The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1908-06-05
FRENCH HONOR
I. lola TODAY
PEOPLE vii LPAY TR,suTE 10
MEMORY OF DEAD SOCIALIST.
he DEFENDED DREYFUs
Many Opposed I o.eura, Of Noted Au-
thor's Body in Pantheon Beside
Graves Of Greatest Men Produced
BY France In Political Life.

a ~ = M% @@G1MG /
Paris, June 3-With pomp and
ceremony such as has marked the
apotheosis OF no French literary man
since Voltaire, the government and
people of France will tomorrow pay a
last tribute to Emile lola, socialist,
apostle Of realism and defender OF
Dreyfus. Despite the curses Of the
.clericals and the fearful cries of out
ragged in~tellectuals who covet for
themselves the place to be given lola
in the Pantheon, the ceremony will
doubtless take place as scheduled.
The decision of parliament to thus
honor the author OF ttJAccuse'' has
aroused a veritable tempest. AS In
the case Of the great Voltaire, the
people are divided in warning camps,
some INDUCING in the most heartless
abuse OF the dead author, while the
majority are lost in the profoundest
alteration. To the clericals, the apo
theosis Of Zola, the free-thinker, is the
final step Of the government in max
ing France wholly "infidel' and Cod
less. s
Are Opposed TO Pantheon.
Even Nine. lola has opposed the
placing of the body Of her husband IN
the Pantheon. She declares that his
labors Of 40 years, his part in the
Dreyfus affair, and the insults of the
Reactionaries have done more for his
fame than can the Pantheon. IT am
grateful to those who desire to do my
husband homage" Nine. lola writes,
but i do not find the transfer Of his
body to the Pantheon to be necessary
for his glory"
It is principally because Zola was
Dreyfus affair that he is now to- be
|gloriously buried beside Berthelot and
President Carnot and Victor Hugo,
beside Voltaire and Rousseau. And
because his letter "J'Accuse' routed
the general army stan, mournful, mar
tial music is to blow in his homer
while long lines Of soldiers def1le be-
fore his tomb.
Opened Dreyfus Trial.
The chief interest of these official
ceremonies lies in the comparison OF
what is known now, on evidence, with
|Zola's accusations, which, u%nsupport-
ed 10 years ago., broke down the legal
and judicial wall that prevented the
Dreyfus case being opened.
: Thursday morning, January 13,
1898, the famous letter appeared in
NJ. Clemenceau's paper, L'Aurore.
Soon, very soon, the whole world
was alive to the fact that where there
had been only a question Of the ju-
dicial error Of a particular French
court in the case OF n particular
man, there was nov a Dreyfus Affair,
political, social, religious, universal.
With q single word Maurice Barres
has cleared the minds OF the parila'
mentary majority concerning the real
motives OF their national homage to
Zola: "You have triumphed in the
Affair"
In the collected edition of Zola's
works the document known to the
wide world from its imperious form
ula "J'Acuse," appears only al "a let
to M, Felix iFaure, president Of the
republic" Three years later lola
who could not foresee the near ap
proach Of sudden death, wrote a sec
ond letter, which the world scarcely
noticed, ITO M. Loubet, president o.
the republic" He expressed. with
that violent e~loquence to which battle
raised him, his sore disappointment
at the apparent ending of Case ant
Afair-Dreyfus convicted a SECOND
time and accepting a pardon, and Zolt
himself amnestled against his will
and new access to the courts, thus
seemingly barred. These two essen
tial documents, by which alone, per
haps, lola has earned immortality
are somewhat lost in their chronolog
ical place among his writings on thu
|Dreyfus affair, all making up a single
volume to which his favorite words
have been given as a title: La veritt
en- Marche."
Did Not See End.
lola did not live to g the de
fnitiye rehabilitation Of Dreyfus b.
the Court of Cessation in 1906-ant
even then there was much lacking t.
satisfy his desires. But the incom
plete publication Of the testimon.
given before this tribunal legally ant
judicially supreme, is sufficient to es
innate the support which 10 year
have brought to his first accusations
! OF the consequences of his lette
En- L.-E 49,