" These people came into the world and left it bound to their soil, proliferating on their own dung-hills with slow deliberation like the uncomplicated soul of trees which scatter their seed about their feet, with little conception of any larger world beyond the dun rocks among which they vegetated. "

― Émile Zola , La Faute de l'abbé Mouret (Les Rougon-Macquart, #5)