Emile Zola was a French novelist who wrote in the school of naturalism and is noted for his work in revolutionizing France. The Rougon-Macquart series brought Zola literary fame and is considered his life work. It took 25 years to finish the 20 volumes. The idea of writing the social history of a family encompassing several volumes probably came from his reading the works of Balzac. Zola shows how people in a family who appear to be quite individualistic are actually quite similar. Heredity and proximity determine who we are and how we act. His Masterpiece is the story of Paris and art. It begins "CLAUDE was passing in front of the Hotel de Ville, and the clock was striking two o'clock in the morning when the storm burst forth. He had been roaming forgetfully about the Central Markets, during that burning July night, like a loitering artist enamoured of nocturnal Paris. Suddenly the raindrops came down, so large and thick, that he took to his heels and rushed, wildly bewildered, along the Quai de la Greve. But on reaching the Pont Louis Philippe he pulled up, ragefully breathless; he considered this fear of the rain to be idiotic; and so amid the pitch-like darkness, under the lashing shower which drowned the gas-jets, he crossed the bridge slowly, with his hands dangling by his side."