Son Excellence Eugène Rougon Œuvres complètes - Les Rougon-Macquart, VI

Son Excellence Eugène Rougon is, along with Lucien Leuwen, the greatest political novel of the nineteenth century. Zola studies the politician in his purest form, despotism, while trying to tell the story of “so-called serious business” under the Empire and illuminating its underbelly and vacuousness.