This Toulouse resident has a book dedicated by Emile Zola to his friend Bernard Lazare, the first defender of Dreyfus to have uttered the famous “J'accuse”

Exhibitor of works in Toulouse, Aurélien Duchêne recently acquired a rare book by the writer Emile Zola on Paris, dedicated to his friend Bernard Lazare, political journalist and literary critic, who died in 1903. “I bought this work from a collector of autographs in Toulouse, explains Aurélien Duchêne”, exhibitor in Toulouse from whom the public can purchase this work*.

What makes it a unique book is the dedication of the author of Germinal to his friend Bernard Lazare, unknown to the majority of the public. Many clients interested in the Dreyfus affair thus discover with surprise this forgotten historical figure, to whom in 2006, a tribute was paid at his birthplace in Mouris near Nîmes.

Bernard Lazare is in fact one of the first defenders of Captain Dreyfus at the beginning of the last century, an event which for twelve years swept across France and had a lasting impact on the Third Republic, culminating in the acquittal of Albert Dreyfus. Why does this early defender not remain in the annals? “When he publishes The Dreyfus affair – a judicial error from 1896, Bernard Lazare denounced the culprits by tirelessly accusing them and repeating the famous “I accuse” which Emile Zola would reuse two years later, in 1898. What history seems to have forgotten”, details the journalist Baptiste Manzinali in an article published in 2006 in the newspaper Objectif Gard.

A forgotten defender is reborn thanks to this book

“Bernard Lazare was therefore the first, hired in 1895, at a time when no one could separate themselves from the evidence that Dreyfus was a traitor who had been well judged, recalls Antoine Fini in the post 'Reconsiderations about Charles Péguy, Bernard Lazare and the Dreyfus Affair', published in July 2024. At the beginning of November 1896, Bernard Lazare published the first defense of Dreyfus II. is also the advisor to the Dreyfus family and the heart of the Committee for Defense against Anti-Semitism which organized and financed the response against anti-Semites and nationalists, on the ground, in the press or in publishing.

Contacted by Mathieu Dreyfus, to help reveal the innocence of his brother Alfred, Bernard Lazare will reveal the illegality of the 1894 trial. He will also change tactics by dismantling the accusation point by point and asking for its review. This formula suited the wishes of the Dreyfus family better than the first version where Bernard Lazare attacked the culprits, accusing them one after the other, and ending with a litany of “J'accuse!”. A formula that two years later, Bernard Lazare gave to Emile Zola who passed it down to posterity.

For Jean-Marie Delmaire, director of the Institute for Research in the History of Religions and professor of Hebrew and Jewish and Hebrew civilization at the University of Lille, “the glory of J'accuse went to Emile Zola alone, and Bernard Lazare was quickly forgotten, no doubt because, although he was effective, he was marginal wherever he was active..