I Accuse!

In January 1898 French novelist and critic Émile Zola played an important part in the defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew unjustly accused of selling military secrets to Germany. On the front page of a Paris newspaper, the author published a terrific denunciation of French government officials, entitled “J’accuse...!” (“I Accuse...!”) It was written as an open letter to Félix Faure, President of the French Republic, and accused the government of anti-Semitism in the Dreyfus Affair. The brave letter had much to do with freeing Dreyfus in 1899.