This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/18/2024
[ANTI-SEMITISM]. -- [DREYFUS AFFAIR]. Le Petit Journal. Supplément Illustrée. Neuvième année, Numéro 380. February 27, 1898. 8 folio pages on large folding sheets. Each page approximately 430 x 301 mm. Illustrated throughout, with full color illustrations on p. 1 and p. 8. Toned, soiled, pages partially loose, left margins slightly chipped, indicating this was excised from a book. On p. 1: “L’Affaire Zola Grave incident d’audience: le colonel Henry et le lieutenant-colonel Picquart”. On pp. 4-5 (numbered 68-69) is a double-page collection of 18 engraved portraits of the people involved in the Dreyfus Affair, including Colonel Picquart and Colonel Henry. Color illustration on p. 8 is not associated with the Affair and is captioned, “le grand pardon d’Island a Paimpol”. The Dreyfus Affair is one of the most notorious scandals in French military history. It was a miscarriage of justice fueled by anti-semitism, directed at Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935). In December 1894, Dreyfus was convicted of passing military secrets to the German embassy in Paris, being sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island (he would spend 5 years there). In 1896, it was discovered by Colonel Picquart that Dreyfus was innocent as Dreyfus had repeatedly claimed. Picquart discovered that Major Ferdinand Esterhazy was the guilty party, but Esterhazy was acquitted by a military court, and the French military command produced new, forged documents to add to Dreyfus’s “guilt.” This injustice was so egregious that writer Émile Zola published an open letter, “J’Acccuse,” stoking more political report for Dreyfus. Dreyfus was returned to France and tried again, in which he was convicted again, but was pardoned. Col. Henry later admitted he tried to sabotage Col. Picquart and that he forged documents to frame Dreyfus. He was exonerated in 1906, and rejoined the army, and fought in World War I with distinction and was promoted to Lt. Colonel.