I accuse

<Author:Émile Zola

Open Letter to M. Félix Faure, President of the Republic

Published January 13, 1898 on the front page of the Paris daily, L'Aurore. This text was writen by Émile Zola an influential French novelist. It is written as an open letter to the President of the French Republic and accuses the government of anti-Semitism in the Dreyfus Affair.

Translation by Yann Forget with the help of Google language tools.

Mr. President,

Would you allow me, in my gratitude for the benevolent reception that you made me one day, to draw the attention of your rightful glory and to tell you that your star, if happy up to now, is threatened by great shame, by the most ineffaceable of blemishes? You have remained healthy and free of base calumnies; you have conquered hearts. You appear radiant in the apotheosis of the patriotic festival that the Russian alliance was for France, and you prepare to govern the solemn triumph of our World Fair, which will crown our great century of work, truth and freedom. But what a spot of mud on your name - I was going to say on your reign - is this abominable Dreyfus business! A council of war, under order, has just dared to discharge Esterhazy, completely without any truth, any justice. And it is finished, France has this stain on its cheek, History will write that it is under your presidency that such a social crime could be committed. Since they dared, I too will dare. The truth I will say, because I promised to say it; if justice, regularly seized, did not do it, full and whole. My duty is to speak, I do not want to be an accessory. My nights would be haunted by the spectre of innocence which expires over there, through the most dreadful of tortures, for a crime that it did not commit. And it is to you, Mr. President, that I will shout it, this truth, with all the force of the revulsion of an honest man. For your honor, I am convinced that you are unaware of it. And with whom will I thus denounce the criminal foundation of these guilty truths, if not with you, the first magistrate of the country?

