The Dreyfus Affair, or L'Affaire as it has become known, demonstrated the competing forces at work to either reestablish the monarchy and the Church in power or to solidify and advance the unfulfilled ideals of the 1789 French Revolution. This event is considered the trigger for the movement which led to the Law of Separation of Churches and the State in 1905.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original content at https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2011/the-dreyfus-affair--the-separation-of-church-and-s/.