by Jaimey Fisher
Proust’s A la Rechcerche and the Dreyfus Affair (The Guermantes Way pp.135-257)
“The pleasure an artist offers. . . is to convey another universe to us” Nabokov (infl.)
Proust and History/Politics
Dreyfus affair comes to the fore in this section to demonstrate that it is a key subtext of the novel. Overarching questions for this topic/presentation would be:
-- a unique subtext for both the novel and Proust’s career, how/why this particular affair?
Notably other momentous events around this time hardly receive any mention
-- why does it come up in this section in particular?
-- why is the Affair a key area of both historical (Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism) and contemporary research on Proust (Jacqueline Rose 2010 study)?
-- How do/should we, as casual readers, think about this aspect of the novel? Are there lessons about politics swirling around us? (Social institutions and their transformation)
My thought: Dreyfus affair subtends two key thematic constellations: the transformation of French society and Judaism’s elusive status throughout (Swann, Bloch, Pr.) -- touching upon this theme, invoking it, is plucking a string reverberating throughout the “cathedral” of the novel
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Beginning Quotes: from Le Coté de Guermantes (Sazerat/father, Rachel, then in salon)
Brief Background: The Third Republic (1870-1940) , Civil War, Social Strife
Rapid Modernization of 19th century: the prodigious reconstruction of Paris during the 1850s and ‘60s intensified feelings of “indeterminacy” by destroying neighborhoods, abolishing familiar vistas, and estranging Parisians from their past (cf. Benjamin/Harvey)
Political Contingencies and Catastrophes: The Franco-Prussian debacle of 1870-71, that toppled Napoléon III from his imperial throne, informed social, political, and cultural life in the last third of the century, framing a bitter debate over the country’s heart and soul. It was a nation divided (particularly around nationalism and military)
Secularization and Religious Backlash, e.g., La Vie je Jésus by Ernest Renan, four years after Origins of Species, sells over 100,000 copies when 5,000 was a huge hit – its popularity said to be greatest since Luther’s; the Senate debates banning book. For second instance, Gustave Flaubert declared that the really decisive issue for France was neither the (prospect of) war with Prussia nor the enfeeblement of Napoléon III. The only important thing, he wrote, was religion or “clericalism” (role of church in state)
Culminates in Paris Commune (spring 1871), just months before Proust’s birth in Paris suburb, Commune declares they are inaugurating a new era of scientific, positive, experimental politics” (Apr. 19); secular. of schools and hospitals; really it was a type of unresolved civil war (Marx’s pamphlet); “bloody week” (at least 6k killed, 4k exiled)
Dreyfus Affair itself (falling on that fertile ground of above tensions)
Sample of chaotic processes: Two trials of Dreyfus (fall 1894, retrial in Aug 1899, guilty 2x); inquest and then investigation of Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, the actual spy (1897; innocent both times); court-martial of Esterhazy (Jan 10-11, 1898); two trials of Zola (Zola convicted, Proust present, Feb 7-23, 1898 ); proceedings against Pinquart, etc.
Alfred Dreyfus: convinced French patriot, 35, rising artillery officer in general staff when first tried, from Alsatian family that had chosen French citizenship after 1871 (!), wealthy textile family. Assimilated Jew (of at most 300,000 in France, w. 40,000 in Algeria).
The Affair began with the discovery, in a garbage can, of a secret memorandum (‘bordereau’) addressed to Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen, military attaché at the Paris German embassy. Starts line of suspicious documents: bordereau (fall 1894), le petit bleu (names Esterhazy, March1896), ‘le faux henry’ (false letter naming Dreyfus, 1896).
Typical rhetoric from right-wing press at time: Father Vincent de Paul Bailly wrote in La Croix. “Whereas Judas belonged to the people of God, being the apostle chosen by the Master, the Jewish officer did not belong to the French Nation. Our society has already been punished, but its suffering is not at an end—our treasures, our banks, our papers, our railroads, and our army are caught in the spiderweb of Judaism” (Judas metaphors rampant; periodic anti-Semitic riots); later Croix calls for expulsion of Jews from France
Zola and Proust: Zola already anti-anti-Semitic; Jan 13, 1898: the famed “J’accuse” letter by Zola in L’Aurore; intellectual in public sphere; chamber of deputies votes to bring him to trial – shortly after, a petition supporting Zola and Dreyfus is initiated by, among others, Proust, who convinces Anatole France to sign, published in L’Aurore.
Zola trial Feb 7-23, 1898, now utter division of public opinion, (new media), bring to light a secret file used in original case never public; citation of “le faux Henry” (author found dead in March 1898); Zola convicted; appeal May 23, convicted 2nd time, flees
Copious anti-Zola rhetoric (his father Venetian); Continued flashpoint: Alfred Dreyfus actually shot at ceremony interring Zola after the affair at Panthéon in 1908.
Dreyfus retrial Aug 1899 (after Henry and Esterhazy admit to forgeries); Dreyfus (amazingly) found guilty again “with extenuating circumstances,” worldwide outrage, he’s pardoned in September 1899; continues to fight to clear his name post-1900
Conclusion: What does this all mean in/for French History? For Proust?
“At the end of the nineteenth century, in one sector of public opinion, a fortress-France nationalism asserted itself whose mission was to defend the cohesive social organism against modernity/It directed its antagonism first and foremost against the democratic and liberal regime, the “Jewish, Masonic Republic,” but beneath the political agenda one observed a spiritual reaction against decadence by people who understood the defense of French interests to be that of a completed civilization at war with the new mobility of things and beings [aka modernity – JF]… Anti-Dreyfusards banked on two institutions: the Church and the army. Organized in accordance with principles of unity and hierarchy, these served, by their very nature, to strengthen the social fabric.” (historian Michael Winock)
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