Epilogue
In February 1898, Emile Zola was sued for
“J’accuse” by both the War Office and the handwriting experts.
The trial received an enormous amount of publicity in France and abroad. Zola
was found guilty of libel. He appealed the judgment but, in July, the
verdict was reconfirmed with a one-year jail term and a very stiff financial
penalty. Clemenceau advised Zola to leave the country in order to avoid being
served notification of the sentence while continuing the fight. On July 18,
1898, Zola left secretly for England, where he lived incognito until his return
on June 3, 1899
In August 1898, however, Maj. Hubert Joseph Henry (1846-1898) was forced to confess to Prime Minister Cavaignac that he was the one who had forged some of the early documents implicating Dreyfus: he was arrested, but committed suicide in his cell.
Esterhazy left France as soon as Maj. Henry, who had been covering up for him, was exposed. In the few interviews he gave, he admitted that he had passed confidential documents to the Germans, but tried to present himself as a triple agent. He eventually settled in England, where he kept a low profile.
Félix Faure’s sudden death in office in 1899 gave impetus to the Dreyfus Affair: during his state funeral, a few right-wingers led by ultra-nationalist writer Paul Déroulède tried unsuccessfully to stage a coup.
In 1899 the Dreyfus case was brought before the Supreme Court of Appeal, which ordered a re-trial. However, this second court-martial, held in Rennes (Brittany) for security reasons, again pronounced Dreyfus guilty. Ten days after the verdict which caused a public uproar, a new, more progressive cabinet, with Premier Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau and President Émile Loubet (1838-1929), nullified that judgment and pardoned Capt. Dreyfus.
It was only seven years later, in 1906, that Alfred Dreyfus was fully rehabilitated, restored to the army with the rank of Major, and decorated with the Legion of Honor. Although he soon retired, he re-enlisted in World War I.
Lt. Col. Picquart was also reinstated in 1906 and promoted to the rank of General. He served as Minister of War (1906-1909) in the cabinet of Premier Georges Clemenceau. His accidental death in 1914 was followed by a State funeral.
Zola’s total involvement with the Dreyfus case cost him heavily: his extra-marital affair, for instance, was exposed, his estate was put up for auction in order to pay the fines, sales of his books suffered considerably, and he also became the target of vast amounts of hate mail and death threats. However, Zola felt genuinely that it was his duty as a human being - and as a Frenchman - to defend the innocent against well-connected bullies, and protect the values, such as Truth, Justice and Liberty, of the country he loved. His next series of novels, Fécondité (1899), Travail (1901) and Vérité (1903), dealt with these ideals. The last one, Justice, was never to be completed for, on September 29 1902, Zola was found dead at his home, victim of a highly suspicious accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.
His ashes were transferred in 1908 to the Pantheon in Paris. Even at this time, six years after Zola’s death, the passions he had stirred by his “J’accuse” were not yet extinguished: during the ceremony, a disgruntled journalist shot Dreyfus in the arm.
The definitive eulogy for Zola, however, had been given at his burial in 1902, when writer Anatole France declared: “He was a moment in the conscience of man.”
In August 1898, however, Maj. Hubert Joseph Henry (1846-1898) was forced to confess to Prime Minister Cavaignac that he was the one who had forged some of the early documents implicating Dreyfus: he was arrested, but committed suicide in his cell.
Esterhazy left France as soon as Maj. Henry, who had been covering up for him, was exposed. In the few interviews he gave, he admitted that he had passed confidential documents to the Germans, but tried to present himself as a triple agent. He eventually settled in England, where he kept a low profile.
Félix Faure’s sudden death in office in 1899 gave impetus to the Dreyfus Affair: during his state funeral, a few right-wingers led by ultra-nationalist writer Paul Déroulède tried unsuccessfully to stage a coup.
In 1899 the Dreyfus case was brought before the Supreme Court of Appeal, which ordered a re-trial. However, this second court-martial, held in Rennes (Brittany) for security reasons, again pronounced Dreyfus guilty. Ten days after the verdict which caused a public uproar, a new, more progressive cabinet, with Premier Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau and President Émile Loubet (1838-1929), nullified that judgment and pardoned Capt. Dreyfus.
It was only seven years later, in 1906, that Alfred Dreyfus was fully rehabilitated, restored to the army with the rank of Major, and decorated with the Legion of Honor. Although he soon retired, he re-enlisted in World War I.
Lt. Col. Picquart was also reinstated in 1906 and promoted to the rank of General. He served as Minister of War (1906-1909) in the cabinet of Premier Georges Clemenceau. His accidental death in 1914 was followed by a State funeral.
Zola’s total involvement with the Dreyfus case cost him heavily: his extra-marital affair, for instance, was exposed, his estate was put up for auction in order to pay the fines, sales of his books suffered considerably, and he also became the target of vast amounts of hate mail and death threats. However, Zola felt genuinely that it was his duty as a human being - and as a Frenchman - to defend the innocent against well-connected bullies, and protect the values, such as Truth, Justice and Liberty, of the country he loved. His next series of novels, Fécondité (1899), Travail (1901) and Vérité (1903), dealt with these ideals. The last one, Justice, was never to be completed for, on September 29 1902, Zola was found dead at his home, victim of a highly suspicious accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.
His ashes were transferred in 1908 to the Pantheon in Paris. Even at this time, six years after Zola’s death, the passions he had stirred by his “J’accuse” were not yet extinguished: during the ceremony, a disgruntled journalist shot Dreyfus in the arm.
The definitive eulogy for Zola, however, had been given at his burial in 1902, when writer Anatole France declared: “He was a moment in the conscience of man.”
