But let it be remarked how this Marin Fenayron, who figures as an occasional criminal, this time reveals himself a criminal by habit, meditating and premeditating his vengeance, waiting two long months before putting it into execution, surrounding himself with every precaution to secure immunity for the crime. Such a one certainly is not the violent man whom passion blinds and who is instantaneously inflamed with anger. It is rather the degenerated man with whom predisposition has found the opportunity to reveal and to develop itself. It is necessary to add that Marin had a brother feeble in mind: an hereditary defect.