Abstract
In 1886 Emile Zola published La Terre (The Earth), a novel about peasant life in nineteenth-century France. In that novel, the peasant-proprietor Fduan, aware that he has reached an age at which he can no longer farm his own property, decides to divide it among his three children. Monsieur Baillehache, the notary before whom they all appear to legalize the transaction, feels that it is his duty to “make the usual comments.”