Editing Alfred Dreyfus (section)

==Early life, family, and education==
Born in [[Mulhouse]], [[Alsace]] on 9 October 1859,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www2.culture.gouv.fr/LH/LH053/PG/FRDAFAN83_OL0803061v009.htm|title=Birth certificate of Dreyfus, Alfred|publisher=Government of the French Republic|website=culture.gouv.fr|access-date=24 July 2019|archive-date=24 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724180232/http://www2.culture.gouv.fr/LH/LH053/PG/FRDAFAN83_OL0803061v009.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> to Raphaël and Jeannette Dreyfus (née Libmann), the youngest of nine children (seven of whom survived to adulthood).<ref name="YuMuseum"/> His grandfather was a merchant from a long established Alsatian Jewish family in Rixheim, not far from Mulhouse. His father became a prosperous industrialist who started a cotton mill, then expanded the business with a weaving factory. This enabled the Dreyfus family to live a comfortable and affluent life within Mulhouse society. He spent his first years in a house on Rue du Sauvage, then later in a mansion on Rue de la Sinne, both in Mulhouse. 

Because of his mother's bedridden illness following his birth, his sister Henriette became like a second mother to him. Alfred was 10 years old when the [[Franco-Prussian War]] broke out in the summer of 1870, and following the annexation of [[Alsace-Lorraine]] by [[Germany]] after the war, he and his family moved to [[Basel]], [[Switzerland]], where he attended high school. The family later relocated to [[Paris]].