3-085-819 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Trial of M. Zola in Paris: scenes at the Assize Court - outside the court-house at eight A.M., 1898. The "J'accuse" case. 'Nobody had any hope that M. Zola would establish his case to the satisfaction of the Paris jury, for it is notorious that they were not free to decide according to the evidence. The direct pressure of the Government and the violent attitude of the mob have made an acquittal impossible...The principal witnesses in favour of M. Zola were Colonel Picquart and Maître Demange. Between them they succeeded in showing that the conviction of Captain Dreyfus was illegal, and that Major Esterhazy was screened by his superiors...Two years after Dreyfus had been sent to Devil's Island, Colonel Picquart was encouraged by the General Staff at the War Office to prosecute an inquiry into the conduct of Esterhazy, whom he suspected of having written the famous bordereau. If the General Staff were convinced of the guilt of Dreyfus, why did they sanction proceedings which tended to transfer the odium of this particular treason to another man?...The moral effect of the trial is greatly to strengthen the demand for a revision of the Dreyfus judgment; but this has now become a political, even a revolutionary, issue in France'. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.