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. And had I to write anything of the kind at the present time, I should, I think, have but few words to alter beyond substituting the past for the present or future tense. In one respect I was mistaken. I did not imagine the truth to be quite so near at hand. Since January 1898, however, nine-tenths of it have been revealed and the rest must now soon follow. And I hold, as all hold who know the inner workings of l'Affaire Dreyfus, that M. Zola's exile, like his letter to President Faure and his repeated trials for libel, has in a large degree contributed to this victory of truth. For by going into voluntary banishment, he kept not only his own but also Dreyfus's case 'open,' and thus helped to foil the last desperate attempts that were being made to prevent the truth from being discovered. I should add that in the following pages I deal very slightly with l'Affaire Dreyfus, on which so many books have already been written. Indeed, as a rule, I have only touched on those incidents which had any marked influence on M. Zola during his sojourn in this country. E. A. V. MERTON, SURREY. June 1899. WITH ZOLA IN ENGLAND I ZOLA LEAVES FRANCE From the latter part of the month of July 1898, down to the end of the ensuing August, a frequent heading to newspaper telegrams and paragraphs was the query, 'Where is Zola?' The wildest suppositions concerning the eminent novelist's whereabouts were indulged in and the most contradictory reports were circulated. 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. Most of these asserted that he had gone on a tour to Norway, a course which the 'Daily News' correspondent declared to be very sensible on M. Zola's part, given the tropical heat which then prevailed in the French metropolis. On the 20th, however, the telegrams gave out that Zola had left Paris on the previous evening by the 8.35 express for Lucerne, being accompanied by his wife and her maid. Later, the same day, appeared a graphic account of how he had dined at a Paris restaurant and thence despatched a waiter to the Eastern Railway Station to procure tickets for himself and a friend. The very numbers of these tickets were given!