First, the truth about the lawsuit and the judgment of Dreyfus. A nefarious man carried it all out, did everything: lieutenant-colonel Du Paty de Clam, then a simple commander. He is the entirety of the Dreyfus business; it will be known only when one honest investigation clearly establishes acts and responsibilities. He seems the most complicated and smokiest spirit, haunting romantic intrigues, caught up in serialized stories, stolen papers, anonymous letters, appointments in deserted places, mysterious women who hawk their wares at night, with overpowering evidence. It is he who imagined he would dictate the Dreyfus memo; it is he who dreamed to study it in an entirely hidden way, under ice; it is him whom commander Forzinetti describes to us armed with a dark lantern, wanting to approach the sleeping defendant, to flood his face abruptly with light and thus to surprise his crime, in the agitation of being roused. And I need hardly say that that which one seeks, one will find. I declare simply that commander Du Paty de Clam, charged to investigate the Dreyfus business as a legal officer, is, regarding dates and responsibilities, the first culprit in the appalling miscarriage of justice which was made. The memo was for some time already in the hands of Colonel Sandherr, director of the office of information, who has since died of general paralysis. "Escapes" took place, papers disappeared, as they still do today; the author of the memo was sought, when ahead of time one was made aware, little by little, that this author could be only a staff officer and an artillery officer: a doubly glaring error, showing with which superficial spirit this affair had been studies, because a reasoned examination shows that it could only be a question of an officer of troops. Thus searching the house, examining writings, it was like a family matter, a traitor to be surprised in the same offices, in order to expel him. And, while I don't want to retell a partly known history here, Commander Paty de Clam enters the scene, as soon as first suspicion falls upon Dreyfus. From this moment, it is he who invented Dreyfus, the business becomes that business, made actively to confuse the traitor, to bring him to a full confession. There is the Minister for the War, General Mercier, whose intelligence seems poor; there are the head of the staff, General De Boisdeffre, who appears to have yielded to his clerical passion, and the assistant manager of the staff, General Gonse, whose conscience could put up with many things. But, at the bottom, there is initially only Commander Du Paty de Clam, who carries them all out, who hypnotizes them, because he deals also with spiritism, with occultism, conversing with spirits. One could not conceive of the experiments to which he subjected unhappy Dreyfus, the traps into which he wanted to make him fall, the insane investigations, monstrous imaginations, a whole torturing insanity. Ah! this first business, it is a nightmare, for who knows its true details! Commander Du Paty de Clam arrests Dreyfus, in secret. He turns to Mrs. Dreyfus, terrorizes her, says to her that, if she speaks, her husband is lost. During this time, the unhappy one tore his flesh, howled his innocence. And the instructions were made thus, as in a 15th century tale, shrouded in mystery, with a savage complication of circumstances, all based on only one childish charge, this idiotic affair, which was not only a vulgar treason, but was also the most impudent of hoaxes, because the famously delivered secrets were almost all without value. If I insist, it is that the kernel is here, from whence the true crime will later emerge, the terrible denial of justice from which France is sick. I would like to touch with a finger on how this miscarriage of justice could be possible, how it was born from the machinations of Commander Du Paty de Clam, how General Mercier, General De Boisdeffre and General Gonse could be let it happen, to engage little by little their responsibility in this error, that they believed a need, later, to impose like the holy truth, a truth which is not even discussed. At the beginning, there is not this, on their part, this incuriosity and obtuseness. At most, one feels them to yield to an ambience of religious passions and the prejudices of the physical spirit. They allowed themselves a mistake. But here Dreyfus is before the council of war. Closed doors are absolutely required. A traitor would have opened the border with the enemy to lead the German emperor to Notre-Dame, without taking measures to maintain narrow silence and mystery. The nation is struck into a stupor, whispering of terrible facts, monstrous treasons which make History indignant; naturally the nation is so inclined. There is no punishment too severe, it will applaud public degradation, it will want the culprit to remain on his rock of infamy, devoured by remorse. Is this then true, the inexpressible things, the dangerous things, capable of plunging Europe into flames, which one must carefully bury behind these closed doors? No! There was behind this, only the romantic and lunatic imaginations of Commander Paty de Clam. All that was done only to hide the most absurd of novella plots. And it suffices, to ensure oneself of this, to study with attention the bill of indictment, read in front of the council of war. Ah! nothing of this bill of indictment! That a man could be condemned for this act, is a wonder of iniquity. I defy decent people to read it, without their hearts leaping in indignation and shouting their revolt, while thinking of the unwarranted suffering, over there, on Devil's Island. Dreyfus knows several languages, crime; one found at his place no compromising papers, crime; he returns sometimes to his country of origin, crime; he is industrious, he wants to know everything, crime; he is unperturbed, crime; he is perturbed, crime. And the naivety of drafting, formal assertions in a vacuum! One spoke to us of fourteen charges: we find only one in the final analysis, that of the memo; and we even learn that the experts did not agree, than one of them, Mr. Gobert, was coerced militarily, because he did not allow himself to reach a conclusion in the desired direction. One also spoke of twenty-three officers who had come to overpower Dreyfus with their testimonys. We remain unaware of their interrogations, but it is certain that they did not all charged him; and it is to be noticed, moreover, that all belonged to the war offices. It is a family lawsuit, one is there against oneself, and it is necessary to remember this: the staff wanted the lawsuit, it was judged, and it has just judged it a second time. Therefore, there remained only the memo, on which the experts had not concurred. It is reported that, in the room of the council, the judges were naturally going to acquit. And consequently, as one includes/understands the despaired obstinacy with which, to justify the judgment, today the existence of a secret part is affirmed, overpowering, the part which cannot be shown, which legitimates all, in front of which we must incline ourselves, the good invisible and unknowable God! I deny it, this part, I deny it with all my strength! A ridiculous part, yes, perhaps the part wherein it is a question of young women, and where a certain D... is spoken of which becomes too demanding: some husband undoubtedly finding that his wife did not pay him dearly enough.

But a part interesting the national defense, which one could not produce without war being declared tomorrow, no, no! It is a lie! and it is all the more odious and cynical that they lie with impunity without one being able to convince others of it. They assemble France, they hide behind its legitimate emotion, they close mouths by disturbing hearts, by perverting spirits. I do not know a greater civic crime. Here then, Mr. President, are the facts which explain how a miscarriage of justice could be made; and the moral evidence, the financial circumstances of Dreyfus, the absence of reason, his continual cry of innocence, completes its demonstration as a victim of the extraordinary imaginations of commander Du Paty de Clam, of the clerical medium in which it was found, of the hunting for the "dirty Jews", which dishonours our time.

