On October 15, 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was arrested for spying. In December he was convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment, and sent to Devil’s Island in French Guiana.
In 1896, new information came to light that would exonerate the 35-year-old Frenchman of Jewish descent, thus beginning a scandal that divided Third Republic France and brought anti-Semitism into the spotlight of European moral criticism.