Auguste Scheurer-Kestner

A close friend of Georges Clemenceau and Léon Gambetta, he provided the greater part of the funds for the publication of The French Republic newspaper that ran from 1879 to 1884.

In 1863 and the years following, despite the danger to his family and friends, Mr. Scheurer-Kestner did not hesitate to publish a series of revelations of the manner in which the State safeguarded its secrets under the Empire.

At the National Assembly in Bordeaux he sat at the extreme left and did not return to Alsace at the end of the Franco-Prussian War which established him as a patriot of France.

[4] On 13 July 1897, Louis Leblois, lawyer for Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, informed Scheurer-Kestner in detail about the Dreyfus Affair.

[2] After the intervention of Bernard Lazare, who tried to overcome his hesitation in 1897, this man "passionately in love with Justice",[5] who saw himself as the protector of all Alsatians in France, redoubled his efforts to try to form a sure opinion.

Taking up the cause of the review, he contacted Joseph Reinach, and pulled in Clemenceau in November 1897, published in Le Temps an open letter in which he stated the innocence of Dreyfus.

Scheurer-Kestner failed to convince his colleagues in the Senate to lead with him the battle for rehabilitation of captain Dreyfus on 13 January 1898: he received only 80 votes out of 229 voters when he ran for the vice-presidency.

Scheurer-Kestner embodied hopes in the law and justice of the Government of the Republic and always recommended patience and prudence, including disapproving of the shaft of light from Émile Zola (J'accuse).