Abstract:La Fortune des Rougon can be read in the light of the insurrection of the Paris Commune. Zola, unable to prevent a somewhat risky reading which would superimpose the massacre of the Communards onto the massacre of the insurgents of Plassans, anticipated this himself when revising his text - envisaged in reaction to Les Misérables from the start - for its publication as a volume. These revisions are studied here. They testify to the strange topicality of the novel.
