Editing Émile Zola (section)

==Dreyfus affair==
{{Main|Dreyfus affair|J'accuse}}
[[File:J’accuse.jpg|thumb|Front page cover of the newspaper ''L'Aurore'' for Thursday 13 January 1898, with the open letter ''[[J'Accuse...!]]'', written by Émile Zola about the [[Dreyfus affair]]. The headline reads "I Accuse...! Letter to the President of the Republic"—Paris [[Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme|Museum of Jewish Art and History]]]]

Captain [[Alfred Dreyfus]] was a French-Jewish artillery officer in the French army. In September 1894, French intelligence discovered someone had been passing military secrets to the German Embassy. Senior officers began to suspect Dreyfus, though there was no direct evidence of any wrongdoing. Dreyfus was court-martialed, convicted of treason, and sent to [[Devil's Island]] in French Guiana.

Lt. Col. [[Georges Picquart]] came across evidence that implicated another officer, [[Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy]], and informed his superiors. Rather than move to clear Dreyfus, the decision was made to protect Esterhazy and ensure the original verdict was not overturned. Major [[Hubert-Joseph Henry]] forged documents that made it seem as if Dreyfus were guilty, while Picquart was reassigned to duty in Africa. However, Picquart's findings were communicated by his lawyer to the Senator [[Auguste Scheurer-Kestner]], who took up the case, at first discreetly and then increasingly publicly. Meanwhile, further evidence was brought forward by Dreyfus's family and Esterhazy's estranged family and creditors. Under pressure, the general staff arranged for a closed court-martial to be held on 10–11 January 1898, at which Esterhazy was tried ''in camera'' and acquitted. Picquart was detained on charges of violation of professional secrecy.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

{{Wikisourcehas|the original text of Zola's article|[[:fr:s:J'accuse…!|J'accuse...!]]}}
{{Wikisourcehas|an English translation of|[[s:Translation:J'Accuse...!|J'Accuse...!]]}}

In response Zola risked his career and more, and on 13 January 1898 published ''[[J'Accuse...!]]''<ref name=":1">[//en.wikisource.org/wiki/J'accuse...!?match=fr J'accuse letter] at French [[wikisource]]</ref> on the front page of the Paris daily ''[[L'Aurore]]''. The newspaper was run by Ernest Vaughan and [[Georges Clemenceau]], who decided that the controversial story would be in the form of an [[open letter]] to the president, [[Félix Faure]]. Zola's ''J'Accuse...!'' accused the highest levels of the French Army of obstruction of justice and [[antisemitism]] by having wrongfully convicted Alfred Dreyfus to life imprisonment on [[Devil's Island]] in [[French Guiana]]. Zola's intention was that he be prosecuted for libel so that the new evidence in support of Dreyfus would be made public.<ref>{{cite web |title=Correspondence Between Emile Zola and Imprisoned Alfred Dreyfus |url=http://www.shapell.org/manuscript.aspx?170038 |publisher=Shapell Manuscript Foundation |access-date=29 January 2012 |archive-date=7 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120707223535/http://www.shapell.org/manuscript.aspx?170038 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The case, known as the Dreyfus affair, deeply divided France between the reactionary army and Catholic Church on one hand, and the more liberal commercial society on the other. The ramifications continued for many years; on the 100th anniversary of Zola's article, France's [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] daily paper, ''[[La Croix (newspaper)|La Croix]]'', apologised for its [[antisemitic]] editorials during the Dreyfus affair.<ref>{{cite news |title=World News Briefs; French Paper Apologizes For Slurs on Dreyfus |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/13/world/world-news-briefs-french-paper-apologizes-for-slurs-on-dreyfus.html |agency=[[Reuters]] |date=13 January 1998 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=25 March 2018}}</ref> As Zola was a leading French thinker and public figure, his letter formed a major turning point in the affair.{{Citation needed|date=October 2016}}

