Five early issues of the antisemitic weekly ‘La Libre Parole’ edited by the antisemitic agitator journalist Édouard Drumont, founder of the Antisemitic League in France. Different months in the years 1894-1895.
On the covers of the sheets and on the back of each sheet is a large anti-Semitic cartoon depicting the Jewish Rothschild family’s takeover of French capital, and the French economy imprisoned by the Jews, and the Jews getting rich at the expense of the lower class.
The weekly “La Libre Parole” (The Free Word) was published by the journalist Édouard Drumont (1844-1917). On the title page of each issue is a large antisemitic cartoon printed in color. At the top of each issue appeared the slogan: “La France aux Français” – ‘France for the French’. On the inside pages are antisemitic articles condemning the Jews, and the danger that threatens France from their presence.
Drumont’s newspaper was the first to publish the arrest of Alfred Dreyfus on November 1, 1894 – the title page of the paper featured the news of Dreyfus’ arrest. Drumont was proud of the contribution of his articles and newspaper to the prevention of what he called the “fall of France into the hands of the Jews.” The obsessive venom of Drumont’s articles in the days of the Dreyfus affair provoked a marked increase in the sales of his newspaper, which this time reached a circulation of one hundred thousand copies. Drumont became popular at the time by his inciting messages against the Jews and capitalism, and by his militant and exciting speech to the masses and he boasted that he had become a kind of “pope of anti-Semitism.” His views also resonated beyond the borders of France, and a few decades later influenced the policies of the Vichy regime and its collaborators with the Nazis in France during World War II.
5 complete sheets 38 cm. Good condition.