On January 13, 1898, French novellist Émile Zola published an open letter in the newspaper L'Aurore entiteled "J'accuse" ("I accuse", or, in context, "I accuse you"). In the letter, Zola addressed the President of France Félix Faure, and accused the government of anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General Staff officer sentenced to penal servitude for life for espionage.
On August 29, 1619, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who served as Minister of Finances under the rule of Louis XIV., was born. Colbert's innovative financial politics was one of the basic pillars of French absolutism and was about to change the world into a modern economy.