[AFFAIRE DREYFUS] Le Petit Journal

[AFFAIRE DREYFUS] Le Petit Journal

First edition of the illustrated supplement of Le Petit Journal, no. 217
[Paris, 13 January 1895], 8 pp., folio (44.8 x 31 cm)
Color lithograph by Henri Meyer on the cover
As issued, untrimmed, foxing spots along the left margin, very slight uniform browning, a complete copy with all eight pages

The front page of the illustrated supplement of Le Petit Journal of 13 January 1895, devoted to the ceremony of Alfred Dreyfus’s degradation, an image that helped to durably inscribe the affair in the public mind

This cover of the illustrated supplement of Le Petit Journal depicts the degradation ceremony of Alfred Dreyfus on 5 January 1895 in the courtyard of the École militaire in Paris. Four thousand soldiers and twenty thousand spectators were present. To the sound of drums, Captain Dreyfus is led before a bailiff who reads him the judgment, while a sergeant-major tears off his insignia and braids. Despite the humiliation, Dreyfus keeps his dignity and proclaims his innocence: “Soldiers, an innocent man is being degraded, soldiers, an innocent man is being dishonored. Long live France! Long live the army!”

It was also on a 13 January, three years after this cover, that Émile Zola published in L’Aurore his letter to the President of the Republic, “J’accuse…!”