Germinie Lacerteux – Edmond & Jules de Goncourt

"The public likes false novels: this is a true novel."

Germinie is a servant who leads a double life. To her mistress, she is a devoted and pious maid. In secret, she is consumed by a degrading passion for a young man, leading her into debt, alcoholism, and theft. The novel clinically details her physical and moral disintegration.

This novel is considered one of the first works of French Naturalism. The Goncourt brothers claimed to study the 'lower classes' with the scientific rigor of a medical case study, breaking the taboo that the lives of the poor were not worthy of serious literature.