DREYFUS ALFRED: (1859-1935)

DREYFUS ALFRED: (1859-1935)

‘I read this evening….. of the proposal to transfer Zola’s ashes to the Pantheon.

 

I don’t need to tell you how happy I am’

 

DREYFUS ALFRED: (1859-1935) French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarising political dramas in modern French history. Known as the Dreyfus Affair, it ultimately ended with Dreyfus's complete exoneration. A very fine A.L.S., A Dreyfus, one page, 8vo, n.p., n.d. ('Mardi soir', c.1908), to [Alexandrine Zola] ('Chere Madame'), in French. Dreyfus writes, in full, 'Je lis ce soir dans le Temps que le Senat a voté a une forte majorite l'urgence de la proposition du transfert des cendres de Zola au Pantheon. Je n'ai pas besoin de vous dire toute ma joie. Quelle reparation meritee pour notre grand, laborieux et modeste Zola' (Translation: 'I read this evening in Le Temps that the Senate voted by a strong majority on the urgency of the proposal to transfer Zola's ashes to the Pantheon. I don't need to tell you how happy I am. What a deserved reparation for our great, hard-working and modest Zola'). With blank integral leaf. A letter of excellent content and association. About EX

 

Eleonore Alexandrine Meley (1839-1925) French seamstress, wife of Emile Zola from 1870.

 

Emile Zola (1840-1902) French novelist, a major figure in the political liberalisation of France and in the exoneration of Alfred Dreyfus, encapsulated in Zola's renowned newspaper opinion headlined J'Accuse...!

 

Zola, who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in 1902, was initially buried in the Cimetiere de Montmartre in Paris but, just five years and nine months after his death, on 4^th June 1908, his remains were relocated to the Pantheon, where he shares a crypt with Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. Since the French Revolution no Pantheonization has aroused more controversy than that of Emile Zola and the ceremony, attended by Armand Fallieres, Georges Clemenceau and Alfred Dreyfus himself, will be remembered in history for one scene in particular. Towards the end of the event two shots were fired at Dreyfus who, fortunately, was only slightly wounded in the arm. The attempted assassination was carried out by the right-wing journalist Louis Gregori, who was immediately apprehended. Gregori presented himself as a 'fervent patriot' and declared that he could not bear the humiliation inflicted on the French army, his actions echoing the cries of the nationalist demonstrators who, at the same time, surrounded the Pantheon and had attempted all means of preventing the ceremony from taking place. Three months later Gregori was acquitted at his trial before the Assize Court of the Seine who accepted his defence that he had not meant to kill Dreyfus, meaning merely to graze him.