ABSTRACT
Some of the Dreyfusards, unconsciously used religious imagery in a maudlin and over-emphatic way. Given Zola's remarkable polemical skills, it is astonishing to find him, in what can only be described as a moment of weakness, producing some of the most ineffective and inappropriate examples of religious imagery to appear in the course of the Affair. It is perhaps worth examining in detail, as it brings home to the reader some of the dangers of using religious imagery. Zola's excessive use of religious imagery in this article is almost farcical. Strangely enough, one of the best examples of such use of religious imagery is to be found among the writings of the anti-Dreyfusards. Maurras, normally so scornful of highly-coloured imagery, here shows of what he was capable when it was needed.
