Emile Zola - The Pen Is Mighty

The NBC University of the Air, a public service of the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations, presents We Came This Way, a new historical series for listeners at home and overseas. With Clifton Uptley as narrator, we present Chapter 10, Emile Zola. The pen is mightier than the sword on We Came This Way.

The day is Sunday, October 7, 1902. A gusty autumn wind blows across Paris. The kind of a day you love. But never again will you feel your pulse quick into the seasons. You're dead. 62 years of struggle.

And now you're dead. 10,000 people stand before your coffin. Heads uncovered. Listening to Anatol France tell them how great you were. Look at you. Look at him, but do not pity him, but party in the hood and summer.

End be him in space. The Prince of Manaco is their listening. The artist Renoir. The tired man with the neat mustache. That's Alfred Dreyfus. Next to him a working man in Blausencap. Weeping old friends Cezanne.

And Anatole France making your funeral oration. His genius in humanity. One boy in the grand is from history. For one splendid moment, Ebeel Zola was the conscious of mankind. The conscience of mankind. You were entombed forever in those marble words.

Posterathy would remember the words. But the man, will they remember Zola the man? Not marble, but flesh and blood. Remember those days of your youth on the left bank, struggling, starving, dreaming? Louis Napoleon was on the throne of France.

The rich were so rich. The poor, so poor. You were living in a garret. Cézanne, your dearest friend, lived with you. You were going to be the greatest poet in the world. He is the greatest painter.