The press and the edition in the Dreyfus business

The central role played by the press and the edition in the Business Dreyfus , is illustrated by the symbol of the journalistic engagement which I am show Emile Zola. The Dreyfus business is indeed the first event surmediatized in France. Thousands of publications literally “made” the opinion. This free press and plethoric develops, thanks to the assets of the République with through, in particular, of the law of 1881 on the press. It also benefits from the technological advancements of second half of the 19th century. It weighs very directly on the course of the Dreyfus business through sometimes violent campaigns and of often sensational articles.

Context

One can note that the vast majority of the titles of press, between the years 1894 and 1906, i.e. throughout the Business, is antidreyfusarde. In the edition, it is all the opposite, because contrary to the press, the editors are very favorable to the supporter of Dreyfus cause.

The law on the freedom of the press of 1881

Article 11 of the Declaration of the human rights and the citizen of 1789 affirmed:

any citizen can speak, write, print freely.

But except the period 1789 with 1792, the press forever be free in France. Also, one of the most important engagements of the 3rd Republic resides in freedom of the press, in rupture with the monarchical empires and restorations. It makes vote the law on freedom of the press on July 29th, 1881, whose article 1st affirms:

printing works and the bookstore are free.

Against the obligation to appoint a director of the publication and that to deposit specimens with the office of the registration of copyright, whoever can create a title or publish a book without prior agreement of the State or its services. Except the public slandering, rather severely repressed with bases, the expression of a political or social idea, whatever it is, cannot be continued by the law. It should be retained that racism and the anti-semitism are not punished by the law at that time. In fact articles 30 and 31 of this law, repressing slandering know an unquestionable notoriety, because it are quoted by name by Emile Zola at the end of his article I Show .

The press at the end of the 19th century

The technological advancements generate a mass media

The press of the end of the 19th century knows a democratization brought by the law of 1881, but more especially a fast succession of technological advancements which makes rock the editor of press of the artisanal world towards industry in a few years.

The invention of the rotary printing-press in 1845, by the American Richard Hoe, and its improvement out of rotary printing-press offset by William Bullock in 1863, allows a considerable increase in the output of pullings. The impression of a title until several hundreds of thousands of specimens within times compatible with daily manufacture is from now on possible. The effect is reinforced by lowering of the price of the titles thanks to incipient publicity. The large newspapers of the popular press are thus sold a penny (five centimes). Under these conditions, the Small Newspaper reaches the million specimens starting from 1890 and exceeds 1,7 million specimens in 1914.
Other technological advance, it is the invention of the Linotype machine by the German Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1885. This invention allows the composition of the pages, either character by character as the typographers do it since Gutenberg, but by whole lines while typing on a keyboard. It is an important time-saver in the composition of the pages. This allows a looping of the titles delayed and the diffusion of information of last minute.
The last large projection, starting from 1875 (gelatin) and 1883 (photoengraving), is the photographic reproduction at ends of illustration. It is the condition with the launching of a popular press which must be very illustrated.

France thus sees very naturally flowering an important variety of titles of press, exact reflection of the diversity of opinions of the country at this time. Because of a captive and educated assistantship, one is struck by this extraordinary diversity of titles which amount per hundreds only in Paris, daily newspapers of the evening or the morning, and weekly magazines or others périodiques.

The edition at the end of the 19th century

Like the press, the edition knows a golden age in the last quarter of the 19th century. It is not useless to recall that at that time, the majority of the editors are still booksellers who print their production in their back court. This does not prevent some of them from selling tens of thousands of specimens of the same work.

The technological advancements reach as the edition, but to a lesser extent as in the press, because the capital costs are very heavy. Even with technology, the book remains rather expensive, publicity not being setting in the book. Only the largest editors can be equipped in a modern way. In addition, the law on the press authorizes the political and social publication until in the insult or slandering, but with the risk of fines whose amount can be perilous.

A crisis precisely shakes the world of the edition in 1894-95 bringing the liquidation of tens of editors. Albert Savine, the owner of the antisemitic bookseller loses several lawsuits against members of Parliament. He is ruined and must sell at the end of 1893. Dentu, another specialist in the scathing attack dies at that time. Curel and Rougis took again the funds but they sell too. Curel and Fayard are a new misadventure of the bookstore Fayard which does not publish any more but of the theatrical edition. Some editors anti-semites manage to survive, while limiting themselves to the production of news and songs. The immense success of Jewish France of Edouard Drumont at the end of the years 1880 devotes the victory of a certain form of literature. Other authors, encase the step to him, offering a book choice more than sizeable to a fond of delicacies assistantship of simplistic explanations to the evils of this company of the end of the 19th century. Flammarion always diffuses the work of Drumont but is limited to this one.

The press in the Dreyfus business

The triumph of I show should not mislead. Crushing the majority of the newspapers is indeed anti-supporter of Dreyfus until the end of the business. At the time when the article of Zola is published, 96% of the daily newspapers of the capital defend the army and the Church; 85% are still anti-supporters of Dreyfus the following year.

Interventions of the press in the Dreyfus business

The press is omnipresent in the Business. Whole beginning until after its end.

