This year marks the centenary of the death of Marcel Proust, whose monumental “In Search of Lost Time” continues to both inspire and frustrate. The novel’s major themes—the nature of art and philosophy, of love and loss, and of time and memory—are set forth in a meandering flow of over a million words. But too sharp a focus on those themes can lead us to overlook matters of historical fact, some of which have continuing analogical import. I’m thinking in particular of the Dreyfus Affair, a complex scandal briming with secrecy and intrigue, nationalism and prejudice.

Alfred Dreyfus was a wealthy Jew and army officer accused of passing sensitive national-defense information to a German military attaché. He was arrested for espionage in 1894 (when Proust was in his early 20s), tried in a court martial, and sentenced to the infamous Devil’s Island penal colony. Emile Zola took up Dreyfus’ case in his famous open letter, “J’Accuse,” to the President of the Republic, which charged the army of constructing a massive, fraudulent cover-up. Proust signed a related “manifesto” demanding a retrial, which eventually took place but also resulted in a conviction, albeit on lesser charges and with reduced punishment. And although Dreyfus was ultimately pardoned, and the verdict suppressed, the experience apparently crushed him.

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