[[File:Nadar (atelier de) - Emile Zola, 13-556535.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Zola by [[Nadar]], 3 March 1898]]
Zola was brought to trial for criminal libel on 7 February 1898, and was convicted on 23 February and removed from the [[Légion d'honneur|Legion of Honour]]. The first judgment was overturned in April on a technicality, but a new suit was pressed against Zola, which opened on 18 July. At his lawyer's advice, Zola fled to England rather than wait for the end of the trial (at which he was again convicted). Without even having had the time to pack a few clothes, he arrived at [[London Victoria station|Victoria Station]] on 19 July, the start of a brief and unhappy residence in the UK. Zola wrote a book about his exile in England: ''Pages d'exil'' (''Notes from Exile'').<ref>[https://www.hfsbooks.com/books/notes-from-exile-zola-speirs-portebois/ Notes from Exile] [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442677951 JSTOR]</ref>

Zola visited historic locations including a Church of England service at [[Westminster Abbey]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T2tBAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22emile+zola%22+%22westminster+abbey%22&pg=PA335 | title=Émile Zola, Novelist and Reformer: An Account of His Life & Work | last1=Vizetelly | first1=Ernest Alfred | year=1904 }}</ref> After initially staying at the [[Grosvenor House Hotel|Grosvenor Hotel]], Victoria, Zola went to the Oatlands Park Hotel in [[Weybridge]] and shortly afterwards rented a house locally called Penn where he was joined by his family for the summer. At the end of August, they moved to another house in [[Addlestone]] called Summerfield. In early October the family moved to London and then his wife and children went back to France so the children could resume their schooling. Thereafter Zola lived alone in the Queen's Hotel, Norwood.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.weybridgesociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Newsletter-Spring-2019.pdf| title = Zola in Exile in Weybridge| work= Weybridge Society Newsletter |date= Spring 2019| page= 24| publisher= Weybridge Society | via= weybridgesociety.org.uk| access-date= February 13, 2023}}</ref> He stayed in [[Upper Norwood]] from October 1898 to June 1899.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://greatwen.com/tag/michael-rosen/|title= Zola's bicycle women| work= The Great Wen| format= blog| date= September 21, 2017 |first= Peter| last= Watt| access-date= February 13, 2023}}</ref>

In France, the furious divisions over the Dreyfus affair continued. The fact of Major Henry's forgery was discovered and admitted to in August 1898, and the Government referred Dreyfus's original court-martial to the Supreme Court for review the following month, over the objections of the General Staff. Eight months later, on 3 June 1899, the Supreme Court annulled the original verdict and ordered a new military court-martial. The same month Zola returned from his exile in England. Still the anti-Dreyfusards would not give up, and on 9 September 1899 Dreyfus was again convicted.

Dreyfus applied for a retrial, but the government countered by offering Dreyfus a pardon (rather than exoneration), which would allow him to go free, provided that he admit to being guilty. Although he was clearly not guilty, he chose to accept the pardon. Later the same month, despite Zola's condemnation, an amnesty bill was passed, covering "all criminal acts or misdemeanours related to the Dreyfus affair or that have been included in a prosecution for one of these acts", indemnifying Zola and Picquart, but also all those who had concocted evidence against Dreyfus. Dreyfus was finally completely exonerated by the Supreme Court in 1906.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hZqpCrG3qw0C&q=In+1906%2C+Dreyfus+was+completely+exonerated+by+the+Supreme+Court.&pg=PA117 |title=The New Jewish Encyclopedia |last1=Bridger |first1=David |last2=Wolk |first2=Samuel |year=1976 |publisher=Behrman House, Inc |isbn=978-0874411201 |pages=111 |language=en}}</ref>

Zola said of the affair, "The truth is on the march, and nothing shall stop it."<ref name=":1" /> Zola's 1898 article is widely viewed in France as the most prominent manifestation of the new power of the intellectuals (writers, artists, academicians) in shaping [[public opinion]], the media and the state.<ref name="Swardson-1998">{{cite news |last=Swardson |first=Anne |title=The Dreyfus Affair's Living History |date=14 January 1998 |newspaper=The Washington Post |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/01/14/the-dreyfus-affairs-living-history/d3cb9815-a7e9-4131-95a1-18d9f47f6ffd/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220907182159/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/01/14/the-dreyfus-affairs-living-history/d3cb9815-a7e9-4131-95a1-18d9f47f6ffd/ |archive-date=7 September 2022 |quote=Because of Zola's article, ... the intellectual class was accorded the status it still holds as molder of public opinion. |access-date=7 September 2022}}</ref>