1894

on October 29th, 1894, whereas the investigation is yet only preliminary and secret, the Free Word , publishes a question about seven lines:

Is it true that recently an extremely important arrest was operated by order of the military authority?
The stopped individual would be accused of espionnage.
If the news is true, why the military authority keep does a so absolute silence?
An answer is essential!

It is the beginning of the Dreyfus business.

Of at the end of October at the end of December 1894, a violent nationalist press campaign and anti-semite is intended to make pressure on the government, and particularly the Minister for the War, the general Mercier.

The daily newspapers compete of sensational advertisements on the personality of Dreyfus, its treasons, its personal life, its entourage, all the details of its private life or alleged such. The lies and approximations of the Dreyfus business all are already written for this two months period. One finds them throughout the twelve years of the Business. Rochefort, in the Intransigent , writes that Dreyfus made full confessions while affirming that Mercier is his accomplice. The press seeks to explain treason, often with extravagant assertions. Time and the Morning tells the history of an Italian spy who “would have turned over” the captain. the Day explains why Dreyfus betrayed for the money in order to save his/her brothers of the bankruptcy. November 22nd, 1894, one month before the lawsuit, Gaston Méry prophetically summarizes holding them of the future Dreyfus business in the Free Word :

Or the Mercier general made stop without evidence the Dreyfus captain, and, in this case, its lightness is a crime. Or it was let steal the parts establishing its treason and, in this case, its improvidence is a silly thing. In the two alternatives, the Mercier general is unworthy of the station which it occupies. In his situation, one is as guilty to be stupid as to be a criminal.

These general attacks against the minister make certainly it possible to include/understand his eagerness to make condemn Dreyfus.

the lawsuit, because of the door - closed, allows the press to give free course to the most various calculations. The ceremony of degradation is abundantly described in the press because it is the first access of the journalists to condemned. Descriptions are unanimously severe for Dreyfus, that nothing excuses in their eyes. Even Jaurès goes there from its verse avenger while affirming:

On a side, all those which, for twenty years, have had escaped with the capital punishment for various reasons. The Bazaine marshal, condemned to death, but was not shot. The Dreyfus captain, convinced of treason by an unanimous opinion, was not condemned to death. And, opposite these judgments, the country sees that one shoots one minute guilty privates of mislaying or violence.

1895

a rumor is launched in Time of January 6th, 1895. It relates to the alleged consents made by Dreyfus to the Lebrun-Renault captain on the road of degradation. Information is included in Le Figaro and the Free Word and has a repercussion such as the Agence Havas must publish an official statement in the form of denial. But this legend is used by the antidreyfusards until 1906 front the Court of appeal. Then, except exceptions, the press ignores the case Dreyfus.

1896

on May 16th, 1896, Emile Zola gives to the Figaro , an article entitled “For the Jews” in whom he denounces the campaigns successive anti-semites. Several voices start to rise.
on September 13rd, Paul Cassagnac, feather anti-semite, expresses the general feeling in an article of the Authority entitled “the Doubt”:

By that even as the incurred punishment more appalling, is deserved more and does not involve any compassion, it would not be necessary that by distinguished cowardice of the Government at the place of Germany, one had allowed that a doubt remained, doubt horrible, terrible, and who authorizes to sometimes ask for, with terror, so really, so indeed, and despite everything the precautions which one was surrounded, in spite of the honor and the patriotism of the judges, there is not over there, in Devil's Island, somebody who fails in a superhuman moral torture and which would be innocent! This doubt with him alone is an alarming thing.

on September 15th, 1896, the Flash affirms the existence of Dirty part the “of D…” and announces that it was submitted in secrecy to the judges of the Council of war. The article fills waitings of the antidreyfusards but brings at the same time weapons to the supporters of Dreyfus.
the November 1896, the Morning publishes “a facsimile of the form written by Dreyfus”, always with an aim of proving the culpability of Dreyfus.

1897

on October 30th, 1897, Le Figaro publishes a long article on the vice-president of the Senate, Auguste Scheurer-Kestner, in which he affirms the innocence of Dreyfus. The remainder of the press shows the senator to be victim of one mystification. But November, Cassagnac requires the revision of the lawsuit in the Authority .
on November 16th, 1897, Mathieu Dreyfus, brother of Alfred, denounces Esterházy in Le Figaro . The true traitor is from now on known of the public. The Dreyfus business is started again, with a very violent press campaign against the supporters of Dreyfus. the Echo of Paris publishes an interview of Esterházy in which it is justified and defends oneself to be a spy.
on November 25th, Emile Zola publishes in the Figaro an article with the glory of the senator Scheureur-Kestner, who has just convinced the novelist of innocence from Alfred Dreyfus, that it concluded by:

The truth is moving, nothing will not stop it more.

It continues in December in the same newspaper with two other articles: the Trade union December and Official report on December 5th. In front of the pressures of its readers and its shareholders, Le Figaro stops the series of articles that Emile Zola planned to publish. The shock is hard for the newspaper which changes direction at this time.

on November 28th, Le Figaro publishes letters of Esterházy insulting for the army and France, which it supplements the following days by photographs of the same letters. The newspaper is denied any antimilitarism and affirms to act for the good of the army. The emotion in the press is important. As from this moment, the newspapers publish two headings: for the Dreyfus business, and the other for the Esterházy business.

