Georges-Gabriel de Pellieux (6 September 1842-15 July 1900) was a French Army Brigadier-General who commanded the Seine department during the 1890s and was best known for ignoring evidence during the Dreyfus affair.
Biography[]
Georges-Gabriel de Pellieux was born in Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine, France on 6 September 1842, and he graduated from Saint-Cyr in 1861 as a French Army sub-lieutenant. He served as an aide to General Eugene Arnaudeau during the Franco-Prussian War, in Algeria from 1872 to 1878, in Tunisia from 1882 to 1886, and as military commander of the Seine department and provisional commander of Paris from 1897. In November 1897, he was asked by General Jean-Baptiste Billot to conduct an inquiry into the allegations against Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy amid the Dreyfus affair, and he issued a report after three days which declared that Esterhazy was not guilty and that Alfred Dreyfus' case should not be reopened. The well-known writer Emile Zola responded by embarking on a campaign to exonerate Dreyfus in 1898, and Pellieux served as a witness at Zola's trial for criminal libel. In August 1898, however, Major Hubert-Joseph Henry admitted to forging evidence used against Dreyfus, only to be found dead in his prison cell a day later. When the French government decided to allow Dreyfus to appeal his conviction, Pellieux and General Emile Zurlinden allegedly plotted a nationalist coup, but, when the coup was on the eve of execution following President Felix Faure's funeral, Pellieux ultimately decided against involvement. After the crisis, Pellieux resigned, and he died in 1900, a year after Dreyfus was granted a presidential pardon.