And we arrive at the Esterhazy business. Three years passed, many consciences remain disturbed deeply, worry, seek, end up being convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus. I will not give the history of the doubts, then of the conviction of Mr. Scheurer-Kestner. But, while this was excavated on the side, it ignored serious events among the staff. Colonel Sandherr had died, and lieutenant-colonel Picquart had succeeded to him as head of the office of the information. And for this reason, in the performance of his duties, the latter found one day in his hands a letter-telegram, addressed to commander Esterhazy, from an agent of a foreign power. His strict duty was to open an investigation. The certainty is that he never acted apart from the will of its his superiors. He thus submitted his suspicions to his seniors in rank, General Gonse, then General De Boisdeffre, then General Billot, who had succeeded General Mercier as Minister for the War. The famous Picquart file, about which was spoken so much, never was that the file Billot, I hear the file made by a subordinate for his minister, the file which must still exist within the ministry of War. Investigations ran from May to September 1896, and what should be well affirmed, is that General Gonse was convinced of the guilt of Esterhazy, that General De Boisdeffre and General Billot did not question that the memo was not written by Esterhazy. The investigation of lieutenant-colonel Picquart had led to this unquestionable observation. But the agitation was large, because the judgment of Esterhazy inevitably involved the revision of the Dreyfus lawsuit; and this the staff wanted at no price. There must haved been a minute full of psychological anguish. Notice that General Billot was compromised in nothing, it arrived completely fresh, it could decide the truth. It did not dare, undoubtedly in terror of public opinion, certainly also in fear of delivererance to all the staff, General De Boisdeffre, General Gonse... without counting those of lower orders. Therefore there was only one minute of conflict between its conscience and what it believed to be the military interest. Once this minute had passed, it was already too late. He had engaged, he was compromised. And, since then, his responsibility did nothing but grow, he took responsibility for the crimes of others, he became as guilty as the others, he was guiltier than them, because he was the Master to make justice, and he did not do anything. Understand that! Here for a year General Block, General De Boisdeffre and General Gonse know that Dreyfus is innocent, and they kept to themselves this appalling thing! And these people sleep at night, and they have women and children whom they love!

Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart had fulfilled his duty as an honest man. He imposed upon his superiors, in the name of justice. He even begged them, he said to them how much their times were ill-advised, in front of the terrible storm which was to pour down, which was to burst, when the truth would be known. It was, later, the language that Mr. Scheurer-Kestner also used with General Billot, entreating him with patriotism to take the business in hand, not to let it worsen, on the verge of becoming a public disaster. No! The crime had been committed, the staff could not acknowledge its crime more. And lieutenant-colonel Picquart was sent on a mission, one that took him farther and farther away, as far as Tunisia, where there was not even a day to honour his bravery, charged with a mission which would have surely ended in massacre, among frontiers where the Marquis de Morès found death. He was not in disgrace, General Gonse maintained a friendly correspondence with him. It is only about secrets which it is not good to have discovered. To Paris, the truth marched, irresistibly, and it is known how the awaited storm burst. Mr. Mathieu Dreyfus denounced commander Esterhazy as the true author of the memo, at the moment when Mr. Scheurer-Kestner was going to deposit, in the hands of the Minister of Justice, a demand for revision of the lawsuit. And it is here that commander Esterhazy appears. Testimony shows him initially thrown into a panic, ready for suicide or escape. Then, at a blow, he acted with audacity, astonishing Paris by the violence of his attitude. It is then that help had come to him, he had received an anonymous letter informing him of the work of his enemies, a mysterious lady had come under cover of night to return a stolen part about him to the staff, which was to save him. And I cannot keep from finding in this the fertile imagination of lieutenant-colonel Paty de Clam. His work, the guilt of Dreyfus, was in danger, and he surely wanted to defend his work. The revision of the lawsuit, but it was the collapse of such an extravagant novella, so tragic, whose abominable outcome takes place in Devil's Island! This is what he could not allow. Consequently, a duel would take place between lieutenant-colonel Picquart and lieutenant-colonel Du Paty de Clam, one with face uncovered, the other masked. they will soon both be found before civil justice. In the end, it was always the staff which defends itself, which did not want to acknowledge its crime; the abomination grew hour by hour. One wondered with stupor who were guarding commander Esterhazy. It was initially, in the shadows, lieutenant-colonel Du Paty de Clam which very machinated, which led. His hand was betrayed by its absurd means. Then, it was General De Boisdeffre, it was General Gonse, it was General Billot himself, well obliged to discharge the commander, since they cannot allow recognition of the innocence of Dreyfus, without the war offices collapsing under public contempt. And the beautiful result of this extraordinary situation is that the honest man, there inside, lieutenant-colonel Picquart, who only did his duty, would become the victim, that which one would ridicule and which one would punish. O justice, what a dreadful despairing greenhouse of the heart! One might just as well say that he was the forger, that he manufactured the chart-telegram to convict Esterhazy. But, good God! why? with a which aim? give a reason. Is he also paid by the Jews? The joke of the story is that he was in fact an anti-Semite. Yes! we attend this infamous spectacle, of the lost men of debts and crimes upon whom one proclaims innocence, while one attacks honor, a man with with a spotless life! When a society does this, it falls into decay. Here is thus, Mr. President, Esterhazy's business: a culprit whose name it was a question of clearing. For almost two months, we have been able to follow hour by hour the beautiful work. I abbreviate, because it is not pertinent here, a summary of the history whose extensive pages will be one day written out in full. We thus saw General De Pellieux, then the commander of Ravary, lead an investigation in which the rascals are transfigured and decent people are dirtied. Then, the council of war was convened.

