El vientre de París

Zola focused on Les Halles, the Central Market of Paris -"a timid revelation of the 20th century"-, the action of the third novel in the cycle of The Rougon-Macquart. In it Lisa, a Macquart, prosperous and buxom owner of a delicatessen, unexpectedly hosts her brother-in-law Florent, a fugitive from the Cayenne prison, convicted of his republican activities. The Belly of Paris (1873) combines the exuberant vision of a "crowded Paris", with a thousand smells and colors, with a plot of noble revolutionary ingenuity, betrayed by the intrigues and rogues of "the decent people".