Germinal

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1885

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Part 4, Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4, Chapter 1 Summary

The Hennebeaus plan to have the Grégoires over for lunch the day the strike begins. M. Hennebeau is eager to please his wife: Mme. Hennebeau is used to money and finery, and M. Hennebeau has repeatedly relocated to find a position prestigious enough to satisfy her. He has “never possessed her as a lover” (204), and the two sleep in separate rooms. M. Hennebeau suspects his wife is having an affair with his nephew Négrel, who lives with them, but Mme. Hennebeau’s desire to orchestrate a marriage between Négrel and Cécile Grégoire makes M. Hennebeau believe he is mistaken.

The Grégoires arrive, and M. Hennebeau tells them he has drawn the curtains because he is afraid the striking miners are watching. Deneulin arrives in a panic that the strike will spread to Vandame. As they receive their luxurious meal, the party jokes at the vision of the cook being attacked with stones as she took the carriage to buy fish.

Deneulin says the current industrial crisis is “inevitable” (209) since they are coming off a period of prosperity. M. Hennebeau states that the miners used to make twice as much money. In turn, they developed “expensive tastes” and “find it hard to go back to their frugal ways” (209). He argues that “it’s not really our fault” (209) because factories are closing, and demand is falling. Deneulin surprises everyone by saying “the worker’s quite right to say that he’s the one who ends up paying the piper” (210).

Dansaert arrives to tell them a deputation of strikers is arriving at any time. M. Hennebeau says they’ve had strikes before and that they’ve never lasted more than a couple of weeks; this time, however, the organization is stronger, and he suspects Étienne is responsible. He hopes the Board of Directors won’t blame him for the strike. Mme. Hennebeau finds the miners ungrateful.

Négrel enjoys scaring M. Grégoire and suggests that the miners may loot him. M. Grégoire is horrified, insisting his great-great-grandfather earned his money “the hard way” (213). Deneulin says if the strike spreads to Vandame, it will “ruin” him (214). M. Hennebeau hopes it does, for he could “buy back the concession at a knock-down price” (214), thus gaining the approval of the Board.

Mme. Hennebeau encourages Négrel to flirt with Cécile, and Négrel halfheartedly obliges. The deputation arrives. M. Hennebeau goes to meet them in the drawing room while the others wait nervously at the table.

Part 4, Chapter 2 Summary

The previous day, Étienne and some other workers decide who would go to M. Hennebeau’s. Maheu and La Maheude, despite their anger, are nervous, and they fall “back into their habitual state of inbred acquiescence” (216). They are further horrified when Étienne tells Maheu he must be the one to speak, for he is the best miner and a local. La Maheude says Maheu is going to die “for everybody else’s sake” (217). Bonnemort is incredulous, believing the strike won’t work.

Étienne and Maheu meet Pierron and Levaque and go to Rasseneur’s to meet delegates from other villages. The group of 20 then walks to M. Hennebeau’s. They are kept waiting in the plush, warm drawing room for many minutes, hesitant to sit down. When M. Hennebeau enters and asks what they want to talk about, he is shocked to find that Maheu, “one of Montsou’s old guard,” is “at the head of these troublemakers” (219). Maheu tells him that’s why the men have chosen him to speak and that he hopes this proves that “this isn’t just a matter of a few hotheads wanting a fight” (219). He goes on to explain that they are not able to erect proper timbering because the time it takes reduces the amount of coal they can mine. If they received a just rate for coal, they could spend more time on the timbering. He also objects to the two centimes that the Company is pocketing with their new policy. As he speaks, he “listen[s] to himself in astonishment,” and the words “came pouring out of him, straight from the heart” (220).

A heated discussion ensues in which M. Hennebeau insists the Company is not pocketing money. He also says the Company intends to take control of the provident fund. When Étienne says the Company should not “make economics […] on the backs of the workers” (222), M. Hennebeau argues that “the Company has got just as much to lose in the present crisis as you have” (223). He says he will convey their demands to the Board but that they will surely meet rejection. Étienne says he wishes they could present their case in person. M. Hennebeau urges them to return to work by Monday. The group leaves “like a herd of animals, with their heads bowed and offering not a word of response to this prospect of surrender” (225).

