Abstract: Evoked in the introductory dossier to the Rougon-Macquart, the word fortune deploys its rich polysemy in the first novel of the series. It supports the scenario of a bourgeois epic which is also a conquest of words and symbols inherited from the past. While each member of the Rougon family incarnates the destiny provoked by circumstances in his or her way, the sinuous rapport that Félicité entertains with fortune confirms the author’s interest in this fundamental term.
