[Dreyfus Affair] [Zola, Emile] J'accuse...!

(Paris: Ernest Vaughan), January 13, 1898. Bifolium, 23 1/2 x 17 in. (597 x 432mm) (sight). Printed newspaper. Creasing from old folds; scattered light soiling. In mat and in double-pane gilt frame, 30 x 23 1/2 in. (762 x 597 mm).

Very well-preserved issue of the L'Aurore newspaper featuring Emile Zola's famous open letter J'Accuse...!, calling for action in the ongoing Dreyfus Affair.

In December of 1894, French Army captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason by his superiors for allegedly supplying state secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. Dreyfus, an artillery officer of Jewish descent, was sentenced to life-imprisonment at a penal colony in French Guiana, where he would spend the next five years. In 1896, through the efforts of French counter-intelligence officer Georges Piquart, new evidence identified Major Ferdinand Esterhazy as the true culprit of the crimes. However, high-ranking French military officials quickly suppressed the evidence, acquitted Esterhazy, and laid additional charges on Dreyfus.

As the events developed and the public became more aware, novelist Emile Zola risked his reputation and career by publishing J'Accuse...! in January 1898. The essay is an open letter to French President Felix Faure, accusing the highest levels of the military of wrongful conviction, obstruction of justice, and antisemitism. Zola's letter instantly caused an uproar, and he was convicted of libel, and forced to flee to England while the affair divided France between its Catholic and liberal factions. It continued for another six years until the French Supreme Court exonerated Dreyfus in 1906, and issued general amnesty for all those involved.

Provenance

From the Collection of Jay R. Butterman. New York, New York

[Dreyfus Affair] [Zola, Emile] J'accuse...!

[Dreyfus Affair] [Zola, Emile] J'accuse...!