Abbe Mouret’s Transgression

Abbé Mouret’s Transgression is a book by Émile Zola, first published in 1875. This intense and symbol-laden novel is the fifth volume in Zola’s monumental Rougon-Macquart series, a cycle of twenty novels exploring the lives of a single family under the Second French Empire. In this volume, Zola turns his penetrating eye to the moral and spiritual turmoil of Abbé Serge Mouret, a young priest stationed in a bleak, neglected village in Provence.

Tormented by religious ecstasy and repressive doctrine, Mouret’s life is dramatically upended when he suffers a breakdown and finds himself convalescing in a lush, almost Edenic estate — where he meets and falls in love with the innocent Albine. The novel explores themes of faith, guilt, nature versus religion, and the psychological consequences of institutional repression. Zola’s naturalist approach is infused here with gothic and symbolic elements, making this work stand out for its dreamlike, often feverish quality. The book caused controversy upon release due to its frank depictions of religious fervor, sexuality, and the conflict between spiritual duty and human passion. Today, it remains a powerful exploration of inner conflict and the tragic results of denying human nature in favor of imposed ideals. This is a 1900 translation by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly.