Marcel Proust: A Biography

MARCEL PROUST
reply but the very truth, he reminded Proust of Darlu; in his
habits of reading and meditation he recalled Proust's own im-
mersion in books at the firesides of Illiers and Orleans; and the
ethical beauty of his conduct for which he was now in prison was
that of the morality of Saint-Andre-des-Champs.
The intervention of Boisdeffre was decisive: Zola was found
guilty and received the maximum penalty of a year's imprison-
ment and a 3,000 francs fine. He appealed on technical grounds,
was retried with the same result on 18 July, and unwillingly,
under pressure from his friends, fled to England, where he
remained till the general amnesty eighteen months later. Picquart
was released from prison and dismissed the service on 16
February. For several months the Affair was once again sup-
pressed; but meanwhile revisionists and anti-revisionists gathered
forces to prepare for the next inevitable explosion.
Already the heroic age of the Affair was ending. Revisionism
became less and less a matter of justice, more and more a matter
of politics. Since the Government had set its face against revision,
revision could only be achieved through the fall of the Govern-
ment. Nationalists, anti-Semites, Church and Army, all who stood
to lose by a shift to the left, must explain away every new frag-
ment of truth as part of the conspiracy of their enemies; socialists,
Jews, anti-clericals and anti-militarists saw their chance to ride to
power on the Dreyfusist bandwagon. The cause was gradually
contaminated by opportunists whom Proust, as a foundation-
member, contemptuously called 'the Dreyfusards of the eleventh
hour'. France was divided into two blocs, for whose enmity the
guilt or martyrdom of the man on Devil's Island was a mere
pretext. Injustice was now on both sides.
The split in society was also a split in high society. The
Faubourg Saint-Germain, being royalist, nationalist and Catholic,
was inevitably anti-Dreyfusist. Even the hostesses who remained
neutral, whether from genuine doubt or from desire to keep their
guests of both parties, were forced to choose one side or the other,
for sooner or later their guests would quarrel about the Affair
and refuse to meet one another again. A cartoon of Caran d' Ache
represented a dining-room full of smashed crockery and diners
sprawling in battle on the fioor, with the caption: 'Somebody
mentioned it.' There is no evidence that Proust's activities cost
him a single invitation; but he deserves full credit for his courage,