Excerpt from Rome In submitting to the English public this second volume of M. Zola's trilogy Paris, ' I have no prefatory remarks to offer on behalf of the author, whose views on Rome, its past, present and future, will be found fully expounded in the following pages. That a book of this character'will, like its forerunner Lourdes, ' provoke considerable controversy is certain, but comment or rejoinder may well be postponed until that controversy has arisen. At present, then, I only desire to say that, in spite of the great labour which I have bestowed on this translation, I am sensible of its shortcomings, and in a work of such length, such intricacy, and such a wide range of subject, it will not be surprising if some slips are discovered. Any errors which may be pointed out to me, however, shall be rectified in subsequent editions. I have given, I think, the whole essence of M. Zola's text but he himself has admitted to me that he has now and again allowed his pen to run away with him, and thus, whilst sacrificing nothing of his sense, I have at times abbreviated his phraseology so as to slightly condense the book. I may add that there are no chapter head ns in theoriginal, and that the circumstances under which the translation was made did not permit me to supply any whilst it was passing through the press; however, as some indication of the contents of the book - which treats of many more things than are usually found in novels - may be a con venience to the reader, I have prepared a table briefly epito wising the chief features of each successive chapter. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.