The Downfall (La Débâcle): A Story of the Horrors of War by Émile Zola

"The Downfall (La Débâcle): A Story of the Horrors of War" by Émile Zola is a novel published in 1892. Set during France's catastrophic defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the story follows Jean Macquart, a farmer-turned-soldier, and his comrade Maurice through the chaos of military collapse. From disorganized retreats to the devastating Battle of Sedan, the novel portrays war's brutality on soldiers and civilians alike. The final act plunges into the tragic Paris Commune uprising, where loyalties fracture and personal bonds face their ultimate test. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Read or download for free

How to read Url Size
Read now! https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56799.html.images 1.4 MB
EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56799.epub3.images 855 kB
EPUB (older E-readers) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56799.epub.images 874 kB
EPUB (no images, older E-readers) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56799.epub.noimages 640 kB
Kindle https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56799.kf8.images 1.2 MB
older Kindles https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56799.kindle.images 1.1 MB
Plain Text UTF-8 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56799.txt.utf-8 1.3 MB
Download HTML (zip) https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/56799/pg56799-h.zip 806 kB
There may be more files related to this item.

About this eBook

Author Zola, Émile, 1840-1902
Translator Vizetelly, Ernest Alfred, 1853-1922
Title The Downfall (La Débâcle): A Story of the Horrors of War
Note Wikipedia page about this book: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9b%C3%A2cle
Credits Produced by Clare Graham & Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature
(Images generously made available by the Internet Archive.)
Reading Level Reading ease score: 64.8 (8th & 9th grade). Neither easy nor difficult to read.
Language English
LoC Class PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Subject Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871 -- Fiction
Category Text
EBook-No. 56799
Release Date
Copyright Status Public domain in the USA.
Downloads 1008 downloads in the last 30 days.
Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free!