DREYFUS AFFAIR Emile ZOLA / Signed Autograph Letter / The Truth in March

  
Autographed letter signed "Émile Zola" [to his publisher Eugène Fasquelle] Paris, February 5, 1901, 1 p. N-8° on laid paper Small stain on the left margin. Zola sends the final proofs of La Vérité en marche to his publisher and urges him to publish it as soon as possible. "My dear friend, I am sending you the complete and definitively corrected La Vérité en marche, and there is no need to send me new proofs. However, before giving the final approval, I ask you to carefully review my latest corrections. You would please me by speeding up the printing as much as possible because, for all the reasons you know, it is desirable that we publish immediately. Please give the necessary instructions accordingly. Wanted by Émile Zola, La Vérité en marche brings together the main texts of the writer's commitment in the Dreyfus affair, including the famous "J'accuse.

" published on the front page of the January 13, 1898 issue of the newspaper L'Aurore. While Zola urges his publisher to publish the work as soon as possible, it is worth noting that five weeks earlier the Senate had passed an amnesty law protecting the military and civilian conspirators responsible for the plot against Dreyfus from any legal action. The writer thus wishes, in opposition to the Senate's law, to have as much influence as possible in the public opinion.

Fasquelle respected Zola's wishes as the work was published on February 16, the last one to be published during the writer's lifetime.