Frequents the Café Guerbois in the Batignolles district of Paris, the rendezvous of the Impressionist painters. (November) L’Événement suppressed.

1867 Publication of Thérèse Raquin.

1868 (April) In the preface to the second edition of Thérèse Raquin, Zola announces his allegiance to the literary school of ‘Naturalism’. (December) Publication of Madeleine Férat. Begins to plan the Rougon-Macquart cycle of novels. Signs contract for the work with the publisher Lacroix. Continues to work as journalist for various newspapers.

1869 (May) Elections for Legislative Assembly. Civil disturbances in Paris. The action of La Bête humaine takes place between mid-February 1869 and July 1870.

1870 (8 May) Plebiscite on new constitution. (3 I May) Marries Alexandrine. (19 July) France declares war on Prussia. (September) Napoleon III surrenders to Prussia at Sedan. The Third Republic is declared. Zola moves temporarily to Marseille. Paris is besieged by the Prussian army. Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie go into exile in England. La Fortune des Rougon, the first of the Rougon-Macquart novels, begins to appear in serial form.

1871 (28 January) Armistice with Prussia. (March) Zola returns to Paris. (28 March) Election of the Commune. (28 May) End of the Commune. Publication in book form of La Fortune des Rougon.

1872 (January) Publication of La Curée.

1873 (April) Publication of Le Ventre de Paris, set in and around the central Paris market, Les Halles.

1874 (May) Publication of La Conquête de Plassans.

1875 (April) Publication of La Faute de l‘Abbé Mouret. 1876 (February) Publication of Son Excellence Eugène Rougon. The novel describes the career of a Minister of State under the Second Empire. Later in the year L’Assommoir appears in serialized form, firstly in Le Bien public, and subsequently in La République des Lettres (Le Bien public having refused to continue publication). The novel gives a sombre account of the effects of drink on the working-class inhabitants of the Paris slums.

1877 L’Assommoir is published in book form. The novel is a bestseller (thirty-eight impressions in one year) and establishes Zola’s reputation as a novelist. After years of hardship, Zola becomes a rich man. Paintings of the Gare Saint-Lazare by Monet.

1878 Zola buys a house at Médan, thirty miles outside Paris. He uses the house as a retreat for his writing. (June) Publication of Une page d’amour, a gentler story of domestic life. 1879 Publication in serial form of Nana, the story of a high-class prostitute.

1880 (8 May) Death of Zola’s literary mentor, Gustave Flaubert. (October) Death of Zola’s mother. Zola experiences depression and suspends work on the Rougon-Macquart novels.