Emile Zola

The Belly of Paris Emile Zola

Emile Zola's 1873 novel, The Belly of Paris, presents the story of Florent Quenu, a hapless political insurgent living in Paris during Louis Napoleon III's reign as Emperor of France. Although Napoleon was duly elected President of France in 1848, three years later he seized power in a coup d'etat, declared himself Emperor, and named his government the Second Empire. Florent, an ineffectual radical, is stirred to oppose the injustices of the Empire, but he is no match for the fattened bellies of bourgeois Paris. Florent joined the 1851 street riots protesting Napoleon's power-grab but was swept up in the government crack-down and deported to a penal colony in French Guyana on trumped-up charges of murder. Seven years later, Florent escapes and makes his way back to Paris.