I show

I show is the title of a article written by Emile Zola at the time of the Affaire Dreyfus and published in the newspaper the Dawn of the January 13rd 1898 in the form of a Open letter with the President of the Republic Felix Faure. It took as a starting point a file written in 1896 by the writer Bernard Lazare. I show appears two days after the payment of Esterhazy by the council of war (January 11th), which seems to ruin all the hopes nourished by the partisans of a revision of the lawsuit condemning Dreyfus. Zola attacks there by name the generals and other officers responsible for the miscarriage of justice having involved the lawsuit and the judgment, the experts in guilty writings of “untrue and fraudulent reports/ratios. ” It also blames the guilty offices of the army of an untrue press campaign, as well as the two councils of war of which one condemned Dreyfus on the faith of a part remained secret, while the second discharged a culprit knowingly. Especially, he proclaims as of the beginning the innocence of Dreyfus:

My duty is of speaking, I do not want to be accessory. My nights would be haunted by the spectrum of innocent which expie over there, in most dreadful of tortures, a crime that it did not make.

The great interest of the article of Zola is to offer a consolidated summary of the various elements constituting the first four years of the Dreyfus business. Even if Zola, and those which fed it in information, made several errors in the relation, for example, by limiting the responsibility for the Minister for the War of the time, the general Auguste Mercier.

The article does all the a daily newspaper, of which them: 300000 drawn specimens are torn off in a few hours. The emotion is strong, involving a start of the opinion. Many intellectuals also sign a petition in favor of the revision of the lawsuit, published it by the Dawn . Among them, Anatole France, Georges Courteline, Octave Mirbeau or Claude Monet, signatures having been collected by students or young writers like Marcel Proust. Zola receives many messages of support, but also abusive letters and threats with coloring anti-semite or xenophobe (the father of Zola was a large engineer of public works Italian). True the business Dreyfus , that which impassions crowd during several years, has just started.

In conclusion of its article, Zola hoped for a lawsuit in front of Bases in order to make burst the truth. He is indeed judged on several occasions, the end result being on the one hand a judgment at one year of prison and: 3000 francs of fine for its attacks against the staff (either, with the expenses: 7525 francs, that Octave Mirbeau pay of its pocket on August 8th, 1898), other a judgment in one month of prison and: 1000 francs of fine for its denunciation of the three pseudo-experts, of which each one must receive: 10000 francs of damages (it is still Octave Mirbeau which will obtain Joseph Reinach them: 40000 francs allowing to avoid the seizure of the pieces of furniture of Zola). To escape the prison, Zola is exiled in England, where it spends eleven months in waiting of a revision of the Dreyfus lawsuit. The judgment of revision returning Dreyfus in front of the council of war of Rennes is handed down the June 3rd 1899. Zola can then return to France, where it publishes in the Dawn the article Justice in which it is pleased with this decision. But the lawsuit of Rennes is disappointing for the supporters of Dreyfus, and Zola continuous to fight until its death to ask for the rehabilitation of Alfred Dreyfus. The article of January 13rd owes its title, given by Georges Clémenceau, with the fact that in its conclusion, all the sentences start with the expression I show , repetition found by Bernard Lazare:

I show the lieutenant-colonel of 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 show the general Mercier to be myself made accessory, at least by weakness of spirit, one of greatest iniquities of the century.

I show the general Billot to have had between the hands the unquestionable evidence of the innocence of Dreyfus and to have choked them, to be itself made guilty of this injure-justice and outrage against humanity, political aim and to save the compromised staff.

I show the Général of Boisdeffre and the general Gonse to be itself made accessory to the same crime, one undoubtedly by clerical passion, the other perhaps by this team spirit which makes offices of the war the holy arch, unattackable.

I show the general De Pellieux and ordering it 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/ratio of the second, an imperishable monument of naive audacity.

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

I show 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 show 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.

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