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The Rising Celebrity and Modern Politics
Emile Zola’s Involvement in the Dreyfus Affair
by Anya Rous
May all my work perish, if Dreyfus is not innocent.
[...] I did not want my country to remain in lies and injustice.
One day, France will thank me for having helped to save its honor.
-- Emile Zola, “Declaration au Jury” published in L’Aurore
1898.
 When
Zola decided to intervene in the Dreyfus
Affair after being assured of the Jewish officer’s innocence,
he could not have known what lay ahead of both him and France. Standing
up against anti-Semitism and social inequalities was no new feat,
he had already written the article “Pour les Juifs” where
he condemned the bigotry as “a monstrosity” and Germinal
where he displayed the terrible conditions of coal miners.1
"J’Accuse," the final and most provocative article
of a number which decried the Dreyfus Affair
by Zola, promised a scene. Though Zola could not have predicted
the consequences and impacts of this article, he did realize what
he risked by writing it. As one historian on the Dreyfus
Affair said, “Zola knew that involving himself in the
Dreyfus Affair could cost him part of his popularity and separate
himself from his audience generally made up of anti-Dreyfusards
from the middle class.”2
Zola’s decision to join forces with the other Dreyfusards,
as they called themselves, was not an insignificant or an unconscious
one. As a well accomplished writer, he knew the potential power
of such articles. When Zola heard of the discovery of Esterhazy’s
guilt and governmental protection, he felt at once that he needed
to speak out against the corruption and undeniable injustice. It
was no longer just a case of an innocent man pegged for a crime
he didn’t commit, it was a blatant framing of the only Jewish
man in a high position in the French army. The seriousness of the
situation called for a strong and influential piece; Zola knew full
well how to write this one.
 Zola
was thus composing his text on Esterhazy’s acquittal in full
awareness of the role achieved by the press. Since it was the
press which -- in weighing on the government even more than on
public opinion -- was stifling any chance of revision, it was
through the press that Zola decided to accomplish the act the
socialist Jules Guesde would call ‘the greatest revolutionary
act of the century.’ Zola knew the risks he was taking. He
saw the crimes and misdemeanors he was committing in writing his
text and also the hatred and resentment it would unleash. Nor
did he fail to realize that he was one of the only writers --
perhaps the only one-- commanding a readership that might give
his initiative a vast diffusion. He knew that he was not only
a “popular novelist” who dominated his time, but a writer
of worldwide reputation. He realized that he could strike hard
-- and far. 3
To the left: text from "J'Accuse"
"J’Accuse's" radical, finger-pointing content
was sure to shake up all its readers. His article further exacerbated
the event, and divided the whole country. Zola feared not the actual
danger of writing such a document (many of his thoughts could instigate
a number of legal lawsuits.4) As socialist and
Dreyfusard writer, Leon Blum said, "Dreyfusism was reinvigorated...
we could feel confidence well up and rise within us."5
Dreyfusards weren't the only ones who reacted to the article. Anti-Semitic
riots broke out four days following Zola’s “J’Accuse.”
The government hesitated whether it should take any immediate action
against Zola. His article both humiliated them and drew more attention
to a subject they wanted to forget. Within a month, they decided
that they would try Zola for libel. The defense, made up of four
skilled Dreyfusard attorneys, one of whom was Alfred's brother Mathieu
Dreyfus, gathered a list of two hundred witnesses. Meanwhile, outside
of the court, anti-Semitic cries filled the streets as anti-dreyfusards
demonstrated. In about two weeks, about Feruary 23rd, the court
found Zola guilty and sent him to jail. In April, Zola's sentence
was annulled, but by July he was convicted again. This time Zola
fled into exile in England.
 One
eyewitness described Zola as he walked out of the courthouse [the
day the verdict came in in his first trial], “He was awkward,
he was near sighted, he held his umbrella clumsily under his arm,
he had gestures and demeanor of a student. But when he descended
one by one the steps of the Palais de Justice, amid cries of hatred,
shouted of death, under an archway of threatening canes, it was
like a king descending the great staircase of the Hotel de Ville
under an archway of naked swords. It was the greatest thing I have
ever seen in my life.”6
Dreyfus finally got a pardon as a result in a large extent of Zola’s
involvement. Zola had brought the event to every French home, and
in effect changed the course of history. Had Zola decided not to
write "J’Accuse", the public would not have become
so responsive and caught up with the case. Unfortunately, Zola was
not able to see Dreyfus’s pardon, or reinstatement. In September
of 1902, Zola was found in his apartment accidentally asphyxiated.
Zola with his family (Zola is the man on the right)
Additional Sources:
Grant, Elliot M. Emile Zola. NY: Twayne Publishers, 1966.
Bredin, Jean-Denis. The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus.
NY: George Braziller, 1983.p.246
For a brief bio on Zola try: www.kirjasto.scifi/ezola.htm
If you know French and want to read "J'Accuse:" www.liberation.com/manifesto/jaccuse.html
1 Grant, Elliot M. Emile
Zola. NY: Twayne Publishers, 1966. p.172
2 Bredin, Jean-Denis. The
Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus. NY: George Braziller, 1983.p.246
3 ibid, p.247
4 ibid p.250
5 ibid p.252
6 Grant, Elliot M. Emile
Zola. NY: Twayne Publishers, 1966. p.173-174
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