How could one hope that a council of war would demolish what a council of war had done? I do not even mention the always possible choice of judges. Isn't the higher idea of discipline, which is in the blood of these soldiers, enough to cancel their capacity for equity? Who says discipline breeds obedience? When the Minister of War, the overall chief, established publicly, with the acclamations of the national representation, the authority of the final decision; you want a council of war to give him a formal denial? Hierarchically, that is impossible. General Billot influenced the judges by his declaration, and they judged as they must under fire, without reasoning. The preconceived opinion that they brought to their seats, is obviously this one:

"Dreyfus was condemned for crime of treason by a council of war, he is thus guilty; and we, a council of war, we cannot declare him innocent; however we know that to recognize the guilt of Esterhazy, would be to proclaim the innocence of Dreyfus." Nothing could not make them leave from that position. They delivered an iniquitous sentence, which will forever weigh on our councils of war, which will sully with suspicion all their arrests from now on. The first council of war could have been foolish; the second was inevitably criminal. Its excuse, I repeat it, was that the supreme chief had spoken, declaring the thing considered to be unattackable, holy and higher than men, so that inferiors could not say the opposite. One speaks to us about the honor of the army, that we should like it, respect it. Ah! admittedly, yes, the army which would rise to the first threat, which would defend the French ground, it is all the people, and we have for it only tenderness and respect. But it is not a question of that, for which we precisely want dignity, in our need for justice. It is about the sword, the Master that one will give us tomorrow perhaps. And do not kiss devotedly the handle of the sword, by god!

