page_title: Dreyfus affair
section_title: The trial of Zola
hierarchical_section_title: Dreyfus affair / J'Accuse ...! 1898 / The trial of Zola
context_page_description: The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world, and it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict.
  The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, and was imprisoned in Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years.
  In 1896, evidence came to light—primarily through an investigation instigated by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—which identified the real culprit as a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. When high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days.
context_section_description: General Billot, Minister of War, filed a complaint against Zola and Alexandre Perrenx, the manager of L'Aurore, to be heard at the Assises of the Seine from 7 to 23 February 1898. Defamation of a public authority was liable to trial in the Cour d'Assises, while insults to private figures—such as journalists and intellectuals—uttered by the nationalist and antisemitic press were limited to the civil adversarial system. (The taxpayer is at risk in the first case, while only the plaintiff is at risk in the second.) The minister referred to only three passages of Zola's article, eighteen lines out of hundreds. He accused Zola of having written that the court martial had committed "unlawful acts [...] by order". The trial opened in an atmosphere of extreme violence—Zola had been the object of "the most shameful attacks" as well as important support and congratulations.
  Fernand Labori, Zola's lawyer, intended to call about 200 witnesses. The details of the Dreyfus Affair, unknown to most of the public, were published in the press. Several papers published shorthand notes verbatim of the debates every day to build support in the population. These notes were, for the Dreyfusards, an essential tool for later debates. The nationalists, behind Henri Rochefort, however, were more visible and organized riots, which forced the prefect of police to intervene to protect Zola whenever he left the facility after every hearing.
  This trial was also the scene of a real legal battle in which the rights of the defence were constantly violated. Many observers were aware of the collusion between France's political and military worlds. Evidently the court received instructions not to raise the subject of former judicial errors. President Delegorgue, on the pretext of the long duration of the hearings, juggled the law incessantly to ensure that the trial dealt only with the alleged defamation by Zola. Delegorgue's phrase "the question will not be put" was repeated dozens of times.
  Zola was sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of 3,000 francs, which was the maximum penalty. This harshness was due to the atmosphere of violence surrounding the trial. "The excitement of the audience and the exasperation of the crowd in front of the courthouse were so violent that one could fear the worst excesses if the jury acquitted Mr. Zola". However, the Zola trial was rather a victory for the Dreyfusards. Indeed, the affair and its contradictions had been widely discussed throughout the trial, especially by the military. In addition, the violent attacks against Zola and the injustice of the conviction of Dreyfus reinforced the commitment of the Dreyfusards. Stéphane Mallarmé declared, "[I am] imbued by the admirable actions [of Zola]" and Jules Renard wrote in his diary: "From tonight I hold on to the Republic that inspires respect in me, a tenderness in me that I do not know. I declare that Justice is the most beautiful word in the language of men and I must cry if men no longer understand it". Senator Ludovic Trarieux and Catholic jurist Paul Viollet founded the League for the Defence of Human Rights. Even more than the Dreyfus Affair the Zola affair resulted in a regrouping of intellectual forces into two opposing camps.
  On 2 April 1898 an application to the Supreme Court received a favourable response. This was the court's first intervention in the affair. The court upheld the appeal, on the formal grounds that as the alleged libel was against the military court, rather than the minister, it was the military court that should have made the complaint. Prosecutor-General Manau supported a review of the Dreyfus trial and strongly opposed the anti-Semites. The judges of the military court, whom Zola had challenged, therefore opened a new suit against him for libel. The case was brought before the Assizes of Seine-et-Oise in Versailles where the public was considered more favourable to the army and more nationalistic. On 23 May 1898, at the first hearing, Mr. Labori appealed to the Supreme Court regarding the change of jurisdiction, which adjourned the trial
caption: Henry de Groux, Zola faces the mob, oil on canvas, 1898
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