The Dreyfus Affair: The History and Legacy of France's Most Notorious Antisemitic Political Scandal
ISBN: 9781075764127
$9.99
*Includes pictures
*Includes a bibliography for further reading
*Includes a table of contents
“By my forty years of work, by the authority that this toil may have given me, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. By all I have now, by the name I have made for myself, by my works which have helped for the expansion of French literature, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. May all that melt away, may my works perish if Dreyfus be not innocent! He is innocent. All seems against me — the two Chambers, the civil authority, the military authority, the most widely-circulated journals, the public opinion which they have poisoned. And I have for me only an ideal of truth and justice. But I am quite calm; I shall conquer. I was determined that my country should not remain the victim of lies and injustice. I may be condemned here. The day will come when France will thank me for having helped to save her honor.” - Émile Zola
Sometime in 1889, a woman named Madame Marie Bastian was recruited as an agent of the secretive “Statistical Section,” an espionage and counter-intelligence agency attached to the military intelligence office of the French General Staff. Mme. Bastian, a cleaner employed by the German Embassy in Paris, and thanks to her Romany origins, she was somewhat acquainted with Germany and marginally conversant in the German language. She enjoyed complete and unrestricted access to the private residences of many important German diplomats and functionaries, and as she gathered up the torn-up documents in the various waste paper baskets, she routinely passed them on to a handler attached to the Statistical Section. Most of what was delivered was of little interest or importance, but on some occasions, documents taped back together and translated proved to be of significant value.
*Includes a bibliography for further reading
*Includes a table of contents
“By my forty years of work, by the authority that this toil may have given me, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. By all I have now, by the name I have made for myself, by my works which have helped for the expansion of French literature, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. May all that melt away, may my works perish if Dreyfus be not innocent! He is innocent. All seems against me — the two Chambers, the civil authority, the military authority, the most widely-circulated journals, the public opinion which they have poisoned. And I have for me only an ideal of truth and justice. But I am quite calm; I shall conquer. I was determined that my country should not remain the victim of lies and injustice. I may be condemned here. The day will come when France will thank me for having helped to save her honor.” - Émile Zola
Sometime in 1889, a woman named Madame Marie Bastian was recruited as an agent of the secretive “Statistical Section,” an espionage and counter-intelligence agency attached to the military intelligence office of the French General Staff. Mme. Bastian, a cleaner employed by the German Embassy in Paris, and thanks to her Romany origins, she was somewhat acquainted with Germany and marginally conversant in the German language. She enjoyed complete and unrestricted access to the private residences of many important German diplomats and functionaries, and as she gathered up the torn-up documents in the various waste paper baskets, she routinely passed them on to a handler attached to the Statistical Section. Most of what was delivered was of little interest or importance, but on some occasions, documents taped back together and translated proved to be of significant value.