LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Emile Zola: Albert Dreyfus
built 650 days ago
Zola was brought to trial for criminal libel on 9 June 1899, and was convicted on 23 February, sentenced, and removed from the Legion of Honor. He declared that Dreyfus' conviction and removal to a prisoners island came after a false accusation of espionage and was a miscarriage of justice. Rather than go to jail, he fled to England. But soon he was allowed to return in time to see the government fall.
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La fin de l'affaire est proche lorsque Zola écrit les dernières lignes de Fécondité, le premier roman du cycle des Evangiles. Le 3 juin 1899, la Cour de cassation annule à l'unanimité le jugement condamnant Dreyfus et renvoie l'accusé devant le conseil de guerre de Rennes. Dreyfus, d'abord reconnu coupable, mais avec des circonstances atténuantes, est finalement gracié et amnistié. C'est une solution de compromis. Il ne sera réhabilité qu'en 1906. Dès qu'il apprend la nouvelle, Zola rentre d'exil.
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In 1898, due to his involvement in the Dreyfus Affair – the cause of a Jewish French army officer wrongly convicted of treason – Zola fled briefly to England to avoid prosecution for libel. He died at the height of his powers, from asphyxiation due to a clogged chimney. The incident is shrouded in mystery; there are still lingering suspicions that he was, in fact, murdered. On his death, the French nation mourned the loss of a great champion of the individual whose work has had a lasting influence on the development of both the novel and cinema world-wide.
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Actually Dreyfus was tried and convicted again, and he was not exonerated until several years after Zola's death. Yet the tremendous challenge that Zola courageously undertook to right a wrong is a true story and portrayed fairly accurately. This film is a fine memorial to a great novelist, who worked so hard to reveal the truth about his times.
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Madame Dreyfus goes to see Zola but he doesn’t want to meet with her and he decides against taking the case. He’s gotten old and complacent. However, Madame Dreyfus eventually appeals to Zola’s sense of justice, and the rest of the film follows his attempts to establish Dreyfus’s innocence along with the ways this affects his own life.
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Zola's J'Accuse! article was published two days after another court martial had, as part of the coverup, acquitted Esterhazy of the treasonous offense of which Esterhazy was clearly guilty and for which Dreyfus was being unjustly punished.
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