It is the fifteenth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. The action takes place in a rural community in the Beauce, an area in central France southwest of Paris. The novel is connected to others in the series by the protagonist, Jean Macquart, whose childhood in the south of France was recounted in La Fortune des Rougon, and who goes on to feature prominently in the later novel La Débâcle.