Part 4, Chapters 1-2 Analysis

A vision is offered once again of the comfortable lives of the Hennebeaus and the Grégoires, whose lighthearted joking about the strike appears all the more oblivious and insensitive after the gravity of the previous chapter. Mme. Hennebeau refuses to let the strike impact her social schedule, telling her husband, “We’ve still got to eat, haven’t we?” (202). The party laughs when Mme. Hennebeau tells them the miners threw rocks at their cook as she travelled in the carriage to buy fish. Upon learning the deputation is coming, they joke about hiding the cutlery. They forget about the strike altogether with the arrival of their dessert. M. Hennebeau hopes to use the strike for his own benefit, musing how if the strike continues and Deneulin is ruined, he can buy back the concession, thus impressing the Board. Even Cécile’s smiling during the discussion of the strike, which reminds her of her own almsgiving, indicates that what is a most serious situation for the miners is exploited by the bourgeois for their own use.

The disconnect between the miners and the bourgeois is further demonstrated in the bourgeois’ fixation with their own plight, which they see as no less dire than that of the workers. M. Hennebeau believes the Company has “been just as badly hit” (209) by the industrial decline as the miners. His assertion to Maheu that investing in the mine entails “enormous risks” by the Company and that “[w]hile the workers are feeling the pain, so are they” (223) minimizes the depth of the miners’ suffering. M. Hennebeau’s suggestion that his pain is equal to the pain of the miners is an insult to those standing before him, who could eat for a month for “the price of the smallest ornament” (223) in his drawing room. It also suggests the workers are inherently less deserving of the comforts he enjoys.

The bourgeois’ belief in the workers’ inherent subservience is best demonstrated by M. Hennebeau, who upon realizing Maheu is one of the leaders of the strike expresses consternation, for Maheu is “always so reasonable” (219). Reasonable workers, he suggests, accept their place without seeking to upend the socioeconomic hierarchy that subverts them. His lament that the miners “used to be so peaceable” illustrates that obedience is workers’ natural state, that only “some plague” (221) could inspire them to rebel. It’s a sentiment also expressed by M. Grégoire, who assures the party the strike won’t last long because the miners are “decent people” who possess “traditional quiescence” (207)—in other words, that at their best, the miners accept their place. Notably, the Company has succeeded in convincing the miners that their lot is to be poor and subservient. Upon learning that he will be part of the deputation, Maheu hesitates, falling back into his “habitual state of inbred acquiescence” (216).

M. Hennebeau’s insistence that Maheu has been manipulated—that “[s]omebody’s been saying you can have jam today” (221)—infantilizes the workers, whom he casts as easily manipulated with the promise of treats. His belief that the miners are striking so they can enjoy little luxuries shows M. Hennebeau to be blithely oblivious to their reality—a sentiment he echoes earlier when he states the miners, having been “spoiled” by good times, are simply finding it “hard to go back to their frugal ways” (209). Finally, M. Hennebeau’s comment suggests small luxuries like jam are above the miners, who are presumptuous for seeking to rise above their station.

These chapters show that the bourgeois not only defend their privilege but also inherently believe that it is part of the natural order. This is nowhere more evident than in M. Grégoire’s losing his “innocent trust in the ways of the world” (212) when Négrel warns him that the miners may loot him. M. Grégoire’s statement that his great-great-grandfather built his fortune “the hard way” (213) by investing in the mines shows him to be ignorant of the backbreaking work of the miners. M. Grégoire, having lived in “serene unawareness” (212), has taken this natural order for granted, never expecting those beneath him would demand more for themselves. There is an expectation of privilege among the bourgeois that is akin to divine right. Those who do not accept this natural order are exhibiting “ingratitude” (212). It is unsurprising, then, that the miners fail to capture M. Hennebeau’s sympathy, and they slink from the room like the “herd of animals” (225) the Company thinks they are.