More than a century on, the Dreyfus affair still holds important lessons about freedom, notably the fragility of basic liberties when national security is invoked.

ECONOMIST: The Dreyfus affair: Pointing fingers | The

But the Dreyfus affair often cut across political and religious lines.

ECONOMIST: The Dreyfus affair

Less noted, perhaps, is the retrenchment of Roman Catholicism in France from the aggressive political role it played as recently as the Dreyfus affair toward the inward-turning N.

NEWYORKER: I, Nephi