Anti-Dreyfus publication with 22 caricatures

A rare anti-Dreyfus volume of caricatures lampooning Jews, Freemasons, and politicians alike.

It features a foreword by French journalist Henri Rochefort, who founded the newspaper L'Intransigeant, one of the publications that supported Édouard Drumont’s infamous Anti-Jewish League of France. Like Drumont, Rochefort was a vehement anti-Dreyfusard.

The illustrator Bruno contributed to various antisemitic newspapers and magazines, including Rochefort’s L'Intransigeant. In 1903, he published the first series of Les gens du Bloc, which included a foreword by the notorious Édouard Drumont.

The "Chéquards" ("check-takers" or "bribe-takers") in the title refers to politicians involved in a financial scandal in France in the late 19th century, known as the Panama Canal Scandal. Since two German Jews were involved in the scandal, it had enormous influence in the development of French antisemitism. Indeed, it paved the way for the Dreyfus affair.

The subtitle likely refers to the "Bloc des gauches", a coalition of moderate Republicans, Radicals, and Socialists in the 1902 elections, aimed at countering the conservative and nationalist right, which gained power during the Dreyfus Affair from 1898 to 1899.