I have shown in addition: the Dreyfus business was the business of the offices of the war, a staff officer, denounced by his comrades of the staff, condemned under the pressure of the heads of the staff. Once again, it cannot restore his innocence without all the staff being guilty. Also the offices, by all conceivable means, press campaigns, communications; by influences; covered Esterhazy only to convict Dreyfus a second time. What a blow of the brush the republican government should give by this Jesuitery, as the Billot General himself calls them! Where is it, the truly strong ministry and wise patriotism, which will dare to reforge and to renew everything? How of people I know who, in front of a possible war, tremble of anguish, while knowing in what a hands is national defense! And what a nest of low intrigues, commérages and dilapidations, became this crowned asylum, where the fate of the fatherland decides! One terror in front of the terrible day that there has just thrown the Dreyfus business, this human sacrifice of unhappy, a "dirty Jew"! Ah! all that was agitated insanity there and stupidity, imaginations insane, practices of low police force, manners of enquiry and tyranny, good pleasure of some non-commissioned officers putting their boots on the nation, returning to him in the throat its cry of truth and justice, under the lying pretext and sacrilege of the reason of State! And it is a crime still to have been pressed on the press immonde, to have let itself defend by all the rabble of Paris, so that here is the rabble who triumphs insolently, in the defeat of the right and the simple probity. It is a crime to have shown to disturb France those which want it generous, with the head of the free and right nations, when one warps oneself the impudent plot to impose the error, in front of the whole world. It is a crime to mislay the opinion, to use for a work of dead this opinion that one perverted until making it be delirious. It is a crime to poison the small ones and the humble ones, to exasperate passions of reaction and intolerance, while sheltering behind the odious anti-semitism, of which large liberal France of the humans right will die, if it is not cured by it. It is a crime to exploit patriotism for works of hatred, and it is a crime, finally, to turn into to sabre the modern god, when all the social science is with work for the nearest work of truth and justice. Cette truth, this justice, that we so passionately wanted, what a distress to see them thus souffletées, more ignored and more darkened! I suspect the collapse which must take place in the heart of Mr. Scheurer-Kestner, and I believe well that it will end up testing a remorse, that not to have acted revolutionarily, the day of the interpellation to the Senate, by releasing all the package, for all to throw to bottom. He was the famous honest man, the man of his honest life, he believed that the truth was even sufficed for it, especially when it seemed bright to him the full day. With what good all to upset, since soon the sun was going to shine? And it is of this trustful serenity of which it is so cruelly punished. In the same way for the Picquart lieutenant-colonel, who, by a feeling of high dignity, did not want to publish the letters of the Gonse General. These scruples honour it more especially as, while there remained respectful discipline, its superiors made it cover mud, informed themselves its lawsuit, in the most unexpected way and more outrageante. There are two victims, two good people, two simple hearts, which let make God, while the devil acted. And one even saw, for the lieutenant-colonel Picquart, this wretched thing: a French court, after having let the rapporteur charge a witness publicly, to show it of all the faults, made the closed door, when this witness was introduced to be explained and defend himself. I say that this is a crime moreover and that this crime will raise the universal conscience. Definitely, the military tribunals have a singular idea of justice. Such is thus the simple truth, Mr. President, and it is appalling, it will remain for your presidency a stain. I suspect well that you do not have any capacity in this business, that you are the prisoner of the Constitution and your entourage. You do not have of them less one to have of man, of which you will think, and which you will fill. It is not, moreover, which I despair less of the world of the triumph. I repeat it with a more vehement certainty: the truth is moving and nothing will stop it. It is of today only that the business starts, since today only the positions are clear: on the one hand, the culprits who do not want that the light is done; other, the dispensers of justice who will give their life so that it is made. I said it elsewhere, and I repeat it here: when one locks up the truth under ground, it piles up there, it takes there a force such of explosion, that, the day when it bursts, it does all to jump with it. one will see well if one has not just prepared, for later, most resounding of the disasters.

But this letter is long, Mr. President, and it is time to conclude.

I accuse lieutenant-colonel Du Paty de Clam to have been the diabolic workman of the miscarriage of justice, into unconscious, I have wanted to believe it, and to have then defended his harmful work, for three years, by the most absurd machinations and guiltiest.

I accuse General Mercier to have made myself accessory, at least by weakness of spirit, one of greatest iniquities of the century.

I accuse General Billot to have had between the hands the unquestionable evidence of the innocence of Dreyfus and to have choked them, to have made itself guilty of this crime of injures humanity and of injure-justice, with a political aim and to save the compromised staff.

I accuse General De Boisdeffre and General Gonse to have made itself accessory to the same crime, one undoubtedly by clerical passion, the other perhaps by this spirit of body which makes offices of the war the holy arch, unattackable.

I accuse General De Pellieux and commander Ravary to have made an investigation scélérate, I understand by there an investigation of the most monstrous partiality, of which we have, in the report of the second, an imperishable monument of naive audacity.

I accuse the three experts in writings, the sieurs Belhomme, Varinard and Couard, to have submitted untrue and fraudulent reports, unless a medical examination does not declare them reached of a disease of the sight and judgement.

I accuse the offices of the war to have carried out in the press, particularly in the Flash and the Echo of Paris, an abominable campaign, to mislay the opinion and to cover their fault.

I accuse finally the first council of war to have violated the right, by condemning an defendant on a part remained secret, and I show the second council of war to have covered this illegality, by order, by committing in his turn the legal crime to discharge a culprit knowingly.

While carrying these charges, I am not unaware of only I put myself under the blow of articles 30 and 31 of the law on the press of July 29, 1881, which punishes the offences of slandering. And it is voluntarily that I expose myself.

As for people whom I accuse, I do not know them, I never saw them, I have against them neither resentment nor hatred. They are for me only entities, spirits of social maleficence. And the act that I accomplished here is only a one average revolutionist to hasten the explosion of the truth and justice.

I have only one passion, that of the light, in the name of the humanity which suffered so much and which is entitled to happiness. My ignited protest is only the cry of my heart. That one thus dares to translate for me into court bases and that the investigation takes place at the great day! I wait.

Please accept, Mr. President, the insurance of my deep respect.

it:J'accuse