This has been so well understood by French readers that during the last six or seven years the annual sales of the work have increased threefold.

Where, over a course of twenty years, 1,000 copies were sold, 2,500 and 3,000 are sold to-day.

How many living English novelists can say the same of their early essays in fiction, issued more than a quarter of a century ago?
I may here mention that at the last date to which I have authentic figures, that is, Midsummer 1897 (prior, of course, to what is called "L'Affaire Dreyfus"), there had been sold of the entire Rougon-Macquart series (which had begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies.

These were of the ordinary Charpentier editions of the French originals.

By adding thereto several _editions de luxe_ and the widely-circulated popular illustrated editions of certain volumes, the total amounts roundly to 2,100,000.
"Rome," "Lourdes," "Paris," and all M.Zola's other works, apart from the "Rougon-Macquart" series, together with the translations into a dozen different languages--English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and others--are not included in the above figures.