To some of the aforementioned gatherings and dinners it will be necessary to refer again in the course of this narrative. What has been set down here will, however, indicate the nature of the companionship which came to Zola as he toiled along the path leading to success. He had not shaken off his old friends, he still gave his weekly dinners which one or another--Alexis, Marius Roux, Coste, Duranty, and Béliard, the painter,--attended, though some began to fall out of the ranks, carried hither and thither by their private interests. Meantime, he worked very zealously. In 1874, he completed his story, "La Conquête de Plassans,"--the fourth volume of the Rougon-Macquart series--and ran it through "Le Siècle" as a serial. When it was published, soon afterwards, in volume form by Charpentier, there was a sufficient demand to justify the printing of a second edition of this tale of priestly intrigue in public and private life.[8]
But Zola's eyes were still turned towards the stage, partly because he desired to apply certain theories to play-writing, and partly because he knew that the successful dramatist advanced far more rapidly than the successful novelist along the path to fortune. Thus, having finished his three-act comedy, "Les Héritiers Rabourdin,"[9] in which the gruesome was mingled with the farcical, he offered it to the Palais Royal Theatre. But the manager of that house only cared for amusing plays free from all lugubrious taint, his chief author being Labiche, whose name was synonymous with unadulterated merriment; so Zola soon carried his manuscript to M. Montigny of the Gymnase. Writing on July 23, 1874, to his friend and publisher, M. Charpentier, he gave the following account of the issue of his endeavours:----
"My negotiations with Montigny have fallen through. He handed me back my manuscript in the most charming manner, vowing that he had a keen desire to stage a play of mine. He even gave me my _entrées_ to the Gymnase, by way of consolation, no doubt. Briefly, my play frightened him, but it is certain that he long hesitated about it, and that the doors of his theatre will be open to me if I only undertake 'to be good.' As soon as my manuscript was returned to me I was eager to carry it elsewhere. Decidedly, it is a disease; one wants to be 'played,' whatever may be the chances. The only thing left for me to do was to knock at the door of the Théâtre de Cluny. I went there. And, yesterday, Weinschenk [the manager] accepted my play. It will pass before Flaubert's,[10] about the middle of September, heaven knows under what conditions, for the company frightens me terribly. But what would you have had me do? I had no alternative, I had to go to that galley to ensure myself some little peace of mind. It would have rendered me so unhappy to have left the manuscript lying in a drawer."