1898

on January 13rd, 1898, two days later of the payment of Esterházy, Emile Zola publishes his more famous article, I show , in the Dawn. The article is based on a file prepared two years earlier by the journalist Bernard Lazare, including the series of final charges:

I show the Mercier general to be myself made accessory, at least by weakness of spirit, one of greatest iniquities of the siècle.
I show the Billot general 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 staff compromis.
I show the general of Boisdeffre and the Gonse general 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, inattaquable.
I show the general of Pellieux and the 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/ratio of the second, an imperishable monument of naive audace.
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 jugement.
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 to them faute.
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 coupable.
knowingly That one thus dares to translate for me into Court of Assizes and that the investigation takes place at the great day!
I wait…

This open letter has a considerable repercussion at the same time in France and in the world. It is the beginning of the “Intellectual” movement.

A few days after I Show , the white Review , body of the intellectualism of before guard, positions in the camp supporter of Dreyfus, which it will not leave any more.

on July 7th, at the conclusion of the speech of Cavaignac to the Room, in which it reaffirms the culpability of Dreyfus, part of the press ( the Sun , the Dawn and the Century ) takes party for “the inevitable revision” of the Dreyfus lawsuit. July 10th, the Dawn publishes a letter of colonel Picquart, denying the veracity of the parts announced by Cavaignac. The following day, the Gallic and the Day claims its arrest.
on August 30th at midnight, the Havas agency communicates:

Today, in the cabinet of the Minister for the War, the Henry lieutenant-colonel was recognized and recognized to him even the author of the letter in date of October 1896 when Dreyfus is named. Mr. Minister for the War immediately ordered the arrest of the Henry lieutenant-colonel, who was led to the fortress of the Mount-Valérien.

on August 31st at midnight, new note of the Havas agency:

One announces in last hour that the Henry lieutenant-colonel committed suicide this evening with the Mount-Valérien. It cut the throat with a razor which it had brought in its cell.

on September 25th, To observe , daily Londoner, publishes an interview of the commander Esterházy, taken refuge in the United Kingdom. He affirms:

I wrote the form on the request of colonel Sandherr, died today. It is unhappy that colonel Sandherr and the Henry lieutenant-colonel died, because they knew the fact. But nevertheless, it is possible for me to prove that it is me which wrote the form, in spite of the disappearance from these two témoins.
The form was to be used to prove the culpability of Dreyfus materially, the information service which has been able to collect against Dreyfus only evidence morals. It was however known, by the service of French espionage in Berlin, that the German Staff was in possession of documents that, only, Dreyfus could communicate to him. It is the list of these documents, whose arrival in Berlin had been announced to our information service, which constitutes the form…

Esterházy, which is not with a contradiction close demented person the following day.

The edition in the Dreyfus business

Supporters of Dreyfus

The majority of the intellectuals publish an important literature which refers to the Business. This is due to the fact that the large Parisian editors are very favorable to the rehabilitation of Dreyfus.

Fasquelle and Stock are the principal editors of the intellectuals, this last publishing as of 1896 , the book of Bernard Lazare, a miscarriage of justice . Pierre-Victor Stock affirms in his memories to have published 150 works having had a relationship with the Dreyfus.
business An important contribution of the edition is also the publication of account-returned shorthand the in extenso of the debates of justice, in particular in the Zola lawsuits and the Council of war of 1899 with Rennes. These works sold at low prices are a very important success and make it possible the public to take note of exact verbal exchanges. So much so that several actors of these lawsuits, whose general Draper, feel obliged to make appear, in the press, a corrected and increased version, even edulcorated their declarations.
The French edition of this time is also a platform for all the intellectuals who abundantly published for the cause of the Dreyfus captain. One can quote in addition to Bernard Lazare and Emile Zola, of the writers like Octave Mirbeau, Anatole France, Marcel Proust, Lucien Herr (librarian of the national university). It is also the central means of expression of the political world with many works written by Georges Clémenceau, Jean Jaurès or Leon Blum to quote only some of them.

Antidreyfusards

In comparison, the antidreyfusards do not publish anything or almost, hardly about thirty books or booklets, the majority appeared after 1900. There does not exist, indeed, almost more editor agreeing to publish scathing attacks extremists, at the moment when begins the Dreyfus business. This fact is also explained because the powerful catholic press and preserving offer a formidable platform with the right-hand side anti-semite and patriot. Many are the authors of this mobility car-to be published, as Kimon which publishes its antijuive Guerre on account of author in 1898. Only author of this mobility to be dissociated: Gyp which publishes several novels at Calmann-Levy sold with more: 10000 specimens.

Bibliographical sources

Patrice Boussel, the Dreyfus business and the press , collection kiosk, Armand Colin, 1960,272 p.
Michel Drouin (to dir.), the Business Dreyfus , Flammarion, 1994, republication 2006 (under the title: the Dreyfus business. Dictionary ).

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