Le Rêve (novel)
| Author | Émile Zola |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Series | Les Rougon-Macquart |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Charpentier (book form) |
|
Publication date
|
1888 (book form) |
| Media type | Print (Serial, Hardback & Paperback) |
| Preceded by | La Terre |
| Followed by | La Bête Humaine |
Le rêve (The Dream) is the sixteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It is about an orphan girl who falls in love with a nobleman, and is set in the years 1860–69.
The novel was published by Charpentier in October 1888 and translated into English by Eliza E. Chase as The Dream in 1893 (reprinted in 2005). Other recent translations are by Michael Glencross (Peter Owen 2005) and Andrew Brown (Hesperus Press 2005).
Le rêve is a simple tale of the orphan Angélique Marie (b. 1851), adopted by a couple of embroiderers, the Huberts, whose marriage is blighted by a childlessness which they attribute to a curse uttered by Mme Hubert's mother on her deathbed. Angélique is enthralled by the tales of the saints and martyrs — particularly Saint Agnes and Saint George — as told in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine. Her dream is to be saved by a handsome prince and to live happily ever after, in the same way the virgin martyrs have their faiths tested on earth before being rescued and married to Jesus in heaven.
Her dream is realized when she falls in love with Félicien d'Hautecœur, the last in an old family of knights, heroes, and nobles in the service of Christ and of France. His father, the present Monseigneur, objects to their marrying for reasons of his own. (Before entering the Church he had married for love a woman much younger than himself; when she died giving birth to Félicien, he sent the child away and took holy orders.) Angélique falls ill and pines away. Won over by her virtue and innocence, the Monseigneur finally relents and the lovers are married; but Angélique dies on the steps of the cathedral as she kisses her husband for the first time. Her death, however, is a happy one: her innocence has freed the Huberts and the Monseigneur from their curses.
Zola's plan for the Rougon-Macquart novels was to show how heredity and environment worked on members of one family over the course of the Second French Empire. All of the descendants of Adelaïde Fouque (Tante Dide), Angélique's great-grandmother, demonstrate what today would be called obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Angélique is obsessed with the lives of the saints and with her dream of a princely marriage.
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