in 1882, the Comptoire d’Escompte scandal in 1889–both involving Jews–were merely curtain-raisers to this complex crime, which seemed to confirm the financial conspiracy theories outlined in Drumont’s book and gave Le Libre Parole’s ‘investigative journalists’ the chance to break a new anti-Jewish story almost daily. After London, Paris was the centre of European finance and its bankers’ roll-call was studded with Jewish names: Deutsch, Bamberger, Heine, Lippmann, Pereire, Ephrussi, Stern, Bischoffsheim, Hirsch and Reinach (of course)–that would do to be going on with!144
