It will suffice to say, briefly, that the author meets the strictures of his critics by pointing out and insisting on the fact, that he has simply sought to make an analytic study of temperament and not of character.
"I have selected persons," says he, "absolutely swayed by their nerves and blood, deprived of free will, impelled in every action of life, by the fatal lusts of the flesh.

Therese and Laurent are human brutes, nothing more.

I have sought to follow these brutes, step by step, in the secret labour of their passions, in the impulsion of their instincts, in the cerebral disorder resulting from the excessive strain on their nerves." EDWARD VIZETELLY SURBITON, 1 December, 1901.
THERESE RAQUIN.