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They must go to Hastings, Brighton, Ramsgate some place at all events where the author of 'J'accuse' would incur less chance of recognition. To me it seemed that some quiet, retired country village would be most suitable. In any town M. Zola would incur great risk of being identified.
There he stood, the raw untried red-haired miner from the mines and the Tenderloin, facing an angry court and a swarm of protesting lawyers and uttering that city-shaking philippic against the old rotten first ward and the creeping cowardice in men that lets vice and disease go on and pervade all modern life. It was in a way another "J'Accuse!" from the lips of another Zola.
It was on July 18 that M. Zola was tried by default at Versailles and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment on the charge of having libelled, in his letter 'J'accuse, the military tribunal which had acquitted Commandant Esterhazy. On the evening of the 19th his disappearance was signalled by various telegrams from Paris.
Indeed, it was too much for the fat and greasy bourgeoisie to be brought face to face with the horrors of the weaver's existence. It was too much because of the truth and reality that rang like thunder in the deaf ears of self-satisfied society, J'ACCUSE!
This then is what I wrote immediately after the publication of Zola's letter 'J'accuse, basing myself simply on my knowledge of the master's character, of the passions let loose in France, and of a few matters connected with the Dreyfus case, then kept secret but now public property.
On January 16, 1898, three days after M. Zola's famous 'J'accuse' letter appeared in 'L'Aurore, and two days before the French Government instructed the Public Prosecutor to proceed against its author, I wrote to the 'Westminster Gazette' a long letter dealing with M. Zola's position.
She put it together as best she could from his hurried, excited talk from stories half told, fierce charges against 'charlatans' and 'intriguers, mingled with half-serious, half-comic returns upon himself, attacks on all the world, alternating with a ruthless self-analysis the talk of a man who challenges society one moment with an angry 'J'accuse! and sees himself the next sardonically as the chief obstacle in his own way.
This poem shows a firm grasp of the material; every word adds something to the total impression. Mr. Gibson's constantly repeated pictures of the grinding, soul-crushing labour of the poor seem to say J'accuse! Yet he nowhere says it explicitly. He never interrupts his narrative with "My Lords and Gentlemen," nor does he comment, like Hood in The Song of the Shirt.
It was this incident in my career which brought me acquainted with Emile Zola, for whose work I had until that time felt a profound aversion. I do not profess to be in sympathy with that work even now, but I got to know the man and to recognise his purpose. When he published in the pages of L'Aurore, his famous article entitled "J'accuse," and was brought to trial on account of it, I went over to Paris, eager to meet him and to assure him that the intelligence of the world outside the boundaries of France was entirely with him. I reached Paris a day before the trial was appointed to begin, and I made my way at once to the office of the Steele, where I applied to my old friend, Monsieur Yves Guyot, for an introduction. He refused it flatly: "The man," he said, "is up to his eyes in responsibilities and labour. Every moment he can spare is given to consultation with Maître Labori, who is engaged to defend him, and I must refuse in his own interest to trouble him further." It was impossible not to recognise the justice of Monsieur Guyot's plea, but when all was said and done I felt that I was there as one of the rank and file in a losing cause, and that I had something of a right to be near my leader. "I assure you," said M. Guyot, in parting from me, "that nothing will persuade Zola to receive a stranger at this time. He is one of those publicists who hate publicity, and he knows you already as one of the bitterest critics of his literary methods; it is quite hopeless to dream of bringing you together now." In my perplexity I bethought me of Monsieur Bernard Lazare who, as Zola's acknowledged champion in the Press, was in constant communication with him, and who had sent to me an enthusiastic appreciation of the effect of my London lecture. I went to see him and in one minute over the telephone an interview was arranged for six o'clock that evening. I was there to the minute, but at the entrance to the Rue de Bruxelles I was stopped by a posse of gendarmes and subjected to a vigorous examination. Zola's house was like a castle in a state of siege. It became evident later on that he was under police protection and that it was felt necessary to guard him against the violence of the mob, but it appeared at first sight as if he were a pre-judged criminal whose escape it was necessary to make impossible. When the gates of the courtyard were at last opened reluctantly to me, I was ushered into a chamber which might have been one of the exhibition rooms of a dealer in bric-
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