Auguste Scheurer-Kestner

Auguste Scheurer-Kestner (Mulhouse, February 13rd 1833 - Bagnères-with-Luchon, September 19th 1899) is a Chimiste, an industrialist, a Protesting and a Alsatian Politician . He was the uncle by alliance of the wife of Jules Ferry.

Republican, opposing to the Empire Napoleon III, it was elected appointed of Haut-Rhin on July 2nd, 1871 and became irremovable senator of the Seine on September 15th, 1875. Twenty years afterwards, it was the last one representing French Alsace at the Parliament.

Friend very close to Gambetta, it provides him part of the required funds to the publication of the French Republic , newspaper which it directed from 1879 to 1884. In 1894, Auguste Scheurer-Kestner, first vice-president of the Senate, was regarded as an moral authority in policy.

The Dreyfus business

The July 13rd 1897, Louis Leblois, the lawyer of the lieutenant-colonel Picquart, informs it in detail of the Affaire Dreyfus.

At the beginning, it did not doubt the culpability of Dreyfus, but, he in his newspaper wrote, the lawsuit “had left in spirit something of vagueness and painful”. After the intervention of Bernard Lazare, who tried to overcome his hesitations in 1897, this man “passionately enthusiast of justice” (Mathieu Dreyfus) and which was regarded as the guard of all the Alsatian ones of France, multiplied the talks to try to form a sure opinion.

Auguste Scheurer-Kestner from now on will defend the innocence of the captain, near the Minister for the war, Billot or near the president of the Republic, Felix Faure.

The November 26th 1897, via its lawyer M^e Jullemier, Madam de Boulancy, cousin and old main of Esterházy, which decided to be avenged for his/her lover and debtor, forwards in Scheurer-Kestner the letters of the officer, of which famous “the letter of the uhlan”. Scheurer-Kestner shows the letter with the general of Pellieux, military commander of the place of Paris, in charge of the administrative survey on Esterházy. A searching at Madam de Boulancy takes place as of the 27, Le Figaro publishes the letter the 28, illuminant the opinion on the feelings that Esterházy carries to France and its army.

Auguste Scheurer-Kestner convinced itself of the culpability of Esterházy after the confidences of Master Louis Leblois, friend of Picquart, Alsatian him too. Scheurer-Kestner confidentially communicated its certainty with the president of the Republic Felix Faure, with the president of the Council then visited quite as vain to the general Billot, Minister for the War. Taking in hand the cause of the revision, he contacted Joseph Reinach, involved Clemenceau, then, in November 1897, published in Time an open letter where he affirmed the innocence of Dreyfus. In company of Leblois Master, it exposed the business to Emile Zola, which took its defense in the Figaro later a few days. Scheurer-Kestner had not indeed received any support of his/her political friends. The debate having been made public by Mathieu Dreyfus, it violently was attacked, treated of “German industrialist”, “boche”, etc In December 1897, it challenged the Senate on the refusal of revision of the lawsuit, informant: “the truth always ends up triumphing”.

But Auguste Scheurer-Kestner did not manage to convince his colleagues of the Senate to carry out with him the combat of the rehabilitation of the captain: the January 13rd 1898, it obtained only 80 votes out of 229 voters when it was represented with the vice-presidency.

Auguste Scheurer-Kestner incarnated the hopes in the legality and the justice of the government of the Republic, and always recommended patience and prudence, in particular disapproving the blow of glare of Zola. Corroded by a cancer of the throat, it followed the revision of the lawsuit of its sick room. He died on September 19th, 1899, the very same day of the signature of the grace of Dreyfus by President Loubet.

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