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Emile Zola: A Death Stranger than Fiction

By April 2, 2018Authors

Emile Zola was born on 2nd April 1840 and died on 29th September 1902. His life was interesting and full, and by today’s standards his death, by carbon monoxide poisoning, was pretty mundane but back then in 1902 was considered to be mysterious and caused great controversy.

Zola accrued many enemies during his life and thanks to a series of death threats always slept with his bedroom door firmly closed and locked. On 1st September 1902, Zola and his wife, Alexandrine returned from a trip to the country on a wet, cold night. They returned to their house on the rue de Bruxelles in Paris. After lighting a coal fire, the pair retired to bed, the window shut and door locked due to the death threats Emile Zola had received.

At 3am the pair woke, feeling unwell. Emile Zola appeared so unwell his wife wanted to call the servants but deciding it was just an attack of indigestion, Zola stopped her, a decision that would prove fateful. By 9am, servants worried why the pair hadn’t risen, and after failing to wake them the door was broken down.

Upon finding them both dead or close to death, doctors were called. Alexandrine was roused and rushed to hospital, Zola was unresponsive and despite doctors spending twenty minutes trying to revive him, died on the bedroom floor. By the afternoon, Alexandrine sent word to Zola’s mistress and the mother of his two children, Jeanne Rozerot, she immediately jumped to the conclusion that her lover had been murdered.

Rumours were rife of murder and a full inquest took place, special tests were conducted, and the fires were even lit and guinea pigs locked in the room. The flue was dismantled, but with little known then about Carbon Monoxide poisoning, officials were unsure of how best to test for it. Despite all of this, no evidence of carbon monoxide poisoning were found, but Zola’s death was attributed to natural causes.

Over the years, several theories have been raised, the most plausible in 1953 when it was suggested that Zola had been murdered by an anti-Dreyfusard stove-fitting contractor who was working on the house next door. It was reported to a French newspaper that he confessed on his deathbed to blocking the chimney from the roof, quietly unblocking it the next day, but it’s impossible to corroborate this story and so Zola rests in peace.

Except Emile Zola didn’t rest in peace, he didn’t even get to rest for eternity. Six years after his death his body was removed from the Montmartre Cemetery, taking across Paris and laid to rest in the Pantheon, the honoured mausoleum of France’s greats. This ceremony was not without controversy, French nationalists did all they could to stop the hearse, protesting along the route, but the ceremony continued and here is where Zola lays, spending eternity with Victor Hugo, and other French greats resting in the Pantheon.



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