“The Hunted” is Émile Zola’s second novel in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, published in 1871. Zola’s plan was to show, across the cycle of novels, how heredity and the surrounding environment affected members of one family during the Second Empire—the period of Napoleon III’s dictatorship.
The book’s main characters are: Aristide Saccard (the third son of Pierre Rougon); his young wife Renée and his son from his first marriage, Max.