"je crois que c'est la fin du monde"

Autograph letter signed by Emile Zola to Octave Mirbeau, dated August 19, 1898. Four pages in black ink on a bifolium written to Octave Mirbeau.
Usual trace of horizontal fold.
Published in Zola's Œuvres complètes, t. XLIX, ed. F. Bernouard, 1927, p. 808.
Exceptional testament of friendship and self-sacrifice from Emile Zola in exile, after being sentenced to the maximum penalty for writing "J'accuse!", the most famous article proclaming Captain Dreyfus's innocence.
After his historic article in L'Aurore, Zola was sentenced a first time by a jury on February 23, 1898 to one year's imprisonment and a fine of three thousand francs. The verdict was overturned, and the case was referred back to the Versailles court of justice, which upheld only three of the eight hundred lines in "J'accuse!" as a charge. Unwilling to accept such a stifling of the proceedings, Zola's defense decided to default, and the conviction was upheld. After his eventful exit from the courthouse, Clémenceau and his lawyer Labori advised him to leave the country before the judgment could become enforceable. Zola left on the last train that evening, with only a shirt hastily rolled up in newspaper as luggage.
A month after his departure, the writer writes this superb reply to a letter from his loyal supporter, Octave Mirbeau, who had written to him a few days earlier: "We think only of you; there isn't a minute of our existence that you don't fill entirely" (August 14, 1898). Settled in the London suburb of Weybridge, he angrily receives the "echoes of Paris" and is enraged to see Esterhazy, the true culprit of the Dreyfus Affair, once again cleared - this time by civil courts.


"My dear friend,
Thank you for your kind letter [...] In the midst of universal cowardice, you wouldn't believe how moved I am to feel a few faithful people around me.
My existence here has become possible, since I've been able to get back to work. Work has always comforted me, saved me. But my poor hands are still trembling with a shiver that cannot end. You wouldn't believe the outrage I feel at the echoes from France that reach me. In the evening, when daylight falls, I think it's the end of the world.
You think I should go back and make myself a prisoner, without returning to Versailles. That would be too good, to have the peace of prison, and I don't think it's possible. I didn't set out to go back like that; our attitude would be neither logical nor beautiful. Rather, I think I'm in indefinite exile, unless I run the abominable risk of a new trial. Besides, we won't be able to make up our minds until October. And by then, who knows? Although I'm counting on a miracle, in which I have little faith.
So let us be brave, my friend, and let our work be done! If I can keep working, things won't be too bad yet.
[...]
I shake your hand, my good friend, the faithful and rare friend of bad days".



Poignant manuscript confession from Zola, forced into exile. Death would strike him in the midst of his glory days, without him ever knowing the outcome of the affair he had devoted so many years of struggle.