Abstract: The image of the common well which helps the idyll between Miette and Silvère develop infuses the whole novel, producing a two-fold metaphorical anchor: reflection and inversion. The reversal at work in La Fortune des Rougon merges with a rich poetics of revolution, inversion, insanity, and chiaroscuro. This allows us to survey the spaces of an insurrectional movement adjusted, by turns, to revolt, dramatic changes “beyond ordinary life’, and escape.
