“J’accuse…!”: The Dreyfus Affair.
During the French Revolution, “J’accuse…!”, or “I accuse” in French with the implication of more to come, was used to incriminate anyone suspected of pro-nobility activities, a lack of revolutionary fervor, or simply to settle old scores. In the time of Robespierre, a simple “J’accuse!” was enough to get one sent straight to the guillotine without any shred of evidence or defense of the accused (sounds familiar). However a hundred years later in 1898, the great French author and intellectual Emile Zola turned the phrase on its head by doing exactly what the Jacobins didn’t: use sound reasoning and evidence regarding the Dreyfus Affair. With an open letter to French President Felix Faure published in a French newspaper “L’Aurore”, titled “J’accuse…!”. In the letter, he comprehensively pointed out the injustice and unlawful incarceration of Alfred Dreyfus, a French General Staff officer accused of espionage and sentenced to lifelong servitude on Devil’s Island, a penal colony off of French Guiana.
Captain Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish Alsatian found guilty of passing French military secrets to the German embassy in Paris in 1894. There was little evidence against him but a case was made against him because of his Jewish decent. He was found guilty and sentenced to Hell. In 1896, evidence came to light that Dreyfus was innocent and one of his fellow staff officers was guilty. However, the culprit was well connected and correct thinking, and exonerated after a quick show trial. Based on the new evidence Dreyfus was charged with new crimes just to make a point. “The Dreyfus Affair” was biggest story in France in the last decade of the 19th century and akin to the OJ Simpson trial in the US in the 1990s (except that Dreyfus didn’t actually do anything).
Zola’s article “J’accuse…!” systematically laid out for the French president, and L’Aurore’s readers, the flimsy evidence and judicial trickery used to implicate Dreyfus, and the evidence in support of the real culprit. Furthermore, he accused the French government of anti-Semitism and finally the evidence of an official cover up. Doubling down, the French police arrested Zola for libel and in a quick trial was sentenced to jail. Zola fled to England and the French government thought the matter resolved.
However, “J’accuse…!” was filled with sound reasoning and no amount of propaganda on the part of the French government could convince the French people that Dreyfus and Zola were being unjustly persecuted. Thousands demanded a retrial for Dreyfus, who thousands of miles away, sat ignorant of the turmoil his predicament was causing at home. In 1899, Dreyfus was retried and found guilty again in what coined the term, “Trial of the Century”. The French government could not accept anything but “guilty” in order to save face. However, Dreyfus was pardoned ten days later. In order to placate the French people, others who were arrested for coming to Dreyfus’ defense were given amnesty. Zola returned to Paris shortly thereafter.
The Dreyfus Affair continues to this day to be the gold standard for a miscarriage of justice in France. If it wasn’t for Emile Zola’s article “J’accuse…!”, the French government would have continued its unlawful crackdown on those they disagreed with, and Alfred Dreyfus would have languished and died on Devil’s Island instead of going on to be a decorated artillery officer in the First World War.
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