num_pages: 488
description: In The Three Cities, Zola moves from a study of France's Second Ernpire past to the Republican present, and directly addresses the religious and social issues of his age. Set at the turn of the century, the three-part itinerary of Lourdes, Rome and Paris can be regarded as an updated pilgrim's progress.Three years after returning empty-handed from Rome, Abbé Pierre Froment's ceaseless missions, in which the reader follows him from finely-depicted slum, boudoir, and salon to intrigue-ridden Parliament itself, have convinced him of the uselessness of practical charity. He is reunited with his brother, Guillaume, whose anarchist acquaintances believe that terrorism is the means whereby society will be generated, and in his fiancée, Marie, meets a woman who seems unconsciously to prefer the troubled priest.Will the tranquil scientific rationalism of this family home help Pierre at last to lay down the burden of his cassock?
language: English
title: Paris
titlecomplete: Paris (Three Cities Trilogy, #3)
genres: Literature, Classics, Novels, 19th Century, France, French Literature, Fiction, Classic Literature
ratings_count: 179
series: Three Cities Trilogy
publisher: Sutton Pub Ltd